Endless Arena I think feels too random?
That was actually what I was aiming for. A randomized gauntlet, almost impossible to beat. It's meant to be the final challenge, where you need all your skills and some luck on top. I made it for players who beat everything, but still need some excuse to play the game
I never designed it as something fair or always beatable. There are other game modes for that.
As for the Ice Mages problem, try playing it with the Paladin. Divine shield protects you from projectiles, so your main concern is just building rage quick enough. I beat this run earlier when the game was even harder (no random potions at all and less drops from chests):
I'd just feel like I'd got lucky rather than feeling like I'd accomplished something, which isn't ideal.
Luck plays a big role until wave 50 or so. After that, you have unlocked enough chests to get a good assortment of usable stuff to combine and survive. And you probably have all 6 silver coins, so you can escape mid-battle to heal up and prepare before going back in (for example, shooting arrows to rebuild rage). You also got access to Crocodile or Racoon who make a huge difference. I usually get to around wave 60-70 with other non-Paladin characters, but I always die by not using some of the items/weapons/pets game offered or simply by making some dumb mistake.
I also found that I bought most of the useful stuff from the shops pretty fast, so money stopped being interesting after about wave 20
You can still use it to get silver coins.
I was just sitting there hoping that each next cursed key wasn't going to kill me.
I never use the keys right away. If I feel like I'm doing enough damage, I do 2-3 rounds in succession. Especially if I'm out of Dragonfire potions. The only time when I deviate from this rule is when I'm playing with Pyro and run out of mana, so I have to risk unlocking something to get a mana potion for my fireballs.
You could make the shops restock with new random goods once you've bought all the things in them. This would create some interesting incentives and provide another way for the player to get new random good stuff.
I'm trying hard to avoid that because it creates problems with network code. As for spending extra money, I'm thinking more in the direction of having something in the game where you can spend it any time. Maybe something like a Divine Altar where you can remove all negative effects for 5000 gold?
I'm not sure if making all the keys cursed is really necessary. You're already trusting to fate a huge amount given that 50% of the chests will be near or totally useless. Also skeleton mages are quite common so it's not like having regular keys would leave the player without the threat of random spell effects.
No. This mode should be hardddd.
Since I have discovered that it is beatable, I'm not making it any easier
P.S. I don't recommend playing a lot of arena for you because it's very intense. Your hands won't like it. Later in the game, the waves have more enemies. It can go up to 40. It takes about 100 minutes to get to wave 100 and even my hands got tired by that point. Esp. if you play a melee character.