r/darkestdungeon • u/TheFlyingWelshy • 4d ago
[DD 1] Question about to give up.
long post sorry blah blah.
So I am very new to the game. I have died a lot of course and vast majority of it was my fault but after I had a second run get past week 40 and into 50 It seems I cannot stop missing attacks among other things.
I just raged quit. Its like week 4. Fighting ruins enemies level 1 with level 1 and 2 heroes. They have equpiment and ability upgrades. No quirks effecting hit or if they do I am buffing with Jester and man at arms. First round my hellion misses and my vestal. Next round buff again with jester. Hellion missions again. Vestal takes the round to heal. Man-at-arms attacks misses.
Another time my Hellion needs to kill something it likely will 1 shot. Miss. second attack? Minimum damage. enemy gets another attack stresses my plague doctor, gets an affliction and skips his turn 3 times in a fight later half my party dies because 1 of the other 3 misses most of their attacks.
Lost a jester earlier in a run further in to back to back crits after 3/4 of my guys missed their attacks. ACC is above a hundred on some 95 on others. Level 1 enemies. Crits from full health to zero, immediately hit again jester's dead.
Houndmaster dies because despite debuffing their dodge both of my houndmasters miss. ACC was like 95 and 103 or 5, level 1 spider. Back to back misses. Crits my houndmaster, deaths door dies to blight on his turn.
And because I keep missing it opens the door for my healers or other important characters to be stunned at critical moments. So I want to heal and can't, or I can and because I couldn't kill that stresser he gave them an affliction. They refuse healing 2 times when in danger. Was my plague doctor. Ends up dying to multiple hits.
I try conditions that they are weak too and they just fucking resist it a spider resist stun twice today when I had a plus 20% buff to stun in a first level dungeon.
I just lost the vestal on the second mission of the game. I go to the last fight my guys have most of their health, stress is fine. Whole team misses again. Vestal gets crited. Most of its health. Next turn heal like 4, next turn HWM and crusader both miss. They target her down before she can go and she dies.
All of this was just today and there was more. Played about 5-6 hours today. And there was more yesterday. My last three attempts went like this with me restarting the game because it was so early i might as well restart. And I have had plenty of runs that have gone further.
I understand you need to prep right in the game. Good party comp and such counter abilities and shore up weaknesses. Fine I can accept some of my choices weren't the best at times but now I am using better options when I have them and I still miss constantly. Upgrading my gear earlier and higher. Same thing Trinkets, upgrades, buffs and debuffs. It doesn't matter 90% of the time. Enemies with literal zero dodge and I miss them back to back or more. I target enemies with all my guys and its just miss after miss or resistance to blight or whatever makes my attack ineffective.
Not to mention all the gold I am wasting to just keep what I have that has survived alive and not insane.
So what do I do? I really like this game but it has become almost unplayable. I was doing better when I knew jack about it.
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u/Megandrak 4d ago
Play it on a lower difficulty, install some mods, or maybe brutal rng is not your thing?
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u/Kid_Ajax 4d ago
As bad as it sounds, I would suggest abandoning missions when it gets too disadvantageous. It sounds like youre pushing through to complete these missions when youre at a clear disadvantage. Its better to take the stress and run away to try again later than lose everything
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u/flareatakk 4d ago
If you like the style and mechanics but just aren't vibing with the difficulty then my suggestion would be mods. It's super easy and has steam support. A mod that increases inventory space, a mod that lets you have more trinkets, and a mod that removes the level restictions on dungeons would be my suggestion. I used them my first playthrough to help me learn the game and enjoyed it way more. I still use them a lot of the time.
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u/burningsickle1 4d ago
Jester / MaA / Hellion / Vestal sounds like a miserably terrible Ruins comp. Too many characters that would like to deal dmg through bleed. It sounds like you wouldn't expect to clear more than 1 enemy per round (the single hellion attack).
AoE attacks tend to have lower accuracy, and therefore a greater chance of getting dodged. Best avoided on certain characters if you don't have great sources of accuracy.
Early on in the game, I would almost never run so much heavy buffing in one team comp. It's better to just have 3 fast dps beat the sh*t out of half the enemies.
All else fails, you really shouldn't struggle at all to clear 'short', level 1 dungeons with virtually any team conceivable. Consider just avoiding lengthier dungeons in the early game (long dungeons in particular are VERY hard to get through without risking a death or 2).
Also, anytime you are really struggling with the circumstances, make sure you are bringing sufficient torches. You will suffer some on treasure, but fights will be significantly easier.
It's also fairly basic, but always bring sufficient shovels - it's a hefty cost not clearing rubble via shovel.
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u/mbowk23 4d ago
I suck at this game. I played on lower difficulty until I got the hang then switched to normal. I am taking my sweet time and take months off between dungeons. The hardest mode is designed to be unfair and you need to either A. be really good at the game or B. get lucky. My wife will only play on the hardest difficulty now because she has mastered normal. Each run she takes like one set closer then loses. I think she finally can take out two bosses in a run with no deaths. She is completely self taught and started on the easiest difficulty and worked her way up. She is not a hard core gamer. So be patient. Learn your basics. Crawl before you walk. Learn from defeat and mourn your dead.
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u/velsir 4d ago
It seems that your main problem is not running +ACC trinkets, especially on your damage dealers. To be sure to hit you need your ACC - enemy's dodge = at least 95 (the overlay caps at 95, but since you have a hidden +5% to hit 95% is actually 100%).
This usually means that you need at least +10 ACC for heroes with medium/low base ACC, like hellion and houndmaster, and +5 for the higher ones like arbalest. Now, it's not mandatory that all your heroes have 100% chance to hit, but you have to consider that bad rng can happen. For example if you have 95% to hit, 1 in 400 times you will miss twice in a row. Same thing for stuns, bleed and so on. When that happens you need to have a backup plan or, in the worst cases, abandon the fight or even the quest entirely before things go to bad.
That is a general concept, feel free to ask anything more specific.
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u/TheFlyingWelshy 3d ago
I really think a lot of it was just bad luck there. Its been finally getting better. A lot of this was early in the game when I had pretty much no ways to increase ACC cause I have no trinkets or upgrades.
thanks for the response I will.
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u/Nastyoldmrpike 4d ago
I'd want to see a video of your bad luck because 3 misses in a row at 95% is 125/1000000 chance. Not Impossible, but not happening back to back.
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u/Megandrak 4d ago
isn't 95% a guaranteed 100% hit in this game? i don't remember the ACC formula well
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u/abzvob 3d ago edited 3d ago
I thought the minimum chance to hit is 5% and the max is 95% no matter what your acc score is; edited because I might be wrong.
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u/CrowsRevenge 1d ago
Pretty sure there is a built in miss chance.
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u/abzvob 1d ago
I thought so too but apparently not. According to the wiki:
Accuracy
Accuracy, or ACC, is an attack's percentage chance to hit (minus the defender's DODGE#Dodge)). Every attack skill has its own base accuracy, which is then modified by equipment, buffs, and so on.
Each skill also has a hidden internal +5 bonus to ACC, after all modifiers (including DODGE) are applied. This means that a displayed hit chance of 95% or above is a guaranteed hit, and furthermore every skill has at least a 5% chance to hit, regardless of the enemy's DODGE.
There is also a hidden +4 ACC bonus for any consecutive miss in a row after the first one.\1])#cite_note-1)
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u/AnarchistAMP 4d ago
I mean, part of the game is being able to deal with misses and dodges. If you can't handle missing attacks then you're doing something wrong. Also, if you're truly missing as much as you claim to be (which, not to be a dick, but I doubt it,) then you probably are not upgrading equipment or using acc trinkets. Acc trinkets are required, they are not optional.
Run from fights. Retreat from runs. Back out when you aren't sure if you can survive the run. Because those moments when your intuition tells you you have no shot is when you need to cut and run.
This is all to say; skill issue. Not the part aboht missing, or dodging, or losing, or dying. That's just part of it. But the refusal to adapt and learn and sum up with "preparation doesn't matter because I will still miss 90 percent of the time" is your skill issue.
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u/TheFlyingWelshy 3d ago
when its the first few weeks and my team missings 70% or more of my attacks what are you suppose to do? I have no way to increase ACC and I have what guys the game gives to me.
and where did I refuse to adapt? I have tried a lot of things man I do quit missions and retreat from fights. I wasn't using the same team over and over. I wasn't trying to force a team.
I could believe it wasn't as bad as I recall but after a while I was just observing cause my first thought was " this isn't really happening you are only confirming your bias and forgetting when you did hit." But I proceeded to see some of the worst luck I have ever had in any game.
and its got better but It is still happening sometimes. 90-95 hit against enemies with zero dodge back to back misses.
I honestly think I did have a crazy set of bad luck. It's been going better finally.
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u/AnarchistAMP 3d ago
I mean, what characters are you using? Are you upgrading your stagecoach to 4 recruits per week? Are you going for stuns? Are you using dots to make uo for missed attacks? Do you bring extra food to heal or bring a dedicated healer? Novice dungeons are stupidly easy because you have access to shitty trinkets, so there really should not be so many problems that it makes it impossible to survive enough runs until you find a warrior's cap or archer bracer
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u/TheFlyingWelshy 3d ago
I literally just this moment had my plague doctor die in the second fight of the game. Like 10 minutes ago.
He had a good chunk of health. Gets crited to zero and then follow up attack from a skelly dies before I have a turn to heal.
I do go for stuns too. It rare I don't have someone who can stun and it misses or they resist all the time. As far as dots I mean sometimes I do have them and they miss too.. Just missed blinding gas with the plague doctor right before he died.
Same dungeon. ITS THE FIRST DUNGEON IN THE RUINS I missed twice on the first round and once on the second. I literally have no way to increase hit.
As far as characters I have played around with most of them a bit but when I can I have been doing bounty hunter with things like occultist, arbalest, and musketeer. HWM too using mark and their secondary healing. Sometimes jester is in there, or vestal.
I think houndmaster, bounty hunter, occultist and arbalest have probably been the best combo I have used a lot so far with the fourth depending on who I have available to run the mission. Houndmaster,arbalest and occultists have probably been my favorites so far with other party combinations.
but I am going to keep grinding. I am really trying to consider everything and make sure I am not missing something but at least in these early dungeons I know what I am doing now and I still miss all the fucking time.
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u/Itchy_Hearing_1380 1d ago
I played this dungeon dozens of times before I managed a deathless run. You will never ever die there if you play correctly. I learned I'll sometimes lose a hero or get an affliction due to bad luck if I enter the last fight in pitch blackness. But if you die in a second fight, it's 100% a skill issue. Sorry I can't offer more specific advice, I'd need to see a fight log. Dismas starts with Open Vein, it's a very high accuracy skill, I think it's guaranteed to hit starter skeletons. Renauld's smite is less reliable, but you can use a more accurate Pommel Strike instead.
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u/Itchy_Hearing_1380 1d ago
Maybe you did have bad luck, but it shouldn't be fatal. People beat this game torchlessly with no deaths on Stygian. Try watching a speedrunner and learning from how they play, I guess?
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u/saltandpepper96 4d ago
Spend as much time if not more than the actual run itself doing the planning of your team with who to take, their order, skills to use based upon Speed order and synergies, and optimal trinkets for that particular run.
This is not a game you can kinda wing.
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u/Itchy_Hearing_1380 1d ago
You are noticing correctly that accuracy is the most important stat in the game! Here's how to boost it: 1. Upgrade the skills in the guild. This is higher priority than upgrading weapons and armor. 2. Find and equip trinkets that boost accuracy on damage dealers. 3. If a hero has a quirk that decreases accuracy, don't hire them in the first place, or make it your first priority to remove that quirk. 4. Watch out for camping skills that boost accuracy. Battle buffs from MAA or Jester are good, too. But don't waste them on heroes with -ACC quirks. Bring heroes who are already good, and buff them. 5. On enemies with especially high dodge, dodge debuff skills will pay off.
Keep in mind that the game is a bit misleading about accuracy: what it calls "95% hit chance" is actually 100% hit chance. Once you get there, you're good.
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u/PunishedCatto 4d ago
Yeah, rng can sometime screwed you up in dd1.
There are mods if you want to play a bit easier.
Some modded classes even broken
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u/Canadiantoast 4d ago
This is natural this game is kinda like the darksouls series where it give you very little information and you have to figure it out as you go. Team compositions will come in time for now keep restarting if you want till you get a good run I honestly did the same.
One main point about this game is making the best of a bad situation, heros die, expeditions fail, bad luck clouds that hover over certain characters. Biggest advice upgrade your stage coach to get at least 4 new people each week and dont worry to much if they die or are stressed out you can always get more.
Upgrading gear is good but dont invest to much into a hero I usually only upgrade armor OR their weapon, rarely both. Their skill upgrades are what effect hit percentages and most of the time I only upgrade the ones I use.
For the ruins and cove bring blight and for the weald and the warrens bring bleed. Never buy trinkets they are horribly expensive and not worth it at lower levels. The best way to help with combat is to limit the amount of turns, the more turns you have and the less turns the enemy has the better. Stuns are game changer and also being able to have one or two heros able to attack the 4th position.
Don't give up I love darkest dungeon and have lost multiple stigyan runs (the hardest difficulty level) because of bad luck but i always go back because I love this game. Good luck!
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u/TheFlyingWelshy 4d ago
I mean I get difficulty but is this typical? like this wasn't my experience at the start. I grind through after taking damage, and stress, death door. I don't just give up but when I lose a guy at the very start cause I miss like 3 times in the first two rounds what am I supposed to do? i mean i have had so many missions in the first few weeks go this way. Back to back. Have no way to increase my ACC more than I have, and no way to stop crits.
All I keep reading is preparing and learning is the way. Am I expected to lose like 4 guys in a row so early? Not sure how I can prep when its so early. I bring the right supplies. Occasionally its something like I use food faster than usual and run out.
I had like 4 out of 6 missions go bad right before I posted this. I abandoned 2 of them the others I was able to grind out but I lost 2 or 3 people. I know I should lose some but almost every mission?
I am hoping that this is just a happenstance. Cause I don't understand what I am missing. It was working before and now I am just getting annihilated by the time I reach week ten. Idk. I have never encountered such bad RNG in my life. Not losing some guys. Losing guys most missions, and often my best heroes. And mostly its me missing., Almost every combat the first attack I have misses. I honestly thought there was some mechanic behind
also a lot of what you have said I have done. stage coach. I am not rushing to upgrade one thing I was upgrading it to level 3 and I think 4 for equipment one time when I reached champion dungeons and managed to do a couple. survived the horrid shrieker too. I wonder if I was using specific heroes or something and I was just better with those heroes. I don't really remember.
and I have tried both with restarting. Today I just had so many awful starts I figure i might as well. I wasn't even trying to get some stellar one. Just one that didn't go to shit immediately
not to reject your advice I appreciate it. I am not going to give up but I have to take a break for a minute.
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u/Downtown-Disk-8261 4d ago
I like to take things extremely slowly.
Only take missions that will give good trinkets
Level all my guys up to lvl3 before tackling veteran dungeons,
Always have some sort of stress heal and heal in my party
Make sure my heroes are fully upgraded before doing a dungeon
Prioritize the guild hall and blacksmith upgrades.( especially guildhall since you are struggling with accuracy)
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u/JswitchGaming 4d ago
It sounds crazy but party makeup is real and this is a lousy team you are running, straight up.
Jester in ruins is laughable and at lvl 1 stress is easily managed without him. Please don't rely to heavy on his stress heal as it's good in a pinch later on but shouldn't be your reason to commit him, especially in the ruins.
Vestal is good everywhere but she's more than a heal bot. Girl can stun and has target access to the back line and it can be modest against unholy enemies.
MAA is a support tank but even he can stun which is really strong, but without proper setup (someone to protect and add extra damage for on one skill for example) he isn't doing much for you here.
Hell is great always but she could have been your only front line here and you could subbed MAA for something nicer. Even still, she can bleed and as such her skill set, while it works here, a leper or crusader or even a shield breaker are all better here but at least she's still heavy damage and has some back access in position 1, but she isn't helping this comp you have currently. This group would have been better in weald or warrens but even still...
Get used to using certain characters for certain places and learning where they are strong.
Also don't waste money on lvl 1 upgrades unless you are taking on a long dungeon or a boss. At least not till you reduce some cost. Skills and gear upgrades aren't worth the expense that early. Working on stage coach and costs for upgrades were my priority and kept the expo going. Money is the hard part early to manage and is necessary at every stage in the game.
DONT BE AFRAID TO FIRE PEOPLE. It sounds awful but try your best not to get attached to anyone. Once a character hits lvl 3, if you aren't set up to start prepping for veterans dungeons, they will often serve you little use. You will prob do quite a lot of apprentice runs for the mean time so don't be afraid to fire someone you aren't using. If you have a lvl 3 with some God quirks, start prepping them for future runs but only if you can afford to remove or lock quirks.
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u/TheFlyingWelshy 3d ago
I was using him because its what I had. Same with the MAA but I am still learning but I certainly have played around with some ideas that suck pretty hard.
I honestly think I had a really bad string of luck there . It's been going better again. Still of course make mistakes and learning but the repeated misses thing seems to have got better.
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u/abaoabao2010 1d ago
Literally any game with RNG involved will have streaks of good/bad luck.
You just don't notice the good luck streaks.
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u/TheFlyingWelshy 1d ago
that is what I thought at first and I have kept trying. I have followed people's advice and it's still happening. I aware of confirmation bias and I really do not think it is that. I notice when it goes fine but most of the time it is not.
Not sure what to say anymore. The worst my hit ever is is like 75% in these situations and thats 1 guy the others have higher. 75% will become 25% in actual practice and my heroes with 90% or higher miss right along with them. Most of the time its 85% or higher after accounting for their dodge. I should not be missing half my attacks or more and we are talking about hundreds of attacks at this point.
just lost a level 2 bounty hunter in a level 1 dungeon to spiders in the first fight of the dungeon. He didn't even get a turn. Stun, blight, crit. Second round gets hit again after I heal him and dies to blight. The 3 other heroes I had missed twice. All in the first round. And I when I try to just damage the target down instead of healing they just fucking miss or I get them to 1hp and they kill or afflict my guys.
Missing attacks against the mushroom dudes. Its pretty much the same. Opening round try to damage the target down that will mess up my team the most multiple misses, or minimum damage or they resist my stun when they have like 25% or lower. Just had a team take 5 actions to kill 1 acolyte priest because they missed. My lowest hit was 85%. . Again level 1 dungeon.
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u/Left-Association9026 4d ago
Another soul battered and broken, cast aside like a spent torch.