Dark and Darker

Xevy said:

It's weird because there's some player base that LOVES the high end PVE bosses and wants all the orange loots and shit and then there's the base I belong to who just wants to go into a game with shit gear, hopefully kill people, loot some stuff, and come out with better gear. I understand why they have a market, but I hate the idea of people just going in, pulling out 100-200 gold and saving up for some market gear, THEN going into some game full of Default Dannies and killing one or two without any challenge then taking the first portal out to save their precious purplez.

I wish there was a zero to hero mode that was maybe more than one round where you could go in default, loot or kill other people for what they found, then go deeper. The Catacombs are kind of like that but the reality is Red Portals are for people with the right comp, 12 healing items, and/or omega gear. People one shotting Demon Dogs is a world of difference than 7 shotting them and potentially losing 75% of your hp to one hit.

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I agree with you, the design is a little strange... but I'm having a good time just being a Goblin Greenie so I'm not super concerned about it. I'll play until I stop having fun.

Anyone still playing this?

My trio keeps getting whallop'd especially as we're 15+ now by teams full of blues + that we can hardly even touch. It feels kinda unfair but I'm not sure what they could do about it.

They definitely need to do a matchmaking balance somehow. Ilvl vs level vs character exp, I don't know, but it's pretty needed. Having a dude with a purple weapon two shot anyone in the game versus the casuals trying to come up with their grey weapons is pretty rough.

I'd honestly love a SSF type ladder as well. Some people just make a rogue, rat out 5k gold in goblin cave/solo ruins etc and then buy a bunch of crazy shit for their fighters/warlocks and truck everyone. Nothing wrong with that, but I like gearing myself with shit I've found personally. Knowing you can just get some shitter warlock +magic healing item, flip it for 400 gold and buy whatever weapon you want feels icky to me.

Also Warlocks are absolutely fucked. At the low end they're terrible. Absolutely awful. At the high end, with a decent amount of +magic healing they're gods. It's ridiculous. Healing 30-50hp in 5 seconds constantly while damaging. Nuts.

I like the idea of this game, and the loot system, but I can't understand why anyone would want to play it. Graphics are more than decent, but the overall slowness of movement and combat absolutely kills my interest in playing.

Xevy said:

They definitely need to do a matchmaking balance somehow. Ilvl vs level vs character exp, I don't know, but it's pretty needed. Having a dude with a purple weapon two shot anyone in the game versus the casuals trying to come up with their grey weapons is pretty rough.

I'd honestly love a SSF type ladder as well. Some people just make a rogue, rat out 5k gold in goblin cave/solo ruins etc and then buy a bunch of crazy shit for their fighters/warlocks and truck everyone. Nothing wrong with that, but I like gearing myself with shit I've found personally. Knowing you can just get some shitter warlock +magic healing item, flip it for 400 gold and buy whatever weapon you want feels icky to me.

Also Warlocks are absolutely fucked. At the low end they're terrible. Absolutely awful. At the high end, with a decent amount of +magic healing they're gods. It's ridiculous. Healing 30-50hp in 5 seconds constantly while damaging. Nuts.

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Trying to fix the game via matchmaking is a losing plan.

The issue is and always has been gear/itemization. Tarkov and other extraction games like Hunt etc are able to mostly skate on gear disparity because they are full on FPS and they have the great headshot equalizer - while you may be at pretty sizeable disadvantage in those games vs the guy rocking a fully decked out kit you can still set up an advantageous engagement and win via good aim.

This is just not a thing in current Dark and Darker, and it's going to kill the game. Gear scaling currently is such that there are gonna be people in most lobbies that anyone not rocking a similar state of optimized gear simply cannot kill. You can't even run from them and try and rat as they simply move faster than normal players, can heal more, can tank the swarm longer, etc.

The combat system isn't deep enough or skill intensive enough to allow for the level of outplays required for base kit people to beat the properly geared people. Low level queues are a bandaid that delay the problem, SSF is a similar bandaid, etc.

I say this as someone currently whose barbarian has 190hp and 55% phys damage reduction. I cannot lose any engagement unless I happen to join a lobby with someone with similar gear levels and then also happen to blunder in to them with my pants down. It does happen occasionally, but me losing one kit every 25 matches or whatever doesn't matter as my resources to replenish the kit are functionally infinite with those kinds of survival rates.

I honestly don't know what the solution even is given the way their combat system is currently set up, but it's going to continue to choke the life out of the already modest player base as every normie/casual gamer continues to abandon the game and matchmaking takes longer and longer and longer. You need those people to pad out the game and act largely as fodder, but they also need to have that glimmer of hope of pulling out a huge upset to keep them playing, and that just currently does not exist.

Yeah, the gear went from +stats that were basically meaningless to character defining and build enabling. When everything was based on weapon damage it was rough because they kind of made each tier like +20% damage so it got out of hand. Starter rogue weapons were useless but even a grey found weapon or any white made you completely viable. Then when you got to like blue+ 2handers and falchions and shit it was ridiculous. They just needed to tone down the flat increase % per tier after the item started getting attributes on it.

Tarkov is weird because that naked guy with a Mosin or SKS with BP can fuck some chad up with one or two good shots, but in this game a dude in no armor with a good weapon still won't be a dude with good armor and a good weapon. Outside of Bows/Xbows (which need tuning) there's no great equalizer really for undergeared players and it sucks.

Also a small pet peeve is I go in with a bandage and potion because I'm purposefully fiscal about this game. But then I die to some dude who's obviously marketed all his gear because of +synergy on every piece and then that motherfucker has 9 hp pots, 7 bandages, 2 surgical kits, and at least one campfire. It's like fuck, are you good at the game or you just buying your way to being adequate? I do get a big boner watching these fucks mis manage looting and fights and then dying to the Dark Swarm about 50% of the time. Especially when their equally geared partner gets out like 5 portals earlier because of their precious purples. Saw a guy die with an open portal probably 1 seconds away from extracting with a rusted key just last night looting some schlub in greys for 30 seconds. Watching shit like that makes me feel bad losing to these guys because I'm not quite sure they know how to wipe their own ass, but they can just chop their way through me.

Also missed this QA with the lead Dev from a few days ago:

If you need this to go into a game, I don't know what to say. Dude nearly lost to me naked with a white bardiche. Is he going to the fucking western front or something?

I don't even try to fight Barbs. It's pointless.

Yeah a good, geared barb is only countered by range. And if they're rolling with 20 franciscas like the sweaties do, you may not even win as a good ranged.

Wipe 3 just took place. Servers aren't up yet, but should be a good time. Interested to see what their #'s are still off of Steam. They're also giving out 10 day free play friend codes, somewhere (???), probably to entice people who are waiting for Steam to hop in early and just pony up on the Iron Mace site.

Mist said:

Isn't there a strictly superior clone of this out already?

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No?

Mist said:

Oh, right. It's not out. A friend of mine is deep in the Dungeonborne internal test and it's just a way better game.

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I played both and while I played a very early version of Dungeonborne, I can say that the PvE in D&D is pretty significantly better. Idk if that's changed tho. Haven't played D&D in a long time either tho cuz too many flaws with the game.

It's a PVE centered game moreso than PVP. They do have Arenas, but fuck that. There is PVP in match, but it rarely ever happens.

Latest dark and darker build is actually good finally?

They added tons of quest things to do, and have a no-gear mode for boomers and casuals to play in.

Ruins map is gone so duos are actually viable again.

Apparently next patch is multiclassing? That should be hilariously busted