I started my play only few weeks ago and I must say, as a new player, I was afraid of what rewindshock said in his/her review under Darkest Dungeon: The Crimson Court: "Core game is now balanced around crimson court. Not good. (...) The new patch for the core game nerfed many classes and trinkets because of buffs and systems in the DLC. (...) The Crimson |Court has buildings upgrades that can buff heroes, torch abilities, ect. HOWEVER, Redhook patched the core game to reflect this, so if you are still playing vanilla you have lost a significant edge due to a global nerf in trinkets and HP for some classes.".

I have base game and two DLCs (The Crimson Court and The Shieldbreaker) but only base game installed at this moment. I do not know how it did look before, but the game is good for me in its current state (patch 21142). I started playing Radiant mode but after ~10 weeks/missions (to learn basic game mechanics) I switched to Darkest (normal) mode and do not regret it.

Yes, the game could be very punishing, but after over 60 weeks (of in-game time) I have only one dead hero. I think if you have some basic knowledge when it is still possible to take a controlled risk and when it is time to abort the mission then the game will reward you well with a lot of fun.

I want to play this so badly! It's in my collection, but my old laptop can't handle the graphics requirement... it's very disappointing, but totally my fault. Still, no regrets about buying it, I just hope I can get a better computer some day. I watched a few hours of gameplay on Youtube before purchasing it, it looks awesome, can't wait to play it myself. :)

What's your laptop model?

It's an HP ProBook 4410s... the problem with it is the video card, Intel(R) 4 Series Express Chipset, it doesn't support Open GL 3.2 (this is in the game requirements, but I didn't know what it was when I purchased the game, I understand if my processor or RAM is below requirements, but when it comes to graphic cards and drives and stuff it's always confusing to me, lol).

Have you tried -skip_opengl_check command line parameter?

Also, this link: http://steamcommunity.com/app/262060/discussions/0/611696927930859844/#c617328415062281575

Well, it should not cause your PC to burn, so I would try it. :D

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Today I successfully finished champion level quest for the first time - it was my second try. First try was aborted with: two mortality debuffs, two afflictions, all characters had either nearly 100 stress or more.

So after this my plan was to get more gold and upgrade my characters even more. After I finishing activation quest in Cove which started "Gentle Tide" town event (+33% resolve, +15% damage in Cove) I decided to give champion quest another chance. My team for the champion long quest (2x Firewood) was:
1 rank: Hellion level 5
skills: Wicked Hack, Iron Swan, Barbaric YAWP!, If It Bleeds
trinkets: Berserk Charm, Sun Ring
2 rank: Vestal level 5
skills: Judgement, Dazzling Light, Divine Grace, Divine Comfort
trinkets: Tome of Holy Healing, Camouflage Cloak
3 rank: Crusader level 5
skills: Smite, Stunning Blow, Holy Lance, Inspiring Cry
trinkets: Berserk Charm, Sun Ring
4 rank: Plague Doctor level 5
skills: Plague Grenade, Blinding Gas, Battlefield Medicine, Emboldening Vapours
trinkets: Blasphemous Vial, Feather Crystal

In theory Crusader should open with Holy Lance and then fight at rank 2 but I messed speeds for Vestal and Crusader so for the most time Vestal's turn was before Crusader's one and she could only cast Divine Comfort (or go back to rank 3). She was very often attacked by monsters before her move while standing in rank 2. Also I met a lot of monsters with stealth in ranks 3 and 4 so sometimes (for example: after Hellion's good critical hit) there was no valid target for Crusader's Holy Lance in his turn and he could only use Inspiring Cry (or advance to rank 2).

After exploring around 50% of the dungeon I decided to switch starting positions of Vestal and Crusader - unfortunately he did not have any other skills leveled up so I left Holy Lance on him for "party is surprised" or similar situations.

There was a lot of hard as hell party situations that needed tactical thinking but in the end I finished the run with all party members at full HP, zero stress (I left my second Firewood till the very end of run) and all of them advanced to my first ever level 6s! I got also my first Ancestral trinket, Ancestor's Handkerchief as reward.

This was very satisfying.

Yes, maybe I'll try it after I'm done with the games I'm currently playing. Thanks for all the help. :)

A lot of the reviews are outdated by now, as the game received additional patches since then. And yes, the game is perfectly playable without the Crimson Court DLC. BTW you can install it but choose to not activate it when you start a new campaign (and it doesn't get activated on an existing one).

Yes, that saddens me a lot. I even asked about updated guides for DD in my other topic by I got no answers so far. I've also checked youtube guides but the last video I've found with some tips (not just "let's play") is months old and already not up-to-date.

The thing I am missing a lot are some tips for my current situation - I have a lot of level 5s characters so I think I should play champ level dungeons but I do not have best-in-slot trinkets yet and I'm still struggling with party compositions for quests. I've noticed that difficulty level difference between champ and vet dungeons is much higher than between vet and app. Does that mean that when I would like to play Shieldbreaker class I will need to start a new game as it can not be added to my current one?

I don't know of any actual guides but there seem to be some ongoing discussions on reddit for example. Also the Darkest Dungeon Wiki is a great up to date source of information. As a general advice: dungeons should be rather easy once your heroes AND their skills+equipment are on the same level as the dungeon. The resolve level alone doesn't mean much. So if your heroes are lvl 5 but still have lvl 4 armor and weapons, champion dungeons are tough, while veteran dungeons are already a walk in the park (that part of the game sucks a little imho). Notice that the darkest dungeon itself is lvl 6 and there are no lvl 6 skills & gear...

No, you can enable DLCs manually for ongoing campaigns, they just aren't by default. However you can't disable them once activated, even if you didn't recruit a shieldbreaker for example.

Yes, wiki is currently my primary source. Main problem I have with it (and also with reddit) is information I need is often split between a few different pages and there is not just one page with "the most important info".

I've created my own txt file with it and it helps me a lot.

I had champ quest with fully upgraded (weapons/armor/skills) heroes of level 5s (you can read about it in post 7 above) and it was not such "rather easy" as you said. I was very lucky at some encounters.

I do not quite understand - afaik you can not bring lvl 5 character to vet level dungeon? The only exception is a special town event.

Yes, I know about it, but this dungeon is a thing of the future for me - I still have "problems" with regular champ ones. :D

Yeah it's not like you can't mess up but with the proper party and some experience on your side (e.g. which enemies to kill first) you shouldn't run into to much problems.

Right, not on darkest or stygian difficulty. It's possible in radiant mode though, which I prefer. And same holds true for lvl 4 heroes with matching equip. Veteran dungeons are too easy already while champions are still too difficult...

As I said earlier:
For example, I have a few vet bosses waiting for kill but I'm also waiting for "proper rewards" so at this stage I have a few lvl 4s heros who I need in champ dungeons (like Houndmaster) but do not want them to level up more, yet. :D

Ah... so it's one of Radiant's features. I'm playing on Darkest.

That dilemma is one of the reasons I prefer radiant mode. I enjoy experimenting with party compositions a lot and don't like to be too restricted in choosing who to take with me.
However I can say that you don't necessarily need a Houndmaster for champion dungeons. It's a nice and versatile class for sure but he can be replaced by others. Just make sure you can single out the stress-inducers in the enemy backline in turn 1&2 and have at least one, better two reliable stuns with you and your party should do fine. Arbalest/Vestal/Highwayman/Crusader for example is a basic combo that does well on most runs, but there are countless others that are just as viable.