Sounds like a pretty significant downside to the F2P version of the game. I haven't played in a long time, but when I did, the game always just went on blissfully unaware of any content you were missing. Definitely hard to dig in when the game is constantly reminding you that your version is "incomplete".

Man i was a fool to not get Hades earlier. This is a hoot

I just got Cat Quest for like 1,5$ on Steam sale and it's awesome, and that's coming from someone who hates diablo-likes. It fixes all the issues I have with the genre. Instead of tedious looting, finding a piece of gear you already have upgrades it. Combat is more engaging thanks to dodge roll, and quests are actually interesting (well, some of them at least). The humor might eventually become annoying with all the cat-puns, but I haven't gotten there yet.

Are the expansion packs for Darkest Dungeon worth buying?

You only get the base game for free from Epic. They are selling 2 of the 3 expansion packs, "Crimson Court" and "Colour of Madness." According to wikipedia, there is a 3rd expansion pack "Butcher's Circus" that isn't on Epic.

The expansions are both great and add a lot to the game, but if you're just starting out I definitely recommend just playing the vanilla game until you get a feel for it.

The Butcher's circus is a free multiplayer expansion. Not sure if they have any plans it bring it to the epic store version.

Agreed, the expansions are unnecessary on your first playthrough, and may even be detrimental because some of them increase the difficulty. The game is plenty challenging and rich enough in its base version.

Is the optimal strategy to churn through characters at the beginning? If they cost 0 to recruit but 1k gold to heal from stress, is there any point in paying to heal them if they're highly stressed? Just dismiss and get new ones. I have a level 0 Hellion with The Yips and The Black Plague. I should just dismiss her, right?

Yep, stress management is key and if a hero is highly stressed and like level 0 or 1 just dismiss them. Somewhere around level 3 is when you should start investing more in them.

do NOT get Crimson Court for your first playthrough, it makes the game significantly harder and add an annoying timer (in fact, I'd argue that the game is better without it)

as for above questions, yes, you can cycle through heroes easily, but remember that dismissing a hero looses all of his xp, and you need your heroes to level up eventually. But the idea of heroes being disposable is what you need to learn eventually.

The gameplay loop is not really hooking me. The dungeon delves get repetitive and you are juggling so many characters and skills that you don't really get attached to any of them. The upgrades are marginal and I'm not getting the feeling of progress.

Like it'll take me 2 dungeon delves to reduce the price of one kind of stress reducer by 15%. And in that time I've used 8 different characters who are all filled with negative traits and 100 stress. There's no real story to propel you along either.

Are you supposed to grind a ton at the beginning to build up your village? Is there a time limit or limit to the number of low level quests? I guess I could keep churning through level 0 guys, grinding the easy quests and build up my resources. It feels like that would take a long time though.

in the very beginning you want to concentrate on the positive and negative quirks. For example Reynauld is almost never worth keeping once u get a suitable frontline replace b/c of his kleptomaniac trait.

You will naturally progress in the game until u level up some characters to the point they refuse to go on lower level missions. The different areas also require classes that have different strengths and weaknesses. YOU will eventually develop an xcom-style attachment to different characters, granted it takes a bit longer, but IMO that's because the game is much deeper and varied than xcom.

I'll keep at it for a bit more and see how it goes. Thx

I played it a few years ago and while it's the kind of game i'd expect to love I'd keep getting bored around the midstages and moved on, later to give it ago again and rinse/repeat. Have they made any improvements/changes since a few years ago? Do the expansions change much or are they more of an add/on?

I've been really enjoying the free game/value grind, I used to buy games I never got around to playing, now I install games I never get around to playing :-D

Xbox GamePassfor the PC has been great I would highly recommend it. I think I'd have been pretty disappointed paying $60 for The Outer Worlds but instead I enjoyed it, and then there are games I've enjoyed that I don't think I'd have ever purchased- Yes, Your Grace, Star Renegades and Night in the Woods all come to mind.

I'd say my favorite games this year have been Wasteland 3, Slay the Spire, Dead Cells, open to recommendations if anyone has any, am likely to get Hades with Disco Elysium and Bioshock Infinite(for $2 thanks to this thread!) are already in the queue.

Monster Train is pretty good (Slay the Spire-like game) and Gears Tactics is a good one if you like XCOM-type games. Both are on Game Pass.

Lol, those 3 are my exact top 3 this year as well, all thanks to Gamepass.

For anyone who doesnt have it, I believe its $1 for 3 months until the end of the year. Go get it. It's the best video game value of my lifetime.

Monster train is fun (though less so than STS)

I'm spoiled by Xcom. I see how Gears can and should be fun, but in the end it just makes me long to play Xcom 3. And I HATE the color palette in Gears. What an ugly game.

Thought Gears Tactics was fantastic and a great GamePass game as I breezed through it and don't see myself picking it up again.

Upgrading the sanitarium, abbey, or tavern isn't really worth it until your other upgrades are done. Upgrading your stagecoach to bring in more recruits, to bring in higher-level recruits, and to allow you to have more people is really important. Guild and blacksmith upgrades are good too (and will be required to upgrade your stage coach at certain points).

Don't be afraid to get rid of people. Paying to relieve the stress of a level 1 person isn't worth it when you can easily replace them. Your troops are disposable.

Learning how to combat stress in dungeons is important. Figure out which character classes make good stress healers, learn to get rid of stress at campsites, etc. It is pretty common for me to have less stress coming out of a dungeon than I did when going into it.

It's definitely fun in VR.

Hades broke into my top 5 played games OAT this year - so enjoyable!

1. Factorio
2. Europa Universalis IV
3. Slay the Spire
4. Hades
5. FTL

That's a pretty solid top 5 list m8.

another indie game for 1$ until EOD on Steam, The Treehouse Man, really awesome mix between turn-based RPG and a bullet hell. Very engaging mechanics and great looking, gloomy pixel art. Definitely worth checking out at that discount

Pretty excited by Crying Suns on Epic's giveaway. From a quick glance, seems like it plays like FTL, but looks like Eve.

One of their few free games I think I'll download and try straight away.

played it for a bit today, so far it seems like a pretty straight forward FTL clone. The screenshots are a bit misleading, though, it's a pixelart game, which I did not realise from looking at them. That being said, pixelart is my favourite artstyle, so I'm enjoying it a lot.

First real month since Ive gotten it that Gamepass is pretty bland (at least the games announced so far)
I will probably try to play through the story mode of Injustice 2 as I've heard it's not bad