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[TempAcc]

In that specific situation it may not have made much of a difference, but in most other situations, characters passing turns multiple times is a death sentence. I beat the necro really fast by destroying the skellies using the highwayman and crusader while bleeding/blighting the main guy.

I'm kind of tempted to try a party with 2 mercs. That way, not only can both of them stun and bring back row enemies to the front row, but each of them can make use of the "collect bounty" and "finish him" way more easily by alternating the mark for death and the flashbang abilities. I've found that stunning enemies is the best thing to do if you cant outright kill them, since it basically prevents damage altogheder (prevention beats a cure, after all). That doesnt seem to work well for bosses though, but the mercs would be really useful in those situations too by using mark for death and just hacking the boss down with that sweet 100% damage bonus.

I think the only class I haven't tried so far is the helion. It took me 6 weeks till one even showed up, and now I have no place for her.

[DemonOfWrath]

Well that was the one situation where it did matter, somewhat, as it led to one lot of out of control skeletons but I'll blame my Leper's hideous accuracy more. But besides that it just resulted in a lot more tedium as everyone spouted random crap all the time.

[nenjin]

I'm getting a little tired of people (generally speaking) not actually reading what others are writing about DD. Every time I read "oh I didn't think it was that hard" or "I thought the tutorial was easy" in response, I want to punch them in the face. It's not a hard game. It's a RANDOM game.

[DemonOfWrath]

Woah calm down there, yes it's random and that means people aren't going to run into difficulty at the same points. I was surprised at the comments on the tutorial because in going through it three times I did find it to be a cakewalk each time, so if someone says the tutorial is hard due to RNG I personally imagine that they'd had to of been screwed REALLY hard for that to be the case.

Now looking at the thread that's pretty obviously directed at me, so notice I did immediately after saying that agree with the first mission or two after the tutorial being overly unforgiving. Part of it being random is we're all going to have different experiences and thus impressions of the game, and general concensus appears to be that there's a bit much RNG instead of actual difficulty, but at the same time I think at least some measure of it is vital to the atmosphere of the game (that things can just go horribly wrong and you either retreat or take gigantic risks), and it's kind of like Blood Bowl in that managing the risk (and knowing when to submit yourself to RNGesus) is part of being good at the game.

[nenjin]

It's more after days of reading the DD forums, and hearing your statement echoed by others who are like "I don't know what the BFD is."

so if someone says the tutorial is hard due to RNG I personally imagine that they'd had to of been screwed REALLY hard for that to be the case.

Try dieing in the 2nd turn on the second fight of the tutorial. Try that whip attack critting for 15 damage on both your characters. Try following that up with Blanket Shot critting for another 8 to 10. Try starting the game with your two best party members at 85/100 Stress, or already afflicted.

It's not hard. It's just stupidly random, which has classically produced the result of some players saying the game is too easy, and some saying it's too random. The difference I see is, people who have experienced the randomness at its worst understand the game can also be easy because of it. The people who HAVEN'T experienced the randomness at its worse are acting like everyone else is just whining/needs to L2P/confused...and/or bragging and complaining that the game is easy. Or acting like the source of people's pain is a mystery.

and it's kind of like Blood Bowl in that managing the risk (and knowing when to submit yourself to RNGesus) is part of being good at the game.

Bloodbowl is not a valid comparison here, and here is why: in Bloodbowl you know what's coming. You can see several moves ahead, you know what your enemy is capable of, you know what your own guys are capable of.

That is not DD. You have no idea of turn order, the content of encounters, the make up of an individual dungeon run or the range your enemies and characters are capable of achieving. I've seen the Bounty Hunter crit so hard before he could have nearly dropped a boss with that one attack. I've had some characters resist death like 7 times in a row. I've had enemies one shot my own guys (to Death's Door) from full health with a crit. There's very little you can plan for in DD other than having 4 characters and healers.

Bloodbowl is an entire other order of strategy above DD. They're both random games. One gives you plenty of information and preparation and then fucks you with the RNG. DD just throws you into the unknown and then fucks you with the RNG.

[DemonOfWrath]

Ok sure, like I said I never ran into that on the tutorial, so it was more of a "hang on, it can go that badly?". It makes sense that it can, but that instance wasn't obvious to me. I've certainly ran into my share of it (like I mentioned earlier I just straight gave up on my second attempt at getting a save file going due to RNG about 2 rooms in to the first mission), just not there. But I can also see how what I said could be (and often is) vitriolic, should've worded it better.

I think Bloodbowl is valid because the core skills are essentially the same. What matters is your initial setup, so for DD that's your party composition/order and what you take along and for BB your team composition and setup at the start of a drive, and how you manage the risk involved in each action you take (do you take the more risky block in BB to open up several safer blocks? do you use less torches in DD for more loot but harder fights?). DD has a lot more unknowns to the risk, but typically milder penalties (IMO), since in BB something going wrong ends your turn completely. DD also has a reasonably predictable (and often dumb) AI as compared to a human opponent, so a risk going badly can also randomly barely be punished in DD. The core skills for both are risk management and preparation/setup before any RNG can happen.

Although the RNG for this game does seem decidedly streaky, at least for crits, but that may just be me.

[nenjin]

Sorry, I don't see it. I understand risk management in BB. Darkest Dungeons doesn't really offer it in the same way. Your cost/benefit choice is "do I stun, heal, buff or attack this round?" That's....that's pretty much it. Oh sure there's whether you risk inspecting curios, flee or burn a torch. But that's pretty small potatoes. The biggest place you make decisions is combat, and you both are lacking crucial tactical information (who goes next, something they knew was an issue long before EA and they still haven't managed to address it) and shit is really unpredictable. Even BB, which loves to shock you with it's RNG, feels more consistent than this game.

Not to mention, in Bloodbowl manuvering is a large part of gameplay and risk management. You get a whole field to make your moves on. DD, on the other hand, is like having a knife fight in a cardboard box. You're not really strategizing that much. You're stabbing in the dark hoping that they don't stab you in the eyes/heart/nuts.

[teoleo]

basically an " Adventur manager" with better graphics?

[nenjin]

Kinda, yeah. But to be fair, I think the visuals and aesthetics are like 50% of the reason to play this game and those definitely make it worth it. The gameplay loop is just very narrow.

[Retropunch]

I'd say there's a lot of strategy resource management and back in town - quite a few times I've been caught between upgrading the blacksmith or upgrading anything else. You also have to balance money for upgrades with provisioning, as well as quite a few other choices along the way. I wish they'd do a proper inventory system instead of an 'rpg-lite' version. 4 slots, of specialist gear really doesn't give you much of a mix up - most people are probably having 1 of each class in their squad, and I've never had a 'should I use this or that' dilemma really.

At the tactical level it is quite narrow, but when you're trying to juggle getting stress down, health up as well as destroy the enemy it's quite interesting.
I really, really hate that there's no indication of turn order though. It just seems like a terrible oversight.

[TempAcc]

Yea, I do think the game should have a turn order bar or just something to inform you of the current turn order so you can plan your actions better in a fight.
And I have to admit that, after upgrading my equipment and heroes about two levels, the game feels a lot more manageable. The game is much harder untill you can at least get the classes you want in your team and be able to buy the abilities you want, after that, its just a matter of adapting your strategy during fights and planning ahead. After that point, the game becomes a lot more about your decisions and less about what the RNG wants.

[joey4track]

Anyone know if there is something similar for mobile? I'd love to play something like this on my android

[Sonlirain]

The closest i can think of would be the banner saga but i can't really promise it's anything like this. Both are RPG's where you move onwards and fight so...
Then you have "King of Dragon Pass" but it's almost completely removed from action as it's a turn based strategy rather than RPG.

[nenjin]

FWIW, DD seems to want to be on mobile at some point. But that's likely months out yet.

[joey4track]

Yeah, I assumed as much but I also figure it'll be a little while yet. It really would work quite well on the mobile platform. Waiting for tome 4 to hit android as well because really after years of having a smart phone I still have never found a game that is particularly satisfying on the platform. I can only play so much hoplite :-)