Road Block #1: Simplifying things I want to simplify things as much as possible. From character animations to gameplay systems like before, weapon damage has a range value (ex. 8-10 damage) and it is cool how unpredictable it is while knowing how much maximum damage you can do to enemies. Although from a developer standpoint, it feels like too much work for me to do and to balance not mentioning having a limited time and resources since I'm doing it myself. So I simplified it by having fixed damage amount, same with armories. Continuous Flow When you have a sword that deals 8 damage and found one that deals 10, you already know which is more powerful and won't take you that long to compare while in the middle of a fight. While most of RPG games has inventory screen, my game only has 6 gear slots and is always displayed in the UI. There won't be item keeping involved, when you picked new gear it automatically swaps to your previous one so you better think carefully what to pick up next. This system is inspired by Loop Hero where your item gets swapped with new ones converting it to a useful resource. I want the players to be able act and decide fast. I want them to care more about what they can do rather than taking care of what they have since this is a roguelike, death is inevitable and they will just lose all of their items.
Character Skill and Abilities Like I said before, I want to simplify things as much as possible and there are no ways I can think of simplifying skills. The common thing I see in RPG games are skill trees. Another example is from MOBAs having dedicated skills for each character. "Why not just pick one then move on?" Well it is easy to just pick and do stuff, but for me it kind of feels like I'm might waste an opportunity to get creative. Yes it will save me time from coming up with an idea but I'm close to getting this to a standard type RPG. I want something unique so players will get excited of playing this game. Though if I ran out of juice, I'll just stick to the basics. Conclusion There are a lot of interesting ways that developers have come up to make their games simple yet complex, but games are not always designed to be like that. It could be anything that you want as long as you know what you are doing and it is fun to play.