"Camping" is not at all newbie friendly

[*|PEZ|* Merivio]

So I'm new to this game, I did not realise I needed food, NOR did I realise I would be attacked right after camping? I finished a medium dungeon, was about to finish the quest and then I realised I hadn't camped at all. I thought I'd see what it was all about. Whoops, my mistake!

I found "Camping" more punishing than the rest of the dungeon and the boss put together. I thought I was being smart, I decided to de-stress everyone at the cost of HP, because I was gonna head right back home afterwards. Then I get ambushed by 4 reasonably strong enemies AND my character's ordering was all messed up so 2 of them couldn't even attack.

Because of camping, I lost a plague doctor, and the other 3 now need to de-stress. I don't care what kind of game it is, camping absolutely should NOT be this punishing!

[Vectura]

There are a number of camping skills you can equip on characters that nullify the chances of being ambushed. I'd always recommend taking one of those skills on someone in the party. Also, now you know that you need food for camping, so you won't make that mistake again. Ensure that you don't forget to bring extra food in case of hunger checks as well.

[Sir Francis]

thats why you should always use "ambush prevention" camp skills, which (in their existence alone) clearly imply that you can get ambushed when camping, of course only if you read all the tooltips (you should carefully read ALL the tooltips btw, always).
So in the end, camping isnt punishing at all.
Not paying enough attention is.
And always should be.

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Sir Francis:

thats why you should always use "ambush prevention" camp skills, which (in their existence alone) clearly imply that you can get ambushed when camping, of course only if you read all the tooltips (you should carefully read ALL the tooltips btw, always).
So in the end, camping isnt punishing at all.
Not paying enough attention is.
And always should be.

There are a couple times not to. The most obvious is when you have Shieldbreaker and a nightmare coming, since it won't stop that and you won't be ambushed by anything else anyway. Buff Shieldbreaker instead.

Another is if you don't care if you're ambushed, or if for some reason you want to gamble on a little extra loot and again, are pretty sure an ambush won't be a disaster.

[str4hlemann]

Ambushes have a chance to occur (will not happen necessarily when not using an ambush prevention skill), count of enemies is also random. When ambushed though, you will always be surprized and thereby get shuffled. Be ready for that.

As was said above, it's safer to bring an ambush prevention skill and use it when you're not feeling confident you can handle an ambush with ease. Else you might lose more than you gain from it (as you personally experienced).

If used properly camping helps. A LOT. You might want to camp right before a boss battle and buff your dmg dealing heroes greatly.
Another big advantage of camping is the ability to buff scouting, which is the best way to not get surprized, get shuffled, step into traps. You'll know quest locations, you may move through the dungeon on the safest or most lucrative route that you wish. Here's to buff scouting.

[TSense]

hey there,

iam 150 hours in, but i remember my first camping very good.

You always start the game with Reynauld, a Crusader and Dismas, a Highwayman.
These features are not randomly generated: the player will always begin the game with these 2 characters.

Both these classes have a camping still that "prevents nighttime ambush". Any new player who actually looks into his heros and reads some skills, in the safty of town, will know that there is some kind of "nighttime ambush", because you see stuff that prevents it.

Remember that this game gives you nothing. In a time where videogame bad guys make totally sure that you know ther weaknesses beforehand, the great Horrors in this game actually try to win and defeat you. (You know, like they should).


Starting out, i always stayed away from medium and focused on short dungeons. The idea was clear: Most important of all is to get everyone home alive, doing the mission and looting comes later. And if this means giving up in the first room because you forgot to take important items with you, than you give up in the first room.

When i camped, i prepared for a fight or i didn't camped until i could use prevention skills (which i saw in week 1).

When i actually took the chance and was ambushed the first time, i found out about the ambush rules and they hit me hard, but i pulled it without any deathdoors.


All in all, the game does give you a fair warning if you pay attation. But it will use the first chance when you are careless and take you for a ride.
You have to look for any clues. You have to double check everything. And then check again. And then check everything over again. Traps can be everywhere, foes can be anywhere.

You are playing against THE HORROR, and the horror really wants to win. It's not going to offer you free hits if you miss something.

If you want a enemie that helps you and holds your hand if you go in blind, you came to the wrong game

[*|PEZ|* Merivio]

This game has an overload of information and abilities and buffs and debuffs and a library of terms. I hadn't even seen the survivalist by the time I tried camping. This game actually DOES hold your hand, it holds your hand when it first introduces almost every mechanic with tutorial pop-ups that tell you 'this is a debuff', 'watch out for traps!' etc.. Well a 'watch out for ambushes when camping' would have been nice. No actually, better than nice, it would have been smart; because I was expecting to have been told that's a mechanic, like it did for everything else.

Seriously, there is a difference between punishing and downright 'har-har stupid player doesn't know the mechanics yet'. That's just immature design. It's a question of respect; I like a challenge but I'm not a masochist. I completely understand what they're going for, I just think this part in particular is weak. All it would need is a line in the popup that says 'btw there's a chance for an ambush after camping'. That's all it would need.

[No One]

There's lots of games where they spoonfeed you everything and your only task is to remember it and execute it properly. Often even remembering is optional. Darkest Dungeon is a game for gamers who don't like to be led around by the nose. If that's not for you, then sorry, you picked up the wrong game.

[Zadavaka]

Originally posted by No One:

There's lots of games where they spoonfeed you everything and your only task is to remember it and execute it properly. Often even remembering is optional. Darkest Dungeon is a game for gamers who don't like to be led around by the nose. If that's not for you, then sorry, you picked up the wrong game.

True

[aardvarkpepper]

game design is eh

now if this were thirty years ago then yeah okay roguelike whatever okay

but this isn't thirty years ago

these days there is internet. there are wikis

i for one welcome our new internet overlords

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by *|PEZ|* Venima:

This game actually DOES hold your hand, it holds your hand when it first introduces almost every mechanic with tutorial pop-ups that tell you 'this is a debuff', 'watch out for traps!' etc.. Well a 'watch out for ambushes when camping' would have been nice.

You're going to miss a lot of things the first time unless you pay perfect attention, but the first time I camped, I moused over everyone's skills to see what I could do, and had two separate skills (Occultist's and HM's) that said "prevents nighttime ambushes" and I just like didn't like the sound of that very much, so used it.

[Laplace93]

In this game you have to learn from mistakes, even if you think it's not your fault you have to learn, now you know how camping works, what may happen and what to do, I partially remember the first time I've found a void altar, eh eh, I didn't know back then what it was and while my common sense tried to make me desist from using a torch my curiosity told me to do it, and so I did, as said it was my first altar so is easy to predict what happened, the whole team died but I learned something new and now I know what to do and what to expect, the same as been for every first time with a boss, every first time in a dungeon and so on, I've lost countless characters too, some due to mistakes, others due to lack of knowledge but this is the price pay, what I want to say with this is that complaining because the game didn't warned you on what may come from camping is not a good attitude in this game and will not get you anywhere, learn, learn and learn since this game is all about "making the most out of a bad situation".

[Skinny Pete]

Originally posted by Laplace93:

while my common sense tried to make me desist from using a torch my curiosity told me to do it, and so I did

Pretty much this. I read the ominous warning on it that made it clear that this was probably a bad idea, contemplated it for a while and decided YODO. It was early in the mission so I had full health and wasn't stressed. Nobody died, but everyone was wrecked and stressed out, so I had to abandon the mission.

It was actually the tentacles after killing the Shambler that caused the worst damage because I wasn't aware of their self-buff.

[mdcpaladin]

Originally posted by Sir Francis:

thats why you should always use "ambush prevention" camp skills, which (in their existence alone) clearly imply that you can get ambushed when camping, of course only if you read all the tooltips (you should carefully read ALL the tooltips btw, always).
So in the end, camping isnt punishing at all.
Not paying enough attention is.
And always should be.

agreed. op is a maroon and prolly should play something like tic tac toe instead

[*|PEZ|* Merivio]

Off-topic: You guys are so bloody toxic, you know that? "Picked up the wrong game", "Play something else". Even if I'm wrong, "isn't for you" is not really the argument you should be making. At the very least, I'm just going to ignore it. Perhaps "it's intentionally punishing because...", but don't go making personal arguments or insults; that's just not nice.

On-topic: Being punished so much for 'camping' when the dungeon was already cleared of enemies just seemed like a real ♥♥♥♥-punch; and I do not think it would hurt the game just to put in a bit more clarification for this one. It's a game-mechanic that is contrary to most other games even of the same genre. I'm not saying I'm right, just that it's an issue beyond just 'growing up', because the game-hardened players are the most likely to fall for it.

Secondly, 'refer to the wiki' is not a great answer IMO, because that defeats the whole point of playing by common sense. It wasn't that I'm not cautious or sensible, I just assumed because in no other game have I experienced an ambush mechanic for camping. Am I going to check the wiki for a mechanic I don't know about? No, of course not.

Thirdly, if the game really intends to be so punishing as you all say, then why do the first two characters have 'no ambush' abilities? I would honestly rather clarification and then not have the ability to avoid ambushes, or make it something you unlock later on.

All I'm trying to do here is get you guys to actually think about what I'm saying, rather than just dismissing it, thanks.

[Mr_Bummy]

Not knowing about the nighttime ambush chance can be a surprise but, the campfire wood item does warn you to have enough food before camping.