DRG platinum retrospective/guide

[ttrain707]

Hey guys! I just earned the platinum trophy for Deep rock last night after a year and two months of work. I’m making this for newer players who are looking for help or questioning if this plat is worth it as well as what the grind might be like. It’s a bit of a long read, but hopefully I can help with questions regarding the vauge trophies

 

First off, is it worth it? Yes. 100% yes. This is one of the biggest grinds I’ve done hands down (275 hours or 1 year and two months). But it felt to me as if I was just playing for fun rather than the plat, since there isn’t too much minmaxing for xp in missions. Let’s get some info on the two smaller trophies before we talk more about the grind though

Rock Solid - 5 Hazard 5 missions in a row 

Haz 5 is the hardest difficulty in the game. While it does increase the bug count, the most notable difference is bug speed, damage, and the different # of glyphid species that spawn (Look at enemy pool page on the wiki). Since you’ll be playing a lot to earn some later trophies, save this until your comfortable with haz 5, and do 5 solo mining missions in the salt biome as scout. His grappling hook allows you to complete this mission while only spawning one swarm of your fast (You can get “Karl would be proud” here too). There are definitely some better guides for this trophy out there, but don’t stress over this one, you’ll get the skill needed later on. 
 

Car pool - Ride a silicate harvester with 3 other players

This is the worst co-op trophy by far. All other ones can be earned just by quick joining lobbies, but you will definitely need to make a custom group for this one. Also, it’s very buggy, so just play around in a haz 1 mission until you get it. 

Ok, time for the Grind.

 

There are 4 classes total (Scout, Gunner, Engineer, Driller) each needing to reach level 25 to promote. This earns you a star with that class, and resets the class’s level back to 1. The final trophy you’ll be earning requires 7 stars on all 4 classes, resulting in 28 promotions total. Once you refine your playstyle, it takes around 10 hours give or take to promote one class (I would recommend playing one class at time for each promotion). That’s around 300 hours, but there’s some tricks you can do if you want to go a little bit faster. 

Late joining

Definitely the easiest. In the mission terminal you can hit square to browse the server menu and join a game in progress. Completing a game you joined late gives you the same experience and minerals as the person who started the lobby. Think of it like starting a mission with half the objectives already completed. 
 

Double XP

Certain missions spawn modifiers which affect the gameplay, and are shown on the mission select screen. One of these is Double XP, which is pretty self explanatory. If there aren’t any DXP missions to late-join, then host one of these to help your fellow dwarves out if they are available. 
 

Time-Manipulation

Missions in the select screen are chosen based on the time and date of your system. If you set the time and date to the same 30 minute interval of a mission you recently played, you’ll get that same mission with the same modifiers (But not the same cave layout or events). This is only used for playing a double XP over and over again, since sometimes there are no DXP missions on the select screen. IMO it’s not cheating, but no dwarves can join your mission if you host. Also, It’s a little less efficient but more consistent compared to Late-joining

The strat

For the first couple hours, get a hang of the game by playing haz 2 or 3. This takes some getting used to, but don’t worry, you have plenty of time. My advice is to watch your back, especially when against a wall (Glyphids like to climb), use your grenades, and to not resupply unless you really have to. Once you feel like you have the skills, play some haz 4. This should be the difficulty you play for the majority of the grind. The difficulty curve from haz 3 to 4 is steep, so don’t rush, you’ll learn naturally. I mainly played Haz 4 and 5, but haz 5 is a little too difficult for the Xp bonus you get a too small for the additional time it

In the beginning of the grind, you’ll find it slow (Don’t worry, it’ll get faster after your first promotion once you unlock overlocks). Once you start getting good, aim for 500 xp per minute of mission time. (1k per minute with DXP). It’s harder to go faster than this without getting random events, and anything lower means you need to cut the fluff out of your missions and stop dilly dallying.

The biggest threat to the grind, however, is burnout. Playing this game can get repetitive, especially if you don’t like a class. To combat this, rotate classes once you complete a promotions, try out new weapons/overlocks (Go to Karl.gg for good builds), or just take a break for a bit. You have plenty of time, don’t rush this grind. Eventually, you’ll reach the end (Big emphasis on eventually). 
 

All in all, this game is hella fun, and the grind is long, but not too hard and definitely worth it. Season 5 will be releasing soon, which will bring new content, so don’t forget to complete season 4’s free battle pass before then. Make sure to interact with the community for help, it’s one of the best out there.
 

Rock and stone, Miner