KickStarter Darkest Dungeon Pre-Release Thread

Deepest Dark for Darkest Dungeon was discontinued many months ago when it became apparent the game was so broken I could no longer fix it, even by rejecting near entire patches. Well technically I could, but only by advocating piracy because that's the only way you could keep old builds. After a period of extreme annoyance and being very disheartened I wasted that much time on nothing I have since continued the Deepest Dark project in the real game Lords of Xulima.

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=538266546

Numantian Games, unlike Red Hook Studios has produced a real and full game, respects their community, respects their testers, engages with people directly, and is an Early Access success story. I noticed the difference in working with them immediately - instead of ignoring or silently resenting what I do they are quite supportive of it. Their game isn't perfect either but I never wanted perfection - just something that is not horribly broken and falsely advertised, and the problems with their game stem more from not having enough tester feedback than ignoring it. Yes, it's easy after hundreds of hours, that's normal for difficult games, and so my making it harder isn't fixing the game, it's enhancing the game.

Of course the flip side of this is that because Lords of Xulima is fairly difficult by default, and I specifically aimed the mod at the subset of the 0.4% that beat the game on the highest difficulty and found that instantly I am targeting a smaller audience than I would by just making a trivial game hard at all. But that's fine with me. I don't actually like large amounts of attention and would rather have a small but dedicated fanbase.

The time in Darkest Dungeon wasn't a complete loss. Making that seem like a legitimate game is a massive confidence booster. If I can do that I can make anything good. But it wasn't a success for any of the reasons I was originally aiming for.

 

Ah, I was hoping that it was a temporary stop, but I can understand that you wouldn't feel very motivated to get back to it after all that drama. I'm guessing your Xulima mod is compatible with the GOG version? Should be interesting to see how it affects the difficulty.

 

Afraid not. I had one look at "Corpse and Hound", realized the only way I could have a semi working game was by removing nearly every new thing they added and I'd still have a worse game because of the hardcoded stuff that was added that broke the game in one way or another. Besides, I've been part of the problem long enough. I've kind of danced around this but mods should be customizing or enhancing games, not fixing them. By doing their jobs for them I was enabling their laziness and giving them illegitimate sales. This was proven quite soundly when I made the sarcastically named mod "Darkest Dungeon - Sakujo Edition" which "Sakujoed" (deleted) corpses and did absolutely nothing else. That bit of grunt work of deleting one line from a bunch of enemy files became the most popular mod for the game very quickly, gathering literally thousands of downloads. Then I realized "Hey wait a sec, there's all these people saying remove corpses or I quit/don't buy. Why am I not just letting this happen? Red Hook damn well doesn't deserve my help anymore." Obviously that was right after corpses released, so well before Jim made them implement a (well hidden) switch.

As for the GoG version, it got 2.04 (the most recent patch) a few days ago. I haven't loaded my GoG version and checked (I got the Steam version specifically for mod making) but I'm assuming it can access the Workshop anyways? I really should check on that.

 

Negative 420%.

No seriously, the developers have even less of a concept of what is fun than they do of what is difficult. They are hellbent on producing an incoherent one dimensional bland grind game while prattling of "vision", and how it has saved the game. At this point nearly everyone but their blind supporters (and even some of those) see through them even if they won't admit it.

 

I can't edit anymore, sorry for the double post.

Lucky, I checked for you. The latest GoG version does have mod support, but it does not have the Steam Workshop or its subscribe feature. I'm guessing you could copy the files but I'm not sure if Steam will let you subscribe on a mod for a game you don't own on that platform.

As for this game, I don't think there's anything that can be done with it. I can't even think about making a troll video about it without feeling a deep wave of lethargy and annoyance, much less doing anything that pretends its a legitimate game in any way. The only productive thing that can be done about it is warning people - largely redundant in this case because most already knew of the game's faults even if they were unaware of the developer's faults, but when you have Early Access developers censoring anything that makes them look bad and their own design qualifies as such there is no chance anyone will ever improve the game.

It's not as if there is a shortage of RPGs, or hardcore RPGs, or Roguelikes or anything like that. It doesn't hurt us that much (barring those who put their faith in the wrong people like me). It does hurt the industry quite a bit though as now when a legitimately promising game hits crowdfunding or Early Access people will remember this and not trust them either. Fortunately the games I'm thinking of (Indivisible and Dungeon of Aledorn) hit their goals anyways, so I'm glad for them and hope they turn out as well as they promise and I will certainly check them out on release. But indie development can't work in a low trust environment because they don't have the hundreds of thousands of USD+ or equivilent required in advance. More than that, I'm a fucking gamer. Why am I getting punished for getting excited about games? That's the worst thing any developer can do.

 

That's the frustrating bit of Steam as a mod platform. Do you plan on releasing it on something like Nexus down the line? It wouldn't surprise me if the Xulima crowd on GOG is relatively sizeable and generally more hardcore, so there might be quite a few users there interested in a mod like this and it would be easier for them to get it that way.

It's mostly just frustrating to see potential go to waste. The presentation of this game is really good and enough to probably make at least an initial playthrough enjoyable, but the mechanics do not look deep enough to have the game grow into a classic. They really need to go back to the roots of what makes dungeon crawling fun and implement features that support this and look at how other squad-based games use perma-death without making characters feel too expendable (Mordheim and Battle Brothers might good sources to draw inspiration from), while tweaking the content they already have so that there's worthwhile variety.

Just spitballing, but I'd suggest something like the player coming into dungeons with zero knowledge of the layout, with only the hallway to the next room(s) being partially visible and scouting allowing you to see more of the map. Giving effects to succesful quests for after you've completed them and making them more in-depth, such as completing a scouting mission having you start the next mission with the map partially filled in. Dungeon shortcuts and other interactions beyond combat and traps. Different approaches to dungeon crawling, like allowing for small parties of sneaky types that hide in the dark to avoid enemies, which is stressful but potentially highly profitable if the dungeon would normally be too tough for you, or makes for good preparation - scout a big dungeon with an experienced Highwaymen, then come back with a your heavy hitters while knowing where you need to go. Having being able to escape contingent on having an escape route by having leaving the dungeon requiring you to reach the exit, plus enemy types that move around (so you'd have to be careful not to get cut off while exploring in case you want to leave). Larger dungeons in general, so that choosing when and how to engage becomes more of a factor. Finding imprisoned, lost, injured heroes with abnormal quirks and skillsets that you can recruit. Basically, in addition to improving the combat, make the dungeon crawling itself on the whole more fun in ways that don't necessarily involve killing. That way you break the tedium and alleviate the grind by giving ways to use your party skillfully, rather than just butchering your way through. That had been my hope for the game, but it's unlikely that it'll still happen.

 

This is actually pretty close to something I proposed in the Steam forums.
Instead of having every mission using a small and simplistic random dungeon, create one big but persistent dungeon for each region (ruins, weald, cove, warrens) and dungeon level.
You start mapping out the respective dungeon and eventually discover stairs that lead into deeper (i.e. more dangerous) levels. At the deepest level of each dungeon flavor you'll find an entrance to the Darkest Dungeon (endgame).
Making it persistent means that it can be much more complex (secret rooms and passages, locked stuff requiring special keys, etc.).
Missions and quest types can be made dependant on each other - scouting missions reveal more of the dungeon and placement of enemies, combat missions reduce number of enemies, boss missions to kill dangerous enemies and maybe unlock special things (e.g. a key to the next level). Basically very close to what you suggested.
At this point it's obvious that this will never happen, though, but I think it would have made a better foundation for the dungeon crawling aspect.

I would also have balanced it in such a way that the entire game can be beaten with a relatively small amount of heroes (e.g. a roster of 8 or such) within maybe 10-15 hours, making it something which you would like to do several times with different sets of heroes.

 

My general impressions of Nexus have been:

1: If you have a crunchy, non shiny mod it will not gather any interest.
2: If you're modding a game not many people mod it will not gather any interest.
3: If you don't include safeguards you will encounter mod theft, 120% in any project that required actual time and effort. I already have actually. Some idiot casual got mad he couldn't beat the last boss and stole the mod. Yes, really. Of course he also whined about "unfair bullshit crits for 70"... from an enemy that only uses telegraphed easily avoidable attacks and every other person put their marked character in rank 3 (out of range) after seeing what happened when they didn't once. Not dealing with that bullshit again, I have enough idiots between the developers of this game and their stalking fanbase already.

Currently, the developers are busy with low quality comics instead of working on their behind schedule game. Static, written/drawn narratives suit their talent sets far better than actual games, and if you lock Chris in a box and make him draw on demand for you you might produce something passable. Just don't let him near design and file a restraining order against Tyler's design.

I mean there's an expanded map generator thread in which Steam user ZiN draws an expanded map showing multiple routes, a wide variety of events, scouting revealing the composition of enemy parties and a number of other things. That thread was buried in responses of that seems difficult/work intensive for the devs. Which I guess it is given that it involves making a walking simulator an actual game but I don't see why that's a valid cause for rejecting it.

The very early builds (well before prerelease) actually had Fog of War, no idea why it was removed.

What you describe sounds like an excellent game, and it's why when I saw a game called Thea, The Awakening my first thought was that if this were an actual game and not a walking simulator it'd look like this. Thea also has the unique themes, the Roguelike elements, the tactical elements, the resource management, the squad management, the hamlet (village), and so on except... it actually does. Enemies don't just passively sit there and let you farm them, they will attack you. It does a much better job of making you feel surrounded and oppressed, yet capable of fighting back than this game ever could. And night? That makes enemies more aggressive. Far more a danger than a mode that just buffs your crit and loot.

Instead we get an "endgame" consisting of grinding through a fifth dungeon just like the other four followed by grinding out a clone team so this can be done 3 times. And there's still no lose state, so it's only grind until you win with a game so simple a script could run it. But hey, it's going on mobile for a reason!

Oh yeah and fun fact. You frequently see a lot of whines on the Steam forums about RNG, typically involving extreme crit rates. Enemy crit rate is generally 20%, so 4 crits in a row are 0.16%, or 1:625. Given how grindy the game is, odds are this will happen at least once. I mention this not because people do not understand statistics, but because Red Hook actually is manipulating statistics behind the scenes. Just not in a way any of them are predicting.

A while back they made some hidden changes that manipulate RNG. They said they were doing this but never described how. One of the ways I am 99% sure they are doing so is that if you select your actions very quickly (less than 1 second) you have a much higher than statistically possible chance of missing your attacks. This is very obvious if you have perfect accuracy because you will miss much more than 10% over an extended timeframe. Now consider both that with how grindy this game is, adding a 1 second delay on every action adds hours of waiting on sluggish animations, and also that someone just interested in getting on with it, or not paying attention, or distracted by Twitch chat, or just casual and not thinking through their moves will just hit the next button quickly, resulting in stupid deaths and developer validation and of course, more grind. If only they were this creative about their actual game mechanics than they were about diluting their content in the style of cashshop MMO Dungeons and Dragons Online and its True Reincarnate feature!

 

They claimed these RNG edits would prevent edge cases, such as many crits or dodges in a row. Of course given their secretive nature, general incompetence, and incoherent design it wouldn't surprise me at all if such a feature did not work correctly. As for why they'd do that specific thing, it all makes sense when you consider Darkest Dungeon is an exercise in content dilution. Just imagine if every boss were unlocked immediately. You could still beat them right away, and beat the game in 24 in game weeks (there's 24 bosses, though only 8 unique ones). The whole area unlock mechanic (and resulting overleveling of your characters, requiring you grind out more) is just artifical extension. Likewise their whole "endgame" mechanic. They're just slowing down an already sluggish game in every way possible.

Because if you removed all the filler you could beat the game and then return it within the refund window almost.

 

Celerity, dude, I totally get that you are let down by DD (I am, too), but some of your theories do sound a bit paranoid/obsessive.

It's really better to let go. The game can't be saved anyway (not by us at least) and it's better for you. Trust me.

 

My theories are based on months of observation and ruling out all other remotely reasonable possibilities. Which is part of the reason why I didn't call them out on March, at the latest.

And no, it can't be saved. It is however being falsely advertised even more aggressively than before and I won't sit back and just let that happen because about the only thing this game succeeds at is bringing out the negative emotions in people. The developers became delusional, egocentric, and completely disconnected from logic and reality. Their fans are either those who don't know better, or cross forum stalkers that will do things like harass your friends just for being your friends and because they're easier marks than you, and even attempt a bit of doxxing because harassing you on forum with the dev's permission/protection wasn't good enough. And me? I think it should go without saying I've became very vindinctive and (more) cynical.

I can't think of more I can add here and most are not impressed with the game anyways so I can just let this thread die if you want. But my warnings do serve a useful purpose, I'm getting contacted even now by people who read them.

As for promoting good indies, I've sold quite a few Xulima copies just on the basis of having harsh standards yet recommending the game anyways. I haven't remarked about Thea that much but it does seem solid. I still won't quit damage controlling here as they hurt both me and the entire industry with that.

 

We've already established he's a modder.

So that kind of explains everything.

See, e.g. Drog, et al.

 

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What is with people becoming creepily obsessed with games they don't like? Move the fuck on and do something that actually matters with that energy instead of wasting all those hours and hours.

 

Unanswered love.

 

So is this just a trollfest now? Whatever, the warning's there and it's doing work.

 

I wouldn't be surprised that people unfamiliar with the situation might have select views about modders that they would apply to you notwithstanding (what I've read to be) your relatively sane approach to the whole DD debacle.

That doesn't make them trolls; just over-exposed to the egocentric predilections of many other modders.

Yours is a hobby that places you in an extreme minority. Most can't relate to your experience.

 

But hey, if we are going back and forth with image macros have one that's actually relevant:

http://imgur.com/g1wu1dp

 

This has to be the worst piece of shit I ever owned on Steam. Nice art, music and sounds, paired with shitty mechanics like characters being too high level for lower dungeons, and unable to pair the abomination with the Vestal, Leper and Crusader. The stress mechanic had a lot of potential, but in the end it's basically just a timer that can be delayed with almost insignificant anti stress actions. This is the only game where your grinding is pointless, and can reach an infinite loop of losing characters and resources and then gaining them back.

Fuck this game. If I want RNG I'd rather play FTL and Binding of Isaac.

 

You do realize that if you don't have a sense of humor about yourself you probably won't like it here.

I get that you have passion and might be bitter about the whole thing but you must realize that you are going slightly overboard with a GAME. Darkest Dungeon failed to reach its potential, okay, the show must go on.

It is your business if this is your life's hill to die on but don't expect to not be poked fun at.

 

chillout dude.

 

Dont ruin it for everybody man, do you know how long its been since the last meltdown?

 

On the contrary, I do have a sense of humor about myself and the most common complaint I get is that it's of the asshole troll variety. Which is why I understand there's a time and place for everything. Serious posting is not the time and place for random inane bullshit. More importantly, it wasn't funny, it was just circlejerk groupthink bullshit I've seen quite enough of already. As for Derpest Dungeon, I had already said my peace here and then this started. So now I'm nudging it back on sobject with some asshole troll humor.

I'm more bored by the derailment, and a little disappointed that I overestimated this board than anything else. Short of months of deliberate antagonism you won't make me angry.

So can we discuss the biggest Early Access scam of all time again or will it be more shitposts?

You're wasting your time then. I believed this forum was populated by intelligent people, thus my posting here. Should it actually be populated by something far less well that's really not any different from any other board now is it? It's also not why I came here, but I could just troll some idiots if that's what this is really about.