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[Neonivek]

It is one of the few cases where the Professionals ruin the game for everyone else

But hopefully the game will continue to balance things. I am not ready to throw the game under the bus.

[nenjin]

I'm not either but at this point I don't know if we can expect a massive rebalance. That's what EA was supposed to be for.

They just need to go the Long War route of XCOM. They're already partially there with all the pre-game option choices you can make (which I neglected to look at until after I was several weeks into my current game.) But they need to take that attitude with a lot of the restrictions, because frankly unless you expect NONE of your dudes to survive, the math doesn't make sense. It actually becomes HARDER to keep up with progression the more of your guys that survive, because in ~8 runs they're Level 4 and represent between $8k and $10k worth of upgrades just to reach that point. Unless Dark Runs give you just absolutely stupid amounts of money and heirlooms, or higher level missions are eminently doable without comparable upgrades (which previous experiences have told me they aren't) I don't see how you're supposed to keep up. I'm at Week 34, 25 Roster max, have almost entirely level 3 and 4 guys and 1 decent run nets me enough to money to upgrade maybe one guy to the next tier of armor, weapons and skills, and dealing with stress and other sundries, while still leaving me a ~$5k buffer. Most of my Level 3s are one run away from becoming Level 4, and yet I'm weeks and weeks and weeks away from earning enough Deeds to upgrade the Blacksmith for T4 armor. About the only thing I haven't done is sell off all the orange trinkets I'm hoarding, but I know the game well enough to realize that's just a stop gap measure.

It's ironic. I found the save file and started savescumming away the worst of the BS and it actually seems to have brought me to a bad place faster than playing normally.

I love the game and what it's trying to do but it's one of those games where the mechanical balance is fiddly. It works if you play the game a certain way but falls apart at either end of the spectrum (either doing terribly or doing way too good.) Maybe I'll restart with the mindset that "No guy is worth keeping or investing in until you've completely unlocked the Blacksmith." I should have the Blacksmith fully upgraded by Week 100 or so, at that rate. Because the way I'm playing now, which is investing in guys once they hit Rank 2, is not working out long-term.

If they doubled the amount of time it takes to level when adventuring in at-level dungeons it might start feeling closer to the mark.

[Cthulhu]

And then I got to the darkest dungeon and was very disappointed, but XCOM came out so it didn't matter.

Care to elaborate? I've been avoiding DD spoilers but at this point I think I need to know if it will be worth the slog.

My assumption is: it's just like every other dungeon in the game, except with "quests", different background tiles, enemies that we've known about since the first trailer video and the boss fight.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I didn't see any 'quests.'  The description is just flavor-text, it's the same move through a dungeon and fight a boss you've seen throughout the game.  There are a few new enemies and ascended cultists, the enemy design is pretty cool.  Tons of damage and stress though, you will want to bring stress heals on your camp.  Also bleed-remove is pretty much mandatory.

The real problem is that it's extremely long and may as well be linear.  Each room reveals the paths to the next rooms, but no room contents are scouted, there's no curios or traps or anything, so none of your choices actually matter.  You move forward, fight monsters, pick a random path, move forward, fight monsters.

Since it's so long and you only get one campfire, you will probably be too weak to fight the boss, which is just a buffed version of the shambler you've been fighting.

It just feels like it falls so flat gameplay-wise.  Like they ran out of time and just threw it together.  It's probably also that they haven't had time to balance it, it feels like every new feature they brought in.  Remember how hard the cove was when it first came out?

The good thing is the aesthetics.  Too much dark-n-green-n-cyclopean in Lovecraft stuff lately, the entire genre's really stale.  This one takes a few pages from more traditional horror, throws in some hellraiser for good measure, and you've got wrought iron catwalks spidering across an endless magma-lit field of stone pillars engraved to bring the blood of everyone who dies to the horrors above down to feed the new god.  The enemies are only humanoid for convenience and shift into hulks of bloody flesh and bone when they attack, it's all very nice.

[SOLDIER First]

ptw

[nenjin]

And then I got to the darkest dungeon and was very disappointed, but XCOM came out so it didn't matter.

Care to elaborate? I've been avoiding DD spoilers but at this point I think I need to know if it will be worth the slog.

My assumption is: it's just like every other dungeon in the game, except with "quests", different background tiles, enemies that we've known about since the first trailer video and the boss fight.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I didn't see any 'quests.'  The description is just flavor-text, it's the same move through a dungeon and fight a boss you've seen throughout the game.  There are a few new enemies and ascended cultists, the enemy design is pretty cool.  Tons of damage and stress though, you will want to bring stress heals on your camp.  Also bleed-remove is pretty much mandatory.

The real problem is that it's extremely long and may as well be linear.  Each room reveals the paths to the next rooms, but no room contents are scouted, there's no curios or traps or anything, so none of your choices actually matter.  You move forward, fight monsters, pick a random path, move forward, fight monsters.

Since it's so long and you only get one campfire, you will probably be too weak to fight the boss, which is just a buffed version of the shambler you've been fighting.

It just feels like it falls so flat gameplay-wise.  Like they ran out of time and just threw it together.  It's probably also that they haven't had time to balance it, it feels like every new feature they brought in.  Remember how hard the cove was when it first came out?

The good thing is the aesthetics.  Too much dark-n-green-n-cyclopean in Lovecraft stuff lately, the entire genre's really stale.  This one takes a few pages from more traditional horror, throws in some hellraiser for good measure, and you've got wrought iron catwalks spidering across an endless magma-lit field of stone pillars engraved to bring the blood of everyone who dies to the horrors above down to feed the new god.  The enemies are only humanoid for convenience and shift into hulks of bloody flesh and bone when they attack, it's all very nice.

So basically: aesthetically rad, mechanically underwhelming. Pretty much the story of DD to date IMO.

I remember way back when they said this was dev'd from a board game idea and they wanted to retain that board game feel...it made me nervous then and I see the fruits of it now. DD has a board game feel to it alright, and it's got all the weird corner restrictions that irritate in a boardgame and you'd simply house rule away....but here you can't. DD is a game where you can feel the developers actively trying to clamp down on different aspects of balance so you end up with corner-case after corner-case. In the logic of a board game when you hit that point, the game's over because it's unwinnable in the long-run (or winnable in an unfun way.) DD has that same problem and the response is largely the same: start over. You may keep your hamlet and stuff but the same thing basically applies. You flush the game (i.e. your heroes) down the drain and start a "new" game.

DD has all the same problems of inflexibility in design too. It's got a rigid structure and format. While visually and aesthetically that format is great, mechanically they don't do a good job of varying it or giving it more than superficial depth. I was shocked to find secret rooms had been added to the game, but even that's "pffffttt" key, chest, very rare trinket, because "dat's the format." And to be honest, if I tried to play a board game for 40 hours straight I'd probably find it boring and repetitive too. Board games are great fun for a night a week because you have just that much distance from the mechanics of it to not care about their simplicity, their unfun priorities or balance issues.

Now that I think about it, that's EXACTLY how I feel about DD. I'm in love with it for several hours when I fire it up  just like I would be with a board game. But once I've hit saturation point with the mechanics and challenge and novelty, and am just "playing the game", suddenly a lot of the constraints start to wear thin. It's like, imagine playing Arkham Horror for 60 hours over the course of a week. Arkham Horror is a great game in small doses. But once you've had to win tedious game after tedious game....suddenly everyone wants to play something else.

Sometimes, a board game can't really get any better than being a board game.

Anyways, to hear that the DD is:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Just corridors and fights on a railroad and nothing to explore or loot.

Just kinda breaks my heart. I get it's their finale and it's totally in the style of DD but....fuck. It all feels like it could be a lot more, and I honestly expected more. Red Hook established a legit, rad IP and brand where thousands of indie developers fail to do so. I'm just not sure the excellence and depth of the product actually lives up to the awesomeness of the brand.

[Boltgun]

I only play DD one hour at a time and it's alright. Not all games are meant to be played all day.

Also, killed the flesh. Gosh it was easy.

[gimli]

I only play DD one hour at a time and it's alright. Not all games are meant to be played all day.

Hah, just like me, and yeah, this isn't CK2.

[Jopax]

True, I used to binge on it at first (then again, I binge on everything :V ) but after a while it kinda wears you down. Still, doing a run or two and then spending twenty minutes faffing about in the hamlet trying to figure out what to do next is enjoyable enough

[LordPorkins]

I only play DD one hour at a time and it's alright. Not all games are meant to be played all day.

Also, killed the flesh. Gosh it was easy.

Yah, thats the game. The first levels your like "Bah, feel my wrath" tgen it cranks it up a notch. The first levels are like gateway drugs.

[Bauglir]

I will say that my answer to the grind has been to find ways of managing stress during runs. Anti-stress trinkets, stress healing abilities, and bringing enough food to Feast at every camp all wind up being worthwhile in terms of keeping costs low enough to make progress because the heroes don't all need a guaranteed rest afterward. If I don't do it, I usually wind up carrying barely enough loot out to recoup my provisioning expenses and healthcare, with just a bit left over for upgrading one piece of equipment or a couple of skills. And most dungeons I'm running out of space in my inventory for loot stacks, although less so now that I don't collect heirlooms.

Nenjin is absolutely right, though - there's a huge element of "Play it our way or don't play it" that seems to be influencing the design, and the board game heritage is probably a major culprit, now that you mention it. It should be possible for what I just outlined to be less mandatory. Games like this are better when they're encouraging you to take risks, not forcing you to play as safely as possible. Which is exactly what the current balance paradigm does - the safe option also has the highest potential payoff, because it's saving you all that gold.

[Reverie]

Honestly, just lengthening the resolve level thresholds/reducing deed burden on updating the hamlet would go a long way towards smoothing out the progression. Gold, on the other hand, is mostly fine. The addition of secret rooms addresses that nicely.

[nenjin]

Yeah, in general I don't have a problem with the gold situation. I'm fine not upgrading guys but one at a time....but if there's no dungeon for which they're geared that they can run, then your only option is to upgrade. And to upgrade, you need gold. And to get gold, you need runs you're allowed to do that aren't death sentences.

[Cthulhu]

Fuckin' deeds mang.  Hope you like mushrooms.

One of the most annoying things has always been the crests.  I'll go to weald for deeds and end up with 6 deeds and 30 crests, on a short mission.  It seems like longer missions might be weighted towards more of the main heirloom, but that might just be because in long missions I have space constraints and don't bother picking up all the stacks of crests.

[nenjin]

I think the most deeds I've gotten in one run was 9, and that is a complete outlier compared to the average of 3 to 4 per run, even in the Weald.

I get why they did it. Earlier versions gear progression WAS too fast. But now it's the opposite problem. The current deed requirements would be ok in a longer-form playthrough, gradually working your way up through the dungeon levels.

But right now it's a fucking stampede toward the DD.

[LordPorkins]

Yah, i have like 300 of everything.... And 5 deeds. Doesnt help that you need deeds for pretty much everything upgrade-wise.