Capcom Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[Heresiarch]

Holy shit this game's character creation delivers

To imagine that such pawns can be shared to others and may even be used.

 

[Haba]

I just saw one of those walking around...

 

[mediocrepoet]

Yeah, I'm not sure if the pawn thing was a glitch with their system

Don't say it past tense like that. Not yet.

Well, if nothing else, my game is staying in online mode now. Not sure why it reverted before.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I just saw one of those walking around...

The mostly naked girls or the cyclops?

 

[Zombra]

I just saw one of those walking around...

The mostly naked girls or the cyclops?

What cyclops? Oh, I see it now.

 

[Zombra]

As a heads up, I just received 3,298 Rift Crystals and a nice healing herb from Zombira's time with Siveon. Thanks!

 

[Moink]

I just got 40k RC from someone using my Dworf.

Guess I can finally change him to be a bit shorter now.

 

[Anthony Davis]

hooray! pawn pimping is working finally!

 

[Utgard-Loki]

so pawns finally work?

now, 6 skills warrior mod when?

 

[Zombra]

Two heal mages is too many (and Reylene has earned a semi-permanent roster slot), so I hereby announce that Zombira is going to go off the deep end into full dark crazy sorcery shit. As a part of this transformation her voice will become deeper as the demons lay claim to the most twisted regions of her soul (and so she'll be easier to tell apart from all the waifu pawns out there).

In other "what I am doing as if you care" news, I was looking forward to changing to Assassin because Basic Vocations are boring, right? But when I looked at the full skill list I realized that there are some plain old Fighter maneuvers that are too cool to let go, at least just yet. I'm impressed that even the starter classes are unique and substantial.

Now I need an overweight blonde Ranger dude to really round out my party. I've got the statuesque redhead Mage, the wretched freaky Sorceress, and the scrawny Fighter hero already.

 

[Haba]

Ugh, my caster pawns are constantly knocked out in the tougher fights. Like in the fight with the drake, the most value (after dealing with the wings) I got from the random warrior I rented, as she was still up and hitting the weak spot with me while the mages were taking a dirt nap.

Should I stop derping around and complete some main quest missions now? I'm now at 32, got the grimoire (haven't turned it in) and have done 1/4 of the quests the knight gives.

 

[Zombra]

Should I stop derping around and complete some main quest missions now?

I don't know firsthand, but everybody says to get going on the MQ early. Saving it for last fucks everything up or something.

 

[Invictus]

Love my sorcerer now, he can lay the smackdown on almost any of the bigger monsters with area spells and one shot almost any smaller enemies too. My main pawn is a fighter who is very adept at going right in the middle of the enemies and drawing attention to herself while I summon metiorites or my personal favorite my very own electric field. My support pawn heals and buffs while I have a warrior with a big sword to clean things up
I think that this might be my favorite magic combat system ever (amalur had good magic combat too)
Funny about the nekkid chicks in bikini armor, this might be the only game where I have spent sp much time designing the look of character... My pawn :D

 

[Mozg]

What inclinations does a ranger need so that it just hangs back and spams arrows aggressively? Other people's rangers are always shit and do nothing most of the time.

 

[Daimon]

Been enjoying the port greatly. I still don't get why people say there isn't much of a story to the game. While yes, it's obvious the game was made gameplay first (as it should.) The sidequests overall have deepened the world's lore by quite a bit. I also like the ambiguity with the

Spoiler

Dragonforged's past.

. As someone who's played through the game many times on console, I can safely say that the story is well written for what it is... and that the port is freaking amazing. Love it. Anyone else got some thoughts on DD's story?

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

I just got trolle so bad by this fucking game

Spoiler

I took on an optional quest from a dude in the Castle, who asked me to retrieve some shit from The Greatwall location. At the same time I completed the investigation and griffin fight main quests, I completed them first and then decided to go look for his stuff near Greatwall, and since I forgot to put down the portal crystal, I had to get there by foot, which took me forever, and when I'm almost near the quest destination, my main pawn falls to his death, I port back to the city, summon him back and decide to turn in completed main quests and goddamn game cancels my optional quest that I almost completed
No warning or fucking anythin either

 

[Dreaad]

Should I stop derping around and complete some main quest missions now?

I don't know firsthand, but everybody says to get going on the MQ early. Saving it for last fucks everything up or something.

Other way around. Do as much as you can before doing the main quest otherwise all sorts of NPC's vanish from the game forever and other unexpected nastiness. The downside being that the game obviously becomes a lot easier from all the grindyness, especially if you are playing hard mode. On the other hand post end game content is still supposed to be challenging even if you are a bit over leveled.

 

[Damned Registrations]

What inclinations does a ranger need so that it just hangs back and spams arrows aggressively? Other people's rangers are always shit and do nothing most of the time.

Try giving them a stack of mushrooms, might be an issue with their stamina getting burnt out too fast, rangers have the largest stamina pools but burn through it really quickly anyways.

As far as moving along with the MQ, I'd say push it as fast as you can handle the challenge. Save the completionist shit for a newgame+ run, where the challenge will be dead anyways. Or just do multiple fresh playthroughs, trying out different sidequests each time without overlevelling.

Usefulness of caster pawns is super dependent on them having the correct skills. You basically only want them to have the most powerful versions of the most useful spells; generally Bolide, Gicel, Maelstrom are the best bets. Seism and Comestion are somewhat useful as well. Avoid most of the status spells (they won't use them properly unless they know all the monsters really well) and the weaker elemental spells. The necromancy spell is garbage too. Fulmination is a great spell but the pawns don't use it well because it's a channeled aura sort of deal.

Well designed sorceror pawns can literally just win the fight for you if you keep the enemies out of their hair.

 

[Haba]

without overlevelling.

What is "overleveling"? 10 levels, 20? Asking because I probably won't have the time for a second playthrough. For reference, people are saying that you'd need at least 80-100 for BbI, which I assume is as "end game" as it gets.

Aim for around level 50 when you beat the main game?

It is a good thing they made porting cheaper, I'd recommend just buying a shitton of stones whenever you are in town.

A list of apparently good locations to place the crystals (tho you need NG+ to max out the number):

Spoiler

1. Deos hills (outside catacombs) for the seeking salvation quest

2. cutlass cape (outside bluemoon tower) for the wyrmking's ring and the griffin's bane quests

3. Manamia trail (mountain waycastle) for the honor and treachery quest

4. barta crags (greatwall encampent) for the deny salvation and the final battle I (dragon) quests

5. Witchwood- for the witch hunt, for arisen's bond acquiration (i forgot the name of the quest) dying of curiosity and lost and found

6. devilfire grove (outside shadow fort) for put the eye out, a fortress besieged, a challenge and mercedes escort quest

7. northface forest (outside windbluff tower) for pride before a fall, supply and demands, and to get a witness for the quest trial and tribulation

8. hillfigure knoll (outside cave entrance) for the cypher and a part of the fb

 

[Damned Registrations]

I mean, if you're having fun and don't find things too easy, it's fine, but given how many people jumped ship to hard mode because they found it too easy, telling them to completionist the game is awful advice. The right level range is really hard to pin down, because weapons play a huge role, and some classes get fucked in that department (ranger and magick archer especially, almost no bows for those two classes) and a lot of the loot drops are quite random.

In your case, I'd say if you managed to kill a drake, you're probably going to breeze through the next couple of stages of the main quest at least, and if you completionist those stages while you're breezing through, you'll probably breeze through another as well, which puts you pretty much at the end of the game.

To complicate matters more, vocation level and your character level don't have a fixed ratio. Basically, xp scales up faster with the strength of a monster than the discipline points. Like, if you spent a million hours farming goblins, you could max rank all the vocations before hitting level 50. OTOH, if you went to bitterblack and cheesed down a boss one way or another, you could hit level 50 before even hitting rank 10 in a single vocation. Obviously, having all the highest tier skills and passives and shit makes for a much stronger character, regardless of actual character level. Level 30 character casting High Maelstrom is devastating, level 60 character casting High Ingle, not so much.

 

[Matalarata]

So, I'm downloading this. While steam finishes I'd like to come out with a fun char/main pawn combo. I'm not concerned much about what I play, since I plan to try out each class sooner or later... But I'd like to know what are the most useful pawn setups, mainly I'd like to build something that's both useful for me an has a fair chance of being summoned by other players.

I'm also eager to summon Karismatic Kodexian Kompanions from other sleazy bastards around here

 

[Talby]

I want full party creation, with all pawns having access to hybrid classes. Someone mod that in and the game would be perfect.

 

[Damned Registrations]

So, I'm downloading this. While steam finishes I'd like to come out with a fun char/main pawn combo. I'm not concerned much about what I play, since I plan to try out each class sooner or later... But I'd like to know what are the most useful pawn setups, mainly I'd like to build something that's both useful for me an has a fair chance of being summoned by other players.

I'm also eager to summon Karismatic Kodexian Kompanions from other sleazy bastards around here

Most generically useful pawn is a healbot mage. Give her (of course it'll be your waifu right?) the two healing spells, and the fire weapon enchant. Instantly more useful than 90% of other healer pawns, which are often missing one of the healing spells or only have niche weapon enchants. Throw in holy and ice enchant too and then dress it up so it looks cool and it'll get hired more often. You'll have 1 slot left over in skills for whatever you think will be personally useful at the moment. For the personality traits, emphasize staying away from you and utility.

 

[Matalarata]

Roger that. Build a tranny-pornstar-nurse with multicolor sparkles. Here, have a brofist!

 

[Mozg]

Don't make a fighter pawn because there are a billion fighter/warrior pawns and they're all scathers, which is all they need.