The Problem With Bots | Deep Rock Galactic

[@mikhailgsg120]

Great video, I see where you are coming from and will definitely take your feedback into consideration when tweaking stuff for S03. Rock and Stone!

[@eleventyeleven]

I love how engaged GSG is with the community. They listen to feedback and work out problems. Rock and Stone!

[@jordstuff]

Rock and stone!

[@x666xIronMaiden]

Rock and Stone!

[@joshspray4667]

ROCK AND STONE, YEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAH!

[@ThePocketMedic]

Can you play test making a hacked turret controller convert turrets to your side instead of destroying them?

[@atpsoldat6108]

The biggest flaw with the bots for me is that they’re simply not responsive to player interaction. Glyphids get stunned, armor shredded, and feel fear. The Rivals simply don’t respond to your attacks and because of that, it just feels less satisfying to fight them.

[@MusNothus]

That's a really good point. You don't get any sort of satisfying feedback from shooting the bots.

[@andrewandersson]

Yeah, no visceral feeling of shredding bugs, which is kind of one of the main points of the game. You are basically a janitor cleaning up trash (the robots).

[@therealKINDLE]

Really good point. I also noticed that unlike shouting bugs where there is blood & chitinous armour falling off, the Bots just.. er.. well.. get hit! I really thought I was missing something when season 2 came out & I never liked it that much.

[@plumbplum]

It's just like real life

[@TheUndeadslayer221]

I'm fairly certain that Shredders are affected by fear (I've seen them fly away from me when I used "Fear the Boomstick").

[@The_Rising_Dragon]

Honestly, my problem is, that they are only susceptible to one debuff! Secondly, the title scared me for a sec, since I am a TF2 Player...

[@SleepAddictBoy]

The PTSD hit in huh?

[@MixaCat]

Yeah…

[@alexander2019.]

That PTSD kicking in?

[@ImNotFine44]

The PTSD… yikes

[@catsuno228]

You hear “bots” and visibly flinch

[@augustinetoth8715]

I saw a great point someone made about the robots: Unlike the bugs, the bots don't have as dynamic of gameplay. Bugs can be stunned with a strong enough hit, oppressors throw tantrums which open them up to weakspot hits, spitters need to stand still to spit, etc. Meanwhile, the bots just are bullet sponges with not nearly as much diversity as the bugs. You just generally point and shoot rather than wait for the right time to strike or taking advantage of behavioral weaknesses. In short, it would be nice if there were a few more ways to either cause or simply wait for opportune moments to strike. And, tangentially, if there were some more kinds of attacks beyond simple pew pew lasers and the occasional rocket. (The bots are still a really cool and still sometimes very fun addition to the game and I'd be sad to see them go, BUT I agree, lots of improvements can be made to really make them more enjoyable)

[@MusNothus]

Yeah I totally agree. Patrol bots in particular just move so incredibly randomly that there's no way to use any sort of strategy to choose when and how to shoot them (aside from when they briefly stop to shoot homing missiles). And when there are enough shredders on you at once and you aren't a driller who can drill them out of the air, no matter how well you try to time your pickaxe strikes, you'll still probably take a bunch of damage regardless of strategy.

[@cherryrook8684]

One idea i saw floating around long ago is: What if GSG made the patroll bots "overheat" (not literally overheat as in the status effect) after shooting for a while forcing them to become inactive and stationary for a short time? That would solve the issue of them flying all over the place while being extremely tanky and high damaging. They will still be a threat due to those things mentioned but they will become inactive for a short while, letting you either take them out or focus on whatever other priority target is there without punishing you for doing so

[@augustinetoth8715]

@@cherryrook8684 I actually really like that idea, it seems like a solid and logical fix! I think to really make that work, it might be a good idea as well to have a way to deliberately make a bot fire more than it needs to in order to have itself overheat faster. Specifically, If they hit you enough times then they'll retreat and cool down, but they'll also risk overheating to try and damage you if your shields are down, and might even prioritize dwarves with downed shields. Dodging those shots means more heat buildup on the bot, rewarding evasive action with an opportune time to strike.

[@Bookslayer10]

IDK what you are talking about, bots already have a great variety of attacks compared to other enemies, and you can't shoot them whenever - turrets get personal shields preventing sniping them, forcefield barriers block LoS, snipers require ducking out of cover, even patrol bots have times when they stand still to aim and times when they dodge. I just wish more status affects actually worked on them.

[@schmity007]

Maybe electrical attacks could be the way to trigger different behaviors on them? Like, if a patrol bot flies into an IFG (or any sufficient electrical damage) would get them to fall to the ground and jitter around for a bit

[@bitzthe8bit668]

A proposal for a rework for patrol bots is simply making them have destructible parts you can break, let's say you shoot the ball, they now can't activate evasive mode, if you attack their thrusters-arms, it will reduce their flying movement speed by 25% and evasive mode by 15%, while deducting 1 missile per arm destroyed , they have about the amount of armor health of grunt guard chitin. If you destroy all arms it's forced into evasive mode, and if you've already previously broken the ball, it'll plummet to the ground and explode, damaging other bugs and bots. Running armor break will melt through their parts like butter, but even without armor break they won't take long to damage. And like you said, Electricity would also shortcircuit their AI and cause them to have insane spread and periodically attack it's allies. In related news PLEASE MAKE THE NEMESIS ARMS DESTRUCTIBLE. Isn't this supposed to be a co-op game?! Why are you punished for trying to save your teammate??

[@Ff323S]

I love this idea and thought about this before as well. Making them like necromorphs, where you destroy them by destroying their components piece-by-piece, reducing their effectiveness along the way. This would have made them incredibly enjoyable to fight against, compared to what exists today.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Agreed.

[@Yiolet.J]

@@Ff323S like in horizon zero dawn!

[@bobawesomebob7225]

This just feels like you wanna nerf them to an all to extreme extent to me personally but some of those ideas should really be put into the game, I agree with some form of electric effect for sure especially some sort of Short Circuit mechanic.

[@bitzthe8bit668]

@@bobawesomebob7225 I mean it can obviously be balanced later I'm just a yt commenter

[@threeprongedfork7061]

I didn't realize your point about being less able to bring whatever build you want because the risk of bot swarm makes bad build game ending, but that exact thing has happened to me several times. Also, I am a huge fan of the bugs and bots also attacking each other. It should be a free for all in the mines, we all want the space exclusively

[@binnieb173]

This is all I feel as a driller. It makes cold builds almost worthless when bots show up. I basically stop brining my cold build over how shitty a prospector encounter can become.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Even if I loved the CRSPR, I just don't love needing one specific thing for an enemy type.

[@feelsgoodman2171]

One complain i have with patrol bots is that when they become hackable they also become immortal but sometimes you just don't want to hack them because you are focusing on something else, e.g gathering Nitra, do the objective, revive a teammate and so on. So one change i would like to see is that they make them destructible after they become hackable just in case you don't have time to hack it and don't want to fight it again.

[@cold_ultra]

Yeah, one pickaxe attack should kill it instanly, it is already dead

[@MoustachioFurioso83]

Do they really become unkillable when hackable? I seem to recall accidentally setting one on fire on several occasions, destroying it right after somebody else depleted its health.

[@masterpotato9889]

yeah i spend ammo trying to kill one during a swarm, if is not possible to hack it, let me kill it, i dont want it up my ass again lol

[@KLIXORthe]

this is a major gripe I have with patrol bots. There are many hectic situations where I focus down a patrol bot in an attempt to eliminate a prominent threat before dealing with lesser enemies, only to instantly regret it as the bot essentially gets put on a revive timer with invulnerability, which I have to reset periodically by initiating and cancelling a hack until I have the breathing room to actually hack it.

[@overclocker3164]

tecnically u can do it, but only with fire dmg

[@Take2mediaYT]

Personally, i love how scary and intimidating the presence of a nemesis feels, knowing that if you get too close your whole mission is over. It brings great fear and creates some fun fight or flight situations. However, something needs to be done about the range and path of the grab, it's not fair for an arm 15m away to clip through terrain and completely molest you. Maybe a little warning sound would be handy too.

[@Bookslayer10]

Also, why does an enemy that is trying to mimic dwarves and sneakily trick them shout obvious voice lines constantly? It's literally the least sneaky enemy ever, bulks are stealthier for crying out loud.

[@ToxNano]

Something like the bulk detonators ash effect could work well

[@kriegscommissarmccraw4205]

My problem is that it doesn't spawn in like a detonater. It can spawn right atop you. We were literally walking out of the drop pod, when I hear a noise look up and the scouts being grabbed.

[@rickmalinger5361]

@@kriegscommissarmccraw4205 Bruh once I was in a tunnel and two bulks spawned on either side of the tunnel. Suffice to say we all died.

[@Bookslayer10]

@@kriegscommissarmccraw4205 Bulks can also ambush you straight out the drop pod, and spawn right on top of you.

[@The_Semicolon]

The nemesis is just a rival tech version of a bulk detonator. They both have an insane amount of HP, can break through terrain, have very distinct audio to alert you of where they are, basically one-shot you with an attack in a 5-6m radius, and nuke the area around themselves when they die.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

The difference for me is bulks don't spawn right outside the drop ship and actually respond to slows.

[@Mizenga]

And you deal with them the same way: shoot weakspost and stay tf away. And instead of slows neutralizing it, it's heat damage. Cool!

[@maxruff875]

@@Mizenga That kinda goes back to his point he made in the video. It feels kinda bad when the build you chose doesn't have heat damage. This isn't really an issue with Bulk Detonators because they are affected by everything pretty equally save explosion damage.

[@0mn1P4wn4g3]

Nemeses have a few advantages over Bulks. The basic strategy for a bulk is kite and attack, or if in a swarm kite and run away. The scout has an edge because he can grapple across the bulk and make it kill a bunch of enemies while doing so. Against a nemesis this winds up having the scout caught by an arm more often than not, leaving attack as the only option. The gunner can't use zip lines to get away from or attack the nemesis like a bulk either because the nemesis can fly, and again the arms have a crazy large range. The engineer holds similar advantages when using breach cutter which is very effective against bulks and nemeses, but without the breach cutter has a worse time attacking since he's less mobile. And I don't want to be stuck with choosing the Lure for the engineer based on a hypothetical chance that a nemesis will spawn. Also the engy is shoehorned into fire, against a bulk element doesn't matter as much. Now the problem with stripping mobility from the dwarves comes in with the forcefields. The nemesis is good at forcing everyone to the same area, then using its forcefields to be invulnerable. This leads a group to divide and conquer which is usually only successful when the nemesis appears between players. Otherwise one dwarf goes and gets grabbed, or maybe you're lucky enough to be able to get it into a large room to get around it. Loadout doesn't really play into this at all. Bulks give you several options from loadout since they can be slowed, set on fire, even frozen with enough effort. Slowing them and hitting their weak points is a pretty easy way to go. With the nemesis again you won't hit their weak points much without a breach cutter or sticky flames. More often than not with a nemesis, the success of your encounter will be determined by luck more than by strategy. Bulks are only bad luck in certain situations, such as an uplink.

[@commanderblargh6300]

@@0mn1P4wn4g3 That's kind of exactly the point of the Nemesis, they're a robot built to counter and kill dwarves, making you have to approach them differently. The fact that the Nemesis puts a wrench in conventional dwarf strategies means that the Nemesis is doing exactly what it should be.

[@omfg0teh0greatizzle]

I agree with everything said in this video. They're just overbearing when faced alongside bugs, they have many frustrating mechanics, and do genuinely make some builds just feel bad because you have a machine event you couldn't have predicted again, again, again, *again*. They can be fun, but there's a reason I don't play 50 elimination missions in a row. I don't want to fight the robots every single mission, please just keep them in their warning and mission type.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I'm sure that's what it'll be after Season 2. Looking forward to Season 3!

[@user-kp3en3it5k]

The nastiest thing with nemesis for me is that on a mission with a "rival presence" warning, nemesis can replace a wave of robots. If he appears during the generation of caves, then he can be heard and seen on the map long before the fight with him, which mentally prepares for the meeting. If he spawns instead of robots, then this is most often in the range of his capture. I have had cases when, during a swarm, he spawned behind my back and was already preparing to grab me without a single voice warning, only heightened senses saved me in those situations.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I also don't like that they can replace crassus/BETC/Korlok, especially since they don't give you anything.

[@BassicKMuzic]

One thing that immediately hooked me to DRG is the simplicity of it. Drop in, blow up some bugs, complete the objective and get out. It didn’t really matter which dwarf you used or what loadout you brought, everything felt effective. Since rivals were added it feels like now you need to start making specific builds, min-max your stats to ensure you can deal with just one group of enemies. It’s just taken away from the simplicity of DRG that I’ve always loved. As you said’ “ it doesn’t feel challenging it just feels unfair”. And annoying imo

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

For sure. One of the beauties of DRG is that you can just play however you want and get by or you can get really into it and perfect your builds. Doesn't feel that way currently.

[@liamkeough8775]

I wouldn't mind ANY of this if it was for one thing: bots and bugs fought

[@nurpiet]

absolutely, totally wondered why that wasnt a thing already. But you never know with these stinky rivals, they might've gotten in a contract with tha bug queen

[@Bleilock1]

Same...

[@lizzard3699]

I semi recently switched to haz5 basically when season 2 started, and I can agree, man the bots are a handful on higher hazards, I don't tend to main any class I just play whatever the team needs at the time and I know exactly your "caught with pants down" feeling, I miss using cryo, now everyone use uses heat and sludge or some alternative, fire is fun and all, but now its just a 'meta' and I have to sucome to it

[@B_Skizzle]

It’s not a perfect fix, but have you tried Ice Storm? You might be surprised by how well it works.

[@lizzard3699]

@@B_Skizzle I've been using it a lot more recently sense the seasons started, but jts not exactly the same thing yk it feels like its now a damage weapon with freezing as a side benefit

[@christopheregger1091]

This is the main frustration I've noticed. Even though I mostly play Haz4 unless I'm feeling particularly in the mood to challenge myself, the power of Heat builds against bots as they appear is usually too inviting to ignore (I mean, heat works great on most everything else unless it's Magma Core anyway, right?), but that means that if I go Cryo, I have to compete with temperature balance with everyone else on the team probably having Heat built in some way or another. Used to be that I could rock Cryo Cannon and feel like a Big Damn Hero with clutch freezes. Now I feel like I'm getting in the way of burn damage and DoTs half the time. Even if I start after they get burning and Temp Shock, it's still a hassle to balance everything with the work the rest of the team is doing, which leaves me less inclined to use my favourite Driller weapon. It's frustrating as hell.

[@B_Skizzle]

@@christopheregger1091 That’s a very good point. I’m a solo player so I didn’t even consider the likelihood that other players will be using fire.

[@arianheight750]

I mean I play every class and every weapon, and I gotta say ice storm actually feels rlly gud to play with on haz5, u just gotta remember to bring a secondary like persistent plasma EPC or something else that can help with crowd control, and save ice storm for meatier targets cuz it don't got alotta ammo.

[@spacegoldfish9481]

I think something that a lot of people have brought up as well is that Bots don't really have that same "feedback" when you shoot them the way the bugs do. when attacking a swarm of Grunts, their armor comes off, they go flying everywhere, there's blood and corpses and blown-off heads, so that even when you're only peppering a swarm with your pistol or meleeing them you feel like you're making a difference by cracking their shells open and blasting their heads off. with Rival Tech, they have nothing like this to speak off. the closest I'd say you get to this is when the Patrol Bots roll around for a bit when their heads have been shot off before exploding but that only applies upon death. fighting robots doesn't feel right in my eyes and I think a way this could be remedied is to give the player opportunities to crack them open to expose weakspots and for their deaths to be a bit more "flashy" then a small explosion.

[@pyrotius]

I like them conceptually. I do worry a bit though. Killing Floor 2 was a game I played a lot that had a whole zombie killing blood and guts aesthetic but at some point they introduced a whole brand of enemies that were flying robots and it killed the game for me. Like they required a different skill set to fight and they were annoying in implementation and you could not play the game without running into them. As you mentioned you can minimize the chance of running into them by avoiding that warning and not doing the events which is an improvement over Killing Floor's implementation but isn't perfect. I do have a problem that it "answers" the cryo vs fire debate by making an enemy that you need fire to kill instead of making fire more versatile like cryo. It feels like it forces every class to have to bring a fire weapon when possible because it is the fastest way to deal with the bots and I am punished for not doing that. Edit: Glad that the robots can take the cryo debuff now, which helps with that complaint I had. Making them harder to heat up also makes the two options competitive again.

[@Xirce]

Killing Floor 2 really ended up turning into a massive disappointment. It sucks.

[@bbwizard2941]

Yea killing floor 2 used to be my favorite zombie game until those robots came in

[@digital107-_-]

Took the words right out of my mouth with that killing floor bit, really hope this game doesn't turn out to be like that.

[@lucashampton6269]

Whenever I see a rival presence warning, I immediately bring out Driller and Face Melter. But, that kinda feels like it runs counter to the idea that you can play however you want and have fun. The bots and turrets are just so annoying and the quick overheat is so handy for getting rid of them. I hate feeling like I have to play a specific build just to make the bots bearable. I also feel like the Nemesis was kind of a case of missed potential situation. The way it mimics the dwarves could have been used so much better. Say we got a special dwarf rescue mission type. Either one of your friends or an AI dwarf has been captured and you need to rescue them and retrieve the data cube to prevent rivals from getting anti-dwarf data. The trapped dwarf is held in one of several random bunkers. The trapped dwarf can do some QTEs to try and escape, sabotage the bots. Break out, get their equipment back and bring the bots down. Inside bunkers that don't have the cube or dwarf, you have a Nemesis lying in wait to attack. It would give some use to the lure as it could be your friend. It would give some unique stuff for the trapped dwarf to do, and rewards data cubes. That's what I was hoping it would end up being instead of a downsized Caretaker that talks to us.

[@casuallatecomer7597]

Dwarf rescue sounds like a great mission idea as do your ideas on using nemesis. I also feel that something is missing from Nemesis with it's ability to use voicelines so your ideas sound like a neat concept.

[@poobnis]

I felt the same way when they were first hyping the nemesis, I thought maybe that they'd make the lure a more significant and interactive part of the battle. I wouldn't mind that you don't get anything from defeating it if maybe they made it fun to fight, but they made it into a pointless, unavoidable fight that is just there to take up a quarter of your ammo and increase the difficulty of any particular swarm you might be in. Hell, they could've made it so the nemesis had an aggro meter for how much noise you make near it so that if you wanted to avoid it you would have to curb your gameplay style a bit. Then you would still have the option of fighting head-on which you're already forced to do anyway in any mission it is in.

[@bobobserver8990]

Quite the idea. I know that the first mission I got a Nemisis, myself and another were gathering minerals and I thought the one who ran ahead had gotten caught by a grabber or cave leech. Then when looking around with my pointer I realized they were fine and what the cries for help meant for us. After that you know what it means every time and it's no different than being a ringing bell. Hopefully season 3 will see Nemisis being given more purpose than 'big bot kill dwarf'. The bots are supposed to be more intelligent than the bugs, so it just needs to be shown off a bit more in the future.

[@narwhals4ever327]

similar to operator retrieval in Rainbow Six Extraction?? that would be amazing

[@qwsxedcrfv]

One thing for Nemesis: it warns you with a voiceline anytime you enter the grab range, with a brief (~0.5 seconds?) bit of leeway for you to react and leave the grab range before it starts the grab. A tough thing to notice, but if you make use of the knowledge it helps with skirting around the edge of their grab range, similarly to a bulk's or explorers. (Although unfortunate for people who don't/can't make use of audio cues) As someone who plays with bots a lot on Haz 5, I agree that "wrong" builds existing is a problem, but otherwise I enjoy the challenge of having to play around them/coordinate better teamwork/create new playstyles. They do feel a little too common, though, and I feel that having missions balanced around concentrated bots, with 2 or more bot events but with more nitra spawns, could be more fun than the current rival threat warning.

[@midnightMoonlight09]

I feel the nemesis in it's current state would be greatly improved by having a visual indicator of it's attack range, like the ash from bulks, so that you aren't completely at the mercy of audio queues that sometimes play late or get completely drowned out by the gunfire that's no doubt surrounding you... maybe some kind of holographic sphere around them that appears on nearby terrain?

[@ikcikor3670]

Yeah personally I find nemesis to be a good enemy, it's not hard to keep your distance and there are very few builds that don't have any option to damage it from a safe distance. You get really punished when you let a very slow enemy grab you. Plus the fact that it insta kills you on the hardest difficulty in the game is because it's the hardest difficulty in the game. Quite sure Rivals were added partially because some people installed mods for Haz 6 and such and they were meant to be a harder than usual challenge and the devs wanted to make them different than most enemies

[@cornbonzo7027]

It’s not been a year and a half since season 1. It’s been 10 months. My pet peeve with reviving patrol bots is that DRG punishes you for prioritizing patrol bots by forcing you to hack them or fight them again. Otherwise, thanks for compiling exactly every problem I have with the bots into a high quality video

[@DebasedAnon]

@@wasabi6875 They should just self destruct if not hacked in time tbh

[@beppermint4092]

@@wasabi6875 you can only kill them by overheating them while they're in the hackable state. otherwise, they seem to be completely invulnerable.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Oops 🤣 should've added that to my confession

[@yappertherapper5124]

honestly for me its the swarm bots, i find the other ones a fun challenge but the swarm bots have to much health if you are shooting and the just ruin the flow of fighting

[@B_Skizzle]

Yeah, shredders can be really rough. They’re manageable if you have Barbed Drills or a good source of AOE but absurdly dangerous if you don’t. Even Thorns, which was literally designed to take some of the pressure off when you’re swimming in small enemies, barely helps because it takes 2 hits to kill them on any difficulty.

[@oldmanwolffe5248]

Any time there’s a bot mission I run driller with barbed drills and crisper. I would like to not have to do that

[@yappertherapper5124]

@@B_Skizzle yeah it just seems lame to have a small swarming enemy type that negates both thorns and non aoe/fire weapons. If you play scout solo on rival missions which I do frequently your only hope is pickaxe spam and run

[@TurtleKnite]

As a scout, they attack infrequently enough that pickaxing them as they come up to attack is actually pretty viable. Recognizing the "preparing to attack" animation and prioritizing those ones is the key.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

It's hard to decide, but I'm leaning this way as well. I've been promoting all my other classes lately and they're an absolute nightmare without my drills.

[@acidic_eggplant6448]

what I think would have been a cool addition is make the bot have electric DOT have double the effect time when applied to them, last only 3 seconds on bug but last 6 seconds on bots. (also electric dmg still feels too weak against bots)

[@MusNothus]

I like that idea a lot. Having bots be more susceptible to electricity than bugs are just makes sense, and I definitely like the idea of having their susceptibility being some bigger debuff like being slowed down more or being slowed down for longer, rather than just taking more damage from electricity.

[@DebasedAnon]

@@MusNothus It would also buff electricity a bit since its complete trash rn imo.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

That's a great suggestion!

[@bored_pyro]

Rival presence is straight up, un-fun. I go out of my way to avoid playing missions with them, and if I need to, I go driller to disable the controller from underneath making the whole thing a tax on an otherwise fun game. I still love DRG and anything they can do to improve things will only make me love it more.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

They've always responded to criticism and I have no doubt Season 3 will be an improvement!

[@Count_Goatenberg]

I agree with most of this, I have a different issue with the nemesis to add though. It's just not what was promised in the trailer. The Trailer made it seem like it would spawn at the start of a mission, and then call out for help (in a way that was indistinguishable from real callouts, or at least really tricky to tell.) It was teased in a way that suggested it was a legitimate gamble to blindly follow a callout, because any mission could have a hidden nemesis. As it stands, the nemesis ALWAYS gives itself away by that humming sound and it appears on the map. On top of that it's voice couldn't possibly be mistaken for a fellow dwarf by anyone with more than 2 brain cells. So instead of a new sense of unease & uncertainty on wether or not there is a nemesis in your mission, it gives itself away & all I feel when I hear it is resignation. The nemesis really needs a rework in my opinion, so here's my concept for it: Spawns in missions at any time except at the very start. Does not appear on the map and when not yet engaged, it doesn't make robot sounds. It's voice callout must be indistinguishable from real dwarves and needs a red dwarf outline ping - The only way to find out wether or not a callout is from a teammember should be through checking with your team via text- or voicechat (further insentive for good teamplay). Also I'd keep the "once grabbed you're dead" mechanic but otherwise make it weaker. All in all the nemesis is the first enemy that I feel Ghost Ship truly let us down on....

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Agreed. I think after one mission of getting "lured" we'd pretty much have it figured out, but I really liked the feel of the teaser. Maybe the imaginations over at Reddit just got the better of me 🤣

[@Mizenga]

I think the best thing novelty wise is that nemesis are a dwarf killing robot. Like, all his tools counter dwarves, and he doesn't carry a valuable piece of data inside it (although I wouldn't mind that).

[@Pund4]

Another issue with the Heightened Senses solution is that unlike cave leaches and grabbers is that it doesn’t kill the enemy like in the case of the previous creatures, I wish it was the case but it unfortunately isn’t

[@TheSpeep]

Doesnt have to kill the Nemesis, but ripping its arm off might be nice, yeah.

[@feelsgoodman2171]

For real the first time i saw the nemesis i thought you could destroy at least one of his arms.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Great point!

[@commanderblargh6300]

You have to admit that being able to one shot kill or cripple it just like that would just be low-key lame and anti-climactic, and yes, the flamethrower being able to instantly kill it like that is lame too. Now Heightened Senses stunning the Nemesis for long enough to get out of range on the other hand would be nothing but a great addition.

[@MusNothus]

DITNO and I were just talking about the shredders more, and we think that it would be a really good change to have the shredders count for giving you +5 health with the vampire perk if you kill them with melee attacks. Patrol bots' homing missiles currently give you +5 health with vampire if you kill them with melee attacks, but they only have 5 base health and that kind of seems like a glitch. Shredders, on the other hand, have 35 base health so it seems like it would be much more reasonable to have the shredders proc vampire and have the homing missiles not proc vampire; basically just swap the two. Honestly, that change alone would make me feel a lot better about the shredders.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Make it happen! 🤞

[@AtaeruCDX]

I wouldn't mind dealing with a Nemesis as much if it weren't for the fact that half of my games that features a Nemesis, my friends and I get immediately attacked by one when we leave the drop pod and almost always wipe. Who tf thinks having a Nemesis encounter on a player's first dig after buying the game to play with friends was a good idea? /salt

[@Bookslayer10]

RNJesus, that's who. Nemesis is really rare even if you play rival presence, you are just getting unlucky. Or maybe it's a bug.

[@whyreally685]

I started playing the game in May and it was absolutely fun and a horrifying experience xD Now nemesis just feels lacking, feels really weak.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I wonder sometimes if they tweak spawn rates without listing it in a patch. For how rare they're supposed to be, I was seeing them randomly spawn quite a bit, but in the past month or so, haven't seen them much at all.

[@BFedie518]

@@DrillingInTheNameOf I'm certain they do. When season 2 dropped I was getting a nemesis what felt like every other mission. Now it's not nearly that bad.

[@woobi4739]

When the bots show up on hazard 5 I honestly get rekt. I avoid most rival incursion missions unless it’s an assignment. My aims not so great with a controller so those patrol bots that zig zag all over the place really destroy me unless I’m using the lok-1. The nemesis doesn’t really bother me.

[@whyreally685]

With engi early sentry placement solves it, With driller just go full Beyblade with a flamethrower or use your drills Gunner=shield With scout, just fly away or stay a bit closer to the others or go to sentries

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I feel for you. Can't imagine shredders and patrol bots with a controller.

[@VeraVemaVena]

@@DrillingInTheNameOf maybe it's my high sensitivity but I don't actually have many problems with patrol bots and shredders. Patrol bots just make me waste ammunition and shredders can be outsmarted by backing up when they're attacking then move forward while they try to flee.

[@mikeymouse2]

Great video. I never really liked bots either. But the changes you suggested would make me come back to the game. Another big problem with bots for me, is that they're just boring to shoot. I like it when bugs go squish.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you!! I think things will be more of a return to normal in Season 3!

[@KonstantineMortis13]

I play haz 5 almost exclusively these days with a buddy of mine, and we've had a lot of discussions about the bots (and we both watch your channel, so we'll have something to talk about tonight!), and we feel pretty well the same as you: the bots can just do EVERYTHING. Perhaps if the bots had different attacks, like a missile bot being separate from the burst-fire bots, for example, but I understand that would be an additional pain in the neck to program and balance. Or if they responded to bugs in some way, like you said about the wave suppression, or maybe even bugs and bots attacking each other. Or if shredders just didn't exist. At the end of the day, I find them to be challenging enemies, but not particularly 'fun' or 'rewarding' to fight. Bulks are fun, killing menaces feels good, and dreadnoughts are a treat. Bots, though? Not so much... The fact they obviate several good builds is super annoying, in addition to their difficulty. Great work! Keep it up and I'll keep coming back to hear your opinions and observations! Rock and Stone!

[@ashh2748]

I’m just picking on you, a lot of people mentioned the destruction of good builds and the cryo gun, but what if thats what they were for? To disrupt the meta to make people find new ways to play and different avenues, unfortunately it all rests on the flame thrower but I think it’s just the lack of being weak to everything else that makes them strong to everyone else. It’s not like their little omen towers.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you my friend! Rock & Stone!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I don't have access to the pick stats, but I just can't imagine this was an issue. I was always a cryo driller before the sludge pump and was always confused why I saw so few other cryo drillers. I know it's anecdotal, but it seems like there's such a cult for the CRSPR that I don't see for the cryo cannon.

[@cybertubeman745]

I think you just can't have a mob with lots of health AND mobility AND damage, not to mention that because fire is now so prevalent forget about running anything ice in a team environment. Bots just aren't fun for me in this iteration, in fact I haven't been playing this season because nothing really changed in that regard. I think you hit the nail on the head, especially when comparing them to past enemies, and I am personally a fan of being able to play the way *I* want, thank you for giving a voice to those concerns.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Great point, agree wholeheartedly.

[@tor3699]

Rock n Stone Yeeeeeaaaahhh

[@cr33pi3r5]

ROCK AND STOOONNNNNEEEE

[@caolanmoore4027]

ROCK AND STONE

[@lordofthegeese7258]

ROCK AND STONE TO THE BONE

[@Circenn]

Did I hear a rock and stone?

[@KwadDamyj]

STONE AND ROCK! ... Oh, wait.

[@MusNothus]

I thought of a new analogy which I think helps explain a general feeling I get with the bots. They're kind of like superman. A lot of people would say that superman is one of the most boring super heroes, since at baseline he is so extremely powerful and has such an advantage over every adversary he faces that it's uninteresting, but then the mere presence of kryptonite completely incapacitates him without any nuance which is uninteresting for the opposite reason. The bots are kind of the same with fire, in that they feel overpowered if you're fighting them with non-fire weapons, but they're total pushovers if you fight them with fire (particularly the CRISPR).

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

^^^

[@feelsgoodman2171]

A few weeks ago there was a elite deep dive in crystaline caverns with point extraction + rival presence in the 3rd stage and on top of that you have to oof one dreadnought which was Arbalest & Lacerator, that one deep dive was pure cancer not only you are fighting 1 dreadnought but 3 patrol bots spawn right there mid boss fight. My and my friends had a terrible time beating it up.

[@splitsentro]

Hazard 5 Player: 1. You can oneshot patrols (hyperprop, spear, Jumbo heat breakpoint, pretty sure trifork with electromagnetic aim into wp too). 2. Patrols have roller-like behaviour and tend to just slide down into some pit for a while so you won't even notice them. 3. Patrols often have peak moments when you can shoot them. They come together in pair out of tunnel on Sabotage so you kill both right away. 4. As Driller, you can just dig 45 degrees inclined tunnel up and patrols will come face you closely with x3 weakpoint in front of you. 5. Patrols can't aim down (like tanks) when they're above you. 6. Patrols can go through a ceiling into your tunnel but only for peak so they get dmg from you and go chill somewhere in the abyss further. ====> Use terrain against them rather than special loadouts. Loadouts: 1. Ice Spear works. 2. Sludge Blast works. Pretty sure VIM works too. 3. 2 axes (iirc) and patrol bot is gone. Sniper turret gets oneshot by axe too (if you can rush and hit quickly or use tunnels & drill around). No need to even swap anything. Again, easier to bait and hit in some tunnel. And I'm not even talking about op Shard, gunner's single target builds, executioner and so on. Shredders: any AoE weapon automatically kills them. Turrets: don't respawn, can't move… Just snipe / drill / rush or just drop a c4 from the ceilng… and forget. Nemesis: warns you every time, waits for eternity to grab you after warning, can release if you hit terrain. It's really just as possible to get grabbed as it's possible to blindly walk near Bulk Detonator. Prospector: just chase and kill him right away. First phase is free cause you throw c4 and it's done. Engi kills it with hitscan nukes in 3 shots max. Scout, being after him, will kill it 100% sooner or later. And you said no word absolutely against the most obnoxious enemy - Appendage. It's the only one that is worth to rant about: no sound warnings time to time (and then it one or twoshots you from another end of the map), can get you far through the terrain or platforms, good at kiting, not easy to reach, can move around and stick through ceiling texture so it just attacks you from out of map bounds. But I trained so hard against them that I figured out strats anyways. P.S. Electrocution works. Try stacking tasers against anything that is hard to kill. And regular debuff slows them so you can easier hit their weak point.

[@chimkinnougat6692]

One thing that I was surprised to find works against appendages is engi's turret whip. You can get all three in range of your turrets and kill an appendage in 2 turret whip shots.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thanks SS, great info!

[@doctorgears9358]

did the elite deep dive, didnt know it was going to have the rival mission, brought the cryo gun, cried.

[@andreashandinberntsson4428]

The Nemesis also throws you at the end of the grab and that can easily 1-hit you in itself.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Indeed! Almost more brutal a way to go!

[@Nikolai0169]

The only compaint I personally have with the rivals is that they act alongside the bugs, and dont act as a third faction battling against player and bug alike.

[@eleventyeleven]

Patrol bots are even worse to fight when on console with a controller… I swear it’s basically luck whether you hit them or not :(

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Can't imagine 😭

[@ShouVertica]

Two criticisms: 1. Nemesis should give some loot. Minerals, nitra, whatever. 2. Bots feel like they are just a huge ammo sink compared to bugs. Especially if you're not running CRSPER.

[@Circenn]

One reward is exiting alive. :p In all honesty though I think more fire weapons will be a large help.

[@ShouVertica]

@@Circenn That's just killing diversity of builds.

[@Circenn]

@@ShouVertica how so? Only one class has a fire option??? Driller with CRSPR. I'm purely saying each class should have access to the same elements. That isn't killing adversity, it is expanding.

[@ShouVertica]

@@Circenn because you're building fire only then.

[@Circenn]

@@ShouVertica says who? If I'm mwf, we discuss what we do before going on assignment. Just stop.

[@Spotcats]

Your ideas in the end are brilliant. Bugs attacking bots, and your ideas about changing the structure of the hacking and turrets.

[@Vasiliy9hells]

My biggest gripe is that you need a very specific build that sub-optimal for most enemies. Like a CRSPR with a range OC with heat mod. This thing is downright OP vs robots, but times worse than a Sticky Flames OC. And you can't really prepare sometimes bc bots can spawn even on non rival presence warning.

[@picklesoul6511]

Etymology of cryocannon changes to the word “cry” when I encounter Nemesis on a random mission just chilling

[@alexferreiro2880]

I'm convinced the Nemesis was made in a lab to be the most ubiquitously unsatisfying enemy to fight If you meet it in the open, you have angles to attack from and maneuver around the shield and claws and it just sits there waiting to die because it can't do anything about it, but if you fight it in cramped tunnels you have no angle and the shield keeps blocking you, making the fight move at the speed of an oil extraction If you engage from afar it can't do anything except float slowly towards you, if you fight it up close the claws will grab you and you have nothing else to do except wait for your death If you don't have any fire weapons, the extra ammo you use just makes you feel bad for not bringing a fire weapon, but if you bring them, destroying it instantly just feels cheap and hollow I love the idea of this thing roaming the caves made with the singular purpose of trapping and destroying you, and I can't help but imagine how much more interesting it would potentially be if you were encouraged to hide from it, but still able to fight it off if you failed that, or if it actually was able to trick you in some way by hiding itself Overall, love the lore concept, but dislike the execution so much that I kinda can't wait for the season to be over

[@aureliodoreto9466]

The Nemesis Michael Scott reference was just PERFECT, loving this channel (yes I know the video is fairly old by now)

[@feelsgoodman2171]

Nothing is worst that playing on Radiactive Exclusion Zone , Hollow Bough , Magma Core or Dense Biozone and have a Prospector being active by the enviromental damage, when you don't even want to fight it.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Totally. It's one thing for a teammate (or yourself) to make a mistake, but the environment activating it is brutal.

[@InfectedEnnui]

love the cooperation involved in producing these videos! love the idea of putting the turret controller in a small room!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

It's great having resources with the inside info! They were all a great help!

[@themeatballcommander]

a lot of rival stuff seems like the kind of thing that was made for really specific encounters such as prospectors, data deposits, etc in mind imho - in S1, they were just a matter of clearing out mid-prospector fight or caretaker mission, yet now they're put in with the rest of a wave on a Rival Incursion mission, making it considerably more difficult

[@cardboardhed1967]

very interested to hear your thoughts on the upcoming nerfs/changes to bots in season 3

[@nobodysbusinezz]

this is a little dated, but I feel like this video aged pretty well. I do play mostly on haz 5 and I always felt like the bots were a bit much. I soon got tired of forcing every build to have heat and felt even more so when caught with my own pants down when I didn't bring any heat at all. The changes for the bots this season are good and in the right direction. I, too, think it it is weird electricity is bad against bots but at least frost works now. Nemesis is the worst of it though and I do think it'd be cool if there was a quick time event to prevent getting killed every time I get grabbed. Like, REALLY cool - please let me save myself.

[@ak6427]

Commenting from Season 3, I actually barely played at all in the first 2 seasons, and I think a lot of it came down to my favourite cryo loadout feeling completely useless. S3 bot debuffs have felt much appreciated.

[@andrewwilliam6890]

I love Haz5 + starship troopers, the huge hordes of bugs are amazing to fight against. Until you get 10+ patrol bots. Anytime my friends and I encounter rival presence we simply cant fight them because ammo would be too tight, or we can't run the risk of getting swarmed with 50 shredders.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Right. I guess it is largely personal preference, but I'd take 100 bugs over 10 bots any day.

[@Oðrun]

Excellent suggestions, brother. Here's to Ghost Ship paying some heed. Rock and Stone.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Rock & Stone!

[@unit220]

Very good video. I actually burnt out of DRG a while back and I think bots played a pretty major part in that. They are annoying and often hurt the pacing of missions. I also don't really like their aesthetic for the game (the execution of their aesthetic is great though). I feel that DRG is at its best when 4 high tech dwarves are cutting through hordes of bugs so 10:15 speaks to me on that level too. Rival tech shows up way too often for my liking (as you detailed in the vid). I don't hate the robot idea entirely but, again like you said, I'd like them scaled back. Hopefully now that S3 has confirmed to not be robots that means we'll see more organic threats going forward.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you! I agree, and I think I'll like them a lot more when I have more choice on when l encounter them.

[@marcopolo8584]

The competition for top 5 you showed really hammers home your love for this game

[@waffles9733]

I think it would way better if the Nemesis would try to execute the dwarf it grabbed with its other hand and others dwarfs would be able to rescue their teammate by shooting the Nemesis

[@supernova4378]

I think that's how it works currently There is weakspots you can shoot on the nemesis that make it drop dwarves Granted if you play solo or duo. If every dwarf is grabbed that might be game over.

[@midnightMoonlight09]

@@supernova4378 no, it just drops you on a timer, attacking Nemesis makes no difference as of now (besides the very niche situation of outright killing it to make it drop them pre-maturely)

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I like the sound of that!

[@chip_e.]

​@@midnightMoonlight09no once it grabs you, you can't get out unless you destroy a weak point or kill it

[@midnightMoonlight09]

@@chip_e. i have been grabbed in solo games at full hp without bosco breaking any weak points or killing the nemesis, and have been dropped before going down (albeit barely). unless there was a change to it's behavior fairly recently, it _is_ a timer. the only exception is on haz 5 where the timer is longer than the time it takes for the damage to down you, so _technically_ the only escape then is killing the nemesis.

[@spacepillow]

this video made me want to get back into deep rock. good stuff as always!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Glad to hear that! Rock & Stone!

[@ukaszszperling9157]

I'm kinda surprised they didn't do something like a faction war beetwen glyphids and Rival tech. The idea that you could jump in a mission, go into a big room and see glyphids and rivals duking out on each other while you jump in there as a third faction sounds like an obvious idea since I'm sure glyphids wouldn't mind munching on metal and rivals seeing bugs as the same type of enemy to get rid of like the dwarfs. It would also help balancing the game with having less agro towards the players since there are a lot more targets the ai has to consider and it would give a lot more options for players. Do you choose to "side with" glyphids in order to smash the rival and threw em into the recykling trash, or maybe "help" rivals make glyphids more biodegradable.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I can definitely see how that would be incredibly difficult to code and implement, but it would be a sight to see!

[@candiman4243]

@@DrillingInTheNameOf I don't think it could be that hard to implement, given we have pheremones and steeves that change creature's hostility patterns

[@zackrock1602]

haven't watched the actual video yet, but that intro was awesome!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you!!

[@gambitsheild9814]

I've never survived a nemesis grab, even on haz 4 with full hp and 30% dmg resistance.

[@__carbon__]

The pickaxe attacks in the "burst turret waltz" scene were synced with the snare drums in the song that was playing I applaud that attention to detail

[@HazopGaze]

Man, as much as I enjoy the bots in most cases, I agree wholeheartedly that they could be SO much better... and I have so many ideas on how they could be overhauled to be more fun to fight.

[@dybo3793]

As someone who started playing in S4, I love the bots because it’s a rare experience, and any time I see a mission with rival presence I always do it.

[@TheSodiumazide]

Fellow Haz 5 player. I agree that they are not really a great feeling great. I groan inwardly whenever a big collection of shredders shows up or a trio of patrol bots in a wave turns a successful run into a collection of corpses in a few minutes. From a design perspective I think that the bots were designed to make cryo less powerful as prior to them it was pretty much the undisputed status master. That said I also think that the numbers in terms of their vulnerabilities and strengths are off. 1. 100% electrical vulnerability. Yes this would make breach cutter better but its thematic and pretty decent in terms of giving you more flexibility. 2. Cut HP by about 20-30%, dropping patrol bot health to about 500 base seems about right and putting shredders into the one shot range. 3. Increase weakpoint from 2.5 to 3 I honestly never had a problem with nemesis but a QTE to escape the grab would be fun. 4. Increase their melting point by about 50%.

[@polteran]

Love your DRG vids, great job!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you my friend!

[@Trout_Nemesis]

I agree. I don't even play haz 5 often outside of EDDs. But the lack of tools to deal with them across all the classes makes drillers seem mandatory. More varied decisions and strategy. More interplay. I wish they were fun to fight. Mostly I just want to avoid those missions because fighting bugs is just more fun.

[@TheUndeadslayer221]

I have played Haz 5 and mostly have issues with some of the bots, mostly the Patrol bots for having as much HP as they do and the shredders for having more HP than all other small fliers in the game. As for the others, I can summarize my thoughts there: Nemesis: Not a problem for me since I usually bring armor break to deal with their exposed internals Burst and Repulsion Turrets: If I'm expecting these, they aren't a massive issue Sniper turrets: Are a pain if I don't have a ranged means to deal with them

[@OldandAbandonedHarcorte]

Nemesis should have some kind of reward, even just a small one for its defeat. Patrol bots need to either have their health or damage lowered. They are either supposed to be glass cannons, or annoyances. For their evasiveness they have way too much HP, most enemies are either rare, or have low damage output + high survivability, or the other way around. Patrol bots are not rare, have high survivability, high evasiveness, and high damage, they are incredibly annoying. Repulsion turrets should probably also have their fire rate slightly decreased. Everything else, I'm fine with.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Agreed, especially since they can replace crassus/BETC/Korlok at spawn, considering those give you gold, extra defense, and XP, respectively.

[@hexerin]

Here's hoping GSG takes some of these potential improvement ideas to heart. For me personally, I don't really mind most of the bots. The only real issues I have, are with the Patroller and the Nemesis. I feel like the Patroller should have a secondary weak point on its ball that takes 1.5x damage, or maybe 2x damage after you break some armor off (similar to Nemesis top/bottom armored weakpoints). This would allow weapons that aren't precisely accurate to have a larger alternative location to focus on. I also think that Patrollers that enter the hackable state, should simply detonate if the player doesn't get to them in time (I also feel like BET-C should deactivate after a period of time if not hacked as well, but that's a different discussion). Lastly, I feel like Patrollers should have to stop moving to attack, have a windup on their attack, and also be unable for move for a short time after attacking. This would give the player time to fight back, at the risk of taking the incoming damage. For my gripes with the Nemesis, I actually only have one issue with it. It's the same issue I have with all grabs, that the player should have agency to fight back and escape. Let us attack, and have the enemy release us after a certain number of successful hits. This should apply to every grabber in the game, so that grabs don't feel so terrible. It would also make the Heightened Senses active perk not feel essentially mandatory for solo play.

[@lceBox]

13:54 As a fellow 1k + hours driller main my jaw dropped with a audible 'They do WHAT?' as you said Nemesis drops you after some time, WITH health to spare. I've always treated it as a 'get-grabbed-and-you-die scenario'. I never knew lowered Haz levels let's you live the grab. The more you know, I guess. Also, drilling the homing rockets are a great tip, cheers for that👍

[@nyssfairchild2244]

I play haz 3 almost exclusively and I always thought it just instakilled you too.

[@SmGargoyle]

Great video in general but I wanna say I'm amazed by the conclusions part the most. All the solutions you presented sound perfect. I personally don't mind the rivals all that much but being the only greybeard in my team of greenbeards, I fear the nemesis more as if I get caught they have no way of bailing me out. I see devs already seen the video and commented cuz they're awesome like that 🖤 Rock and stone!

[@rickmalinger5361]

This really explains why i haven't played as often recently. Yeah it really rubs me the wrong way that electricity doesn't affect the bots. It also doesn't help that the pickaxe animation cancel was removed making dealing with shredders more painful. I think the best way to balance them would be to have every elemental effect have some utility. Cryo doesn't need to freeze them just slow them down significantly. Electrocute should do what you described. Fire is so strong it just feels like a cheap way to make people use fire more. It would be cool if there were vents that opened up like it has to vent to remove all the heat opening more weak points and slowing and reducing the number of attacks rival tech can do. Heat would still optimal but the others still have utility instead of outright eliminating the threat instantly.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Season 3 is just around the corner!

[@rickmalinger5361]

@@DrillingInTheNameOf I am looking forward it. Can't wait for a new biome to mine through.

[@zacharmstrong7887]

love that you actually played a waltz for the Burst Turret Waltz. most people wouldn't know the specifics of a waltz and would play the wrong kind of music and I would silently seethe.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

🤣 thanks! I may or may not have gotten lucky with that one...

[@paulalexandro4546]

You forgot to mention theres no satisfying element to fighting them. It would probably feel a lot better if they started tearing apart as you destroy them.

[@croc_moat2327]

Easily the best community and devs ever for actually supporting and listening to each other. So proud to be a part of this fascinating madness lmao. Keep up the great work and have a good day, everyone! RRRROCK AND STONE FELLOW GREYBEARDS!!! FOR KARL!!! *CHUG CHUG CHUG BURP*

[@guillaumeboursier9323]

Good analysis. I might have skipped this part but I think you didn't mention one thing that I feel makes the robots ruin most builds - they're immune to almost everything. Slows, frozen, neurotoxin, stun, fear. This invalidates a lot of builds and compounds with what you said, the only reasonable way to kill them is fire or high pinpoint, accurate damage.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I did towards the end, but it's a long one!

[@nogusek5836]

the amount of advanteges that the driller has against bots is actually a great thing because most of them are flying, ranged enemies, so the driller is at a disadvantage because he has a limted range with all of his primaries (same thing applies for macteras), while the fact that he can just take a flamethrower and insta kill them makes it mostly balanced interaction

[@elkpants1280]

If they doubled the patrol bots that spawned but halved their HP they would feel better to fight. And reduce their damage. Shredders could be made physically larger and that would solve a lot of their problems.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I could get on board with that.

[@commanderblargh6300]

I can't agree to reducing both their HP and damage simultaneously, it has to be one or the other.

[@daedalus372]

Great vid - i’m always perplexed at how electricity isnt the bots biggest elemental weakness!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you!

[@Wavuvi_Speedruns]

I've been playing a lot of haz 3 with greenbeards lately, and every fail or near fail has been because of bots. Either Nemisis wiping the floor with the team because they litterally didn't have the weapon mods to fight it, or simply getting overwhelmed by patrol bots/shredders. The frustration of fighting bots has gotten bad enough I skip the optional events when I'm solo on higher difficulties. It's hard in all the wrong ways, making the risk not worth the reward.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I worry new players will abandon the game because of this type of frustration. If I were new to the game I don't think it would very obvious what I was doing "wrong".

[@matteocdt5214]

instead of the average shitter that screams "(insert content here) bad, fix now" we have this guy who provides proofed, actual constructive criticism and also suggests ways on how to fix said problems. DRG community is truly like no other!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you my friend, much appreciated!

[@Talon323]

Now Ive always liked using fire on all of the classes, so the bots havent felt that bad for me, but at this point it feels like Im forced to take fire and even I get sick of using the same builds over and over.

[@crusaderguy1817]

The reason I disliked the bots so much was that when fighting against the bugs (glyphids etc) they react to what youre doing and have obvious, usable weaknesses, such as the massive glowing spots on the bug guys that obviously shows you "hey, hit em here." I didn't even know the bots had weak spots until I looked on the wiki, and even then it was pretty unsatisfying to fight them. This video sums it up very well.

[@Shadowfactor78]

The game has slowly fallen off for me ever since they added bots tbh. They're just nowhere as satisfying to kill as bugs and, as you mentioned, have some severe imbalance and frustrating mechanics. It feels like Killing Floor 2 all over again where they added robots and other questionable poor mechanics and the game got less enjoyable with every patch.

[@madmonty4761]

Sounds like a leaf lover in here

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

I truly believe Season 3 is going to alleviate a lot of those issues!

[@madmonty4761]

@@DrillingInTheNameOf i hate bots but i used a inaccurate build

[@mrvandal131]

I agree with the idea of making robots more susceptible to orher effects and maybe to balance this make them not insta die to overheating, maybe instead shutting down for a couple of seconds. And I completelly support the idea of electricity effects on bots. Very informative and accurate video, was a pleasure to watch. Rock and Stone!!!

[@BoneBeastKimimaro]

Wait, the patrol bots have a MELEE ATTACK? I always thought they just liked to zip around randomly. I don't even recall ever getting hit by them in that way. Also, one thing I would personally really like to see, is the ability to destroy a hackable Patrol bot before it comes back to life if you KNOW you won't be able to hack it in time. As a solo H4 player, It's always so frustrating when it happens during a wave, and I'd rather just get rid of it because I already know I won't be able to hack it in time, but I'm not even given the option. Hackable Patrol bots are, from what I can tell, immune to damage.

[@B_Skizzle]

Yep, they’re fully immune to damage until they reboot. This is a wild and untested idea, but what about proximity mines? If you plant a few next to a downed bot, they should detonate the moment it reboots. If they don’t kill it, they’ll at least soften it up dramatically.

[@BoneBeastKimimaro]

@@B_Skizzle The problem is that I'm not asking for advice on how to deal with it, but for the developers to allow players to make it possible in the first place. Also, reminder that I'm a solo player. I don't always play Engy, and I don't always even use Proximity mines.

[@B_Skizzle]

@@BoneBeastKimimaro Well, given that I’m not a developer, offering advice is all I can do. And yeah, sure, it’s situational, but it’s something. Would you rather I didn’t even try to help?

[@BoneBeastKimimaro]

@@B_Skizzle I do appreciate your attempt, but my intent was to make a suggestion to the developers, not to ask for advice.

[@Alkiskond]

A great video - and accurate points !

[@edcellwarrior]

"The folks at Ghost Ship seem like great people" Did you know they steal the copyright of all fan-works submitted to their discord server, and try to hide that fact by burying it deep inside the server rules?

[@KwadDamyj]

Wow, what? Not disbelieving you but would like any evidence just for my own peace of mind, if you kindly would.

[@hummus1973]

The DRG discord is full of garbage, I’m not surprised.

[@isaacarz-gromov8733]

"Deep inside"- it is literally just after main rules of server that everyone is supposed to read. Do not want them to "steal" your "masterpiece"-dont post it there. Simple. And you try to picture them as thiefs, ignoring the fact that they never use that fan-work except for when they repost it on twitter just to show it to others while mentioning an author to promote him/her.

[@KwadDamyj]

@@isaacarz-gromov8733 Well, lots of DURR HURR BEST BUILD dickwaving over meta, rather than simply explaining why they liked certain builds they were obsessed with proving good or bad and having their entirely subjective opinions reaffirmed because of their borderline OCD over statistics and number crunching. Autistic nuisances who wanted praise for looking smart. And when I called one guy out about it he told me to get on his level because it was a "marketplace of ideas". No-life idiots who are much less ironic than they like to joke.

[@edcellwarrior]

@@isaacarz-gromov8733 Maybe, just maybe, they shouldn't be trying to steal people's rights? Especially not the rights of fans who are just trying to show some love for Ghost Ship's works? And besides, art theft is a massive problem in the art community and should not just be ignored like that.

[@attrition71]

Really great informative, well thought out video. I agree 100%. I hope Ghost ship sees this

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Thank you my friend!

[@TheSerpentsEye]

Is anybody else excited for the next season and the opportunity to possibly find out who the Rivals are? 🤨

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Very!

[@avemaria5200]

I don't mind how bots are made and I often play industrial sabotage. I play on Haz 5 and my secrets are ammo, lots of ammo, even more ammo and maybe overheating (and mobility, but dash exists). If some equipment doesn't have a lot of ammo, it will always be a problem. When playing as a scout, I often use the Hipster just to increase my overall potential damage vs. ammo. Personally, I often play as a driller or gunner and they have no problem with AOE, damage and ammo.

[@onegrungabove7495]

Actually amazing editing and great points. W

[@tonimontana1464]

u speak from my heart. i was a neurotoxin payload / bulldog "i am a cowboy" player, doing edd with usually with 0 or may 1-2 dead. i could always carry if i had to. now i had to change my weapons to hellfire coilgun just to have a chance to fight em . i know neurotoxin is pretty useless for robot but without any fire i just get melted in a couple seconds. on console i couldnt even move the stick so fast as those rolling fuckers rolled around 2 shotting me.

[@connoralcorn5874]

One helpful change for the Patrol Bots specifically would be to force them to land and remain stationary while firing their missiles, but also buffing the missiles slightly with more damage and/or speed. That would create a risk/reward system where players could either run away to avoid the missiles or try and dodge the missiles in order to get a clearer shot at the Patrol Bot's weak point. For the shredders, a tiny damage and health tweak from 5 and 35 base to 4 and 32 base would probably suffice. As for the turrets, some method to temporarily disable them would be nice - perhaps electric damage?

[@duckluck3755]

You know, I got a certain feeling at the end of the video, when the music came on. It reminded me of all the hazards that we dwarves have to face down in the caves. Sure there are many many dangers down in the darkness, but we are dwarves. We persevere. I can’t quite put my finger on it, but that song at the end gave me the spark that we CAN make it through all odds. It’s up to us to get our job done, and keep our fellow teammates safe along the way. We are Dwarves, battle brothers, warriors that fight for honor. I found that I struggled here getting my words down, but I hope I got the message across. Rock and Stone to you all!

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Rock & Stone!

[@El-Burrito]

I do like your idea for changes to the bots. The electricity/short circuit change, putting the bot controller in its own room and a quick time event or something for getting grabbed by the nemesis

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Rock & Stone!

[@tonycallme3667]

I think they should also attack glyphids, like it doesn't make sense why the glyphid aren't as aggressive toward them compare to us.

[@finalfantasy50]

I only play haz 5 and you are right that fire is prioritized on most classes when I prepare to deal with bots (looking at you fire arrows). I use wave cooker to melt shredders and 18 meter crispr with the tier 2 heat mod to make bots a breeze. High fire rate weapons that also can hit the weakpoint on their head (preferably with weakpoint bonus) work pretty well. Nemesis is a pain but as long as you listen to the audio queues and find a thin and tall pillar to hide behind, nemesis will grab you and pull you to the terrain and break the grab. Always rush the controller to save ammo because on haz 5 you need every bullet, use nukes on industrial sabotage.

[@tvctaswegia497]

Excellent analysis and I would say each point is spot on accurate. Great suggestions for improvement beyond 'I hate bots plz nerf'. I also noticed how pointless the turret controller is usually. Your idea is genius, logical and gives rewarding gameplay while requiring basically no extra development cost, just stitching together existing elements. Nice! If I was to ask for two things it would be electrical vulnerability for bots (duh this is so obvious for game balance) or a stat rebalance as you say; and have some way of getting out of Nemesis' clutch. As a solo only player I've had Nemesis spawn right next to drop pod a few times. I've been grabbed right out of the pod as the door opens. Feelsbadman.

[@stevenle1760]

Hacking the turret controller is so rare for my team. Most of the time we end up destroying all the turrets anyway to get to the controller.

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Yep. Which is too bad, because I really do like the idea of hacking the controller.

[@boundbythecurve]

I didn't even know heightened senses let you escape the grab from the nemesis....always love picking up these little tips from this channel

[@DrillingInTheNameOf]

Happy to help!