DD1 and DD2 from the view of a Noob

[[PMC] Portable Merc Collector]

After buying and enjoying Darkest Dungeon 2, I picked up Darkest Dungeon 1 out of curiosity to see the series' roots. I'm posting this in discussions to get the opinions from other players who may be noobs just like me, or veterans of the series. This is NOT meant to be a "which is better", but I'm sort of comparing the two with a bit of outsiders perspective and some thing I noticed, being new to both games.

These will only be compared between each other, not to say either one is a bad game, but to compare how I feel they are between each other.

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Darkest Dungeon 2:

Much, much easier to understand for a new player. Now, I get that the appeal of these games is difficulty, and that's fine! I don't want the games to be adjusted for me. But when I first played DD1, I noticed DD2 was so much easier to get into and "learn the basics" of.

Much more drawn out runs. The stagecoach, and I KNOW it seems a LOT of people hate this mechanic, but now after playing DD1, I can sorta see why.. Like, compared to DD1, it instantly took you into a dungeon, or a "run", in DD2 it feels like there are these long stretches of.. nothing, really, between fights.

No workshop yet :( I really, really wish this game had workshop. One of the main things that got me into DD1 were all the mods people made. All the characters, all the events, the tweaks, the new content, it was awesome to look at! I really hope this game gets that at some point..

Fights are more strategic in DD2, not to say the fights in DD1 were dull, quite the opposite actually. But one thing I noticed is runs in DD1 had a lot more heavy use of items when in the dungeons. You had to keep your flame lit with torches, and food plus other usables often were necessary to survive the run. DD2 seems more focused on fights and character abilities with some level of "self sufficiency" rather than item reliance like DD1.

The altar, now I must admit I'm still a noob to the Darkest Dungeon series as I said before, so the altar primarily being upgrades for heroes, your coach, and items or abilities in DD2 helped simplify things and let me choose what I wanted to chase first.

Status Afflictions, I noticed that in DD1 stress and status afflictions alongside healing seem much more punishing. In DD2 status effects don't carry into the next fight, and it seems like stress and the flame are much more manageable. The amount of health restored during stagecoach runs also seems greater than walking in DD1. Another thing they seemed to have completely gotten rid of in DD2 were the negative quirks, or.. traits..? perks? from DD1 that you could only modify in the town which forced you to rotate out your heroes often in order to let your others rest and not become to overburdened.

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When it comes to DD2 there are many aspects I like and do not like. When it comes to things I like that changed over the first, I like how they did away with permadeath for the game as a whole. However I wish they had kept it in as an added difficulty mode or an option players could select more akin to DD1's modes like Radiant. That way, veteran players who liked such difficulty wouldn't be alienated.

I also like how they did away with the negative traits forcing you to leave heroes at your town to remove or change. To me it seemed like it was only there just to force you to rotate your party and not because it made the game any more difficult. That said though, it was there for a reason, as without it, the features of some of the buildings at large like the tavern and the church would be completely and utterly pointless. It doesn't ruin the game for me, but it does get a touch annoying at times, perhaps I just need to get used to the game more!

In terms of what I don't like though.. the stagecoach mechanic, talk about beating a dead horse right? But, really, like others have said.. Why is this even.. here? Seeing the heroes walk just like DD1 with their fancy new 3D models and the high res textures would have been just as neat if not better! It feels like it slows the game down more than it needs to and is just.. boring.. I don't even bother steering the thing.

The altar, it's.. mixed for me.. I like how it's simple and tells you exactly what's what, but another aspect I really liked from DD1 was upgrading the town, it felt more akin to a sort of city builder, and that was neat! I wish that they had another town in this game you could utilize in some way..

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Darkest Dungeon:

Ahhh the original, where it all began, and where most of the fanbase agrees is the best. Much like 2, it has things compared to it that I also like, and do not.

The town, whereas DD2 has the altar, which is just upgrades, the town is where you go to heal some of your heroes' negative traits and purchase trinkets, upgrade your buildings to get more out of their services, forge new weapons and items, gather new heroes, etc. There was a lot to do! Honestly, I liked that about it, it provided you with something more to do than just go on runs endlessly. It felt like home.

Dungeon runs also felt much shorter than DD2, not that that's a bad thing mind you, they were always full of things you had to keep track of and watch out for much like DD2. In DD1 it felt like there were many more quirks and things you had to be aware of though than it's second counterpart. I personally noticed that the flame seemed to go down so much more faster in DD1 than 2, characters in addition, also were a lot less self sustainable and consumable items seemed to play a much, much bigger role. It felt like it required a lot more planning and "preparation" than the simple get up and go that DD2 has. I'm.. a bit split on this. I liked that in some aspects, but sometimes it felt like the game was TOO reliant on items. It's a bit of an odd case. DD1 relied someitmes too much on items (for me!) and DD2, not enough. (Outside of trinkets that is.)

Permadeath, personally, this is the one aspect of the original darkest dungeon that I did not like. Now, don't get me wrong! I don't wish it was gone, or that the game didn't have it. I'm new, what I think carries much less weight than the vets, but if there's one thing I wish the game had, was a way to bring back characters you've lost, at least in that regard it would make heroes you want to keep or put work into feel less.. expendable. Like, in DD2 I actually feel like the heroes are genuine characters, when in the first one, they're more like basic troops in a RTS game.. why should I care about any of them if they're so replaceable?

Fights in darkest dungeon are a LOT more quick than DD2, at least in my experience. Not to say that DD2's fights take hours to complete or anything, but DD2's fights felt like they had more weight to them. DD's fights also have weight but due to how the dungeons seem to be more heavily designed around item use and not just the heroes it makes it seem like the general focus of DD fights is more on resource management rather than hero strength like DD2. Again, not that that's a bad thing.

That and there's just.. so much more to do in DD1, be that upgrading your town, building up your heroes and gear, seeing how far you can get in a single save, or more. DD2 pretty much only has one thing to do, and that's go on endless runs, however while that's all they have, they built it up well, and it IS fun to do.. for me at least.

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Overall DD1 and DD2 have different strengths and weaknesses, I'm glad and thankful to DD2 for getting me into the franchise and I hope it continues to grow and become a better game. What do you guys think about the two? Anything you think one or the other does better than it's counterpart? Or do you think one or the other is clearly inferior, anyone agree? Disagree? How would you compare the two?

TL:DR: A noob's thoughts on the two Darkest Dungeon games. Figured I'd post something here out of curiosity and how I've been greatly enjoying both games so far! Looking forward to hear your thoughts!

[fireheart126]

Overall a good comparison, I feel, especially for a newcomer perspective. As a casual veteran myself, I very much enjoy both games, but recognize that each, while they have similarities, try to do different things.

As a side note, on the topic of the Permadeath in DD1: While characters can and will permanently die, the game does keep a permanent record of their existence with the Graveyard, and there is a rare Town Event that lets you resurrect one or two of your dead guys whenever it shows up.

[[PMC] Portable Merc Collector]

Originally posted by fireheart126:

Overall a good comparison, I feel, especially for a newcomer perspective. As a casual veteran myself, I very much enjoy both games, but recognize that each, while they have similarities, try to do different things.

As a side note, on the topic of the Permadeath in DD1: While characters can and will permanently die, the game does keep a permanent record of their existence with the Graveyard, and there is a rare Town Event that lets you resurrect one or two of your dead guys whenever it shows up.

Thanks for the input! I know there's a rare town event that lets you bring somebody back, and upon first seeing how it worked, it was nice to know it was implemented!

[glenn3e]

Permadeath is there in DD2 once you get your heroes memoried up. Its also more punishing, cause you can’t end a run without beating the Mountain or you will lose them.

[Soho]

I think at least part of the purpose of the stagecoach mechanic is to make the 'walking' part between interaction nodes 3D (as different from DD1 where they are walking a side-scroll in 2D)

Another part of it is to immerse you in the 'environment' ... "Oh look, I'm in the spooky undead forest" or "I'm cruising around in my stagecoach through the burning city"- as the scenery passes, yeah it seems like it is just the same after awhile but it is procedural generation in 3D, no two times you ride the coach through an area will be the same on that level which I mean, I think it is kind of cool

Yet another thing about it, different from DD1, is you can just hit go after an interaction node and walk away from keyboard, when you get back you will be at the next node - sure, you might have missed running over some stuff, but I feel like what I miss and what I hit anyway (because you will hit some stuff anyway even with your hands off the steering wheel) are not that big a deal... like, am I really going to wipe on the run because I missed something on that part? I don't sweat it that much. I don't always play the driving game if I don't feel like it and I don't think it negatively affects my play that much

Could it have been done differently? Sure, thousands of ways. They could have had the party riding a dragon through the run from node to node and instead of just left and right you could also go up and down, fly through hoops in the sky for stuff. Or the Occultist's magic carpet flies you through the areas. Or just have a dotted line on a map showing where they went/where they are going (like the mini-map already is, just replace everything with that or give the option of doing that if you prefer)