#if it reaches to low the dungeon layout changes completely

[sodiumbromidee]

Illustration of my oc Anala and @blackkatdraws2 / @blackkatdraws tsp narrator.

Kept thinking abt how if this AU was a game how would It pan out and then gave me the idea for this illustration

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How Do I Get Into World of Warcraft Mythic Plus Dungeons?

The World of Warcraft Mythic Plus dungeons are a large part of the endgame grind and a top way to earn high level gear. They are also one of the most complex gaming modes, which requires mastery in your particular class along with knowledge of the dungeons layout, bosses and the monsters abilities. The Mythic Plug dungeons can be daunting for new and casual players.

These dungeons are not like other dungeons, you cannot pour over an Adventure Journal and learn what to do. There are specific routes, some changing on a weekly basis with different strategies and etiquette. The Mythic Plus dungeons are a higher tier in difficulty for regular dungeons, even though you fight the same bosses and enemies that you  would in the Mythic of Heroic difficulties, but on different systems that boost the challenges you will experience.

Mythic Plus offers better rewards the harder they are to accomplish. Dungeons start at a +2 and scale to increase monster health and damage. In order to enter the dungeons you need a Mythic Keystone, which are earned in the regular Mythic dungeons. This keystone will open a single Mythic Plus dungeon at a particular level. By completing the dungeon, the keystone transforms into a different one with an increase in level.

In order to enter, only one person needs a keystone, so joining another group is a great way to get further, rather than competing on your own. As you reach certain levels, the Mythic Plus dungeons have modifiers that give your enemies new abilities, which rotate on a weekly basis. Some monsters will explode when they die, while others increase the health of the bosses.

Due to the difficulty scales of Mythic Plus dungeons, there is no rule as to what level you should be, this is determined by the level of the dungeon. In order to do Mythic +1, you should have an item level of at least 184, Once you reach the 180s you can start looking into the Mythic +1 and +2 dungeons.

There are some do's and dont's when it comes to the Mythic Plus dungeons, along with certain etiquette you need to know. The first is that you don’t have to feel obligated to join a group, creating your own can be less pressure, especially for newer players. Get to know each dungeon and the monster and their abilities each week, before you start the dungeon. This ensures that when you get to Mythic Plus you have run every dungeon numerous times on the Mythic difficulty. Learn how to survive the boss fights.

It will take at least an hour to finish a key, when you first start out. You cannot replace anyone in the middle of a dungeon. If you quit early, it is considered rude. The Mythic Plus dungeons are demanding, so you should only join if you are able to stay focused without too many interruptions.

Tanks are the most important part of your dungeon success. The tank is a team leader, who sets the pace of the dungeon. If you are the tank, ensure you go over important information on what to look for. Tanks are the hardest jobs in Mythic Plus, they are the ones that initiate the fights and guide the rest of the party through the dungeon. You will have to pace the group, to ensure that they are quick moving, but not overwhelmed. Tanks need to understand the mechanics of each fight, including enemy abilities and boss strategies.

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[playernumberv]

Hades Mini-Review

Platform played on: Nintendo Switch

Hours played: About 25 to 30 hours, completed main story (i.e. 10 successful escapes)

I am not a fan of roguelikes—while perhaps a little reductionistic, I think it’s a fair assessment to say that roguelikes fundamentally rely on repetition, which is not an element I particularly enjoy in games. Hades is certainly impressive—although its gameplay loop does rely on repetition, there’s an excellent calibration of this repetition so that there is nevertheless a sense of progress even when an escape attempt is unsuccessful. Each attempt awards a variety of in-game currency which allows various upgrades, thus enabling greater success in future attempts. A refreshing variety of weapons and the randomization of dungeon layouts and boons also keep each run fresh, so that each new run is rarely if ever identical to the previous one. My first few hours with the game were characterized by great awe—I was extremely impressed by how satisfying the game was, with its smooth and slick combat and the intensely pleasurable dopamine rush from upgrading my character and making it further than I did before.

However, by the time I finished my first successful escape attempt, I more or less felt done—Hades had nothing more to offer me. While I nevertheless persisted in repeating this cycle a further nine times in order to reach the ending of the game, my opinion did not change. That is not to say that my impression of the game soured—I nevertheless had fun and enjoyed what I played, but merely ceased to find it particularly impressive. While Hades makes a commendable attempt to make repetition fun and fresh, the repetition eventually still got repetitive. The layouts of the dungeon may change, but the backdrop remained the same, and the same enemies and bosses confronted me at each turn. The element of randomness inherent in the game also frustrated me a little—I had one particular run in which I happened upon the right boons, and this particular run was an exhilarating blast to experience. However, this occurred only by chance. While randomness is a key element of roguelikes, I personally would have preferred the scale to be tipped just a little more towards granting player control and away from chance-based mechanics. Even with mechanics that allow you to influence the likelihood of getting certain boons, the reliance on chance remained too strong for my liking. I never managed to replicate that one particular run in which I had the best combination of boons, and none of my runs were ever as satisfying as that one was.

Much praise has also been heaped upon Hades’ story and characters—personally, I found these largely well-written and enjoyable, but did not find them to be particularly remarkable. They served as an adequate accompaniment to a satisfying and fun gameplay loop, but did not otherwise stand out as being especially memorable. Overall, Hades was a largely enjoyable ride, albeit not one that I found to be special or endearing. I had great fun in my time with it—it’s easy to pick up for short gaming sessions, and it delivers reasonably satisfying fun. Simply as a fun and entertaining way to pass some time with, I’d say that Hades served its purpose rather well, especially considering its relatively low price point. It is, however, little more than that.

 Gameplay score: A- Storyline score: B+ Characters score: B+ Aesthetics score: A- Enjoyment score: A-

Overall Hades score: 79/100

[comiconverse]

Game Review: Darkest Dungeon

Darkest Dungeon is an RPG dungeon crawler available on PC, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita. Alan Stock clings desperately to his sanity to bring you this review for ComiConverse.

Game Review: Darkest Dungeon

Author H.P. Lovecraft’s horror stories, or “weird tales” as they were known at the time, were almost unknown during his life and he died young, at just 46 years old in 1937.  If only he could have known that his tales would go on to mesmerise millions, and eventually influence other forms of media, video games being no exception. Having played, seen and read so many Lovecraft homages, I recently began listening to the audiobooks of his complete fiction works to see what inspired them. And so I can confirm that Darkest Dungeon captures Lovecraft’s themes and style perfectly, as you venture into the dank depths of the cellars, caves and dungeons to rid your ancestral home of corruption from a terrible god.

Credit: Red Hook Studios

The whole game oozes Lovecraft, from its Victorian setting, dark visual style, the poetic and melancholic narrator, right through to the gameplay mechanics and enemies who have practically jumped out from the pages of his stories. This gives Darkest Dungeon a thoroughly cohesive feel. Atmospheric sound and music, with good writing complete the haunted feel of the game. The premise is that you receive a letter from a wealthy relative (who is also the narrator). He wants you to free his manor estate from the evil influence that has invaded it, caused by his own machinations and his descent into madness – under a malign godlike influence from the depths of the earth.

Credit: Red Hook Studios

His letters bring cartloads of recruits from afar to the decaying hamlet lying in the shadow of the manor, and it’s here that you come in. In gameplay terms this is a classic dungeon crawler. You send parties of adventurers into the infested dungeons, catacombs, caves and forests to push back the spread of evil. The ultimate goal is to foster a group strong enough to enter the “Darkest Dungeon” under the manor and beat the ancient god to stop the menace once and for all.

Longer quests allow you to camp in the dungeon and give your heroes some recuperation. Choosing when to do this is crucial, and runs the risk of being ambushed in the darkness – which means really bad times. Credit: Red Hook Studios

The hamlet acts as your place of respite between forays into the dungeons. It’s here that you get new recruits, upgrade weapons and skills, cure illnesses (both mental and physical), manage your hero roster and plan your next expedition. In a fashion similar to large scale RPGs, although you can only send four heroes on a mission at once, your roster can hold many more and can be upgraded. This allows you to cycle heroes, allowing returning heroes to recuperate and experiment with different combinations of archetypes. Rather than just having a few hero classes, Darkest Dungeon spoils you with 15 to choose from, each with their own skills, strength and weaknesses.

Credit: Red Hook Studios

An expedition screen allows you to choose between different mission difficulties and locations. These are restricted by hero level, meaning you can’t send overpowered heroes on an easy mission – and although you can send weak heroes on hard missions the game does a good job of dissuading you with heroes complaining and a popup warning. The different locations each have their own themes, enemy types, bosses and loot.

On missions you must buy provisions and items such as food, torches and chest keys. Fail to leave enough cash in the bank to do this and you’re facing a dark and difficult challenge. Credit: Red Hook Studios

Once in a dungeon, you move your party left to right in 2D corridors within a fixed grid layout, with each corridor ended by a junction room which usually contains treasure or a fight. Along the corridors you will encounter enemies, traps and treasure. The layouts are simple but scouting skills let you see on the map what lies ahead, allowing you to choose more advantageous routes. Exploration isn’t a massive draw here, instead the focus is more on combat and survival.

Walking through dungeon corridors. You can reverse direction but it takes a long time, and your heroes will become more hungry and stressed – encouraging you to continually press forwards. Credit: Red Hook Studios

It’s in fighting that the core of the game lies. Your party lines up on the left, and the enemies in the right – with usually no more than four characters on each side. Combat is turn-based, with each turn allowing one character to perform an action. Things get more interesting in Darkest Dungeon thanks to positioning being important. Each ability can only be used in, and against certain positions. For example, an Archer’s arrow might only be used if the Archer’s in one of the back two slots of your party, and can only hit enemies in the rear of their group. Some abilities shift character’s position during combat, which can be used tactically – such as to prevent enemies from using dangerous attacks, or moving a hero into a more aggressive spot.

There are only a few healer classes in the game which makes life very difficult – mitigating damage to your heroes or tanking with a strong one becomes vital. In the later stages of the game no healing usually means death, which affects the hero balance adversely. Credit: Red Hook Studios

The number of abilities available considering the 15 hero classes and different enemy types is staggering and juggling them, working out synergies and deciding which to equip and upgrade adds a lot of depth to the game. Some can heal or cause status effects such as bleeding, blight, stuns and position shifts, but enemies will do the same – simply bashing each other over the head is a rare occurrence during battle. Enemy types also have different resistances and special attacks making you adjust your tactics for each fight and preparing for the mission depending on the enemies you expect to face. Bosses are scary propositions, easily capable of party-wiping in a few turns and require thought and perseverance to beat.

To reach a boss you must first get through the rest of the dungeon – and hope not to take too much punshiment in the process. Credit: Red Hook Studios

On top of all of this is a great Lovecraftian addition to the dungeon crawler – the concept of madness. As well as health, heroes also have a stress meter. This fills when nasty things happen to your heroes, such as taking critical hits, stress-inducing attacks, starvation or setting off traps. If it fills completely, your hero gets an Affliction, such as Fearful, Irrational or Abusive. These cause your hero to act accordingly, they may refuse to act, they might insult their teammates – causing them stress, refuse to be healed, self-harm, go berserk – you get the idea. There’s also a low chance that you may get a Virtue instead of an Affliction, where you hero becomes inspired instead, becoming a bastion of hope and courage for your team.

Credit: Red Hook Studios

Afflictions can’t be cured except back in the Hamlet so once you get them, it makes life a lot harder. Your heroes can also catch nasty diseases in the dungeons with nasty effects until cured at the Hamlet. Missions can be aborted but it’s costly, both in money and the mental health of your party. Curing and managing disease, stress and afflictions is a vital part of Darkest Dungeon and between missions curing stress is a number one priority but it takes time, encouraging the cycling of heroes between missions. Each hero also has a list of Quirks, both positive and negative, which increase and change as the hero gains experience and encounters different events. This helps to differentiate heroes and although they can be removed at a high cost, you’ll generally have to live with their quirks and incorporate them into your plans.

In addition to quirks heroes can be customised with different abilities, upgrades and equipment you find on your quests. You can also rename them if you like. Credit: Red Hook Studios

Darkest Dungeon excels at constantly giving you difficult choices to make, with a great use of risk and reward to keep things interesting. Mechanics like the light level, which, if you let it drop, mean harder monsters but better loot are extra layers on top of the game’s complex systems. Agonising about whether to forge on with a party that’s stressed out or near death is a common enough choice, and you’ll pay eventually for getting greedy and carrying on a mission to find more treasure when you’ve already met the pass requirements. There’s never enough money to go around in the Hamlet, balancing the needs of your heroes against upgrades is tricky, and you’ll never be able to fix everything that’s wrong with your roster. It’s a delicate, desperate, but engaging balancing act all the time.

Between expeditions, you get a news update on life in the Hamlet. Special events can give positive or negative effects to your heroes, and heroes can be affected by the actions you take in the Hamlet – for example healing stress at the Tavern, whilst the cheapest option, can cause your hero to become drunk or vanish for days on end Credit: Red Hook Studios

In common with dungeon crawlers of yore – hero death is permanent and autosaving prevents reloads – you live with your mistakes. Adventurers do get a chance to survive fatal blows but you will watch your favourite heroes die again and again. Party wipes are demoralising especially if they are high level and you have spent a long time building them up. But there’s not really a game over state in the game – it’s more a battle of endurance – there’s always new recruits to fill the roster if everyone dies and you can start again from the bottom. At least you should still have your Hamlet upgrades.

Equipping and upgrading abilities to match the mission and compliment your other party members is crucial to success once the game gets harder. Credit: Red Hook Studios

But make no mistake – this is a tough and uncompromising game. It’s very rewarding and the difficulty forces you to really think about your strategies, party lineups and Hamlet development. But like any survival game you will have to face defeat and take it on the chin. The difficulty ramps up with your heroes. Later dungeons are filled with really nasty beasts and bosses which can wipe you out in an instant. I played for over 50 hours and still never managed to reach the final Darkest Dungeon, although I came close a few times, I kept losing my high level heroes in advanced dungeons.

Points of interest around the dungeons provide risk and reward – sometimes causing injury, disease or maybe some shiny treasure. Items can be used to make points of interest safer. It’s important to get loot at the economy is very tight, a lot of the time you will struggle to break even after paying for recuperating heroes. But your inventory can only hold so much, so some hard decisions will have to be made… Credit: Red Hook Studios

It’s at this stage that the game becomes quite a grind as you build up weaker adventurers to tackle the harder dungeons. Although the game is great and there are lots of bosses to work towards defeating outside of the final dungeon, it can get repetitive even using different classes. There are some menu options to make the game a bit easier but these remove some of the interesting random elements of the game. However, developers Red Hook have acknowledged this issue and plan to release a shorter campaign mode soon, making it completeable in 40-50 hours instead of around 100.

A hero abuses his allies after suffering an affliction. Little text snippets from your heroes add flavour in the Hamlet and during missions. Credit: Red Hook Studios

Darkest Dungeon is a triumph of game design – it’s taken a proven genre but added many layers of depth, complexity and strategy whilst still being fun. It’s a strong vision realised very well and dripping with atmosphere. The turn-based combat in particular is one of the best I’ve seen in any RPG, where every turn makes you think. It’s only let down through its difficulty and repetition in the later stages of the campaign – which the new game mode should hopefully address. For sure, this game won’t be for everyone, but if you have any interest in RPGs, Lovecraft or dungeon crawlers you should definitely check it out.

  Alan Stock is a Contributor to ComiConverse. Follow us on Twitter: @ComiConverse

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