Dragon's Dogma 2

[Octavious]

The microtransactions are 100 percent pointless and you can just ignore them. I wouldn't skip the game for it at all.

[coopasonic]

Hard pass for me because fuck micro transactions.

You see nothing about them in the game, as far as I have noticed, other than the main menu having an "online store" option. There is literally no reason to ever buy any of it. Everything is available using in game currency (except RC which is used to pay for pawns that are higher level than your character, which you don't ever need) and having played for 17 hours I don't see why anyone would bother unless they were just lazy.

[Blackhawk]

I have nothing against microtransactions in general. They're the price we pay for having $70 games when they should be $100+.

But cheap, manipulative business practices are bullshit in any context.

[Skinypupy]

Hard pass for me because fuck micro transactions.

You see nothing about them in the game, as far as I have noticed, other than the main menu having an "online store" option. There is literally no reason to ever buy any of it. Everything is available using in game currency (except RC which is used to pay for pawns that are higher level than your character, which you don't ever need) and having played for 17 hours I don't see why anyone would bother unless they were just lazy.

+1. I would never even know the microtransactions existed if the internet hadn’t gotten their collective knickers in a twist about them. It’s much ado about nothing,

This game desperately needs a ‘hide helm’ option. Every single helm looks utterly ridiculous.

Also, my bald, bearded, buff male warrior is currently running around in a chainmail shirt up top, and a thong with thigh-high boots down below. Because that armor combo is about 30% better than anything else I can currently afford. I know some people find that sort of thing hilarious…I just find it stupid and annoying.

[wonderpug]

It's pretty funny that Bethesda got slammed for purely cosmetic $3 horse armor, but 'pay-to-win' microtransactions are the devil and low cost purely cosmetic DLC is seen as the most innocuous kind of microtransaction.

[Isgrimnur]

Someone had to walk so that others could run.

[Rumpy]

I have nothing against microtransactions in general. They're the price we pay for having $70 games when they should be $100+.

But cheap, manipulative business practices are bullshit in any context.

To be fair though, in some markets it's already been $70 before the recent price hikes, and now are in the $90-100 range, with deluxe editions running from $150 to $200.

Then add the general idea of microtransactions, and it's as though the publisher is telling us we aren't paying enough, and it feels dirty. But if the prices were to rise even more, I'd probably not buy any new games anymore.

[Blackhawk]

It's pretty funny that Bethesda got slammed for purely cosmetic $3 horse armor, but 'pay-to-win' microtransactions are the devil and low cost purely cosmetic DLC is seen as the most innocuous kind of microtransaction.

$2.50, and the outrage was mostly because people were still thinking in terms of 'expansion' for extra content (and, contrary to popular belief, the horse armor wasn't just cosmetic - it actually did make the horse tougher.)

[coopasonic]

I need y'all to up your games. My highest friend pawn last I looked was level 24. I'm level 35. Come on folks, stop working and spending time with your families or friends or whatever!

[hepcat]

Why bother? You’ll have finished the game by the time you read this.

[Skinypupy]

I put in about 8 hours over the weekend and my opinions on this one are about the same as the original: I absolutely adore parts of it and absolutely hate others. Thankfully, it's more the former than the latter.

DD2 absolutely nails the same feeling of exploring a massive world (yay!) that could literally kill you at any given moment (boo!). The emergent gameplay can alternate between feeling absolutely epic and absolutely the most frustrating thing you've ever experienced. Spending the better part of 20 minutes taking down a Minotaur in for the first time in the Eastern Forest was a truly epic battle that I won't soon forget. On the other hand, I very slightly mistimed stepping out of the way of an Ogre's charge, and he sends me flying through the air...straight over a cliff and into a nest of four Saurians who proceeded to make quick work of my limp body. Whelp...

Been playing as an Archer, and really enjoying it so far. It doesn't require the precise gameplay that a melee class needs, but still feels very powerful as I gain new abilities and skills. Pairing that with my Figher pawn and a hired Warrior and Mage keeps most mobs at bay while I pick them off from afar. If something does aggro me, a quick jump kick generally creates enough space for me to survive. I've really been enjoying this class.

I do find the game bogs down in some of the main quests. Wandering around mazelike corridors in a palace with only vague quest markers and descriptions can be incredibly annoying and frustrating. I also have the constant nagging feeling that I'm missing a huge number of quests because I'm not stopping to talk with every single NPC I see. I'm a bit confused about the exclamation marks on the mini map. It seems like those are indicating a quest or POI of some sort, but there's never anything there. I've spent an inordinate amount of time wandering around a tiny area trying to figure out if there's something I'm supposed to trigger with the exclamation mark, only to come up empty.

One of my other main complaints about the original DD carried over here, and that's the unforgiving day/night cycle. The game often sends you traipsing all the way across a massive map to reach quest objectives. If you do any exploration on your way, you're likely going to run out of daylight. Camping supplies are really heavy so you can only carry one or two (constant weight limit issues are another huge annoyance), fast travel is stupid expensive, and nighttime is far more difficult (both to see WTF you're doing and all the new mobs). So I find myself generally having to beeline straight for objectives when I'd much rather be taking my time exploring the world. In a game that is so focused on exploration, it seems weird that all those systems seem to fight against each other.

Even with all that, the game has a ton of charm and character and can really be a blast to play. I sit down to play and am always amazed at how quickly 2-3 hours just flies by. Combat and exploration are both fantastic, the character progression (so far) has been incredibly satisfying, and the game comes together to be far better than the sum of all it's janky parts.

Oh, and the live action video of cooking meat might be one of the funniest, most random things I've ever seen in a video game.

[stessier]

The Ars review likes the jank as well.

With all due respect to the Capcom team, which poured itself into Dragon’s Dogma 2 and deserves praise, raises, and time off, let me get right to it: I love this game for how dumb it is.

I mean "dumb" in the way most heavy metal lyrics are dumb, but you find yourself rocking out nonetheless. Dumb like when you laugh uncontrollably at the sight of someone getting conked on the head and falling over backward. Dumb as in the silliest bits of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, just nowhere near as self-aware (unless, due to translation issues, this game actually is self-aware, then I apologize).

Dragon’s Dogma 2 (DD2) reminds me of playing another huge, dumb, enjoyable game: The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Not the first time you play through it, though. I’m talking about the second or third run-through (or that 100-plus-hour save in which you refuse to finish the game), and your admiration of this huge, rich world gives way to utter ridiculousness. You one-shot dragons with your broken stealth-archer build, you put buckets on the heads of NPCs to rob them, and you marvel at how the most effective fast travel is horse tilting. You lunge into possibilities, choose chaos, and appreciate all the ways you can do so.

[coopasonic]

On camping supplies you generally get them back when you break camp in the morning. There is also an Elite camping gear that’s only 4 kilos available in the main town for pretty cheap.

Ox carts are cheap travel.

I also started as an archer but the thief deals a lot more damage at least with the weapons I’ve found. On the other hand I really miss my archer when the harpies show up!

[Skinypupy]

On camping supplies you generally get them back when you break camp in the morning.

Is that just a specific type? Because mine are always gone after I use them.

Ox carts are cheap travel.

I need to start using these more often. Seems like they're pretty hit and miss where they go though. I've also run into several times where the oxcart driver says "we're not leaving right now" and I'm not really sure why.

Started seeing some weird stuff regarding pawns yesterday.
- Nearly every pawn has just one or two likes (you can "like" a pawn when you dismiss them) but I came across one last night that had over 400. He also had no Augments equipped, only two skills assigned, and only one Core skill. Very odd.

- Another one was the same overall level as my pawn (18) but had a full 6 levels of Fighter vocation and another 5 levels of Archer vocation. In comparison, my pawn has only achieved 6 levels of Fighter vocation in that same amount of time. I truly have no idea how they're doing such increased leveling.

- I haven't run into it yet, but Dragonsplague is just some straight up bullshit.

Dragonsplague is a special type of illness that can only be contracted by Pawns, and true to its name, it can be caught by a party member while they're fighting a drake or a dragon. Additionally, hiring another player's Pawn that has the sickness in their world will cause them to have it in yours as well. It's also important to know that an infected Pawn can pass the sickness to other Pawns.

Notably, unlike other Dragon's Dogma 2 debilitations such as Blight, Dragonsplague cannot be cured with any known in-game consumable item. The disease also doesn't appear in the Status menu of your Pawns, which makes it unusually difficult to detect compared to other conditions (more on how to tell if a Pawn has it in the next section). In case you're wondering, it's not observable while you're looking at Pawns in the Rift or in the wild before you hire them, either.

If players don't realize one of their Pawns has Dragonsplague, or ignores the presence of the disease for too long, afflicted Pawns will eventually transform into a shadowy dragon when the player rests at an inn. When this happens, they'll "nuke" the entire town or city the inn is at, killing all NPCs. Note that this apparently includes quest-givers and characters important to the story; according to player reports, it's entirely possible to cut yourself off from the main story quest as a result, forcing you to find your own way to the end of the game.

I'm sorry, but that's just incredibly stupid.

[Rumpy]

Yeah, I've been reading up on that and it wouldn't surprise me if it would be nerfed in a future patch. Kind of seems disrespectful of the playtime people put into it. Then again, maybe this is some sick trick Capcom is using to force people to buy more wakestones via microtransactions, and I wouldn't put it past them. I do find it interesting that pawns can be hired when already infected. This essentially means the plague can spread from game to game and impact players negatively. Some poor soul could hire a newly dismissed plague-ridden pawn, just on the basis of not knowing any better. I wonder of their status shows up in the pawn's description.

[Blackhawk]

What the holy hellballs were they thinking with that mechanic?

[Skinypupy]

If that happens, I'd simply quit. There's absolutely zero chance in hell I'd go through the effort of trying to rez every NPC. The game would immediately just be uninstalled and I'd likely never revisit it.

TBH, simply knowing that it even exists as a possibility makes me far less interested in sticking with the game long term.

Yeah, I've been reading up on that and it wouldn't surprise me if it would be nerfed in a future patch.

I certainly hope so.

[coopasonic]

On camping supplies you generally get them back when you break camp in the morning.

Is that just a specific type? Because mine are always gone after I use them.

The basic one seems to poof, but there are at least 3 other types. The elite hasn't poofed on me yet and there are some biome specific ones that don't seem to poof when used in the right region.

Ox carts are cheap travel.

I need to start using these more often. Seems like they're pretty hit and miss where they go though. I've also run into several times where the oxcart driver says "we're not leaving right now" and I'm not really sure why.

They pretty much only leave in the morning and they seem to only go between the main towns. There is generally a post with a bench and you can interact with the post to "wait until oxcart is ready" or snooze on the bench until morning.

I got the popup explaining dragonsplague yesterday and after reading about it, I could see the eyes were kind of red so I just swapped that pawn out. I'll check for reddened eyes every couple rests.

[coopasonic]

Weird thing right off the bat, curious if it’s everyone or just me. The title slate just says “Dragon’s Dogma” and not “Dragon’s Dogma II”.

There is a reason for this and I won't spoil anything. It says Dragon's Dogma II for me now, after 29.8 hours.

[Skinypupy]

They pretty much only leave in the morning and they seem to only go between the main towns. There is generally a post with a bench and you can interact with the post to "wait until oxcart is ready" or snooze on the bench until morning.

There's the cart that goes between the Vernworth and Melve(?) but every other cart I've seen seems to be entirely random. Are there set carts that go to set locations, or is it just whatever happens to show up?

For example, a random cart showed up near the West gate of Vernworth and said it was headed to "Wilderness Checkpoint Number One" (I actually thought it might be a bug with that name, but they did voice acting with that name for the driver so I figured it must be a real place). What the hell, let's see where this takes me. Paid my fare, hopped on board, and dozed off.

Woke up to the battle music to find a cyclops attacking the cart, so I jumped out and we took him down pretty easily. Checked the map to see I'm way to the west in the middle of somewhere I hadn't explored yet. Hopped back on the cart expecting it to resume it's route and...nothing. Talked to the driver and he gave his usual "I'm not going anywhere without coin" so I paid him, sat down on the cart, and...nothing. Even though I just paid him, the driver just stands next to the cart and spouts a generic NPC dialog line when I try to talk with him. Apparently nothing I say or do is going to get him to continue that route.

I'm left to stumble around in the dark fighting skeletons and some sort of witch-thing (couldn't really see it, just that it was throwing spells at me) until I can find a campsite. Slept until daylight, went back to where the cart stopped and it's gone. Guess he did want to continue to "Wilderness Checkpoint Number One", but without me.

I eventually made my way back towards civilization (which was super fun since I had only brought one set of camping supplies). It's now been three more in-game days and I have yet to see that oxcart in that location going to that "wilderness checkpoint" again.

Maybe that's all by design, but it feels more like one of those "janky in an incredibly annoying way" experiences.

[Victoria Raverna]

If you have RTX 40 cards, you can try the mod that enable the frame generation. Apparently the game included DLSS frame generation implementation but not enabled.

If you only have RTX 20/30, maybe you can try that mod and the dlssg to FSR3 mod together to see if you can emulate DLSS frame generation with FSR3 frame generation.

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/free- ... ance-bump/

[hepcat]

I put in about 8 hours over the weekend and my opinions on this one are about the same as the original: I absolutely adore parts of it and absolutely hate others. Thankfully, it's more the former than the latter.

Thanks. I'll probably get it at some point, but I'm going to wait until they address some of the issues that have been noted here. I do want to play it, and I loved the first one as well though!

[Smoove_B]

I'm still extremely interested in the game and I haven't seen anything (other than maybe that disease thing) that has me concerned. I will do what I did with the original - wait until enough of you have been playing long enough that I can log in for the first time and reap the benefits of your inanely powerful pawns. That really was one of my favorite surprise elements from the first game as I had no idea about the system.

[Skinypupy]

I will do what I did with the original - wait until enough of you have been playing long enough that I can log in for the first time and reap the benefits of your inanely powerful pawns. That really was one of my favorite surprise elements from the first game as I had no idea about the system.

My pawn has only been hired once in the dozen'ish hours I've been playing.

[coopasonic]

I will do what I did with the original - wait until enough of you have been playing long enough that I can log in for the first time and reap the benefits of your inanely powerful pawns. That really was one of my favorite surprise elements from the first game as I had no idea about the system.

My pawn has only been hired once in the dozen'ish hours I've been playing.

You should able to hire my pawn for free if you are playing on steam. She’s a low 40s sorcerer that will melt most everything in the early areas.

My pawn has gotten some use but not a lot. I’ve gotten a few thousand RC total. Not that I need since there aren’t a lot of pawns higher level than me.

[Skinypupy]

Man, I feel this.

[coopasonic]

Quote is inaccurate. Pawns can't make any statement that doesn't include "aught."

[Jaymann]

Weird thing right off the bat, curious if it’s everyone or just me. The title slate just says “Dragon’s Dogma” and not “Dragon’s Dogma II”.

There is a reason for this and I won't spoil anything. It says Dragon's Dogma II for me now, after 29.8 hours.

Can you please do a spoiler for that? I am never going to buy this game and I did a search and couldn't find the answer. Apparently the internet does NOT know everything.

[Skinypupy]

After thoroughly exploring the first zone, I made it to the next one this afternoon (Battahl). The desert region looks amazing but holy hell, the enemy frequency there is insane. You can't take 2 steps without being set upon by packs of goblins, wolves, or sahagin, and typically all three at once. You encounter big mobs (griffons, ogres, cyclopses, or dragons) with way more frequency as well, usually seeing one every 5 minutes or so. The number of battles while making my way across the map to the main city for the first time became far more annoying than fun. I could handle most of the packs fine, but throw in a big bad along with a dozen wolves and things get dicey pretty quickly.

I also think I may have screwed up one of the main quests (the one about the Empress).

Spoiler:

You're supposed to protect the Empress from an assassin during her prayers. A letter gives you a vague description of the assassin (wears his hair back and has a bandage on his right arm) and you're supposed to pick him out from the crowd and tackle him before she finishes praying. I tackled the dude I thought fit the description, but he turned out to be a commoner and the assassin killed the Empress. Not sure quite how yet, but I'm sure that's gonna come back to bite me in the ass later.

I did finally figure out how the oxcart "fast-travel" works, although I have yet to complete a journey without being ambushed. Fighting big bads in the dark in the middle of nowhere is no bueno.

I have maxed out the Archer profession, which I really enjoy playing. Since I don't gain any additional skills, I assume I'm supposed to switch professions so I can gain cross-class attributes, right? Or can I just stay with Archer because I'm terrible at melee combat in these games?

[Max Peck]

Weird thing right off the bat, curious if it’s everyone or just me. The title slate just says “Dragon’s Dogma” and not “Dragon’s Dogma II”.

There is a reason for this and I won't spoil anything. It says Dragon's Dogma II for me now, after 29.8 hours.

Can you please do a spoiler for that? I am never going to buy this game and I did a search and couldn't find the answer. Apparently the internet does NOT know everything.

I've seen it discussed in several places, but everyone involved was remarkably disciplined about not wanting to spoil it. Apparently it's intentional and involves an important story element.

[coopasonic]

I have maxed out the Archer profession, which I really enjoy playing. Since I don't gain any additional skills, I assume I'm supposed to switch professions so I can gain cross-class attributes, right? Or can I just stay with Archer because I'm terrible at melee combat in these games?

If you like the archer and want to stay at range, the Magic Archer or Mystic Archer or something like that is the next logical step, but I never found it to unlock it. Another option would be a few levels of whichever melee class gets you the Thew augment to increase your carry weight. Similarly you can just look through the various class augments and see which if any would sounds useful to you and get a few level there. I will say harpies get to be annoying for a while if you aren't an archer, until you figure out how to deal with them with whatever class you play.

[coopasonic]

Weird thing right off the bat, curious if it’s everyone or just me. The title slate just says “Dragon’s Dogma” and not “Dragon’s Dogma II”.

There is a reason for this and I won't spoil anything. It says Dragon's Dogma II for me now, after 29.8 hours.

Can you please do a spoiler for that? I am never going to buy this game and I did a search and couldn't find the answer. Apparently the internet does NOT know everything.

In simple and blunt spoiler terms...

Spoiler:

There is a choice in how you end the game. You can kill the dragon and live happily ever after or use a special tool you get that takes you to an endgame location where you can increase your power through really annoying means and prep for and enter NG+. If you take the Happily ever after option, it gives you a chance to change your mind, but basically taking the other option seems to be what changes the logo to Dragon's Dogma 2 since you found the new thing, I guess.

[TheMix]

Why bother? You’ll have finished the game by the time you read this.

I chuckled. Well played.

[coopasonic]

Why bother? You’ll have finished the game by the time you read this.

I chuckled. Well played.

Forgot to mention. I finished it Tuesday.

[hepcat]

Bam?

[Blackhawk]

Mad bam, dam.

[Skinypupy]

Why bother? You’ll have finished the game by the time you read this.

I chuckled. Well played.

Forgot to mention. I finished it Tuesday.

Out of curiosity, how long did it take and what level were you?

[coopasonic]

Right around 30 hours and level 42 or 43 I think. There is some flexibility in what you call finished. I spent about an hour on that flexibility and could have spent much more.

[Skinypupy]

Huh, guess I'm further along than I thought. I'm around 25 hours, just hit level 33.

Feels like I've mainly just been wandering around doing random "stuff" in the world, but I suppose it's possible I'm making better progress than expected.

[hepcat]

I always double the hours it takes others to complete games. I get easily sidetracked while playing and will wonder off for hours doing nothing but sightseeing or fiddling around. Also, I’m an idiot.