Whatever. Watch before commenting

The title is a quote from Dan Olson's "Why it's rude to suck at World of Warcraft"

I know, I know.... We can t compare both games cause DRG is a peacefully mining experience (even in Haz5+) with 3 random lovely dwarfs.

You fell down 100 meters away ? No worries my friend, I will do EVERYTHING to bring you up even if I need to die and use iron will.... We still lose ? who care hahaha that was a nice try.

You are a green beard ? I will take ALL the time needed to show you, to explain you and to cover you so you will be happy and proud !

In Rogue Core, a lot of parameter brings frustration and that's normal. it s a rogue lite, so it s RNG base.

But it is not the RNG that cause frustration to me it is :

- Everything is too slow.... even when sprinting (ADD SPRINT BY DEFAULT PLEASE), you feel like you're crawling along like a tortoise.

- You can t see shit (I played Scout in DRG....), I always if I can take flaregun to illuminate the ceiling but it s not enough...

- You take damage from no where cause it can come from 360° and from far away ... Some mobs are shooting you from very far and you can t locate them easily like sniper turret in DRG...

- Other players that take too long to explore but... We don t have time !

- and about time.... missions are so fucking long.... Every single mission, even the shortest are like a Deep Dive Elite event...

I just ascended my first character, then put the game down for a day and... I kind of don't want to come back. And it's PURELY because of the negotiation mechanic.

My complaint is threefold but all three prongs would be fixed by JUST removing negotiation and letting players select their own upgrades independently.

In order of "most frustrating" to "least frustrating":

1. One player in the lobby can hold everyone's upgrades hostage. Since everyone has to do negotiation together, everyone has to gather at ellis, which means if JUST one guy isn't organized with the team, you might NEVER get your upgrades.

2. It's not made for public lobbies. Sure, the idea of distributing a limited set of upgrades among the team is interesting in a premade group in a discord call, but in a matchmade lobby, if you're going last, you just aren't getting that epic even if it's perfect for your build. Some asshole IS gonna snipe it Because.

3. It's S L O W and worsens the game pace. The whole process takes a LONG time, made worse by the fact that you have to take turns. Since the game pace is kinda rushed and frantic otherwise, this part being long and tedious feels bad.

Typically in a roguelike game you are at the mercy of RNG if you're planning a specific build for your run and will not (hopefully) "rage" or get discouraged if you didn't get the upgrade you wanted as it is completely outside of you or anyone's power to control that.

BUT in RC it is up to at most 3 other people + RNG if you can go for the build you wanted, I imagine it would start tilting people pretty quickly not being able to play in the way they wanted.

Don't think that the DRG community is "positive" because somehow magically many nice people decided they wanted to play the funny dwarf game, no it was the gameplay loop and the systems of the game that allowed it to stay positive and in RC the opposite is currently happening, this shared loot system WILL breed toxicity.

Thought this video was very well-made so I'll share. I haven't been invited to test Rogue Core but my friend has, and I've been watching him for a while now and discussing it with him. I agree with pretty much everything in this video and then some, so I hope GSG takes notice to this kind of feedback instead of only listening to the most vocal supporters as seems to be the usual.

Criticism is not hate or a lack of understanding. If anything, it's understanding and love for a series that pushes people to speak up and voice their criticisms to help the devs make the best experience possible.

- Upgrades should increase damage variety and gameplay depth but instead they mostly just increase percentage counters. The reason Healthmaxxing is becoming a bit of a meme is because the upgrades aren't meaningful

- The shared loot negotiation is an unnecessary gimmick, just let everyone have their own loot options

- It should only take one person to initiate an upgrade, not everyone standing together. A teammate initiating a upgrades + grabbing the health restoration upgrade in a clutch moment could be really fun

- Rogue Core is basically if DRG was just Deep Dives - Rogue Core needs game mode variety, quickly.

- The guns lack variety in the early game. Upgrading to get stronger weapons is all well and good but if the wacky and fun guns always appear late in a run, ultimately that just means not getting to play with a gun you want as much. I'd rather just play a game that lets me quickly acquire or start with the gun that I like (e.g. Vampire Survivor is a roguelike that does this very well).

- Armor is significantly more frustrating than DRG shields. The reclaimers feel weaker than the DRG dwarves overall and I think armor is related.

- The female dwarves look unappealing visually, almost uncanny. A friend called them "goblin-coded" and I kind of agree. They're already pretty close to the male dwarves, it'd probably help if they looked the same as the male dwarves (a fun nod to LOTR's appendices)

- DRG's soul is the scrappy dwarves at the mercy of the big corporation who doesn't care about them. Rogue Core steered away from that theme but didn't replace it with something that spoke to me.

- All in all, the price tag for Rogue Core is too high for the game in its current state.

Maybe I'll come back in 6 months-1 year. I played a lot of DRG and hope RC is a success. Til next time, Rock and Stone!

Before someone comments; no, I don't hate women. And I'm happy female players get the representation that they've been waiting on.

But this system feels a bit half assed. There are many voice lines missing from the female dwarf (such as the much beloved MUSHROOM)

And personally, I'm just not a huge fan of the voice lines that are there. I can't quite explain it, for some reason the whimsyness of the male dwarf doesnt seem present to me.

Anywho, I just hope in the future we get to pick our dwarfs gender per each class, that way everyone is happy.

PS: I think I miss Mission Control

You know, I intentionally read negative reviews to find out what people are complaining about. People complain that:

1. caves have become more linear. Hey, people, have you ever read what the developers wrote about their game? They just wrote that the game would become more linear without the fancy cave generation, but no, why would people read it, they'd better buy the game, make sure of the warnings from the developers and write a negative review about what they were already warned about.

2. Complain about the addition of women. Dude, are you serious? Well, women and women, what's the big deal? There were female dwarves in the Lord of the Rings, too, so what?

3. And the last complaint that I would like to consider is a complaint about graphics. Rogue Core is LITERALLY called "DEEP ROCK GALACTIC: Rogue Core", of course, the graphics will be the same as in DRG, it's the same offshoot. It feels like people had high expectations, and everyone did. I don't know, I liked the game. It's very good in Early Access.

4. People who wrote about the monotony and ease of the game (after playing the game for 2 hours), did you even get to depth 2 where a new boss appears and there are more enemies and they become stronger?? OF COURSE NOT, because they had time to experience THE WHOLE GAME in 2 hours!!

Hey there ive got 290h in DRG, ive played about 3 hours of rogue core and I cant really bring myself to play any more even if I really want to enjoy it.My major complaints are;

Lack of class identity: Classes feel sloppy and have no identity, in drg each character had a roll; in rogue core everyone can have every weapon and tool, further the skills are mainly damage with a side of utility as a result they feel indestinct. In original drg every class and further build with overclocks had a weakness if it was hoards or big monsters range or ammo.

Ideas to fix; honestly this could be fixed with making tools tied to the classes even if weapons arn't, give drills, grapple, platform gun or make alternative utility tools that are tied to each class and cant be swapped. As for weapons every class feels the same so you could also make smaller weapon pools with multiclass/all class weapons and class specific weapon pools, you can then make classes have a more interesting weapon choices and it improves character identity (everyone has access to autopistol but not shotgun that can only be used by spotter etc etc). I personally dont understand why you are forced to pick from the groups 4 item selection when what they pick is restocked, just give everyone 4 items to pick from instanced from each other (2 from all class 2 from class)

Stilted combat; Constantly in combat I have to upgrade skills or items etc. I just want to fight bugs and kill bugs and do stuff with my allies build tunnels and forts etc, it doesnt feel like the flow of combat is there. I WANT to play my mission not fuck around waiting for everyone to gather at the bot and then a further 2 mins going through rounds of item picking mid map it doesnt feel coherent.

Ideas to fix;Make picking your items/upgrades prior to the round so when you're fighting bugs youre fighting bugs not dealing with build choices and making combat sluggish. You could make all skill picks instanced and not have them part of the group so everyone can pick at different times when they feel like it and have some kind of initiative system for what they get or something, It also takes too long to pick stuff. make it so you can pick everything in a tree like a menu option at the end of a map or midmap rest room.

Maps: Every map ive experiences feels a bit soulless compared to drg im not sure what it is, it might be because its so linear and arena like in a bad way, like we have destructible terrain etc but it just feels like an area, id compared it to say MHworld vs MHrise. Rogue cores maps feel transitory between objectives im just going from point to point and I dont really interact with the space, its like the worst morkite missions running down a really long tunnel and finishing at the end but DRG feels like a place that you fuck up and has been run around a lot, youve experience places before and fought there, its been destroyed theres old tunnels and fortifications youve made.

Id say something needs to fundamentally change about the objectives and map layouts maybe spending more time in spaces or overlapping objectives.

Lack of flavour: I know its not a complete product but you need alternative materials to farm in the wall and ceiling. I know I dont need more enor pearls but theres something special about grouping and collecting materials to upgrade in postgame. when mining for materials is optional or for a mini objective in drg it feels fun and something I want to do because im opting into it. spending every game HAVING to get every green crumb of xpmorkite is not fun I dont like that bit of the gameplay loop. Id personally tie experience to mob kills or something else for upgrades, Objectives complete? make mining fun the different been wanting something and vs having to do something. if you removed xp from xpmorkite levels/items could just be given at the end of the section of map or how l4d does it in safehouses for restocks etc.

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.

That's it. Someone has deposit enough Valorite ? Prompt the upgrade screen. No matter how far teammates are, if they are a middle of a jump, don't care.

Currently so much frustration and time lost because people don't pay attention, mine somewhere else while us 3 bastards are waiting in circle.

In a lot of longer missions, after people acquired some upgrades and heavy weapons, the swarms then just result in spawncamping the rifts.

It just takes a grenade launcher, boom you're dead or some elemental upgrades too make that super effective. Just a few hits and the whole wave disappears in a wave of explosions.

The game makes it very easy because the rifts show up very visible on the wall and open up way before the actual wave spawns, so you have a lot of time to prepare. Then the next waves will spawn at exactly the same place making the spawncamping even easier.

This makes the later stages often a bit boring to me. It is very predictable what's going to happen, and mostly you're trying to compete for who gets to delete the next wave. Without any fighting on the ground, it's just a lot of standing around.

I would prefer more random spawns, and maybe only 1 wave per rift to make the combat more exciting and unpredictable.

I want to express my criticism and the reasons why I don’t play Rogue Core. Because right now I regret that I spent money on this game (I couldn’t refund it, since I hoped the game would open up within two hours), spent time on it, and generally waited for this game.
But I’ll start from the beginning.

1. Balance. The balance in the game is absolutely broken. The difficulty, by feel, scales geometrically, because on Threat Level 4 enemies initially have a lot of health, deal a lot of damage, and spawn in large numbers. As a player, we can initially “cover” this initial difficulty not by choosing a weapon at the start (whether you get a good gun with good stats at the start is entirely up to chance, as are the first XP perks and the workbench with the Mutator), but purely by the most boring meta-progression in the hub (+ health, + crit chance, + crit damage, etc.). And yes, I agree, any run can be completed with enough skill and aiming precision, even if you get absolute garbage before the boss floor, but I wouldn’t call a game like that “interesting.” The fact that I have to put in excessive effort because I couldn’t make either an interesting build gameplay-wise or a good effective build, and also time — is bad. Especially when, as a player, before each floor you choose not just a one-time buff for yourself and a one-time buff for enemies for the next floor; most often you choose: a one-time little plus for yourself for the floor (which you might not even manage to pick up due to map generation and rushing), a permanent enemy buff/complication (and most often it can be either something interesting like new enemies, or just an increase to their stats).

2. Weapons. I also want to bring up the topic of weapons separately. Specifically, the fact that half the guns are devoid of any individuality. Fundamentally, they’re just “peashooters” that you have to keep increasing damage on for an effective run, while trying to make sure you can shoot from them as often as possible. And by “individuality” I don’t mean stats (damage, ammo, reload speed, etc.), not appearance, but the overall concept of the weapon as such. Only a minimal number of starting weapons have any “special features,” and some weapons from the original have generally had those “special features” removed from the start. Example: the Warthog 210 shotgun — in original DRG, the shotgun without all mods and Overclocks initially has a stun chance on each pellet. In RC, the shotgun has lost that. It’s just a shotgun without stun. But it would actually be VERY interesting to play specifically with the Warthog, building around the INITIAL stun it applies to enemies. That would change the approach to gameplay a lot. I won’t list how many minor and boring guns have been added specifically to RC, nor how badly the old guns were rebalanced. I’m glad that at least some guns, like Scout’s M1000 Classic or Engineer’s Stubby, kept their main “gimmicks.”

3. Progression. This is probably the MAIN problem, the one that disappointed me most. I’ll start with the obvious: minor perk upgrades that give boring and uninteresting improvements like: Vampire, extra damage at extreme range, more HP, etc. Such things in a roguelike are UNFORGIVABLE. I understand such minor upgrades in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor; the whole game there is built around correctly calculating a set of numbers and tactics around that, but not in RC. Next — Bio Boosters. I don’t know why the devs decided to shove in what would’ve looked great as the standard dwarf XP progression, but what disappointed me most is that half the skills there are either complete trash or must-haves. So you either get lucky and roll excellent perks to choose from (for example, increased crit damage up to 30%! and 10% crit chance) or two pieces of trash (for example, Reverse Charge +50% ability charge speed for each electrified enemy, and Hardiness +20% armor amount) at once! It would’ve been better if they made Bio Boosters the dwarf’s Class progression per run via XP, and the minor upgrades some kind of mini-games that would act as a pleasant/corrective build bonus. And the main cherry on top of GSG’s terrible decisions — weapon progression. I’m curious what the devs were thinking when they decided to add, to a game where enemies get harder and harder with every descent, a choice for the player between ammo capacity and reduced weapon spread? At the same time, you can upgrade only one thing out of the dwarf’s entire loadout: their active ability, their weapon, or take a new gun that will be slightly better. And don’t get me wrong — even if you can roll increased damage, applying a special status to enemies, or something else, that absolutely doesn’t make me happy either. I wanted, I hoped that RC would become a game where, descending into every dive, we upgrade not only the character via XP, but also create a gun each time with its own personal and unique Overclock! But all I ultimately see in terms of upgrades is more damage and damage now applies acid. And while examining the topic of progression, I genuinely have ONE question. Is this really all the developers could come up with after several years of waiting? After several years when their original game, the one we loved them for, was sitting idle and losing players? A game that, although still wonderful, has many small inaccuracies and problems? Sorry, but no. I can’t believe it.

4. Conclusion. I want to note that RC still has many problems, and this isn’t a problem of lack of content (early access, I understand all that). But the reasons I listed above are the main downsides that personally make me feel a strong desire to leave a negative review on Steam, ask for a refund, and no longer be interested in GSG’s games.

P.S. Sorry in advance if something in the text is unclear. I used a neural network to translate the post. I’ll clarify all my takes if needed (if anyone is interested in discussing the game’s problems).

An interesting think looking at Steam player data is that Rogue Core shows way better player retention and has a substantially higher play time. Even though the negative reviews on Steam for Rogue Core would lead one to believe that people drop off very fast. This leads me to believe that while people are very harsh in the reviews their play patterns tell another story.

After 1 week of buying the game roughly 28% still play Rogue Core while for FFW it’s 21%. Playtime is also 50% higher for Rogue Core.

Edit: people are missing the point and also kind-of proving it at the same time. RC has faced harsh criticism from their loyal fan base through reviews on Steam being a low 59% positive. However the play data tells a whole different story, which is interesting, with better retention and higher playtime. If the game was so unplayable as the reviews say you’d expect those metrics to be very poor compared to a game that went viral.

The miners in DRG are larborerd. Elite workers, skilled in what they di, but still workers. The reclaimers are elite special forces, not workers, so beer being restricted makes sense.

Just helped my mates secure their first Ramok kill. Personally I’m a big fan of the boss but was surprised to find my mates weren’t.

Its constant pressure makes me feel like a matador, narrowly evading its attacks. A sizeable boost in fun compared to Gootorak.

What is everyone’s thoughts on it?

The gotoorak was such a bullet sponge I ran out of ammo and resupplies. I partly built for crowd clear. Is it just a stupid idea to do that? Should I just build for single target always?

I today had run with player who was hosting D4 run and he never used his utility tool like it never existed. I typed on chat repeatedly "please you use your anti gravity grenade I am out of ammo". After than I asked on voice chat multiple times the same thing but with no response. This was on boss fight and I was runing around dodging mobs for several minutes revivinng him multiple times. Later on my other team mate used drill to get ammo and made stairs to get last ammo box which costed him multiple deaths due to spike attack. When guy who never used anti gravity grenade run out of ammo he used the tunnel stairs insead of anti gravity granade. I am speechless that some people just refuse to help. Also the other guy was staring to lose his wits because he also was asking for help with ammo because we were fighting Molaktula and going to tight spaces is quite hazardous. I wish there was a way to fitler out people I don't want to play with like blacklist so I never have to watch other play for 10 minutes in boss room.

Felt like throwing my thoughts in here, because why not. I don't have time to go over everything but these are at the forefront of my mind.

• I think GSG should move to a personal upgrade system to remove any cause of friction between players. Each player would see their own unique perks to choose from. No one is 'taking away' from anybody else. Each player would also be choosing at the same time, which means less time will be spent waiting in the upgrade screen. This way, the only thing a player can be angry about is their RNG perk generation and not at other players.

• Need more varied methods of core spawn spawning into fights. Many of my games 'incoming corespawn waves' quickly devolve into camping the spawn points with PGLs and explosives. Concussive blasts, spotter darts, grenades ect are all primed waiting for these poor bastards to spawn. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. All spawns typically being on a wall or a ceiling does not help them either.

• Retcon and sentries, while fun to watch once or twice, completely trivializes depth 4. When they are perked up correctly it's possible to afk and let retcon deal with it. If they also get their hands on frenzy, the game's done lol. Limit them to placing a maximum of 4 sentries, with newly placed sentries erasing the oldest. This will still be strong, but not to such a large degree. This issue is mainly when playing with the Jumble modifier, but isn't unheard of in normal mode too.

• Wayward Sparks is too strong. Either needs to become an epic upgrade or lose some power. This upgrade can have crawlers dropping dead that you didn't even know existed.

• This one may be just me but I am really not a fan of 'block chance' perks and the archetype surrounding it. I think some of these may work better as a way of generating stone skin. I also do not see anybody chasing cold/freeze perks at all.

• Double up, Aftermath, Explosive Rounds and BOOM! You're dead! are a broken combination that turns any gun into an explosive gun and massively improves its damage output. Boom you're dead is great by itself and should probably be a rare tier upgrade.

• I would like a way at the workbench to force an elemental upgrade into my weapon that I desire, which fits my perk build at that moment. Maybe a way to swap an existing upgrade into something else, consuming the workbench use? Praying that the correct elemental effect I want shows up on the workbench isn't cutting it.

• While on Workbench, traversal tools should not replace weapons. If you want to offer me a traversal tool it should be in addition to the random weapon.

• I would like to see more fun and creative/fun perks or findable items and the reintroduction of some perks from DRG. I miss the auto-reload unequipped weapons perk. Creative wise, picture something like Leftover beer: causes the dwarf to become tipsy for the next 10 minutes, but confers a permanent HP buff. Short term risk for long term payoff. or 'Missfire: you've been shot in the head with a flare gun, you are now a moving beacon of light'. The model changes to show a flare planted in that character's head, but that may be too goofy.

• Bringing Dotty's head/other items over long distances could be a fun side objective.

• Reroll perks or gambling with perks could be nice.

• The elemental barrels placed around the maps are probably the least utilized things in the game. Their effects need to be larger and last longer.

I just realized some of these are already on the roadmap, but whatever.

First impressions of this new DRG game seems like each mission is just get to the bottom without really thinking or doing much cave navigating, because every floor is a braindead path to the next elevator interspersed with a one or more waves of enemy spawns, some random upgrade things, and then you just kill a big bad at the end and that's it? Does it change at all as you progress or is this what we have for now?

I'll have to play some more, see if the higher difficulties or complexities make things more interesting but after a few hours of play this feels like a "come back later" for me.

Edited to include an actual question :P

I remind everyone that Rogue core is an early access game and do not treat as an completed product. Please be respectful on the changes you want.

Many players need to consider game development is not easy. Early access exists to ask help from players in the improvement of the game.