Is it really that hard of a game?

[H3ndriX]

So, I played it on release and forgot almost everything about it.

I started again recently and did my first run, but lost after about 60% of the way through the first stage (or level). On the second run, I almost completed the first stage but died in the final combat. Third run, I made it through the first stage but lost one character—and then got completely destroyed in the second stage. Fourth run, first fight went well… then Death spawned and wiped the floor with me.

So, am I doing something wrong? I know the first thing the game tells you is that you’re going to fail and that you should just keep playing. But it gets so demotivating—to the point where I’m thinking, “Why am I even playing, its not fun”

You got some tips or anything thats gonna help me?

P.S. I used the same characters for all the runs so I could get to know them and level them up a bit: Man-at-Arms, Plague Doctor, Vestal, and Grave Robber. (Not in that order.)

[Rosminn]

It can be a bit brutal. The game gets a lot easier as you unlock stuff and become more familiar with the mechanics, but it's definitely pretty savage at times. It's hard to diagnose what's going wrong, or to give suggestions without dictating the game to you. Despite being a DD1 veteran, it took me quite some time to reliably be able to complete the first couple confessions.

Focusing on unlocking all the skills for every character might be the best way to maintain a healthy outlook on the game. Putting your attention on the new storylines and skills you get can help make the fact you got bodied before you could reach the Mountain a bit more tolerable. Making sure all of your characters have their best skills and paths makes the game a lot easier. Characters like the Flagellant are a completely different beast when he has More! More!

You can also take a break to give the Kingdoms mode a try? You can set up a custom game where you can enable things like respawning heroes so that you can experiment and have some fun without axing your run because a roaming boss blindsided you.

[User Dada]

they have a disclaimer about how hard the game is as soon as the game loads for a reason. it is pretty tough but focus on unlocking memories and spend candles to unlock useful stuff and expect to die the first while. it will feel a bit like luck when you do finally win but skill does play a big part getting the feel of the game

[Datau]

I agree with Rosmin. Your first priority should be unlocking as many skills as possible from the Altars of Reflection. The candles you earn are also very userful in the long run. In general, unlocking stuff is the fun part.

I would not suggest playing with Kingdoms until you are familiar with the combat system, though. That game mode is harder than the Confessions.

As for the heroes, that particular combination has a glaring weakness. Plague Doctor and Vestal are almost always a good fit. The Man-At-Arms is straighforward to use, so even if he loses a bit of potential by being unable to fully use his kit, it is not a big issue.

The main issue is the Grave Robber. To get the most out of her, you need Combo tokens. Among those heroes, the Plague Doctor is the only one who can generate them, but she can't do that reliably. So, basically, the Grave Robber is not doing as much damage as she could.

Thus, my sugestion is this: try playing around with either the Highwayman, or the Runaway, or the Occultist. Any of these three can reliably mark an enemy with a Combo token for the Grave Robber. The Bounty Hunter is also very good at applying Combo tokens, so don't forget to hire him, if you find yourself struggling.

[H3ndriX]

Thx for the answers. I´ll unlock the skills and keep going.
Death spwant again and killt me haha... dunno if im that unlucky or the spawn chance is that high.

[Jin]

- Unlock skills/classes first.
- Choose Character relations as #1 priority when buying items for Inn. They are crippling if bad ones trigger. Try to stay at "Neutral" or up.
- Man at Arms and Grave Robber are your core starters, use them even when you unlock new ones. MAA will handle stress, GR will handle the back-line with DPS. Upgrade their skills first.
- Don't worry too much about Token removal, just attack the enemies without any first and leave the Token Enemies for last when you can brute force their defense.
- Prioritize Backliners first. MAA, GR and HighwayMan can all attack Position 3, kill that one first, then 4th. Focus Damage also increases relationships.
- HP and Healing is not as important, you heal passively after each fight and during travel. Stress, Low flame and Bad Relations will kill runs.
- Pick up the Radiant Flame stagecoach attachment, it gives massive buffs for just a few less candles. Early on you just want to farm as long as possible for skill unlocks (Altars of Reflection).
- Trinkets with Speed, Crit and Damage and Resistances are best. In that order.
- Battle Items that remove Stress are #1 Priority when buying. (Powder that removes Corpses and gives -1 stress per corpse is must buy)

[balls]

Originally posted by H3ndriX:

Thx for the answers. I´ll unlock the skills and keep going.
Death spwant again and killt me haha... dunno if im that unlucky or the spawn chance is that high.

Death only spawns if you have the Flagellant in your team.

[H3ndriX]

Originally posted by balls:

Originally posted by H3ndriX:

Thx for the answers. I´ll unlock the skills and keep going.
Death spwant again and killt me haha... dunno if im that unlucky or the spawn chance is that high.

Death only spawns if you have the Flagellant in your team.

Okey, i was about to ask wtf is going on. In the last 12 rounds he spwant 5 Times. I even killt him once but at a cost where i lost in the long run.
Its so f*cking brutal.

[H3ndriX]

Originally posted by Jin:

- Unlock skills/classes first.
- Choose Character relations as #1 priority when buying items for Inn. They are crippling if bad ones trigger. Try to stay at "Neutral" or up.
- Man at Arms and Grave Robber are your core starters, use them even when you unlock new ones. MAA will handle stress, GR will handle the back-line with DPS. Upgrade their skills first.
- Don't worry too much about Token removal, just attack the enemies without any first and leave the Token Enemies for last when you can brute force their defense.
- Prioritize Backliners first. MAA, GR and HighwayMan can all attack Position 3, kill that one first, then 4th. Focus Damage also increases relationships.
- HP and Healing is not as important, you heal passively after each fight and during travel. Stress, Low flame and Bad Relations will kill runs.
- Pick up the Radiant Flame stagecoach attachment, it gives massive buffs for just a few less candles. Early on you just want to farm as long as possible for skill unlocks (Altars of Reflection).
- Trinkets with Speed, Crit and Damage and Resistances are best. In that order.
- Battle Items that remove Stress are #1 Priority when buying. (Powder that removes Corpses and gives -1 stress per corpse is must buy)

Thats good input, thanks alot!

[panzertek CS-BL.com]

It is not hard and a lot of it comes from how easy it is to take out diseases and bad traits, plus the AI is dumb. Add to that relationships with OP effects and it is easy in mid game.

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

Not really. And it's not hard to get used to.

[Talion_431]

aye. i started maybe start of the month. i got REKD HARD first 5 times. just accept you WILL get your ass handed to you. repeatedly. and like others said it WILL get "easier" as you get more candles to upgrade your stuff. honestly i just spammed the 1st act until i got strong enough. cheap? sure. i got at least a good 50% of my toons upgraded and some other things like wagons and items and such. STILL having trouble. i cant imagine not doing that to make life easier. be hard pressed to find ppl that have ZERO deaths or party wipe on this game. coolest thing about DD2 is the versatility of the game. are there alot of crap working against you? HELL YES. are the small things like resolute and positive relation quirks work HEAVILY in your favor? also yes. concentrate on the relations. makes life and boss fights MUCH MORE successful. good luck. i am on act 5... havent made it to the last boss yet, even with my near maxed stuff.

[Jin]

Originally posted by Talion_431:

aye. i started maybe start of the month. i got REKD HARD first 5 times. just accept you WILL get your ass handed to you. repeatedly. and like others said it WILL get "easier" as you get more candles to upgrade your stuff. honestly i just spammed the 1st act until i got strong enough. cheap? sure. i got at least a good 50% of my toons upgraded and some other things like wagons and items and such. STILL having trouble. i cant imagine not doing that to make life easier. be hard pressed to find ppl that have ZERO deaths or party wipe on this game. coolest thing about DD2 is the versatility of the game. are there alot of crap working against you? HELL YES. are the small things like resolute and positive relation quirks work HEAVILY in your favor? also yes. concentrate on the relations. makes life and boss fights MUCH MORE successful. good luck. i am on act 5... havent made it to the last boss yet, even with my near maxed stuff.

I have farmed Act1 with the 4 core starters (MAA, GR, PD and HM) until I had all of the 4 characters fully maxed out with candles. I then started trying act 2 and I actually 1-shot the first act 2 run and killed the boss with relative ease. (never triggered it's special orange attack, dunno what it does lol)

Not only did this provide a steady income of 40-50 candles per run, I also could figure out the mechanics of the game without much variation. There are only 2 regions in act 1 so you can really focus on figuring out the systems without getting overwhelmed with new enemies all the time.

Now that I beat Act 2 I will farm that act some more to get to know the new enemies from the new regions. I will also start bringing new classes to get to know new synergies.

[solifugyd]

No one's mentioned paths here, they're pretty critical to success. Upgrade your Plague Doctor at the altar until you have unlocked Alchemist path. Now, voila: set her to Alchemist at the crossroads, and rarely to never will you fail to apply blight, even on enemies in the Foetor. Venomdrop path for Grave Robber lets you blight ranks 2-3 every turn with Flashing Daggers, never worrying about combo tokens.

For Vestal and Man at Arms, there isn't as clear a winner for optimal play, but most of their paths have advantages over Wanderer. I like Seraph and Vanguard respectively, but those are at the end of the upgrade paths, so you may want to play around with what you have.

[Jin]

Originally posted by solifugyd:

No one's mentioned paths here, they're pretty critical to success. Upgrade your Plague Doctor at the altar until you have unlocked Alchemist path. Now, voila: set her to Alchemist at the crossroads, and rarely to never will you fail to apply blight, even on enemies in the Foetor. Venomdrop path for Grave Robber lets you blight ranks 2-3 every turn with Flashing Daggers, never worrying about combo tokens.

I am actually more of a fan for the Surgeon path on Plaguedoctor. Using Magnesium Rain to remove dodge token and most enemies have weak fire resist. Dagger skill does serious Burst DPS on Surgeon, especially upgraded.

Alchemist is most likely better but I am having excellent runs as Surgeon right now (farming Act 2 without failed runs), never stop a running machine. :D

My team right now is HighwayMan in 4th as ranged DPS. Surgeon on 3th, Basic Wanderer Grave Robber on 2nd and frontline is a support Banner Crusader for stress relief and taunting enemies. I try to make the Plaguedoctor the fastest so she can apply Magnesium rain first, then GR and HM can oneshot whatever backline mob is most dangerous while the crusader sets up taunt + defense for next round. That set-up never seems to fail.

[No One]

It's not hard, but punishing. Yeah if you do something dumb it will often instantly kill you.

The regular torch is balanced around not having anything unlocked. You can win 100% of the time without anything, provided you know what you're doing.
However, it's not learning skills, it's trial and error. Learn which stuff is bad and stop using it.

Exception: vestals are really bad without all their skills unlocked. The correct thing for new players is to not use vestals. Vestals are one of the bad things the game is trying to teach you not to use.

I personally use math to find good skills. Math out what the vestal is doing for you, then find someone who does it better. Or unlock mantra, so she becomes a healer.

Originally posted by solifugyd:

No one's mentioned paths here

Hey now, I don't even want to.