Darkest Dungeon II

[KVVRR]

The issue is probably that you have to grind quite a bit to get there, my first is just me waiting for when the rng will decide to suddenly shank me having any input on it. Granted, this also happened in DD, except you're only loosing a 40 min and a characters at most, and most of them are entirely disposable, except maybe lvl 4+ healer, as it can bottleneck your progress if you start loosing too many of them.

I'm not entirely sure if that's the case or not. I think just keeping the stress below the threshold for negative interaction on the road (5) and being aware of what has negative effects on the system - like where to go, or what you choose to do at certain locations - might just be enough. But I might just be biased due to having most of the unlockeables already, that one run I mentioned had a jester on the back lines singing his heart out and a flagellant taking in the rest of the stress to keep the others from going crazy.

Looks like another general good protip is aggressively use combat items and inn items.

So and so.

You need some money to heal retarded quirks at hospital.

Unless it's a REALLY bad quirk (or you have enough money to afford it and keep some extra) it's not all that worth it. Later on you unlock some items that heal quirks at the inn, with some setbacks of course.
On the latest build I've found that it's best to keep some inn items for whenever you're doing the lair or the mountain, there's a lot of them that you can actually stack on top of each other.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

5 hours played and I beat the first adventure. Lost two party members earlier on, got replacements, fortunately had plenty of mastery since I'd been going ham on combat, then lost two on the final boss but finished it off. Appears the first adventure is shortened (Not really tutorial any more but an easier run) compared to others but it was pretty enjoyable, still not completely sold on this longer adventure thing but that had some good ups and downs in it.

More general protips, highly recommend using some of your earliest candles to unlock at least the first pet. Looks like you always get the pet at the first inn of a run so that wolf cub's just a flat out 10% boost to friendly relations and some stress resist if you're taking luxury cart equipment. Unlocking other heroes also seems important because since DD2 heroes are portrayed as singular characters rather than classes the only way you get reinforcements if you take losses is by having additional heroes unlocked, so having some extras floating around can let you press on. Not sure if that's better or worse than dumping points into permanent upgrades on the heroes but even if you aren't taking losses it gives you more to toy around with. Unlocking cart upgrades should probably be fairly high priority too since having more equipment slots for the cart means more passive bonuses you can be slotting in during an adventure.

Getting more skills for your characters is also a bit of a bastard. Focused on doing plague doctor for hero shrines to unlock skills on her until I got the backline grenade since stacking DoTs on the two backliners is peak plague doctor performance.

ALSO, negative relationships are a goddamn bear. Especially when it decides a pissy-skill is something you use constantly. Hellion using her normal attack and stacking vulnerable and taunt on the highwayman is painful but it does have the questionable advantage of making you want to use dodge-skills on him more and gives you a more focused target for healing, and/or riposte.

You need some money to heal retarded quirks at hospital.

Thus far I haven't run into any quirks bad enough to make me really prioritize that, but it's also possible that I'm not fully appreciating the impact they're having. In DD1 it's more obvious when someone's taken over by a quirk and forced to interact with a curio or do some bullshit but in DD2 I'm fairly sure some of the random little road interactions that can raise/lower stress and raise/lower relationships are related to quirks and traits but it's harder to pinpoint. I will say I got pyromaniac on someone which is kind of a bastard, small chance to inflict extra burn damage with attacks and small chance to inflict self-burn damage but the real kick in the balls is "Fuck you the action you're taking is throwing a molotov cocktail". Not as bad as completely skipping a turn but almost never as good what you would've done otherwise, though in one case that did let the character hit a back row enemy that wouldn't have normally been an option.

 

[Poseidon00]

So how you would you guys rate this? Worth playing or no?

I got tons of time out of the original DD because I love high risk games like this. Both modded and unmodded. Can't help but feel like, even if it is good, it won't be as good as the original for the simple fact that they changed the artstyle to something much less forgiving to modders, so less mods will be made.

 

[Lujo]

The first one was one of those games that got made by people who know how to do graphics, put together a program, and publish it as a game, but then you play it and you keep scratching your head about what gave these people the idea they were in any way qualified to put their skills into a project that was supposed to be marketed as "a game" and specifically a "turn based squad fighting game". It was also the edgiest and scariest looking casual phone game I've ever seen, too. Half of the reason it worked better in the start than as it went on was because you'd go in fooled into thinking it's going to be lethal and unforgiving... and then more and more realize that it's just absurdly casual, stop trying to take it seriously at all, and yep, it's barely a game once you get past the rather decent illusion.

I've heard they improved as game developers or maybe let someone with basic experience with the general genre (or, like, games as such) on the team for the sequel. It can't be a worse turn-based squad fighter than the first one, as that one got carried on its peripherals, but was otherwise laughably incompetent. I wonder if this one ends up being kinda meh because the whole gameplay stuff ends up just being adequate/competent enough, but we've seen all the visual and sound stuff already.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

More than development, design is their main flaw. But it comes with the territory. It was a board game-type project, and you can see it was probably made to be played in an afternoon, like a board game would be. There's no game outside the usual gameplay loop.

 

[Lujo]

More than development, design is their main flaw. But it comes with the territory. It was a board game-type project, and you can see it was probably made to be played in an afternoon, like a board game would be. There's no game outside the usual gameplay loop.

Yeah, designer was what I meant, and you're right. There was just very little game to the... program?

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

One rules complaint I've got is why in the goddamn hell can't you use the "Glimmer of hope" light boosting combat item OUTSIDE of combat? It's a weird decision to have light tick down outside of combat and give you access to an item to increase light that you can only use during combat. Light itself seems both more and less important than in DD1, more important in that it's strictly a negative the lower it gets (Seems like no extra treasure or anything, shit just gets worse) and less important since it typically won't run out by the time you reach your next inn, especially since it tends to get bumped back up by doing shit on the road anyway. Just slightly chaps my ass when the light's dimmed enough that I wouldn't mind getting rid of those enemy bonuses but I can't do it until I get into combat and think to have someone used the equipped item.

Gotta give a shoutout to KVVRR to mentioning the 5 stress threshold. Been working harder to keep people under that and my relationships have been going smoother this run. Suppose it makes sense that the man at arms' destress skill is available at 5+ because of that but this run I've got him doing essentially 0 damage and he's just there to soak up damage and jerk people off in the wagon and it's working well. Picked up some of the subclasses which is sorta cool, you can play the characters completely normal (Which gives you a bonus of extra candles which are meta progression if you make it a few regions through) or you can take a subclass to lightly rejigger skills and a character's stats/resistances/etc. Highwayman's first gives him a good damage bump in the first rank and damage penalties in other ranks so he's nice with point blank shot and shanking people, and probably decent to point blank shot and then advance himself back to first with the riposte skill. IIRC that subclass also gives him an initiative bonus which is handy.

So how you would you guys rate this? Worth playing or no?

I got tons of time out of the original DD because I love high risk games like this. Both modded and unmodded. Can't help but feel like, even if it is good, it won't be as good as the original for the simple fact that they changed the artstyle to something much less forgiving to modders, so less mods will be made.

Definitely worth playing if you're gonna pirate, probably worth it if you're gonna buy considering you played a bunch of the first. I also expect this to get only a fraction of the mods the first one did since it's going to be a lot harder for modders to add new enemies and shit because of the new graphics but they CLAIM they're going to be putting out modding tools so I guess we'll see what happens. Even without mods though it's been enjoyable. Don't see it being as pick up and play as the first one because of the whole long run thing and I'm way too early into it to say how the game feels once you've got everything unlocked and you're playing the later adventures.

 

[KVVRR]

I'm fairly sure some of the random little road interactions that can raise/lower stress and raise/lower relationships are related to quirks and traits but it's harder to pinpoint.

Yeah that's the case, whenever it does happen you'll see a quirk icon alongside the textbox indicating that one of the quirks is making them do or say that. They can also affect how they approach the encounter locations.

So how you would you guys rate this? Worth playing or no?

I got tons of time out of the original DD because I love high risk games like this. Both modded and unmodded. Can't help but feel like, even if it is good, it won't be as good as the original for the simple fact that they changed the artstyle to something much less forgiving to modders, so less mods will be made.

I enjoyed it far more than the original, but then again I didn't really enjoy the original all that much. Give it a try, you should know soon enough if it's your thing or not.

Suppose it makes sense that the man at arms' destress skill is available at 5+ because of that but this run I've got him doing essentially 0 damage and he's just there to soak up damage and jerk people off in the wagon and it's working well.

Don't sleep on damage sponge Man at Arms; I just defeated the final (final) boss using him. I didn't even plan for it neither, my jester died just before I reached the mountain and the game threw him at me. Turns out having a tank that can soak damage for others and destress people is actually pretty good.
Also the light system wasn't always like this. On the build I've been playing before launch it was a lot more unforgiving and I actually ran out several times while on the road, you really don't want that to happen. Now they've both made the light easier to keep up while also giving more buffs to having it high (the blinding enemies debuff wasn't there before)
I guess it's because of how they've balanced the loathing system, to tie it more to it?

 

[Infinitron]

"Zealotry - an undying blight upon the soul."

Get Darkest Dungeon II today and unlock the Flagellant at The Altar of Hope.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

LOAD UP THE GODDAMN WAGON

 

[Sarathiour]

I wonder if this one ends up being kinda meh because the whole gameplay stuff ends up just being adequate/competent enough,

lmao, not even close.
DD1 was at least simple in his mechanism, which make it kinda work.
This one feels like a badly designed boardgame, where every design choice they make them trip on themselves. Take the combat, encounter are now considerably longer than before (might be because they streamlined the stats system). 10 or 11 round fight are a common occurence , especially when you start the game. Because of that, they had to remove the penalty for taking too long. But because now you can take as much time as you need, you also need to nerf heal and stress heal as much as you can, so those kill now have cooldown, limited use and are only useful under a certain threshold. Except they also realized than artificially forcing to fight the boss encounter of each chapter at half-life is retarded, so we put the wheel mechanism on the cart to heal you overtime.
Stun was a very powerful ability in DD1, and would still be, so they gimped it by making a daze effect that need applied twice, but it's incredibly difficult to step early on, as it require having two characters putting the same debuff within the same round and without the monster taking his turn in the meantime. It's even worse because the highwayman also require a combo token before being able to put a daze token, so now you need three action for stunning someone, all of them subject to miss or other hazard. On the other hand, some mob can and will stunlock you, because there is now no such thing as built-in stunlock resistance, so hope you brought trinket for that, sucker.

 

[toro]

I wonder if this one ends up being kinda meh because the whole gameplay stuff ends up just being adequate/competent enough,

lmao, not even close.
DD1 was at least simple in his mechanism, which make it kinda work.
This one feels like a badly designed boardgame, where every design choice they make them trip on themselves. Take the combat, encounter are now considerably longer than before (might be because they streamlined the stats system). 10 or 11 round fight are a common occurence , especially when you start the game. Because of that, they had to remove the penalty for taking too long. But because now you can take as much time as you need, you also need to nerf heal and stress heal as much as you can, so those kill now have cooldown, limited use and are only useful under a certain threshold. Except they also realized than artificially forcing to fight the boss encounter of each chapter at half-life is retarded, so we put the wheel mechanism on the cart to heal you overtime.
Stun was a very powerful ability in DD1, and would still be, so they gimped it by making a daze effect that need applied twice, but it's incredibly difficult to step early on, as it require having two characters putting the same debuff within the same round and without the monster taking his turn in the meantime. It's even worse because the highwayman also require a combo token before being able to put a daze token, so now you need three action for stunning someone, all of them subject to miss or other hazard. On the other hand, some mob can and will stunlock you, because there is now no such thing as built-in stunlock resistance, so hope you brought trinket for that, sucker.

There is stunlock resistance.

 

[Sarathiour]

Yeah, I just noticed, I was wrong about this. I think it's only 20% though ? (edit : tested, it's 40%)

Did a couple fight against the dreaming general, pure garbage encounter. The "strategy" consist in having half your party being locked into punching something invulnerable and in the 4th position while your are slowly sapping his huge health bar. if you deviate from this he will stunlock EVERY party member before launching a wype skill.

 

[Sarathiour]

I fucking hate this token thing. There are a few enemy around, including boss, that are going to spam either shield or dodge, and if you don't have a reliable tool to stop this (which is another thing that need to be unlocked) , they're going to run circle around you.

 

[toro]

2 victories in like 8+ tries while 3 times I got wiped in the last boss fight because my stress was too high.

The idea is that the relationships mechanic can be handled but the stress mechanic is simply retarded and almost unmanageable.

The thing is I was steamrolling every fight until the last fights but for some reason the stress is magically increasing in retarded cases like this:
- any character gets +2 stress when passing the turn, or randomly +1 stress when changing ranks,
- one of my character got +2 stress because he was overcome by another character moving forward because of an attack skill (!?),
- one of my character got +2 stress because another one did a critical on some mob (wtf!?),
- 3 of my characters got +1 and +2 stress increases just because I apparently chose the wrong location to visit (wtf!?),
- some characters don't stop from accumulating stress for no visible reason, even when they had all the negative quirks removed,
- I can swear that subclasses are accumulating more stress than basic default path classes but I'm not sure because there is no stress resistance info.

The first step to managing your heroes' Stress levels is to recognize where Stress changes come from.

• Stress will randomly increase and decrease as you travel and your heroes banter and bicker. When they are at high levels of Stress (i.e. they have some of their larger Stress pips filled) there is a much higher chance of them bickering and increasing Stress for others.
• Heroes getting in the way of each other's actions in battle thanks to a sour relationship will also increase Stress.
• Some enemies have attacks that are designed to cause Stress.
• Some enemies can inflict Horror which increases a hero's Stress every round and functions similarly to the DoT ailments - Burn, Bleed, and Blight.
• Some Inn Items can cause Stress increases randomly, for example, the Whiskey Barrel which can either heal or damage Stress.
• Some Combat Items can also cause Stress increases in exchange for their main benefits. An example of this is the Adrenaline Tonic, which inflicts Stress in exchange for a very large heal.
• Party members dying will vastly increase Stress, especially if they had a good relationship.
• When at a crossroads while traveling, heroes will often produce a small speech bubble denoting which path they wish to take. If you take their choice of path they will heal one Stress pip, and lose one Stress pip if you disagree with them.

According to the quote above the fist step is actually 8 steps from which at least 2 are about random increases in stress :D

I understand that the game is a roguelike (!?), I understand that I have to learn the game mechanics, I'm willing to learn these mechanics but I'm not willing to manage a random imbecilic mechanic which is taking the agency from me and I'm left praying that I don't get fucked by the RNG God. Yeah, I don't give a shit about the NPCs banter.

In conclusion: the devs shat the bed. I bought the game on discount but I feel robbed. It's not worth more than 5 potatoes. In fact I'm not sure is worth buying. FTL, Into the breach are way better than this sad RNG shit. Uninstalled.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

All of what you guys are talking about sounds exactly like the first game tbh

 

[toro]

All of what you guys are talking about sounds exactly like the first game tbh

Relationships are forcing skills replacements on players.

Basically your Highwayman will stop using his pistol because he got jungle fever for the Plague Doctor.

Exactly like in DD1.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

All of what you guys are talking about sounds exactly like the first game tbh

Relationships are forcing skills replacements on players.

Basically your Highwayman will stop using his pistol because he got jungle fever for the Plague Doctor.

Exactly like in DD1.

That's, as another forum scholar often says, "retartet".

 

[Reinhardt]

All of what you guys are talking about sounds exactly like the first game tbh

- one of my character got +2 stress because another one did a critical on some mob (wtf!?),

 

[toro]

All of what you guys are talking about sounds exactly like the first game tbh

- one of my character got +2 stress because another one did a critical on some mob (wtf!?),

1. any character gets +2 stress when passing the turn, or randomly +1 stress when changing ranks,
2. one of my character got +2 stress because he was overcome by another character moving forward because of an attack skill (!?),
3. one of my character got +2 stress because another one did a critical on some mob (wtf!?),
4. 3 of my characters got +1 and +2 stress increases just because I apparently chose the wrong location to visit (wtf!?),

1. The +2 stress on pass turn is simply retartet. There are situations in which your character cannot do anything. Losing a turn is a punishment in itself.
2. The character gets +2 stress because he had a negative relationship with the character which was moving.
3. Again, negative relationship.
4. It looks like the player must observe the NPCs banter and choose the right direction.

Without the stress mechanics the game is not bad. I don't remember the first game to be so generous with stress increases.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

NOT EVEN CLOSE BAY-BEE

Obviously it WAS close but considering I've thumped my two end bosses the first time I've reached them I'm kinda surprised.

Unfortunately:

Spoiler

I assume you're supposed to smack the lungs and deflate them since it mentions that with the token, but my damage mainly came from DoTs which the lungs didn't give a shit about. Was able to brute force it and kill the center by losing three party members and the man at arms being the last one standing even though he could do 0-1 damage because of all his fatass trinkets and skills, but there was just barely enough blight left to manage it. Fun fun stuff.

 

[whydoibother]

Without the stress mechanics the game is not bad.

 

[Salvo]

With how all-or-nothing tokens are, getting bad RNG is even more punishing. Unfair, I would say, since the game LOVES hiding information from you.

You can't see your route unless you stop by a Watchtower location (which are many times close to the end of a level, aka useless) or invest into Scouting trinkets / wagon items (which you have no control over).
You can't see how much damage enemy skills do, nor what their crit percentage is. I've found enemy damage to be wildly inconsistent.
You can't see further than four characters in the initiative track because the developers don't want you to plan ahead.
Just like the first game, there will be moments where a blinded enemy on the verge of death will crit your character with a dodge+ modifier, inflicting 20 damage and the usual stress cascade.

I know RNG is part of games, and the roguelike genre in particular, but part of the game is also being skillful enough to mitigate that RNG. In DD2 I don't think enough tools are available to the player to stack the odds in his favor, and two bad rolls at the end boss can quickly put an end to a 2+ hours run.

After trying to give it a chance and be unbiased, without shitting on the game a priori, I've decided to put it down because what the game offers is 70% frustration, 20% relief when you don't get unlucky and 10% fun.

 

[Dayyālu]

Ach. This thread hurts me, I hoped that DD2 would build on DD1 and be less shit.

I liked DD1. Like Disciples II, it's a shit game I enjoy because the ambience is rad. After a first run I modded it extensively and cheated so my characters would go max level in 2-3 runs top so I could get maxed teams of what I wanted easily. This because it was obvious that the developers:

1) Had no respect for the player's time (animation speed, repeated bosses, level grinding)
2) Hated with a passion the mere idea of the players and not the RNG being in control (seriously, how many patches nuking characters and skills because we can't have heals/can't have stuns/can't have crowd control/you CANT YOU DONT UNDERSTAND YOU ARE PLAYING THE GAME WRONG CANT CANT)
3) They stopped having good ideas after the Vampires expansion (and even then, hilariously overdesigned)

It even makes me wonder if they ever "got" what a roguelike is. Planning and ease of replay is basic design for roguelikes, and DD lacks it. Hearing they doubled down because they don't know better is painful.

 

[Reever]

I really don't understand their thought process. If I recall correctly from an interview they said they introduced the token system because they wanted less RNG in the game. Except the RNG is still there, just in a different form and now you need to have a special button to pull up a window to show you all the different tokens in the game. It's cumbersome, flawed and doesn't fix the problems (if it even was a problem in the first place) of the first game.
The way skill descriptions are displayed in the game is very annoying and it was so in DD1 too. Except now I need to remember what "if blue man, than 4 diamonds" means. Which would be fine if there weren't 40 types of tokens in the game.
I'm also not going to go on a rant about this but I absolutely hate the metaprogression in this game. Candles and hero paths. Garbage.