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I sent an entire team of Level 3 Crusaders against the Necromancer (2/3), all with Holy Lance and Inspiring Cry, and they came out with less stress than they had going in. I feel like I kinda cheated.
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Feb 14, 2015 03:42
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how me a frog posted:It has a soft fail state in that no matter how hard you grind you will be unable to finish the game and you can irrevocably spec your character to be a bucket of poo poo which will achieve much of the same. people routinely beat the game at sl1 and even if you put every single point ever into resistance of all loving things you'll be more powerful than that so this is objectively not true Improbable Lobster posted:Anyone who enjoys dota is incapable of recognizing good game design
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Feb 14, 2015 03:43
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BlackIronHeart posted:I sent an entire team of Level 3 Crusaders against the Necromancer (2/3), all with Holy Lance and Inspiring Cry, and they came out with less stress than they had going in. I feel like I kinda cheated. I felt the same when I went after the hag with 3 hellions. Some party combinations are positively unfair, and are one reason I want a variety of minibosses that can be thrown into a dungeon to challenge the parties that would otherwise trivialize bosses. Like, if you had something with high stun and bleed resistance, like an ent, to guard the Hag, then a team that is designed to bleed the hag to death on her own turn, punishing her multiple actions gimmick, they first have to beat something that can't be beaten that way.
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Feb 14, 2015 03:47
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Yeah, I see what you're saying, but there are going to be 14 character classes; if you want one good character of each or spares of "favorite" classes, i.e., an extra Vestal or two, or some extra Occultists etc., that pretty swiftly eats up your slots. Oh but I do have plenty of extras. I have 4 Highwaymen, 2 Jesters, 2 Vestals, an occultist, a crusader and for some reason a leper who is never used because lepers are poo poo. I can always assemble a strong party to go out while 4 or 5 are being destressed. That leaves me with 9 free spaces I think, and I really could and probably should dismiss the leper because he is not that amazing front line and utterly useless in the back. My default party is 2 Highwaymen, a healer and whover is not currently gambling. Highwaymen are good because they have aoe, can swap out doing point blank shots and having two of them if you're surprised, duelists advance, which is on its own a good skill, will soon put your back line people back where they belong. Compare that to a leper who doesn't really do anything but hit kinda hard but lots of other people do aswell, or the grave robber who can disarm traps I guess or something, the choice is really easy. I considered Jester Vestal Hellion Hellion to be the ideal party before the nerf, I have since gone back to Jester Vestal Highwayman Highwayman. You can kid yourself all your want, the vestal has a guaranteed 12 points of heal every single turn and 0 chance of inflicting bleed. Occultist can't even stun. I do bring one, it's a decent class, but vestals are the only ones I pick up off the wagon literally no matter what because there just isn't a substitute. This is exaggerated by the death's door mechanic, obviously. I'm not a fan of that one, to be honest.
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Feb 14, 2015 03:58
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BlackIronHeart posted:I sent an entire team of Level 3 Crusaders against the Necromancer (2/3), all with Holy Lance and Inspiring Cry, and they came out with less stress than they had going in. I feel like I kinda cheated. The Boss fights are sort of puzzle like since you need custom party lineups to make them much more manageable.
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Feb 14, 2015 04:00
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The necromancer is the chump of chumps though so you can beat him with pretty much anyone. Today was probably my hardest fight with him because he kept spamming his stress attack which made some of my guys panic...but they still crushed him anyways because he's awful.
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Feb 14, 2015 04:11
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how me a frog posted:Well if you guys don't want fail state give it an iron man mode and another mode where you play with multiple manual saves because this is essentially what we've got at the moment. The "there is only one save file" thing means jack poo poo without a fail state. You can't fail in the Souls games. And as everyone knows they are garbage, so you're right.
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Feb 14, 2015 04:15
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quote:Build Update #7635 (PC and Mac) New patch up. Boss HP buffs and some bug and cosmetic fixes. I think they fixed the Marked Target/Collect Bounty bug? Allaniis fucked around with this message at 04:46 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 04:44
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That reminds me, anyone else getting some bugs with the new Graverobber and Plague Doc? I'm not getting the accuracy buff from thrown dagger sometimes and i don't know why. Also battlefield medicine keeps healing for 0 even though the tool tip says 1-2, so something has to be wrong there.
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Feb 14, 2015 04:48
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Yeah, my PD heals for 1 even though the indicator says 2-3, so it seems like it's bugged.
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Feb 14, 2015 04:54
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So is the mac version synced with the PC one now? Can I give the new PD a shot yet?
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Feb 14, 2015 04:59
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paranoid randroid posted:So is the mac version synced with the PC one now? Can I give the new PD a shot yet? I still feel like she isn't good. I'm not a huge fan of Blight anyway. It always feels like I'm missing something when I use her.
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Feb 14, 2015 05:05
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I'm still always getting one negative and one positive quirk after every mission and at this point I'm not sure if it's a bug or not. All I know for sure is that it makes quirks pointless because both sides of the ledger get filled up pretty much right away and there's even less reason to make distinctions between characters.
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Feb 14, 2015 05:43
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paranoid randroid posted:I'm still always getting one negative and one positive quirk after every mission and at this point I'm not sure if it's a bug or not. All I know for sure is that it makes quirks pointless because both sides of the ledger get filled up pretty much right away and there's even less reason to make distinctions between characters. Have you tried starting another save in an empty slot and seeing if that happens there too?
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Feb 14, 2015 06:03
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Improbable Lobster posted:Have you tried starting another save in an empty slot and seeing if that happens there too? Yep. To be honest if I hadn't watched some streams I'd never know something was off.
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Feb 14, 2015 06:19
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I'm really surprised to see people complaining that it needs to be harder, referencing Dark Souls, and then saying in order to be harder, Darkest Dungeon should have a failure state. Why not take a note from the game you just referenced, instead? Make the 3+ dungeons brutally difficult, and the 5+ dungeons soul-crushingly difficult. Bam. New people who are getting their bearings aren't hurt, people who are doing well have the game get harder. The failure state isn't you lose your progress, but rather you can't progress any further. I do think the game is hurt by being far too fast and loose giving out quirks. When each character had 3 negative traits, I could keep track of them all. When each character has a dozen negative traits and picking up more overwrites the old ones, I just toss them in the sanitarium to remove anything super obnoxious and ignore the rest. I get that they want the toll of dungeon delving to be the adventurers becoming jibbering wrecks, but there's just too much to keep track of and it changes too quickly. What would be excellent is if instead of throwing yet more negative quirks on, when the adventurer has something bad happen, they made one of their existing quirks worse. Keeps the characters distinguishable, makes the negative quirks more meaningful, and makes the characters go crazy in a descent into madness way instead of a monkeycheese way.
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Feb 14, 2015 06:20
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Well, I just got a second copy of the ancestral trinket that gives big damage bonus while at death's door. Time to pick a character I don't care about much and try out a gimmick build. 
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Feb 14, 2015 06:29
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Allaniis posted:Just don't bring her into the Warrens, like I did. Big mistake. Yeah, I don't use her blight attacks that much. I mostly use her for control and battle buffs, stunning the back and buffing front line attackers for faster kills. But if you upgrade her tools her base damage is not bad for when you just need to lay in some hurt--about where a Jester's bleed attacks are.
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Feb 14, 2015 06:34
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GladRagKraken posted:I'm really surprised to see people complaining that it needs to be harder, referencing Dark Souls, and then saying in order to be harder, Darkest Dungeon should have a failure state. Why not take a note from the game you just referenced, instead? Make the 3+ dungeons brutally difficult, and the 5+ dungeons soul-crushingly difficult. Bam. New people who are getting their bearings aren't hurt, people who are doing well have the game get harder. The failure state isn't you lose your progress, but rather you can't progress any further. This is a pretty good idea. I think the positive traits are fine as it is, and having them get better over time will be overpowered; or would at least require alot of balancing. Having bad quirks that also gain levels would make your guys more unique. So your guy gets ruins phobia 1 and you ignore it for a long time and bam he's got ruins phobia 3 and you better not take him in there or he will gently caress your day. As far as a fail condition; they just need to have some missions that you have to do in 2-3 embarks and you get punished if you don't or fail. Gasp, the level 3 swine are preparing for an attack on the town hall and they are gonna steal your gold / steal your trinkets / kill a random hero / remove an upgrade if you don't stop them! Throw it in as an optional thing (gotta think of the carebears), and have them get harder as the game goes on. Now your progress can get set-back and hopefully you will get forced into some situations where you need to send a less than ideal team into a dungeon instead of steamrolling poo poo with your A team 24/7 like you can now.
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Feb 14, 2015 06:38
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paranoid randroid posted:I'm still always getting one negative and one positive quirk after every mission and at this point I'm not sure if it's a bug or not. All I know for sure is that it makes quirks pointless because both sides of the ledger get filled up pretty much right away and there's even less reason to make distinctions between characters. How is your stress level at the end of missions, generally? The higher the stress level the greater chance of a negative quirk. One more good reason to bring a jester.
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Feb 14, 2015 07:09
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Really enjoying the game so far, it's ridiculously polished for being Early Access. Even if it proceeded to never change again, I think I'd still feel like I at least got my money's worth. I do agree that there is a bit of an issue where there's too much customisability in some places, and not enough in others, that leads to characters of a class all feeling very similar, though. It'll be less problematic with more classes added (so you won't be using the same classes quite as often), but on the whole I think I'd do the following: 1) Nerf the ability to freely pick abilities. If you're at the wagon choosing between two characters of a given class, and one has good quirks and the other comes with a great skill loadout, you'll pick the first one every time, because the difference only represents a couple thousand gold's worth of investment, which is largely inconsequential. I wouldn't remove this entirely, but if characters were limited to only learning say, 6 of their class's 8 skills, even though that still doesn't cut off your ability to tailor a character to what you want them to be, but it also means that you'll have a little more distinction between them. 2) Add another, more pronounced 'tier' of quirks (and make the negative version of these way more expensive to remove). Give quirks a chance to proc some chatter when their conditions are met, and make it clear which quirk has triggered. It's like the exact opposite in tone from Darkest Dungeons, but Valkyria Chronicles does a great job of using triggered personality traits to make your characters feel more individual. My character has Demonomania and thinks they're possessed? Give their crits a chance of being boosted, but when it happens they also act all crazy and possessed, and it stresses everyone else. Character's scared of the dark? Give them some worried chatter for when they're close to that threshold. You can't have characters talking too much, but you need to emphasize aspects that set them apart from each other. One of the best parts of the game (slowdown aside, which is a separate issue that should be fixed) is when characters get afflictions or overcome their stress (it is never not a "gently caress YEAH" moment when someone pulls through). Spread a little more of that around. 3) Make trinkets that affect specific class abilities. Someone suggested a potential trinket that would make a Plague Doctor's blight do an extra damage per turn. Give the Occultist one that gives Wyrd a minimum value (say, 1), but ups the bleed chance. Passive boosts spread across the character as a whole can be hard to see; when you focus in on a single skill, you can make it a touch more pronounced, which further underscores the differences between different characters' movesets created by point 1. 4) This would be pretty much pure fluff, but if characters that were frequently in the same party got some camp text between them, even if ridiculously minor, I think it would help them feel more like proper individuals. Granted, all of this is way easier said than done, and involves adding a buttload of text to the game, but hey!
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Feb 14, 2015 07:12
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:How is your stress level at the end of missions, generally? The higher the stress level the greater chance of a negative quirk. One more good reason to bring a jester. Doesn't seem to matter. I just killed the Hag and my Graverobber with straight up 0 stress got two quirks, same as the Occultist with 75 stress. I started a new game, killed the bandits without going above one pip of stress on either Dismas or Reynauld and they both got two quirks.
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Feb 14, 2015 07:17
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RightClickSaveAs posted:It's not outside the realm of possibility that they'll add a hardcore mode for all the weirdos who want their video games to be some kind of masochistic endurance contest. Allaniis posted:Just don't bring her into the Warrens, like I did. Big mistake. He's not supreme damage dealer deluxe but she's versatile and useful. Rascyc fucked around with this message at 08:52 on Feb 14, 2015 |
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Feb 14, 2015 08:49
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I think the swine prince is the easiest boss in the game. I'm also really excited to see what they do with the Cove because I'm a huge sucker for sea-related horrors and I hope there are crap people. Incidentally one thing I really, really want them to do with the next patch is let us skip dialogue. The text boxes take no time to read but every time one pops up in battle it adds an additional, and inexplicable, like five or more seconds of waiting for it to go away before I can take a character's turn.
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Feb 14, 2015 10:22
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ive started a new town where i am not gonna buy a single torch. It is so much harder than playing with torches, ive only killed the first necro and pig bosses. Probably had around 15 people die and i have to spend a lot of money on grooming people into murdergods to even get anywhere.
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Feb 14, 2015 10:47
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Nuebot posted:I'm also really excited to see what they do with the Cove because I'm a huge sucker for sea-related horrors and I hope there are crap people. Gross. "Craaaap people, craaaap people, taste like poo poo..."
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Feb 14, 2015 10:48
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Slaapaav posted:ive started a new town where i am not gonna buy a single torch. It is so much harder than playing with torches, ive only killed the first necro and pig bosses. Probably had around 15 people die and i have to spend a lot of money on grooming people into murdergods to even get anywhere. I hope you find a lot of moon rings.
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Feb 14, 2015 10:51
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I was having a discussion about the game earlier and it came up that, thematically, it makes no sense to restrict non-combat non-camp healing - that is, my vestal/crusader/etc. can heal for free every round in combat; why, then, when faced with no enemies, can they not heal? Mechanically it's absolutely the right choice; I believe someone in the thread brought up that balancing to severely restrict out of combat healing makes it a game of 'you versus the dungeon' rather than 'you versus a fight' repeated a dozen times. At the basic level, they could theoretically handwave it by saying 'that will draw unwanted attention', or if that's taken a step further, allow it out of combat but at the cost of using skills having like a 60% or better chance of engaging a random pack of mobs; this would provide a gambling choice (and a way to save my graverobber bleeding on death's door after combat, drat you all I have a heal whyyyy) without actually being a good or a smart choice in most situations. But it gives the player agency in their own gently caress-ups, more than they already have, and further cements the feeling that you have to take risks, you have to live with your choices biting you in the rear end. Alternately, and this is getting a bit more in the weeds, they could alter healing skills in such a way that they require a hostile target; then at least your vestal could be all "Can't call the holy powers boss nothin' to smite here" but that doesn't seem like quite as good a solution as it would run the risk of making heal-y and non-heal-y classes more homogeneous. In story-corner, my Dismas steadily racked up negative quirks banning him from one stress establishment after another, capped off with the one that only lets him flagellate. You were headed that direction anyhow little dude, I guess you wanted there to be no uncertainty. 
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Feb 14, 2015 10:52
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BlackIronHeart posted:Gross. Oh no, B and P are nowhere near each other how did I do that! I'm still going to stand by it though. Bring on the fecal demons.  CapitanGarlic posted:At the basic level, they could theoretically handwave it by saying 'that will draw unwanted attention', or if that's taken a step further, allow it out of combat but at the cost of using skills having like a 60% or better chance of engaging a random pack of mobs; this would provide a gambling choice (and a way to save my graverobber bleeding on death's door after combat, drat you all I have a heal whyyyy) without actually being a good or a smart choice in most situations. But it gives the player agency in their own gently caress-ups, more than they already have, and further cements the feeling that you have to take risks, you have to live with your choices biting you in the rear end. I wouldn't mind if at least one character got to have an ability like that. Some kind of heal at the risk of an encounter (maybe base it on how much torch light you have even, or make it also consume torch light.) Nothing disappoints me more than when a guy dies to a DoT outside of battle in this game.
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Feb 14, 2015 10:57
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CapitanGarlic posted:
My dismas and reynald are still alive, the pd died 3 or 4 weeks in. the vestral lived for a long time making it all the way to level 3 before she died, she had nightowl and tough but still died RIP dismas has the same negative quirks as your guy. no bar no gambling only flagellates, so future quirks are probably generated in advance when you hire someone
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Feb 14, 2015 11:07
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CapitanGarlic posted:I was having a discussion about the game earlier and it came up that, thematically, it makes no sense to restrict non-combat non-camp healing - that is, my vestal/crusader/etc. can heal for free every round in combat; why, then, when faced with no enemies, can they not heal? Mechanically it's absolutely the right choice; I believe someone in the thread brought up that balancing to severely restrict out of combat healing makes it a game of 'you versus the dungeon' rather than 'you versus a fight' repeated a dozen times. The problem with "you vs. the dungeon" mechanics is they intrinsically limit the difficulty of the game and often in a very bad way. If an individual fight is not supposed to really be a challenge, it's exclusively about taxing a resource. The way many JRPGs manage this is by forcing you to make at least some modicurn of choice between conserving MP (or items, etc) and trying to squeak by. But usually they do this by making individual fights potentially dangerous if you cut corners, forcing you to try to decide how conservative to play. It's rarely perfect in execution but that's the overall idea in play. But there are no MP in DD, so nothing but health/sanity is being taxed. So the only decision you really make is what party to bring, and that's not much of a decision at all since you obviously just want to load on whoever results in you taking ~0 damage a fight and then cure up the stress in camp. So basically you aren't making decisions at all, really, in addition to things being extremely easy.
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Feb 14, 2015 15:50
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I'm looking forward to see how this game develops. At the moment this game is rather shallow, something you'll most likely notice when you hit the level 3 dungeons. There's still half a year for them to add things onto it before the final release, though.
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Feb 14, 2015 15:57
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This game is in a pretty good state for an Early Access title.
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Feb 14, 2015 16:38
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ZypherIM posted:To be fair, the retreat option is hard to see if you don't know where to look already, and the in-battle retreat option is only visible if you have the right window selected. Really needs to change, and be like top left, and larger. There's no real penalty for losing an entire team of dudes, so no real need to use it.
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Feb 14, 2015 16:41
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Onkel Hedwig posted:This game is in a pretty good state for an Early Access title. It's just the feeling that when you've done a few level 3 dungeons you have basically seen all there is to see.
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Feb 14, 2015 16:42
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Anatharon posted:There's no real penalty for losing an entire team of dudes, so no real need to use it. you lose your whole inventory and any gold invested in your guys?
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Feb 14, 2015 16:49
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You lose time and time is money!
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Feb 14, 2015 16:58
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Slaapaav posted:you lose your whole inventory and any gold invested in your guys? Gold is pretty much worth less than nothing. Like, I can regularly stack 48 meals into a party and still come out way on top with gold. Incidently I do feel the game's too easy, with the main difficulty being how the turn order feels up in the air. Adding something for gold to actually go into and expanding hazards beyond "maybe bring a shovel I guess" would be good. Early Access and all that though. I'm just using my brother's copy via family sharing so I can't complain.
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Feb 14, 2015 17:00
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I think turn order being somewhat randomized and hidden is a deliberate design decision to add tension; you don't know if you'll be able to heal or not, you don't know whether you have time to attack or need to heal RIGHT NOW.
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Feb 14, 2015 17:09
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I think turn order being somewhat randomized and hidden is a deliberate design decision to add tension; you don't know if you'll be able to heal or not, you don't know whether you have time to attack or need to heal RIGHT NOW. I get the principle, I just don't think it works in practice. The only deaths I've ever had were full HP dudes getting 100-0'd without a chance to do anything.
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Feb 14, 2015 17:13
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