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[LordPorkins]

I hope they bring bounty hunter back. He was my favorite character from DD1

Plus, with all the focus on Tokens, He could be the Token/Combo God. Without setup, okay. With setup, killer

I just want to crit-uppercut God in the face, followed by a dismissive snort, alright?

[ChairmanPoo]

Update: I've played the latest patches and now its clearer what the devs are aiming at, and have changed my mind about the game (first development version was terrible. Now its actually pretty good). Still some issues but its coming out nicely

[Aoi]

Update: I've played the latest patches and now its clearer what the devs are aiming at, and have changed my mind about the game (first development version was terrible. Now its actually pretty good).

Did they do anything with the wagon driving segments? The inclusion of that unnecessary twitchiness was what ultimately nixed it for me. (Not that it was my only issue with it, but it was the final straw.)

[ChairmanPoo]

There are more biomes which makes the landscapr more varied. Driving the coach itself is half flavor, half minigame (crash through obstacles for bonus items).


I think its a wholly different animal from Darkest Dungeon 1. In DD1, it made a lot of sense to fight as few encounters as possible to minimize risk and stress buildup in your characters, and make sure they are fresh when they fight the fights that cannot be avoided. In DD2 its the other way around:  more often than not you *have* to go out of your way to seek fights. If you fight (and win) fights loathing comes down and you get mastery points to improve your chars. On the contrary, if you AVOID fights loathing builds up, your characters fight each other, your flame drains fast and you dont get mastery points so its more likely to end up in a bad place.

I suspect its a delliberate decision by Red Hook. I dont fully agree (I think DD1 was overall a more strategic game, and was hoping for DD1 with an even deeper strategic layer. And maybexcomlike combat)  but the result is actually fairly decent, despite the fact that I dont usually like slay the spire-likes.

[ZebioLizard2]

Oh I would've loved a change towards tabletop/X-com styled combat. It'd give all those positioning abilities some new life.

[Empty]

I'm kind of fed up of xcom style combat. Positioning always takes so long.

[ChairmanPoo]

I'm coming to think that this game is actually more strategic than DD1. Choosing the route has a lot of relevance on what happens. The caveats are that losses have a bigger impact (the further away from the inn the bigger the impact... there's no retreat).  And boss battles are really really tough (so far I've been sble to beat a grand total of ONE boss).

[nenjin]

So this is finally coming to Steam on May 8th. I haven't followed the game at all really, but my last impression was that it was very different beast than DD1.

With over a year of work on the game since anyone posted, does anyone have some updated thoughts about it for the Steam release? Sadly it doesn't feel like a Day 1 buy for me but I'd be happy if my opinion were to change.

[pisskop]

I watched a playthrough of it and idk when they made it but I was kind of diappointed how railroady it felt.

idk if I feel it tbh.  Ill probably wait to see some 09MAR23 gameplay


P: it feels like a 'climb the tower' single serving rouguelite game, actually

[ChairmanPoo]

I love it. I was very skeptical when it came up. But I love how it came out.

[EuchreJack]

I love it. I was very skeptical when it came up. But I love how it came out.

Did their bride check clear this time?

[nenjin]

I love it. I was very skeptical when it came up. But I love how it came out.

[ChairmanPoo]

I love it. I was very skeptical when it came up. But I love how it came out.

It's many things. When they first put it out there were few options and the game was very  unpolished. But they polished it a lot and what used to work terrible actually goes pretty well now.
To single out a few:
- relationship system is less hardcore (but can still screw you if you dont pay attention or are unlucky)

- you have more items to deal with situations (including one that allows you to increase the torch level -though only during combat- functionally making it similar to DD1 torches -lets call them torches for simplicity). It also feels like the choice on what items to drag along is more meaningful and strategically relevant, as they can change a lot how your run goes and how you deal with unexpected stuff. It feels different and better than expedition planning in 1 to me

- you have quite a bit of hero customization (although needing heals and stressheals means that some combinations will be more popular than others. Its not that you're absolutely constrained -quite a few classes have alternate stress//heal abilities- but some are so substantially better than the others that you kind of feel pressed to toss them in)

- Combat is mechanically similar to DD1... but it feels *better* than DD1s. There are just a few subtle changes in how it works. Its more satisfying. Also the 5 turn limit only applies to road battles, not to every battle (which was silly)

- Path planning has improved a lot over early access. It matters a lot what paths you pick and what are you hoping to achieve (eg: technically you need to defeat one stage boss to access the final bosses... but in practice the focus of the runs at the beginning should be in getting unlock currency). Also in DD1 I felt encouraged to avoid combat. In DD2 its a more nuanced decision with many pros and cons to evaluate


- ambientation is gorgeous. I feel there's a lot of homage to "In the Mouth of Madness" in this game

[nenjin]

Maybe I'll get it a looksee at release. Thanks.

[IronyOwl]

Tried it out a bit. So far seems like everything is within striking distance of greatness but doesn't land.

Upgraded models look ugly and weird, but close enough that I could see that style looking really cool. Some enemy designs and animations are really nice as well.

Combat feels off. Part of this is the art shift taking the gravity out of hits and misses, part of it is harder to pin down. A lot seems to be related to strategic concerns, like not having much choice over which heroes you have at the moment or which skills they have. I'm probably also not in the swing of things yet, but if a DD1 veteran isn't getting it pretty quickly I assume that's a design failure nonetheless.

Game structure sucks. The roguelike approach is an interesting adaptation to the original hamlet-expedition system, but it feels way less satisfying and organic. Having a home base to upgrade is a pretty cool feature you're gonna be hard-pressed to replace with a candle collection system to upgrade your vestal with. On the other end, I don't think they went hard enough with the unpredictable and adaptive nature of a proper roguelike run, so it feels less exploratory or risky and more plain grindy.

Overall pretty disappointing. Will continue to experiment and see what changes.