Darkest Dungeon Catch All

Razgon wrote:

I love this game, but I really want to wait until release to play it. Its one of the harder games to wait upon, though. Stupid Early Access!

Yeah, I got a good taste of it when I first bought into it, but now I'm holding off until it's done. I've got enough other stuff on my plate anyways.

I was waiting for, literally, any discount - 10% was good enough for me!

I've been watching a lot of this on twitch, and can't wait to play it!

The art and voice-over hooked me instantly.

I just got around to this in my Kickstarted pile of shame (tm) - I am about 8 hours in and think I am starting to get the hang of the class dynamics. The initial learning curve is harsh, but the games is sticky enough that if you take a few deep breaths you can power through. To anyone who is at the current end, how long did it take you?

IMAGE(http://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/i-d4rJkHN/0/1050x10000/i-d4rJkHN-1050x10000.jpg)

I was wondering what was downloading yesterday evening. Good to know!

Started playing, finally. It is a lot of fun, but when things go wrong... they (can) reeeeeeaaallly go wrong. I've had a few "freak out" cascades (madness for EVERYBODY!), one party-wipe, and a few deaths, but I'm dug in

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

Started playing, finally. It is a lot of fun, but when things go wrong... they (can) reeeeeeaaallly go wrong. I've had a few "freak out" cascades (madness for EVERYBODY!), one party-wipe, and a few deaths, but I'm dug in

Been awhile since I played so they may have changed the dynamics but I used to run insanity teams sometimes just to build up on resources. It feels very sadistic to purposely take people who have been driven insane by the dungeon and throw them back in there.

The one thing I learned about Darkest Dungeon is, unlike most RPG's, you don't build up your characters, you exploit them.

They will still accumulate madness past 100 (in a Dungeon, I don't think the over 100 part carries back into town) - at 200 they die of a heart attack. I had Dismas die that way

Wink_and_the_Gun wrote:

They will still accumulate madness past 100 (in a Dungeon, I don't think the over 100 part carries back into town) - at 200 they die of a heart attack. I had Dismas die that way :(

They must have changed it because of people like me.

Actually, I like that change. Might still run an insanity team.

It's on Steam sale for 40% off today. Exactly how much content is there left at this point? Last I checked the Cove and final dungeon were not implemented yet.

I've not played it since release (waiting for the full package) but I believe they just added the Cove a week or so ago.

This is a good price. I'm super tempted now, even with lots of stuff on the horizon...

I picked this up on the summer sale way back when with the hope of waiting until release to play. With the recent update I decided to dive in now and have been having a lot of fun with it. It's a nice blend of atmosphere and strategy.

Tamren wrote:

It's on Steam sale for 40% off today. Exactly how much content is there left at this point? Last I checked the Cove and final dungeon were not implemented yet.

They have one last big push to do, and that's the Darkest Dungeon one, which they are holding back for the 1.0 release. Their statements about this last bastion of despair have made me very excited to watch everyone play it, but I don't know if I'll be able to handle the stress myself. They've talked openly about how there will be unretreatable battles, that you shouldn't get too attached to your roster, and that death will happen. Going to be great fun to watch others go insane

Also, the confirmed platforms are Win/OSX/Linux/PS4/PS Vita, for anyone wondering

I'm not really playing it anymore so I've missed some updates.

Even before they updated, at full price it is probably one of the few Early Access games you can get your money's worth out of. It's a twisted little number.

Don't get attached to your characters. Makes the game much easier.

Also, they have added new monster abilities in the Cove update that they are going to be back-porting to other areas, like the ability for monsters to perform heals on their party, as well as to guard their party members. Should be a lot of fun

BTW, patch notes for The Cove.

This is all I've been playing, the last few weeks.

I'm not a fan of the changes (downgrade) of the rewards for areas, but it's probably for the best... It makes sense that with the opening of The Cove, there is now an area dedicated to Crests, and not as a secondary item from the previous 3 areas.

Overall, I'm really digging this game!

I played back when Early Access was opened and really enjoyed it for about 20 hours. I started anew just now. I've won 1 out of maybe 10 runs. It's gotten a lot harder to start out! It doesn't help that I've gotten one healer so far and she died.

polypusher wrote:

I played back when Early Access was opened and really enjoyed it for about 20 hours. I started anew just now. I've won 1 out of maybe 10 runs. It's gotten a lot harder to start out! It doesn't help that I've gotten one healer so far and she died.

It makes me happy to read this. I also played back in the beginning and my main concern was that it seemed a bit easy once you understood the mechanics. I'm still not going to get back into it until full release, but what I've read since has made me hopeful that it will be even better than I remember. And I remember it being quite good already.

First couple hours...
I'm not quite as enthralled as many of you guys, but I enjoyed tackling the first quest after reaching the hamlet. Luckily no one died, but 2 of the party members had some elevated stress levels - one doing some prayer and the other is visiting the brothel. One thing people have definitely been right about - the atmosphere is top notch. The artwork, music, narration is all great. So early into the game I can't really say how all the mechanics will work together, but I enjoyed that pretty much every battle I had contained new enemies.

It would be nice if the tutorial messages explained how the stats and stuff work. Some are self explanatory, but I'd like to know exactly how the stats affect combat performance. I also wish I could get a tooltip for enemy abilities, but the info disappears when the cursor isn't over the target.

A couple hours later...
I'm liking this more the more I play. My first 5 or so expeditions I stayed pretty healthy. Then I took on my first medium expedition and was OK until my last battle where I got surprised even though I had my torch at max. My party got shuffled around and they weren't in a good position. I got nailed with stress and everyone was down to less than 10 HP, some only with a couple. I had to flee and 2 of the party members got afflictions. I didn't want to lose them and don't think I could have won the fight even if I pressed on. It was pretty tense and exciting. Camping is pretty fun too as it offers a variety of choices.

After 5-8 hours

I just killed the Apprentice Necromancer, but man I took a bit of a beating. Mostly with negative traits. My normally happy go lucky Plague Doctor became abusive. He insults the other party members, refuses to change positions, but man I like his blight attack. Oh yeah, he's also a clepto so he sometimes steals loot before I can take it. I'm kinda playing off the cuff on my first run, so I can probably make some smarter choices.

My biggest wish is that there was a tooltip for the enemy skills. Even if that tooltip was just based on observed effects. I can't remember that which skill can attack what positions, if they cause blight or bleeding, etc.

A really good game so far.

It's counter to what is normally done in a game, but sometimes it seems better to just cut some heros loose instead of treating their stress. I've got some stressed resolve level 1 characters (B team) that is probably wiser to just let go. Out of habit I've been treating everyone, but it is awfully difficult to get ahead money wise that way. I guess I could also just send them in stressed and hope for the best to try and earn as much coin as I can before they 'retire'.

I also underestimated the value of upgrading the caravan to get 4 heros per week and getting the roster up to 12. That way I can have 2 lower level rotations trying to earn money for my A team's stress and quirk / disease removal. I'm tired of having kleptomaniacs steal my treasure! That abusive trait is a bad one too.

I'm so glad I gave this game a 2nd chance. It wasn't that I thought it was bad my first try but it doesn't really start to shine until you're managing stress and quirks and getting some tougher battles. This does seem like it can take quite a lot of grinding to keep making progress. I wish I played a little smarter at the beginning to be more efficient. It also seems like it's really hard to totally lose, just that setback may require the player to grind more.

robc wrote:

It's counter to what is normally done in a game, but sometimes it seems better to just cut some heros loose instead of treating their stress. I've got some stressed resolve level 1 characters (B team) that is probably wiser to just let go. Out of habit I've been treating everyone, but it is awfully difficult to get ahead money wise that way. I guess I could also just send them in stressed and hope for the best to try and earn as much coin as I can before they 'retire'.

That's the trick in this game unlike a regular RPG. Most games have us trained to take care of our heroes and nurse them back to health. The best thing to do in this one is to use them up and cruelly cut them loose.

Now, I did have some fairly high level characters that I would fix up, but I also had a rotation of pawns ready to go. Also, before they patched it, I would run insanity teams just to gather money. Hell, it sounds like you still can except they can outright die now.

Never has a game demanded you treat your characters so heartlessly.

Saw someone mention that adventurers need to be treated more like resources.

I've been playing this game a lot lately. You really need cash to rest and treat your characters. The problem is that you won't earn enough cash to treat them all. As a result, the only way to get enough bank to start coddling a team of adventurers is to give the boot to most early characters. If they need to reduce stress or have a swarm of maladies, just get rid of them. If your keeping more than one or two characters from any of your early runs it will cost you in the long run. Wait until you've got a decent amount of cash stashed away before you start to care from your stable of characters.

Does it have steam clout yet?

Tyops wrote:

Does it have steam clout yet?

Yes!

I'm really early and I've failed 4 or so quests in a row. Time to rethink my strategy.

This game is not easy. I've gotten a good chunk of my adventurers up to level 3/4 and an having real problems. The veteran missions are not easy and you really need to get your weapons and armor up to level 4 to make money off them. Problem is leveling up is very expensive. You can go through 20-30k cash easily just leveling up and outfitting a single mission. Level 4 upgrades are ~5k per adventurer and that is just for armor and weapons, no skills. One mission goes wrong and your broke. I've been treading water with between 20k and 40k cash in my account. I keep trying to do low level missions with throw-away adventurers to build up some cash but its such a slow process and one bad veteran mission and you lose all your gains.