Dragon's Dogma II - "They’re masterworks, all – you can’t go wrong"

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

 

[Alienman]

I'm around level 24 now, and I'm already bored of it. It feels like a reboot/remake of the first one, but having much less gaming magic™. The premise is almost the same also. The story feels like a nothing burger, so that wasn't improved. Still, the first game had the advantage of being something new and novel. While the story was almost zero in the first, it was still better somehow. You just fight hordes of similar enemies over and over again. Some quests don't match the game mechanics at all. It doesn't play to the strength of the game, like the damn stealth missions. It sucked in the first, and doubly sucks in this one.

I thought the traveling would be interesting, but this thing is also a nothing burger and just annoying. There is no danger. You are never in any peril. There are resting places all over. Never thought I would say it, but some Death Stranding in Dragon's Dogma wouldn't have been a bad idea if you are going down this route. Some environmental dangers etc. Also, downtime between fights would be appreciated. Jesus, you fight goblins every 10 seconds.

Guess it looks good though.

Edit:

Forgot one of the important bits. I was sure the dungeon design would be improved. Because who doesn't love dungeon diving? Somehow, it's worse. Just endless caves with brown rock walls that never ever reward you for exploring. Jesus Christ game, give me something.

I think if you're expecting something revolutionary, it's going to be disappointing.

If all you needed was something that "evolves" (rounds out the edges and completes) the original, this delivers.

Nah, but I didn't expect it to be less of a game comparable to the first. How is expecting some solid dungeons "revolutionary"? Or that it doesn't include pointless "stealth" segments which the game doesn't even have a mechanic for? Overall, after 20 hours I just find it pretty charmless and grindy. What is there to grind for when mobs die in 2 hits? Bosses die very fast too. I had some fun with the bosses before I leveled up. Now they are meat too. You level incredibly quickly for some reason, which makes the first "island" a pushover. Seems like a weird design decision.

I don't understand how people find it interesting as in challenging. And how they can spend so much time and multiple levels in the same place. It might actually be the easiest Japanese action game I have ever played. This is not some gamer brag or something. Sometimes when goblins, wolves, or whatever attack, I don't even have time to attack myself before my team has vanquished them. Please, don't tell me to run solo, because that would remove the coolest aspect of the game - the team.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah it's way too easy

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Is Brant a horrible alcoholic? Dude never leaves the bar at night and disappears during the day. Probably passed out in some goat shit somewhere.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Action RPG makes the emphasis on 'action' part

Precisely, action gameplay mechanics tied to a character progression system (i.e. the role play part)

A component which Dragon's Dogma has always been to superior to From's Souls series
As in DD your chacter's progression is not just an improvement of the mathematical elements (i.e. Stats), but also an improvement of his capabilities, his range of actions
From's Soulsborne games however, are solely limited to the mathematical aspect, there's no evolution for the action component of the game

So, while a sword and shield figther in Dark Souls or even Elden Ring will play almost the same in high level as he did in low level, the same won't be true for a sword and shield figther in Dragon's Dogma at any of his vocation's levels
In fact, Dragon's Dogma is so much superior to Souls in this regard, that even within a single character class there can exist distinct playstyles - because of the versitile, yet finite, selection of active skills a figther can be more suited for a defensive playstyle rather than an offensive one, more focused on crowd control rather than 1v1, more dependant on combination attacks rather than few deliberate ones
And this is to say nothing of the fact that, the range of actions of Souls games is poor and lacks even simple depth that you can find in basic figthing games

In short, the action component of Souls games is simple, it was adequate but nothing special
Which was fine as DeS, DS1 and DS2 were primarly dungeon-crawlers - their focus wasn't combat, which itself wasn't the most important element of gameplay

which involves fighting monsters

Which DD 1 and 2 have plenty of

and here you are, people pretending that fighting 5 unique regular enemies for 60h+ is completely fine, fun and not boring at all.

You know what is one of the best 3D Hack 'n' Slash games of all time?
Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma
You know how many enemies, aside from bosses, the game approximately has?
Around 40 give or take
Of that roster, you know how many of them are actually well designed and cool to fight?
4
The vigoor police, the ninjas, the shadow fiends and the cat girl fiends
The remaining enemies are either mediocre or annoying dogshit

Each playtrough is either 10 or 20 hours depending on the player's pace
There's about 40 hours worth of extra mode challenges
In all these hours, the game survives on 4 good enemies and plus a handful of decent bosses
Yet, it is one of the best games of its genre
It's combat in both complexity and fun btfo of Souls games and Sekiro

What I am trying to say is: Quality > Quantity
And the majority of Elden Ring's enemies are less versatile in combat than even DD2 goblins

And I see that 12 years were not enough to improve upon this.

Elden Ring - 140+ enemy types (!)

Of which 80+% are actual fucking reskins of enemies going back at least to Bloodborne, though I wouldn't be surprised if it went all the way back to DS1

Honestly, these constant "ER vs DD2" flamewars are such knee-jerk reactions
They are entirely different types of open-world jRPGs
One is a combination of ADnD with classic party based jRPGs and beat 'em ups
The other is 7 copies of Dark Souls 3 grafted together and with addition of horses

 

[kites]

Enemies just aren’t aggresive enough. It doesn’t have to be punishing, it feels satisfying already, but could use some more bite. It’s mostly easy-going especially at higher ranks, but you can also get stomped, especially with the exhaustion/physics mechanics (getting thrown around or knocked down sucks..)

Related - I take a sorceror and thief with me, no third. Recently while fighting an ogre I was ambushed by a pack of wolves at night, was already tired so I was knocked down and all 3 starting chewing on me after I was drug around; my thief somehow fell off a short cliff and died and my healer just stood there and casted anodyne to heal me several times over no matter the directive I gave (“help” “go” etc). It felt like almost 2 minutes; sometimes you just have to laugh at the situations..

 

[DJOGamer PT]

There's a standard for saving games that's been established for decades and they went against it.

Codex: " Savescumming in RPG sucks out all the fun of exploring. Developers should try to implement more diegetic save systems, instead of banal shit boring manual saving in every game. The classics had already figured this out quite elegantly, the player could only save at safe locations like inns and it cost him precious resources. "



Also Codex: " What do you mean I can only safely save at specific locations outside of the wilderness and dungeons? And I have to consume valuable resources to do so? This is stupid, there's a reason why cRPGs have moved on from such archaic design and conveniently let the player manually save when he wishes to do so. "

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Enemies just aren’t aggresive enough.

That's may be the effect of the adaptive difficulty because there was one time I was ambushed by goblins and they were relenteless, but upon retry they seemed more passive

Honestly I think critical attacks do way too much damage

 

[kites]

I haven’t noticed any adaptive stuff. Sometimes I think so, but damage seems to be mostly based off the #’s. Maybe spawn rate/type. The rate also seems based off the area.. I’ve noticed some places you can’t go 50 yards without an encounter and others you can go more than several minutes without one. A lot of the aggression issue could be fixed if enemies weren’t so easy to stagger and punish.

It’s also telling that most of my deaths are from falls; that fighter skill where you can use your shield to brace impact makes me laugh (and also sets off npc’s in the city as it takes your sword out)

 

[S.H.O.D.A.N.]

What is there to grind for when mobs die in 2 hits? Bosses die very fast too. I had some fun with the bosses before I leveled up. Now they are meat too. You level incredibly quickly for some reason, which makes the first "island" a pushover. Seems like a weird design decision.

On a personal level, it's a valid complaint. But we're playing a sprawling open world game with levelling mechanics; a curated difficulty curve cannot exist in such an environment.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

There's already a enemy damage increase mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/186
The creator said he is working on modifying spawns and looking for ways to restrict saving only to inns and campfires (for separate mods though)

Overall the REngine is easier to mod than the MTFramwork
This game will have a bigger modding scene than DD1


On a side note, spawns seem to me to be not as common as people say they are if you stick to roads

 

[kites]

On a side note, spawns seem to me to be not as common as people say they are if you stick to roads

That may be so, it seems like lots of the areas where I had to trek back and forth (such as going to Harve village and back) many of the same places had the exact same spawns, if not enemies at least the same location

 

[TheKing01]

People actually defending this slop.

I break into a rando's house, steal shit. There's no response. I go to do a quest "it's reactive".

Why even bother? And there's around 4 or 5 enemy types. Not sure who this was aimed at besides people who were adamant fans of the Shadow of the Colossus climbing from the original.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

FINALY had my first monster appear in the city. 'Twas just a trivial Cyclops but it was dope none the less.

 

[Zariusz]

Lol just look at this furry...

 

[Raghar]

There's already a enemy damage increase mod: https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/186
The creator said he is working on modifying spawns and looking for ways to restrict saving only to inns and campfires (for separate mods though)

Overall the REngine is easier to mod than the MTFramwork
This game will have a bigger modding scene than DD1


On a side note, spawns seem to me to be not as common as people say they are if you stick to roads

Damage increase mod might be problem, because of restriction on full healing.

 

[toro]

39 hours played so far and finally ready to leave first region

30 hours so far and I started the second region.

 

[Lyre Mors]

But we're playing a sprawling open world game with levelling mechanics; a curated difficulty curve cannot exist in such an environment.

While there is this adaptive difficulty thing at work, it is not the same thing as level scaling, or anywhere near it. Monster difficulty is largely tied to the type of monster you are fighting and where they are physically found on the map. So yeah, you fight the same monsters over and over again in the early areas of the game, they're going to be much easier than something further out. Same goes for the larger enemy types and where they are in the world.

I agree that there could be more difficulty overall - or more just an option for it - but I think that people are confusing the way the actual open world progression in the game works with how the overall difficulty is. You can still find challenging encounters in the early areas of the game, they are just fewer and further in between. Sick of it and find it too easy overall? Then venture the fuck out into the world.

 

[Silverfish]

people pretending that fighting 5 unique regular enemies for 60h+ is completely fine, fun and not boring at all. And I see that 12 years were not enough to improve upon this.

Don't worry. Additional enemy types will eventually be added to the game for the low, low price of $5 each.

View attachment 48054

Did she ask you about the Hero of Kvatch?

 

[TheKing01]

I will say, the camera manages to remain consistent even in the most unfavorable circumstances.

Just wonder how Capcom is still making high-tier indie titles after the kazillion dollars they made off of the RE remakes and their She-Male Jill Valentine. Basic components are missing yet they went the extra mile of implementing world states based on your decisions. Then said decisions become diminutive since Capcom forgot to code AI that reacts outside of it. Ergo, it's slop. A mish mash of edible bits and the parts you wipe under the table while no one else is looking.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I think if you're expecting something revolutionary, it's going to be disappointing.

If all you needed was something that "evolves" (rounds out the edges and completes) the original, this delivers.

Nah, but I didn't expect it to be less of a game comparable to the first. How is expecting some solid dungeons "revolutionary"? Or that it doesn't include pointless "stealth" segments which the game doesn't even have a mechanic for? Overall, after 20 hours I just find it pretty charmless and grindy. What is there to grind for when mobs die in 2 hits? Bosses die very fast too. I had some fun with the bosses before I leveled up. Now they are meat too. You level incredibly quickly for some reason, which makes the first "island" a pushover. Seems like a weird design decision.

I don't understand how people find it interesting as in challenging. And how they can spend so much time and multiple levels in the same place. It might actually be the easiest Japanese action game I have ever played. This is not some gamer brag or something. Sometimes when goblins, wolves, or whatever attack, I don't even have time to attack myself before my team has vanquished them. Please, don't tell me to run solo, because that would remove the coolest aspect of the game - the team.

I think there are two bits to this, not that either invalidates your criticisms per se.

1) I think you're comparing DD2 to DD:DA and not DD1. DD1 was a far different beast and the dungeons in DD2 are at least on par with, if not better to DD1, from what I've seen so far. I may change my mind if there's no equivalent to things like the end game area and Bluemoon Tower, but so far, I'm pretty happy with it.
1a) I don't disagree that there's nothing like BBI, but I think you'll have to wait for the expansion/DLC to make an apples to apples comparison for that. BBI was part of DD:DA which, at the time, was a completely separate boxed release.

2) We may very well have different expectations about what we wanted from the game. DD was never an overly difficult game, whatever version you had, it had a few curves where your attack stat hadn't caught up to enemy defenses, depending on where you are and what type of attack you're using. This is the same in DD2. Either way, DD was more about adventuring and tooling around the countryside and having emergent things happen and setting an atmosphere rather than strictly combat encounters. It's why there's such a difference between say a boss rush game -> Soulslikes -> Dragon's Dogma. As you move from boss rushes towards Dragon's Dogma, you have more of a fleshed out, simulated world and less of a focus on only combat encounters. YMMV.

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Omg I finaly met Wilhelmina, my new Yennefer love <3

That masquerade quest is a bit ridiculous.

Spoiler

There is no way in hell I would have ever discovered that secret door unless by accident

 

[Vorark]

Did anyone find the wandering giant? Are there others around the map a la Shadow of the Colossus, or is it a unique encounter?

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

I'm honestly finding the story in this game to be quite a bit more engaging than the original's. I don't even remember the original having much of a story. The spy espionage/royal corruption stuff in this one is at the very least intriguing. All the sidequests have been forgettable but the main quest seems cool so far.

As for the actual main quests themselves, the setup and multiple ways of doing them are more interesting than actually doing them, if that makes any sense. I said earlier in the thread it sounds a bit like Hitman and it is, but without the stealth systems that make those games. Nevertheless it's a nice change of pace from killing shit out in the woods.

 

[Sentinel]

Did anyone find the wandering giant? Are there others around the map a la Shadow of the Colossus, or is it a unique encounter?

It's a scripted, set piece encounter tied to the main quest. He is the only one in the game.