It is in my opinion that the funny dwarf game should be focused on both fun and dwarf, if someone has fun roleplaying, rock and stone. If someone has fun by minmaxing builds and becoming the embodiment of skill, rock and stone.

My guiding rule is: follow the host's lead. If the host is speedrunning then I'm speedrunning. If the host is mining gold I'll mine some gold. If the host wants a bunker I'll build the best damn bunker possible. If I don't like it then I can leave, or host my own lobby.

Gotta say I have a pretty high amount of respect for the fact that the title of the video is “On the Topic of Role-play” rather than “The Problem With Role-play”. It’s a small action but one that outlines the fact that this video addresses them rather than just straight attacking them. I have had a great deal of enjoyment watching both sides of DRG. From the breakneck efficiency and technique to the ones that like to act like a dwarf (whatever that means).

As someone who enjoys both rp aspects and but also playing at a high skill level, I think that playing at the hardest difficulty ironically brings out some of the best and most exciting RP moments in the game... There is definitely space for both to coexist

4:25 god you all know you love it when you see a bomb dispenser that close!

It feels like we're playing in two different communities. I've been playing since 2020, and I've met toxic players only scant number of times. And they were, y'know, just general purpose a-holes you meet in any game, not some RP or anti-RP activists. To me RP/ non-RP (using those terms in the context of this video) has always been an additional factor tied to difficulty settings. If I want to relax and mess around playing volleyball wtih an Enor Pearl and getting every last chunk of gold, I go to Haz 3. If I want some high octane gameplay by being all tactical and "high speed, low drag", I go to Haz 5/EDD where I put on my tryhard pants and might skip some gold veins or ping chunks of gold a couple of dozens times fewer than on lower Haz levels in favour of faster clear. That being said, no matter what difficulty or game mode I'm playing, I'll always find time to salute my teammates or make a mad dash back into the cave to scrape off a fellow beardo from the floor, even if it potentially risks the mission. And in my two years of experience I've noticed a trend that never failed me: if a team I'm joining stops doing whatever they are doing to Rock&Stone at me and find a moment to make a good-natured fun out of each other even in the heat of a Haz 5swarm, then I'm guaranteed to have a fun dive and (most likely) a very successful one, regardless of players' level or skill. Work hard, party harder!

I think I can offer some small insight into why some RP-focused players react the way they do to content and/or players like you, maximizing efficiency and speed. I'm someone who has been on both sides of the coin. Where I stand now is somewhere in the middle, being able to both take it easy and not give as much of a damn and/or bring my A-game, depending on the situation. If I had to take a guess, the players who respond to higher skill, higher efficiency players like yourself in such blatantly toxic ways are the refugees of games that might have become too competitive over time. I watched this happen in an Elder Scrolls Online guild I used to run with, where it started as a group of friends who did dungeons and other endgame stuff with a degree of lighthearted fun. It had a general welcoming atmosphere for players like myself who didn't really give two lootbugs about what was meta and what 'worked best'. We were out there to goof off and have fun. As time went on though, that guild gained newer members who were more skill-focused and had min-maxed builds, and a lot of the meme fun that some of our group enjoyed about it was slowly lost as the guild grew and the focus on silly fun was lost to competitive fun. Pushing boundaries, getting better scores, ranking higher on the leaderboards, etc. I'll be 100% honest, it really hurt, because not only did it make me feel like I was being pushed away from people I otherwise enjoyed being around, but there was also a degree of veiled disdain for players like me who tried to break the mold a bit and do things differently. I felt pushed to conform or leave. Not exactly a good feeling. I never fully conformed, and the GM and I were friends so she wasn't comfortable tossing me out simply because I was unorthodox. I still played my role well, so there was no reason why I couldn't stay. Eventually I left on good terms after my computer showed signs of instability, stating that they'd be better off with a healer who's PC wasn't so unreliable, and indicating I might come back after I got a newer, more powerful machine. Truth be told, I never went back, and it's been a good few years since any of them have even heard from me. Going back to DRG and how this plays into those really hostile RP types. I'd never condone that kind of behavior toward others, who are equally within their right to enjoy the game as they see fit. However I do see a possibility as to why they lash out like they do: They're scared of the game's playerbase becoming too focused on min-max high skill gameplay. In a modern gaming atmosphere where so many shooters are focused on this kind of player type and how often that seems to drive the casual players away, it doesn't surprise me that the more extreme cases would end up playing Deep Rock Galactic, where that kind of thing isn't as ingrained. Yet. So when they see content and players like you, it's probably triggering negative memories of similar things spread around on games they used to enjoy, before they were eventually driven away by toxic min-max players who didn't show them the mutual respect that you're advocating for here. Toxicity breeds toxicity, and it keeps spreading and corrupting things until someone takes a stance to curb it. It's on us as players of a game that has a still rather healthy playerbase to curb it by keeping things respectful, while still communicating clearly what we will and won't stand for. Not everyone will get the message, but this video is a perfect example of how to respond to this cycle the right way. Damn fine work, Axis. Keep on being awesome. Rock and Stone! Edit - Fixed a couple syntax errors.

The only time I call anyone Leaf Lover is when they won't try something out of their comfort zone that I know they're ready for.

not to diminish your point on this, as i agree, but there’s also something to be said about the meta-heads who will shit on you if you’re running a bad build, or not moving fast enough, or not doing you class’s “role”

My favourite roleplay is when I get C4 on my ass as a scout

I've always liked your, "I learned something today." Personally, I guess I can't do anything without doing my best to improve at it, which is why so much of your work has appealed to me. Glad you're calling out the bad behavior.

Going to copy this here, I replied to a comment here but I also want this to be visible as it's own comment Let me tell you the story of a game called dauntless, I saw this happen to dauntless, it started off as a casual goofy monster hunter type game but slowly as more and more people joined the game became ultracompetitive, players were talked down and yelled at for playing in any way that wasn't hyper agressive speed clearing. Survival and Support builds were immediately dismissed. Any kind of theorycrafting shut down because the only viable builds were the ones that could clear the fastest. Ultimately my tipping point was when the community became so elitist that people were mad at me simply for preferring to play with controller over keyboard because keyboard could ultimate shave off milliseconds from a hunt. This is BAD and had the community, and ultimately the dev team who kept pushing content for veterans and competitive players instead of for new players, done more to stop this, the game wouldn't be as dead and uninviting as it is. I already went through this experience, and although videos that show how to efficiently clear a DRG mission can be and usually are innocent, thats how dauntless started too! Ultimately innocent time shaves that made the grind faster. And I am already seeing the signs I saw with dauntless in DRG, very damning signs as well, the whole "mine gold vs pass gold" debate scared me because stuff like that is how the fast track to "you aren't welcome here because you don't use hardware that saves mere seconds off a hunt" got started, dauntless is ultimately a very similar game to DRG at it's bare essentials, a 4 player co-op with an emphasis on skill, combat, grinding, and cosmetics. Min-maxing is a very slippery slope to a hyper competitive game where people optimize the fun out, and I don't want DRG ending up like the dumpster fire that is dauntless, where content creators are forced to leave because they play to be flashy instead of efficiently so the community dunks on them. Both sides have a vocal minority, the casual and competitive, but sadly in dauntless's case the competitive outnumbered the casual and the game went off the deep end. All this isn't to say it's ok to insult people for playing the game differently, thats exactly how dauntless got to where it is, it's to say a lot of people from the casual side have been burned before and KNOW that if we don't at the very least try to push back DRG may end up just as many other games before it, where fun is second to "winning". I don't want that and I'm sure even the more competitive people wouldn't enjoy the elitism of dauntless's mottos like "more health doesn't kill the behemoth faster" "Just don't get hit". Tl;Dr: no, don't attack people for playing the game differently, but DO push back and fight for an experience you enjoy, lest you be pushed out.

I never knew this was an issue, never encountered people like this

I've gotten past this issue by refusing to acknowledge redditors as real people.

The correct way to play DRG: Are you enjoying the game? Good, keep doing that. Total nooblet myself, but you've been helping me figure out things here and there that I wouldn't myself, and when I don't have the mental energy to play.

I think on the topic of spam pinging a gold, people opening fire on someone who doesn't know or doesn't want to take part in the ritual is a bit much. Never seen that in any of my games. I tend to leave a "how did he get the compressed gold in without pinging it? Is that possible?" in the chat and move on. I find any negativity in either direction really annoying as someone who likes to play fast enough to be at that high skill ceiling while also mining gold when I see it and generally doing some dwarfy bits, I've gotten flack from both camps in the past.

as a roleplayer, for the whole 'you're not a real dwarf' thing, i just want to share this for my other RPers True dwarves are masters of their craft, be it blacksmithing, digging, or squashin' bugs. If you see a dwarf who's more focused on completing the mission than fulfilling ancient traditions, they're still a true dwarf. And true dwarves are also richly bound by honor. not all of them, but many of them follow this ancestors. Rping out those old traditions is one way to honor them, but following in their foot steps by being the best warriors and miners Deeprock's seen is another great way to honor them.

The only roleplaying thing I do is spend thousands of credits on Leaf Lover's Specials and see how many I can chug before I get a full team while hosting a Deep Dive/EDD. I title my server "Leaf Lovers Welcome" and make sure to leave a trail of mugs going from the pods to the bar so people know what's up as soon as they join.

i think a really important aspect of this conversation is hosting games, game culture, and the mission description. I think hosts, myself included, need to participate in the culture of the game or specify otherwise in the description of the mission. There's no problem with someone starting a mission and saying something like "skipping events, pressing all buttons asap" but the key is that this has to be specified. DRG, like all games and their communities, has a culture. In the spam pinging gold to say "we're rich!" example, its the culture of the game to spam ping it for a while. its kinda funny, brings dwarves together, and is expected to some extent by everyone. If someone's gonna publicly host a game its irrational to to get frustrated or upset that people want to spam ping it and its lame to just instantly put the gold into molly. A cool thing about DRG is that hosts can kick and people being hosted can leave. if a host is trying to speed run something and greenbeards keep joining and slowing everything down then just kick them or don't host at all. just run solo or find likeminded people on reddit or discord or something. and on that same note don't get mad at hosts for wanting to play a certain way. just leave or don't join in the first place. DRG isnt a game with a ranked system, leaving wont negatively affect your elo or any shit like that lol

As a long-term Dungeon Master I think I have a valuable perspective on positive and negative role-play. It is a continual difficulty amongst newer, or immature, players to understand when it is appropriate to role-play a character. I have had to explain to multiple players the following rules. It is not acceptable to respond to a real person with an in character response. Likewise one should never roleplay at a person who isn't also roleplaying. Finally and most importantly, roleplaying should always be done consensually. Doing any of the above is absurd, childish, infuriating and sometimes dangerous. All three attempt to reduce the other to a character. Trying to force you or others to roleplay is wrong. Calling you a leaf lover is childish. Dismissing you as "not a real dwarf" is absurd and clearly confused. I am sorry that this behavior has leaked into the DRG community and that you have to deal with it Honestly in general I would caution against role-play in a game like Deep Rock (that is, one that is not expressly a RPG), unless you are with friends or in a lobby dedicated to it. Role-playing in public is just being a nuisance 70% of the time, because most people aren't role-players. A few jokes here and there are fine. But if its clear that others don't want to engage with that then its a clear sign to stop.

I’m usually mission focused but I will ALWAYS stop what I’m doing to sprint over and ping a gold chunk. That said, I’ve only ever been passive-aggressively flamed either way once for getting downed a lot on my first (and particularly difficult) EDD. The gunner kept blocking me from getting in the pod and downing me. Kept saying in chat “get gud before coming on a EDD”. This was my FIRST EDD and I didn’t down until the last mission. Ridiculous gatekeepers are what stop people from getting into EDDs and Haz5 content

I don't disagree with much you said in this, but censoring comments cause they disagree is pretty unfortunate to hear. I've ran into plenty of people saying "Leaf lover" or "You aren't a real dwarf"...90% of the time, they're just jokes man. If you respect other people's opinions, don't censor. Otherwise, you're kinda proving that you disrespect them as much as they disrespect you. You just made a 15 minute video talking about how you disagree with their style of play afterall. Same thing they say to you, except they say it jokingly.

Understandable. Never thought of it as role playing tho. Im new to drg and I also want to get better (learn more of those hard to master game mechanicss and knowledge) but I also love the interaction with other players. The scout/engi Plattform combo still amazes me because it works and its so fun whenever you play with random ppl. Theres alot toxicity in the other team based games I play so the drg community is refreshing :D

Played 700+ hours at all sorts of different levels. Can't say I have ever encountered anything remotely like this. The only time I have ever run into people 'RPing', it seemed to be very light hearted and during chill missions, almost to fill in the gaps and have something to do. Trolls in comment sections are something else entirely, I say delete any comments you find unproductive and don't worry too much about reddit commentary.

When you realize that Roleplay and RP have the same number of syllables

As someone who tends more towards RP/casual play in games rather than competitive/speedrunning, I think one of the big concerns is that people on the more competitive side tend to be averse to and advocate agaibst the more "fun" elements of a game in order to create something more "balanced" or "optimized"- and because these more "professional" players are operating at a higher skill tier, and tend to create a following, their input gets more weight than the average player when it comes to community feedback to the devs. For example, the devs would be far more likely to see AxisKronos if he were to make a video saying "delete RJ250" than a comment I make saying "hey dont do that" (not that he would, just using an example). I've seen it happen in games before (notably, TF2), where the competitive community is completely out of touch with what the larger casual base wants, but they get their wishes becayse despite being a minority, they have a louder voice. There's nothing wrong with being highly skilled, and optimizing your gameplay. But there does need to be recognition that sort of playstyle is a minority, and the larger player base is generally more casual and simply looking for a fun, silly dwarf game. TL;DR- Some people are hostile to the optimizers, because if left unchecked, they can optimize the fun right out of the game. It's fine to play it more seriously, and it's great to get good. We can respect that, but similarly, respect the people that just want to have fun.

Thank you for making this video. It's actually a point of pride for me that I direct new players to your videos whenever I find that they're having difficulties. There's just so much to go over in a single mission or even a set of missions. It's much simpler to send our green beards to the KZfaq community so that they can learn.

And this... Is why I play strictly solo. Sometimes I try hard, sometimes I speedrun and sometimes I mess about and enjoy all the cave beauty and no one can tell me anything as I'm alone down there having fun in whatever way I see fit. I'm sorry but no matter the community there will always be awesome people and bad people, I don't have the time to search for the good ones so I'll just enjoy myself. 👍 I'm a proud leaf loving and hating green grey beard that both avoids and mines gold from time to time and y'all can't stop me! 🤣🤣🤣 Also... Not a real Dwarf? Last time I checked we all are and I don't leave any of them behind... When and if I am online that is. 😊 I play the way I want or listen to the people I'm with and follow their play style, keeps things civilised.

Darn, I thought people were always in on it depositing the gold chunks so I could throw C4 at them for the funny clip

I like to take my time in missions, and looking at the way you play, I'd be intimidated playing with you. Not that I don't like the skill focused, speedrun way, but I'd be worried that I might be dragging you down. And the fact is: If you have the option to play as fast as humanly possible or to take your time and have fun in your way, both are correct. I went into DRG after Zanny did a video on it, and only a few times I searched for tips and information, cause I'm not playing to be the best, I just want to have fun drinking imaginary beers and smashing alien spiders, but players like you that push the game to it's limits have my respect and admiration even if I won't try to play like that. Rock and Stone brother, you are a real dwarf

DRG has such an amazing theme. Dwarves mining, but in space with guns and bugs. How can you not want to RP the shit out of that?

All dwarves should aspire to be as great as Karl in their own way. Whether a great miner or a great drinking buddy, or anywhere in between, always remember that together we can survive Hoxxes.

Sometimes, especially when I'm in a voice chat with my friends, I love to ping compressed gold or hexawing gniffers and try to take all the minerals with me. Sometimes I just want to get stuff done and don't mine regular gold and stop mining Nitra after enough for 1 resupply. It depends on the circumstances and I'm fine with either but if I want to do one and get forced to do the other it is annoying. This goes both ways and player that are actually playing together should talk about this. Of you see something online, this however shouldn't matter as you are not playing with that person so whatever they do is not important. And no one forces you to play with people who you disagree with.

Rock n stone

Ironically, one of the first things people tend to learn in D&D is that everyone plays their own way. Not everyone enjoys RP in the same way or even at all. As long as everyone respects the way others plays and no-one's an asshole to each other, then no-one has any issues with each other (if you're in a good group).

I've always disliked it when people call DRG a "mining game" or "exploration game" while dismissing the co-op shooter part of it that defines it so much. I don't mind people playing the game that way, but it bothers me whenever anyone downplays the FPS part. Also, it seems really counter productive to be so toxic towards someone's prefered playstyle while being in favor of roleplaying as a dwarf, when so much of the core personality of the dwarves is focused on positivity! Namely "rock and stone" and "leave no dwarf behind." I think it plays a big part in why the community is so nice and welcoming compared to some other games. Like shooting someone dead for not pinging a gold chunk is obviously some major dickhead behavior and goes against the philosophy of what they're advocating.

You're good dude. I have no issues with people trying to push at that ceiling. I often find myself in an odd middleground and I've found that both sides of the coin have rejected me a few times. I once got kicked for carrying Doretta back to the pod, and another time I got kicked for... Axe cancelling I guess? Idk, that guy seemed to have a lot of problems with my gameplay that I couldn't figure out. I've seen the ire of both camps and I won't stoop to that level. Play the game the way you enjoy it mate. Rock n' Stone!

Was with you until the ending bit. Selectively removing negative comments never is the correct answer. If people want to out themselves as smallminded, they at least serve as an example to the sensible person of how not to behave.

There's a massive gulf between getting skillful at the game and min-maxing the game. Please stop conflating the two. It has its place, and it its an entirely different league of play. There two entirely different objectives in mind between the two and they do not overlap. Accessing higher difficulties, growing comfortable, and setting a new floor for yourself that you can uplift other people on your team. Is skilling the game. Optimizing time, high efficiency routing, spreadsheet calculating loadouts, etc. Is min-maxing. Both are perfectly valid, but I do not want a Min-Maxer in my games. Because my goals are not the same. But you do hit the nail on the head: The primary issue that goes on is a dearth of respect... and don't think nobody didn't notice this: "For every sweaty gamer, there is a sweaty **manlet** role player." That, is not helping your message of "respect"ing other people's taste. That being said, the worst experiences I've had in DRG, are from the 800+ crew who see entry level, casual, or RPing players as not respecting their time by existing, and I've seen far more of these players, than I have Roleplayers.

I can’t comprehend why someone would bully someone else for trying to get better at the game.

roleplay has a whole different meaning for us discord users

I never even considered the concept of rp being separate from doing well. Like it only makes sense the more you do missions the faster and more skilled your dwarf would be, right?

Maybe it'll help you to understand, to see that gold pinging and such other things are an invitation to have a silly friendly social interaction with teammates, and not participating feels like going for a high five and being left hanging. I agree that no one should force anyone to play in a different way, but since is a multiplayer coop game, some etiquette is good to have. Like not calling the drop pod without asking, and other rules. You are free to ignore those, but you should know that some people will not like that, just like in any other social scenario. I Agree that the host should have the last word, so Joining a game and forcing everyone to RP is as bad as joinging a game and start to speedrun without even asking. You can always host your own game or go solo.

I personally don't do rp in DRG, but I don't fully enjoy min-maxxing either. I like having an optimized build and some skills to back it up while not skipping out on anything deemed "inefficient" I even play Industrial Sabotage. DRG is just a wonderful game that's welcoming to all sorts of playstyles. Not just min-maxxed or full on casual rp, it's got a spectrum to it, and I lean toward the optimized side, but not all the way there. It's beautiful in a way, how people who play vastly ways differently can enjoy the same game. It speaks to how great this game is. Rock and Stone!

As a noob it still feels completely unreal to me how different social player-behavior is in DRG. The worst insults are: " You`re not a real dwarf" and "Leaflover"!? THIS IS HILARIOUS!

its always so strange to me that people go out of there way to find content about high end play solely to bitch about it

Still i hate people who speedrun while everyone is taking their time through a cave and if they dies and it takes a while because everyone is handling the mess the speedrunner made they still say the rest of the team is bad.

Once I saw a player with a high level of play and he actively tried to convince me during the match that my build is not effective enough, that I need to take what is the strongest and match the meta. It seems to me that the biggest problem in all this is that people are trying to impose their opinions on each other. Give advice, prompt - the norm. To be indignant and come up with offensive nicknames is audacious and stupid. But even if you look at these unpleasant cases, the deeprock galactic community is still one of the best and friendliest.

Appreciate you for making this. It's never stopped me from playing how I want to, but it is extremely frustrating to run into disrespect doing that in multiple public spaces when talking about the game to get more information. It's very helpful you have an active stance for your channel on this behavior.

I sit somewhere in the middle ground, some times I like to hard rush things, sometimes I like to sit back and take my time getting everything we can for a sweet sweet mining bonus, no matter what way you play at the end of the day DRG is about having fun no matter what way you play it. Be it fun or serious, if you enjoy it one way it's best not to try to force someone to play the other way if they don't want to. Rock and Stone brother!

I think you've laid it out quite fairly, Axis. Personally, I'm the type to always pet a lootbug, but I never complain if a fellow wants those juicy minerals. As long as we can all have fun and complete our missions, all is well. Rock and Stone.

Pinging a gold chunk is ritual by nature... You have an issue with people standing around pinging a gold chunk for 10 minutes before depositing, because it cuts into your efficiency. Yet you find it unacceptable that OTHER people would have a problem with you for not standing around pinging a gold chunk for 10 minutes because it cuts into their fun. Therein lies the hypocrisy.

Hello! Want to make a few clarifications! People are often wary of older and more "tryhard" players, for good reason. They're often seen as elitist and gatekeepy, because a lot of them are. When someone sees a veteran player who plays a lot, they have good reason to be wary (though not to lash out). Along with that, this is a *co-op* game. While a lot of this video is talking about how you just play differently than others, the fact is that the way you play influences directly influences everyone else's experience. Better players mean less kills and spotlight for everyone else, and easier/less interesting missions. It can be frustrating. Do I agree with your points? Not really. I haven't seen any casual players act like this, ever, and some of the things you're saying are... so strange. But you're also in a unique situation and spend far more time on this game than I do, so I'm willing to trust your experiences. Community wide insults and random outrage are obviously *bad*, and I'm glad you call attention to that, that needs to stop outright. Annnyway. That's my thoughts on this video. Cheers, hope you're doing well.

I'm about middle tier in terms of skill and only really played the game in short spurts of binge adrenaline. Over the years I've gotten around... 600 hours? A decent amount of playtime, but not compared to the upper echelon. I've only ever encountered a sour dwarf a handful of times while playing this game (truly this community is blessed), but one encounter with a high level player sticks out in my head. In this situation I had joined a green beard gunner going after a hazard 4 egg hunt mission. Shortly after mission start 2 high level players joined in together. One of them I'll just go ahead and say stayed almost entirely silent for the whole mission, but the other one was awful. The two high level players quickly outpaced is when they left behind half veins of nitra, never touched gold, and ignored upgrade resources. Leaving is behind to clean it up. They quickly knocked out eggs one after the other and forced me to defend against the unending hoard with the green beard. About halfway through the mission I say, "hey, your going a little bit fast and having stuff behind can you slow down a bit?" He immediately started badmouthing me and calling me a bad player and how I needed to get good yadda yadda. Well I proceeded to survive that mission and me and the green beard saved each other several times. We both went down at the very end but the silent high level player drilled to us from the escape pod despite the other guy telling him to leave us behind because we're too bad to be allowed on the drop pod. After those two left I have proceeded to play another mission with the green beard flawlessly. We had a good time.

If you find a chunk of compressed gold and ping it without depositing, I'm not going to shoot you. If I find a compressed gold chunk, place it on the floor and start pinging it, waiting for my teammates or friend to come do the same, and you pick it up and deposit it, I'm going to down you. We can pick you up, and it's only wasting my own ammo. That was rude a that's going to hurt team morale

I honestly like the little rp rituals the community has and participate on them because i think they are fun but i also like looking for builds and miscellaneous information like is gold worth it. I will still mine gold but i wont whine about someone not doing it.

This... honestly baffles me? Dwarves are *KNOWN* for being ludicrously hardworking and doing work to the best of their abilities - never getting lax or letting others outdo them without competition when it comes to challenges or labour. If you wanna RP a Dwarf, you technically _SHOULD_ be trying to play as well as possible. Dwarves are *_the_* defacto fantasy perfectionists. Very strange.

Seems like both complement each other. If you're an employee of a Galactic mega-corpo, they would value employees who get the job done quick and efficient. You can RP as the dwarf employee brotherhood and be good at the game because that's what your employer requires. I have a surprising amount of fun thinking of it from that angle.

10:20 Chad Rat enjoyer. Also as a somewhat still Greenbeard (only 100 hours, barely ever plays solo) RP is fun to me, but if I join a lobby that says don't mind gold, speedrunning missions, I'm going to do just that. But no one will ever stop me from yelling Rock and Stone after anything cool happens.

what build are you using in this video? (in the first clip)

As someone who's pretty much the opposite of you when it comes to RP (I essentially only ever play games for the RP aspect, even otherwise competitive games like StarCraft), I don't really have any problems with people speedrunning or generally trying to optimize their playstyle, as long as they don't demand that I do the same. I also think there's a lot of value to having information available about how different aspects of the game work in detail, and the people trying to shame you for putting that information out there are absolutely insane. That said, one thing you mentioned in your video that I have a problem with is players skipping data events (and also machine events) for the sake of completing the mission faster. While this is an okay thing to do by itself, you should really put a warning in the lobby description if you're planning to do this, otherwise you might end up screwing over "new" players (which in this case really means the overwhelming majority of the playerbase, since getting all PP levels/all overclocks requires a truly massive amount of time invested into the game. I have around 500 hours in DRG, and I'm not even close to having done this).

I change how i play depending on who i'm with. When i'm with friends, i am willing to play as slow and spam pinging gold and mushroom as they want. When i'm with randoms, i will spam ping for like 10 seconds and then move on. I play fast with bosco. I'm not gonna subject anyone to my wishes unless they're my friend and express that they want to try to speedrun missions with me.

14:34 A driller killing himself to make the mission end faster is fucking hilarious to me.

To be honest this is a game I play for fun and relaxation. This means I do mine the gold and take it easy. I can do H5, but that's not something I like to do often. I'd rather play H3 / H4 and goof around. So I'm probably more on the RP side, I guess. But to each their own :) As for the topic of the video I really don't see why this needs to be mutually exclusive. I also try to play the best I can, but I still find time to do silly, needless stuff. It still is a game with clearly definied goals, and these goals need to be worked towards.

Thanks for the video - great approach! Also, that mission end screen... perfect.

Hey man, I know the comment section can be helpful with feedback and is important for interaction, but if a few small minded people who are statistically likely to be 20-29 are taking up CPU in your mind it'll drive you crazy. I have never run into this in drg, and maybe that's luck. Likely it has more to do with not combing through comment sections looking for it. I found your channel because I like the efficiency you apply to missions, and have learned a tremendous amount from you over the last year or so. If a person goes out of their way to leave a nasty remark because they disagree with your play style, spare no time for them. They're not worth paying rent to. If I run into someone who's shitty in the game we just boot them. It's infrequent though. This is just my unsolicited advice from a simpler viewpoint though, I don't make content and can't see things from your lens. Good luck and can't wait for more content. You filthy try hard. R&S

I don't know what you guys think, but I think they might be a real dwarf

Really amusing to see this type of behaviour here, in a casual coop fps, since it's more common in fighting games, but allow me to elaborate... Every community has this minority of players who don't want to improve and divide every aspect of the game into 2 categories: fair and unfair. After all, it's much easier to blame anything and anyone than admit your inability to learn and improve. If you share obscure knowledge and things that were not necessarily intended by the developers (i.e. tech) you will always get critisized by them for using an "unfair" advantage. It's not roleplay, it's just ignorange and scrub mentality. P.S. fellow rat jammer here, yes-yes

Heya. So, I just play DRG myself and my friend, we have been playing a couple of years, but very off and on, we just shit around mostly on Haz 2 or Haz 3 depending upon what we're feeling. We also both have only played one dwarf, I'm Driller, he's an Engineer. We're Gold 3 now, and basically all we know of the game is what we've done ourselves, we've interacted very little with the community otherwise, mostly just paying attention to devs, and getting the general feeling that the community is a good one. I've recently started seeing DRG videos in my YT feed, so I've been checking them out. Very sad to hear there's a group of people like you describe. People should just be allowed to play the game how they like, for certain. If that's fast, slow, glacial, solo, teamed, etc, and nobody should be given shit for that. I know that if these people were to stumble upon my friend and I playing the way we do, and were to get on us for everything we don't do (been playing 2yrs, only learned of the gold nugget ritual recently for example, so that's not something we do. I've also never made a bunker, I also only terraform when it's pretty obvious we need it, and even then nothing fancy, we're also very used to fighting in tiny uplink circles and were fine with it lol), it'd be pretty infuriating! That all said. I'd like to say that your gameplay is insane, I had no idea that some people even tried to play DRG that way, and it's amazing to watch. There's no way I could perform it myself, but it's very impressive. Play as you want! I'd rather run into you in the mines and be blown away by your performance and feel I'm bringing down the gameplay with my own inadequacy, than encounter jerks who'd shoot me for not pinging a gold nugget, or not hitting rock and stone enough, etc

Im kinda new, but the only people I will ever call a leaf lover are those who are TK’ing, people who order a leaf lovers special, and my friends who know I use it sarcastically

About the leaf lover point, i completely disagree considering the dwarves themselves literally call one another leaf lovers when you friendly fire, better than calling them something actually offensive. One other thing is that while im not necesarily against deposit cancelling, they need to change/buff Veteran Depositor since that perk is practically useless aside from defense builds, and I'd rather not get carpal tunnel from deposit cancelling 90% of the time.

I’ve only been playing a week and videos like yours have brought me hours of entertainment and better understanding of the game, so thank you for that. I don’t think I could ever play as quickly as you do, as I’m not able to put as much time into getting that proficient at the game due to family and work etc, but I love watching you play the way you do, even if it’s not necessarily how I’d do it. I’ve learned so much just watching your vids which has definitely already improved my gameplay and that is something I do enjoy - always trying to be better, understand more, do things differently.

11:52 I dislike when ppl speedrun in public lobbies and dont mention it. Like bruh i came in to just play a chill game at haz5 not to run around not collecting cargo crates. I think sweaty tryhards, and tbh just everyone who doesnt tolerate certain playstyles for some reason, should mention it in the server name or somewhere idk.

I have played DRG for 1,400 hours, almost entirely with random groups, and I have only run into toxic people maybe a dozen times. It's probably because I play at HAZ 4, since I find it more chill. I don't play in a rush and always try to do every objective unless we are lacking in nitra and need to get out faster to save the mission. I probably should be playing at HAZ 5, because it has been months since I failed an EDD on the first try, and I always play with random groups of people. Sometimes I carry a group pretty hard, but most of the time it feels like everyone is doing at least a decent job, trying their best, even if they're new or just not very skilled at DRG. I like the extra challenge of trying to clutch a mission every now and then, although I would not want to be stressed out like that all the time. As for role play, I don't do anything more than spam V and every once in a while make a random, non-toxic joke if it fits the moment. Rarely I run into some weirdo who leans into DRG anti-leaf-lover rhetoric. And sometimes someone in my group will flame a greenbeard if they hit a button without asking. One time I had a dude repeatedly team kill a new player for doing so instead of just explaining why what they did is frowned upon. I have had new players kill me with C4, and I just calmly explain that they should be careful with it because it one-shots teammates. One guy even told me that he appreciated me being cool with it and that in most other games he would have gotten his head ripped off. Basically I just play DRG to relax and have a good time and complete missions with random people. I have told myself for a long time that I should improve my traversal skills with Gunner ziplines and Engie platforms, but I never do. I also keep telling myself to just jump to HAZ 5 full time, but maybe it's better that I don't if someone like AxisKronos has experienced a lot of toxicity with random people playing on HAZ 5. I will say that if I join a game and the other players want to speed run or bunker, or whatever else within reason, I try my best to play their style for that game. It's not a big deal to be accommodating to others for the odd game every now and then. I agree with the sentiment of respecting others and how they play--unless they are toxic or unreasonable, at which point you are probably best served by finding a different lobby.

I don't think it was a good idea to post this video after all we all pinged gold or mushrooms but only today I learned that there is people that say things such as "you're not a real dwarf" and "you shouldn't improve in the game" and such and honestly in my 150 ish ranks I never encountered one and I wish I didn't learned about them today... But great video

I only ask that you ping the gold chunk one time

Although I agree with what he says, you know this dude got called sweaty tryhard in a pub game a jumped straight to making this vid

i find it funny that you have Axis in your username, I used to be titled Axis and AxisAgain lol. Also nice vid, I hate when ppl ruin someone else’s fun because they can’t handle a difference in opinion, it’s what makes Payday 2 public lobbies entirely unpalatable, cuz I always played with stupid restrictions and loadouts just because. And now in DRG ppl get annoyed at me because I wanna be dwarf god and murdilate every enemy on the field

I absolutely hate the leaf lover insult. It’s a real and genuine insult, thrown out casually as if it can do no harm, which is not true at all. I can’t stand playing a mission drunk as it makes me motion sick, and I hate getting called a leaf lover because I don’t want to play a mission with my character randomly falling off ledges, spinning crazily, and not being able to tell which enemy is real or not

This feels like that video that exists because the teacher got a bad report from the substitute teacher and even tho u didn't do anything wrong ur still feel bad.

This for me kinda came out of nowhere. I tend to play both ways where I min max builds and such but ultimately do it to a point where it doesn't affect a lobby. for example I treat gold like the plague but if people are mining it I will too as assisting them in this goal ultimately completes it faster, as where if I refuse waiting for them actually is slower. I don't think to much about this. I've always thought that if you're min maxing is detrimental to someone else's experience maybe lighten up and leave the lobby after the mission. But on the other side if ping the gold chunk and people don't bite I'm done with it. If they don't like the rp I curb it. I feel there is a time and a place for both types of play🤷(obviously solo is your oyster) but I think elitists and rp enthusiasts to the extreme degree can be problematic. Let's be less stubborn and have a good time

Great points! I totally agree with you on this. One really strange manifestation I've noticed of "role playing" in DRG is that people will use it to shoot down legitimate criticisms of game mechanics. For example, I can't count how many times I've seen people defend various annoying aspects of the rival tech robots by saying something to the effect of, "They're robots so they should be way more difficult than bugs and be unfairly effective at killing dwarves, and they should be annoying." Sure, from a role playing standpoint that makes sense, but this is a game and the point of a game is to be fun, so a game mechanic that is not fun but makes narrative sense is still a bad game mechanic nonetheless. Sometimes people on reddit will go even further and suggest that things like mining gold aren't meant to be fun because it's our job to mine gold as employees of DRG, but we should do it anyway because that's what a good dwarf would do. Also I definitely agree with the general sentiment that if someone joins someone else's game and doesn't like the way the host is playing, then they should just host their own game rather than criticizing or griefing the host. Everyone should be allowed to play the way they like, but since it's a co-op game there can be conflicts if people in the same lobby want to play different ways, so the best way to resolve those conflicts is for people to either go along with the way the host chooses to play or just host their own game.

The only true "Not a real dwarf" is leaving doretta behind. Change my mind. Also I havent ever seen someone diserespect the people trying to push DRG to its limit and in fact having an extremly cracked team mate might be the only way to complete EDDs when you still have trash ocs(i got NTP, minelayer, leadspray, sixshooter, mortar, LSLS when i was already like silver on gunner and i mained him so it was tough on higher hazes espesially as I was less experineced and didnt take dash.

As far as I'm concerned its the host of the game that makes the rules, whether it be role play, button pushing, wave triggering or anything else. Its up to the host to communicate his likes in the server name and up to us to respect his choice before deciding whether or not to join the game. There's plenty of room for all views in the game unless we go out of our way to screw it up.

I never expected toxicity from an RP community... is role playing as a hard working dwarf really out of the realm of possibility?

if you are a skavenenjoyer you should spam ping jadiz cause it's the closest thing to a warpstone chunk we have in this game

As someone with a background in Vermintide 2 - this perceived mutal exclusiveness between being good at the game and having fun with its antics (RP/banter) strikes me as very odd. In Vermintide even on higher diffs like Cataclysm people tend to enjoy both getting better and the banter. Sure if you up the challenge, then RP/banter takes a backseat - there is a time and place for everything, but generally you can have both. At the same time you cannot and should not force people to participate in RP/banter.

I personally like pushing myself in games but I still do roleplay when I make cosmetic decisions for my characters. So for deep rock, my engineer for example looks like he's been in the mining industry for 30 years and have never gotten a raise despite being an integral part of the company. And when I play as him, I like to think that I'm some old geezer showing these youngsters how it's done while knowing I won't get paid for any of the effort. Despite me having this fun mindset of who my engineer is in my head, I try to play the class optimally with the loadout I have, setting up platforms for my scout, re-routing enemies when defending an objective, keeping track of where enemies are spawning for sentry placements, etc. etc. So you can have a little roleplaying in character backstory and such without it hindering yourself in gameplay and for me personally, I think it adds more immersion to my gameplay experience at least as I get more attached to the ideas of the characters while simultaneously trying to improve and play the best that I can.

“As long as that information is 100% accurate”. Alright but like who are you to determine that

Got called a leaf lover for buying a leaf lovers special while not drunk, fair use there

the background footage is torture you can bonk the bulbs from the purple tree-looking fungus in the bogs, and it lights up hitting them all will make it stay lit forever, saving up on flares, improving the aesthetics and making the video easier to see "torture" is hyperbolic, but give those purple orbs a whack, please

Role-playing is yelling ROCK N STONE, making sure no drawf is left behind, bring Doretta back from a mission, petting Steeve, and getting drunk regardless if management likes it or not. If ur homies are there, you can try to role play from the viewpoint of a drawf and voice act but not everyone can multi task like that it's all good. Hope every finds ways to have fun in their own way and I'm a way that will help the team. Rock n Stone!

I personally feel that people get a no worries vibe from DRG and may even treat DRG as a sort of safe haven if you will. This is why I think people get the wrong impression when you talk about what and why you should or shouldn't use a specific weapon mod or overclock. Just as people have their own unique playstyles, people will critique said playstyles. This is good but when people get the wrong impression, they get the impression that what your saying is what you think everyone should use, rather than what they could use if they want to squeeze some more efficiency into their builds. It's not only stupid to accuse you of that, but they could also be projecting this mentality onto you. Say about that what you will. Overall DRG is an amazing game and it's a bit disappointing that people could be so divided over something so trivial.

I like to roleplay as a dwarf by discriminating against elves and goblins. I’m also active in the Dwemer Front

Is this really an issue outside of Reddit debates ?

You pay for the game like everyone else no one play style is better. As long as you have fun that's what matters.

what i will add to this topic is that any "debate" on a "casual vs skilling" issue polutes the drg subreddit for weeks whenever it get brought up. meaning a bunch of repetitive discussion topics rehashing the same points over and over , or low effort 2 minutes in mspaint meme drown out actual content (art, articles, videos) that people spent hours working on.

As a new DRG player from this summer, I've been having a blast just playing solo runs on my Steam Deck. Going solo lets me pause DRG, sleep my Deck, then wake and continue on my next break at work or when I get home, with out missing a beat. Runs great, though I do wish at times the DRG team would scale up parts of the UI for the Deck's screen size.

As dwarf who hosts most of games: if you build pipes in refinery what cross themselves causing collision when you rail in one of those crossed pipes and get bumped away cuz of that collision- there is special cauldron with boiled magma in hell for those who build pipes like that.

Here's my main thought on all of this, is the gameplay should make you want to play the game. It's not players fault that gold isnt optimal and that many are well past all the content so they only need to do what they want. I do think DRG should make you want to get into the dwarf mindset, the game should make you go "well its my job to mine ALL the resources and do ALL the objectives". When its just plain not helpful of course people will not want to play that way. Imagine if we were playing Chess, and the game told you that every piece is a critical part of your army, your literal wife and queen is out there fighting, so you should be invested in them and play as if they are real people, but then there is literally nothing to encourage that. In fact the queen is the character you should be throwing into the front the most because of how powerful she is. Of course some people will buy in and play as if every piece is a person, but others will just want to play with those mechanics. So it comes down to the devs, and I think they will and should push towards encouraging "dwarven" behavior in the sense of completing all objectives and mining all ore. Heck a simple one could just be a "completion" modifier that can give a bonus or multiplier for getting everything done to offset speedrunning being more optimal, but technically also keeping speedrunning as optimal if not more because someone with mechanical mastery may even get those tasks done faster. If nothing else I push for this because mechanical skill has far more "caps" for players than completing tasks. Speedrunning is awesome and is in a lot of games (seriously if a game doesnt have a speedrunner thats just because it isnt out yet), but there's a reason why its a niche subset.