On the other hand, the GOG version offers an offline installer, which e.g. Steam is missing.

To me that is a much more important feature than multiplayer support (because I don't intend to play these games online or multiplayer, only single-player), and achievements (I don't play using Galaxy so I wouldn't see the achievements anyway, plus I don't care about achievements even in Steam games).

So from my point of view, Steam users are the second-class citizens because they don't have offline installers for these games.

I would say that if you don't enjoy the main game loop, play something else. I know there was a great number of posts on steam about how the game is grindy and tedious, until it became known that they've played it in a rather bizarre way, at least to me. Like they used throw-away heroes of sorts, until some of them survived and leveled up high enough to stick around, slowly grinding away towards "endgame". They ether saw some reviewer/influencer play that way, or read some "guide", but I can imagine how it would burn out anyone after a short while. Unless you play on easy, on the intended difficulty you have to make 4 different teams for 4 individual dorkest dungeon runs anyway, meaning you have to level up and equip more characters by doing lower level dungeons, optionally killing every boss on every dungeon tier. After upgrading the stagecoach in town, you get pretty experienced new recruits quite often, so you don't have to start from lvl0, but they can be up to lvl3 iirc with lvl 4 equipment. Anyway, it's one wicked dungeoncrawler to me.

I’d say if you (and the many people who find Darkest Dungeon too "grindy") find this part of the game tedious and not fun, this might not be the right game for you.

I find the dungeon crawling part really fun and see the levelling of the heroes and hamlet as a secondary part of the game, so I never saw any grind when playing through Darkest Dungeon. But I understand it is a very different approach to the game.

Yes, offline installers are a great thing to have.

But, when they come with tradeoff of features being removed the game, then every removed feature whittles down the value of the DRM-free version more and more, until eventually, the value of the DRM-free version becomes so low that buying that version is not worth the tradeoff anymore.

In addition to DD1 having missing Achievements, missing DLC, and missing multiplayer, it also has missing support for Steam Workshop mods, which many of the best mods of DD1 are exclusive to that place, and other GOG customers have complained about this point too.

No doubt that lack of support for Steam Workshop mods with the GOG version is also a big problem that whittles down the value of this "new" (to GOG) DD2 game too.

GOG really needs to make a deal with Steam whereby Steam will allow customers for GOG versions of games that are also on Steam, like the DD games, to access the Steam Workshop mods via the GOG versions of those games.

Otherwise, this point is going to continue making many GOG releases be of questionable value as compared to their superior Steam versions which have support for many more & better mods that increase the value of the games on Steam, but that decrease the value of the GOG versions since that mod support is missing from the GOG versions.

I just hate having to finish a game in one sitting while it's so darn hard that I can't even beat the first boss.

So it is more like a save system problem than the game type itself. :)

Let me say it like this: I totally prefer games with a manual save feature (or at least quicksave) over any other games.

Great news. Wishlisted for now.

Maybe, and it is for each individual to decide themselves if the trade-off is worth it. As long as they know clearly what the trade-offs are.

Awesome - what a great surprise :) I hadn't expected DD2 to make its way to gog. Too bad I've taxed my budget too much for this month - so I'll have to wishlist it for now ;)

Didn't read the whole thread, not sure if it's already posted.
But I have the idea DD" had a pretty rough launch, from technical reasons and the game being quite diferent from DD1, and people expecting to be more of the same.

I played very little from Darkest Dungeon but played Iratus: Lord of the Dead and was interesting.

It won’t be of any help for the first Darkest Dungeon, but Darkest Dungeon 2 has the best kind of achievements: in-game achievements ;)

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In the first Darkest Dungeon (I don’t know about the second one) your game is automatically saved when quitting, even in the middle of a dungeon. I would need to double-check, but I think you can save and quit even during a battle.

There is no restriction about doing a run in a single sitting.

It was a long time ago when I played DD for the last time, but I started it just now, set new game, got into the first fight, exited, got back and I was still in that fight. So I can confirm your words.

Actually no, that’s the twist of this game: "you" are not one of the heroes of the party going dungeon delving, so their death is not the end of the game. You manage a team of heroes and if some die you replace them.

A party going into a dungeon is composed of 4 heroes, but you manage a roster of up to 28 heroes.

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Right, but it would be a shame to skip it because of mechanics that are not actually in it ;)

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To clear up any potential confusion: this is about the first Darkest Dungeon game. I have not played the second one yet so I don’t know what changed from the first game.