I am having a lot of trouble with Color of Madness DLC

[wilky]

Not difficulty wise... but I am finding this DLC to be very poorly explained in-game, and the game keeps ****ing me out of things that I do not understand. This is my first time playing this DLC. It is not going well. The lack of explanations, lack of undo's, and the over-reliance on "icons" to convey information is leading to a lot of misunderstandings and player confusion / frustration.


Example #1: I was waiting to do the first Farmstead mission because I wanted to level up my chars to L1-2 before releasing Thing From the Stars, but I received a Town Event for +100% comet shards so I figured Why not? The first mission advertised a completion bonus of 12 shards, so I went into the mission not knowing what to expect but thinking maybe I'd pick up a lot along the way and come out with like 30-40.

Well guess how many shards I got when I returned back to the hamlet? You'd think at least 24, right? Nope. I got 12. How is this even possible? So where are my bonus shards? What was the point of the town event?

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Example #2: One of my new Stagecoach heroes came with a random quirk that allowed him to attack stealthed enemies. There was a gear icon next to this quirk which I understood to be a prismatic quirk. I thought "Wow this is great," so I immediately went to lock it in at the Sanitarium before it got overwritten by something crappy.

Yeah, I guess you already know how this turned out... I just discovered now (which is like 10 weeks later) that his trait is gone. It sure would have been nice if the game had displayed some kind of confirmation "Are you sure?" when I was using the Sanitarium because apparently the Sanitarium has the opposite effect with these prismatic quirks or I'm still not even sure what happened.

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Example #3: I completed a random Medium mission in like the Cove last night and returned to the hamlet only to find a town event Crystalline Foci. This screen had the same appearance as those town event screens where you are freely able to recruit a character (e.g., Shieldbreaker or Vestal) by clicking & dragging over to your roster. The event text made it sound like I was receiving 30 free crystal shards. After 30 weeks, I only have 32 crystal shards so this is great. I mouse over the crystal icon and it says "Purchase crystal" so I click it... and then the caretaker steals 30 crystal shards from ME! I am stunned. Gottem again! I'm looking around like Where's my refund button?? All of my crystal shards gone! I immediately Alt-F4 and reload hoping that it didn't auto-save, but I'm ****ed. My only recourse at this point is to reload the manual save state I had made before the prior mission, and complete the entire mission all over again, avoiding this thief upon my return to the hamlet.

[Kiana]

For #2, didn't you notice the icon when selecting the quirk at the sanitarium was an X and not a padlock?

[No One]

Yes, darkest dungeon teaches many useful lessons. This is one it's particularly fond of: don't assume you know when you don't know. If you don't have enough information, it's very important to recognize that you don't have enough information.
Much cheaper to learn this recognition type from playing a videogame, rather than, for example, from buying a car.

[wilky]

Originally posted by Kiana:

For #2, didn't you notice the icon when selecting the quirk at the sanitarium was an X and not a padlock?

No, I did not know it was possible to remove a positive quirk. All of my past experiences with the Sanitarium were removing negative traits, and locking in positive traits.

[megansweden]

Yeah, prismatic quirks are locked by default. I think most people find out the same way you did though, if they haven't seen it in a Youtube video or stream.

[Jorgen]

for 1: it gives you more when you are doing the endless version and not the scripted 2 first missions

[GreatPalm]

Originally posted by No One:

Yes, darkest dungeon teaches many useful lessons. This is one it's particularly fond of: don't assume you know when you don't know. If you don't have enough information, it's very important to recognize that you don't have enough information.
Much cheaper to learn this recognition type from playing a videogame, rather than, for example, from buying a car.

or from jumping from skyscraper rooftop, ye?

[TSense]

#1 there are 2 "normal" quests to do before you unlock the endless harvest. The event said you get +100% comet shards on endless harvest.
He game told you it would reward you for going into the blue door. You went into the red door and are wondering why you didn't get anything.

#2 the Sanitarium can lock and remove positive quirks, that was a gameplay change that dropped the same day the DLC did, but it is basegame.
A prismatic quirk doesn't need to be locked, it stays by default. The only thing the sanitarium offerd was removing it. This or nothing. You said yes.

#3 "Gazing deep into the shimmering colors of the comet fractures can bring a sense of peace..."
Not sure how "a sense of peace" sounds like giving you a free hero in a game where stress management is a core element.
"For 30 shards every hero in the roster heals 50 stress."

It is pretty normal to get it wrong the first time, complain and never do the same mistake again. That is called learning.
But you seem to have a above average problem with reading. Stop assuming everything and clicking wildly. It is a turnbased game. Take your time. Read the words that are actually on the screen, think about them for a moment. It is a more commen problem these days, to just read 3 or 4 words and then just jumping to the most logical thing the sentence should say. Words aren't replaceable, every single one changes the meaning of the whole.

All 3 of your problems are caused by not reading what the game actually told you. You were warned and didn't listen.

[wilky]

Originally posted by TSense:

A prismatic quirk doesn't need to be locked, it stays by default. The only thing the sanitarium offerd was removing it. This or nothing. You said yes.

It's not a question of reading too fast when the game doesn't offer you any explanation of what you're doing other than a tiny symbol. I had never seen the symbol before and did not know that positive quirks could even be removed. I still don't know why anybody would actually pay gold to do this.

I ended up dismissing that hero who originally started with the prismatic quirk (he became useless to me when he didn't have any good traits) and then I ended up getting that same prismatic quirk on another of my characters later from the Thing (a Shieldbreaker actually... seems like the ability to target stealthed is somewhat wasted on a Shieldbreaker but whatever)

[Grimwulf]

Originally posted by wilky:

I still don't know why anybody would actually pay gold to do this.

You can lock no more than 3 positive quirks. If you just got a quirk that you really want, but already have 3 positives locked, you must first pay to remove one of those three, and only then you can lock the new one.

[megansweden]

You can also get positive quirks that do absolutely nothing for the hero in question, like right now I have a Highwayman with Hippocratic. It's not locked, obviously, but 3 times he's had positive quirks overwritten and it has yet to be that one that is replaced. I'm late enough in the game that money doesn't matter much, so I'm strongly tempted to remove it.

[Aetemes]

I did the same mistake as you with the twilight quirks, I wasn't paying attention at all it's an X, and I didn't know those kinda traits are automatically locked I thought the icon just means it's a unique can never get it again trait, also the crystalline foci I agree with you is confusing lol because like...wtf is it I had to google it. You never know maybe you'll get the trait on an even better character now, like the attack stealth is useful but...not "omg I need to start over I'm so mad I lost it".

Crystal farming becomes easy enough once you know what to look out for, so don't lose your mind over losing 30 or the more crystals event, the crystals offer a lot of good trinkets and the ability to pointblank farm heirlooms cause you can convert them...so..I think it is fair that you need to clear a lot of waves to get a significant amount otherwise they'd trivialise the game too much.


Personally I enjoy the fact that not every single thing has to be super *laid* out in a game..it gives the game "depth" to me because it makes me feel like I need to "explore/study /understand the world"..when everything is aggressively laid out...I mean it's like playing with a walk-through...which is fine, but for the game to give you the play-through themselves like...that's not fun it cuts the game "longevity"..and this is a single player game so..but I get it not everyone likes that.

[unkn0wnx]

#1. This is like some store that says x% discount blah blah. Don't go! It's a trap!!!!
They are baiting you!!!

[wilky]

Originally posted by megansweden:

You can also get positive quirks that do absolutely nothing for the hero in question, like right now I have a Highwayman with Hippocratic. It's not locked, obviously, but 3 times he's had positive quirks overwritten and it has yet to be that one that is replaced. I'm late enough in the game that money doesn't matter much, so I'm strongly tempted to remove it.

That's an interesting point, but yeah IDK if I have enough $$ for that yet. I just built my bank so maybe in a dozen weeks.

Originally posted by Aetemes:

Crystal farming becomes easy enough once you know what to look out for, so don't lose your mind over losing 30 or the more crystals event, the crystals offer a lot of good trinkets and the ability to pointblank farm heirlooms cause you can convert them...so..I think it is fair that you need to clear a lot of waves to get a significant amount otherwise they'd trivialise the game too much.

Yeah but it says it's a Champion L6 dungeon, so I figure I need to wait a while more before tackling it, right? (My chars are current L4)

[megansweden]

Once you've done the Miller mission (the veteran level Farmstead mission) you will have the option in the Stagecoach to hire Shard Mercenaries. They are level 6, fully upgraded, riddled with negative quirks but a lot of those won't matter since they will only go to the Endless Harvest (so stress relief preferences, or region-specific phobias won't actually do anything). You can hire up to 6 and they don't count against your roster. They will keep 10% of the shards collected, however. Each. So it's up to you if you consider it worth using them in order to get in there earlier.