right on, i like the idea of leaning into it. maybe there's something there with earning that ability or something through a quest(s)... or we just give you the choice after X runs etc. it's worth toying with for sure!
Viewing post in Alpha 0.5 - The Passive Auras Build - Patch Notes
or yeah maybe if you come across the seed type in a run then it becomes available to the beginning of the game selection.
This is tough cause I feel like I personally have an optimal strategy or specific seeds that I feel in combination are a bit overpowered, especially towards the top of the mountain. Maybe it's a matter of balancing those abilities, but yeah I do like having to deal with what your dealt, and I wonder if that gets lost when letting players just choose the starting seeds.
Or maybe you can choose X suits (up to 4) and you incur some kind of debuff like seeds costing more. There's a lot to consider/toy with here!
I think picking more than 1 standard seed would wreck a lot of what makes the game great. I was suggesting just being able to pick one non-standard starting seed. That way combinations of seeds are still a matter of chance, but it means you don't get something that's completely useless for farming in the first biome.
Also, means players have a safe space to experiment with how seeds work (if you die in the first biome trying out a seed, you aren't risking anything).
i think you sorta nailed it with that last bit about experimenting with how seeds work and i think that's the real problem. it's not that there are only a handful of good seeds (and there is imbalance for sure, but that's easily dealt with), it's more that players aren't comfortable practicing with new seeds to get to the point where they can use each one effectively. the descriptions are partly to blame for this, since they are clear but false in some ways in that it's impossible to accurately describe how they work with text alone. i hope to put together animations of some flavor to remedy this and we're also talking about adding preplanted suits and etc in the crystal rooms to give a place to play with these things. while i'm not sure that's the actual answer either, i do think giving players opportunity to play with seeds of every kind will open up folks to new ways of solving different problems with a number of different seeds.