Everyone had a heart attack and died

[DropnFbombs]

I get being difficult and all, but I'm on week 10, have not been able to completed maybe 3 levels including the tutorial. Last mission everyone had a heart attack and died. They all had about 3/4 health before that. Am I not getting something or does this game just decide you are not allowed to win? I guess I'm not seeing the point. Would be fun if it was actually winable and not just every round is a complete wash.

[Panfilo]

Stop opening curios without figuring out the proper item, letting one afflicted hero jeopardize your whole Party, and ignoring stress dealing monsters.

Early on can be tough, but to lose all four heroes to heart attacks is to practically be collaborating with the Eldrich horrors we are trying to vanquish.

[Satoru]

Note that you have 2 bars. The first is health which as it goes down you will die

The second is stress. As that goes up you will hit 2 markers

1) at 100 stress you will trigger an affliction.
2) at 200 stress your characters dies

Thus you need to not only keep your health up, but your stress down as well

[Panfilo]

Messaggio originale di Satoru:

Note that you have 2 bars. The first is health which as it goes down you will die

The second is stress. As that goes up you will hit 2 markers

1) at 100 stress you will trigger an affliction.
2) at 200 stress your characters dies

Thus you need to not only keep your health up, but your stress down as well

Correction: at 200 stress your hero reaches Deaths Door. Healing them pushes stress back to 170, giving you a bit of a 'second chance'.

To die from a heart attack, you'd need to hit 200 stress while at Deaths Door.

If your hero hits 100 stress and gets afflicted, you have to start making strategic decisions, because they might inadvertently commit suicide or verbally abuse their allies to insanity. Better to flee the dungeon then lose heroes to heart attacks.

[DuckieMcduck]

I had to abandon a bunch of quests at the start and have failed only once since then, when I unknowingly triggered some boss fight with a rookie squad. I'm at Week 22 now and I've only killed the Siren so far.

If your squad is about to break you should know better than to keep on trucking forward. Fall back with your loot and get new seekers so you can establish an economy to cater to your veteran troops with.

[🎃MaximusBlastalot🎃]

I like how becus you are unable to do something the game is "unwinable" and not becus the games final level isnt out yet.

[DropnFbombs]

Messaggio originale di MaximusBlastalot:

I like how becus you are unable to do something the game is "unwinable" and not becus the games final level isnt out yet.

Can't get to the final level anyway if teams just randomly die for no reason. I'll give it another shot, but if I could make one suggestion it would be to teach players the stress system through the tutorial. As is it makes no sense and is pretty much a "screw you, you can't win no matter how hard you try" mechanic that is more about frustration than anything else. I get that people freak out at 100 but they can get 30+ stress or whatever for next to no reason because your guys just start freaking out over nothing. No one gets tougher as time goes they all just get insane PTSD the second they get hired out of that wagon which has apparently been feeding them nothing but lard for months.

Anyway I'll give it another shot and try to figure out where that meter is (I figured a mechanic so important that it will kill you before you run out of HP would have a clearly defined meter but it was never covered in the tutorial). Hopefully the next group doesn't have clogged arteries and wasn't completely sheltered their whole lives to the point where being outside causes massive anxiety.

[Mr.M]

The stress bar is right under your health bar - its white.

My suggestion: A crusader got a skill that can heal stress (others can heal stress too, but most only on themselves), the houndmaster too as far as i know. Keep 1 weak enemy alive and try to stun him for 2-3 rounds and heal your stress. (not too long as your team will suffer 5-8 stress if it takes you too long to kill the enemy and soon after that reinforcements arrive)

As soon as 1 hero gets an affliction things get really bad, because he adds your team even more stress. I suggest to flee from battle and abort a mission as soon as 2 heroes got a negative affliction.

[Demonic Spoon]

Can't get to the final level anyway if teams just randomly die for no reason. I'll give it another shot, but if I could make one suggestion it would be to teach players the stress system through the tutorial. As is it makes no sense and is pretty much a "screw you, you can't win no matter how hard you try" mechanic that is more about frustration than anything else. I get that people freak out at 100 but they can get 30+ stress or whatever for next to no reason because your guys just start freaking out over nothing. No one gets tougher as time goes they all just get insane PTSD the second they get hired out of that wagon which has apparently been feeding them nothing but lard for months.

It's always funny to me when people argue that the game is impossible because teams randomly die for no reason when there are tons of us who do not lose teams, let alone "randomly and for no reason". There are plenty of people with full rosters of maxed-out heroes waiting for the Darkest Dungeon to be released. How, exactly, do you explain their existence if the game randomly kills off parties with no possibility of counterplay?

[DropnFbombs]

Messaggio originale di Demonic Spoon:

Can't get to the final level anyway if teams just randomly die for no reason. I'll give it another shot, but if I could make one suggestion it would be to teach players the stress system through the tutorial. As is it makes no sense and is pretty much a "screw you, you can't win no matter how hard you try" mechanic that is more about frustration than anything else. I get that people freak out at 100 but they can get 30+ stress or whatever for next to no reason because your guys just start freaking out over nothing. No one gets tougher as time goes they all just get insane PTSD the second they get hired out of that wagon which has apparently been feeding them nothing but lard for months.

It's always funny to me when people argue that the game is impossible because teams randomly die for no reason when there are tons of us who do not lose teams, let alone "randomly and for no reason". There are plenty of people with full rosters of maxed-out heroes waiting for the Darkest Dungeon to be released. How, exactly, do you explain their existence if the game randomly kills off parties with no possibility of counterplay?

That's why I asked if I was missing something. Apparently I'm missing something really big because I just tried again and by room 3 or a 6 room area one guy is already fully insane and by the time I had to run from room 5 one died and that is it, another failure, 0 for 6 now I believe. I think I'm just going to do a refund. The stress mechanic makes no sense and since there is apparently no way to lower stress other than one skill on one guy from what I've seen I'd say the mechanic is unfair and pointless. They need to explain this better before they release or do something to make it reasonable. A challenge is one thing but randomly losing people to a mechanic which just demolishes teams and cannot be stopped is pointless.

[Panfilo]

There are many ways to heal stress. In the Ruins (which I figure you are still stuck on) you can do the following:
Confession Booth: Use Holy water, and the selcted hero loses 30 stress.
Pristine Fountain: Use Holy water, and the hero heals 20% and loses 20 stress I believe.

The Crusader's Inspiring Cry reduces stress, but there are several other heroes that have abilities that reduce stress:
Leper's Withstand (reduces stress to self and adds protection)
Houndmaster's Cry Havoc (chance to reduce stress to entire party)
Jester's Inspiring Tune (can target one party member, including himself)
Abomination's Absolution (heals and stress heals himself)

Other little things that reduce stress:
-When a hero kills a monster, he sometimes loses a bit of stress
-Dealing a critical hit will lower stress to himself and has a chance to lower stress of 1-3 other party members
-Disarming a trap reduces 8 stress. Entering rooms has a chance to scout ahead, any traps revealed become visible and heroes have a % chance to disarm them. This is a good way to lower stress.
-If a hero hits 100 stress, they have a low chance of becoming Virtuous, getting several buffs, becoming immune to heart attacks, and losing a ton of stress. Several Virtues, such as Courageous, will have the hero lower stress of other heroes at random.

[LaserGuy]

Messaggio originale di DropnFbombs:

Messaggio originale di Demonic Spoon:

It's always funny to me when people argue that the game is impossible because teams randomly die for no reason when there are tons of us who do not lose teams, let alone "randomly and for no reason". There are plenty of people with full rosters of maxed-out heroes waiting for the Darkest Dungeon to be released. How, exactly, do you explain their existence if the game randomly kills off parties with no possibility of counterplay?

That's why I asked if I was missing something. Apparently I'm missing something really big because I just tried again and by room 3 or a 6 room area one guy is already fully insane and by the time I had to run from room 5 one died and that is it, another failure, 0 for 6 now I believe. I think I'm just going to do a refund. The stress mechanic makes no sense and since there is apparently no way to lower stress other than one skill on one guy from what I've seen I'd say the mechanic is unfair and pointless. They need to explain this better before they release or do something to make it reasonable. A challenge is one thing but randomly losing people to a mechanic which just demolishes teams and cannot be stopped is pointless.

You aren't randomly losing people. You're losing people because you are a new player and don't know what you're doing yet. There's nothing wrong with that. But if you think that what is happening is random, then there's no way for you to actually fix the problem. It's not random. There is definitely some RNG in this game, but stress management has very little to do with the RNG.

Here's some tips for how to deal with stress...
-Pay attention to stress levels at all times. This includes in the town. A hero with >50 stress should definitely not start a mission. Above 30 is dicey. You can pay to get stress reduced, though at this point in the game, unless you have a few heroes you really like, you may be better off just recruiting new ones. Be aware that level 0 heroes take a stress penalty on their first mission though, so it's better to use veteran recruits if you can.

-You should consider abandoning a mission if even one hero gets 100 stress. Definitely if two do. Having all four heroes afflicted should really never happen. Getting a heart attack should really never happen either, for that matter.

-Always. Always. Always. Attack monsters from right to left. The monsters that do stress damage are usually hiding in the back row. You need to kill these guys ASAP. This may mean fiddling with party composition (ditch the Crusader and the Leper, grab a Helion, Grave Robber, Arbalest, Houndmaster etc.), or using characters that can manipulate enemy ranks (Bounty Hunter, Occultist). This is essential.

-Kill is better than disable, disable is better than heal. Healing in DD is hard. Especially before you have bonus healing trinkets, it's usually hard to keep up with the damage enemies do. Instead, you should focus on wiping the enemy as quickly as you can. If you bring a Vestal, she should be stunning for the first couple rounds, and only heal when the enemy is mostly killed or in emergencies. Ditto for stress relief in battle--it's almost never worth using except maybe right near the end of a fight.

-Don't use random curios. Curios usually give better results when activated by an item. You might need to look this up, or do some trial-and-error (they're fairly intuitive).

-Don't be afraid of medium/long missions. These missions allow you to camp, where you can treat stress or get some nice buffs. Long missions are a bit intimidating to start, but medium aren't too bad.

-The Ruins is the easiest area, so focus your attention early on there. Cove is the hardest, and the heirlooms there are the least useful, so don't spend too much time there until later.

-Don't be afraid to run from battle. You'll take a stress penalty for doing it, but it's better than getting wiped. You can even run from bosses (though some bosses can capture a character, and if you run while they're captured, it's a death).

-Keep a well lit torch. You are less likely to get ambushed and take less stress damage.

-If all else fails, you can fiddle with the options and disable heart attacks, weaken enemy crits, etc.

[Mr.M]

I actually described several ways to heal stress in my post...?

[Panfilo]

People get frustrated, because the game has a bit of a learning curve. However, I do not think that should dismay people. I wasted a ton of items experimenting with curios ("Hmm, Iron Maiden, maybe I can pry it open with a shovel? Oh, nope. Ok, Holy water? That worked on other things...nope, not that either. Antivenom? Maybe the spikes are poisonious? No, that didn't work. Herbs? Oh, Herbs work! Cool!" and burned through a lot of heroes early game. That didn't discourage me, and I love the game and all its brutal randomness at times.

When things are dire, you celebrate every little victory, boon, and strike of good fortune. Even the Narrator says "A trifling victory, but a victor nontheless"!

[DropnFbombs]

Thanks for the help all. I still can't get anywhere and have taken to just buying, using, and firing teams since I can't get anyone to level 1 anyway. I think I'm understanding the system a bit better, but this is still pretty brutal. It's kind of fun but I don't see a lasting appeal. The thing that makes games like BOI, Darksouls, and Rogue Legacy entertaining is that while they are hard you still progress and build up despite your losses. I feel I'm on a tredmill here rather than getting anywhere. Games kinda fun, a bit addicting, but pretty ridiculous. Maybe another crazy person will mumble another of my guys into a heart attack because difficult.

[HoneyDrake]

Messaggio originale di jerjare:

Correction: at 200 stress your hero reaches Deaths Door. Healing them pushes stress back to 170, giving you a bit of a 'second chance'.

To die from a heart attack, you'd need to hit 200 stress while at Deaths Door.

If your hero hits 100 stress and gets afflicted, you have to start making strategic decisions, because they might inadvertently commit suicide or verbally abuse their allies to insanity. Better to flee the dungeon then lose heroes to heart attacks.

wrong, you dont need to have "deaths door" active, you just die, redo the tutorial, it got changed some time, if i am correct.

and yeah, +virtue can help you getting sth positive out of high stress, its sometimes one of the highest gambles i took, and it played out well, though i wont do it again