I have to say I'm not even found of this increasing price mechanism. I'm incredibly greedy with that sort of things (I used to take as much devil's deals I can in Isaac) and I wish it is more reliable. I don't fully understand the interest of this increasing price ; it's like if the items with a cash price would have an increasing price, it would be silly, right? So why can't I be very greedy and take all most life-costed items? There even is a "challenge item" for taking all life-costed items in a floor!
It's kind of like the increasing hacking price in AI War; I can understand that because players are encouraged to use HaP in diverse sorts of hacking, but I still feel my money has less and less worth. And it's lame. A game shouldn't do that for player's enjoyment's sake. For HaP in AI War it's okay, sort of, because else things could go haywire. But in Starward Rogue, I think it's just frustrating and arbitrary limiting.
Okay, look, the only reason I could imagine and I would accept is because money and life doesn't scale the same way as levels go; players gain a steady amount of money per level but an increasing amount of life per level, so the cash prices remain constant and the life prices increase. If this would be the reason, no problem; it would be pretty wise. But as far as I understand the game in its current state, this is not the case: life gain doesn't increase, and cash neither. So freaking why is life cost increasing?
Also, it's encouraging a bad strategy. Trading too much life in items is tempting to new players (and some advanced player too) and is not the best strategy. A moderate approach with balanced life and items is recommended. But by increasing life prices the game lures players into following a bad yet fun/appealing strategy. Mark Rosewater talked about that kind of bad design in Magic (MTG); I remember him saying they trashed many mechanisms because they tend to lure players into mana-screwing themselves. According to him, a fun mechanism leading to bad strategies is plain bad design. I feel this increasing-life-cost mechanism is exactly that.
TL;DR:
Increasing life cost: explain or remove.
Please.
