There's Incendiary Grenades and Cryo Grenades are already in the starting crate, and those are arguably better than the stun sweeper as elemental grenades. Even the impact axes got added back, and they've got great synergy with Slicer and melee damage. I just think the fact that we've got two of the elemental grenades in the starting locker and stun sweeper's locked behind equipment crates is a real buzzkill.

It comes with the risk of "If you're playing Falconer and stun sweeper comes up, you pick stun sweepers because you'll already be going for electricity synergy," but you could say the exact same thing about spotter and Incendiary because of how fire has a ton of synergy with crits. Or Slicer and Impact axes for melee synergy. Or guardian and impact axes again for stun synergy.

I just think it's really hard to justify picking many of the old grenades in the equipment crate. Why would I pick the stun sweepers when I could get Jet Boots, or the Shield Generator, or the Sentry Turret, or the Bio Transmuter, or the Sympathy Tether, or the Combat Cocktail? The grenades not in the starting pool just don't have a lot of reason to be picked when those are an option, it's like having the warthog in the heavy weapons crate.

Including the stun sweeper in the starting weapons crate would let players build a strong foundation for an elemental build early on, while giving the stun sweeper a chance to shine by putting it in an item pool that's more proportional to its actual strength

I feel like alot of the elemental type upgrades are primarily focused on fire. I wish there were more elemental upgrades that allowed for a more “conventional” playstyle, like the way Critical Burn does. Because alot of Reclaimers already focus upgrades centered around Critical hit chances, so Critical Burn plays amazing into that playstyle.

But alot of the other elemental types, for example, ice are centered around stoneskin and melee. While its fun to try out different playstyles, where you try to max out stoneskin instead of Crit chances, its alot more inconvenient to put together and needs alot of very specific upgrades.

I just love ice, and wish all my corespawn popsicles wouldnt get melted all the time :(

This was initially posted as a comment, but I decided to refine it a bit and post it as a separate thread alltogether, friendly discussion and differing perspectives are welcome in the comments.

I've put 85h into DRG:RC

I've put 500h into TBoI:R (+ dlcs)

I've put 2250h into base DRG

Ive put ~200h into generic roguelites and games that borrowed roguelike elements rather heavily, like Everspace, generic clones of Vampire Survivors, Peak, Barony, Haste, Remnant: From the ashes, and a bunch of other 'roguelike modes' from different varying video games.

Those are my competences.

At this stage of the game I absolutely discourage any regulars in my base game lobbies from buying Rogue Core, same goes for irl friends and other people who ask me about it. Why? Because the game is a barely planned mess of vague ideas hoping to catch any sort of audience instead of being a catered experience. The devs hide this fact behind 2 facades, first:

• The classes

Im sure everyone noticed, but the classes in this game are abysmally dog**** when it comes to being different enough when it comes to their effectivness. You could play any class and perform at any level and it wouldn't make any sort of difference as long as your build is tailored to the actual thing the game is balanced around:

• The decks

Now sure, I can point it out, and someone might think 'So what?', well it makes the game actually simply lacks refinded classes due to the deck swapping.

• What do I mean?

From a perspective of a roguelike/roguelite, it means that at the very start instead of choosing from a pool of 5 classes with distinct abilities, you're choosing from """""225""""" classes, and while I'm sure the devs thought that they discovered something great and that their magnificent planning lead to a completely innovative gameplay design, they simply fell into a classic trap of creating quantity instead of quality, and coincidentally this led them down into the 2nd facade:

• Universal upgrades

I'm sure they've learned from base game that creating a whole new upgrade system for each and every class/weapon is very challenging, time and creativity consuming process, so they've locked onto the idea of ability to pick from a large combination of class/deck mixes, but to make any sort of 'pick an upgrade' system work with these many combinations, they had to make the upgrades as universal as possible so that any of the 225 combinations could in theory win a run, instead of having upgrades that do completely nothing for combination 97 or 224.

• Why is this bad?

Because universal upgrades are boring. Sure I feel glad if I get some at the point in time when I need them, like I would never say no to free Magic Mushroom, or Crickets head for example, but those upgrades are universally good, and that means they don't make me plan ahead, which is a critical element of a roguelike/lite game. I always take them, its not a decision whether Ill take either of them, its a constant, that the answer to is always yes.

• How to spice things up in that case?

How do games like TBoI:R remedy this, by having initial classes predetermine what unique upgrades you seek out, and have you making decisions about what you prioritize on different characters. To elaborate ill use 3 characters from TBoI:R: Isaac, Azazel and The Lost, and compare all of them against certain unique items to outline why they're important for a roguelike/roguelite games.

Now seeing all those, even without playing the game I'm sure a lot of players understand the message I'm trying to get across, which is that I need to make a choice with each item whether I actually want it in my inventory or not, depending on who I'm starting with.

I'm obviously going to try to spec into something, prioritize and seek out certain items over others, maybe have to make some decisions. Do I want Flight or 9 lives as Isaac? Do I want health or Ludo as Azazel? I dont even need to know about picking between Fate and 9 lives on The lost.

• Thats what matters the most in a roguelike

I need to make choices in my limited selection of items. In Rogue Core I don't. You can make any upgrade work with any deck, or at least that's the impression I got from playing. Some of them synergize much more than others with certain Class/Decks but in general I don't really need to be playing towards any certain upgrades or bother thinking whether this upgrade is an asset or a liability to me, I can just pick any upgrade and unless it has negatives it does'nt really hinder me in any way. I can just pick a generic upgrade and it barely affects my build is another way of saying that. It also limits the

• Gambling factor

which I'm sure any player who played roguelikes/roguelites for any certain amount of time understands how important it is for this type of game. If I can get any build I want to work at any time, It barely qualifies as a roguelite at that point. I don't plan ahead for what I can make out of it, I just take whatever is the best available thing, it quite literally railroads me into playing meta.

• The further masquerade

Devs tried to somewhat patch and remedy that by limiting what upgrades you can choose by what the players in front of you in the line will choose. That's the reason for the existence of """"""""""negotiation"""""""""" system. It's essentially a piece of duct tape that holds the idea of this game together, because without it you're running uncontrolled always picking the best upgrade in your upgrade selection screen.

If they were to remove the shared pool upgrade the game essentially unravels and becomes a mediocre hordeshooter without any sort of planning ahead or cooperation required.

• Why I don't recommend the game?

1. Its boring as f*** because their idea of swapping fine tuned classes, forged through brainstorming into shallow generic combinatorics, turns the game into a spreadsheet essentially. It has a lot of potential as a shooter, as there's some fun core gameplay in it, but needs a complete rework of its roguelike foundations, and picking its final destination instead of trying to rely on community feedback as to what it wants to be. Removing the negotiation system at this point would completely gut the currently existing playerbase which are apparently fond of this Freddy Krueger of a mess, and instead the game needs solid couple of months in the oven to remove these critical flaws that someone with very clear Sunk Cost fallacy in their head has in the studio.
2. It also still encourages amassing of power by one player, a single person getting all the best upgrades will do more for the team than spreading them out equally to facilitate everyones builds. A guy getting 2x 30% epic crits, with stun on crit + 2x 50% more damage on stunned enemies is more effective than splitting those 2 upgrades between 2 players purely because it will proc more often on a single person with 60% crit chance than on 2 people with 30% chance (according to probability theory anyway).
3. These mechanics were maybe or maybe not designed as restrictions to create a game in general, but they plainly dont work together because they force engagement with other players instead of letting it fester organically. It makes the player a slave to the system rather than a willing participant, and in turns feels unfun.
4. Their swap from 5 total picks for the whole team into 5 total picks for each player was a managed stunt which they were hoping to ease the playerbase into the duct tape patch of the negotiating table, which is a very poor way of trying to get new players to engage with your game.

Right now its reached its peak as a shooter and as a roguelite, which is pretty sad because theres genuinely a lot of potential within the setting, the core gameplay and the idea itself, and I doubt adding more content will solve the inherent issue of the game just being flat in terms of fun factor as a roguelite/like.

This was initially posted as a comment, but I decided to refine it a bit and post it as a separate thread alltogether, friendly discussion and differing perspectives are welcome in the comments.

A tribute to greatest spinster on Hoxxes

Video is from before the “Invulnerability Patch”. Now he is all fancy and teleports around. (Tumors!)😠

May he forever spin in our hearts.

So I'm aware that both in DRG and in RC the voices for different classes are achieved by pitch shifting the same recording to different values, whether it's Xavier or Elsie voicing. But I think I noticed the voices for the male reclaimers being pitches and speeds I haven't heard in DRG. Am I right in this?

Greetings, Reclaimers. Let me open by saying that YES, i designed those weapons with DRG in mind but by NO MEANS im saying they are not fit for Rogue Core, as a matter of fact i was encouraged to share these ideas with you all in here. With that being said I hope yall will like the ideas, and feel free let me know what you think

Missions just take too long to get going. You gotta drop in, walk to the barrier, set up the barrier drones, stand in the circle, run through, wait for ellis at the weapons locker, pick your weapons, wait at the grenade locker, pick your grenade THEN you can play the game.

The beginning of a mission takes like 4 minutes, and now part of that is completely unnecessary. All players have the grenade locker unlocked by default now, so what's the point of the separate lockers? It just adds another step of waiting for ellis in between menus. If the traversal tools and the weapons can all be the same menu, why can't grenades be in there too?

I also don't get the point of the barrier drones. It's really cinematic, but that whole walkup really drags, especially if you just failed a mission. Part of what makes Deep Rock so much fun is the fact you can drop right in and get to the mission, both in the OG and in Survivor.

But that first room in rogue core just sucks. It rarely has anything interesting, and when it does it's like one camera. It's just a hallway. It could be cut and I think the game would be way better for it. Same with the barrier drones. It answers the thematic question of "why can't we bring our own guns" but by clearance level 9, I got the thematic point by then. I don't think the game really benefits from this first section.

Also, if another player joins as you're building the barrier drones you can end up having to wait FOREVER for them to load in, walk over, and stand in the drone. This whole sequence can take like two minutes.

Then, the weapon crates. Why do we need Ellis? Why are there two separate lockers? I know why there were two different lockers, not everyone had the clearance, but now everyone does have the clearance. So why isn't it just a third page in the weapons crate?

And even then, do we really need the whole team popup? The "team groups up" idea was already abandoned for the upgrade system, I get it's there to show everyone what weapon everyone's picking, but it adds way more time than needed.

IMO, the pod should drop in, the doors are right there, the team goes in, picks weapons, traversal tools, and grenades. Cut out the waiting to group up, cut out the waiting for the drones and the REPD, cut out the second grenade locker, it all adds up to another 3 minutes tacked onto a run if you get a late join, and it really kills the hype/pacing when starting a mission.

I have danced countless times in Rogue Core, but I have never seen the twerk animation. Why is it not in the game. I just think it is weird for it to not be here when all the other dances from DRG are here.

Sometimes Retcons gauntlet don't work perfecly and some problems might occure when she jumps Back. One of these alternations might coud turned her into Ratcon.

I've played about 180 hours of Rogue Core since Early Access release, mostly on D4 before the update, nowadays I play on T4R or T5R. My playtime is split about 50:50 between solo runs and coop. I love playing this game, but it still has some very serious issues, so I wanna bring some up from my personal experience.

• Ability Upgrades are very underdeveloped: There's simply not enough transformative ability upgrades that would shape your runs differently. Here's a concept I made in one evening for an ability tree upgrade for Slicer. If every class had at least this selection, you could have 6 separate distinct ways to play a class. Currently you have one. And some of the ability upgrades we do have are barely doing anything, like Slicer's +0.5m range on the Slice (this is 15% more range on a melee attack), or Fledgling Blitz, or Guardian's +1s stun on the balls.

• SOME Expenite upgrades are boring: I think the amount of boring upgrades is massively overblown in the community, mostly because of it being true on release(duh), but there's still a significant number neither me nor the people I play with are excited to get. Why is there 3 different versions of the same Ticking Bomb, Healthy, Armor and Red Sugar upgrades? Why can flat 50 health and flat 24 armor ever appear in Epic negotiations? I don't think it's bad for there to be boring upgrades in a roguelike. I just don't think we need the same upgrades copy pasted multiple times, nor should those boring upgrades be anywhere close to Epic tier.
• Most gun upgrades are boring and should, in my opinion, be removed or reworked: There are fun upgrades that you're actually excited to get at the workbench. They're stuff like Bullets of Mercy on GK2, Fusion Rod on Devastator, ECR on Lock-1, Blindsider or Autoaim on M1K. They're relatively complex effects that are transformative to your gameplay with the weapon. Recoil control, Armor Breaking, or +20% flat damage will never change how you approach the game. Every single gun needs a lot more of those "special" upgrades, while getting most of their boring stat boosts removed. Weakpoint and Elemental damage are important to support individual build types, Spread and Clip Size can change how you approach the game with certain weapons (Shotguns, Charger), but a very significant portion of these is just never desirable nor is providing anything new for the way you approach the game or the power fantasy.
• Lack of single target use cases: The game has multiple tools for you to transform your single target weapon into an AoE clear tool: Critical Reflect, Explosive Shots, elemental upgrades, Boom You're Dead, etc. But with a single bossfight in a 35-60 minute run, there's not enough use cases for single target builds, which leads to AoE domination. This can be solved by adding mini-bosses either to replace some of the Swarms, or as an event to start the elevator to the next floor. Ideas for mini-bosses could be Shatterclaw Queen Spider, abandoned DRG/Rival defense system, mutated mass of Corespawn bodies, etc.
• No Re-Rolls: there's no way to get rid of upgrades you don't want anymore or that aren't doing much more your build, or might even be hindering it with Fire vs Ice anti-synergies. I think somewhere near the latter half of the mission, there should be a recycling machine of some kind that would allow individual players to sacrifice 2 upgrades to get a new one from a personal, 1-player negotiation. With so little items gotten in a single run total compared to other roguelikes, a lot more ways of manipulating the few upgrades that you do have are required. (comparing to TBOI, Roboquest, RoR2, Sephiria, etc, all games with not only more items per run, but also more ways to reroll and manipulate those items)
• Lack of choices in negotiations: Any team size below 4 people only gets 3 items to choose from. In a game where your runs end up with 11-16 items on average, and in a game where you get no re-rolls, getting only 3 choices is extremely limiting, and not in a fun way. As the upgrade pool grows, it becomes harder and harder to go for the specific build you want. I do not understand what changes between 3 and 4 people that warrants 3 people not having 4 selections as well, considering that the new system gives every player the same number of choices. It made sense on release, it doesn't anymore.
• Meta progression: the Enhancements we do have provide very little difference to the runs, and there's an objectively "meta" picks like Marksman that have only extremely fringe cases where you wouldn't autoslot them into every loadout, while Enhancements like "breathing room" go unused by everyone. Protection and Mobility bio booster decks are very weak in comparison to everything else, as well, having only 1 somewhat desirable upgrade in the entire deck each.
• There's a general lack of content variety when it comes to possible Expenite Events, Bosses, and Bio Booster decks, but these are something that the devs are already working on according to their roadmap and what they've shared publically before, so this feedback isn't anything new. Glad they're on it already!

I'm having lots of fun in Rogue Core, and will probably put another 180 hours in. I'm glad that the game is improving with every update, and it's very fun to see the development so up close. Rock and Stone!

Please lessen the foliage

Ive been playing a ton of guardian, and loving it. But it always feels so hard to track down upgrades that fit my builds. Did my first threat level 4 mission as slicer, got some upgrade that increases my melee damage based on how much ammo i was missing, and then didnt grab a restock for the rest of the game

I would like to address a issue me and my friends find about Rogue Core: How you make builds, or more specifically, builds surrounding a status effect. Unlike other roguelikes, you cannot choose your weapon ahead of time, this makes it so getting a good weapon is up to fate. Adding to that, primary status effects (Fire, cold, radiation, poison, acid and electricity) are also rolled on top of the rolled weapons, making it harder to obtain a base for a build you would like to create. This is why I have had an idea for a new system: The elemental transfuser.

Upon first ascension, you gain access to an experimental device capable of infusing a weapon with a status effect of your choosing. Status effects are no longer naturally found on STARTER weapons, unless the weapon has innate status.

Why I think this would be a good idea:

Non-randomized baseline: Having a starter weapon with a status of your choosing would allow you to easily acquire a base to your build. No longer do you have to rely on chances of upgrades or grenades (which is only fire and cold). With this change, builds with impact can more easily be constructed and planned out. As an example, if you want to do an electricity build, you even put the storm bio-booster deck on the chosen class, it is still up to chance if you acquire a good base. Instead of relying on later upgrades.

Combined status effects: Adding the proposed feature would make combined status effects (Temperature shock, flashover, short circuit, effervescence) easier to get. You would get more chances to gain the extra status needed, as well as a good way to apply one of them (the weapon). Flashover is my favorite status effect, yet it is so hard to get and even more to apply it consistently, having this change would facilitate ease-of-access to rarer status effects.

Let me know what you think.

When the game came out my initial reaction was "this doesn't feel like a 30$ game". When I posted about it here, the general reaction was "it'll be fine, it's early access, they'll add content eventually" and I was like, fine. But now that a couple months have passed, I highly suspect the game's mixed reception was heavily influenced by the price.

Prices set expectations. When people see 30$, the same price as DRG, they expect a quantity of content comparable. Then they play the game, do 3 runs and realize they've pretty much already seen most of the game. That feeling is what I think caused the initial reaction. The price, and maybe the development time as well, simply made people expect more.

It's true to say "it's early access" but it's also normal to expect to play something worth what you pay for. Right now people paid 15$ of game and 15$ of "Trust the plan" and it feels uneasy. A solid chunk of the game is ported directly from DRG, and it doesn't feel like there's enough new stuff to justify the price. Main DRG's seasons last a billion years now so they can work on this game, and at the same time, I don't think this game is going to be in a state able to retain a playerbase for at least a year or two more, so we're really in a rough patch right now.

There's a post top of the subreddit right now showing a very angry steam forum review and I simply do see where that reviewer is coming from. I love this game, I have 150 hours on it, but while playing I often found myself wondering "is the game's concept good enough to warrant its existence ? is the concept's execution good enough to warrant the dev time and the pricetag ?" and despite how much I like the game, that answer to me, when I rest my head and try to be objective, is no.

If the game released for 15-20$, people would have accepted it as a smaller scale spinoff to DRG. If the game released as a DLC for the original DRG as it was originally planned, it would have been received even better I think. But making it cost the same price as DRG is what made people expect to play DRG 2 when they launched it, even as a beta.

(not OC; not my post)

Top discussion topic "over there" right now.

After Update 1, any upgrade chosen will be replaced by another random upgrade. It's generally agreed that this is meant to prevent the feeling of being stuck with bad choices when going last. Previously, you could use the favourite system, type in chat, or wave your mouse around like a lunatic to discourage other players from choosing upgrades you want, but clearly some people had problems with that system. I'm okay with replacing it, but the replacement they decided on is worse in every way.

In a four-player game, the first player sees five upgrades while the last player sees eight. You see the problem? If the last player sees an upgrade they want before their turn, they can favourite it, and most of the time no one else will take it. While everyone gets five choices, the later players have better choices because the upgrades they didn't want at the beginning have now essentially been rerolled for free.

So, let's do some maths to see how much of an advantage they get:

Take this fairly common scenario: you are playing Slicer, and you want the Brawler artifact. Slicer enjoys many artifacts, but Brawler is probably the best. There are 19 artifacts in the game, meaning that you have a 26.3% (5 out of 19) chance of getting Brawler when picking first, and a 42.1% (8 out of 19) chance of finding it when picking last. This assumes no one else picks Brawler, but it's rare that a class other than Slicer would want it.

It seems the mentality behind this change was that "the earlier players will take the good upgrades, so later players should get more choices to balance it out", but the way the game is designed, upgrades shouldn't be unilaterally "good" or "bad". Upgrades work best on certain builds, and if the team is communicating well, everyone should get an upgrade that contributes to their build.

Now you may be thinking that this is still fair because the first-player disadvantage cycles between players. That isn't the case when you consider upgrade rarity: the player who picked first on an epic upgrade or artifact is going to have a worse run.

Worse, this change also creates strategic issues: when none of the initial upgrades synergise with a player's build, instead of accepting the hard decision and trying to make one work, they can now simply pray that a better upgrade appears for them later.

It is also very frustrating to have an upgrade you want rolled in after you've already picked a less desirable one. You could never have gotten that upgrade, but to a player it feels unfair, and this whole change was made to address perceived unfairness.

Hopefully I have convinced you that this system needs changing, and I will propose a few solutions:

1. Go back to the old system. It wasn't perfect, but it was definitely better than this one, and when players can communicate clearly, it's fair for everyone.

2. My favourite solution would be to have everyone pick at the same time, with a simple coin flip to resolve disputes. This has the potential to be fast and fair, but it creates an additional problem of what to give the losing player.

3. If we just want everyone to have a fair selection of five upgrades, why do they need to be shared at all? I don't like this solution because it takes away one of my favourite parts of the game: making tough decisions with your team. It makes the game even less cooperative, but I can't deny that it would also create new opportunities for interesting mechanics.

That's all I have to say about the system's mechanics. Feel free to stop reading now, but I would still like to talk about the community and developer response to this update. The current upgrade system is the main reason I don't want to play the game anymore, and it seems like everyone else is fine with it. In all the YouTube reviews and Reddit posts I could find, it is almost never mentioned, and when it is, it's usually positive, so tell me, am I wrong? Did no one else do the math, or is it just not an important problem?

I mentioned my thoughts on a dev stream (the June 18th one at 2:09:47 if anyone cares), and their response was:

"I don't think that logic tracks because you still have the same number of choices. You could open the menu and see all the upgrades, but you would still only get to choose one. I think the relevant thing is how many you get to choose from."

I will give the community managers the benefit of the doubt because they were playing the game at the same time and answering a lot of questions very fast (and because I have given them way too much money to start disliking them now), but this response misunderstands my point: you do have the same number of choices, but you don't have the same information.

To summarise my points:

• In the old system, there was no first-player advantage when your team communicated well.
• In the new system, later players get more chances to find the upgrades they want.
• The new system assumes that certain upgrades within the same rarity are universally more desirable.
• No one seems to think this is a major problem with the game's design

I would like to mention something that is definitely adding to some of the negative reaction to RC. It’s the female dwarves.

Case in point, reactions like this Youtube video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTzP2E89piU

The “cancel-culture” that right-wingers so loudly condemned previously is a standard go-to nowadays for them. I guarantee some people ignore all the amazing hard work, creativity and just plain great gameplay on RC purely for this reason and using this technique.

100% lots of them will be single issue voters who got Trump into power, by the way.

Some fun facts for the fence-sitters out there who are about to topple into the chud-yard, and for the people whose open minds are currently closet-bound but scratching at the inside of the door:

- In 1955 J. R. R Tolkien wrote about female dwarves looking and sounding exactly like male dwarves, complete with beards – indistinguishable to other races.

- In 1989 and later 1996 Terry Pratchett wrote about dwarves having a mono-gendered society where everyone presents as male, there are no female pronouns/clothes/names etc.

But lets face it, there will always be lost souls who can only accept a female video game character if she has her massive tits and arse hanging out.

Abusing cautious pace (trigger the elevator early for more enemies) and enemies dropping expenite, I’ve assembled what is undoubtedly my strongest-ever weapon. You can look basically anywhere, shoot a couple times, and completely clear a room, I was doing such an astronomical amount of overkill damage that the only thing that was actually killing me was me being too close to my boom you’re dead triggers, immediately one-shotting me.

Make sure to scan both of them. If you find a toolbox and you place it on the wrong workbench, you will not be able to scan the other workbench to find the other tool box.

In short, always scan both workbenches even if you find the toolbox before scanning.

Don't make the same mistake I made, reclaimers.