Darkest Dungeon - Out Now on PSN!

Jodou

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Didn't see a topic for this, even in PC, but is anyone else playing this awesome little dungeon crawler? Normally I hate RNG-based mechanics, but played correctly this game is super rewarding and fun. The risk vs reward is very strong and I'm enjoying the idea of trying to keep my characters from going insane, but grinning mischievously as I claim the fruits of their labor before firing them haha. It's truly a vicious little game and I'm loving it so far. :D

A few tips for anyone starting out:

1. Upgrade your Stagecoach Network and Roster first. Use your deeds on upgrading your stagecoach network before even setting foot on your first outing. You should have enough to upgrade it once (twice if you trade heirlooms for a couple deeds via the menu at the bottom of the screen). This will net you 3-4 new recruits each week which is invaluable to keeping the game going and gold pouring in. Furthermore, for the first few weeks don't spend heirlooms on anything else other than your Stagecoach because you won't be using any other facilities for a while.

2. Farm for Deed Heirlooms and trinkets early on. Deeds will help continue to expand your Stagecoach and are the bottleneck for upgrading the more important town shops going forward. As for trinkets, your heroes are going to need to fill their slots with good trinkets before really tackling anything major so early on trying to get as many good trinkets that focus on +dmg, +crit, +spd, and +dodge are valuable additions so try to find good quest reward trinkets starting out.

3. Push your team to the limit and then fire them. This is the harsh reality of Darkest Dungeon: that your heroes are expendable and will die. Don't spend money on removing afflictions, resting them, upgrading them; don't even rename them. They exist to get you loot and gold and that's it. You will eventually spend gold but the goal early on is to milk your heroes for their worth and dispose of them. Healers are almost always in low supply so push that Vestal until they have a heart attack. Lastly, if you see heroes that have good perks (such as eagle eye, on guard, unyielding or any of the bonuses from tip #2), sideline them until you can field a full team of these heroes with locked-in perks from the Sanitarium. These are the guys you'll want to invest in later on.

4. Know how to prepare for a dungeon. For short dungeons bring 12 food, 8 torches, 1 heirloom key, 1 shovel, and 1-2 of bandages/holy water/antidote depending on the dungeon. For medium, take all the food and about double everything else. The idea is to take about as much as you will use and that's it. Provisions have hidden uses on Curios that you encounter throughout the dungeon, so you can familiarize yourself or look them up here. To use one, just hit triangle while inspecting a curio and again once you selected the item. The only curio I recommend avoiding is bookshelves/stack of books as they can put nasty quirks on your heroes and offer nothing worthwhile.

5. Know your limit. Your goal is to finish every dungeon, but this game is heavily RNG-based so it will fuck you over royally once in a while. Some reward is better than none if you need to retreat, plus any lost trinkets hit harder if nobody makes it out alive. Don't be afraid to retreat if things are dire and you won't survive the fight. You need to also know when to call it quits in a dungeon, even if the objectives aren't met. On the flip side, don't be quick to leave a dungeon if you finish it after half the rooms and are barely breaking a sweat. Your team is expendable and you can always push to the limit while maximizing your reward. It will make up for anytime you do have to retreat later on.

 
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i was kinda interested in this game, but this review/critique has swayed me to stay away. i dont think some of the gameplay mechanics is something i wanna invest time into.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Buwei6ZWqU 

 
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Yeah, it's definitely not for everyone but I like deep combat systems that are punishing and fun to master. Although, things like going 7 weeks (my current playthrough) without a single vestal or hellion are things that, while challenging, can really slow down your progress and need improvement.

 
Yeah, it's definitely not for everyone but I like deep combat systems that are punishing and fun to master. Although, things like going 7 weeks (my current playthrough) without a single vestal or hellion are things that, while challenging, can really slow down your progress and need improvement.
give that video a watch, if they changed anything in the ps4 version that he mentions in the video let me know. i hear people say when it was in beta it wasnt nearly as grindy as it was at release.

 
I held back from buying the PC version for the longest time since I knew it was coming to the Sony platforms and while I am most certainly digging it, the controls do not feel natural to me for some reason. Most definitely can tell it was made first and foremost for PC.

Not that it is a deterrent from playing by any means just a minor bummer.

 
I held back from buying the PC version for the longest time since I knew it was coming to the Sony platforms and while I am most certainly digging it, the controls do not feel natural to me for some reason. Most definitely can tell it was made first and foremost for PC.

Not that it is a deterrent from playing by any means just a minor bummer.
Oh I agree. There are some real issues like being unable to see what your buffs/debuffs are while in combat or checking the map while looting to decide what is the least risky to toss on those long hauls (I've tossed food/torches before forgetting there was another branch on the map). Equipping trinkets is the biggest example of awkward controls, since you have to first open the trinkets and then hero details to do it. Thank god you can at least equip trinkets while looting though.

Speaking of trinkets, I'm finding a majority are pretty shit except for some Surgical Gloves I got last night from a medium quest and tonight I plan to run a long in the Wealds for a camouflage cloak I saw. Think I'll be stacking a few of those on hellions, houndsmasters, and bounty hunters hehe. Those have been my favorite heroes so far at least.

Still preparing for my first boss with about 100k gold saved up but I haven't really found any heroes with good starting quirks to invest in yet. Nobody ever really rolls with dmg/crit/dodge but I have seen a few good ones on completely wrong heroes (like eagle eye on a vestal, smh). I may have to settle for less than ideal or keep upgrading my town until I can get better recruits coming in. TBH, even with the tougher missions I've had, I still haven't wiped yet and only had to retreat once after The Collector one-shot my healer with a bullshit crit so I'm not hurting for an all-star team yet. Just enjoying building up more gold, town upgrades, and trinkets for now. :)

 
I started a thread on the PC and got zero responses.  It is brutal, punishing, frustrating, and hilarious to see what diseases your "minions" contract.  Still want to know what my one person was doing who got syphilis in the dungeon.

 
I started a thread on the PC and got zero responses. It is brutal, punishing, frustrating, and hilarious to see what diseases your "minions" contract. Still want to know what my one person was doing who got syphilis in the dungeon.
LMAO, I'm pretty sure that popped up once for me when my Vestal with Necromania quirk was quick to "loot" a corpse.

I'm noticing with this game that Long quests are actually the easiest and most rewarding versus short because of the stress healing you can do mid and end dungeon via camps lol. They give the best trinkets and I even got a very rare trinket with +25% damage (+20% stress though) from a secret room while on it. Finally ran into the Collector again and whooped his ass fairly easily after knocking out the vestal minion. Was disappointed his loot wasn't really that great, just some item worth 2500 gold meh.

Still not finding recruits with banging quirks to invest in so it's just grinding for gold and trinkets while upgrading the town. I really don't mind though since the game is really starting to show how deep combat can be and me finding my ideal team. I'm thinking Hellion, Bounty Hunter, Houndsmaster, Vestal for when I try to take on bosses. Hellion with Iron Swan is too good for 4th slot and has been consistently one-shotting anything back there, or If It Bleeds for 3rd slot tends to get them low enough for a Hound's Rush if necessary. Meanwhile Collect Bounty on marked big mobs hits like a truck from the BH for any front mobs. I just wish I could find a hellion with the slugger quirk and I'd start building a boss killing team. :)

 
Accidentally accepted a veteran long mission last night but for the lulz I tried to see how far I could make it with a level 0 party and surprisingly made it about halfway before calling it with my party still intact but two having been at death's door like 10 times lol. Popped me a trophy for my effort at least and I turned right around with the same party on an apprentice short mission where my hellion got 2-shot from back to back crits and died. People aren't kidding when they say short missions are the hardest in this game because battles tend to be bunched up and no camps. It's pretty hilarious to think what should be an easy run quickly turns into a shit-show versus long runs that I end up using a camp at the end to stress heal after a smooth, low-stress clear.

I'm starting to get antsy wanting to kill a boss but my stagecoach and after quest quirks on heroes has been absolute shit. No slugger, eagle eye, or on guard anywhere to be seen. At least I'm still building up my supply of gold and trinkets while I finish out the town for now. Really hoping to be overprepared for boss battles so that I'm not losing quality recruits if I can help it. Then again, all it takes is one string of bad RNG and poof. . .

 
So I'm on week 50 now and have a good farm team ironed out with a few max level raiders. I'm using a high crit team of Antiquarian, Highwayman, Grave Robber, and Vestal. Idea is to have the Antiquarian Guard the Highwayman every other turn for a 50% chance they'll be targeted by enemies and get Riposted by Duelist's Advance. It's an extremely low stress party that usually finishes champion dungeons at low or no stress at all. Using this team I typically crank out 30-40k gold a dungeon if I'm not focused on picking up heirlooms.

In the meantime, I'm still trying to find a good boss killing team with good quirks to start decking out but I don't really seem to have much luck on the classes I'm looking for. Still waiting for the good Ancestor relics to show up in a quest reward but I'm at least starting to see a few pop up for champion quests. Trying to get a pen for my hellion because it's so crazy good.

Also heard they announced some DLC for this game next year with a few details like a new class but that's about it. I really need to stop farming and beat the game soon before Skyrim remaster, but it's too much fun just wrecking dungeons and getting loot. :)

 
i was kinda interested in this game, but this review/critique has swayed me to stay away. i dont think some of the gameplay mechanics is something i wanna invest time into.
Now that I'm further into the game and not worried about spoilers as much, I can say that the reviewer doesn't quite grasp how the game was meant to be played. His main complaints stem from RNG ruining the experience and the game being too punishing, which honestly is more mad cuz bad than anything else. This game is meant for players heavy into theorycrafting and being able to put together a team that can recover from bad RNG. That said, losing a high level hero is really not the end of the world if you have a solid crew that you farm gold with already and I'm to the point that if any of my main farm team were to die, they would be quickly replaced.

Trinkets don't suck; he obviously doesn't grasp just how good dodge and speed are in this game. Feather crystal, Camo Cloak, Raider's Talisman, etc are all godly when stacking with quirks like On Guard and Evasive. My Grave Robber at times has had around 40 dodge and just shrugs off the few attacks that are actually directed her way. I alternate a Camo cloak on my highwayman with his Sheath trinket depending if I want more dodges or more damage output from Riposte. Hell, a common trinket Surgical Gloves is endgame worthy it's so good. The reviewer points out how most of these add stress damage and sees it as a dealbreaker, but in reality -- those trinkets are meant to give good returns on either dodging or critical attacks to even things out. Point is, plenty of great trinkets in the game; learn2play.

Finally, he says the game is just grindy which is fair enough, but what did you honestly expect from a loot driven dungeon crawler? The main reason for his complaint is having to spend lots of gold on heroes that can die quickly to bad RNG. That's why you don't spend gold on them until they're surviving level 3 veteran quests dumbass. EXPERIMENT in the early dungeons without spending a dime on how well or not a party works, THEN invest. It's like buying a new car before a test drive and being upset when it crashes because brakes weren't included lol.

Bottom line is this is a punishing, but fair game. If you understand how the game is meant to be played going in, you will be pleasantly surprised. If you try to play it traditionally and dump gold and time into level 0 characters, you will be punished. My starter tips in the OP will help anyone get over that hump and develop a good understanding of how to progress. Of course if anyone needs help, I can answer questions and help you guys out. :D

 
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