Campaign really hard?

[chris160972 / bunkertor7]

Hi, i play now for 17 hours and the game is very good. I played the tutorial, the first 3-4 missions with not much injuries in my "Bloody Butchers" Mercenary Warband. Then i thought it is time for Act 1-1 in the main campaign and it was a desaster :-). Am I just too bad or is the campaign really hard? Now after 12 missions i have LV 3 Warriors, LV4 Leader and 2 LV2 Heroes and a better equipment.

[Darth Cannabis]

In short, campaign missions can be hard.

In long the reasons why a campaign mission can be hard varies.

Most have infinite reinforcements after killing the initial enemies (the library and finite demon amount there is the main exception), so if you do not focus on the task at hand, you will eventually lose thru attrition.

Nearly all have that one impressive enemy, whether you bring one or not. For early rank warbands that lack one, that can be a difficult obstacle.

Inventory management confusions. If your looting the enemies, map, and trying to do objectives, it can sometimes be easy to lose track of that key item related to the objective.

Protecting your leader (not the warband one, the leader leader). If they go out of action, its an auto rout. This however can also be your get out free card, and will be the 1st thing covered on what can be done.

Which brings me squarely to what the player can do, that helps them. As promised 1st is that Dramatis Personae, which when they fall ends the mission. However, the rout at that point will be with no further loses (your standing units are safe, only those that actual fell will go thru injury rolls). If you ever want to get out intact, simply sacrifice them.

The fixed rating of missions, is to the players benefit. Since they will not increase based on your current warband like regular missions, and won't go anywhere you can outrank them if all else fails. There is nothing wrong with putting them off until later, and I often suggest waiting until rank 5 (when you get your impressive) before even doing the 1st, as at that point the kills it will get off the weaker reinforcements will be a nice initial leveling bonus, and it can help even the odds as far as the one in mission.

Inventory management, I highly suggest hereos and that persona cover objective items, while hench do basic looting. Since your heroes and leaders have more sp, they can cover more ground, and you will be in and out sooner as far as completing your goals. Main thing thou is to keep track what is where. Have those designated barrel carriers, and keep track of who is frontline, who is transport.

[Paranoia]

Originally posted by chris160972 / bunkertor7:

Then i thought it is time for Act 1-1 in the main campaign and it was a desaster :-).

Depends. At what point did it all go south?

Generally speaking, the first act (first four Story Missions) will be somewhat easy, and the second act (latter four) will be pretty damn hard.
Library will be the (relatively) hardest of them the first time, after which it is the easiest of them all, since it has no reinforcements and the main difficulty of navigation becomes a non-issue.

Generally speaking, doing the first Act Story Missions within a wekk of them appearing should keep them about the correct difficulty vs. rewards, assuming no major setbacks in Warband progression. The Second Act one may want to wait until Rank 8+ before one attempts them.

[chris160972 / bunkertor7]

Originally posted by Darth Cannabis:

In short, campaign missions can be hard.

In long the reasons why a campaign mission can be hard varies.

Most have infinite reinforcements after killing the initial enemies (the library and finite demon amount there is the main exception), so if you do not focus on the task at hand, you will eventually lose thru attrition.

Nearly all have that one impressive enemy, whether you bring one or not. For early rank warbands that lack one, that can be a difficult obstacle.

Inventory management confusions. If your looting the enemies, map, and trying to do objectives, it can sometimes be easy to lose track of that key item related to the objective.

Protecting your leader (not the warband one, the leader leader). If they go out of action, its an auto rout. This however can also be your get out free card, and will be the 1st thing covered on what can be done.

Which brings me squarely to what the player can do, that helps them. As promised 1st is that Dramatis Personae, which when they fall ends the mission. However, the rout at that point will be with no further loses (your standing units are safe, only those that actual fell will go thru injury rolls). If you ever want to get out intact, simply sacrifice them.

The fixed rating of missions, is to the players benefit. Since they will not increase based on your current warband like regular missions, and won't go anywhere you can outrank them if all else fails. There is nothing wrong with putting them off until later, and I often suggest waiting until rank 5 (when you get your impressive) before even doing the 1st, as at that point the kills it will get off the weaker reinforcements will be a nice initial leveling bonus, and it can help even the odds as far as the one in mission.

Inventory management, I highly suggest hereos and that persona cover objective items, while hench do basic looting. Since your heroes and leaders have more sp, they can cover more ground, and you will be in and out sooner as far as completing your goals. Main thing thou is to keep track what is where. Have those designated barrel carriers, and keep track of who is frontline, who is transport.

Thanks, i had exactly this in my mission.... i waste time to loot some enemies, then not enough space for the gunpowder barrels, one impressive enemys and i lost my dramatis personae. But now i make it better

[kriscardiac]

Originally posted by chris160972 / bunkertor7:

But now i make it better

That's the spirit!

I would add that as your warband improves, the rating of the Story Missions will go from Deadly to Normal, but even at Normal the reinforcements will often make it tough,
And there's always some big, fugly, enemy unit waiting for you.

Enjoy!

[Rodfather]

Give urself an extra 300-400 pts cushion above the storyline mission rating

[chris160972 / bunkertor7]

Originally posted by kriscardiac:

Originally posted by chris160972 / bunkertor7:

But now i make it better

That's the spirit!

I would add that as your warband improves, the rating of the Story Missions will go from Deadly to Normal, but even at Normal the reinforcements will often make it tough,
And there's always some big, fugly, enemy unit waiting for you.

Enjoy!

Yes, or a big, fugly dice roll streak :-) but thats good.... you can be overpowered as hell, 2 ♥♥♥♥♥♥ dice rolls and the whole warband can be doomed. I had a really good warband in DARKEST DUNGEON too, all went fine and then the thief got panic and shoot my healer in the back, my tank got a heartattack and my crit dealer runs away... xD

[Zorlond]

Originally posted by Rodfather:

Give urself an extra 300-400 pts cushion above the storyline mission rating

Personally, I find this a little extreme of a padding, but whatever fits your preferences. It's also not possible to have that much padding in the late Act 2 missions, their values are just too high.

I always go on story missions once my points are high enough that the difficulty rating of the mission reaches 'Normal'. This can be as little as 10% or less higher than your warband's points. You can see the mission point value up at the top right before you accept it.

[chris160972 / bunkertor7]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

Originally posted by Rodfather:

Give urself an extra 300-400 pts cushion above the storyline mission rating

Personally, I find this a little extreme of a padding, but whatever fits your preferences. It's also not possible to have that much padding in the late Act 2 missions, their values are just too high.

I always go on story missions once my points are high enough that the difficulty rating of the mission reaches 'Normal'. This can be as little as 10% or less higher than your warband's points. You can see the mission point value up at the top right before you accept it.

First mission was no problem now :-) ....i had only wait and grind a bit, now i am ready for 1-2 :-D

[Warlord]

Originally posted by chris160972 / bunkertor7:

Hi, i play now for 17 hours and the game is very good. I played the tutorial, the first 3-4 missions with not much injuries in my "Bloody Butchers" Mercenary Warband. Then i thought it is time for Act 1-1 in the main campaign and it was a desaster :-). Am I just too bad or is the campaign really hard? Now after 12 missions i have LV 3 Warriors, LV4 Leader and 2 LV2 Heroes and a better equipment.

Go look at the global achievement rate of this game. Yes it's brutal, far more brutal than any Dark Souls game.

[Zorlond]

Originally posted by Warlord:

Go look at the global achievement rate of this game. Yes it's brutal, far more brutal than any Dark Souls game.

Well, Completionist (beat Act 2 with all four initial warbands) is definitely one of the rarest achevies on Steam at under 0.1%. But I suspect it might be because of how long it takes to do that, plus how unforgiving some of the warbands are. Chaos is the rarest warband to complete Act 2, tied with completing Act 1 with all four initial warbands. Which is to be expected, since the whole mechanic of random mutations can completely bork a character with no warning or recourse, and straight up cannot be avoided (you're gonna get xp sooner or later).

[Bloodscape]

Most people don't discover how to manipulate the game to the point of gaining tons of gold way before the snowball of wyrdstone happens. It also doesn't help that game doesn't advertise that you can start a Warband Rank 5 once Veteran Rank 5 is achieved.

Starting a game with a leader, impressive and a couple henchmen and rotating that with new ones really becomes efficient at huge amounts of gold. This helps with chaos and buying those with mutations already set.

[kriscardiac]

Originally posted by Zorlond:

Well, Completionist (beat Act 2 with all four initial warbands) is definitely one of the rarest achevies on Steam at under 0.1%. But I suspect it might be because of how long it takes to do that,

That made me think of two things.
I'm not as quick-witted as I used to be, and it would take me dozens of hours to learn the timing, and movements, to play Dark Souls well enough to enjoy it.
Not that I intend to.
I'm also patient enough to have sat through a lot of looting animations (I'll guess approximately 10-15 per hour of playtime) and not been inclined to stop playing.
So the achievement levels might be best compared to other games that have people playing 1000's of hours without getting 100%'s (if there is any value in comparison, which I am not certain there is).
That said, the campaigns and the other long-term achievements do give short term aims to vary your game play experience, if you so wish (which I do).
Finally, Cult 2-4 was definitely one of my favourite Story Missions, but it was the hardest (longest grind) to get to.

[Reaver79]

Originally posted by kriscardiac:

Finally, Cult 2-4 was definitely one of my favourite Story Missions, but it was the hardest (longest grind) to get to.

Easiest mission ever... Ok maybe i had some luck the first time i got to it, the manticore did a breath (wich is a spell) and got hit with the 9999 dmg curse.. easy..

[kriscardiac]

Manticore is Sisters 2-4.
Cult 2-4 has Maidens as reinforcements.

[Reaver79]

wich cult one is it with the constant flow of plaguebearers then ? Also has the manticore on that one.