That actually just made me realize we've all been using rock and stone to communicate various more complex topics such as appreciation, to get to various objectives, and as a way to ask for assistance in positive and relationship building ways unknowingly. Rock and stone truly unites us all
I feel that way too, just the fact you're not up against other real people, you don't get aggravated to the point of yelling at a teammate for their lack of skill or whatever. In fact, even if you are struggling and dying a lot in a mission, complete strangers in your team will mostly still rescue you all the time and not abandon you and it'll be no big deal (that's my personal experience)
Everyone seems to be missing this. Heck the most toxic games require you to dominate an area or finish the enemy team to feel better so ofcourse guys will be more riled up.
@@Carrot-ks7lbomg that stuff really helped me A lot! I did start being that kind of player but I just die by their corpse At least Dreadnought fights with near team death moments really teaches you how to get good at reviving and dodging I oddly like objectively bad missions like the knife elf's big baby machine fight probably cuz I just love boss fights outside of single player games
"Hey, you stole my underwear!" Probably not an exact quote but I am 100% sure underwear was mentioned somewhere in DRG as a quote.. I need to find it again..
Don't be fooled. DRG is great, RnS is great, but the community loves taking it too far even when ppl just wanna play the game without spamming the emote
The laser pointer, salute, and help buttons are only a part of what makes this game so positive. These forms of communication are used in other games (like TF2's voice lines, which do encourage a lot of similar behavior) but those games can still be toxic because of text and voice chat. DRG is designed around lifting each other up. What makes DRG not toxic? 1. Players can't do it alone. Even when you play solo, you have a drone. This means no one player is encouraged to carry the mission, thus they are encouraged to revive their team mates instead. More team mates also means more laser pointers and rock and stones. 2. DRG is more fun the more players you have. Why would you want to make someone rage quit when you can all run around a cave "drunk" (I'll get to that) instead? The more players, the more shenanigans, and the more comradery, which is heavily aided by the laser pointer and salutes. 3. The game is so full of character it makes you want to get into character. What are the characters? Dwarves who are thick as thieves and never leave one of their own behind, even if it puts the mission in peril. Why would they jeperodize winning? Becuase the real fun of DRG isn't the end goal, it is the gameplay. Heck, to get in more character, when you consume alchaholic beverages in the lobby, the game makes your character control like they're drunk. You stagger, get double vision, and your camera drifts, but you have a lot of fun. 4. The four classes are all useful in different ways. Every class has unique advantages and disadvantages, tools to help themself and everyone else. Scout can light up whole caves and maneuver to hard to reach places. Engineer can deploy sentries for area denial and platforms for the objective (and needy scouts). Driller can blow massive wholes in hordes with his C4 and in the wall with his drills. The gunner can provide zipline transportation and a completely safe zone with his bubble shield. Every class helps every other class in some way and with all four classes, you can power through missions like a pickaxe through limestone. 5. The game isn't designed around being fun when you win. The game is designed around having fun every second. When you are having fun completely immersed in a game dripping with as much life as DRG, teamwork becomes second nature. You are all working together as 4 uniquely useful classes to accomplish a common goal and afterwards have a drink. That sounds like the perfect recipe for teamwork to me.
Getting into character isn't something that's explicitly mentioned a lot, but I think it really does help. Getting "in character" in a multiplayer game will GREATLY enhance the experience. It's why videos of friends playing games together will make them seem a lot more fun and immersive. Minecraft SMP videos make Minecraft seem like so much fun (and when you try to play it, it may end up a bit dull compared to the videos) because people will get in character (It tends to lean far more into this than in other games, though, and eventually become like straight up roleplay) and create grand schemes and plots. Games like Phasmophobia will seem scarier, Lethal Company will seem sillier (and also sometimes scarier), stuff like that. Because it gets so much more immersive when you're playing a character and feel more directly involved with the game. Of course, it depends on who you're playing with- you might have some friends who enjoy The Grind, and thus you won't have those immersive in-character moments with them because they're more focused on the goal of the game. And you can, also, get in-character with people on public servers! It just tends to be harder, since they're strangers who likely don't have the same sense of humor as you, and more often than not, public servers on games tend to be more grind-oriented. It's just a lot easier to do it with friends, as you will understand and communicate better. But, as mentioned before, it doesn't HAVE to be with friends. If a game is immersive enough, or good enough at portraying it's style, it can be easy to get in character with random players. Like, in Helldivers 2, people will get in-character because of the outlandish, over-the-top and silly propaganda. Even outside of the game, people will continue with the bit of being in character. DRG presents itself very clearly-- Hoxxes is a hostile, dangerous environment.. but you're a dwarf. You don't care. DRG lends itself to it's silliness and sense of community; it's all built for working together, and you're presented with a lot of things to make it more immersive (getting insanely drunk, all the silly voicelines (especially Mission Control's reactions), kicking and slapping various objects around). Since it makes itself clear that it's not meant to be all about that hardcore grind, it will attract the exact type of people it was meant to-- people who just like to have a good time. So they go along with it, having a good time and getting immersed in the role of a hardened Dwarf who loves to party and mine. Long story short, it's a lot easier to get in character and enjoy DRG because it was *made* to be like that (heavily focused on working as a team, but also goofing off half the time), and since everyone else is in-character, it's hard to not join them and perpetuates it's cycle of Having Fun I'm probably not wording this well and definitely could word some of it better but that would take like an hour and I'm already writing a ton for this one little comment, but like.. I think it's easy to get what I mean at least
You forgot to mention the fact that most of the voice lines in DRG are meant to inspire comradery. When I play most other games you always run into those cringe written personalities were they try to act "cool" by insulting their teammates. It's this stupid trend meant to appeal to edgy 14 year olds and I'm sick and tired of it.
@@dudebruh8534Wow, I never noticed that, but you're right. The dwarves are not cool. There are some "cool" cosmetics, but I think people go for the silly ones more often. Also the "big bad corporation who doesn't care about us" helps, I think.
TF2 basically requires there to be a Medic on your team, and scumbag players will shit on the Medic if he doesn't do well, despite the fact that they are too cowardly and short-sighted to play Medic themselves. And then, of course, there's Sniper, both potentially one of the most useless classes (by perception of your teammates) and one of the most infuriating classes (for the enemy team)
You missed a point. The fact that DRG has absolutely no competitive aspects against other players. It is strictly a PvE game. Even the resources you collect are shared. If you're not competing against other players then there is nobody for you to get angry at. Simple.
The "Rock and Stone" translated section was perfect 🤣 you nailed every scenario I can think of. It somehow just means "positive reinforcements and comradery"
Pretty typical for a youtubers first video. If he continues making videos more he'll probably get confident enough to have his voice be louder in the future.
@@Nikolai0169 You don’t need to audibly speak louder, lol. It’s his audio mixing. He’s just overlayed really loud music over his normally loud-enough voice
Except they never "tricked" me when I play, because I'm just nice to begin with. Always have been. Manners and respect don't cost anything to produce, people.
Definitely. Being nice to eachother shouldn't have to be indirectly forced in this way though tools and mechanics, it should always come naturally. But you can't deny the fact that people online will inevitably be extremely toxic and hurtful, and Ghost Ship knows this too. But they aren't gonna stand outside and yell at god to abolish rain, they're gonna give everybody umbrellas Basically, it's unfortunate that these problems exist in the first place, but I'm glad solutions to them exist regardless
Though you touched on it, the shout system has many context-sensitive lines. While on the rig this only makes various coughing lines (which are recycled from running out of oxygen in Low O2 missions or standing in gas clouds. Bet you didn't notice that) and some random burps and similar sounds, in-mission this has quite a few variants. When standing still, pressing the shout button will predictably make your dwarf yell for the team's attention, as well as highlighting you on everyone's HUD like any other pinged entity, since it's basically pinging yourself. This can be good to get people to notice you and assess your situation for themselves, or to help teammates find you when necessary. Most people know that pressing the button while downed plays various calls for help, of course, but it also has context-sensitive lines for when you're moving (which ask your team to follow you and group up), for carrying heavy items (which ask for support as your hands and thus weapons are unavailable in the meantime), for waiting in the drop pod (both before leaving the space rig and during the extraction phase; both share the same line pool), and for being grabbed, though calls for being grabbed play automatically as well. Shouting also will make Bosco pause his current task and come to support you in any mission he's in.
Even coop shooters don't always have the best communities ("you're slowing us down", "you sure this is the right difficulty for you?", "gah, you idiot"). While some games that's just accepted as life online, DRG community really tries to counter it by going out of their way to helping Greenbeards. In regards of a well thought out ping system, so much so chat is rarely used, limits the flow or interaction of someone trash talking. You can respond to the dude flipping out, ooor spam ping this mushroom. Your choice.
@@legitplayin6977 I didn't say bad, I said not the best or caters to Greenbeards, or rookies. Payday 2 and the L4D games for example. But the more I think about it, it seems maturity could also be a thing. The difference of games made for everyone, and games made for mature audiences. When comparing a game like DRG to robbing banks and zombies, you may get a different variety of players. More who are accustomed to friendly banter, than "aw shucks friend, you'll get it next time".
@@Aughtel yeah sorry I misread the comment. Payday 2 is probably the “worst” community of a coop game, and it’s way ahead of even the best PvP community. But for L4D, the community is great. My point still stands I think, PVE communities are by default more friendly than pvp communities, by being PVE. There’s no real need to develop further.
you clearly forgot that we also have a common enemy to annoy.. that's why we have voice lines for compressed gold and certain funghi, among others.. ...yes, yes! you're rich, we get it! NOW GET A MOVE ON!!!...
That is the developers reacting to their player-base to reinforce what they built. That feature was added a few updates back. Same goes for things like being able to carry Doretta's head back, and the "fix me" note next to the weapon station after the mission. They observe what people are doing and play into it. (Add a map indicator for Doretta's head, please!) Unfortunately they also removed a few of the more enjoyable bits like being able to Rock & Stone while building/repairing, but likely needed to fix bugs that caused issues like weapons becoming unavailable in some scenarios. (I thought dwarves might have had a prehensile willy that could help out with the building while they raised a salute or drank a beer. They've also been fairly good about balance updates, resisting the urge to nerf stuff into the ground, though early balance decisions led to some weirdness in the game like inaccurate bullet counters as weapons were "tweaked" to use two rounds at a time rather than simply halve the ammo or whatever... IMO the most irritating nerf was making it so that driller throwing axes don't break Ebonuts open... If that's as annoying as balance gets, I'd say they're doing something pretty right overall.
I remember playing and chatting with a random person hosting a game over 2 hours. All of it felt very wholesome and I don’t think I could have that happen in any other game.
I would also say the bar is a good thing as well being a friendly group activity especially with the buffing beer giving more experienced players to do it as well And well you can also use the jukebox right next to it too dance after🕺
The best method of making the player base like eachother and work together. They made a good game that is fun to play. If more studios did this, more players would like other games!
They really took their time in thinking of how to encourage cooperative gameplay as a core function in most aspects of the game. As long as you don’t annoy or run into toxic a driller, you’re safe from most griefing.
Deep Rock's contextual pings are also a helluva lot more convenient than navigating a scroll wheel, which makes it more tempting to use it even in intense situations. It's so seamless that there's no reason not to keep doing it.
Someone accidentally drank my beer because they thought they could hand it to you. They apologized profusely and said they would think about it for the next week. DRG has the greatest community ever.
The community on this game is very solid for how friendly they are. Only ever met one Extremely toxic player who lashed out for dropping 1 resupply nearing the end of the game. When we had 1 more dread to kill but 2 of us were low on ammo on deep dive while blaming me “don’t shoot then” when I was the gunner doing my job 😑 (needless to say he kicked me after everyone started to leave due to him and I commented “I don’t blame them”, don’t think I ever laughed that hard after that) Have about 400 hours and I only ever encountered 1 toxic player, but the majority of players are very nice.
Another big factor I've noticed is that since content can mostly be unlocked at any difficulty level, you're less likely to encounter teammates who are grinding difficulties they don't find fun, which leads to more positivity, and willingness to fail overall.
It's pretty interesting to have a coop game that mandates team revival, rather than allowing for respawns. In many games to have a revival system, some players are slow to pick up on the task and let their teammate bleed out. As convenient as it might be for the game to say "Oh, they're not picking up on it. We'll just respawn you anyway." it's pretty persistent about instilling the task for each player, or they'll be down a teammate and keep getting pestered. Even taking Helldivers 2's system for contrast, it's sort of just an inattentive chore each time someone dies, and you're not punished much for being far away from each other. Most players don't even pick up on the unintuitive support actions like stimming teammates or using team reloads.
some more fun context-sensitivity: along with "this way!" and "revive me pls i have epc", if you press X while carrying a heavy object, you'll complain about how heavy the item is and/or ask for help
Two things you forgot to mention: some of the sillier/"dwarven cultural" laser pointer lines (you know the ones), as well as the fact that there's no loot division in DRG - everyone gets everything, so there's no sense that someone's just a deadweight.
Even when I had zero pub experience, just fresh joined, completely blind start, I picked up on ALL of the V-key's utilities INSTANTLY, it is THAT recognizable, fucking genius!
When I’m rocking and stoning with the boys I only think when I’m talking to them. I randomly do the rock and stone emote without any thoughts through my head
One thing I expected to be covered was character specific tasks, like a scout pinging a nitra for engi to platform under can be a little hard for a new player to pick up. But one that I've encountered that took me a while to learn would be someone pinging me (a driller) and picking a random wall. Not a dirt digging spot, just a wall. They wanted me to drill to a POI. In this case a morikite well. Lots of context and a good understanding of expected team roles is very important! In fact, a good example of someone not understanding a role is a gunner who wasn't using their shields for difficult revives. Someone had to connect a mic and tell them to scare off bugs with it to get the team up again.
I'd like to add two things but otherwise agree; 1) Apex Legends really blew up contextual ping system and dynamic contextual voice lines and because of how popular it got, players started to want it elsewhere. DRG absolutely had not such a diverse set of pings and voicelines in the beginning. It was slowly but surely expanded, because people complained about it. No judgement, just stating. 2) The one and biggest gripe people still have, has never been offered a fix by the devs. There is finally a mod that does gives us one way to fix it. There are still players that consider your entire lobby their personal playground. They'll press that damned button without asking if it is okay. Many of us complained, and the devs and main moderator were toxic about it. The topic was literally banned on the forums and discord. And their stance was that you simply had to deal with it. That those max-efficiency playstyles are better than having fun. Once pressed, we couldn't undo it.
Also never have I once had to talk into the mic while doing missions with randoms, the dwarves literally said everything that was needed, drg is a pure 10/10 multiplayer experience
I think that the dwarf rp and management's messages also help a lot. When one of the main lines is "Leave no dwarf behind" and managements encouragement (when you are not pinging mushrooms) to go on the mission really make you feel like you wanna help each other and make it out alive. Also whenever someone is doing something bad you can just call him a pointy eared leaf lover which is a dwarfs biggest insult. Additionally the abyss bar is a great way to bond with your teammates because everyone loves beer! So proud to be in this community Rock and Stone miners !!
Takeaway: if you provide convenient, fast and and contextually valuable means of communication, you eliminate most dwarf-to-dwarf communication conflicts before they even happen. Bonus takeaway: most people are actually okay, they're merely bad at understanding each other.
I think that another part of this is the fact that Dwarfs swear at shit that's happening to them. Like friendly fire, when you kill bugs, when equipment fails. You really don't need to react to it yourself, after all your character already said something, so it would be just repeating. And it really works well with distancing the negativity. It's not YOU getting shot by stray bullet, it's the dwarf. It's not you who deals with the bad pipes, it's the dwarf. And so on.
You can ping other dwarves for unique voice lines, ping all kinds of weird stuff that's not relevant but funny, or continuously ping certain items for even more unique voice line interaction with Mission Control. Also when you press X or LB during the escape part of the mission your dwarf will change their voice lines to encouraging and semi-directional.
I wouldn't know about the community being toxic or not because any time I try and play public, I get kicked after 2-4 seconds without even getting a chance to pick a dwarf.
Honestly, the biggest thing is just that the game is so goofy. It's a fun atmosphere instead of taking itself seriously and so players are more likely to view the game the same way. Also it's not pvp
Darktide has a similar system of communication. And as far as I've seen, the community is just as friendly. And the banter between characters in each round makes the rest of your callouts and pings feel even more impactful. Great video! I'll have to try DRG one of these days.
One thing you learn to do is to salute automatically you learn when you have to do it and your brain automatically presses when it hears ROCK AND STONE... so... ROCK AND STONE EVERYONE !
Even Dark Souls had a weird honour system and a social aspect that wasn't just killing each other. When you had seen and done it all in the main game, the multiplayer component was what was left, so you just wanted to have fun together. Funny how well implemented multiplayer works.
I think there’s some details you missed outside of the communication system that need recognition. Each class has vastly different toolkits, strengths, and weaknesses. And since players are encouraged to form a team with 1 of each class, each member feels vital to the operation, and you end up relying on each other more for things that would be harder to do on your own. Note that it is still possible for any class to do any job, so you’re not *forced* to run to the driller every time a dirt wall shows up. It is still encouraged for that driller to go out and look for the dirt, dig safe havens if needed, and make a path to hard-to-reach areas, but if they don’t then the game doesn’t punish you hard for it. While each class has their own general archetype, the game has decently big customization for tools and huge customization for appearance. While they may fit a general role, each weapon feels extremely different which only gets stronger once overclocks come into play. All this comes together to mean you’re not just playing with another Scout or Gunner, you’re playing with an individual dwarf with their own preferences, style, and talents. Removing some of the anonymity on the other end of the interaction helps connect with the other person much faster. The game heavily encourages you to stick together and support each other. Whether it’s fending off hordes of bugs, transporting hundreds of gold from a Crassus to the minehead, or building pipes, everything goes faster and smoother with another dwarf around, leading to more of the cooperative moments to shine. As you touched on, the stakes are relatively low. A downed dwarf isn’t permanently out, just until they can have grape juice poured on their head. A failed mission can always be repeated. You still get XP and credits for machine events if you didn’t complete it. And there’s always someone with Iron Will to save the mission if things get too hairy. Ghost Ship put as much dwarven camaraderie into Deep Rock Galactic as they could, and it leaks out of every cave and voiceline to create one giant feeling of Rock and Stone.
There's also the beer. You can't really be mad at people who raised their beer to you before drinking it - especially if you end up with explosive farts sending you flying around the room, to give you just one example.
A big part in games with nice communities is the hub / social area. Games which have some kind of area where they can just chill, have fun and plan the next mission, tend to have a nicer communities. C'mon, DRG even has a bar with funny drinks.
Such a short video but an incredible analysis of the true reality of this game which is honestly inspiring to think about. And you’re right! I’ve only had about 1 toxic encounter
I didn’t even think about what rock and stone could mean. In my head: something good happpens = rock and stone. Something funny happens = rock and stone. Teamwork = rock and stone
I have unfortunately had so many toxic experiences that I refuse to play online with others now. This is a new phenomenon since the game became more popular. It sucks cause it's my favorite game
Really nice video! Highlights the importance for devs to make a choice on whether to implement communication tools that are functional and helpful for everyone- or not. I never really thought about the "rock and stone" taunt as a part of the DRG communication arsenal but hindsight- Yeah of course it's included as a form of communication. Also another thing to touch on is while there are swears present in the game they never come up other than "playful" or when a character is in a stressful situation (such as dying) which just serves to highlight for the other players that the player may need help rather than them complaining. (just food for thought)
The niceness is a complete façade. The Devs are seen as gods and this game their religion, and if you have anything other than praise for the any aspect of the game you're treated with the same toxicity as any other game.
Love the video. Some small constructive criticism: turn up your mic volume and slightly turn down the music volume, especially if the track has a lot of atmosphere like a lot of the synth that DRG uses. Keep it up!
In addition, I think the class system having superb synergy promotes a teamwork mindset that also gives rise to positivity. Every class serves a role and covers the weaknesses of others, so that you're never upset to see someone join as any class, since they can only help the team. In 1800 hours of the game on PC alone, I've had maybe 10 trolls/griefers, and that was mostly on the console version, where you're more likely to find younger players coming from pvp shooters.
I once had this lvl 740 engi kick me from a morkite mining mission because I pinged the mushroom and he didn’t like that at all, he said that he takes the game very seriously😂
Man I wish Helldivers 2 had something like rock and stone, we just have the hug emote but other dudes might not see you at they’d just ignore you :( I guess throwing infinite grenades with glitches gets their attention quite well though
