Dr Wookie

Darkest Dungeon: Fear is a mind killer, and so is Eldritch Pull

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Fought the hag today for my first boss encounter and had my first whole party wipe using my best/favorite characters. Totally heart broken. 

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Update from the Devs:

 

Content:

So what’s coming?  A lot.  Here are just some of the highlights:

Misc:

  • Hero color variants
  • Town Events
  • KS Backer-designed Trinkets, Monsters, etc

Playable Classes:  

  • Man at Arms
  • Arbalest
  • Houndmaster
  • Merchant
  • Lord Tier, KS backer-designed class (available to all players – see KS page)

Additional Bosses:

  • Weald Boss: The Brigand Barricade
  • Ruins Boss: The Gibbering Prophet
  • Warrens Boss: The Formless Flesh

The Cove:

  • Full set of themed Monsters
  • New Curios (Interactive Objects)
  • Cove Boss 1
  • Cove Boss 2

The Darkest Dungeon …?

The Darkest Dungeon, essentially the full endgame, will only be released at 1.0 launch.  You will have to complete several quests in the Darkest Dungeon, and in so doing, you will progress the game’s story.  Darkest Dungeon missions will test even your most battle-hardened veterans, and are non-retreatable!  You will succeed and survive, or die trying – the ultimate challenge awaits!  Don’t ask for any more details on it, cause that’s all we’re ever going to say icon_smile.gif

 

At this point, I'm going to stop playing the game until release so I can enjoy the content fresh. Thanks in advance to all the beta testers.

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While trying to level up some of my less used character classes, I found Bounty Hunter, Plague Doctor, Grave Robber and Occultist to be an interesting combination. The Occultist can mark targets for the Bounty Hunter against strong, individual foes or hit the back lines with Abyssal Artillery, and having a Plague Doctor around makes the potential bleeds from his Wyrd Reconstruction less of an issue. The Grave Robber deals some nice damage with thrown daggers from the back line, but since neither the Plague doctor nor the Bounty Hunter rely strongly on being in a particular spot, I generally used her to lunge forwards and then slide back with Shadow Fade to stun and buff up on the way back. She has really high crit modifiers on her abilities, as it turns out.

 

That team has been doing well enough that I sent them out on a Level 5 mission when just the Occultist had hit that level since I wanted to keep the chemistry going, but then they ended up eating shit through a string of ineffectual heals from the Occultist and enemy crits. My Bounty Hunter kept getting knocked-back by this big skeleton, so for a while there the Grave Robber was stuck trying to slide back with Shadow Fade and then being pushed to the front again. Only the Bounty Hunter and the Occultist made it out of that in the end, and I'm probably going to wait until more new things or balance updates come along to capture my interest again.

 

Hellions still conquer everything, I guess.

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Kickstarter update:

 

In case you haven’t seen the news elsewhere, we are excited to confirm that we’ll be posting a HUGE content update later this month (Thursday, May 28th). This FIENDS & FRENZY update will contain two new hero classes (Arbalest and Man-at-Arms), three new bosses, new special trinkets, and more!

 

I also just voted for the wolfhound in "choose the Houndmaster's dog" survey.

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New update: Two new characters (Arbalest and Man-at-Arms), couple of new bosses, lots of little changes. Healing can now crit for twice the usual effect, which is useful enough for the Vestal, but I imagine if you build an Occultist into a crit-focused team, he could potentially patch up your tank completely in a single move. Probably still not going to make anybody switch out their Vestal.

 

Seems that this addressed most of the balancing stuff we talked about earlier in this thread: almost all the trinkets I had equipped for being completely kickass appear to have changed, the Hellion pendant I mentioned that boosted both damage and bleed chance on attacks now boosts bleed chance on attacks at the expense of damage, etc. etc.

 

I only went on one mission with the new characters so far, but it feels like the Arbalest is another of the kind of characters that do two things a little but excel at neither, having decent ranged attacks plus a few options for patching up friends. Probably not enough to make anybody switch out whoever else they have in the back ranks.

 

The Man-at-Arms though kicks total butt, and I expect there might be a quick nerf coming soon. His skillset doesn't look too impressive at first glance, but there are a couple of odd things on there that aren't properly explained. He has a protection buff that allows him to guard an ally, which I imagine means they'll intercept hits meant for them (didn't end up seeing this in practice), but more interestingly, he also has a melee attack that buffs his protection, marks him as a target, and activates a riposte stance, so until his next turn any attack against him seems to hit a) at a significantly lower rate b ) for significantly less damage (zero in the case of most of the low level enemies I tested this on) and c) trigger a counterattack for a decent amount of damage that can also d) crit.

 

It doesn't do much if he's not being attacked, but a single enemy swinging at him seems to be enough to make up for the reduced damage of the initial attack, and you might always get lucky like me, when all three remaining enemies attack him and he just wrecks all of them.

 

He was incredibly satisfying to take on this one outing, but also feels wildly unbalanced at the moment. I guess we'll see how this will pan out in the long run, but it seems like Red Hook definitely have some issues with making certain characters much more useful than the rest of the roster.

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I forgot to mention that food can now also crit. I guess this makes sense in so far as all healing items got that boost, but I do enjoy thinking about what this implies narratively. Is food sometimes more effective because it's more tasty than expected (which would imply somebody packed sweet treats) or more healthy (which would imply somebody packed carrot sticks or something). Or because it's more filling than expected, like somebody used extra butter?

 

Good game.

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That's a great mechanic! 

 

It could just be as simple as sometimes a particular food or drink just really hits the spot and gives you a great emotional boost.

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Deadpan I think you are going to be right about Man-At-Arms.  Riposte can trigger off multi target attack, trigger multiple times and hits for higher damage and crit so... yeah... it's pretty broken ATM :x

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I even forgot to mention that it can stun enemies. And it scales considerably with upgrades, with bonus damage, accuarcy and crit chance to riposte attacks if you level the ability. My Man-at-Arms has been wrecking house.

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The next update, in July, will be:

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  • New Hero: The Houndmaster!  This rugged ex-constable will wander into the Hamlet, accompanied by his faithful Wolfhound and help restore order to your lawless acreage! 
  • Sanitarium overhaul!  A significant rework of quirks, diseases, and the Sanitarium is coming!  You'll be able to sculpt your heroes a little more by locking your favourite positive quirks on them - but be warned, doing so is permanent, and cannot be reversed.  
  • Diseases will also be separated into their own category, and better integrated into the game game flow.
  • Armor up!  Armor icons will upgrade on all heroes.
  • "And more..."  Quality of life changes, balance, tuning, gameplay tweaks and other additions are always going into the build!

Other backer rewards, like personalized heroes, item design, etc will be coming online over the summer - you haven't missed anything!  We'll be in touch with you regarding these rewards as soon as we're ready to roll them into the game.

Looking Ahead...
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After the July update, the next stop for us will be the Cove, a completely new dungeon with it's own bosses, monsters, curios, traps, and obstacles!  If things weren't salty enough, get ready to choke down on the briny waters as your sodden adventurers push ever closer to...

The Darkest Dungeon!  

Our full 1.0 release is scheduled for late October, this year!

The final dungeon and story content will be added, and you will conclude your quest to restore your family's estate, or die trying.  What can you expect in the Darkest Dungeon?  We're not saying a word.

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What can you expect in the Darkest Dungeon?

 

Probably not torches

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So recent minor update re-balanced torches... you now burn one when entering a room.  So a torch will give you 25 light but full hallway (including entering new room) is now about 30.  Simple, but effective change at making the game more interesting.

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Nice, looking forward to October.

 

Me too, though I'm bummed that it's still that far off full release. I played it a little a few months ago and then decided to wait on really diving in myself until it was at least some version of "done". I feel like I've made the right decision for me, but I just wish that time would come sooner!

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You probably made the right call. I had a lot of fun with it so far, but I probably shouldn't have decided to push so far towards the overarching goals of killing bosses and fully levelling up one of each class because now my roster is pretty much full and when new stuff comes along I'll probably have to get rid of some people to hire a new low-level crew for the new low-level missions that the beefed up folk consider beneath them.

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Woohoo, nice to hear a release date. I've been waiting patiently for this  ... not easy when it looks this good and promising. For those who've played the early access, how many hours do you presume the game can offer in a 'normal' playthrough? just curious.

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I planned on only "checking it out briefly", after I realised it was a game for me. Ended up spending ~8 hours over a couple of days on it before I forced myself to stop and wait for the final game.

I hope and trust I will get more than a grand total of 20 hours from it. But maybe one playthrough from start to finish will be around those parts?

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Is there a way to sell, or even discard Trinkets? I've got about two pages of them, and it's a pain to scroll to the bottom of the Trinkets screen so that I can switch my Sun Rings between active and resting teams.

 

A few: "Is it just me or...?" questions:

  • Sun rings/cloaks are by far the best equipment, right? Given that I already want to keep my torch above 75, they're the only item with zero downside, and their upside is really quite strong.
  • Are Eldritch Altars just bad news? I've interacted with over a dozen, and every outcome has been either neutral or negative.
  • Is there anything stronger than three Bounty Hunters? I mucked around for a while trying to find a party with inter-class synergy, but since Bounty Hunter essentially synergizes with itself thanks to Mark, my favorite party is now three Hunters and a Vestal for support.

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Darkest Dungeon 1.0 is now officially out! From the Kickstarter update:

 

Darkest Dungeon began as a thought exercise. What would it really be like to battle the horrors so commonly dispatched in the games of our childhood? What would facing down unholy abominations day in and day out do to someone? What good is a glowing Sword of Unholy Slaying +5 in the hands of a blubbering coward? 

 

After a year of discussion over scotches and poker games, we began development full time, and Darkest Dungeon started to take shape. As we worked, we got to know the game - its personality. What it would permit, and what it wouldn't, where it left the beaten path, and where it tended to stay close to its roots. Darkest Dungeon grew up in that second year. It was not friendly, or welcoming; it did not owe you a victory, or suffer fools. It wasn’t fair, like the horror movies and war stories that formed its foundation. It broke game ‘rules’; took control away, kicked you when you were down. It smoked behind the gym with its friends and skipped class. 

 

Underneath all that badassery, though, it challenged you to think differently about heroism, and about the cost of adventuring. It taught you that preparedness was important, but thinking on your feet when the shit hits the fan was the true test. And, of course, it reminded you that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer. For all its unyielding focus on what can go wrong in an adventure, it showed why heroism is the only antidote for failed hope.  

 

Prior to our launch in 2015, we talked about Early Access as an experience - a journey that the game and its players would take through the rise and fall of certain strategies, buffs, nerfs, changes, and improvements. What we didn’t expect is to be part of that journey ourselves. There have been exhilarating highs, and terrifying lows, not just for the hundreds of thousands of heroes, but for us on the dev team as well. We’ve often likened the experience of developing Darkest Dungeon to being inside the game, contending with our own stresses, bad bounces and heroic rallies. This game’s development has even seen the full cycle of humanity amongst our own team: births, deaths, and friendships and relationships tested. It’s never been easy It has been indeed a Long Champion boss run, but here we are - intact, (relatively) sane, proud of what we’ve made, and profoundly grateful to all of you for your support.  

 

We've been truly humbled by the excitement and enthusiasm we've seen from our community. Whether you supported us on Kickstarter, Humble, or on Steam Early Access, you have helped make this game what it is. Your feedback, suggestions, and critiques have been a part of our discussions and development since February, 2015. Not only that, your fanart, streams, YouTube videos, cosplays, theorycrafting, fanfiction, guides, and modding - have inspired and honored us, and we thank you very sincerely for sharing your creations.  

 

The best part? There's more to come! After some much needed rest, the team will get to work on our first (free) expansion featuring Town Events, a new Hero Class, and even more goodies. Beyond that, you can look forward to even more additions, modes, and content throughout the year, as well as our official support of the modding community and their efforts to extend the Darkest Dungeon experience even further. We love our game, and we can’t wait to grow and improve it with you!

 

Alright, that’s it from us. Go to Hell, people.  

-The Darkest Dungeon Team

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I played about 15 hours of this during my week off. My first thought is that it's way too long.

 

So far, I haven't found it particularly difficult, I know have two full teams able to go in to medium difficulty, I've killed 5-ish bosses, and have only lost 5 people, three to my first fight with the Hag and two more due to unavoidable flukes involving death's door and bleed damage.I routinely come out of a dungeon with less sanity damage than I go in with. But still, it's never "easy." I'm constantly having to keep on my toes, no fight is ever just mash the combat button until everything is dead. Normally, I'd call that really good design, but at this point I'm maybe a third of the way through the game and I can't imagine doing this for another 30 hours. More so, I can't imagine getting another 20 hours in, failing, and then starting from scratch. I'm generally pretty good at games, "hard" isn't usually a problem for me and I don't generally mind starting over if the situation requires it. but there's a certain amount of tedium here that I'm really disappointed by and I'm certainly not going to do it a second time.

 

*sigh* I'm only so loud about it because I'm so disappointed : (

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Yeah, same impression that new stuff just doesn't shake up the game enough to warrant another playthrough (not to mention new game + mode).

 

Still a good game for sure.

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I've not played more than a couple of hours in early access,mad look forward to going for it in the release version.

Props to Eurogamer for their heading:- Eat, pray, Lovecraft :)

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