Right now, if someone joins late, they spawn at the start of the facility. If the rest of the team is already at the end of the facility and the new player dies (say, during a double wave that was just triggered when the new player spawned in), the rest of the team would have to backtrack all the way to revive the player. (But maybe this is intentional and designed to help the new player to get bio-boosters and workbenches etc.)

This experimental has added a ton of amazing content, and it'll be hard to go back to the main build after playing this. Update 3, with what we have in the experimental right now, plus gatekeeper 4 dropping in the near future, is looking like the best update so far content wise.

New Elevator Objectives:

Probably the most exciting thing about the new experimental, the new elevator objectives are an incredible way to spice up gameplay. A phenomenal change and they both feel great.

Collect Cogs:

Actual tears fell from my eyes after I completed my first round of collect cogs. It's just... so peak. Collect cogs is great at encouraging teamwork, exploration, time management, terrain generation, changing up combat, it's perfect.

The way you have to work with your team to scramble to repair the drive unit, having to consider each event and second spent not working towards the drive unit and how that could affect your ability to complete the mission, how human error is involved, and makes collecting the cogs well with your teammates feel so much more satisfying.

I love how it changes how you interact with your traversal tools, as you can't use them as objective based anymore and you have to consider how you spend them relating to the cogs. You have to decide if you want to waste time getting to the elevator so you can see the cogs on the map and plan accordingly, or if you want to clear the cave before making your way all the way to the elevator and risk cogs appearing in inconvenient places that would have otherwise been better to get earlier

And the terrain gen, it's just

https://preview.redd.it/kcu4ucdgzhuh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f207e2f0eae9a51e85ef03b52c5e254c05b7a76b

https://preview.redd.it/kszibrbhzhuh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f5dfe81187f050acccd4db99c090798ccdffd5f1

It's peak. The different biomes get to shine SO well with their unique characteristics, and how they compliment the objective is terrific. The room and objective are also very difficult, and has breathed life into the pacing and pressure of my lobbies. I've had some amazing games that came down to the wire because of collect cogs. It's tense, it's fun, it compliments the game, it's perfect.

Not perfect, it does have its issues. Cogs spawning in the first room is something I'm mixed on. On one hand, you have to keep your eye out when the cogs aren't revealed on the map, but on the other, you can't scour every square inch of the first cave, especially in biomes with more intense cave gen like DB or CC.

I also think it doesn't need that last segment of defending the drive unit, but that's just me. Collect cogs is very effort and resource driven, and having to defend the elevator on top of getting the cogs is cinematic, but it sometimes gets really down to the wire. I could go either way, since it's one last moment of standing your ground, but it also feels like a touch too much.

And for the map markers themselves, the big blue spheres need a little work before they hit live. Sometimes it has issues where the cog is in like, an adjacent cave, or on a higher cliff where it can kill a lot of time for teams, even if they're using all their traversal tools well. Maybe make it so the cog has to have line of sight with the center of the sphere when the sphere is generated? So the area that the cog is in is better told to the player, to avoid some frustrating scenarios where they're super hidden while not giving it away.

But overall collect cogs is phenomenal and I'm glad it was put into this experimental, it was something I was looking forward to from the unused content and it translated really well into main mission flow. It does everything it should have and more, and my gripes with it are more minor issues.

Remove Growths

This one's still solid, but I feel like it provides too little friction. There's no reason to not just pop every single growth at once since the number of enemies that spawn are easily handled by one person. I've seen some people on the discord say this exact thing, so I assume it's already on the record but I just wanted to re-iterate.

Actually, something that the Growths reminded me of was the dreadnaught fight in DRG survivor, where they'll spit weird growths full of glyphids at the player. I think the growths should spawn corespawn on the elevator, and the amount of corespawn spawned across all growths is equal to the amount of corespawn that'd be spawned when you normally activate the drive unit.

That way whoever breaks the growths has to fight the corespawn, and the team has to decide how much they want to pace themselves when bursting the growths, since if you spawn all of them at once you're more likely to get killed, but a single player could still remove all the growths on their own if they pace themselves. It being on the elevator also gives more direct pressure than the corespawn coming out of the walls.

Growths needs something unique, maybe spreading out clusters of growths around the cave like a scalebramble, or putting more combat pressure on a team, but I like the concept over the regular defend objective.

Boss Vectors

Amazing change for people wanting to spice up the gatekeepers. This could be a great way to introduce more unique gatekeeper variants, and still telegraph it to the players so they aren't caught off guard. For the actual vectors, I'm mixed.

• Reinforcements: I couldn't tell a difference from a normal gatekeeper fight. These "Spawn more enemies" risk vectors have an issue where it doesn't really feel that different from a regular gatekeeper fight, so it's hard to make your decision feel like it had weight. It works well as a proof of concept, but picking this vector feels the same as picking no vector.
• Cloaking: Great vector. Especially scary against the ramok, but for all the gatekeepers I love how it makes them less readable and forces you to react based on sound. I think it could use an animation easing the boss in and out of cloak, like what the stalker does for un-cloaking but in reverse, but I'm certain this is already in the works.
• Seismic Activity: This one sucked, but Anders already replied to me on discord about it and he's already done the right thing. Before it was a random slowdown, but now with just the stalactites this one might be my favorite. I love how it changes the terrain as the fight goes on and forces you to adapt. Plus, hot rock is a great asset to people who know how to play around it so it appearing in the boss fight adds a lot more counterplay to the corespawn. Just one note, the hitbox on the "???" in the molaktula should be lowered slightly, because if you're on top of a fallen stalactite and there's a "???" on the floor beneath you, it can still hit you.
• Protection: It's fine. It didn't add much to the fight since the protection totems are so weak, but the concept is pretty good. Maybe make it like the DRG corestone where you have to dig into the pillar and throw something inside into the rift gate to disable the gatekeeper's invulnerability? I think it should break up pacing and be more of a threat, since if you picked a mission with Boss Vectors that's what you're looking for.
• Core Pollution: Not in the cheat terminal and I couldn't find it in a real game. Come back later in case I find it.
• Soul Jar: I did not care for the Soul Jar. This modifier just disincentivizes players from interacting with the gatekeeper, and encourages a very turtle-y/bunker-y playstyle. Since you can't fight back against the gatekeeper, what's the reason for staying out in the open? Just digging a hole into the wall and waiting for enemies to come to you is the viable and (more often than not) correct choice
• Bombardment: Amazing idea, gatekeeper specific vectors are the way to go, since it gives the fight a lot more pushback and solid fundamentals. Albeit I couldn't really feel the effects of this one, but if anything is taken away from this post it's that GSG cooked here, and the devs who worked on boss vectors are great. Hell if I were them, I'd make Bombardment even harder. Make the Gotoorak shoot off 3 big shots in a row, make the twist attack do 3 times as many twirls, make it throw off more projectiles in the small toss move. You've struck gold here

Overall I think the boss vectors are more often than not very good, and I think they shouldn't be afraid to make them difficult, like really difficult. If a player picked the mission with Boss vectors, they want something harder. Let the advanced players try and punch above their weight class against new and interesting challenges in the gatekeeper fight. The best ones are the hard ones, and the ones that I'm not so fond on are the ones that play it safe. Boss vectors are something I'm very excited to see in the future

Cosmetic Sheet Rework

https://preview.redd.it/vsd52r4fziuh1.jpg?width=2560&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ee631567cf967d769ce0df990b05752cdb20e50

It looks great! I love the texture that it has, it's a lot more readable than the OG. Great work

New Alteration

Instability was something I was looking forward to out of the unused content in the last experimental, and it looks like I was right. Instability adds a lot to a round, and can give players unexpected challenges which is something I'm a HUGE fan of. Getting a jumble for just one round can give people a really fun dive that feels different from any other game.

The Reroll Terminal also makes this a lot more bearable, since you can react to the new issues that you'll face in whatever alteration is chosen for you. Very dynamic, very fun.

More Cheat Terminal Controls

I could kiss you, ghostship. This is exactly what I wanted

"Minor" changes

Reroll Terminal UI rework: I love the slot machine animation, I just think it should start off spinning when you open up the menu since it starts off paused right now, then starts. It's a little visually confusing since I end up thinking that what's there when I open the menu is what I've got, then it starts spinning. But that's a nitpick, it's fine as is.

Enhancement Terminal Rework: I'm Flattered, thanks for using my idea. This idea is absolutely perfect and you should never ever change it ever

Reroll terminal and bloodroot changes: The name change to the refractor is going to have trouble sticking. Reroll terminal communicates what it is a lot better. Bloodroot change to flux quartz is fine, I liked bloodroot a little better since I like picking plants but flux quartz does stand out a lot more in the caves. I was iffy on removing it from the terrian scanner, but I like it in the environment, it makes you take in the caves a lot more. It helps the player appreciate the caves and the new environment of the game.

Ramhammer buff: Good change overall, it was needed. The event is still a drag but it's a little better. The issue where corespawn walk straight through the ramhammer was the more pressing issue IMO

Pausing level timer: Amazing change. I think the timer should pop back up on the screen like how it does when you enter the facility once someone leaves the elevator, just to put it in the player's face that the level time is paused while they're in the elevator since it isn't very well communicated to the player

Elevator tools: Another great change. Terrain scanner and laser pointer were needed in the elevator, but I still think the elevator disabling weapons is iffy, I'll touch on it again in a second

Lok-1 Nerf:

https://preview.redd.it/bl3a9447cjuh1.png?width=559&format=png&auto=webp&s=28609e9b29502b608557b574a43c8f306076f9b9

Not really a nerf, but just extending the upgrade's potency would've been perfectly fine since the weapon already wasn't that great. Plus a certain new enemy that I'll be talking about very soon already kind of nerfed the LOK indirectly. (It can't really hit the bloater's weakpoints)

Bloater thoughts

My opinion on the bloater soured in this experimental. On one hand, it has made the game harder, but on the other, It's unsatisfying to fight, has way too much bulk, and doesn't really do a great job at encouraging elemental builds. I don't have any numbers, so I can't know its elemental resistances/vulnerabilities, but what I do know is it takes 9 pellets from the stubby right out the box to apply electricity, and the stun sweeper doesn't even fully trigger it on one toss of the boomerang.

What I do like about it is that it's discouraging the weakpoint and splash damage meta, its weakpoint is very well designed and its bulk does do a lot to help the average health of the swarm. However, I feel like it doesn't do much to make you want to interact with it. It doesn't do its attack enough to make the player want to engage with the belly weakpoint, but even if you make it attack to reveal its belly, its weakpoint modifier is set too low for how much it makes you work for it.

The death explosion change also doesn't feel great. I get it's not supposed to feel great since it's meant to provide friction, but it disproportionately affects melee and shotgun builds. Well, melee builds on anyone except slicer since his slice range is far enough to where it won't be a problem. It probably is a skill issue, but the death explosion makes me just ignore them in a swarm.

As for their tankiness, correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like they have a health value of 500 on floor 1 of haz 5. That's more than every other non-disruptive enemy, barring the bruiser. If you take into account weakpoint damage bonuses, the Bloater is now the tankiest non-disruptive enemy in the game, which feels like a bit much, especially for an enemy in the common spawning pool.

Shooting them on floor 1 or with poor upgrades has really bad feedback. This, plus the death explosion, plus the difficult weakpoint, plus the armor on its face makes the bloater a really frustrating enemy. It doesn't even feel like a great elemental "anchor" enemy since it doesn't seem to really have any elemental vulnerabilities, but I don't have access to its stat block, so I can't truly know

I'm sorry if this section comes off as a little dour, but I really don't like how it feels. It does change how a player interacts with the swarm which is what was wanted for its design, but it makes floor one feel like even more of an uphill battle than it already was with the guaranteed disruptive enemy spawn. But, I'm not gonna sit here and complain without offering some real feedback on how to make it feel a little better

Elemental Vulnerability: Currently no enemy in this game has any substantial elemental vulnerabilities. Creepers have 50% on everything but they usually die before the elements can take effect, Boomticks have 5 hp so they aren't doing a great job at triggering elemental synergy, same issue with swarmers. The only enemy that really has a noticeable weakness is the shatterclaw slammer, but you'll usually be encountering it outside of major fights since it's dangerous to move into unexplored caves mid battle

Every other enemy has either no elemental vulnerability, or nothing but elemental resistances. Here's a pie chart:

https://preview.redd.it/3f1v89vnijuh1.png?width=506&format=png&auto=webp&s=bbade4477e3b96b6da1bde2aa8047e8f51948933

that shows the proportion of enemies with elemental resistances, excluding reaperworms because that's not fair to include it. If we want elemental builds to become a little more viable, it might be worth taking a second look at this. Bloaters were meant to accomplish this, but it might be an issue in the enemy roster as a whole. (Note I got this info from the wiki, which may not be 100% accurate. If it's not, sorry for spewing misinformation)

Overall health of weakpoints: It feels like bloaters were meant to counter the weakpoint/crit meta that plagues the game right now, which they do do, but again it might be an issue with weakpoints as a mechanic rather than something that can be fixed with a new enemy. Currently, most enemies have either a 2x or 3x weakpoint modifier, with gatekeepers universally having a 3x multiplier.

The gatekeeper part is arguably the most important since that's what you'll be building for throughout the entire mission, but is that much really needed, especially when they all have incredible elemental resistance? Edgestalkers and dominators both have huge weakpoint modifiers as well, and they'll be in 2/3rds of your game right off from stage 1 as well, and they both have large elemental resistances as well.

And probably the biggest culprit of the weakpoint meta, marksman. If you want to make elemental builds have more of a significant place, this enhancement might need a second look. Marksman 3 + 4 will make the player always hit the breakpoint needed to one shot a creeper with a pickaxe swing. Just these two together will always encourage weakpoint targeting builds, and arguably makes weakpoint builds better against the bloater since you have to work through its relatively high healthpool and marksman does that.

Bloater Death Explosion: I know I was just whining about it like a nerd, but this could stay and still be good. I think they just need a little bit more telegraphing, maybe pulsing like how exploders did. Or, alternatively, maybe let it friendly fire other corespawn on death? Encourage players to kill them strategically to do damage to the swarm? Just a thought.

Ending this on a not so whiny note: Again, sorry for being such a pain about the bloaters, but as a common enemy I feel like I should voice my concerns with it. But what I DO like about it in this latest experimental is how much better it got in terms of visual clarity. I was already planning to bring this up, but the devs beat me to the punch.

The big round enemies in the last experimental had issues where they'd start to clog up player vision when they die. Bloaters would obscure other enemies in their corpse, leading to some unfair situations. However, the death explosion fixed this issue, and that's AMAZING. That bit makes me like fighting them a lot more, since it shows the care the devs put into this experimental.

The only enemy that I have an issue with its corpse clarity now is the clamorhead since it has the same problem of being a big corpse that obscures vision. Maybe give it an on death explosion too? 👀 Like a sonic scream that damages players and fears enemies nearby? Just a thought.

Closing thoughts:

This experimental was WELL worth the wait, and even though I did a lot of complaining, this update is magical. The game is feeling so much better, with so much creativity and love poured into it. Update 3 is looking better and better with every new look we get into it, and I really hope the people working on the updates know how good their work is.

If I missed anything or my opinion changes, I'll probably put it in the comments, but I feel like this writeup is mostly everything I wanted to say

TLDR; Platform Gun and Ziplines should spawn at higher rarities

I was playing on jumble the other day and was doing some thinking about the traversal tools, and which ones I see getting picked a lot. It's usually drills and antigrav are the most in demand, followed up by a big gap, then zipline and platform gun.

Not that those two are bad, but rogue core has them less in demand. Anti-grav was designed for this game and fits it very well. Drills are great for expenite events, general navigation, and combat utility. The other two are just... okay.

Especially with the prefab nature of RC, most rooms don't have the huge gaps that make these two tools shine, since they're hyper specialized. Plus, zipline struggles without turbo. It's just never worth taking if you don't roll that upgrade.

But the reason I bought up Jumble is because of how these tools behave in jumble compared to default and it's SO much better. A purple platform gun feels SO good compared to a grey one, while drills only improve marginally with higher ratings.

A rapid high capacity full auto platform gun is SO much fun, and makes me want to use the traversal tool. Zipline launchers with more than 4 ammo (that should also be buffed, there's no reason for 8 IFGs and we're still stuck with 4 ammo), more zipline angles, and more max range are way more exciting to use!

But the issue with these two is that you'll never end up getting to use these fun upgrades outside of jumble. Currently, the only way to get higher rarity traversal tools is by randomly getting them at workbenches, but you're actively sabotaging your build by choosing these great feeling traversal tools since you're giving up an ability or weapon upgrade to use them

I'm by no means saying that ziplines or platforms are bad, they both have their uses, but my personal experience is that they're picked significantly less often than the other two, and never really are worth picking compared to the significant viability that Drills and Anti-Grav offer. Bumping their starting rarities would significantly close this gap, and brings them more in line with the baseline power that those two offer

So, a few weeks ago now I was hosting a game with a couple of people, and generally I'm pretty chill, but I don't know why this riled me up so badly.

Firstly, these guys would heart everything. I don't know for sure, but to me their builds weren't really making much sense with what they were picking, and it just seemed odd. Whenever an artifact came up(on jumble), they wanted it, it didn't really seem to matter what it was.

Being me, I just let them have pretty much every upgrade they hearted. Meanwhile, they'd start events without asking if everyone was ready, press elevator buttons without checking, etc. There was basically zero communication from them.

I was constantly the one in chat saying things like "can we double-check everyone is ready first?"

One guy apparently had enough by the second level (out of six) and left, so eventually it was just me and the other two.

We kept playing, and by this point my build was absolute shit because I just wasn't taking good upgrades for myself because they wanted them. I was playing Falconer with a bunch of melee upgrades, stun stuff, and probably my best upgrade was one that gave me armour when I was near electrocuted enemies, which I grabbed so quickly as I chose first.

Anyway, we get to the boss level. At this point I'm thinking, Well, my build is fucked, so I probably won't contribute much, but whatever, let's see what happens.

I went one way towards the Bio and workbench. I unlocked the workbench and got my upgrade, then started the Bio booster.

At literally that moment, on the other side of the cave, they triggered the boss fight, and before I had even gotten out of the section where the booster was, they had done the bosses first lot of health.

They hadn't asked if anyone was ready, hadn't said anything in chat, nothing.

And honestly, at that point I just thought, "Fuck this."

Alt+F4.

Was I overreacting? 😭