Please tell me what I'm doing wrong. My initial Heroes survive OK, but the minute I swap in new Heroes (whether to de-Stress others or level up some newbies), I"m getting slaughtered. The newbies are too weak even for a "Novice" level Expedition, and then your experienced Heroes spend all their time trying to keep the newbies alive, so you can never actually damage the enemy, and then when the newbies inevitably die anyway your experienced guys get overwhelmed. So I'm not losing the newbies to an unlucky crit, pretty much everyone is walking around in equally bad shape so as soon as you lose one, it's a TPK. Or you have to carry so much food, bandages etc to keep them alive that there's no room for loot, which makes the entire Expedition simply an exercise in giving everybody more Stress. Or I run into a miniboss with a weak party I was only expecting to take on an easy levelling run.

I'm still in the Ruins so you should be able to pick your party accordingly, but that's a matter of what comes in the Stage Coach. I know that dying Heroes are part of this game, but I seem to be continually walking around with everybody 3/4 dead once I don't have the 4 most developed initial Heroes all together, and just eventually losing my entire party to a miniboss. And this is on easy level!

Any hints for somebody who just can't seem to get started?

Can you give me some examples of your selection of heroes in parties you had troubles with?

What heroes do you have at this moment? What skills and / trinkets do you use the most?

Maybe this will also help you: https://darkestdungeon.gamepedia.com/Getting_Started

Maybe it's been bad luck: for instance, I've never seen a second Vestal in 5 games, so whenever the first one is de-Stressing I have to make do with whatever healing I can scratch up sucj as the Houndmaster who can at least heal himself, or go on longer missions with characters who at least have Camping heal skills. So it's not like I don't know what to do mechanically, I'm either just really bad at it or really unlucky.

I certainly haven't survived long enough to have a choice of Trinkets. I use whatever I find on whoever it seems most appropriate

Well, that was bad and probably the main reason of your troubles - new players need to have efficient party healer. Try to use one of the classes I mentioned earlier to reduce stress during missions.

Your first few runs can be a bit tough as you don't have a lot of heroes to choose from and no experience on how to use them. In addiion to what has already been said:

- Upgrade the Stage Coach, particulary the number of recruits per week as soon as you can. Don't be afraid to recruit heroes that seem to have bad quirks or skills. Recruiting is for free and you can fire them at any point later to replace them with better ones.

- When building a party be careful to put heroes in positions they actually can use their skills from. Buy lots of food and torches, bring at least 2 shovels.

- In Battle try to single out enemies fast. Only use healing skills, when you are already decimated the enemy lines. Remember that a hero doesn't automatically die when he reaches 0 HP. He can still be saved from "Death's Door".

- After the run evaluate if it's worth to put heroes in stress treatment or if it'S better to outright replace them.

Personally, I disagree with mixing experienced and rookie heroes. Hire an entirely new band and let them prove themselves out. It wont matter if you lose one or two or if they get some stress as you can always just dump them as they are new. You get the benefit of the expedition as long as one guy returns (or you abandon) and the game always offers at least one entry level quest.

Often times your party will be meshed in such a way the loss of one member to a weak replacement will reduce the effectiveness of everyone. If you have a good party, dont fumble with it. Build new ones for the long haul.

So I just reread your question and came to the realization you are struggling playing in general. Two things that made a tremendous difference for me in handling the game that may help you as well.

Learn the art of The Stall. Using stuns and other tricks, learn to extend combat a turn or two to allow your healers and stress reducers to take effect before the reinforcements arrive. Be sure to use your camp skills for the same, never pass up the chance to camp in a level you are breezing through unless you cant prevent a surprise attack. There is almost zero reason to be walking around with half dead heroes. There is no penalty for abandoning a quest other than the cost to outfit the expedition. There is a reason its designed this way, dont be afraid to leave a bad situation behind.

Stress is the mind killer... Health is damn near irrelevant next to stress. Start looking at that little white bar as your characters real "health" meter and its a much more straight forward proposition. The game is truly about stress management more than anything else.

Thanks for this. I've got a start now & things are becoming easier. I do think it was partially down to bad luck in that it took literally 6 or 7 starts before I got more than the initial Vestal, and no Occultist - this was even with the town event giving you 12 Heroes! Once I finally got the second Vestal and/or Occultist, I could actually still do things while my main one was on the bench for whatever reason.

The Stall, I agree, is key to learn, although I'm sure you can undestand this is not a strategy that is immediately apparent when everyone was always walking around half-dead because I had no backup healer! Another crucial component for stalling I've found is the Jester: he's invaluable as a de-stresser which helps with overall availability of heroes, money etc. Sometimes I take a stressed hero on a run with my Jester entirely for the purpose of settling them down. Ditto the Antiquarian: once you have enough of a party to support her, taking her on an occasional supply run helps keep things ticking over in the hamlet: cash for skills & quirks, heirlooms for upgrades etc.

I also thought I remembered reading somewhere that abandoning a quest had severe negative consequences, but I guess a bit of extra stress & a negatve quirk is far better than losing the hero entirely

The quirk piece impacts you win or retreat. Granted, there are better odds for winning. I dont recall the stress hit to retreating, but its been a while.

If you abandon the quest then:

a) Your heroes will suffer additional stress damage.
b) Your heroes will have increased chance to receive negative quirks.

On top of that, if the dungeon had Darkest difficulty level then one of heroes will die.

Yes, but thats well down the road. This is starting a party past 4.