KickStarter Darkest Dungeon Pre-Release Thread

[Zombra]

I assure you, my fine fellow, that my sense of humor is excellent and oft remark'd upon. It is plain to any observer that I am an overflowing cistern of hilarity. My jocular genius is certainly self-evident to me, and thus it follows that you would comprehend my uproarious nature if only you were as comically attuned as myself. Now let us speak no more of this frivolous side matter and return to the grave issue at hand; that of the "biggest scam of all time", which I claim entirely without irony.

Hey, makes me laugh

Legion

 

[Celerity]

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.

From what I'm gathering from researching their cryptic comments, one modder a while back caused some sort of clusterfuck, so now they think all modders are time bombs? And then they're just outright dismissing months of direct experience and observation regarding the game state and its designer's mindsets and histories because clearly, I merely dislike the game and have no actual meaningful objection? Not sure what flipped the proverbial lightswitch there and made them turn in an instant, but I don't level harsh accusations I'm not sure about. Whatever the case I have no interest in walls of shitposts. I am interested in discussing games, being it praising good ones or damage control on massive Early Access scams. Because here's a fun fact.

I did not enjoy Pillars of Eternity. Do you see me picking a fight with Anthony Davis? Nope! Nor will you, because unlike them, the Derpest Dungeon shills, and quite a few other people in this world I understand there is a large gap between not enjoying a game and that game having objective flaws and a massive gap between a game having objective flaws and being a horribly broken falsely advertised clusterfuck made by scum of the earth developers. If I don't like a game I just walk away, if a game has some flaws I'm accepting of them, if it has many I will just slam it and walk away. This one's a unique case. Grievious false advertisement, abhorrent behavior, just enough subtelty they won't self destruct on their own and that people will be fooled for a few hours. And ya know, the personally wronging me part because I'm not the Early Access police (I let Jim Sterling handle that) and as a general rule if you're not hurting me I don't give a fuck what you do.

Anyways, I'm calling them trolls because I could get this same sort of wave of groupthink fueled circlejerky, anti intellectual style posts via bypassing my censorship on their forums and picking a fight with their least intelligent members. I don't think they're actually that stupid, thus trolls.

 

[Gord]

You're wasting your time then. I believed this forum was populated by intelligent people, thus my posting here.

We certainly have those, although we also have a Legion of shitposters. And if you are still around a year from now, consider venturing into GD...
But most importantly, modder (and other gaming related) drama is always welcome

 

[Brancaleone]

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

I did not enjoy Pillars of Eternity. Do you see me picking a fight with Anthony Davis? Nope! Nor will you, because unlike them, the Derpest Dungeon shills, and quite a few other people in this world I understand there is a large gap between not enjoying a game and that game having objective flaws and a massive gap between a game having objective flaws and being a horribly broken falsely advertised clusterfuck made by scum of the earth developers. If I don't like a game I just walk away, if a game has some flaws I'm accepting of them, if it has many I will just slam it and walk away. This one's a unique case. Grievious false advertisement, abhorrent behavior, just enough subtelty they won't self destruct on their own and that people will be fooled for a few hours. And ya know, the personally wronging me part because I'm not the Early Access police (I let Jim Sterling handle that) and as a general rule if you're not hurting me I don't give a fuck what you do.

Which reminds me, it's quite odd that the Codex has hitherto completely ignored the issue on whether PoE might have been falsely advertised as a "spiritual heir" of whatever...

 

[Suicidal]

You're wasting your time then. I believed this forum was populated by intelligent people, thus my posting here.

What gave you that impression?

 

[prodigydancer]

You're wasting your time then. I believed this forum was populated by intelligent people, thus my posting here.

We're wasting your time? Dude, no-one asked you to come here - you did so of your own volition. Moreover, you came here whining and nerdraging like a crybaby who lost a CS match. If you behaved like that on Steam and Red Hook forums then I'm no longer surprised you were banned. It's not 2005 anymore and forum drama is a dead genre.

If you expect a serious and intelligent discussion, you need to start one. So here's a couple of tips for free. First, badmouthing the developers - regardless of whether they deserve to be scorned or not - doesn't add weight to your posts. Second, getting over your emotional investment and presenting your arguments in a structured, concise and impartial manner will encourage people to take you more seriously.

If you're a backer and you really think that Red Hook scammed you (false advertisement, etc.) and other - start a class action lawsuit.

As for the game - is still in EA so most people will tell you it's too early to judge. It has fairly simple mechanics so a lot can be changed by adjusting a few numbers here and there. It won't be a fundamental change but it'll change the experience and that's what most people care about. Perhaps it'll shock you but most people play video games just for fun. They don't want to analyze them deeply, much less participate in some holy war.

 

[Celerity]

You're wasting your time then. I believed this forum was populated by intelligent people, thus my posting here.

We're wasting your time? Dude, no-one asked you to come here - you did so of your own volition. Moreover, you came here whining and nerdraging like a crybaby who lost a CS match. If you behaved like that on Steam and Red Hook forums then I'm no longer surprised you were banned. It's not 2005 anymore and forum drama is a dead genre.

If you expect a serious and intelligent discussion, you need to start one. So here's a couple of tips for free. First, badmouthing the developers - regardless of whether they deserve to be scorned or not - doesn't add weight to your posts. Second, getting over your emotional investment and presenting your arguments in a structured, concise and impartial manner will encourage people to take you more seriously.

If you're a backer and you really think that Red Hook scammed you (false advertisement, etc.) and other - start a class action lawsuit.

As for the game - is still in EA so most people will tell you it's too early to judge. It has fairly simple mechanics so a lot can be changed by adjusting a few numbers here and there. It won't be a fundamental change but it'll change the experience and that's what most people care about. Perhaps it'll shock you but most people play video games just for fun. They don't want to analyze them deeply, much less participate in some holy war.

Actually if you go back and read the history you'll see it went something like this:

Anthony Davis makes post that goes viral.
I see said post and respond here, unaware this forum was discussing this game previously because it's not an RPG so I didn't think anyone here cared.
Everyone was cool with what I was saying and supportive of my being here.
People find out I'm a modder and start acting like bigoted fuckwits?
Wall of baiting shitposts.
Celerity is nonplussed.

But then reading clearly isn't your strong suit as I said you're wasting your time (by thinking you can get anything from me except boredom or mockery with that shit), not my time.

As for the developers, yes let's completely ignore when developers do shitty things because we can't have people saying mean things about them, nope. Is this a fucking hugbox? It damn well doesn't seem like a fucking hugbox. It certainly isn't when other developers get mocked here. Odd how the selective standards come out, hm? Also, I believe in this amazing thing called candid transparency. It's where I tell it like it is, so everyone understands where I'm coming from and why I'm doing the things I do. And when "presenting your arguments in a structured, concise and impartial manner" has proven repeatedly ineffective both here and there you might just see a little political incorrectness. Shocking, I know.

And this whole Early Access as shield thing should just fuck right off. I mean even ignoring it's been in Early Access for 10 months out of 12 and 3 delays and only has gotten worse with every patch, that doesn't grant Immune: Criticism. Because ya know, criticism is the whole point of Early Access since that is how games become refined and release ready. What's more very little has changed at all, such that if you ignore the Cove and the 4 new classes you will barely see any non cosmetic differences from Feburary. When a game's mostly the game and the differences slap you in the face criticism of the game is more than justified and when the developers then censor that and more criticism of them is completely justified. Also, given how lazy they are (remember kids, these are the developers who couldn't fix a one word in a text document bug for 10 months that broke an entire enemy) even "changing a few numbers" might not happen.

But see, you don't know any of that. You might not even have this game. You're just coming in and dismissing all that observation and experience out of hand. What's more, you're contradicting yourself by doing so as even a quick look around you reveals plenty of people complaining of the game's lack of meat even if they are unaware of its deeper problems. Meaning, even if you do "play just for fun", this is still a problem for you because they are patching the fun out of the game.

 

[PhantasmaNL]

Just to throw in a few cents. Im not against forum/mod drama since it provides good reading material during the working week, so by all means Celerity keep posting. Just dont expect that everybody will take you seriously. What strikes me as odd, is the shown level of investment in a game you apparently dont like from a developer you dont like. It seems like such a waste of energy and time, both of which are in limited supply and probably better spent.

 

[Celerity]

Just to throw in a few cents. Im not against forum/mod drama since it provides good reading material during the working week, so by all means Celerity keep posting. Just dont expect that everybody will take you seriously. What strikes me as odd, is the shown level of investment in a game you apparently dont like from a developer you dont like. It seems like such a waste of energy and time, both of which are in limited supply and probably better spent.

I think it should go without saying that the time investment came before said game proved it was hopeless and the developers with it and that's why I'm being so persistent. You'd understand if you spent literal months saving something, you knew it could be saved, and yet the person whose actual job this was would not put in the minimum possible effort.

More importantly though, I'm more focused on the whole warning/damage control aspect than empty drama. So as much as people like saying that I should let it go or some variation I'm still seeing continuances a page after I was done with it. If I see any other posts just starting shit with me I'm ignoring them, this is cutrate trolling and it's quite boring.

 

[Ludo Lense]

Actually if you go back and read the history you'll see it went something like this:

Anthony Davis makes post that goes viral.
I see said post and respond here, unaware this forum was discussing this game previously because it's not an RPG so I didn't think anyone here cared.
Everyone was cool with what I was saying and supportive of my being here.
People find out I'm a modder and start acting like bigoted fuckwits?

Jesus Christ, victim complex much? Do you even have friends? Do you know what social skills are?

People started making fun of you ( lightly I might add) because you talk like WW3 will start because of Darkest Dungeon and also because some of the stuff you said strides close to conspiracy theory in regards to Red Hook. You immediately went on the defensive, telling us about how you are essentially an intellect far beyond us and we are not worthy of your time. If you act like this I am not surprised you have a history of getting banned.

P.S. If you are so smart you should have easily realized that talking about how "Intelligent" and "Serious" you are would immediately invite greater proper trolling.

 

[Celerity]

Oh? Then what the fuck should I think when the only precursor for this sudden 180 was mention of a "Drog", which I thought was them saying that's how I knew about the hidden mechanic until I Googled Drog and got the real meaning? Something provoked a bunch of people coming out of the woodworks and piling on. Anyways, calling them a danger for indie game development is hardly WW3, who is exaggerating now? In fact the whole rest of that post is you exaggerating and twisting shit.

Apparently, once I turned this spam of bullshit on I can't turn it off. So not bothering with correcting your many false assumptions about me or the developers or modders or whoever else bad touched you. Anything productive? Because as much as I could make this "Celerity flames fuckwits" I have proper targets for my ire and you're not it. If you'd rather we forget this nonsense and keep talking without the trolling bullshit than sure I guess, but might be a bit late for that.

 

[Wizfall]

Total breakdown incoming hehe.
Hilarious that so many modders are unbearable, paranoid and so full of themselves.
Must be mandatory for the job.

 

[Luka-boy]

Drama or not, Celerity's analysis together with other impressions from other Codexers who played this game have made me remove it from my wishlist.

What a shame. I had decent hopes for this game when it was made available on Early Access and it seemed like it would just need some tinkering by the devs to become a good game.

 

[Wizfall]

Drama or not, Celerity's analysis together with other impressions from other Codexers who played this game have made me remove it from my wishlist.

You should not.
I mean i got burned by this game and i don't think i will play it again (maybe a bit at release though) but it really has been a blast for me for 20-30 hours.
So whatever people say and critics 20-30 hours of great entertainment is very good IMO.

 

[Pope Amole II]

So whatever people say and critics 20-30 hours of great entertainment is very good IMO.

Exactly the point.

The problem with all the people ITT complaining recently is that they've just overplayed it (mind you, I've overplayed it too for the sake of my channel so I feel that way too). I won't say that its design is brilliant (it's obviously flawed and repetitive), but it has at least a dozen or so of viable and different party combinations and 4 different areas to test those setups. 20-30 hours should be enough to run them all through green & orange dungeons (ignore red - they are a carbon copy of orange, just with the numbers being stacked against your favor; they don't add anything fresh to the game). MB a bit more, but no more than fifty, that's the absolute threshold.

And while this period of experimentating & exploration lasts, the game is pretty cool. Yeah, after that the charm breaks off, but it's not like its that expensive - even before the release you see the 33-40% discounts for it and after release it'll soon get even lower than that. Sure, the authors may promote their game heavily, but should we judge them for, essentially, not being dumbfucks?

Yeah, theoretically, it could've been something absolutely different. But then, it's not like everything needs to be an eternal masterpiece. Not in my opinion, at the very least - I'm fine with things being good for what they are as it's the case with DD.

 

[duanth123]

So whatever people say and critics 20-30 hours of great entertainment is very good IMO.

Exactly the point.

The problem with all the people ITT complaining recently is that they've just overplayed it (mind you, I've overplayed it too for the sake of my channel so I feel that way too). I won't say that its design is brilliant (it's obviously flawed and repetitive), but it has at least a dozen or so of viable and different party combinations and 4 different areas to test those setups. 20-30 hours should be enough to run them all through green & orange dungeons (ignore red - they are a carbon copy of orange, just with the numbers being stacked against your favor; they don't add anything fresh to the game). MB a bit more, but no more than fifty, that's the absolute threshold.

And while this period of experimentating & exploration lasts, the game is pretty cool. Yeah, after that the charm breaks off, but it's not like its that expensive - even before the release you see the 33-40% discounts for it and after release it'll soon get even lower than that. Sure, the authors may promote their game heavily, but should we judge them for, essentially, not being dumbfucks?

Yeah, theoretically, it could've been something absolutely different. But then, it's not like everything needs to be an eternal masterpiece. Not in my opinion, at the very least - I'm fine with things being good for what they are as it's the case with DD.

The more persons introduced to Lovecraftian horror, the better, as it's a woefully underutilized genre...

That seems to be the only constructive, lasting impact DD will have.

 

[Celerity]

Drama or not, Celerity's analysis together with other impressions from other Codexers who played this game have made me remove it from my wishlist.

What a shame. I had decent hopes for this game when it was made available on Early Access and it seemed like it would just need some tinkering by the devs to become a good game.

Which it won't get. Ignoring more shit posts from the people proving this whole Drog bad touched this forum years ago and made everyone irrationally rage about modders and see them as spectacles theory correct, the game has about 5 hours of unique "content", and it only has that many because of the artificial grind and content dilution introduced. If every boss were available immediately, instead of grinding out slow almost mobile like "progress bars" in every area you could potentially see every area and boss - and beat them within the 2 hour refund window. Literally everything beyond that first 5 hours was either searching through the rest of the game for unique content and finding none, or making the game they wouldn't myself in my case. And no that's not "being full of myself" or any such nonsense, as outperforming such an incompetent dev is a really low bar that anyone can move over and were they actual professionals an amateur could not outperform them.

Of course it doesn't even have that anymore because the developers are hellbent on adding more and more tedium and grind until no one likes the game anymore. Even some of their shills are turning on them, it's good stuff.

This by Steam user ZiN nicely summarizes their "creative process":

http://imgur.com/wQNCxsl

 

[Trash]

They had an amazing kickstarter. They have amazing art. They have an awesome premesis. They released a few early builds that showed a lot of promise. Then they messed it up in exactly the manner Anthony detailed. A real shame.

At least now we have an insane modder to make my own butthurt about this seem insignificant.

 

[Ludo Lense]

Well hopefully their next game will be better, I am 100% sure they sold enough to keep them afloat. Also, they will probably keep selling since the game is pretty and that alone attracts certain people.

 

[Celerity]

Alright so forget the trolling shit for a moment. You really think their next game will sell? Companies with no prior reputation can certainly break in the market, but if their first game is a clusterfuck people are not trusting the second. They certainly did make a lot of money illegitimately (- however much they burned on Alienware computers at every convention) and if they're smart they'll retire with it. I don't think their scam would work twice. But I could be naive and giving people more credit than they deserve.

If their first game was a success that'd be different. They'd also be getting a lot less ire all around.

 

[Dyskolos]

So I'm in the annoyed position of having bought the game at release, played and enjoyed ~7hours, but immediately stopped assuming it would improve with updates and not wanting to wear thin on it too soon.

But since it seems consensus for a while now that it's only gotten shittier, I'm wondering what would be the recommended approach for getting the most out of it before shifting it to the dropped list. Like - assuming I can find it somewhere online - what's the last build with the most content but least ruined (relative to the original) gameplay? Or are the annoyances of the current form more a saturation effect I'd only come to hate if I insist on grinding through all the content?

 

[Ludo Lense]

If their first game was a success that'd be different.

It is.

Financially, Steam Spy say they sold over 500.000 copies and devs generally say the site is mostly true. Even if we cut that number in half and multiply by lowest selling point ever which is 12 $ they still would have a few million. They also still have a "very positive" user rating so I don't see why people won't continue buying it. The vast majority of consumers in this industry are impulse buyers or only need 1 review to be convinced.

 

[Celerity]

It's a bit of both. I'd say the best balance of non ruined content is in Build 89xx, about 3k behind. I don't remember the exact number, it was one right after Fiends and Frenzy or possibly the first one. I remember even 2 days after that they were adding very questionable things so doing that gives you 12 classes and 6 bosses with less grind and bullshit.

Edit: The game made a lot of money because it fooled people, it still maintains a generally positive rating despite having literal walls of negative reviews for the past 5 months only because most of those purchases came in Feburary from people that believed in the game's initial promise, reviewed, then forgot about it. Neither of those are possible once people are aware of their nature. My question was about them fooling people again, so...

Edit again: You've exhausted nearly all unique content once you've beaten every level 1 boss. The higher level versions are just palette swaps, and while there technically are new enemies that appear at level 3 they're very rare and fight the exact same as the smaller enemies. This is about 5 hours.

 

[Gord]

Or are the annoyances of the current form more a saturation effect I'd only come to hate if I insist on grinding through all the content?

Imo it's mostly this. The early versions had issues, too, and the overall balance was always somewhat wonky.
But you can have fun with it, enjoy the atmosphere and build up a roster of heroes while getting to know the different enemies and stuff.
It's just that after a certain time spent in the game, the problems become apparent and the positives begin to wear of. Usually that seems to happen around the 20 hour mark.

 

[Jimmious]

The game made money because streamers loved it and almost everyone was playing it for a while. It's good for this, easy to watch and has some random "omg what happened lolololol" moments.