Darkest Dungeon EP11- Revisiting the Crew

It’s been a while so figured I’d update you on all the excitement from team BlogNation in Darkest Dungeon. What have the kooky blog kids been up to?

60 weeks, that’s what! That is a lot of fun I have had in this game. Around 40 hours and counting, which is still longer than I have spent in any game this year. Yes, the year is still young.

Page one of my roster shows everyone at level 6. Level 6 is the current max level. It also shows the whole crew at level 5 armor and level 5 weapon as well. Things are going very well for teams 1A and 1B. How is the rest of the roster?

Young and healthy, for the most part. Since I was able to cycle two teams constantly I didn’t really focus on bringing up the third and fourth teams. I ended up adding Paris to the team as I needed one more healer to work on teams 2A and 2B.

A quick look at the Graveyard shows no new victims heroes. I said this in the final few episodes but once you get past level one the game changes from mayhem and many deaths to managing your crews smartly – and for good measure. The time and effort it takes to get someone to level 6 it would be really heartbreaking to lose them. Losing a level zero or one it’s just as easy to recruit fresh.

I am going to go through all the buildings you can upgrade. You can see here my Blacksmith is 100% upgraded – the three areas this improves is weapon, armor, and cost of upgrading each. Hence why my whole team is 5/5. This is one I focused on upgrading fast.

The Guild was also a quick upgrade for me – this improves your team’s fighting skills, and the Training Regimen decreases the cost. As you can see where I am at right now in terms of money ($142400) money is no object – but before the high level sixes I couldn’t afford to upgrade everyone AND provision missions, so money is an issue as you level.

Separation of Church and State doesn’t really exist here. Everything is updated to get maximum stress release and maximum slots. As characters get quirks it may limit where they can de-stress and it’s frustrating if you only have two Penance Hall slots but three characters that need it. Which leads us into the…

….Sanitarium. Which I am now focusing on (and using a lot – which is good to have a third and fourth team). The Sanitarium REMOVES negative quirks. All of these guys have 6-8 bad traits now, but I can actually remove them at one per Patient Ward slot per weak. I am in essence now breeding super soldiers, all benefits, no negatives. Unstoppable killing machines! Somewhat funny to see both Aywren and Isey in here (since last time we saw them they both were in the bar together. Upgrades are expensive here and I am working to unlocking the third slot.

Who DOESN’T want a fully stocked Bar, Casino, and Brothel in their estate? (Ok, no one has to admit to the last one, but still, the first two is party time enough, right?) Vegas has nothing on the BlogNation estate!

The Survivalist area upgrades camping skills and options for in dungeon breaks. Currently there are double camp missions available so these are becoming more and more important. I am just one upgrade away from maximizing this now.

I stopped updating the stagecoach because I haven’t had a need for new recruits. Even if people start dying, a choice of four is really solid. I know I will end up completing this eventually, but it is second last on my list. That is my completionist side talking there, there really is no reason to do it. Of course I’m already almost at the point when I have most upgraded and nothing to spend anything on, so might as well!

So far I have found the Nomad Wagon pretty useless. Any trinkets worse than Red (Ancestral) usually has more downside than upside. Still, once I have more money and full upgrades it may be worth seeing if upgrades give us better trinkets for the team. If your team members die you get the trinkets back (because you loot their bodies) but sometimes you lose these through other ways – such as, getting drunk and losing them. This has happened to me a few times. That being said there isn’t much focus on gear or stressing about it. You also find a lot of them in dungeons.

I am quickly running out of things to do. I have most of my buildings upgraded,  all the bosses beat, and only three classes NOT level 6 yet. I have pretty much beat all of the Caretaker Goals. He should stop looking so stressed out (or is he looking crazy there? Is that a grin?)

All of the available dungeons (Ruins, Warrens, and Weald) are maxed out at level 4. The Cove and Darkest Dungeon are still not unlocked. So, besides a few new levels on some low level characters and some building upgrades I am effectively “finished” this game until they release new parts or the full game.

This is one of the downsides of early access. While I will have way more game to play once it is fully released this hard and fake “stop” is making a couple things happen – one, is that I am not playing the game as it was meant to be played. I would assume the other dungeons would be released and I’d be into bigger and badder areas, putting my dungeoneers at risk and facing greater afflictions. Instead, because I am at a hard stop I am actually making my team stronger by removing additions/quirks, building a better support network, and maxing out everything possible. I suppose someone could do that in the full game as well but I wouldn’t naturally gravitate to that game play – I am only doing it because it is ‘forced’ upon me.

This game is also misleading – it starts off such a gong show with so many deaths and disposable characters – and that initially attracted me to it. It’s fun trudging through those first couple of levels with fresh meat, not sure if they will live or die. Now, of course, the game is just party management and there is very little risk – there was a bit of one when fighting the last hag, but she always was tough. Besides that it has been going through the motions. I am not sure if they planned to always have it so deadly or if the ramp up was part of the fun and the reward was long term characters. Still, it will be interesting to see how the tune encounters going forward and where the risk scale tips for high level characters.

My team will be ready and willing (they don’t really have a choice) when the next dungeon opens.

6 comments / Add your comment below

  1. Wow! I’m still alive! You’re really awesome at this game! I wonder if they’ll tweak it to increase difficulty of the later levels some eventually? Who knows what the new areas will bring!

    1. Once you are upgraded on skills and weapons the difficulty just drops, I STILL don’t run away from fights – no one is just ever at risk anymore! Will be interesting to see what they do as they get closer to release.

  2. Huzzah! I am not dead yet!

    I seem to have missed this playthrough earlier on. Must have been a combination of Chinese New Year busy-ness and me glossing over Darkest Dungeon stuff cos I haven’t got it yet.

    Bookmarking for later reading.

  3. wow well done… i actually suffered quite a few deaths during y first forays into the level 3 missions that really set me back

    1. The key is keeping your skills, weapons and armors upgraded. I NEVER leave a dungeon or fight early, even if they are low. I also always run with two healers (tanks have heal skills too) because as long as your guys have 1 hp they can’t be killed in a round by a single hit. My crew will be completely ready and levelled up for when they open the next tiers of dungeons – I am going to assume they ramp up the difficulty once there.

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