Own
Moderator
Currently Arcade Mode works like this:
You beat a Challenge Room, you get a random drop for that area.
You complete a Bishop Challenge, you get a random drop for that area.
You beat the boss of the floor, you get a random drop for that area.
These items can be immensely helpful or useless, but by the next one or two floors they'll already be outdated.
In other games like Arcade Mode, when you complete a challenge and get an upgrade, it's usually with you until the end of your run. Upgrades earned on floor 1 can still see impact on floor 12.
In Arcade Mode, about the only thing that will still exist on Floor 12 is potentially an Attack Ring, since there's nothing better for attack for it in the game so far.
Those challenge rewards wind up amounting to a meager amount of gold when you vendor them.
My suggestion? Change Challenge Rooms and Bishops to award Keys upon completion. Keys stay with you until the end of your run, they can be used on any floor, it's just a matter of deciding Risk vs Reward. Do you use the key on this floor to get a slight edge in beating your current floor, or do you hold onto as many as possible and try to make it to the later floors despite your handicap in the hopes of getting a lot of good items? If you hoard your keys you won't have any decent loot to sell to shops, which means you'll have less defense and attack, meaning fights take longer and you're liable to take more damage... but is it worth it?
You could use Keys in a few ways.
1. Chest Room. Same as the current Chest Room, with one unlocked chest available. The rest of the room would look like, well, this. But with all locked chests. Pop a key on a chest to try to get a bundle of potions, a piece of equipment, a sum of gold or other prize? You essentially open chests here to get the reward you normally would on completing challenges. Probably only let the host open locked chests, to ensure no one gets loot hungry.
Maybe you could do away with the 1-unlocked-chest thing and just give people one key at the start of each floor, too.
2. Locked Rooms. Bonus areas that you can spend 1/ 1+? keys on in order to unlock. Spend a key to skip the area in a Portal Room, going from floor 5 or 6 immediately to floor 7 knowing you'll have less EXP / Items purely for speedrunning strats? Or to unlock access to a special Grinding Room, filled with elite versions of one specific mob to the area to try and get their rare drops, EXP or cards?
3. Prisoners! Maybe a townsperson is locked up on floor 10 and is behind 15 locks to free, requiring 15 keys? Or rescuing random people from Story Mode to permanently get items that aren't in Arcade Mode, like rescuing Santa from a Prison Room in Winter for 10 keys to permanently get the Frost Charm in Arcade.
4. Score additions / multipliers. Beat Arcade Mode with # keys unused? Hoard as many keys as possible to get the highest score you can.
I could be wrong and this entire Risk / Reward system is a horrible idea, but I dunno. I think I'd enjoy this. Or maybe I'd just die with a bunch of terrible gear on me in the earlier levels, never making it to the late levels to use them.
You beat a Challenge Room, you get a random drop for that area.
You complete a Bishop Challenge, you get a random drop for that area.
You beat the boss of the floor, you get a random drop for that area.
These items can be immensely helpful or useless, but by the next one or two floors they'll already be outdated.
In other games like Arcade Mode, when you complete a challenge and get an upgrade, it's usually with you until the end of your run. Upgrades earned on floor 1 can still see impact on floor 12.
In Arcade Mode, about the only thing that will still exist on Floor 12 is potentially an Attack Ring, since there's nothing better for attack for it in the game so far.
Those challenge rewards wind up amounting to a meager amount of gold when you vendor them.My suggestion? Change Challenge Rooms and Bishops to award Keys upon completion. Keys stay with you until the end of your run, they can be used on any floor, it's just a matter of deciding Risk vs Reward. Do you use the key on this floor to get a slight edge in beating your current floor, or do you hold onto as many as possible and try to make it to the later floors despite your handicap in the hopes of getting a lot of good items? If you hoard your keys you won't have any decent loot to sell to shops, which means you'll have less defense and attack, meaning fights take longer and you're liable to take more damage... but is it worth it?
You could use Keys in a few ways.
1. Chest Room. Same as the current Chest Room, with one unlocked chest available. The rest of the room would look like, well, this. But with all locked chests. Pop a key on a chest to try to get a bundle of potions, a piece of equipment, a sum of gold or other prize? You essentially open chests here to get the reward you normally would on completing challenges. Probably only let the host open locked chests, to ensure no one gets loot hungry.
Maybe you could do away with the 1-unlocked-chest thing and just give people one key at the start of each floor, too.
2. Locked Rooms. Bonus areas that you can spend 1/ 1+? keys on in order to unlock. Spend a key to skip the area in a Portal Room, going from floor 5 or 6 immediately to floor 7 knowing you'll have less EXP / Items purely for speedrunning strats? Or to unlock access to a special Grinding Room, filled with elite versions of one specific mob to the area to try and get their rare drops, EXP or cards?
3. Prisoners! Maybe a townsperson is locked up on floor 10 and is behind 15 locks to free, requiring 15 keys? Or rescuing random people from Story Mode to permanently get items that aren't in Arcade Mode, like rescuing Santa from a Prison Room in Winter for 10 keys to permanently get the Frost Charm in Arcade.
4. Score additions / multipliers. Beat Arcade Mode with # keys unused? Hoard as many keys as possible to get the highest score you can.
I could be wrong and this entire Risk / Reward system is a horrible idea, but I dunno. I think I'd enjoy this.
Or maybe I'd just die with a bunch of terrible gear on me in the earlier levels, never making it to the late levels to use them.