r/RogueCore

I still remember when that game came out, there was a very vocal group of people who thought the game was supposed to be Elden Ring 2 and absolutely HATED the timer. There were even suggestions of removing it all together or adding a mode where they can move around the map without one, but that wasn't the point of the game. This feels like a repeat of that debacle and it's giving me some good chuckles how people aren't used to THIS type of Roguelike. It's another Ravenswatch/Nightreign and I'm surprised no one has made the comparison yet.

Personally, I find the game awesome. I think it's a good spinoff game that has a lot of potential and I'm looking forward to seeing where it ends up in that subgenre of games.

• it feels odd that the guns are so... basic? Given that the focus of the game now is basically "combat first, explore second"- no ironsights/alt-fire is a weird lack, and the general variety is pretty minimal. I would love to see some focus on the actual gunplay and gun feel
• Just double ammo across the board, and maybe then go from there on some kind of additional mechanic
• The "Upgrades" pauses are very painful, mostly because everyone has to come back to the drone in order to begin the process. The process ITSELF is enough of a pause- let players engage this from wherever they are on the map with a UI click of some kind (and no, I don't care that it wouldn't make sense to get a gun given to you in this manner, I don't care).
• We need some kind of semi-permanent tagging/marking system for places of interest in game, that is quicker to refer to than the scanner. The vibe and feel of the scanner is very cool, but it also takes a decent amount of time/effort to get a sense of the environment- fine in base DRG, not so much with the timer going- being able to see workbench/bio-booster etc outlines through walls once one dwarf finds them, maybe?
• the time constraints make communication more important- maybe some kind of ping wheel with common voice lines?
• losing connection/host dropping/game crashing etc: please consider having some form of disconnection protection on player XP. I have already had 2 games go 30+ minutes only to drop/get dropped and have nothing to show for them, it feels VERY bad, please at least reward some amount of XP etc that the player "would have earned" or something
• the shared loot thing is a great idea IF you are playing with a team that is working together- with randoms, it just feels like the game is showing you shiny things you can't have when other players pick them. This is purely psychological trickery but i think would actually make a difference- when picking upgrades, you dont see whats available until its your pick - no more watching the other members of the team take that legendary upgrade before you get it. Teams that want to coordinate can do so over text/mic to make coordinated picks.
• alternative solution, make loot more shareable after the fact- some method to drop/swap guns, or maybe "gift" an upgrade you've taken to a teammate somehow?
• I get the whole "we're in dark caves, throw flares" thing, but isn't this supposed to be us going into established mines/facilities and reclaiming them? Why is everything so dark still, even in the places that DRG has built out? It makes sense for the caves that are being explored for mining to be dark, but all this equipment and outposts etc, we can't put up some halogens?

Frankly, the bones are well fleshed out: DRG’s combat system, biome diversity, and enemy selection make the pivot to a roguelite easy and sensible.

I don’t see anything wrong with the timer that many have voiced frustration over. Roguelites are designed to be fast paced.

What rogue core struggles to do is maintain that pace UNTIL you hit the death timer. Frankly, the game needs endless spawn like (risk of rain) that rewards points for each enemy killed combined with a personal upgrade barter system that is superimposed over all of the current systems (shared barter, equipment, weapon, terminals).

We need shields (not armor). We need passive health regeneration. We need base weapons with unlimited ammo.

Rogue core has the potential to be an absolute unit of a FPS roguelite; but ghost ship needs to commit to the genre fully.

Edit: Many of you who dislike the weapon and equipment suggestions are not connecting that the suggestions are designed to accommodate a gameplay loop that utilizes endless wave.

You can still have an ammo economy for large, useful weapons that is not trivialized by a baseline ranged weapon with unlimited ammo because of endless spawn. Without some sort of baseline, unlimited ammo kit— the entire gameplay loop would consist of hunting for ammo in an endless wave environment.

The primary suggestion of this post is to implement endless wave. It is the opinion of the OP that leaning into the roguelite, endless wave would fill the void left by the lack of whimsy and exploratory depth that DRG enjoys.

The two biggest complaints I’ve seen are Timer Bad, Shared Lootpool Bad. There’s a lot of other valid critiques as well, but these are some of the bigger ones.

In my opinion, as someone who’s played a lot of DRG and a lot of roguelikes, the timer is necessary. It can’t be removed outright without effectively trivializing the game. I think it’s much more reasonable to have the time slightly extended, but even then almost all of my runs with randoms we’ve cleared everything in the cave before the timer goes off. Making it a little bit longer could be reasonable, but I think it’s more of a git gud issue in terms of people being upset they’re getting caught and dying when they’re literally brand new to a game advertised as hard. It wouldn’t be much of a mechanic if there wasn’t actual threat, there’s not enough to do in the caves if you could take your time and waltz through it, and the constant speed pressure keeps the long form missions fun. People are demanding the removal of challenge instead of adapting to it. Would you remove the get-to-the-drop-pod timer at the end of the DRG mission because it’s hard sometimes?

As for the shared lootpool complaints, my least good experience was my first run and it only gets better the harder missions I unlock, to the point where it’s been a nonissue for the past several dives. Isn’t DRG the community famed for how chill and friendly it is? Communication is easy and goes a long way. I think the main problem is everyone trying to run the same kit all the time. If three people in the lobby are going for critical damage builds, then obviously that’s not going to work. People need to be more flexible, especially into roles that their class benefits, like a melee build for slicer or a status build for falconer. If you’re chasing the same rigid class build every run, it’s not going to end well for you.

The root of the matter is, everyone’s new right now. People have been agreeing that a lot of the friction is removed if you’re in a voice call with a competent team. In my experience, once you get to the lower depths, you basically have that. A lot of these complaints are coming from people dropping into a brand new game and getting frustrated that people in their lobby are playing suboptimally and dragging the game down. These are valid complaints, and the game is definitely geared towards competent players more than just the masses, but seriously, people, can we not take at least a day for the greenbeards to learn the ropes before we write off the game as a failure?

BRO WE DIDN'T BRING ANY GUNS

The shared loot adds too much downtime. Runs are already bordering on lasting too long for a casual session and the regular pausing for loot deliberation does not help that. It's ultimately just added friction that works against the brisk pace that the game is trying to encourage.

Solo, upgrades pop up immediately and the player is quickly on their way to the next encounter. In a group, wrangling players brings the momentum to a screeching halt that is further extended by the need to coordinate perks and select one by one.

It's a system that ranges from slightly annoying with friends and while potentially making the game borderline unplayable with randoms, all while being completely unnecessary as the game functions perfectly fine when solo.

This is the type of thing I'd expect out of a challenge mutator like limited oxygen in DRG. As a core mechanic it just serves to extend an already long play session.

Firstly, I was extremely excited for this release. I was a huge DRG fan, and have ~400 hours in it, and I've also been a big DRG survivor fan for years as well, with about 100 hours in that. I'm a big fan of Rougelikes/roguelites and have played, HADES, HADES 2, VOID CREW, Slay The Spire, Slay The Spire 2, Binding of ISSIAC, INSCRYPTION, Balatro, Dominion, and all of those are among my favorite games. I'm by no means a "roguetype expert" gamer or anything, but I kinda know what to expect.

The reason I stopped playing DRG is because it just became boring. Every mission was the same, polished loop. It was fun, but after a while, I found myself downloading mods to randomize the loadouts just to add some variety. here's a hard truth that a lot of dwarves maybe aren't ready to hear: DRG is an easy game made for babies. The loop is good, but there's no real endgame aside from completing the missions faster, and getting your avatar to max level, or grinding the overclocks and cosmetics. That's fine, but I left that game for helldivers 2 because it was more fun and more intense.

now, I want to address my feelings about the 2 big criticisms:

1. Upgrade negotiations -

If someone takes your super special ultimate upgrade: GET FUCKED LOL - There's a little heart that you can ask someone not to take it, but if it gets sniped from you, health is almost always a good option. I see why it can be triggering in the early levels, because you literally only get 3-4 upgrades, but on the 5+ level dives, where everyone knows what they're doing, that is basically a non-issue. You heart something, if they take it, they say "sry I needed it" in the chat, and that's that. It's one of 15+ upgrades that the team will get. It really, truly, isn't that big of a deal. If your entire build breaks because you didn't get that super special Epic tier double jump, then you probably didn't have a great build to begin with. In my measly 10 hours of experience, I found the options in the workbench far more run-crushing than any of the exp upgrades, which have 0 intervention from other players, and there's usually only 1 per level.

2. The timer - The timer is tough.

Almost every round that I played (aside from the super early basic ones) we finished in the red. There's an anxiety that pushes the game forward, and forces players to play as efficiently as possible. If you're a dumb baby, and can't figure out how to manage your time, and would rather write a negative review in the hopes that the GSG will remove it, I have 0 respect for your opinion, and I don't care that you don't like the game. Many roguelites and roguelikes have a similar time limit, and I actually **enjoy** being under the gun in a game like this.

However, I think it could be done better:

DRG Survival has a much more forgiving time limit, where the enemies become stronger in progressively shorter amounts of time, and I think that works well for that game, because it tests your build. There's also unlimited ammo, and WAY more upgrades. I think that to improve the timer in this game, a similar system, where stronger and stronger bugs spawn, or just more and more bugs spawn. There's still an RNG amount of ammunition available, so it seems strange to me that they went with wall worms instead of the obvious unending wave of enemies.

I also think that a side objective that allows the timer to be extended would also be a natural way to alleviate the timer woes. Obviously, the player base has been very vocal about their distain for the timer, so time will tell if/how the devs change it.

I also LOVE the new weapons.

My favorite so far has been the double barrel rifle, that thing is badass. I got it on a run as spotter, and I was going for a max crit build, so I was laying down like 500 damage per shot on the final boss with all the upgrades. It felt awesome, and was super badass. The grav grenades are also quite awesome. Basically a traversal tool that takes up a different slot, so you can still use the zipline or driller hands. I hope we eventually see weapons with utility like that, or tools that do big damage with the right build. That would be some old school DRG synergy.

I also LOVE how hard the game is.

This game is MUCH harder than DRG. There's a certain "grit" to this game, even in the unpolished state. The Reclaimers are clearly more hardcore than the Miners, and I really like that, because they're on a super elite mission. It SHOULD be harder. not ANYONE can do it! When a build really starts to ramp up, and you become a super strong dwarf, I find it very satisfying and rewarding. I've literally been sweating in my gamer chair all day playing this damn game, and it's refreshingly hard.

I also LOVE how some things feel like DRG 2.

I think the new ship, the new characters, the weapons, map, the drop pod, DO feel like a very natural evolution of DRG. To me, RC feels like it still captured whimsy and charm of DRG, but improved on everything in the same ways as the core (pun intended) gameplay, making it a little harder, to make it more rewarding. I like the workout minigames to earn the beer, I like the new ascension hall, I miss the cosmetics shop.

Anyways, none of my friends play DRG or RC, so apologies if my post had too many words, or it was too long-winded; Just needed somewhere to get my thoughts out.

I'm excited to see where this game goes, and I hope it doesn't get review-bombed into mediocrity.

Cheers

TL:DR; I like rogue-type games. I think the upgrade negotiations aren't a big deal. I think the timer could have a better gameplay design. I like the new weapons, difficulty, vibe, and I think it's a good, natural evolution of DRG, and I'm happy to welcome it to the franchise.

Also:

Roguelite: Focuses on the runs (Balatro)

Roguelike: Focuses on the greater game (Hades)

Since there’s no auto-run/sprint toggle yet in Rogue Core, I made a tiny AutoHotkey script that automatically holds Shift whenever you press W.

No DLL injection, no memory editing, no Cheat Engine.
It just sends Shift while moving forward.

Tutorial:

1. Install AutoHotkey v2 https://www.autohotkey.com/
2. Create a new file called:

​

Autorun.ahk

1. Paste this inside:

​

#HotIf WinActive("Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core")

~w::
{
    Send("{Shift down}")
}

~w up::
{
    Send("{Shift up}")
}

#HotIf

1. Save the file.
2. Double click it.

You should see a green “H” icon in the tray bar.

Now whenever Rogue Core is focused:

• holding W automatically holds Shift
• releasing W releases Shift
• outside the game it does nothing

If it doesn’t work:

• make sure you installed AutoHotkey v2, not v1
• check the exact game window title using Window Spy

Hopefully the devs add a proper auto-run soon, but this works well for now.

My friend group has some experience with rogue likes, so that may have helped, but we've been winning quite a few runs and the timer isn't feeling that bad. We're not in the mindset that we have to find every single piece of ore, and we're still getting plenty of upgrades.

Keeping it moving and staying fast paced through the level has led us to not even come close to maxing out the timer every time we finish, and this has been pretty consistent over this one evening of play. I sympathize with anyone who is frustrated, but as long as you keep moving forward through the level, it has not been bad for us.

I've been loving the game so far, even in an early access state.

DISCLAIMER: this is actually a repost of my steam review that im just posting here, and i already made a post here with some of my criticisms earlier, but this was a more "proper review" and i felt like posting this here. also because i really want to know how others feel or if people agree/disagree with me which is another reason im posting here. anyways here's the post:

Honestly, I'm really sad to put negative on this because this was my most anticipated game ever since it was unveiled in 2023.

For context, I am a huge fan of Deep Rock Galactic and Roguelikes/roguelites, so when I first heard about DRG:RC I was pretty hyped since I loved both the game and the genre and I thought it was a match made in heaven, but unfortunately this game ended up being quite a big letdown for me.

A lot of other reviews have already talked about some of the issues that I also have, like very bland terrain generation or the multiplayer selecting thing. I actually have NOT played any multiplayer as I wanted to experience the game solo, so do keep this in mind that everything I say is from a solo player's experience.

But all around, I don't really want to repeat what every other negative review is saying and would rather offer more specific problems that I personally had and haven't seen others talk about, at least yet

1. Movement in this game feels really sluggish: There's no real movement complexity or tech that exists. It's just sprint and you can climb walls. For a game that has a pretty heavy emphasis on getting from point A to point B, this is kinda shocking.

It doesn't feel like there's any skill ceiling or skill expression when it comes to moving around and navigating your surroundings, its all super basic, and I think a really large problem that contributes to this is the fact that your traversal/utility tool is randomized. I was pretty surprised by that, since I was assuming each reclaimer would have their own unique traversal/utility tool, but they don't.

I think a huge improvement would be to give each reclaimer a permanent traversal/utility tool that they spawn with, it feels weird that they don't. The closest thing that exists to a movement ability that any reclaimer has is Slicer's dash, which even then that dash doesn't feel that good since it doesn't go very far.

2. The gameplay is really uninteresting: The main name of the game is that you get expenite which give you general upgrades, then you'll occasionally find toolboxes that give your weapons upgrades, and then a bio upgrade that gives your ability an upgrade. There's occasionally events that'll show up where if you complete them, you'll get rewarded with a lot of expenite and subsequently a bunch of upgrades.

The goal of each stage is to navigate through the cave while following a wire that eventually leads to an elevator, where you activate the elevator and defend from a horde of enemies for a certain amount of time before entering the elevator and going to the next stage, where you do this exact same process again. That is a huge issue for me.

I find this to be really shocking because they actually had a good solution for this in DRG. In DRG, there's deep dives where its a continuous run with multiple stages, like DRG:RC, except each stage there would involving completing different missions. It wouldn't be the exact same every single time. One stage would be collecting morkite, the other would be a mini oil refinery. This was much more interesting than DRG:RC, where it's the same each time. You navigate your way through a pretty linear cave that eventually leads to an elevator that you defend for a bit and then move on to the next stage.

What's even weirder to me is that the "elevator defense" part isn't interesting at all. It's just another horde. In something like Risk of Rain 2, the end goal is to get to the teleporter and move on to the next stage, but the teleporter would spawn in a boss(es, sometimes) you would have to defeat. Here, this doesn't happen. It's just another swarm of enemies, which already happens during the stage.

This is really disappointing, but I do have faith they can fix this because I mean they essentially already did in DRG with deep dive stages. They already had this concept down, I'm sure they can implement this to make stages way more memorable and interesting.

3. There's too much expenite: Ok so this one is kinda just "complaint 2.5" rather than complaint 3 but whatever. At least in my experience playing solo, collecting expenite isn't really fun. It just feels kinda tedious to do, but you have to do it in order to scale and upgrade, otherwise you'll start falling behind.

At least in solo, I wish that there was less expenite to collect and subsequently upgrades require less expenite because it's just not interesting to do this at all. Alternatively, maybe do more to make the expenite collection process more interesting and maybe even have upgrades dedicated to collecting expenite faster or getting more for it per hit or something, like these things I think could make it more interesting to collect and go after because right now it just feels like a complete chore. I have to collect expenite to avoid falling off, but it's just not fun to collect.

4. There's just not enough synergies or combos you can do: This is my shakiest point yet, and if I continue to play further this can absolutely change. But in my experience after playing for 4 hours, there are just not really that many synergies, archetypes, or builds you can do. As others have pointed out, a majority of the upgrades are pretty basic stat increases (deal more damage, reload faster, less spread, etc). But along side that, there's generally just not that many interesting options to things to go for. Like I can't go "im fireboy i want to do 5 billion fire" because there's just not many fire related archetypes or synergies to build off of.

As for weapons, I honestly don't get why they reused a lot of weapons from DRG but made some new weapons because now, a lot of those new weapons end up feeling like weapons from DRG, except those weapons are in the game already. Like it's kinda an "illusion of choice" scenario where all the pistol weapons, some returning from DRG, some completely new, all feel almost the same form each other and don't do anything differently.

I think this needs a massive rework in order to actually make things more interesting to play, because right now its all just super super generic with no real eye catching game changer or "run defining" upgrades or anything like that, it really sucks to see.

At its core, I'm just really letdown by this game. I was expecting to absolutely love it and play 300 hours of it month 1, but instead the idea of me doing another round just feels really tiring and almost more like a chore since I know I won't really enjoy it. I have faith that GSG can fix things, and that's honestly the reason I'm writing this review. Because I have faith that they'll actually read it, and all the other criticisms they're facing, and implement solutions I hope, but this game has definitely soured my opinion on them a bit. I cannot recommend this game at its current stage, which is really a huge letdown.

Outside of other major gripes that have already been types out by others on this sub a bazillion times (didn't feel like I need to repeat it) Omega really is the most boring narrator ever.

Omega has absolutely none of the charm of good old mission control from DRG and after only two missions in RC I just wanted to turn off the audio of Omega completely.

Hopefully GSG can work on the robot or we can turn it off in the future.

I also think that cosmetics are severly lacking and I know that we are in EA and all of that, but common.

Where's the Afro hairstyle from DRG?

Why do I new to grind scrips to get basic cosmetics options which you could just buy for credits in the regular shop in DRG?

I feel like Omega's "glitching" voice gets old real quick. After about 15 lines, I wanted to turn off the glitching and just hear him talk smoothly for a change. Also, he's really not very charismatic and just feels like he wants you to die. Still, liking the game so far.