Darkest Dungeon

This game is kicking my ass. I understand stress is an important mechanic but I can't seem to finish a dungeon without at least one of my characters if not 3 or all 4 at max stress. Then it costs a fortune to relieve all that stress. On top of that stress does not fall down between adventures on characters without sending them at the abbey/inn even if they're not at max. I don't understand, am I supposed to just throw 4 new level 1 characters in the dungeon to die every week in the hopes of getting lucky and completing quests? It seems really hard to keep your characters alive/low stress. I really hope they tune it down.

GeneralF_sl said:

This game is kicking my ass. I understand stress is an important mechanic but I can't seem to finish a dungeon without at least one of my characters if not 3 or all 4 at max stress. Then it costs a fortune to relieve all that stress. On top of that stress does not fall down between adventures on characters without sending them at the abbey/inn even if they're not at max. I don't understand, am I supposed to just throw 4 new level 1 characters in the dungeon to die every week in the hopes of getting lucky and completing quests? It seems really hard to keep your characters alive/low stress. I really hope they tune it down.

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I'm in the same boat as the difficulty is no joke. I'm really liking it thus far though between the narrator and the challenge.

I've done a few dungeon runs and got the first boss down, but the stress system seems way overtuned both in that you'll be constantly going insane and then it'll cost a fortune to fix that. Haven't had as much trouble with dying though - Death's Door mechanic + Vestal's group heal means you can stay alive a while even with everybody at 0 hp. Only lost one Crusader when he went insane and turned all emo and started hiding behind pillars every time I tried to heal him. "All is lost, we are all going to die!" Then the cultists killed him, the rest of the party killed the cultists and went home.

The atmosphere is amazing though, this thing oozes style. Lovecraftian horrors, a rag-tag team straight from Warhammer Fantasy RPG with Hellboy comic's graphics. Sometimes it feels like they made this mix just for me.

I've been watching this on Twitch and I'm not liking how your party members commentary effectively pauses the game every time that they babble on about something which is quite frequent. I'm also not digging the stress mechanic as it currently stands as that seems to be the primary source of challenge in the game (that and getting the gold to pay for it) and not the combat itself. IMO there should be more passive sources of stress reduction perhaps from eating, disarming traps, finding treasure and a small amount from just taking a week off even if a unit isn't placed in a specific activity. That coupled with tougher battles that result from higher damage and not just from half your party turning spastic every run would be a good improvement I think.

Apart from that it looks fun and the art is interesting.

It would help a lot if adventurers got a stress relief of like 20-30% after a successful quest, IMO. Because where it hurts is having to pay for all your dudes between runs, unless it was spectacularly successful.

edit: Game is a lot of fun though. Even after two failed campaigns I just can't stop playing it.

Does the end game change anything? Been watching various streams and I honestly couldn't tell how long any of them were into a game, they all looked exactly the same. The style and mechanics look cool, but if there is no real variance it seems like it would get old quick.

Did not know about this game.

Did a youtube search on it, and watched a Jim Sterling video, then the first parts of the Cobaltstreak stream as mentioned above....



For the most part, I agree with TotalBiscuit with his "do not pre-order/early access!" rants, but this I want right now. Buying it on Tuesday. The language they use in the game is fantastic.

Patch notes for the next build:


General balancing & Stress tuning based on your feedback, and us watching twitch streams!
Bark Stress tuning - severity, frequency reduced
Camping Skill Affliction Balk - chance reduction
Fix to Firewood Exploit - nothing's free in the Hamlet
Rabies tuning
Slime tuning - Cytokenesis is a bit less frequent, no less awesome.
Missing String fixes - aka "blue text"Thanks for playing - keep the feedback coming! And if you stumble on a sweet strategy, please share so new players can benefit from your wisdom!

Chris, Tyler, Keir, Brooks & Pierre

Excellent. Good to see they're responding to feedback so fast. Especially happy at the bark stress reduction.

So I back this game initially - the $15 tier - but I stopped receiving emails from them apparently. What are the chances of not getting my key on release? Kind've itching to play it and I don't want to get fucked.

balroc_sl said:

So I back this game initially - the $15 tier - but I stopped receiving emails from them apparently. What are the chances of not getting my key on release? Kind've itching to play it and I don't want to get fucked.

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You should still get your key especially if it says its backed on the KS website. Most keys are being handed out through the Humble Bundle website.. so if you have an account there you can check to see if the game is under your profile.

http://www.twitch.tv/dizzysandwichis winning the game right now, he just restarted. For those who want a chill stream with a competent streamer and sane chat.

After the patch I can actually finish dungeon runs without everybody being insane. Seems like they buffed some skill upgrades too. Those changes and me bringing an optimized party to some noob dungeons had the game actually feeling easy for the first time. I'm sure I'll be getting my face kicked in soon enough again.

Tangent gaming just about made me throw my phone through the wall .

He miss' s so much obvious stuff and hardly reads his chat to see what they are trying to help him with.

The game seems great though and I can not wait to try it out.

I'm really intrigued by this game. I recall hearing about it a long time ago but it fell off my radar. Amazing artistic style and the gameplay looks solid. Will be a nice change from all of the open world (Far Cry 4, ACU, Mordor, DA, Dying Light) stuff I've been playing lately.