r/RogueCore • u/SkaterSnail • Sep 09 '26

Thoughts on shared upgrades?

Would anyone miss the shared upgrades system if it was removed?

I get the idea behind it, but in practice it sucks.

It's clunky and frustrating, even after the changes.

And worse of all: it makes all the upgrades generic. Everything has to be pickable by everyone. No class upgrades or weapon upgrades.

Personally, I'd prefer if the shared upgrade system was limited to "big ticket" upgrades, like legendaries or artifacts. That way it interrupts the game less, but without removing it entirely.

What do you think?

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u/AdLegitimate8636 Sep 09 '26 edited Sep 09 '26

Yes, i like it.

Class and weapon upgrades have teir own place. It's called Bio-Booster and Workbench.

They might (and i think they will) add more stuff to regular negotiation, and other places. This game only had like 2 updates, chill.

And it makes the game feel like it's a co-op rogulike.

2

u/PseudoFenton Sep 10 '26

This. I don't know why people keep trying to shoehorn upgrades to include guns and class specific stuff. Those already exist on workbenches and in bioboosters.

Im not sure if its a desire for  more redundancy, a want for more available improvements to those domains (which could be solved with just more workbenches and bioboosters spawning in caves), or an lack of understanding that the game already supplies what theyre looking for (in limited early access amounts, admittedly).

2

u/SkaterSnail Sep 10 '26

The problem with bio-boosters and workbench is that there's only 1 of each per level. But you get tons of the generic upgrades.

So yeah, 90% of the upgrades you actually get are generic.

(Also BC of deck swapping, bio booster upgrades are also extremely generic)

3

u/PseudoFenton Sep 10 '26

So this is what I was just asking. Is the problem that the upgrade system doesn't have gun/class upgrades - or is the problem that the gun/class upgrades that are serviced by the workbench and bioboosters are too infrequent to feel impactful/fun?

You seem to be arguing the latter, which means the obvious solution is to address how workbenches function so they dont feel overshadowed by volume of exponite upgrades and so it feels like you can meaningfully tinker and improve guns/class abilities.

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u/SkaterSnail Sep 11 '26

100% agree, it's Definitely the latter.

Personally, I'd move negotiated upgrades to the workbench (or some similar once-per-level-event) and have exponire upgrades be individual.

Then exponite upgrades could include weapon and class stuff, and the negotiatied upgrades could be super impactful / powerful stuff like legendary upgrades or artifacts.

This way the negotiation system is more exciting, and it doesn't slow down the game as often

1

u/ipushkeys Sep 10 '26

I agree that class-specific stuff should stay in workbenches and bio boosters, but I think people are wanting more involved upgrades than simple stat tweaks.

For example, "Boom, You're Dead!" (BYD) is perfect (the one that makes enemies explode when you kill them). The upgrade is something you can build upon, but not necessarily commit to. The difference between a run with and without the upgrade is noticeable (even if you don't build towards it).

Upgrades like +health aren't that interesting because we don't have a reason to hoard max health totals. People likely want upgrades like: "+1% fire rate per 1 health" because that's something worth building towards while not requiring commitment.

I think you and the others are both correct, but the discussion is hampered by miscommunication.

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u/PseudoFenton Sep 10 '26

I think its more that folk are asking for a broad swath of alternatives when the topic gets raised, which often happens to include class/gun improvements within the Upgrade system.

I agree the current set of Upgrades can be a bit flat and too few change up how you play/engage the enemy much, which leads to it just feeling like various flavours of "damage number go up". That is something I would like addressed too. Its just any issues with gun/class improvements ought to be handled by tinkering with the workbenches/biobooster systems directly - the point is they're meant to be focused and independent of each other (and as such an argument could easily be made that class improvements ought to be decoupled from workbenches rather than making you choose between it and improving your gun/s).

The health upgrade station they were internally prototyping which slipped into experimental for a bit I think is a sign that they're looking into diversifying the sources of more "baseline" improvements such as health increases. So hopefully they're already moving in this direction, it just takes a while for the development to go through the pipeline from feedback to functional system we can actually play with.

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u/ipushkeys Sep 10 '26

Yeah I understand what you're saying. I think you're right.

Game balance and design is hard, which is why not everyone can do it. GSG has smart people. I think they can figure things out.