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

[Shrimp]

I just wish there was a little more to the open world than friendlies, bandits and monsters because it's already feeling a little stale.

Update: Fifty hours in and it grew stale for me about fifteen hours ago. Toying around with different vocations is the only thing keeping me playing. Aside from a snow area, there's nothing I want more than just quadrupling repeatable monster encounters at minimum. If they had to lower the scope of the expansion to accomplish that I'd be totally fine with it. Only reason I want a snow area is to have snow monsters. Map size is not the issue. A harder difficulty mode would be nice to have too.

Did the original game have such little enemy variety before Dark Arisen? I only played the PC release where it was included.

Most of the 'new' enemies in DD:DA are found on Bitterblack Isle, so try to imagine what mainland Gransys was like

 

[Shrimp]

I've been working on cleaning up side quests, unlock all the vocations I want, explore all accessible areas and so on. All that's left in my journal is a quest called

Spoiler

Convergence.

How much of the game do I still have left?

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

Stumbled upon some goblins fighting harpies. I rope one of the harpies and one of the goblins starts pointing and laughing at it. Nice touch.

This is what I'm talking about. The game is filled to the brim with shit like this. I never seen anything like it.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

. It's not the only half-baked thing; there are lots of bugs, some game breaking. Obviously, no quality control; Japanese games used to be very polished

I played for a good 25+ and never saw game breaking bug.

Play more...

I finished the game, 100+ hours, not a single bug. Seems I got very lucky.

Or perhaps Mortmal got very unlucky
/v/ has been non-stop doomposting the game for the last week, yet there wasn't any kind of big bug compilation thread like CP2077, TotK, ER, BG3 and Starslop had
Even on Steam forums people are bitching primarly about performance and "archaic" design elements
The game has bugs, but its not even close to those games at launch
Aside from performance, the game is unusually polished for such a big release

 

[Yosharian]

Yes in terms of bugs (not performance obviously lol) it is quite polished I think.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

I think we found the origin of dragonaids:

Spoiler

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

The game has terrible bugs involving NPC escorts. Every single one has given me problems. Those types of quests aren't frequent enough to ruin the game. Like I said earlier in the thread try to hard save before taking a follower. They bugged out on me several times and I had to load at Inn.

 

[kites]

 

[DJOGamer PT]

More and more, the notion that DD2 was rushed to be included in Capcom's 2023 fiscal year reports seems to hold true

Cut Content

Apparently, the rubble on certain entraces in caves is a repurposed asset, because someone clipped through it and found Godsbane Gates on them.

Now, even if this notion is true, DD2 didn't got it as bad as DD1, as the former evidently has much more content than the latter (better designed as well)
But it is now quite plausible that Crapcom pulled a repeat of the first game's development and cut the devs time and/or budget partway through - forcing them to cut corners - because of retarded and arbitrary office politics

 

[DJOGamer PT]

In other news, there were a few number of mods releases in the last day

One that increases the speed of combat animations (inspired by the Turbo Mode of DMC games, according to the author)
A complete re-balancing of all nearly vocations
Similiar one but for augments only
Another one custom difficulty mod tha allows user to control the Loss Gauge
Finally one that changes chest loot

There's also been tons of weapon and armor model swaps mods, which are common to all REngine games
Like I previously said the REngine is far more moddable than the MTFramework

I won't be surprised if before the year's end we have some kind of Requiem Total Overhaul equivalent on Nexus

 

[H. P. Lovecraft's Cat]

What does a Dragon's Dogma look like not held back, not fucked with by corpo drones? One can only imagine.

 

[Prince(ss)]

It's amusing how blatant it is that they're withholding skills and vocations for DLC when you realize that most holy skills and every dark skill have been mysteriously removed going from DD1.

 

[Mortmal]

. It's not the only half-baked thing; there are lots of bugs, some game breaking. Obviously, no quality control; Japanese games used to be very polished

I played for a good 25+ and never saw game breaking bug.

Play more...

I finished the game, 100+ hours, not a single bug. Seems I got very lucky.

Or perhaps Mortmal got very unlucky
/v/ has been non-stop doomposting the game for the last week, yet there wasn't any kind of big bug compilation thread like CP2077, TotK, ER, BG3 and Starslop had
Even on Steam forums people are bitching primarly about performance and "archaic" design elements
The game has bugs, but its not even close to those games at launch
Aside from performance, the game is unusually polished for such a big release

Big difference with /v is I am playing the game, got everything done, barring some Sphinx quests because I was fed up with the walking. The ferrystone not working while I just had a port set up next, plus the fact i could not remember first token loccation killed the mood, then I went for the true ending and noticed with the achievement only 1.6% did all the trials. It was good but rushed and obviously cut content. Could have been perfect without corporate greed.

 

[Sentinel]

Did the original game have such little enemy variety before Dark Arisen? I only played the PC release where it was included.

Base DD1 had more enemies than DD2.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Did the original game have such little enemy variety before Dark Arisen? I only played the PC release where it was included.

Base DD1 had more enemies than DD2.

That's pretty obviously false.

 

[Sentinel]

Did the original game have such little enemy variety before Dark Arisen? I only played the PC release where it was included.

Base DD1 had more enemies than DD2.

That's pretty obviously false.

Dark Arisen didn't add enemies to the base game. Anyone can go play DDDA and compare "enemy variety" between DD1 vs DD2. The problem here isn't the # of enemies but how they are used. Objectively, DD2 has 1~4 more enemies than DD1 (depending on if you include garbage like talos & co.), but the way the enemies are used make it feel like it has less monsters.

DD1:
Beholder (removed in dd2)
Hydra (+ variant) (removed in dd2)
Cyclops
Lich
Dragons (+ variants)
Goblins (+ variants)
Saurians (+ variants)
Undead (+variants)
Gargoyles
Chimera (+ variants)
Ogre
Harpies
Griffin
Cockatrice (removed in dd2)
Wolves
Bandits
Golem (variants removed in dd2)
Phantasms (including Specters)
Wyrms & Wyverns (removed in dd2)

DD2 removes Beholder, Cockatrice, Hydra & wyrms, and, being objective, adds Slimes, Minotaur, Medusa*, Sphinx**, Talos*** & Dulahan.

Problem is, you're fighting the same 3 enemies 99% of the game. The Medusa replaces the Hydra but it's a poor replacement - she appears once, possibly twice depending on how the first fight goes - while the Hydra shows up twice, minimum (second time being a powered up version of the first - also posts a notice on the board calling you a pussy so has more personality than the Medusa). The Hydra is a more imposing monster and the mechanics of the fight make it a lot more memorable.

The slimes are barely used.

The Minotaur is a reskinned ogre.

The Sphinx is a one-off fight (most players won't even fight it) - and there's nothing unique about it at all. It's a reskinned griffon. I guess it's supposed to replace the Cockatrice? Except the Cockatrice was actually memorable, if nothing else because of the pain it caused you with the petrification. I still remember the first time I beat it.

The Talos is a shit set piece and I included it as a monster in DD2's favor because I knew people would cry about it otherwise. Actual waste of development time, you don't even need to interact with it at all.

Dulahan is the only worthy inclusion.

DD2 having the same # of monsters as DD1 isn't a point in its favor considering the 5 years of development time btw. One has to wonder what the fuck they were doing.

 

[Jinn]

I deal 0.75 damage and enemies deal 1.5 damage to me

Is that 0.75 across the board no matter how many pawns you have in your party?

 

[Dyet]

Did the original game have such little enemy variety before Dark Arisen? I only played the PC release where it was included.

Base DD1 had more enemies than DD2.

That's pretty obviously false.

Dark Arisen didn't add enemies to the base game. Anyone can go play DDDA and compare "enemy variety" between DD1 vs DD2. The problem here isn't the # of enemies but how they are used. Objectively, DD2 has 1~4 more enemies than DD1 (depending on if you include garbage like talos & co.), but the way the enemies are used make it feel like it has less monsters.

DD1:
Beholder (removed in dd2)
Hydra (+ variant) (removed in dd2)
Cyclops
Lich
Dragons (+ variants)
Goblins (+ variants)
Saurians (+ variants)
Undead (+variants)
Gargoyles
Chimera (+ variants)
Ogre
Harpies
Griffin
Cockatrice (removed in dd2)
Wolves
Bandits
Golem (variants removed in dd2)
Phantasms (including Specters)
Wyrms & Wyverns (removed in dd2)

DD2 removes Beholder, Cockatrice, Hydra & wyrms, and, being objective, adds Slimes, Minotaur, Medusa*, Sphinx**, Talos*** & Dulahan.

Problem is, you're fighting the same 3 enemies 99% of the game. The Medusa replaces the Hydra but it's a poor replacement - she appears once, possibly twice depending on how the first fight goes - while the Hydra shows up twice, minimum (second time being a powered up version of the first - also posts a notice on the board calling you a pussy so has more personality than the Medusa). The Hydra is a more imposing monster and the mechanics of the fight make it a lot more memorable.

The slimes are barely used.

The Minotaur is a reskinned ogre.

The Sphinx is a one-off fight (most players won't even fight it) - and there's nothing unique about it at all. It's a reskinned griffon. I guess it's supposed to replace the Cockatrice? Except the Cockatrice was actually memorable, if nothing else because of the pain it caused you with the petrification. I still remember the first time I beat it.

The Talos is a shit set piece and I included it as a monster in DD2's favor because I knew people would cry about it otherwise. Actual waste of development time, you don't even need to interact with it at all.

Dulahan is the only worthy inclusion.

DD2 having the same # of monsters as DD1 isn't a point in its favor considering the 5 years of development time btw. One has to wonder what the fuck they were doing.

Calling the minotaur a reskinned ogre while flaunting the removal of the cockatrice isn't very fair. Cockatrice is far more of a griffin reskin. DD2's variants are better than DD1's too, like the saurians and goblins. The differences between them are greater and the behavior of the smaller enemies in general has been improved. How the enemies are used does seem to be a big problem. Spreading them around some more and better designed, unique encounters would have helped a lot.

 

[mediocrepoet]

Did the original game have such little enemy variety before Dark Arisen? I only played the PC release where it was included.

Base DD1 had more enemies than DD2.

That's pretty obviously false.

Dark Arisen didn't add enemies to the base game. Anyone can go play DDDA and compare "enemy variety" between DD1 vs DD2. The problem here isn't the # of enemies but how they are used. Objectively, DD2 has 1~4 more enemies than DD1 (depending on if you include garbage like talos & co.), but the way the enemies are used make it feel like it has less monsters.

DD1:
Beholder (removed in dd2)
Hydra (+ variant) (removed in dd2)
Cyclops
Lich
Dragons (+ variants)
Goblins (+ variants)
Saurians (+ variants)
Undead (+variants)
Gargoyles
Chimera (+ variants)
Ogre
Harpies
Griffin
Cockatrice (removed in dd2)
Wolves
Bandits
Golem (variants removed in dd2)
Phantasms (including Specters)

DD2 removes Beholder, Cockatrice and Hydra, and, being objective, adds Slimes, Minotaur, Medusa*, Sphinx**, Talos*** & Dulahan.

Problem is, you're fighting the same 3 enemies 99% of the game. The Medusa replaces the Hydra but it's a poor replacement - she appears once, possibly twice depending on how the first fight goes - while the Hydra shows up twice, minimum (second time being a powered up version of the first - also posts a notice on the board calling you a pussy so has more personality than the Medusa). The Hydra is a more imposing monster and the mechanics of the fight make it a lot more memorable.

The slimes are barely used.

The Minotaur is a reskinned ogre.

The Sphinx is a one-off fight (most players won't even fight it) - and there's nothing unique about it at all. It's a reskinned griffon. I guess it's supposed to replace the Cockatrice? Except the Cockatrice was actually memorable, if nothing else because of the pain it caused you with the petrification. I still remember the first time I beat it.

The Talos is a shit set piece and I included it as a monster in DD2's favor because I knew people would cry about it otherwise. Actual waste of development time, you don't even need to interact with it at all.

Dulahan is the only worthy inclusion.

DD2 having the same # of monsters as DD1 isn't a point in its favor considering the 5 years of development time btw. One has to wonder what the fuck they were doing.

Beholder doesn't appear outside of DA. If you're going to put asterisks by the DD2 mobs that are uniques/bosses, you should be putting one by Hydra as well. That thing appears twice and only once during the actual campaign, the second appearance is post-campaign content.

DD2 adds the ones you mentioned as well as Wights.

So what you've got there is that Cockatrice was removed, while Slimes, Minotaurs, Wights, some new variants of other monsters have been added, as well as some variants that were in DA being included in DD2 base. So even outside of uniques, DD2 is up 2 monsters over base DD1, possibly up variants, and definitely up on boss uniques.

So... yeah. Totally stripped down over DD1 base.

 

[Sentinel]

Beholder doesn't appear outside of DA.

What? It's literally a boss in the Everfall IIRC.


Did you retards even play DD1?

So... yeah. Totally stripped down over DD1 base.

Yeah, because despite the map doubling in size, they didn't double enemy count - thus the fatigue kicks in a lot earlier. Chimeras, which were fairly common in the open world in DD, very rarely show up in DD2. DD2 has 1 more monster than DD1 but you fight the same 3-4 monsters over and over, whereas in DD1 you fought a larger variety of monsters - they used the roster a lot better.

 

[Anonona]

I think DD1 wasn't much better when using its monster. Cockatrice had like 1 fight, 2 if you search for it. Hydra was a sidequest after the credits and the variant on the Everfall, Beholder was just the Everfall fight, which is also optional. Even the gryphon was relatively rare encounter. You fought mostly Cyclops, Chimeras and Ogres.

The slimes are barely used.

I don't know, I found plenty, specially the variants, they are just not as common as other enemies but not rare.

The Minotaur is a reskinned ogre

Not it isn't it, it has a completelly different moveset. I fought a minotaur and a ogre today not too long ago as a fighter with shit gear and a single pawn so both took my time, some deaths and learning their move sets, and both were completelly different, even to how best exploit their weak points to make them fall faster.

Except the Cockatrice was actually memorable, if nothing else because of the pain it caused you with the petrification. I still remember the first time I beat it.

If anything, Medusa is the substitute for the Cockatrice, and the Cockatrice was a resking of the gryphon. Medusa is quite a more interesting fight and have some neat hidden mechanics and even sidequest related to her.

The Talos is a shit set piece and I included it as a monster in DD2's favor because I knew people would cry about it otherwise. Actual waste of development time, you don't even need to interact with it at all.

DD2 having the same # of monsters as DD1 isn't a point in its favor considering the 5 years of development time btw. One has to wonder what the fuck they were doing.

Agree on these two, though there may be some loot for actually fighting the Talos on endgame, nothing too crazy, but useful. I have yet to confirm it though, perhaps the loot is there regardless if you fight it or not.

Spoilers

There are also the 2 new bosses for the postgame

 

[mediocrepoet]

Beholder doesn't appear outside of DA.

What? It's literally the final boss in the Everfall IIRC.

So... yeah. Totally stripped down over DD1 base.

Yeah, because despite the map doubling in size, they didn't double enemy count - thus the fatigue kicks in a lot earlier. Chimeras, which were fairly common in the open world in DD, very rarely show up in DD2. DD2 has 1 more monster than DD1 but you fight the same 3-4 monsters over and over, whereas in DD1 you fought a larger variety of monsters - they used the roster a lot better.

So you're saying that the Everfall which gives rooms that recycle monsters from the entire base game is considered an appearance? I didn't count it because Everfall is boring af and isn't worth spending time in unless you want to fight Ur-Dragon.

Anyway, whatever. If you want to count Everfall as part of your base game content to win an argument, fine. It's not technically wrong, just disingenuous if you're comparing campaign content. DD1 still falls short of DD2. Your claim was that it has fewer types of enemies, not that it has fewer enemy types per capita based on square foot or some shit.

 

[mediocrepoet]

The slimes are barely used.

I don't know, I found plenty, specially the variants, they are just not as common as other enemies but not rare.

I've fought a shitload of slimes. Spend more time around water and wet caves.

 

[Echo Mirage]

The slimes are barely used.

I don't know, I found plenty, specially the variants, they are just not as common as other enemies but not rare.

I've fought a shitload of slimes. Spend more time around water and wet caves.

Those slimes have to be bugged. Sometimes its not possible to hit them and pawns will ignore them while I get stuck in them unable to escape.

 

[HoboForEternity]

I think you need magic or elemental enchantment to kill slimes