Yeah when I played with a full group I fortunately had a some what bug free experience besides the final boss having his health bar visually bugged for everyone but host. Looked like we were doing no damage. But did some runs by myself and the AI tried but never uses ability’s unless I’m blind. Im always gonna want more variety like why not bring back the toxic gas on harder difficulty’s slowing only hero’s and Enemies, just not the crystal it’s kinda already slow and this game takes enough hours already XD Traps would be awesome once the team improves performance perhaps like a ray shield or shock trap. Or like a random chance of a boss spawning like a bounty hunter squad idk just thinking here maybe a squad went rogue.

Zevkk wrote:

I think the game has a bit of an identity crisis where it feels like it's trying to mash too many genres together and not doing many of them particularly well.

This was my very first piece of feedback during the very first OpenDev.  I'm also seeing it mentioned a lot in the negative reviews on Steam.  I find this unfortunate because there were definitely ways to balance the different genres.  The developer mandate of Endless Dungeon seems to be "more action at all costs" but in order to make that happen you have to sacrifice some of the strategic elements.  In particular, I thought that the spawners combined with the timed waves actually hurt the action because: an action game usually places enemies in front of the player's exploration path but the spawners in Endless Dungeon keep pulling the player back to rooms that were already cleared, the semi-random triggering of the timed waves constantly breaks the action by pulling the player out of the gameplay loop, and the general interaction with tactical elements slows everything down.

I think that reducing the focus on the crystal defense (though it could still be in there somewhat) and shifting more to a twin-stick dungeon crawler format would have been a better design to follow.  If they didn't want to make a completely action-oriented "run and gun your way to the exit" game then they could have done more of a "search for the objectives that open the exit" format like NeuroVoider, Alien Syndrome, or Dungeon Souls, but they could have still left the crystal defense in there as a negative feedback mechanic if the player allowed enemies to escape a room.

Other than that core game design complaint, I'm seeing some reviews that are confused by the game's name because "Endless Dungeon" implies that there should have been far more than 4 floors and/or that it's a sequel that should play similarly to DotE.  Maybe calling it "Station of the Endless" would have helped prevent some of this confusion?  I'm also disappointed to see so many complaints about bugs even after the game was delayed.

I have to say I'm having a great time with the game! I'm an Amplitude fan but never played the original, so I should say my perspective is as an open-minded newbie to the franchise. Considering I know amplitude for their 4X games, I'm very impressed with how tight this game feels in all its genre-bendiness. Visuals are great, the characters are fun, but the music is the biggest surprise for me. I love when a track starts playing partway through exploring a floor, and sometimes I plug in my headphones when I'm back at the station and they have the full band out and I just listen to the track loop... I've read other players' critiques about a lack of upgrade / weapon variety, and haven't played enough to say that I feel that impact my experience negatively yet, but I see their point and would definitely look forward to additional content.

SpikedWallMan wrote:

Other than that core game design complaint, I'm seeing some reviews that are confused by the game's name because "Endless Dungeon" implies that there should have been far more than 4 floors and/or that it's a sequel that should play similarly to DotE.  Maybe calling it "Station of the Endless" would have helped prevent some of this confusion?  I'm also disappointed to see so many complaints about bugs even after the game was delayed.

To be honest, it pretty much is the successor to DotE, from having a  character system similar to the previous game, to protecting a dust crystal, the wave mechanics, multiple floor based ganeplay, and the fact they tried to place a literal ad into DotE and not any of their other games pretty much proves this is at the very least a spiritual successor, so it being compared to DotE was inevitable.

Alot of reviews Im seeing on steam mention the fact that only the host in a co-op match gets rewards or do anything major like upgrades. I dont know if this was a bug or intentional or a oversight, but I am glad its being remedied quickly, because this could single handingly crush the game, I believe its safe to assume that Endless Dungeon is a co-op heavy game, so for the game to basically punish players for playing co-op is unacceptable in such circumstance.