KickStarter Darkest Dungeon Pre-Release Thread

[MasterSmithFandango]

Make camping something you can do more, but make it more dangerous (more ambushes, and more difficult ambushes along with the increased mortality).

Also, maybe make it so if you defeat a boss with a crew, you can't use that crew for that dungeon anymore - make the trait Ruinsphobe prevent them from being used on Ruins runs totally or some shit. I don't know just thinking out loud.

 

[agris]

Like for example, you can pay a fairly cheap price to unlock any of the three abilities a character didn't start with or easily remove negative quirks.

This is actually an unsustainable route if you have much churn in your ranks at all. Unlocking the other 3 skills is ~3k gold, remove one negative trait, that's another 1.5k. Lets just say that the average cost of a fully tweaked new level 0 character is 3k. You can go broke quickly by customizing all your new recruits, which to me doesn't make it a very good strategy.

If you don't want to be constantly pouring money down the drain, you need to keep an eye on the stagecoach for those rookies that have favorable traits, not horrible quirks (lockjaw, syphillis, slow draw, etc), and a workable default skill loadout. I won't customize anything on them, take them on a run to get to level 1 and if they don't get a bad affliction or quirk, then I'll slowly build them out with armor, skills, etc. If they get a bad affliction or quirk, I'm probably gonna dismiss them like JM said.

Hell, if anything it's kinda recommended to dismiss members of the party who's mental afflictions make them too much of a liability and they're not worth the money it'd cost to have them removed by an asylum visit.

Using your method Gozma, you can easily dump 3k into a level 0 rookie that gets lockjaw after their first mission, where you either pay 1.5k to remove it or dismiss your 3k investment. In my first campaign I was over-investing in rookies too, until I realized it was contributing to my cash problems and restarted.

It's crueler this way, picking them fresh off the stagecoach and dropping into a mission without any investment and discarding them if they break, but to me it feels more authentic (and makes more sense).

 

[Matalarata]

I have good hopes for the game. It's one of the most solid EAcces titles I've seen, robust and very playable from the get go.. It can be turned in a true roguelike just by tweaking the economy imho, what agris wrote is correct, atm it's still a bit cheapish to unlock skills, but if you try "optimizing" your team from level 0 you will just tear a big hole in your economy.

The biggest problem is how cheap it is to replenish your forces, that and they need to implement some town event. As it is you cannot lose progress once you unlock buildings, you can suffer setbacks and inability to advance but in the end you can salvage any situation. If you had an incentive to explore faster you would be forced to manage what you have at it's best...

 

[agris]

I have good hopes for the game. It's one of the most solid EAcces titles I've seen, robust and very playable from the get go.. It can be turned in a true roguelike just by tweaking the economy imho, what agris wrote is correct, atm it's still a bit cheapish to unlock skills, but if you try "optimizing" your team from level 0 you will just tear a big hole in your economy.

The biggest problem is how cheap it is to replenish your forces, that and they need to implement some town event. As it is you cannot lose progress once you unlock buildings, you can suffer setbacks and inability to advance but in the end you can salvage any situation. If you had an incentive to explore faster you would be forced to manage what you have at it's best...

I wonder how it would play if the upper tiers of building upgrades were gated behind advancing your own PCs. The PCs advancement could be measured by their ability to kill the different level minibosses. A miniboss could drop a unique item that unlocks a given tier of upgrade advancement on a per-building basis. Kill the apprentice necromancer to upgrade the monastery beyond 1 tick, etc, the hag for the tavern, etc. This could be messaged to the player by the Caretaker's log.

Town events, similar to X-COM's base defense mission, where you have to defend the Hamlet against invading Monsters/Eldrich Horrors/Tax Accountants could introduce the dynamic for upgraded buildings to get damaged (regress a level from their upgraded state), making the path to maxxed out everything more variable.


edit:

Spoiler

Achievement Unlocked: Postcount of the Beast. How appropriate.

 

[Luzur]

But, why become an adventurer if you cant handle it?

 

[Thor Kaufman]

Through the weald I ride, musket by my side

 

[Ellef]

Any games like DD that you can recommend? (apart from X-com)

 

[Unkillable Cat]

I am very intrigued by this game, but $20 for an unfnished game that won't let me redefine my keys (let alone tell me what keys do what) is a no-no.

I plan to buy it when it's ready - whenever that is.

 

[toro]

I am very intrigued by this game, but $20 for an unfnished game that won't let me redefine my keys (let alone tell me what keys do what) is a no-no.

I plan to buy it when it's ready - whenever that is.

Good choice. The game is good right now but it has the potential to be great in the end.

 

[Ellef]

Always a good choice to wait till release. Early access is for those who fail their will saves.

 

[Renegen]

Always a good choice to wait till release. Early access is for those who fail their will saves.

Any games like DD that you can recommend? (apart from X-com)

Looks like you're about to fail yours too...

 

[Ellef]

I failed mine on release date. Unfortunately I'm done with it for now.

 

[Jasede]

As I said, 10 hours, or even 20, for $20 is a pretty damn good deal. And if we assume this game will get more and more content added over time, and perhaps soon have more classes and tighter balancing, I would think it was an excellent way to spend your money.

The real challenge is to remember that you own the game one year from now, so you can enjoy all the new cool stuff!

 

[MisterStone]

So this game is basically Monsters' Den but with more character variety and a "stress" mechanic?

Good enough...

 

[tuluse]

oasis789 you are doing god's sgc_meltdown's work.

 

[agris]

Based on some very rough calculations, it looks like Red Hook has taken in at least $80k since the start of Early Access. That's going off the max concurrent number of players, assuming 100% of EA-eligible KS backers are playing, that 1600 of the 3200 non-EA backers upgraded to EA access for $5 (making a $20 sale a $5) and taking Valve's 30% cut into account.

So that's not very much cash, but to be fair they have probably taken in 2-4x that. That's ~4+ months of poverty-salary for the devs, or ~2 months of regular salary. Not bad.

 

[Renevent]

How are you doing these calculations? They had 13K+ concurrent players at its peak...so at minimum that's 13K+ players. The kickstarter showed 3186 kickstarters that weren't early access so...

At least 10K are pure EA sales (or the original $20+ KS EA tier), which at $14 a pop (minus Steam fees) is something like $140,000 dollars. Even if all of the rest are kickstarter upgrades, at $3.50 (is there more steam fess for the $5 upgrade?) that's another $11K bringing it up to over $150K.

The reality is that concurrent numbers are probably a third of total sales, maybe even less. I'd wager they've sold 20 or 30 thousand copies of the game since EA launched.

*edit*

Kinda of interesting...but Divinity:Original Sin sold something like 500K copies by September 2014, and Steam shows at best it had 20K concurrent players.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divinity:_Original_Sin

http://steamcharts.com/app/230230

I think it's a pretty safe bet to say they've made considerable more than $80K off of EA.

 

[Gozma]

The conservative estimate for a game without long legs is generally supposed to be 10x max concurrent

I'd say 1.5 mil to 2 mil gross after Steam's cut for EA. Plus whatever second surge they get on the post-EA release, plus steam sale shit eventually. Plus they'll probably sell the same on Playstation shit. Plus a useful IP. DD made money. Have a real prototype and spend a lot of money upfront for art for your kickstarter, it will pay you back. The quality of your design matters for your second game, not your first.

 

[agris]

How are you doing these calculations? [...]
I think it's a pretty safe bet to say they've made considerable more than $80K off of EA.

13,240 concurrent EA players, 6,453 KS backers who automatically get Early Access. I assumed of the 3,186 backers who don't get EA, half them opted for the $5 upgrade to get it (this is a very conservative estimate, probably ~10% or less converted to EA).

With those assumptions: 8,046 of the 13,240 concurrent players are from the KS. This means 5,194 players bought the EA at $19.99, which is $72,679 after Valve's 30% cut. Now add in the $5 per upgrade for those 1600 users and you get $80k.

What's so hard about that? Like I said, I think my estimate is a factor of 2 to 4 fold below what they made. If you assume only 10% of those non-EA backers upgraded to EA-access, then Red Hook would net $92k by the same calculations.

I think 1.5 to 2 mil is overly optimistic.


edit: for the mathematically challenged, I think they got $160k to $320k from early access.

 

[Black]

thread title inaccurate. game is not a roguelike.

Shouldn't you be selling sleeper accounts with gd access to newfags?

 

[Renevent]

Nothing is that hard, I didn't consider the higher tiers also included EA so understand where you are coming from on that. I still think you are off, considering some of the examples (like Divinity and it's sales/concurrency) but obviously not all games sell/are played exactly the same. I'd be willing to bet they've made near a million dollars off of EA though.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

Mega Milk Hellion

Spoiler

Wrong red headed boobular barbarian.

 

[Lios]

Nice game.
Visuals are Mignola influenced which is a step in the right direction.
Sounds are efficient, the narrator is my new favorite man.
Seriously I almost came in my pants when I heard "These creatures can be fought can be felt they can be defeated!" after I won my first dungeon bout and I still never tirre to hear it again and again/

Levelling system is efficient too, yet uninspired.
Also, quirks and pros are a bit too random.
Battles are mostly fast paced (for a turn and base game...)
though I would still like a button to fast forward or skip the animations entirelly
It's a game that rewards recklesness in most parts, of course,
but in order to play it I need to hold a boot in my hand
and start hitting the desk or the wall with rage every time another enemy pulls 2 criticals one after another out of his ass.

 

[Metro]

Re: sales revenue - Keep in mind the top selling list on Steam is ranked in dollars not units. This is why you typically see AAA schlock up there and it's all the more impressive when $20 indie games hit the top.

 

[Metro]

Them /vg/ folks are really lewd.

Spoiler