February 16th, 2015, 10:57
Posts: 2,423
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Joined: Apr 2012
Gave this a try yesterday and there was my Sunday gone. I really like it, like most others, and I think the difficulty is at a good spot. I've seen lame advice about milking suicide runs and things, but if you get attached to a core group and try to keep just them in rotation, I think it makes for a very good party management game, like X-Com.
I'm about Level 3 at the moment, is there any kind of climax on this early access version that I should be aiming at? Or do you just keep zerging the same 3 zones until you get bored?
February 16th, 2015, 11:12
Posts: 12,335
Threads: 46
Joined: Jan 2011
I've also been playing it. Only defeated the Apprentice Necromancer and Swine Prince so far. I haven't really focused on too many specific combinations or anything. I didn't know I could flee a battle and the party got wiped with all my best trinkets and characters. I had to go on some short aborted runs to get gold again too.
“The wind went mute and the trees in the forest stood still. It was time for the last tale.”
January 19th, 2016, 04:06
Posts: 2,261
Threads: 58
Joined: Oct 2010
Just to give you a heads up: Early Access is over and the release version is going to be available today! 
January 19th, 2016, 08:42
Posts: 12,335
Threads: 46
Joined: Jan 2011
I haven't played for about 6 months. I'll try out the final version I guess. I'm on vacation!
“The wind went mute and the trees in the forest stood still. It was time for the last tale.”
February 8th, 2016, 19:07
Posts: 13,215
Threads: 25
Joined: Oct 2010
Started playing this again. Unfortunately I don't remember what each class is good at other than the initial four classes... 
February 9th, 2016, 01:24
Posts: 4,443
Threads: 45
Joined: Nov 2009
So much grind. All the grinding in the mid-game for blacksmith upgrades and then reading that you have to get multiple parties of level sixes made me give up on the game.
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
February 9th, 2016, 05:00
Posts: 2,423
Threads: 4
Joined: Apr 2012
It was my favourite game of the year in the end. Yes it's definitely grindy, but I found it so entertaining and funny throughout that I didn't mind. And because you can ALWAYS die if you mess up, you're never forced to run total time-waster dungeons. You always have to be engaged.
The very final section is probably too difficult to be totally enjoyable, I think that does tip over the line of frustration. BUt I loved it up till then.
February 9th, 2016, 18:18
Posts: 6,664
Threads: 246
Joined: Aug 2004
I'm mixed on this game. I love the combat system and want to see more games using something similar. I hate the forced grinding elements of the game that only exist to artificially extend the game's length... 
On the whole, I don't think that gameplay that forces heavy grinding mixes well with permadeath. It's too easy to have a couple bad dice rolls (I've seen enemies crit three times in a row) kill a party member, flushing away hours of leveling up. I'd like to see the same combat system tried in a game that isn't going out of its way to be difficult for the sake of being difficult. DD's endgame is hard for all the wrong reasons.
February 9th, 2016, 19:56
(This post was last modified: February 9th, 2016, 20:30 by antisocialmunky.)
Posts: 4,443
Threads: 45
Joined: Nov 2009
There are definitely some annoying design decisions there were apparently pointed out a year ago in Early Access (you can look it up on the forums) but never addressed, namely that a fully upgraded character + trinkets is like 20k-30k so having to train one up takes a huge amount of time and effort and losing one can mean that you can no longer run level 5 dungeons with the remaining characters. This and the difficulty bump between ranks 3 and 5 are easily the worst parts of the game design (or non-design since in game economic model seems to have not gotten much thought) really hold the game back.
Oh yeah, they also have some non-design with weird pseudo-failure states like the aformentioned rank 3-5 difficulty bump where you can end up needing more resources so you can upgrade your level 5's to take level 5 dungeons but you end up over leveling your low level guys so you can't easily get money leaving you with literally no easy way to progress besides doing risky (money wise) level 5 loot & scoot (abandon quest while raiding the dungeon) or firing people. Its just inelegantly designed after the engrossing first few hours.
:\
On the plus side, if you want a stylish and interesting tactical strategy + map exploration game with rogue-lite characteristics, just go play Renowned Explorers. It is a much better designed game.
I probably won't pick the game back up until the devs finally quit being stubborn and patch the mid-game nonsense. Not that I have that much faith that they will do it in a timely fashion. Not only did they fail to address these issues over the course of a year in early access, they just tried to fix the grind issues by making the XP cap for level 6's lower. This was immediately rolled back when it became obvious that it screwed people who were stuck in the mid-game grind (lower XP thresholds means its harder to grind for deeds and gold because your high level guys no longer do low level dungeons). I swear they don't know how their own game works, its like dealing with blizzard where the devs ignore community feedback.
/rant
In Soviet Russia, Civilization Micros You!
"Right, as the world goes, is only in question between equals in power, while the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must."
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.”
February 10th, 2016, 17:10
(This post was last modified: February 10th, 2016, 17:11 by NobleHelium.)
Posts: 13,215
Threads: 25
Joined: Oct 2010
Interesting. I will check out Renowned Explorers, thanks for the recommendation. I hadn't actually played enough of the game to get to the problems you're describing.
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