What did the hamlet ACTUALLY add to the original game?

[Frostea]

The biggest complaint I see about DD2 is the lack of the hamlet, and everything that went with it. And sure the hamlet was cool when I first started playing the original. But after playing it for hours it started to quickly become apparent that it didn't really add anything but more grind to pad out game time.

The only management the original game really had was rotating out heroes due to stress and getting upgrades in the hamlet. And the more and more I think about it, the more I start to realize that all it really did was turn a 30 hour game into a potentially 60 hour one due to needless padding.

I get the new alter of hope essentially adds a sort of metagame grind like what the hamlet was. But it still seems like a better system than the hamlet anyway. Because in the first game, I'd always rotate heroes out and have to re-equip them with trinkets which just got extremely annoying after a long playthrough.

What about these changes actually makes this game objectively worse than the original, honestly?

[Terran]

A real RPG experience, not a tacked-on """roguelite""" re-imagining.
Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 1 meant you recruited new heroes and kept going on the same path. Experience and knowledge were your rewards and your cause of success.

Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 2 means you start at the beginning, except you get an arbitrary small amount of upgrades to make the game progressively easier until it becomes simple to beat.

The former;
Superior.
The latter;
Inferior.

[Frostea]

Originally posted by Terran:

A real RPG experience, not a tacked-on """roguelite""" re-imagining.
Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 1 meant you recruited new heroes and kept going on the same path. Experience and knowledge were your rewards and your cause of success.

Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 2 means you start at the beginning, except you get an arbitrary small amount of upgrades to make the game progressively easier until it becomes simple to beat.

The former;
Superior.
The latter;
Inferior.

So more grind is better? got it.

[Frostea]

You had to grind upgrades to be able to beat the game anyway.

Complaining about the alter of hope "making the game easier" when it literally does the same thing.

[Galileus]

Originally posted by Terran:

A real RPG experience, not a tacked-on """roguelite""" re-imagining.

... you think a real RPG experience is grind for boring, number-based upgrades?

The irony is, Hamlet was closer to bad rouge-like system than DD2 will ever be. Instead of meta-progression, you had Hamlet with grindy, repetitive runs, meta-upgrades were boring and number-based, and way too often you would be forced to do repetitive grind-runs with characters you didn't like nor want, because your A-team(s) were out of action or down. As such:

Originally posted by Terran:

Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 2 means you start at the beginning, except you get an arbitrary small amount of upgrades to make the game progressively easier until it becomes simple to beat.

Your losses in DD1 mean you need to build up a new team from the beginning, except you get an arbitrary (?) small amount of upgrades secured so far in the campaign, to make the game progressively easier until it becomes simple to beat.

[Barbecue Pistol]

Originally posted by Terran:

A real RPG experience, not a tacked-on """roguelite""" re-imagining.
Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 1 meant you recruited new heroes and kept going on the same path. Experience and knowledge were your rewards and your cause of success.

Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 2 means you start at the beginning, except you get an arbitrary small amount of upgrades to make the game progressively easier until it becomes simple to beat.

The former;
Superior.
The latter;
Inferior.

Yeah sure you learn so much from your losses in DD1. Dying to a crit followed by an attack you could not react to and could do nothing against causing you to lose max level heroes you just spent hours leveling forcing you to start training heroes all over again is such a great learning experience. Teaches you to spend your time playing a different game.

In all seriousness both offer different form of strategies. In DD1 you can plan everything ahead to the last detail, then simply hope to god nothing unexpected happens to ruin your plan. In DD2 you have to be flexible, requiring good knowledge of enemies and bosses in each area so you can choose the best path based on the items you've gained so far.

The only difference between the two upgrade systems is that in DD2 you also gain a small amount of progression even when you lose, which I simply don't see anything wrong with when you consider how unbelievably unfair both games can be at times.

[Snobby Hobo]

Good job for at least some critical thinking skills OP. Not often you come across that on the Steam forums.

Originally posted by Terran:

A real RPG experience, not a tacked-on """roguelite""" re-imagining.
Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 1 meant you recruited new heroes and kept going on the same path. Experience and knowledge were your rewards and your cause of success.

Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 2 means you start at the beginning, except you get an arbitrary small amount of upgrades to make the game progressively easier until it becomes simple to beat.

The former;
Superior.
The latter;
Inferior.

Scrambling to get an argument together are we? What does DD2 do that negates the "experience and knowledge" aspect that you praise in DD1?

I would instead argue DD2 relies MORE on game knowledge and experience than DD1; in DD1 you had a leveling system, in DD2 the power to accrue is over the course of a single run. "Just overlevel" was a tactic in DD1 but not 2.

In reality the Hamlet was just a slow grind, but people got so attached to the game that they could easily overlook it's shortcomings. Remember the DD1 early game? Remember the suicide runs because your roster was bad, because you had no food? Yea that was fun wasn't it? /s

As for the OP: I'm almost entirely certain people just got attached. That's really all there is to it. DD1 launched as a game so completely distinct from what was already on the market it garnered an almost cult-like status.

DD2 took a bite out of the EGS contract so people ended up more jaded on here. That alongside the fact that they changed a game that was considered a classic was a recipe for disdain. In reality neither DD1 nor DD2 were perfectly designed games, but DD2 seems to fail particularly bad at what it sets out to do.

[Rusted Metal]

I love both games i think they both have their strengths

[Mina Miko]

How is DD2 failing badly at what it sets out to do ? It's succeeding massively at it. The devs said explicitly they didint want to make just Darkest Dungeon 1.5, they wanted to create a new experience and they succeeded. The "darkest dungeon" vibe is fully present but wrapped up in a shiny new package that still captures the authentic DD1 turn-based combat.

People are bitter because they didint get DD1.5 but that doesnt mean the game is bad, it's fantastic. Honestly i dont think a lot of devs would be able to refresh an ip like redhook did

[Snobby Hobo]

Originally posted by 5* Hot Gacha Waifu:

How is DD2 failing badly at what it sets out to do ? It's succeeding massively at it. The devs said explicitly they didint want to make just Darkest Dungeon 1.5, they wanted to create a new experience and they succeeded. The "darkest dungeon" vibe is fully present but wrapped up in a shiny new package that still captures the authentic DD1 turn-based combat.

People are bitter because they didint get DD1.5 but that doesnt mean the game is bad, it's fantastic. Honestly i dont think a lot of devs would be able to refresh an ip like redhook did

I might need to replay it again, but when it first launched it was just... awful. I forced myself to beat the first boss before complaining and it just never got any better. Below are opinions on the launch state (if they significantly changed it then good for them):

the coach adds nothing. It's just holding down a single button for minutes on end. It's unbelievably boring and the primary reason I never picked the game up again. It's the standard FTL/STS layout only now with a nice bit of "extra time wasted1!".

Relationships just absolutely suck. They seem designed to take away player agency, which just feels terrible to play around.

Other than that the repeated runs are much better than DD1 in my opinion, but relationships and the coach were so far off the mark it was a teeth grinding experience for me.

[Connatic]

Originally posted by Terran:

A real RPG experience, not a tacked-on """roguelite""" re-imagining.
Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 1 meant you recruited new heroes and kept going on the same path. Experience and knowledge were your rewards and your cause of success.

...

I don't understand the distinction. Experience and knowledge is rewarded in DD2 as well.

[Connatic]

Originally posted by Incredibly average:

Originally posted by 5* Hot Gacha Waifu:

How is DD2 failing badly at what it sets out to do ? It's succeeding massively at it. The devs said explicitly they didint want to make just Darkest Dungeon 1.5, they wanted to create a new experience and they succeeded. The "darkest dungeon" vibe is fully present but wrapped up in a shiny new package that still captures the authentic DD1 turn-based combat.

People are bitter because they didint get DD1.5 but that doesnt mean the game is bad, it's fantastic. Honestly i dont think a lot of devs would be able to refresh an ip like redhook did

I might need to replay it again, but when it first launched it was just... awful. ...

Relationships just absolutely suck. They seem designed to take away player agency, which just feels terrible to play around.

...

Relationships are WAY better now. They were so bad at one point, that two characters falling in love was actually a bad thing. The Relationship system was greatly improved based on feedback. They are actually something to manage and play around with.

[glenn3e]

I’m actually excited when leaving inns now due to the new relationship system. Hoping to see a good paired combo that I can base my character’s playstyle around.

[Ellye]

What I think the Hamlet did right: the flavor, tone, immersion and atmosphere.

What I think the Hamlet did wrong: the gameplay progression.

Like OP and some other commentators, I don't get why so many people talk about the Hamlet as if it added some deep roleplaying progression system. In truth, it's a very simple, boring, "numbers go up" kind of progression.

I fully understand the people that dislike the removal of the Hamlet because they will miss the atmosphere it provided.

I don't get the people that will miss it because of the systems, because those systems were not that different from the new ones, and frankly way more simplistic and boring. Just better dressed up.

[Pumpkinreaper]

I had written out a long post and then realized I had basically written the same thing OP did.

But yeah, the hamlet mechanically was just a "number goes up" thing. The events needed a lot of work too, especially the 'random X amount of class' recruitment events.

[gameonlymala]

Originally posted by Terran:

A real RPG experience, not a tacked-on """roguelite""" re-imagining.
Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 1 meant you recruited new heroes and kept going on the same path. Experience and knowledge were your rewards and your cause of success.

Your losses in Darkest Dungeon 2 means you start at the beginning, except you get an arbitrary small amount of upgrades to make the game progressively easier until it becomes simple to beat.

The former;
Superior.
The latter;
Inferior.

From my experience its the other way around. Upgrading your equipment and leveling your heroes is only present in dd1. In dd2 you mostly unlock more options, only one upgrade tree improves you outright and its with small buffs like debuff resist.