The Antiquarian Update - Build #13843 (PC/MAC)

[redhookjohn]

“Trinkets and baubles, paid for in blood” - The Ancestor

In today’s update players will gain access to the newest class, the Antiquarian, as well as a bevy of changes to help reduce late game grind!

We are doing this update a little differently than some of you may be used to; we will be deploying the update to our public beta branch “coming_in_hot”. For the next few days the Antiquarian Update will live on this beta branch that will require players to opt into. Once you opt in you cannot go back to the older build. After a couple of days of allowing the community to test the new systems and submit bug/feedback, we will tweak/adjust & make it live for all our players in the main branch, at which point beta players can safely switch back to the release build.

To opt into the Public Beta Branch:

• Right Click on Darkest Dungeon in your Steam Library
  
• Select Properties
  
• Select BETAs tab
  
• In the dropdown box select “coming_in_hot”
  
• Close the Properties Window

It might take a moment for it to switch over, but you should see it download the update.

We want to start handling all our major updates this way as it helps leverage what was so great about our time in Early Access, namely: our community. Since the game is ‘released’ we want to maintain a stable build for all our players. Allowing the update to percolate a bit in the beta branch gives us a chance to pivot and course-correct based on your feedback.

What’s Next?

The Linux port is practically ready and we will be rolling it out later this month. We are thankful for the patience of all our Linux users and look forward to seeing them enjoy the game.

Moving forward, we wanted to remind everyone that Town Events will be delayed until a later date. It will benefit from the additional development time and we are excited to begin focusing on that again. We still don’t have a timeline for it, as GDC (Game Development Conference) is next week.

Playstation 4 and VITA is still on track for Late Spring/Early Summer, but it’s still too early to start discussing any details on the port. Just rest assured it’s happening!

The Antiquarian Update - Build #13843 PATCH NOTES:

• New Class: Antiquarian!
  
• New Stage Coach upgrade tree: higher level heroes to recruit!
  
• Quest Rewards: Heirloom type is no longer tied to each region. Instead, a random heirloom reward is generated for each individual quest.
  
• Heirloom Exchange: trade heirlooms in town! You lose a little in each trade, but this is a quick fix to get that upgrade you really need.
  
• Trophy Trinkets now find their way back to the hamlet after losing one. This means also means Trophy Trinkets will now reward retroactively.
  
• Changed never again buff to 50% (was 30%)
  
• Roster Size Increase: 9/12/16/20/24/28

Town upgrade pricing adjustments:

• reduced crest costs for Nomad and Survivalist
  
• reduced deed costs in blacksmith
  
• slightly increased deed costs in Stage Coach
  
• increased crest usage in most buildings by 25%
  
• added costs for new stagecoach upgrade tree

Class Changes

Highwayman

• Duelist Advance - Added Riposte
  
• Open Vein - Added Bleed Resist Debuff
  
• Wicked Slice - Increased DMG mod to +15%
  
• Increased Min Damage for L4/L5 weapons from 7/8 to 8/9
  
• HP changed from 22/26/30/34/38 to 23/28/33/38/43
  
  Arbalest
  
  • Field Dressing now always heals for 35% and has a 50% chance to heal for 50%
    
  • Blind Fire - Bonus SPD changes from 5/6/7/8/9 to 4/5/6/7/8 SPD
    
  • Now applies even on Miss
  
  Misc Fixes:
  • Added Never Again bearers to roster group when sorting by Level
    
  • Added Characters in party to be grouped up when sorting roster by activity.
    
  • Removed ability to use Firewood while in the middle of camping, thus starting a new camp. You can no longer camp, while you camp, even though you all like to camp.
    
  • Added NG+ Crest to Embark and Provisioning screens.
    
  • Added The Siren’s version of the Cove Music to the Soundtrack DLC.
    
  • Backer Heroes and Trinkets are now unique to the estate and can be reacquired after losing one.
    
  • Fix to Abominations who stayed in beast form after being teleported out of combat.
    
  • Fix to Narrator lines not playing when starting New Game +
    
  • Restored to rotation certain Narrator lines concerning treasure and sick damage.
    
  • Fixed to NG+ tutorial using wrong backgrounds.
    
  • Fixed Cursor selection issues around Party Roster on Embark/Provisions screen.
    
  • Attempt at fixing problem where secret room icon on the map disappears.
    
  • Fixed roster entry splat when looking at a hero in the guild or blacksmith.
    
  • UI polish when selecting combat/camping skills in the character screen and when selecting a hero to go into the guild/blacksmith or to display the character screen.
    
  • Added secret room scout sound.
    
  • You can no longer sell 0 value trinkets.
    
  • Fix plot quest order so crypts tutorial shows up first over other plot quests in the crypts.
    
  • Fixed Heart Attack Achievement to proc off of any death resulting from a heart attack.
    
  • Fixed “Dysfunction: Kill any boss with a party of four afflicted heroes” not counting on DD bosses.
    
  • Fix for Fungal Giant’s Confusion Spore skill chance
    

[DuckieMcduck]

highwayman buff hype

[X AE A-12]

Great job! Some much needed love coming to the HWM too!

[von Blashyrkh]

Looking good, thank you for continuuing to add to the game.

With the buffs to the Highwayman's melee skills and the weakness of his ranged attacks, the Highwayman's Buckle could use a rework. As it is now, buffing his weak skills at the expense of his better ones is something I'd never consider using.

[Lu]

I still think letting players recruit higher level heroes is an awful idea that will make players less attached to characters they invest a lot of time in, and thus greatly reduce the impact of deaths. I guess we'll see how it plays out though.

This change sounds like excessive hand-holding in response to whiners:

Trophy Trinkets now find their way back to the hamlet after losing one.

With most of the update making the default experience even easier than it already is, it would have been nice to see NG+ reworked so that players can't just breeze through it in half the time required.

[Sunwave]

*hwm buffs*
Duelist Advance - Added Riposte
*more buffs*

Holy... crap... I'm glad I took the time to level one to lvl 6 just for the sake of having one.

Also, the "trophy trinket finds its way back to hamlet" is maybe a little too kind. I mean... "gone is gone" was too harsh, but "unable to lose them at all" seems a bit wrong compared to the rest of the game. Maybe make it so they'll get added to the shamber drop list, or that you can redo the bossfight? Oh well... you can't make everyone happy, so it's fine either way. Just giving my own thoughts on it.

You can no longer camp, while you camp, even though you all like to camp.

Yo dawg, I didn't even know you could camp while you camp. Lol.

[redhookjohn]

Originally posted by Marma:

I still think letting players recruit higher level heroes is an awful idea that will make players less attached to characters they invest a lot of time in, and thus greatly reduce the impact of deaths. I guess we'll see how it plays out though.

This change sounds like excessive hand-holding in response to whiners:

Trophy Trinkets now find their way back to the hamlet after losing one.

With most of the update making the default experience even easier than it already is, it would have been nice to see NG+ reworked so that players can't just breeze through it in half the time required.

We are definitely very conscious of these changes and we would love your feedback on the system as we don't want this to make it too easy and we do want some cost going into getting high level recruits. Right now we play with the idea of them coming more laden with quirks, and we also possibly consider locking some negative quirks so they aren't these squeaky clean and unlimited resource. Please play around with it and send us your feedback on how you think that system could be useful but fair in the sense of the overall scope of the game.

[No One]

Due to the nature of RNG, players will likely still be lead around by the nose using deeds, but at least they'll be lead into different dungeons instead of the same one. I would suggest having the heirlooms per-week instead of per-quest, but that will lead to heirloom droughts, which to me seem worse overall.

Fix to Abominations who stayed in beast form after being teleported out of combat.

But no walk cycle was funny!

Really like the melee/range tension on HWM. He now trades assassination efficiency for frontline focus. Not personally sold on frontline efficiency per se, but at least he's now theoretically competitive. Fan of the less-squishiness. This does make his top class trinket even more dubious, though. On the plus side, grapeshot is still bad so that frees up a slot.

9/8

You mean 8/9?

Field Dressing now always heals for 35% and has a 50% chance to heal for 50%

Also need to do that for abandon hope, though presumably the other way around.

Fix plot quest order so crypts tutorial shows up first crypts.

Care to give writing that one another go?

[phantasmal]

Originally posted by redhookjohn:

Increased Min Damage for L4/L5 weapons from 7/8 to 9/8

^ A little typo in the OP John, it should be 8/9. Had me confused for a second.

A quick bug report: The persist.roster file in \scripts\starting_save wasn't updated for the new HWM buff, so Dismas starts with 22 HP instead of 23.

Also, HYPE! Cool changes, keep being awesome guys.

[redhookjohn]

Originally posted by shinydeath:

Due to the nature of RNG, players will likely still be lead around by the nose using deeds, but at least they'll be lead into different dungeons instead of the same one. I would suggest having the heirlooms per-week instead of per-quest, but that will lead to heirloom droughts, which to me seem worse overall.

Fix to Abominations who stayed in beast form after being teleported out of combat.

But no walk cycle was funny!

Really like the melee/range tension on HWM. He now trades assassination efficiency for frontline focus. Not personally sold on frontline efficiency per se, but at least he's now theoretically competitive. Fan of the less-squishiness. This does make his top class trinket even more dubious, though. On the plus side, grapeshot is still bad so that frees up a slot.

9/8

You mean 8/9?

Yup X_X

Fix plot quest order so crypts tutorial shows up first crypts.

Care to give writing that one another go?

Fixed

[No One]

Originally posted by Marma:

it would have been nice to see NG+ reworked so that players can't just breeze through it in half the time required.

Inherent problem with hard time limits. Very few players are challenged. Most find it either impossible or impossible to fail.

[Crazy_Cat_Gentleman]

OMG I love the HWM riposte. So much awesome!

[Sunwave]

Also added:
- New antiquarian specific trinkets. Seems quite obvious, but I thought it was worth to note it. Won't spoil what they are, though (yes, I found some already).

[Vellen]

Hey guys, does achievements still work in beta version?

[sc2819]

Thanks for your (Red Hook's) work. Specifically, I appreciate that you listened to the concerns that many of us voiced about the HWM being objectively outclassed by the GR.

The simplest change would have just been to buff his Pistol Shot damage, but I think I see why you might have chosen to take this altogether different direction - he now has a flavor distinct from the GR (whereas a Pistol Shot buff would have made the HWM and GR essentially clones of each other). Though only time will tell how these new changes affect the HWM's balance vs. the other characters, I (as with probably many others) appreciate that you gave this issue your attention.

[redhookjohn]

Originally posted by Vellentretenmert:

Hey guys, does achievements still work in beta version?

They should.

Originally posted by sc2819:

Thanks for your (Red Hook's) work. Specifically, I appreciate that you listened to the concerns that many of us voiced about the HWM being objectively outclassed by the GR.

The simplest change would have just been to buff his Pistol Shot damage, but I think I see why you might have chosen to take this altogether different direction - he now has a flavor distinct from the GR (whereas a Pistol Shot buff would have made the HWM and GR essentially clones of each other). Though only time will tell how these new changes affect the HWM's balance vs. the other characters, I (as with probably many others) appreciate that you gave this issue your attention.

Thanks for the kind words and please play around with the HWM and let us know about the skill change if its too good/not good enough. Same thing with the Antiquarian. The whole reason we want to do a short public beta before pushing it live is to collect feedback from our community. Think of it as little mini early access sessions.