Creature-based materials make grinding and crafting feel more rewarding - Creature preview for clearings could make grinding less painful.

[Musselbug]

(Reposted from General Discussion because I didn't realise there was a dedicated feedback section - sorry about that)

The title is the tldr of it, but I wanted to add my vote to go back to the system where upgrading gear uses materials from the specific mob that gear is based on. As in Monster hunter, linking the experience of defeating specific enemies with the experience of improving and then using gear with the materials you get off them is much more satisfying than grinding generic area-materials by playing a level over and over and upgrading every bit of gear from that area. If I want to upgrade my Antleer armor, the idea of going out and specifically hunting Antleers in either Splintershard or the Snow biome, making my decision based on what level I feel like playing + what other creature materials I might want, is much better than having the game make the decision for me by saying I need the materials from 1 of those levels because that's what Antleer armor is assigned to. It's also exciting to get the materials you were grinding for plus ones you weren't (and have options to try out other gear handed to you), rather than have you get exactly the materials you're grinding for, and all of them going to the gear you expected to upgrade.

The issue with the past system taking far too long to upgrade the gear you wanted was that it is hard to look for and fight specific mobs for their materials. One solution is just to lower crafting costs so that it takes roughly the same number of runs as it does currently to upgrade one set. However, a more elegant solution is to add ways for players to choose to fight specific mobs more often. One way is to add enemy preview to the clearing preview icons so that players can add the prospective mobs (and materials) into their decision to move into one clearing over another. If this seems like information overload for new players, they could choose to only have enemy preview for enemies they have 'marked' from a bestiary, and only unlock this option once they have killed enough of this enemy type (kinda like the way you gain research levels for monsters in Monster Hunter World).
Another system could involve paying generic resources like corestones or the current Area-materials to place "Creature lures" on specific areas that greatly increases the odds and numbers of specific enemies appearing in its clearings. Giving players agency over the challenges and rewards they may face when choosing a level is much more engaging than picking a level over and over and hoping they'll get enough materials.

Game is wonderful and I'm really excited for new content to be added and test my abilities with its hardest challenges, but the current system of grinding up your gear isn't quite engaging enough.

P.S being able to buy materials in the level-shop for teffra is great, but the current material bundles only seem to have the lowest tier mats, which are obsolete past very early game without ways to combine them into higher-tier materials, and ingots currently don't seem to have a use once the smiths are upgraded. If you aren't planning to allow us to mash excess materials into corestones/gems etc, that's another feature I'd recommend. I also think the option to spend teffra on materials should be in addition to the corestone option, not replacing it.

Amazing work so far, this is my favorite rogue-like since Enter the Gungeon.

[Yarmoth]

This this this. I wholly agree and I find it baffling that it was removed in the first place. Tying everything to RNG isn't fun.

[Yarmoth]

A big part of the fun for me with this game was being able to harvest all of the crafting loot. Crafting gives a sense of accomplishment to the player. 

[RancorSnp]

I would also be very happy if we could bring back monster loot and give us the ability to CRAFT gear, I'm fine if it's more expensive to craft in town than it is to buy on the market. In the past there was an issue with the monster drops system requiring multiple runs of the dungeon to find the specific loot you were looking for (Specifically Floracrane items required non Elite floracrane items, and non elite floracranes wouldn't spawn outside of the challenge rooms which many players didn't know about and even there they weren't guaranteed [In fact, I don't actually recall seeing a normal floracrane in months even in the current version of the game]).

But the solution to that issue isn't to require people to require multiple runs of the dungeon to check the randomly generated gear - this is not fun, this is not good design. The solution would be to introduce a tracker NPC who would allow the player to select the monster they want to hunt, and the dungeon would guarantee this opponent spawns during the run