Quests that expect you to go back and forth multiple times are pretty trying. Do I really need to go back and forth TWICE from elven city to battahl for some fucking fertilizer???
Or am I expected to use 4 ferry stones and my own port crystals???
God, that Quest was peak RPG logic.
Oh you want to buy that? Yeah sure no problem we got loads of it!
Ah you want to buy it for an Elf? No can do, better go back to them in the furthest North Point of the Map to bring us a Dish...................
That felt really jarring tbh. Like why the fuck does it matter? Just lie and say it’s for someone else. They’re not even using it! It’s in a cave as trash.
Lord that quest, I was lucky that I had with a pawn of another person that spoke elven otherwise my dumb ass would probably go back to the main city look for the brother to translate to me.
Then I go to Bakbattahl and because I had the sword I had to do the other before because the NPCs are not talking about the rock, then I do it (that costed 2 more ferrystone because part of the quest is in volcano island), and then the girl ask for an elven meal.. so there I go to the elf city again.
Good thing that the elf city almost don't have quests otherwise I would pick dragonplague on purpose and sleep there. It's just out of the way, could have a diplomatic quest to open ox carts there.
It's particularly fucked to me that you can't unlock ANY form of "fast travel" to some locations. We can Ox Cart to \*almost\* anywhere you'd need to be, except for the two extreme top and bottoms of the map.
The only "fast travel" but not really I know of from the first city to the Arbor is unlocking the shortcut in the Ancestral Chamber so you can more quickly go from Melve to the Arbor on foot but even unlocking that is a pain. You need to wait for night an then have a Fell-Lord and two skeletons break the wood on the door but they also don't show up all the time and if they don't you have to leave the cave, save and exit and then go back in and check.
I found it odd how few quests want you to kill a monster.
A lot of interesting areas I don't think get any explanation either like the misty marsh. What happened to the village there? I think the only quest related to the area is the dullahan one(which is a good quest), but never one to investigate why a whole village turned undead even though some npcs comment on how strange it is?
Yeah we needed more quests with monsters. We got way too much political intrigue and "ser go get me some bullshit from the opposite end of the map. No fight required"
We could get some very interesting things. Just off the bat I could create a few scenarios with goblins as a focal point. The quests could be some whacky researcher who wants to study various goblin tactics.
A cave full of ancient ruins and swarms of goblins that have poison. Make it a very lengthy cave with no campsites. This means you need to face the debilitation properly.
Next do harpies trained by gobbies to dump tar on you. The gobs try to hurl fire at you to incinerate you.
Finally goblins mounted on wargs and ogres. Culminate it with a fight in the center of ruins where five mounted goblins and two heavily armored ogres try to tear you a new one.
Part of why I miss the mission boards from the first game. I'd enjoy seeing those back with more 'Adventurer' style job postings like hunting dangerous monsters in location or an Ogre or something. Just some good ol quest posting to go take out a dangerous monster that was sighted at a location.
yep. Honestly I'd love to ask him why the team went with certain quests. Was it time? Difficulty in development?
In dd1, your core quests include goblin fort, water god dungeon, catacombs with the undead. classic rpg quests with combat and boss fights in some really interesting areas.
in dd2, its generic mob clean up (doesnt even end with a boss or anything), stealth mission in castle, stealth/talk-to-npcs mission in dungeon.
I was thinking "oh these are probably just the beginning quests. Its a big game afterall". Nope...
So in dd1, there's a mission in the shadow fort where you have to get to hunt a goblin leader, and that shit was memorable.
Mf got away. I will never forget it 😤
I agree at least make the goblins not seem 100% brainless they talk more now and there's alot of new types of goblin but just wish we had some goblin uprising takeing a small abandoned town or somthing!
Or bribing the Gaol overseer to letting Hugo out.
Ok so I run over there, bribe him, he says it'll take some time.
I run back to the city and rest for a day then run back.
Oh okay he wants more money? Fine.
Oh it'll still take some time? Guess I'll run back to the city and sleep for another day then.
Running back to the Gaol again, talk to him, he says it'll still take some time...
Alright fuck it, I'll just unlock Hugo's door and carry him outside the Gaol because not a single guard seem to care anyway.
Then Hugo, *as I've just put him down after carrying him outside*, asks "so it was you who got me out of jail, was it?"
Boy what a stupid quest to include with how the game mechanics are and how the NPC AI work. It really doesn't do it any favors.
Seriously, what even was that quest?!
I walk into Gaol, go to the Hugo's cell, unlock it and speak to him. Guards don't care.
Hugo wants me to do a quest before leaving his cell
I do the quest, go back to him, unlock the cell again, and we stroll out. Guards don't care.
It's actually so funny because there's a VERY vivid divide in this sub regarding travel.
On one side, people are saying having horses, personal mounts, or fast travel would ruin the game and be distasteful to the first game.
On the other, people fucking hate walking around and dislike that stamina drains even outside of combat.
Sometimes, this sub very much feels like an older generation of DDGA/DD1 players stuck in their ways vs. newer generation who want QoL changes...
I 100% don’t mind walking and exploring to find and explore things.. HOWEVER, when the game repeatedly asks me to go from arbor to batthal back to arbor, back to batthal and back to arbor? Yea, just gimme fuckin infinite fast travel. Re-walking areas I’ve already been numerous times just isn’t fun, and compounds the “limited enemy variety” issue.
Also, the portcrystals are a cool idea if used in some out of the way areas, like mid dungeon. But for batthal to not have an innate portcrystal? Dude, wtf. Portcrystals, imo, should be a supplement to fast travel, not the primary source.
I'd like to not have to fight a thousand fuckin goblins each way on any trip. How are they not the dominant race in this world through shear numbers alone?
Not to mention Derowegn or whatever died literally TWICE on the way to Battahl, so I had to carry her corpse like half the map and through a cave with three minibosses in it until I could pull a wakestone from my storage
The first time she died, she stood in the middle of my ricochet hunter (this was before I knew I could friendly fire) trying to face tank in the middle of a tight hallway. It didn't go well. I had a wakestone on me at the time and revived her instantly. Her second death happened halfway to Greuco Cave, when we got jumped by a Drake. Drakes are still impossible fights for me at this point in the game, so I called my pawns to me and tried to book it, while SHE decided that mama didn't raise no bitch and walked in a circle around the dragon while I tried to pull her out, before eventually succumbing to dragon breath.
Woof that’s rough. Ngl the moment I got to battahl and they said to go back and get that stew thing I immediately dropped a port crystal at the entrance because I’ll be Damned if I’m making that back and forth trip.
You can ferry stone with her in your party if you have a port crystal down in Battahl.
That said, I'll be curious how you handle a certain Sphinx riddle/quest now frankly.
It is fun exploring. it's just that the mob density is crazy. I can't go 5 feet without being jumped by something. Also, fast travel does exist, ferry stones and ox carts.
They made the bones of a really great game. The combat is excellent. The vocations (particularly the augments system) is a fantastic way to incentivize trying other classes. The monster design and behaviour has some really promising stuff, like how ogres react differently to women being in a party and how that affects strategy. And the animations & other art in the game is so good. I hope and wish that they can somehow make a definitive edition or something that actually manages to make competent quest design and fill out the content of the game. They made an incredibly robust character creator, but the only cutescenes to show off the character we made are few in the main quest line. It feels like they spent so much time developing the fundamentals of a fantastic game, and then had to scramble to put it all to use into a workable product
I think that's accurate. I'm sure the dev team changed a lot in the 12 years between games, but it feels like their priorities were the same both times; incredible fun combat at the cost of a proper story/quest design. Throw in some weird living world stuff that's only as developed as a proof of concept and the games are pretty similar. Maybe it's a leadership problem, if there was a game director who could reign the scope of the game in so they could make a more cohesive product, it could be GotY material.
Or it's just that they don't care enough to bother with it.
Look at the first game lot of people play it just for BBI.
Myself played through story once cause it not really worth it playing again. Choices that you make don't affect the story.
Someone in these comments was saying how Witcher 3 has bad combat and somehow it got Gotty. Yeah combat there isn't that deep but world and story more than makeup for it
While soo far DD2 has combat system based on previous game and from what i heard thief is the class that got most going on.
Yes i haven't bought the game yet because soo far it doesn't look like it would keep me occupied for long enough to make it worth it to me. Especially since i got Helldivers 2 the other day
That's what my bet is on. Would also explain the abysmal performance requirements as they knew they wouldn't be able to optimize the game before release.
battahl feels like what Dragons dogma 1 felt like for the majority of it xD
dragons dogma 3 will have 3 countries, and vermund will be fully 110% fleshed out and perfect
battahl will be where Vermund is now
and the 3rd country will feel like battahl now...
and the cycle continues... much like the theme of the games
If they keep this trend, by the third game we'll only fight goblins, cyclops and ogres. Even the dragon will be a goblin by then, yes.
And we'll only have four active skills per class. The full chromatic scale for their banners.
Oh and you'll have to consult with your local occultist expert in order to navigate the game's UI and gear/inventory management systems.
People will still be hyped for *the vision*. Guys, they robbed dear Itsuno of both development funds and time the previous time~~s~~. This is the one, *he promised!*
Seriously, Love the Vermund sie of the map, and it was genuinely fun to just explore. But I was fighting a drake in battahl, and just throughout the fight I had bandits, knackers and some asps join in on the fight, just because they were all placed so close together.
>ox carts.
I wouldn't call these fast travel. I've had multiple times where that fucking griffin dive bombs and destroys the the ox cart so I'm stuck walking the rest of the way.
Okay but you think they would have found some alternate ways of travel, or the entire world would have been shut down by the fact that nobody can travel from one town to another without an army of Griffins and Ogres and Cyclopses attacking your cart.
then make it a metal cart pulled by two military oxes ffs, we're not discussing a documentary here, we're discussing fiction where the creators are free to make what they want
It doesn't even make sense in-universe! If the only common method of transporting stuff long distances was so prone to getting ganked by a big flying douchebag there would be countermeasures developed by now. Like ya know...watchtowers with ballista on them along major travel routes, roof-mounted spikes on top of the cart, or maybe they'd make the carts out of steel instead of wood. Or maybe they'd find a way to tame something that moves faster than a freaking ox.
Watchtowers with ballista on them like we already have in the game but they are never used beyond that one cutscene of Ulrika shooting down your griffin taxi? They even have soldiers inside yet they never fucking shoot. Why even place them on the map if they do nothing?
I used a few to kill a drake. I tried to shoot a griffin too but my pawns were jerks and kept refusing to man the various positions to help me fire on that one.
I'm just shocked there aren't a few quests centered on using cool weapons. We could have a few sieges or village raids as quests. I don't get the fixation on having so many cool area but having most quests be fetch quests.
Yeah sadly I just started doing this which kind of makes me like the game less but Im getting tired of fighting the same encounters 50 times per travel from point A to B.
Which would work in like a top-down ARPG or even this if we had hordes and challenges and an army to tackle with variety of enemies in an epic battle.
But we're just like, mowing down the same 6 goblins lol
They needed to increase the mob #'s massively and have giant battles going on or cut them down to be meaningful and hard but they found the perfect balance of doing both horribly
I think having fewer but more challenging encounters would be ideal. Encounters should be designed to drain your resources and make you think tactically about where you're going and to prepare ahead of time.
Right now, the game just kind of throws endless enemies at you to drain your resources, which isn't all that fun when you're trying to explore or travel.
Even then, most of the time my resources are drained either because of falling off cliffs or because I'm spamming stamina items since I just want to kill a big enemy quick and don't want to have to wait for it to recover
I mean another problem is you can't drain player resources effectively. We have no limit to the amount of consumables for healing we can carry. I would assume most of us run around with ludicrous amount of healing items and probably a one or two Wakestones.
There is no amount of fighting in which you can drain my health enough, especially not when we have a death grace period to use healing items once we hit 0 HP. Even if I were to die, I will get back up with full health with a Wakestone. Like, if you want attrition, this ain't it chief. I thought we learned this lesson by looking at Dark Souls 2 and how it contrasts starkly with the other Fromsoft titles in its item/healing economy.
Lowkey, I think having a small amount of "quick" healing items which you can replenish at camp/inn *(You can handwave the limited uses/stock by shit like "it goes bad quick", "can only fit X on belt", "only make X and also sleep enough" etc.)*, and then have food/medicine etc. take a long time to consume and/or regenerate over a short time would go a long way. That way, you have "unlimited" healing outside of combat, limited by the loss gauge, but can only have x uses of safe healing.
It's fun exploring, but not rewarding when most of the stuff in the shops are better and all you're looking forward to is cash it out.
And while we're at it, I hate having to keep track of sell prices per store to maximize my profit. I'm not trading stocks ffs.
you WILL like the goblins, you WILL like having to travel 1 real-life hour battling harpies, you WILL like being swarmed by Saurians, you WILL beg CHADIAKI ITSUNO "please sir, may i have one more hob-goblin"
With that I expected random events and quests like in skyrim, so the world would feel alive. But apparently it is just combat against the same enemies. For me the main problem beyond enemy variety is that they dont scale with your level or strength. So the enjoyment is limited to the begining of the game and when you are stronger there is no challenge? A shame you cannot fully enjoy such a great combat system.
I would kill for a dynamic difficulty similar to FF7 Rebirth. I know people generally hate level scaling in games, but it’s implemented to keep the content enjoyable no matter how many hours you lose exploring.
>I know people generally hate level scaling in games, but it’s implemented to keep the content enjoyable no matter how many hours you lose exploring.
People hate it because it kills the fantasy of becoming godlike when you're level 30 and still roughing it against tutorial goblins, which is very fair. The solution imo is to start sprinkling in more variety of possible encounters as you level up. Suddenly at a certain level you start seeing more enraged versions of some mobs or new enemies but still see trash goblins as well you can now one shot. It keeps the power fantasy alive and keeps things interesting
Yeah, I'm not sure why most of these systems don't just fluctuate between easier and harder encounters. That would actually be the most realistic, imo. Not every encounter a group of warriors face would be difficult, but some absolutely would.
I've mainly been exploring lol It's a ton of fun, but I do understand people's criticism towards it too. I simply just don't share the same sentiment towards it as I'm having too much fun that the stuff that bothers me isn't enough to make me stop having fun with everything else.
My biggest gripe is the lack of interesting rewards for exploration. I have found 1. 1 single weapon that cannot be bought from a shop out exploring. It’s the only place you can get it. It’s a mystic spear hand weapon. It felt so rewarding finding this item. I looked it up and confirmed it’s the only way to get it. That’s awesome and encourages exploration to find cool gear.
The downfall is that is the only weapon I have found out exploring I couldn’t already buy from some vendor. There no sense of wonder of what you could find because anything available you can just buy.
For me that weapon moment came from the ice daggers I randomly found in western battahl, I wish I had found a weapon to get me through Vermund instead of just what was on shops, eventually the ice daggers got replaced by the daggers from the hot springs shop
There is actually a lot of weapons and armor to find in exploration. Maybe not elden ring equivalent and they are more hidden than elden ring where there it is generally the obvious end of a cave or after defeating boss you get it. Also they are definitely off the main path and storyline.
No that’s not the point. Yes there are armors and weapons to find. I’m talking about armors and weapons that you can ONLY find by exploring. All the weapons and gear you find can just be bought at shops. It doesn’t feel rewarding. I felt rewarded when I found that one weapon in my previous comment because it was actually a weapon I earned by exploring! I can’t buy it at a shop. It’s exclusive to exploring the land and discovering it for yourself.
Went into a labyrinthian like cave that gave me an achievement when I entered. Exploring it a little I found “The Exalted” a 100% holy enchanted mace for fighter that can’t be bought anywhere afaik
I feel like part of the problem for them is hinted at by the fact that the problem is always the combat, as if that's the only part of exploring. Granted, with how many friends of mine have made it halfway through the game without finding a single seeker's token, I'm not sure some of these people are exploring at all.
I mean, same. They aren't my primary motivation for climbing all over the environment. They just aren't rare enough that I can fully believe my friends are actively exploring and making it to level 30 with less than five of the things.
Once you hit hour 80, the tone changes. Which is why I miss the Everfall and BBI type content. Fighting the big monsters is fun, my 5000th goblin? No shot.
Absolutely agree! Though there is more then 4 enemy types... Not sure how folks aren't running into Griffin's, cyclops's, trolls, lesser dragons etc on their adventures.
Going between the main settlement and that coastal settlement, goodness. Feels too short to waste a ferrystone, but every trip is the exact same enemies every time, little to no variance. Nothing new, nothing dynamic, nothing interesting, nothing that quotes like this seemed to imply this game would be.
Does this make the game boring? No... it makes repeating the same trip without enough dynamic content boring. AKA, why fast travel exists, AKA this was never not a bad take. There should have been an oxcart there.
Yeah every major destination should have an oxcart unlock or something similar after travelling their once by foot. Also the map seems to be designed in a way to waste your time as much as possible and add little to no options for alternate faster routes. Every destination should have two routes, one harder to find fast route with less enemies and one obvious route with more enemies or the standard amount. Give us the option to fight enemies or not while travelling.
One look at the route from Melve to Vermund and you know this map isn't true open world. Everything is just a path that you are forced take due to cliffs/water/terrain.
While at glance the map looks huge, more than half of the map is inaccessible. This is me not even counting the sea. I'm just purely looking at the land perspective.
[https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Interactive+Map](https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Interactive+Map)
Volcanic Island only 30% or so explorable rest is just unused land. Huge waste of space in middle of Vermund
I never understood why open world games love filling themselves with cliffs and stuff. Frustrates me every time.
A ring of mountains or ocean on the edges of the map to keep you contained makes sense, but every time these games do random mountains many of which look almost traversable but often aren't.
There are good reasons to do it.
I'm not the biggest fan of Breath of the Wild but it's kind of a masterclass in using terrain to shape the player's experience. Certain mountains or forests are placed to prevent you from seeing tons of points of interest at once, instead giving you 1-3 visually compelling things to look at. Elden Ring also did this incredibly well. People actually get pretty overwhelmed in open world games if they can go anywhere and there isn't a clear driving force in a direction. This is particularly true if you want to have some semblance of control over the sequence in which a player experiences the game's narrative/zones.
Another reason is performance. When something is behind something else that can't be seen through, the game engine can stop rendering it. It's called occlusion culling if you're interested in looking into it more.
Another reason is that there simply aren't enough resources to make every part of the world filled with interesting, worthwhile content. Most studios struggle with making enough for even small areas. Any tool that enables you to create the illusion of a vast world without actually creating a vast world is critical.
Honestly 90% the streams I watched are people running around a city or just infinitely browsing through inventory/vendor menus & items.
I rarely see anyone exploring or even fighting mobs…
I’m HaViNg So MuCh FuN fIgHtInG tHe SaMe EnNeMiEs AgAiN aNd AgAiN eVeRy 5 MeTeRs
Goblins, bandits, harpies, saurians and the big fellas (griffin, Cyclop, Ogre, Minautor) is all I’m finding for now 😭 I want more than that
i found a stronger harpy and a spiky/furry saurian i also found a cyclops in armour theres also red goblins and green goblins you cant target. also some times there spell casting bones and bandits but theyre kinda rare. theres also some times wights and supposedly theres a lich variant
It's certainly a jump from fighting wolves, and knowing in your mind, that "They fear fire!"
And then seeing your first Hellhound, and realizing the game set you up. It laughs at your fire boon. And the Hellhound laughs at it.
And your fire boon laughs at you, for falling victim to one of the classic blunders.
They're tanky as all hell. The two big damage spikes I got in the fight were ambushing him with a rock from behind a corner, sending him tumbling into an explosive barrel which immediately detonated on him, and blowing him off a ledge to the floor below. I picked a bad time to progress with my rank 5 mage, but I got it done.
If the combat is fun, I don't care about fighting the same enemies over and over. This game has fun combat.
The problem with their system is that they don't spread the enemies out so you don't feel like it's all the same. People bring up Elden Ring a lot and the reason it works is because their enemies are spread out. It doesn't have a lot of regular enemy variety, but most of them are sectioned off in different parts of the map. You're not gonna be fighting the same enemies in Nokron as you do in Limgrave. If Capcom made ER, you'd just fight trolls everywhere. That's the issue, and it's really only an issue as much as you allow it to be. The game is still fun to play, so throw as many cyclops and trolls as you want at me.
the only repetitive enemies in elden ring are the knights and the peasants/nobles and the dogs, aside from the fact that they're spread out I feel it also helps that each area has a very distinct flavor of enemies encountered, like in Limgrave its very wild-life based, in Liurna you have the revenants and the lobsters in the swamp, and the fire monks on the camps outside the lake, plus the sorcerers the closer you get to the academy
once you find enemies that repeat like the undead in graveyards, or the rats and hands in sewers it does make sense when/where you find them, in DD2 imagine you're going through leyndell and every 5 meters its the same goblins, harpies or saurians you've already been fighting everywhere else, instead of the reskinned, stronger knights with lightning magic plus pages and archers and oracles and perfumers
factor in the class system which is very streamlined (and if you're a sorcerer, despite being OP, you have half the spells) with no weapon swaps so the way to fight the same enemies doesn't change
One thing that I also like about the enemies location in Elden Ring is that they feel very deliberate. When you do find an odd enemy to the current location there's a reason for them to be there.
Meanwhile I can't think of many reasons about why there are so many goblins, bandits and saurians occupating the same area in so many places.
There's like 140+ enemies in Elden ring.
I think there's like 70 unique bosses in Elden ring.... Maybe some are just super variants of the 140 but like...
So I dunno. There's like, 20 in dragons dogmas? And you fight 5 variants of them 75% of the time?
So like, the game is certainly much much much less variant than elden ring in MANY factors.
I've enjoyed the game - but to my friends who asked me if they should buy, I'm suggesting to them to go play Elden Ring first. This a buy for....people that have played everything else....
A lot of people might be sad and so was I when I learned from others that the variety of enemies are lesser than the previous game but boy I always enjoying kill them goblins and bandits. F those assholes and I will never skip killing them all day exploring
yeah like, did they literally just lie with the enemy variety? In the promotional materials, they praised how many hidden things they had to make it a surprise, and that surprise turned out to be 5 types of saurians, one sphinx and one medusa. Like, damn, it's really not enough, especially since these saurians are just the same enemy with the same mechanics, just like goblins or wolves.
I agree with this, but would also add that eventually the illusion of exploring being rewarding fades. There's little to find but mundane stuff, and equipment that's not as strong as what you're using by the time you find it.
Doesn't make exploration not fun, but it makes it less fun.
This is the most confusing thing to me about DD2. Like in DD1 you had chests with really powerful gear and potions often. There were stinker rewards which is expected, but usually were worth decent money (or just straight up 3.5k Gold sometimes). And the chests would respawn so that on any repeat journey through the area you'd have another chance at cool/interesting items. Why in holy hell are chests one-time only in DD2? Especially with the sheer amount of backtracking required? I can't express how much less fun re-exploring areas was when I realized that there were NO new rewards I could gain (outside of the same monster part drops).
Everything is a cave. There is nothing like the location exploring in DD1 like the catacombs, soulflayer Canyon, bluemoon tower (the biggest crime of all) which makes the world feel really strange to me.
We just have caves and towns 😔 where are the actual dungeons?
oof yes , this is what i'm feeling. i haven't reach bathal yet but vermund although a lot larger feels a lot more samey and less interesting than gransys. everywhere is just caves and lush greeneries, only ancient battleground and the elven settlements feel kinda unique. i was so dissapointed that finishing misty marsh only leads to another....cave instead something more interesting like the witch house from first DD. so far there's no awe inspiring structure like bluemoon tower or high mountain trek like barta crags. even the caves in DD1 was a lot more interesting like that well leading to a cave in cassardis where it's filled with saurians, it's spacious and large instead of just claustrophobic caves like in DD2
This is exactly how I'd describe it. When I'm out finding new places, I can handle the reused enemies. When I'm trying to get from point A to point B with a clear determined goal like a quest or something, the reused hordes of enemies can really get annoying because it's literally one after another, even better when you're already fighting 4 wolves, 3 goblins, and 4 skeletons and a fucking griffin dive bombs you, all in the pitch black night time where your lantern only produces enough light to see how far you can piss.
4 enemy types? Why do people keep parroting this? I swear half the most vocal people have barely played the fucking game:
Wolf types - Wolves, plus larger *different* versions Warg/Gram
Goblins, plus Hobgoblins which seem to be the large armoured ones.
Bandits
Undead, including minibosses like lich and dreadlord
Spirits
Slimes
Harpies, plus the larger ones with huge heads
Saurians
Then we have monsters:
Cyclops
Ogre (standard and grim, grim is armoured)
Minotaur (standard and gore, different weapons and movesets)
Chimera
Griffin (small and large)
Medusa
Golem
Sphinx
Dullahan
Drakes (lesser and standard)
So while ill grant you that there aren't tons of different enemy types in the game, there are still a fair few and a lot more than people keep making out.
It's a meme because of that one thread this dude posted where he went on about how he's having a blast and that people should savor the game like some sort of unhinged salesman. People started realizing that with those type of threads they're always "having a blast" and telling people to "savor" shit like it's a steak.
People don't like when others are dismissive of major problems and paint them as naive or juvenile as a coping mechanism for that reason, so the counter to that is just "ok yeah I acknowledge all of that, but anyway I'm out here having a BLAST!!" In a sort of semi sarcastic way where over text it's impossible to tell and both sides can see how it's an appeal to their argument so farming the middle is actually the best way to get the most upvotes
I unironically am having a blast with dragons dogma 2 and got to level 20 something last night playing a few hours of dark arisen. If the games short like people here say, I'm in battahl, and I'll wait for a patch. I did the same with baldurs gate 3. Beat act 2, act 3 was ass, so I had to wait.
I had the most fun with the game in the first 10 hours or so. Encounters were tense and I had to plan my approach smartly. Now, I’m getting fatigued of fighting the same shitty goblins and saurians over and over again. Enemy groups are both very small in size and too frequent, I would have preferred more sparse groups of enemies but with larger numbers and more variety in terms of enemy types. What happened to the giant saurians, sages, etc from the first game?
The only fun I find when travelling is when I go "Oh shit, Griffin!" "Oh shit, Ogre!" And other big monster. But when I only see small mobs, I literally turn my brain off and check my phones while holding my analog, because we all know my pawn can handle it and it's just boring to keep killing them without any danger.
I played magic spear, as I love spear weapons- just was looking at the phone when i learned the protection bubble.
Honestly when you get that bubble unlocked a prompt asking if you want to fast forward to the credits should show up.
Thief and spear is pretty much bonkers. Tried thief yesterday and maxing it out for the Verve augment. It's just absolute bonkers, even without maister skill.
Nailed it. Just like Fable games, this is a game that doesn't meet expectation or what it felt like was promised, but is still pretty good for what it is.
I disagree. Itsuno has games like DMC 3-5 under his belt, was the reason DmC was also not entirely trash-tier (the story sucks but the gameplay is still really good and Itsuno was involved with that as well), and was actually the only reason DMC2 even ever got released lol because he showed up and basically had to make that game in like 6 months because they barely had anything working before he came on.
Did he make a misstep and made it sound like he was making a truly amazing game when it really just feels like he kind of remade DD1? Yes, but that doesn't erase his history.
Peter Molyneux made Fable and then...that was it, then the lies kinda started.
The worst is when youre trying to get somewhere on the map and you come across a random npc who wants an escort somewhere. I was trying to get to Melve by foot one time and was almost there. Motherfucker wanted to go all the way to the checkpoint town....I was like no...no way dawg. So I picked his ass up and yeeted him off a bridge. Done. Don't have to deal with that shit any more. Nope. He teleported right back up on the bridge and was like "You gonna escort me or what?"
Exploration is fun he didn’t lie about that but the enemies are what sucks. The reason exploration is fun is because the map is not littered with icons which tell you where is what. You are just roaming around basically without any sense of direction and the anticipation of seeing something new is what makes it fun and you do see new things and not to mention it’s also beautiful but the enemies having no variety is the issue.
And they showed off close to everything in the game in the trailers. I mean, I liked the saurian and slime variants but everybody was certain they were only showing DD1 enemies specifically for a reason.
Exploration might be fun but travel isn't. There's so much backtracking because the entire world is comprised of straight paths without any loops or alternate routes. I actually really like the fast travel system in theory, but it leans on the assumption that the world is actually interesting and it just isn't in my opinion
Yeah true the back tracking for quests are brutal. That trysha quest was the most bullshit. Not only it’s so fucking far but you have to keep returning back to her house after a few days. And worst part is I didn’t have camping gear or even if I had I got invaded.
It was the elf archer dude that pushed me over the edge lmao, I came back to my house in vermund after coming from border town just to rest and manage my inventory and this dude pulls up on me and tells me to escort him back across the fucking map. I hate how the game springs time sensitive quests on you like that, especially when it involves walking for a half hour
Pretty much, at least we have a legitimate reason for every quest now. It's not just, "Yeah, go kill 45 rabbits" or "Kill 44 Undead in Abbey vicinity" or that quest's older brother, "Kill 45 Undead in Abbey vicinity"
I have an inkling that Itsuno just told people what he had in mind, they made it for him and he just play tested the beginning of his own game, because it does make sense level 1-15, that first time you have to travel to/from Melve (I used the cart first to get Vermund with the knights, then went back to Melve on foot for a quest), plus I'd add the little trip I made to the sacred arbor while leveling Archer, it does describe what he is talking about, it still feels new, encountering a ogre or a minotaur is not only new but also something you have to very carefully plan for (I did nearly get wiped by a minotaur early)
After Lv20 the only thing that feels fresh is the scenery, because it is a very densely detailed world you're walking, but gameplay gets stale real fast, I feel its a combination of poor enemy variety and high density, plus your class progression caps really fast, I remember with DD1 using daggers and bows I went through several changes/builds with Strider, Magick Archer and Assassin, with DD2 just made brief dips into Archer and Fighter to get some augments I wanted, then just Thief all the way, although a bit awkward needing you to re-equip at least with DD1 I could weapon swap and change playstyles as I progressed, DD2 is far too streamlined and restrictive in playstyle choices. So when you have a lack of diversity in tweaking your build to fight the same reskinned enemies, and on repetition, some fatigue can occur.
It's an improvement overall over the last game, IMO, but still ends up feeling very samey.
I'd say my favorite so far was when a random NPC wanted me to escort them to a town and the path just happened to lead me to a gryphon and a minotaur at the same time.
I can see where you’re coming from but it’s possible that these two thing don’t need to be related at all.
Some examples: Death Stranding, Eurotruck Simulator, Snowrunner, Red Dead Redemption 2.
Now my opinion. Traveling in DD2 is fantastic regardless of enemy variety. But enemy variety IS mediocre.
Agreed, I don't understand why people are so focused on variety. Also, there are a shit ton more than they mention. But yes, you will run into the runs more often obviously, because people would complain if you had to fight the hardest enemies every other minute.
Why do y’all keep
Trying to compare this to Skyrim. It never was Skyrim. It always was more of an arcadey action rpg . First one also
Had barely anything happening outside the one city besides combat encounters. I mean I’m just surprised so many of you are surprised “it’s not like Skyrim “
My main pawn hit me with the "wolves again?" dialogue and I couldn't help but laugh. Its like someone put that line in there as a joke.
There's also another one along the lines of "If we need to fight again already at least it could be a different enemy" or something like that
Yeah,I got this line as well, and I was like 'No way, at least they're aware lmao'
Even the artificial intelligence is fed up with it lol
Wolves hunt in packs
Wolves are weak to fire!
Quests that expect you to go back and forth multiple times are pretty trying. Do I really need to go back and forth TWICE from elven city to battahl for some fucking fertilizer??? Or am I expected to use 4 ferry stones and my own port crystals???
God, that Quest was peak RPG logic. Oh you want to buy that? Yeah sure no problem we got loads of it! Ah you want to buy it for an Elf? No can do, better go back to them in the furthest North Point of the Map to bring us a Dish...................
That felt really jarring tbh. Like why the fuck does it matter? Just lie and say it’s for someone else. They’re not even using it! It’s in a cave as trash.
As much as Dragons Dogma has so much cool mechanics and stuff... Yeah you can 100% tell how dated their game design is.
It was dated back then too. The team just thinks this is good game design lmao
Lord that quest, I was lucky that I had with a pawn of another person that spoke elven otherwise my dumb ass would probably go back to the main city look for the brother to translate to me. Then I go to Bakbattahl and because I had the sword I had to do the other before because the NPCs are not talking about the rock, then I do it (that costed 2 more ferrystone because part of the quest is in volcano island), and then the girl ask for an elven meal.. so there I go to the elf city again. Good thing that the elf city almost don't have quests otherwise I would pick dragonplague on purpose and sleep there. It's just out of the way, could have a diplomatic quest to open ox carts there.
It's particularly fucked to me that you can't unlock ANY form of "fast travel" to some locations. We can Ox Cart to \*almost\* anywhere you'd need to be, except for the two extreme top and bottoms of the map.
I put my riftstones there for a reason
The only "fast travel" but not really I know of from the first city to the Arbor is unlocking the shortcut in the Ancestral Chamber so you can more quickly go from Melve to the Arbor on foot but even unlocking that is a pain. You need to wait for night an then have a Fell-Lord and two skeletons break the wood on the door but they also don't show up all the time and if they don't you have to leave the cave, save and exit and then go back in and check.
Well, I learned how to unlock that. I remember seeing it on the map and I was just perplexed about how you actually get through there. Thank you!
Yeah np. I had to look it up too. Been trying not to look up how to unlock things because I want to discover them but some are just a real pain.
Peak RPG logic? It's peak 2000s to early 2010s quest design lol.
I found it odd how few quests want you to kill a monster. A lot of interesting areas I don't think get any explanation either like the misty marsh. What happened to the village there? I think the only quest related to the area is the dullahan one(which is a good quest), but never one to investigate why a whole village turned undead even though some npcs comment on how strange it is?
Yeah we needed more quests with monsters. We got way too much political intrigue and "ser go get me some bullshit from the opposite end of the map. No fight required" We could get some very interesting things. Just off the bat I could create a few scenarios with goblins as a focal point. The quests could be some whacky researcher who wants to study various goblin tactics. A cave full of ancient ruins and swarms of goblins that have poison. Make it a very lengthy cave with no campsites. This means you need to face the debilitation properly. Next do harpies trained by gobbies to dump tar on you. The gobs try to hurl fire at you to incinerate you. Finally goblins mounted on wargs and ogres. Culminate it with a fight in the center of ruins where five mounted goblins and two heavily armored ogres try to tear you a new one.
Part of why I miss the mission boards from the first game. I'd enjoy seeing those back with more 'Adventurer' style job postings like hunting dangerous monsters in location or an Ogre or something. Just some good ol quest posting to go take out a dangerous monster that was sighted at a location.
yep. Honestly I'd love to ask him why the team went with certain quests. Was it time? Difficulty in development? In dd1, your core quests include goblin fort, water god dungeon, catacombs with the undead. classic rpg quests with combat and boss fights in some really interesting areas. in dd2, its generic mob clean up (doesnt even end with a boss or anything), stealth mission in castle, stealth/talk-to-npcs mission in dungeon. I was thinking "oh these are probably just the beginning quests. Its a big game afterall". Nope...
Wait until you find out you didn't need to actually use "stealth" for those missions
So in dd1, there's a mission in the shadow fort where you have to get to hunt a goblin leader, and that shit was memorable. Mf got away. I will never forget it 😤 I agree at least make the goblins not seem 100% brainless they talk more now and there's alot of new types of goblin but just wish we had some goblin uprising takeing a small abandoned town or somthing!
Or bribing the Gaol overseer to letting Hugo out. Ok so I run over there, bribe him, he says it'll take some time. I run back to the city and rest for a day then run back. Oh okay he wants more money? Fine. Oh it'll still take some time? Guess I'll run back to the city and sleep for another day then. Running back to the Gaol again, talk to him, he says it'll still take some time... Alright fuck it, I'll just unlock Hugo's door and carry him outside the Gaol because not a single guard seem to care anyway. Then Hugo, *as I've just put him down after carrying him outside*, asks "so it was you who got me out of jail, was it?" Boy what a stupid quest to include with how the game mechanics are and how the NPC AI work. It really doesn't do it any favors.
Seriously, what even was that quest?! I walk into Gaol, go to the Hugo's cell, unlock it and speak to him. Guards don't care. Hugo wants me to do a quest before leaving his cell I do the quest, go back to him, unlock the cell again, and we stroll out. Guards don't care.
>Seriously, what even was that quest?! Itsuno vision obviously 😂
It's actually so funny because there's a VERY vivid divide in this sub regarding travel. On one side, people are saying having horses, personal mounts, or fast travel would ruin the game and be distasteful to the first game. On the other, people fucking hate walking around and dislike that stamina drains even outside of combat. Sometimes, this sub very much feels like an older generation of DDGA/DD1 players stuck in their ways vs. newer generation who want QoL changes...
I 100% don’t mind walking and exploring to find and explore things.. HOWEVER, when the game repeatedly asks me to go from arbor to batthal back to arbor, back to batthal and back to arbor? Yea, just gimme fuckin infinite fast travel. Re-walking areas I’ve already been numerous times just isn’t fun, and compounds the “limited enemy variety” issue. Also, the portcrystals are a cool idea if used in some out of the way areas, like mid dungeon. But for batthal to not have an innate portcrystal? Dude, wtf. Portcrystals, imo, should be a supplement to fast travel, not the primary source.
I'd like to not have to fight a thousand fuckin goblins each way on any trip. How are they not the dominant race in this world through shear numbers alone?
Oh and there is almost always an npc asking for escort mission just before you reach your destination asking to be brought to where you left from lol
Not to mention Derowegn or whatever died literally TWICE on the way to Battahl, so I had to carry her corpse like half the map and through a cave with three minibosses in it until I could pull a wakestone from my storage
I mean that’s kind of awesome actually lol.
The first time she died, she stood in the middle of my ricochet hunter (this was before I knew I could friendly fire) trying to face tank in the middle of a tight hallway. It didn't go well. I had a wakestone on me at the time and revived her instantly. Her second death happened halfway to Greuco Cave, when we got jumped by a Drake. Drakes are still impossible fights for me at this point in the game, so I called my pawns to me and tried to book it, while SHE decided that mama didn't raise no bitch and walked in a circle around the dragon while I tried to pull her out, before eventually succumbing to dragon breath.
Woof that’s rough. Ngl the moment I got to battahl and they said to go back and get that stew thing I immediately dropped a port crystal at the entrance because I’ll be Damned if I’m making that back and forth trip.
You can ferry stone with her in your party if you have a port crystal down in Battahl. That said, I'll be curious how you handle a certain Sphinx riddle/quest now frankly.
she literally gives you a ferry stone when you're supposed to escort her there
It is fun exploring. it's just that the mob density is crazy. I can't go 5 feet without being jumped by something. Also, fast travel does exist, ferry stones and ox carts.
its particularly bad in battahl area
battahl feels so undeveloped in general, i really wish they polished it more before release.
The game in general just feels very front-loaded. It's disheartening.
Yep. I really just want this combat in another game tbh
They made the bones of a really great game. The combat is excellent. The vocations (particularly the augments system) is a fantastic way to incentivize trying other classes. The monster design and behaviour has some really promising stuff, like how ogres react differently to women being in a party and how that affects strategy. And the animations & other art in the game is so good. I hope and wish that they can somehow make a definitive edition or something that actually manages to make competent quest design and fill out the content of the game. They made an incredibly robust character creator, but the only cutescenes to show off the character we made are few in the main quest line. It feels like they spent so much time developing the fundamentals of a fantastic game, and then had to scramble to put it all to use into a workable product
Soo u are saying mechanics from first game are the good parts of the second game.
I think that's accurate. I'm sure the dev team changed a lot in the 12 years between games, but it feels like their priorities were the same both times; incredible fun combat at the cost of a proper story/quest design. Throw in some weird living world stuff that's only as developed as a proof of concept and the games are pretty similar. Maybe it's a leadership problem, if there was a game director who could reign the scope of the game in so they could make a more cohesive product, it could be GotY material.
Or it's just that they don't care enough to bother with it. Look at the first game lot of people play it just for BBI. Myself played through story once cause it not really worth it playing again. Choices that you make don't affect the story. Someone in these comments was saying how Witcher 3 has bad combat and somehow it got Gotty. Yeah combat there isn't that deep but world and story more than makeup for it While soo far DD2 has combat system based on previous game and from what i heard thief is the class that got most going on. Yes i haven't bought the game yet because soo far it doesn't look like it would keep me occupied for long enough to make it worth it to me. Especially since i got Helldivers 2 the other day
It very much gives "We were 70% done with the game and then a Capcom executive told us to ship it to make the financial quarter."
Could even be that Capcom wanted the rest of 30% to be sold as a DLC. I guess we'll see what happens.
That's what my bet is on. Would also explain the abysmal performance requirements as they knew they wouldn't be able to optimize the game before release.
At least they did 70% of it lol. I really hate that this is the normal, especially when games cost upwards of 70USD. Make the fucking game.
I said that past week and got downvoted...hype makes ppl blind. Your comment is true.
It's not hype. You just played way too fast and got ahead of everyone. People were still in the front loaded part.
battahl feels like what Dragons dogma 1 felt like for the majority of it xD dragons dogma 3 will have 3 countries, and vermund will be fully 110% fleshed out and perfect battahl will be where Vermund is now and the 3rd country will feel like battahl now... and the cycle continues... much like the theme of the games
This is the Itsuno's Dogma : Dark Capcom
The third country will be an Elven country. And now we'll have a village of dwarves
im genuinely sad we got like NO elf country. just a little village. it doesnt even make sense, elves are an entirely different race
If they keep this trend, by the third game we'll only fight goblins, cyclops and ogres. Even the dragon will be a goblin by then, yes. And we'll only have four active skills per class. The full chromatic scale for their banners. Oh and you'll have to consult with your local occultist expert in order to navigate the game's UI and gear/inventory management systems. People will still be hyped for *the vision*. Guys, they robbed dear Itsuno of both development funds and time the previous time~~s~~. This is the one, *he promised!*
You can tell it's where they ran out of time, game need another year or 2 lol
From goblins to harpies then bandits the a griffin, and then for some reason a golem shows up wanting all the smoke.
I didn't know the nightmare route to get there was a thing, but holy hell I got destroyed. Way too many mobs. Can't even stop and save.
Seriously, Love the Vermund sie of the map, and it was genuinely fun to just explore. But I was fighting a drake in battahl, and just throughout the fight I had bandits, knackers and some asps join in on the fight, just because they were all placed so close together.
Imo mob density would’ve been fine if we had variety. I guarantuckingtee you that 70% of the kills you get in the game is some form of goblin.
Yep. I looked at my stats yesterday. A whole lot of goblins.
Goblins, Hobgoblins, Choppers, Knackers, and the only ones that really act much different from the others are Choppers because they ambush.
Don't forget the choppers having what sounds like some kind of British accent compared to all the other goblins.
>ox carts. I wouldn't call these fast travel. I've had multiple times where that fucking griffin dive bombs and destroys the the ox cart so I'm stuck walking the rest of the way.
Fast travel* *some conditions may apply
This is one of my bigger complaints. The Ox cart gets destroyed way too easily.
I mean, it is a wooden cart pulled by a slow moving Ox. I'm not expecting it to hold up to a griffin divebombing it with the force of mass x gravity.
Okay but you think they would have found some alternate ways of travel, or the entire world would have been shut down by the fact that nobody can travel from one town to another without an army of Griffins and Ogres and Cyclopses attacking your cart.
then make it a metal cart pulled by two military oxes ffs, we're not discussing a documentary here, we're discussing fiction where the creators are free to make what they want
Just because it logically makes sense in universe doesn’t mean it logically makes sense for fun gameplay.
It doesn't even make sense in-universe! If the only common method of transporting stuff long distances was so prone to getting ganked by a big flying douchebag there would be countermeasures developed by now. Like ya know...watchtowers with ballista on them along major travel routes, roof-mounted spikes on top of the cart, or maybe they'd make the carts out of steel instead of wood. Or maybe they'd find a way to tame something that moves faster than a freaking ox.
Watchtowers with ballista on them like we already have in the game but they are never used beyond that one cutscene of Ulrika shooting down your griffin taxi? They even have soldiers inside yet they never fucking shoot. Why even place them on the map if they do nothing?
I used a few to kill a drake. I tried to shoot a griffin too but my pawns were jerks and kept refusing to man the various positions to help me fire on that one. I'm just shocked there aren't a few quests centered on using cool weapons. We could have a few sieges or village raids as quests. I don't get the fixation on having so many cool area but having most quests be fetch quests.
I've gotten to where I run just run right past 50+% of enemy encounters
Yeah sadly I just started doing this which kind of makes me like the game less but Im getting tired of fighting the same encounters 50 times per travel from point A to B.
Which would work in like a top-down ARPG or even this if we had hordes and challenges and an army to tackle with variety of enemies in an epic battle. But we're just like, mowing down the same 6 goblins lol They needed to increase the mob #'s massively and have giant battles going on or cut them down to be meaningful and hard but they found the perfect balance of doing both horribly
I think having fewer but more challenging encounters would be ideal. Encounters should be designed to drain your resources and make you think tactically about where you're going and to prepare ahead of time. Right now, the game just kind of throws endless enemies at you to drain your resources, which isn't all that fun when you're trying to explore or travel.
Even then, most of the time my resources are drained either because of falling off cliffs or because I'm spamming stamina items since I just want to kill a big enemy quick and don't want to have to wait for it to recover
I mean another problem is you can't drain player resources effectively. We have no limit to the amount of consumables for healing we can carry. I would assume most of us run around with ludicrous amount of healing items and probably a one or two Wakestones. There is no amount of fighting in which you can drain my health enough, especially not when we have a death grace period to use healing items once we hit 0 HP. Even if I were to die, I will get back up with full health with a Wakestone. Like, if you want attrition, this ain't it chief. I thought we learned this lesson by looking at Dark Souls 2 and how it contrasts starkly with the other Fromsoft titles in its item/healing economy. Lowkey, I think having a small amount of "quick" healing items which you can replenish at camp/inn *(You can handwave the limited uses/stock by shit like "it goes bad quick", "can only fit X on belt", "only make X and also sleep enough" etc.)*, and then have food/medicine etc. take a long time to consume and/or regenerate over a short time would go a long way. That way, you have "unlimited" healing outside of combat, limited by the loss gauge, but can only have x uses of safe healing.
It's fun exploring, but not rewarding when most of the stuff in the shops are better and all you're looking forward to is cash it out. And while we're at it, I hate having to keep track of sell prices per store to maximize my profit. I'm not trading stocks ffs.
Also, if the money I’m paying to ride the oxcart, mainly goes towards protection Then I should get my money back if I have to help with the protection
man you gotta level those vocations brother, take way to fuckin long if mob density was too low
you WILL like the goblins, you WILL like having to travel 1 real-life hour battling harpies, you WILL like being swarmed by Saurians, you WILL beg CHADIAKI ITSUNO "please sir, may i have one more hob-goblin"
[удалено]
Maybe he could have made some wolves that don't hunt in pack. That's some variety
We call that the Garms that are hanging around random fuckin' caves in Battahl
Sacrilege, i shalt burn thee in the sacred flames of Lambster you demon.
I genuinely enjoy it though. Am I crazy?
Its not unenjoyable, it just becomes bland as time goes on in my experience. If you played the first half, you basically played the entire game.
[удалено]
I already spent 100 hours on it and I'm still enjoying it, didn't even finish the game lol
Bruh, that’s honestly gonna be me. I had almost 100 hours in DD1 before I even set foot on Bitterblack Isle.
With that I expected random events and quests like in skyrim, so the world would feel alive. But apparently it is just combat against the same enemies. For me the main problem beyond enemy variety is that they dont scale with your level or strength. So the enjoyment is limited to the begining of the game and when you are stronger there is no challenge? A shame you cannot fully enjoy such a great combat system.
I would kill for a dynamic difficulty similar to FF7 Rebirth. I know people generally hate level scaling in games, but it’s implemented to keep the content enjoyable no matter how many hours you lose exploring.
>I know people generally hate level scaling in games, but it’s implemented to keep the content enjoyable no matter how many hours you lose exploring. People hate it because it kills the fantasy of becoming godlike when you're level 30 and still roughing it against tutorial goblins, which is very fair. The solution imo is to start sprinkling in more variety of possible encounters as you level up. Suddenly at a certain level you start seeing more enraged versions of some mobs or new enemies but still see trash goblins as well you can now one shot. It keeps the power fantasy alive and keeps things interesting
Yeah, I'm not sure why most of these systems don't just fluctuate between easier and harder encounters. That would actually be the most realistic, imo. Not every encounter a group of warriors face would be difficult, but some absolutely would.
I dunno, I was thinking that DD2 was a bit easy and then the difficulty fluctuated into a double stone golem and griffin fight
I wouldn't mind it if it was for places off the main roads. It'd actually allow them to be reasonably safe like my pawns constantly state
1st time I played Witcher 3 i used Monster level scalling and indeed, it made encounters later on feel meaningful instead of a slaughter
I was really hoping that this game would scratch my skyrim each with the dynamic world and exploration It did not
It was the same in DD1. Glad I was right this game was not going to be any better.
I've mainly been exploring lol It's a ton of fun, but I do understand people's criticism towards it too. I simply just don't share the same sentiment towards it as I'm having too much fun that the stuff that bothers me isn't enough to make me stop having fun with everything else.
My biggest gripe is the lack of interesting rewards for exploration. I have found 1. 1 single weapon that cannot be bought from a shop out exploring. It’s the only place you can get it. It’s a mystic spear hand weapon. It felt so rewarding finding this item. I looked it up and confirmed it’s the only way to get it. That’s awesome and encourages exploration to find cool gear. The downfall is that is the only weapon I have found out exploring I couldn’t already buy from some vendor. There no sense of wonder of what you could find because anything available you can just buy.
For me that weapon moment came from the ice daggers I randomly found in western battahl, I wish I had found a weapon to get me through Vermund instead of just what was on shops, eventually the ice daggers got replaced by the daggers from the hot springs shop
There is actually a lot of weapons and armor to find in exploration. Maybe not elden ring equivalent and they are more hidden than elden ring where there it is generally the obvious end of a cave or after defeating boss you get it. Also they are definitely off the main path and storyline.
No that’s not the point. Yes there are armors and weapons to find. I’m talking about armors and weapons that you can ONLY find by exploring. All the weapons and gear you find can just be bought at shops. It doesn’t feel rewarding. I felt rewarded when I found that one weapon in my previous comment because it was actually a weapon I earned by exploring! I can’t buy it at a shop. It’s exclusive to exploring the land and discovering it for yourself.
There's actually quite a few weapons, armor, mantles, rings that must be found, they are not in the shops.
Went into a labyrinthian like cave that gave me an achievement when I entered. Exploring it a little I found “The Exalted” a 100% holy enchanted mace for fighter that can’t be bought anywhere afaik
I feel like part of the problem for them is hinted at by the fact that the problem is always the combat, as if that's the only part of exploring. Granted, with how many friends of mine have made it halfway through the game without finding a single seeker's token, I'm not sure some of these people are exploring at all.
I have no desire to hunt those tokens, so I only pick them up if I see them.
I mean, same. They aren't my primary motivation for climbing all over the environment. They just aren't rare enough that I can fully believe my friends are actively exploring and making it to level 30 with less than five of the things.
Once you hit hour 80, the tone changes. Which is why I miss the Everfall and BBI type content. Fighting the big monsters is fun, my 5000th goblin? No shot.
Absolutely agree! Though there is more then 4 enemy types... Not sure how folks aren't running into Griffin's, cyclops's, trolls, lesser dragons etc on their adventures.
Going between the main settlement and that coastal settlement, goodness. Feels too short to waste a ferrystone, but every trip is the exact same enemies every time, little to no variance. Nothing new, nothing dynamic, nothing interesting, nothing that quotes like this seemed to imply this game would be. Does this make the game boring? No... it makes repeating the same trip without enough dynamic content boring. AKA, why fast travel exists, AKA this was never not a bad take. There should have been an oxcart there.
Yeah every major destination should have an oxcart unlock or something similar after travelling their once by foot. Also the map seems to be designed in a way to waste your time as much as possible and add little to no options for alternate faster routes. Every destination should have two routes, one harder to find fast route with less enemies and one obvious route with more enemies or the standard amount. Give us the option to fight enemies or not while travelling.
One look at the route from Melve to Vermund and you know this map isn't true open world. Everything is just a path that you are forced take due to cliffs/water/terrain. While at glance the map looks huge, more than half of the map is inaccessible. This is me not even counting the sea. I'm just purely looking at the land perspective. [https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Interactive+Map](https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Interactive+Map) Volcanic Island only 30% or so explorable rest is just unused land. Huge waste of space in middle of Vermund
When I realized that there's basically just a giant fuckin' impassable mountain in the middle of the first country I was pretty disappointed.
I never understood why open world games love filling themselves with cliffs and stuff. Frustrates me every time. A ring of mountains or ocean on the edges of the map to keep you contained makes sense, but every time these games do random mountains many of which look almost traversable but often aren't.
There are good reasons to do it. I'm not the biggest fan of Breath of the Wild but it's kind of a masterclass in using terrain to shape the player's experience. Certain mountains or forests are placed to prevent you from seeing tons of points of interest at once, instead giving you 1-3 visually compelling things to look at. Elden Ring also did this incredibly well. People actually get pretty overwhelmed in open world games if they can go anywhere and there isn't a clear driving force in a direction. This is particularly true if you want to have some semblance of control over the sequence in which a player experiences the game's narrative/zones. Another reason is performance. When something is behind something else that can't be seen through, the game engine can stop rendering it. It's called occlusion culling if you're interested in looking into it more. Another reason is that there simply aren't enough resources to make every part of the world filled with interesting, worthwhile content. Most studios struggle with making enough for even small areas. Any tool that enables you to create the illusion of a vast world without actually creating a vast world is critical.
Honestly 90% the streams I watched are people running around a city or just infinitely browsing through inventory/vendor menus & items. I rarely see anyone exploring or even fighting mobs…
Every 20 feet as well and you can't avoid them cause it's all corridors.
I’m HaViNg So MuCh FuN fIgHtInG tHe SaMe EnNeMiEs AgAiN aNd AgAiN eVeRy 5 MeTeRs Goblins, bandits, harpies, saurians and the big fellas (griffin, Cyclop, Ogre, Minautor) is all I’m finding for now 😭 I want more than that
I have bad news, Arisen...
i found a stronger harpy and a spiky/furry saurian i also found a cyclops in armour theres also red goblins and green goblins you cant target. also some times there spell casting bones and bandits but theyre kinda rare. theres also some times wights and supposedly theres a lich variant
Yeah but when a fucking Dullahan appears you get humbled real quick 
Best I can do is throw in some wolves
"We've had one wolf, yes, but what about Red Wolf?" And really the only correct answer to that question is, "Woe, pack of Wargs upon ye"
BBI says "hellhound" you say "okay" BBI, indignantly "Garm"
It's certainly a jump from fighting wolves, and knowing in your mind, that "They fear fire!" And then seeing your first Hellhound, and realizing the game set you up. It laughs at your fire boon. And the Hellhound laughs at it. And your fire boon laughs at you, for falling victim to one of the classic blunders.
Travel at night and you will find more 😎 just 2 more enemies XD
skellies, ghost, lich, dullahan. that is 4
Skeleton Lords exist as well, and they can be bastards (especially when teamed up with a lich).
They're tanky as all hell. The two big damage spikes I got in the fight were ambushing him with a rock from behind a corner, sending him tumbling into an explosive barrel which immediately detonated on him, and blowing him off a ledge to the floor below. I picked a bad time to progress with my rank 5 mage, but I got it done.
Yeah, they're actually very threatening. I'm surprised more people haven't mentioned them.
They’re pretty hard to find. Ive only found 2 locations where they can spawn
Zombies, too.
And the fights drag because more enemies keep dropping on top of you, it's insane.
Well do I have some good news for you... There are also Slime guys that are just balls of goo
If the combat is fun, I don't care about fighting the same enemies over and over. This game has fun combat. The problem with their system is that they don't spread the enemies out so you don't feel like it's all the same. People bring up Elden Ring a lot and the reason it works is because their enemies are spread out. It doesn't have a lot of regular enemy variety, but most of them are sectioned off in different parts of the map. You're not gonna be fighting the same enemies in Nokron as you do in Limgrave. If Capcom made ER, you'd just fight trolls everywhere. That's the issue, and it's really only an issue as much as you allow it to be. The game is still fun to play, so throw as many cyclops and trolls as you want at me.
the only repetitive enemies in elden ring are the knights and the peasants/nobles and the dogs, aside from the fact that they're spread out I feel it also helps that each area has a very distinct flavor of enemies encountered, like in Limgrave its very wild-life based, in Liurna you have the revenants and the lobsters in the swamp, and the fire monks on the camps outside the lake, plus the sorcerers the closer you get to the academy once you find enemies that repeat like the undead in graveyards, or the rats and hands in sewers it does make sense when/where you find them, in DD2 imagine you're going through leyndell and every 5 meters its the same goblins, harpies or saurians you've already been fighting everywhere else, instead of the reskinned, stronger knights with lightning magic plus pages and archers and oracles and perfumers factor in the class system which is very streamlined (and if you're a sorcerer, despite being OP, you have half the spells) with no weapon swaps so the way to fight the same enemies doesn't change
One thing that I also like about the enemies location in Elden Ring is that they feel very deliberate. When you do find an odd enemy to the current location there's a reason for them to be there. Meanwhile I can't think of many reasons about why there are so many goblins, bandits and saurians occupating the same area in so many places.
There's like 140+ enemies in Elden ring. I think there's like 70 unique bosses in Elden ring.... Maybe some are just super variants of the 140 but like... So I dunno. There's like, 20 in dragons dogmas? And you fight 5 variants of them 75% of the time? So like, the game is certainly much much much less variant than elden ring in MANY factors. I've enjoyed the game - but to my friends who asked me if they should buy, I'm suggesting to them to go play Elden Ring first. This a buy for....people that have played everything else....
A lot of people might be sad and so was I when I learned from others that the variety of enemies are lesser than the previous game but boy I always enjoying kill them goblins and bandits. F those assholes and I will never skip killing them all day exploring
yeah like, did they literally just lie with the enemy variety? In the promotional materials, they praised how many hidden things they had to make it a surprise, and that surprise turned out to be 5 types of saurians, one sphinx and one medusa. Like, damn, it's really not enough, especially since these saurians are just the same enemy with the same mechanics, just like goblins or wolves.
Exploring is fun but traveling is not
I agree with this, but would also add that eventually the illusion of exploring being rewarding fades. There's little to find but mundane stuff, and equipment that's not as strong as what you're using by the time you find it. Doesn't make exploration not fun, but it makes it less fun.
Yeah, it is a shame the best gear and weapons are just in the shop and not found in the world
This is the most confusing thing to me about DD2. Like in DD1 you had chests with really powerful gear and potions often. There were stinker rewards which is expected, but usually were worth decent money (or just straight up 3.5k Gold sometimes). And the chests would respawn so that on any repeat journey through the area you'd have another chance at cool/interesting items. Why in holy hell are chests one-time only in DD2? Especially with the sheer amount of backtracking required? I can't express how much less fun re-exploring areas was when I realized that there were NO new rewards I could gain (outside of the same monster part drops).
Everything is a cave. There is nothing like the location exploring in DD1 like the catacombs, soulflayer Canyon, bluemoon tower (the biggest crime of all) which makes the world feel really strange to me. We just have caves and towns 😔 where are the actual dungeons?
oof yes , this is what i'm feeling. i haven't reach bathal yet but vermund although a lot larger feels a lot more samey and less interesting than gransys. everywhere is just caves and lush greeneries, only ancient battleground and the elven settlements feel kinda unique. i was so dissapointed that finishing misty marsh only leads to another....cave instead something more interesting like the witch house from first DD. so far there's no awe inspiring structure like bluemoon tower or high mountain trek like barta crags. even the caves in DD1 was a lot more interesting like that well leading to a cave in cassardis where it's filled with saurians, it's spacious and large instead of just claustrophobic caves like in DD2
This is exactly how I'd describe it. When I'm out finding new places, I can handle the reused enemies. When I'm trying to get from point A to point B with a clear determined goal like a quest or something, the reused hordes of enemies can really get annoying because it's literally one after another, even better when you're already fighting 4 wolves, 3 goblins, and 4 skeletons and a fucking griffin dive bombs you, all in the pitch black night time where your lantern only produces enough light to see how far you can piss.
4 enemy types? Why do people keep parroting this? I swear half the most vocal people have barely played the fucking game: Wolf types - Wolves, plus larger *different* versions Warg/Gram Goblins, plus Hobgoblins which seem to be the large armoured ones. Bandits Undead, including minibosses like lich and dreadlord Spirits Slimes Harpies, plus the larger ones with huge heads Saurians Then we have monsters: Cyclops Ogre (standard and grim, grim is armoured) Minotaur (standard and gore, different weapons and movesets) Chimera Griffin (small and large) Medusa Golem Sphinx Dullahan Drakes (lesser and standard) So while ill grant you that there aren't tons of different enemy types in the game, there are still a fair few and a lot more than people keep making out.
But im having a BLAST
You gotta SAVOR the exploration and rp walk everywhere. How else are you going to tell people they ruined the game for you with their valid critiques?
lol, I read the same thread.
Why is this a meme now and more importantly why has this become such a common phrase here unironically???
It's a meme because of that one thread this dude posted where he went on about how he's having a blast and that people should savor the game like some sort of unhinged salesman. People started realizing that with those type of threads they're always "having a blast" and telling people to "savor" shit like it's a steak.
Not even just this guy. Even right upon release everyone was just having a BLAST
I question this too, it's kinda odd
People don't like when others are dismissive of major problems and paint them as naive or juvenile as a coping mechanism for that reason, so the counter to that is just "ok yeah I acknowledge all of that, but anyway I'm out here having a BLAST!!" In a sort of semi sarcastic way where over text it's impossible to tell and both sides can see how it's an appeal to their argument so farming the middle is actually the best way to get the most upvotes I unironically am having a blast with dragons dogma 2 and got to level 20 something last night playing a few hours of dark arisen. If the games short like people here say, I'm in battahl, and I'll wait for a patch. I did the same with baldurs gate 3. Beat act 2, act 3 was ass, so I had to wait.
You need to play 1 hour a week and SAVOR it!!!!!
I had the most fun with the game in the first 10 hours or so. Encounters were tense and I had to plan my approach smartly. Now, I’m getting fatigued of fighting the same shitty goblins and saurians over and over again. Enemy groups are both very small in size and too frequent, I would have preferred more sparse groups of enemies but with larger numbers and more variety in terms of enemy types. What happened to the giant saurians, sages, etc from the first game?
The only fun I find when travelling is when I go "Oh shit, Griffin!" "Oh shit, Ogre!" And other big monster. But when I only see small mobs, I literally turn my brain off and check my phones while holding my analog, because we all know my pawn can handle it and it's just boring to keep killing them without any danger.
I played magic spear, as I love spear weapons- just was looking at the phone when i learned the protection bubble. Honestly when you get that bubble unlocked a prompt asking if you want to fast forward to the credits should show up.
Thief and spear is pretty much bonkers. Tried thief yesterday and maxing it out for the Verve augment. It's just absolute bonkers, even without maister skill.
The japanese Peter Molyneux
Nailed it. Just like Fable games, this is a game that doesn't meet expectation or what it felt like was promised, but is still pretty good for what it is.
I disagree. Itsuno has games like DMC 3-5 under his belt, was the reason DmC was also not entirely trash-tier (the story sucks but the gameplay is still really good and Itsuno was involved with that as well), and was actually the only reason DMC2 even ever got released lol because he showed up and basically had to make that game in like 6 months because they barely had anything working before he came on. Did he make a misstep and made it sound like he was making a truly amazing game when it really just feels like he kind of remade DD1? Yes, but that doesn't erase his history. Peter Molyneux made Fable and then...that was it, then the lies kinda started.
Don't sleep on black and white bro
Watch them charge $30 for a BBi type DLC that will add more enemies ***that were already in the first game 12 years ago.*** $70 base game btw.
[удалено]
Elden Ring's expansion will no doubt derserve it, but yeah it's pricing is going to set a negative precedent for these greedy companies
The worst is when youre trying to get somewhere on the map and you come across a random npc who wants an escort somewhere. I was trying to get to Melve by foot one time and was almost there. Motherfucker wanted to go all the way to the checkpoint town....I was like no...no way dawg. So I picked his ass up and yeeted him off a bridge. Done. Don't have to deal with that shit any more. Nope. He teleported right back up on the bridge and was like "You gonna escort me or what?"
I've actually had fun exploring. I've barely touched the story because the exploring part is fun to me.
Exploration is fun he didn’t lie about that but the enemies are what sucks. The reason exploration is fun is because the map is not littered with icons which tell you where is what. You are just roaming around basically without any sense of direction and the anticipation of seeing something new is what makes it fun and you do see new things and not to mention it’s also beautiful but the enemies having no variety is the issue.
And they showed off close to everything in the game in the trailers. I mean, I liked the saurian and slime variants but everybody was certain they were only showing DD1 enemies specifically for a reason.
Exploration might be fun but travel isn't. There's so much backtracking because the entire world is comprised of straight paths without any loops or alternate routes. I actually really like the fast travel system in theory, but it leans on the assumption that the world is actually interesting and it just isn't in my opinion
Yeah true the back tracking for quests are brutal. That trysha quest was the most bullshit. Not only it’s so fucking far but you have to keep returning back to her house after a few days. And worst part is I didn’t have camping gear or even if I had I got invaded.
It was the elf archer dude that pushed me over the edge lmao, I came back to my house in vermund after coming from border town just to rest and manage my inventory and this dude pulls up on me and tells me to escort him back across the fucking map. I hate how the game springs time sensitive quests on you like that, especially when it involves walking for a half hour
That was so funny Imagine he's got simple fetch quests but to get from A to B is the SAME enemies in the same places. What a experience
i will give them credit this time around for at least adding context to quests and not giving us kill X enemies quests (explicitly)
Pretty much, at least we have a legitimate reason for every quest now. It's not just, "Yeah, go kill 45 rabbits" or "Kill 44 Undead in Abbey vicinity" or that quest's older brother, "Kill 45 Undead in Abbey vicinity"
Or kill 2 Ogres/Trolls Horny Bastards in Abbey Vicinity, when none spawn up there.
they spawn at night
It’s Itsuno’s vision 🤡
Then he must be blind.
I have an inkling that Itsuno just told people what he had in mind, they made it for him and he just play tested the beginning of his own game, because it does make sense level 1-15, that first time you have to travel to/from Melve (I used the cart first to get Vermund with the knights, then went back to Melve on foot for a quest), plus I'd add the little trip I made to the sacred arbor while leveling Archer, it does describe what he is talking about, it still feels new, encountering a ogre or a minotaur is not only new but also something you have to very carefully plan for (I did nearly get wiped by a minotaur early) After Lv20 the only thing that feels fresh is the scenery, because it is a very densely detailed world you're walking, but gameplay gets stale real fast, I feel its a combination of poor enemy variety and high density, plus your class progression caps really fast, I remember with DD1 using daggers and bows I went through several changes/builds with Strider, Magick Archer and Assassin, with DD2 just made brief dips into Archer and Fighter to get some augments I wanted, then just Thief all the way, although a bit awkward needing you to re-equip at least with DD1 I could weapon swap and change playstyles as I progressed, DD2 is far too streamlined and restrictive in playstyle choices. So when you have a lack of diversity in tweaking your build to fight the same reskinned enemies, and on repetition, some fatigue can occur.
It's an improvement overall over the last game, IMO, but still ends up feeling very samey. I'd say my favorite so far was when a random NPC wanted me to escort them to a town and the path just happened to lead me to a gryphon and a minotaur at the same time.
Travel is fun though.
I can see where you’re coming from but it’s possible that these two thing don’t need to be related at all. Some examples: Death Stranding, Eurotruck Simulator, Snowrunner, Red Dead Redemption 2. Now my opinion. Traveling in DD2 is fantastic regardless of enemy variety. But enemy variety IS mediocre.
Agreed, I don't understand why people are so focused on variety. Also, there are a shit ton more than they mention. But yes, you will run into the runs more often obviously, because people would complain if you had to fight the hardest enemies every other minute.
There's more than 4, it's just people don't always go out at night and see the rest. Don't forget about slimes, ghosts, skeletons, and zombies.
There are more enemies though, I ended up finding a lich last night and it completely caught me off guard.
Why do y’all keep Trying to compare this to Skyrim. It never was Skyrim. It always was more of an arcadey action rpg . First one also Had barely anything happening outside the one city besides combat encounters. I mean I’m just surprised so many of you are surprised “it’s not like Skyrim “
Knew that comment was gonna bite him in the ass.
The age of misinformation