ToME: the Tales of Maj'Eyal

1. Actual Towns:

In many rpg games where there are towns, you get the shop, often a few for different kinds of items, but you also get the tavern and some quests and all that flavor, many kinds of buildings, temple, trainer, etc etc. The towns in this game, its like almost every building is itemspam. Since we get so much itemspam from monsters (and little gold) I never bought anything. It seems unrealistic to have almost every building be an itemspam shop. I think the game would greatly improve from the more standard rpg towns.

The quest with the sunken city mentioned a waterbreathing spell from a guy in a tavern in Derth? What tavern? If I hadn't come across a belt of breathing I would never have entered the underwater dungeon, but my point is, I went and looked for a tavern, which rpg towns love to have, but didn't see it, just a pile of shops.

So the towns seem very unrealistic and flat. Even games from decades ago, you'd have towns with all kinds of things in them, not just a massive pile of shops.

An option to nerf death so at least to come out of the last town would be a nice compromise also, maybe pay some fee at a temple or do some quest for them. (Provided you are not an undead; I cant really get playing a ghoul or evil character anyway but whatever...)

2. Multi Party:

Which brings me to next idea, is what if we could make a standard rpg party of at least 4 or 6. It is rare for one guy to go alone into a masses of monsters. Should he be surprised when they tear him apart soon? This would add so much to the game I think. its basically been a standard that has worked well for decades. This would also be interesting regarding deaths. So, your fighter dies but your mage manages to escape alive. Well, he has to go to a quest to find a new fighter (which you make and gets added maybe a level behind the remaining characters). And the player would get to advance several different types of characters and how they fight together tactically. Adds a whole nother dimension to play.

3.

Infinite dungeon realism:
example: I met an inquisitor and wizard and a bunch of monsters trapped in a sealed room stacked like sardines. Man they must have been bored and not hungry (and not needing to breathe). So when I open the door, they attack me. The inquisitor and the mage somehow have become friends. What are humans, rogues and all, even doing in that unescapable dungeon, let alone sitting locked in rooms waiting, with no dialogue options, to be bland tile enemies for me? There is no story, no explanation or realism. The random human enemies get along with slimes and undead and anything but not the pc. And then there are swimming aquatic creatures not even in the water, just randomly in the hall. Having some communities set apart of human who came in and got trapped but bred in there, this could make sense, maybe some underground towns built, safe zones, with some quests and then the monster zones, with monsters that make sense together and where they are, would make this so much better to adventure in, I think.

This game is a roguelike, a genre that's all about single characters against the dungeon and pemadeath.

That being said, there is already Adventure Mode where death is not final, and Exploration Mode (for donators) where death doesn't matter at all.

Infinite Dungeon is not supposed to have a story - the whole point is that it's a non-story mode where you can dungeon crawl to your heart's content (though making floors all have a theme might not be a bad idea).

You also have to realize with how the game is story-driven, random quests would not make much sense, and story quests are already given as guidelines (the first few just pop up automatically). Though I could see a few more quest rewards; it always seems silly that you save the guy from spiders and talk to his wife to complete the quest, and all you get from that dialogue is a completed mark, and no actual reward...

I keep encountering random variety of tiles packed into tiny places. Sometimes I have to tear down wall to get to 4 or 6 enemies cramped in a tiny place with no door. And they will all be random, a bear, a wizard, etc. it becomes retarded. What are they doing in there? Arent they glad I freed them? How are they even alive? It becomes clear that they are just a random bunch of enemy tiles rolled up anywhere that doesn't make any sense. It goes against being involved in the play to notice things like this.

And the drops have no sense either, like bears in the forest dropping battle axes and armor when killed. It is all random spam that doesn't make sense. Most games know that creatures should give drops that make sense and that enemies have reasons for what they do and also self-preservation if things are going badly for them.

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edit:

And I just found a sun paladin hanging out with a bunch of undead and demons. When they saw me, the random adventurer that dug down the wall trapping them in a tiny room, the sun guy and the undead all tried to kill me with full hostility. Why that sun guy wanted to kill me and side with the undead and demons, doesn't make sense.

What I think could solve some of this is for an encounter, it would select a monster that was the leader / key type of that pack of monsters, and then that would determine what other monsters could or could not be there and types of drops. Also, prevent all but some demons or undead or xorn in certain scenarios from being in weird places like rooms that are totally walled in.

So for each level of ID or dungeon area, there would be a basic enemy story type selected and then that would determine certain kinds of monsters, and they would be in realistic places and have drops that made sense for them to have. And there would be the patrol monsters / wanderers, and there would be the room monsters, and some rooms could have themes, so when a theme for a room is selected, that can determine what monsters appear there and some basic text of what they are up to, like sacrifice, summoning, making undead, creating golems, breeding dragons, various things they might be doing in their dungeon.

More puzzles would be great also. There are a few but not many, and that is one thing often enjoyed in dungeons.

xnd:

Not that these are all bad ideas, but have you considered trying to enjoy the game that's there first? It feels you are requesting over many threads a vastly different game than is there and many of us enjoy, which seems to hint that you haven't quite jelled with the style of game it is. It's absolutely not a puzzle game. It's barely an RPG. It isn't a simulator. It's a roguelike straddling fantasy and sci-fantasy. You wander mostly randomly laid out dungeons, stabbing hordes of monsters that rarely consider running away from the murderbot. People do not flee you coming into town covered in the blood of the thousands of creatures you have killed. The world doesn't blink at having one guy who could wipe out every town in the world in an causal hour. Everything that is picked up is possibly usable, but you'll destroy 99 percent of it in an auto-gold chest anyway. Somehow ruins are literally packed to the brim with usable equipment.