I raise this concept because there’s a big change coming in how we as a design team approach issues in Desktop Dungeons. It’s been brewing for a while now, but we’re finally at a point where we feel that tweaking numbers and effects is essentially navel-gazing in an already well-balanced game experience. The new definitions we’d like to see making their way into the vocabulary of the discussion revolve around strange-sounding terms like information-load and richness of feedback. Essentially, we’re focusing on making the game easier for people to pick up over time because it conveys better and more useful information to them as they play it. We know the game CAN be played, we just want to make that play experience smoother. There’s no end of situations in DD that can benefit from more information: Everything from players learning about bonus experience or wasting regeneration space to the effectiveness of poison on enemies and their current debuff state can (and should!) be displayed graphically.
I think many players might have missed this. It also doesn't help that the devs keep skirting around the issue by addressing tiny asides in great detail and refusing to discuss general gameplay theory. They haven't disagreed that an and-game infinite locker wouldnt be great for a seperate end-game, only in the regular game. They just don't have the time to implement something like a new end-game.
This might have been easier if the devs had just said 'no more balance tweaks, guys' instead of letting things get this far.
Regardless, if i was forced to prioritise I would start focusing on content at the beginning of the game, which every player will see, and not on endgame, which a very small amount of players will see. Pretty sure that's what the devs meant by the long-winded discussion about 'design languages'. Players need to accept this and move on.
The locker won't change any time soon.
BUT the first thing I will do when this game goes gold is develop a tiny mod that gives the player an infinite locker.
I don't care about ruining my game progression because I've seen a large percentage of the game by now. I'd say other players have too, and there's nothing wrong with making the changes after the game is released to achieve your vision.
I think many players are worried that their expectations for the game wont be fulfilled. It's worse because QCF are unusually open with their development plan, warts and all. If it doesn't turn out how you like, change it yourself!