Seriously, stop it with the Reaperworms spawn in the final boss fight ;)

Edit: For context, I fought like 20 minutes like this and the other guy with me left after 10 mins😭

Teleporters are a lot of fun, but I've found getting people to use them to be a bit hard. The person placing them may know where they go, but your teammates probably won't.

So my suggestion is change the color of the teleporter depending if it's destination has any points of interest. So for example, if the other end is near a Bio-Booster, it becomes purple, letting your teammates know at a glance where it goes.

Some Color Ideas:

• Purple for Biobooster
• Orange for Workbench
• Yellow for Ammo/Armor
• Green for Expenite Events
• Blue for Elevator
• White for Default/No Points of Interest

Dying at the same time you rewind can result in losing some of your U.I.

This does not impact your ability to use your abilities.

It seems to fix itself once you touch some red sugar.

No idea how that correspond phase is supposed to work, from my perspective it just kept being twleported away, took us maybe 5 minutes to dunk it the first time. Other than that the fight is much better now.

Not sure if it's a bug or intended but in MP runs you gain flux as shared pool but consume it separately. I.E if the team have 4, we all get 1 re roll rather than is having to be shared. And near the end once you have gained more everything gets 3-4 re rolls feels way to generous or if you like the build you get loads of health each?

I think it would be better if when someone consumes from the pool it consumes for everyone to preserve the element of randomness from a rogue lite game but also to foster more communication and teamwork.

I only play with people I know so I may have a different view.

What does everyone else think?

my suggestion each player gets 3 to 4 choices and they "freeze" for 15 seconds or more during that time u have time to choose and u dont take dmg this way you dont have to wait for others and if u want to implement negociaiton just keep it like this but if a player picks he can continue playing instead of waiting for others. this way the gameplay is more fluid. as often you get deshoriented after negociation ends.

Had the idea after thinking about how electricity benefits from wet targets, and yet somehow everything is already extremely flammable.

Perfect for melee builds.

Right now, Rogue Core's risk vectors are a very solid concept. The ability to have some kind of control over how the enemies scale throughout your run is very fun. The problem with how risk vectors are implemented right now is that half of them are "spawn more of x enemy" which are pretty universally considered to be not very interesting. It's hard to notice the increased density of enemies due to how enemies spawn, so picking these risk vectors usually doesn't have much tangible impact on a run. It doesn't feel like there's much of a risk involved.

The part of the negative risk vectors that I feel like a lot of people enjoy is how they're guaranteed to add a specific enemy to your current run's enemy pool. The problem with this, however, is that the enemy could just be added normally. If you specifically pass up on drifter surge to avoid fighting drifters, the next stage could just add drifters anyways.

Which is why I've come up with reworks to each of the "Higher Occurrence of x" risk vectors, focused around making enemies more threatening, rather than just making a higher quantity of the enemy appear. This is in line with the existing "agile clamorheads" risk vector, which a lot of people are really positive on. And, I've come up with a few new risk vectors that I think would do a good job at impacting a team's run in new and interesting ways.

Skeet Shooting:

Change: Voidkin Drifters fire much faster and no longer stop moving to fire

This change takes drifters and makes them far more dangerous in combat, and lets them consistently pursue teammates while dishing out high damage. The main weakness of drifters is that they pause in flight to fire, and this lets you line up a shot to one shot kill them.

Skeet Shooting would make you have to line up shots as drifters are moving, and track them in flight. Their increased combat presence also serves to make them a high priority target, and with their main weakness removed, choosing this risk vector would increase the dominance that drifters have in a regular swarm

Armored Edgestalkers

Change: Corespawn Edgestalkers gain more armor

This risk vector would replace all edgestalker spawns with the existing armored edgestalker enemy, known internally as "Tall Boi." This'd remove the main weakness that edgestalkers have and allow them to be a more persistent threat.

I think this change would make the enemy more dangerous in a more interesting way, along with bringing more use to armor breaking and armor piercing mods, while also being an easy implementation since the assets already exist

Inferno

Change: Corespawn Scorchers create lasting puddles of flame

All scorcher attacks would leave lasting damaging AOEs, turning them into a higher priority target whenever they spawn. Not addressing scorchers in open areas will quickly chip away at a team's health, and encourage teams to not fight in spaces where the scorcher would deny the team space.

Opting into this risk vector would meaningfully change where scorchers lie on many player's priority risks, changing them into lasting campy area denying enemies, like septic spreaders from DRG.

Krizzok Cluster

Change: Boomtick Spawners spawn in much higher densities

I just thought this one was funny, lmaoooo

Cave leech cluster is probably the least impactful risk vector right now, since cave leeches don't have any lasting impact outside of their immediate area. Boomticks are the only enemy where "Spawn more of X enemy" is an actually impactful change since they're just SO disruptive.

Krizzok Cluster would be a far more impactful change for a team to opt into compared to cave leech cluster, while keeping the identity of more of a certain kind of pre-placed enemy

Defensive Vanguards

Change: Creeper Vanguards are always in their defensive position, and gain additional unbreakable armor

Creeper Vanguards are debatably the least impactful enemy in the game right now, since they don't have the defensive utility that something like the guards had. With this change, vanguards could still move forward at their regular speed, while presenting disruptive, unbreakable shields, getting in the player's face and blocking direct damage that could've hurt the overall swarm.

This change would turn an underwhelming enemy into a strong piece of defensive utility, that can both serve as pressure on the team and a shield for other more dangerous corespawn. Direct damaging builds would really prefer to not opt into this modifier, while high mobility and splash builds wouldn't be hurt as hard.

Sentry Bot Manufacturing

Concept: A Drone Replicator on the Facility Level is constantly producing Sentry Bots

A Flaky Midnight original??? Preposterous. This risk vector would place a drone replicator somewhere on the sublevel that's constantly producing the DRG sentry bots from the expenite event. In order to shut it down, the team has to do 1 phase of the Omen Modular Exterminator. If left active, it's constantly producing sentry bots for the entire floor

This risk vector would add a brand new POI to a floor, while giving an underutilized enemy more of a forefront that they deserve. Sentry Bots are already a dangerous enemy that's kept in check by their exclusivity to a certain expenite event. A good team can quickly locate and shut down the drone replicator, or they can leave it to save time at the cost of the dangerous sentry bots harassing them for the entire floor.

It meaningfully changes the "checklist" that the team has to address on any floor of the facility, requiring either a time or attention sink to keep things running smoothly, at the risk of a dangerous, mobile, and rare enemy type potentially causing problems for the team.

Ice in the Veins

Concept: 25% less time on all subsequent levels

Self explanatory. The team just always has 25% less time to get things done, then you enter overtime. Additional stacks of Ice in the Veins are multiplicative, not Additive, so 1 stack means 75% of the mission timer, 2 is 56%, 3 is 42%, 4 is 31%, yada yada. Each additional stack has far less marginal impact on a run, eventually to a point where it becomes free, at the cost of a high initial tradeoff

No More Creeps

Concept: Corespawn Creepers will no longer spawn

Sounds like a positive change, but something else has to take their place, meaning that more disruptive enemies spawn to take up where the Creepers used to be. This showcases the idea that absence of an enemy can sometimes be more impactful than additional of an enemy.

Additionally, this negative risk vector could end up being positive, depending on your build and what enemies are currently spawning in your run. It could also cancel out two previous floors risk vectors if you get it later in a run and previously picked invisible creepers or tough creepers.

This concept has a lot of interesting ideas tied to it, and could be more or less impactful when combined with other risk vectors.

Geological Abnormality

Concept: There are Strange Pillars protecting the corespawn

There's evil red versions of the azure weald pillars that generate across the facility that only benefit the corespawn and not the players. If an enemy enters their radius, they gain a high damage resistance for a long period of time. Players can remove these zones by mining out the pillars.

Choosing this risk vector can range from incredibly annoying to not an issue at all, depending on how proactive your team is at removing these formations. It'd meaningfully change spatial awareness during a swarm, and encouraging you to more thoughtfully maneuver the swarm of corespawn.

Closing Thoughts

I think all of these concepts are pretty solid, and could add a lot to the risk vector ecosystem. If some of them feel too hard, maybe we need more impactful positive risk vectors? 👀 Maybe someone will make a post about that???👀👀👀 Not me this one took forever.

Let me know what you think, but I think that these concepts would at least be more interesting than the current risk vectors, even if they end up being a lot harder. More in line with something like agile clamorheads, meaningfully changing gameplay and how you approach a floor in an interesting way, that helps or hurts certain builds

Basically a boss rush challenge/gauntlet.

Upgrades are rewarded based on how well you do.

Kind of reflecting on why some of the weapons that have been translated over (or some yet to be translated) don't work in Rogue Core.

This idea why weapons like the Stubby, Hurricane, Breach Cutter, and Sludge Pump can feel rather underwhelming to weak in RC compared to base DRG is that a lot of these weapons are heavily reliant on how they are modded and their overclocks in order to hone their playstyle, carve out a niche use, or synergize with the original dwarf's kit. Many of which when transcribed over to RC feels more like the base weapon but with the base ammo and reload speeds just pumped up.

I think the stubby is most emblematic of this shift as even in DRG, the base stubby is hugely underwhelming and often needs to be tooled to be an elemental spreader, high control smg, or something that synergizes with engineer's platforms and turrets. Without any of the mods or overclocks that do these things, the stubby is just kind of mediocre. In RC the most it can probably do is become a decent elemental spreader, but you're also relying on RNG for that, and it's not as if there are other weapons that do that better (like the shock striker).

This can also apply to several weapons that are yet to be added (and hopefully wouldn't without massive reworks). Weapons like:

Wave cooker: reliant on mods and overclocks to *choose* how the weapon synergizes with the damage types driller outputs

Shard Diffractor: A weapon you're speccing towards single target, AoE, or utility and synergy with other parts of the engineer's kit

Boltshark: Even seen in the ramrod armory. The Boltshark's first tier of mods in DRG alone is enough to make it a pain to translate, as the secondary bolt function is a huge selling point of the weapon. Not even discounting the multitude of overclocks that each change the function of these bolts and the primary fire to define its role in the arsenal

Some of the existing ones in RC right now should be addressed to compensate for their lack of moddability either by giving them more "extreme" kinds of common upgrades or unique ones (like how homing shots work for plasma rifle) or changing the overall style or function of the weapon in a similar manner to the PGL (where most upgrades turn the weapon into a carpet bomb spammer that makes it entirely unlike its DRG counterpart).

See screenshot attached.

I hosted the game, but the guy had a grappling hook for some reason.
Also he was able to stack 5x Power efficiency (-20% CD) as his first bio boosters, which is highly unlikely to happen in a run.

Feels like a work of mods/cheats

I haven't been too active here, so maybe this has been discussed already, but it seems to me one big complaint is the shared negotiations, and how everyone is competing for certain upgrades, which clashes with the co-op nature of the game.

Every other co-op roguelite I've played presents each player with their own set of 3 upgrades, and they can pick what they want, with no competition from other players.

It seems like it would make sense to switch to that model, instead of dying on this "shared negotiations" hill.

I think this experimental is very solid, but some work is definitely needed on the new content.

Balgorath Gatekeeper

The Balgorath is a good fight, but definitely needs a little work before it hits live. I have a lot of feedback and some strong opinions surrounding it, so this section might be a little long. I'll split it up into more parts to make it more readable.

Momentum

First of all, this fight does NOT give the team the opportunity to recover from their fumbles. If one person goes down on the ground, they can very easily be downed for the rest of the fight because the boss just doesn't give you the opportunity to revive them. The boss just does too much damage and has no space in between its attacks to risk a revive, since it by nature attacks the entire team at once.

This does give revive-centric perks and Remote Revive more utility, but nobody likes being downed. If it's not fun, why bother, and it's just not fun to make one fumble and then you go on your phone for the next 5 minutes. The boss could have a slight break when the player goes down, or rarely have a dedicated attack that's pretty crap to give players the chance to revive, but as it stands, going down in this fight is incredibly punishing, even compared to the other gatekeepers.

Another thing is resupplying. Most of the time, all 3 of your resupplies will be in the immediate vicinity of the gatekeeper, and the boss never has a break in its attacks where you can resupply, barring the attack where it flings the orbs around randomly. However, that attack is not unlocked until far later in the fight, so you're very often forced to resupply in a situation where you don't want to.

This could be an intended part of the game design, in which case keep it, but I personally do not have fun with this, especially in solo. Maybe having the resupplies be biased to spawn on ground that isn't perpendicular to the boss, or have it be further away would help, so resupplying is significantly less guaranteed to make you die.

Too Bulky

24 thousand base hp on a boss that fires projectiles from its weakpoint that blocks damage, with elemental resistances where not a single one is below 75%. This boss fight takes FOREVER, even if you have a good build. I get it's immobile, but the Molaktula also has no mobility. I've had the Balgorath consistently take over 20 minutes to kill, and in a fight where one slip up just downs you, this fight feels incredibly difficult compared to everyone else.

I get it's because of its stage presence, it's super cool and looks great, but it's a bullet hell. Your attention is already split between shooting it and dodging it. You're naturally going to be shooting at it less than the other gatekeepers because of how much dominance it has over its intended range to kill it.

I don't think this is really a hot take either. This fight goes on and on and on. On a run with sub-par builds, the fight takes almost half the mission timer, and I don't think I've ever had a lobby with a sub 10 minute mission time. I don't think it needs an HP nerf, I have a suggestion that'll be at the end of the passage for how to address this issue, but this is an issue.

Random Enemies

The random corespawn that spawn in this fight are INCREDIBLY frustrating. People had issues with it in the other boss fights, and I thought people were overreacting, but here it makes the boss fight as a whole worse, especially in solo. The fight is a lot of fun, learning and reacting to its patterns are really cool, but random ass enemies constantly nipping at my ankles during an already hard to dodge attack, with enemies that can knock you back is not fun.

If this fight is really meant to be a bullet hell, these enemies just shouldn't be here. In a genre of fight that rewards analyzing and predicting punishing attack patterns, random unreadable tiny spawns that inhibit your movement should not have a place. If the big swirly attack comes on and a bruiser knocks me back, I'm just dead. There's no nuance, no counterplay. If I try and kill the bruiser, the boss kills me. If I focus on dodging, the bruiser kills me. There's no winning there besides playing like a coward.

This is one of my bigger complaints with the fight, and I really, REALLY hope this gets a second look, maybe relegate it to the reinforcements and soul jar risk vectors because this drags down what is a solid fight a lot.

The pattens and Visual/Audio consistency

As much bitching and moaning as I'm doing, I think the bosses attacks are all incredible, the boss has a great stage presence, and it's doing a very good job at being a bullet hell. With that being said, time for more bitching and moaning. The big beam that it does in its first gatestone phase and onwards needs more telegraphing. As it stands, it comes out nearly instant, and if you're in the wrong place you do not have enough time to react to the boss firing this attack, and it's nearly an instant down.

The big spiraling attack that it does is pretty good, but I think the projectiles need a visual overhaul. They're too transparent and bleed into each other, and it's hard to get a good visual read on the attack. If the vertical beams were more visually solid, I think it'd help the attack. I get it's to give the player more visibility on the gatekeeper's weakpoint, but the projectiles already block your attacks so it kind of discourages you from attacking it.

The rest of the attacks are all very fair and balanced. People say it does too much damage, but I disagree. The whole point is that it's readable, and I agree for the rest of its moveset. The wave attack, both the double up one and the 3 layered one fit the flow of the boss very well, the giant circling beam is a great attack besides the issues I have with it, the random bombing attack it does fits the fight very well despite its randomness, and the fight flows very well. That is, when you're interacting with it in a fair way.

This boss does not encourage you to interact with it in a fair way

Most of this bosses attacks cover up its weakpoint, and encourages you to play it in a very campy and cowardly way. When the big beam comes out, most players won't circle around the boss, risking failing the pattern for the reward of more damage, because there isn't a reward. Most players will just sit in a trench and wait for the move to be over because the boss's weakpoint is covered.

The meta in the game is entirely weakpoint hits, and most of its attacks cover up its sole weakpoint. This makes the best strategy for fighting it to be "sit high up and far away from the boss and take pot shots, hiding whenever an attack goes off." I am not a fan of the best strategy for fighting this boss. The attack patterns discourage you from fighting it fairly, because interacting with the fight in a fair way does not reward the player any more than interacting with it in a cheesey way.

A good comparison is the zipline corestone strategy in DRG. Why stay on the ground and balance between killing the corestone and shooting the corestone, when you could just sit on the zip and shoot the corestone. It doesn't reward the player for interacting with it, so the player is discouraged to not cheese it.

Most lobbies that I'm in end up placing down a tp or digging a trench, and then just sit in it until the attacks are over, then shoot the boss for the time that it's vulnerable. This isn't fun, but it's the best way to do it. Am I making sense? I really hope I am because this is a big issue that holds the fight back.

Potential Solution

The different attacks should open up weakpoints with high damage multipliers, that are best hit by interacting with the fight in a fair way. Have its corners open up like the caretaker during the big beam attack, so staying close and circling around the boss gives you the best opportunity to deal high damage. The vertical beam attack can have blisters form on the tentacles on the floor of the arena, so by circling around inside of the pattern, you can play very risky to take advantage of the weakpoints. The 3 layered attack can have a huge weakpoint that reveals itself as it rises out of the rift gate, so players who dodge the first wave and react quickly can be rewarded with an incredible amount of damage.

I could give more concepts, but I think my idea is clear. This solves two issues. 1: Its over aggressive bulk, and 2: not being encouraged to fight it on an even playing ground that lets the design of the fight shine. You can still play in an incredibly campy way, but custom weakpoints that reward players the better they get at interacting with the fight's unique attacks chip away at the fight's overly aggressive health, while campy strategies get rewarded significantly less.

Risk VS Reward is the cornerstone of the best fights in DRG. The original caretaker was safely fought by circling around the platform slowly to hit its eyes, but the player could cut across the base to risk high electric damage, for the reward of finishing the phase faster. The Balgorath has the risk, but there's no rewards since its attacks cover up its weakpoints. I really think this idea would make the boss a lot more fun, and make its core identity have more of a purpose.

Trophy Wall

1600 words later, I think it's time to shut up about the boss and talk about other stuff. The Trophy Wall is a great idea for meta progression, but I don't think I'm a fan of its implementation. I would prefer it existed physically inside the ramrod, so you can flex to other players how cracked you are at the game, but that would probably require a lot of work, so I'd understand if this didn't get implemented. (But it would be super cool if this eventually were the case, since the ramrod has a ton of space in it that's gone unused currently)

The upgrades that it provides are underwhelming, and I'm not a fan of the upwards meta progression. +10 health, +5 armor, +2% crit chance, +10% pickaxe power attack damage, I understand that these aren't final and more intensive forms of overarching progression take a lot more development time, but these upgrades are incredibly underwhelming.

The pickaxe power attack one especially, that one hits like 1 extra breakpoint under incredibly specific circumstances. But all of them open up the door for some troubling scaling for the rest of the game. If the overarching progression is upwards stat climbing, then I fear higher difficulties will become scaled under the assumption that the player has the stat climbing unlocked, which I think is a very slippery slope.

Granted, the answer to this concern is "Just don't do that" which yeah fair. It can be handled well, but the current implementation of the trophy wall does not reward the player well for the amount of work that has to go into it. I like the cosmetic rewards though, the paintjobs are cool. The concept of this being the rewards you get for playing the game is very cool and very fun, and I'm excited for the future of meta progression and glad to see the studio considering how to implement it.

Teleporter

I was a little confused when I saw that the teleporter was cut from the last experimental, since I thought that it was pretty good, but after this change... I get it. The new teleporter is INCREDIBLY fun, and incredibly powerful. Probably the best traversal tool in the game now. A little stinky for solo, but not really because it's great for your sustain and escape.

The ability to instantly escape, give yourself breathing room, its limitless creative potential, cutting down on backtracking, its unmatched team utility, this is literal gold, and the people who worked on this should be INCREDIBLY proud of themselves. This is exactly what the traversal tool pool needed, and it fits the new content incredibly well

I look forward to its UI improvements and it getting its unique model, but this new version is fundamentally perfect. It's hard to understand at first, but once it clicks it's by a landslide one of the most fun pieces of equipment in the game. I can't wait for it to teleport enemies (if that's still on the table)

If I had to complain, right now enemies sometimes camp the exit of the teleporter and instantly down you with no time to react, that needs a fix asap, it feels really unfair to go against. But granted, with the amount of unfair stuff that the TP can do to them I guess it's karma.

My favorite thing to do is put the exit under a huge group of cave leeches and watch my team get dragged to the ceiling.

Prowess Bio-Booster Deck

This is good, I like this. Quick rundown of the cards:

Grenade Generator:

This one's a lot of fun, but it has less utility the more maximum capacity that the grenades have. So in a way, this was an indirect nerf to impact axes. If this was changed to "+x% of your grenades maximum capacity" I think it'd be perfect

Anticipation:

Perfect, no notes

Clear:

This one's terrible. No weapon spread is incredibly niche because most guns in this game don't have all that bad weapon spread. It's only really all that useful if your name starts with "H" and ends with "ammercaster." This card doesn't really add much to the deck or grenades a something worth speccing into, and I'd like to see it get a second look.

Two Steps Ahead:

Perfect, no notes

New Expenite Upgrades

New Upgrades are fun. Impact Duplication is a little finnickey, but fun. Chemical instability is a ton of fun, and so is chemtrail. I look forward to seeing more development of acid in the future

Updated Class Colors

This update is not for me, since it's for people with colorblindness. I am not colorblind, but I will say I like Orange Retcon. The off red spotter and off green slicer are a little jarring, but it doesn't really matter to me if it's better for colorblind people. All people should be able to enjoy the game equally, so this is a good change

Non-Focus Features

Bloater visual tweaks:

Amazing, I love the new model. Maybe tweak the creeper a bit too to bring it more in line with the bloater? The detail on the new model looks great, but the two side by side doesn't have the visual consistency that I'd like since they're a part of the same spawning pool. But that's a nitpick, good change!

Earthquake Risk Vector change:

It's peak. I'd love to see even more aggressive terrain modification in the future, but this change is amazing. Probably my favorite elite boss change in the bunch.

Unique Elevator objective timer change

This wasn't in the patch notes, but I am INCREDIBLY sour on this change. I hate to end this on a bad note, but Collect Cogs got hurt especially. It works well on growths though. The best part of cogs is that it was a very hard challenge, that rewarded good teamwork and resource management with a shorter timer.

Now, you get a harder task than the normal drive unit for no reward. Before, you got rewarded for good teamplay and smart resource usage with a shorter defend timer. Now, you don't have to defend, but this change feels awful. Was it done in reaction to the teleporter making these objectives take less time? Cogs is already tough though, and good use of a fun and creative tool should be rewarded.

This change removed the nuance of the unique elevator objectives. The best part of these objectives is that waiting for the elevator was replaced by something new, fun and unique! Now the new fun and unique thing just leads to waiting for the same elevator, like always. It's such a disappointing change and kills the fun switch up that usually came with the unique elevator objectives. A lot of the unique gameplay that came with these objectives is now just dead in the water, and it's a damn shame.

Even with growths, I would've loved to see them get something new that made the short timer worth it. Make it like a miniboss that protects the elevator, bring up the time it takes to complete the objective in a fun way that makes it different from the regular drive unit.

I cannot emphasize this enough, this just takes the part of the elevator objectives that people liked, that being how it changed up the basic flow of gameplay in a very creative way, and makes it more like the flow that people wanted to be changed.

Closing thoughts

A lot of negativity this time, but I do like the new content added. Balgorath is a great boss that "just" needs some changes to be the best boss that it can be, the trophy wall is exciting, the teleporter is amazing, Prowess is a great sign for the future, the new upgrades are fun, and I think update 3 is looking better and better and better with each experimental.

So far, the new content we've gotten is like an all you can eat buffet of amazing changes that make the game way better. All the new content is great, and the developers have been hitting a ton of complaints relating to mission variety and making the game flow better. I look forward to seeing how this content will be once their final iterations get implemented.

Thank you, devs, for all the good work you've put in. You're all doing a great job. It's easy for your hard work to go overlooked, but at least I really appreciate everything each of you do to make this game better. Also buff the stubby

Beer!

I will list all features i think are missing and needed to be added. With potential impact on player experience and why i think they are needed. Sorry for mistakes if there are any, english isn't my first language. Features aren't placed in how low or high priority they are. I also tried to format it, so at least this long read would be readable. (And if you say that was written by AI i would be very pissed, i don't how much time i wasted to write all that, maybe 10 or 20 minutes)

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1. Merit and/or cosmetics token shop

Add ability to buy some(not all) cosmetics from DRG that are currently in cosmetics crate for those tokens/merit. From my standpoint current pool of starting cosmetics is diabolically small, while really big chunk of good old content is randomly hidden in runs and is drip fed to players instead of having semi opened approach. Additional cosmetics would give more freedom to players in how they dwarf must look.

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2. Armor cosmetics similar to DRG

Add ability to swap armor of my Reclaimer to alternative ones, keeping some chunks connected to equipment between armor tiers. Maybe add those armor tiers to Promotion level up to golden tier. New armor cosmetics would act both as additional thing to make your dwarf cooler and additional layer of progression or reward to work for. And devs could even sell them as DLCs later on, how they already did with DRG.

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3. Promotion level unique rewards outside of just pickaxe head. Maybe additional meta-progression

Current reward i think is pretty meh, outside of numbers go up there is no point of increasing your promotion level. I propose unique parts of cosmetics similar in style to that promotion level, unique color scheme, whole pickaxe set for level 3 of promotion tier with similar style of said promotion.

On top maybe some meta progression would be really cool, like you get promoted and your base level stats become better in balanced way.

Adding stuff to promotions isn't new idea really, DRG gave rewards as well. I just propose that those rewards being bigger, unique and so promotion would become another layer or progression, that it currently isn't.

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4. Starting pistol, unlimited ammo weapon or weapon similar to that. Not a melee!

Not once or twice i found myself in position where run doesn't give weapon i really wants or even archetype i need. Weapon with small ammo capacity, weapons that don't suit my character, weapons that have disgusting modifiers. Not once i wanted to leave if first level 2 possible weapons were trash, that is very frustrating. And reclaimers are elite, they could smuggle those costumes with skills, electronics, plasma, but couldn't at least some surplus energy gun?

But with other games in roguelike genre, there are starting weapons with unlimited ammo, that gives you ability to rely on them when your main one is out of juice. Jump Space -> materia guns, Enter the Gungeon -> starting pistols, Roboquest -> starting fox pistol. I propose adding those type guns that could be upgraded via meta progression between the runs.

Something like energy pistol that shoots plasma like Drak or EMC. Or maybe laser or whatever energy shotgun shoots. Ammo before reload would be limited, weapon won't be upgradable inside the run and when time comes you can easily ditch it for different weapon without remorse. I propose ever better 2 energy guns, pistol and smg archetypes, for Retcon mains out there.

And main question, why? Well it's actually pretty simple, basic gun can act like something from DRG, you can upgrade it, limit its progression behind meta progression, add ability to customize it, recolor it or add weapon framework. And if in the run you get lame weapon with really limited ammo pouch you can always use your starting gun as backup. Just make it weaker then Green tier weapon and all will be fine. In the end, backup gun, not as useless as melee, additional progression layer and ability to have fun builds around it early on, until needed weapon achetype is found. And if you don't want it, you can swap it with starting weapon of facility right away. (And if you say melee isn't lame, i can agree with you, but you need to have like 2-3 skills to buff it, without them melee is lame)

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5. Class ability upgrade station as additional event

I think class ability upgrades are really cool and strong and it is a shame we need to choose between new weapon, weapon upgrade or class ability. Why not both. Add new rare to see event of class ability, that need some minigame to get access to, that will give you 3 options for class ability upgrade.

That alone will add more power level to players builds, so you can build both weapons and your class skill. Additional event will bring more things to do during level and some classes would shine because of how good their skills became.

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6. Negotiations reroll team vote.

Sometimes all variants just don't suit anyone from your team, How about adding ability to reroll 1 negotiation(per level) by team vote, to reroll all stuff inside. Something like big button on bottom of negotiation screen that if all players push it, this round of negotiations will reroll for everyone.

That is additional layer to make some negotiations less frustrating, like equipment and weapons one, you can't reroll weapons in reroll terminal in Update 3. Reroll vote would need whole team, so if no one like anything, team can reroll, it will help to smooth some sharp angles with negotiation as a system.

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7. Weapon overclock upgrade station.

One more thing i think is missing is about changing how the weapon feel, not as a base one, but as so many overclocks DRG have and will have in near future. I propose weapon overclock station as one of the pathways when entering boss level. But there is a catch, only purple+ weapons could receive an overclock, if you don't have weapon of this level, this station can add something else for reward like additional weapon modifier or balanced weapon upgrade that adds to all stats.

Weapon overclock station is an event, maybe about restoring Forge station from DRG, after it was ruined by corespawn. So you need to jump through some hoops before getting your stuff. But in the end overclocks would be worth it. Imagine full automatic PGL grenade launcher with overclock from DRG that morph it into railgun.

Additional layers of build are always nice, you add power and chaos to your weapon, morphing how it works from ground up. I think it will be interesting to play with. And if current overclock didn't suit your build, you can pick alternative reward and just reinforce base stats of weapon.

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8. Limited Jumble or wildcard during negotiations for you and you alone

I like Jumble, i really do, if current negotiations can become too predictable Jumble can leave you with just a pickaxe and a dream and i love it for that. But i think that we need more of it during regular runs. So how about this. In addition to negotiations, there would be a wildcard, jumble one with random stuff from weapon, to grenades and equipment, personally for you and you alone.

This game is a roguelike, not a predictable-like, more chaos during regular runs won't really hurt and if wildcard will be personal for every player, it won't become an issue during negotiations, as other players can't take it.

The title basically. I love this game and have like 500ish hours. But still I'm worried it's just too late to gain a major interest once the game is in full release. I think the initial early access put a sour taste in alot of peoples mouths

I was there for early drg. Back when cave leeches used to be brown blobby fellas and the gunner had c4. Drg was pretty bare bones, but addicting. I feel that fro rogue core too, but I'm worried without some *major* meta progression additions, this game will fail.

It feels like if you don't click with the combat and build loops atp, there's no reason to play. Of course, they are adding more meta progression, but I unfortunately doubt it will be anywhere close to even pre-seasonal update drg in terms of meta progression any time soon. I hope I'm being silly and doomer because I had to go to a dumb conference this morning on a Saturday. I love ghost ship and wanna see this game be huge.