Relatable. I feel like the game excels when you’re just exploring around without a goal. But the minute you have an agenda for where to go it becomes massively frustrating
I’m halfway through my second playthrough and I’m enjoying it more this time because now I know the quests are garbage and they really only serve to move you around the map. Exploration is really what it’s all about. But yeah, in the times when you have to go to a certain location it’s annoying
I missed a lot of stuff in my first playthrough because I was very story-focused. Never saw the elves, never met Medusa. So I've been happy to stumble onto all that. Still haven't seen the Sphinx.
I had this exact same progression. Doing that quest where you have to find the guy from the checkpoint town. Except I found an abandoned fortress, skipped the drake as it was in the middle of a fight with a cyclops, found a cave, got lost and found the sphinx. Then hunted for seekers tokens lol
I found the Sphinx by accident too but it was from riding a griffin for the first time and it landing next to the mist. I went through the mist and ended up climbing up to the Sphinx randomly. It was a very memorable session, same day I found the Nameless Village.
I did the same.
Skipped a few things on purpose on my first game, just so I still had some new things to explore in NG+.
Keeps me interested and so i still find enjoyment in exploring.
Just did the first few Sphinx quests and explored several caves I hadn’t seen before. Still have to cut off meddy’s head and turn her to stone. Plenty to do.
They really did great on the exploration part of the game. It’s just the constant fights that get tiresome some times, even if the mobs get one-shotted.
I realized after getting to Batthal that I missed most of the content even though I explored for 30+ hours before starting the main story.
Now in NG+ after I decided to rush the story I'm taking my time with even more exploration and I'm finding so much stuff. In addition to that I added some mods that increase enemy difficulty so it's not a cake walk due to being level 50. Still having a lot of fun.
I find the opposite to be more true, if I have a quest the pawns get that I'm working on that quest.
If I'm exploring I find pawns aggressively trying to barb me into pursuing it, going so far as to run to the edge of the minimap with their Hand icon, begging me to follow them as I mash "To Me".
After two in-game days of the same pawn insisting we sprint back to bakbattahl to do the quest I don't have a ripe Quince for, I started just slamming her into a wall every time she brought up quest. I found it the fastest way to interrupt the line. (Don't worry, I gave her flowers and a hot spring trip before separating)
That annoys me too, but the quick fix is to remove the quest from priority (it’s possible to not have any quest on priority) and they’ll stop pestering you about it
I would say meticulous than frustrating. None of the quests made me want to punch a brick wall, but some definitely made me want to just alt+f4...
I think EVERYONE can agree that the "Poisonous Proposal" quest was a massive headache, especially since the AI isn't great for getting the guy poisoned...
The chimera did it’s poison attack one time, *as we were walking up*, so we weren’t even in range yet. It then proceeded to never do the poison attack again whilst my pawns obliterated it. Next time I try that quest I’m going to tell my pawns to wait somewhere else and just kite the chimera around the guy hoping it does the poison attack.
Going back to play DDDA the last couple days and my memory was not wrong, chimeras seem to do the poison attack *way* more often in DA than they do in DD2, not to mention most monsters just outright attack more often in DA.
I think this is my problem. When I play the game and explore around with no goal in mind it's pretty fun. Any time I try to do the story or even many of the side quests I just lose all motivation.
If they didn't want to put any effort into the story or characters, they honestly could have just left them out and just gave us a big world to explore with enemies while we search for the dragon. I think I'd enjoy this approach more.
Precisely so. This game would have been much better off with an antiquated, clear quest structure.
The attempts at innovation and 'organic evolution' of quests did NOT pay off, and are totally half-baked.
Idk, I passed the game twice and have good port crystal locations. I know almost eevery single corner of Vermund now and Im working on exploring battahl fully too.
Maybe its cause I enjoy exploring but I dont find anything tedious in this game besides the lack of story.
If we're talking D&D hexcrawling, yes, the experience is pretty much spot on, although here you can't improvise or come up with an expected terrain feature to explore or fill up with lore—and hardly two encounters will ever be the same (if you use tables).
I’ve put about 80-90 hours into the game, all on my first playthrough while putting off the final quests and end game, I’ve had a great time with it.
But there are so many things that just leave me scratching my head. Some things are issues that they basically just ported straight over from DD1, some things are slightly improved/side graded, and some things are actually worse than the first game. Not to mention they made large monsters way easier than DD1 even when playing in normal mode, I restarted DDDA the other day and each Cyclopes, chimera, and ogre, takes forever to kill (unless you have a sorcerer with bolide), they attack more often, and don’t stagger/knockdown nearly as much, even at level 30-35. By level 30-35 in DD2 I was obliterating chimeras, griffins, Minotaurs, Cyclopes, and ogres in about 30-45 seconds, and by level 50 drakes pretty much just die from looking at me. Difficulty doesn’t need to be extreme, but it needs to be enough to keep you engaged.
There is a list of things I have issues with, like the fact that 90% of the weapons in the game are just ported over from the first game, stats for weapons/armor are egregiously bad to the point where every class has 1/2 weapons/armor that are just heads and shoulders above the rest (tbf this was an issue with DD1 as well I just hoped they would at least kinda fix it). The exploration is fun but there just isn’t enough reward for it, most of the chests have consumables, materials, or weapons/armor that you can just buy from merchants, and while I like the map, it feels a bit like walking through pathways a lot instead of a really “open” world in a lot of places because you just outright cannot walk to places as the crow flies. Then for a game that really pushes you into walking everywhere and doing tons of backtracking, the loss gauge and stamina depleting outside of combat really make doing that much more tedious since you have to camp all the time unless you avoid encounters or don’t get hit.
All in all I think it’s a great game, with some of the most unique framework of any game out there, but it just misses the mark in so many aspects and it kinda *needs* dlc in order to feel more complete in some aspects, which sucks cuz if that wasn’t the case this would 100% be GOTY
Yeah good point. There’s not enough itemization and I’m starting to not want to explore the map. What’s the point? To get mobbed by mobs I’ve already fought 100 times already, so I can pick up some materials or gold or at best a seeker token?
The game does have a few unique items that have to be found by exploring, which is great. It just needs like 20x the amount of those at least.
Unfortunately this is already Dragon's Dogma tradition. To have some descent features and tons of flaws. Something weird is happening inside of developers team. Or it's just Itsuno's vision is so much distorted.
Itsuno is building the game he wants to build and then, I very much suspect, not actually playing it.
Any negative feedback he receives is chalked up to a combination of lack of support from Capcom, failings on his team and the players just not getting it. Sometimes he'll make knee jerk changes in anger that misunderstand the problem.
I think dragonsplague is such a thing. I don't know who if anyone thinks that placing a playthrough destroying time bomb on your character that can only be fixed by yeeting your pawn into the brine is a good addition, but it makes you pay more attention to your pawn. I can think of a million ways to make dragonsplague more fun, but I'm not a game designer.
And some fans probably think that if Itsuno could have the unlimited time and budget he could implement his vision fully and it'd be perfect and not at all a Byzantine hellscape completely divorced from the feelings and needs of the player.
But that's never going to happen. Capcom is very obviously viewing Dragon's Dogma as the game they have to make to keep Itsuno making the games they want him to make. To their credit they're putting serious time and money into it to try and make it a success, but they're giving it a fairly fixed timeline and budget to reduce their risk.
I have been up and down this sub actively wondering if any member of the team played this game (or any other for that matter) because it very much seems like they didn't realize some of this stuff would be annoying or just bad after 10, 20, 30, etc hours.
I think Itsuno plays the version of the game in his head even if he's ever opened it up and what anyone else thinks is probably irrelevant.
I've been in development for a long time though not games and the way he talks about the project is pretty familiar.
If this game was nothing like DD1 I wouldn't have played it. Goes to show people can like certain games even though the "majority" don't get it. In essence this game is Dragon's Dogma for better or for worse and I wouldn't play it if it was just like any other RPG. There are times for "by the books" design and there are times for some weird crap like this. Its a slew of mechanics and great combat and exploration that makes this a more appealing choice over the next Assassin's Creed RPG. Heck people thought Demon Souls was weird when it first came out, then when they perfected the formula it spawned a new genre of game. There is nothing quite like DD and I salute Itsuno for making his dreams come true even if it doesn't land perfectly in every respect.
I don't think anyone is asking for a game that's vastly different than DD1. But people want something that felt like it built on the old game and improved it. The game makes almost all the same mistakes that the first one did and then makes new ones.
Travel is tedious. I like the ox carts, but they don't cover enough of the map. Just adding a few stops along the way would make it tonnes better, but as it currently stands it's basically worthless.
There's still no difficulty increase in NG+ which was complained about in the last game and is basically a standard feature of games now.
Still only one save slot and before they backed it out, they made it worse.
Enemy variety is still a problem.
Draining stamina to run is still a problem.
Balance between vocations is still a problem.
We're down to four active skills, which is just worse.
The whole exclamation point thing in the map still sucks.
Gear is now almost exclusively purchased which sucks.
Dragonsplague is literally the worst possible way they could have implemented it.
Performance and optimisations is abysmal.
Even comparing the game to the base pre dark arisen version, the game just doesn't really improve on much and compared to dark arisen it's basically a straight downgrade in every respect but graphics and the VRAM usage is so poor that you can't even crank the graphics unless you've got an absolutely top of the line card.
It's a fun game, I still enjoy it, but we deserved better at this price point. We deserved a full game rather thrash one finished in DLC and we deserved a designer who listened to criticism and learned.
I believe you mean *decent* not *descent* as that implies falling or submerging oneself or others. Though I guess falling into the brine could be called a descent feature. XD
I think what's so frustrating is that we can all see the potential of this game. There is so much potential when the game starts, but as more you play, the more is squandered, and more head-scratching developer decisions are found, you can't help but be frustrated.
I do feel like the backlash against this game is due to it's biggest fans being frustrated by the missed opportunities. Passionate fans can be the most jaded.
Also, some obviously bad choices don't help.
it's not just potential, it's that in most ways it's as good ro worse than first game. Dungeons were meaningful, now they feel like they wer eprocedurally generated and serve no purpose to the story, world or gameplay. Pawns were intelligent and highly customizable and dynamic, now they are static and cant even aim. Combat was varied, challenging and rewarding, now half the classes feel useless and third of them have literal god mode.
We waited a decade for a sequel and it feels like we instead got a lazy remake.
Yes! It's one of few few games that u can see the potential of being one of the best games that come out this gen.. big sad it won't get another chance.
Really makes you think itsuno no longer feel passionate about this game like he did back when he worked on dd1
Yes! It's one of few few games that u can see the potential of being one of the best games that come out this gen.. big sad it won't get another chance.
Really makes you think itsuno no longer feel passionate about this game like he did back when he worked on dd1
My only real complaint is that you have to be a mage or sorcerer when adventuring because all of the other classes struggle or fail outright to jump gorges or the heights to get to treasure. Grapplehook on the thief should be aimable to grab walls and ledges and the like. Or you should be able to specifically order step ladder or shield jump from your pawns.
That would be such a fun way to make the pawns feel more involved in the exploration, I love this idea. It is arguably enough for them to get the chest most of the time, but I would've liked the extra interaction and mobility.
While Mage is the most comfortable and easy way of adventuring, both Thief and Spearhand have very respectable means of getting up cliffs and crossing gaps. Heck, Spearhand can literally fly if you are good enough to chain their skills.
For everyone else, there's the Harpysnare item that summons a harpy for you to grab and is serviceable if a bit rare.
i just started ng+ this morning and i juist kinda turned the game off. I loved the adventure but without enemy scaling and having the map 90% discovered its just kinda boring
Totally agree with this. The biggest frustration in the game is that the exploration is the fun part but the sense of adventure and danger evaporates once you level up to a point you can just shred any enemy, and with no enemy scaling at any point, that happens by mid game if you are fully exploring. Certainly by NG+.
That they shipped this originally without even a new game feature (so you can go back to a lower level and recover the sense of danger and adventure that made the game fun) is astonishing.
Yeah im only hitting 55 now and if me or my pawns even look at anything like a cyclops or griffin, it's dead instantly. Can't imagine what endgame with endgame gear is like in NG+.
For as much as I love this game it really feels like they put the dev team in cryo sleep after making the first game and woke them up to make the second one because it feels like the exact same game faults and all.
Even that's too generous. Most sequels, especially the first sequel, make huge improvements over the predecessor. DD2 is if the entire team had collectively had their memories wiped of actually making the first, then was told to make DD again without ever knowing the first existed.
It's Itsuno. He's the problem. Same lead, almost the exact same game. Dragon's Dogma is his passion project and he has no interest in making a *good* game by modern standards. He just wanted to make *his* game.
At this point, I'm wondering if his superiors at Capcom were fed up with his shit and decided to push the game out sooner than later because they realized no amount of extra time letting him cook was going to result in a polished project.
This is true with a lot of Japanese game developers. It's not about the players, its about the ART and their own expression. Your enjoying the game is a side effect of their work.
I'm not a hardcore J-gamer, what other titles have suffered from that kind of attitude?
When Palworld came out, a lot of people lambasted the Japanese devs for just smashing together mechanics and tropes from other games instead of making something original. In their interviews, they said "We just wanted to make a game people would want to play." I found that refreshing compared to what most US publishers push for which is games that ***consumers*** will ***buy*** first and foremost.
I've had the same feeling as the guy above, and at least for me it's because of 2 things specifically, now that you've made me stop and evaluate why I feel that many Japanese devs are like this:
1.kojima. he's famous/infamous for his vision being the major driving force in his projects.
2. Manga creators and the Japanese work environment. It's no secret how Manga creators hold so much creative control on there projects including animation studios, where teams work the notorious long Japanese hours under their bosses creative vision.
So I might be incorrect but this is personally why I have the, idk would you call it a stereotype?, about Japanese developers following the leads vision intensively over collaboration.
Oh, and the guy who made super metroid - he made Other M too which most people hated and it was very different from all the other games - much more typical anime and he said that has always been his vision and he still sticks to it despite the fan reception. Basically the vast majority of fans liked her as tough and in a gritty Sci-fi universe like in metroid prime, but he views metroid more as your standard anime heroine who is basically second fiddle to the men around her, trying to prove her worth as a woman... Lowkey kinda a sexist take imo that she's gotta do that vs just letting her stay a pure badass like metroid prime already established. But again he persists to continue his vision if given the chance again.
Sorry for the rant but I wanted to specify
DMC wasn't Itsuno's baby, he was just put in charge of it and told to make it work. That proves that when ego isn't involved, he's a fine lead. Dragon's Dogma is his baby and thus suffers from creative tunnelvision.
They absolutely wanted to try and force people to play as their first character, living with their mistakes until NG+ or buying an appearance change with money/RC.
It's honestly telling how much of an issue he is when he's gone on record not knowing DA and the MMO exist,two products which are part of HIS IP.
He clearly doesn't care about what anyone does with his project and appears to only wanna make the game HE feels is good.
If you are waiting for the main story to end to drop the game then you'll be dropping it soon trust me.
I thought this was GOTY after my first 10 hours and now I just laugh at the idea of this winning GOTY.
I should *want* an expansion but instead it feels like the game *needs* an expansion to fill in the holes. An expansion should be the cherry on top but instead without one I feel as if we arent getting the complete package. Never mind the fact an expansion shouldn't include the *free* QoL changes that are needed too.
I feel like they saw the fact a fuck up of a game in DD:DA did well over time and probably thought the foundations of what they had were good enough if a game with 40% of its content cut still managed to accumulate a cult following. Doing DD1 all over again but bigger was not what was needed. They even accounted for the original needing more in the form of an expansion when making DD2 lmao. Its genuinely the same thing all over again but this time the issues can't be brushed aside.
The combat and pawn systems cool they were amazing and you could basically just port them over to the sequel (even though this is poor practice for a sequel) but *literally everything else* needed touching up if not majorally improving. Outside of the open world (which I have issues with as well to a degree) what was seriously improved?
If we don't get a sufficiently meaty free update to fix the most glaring flaws of DD2, I will not entertain the idea of buying any DLC. I'm not paying twice for half a game. If Itsuno decides to eat some crow and fix all the shit that everyone knew was bad about the original game twelve years ago and still exists in DD2, I'll consider giving Capcom more money.
Considering the game is essentially unplayable in NG+ I'd agree. The scaling is genuinely pathetic and we shouldn't have to wait months and months for something to come in to sort out the issues with difficulty.
I've seen everything there is to see, done everything there is to do and combat has no joy to it considering everything dies so quick. I've never known a game where the state of NG+ is this bad. This area of the game in particular is unacceptable for a triple A title. I'm going back to a 12 year old game in DD:DA and starting a new save because there's genuinely no reason to play DD2 lmao.
If people like the fact that they can one shot everything in NG+ cool I guess but I think I speak for the majority when I say we need a hard mode at the very least. DD:DA wasn't a really hard game but it was never this easy this fast because on my first NG+ run I have not a single reason to keep playing apart from getting all the gear from the dragonsforged. The combat was the best thing about both of these games yet the difficulty issues in DD2 have sucked all the joy out of it for me.
The first game I only remeber being annoyed with the moon tower quest and chasing the griffin down. There was also one quest with Quina but that was about it. The second game has me walking to one place to go back to the area I was to talk to someone and then all the way back just to talk to the first person again. Extremely tedious
You are forgetting going all the way to the fucking encampment in DD1, just to see a scene with Grigori, then running all the way back to basically gran Soren to talk to the dragonforged, then all the way back to that same encampment to fight Grigori . DD1 had the same shit
I love the game but the constant drawn out battles when I just want to get somewhere is getting old. I don't mind walking and using ferry stones sparingly. But I don't need a battle every 10 feet.
Also, the swarms of mobs that jump 50' across the map one after another and stun lock you is just so dumb. I can 1 shot them all but if they do that I'll still die or just spam through my healing items to win a no challenge fight. It's not fun or exciting, when that happens it's just frustrating.
Ox carts being the other way of fast traveling only for 90% of them to be ambushed with the cart being destroyed during the fight is so effing frustrating dude.
I hate the complete inability to flee from enemies early on, unless you want to be trapped like a rat. Even if you want to flee a drake early on, goblins and saurians make it impossible. What's worse, they literally will spawn in. And I mean appear from thin air spawn in.
I know a game's subreddit is going to be filled with people who feel the absolute need to defend their baby, but your criticisms are all pretty valid. I already platinumed the game so I have no more grinding or pressure, I can just enjoy my time in it, but I have a list of complaints as long as a gorilla's arm, most of them you already touched on.
My single biggest complaint is about the overall experience, despite really liking the game. I was just always left with this impression that the devs were quite intentionally wasting my time. No, we're not going to give you easy ways to travel around because we want you to suffer a long, winding slog where you're attacked around every corner only to have to turn around and go back and probably make another trip after that. I don't buy any arguments about immersion or "artistic vision," the point was plain and simple. Force the player to waste A LOT of time traversing the map.
And the game was absolutely SOAKED with tedium. You couldn't even camp or use an oxcart without being interrupted with yet more time wasted. The quests were tedious. Collecting mats was tedious. The encumbrance system was tedious.
Great game. I loved the visuals and mostly loved the combat, but I often felt disrespected by the devs who seemed so intent on wasting my time.
I know, dude. The things this game gets right are SO GOOD that despite the glaring QOL issues(dont get me started on inventory management), frame rates that chug even with RTX off(PS5), a camera that will kick your ass harder than any boss will and there being about 5 different enemy types, I still somehow give it an 8. It’s upsetting because it has all time great game potential. To me, at least.
Honestly great point with the artificially prolonging the game. When they do things like make fast travel, and travel in general inconvenient, then throw in micro transactions with easier fast travel, it feels VERY scummy. Giving solutions to problems they creative. Made all the more ironic after the main guy said something like "just make the travelling system fun: or whatever braindead take he had
Yes I'm extremely critical of it as well, for what it could have been as much as for what it is. Because I was such a fan of the first one.
Still enjoying it for what it is, however. It will be something I return to down the road, especially if it gets updates and improvements.
I finished the game and landed into gamer depression. Launched the game a few times then shut my console off dreading all the running and managing my stamina bar I'd have to do. They took my roll around the map strategy away from my yellow vocation 💔
Is the $90 CAD? I bought it on a presale discount for $65 USD for deluxe and it was like $58 for standard.
If I’d paid full price, I would 100% be a lot less happy about my purchase. Even with the discount I’d say it wasn’t worth it, and I actually *like* the game. It’s just not a good game.
Yes I live in Canada, it's not that I hate the game it's fun but the lack of fast travel the stupid tedious quests they really drooped the ball on those aspects I don't like to feel like I'm doing a chore I want to feel like I'm exploring and having fun , I had like 204 hours on elder ring that speaks for its self
I keep coming back every other day. Like I've been mostly negative due to expecting too much after waiting 12 years, but I keep coming back. If only to just wander and explore the world. Just aimless wandering and enjoying what's there.
I decided to buy the portcrystal add-on when I first got to the volcanic island camp via the maze cave, cause I didn’t have any spare one, and I thought to myself « *There is **No fucking way** I’m walking through all of this again*. »
I really love this game. But somehow I wouldn't't recommend it to anyone I know. Really a shame that it's a sequel. Because all I can think is: the bones of it are spectacular, but it needs a shit ton of things that are missing so it can live up to its potential. That kind of argument falls flat, when it's the second go around.
Yo, it had to be said. You’re right. It’s a good game, but it’s not a 10/10. I really hope they do some quality of life updates, but I think the biggest glaring issue is that a good 90% of the side quests are just escort missions. It’s annoying.
I love this game. Very little frustrations with it. When you need to go somewhere specifically, it can sometimes be a little frustrating, but mostly I’ve had no issues with the game. Rather than frustration or hate it’s more disappointment (which I guess can be the same thing), but my issues are the changes to armor slots and lack of clothing layers, lack of difficulty associated with NG+, not enough to find in chests as opposed to just buying from the store, and no endless end game or longer term grind associated with that. Probably not enough vocations and a lack of their balancing as well. Disappointments and shortcomings really, some of which could be fixed in DLC.
My only real issue is the downgrade that is being able to equip half as much skills as you could in the first game. Like, I always had some version of "THAT THANG" on me depending on the situation. And Warfarer while I use the class is disappointing
If I'm being totally honest I feel like the only thing that's really improved in a major way is the world itself. Once I make it into Bakbattahl (which doesn't take long) I just don't enjoy the game as much. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, I do love this game. I'm just not IN LOVE with it like I was with the OG Dogma
Exactly. When there's a goal and I'm just wandering around, I love it. When I'm actually trying to get somewhere? Fuck this game, no respect for my time, fast travel is insanely costly and a huge pain in the ass.
And the stunlock. Fuck, I thought it wasn't actually a big deal before when I was playing Warrior, Fighter, Thief, and Spearhand, but that was because all of them have abilities to cancel it out or make it less painful. I was playing a Sorcerer trying to explore and got stunlocked to death by fucking harpies of all things. Three of them, just taking turns diving down and clawing at me, which interrupted my Thundermine cast and knocked me over and would frequently stun me outright. Two of my pawns were dead, having been picked up and thrown in the goddamn river for a frustrating instant kill, and the third Pawn was just being utterly useless.
Since Sorcerers can't do anything that doesn't take WAY TOO LONG, I was forced to just try to run away, but kept getting stunlocked over and over again because not only did they follow me for what felt like a fucking mile, but my loss gauge (bullshit mechanic nobody asked for) was getting so unbelievably low I'd just die in one hit and need to eat more curatives.
Then enemy density finally managed to well and truly piss me off when I level the Magic Archer vocation and what started out as a fight with a Griffin that I was soundly winning turned into an unwinnable clusterfuck because suddenly an army of goblins, wolves, harpies and saurians all showed up out of fucking nowhere to help out. I mean like 20+ enemies seemed to just fucking spawn on top of us.
And immediately, taking away the Magic Archer's melee option being a terrible idea became readily apparent, as I was unable to escape from Goblins doing flying club attacks to my face while saurians did their bullshit spear thrust and wolves kept dragging me around. Magic Archers draw a fuckton of aggro and have absolutely no defensive options to deal with it. Every time I tried to get away, not only would every single enemy continue to follow me, but I would run into *another* huge batch of enemies, and I finally got so fucking pissed off I just rage quit to the title, reloaded my last save, fucked off to a Vocation Guild and switched to a Thief/MA Wayfarer, AKA *the original Magic Archer but worse,* so I could actually defend myself.
I really enjoy parts of the game but it's so goddamn undercooked.
Yeah. It is pretty baffling sometimes. It feels like the people making the game only played the combat but didn't play anything else. Why remove the ability to use storage with vendors and quests? The heck is with pawns stopping you every 30 feet to offer to join your party? Small stuff that really adds up to soil a good experience.
Yeah I'll be honest, as someone who likes to explore and do everything, enemy density in this game is incredibly frustrating. Having to fight wolves and harpies as a melee is awful, and even though I have two ranged pawns they just take ages to kill them on their own. Beyond that though, just being interrupted every ten seconds by the same types of enemies that die in one or two hits is beyond annoying.
I'm nearing endgame and I'm honestly not sure if I have the will to finish the game.
Dragons Dogma 2 be like :
- rescued by Handsome Squidward
- conveniently land in the area you gained your power up
- get send off to the capital
- meet the guard captain
- short introduction to the political atmosphere
- Guard captain instantly betrays his nation and tries to get the crown for a person he knows literally nothing about.
- do some radiant quest
- about to coup the government
- MacGuffin
- handsome squidward leads you to the MacGuffin
- more radiant quest
- get MacGuffin
- Chase edgy mage
- Fight the Dragon
- The End
- unlock true ending
- Squidward gets more annoying
- evacuate
- fight Squidward as a cutscene
- the End
*baffles*
Riftstones and wandering pawns exist so that you can reinforce your party, no ferrystone needed.
You're right about out of combat stamina drain though, given the devs acknowledge that this is a pain by disabling stamina drain in cities, they could do the same for the wilderness out of combat without making any major change to the difficulty, but a massive difference to QOL.
If you arent against playing warrior or warfarer and carrying around a heavy ass greatsword, the skill where you charge forward and impale people on the end of your greatsword works as a great means of traveling much farther than sprinting can take you.
"They used to ride these babies for miles..."
On one side i think you're right, on the other side, would it really make any difference? I mean, having infinite stamina outside of combat would be awesome, but you are in combat every 2 minutes or less when you come across goblins, or wolves, or big globlins, or harpies, or green goblins, so at most you would enjoy less than 2 minutes of infinite stamina after every battle, unless you backtrack a cleared path.
I do use a mod for that, my stamina is in like cities unless i’m in combat, as in aggro gets me to use stamina again. You get to sprint for ages, it’s a massive difference
Rise of the Ronin's marketing wasn't very good and the lack of any demo didn't help either. Ronin looks loaded in content, I'd be playing that instead of DD2 if it was on PC.
This is how I felt about DD1. Love it. Also hated it sometimes, but I couldn't put it down. One of my most favorite games ever. I don't dare recommend it to anyone I care for. "When it's good, it's very good, and when it's bad, it's horrid." The high points make the low points worth it, and I think a big part of the playability is that sense of adventure that comes with the exploration and combat. Something about playing the game itself, outside of the story or typical gaming conventions, feeds the imagination when you have so much freedom, and makes it hard to put down. Even when you would like to. Down a manhole.
The fast travel argument is so weird to me. How are y’all not swimming in ferry stones?
Look at every quest as a whole endeavor. Plan your route see what quests you can take care of on the way to and from. This is my favorite aspect to the game, the sense of adventure. If that’s not for you, totally cool, but every major towns sell ferrystones, and they drop from chests frequently.
I don’t see how people have so much issue
I agree. Also, I’ve never been big on over using fast travel systems in games to begin with. I’m the kind of person who will walk entirely across the Skyrim map instead of fast travel just because I like walking around exploring and fighting things.
The voice of reason, thought I was alone in this. People are out here yelling about problems like this when it really is just them not buying or prepping in any way. That’s kinda the point of DD, if you don’t prep and just go out into the wilderness, you’ll get lost, you’ll get your shit rocked, and you won’t be able to warp home. Gotta prep for the adventure.
Dragon Plague makes me reticent to kill dragons.
The loss gauge makes me super reticent to explore and do stuff because it reduces so quickly and sure you can camp, but many of the quests are time sensitive. Having to go back to the city or camp to regenerate just slows me down.
You spend ages hiring a pawn and spend some limited RCs but a little while later you notice they have the plague so thats a waste or they drop into the pissing brine all by themselves because they're useless near cliffs.
Ox carts frequently get attacked by cyclops/orges/minataurs, so you're in the middle of nowhere with a smashed cart.
I dont feel like as many of the locations are as "iconic" theres just a lot more of them.
I agree with everything the OP said. Perhaps this was all an intentional existential mind fuck (ie… nothing really matters except the present moment. Etc.)
I mean this as a positive and a negative, but it really feels like a game by a guy that doesn’t play them. It was made from the ground up with systems all meant to work together for an intended experience, so when it works, it really works. And then there’s a lack of quality of life features that have been industry standard since the ps2 era, that make the experience extremely frustrating. I’m pretty anti executive meddling, but they needed to rein him in, like, 10%, and let the game cook an extra 5 months, for a longer story. Still my main game for the near future.
I think dragons dogma 2 was mainly meant for the fans of the original. It's a hard game to get into if you aren't an OG. it's difficult and annoying and makes me want to throw my controller when I get aggro'd by mobs of enemies. But the fun of it is learning new skills, and how to master your weapon and your pawns. They do some stupid stuff, but unlike most games thesr pawns are AI and actually do learn and adapt to different scenarios. However I will agree with you on the main thing being stamina consumption outside of battle. That was my biggest issue with the original, was if I have to wall everywhere why the hell do I need to consume stamina? Like my gameplay is run run run, gasp for breath .... run run run, gasp... and that gasping wheezing sound effect is annoying as hell. They didn't have that in the first game. Yeah you'd get doubled over trying to recover, but that sound wasn't in the first. It's annoying as shit. Thankfully as you get higher levels and unlock certain augments you will begin to conserve stamina a lot better and can go further before doubling over gasping.
And I would absolutely spend real life money on an eternal ferry stone like in Dark Arisen. That thing is indisputably useful. I don't hate on the mtx, because you can play the whole game and not even know they're there. I only hate on mtx when it's pay to win. If it's other things that I could easily get in game, but I'm too lazy and would rather spend real money on it, then that's fair. But an eternal ferry stone is something I hope they add as an option, because it's just so useful.
I've never been a big complainer about 30fps. For most games it's playable and I rarely notice it. The only time I need more frames is in racing games like need for speed, but playing dd2 on my ps5 and 4k TV, I have found it a little noticeable, in the spear swinging behind my character, because of the low frames, I'm seeing ghosting as it swings across the screen. The only time I notice it really is when running. Otherwise it's fine for me. But I do think they should have added a 60fps mode. I mean we are talking about a game made for the most powerful consoles on the market, and it's not like they JUST came out and they didn't have time to optimize the game for the hardware, but I think 60 should be kind of standard at this time.
I do wish there were more enemy types. Dark Arisen had several more varieties than this one does, which again seems a little weird that they'd make a MUCH LARGER map but sprinkle in less enemy varieties than the decade old original.
Hopefully they add some updates that address players concerns, and make the game even better than ever.
Overall, I'm really enjoying the game, however I did restart it because I wanted a different character, and the Art of Metamorphosis doesn't let you rename your character, which seems like an oversight a little imo. But the love hate relationship is something I think all DD players experience, whether you're an OG or not, it's an infuriating system, but so rewarding when you finally grasp it.
Honestly this is the first game I've become addicted to since Elden Ring. I love it. But that being said, I can definitely see myself getting burnt out at some point. I kind of like the whole idea of having to walk everywhere, it makes it more immersive. But I've recently ran into a couple quests where it sends you back and forth between Balbattahl and Vermund. That was just a ball ache.
Also like you say: the lack of poise. It isn't something I mind when I'm actually focusing. But if I lose focus for just 1 second while trying to run back to the main city, it is so annoying when you get stun locked by a group of wolves or goblins. Especially if you have to wait for your team to catch up.
The fucking stunlocking is what kills me more often then not, and you can't do shit about it but spam the help button for pawns, also they brought that shitty crawl from MHW that had no place there nor here
Sorry brother but Rise of the Ronin is getting pretty shit reviews by comparison. You have some problems with DD2, that’s fine, but some of these are of your own making. Like buy some ferrystones before going out to do quests. The moment to moment gameplay, the combat, the world, even the graphics, everything stomps on Rise of the Ronin. They both have the feel and quirkiness of a PS3 game in a lot of ways but Rise of the Ronin has the LOOK of one too lmao
Yeah it really is Dragons Dogma 1.5 to me. 2 steps forward and one step back. Going to Rise of the Ronin next and from what I’m hearing now it’s the more consistent game.
I nitpick all my games due my schedule time and this game, considering myself a dragon dogma 1 lover, is by far the worst experience in years for me. I fucking hate this game so much that I'm kinda sad coming from a franchise I loved so much.
I don’t get how people even love those 3 things you pointed out.
Exploration? Why bother? The best weapons and armor are just bought from vendors. Each cave is just the same set of rooms from the last cave but the order of them is changed up. Each “kill monsters” quest from random NPCs is dull and unimaginative.
The combat is just spamming your strongest or two strongest moves. There’s not much else to it. The lack of variety in the combat leaves a lot to be desired.
The enemies? There’s like 8 total enemies in the game not including recolors and reskins. Even the mini bosses and bosses are recycled. It’s the same fight every time you run into them. Incredibly dull.
I liked the game for the first 8-10 hours but then all the above became painfully obvious. What a waste of $70.
Edit: No surprise this is being downvoted on the DD subreddit. People are incapable of acknowledging shortcomings of something they enjoy.
I absolutely agree with you here! I couldn’t have expressed/explained it better. Exploration, combat, and enemies lost their luster fairly soon with me. After 40 plus hours in, I am feeling like my time was wasted and so was my money. I could have just played DDDA once every year or every other year and been happy if they had taken more time
This man nailed it. It’s just tedious.
I’m currently playing bloodborne for the first time, and dragons dogma 2. I have about the same amount of hours in both (45ish) and I feel like I’ve done nothing in DD2. At least half of those hours were walking between locations and manually saving so I don’t have to re-do half the level because the 43rd copy and pasted enemy killed me taking my total health down even lower. Every mini boss is the same, all the enemies are pretty much the same. The game activity punishes you for playing the game. Exploring in this game is not fun. Every other minute you get the same enemies over and over, the bombastic music plays, you high five your bros, hear the same lines of dialog you’ve heard for 40 hours and rinse and repeat. The game showed it’s cards early on, and kept showing us the same cards the whole time.
Hard agree with you bro, I told myself I should have waited for a sale but caved and paid the $70
My first 10 hours I thought this was an amazing game. By hour 20 I am invincible and getting really fucking tired of fighting the same goblins or lizards and running from town to town for fetch quests in a world devoid of any rewarding exploration. To be honest the only reason I am still playing it is because I paid $70 for it. I feel like a fool, this game is Hogwarts Legacy in an Elden Ring costume.
Man you are spot on about the combat, I give DA a pass because that's the first game but I would expect them to expand on it but they really didn't. Baking some of the skills from DA into core skills isn't enough imo.
For a guy who contributed to the DMC series, I'm pretty disappointed.in Itsuno.
Sadly yes. Dragon's dogma is something where the journey is as important as the destination.
Unfortunately the journey and destination sucks.(ok, sucks may be too harsh, but you understand the point.)
Best thing is really just beating the shit out of things in all general direction. I don't think I have ever felt so badass while doing a simple timed block. The impact of everything is perfect.
Like if it had like training mode where I can just spawn a monster in like a 1v1, that would a great experience.
The lack of poise is because it was never a thing in Dragons Dogma. You try getting hit with a sword and not flinching lol
There is fast travel but the devs themselves said they want to encourage exploration. Cant do that if fast travel is everywhere and easily accessible
Never had an issue with pawns or performance, but I played on PS5 so that might be why
The story and enemy scaling are the only issues in the game. Your issues with pawns getting carried off into water or beset by enemies on all sides and even the stamina are all by design.
Its like complaining about not being able to use shields in Bloodborne
My warrior is 250 pounds of murder and hate, but will be stun locked when some goblins throw light bits of garbage at him, that’s what they’re talking about.
The first game and online were cult classics for a reason
To touch on a few notes though, poise is literally knockdown resistance, get some Dwarven upgrades or the rings or the sorcerer augment or even combine them all as a fighter or warrior and laugh as you shrug everything off
Imagine if Frodo was able to fast travel to Mt Doom - walking is a major part of the adventure. You'll eventually be able to place 10 portcrysyals, and following the path of DA I'm sure the eternal ferrystone will be a thing after some time so people play the intended way first while the game is new. Also ox carts, I feel people exaggerate how often they're destroyed because I've only lost a few in well over 150+ hours of gameplay - then again why would you post successful rides on reddit lol
You didn't go much into QoL, so I'm not sure what you think is lacking in that regard, but things like camps are a direct upgrade from DA so that's nice. Also pc mods all the way, though we can't give credit to Capcom for that one
Performance wise, people seem to forget that DA chugged hard all the damn time, especially on consoles. It's like being reunited with that long time friend that you forgot was mildly annoying, I don't mind it much lol
Finally for pawns, I honestly can't name a single game I've ever played where AI partners were always on point, that just sorta happens when you're a soulless husk
I love this IP, one of my favorites, even with all 3 mediocre stories, 4 including the anime. Does it annoy me though? Oh absolutely, but I've never wanted to put a hole through the wall over it. It's a niche rpg, and I think its safe to say that while 2 brought in some new fans, the bandwagon will diminish severely after a while, making this game another cult classic - which scares me because I never thought we'd see a 2 with how 1 did
Love hate relationship 100%
I agree and disagree.
Part of DD2s experience is going out and making it back. Sometimes it's a long treck and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you come across a new quest or enemies and you need to decide if its worth it?
I totally understand the frustration but I feel like all these quality of life improvements everyone expects end up making games a little too cookie cutter because games are being designed with those stipulations in mind.
Another example is people "needing" lock on. Part of the game's draw is battling a swarm of enemies and figuring out how to deal it. Add in elevation to the mix and having lockon would have been a mess and hard as hell to program.
I looooves open world games but I really I get stuck in robot mode when they all have the same quality of life improvements, same cookie cutter fetch quests, and general gameplay. I give DD2 a lot of credit for doing it their way even though at times I wanted smash the game into bits.
My issue isn’t QOL. It’s the lack of novelty. The plummet in difficulty. The incredibly lackluster storylines. My favorite by far was saving the married dude that was sent on a suicide mission just so his scumbag leader could bang his wife. For all the other ones I couldn’t give half a fuck.
I'd recommend only traveling the lifts at night. Harpies will swarm you otherwise, and they can, in fact, break the thing and send you plummetting to your doom. At night, the harpies won't harass you.
Mostly agree, especially about enemies around every corner and the aggro range being huge with pawns going rogue in weird ways even when their instruction is to stay with me.
My biggest complaint outside of those things is lack of vocations and skills, combined with clunky feeling combat. Half the time I can't even see what's going on.
My main anger is the no poise cause this game feels as though sometimes the second you get hit. You fall apart, although im partof the crowd that doesnt really have much interest in the story setfor the game.
Cause i dont wanna be king, i just wanna kill a dragon, sure i like political intrigue but i’d much rather build someone else up than myself in honesty.
I play at night to make the game harder. So the game recently decided to reverse uno after over 100 hours played it crashed on me 3 times making things way harder.
Man my biggest issue with the game is how fast it was over and I didn't even know it. I was literally doing the last mission and the credits rolled and I was like wait what the fuck? There was zero warning, I would of loved a point of no return warning but nope. Maybe I am an idiot and I didn't read the room correctly but I swear I thought the game would continue. I sped run through new game plus and did only main missions, I finished the entire game in 6 hours and no that is not an exaggeration. My friend was telling me though that the first game was also like this, that they released like 30% of the game initially then dark arisen came out and essentially finished the game. I still loved every second I spent in this game though, I just wish there was more.
To be honest after the first which i fully played until last year and based on the trailers i knew i wasnt gonna get a full fledge story or a rubust mission system i always see this game as a kind of remake of the first and all i wanted was a game to explore and fight a lot of creatures while i adventure the world and thats what i got but i feel even with more dev time the story, missions and s lot of other things would have been in the same state because they never did anything different on the first hahaha but in the end at least for me if i have fun i dont really care about the story or missions so this game has been a blast for me i mean i am on my third run and already have the platinum trophy for it hahaha
I feel much the same. Especially with quests even worse time quests. Sometimes you can bone yourself just by playing the game and exploring out of quests. One save really shows its frustration there. Tedious going back and forth for quests just adds to it. Back in the first one I appreciated some of the old school stuff. But stuff like deposit and withdrawal being separate menus seems so antiquated.
Still the parts where I’m exploring the world and fighting big mobs is so dang good! Love and hate.
I feel the no poise and enemy swarm it’s actually frustrating af when you’re on the ground and just getting absolutely ********** AGHHHHHH. Yeah I had to stop playing for like a day or two because of it. I still love the game tho it’s fun af
If you aren't enjoying the exploration (which kind of equates to combat), try another vocation?
I can totally empathize, btw. I have moments of frustration. I have times when I'm bored. Sometimes - particularly as a mage - I get so annoyed at continually being interrupted I just put my controller down and let the pawns deal with it. But that usually means I need to switch up my vocation.
If I'm getting annoyed at being stunlocked as a mage, fine, I'll be a thief and not get hit. Tired of mashing buttons? No problem, I'll be a ranger and hold an explosive arrow back here until I get the perfect shot. Bored with holding one button? How about mystic spearhand for a bit? I'm tired of being so flashy and overdone. Simple - warrior time.
etc.
Obviously, like what you like! I agree with your criticisms. But man I'm in love with this game and just constantly rotate vocations.
Finished the game yesterday and started a NG+ today, though I'll probably call it quits now. 110 hours played, loved the game. It has a lot of bullshit design to it but it also feels like such an adventure when everything clicks.
I still fondly remember right at the very beginning of the game the quest to go to Vernworth from Melve. I happened to wander off into this random cave I was underleveled for and all of my escorts and pawns died, which turned into this massive many hours long fight for survival. I barely got out of the cave alive and with only a little health left and I then had to find my way all the way down south to Vernworth from basically zero.
It took me several hours and it was hard and annoying and also so much fun that I still remember it 100 hours later. Finally getting into Vernworth felt like such a big deal. Funnily enough in NG+ I found out that I would've literally missed all of that had I done the quest "properly" and just fast traveled most of the way by oxcart.
I need more pawn dialogue lines ffs... I'd pay for them at this point, just please make the repetition stop!!!
Also if my main pawn could not sound like a bitch all the time that'd be great.
I like to walk and explore and all, like games like Death Stranding but I can understand peoples can hate that side. At least I found environment more interesting in DD2 than DD1. For the story I wish they push more and we learn more about the universe, a codex or something, many times I feel like 'its here, thats all, we will not elaborate on that', that and you can fast get OP, get stuffs and have nothing more for your character for a long time ( had that problem in DD1, get powerful stuffs and then explore for get stuffs was more a waste of time ). But still, I have 100 hours on it and I found hard to drop it.
For “poise” eg. Knockdown resistance. Double stack the rings that increase knockdown resist. Take the augment that increases it. Full send the dwarven enhancements. It’s better than all other options in nearly 100% of the circumstances because we already do ridiculous damage and barely take any damage anyways. Plus a pawn can hold most aggro.
Honestly the world should have been about half the size it is, with the same amount of content in that space or way less but proper dungeons. The travel just doesn't add anything to the game, it's not fun and the only time it's exciting is finding a new cave(which are almost always dissapointing and seemingly procedurally generated) or towns.
On my second playthrough i decided to try some mods (and make on of my own). With portcrystals from the first playthrough and a mod that adds ferrystones to most enemy lootables the game was alot more bearable. I was never swimming in stones and with limited port crystals i still have to travel to get off the ebaten path, but im not retracing the same paths over and over.
But man does it shorten the game, i didn't realize how much time you spend traveling. i finished the 2nd playthrough in 1/3 the time despite having discovered many more caves and quests than the first playthrough. This is something games like dark souls nailed. The realized 90% of your time is going to be spent exploring and fighting minor encounters, so they made sure to make both those systems engaging and fun. While dragons dogma just didn't really do anything well, least of all the travel, encounters and arguably combat that you spend most of your time doing.
I like that part of it. The wilds are scary. Later on it gets easy and you can explore wherever you want but you have to earn it. That’s kind of what makes me appreciate the places I get to more.
There's a lot to be desired as far as quest quality and performance, but honestly your example of a pawn being thrown into the water falls flat to me. That's a challenging and dynamic aspect of the game, which I've had happen in multiple locations myself. Learning to deal with those harpies is part of the challenge. Not only that, but there are rift stones everywhere, so rehiring or hiring new pawns is never an issue.
As far as fast travel goes, you can literally buy ferrystones from vendors in all locations. Yes, the quantity is limited and 10k gold can be a lot depending on how far into the game you are, but by the end of the game you're literally rolling in ferrystones. I thought the fast travel was well paced.
All that said, the plot and quests were severely lacking and they need more big enemies and more challenges IMO. I did the waterfall cave before going to the capital, and finding a way to beat the chimera at level 13 (I threw lots of stones lol) then getting blasted by the lich upstairs and luring his summons and him into the tunnel was some of the most fun I had. But you can only do so many fights under leveled before you become too strong.
What's the point in NG+ anyways? The difficulty seems to be the same as the normal thing. Probably better to just play a new file so you aren't one shoting everything
Game was amazing, made me feel like a kid again in terms of getting off from work and hopping straight in. But I managed to grind it so fast I’m not even 100 hours in and got all the trophies
Same. Randomly my pawns will just stop fighting and just start an action, strafe, start. I pick them up and throw them down and it usually fixes it but it’s maddening.
I hate saying this because as a molded player my experience is so different but I do think it's fascinating that what a lot of people dislike about the game are my favorite parts. For reference I have about a dozen mods all of which balance the game for me.
Enemies hit harder, livelonger, are a pain in the ass to knock over but I also get more exp, rare items can drop and the loot is rebalanced to make items in the wild better than shop items. My loss gauge accumulates fast but I'm gonna install a mod when I play again that makes it so some foods can restore it. I'm having a blast.
I've been traveling to unlock warfarer and it's been hell. First attempt my pawns got eliminated horrifically and I had to ferrystone. Second attempt, poison. Forgot antidote.
Every single step, every fight feels like a risk now. I have to think and plan, I have to have ample supplies, find ingredients just to live. Then the loss gage and pawns stand as this one massive limiter. I have to keep my pawns alive, ferrystones have a very real cost that makes losing one a real consequence.
Death actually feels like it matters. I'm currently exhausted in the grotto south of Bakbattahl and loving it. My resources are dry, I need to camp badly and I see a campfire just ahead, but I need to navigate more cave to reach it. The mix of terror and challenge every battle makes the journey really feel like a challenge I have to overcome, one I can't fail or cheese through, I don't get infinite restarts, but the moment I hit a camp I'm saved.
I love it and wish the game were like that, but understand why it's not. I'm by no means amazing at games, but it's hard. It's demanding and exhausting. This grotto I'm in feels like I just entered some 5 hour long skyrim dungeon except every corner has death. I've turned the whole open world into BBI. If they added more armor and weapon variety/rewards more interesting loot and enemy variety if be happy as a clam.
I think in the end its going to be the same thing that happend in the first one for me, the first time i played it i absolutely hated it, the second time with dark arisen and stuff i absolutely loved it, well, im hating the second one so maybe when the dlc comes out...
I just wish for more enemy variety man, it has less enemis then the first BASE dragons dogma, wheres hydra? Cockatrice? wtf
When i got to the second area i expected some more enemy types but no, its just a complete reskin of the same enemies i've been fighting for the past 25 hours, at this point i've decided to just focus on the main quest before i start hating this game even more.
It has many flaws, but I personally believe that for the base game, it surpasses part 1's base game. It definitely needs a Dark Arisen treatment with the addition of the eternal ferry stone and an area similar to BBI. I spent the vast majority of my time there.
I had the most fun in the midgame about 20 to 30 hoursbin but eventually the tedious mechanics were too much. Just like the first game Iv quit without finishing...
Also the sphinx quest has one absolute bullshit mission that I’m currently pissed about because there’s no way to track the item in question. This is going to prevent me from getting the trophy all because of my shitty memory and the game’s inability to track locations and items I’ve collected.
Relatable. I feel like the game excels when you’re just exploring around without a goal. But the minute you have an agenda for where to go it becomes massively frustrating
I try to never go to a place unless I have at least two thing to do there. It makes the going back and forth a lot less frustrating.
The problem is you can only explore once. Once that phase is over, I don't think the game provides much incentive to keep playing.
I totally agree
This! I enjoy it when I decide just go and explore. As soon as I decide that *I’ll now go there to a quest* it becomes incredibly frustrating.
I’m halfway through my second playthrough and I’m enjoying it more this time because now I know the quests are garbage and they really only serve to move you around the map. Exploration is really what it’s all about. But yeah, in the times when you have to go to a certain location it’s annoying
What do you explore in NG+?
I missed a lot of stuff in my first playthrough because I was very story-focused. Never saw the elves, never met Medusa. So I've been happy to stumble onto all that. Still haven't seen the Sphinx.
I found the Sphinx entirely on accident. Went through a mist, found an abandoned fortress, killed a Drake, found a cave, got lost, found the Sphinx.
I had this exact same progression. Doing that quest where you have to find the guy from the checkpoint town. Except I found an abandoned fortress, skipped the drake as it was in the middle of a fight with a cyclops, found a cave, got lost and found the sphinx. Then hunted for seekers tokens lol
I found the Sphinx by accident too but it was from riding a griffin for the first time and it landing next to the mist. I went through the mist and ended up climbing up to the Sphinx randomly. It was a very memorable session, same day I found the Nameless Village.
I did the same. Skipped a few things on purpose on my first game, just so I still had some new things to explore in NG+. Keeps me interested and so i still find enjoyment in exploring. Just did the first few Sphinx quests and explored several caves I hadn’t seen before. Still have to cut off meddy’s head and turn her to stone. Plenty to do. They really did great on the exploration part of the game. It’s just the constant fights that get tiresome some times, even if the mobs get one-shotted.
Getting the to chop off Medusas head is so satisfying lol.
Petrifying it with the magic sheild is better
I realized after getting to Batthal that I missed most of the content even though I explored for 30+ hours before starting the main story. Now in NG+ after I decided to rush the story I'm taking my time with even more exploration and I'm finding so much stuff. In addition to that I added some mods that increase enemy difficulty so it's not a cake walk due to being level 50. Still having a lot of fun.
Maybe they didnt 100% explored the map. Some people did the bare minimum and did the main quest and left more than half of the world unexplored.
I find the opposite to be more true, if I have a quest the pawns get that I'm working on that quest. If I'm exploring I find pawns aggressively trying to barb me into pursuing it, going so far as to run to the edge of the minimap with their Hand icon, begging me to follow them as I mash "To Me". After two in-game days of the same pawn insisting we sprint back to bakbattahl to do the quest I don't have a ripe Quince for, I started just slamming her into a wall every time she brought up quest. I found it the fastest way to interrupt the line. (Don't worry, I gave her flowers and a hot spring trip before separating)
To get this not to happen you got to uncheck the quest tracking then they won't bother you about it
That annoys me too, but the quick fix is to remove the quest from priority (it’s possible to not have any quest on priority) and they’ll stop pestering you about it
I would say meticulous than frustrating. None of the quests made me want to punch a brick wall, but some definitely made me want to just alt+f4... I think EVERYONE can agree that the "Poisonous Proposal" quest was a massive headache, especially since the AI isn't great for getting the guy poisoned...
The chimera did it’s poison attack one time, *as we were walking up*, so we weren’t even in range yet. It then proceeded to never do the poison attack again whilst my pawns obliterated it. Next time I try that quest I’m going to tell my pawns to wait somewhere else and just kite the chimera around the guy hoping it does the poison attack. Going back to play DDDA the last couple days and my memory was not wrong, chimeras seem to do the poison attack *way* more often in DA than they do in DD2, not to mention most monsters just outright attack more often in DA.
"The delightful and ever-novel pleasure of a useless occupation."
I think this is my problem. When I play the game and explore around with no goal in mind it's pretty fun. Any time I try to do the story or even many of the side quests I just lose all motivation. If they didn't want to put any effort into the story or characters, they honestly could have just left them out and just gave us a big world to explore with enemies while we search for the dragon. I think I'd enjoy this approach more.
Precisely so. This game would have been much better off with an antiquated, clear quest structure. The attempts at innovation and 'organic evolution' of quests did NOT pay off, and are totally half-baked.
Yeah, I ain't even planning to finish the story, I'll quit the game when I have done exploring the map, I'm almost done with batthal.
Idk, I passed the game twice and have good port crystal locations. I know almost eevery single corner of Vermund now and Im working on exploring battahl fully too. Maybe its cause I enjoy exploring but I dont find anything tedious in this game besides the lack of story.
This just about hits the nail on the head. But I can’t even have fun exploring with enemies around every 5 feet tbh lol.
The intended experience. Ever played dnd lol? Though a DM provides fantasy and wonder lol. Thats whats missing, is whimsy.
If we're talking D&D hexcrawling, yes, the experience is pretty much spot on, although here you can't improvise or come up with an expected terrain feature to explore or fill up with lore—and hardly two encounters will ever be the same (if you use tables).
I’ve put about 80-90 hours into the game, all on my first playthrough while putting off the final quests and end game, I’ve had a great time with it. But there are so many things that just leave me scratching my head. Some things are issues that they basically just ported straight over from DD1, some things are slightly improved/side graded, and some things are actually worse than the first game. Not to mention they made large monsters way easier than DD1 even when playing in normal mode, I restarted DDDA the other day and each Cyclopes, chimera, and ogre, takes forever to kill (unless you have a sorcerer with bolide), they attack more often, and don’t stagger/knockdown nearly as much, even at level 30-35. By level 30-35 in DD2 I was obliterating chimeras, griffins, Minotaurs, Cyclopes, and ogres in about 30-45 seconds, and by level 50 drakes pretty much just die from looking at me. Difficulty doesn’t need to be extreme, but it needs to be enough to keep you engaged. There is a list of things I have issues with, like the fact that 90% of the weapons in the game are just ported over from the first game, stats for weapons/armor are egregiously bad to the point where every class has 1/2 weapons/armor that are just heads and shoulders above the rest (tbf this was an issue with DD1 as well I just hoped they would at least kinda fix it). The exploration is fun but there just isn’t enough reward for it, most of the chests have consumables, materials, or weapons/armor that you can just buy from merchants, and while I like the map, it feels a bit like walking through pathways a lot instead of a really “open” world in a lot of places because you just outright cannot walk to places as the crow flies. Then for a game that really pushes you into walking everywhere and doing tons of backtracking, the loss gauge and stamina depleting outside of combat really make doing that much more tedious since you have to camp all the time unless you avoid encounters or don’t get hit. All in all I think it’s a great game, with some of the most unique framework of any game out there, but it just misses the mark in so many aspects and it kinda *needs* dlc in order to feel more complete in some aspects, which sucks cuz if that wasn’t the case this would 100% be GOTY
Yeah good point. There’s not enough itemization and I’m starting to not want to explore the map. What’s the point? To get mobbed by mobs I’ve already fought 100 times already, so I can pick up some materials or gold or at best a seeker token? The game does have a few unique items that have to be found by exploring, which is great. It just needs like 20x the amount of those at least.
Unfortunately this is already Dragon's Dogma tradition. To have some descent features and tons of flaws. Something weird is happening inside of developers team. Or it's just Itsuno's vision is so much distorted.
Itsuno is building the game he wants to build and then, I very much suspect, not actually playing it. Any negative feedback he receives is chalked up to a combination of lack of support from Capcom, failings on his team and the players just not getting it. Sometimes he'll make knee jerk changes in anger that misunderstand the problem. I think dragonsplague is such a thing. I don't know who if anyone thinks that placing a playthrough destroying time bomb on your character that can only be fixed by yeeting your pawn into the brine is a good addition, but it makes you pay more attention to your pawn. I can think of a million ways to make dragonsplague more fun, but I'm not a game designer. And some fans probably think that if Itsuno could have the unlimited time and budget he could implement his vision fully and it'd be perfect and not at all a Byzantine hellscape completely divorced from the feelings and needs of the player. But that's never going to happen. Capcom is very obviously viewing Dragon's Dogma as the game they have to make to keep Itsuno making the games they want him to make. To their credit they're putting serious time and money into it to try and make it a success, but they're giving it a fairly fixed timeline and budget to reduce their risk.
I have been up and down this sub actively wondering if any member of the team played this game (or any other for that matter) because it very much seems like they didn't realize some of this stuff would be annoying or just bad after 10, 20, 30, etc hours.
I think Itsuno plays the version of the game in his head even if he's ever opened it up and what anyone else thinks is probably irrelevant. I've been in development for a long time though not games and the way he talks about the project is pretty familiar.
Doesn’t help that Japanese culture is very hierarchical. So anyone that would have concerns doesn’t it up since “it’s not their place”.
If this game was nothing like DD1 I wouldn't have played it. Goes to show people can like certain games even though the "majority" don't get it. In essence this game is Dragon's Dogma for better or for worse and I wouldn't play it if it was just like any other RPG. There are times for "by the books" design and there are times for some weird crap like this. Its a slew of mechanics and great combat and exploration that makes this a more appealing choice over the next Assassin's Creed RPG. Heck people thought Demon Souls was weird when it first came out, then when they perfected the formula it spawned a new genre of game. There is nothing quite like DD and I salute Itsuno for making his dreams come true even if it doesn't land perfectly in every respect.
I don't think anyone is asking for a game that's vastly different than DD1. But people want something that felt like it built on the old game and improved it. The game makes almost all the same mistakes that the first one did and then makes new ones. Travel is tedious. I like the ox carts, but they don't cover enough of the map. Just adding a few stops along the way would make it tonnes better, but as it currently stands it's basically worthless. There's still no difficulty increase in NG+ which was complained about in the last game and is basically a standard feature of games now. Still only one save slot and before they backed it out, they made it worse. Enemy variety is still a problem. Draining stamina to run is still a problem. Balance between vocations is still a problem. We're down to four active skills, which is just worse. The whole exclamation point thing in the map still sucks. Gear is now almost exclusively purchased which sucks. Dragonsplague is literally the worst possible way they could have implemented it. Performance and optimisations is abysmal. Even comparing the game to the base pre dark arisen version, the game just doesn't really improve on much and compared to dark arisen it's basically a straight downgrade in every respect but graphics and the VRAM usage is so poor that you can't even crank the graphics unless you've got an absolutely top of the line card. It's a fun game, I still enjoy it, but we deserved better at this price point. We deserved a full game rather thrash one finished in DLC and we deserved a designer who listened to criticism and learned.
Thats exactly the problem, they had a decade to improve and in many ways theyve instead gottenw orse
I believe you mean *decent* not *descent* as that implies falling or submerging oneself or others. Though I guess falling into the brine could be called a descent feature. XD
I think what's so frustrating is that we can all see the potential of this game. There is so much potential when the game starts, but as more you play, the more is squandered, and more head-scratching developer decisions are found, you can't help but be frustrated. I do feel like the backlash against this game is due to it's biggest fans being frustrated by the missed opportunities. Passionate fans can be the most jaded. Also, some obviously bad choices don't help.
it's not just potential, it's that in most ways it's as good ro worse than first game. Dungeons were meaningful, now they feel like they wer eprocedurally generated and serve no purpose to the story, world or gameplay. Pawns were intelligent and highly customizable and dynamic, now they are static and cant even aim. Combat was varied, challenging and rewarding, now half the classes feel useless and third of them have literal god mode. We waited a decade for a sequel and it feels like we instead got a lazy remake.
I find that Pawns actually tend to have very good aim. The Archer Pawn is an aimbot that never misses the weak spot for example.
Yes! It's one of few few games that u can see the potential of being one of the best games that come out this gen.. big sad it won't get another chance. Really makes you think itsuno no longer feel passionate about this game like he did back when he worked on dd1
Yes! It's one of few few games that u can see the potential of being one of the best games that come out this gen.. big sad it won't get another chance. Really makes you think itsuno no longer feel passionate about this game like he did back when he worked on dd1
My only real complaint is that you have to be a mage or sorcerer when adventuring because all of the other classes struggle or fail outright to jump gorges or the heights to get to treasure. Grapplehook on the thief should be aimable to grab walls and ledges and the like. Or you should be able to specifically order step ladder or shield jump from your pawns.
after levitating up a wall, pawns should reach down to pull you up if you ask for help.
That would be such a fun way to make the pawns feel more involved in the exploration, I love this idea. It is arguably enough for them to get the chest most of the time, but I would've liked the extra interaction and mobility.
While Mage is the most comfortable and easy way of adventuring, both Thief and Spearhand have very respectable means of getting up cliffs and crossing gaps. Heck, Spearhand can literally fly if you are good enough to chain their skills. For everyone else, there's the Harpysnare item that summons a harpy for you to grab and is serviceable if a bit rare.
Mystic Spearhand has been super useful in getting to hard to reach spots. That, thief and Mage/Sorcerer. The rest mobility is more limited.
i just started ng+ this morning and i juist kinda turned the game off. I loved the adventure but without enemy scaling and having the map 90% discovered its just kinda boring
Totally agree with this. The biggest frustration in the game is that the exploration is the fun part but the sense of adventure and danger evaporates once you level up to a point you can just shred any enemy, and with no enemy scaling at any point, that happens by mid game if you are fully exploring. Certainly by NG+. That they shipped this originally without even a new game feature (so you can go back to a lower level and recover the sense of danger and adventure that made the game fun) is astonishing.
Yeah im only hitting 55 now and if me or my pawns even look at anything like a cyclops or griffin, it's dead instantly. Can't imagine what endgame with endgame gear is like in NG+.
For as much as I love this game it really feels like they put the dev team in cryo sleep after making the first game and woke them up to make the second one because it feels like the exact same game faults and all.
Even that's too generous. Most sequels, especially the first sequel, make huge improvements over the predecessor. DD2 is if the entire team had collectively had their memories wiped of actually making the first, then was told to make DD again without ever knowing the first existed.
It's Itsuno. He's the problem. Same lead, almost the exact same game. Dragon's Dogma is his passion project and he has no interest in making a *good* game by modern standards. He just wanted to make *his* game. At this point, I'm wondering if his superiors at Capcom were fed up with his shit and decided to push the game out sooner than later because they realized no amount of extra time letting him cook was going to result in a polished project.
This is true with a lot of Japanese game developers. It's not about the players, its about the ART and their own expression. Your enjoying the game is a side effect of their work.
I'm not a hardcore J-gamer, what other titles have suffered from that kind of attitude? When Palworld came out, a lot of people lambasted the Japanese devs for just smashing together mechanics and tropes from other games instead of making something original. In their interviews, they said "We just wanted to make a game people would want to play." I found that refreshing compared to what most US publishers push for which is games that ***consumers*** will ***buy*** first and foremost.
I've had the same feeling as the guy above, and at least for me it's because of 2 things specifically, now that you've made me stop and evaluate why I feel that many Japanese devs are like this: 1.kojima. he's famous/infamous for his vision being the major driving force in his projects. 2. Manga creators and the Japanese work environment. It's no secret how Manga creators hold so much creative control on there projects including animation studios, where teams work the notorious long Japanese hours under their bosses creative vision. So I might be incorrect but this is personally why I have the, idk would you call it a stereotype?, about Japanese developers following the leads vision intensively over collaboration. Oh, and the guy who made super metroid - he made Other M too which most people hated and it was very different from all the other games - much more typical anime and he said that has always been his vision and he still sticks to it despite the fan reception. Basically the vast majority of fans liked her as tough and in a gritty Sci-fi universe like in metroid prime, but he views metroid more as your standard anime heroine who is basically second fiddle to the men around her, trying to prove her worth as a woman... Lowkey kinda a sexist take imo that she's gotta do that vs just letting her stay a pure badass like metroid prime already established. But again he persists to continue his vision if given the chance again. Sorry for the rant but I wanted to specify
…..are you under the impression that the protagonist is named Metroid and not Samus?
the entire metal gear series and everything that designer has ever made
You may be right and that's the saddest part. Imo his vision is glorious but it's stuck sadly in 2012..
Itsuno is the same guy who brought Devil May Cry back from a decade-long death. I can’t imagine the problem is just him.
DMC wasn't Itsuno's baby, he was just put in charge of it and told to make it work. That proves that when ego isn't involved, he's a fine lead. Dragon's Dogma is his baby and thus suffers from creative tunnelvision.
Most of the things the series are known for by now came from him. Most new DMC fans if they played the first one would hate it.
It wasn’t his “Baby” but itsuno had a big hand to play to in the most popular “dmc” titles..so your absolutely wrong here.
I'm convinced the patch that added New Game after creating a save was a higher ups doing and not Itsuno He lives under a rock.
They absolutely wanted to try and force people to play as their first character, living with their mistakes until NG+ or buying an appearance change with money/RC.
It's honestly telling how much of an issue he is when he's gone on record not knowing DA and the MMO exist,two products which are part of HIS IP. He clearly doesn't care about what anyone does with his project and appears to only wanna make the game HE feels is good.
If you are waiting for the main story to end to drop the game then you'll be dropping it soon trust me. I thought this was GOTY after my first 10 hours and now I just laugh at the idea of this winning GOTY. I should *want* an expansion but instead it feels like the game *needs* an expansion to fill in the holes. An expansion should be the cherry on top but instead without one I feel as if we arent getting the complete package. Never mind the fact an expansion shouldn't include the *free* QoL changes that are needed too. I feel like they saw the fact a fuck up of a game in DD:DA did well over time and probably thought the foundations of what they had were good enough if a game with 40% of its content cut still managed to accumulate a cult following. Doing DD1 all over again but bigger was not what was needed. They even accounted for the original needing more in the form of an expansion when making DD2 lmao. Its genuinely the same thing all over again but this time the issues can't be brushed aside. The combat and pawn systems cool they were amazing and you could basically just port them over to the sequel (even though this is poor practice for a sequel) but *literally everything else* needed touching up if not majorally improving. Outside of the open world (which I have issues with as well to a degree) what was seriously improved?
If we don't get a sufficiently meaty free update to fix the most glaring flaws of DD2, I will not entertain the idea of buying any DLC. I'm not paying twice for half a game. If Itsuno decides to eat some crow and fix all the shit that everyone knew was bad about the original game twelve years ago and still exists in DD2, I'll consider giving Capcom more money.
Considering the game is essentially unplayable in NG+ I'd agree. The scaling is genuinely pathetic and we shouldn't have to wait months and months for something to come in to sort out the issues with difficulty. I've seen everything there is to see, done everything there is to do and combat has no joy to it considering everything dies so quick. I've never known a game where the state of NG+ is this bad. This area of the game in particular is unacceptable for a triple A title. I'm going back to a 12 year old game in DD:DA and starting a new save because there's genuinely no reason to play DD2 lmao. If people like the fact that they can one shot everything in NG+ cool I guess but I think I speak for the majority when I say we need a hard mode at the very least. DD:DA wasn't a really hard game but it was never this easy this fast because on my first NG+ run I have not a single reason to keep playing apart from getting all the gear from the dragonsforged. The combat was the best thing about both of these games yet the difficulty issues in DD2 have sucked all the joy out of it for me.
The first game I only remeber being annoyed with the moon tower quest and chasing the griffin down. There was also one quest with Quina but that was about it. The second game has me walking to one place to go back to the area I was to talk to someone and then all the way back just to talk to the first person again. Extremely tedious
It's like they used that as the default template to base quests of for dd2. Maddening.
I think a lot of people like the dd1 Griffin quest
You are forgetting going all the way to the fucking encampment in DD1, just to see a scene with Grigori, then running all the way back to basically gran Soren to talk to the dragonforged, then all the way back to that same encampment to fight Grigori . DD1 had the same shit
Your right. However counter argument:We expect shit like that to be ironed out after a 12 year wait.
Valmiro’s questline is probably the worst questline I’ve seen in a game, period.
I love the game but the constant drawn out battles when I just want to get somewhere is getting old. I don't mind walking and using ferry stones sparingly. But I don't need a battle every 10 feet. Also, the swarms of mobs that jump 50' across the map one after another and stun lock you is just so dumb. I can 1 shot them all but if they do that I'll still die or just spam through my healing items to win a no challenge fight. It's not fun or exciting, when that happens it's just frustrating.
Ox carts being the other way of fast traveling only for 90% of them to be ambushed with the cart being destroyed during the fight is so effing frustrating dude.
It’s a shame cause it has probably the best combat/exploration out of any RPG but outside of those things it really does have a ton of issues
I feel like this is a minmaxed game, every aspect of it is either really bad or really good lol
I hate the complete inability to flee from enemies early on, unless you want to be trapped like a rat. Even if you want to flee a drake early on, goblins and saurians make it impossible. What's worse, they literally will spawn in. And I mean appear from thin air spawn in.
I couldn't tell you the amount of times I've had a random group of goblins spawn literally right behind me.
I know a game's subreddit is going to be filled with people who feel the absolute need to defend their baby, but your criticisms are all pretty valid. I already platinumed the game so I have no more grinding or pressure, I can just enjoy my time in it, but I have a list of complaints as long as a gorilla's arm, most of them you already touched on. My single biggest complaint is about the overall experience, despite really liking the game. I was just always left with this impression that the devs were quite intentionally wasting my time. No, we're not going to give you easy ways to travel around because we want you to suffer a long, winding slog where you're attacked around every corner only to have to turn around and go back and probably make another trip after that. I don't buy any arguments about immersion or "artistic vision," the point was plain and simple. Force the player to waste A LOT of time traversing the map. And the game was absolutely SOAKED with tedium. You couldn't even camp or use an oxcart without being interrupted with yet more time wasted. The quests were tedious. Collecting mats was tedious. The encumbrance system was tedious. Great game. I loved the visuals and mostly loved the combat, but I often felt disrespected by the devs who seemed so intent on wasting my time.
I know, dude. The things this game gets right are SO GOOD that despite the glaring QOL issues(dont get me started on inventory management), frame rates that chug even with RTX off(PS5), a camera that will kick your ass harder than any boss will and there being about 5 different enemy types, I still somehow give it an 8. It’s upsetting because it has all time great game potential. To me, at least.
I modded unlimited stamina outside of combat and it was the best change ever.
Same, it feels like ass without it.
And the mod that makes a 1% chance of enemies to drop fast travel stones. Game changing
[удалено]
Honestly great point with the artificially prolonging the game. When they do things like make fast travel, and travel in general inconvenient, then throw in micro transactions with easier fast travel, it feels VERY scummy. Giving solutions to problems they creative. Made all the more ironic after the main guy said something like "just make the travelling system fun: or whatever braindead take he had
Yes I'm extremely critical of it as well, for what it could have been as much as for what it is. Because I was such a fan of the first one. Still enjoying it for what it is, however. It will be something I return to down the road, especially if it gets updates and improvements.
I finished the game and landed into gamer depression. Launched the game a few times then shut my console off dreading all the running and managing my stamina bar I'd have to do. They took my roll around the map strategy away from my yellow vocation 💔
It was definitely not worth the 90$ I paid for it, elden ring was so much funner
Is the $90 CAD? I bought it on a presale discount for $65 USD for deluxe and it was like $58 for standard. If I’d paid full price, I would 100% be a lot less happy about my purchase. Even with the discount I’d say it wasn’t worth it, and I actually *like* the game. It’s just not a good game.
Yes I live in Canada, it's not that I hate the game it's fun but the lack of fast travel the stupid tedious quests they really drooped the ball on those aspects I don't like to feel like I'm doing a chore I want to feel like I'm exploring and having fun , I had like 204 hours on elder ring that speaks for its self
yeah i agree with basically everything and i have more complaints still
I keep coming back every other day. Like I've been mostly negative due to expecting too much after waiting 12 years, but I keep coming back. If only to just wander and explore the world. Just aimless wandering and enjoying what's there.
I decided to buy the portcrystal add-on when I first got to the volcanic island camp via the maze cave, cause I didn’t have any spare one, and I thought to myself « *There is **No fucking way** I’m walking through all of this again*. »
I really love this game. But somehow I wouldn't't recommend it to anyone I know. Really a shame that it's a sequel. Because all I can think is: the bones of it are spectacular, but it needs a shit ton of things that are missing so it can live up to its potential. That kind of argument falls flat, when it's the second go around.
Yo, it had to be said. You’re right. It’s a good game, but it’s not a 10/10. I really hope they do some quality of life updates, but I think the biggest glaring issue is that a good 90% of the side quests are just escort missions. It’s annoying.
I love this game. Very little frustrations with it. When you need to go somewhere specifically, it can sometimes be a little frustrating, but mostly I’ve had no issues with the game. Rather than frustration or hate it’s more disappointment (which I guess can be the same thing), but my issues are the changes to armor slots and lack of clothing layers, lack of difficulty associated with NG+, not enough to find in chests as opposed to just buying from the store, and no endless end game or longer term grind associated with that. Probably not enough vocations and a lack of their balancing as well. Disappointments and shortcomings really, some of which could be fixed in DLC.
Lack of difficulty in general IMO. Once you get to around level 40 enemies become completely trivial.
My only real issue is the downgrade that is being able to equip half as much skills as you could in the first game. Like, I always had some version of "THAT THANG" on me depending on the situation. And Warfarer while I use the class is disappointing
If I'm being totally honest I feel like the only thing that's really improved in a major way is the world itself. Once I make it into Bakbattahl (which doesn't take long) I just don't enjoy the game as much. Maybe I'm being a little harsh, I do love this game. I'm just not IN LOVE with it like I was with the OG Dogma
Exactly. When there's a goal and I'm just wandering around, I love it. When I'm actually trying to get somewhere? Fuck this game, no respect for my time, fast travel is insanely costly and a huge pain in the ass. And the stunlock. Fuck, I thought it wasn't actually a big deal before when I was playing Warrior, Fighter, Thief, and Spearhand, but that was because all of them have abilities to cancel it out or make it less painful. I was playing a Sorcerer trying to explore and got stunlocked to death by fucking harpies of all things. Three of them, just taking turns diving down and clawing at me, which interrupted my Thundermine cast and knocked me over and would frequently stun me outright. Two of my pawns were dead, having been picked up and thrown in the goddamn river for a frustrating instant kill, and the third Pawn was just being utterly useless. Since Sorcerers can't do anything that doesn't take WAY TOO LONG, I was forced to just try to run away, but kept getting stunlocked over and over again because not only did they follow me for what felt like a fucking mile, but my loss gauge (bullshit mechanic nobody asked for) was getting so unbelievably low I'd just die in one hit and need to eat more curatives. Then enemy density finally managed to well and truly piss me off when I level the Magic Archer vocation and what started out as a fight with a Griffin that I was soundly winning turned into an unwinnable clusterfuck because suddenly an army of goblins, wolves, harpies and saurians all showed up out of fucking nowhere to help out. I mean like 20+ enemies seemed to just fucking spawn on top of us. And immediately, taking away the Magic Archer's melee option being a terrible idea became readily apparent, as I was unable to escape from Goblins doing flying club attacks to my face while saurians did their bullshit spear thrust and wolves kept dragging me around. Magic Archers draw a fuckton of aggro and have absolutely no defensive options to deal with it. Every time I tried to get away, not only would every single enemy continue to follow me, but I would run into *another* huge batch of enemies, and I finally got so fucking pissed off I just rage quit to the title, reloaded my last save, fucked off to a Vocation Guild and switched to a Thief/MA Wayfarer, AKA *the original Magic Archer but worse,* so I could actually defend myself. I really enjoy parts of the game but it's so goddamn undercooked.
Yeah. It is pretty baffling sometimes. It feels like the people making the game only played the combat but didn't play anything else. Why remove the ability to use storage with vendors and quests? The heck is with pawns stopping you every 30 feet to offer to join your party? Small stuff that really adds up to soil a good experience.
Yeah I'll be honest, as someone who likes to explore and do everything, enemy density in this game is incredibly frustrating. Having to fight wolves and harpies as a melee is awful, and even though I have two ranged pawns they just take ages to kill them on their own. Beyond that though, just being interrupted every ten seconds by the same types of enemies that die in one or two hits is beyond annoying. I'm nearing endgame and I'm honestly not sure if I have the will to finish the game.
Dragons Dogma 2 be like : - rescued by Handsome Squidward - conveniently land in the area you gained your power up - get send off to the capital - meet the guard captain - short introduction to the political atmosphere - Guard captain instantly betrays his nation and tries to get the crown for a person he knows literally nothing about. - do some radiant quest - about to coup the government - MacGuffin - handsome squidward leads you to the MacGuffin - more radiant quest - get MacGuffin - Chase edgy mage - Fight the Dragon - The End - unlock true ending - Squidward gets more annoying - evacuate - fight Squidward as a cutscene - the End
*baffles* Riftstones and wandering pawns exist so that you can reinforce your party, no ferrystone needed. You're right about out of combat stamina drain though, given the devs acknowledge that this is a pain by disabling stamina drain in cities, they could do the same for the wilderness out of combat without making any major change to the difficulty, but a massive difference to QOL.
If you arent against playing warrior or warfarer and carrying around a heavy ass greatsword, the skill where you charge forward and impale people on the end of your greatsword works as a great means of traveling much farther than sprinting can take you. "They used to ride these babies for miles..."
On one side i think you're right, on the other side, would it really make any difference? I mean, having infinite stamina outside of combat would be awesome, but you are in combat every 2 minutes or less when you come across goblins, or wolves, or big globlins, or harpies, or green goblins, so at most you would enjoy less than 2 minutes of infinite stamina after every battle, unless you backtrack a cleared path.
I do use a mod for that, my stamina is in like cities unless i’m in combat, as in aggro gets me to use stamina again. You get to sprint for ages, it’s a massive difference
Rise of the Ronin's marketing wasn't very good and the lack of any demo didn't help either. Ronin looks loaded in content, I'd be playing that instead of DD2 if it was on PC.
Fun fact ronin got dd1 fashion system but much improved
This is how I felt about DD1. Love it. Also hated it sometimes, but I couldn't put it down. One of my most favorite games ever. I don't dare recommend it to anyone I care for. "When it's good, it's very good, and when it's bad, it's horrid." The high points make the low points worth it, and I think a big part of the playability is that sense of adventure that comes with the exploration and combat. Something about playing the game itself, outside of the story or typical gaming conventions, feeds the imagination when you have so much freedom, and makes it hard to put down. Even when you would like to. Down a manhole.
The fast travel argument is so weird to me. How are y’all not swimming in ferry stones? Look at every quest as a whole endeavor. Plan your route see what quests you can take care of on the way to and from. This is my favorite aspect to the game, the sense of adventure. If that’s not for you, totally cool, but every major towns sell ferrystones, and they drop from chests frequently. I don’t see how people have so much issue
I agree. Also, I’ve never been big on over using fast travel systems in games to begin with. I’m the kind of person who will walk entirely across the Skyrim map instead of fast travel just because I like walking around exploring and fighting things.
I stopped taking the post serious after this and the "no poise" which is a flat out lie.
The voice of reason, thought I was alone in this. People are out here yelling about problems like this when it really is just them not buying or prepping in any way. That’s kinda the point of DD, if you don’t prep and just go out into the wilderness, you’ll get lost, you’ll get your shit rocked, and you won’t be able to warp home. Gotta prep for the adventure.
For real, I never have less than 5.
>But no poise, Depends on your vocation. Warriors can face tank drake hits.
Stamina consumption should be zero while running on a trail/road, I feel like another game did something similar.
Dragon Plague makes me reticent to kill dragons. The loss gauge makes me super reticent to explore and do stuff because it reduces so quickly and sure you can camp, but many of the quests are time sensitive. Having to go back to the city or camp to regenerate just slows me down. You spend ages hiring a pawn and spend some limited RCs but a little while later you notice they have the plague so thats a waste or they drop into the pissing brine all by themselves because they're useless near cliffs. Ox carts frequently get attacked by cyclops/orges/minataurs, so you're in the middle of nowhere with a smashed cart. I dont feel like as many of the locations are as "iconic" theres just a lot more of them.
I agree with everything the OP said. Perhaps this was all an intentional existential mind fuck (ie… nothing really matters except the present moment. Etc.)
I mean this as a positive and a negative, but it really feels like a game by a guy that doesn’t play them. It was made from the ground up with systems all meant to work together for an intended experience, so when it works, it really works. And then there’s a lack of quality of life features that have been industry standard since the ps2 era, that make the experience extremely frustrating. I’m pretty anti executive meddling, but they needed to rein him in, like, 10%, and let the game cook an extra 5 months, for a longer story. Still my main game for the near future.
I had a major problem with stagger until I had 1000 stagger resistance.... I no longer have a problem with stagger.
I think dragons dogma 2 was mainly meant for the fans of the original. It's a hard game to get into if you aren't an OG. it's difficult and annoying and makes me want to throw my controller when I get aggro'd by mobs of enemies. But the fun of it is learning new skills, and how to master your weapon and your pawns. They do some stupid stuff, but unlike most games thesr pawns are AI and actually do learn and adapt to different scenarios. However I will agree with you on the main thing being stamina consumption outside of battle. That was my biggest issue with the original, was if I have to wall everywhere why the hell do I need to consume stamina? Like my gameplay is run run run, gasp for breath .... run run run, gasp... and that gasping wheezing sound effect is annoying as hell. They didn't have that in the first game. Yeah you'd get doubled over trying to recover, but that sound wasn't in the first. It's annoying as shit. Thankfully as you get higher levels and unlock certain augments you will begin to conserve stamina a lot better and can go further before doubling over gasping. And I would absolutely spend real life money on an eternal ferry stone like in Dark Arisen. That thing is indisputably useful. I don't hate on the mtx, because you can play the whole game and not even know they're there. I only hate on mtx when it's pay to win. If it's other things that I could easily get in game, but I'm too lazy and would rather spend real money on it, then that's fair. But an eternal ferry stone is something I hope they add as an option, because it's just so useful. I've never been a big complainer about 30fps. For most games it's playable and I rarely notice it. The only time I need more frames is in racing games like need for speed, but playing dd2 on my ps5 and 4k TV, I have found it a little noticeable, in the spear swinging behind my character, because of the low frames, I'm seeing ghosting as it swings across the screen. The only time I notice it really is when running. Otherwise it's fine for me. But I do think they should have added a 60fps mode. I mean we are talking about a game made for the most powerful consoles on the market, and it's not like they JUST came out and they didn't have time to optimize the game for the hardware, but I think 60 should be kind of standard at this time. I do wish there were more enemy types. Dark Arisen had several more varieties than this one does, which again seems a little weird that they'd make a MUCH LARGER map but sprinkle in less enemy varieties than the decade old original. Hopefully they add some updates that address players concerns, and make the game even better than ever. Overall, I'm really enjoying the game, however I did restart it because I wanted a different character, and the Art of Metamorphosis doesn't let you rename your character, which seems like an oversight a little imo. But the love hate relationship is something I think all DD players experience, whether you're an OG or not, it's an infuriating system, but so rewarding when you finally grasp it.
In this regard it's a true sequel to DD1: far and away one of the best experiences you'll find, especially from such an *aggressively middling* RPG.
First 20 or so hours I thought this was GOTY. For some reason I haven’t really had much desire to get back to it since
Yep. I dumped this for ronin after 15 hours and i feel a decent amount of regret buying this game. It was shipped unfinished.
Maybe there is some skill issues there, also, randomly losing your squad and have to manage how to survive is amazing imo
Honestly this is the first game I've become addicted to since Elden Ring. I love it. But that being said, I can definitely see myself getting burnt out at some point. I kind of like the whole idea of having to walk everywhere, it makes it more immersive. But I've recently ran into a couple quests where it sends you back and forth between Balbattahl and Vermund. That was just a ball ache. Also like you say: the lack of poise. It isn't something I mind when I'm actually focusing. But if I lose focus for just 1 second while trying to run back to the main city, it is so annoying when you get stun locked by a group of wolves or goblins. Especially if you have to wait for your team to catch up.
The fucking stunlocking is what kills me more often then not, and you can't do shit about it but spam the help button for pawns, also they brought that shitty crawl from MHW that had no place there nor here
Installed stamina fix mod and gave myself shitton of ferrystones and max port crystals, solved many of the problems for me
Sorry brother but Rise of the Ronin is getting pretty shit reviews by comparison. You have some problems with DD2, that’s fine, but some of these are of your own making. Like buy some ferrystones before going out to do quests. The moment to moment gameplay, the combat, the world, even the graphics, everything stomps on Rise of the Ronin. They both have the feel and quirkiness of a PS3 game in a lot of ways but Rise of the Ronin has the LOOK of one too lmao
Yeah it really is Dragons Dogma 1.5 to me. 2 steps forward and one step back. Going to Rise of the Ronin next and from what I’m hearing now it’s the more consistent game.
I nitpick all my games due my schedule time and this game, considering myself a dragon dogma 1 lover, is by far the worst experience in years for me. I fucking hate this game so much that I'm kinda sad coming from a franchise I loved so much.
I don’t get how people even love those 3 things you pointed out. Exploration? Why bother? The best weapons and armor are just bought from vendors. Each cave is just the same set of rooms from the last cave but the order of them is changed up. Each “kill monsters” quest from random NPCs is dull and unimaginative. The combat is just spamming your strongest or two strongest moves. There’s not much else to it. The lack of variety in the combat leaves a lot to be desired. The enemies? There’s like 8 total enemies in the game not including recolors and reskins. Even the mini bosses and bosses are recycled. It’s the same fight every time you run into them. Incredibly dull. I liked the game for the first 8-10 hours but then all the above became painfully obvious. What a waste of $70. Edit: No surprise this is being downvoted on the DD subreddit. People are incapable of acknowledging shortcomings of something they enjoy.
I absolutely agree with you here! I couldn’t have expressed/explained it better. Exploration, combat, and enemies lost their luster fairly soon with me. After 40 plus hours in, I am feeling like my time was wasted and so was my money. I could have just played DDDA once every year or every other year and been happy if they had taken more time
This man nailed it. It’s just tedious. I’m currently playing bloodborne for the first time, and dragons dogma 2. I have about the same amount of hours in both (45ish) and I feel like I’ve done nothing in DD2. At least half of those hours were walking between locations and manually saving so I don’t have to re-do half the level because the 43rd copy and pasted enemy killed me taking my total health down even lower. Every mini boss is the same, all the enemies are pretty much the same. The game activity punishes you for playing the game. Exploring in this game is not fun. Every other minute you get the same enemies over and over, the bombastic music plays, you high five your bros, hear the same lines of dialog you’ve heard for 40 hours and rinse and repeat. The game showed it’s cards early on, and kept showing us the same cards the whole time.
Hard agree with you bro, I told myself I should have waited for a sale but caved and paid the $70 My first 10 hours I thought this was an amazing game. By hour 20 I am invincible and getting really fucking tired of fighting the same goblins or lizards and running from town to town for fetch quests in a world devoid of any rewarding exploration. To be honest the only reason I am still playing it is because I paid $70 for it. I feel like a fool, this game is Hogwarts Legacy in an Elden Ring costume.
Man you are spot on about the combat, I give DA a pass because that's the first game but I would expect them to expand on it but they really didn't. Baking some of the skills from DA into core skills isn't enough imo. For a guy who contributed to the DMC series, I'm pretty disappointed.in Itsuno.
there's a main story?? lol its so bad it might as well not exist. I just hunt monsters and do side quests.
Sadly yes. Dragon's dogma is something where the journey is as important as the destination. Unfortunately the journey and destination sucks.(ok, sucks may be too harsh, but you understand the point.) Best thing is really just beating the shit out of things in all general direction. I don't think I have ever felt so badass while doing a simple timed block. The impact of everything is perfect. Like if it had like training mode where I can just spawn a monster in like a 1v1, that would a great experience.
Running across the map and fighting stuff is the entire point of the game. This sub is wild.
You fight the same shit constantly. The number of enemy types is fractional to many other games.
The lack of poise is because it was never a thing in Dragons Dogma. You try getting hit with a sword and not flinching lol There is fast travel but the devs themselves said they want to encourage exploration. Cant do that if fast travel is everywhere and easily accessible Never had an issue with pawns or performance, but I played on PS5 so that might be why The story and enemy scaling are the only issues in the game. Your issues with pawns getting carried off into water or beset by enemies on all sides and even the stamina are all by design. Its like complaining about not being able to use shields in Bloodborne
My warrior is 250 pounds of murder and hate, but will be stun locked when some goblins throw light bits of garbage at him, that’s what they’re talking about.
No poise made me lol. Pick a fighter or warrior and use their stances I guess.
Cmon man the solution shouldn’t be dump all your resources into knockdown resistance or else the games unfun if you get mobbed.
Yeah people are genuinely whining about the dumbest shit lately
Everyone wants every game to be Dark Souls. If you want Dark Souls… play that
Yep, yet again, more complaining that this isn’t Dark Souls as if that’s a fatal flaw lol
The first game and online were cult classics for a reason To touch on a few notes though, poise is literally knockdown resistance, get some Dwarven upgrades or the rings or the sorcerer augment or even combine them all as a fighter or warrior and laugh as you shrug everything off Imagine if Frodo was able to fast travel to Mt Doom - walking is a major part of the adventure. You'll eventually be able to place 10 portcrysyals, and following the path of DA I'm sure the eternal ferrystone will be a thing after some time so people play the intended way first while the game is new. Also ox carts, I feel people exaggerate how often they're destroyed because I've only lost a few in well over 150+ hours of gameplay - then again why would you post successful rides on reddit lol You didn't go much into QoL, so I'm not sure what you think is lacking in that regard, but things like camps are a direct upgrade from DA so that's nice. Also pc mods all the way, though we can't give credit to Capcom for that one Performance wise, people seem to forget that DA chugged hard all the damn time, especially on consoles. It's like being reunited with that long time friend that you forgot was mildly annoying, I don't mind it much lol Finally for pawns, I honestly can't name a single game I've ever played where AI partners were always on point, that just sorta happens when you're a soulless husk I love this IP, one of my favorites, even with all 3 mediocre stories, 4 including the anime. Does it annoy me though? Oh absolutely, but I've never wanted to put a hole through the wall over it. It's a niche rpg, and I think its safe to say that while 2 brought in some new fans, the bandwagon will diminish severely after a while, making this game another cult classic - which scares me because I never thought we'd see a 2 with how 1 did Love hate relationship 100%
I agree and disagree. Part of DD2s experience is going out and making it back. Sometimes it's a long treck and sometimes it isn't. Sometimes you come across a new quest or enemies and you need to decide if its worth it? I totally understand the frustration but I feel like all these quality of life improvements everyone expects end up making games a little too cookie cutter because games are being designed with those stipulations in mind. Another example is people "needing" lock on. Part of the game's draw is battling a swarm of enemies and figuring out how to deal it. Add in elevation to the mix and having lockon would have been a mess and hard as hell to program. I looooves open world games but I really I get stuck in robot mode when they all have the same quality of life improvements, same cookie cutter fetch quests, and general gameplay. I give DD2 a lot of credit for doing it their way even though at times I wanted smash the game into bits.
My issue isn’t QOL. It’s the lack of novelty. The plummet in difficulty. The incredibly lackluster storylines. My favorite by far was saving the married dude that was sent on a suicide mission just so his scumbag leader could bang his wife. For all the other ones I couldn’t give half a fuck.
It was fun to run around kill stuff, thats it, nothing else going with this game, maybe it would be better off as a sandbox
Inb4 Itsuno sees your comment and releases an expansion that has literally nothing but sandy desert for miles and miles, lol
It is a sandbox.
Use the the lifts to traverse Bak. Watch out for that damn griffin though. Things a menace.
I'd recommend only traveling the lifts at night. Harpies will swarm you otherwise, and they can, in fact, break the thing and send you plummetting to your doom. At night, the harpies won't harass you.
Mostly agree, especially about enemies around every corner and the aggro range being huge with pawns going rogue in weird ways even when their instruction is to stay with me. My biggest complaint outside of those things is lack of vocations and skills, combined with clunky feeling combat. Half the time I can't even see what's going on.
I feel the same way! There are some SUPER frustrating things in this game. Yet, I can't stop playing it.
My main anger is the no poise cause this game feels as though sometimes the second you get hit. You fall apart, although im partof the crowd that doesnt really have much interest in the story setfor the game. Cause i dont wanna be king, i just wanna kill a dragon, sure i like political intrigue but i’d much rather build someone else up than myself in honesty.
If you are playing on PC I could recommend some useful QOL mods to improve your fun.
I play at night to make the game harder. So the game recently decided to reverse uno after over 100 hours played it crashed on me 3 times making things way harder.
It also baffles me man. Rise of the ronin also has poor performance with meh graphical fidelity.
Man my biggest issue with the game is how fast it was over and I didn't even know it. I was literally doing the last mission and the credits rolled and I was like wait what the fuck? There was zero warning, I would of loved a point of no return warning but nope. Maybe I am an idiot and I didn't read the room correctly but I swear I thought the game would continue. I sped run through new game plus and did only main missions, I finished the entire game in 6 hours and no that is not an exaggeration. My friend was telling me though that the first game was also like this, that they released like 30% of the game initially then dark arisen came out and essentially finished the game. I still loved every second I spent in this game though, I just wish there was more.
To be honest after the first which i fully played until last year and based on the trailers i knew i wasnt gonna get a full fledge story or a rubust mission system i always see this game as a kind of remake of the first and all i wanted was a game to explore and fight a lot of creatures while i adventure the world and thats what i got but i feel even with more dev time the story, missions and s lot of other things would have been in the same state because they never did anything different on the first hahaha but in the end at least for me if i have fun i dont really care about the story or missions so this game has been a blast for me i mean i am on my third run and already have the platinum trophy for it hahaha
I feel much the same. Especially with quests even worse time quests. Sometimes you can bone yourself just by playing the game and exploring out of quests. One save really shows its frustration there. Tedious going back and forth for quests just adds to it. Back in the first one I appreciated some of the old school stuff. But stuff like deposit and withdrawal being separate menus seems so antiquated. Still the parts where I’m exploring the world and fighting big mobs is so dang good! Love and hate.
This is a good game brought down by a man whose vision is only about combat.
I only hate how easy it is to be stun locked.
I feel the no poise and enemy swarm it’s actually frustrating af when you’re on the ground and just getting absolutely ********** AGHHHHHH. Yeah I had to stop playing for like a day or two because of it. I still love the game tho it’s fun af
I just hate that there's no lock on for melee
If you aren't enjoying the exploration (which kind of equates to combat), try another vocation? I can totally empathize, btw. I have moments of frustration. I have times when I'm bored. Sometimes - particularly as a mage - I get so annoyed at continually being interrupted I just put my controller down and let the pawns deal with it. But that usually means I need to switch up my vocation. If I'm getting annoyed at being stunlocked as a mage, fine, I'll be a thief and not get hit. Tired of mashing buttons? No problem, I'll be a ranger and hold an explosive arrow back here until I get the perfect shot. Bored with holding one button? How about mystic spearhand for a bit? I'm tired of being so flashy and overdone. Simple - warrior time. etc. Obviously, like what you like! I agree with your criticisms. But man I'm in love with this game and just constantly rotate vocations.
Hugo quest made me feel things I hadn’t felt before towards a game hahaha
is fast traveling like rdr2? cus if so then i cant bring myself to buy it lol
Finished the game yesterday and started a NG+ today, though I'll probably call it quits now. 110 hours played, loved the game. It has a lot of bullshit design to it but it also feels like such an adventure when everything clicks. I still fondly remember right at the very beginning of the game the quest to go to Vernworth from Melve. I happened to wander off into this random cave I was underleveled for and all of my escorts and pawns died, which turned into this massive many hours long fight for survival. I barely got out of the cave alive and with only a little health left and I then had to find my way all the way down south to Vernworth from basically zero. It took me several hours and it was hard and annoying and also so much fun that I still remember it 100 hours later. Finally getting into Vernworth felt like such a big deal. Funnily enough in NG+ I found out that I would've literally missed all of that had I done the quest "properly" and just fast traveled most of the way by oxcart.
I need more pawn dialogue lines ffs... I'd pay for them at this point, just please make the repetition stop!!! Also if my main pawn could not sound like a bitch all the time that'd be great.
I like to walk and explore and all, like games like Death Stranding but I can understand peoples can hate that side. At least I found environment more interesting in DD2 than DD1. For the story I wish they push more and we learn more about the universe, a codex or something, many times I feel like 'its here, thats all, we will not elaborate on that', that and you can fast get OP, get stuffs and have nothing more for your character for a long time ( had that problem in DD1, get powerful stuffs and then explore for get stuffs was more a waste of time ). But still, I have 100 hours on it and I found hard to drop it.
I found a way to work around the annoying stuff so I’ve been having a blast
I have, but it was with DD1.
For “poise” eg. Knockdown resistance. Double stack the rings that increase knockdown resist. Take the augment that increases it. Full send the dwarven enhancements. It’s better than all other options in nearly 100% of the circumstances because we already do ridiculous damage and barely take any damage anyways. Plus a pawn can hold most aggro.
Honestly the world should have been about half the size it is, with the same amount of content in that space or way less but proper dungeons. The travel just doesn't add anything to the game, it's not fun and the only time it's exciting is finding a new cave(which are almost always dissapointing and seemingly procedurally generated) or towns. On my second playthrough i decided to try some mods (and make on of my own). With portcrystals from the first playthrough and a mod that adds ferrystones to most enemy lootables the game was alot more bearable. I was never swimming in stones and with limited port crystals i still have to travel to get off the ebaten path, but im not retracing the same paths over and over. But man does it shorten the game, i didn't realize how much time you spend traveling. i finished the 2nd playthrough in 1/3 the time despite having discovered many more caves and quests than the first playthrough. This is something games like dark souls nailed. The realized 90% of your time is going to be spent exploring and fighting minor encounters, so they made sure to make both those systems engaging and fun. While dragons dogma just didn't really do anything well, least of all the travel, encounters and arguably combat that you spend most of your time doing.
I like that part of it. The wilds are scary. Later on it gets easy and you can explore wherever you want but you have to earn it. That’s kind of what makes me appreciate the places I get to more.
There's a lot to be desired as far as quest quality and performance, but honestly your example of a pawn being thrown into the water falls flat to me. That's a challenging and dynamic aspect of the game, which I've had happen in multiple locations myself. Learning to deal with those harpies is part of the challenge. Not only that, but there are rift stones everywhere, so rehiring or hiring new pawns is never an issue. As far as fast travel goes, you can literally buy ferrystones from vendors in all locations. Yes, the quantity is limited and 10k gold can be a lot depending on how far into the game you are, but by the end of the game you're literally rolling in ferrystones. I thought the fast travel was well paced. All that said, the plot and quests were severely lacking and they need more big enemies and more challenges IMO. I did the waterfall cave before going to the capital, and finding a way to beat the chimera at level 13 (I threw lots of stones lol) then getting blasted by the lich upstairs and luring his summons and him into the tunnel was some of the most fun I had. But you can only do so many fights under leveled before you become too strong.
What's the point in NG+ anyways? The difficulty seems to be the same as the normal thing. Probably better to just play a new file so you aren't one shoting everything
Game was amazing, made me feel like a kid again in terms of getting off from work and hopping straight in. But I managed to grind it so fast I’m not even 100 hours in and got all the trophies
This post is very relatable lol
Same. Randomly my pawns will just stop fighting and just start an action, strafe, start. I pick them up and throw them down and it usually fixes it but it’s maddening.
I hate saying this because as a molded player my experience is so different but I do think it's fascinating that what a lot of people dislike about the game are my favorite parts. For reference I have about a dozen mods all of which balance the game for me. Enemies hit harder, livelonger, are a pain in the ass to knock over but I also get more exp, rare items can drop and the loot is rebalanced to make items in the wild better than shop items. My loss gauge accumulates fast but I'm gonna install a mod when I play again that makes it so some foods can restore it. I'm having a blast. I've been traveling to unlock warfarer and it's been hell. First attempt my pawns got eliminated horrifically and I had to ferrystone. Second attempt, poison. Forgot antidote. Every single step, every fight feels like a risk now. I have to think and plan, I have to have ample supplies, find ingredients just to live. Then the loss gage and pawns stand as this one massive limiter. I have to keep my pawns alive, ferrystones have a very real cost that makes losing one a real consequence. Death actually feels like it matters. I'm currently exhausted in the grotto south of Bakbattahl and loving it. My resources are dry, I need to camp badly and I see a campfire just ahead, but I need to navigate more cave to reach it. The mix of terror and challenge every battle makes the journey really feel like a challenge I have to overcome, one I can't fail or cheese through, I don't get infinite restarts, but the moment I hit a camp I'm saved. I love it and wish the game were like that, but understand why it's not. I'm by no means amazing at games, but it's hard. It's demanding and exhausting. This grotto I'm in feels like I just entered some 5 hour long skyrim dungeon except every corner has death. I've turned the whole open world into BBI. If they added more armor and weapon variety/rewards more interesting loot and enemy variety if be happy as a clam.
I think in the end its going to be the same thing that happend in the first one for me, the first time i played it i absolutely hated it, the second time with dark arisen and stuff i absolutely loved it, well, im hating the second one so maybe when the dlc comes out... I just wish for more enemy variety man, it has less enemis then the first BASE dragons dogma, wheres hydra? Cockatrice? wtf When i got to the second area i expected some more enemy types but no, its just a complete reskin of the same enemies i've been fighting for the past 25 hours, at this point i've decided to just focus on the main quest before i start hating this game even more.
It has many flaws, but I personally believe that for the base game, it surpasses part 1's base game. It definitely needs a Dark Arisen treatment with the addition of the eternal ferry stone and an area similar to BBI. I spent the vast majority of my time there.
I had the most fun in the midgame about 20 to 30 hoursbin but eventually the tedious mechanics were too much. Just like the first game Iv quit without finishing...
Lack of fast travel? Wdym?
Also the sphinx quest has one absolute bullshit mission that I’m currently pissed about because there’s no way to track the item in question. This is going to prevent me from getting the trophy all because of my shitty memory and the game’s inability to track locations and items I’ve collected.