Darkest Dungeon has been released today

[Mánagarmr]

TheVampire, I appreciate the input, but I did actually do my research on this one before sitting down and making my final review on the game. There are absolutely lots of things you can do to reduce the likelyhood of getting your face absolutely punched in (the aforementioned SPD and Dodge-stacking, having high SPD stunners or healers) but even with these "perfectly stacked" parties you are still at the mercy of the RNG, and that is where the game completely lost its whole allure to me.

I love for games to punish me for making mistakes. I don't love games saying "You don't get to play today, because I'm cranky" and kill me out of spite. That's just poor design.

[Wingflier]

I disagree with the sentiment being shared here that the game can just screw you over with bad luck or kill you before you have a chance to act etc.

I have 120 hours with the game, I've beaten all difficulties of mission many times with many different party combinations. In fact, near the end, most of my runs were "dark runs" done without torches in order to increase the amount of loot acquired.

However, what I will say was that discovering the right party and item compositions took a lot of time and experimentation, and a lot of good characters were lost along the way.

I simply think most people either do not have to skill or the patience to invest the amount of time necessary to learn the intricacies of the game, and to play it to its full potential.

I blame this on the developers for the most part.

However, they *are* making a short mode pretty soon, which they've been working on for awhile. I imagine that this mode will essentially become the "default" mode of the game, and will appeal to a more casual audience.

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/12/21/darkest-dungeon-radiant-short-mode/

[Mánagarmr]

I don't see the length of the game as a problem, tbh. It's its mechanics that just don't appeal to me in the slightest. The fact that a party can be crippled completely without any chance to do anything about it is horribly bad design in my mind. I guess this becomes less of an issue several hours into the game as your characters become potent and strong enough to deal with even horribad RNG, but early on it's just no end of frustration where you keep losing without any say in it.

That's just poor design to me. "But it gets better later!" Yeah, I'm going to argue the same thing I did with Diablo 3. Everyone says Normal is boring. It gets better on harder difficulties. Yeah, if 30-60% of your game sucks and I have to go through that to get to the good stuff, I'm sorry but your game plain sucks.

[Misery]

Not to mention the extreme "trial and error" aspect of the game, which is a major no-no for me in a game like this.

Finding the correct party composition isnt about strategizing and such during preparation:  It's about smashing characters together and seeing if they work out.  That's A: tedious, and B: frustrating, while not even remotely resembling skill.   And EVERY time one doesnt work, you have to redo that progress.   And this aspect of the challenge can be utterly removed by simply looking at a guide, which kinda makes it pointless (and to avoid the extreme tedium, that's exactly what I personally would do).  Basically, composition is about knowing IN ADVANCE how to do it.  That's VERY bad design.   GOOD design, when it comes to difficulty, means that a player can, feasibly, find the solution the FIRST time without having had to memorize anything beforehand, by thinking and applying logic to the situation.  This applies to every single genre there is.   But in this?  No.  You cannot do that as a new player, not without a guide.  It's utterly unviable.   In a well-designed game, when it comes to difficulty, the devs make absolutely bloody sure that this is NOT the case.

Looking at a popular example, think of Dark Souls.  That game avoids this issue.  By being careful, and observing enemies, you can learn their patterns the FIRST time, and deal with them properly:  You DONT have to know things in advance to technically have a chance at victory.  Even when you dont quite know what their attacks are, they always have visual tells, and those tells often hint at what kind of attack is coming.  Say you run into a big skeleton with a giant sword for the first time, right?  You've never seen it, you dont know what kinds of attacks this guy has.  So you approach cautiously, and suddenly you see him raise his sword arm up high:  This signals that there's a very good chance he's about to use a downward smashing strike directly in front of him.   It's the same with basically everything in that series.  That's GOOD design when it comes to difficulty.  Even things like "hidden" foes, right?  There are sections in the game where an enemy may suddenly leap at you seemingly out of nowhere.  But, if you really pay attention, it's easy to spot potential hiding places for bad guys, and there's a variety of ways to then approach that spot, cautious and prepared for a sudden attack. And chances are, the enemy involved in that spot has already been introduced to the player, so they have an idea as to what A: might fit in that spot, and B: what kinds of attacks may come at them.  And yes, that's an action game, but these concepts absolutely can be applied to turn-based games as well.  However, this game doesnt do that at all.  And then on top of that, it absolutely will smash the player with extremely arbitrary negative events.  And this can all force the player to totally redo the progress of their characters due to permadeath.  It's just not good design, when it comes to difficulty.  It's pretty much the embodiment of "fake difficulty".

[Wingflier]

I don't see the length of the game as a problem, tbh. It's its mechanics that just don't appeal to me in the slightest. The fact that a party can be crippled completely without any chance to do anything about it is horribly bad design in my mind. I guess this becomes less of an issue several hours into the game as your characters become potent and strong enough to deal with even horribad RNG, but early on it's just no end of frustration where you keep losing without no say in it.

Once again, I feel like we're talking about different games.

One of the great strengths of Darkest Dungeon in fact is that the difficulty is so progressive. In that way it's like AI War. To a new player, difficulty 6 may be near impossible, but compared to 8, it's absolutely child's play.

To a person who has learned how to beat 8, difficulty 6 becomes no contest. Even though just a few weeks prior, difficulty 6 was near impossible. And difficulty 10 is that much harder than difficulty 8, etc. etc.

And this is a fair comparison because I've been around these forums for a very long time, and I've heard many new players who have invested 30+ hours into the game making these complaints, even about the lower difficulties. They complain about how unfair the game is, and how BS it is that the AI gets all these advantages, and how AIP is broken, on and on ad infinitum. Perhaps the game wasn't made for these players, or perhaps they just lack the ability to understand the essential mechanics which would forge their path to victory.

In any case, that's how I feel when I see you say things like this. By the time you are on the hardest Darkest Dungeon missions, the "easy" missions are so freaking easy you could do them with any party combination, no items, in your sleep. That's why I'm struggling to understand or comprehend your points.

Not to mention the extreme "trial and error" aspect of the game, which is a major no-no for me in a game like this.

I think the trial and error portion is part of what's supposed to make the game so fun. If the game built your parties for you, and equipped them with all the right skills/items, there wouldn't be much point in playing it would there?

I had most of my fun coming up with the most overpowered party combinations and sharing them with friends, and granted this led to a lot of trial and error, but that was fun too. If you don't like the style of trying out new parties and seeing what works and what doesn't, then this game just isn't for you.

Sometimes games are like that. I hate sandbox games BECAUSE of the exploring part. I just want to have an objective and complete it. But games like Skyrim, Fallout 4, etc., half of the fun is just randomly exploring shit and seeing what happens. I *hate* that, but just because I don't like it, I don't think that makes them bad games. That's just not my thing.

4X games I can't stand because all the diplomacy and ship design just freaking bores the hell out of me. I just want to build armies and get into the combat. But to a lot of players, the empire management and ship building is what makes the game fun.

So once again, I think this is just a subjective thing. The trial and error is what makes Darkest Dungeon enjoyable. But you have to be a certain personality type. I personally love getting my ass kicked, because it appeals to something deep down inside of me to be better, to overcome all odds, to be the best I can be. So games like this that really challenge me in an intellectual way are my forte. I had some of the most epic and memorable moments of my entire gaming life playing this game, and I'll never forget them.

But yes, I will agree with you, one of the stupid aspects of the game is what TotalBiscuit calls "Wikiculty". That is, an artificial difficulty that can be solved simply be looking at a wiki. And indeed, this is the kind of game where you must do that in certain circumstances. I learned all the chests and props in the 4 dungeons, and how best to interact with them (and when to avoid them) as fast as possible, and learning this was vital to my success. Figuring these things out on your own would be horrible.

Likewise, before fighting any boss, looking at a wiki for help about which party composition to bring is extremely important. It's not that you can't beat the bosses by trial and error, only that doing so would take quite a bit of time, and I said before, the game already takes forever even with these shortcuts.

So yes, I think of Darkest Dungeon as a heavily flawed game, but many of its flaws are also what make it so damn impressive. It's just like people. Perfect people are boring, interesting people are usually kind of twisted or strange in some sort of way. Blizzard games are usually *the standard* when it comes to gaming perfection, they have refined the formula down to its essence, and these games bore the living hell out of me.

I don't blame people for hating Darkest Dungeon for the same reason that I don't blame people for hating DotA. It has all these stupid and unintuitive mechanics that shouldn't be there and that just make life on the player unnecessarily frustrating and/or hard. That's also why I love them.

[Misery]

If the game built your parties for you, and equipped them with all the right skills/items, there wouldn't be much point in playing it would there?

Eh?  Nobody said it would need to do that.  What I mean is that the game doesnt give the PLAYER the tools they need to do it themselves, either. It's just "here, pick at random, and if you get it wrong you lose and have to level up again, sorry no hints!"

Games being hideously difficult and punishing isnt exactly a new thing to me, as I'm used to games much harder than this one, but this really just gets it all wrong.  And the sad part is, with some fixes, it could be a fantastic yet equally difficult game.   Makes me think of Gungeon:  TONS of potential, but some seriously bizarre missteps (of the "what were they thinking?" sort) damage it so heavily that it doesnt even come close to being what it could be.

Heck, the fact that the so-called difficulty can be totally avoided with a wiki is a major sign that balance/mechanics are a total mess. 

In any case, that's how I feel when I see you say things like this. By the time you are on the hardest Darkest Dungeon missions, the "easy" missions are so freaking easy you could do them with any party combination, no items, in your sleep. That's why I'm struggling to understand or comprehend your points.

I think part of what Mana is getting at is that the game never gives the player the feeling of "Well, I died. But that could have been avoided, and I have an idea as to how...so next time, I'll do better!".   Instead, it gives this feeling:  "What, exactly, was I supposed to do about that?" and THAT is a problem.  Any time a game creates that feeling says that it isnt giving the player enough info, and that there's some major flaw present.  In most cases, this is the type of flaw that's major enough to push players away from the game entirely.  Which is part of why I mention the potenial not being reached.

I mean, you go into the game, you try out your party combination, and then you get into the situation of the sort that he brought up:  Where a fight starts, but the enemy gets all the turns, and it's just over. You NEVER EVEN GET TO MAKE A MOVE.  When something like this happens, the player is almost never given anything remotely resembling an idea as to what, if anything, they could have conceivably done about it.  In a well-designed game, they'd think over the situation, pondering the details of what happened, strategizing for next time.  But here?  There's no strategizing, because there's nothing to strategize WITH.  You simply went SPLAT without even being able to respond, and you have not the foggiest clue as to what you could have done.  Referencing the Dark Souls example, it's as if you approached the skeleton I mentioned, but the instant he raises his arm, your character suddenly glows blue, is locked in place, and all of your armor breaks, and the obvious conclusion happens.  What were you supposed to do about it?  What even brought it about?  You know nothing in a situation like that, because you werent given anything to work with.  All of this, in a game that's supposed to make you think, too.   It's the exact sort of reason I dropped the game myself.  I'm no stranger to difficulty, but this one became a big NOPE for me really quickly.  It's arbitrary death, and a bad idea in any sort of game that isnt trying to be I Wanna Be The Guy.

I personally love getting my ass kicked, because it appeals to something deep down inside of me to be better, to overcome all odds, to be the best I can be.

And that's sorta the problem with it for me.  Because at no point did I find it doing this.  Overcoming odds by increasing skill is usually a big drive for me (bullet hell and roguelikes, thusly), but not here.  Because there was no room to do that.  Trial and error, to me, is not skill:  It's pulling the arm of a slot machine.  Or choosing the red or blue wire and hoping the bomb doesnt go off in your face.  You'll get there eventually, but you didn't actually reason your way there:  You just pulled the lever until the proper combos were found.  Each time the game got harder, you then pulled it some more until more power was given to you.  That's all I ever saw in this game.  And of course there's the occasional "MUST check the wiki" bit just to worsen it.  As there was no improvement of skill aspect to this, I dropped it fast.

I'm all for the idea of coming up with things like party compositions or new character builds and whatnot.... but that's when I can do it by actually reasoning it out.  I min-max the hell out of everything.  Wether it be something like a roguelike (other than the core games) or something like AI War.  Those games though give me the tools that I need to figure things out as I go by actually thinking on the situation.  DD did not.  Min-maxing and becoming OP or whatever via trial-and-error just doesnt make sense to me when I could be doing it through logic and skill instead.  In short, the game ended up just feeling mindless to me.

Blizzard games are usually *the standard* when it comes to gaming perfection

Aye, this does seem to be the case.  I can never figure out WHY.

[Wingflier]

I mean, you go into the game, you try out your party combination, and then you get into the situation of the sort that he brought up:  Where a fight starts, but the enemy gets all the turns, and it's just over. You NEVER EVEN GET TO MAKE A MOVE.  When something like this happens, the player is almost never given anything remotely resembling an idea as to what, if anything, they could have conceivably done about it.  In a well-designed game, they'd think over the situation, pondering the details of what happened, strategizing for next time.  But here?  There's no strategizing, because there's nothing to strategize WITH.  You simply went SPLAT without even being able to respond, and you have not the foggiest clue as to what you could have done.

See, this is what you are both saying that I quite simply can't understand.

I've played the game on every difficulty level, with hundreds of different party compositions, and this has NEVER happened to me. Even if all the monsters get to take a turn before you do (which isn't random by the way, it's based on a character's speed stat), there's no way they're going to kill your party from full health. Even if they crit several times in a row, which I concede is possible, but unlikely, it does not spell the end for your party, at worst they'll probably be at half health or higher, having taken significant stress damage.

Hell, Darkest Dungeon isn't even the kind of game (excluding boss fights obviously) where one bad encounter destroys your entire run. Because in each run you typically have dozens of fights, and its a sort of slow, whittling down after each battle, even if the battles are going pretty well, the stress begins to build and your characters start going a little mad. Then if you run out of food you can't heal them anymore and things become incredibly dire.

But the kind of thing where you lose your entire party in a single battle? That's an incredibly rare event unless you entered the battle with them all on death's door. Hell, I've had characters survive on death's door for 10+ hits and come out of the battle alive and well to be healed and used in the future.

So once again, I can't quite understand this criticism. The game just doesn't operate like this. The only way I can see anything like this remotely possible is in a boss fight or if your party was badly equipped for a higher difficulty than they were ready to handle. But on the easiest difficulty I've never experienced anything remotely like this single-battle instagib. At worst it happens over the course of many battles, and gets to the point where I can no longer sustain my party's well-being and must abandon the run. Worst case scenario I lost a character in the process, which isn't that hard to replace (you get them for free).

I absolutely learn from my mistakes in these cases and prepare better for the next run.

[Mánagarmr]

See, this is what you are both saying that I quite simply can't understand.

I've played the game on every difficulty level, with hundreds of different party compositions, and this has NEVER happened to me. Even if all the monsters get to take a turn before you do (which isn't random by the way, it's based on a character's speed stat), there's no way they're going to kill your party from full health. Even if they crit several times in a row, which I concede is possible, but unlikely, it does not spell the end for your party, at worst they'll probably be at half health or higher, having taken significant stress damage.

And no one is saying that you get 100-0'd and dead in a single turn. I've been constantly using the words "lose" or "crippled". By those I mean that your party is inevitably crippled in either a single, or a pair of turns, in such a way that a comeback for you is impossible. MOST of the times you can retreat from such a battle, unless you fail and get slaughtered. There are however times (and I've, as I said, experienced three of these in my ~10 hours of gameplay) where the sequence of events lead to you losing turns due to stress mechanics, stuns or other CC and you become completely unable to respond and you end up with barely anyone alive after a single battle.

Sure, I could just chalk it up to "Oh well" and keep on going, but the point is that as Misery stated, the game does in no way allow me to A) prepare for this or B) understand why it happened. It's just down to trial and error (and a lot of SLOW such, because the game is incredibly slow), frustration and on top of that you have a bad RNG that only rears its head sometimes. So you can have a piss-poor party comp (but you don't know this yet) and sail through 5-6 quests and suddenly BAM! Complete and utter destruction. Out of nowhere.

The difficulty curve is not a curve as much as a jagged rock. It varies wildly depending on RNG. Couple this with previous mentioned lack of information or mechanics for the player to adapt and it's just a lesson in frustration.

I've pretty much written the game off as poor design, but I will keep playing it when I'm not completely and utterly fed up with it because I want to give constructive feedback as to how it could be made less stupid and more enjoyable. Also, reading the reviews section, this sentiment is echoed in almost every negative review that is longer than three lines. People don't complain about the length, nor the difficulty. They're complaining about boring design.

[Mánagarmr]

But the kind of thing where you lose your entire party in a single battle? That's an incredibly rare event unless you entered the battle with them all on death's door. Hell, I've had characters survive on death's door for 10+ hits and come out of the battle alive and well to be healed and used in the future.

I have as well, and even though I found that particular instance to be hilarious, it's again just poor design. There is no input for me here, at all. It's down to RNG and "luck". Sure, I can heal him up a single point and he's no longer at death's door, but as 90% of the enemies in this game apply either blight or bleed, he's likely to die regardless.

Things that I've encountered that are good about the game are actually boss fights. They are very mechanically fun, even though some of them are far too harsch on the punishment if you do wrong. This leads to an extremely high failiure rate if you do not do the right thing immediately. You should be allowed some time to figure out what to do and not just outright die.

See previously mentioned Dark Souls mechanics.

[Wingflier]

Beginner classes (easy to use, versatile):

Crusader, Highwaymaster, Plague Doctor, Occultist

Advanced classes (harder to use, more specific role):

Man-at-Arms, Hound Master, Vestal, Hellion

Expert classes (extremely specific role, know what you're doing):

Arbalest, Bounty Hunter, Grave Robber, Jester, Leper

Master classes (leave these alone until 40+ hours):

Abomination, Antiquarian

------------

Basically, if you make a class with any combination of the beginner classes, in the right order (Crusader in front, Highwayman second, Plague Doctor/Occultist 3rd and 4th), it's basically impossible to lose a run on Easy. This is especially true on the Ruins, which is like the beginner dungeon. You could farm this dungeon for weeks with no problem as long as you didn't have a terrible class combo.

And no one is saying that you get 100-0'd and dead in a single turn. I've been constantly using the words "lose" or "crippled". By those I mean that your party is inevitably crippled in either a single, or a pair of turns, in such a way that a comeback for you is impossible. MOST of the times you can retreat from such a battle, unless you fail and get slaughtered. There are however times (and I've, as I said, experienced three of these in my ~10 hours of gameplay) where the sequence of events lead to you losing turns due to stress mechanics, stuns or other CC and you become completely unable to respond and you end up with barely anyone alive after a single battle.

Sure, I could just chalk it up to "Oh well" and keep on going, but the point is that as Misery stated, the game does in no way allow me to A) prepare for this or B) understand why it happened.

Look, I'm not doubting that his has happened to you. It's just hard for me to believe because in my excessive amount of time playing, this has never happened to me, on any difficulty. And to be clear, the game doesn't have difficulty settings, the dungeons do. Once you reach a certain point you start getting into the higher difficulty dungeons, and when I say it's a leap, it's probably the biggest understatement I could make.

Think of the difference between AI War on difficulty 6 vs. 8. I am by no means saying that difficulty 6 is easy, and most RTS gamers who hadn't conquered it before would be in for a hell of a challenge. Many (perhaps most) would probably quit before they ever beat a campaign this tough. But compared to difficulty 8? 6 essentially plays itself.

And the hardest dungeons are somewhere in the range of difficulty 9 or 9.5, with the Darkest Dungeon (the levels the game was named after) approaching 10.

And what I'm telling you is that, except in boss fights, I have never encountered what you're speaking of that I can remember.

Oh, I've had bad runs. Many, many of those. More than I can count. But generally if I'm entering a battle where things become that dire, my party was already mostly dead or insane before it started, which means there was a giant sequence of events leading up to that point, it had little to do with the final battle that finished me off.

But I can't understand this claim that you and Misery keep making that you don't learn anything after each run.

I learned a boatload after each mission, ESPECIALLY failed missions.

Each dungeon (there are 4, with the Ruins being the easiest, as I mentioned before) has its own set of creatures with specific strengths and weaknesses. For example in the Ruins they are very weak to poison, and you can exploit this to the maximum, killing off most enemies with impunity.

So what went wrong in the run?

Did the enemy keep getting to attack before my team? Bring more torches so I'm less likely to get surprised, or bring characters with a high scouting stat so that I *can't* get surprised, or bring characters with a high speed stat so that they always get to attack first.

Was the enemy backline destroying me? Well then I need characters that can focus the enemy backline first. The aforementioned Occultist and Plague Bearer are perfect for this. The Occultist with Abyssal Artillery absolutely MURDERS anything in the backline, and if you have 2 Occultists casting this spell it's devastation.

The Plague Bearer, with Plague Grenade (even more effective with a Plague Bearer duo) has a similar effect. An absolutely devastating backline attack that is certain to kill them in 1 or 2 turns.

Did I need more CC? The Crusader has great CC options, as well as the Plague Doctors, the Man-at-Arms and the Houndmaster with their high chance to stun targets at the front line.

In any case, I'm struggling to understand why you wouldn't learn from your mistakes after a failed run. Just ask what went wrong in the run that wasn't due to RNG (which is out of your control), and then build a better party for the next run.

[Mánagarmr]

Plague Bearer is very useful, I agree. While I used the Vestal very much in the beginning, healing is actually less useful than straight up CC. The PB ability to stun the back rank is enourmously useful.

Occultist I must admit I haven't found a good use for, aside from pulling an occasional backranker to the front. I just don't really see much use for him. The debuff doesn't seem that useful either, as both the Man-at-Arms and Crusader have better buffs/debuffs.

And yeah, I've had multiple battles where after a single encounter, my party has gone from low stress to 150+ and be at less than 25% HP me being able to do all too much about it, due to strong back rank casters protected by frontlines (and I mean blocking even ranged attacks), heavy CC or similar things. The amount of times I've ragequit out of sheer frustration is pretty silly at this point.

And I must stress that I do indeed not feel that I'm learning anything. I still don't know how to deal with medium quests as my party is crippled almost halfway through, unable to press on. If I keep going, it's a sure loss of the entire party. There's simply too much CC and persistent effects that I can't deal with it properly.

This screenshot doesn't say much, but this is one of those events where I had a fully healthy team, about 80%-ish HP on the Crusader, Hellion was at full health, Highwayman and Vestal also. Only the Vestal had high stress (about 60) and this happened. Death's Door was completely irrelevant due to bleed and blight (you get hit to 0 HP, turn after bleed/blight kills you). This made it impossible to save any characters at death's door. Since stress rapidly mounted, I got turns skipped and actions refused due to 100+ stress symptoms.

This actual battle was the one that finally nailed it and made me quit this game entirely. I just cannot be arsed to play a game that does not give me the tools to learn how to play it without spending hours on a wiki.

[Mánagarmr]

Gave it a whiff again. Here's what happened.

I was desperately trying to get a bleed on the wizened hag, but no, she got to act two times before my Hellion's turn
And then the hellion got to act, but no, then the character who was in the pot got spat out, and was placed first, so my hellion was shoved back to third and couldn't use bleed
Then she hit the entire party, getting the Plague Doctor really low
I struck her with my Leper
Then she put the Plague Doctor in the pot
I had to move the Hellion up in order to get a bleed on the hag, or just act at all
Hag hits the entire team again
I shoot the pot with my highway man
Plague Doctor is at death's door, gets spat out in first spot
Hellion is back in third
Hag hits the whole team
Plague Doctor dies
Leper goes mad
Hellion is still stuck in third
Leper is in first
Highwayman is third at death's door.
Leper refuses to act
Hag eats Highwayman
Hellion gets to hit the hag, bleed is resisted (20%...ok)
Hag hits entire team
Highwayman is spat out in first spot
Leper heals self of damage and boosts resistances
Hag hits entire team
Highwayman dies.
*ragequit*

I'm so sick of being UNABLE to act. It's the main frustration all the time. In the battles that I call "ridiculus RNG", I'm constantly caught only having to desperately deal with whatever the enemy is doing, while being unable to get any progress done on my own. Sure, in some of the fights I actually get to act, but I'm forced to make a move that doesn't progress the fight at all. All it does is reset the fight back to where it was last time, minus health and stress. This leads to an inevitable downwards spiral that's just not fun to deal with.

Sure, I could play it safe and retreat the second I see a fight go this way instead of hoping I turn it around. But that means this team is now crippled and can't go on another quest, so I have to take another team and risk having THEM crippled, and even if they're not crippled, they're not likely to go on another quest directly after this one even if they win. It's just a mindboggingly boring shuffle of characters, dealing with stress and an inordinate grind to get anywhere.

I just don't see how people can find this even remotely fun. I WANT to love the game, but by god it makes it hard to not hate the everliving guts out of it.

[TheVampire100]

The hag was only the first time hard to deal with because I didn't know what to do.
I could give tips how to defeat her easily but I think this is kind of wasted here because you don't want to play the game anymore anyway.

Bosses are technically harder to deal with than normal enemies because they require specific strategies. And yes, I think if you leave the right path only the slightest way, you may end up with a lot harder time. The boss fights are designed like puzzle battles, the problem is, there is no way of telling before the boss what to do and since the bosses wait in long dungeons (but you might tumble over them right at the start), it's tiring to go the entire way again because you had the wrong setup for your team.

Liek in your example, no Hound Master and I think you NEED Hound Master for this battle. In general I thinkt he hag is the most bullshit of the bosses because of the way the fight is setup. But that's just my opinion.
ut other than that, I think every boss fight has no "You cannot react" moments if you have prepared properly. And this is the entire point of the game: prepare properly so you won't run into bullshit situations liek these. They happen, yes, but if they do it's most lekely YOUR mistake. Boss fights are more punishable in that regard because... they behave entirely different to normal bosses and they have an even smaller variety of choices you can use in the fight and if you don't follow them, you will loose.
While I like the puzzle-like set up of the fights, it is terrible designed that you have to know the setup of your group before you even enter the dungeon. Normally you can follow general utility groups, like having a healer, a tank, a buffer/debuffer and so on, depending on what dungeon you enter, but boss fights punish you terribly, even if you have a normally viable party.

[Mánagarmr]

...While I like the puzzle-like set up of the fights, it is terrible designed that you have to know the setup of your group before you even enter the dungeon. Normally you can follow general utility groups, like having a healer, a tank, a buffer/debuffer and so on, depending on what dungeon you enter, but boss fights punish you terribly, even if you have a normally viable party.

And there's my key complaint about Darkest Dungeon in a nutshell. If all of these bullshit moments can be avoided by proper preparation, then the game should allow you to find these out somehow beforehand. Perhaps by picking up tomes in the dungeons and learning small advices and tidbits about particular enemies and bosses. That way, you would know at least SOME of what awaits you. Now it's basically just "throw different party compositions at the boss until you figure it out by method of exhaustion" which I find contrary to both strategy and fun.

[TheVampire100]

...While I like the puzzle-like set up of the fights, it is terrible designed that you have to know the setup of your group before you even enter the dungeon. Normally you can follow general utility groups, like having a healer, a tank, a buffer/debuffer and so on, depending on what dungeon you enter, but boss fights punish you terribly, even if you have a normally viable party.

And there's my key complaint about Darkest Dungeon in a nutshell. If all of these bullshit moments can be avoided by proper preparation, then the game should allow you to find these out somehow beforehand. Perhaps by picking up tomes in the dungeons and learning small advices and tidbits about particular enemies and bosses. That way, you would know at least SOME of what awaits you. Now it's basically just "throw different party compositions at the boss until you figure it out by method of exhaustion" which I find contrary to both strategy and fun.

Actually you need only two attempts, the second being the win run. the first is to "test" the boss. since you can see all the stats/resistances and the boss pattern, you have a pretty good grasp of what you need. Especially the stat thing is worth to note because it tells you what the boss is strong/weak to and that basically tells you what you have to do in order to win.
The first run is, that*'s true, an entirely blind run. You don't know what awaits you and all you can do is keeping your party alive long enough, so you see the entire boss pattern. the second run should then be the real attempt to kill it.

You can plan your party accordingly for the first run, creating a "sacrifice" party for testing purposes. Or you can simply retreat if you need to. However, in soem boss fights you might still leave a valuable hero behind because a lot of bosses can "trap" your hero.