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One of the novelties of the early access of Darkest Dungeon II is the development of positive or negative relationships between your heroes. It can be love or friendship, but it is more often hatred and resentment. Here is a guide to the social aspect of the game to get you out of it.
If you’ve already started a game on Darkest Dungeon 2’s early access, you must be painfully aware of the dramatic turn it can take in relations between your various heroes in-game. This will seriously affect the group’s performance in combat, and it can even dangerously frustrate and even stress you as a player. Fortunately, while this new feature is not yet well integrated, and is unbalanced, it is not a lost cause either. If you do it right, everyone can be friends with almost everyone.
How Relationships Work
The basic principle is simple, events, some fixed, others random, can produce positive (yellow) or negative (blue) points of relation between two characters. These points cancel each other out, so a lot of the characters keep a neutral relationship, at least initially. When the bar is full of yellow dots, or blue dots, a relationship is randomly determined.
The effect of each relationship is different, for example the characters who respect each other will often assist in combat which will give rise to free attacks and bonus damage, they can also encourage each other which will heal stress . Whereas if the two characters hate each other, they will insult or even embarrass each other which will cause stress, block support capacities, or even impose damage penalties. This will slow down the pace of the fights either way, as these special events and swaps happen far too often.
Relationships only have 4 points, and they cannot be deepened. This means that if there are enough positive or negative events, the resentment can disappear or the lovers can separate. They can then develop a new relationship between two, nothing prevents former lovers from hating each other, it’s time to call the marriage counselor!
All the characters in the group can enter into different relationships with all the others, it has no influence and they are well separated. If your Brigand loves the Pillager and hates the Man-at-arms who respects the Pillager as well, it has no impact.
Special dialogues triggered by relationships do not produce a reputation point, positive or negative. And that’s a good thing, otherwise it would be almost impossible to get out of a negative relationship for example.
How do you develop good relationships and fix bad ones?
Stress is bad
There are quite a few factors to consider in relationships, but by far the most important is stress. As soon as your characters’ stress increases, they will become irritable and take everything wrong. for silly (and sadly realistic) reasons. It starts from 4-5 stress points, and it gets bigger. By keeping stress levels very low, your heroes will even tend to naturally develop good relationships. This is obviously easier said than done. The best method currently is touse (and abuse) the Improved Prevention technique of Doctor Lapeste. It reduces the stress of the whole group by one point, to 100% (it feels the nerve fast). The Man-at-Arms has a fairly similar ability, Enhanced Encouragement, which has a 50% chance of being reduced. The Jester also has a song that reduces stress by 2 points, or even 3 once improved, but for a single target. You can also use certain consumables like Laudanum and anti-stress items at the inn. Also remember to select the path for which the most members of the group voted, when it’s possible.
Reinforcement objects
Another easy way to develop good relationships, at least when stress is low, is to use supportive skills. on other group members. They will appreciate and often give a connection point. For example the military care of Doctor Lapeste, the Protection of the Man-at-Arms. For classes that don’t have one, you can also use combat items such as Anti-fire Balm, Antitoxin, care kits, etc. Once at the inn, use special items like card games, darts and more to try to bond. Take a tour of the hostel store, and the hospital store, anti-stress and relationship items are generally inexpensive.
Make the right choices
A very reliable way to improve character relationships is to choose answers they agree on at events. It’s easily recognizable by the golden aura that will surround other like-minded characters. Be careful though, it’s a double-edged sword and others will not like it. Try to balance your choices, or pick another character with whom losing a relationship point or two won’t be a problem. The response combinations are sometimes different, so be sure to go through all the characters.
The attributes that change the game
Finally, the most determining factor besides stress, but over which you have little control, is that of attributes. When you select a character for the group, you can see a positive and a negative attribute, it can have a huge impact on their relationships. A lot of negative attributes will quickly sour relationships when traveling, so remember to remove them as soon as possible in a hospital.
On the other hand, certain positives can completely change the dynamics of the group, such as the “Optimist” who heals one stress point per turn. And above all, the rare and very desirable Ray of Sunshine, which will make the character the heart of the group. He will encourage and calm others which will cure their stress and develop good relationships. If you see similar Attributes when selecting the party, seriously consider getting the hero involved, even if that is not your preferred class.
