I hate progression in roguelikes
Hades is the new hotness right now, but I haven't played it. I'm a big fan of roguelikes, so you'd think it would be right up my alley. Unfortunately... I feel like I probably wouldn't like it very much. Ironically, it's because of the same thing that's endeared it to so many people: the way you get stronger between runs.
**I don't want to do that.**
I suppose that raises the obvious question of "why *not*?" And, to be honest, that's a really hard question to answer. I could just turn it around and say "why should I?", but that seems like a bit of a cop-out. Instead, I'll try my best to explain it. This isn't really an approach I've used in my previous discussions on this topic, but this seems to be just sort of how things are done around here.
Your average competitive multiplayer game is divided up into distinct matches against an opponent. In contrast, an action-adventure game isn't - it's one long continuous "match" against the game, even if you stop playing and pick back up a month later. This isn't a difference endemic to multiplayer and single-player games respectively, here. For example, a co-op beat-'em-up is a single-match multiplayer game, and (pertinently) a roguelike is a multi-match single-player game.
Now, imagine if you could get upgrades between matches in Street Fighter or Fortnite or whatever. And your character was just stronger afterward. Normally, I'd just say that was dumb on the face of it, but considering my opinion on this feels like something people would never consider, I think I need to elaborate. This would make the game blatantly unbalanced, right? You just queue into matchmaking and your gun is 20% stronger than anyone else's. Well, actually, it's stronger than anyone else's unless they also got the upgrade, or their guns are 40% stronger because they've been playing longer. The point of the game would shift away from whatever it was previously, and become about the upgrades you've gotten from playing beforehand.
In my experience, it doesn't feel any better when it's against the game.
Arguably the core thing *about* roguelikes is getting stronger *within* a run - the "match" in my analogy earlier. But now we're getting roguelikes where you get stronger *between* runs, and that's just... a wholly different thing altogether.
We've hit Toss the Turtle at this point, ladies and gentlemen, but the difference is I actually like those sorts of games, because getting upgrades is *the* point. In this new type of roguelike, the point is the gameplay, and the upgrade system is something I have to put up with to play the game.
Well, I say "put up with", but really I mean "ignore". Yes, I know I can just ignore this stuff in Hades and probably every other game like this. And I *do*. But when they give me the choice, is it... *actually* a choice? The game *will* be balanced around getting the upgrades, so playing without them is giving me a handicap. I'm not crazy about the game folding me backwards until I luck into a particularly good set of items, but that's what happens without upgrades, in my experience.
So why do I feel so strongly about this? Well... I guess I just feel like I'm missing out on Hades. A lot of people are listing it as their top game of 2020. It just seems like my type of game on all fronts, *except for all these progression mechanics*. I've brought this up to people before, and I keep doing it, but I have no idea what I'm hoping to *get* out of it. I'm not gonna convince people Hades is bad - not that I even *want* to do that. I guess I just need my feelings about it to be heard, but they vastly outweigh the conversations I can have about it. Maybe next time, I'll have to march right into /r/HadesTheGame...