r/DarkAndDarker

Dark and Darker is slowly gaining players

Last wipe the game hit a max of 11 379 players the Sunday three days after wipe. This past Saturday the game hit 11 958 players, more than 10 days after wipe.

Perhaps more notably, the game is retaining players better than it has been. The past 13 days since wipe the game has steadily had 24 hour peaks above 10k players. Last wipe the player count dropped below 10k after four days.

Last time the game was stable at around this level was in October 2025, after players had dropped off from the new season which started mid-September and reached a brief high of nearly 17 000 players. Before that, the game hovered at around 4 000 players from July to August 2025 (mini-wipe August 26th).

Source: https://steamdb.info/app/2016590/charts/#6m

Note that this only shows players on Steam and not players using Blacksmith, Ironmace's own launcher.

u/Square-Piece-8130 — 2 days ago

Halberd to riches

Play any class that can wield a halberd, build pdr and become rich!

In all seriousness, halberd is dominating this mode. You cannot win a melee engagement without one. This weapon needs a serious nerf.

It would also be nice if sorcerer could cast all 10 spells. The class is very weak with long cooldowns that cannot kill most classes even with a full combo.

Just some things that need to be fixed. Im really loving the mode, but it's not fun constantly fighting halberd players when you have no chance of winning in melee even if you hard outplay them

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u/Electrical-Ad-3279 — 1 day ago

For the love of good please add jewelry back to the dungeon.

It ruined last wipe for me and it’s ruining this wipe as well. Please add jewelry back to the dungeon in a greater capacity than the ruins rusted key room.

Crafting jewelry is tedious, boring, and lame. It actively pushes me away from playing. I want to build a full kit for hr but I can’t craft good jewelry until my quests are done. As soon as I realize this I just loose interest to play.

Ironmace please I’m begging you just add them back even sparingly to the dungeon. Just have the ability to find jewelry and craft jewelry. Have both systems. Please just change it from how it is now. I’m tired of crafting jewelry it sucks and makes me play the game less.

reddit.com
u/AkuAku3 — 10 hours ago

Halberd is a joke

I know this topic has been beaten to death in this forum but holy hell halberd needs a hotfix. The amount of trios all running the same weapon is an absolute joke. A weapon with one of the furthest reaches in the game should not be allowed to 2 tap as well with hardly any counter play. Yes the first swing is super choreographed but into a trio? Doesn’t matter at that point. People might say play range into them but as a Cleric main I don’t really have options. While the meta is one of the best it’s ever been, one weapon should not be perma ran by every single group.

reddit.com
u/Sea-Shopping-9045 — 20 hours ago

New boss room

Without fail, every single time I do this boss I have multiple people just sitting on the pillar safely right next to the boss waiting for it to die. They then have an advantage in the 1v1 if I’m low from the boss. Not to mention the stupid void mechanic that has no place in this game.

Why do we keep developing bosses that puts the people that take the time to learn the boss at a huge disadvantage? When the boss dies, the people sitting on the pillar will be on top of you before his death animation is even over so you can’t loot.

Genuinely why would I continue to do the boss if I know I’m getting thirded and forced to take a fight at a disadvantage or give up my boss loot every single time when all the other person did was sit on a pillar and watch me fight the boss?

reddit.com
u/Brogies9069 — 6 hours ago

Overseer Void mechanic sucks so much.

It is the new POI for fights like ruins bridge and boss room in crypts now this is another major POI.

Slowly it is becoming a cesspool of knock back rangers griefing people or sorcs pushing people into void, its just a terrible module for fighting people in.

People are also just voiding their kits if they know the fight is lost or you kill someone near the cliff and their body falls in and you can't even loot it.

Please just remove this dogwater voiding cheese please i beg.

reddit.com
u/SeaTrick9988 — 15 hours ago

Remove Memory Capacity!

Memory capacity is annoying to deal with and its an outdated mechanic that is hard to understand for new players. Knowledge is already responsible for cast speed and spell recovery. Magical interaction speed could be based on knowledge instead of will. Will is already responsible for magic damage bonus, magic damage reduction, buff/debuff duration already. Knowledge is more thematically fitting for magical interaction speed anyway. It is not worth to build spell cast speed instead of knowledge at any point of power right now anyway, so knowledge is always valuable.

Wizard does not struggle with memcap when built correctly.

Warlock is the same. (Unless 10 spell becomes viable)

Cleric 10 spell without gear could be a little problematic but can be adjusted easily.

Sorc in base gear is struggling but as soon as a little bit of gear is in play that, memcap is not an issue.

Casters scale better than than martial classes but a lot weaker without gear. Why not strech the power curve a tiny bit? The current halberd warlock meta could be supressed by casters (but this is also the issue of SSF).

reddit.com
u/WillUSurf — 1 day ago

ESP, Non-effective Punishments

I was just playing Water Map when I pulled a chest on Bard. Before I could even swim away from the pile I pulled it from, another Bard was swimming STRAIGHT toward me at a top speed that Michael Phelps would be envious of, again, the MILLISECOND after pulling the chest, from a WAYS away.

Said Bard proceeded to chase me across the map through mobs, sharks, and everything of the like until killing me. This was the only player that I had seen all match.

The ESP is so blatant and disgusting it isn't even funny anymore. The worst part is Ironmace blatantly admitting months ago that they give cheaters around 10 attempts to reform before permanently banning them. Yes, 10 slaps on the wrist of 3-7 day suspensions before actually taking permanent action against the account.
Coupled with the fact that there's no gear/item return system like Arc Raiders when you die or lose to cheaters genuinely makes this game unplayable at times. The new TPVM etc. mandatory HR bios tweaks have done little to nothing to solve the problem.

reddit.com
u/2002ChipotlePC — 1 day ago

Squire Royale is S tier

I have 5k hours in DnD and always thought that peak adrenaline is running BiS kits in HR, but realized that I’ve never had more fun than STR, esp this wipe. We also pulled a cinder, DB, a chest, looted another chest off a poor rogue hiding on 2nd level, and a couple of bags. Every game is like 15-20 kills.
It also fixes one of the biggest gameplay loop issues - the ‘I don’t need to loot, just want to W key and loot kits’ 1 month into a wipe issue. Every upgrade feels meaningful, getting Lego Halberd means gg wp.

Big W this year. Hopefully IM keeps pumping resources into this mode. Gimme a guaranteed Overseer spawn plsss.

u/Apprehensive_Comb807 — 3 days ago

Dragon strategy for multiple people on arena

I've mastered solo dragon in norms, can kill it easily in like 4-5 minutes on squire bard. Easily dodgeable, I'm below 10% death rate.

I go into high roller, start killing it deftly, then another player jumps on the platform to challenge me and within 4-5 attacks the dragon looks from the other player to me while charging a leap, thus placing it at an undodgeable angle and guaranteeing my drop into the abyss. This has happened 5/5 times in HR.

Do streamers just ditch the dragon arena instantly on challenge and fight other players off the arena? Is HR dragon just bogus? Is there some secret tech to take less knockback from dragon? What is going on here?

reddit.com
u/Damulac77 — 5 hours ago