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

[Artyoan]

May be there's a chance for the third game after all. This is the most impressive open world, the engine is perfect for it, all the tools they developed for it etc can they really just throw it away and call it quits? Aught can be made with DD3.

Prey, let's prey it happens.

Still hoping for some very hefty DLC's. At least two.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

This is the most impressive open world

Probably only a trial run for Monster Hunter Wilds

 

[Cheesedragon117]

Except Wilds will have proper mounts that let you get from place-to-place in a reasonable about of time. Because the director of that series isn't a total sadistic asswipe and unfunny player-troll.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

You're talking about the game that makes you load the town, sort your inventory, harvest your crops, craft items, take a quest, load the quest, eat food, load the area, watch a cutscene, then fight the monster? And then repeat that 10-20 times to get the materials you need to make one weapon? That's the series that respects the player's time??

(I mean I love MH but come on.)

 

[DJOGamer PT]

 

[DJOGamer PT]

May be there's a chance for the third game after all.

See you on the next "Year of the Dragon", in 12 years!

 

[Terenty]

I'm actually enjoying playing as a trickster on my New Game Plus. Distracting and tricking foes, especially big ones, while my pawns make short work of them is kinda cool. The ability to sense Seekers Tokens adds fun too

 

[Suicidal]

Finally finished.

Wanted to make my character look like scuffed Kylo Ren because the mystic spearhand vocation made me think of the Jedi, but he ended up looking like an incel version of V from DMC 5 instead. Too bad the helm obscures the hair.

For some reason my beloved was some furry from Batthal for whom I did only 2 quests, despite completing the quest chain for both the gay elf and Ulrika, both of whom also hounded me with constant escort requests for the entirety of the game. Not sure which is worse - a faggot elf or a disgusting furry.

Overall, enjoyed the game greatly despite some very glaring flaws. More detailed thoughts below. I'm just gonna spoiler the whole thing because I want to talk about the endgame and some story stuff

Spoiler

I played DDDA years ago and really enjoyed it and replayed it a few weeks before 2 came out so I can actually compare some things accurately while the original is still fresh in my memory.

I think DD2 is a worthy sequel, but not necessarily superior to DD1 (or more specifically, to DDDA, as I've never played the vanilla DD1).

Some things are vastly improved, namely the scale and design of the world, the behaviors of the monsters and NPCs and their interactivity with the game world and its mechanics, the endgame (more on that below), stuff like gold actually mattering more because you get less of it and things cost more, etc.

Some things are sidegrades, like the vocation system - some of the new changes are great, some are bad. Mystic spearhand is extremely fun, trickster is not. I feel like mages and sorcerers got hit by it the hardest, as other than being able to use only 4 skills they just get less spells in general for some reason. In DDDA mages got 2 spells of each element + healing and buff spells and sorcerers got 3 of each element + other spells like necromancy and maelstrom. Here it's 1 spell per element for mages + smaller number of heal/buff spells and 2 spells per element for sorcerers and fewer non-elemental spells. On the other hand, the ability to quickcast and hold a cast spell are awesome additions.

Some things are straight downgrades - the simplified gear system, the clunkier movement, the music, while not bad, felt blander than DDDA's, quantity over quality approach when designing dungeons and NPCs.

Unfortunately in some aspects the game feels just as weird and unfinished as the first game, namely the story and the main quest.

First 30-40 hours I was just happily running around and exploring and doing side quests and ocasionally progressing the story a little bit. The whole situation with the imposter arisen and court intrigues seemed interesting. As you progress the main quest and certain side quests you learn more and more about a certain Phaesus, who seems to be opposing you. Then you learn about that artifact that the imposter uses to control pawns and are sent to Battahl and by that time I was still on board with the story and was interested to see where it goes.

I got to Batthal and started doing side quests there. I noticed that the region seemed quite a bit smaller than Vermund and also lacked any completely new monsters, just some reskins of existing ones + the medusa which you had already seen in the tutorial, which was a bit disappointing. Then I started progressing the main quest and the whole thing just started falling apart. First you collect some magic stones for some loser who's barely introduced to you, then you have to deliver them to the magic lab, which the game implies is some off-limits facility and maybe you need a disguise or to do a quest... JUST KIDDING, you can just walk in there lmao. Then you rest for a day, come back to him, he gives you the Godsbane and asks to deliver it to Phaesus. At this point I wondered why am I running errands for the guy who was clearly shown in the cutscenes to be behind all the shady shit going on in the capital and was clearly opposing me. I know it was the Seneschal/Pathfinder force persuading the scientist into entrusting the godsbane to me to deliver to Phaesus, but I was still very confused about the whole thing. Then the Talos sequence starts and... that's actually basically the end of the game. Talos, while spectacular and cool looking, was a very boring fight, that consisted of climbing onto his weak points and mashing the attack button for 20 seconds, repeat. At that point I was kinda getting tired of the game and the very disjointed series of story events wasn't helping. Then you got to the mining facility and already you are at the final dungeon. Unlike the final dungeon in DDDA, there are no enemies to fight, except for the false arisen and his pawns, which I thought was kinda cool. Then Phaesus basically plays the role of the Salvation cult leader in DDDA - spouts some gibberish and gets shut up by Grigori.

In the end this whole plot with Phaesus and the queen conspiring against you seemed as incosequential in the grand scheme of things, as the subplots involving the Salvation cult, Mercedes and that other french guy in DDDA. None of these things went anywhere and ultimately didn't matter.

The final fight with Grigori was disappointing as well. No spectacle like in DDDA, you just fight him in an arena and he's just another drake, but larger in size.

Then the game just ends. I knew of the existance of the post-game zone, but getting to it was not as straightforward as in DDDA, where you just have to kill the dragon (why wouldn't you, you ain't no bitch, are you?). You get a matrix-style red pill/blue pill sequence during the end credits, which made me think that this is DEFINITELY the place you decide wether to have a standard ending or the Everfall ending, but it just puts you back before the fight with Grigori. I actually had to look it up - you need to use the Godsbane, which I honestly forgot I had in my inventory.

So I get to the Unmoored World and... holy shit. The title drop. The title screen change and the depressing music. The change in mood and atmosphere. The expanded game world. All the lore implications that slowly make you realize where exactly you are. All the new monsters and bosses that appear all over the place. It left quite an impression on me and reignited my love for the game and made me forget all the boring, incosequential bullshit I was doing up to this point.

It's such a cool end game/true ending sequence that basically turns the entire world into Everfall complete with new quests and game mechanics.

In my opinion, they should have revealed this much earlier and made it a bigger part of the game and last for a longer time. Some other criticisms:

1. They should be upfront about all the mechanical changes in the Unmoored World. I thought that the destruction of the world is tied to the passage of time but time actually stands still in the Unmoored World unless you rest. Also, if you die you apparently can't reload your saves and have to go back to the start of the Unmored World or to the last bed save, but it wasn't a problem for me and the couple dozen wakestones I've been hoarding during my playthrough.
2. At that point in the game, my party was very very strong so even the new monsters of the Unmoored World and the Brine mutated dragon bosses posed no challenge.
3. There wasn't a proper end game superboss. There wasn't one in DDDA as well - the Seneschal was a joke, but when the giant dragon 5 times the size of Grigori showed up, I thought "here it is, the badass dragon fight I've been waiting for", but it was just a cutscene where you slowly walk around on its spine occasionally avoiding projectiles while the Pathfinder vomits lore at you.

Still despite that, extremely cool sequence of the game that managed to impress me even though I was aware of its existance. I feel sorry for all the people who missed it because it is extremely easy to miss, especially if you didn't play DDDA and don't expect an Everfall-style twist and don't know what a Godsbane is.

So, all in all, really great game, but it still felt a bit disappointing because it could have been so much more. A big part of why DD2 is great are the robust core gameplay mechanics that were already in the first DD and they just had to port them over to a new engine. I really, really wish there was more fun and interesting content, like more new monsters, vocations and dungeons that could let you play around with these mechanics more. I think that had DD2 come out 3-4 years after 1, it would have been a better game, because they wouldn't need to spend resources moving everything that already worked to a new engine.

The launch was also extremely shoddy. The performance is unacceptible, but the microtransaction fiaso is extremely overblown by clickbaiting grifter retards. It's literally just Deluxe edition content that you can buy separately if you want and all of the things, except the DD1 soundtrack, are available in game in great quantities.

I really hope that they don't just abandon this game because it didn't sell 10 million copies and polish it up with updates and maybe a meaty expansion like Dark Arisen, or two. I can totally see myself replaying it in the future.

Probably gonna end up being my GOTY this year. The only things that can threaten its position are the Wukong game being very good or Labyrinth of Touhou 3 coming out this year, both of which I highly doubt.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

You're talking about the game that makes you load the town, sort your inventory, harvest your crops, craft items, take a quest, load the quest, eat food, load the area, watch a cutscene, then fight the monster? And then repeat that 10-20 times to get the materials you need to make one weapon? That's the series that respects the player's time??

(I mean I love MH but come on.)

Okay, but the difference is, you can plan for and take into account all that additional prep time spent before you even sit down to play the game. In DD2, you have no idea how long a simple trek from town to town (let's say, Bakhbattal to the Rest Town) is going to take. 30 minutes? An hour? Two hours? You have no idea how hard the 15+ random encounters are going to fuck you, not including random bosses, and additional time spent cooking and camping.

Your only other option is to brine the Pawns, use Warrior's Ravening Lunge, and hope to God nothing staggers you while you tear ass down the road.

Sure, it makes for an exciting gameplay experience at first, where you don't know what kinds of adventures each play session will take you on. But it becomes nothing but a nuisance later on.

 

[ADL]

I hope they can get a denoiser modded in or officially release it because I fully intend to play with path tracing once we get DLSS-FG added back into the game.

 

[Artyoan]

I also finished it. Guess I'll try and summarize and reiterate my thoughts while they are still fresh. Spoilers in here.

Gameplay
+The combat is great. Classes provide good variety and I didn't get tired of just simply running around in exploration and killing what I saw. Damage calculations are better than DD1's which had a thinner range where enemies felt appropriate instead of trivial or a slog. It is mostly a handful of skills across many classes that just need toned down.
+Warfarer is a decent attempt at letting the player make a hybrid. Having rearmament take up a skill slot is a poor decision though. A stat hit and the inability to use maister skills was 'punishment' enough.
+The loss system is a great choice to have leaned into. Requiring resting to fully heal can make for some interesting choices, especially in the early game when the difficulty is highest and the world is at its most intimidating.
+/-Getting staggered by an enemy is okay, in the sense that pawns need to be helping the player as a team. But be prepared to be stunned for quite a length of time sometimes. Which can be maddening.
-Not having the left trigger be another set of skills is silly. Instead of another modifier key we get the ability to sheath weapons for all classes. Mages and Sorcerers especially needed more spells and more slots. Most of the melee classes don't suffer as bad but it is still felt.
-Takes a while to get used to the sluggish feel of movement and most of my deaths were from falling off of cliffs from terrain that didn't seem like I should start sliding down it.

Story
-Might as well disregard the plot. It tries to disregard itself often enough. The Coronation being just a cutscene of the pawn getting ill feels like the exact moment that they decided corners need to be cut and things hurried along.
-There are no interesting NPC characters besides the Sphinx. Not a single main-story related character will reach memorable levels that DD1 had for a handful. No one would say that DD1's characters were excellently written but they had that 'something' to endear them to the player.
-The Will? The Pathfinder? Why is he talking to the Arisen at all after we slew the dragon? Why was he absent in DD1? This character seems to want the player to perform exactly what he laments about ending the cycle while also chastising the player for doing it? Needs more explanation.
-The Godsway is a very important device that has very little explanation. If you didn't play DD1 (or don't remember any of it), how would you ever know what this is even supposed to be the equivalent of? Why would stabbing the dragon with it make any difference as opposed to just killing it? Needs some explanation.
+While I was hoping the brine wouldn't be a thing in this game, at least it got some explanation and plot involvement instead of just being an obvious mechanic to just prevent swimming
+The Unmoored World post game is a nice surprise and more involved than I thought it would be. Especially the nods to having built up a relationship with my pawn for over 100 hours.

Music/Ambiance
+/- Slightly neutral on this but it is largely too subdued. It is more immersive in the sense that much of the music fits the setting but also distinguishes it from DD1 which had a more jrpg feel.
+There is a nice calming tune after killing a bigger creature that is great.

Pawn System
+Pawn system is still impressive and rightfully a core focus of the game. While they do sometimes die in retarded ways, they're still helpful and it's fun to just watch them handle enemies sometimes. Being able to command them without worrying about behavior changes is also nice.
+The introduction of pawn quests is a good idea. I very often looked primarily for good payouts from pawns when recruiting. 10k gold can really help in the first half of the game too.
+/-Dialogue from pawns is mostly improved as to context. But many lines are less cheesy and therefore often less memorable.
-Why not allow them to be all the vocations?
-Dragonplague as it is doesn't add much of anything interesting to the game and curing it for your own pawn is not intuitive. This should have been a quest when your own pawn gets it.

Others
-Only 99 per item in storage. Why can I not equip things directly from storage? No airtight containers?
+Almost no loading screens.
+Different berries found in different worlds is an interesting element. For future dlc, I would run with the idea of certain worlds having exclusive materials. This could enhance pawn quests considerably if they lead to nice items worth crafting.
+/- The armor/robes in this game is top tier style. Shame they did away with the armor/clothing matching system from DD1 though.
+/- Those ornate cave-in doors found throughout the world are obvious cut content. While I'm sure they will be eventually given a point, it sucks to know there were potential deeper dungeons left out, which this game could use.
+/- Microtransactions are non-issue but should also not be there.
+/- Escort quests don't add much but I suppose it can be something to do anyway if you're just roaming the game world. These and the 'Monster culling' random events are probably better to have than to not have.
-Performance issues should have been addressed sooner. It's been a month and it's cost them a lot on early perception.
+Great fast travel system. Portcrystals are somewhat rare and need to be placed. Ferrystones are also rare for a while so choosing to use them is meaningful. Not using one didn't feel like punishment as I often found things I missed along the way.
+Character creator was great. My character does actually look like what I made. First time for everything.

This game is an adventure game first and foremost. It is a 9/10 and a solid foundation for DLC. It is my game of the year so far. That this game still has 'Mixed' reviews on steam is disheartening, especially since much of that is due to self inflicted wounds for rushing the game and performance. Eagerly awaiting to see where they go with expanding on it.

 

[Suicidal]

Story
-Might as well disregard the plot. It tries to disregard itself often enough. The Coronation being just a cutscene of the pawn getting ill feels like the exact moment that they decided corners need to be cut and things hurried along.
-There are no interesting NPC characters besides the Sphinx. Not a single main-story related character will reach memorable levels that DD1 had for a handful. No one would say that DD1's characters were excellently written but they had that 'something' to endear them to the player.
-The Will? The Pathfinder? Why is he talking to the Arisen at all after we slew the dragon? Why was he absent in DD1? This character seems to want the player to perform exactly what he laments about ending the cycle while also chastising the player for doing it? Needs more explanation.
-The Godsway is a very important device that has very little explanation. If you didn't play DD1 (or don't remember any of it), how would you ever know what this is even supposed to be the equivalent of? Why would stabbing the dragon with it make any difference as opposed to just killing it? Needs some explanation.
+While I was hoping the brine wouldn't be a thing in this game, at least it got some explanation and plot involvement instead of just being an obvious mechanic to just prevent swimming
+The Unmoored World post game is a nice surprise and more involved than I thought it would be. Especially the nods to having built up a relationship with my pawn for over 100 hours.

Based on my own limited understanding, I think the Pathfinder is this world's/cycle's version of the Seneschal from DD1, even though his approach is a lot more hands-on.

Also you don't stab the dragon with the Godsway, but rather the Godsbane. The Godsway is the artifact people use to mind control pawns. As for why stabbing the dragon with it leads to a different event, I think that either instead of killing the dragon, it "unmakes" it, or the true cause of all that shit happening is not the act of stabbing the dragon but rather the dragon falling in the water and getting eaten by/absorbed/merging with the brine.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Based on my own limited understanding, I think the Pathfinder is this world's/cycle's version of the Seneschal from DD1, even though his approach is a lot more hands-on.

Also you don't stab the dragon with the Godsway, but rather the Godsbane. The Godsway is the artifact people use to mind control pawns. As for why stabbing the dragon with it leads to a different event, I think that either instead of killing the dragon, it "unmakes" it, or the true cause of all that shit happening is not the act of stabbing the dragon but rather the dragon falling in the water and getting eaten by/absorbed/merging with the brine.

The Dragon and Arisen both fall in the Brine. It's an extreme and final rejection of the Pathfinder's directives and an expression of the primacy of the Arisen's will.

 

[toro]

 

[Haplo]

For a Fighter utility build I'd probably go with something like Shield Pummel (it even has a short dash reach before the first hit, and a second short dash before the launching strike), either Gutting Skewer or Riotous Fury (mainly for bosses), Cloudward Slash (for bosses/fliers/mobs on ledges above you), and Flawless Guard (until you get good Dwarf-forged gear, then go for whatever you want to try for fun).

After one-shotting a minotaur that wanted to charge my character, I'm inclined to include Counter Slash (/Vengeance Slash) in that rotation.
I rather like Blink/Burst Strike too. Its cheap and effective gap closer. Does what you expect and even tends to stagger smaller foes.

Shield Pummel I'm not sure about. I tend to play aggressively. And sure its cool, but I could be carving my enemies rather then launching them far. Small enemies, including saurians, can be launched for a finisher with Tusk Toss regardless.
Also I'm not quite sold on Riotous Fury yet. Its a high commitment move with a long animation, making the player more of an observer then actor, the damage doesn't seem THAT impressive so far and you better be damn sure that the initial bash connects... or you've just wasted 1/2 of your Stamina bar for nothing.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

So I killed the Dagron like a good boy and got 100 wyrm crystals, then talked to the ghost for a do-over and did the unmoored world. If you just Dangan~Into~Free the dragon into the brine right away, do you still get the crystals? is it possible to farm them at 100 a pop if you keep redoing the final battle?

 

[Stoned Ape]

For a Fighter utility build I'd probably go with something like Shield Pummel (it even has a short dash reach before the first hit, and a second short dash before the launching strike), either Gutting Skewer or Riotous Fury (mainly for bosses), Cloudward Slash (for bosses/fliers/mobs on ledges above you), and Flawless Guard (until you get good Dwarf-forged gear, then go for whatever you want to try for fun).

After one-shotting a minotaur that wanted to charge my character, I'm inclined to include Counter Slash (/Vengeance Slash) in that rotation.
I rather like Blink/Burst Strike too. Its cheap and effective gap closer. Does what you expect and even tends to stagger smaller foes.

Shield Pummel I'm not sure about. I tend to play aggressively. And sure its cool, but I could be carving my enemies rather then launching them far. Small enemies, including saurians, can be launched for a finisher with Tusk Toss regardless.
Also I'm not quite sold on Riotous Fury yet. Its a high commitment move with a long animation, making the player more of an observer then actor, the damage doesn't seem THAT impressive so far and you better be damn sure that the initial bash connects... or you've just wasted 1/2 of your Stamina bar for nothing.

I think that's one of the things that's great about the vocations in DD2; there's quite a bit of freedom to set them up in different ways depending upon how you like to play without gimping yourself. I don't think there are many totally useless skills, just some that are quite overpowered.

I really like shield bash because it offers the ability to hit multiple enemies as well as doing knockback; if you get them lined up properly you can launch 3-4 targets with it at the same time. I particularly love launching groups of annoying shits like wolves over cliffs/into rivers, it just makes me smile and makes me feel good about the game.

If you prefer stabbing stuff with Blink/Burst strike and it suits your playstyle then that's good too! For me I found Blink/Burst would be a bit finicky with lock on at certain ranges and it annoyed me when I sometimes went charging past my target into something I hadn't intended to attack.

 

[Shinji]

Still having fun after 50 hours.

Some minor inconveniences:
- Character slides way too often on the terrain. On the first game it was easy to judge whether you would slide on the terrain or not since everything was more blocky and angled. On this one it's a little more difficult because of the more detailed graphics.
- The character controller is not as snappy as it was in the first one. I think it's probably because of the realistic animations that require smoothing the transitions between one another.
- I really don't like the auto-grab for ladders. You have a considerable input delay to get off and get on the ladder. Weird design choice.
- Invisible walls

Other than that, the game is definitely one of the best AAA games to come out in recent years.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

The character controller is not as snappy as it was in the first one.

Movement has plenty momentum, even jogging speed can't just be immeadetly stopped
That's why you got be extra careful with terrain, specially ledge naturally

Invisible walls

Yeah this one is weird
There are spots on the first region where I was kinda surprised it had an invisible wall (or at least so it seemed)
Then there are spots were I assumed there would be an invisible wall with how dangerous a fall from such heigth would be, as well as their potential to allow the player to skip multiple encounters - but no, they had no wall, if the PC could reach it, he would grab it and climb it

 

[DJOGamer PT]

That Spell Maker Mod I posted earlier is quite powerful, as it allows to make several spell nodes and even include other attack animations

From /ddg/:

The spell maker mod is easy, you are just intimidated by lots of imgui widgets close together.

Just open some other spell that comes with the mod and fuck around with it and you'll see.
You can make a new one by just picking a combat animation for node 1 and adding a new node after it like 0.5 seconds later, and make the 2nd node play some shell from some file. Keep trying different shells until it looks cool. Then just keep testing it and adjusting the timing / damage / scale etc until its good.
And use the list box to pick animations, because there's like 1500 of them

Also the author of the Trickster Overhaul I posted earlier made a similiar mor for the Hand-to-Hand combat (essentially creating a Monk class)

 

[deuxhero]

Player count now below 10,000 in the mid 8000s and out of top 100 (98). DD1 still consistently in mid 1000s.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

That's why you got be extra careful with terrain, specially ledge naturally

If you try to walk off a ledge that would cause fall damage your character will always stop and do a 'catch my balance' animation. That's your clue to stop. If you keep pushing, you'll go over and take damage/die. There's also a 'safety grab' moment after every fall, if you push back towards the ledge right as you fall you can always grab it.

If you walk towards a drop that won't hurt you, you'll smoothly walk straight off.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Evacuated everyone to the seafloor shrine and now I can't find most of the vendors. Just need one dwarf to finish my magick bow and I can be done. Argh, I should have finished upgrading before doing these quests.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Evacuated everyone to the seafloor shrine and now I can't find most of the vendors. Just need one dwarf to finish my magick bow and I can be done. Argh, I should have finished upgrading before doing these quests.

Try resting if you haven't. They all congregate together if you've evacuated them, so they should show up. If you don't want to rest, try leaving and coming back first.

 

[Stoned Ape]

Evacuated everyone to the seafloor shrine and now I can't find most of the vendors. Just need one dwarf to finish my magick bow and I can be done. Argh, I should have finished upgrading before doing these quests.

Sara can reset into the weapons shop area next to her retired master if you sleep in the Seafloor Shrine. You have to run to her quickly because she can start to wander off as soon as she spawns.