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Houndmaster is just a fantastic class overall, and insanely flexible. He can stun, bleed, mark, dodge tank, self heal, stress heal..... I tend to bias toward party compositions where everyone can do something from any rank, and Houndmaster is a perfect fit for that.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:09
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paranoid randroid posted:to add onto class discussion for newbs, bear in mind that different classes excel at hitting different enemy spots. arbalests and grave robbers are primo for assassinating back line nuisance enemies, but are kind of lackluster at hitting front ranks. hellions can hit just about everything from the front row, but also take debuffs from some of their attacks. Dude,, those common fish troops can hit for 8-10 AND do 3hp/3turn bleed in the beginner dungeons. And they always come in packs.
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Oct 6, 2015 00:49
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Finally seen my very first houndmaster show up on the wagon and snagged him. Plays really fun in my view: threatens all positions, nice stun, applies bleeds like a champ and sinergizes well with people who need marks (Arbalest/BH). I assume he is bad for Ruins runs as the undead don't bleed, but oh well. One question: does Marking enemies give them any penalties or effects other than making skills like sniper shot stronger?
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Oct 6, 2015 01:02
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Sephyr posted:One question: does Marking enemies give them any penalties or effects other than making skills like sniper shot stronger? Marking enemies only affects the damage done by "+ damage vs Marked Targets" skills, Although I believe the Houndmaster's mark skill also comes with a Protection debuff.
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Oct 6, 2015 01:36
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This game is interesting but the pacing is just boring to me. Is there some option hidden somewhere to remove / speed up the animations? The combat is super samey and bounces between feeling super safe and uninteresting to RNGesus crucifying you without any ability to react, and progression is very slow since I have to train up new guys all the time and cycle people through the various stress cleansers. Is there something I'm doing wrong? I don't feel like it's a high tension, high stakes game, I feel like it's incredibly boring and repetitive followed by "well, ya got hosed" when suddenly the enemies decide to all focus the same character and kill them without any ability on my part to interact.
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Oct 6, 2015 02:28
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Ran into two consecutive titan crabs today. That is pretty much the worst encounter ever in the cove goddamn. 8 dmg/turn DoT is so awful.
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Oct 6, 2015 05:59
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Bring extra bandages/bleed resist and they become a non-threat. Dodge is good too although less reliable.
Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 09:48 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 09:45
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Sigma-X posted:This game is interesting but the pacing is just boring to me. Is there some option hidden somewhere to remove / speed up the animations? Suck less? But uh, for real, maybe a strategy game like this isn't for you. I've seen plenty of people coming and going saying essentially this. I don't have a real answer for you either. The complaints against the RNG are just personal perception and your ability to be aware of what can go wrong and to plan for them will greatly effect your success rates and effect how you react to the nature of the game when things go poorly. Getting grumpy over the RNG is a symptom I see in other games I play too (most notably blood bowl) and it's always the first timers, rookies, or unexplained bizarre players that have stuck with it but still suck that blame the RNG. The odds are not hidden. They are plainly there for you to see and plan around. It is a simple matter to assess the odds and the situation and make smart, well informed actions. Blaming the RNG is, to me, a statement on the player, rather than the game. I've never found the game to be repetitive enough to be disinteresting. There could stand to be more mission types and I'm sure there will be by launch. The constant different party compositions to take, the varying enemies and enemy formations, the skill selections and synergies, the quirks and benefits/drawbacks... There is so much fluctuating and so many different ways the hundreds of pieces interact together that I find if very, very hard to think of it as repetitive. In specific to gameplay things, it's pretty rare for me to see a character take more than two hits a turn. So rare, that I'd almost go to say there is probably code hidden from the player to prevent that sort of thing under normal circumstances. I have never seen a character take four hits an turn, and fail to recall even three hits. But my memory is poo poo and don't count it. Edge cases can happen where a character his hit at the end of a turn, and then again at the beginning of a turn before you have a chance to act between, but those are by far an exception rather than anything common in my experience. If you are losing people on the regular, and are having to cycle men through stress relief more than every other week, then you're doing something wrong. I can't say what with out watching you play, but I can say that again, losing people and needing to send them to drink a week away in the tavern should be the rarity rather than the norm. Other than that, all I got is some basic gameplay suggestions. Pick your teams carefully with consideration to who is going to be grouped together and how well they do or do not interact together, and pay attention to which dungeon you are sending them too. Know what threats you will face ahead of time and plan accordingly. Feed back I've gotten from streams is that most people don't spend more than a moments thought on the embark screen to do this. People pick the guys they already wanted to go out with and just pick any mission. There are some obvious benefits when you stop and plan out ahead of time. Going to the ruins? Crusaders are a good bet for +unholy damage dealing. Pack a plague doctor too because skeletons have very weak blight resists. Do not bring things that are heavily reliant on bleed damage, like Jesters (depending how you use them), Hellions to a lesser extent (I love 'If It Bleeds'). With the new Cove dungeon giving people so much trouble, again plan ahead a little. Don't go in reliant on bleed. Expect to take bleed damage so bring a way to cure it, plague doctors or bandages. Bring characters with high bleed resist or swap trinkets around to give your frontliners bleed resist! I doubt anyone goes into the cove and thinks 'Hey, going to the cove, why not give my front guys this charm that ups bleed resist 30%'. Planning out things like that can make for dramatic shifts in party effectiveness. E: Oh, and stuns. Stuns are the best thing. Typically stunning an enemy is the most effective use of your turn. You get a mild attack for damage and stun them, and they lose a turn. It's a winning move. This is even true in cases of stunning vs healing, which may be surprising. Using a vestal to deal 2-5 dmg and stun a fishman is a better use of her turn than healing for 3-7hp. If you heal you get 3-7hp back and the fish hits you for 8, maybe even puts bleed on it ontop of that. Net loss, right? Stun the fish and you deal 2-5 damage and the fish does zero. Net gain. Of course stuns can get resisted, but really, stuns are almost always the best use of a turn for any given character unless they can straight up attack for enough damage to kill the target outright. Jade Star fucked around with this message at 12:06 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 11:58
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Jade Star posted:I have never seen a character take four hits an turn, and fail to recall even three hits. But my memory is poo poo and don't count it. Yeah this definitely happens. RIP Dismas, you were a good bro. This game definitely does have situations where it goes "gently caress you" and you get critted four times in a row. Luckily that's rare, but the guy seems to be saying "Some encounters are fairly easy and then every now and again, a guy will get taken from me in one turn". That seems pretty fair to mention, being on the receiving end of that a few times I can relate. I'd suggest he manages his health/party layout a bit better. He's probably skimping on the consumables too (lord knows i did). Sigma-X posted:Is there something I'm doing wrong? I don't feel like it's a high tension, high stakes game The pacing does kinda suck for the first few outings, because your first few teams should really be you throwing rookies at the problem then firing them while the guys you actually want to keep heal up. The high stakes gameplay comes later, where you've invested a bunch of time into a dude, but you have one more room to clear but you're almost out of items and the light is dying but you're fairly sure you can handle it.
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Oct 6, 2015 12:15
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dogstile posted:Yeah this definitely happens. RIP Dismas, you were a good bro. I'd honestly want to see this happen, like a stream or something before I believe it. With a full party alive that sounds impossible and I am wiling to bet the event was something more like 2 attacks, round ends, new round starts with 2 more attacks. dogstile posted:The pacing does kinda suck for the first few outings, because your first few teams should really be you throwing rookies at the problem then firing them while the guys you actually want to keep heal up. I see people say this a lot, and it makes sense. But I have never hired people at the start of a campaign, chewed them up, and fired them for stress or whatever reasons. And they aren't dying. 100% of the guys i hire off the wagon I intend to keep and make use of. I just never get into a situation where grabbing 4 rookies and sending them into a dungeon to get as much loot before they die/stress out has been a necessary action to take. Jade Star fucked around with this message at 12:21 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 12:17
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Counterpoint: Its fun and makes me try out less than optimal parties.
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Oct 6, 2015 12:22
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dogstile posted:Counterpoint: Its fun and makes me try out less than optimal parties. Oh, yeah, if you're doing it for fun, gently caress it. have a blast and give poo poo a try. If the argument is that the early game is accomplished by tossing rookies into a meat grinder en masse to fund the elite few, and that is how the early game is meant to be, then no.
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Oct 6, 2015 12:25
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Its definitely a valid strategy. So long as rookies remain free and plentiful it always will be. E: They should change it, is what i'm saying.
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Oct 6, 2015 12:29
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Jade Star posted:I'd honestly want to see this happen, like a stream or something before I believe it. I don't have a stream for you (does an image work?) but literally just after reading your big post above I had all four enemies attack the same dude in the first round. Luckily one missed and one was a low-dmg push but even so he was left with only a sliver of health. I have lost the odd dude to freak streaks like that before but it's rare. That said it hasn't stopped me from killing all non-cove bosses, maxing out my hamlet and having a bunch of lvl 6 dudes so it's hardly like the game is cripplingly unfair.  It was the Bounty Hunter at the back. Note it is round one. The dmg on the other guys was from a previous fight and the BH was at full or near-full HP at the start of the battle.
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Oct 6, 2015 12:44
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PD is pretty great for cove from what I've done. Glider's post is pretty solid for introduction, as you play more you'll adjust to how you like to play. In general I'd say to look to bring 1 solid front line guy like crusader, man-at-arms, or leper. If you're going ruins try to bring the crusader, other-wise it doesn't really matter. Then you want some sort of high damage guy, hellion is a great standard (grab the standard attack and if-it-bleeds) that puts out solid damage. I'd avoid bounty hunters until you get more used to things, or if you want to build a party that runs a bunch of marking stuff. Highwayman/grave robber both work pretty well, can attack a variety of stuff, and can handle being out of position well. A hellion is probably still easier to use until you start to get used to those classes. Jester I'd avoid for now for similar reasons to the bounty hunter, you need to understand more things to build up a plan to use him. I'd bring one healer, either vestal or occultist. Once you get used to things there are a lot of other options, but these are pretty standard. In general vestals are better for high light runs, occultist low light. Basically vestal gets some stuff that increases light level, while occultist tends to be doing more damaging attacks. Attacks/pulls/stuns are almost always better than healing, once stuff is down to just 1 guy or so you can toss down heals. This leaves you with 1 slot open, probably position 3. Taking another damage guy is a solid option, and helps stay in the mindset of killing faster to prevent damage. Grave robber/highwayman slot nicely here. Plague doc can be great for some setups, mainly if you don't have strong attacks against their backline. If you do bring a plague doc, don't bother healing the bleed from the occultist's heal. It does 3 damage, and if you can stun even 1 enemy you'll prevent more than that. Stuff like multiple bleeds from dogs/cultists are good heal candidates, or if you need to pull someone off of death's door with the 1 point heal. Also, some areas are really blight resistant which make her a lot weaker, so her good spots in general are ruins/cove. One big thing is to stop by the guild to train really good abilities for your guys. Unless you plan on only using them for 1 run, always do this. Some classes it doesn't matter because they're all great (man-at-arms) while most of them have some very situational skills, or some out-right duds (plague doctor bleed skill). Once your guys are level 1, try to run medium dungeons. There are a lot of neat strategies you can use once you have camp skills, so in general I have a lot more fun with those runs. Camp skills are 1750 to train, and you need your shields for other upgrades, so in general I don't bother with those until I'm doing level 3 dungeons. Here are 3 party comps, first two are about the simplest and the third is a little more complicated. The starting party given to you, Vestal-PD-Highwayman-Crusader. Great for ruins, not bad for cove. Ok for wield, warrens. Warrens probably only in medium+ missions to take advantage of PD healing diseases at camp. Vestal needs judgement and single target heal at least. Party heal and the stun are good options. Stun high damage enemies or backline stressors. PD take the condition cure, backline stun, backline blight, and shuffle. Stun their backline, then blight their backline. If you're having to blight just 1 guy a lot, or feel like it isn't working out well, swap it for the +dmg/speed buff, and give it to crusader on round 2. Highwayman doesn't need anything specific, but I'd avoid grapeshot blast. It is great for some situations or setups, but in general you'll want to be doing single target. Crusader should have stun and holy lance. Holy lance lets him be really good if he gets pushed out of position, the stun can be useful for some situations. Check to see if just swinging will kill stuff before you go for the stun though! Vestal-GR/Highwayman-MAA-Hellion. Should be able to basically go anywhere, better for the wield/warrens than the previous party, not as great in the ruins, cove crabs a bit more dangerous. Good at hitting all ranks. Vestal is basically the same as before. Grave robber skip the blight skills, but grab throw dagger and pick to the face. Highwayman the bleed skill and pistol shot are what you want to make sure to have. Both of these attack ranks 1-3. If not going to the warrens you can take the GR blight skill, and her self-cure is pretty decent. MAA you want rampart and the default attack crush. After that it literally doesn't matter, all his skills are great and useful in some way. Hellion make sure to grab If-it-bleeds and iron swan. Being in slot 1 lets you hit anywhere with a solid attack. I like grabbing the self-buff after they added blight/bleed removal from it, but remember that it is a "last round of combat" or "giant stack of conditions" ability in general. Usually better to kill something with an attack, but great to have when needed. Arbalist-Occ-Leper-Hellion. Similar to previous party, with leper having a more restricted targeting options than MAA, but Arbalist/Occ being a higher damage option than vestal+GR/BH. Surprise attacks are much more dangerous to this party than others, you'll want to prioritize killing anything you can over moving spots for the first couple rounds. On the other hand, you can stabilize very well with everyone having some sort of heal to get off of death's door, and a crit occultist heal can almost full heal some people. Arbalist skills are a bit unintuitive. Don't take the mark skill, or either area damage skill. If your occultist has something marked then sniper shot it, if there is something that sniper shot (no mark) will kill sniper that, otherwise blindfire. Rare cases for heal/flare can come up too, but usually damage+speed boost to follow up on something will let you get something killed before it can act the next turn. Guaranteed heal lets you cover the occultists weakness to pull someone off death's door. Occultist wants his heal and vulnerability hex (the one that marks). Both his pull and backline attack are great, sacrificial stab is surprisingly good, and weakening curse is amazing against bosses. He naturally has a really high crit rate, speed, and crit mod on skills. He'll end up doing a lot more damage than you expect. Look for something to mark if your arbalist hasn't gone yet, abyssal artillery is a solid choice if it'll hit 2. Stabbing a weak slot 2/3 enemy is a strong option if something is already marked, or if there are high damage enemies (usually not until level 3 or 5 dungeons) slap a -dmg on them. His heal can do a surprising amount, but isn't a set minimum so best when your guys are like half hp. Leper is really self sufficient, but has some low level pitfalls. I'd only take 1 attack, so don't take hew. Purge can be useful to push something into a bad spot or clears corpses, revenge lets you hit stuff but makes you vulnerable, and you have a heal/stress heal with extra benefits. Low level I'd take chop+purge+both heals, and mainly aim to get in the way. Later on he really opens up and can wreck, and if you do get some lucky hits he can be great. Any camping +acc buffs let him start to do respectable damage. Until then, he can swing or just be the guy that you don't have to worry about using any one else's turns to keep healed/low stress. Hellion is like the previous party, high damage hits anywhere. Here is a party setup to try after you're a bit more comfortable. It requires a medium+ length dungeon and at least level 1. Occ-HWM-HWM-Occ. The idea of this party is to stack up camping buffs. Each occultist uses dark strength (+20% dmg) on one highwayman, who each use clean guns (+10 acc, +20% dmg, +5% crit). This uses up 10 time units, so you can use your last 2 on bandit's sense (less surprises on you, more on enemies). Damage +- are additive, so +40% damage put pistol shot at +15% instead of -25%, grapeshot at -20% instead of -60%, and point blank at +90%. Fireflash powder is a common relic that is +10% ranged damage for -20% stun resist. There is a rare relic that gives +20% dmg if you can get it, other good options are +crit or +acc. So you have 2 guys hitting 3 rows for somewhere between -20% and +10% damage, with decent crit/hit. Pistol shot is hitting for +15% to +45% with roughly 20%+ crit rate. Your back row occultist is taking abyssal, heal, and the pull. The front row occultist taking the stun, both curses, and stab. If there are 3 enemies you grapeshot, if 2 look at their health and decide, at 1 you just pistol. Alternate option is when you get to 1 enemy pull your front occultist back and have the front highwayman use point blank shot (lower crit rate but higher base damage). Occultists do damage if they can or debuff/move/stun if there is something that needs it. ZypherIM fucked around with this message at 13:59 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 13:03
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dogstile posted:Its definitely a valid strategy. So long as rookies remain free and plentiful it always will be. I think you misunderstand me. It's totally a valid strategy and it should be. It's just not the only way, as I've seen a few people say. It's valid and leave it in. But players can get by with out resorting to those means.
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Oct 6, 2015 13:05
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ZypherIM posted:stuff
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Oct 6, 2015 13:18
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Thanks, I'll go change that. Sometimes I type stuff, reread it, and still get it wrong. Let me know if I missed anything or something isn't clear! Edit: Here is another useful thing you can do. Keep an eye out for a common trinket called a bloodthirst charm. The stats on it are -100% food consumed, +10% max hp, -4 dodge. Throw this on someone who is at 0 dodge for some reason, or your rank 4 guy. When you have a hunger event or camp, that person reduces the food cost by 1. You can either use this to take less food, or to let you use some food between fights to heal a tad. I think there is a bug right now either with the ring or a perk that is making camping extra cheep as well. ZypherIM fucked around with this message at 14:34 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 13:58
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Iron Chitlin posted:Marking enemies only affects the damage done by "+ damage vs Marked Targets" skills, Although I believe the Houndmaster's mark skill also comes with a Protection debuff. Marks have a "mark" and some of them also have a debuff. As far as I know, the Mark is always applied, but the debuff can be resisted. Occultist's is -dodge, I think, Hound Master's is -prot, and Arb's I'm not sure about offhand.
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Oct 6, 2015 15:25
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Always put the Hellion in rank 1 if you bring her. That lets you give her the basic chop, If It Bleeds, and Iron Swan for reliable, no-downsides assbeating power against every enemy rank, and with a spare ability slot for whatever you want. She's fairly robust, so she works fine as a tank. I like to put a Crusader behind her for Holy Lance, extra damage/tanking, and maybe stuns or emergency heals.
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Oct 6, 2015 18:04
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Yea I think there is only one or two attacks that only hit rank 1 and not rank 2. The only time to really not put her in spot 1 is if you have a leper with trinkets that give him bonuses when he is in rank 1.
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Oct 6, 2015 18:21
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I honestly like just putting another Hellion in rank 2. She won't be able to hit rank 4 but she'll be able to hit everywhere else between If It Bleeds and Wicked Hack. And stuff in the enemy's rank 4 tends to die in one Iron Swan anyways so it's like whatever. You get diminishing returns on a third Hellion though since they'll really only be able to use If It Bleeds. I've done it, though.
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Oct 6, 2015 19:13
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i wouldnt say the PD's incision skill is a dud — its not great by any stretch of the imagination, but its perfectly serviceable for finishing off enemies. no -dmg%, and a good +crit% means it can put out some decent damage. its ok for rounding out her skillset in areas with lots of blight resistant enemies.
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Oct 6, 2015 20:50
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Incision is a dud because it is pretty crap in almost any situation. The ONLY time it is worth using is if there is an enemy in rank 1 or 2 that you'll guaranteed kill in that swing that is also blight resistant. The basic accuracy on it kind of sucks too. You're better off served having something else slotted into that for such a larger percentage of the time that you can't really make a valid argument for taking it.
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Oct 6, 2015 22:21
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eh, barring the blight skills leaves you with the option of taking both blinding powder AND disorienting blast. that leaves you with situations where you just want to put some damage out to kill the last guy in the fight but wind up with a wasted turn because the PD cant actually hit anything. i can see the virtue in taking both a stun and a shuffle on top of her buffbot skills, but honestly i hate wasted turns so much im willing to put up with incision being lackluster. its also something she can use from the front ranks, in the event a surprise encounter pushes her up there. its at least not as bad as the vestals cudgel attack, which is basically only useful when you get surprised e. ok i guess you could also heal a papercut with battlefield medicine, but ehhhhhhhhhhhhh paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 22:57 on Oct 6, 2015 |
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Oct 6, 2015 22:51
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Jade Star posted:Suck less? But uh, for real, maybe a strategy game like this isn't for you. I've seen plenty of people coming and going saying essentially this. I don't have a real answer for you either. Hey man you might want to get off your high horse. My complaint isn't the RNG. My complaint is that the game is boring as gently caress for 95% of the time with a slow and even plod except for the 5% where the AI quad-focuses a single hero and scores multiple crits and now that hero is dead. I was shocked, too, because I had never seen the enemies hit someone more than twice, and this consisted of like Mark-hit, Mark+attack, Crit, Crit. This has happened once, and other that and learning the hard way what the stress UI is / how it works, I'm not dying at all, I'm not losing at all. I'm not sucking. It's a slow and boring game without any sense of progression. I send the same/same-ish guys into the same dungeon, kill the same thigns the same way with teh same strategies that I used in the first loving dungeon, getting the same largely inconsequential and certainly not strategic items. I'm like 3 hours into this game so far. Compared to like FTL where any particular encounter feels like it can go lovely and there's a lot of high risk/reward choices, every encounter in this game in the 3 hours I've played so far has been the same loving slog. Looking at that screenshot someone posted they have clearly high level dudes as they have like 50+hp but they're fighting the same loving monsters with teh same loving abilities and tactics I'm guessing that they were fighting 5 hours prior.
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Oct 7, 2015 00:57
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Sigma-X posted:Hey man you might want to get off your high horse. My complaint isn't the RNG. My complaint is that the game is boring as gently caress for 95% of the time with a slow and even plod except for the 5% where the AI quad-focuses a single hero and scores multiple crits and now that hero is dead. I was shocked, too, because I had never seen the enemies hit someone more than twice, and this consisted of like Mark-hit, Mark+attack, Crit, Crit. This has happened once, and other that and learning the hard way what the stress UI is / how it works, I'm not dying at all, I'm not losing at all. I'm not sucking. It's a slow and boring game without any sense of progression. I send the same/same-ish guys into the same dungeon, kill the same thigns the same way with teh same strategies that I used in the first loving dungeon, getting the same largely inconsequential and certainly not strategic items. I'm like 3 hours into this game so far. Oh. Then this probably isn't your kind of game. Is it too late to get a refund through Steam?
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Oct 7, 2015 01:16
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Yeah i'm gonna agree with time here, this isn't your thing dude.
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Oct 7, 2015 01:28
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Time_pants posted:Oh. Then this probably isn't your kind of game. Is it too late to get a refund through Steam? I was a kickstarter backer so I'm boned  I was hoping for something faster paced (I was expecting something that was shorter session/higher stakes like FTL), but this game feels like a F2P grind.
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Oct 7, 2015 02:08
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Sigma-X posted:I was a kickstarter backer so I'm boned That's a tough break.
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Oct 7, 2015 04:15
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I agree 100% with Sigma-X about the animation speeds. Not an animation as such, but along the same lines, it's particularly obnoxious when your characters bark to "hold up a moment" when you've reached the door at the end of a corridor. Presumably it's to alert new players to interactable dungeon features but it's completely unnecessary for doorways and really annoying when you can obviously see the loving door and just want to walk through it but can't actually interact with the game for a moment until the speech bubble disappears. It's equally unnecessary for other features after you've seen your first one and know it's not background. I'd really like to speed up the combat animations and barks too, it's annoying having to wait for your dudes to boast about their crits after you've seen the text a bunch of times already and even more frustrating when it's affliction-related barks because things are already going badly and now you have to wait for your team to whine about it. These tend to be chained with barks about being critted too for even longer periods of non-interaction. The gameplay being repetitive is also a valid complaint, but I would say this is true of the vast majority of games to greater or lesser degrees. Darkest Dungeon at least has enough variation in class and ability combos to keep it somewhat interesting. That said I usually only play 1-3 dungeon runs in a sitting but still find the game fun to come back to for 30-60 minutes at a time. Once you find a couple of good class combos and know what to expect in each dungeon, the bosses are the only real challenge outside of the occasional bad RNG streak. Even the bosses can be trivial once you figure out how to counter them. Eg stack Occultist's dmg debuff on Swine King, focus the stick guy on the brigand cannon, bring a team who can hit the back ranks from any position against the hag, etc. I'd like to see unique bosses at each tier of each dungeon instead of the same couple re-used with higher stats. More new enemies at higher tiers would be good too. There are a couple (eg swinetaur) but more variation forcing new strategies would help keep the game fresh. I think DD is a great game, but let's not pretend it's not without its flaws. Wafflecopper fucked around with this message at 04:53 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 04:44
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No question that DD still has some flaws to address. Personally, I'd like to see a lot more enemy variety overall. I think the Cove's assortment of enemies is by far the most diverse and engaging, and I'd love to see a lot of the preexisting monsters in the other three dungeons brought on par with that level of engagement, where each encounter is an assortment of competing priorities. In the Cove, you have encounters like, "Well, I want to get rid of the exploding zombie, but I also want to take down the healer/buffer in the back. But I can't afford to let the Guardian monster defend either of those monsters, especially if it means him stacking up Protection. Then again, my party's health is kind of low and I don't want that swordsman swinging on me for 20-ish damage each round while I try to clear out these other threats." In other dungeons--particularly the Ruins--a lot of encounters boil down to, "Do I want to kill the damaging enemies or the stress-inducing enemies first?" Some dungeons are better than others in this respect. The Warrens, in particular, has some great encounter compositions with Swinetaurs and Cultists taking advantage of their skills to reposition themselves in their ideal rows if they aren't swiftly dealt with. Class balance is something else that could use a lot of improvement. The Crusader isn't a terribly interesting class in general, and the PD and Jester still need a lot of work to really feel like they belong in a party when they have to compete with classes like the Grave Robber and Occultist for a spot. I just can't find much about the PD or Jester that really works other than the former's back-row Stun. Especially when compared to the three newest classes, the Arbalest, Houndmaster, and Man-at-Arms, the PD, Crusader, and Jester seem completely unpolished, which there really isn't an excuse for, seeing as how they've been in the game from the beginning. That said, the joy of these sorts of games, for me, is mixing and matching different classes and trying to find interesting and novel party compositions to run. In that regard, DD has blown me away, especially since it has managed to keep things fresh and engaging with only a handful of new classes having been introduced since the start of early access. I'm definitely biased, though. DD is already one of my favorite games of all time. I've sunk almost 80 hours into it so far and can definitely see that figure doubling before I put it down for good.
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Oct 7, 2015 07:51
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Sigma-X posted:My complaint isn't the RNG. Hmm.... Sigma-X posted:RNGesus crucifying you Are you sure? Sigma-X posted:I send the same/same-ish guys into the same dungeon, kill the same thigns the same way with teh same strategies that I used in the first loving dungeon, getting the same largely inconsequential and certainly not strategic items. I'm like 3 hours into this game so far. If you feel that Darkest Dungeon is same/sameish in character design and control, and the fights all feel the same to you, and then you cite FTL where you have the exact same ship every fight every time, and that the fights in FTL don't feel sameish to you (Shoot shield generator till shields are down, then shoot other things) then there is nothing anyone can tell you that will change your mind. There is just something that clicks with you in FTL and that is absent in darkest dungeon. Jade Star fucked around with this message at 12:28 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 12:21
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Sigma-X posted:Hey man you might want to get off your high horse. My complaint isn't the RNG. My complaint is that the game is boring as gently caress for 95% of the time with a slow and even plod except for the 5% where the AI quad-focuses a single hero and scores multiple crits and now that hero is dead. I was shocked, too, because I had never seen the enemies hit someone more than twice, and this consisted of like Mark-hit, Mark+attack, Crit, Crit. This has happened once, and other that and learning the hard way what the stress UI is / how it works, I'm not dying at all, I'm not losing at all. I'm not sucking. It's a slow and boring game without any sense of progression. I send the same/same-ish guys into the same dungeon, kill the same thigns the same way with teh same strategies that I used in the first loving dungeon, getting the same largely inconsequential and certainly not strategic items. I'm like 3 hours into this game so far. where do all these retards who think that FTL is not 100% RNG come from
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Oct 7, 2015 13:59
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I really like both this and ftl, but generic statement about rng, generic statement about pacing, generic complaint about progression, generic praise of atmosphere. Wow, it's like I could write a whole review and copy paste dd for ftl. Games, there are similarities and differences, sometimes they click, sometimes they don't. Maybe we should go back to fighting over whether dd is a real roguelike or not.
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Oct 7, 2015 19:26
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Jade Star posted:Hmm.... Yeah my complaints aren't the RNG, or rather it's not bitching about the unfairness of the RNG. I would be fine if the game had a more consistently punishing RNG and was balanced around that. But instead it's a boring slog of the same low-risk poo poo with occassional spikes of "get hosed without ability to react" and you have to do it a million times to progress anywhere. What makes FTL fun is that there are a few different strategies that get imposed on you depending on the RNG, you can hit manageable high and low streaks such that the game's tension is varying (unlike DD where there isn't any except for rare spikes of "get hosed"). And regardless as to how the RNG plays things out, the session is over in maybe an hour so it's not a huge time sink. In comparison, I put 3 hours into DD, each 10-15 minute run has felt completely identical except for visuals, and I've scratched off like 2 bosses out the 16 or whatever the gently caress bosses there are (which are all copy-pasted stat increases over the previous version so it's really 4 of them). This is why it feels like a F2P grind - it feels like it's artificially stretching out the pacing and I'm supposed to put $5 into the game to get 2 hours of XP boosts to play the game at the intended pacing.
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Oct 7, 2015 19:41
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Yeah, that sucks. You should probably stop playing it if you're not enjoying it.
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Oct 7, 2015 20:04
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the game could definitely stand to have more enemy variety. every area has one big guy, one intermediate brawler, one caster, and one nuisance rear end in a top hat. last weald run i did, i got the exact same arrangement of giant-spore launcher-witch like three times in a row. also im glad DD doesnt have an equivalent of FTL's thing where it throws a guy with three different kinds of missiles at you in the first area. DD is less about sudden "oh gently caress!" encounters and more about wearing you down and sapping your resources. if you want "oh gently caress!", try doing runs in zero light. nothing like having a fungal giant take your full health leper down to deaths door in one crit. e. one thing id really like to see is each area having three separate bosses, one for each difficulty, instead of the current thing where each area has bosses with three levels. paranoid randroid fucked around with this message at 20:19 on Oct 7, 2015 |
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Oct 7, 2015 20:11
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DOWN JACKET FETISH posted:Yeah, that sucks. You should probably stop playing it if you're not enjoying it. I did 
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Oct 7, 2015 20:21
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paranoid randroid posted:e. one thing id really like to see is each area having three separate bosses, one for each difficulty, instead of the current thing where each area has bosses with three levels. I like the refights and some of them change things up a bit, but I do wish there were 3 bosses with only 1 refight each, spread across the three difficulty levels (so each tier has 2 of the 3 bosses.)
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Oct 7, 2015 20:40
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