Darkest Dungeon 2 Epic Games Store Early Access - $30 to beta test the demo says Tim Sweeney

[Toxinophile]

So, Darkest IIכungeon has out for early access for a week, what'd ya guys thinks of the game so far?

I'm having a good time, even if the game so far is like, %20 done right now. It feels like the first Darkest dungeon but really streamlined to hell and back. Content is also stretched a bit thin with all the rogue-like elements and metaprogression, feels more like FTL than Darkest Dungeon at this point. There's a lot that needs to be done and tuned, no argument there. Still, you'd think after the first game and four plus years Red Hook would know how to balance their own games no sweat but no the players still have to deal with dumb ideas like these:



Absolutely broken in the best and worst ways but I'd like my games to be less schizophrenic with the difficulty please.

 

[NigKid]

I fucking hate this, on one hand im happy for the developers that certainly got a good chunk of money which they deserve because they made a good game, on the other hand im really tired of sucking xis cock

 

[Reverend]

I saw a youtube streamer play it and while the graphics look like a notch above what DD was I wish they'd port the graphics to DD and revise the gameplay as the caravan is a big MEH for gameplay

 

[Toxinophile]

I fucking hate this, on one hand im happy for the developers that certainly got a good chunk of money which they deserve because they made a good game, on the other hand im really tired of sucking xis cock

EGS-free Torrents are out and it's like 3gb right now. Tim's already paid for our copies, pirate away the demo my dude. I just wanted to beta test and talk about it with you guys.

I saw a youtube streamer play it and while the graphics look like a notch above what DD was I wish they'd port the graphics to DD and revise the gameplay as the caravan is a big MEH for gameplay

It's not much different than doing a normal DD run, instead of walking forward you're driving forward to the next battle or curio. It's streamlined like a mobile game yeah but so far it's pretty much exact same combat and dungeon diving that you know and loathe.

 

[Gender: Xenomorph]

I really liked the aesthetic of the first Darkest Dungeon. It looked better before.

 

[jje100010001]

I really liked the aesthetic of the first Darkest Dungeon. It looked better before.

I think the character idles are a bit too 'wobbly', so to say. Both the highwayman and the man-at-arms look like they're about to burst into jumping jacks or a dance number, for instance.

The second thing that I hope for is that the 'horror' aspect isn't lost in the switch to 3d, due to the more polished graphics and limits on small detail due in the 3d models. The enemies don't look nearly as disgusting as in the original, IMO.

Also hope that the range of types of enemy is expanded, in the first game, I liked the build-up of the cultists from being mostly human-like to having more and more monstrous details in them in the last dungeon. Here, it already seems like they're all mutated out of the gate.

I also am curious as to how the story is going to unfold, since the story in the original DD was fairly self-contained and looping.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

EGS-free Torrents are out and it's like 3gb right now. Tim's already paid for our copies, pirate away the demo my dude. I just wanted to beta test and talk about it with you guys.

And people say he's a bad guy...

 

[Toxinophile]

I think the character idles are a bit too 'wobbly', so to say. Both the highwayman and the man-at-arms look like they're about to burst into jumping jacks or a dance number, for instance.

The second thing that I hope for is that the 'horror' aspect isn't lost in the switch to 3d, due to the more polished graphics and limits on small detail due in the 3d models. The enemies don't look nearly as disgusting as in the original, IMO.

Also hope that the range of types of enemy is expanded, in the first game, I liked the build-up of the cultists from being mostly human-like to having more and more monstrous details in them in the last dungeon. Here, it already seems like they're all mutated out of the gate.

I also am curious as to how the story is going to unfold, since the story in the original DD was fairly self-contained and looping.

I agree, The Foetor is supposed to be the most horrific and gorey part of the game but all the Macrodentia the foetor enemies have make them pretty uniform and not as scary, in fact they all look goofy and cartoonish instead. Still, EARLY ACCESS and all that, hopefully those content updates come soon.

 

[jje100010001]

I agree, The Foetor is supposed to be the most horrific and gorey part of the game but all the Macrodentia the foetor enemies have make them pretty uniform and not as scary, in fact they all look goofy and cartoonish instead. Still, EARLY ACCESS and all that, hopefully those content updates come soon.

Yeah, another aspect I hope they elaborate on is how exactly the areas of the game got to their current state- the first game had a fairly sound backstory to each of the areas, but aside from the Sprawl, I'm not sure how exactly how some areas like Foetor ended up the way they did.

Sort of also feel like it's a lost opportunity to have this set after the end of the world' and not during the end of the world. That way, you could start with things feeling relatively normal aside from a few hints of things feeling off, and eventually see the effects of the corruption and how everything falls apart as you progress through the game and get closer to the mountain.

 

[Toxinophile]

Yeah, another aspect I hope they elaborate on is how exactly the areas of the game got to their current state- the first game had a fairly sound backstory to each of the areas, but aside from the Sprawl, I'm not sure how exactly how some areas like Foetor ended up the way they did.

Sort of also feel like it's a lost opportunity to have this set after the end of the world' and not during the end of the world. That way, you could start with things feeling relatively normal aside from a few hints of things feeling off, and eventually see the effects of the corruption and how everything falls apart as you progress through the game and get closer to the mountain.

The Academic will sometimes give you little blurbs about the zones but right now its intentionally ambiguous. so far this is what I have come up with.

The Foetor = Giant meat trees and tentacles grew out of the ground and the locals at first started eating, then soon gorging themselves upon the fetid produce, thus turning into monsters.
The Tangle = There was a standing army in the forest and for some unknown, cosmic reason they had felled unto despair and let themselves become zombies to the corrupted overgrowth
The Sluice = The Academic directly tells you the pigs moved from the old warrens of the Hamlet to these new caverns that are, somewhere along the path to the mountain/final boss.

Again, EARLY ACCESS so not much reason to speculate about an unfinished game. most likely were gonna have to wait the year for the full steam release to get all our answers.

 

[Toxinophile]

Darkest Dungeon Darkest Dungeon II - 0.10.29156 - Patch Notes - Red Hook Studios

www.darkestdungeon.com

-Buffs to most enemies
-Nerfs to the best Stress heals; Makes them very situational and useless now.

Oh fucking sure Red Hook this just amazing. superb. I LOVE it when instead of addressing the currently jank-ass stress system you decided to gimp the players instead and let them suffer from your "intentional" bullshit RNG. Goddamn it

 

[WULULULULU]

Darkest Dungeon 2's questionable release and state makes me question if indies are the next gaming scene to be inevitably fucked.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

So I pirated darkest dungeon 2, first time pirating anything I wanted because fuck chinks, so far I've played through only one run and my biggest complaint is the rng resource management. I gotta keep my light level up but there seems to be only one way to increase it throughout a run, I need to keep the one meter low or I get penalties so I need to fight monsters but not every monster encounter lowers it, and none of my heroes ever actually wants to go to fight monsters so the mere act of managing it deals massive amounts of stress and relationship damage. And the inventory is so pathetic even with 4 inventory upgrades my coach is out of space after the second stop. I found one hospital the entire run while all my heroes suffered from schnasty disease, and all of this is compounded by the fact that even if you can see what you want to see there's a good chance the resource you're looking for just isnt on the map. I'd say if they're gonna tweak anything, it should be that. You don't get the luxury of running away when things get bad, so it shouldnt be so heavily rng dependant.

 

[Cryin RN]

Darkest Dungeon Darkest Dungeon II - 0.10.29156 - Patch Notes - Red Hook Studios

www.darkestdungeon.com

-Buffs to most enemies
-Nerfs to the best Stress heals; Makes them very situational and useless now.

Oh fucking sure Red Hook this just amazing. superb. I LOVE it when instead of addressing the currently jank-ass stress system you decided to gimp the players instead and let them suffer from your "intentional" bullshit RNG. Goddamn it

OoP+ was too good, it was destined to fail. Honestly the game felt weirdly easy. I'm a DD noob and only wiped 1 run out of 7. A lil bit of Dark Souls difficulty tuning was due.

Don't love the wagon, but don't mind relationships. They're a fun wild card and I enjoy my amorous PD jumping in front of a crit Pummel for my Leper. Thanks bitch!

 

[Toxinophile]

OoP+ was too good, it was destined to fail. Honestly the game felt weirdly easy. I'm a DD noob and only wiped 1 run out of 7. A lil bit of Dark Souls difficulty tuning was due.

Don't love the wagon, but don't mind relationships. They're a fun wild card and I enjoy my amorous PD jumping in front of a crit Pummel for my Leper. Thanks bitch!

Its one thing to nerf OP stress heals it another thing to do so and not give the player alternative options for stress heal. Unless you luck out on Laudanum you're fucked as your heroes start losing affinity and they all start hating each other. For whatever godforsaken reason Red Hook has decided to put the threshold of skill stress healing at 5 stress while at the same time telling us not to let our heroes get more than 3 stress in order to prevent your party from killing each other. So excuse me if I seem a bit pissed that the devs have decided that we should be punished for things out of our control. It wouldn't be so bad if they nerfed the affinity mechanic as well BUT NO! They functionally didn't change a goddamn thing and your still dependent on your party members becoming butt buddies if you wanna beat the final boss.

 

[Cryin RN]

your still dependent on your party members becoming butt buddies if you wanna beat the final boss.

That's the core design idea of the game, though. Defeat evil through friendship. Or a 4-way gay polyamorous orgy. Haven't finished a run since the update because I agree about the stress management being designed to fail.

Amorous needs to be rarer but it's high octane meme fuel

 

[Toxinophile]

*Arise thread arise! A new update has come!*

Darkest Dungeon Darkest Dungeon II - 0.11.30461 - Experimental Patch Notes - Red Hook Studios

www.darkestdungeon.com

New Stuff:
-Trophies: Lair Bosses now drop their heads as decent-to-powerful stagecoach upgrades. This unfortunately, also makes boss fights mandatory as you need at least 1 trophy to access The Mountain/Final boss.
-Oasis: a new location where you pay relics to heal stress. (worthless, cost 15 relics to only heal 5 stress)
-The Infernal Flame: A new starting stagecoach upgrade that allows you to play "torchless runs" (hard mode)
-Livery: You can now customize your stagecoach with special decals. (yay.)
-Miscellaneous balancing tweaks and fixes (mostly fixes)


I've done a few runs and it's an alright update, at least enough to satiate me until the next one. Oasis as a location blows red ugly chunks. I'd rather they bring back camping or the brothel than deal with more RNG.

At least the Infernal torch is a nice addition. I'm guaranteed Shambler fights but now I don't need to deal with the torch anymore.

It's unmentioned but they definitely did SOMETHING to the chapter 1 boss fight, because all of my runs now end up with my team getting stun-locked into the ground. Shenanigans are afoot, I can feel it.


In other news the the content roadmap has been revealed.



So after a year from now Red Hook promises the finished game will have:
-The 4 other chapter bosses
-2 new regions, one of them might be "The Cove" or someplace similar
-2 fat handfuls of new enemies, most likely ones returning from DD1
-2 new "Heroes," making it a total of 12.
-Proper balancing
-And other misc. fluff

Compared to Darkest Dungeon 1 on release day this looks like an anemic amount of content. I can guarantee this game will be supported for years and years just like DD1 was but I'd rather have more heroes and enemy types rather than meaningless fluff.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

*Arise thread arise! A new update has come!*

Darkest Dungeon Darkest Dungeon II - 0.11.30461 - Experimental Patch Notes - Red Hook Studios

www.darkestdungeon.com

New Stuff:
-Trophies: Lair Bosses now drop their heads as decent-to-powerful stagecoach upgrades. This unfortunately, also makes boss fights mandatory as you need at least 1 trophy to access The Mountain/Final boss.
-Oasis: a new location where you pay relics to heal stress. (worthless, cost 15 relics to only heal 5 stress)
-The Infernal Flame: A new starting stagecoach upgrade that allows you to play "torchless runs" (hard mode)
-Livery: You can now customize your stagecoach with special decals. (yay.)
-Miscellaneous balancing tweaks and fixes (mostly fixes)


I've done a few runs and it's an alright update, at least enough to satiate me until the next one. Oasis as a location blows red ugly chunks. I'd rather they bring back camping or the brothel than deal with more RNG.

At least the Infernal torch is a nice addition. I'm guaranteed Shambler fights but now I don't need to deal with the torch anymore.

It's unmentioned but they definitely did SOMETHING to the chapter 1 boss fight, because all of my runs now end up with my team getting stun-locked into the ground. Shenanigans are afoot, I can feel it.


In other news the the content roadmap has been revealed.

View attachment 2889634

So after a year from now Red Hook promises the finished game will have:
-The 4 other chapter bosses
-2 new regions, one of them might be "The Cove" or someplace similar
-2 fat handfuls of new enemies, most likely ones returning from DD1
-2 new "Heroes," making it a total of 12.
-Proper balancing
-And other misc. fluff

Compared to Darkest Dungeon 1 on release day this looks like an anemic amount of content. I can guarantee this game will be supported for years and years just like DD1 was but I'd rather have more heroes and enemy types rather than fluff like pets and skin customization.

I just don't get why go Early Access. Darkest Dungeon was super popular and gave the devs a pretty penny, what's the point in redoing the early access model that forces you to design the game in chronological pieces rather than a single whole? The fan feedback will be ignored anyways and you have a big risk of people not buying the final product if you fuck up during the long update time (which also put you on a timer and prevents you from doing future big changes).

 

[Toxinophile]

I just don't get why go Early Access. Darkest Dungeon was super popular and gave the devs a pretty penny, what's the point in redoing the early access model that forces you to design the game in chronological pieces rather than a single whole? The fan feedback will be ignored anyways and you have a big risk of people not buying the final product if you fuck up during the long update time (which also put you on a timer and prevents you from doing future big changes).

Simply because Tim Sweeney paid for the exclusivity rights. From what I've heard Tim pays a pretty penny, even factoring the fact that all the sales money goes to Epic.

 

[SiccDicc]

I just don't get why go Early Access. Darkest Dungeon was super popular and gave the devs a pretty penny, what's the point in redoing the early access model that forces you to design the game in chronological pieces rather than a single whole? The fan feedback will be ignored anyways and you have a big risk of people not buying the final product if you fuck up during the long update time (which also put you on a timer and prevents you from doing future big changes).

Well, depending on the exclusivity rights it might just be a year and if they're planning to release the game finished in a year, they might as well get some extra cash for the early development phase and then release a finished product on Steam at the end of the exclusivity right. If it's a forever thing then I have no idea.