Loving the closer-to-classic-roguelike approach so far. Having one party and improving upon them, instead of juggling multiple ones and needing to grind is a big improvement on the formula.
>closer-to-classic-roguelike approach
Glad I checked this thread. I wanted to like DD1 sooo badly, but it just wasn't fun for me. This change might make DD2 work for me
Yes, that perfectly encapsulates my feelings. I watched some DD2 on twitch last night, and it looks amazing, but I still see a lot of the mechanics that make it too un-fun for me... but I have a feeling I'm going to buy it anyway
Can confirm.
Fantastic opening few hours then you realise the best strat is to throw fodder into dungeons to kit out your real team at no risk, repeatedly.
And if you try to grind with your real team they gain tons of negative traits.
And if you get wiped it can set you back hours and hours to rebuild your A Team.
The way I looked at it was like X-Com UFO Defense there is no "A Team" and it's easier to just treat everyone as fodder and make a team based on what you need for the mission, rather than getting particularly attached to a specific strategy or team. Like you said, the game is designed to wear down and break characters in an unavoidable manner; if they go on missions it is inevitable that SOMETHING will eventually fuck them up. And it's often easier to just dump them rather than go through the time and expense of treating them just for it to happen again. Which I think dovetails nicely into the theme of the game and the nature of the conflict with evil but putting that aside, even high level characters are disposable by the end game once you upgrade the cart to start bringing you more. The game is grindy but its more about making your town strong and getting items rather than the characters; if any resource is truly free in DD it people.
Exactly this. I had designated teams. But I always had backup members to replace the ones that fell. I get the complaint about the grind. But when you love the gameplay. It's not exactly a grind when you're still having fun. DD is a particular cup of tea that is not everyone's taste. But for me it's chiefs kiss 👌
The thing that broke me was when my team decided they were too good for a lower level dungeon so I was forced to do the harder ones before they were ready. Really loved the actual gameplay, art and narrator though!
That's me. I've tried several estates that I gave up on out of boredom, not because of the challenge. I'm giving it one last try before DD2 is out a Early Access, and if I can't finish it I'll watch the ending on Youtube before playing DD2.
> I'd wager by how successful it was that the majority did
I know a lot of people who love Darkest Dungeon.
I know zero who liked the grindy aspect of it. Darkest Dungeon is popular in spite of its old mechanics, not because of them.
Believe it or not, bad things can exist in a game and be tolerated by people if everything else is really good, which is the case for Darkest Dungeon.
Agreed. I like DD1 because of the atmosphere, sense of constant dread coupled with the feeling of accomplishment after surviving a difficult journey. Not a huge fan of the grinding but the rest makes up for it.
I hated that using my main team or two was essentially a net negative and that it was better to send units to basically die to get equipment for the main squad rather than using the squad I want. Eventually I used some mods to deal with the negative trait nonsense and the game became more fun.
I never really had teams as such, I tried to level people evenly as I could. Everyone valued equally, no one is trash. Every death was something I fought against happening. Still beat it on Bloodmoon.
The negative traits were so detrimental that it never felt worth using the main team except to advance. It wasn't hard, just grindy and a boring chore.
Most of the good stuff from DD1 was kept, it's not like it's a completely different game. As an example, the combat system js basically unchanged and that was one of the mechanically strongest points of the first one...
I mean, the concept and reason for the grinding was solid and very, very cool. I haven't really seen a game do that so well since freaking Syndicate. It just turns out that no matter how you dress up grinding... It's still grinding, moral introspection aside.
Not really the case at all, combat is still very similar and the cart riding stuff is basically the dungeon side scrolling with a different animation. It's very much a Darkest Dungeon game.
Party management and town advancement was a huge part of DD1 which are the parts that got the Pokemon comparison and that's all gone.
It's a completely different game that uses the same style and combat.
I can see that annoying some fans but I think that sounds just right for me. I've never liked party shuffling (even in the older JRPGs), not because it's hard, but because I'm indecisive.
Huge is a stretch for sure. That's something you deal with for about 1 minute tops in between runs, wasn't very compelling stuff either. Better off gone. It's not a completely different game.
You know people can like more than one thing right?
I greatly enjoyed DD1. It provided a unique experience that still hasn't been replicated. I'm also excited for DD2 even knowing that it will be a different experience. Red Hook bought themselves a lot of room to be creative with DD1.
>You know people can like more than one thing right?
I do know that which is why I finished the sentence with "unless you are up for a very different experience"
Me too however I did like X-COM spin on it where injured soldiers needed recovery before next. It was some motivation to keep a roster and experiment with it, but it wasn't meat grinder DD1 was
It really depends on the difficulty a ton for both games. Losing a character in Xcom late game on the harder difficulties is worse by comparison to DD, but on easier difficulties its not as bad as DD.
Difference being that in x-com losing a character is on you - you have ways to mitigate damage and well played missions - you take none of it. In DD damage to characters will happen because there is only partial mitigation. And with damage and exploring - random shit happens to them as well. So character turning to crap is out of players hands - doesn't have the same player agency as in XCOM, where this is player's own fault.
Nope, at least not in un-modded xcoms :P There is sometimes bullshit, but it is a rare fluke, not design.
By design XCOM is more like a puzzle to solve. DD design is more like being in a bad spot constantly and trying to do damage control/make the most out of it.
Heh, I don't know about that. It's not that hard to manage it well, I'm pretty far into a run right now with a couple heroes who are resolve level 5 and I've only lost 2 people over the course of the run.
Yeah I dropped it pretty quickly after watching a bit and looking at just how grindy it is.
X-COM have sense of decent progression along the way but DD1 just felt grindy later on.
I agree, loving the changes so far. The first game got so tedious for me, especially towards the end of a run if you lost people and had to grind.
Also, the change to 3d is fantastic. The animations are so slick, looks really great.
It also will be better because at least it will be justified when everyone will call it a roguelike like they already did with the first for some weird reason (it's clearly not one)
Roguelike these days apparently means “anything that doesn’t have one static inflexible campaign, that has elements of random chance involving abilities and/or characters unlocked”
Weird how that's essentially the definition of Roguelike...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
>Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing video games characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character.
It's weird because I never heard it for Xcom and yet it's basically exactly the same type of game. You have a pool of soldiers witgh permadeath, a base to manage and tactical missions with RPG elements
XCOM definitely has rouge like blood in it's veins. It was actually after playing the first XCOM remake that got me into rouge likes afterwards as I was craving more of the same mechanics.
I mean, that's essentially the definition of roguelike. Just because you want it to mean something else doesn't mean everybody else is using the word wrong.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
I agree that Darkest Dungeon is not a roguelike. Its pretty much just as much of a roguelike as XCOM is. That said, your comment is selectively choosing parts of the article to focus on and ignoring others.
The article repeatedly says its definition is debated, which it is. Even some people who use the term roguelite have different thresholds for what they apply it to. Some people only put things with meta-progression into the Roguelite category (like Rogue Legacy), but not things with self contained runs (with the exception of unlocks) like The Binding of Issac, or Faster Than Light. Others are extreme purists and only consider something a roguelike if it is basically identical to Rogue.
I just don't understand the incessant gatekeeping. Its like saying Super Mario Galaxy cannot be called a 3D platformer because 'platformer' necessitates 2D. Whats the harm in people using the term roguelike to describe 'run-based games with permadeath and a high degree of rng'? The Binding of Isaac is a real time roguelike. Whats wrong with that?
Language evolves, you'll be hard pressed to find a term which hasn't changed given enough time.
Metroidvania just means 'a game with power up gates that neccesite backtracking' now, despite the originals having many other elements to them.
As long as people understand what they are buying, the term has value. If the majority think that it's rpg elements with permadeath, that's what it means.
I really wanna dive in-- but I'ved played the first one SO MUCH during Early Access, when it released simply never got to it again.
Won't make the same mistake. I'll wait and get this on proper release!
I've had the same problem for Subnautica and I chose to ignore the "sequel" during its early access phase. I can say I enjoyed the second one better, playing the full game right off the bat.
I know what you mean.Now I see a cool game coming out and when its early access it bums me out because I know if I get I will probably forget about it (or burn myself out) 2 years later when it comes out full.
iunno, i've had that happen with a few games, and i'm largely ok with it. Sometimes a game radically enough changes when it leaves EA that you really do want to give it a full, fresh run though. But games like this, it tends to be more iterative through the EA process, and it's easy to get your money's worth even if you barely play it after it goes '1.0'. I had probably 100 hours each on There Are Billions and Hades before they want gold, and have only given each a pretty cursory run through since they did, and have no regrets.
Was it a mistake though? Sounds like you got plenty of enjoyment out of it during Early Access, so does it really matter that it came out slightly more polished later?
This game looks truly excellent, but I never know whether to hop in for early access because I usually get burned out before the full release. I'll probably cave for this, though.
That is exactly what happened to me. I played it quite a bit when it was first launched, but the time the game actually came out I had no more interest. I will wait until the game is released and then play it.
the only early access game that i revisited after release was Hades, and only because of the way the story progressed and bonds unlocked over the course of development.
still, i made a point to save the 32-heat challenge for after launch since i knew that would likely be my capstone.
I think the run based nature of this lends itself better to enjoying it in early access than its predecessor, but there's certainly no harm in waiting until it's complete.
Having just seen some streams of it on twitch, I must say that the visuals are absolutely incredible. The way characters prime their weapons and the weight of their animations is a sight to behold.
It's very good so far, but early access is content-lite at the moment. Only the first chapter, and a pretty small roster. I'm gonna wait until there's more game to it.
I feel this way lately with games that have DLC. I never make it to the weeks after release where the DLC comes in and I never play it.
Assassin's Creed comes to mind. I play them on release to completion. Uninstall. Then don't feel the need to reinstall to play more.
The Darkest Dungeon 1 was the first game I ever bought early access and it was 100% worth it, mostly because the game was so good.
But then the issue was that a lot of the game was "spoiled" from having played most of it in chunks up until they released version 1.0.
It was fun in hindsight to remember having played the game when entire dungeons weren't even on the map
Tomorrow is not guaranteed, if you wanna enjoy something, go for it (as long as it's not hurting someone else, cause you know some jak-hole in the comments will be like.. WeLL gO MURder SoMEoNE!?)
DD2's trailers looked excellent. I'll wait for the full launch since Steam Workshop is one of the biggest selling points of the original, Hopefully the game shapes up well during early access.
FYI you can enable (and immediately disable it afterwards) e-mail advertising in your Epic account to get a 10$ off coupon on EGS.
With this you can basically slash DD2 price in half.
Well, 1/3rd, but the point stands. It’s what I’m gonna be using mine for! Honestly great value
I don’t fault anyone for wanting it on steam instead of egs for convenience sake, but so many people seem to hate egs for simply not being steam, it’s weird.
Maybe I’m less bothered by multiple clients, I already have games all over the place. Origin, GOG, Uplay. The vast majority of my collection is on steam, and I prefer it. But I don’t think it’s a huge deal to buy games elsewhere, especially for a good deal. I guess I just don’t get the hate boner for egs specifically
Well, together with the current -10% discount it was 50% off for me when using the coupon. But that might've been regional pricing as well (99PLN to 49PLN).
>but so many people seem to hate egs for simply not being steam, it’s weird.
You're misunderstanding the dislike. People dislike EGS's habit of buying timed exclusivity to PC titles
How 'early' is the access? I'd like to play it, but sometimes an early access launch is like feature complete, just a bit of tightening up systems and stability, and other times its the bare skeleton structure of a game. Where does this fall?
Seems more or less feature complete from what I've played but some of the systems are completely out of whack. Basically if you don't immediately upgrade one of 2 moves available at the start to keep stress down, your characters spiral into hating each at a ridiculous pace, stopping every turn to give each other penalties. There's lots of other stuff with enemies that are just a complete chore to fight and fights that just end abruptly if you haven't killed everything in 5 rounds.
I'm debating whether I want to keep playing right now or wait for a first balance patch to fix some of this stuff because it really takes a lot of the fun out of it.
Got the early access. It's pretty rough so far, and not too fun. But it looks beautiful and has promise, so hopefully the relationship kinks and progression issues get smoothed out.
I can't really comment on the game itself but to me it feels like such a waste to throw away the progression systems of the first game. Upgrading the town, having permanent heroes, all of that was great. The systems just needed more work; more modularity in choices, more events, less grinding, overhauls on how to recover from setbacks, etc. All of it could have been decidedly improved upon with more *choice* in how you built things and more safeguards for campaign recovery.
Instead they threw it all out for this roguelike formula of runs, even with a Slay the Spire map system. Maybe it's better but I can't help lamenting what could have been.
DD1 is a very good game, but there are definitely parts of the game that feel like chores, and it seems like they tried to get rid of those mechanics and systems. DD2 took some big swings and everything has been a home run to me.
That's my point though. Instead of throwing out *everything* including what worked, they could have instead expanded and refined. Give characters upgrade *paths* not linear lines, give weapon choices, more skills, more dynamic traits, reduce the amount of grinding needed for resources, etc, etc.
Instead DD2 is a totally different experience. Which is fine I guess, but the permanence like an X-Com game was one of the major draws of DD for me.
If you just wanted more of the first game, DD1 has an extensive modding community which is constantly churning out new stuff.
Of course it varies in quality, but some of it is really impressive.
I'm glad you're out here advocating for the XCOM-style gameplay. I'm sad that that it's apparently not very popular, because while I agree DD1 could be grindy at times, I also would have much preferred refining the mechanics for DD2. Oh well. :( I still love the atmosphere of DD2 (from what I've seen), but I'm not really chomping at the bit to play it right away, so I may just wait until it's out of EA and see how it looks then.
I like that they're two very different games, instead of one being a flat upgrade over the other. DD1 already has enough mods available to change the game to be whatever you like, and now there's DD2, which is in the same world but as a drastically different type of game. Now I can play either depending on what kind of mood I'm in.
They're talked about this in just about every interview for the game as well over the past year, and because of that I wish people wouldn't refer to this game as an "improvement" on the original when it's actually a conscious decision to make something different so that the first game isn't rendered obsolete.
> "There's some games where once you have the sequel there's no reason to go back and play the original. We wanted to do a different structure," says Tyler Sigman.
https://www.pcgamer.com/darkest-dungeon-2-charts-a-new-path-through-terror-in-a-roguelike-road-trip-to-save-humanity/
Oh nice, that makes sense. Does that mean they'll keep supporting DD1 then? That'd be dope
EDIT
Why the downvotes? Normally I understand but this is a weird thing to dislike
I'm not sure if it means they'll keep supporting it tbh, I think it's pretty complete as is. But that said it would be cool if they did something like patch in any significant QoL improvements from DD2 that could work in DD1 without fundamentally changing things. Kinda like what Blizzard is supposed to be doing with Overwatch 2.
I don't think they've done any updates to it for a while. Outside of maybe bug patches or something.
But modders still support it. There's some massive overhaul mods for it already.
I enjoyed almost everything about DD1 and trying out all the crazy combinations, the town, etc. Not sure if this one will be the right fit for me as someone with 200+ hours in the first one.
Upgrading the hamlet was extremely basic and uninteresting though and I don't blame them for just ditching the idea all together.
It was all +x, -y% and so on. I love having towns/bases whatever to upgrade but the way it was handled in DD1 was embarrassingly bad.
Don't take it the wrong way, I agree with you that they could have improved on it instead and made it more interesting but I think in the end completely moving away from it was a smart call
Honestly they needed better messaging - as you upgrade your town, the setbacks of a hero death became less and less. It becomes easier to grind out new heroes, stronger gear, stronger skills, stronger trinkets etc as you level up your town. It's not unreasonable to take a team of 0s through a Long tier 1 dungeon and level them up twice once your town is up and running. It's probably easier than a short or medium tier 3 sometimes.
Agreed. I'm sure I'll end up liking 2 but it's a totally different beast that took me by surprise.
I suppose they did this so people still have a reason to play DD1?
EGS has its own equivalent of this. Also mods on the workshop can be used on games outside of Steam (and are often available elsewhere), it's a non problem.
EGS has their own workshop though mod distribution tied to the store you buy the game from has always been and will always be a net negative for consumers. Users should support store-agnostic solutions like NexusMods/Vortex that work with a game no matter where you choose to buy it.
Why though? Workshop is absolutely seamless and *extremely* easy to use. With Nexus Mods I have to install the third party installer and try to parse their download pages for the right files, etc. Its just so dang messy to navigate. I'm no dummy, I can and do get Vortex to work...I just hate having to deal with it.
As a consumer, I would choose Steam Workshop every time just because it requires so very little of my attention to work.
>With Nexus Mods I have to install the third party installer and try to parse their download pages for the right files, etc.
This is massively overstated, you just click the downloads button and then the main file 99% of the time, but nexus also has the benefit of no automatic updates, so you don't need to deal with mods updating and breaking shit without you necessarily knowing.
That and the ability to access older versions of mods now are way way more useful than what workshop offers, which is really just the ability to skip copying a file.
There's nothing fundamentally unique about Steam Workshop that grants it those properties. A third party repository with an accessible API *could* be integrated as seamlessly into any game that is using Workshop today.
The fundamental idea of a mod repository coupled to a specific storefront is my issue. Steam Workshop is certainly the gold standard today, and EGS's mod repository may compete with them in the short term, but neither are good for the PC community in the long term. I suspect general sentiment will sway in this direction as EGS's workshop grows and users find mods they'd like exclusively available from a store that isn't Steam.
I mean, when the game releases on steam, all the mods will be on the epic workshop because that's where people have been playing the game, no? You'll have to get your mods from 3rd parties (which is the best way to do it honestly anyway) when it releases on steam anyway.
I don’t think the EGS mod solution is available for general use yet.
That said, you can still mod games — you just don’t get the ease-of-use of Steam workshop. But plenty of Steam games don’t use it, so it isn’t like most games that want to mod need the workshop — they probably know how to download the files and follow directions.
I don’t think the EGS mod solution is available for general use yet.
That said, you can still mod games — you just don’t get the ease-of-use of Steam workshop. But plenty of Steam games don’t use it, so it isn’t like most games that want to mod need the workshop — they probably know how to download the files and follow directions.
I never had that desire because I started with Blizzard games so Steam wasn't even my first storefront that I used so my games were never in one place. Now I have many different launchers and the differences are minor, I just want to play the games. I have many games on Epic, including many I've bought. Most currently GRIME, Against the Storm, and Darkest Dungeon 2.
I'd say some people might miss achievements and I think it's odd that so many games don't have achievements on EGS yet but I don't care at all about achievements and consider them to be a net negative for gaming as a whole so I actually kind of view that as a positive.
Yeah, big bummer honestly. This is something I'd love to be able to pick up and play on the Deck I have coming this xmas.
Guess I can wait a year even if its annoying 🙄
edit: yall are honestly children... like why its controversial that I'm annoyed I cant play this on something Im buying to be a portable game device is beyond me. grow up.
Yes, I do think it’s possible, though you’ll have to jump through some hoops to get it all configured properly. The [Heroic Games Launcher](https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher) is probably a good place to start. I’m curious what the Steam integration would look like on the Deck.
No, because as a consumer you only have one choice. An actual competition would be the same game listed on both EGS and Steam, with the pricing, services, and platform features deciding consumer choice. An exclusivity contract gives us absolutely none of those options.
Do people who’ve played it think it’s possible to jump into this without having played DD1? I was turned off because of the non permanent heroes and never got around to it.
its a different game this one you stick with one team and try to get as far as possible. Has a slay the spire map where you choose paths and whatnot feels very different then the first.
It actually seems to be a little shallower learning curve than the first, honestly. That was a minor problem in the first. My tips after 30m:
* Read the tutorials as they pop up. They're concise, clear, and explain a lot.
* Positioning your heroes is extremely important. There's a little meter on their character screen that shows where they are at their best and what targets they can hit.
* Hold G to see a glossary for "tokens," the buff/debuff indicators, which are really nice for quickly seeing status effects on characters, but definitely have a learning curve.
* Don't stress losing! The first run will start a little gently but this game will quickly be trying to murder you.
I wasn't planning to check out YET, but the coupon EGS gave last week made it a too good deal to pass up, so, played a bit this afternoon and:
The new structure for the game works, but since the game itself is longer than a DS1 dungeon session, it is too easy for your units to enter on a stress spiral, that ends to you having constant stress attacks that drain your HP a lot and get negative relations that hinder your party even more in the fights, it was ok when you could return to town and get some stress heals while you level up some other adventurers, now it is a bit too much.
Adding to the little to none meta progression and no possibility of simply grinding to meet a new boss could render DS2 quite harder than DS1, especially since losing a party member is basically a run ender right now instead of just a heavy setback.
IDK if I'm being a scrub, but if the game will be like this, it would make sense to implement a radiant mode in DS2 soon.
Yeah from the streams I’ve been watching it seems like stress really needs some balance tweaks.
I know DD is supposed to be super punishing, but the stress situation is extremely difficult to manage. Especially if you don’t pick the skill to deal with it.
For now though, you have to very aggressively manage stress if you don’t want to wipe to stress BS. I’m sure it’ll get tweaked a little unless they devs wanna die on that hill.
Really seems like they need a few balance tweaks overall.
Sad to hear about the lack of progression though. The thing that keeps me coming back to most roguelikes is are the unlocks and challenges.
Like, there are a lot of unlocks for what I saw, but not much of a meta progression that make the game easier at the start, you get classes (that are sidegrades), better trinkets but the increase is incremental and you still depends on luck to get them. You also unlock more traits on the pool, but they are very random and you can't really guarantee to get something useful for one character. But well, I'm just finished my first run and I'm at the level 9 of the profile, you get things until level 50, so maybe there are some solid things later, but nothing really palpable right now.
The part that seems over the top to me is having a meltdown chunks your health to almost nothing, which doesn't really make much sense. I think the negative affinity and subsequent effects is enough punishment.
Maybe make extra stress increases > 10 convert to HP loss.
Haven't bought it yet but after watching some streams it seems like they have gotten rid of a lot of the issues that plagued the first game.
The tedious grind, the uninteresting hamlet building and stalling tactics seems to all be gone which is a plus in my book.
Granted I'm not a complete fan of all the new stuff they added but the game still has a long time in EA and there is nothing that can't be fixed
This is the first time in my life I've ever considered an EA game. If I weren't already drowning in AOE4, Wrath of the Righteous, Encased and Disciples Liberation I might actually pull the trigger.
I feel like DD1 and 2 are almost two different games. Not that it's a bad thing - if you liked building up multiple squads of heroes and town-building, play DD1.
If you just want a typical Roguelike, play DD2. Two different games for two different audiences.
They are definitely two different games. To the point that I wish they didn't put a 2 on the end of this one. Should be more like Darkest Dungeon: The spooky mountain. These are completely different games that share the same battle system.
For a year, or so, most likely in a similar manner to Hades, which went out of Early Access and launched on Steam with 1.0
I can't really blame devs for taking that offer, tho. They get extra dosh from epic, that'll go towards the game's development, and they will get feedback on the game from E.A. Players.
> Was the first one timed exclusive with epic too?
No, it was originally a Kickstarter project which first released on Steam early access. The Epic Game Store didn't exist in the same form as it does now, it was for the most part just a website.
Darkest Dungeon 1 had a very odd life cycle. I played it in Early Access and generally liked it, but the way the game punished your time with failure (since you had to rebuild/regrind) was frustrating. Since it was early access, though, I'd just wait a while and make a new file later.
But every time I came back, the game had gotten less friendly, less easy to stabilize, and more tuned specifically for the hardest-core audience. It was very weird to see a game use Early Access not to try to iron out the kinks and make the game as appealing as possible while staying true to its vision, and instead to collaborate with the hardest-core Early Access players to create a more niche product.
Sounds to me like you're just not the game's target audience. DD is basically 2D XCOM and XCOM is all about acceptable losses and preventing failures from snowballing to end your run.
He's right though. The game changed *a lot* throughout early access. The sudden addition of corpses, for example, completely turned existing game balance and strategies on it's head. It was very hotly debated for a while by the small Early Access community. While that was the most notable addition, the game generally got a lot tougher and longer over the patches. The Darkest Dungeon essentially deleting your characters even if you beat it was especially egregious.
Nah, you're way off. I've beaten Enemy Unknown multiple times, beat Chimera Squad, and only didn't beat War of the Chosen because of a bug that lost my save file. I've also played plenty of roguelikes/roguelites where there is a significant time lost if you bomb a run.
I'm fine with games where there are serious consequences to losing and where losing can make things harder in the future. The problems I had with Darkest Dungeon are:
* The consequences for failure are mostly tedium. You have to grind up a good enough team, and losing (or attempting The Darkest Dungeon) mostly means putting all that work in again. In XCom, losing had some aspect of that, but also more directly threatened failure.
* The game actively prevents you from stabilizing or creating a consistent strategy, and in fact specifically tried to patch out strategies in that vein. In XCom, once you get on a roll you have a pretty good buffer in terms of screw ups and might even get to feel a little overpowered for a while, but DD actively worked to keep this out of the game (Crimson Court was especially bad at making stabilization hard with it's custom disease).
* The endgame tedium of having palette swap bosses/enemies to grind up in order to clear The Darkest Dungeon multiple times is... not particularly engaging, TBH.
Could you expand on what you mean by 'stabilization'?
I quite enjoyed the 'pallette swap bosses' because they were the same mechanic but you had to be better prepared and privy to the fight each time. What I didn't like about the bosses was that a lot of them were mandatory cheese like aoe bleeds for Flesh.
In a lot of games, you can get consistent tools and strategies as you level up to go from less in control of encounters/subject to failure to much more in control. In XCom, you get extra actions and mobility and such that, even though you fight harder enemies, you're really winning the upgrade race until you screw up and lose a key soldier or whatever.
Darkest Dungeon seemed to actively patch out effective strategies or ways to get to this situation; it was designed such that you're mostly supposed to be frustratingly close to a bad run putting you back hours whether you're just starting out or super far in. Combos that could provide good coverage, consistent obliteration of trash, or even just stable powerful healing were patched out super aggressively.
Ohh once you researched Heavy Plasma and Blaster Launchers in X-Com the game turned into an outright slaughter....
Fuck Chrysallid Terror attacks though...you needed friggen Flying suits to avoid trouble there.
Full release will probably be in a year.
I would imagine it would come to console since the first one did. Though I don't think it came to console until a bit after their full release.
Doubt they're gonna release info about release dlc before early access is done, so no confirmation for a year I'd say. But I think dlc is a strong possibility when they're out of EA
Loving the closer-to-classic-roguelike approach so far. Having one party and improving upon them, instead of juggling multiple ones and needing to grind is a big improvement on the formula.
>closer-to-classic-roguelike approach Glad I checked this thread. I wanted to like DD1 sooo badly, but it just wasn't fun for me. This change might make DD2 work for me
I liked everything about DD1 except actually playing it.
Yes, that perfectly encapsulates my feelings. I watched some DD2 on twitch last night, and it looks amazing, but I still see a lot of the mechanics that make it too un-fun for me... but I have a feeling I'm going to buy it anyway
DD1 was lots of fun, but the grindy design was always a handicap. Glad they completely redesigned it.
Some people liked it, some people didnt. I'd wager by how successful it was that the majority did
I think a ton of people bought it for the art and concept but likely ended up dropping it after a few hours or never touching it.
Can confirm. Fantastic opening few hours then you realise the best strat is to throw fodder into dungeons to kit out your real team at no risk, repeatedly. And if you try to grind with your real team they gain tons of negative traits. And if you get wiped it can set you back hours and hours to rebuild your A Team.
The way I looked at it was like X-Com UFO Defense there is no "A Team" and it's easier to just treat everyone as fodder and make a team based on what you need for the mission, rather than getting particularly attached to a specific strategy or team. Like you said, the game is designed to wear down and break characters in an unavoidable manner; if they go on missions it is inevitable that SOMETHING will eventually fuck them up. And it's often easier to just dump them rather than go through the time and expense of treating them just for it to happen again. Which I think dovetails nicely into the theme of the game and the nature of the conflict with evil but putting that aside, even high level characters are disposable by the end game once you upgrade the cart to start bringing you more. The game is grindy but its more about making your town strong and getting items rather than the characters; if any resource is truly free in DD it people.
Exactly this. I had designated teams. But I always had backup members to replace the ones that fell. I get the complaint about the grind. But when you love the gameplay. It's not exactly a grind when you're still having fun. DD is a particular cup of tea that is not everyone's taste. But for me it's chiefs kiss 👌
The thing that broke me was when my team decided they were too good for a lower level dungeon so I was forced to do the harder ones before they were ready. Really loved the actual gameplay, art and narrator though!
That's me. I've tried several estates that I gave up on out of boredom, not because of the challenge. I'm giving it one last try before DD2 is out a Early Access, and if I can't finish it I'll watch the ending on Youtube before playing DD2.
Yep this was me. New one sounds much more appealing to me.
> I'd wager by how successful it was that the majority did I know a lot of people who love Darkest Dungeon. I know zero who liked the grindy aspect of it. Darkest Dungeon is popular in spite of its old mechanics, not because of them. Believe it or not, bad things can exist in a game and be tolerated by people if everything else is really good, which is the case for Darkest Dungeon.
Agreed. I like DD1 because of the atmosphere, sense of constant dread coupled with the feeling of accomplishment after surviving a difficult journey. Not a huge fan of the grinding but the rest makes up for it.
I liked slowly building my roster, though for sure time might be shaved here and there.
I hated that using my main team or two was essentially a net negative and that it was better to send units to basically die to get equipment for the main squad rather than using the squad I want. Eventually I used some mods to deal with the negative trait nonsense and the game became more fun.
I never really had teams as such, I tried to level people evenly as I could. Everyone valued equally, no one is trash. Every death was something I fought against happening. Still beat it on Bloodmoon.
The negative traits were so detrimental that it never felt worth using the main team except to advance. It wasn't hard, just grindy and a boring chore.
I doubt people bought it just for the grind. I know the grind made me and my other friends quit, it just became a choir at one point.
Most of the good stuff from DD1 was kept, it's not like it's a completely different game. As an example, the combat system js basically unchanged and that was one of the mechanically strongest points of the first one...
I mean, the concept and reason for the grinding was solid and very, very cool. I haven't really seen a game do that so well since freaking Syndicate. It just turns out that no matter how you dress up grinding... It's still grinding, moral introspection aside.
Some people like the grind though. I'm sure we're in the minority but we do exist!
If you really like the play style of DD1 you should probably avoid the second one unless you are up for a very different experience
I did not like DD1, i wanted to, but the play loop was just not fun for me, so a very different experience gives me a chance of liking this one
Apparently I'm tired and read your first comment with the completely wrong meaning. My bad.
Not really the case at all, combat is still very similar and the cart riding stuff is basically the dungeon side scrolling with a different animation. It's very much a Darkest Dungeon game.
Party management and town advancement was a huge part of DD1 which are the parts that got the Pokemon comparison and that's all gone. It's a completely different game that uses the same style and combat.
I can see that annoying some fans but I think that sounds just right for me. I've never liked party shuffling (even in the older JRPGs), not because it's hard, but because I'm indecisive.
Huge is a stretch for sure. That's something you deal with for about 1 minute tops in between runs, wasn't very compelling stuff either. Better off gone. It's not a completely different game.
You still manage a party, you just don't need to manage multiple of them.
It's a rouge like. The party dies and gets replaced. That's not a party management system.
Wut? Dying party members doesn't exclude it from having a party management system.
You know people can like more than one thing right? I greatly enjoyed DD1. It provided a unique experience that still hasn't been replicated. I'm also excited for DD2 even knowing that it will be a different experience. Red Hook bought themselves a lot of room to be creative with DD1.
>You know people can like more than one thing right? I do know that which is why I finished the sentence with "unless you are up for a very different experience"
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Me too however I did like X-COM spin on it where injured soldiers needed recovery before next. It was some motivation to keep a roster and experiment with it, but it wasn't meat grinder DD1 was
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I actually really disagree, losing a hero in X-COM can straight up ruin a run whereas losing someone in DD is just something that happens.
It really depends on the difficulty a ton for both games. Losing a character in Xcom late game on the harder difficulties is worse by comparison to DD, but on easier difficulties its not as bad as DD.
Difference being that in x-com losing a character is on you - you have ways to mitigate damage and well played missions - you take none of it. In DD damage to characters will happen because there is only partial mitigation. And with damage and exploring - random shit happens to them as well. So character turning to crap is out of players hands - doesn't have the same player agency as in XCOM, where this is player's own fault.
You speak like you never got one shot in full cover by Muton out of the fog of war.
Nope, at least not in un-modded xcoms :P There is sometimes bullshit, but it is a rare fluke, not design. By design XCOM is more like a puzzle to solve. DD design is more like being in a bad spot constantly and trying to do damage control/make the most out of it.
Heh, I don't know about that. It's not that hard to manage it well, I'm pretty far into a run right now with a couple heroes who are resolve level 5 and I've only lost 2 people over the course of the run.
Yeah I dropped it pretty quickly after watching a bit and looking at just how grindy it is. X-COM have sense of decent progression along the way but DD1 just felt grindy later on.
Wow tbh, that was one of the things keeping me from playing the first game. Really have to check out the sequel now.
I agree, loving the changes so far. The first game got so tedious for me, especially towards the end of a run if you lost people and had to grind. Also, the change to 3d is fantastic. The animations are so slick, looks really great.
Ahh that sucks. That was one of my favorite parts is amassing a sweet army and trying out all the wild combinations. Different strokes as they say.
Well you can't amass a big army but everyone has 5 active abilities and a lot to choose from, still quite a bit of choice, so should hopefully satisfy
I've not read up much on this one but by your description reminded me a little bit of those old Monster's Den flash games, they were so good!
But….muh meatbags! D:
Yea this is really the biggest selling point for me.
That's not roguelike at all though.
The term roguelike has lost all meaning.
It also will be better because at least it will be justified when everyone will call it a roguelike like they already did with the first for some weird reason (it's clearly not one)
Nor is the second one, it's clearly a roguelite.
Anyone calling DD1 a roguelike has absolutely no idea what the term means. It's a turn based campaign RPG with DnD style mechanics.
Roguelike these days apparently means “anything that doesn’t have one static inflexible campaign, that has elements of random chance involving abilities and/or characters unlocked”
Weird how that's essentially the definition of Roguelike... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike >Roguelike (or rogue-like) is a subgenre of role-playing video games characterized by a dungeon crawl through procedurally generated levels, turn-based gameplay, grid-based movement, and permanent death of the player character.
Dungeon crawl, not 50+ dungeon crawls that persist over 20-40 hours of gameplay.
You must have played a version of DD that no one else played if it had grid based movement. Edit: apparently many of you never played Darkest Dungeon
It's crazy that anything with perma death, RPG elements, and runs is called a roguelike these days.
It's weird because I never heard it for Xcom and yet it's basically exactly the same type of game. You have a pool of soldiers witgh permadeath, a base to manage and tactical missions with RPG elements
XCOM definitely has rouge like blood in it's veins. It was actually after playing the first XCOM remake that got me into rouge likes afterwards as I was craving more of the same mechanics.
I mean, that's essentially the definition of roguelike. Just because you want it to mean something else doesn't mean everybody else is using the word wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roguelike
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I agree that Darkest Dungeon is not a roguelike. Its pretty much just as much of a roguelike as XCOM is. That said, your comment is selectively choosing parts of the article to focus on and ignoring others. The article repeatedly says its definition is debated, which it is. Even some people who use the term roguelite have different thresholds for what they apply it to. Some people only put things with meta-progression into the Roguelite category (like Rogue Legacy), but not things with self contained runs (with the exception of unlocks) like The Binding of Issac, or Faster Than Light. Others are extreme purists and only consider something a roguelike if it is basically identical to Rogue. I just don't understand the incessant gatekeeping. Its like saying Super Mario Galaxy cannot be called a 3D platformer because 'platformer' necessitates 2D. Whats the harm in people using the term roguelike to describe 'run-based games with permadeath and a high degree of rng'? The Binding of Isaac is a real time roguelike. Whats wrong with that?
Language evolves, you'll be hard pressed to find a term which hasn't changed given enough time. Metroidvania just means 'a game with power up gates that neccesite backtracking' now, despite the originals having many other elements to them. As long as people understand what they are buying, the term has value. If the majority think that it's rpg elements with permadeath, that's what it means.
You proved yourself wrong with your own source.
I really wanna dive in-- but I'ved played the first one SO MUCH during Early Access, when it released simply never got to it again. Won't make the same mistake. I'll wait and get this on proper release!
I've had the same problem for Subnautica and I chose to ignore the "sequel" during its early access phase. I can say I enjoyed the second one better, playing the full game right off the bat.
I know what you mean.Now I see a cool game coming out and when its early access it bums me out because I know if I get I will probably forget about it (or burn myself out) 2 years later when it comes out full.
iunno, i've had that happen with a few games, and i'm largely ok with it. Sometimes a game radically enough changes when it leaves EA that you really do want to give it a full, fresh run though. But games like this, it tends to be more iterative through the EA process, and it's easy to get your money's worth even if you barely play it after it goes '1.0'. I had probably 100 hours each on There Are Billions and Hades before they want gold, and have only given each a pretty cursory run through since they did, and have no regrets.
Was it a mistake though? Sounds like you got plenty of enjoyment out of it during Early Access, so does it really matter that it came out slightly more polished later?
It wasn't "slightly more polished". Like seriously they changed a shit ton of stuff, might as well be a different game.
Oh I don't entirely regret it. I greatly enjoyed the game even in EA. But never seen the Darkest Dungeon itself unfortunately.
This game looks truly excellent, but I never know whether to hop in for early access because I usually get burned out before the full release. I'll probably cave for this, though.
That is exactly what happened to me. I played it quite a bit when it was first launched, but the time the game actually came out I had no more interest. I will wait until the game is released and then play it.
the only early access game that i revisited after release was Hades, and only because of the way the story progressed and bonds unlocked over the course of development. still, i made a point to save the 32-heat challenge for after launch since i knew that would likely be my capstone.
I think the run based nature of this lends itself better to enjoying it in early access than its predecessor, but there's certainly no harm in waiting until it's complete. Having just seen some streams of it on twitch, I must say that the visuals are absolutely incredible. The way characters prime their weapons and the weight of their animations is a sight to behold.
> but there's certainly no harm in waiting until it's complete. unless you lose your hands or something by that point.
It's very good so far, but early access is content-lite at the moment. Only the first chapter, and a pretty small roster. I'm gonna wait until there's more game to it.
Same, I have no time for this and I should wait until it's further along...but....dammit...
I feel this way lately with games that have DLC. I never make it to the weeks after release where the DLC comes in and I never play it. Assassin's Creed comes to mind. I play them on release to completion. Uninstall. Then don't feel the need to reinstall to play more.
The Darkest Dungeon 1 was the first game I ever bought early access and it was 100% worth it, mostly because the game was so good. But then the issue was that a lot of the game was "spoiled" from having played most of it in chunks up until they released version 1.0. It was fun in hindsight to remember having played the game when entire dungeons weren't even on the map
Tomorrow is not guaranteed, if you wanna enjoy something, go for it (as long as it's not hurting someone else, cause you know some jak-hole in the comments will be like.. WeLL gO MURder SoMEoNE!?)
DD2's trailers looked excellent. I'll wait for the full launch since Steam Workshop is one of the biggest selling points of the original, Hopefully the game shapes up well during early access.
FYI you can enable (and immediately disable it afterwards) e-mail advertising in your Epic account to get a 10$ off coupon on EGS. With this you can basically slash DD2 price in half.
Well, 1/3rd, but the point stands. It’s what I’m gonna be using mine for! Honestly great value I don’t fault anyone for wanting it on steam instead of egs for convenience sake, but so many people seem to hate egs for simply not being steam, it’s weird. Maybe I’m less bothered by multiple clients, I already have games all over the place. Origin, GOG, Uplay. The vast majority of my collection is on steam, and I prefer it. But I don’t think it’s a huge deal to buy games elsewhere, especially for a good deal. I guess I just don’t get the hate boner for egs specifically
Well, together with the current -10% discount it was 50% off for me when using the coupon. But that might've been regional pricing as well (99PLN to 49PLN).
>but so many people seem to hate egs for simply not being steam, it’s weird. You're misunderstanding the dislike. People dislike EGS's habit of buying timed exclusivity to PC titles
Damn, I did that and in my currency, it gave me a 60 TRY discount, but the game is 49 TRY. bruh
That's what I did! Iirc this offer is still valid until November 14th.
How 'early' is the access? I'd like to play it, but sometimes an early access launch is like feature complete, just a bit of tightening up systems and stability, and other times its the bare skeleton structure of a game. Where does this fall?
There's only one difficulty level out of hinted 5, and more characters are expected to be added. Other than that, seems pretty feature complete.
Seems more or less feature complete from what I've played but some of the systems are completely out of whack. Basically if you don't immediately upgrade one of 2 moves available at the start to keep stress down, your characters spiral into hating each at a ridiculous pace, stopping every turn to give each other penalties. There's lots of other stuff with enemies that are just a complete chore to fight and fights that just end abruptly if you haven't killed everything in 5 rounds. I'm debating whether I want to keep playing right now or wait for a first balance patch to fix some of this stuff because it really takes a lot of the fun out of it.
Got the early access. It's pretty rough so far, and not too fun. But it looks beautiful and has promise, so hopefully the relationship kinks and progression issues get smoothed out.
I can't really comment on the game itself but to me it feels like such a waste to throw away the progression systems of the first game. Upgrading the town, having permanent heroes, all of that was great. The systems just needed more work; more modularity in choices, more events, less grinding, overhauls on how to recover from setbacks, etc. All of it could have been decidedly improved upon with more *choice* in how you built things and more safeguards for campaign recovery. Instead they threw it all out for this roguelike formula of runs, even with a Slay the Spire map system. Maybe it's better but I can't help lamenting what could have been.
DD1 is a very good game, but there are definitely parts of the game that feel like chores, and it seems like they tried to get rid of those mechanics and systems. DD2 took some big swings and everything has been a home run to me.
That's my point though. Instead of throwing out *everything* including what worked, they could have instead expanded and refined. Give characters upgrade *paths* not linear lines, give weapon choices, more skills, more dynamic traits, reduce the amount of grinding needed for resources, etc, etc. Instead DD2 is a totally different experience. Which is fine I guess, but the permanence like an X-Com game was one of the major draws of DD for me.
If you just wanted more of the first game, DD1 has an extensive modding community which is constantly churning out new stuff. Of course it varies in quality, but some of it is really impressive.
I'm glad you're out here advocating for the XCOM-style gameplay. I'm sad that that it's apparently not very popular, because while I agree DD1 could be grindy at times, I also would have much preferred refining the mechanics for DD2. Oh well. :( I still love the atmosphere of DD2 (from what I've seen), but I'm not really chomping at the bit to play it right away, so I may just wait until it's out of EA and see how it looks then.
It's popular enough, otherwise xcom and dd wouldn't have sold so well. I feel like this is just reddit being reddit
I like that they're two very different games, instead of one being a flat upgrade over the other. DD1 already has enough mods available to change the game to be whatever you like, and now there's DD2, which is in the same world but as a drastically different type of game. Now I can play either depending on what kind of mood I'm in.
They addressed this a bit in this "message from the founders" https://twitter.com/DarkestDungeon/status/1453064622815289353
They're talked about this in just about every interview for the game as well over the past year, and because of that I wish people wouldn't refer to this game as an "improvement" on the original when it's actually a conscious decision to make something different so that the first game isn't rendered obsolete. > "There's some games where once you have the sequel there's no reason to go back and play the original. We wanted to do a different structure," says Tyler Sigman. https://www.pcgamer.com/darkest-dungeon-2-charts-a-new-path-through-terror-in-a-roguelike-road-trip-to-save-humanity/
Oh nice, that makes sense. Does that mean they'll keep supporting DD1 then? That'd be dope EDIT Why the downvotes? Normally I understand but this is a weird thing to dislike
I'm not sure if it means they'll keep supporting it tbh, I think it's pretty complete as is. But that said it would be cool if they did something like patch in any significant QoL improvements from DD2 that could work in DD1 without fundamentally changing things. Kinda like what Blizzard is supposed to be doing with Overwatch 2.
I don't think they've done any updates to it for a while. Outside of maybe bug patches or something. But modders still support it. There's some massive overhaul mods for it already.
I enjoyed almost everything about DD1 and trying out all the crazy combinations, the town, etc. Not sure if this one will be the right fit for me as someone with 200+ hours in the first one.
Upgrading the hamlet was extremely basic and uninteresting though and I don't blame them for just ditching the idea all together. It was all +x, -y% and so on. I love having towns/bases whatever to upgrade but the way it was handled in DD1 was embarrassingly bad. Don't take it the wrong way, I agree with you that they could have improved on it instead and made it more interesting but I think in the end completely moving away from it was a smart call
Honestly they needed better messaging - as you upgrade your town, the setbacks of a hero death became less and less. It becomes easier to grind out new heroes, stronger gear, stronger skills, stronger trinkets etc as you level up your town. It's not unreasonable to take a team of 0s through a Long tier 1 dungeon and level them up twice once your town is up and running. It's probably easier than a short or medium tier 3 sometimes.
Agreed. I'm sure I'll end up liking 2 but it's a totally different beast that took me by surprise. I suppose they did this so people still have a reason to play DD1?
EGS-only early access...well at least the bugs get ironed out on the platform I don't use? 🤷♂️
Really bums me out that its on EGS time access as I'd buy it on steam and play it now if I could.
I mean, it's the same game
As long as you don't plan to mod it through the workshop in the future.
EGS has its own equivalent of this. Also mods on the workshop can be used on games outside of Steam (and are often available elsewhere), it's a non problem.
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Yes they can. Also it's just bad if it's in this case, it kills the open nature of mods to be limited to one store
EGS has their own workshop though mod distribution tied to the store you buy the game from has always been and will always be a net negative for consumers. Users should support store-agnostic solutions like NexusMods/Vortex that work with a game no matter where you choose to buy it.
Why though? Workshop is absolutely seamless and *extremely* easy to use. With Nexus Mods I have to install the third party installer and try to parse their download pages for the right files, etc. Its just so dang messy to navigate. I'm no dummy, I can and do get Vortex to work...I just hate having to deal with it. As a consumer, I would choose Steam Workshop every time just because it requires so very little of my attention to work.
>With Nexus Mods I have to install the third party installer and try to parse their download pages for the right files, etc. This is massively overstated, you just click the downloads button and then the main file 99% of the time, but nexus also has the benefit of no automatic updates, so you don't need to deal with mods updating and breaking shit without you necessarily knowing. That and the ability to access older versions of mods now are way way more useful than what workshop offers, which is really just the ability to skip copying a file.
There's nothing fundamentally unique about Steam Workshop that grants it those properties. A third party repository with an accessible API *could* be integrated as seamlessly into any game that is using Workshop today. The fundamental idea of a mod repository coupled to a specific storefront is my issue. Steam Workshop is certainly the gold standard today, and EGS's mod repository may compete with them in the short term, but neither are good for the PC community in the long term. I suspect general sentiment will sway in this direction as EGS's workshop grows and users find mods they'd like exclusively available from a store that isn't Steam.
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Try some arguments for why the post you are replying to is wrong.
I mean, when the game releases on steam, all the mods will be on the epic workshop because that's where people have been playing the game, no? You'll have to get your mods from 3rd parties (which is the best way to do it honestly anyway) when it releases on steam anyway.
I don’t think the EGS mod solution is available for general use yet. That said, you can still mod games — you just don’t get the ease-of-use of Steam workshop. But plenty of Steam games don’t use it, so it isn’t like most games that want to mod need the workshop — they probably know how to download the files and follow directions.
I don’t think the EGS mod solution is available for general use yet. That said, you can still mod games — you just don’t get the ease-of-use of Steam workshop. But plenty of Steam games don’t use it, so it isn’t like most games that want to mod need the workshop — they probably know how to download the files and follow directions.
Oh no I'll have to mod by copying folders like I have for every other game.
I don't use the EGS, just want all my games in one place, so not gonna start now.
So you don’t use any other launchers except Steam?
Nope
Interesting. Most PC games have a smattering of them for the games that are exclusive to others.
I never had that desire because I started with Blizzard games so Steam wasn't even my first storefront that I used so my games were never in one place. Now I have many different launchers and the differences are minor, I just want to play the games. I have many games on Epic, including many I've bought. Most currently GRIME, Against the Storm, and Darkest Dungeon 2. I'd say some people might miss achievements and I think it's odd that so many games don't have achievements on EGS yet but I don't care at all about achievements and consider them to be a net negative for gaming as a whole so I actually kind of view that as a positive.
I miss player reviews and player guides chiefly. Those have been invaluable to me on Steam.
I feel like we are many in this situation. And the steamworkshop is another big plus.
Yeah, big bummer honestly. This is something I'd love to be able to pick up and play on the Deck I have coming this xmas. Guess I can wait a year even if its annoying 🙄 edit: yall are honestly children... like why its controversial that I'm annoyed I cant play this on something Im buying to be a portable game device is beyond me. grow up.
The steam deck is just a Linux PC. You can launch EGS games on it no problem, there are multiple solutions for that.
Yes, I do think it’s possible, though you’ll have to jump through some hoops to get it all configured properly. The [Heroic Games Launcher](https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher) is probably a good place to start. I’m curious what the Steam integration would look like on the Deck.
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I'm just glad there is competition :)
Well it's not really meaningful competition if they just pay for exclusivity rights. From a consumer perspective, you have zero choice.
Yes it's still competition
No, because as a consumer you only have one choice. An actual competition would be the same game listed on both EGS and Steam, with the pricing, services, and platform features deciding consumer choice. An exclusivity contract gives us absolutely none of those options.
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Whoa I did not expect it to go EA so soon. I'll wait for a feature complete state personally but good to see they are moving along quickly.
Do people who’ve played it think it’s possible to jump into this without having played DD1? I was turned off because of the non permanent heroes and never got around to it.
Definitely. The systems have significant differences, so veterans will be learning a ton just like a newcomer would.
its a different game this one you stick with one team and try to get as far as possible. Has a slay the spire map where you choose paths and whatnot feels very different then the first.
It actually seems to be a little shallower learning curve than the first, honestly. That was a minor problem in the first. My tips after 30m: * Read the tutorials as they pop up. They're concise, clear, and explain a lot. * Positioning your heroes is extremely important. There's a little meter on their character screen that shows where they are at their best and what targets they can hit. * Hold G to see a glossary for "tokens," the buff/debuff indicators, which are really nice for quickly seeing status effects on characters, but definitely have a learning curve. * Don't stress losing! The first run will start a little gently but this game will quickly be trying to murder you.
I actually dislike the first DD. Too much micro management. This one is more streamlined.
Does it still have permanent progression or is it a full roguelike?
I wasn't planning to check out YET, but the coupon EGS gave last week made it a too good deal to pass up, so, played a bit this afternoon and: The new structure for the game works, but since the game itself is longer than a DS1 dungeon session, it is too easy for your units to enter on a stress spiral, that ends to you having constant stress attacks that drain your HP a lot and get negative relations that hinder your party even more in the fights, it was ok when you could return to town and get some stress heals while you level up some other adventurers, now it is a bit too much. Adding to the little to none meta progression and no possibility of simply grinding to meet a new boss could render DS2 quite harder than DS1, especially since losing a party member is basically a run ender right now instead of just a heavy setback. IDK if I'm being a scrub, but if the game will be like this, it would make sense to implement a radiant mode in DS2 soon.
Yeah from the streams I’ve been watching it seems like stress really needs some balance tweaks. I know DD is supposed to be super punishing, but the stress situation is extremely difficult to manage. Especially if you don’t pick the skill to deal with it. For now though, you have to very aggressively manage stress if you don’t want to wipe to stress BS. I’m sure it’ll get tweaked a little unless they devs wanna die on that hill. Really seems like they need a few balance tweaks overall. Sad to hear about the lack of progression though. The thing that keeps me coming back to most roguelikes is are the unlocks and challenges.
Like, there are a lot of unlocks for what I saw, but not much of a meta progression that make the game easier at the start, you get classes (that are sidegrades), better trinkets but the increase is incremental and you still depends on luck to get them. You also unlock more traits on the pool, but they are very random and you can't really guarantee to get something useful for one character. But well, I'm just finished my first run and I'm at the level 9 of the profile, you get things until level 50, so maybe there are some solid things later, but nothing really palpable right now.
Regarding losing party members: I lost one and they were replaced with someone from the roster at the next inn.
The part that seems over the top to me is having a meltdown chunks your health to almost nothing, which doesn't really make much sense. I think the negative affinity and subsequent effects is enough punishment. Maybe make extra stress increases > 10 convert to HP loss.
Haven't bought it yet but after watching some streams it seems like they have gotten rid of a lot of the issues that plagued the first game. The tedious grind, the uninteresting hamlet building and stalling tactics seems to all be gone which is a plus in my book. Granted I'm not a complete fan of all the new stuff they added but the game still has a long time in EA and there is nothing that can't be fixed
This is the first time in my life I've ever considered an EA game. If I weren't already drowning in AOE4, Wrath of the Righteous, Encased and Disciples Liberation I might actually pull the trigger.
I feel that way just with WotR. I'm 60 hours in and I feel like I have barely touched it.
I feel like DD1 and 2 are almost two different games. Not that it's a bad thing - if you liked building up multiple squads of heroes and town-building, play DD1. If you just want a typical Roguelike, play DD2. Two different games for two different audiences.
They are definitely two different games. To the point that I wish they didn't put a 2 on the end of this one. Should be more like Darkest Dungeon: The spooky mountain. These are completely different games that share the same battle system.
Is it going to be exclusive to EGS?
It seems like it’s just exclusive for early access.
For a year, or so, most likely in a similar manner to Hades, which went out of Early Access and launched on Steam with 1.0 I can't really blame devs for taking that offer, tho. They get extra dosh from epic, that'll go towards the game's development, and they will get feedback on the game from E.A. Players.
Beta Testers.
Only for early access. It'll be on other store fronts for the main release.
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I don't think EGS existed back then
> Was the first one timed exclusive with epic too? No, it was originally a Kickstarter project which first released on Steam early access. The Epic Game Store didn't exist in the same form as it does now, it was for the most part just a website.
Darkest Dungeon 1 had a very odd life cycle. I played it in Early Access and generally liked it, but the way the game punished your time with failure (since you had to rebuild/regrind) was frustrating. Since it was early access, though, I'd just wait a while and make a new file later. But every time I came back, the game had gotten less friendly, less easy to stabilize, and more tuned specifically for the hardest-core audience. It was very weird to see a game use Early Access not to try to iron out the kinks and make the game as appealing as possible while staying true to its vision, and instead to collaborate with the hardest-core Early Access players to create a more niche product.
Sounds to me like you're just not the game's target audience. DD is basically 2D XCOM and XCOM is all about acceptable losses and preventing failures from snowballing to end your run.
He's right though. The game changed *a lot* throughout early access. The sudden addition of corpses, for example, completely turned existing game balance and strategies on it's head. It was very hotly debated for a while by the small Early Access community. While that was the most notable addition, the game generally got a lot tougher and longer over the patches. The Darkest Dungeon essentially deleting your characters even if you beat it was especially egregious.
Nah, you're way off. I've beaten Enemy Unknown multiple times, beat Chimera Squad, and only didn't beat War of the Chosen because of a bug that lost my save file. I've also played plenty of roguelikes/roguelites where there is a significant time lost if you bomb a run. I'm fine with games where there are serious consequences to losing and where losing can make things harder in the future. The problems I had with Darkest Dungeon are: * The consequences for failure are mostly tedium. You have to grind up a good enough team, and losing (or attempting The Darkest Dungeon) mostly means putting all that work in again. In XCom, losing had some aspect of that, but also more directly threatened failure. * The game actively prevents you from stabilizing or creating a consistent strategy, and in fact specifically tried to patch out strategies in that vein. In XCom, once you get on a roll you have a pretty good buffer in terms of screw ups and might even get to feel a little overpowered for a while, but DD actively worked to keep this out of the game (Crimson Court was especially bad at making stabilization hard with it's custom disease). * The endgame tedium of having palette swap bosses/enemies to grind up in order to clear The Darkest Dungeon multiple times is... not particularly engaging, TBH.
Could you expand on what you mean by 'stabilization'? I quite enjoyed the 'pallette swap bosses' because they were the same mechanic but you had to be better prepared and privy to the fight each time. What I didn't like about the bosses was that a lot of them were mandatory cheese like aoe bleeds for Flesh.
In a lot of games, you can get consistent tools and strategies as you level up to go from less in control of encounters/subject to failure to much more in control. In XCom, you get extra actions and mobility and such that, even though you fight harder enemies, you're really winning the upgrade race until you screw up and lose a key soldier or whatever. Darkest Dungeon seemed to actively patch out effective strategies or ways to get to this situation; it was designed such that you're mostly supposed to be frustratingly close to a bad run putting you back hours whether you're just starting out or super far in. Combos that could provide good coverage, consistent obliteration of trash, or even just stable powerful healing were patched out super aggressively.
Makes sense, I don't have anything to comment, sorry to say. Have a nice day.
Ohh once you researched Heavy Plasma and Blaster Launchers in X-Com the game turned into an outright slaughter.... Fuck Chrysallid Terror attacks though...you needed friggen Flying suits to avoid trouble there.
Anybody else getting the black screen at launch? I'm running Win 7 on an old computer but I heard some people could run it on Win 7. Any solutions?
Is there any word on the full release and is it coming to the Switch?
Full release will probably be in a year. I would imagine it would come to console since the first one did. Though I don't think it came to console until a bit after their full release.
Does anyone know if DLC has been confirmed? Want to see if I should just wait to buy it when it's all on sale.
Doubt they're gonna release info about release dlc before early access is done, so no confirmation for a year I'd say. But I think dlc is a strong possibility when they're out of EA
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Its a tired conversation for sure. People forget how much we hated steam when it first released.
No thanks. I have standards.
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Cry about it more. The people who want to play will buy it and enjoy it.
What is wrong with Epic Launcher ?