How Deep Rock Galactic succeeds

How Deep Rock Galactic succeeds

What is deep rock galactic

It is a sci-fi co-op shooting game made by Ghostship Games. You play as a dwarf fighting and mining on a planet swarming with hostile bug-like aliens. It released in 2020 and has only surged in popularity since then.

What makes deep rock galactic special

Procedural generation - This is their best technical achievement by far. They’ve managed to create a procedural map generator that gives players unique challenges every mission. No mission is completely the same.

Each map is can be themed as one of 10 biomes. Each biome has distinct characteristics and dangers. From the cold and snowy glacial strata, to the vibrant alien forest-like azure wield.

These biomes are procedurally generated, so no two maps from the same biome will be the same. This is further modified by the mission duration and cave complexity attributes, which as their name suggests, defines how complex and how large the caves are. Some caves can be tiny, while others can take all-game to traverse.

The random nature of the map isn’t limited to the terrain as well. Each mission map seed has a different ‘spawn pool’. The game would be boring and repetitive if you fight the same set of enemies over and over. Thus they’ve added a spawn pool mechanic where a mission will have different sets of enemies spawning at different rates. One mission could have low quantities of exploders, the next will have hordes of them charging your position. You could have multiple missions where no bulk detonators, but in the next there might be multiple. It makes the game less predictable, so you’ll always be on your toes.

Cohesive art direction

Nothing feels too out of place. There’s a heavy industrial theme going on in the game and it works well with the low-poly aesthetic. The shapes are blocky and thick. The space station looks like an ill-kempt oil rig or construction area. All the weapons and armor look like something out of the 70’s or 80’s, but with a futuristic twist.

Co-op friendly mechanics The developers set out to make a game where every participant in a lobby can contribute, regardless of skill level. And in a way, they’ve succeeded.

All 4 dwarves have unique tools that compliment the other classes. The engineer can make terrain, the driller can tunnel through terrain, while scout can traverse through open air. The gunner has a zipline, which also allows them to traverse open air, but in a limited form. Except compared to the grappling hook, the entire team benefits.

Whenever one of the classes is missing from a lobby, players will definitely feel it. The most obvious one being the scout. Without a scout, there’s less significantly less visibility in the cave as a team won’t have access to the scout’s flare gun. The team will also generally gain less minerals, especially nitra, the mineral used for restocking on ammunition. Low nitra is dangerous in higher difficulties as it could lead to the team losing momentum and succumbing to the myriad of threats found on Hoxxes.

If a gunner is missing, the team will find that they’re spending more time fighting alien bugs than completing objectives. The gunner is the team’s anchor. While the Engineer and Driller can deal with swarms too, they cannot sustain their fire at the range and duration that a Gunner can. The driller has potent debuffs and AoE, but their range is short, which is a risk factor all on its own. Engineer has high burst damage and turrets, but they don’t have the ammo economy to sustain fighting for long. A gunner is also great to have in particularly difficult missions where teammates are likely to get overwhelmed and go down. This is because the class is equipped with a shield that allows him to fight or revive enemies without risk of getting attacked for a short duration. This shield can also be pre-emptively deployed in energy situations; like when the team is cornered by a swarm, or for stalling a major threat like an incoming bulk or glyphid dreadnaught.

When a driller is missing, the team is deprived of one of the best team-oriented traversal tools in the game, the drills. It allows the driller to drill tunnels to the terrain very quickly, and this has endless utility in Deep Rock Galactic. Any objective or mineral that isn’t outright floating in open air is going to be made very accessible. With a bit of creativity, the drills can be used to make improvised staircases, clear obstacles to make a fighting area, create bunkers within the terrain’s walls, or make shortcuts between rooms.

And lastly, engineer has the flexible multi-purpose platforms. The engineer can shoot foam that hardens into a yellow platform on impact. It can be used to soften the impact of falls. It can also create makeshift ledges, which is useful in combination with scouts as it allows them to reach objectives and minerals that spawn up a wall. They can repeatedly fire the platform gun to make a makeshift bridge. It can also be used block holes and routes that enemy units could otherwise traverse through.

Engineer deploys one or two static turrets that can provide fire support or area denial. This is especially effective for hold-the-point type missions where the team has to stay by or protect an objective.

There’s something to be said about some of the combat mechanics in this game as well. There are status effects such as freezing, on-fire, and electrocution that certain classes can build for. But they’re designed in a way that they can be exploited by the entire team, rather than just the dwarf who made the load-out. If an engineer uses the SMG to apply electricity, a scout with a weapon that gains bonus damage on electrocuted enemies can exploit it. If one dwarf uses a weapon that sets an enemy on-fire, another dwarf with a weapon that applies cold temperature can remove the on-fire debuff then cause the temperature shock mechanic to trigger dealing a burst of damage. If a scout or driller manages to freeze a dreadnought, an engineer can then use a hyper propellant build grenade launcher to deal massive damage, utilizing the freeze debuff’s damage amplification effect.

Ghostship games have effectively created a combat system where otherwise conflicting effects can instead compliment each other. It makes for a game where players have to rely on synergies & player co-operation to maximize the team’s effectiveness. It doesn’t matter if there’s a disparity in skill between players, the game encourages players to cooperate, and so they mostly do. That in turn, reduces the likelihood of players to troll or generally act solely for their self-interest.

Low commitment games

This is in my opinion, the primary reason why DRG is considered a casual game. Missions are short. Most games conclude in about half an hour or less, and rarely to they go over an hour. All players are allowed to drop out of the mission at any point. They will not be punished for this abandonment. Even if a player gets kicked out of the lobby during a mission, they will still be compensated based with resources.

This is important because it can be frustrating to be forced to play through a mission to completion when one doesn’t feel comfortable with either the mission itself or the players within the lobby. They can just leave, guilt & hassle free. This minimizes stress, and maximizes the fun that one could derive from this game. And that is the essence of what a game should be, something to be enjoyed with your available & likely limited leisure time.

Low commitment reduces negative feelings at the cost of lowering the stakes, and therefore lowering the feeling of fulfillment over overcoming a challenge. And I think that’s a fair trade to make for a game like this.

How does it compare to other games

Warhammer: Vermintide This is one of the games Deep Rock Galactic is commonly compared to. You have a 4 player team given an objective, and you try to complete those objectives while fighting to survive. Which it’s true that Warhammer: Vermintide has more abilities and classes. I wouldn’t necessarily say the mechanics promote co-operation any more than it does compared to other co-op titles. The passive bonuses don’t feel engaging. You occasionally have to help a player who goes down or gets locked down by an enemy before proceeding as normal. That’s as far as the ‘co-op’ goes. You mostly want your teammates alive to take a portion of the enemy aggro so you yourself don’t get overwhelmed.

Monster Hunter: Rise Like Deep Rock Galactic, up to 4 players join a lobby and participate in missions, or “hunts” as they’re called in game. The goal is to hunt monsters with your team. There are no classes per-se. The biggest difference between players will come from their weapon choice. There’s 14 weapons to choose from; From basic swords, giant greatswords, and bowguns. And you can further customize your characters with set bonuses and ‘switch skills’. One would think given the diversity of weapons and abilities, there would be loads of synergies and mechanics to use, but there really isn’t. You generally have players dealing damage and players on hunting horn providing buffs. The co-op elements are really shallow, so you end up with an action game where it’s just 4 players taking turns beating up an NPC sandbag. This is a shame because you can tell from the amount of social options in game, that they definitely intended this game to be heavy into co-op.

DOTA 2 This may be a controversial opinion, but I think DOTA 2 closely resembles the co-op mechanics that Deep Rock Galactic embodies. It’s an entirely different genre, but it incorporates the same level of reliance on your teammates to achieve objectives. There are no “classes” in this game, but there are roles that each of the 5 players teams generally fill to compose an effective team. It’s designed to have abilities and mechanics between different players working together and creating synergies.

Community engagement

A.) Early Access - This is among the best success stories to come out of Steam’s early access platform. They utilized it exactly how it was envisioned. It basically implements AGILE development; The product was made available to the public which opened it to feedback from would-be consumers. The developers could then read the feedback and respond by either making immediate improvements to their products, or adding suggested features or improvements into the development pipeline/wishlist. They took what was initially an ugly clunky indie shooter and turned it into one of my most well-received video games on the Steam store at 97% positive reviews.

B.) Social media - Ghostship games was able to utilize social media. They engage with users on twitch, reddit, and twitter. They respond to questions and feedback. Developers regularly pop into reddit threads to post their thoughts about a topic. They hold video editing contests. This is how social media presence should be handled. Not limited to posting then disappearing like so many other businesses do. They actually listen then respond.

C.) Responsiveness to playerbase - They actually talk to their playerbase. There are some examples:

-The seed for 12th January 2023’s elite deep dive was reset after players complained about it having two industrial sabotage missions objectives.

-Around the start of Season 3: Plaguefall ‘bug’ occurred where promoting a class resulted in the Weekly Core Hunt assignment to be reset. This effectively granted players a means to farm ‘matrix cores’. It was a resource that granted random weapon modifications and cosmetic unlocks. It was time-gated, so players could only unlock a limited time per week. However the aforementioned bug was so well received that the devs officially changed promotions to grant those matrix cores.

-There was minor backlash when one of the developers threatened to ban someone from the official discord over a “dipping balls in morkite” joke. The developer’s response to the backlash speaks for itself.

The point is communication is supposed to be a 2-way street. Other companies make the mistake of using social media as a glorified bulletin board. They communicate something, but don’t hear back. A place where they announce things, then completely ignore the community response or inquiries.

D. Modding support -

The developers have recognized that modding is an integral part of gaming. It adds to the game’s longevity and fun. To that end, Ghostship games opted to integrate modding into the game via the mod.io platform, where they believe modding could be better supported compared to steam’s workshop. Deep Rock Galactic mods are segregated into 3 categories;

Verified - These are essentially minor mods that don’t affect the player’s save state and can be freely used in multiplayer. Players with approved or sandbox mods cannot join in unmodded lobbies. Approved - There are mods that are approved for the game. It adds the appropriate tag to lobbies, warning players who may not be interested in having their save altered in such a way. Sandbox - Major overhauls that significantly affect the game’s save state.

Monetization

Deep Rock Galactic isn’t greedy with it’s monetization. And it Ghostship Games have managed to develop a reputation for being pro-consumer. They do away with all the usual money-wringing schemes present in many games today. Paid season passes, paid keys to unlock lootboxes, immersion breaking in-game micro-transactions, paywalled gameplay content. Instead, they theme their content updates with ‘seasons’ which often comes with cosmetic-only DLC, and a free season pass.

They have free season passes are generally an opportunity to gain free cosmetics from a rewards tree as they play the game or complete season objectives related to the season’s theme. Then once the season ends, the unlockable cosmetics within the season pass will be made available in the games existing loot pools; such as cosmetic cores and lost equipment. This way players aren’t forced to grind the game for season pass cosmetics in fear of losing out. They’ll always be available later on.

In short, their generous monetization has managed to garner something intangible that is often invisible to other game companies; Community good-will. If a game company is well regarded by its players, then they’re more likely to support the game through DLC purchases.

Current challenges

Game Balance - As more customization options are added to the game, the tougher it will be to balance. They do try to address the biggest issues, but they take a slow & gradual approach to adjustments.

Perks are active and passive abilities that can be equipped on your dwarves. There are 21 perks in the game as of this article’s writing. Dwarves can equip up to 2 active abilities and 3 active abilities. While it would seem there’s a lot of flexibility in what you can equip, certain perks are just more impactful than others. These perks are pretty much present in almost every game; dash, iron will, and field medic for active perks. Then thorns, resupplier, born ready, and deep pockets. Everything else is significantly niche.

The same can be said about weapons and their overclocks. Some weapons are considered inferior until they can be equipped with certain overclocks. That is to say, they the base weapon is weak until it’s practically changed into a different weapons through a modification(s). Specific weapon builds are considered plain overpowered (Autocannon with Neurotoxin Payload) which makes other builds on the weapon seem inefficient by comparison, even if the alternatives are viable & great in their own distinct ways.

Luckily the classes themselves are much more balanced. Each one is generally welcome and expected in a team, regardless of the mission they’re facing. There’s a minority of players who even say Scout is weaker than the rest of the classes, but it isn’t enough that there’s discrimination in lobbies against scout players.

These balance issues will eventually need to be addressed in the future, especially if they plan to add more weapons and gear to the dwarves’ arsenal in future content updates.

Skill-inflation - Deep Rock Galactic is a casual game. It’s made to be fun regardless of skill-levels. Something familiar and can be picked up by players in no time. But as with all multiplayer games that reach a point of maturity, the players will get better. Their standards and expectations of teammates will get higher. This can easily lead to elitism and toxicity, something all too common in competitive games and esports titles. Just one look at the steam forum and you’ll see people arguing and flaming each other over opinions on character loadouts and their viability. Hopefully it doesn’t reach a point where expectations on beginners and casual players get obnoxious enough that is stops feeling like a casual game.

Conclusion

Deep Rock Galactic was born from a deep understanding of game design that often goes underappreciated. It’s simple, the graphics aren’t spectacular, the mechanics aren’t particularly deep. Yet they’ve combined many different elements to create a wonderfully fun co-op game.