Level Lockout is Bad!!

[agent8261]

Something has to be done about level lockout. I currently have a group of heroes that are level 2 and with one dungeon run they will be level 3. I'm seriously thinking about dismissing them.

If I level them, then those 4 heroes can't party with anybody else on the roster. Furthermore the dungeons selection will start to have more Veteran dungeons, reducing the variety of apprentice dungeons I can run. Leveling them increases the chance that I will have to send some group of heroes on a mission they shouldn't be running. Instead if I dismiss them, then I will be able to keep my options open and level up my town.

This feels like a really bad design.

Edit:
I am not advocating that veteran heroes run apprentice dungeons.
Let me turn off exp gain for a hero.
Lower the hero level if I go to easier dungeon.
Turn off treasure gain if levels are mixed.

However, if play the game well, a get a group of heroes to the higher levels, I should not be punished because of it. Being punished for winning is really bad design.

Edit 2:
Background, I'm on my second play thru. In the first play thru I have comps that run champion dungeons in the dark. I.E. I am familiar with game.

My decision about dismissing that group of heroes came about as result of prior experience. Let me explain.

The advantage of running higher level dungeons are better trinkets and gold. The disadvantage is higher difficulty and greater risk of death, or at least that what it should be. However, currently the way level lockouts work, the risk is more then the death of one hero. If one or more heroes die, the entire comp that depended on those heroes is broken until you can get a replacement. The higher level your heroes are, the harder & riskier it is to replace them. Of course the strategy is to level many heroes so that you can have a variety of compositions. However, that strategy can't be done until you have a huge stagecoach and have lot's good heroes to select from.

That leads to this: At week 10, is it better for me to have a split rooster of veteran and apprentices or boot the lvl 3s and have roster of composed of 0-2 level heroes? My town isn't even 20% upgraded yet. The future level 3 heroes have terrible quirks. Are trinkets and gold worth the risk carried by a split roster? They aren't so I dismissed them.

A design that leads to kicking heroes you have invested in, because you were successful at the game, is a bad design.

[Lu]

The roster size is more than enough for you to set up an A team, B team, C team, D team, etc.

Bad design would be letting players cheese their way through the game by sending level 3+ heroes into level 1 dungeons.

[Hero_Weasel]

Yeah, when youre supposed to cheese your way through with throw away zero levels running into a dungeon with no food, no torches, and fleeing when the last 2 are alive to bring you all the gold, then get a boot in the ass so you can do it with 4 new zero levels... duh.

It wouldnt be unreasonable if a heros stats/resistances, wepon/armor levels, skill levels were reduced for a lower level dungeon, but at the same time I know why they dont let you do even that.

Its so you can grind the zero levels so you can first hand experince the war of attrition against the fountains of madness present in the Darkest Dungeon!

For real tho, increase your roster size, save those guys for level 3 stuffs when everyone is ready.

[levitatingspleen]

There's nothing to stop a level two from going into a veteran dungeon, just make sure they have an assortment of trinkets, upgraded skills and weapons, and stick to short missions.

[Kerensky]

100% agree with the OP. For me, and the problem this caused where it 'split' my teams when a few members out leveled the others, made it an unacceptable problem. One of those things that is so anti-fun, to me, that I was about to uninstall the game on the spot.

Thankfully it's trivial to fix this issue! As with all modding, make back up copies of any files you alter.

1. Go to the QUEST folder for this game. Should be
Steam\steamapps\common\DarkestDungeon\campaign\quest

2. Open the file named quest.json with notepad text editor.

3. At the very bottom of the file, change the numbers so it looks like this:
I made all the numbers '99'

And that's it, no more characters being locked out! :D

As a note, make sure you don't change the formatting of the entry, unlike what you see Steam did compressing it all down. Just change the numbers!




"restriction":
{
"difficulty":
{
"comment": "This table restricts what level heroes can go on what level quest. ROWS are DIFFICULTY, COLs are QUEST LENGTH",
"resolve_level_threshold_table":
[
99,
99,
99,
99,
99,
99,
99
]

}
}
}

[agent8261]

Originally posted by Marma:

The roster size is more than enough for you to set up an A team, B team, C team, D team, etc.

Bad design would be letting players cheese their way through the game by sending level 3+ heroes into level 1 dungeons.

My complaint isn't roster size. If you have level 3 heroes, you'll be offered more level 3 dungeons. This come a the cost of level 1 dungeons. Bringing a hero lower than level 3 incurs risk.

The advantage of higher level dungeons is? Trinkets? Gold?
The disadvantage is higher difficulty. But more importantly if a member of a group dies, that comp is now broken and repairing that comp(with a new lower level member), is both risky and tedious.

So the question is, are the trinkets and gold worth the risk? No. I'm currently in week 15. More important then trinkets is town upgrades.

I dismissed the 4 heroes and 100% believe that was the right decision. However that being the right decision is really crappy design.

I don't really care about high level heroes running low level dungeon. You can drop my level to the min for that difficulty. You can let me turn off xp gain for some heroes. You can prevent treasure for generating. Whatever.

What I care about is being punished for success, which the current system does.

[Hero_Weasel]

One thing you may consider is getting your A, B, C, D teams leveling a bit and have some of the heros repeat, so you can basily have a replacement for your A/B teams incase one of them dies. This means you can level the replacement then break up C/D team as thats what they can be for basicly.

Keep in mid, your level 3 heros arnt really special yet, try to consider them more carefuly than level 0, 1 heros, but still keep the idea of them being replacable in your mind. Those level 3 dungeons are ment to be tough, but this war against madness will consume many lives, you must be ready to send them to their ends.

[Sugam]

Originally posted by Kerensky:

100% agree with the OP. For me, and the problem this caused where it 'split' my teams when a few members out leveled the others, made it an unacceptable problem. One of those things that is so anti-fun, to me, that I was about to uninstall the game on the spot.

Thankfully it's trivial to fix this issue! As with all modding, make back up copies of any files you alter.

1. Go to the QUEST folder for this game. Should be
Steam\steamapps\common\DarkestDungeon\campaign\quest

2. Open the file named quest.json with notepad text editor.

3. At the very bottom of the file, change the numbers so it looks like this:
I made all the numbers '99'

And that's it, no more characters being locked out! :D

As a note, make sure you don't change the formatting of the entry, unlike what you see Steam did compressing it all down. Just change the numbers!




"restriction":
{
"difficulty":
{
"comment": "This table restricts what level heroes can go on what level quest. ROWS are DIFFICULTY, COLs are QUEST LENGTH",
"resolve_level_threshold_table":
[
99,
99,
99,
99,
99,
99,
99
]

}
}
}

nice, so your answer is to cheat the game. thats good show of character! yup, challange is un-fun. damn pesky challange! How dare it!

[GhostMessiah]

If Level 3+ could do Apprentice Dungeons it would be far too easy to do all the Lv1 bosses.

Instead of this, I'd suggest adding the option to toggle off xp gain for certain heroes, allowing you to get a team of Lv 2 heroes and running all the bosses with them, without having them gain xp and bump up to Lv 3.

[agent8261]

Originally posted by Evil_Weasel:

One thing you may consider is getting your A, B, C, D teams leveling a bit and have some of the heros repeat, so you can basily have a replacement for your A/B teams incase one of them dies. This means you can level the replacement then break up C/D team as thats what they can be for basicly.

Keep in mid, your level 3 heros arnt really special yet, try to consider them more carefuly than level 0, 1 heros, but still keep the idea of them being replacable in your mind. Those level 3 dungeons are ment to be tough, but this war against madness will consume many lives, you must be ready to send them to their ends.

Background, I'm on my second play thru. In the first play thru I have comps that run champion dungeons in the dark. I.E. I am familiar with game.

My decision about dismissing that group of heroes came about as result of prior experience. Let me explain.

The advantage of running higher level dungeons are better trinkets and gold. The disadvantage is higher difficulty and greater risk of death, or at least that what it should be. However, currently the way level lockouts work, the risk is more then the death of one hero. If one or more heroes die, the entire comp that depended on those heroes is broken until you can get a replacement. The higher level your heroes are, the harder & riskier it is to replace them. Of course the strategy is to level many heroes so that you can have a variety of compositions. However, that strategy can't be done until you have a huge stagecoach and have lot's good heroes to select from.

That leads to this: At week 10, is it better for me to have a split rooster of veteran and apprentices or boot the lvl 3s and have roster of composed of 0-2 level heroes? My town isn't even 20% upgraded yet. The future level 3 heroes have terrible quirks. Are trinkets and gold worth the risk carried by a split roster? They aren't so I dismissed them.

A design that leads to kicking heroes you have invested in, because you were successful at the game, is a bad design.

[agent8261]

Originally posted by Sugam:

nice, so your answer is to cheat the game. thats good show of character! yup, challange is un-fun. damn pesky challange! How dare it!

A design that encourages players to cheat, is a bad design.

[agent8261]

Originally posted by Kerensky:

100% agree with the OP. For me, and the problem this caused where it 'split' my teams when a few members out leveled the others, made it an unacceptable problem. One of those things that is so anti-fun, to me, that I was about to uninstall the game on the spot.

This is has happened to me also. It's another reason why I dismissed the heroes.
Once again this punishes the player for play the game as it seems to be intended. Having a roster of many heroes means that some heroes will be used more than other. This course can lead to the <4 heroes being veterans and everyone else apprentice. That is super frustrating.

Some would advise you to just take the lower level heroes in the higher level dungeons. That basically sets you up to die, exaggerating the problem further.

[FDru]

Originally posted by agent8261:

If you have level 3 heroes, you'll be offered more level 3 dungeons.

What makes you think this? AFAIK dungeon level is what influences what missions are available (that and the RNG). The only exception being the first mission which is always a single short green one.

But yeah, the leveling system is hopelessly broken in its current state. And for what purpose? To artificially lengthen the game by having the players repeat old content again and again.

I would avoid thinking of workarounds and instead encourage thinking of ways they can fix this problem completely. Players should never be forced to delete heroes to progress. It's asinine.

[agent8261]

Originally posted by FDru:

What makes you think this? AFAIK dungeon level is what influences what missions are available (that and the RNG). The only exception being the first mission which is always a single short green one.

But yeah, the leveling system is hopelessly broken in its current state. And for what purpose? To artificially lengthen the game by having the players repeat old content again and again.

I would avoid thinking of workarounds and instead encourage thinking of ways they can fix this problem completely. Players should never be forced to delete heroes to progress. It's asinine.

I have had a roster with a party of champion heroes, party of veteran heroes and a party of newbs. During that time the embark screen contained dungeons of every level. When I dismissed one group the number of corresponding dungeons was drastically reduced.

From this I conclude that what you are offered is heavily influenced by what level of heroes you have. It might also be influenced by the level of your town and/or the dungeon progress.

[Snowfunk]

Yes, this is a real nuisance. Its hard to say what the best solution is, but a straight up lock-out, as it is now is just bad.

Obviously bringing an "Above level" hero should come with severe penalties. Imo, it would be fine if it removed Rewards, Loot & Drops altogether.
Just allow heroes of approiate levels to gain experience as normal.

It is just clearly a flaw, that you could potentially be forced to dismiss heroes in order to get room to recruit a brand new 4 hero rooster simply because you need 1 new replacement recruit.

[Baywatch]

Originally posted by agent8261:

I have had a roster with a party of champion heroes, party of veteran heroes and a party of newbs. During that time the embark screen contained dungeons of every level. When I dismissed one group the number of corresponding dungeons was drastically reduced.

From this I conclude that what you are offered is heavily influenced by what level of heroes you have. It might also be influenced by the level of your town.

I'm fairly certain this was mentioned in the patch notes for the Cove update but, yeah your roster's level composition definitely plays a huge role in what missions are available. You should also always have at least one apprentice mission available regardless.

It can feel a bit restrictive at times but, there's no reason you should need to dismiss characters in order to progress. I can say with confidence that you're given more than enough time to kill every boss with some room to spare if you take them on when they're made available.