Feedback on HLB's two main draws

[wise rover]

Heyhey I just wanted to provide my honest feedback on HLB's main draws and where I'd like to see it go.
The two things outside of combat that draw me to this game are 1. the death mechanic and 2. the foreign world and need for exploration.

1. Every time I die it feels like the world progresses around me, my inventory degrades, the enemies get stronger, more numerous, more varied. It gives me a relationship to my character that feels somewhere in between Elden Ring and Vampire Survivors, but visually I can't tell the difference, up until my last death which is where the hub looks different. So any experiences I made in between those revives in the world, in retrospect, get accumulated together. If you want to tell a story in this world, you will lose out on 4 layers of depth that you already have in your world if you can't make them look or feel more distinct. I need to see some change in the buildings and flora and fauna everytime I die. Make it look as though they are aging, or make the sky emit distinct colours every time I die, something that sets it apart. If you can tell a story using a mechanic that's nestled in gameplay necessities, while simultaneously emphasizing the mechanic thematically through the story that is told - stories about degradation and death for example - you will make the world feel coherent and deep and meaningful, and if you combine it with npcs that "explore" the world while showing up in the hub world you will be able to tell stories about death and degradation and friendship.
   I really love how you handled dying in this game, it combines classic rpg progression with with roguelike progression. I believe this combination is so strong that it should be the focus point and main emphasis of what this entire game should build around, to me that's its identity.
   ...

Because HBL's main draw is a mechanic that's featured in almost every RPG Hyber Light Breaker feels like it is in a niche place, it's able to draw inspiration from every rpg and incorporate their draws into itself with a natural twist that makes it its own and I believe HBL will be most successful if it actualises on that aspect of itself.

2. I really really love when I wander through a world and discover things or hints as to how people lived there before they vanished and or what made them vanish, I believe it lends itself naturally to the death mechanic and it actually feels as though you could already find out things about the world you spawn in, but you can't rn. I suspect you already have stories or ways of communicating that lend themselves to this setting but I'm playing mainly with a friend and I'm seeing first hand that some gamers, they want to explore but they need to be told what exploration in this game actually is. You will lose a lot of players over the course of this game who will want to have this sense of exploration, but their gamerbrain will not switch from grinding to exploration fast enough to stay in this game unless you explicitly tell them. Ideally with a character that's in the hubworld.
   The main benefit of having a world that requires to be explored rather than be explained I believe is that every time you discover something that you recognize you get a natural gameplay reward. So you should integrate many things into exploration that the player can recognise!!
   It can be everything from monuments, to weapons, to ways to defeat enemies, to events, to loot, overt references, the unexplained nature and artistic style will make every recognizable inspiration from other games a unique twist.

In my best imaginations Hyper Light Breaker can be a game where my bro and I log in, we explore the world and find three things:

1. A story that is told linearly within revive cycles, linearly outside of revive cycles, and nonlinear stories that draw back to character's in the hub. I believe those are better the more unexplained they are, but you need to tell people how exactly they go about explaining the world to themselves if you want them to experience that on their own.
2. Reasons, tangible rewards to engage with the world again, everytime I die. There absolutely need to be many different reasons for me to seek out specific points in the revive cycle, enough reasons for me to always be content in the one I'm stuck in. Right now, if I die, especially playing solo, I'm bummed out hard, right now I wish there was only one revive per cycle because dying is only reflected in the world through increased challenge, especially if you don't make it far on the map.
   Ideally there would be things like characters hinting to certain events that only happen at specific points in the revive cycle. For example on your first run you find an npc that tells you he's seen a big monster that only appears during a certain time, and in that locale you will find a big monster only after your third revive. There need to be all kinds of time specific events, hostile and friendly, and all kinds of hints as to when they are happening and what you need to do. Again, as this world is unexplained everything you put in will become a reward if a player recognizes it from somewhere else.