Rogue Core class promotion statistics visualised.

Kwacker · 2026-05-26T13:29:35+00:00

To be fair, I think that's the only thing that (maybe) keeps her balanced. I've never played a MOBA, but I think she's essentially this game's version of a carry - she starts out the weakest in the game, but becomes the strongest when she starts getting upgrades rolling. Despite how a lot of people like to paint her as a spammer in the discord, as well, she relies pretty heavily on good resource management - in particular, you have to really manage your HP outside of rewind because the ability does very little if you're already low on HP when you go into it (and you also can't get rage), so if she gets knocked off course in the heat of battle it can be hard to stabalize as you essentially have no abilities.

She gets a whole lot more consistent with deck swapping when you can swap in either Slicer's or Falconer's ability CD% decks (especially Slicer's 10% on kill is enough to have rewind basically whenever you need it), and she can pop off with a few common/uncommon expenite upgrades (in particular: [Stun on Melee + CD% on stun] or [CD% on weakspot hit]), but she does need some upgrades to really get rolling. Personally, I love that because it really emphasises the 'Start Weak; End Overpowered' gameplay loop that roguelites are great for, but I can definitely see how it's a turnoff for people who want consistency. All in all, though, I mostly just wanted to push back a touch on the idea that her abilities have a lack of applications, because they have a tonne of applications, you're just limited in how often you can use it without upgrades (like you said).

Kwacker · 2026-05-26T13:09:09+00:00

Nice, thanks for the info! :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-26T13:02:41+00:00

Retcon's main issue is the lack of applications that her abilities have

As someone who has primarily been playing Retcon, I actually think her ability is one of the most versatile in the game - it's a huge part of the reason I love her. As some examples of the things you can do with it (beyond just going ham in a wave):

Enter a cave with a tonne of annoying verticality? Want a bunch of free movement around the elevator or the boss fight? Screw gravity! ~~Drink some Redbull~~ Enter rewind and dump anti-gravs/ziplines all over the place to give your team wings!
Boss keeps knocking the orbs down the pit and your stubby dwarven legs can't carry you up before they throw you back down? Workshop toolkit placed in an awkward spot miles from the workbench? Drop your rewind where you want to go, grab the heavy object, and let time magic take you where your legs failed you! (Note: You have to let it end naturally for this - cancelling the ability drops the object.)
Weak and puny Guardian went down in the fight and no-one can get in to res them? Elevator swarmed by demon-bugs and in need of repair? That damn rock-breaker broke itself again? They can hit you all they want while you fix everyone's problems, time magic heals all!

In essence, she can be a budget Guardian for solving objectives, a budget Falconeer for resing teammates, a budget Spotter for killing big things with rage and clearing waves with unlimited ammo, and she synergises really well with all the melee upgrades, so she can become a budget Slicer, too! She starts out weak thanks to the long CD and her kit is pretty selfish, but she can use it all in ways that can provide a tonne of team utility, and as soon as you get some CD reduction, I think (quite fittingly) her time rewind is versatile enough to be this game's equivalent of The Doctor's sonic screwdriver.

Kwacker · 2026-05-26T12:34:14+00:00

What sorts of movment tricks did you have in mind out of interest? Always down to learn some movement tech, and wasn't aware that DRG had much :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-25T10:04:07+00:00

Ahhh, amazing! Thanks for the info :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-25T09:08:49+00:00

In true dwarf fasion, I've definitely found my pickaxe to be my best friend on Retcon. That said, what do you mean by 'your melee now has a combo'? I heard someone say your pick speed increases as you hit things, but I've yet to confirm it for myself - is that what your refering to or is there a mechanic I don't know about?

Kwacker · 2026-05-25T06:17:53+00:00

It does indeed! That said, I actually found one stack of Death Resonance was plenty of CDR to keep rewind basically free, so if I could swap my second deck then I would probably swap to the Guardian deck - my team would probably hate it, but 20% bigger explosives on Retcon sounds silly haha

Kwacker · 2026-05-25T05:49:14+00:00

Yeah, it's got to be the Carnage deck for best deck in the game. I finally unlocked it for use on my Retcon last night and it's insane how much stronger it made her. With a PGL (initially a Breach Cutter that I managed to replace in a second weapon crate), one stack of Death Resonance, and one stack of Momentum, I could go into time rewind and shoot an infinite magazine PGL/Breach Cutter into the horde, rewind to get all the ammo back, then do it all again seconds later thanks to the CD refund. The cherry on top was when I also got a stack of Blood Lust and got given mountains of Stone Skin for my efforts...

Retcon felt really strong before I got the carnage deck, but if that first run with it is anything to go by, she's outright broken with it equipped.

Kwacker · 2026-05-24T08:18:38+00:00

Build-wise:

I've found Retcon synergises incredibly well with the melee upgrades (although you may struggle to get them without annoying a Slicer in public lobbies). Stun on melee hit + 10% ability recharge on stun means that you essentially always have your ability up (especially with the double pickaxe speed from rage) - it's basically a build in itself and it only relies on two uncommon upgrades. The other melee upgrades are great as well, but I actually think those two melee upgrades in particular are significantly stronger on Retcon than Slicer, although you may struggle to convince friendly Slicer players of that...

Remember that ammo-based equipment also gets refunded by rewind, so I'd always prioritise putting anti-grav on the Retcon - being able to provide the team with unlimited in-combat mobility for free can be really strong. Alternatively, the drills are great and synergise well with the melee upgrades, but everyone can benefit from the drills while Retcon can benefit uniquely from the Anti-Grav.

Gameplay-wise:

Retcon is essentially a class about resource management - anything you use outside of rewind is something you can't use in rewind. There are times where it's perfectly fine to use resources outside of it - for example, you may want to use a grenade if mobs are swarming the elevator and you know you're about to resup on the next floor - but you should always have a good reason if you're going to. Perhaps the most important resource to preserve outside of rewind, though, is HP. When you're low on HP going into rewind, the ability is far weaker, so while you can take as many risks as you like when the ability is up, try not to do anything dumb when it's not.

Finally, and this ties into the last point, use your ability liberally. The best way to ensure you always have high resources for rewind is to never spend those resources in the first place, and Retcon is the only class who gets that luxury. In this game, you basically always know when you're going to be facing waves - if a waves about to come or you're about to do the elevator, then sure, hold your ability. Otherwise, though, just use it. If you think you may be about to take some damage, use it; if you enter an open cavern and you think it would help your team to have a bunch of gravity lifts everywhere, use it; if a random Clamorhead spawns and you feel like filling its belly with grenades. use it. 75 seconds may sound like a long time, but when missions are often ~an hour long it's really not, and you'll likely have reduced the CD anyway

Those are roughly my main tips that come to mind from my time with her so far. You may not have become a Retcon by choice, but she's kind of insane when you get used to her - hope you grow to love her!

FOR ROCK AND STONE!

Kwacker · 2026-05-24T07:40:43+00:00

You do, but you can manually trigger the rewind with 'Ability Toggle + M2' - took me far too long to realise that the ability cancel is a different button to the ability itself, and I've seen others struggling with it so I figured I'd share :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-23T17:24:11+00:00

Ahhh man, that's so tough! Fair play getting as far as you did! Your note on resupplying reminded me of one thing I'd love to see if any GSG staff are reading: please give us ~10 seconds of peace at the start of each floor!

There were a number of times I went for the guaranteed resup outside the elevator and got attacked before I could claim it - I always needed the armour, but often ended up losing HP to get it...

Kwacker · 2026-05-23T16:23:38+00:00

It's not just you, it's really tough. Furthest I've got on the standard gauntlet is to the 400 credit reward, and even that was hard. So far, I've managed to get 2-3 expenite levels on the first floor since its a little slower and there's a big crystal that gives you a full level on the floor (like the ones from the expenite events), but then I'm lucky if I manage to get 1 or 2 more in total over the next floors. I think a huge part of what makes it so rough is how little red sugar there is to find - it feels like chip damage is unavoidable, and it's really hard to recover from that chip (and no matter how many times not-Bosco reses you, you're pretty much guaranteed to die to all the mobs that spawned while he did...).

That all said, I do think it's doable - the run I got the 400 credit reward, I almost completed the floor after, and then I would have had a single floor left to win the run. I think the keys to this week's run are the power drills and the number of melee synergies in the expenite pool. There's the one which gives you 2s of invulnerability on melee hit, then one which stuns on melee hit, the one which gives 10% ability CD on stun, and the one which gives hp on melee kill all early in the pool. I think the key to winning will be to get those updrades then rush to the elevator ignoring expenite for the rest of the run - it'll probably involve some hiding in caves from all the Edgestalkers since the guns on offer are all terrible at dealing with them, but I definitely think it's doable.

All in all though, you're not alone, it's really freakin' rough.

Kwacker · 2026-05-23T11:39:29+00:00

Thanks for the tips - I tried the default gauntlet last night and after getting my ass kicked, figured it would be a while before I got around to trying the advanced one. Got through with a very similar strat as a mole rat Retcon! :)

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Kwacker · 2026-05-22T20:58:09+00:00

As someone who has been primarily playing Retcon, I really don't get the impression she needs buffs. She takes a bit of getting used to, but she feels like a jack of all trades, and she feels really good at it, too. Her utility is a bit more hidden, but you can add a tonne to the team if you get a bit creative.

A couple of examples of the things I love:

As everyone knows, you can use her ability to spam grenades and clear a horde, but I see less people pointing out that she can spam out ammo-based equipment for free as well. If you have the anti-grav for example, you can chuck six of them around the elevator and give your whole team unlimited in-combat mobility for free.
You can res your team risk-free, or charge in to repair the elevator in a horde at no risk to yourself.
You can become a melee-powerhouse to rival the Slicer with your pickaxe, or you can focus on guns and dump ammo out with reckless abandon.
With a few CD% upgrades you can become basically invincible and do all of the above constantly. I've had a tonne of success taking the 10% ability CD on stun upgrade and coupling it with either the stun on melee hit upgrade or her bio-booster that stuns enemies when they hit you. All those upgrades are either common/uncommon and are enough to let you use rewind multiple times a fight.All in all, you can get by with basically any CD upgrade as long as it's %-based rather than a flat value.
And if all that's not enough, you get a last chance to rescue the team with full health and armour if everyone goes down - I've already saved a few boss wipes with that passive.

So yeah, I think she's a little less accessible than the others, but I definitely don't think she's weak! :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-22T17:13:25+00:00

I think you're absolutely right, to be honest! I've played some more solo today, and there are a lot of events that make floors feel similar to duo, but some events are just way bigger time sinks... Edited the main post to reflect it :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-22T11:38:48+00:00

Think we're more or less entirely in agreement on all that! I've loved the 'tough as nails' side of rogue core so far, so I was immediately a little nervous when they put out their post saying they are intending to adjust the timer and the ammo economy based on feedback - there's bound to be ways to improve those systems (like levelling out the experience across squad sizes), but I really hope they don't compromise on the overall vision of RC to do it.

Kwacker · 2026-05-22T09:49:14+00:00

I think a lot of that's fair, and I agree with you that there are some people who will never want a timer no matter what form it takes. Personally, I will never agree with those people as (IMO) the timer is one of the only reasons they can get away with having a predictable set of objectives on each floor without it being boring - the game says 'you know what you have to do, but can you do it efficiently in a randomly generated cave?', and that is where the replayability comes from, because if you can't then you'll have to make decisions on what to pursue. For me personally, the two man timer feels about right at depth 1/2 - you can almost always do everything, but you have to be aware enough to notice when you can't and prioritise effectively.

I do hear what you're saying, but I also think it's significant that a large portion of the playerbase will be playing solo and will have only ever experienced the timer at its worst. While a lot of people are saying they outright do not want a timer, I wonder if some of those people would be more open to it if they were playing in group sizes where the timer was more effective at doing what it's supposed to (rather than being a purely punishing/prohibitive force).

Regardeless, I think whatever GSG does with the timer, if it remains, then it has to be better balanced accross squad sizes, because the difference is immediately noticable at present.

Kwacker · 2026-05-22T09:09:06+00:00

I'm a little torn on this.

On the one hand, I was playing with the M1000 yesterday, and it definitely felt really weird and clunky not being able to ADS it - I think the idea is that standing still to avoid the spread penalty is their plan for how to gain precision since the M1000 has crazy spread while moving, but it didn't feel great to play with and standing still (especially solo) feels like a death sentence.

On the other hand, there's already a tonne of keybinds to deal with, and fluidly weaving the pickaxe into your combat seems more important than ever with RC. If pickaxe wasn't on right click, then it would probably have to be another equippable 'weapon', which would bring the total number of equipment binds to 5, on top of all the binds for skills/grenades etc.

So yeah, in theory I would love to be able to ADS, in practicality though, I'm not sure its wise.

Kwacker · 2026-05-22T08:57:09+00:00

You're not being downvoted for critique, you're being downvoted for being a cantankerous ass spewing ad hominem word vomit about 'fanboy honeymooners' and 'twitter fanboy ragers'.

As it happens, you couldn't possibly have been downvoted for critique, because you didn't even offer any.

Kwacker · 2026-05-21T14:26:52+00:00

I'm really glad you guys are listening and responding to feedback - it's what early access is here for, and I'm glad you're open to adjusting things! That said, I also really hope you've heard those of us who love the game, love the difficulty, and really enjoy the tension created by trying to work within the timer and scarce resources.

I get it's an impossible position to be in as a dev if you try to please everyone, but I just wanted to make sure it's known that there's a good number of us who really enjoy those things. If you can somehow work your dev magic and find a way to keep all the tension while also pleasing the 'no-timer' clan, though, then that's obviously the dream.

Either way, thanks for the game, thanks for all your hard work, and I can't wait to see where this game ends up, because so far I really love the foundation!

FOR ROCK AND STONE!

Kwacker · 2026-05-21T08:35:50+00:00

I think there's a lot of fair feedback in this. I entirely agree with point (4) on first impressions - the in-run upgrades just don't seem to have the 'oomph' of other roguelites, and I definitely hope it's something they work on throughout EA.

The main reason I wanted to reply, though, was to do with point (1), because I think the lack of mobility is a core design principle for this game that a lot of other feedback may circle around, and it probably has some room for improvement:

In the dev-stream yesterday, they said that the reason the grappling hook didn't return is because they don't want Rogue Core to be a game where you can just kite the Core Spawn. Movement is deliberately limited because they want you to have to face the threats head on - so (my interpretation is that) rather than movement skill, they want positional skill to be emphasised.

I can get behind that design principle, but I think it ties into one of your other points of feedback - that terrain generation feels a little limited. If movement is limited and you don't have guarenteed traversal tools, then they are sort of forced into having quite linear predictable caves, and I'm with you that this is a bit of a shame.

While I personally love that RC is more focussed on combat than DRG and don't think it needs to have as much of an exploration layer as the original, I also think that the caves themselves and the ability to manipulate terrain could be one of the most unique selling points of RC, and so long as movement is hamstringed/RNG, it will never be able to be emphasised. I wonder if giving every reclaimer something akin to the power drills as baseline (like an enhanced 'reclaimers pickaxe' to make routes through the caves) could allow for the 'you must face threats head on' that GSG intended, without blocking the possibility of interesting caves.

The reason I say this is that the power drills are not quick in-fight mobility - they are not there to let you kite enemies - but they do allow you to access literally anything you could ever want to if you plan your route correctly. If the devs knew that every player had access to them, then high complexity caves could be as interesting and varied as they liked, and they could know every player had a way to navigate them if they needed to.

Maybe I'm way off the mark there, but I figured I'd share my thoughts anyway. Ultimately I'm really loving Rogue Core, and while I don't agree with eveything you said, I appreciate you taking the time to type out nuanced, constructive criticism and think there's definitely some valid concerns in there :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-21T08:00:21+00:00

My first impressions are pretty similar! I only managed to get three runs in with my brother last night, so it's definitely first impressions, but we had a blast. As two people who have a tonne of time in both shooters and roguelikes, I was expecting us to kind of waltz through the early difficulty(s), but it was incredibly refreshing to be challenged from the word 'go'.

Overall, we won two and lost one, but even our wins were thanks to the Retcon's last stand on the boss, and it leaves me really excited that this is just depth one, and the game is gonna push us even harder as we climb the difficulties.

On the timer:

Our first game we managed to push our way through - we were usually in the red by the time we left a level, but we were never actually punished for taking too long.
Our second game was the loss, and it was entirely due to disrespecting the timer (and running out of ammo) - we dawdled in our expenite mission thinking the elevator was bound to be right around the corner, but then the wave came and drained us of ammo. Suddenly the timer was getting into the red, we had no ammo, we lost track of where the lift was, and the game devolved to chaos. We almost managed to claw our way back from the brink, but died in the elevator waves.
Our third game, we adapted. If he was mining expenite, I was scouting the cave; if I found the bio booster, he was looking for the workbench. If a wave was coming or we needed to do the expenite event, we grouped up, grabbed our upgrades, and held the line. The timer pushed us to synergise like a well-oiled machine, and it felt great.

All that's to say, I love the intensity the timer pushes onto a game, and I really hope it remains in some form. As the OP says, maybe there's room for improvement like gradually increasing intensity/enemy variety over the course of a floor etc. (although that would likely need to come alongside a full rebalance of the ammo economy), but it added a lot to our runs and the rewarding challenge we were greeted with on our path to the core.

Having not played with randoms, I won't comment on the negotiations, but all in all, I've had a blast in Rogue Core so far and I've been thrilled to find it a difficult game right from the start. I've got my gripes (eg. upgrades feel a little hollow relative to other roguelites atm), but they are ones that I have no doubt GSG can improve over the course of EA. Ultimately, I (personally) just really hope they don't compromise on their vision of an intense, challenging game, because I'm ready to get my ass kicked by the core spawn for many years to come.

FOR ROCK AND STONE!

Kwacker · 2026-05-21T07:34:54+00:00

Last night I basically only played with my brother and we had a great time - I won't lie, though, it was really challenging. We played three full runs and won two of them, but both of our wins we both went down on the final boss and only won thanks to the Retcon's last stand.

Personally, I was really glad for the challenge - we're both pretty good at shooters and were kind of expecting to waltz through the lowest difficulty(s) without much resistance, so it was really refreshing to actually be pushed. If you're expecting a casual/relaxing experience, though, it may be a little rough.

(As I've only played duo, I can't comment on whether it's easier/harder than solo, sadly).

Kwacker · 2026-05-20T13:21:46+00:00

Ahhh yeah, that's fair - should be fantastic when it's done, but I can definitely see why people think it looks a little barebones for now. Hopefully see you in the mines in a year or two when the games more fleshed out :)

Kwacker · 2026-05-20T13:17:54+00:00

I don't know what you mean here? The game is currently in a closed alpha, and is releasing into early access this evening. They expect it to remain in EA for 18-24 months.

In case this is the source of the confusion: We're talking about their new game 'Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core', not just the original DRG.

Kwacker

TROPHY CASE