Darkest Dungeon - Survival Horror RPG Dungeoncrawl

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Darkest Dungeon - Survival Horror RPG Dungeoncrawl

Megasabin: Sep 9, 2003; I get half!!

MinibarMatchman posted:

"hit consistently" is something I wouldn't say about the Leper but I WAS dumb enough to take him in a party for the Hag, and his big hit at least came in use for knocking guys out of the pot in one hit. Luckily I had GRobber and Highwayman so the shuffling didn't gently caress with him that much. He's great if you ar elucky with to get big crits and can help finish a fight quick.

With camp buffs and trinkets he can hit very consistently (sun ring + his own accuracy buff). I just did the fight on veteran difficulty and he didn't miss a swing for the entire 15ish rounds it took. I hear that the enemies dodge rate gets obnoxious on champion so we'll see.

To the other guy who quoted me. Yea he doesn't 1 shot him, but he kills him in about 2 rounds with 1 attack from anyone else, all while hitting the cannon. This gets even easier when you wipe all 3 out, and reinforcements only come in 1-2 at a time. Leper is really good for that fight.

Megasabin fucked around with this message at 20:38 on Jan 24, 2016

# ? Jan 24, 2016 20:34

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# ? May 31, 2024 14:47

DLC Inc: Jun 1, 2011

Megasabin posted:

With camp buffs and trinkets he can hit very consistently (sun ring + his own accuracy buff). I just did the fight on veteran difficulty and he didn't miss a swing for the entire 15ish rounds it took. I hear that the enemies dodge rate gets obnoxious on champion so we'll see.

sun ring owns for them, that plus Fated have def helped for me. My highest level 5 right now is a Leper, I think it's more due to how he's the last one standing after tanking all the boss damage and then gets his big hit to finish it at the end.

I wish there was a "deaths witnessed" counter so you could see just how many buddies a character has watched die. Maybe put in an achievement for someone living through like 20 other people in their teams dying, "1000 Yard Stare" or some Quirk that intimidates all enemies and gives them a PROT debuff.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 20:41

brocretin: Nov 15, 2012; yo yo yo i loves virgins

Red Hook has said that the current Leper balance is not final, they just didn't want to shove their ideas into the release build untested.

Also, is it really grinding if there are stakes and strategy and consequences? Maybe I'm just more receptive to it than most, but that just sounds like gameplay to me.

fake E: I'm not entirely sure fated actually does anything. The game files have pretty much nothing to say on the topic, though, so I wouldn't put much faith in it.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 20:44

Bad Seafood: Dec 10, 2010; If you must blink, do it now.

vandalism posted:

I used to be pretty good at the game when it first came out, but the changes have been a bit much for me to adapt to.

Expect some overreactions to this but if you're really having that miserable of a time there are certain settings you can toggle in the options menu to moderate how much or how closely the game breathes down your neck.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 20:50

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Nowadays leper accuracy is only 5-10 less than other classes, so it's pretty manageable. His main weakness is his lack of flexibility (without actually being good enough at anything to make up for it.)

# ? Jan 24, 2016 20:58

Kawabata: Apr 20, 2014; You plebians just don't know what epic literature is. You should try reading Stephanie Meyer, E.L. James, Dan Brown, or Ayn Rand.

Krinkle posted:

As far as I can tell once you do all the easy missions and spend all your money on characters who die you for all intents and purposes can't play the game anymore. I don't want to go camping with a bunch of 0s on a medium length mission with no money for torches or food. That is 100% a failure condition and I've had to restart twice now.

I mean nothing I bought, no institutional upgrades change the fact that the only characters that show up have the wrong skills and no armor. I have level 0 naked idiots who are definitely going to starve to death and go crazy in these long missions since I have literally zero gold and can't buy even a single torch or meal.

I"m not going to load up a suicide squad to clear out one hallway come home and fire them with their awful mental problems, repeat 30 times to get maybe 6k gold to equip a real party who will also die because they are still level 0 and can't be upgraded anyway.

Once you're in a hole it's real tempting to try again and hope you don't lose your A team to getting a boner from flagellation and never leaving the goddamn vestry. This would be a non issue if they didn't upgrade zones and remove easy missions after you've completed them or didn't gate all experience behind a successful mission complete.

What? I have capriciously removed/reinforced quirks, invested gold on heroes that died just because I liked them and lost trinkets in the tavern. I knew full well that some of my gold investments were bad, but even then, I'm almost at 30k gold, currently upgrading the blacksmith like crazy, and it seems there's no way to actually "lose" in this game. You're never in a hole.

If ALL your choices were terrible, you can just do suicide missions to recoup about 3k-4k a run. The released game may be harder than EA, but it never forces you to restart, which is something I really appreciate. DD sucker-punches you every time it can but it does show a modicum of respect for the time you choose to invest in it.

Talking about sucker punches, this is a short list of the things I've found brutally unfair so far, and I wonder if they will ever be changed at some point:

- so I have a Vestal. Why can't she heal out of combat. Because this leads to me stalling a fight on purpose (stunning the last dude over and over) to get some heals in; last time I did it in a lvl3 dungeon I lost 2 guys because the enemy called for reinforcements. It's a loving horrifying mechanic punished by an even cheaper game design. Can she at least heal 3 times per dungeon? Something? This is so stupid.
- corpses are dumb, any way you look at them. They don't make any sense.
- will they tone down the random stress gain from, say, reading a book? The only time I lost an entire (scrub) party is when my Vestal gained 62 stress points in a library, got fearful, stopped healing. That was maybe the cheapest moment in a videogame in recent memory. "gently caress you, you lose"

# ? Jan 24, 2016 20:59

Chocobo: Oct 15, 2012; Here comes a new challenger!; Oven Wrangler

You are actually, literally supposed to lose on occasion. That's kind of the point of the game.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:12

Cape Cod Crab Chip: Feb 20, 2011; Now you don't have to suck meat from an exoskeleton!

Corpses are good.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:13

Ciaphas: Nov 20, 2005; > BEWARE, COWARD

Chocobo posted:

You are actually, literally supposed to lose on occasion. That's kind of the point of the game.

It even says so, right at the start!

Lyrax posted:

I've seen some people interpret that as lore or storytelling. It's not, it's literally telling you not to get frustrated and to accept that you will get d once in a while

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:13

Rascyc: Jan 23, 2008; Dissatisfied Puppy

Don't read books, geez.

I do think it's stupid there's nothing positive to do with books.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:16

FreeKillB: May 13, 2009

quote:

- so I have a Vestal. Why can't she heal out of combat. Because this leads to me stalling a fight on purpose (stunning the last dude over and over) to get some heals in; last time I did it in a lvl3 dungeon I lost 2 guys because the enemy called for reinforcements. It's a loving horrifying mechanic punished by an even cheaper game design. Can she at least heal 3 times per dungeon? Something? This is so stupid.

The mechanic (along with the stun resistance thing) is explicitly there to incentivize players against doing mind-numbingly tedious tactics for the sake of being optimal. Taking a Vestal absolutely shouldn't mean that your guys are at 100% health at the start of every fight, the game is not balanced against that, instead being balanced around a constant attrition of health and stress unless you are quite overprepared. Food/camp is the only intended way to hedge your hp pool outside of combat, and food is not too effective, at that. The 'limited heals/dungeon' isn't too broken as an idea, but would probably be quite difficult to balance across the whole game (why not let other characters use buffs/heals/etc? Should the number of uses vary based on dungeon size or difficulty?) I think I got better use out of my vestals, especially in Champion dungeons, when I viewed them not as JRPG healspammers but as characters for whom healing is an option that is often less useful than a stun or attack. Heals definitely have their place, if the fight is in a mop-up phase or if someone's at DD, but even for vestals heals shouldn't be the whole story.

quote:

- corpses are dumb, any way you look at them. They don't make any sense.

I played 20+ hours both during early EA before corpses and upon release and in my opinion the game is tactically richer for having corpses. It's easy to set up a party that can do high DPS on the front rows, but the heroes that can reliably hit the back hard tend to be more restricted. Without the corpse mechanic you can just say 'gently caress it' and plow through the whole enemy party exclusively big front-row attacks. Corpses at least introduce a little lag to that strategy, and reward flexible party compositions.

quote:

- will they tone down the random stress gain from, say, reading a book? The only time I lost an entire (scrub) party is when my Vestal gained 62 stress points in a library, got fearful, stopped healing. That was maybe the cheapest moment in a videogame in recent memory. "gently caress you, you lose"

It's not 'cheap design' if blindly activating curios is a bad idea. That's just like putting a torch into the shambler altar and complaining when the game rips you a new rear end in a top hat. Also:

FreeKillB posted:

Rule one of Lovecraft setting is don't read books! Books are bad for you!

e: to be fair even books have a ~chance~ of a positive outcome, but it's not a lottery worth playing unless perhaps if your party is full of disposable scrubs.

You have the choice of reading spoilers for the curios, but it's not too hard to build up a knowledge base of what item interactions are positive through trial and error, just mildly expensive in terms of provisions until you've figured things out.

e2:VVVVVV I remember that Oglaf! (nsfw if you look for the 'book of love' comic)

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 21:24 on Jan 24, 2016

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:21

docbeard: Jul 19, 2011

Sometimes you can get ~~a good trait~~ syphilis from books.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:22

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Honestly the problem is not that you get no healing out of combat, but that you get unlimited healing in combat.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:23

widespread: Aug 5, 2013; I believe I am now no longer in the presence of nice people.

So Ablutomania is pretty much a sign for you to not go to the Coves. Why? Because people with it will wash their faces with the Brackish Tidepool's water, which may or may not be contaminated AND is a really good curio to cleanse.

Also, I think I should focus my upgrades elsewhere? My Stagecoach is already at 70% Complete.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:25

Rascyc: Jan 23, 2008; Dissatisfied Puppy

Curio interaction is a massive part of the game though and extremely impactful. When new players start out they are probably clicking everything blindly and getting hosed over completely. I sympathize with people getting frustrated over that aspect of the game, because they want to interact with stuff in their shiny new game.

I think the biggest thing that separates the groups of skill levels are people who read the curio wiki page. It makes the game much easier, more so than your party selection IMO (assuming you are not completely bonkers on setting up a party)

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:26

brocretin: Nov 15, 2012; yo yo yo i loves virgins

widespread posted:

So Ablutomania is pretty much a sign for you to not go to the Coves. Why? Because people with it will wash their faces with the Brackish Tidepool's water, which may or may not be contaminated AND is a really good curio to cleanse.

Also, I think I should focus my upgrades elsewhere? My Stagecoach is already at 70% Complete.

If you have full roster size, yeah. I'd suggest focusing on the Blacksmith and Guild, if you haven't already. Damage upgrades are crucial for boss hunting.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:27

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK: Sep 11, 2001

Krinkle posted:

I"m not going to load up a suicide squad to clear out one hallway come home and fire them with their awful mental problems, repeat 30 times to get maybe 6k gold to equip a real party who will also die because they are still level 0 and can't be upgraded anyway.

if you cant even complete a short mission with 4 random idiots then idk what to tell you

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:27

Broken Cog: Dec 29, 2009; We're all friends here

I got a guy with Kleptomania, curious and Demonomania. He is a massive pain to bring along.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:28

The Deleter: May 22, 2010

Gabriel Pope posted:

Nowadays leper accuracy is only 5-10 less than other classes, so it's pretty manageable. His main weakness is his lack of flexibility (without actually being good enough at anything to make up for it.)

If they put a 1 forward on one of his self-buff skills and/or a stacking protection debuff on his basic attack, I think he might see a bit more play. It'd make him really good against the Brigand Cannon boss, at any rate.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:31

Desperate Character: Apr 13, 2009

Is anyone else having the game crash whenever you get an achievement? It's getting annoying since this is my first time playing too so I crash really frequently with all the easy achievements they give you.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:31

ditty bout my clitty: May 28, 2011; by FactsAreUseless; Fun Shoe

Broken Cog posted:

I got a guy with Kleptomania, curious and Demonomania. He is a massive pain to bring along.

Sever

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:32

Speedball: Apr 15, 2008

I think they should have a party member that benefits from corpses in a way beyond blocking. Like, I dunno, a cannibal hero that devours corpses for a strong heal.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:35

VoLaTiLe: Oct 21, 2010; He's Behind you

Returned to this after leaving my dungeon crew during the early access.

Decided to go to a level 6 dungeon and lost my best team Jester, Healer, Hellion and Crusader.

Have they nerfed Jester and Hellion? I do remember them being stronger, oh well they are all dead anyway.

At least my Healer, Thief Lady, Thief Lady and Highwayman group still kick rear end.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:36

Krinkle: Feb 9, 2003; Ah do believe Ah've got the vapors...
Ah mean the farts

CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

if you cant even complete a short mission with 4 random idiots then idk what to tell you

There are no more short missions they're all camping medium missions. I lost my party to a medium mission and now 4 random idiots gotta go camping with no food and no torches. That's why I had to restart. Twice.

Rascyc posted:

Curio interaction is a massive part of the game though and extremely impactful. When new players start out they are probably clicking everything blindly and getting hosed over completely. I sympathize with people getting frustrated over that aspect of the game, because they want to interact with stuff in their shiny new game.

I think the biggest thing that separates the groups of skill levels are people who read the curio wiki page. It makes the game much easier, more so than your party selection IMO (assuming you are not completely bonkers on setting up a party)

I feel like the curios are handled poorly I mean if you use an item on something, and that's not the right item, it takes the item. Nothing happens and also that item is gone so you can't use it on the next curio to find out where it does work. Why? How did I "lose a key" trying to unlock something with no keyhole? Did I get frustrated and throw it as far as I could? What the gently caress? Give me my key back.

Feels like bad game design to make you have the wiki open in another window or else you are 100% hosed with no reasonable experimentation allowed or rewarded.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:36

FreeKillB: May 13, 2009

I think it's amazing that they give Reynaud the absolute worst negative quirk in the game. I remember Kleptomania being not really that bad an issue in EA (maybe it didn't proc as often?), but as it stands I think they're trying to tell players that they should either sanitize or dispose of heroes with bad quirks. I wish I had known about bad quirks locking in earlier as, my level 6 grave robber has -10% HP and I don't think I'm at a point where I can defend dropping 6k on that.

e: If you don't have money to spare you absolutely shouldn't be investing resources in experimenting with curios. If you're at all worried about failing the mission, you should definitely not interact with that curio blindly! I remember playing EA and viewing learning about curios as requiring a nontrivial investment of cash (which paid off massively now that I know what to use and what to avoid). If you don't want to make that investment and think it's too much effort to have a wiki page open or a cheatsheet on hand, then I don't really know what to say.

e2: VVVVVV Easy vs Medium depends on your burn rate vis-a-vis HP and stress. If you have a good party, then medium missions are absolutely easier and can be a net gain on stress. If you have a bunch of underleveled underequipped schlubs then it's easier to inch over the finish line with a short mission. If you're in especially dire straits and can't secure a serious food supply then camping will only partly help you anyway.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 21:44 on Jan 24, 2016

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:37

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Medium missions are actually easier than short ones because Camping will heal, buff, and stress heal your guys.

My guys went into the Weald for a Medium and actually came out less stressed. Like a goddamn vacation of fighting mushroom men.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:37

docbeard: Jul 19, 2011

I had a plague doctor a bit ago (before I restarted with the newest update) with, I think, the Curious trait. Who after the third time of diving headfirst into a rotting carcass and getting a new disease (all in the same mission, mind) I can only assume was performing human clinical trials and using herself as an incubator. Which is better than using the other party members as incubators, I guess.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:40

Bad Seafood: Dec 10, 2010; If you must blink, do it now.

One time I had two guys in my party with the quirks Curious and Compulsive (respectively) who came across a Shambler's Altar while the group was heavily injured with no way around it. Slowed my march to a crawl until it was obvious it hadn't triggered, breathed an enormous sigh of relief, then made my way forward.

There was another one a few halls later. :suicide:

Didn't go off either but I've never had a more intense hall trek.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:41

Night10194: Feb 13, 2012; We'll start,
like many good things,
with a bear.

Weirdly, I think my doctor would do fine at that since I found a Common trinket that's PD only and gives +40% Resist Disease.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:42

Internet Kraken: Apr 24, 2010; slightly amused

Krinkle posted:

Feels like bad game design to make you have the wiki open in another window or else you are 100% hosed with no reasonable experimentation allowed or rewarded.

Losing an item because it does nothing does not gently caress you over, it just means you didn't get anything. Oh well. Move on. There are barely any negative curio interactions from items.

I find it kind of crazy how badly people react to anything going wrong in this game.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:42

Afraid of Audio: Oct 12, 2012; by exmarx

Bad Seafood posted:

One time I had two guys in my party with the quirks Curious and Compulsive (respectively) who came across a Shambler's Altar while the group was heavily injured with no way around it. Slowed my march to a crawl until it was obvious it hadn't triggered, breathed an enormous sigh of relief, then made my way forward.

There was another one a few halls later. Didn't go off either but I've never had a more intense hall trek.

iirc forced curio interactions don't use items and that requires a torch to get the party started

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:43

Bad Seafood: Dec 10, 2010; If you must blink, do it now.

Well yeah, I know that now, but at the time I was steeling myself for the worst possible outcome.

Imagined fears are frequently worse than the things we actually need to be afraid of.

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:44

FreeKillB: May 13, 2009

It would be really precious if the forced interaction quirks occasionally used items to make things much much worse. Something like 5-10% would be enough to get the heart pounding every time.

e:

DOWN JACKET FETISH posted:

i agree with this but i don't know if you should keep your item 100% of the time otherwise each time you meet a new curio you'll just use all your items one after the other until it clicks and you lose a negative trait or something. each curio would need a negative item interaction.

lol this makes me think of bad old-school adventure-game puzzles where the practical solution is essentially 'rub every item on every thing'.

FreeKillB fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Jan 24, 2016

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:46

Inexplicable Humblebrag: Sep 20, 2003

Speedball posted:

I think they should have a party member that benefits from corpses in a way beyond blocking. Like, I dunno, a cannibal hero that devours corpses for a strong heal.

in a world where you can be healed by a shiny light, or critically hit with a dog, i still think a dude wolfing down an entire skeleton or a cordyceps-infested giant in the middle of combat is a little much

Krinkle posted:

I feel like the curios are handled poorly I mean if you use an item on something, and that's not the right item, it takes the item. Nothing happens and also that item is gone so you can't use it on the next curio to find out where it does work. Why? How did I "lose a key" trying to unlock something with no keyhole? Did I get frustrated and throw it as far as I could? What the gently caress? Give me my key back.

Feels like bad game design to make you have the wiki open in another window or else you are 100% hosed with no reasonable experimentation allowed or rewarded.

i agree with this but i don't know if you should keep your item 100% of the time otherwise each time you meet a new curio you'll just use all your items one after the other until it clicks and you lose a negative trait or something. each curio would need a negative item interaction.

e:

lol

"advocacy"

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:47

Afraid of Audio: Oct 12, 2012; by exmarx

death by book skyrockets

# ? Jan 24, 2016 21:47

The Chad Jihad: Feb 24, 2007

I think corpses are perfectly fine. I do think the food thing needs another look, I had a huge camp meal and then a corridor later had to eat, and then three corridors later had to eat AGAIN which started a spiral of failure for that run. It didn't really feel like something I could have planned for