Darkest Dungeon

[Asian tech support]

So does a TPK end the game?

Yes but you still get your meta progression resource and keep your act access.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

I guess you can probably just copy the save files to the side and overwrite them if you fuck up, but talk about a game that doesn't respect your time. What happens if a character dies? Can you recuit a new one?

You get a random one at the next inn. There's no guarantee it will fit your party composition, and I think it's always Wanderer path, which is usually the worst (but most versatile). I did once manage to win a game after a death, but it ain't easy.

 

[AnOminous]

You get a random one at the next inn. There's no guarantee it will fit your party composition, and I think it's always Wanderer path, which is usually the worst (but most versatile). I did once manage to win a game after a death, but it ain't easy.

That sounds like yet another fuck you in a game where party comp is critical.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

That sounds like yet another fuck you in a game where party comp is critical.

Now you're getting it!

Although I was lucky enough to get Flagellant, who fits in a lot of parties. I honestly can't remember who I lost. Plus that one was kinda my own fault for fighting Shambler.

 

[Dr. Ricearoni]

@Lord of the Large Pants
It won't let me directly reply but I have my own theory on why darkest dungeon 2 is worse. It's because you can't give up. Bullshit rng existed in Darkest Dungeon too. Enemies could land 3 crits in a row and kill your healer on the first deathblow before you even got a chance to do anything about it. But whenever shit went bad, you almost always had the option to step back, regroup, recouperate, and try again. Combat could be escaped, expeditions abandoned. But in darkest dungeon 2, if something goes horribly wrong you just have to live with it.

Everyone is stressed and hates eachother because of one meltdown spiraling out of control? Too bad, you're stuck with them. Terribly injured and unable to reliably heal? Well now every combat is to the death. Either you win right here right now or you start over. The only way to survive a mistake or bad luck in darkest dungeon 2 is to not make mistakes or have bad luck. The unforgiving punishment and rng of darkest dungeon 1 could be forgiven because you could cut your losses. Now, not so much.

 

[Rich Evans Ayypologist]

So I normally hate roguelikes, but something about the simplicity of the first game mixed with how absolutely kick-you-in-the-nuts-bullshit it was appealed to me as a thing to play here and there on the side, usually on the normal difficulty (where bullshit 100->0 kills could happen but were rare). I've had a little campaign running for a while where I maybe play an hour or two a month and then park it in this manner.

My plan with 2 has been to wait for it to go on sale - in part because I got the feeling the game would be a bit of a balance mess on launch until they tinkered for a bit. How long did they take to iron out the issues with the first one? I don't even remember when I got it, just some holiday sale on steam for a couple bucks eons ago.

 

[AnOminous]

My plan with 2 has been to wait for it to go on sale - in part because I got the feeling the game would be a bit of a balance mess on launch until they tinkered for a bit. How long did they take to iron out the issues with the first one? I don't even remember when I got it, just some holiday sale on steam for a couple bucks eons ago.

It was at least a couple years, although it was in incremental updates, not all at once.

 

[Asian tech support]

How long did they take to iron out the issues with the first one?

Not until sometime after Crimson Court came out which was over a year after release I think. Plus, like DD2, the game was in beta hell for a long time before launch. Don't hold your breath.

 

[AnOminous]

Not until sometime after Crimson Court came out which was over a year after release I think. Plus, like DD2, the game was in beta hell for a long time before launch. Don't hold your breath.

I'll probably wait for that. I really don't care if they make it easier, actually. Part of why I don't play DD1 much any more is it's too easy. The problem is the apex meta can more or less deal with anything the game throws out, so I usually use suboptimal metas and goofy teams so that it's even slightly challenging.

It just seems a lot of the difficulty is artificial or based on outright broken mechanics.

 

[Kane Lives]

Now you're getting it!

Although I was lucky enough to get Flagellant, who fits in a lot of parties. I honestly can't remember who I lost. Plus that one was kinda my own fault for fighting Shambler.

That said, getting a win even after a man down and then getting an okay replacement is pretty sweet. Only happened in Denial though. The rest of the Mountain bosses aren't that forgiving.

 

[Asian tech support]

Once you have your bearings, there isn't a huge risk of a character dying unless you limp away from one tough encounter right into another. I'd imagine playing on mega stygian is worse but I have zero desire to do that. That said, because of skill cds and a bigger emphasis on set up, playing man down feels worse than in DD1. It'd be cool if you could choose between a pool of three characters or something if you have to fill a vacancy.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

That said, getting a win even after a man down and then getting an okay replacement is pretty sweet. Only happened in Denial though. The rest of the Mountain bosses aren't that forgiving.

I actually managed it on my first Resentment victory. But I had both looked up the boss mechanics AND gotten insanely lucky to have Ravager as my front line, who works extremely well with Flagellant, and also Flagellant has probably the best Wanderer path.

Very occasionally, luck is on your side.

 

[Kane Lives]

I actually managed it on my first Resentment victory. But I had both looked up the boss mechanics AND gotten insanely lucky to have Ravager as my front line, who works extremely well with Flagellant, and also Flagellant has probably the best Wanderer path.

Very occasionally, luck is on your side.

You bring up a funny point, by the way. For almost all the heroes in the game, picking and choosing a path is almost always optimal... except for the Flagellant. He might be the only one where using a Wanderer path is both optimal and recommended. (I have a soft spot for the debuff Flag too, but the utility that he loses makes it a sidegrade. Blight Flag is ok, and low HP Flag feels like a meme.)

(The other hero whom I think a Wanderer path is optimal is unsurprisingly the Jester, but I think that's a testament to how shitty his paths is. Virtuoso is a good sidegrade, but the lack of DOT res really hurts. Soloist would be a good upgrade, but cutting his already fragile HP is extremely risky to say the least. Intermezzo is just bad. No idea what they were thinking with this.)

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Out of morbid curiosity, I watched the ending cinematic. It is extremely gay Reddit bait shit that's basically the animated version of "We're all a spec of cosmic dust, but don't you DARE be racist".

 

[AnOminous]

Out of morbid curiosity, I watched the ending cinematic. It is extremely gay Reddit bait shit that's basically the animated version of "We're all a spec of cosmic dust, but don't you DARE be racist".

That sounds even more cringy than the end of DD1 which is also incredibly lame (after the lamest boss battle in the whole game).

 

[Sulla]

Out of morbid curiosity, I watched the ending cinematic. It is extremely gay Reddit bait shit that's basically the animated version of "We're all a spec of cosmic dust, but don't you DARE be racist".

Holy shit you werent joking lmao. Wtf happened to the devs that made them think this was a good idea? It's like they doubled down on all the worst aspects of dd1
--------
you know what fuck it. Go buy/torrent library of ruina. It's more about man made horrors than cosmic horrors, but it's way fucking better than dd2.

 

[Lord of the Large Pants]

FINALLY murdered Ravenous Reach, but not without cost.

Sergeant/Yellowhand/Arsonist/Alchemist, winning on my first attempt that actually GOT to him.

I took Yellowhand specifically to strip tokens, and I'm both glad I did and also it wasn't nearly enough. Unlike my learned friend @Kane Lives I didn't have any problem with pushback. Sergeant handled it just fine even without immobilize. Not sure what's up with that.

Turn order is such a huge thing in this battle. Your token deleter NEEDS to go first, otherwise the rest of your party is probably wasting their turns. Despite that, I didn't really find the first two phases THAT bad, as long as you have good bleed resist.

It's really only the final phase that makes him such a total cockbag. Every turn, he pokes your entire party, including your fragile back lines. If you don't have high bleed resist, you die immediately. If you do, you die slightly slower. He also generates multiple counter tokens. If I had it to do over, I would've taken some extra healing items rather than so much anti-bleed. Highway Robbery did alright here, but you can only do it every other turn. Bellow sounds good on paper, but Man At Arms is too slow, at least by default. Token generation happens at the beginning on the turn, and he usually moves at the end, so it's too late to help your damage dealers. Controlled Burn, of all fucking things, ended up saving my bacon here simply because he couldn't dodge or counter it. I also would've put more emphasis on Blind here, using Smoke more often and letting Plague Doc worry about damage.

I went far out of my way to get top notch bleed resist, so that wasn't such a big deal. This fight would almost be balanced, except for one thing: Tone down the token generation JESUS GOD. Either two per turn, or three every other turn. This highlights another general problem with Mountain bosses. They can do EVERYTHING, every turn. Zero rest, zero breathers, zero light rounds. You have to floor it from the very first turn, meaning that pretty much anything other than doing damage is a net negative, since any recovery/support options get erased and then some.

All this led to Plague Doc and Runaway biting it in the final round, after they bravely sacrificed their lives to put on as much DOT as possible. Chad At Arms then committed to a last stand, deflecting blow after blow with nothing but his depleted uranium ballsack, until enough DOT went through to kill. Highwayman also lived, but only by luck. I didn't think he was going to. In hindsight, I would've EXTREMELY taken Cause of Death, even unupgraded.

I heard Focused Fault got reworked a couple days ago. Thinking about trying that again before I go on to act 5. After I win that I'm really thinking about just ignoring the Mountain and see if that's more fun. It's crazy for me to think about how much better this game might be if the bosses just didn't exist.

 

[Kane Lives]

I took Yellowhand specifically to strip tokens, and I'm both glad I did and also it wasn't nearly enough. Unlike my learned friend @Kane Lives I didn't have any problem with pushback. Sergeant handled it just fine even without immobilize. Not sure what's up with that.

Yeah, I heard the same from another who actually reached Ravenous Reach. So I suspect either I was misreading the tokens (possible, there were a lot of 3-4AM runs), or the Leper moveres was a lie or I just got unlucky and got an incredible bug.

tone down the token generation JESUS GOD.

This was what fucked all my suboptimal teams that reached Ravenous Reach. They simply are not able to clear the tokens fast enough to do damage, and got fucked over as a result. (I never had trouble with any of the Oblivion encounters/Lair bosses and Shambler was usually okay).

Congrats on the win, regardless. I should work on mine instead of faffing about with funny meme team combos.

 

[Mega Black]

I refuse to buy DD2 if Crusader is not added in and no, I don't give a fuck that he 'canonically died' at the end of 1. I had like five of the fuckers and I don't give a shit about Red Hook's storytelling because it is shit. Bounty Hunter being temporary is bad enough.

At least it is funny that the dev at Red Hook still seethe about Crusader, the character they basically just stole from Dark Souls, being more popular than their epic OC Highwayman.

 

[Lizard Machine Bugs]

I refuse to buy DD2 if Crusader is not added in and no, I don't give a fuck that he 'canonically died' at the end of 1. I had like five of the fuckers and I don't give a shit about Red Hook's storytelling because it is shit. Bounty Hunter being temporary is bad enough.

At least it is funny that the dev at Red Hook still seethe about Crusader, the character they basically just stole from Dark Souls, being more popular than their epic OC Highwayman.

The devs said in one of their pre-launch streams that DD2 takes place in an alternate universe where the Ancestor never unleashed the darkness. Honestly this makes sense theirs not many place to go from DD's time loop ending, even if it not exactly the biggest fan of it.

On the subject of BH, I appreciate what their trying to do with him mechanically and don't consider a temporary Hero to be automatically bad, that being said i think they could still improve on him.

Out of morbid curiosity, I watched the ending cinematic. It is extremely gay Reddit bait shit that's basically the animated version of "We're all a spec of cosmic dust, but don't you DARE be racist".

I'd have to disagree on the ending, yeah it's kinda cliche, and not exactly cosmic horror but that wasn't the intent with DD2. It's a game about failures and the Heroes overcoming their faults to save the world, and for what it's worth I appreciated the ending the massage of hope, wariness, and overcoming our faults.

The ending doesn't use any phrases like "banding together", our some message about multiculturalism, or some hamfisted political message about race or like you make it out to be, here's a direct transcript.

Spoiler: Ending

Your confession is complete. The Cosmic axes are aligned once more.
Forgive yourself.
Humanity is a weak hypothesis, after all.
An unbalanced equation... an imperfect angle. We sow the seeds of our ruin, and seek to deny its reckoning.
We make mountains of our mistakes, monsters of our misdeeds.
We slip and stumble, we fail and we falter.
And yet, in each of us, a hopeful light.
Holding fast against the hellish shadows that gather between our good intentions. And in each of us the limitless emptiness
... of a Darkest Dungeon.​