Some ideas and suggestions

I. Core Gameplay Overhaul: Nine-Square Temple (Huarongdao Temple)
Your proposed solution is incredibly clever—it streamlines a complex "massive maze" into a highly strategic "compact board."

1. Core Loop:

Charge: Venture into the outside world (otherworld maps) for 6–9 adventures to charge the "Temple Compass."

Layout: Enter the temple and face a randomly generated 3x3 nine-square room layout, with the center or a fixed point as the Architect's Room. Room types include: monster rooms, trap rooms, reward rooms (chests, altars), and empty rooms (which can be upgraded).

Challenge and Decision-Making:

The player selects a room to challenge. Upon completion, they receive that room's basic rewards.

The crucial step: The player can slide the nine-square grid once (like in Huarongdao), altering the arrangement and pathways of the rooms. This allows them to:

Move the Architect's Room towards the edge, delaying the final boss fight.

Connect two reward rooms together to plan an efficient route.

Slide a low-level monster room onto an "upgrade tile," causing it to become level 2 the next time it is challenged.

Upgrading and Endgame:

Each time the Architect is defeated (he moves to a new location after each challenge), the player gains "Temple Power." This power is used to upgrade adjacent level 2 rooms into level 3 special rooms.

Level 3 rooms provide transformative rewards: fragments of the Key to Atziri, specific legendary items, and powerful body modifications (e.g., wielding two shields, feet that fire projectiles, eyes that add a curse aura, etc.).

Reset: After completing all 9 rooms or voluntarily abandoning the run, the entire nine-square layout is completely randomized and reset, ready for a new round of planning.

2. Design Advantages:

Strategic Depth Replaces Tedium: Thinking about "how to slide the board" offers more instant decision-making fun than navigating a vast map.

Controlled Randomness: Room types are random, but players have significant control through sliding to optimize their reward path.

Perfect Integration into the Core Loop: It acts as a "seasoning" for otherworld maps and a source of high-level rewards—neither bloated nor disruptive to the economy.

II. Skill/Mechanic Optimization: Overhaul of the "Sprint" Penalty
Your analysis of the risks associated with "Sprint" (or similar movement skills) is spot-on. The current "knockdown" effect is an excessively punitive hard control.

Optimization Proposal: Hit Stun and the "Break Momentum" Debuff

Remove: Eliminate the "knockdown" effect when hit during a sprint.

Add:

Hit Stun: The sprint is interrupted, and the character experiences a brief animation lock (e.g., 0.3 seconds), unable to act immediately, simulating the impact of being hit.

"Break Momentum" Debuff: This is followed by a negative status effect lasting 3–4 seconds.

Effect: Movement speed is reduced by 30%–40%, and damage taken during this period is increased by 15%–25%.

Visual/Audio Cue: The character displays a visual effect of disrupted energy flow, accompanied by a sound of heavy, labored breathing.

Design Goals:

Retain Risk: Abusing sprint remains dangerous, putting the player at a disadvantage with vulnerability and slowed movement.

Provide Room for Reaction: A single hit no longer directly leads to an inevitable death spiral. Players have a chance to use other skills (e.g., instant recovery, shields, blocks) to recover. This tests players' crisis management skills more than simply punishing them.

Eliminate Exploit Potential: This fundamentally prevents the extreme workaround of using "Reselect Character" to reset combat status.

Hello Designer, I have some creative ideas I’d like to share with you.

It’s about the Temple.
The gameplay of the Temple is a bit too complicated and messy! I was thinking, could we change the Temple into a 9-grid layout (with only 9 rooms, +1 BOSS room), inspired by the Chinese folk game "Huarongdao"?

Between rooms, players could charge energy by completing 6–9 otherworld maps. Once charged, they could enter to challenge a room. After completing the challenge, players could choose to alter the room’s path. Changing the room’s route could turn some rooms into reward rooms or pathways to Queen Atziri!

This means every challenge would involve fighting the Architect! And after each challenge against the Architect, players could change the room’s position to upgrade it to a Level 2 room!

Then, by using a special upgrade button, the room could be upgraded to Level 3 to obtain keys to Atziri, special rewards, limb modifications, and other effects!

Each run would always include an Architect challenge, and upon completion, it would grant upgrades, modifications, etc. Once all 9 rooms are completed (or if the player gives up midway), the entire room layout would reset. All 9 rooms would change (positions shuffled, Architect’s location reassigned), and after 9 energy charges, players could challenge it again!

This way, the gameplay becomes more controllable, with added randomness for fun. Also, by reducing the frequency, this feature could be integrated into the core gameplay without producing too much loot and disrupting game balance—nor would it produce too little and risk economic inflation!

Additionally, regarding the "Sprint" effect, my friends and I have complained while playing that getting knocked down during a sprint often leads to character death! Is there a way to make the "Sprint" skill less of a death sentence for players?

I’ve thought of a solution: Could we change the knockdown effect when hit during a sprint to instead cancel the sprint and apply a "Crippled effect (increasing damage taken by 50%–100%, movement speed reduced by 50%)"? This way, after being interrupted during a "Sprint," players would still have some room to maneuver, rather than being forced into a "Reselect Character" situation, which feels like a bug!

Speaking of which, I have to mention a bug: when a player’s character takes damage, lethal damage, or is in low health or low shield state, "Reselect Character" seems to grant an invulnerability effect and resets the player’s skill cooldowns, shield recharge delays, etc.!

I’m really looking forward to the arrival of Season 0.5!!! Wishing you all the best in your development!

No need to apologize at all! Here's the translation:

"I'm very sorry, the above was summarized by AI... There are some discrepancies. This is my original concept."