Darkest Dungeon - What took so long?

[Kachiko]

Merchant class formal reveal:

The Antiquarian is the final name for what we’ve been referring to as the Merchant Class for some time now. This is the final character class to be added to the game proper, and we have something special planned for her! Whereas most classes come looking for a fight, the Antiquarian is only interested in collecting treasures found in the dungeons. She is not proficient in combat, instead adding value to the party by increasing its profitability! Don’t rely on her to dish out the punishment - she has no training whatsoever in terms of martial ability.

[Kachiko]

I hope the March 8th update re-balances the items needed to upgrade your Hamlet vs how fast your characters level up. You need so many deeds that you basically live in the Weald, completely neglecting the other areas, due to how many you need to upgrade the statgecoach and Blacksmith, which are two of the four most necessary upgrades. I'm at the point where I'm basically required to dismiss perfectly viable heroes just because the amount of heirlooms you get is dis-proportional to how many you need to upgrade your four most needed Hamlet upgrades vs how fast your characters level up, placing them in dungeons harder then you can reasonably clear because you can't purchase the needed upgrades to do said dungeons.

I get that heroes are disposable, but they should be disposable because bad things happen to them and not because they game requires more resources then you can reasonably gather, so you dismiss them so you can get lower level heroes and force the content back down to a level you can still complete.

[Lucavi]

I still need lots of cash so I'm ready for this chick. Bring on the treasure runs!

[Andalusian girls]

m8 got this for me for Christmas, and my socks are clear on the other side of the room. it's like X-com and FTL had a baby then immediately died and it was raised by HP Lovecraft

[Lucavi]

Good music, good environment, hard freaking game, depressing as fuck, yet still super enjoyable.

Its a great one. One of the best Indie games I have in my library.

[TheDirtyHobo]

m8 got this for me for Christmas, and my socks are clear on the other side of the room. it's like X-com and FTL had a baby then immediately died and it was raised by HP Lovecraft

The first 5-10 hours with it are some of the best, most amazing hours of any video game. After about 15-20 hours once you've heard everything the narrator has to say 60 times each and you're raising your 5th party to go through the hard dungeons because of all the cheesy bullshit, it can get a bit grueling.

[Kaisha]

It's been kicking my ass on the Vita release in the first two hours. If I manage to survive and finish the objective, the majority of the crew's stress levels offsets any gold I made that run since I have to throw them in the bar/church and then deal with new recruits for the following week's run, to which the same problem occurs.

[Rhyis.]

m8 got this for me for Christmas, and my socks are clear on the other side of the room. it's like X-com and FTL had a baby then immediately died and it was raised by HP Lovecraft

Never heard of this game till I walked into this thread, but this post alone has me intrigued.

[Prim]

It's PC Gamer's RPG Of The Year, for what that's worth.

It's been kicking my ass on the Vita release in the first two hours. If I manage to survive and finish the objective, the majority of the crew's stress levels offsets any gold I made that run since I have to throw them in the bar/church and then deal with new recruits for the following week's run, to which the same problem occurs.

Sounds about right. If you've ever dreamed of being Sisyphus, this game is for you.

[Starby]

I picked this up the last time the thread got bumped and also fell in love. The narrator is awesome. Finding out which units are best for which zone is great. I loved that the holy units would refuse to work with the unholy ones. So much goodness.

I never finished it though, I ran I to the same problem as Kaisha and any gains I would make were offset by the dungeons wrecking my units mental states.

[Zealot]

Whoa what is this, how have I never heard of this.

PS4 or PC?

Sent from my SM-G935V using Tapatalk

[synistar]

Both

[Kachiko]

They key is to make sure you treat your party members like disposable assets, or it will take a really long time, and be really frustrating, to level up the party and take on harder dungeons. Back when I played, it was balanced a lot better for early game, then late game, and party-wipe was brutal, losing your best members/trinkets, but they were adding QoL improvements to make it easier to get back up there if you've already obtained some progress.

[Lucavi]

Your main assets are the gear drops and the upgrades in the hamlet. Gear can be lost if everyone wipes, which may happen, but doesn't happen often. Hamlet upgrades never vanish, so treat your soldiers not like the main characters in your generic JRPG that never die unless its to advance the plot, and more for what they are in this Lovecraftian universe: soldiers-of-fortune of whom nothing is guaranteed.

Its why soldiers cost nothing to recruit. If they live, great. If the die, they die, and if their stress gets too high, boot them and recruit new soldiers. You only need to start keeping people long-term when we're talking maxed upgrades on them and orange-tier weapons and items.

[TheDirtyHobo]

Willingness to tactically sacrifice people is kind of a key point of the game, and honestly, death or retirement is probably a very mild fate compared to the anxiety of constantly fighting off eldritch horrors.

[Zealot]

Got it 50% off on Steam, I will check it out when I can.

[Kaisha]

Willingness to tactically sacrifice people is kind of a key point of the game, and honestly, death or retirement is probably a very mild fate compared to the anxiety of constantly fighting off eldritch horrors.

The issue is when you're stuck without a healer because of RNG on the new recruits available, unless you get access to a wider crop of pickings later on? The game just flat out hates new players is the jist I'm getting.

Hardly anything heals you, food is a last-resort. Can't stagger combats to heal up with a healer because turn passing adds stress, and chance of stress from enemy turns unless you got a tank that can mark self and spam buffs to pass turn.

[Kachiko]

That's when you do a total darkness run, on four throw away characters, and get as much loot as you can before they die/stress out, then dismiss them all. You don't have to progress with what you have; you can spend that time going for trinkets/gold on heroes you won't keep, until you do get something you'd like to work with. Personally, I liked a mod that let you increase the hero roster beyond what the base game gave you, as that gave me a lot more flexibility to raise/have back up heroes, but it makes the game longer then it needs to be.

[Kaisha]

Speaking of trinkets, do you lose them on heroes that die, even if you successfully return to town later? I've yet to equip any thus far, not that I have any worth a damn currently. I guess I could waste a few game weeks with throw-aways to build up a gold supply to keep my main crew intact.

[Lucavi]

You lose on death, so plan your death runs ahead of time. This ain't a game about winning all the time. I wont spoil, but just trust me on that.