I see a lot of posts on this wiki about seeds that give overpowered items. These greatly reduce the difficulty of the game, but due to the popularity of these posts this seems to appeal to a great deal of the player base. Therefore, I propose the addition of what are effectivly Anti-Challenges, that reduce the difficulty of the game. Things like sadder bosses, night vision, large portions, or thick armor could function as counterparts to their respective challenges, with the cost of your score being reduced by a multiplier, similarly to how challenges increase your score. Perhaps this could only be unlocked after finishing a run with default settings, to preserve the learning curve and difficulty that PD has to offer. What do you guys think?
I see what needs one would want to address with this, but doing something along the lines of anti-challenges isn’t the viable solution for me. If you are seeking to make the game more accessible to people who learn slower, it’d be better to make an easier difficulty and absolutely not lock it after a normal game. Other than that, one should realise why challenges are not just a harder difficulty: they add new problems that you need to include in your playstyle. Increasing armour stats doesn’t really do that. Neither does making bosses easier. Seeds are popular because they give people a powerful set of specific tools. In the game, that is mostly done with - surprise surprise -classes, and now - trinkets. Maybe there could be a feature that’d allow you to try some specific enchantment or whatever, but I don’t feel like there is really such an urgent need for it since seed seekers are there. Unless you want to allow people to try new additions to the game so that they can give more feedback on them and see what has changed.
Unlocking them after a normal run was just a suggestion, anti challenges could be implemented without that restriction, of course. The whole idea was that players who struggle with the game don’t have to rely on seed seekers. Even with anti challenges implemented, seed seekers could still do their thing. This isn’t trying to replace seed seekers, just help with an underlying issue.
But what’s the point of giving them a choice on what easening factors to choose? It’s overcomplicating things for newer players. Just make an easy mode if there is a need for that.