Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[ChairmanPoo]

New update in an hour or so.

[nenjin]

Haven't been keeping up as much with recent developments, but here's what this patch will be about:



What I know is, the Sanitarium will let you "lock in" traits, both good and bad.

No idea "corpses in combat" means. It could be just a graphical thing, but I wouldn't be surprised if it has some mechanical consequences (like corpses taking up space in the line.)

[Zangi]

Having to shove dead bodies out of the way to get things done.  Demoralizing.  ?

Anyways, still essentially waiting till 1.0 to give it another go.

[rumpel]

The corpses. The corpses.

[BishopX]

So just finished my first run on the new update.

Short Ruins dive on a medium map.

Vestal
Plague Doctor
Crusader
Helion

All level three with upgraded skills, good trinkets, level four weapons and level two armor.

Holy crap the difficulty changed. First fight started with a bone noble critting the vestal for 11 out for 29 HP, followed by three strike aimed at her.

By the second fight my 2nd rank fighters were both constantly on deaths door, despite using all food and healing I could muster. Despite all that I ended up losing the Plague doctor to a bunch of brigands (bleed + blanket fire is nasty). The Helion proved to be the mvp of the run, since in the lead position she could hit every rank of enemy. I really struggled to clear the corpses with my crusader, as it typically took 2+ blows to remove a corpse.

So a few things changed in my mind:

 1)pull skills are now much more important. Pulling the squishy ones forward over a pile or corpses is now crucial unless you can releiably hit all four ranks.
 2)Need moar armor upgrades
 3)I think bounty hunters, highway men, men at arms, Helions, plague doctors and grave robbers ended up getting a buff in this version, since being able to hits wider swaths of enemies and move them around become much more important. Crusaders, Lepers and Jesters are less potent than before due to their (relative) lack of target selection. In my mind the jury is still out or the arbalest.


 

[nenjin]

Haven't had a chance to play yet, but, here's 7 pages of long form patch notes from Redhook about this update. It's so rare that devs really take the time to explain their thinking to you when they're in production. I've noticed most professional developers write what changes are but not necessarily why that happened, or they'll reduce the why down to a couple of words. I assume that's because they're too focused on doing stuff to explain themselves, but after working with developers for a few years now, I realize it's just a habit. Very few devs like to talk in depth about why they do things. Maybe they don't like to have to defend their design choices unless they have to, maybe they're not great communicators, maybe they think a word or two should be enough to clearly explain their position, or maybe they are just too damn busy working to write you a novel on their thinking.

Anyways, the patch notes are a little loquacious (not that I can really criticize that) but it really does dig down into their thinking a bit more than your average EA patch notes.

Not sure how I feel about corpses. I appreciate they needed something to preserve the rank-based gameplay, but somehow abilities clearing the battlefield of corpses, or attacking them, seems a little contrived. Fights could be plenty problematic in the opening 1 or 2 rounds, and needing good DPS across all 4 ranks seems like it will limit your options rather than increase or enhance them.

That said, reading over the patch notes, aside from the nerfs to crit chance and stress healing to balance late game difficulty, it sounds like damn near everyone got a buff of some sort (buffs/debuffs all increased 1 round in duration, many buffs got an additional effect or were changed to an attack that gives a buff too, bleed/blight crits now, all heals buffed....)

I imagine I'll get fucked up in my first encounter when I get around to playing.

[Boltgun]

I like the corpse idea. There was indeed an issue where it was faster to throw everything you have at the first enemy row, to kill the melees enemies in a turn and getting the back row squishies in range of you melee guys, who can slash those in one hit.

Using backrow attacks were often less successful unless you build for that (ie. arbalest + hellion). And pulls were so prone to missing that I let my cultist heal instead.

Also it's good that they are addressing debuffs using a double check. Tthose things were unreliable in addition to not really changing the outcome. I'm sure the game will be well balanced for release.

[IronyOwl]

dots are more valuable and can crit

I now want to build a full DOT party and just melt everything.

Haha, just kidding, I always want to do that. This just makes it sound slightly more viable.

[Elfeater]

I wish some of the tankier heros gained Prot with their armour, like the monsters do.

[Greenbane]

I can't help but feel rather uneasy, mechanically, about the concept of the Houndmaster. Blight and disease are very present in Darkest Dungeon, and I really can't wrap my head around a dog arbitrarily being immune to the side effects of biting zombies, pig people, ectoplasm masses and eldritch creatures all the time. While I haven't played the game since before the update, I bet the dog and/or master aren't immune to actual blight DOTs and disease contagion via standard means, obviously, so the mechanical dissonance bugs me.

I haven't really investigated the matter, but according to some people, the game itself has a number of arbitrary gamey mechanics which don't make much sense from a logical standpoint, so I suppose this is one to add to the list.

Another example of an illogical mechanic, off the top of my head, is that adventurers are often desperately afraid of going back into the dungeons, for fear of their sanity, while at the same time they'll refuse to embark on easy missions because those -aren't- a threat to their sanity. I suppose that's more of a flavour issue than anything else.

[BishopX]

It would have been really nice to notice that I could clear corpses with my plague doctor, before he got shanked to death from the third row. Oh well. Time to train a new crop.

[lordcooper]

I haven't really investigated the matter, but according to some people, the game itself has a number of arbitrary gamey mechanics which don't make much sense from a logical standpoint, so I suppose this is one to add to the list.

Add in the game being turnbased, being limited to four party members and everyone working for free.  Games are allowed to be gamey, because they're games.

[IronyOwl]

I haven't really investigated the matter, but according to some people, the game itself has a number of arbitrary gamey mechanics which don't make much sense from a logical standpoint, so I suppose this is one to add to the list.

Add in the game being turnbased, being limited to four party members and everyone working for free.  Games are allowed to be gamey, because they're games.

Strictly speaking, they are paid rather handsomely for their... well, their recovery, at least, if not their services directly. Though I guess 75g rations and 1000g tavern visits could be argued as another gamey thing.

[lordcooper]

I haven't really investigated the matter, but according to some people, the game itself has a number of arbitrary gamey mechanics which don't make much sense from a logical standpoint, so I suppose this is one to add to the list.

Add in the game being turnbased, being limited to four party members and everyone working for free.  Games are allowed to be gamey, because they're games.

Strictly speaking, they are paid rather handsomely for their... well, their recovery, at least, if not their services directly. Though I guess 75g rations and 1000g tavern visits could be argued as another gamey thing.

They're basically working for brothel and board

[Zangi]

I haven't really investigated the matter, but according to some people, the game itself has a number of arbitrary gamey mechanics which don't make much sense from a logical standpoint, so I suppose this is one to add to the list.

Add in the game being turnbased, being limited to four party members and everyone working for free.  Games are allowed to be gamey, because they're games.

Strictly speaking, they are paid rather handsomely for their... well, their recovery, at least, if not their services directly. Though I guess 75g rations and 1000g tavern visits could be argued as another gamey thing.

They're basically working for brothel and board

You don't even have to bother destressing them or even provide rations in the dungeons.