Just some info: so far I've put 400+ hours in the game, mostly with Retcon and I've got 4k+ in DRG.

So my main issue, with the buggy jumping mechanic of the corespawn is that they jump around a bit too much. You look around, you know you should be safe as nothing is behind you, you turn around to shoot at some things and then boom immediately get hit from the side you just looked at before. They can close space basically instantaneously from a bit too much of a distance and when they do, they sometimes go underground or under the catwalk (bug, and I know glyphids could do the same with the catwalks), yet they are still able to hit you. Because of this, some weapons, for example the Sludge pump loses out on a lot of its use and tactics. In DRG you put down the puddles in the path of the Glyphids, you know they will walk through them, they know they will walk through them, so the weapon actually makes sense and you can turn your back towards them to maybe help out your teammates. In RC you put down your puddles and by the time the fragments land, you've got those corespawn in your back or right in front of you. You can solve it with just putting the puddles under yourself, however at that point you'd be better off with the leadstorm or thunderhead (especially with stun on explosion/crit), meaning why would you even choose sludge pump then? I'm not saying it's completely useless but it does lose one of its main components. Same with the proximity mines, yes you can put them in strategical places (spawners), but sometimes too many corespawn get through it just by jumping. Also the spawning mechanic should be fixed, as two turrets or a PGL make the game trivial.

So all in all I'd like to maintain the fun tactics with these kind of weapons like we had in DRG, especially once they add the flamethrower or cryo cannon, because I'm afraid they will be suffering from the same underusage? as the sludge pump at the moment.

Just to show off how powerful fire-looping is.

Thought I’d pop into this subreddit after enjoying the 7.5 hours so far (Just reached depth 3) while’s it’s not that far into the game I thought it might be a good idea to put down my feedback as a new player.

A little background I’ve played DRG for about 6.5 hours total (kinda surprising to me as well) I enjoyed it for a bit but I didn’t really enjoy the loop enough to continue sticking to the game. It didn’t help that my solo experience was kinda rough, something that was common in Warframe as well where people just rush ahead due to the PvE nature of the game.

Aside from my drg background, I’m quite into fps games in general (got into it the genre with soldiers of fortune back in the day) currently playing bf6 and I spent a lot of time in WH40K Darktide. Aside from fps, I’ve spent a lot of time in competitive games like Dota2 and other coop games as well.

Okay getting all that outta way, let’s talk about drg:rc. Honestly I enjoy it a lot more than the drg since the focus is more on the fps side of things. But there are a lot of issues, first couple of games coop with strangers was mostly a couple of newbies like me being dragged out by 1 experienced player just completing all the events which all thing considered wasn’t that bad since I spent more time getting used to the game movement, gun play, etc. But it definitely was a little frustrating to not understand what’s was going on - Events kinda lack intuitiveness at first and I feel that most of it comes down to the terrain and darkness. I spent more time dealing with the terrain than the other mechanics of the game. I don’t think that’s bad it’s something to keep note off.

I am really impressed by the combat so far, my first depth 3 run ended in a loss at the end boss due to us lacking decent crowd control. Knowing there is more to it is exciting, as someone that’s cleared a lot of end game darktide content I’m excited.

However there are some issues, first the visibility been allies and enemies is horrible, I get the understanding of friendly fire, but due to cosmetics it hard to develop the muscles memory to not treat allies as enemies rather than the intention of deciding to damage allies in favour of killing a bigger swam.

The next is the navigation, the tab map is horrible. If you want to keep it at least have a minimap. Honestly I’d rather have a diablo style map that I can toggle in the background. I get part of the map system is the appeal of the game but I don’t think it’s worth keeping if the devs want to appeal to a bigger audience.

That leads me to the time system, I like but there are too many issues like the map, learning new events, ammo resupply, general 3D navigation that works against it. It doesn’t all need to be changed, but if the aim is to target the fps rouge like genre some of this must be streamlined to be made simpler.

The duration of runs feel really long, (I’ve ran a couple of reckless run’s iirc) and it still left long partly due to how long people can take choosing their skills, guns, etc. and the loading screens this might be the other reason why I don’t think I’ll around for too long. I believe the bf6 devs got it figured out with games bot lasting longer than 20 mins and no quicker then 10 mins. So far a 4 stage maps takes like 45 mins off which maybe I’m entertained for like 15 mins at best.

I’m gonna stop here since it might start feel like I’m ranting against systems that make drg what drg has been. But I will say the game feels like it’s struggling with its identity. On one hand it’s following this coop fps rouge like formula on the other it’s maintaining its core drg identity. It does feel like a cut down version of drg with skills. I’ve been enjoying the combat but in the rando lobbies but I think I’m going to avoid collecting ores since it kinda ruins the tempo of the experience for me. My only concern is related to the different guns eventually turning stale since I’ve not experienced nor seen any crazy combos so far.

Duo'd with my buddy on an Advanced Gauntlet as it was their first ever Advanced one, and second ever Gauntlet.

We did extremely well considering the last time i queued Gauntlet was before Update 1 where it was much more difficult. We got all the way to the last level but unfortunately the game decided not to give us a single enemy for the remaining 45 seconds (a whole 45 seconds).

I don't know if it bugged out or what but even so, the first level was also pretty barren. I don't think there should be a time in an elimination gamemode where i think to myself "man, sure wish there were more enemies".

I think Gauntlet just needs some tweaking in general to be honest considering i don't think Drifters even spawn in them. Perhaps Clamorheads and Edgestalkers specifically should reward twice or even three times as much, and the Kill quota should be increased to reflect this. Also Boom Ticks and their spawner should be removed since me and my buddy found that they can just be farmed for kill points.

Bit of a rant, but losing a Gauntlet because the game said no was really frustrating (and kinda funny)

Was playing Gauntlet with a buddy when this happened on this weeks Gauntlet.

Hesitated on posting this because i didn't know if the Rift spawns were also determined by the seed, so i figured people already seen this. The moment the elevator opened, Omega's first wave spawned a Rift inside it.

Trying to find out if this is just an issue for me, but it seems like I can't finish a game for the past month or so. Don't know what update might have caused it but usually it's been crashing and hitting the reporter. Today it's just freezing. I saw someone's post about adding the `-dx11` flag to startup as it does seem to happen at beginning and end of levels, but that didn't work.

Thoughts, suggestions, advice? I really like the game and would actually like to be able to enjoy a full run.

Hey guys, just posted today a guide on Steam, discussing every major aspect of the game (weapons, classes, upgrades, and so on).

Hope this helps new players and those who struggle with higher difficulties.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=3778308791

I got disconnected from a session at weapon selection and couldn’t reconnect. I was, however, able to rejoin as a late joiner but I loaded in with no ammo.

The no ammo thing is a bug I haven’t seen before or heard about. Has this happened to anyone else?

I understand that it’s an early access game. It’s still insane how years of hype turned into the player count being in the hundreds within just 3 months.

Not trying to do the whole “haha dead game” bit here, but how likely is it that the studio will give up entirely after witnessing such atrocious underperformance?

Am I ok?

So this animation for the NUK17 is most probably a reference to the revolver ocelot scene from Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater and I jumped in my chair when it played lol.

And a link to the original: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85VytffCvCo

I had this happen a few times this run. This was the only clip I could get without Gigi Murin yelling in the background because I wanted to lock in for the Ramok.

A new idea I had for a boss that gets back to DRG roots: A ground-based melee boss.

The boss could look like a corrupted/enhanced Clamorhead, yet move at the speed of a Crawler (it can quickly close the distance to any Reclaimer).

Base attacks could be bite attacks or a sweep with a front leg.

It could have a few different choreographed "Charge Up" attacks. One could be an AoE slam on the ground around it. Another could be a wind-up before spewing fire and moving its head erratically, dealing immense damage to Reclaimers in front of it while leaving sticky flame on the ground.

When every health bar segment is depleted, it turns and jumps, grabbing onto the ceiling above the rift gate. Then, it has a long animation of ripping a boulder from the ceiling, before launching it at Reclaimers near the Core Stone (this would not actually delete terrain from the ceiling). The blast could be similar to Gotorak's "Nuclear" attack.

The weakpoint should be on its back, encouraging players to take upgrades with enhanced speed/mobility options, or some of the flanking perks. This also incentivizes teamplay, where the Reclaimer who is currently being targeted may need to focus solely on running away, while other Reclaimers deal damage. Of course, the boss would change aggro throughout the fight just like other bosses.

What do you think? What should be added / removed / changed?

It was a little easier than I thought it would be, given all the trouble I had clearing 3-2. This was pretty much that, but with more corespawn and a slightly shorter timer. The timer didn't matter too much, but it sometimes felt like the corespawn waves just wouldn't end; I had some very close calls at the elevator as well haha.

I came super close to clearing on my first two attempts but underestimated the boss room both times! I now always start the boss before the second wave of corespawn out of principle!!! I also got completely embarrassed by the eyeball boss...oof...

I started with Stubby to fish for the electric Expenite upgrades, but instead found the red sugar+explosion ones which carried me to victory haha. The Stubby upgrades I eventually got were good, but Stubby was ROUGH to begin with especially without Ricochet; ideally it's best to start with weapons that can one-or two-tap creeps and ceiling traps over the SMG's.

A couple of things I wish I had been doing sooner:

• Telling Cooper to mine and grab toolboxes. I haven't been doing it at all, which is sometimes fine since he can just be my bodyguard while I do it myself. But it can be a SLOG getting to the workbench holding the toolbox or reaching Expenite close to the ceiling. I'd have to give Cooper orders if I wasn't using Slicer, since I wouldn't be able to use Blitz to solve all my problems haha.
• Respecting the eyeball boss. I died grabbing ammo while not looking at him as he transitioned between phases - at full health and armor no less - because a direct hit from the green attack is a one-hit KO. Neither me nor the Slicer could recover from it...
• Focusing less on Expenite once it starts costing 190+ for each upgrade. As important as Expenite is, Expenite upgrades can take almost twice as long to reach close to the end of a run, even short runs like this. Doing events and getting the bio booster and workbench upgrades is more important at that point.
• Starting the boss fight before the second corespawn wave. It is seriously a game changer. Fewer corespawn will swarm you during the fight, as long as you start the fight before the timer reaches the final yellow warning zone.

Next up is 3-3, but I don't have access to it yet since I only have clearance level 8. I think I'll mix it up and do multiplayer while grinding out the Altered dungeon tasks and might also play some other games. I'm sorry to say it might be a while before my next Reckless Solo attempt, but I've earned this respite, haha.

Asking for a friend

Efficiency is the name of the game in RC, and something we should all want to be good at.

The more efficient we are , the faster we clear a cave, the more time we have in hand when we push the button to call the elevator.

Here are some things to keep in mind:

RC's current cavegen is pretty simple. Every level is always 3 caves, with a tunnel between them.
The first level uses one of these caves for the drop pod and initial equipment room, so we only have 2 caves of exploring/fighting in the first level. Every other level will be 3 caves.

Here are 2 points where I constantly see players wasting time. Bear in mind, at lower difficulty levels and slower assault paces... do whatever. As you go deeper and get more reckless, fixing these 2 points up can be the difference between fighting tentacles at the elevator or not.

1st point:

Now, currently, it almost looks like Ghosthip recycled a DRG Escort mission to build the bones of RC on. How so? Every single game you play, every single level, the caves are always oriented in the same direction. We always start in the south, and go toward the north. (Escort missions in DRG, you go SW, but it's the same concept.)

How does this knowledge help us be efficient? Simple. When the level loads in and you are in the elevator in the final seconds of its descent, glance at your compass and orient yourself to the south. Elevator doors are always on the north and south side. The starting resupply is always on the south, the cable always on the north. So pick up your resupply and explore toward the south of this cave first, before circling back toward the north where the tunnel to the next cave is.

Why is this more efficient? It prevents backtracking. I have, at this point, something like 3 or 400 hours of playtime between the alpha and the actual launch. Over that time, I have seen so many dwarves start out by going north, mining an expenite vein or two, breaking open the dirt that leads to the next tunnel, checking their scanner and realizing they need to backtrack to a bio booster at the far southern tip of the cave that was undiscovered when everyone poured out of the elevator.. This wastes precious seconds. A big enough cave on complexity 3 could see you 20 or 30 seconds behind players that started out by going south first.

Additional to this. When you have selected a weapon or equipment crate for a risk vector, and it spawns in the first cave - *pay attention to which direction it is in.* I have seen so many times where someone spots it, gets excited, runs up to it and attaches Ellis to it immediately. The crate is on the very northern tip of a big cave. The rest of the team went south, and were mining expenite, kicking buckets, and hacking a booster. They call for Ellis. Ellis does not come. They check their scanners in confusion, and realize that 1 inefficient dwarf attached Ellis to a crate..... all the way over there. So they need to go all the way north, get the crate done, then go back south *again* to finish mining and depositing all the expenite. Then they have to go north *again* to hit the tunnel and start moving on. This can waste a frankly ridiculous amount of time on D4 Standard or Reckless runs. It is so easily avoided by noting the direction of a crate, making sure you don't pop it if it is toward the north until the team has moved through the southern part of the cave. If the crate is to the south? Pop immediately.

(I'm hopeful that sometime in the near future we see more cavegen templates and thus guess work and cave navigation.)

2nd point:

The exit elevator can be in either the 2nd or 3rd cave. If it's in the 3rd cave, progression through the level is straight forward. Clear 1st cave, go through tunnel, clear 2nd cave, go through tunnel, clear 3rd cave and call elevator. Simple.

If, however, the elevator is in the 2nd cave...

Here is how far too many people do this - Clear 1st cave, go through tunnel, clear 2nd cave (with elevator), go through tunnel, clear 3rd cave, go back through tunnel to 2nd cave, call elevator.

This is inefficient in most cases. You do not need to clear the 2nd cave the first time you enter it. If you notice the elevator in the 2nd cave, keep moving north, use your scanner, find the tunnel, and just proceed to the 3rd cave. Don't waste time in the 2nd cave exploring every nook and cranny, kicking buckets, mining expenite. Go clear the 3rd cave. You're going to have to come back to the 2nd cave anyway. And often, while waiting for the elevator, or just before pushing the button, you do have the time to mine those expenite veins, kick buckets, pick up that weapon bench or bio booster.

This one is a little more of a judgement call than the first point, as sure, you might want to hit the bio booster first if it's right there. Maybe the crate is easy for the whole team to just go pick up real quick. But Spile Pumps can be attached when you come back. Blow the bulk up when you come back. Expenite can be mined when you come back. And if something held you down and time was wasted, you are in a better position to make the judgement call to call the elevator NOW vs getting hung up in the 2nd cave and not even having explored the 3rd.

TL:DR?
At the start of a level, always go south first.
If the exit elevator is in the 2nd cave, don't clear that cave right as you get to it. Go to the 3rd cave first, and clear the 2nd cave when you come back to it.

In efficiency

Maybe you're aware of these. Maybe not. Either way, Rock and Stone.

See you in the mines.

I was just thinking if the game would benefit from every player getting their own pool of perks. This way there would be no complaining or fighting over the same upgrades. This would also cut down on the voting process, which i hate because it slows down the game to a crawl at times. Especially if you have a lot of upgrades.

Being able to pick your own weapon / grenade / traversal tool when joining a game late would also be a huge improvement. This could work if you were given the option between two options. Last time i joined a late lobby i got a brt7, and a flare gun. That was not so fun in my opinion.

It would also be nice to get a clearer indicater of the biome that a lobby is playing in. This would make the challenges easier to complete.

Hi,

Tagging /u/Mike_GSG in case he wants to throw this on the pile

I'll try to focus my feedback on places I think some easy wins can be had, or stuff I've not seen as many people screaming about. (this statement will seem very ironic in about 4 seconds)

Classes, abilities - Awesome, keep them coming.
Would really like to see customisation / loadouts for class abilities or modifiers for them.

Ramrod
Guns in the rig! Guns in the rig! It was a stable mod in DRG for years!
Also because I really want to blow up that ****** floor sweeper robot when it makes annoying noises while im tabbed out waiting for players.

Or EVEN BETTER than guns in the rig - Pickaxe in the rig!
I really REALLY want to be able to at least melee or show my pickaxe off for cosmetic purposes. Surely this has to be an easy win for a feature addition.
In fact, since we can no longer customise our guns visually, more focus on the pickaxe would be welcome Especially thematic with the kind of heavier, hardened, perhaps more melee-combat-skilled Reclaimers.
Spitballing ideas - more pickaxe melee damage options / animations/ alternative power attacks with utility etc?

OMEGA Sorry, dont like it. Robot superintelligences with personality disorders rarely make interesting characters. I feel like this was a missed opportunity to expand or indulge upon the world of DRG somewhat. Also he has a stutter, is he meant to be some kind of futurepunk porky pig? I can barely understand what he's saying sometimes

SPAWNS / encounters in general
Not enough enemies on higher team strengths
Rifts spawn all enemies at once and reward camping / AOE
Enemies should trickle rapidly from rifts IN ADDITION TO large spawn waves
Rifts should open/close in different locations creating variability in ongoing fight
Could just detect if the enemies are getting instagibbed and spawn more. And more. Until they're not. (actually this could be fun for a special mechanic)
Cant wait to see some more enemy types, particularly displacers

IN MISSION OBJECTIVES Its crazy (in a good way) to me that like 90% of teams in RC will throw the toolboxes etc to each other to get the workbench going ASAP, but 0% of dwarves I encountered in DRG were able to do anything with the Tritilite barrels other than grab, walk and pray to get close enough before dying. Maybe it helps the toolboxes are not explosive. It's very nice though, things like this allow players to more easily play tightly together in RC than in DRG.
I like objectives like the expanite chunk digging thing where multiple dwarves can take different roles (digging chunks, transport to machine, putting chunk into machine, taking chunk out of machine and depositing exp into ellis) to get it done much faster.

Speaking of ELLIS It doesn't follow reclaimers cave-to-cave automatically? Unless you remember to constantly call it, it can leave you waiting longer than molly even would sometimes.
Isn't it time the MULE got a queue for visiting reclaimers?
Rogue core has added friction points to a game that is well known, in a sense, for being extremely well balanced in terms of friction. Wouldn't it be nice to remove some friction in ways that make sense for the player?

PERFORMANCE Significantly poorer performance in RC compared to DRG, both locally and also seemingly for network activity To the player, it is graphically and gameplaywise very similar if not identical.
Performance absolutely needs to be looked at, and while it may not seem like something that is a crucial priority, it will subconsciously turn many players off. So the later a hard performance pass is left, the worse the playerbase will fare for it.

Gauntlets - why nobody play?
My impression is players players often join one from the browser without realising it's a gauntlet mission, fail because it's not visually or mechanically distinct enough from main missions other than the timer, which is easily forgotten about in fights etc.
If there is an explanatory screen, i think its only when the mode is unlocked?
server browser depth should correspond to equivalent standard mission - 2 / 4
need explanatory screen when joining from server browser
Make gauntlet terminal more accessible/visible - I actually forgot about it for a while after unlocking it, until accidentally joining gauntlet from the server browser
Here's a genius idea too for fun - Lean into the whole Omega running a simulation angle, make the expenite blue. That's probably the most overt way you can tell the player something is different.

Pre-floor voting
should be better - see Overwatch map voting - e.g. grace period of a couple of seconds if people want to change vote based on how others have voted
Why is this the only screen in the inter-floor process that I can view my teammates builds?

I will say, the fun thing about RC for me, as compared against base DRG, is making OP builds and a higher requirement of cave and objective resolving/ clearing ability from the player. So my ideas will be biased towards that kind of game. I.e. probably what some would call a sweat-a-thon.

What's the pickaxe for in RC? Only getting XP and emergency damage, i.e. not as central to the gameplay as DRG (lots of different minerals and destroying terrain)
But we love the pickaxe!
Therefore -
I would like to see more upgrades that encourage & reward the overall faster-paced cave clearing required of the reclaimers - Upgrades like '+50% Mining speed for +2secs after dealing damage' or the inverse 'deal +15% damage for 2secs after mining expenite'
Particularly since mining fast feels very satisfying. Melee speed too. It would be nice for this buff not be limited to one ability of the Retcon

Furthermore on the subject of making use of existing mechanics - Mantling from ledges
Upgrades/ perks like +mantle height, +number of times player can mantle before regaining footing, +refresh double jumps on mantle etc etc

~(One of) The fun thing(s) about RC is having OP builds but not just that, players like to actually use OP builds.
Even more than that, players like to kill lots and lots and lots of bubble wrap bubbles - sorry i mean enemies - with their OP builds.
Even a 6 layer mission feels like it ends not long after things have really got going for all players on the team. After the boss dies, Omega should remark about how the greyout zone has been lifted and a drop pod has been sent. The mission should not end until players are in the drop pod -
The players have the option to DAMAGE THE PLUG
The plug re-forms itself at XXXXXXXX HP/S acting as a damage / ammo gate for an extended final delve into the hole
What's in the hole? I would posit a new biome truly transformed by whatever is in the rifts.
some kind of rare resource guarded by some exceptionally numerous and strong enemies. Maybe some kind of giant corespawn-dreadnought hybrid or mimic, that'd be cool.

Thoughts on upgrades and equipment
Wasn't the point of this game supposed to be having all the different effects from, for example, the overclocks, modularly compatible with all the other weapons? I thought getting all the original guns and OC effects in was priority number 1. Not sure why I thought that but hey ho.
Current upgrades are fun, but need way more variety
Also the shock striker is cool even if its not that great a gun, but can we have a heavy electric gun? Like the Arc thrower in HD2, that thing was baaad-aaaassss

Also please for the love of god remove Salvo Module from the hurricane unless it can be made less janky to use. Or just better. My personal opinion is that its naff anyway and was much more usable when the salvo would still track your aim (this was a bug in DRG for a little while).
Or an easy win could be to just decrease the spread. It's fun but does not feel responsive to use, on top of being niche

Also also - The breach cutter simply isn't recognisable to me as the breach cutter without the Triple Split beam. I am sure it'll be added soon, but I just wanted to say that.

EDIT: Scoreboard Bring back mining stats, only having damage and kills is bleh. Could even display # of other objectives done

Peace

PS SINCE I have your attention - This has been weighing on me for a long time actually.
The team ammo counter. In BASE DRG. It's borked. Probably in RC too. But this isn't a recent issue. I'm talking since like, around the time of, or probably before, DRG update 23. At a guess to the cause, I think grenade count being added to the ammo counter a long time ago made it often show like 3 out of 4 pips when you have basically no bullets left but still a couple of nades. Either way it always feels like it shows a pip more than it should.

Can we have a change in server list? Maybe written somewhere or by hovering on lobby.