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What happens when you put Final Fantasy, X-COM and Dark Souls in a blender? its.... DARKEST DUNGEON Successfully Kickstarted for $313,000 in March 2014, its a very promising new RPG on PC and coming to PS4. The art style is reminiscent of Hellboy's Mike Mignola and generally looks absolutely gorgeous. It looks even slicker in motion, using a combination of puppet animation and a diorama-style 2d/3d environment. You venture deep into dungeons with a 4-man party of heroes, wandering through randomly generated dungeon arrangements, dealing with the traps and monsters that lay within. Combat is turn-based and highly strategic, based on party member positioning and special attacks. Your party is formed from the heroes you recruit in town. Only four can be sent into a dungeon at a time, and you must send four. You have to pick a party order, so that one person is in front, one behind, one behind him, and one in the last place. Party members can change positions over time. Once you venture forth, you head into one of 5 randomly-generated dungeon tilesets. (Ruins, Warrens, Weald, Cove, and The Darkest Dungeon) Each dungeon changes each time you go into it, and has its own tileset and themes and enemies and traps. Each dungeon also has a boss at the end which must be vanquished. You explore by picking a heading using the map, and then manually walk right to left through a hallway until you encounter a trap or an enemy and then have to deal with it before moving further. Each class has several abilities which can be trained, but only 4 can be used at a time. All heroes also have a 5th "move" ability for free that simply allows them to shift 1 position in combat. Heroes gain skill upgrades to do more damage over time and through training which increase how effective certain abilities are. Their armor and weapons can be upgraded over time, and they can gain special items which boost certain traits. There are no mana bars, and abilities are simply used per-turn. Many abilities have positional requirements on who can use them and who they can be used upon, and as such the party order is extremely important to strategy. Melee attacks can only be performed if you're in the spaces closest to your enemy. Ranged attacks are the opposite and require distance, and can often only be performed against enemy units in the rear positions. Some attacks hit more than one enemy, but again only in certain positions. Some moves have a range of positions they can attack, but you have to choose one at a time. Some abilities will change the party order, and other abilities can be used to alter the opponents' party order. (Say to pull an annoying archer to the front so you can melee him quickly) Heroes have health (red bars) and can perform different actions or use items inside and outside of combat to heal themselves. Once at 0 hp, heroes do not die instantly, but instead are on death's door. At this point any further damage they take will have random chance to kill them permanently, but any healing will return them to normal status. Heroes gain stress over time (black bars). Stress comes from many sources, such as walking in the front of the party, suffering grievous wounds, or taking certain actions. Other actions can relieve stress, and spending time in town resting can greatly reduce stress. Over-stressed party members may act wildly in combat, skipping their turns or attacking wildly ignoring your instructions, or even attacking allies or themselves! High stress also causes them to gain afflictions as they are stressed; "Kleptomaniac" adventurers will sometimes steal loot from the party. They can become Paranoid, Selfish, Depressed, God-fearing, and more. On the other hand, successfully resisting the effects of stress can give them virtues which grant small bonuses under special conditions and will not take control away from you the way afflictions can. There are also multiple status effects such as bleed, poison, etc. Typical RPG fare. There is also a light level mechanic as you venture through dungeons, and you have to burn torches to maintain the level. Darkness invites harder opponents, increasing stress, and possibly more rewards? The party can camp by using up firewood, which allows them to use special respite abilities on the party to reduce stress. Each class has different respite abilities used only outside of combat for recovery which cost time. Treasures include magical trinkets, gold, heirlooms (Busts, Portraits, Crests and Deeds used to upgrade the town) and supplies to keep you venturing. Objects you encounter in dungeons can be looted for treasure, but are sometimes trapped and will harm the person opening the treasure. Some heroes are better at avoiding traps than others. Quests are given to the player which require you to enter a certain dungeon and perform a certain task, such as exploring or killing certain enemies. The Town has several buildings which are used between adventures into the dungeons: The blacksmith lets you upgrade your warriors' gear, the guild allows you to upgrade skills, the tavern and church allow them to relieve stress (but require them to sit out on the next adventure to do so) the sanitarium allows you to force remove certain traits they've picked up from stress, you can recruit new heroes at the stagecoach (which come with random skills already learned) or visit a graveyard to look at all your fallen adventurers, and more. You can only camp on medium or longer quests. You will automatically be given firewood for camping as part of your provisions, free. You can use it at any time to gain buffs or to heal. You need food when you camp or you suffer hunger penalties. there's a chance you can be ambushed while camping. Adventurers that reach higher levels (3, 6) will refuse to go on lower-level quests. This prevents you from power-leveling your lower level party members, but be aware that if you're powering up a team for a boss fight, if they get too experienced they may refuse to go on the quest! Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjiBB3nBR-w Official website: http://www.darkestdungeon.com/ Original Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460250988/darkest-dungeon-by-red-hook-studios Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/262060/ Useful Information: (SPOILERS) ----------------------------------------------------- Wiki: http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/ Curios Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=386706480 Curious Guide in convenient image format: http://i.imgur.com/xnPaUX8.png Hieronymous Alloy's guide: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=385431020 out of date but still useful Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jan 27, 2016 |
# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:08 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 07:30 |
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New Player Guide: Glidergun posted:The first and most important piece of advice is to accept that you are not going to get through this 100% everything perfect. You're going to take characters into dungeon with all sorts of negative quirks and it won't be feasible to cure them all, you're going to make runs with characters you don't have the cash to upgrade fully, you're probably going to have a few people die just from the vagaries of chance, and you're going to cut your losses and retreat from dungeons before you finish the mission. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jan 25, 2016 |
# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:10 |
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I really like the whole death's door mechanic so far. As long as you can desperately cling to at least 1 HP sonic style you still have hope.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:16 |
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DrManiac posted:I really like the whole death's door mechanic so far. As long as you can desperately cling to at least 1 HP sonic style you still have hope. Yeah, my first thought is that you can kinda cheese it by having somebody "tank" constantly going back and forth between death's door. The amount of damage he took would be meaningless, because it stops at death's door, and then you could heal him for just 1 point to get him off it again. The only problem is that there's no easy way to force enemies to attack him (that I know of, there could be a taunt ability on some class) other than positioning which isn't going to soak up all the hits, and also the danger you're putting that person into if they take hits from multiple sources in a turn. You could have a rotating party of 3 high level adventurers and 1 cannon-fodder who you let sit on death's door and if he dies, you just hire another level 1 newbie to be the cannon fodder, but its probably not really an effective strategy overall, which is good. I do like the idea that sacrificing certain heroes could be a very effective tactic. The theme of this game is so strong. I really like how little health everybody has but how hard it can be to actually land hits on the people you want to. It makes you worried about EVERY blow You're constantly like, is he gonna dodge? is he gonna get hit for half is loving life bar? Are multiple enemies going to gang up on my one wounded person? Its really good. Compared to Final Fantasy where these days you have 999999 hit points and you get hit for 500 + 200 + 199 + 599 and its like... who cares? Also great are all the little in-battle moments of tension, I had my highwayman critical a gunshot at just the right moment, and not only did it really cripple the enemy, but my entire team got inspired from him rolling a crit, and they all lost some stress! That's a great moment. I also love how the game chronicles everything you do into a narrative that you can view. This game is more about allowing things to happen then giving you a particular set narrative, and I'm all over that.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:21 |
Zaphod42 posted:
holy gently caress
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:29 |
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Zaphod42 posted:Yeah, my first thought is that you can kinda cheese it by having somebody "tank" constantly going back and forth between death's door. The amount of damage he took would be meaningless, because it stops at death's door, and then you could heal him for just 1 point to get him off it again. The only problem is that there's no easy way to force enemies to attack him (that I know of, there could be a taunt ability on some class) other than positioning which isn't going to soak up all the hits, and also the danger you're putting that person into if they take hits from multiple sources in a turn. Getting to death's door will also add way more stress than a normal attack or a crit. Going back and forth between death's door and fine is a very good way to end up with afflictions.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:35 |
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Man this is fun as poo poo. It's kinda like a grim fantasy X-Com, but with old style RPG combat. I basically dove in with minimal knowledge of how to actually play the game so it's been a real meat grinder so far, but that's half the fun of this kind of thing. My vestal is both abusive and bloodthirsty, and basically spends most of her time in the dungeon making the rest of the party as miserable as possible (whether it's by insulting them every time they miss or opening iron maidens that I would really rather stay closed). Figuring out the mechanics without a whole lot of help has been easy enough so far but I was kinda surprised by how short the torches last. Sometimes I lose a light level just going through a hallway.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:36 |
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Shlapintogan posted:Getting to death's door will also add way more stress than a normal attack or a crit. Going back and forth between death's door and fine is a very good way to end up with afflictions. Yeah that's a good point, stress is a major mechanic. But again you could kinda mitigate by taking a cannon fodder dude with you that you plan on letting die or releasing after the mission. Still that's 1/4 of your party that's constantly being sacrificed, probably not worth it opposed to just having 4 tough dudes to begin with. Solomonic posted:Man this is fun as poo poo. It's kinda like a grim fantasy X-Com, but with old style RPG combat. I basically dove in with minimal knowledge of how to actually play the game so it's been a real meat grinder so far, but that's half the fun of this kind of thing. My vestal is both abusive and bloodthirsty, and basically spends most of her time in the dungeon making the rest of the party as miserable as possible (whether it's by insulting them every time they miss or opening iron maidens that I would really rather stay closed). Yeah I didn't realize that items stacked at first so I bought a bunch of food and torches and filled up my inventory and couldn't pick up more things, so I forced-ate all my food and then ran out of food and starved But I'm learning fast how this game works and I really really like it. Your vestal sounds hardcore. I just got a leper and a jester and there's some really interesting abilities in their trees. I really like how you can only have a subset of 4 abilities of the class at any given time, and different new hires come with different skills already unlocked. So you could have two members of the same class that perform entirely different roles. The hellion has an AOE damage move that hits the first three positions and I love it. And the apothecary's ability to poison the last two positions is really useful, you can do that early on and then let poison chip away at them while you're using melee against the ones in front. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jan 30, 2015 |
# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:37 |
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I just had an Abusive Graverobber tell a Masochistic Leper that they should learn how to bathe. I love this game.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 22:52 |
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Easily the best RPG I've played since Bravely Default. Just really loving all the atmosphere and story and character development. I think this is more of what I wanted out of Sunless Sea, but it didn't quite deliver on. Maybe because the combat here is so extremely tight where in Sunless Sea it was really sloppy. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jan 30, 2015 |
# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:07 |
Really wished I had backed it now
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:10 |
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Eonwe posted:Really wished I had backed it now You can buy into early access in 4 days
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:13 |
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The goon wallet... fragile, like a robin's egg. On the very precipice of early access!
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:13 |
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The leper has an interesting ability where he can take off his leper mask to lower his stress, at the cost of everybody else in the party gaining stress. They really came up with some cool poo poo in this game.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:15 |
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Excited to see this coming out on early access shortly. I remember seeing trailers for this awhile back and thinking it looked super cool.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:20 |
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Only had enough time to get through the tutorial during my lunch break but I'm looking forward to more, boy howdy.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:22 |
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I am glad to read the positive reactions. I did not back the Kickstarter since it seemed more about marketing and glorified pre-orders instead of funding a project that would not exist otherwise. Might pick up the Early Access version next week since they have said the final version will not be cheaper, barring sales.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:23 |
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Lotish posted:Only had enough time to get through the tutorial during my lunch break but I'm looking forward to more, boy howdy. Yeah, its good stuff. The tutorial level is brutal as hell because you have no way to recover health, but I think its designed to give you a "barely survived by the skin of my teeth" experience to get you in the right mindset for the game. You get the vestal after that who is pretty much the whitemage/cleric of the game and it makes things a bit less stressful. (not really) grrarg posted:I am glad to read the positive reactions. I did not back the Kickstarter since it seemed more about marketing and glorified pre-orders instead of funding a project that would not exist otherwise. Might pick up the Early Access version next week since they have said the final version will not be cheaper, barring sales. I usually reccomend against Early Access because playing too much of an unpolished game can turn you off from it even if they eventually sort everything out. But this is by far one of the most polished early access games I've ever bought, it feels really done. I get the feeling they pretty much are done except for some extra content (2 dungeons and everything that entails, some quests and bosses and the end story) so that makes for a good experience. You can pretty much buy the final game now, you just can't play it all the way to the end. They will definitely end up tweaking a few things as they get more people playing it and testing the RPG balance, but so far I would really recommend it even as early access. That said, I haven't gotten that far into it yet so it could start to show some more warts later on. I'll continue to post my experience with the game.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:28 |
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I'm watching a streamer play this, tehmorag, hes not good at videogames (and is honest about that!) but hes a fun watch and his little gathering isn't as toxic as far as some others i've seen on twitch. Needless to say, hot drat do i wish i'd kicked this. The art is great and the quirks are a fun looking mechanic. I'll be throwing money at them come Tuesday for sure. E: Oh man, and the narrator! The narrator is great! Thyrork fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jan 30, 2015 |
# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:36 |
God drat, this was worth the wait from kickstarting. I bought in at the $95 tier and I have no regrets. I've been playing constantly since I got my key, and I've lost three dudes so far. My only real quibble is the damned cost of curing stress. 1k minimum, assuming the caretaker is not occupying that slot. I'd like maybe to see some kind of slight boon to players in the form of not losing all your food/torches etc if you abandon a quest, or perhaps at least refunding a percentage of that cost. Maybe even lowering the cost of curing stress depending on how many heroes you have left. As in, if you only have 4 heroes total, cost is like 250 gold. My first two delving attempts ended in complete disaster and I'd plugged so much money into the runs. I know that is the point, but it left me unable to do anything with any future guys
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:39 |
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I backed at the $49 tier and just finished playing/streaming it for almost 5 hours. It's fantastic. I feel like I've stumbled upon a great party comp: [back to front] Jester, Plague Doctor, Highwayman, Leper. The Jester's songs buff the party and help relieve stress. Doc can stun the back row and hand out damage buffs. The Leper and Highwayman have great aoe attacks so my strategy is basically to burst everything down and not worry about healing due to the Deaths' Door mechanic.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:45 |
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Thyrork posted:E: Oh man, and the narrator! The narrator is great! Yeah the narrator alone is worth the cost of entry. This is like Bastion where the narrator kinda steals the show. Innerguard posted:My only real quibble is the damned cost of curing stress. 1k minimum, assuming the caretaker is not occupying that slot. I'd like maybe to see some kind of slight boon to players in the form of not losing all your food/torches etc if you abandon a quest, or perhaps at least refunding a percentage of that cost. Maybe even lowering the cost of curing stress depending on how many heroes you have left. Yeah, that's the challenge with this game. Sunless Sea has the same problem where they're trying to keep you constantly stressed and feeling like you're just barely holding on, just barely staying afloat. And that's cool... when it works. But there's times where things don't quite go your way, and then you feel like you're down in a pit and every time you try to claw your way out you just dig it deeper and deeper and there's no recovery. Welp, I guess that's roguelikes for ya. As more and more people buy into early access they'll get a ton more people playing the game and commenting, and they should hopefully take steps to address balance and keep you from falling into that feeling of not being able to recover no matter what you do. Percentage costs sound like a good idea. Gyoru posted:I backed at the $49 tier and just finished playing/streaming it for almost 5 hours. It's fantastic. There's so many possibilities for great party comps its fantastic. Already tons of ideas are running through my head. The bard's "solo" ability makes me want to try starting battles with him in front, but then immediately move him to the back. I'm thinking something like: Vestal, Crusader, Crusader, Jester Open with Jester doing his solo move. Then after he debuffs the whole enemy team, you have both crusaders use the holy lance ability to deal tons of damage and shift forward. The Jester gets moved back to safety and he can harass the enemy, the vestal heals from the back (as usual), and the two knights switch off doing slashes and holy lances based on positioning. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 30, 2015 |
# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:45 |
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Gyoru posted:I backed at the $49 tier and just finished playing/streaming it for almost 5 hours. It's fantastic. Another good combo is the Cultist and the Plague Doctor; use the cultist heal (which sometimes causes bleed) if it does use the plague doctor to cure it. On average the skill heals more than others at the first level so it is quite good for single target healing.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:50 |
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grrarg posted:I am glad to read the positive reactions. I did not back the Kickstarter since it seemed more about marketing and glorified pre-orders instead of funding a project that would not exist otherwise. Might pick up the Early Access version next week since they have said the final version will not be cheaper, barring sales. Though maybe it's not in the exact spirit of Kickstarter. edit: Got in at the $40ish level so I'll be playing tonight. Looks awesome.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:51 |
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Geokinesis posted:Another good combo is the Cultist and the Plague Doctor; use the cultist heal (which sometimes causes bleed) if it does use the plague doctor to cure it. On average the skill heals more than others at the first level so it is quite good for single target healing. Cultist seems really interesting, yeah. He's got lots of abilities for moving the enemy's order around (cthulu tentacles ), and then he's got that weird random heal that sometimes bleeds... I like his style.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:52 |
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Gravedigger get out of the loving brothel Zaphod42 posted:Cultist seems really interesting, yeah. He's got lots of abilities for moving the enemy's order around (cthulu tentacles ), and then he's got that weird random heal that sometimes bleeds... Yeah plus he has that curse mark, which if used with the Bounty Hunter in your party means you don't have to waste 2 turns to use the BH's '2x damage if marked' attack.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:58 |
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Just chiming in to say this is a lot of fun. The sanity mechanic is interesting, but drat can it spiral out of hand super quick. Lost an entire team because the Cultist lost it really early, and wouldn't do anything but pass and drop everyone else sanity in the next fight, costing me everyone. So, yeah, but still, really digging it.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:58 |
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Sick! I can't wait for this.
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# ? Jan 30, 2015 23:58 |
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Are there any passive abilities in combat, or are they all active?
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:03 |
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AnonSpore posted:Are there any passive abilities in combat, or are they all active? Abilities are all active, but the traits you pick up from stress can give you passive modifiers in combat, and I think trinkets can as well. My Crusader has killed so many 'humanoids' that he now has the "manslayer" trait and does like Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jan 31, 2015 |
# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:06 |
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Zaphod42 posted:Abilities are all active, but the traits you pick up from stress can give you passive modifiers in combat, and I think trinkets can as well. Baller.
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:11 |
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Meet Reynauld, my most senior adventurer. Reynauld has been with me from the start and though it annoyed me at times, I put up with his faith and his habit of stealing. Over time he's become one of my strongest front line warriors, tearing up monsters but especially the undead. Really, this guy hates the undead. He's usually second in line and will often start combat by decimating a weak backline caster. After the latest bout however he developed a love interest and I've had him sent to the sanitarium to fix that, because he refuses to pray or sleep with his lover, poor man's caught in a crisis of faith. I'll fix that. Next up is my Helion, Bohon. Bohon is a scary woman, at first I thought that breakthru was kind of an awful ability, but her rabies counters almost half of the damage reduction and her hatred of all things makes up most of the rest allowing her to regularly do 6-12 damage to a row of three enemies, she's insane. I don't mind her obsessions as much but I may have to fix her compulsiveness as its just annoying when she rushes to open a container without letting me use a key or holy water. 5 heroes have fallen so far. I'm targeting the swine king next.
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:11 |
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That's amazing. What does second wind or tough do? E: Just downloaded a 1.5MB patch after work, that was quick. I guess some kind of emergency bugfix. Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jan 31, 2015 |
# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:46 |
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I love this game. The first expedition I did was a failure (I just HAD to know what was in that orange room) so the only hero that got out alive was my Vestal. I didn't have access to any of the morale boosting structures when she got back, so I had to send her in with another band of adventurers (Jester, Bounty Hunter, and Plague Doctor). The second expedition was... an adventure, to say the least. The Vestal's rantings and ravings about how everyone was going to die, as well as her insistence on cutting herself as an offering to the gods, eventually drove my bounty hunter to panic and turn coward. My jester, on the other hand, deemed himself to be the heroic type and the plague doctor was determined to become the bane of all the undead. Eventually attrition and rough combat encounters killed the Bounty Hunter and Jester, so my only survivors were my masochistic Vestal and my self-appointed lightbringer of a plague doctor. RIP Jester, you soaked up 20 hits while you were at death's door. Time to go back...
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:48 |
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Arrrthritis posted:RIP Jester, you soaked up 20 hits while you were at death's door. What a badass
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:50 |
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This might be the first early access game I buy into. I've avoided others on principle but this sounds pretty solid and I'm itching for a game like it.
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:52 |
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Zaphod42 posted:That's amazing. It gives another 10% damage boost when below 50% health Rabies gives 20% damage (but reduces accuracy) and the various hatreds and slayer traits give her accuracy and 15% damage against the right targets. She's a monster. Edit: I loving hate brigands, they are the toughest enemy by far. Demiurge4 fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jan 31, 2015 |
# ? Jan 31, 2015 00:55 |
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One thing that sucks is, be careful when looting that you don't hit close until you're done. You're only ever given a chance to loot anything (chest, trap, battle spoils, etc.) ONCE. They need to make it so you can interact with the object again if you leave something and pick it up later. Minor gripe but it would be really nice. I just lost some boots because I mis-clicked
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 01:30 |
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Man, this game kicks you in the balls right out of the gate, doesn't it? I can't even finish the first dungeon. Is there any way to heal inside the dungeon? I know there's a camp, how do you do that?
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 02:21 |
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# ? May 13, 2024 07:30 |
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Evil Mastermind posted:Man, this game kicks you in the balls right out of the gate, doesn't it? I can't even finish the first dungeon. It depends on the size of the dungeon. A short dungeon doesn't let you rest, a medium will let you rest once and a large will presumably let you rest twice. The vestal is pretty decent but healing in general is a bit weak I think, I like to bring a tanky party and just smash my way through instead of trying to pitifully mitigate damage with heals.
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# ? Jan 31, 2015 02:25 |