u/TheYondant

Pretty much any time anyone brings up the criticism that Rogue Core is receiving, there are just as many people saying that 'they shouldn't have expected DRG 2' or some variant thereof. However, the problem there is there's plenty of people with criticism of the game that's entirely valid and based solely on what Rogue Core actually is that is being dismissed by people because they bring up DRG at all.

To be utterly frank, Rogue Core genuinely does have issues right now in my experience. It's not that it doesn't feel like DRG, or that it's a roguelite. It has real problems that you can feel just from playing the game.

Just... actually listen to what people have to say when they don't like the game? Even if their criticism does include the phrase 'It's not like DRG', there's a big difference between "it doesn't play like an updated DRG" and "It lacks aspects that were present in DRG and it feels worse as a result".

The simplest way I can explain my opinion is:

Pretty fun, but with some very rough edges that need smoothing over.

1: Player health and armor.

Armor doesn't... really feel like it's doing anything? It's not shields like DRG, it seems to reduce damage to health but get damaged in turn, but I genuinely couldn't tell you because it really does NOT feel like it's doing just about anything. You get blindsided by even one or two creepers and you can lose most of your health shockingly fast. This is further worsened by the fact that, for some god forsaken reason, Resupplies don't restore health, only Armor. For all that Teamwork is supposed to be important, I find myself racing my allies for any deposits of Red Sugar. WHY Red Sugar doesn't have fixed spawns in Boss caves is even more deranged.

2: Random weapons+tools.

For the most part, it's not hard to get a, at the very least, decent gun, but it's also possible to just get fucked and be stuck with terrible options (looking at you, Voltaic SMG and Barrier Gun) early on. Combined with the fact that, if you don't get lucky, it's very easy to end up with a spread of shitty perks with no synergy or effectiveness, so you're struggling to do anything. FAR more importantly, I feel, is that with no control over traversal gear, it can get very awkward and annoying to traverse some of the more vertical areas.

While I understand Rogue Core is meant to be a Roguelite, it also feels like it's too easy to just get shafted, especially when fighting with your teammates for a coherent build. Which leads to my final point...

3: Anti-Teamwork.

Pray to GOD that your teammates are understanding and able to communicate, because I've had at least two runs now where you're just stuck with a bunch of people who snatch the best options for themselves, no attempt to talk with their teammates or plan builds. This way of doing perks and weapons doled out to the group is interesting, but it also encourages players to almost compete and argue over who should get what, not unlike fighting over Red Sugar clusters. This is ultimately something I don't think the devs can really do anything about, that's just up to the players to moderate their own behavior, and I do think they will; DRG has a surprisingly healthy community overall and, as much as I've seen everyone go on about how this isn't DRG, a sizable portion of it's players will be coming in from DRG, which I don't think is a bad thing.

Overall Feelings: Moment to moment gameplay feels good for a roguelite, I really am enjoying the game so far, and even the points I've brought up are by and large fairly small parts of my experience so far. I don't expect the game to be perfect, far from it, and if DRG has taught me anything it's that Ghost Ship Games are a studio that can be trusted to their work. Deep Rock Galactic had it's own issues on launch, but has inarguably gotten better since, and I trust them to put that same care and passion into making Rogue Core an excellent game in it's own right.