• Gameplay

Corpses  
corpses cannot be missed  
corpses are not made if killing blow was a crit  
corpses should inherit remaining DOTs if they were killed by a normal hit instead  
lowered small corpse HP slightly
 

• Heroes  

Houndmaster: fix to scaling bugs where wasn't getting proper proc rates as he leveled up (whistle, debuffs)  
Houndmaster: increased base damage  
Houndmaster/Hound's Rush: increased accuracy, increased mark bonus, added minor bleed, moved PROT debuff into Whistle  
Houndmaster/Harry: increased accuracy, increased dmg  
Houndmaster/Whistle: made it a standard mark; added PROT debuff and increased thie debuff relative to prev Hound's Rush PROT debuff)  
Houndmaster/Blackjack: increased dmg, added Strong Stun  
Houndmaster and Man-at-Arms cannot guard self  
Bounty Hunter/Collect Bounty: slight tune down to account for increased team synergy from HM having a Mark, too  
Bounty Hunter/Uppercut: added strong stun  
Arbalest/Blindfire: improved dmg  
Arbalest/Flare: made partywide and added Light  
Plague Doctor / Grave Robber: Increased accuracy of PD and GR blighting attacks to help mitigate PROC risk  
Highwayman: slightly reduced top end base damage and slightly reduced damage of Grapeshot Blast  
Grave Robber: increased base dmg  
Grave Robber/Thrown Dagger: added a Bleed Resist debuff to increase team synergies  
Grave Robber/Flashing Daggers: increased dmg a bit
 

• Monsters  

PROT: adjusted some starting values and reduced progression scaling on higher level monsters  
tuned down L3 and L5 monsters some  
L1 monsters - lowered crits  
Designated some monster attacks as Can't Crit, to eliminate some edge cases and odd situations (like Howl crits)  
maggots: dropped PROT although was sincerely tempted just to call them "Armored Maggots" and be done  
tweak down PROT of Skel Captain and Skel Defender  
Tuned down Skel Captain multistun a bit  
unclean giant: hits more like a Mack f-in truck  
Giant has a new brain to favor his tree branch  
Cultist Witch has a new brain to favor stress cast  
Swine Drummer has a new brain to favor stress drumming  
ghouls and skel captains: slightly reduced overall threat  
swine wretch dodges more  
swine slasher dodges less  
cauldrons can't be missed HUZZAH  
Higher level cannon bosses sometimes summon more Fusemen (HUZZAH AGAIN)
 

• Economy  

Economy pass: scaled up mid and late game costs (hero upgrades, hero treatment, building upgrades) as part of economy balance pass  
Hero upgrade costs: lowered initial costs but scaled up later upgrade costs significantly  
Building upgrade costs: increased costs of mid and later upgrades significantly  
Increased extra treasure resulting from dark conditions (low torch/dark runs) to try to make the risk worthwhile  
Hero treatment costs increase with hero Resolve Level. After all, Veteran heroes take more work to fix, drink more, need more soul-searching, and have weirder fetishes!
 

• Misc  

Added the option to turn off Tutorial messages (see OPTIONS screen)  
RNGesus: tinkering underneath the hood to reduce some of the most outlandish sequences of monster crits or dodges  
Quest Generation: all new logic to generate quests that better match your roster. This should reduce the situations where you have a full roster of 5s but only get L1 quests, or vice-versa.  
TIME PASSING IN TOWN: time will no longer pass in town if you started a quest and immediately retreated. You must make some progress (in one of several measured ways) for time to pass. If time doesn't pass, heroes won't complete treatment, quests won't re-roll, stage coach won't refill, etc. This *shouldn't* overly penalize unlucky runs because some of the measure of progress will account for this. The feature is mainly designed to prevent loading a dungeon and quitting back out just to roll town.  
Also, If time does not pass during the raid, the retreating heroes won't get quirks or diseases. However, they will still suffer retreat stress.  
Death's Door: reduced stress penalties for repeated Death's Doors during the same combat. Let's face it--after you've stared down Death several times in the same battle, the fear diminishes...  
Bleeds and Blights (heroes and monsters): ensured all have a 5 step progression in terms of proc chance so there aren't dead spots at upgrades 2 and 4  
EFFECTS: removed duration overrides for some effects where it was not intended, separated out mark side effects in to their own effects  
Medicinal Herbs no longer cure bleed/blight (this was a bug)
 

• Bug Fixes

cleaned up extra "" printing in the hero files  
string fixes / missing strings (e,g, disease treatment)  
Fixing bark transitions.  
Handling if nobody is available to bark during town stress presentation.  
Bug fix in the heirarchical_file. Fixes problem with options not being saved properly.  
fixed another bug with updating the name in the activity log's hero level up entry.  
making sure that awarded trinkets from the previous raid aren't included in the pool of trinkets that can be misplaced by a hero in an activity.  
Fixed negative quirk cost exploit when assigning a hero to a sanitarium slot.  
Fixed bug in effects which prevented the Skull Adrenaline effect from being applied until camp.  
Moved the initial swap to be after the swap interval has been set. Potential steam overlay fix.  
Fixed up loot box when there are too many items.  
fixed bug where quirks weren't awarded if the quest wasn't completed instead of using conditions for a week being complete.  
Fixing up bug where you could equip two trinkets of the same type.  
Monsters shouldn't try to target friendly corpses.  
Reformated saving of goals.  
Updating starting save to new raid version.

Let’s Talk About the Corpse in the Room
SneakyPie    39 comments    
 
 
Let’s talk about the corpse in the room.
 
When we deployed the Corpse & Hound patch in July, it brought quite a bit more upheaval within the community than we were expecting, centered largely on the corpses and heart attacks features, and to a lesser extent some of the other combat related changes such as the introduction of more armoring (PROT) for some enemies and the increasing of monster crits.
 
While many of you have enjoyed these new features, it’s very clear that many others do not. In some cases, you feel that it has fundamentally altered your personal experience with the game–turning it from something you loved into something you don’t. The feedback has been clear that sometimes this comes down to a single feature even. Simply put: that’s a huge bummer for all of us.
 
Our obligation and promise to you has always been to try to make the best game possible, and we take that very seriously. We have an internal compass – a strong vision for Darkest Dungeon that has guided us every step of the way from inception to now. That compass was just as integral in producing the Corpse & Hound content as it was in features before that. Furthermore, we’ve always considered the ability to experiment as a huge benefit of Early Access.
 
However, we recognize that being for sale in Early Access also brings other important obligations. The Darkest Dungeon community is very large now, and quite a bit more varied than we would have ever expected! We’ve always been humbled by this show of enthusiasm and support. You have given us your hard-earned money, and when we make large changes, we acknowledge there is the potential for you to feel like you had the rug pulled out from underneath you.
 
We believe that corpses and heart attacks are important mechanics for the game, not only for the reasons initially discussed in the Corpse & Hound design notes but reinforced by our observations since. However, today we are introducing a set of gameplay options (accessed via the normal Options menu) which allows you to turn them off.  
Just as we were willing to experiment by adding these features, we are willing to experiment with ways to allow you to shape the DD experience a bit to your liking. As many of you know, we have been reluctant to add difficulty related options until now because focusing on our intended version of the game has been our number one priority and our experiments and changes during Early Access have all been in support of iterating on that. But it would be foolish for us to not consider the fact that the Darkest Dungeon community is now big enough to include diverse groups, some of which would like to play the game differently than we might have envisioned. Although we’ve always been unapologetic about how important it is that Darkest Dungeon is punishing, unforgiving, and sometimes not even “fair”…at the end of the day we want those of you who own it to have fun and that can’t be forgotten.
 
For clarity, our official vision of the game leaves these two features ‘on’ by default.This does not mean the features are the best they can be yet, but we feel they are important in context of the broader experience. Those of you who would like to enjoy the game without corpses and heart attacks now have the option to. In addition, we’ll be collecting metrics on their use so we have a better understanding of the entire community.
 
We’re acutely aware that the addition of these options will not solve every issue with the game or even every concern that sprouted from the Corpse & Hound update itself. We’ve been active throughout Early Access and you can continue to look forward to continued content drops and gameplay iterations in the future.
 
We are going to continue to pursue our vision for the game–after all, that’s why we are all here in the first place. But if we can do better at providing ways for different people to enjoy the game in a way that suits them, we’ll be on the lookout for how to do it without compromising what the game is all about. It’s one of the benefits of making a single player game, really. Modding will eventually help with that as well and we remain excited about that, but we don’t yet have the infrastructure to officially support it.
 
Finally – we want to say a sincere thank you for your support and feedback – we care passionately about our game, and our community. It’s obviously a challenge to meet the needs of different groups sometimes, but we know that your passion is coming from a love of the game. We encourage your thoughts and observations – positive and negative – throughout this Early Access experience. Please rest assured, we will continue to read and carefully consider your posts, tweets, and emails as we push towards our full release.
 
Delve deep and keep to the light,
 
–the Darkest Dungeon team

A quick update on our development progress.  We’re thrilled to announce that we’re bringing the 4th dungeon – The COVE – to Pax Prime at the end of this month!  If you’re attending PAX, be sure to stop by our booth and check it out!

Prepping for PAX is a big undertaking, and for that reason we will be releasing the Cove update, titled “Those From Below”, shortly after the show – in September.  The update comes packed with 2 bosses, new monsters, new curios, more narration, and lots of other goodies!  We’re taking the extra time to make sure that the features and content are polished and up to our usual standard.

The Cove
 
    The Cove dungeon region, featuring 7 new monsters, 2 new bosses, new curios, all new environment art, and new music!
    The Cove features monsters that are in general both fast and bleed resistant, and also have many bleed-causing attacks.
    The Cove monsters also include some key mechanics previously unused by monsters, such as healing and guarding! These mechanics may begin to work their way into other dungeon regions in the future…beware!
    You do not need to begin a new campaign to play The Cove. Cove quests will spawn alongside quests from other regions.
 
 
Gameplay
 
    Idle heroes in town will recover a small amount of stress between quests even if not placed in active treatment at the Tavern or Abbey
    By popular demand: unused dungeon supplies now sell back at the end of a quest (for a smallish percentage of their value)
    Increased roster size a bit so players with full rosters can recruit some new heroes and go Cove spelunking even at low level quests
    Streamlined combat flow to keep the pace brisk and reduce many of the small waits that occur between chained events
    Revised the core combat damage calculation so trinkets and other buffs apply in a more even way to AOE attacks. This will preserve intended damage balance of AOE vs single target attacks and help keep both approaches situationally useful. Previously, trinket and other buffs were amplifying AOE damage unfairly with respect to single target attacks. The revised calculation applies the base skill modifier directly to the weapon damage, and then totals all other buffs before applying them to this base result.
    Trinkets have received a much-needed balance pass. The goal was to ensure that rarer trinkets are more reliably valuable than less rare trinkets, and also to make many previously uninteresting trinkets (both general and class-specific) more interesting. While some trinkets will obviously be better than others for some classes, dungeons, or situations, we have improved many of the trinkets that were particularly weak or problematic. A few trinkets have been nerfed (in cases where the value was just too high compared to other trinkets). Some trinkets have had their rarity adjusted, and we will likely do more of this once we measure the results of these changes. Additional trinket adjustments may also be required in the future.
    Trinket drops are a bit more constrained–you won’t see as many rare drops in lower level dungeons.
    Resolve level 0 and 1 heroes now have more disease resistance! After all, they are fresh off the stagecoach and are the healthiest they’ll ever be!
    Some more small mobs don’t leave corpses (e.g. dogs, spiders, gargoyles)
    Adjustments to the surprise mechanic: surprised monsters now act last in the first round but no longer lose an entire turn.
    Players cannot retreat during the first combat round if they were surprised.
    Retreating from combat adds stress
    Some skills effects that didn’t show % chance now show % chance in the associated skill tooltips (e.g. Jester stress heals)
    Riposting heroes won’t riposte against 0-damage causing attacks
    Heroes and monsters generally shouldn’t be able to crit on a 0 damage attack
    Torchlight properly drops to 0 during camping ambushes
    Corpses don’t give critting stress relief
    Fixed bug where both +herosurprise and +monstersurprise was occuring in dim light. (Should just be +heroes surprised)
    Camping ambushes always surprise the party
    Many misc bug fixes
 
 
Art
 
    Heroes’ armor icons now visually upgrade with each new rank
    All quest objects (ex. Reliquary) now have unique art
    Foreground layer added to every dungeon
    New pop-text icons for greater ‘at-a-glance’ clarity on skill effects.
    Tray icons/character panel icons restyled to match pop-text icons
    Updated Corpse art
    Rebalanced several enemy color tints
    New pose for Plague Doctor’s ‘Incision’ skill
 
 
Audio
 
    Click to advance through plot quest (boss) narration on loading screens
    Full music and sound design on the Cove!
    – all new music by Stuart Chatwood
    – ambiences
    – wet footstep recordings
    – all new props! Ever wondered what sifting a through a whale carcass sounds like? wonder no more!
    – all enemies and bosses fully designed with unique attacks, impacts and voices
    – live recorded voice of the Siren singing along to the battle track
    nearly 100 new lines for the Narrator including more coverage for already existing events
    Narration lines no longer limited to playing only 99 times in a given campaign
    new music arrangements for hallway battles in all regions
    redid all traps, trap disarms, trap dodges
    redesigned impacts on some existing enemy attacks
    retimed battle-end stinger and sound triggers
    Brigand Pounder, Gibbering Prophet and Formless Flesh bosses now all have dungeon intro/outro narration
 
Final notes: the large amount of new content and features means that some bugs will likely have slipped through. Report what you find in the Steam forums / on twitter @darkestdungeon / via email support@redhookgames.com. Rest assured we’ll be monitoring and working on fixes as fast as we are able!
 
Delve deep and remember: avoid all pacts with undead sailors!
 
–the Darkest Dungeon team

The Cove
•The Cove dungeon region, featuring 7 new monsters, 2 new bosses, new curios, all new environment art, and new music!
•The Cove features monsters that are in general both fast and bleed resistant, and also have many bleed-causing attacks.
•The Cove monsters also include some key mechanics previously unused by monsters, such as healing and guarding! These mechanics may begin to work their way into other dungeon regions in the future…beware!
•You do not need to begin a new campaign to play The Cove. Cove quests will spawn alongside quests from other regions.
 
 
 
Gameplay
•Idle heroes in town will recover a small amount of stress between quests even if not placed in active treatment at the Tavern or Abbey
•By popular demand: unused dungeon supplies now sell back at the end of a quest (for a smallish percentage of their value)
•Increased roster size a bit so players with full rosters can recruit some new heroes and go Cove spelunking even at low level quests
•Streamlined combat flow to keep the pace brisk and reduce many of the small waits that occur between chained events
•Revised the core combat damage calculation so trinkets and other buffs apply in a more even way to AOE attacks. This will preserve intended damage balance of AOE vs single target attacks and help keep both approaches situationally useful. Previously, trinket and other buffs were amplifying AOE damage unfairly with respect to single target attacks. The revised calculation applies the base skill modifier directly to the weapon damage, and then totals all other buffs before applying them to this base result.
•Trinkets have received a much-needed balance pass. The goal was to ensure that rarer trinkets are more reliably valuable than less rare trinkets, and also to make many previously uninteresting trinkets (both general and class-specific) more interesting. While some trinkets will obviously be better than others for some classes, dungeons, or situations, we have improved many of the trinkets that were particularly weak or problematic. A few trinkets have been nerfed (in cases where the value was just too high compared to other trinkets). Some trinkets have had their rarity adjusted, and we will likely do more of this once we measure the results of these changes. Additional trinket adjustments may also be required in the future.
•Trinket drops are a bit more constrained–you won’t see as many rare drops in lower level dungeons.
•Resolve level 0 and 1 heroes now have more disease resistance! After all, they are fresh off the stagecoach and are the healthiest they’ll ever be!
•Some more small mobs don’t leave corpses (e.g. dogs, spiders, gargoyles)
•Adjustments to the surprise mechanic: surprised monsters now act last in the first round but no longer lose an entire turn.
•Players cannot retreat during the first combat round if they were surprised.
•Retreating from combat adds stress
•Some skills effects that didn’t show % chance now show % chance in the associated skill tooltips (e.g. Jester stress heals)
•Riposting heroes won’t riposte against 0-damage causing attacks
•Heroes and monsters generally shouldn’t be able to crit on a 0 damage attack
•Torchlight properly drops to 0 during camping ambushes
•Corpses don’t give critting stress relief
•Fixed bug where both +herosurprise and +monstersurprise was occuring in dim light. (Should just be +heroes surprised)
•Camping ambushes always surprise the party
•Many misc bug fixes
 
 
 
Art
•Heroes’ armor icons now visually upgrade with each new rank
•All quest objects (ex. Reliquary) now have unique art
•Foreground layer added to every dungeon
•New pop-text icons for greater ‘at-a-glance’ clarity on skill effects.
•Tray icons/character panel icons restyled to match pop-text icons
•Updated Corpse art
•Rebalanced several enemy color tints
•New pose for Plague Doctor’s ‘Incision’ skill
 
 
 
Audio
•Click to advance through plot quest (boss) narration on loading screens
•Full music and sound design on the Cove!
•– all new music by Stuart Chatwood
•– ambiences
•– wet footstep recordings
•– all new props! Ever wondered what sifting a through a whale carcass sounds like? wonder no more!
•– all enemies and bosses fully designed with unique attacks, impacts and voices
•– live recorded voice of the Siren singing along to the battle track
•nearly 100 new lines for the Narrator including more coverage for already existing events
•Narration lines no longer limited to playing only 99 times in a given campaign
•new music arrangements for hallway battles in all regions
•redid all traps, trap disarms, trap dodges
•redesigned impacts on some existing enemy attacks
•retimed battle-end stinger and sound triggers
•Brigand Pounder, Gibbering Prophet and Formless Flesh bosses now all have dungeon intro/outro narration

Art
•Heroes’ armor icons now visually upgrade with each new rank

Greetings everyone!
 
Thank you for being part of the Darkest Dungeon early access experience! This community has grown beyond our expectations, and we’re both grateful and humbled by your support, ideas, critiques, and feedback throughout this past year.
 
From the moment we launched early access back in February, we had two important priorities: regularly deliver exciting, meaty updates to the game, and ship the full release this year. We recognized that October would not only be an awesome thematic fit for the full release, but it was early enough in the year to avoid getting swept away by the massive AAA releases around Thanksgiving.
 
As many of you know, game development has a great many dependencies and variables. Between PAX’s, Coves, & corpses, it became clear that an October date would mean rushing our endgame content out the door – a move that would ultimately not be in anyone’s best interest. So, we looked at the December 1st timeframe – it would be tight, but with a few lucky bounces and a whole lot of focus, it was doable. A Death Star trench run with Obiwan gently whispering in our ears.
 
Unfortunately, late last week Chris’ father-in-law passed away suddenly. Given our small team size, events such as these have a measurable effect on development. If anyone is out of action, it means delays because each person’s job is highly specialized.
 
As a result, we have set January 19th as our Official Launch Day.
 
In keeping with our commitment to regular content updates, we’ll be dropping an interim patch towards the end of November that introduces a new playable hero: The Abomination! Designed in collaboration with our Lord tier Kickstarter backer, this bloodthirsty class is unlike anything currently in the game. Keep your eyes peeled for the full reveal in the coming weeks! This update will also include two decidedly unsettling backer-designed monsters, as well as some other ‘goodies’! You can also expect continued hotfixes as necessary.
 
As always, a very sincere thanks to all of you who have made this game and this community something special. We are truly on the home stretch, and we are incredibly excited to bring this game to completion…and beyond!
 
–The Darkest Dungeon Team

we looked at the December 1st timeframe [...]
Unfortunately, late last week Chris’ father-in-law passed away suddenly. Given our small team size, events such as these have a measurable effect on development. If anyone is out of action, it means delays because each person’s job is highly specialized.

Yesterday's release date announcement was for our Steam (PC/MAC) release, which is January 19th, 2016.
PS4/VITA Will release soon after.