Sep 29, 2015

New PC and Mac Build #10878 - THOSE FROM BELOW (The Cove)

Darkest Dungeon® - RedHookTyler

Hotfix - Build #10878

Fix to issue preventing heroes from moving backwards

Hotfix - Build #10870

Crash fixes in multiple locations/situations
Drowned Crew fixes, Siren fixes
Trinket limits corrected so all Ancestrals are limited to 1 in the estate and everything else isn't
Crit display should be consistent to nearest 0.5%
Cove curios buffs should persist properly now
Misc other bug fixes

Hotfix - Build #10850

Bug fix: Bonuses from "skill instant" situations restored (marked target bonuses, bonuses vs enemy types, etc.)
Bug fix: Blight tooltips fixed so they don't show 0 dmg
Bug fix: Fix to crashes from dying from DOTs
Trinket fixes: Guardian's Shield corrected to a rank requirement, Book of Sanity now rarer than Book of Holiness
Bug fix: Heart attack barking restored
Bug fix: Bosses corrected to give trinket loot more reliably
Bug fix: music timing
Misc other bug fixes

THOSE FROM BELOW (THE COVE) - September 29, 2015
Build #10386 (PC and Mac)

"Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time." -- H.P. Lovecraft

The Cove

The Cove dungeon region, featuring 7 new monsters, 2 new bosses, new curios, all new environment art, and new music!
The Cove features monsters that are in general both fast and bleed resistant, and also have many bleed-causing attacks.
The Cove monsters also include some key mechanics previously unused by monsters, such as healing and guarding! These mechanics may begin to work their way into other dungeon regions in the future...beware!
You do not need to begin a new campaign to play The Cove. Cove quests will spawn alongside quests from other regions.

Gameplay

Idle heroes in town will recover a small amount of stress between quests even if not placed in active treatment at the Tavern or Abbey
By popular demand: unused dungeon supplies now sell back at the end of a quest (for a smallish percentage of their value)
Increased roster size a bit so players with full rosters can recruit some new heroes and go Cove spelunking even at low level quests
Streamlined combat flow to keep the pace brisk and reduce many of the small waits that occur between chained events
Revised the core combat damage calculation so trinkets and other buffs apply in a more even way to AOE attacks. This will preserve intended damage balance of AOE vs single target attacks and help keep both approaches situationally useful. Previously, trinket and other buffs were amplifying AOE damage unfairly with respect to single target attacks. The revised calculation applies the base skill modifier directly to the weapon damage, and then totals all other buffs before applying them to this base result.
Trinkets have received a much-needed balance pass. The goal was to ensure that rarer trinkets are more reliably valuable than less rare trinkets, and also to make many previously uninteresting trinkets (both general and class-specific) more interesting. While some trinkets will obviously be better than others for some classes, dungeons, or situations, we have improved many of the trinkets that were particularly weak or problematic. A few trinkets have been nerfed (in cases where the value was just too high compared to other trinkets). Some trinkets have had their rarity adjusted, and we will likely do more of this once we measure the results of these changes. Additional trinket adjustments may also be required in the future.
Trinket drops are a bit more constrained--you won't see as many rare drops in lower level dungeons.
Resolve level 0 and 1 heroes now have more disease resistance! After all, they are fresh off the stagecoach and are the healthiest they'll ever be!
Some more small mobs don't leave corpses (e.g. dogs, spiders, gargoyles)
Adjustments to the surprise mechanic: surprised monsters now act last in the first round but no longer lose an entire turn.
Players cannot retreat during the first combat round if they were surprised.
Retreating from combat adds stress
Some skills effects that didn't show % chance now show % chance in the associated skill tooltips (e.g. Jester stress heals)
Riposting heroes won't riposte against 0-damage causing attacks
Heroes and monsters generally shouldn't be able to crit on a 0 damage attack
Torchlight properly drops to 0 during camping ambushes
Corpses don’t give critting stress relief
Fixed bug where both +herosurprise and +monstersurprise was occuring in dim light. (Should just be +heroes surprised)
Camping ambushes always surprise the party
Reduced Resolve XP requirements for higher levels, as a step towards expected final Darkest Dungeon configuration.
Fix to Speed progression bug with Arbalest, Jester, Leper, Houndmaster. This comes across as a nerf for most of them but the old values were errors in the spreadsheet and some of the high speeds were unintentional.
Many misc bug fixes

Art

Heroes' armor icons now visually upgrade with each new rank
All quest objects (ex. Reliquary) now have unique art
Foreground layer added to every dungeon
New pop-text icons for greater 'at-a-glance' clarity on skill effects.
Tray icons/character panel icons restyled to match pop-text icons
Unique corpse art for different monsters
Rebalanced several enemy color tints
New pose for Plague Doctor's 'Incision' skill

Audio

Click to advance through plot quest (boss) narration on loading screens
Full music and sound design on the Cove!
- all new music by Stuart Chatwood
- ambiences
- wet footstep recordings
- all new props! Ever wondered what sifting a through a whale carcass sounds like? wonder no more!
- all enemies and bosses fully designed with unique attacks, impacts and voices
- live recorded voice of the Siren singing along to the battle track
nearly 100 new lines for the Narrator including more coverage for already existing events
Narration lines no longer limited to playing only 99 times in a given campaign
new music arrangements for hallway battles in all regions
redid all traps, trap disarms, trap dodges
redesigned impacts on some existing enemy attacks
retimed battle-end stinger and sound triggers
Brigand Pounder, Gibbering Prophet and Formless Flesh bosses now all have dungeon intro/outro narration

Final notes: the large amount of new content and features means that some bugs will likely have slipped through. Report what you find in the Steam forums / on twitter @darkestdungeon / via email support@redhookgames.com. Rest assured we'll be monitoring and working on fixes as fast as we are able!

Delve deep and remember: avoid all pacts with undead sailors!

--the Darkest Dungeon team

Sep 29, 2015

New PC and Mac Build #10878 - THOSE FROM BELOW (The Cove)

Darkest Dungeon® - RedHookTyler

Hotfix - Build #10878

Fix to issue preventing heroes from moving backwards

Hotfix - Build #10870

Crash fixes in multiple locations/situations
Drowned Crew fixes, Siren fixes
Trinket limits corrected so all Ancestrals are limited to 1 in the estate and everything else isn't
Crit display should be consistent to nearest 0.5%
Cove curios buffs should persist properly now
Misc other bug fixes

Hotfix - Build #10850

Bug fix: Bonuses from "skill instant" situations restored (marked target bonuses, bonuses vs enemy types, etc.)
Bug fix: Blight tooltips fixed so they don't show 0 dmg
Bug fix: Fix to crashes from dying from DOTs
Trinket fixes: Guardian's Shield corrected to a rank requirement, Book of Sanity now rarer than Book of Holiness
Bug fix: Heart attack barking restored
Bug fix: Bosses corrected to give trinket loot more reliably
Bug fix: music timing
Misc other bug fixes

THOSE FROM BELOW (THE COVE) - September 29, 2015
Build #10386 (PC and Mac)

"Ocean is more ancient than the mountains, and freighted with the memories and the dreams of Time." -- H.P. Lovecraft

The Cove

The Cove dungeon region, featuring 7 new monsters, 2 new bosses, new curios, all new environment art, and new music!
The Cove features monsters that are in general both fast and bleed resistant, and also have many bleed-causing attacks.
The Cove monsters also include some key mechanics previously unused by monsters, such as healing and guarding! These mechanics may begin to work their way into other dungeon regions in the future...beware!
You do not need to begin a new campaign to play The Cove. Cove quests will spawn alongside quests from other regions.

Gameplay

Idle heroes in town will recover a small amount of stress between quests even if not placed in active treatment at the Tavern or Abbey
By popular demand: unused dungeon supplies now sell back at the end of a quest (for a smallish percentage of their value)
Increased roster size a bit so players with full rosters can recruit some new heroes and go Cove spelunking even at low level quests
Streamlined combat flow to keep the pace brisk and reduce many of the small waits that occur between chained events
Revised the core combat damage calculation so trinkets and other buffs apply in a more even way to AOE attacks. This will preserve intended damage balance of AOE vs single target attacks and help keep both approaches situationally useful. Previously, trinket and other buffs were amplifying AOE damage unfairly with respect to single target attacks. The revised calculation applies the base skill modifier directly to the weapon damage, and then totals all other buffs before applying them to this base result.
Trinkets have received a much-needed balance pass. The goal was to ensure that rarer trinkets are more reliably valuable than less rare trinkets, and also to make many previously uninteresting trinkets (both general and class-specific) more interesting. While some trinkets will obviously be better than others for some classes, dungeons, or situations, we have improved many of the trinkets that were particularly weak or problematic. A few trinkets have been nerfed (in cases where the value was just too high compared to other trinkets). Some trinkets have had their rarity adjusted, and we will likely do more of this once we measure the results of these changes. Additional trinket adjustments may also be required in the future.
Trinket drops are a bit more constrained--you won't see as many rare drops in lower level dungeons.
Resolve level 0 and 1 heroes now have more disease resistance! After all, they are fresh off the stagecoach and are the healthiest they'll ever be!
Some more small mobs don't leave corpses (e.g. dogs, spiders, gargoyles)
Adjustments to the surprise mechanic: surprised monsters now act last in the first round but no longer lose an entire turn.
Players cannot retreat during the first combat round if they were surprised.
Retreating from combat adds stress
Some skills effects that didn't show % chance now show % chance in the associated skill tooltips (e.g. Jester stress heals)
Riposting heroes won't riposte against 0-damage causing attacks
Heroes and monsters generally shouldn't be able to crit on a 0 damage attack
Torchlight properly drops to 0 during camping ambushes
Corpses don’t give critting stress relief
Fixed bug where both +herosurprise and +monstersurprise was occuring in dim light. (Should just be +heroes surprised)
Camping ambushes always surprise the party
Reduced Resolve XP requirements for higher levels, as a step towards expected final Darkest Dungeon configuration.
Fix to Speed progression bug with Arbalest, Jester, Leper, Houndmaster. This comes across as a nerf for most of them but the old values were errors in the spreadsheet and some of the high speeds were unintentional.
Many misc bug fixes

Art

Heroes' armor icons now visually upgrade with each new rank
All quest objects (ex. Reliquary) now have unique art
Foreground layer added to every dungeon
New pop-text icons for greater 'at-a-glance' clarity on skill effects.
Tray icons/character panel icons restyled to match pop-text icons
Unique corpse art for different monsters
Rebalanced several enemy color tints
New pose for Plague Doctor's 'Incision' skill

Audio

Click to advance through plot quest (boss) narration on loading screens
Full music and sound design on the Cove!
- all new music by Stuart Chatwood
- ambiences
- wet footstep recordings
- all new props! Ever wondered what sifting a through a whale carcass sounds like? wonder no more!
- all enemies and bosses fully designed with unique attacks, impacts and voices
- live recorded voice of the Siren singing along to the battle track
nearly 100 new lines for the Narrator including more coverage for already existing events
Narration lines no longer limited to playing only 99 times in a given campaign
new music arrangements for hallway battles in all regions
redid all traps, trap disarms, trap dodges
redesigned impacts on some existing enemy attacks
retimed battle-end stinger and sound triggers
Brigand Pounder, Gibbering Prophet and Formless Flesh bosses now all have dungeon intro/outro narration

Aug 25, 2015

Do Corpses Make Darkest Dungeon Too Difficult?

Darkest Dungeon® - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Alec Meer)

Red Hook’s team-based, disaster-packed roguelike Darkest Dungeon [official site] always seemed slightly at war with itself. Was it a tongue-in-cheek romp through Cthulhian dungeons, or was it a painstaking exercise in squad micro-management and not-a-foot-wrong combat strategy? Both, in practice, but increasingly it seems Darkest Dungeon was intended to be the latter. Its own internal cold war between merriment and masochism came to a head last week, as long-term fans griped anout the latest changes to the early access game. Graham summarised these yesterday, but in a nutshell: focal point for the discontent was a new system which sees defeated enemies leave behind corpses, which in many cases block your guys from attacking any still-living foes stood behind the carcass. Other, apparently difficulty-hiking features (such as heart attacks) also came under fire.

In a game which heaps upon your heroes an unrelenting onslaught of misfortunes including bleeding, starvation, blight, phobias, fetishes, curses, traps and addictions (not to mention straight-up murder at the hands of various monsters and malcontents), this latest cruelty seemed one too many. The volume of complaints eventually caused the developers to add an option for players to deactivate corpses and heart attacks. Curious as to whether this was a case of knee-jerk internet pitchforks at dawn or the developers having made a bona fide boo-boo, I descended back into the Darkest Dungeon to sample its latest horrors for myself.

… [visit site to read more]