Darkest Dungeon |OT| A festering mecca of antediluvian evil
- Thread starter More_Badass
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Beat my first long champion mission. Holy hell, that was stressful, in every sense of the word. Went Arba/GR/MaA/Abom and every single one of them ended up with max stress, but at least none of them died. Thankfully the Abom went Courageous pretty early so he wasn't useless and he helped delay the others from cracking. Managed to beat the Collector while I was there and got a secret room, but they both only gave me those puzzling trapahedrons or whatever that you just sell at the end.
MVP was the MaA, and all he did was stack +dodge on the whole team. Everyone was dodging so much that I wasn't needing to constantly heal with the Arba which really helped out once she went Selfish and started passing turns and moving forward. I think I had my GR at something like over 70 dodge for a lot of fights.
Ended up getting my first ancestral item too, which as really nice.
MVP was the MaA, and all he did was stack +dodge on the whole team. Everyone was dodging so much that I wasn't needing to constantly heal with the Arba which really helped out once she went Selfish and started passing turns and moving forward. I think I had my GR at something like over 70 dodge for a lot of fights.
Ended up getting my first ancestral item too, which as really nice.
For the most part I had no problem with how the game was balanced. Apprentice and Veteran dungeons are hard but seem fair. You get hit hard by the big enemies and occasionally get hit with a crit while the smaller enemies don't hit as hard or as often. You also get a feeling of progression because you notice you're able to dodge more and hit harder and more often as you get better gear and upgrade your skills.
In Champion dungeons all of that seems to be thrown out of the window. Trash mobs, like skeletons, hitting you for 25+, full hp crits, 30+ stress damage per hit with no debuffs, fully upgraded gear and skills and you miss 50% of the times, getting surprised countless times with full light. Wtf is this?
It feels like they were balanced to be hard first and foremost instead of being a fun challenge like the other tiers.
edit: I also feel this weird balance reflects in the strange fact that longer dungeons are much more manageable than shorter ones, simply because you can take advantage of camping and camping skills to heal some hp and stress.
not gonna lie, you are bumming me out about the late game. I feel like I already encounter some bullshit in veteran dungeons :/
Sorry about that. I didn't mean to sound like a whinny kid nor am I trying to bash the game. I loved it till now and I'm sure I'll love it till the end. If anything you can't beat the sense of accomplishment you get when you manage to beat a dungeon despite everything that was thrown at you.
Anyway, lots of people finished the game and none of them "complained" so I might be the problem in all of this. Guess I'll just need to adapt and find some new tactics to overcome these new obstacles.
another boss down, the second version of the ruins one, I forget the name, with the falling rocks. pretty easy this one
edit: hmm heres a nitpick, why do green (aprentice) quests pop up when your roster is all rank 3+ :/
edit2: good lord just annihilated the second siren with a vestal / plague doctor / bounty hunter / leper team. she mind controlled my vestal on her first move, and I just pummeled her with the other 3 (dat blight), my vest didnt even heal her. later she tried to get her again and failed, and got my leper near the end but it was too late. feels good man
edit: hmm heres a nitpick, why do green (aprentice) quests pop up when your roster is all rank 3+ :/
edit2: good lord just annihilated the second siren with a vestal / plague doctor / bounty hunter / leper team. she mind controlled my vestal on her first move, and I just pummeled her with the other 3 (dat blight), my vest didnt even heal her. later she tried to get her again and failed, and got my leper near the end but it was too late. feels good man
Picked this up last night - knew I should have gotten it on the steam sale but I figured I wouldn't have time this month. Funny thing is I tried buying it two days ago but there was a problem with my card and the transaction failed. It was working again last night but they jacked up the price to $28 CDN which is just out of my impulse buy range. However my old cart was retrievable due to the failed purchase and I got it for the previous price.
I'm not far in, currently checking out the Cove for the first time. I've done almost no research on the game and basically just bought it because it looks like FTL meets Mike Mignola.
I haven't lost anyone yet due to playing cautiously, but i've only done a few runs so far. I got in a few minutes this morning before work and I brought along an Occultist and a Plague Doctor, they seem to work very well together. There is definitely an FTL-like aspect to the Curios and I should maybe stop clicking on all of them...but I want to see what happens.
I'm not far in, currently checking out the Cove for the first time. I've done almost no research on the game and basically just bought it because it looks like FTL meets Mike Mignola.
I haven't lost anyone yet due to playing cautiously, but i've only done a few runs so far. I got in a few minutes this morning before work and I brought along an Occultist and a Plague Doctor, they seem to work very well together. There is definitely an FTL-like aspect to the Curios and I should maybe stop clicking on all of them...but I want to see what happens.
just tried a champion dungeon... yeah, this might be where I call it on this game tbh. Ran into everything that dude said earlier.
Enemies always went first (I made sure to pay atention lol), I missed more than I hit, normal enemies just pulling out crits left and right. Thats not RNG anymore, thats just cheating, and its not fun. My Vestal died and I had to pull out, it was pointless to continue, and it was just a short one too.
Ill keep grinding these lower level ones for now, see if I get enough money to max out my rank 5s to try another champion mission, but that left a very bad taste in my mouth.
It was the first time in 42 hours with the game where I just didnt have fun, and its not the dying as ive been posting here about losing alot of fights.
Enemies always went first (I made sure to pay atention lol), I missed more than I hit, normal enemies just pulling out crits left and right. Thats not RNG anymore, thats just cheating, and its not fun. My Vestal died and I had to pull out, it was pointless to continue, and it was just a short one too.
Ill keep grinding these lower level ones for now, see if I get enough money to max out my rank 5s to try another champion mission, but that left a very bad taste in my mouth.
It was the first time in 42 hours with the game where I just didnt have fun, and its not the dying as ive been posting here about losing alot of fights.
This reminds me of a question I've been meaning to ask: how the hell does the speed stat actually work in this game? Clearly it's not "higher speed always goes before lower speed" because I routinely see guys with speed stats of 7 and 8 go after enemies with speed stats of 3 and 4. Does it only matter on turn 1 and then it's a coin flip? There's definitely RNG at work, but I have no idea what it's doing. Is there a point to boosting speed?
I've heard it's a D&D style initiative roll each turn.
So there's an invisible dice roll to add to each dude's speed? Makes sense I guess. Would explain why enemies in champion runs seem to get an invisible +5 to speed. I wonder if everyone gets 1 roll or if some enemies share their's, because it never seems like it's just one rabid dog that outspeeds my faster characters whenever I fight 4 of them.
If it is a dice roll it's individual. That can happen but I usually manage to sneak 1 or 2 attacks in between theirs.
Probably just bad luck on my end then. Thanks.
At least now I know there's a good reason to buff speed on my dudes during fights, especially now that I can't reliably surprise enemies during champion runs and kill off the faster guys on turn 1.
just tried another champion, because im actually "stuck" right now and I cant do lower level stuff, all my tanks are rank 5, and its impossible. Maybe with full upgrades (which I cant afford) its doable, but right now, a normal fight with random enemies almost kills me, let alone being able to contniue. I had to pull out 2 rooms into this one.
this is actually killing the game for me. I have no gold, my roster is full but I cant do lower level stuff because im either missing mid level tanks, or low level healers.
What do I even do? I mean I guess I could run my rank 5s into pointless champion dungeons for them to die and free up lower level slots, to then grind money to gear up my ramaining rank 5s? Man, the game really turned sour today for me, what a shame.
Im sorry if Im sounding whiny, I probably am, but its bumming me out.
edit: oh going into a dungeon and quitting out actually counts as a week passing? at least that gets my lower level guys out of the stress curing and I can do a lower lvl one :/
this is actually killing the game for me. I have no gold, my roster is full but I cant do lower level stuff because im either missing mid level tanks, or low level healers.
What do I even do? I mean I guess I could run my rank 5s into pointless champion dungeons for them to die and free up lower level slots, to then grind money to gear up my ramaining rank 5s? Man, the game really turned sour today for me, what a shame.
Im sorry if Im sounding whiny, I probably am, but its bumming me out.
edit: oh going into a dungeon and quitting out actually counts as a week passing? at least that gets my lower level guys out of the stress curing and I can do a lower lvl one :/
AuthenticM
Member
I seriously want a physical release on PS4 for this game.
Hm, try making short champion runs or at least runs in Ruins, which is the easiest dungeon. You can also make apprentice runs (lvl1) without healer - trinkets + your own experience playing the game should be enough to beat them. Just don't go on long runs.
Champions runs can definetely be hard and require good team composition for certain dungeons. Anyway, even if you lose some people on lvl5 dungeons you can recruit new heroes and I'm sure there will be a healer among them
Unless you are really against it you could restart. Use the knowledge you acquired and get to the same point stronger and faster. It might be more fun than speed leveling newbies to be able to do champion dungeons.
restart after 45 hours? yeah no, if thats the alternative ill just drop it (which I am in 2 days when xcom hits anyway, well not dropping it, but putting it aside for a bit). Thats like "I only have 1 game" doomsday scenario, which fortunately is not the case (for anyone I think)
Poodlestrike
Banned
Tbf the timing's not bad; it filled the gap between when you got it and XCOM 2 admirably
Tbf the timing's not bad; it filled the gap between when you got it and XCOM 2 admirably
I will most likely put it aside while I tackle xcom and get back to it (that was always going to happen anyway). I love the game even if this end game / later game whatever you want to call it has completely deflated me. I could always come back begining of march with the new classes (assuming those roll over to your current save)
or I could do this. I checked around what you could turn off, its not alot of stuff, the corpses for example dont really bother me, the deaths door debuff im fine with, those crits tho...
so basically rogue legacy style money runs? I might have to do that also then, if only to get enough money to upgrade my rank 5s to be able to do champions. thats a shame, I think up till now the game had perfect pacing
Welcome to The Darkest Dungeon!
The game is now one where you recruit 4 new adventurers each week, send them into a dungeon without supplies or a few keys/shovels, snuff out that light immediately, gather what you can, and exit the mission when your inventory is filled. You get a ton of money and heirlooms, and you kick out and poor schmuck that has survived.
Getting into a rut in the game isn't fun, but this type of strategy is lower-risk and more rewarding than everything up until "good" mid-tier runs.
This seems to be the biggest problem. There has to be something wrong with the game code. Crits should be the exception not the rule.
The fact that crits ruin a character's HP and deal crazy stress to your whole party is total crap. If an enemy crit causes 15+ stress for 3 guys then one of my crits should heal a bit more than 4 stress for them I think.
Not to mention there's no way to reduce the likelihood of them happening except for stacking dodge on your whole team, which is still a total RNG crapshoot. There should be some trinkets that say something like "-15% chance to recieve a crit, -15% chance to deal a crit".
what about being surprised shufling your party but surprising monsters doesnt shuffle them? lol
I love the game but man, some of these decisions
Well, when you're surprised you can still attack before the monsters so it balances out a little. If it shuffled you and all the enemies got to attack first, yeah it'd be total bullshit.
Yeah, shuffling sucks, which is where Jesters/Grave Robbers really shine. They have good crit rates (to manage stress), and a lot of position-flexible moves.
There's also the issue with how the endgame works. Characters retire after each succesful mission into the Darkest Dungeon itself, so you need 16 max-level characters in total, but not all at once.
I don't understand the logic in making everything more expensive for your higher level players. Even something simple like reducing stress costs around 2k for a level 6 character.
Why?
Just leave everything at the same price. I've put the hours in to upgrade my town and then they pull bullshit like this? It's just making the game more tedious and, ultimately, less fun to play.
Neoweee you should probably spoiler that end game comment. I didn't know about that and you've just ruined it for me
Why?
Just leave everything at the same price. I've put the hours in to upgrade my town and then they pull bullshit like this? It's just making the game more tedious and, ultimately, less fun to play.
Neoweee you should probably spoiler that end game comment. I didn't know about that and you've just ruined it for me
unfortunately, I agree. I think the game had perfect pacing up to this point too. Gonna try these money runs then, see how that goes. Which annoys me because, well this is just silly, but that kinda tuins the whole "the graveyard matters" aspect I had going. Now its just going to be a bunch of nonames :/
KiefbladeMaster
Member
Best decision I made. Left everything else on but it's just nice to know enemies aren't going to randomly one shot my party haha.
I dont understand money runs. Go without provisions you say? so no torches or food? my light runs out really ast, my dudes starve and I cant really stay in a long time to get loot? what am I missing?
SatelliteOfLove
Member
They are expendable. Expend them for filthy lucre.
but if I cant stay in long enough to get loot before they die whats the point? clearly Im missing something lol
low light = more loot
take maybe like, 4 food so you can do hungry once
you let the light go fully out before opening ANY curios
then you open up everything and try to kill as much as you can
the moment you notice your entire party might die (and you would lose your loot) you just flee the dungeon
then you keep all your loot,throw the survivors away and get 4 new ones.
rinse and repeat.
Begaria
Member
That's the point and ultimately one of the failures of game: you can take any 4 random characters off the stage coach, throw them at low level run at low light to increase your loot, fill up on gold/heirlooms, abandon the quest, and kick out your (probably) stressed out Rank 0 nothings for easy loot. Rinse and repeat ad nauseam between serious runs and you'll be swimming in loot.
I've been actively avoiding doing this and I'm only on Week 25 with two teams at Rank 4 with Rank 3 wepaons/armor/skills, but I might start doing it soon for Champion Rank 5 dungeons just so I can get to those Rank 4+ Armor/Weapons/Skills since it takes a lot of heirlooms to get there.
if you hover on the torch it tells you what the current light level does
Begaria
Member
Yeah, actually, if you haven't realized yet, if you mouse over your light/torch icon during a dungeon run, it'll tell you what it affects at each light level. For example, at 100% light you'll have a ++ chance to surprise enemies, but at around 50% light and lower you'll start getting +loot while enemies get +accuracy +damage.
Light is bad. Light is the enemy.
The drop rate is tremendously higher in darkness. Bring *some*, or even a lot, but suicide runs don't need no torches.
ok did a few runs and got back up to 31k. Which seems like a lot but really isnt with how expensive those gear upgrades get. But still, glad to know it works, and as silly as it sounds, the fact that I can dismiss the fodder instead of them just dying makes it more toreable for me lol
the fact that recruiting / dismissing guys has no cost, and that you get more loot with no darkness, maybe the devs intended for people to have money runs /shrug. I mean, its not like I have a issue with the idea per se, I sure did a lot of them in rogue Legacy
the fact that recruiting / dismissing guys has no cost, and that you get more loot with no darkness, maybe the devs intended for people to have money runs /shrug. I mean, its not like I have a issue with the idea per se, I sure did a lot of them in rogue Legacy
Coriolanus
Banned
Ahm...i thought you were supposed to play the game in full darkness? Sure,you get more stress, but you also get more crits/loots/everything, so its perfectly manageable. At least on apprentice. Usually have to throw loot away in any run that requires a camp.
I don't know. A lot of the game's balance seems accidental, and one of the main reasons why the game had such a large backlash during EA is that the devs focused on more minor balance issues rather than some rather substantial structural issues, like the screwed up difficulty curve or tedious/boring "fail state".