I said just about everything I want to say about this game in my own review of it, but there are a few things I'd like to comment on:
Firstly, the Death's Door mechanic does not always provide a mitigation against death. It's good that it's there; the game would be insufferable without it. But sometimes RNG can still squash a character and there just isn't anything you can do about it.
For example. Let's say your team gets surprised by a Giant and a couple of trash mobs while wandering around in the Weald. The Giant crits your Grave Robber with Treebranch Smackdown and she goes from full health to zero. The first trash mob then takes its next turn and targets her. Even if she manages to survive a single Death's door check, the second trash mob might also target her or hit her with an AOE, and she's not likely to survive it a second time. In the first round of combat, one of your characters can potentially be dead before you even get to take a turn. And that example is from the perspective of an elite team that keeps its health high, its stress low, and its torchlight at full at all times. Things are far worse if you're even a little bit bad at the game; the RNG just eats you for lunch.
I really wouldn't have a problem with this except for the fact that this game likes to waste my time whenever something goes wrong. If I lose a lvl 6 character, who is of a class that I will need to make my end-game strategy work, it can take anywhere from 5-10 hours of play to build a new one back up, even if I hire them as a lvl 3. The fact that there's no fail-state to this game is hardly a comfort in this regard.
And some of the developers' efforts to make the players' lives more difficult and force them to play the game the way they "intended it to be played" simply don't make sense. They made it clear that they don't want the players to stall the enemies so they can heal their heroes up to full in battle. Fine. But then they put limits on carryable food to ensure that you can't fully heal yourself out of battle, either. It's like they're talking out of both sides of their mouth...
Don't get me wrong, I like Darkest Dungeon, but it has some serious problems.
Firstly, the Death's Door mechanic does not always provide a mitigation against death. It's good that it's there; the game would be insufferable without it. But sometimes RNG can still squash a character and there just isn't anything you can do about it.
For example. Let's say your team gets surprised by a Giant and a couple of trash mobs while wandering around in the Weald. The Giant crits your Grave Robber with Treebranch Smackdown and she goes from full health to zero. The first trash mob then takes its next turn and targets her. Even if she manages to survive a single Death's door check, the second trash mob might also target her or hit her with an AOE, and she's not likely to survive it a second time. In the first round of combat, one of your characters can potentially be dead before you even get to take a turn. And that example is from the perspective of an elite team that keeps its health high, its stress low, and its torchlight at full at all times. Things are far worse if you're even a little bit bad at the game; the RNG just eats you for lunch.
I really wouldn't have a problem with this except for the fact that this game likes to waste my time whenever something goes wrong. If I lose a lvl 6 character, who is of a class that I will need to make my end-game strategy work, it can take anywhere from 5-10 hours of play to build a new one back up, even if I hire them as a lvl 3. The fact that there's no fail-state to this game is hardly a comfort in this regard.
And some of the developers' efforts to make the players' lives more difficult and force them to play the game the way they "intended it to be played" simply don't make sense. They made it clear that they don't want the players to stall the enemies so they can heal their heroes up to full in battle. Fine. But then they put limits on carryable food to ensure that you can't fully heal yourself out of battle, either. It's like they're talking out of both sides of their mouth...
Don't get me wrong, I like Darkest Dungeon, but it has some serious problems.
placid like acid