So I'm currently working on a traditional roguelike that I'll probably never release because of anxiety BUT I wanted to pass on a few things I'm using that, obviously because i'm using, think are solid simple mechanics.
- Have enemies only drop things that make sense.
- This means no gold, instead have creatures drop "parts" that the player can go sell.
- This create a basic game loop where, once the inventory has limits (weight or otherwise) the player fills up their inventory, must go to town and sell stuff off, rinse and repeat. It slows down progression a bit but it's important to throw these obstacles in so players have choices to make even if that choice is "Grab loot for money and run to town, or ignore loot so I can grind."
- Just because a part starts out as just an item for making money doesn't mean it has to stay this way. You will have a comprehensive set of of potential ingredients for other systems you my add later, an example being alchemy
- Based on enemies I've run into so far you could add: Slime goop/puddle/residue, Antlion fur, Antlion pincers, Antlion stinger, Goblin ears, Skulls/Bones.
- Similarly, but not necessarily exclusively, try to keep only enemies that use gear to dropping gear. Devs want their harder enemies, like dragons, to drop rare loot that the player can farm for. Totally understandable, it's fun getting rare drops. However I'll propose an alternative way to accomplish this. Keep up the parts system and add in rare parts that can be crafted into good equipment, or modify equipment to upgrade it.
- Example: Dragons drop teeth, scales, and potentially fire glands (the rare drop). Scales and teeth can be made into what would already be considered decent gear, but the fire glands can upgrade those armor and weapons into higher stats with fire resistant armor and fire damage dealing weapons
- This also means moving things like herbs to nodes. that the player can gather. I have a feeling you intend to have resource nodes eventually, but if not I'll just say I personally like them, it adds more things for the player to do while out exploring. How I've got it implemented:
- I created a spawn overlay that I can just paint over an area then set rules to.
- It contains all relevant spawns for that area
- It also contains spawn rules like weighting what spawns if I want the area to have rarer nodes or enemies that spawn less frequently
- Another thing it adds is respawn frequency and caps, so it makes sure to limit the areas total
- Then set it up that they could randomly spawn in that area so locations change and gives a nice scattered look, filling out the scenery a bit while also serving a purpose.
- A nice byproduct of this is it make sure the player can't easily sit in a single spot and wait for a node to respawn as the nodes randomly spawn within that area. This is particularly nice for mmos in the event they get a botting issue. It's also just a dash more engaging helping to avoid an idling experience (Idle games are fine, depends on what you're going for).
- I created a spawn overlay that I can just paint over an area then set rules to.
- This means no gold, instead have creatures drop "parts" that the player can go sell.