Darkest Dungeon II

[Gradenmayer]

Played EA for a bit. It doesn't look as bad as I thought.

Not sure why they bothered with skill specific pose animations, seems like a waste of resources. The rest looks good: snappy animations with slapping impact and satisfying sound effects, impressive monster designs and narrator doing his thing.

Gameplay changed completely, outside of base fight mechanics. Stress shifted from second healthbar into a more complex system: heroes become more of an asshole the higher it goes and if it maxes out they get dropped to low health and fuck up their friendships.
Relationship mechanics are great. Had 4 heroes get hateful and jealous of each other, driving out all the hope (relpaces torches), by constantly shittalking every single mistake made by each other, while enemies beat them to death.

They added these sanctuaries where you can do background battles for each hero (4 per each character), that unlock skills if you win. They add a lot of personality to them, but at the same time- you always play the same heroes (thou their personalities change per run), so the old soul crushing loss of an experienced hero is not a thing anymore.

Heroes don't have upgradable equipment, but get way more skills to pick from and can use consumables as free action. Miss rate seems to be toned down by a lot.
Hud still sucks dick.

I'd say it's a good direction for a new game, overall. Way better pacing and way more personality.

 

[The_Mask]

Never forget:

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Played EA for a bit. It doesn't look as bad as I thought.

Not sure why they bothered with skill specific pose animations, seems like a waste of resources. The rest looks good: snappy animations with slapping impact and satisfying sound effects, impressive monster designs and narrator doing his thing.

Gameplay changed completely, outside of base fight mechanics. Stress shifted from second healthbar into a more complex system: heroes become more of an asshole the higher it goes and if it maxes out they get dropped to low health and fuck up their friendships.
Relationship mechanics are great. Had 4 heroes get hateful and jealous of each other, driving out all the hope (relpaces torches), by constantly shittalking every single mistake made by each other, while enemies beat them to death.

They added these sanctuaries where you can do background battles for each hero (4 per each character), that unlock skills if you win. They add a lot of personality to them, but at the same time- you always play the same heroes (thou their personalities change per run), so the old soul crushing loss of an experienced hero is not a thing anymore.

Heroes don't have upgradable equipment, but get way more skills to pick from and can use consumables as free action. Miss rate seems to be toned down by a lot.
Hud still sucks dick.

I'd say it's a good direction for a new game, overall. Way better pacing and way more personality.

Misinformation city here.

The stress bar is not complex at all. It's literally 1-10 instead of 1-100 and what you just described is how heart attacks functioned in DD1. Relationship mechanics are ultra gimmicky and feel half-baked at best, extremely annoying at worst. The characters don't shut the fuck up and the benefits of two best pals are much less frequently applied through gameplay than two characters that despise one another where they will actively debuff one another at every opportunity. They also don't fit in tone with the whole "terror and madness" theme DD was founded on. Very bizarre change in direction.

The hero backstories are most of the time just a few sentences of narration with the occasional battle sprinkled in somewhere in their various chapters. You'll often do one, have Wayne June talk into your ear with pretentious dialogue, then auto unlock a skill for your character.

You could also use consumables as a free action in DD1, only here in DD2 you don't have an entire inventory shared among the party. Each character gets one consumable type to use. The reason why miss rate seems down is because they changed the mechanics towards this "token" system where you will have things like an enemy getting a token for 50% damage taken and once you hit them they get that token consumed. It trades in the RPG stuff for icons you're expected to get familiar with over time.

In fact, that's why DD2 is pure bells and whistles because it's hardly an RPG at all anymore. It has lost ton of that to fit into this new highly original and highly innovative roguelike direction they went for. There's no feeling of real progression, no real care for the characters you build up, and when you're not in the battle screen you're just looking at the back of a stagecoach.

DD1 had tons of issues but as it stands it is a much better game than DD2 by far. DD2 is just a weird, jarring experience that reeks of too many people having input and no real direction for the project or being afraid during brainstorm sessions to say that idea is retarded.

Regardless, I look forward to DD3 being a survival crafting card game simulator in 2026 though.

 

[Ivan]

shine on Celerity

 

[Parsimonious cook]

One of the newer trends I've noticed in these games that do a gothic or dark fantasy approach is trying to deny the warrior of light archetype being the posterboy or being in the game to begin with. Take Diablo for example, they've made their token melee hero the Barbarian. It's a game where you fight the Devil and if you thought of a knight-in-shining-armor then you're wrong because it's actually some fat muscled mountain man that will deliver us all.

It's coming to the point where making a game that plays it straight with a Good vs. Evil angle is going to be more original than the hundred attempts to shake things up needlessly.

Leftard attempts at being subversive while in reality simply indulging in their hangups and grudges.

And they very much are leftards, considering the stronk womyn and nigs in DD1.

Just to be clear, the only canonically non-white characters in DD are the arbalest (who is supposed to be north African IIRC and you can replace her with white Musketeer), Occultist (Arab, who btw was originally a white aristocrat too) and the Antiquarian (who is Indian) - you can check the background comic strips that Red Hook released ages ago. Crusader is definitely white, since he has white wife and children in the origin story comics (unless he got cukced by a whitey lmao) and IIRC is actually shown without a helmet as well. They added the skin color options in one of the later updates certainly for some SJW points, but also because people generally bitched about the low customization options.

The only stereotypical stronk wahmin was the Hellion, the others (Vestal, Arbalest/Musketeer, Grave Robber, Plague Doctor and Antiquarian) are all very feminin characters. The devs sure are leftards, but in DD they didnt go out of their way to POZ the game. The only really woke character is the Arbalest (who in her origin story runs from home after her family is lynched by a “racist” mob) and funnily enough it’s the one character that can be switched out...

 

[Reinhardt]

The only stereotypical stronk wahmin was the Hellion

Her origin comic tells another story.

 

[Pink Eye]

>Vestal, Arbalest/Musketeer, Grave Robber, Plague Doctor and Antiquarian are all very feminin characters
Not sure I agree with this statement, because the "heroes" don't have any character development to suggest any of that. In the game they're all meat to be thrown into the grinder of slaying whatever foul shit your kind predecessor left you with. All we *do* have to go off is their background from comics and the lore tidbits from their specific trinkets. They certainly don't display any of these "feminine" traits in game - there is the bants, but I tend to skip through that. Of the comics which illustrates their lives prior to being "heroes". Most of them either had a terrible life. Suffered trauma. Or were cowards. Unless, of course, you're suggesting that the fact they're female is grounds for them to be feminine, lmao.

Speaking of which. Those comics are awesome!

Spoiler

Spoiler

Too bad they're a pain to find on Redhook's site. Used to be easy to view them.

 

[Wunderbar]

Pink Eye salacious diary tho.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Don't worry, the Crusader and Vestal weren't followers of Christ.

What do you think the cross on his abilities represents? The cross on his armor? His trinket with a giant cross?

 

[Pink Eye]

Pink Eye salacious diary tho.

Speaking of the Vestal. Is temptation a feminine trait? I wouldn't know. Also I thought it was debauchery for Vestal, but I think it's just temptation for having naughty thoughts. I don't remember if it was hinted that she actually engaged in such acts. Her comic just illustrates her getting yelled at:

Spoiler

I actually didn't know she had a comic. Stopped playing Darkest Dungeon after Crimson Court - worst expansion I ever played. Never touched the game after that. Also saw that they released an online pvp mode, loololol.

 

[whydoibother]

Neo-vegans ITT be like "Have I mentioned I follow the word of Christ? Because I do! I do that thing! Let me tell you about it...."
Fuck off, nobody cares.

What do you think the cross on his abilities represents? The cross on his armor? His trinket with a giant cross?

They represent the target audience.

 

[jackofshadows]

What's up with the visual complains? The game looks great... who cares though when it seems that they botched everything else. Maybe they will fix stuff like the total randomness of friendship/jealosy or cut the amount of profile grind (which will be necessary to do anyway) through the EA but when you have stuff like this how you can have the right "atmosphere" and the tone?

No fucking thanks.

 

[Pink Eye]

Oh. My. God. LOL!

 

[Larianshill]

Apparently, not only crusader is dead,

Spoiler

but vestal too.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Neo-vegans ITT be like "Have I mentioned I follow the word of Christ? Because I do! I do that thing! Let me tell you about it...."
Fuck off, nobody cares.

Look at this one being intentionally obtuse on not understanding why a game about defeating evil cultists and horrors from some hellish dimension should feature a paladin/holy champion/priestly character.

Maaan, this nigga "whydoibother." Bitchface don't think I don't see your tactic of leaving girly slights without confronting the poster you want to call out directly. Nigga's insults are like Dark Souls item description lore where you gotta decipher who da fuk he's talking about cuz his godless ass don't got the two-set to hit quote. Square up, name your King of Fighters year, and we'll rumble.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

DON'T FUCKIN FUNNY RATING ME. I'M PISSED.

 

[whydoibother]

Neo-vegans ITT be like "Have I mentioned I follow the word of Christ? Because I do! I do that thing! Let me tell you about it...."
Fuck off, nobody cares.

Look at this one being intentionally obtuse on not understanding why a game about defeating evil cultists and horrors from some hellish dimension should feature a paladin/holy champion/priestly character.

Maaan, this nigga "whydoibother." Bitchface don't think I don't see your tactic of leaving girly slights without confronting the poster you want to call out directly. Nigga's insults are like Dark Souls item description lore where you gotta decipher who da fuk he's talking about cuz his godless ass don't got the two-set to hit quote. Square up, name your King of Fighters year, and we'll rumble.

DD2 having or not having a battle-priest of some sorts is not relevant to thin skinned trans-christian snowflakes ITT complaining about crosses and shit. And it would make zero sense to have christian paladins or whatever in a game where the cosmic powerful beings are squids, and not an old jew who likes to wrestle people in the desert. Come fight me at 5 corners, bitch, 1v1 me mid no runes, see what happens.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Come fight me at 5 corners, bitch, 1v1 me mid no runes, see what happens.

YOU WANT SOME OF THIS?



COME TO SOUTHTOWN.

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

Also I forgot to mention the five round limit on road fights is super gay. If you don't beat the fight in those five rounds you get nothing for your efforts and the fight just abruptly ends. This is their attempt to address DD1's cheese abuse of how you'd keep two ineffective or one big enemy alive and stress/fully heal your guys.

Except rather than modify the reinforcements mechanic in DD1 to better see that this joker is on round 18 against two skeletons that have been stunned most of the time and drop the debt on them, they put in this suffocating time limit that fucks both the munchkins and the casuals.

 

[whydoibother]

I am not playing this while its in early access and exclusive to EGS, but from what I saw the issue is that you can have 2 dudes keep buffing each other and max their relationship on the first fight. That's what the time limit is for, not health or stress, but the relations.
I hope you paypigs test it and give feedback, so that its fixed and balanced by the time I get to play.

 

[Wunderbar]

from what I saw the issue is that you can have 2 dudes keep buffing each other and max their relationship on the first fight. That's what the time limit is for, not health or stress, but the relations.

basically, the devs created a problem out of thin air, and then fixed it in a very hacky way, creating more problems in process.

 

[Pink Eye]

I won't be buying DD 2 at all. Redhook is on my shitlist after that atrocious Crimson Court crap. Shit was trauma inducing when it first released. Just thinking about it is giving me conniptions. Holy fuck. Darkest Dungeon was the entire reason why I even got on the steam platform because pirating the game during its early access was a pain. First purchase on steam, but fuck me if I'm repeating the mistake of purchasing another product from Redhook.

 

[Wunderbar]

Oh, I just noticed that DD2 is made on Unity.

DD1 was powered by RedHook's homebrew engine which kept all of the assets and scripting files open to editing. DD2 will probably be way less mod-friendly

 

[Parsimonious cook]

I won't be buying DD 2 at all. Redhook is on my shitlist after that atrocious Crimson Court crap. Shit was trauma inducing when it first released. Just thinking about it is giving me conniptions. Holy fuck. Darkest Dungeon was the entire reason why I even got on the steam platform because pirating the game during its early access was a pain. First purchase on steam, but fuck me if I'm repeating the mistake of purchasing another product from Redhook.

I sympathise - DD made me update from Windows XP back in the day, when I downloaded the first EA version and found out that it wouldnt run on my old system.

 

[Pink Eye]

I sympathise - DD made me update from Windows XP back in the day, when I downloaded the first EA version and found out that it wouldnt run on my old system.

Heh. It was worth it though. Darkest Dungeon during early access is very fun. I dumped so many hours in the builds I managed to torrent from popular tracker sites - even if they were behind the official build versions; which is why I ultimately ended up purchasing it.