Hi all! My name is Ananse. I have just started work on a major overhaul for Darkest Dungeon, with the intent of modifying or replacing virtually every element of the game, including all classes, monsters, trinkets, quirks, etc.
My general philosophy is to increase the strategy content of the game by 1) making party and roster decisions more complex, 2) making combat take longer on average, with reduced emphasis on crits and burst, and increased emphasis on sustain, 3) making every death or party wipe the result of poor planning or execution, and not random chance.
Unfortunately, DD in its current form seems to me like a very easy game, with difficulty simulated by RNG. For instance, you could take a safe party like Vestal-Plague Doctor-Crusader-Hellion, and you’d finish fights 99% of the time without any trouble at all — and then 1% of the time, you’d miss three times in a row while every enemy crits on the same character, and bam, you’re down one hero without having any way to influence the process. This doesn’t add difficulty to the game, so much as inevitable frustration. I believe that by adding more complex enemies and hero interactions, this kind of RNG can be removed from the game entirely while leaving intact the imminent danger of DD.
Anyway, the intent is to rebuild the game from the ground up, reconsidering every factor that led to what I consider stagnant gameplay. I’m going to pour a ton of time into this over the next year (or more?), and I thought I’d announce my intentions here to see if I could find some partners.
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There’s a lot more to talk about as far as philosophy goes, but this isn’t meant to be a manifesto. Just a first step in reaching out to the modding community ![:)]()
I’ve decided to begin with a creative part that should be a lot of fun — the creation of new heroes and classes, based on a system of Factions.
The basic idea behind factions is to greatly expand on the dynamic utilized with the Abomination and Crusader/Leper/Vestal. I imagine a world where 10+ factions with complex (but intuitive) interactions compete for space in a limited roster. For instance, members of a ‘fire faction’ would refuse to party with members of an ‘ice faction’. Certain members of the ‘holy faction’ would only party with others in the holy faction. Overall, the idea would be to encourage players to customize their roster on any given game playthrough to take advantage of a certain mix of factions within the greater whole.
So here’s a ‘Fire Faction’ that I’m working on currently:
//Classes
1. Dragoon – melee fighter with spear. preferred position 12. hellion model.
2. Fire Juggler – ranged fighter with flaming juggling balls. preferred position 23. jester model
3. Pyromancer – ranged damage class. preferred position 34. occultist model
4. Red Priestess – healer/support class. preferred position 23. not sure which model
5. Wyrmkin — a transformation class that becomes a dragon/human hybrid. preferred position 123. abomination model.
I’ve got skills and such for each that I’ll start posting soon in specific posts for each class. But in the meantime, here is my call to action! I am not a control freak, and I do not want to do this alone. I am eager to incorporate the ideas of anyone who wants to participate in this with me. Feedback on classes and abilities is welcome, as is help coding, designing, or making art. Really anything that you want to do! But I’m starting here because I think it’d be awesome to put out some classes that can be tested and enjoyed in the vanilla version of the game. Thank yall for reading, looking forward to working with you!
