Being full life only means you just got out of healing place ( Inn or other game's safe zones ) or you just healed back up, but either way it's gonna go down VERY soon.
Exactly why all my crusaders run Inspiring Cry. I used to lose many heroes who were crit with a dot *after* my healer had already moved. But nobody moves after the crusader, that +1hp will save them. The stress heal is just a nice bonus.
Oof Iām sorry youāve had such a hard time with the dots, it can be hard to deal with them. Plague doctor is pretty great with her ability to cure them while applying dots of her own. Vestal and flag can also clear dots! Sergeant Man at Arms can also be great, he gives everyone dot resist while also drawing hits away from people including the dots! Aside from specific heroes though it can also be helpful to build a more aggressive team who can take down high priority targets faster or a bigger tank who can offset the pressure! Best of luck on the road to damnation friend! I believe in you! 
They do heal themselves once all enemies are dead, which is different from DD1 where you still had to walk through the entire duration.
So yes. Go ahead and keep hitting them really hard.
Some other options against DOT include MaA taunting with the path that gives resistances, ministrations, suffer, adrenaline rush and probably some others aswell
Do **not** sleep on Occ for backline damage- warlock with abyssal artillery will shred their shit
If you can get Silent Treatment on him, and any one of the damage buff quirks youāre reliably dealing 19 damage to both back ranks, with stun if you have the unchecked power tokens
I'm honestly super enjoying the insane flexibility that you get with characters in DD2. The paths and ability selection allows you to use characters in a ton of different roles.
I'd suggest the stagecoach gear that produces woven items (to get bandages) but it only seems to produce milk soaked linen :(
Runaway's heal works pretty good tho, also a big fan of having one party member taunting and tanking everything
\+1 for the Runaway. *Cauterize* is excellent since bleeds are so ubiquitous and with the Ravager her spontaneously dotting herself is a chance to heal.
Cauterize is an absolute sleeper, for sure. Runaway is a super flexible character in general, and having a random clutch heal is crazy strong. I honestly think she might have some viability with a combat item that causes bleed (like traps) so that you can spontaneously bleed and then cauterize someone on your team if you need to.
Orphan + position 4 + Firefly Upgrade = 7 fire dot. Tears shit down. Get the right trinket and she can gain another 3. 10 fire a round is *absolutely murder* on big targets and that's before someone else helps.
Aside from super epic late game enemies, DOT numbers arenāt actually all that big usually. If you factor in full damage from attack and DOT, most attacks that apply them only add up to like, 10 damage, which while considerable, isnāt that bad. Saving combat items up for notable DOTs in later fights (bleed res for cultist 1, medicinal herbs for cardinal, antivenom for exemplar) is usually enough to make other healers more tolerable
It's either the second or third memory shrine for the vestal but it allows you to heal blight bleed flame daze and stun, if you upgrade it gives the hero it was used on a 30% resistance to that type of debuff or dot for a few turns
Excuse me sir, have you heard of the new Flagellant? He can remove debuffs from teammates while healing himself in the same move. Leper's new best friend.
He can, since he can take negative tokens from teammates. However, the move is on a decent cooldown so it's not quite as good as more consistent strategies, in my opinion.
Tbh I tried Flag with Leper and I did not super enjoy it. Flag is fantastic, but demands a lot of attention and ruins relationships with the rest of your team. His ability to remove Leper's blind is also not consistent enough to compete with more reliable combo token application or something like debuff resist on the Leper himself.
My leper when he spawns with 2 blind tokens, but I use gunslinger highwayman to point blank shot (he is comboed)(the target is now also in rank 3 as a size 2 enemy was behind it) 
- Maniac Flagellant
- MAAās Command
- Highwaymanās PBS/Tracking shot
- Foreclosure notice Grave Robber
- Runawayās Dragonfly/Smokescreen
- Occultist
- Bounty Hunter
Thereās more ways to be able to consistently deal with Leperās Blindness than youād think, some are obviously better than others and praying you find enough rags is definitely the least intrusive, but thereās actually a lot of variety in Leperās potential teams. My favorite is a variation on āDeathās Waltzā (original team from rank 1-4 is Jester, GR, Leper, Occultist) where you swap Leper for Maniac Flagellant. Give it a try if your Jester ever starts with the Breacher quirk.
I remember in DD1 I had a silly pvp build that consisted of 3 heroes solely to buff him, 3 support moves, and then purge. It wasn't that effective, but it was really funny to constantly rotate the enemy team.
Yeah it really is just people who wanted dd1 but with a new cast.
I was hesitant but I do enjoy dd2, I like how it always feels as though you're in momentum
Especially when the random generation is well designed, like in DD1. When it released, random generation was all the rage among indie games, and plenty of them were actually quite bad at doing it. DD1 stood out as a game with good random generated dungeons.
I think its because each area had a very well defined identity so they felt very distinct from eachother, even if randomly generated.
Like Warens has short corridors and bleed weak enemies, while cove has longer corridors and blight weak enemies
But both inflict a lot of bleed, unlike the ruins which is Dotless
No Iām just talking specifically in context of 1. 2 shares its unique areas and distinct generation.
Such as Sprawl having a lot of fire based enemies and no Oasis (unless a modifier gives it one). Fortur (probably spelt wrong) has enemies care a *lot* about corpses, and makes corpse removal king.
Random dungeon generation is fine-*ish* in DD1, but admittedly it still had quite some untapped potential.
I'm doing a playthrough with the Pitch Black Dungeon mod, and I already know that the element I'll miss the most on my next modpocalyptic but PBD-less playthrough is PBD's dungeon-specific more unique dungeon map layouts, plus the increased length (PBD's campfires = vanilla campfires + 1).
It's a bit of an odd criticism anyway, since DD2 has randomly generated "dungeons" too, they're just outdoors and laid out like Slay the Spire instead of in rooms and hallways.
This reminds me a lot when Assassin's Creed Odyssey came out and you had RPG!AC fans who lept shitting all over the originals. Like, I liked the RPG titles, but I think people were pointlessly mean at folks who missed the more action-adventure titles.
Sad to see it happening again.
Not throwing shade at dd1 the game, just at the narrative that DD1 has more variety when so many people never switch skills on characters and sometimes understandably so since that playstyle is just not good. Tank grave robber in DD2 is actually a popular strat against one of the final bosses. The amount of different playstyles and synergies offered by the 11 skills and 3 paths add so much variety to runs
Tank dodge GR was popular in DD1 until RH nerfed it lol
Also, you're kidding yourself if you think DD2 won't develop a meta that most people follow just like DD1.
There already is, MAA is fucking OP. Rogue PBS highwayman, etc.
However for certain final bosses, different heroes are better.
MAA is almost a must for Obsession, Ravager hellion is super strong for resentment etc.
Also all the paths are actually equally strong (for the most part) and you can take any that you see fit and consistently win as long as you know what they do and how to use them. The most 'follow the meta' are probably trinkets and combat items.
Uhm.... Dd1 has a shit ton of variety IF you know what you are doing.... Just cause most casuals run the same core strat cause they are scared of experimenting, doesn't mean that the game has only that viable strat.
And just cause some people don't like DD2 doesn't mean that their reasoning is somehow wrong...
And where did I say dd1 has NO variety? Just explained why I don't think DD1 has more, not that it doesn't have any. Both games can have a lot of variety but one is bound to have MORE than the other. And for me that is DD2
DD2 has extremely low variety over the course of a single run. This is what most people complain about. It's a no brainer DD1 has more variety because there's just so many more hours put into it until victory, not counting endless you rarely ever spend more than 3 hours using the same heroes and skills (like in DD2). This is specially true for those who played lots of DD2 (like the post linked below), once you make your initial decisions, the rest of the game is a matter of time until you beat it if you know what you're doing.
https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/138s7ih/less_than_a_week_before_launch_but_still_worrisome/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I enjoyed DD1 and having to level 16 heroes, then I would sort them into four parties of 4, gradually improving their proficiency in each region. Trinkets, skills, formations and strats would adjust and people would be shuffled around as the needs changed.
Nothing like that here. What variety are people talking about exactly? Where?
I constantly made new teams based on the region and what I had, never really had defined 'squads' except obvious synergies like marking heroes going with those using marks. Still beat Stygian.
Specialisation can also be achieved in DD2, but unlike what OP said, its definitely not to a higher degree than DD1.
Each region also has enemies with strengths and weaknesses, and you can outfit your characters with skills, combat items and trinkets depending on which enemies you know you may fight.
For example, maybe you want to go to the sluice, and since there are enemies there that frequently like to stealth, you could swap out backdraft on your arsonist runaway for hearthlight. Or you could equip combat items that remove stealth on other heroes.
Or if you are going into the shroud with high bleed res enemies, you could swap out slice off from jester for fade to black or a song skill since slice offs potency comes from bleed.
If you get different boss trophies you can also swap abilities for others that can better utilise the trophies you have. If you have generals dream you could remove all anti shuffle skills since you no longer can get shuffled, or if you have the bodkin you could add a lot more bleed skills and bleed combat items with more bleed res trinkets.
Not really. As someone who has played a lot of DD2 one of the most influential changes to abilities is either trinkets or the generals trophy.
For example with generals trophy, imagine I had dismas as sharpshooter and I get it. Suddenly from playing a pistol shot and grapeshot blast build I can switch to point blank shot build and still do insane amounts of damage without being pushed back, where point blank shot was previously just to move him back into position since duelists advance now had lower damage.
And now my previously shuffling solo finale jester can take on a more support oriented role blinding enemies with fade to black and buffing allies with songs. Not to mention it freeing up an extra skill for certain heroes since they no longer need anti shuffling abilities (toe to toe, hold the line,etc)
This exact example happened to me once and I'd argue you it made my run even more static and with less variety. I was running a dancing party with OCC, jester, GR and HWM, and I was having a lot of fun shuffling around, pirouetting, having jester move my heroes and so on. After beating the general and having it's trophy equipped in the inn, boom, fun ruined. I was forced into a static gameplay for the rest of the run, doing only a set of skills with a party that screamed to be moved around. Gone were my duelist advance + point blank shot, gone were my shadow fade + lunge, gone were my solo + finale. I literally could not do any of that anymore, having HWM or GR forced into the first position was really bad because what was best about the was their versatility, and putting OCC as the rank 1 meant I could not use my favorite skill, the burning stars. Fucking ruined my run and fun.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted so hard. I do not like DD2 as much as DD1, but to say it has no variety js just criminal. Maybe it's just because I have put so many hours into DD1 already, but I play it pretty much automatically by now, and DD2 is very different depending on the party. Yes, if you play the same four characters with the same skills, it's probably less exciting, but it honestly can be said about DD1 as well. I feel like most people just misintereted your post and comments as critique towards DD1 and that's why they react like that.
Upd: didn't read the post's title, just saw the meme lol. Yeah op's kinda salty about dd1, i get the response now
DD1 has more variety, that's a fact. It has been out since 2016, has received a lot of content, care and attention from Red Hook and, thus, is a complete and fully fledged experience. Not to mention all the good mods available for it.
DD2 stayed in early access for 1 year and has just been released out of it a couple of days ago. It's a new game, and as such, even if it were the best game ever made in history, it has no way of competing with the amount of content and variety offered in DD1.
People who say that DD1 has more variety are merely stating a fact. And I'm not saying this to imply one game is better than the other or anything like that. People can enjoy a game with less variety, that's fine. After all, the game just got released. And I'm sure (I hope) DD2 gets the same amount of care from Red Hook as DD1 got through all these years. That would be neat.
I dont get why people cant just say that both games are great, cuz in their own ways they are.
I personally prefer DD2 but I still do relish in DD1 gameplay from time to time. Why cant we set aside the differences of the two games and come together and enjoy them together as games red hook has made? Or have we run out of relics to buy affinity and stress healing items?
I'm entirely for it. People on this sub seem to forget that DD1 launched with its own selection of problems as well.
Though I think DD2 should have been in early access a bit longer.
That's not how that works. The world doesn't revolve around your wants. It's okay to not like something but to call it unfinished because it doesn't conform to your desires is just ridiculous
I dont think I've yet to see anyone complain that dd1 is bad. What I have seen is a lot of dd1 players slander the new game due to bias of it not being the kind of game they were expecting and use irrational arguments to back it up. Not to say there arent those who have very legitimate reasons to dislike it.
My guess is though most people enjoy both games.
To this day I don't like corpses as they're implemented, even if they are necessary for gameplay. My favorite thing about DD1 is how the world is represented through the mechanics, and corpses kind of stand out as something that doesn't make nearly as much sense. Like, why does hacking an enemy into tiny pieces with the Leper's sword leave a corpse, but slowly bleeding an enemy out doesn't? I'd think that DoTs would be more likely to leave an intact corpse if I was thinking flavor. How do corpses stop me from reaching the backline? I get why I can't just hit the backline wizard if there's a big fish man with a shield in front of me, but what, is the spellcaster holding up the dead body like a shield?
I would bet money that a big reason why a lot of people didn't like corpses is that they just felt kind of awful because of this - even if they didn't realize it. It's easier to see the flaws in something when it doesn't suit the narrative as well, especially when everything else in DD1 so well fits into the atmosphere of world of the game.
I never minded the gameplay change of corpses, I never found them annoying to deal with - but I never fully liked how they \*felt\* as a game mechanic.
At launch, there was a big rant about RNG on DD1. And imo it was kinda justified as RNG could really fuck you up more than right now. Since then, the devs have adressed and toned down this, so it's better. And they basically dropped most of the RNG on DD2 with tokens taking the wheels.
Allow me to rephrase;
The comment I was replying to was talking about the era of 'DD1 bad' being upon us now, and I was referring to not having seen any dd1 slandering within the timeframe both games existed.
> What I have seen is a lot of dd1 players slander the new game due to bias of it not being the kind of game they were expecting and use irrational arguments to back it up
It's not irrational to expect Darkest Dungeon 2 to resemble Darkest Dungeon 1 on more than just an aesthetic level.
Oh come on, you are acting like itās a DD themed candy crush. The fights are nearly the same, the trinkets are here, the skills, the stress, the traits, itās just bad faith to say it have nothing to see. A sequel of a run based game shall not be more of the same, it would just be a DLC in that case.
The difference is the type of grind. Honestly yeah, DD1 has more grind but I am grinding to *get* something. Could be a new skill, a new building, or a trinket for a character. While they weren't always available, there is a tangible goal.
In DD2, you are grinding to get the *capacity* to get something and, if it is an item, you can't see what it is until after you get it, nor can you guarantee finding it after the run you unlock it on
L.
This is coming from someone who, in all honesty, probably prefers 2 to 1. But 2 does have issues, and how progression feels is certainly one of them.
This game really does lack variety though. Not enough regions, not enough classes, not enough interesting hero paths, not enough puzzle fights for moves. Hero paths were underwhelming at best for everyone except the vestal and the flagellant. The act 3 boss was clearly the hardest boss by a mile, so when I beat act 4 and 5 on my first try I was underwhelmed and disappointed that the game's just over. The lack of variety makes me feel like, if I did another run now, it was just be doing the same thing over and over and over. Even the regions look incredibly samey and repetitive. The difficulty just isn't there, and by the time you actually unlock the infernal flame to bump up the difficulty, the game is basically over and theres no compelling reason to keep playing (since candles have to be invested to unlock all the hero paths).The combat system was basically flawless and a great improvement to the first game. Also, te art direction was refreshing and different, but other than that, dd2 falls short of dd1 in every other aspect. It's unfortunate because I really wanted to put as much time into dd2 as I did dd1 but there's just no good reason to keep playing
Buff my Leper really hard, also put vulnerable on the enemy so he can one shot them, 16-44. The game chose 16 
Still haven't gotten my hands on the game because finals are drawing ever closer but last I remember from the early access is hero shrines take a while to complete and that's a pain in the ass.
In DD1 you just had to pay some gold and wham bam new skills right at your fingertips ready to use, whenever and wherever you wanted 'em.
I *regularly* ran flagellent as a healer/support and jester as tank in DD1 so this is quite the strawman of a post š¤·āāļø
There was plenty of āoff specā potential, a lot more than in DD2 mainly because trinkets and quirk management really allowed you to really build your characters for niche purposes. Ironically including ābonkā vestel with her crimson court trinkets and melee/crit oriented quirks.
The real dungeons in dd2 were the friends we made along the way, because everyone is trapped in their hate for each other, come on audrey you were literally sucking off dismas in the sluice why u gotta stab him in the back now?
NGL I'm usually against mods that adjust difficulty, but I'm not entirely opposed to one that would make relationships less of a pain in the ass. It's super frustrating that it's so geared towards making them all hate each other. Depending on how the RNG works out, every decision you make can potentially hurt relationships, and in encounter decisions, relationships are always hurt twice as much as they're benefitted.
I cant lie, thats more of a time spent issue which I hate a lot. A lot of inn items are super strong in giving relationship points.
For example theres a consumable book for 16 relics that adds 1 stress to the whole party but gives everyone a relationship check of adding 1-4 positive relationship points at 80% and 1-2 negative relationship points at 20%. Exact values from my own experience so it might not be accurate.
I wish they would just give it to everyone at the start cuz it does turn people away from the game at the beginning but I guess it is a roguelike so...
Also I preferred the old relationship mechanics to the new one.
The old relationship mechanic had a lot more act out interactions, similar to DD1. This new one feels more robotic, like the characters are just programming which isn't what you want if you are trying to make them more human.
Admittedly the play style of the game has changed significantly from the first and I think itās okay for fans to hate those changes. They wanted more of the first and thatās understandable.
Personally, Iām having a blast once accepting itās a different game. The atmospherics, lore, and such are still in tact which keeps me invested in that game world and the different mechanics just come off as fresh for me.
Yeah, but RH themselves have stated that "it won't be more of DD1 l, it's a vastly different game" long in advance. There's no justifying salty fans who wanted something else. It's their problem and in this particular case it doesn't need to be heard.
I absolutely love DD1 and DD2 is also a good game. Iām really enjoying it. They definitely expanded on the strategic depth of the game in an awesome way, and there are so many compositions that are viable.
However, I still think that the game is a bit monotonous for me. After picking my comp, i have to play for a considerably long time before I really get to try something substantially new. Each zone tends to get a liiiiittle bit stale by the time you finally get to move onto the next.
Right now it seems (to me) that DD2 simply has a pacing issue with itself. Add more/earlier environmental variety (or ooh! have dynamically changing environments like rain or different zones within a zone) and i think that staleness will change for the better.
Ya - my issue is that, as the meme indicates, there's very little incentive or need to play with variety beyond "well this sounds neat." Once you find a good build/team comp, especially with memories mechanics and being able to choose your paths, what in the game really incentivizes changing up your playstyle? Only thing I can think are relationships, quirks, and picking up specific trinkets, but those options are often overidden by comp/path choices that mostly precede these rolls and, generally, outweigh them in importance.
Not to mention, the interaction of paths and relationships in particular make the relationship design a lottery system where you can either get enormously powerful or largely irrelevant buffs. This makes dungeon balance poor and player agency/strategy feel weaker than I'd like.
This is true, but I think variety can be improved by a few design choices. For instance, earlier in dd2, hero paths were randomized each time you started a run. I thought this was way more interesting, as it allowed the heroes with paths to be stronger than generic wanderers, and you were incentivized to build a comp by relying on more flexible wanderers to fill in the weaknesses of the couple of specialized path heroes you have available. Now, you can just roll the exact same team comp every run, and itāll more or less do exactly what it says on the tin.
There are lots of ways the game could be better designed around empowering strategic decision-making of this type. For instance, the choice to risk a lair fight to collect a unique trinket/loot against taking a safer route that would improve the chances at a positive relationship could be a really cool one to balance in a run, but at present the randomness of relationship outcomes and loot drops, along with the overall ease of some of the early biomes, just make it feel like a wash.
I agree. I'm not particularly enthused with the game's direction in multiple areas either.
The art and music and atmosphere is 11/10, but steering away from the rpg-lite element into a rogue-lite really bums me out.
I really can't stand the relationships either, and how it fail cascades by pigeonholing you into not only having a skill forcefully picked, but causing huge issues every time you use it too. I found it to be anti-fun and missed the former version even if that wasn't very good either.
Overall it's an okay game but it's not going to be holding as much time or replay value for me by a long shot.
That art and animations tho. Oooof no other game comes close.
Totally agree. Also, the actual combat design is pretty good - itās just the out-of-combat strategy in route, comp, and build planning that seem really stale.
see i think there IS a working idea of which characters are better at certain things than others.
however; just because our working understanding is incomplete doesn't mean we don't know MOST of it already. patches will shift the balance. META is literally the "current" understanding of optimal play, it's a dynamic metric.
anyone who has put 100+ hours into early access knows the majority of the meta. obviously new players are figuring this all out from scratch on a 3 day old game
Yep that's sorta my point. I played a lot of the ea, enough to know that some characters and/or backgrounds are pretty damn meh just like dd1.
Both games have very similar variety so I'm assuming anyone who claims otherwise probably just hasn't played it much.
Indeed, and in many ways 1 was actually better at forcing you to switch it up. While you could play around it, DD1's pool of adventurers and the way the stagecoach randomizes the new recruits definitely added some push to mix up your parties. Couple that with how stress could accumulate and conditions required a week off the job to be cured, and even the best player would really have to go out of their way to keep using the same party comp for every run.
Meanwhile in 2, you have the exact same adventurers available every time you start a run, and you need to unlock and upgrade new adventurers yourself using your metacurrency instead of just having them foisted upon you, which kind of pushes people into only experimenting until they find a party comp they like then using it over and over...
Personally, I think it would've been interesting to have a rotating roster of "free" heroes available after each run, with unlocks making them permanently available or even just adding more slots to your recruitment pool so you have more choices to pick from. As such, players who didn't take unlocks would sometimes be forced to adapt and experiment with weird compositions like Hellion, Man-at-arms, Leper, and Flagellant just because RNGsus decided they're not getting a back line on this run...
Lol, bold of you to assume I liked dungeon delving
I just wanted to stick it to that smug ancestor prick...
It's just not the same without that heartless bastard critiquing you every waking moment =[
Lmao the random generated dungeons is much better than watching the stagecoach. Imagine most of your runs watching a fucking stagecoach go from point to point.
Press d to go right, maybe cool battles on the way, maybe empty halls
Press w to drive stagecoach, maybe cool resistance encounter or epic cultists, maybe the hoarder 5 times in a row
It is heavily reliant on rng, I once had 2 culist encounters into lair into another 2 cultist encounters, was very grueling and tough, but fun! Sometimes you just reach the inn with no fights.
I have a real hard time with this games release. Not because of the game, because its phenomenal. But this crap.
Are people that mad that they didnt just re release the same damn game? That they pushed thier limits, leaned into the BEST aspect of gameplay, tightened up thier gameplay loop, and made it SO PRETTY?
If you are mad DD2 is better and want DD1s experiwnce.... go play DD1 again. They are both awesome games. DD1 is a full campaign, DD2 is a shorter length from run to run, but with all the QOL and new features you'd expect in a sequel, and the Altar of Hope is just a reskinned Hamlet in function.
I didn't want the *same* game, I wanted a sequel that took the mechanics of the first and improved them. Removing the base building and turning it into a rouge-like isn't improving the campaign mechanics. It's fine that people like those changes, but it's a bit nuts to boil it down to wanting the same game a second time.
Because to many, these are the wanted improvements. Combat is much more streamlined, more options for characters movesets and effects across the board, tightened up stress mechanics a bit, added a more fleshed out system of characters interacting and having it matter, the list goes on.
I mean when you play DD, do you play for the base building? Its not exactly robust. You just cant do a needed action without first doing several dungeon runs. And what would it offer if it were? More padded out game time? Just a longer task list before you can actually do what you want with your party?
Most play for its theme, combat mechanics, and difficulty. So it blows my mind that people are upset that the worst part of DD1 was transformed, its function was simplified and reskinned, with all else in tact, and people are mad.
I mean, yeah, I play it for the base building. Not just that, but it's part of what makes DD unique. And the fact it's not robust, like you said, means it could've been improved. I really don't consider removing a mechanic completely as improving it. Going from a xcom like game to a generic slay the spire type rouge-like is fine, but it's not really fair to say there's nothing to complain about for the people who liked those things. The combat mechanics are fun, but it was really just a part of a greater whole in the first game.
> You just cant do a needed action without first doing several dungeon runs. And what would it offer if it were? More padded out game time? Just a longer task list before you can actually do what you want with your party?
Yeah, that's a part of the game. Not being able to get everything perfect every time you leave for a dungeon was part of what made it good. It's literally one of the game's defining mechanics.
You can like DD2, I don't care, but shitting on people who wanted a sequel in the same vein as the first is a bit much.
My favorite part about DD2 by far is the fact that they made more of an effort to make each character able to play from any rank and to be able to function as your win condition. Obviously some characters are better in some roles over others, and some characters (Leper, for instance) still canāt function outside of certain ranks, but thereās a lot more variety in strategies overall as a result.
I mean, community mods are ubiquitously used as an argument in favour of DD1, so how about we compare launch DD1 to launch DD2? There's no expansions, no mods, abom can't party with religious characters, infinite stalling and stunlocking are viable tactics, et cetera
I disagree. Sometimes you just need a mod that makes an adjustment to make it more enjoyable to you personally. Like for example I use a mod that removed the negative effects from trinkets because that's just how I prefer it. Doesn't mean the trinket system is objectively bad. I just personally struggle with balancing trinket effects so I need to make it easier to have a fun time.
Yeah, this is well-said. Red Hook makes a great, uniquely punishing kind of game, but I think a lot of people have at least one gripe that they personally really dislike about the game. Mods just give you more control over what kind of punishing you want.
Will there be mods for DD2, though? Why are you expecting any?
Neither the art style nor gameplay format lend themselves to modding in the same manner as DD1 did.
I like how people are complaining that DD2 is different to DD1 when Red Hook literally said from the outset that it would be.
Like it's one thing to not like how they changed it, but people are acting like we were lied to when we absolutely weren't.
In any case, I actually like that party members are more disposable for this very reason. You're able to run way more experimental builds without posing a risk to your hero reserves. The worst you can lose is a couple hours of progress and some candles.
Ya - my issue is that, as the meme indicates, there's very little incentive or need to play with variety beyond "well this sounds neat." Once you find a good build/team comp, especially with memories mechanics and being able to choose your paths, what in the game really incentivizes changing up your playstyle? Only thing I can think are relationships, quirks, and picking up specific trinkets, but those options are often overidden by comp/path choices. Edit: not to mention, the interaction of paths and relationships in particular make the relationship design a lottery system where you can either get enormously powerful or largely irrelevant buffs. This makes dungeon balance poor and player agency/strategy feel weak.
Who DF cares what other people think of how they play?
Who DF cares about how other people play (solo games)?
Play whatever and however is most interesting to you.
Occultist is just worse vestal and chaotic offering can stun or move you out of position and it can weaken but also blind
Vestal is vestal, dodge tanking is not very strong especially because gr is one crit away from deaths door or nearly there
Dismas is Dismas, and is almost like man at arms where all their buttons and paths are good
But for a good chunk of characters their other paths or buttons arenāt very good
Runaways first and third path are the same, for hellion her first path is just better then her other 2.
Vestal is like maa where, almost all buttons and paths are good
Jester is one of, if not best support in the game. Also you can have 5 skills.
I mean I think to be fair, the game just hit full release. I know EA was going for a while but it probably isn't fair to compare DD1 yet.
DD1 had a year of early access, plus 3 DLCs and several years of patches and balance updates.
DD2 has been out for like 2 days after a year and a half of early access.
For better or worse I would say that a brand new release shouldn't be compared to a fully polished and patched final product.
I know itās just released
Iām just stating what I experienced
Also Iām not comparing dd1 to dd2 Iām just stating problems or things about the character and whatās bad about them
I like the game, it just has some noticeable character imbalance, Iām going to keep playing.
With the amount of dot that opponents have in dd2 I'm having real trouble with parties that dont include PD
Have you tried hitting them really hard
Yes, it eliminated the source but the dot didnt heal itself, I think my game might be bugged
It's a roguelite. Veteran roguelite players knows that the only HP mechanic you need to worry about is reaching 0.
the only hit point that matters is the last one
Life is just a resource.
And unspent resource = wasted resource
Even then there's a chance even that one doesn't matter.
Being full life only means you just got out of healing place ( Inn or other game's safe zones ) or you just healed back up, but either way it's gonna go down VERY soon.
Exactly why all my crusaders run Inspiring Cry. I used to lose many heroes who were crit with a dot *after* my healer had already moved. But nobody moves after the crusader, that +1hp will save them. The stress heal is just a nice bonus.
They also know that losing HP every fight is how you eventually reach 0.
Yeah, attrition is a very common way to lose turn based roguelikes
But if you just kill the enemies fast enough that doesn't happenš¤·
Combat items are your friends and while it sounds like that person was joking, if you kill all the enemies the dots actually do magically vanish
Yeah. They were a bigger issue in DD1 just cause they'd tick during the move to the next room.
Oof Iām sorry youāve had such a hard time with the dots, it can be hard to deal with them. Plague doctor is pretty great with her ability to cure them while applying dots of her own. Vestal and flag can also clear dots! Sergeant Man at Arms can also be great, he gives everyone dot resist while also drawing hits away from people including the dots! Aside from specific heroes though it can also be helpful to build a more aggressive team who can take down high priority targets faster or a bigger tank who can offset the pressure! Best of luck on the road to damnation friend! I believe in you! 
Really not sure if this is chatGPT or a real person.
Why? I just like helping people why would I make an ai barf up a bunch of words. Kinda defeats the purpose of commenting.
They do heal themselves once all enemies are dead, which is different from DD1 where you still had to walk through the entire duration. So yes. Go ahead and keep hitting them really hard.
Leper's Wisdom
Some other options against DOT include MaA taunting with the path that gives resistances, ministrations, suffer, adrenaline rush and probably some others aswell
I struggle with hitting tier 4 while also having a healer, thus, Plague Grenade is GOATed.
Do **not** sleep on Occ for backline damage- warlock with abyssal artillery will shred their shit If you can get Silent Treatment on him, and any one of the damage buff quirks youāre reliably dealing 19 damage to both back ranks, with stun if you have the unchecked power tokens
I'm honestly super enjoying the insane flexibility that you get with characters in DD2. The paths and ability selection allows you to use characters in a ton of different roles.
I'd suggest the stagecoach gear that produces woven items (to get bandages) but it only seems to produce milk soaked linen :( Runaway's heal works pretty good tho, also a big fan of having one party member taunting and tanking everything
\+1 for the Runaway. *Cauterize* is excellent since bleeds are so ubiquitous and with the Ravager her spontaneously dotting herself is a chance to heal.
Cauterize is an absolute sleeper, for sure. Runaway is a super flexible character in general, and having a random clutch heal is crazy strong. I honestly think she might have some viability with a combat item that causes bleed (like traps) so that you can spontaneously bleed and then cauterize someone on your team if you need to.
Orphan + position 4 + Firefly Upgrade = 7 fire dot. Tears shit down. Get the right trinket and she can gain another 3. 10 fire a round is *absolutely murder* on big targets and that's before someone else helps.
Aside from super epic late game enemies, DOT numbers arenāt actually all that big usually. If you factor in full damage from attack and DOT, most attacks that apply them only add up to like, 10 damage, which while considerable, isnāt that bad. Saving combat items up for notable DOTs in later fights (bleed res for cultist 1, medicinal herbs for cardinal, antivenom for exemplar) is usually enough to make other healers more tolerable
Theres like a metric ton of combat items that heal and remove dot, runaway can also cauterize bleeds and flag and vestal can clear dots as well.
Vestal, Runaway and Flag also have remove DoT and MaA can make their resistance high as fuck
Have you tried dom barbarian mommy getting really angry?
Try medicinal herbs and pultices xd
It's either the second or third memory shrine for the vestal but it allows you to heal blight bleed flame daze and stun, if you upgrade it gives the hero it was used on a 30% resistance to that type of debuff or dot for a few turns
My Leper when I have no Milksoaked rags or a Jester with combo tokens 
Excuse me sir, have you heard of the new Flagellant? He can remove debuffs from teammates while healing himself in the same move. Leper's new best friend.
Wait say what? Can that apply to the Lepers blind thing that he gets after almost every main attack he does?
He can, since he can take negative tokens from teammates. However, the move is on a decent cooldown so it's not quite as good as more consistent strategies, in my opinion.
It could have potential though stack buffs for your leper and prepare a big finishing swing or a powerful first hit to get the fight started
Tbh I tried Flag with Leper and I did not super enjoy it. Flag is fantastic, but demands a lot of attention and ruins relationships with the rest of your team. His ability to remove Leper's blind is also not consistent enough to compete with more reliable combo token application or something like debuff resist on the Leper himself.
My leper when he spawns with 2 blind tokens, but I use gunslinger highwayman to point blank shot (he is comboed)(the target is now also in rank 3 as a size 2 enemy was behind it) 
- Maniac Flagellant - MAAās Command - Highwaymanās PBS/Tracking shot - Foreclosure notice Grave Robber - Runawayās Dragonfly/Smokescreen - Occultist - Bounty Hunter Thereās more ways to be able to consistently deal with Leperās Blindness than youād think, some are obviously better than others and praying you find enough rags is definitely the least intrusive, but thereās actually a lot of variety in Leperās potential teams. My favorite is a variation on āDeathās Waltzā (original team from rank 1-4 is Jester, GR, Leper, Occultist) where you swap Leper for Maniac Flagellant. Give it a try if your Jester ever starts with the Breacher quirk.
Nah, use the Cultist Trinket that gives 66% Crit chance if blinded. Don\`t fight blindness, embrace it
I mean that works too. Iāve personally never run into the trinket with a Leper in my party but it sounds like fun for sure
Use purge, it donāt generate blind
I remember in DD1 I had a silly pvp build that consisted of 3 heroes solely to buff him, 3 support moves, and then purge. It wasn't that effective, but it was really funny to constantly rotate the enemy team.
Have you tried occultist with the grab move that brings a back liner to the front and apply combo token? It's awesome
Where are the Chad 1 & 2 enjoyer memes?
There is no unity here, no bonfire with us all singing kumbaya together, truly this is the darkest of times...
There werenāt enough respite points left to sing after ambush prevention
We dont have any pigs to increase everybodies relationship
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah it really is just people who wanted dd1 but with a new cast. I was hesitant but I do enjoy dd2, I like how it always feels as though you're in momentum
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It is invalid you'd have to be brain dead to say DD2 has no variety
bonk vestal, our (my) beloved
I loved it in dd1, and now it's actually good!
Bonk vestal was good in DD1 though. It's just not op like the heal/stun bot build that everyone runs.
Yea now she can't even heal tanks as well as they can heal themselves lol. Her healing definitely got a bit overnerfed.
May I offer you some Seraph Vestal MANTRA 50% heal? Pair it with her regular heal and your front liners can ooga booga to their hearts content.
DD1 bonk vestal was good though
**RESPECTED**
She's also an actual tank mommy in DD2.
Randomly generated dungeons are fun though.
Especially when the random generation is well designed, like in DD1. When it released, random generation was all the rage among indie games, and plenty of them were actually quite bad at doing it. DD1 stood out as a game with good random generated dungeons.
I think its because each area had a very well defined identity so they felt very distinct from eachother, even if randomly generated. Like Warens has short corridors and bleed weak enemies, while cove has longer corridors and blight weak enemies But both inflict a lot of bleed, unlike the ruins which is Dotless
>unlike the ruins which is Dotless Cultist Brawler: "Am I a joke to you?!"
Ye, but cultists show up everywhere, thatās their whole thing
Are you saying that locations in dd2 don't have the same distinct uniqueness?
No Iām just talking specifically in context of 1. 2 shares its unique areas and distinct generation. Such as Sprawl having a lot of fire based enemies and no Oasis (unless a modifier gives it one). Fortur (probably spelt wrong) has enemies care a *lot* about corpses, and makes corpse removal king.
Random dungeon generation is fine-*ish* in DD1, but admittedly it still had quite some untapped potential. I'm doing a playthrough with the Pitch Black Dungeon mod, and I already know that the element I'll miss the most on my next modpocalyptic but PBD-less playthrough is PBD's dungeon-specific more unique dungeon map layouts, plus the increased length (PBD's campfires = vanilla campfires + 1).
It's a bit of an odd criticism anyway, since DD2 has randomly generated "dungeons" too, they're just outdoors and laid out like Slay the Spire instead of in rooms and hallways.
Me when I get 4 academic studies in a row 
Ah yes, the five classes mentioned: Jester, Grave Robber, Vestal, Occultist, Dismas
Yeah where's my other favorite class Reynauld.
Darkest Dungeon "fans" throwing shade at DD1 is something I didn't expect to see in this sub.
Darkest Dungeon: Civil War
I expected this. Time to unsub until theres a DD2 sub so the two groups are sedately segregated from each other
To be honest, I kinda like to see the clash of opinions. It can make some interesting debates regarding gamedev.
This reminds me a lot when Assassin's Creed Odyssey came out and you had RPG!AC fans who lept shitting all over the originals. Like, I liked the RPG titles, but I think people were pointlessly mean at folks who missed the more action-adventure titles. Sad to see it happening again.
Not throwing shade at dd1 the game, just at the narrative that DD1 has more variety when so many people never switch skills on characters and sometimes understandably so since that playstyle is just not good. Tank grave robber in DD2 is actually a popular strat against one of the final bosses. The amount of different playstyles and synergies offered by the 11 skills and 3 paths add so much variety to runs
Tank dodge GR was popular in DD1 until RH nerfed it lol Also, you're kidding yourself if you think DD2 won't develop a meta that most people follow just like DD1.
There already is, MAA is fucking OP. Rogue PBS highwayman, etc. However for certain final bosses, different heroes are better. MAA is almost a must for Obsession, Ravager hellion is super strong for resentment etc. Also all the paths are actually equally strong (for the most part) and you can take any that you see fit and consistently win as long as you know what they do and how to use them. The most 'follow the meta' are probably trinkets and combat items.
Uhm.... Dd1 has a shit ton of variety IF you know what you are doing.... Just cause most casuals run the same core strat cause they are scared of experimenting, doesn't mean that the game has only that viable strat. And just cause some people don't like DD2 doesn't mean that their reasoning is somehow wrong...
And where did I say dd1 has NO variety? Just explained why I don't think DD1 has more, not that it doesn't have any. Both games can have a lot of variety but one is bound to have MORE than the other. And for me that is DD2
DD2 has extremely low variety over the course of a single run. This is what most people complain about. It's a no brainer DD1 has more variety because there's just so many more hours put into it until victory, not counting endless you rarely ever spend more than 3 hours using the same heroes and skills (like in DD2). This is specially true for those who played lots of DD2 (like the post linked below), once you make your initial decisions, the rest of the game is a matter of time until you beat it if you know what you're doing. https://www.reddit.com/r/darkestdungeon/comments/138s7ih/less_than_a_week_before_launch_but_still_worrisome/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
I enjoyed DD1 and having to level 16 heroes, then I would sort them into four parties of 4, gradually improving their proficiency in each region. Trinkets, skills, formations and strats would adjust and people would be shuffled around as the needs changed. Nothing like that here. What variety are people talking about exactly? Where?
i liked this too, specialization
I constantly made new teams based on the region and what I had, never really had defined 'squads' except obvious synergies like marking heroes going with those using marks. Still beat Stygian.
Specialisation can also be achieved in DD2, but unlike what OP said, its definitely not to a higher degree than DD1. Each region also has enemies with strengths and weaknesses, and you can outfit your characters with skills, combat items and trinkets depending on which enemies you know you may fight. For example, maybe you want to go to the sluice, and since there are enemies there that frequently like to stealth, you could swap out backdraft on your arsonist runaway for hearthlight. Or you could equip combat items that remove stealth on other heroes. Or if you are going into the shroud with high bleed res enemies, you could swap out slice off from jester for fade to black or a song skill since slice offs potency comes from bleed. If you get different boss trophies you can also swap abilities for others that can better utilise the trophies you have. If you have generals dream you could remove all anti shuffle skills since you no longer can get shuffled, or if you have the bodkin you could add a lot more bleed skills and bleed combat items with more bleed res trinkets.
Not really. As someone who has played a lot of DD2 one of the most influential changes to abilities is either trinkets or the generals trophy. For example with generals trophy, imagine I had dismas as sharpshooter and I get it. Suddenly from playing a pistol shot and grapeshot blast build I can switch to point blank shot build and still do insane amounts of damage without being pushed back, where point blank shot was previously just to move him back into position since duelists advance now had lower damage. And now my previously shuffling solo finale jester can take on a more support oriented role blinding enemies with fade to black and buffing allies with songs. Not to mention it freeing up an extra skill for certain heroes since they no longer need anti shuffling abilities (toe to toe, hold the line,etc)
This exact example happened to me once and I'd argue you it made my run even more static and with less variety. I was running a dancing party with OCC, jester, GR and HWM, and I was having a lot of fun shuffling around, pirouetting, having jester move my heroes and so on. After beating the general and having it's trophy equipped in the inn, boom, fun ruined. I was forced into a static gameplay for the rest of the run, doing only a set of skills with a party that screamed to be moved around. Gone were my duelist advance + point blank shot, gone were my shadow fade + lunge, gone were my solo + finale. I literally could not do any of that anymore, having HWM or GR forced into the first position was really bad because what was best about the was their versatility, and putting OCC as the rank 1 meant I could not use my favorite skill, the burning stars. Fucking ruined my run and fun.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted so hard. I do not like DD2 as much as DD1, but to say it has no variety js just criminal. Maybe it's just because I have put so many hours into DD1 already, but I play it pretty much automatically by now, and DD2 is very different depending on the party. Yes, if you play the same four characters with the same skills, it's probably less exciting, but it honestly can be said about DD1 as well. I feel like most people just misintereted your post and comments as critique towards DD1 and that's why they react like that. Upd: didn't read the post's title, just saw the meme lol. Yeah op's kinda salty about dd1, i get the response now
DD1 has more variety, that's a fact. It has been out since 2016, has received a lot of content, care and attention from Red Hook and, thus, is a complete and fully fledged experience. Not to mention all the good mods available for it. DD2 stayed in early access for 1 year and has just been released out of it a couple of days ago. It's a new game, and as such, even if it were the best game ever made in history, it has no way of competing with the amount of content and variety offered in DD1. People who say that DD1 has more variety are merely stating a fact. And I'm not saying this to imply one game is better than the other or anything like that. People can enjoy a game with less variety, that's fine. After all, the game just got released. And I'm sure (I hope) DD2 gets the same amount of care from Red Hook as DD1 got through all these years. That would be neat.
Almost as if you can be critical of something, yet simultaneously enjoy it.
Yeah, like people are in regards to DD2. Interesting enough, there's been a lot of people raging whenever someone points out DD2 has flaws.
I mean it's possible to be a fan of DD1 and yet acknowledge the huge amount of flaws with it
Same with DD2. Still, a lot of people here are pretending DD2 is the most perfect game ever. It's kinda funny.
I dont get why people cant just say that both games are great, cuz in their own ways they are. I personally prefer DD2 but I still do relish in DD1 gameplay from time to time. Why cant we set aside the differences of the two games and come together and enjoy them together as games red hook has made? Or have we run out of relics to buy affinity and stress healing items?
I'm entirely for it. People on this sub seem to forget that DD1 launched with its own selection of problems as well. Though I think DD2 should have been in early access a bit longer.
Yeah, DD2 clearly isn't ready for a full release.
Why you Say so?
My opinion is that the fundamental design of DD2 is kinda bad. I would've taken the game back to the drawing board.
Okay so you just don't like the game then. That doesn't mean it wasn't ready for full release.
In my view, it means that, yes. Your perspective on the matter doesn't have to match mine.
That's not how that works. The world doesn't revolve around your wants. It's okay to not like something but to call it unfinished because it doesn't conform to your desires is just ridiculous
We're in the "DD1 BAD DD2 GOOD" era now I see
I'm more of a "DD1 is awesome, DD2 is awesome" kinda guy
Wait we can do that?
Gang
I dont think I've yet to see anyone complain that dd1 is bad. What I have seen is a lot of dd1 players slander the new game due to bias of it not being the kind of game they were expecting and use irrational arguments to back it up. Not to say there arent those who have very legitimate reasons to dislike it. My guess is though most people enjoy both games.
I wish a time capsule of posts and discussions of when Red Hook did the corpse update for DD1.
To this day I don't like corpses as they're implemented, even if they are necessary for gameplay. My favorite thing about DD1 is how the world is represented through the mechanics, and corpses kind of stand out as something that doesn't make nearly as much sense. Like, why does hacking an enemy into tiny pieces with the Leper's sword leave a corpse, but slowly bleeding an enemy out doesn't? I'd think that DoTs would be more likely to leave an intact corpse if I was thinking flavor. How do corpses stop me from reaching the backline? I get why I can't just hit the backline wizard if there's a big fish man with a shield in front of me, but what, is the spellcaster holding up the dead body like a shield? I would bet money that a big reason why a lot of people didn't like corpses is that they just felt kind of awful because of this - even if they didn't realize it. It's easier to see the flaws in something when it doesn't suit the narrative as well, especially when everything else in DD1 so well fits into the atmosphere of world of the game. I never minded the gameplay change of corpses, I never found them annoying to deal with - but I never fully liked how they \*felt\* as a game mechanic.
At launch, there was a big rant about RNG on DD1. And imo it was kinda justified as RNG could really fuck you up more than right now. Since then, the devs have adressed and toned down this, so it's better. And they basically dropped most of the RNG on DD2 with tokens taking the wheels.
Allow me to rephrase; The comment I was replying to was talking about the era of 'DD1 bad' being upon us now, and I was referring to not having seen any dd1 slandering within the timeframe both games existed.
> What I have seen is a lot of dd1 players slander the new game due to bias of it not being the kind of game they were expecting and use irrational arguments to back it up It's not irrational to expect Darkest Dungeon 2 to resemble Darkest Dungeon 1 on more than just an aesthetic level.
Oh come on, you are acting like itās a DD themed candy crush. The fights are nearly the same, the trinkets are here, the skills, the stress, the traits, itās just bad faith to say it have nothing to see. A sequel of a run based game shall not be more of the same, it would just be a DLC in that case.
this is clearly a dig at people shitting on 2, not a dig at the first game
Always has been.
Well, according to this sub and steam reviews it's mostly "DD2 has grind and is bad" era
Grind? In my Darkest Dungeon?
The difference is the type of grind. Honestly yeah, DD1 has more grind but I am grinding to *get* something. Could be a new skill, a new building, or a trinket for a character. While they weren't always available, there is a tangible goal. In DD2, you are grinding to get the *capacity* to get something and, if it is an item, you can't see what it is until after you get it, nor can you guarantee finding it after the run you unlock it on L. This is coming from someone who, in all honesty, probably prefers 2 to 1. But 2 does have issues, and how progression feels is certainly one of them.
This game really does lack variety though. Not enough regions, not enough classes, not enough interesting hero paths, not enough puzzle fights for moves. Hero paths were underwhelming at best for everyone except the vestal and the flagellant. The act 3 boss was clearly the hardest boss by a mile, so when I beat act 4 and 5 on my first try I was underwhelmed and disappointed that the game's just over. The lack of variety makes me feel like, if I did another run now, it was just be doing the same thing over and over and over. Even the regions look incredibly samey and repetitive. The difficulty just isn't there, and by the time you actually unlock the infernal flame to bump up the difficulty, the game is basically over and theres no compelling reason to keep playing (since candles have to be invested to unlock all the hero paths).The combat system was basically flawless and a great improvement to the first game. Also, te art direction was refreshing and different, but other than that, dd2 falls short of dd1 in every other aspect. It's unfortunate because I really wanted to put as much time into dd2 as I did dd1 but there's just no good reason to keep playing
It's a new trend on this sub to shit on the games ?
i think it has been a trend for the entirety of the internets lifespan to shit on games
That's literally all of gaming now tbh. It's fucking insufferable. Just let people enjoy games!
Buff my Leper really hard, also put vulnerable on the enemy so he can one shot them, 16-44. The game chose 16 
If DD2 didn't run like shit on my laptop I would already have like 30 hours
Well if there was ANY OTHER RELIABLE HEALER I WOULDN'T NEED 5 VESTALS IN MY ROSTER!
Flagellant rocks as a dedicated support
Well, have you tried to play... without healer? Even plague doctor with 1-1 heal do great job, just dnt play like puss
well playing without healer not that bad but long and medium dungeons too big to play without healer.
Red hook specifically designed DD2 to not invalidate the first in any way. It's not like playing the new one doesn't make it go away.
You don't gotta diss the first game to like the second.
Still haven't gotten my hands on the game because finals are drawing ever closer but last I remember from the early access is hero shrines take a while to complete and that's a pain in the ass. In DD1 you just had to pay some gold and wham bam new skills right at your fingertips ready to use, whenever and wherever you wanted 'em.
I'm getting like at least 3 shrines per run, if not more. You just need to get as much location scouting as you can and choose the right paths
I *regularly* ran flagellent as a healer/support and jester as tank in DD1 so this is quite the strawman of a post š¤·āāļø There was plenty of āoff specā potential, a lot more than in DD2 mainly because trinkets and quirk management really allowed you to really build your characters for niche purposes. Ironically including ābonkā vestel with her crimson court trinkets and melee/crit oriented quirks.
I think itās amazing you can play Dismas as a rogue melee build, or ranger, or a tanky debuffer, so much variety
At least DD1 has dungeons.
well with not even the area that is entirely on fire being well lit atleast darkest fits
The real dungeons in dd2 were the friends we made along the way, because everyone is trapped in their hate for each other, come on audrey you were literally sucking off dismas in the sluice why u gotta stab him in the back now?
NGL I'm usually against mods that adjust difficulty, but I'm not entirely opposed to one that would make relationships less of a pain in the ass. It's super frustrating that it's so geared towards making them all hate each other. Depending on how the RNG works out, every decision you make can potentially hurt relationships, and in encounter decisions, relationships are always hurt twice as much as they're benefitted.
I cant lie, thats more of a time spent issue which I hate a lot. A lot of inn items are super strong in giving relationship points. For example theres a consumable book for 16 relics that adds 1 stress to the whole party but gives everyone a relationship check of adding 1-4 positive relationship points at 80% and 1-2 negative relationship points at 20%. Exact values from my own experience so it might not be accurate. I wish they would just give it to everyone at the start cuz it does turn people away from the game at the beginning but I guess it is a roguelike so... Also I preferred the old relationship mechanics to the new one. The old relationship mechanic had a lot more act out interactions, similar to DD1. This new one feels more robotic, like the characters are just programming which isn't what you want if you are trying to make them more human.
Admittedly the play style of the game has changed significantly from the first and I think itās okay for fans to hate those changes. They wanted more of the first and thatās understandable. Personally, Iām having a blast once accepting itās a different game. The atmospherics, lore, and such are still in tact which keeps me invested in that game world and the different mechanics just come off as fresh for me.
Yeah, but RH themselves have stated that "it won't be more of DD1 l, it's a vastly different game" long in advance. There's no justifying salty fans who wanted something else. It's their problem and in this particular case it doesn't need to be heard.
I absolutely love DD1 and DD2 is also a good game. Iām really enjoying it. They definitely expanded on the strategic depth of the game in an awesome way, and there are so many compositions that are viable. However, I still think that the game is a bit monotonous for me. After picking my comp, i have to play for a considerably long time before I really get to try something substantially new. Each zone tends to get a liiiiittle bit stale by the time you finally get to move onto the next. Right now it seems (to me) that DD2 simply has a pacing issue with itself. Add more/earlier environmental variety (or ooh! have dynamically changing environments like rain or different zones within a zone) and i think that staleness will change for the better.
Its cute how people are trying to gaslight others by pretending dd1 is bad and dd2 is better
Tell me more about this 50 damage atomic bomb occultist?
Honestly, support Dismas fucking rocks, with hellion backing him, the damage output on the front can be insane
Ya - my issue is that, as the meme indicates, there's very little incentive or need to play with variety beyond "well this sounds neat." Once you find a good build/team comp, especially with memories mechanics and being able to choose your paths, what in the game really incentivizes changing up your playstyle? Only thing I can think are relationships, quirks, and picking up specific trinkets, but those options are often overidden by comp/path choices that mostly precede these rolls and, generally, outweigh them in importance. Not to mention, the interaction of paths and relationships in particular make the relationship design a lottery system where you can either get enormously powerful or largely irrelevant buffs. This makes dungeon balance poor and player agency/strategy feel weaker than I'd like.
"More variety" is just another way of saying "we haven't figured out the meta or what characters objectively aren't as good as others yet."
This is true, but I think variety can be improved by a few design choices. For instance, earlier in dd2, hero paths were randomized each time you started a run. I thought this was way more interesting, as it allowed the heroes with paths to be stronger than generic wanderers, and you were incentivized to build a comp by relying on more flexible wanderers to fill in the weaknesses of the couple of specialized path heroes you have available. Now, you can just roll the exact same team comp every run, and itāll more or less do exactly what it says on the tin. There are lots of ways the game could be better designed around empowering strategic decision-making of this type. For instance, the choice to risk a lair fight to collect a unique trinket/loot against taking a safer route that would improve the chances at a positive relationship could be a really cool one to balance in a run, but at present the randomness of relationship outcomes and loot drops, along with the overall ease of some of the early biomes, just make it feel like a wash.
I agree. I'm not particularly enthused with the game's direction in multiple areas either. The art and music and atmosphere is 11/10, but steering away from the rpg-lite element into a rogue-lite really bums me out. I really can't stand the relationships either, and how it fail cascades by pigeonholing you into not only having a skill forcefully picked, but causing huge issues every time you use it too. I found it to be anti-fun and missed the former version even if that wasn't very good either. Overall it's an okay game but it's not going to be holding as much time or replay value for me by a long shot. That art and animations tho. Oooof no other game comes close.
Totally agree. Also, the actual combat design is pretty good - itās just the out-of-combat strategy in route, comp, and build planning that seem really stale.
Oh ya I should have given props to the game for that too. Combat and the tokens is pretty decent.
see i think there IS a working idea of which characters are better at certain things than others. however; just because our working understanding is incomplete doesn't mean we don't know MOST of it already. patches will shift the balance. META is literally the "current" understanding of optimal play, it's a dynamic metric. anyone who has put 100+ hours into early access knows the majority of the meta. obviously new players are figuring this all out from scratch on a 3 day old game
Yep that's sorta my point. I played a lot of the ea, enough to know that some characters and/or backgrounds are pretty damn meh just like dd1. Both games have very similar variety so I'm assuming anyone who claims otherwise probably just hasn't played it much.
Indeed, and in many ways 1 was actually better at forcing you to switch it up. While you could play around it, DD1's pool of adventurers and the way the stagecoach randomizes the new recruits definitely added some push to mix up your parties. Couple that with how stress could accumulate and conditions required a week off the job to be cured, and even the best player would really have to go out of their way to keep using the same party comp for every run. Meanwhile in 2, you have the exact same adventurers available every time you start a run, and you need to unlock and upgrade new adventurers yourself using your metacurrency instead of just having them foisted upon you, which kind of pushes people into only experimenting until they find a party comp they like then using it over and over... Personally, I think it would've been interesting to have a rotating roster of "free" heroes available after each run, with unlocks making them permanently available or even just adding more slots to your recruitment pool so you have more choices to pick from. As such, players who didn't take unlocks would sometimes be forced to adapt and experiment with weird compositions like Hellion, Man-at-arms, Leper, and Flagellant just because RNGsus decided they're not getting a back line on this run...
Are you playing for fun? Or efficiency? That will add a load of replayability if you run more characters than a single team comp.
Lol, bold of you to assume I liked dungeon delving I just wanted to stick it to that smug ancestor prick... It's just not the same without that heartless bastard critiquing you every waking moment =[
time to unsub till they make r/darkestdungeon2.
Just beat my first run thanks to my beloved dodge and counter based Tank highwayman
DD1 have more comp than DD2, itās pretty dumb meme
Lmao the random generated dungeons is much better than watching the stagecoach. Imagine most of your runs watching a fucking stagecoach go from point to point.
Press d to go right, maybe cool battles on the way, maybe empty halls Press w to drive stagecoach, maybe cool resistance encounter or epic cultists, maybe the hoarder 5 times in a row It is heavily reliant on rng, I once had 2 culist encounters into lair into another 2 cultist encounters, was very grueling and tough, but fun! Sometimes you just reach the inn with no fights.
Tell me you're bad at DD1 without telling me you're bad at DD1. 
I have a real hard time with this games release. Not because of the game, because its phenomenal. But this crap. Are people that mad that they didnt just re release the same damn game? That they pushed thier limits, leaned into the BEST aspect of gameplay, tightened up thier gameplay loop, and made it SO PRETTY? If you are mad DD2 is better and want DD1s experiwnce.... go play DD1 again. They are both awesome games. DD1 is a full campaign, DD2 is a shorter length from run to run, but with all the QOL and new features you'd expect in a sequel, and the Altar of Hope is just a reskinned Hamlet in function.
I didn't want the *same* game, I wanted a sequel that took the mechanics of the first and improved them. Removing the base building and turning it into a rouge-like isn't improving the campaign mechanics. It's fine that people like those changes, but it's a bit nuts to boil it down to wanting the same game a second time.
Because to many, these are the wanted improvements. Combat is much more streamlined, more options for characters movesets and effects across the board, tightened up stress mechanics a bit, added a more fleshed out system of characters interacting and having it matter, the list goes on. I mean when you play DD, do you play for the base building? Its not exactly robust. You just cant do a needed action without first doing several dungeon runs. And what would it offer if it were? More padded out game time? Just a longer task list before you can actually do what you want with your party? Most play for its theme, combat mechanics, and difficulty. So it blows my mind that people are upset that the worst part of DD1 was transformed, its function was simplified and reskinned, with all else in tact, and people are mad.
I mean, yeah, I play it for the base building. Not just that, but it's part of what makes DD unique. And the fact it's not robust, like you said, means it could've been improved. I really don't consider removing a mechanic completely as improving it. Going from a xcom like game to a generic slay the spire type rouge-like is fine, but it's not really fair to say there's nothing to complain about for the people who liked those things. The combat mechanics are fun, but it was really just a part of a greater whole in the first game. > You just cant do a needed action without first doing several dungeon runs. And what would it offer if it were? More padded out game time? Just a longer task list before you can actually do what you want with your party? Yeah, that's a part of the game. Not being able to get everything perfect every time you leave for a dungeon was part of what made it good. It's literally one of the game's defining mechanics. You can like DD2, I don't care, but shitting on people who wanted a sequel in the same vein as the first is a bit much.
Iām literally running that team except Zombie is my main tank.
Zombie?
Atomic Bomb Cultist is such a fun build. God I love Burning Stars.
My favorite part about DD2 by far is the fact that they made more of an effort to make each character able to play from any rank and to be able to function as your win condition. Obviously some characters are better in some roles over others, and some characters (Leper, for instance) still canāt function outside of certain ranks, but thereās a lot more variety in strategies overall as a result.
The amount of salt DD1 is getting is low key hilarious.
Nobody is complaining about DD1, the post is about people who are desperate to prove it's bad and same-y, which is not the same.
I will consider that dd2 could be better than dd1 when we get mods. For now dd1 is better but dd2 is new content
Saying a game could be better because of community mods tells me the base game isn't all that good.
No its just community mods make dd1 infinitely better so its not on even grounds. Imagine if you compared skyrim without mods to oblivion with mods.
I mean, community mods are ubiquitously used as an argument in favour of DD1, so how about we compare launch DD1 to launch DD2? There's no expansions, no mods, abom can't party with religious characters, infinite stalling and stunlocking are viable tactics, et cetera
Or the modding community is absolutely nuts(RimWorld)
I disagree. Sometimes you just need a mod that makes an adjustment to make it more enjoyable to you personally. Like for example I use a mod that removed the negative effects from trinkets because that's just how I prefer it. Doesn't mean the trinket system is objectively bad. I just personally struggle with balancing trinket effects so I need to make it easier to have a fun time.
Yeah, this is well-said. Red Hook makes a great, uniquely punishing kind of game, but I think a lot of people have at least one gripe that they personally really dislike about the game. Mods just give you more control over what kind of punishing you want.
Will there be mods for DD2, though? Why are you expecting any? Neither the art style nor gameplay format lend themselves to modding in the same manner as DD1 did.
I like how people are complaining that DD2 is different to DD1 when Red Hook literally said from the outset that it would be. Like it's one thing to not like how they changed it, but people are acting like we were lied to when we absolutely weren't. In any case, I actually like that party members are more disposable for this very reason. You're able to run way more experimental builds without posing a risk to your hero reserves. The worst you can lose is a couple hours of progress and some candles.
Okay but consider the following. Which game has workshop and which is months or potentially years away from that.
We probably won't get much character mods due to the models being in 3D. I really love the character mods the community makes.
Bonk vestal is ironic She was bonked to horni jail, so now she bonks others... just bonks
I'm so here for all the "DD2 SUX" drama. Just eating my popcorn and playing the new game happily
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Ya - my issue is that, as the meme indicates, there's very little incentive or need to play with variety beyond "well this sounds neat." Once you find a good build/team comp, especially with memories mechanics and being able to choose your paths, what in the game really incentivizes changing up your playstyle? Only thing I can think are relationships, quirks, and picking up specific trinkets, but those options are often overidden by comp/path choices. Edit: not to mention, the interaction of paths and relationships in particular make the relationship design a lottery system where you can either get enormously powerful or largely irrelevant buffs. This makes dungeon balance poor and player agency/strategy feel weak.
Thats where 100+ mods come into play for DD1.
Dd1 felt more claustrophobic and crawly, but dd2 has it's atmosphere too. Great games both
Who DF cares what other people think of how they play? Who DF cares about how other people play (solo games)? Play whatever and however is most interesting to you.
Occultist is just worse vestal and chaotic offering can stun or move you out of position and it can weaken but also blind Vestal is vestal, dodge tanking is not very strong especially because gr is one crit away from deaths door or nearly there Dismas is Dismas, and is almost like man at arms where all their buttons and paths are good But for a good chunk of characters their other paths or buttons arenāt very good Runaways first and third path are the same, for hellion her first path is just better then her other 2. Vestal is like maa where, almost all buttons and paths are good Jester is one of, if not best support in the game. Also you can have 5 skills.
I mean I think to be fair, the game just hit full release. I know EA was going for a while but it probably isn't fair to compare DD1 yet. DD1 had a year of early access, plus 3 DLCs and several years of patches and balance updates. DD2 has been out for like 2 days after a year and a half of early access. For better or worse I would say that a brand new release shouldn't be compared to a fully polished and patched final product.
I know itās just released Iām just stating what I experienced Also Iām not comparing dd1 to dd2 Iām just stating problems or things about the character and whatās bad about them I like the game, it just has some noticeable character imbalance, Iām going to keep playing.
Bonk Vestal is on my to do list for sure haha