Must be the DLC stuff, not touched that myself.

My attempt to start a new campaign today was thwarted when the game crashed and lost all my data. Ah well.

I'm on my way!  Lost one and another suffered a heart attack on our first proper jollyboys outing, but the battle system could prove addictive enough to keep me going.  Lots of menu layers and fiddling, but I'm willing to learn.  Cannon Fodder isn't a bad comparison, I'm already pleased the new Jools & Jops survived.

Low torch runs are good with trash teams though. Careful using the occultist too, a bunch of his skills lower the darkness - you can raise it during the fight with torches.

Perhaps counter productively, removing ailments is almost pointless early on. Also if you have a bunch of moderately stressed people, it's often worth risking a medium dungeon to get the stress removal from camping. Also focus unlocking campfire skills that let you nullify afflictions and diseases.

What does marking do, for instance?

You seen the Joseph Anderson vid on this Temps? Wondered your thoughts on it if so, as it put me off.

I've just checked my Steam profile of the game (I played it on GOG for ages) and I have 14 hours, with a lvl 5 character, ooh. Back on the grind.

I am not very into "optimal play" in games.  I don't have the brain for it. There is randomness in DD, and there is the potential - and perhaps the necessity - for grinding.

I haven't finished it, I always get fatigued with it or put it off for something a little breezier. It's a stressful game and things go wrong. But that's the point. The game is inspired by Lovecraft horror. Things are supposed to go wrong. It warns you it's unfair right of the bat. You can have a turn where you miss an enemy, only for them to critical hit you back which turns your character insane, which dominoes on to everyone else and then your whole party is utterly fucked and they all die wretchedly in the pit that you sent them to. So you load up 4 more grunts and send them off to their likely deaths.

It's the total opposite of Slay the Spire and Into the Breach, where you know EXACTLY what is going to happen to you. You could perhaps even see the coded transparency of Breach and Spire as a response to the proliferation of randomisation in rogulikes. 

Like XCOM, DD is about minimising risk and chance as best you can in any given turn, and planning for the worst. I am not sure about the grinding, but I've heard it ends up happening later on, but I get the idea Joseph is the kind of person that will complain about a game if it allows him to play two ways: optimally or sub-optimally. Like with the whole Destiny skill tree vs/fixed skills debate - I know why the latter is better, but I enjoyed messing around with "sub-optimal" skills.

I think DD's randomisation supports its theme. i don't even think you need to finish it to be satisfied with it. There's something alluring about the unfairness and the likelihood of failure that's fitting to this kind of Eldritch Horror. Success doesn't seem canon.

Well said, enough to convince me to try this I reck.

Hadn't played for a while so I had a quick run through with some new characters. By pure luck I battered right through to the boss and clobbered him too. Didn't lose anyone. Just luck though. But it felt good.

At Green level dungeons (easiest) it's alright and you tend not to lose team members too often. I think Tempy is referring to Orange level and above dungeons (which I haven't tried yet). Gulp.

Hmmmm the collector? Not had the pleasure yet.

That's twice today I have been presented with an almighty FUCK YOU of luck. Think I lost 6 people in 6 hours of play.

I think I may start over on this. Playing on 'normal' and a lack of a proper tutorial meant I hadn't a clue I was doing. There's a easier shortened mode isn't there? May give that a go so I can at least have a chance to learn the mechanics. No problem with starting over - it's not let you get attached to your characters anyway. Everybody dies!

I'm struggling with this.  My whole party just got decimated in a supposedly easy dungeon.  Jools and Jops were in recovery, so it's not all bad news, but ouch.

I had a choice of three (four?) options pre-game.  I thought it was just house allegiance perhaps, so I just selected the blue one.  Please tell me they were difficulty levels, because if not this might be too much for me.  I'm feeling hugely underpowered and tend to get overwhelmed by the fourth set of nasties each time.  I want to like it, and I am trying, but cor blimey it's death by a thousand cuts.

I'm on the Vita.  I'll have a look and brace myself for the revelation that I selected Radiant.