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Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
What happens when you put Final Fantasy, X-COM and Dark Souls in a blender?
its....

DARKEST DUNGEON


Successfully Kickstarted for $313,000 in March 2014, its a very promising new RPG on PC and coming to PS4. Now available on Steam Early Access! Now finished! Buy it!



The art style is reminiscent of Hellboy's Mike Mignola and generally looks absolutely gorgeous. It looks even slicker in motion, using a combination of puppet animation and a diorama-style 2d/3d environment.


You venture deep into dungeons with a 4-man party of heroes, wandering through randomly generated dungeon arrangements, dealing with the traps and monsters that lay within. Combat is turn-based and highly strategic, based on party member positioning and special attacks.








Your party is formed from the heroes you recruit in town. Only four can be sent into a dungeon at a time, and you must send four. You have to pick a party order, so that one person is in front, one behind, one behind him, and one in the last place. Party members can change positions over time.

Once you venture forth, you head into one of 5 randomly-generated dungeon tilesets. (Ruins, Warrens, Weald, Cove, and The Darkest Dungeon) Each dungeon changes each time you go into it, and has its own tileset and themes and enemies and traps. Each dungeon also has a boss at the end which must be vanquished. You explore by picking a heading using the map, and then manually walk right to left through a hallway until you encounter a trap or an enemy and then have to deal with it before moving further.

Each class has several abilities which can be trained, but only 4 can be used at a time. All heroes also have a 5th "move" ability for free that simply allows them to shift 1 position in combat. Heroes gain skill upgrades to do more damage over time and through training which increase how effective certain abilities are. Their armor and weapons can be upgraded over time, and they can gain special items which boost certain traits. There are no mana bars, and abilities are simply used per-turn.

Many abilities have positional requirements on who can use them and who they can be used upon, and as such the party order is extremely important to strategy. Melee attacks can only be performed if you're in the spaces closest to your enemy. Ranged attacks are the opposite and require distance, and can often only be performed against enemy units in the rear positions. Some attacks hit more than one enemy, but again only in certain positions. Some moves have a range of positions they can attack, but you have to choose one at a time. Some abilities will change the party order, and other abilities can be used to alter the opponents' party order. (Say to pull an annoying archer to the front so you can melee him quickly)

Heroes have health (red bars) and can perform different actions or use items inside and outside of combat to heal themselves. Once at 0 hp, heroes do not die instantly, but instead are on death's door. At this point any further damage they take will have random chance to kill them permanently, but any healing will return them to normal status.

Heroes gain stress over time (black bars). Stress comes from many sources, such as walking in the front of the party, suffering grievous wounds, or taking certain actions. Other actions can relieve stress, and spending time in town resting can greatly reduce stress. Over-stressed party members may act wildly in combat, skipping their turns or attacking wildly ignoring your instructions, or even attacking allies or themselves!

High stress also causes them to gain afflictions as they are stressed; "Kleptomaniac" adventurers will sometimes steal loot from the party. They can become Paranoid, Selfish, Depressed, God-fearing, and more.

On the other hand, successfully resisting the effects of stress can give them virtues which grant small bonuses under special conditions and will not take control away from you the way afflictions can.

There are also multiple status effects such as bleed, poison, etc. Typical RPG fare.

There is also a light level mechanic as you venture through dungeons, and you have to burn torches to maintain the level. Darkness invites harder opponents, increasing stress, and possibly more rewards?

The party can camp by using up firewood, which allows them to use special respite abilities on the party to reduce stress. Each class has different respite abilities used only outside of combat for recovery which cost time.

Treasures include magical trinkets, gold, heirlooms (Busts, Portraits, Crests and Deeds used to upgrade the town) and supplies to keep you venturing. Objects you encounter in dungeons can be looted for treasure, but are sometimes trapped and will harm the person opening the treasure. Some heroes are better at avoiding traps than others.

Quests are given to the player which require you to enter a certain dungeon and perform a certain task, such as exploring or killing certain enemies.

The Town has several buildings which are used between adventures into the dungeons:
The blacksmith lets you upgrade your warriors' gear, the guild allows you to upgrade skills, the tavern and church allow them to relieve stress (but require them to sit out on the next adventure to do so) the sanitarium allows you to force remove certain traits they've picked up from stress, you can recruit new heroes at the stagecoach (which come with random skills already learned) or visit a graveyard to look at all your fallen adventurers, and more.

You can only camp on medium or longer quests. You will automatically be given firewood for camping as part of your provisions, free. You can use it at any time to gain buffs or to heal. You need food when you camp or you suffer hunger penalties. there's a chance you can be ambushed while camping.

Adventurers that reach higher levels (3, 6) will refuse to go on lower-level quests. This prevents you from power-leveling your lower level party members, but be aware that if you're powering up a team for a boss fight, if they get too experienced they may refuse to go on the quest!



Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjiBB3nBR-w

Official website: http://www.darkestdungeon.com/
Original Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1460250988/darkest-dungeon-by-red-hook-studios
Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/app/262060/


Useful Information: (SPOILERS)
-----------------------------------------------------

Wiki: http://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/

Curios Guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=386706480

Curious Guide in convenient image format: http://i.imgur.com/xnPaUX8.png

Hieronymous Alloy's guide: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=385431020 out of date but still useful

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:08 on Jan 27, 2016

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Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
:toot: New Player Guide: :toot:

Glidergun posted:

The first and most important piece of advice is to accept that you are not going to get through this 100% everything perfect. You're going to take characters into dungeon with all sorts of negative quirks and it won't be feasible to cure them all, you're going to make runs with characters you don't have the cash to upgrade fully, you're probably going to have a few people die just from the vagaries of chance, and you're going to cut your losses and retreat from dungeons before you finish the mission.

IN-TOWN ADVICE:

The very first thing you should do once you have access to the town is upgrade the stagecoach so that it gives you 4 new guys every week. If you ever need to, you can grab all four of them, throw them into whatever mission looks interesting without any more than the barest minimum of supplies (or even no supplies at all), run through grabbing as much loot as possible, retreat before all of them die, and kick out the half-broken messes that survived. This carries no penalty except time, and if you're death spiraling really badly it can give you enough cash to fit out a reasonable expedition.

Don't be afraid to dismiss heroes. Especially before you've upgraded the Sanitarium, Abbey, and Bar, getting low-level heroes back into fighting trim can cost way more than it's worth, compared to just grabbing another guy off the stagecoach. On the other hand, high level heroes take a huge amount of time to replace, so think carefully before dismissing anybody above level 2.

The Tavern and Guild compete for upgrade items, as do the Stagecoach and Blacksmith, and the Sanitarium and Abbey. Make your upgrade decisions appropriately. The skill upgrades in the Guild boost accuracy, special effect power, and crit rate; weapon upgrades boost damage, speed, and crit rate; armor upgrades boost HP and Dodge. Skill, armor, and weapon upgrades require that the hero be high enough level - don't bother upgrading your blacksmith to level 5 weaponsmithing if your roster is all at level 2. (Early game, I like to put Busts in the Abbey, Portraits in the Guild, and split Deeds between roster size and Blacksmith upgrades, but feel free to do whatever feels good to you.)

Most quirks aren't that big a deal. The only quirk which is pretty much demands a cure is Kleptomania, which will cost you way more in lost items than it will to cure. If they directly impact your character's primary in-battle function, you may want to cure them, otherwise you can probably live with it.

You can sell trinkets by open up the trinket menu and shift-clicking them. After a while you will have a lot of low-level trash trinkets which can give you a good emergency boost. The Nomad Wagon is not very important to me; there are plenty of other good ways to spend your gold, and you will get enough trinkets just from running through dungeons. If you have a lot of spare money it can be worth it to check sometimes, in case something good but rare shows up.

EMBARKATION ADVICE:

Tailor your party the challenges you are about to face. The Weald and Warrens have many enemies which are resistant to blight and the Weald frequently blights your characters; the Ruins and Cove are resistant to bleed and the Cove inflicts a lot of bleed. The Ruins have a lot of Unholy enemies; the Warrens, Beasts; the Weald, Humans; and the Cove, Eldritch monsters.

After your heroes level up past a certain point, they will refuse to go on low-level missions. This is annoying, but constantly grinding low-level dungeons with overpowered heroes would be boring and more annoying. Go on the higher-level missions. Don't worry if they aren't completely upgraded; even a level 0 hero fresh off the coach can be carried through a high level dungeon if their companions are good. As long as you're smart about cutting your losses you can get through dungeons with a team of suboptimal characters.

Train up your whole roster, don't just focus on one A-team and one B-team. This spreads out your effectiveness so a single loss isn't crippling, lets your heroes have more time passively losing stress which can save some cash, and gives you more leeway on catching boss fights before your characters level past them.

For a high-mid light run, I like to take 8 torches + 4 per camp. (So, 12 on a Medium run.) I also like to take 2 meals + 1 meal per camp + a feast at each camp; this totals to 8 food + 12 per camp, though it may be more or less if you get the right trinkets and quirks. Take 1 shovel + 1 per camp to clear blockages, or an extra if you want to be on the safe side. I like to have at least one key in case I find a secret room. Whether to take other items depends on the dungeon you're going to; they can either be used on curios, or in response to status effects. (Note that Medicinal Herbs will clear any debuff, including things like the Hellion's self debuff)

"100% room battles" missions are usually the shortest, and therefore easiest, type, though if you're unlucky they can require you to visit every room; "explore 90% of rooms" the next easiest but more consistent; and "use/find 3 items" the worst because the items fill your inventory and can be hidden in corridors. Bosses are, as far as I can tell, universally found in the room farthest away from your starting position.

I usually find Long runs not worth it. They're more difficult, and your inventory will be filled up enough that you'll have to throw stuff away unless you are literally 100% done with town upgrades and don't care about heirlooms any more. You'd get about as much stuff from a Medium, so don't bother unless the reward is a trinket you really want. Whether Short or Medium runs are easier depends on your party's camping skills; in the right circumstances, taking your party to a Medium dungeon can actually serve to destress your team.

When you're starting out, you will probably want at least one healer on any non-suicide run. I count Vestal and Occultist as healers and Plague Doctor, Crusader, Arbalest, or anyone with a self-heal as half of a healer. You can also take along extra food for supplemental healing. As long as you're killing stuff reasonably quickly and taking advantage of stuns, you won't actually need as much healing as you think, but it's still nice to have in an emergency.

DUNGEON WANDERING:

Retreating is sometimes the right choice. Pushing on because you are determined to beat this goddamn mission and the next room can't be that bad is the #1 cause of hero death. To do so, click the white flag at the top left corner of the screen.

You will lose 6 light per unexplored corridor tile, and 1 light when backtracking over a tile. This means, approximately, 1 torch per corridor. Low light stresses you out more and makes monsters more dangerous, but also gives you more loot and critical hits.

Curios (the things in the background that you interact with, like treasure chests) can be good or bad. You can experiment to try to discover what items are good on what, or you can look it up. If you aren't sure what a curio does and you're having a hard time in a dungeon, better safe than sorry.

You can hover over the symbols on the dungeon map to figure out what the symbols mean. On the 3-Item quests, the quest targets have the same image on the minimap as curios, but a different hover text.

You can find secret rooms by scouting, which happens randomly when entering a room. To use them, move to the correct corridor tile, then either press W or click on the background. If you have a key, you can use it on the chest to get a huge amount of cash.

When to camp, and what to do while camping, is a difficult question to answer. Generally, you can use it either to recover HP and stress or to buff up for the next 4 fights, depending on what camping skills you have unlocked. The Grave Robber and Plague Doctor can also use it to clear diseases. Every time you camp, unless you use one of a few camp skills, you also have a chance to get ambushed while sleeping, which will shuffle your party and throw you into a fight at 0 light. I like to use camping primarily for buffing and only moderately for recovery.

You can swap out camping and battle skills while in a dungeon, but not while in the middle of a fight or while camping. This means you can, for example, swap between the Crusader's heal and stress-recovery abilities between fights depending on which you are lower on right now.


IN-COMBAT ADVICE:

Be proactive. Attacking an enemy is usually better than healing, buffing, or debuffing; killing a damaged enemy and wasting a bunch of potential damage is better than damaging a healthy enemy and leaving both alive. On the other hand, stuns are extremely powerful. Even denying a single enemy a single turn has a good chance of preventing more than the healing ability you are itching to use would restore. Healing is usually best done when a fight has been reduced to one or two enemies and the rest of your team can lock them down, or when someone is in a crisis RIGHT NOW and you need to fix it immediately.

DOTs tick immediately before the character or monster takes their action. If an enemy has 2 HP and a 3-damage-per-turn DOT, they are already dead. Ignore them.

If your character is above 0 HP they are not at immediate risk of death; you have to take damage while already at Death's Door in order to die. (But be aware that they could be hit twice in a row by monsters, or take an attack that inflicts a DOT and die to that.)

Most random encounters are, approximately, one or two guys at the front being hard to kill, and two guys at the back spamming annoying things (damage/stress, sometimes status effects or diseases). Focus-firing the last two rows down, or knocking them far enough out of position, will usually make your day a lot easier.

Retreating, once more, is sometimes the right choice. Top-left corner again, though it takes up the active hero's turn and has a chance to fail. Afterwards you may wish either to fight the battle again (if, for example, your party got shuffled way out of position) or just to leave the dungeon entirely.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:15 on Jan 25, 2016

DrManiac
Feb 29, 2012

I really like the whole death's door mechanic so far. As long as you can desperately cling to at least 1 HP sonic style you still have hope.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

DrManiac posted:

I really like the whole death's door mechanic so far. As long as you can desperately cling to at least 1 HP sonic style you still have hope.

Yeah, my first thought is that you can kinda cheese it by having somebody "tank" constantly going back and forth between death's door. The amount of damage he took would be meaningless, because it stops at death's door, and then you could heal him for just 1 point to get him off it again. The only problem is that there's no easy way to force enemies to attack him (that I know of, there could be a taunt ability on some class) other than positioning which isn't going to soak up all the hits, and also the danger you're putting that person into if they take hits from multiple sources in a turn.

You could have a rotating party of 3 high level adventurers and 1 cannon-fodder who you let sit on death's door and if he dies, you just hire another level 1 newbie to be the cannon fodder, but its probably not really an effective strategy overall, which is good.

I do like the idea that sacrificing certain heroes could be a very effective tactic. The theme of this game is so strong.

I really like how little health everybody has but how hard it can be to actually land hits on the people you want to. It makes you worried about EVERY blow :ohdear: You're constantly like, is he gonna dodge? is he gonna get hit for half is loving life bar? Are multiple enemies going to gang up on my one wounded person? Its really good.

Compared to Final Fantasy where these days you have 999999 hit points and you get hit for 500 + 200 + 199 + 599 and its like... who cares?

Also great are all the little in-battle moments of tension, I had my highwayman critical a gunshot at just the right moment, and not only did it really cripple the enemy, but my entire team got inspired from him rolling a crit, and they all lost some stress! That's a great moment.

I also love how the game chronicles everything you do into a narrative that you can view. This game is more about allowing things to happen then giving you a particular set narrative, and I'm all over that.

eonwe
Aug 11, 2008



Lipstick Apathy

Zaphod42 posted:



My knight was super pious and would refuse to use the brothel or the tavern to relieve stress, he would only pray at church. So I took him to the sanitarium and paid tons of money to have him re-educated and now he loves banging ladies after a romp through the darkness. GOTY 2015.



holy gently caress

Doctor Hospital
Jul 16, 2011

what





Zaphod42 posted:

Yeah, my first thought is that you can kinda cheese it by having somebody "tank" constantly going back and forth between death's door. The amount of damage he took would be meaningless, because it stops at death's door, and then you could heal him for just 1 point to get him off it again. The only problem is that there's no easy way to force enemies to attack him (that I know of, there could be a taunt ability on some class) other than positioning which isn't going to soak up all the hits, and also the danger you're putting that person into if they take hits from multiple sources in a turn.

You could have a rotating party of 3 high level adventurers and 1 cannon-fodder who you let sit on death's door and if he dies, you just hire another level 1 newbie to be the cannon fodder, but its probably not really an effective strategy overall, which is good.

Getting to death's door will also add way more stress than a normal attack or a crit. Going back and forth between death's door and fine is a very good way to end up with afflictions.

Solomonic
Jan 3, 2008

INCIPIT SANTA
Man this is fun as poo poo. It's kinda like a grim fantasy X-Com, but with old style RPG combat. I basically dove in with minimal knowledge of how to actually play the game so it's been a real meat grinder so far, but that's half the fun of this kind of thing. My vestal is both abusive and bloodthirsty, and basically spends most of her time in the dungeon making the rest of the party as miserable as possible (whether it's by insulting them every time they miss or opening iron maidens that I would really rather stay closed).

Figuring out the mechanics without a whole lot of help has been easy enough so far but I was kinda surprised by how short the torches last. Sometimes I lose a light level just going through a hallway.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Shlapintogan posted:

Getting to death's door will also add way more stress than a normal attack or a crit. Going back and forth between death's door and fine is a very good way to end up with afflictions.

Yeah that's a good point, stress is a major mechanic. But again you could kinda mitigate by taking a cannon fodder dude with you that you plan on letting die or releasing after the mission.

Still that's 1/4 of your party that's constantly being sacrificed, probably not worth it opposed to just having 4 tough dudes to begin with.

Solomonic posted:

Man this is fun as poo poo. It's kinda like a grim fantasy X-Com, but with old style RPG combat. I basically dove in with minimal knowledge of how to actually play the game so it's been a real meat grinder so far, but that's half the fun of this kind of thing. My vestal is both abusive and bloodthirsty, and basically spends most of her time in the dungeon making the rest of the party as miserable as possible (whether it's by insulting them every time they miss or opening iron maidens that I would really rather stay closed).

Figuring out the mechanics without a whole lot of help has been easy enough so far but I was kinda surprised by how short the torches last. Sometimes I lose a light level just going through a hallway.

Yeah I didn't realize that items stacked at first so I bought a bunch of food and torches and filled up my inventory and couldn't pick up more things, so I forced-ate all my food and then ran out of food and starved :doh:

But I'm learning fast how this game works and I really really like it.

Your vestal sounds hardcore.

I just got a leper and a jester and there's some really interesting abilities in their trees. I really like how you can only have a subset of 4 abilities of the class at any given time, and different new hires come with different skills already unlocked. So you could have two members of the same class that perform entirely different roles.

The hellion has an AOE damage move that hits the first three positions and I love it. And the apothecary's ability to poison the last two positions is really useful, you can do that early on and then let poison chip away at them while you're using melee against the ones in front.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Jan 30, 2015

Doctor Hospital
Jul 16, 2011

what





I just had an Abusive Graverobber tell a Masochistic Leper that they should learn how to bathe.

I love this game.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
Easily the best RPG I've played since Bravely Default.

Just really loving all the atmosphere and story and character development. I think this is more of what I wanted out of Sunless Sea, but it didn't quite deliver on. Maybe because the combat here is so extremely tight where in Sunless Sea it was really sloppy.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 23:13 on Jan 30, 2015

eonwe
Aug 11, 2008



Lipstick Apathy
Really wished I had backed it now :(

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Eonwe posted:

Really wished I had backed it now :(

You can buy into early access in 4 days :)

Jackard
Oct 28, 2007

We Have A Bow And We Wish To Use It
The goon wallet... fragile, like a robin's egg.

On the very precipice of early access!

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
The leper has an interesting ability where he can take off his leper mask to lower his stress, at the cost of everybody else in the party gaining stress.

They really came up with some cool poo poo in this game. :allears:

StarkRavingMad
Sep 27, 2001


Yams Fan
Excited to see this coming out on early access shortly. I remember seeing trailers for this awhile back and thinking it looked super cool.

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Only had enough time to get through the tutorial during my lunch break but I'm looking forward to more, boy howdy.

grrarg
Feb 14, 2011

Don't lose your head over it.
I am glad to read the positive reactions. I did not back the Kickstarter since it seemed more about marketing and glorified pre-orders instead of funding a project that would not exist otherwise. Might pick up the Early Access version next week since they have said the final version will not be cheaper, barring sales.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Lotish posted:

Only had enough time to get through the tutorial during my lunch break but I'm looking forward to more, boy howdy.

Yeah, its good stuff. The tutorial level is brutal as hell because you have no way to recover health, but I think its designed to give you a "barely survived by the skin of my teeth" experience to get you in the right mindset for the game. You get the vestal after that who is pretty much the whitemage/cleric of the game and it makes things a bit less stressful. (not really)

grrarg posted:

I am glad to read the positive reactions. I did not back the Kickstarter since it seemed more about marketing and glorified pre-orders instead of funding a project that would not exist otherwise. Might pick up the Early Access version next week since they have said the final version will not be cheaper, barring sales.

I usually reccomend against Early Access because playing too much of an unpolished game can turn you off from it even if they eventually sort everything out. But this is by far one of the most polished early access games I've ever bought, it feels really done.

I get the feeling they pretty much are done except for some extra content (2 dungeons and everything that entails, some quests and bosses and the end story) so that makes for a good experience. You can pretty much buy the final game now, you just can't play it all the way to the end. They will definitely end up tweaking a few things as they get more people playing it and testing the RPG balance, but so far I would really recommend it even as early access.

That said, I haven't gotten that far into it yet so it could start to show some more warts later on. I'll continue to post my experience with the game.

Thyrork
Apr 21, 2010

"COME PLAY MECHS M'LANCER."

Or at least use Retrograde Mini's to make cool mechs and fantasy stuff.

:awesomelon:
Slippery Tilde
I'm watching a streamer play this, tehmorag, hes not good at videogames (and is honest about that!) but hes a fun watch and his little gathering isn't as toxic as far as some others i've seen on twitch.

Needless to say, hot drat do i wish i'd kicked this. The art is great and the quirks are a fun looking mechanic. :allears: I'll be throwing money at them come Tuesday for sure.

E: Oh man, and the narrator! The narrator is great!

Thyrork fucked around with this message at 23:39 on Jan 30, 2015

Iymarra
Oct 4, 2010




Survived AGDQ 2018 Awful Games block!
Grimey Drawer
God drat, this was worth the wait from kickstarting.

I bought in at the $95 tier and I have no regrets. I've been playing constantly since I got my key, and I've lost three dudes so far.

My only real quibble is the damned cost of curing stress. 1k minimum, assuming the caretaker is not occupying that slot. I'd like maybe to see some kind of slight boon to players in the form of not losing all your food/torches etc if you abandon a quest, or perhaps at least refunding a percentage of that cost. Maybe even lowering the cost of curing stress depending on how many heroes you have left.
As in, if you only have 4 heroes total, cost is like 250 gold.

My first two delving attempts ended in complete disaster and I'd plugged so much money into the runs. I know that is the point, but it left me unable to do anything with any future guys

Gyoru
Jul 13, 2004



I backed at the $49 tier and just finished playing/streaming it for almost 5 hours. It's fantastic.

I feel like I've stumbled upon a great party comp:

[back to front] Jester, Plague Doctor, Highwayman, Leper.

The Jester's songs buff the party and help relieve stress. Doc can stun the back row and hand out damage buffs. The Leper and Highwayman have great aoe attacks so my strategy is basically to burst everything down and not worry about healing due to the Deaths' Door mechanic.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Thyrork posted:

E: Oh man, and the narrator! The narrator is great!

Yeah the narrator alone is worth the cost of entry. This is like Bastion where the narrator kinda steals the show. :allears:


Innerguard posted:

My only real quibble is the damned cost of curing stress. 1k minimum, assuming the caretaker is not occupying that slot. I'd like maybe to see some kind of slight boon to players in the form of not losing all your food/torches etc if you abandon a quest, or perhaps at least refunding a percentage of that cost. Maybe even lowering the cost of curing stress depending on how many heroes you have left.
As in, if you only have 4 heroes total, cost is like 250 gold.

My first two delving attempts ended in complete disaster and I'd plugged so much money into the runs. I know that is the point, but it left me unable to do anything with any future guys

Yeah, that's the challenge with this game. Sunless Sea has the same problem where they're trying to keep you constantly stressed and feeling like you're just barely holding on, just barely staying afloat. And that's cool... when it works. But there's times where things don't quite go your way, and then you feel like you're down in a pit and every time you try to claw your way out you just dig it deeper and deeper and there's no recovery.

Welp, I guess that's roguelikes for ya. :v:

As more and more people buy into early access they'll get a ton more people playing the game and commenting, and they should hopefully take steps to address balance and keep you from falling into that feeling of not being able to recover no matter what you do.

Percentage costs sound like a good idea.

Gyoru posted:

I backed at the $49 tier and just finished playing/streaming it for almost 5 hours. It's fantastic.

I feel like I've stumbled upon a great party comp:

[back to front] Jester, Plague Doctor, Highwayman, Leper.

The Jester's songs buff the party and help relieve stress. Doc can stun the back row and hand out damage buffs. The Leper and Highwayman have great aoe attacks so my strategy is basically to burst everything down and not worry about healing due to the Deaths' Door mechanic.

There's so many possibilities for great party comps its fantastic. Already tons of ideas are running through my head.

The bard's "solo" ability makes me want to try starting battles with him in front, but then immediately move him to the back.

I'm thinking something like:

Vestal, Crusader, Crusader, Jester

Open with Jester doing his solo move. Then after he debuffs the whole enemy team, you have both crusaders use the holy lance ability to deal tons of damage and shift forward. The Jester gets moved back to safety and he can harass the enemy, the vestal heals from the back (as usual), and the two knights switch off doing slashes and holy lances based on positioning.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 23:48 on Jan 30, 2015

FairyNuff
Jan 22, 2012

Gyoru posted:

I backed at the $49 tier and just finished playing/streaming it for almost 5 hours. It's fantastic.

I feel like I've stumbled upon a great party comp:

[back to front] Jester, Plague Doctor, Highwayman, Leper.

The Jester's songs buff the party and help relieve stress. Doc can stun the back row and hand out damage buffs. The Leper and Highwayman have great aoe attacks so my strategy is basically to burst everything down and not worry about healing due to the Deaths' Door mechanic.

Another good combo is the Cultist and the Plague Doctor; use the cultist heal (which sometimes causes bleed) if it does use the plague doctor to cure it. On average the skill heals more than others at the first level so it is quite good for single target healing.

odiv
Jan 12, 2003

grrarg posted:

I am glad to read the positive reactions. I did not back the Kickstarter since it seemed more about marketing and glorified pre-orders instead of funding a project that would not exist otherwise. Might pick up the Early Access version next week since they have said the final version will not be cheaper, barring sales.
Maybe I'm jaded, but I think I kinda prefer these Kickstarters. IIRC FTL was already almost done, right? They just wanted some music and if they got the funding to make the game a little better, then awesome. These Kickstarters seem less likely to fail or be hugely late.

Though maybe it's not in the exact spirit of Kickstarter.

edit: Got in at the $40ish level so I'll be playing tonight. Looks awesome.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Geokinesis posted:

Another good combo is the Cultist and the Plague Doctor; use the cultist heal (which sometimes causes bleed) if it does use the plague doctor to cure it. On average the skill heals more than others at the first level so it is quite good for single target healing.

Cultist seems really interesting, yeah. He's got lots of abilities for moving the enemy's order around (cthulu tentacles :stare:), and then he's got that weird random heal that sometimes bleeds...

I like his style.

FairyNuff
Jan 22, 2012

Gravedigger get out of the loving brothel :argh:


Zaphod42 posted:

Cultist seems really interesting, yeah. He's got lots of abilities for moving the enemy's order around (cthulu tentacles :stare:), and then he's got that weird random heal that sometimes bleeds...

I like his style.

Yeah plus he has that curse mark, which if used with the Bounty Hunter in your party means you don't have to waste 2 turns to use the BH's '2x damage if marked' attack.

Unwise_Cashew
Jan 19, 2014
Just chiming in to say this is a lot of fun. The sanity mechanic is interesting, but drat can it spiral out of hand super quick. Lost an entire team because the Cultist lost it really early, and wouldn't do anything but pass and drop everyone else sanity in the next fight, costing me everyone. So, yeah, but still, really digging it.

Jack Trades
Nov 30, 2010

Sick! I can't wait for this.

AnonSpore
Jan 19, 2012

"I didn't see the part where he develops as a character so I guess he never developed as a character"
Are there any passive abilities in combat, or are they all active?

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

AnonSpore posted:

Are there any passive abilities in combat, or are they all active?

Abilities are all active, but the traits you pick up from stress can give you passive modifiers in combat, and I think trinkets can as well.

My Crusader has killed so many 'humanoids' that he now has the "manslayer" trait and does like +20% damage +10 Accuracy +3% Crit to humanoids, for instance.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Jan 31, 2015

marshmallow creep
Dec 10, 2008

I've been sitting here for 5 mins trying to think of a joke to make but I just realised the animators of Mass Effect already did it for me

Zaphod42 posted:

Abilities are all active, but the traits you pick up from stress can give you passive modifiers in combat, and I think trinkets can as well.

My Crusader has killed so many 'humanoids' that he now has the "manslayer" trait and does like +20% damage to humanoids, for instance.

Baller.

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

Meet Reynauld, my most senior adventurer.



Reynauld has been with me from the start and though it annoyed me at times, I put up with his faith and his habit of stealing. Over time he's become one of my strongest front line warriors, tearing up monsters but especially the undead. Really, this guy hates the undead. He's usually second in line and will often start combat by decimating a weak backline caster. After the latest bout however he developed a love interest and I've had him sent to the sanitarium to fix that, because he refuses to pray or sleep with his lover, poor man's caught in a crisis of faith. I'll fix that.

Next up is my Helion, Bohon.



Bohon is a scary woman, at first I thought that breakthru was kind of an awful ability, but her rabies counters almost half of the damage reduction and her hatred of all things makes up most of the rest allowing her to regularly do 6-12 damage to a row of three enemies, she's insane. I don't mind her obsessions as much but I may have to fix her compulsiveness as its just annoying when she rushes to open a container without letting me use a key or holy water.

5 heroes have fallen so far. I'm targeting the swine king next.

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
That's amazing.

What does second wind or tough do?

E: Just downloaded a 1.5MB patch after work, that was quick. I guess some kind of emergency bugfix.

Zaphod42 fucked around with this message at 00:49 on Jan 31, 2015

Arrrthritis
May 31, 2007

I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from
I love this game. The first expedition I did was a failure (I just HAD to know what was in that orange room) so the only hero that got out alive was my Vestal. I didn't have access to any of the morale boosting structures when she got back, so I had to send her in with another band of adventurers (Jester, Bounty Hunter, and Plague Doctor). The second expedition was... an adventure, to say the least. The Vestal's rantings and ravings about how everyone was going to die, as well as her insistence on cutting herself as an offering to the gods, eventually drove my bounty hunter to panic and turn coward. My jester, on the other hand, deemed himself to be the heroic type and the plague doctor was determined to become the bane of all the undead. Eventually attrition and rough combat encounters killed the Bounty Hunter and Jester, so my only survivors were my masochistic Vestal and my self-appointed lightbringer of a plague doctor. RIP Jester, you soaked up 20 hits while you were at death's door.

Time to go back...

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.

Arrrthritis posted:

RIP Jester, you soaked up 20 hits while you were at death's door.

:eyepop: What a badass

Internet Kraken
Apr 24, 2010

slightly amused
This might be the first early access game I buy into. I've avoided others on principle but this sounds pretty solid and I'm itching for a game like it.

Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

Zaphod42 posted:

That's amazing.

What does second wind or tough do?

E: Just downloaded a 1.5MB patch after work, that was quick. I guess some kind of emergency bugfix.

It gives another 10% damage boost when below 50% health :v:

Rabies gives 20% damage (but reduces accuracy) and the various hatreds and slayer traits give her accuracy and 15% damage against the right targets. She's a monster.

Edit: I loving hate brigands, they are the toughest enemy by far.

Demiurge4 fucked around with this message at 01:03 on Jan 31, 2015

Zaphod42
Sep 13, 2012

If there's anything more important than my ego around, I want it caught and shot now.
One thing that sucks is, be careful when looting that you don't hit close until you're done. You're only ever given a chance to loot anything (chest, trap, battle spoils, etc.) ONCE.

They need to make it so you can interact with the object again if you leave something and pick it up later.

Minor gripe but it would be really nice. I just lost some boots because I mis-clicked :smith:

Evil Mastermind
Apr 28, 2008

Man, this game kicks you in the balls right out of the gate, doesn't it? I can't even finish the first dungeon.

Is there any way to heal inside the dungeon? I know there's a camp, how do you do that?

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Demiurge4
Aug 10, 2011

Evil Mastermind posted:

Man, this game kicks you in the balls right out of the gate, doesn't it? I can't even finish the first dungeon.

Is there any way to heal inside the dungeon? I know there's a camp, how do you do that?

It depends on the size of the dungeon. A short dungeon doesn't let you rest, a medium will let you rest once and a large will presumably let you rest twice. The vestal is pretty decent but healing in general is a bit weak I think, I like to bring a tanky party and just smash my way through instead of trying to pitifully mitigate damage with heals.

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