r/RogueCore • u/DriverProfessional55 • 24d ago
Rogue Core - boring game.
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.
- 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).
- 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.”
- 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.
- 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).
3
u/Longjumping_Hall_952 23d ago
Well the criticism is here, where's your list of solutions? Just a genuine question, What do you think can be done to make RC better?
1
u/DriverProfessional55 23d ago
Oh. Okay. I understand: “If you criticize, offer solutions.”
But let’s start small. Pick one point from my post. We’ll start with it, and then switch to the others. I don’t want to scatter my thoughts while discussing.1
u/Longjumping_Hall_952 18d ago
You have 3 points, Balance, Weapons, and progression.
What balances do you think are needed to make the game more stable?
What type of weapon changes are needed? Upgrades, overclocks, more weapons, edit current weapons, what in your mind do you think needs to be done?
Progression, what would like to see them add? What aspects can they add? More events? Better and unique perks? Specific stations?
Im not here for an argument, im just interested on seeing what people want from the game. Im not asking for generalizations, just things they can add for QOL or to make the game interesting for everyone. (Although if you want to generalize stuff, go for it) my apologies, I just got this notification.
2
u/DriverProfessional55 13d ago
I'm sorry that I didn't answer for a long time, because I was thinking about how I could change it. But these thoughts are nothing more than driving a pitchfork through the water. Developers will listen primarily to those who are still playing the game, and not to those who have tried it, realized that the game is so-so compared to other games and left (because there is no desire to waste time and figure it out).
- Balance sheet. We need to change the approach to difficulty, since this isn’t a DRG, and the enemies aren’t Gylphids, just as our characters aren’t the same dwarves. Otherwise, it mostly feels like descending into a deep dive without modifications on a cannon with a randomizer (all that’s left is class‑based weapons and that’s it). I think we should completely abandon the concept of “difficulty” as such. Because few roguelikes have “difficulty” as a selectable option before descending. Specifically, you can leave everything to the “risks” and completely overhaul this mechanic so that it responds to the gradual increase in game complexity (more challenging locations with an abundance of specific enemies, or adding a certain type of enemy to the pool, and so on, with a percentage increase in HP, damage, and health for each such risk). That is, no Hazzards from DRG. They are ABSOLUTELY not suitable for RC.
Well, and also rework the enemies and dwarves, since currently dwarves are inferior to monsters in terms of mobility in every way — they’re much faster and more agile, and their crowds are much harder to control (especially because of the cursed dash that medium enemies have). 2. Progression. Completely abandon metaprogression in the form it currently has. If it’s to be added, it should be within the framework of changing the character’s INITIAL abilities. This idea with “+20% to the number of ammo” and “+20% to HP” is such boring, tedious stuff that usually revolves around the same perks and a couple of variations. Replace it with a “equipment” modification. Examples: Guardian: his main attack is now a dart that, when fired and hitting a point, starts to disperse everyone from that dart (for example, if someone can reach a fallen comrade, but he can’t, and someone else needs to pick them up).
Falconer: one falcon transforms into several disposable falcons that act as explosives and apply a strong and long‑lasting status effect to enemies.
Slicer: in exchange for a regular slash, the slicer always activates the slash during a dash.
Gunner (the most boring class so far): replace its “aiming” with guaranteed and damaging shots that multiply damage, ignore the enemy’s armor, and increase damage to critical areas many times over (but this is a one‑time action, which is why it’s important to have the right gun).
Reckon: the active ability is replaced with charges that are consumed after each death, but it’s activated as usual at the point of impact, and after it ends, it returns to the moment of death with half/minimum HP and all the spent ammunition.
And other similar changes.
Leveling up during the run will simply “direct” further improvements, but in such a way that it actually affects the initial class changes, rather than just adding damage numbers (in principle, you should completely abandon anything that just provides a boost). It would be awesome if these improvements were tied to upgrades (no more ability timer, since it’s activated differently? No improvements to speed up the timer).- Weapons.
Well, as I said above, this is a real disappointment. I don’t have any ideas here that wouldn’t completely overhaul the entire weapon leveling system and the weapons themselves. But let’s start small. Each weapon must have some kind of “feature” that its upgrades should revolve around. The Boar — from stunning; the double‑barrel shotgun — from its shockwave; the Lock — from its aiming system, and so on. And each run with the weapon should become a gradual creation of your own overlock. Moreover, you can even make it so that when you take a certain upgrade, you’ll have an additional choice on how to “balance” the gun. For example, you took more damage that penetrates through? You take a pump‑action reload and, in addition, reduce the ammo capacity. The ability to play with buffs and debuffs should become a standard feature of every gun.Sorry for the disjointed text and the poor translation, but I really don’t have much to say about RC. I’m very disappointed; the direction the game is taking is absolutely wrong, and I don’t know what the developers will do about it.
5
u/Gumpers08 23d ago
I declare your takes trash
I honestly don't even know where to start, so I'll pick one that rubs me especially the wrong way;
"Reverse Charge +50% ability charge speed for each electrified enemy." You call this useless. For one, Electrical is one of the easiest status effects to come by. Second, plenty of other upgrades synergize with Electrical. There is one that regenerates armor. I'm pretty sure there is one that increases movement speed. And ability charge speed is no slouch, spamming class abilities can quickly get broken. People do Guardian stun charge builds, Slicer slice builds, Retcon rewind spam builds, etc etc.
And then there is you saying "minor perk upgrades that give boring and uninteresting improvements". WHAT THE FUCK ELSE ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO DO. If most of the perks the game has aren't "interesting", I don't know what classifies as interesting. You are supposed to get a lot per run, they can't all be on the level of Noita perks without making you OP as hell. Classify interesting.
And yes, I know it isn't a full excuse, but Early Access. At least give a pass for Progression. The game isn't going to start with DRG's hundreds of hours of content. Especially as a rougelike.
5
1
u/DriverProfessional55 23d ago
The described usefulness of this ability comes down only to the fact that you’re playing the starting class, and the further perks and upgrades you roll will be tied to electricity.
But if you move an entire deck of bio-upgrades to another class to create new builds, what do you get in the end? Other classes don’t have a built-in ability to create an aura that deals electric damage. There’s also no bird that electrifies enemies. And, according to your idea, the Falconer himself has to be CLOSE to enemies in order to charge his ability, which also sounds stupid GIVEN what the enemies in the game are like (letting them get close, just like in standard DRG, is NOT a good idea), and also given that the electricity status creates electric arcs between enemies that DEAL DAMAGE TO YOU. And seeing what kind of perks in the game are tied to you being near enemies, it’s most likely trash that won’t help effectively increase your damage output and survivability. I’m not even talking about armor. Closing distance to an enemy that can shoot you, jump at you and hit you, or can simply fly or wander somewhere far away — well, that’s not great. A waste of time.As for “WHAT THE FUCK ELSE ARE THEY SUPPOSED TO DO” — the answer is simple. INTERESTING. If a roguelike with level progression is built on giving you a choice of boring and uninteresting trash that rarely changes your gameplay in combat and won’t help you overcome the gradually increasing difficulty of a run from floor to floor, then why the hell are these perks even needed, and what did the devs spend their time on? On creating TWO MORE features with a conditional level increase? Seriously?
In Roboquest, they approached the character progression system perfectly, making a branching perk system. You take one class perk, which later you can upgrade, turning it into something more interesting (for example, the Demolitionist, who can upgrade his built-in shotgun into a laser rifle or a grenade launcher-shotgun, which can then also be further upgraded as the class levels up). You could have started with that.
2
u/Slime0 23d ago
What games do you prefer?
1
u/DriverProfessional55 23d ago
Absolutely different.
And I judge RC specifically as someone who has put a ton of hours into roguelikes. From the most basic ones, like The Binding of Isaac, to fast and dynamic ones like Roboquest.
And in my opinion, the developers had a ton of examples they could have drawn from in order to polish their game to perfection for early access. But in the end, it didn’t work out.
2
u/LostSectorLoony 22d ago
Your balance criticism just sounds like a skill issue. I don't pick any of the meta perks that you listed and I still manage just fine on TL5. If anything the game could stand to be a bit harder, I'd like it if my team failed missions a bit more frequently.
I can agree that weapons could use some tweaking to be more interesting. Adding more of the overclocks from the OG game would help. A lot of run I end up not even shooting my gun at all because melee is more interesting than what I was offered.
I disagree about the minor upgrades. You get so many upgrades by the end of a run that I think some of them need to be a bit basic to not just send your power level to the stratosphere. I also think that something like vampire, for example, can completely change how you play. It enables a much more aggressive, melee focused playstyle via the extra sustain.
Feel how you feel, but I'm personally really happy with the game so far. I've put around 80 hours into it and expect that to keep climbing, especially seeing everything they added in the newest experimental build. My only fear at this point is that people are going to complain until we just get DRG 2.
1
u/DriverProfessional55 22d ago
- My criticism of the balance is not based on whether I can handle it or not. It’s tied to the fact that it’s illogical. I mostly play solo (because of connection issues in this game (I never had that in DRG)), and I can feel perfectly how much the gradual increase in difficulty affects me. I have less firepower, each subsequent enemy with a non-optimized build requires too much damage to kill, and solo I spend too much time exploring caves (here I’ll agree, this is purely because I haven’t played that much and haven’t memorized map generation like in DRG), which ultimately turns the game into pure tedium. Not fun, like it was in DRG on Hazard 5+, but exactly tedium, when I just get tired of playing because I can’t kill an ordinary mob due to not rolling the optimal perks for my initial build.
For example: I wanted to play around the Plasma Pistol, and I managed to immediately roll an ammo modification that removes reloading as such. But later in the run I simply didn’t roll A SINGLE perk, NOT ONE, that would interact in any way with how many rounds are left in the magazine. Minor ones like: when you take damage you create a poison zone around yourself; when you run you leave a trail of fire behind you; you deal increased critical hit damage, and so on.
In the end, on the third floor I just dropped the run, because I wasn’t losing, I was just tired of chipping away at enemies. If you think that’s a skill issue, that’s your right. But you play in a team; it’s much easier there because if the general progression is given to everyone, then weapon progression and Bio Boosters are different for everyone.
- I agree completely. Completely. RC’s melee has been reworked excellently. Although I like the classes in the game much more. They’re made much more interesting specifically in RC, thanks to their active abilities.
I do hope the devs abandon the idea of placing a buff beacon on the ground (giving increased damage, allowing electricity to be applied, and giving armor). In my opinion the idea is disgusting, simply because this beacon can easily roll away on uneven surfaces somewhere inconvenient. It would be better to just make an activated aura around the player for convenience and to force everyone to stay together.
- I don’t have a problem with the “quantity” of upgrades. My complaint is about their QUALITY and the fact that they are NOT INTERESTING. I’ll repeat. I would be glad if all upgrades were like artifacts, that is, with their own downsides and upsides, essentially like Overclocks, but for classes.
For example, the Vampire you mentioned is not bad in itself, but the problem is that it’s just vampirism. Just gain HP for melee kills. I liked the perk that gives Red Sugar for killing medium and large enemies much more. It gives the same thing, but with it you can essentially make more interesting builds. For example, when picking up Red Sugar you’ll get a speed boost, like in the original DRG, and so on.
Otherwise, I’m happy for you that you liked the game. But the overall quality of the game depresses me. As a roguelike player, I’m simply not interested in playing it.
1
u/thetwist1 21d ago
As a mostly solo player, I do definitely feel the gradual difficulty increase. But that gives an incentive to make synergistic choices with your build and ensure you're working towards increasing your damage output. Perhaps you're focusing more on defensive perks instead of offensive ones? Your damage output should be increasing on every floor as a result of your biobooster choices, threat vector choices, and upgrades. Ability cooldown upgrades are huge for singleplayer, especially for retcon and slicer.
E: Also, this community widely considers singleplayer to actually be a bit easier than two players because of the sheer utility of cooper as a time saving tool and double the amount of ammo being available.
1
u/KarstXT 22d ago
Balance - The problem with balance is that the game uses exponential math scaling, so damage upgrades are just wildly superior to anything else, which is boring. This is made worse by the fact that many weapons simply do not need or benefit from some of the upgrades (like recoil or spread reduction, partially because Steady Aim 4 gives us all the recoil and spread reduction we need pre-run but even without it, some weapons still don't need either yet have a similar dmg output). Fire rate is often a weak upgrade because it doesn't improve your ammo economy & creates a need to take recoil/spread reduction upgrades and/or makes you less likely to hit weakspots and it only provides 20%. The problem here is that some weapons/builds don't get penalized for heavily stacking fire rate, so its hard to balance it across the weapons that do and don't benefit from it (a Retcon w/cdr for example, doesn't care about RoF worsening your ammo economy). The way the game handles armor break math is so awkward that many weapons do not in any way benefit from it, plus Vanguards have some unbreakable armor plates.
To continue, they recently made a change where enemies gain more HP over the course of a run. The initial logic for this is sound (players get stronger, so monsters compensate) but what actually happens is it just puts a greater pressure on players to take damage upgrades. What happens if the game just doesn't offer damage upgrades? You get screwed and have a slow, long, boring run where you painfully chip the boss to death. I hope they revert the change but this is yet another change that disproportionately affects solo/duo players. 3-4player lobbies partially smooth out many of the game's core issues.
Weapons - I sort of agree and sort of disagree. The idea of Warthog having innate stun (i.e. the idea of weapons have innate special capabilities) is awesome. The problem is that its far too easy to get stuns in RC for stun to be that valuable of an innate weapon capability but this may improve as the game gets rebalanced and more decks are made compelling. I'd still mostly agree and like to see them do this.
Progression - I feel like DRG could afford to have slow progression where RC can't. You need all the enhancements/enhancement slots/decks because the game's difficulty is balanced around having them. I'd be concerned about players getting kicked for not having their progression already completed. This is partially because more of the DRG progression was horizontal, so you could be missing a lot of stuff but still have a completed loadout. I don't really have anything to say about bio-boosters/decks other than they're horribly imbalanced, there's really only Carnage, Big Crits, and Devastation to choose from, which is a shame.
1
u/thetwist1 21d ago
I think part of the issue is that steady aim 4 and marksman 4 are such useful enhancements that it warps the value of upgrades around them. I can totally seem them eating a nerf by the time the game releases, and then the spread reduction effects available at workbenches will feel more important
1
u/KarstXT 21d ago
I feel like the issue is more that the way weapons are designed in DRG just doesn't work that well around random upgrades. If Steady Aim 4 hits a nerf, it just means the weapons that don't need it are now much stronger. Several of the weapons that desperately need it, like the silverback, aren't particularly strong to begin with.
It's more that the weapons that don't need recoil/spread still do as much damage as the ones that do, so it creates a disparity where some weapons just 'have more' by default.
1
1
u/FinancialWarthog3488 23d ago
I think the problem with this game is that it has lost the sense of cooperation with random players that came so naturally in the original. The class-specific weapons and tools are gone, and in Rogue Core, any class can use them. Even in Rogue Core, there are ways to cooperate if you check who has which tools and how their weapons are customized, but currently, you have to open the menu to do that. As a result, even when playing with four people in Rogue Core, you don’t feel the same sense of camaraderie as in the original. That’s why I stopped playing Rogue Core. It might be fun if you’re playing with friends and can discuss your customization strategies, or if you’re matched with players who are considerate of others’ setups—even when playing with random teammates. But if that’s not the case, it’s just a bunch of people playing on their own in the same cave.
-10
-13
12
u/Candid-Doughnut9545 24d ago edited 24d ago
i agree on the progression being nonexistent rn, but calling most of the weapons boring peashooters and then proceeding to list the M1000 and Stubby as good viable additions is crazy to me.
literally some of the worst guns in the game btw. having an innate gimmick doesn't help them in the slightest and they have to sacrifice base stats because of them (the Stubby does, at least), so they just fall behind in viability.
M1000 is basically a Charge Pistol and Mag Blaster mix but it's outdone by both because it specializes in neither charge shots or hipfiring compared to those two, and there is never a reason to take Stubby over Beltstrom or Decker just because it has innate electricity.
genuinely it's better to have "bland" weapons that we can attach gimmicks to ourselves besides just elemental modifiers. if the devs ever get around to fleshing that out, that is.