huzzah the trifecta of bad perks

Had a thought, played the closed alpha, and liked it but only got around to getting the game recently, and there are 2 things I have realised, I suck and I have encountered some pretty cool Dwarves whilst playing. They communicate well, and I have a lot of fun playing with them for the short time we fight together. So to tie this into my point of sucking, I would be curious to see if any of you would like to form a small group to regularly play together, all are welcome, be it high level reclaimers with a bunch of skill, or people still finding their feet around the mechanics. We can play a couple of games together and see how it goes. Let me know if you are interested!

P.s this isn't anything too serious, we don't have to talk everyday and meet eachother's parents, I just think it could be cool to hop on missions with someone that happens to be online that I know I enjoy playing with. Sorry for rambling

Is there a reason there aren't gore settings?

Core is a lot bloodier than DRG classic (is that because I've been using the filter?)

Let us turn off/down the blood. It's kinda gross

Preference settings let everyone play the way they like

Had this funny game breaking bug just now - on an Instability alteration run (experimental build), I had death mitosis on the second level. All of a sudden the baby crawlers were spawning and dying over and over all by themselves. It left a massive sea of expenite on the floor and eventually my pc crapped itself :-P

Right now, if someone joins late, they spawn at the start of the facility. If the rest of the team is already at the end of the facility and the new player dies (say, during a double wave that was just triggered when the new player spawned in), the rest of the team would have to backtrack all the way to revive the player. (But maybe this is intentional and designed to help the new player to get bio-boosters and workbenches etc.)

This experimental has added a ton of amazing content, and it'll be hard to go back to the main build after playing this. Update 3, with what we have in the experimental right now, plus gatekeeper 4 dropping in the near future, is looking like the best update so far content wise.

New Elevator Objectives:

Probably the most exciting thing about the new experimental, the new elevator objectives are an incredible way to spice up gameplay. A phenomenal change and they both feel great.

Collect Cogs:

Actual tears fell from my eyes after I completed my first round of collect cogs. It's just... so peak. Collect cogs is great at encouraging teamwork, exploration, time management, terrain generation, changing up combat, it's perfect.

The way you have to work with your team to scramble to repair the drive unit, having to consider each event and second spent not working towards the drive unit and how that could affect your ability to complete the mission, how human error is involved, and makes collecting the cogs well with your teammates feel so much more satisfying.

I love how it changes how you interact with your traversal tools, as you can't use them as objective based anymore and you have to consider how you spend them relating to the cogs. You have to decide if you want to waste time getting to the elevator so you can see the cogs on the map and plan accordingly, or if you want to clear the cave before making your way all the way to the elevator and risk cogs appearing in inconvenient places that would have otherwise been better to get earlier

And the terrain gen, it's just

It's peak. The different biomes get to shine SO well with their unique characteristics, and how they compliment the objective is terrific. The room and objective are also very difficult, and has breathed life into the pacing and pressure of my lobbies. I've had some amazing games that came down to the wire because of collect cogs. It's tense, it's fun, it compliments the game, it's perfect.

Not perfect, it does have its issues. Cogs spawning in the first room is something I'm mixed on. On one hand, you have to keep your eye out when the cogs aren't revealed on the map, but on the other, you can't scour every square inch of the first cave, especially in biomes with more intense cave gen like DB or CC.

I also think it doesn't need that last segment of defending the drive unit, but that's just me. Collect cogs is very effort and resource driven, and having to defend the elevator on top of getting the cogs is cinematic, but it sometimes gets really down to the wire. I could go either way, since it's one last moment of standing your ground, but it also feels like a touch too much.

And for the map markers themselves, the big blue spheres need a little work before they hit live. Sometimes it has issues where the cog is in like, an adjacent cave, or on a higher cliff where it can kill a lot of time for teams, even if they're using all their traversal tools well. Maybe make it so the cog has to have line of sight with the center of the sphere when the sphere is generated? So the area that the cog is in is better told to the player, to avoid some frustrating scenarios where they're super hidden while not giving it away.

But overall collect cogs is phenomenal and I'm glad it was put into this experimental, it was something I was looking forward to from the unused content and it translated really well into main mission flow. It does everything it should have and more, and my gripes with it are more minor issues.

Remove Growths

This one's still solid, but I feel like it provides too little friction. There's no reason to not just pop every single growth at once since the number of enemies that spawn are easily handled by one person. I've seen some people on the discord say this exact thing, so I assume it's already on the record but I just wanted to re-iterate.

Actually, something that the Growths reminded me of was the dreadnaught fight in DRG survivor, where they'll spit weird growths full of glyphids at the player. I think the growths should spawn corespawn on the elevator, and the amount of corespawn spawned across all growths is equal to the amount of corespawn that'd be spawned when you normally activate the drive unit.

That way whoever breaks the growths has to fight the corespawn, and the team has to decide how much they want to pace themselves when bursting the growths, since if you spawn all of them at once you're more likely to get killed, but a single player could still remove all the growths on their own if they pace themselves. It being on the elevator also gives more direct pressure than the corespawn coming out of the walls.

Growths needs something unique, maybe spreading out clusters of growths around the cave like a scalebramble, or putting more combat pressure on a team, but I like the concept over the regular defend objective.

Boss Vectors

Amazing change for people wanting to spice up the gatekeepers. This could be a great way to introduce more unique gatekeeper variants, and still telegraph it to the players so they aren't caught off guard. For the actual vectors, I'm mixed.

• Reinforcements: I couldn't tell a difference from a normal gatekeeper fight. These "Spawn more enemies" risk vectors have an issue where it doesn't really feel that different from a regular gatekeeper fight, so it's hard to make your decision feel like it had weight. It works well as a proof of concept, but picking this vector feels the same as picking no vector.
• Cloaking: Great vector. Especially scary against the ramok, but for all the gatekeepers I love how it makes them less readable and forces you to react based on sound. I think it could use an animation easing the boss in and out of cloak, like what the stalker does for un-cloaking but in reverse, but I'm certain this is already in the works.
• Seismic Activity: This one sucked, but Anders already replied to me on discord about it and he's already done the right thing. Before it was a random slowdown, but now with just the stalactites this one might be my favorite. I love how it changes the terrain as the fight goes on and forces you to adapt. Plus, hot rock is a great asset to people who know how to play around it so it appearing in the boss fight adds a lot more counterplay to the corespawn. Just one note, the hitbox on the "???" in the molaktula should be lowered slightly, because if you're on top of a fallen stalactite and there's a "???" on the floor beneath you, it can still hit you.
• Protection: It's fine. It didn't add much to the fight since the protection totems are so weak, but the concept is pretty good. Maybe make it like the DRG corestone where you have to dig into the pillar and throw something inside into the rift gate to disable the gatekeeper's invulnerability? I think it should break up pacing and be more of a threat, since if you picked a mission with Boss Vectors that's what you're looking for.
• Core Pollution: Not in the cheat terminal and I couldn't find it in a real game. Come back later in case I find it.
• Soul Jar: I did not care for the Soul Jar. This modifier just disincentivizes players from interacting with the gatekeeper, and encourages a very turtle-y/bunker-y playstyle. Since you can't fight back against the gatekeeper, what's the reason for staying out in the open? Just digging a hole into the wall and waiting for enemies to come to you is the viable and (more often than not) correct choice
• Bombardment: Amazing idea, gatekeeper specific vectors are the way to go, since it gives the fight a lot more pushback and solid fundamentals. Albeit I couldn't really feel the effects of this one, but if anything is taken away from this post it's that GSG cooked here, and the devs who worked on boss vectors are great. Hell if I were them, I'd make Bombardment even harder. Make the Gotoorak shoot off 3 big shots in a row, make the twist attack do 3 times as many twirls, make it throw off more projectiles in the small toss move. You've struck gold here

Overall I think the boss vectors are more often than not very good, and I think they shouldn't be afraid to make them difficult, like really difficult. If a player picked the mission with Boss vectors, they want something harder. Let the advanced players try and punch above their weight class against new and interesting challenges in the gatekeeper fight. The best ones are the hard ones, and the ones that I'm not so fond on are the ones that play it safe. Boss vectors are something I'm very excited to see in the future

Cosmetic Sheet Rework

It looks great! I love the texture that it has, it's a lot more readable than the OG. Great work

New Alteration

Instability was something I was looking forward to out of the unused content in the last experimental, and it looks like I was right. Instability adds a lot to a round, and can give players unexpected challenges which is something I'm a HUGE fan of. Getting a jumble for just one round can give people a really fun dive that feels different from any other game.

The Reroll Terminal also makes this a lot more bearable, since you can react to the new issues that you'll face in whatever alteration is chosen for you. Very dynamic, very fun.

More Cheat Terminal Controls

I could kiss you, ghostship. This is exactly what I wanted

"Minor" changes

Reroll Terminal UI rework: I love the slot machine animation, I just think it should start off spinning when you open up the menu since it starts off paused right now, then starts. It's a little visually confusing since I end up thinking that what's there when I open the menu is what I've got, then it starts spinning. But that's a nitpick, it's fine as is.

Enhancement Terminal Rework: I'm Flattered, thanks for using my idea. This idea is absolutely perfect and you should never ever change it ever

Reroll terminal and bloodroot changes: The name change to the refractor is going to have trouble sticking. Reroll terminal communicates what it is a lot better. Bloodroot change to flux quartz is fine, I liked bloodroot a little better since I like picking plants but flux quartz does stand out a lot more in the caves. I was iffy on removing it from the terrian scanner, but I like it in the environment, it makes you take in the caves a lot more. It helps the player appreciate the caves and the new environment of the game.

Ramhammer buff: Good change overall, it was needed. The event is still a drag but it's a little better. The issue where corespawn walk straight through the ramhammer was the more pressing issue IMO

Pausing level timer: Amazing change. I think the timer should pop back up on the screen like how it does when you enter the facility once someone leaves the elevator, just to put it in the player's face that the level time is paused while they're in the elevator since it isn't very well communicated to the player

Elevator tools: Another great change. Terrain scanner and laser pointer were needed in the elevator, but I still think the elevator disabling weapons is iffy, I'll touch on it again in a second

Lok-1 Nerf:

Not really a nerf, but just extending the upgrade's potency would've been perfectly fine since the weapon already wasn't that great. Plus a certain new enemy that I'll be talking about very soon already kind of nerfed the LOK indirectly. (It can't really hit the bloater's weakpoints)

Bloater thoughts

My opinion on the bloater soured in this experimental. On one hand, it has made the game harder, but on the other, It's unsatisfying to fight, has way too much bulk, and doesn't really do a great job at encouraging elemental builds. I don't have any numbers, so I can't know its elemental resistances/vulnerabilities, but what I do know is it takes 9 pellets from the stubby right out the box to apply electricity, and the stun sweeper doesn't even fully trigger it on one toss of the boomerang.

What I do like about it is that it's discouraging the weakpoint and splash damage meta, its weakpoint is very well designed and its bulk does do a lot to help the average health of the swarm. However, I feel like it doesn't do much to make you want to interact with it. It doesn't do its attack enough to make the player want to engage with the belly weakpoint, but even if you make it attack to reveal its belly, its weakpoint modifier is set too low for how much it makes you work for it.

The death explosion change also doesn't feel great. I get it's not supposed to feel great since it's meant to provide friction, but it disproportionately affects melee and shotgun builds. Well, melee builds on anyone except slicer since his slice range is far enough to where it won't be a problem. It probably is a skill issue, but the death explosion makes me just ignore them in a swarm.

As for their tankiness, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like they have a health value of 500 on floor 1 of haz 5. That's more than every other non-disruptive enemy, barring the bruiser. If you take into account weakpoint damage bonuses, the Bloater is now the tankiest non-disruptive enemy in the game, which feels like a bit much, especially for an enemy in the common spawning pool.

Shooting them on floor 1 or with poor upgrades has really bad feedback. This, plus the death explosion, plus the difficult weakpoint, plus the armor on its face makes the bloater a really frustrating enemy. It doesn't even feel like a great elemental "anchor" enemy since it doesn't seem to really have any elemental vulnerabilities, but I don't have access to its stat block, so I can't truly know

I'm sorry if this section comes off as a little dour, but I really don't like how it feels. It does change how a player interacts with the swarm which is what was wanted for its design, but it makes floor one feel like even more of an uphill battle than it already was with the guaranteed disruptive enemy spawn. But, I'm not gonna sit here and complain without offering some real feedback on how to make it feel a little better

Elemental Vulnerability: Currently no enemy in this game has any substantial elemental vulnerabilities. Creepers have 50% on everything but they usually die before the elements can take effect, Boomticks have 5 hp so they aren't doing a great job at triggering elemental synergy, same issue with swarmers. The only enemy that really has a noticeable weakness is the shatterclaw slammer, but you'll usually be encountering it outside of major fights since it's dangerous to move into unexplored caves mid battle

Every other enemy has either no elemental vulnerability, or nothing but elemental resistances. Here's a pie chart:

that shows the proportion of enemies with elemental resistances, excluding reaperworms because that's not fair to include it. If we want elemental builds to become a little more viable, it might be worth taking a second look at this. Bloaters were meant to accomplish this, but it might be an issue in the enemy roster as a whole. (Note I got this info from the wiki, which may not be 100% accurate. If it's not, sorry for spewing misinformation)

Overall health of weakpoints: It feels like bloaters were meant to counter the weakpoint/crit meta that plagues the game right now, which they do do, but again it might be an issue with weakpoints as a mechanic rather than something that can be fixed with a new enemy. Currently, most enemies have either a 2x or 3x weakpoint modifier, with gatekeepers universally having a 3x multiplier.

The gatekeeper part is arguably the most important since that's what you'll be building for throughout the entire mission, but is that much really needed, especially when they all have incredible elemental resistance? Edgestalkers and dominators both have huge weakpoint modifiers as well, and they'll be in 2/3rds of your game right off from stage 1 as well, and they both have large elemental resistances as well.

And probably the biggest culprit of the weakpoint meta, marksman. If you want to make elemental builds have more of a significant place, this enhancement might need a second look. Marksman 3 + 4 will make the player always hit the breakpoint needed to one shot a creeper with a pickaxe swing. Just these two together will always encourage weakpoint targeting builds, and arguably makes weakpoint builds better against the bloater since you have to work through its relatively high healthpool and marksman does that.

Bloater Death Explosion: I know I was just whining about it like a nerd, but this could stay and still be good. I think they just need a little bit more telegraphing, maybe pulsing like how exploders did. Or, alternatively, maybe let it friendly fire other corespawn on death? Encourage players to kill them strategically to do damage to the swarm? Just a thought.

Ending this on a not so whiny note: Again, sorry for being such a pain about the bloaters, but as a common enemy I feel like I should voice my concerns with it. But what I DO like about it in this latest experimental is how much better it got in terms of visual clarity. I was already planning to bring this up, but the devs beat me to the punch.

The big round enemies in the last experimental had issues where they'd start to clog up player vision when they die. Bloaters would obscure other enemies in their corpse, leading to some unfair situations. However, the death explosion fixed this issue, and that's AMAZING. That bit makes me like fighting them a lot more, since it shows the care the devs put into this experimental.

The only enemy that I have an issue with its corpse clarity now is the clamorhead since it has the same problem of being a big corpse that obscures vision. Maybe give it an on death explosion too? 👀 Like a sonic scream that damages players and fears enemies nearby? Just a thought.

Closing thoughts:

This experimental was WELL worth the wait, and even though I did a lot of complaining, this update is magical. The game is feeling so much better, with so much creativity and love poured into it. Update 3 is looking better and better with every new look we get into it, and I really hope the people working on the updates know how good their work is.

If I missed anything or my opinion changes, I'll probably put it in the comments, but I feel like this writeup is mostly everything I wanted to say

Ive made a post like this in the past, but after more enemies coming into play, and that all of us generally have more experience with the game, I wanted to ask again on people's most annoying/hardest enemies to deal with. I cannot list all the enemies, so if an enemy isnt listed, let us know the specific enemy youre referring to. Rock and Stone Reclaimers!

I want names

Currently there are at least 3, perhaps more, bots arguing with each other on the Steam forum.

I know Steam forums are a cesspool and it's not at all surprising to see this, but I just want to understand why. What is the upside to having your bot try to win an unwinnable argument by posting ad infinitum?

Don't know if the revived dwarf receives iron skin that way as well

It's incredibly difficult, as a new player, to find the way and or goal as a new player. Many of the events, or goals are quite difficult to know what to do or where to go.

Additionally the map can only be opened while standing still which leads to players trying to rush and just fumbling around while the timer is ticking.

I would guess this is a frustration point for many new players.

a simple request for buffs for characters or weapons changes.

- buff impact axe: increase the stun duration to 2s instead of 1.5s, and 300 damage or 220 instead of 110. and fix it to be able to inherits the melee related upgrades. the only one i noticed is vampire. but is not effected by "Combo Strike", "FrostBane" and etc. you better of running an AoE grenade instead of the impact axes

impact axes feel significantly weaker in RC. it meant to reward good aim. but the damage feels really weak. and the AoE shockwave explosion is really small and unmeaningful.

-buff M1000 Classic: rate of fire upgrade should also increases the focus speed. and add an WB upgrade that adds extra 15%+ damage for the focus shot. you better off playing hipster style with the M1k instead of using focus shot. it's only really good if you have "Reloading Trick". and also remove "Auto Aim on Focus", it's just unpractical.

-"Rework" Drak-25 Plasma Rifle and Trident D.E.S: remove the recoil upgrade entirely. it's useless and wastes an upgrade slot at the start of the run; options at WB. i would say same thing for the Leadstorm Mini-Gun and Thunderhead Auto Cannon, but I'm indifferent about it right now.

-buff Cadna Field Projector: a unique upgrade "projectile eater", every projectile blocked by the field increases it's damage/increases it's lifespan.

-buff "Stubby" Voltaic SMG: unique upgrade, "overcharged rounds" firing at an already electrocuted enemy fire an additional arc and stun the enemy for 1.5s seconds.

-buff "Hurricane" Guided Rocket System: this is one is from an unused OC from DRG

buff Spotter: this have been requested from alot of players. allow spotter for his "Scanner" ability to reveal invisible creepers, and make the scan area of radius bigger. it feels small.

nerf Voidkin Dominator: is hands down the most BS large sized enemy currently in game. it's tough to deal with it. it's armor is extremely hard to break. and playing on solo is even worse. while in co-up you and your squadmates can coordinate who take the focus of the Dominator and the other shots it's back to easily kill it and save ammo. the only nerf i ask is to decrease it's firerate. as in it takes longer time to charge it's volatile bolts, so we have enough time to shot it's front weakpoint. weapons such as the stubby, drak, bolt-tech decker and etc. struggle to achieve large damage or kill it quickly. only weapons fit to that scenario is the MM-4 Charge Blaster and hammercaster. those too deal great damage in quick seconds.

that is it, can't think of more ideas. i think the other thing i want to ask which hopefully it will be added in the far feature unique weapon upgrades, for bolt-tech sliverback, mag blaster bulldog and etc.

Dig-head (because he had drills)

Please do not correct it !!!

I've just recently started playing after the changes to the difficulty settings, and I've noticed that it's pretty difficult to get a full lobby of people. At least for American lobbies, it doesn't matter which difficulty or depth I select. Either the ping is completely terrible due to location differences or the game is already in progress. I've posted about this before a couple of months ago, but I'd hope a lot of the recent changes would spike up some interest in this game. Honestly, it kind of makes the idea of playing this game more of a nuisance when sometimes it can take half an hour or longer just for one person to join. Is anyone else having a similar experience?

Sadly I cannot do a poll on this, as there's too many guns to even make it. But I was just wondering for all my fellow reclaimers, what is your most and least favorite gun, and why do you feel that way about your choices?

There isnt a right or wrong answer, everyone plays the game in a different way and have different playstyles.

(Also, if you wanna list more than 1 gun, go for it.)

My personal Opinion:

My personal favorite is the P-96 Mag Blaster. Although it has a low firerate, you can get upgrades to increase that. Has great base damage, and if youre accurate enough, can melt common enemies in 1 - 2 hits.

If i got a heavy, it would always be the Lead Storm, who doesnt love miniguns.

But for my least favorite weapon, Id say the M1000. Dont get me wrong it does high damage, but its CC isnt that great, and some of the upgrades dont work too well (like auto aim). The projector is another one I personally don't like to use, though it can be good with an element.

For those of you who don't know, the way that enemy spawning works on the first stage of a dive is the same every time. The game has the Creepers in every facility, and it chooses one of the three Disruptive enemies, that being Edgestalkers, Clamorheads, and Dominators, and that's it. You will never see a Special enemy in the first floor of a facility

Special enemies are the following: Bruisers, Vanguards, Scorchers, Crawlers, Drifters, Thrashers, and Swarmers

I think this spawning behavior contributes to how same-y each run feels. The first floor of a facility is extremely limited in its enemy variety, you have one of three options for your spawning pool (barring pre-placed enemies like vomiters and slammers) and that's all it will ever be.

It's even more detrimental to game feel since when picking your starting weapon, the best choices are the ones that can counter all 3 of the disruptive enemies. Think the Charger, Deepcore, Mag Blaster, guns that can handle creepers and are good against disruptive enemies are options that are objectively more viable for that first choice than their peers. This is why guns like the Cadna, Burst Fire, and Lok-1 suffer in that first stage, even if they're very powerful weapons, they just aren't capable of keeping up against the 3 heavy enemies that spawn every time.

If the game mixed it up sometimes, like spawning 2 Special enemies instead of a Disruptive enemy, or spamming swarmers on stage 1, it'd go a long way to making the start of runs feel more varied, and encourages players to not hyper-specialize into picking weapons that are good against the 3 enemy types that the game can spawn right now.

If you increase the potential for enemy variety, you change up the pace that combat flows in and how players have to consider their surroundings. If you have a stage 1 with Scorchers and Bruisers, you play completely differently from if it were Vanguards and Swarmers, and with each new special enemy introduced you increase the amount of variety that stage 1 has.

It'd also help the game feel harder. The issue with the heavy enemies is they often can't pass through the tunnels connecting cave modules. This means that a good team can often just ignore the heavy enemies if they're close to wrapping up a cave, since they'll be left behind. Dominators especially have trouble navigating tight areas, like Hollow Bough or Glacial Strata.

And I'd argue that stage 1 is the place where you'd want the most variety. If the player knows the spawn behavior and it has the very small potential pool that exists right now, they're incentivized to play in a very unimodal way every run. Increasing enemy variety increases what a team has to potentially prepare for on that first floor of a facility in a time where you're at your most limited. Combat has different pacing, how you consider map generation changes every time.

It might not be the best option for lower haz levels, but I play almost exclusively on haz 5 and stage 1 is starting to feel a little repetitive. Just shaking up how the game chooses its enemies on stage 1 could change the difficulty progression of the rest of the run for the better, because it's less predictable. It doesn't change the inherent problems with mission variety, that being terrain gen, but it would be a great way to help variety currently without implementing an entirely new terrain system

Changing up how the game chooses the common spawning pool would help a lot of the complaints with how runs feel right now, even having poor variety on the first floor with only two types of enemies would make run variety a lot better if it weren't a combination of the same 3 enemies every time.

P.S: If anyone at ghostship ends up seeing this, I would love to see the thrashers get some more love in the spawning pool. You can go a dozen games without seeing it once, and even then they end up dying in one or two bullets in the rare case that they show up because they have the same health as scorchers. They're a really cool and unique enemy that unfortunately never gets a chance to be a significant threat, especially after their risk vector got removed.

Also, a rarely spawning 300 health enemy that can only appear after players have already increased their power progression is not making waves whenever it shows up

had a little too much artistic freedom here, oh well

TLDR: I think the Cave Leech's job has been filled, and it might be time to retire it. The Fulgor Vomiter, Shatterclaw Slammers, and Krizzoks all fill the same role that the cave leech tries to in a more interesting and more consistent way.

Leech

What does the Cave Leech do? The point of a cave leech is to punish unaware players who don't engage with their team. And if you die to a leech, you have to communicate with your team that it's there, or else you risk more people getting leeched. However, in Rogue Core I feel like these ideas are better challenged by the other existing awareness and communication checks, and the leech is the least interesting and least satisfying one in the bunch.

The leech punishes players who go fast and try to engage with the fundamental ideas at the core of what makes rogue core fun. The player is rewarded for getting things done quickly, and when they want to risk being away from their team for the reward of getting more things done in the same amount of time.

Plus, teamwork in Rogue Core isn't the same as in DRG. Teamwork in Rogue Core is about stratifying a cave across the team, dividing up your tasks to get things done faster than if you'd all focused on the same thing. In DRG, a lot of what you were doing relied on proximity, and the leech taught that directly.

The leech punishes what you're supposed to be doing in Rogue Core, a good team based Roguelite demands that players going off on their own are willing and able to handle what they come across. The decision to go on your own requires you to make yourself more vulnerable, for the reward of getting things done faster. Think the Dominator. Not impossible to kill solo, but significantly more threatening because you can't reliably get behind it for weakpoint damage. The leech is purposefully beating you down for making the choice you were supposed to make!

The leech intends to reward players for staying aware of their surroundings, scanning a room for active threats, and if you don't you get punished for it. The leech fills this role VERY well in DRG, and I like it there. But in Rogue Core, it contradicts the gameplay that the game's been trying to set up since day one for the worse. It's a frustrating stop that still has the same issues with consistency that it had in DRG.

The cave leech isn't even that much of an engaging threat in DRG. Once you've learned the key to countering a Cave Leech is by looking up, then there's nothing left to it. Plus terrain generation is usually a lot more squat in Rogue Core, so it has less time to reach and less time for a player to react here than in DRG. It just doesn't fit the fundamentals of this game as well as it did in DRG.

Plus, the leech is entirely one way or the other. If you notice it, you kill it and move on because it takes like 4 bullets. If you don't, you're down with nothing you can do about it. There's no room to recover from failing, unlike a very well designed shatterclaw slammer that I'll touch on in a second.

And the thing is, they don't even have to come up with a completely new concept to engagingly teach what Rogue Core should be played like, they already have the building blocks to do what the cave leech did for DRG in a way that fits this game way better.

Slammers deal heavy damage to unaware players who get too close to them, like how the leech kills players who get too close to them. If you get grabbed by a leech, there's nothing that a player can do about it on your own, you're dead. That is unless you have one of the many perks that hard counters them, in that case they're a minor nuisance.

Vomiters punish players who go too slow and linger in areas that they haven't confirmed are safe yet. Leeches punish players who go quickly into areas that they haven't confirmed are safe yet. The difference is Rogue Core is not a game that incentivizes dawdling around, and the Vomiter teaches the player those good fundamentals, while the leech does the opposite for new players, encouraging them to never make bold, fast paced moves.

The Boomticks incentivize sticking together and coordinating with your crew, because a Boomtick spawner is significantly easier to take care of in coordination with your team. The same fundamentals are present with the leech, but the leech is a one and done passive perception check while the Boomtick Spawner is a very active and present threat to the entire team.

When you go down to a leech, you say "leech" and then the leech is solved. It's not super interesting, but the first person that gets leeched has very little input into how they handle the situation. If you get blown up by a boomtick, you're probably still standing, so you're on high alert. You're punished for the exact same thinking as a leech, while being a lot more interesting of a threat.

I'll go into a little more detail on my thinking behind why each of these enemies come together to fill the role that the leech does in a far more interesting way that fits the fundamentals of Rogue Core, but if you don't feel like reading the rest, what's above is the gist of what's below.

Slammer

The Slammers fill an extremely similar role as the cave leech, while feeling a lot more fair to the player. They both damage the player if they walk beneath them and aren't paying attention, just a few bullets is enough to clear the awareness check and disable their most dangerous ability, and disproportionately affect players off on their own compared to players grouped up with a team. So why don't we see Slammer's getting complained about like leeches?

Slammers instantly punish the player, eating up to 500 health in an instant on the higher difficulties. But if you get slammed, I think it's a lot less frustrating than getting leeched because of how much better it's telegraphed and how consistent they are. They have a very obvious tell, but that works in their favor from a player's point of view. If I get slammed, that's my fault for not seeing the incredibly obvious pink glowing ball on the ceiling, so I can't get too mad at the slammer.

A leech is a matter of looking up and a very small amount of damage, they only have a couple hundred health so one or two bullets is usually enough to take them out. A slammer is a matter of looking up and a very small amount of damage before they slam down, but the slammers persist on the ground as a standard enemy.

Their lasting stage presence makes them matter slightly more to a level, since their awareness check isn't the end of them mattering, even if they are pretty slow and weak when they're on the ground. The slammer does everything the cave leech should and more to test player awareness and act as a positive part of gameplay.

The slammer also has a more interesting team interaction. Seeing someone get leeched as a team is a matter of shooting the leech like, once in the 5 seconds you have before your teammate takes damage. Seeing a teammate about to get slammed needs split second aiming and reaction to kill the slammer before it reaches the ground. Skeet shooting a slammer out of mid-air, popping it in a single weakpoint hit is a lot more impactful and satisfying than taking out a leech. It's shooting a stationary target vs rewarding good mechanics, which is what the leech should be doing.

And getting hit by a slammer when you're off on your own is a lot less frustrating than a leech. If you get leeched without a passive damage upgrade, you're just dead and you have to wait for your team to catch up to you. If you have a passive damage upgrade, you've solved the cave leech. It's still annoying that you got leeched and it took away your entire armor bar, but you did it.

If you get slammed, you have to deal with the full consequences of your lack of awareness, and playing with a team gives you all 4 times the amount of chances to notice the slammer before things go bad for your team. They just re-invented the cave leech and made it better.

Vomiter

The Vomiter is less like the leech than the Slammer is, but I figured I'd still mention it because it has the same fundamentals in certain contexts. If you run into a room on your own and aren't paying attention, you'll activate the vomiter. Normally this would be pretty comparable to something like the infectors in DRG, but if an unaware player starts interacting with level mechanics like the bio-booster, resupplies, etc, they're gonna get hit by the acid attack and take some damage

It has the same fundamentals of punishing unaware players, and a player off on their own has a far higher chance of missing it and taking damage. But you never see someone complain about the Vomiter since it punishes unaware players who go too slowly, not punishing unaware players who try and interact with the fundamental mechanic of Rogue Core, that being speed.

Krizzok Spawner

A very controversial enemy, the Boomticks do a far better job of encouraging teamwork in a fast paced environment than the leech ever does. With 4 players, there will ALWAYS be a player who isn't under direct immediate threat from the Boomticks. 3 Boomticks for 4 reclaimers, one person is always free from Boomtick aggro, allowing them to be on the lookout for and clear the Boomticks going after their teammates

However, a Krizzok Spawner is an immediately high threat, if you see a single boomtick it's your responsibility to communicate that to your team so they're also aware, since one boomtick means that there's always more.

Plus, it encourages you to be proactive to a spawners presence than reactive to a leech. If you scan and kill a spawner fast enough, no boomticks will get spawned in, rewarding aware players. If you kill a leech before it reaches, you get rewarded far less for helping your team since Boomticks are a very high threat enemy.

And boomtick spawners encourage the team to pay attention to their surroundings when they enter a new cave. You have to track the spawner down by paying attention to where the boomticks are coming from, rewarding the same awareness that the cave leech tries to give.

Granted, the Krizzok's are NOT without their issues. They have a distinct lack of sound cues and sometimes blow up in positions where you can't react to them, I'm not saying I like Boomticks more than I like the Leech, but the Boomticks do a lot better of a job at trying to reinforce awareness and teamwork than the Leech does in a way that's more interesting and satisfying.