u/FlakyMidnight5526

I like rogue core's bosses for the most part, I think the Molaktula could use a little toning down but besides that they're all really good. I just think that for something you encounter every single dive, they can all end up feeling a little same-y after a while.

I think they should have a small chance for different variants, just to spice up the boss fight from time to time. Slight changes to make the boss itself feel a little more unique every run, and to change the way the team will play around each boss. I made 3 beautifully illustrated concepts to demonstrate my point.

The tall-laktula is a Molaktula, but really tall. So tall it scrapes the cave ceiling. So tall you'll have to look up to shoot at it. This means you have to switch between fighting the boss and making sure there's no small enemies sneaking up on you. It's so tall, it doesn't trigger close range proximity.

The big-laktula is a Molaktula, but really big. Because it's bigger, it has a much larger health pool than the standard Molaktula, moves slower, but to compensate enters its invulnerability phase far less often. It also attacks with its ranged options far less frequently. It chases down players and attempts to squash them underfoot.

The Ebo-laktula has a constantly regenerating ebonite shield that covers its weakpoints, which must be broken with melee damage before the team can attack it.

I don't want the bosses identities to be changed up all that much, I think all 3 are really solid, but I think little variants of the fights could go a long way to making the end of the mission feel more interesting than it currently is. Kind of like how balatro changes what hands you can use, or in hades how the bosses will sometimes have altered movesets/elements.

I know it's not that big of an issue, but it really pisses me off whenever my team picks invisible creepers when I'm playing spotter. You can still see them on the radar thing, but the scan can't pick them up. I'd also be good with the radar not seeing the invisible creepers. It's just really inconsistent that half of spotter's kit can pick them up, and the other half can't

I love the highlight ability, it's probably in my top 3 favorite. Giving your team so much information to work with is really satisfying, and a spotter that actually uses it is incredibly valuable to the team. However, this ability becomes FAR less useful once you choose invisible creepers. We'll be in the middle of a wave and I see a huge amount of invisible creepers coming from another angle, and I just can't warn my team about them.

Or we'll be exiting a tunnel, I see about a hundred dots hanging around the exit, I scan, nothing, my team takes a huge amount of damage. "Oh but it ruins the challenge of invisible creepers" so why do they still show up on the radar? I already know where the creepers are, but I don't want to have to ping each individual creeper to give my team that information

Now that the draft system for the perks and the timer display have been reworked, I think rogue core can benefit most from a rework to its cave generation. I've had very few missions where the cave gen led to interesting scenarios with my team, leaving every single dive feeling the same.

I came up with a new mutator idea: gravitational reshuffle, with 2 variants. Upwards Shuffle or downwards Shuffle. In upwards shuffle, every floor will be one long climb upwards, where the team will have to use its traversal tools in tandem to make it from one chamber to another in enough time to clear out the cave.

Once the players make it through the in between hallways, tools like the platform gun or drills will help the team make space to fight and navigate to chamber objectives, like moving the toolbox or getting the team to the bio-booster.

The first chamber of a dive will always be normal, before the rest of the cave and all subsequent floors will be shifted 90 degrees either up or down. The ending elevator will be rotated 90 degrees so the team will have a place to stand and wait for the team to group up. It will also arrive like this, so the entire team isn't immediately dumped to their death upon arriving to a new floor.

This idea takes pre-existing assets and presents them to the player in new and unique ways, turning standard chambers into either a full game ascent or descent. Bugs would come from above or below, changing your angles of attack from a 180 dome to a 360 sphere.

This will force the team to operate in uncomfortable chambers where the corespawn have the advantage, naturally having longer sightlines up and down. Fighting in the large chambers will usually entail careful close quarters movement where slipping up could lead to you plummeting to your death and falling a chamber back, where your team has to rush to revive you through either an enormous fall or a nerve wracking climb back.

The large chambers that would normally be safe to fight in become huge pits with small floors that the team has to be cautious fighting in, and curvy hallways stay the same. It also makes the overwatch bio booster card have a use. The way you use and think about your weapons and grenades would change, what builds are and aren't viable, equipment crates would gain a lot more use as the team wants more traversal options for team play or individual freedom, it would bring a lot more nuance and variety for players.

As for enemy behavior, I think this idea could be incredibly easy for ghostship to implement, as the corespawn can already follow players perfectly fine through the existing vertical cave elements. Aerial enemies like the drifters or the Rafkan also have an advantage, as they can reposition vertically a lot faster than the reclaimers, coming from blind spots and applying fast pressure that the corespawn couldn't.

This also encourages players to fight in the close quarters level elements that otherwise would be unoptimal to fight in, because the major chambers are so drastically different, square hallways would remain nearly unchanged. This also encourages players to pick close quarters weapons if the team is coordinated in where they choose their fights.

I think this would give players who are looking to spice up level generation an outlet to try drastically new builds and styles of play. It will also give players a reason to interact with indoors combat (yes I know everything is indoors because we're in a cave, you know what I mean) and make the traversal tools shine even more than they already do.

I don't know how hard it would be to implement on the developer's parts, I doubt weapons crates, workbenches, bio boosters, and other interactable things were meant to be placed sideways, but enemy AI wouldn't have to be adjusted, and I'm certain terrain is in the same boat.

I think as a concept this would greatly impact how players choose their weapons, perks, cooldowns, and how they think about engaging with a threat/obstacle. It would also throw in an additional threat to each and every encounter of plummeting to your death, encouraging situational awareness and coordinated play. Or it might be really annoying, let me know what you think.

TLDR; Mission modifier that flips the terrain either 90 degrees up or down

When a squad goes down completely, we fail the mission. Reduced rewards and all, because we failed the mission, right? This debriefing from the website shows that's WRONG! Even if a squad is KIA, as long as the MULE makes it back with the objective, the mission is a success. So tell me then, why do we get nada for not making it back to the extraction? We DEMAND compensation for the thousands of missions dwarves have succeeded on, but didn't return from. The mission is not a failure if you consider it as a success.

This floating bit of hoxxes is in every concept art of the planet, but do you think we'll ever find ourselves actually going up there? I noticed it was on the menu map and I thought it was a little weird that they included it in this UI when I don't actually think you can see this floaty bit while looking out the ramrod. Or maybe I just didn't notice it? Regardless, I think it's weird that it's in this menu when it really didn't have to be