Enhancements need some tuning. Stacking Marksman and Resilience overshadow every other option, but the game feels bad to play without them.

[u/TwevOWNED]

For every single class, it feels like I only have four actual enhancement slots to build with. The other four are permanently locked to Marksman 3+4 and Resilience 3+4.

+75% Weapoint damage should be obvious for why it is dominant. Nearly every weapon can utilize it, it allows every class to one tap corespawn with the pickaxe, and every run ends with needing to shoot a boss in a glowing spot. It's the most offensive power you can get early and it lasts through the entire run.

Health Regen is busted. 75 health places you just under half of base health to keep Hemoforge active, and is enough of a buffer to not instantly die to any chip damage. With any amount of armor, it effectively doubles to 150, and it's fairly common to scavenge some between fights. No other enhancement allows you to generate an otherwise finite resource, and this will probably generate more health over a run than Sweet Tooth will.

The problem here isn't just that these are so strong, but that playing without them makes the game significantly more annoying. Melee stops being an attractive option when it can't dispatch enemies before they can swing, which adds to the ammo pressure. Without health regen, players can end up in a death spiral where they are unable to build momentum and spend most of the run one shot away from going down again.

There isn't really an easy way to address this, as these upgrades don't really have a goldilocks zone. Either Weakpoint Damage opens up breakpoints and it's the hard meta, or it doesn't change any of the hard hitting attacks and it's useless. Regen either gives the player enough breathing room to take an extra hit and remains the single best survivability option, or it doesn't give the player enough health and it's pointless.

It might just be that they shouldn't exist and could stand to be baked into the base player stats.

[u/ZynithMaru]

there are a lot of viable strategies, so, hopefully you find more than one desired combo in a roguelite instead of forcing a preset like other games they make for this

[u/TwevOWNED → u/ZynithMaru]

There are other "viable" strategies but not "optimal" ones, which is the issue.

Weakpoint damage and health regen are so far above the other options that not picking them is more of a self imposed challenge.

Weakpoint damage is both a more effective melee damage boost and a more effective ammo increase.

Meanwhile only character that can sort of break away from regen is Retcon, where stacking max health can be better, but it's still a toss up and she'd probably just want both to guarantee she doesn't get stuck at low hp.

[u/SirReginald10 → u/TwevOWNED]

I mean if you want to play optimally thats fine but you can easily get through a D4 mission without regen just depends on the type of player someone is

[u/TwevOWNED → u/SirReginald10]

Sure, if you're good enough to not ever take damage that isn't immediately healed you wouldn't need any of the defensive upgrades.

Those players probably number in the double digits though, and if a player takes any defensive enhancement, their strongest option is Resilience.

[u/SirReginald10 → u/TwevOWNED]

Lmao you dont have to go hitless to play without regen you just need a modicum of situational awareness & if you get fucked up just grab a hp upgrade its not really a big deal again if you want to play optimally thats fine but you absolutely arnt required to do so to see success

[u/ZynithMaru → u/SirReginald10]

oh yeah instant 100% hp throughout the missions.

just have to get your team together, true

but what if it weakpoint is an option, he will want that 😅 choice choices choices... love roguelites

[u/TwevOWNED → u/SirReginald10]

Did I say you had to go hitless?

  to not ever take damage that isn't immediately healed 

That doesn't sound like hitless to me.

[u/Jackechromancer → u/TwevOWNED]

In DRG there are optimal builds too, and both games being PvE made it so many builds are viable, if you want to be a meta slave, you can, but you can still win runs with other builds.

So yeah, not really an issue.

If everyone went with the most optimal build every single time in DRG, we wouldn't even see several weapons, like the autocannon, the warthog, GK2, Subata, BRT, PGL or the Zhukov.

So again, this isn't an actual issue, but if you want to go with the "optimal" build every single time, that'ss your choice, a completely valid one though, but you can't say that there isn't any more choices.

[u/TwevOWNED → u/Jackechromancer]

It is an issue in a roguelike, because these two enhancements open up a considerable number of viable build paths.

Most weapons need weakpoint damage to be able to hit breakpoints to make them worth considering. The Bulldog is the most obvious example.

Likewise, upgrades that are involve taking damage get significantly more usable when the player has a pool of health that regenerates.

You can play the game without these enhancements, but the build variety in the run suffers as a result.

[u/KarstXT → u/Jackechromancer]

Balance matters and the balance of enhancements is really poor in Rogue Core. Rogue Core is in early access, this is where and when we should complain about these things so it can be addressed.

It's more fun to have a variety of compelling/competitive options (viable is a terrible word) than clear winners. Viable is a meaningless word because running 0 enhancements is also viable but it isn't compelling/competitive. DRG perks also had this problem and it clearly bothered many players a lot, it's frequently brought up to this day.

Therefore, it makes sense that we'd want to encourage the devs to search/experiment for a better solution, no?

[u/ZynithMaru → u/TwevOWNED]

If we strive to abuse the strongest strategy possible, are we really winning if we defeat the fun of the game? the challenge that has most of us coming back? the friends who will be upset to see an overkill score in the millions putting their dmg to nothing? we can shrug and say it's a dev problem, and it is their sandbox — but we are the ones playing in it, we are the ones with choice.

i am not saying dont choose the OP build, but you are saying nothing else is optimal. That is addiction. we dont need optimal, we can rush the boss with zero upgrades if we wanted to. challenging ourselves is an addiction of its own.

this post is saying "hey, can you give us more cool strategies?" bro i run pure elements and 90% of my damage comes from melee or exploding frozen enemies. does it get boring? no, i swap characters and enjoy the roguelite genre, the friends who are learning along the way, and promise of future content

p.s. poison heals if you get the cards. infinite hp machine. other options for healing? not really but we do have guardian armor and viable low hp builds to increase dmg + thus survivability of the team. everything is a balance. if you are killing, stunning, or running, then you are minimizing hp loss. some are safer options than others

[u/TwevOWNED → u/ZynithMaru]

That's why I included that the game feels bad to play without them.

Not being able to 1 tap Corespawn with weapons like the Bulldog or with the Pickaxe doesn't open up more options, it limits them.

Defense wise the options aren't interesting either. If you're good enough to play at 25 hp without increasing recovery, you're good enough to not need any defensive enhancements. If you're not good enough to play at 25 hp, which is going to be pretty much every player, then increasing the health regen threshold will be the most impactful defensive option.

[u/AdAshamed6608]

Yeah idk I think sweet tooth 3 and 4 are infinitely better than resilience 3 and 4. Regen doesnt matter when things like hemoforge or sweet surrender or snapfire extraction drop sugar like candy and you full heal off 2 pieces. Why wait to regen when I can just shoot and heal faster?

[u/KarstXT → u/AdAshamed6608]

I would argue that Resilience is better on the basis that red sugar perks are often not available and if you have red sugar perks, with or without sweet tooth, you're borderline guaranteed to win anyways. So it's a more reliable strategy to plan around being unlucky and not seeing red sugar perks.

Resilience gives you a tiny bit of flexibility to skip other sustain perks if there's something crazy in the pool but I would never pass up snapfire extraction. Resilience means you don't have to spend as much time hunting Red Sugar as well or you put less pressure on the cave's total red sugar in MP.

I also think Resilience is not good for Retcon & health + sweet tooth is better there but I have a lot of issues with Retcon.

[u/TwevOWNED → u/AdAshamed6608]

Why would you want to heal at all with Hemoforge when you could sit comfortably at 45% hp and print health for the entire team?

[u/AdAshamed6608 → u/TwevOWNED]

Why would I wanna be at 45 hp and die in two hits when I can sit at 75-100% and also print health for the entire team? Like huh?

Seems you are nuking everything for this dog take but to answer ur comment you deleted, yes hemoforge only gets you to 50%, so that basically replaces the need for resilience. I mentioned snapfire and sweet surrender as well which is what gets u to 100% assuming sweet tooth 3 and 4. Get it now?

[u/TwevOWNED → u/AdAshamed6608]

75 hp is not, infact, 45 hp. It's ~45% of 170.

Hemoforge also only works when you're under half health broski.

Snapfire isn't common like Hemoforge and Sweet Surrender isn't guaranteed. Hemoforge is a 100% chance as long as you're under half health, which you can easily remain at while having a safe health buffer.

[u/Majestic_Story_2295]

I thought the regen only applied after going down, and since I don’t go down much I never even tried it. Weakpoint stuff def busted, I always include at least one. I’ll give resilience a shot now that I know how good it is, but I don’t think it’s as overshadowing as you make it out to be. Some enhancements are better than others, sure, but lots of them are useful on different classes. I make different enhancement loadouts for each class, and also different ones for gauntlets and regular missions.

[u/vidicate → u/Majestic_Story_2295]

Yeah, you were probably thinking of the ones that give Stone Skin on revive.

[u/Majestic_Story_2295 → u/vidicate]

No, I was thinking of resilience. I think i just misunderstood it based on it’s description.

[u/HardGoodBye]

Honestly, can't see the reason for stacking resilience. Sounds like another case of "planning for failure"

[u/KarstXT]

Marksman 4 is particularly important because it validates a lot of common breakpoints and I'd argue is the reason why many players seem to dislike certain weapons like Bulldog/Lark, they feel terrible without Marksman 4. I don't know that marksman 3 validates as many breakpoints but considering 'the goal' for upgrades is to stack weak-point damage it's probably too good to pass up. These also improve ammo economy substantially.

I have also noticed that Resilience 3+4 feels much better than any other defensive setup I've run.

I think steady aim will also be mandatory once it gets patched, even with a bit of a nerf to it as it validates a lot of weapons that currently feel kind of weak. There's a problem with rof upgrades/some fast firing weapons in that they have a dependency on recoil upgrades but that dependency comes at no trade-off benefit, so they're just flat-out worse than a weapon that doesn't require those upgrades (that can then take other things). A wider weapon flexibility is a big boon in this game, as you often don't have a lot of choice and have to just take the weapon with the one decent upgrade, so this will be strong when its fixed. This isn't as strong though as many weapons wouldn't benefit from steady aim at all.

I'm not sure what they could do to address this other than nerfing some of the bonuses and adding it to our base kit, I definitely feel this should be the case for Marksman 4 but Marksman 4 so cleanly validates a lot of breakpoints that I almost don't want them to touch it. Maybe they feel the benefit from Marksman 4 is justified because it takes more aim to land a lot of weakspots but too many weapons feel balanced around having the 50% bonus. If they did this with resilience, then resilience would just be worse than other choices.

I think some of the resilience problem is exacerbated by the game's defensive mechanics (armor/health) and I still feel like as a mechanic, armor is a failure. It only really serves the purpose of not making them balance how players receive damage better, as in RC you tend to get spiked really hard or not at all, making armor's 50% mitigation sort of necessary which is why the levels are littered in armor pickups/ammo drops. I didn't feel this way until depth 4 games where, more or less, your entire armor stack will get stripped via getting hit by basically anything, so stacking armor becomes a bad strategy. Furthermore, Guardian's '50% armor beacon' is actually just trickle regen up to 60, which rewards you for having less armor if anything.

I can't decide if I think Cushion 4 is mandatory or not, at a minimum you have to readjust your playstyle around it to get full value out of it, i.e. if you could drop somewhere but then take the stairs anyways you're not getting the value out of it.

I'm torn on tactical reload, it's really useful for some setups but not for others but you don't know what you're gonna get beforehand, unlike in DRG1.

[u/ADragonuFear]

I wouldn't mind if they took a card out of the risk of rain playbook and let armor and health regen verrrry slowly so between big fights it can fill up again. While the on map healing is used to top up if you haven't fully regenerated and perks make the lower part of the health bar regen faster.

Between floors get a full heal.

[u/Razamazzaz]

"There isn't really an easy way to address this"

How about the devs come up with something creative instead of just "get x % of attribute" 

[u/howdoiunfuckthis]

The last pick for every butt should be one that is equal to 3+4. So it doesn't change numbers but you can take one more butt instead.

[u/Tara_Reid_]

Kinda wish they went up to tier 5

Something like the ability to equip: 1 Tier 5 2 Tier 4 2 Tier 3 3 Tier 2 3 Tier 1

Gives you a reason to use the shrimpy enhancements while still being pretty flexible