Opinions on Darkest Dungeon?

[Mangod]

This is a game I've been eyeing at since I saw it on the Escapist livestream. It looks really cool, and the kind of thing I'd really, really like, but I'm hesitant to buy it. The reviews on the Steam page are overwhelmingly on the "not recommended" side, and nearly all of them cite two things as the main problems: repetition and the RNG. I don't mind repetition at all. Hell, I love dungeon crawlers, which is specifically why I'm so interested! But nearly everyone says the RNG in the game is basically broken, taking strategy, planning and tactical decisions completely out, and just making the game a slot machine.

Which is why I'm asking: is the game worth the price of admission? I love the aesthetic (as does seemingly everyone else) and the gameplay looks great, but I don't enjoy getting constantly screwed over by an unfair RNG.

(For clarification, RNG = Random Number Generator, as in the code that randomly determines aspects of the game. I learned the meaning of this acronym only weeks ago.)

The game is actually very enjoyable, but RNG can screw you over hard if you're really unfortunate.

Spoiler

Hello! My name is the Collector! Prepare to have your shit ruined!

That said, I'd still recommend the game; it's at least more fair than XCOM when you miss a 90%+ shot three times in a row.

 

[Zhukov]

Hello! My name is the Collector! Prepare to have your shit ruined!

I only met him once.

Wiped him out before he got a single action off.

With a party of Level 2s incidentally.

 

[MHR]

The game is great. Complainers are just butthurt. The game isn't all RNG -- Planning and strategy usually mitigates horrible luck. People saying they're constantly screwed by the RNG are probably horrible and want to blame the game, and bitter butthurt complaining is the logical replacement from the fucking savescumming these types of people usually do in other games. The tide can turn after 1 horrible critical attack on the wrong guy, but that's not the end of things. There is often something to do about it.

Hearthstone streamer Trump recently got 3 critical healing failures in a row during a bossfight and had his entire party killed because of it. Such things are the hilarious exception to the rule. The way to mitigate that particular RNG though is to bring the healer that heals consistently, not the occultist that heals anywhere from 0 to ridiculous. Trump rolled 3 zeros in a row. Even rolling a 1 would have stopped characters from dying.

So far, after taking it painstakingly slow and planning everything, I haven't lost a single character. That likely wont last, but it shows that recklessness breeds a lot more failure than contemplation.

 

[Leon Royce]

I can't stand RNG. It's a relic that should be done away with.

 

[Laughing Man]

You're right Xcom gives you a way to counter the shit rolls. It's called save scumming.

No it's called defensive tactics, a healing ability that works the chance to revive and cover fire, you can save scum if you want but if you miss a shot due to a bad RNG and assuming it's not your last guys turn you can do stuff to mitigate the shit that's going to happen.

Really I never understood how Xcom is supposed to be more 'fair' than Darkest Dungeon. Both have RNG(In battle, and locations), both can have you end a session with you either getting half your team back or 4 new headstones, A lucky Crit or miss can turn the battle for or against you, etc etc.

The main difference is that XCom allows you to mitigate the shit rolls, going in with a decent well set up team with tactics and the right equipment gives you a suitable chance of pulling off a decent result, even if the shit hits the fan. Darkest Dungeon on the other hand comes across as a game that even if you went in with what was called, according to the game mechanics, a perfect party using prefect tactics, if the game roll turns to sh*t then you're dead no matter what and where XCom differs is that factors designed to help turn a bad situation around actual do just that. My example of a Darkest Dungeon play through is a great example if it was using XCom rules then the camp would have recovered my guys enough to at least have given me chance of scraping through to the end of the dungeon, instead it ended up making my party much worse off than if I had just not bothered camping at all.

As for the actual game, yeah a lot of people hate the changes they've made since it made it 'harder' for certain teams to go through and just curb stomp everything(One Jester + 3 Helions). Corpses got hate, heart attacks got hate, the removal of stun lock healing got hate; so take most negative stuff with a grain of salt. It's still a pretty cool romp and an interesting battle system I hope to see more of.

None of those thing bother me but game mechanics that are designed to punish you on top of punishing you, example trying to escape from battle, a mechanic that punishes you heavily anyway, only to have it fail, you lose your turn and then it punishes you anyway. They describe it as a game about making the best of a bad situation, I've decided to escape from a battle so it's safe to assume things are going bad anyway, I've decided that escaping and taking the stress hit is the best course for my party (I.e I am trying to make the best of a bad situation) only for the game to then say nope, lose your turn, get punished anyway.

 

[NPC009]

Hello! My name is the Collector! Prepare to have your shit ruined!

I only met him once.

Wiped him out before he got a single action off.

With a party of Level 2s incidentally.

I got lucky as well the first time I met him. I was using a team of Arbalest - Occultist - Houndmaster - Bountyhunter, and they had just camped without incident. The Occultist marked him, the Arbalest's critical shot took most of his health, the Bountyhunter and Houndmaster took care of the rest.

The second time, though, I was using a different set-up and well, let's just say I was glad I made it out of the dungeon alive, failed quest or not.

 

[The Madman]

My example of a Darkest Dungeon play through is a great example if it was using XCom rules then the camp would have recovered my guys enough to at least have given me chance of scraping through to the end of the dungeon, instead it ended up making my party much worse off than if I had just not bothered camping at all.

Too many people overlook how important the right camping skills can be. Arbalest have the best camp-healing skills in the game, bring one of them with the right ability and everyone will be top health no problem. Then you've got the Jester who can do the same with sanity, reducing it back down to a manageable level with the right skills, plus the Man-At-Arms who can deliver some awesome group-wide buffs that will make your party fight better for longer. The crusader can even clear mortality debuff if needed. It's also important to bring at least one person with the ability to guard the camp overnight as well against ambushes, luckily that's a skill a number of different classes have. Compose the right group with the right camping skills and you'll want to camp fairly early on because it will make the rest of the adventure far easier.

How you could camp and come out worse only means you didn't take these things into account while setting out on a long dungeon run. The game totally gives you the tools to mitigate the rng, you simply failed in the case of your example to use them properly.

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

Its an excellent game but its depth sometimes feels like complexity for complexity's sake. It turns out it just takes a lot of forethought, planning and accepting you'll lose some people along the way. Its XCOM the dungeon crawler.

 

[Laughing Man]

How you could camp and come out worse only means you didn't take these things into account while setting out on a long dungeon run. The game totally gives you the tools to mitigate the rng, you simply failed in the case of your example to use them properly.

The game can be summed up easily once things go bad the game is designed to keep making things go bad, the most the player can do is hope to scrap through. Their is no point once things go bad that the player can then hope a lucky RNG roll is going to help them turn it round, as every factor of the game is designed to punish and then continue punishing.

I found my play throughs went one of two ways, you walked through the dungeon taking little health or stress damage and came out with no real issues or you took an utter beating. The thing is you could be half way through a dungeon walking it without an issue and then RNG factors could turn that round and suddenly you're on your arse a total flip of the situation but at no point did I encounter a situation were I was getting fucked and then had an RNG help turn it round, even the factors that aren't determined by RNG (of which their are very few in Darkest Dungeon) can't turn round a fucked run.

 

[Silentpony_v1legacy]

Its a massively overrated game. Random Number Generator to be sure! With the likely outcome of game breaking affliction combinations.
Zealous/Atheist and Blood Thirsty/Squeamish were my favorites.

 

[Zhukov]

With the likely outcome of game breaking affliction combinations.
Zealous/Atheist and Blood Thirsty/Squeamish were my favorites.

If you're getting afflictions then you're doing it wrong.

If you're continuing a crawl with two afflicted heroes then you're doing it very wrong.

 

[Bombiz]

With the likely outcome of game breaking affliction combinations.
Zealous/Atheist and Blood Thirsty/Squeamish were my favorites.

If you're getting afflictions then you're doing it wrong.

If you're continuing a crawl with two afflicted heroes then you're doing it very wrong.

Wait so you can choose to just not get afflictions? Cause I always thought you never bother removing them unless they'er on a high level guy. For low levels you just continue until either the afflicted guy dies or gets to a high level

 

[lacktheknack]

Worth it at twice the price.

Without fail, people who fuss about an RNG in a high-profile game simply have less than no idea how to manage an RNG. The same people who think that XCOM is "unfair" "because my 85% chance shot missed" (you don't say?).

As an apparently blessed man who actually understands and uses RNGs and has them play nice, the game is really well-balanced and a great timesink.

Except thralls.

!%#* thralls.

 

[lacktheknack]

Hello! My name is the Collector! Prepare to have your shit ruined!

I only met him once.

Wiped him out before he got a single action off.

With a party of Level 2s incidentally.

Met him twice. Got him down to two health before he brought in the flipping ghosts, so that wasn't too hard.

Second time he got two rounds of ghosts in before I offed him, and still didn't lose a single person. Everyone got hurt, but no deaths door.

I'm honestly baffled by how much difficulty some people seem to have with the game. If they're honestly pinning literally all their hopes of survival on one or two good rolls, they're playing the game wrong.

 

[BeerTent]

Darkest dungeon can feel pretty grindy at times, that's why I stopped playing. But the game is fucking beautiful, and is otherwise a super fun romp. Well worth the money they're asking now. More-so if it's your cuppa tea. You know what? I'm going to DL it again, and play it. It'll be a fun game to play before/after work.

Also, on the topic of XCOM and DD, "Complaining about RNG?" = Kitchen is too hot. = Get the hell out of the kitchen. = or Git Gud.

Both games have been balanced, and DD's had a lot of it's cheese taken out of it. (That's why a lot of people have review-bombed it, as Zukhov has said. Their crutches were patched out.) With the exception of XCOM2's Mimic beacons, both games are fairly heavily balanced. Hell, XCOM2 has a LOT of things that XCOM can do better than the aliens in every way, and people still have the need to patch in shitty mods that improve swords, grenades and aim.

Darkest Dungeon is a game where you need to think your way through at first. I'm biased, because I like games like that. Games where you need to focus on mitigating risk because you have to worry about things like death and a failstate. And the best part? Unlike most of the other games I play, you can stop and think. Get some motherfucking tea out. It's Darkest Dungeon time!

 

[Zhukov]

With the likely outcome of game breaking affliction combinations.
Zealous/Atheist and Blood Thirsty/Squeamish were my favorites.

If you're getting afflictions then you're doing it wrong.

If you're continuing a crawl with two afflicted heroes then you're doing it very wrong.

Wait so you can choose to just not get afflictions? Cause I always thought you never bother removing them unless they'er on a high level guy. For low levels you just continue until either the afflicted guy dies or gets to a high level

Ummm... not quite sure what you mean. Are you being sarcastic?

I shall assume you are not.

You can't "choose to just not get afflictions". However you can take steps to make sure that your heroes don't get stressed enough to suffer them. Prioritize killing enemies who use stress attacks. HP can be healed back easily, stress not so much. Get hero skills (both combat and camping skills) that heal stress. Heroes with high crit chance will frequently heal small amounts of stress for multiple party members whenever they land a crit. If you are taking a risk on a curio item that could inflict stress then consider using your trap disarming hero since they will be able to get guaranteed (or nearly guaranteed at very low level) stress heals from disarming traps later on.

My current save is in the mid game (a few heroes at Level 5, ton of level 3-4s and some leftover level 2s). I have only had a single affliction roll. (And, hilariously enough, it rolled virtuous instead. Not that it mattered since it happened in the last room of the dungeon.)

You can remove afflictions by reducing a hero's stress to zero during the dungeon run, although that's almost impossible to do. Usually you remove them by sending the hero to any abby or tavern activity in between runs.

If you get two or more afflictions during a dungeon crawl then you want to seriously consider abandoning the crawl. Live to fight another day.

 

[MerlinCross]

No it's called defensive tactics, a healing ability that works the chance to revive and cover fire, you can save scum if you want but if you miss a shot due to a bad RNG and assuming it's not your last guys turn you can do stuff to mitigate the shit that's going to happen.

One crit or AoE can ruin your defense tactics, same with that healing and cover fire. If the AI rolls smart to use a grenade or hits explosives, all your planning goes out the window.

The main difference is that XCom allows you to mitigate the shit rolls, going in with a decent well set up team with tactics and the right equipment gives you a suitable chance of pulling off a decent result, even if the shit hits the fan. Darkest Dungeon on the other hand comes across as a game that even if you went in with what was called, according to the game mechanics, a perfect party using prefect tactics, if the game roll turns to sh*t then you're dead no matter what and where XCom differs is that factors designed to help turn a bad situation around actual do just that. My example of a Darkest Dungeon play through is a great example if it was using XCom rules then the camp would have recovered my guys enough to at least have given me chance of scraping through to the end of the dungeon, instead it ended up making my party much worse off than if I had just not bothered camping at all.

Same with XCom. Did the alien Mind control your healer on the turn someone's gonna bleed out, or maybe your sniper? Did your needed shot miss at 95%? Or did your rocket hit that LITTLE TINY SMALL PIXEL of terrain and blow up on a perfect set up? And no, using XCOM rules, the camp still would have the chance to fawk you over because RNG is RNG.

None of those thing bother me but game mechanics that are designed to punish you on top of punishing you, example trying to escape from battle, a mechanic that punishes you heavily anyway, only to have it fail, you lose your turn and then it punishes you anyway. They describe it as a game about making the best of a bad situation, I've decided to escape from a battle so it's safe to assume things are going bad anyway, I've decided that escaping and taking the stress hit is the best course for my party (I.e I am trying to make the best of a bad situation) only for the game to then say nope, lose your turn, get punished anyway.

Same thing in XCOM. I've had a perfect shot at 3-4 aliens, next to explosives, and my Heavy is the only one that can do anything. Line up the rocket launcher and....., game goes nope. Hits this small pixel of terrain and does nothing. That should have been the best move but the game says no(I can't tell you the amount of times a rocket hit NOTHING on the way to the actual target).

RNG is RNG. The best idea can still blow up in your face if it fails in these games. For every Fair in XCOM, I can list unfair, and the same goes with Darkest Dungeon. We remember the best and worst of the Dice rolls but never the averages. Trick in these games is to get enough positive averages to finally win.

 

[The Madman]

The game can be summed up easily once things go bad the game is designed to keep making things go bad, the most the player can do is hope to scrap through. Their is no point once things go bad that the player can then hope a lucky RNG roll is going to help them turn it round, as every factor of the game is designed to punish and then continue punishing.

I found my play throughs went one of two ways, you walked through the dungeon taking little health or stress damage and came out with no real issues or you took an utter beating. The thing is you could be half way through a dungeon walking it without an issue and then RNG factors could turn that round and suddenly you're on your arse a total flip of the situation but at no point did I encounter a situation were I was getting fucked and then had an RNG help turn it round, even the factors that aren't determined by RNG (of which their are very few in Darkest Dungeon) can't turn round a fucked run.

The post of mine you were quoting is literally discussing how you can mitigate bad rng through your actions in game. Also a lucky rng roll totally can turn things around: A hero gaining a virtue is the obvious example, but then there's also crits and lucky item drops and all other sorts of things.

If you're in a run and everyone's hurt stressed then camping skills can turn that around, healing everyone up, reducing stress, and then even providing powerful buff that will aid you in pushing forward. All you need to do is make sure you brought enough supplies and had heroes with the right skills with you, all of which is in the players control not rng's. Another means of mitigating rng is just by playing cautiously and good group composition, much like XCOM. Instead of bringing an occultist bring a vestal, her heals are more reliable. Want front line damage? Even without crits the leper deals strong melee damage and even has self-healing abilities making him a strong and reliable front-liner so long as you equip him with some proper trinkets to mitigate his low accuracy. Plague Doctor might not have big flashy numbers but her plague attacks are strong, consistent damage dealers and her stuns strong...

It's all a gamble. You control which numbers are most likely to drop and then bet on the outcome. Easy fun stuff, maybe it's just the poker player in me but I love it and don't see why people are complaining about Darkest Dungeons rng.

 

[bartholen_v1legacy]

Well, went ahead and bought it anyway. And after less than 2 hours of total playtime I've already decided to scrap my save and start from scratch. These first impressions were NOT GOOD. What the game decided to not mention or leave to note was that (seemingly) all provisions bought at the beginning of a run simply disappear into thin air for some mysterious reason. Once I got into the dungeons, characters' stress kept building up for no apparent reason, leading to constant resolve tests, resulting in negative quirks, resulting in uncontrollable characters, resulting in more stress, resulting in more negative quirks etc. etc. I'd heard the game was RNG heavy but fuck me, if less than 2 hours in I'm already feeling like I'm being screwed over by things I have no control over, something has gone wrong.

Just came here to rant a little before starting a new save. Now diving back in and hoping I don't get the shitty end of the stick this time.