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

[Blutwurstritter]

Will this one have co-op multiplayer?

 

[Great Deceiver]

No, and thankfully not.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

No, and thankfully not.

That is a strange sentiment. The game comes with dumb AI pawns, why wouldn't you rather use a fully functional human instead?

 

[Reinhardt]

why wouldn't you rather use a fully functional human instead?

you mean drooling mongoloid running, jumping and rolling around?

 

[Black]

why wouldn't you rather use a fully functional human instead?

you mean drooling mongoloid running, jumping and rolling around?

Perfect pawn substitute.

 

[gabel]

Yeah, hopefully playing solo will still be possible and viable.

 

[Raghar]

Elden Ring: a game where you roll & attack for 100 hours, where giant monsters are fought by standing under them and hitting their feet for 2 minutes and where to get a quest NPC to move to a different location after completing a quest, you have to quit and reload the game (released in 2022).

Isn't resting at bonfire enough?

No, and thankfully not.

That is a strange sentiment. The game comes with dumb AI pawns, why wouldn't you rather use a fully functional human instead?

Pawns don't rob you of your loot.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

That is not a problem, I play co-op with family and friends sitting in the same room. Dragons Dogma 1 would have been a perfectly fine co-op game. The first games design has co-op written all over it. Have the developers given a reason why not? Is the studio too small to implement multiplayer along single player or something like that?

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Have the developers given a reason why not?

I suspect Itsuno simply isn't a fan of full co-op implementation...

 

[Reinhardt]

based

 

[Great Deceiver]

No, and thankfully not.

That is a strange sentiment. The game comes with dumb AI pawns, why wouldn't you rather use a fully functional human instead?

The pawn system is relatively sophisticated especially considering the original game's age; one would hope that the new game has expanded options and works even better.

I'd much rather have functional AI pawns whose behaviour I can somewhat dictate and predict than some mongoloid who only cares about phat lewtz bunny hopping all over the level.

Your argument about local co-op with friends is understandable, but a very niche position. Multiplayer coop games inevitably devolve into bullshit if you have to factor in online play, either from a design standpoint or from the end result regardless.

 

[Blutwurstritter]

No, and thankfully not.

That is a strange sentiment. The game comes with dumb AI pawns, why wouldn't you rather use a fully functional human instead?

The pawn system is relatively sophisticated especially considering the original game's age; one would hope that the new game has expanded options and works even better.

I'd much rather have functional AI pawns whose behaviour I can somewhat dictate and predict than some mongoloid who only cares about phat lewtz bunny hopping all over the level.

Your argument about local co-op with friends is understandable, but a very niche position. Multiplayer coop games inevitably devolve into bullshit if you have to factor in online play, either from a design standpoint or from the end result regardless.

I was thinking of an optional co-op feature and not a removal of the pawns system or a shift away from single-player-first design. Its not like a basic co-op option automatically turns a game into one of those modern multiplayer garbage games or mmorpg shit. I didn't know co-op is so unpopular with the Dragons Dogma crowd. I'll leave it at that.

 

[Great Deceiver]

No, and thankfully not.

That is a strange sentiment. The game comes with dumb AI pawns, why wouldn't you rather use a fully functional human instead?

The pawn system is relatively sophisticated especially considering the original game's age; one would hope that the new game has expanded options and works even better.

I'd much rather have functional AI pawns whose behaviour I can somewhat dictate and predict than some mongoloid who only cares about phat lewtz bunny hopping all over the level.

Your argument about local co-op with friends is understandable, but a very niche position. Multiplayer coop games inevitably devolve into bullshit if you have to factor in online play, either from a design standpoint or from the end result regardless.

I was thinking of an optional co-op feature and not a removal of the pawns system or a shift away from single-player-first design. Its not like a basic co-op option automatically turns a game into one of those modern multiplayer garbage games or mmorpg shit. I didn't know co-op is so unpopular with the Dragons Dogma crowd. I'll leave it at that.

That's just the thing though, I think that in this day and age, having a co-op feature would instantly make it the main draw to the eyes of the normies and would inevitably suck up resources from the actual game - i.e. monster design (my favourite aspect), combat flow, level design, etc. You'd probably have retarded boss farming, loot runs, all that extraneous shit that doesn't belong at all.

I also think a lot of people who like DD have imagined how awesome the game could be in coop at least once, but at least for me I'd rather take the flawed pawn system and suspend my disbelief in a cool single-player game than deal with any of the annoyances attending online multiplayer cancer.

 

[Zombra]

In short: "Just add the feature I want, nothing else will change" is very naive and frankly selfish.

 

[Great Deceiver]

They'll never take our pawn chatter away!

Who knows what lies in wait? Best proceed with caution

 

[Silverfish]

In short: "Just add the feature I want, nothing else will change" is very naive and frankly selfish.

Yeah, but you should be selfish when it's your money.

 

[Zanzoken]

I think most people here don't want to admit it, but the original Dragon's Dogma was a 7.5/10 game with some cool ideas but design issues which go beyond it being "jank". And now in a post Elden Ring world it seems the Dragon's Dogma design has aged even worse. It is for this reason that I am not excited for DD2, it seems to be a game that has fallen into the same trap Bethesda fell into with Starfield. What that was innovative and ahead of its time 10 years ago is probably boring stuff nowadays.

Western RPGs made by Japs are the trannies of the RPG world. Even if they look passable at first glance you can always tell something is off. That includes all of From's garbage too.

I probably spent a couple dozen hours playing DD, and while it does have some cool ideas and decent mechanics, you can just feel the Jap jank oozing out every pore. I ultimately decided it wasn't for me and I don't see anything about DD2 that indicates it'll be any different.

That's fine though, it looks like the people who enjoyed the first one will have plenty more to sink their teeth into here.

 

[Great Deceiver]

"jank" is one of those words that ultimately doesn't mean anything at all, yet the people who use it (mainly 'games journalists') think it shields them from having to be specific with their criticism.

Are you a woman?

 

[Zanzoken]

"jank" is one of those words that ultimately doesn't mean anything at all, yet the people who use it (mainly 'games journalists') think it shields them from having to be specific with their criticism.

Jank is used to described games that technically are playable but do not feel smooth / polished / skillfully crafted. It can be used to describe mechanics, story, world design, lots of things.

If you want criticism of Dragon's Dogma specifically, it's been years since I played it but here is what I remember:

- The combat feels decent but there are a lot of trash mobs and HP bloat, which is indicative of the autistic Japanese love for grinding just for the sake of it.

- I don't remember finding the classes or leveling progression to be all that interesting. Just basic fighter, archer, etc learning new combos to button spam. I don't recall if the magic system was any better.

- The game is open world but doesn't really capture that feeling of immersion and exploration and open-world games are known for. The world and characters feel very stiff and lifeless, and are not convincing at all as real people living in a real place.

- I was annoyed by the faux Shakespearian medieval tone or whatever the hell that dialogue is supposed to be. Again, you never really get a sense that the people in this game have a culture, just that the devs thought old English was cool and wrote some kind of weird imitation of it. The dialogue got to be truly grating after a while.

- Lots of trash item spam and economic bloat where you could easily knock a zero or two off all of the gold and prices of stuff to make it reasonable.

- A completely basic and forgettable story about a dragon who steals your heart or whatever. I wasn't the least bit interested in it and remember very little about it now.

Are you a woman?

No, but if you're so upset about someone not liking Dragon's Dogma that you feel the need to insult them, then maybe you are?

 

[Great Deceiver]

The combat feels decent but there are a lot of trash mobs and HP bloat, which is indicative of the autistic Japanese love for grinding just for the sake of it.

Mindless trope repeated ad infinitum that has no basis in reality, at least not for the past 25+ years. Otherwise, lots of trash mobs with HP bloat aptly describes almost the totality of games out there, especially those which are considered 'polished' or otherwise 'triple-A' productions. This problem really isn't particularly egregious in DD, especially if you understand how damage and resistances work.

I don't remember finding the classes or leveling progression to be all that interesting. Just basic fighter, archer, etc learning new combos to button spam. I don't recall if the magic system was any better.

This is honestly comical and demonstrates beyond a shadow of a doubt that you didn't play the game, or didn't make any effort to explore beyond its most superficial elements. In addition to the functional basic classes, You have highly original hybrid vocations like Magick Archer and Mystic Knight, the latter playing completely differently from base Fighter, based on different types of elemental counters. Magic stood apart from other games entirely, with very powerful effects that required preparation. Button mashing couldn't be further from the focus of this game.

The game is open world but doesn't really capture that feeling of immersion and exploration and open-world games are known for. The world and characters feel very stiff and lifeless, and are not convincing at all as real people living in a real place.

This is a very vague complaint, again what are you contrasting DD against? The highly immersive and reactive world of Bethesda games? Please. I personally found the world compelling and felt driven to explore, there are quite a few interesting non-critical path nooks and crannies. At the end of the day, the open world aspect is the weakest part of the game, but it's really not any worse than other comparable games barring a handful of exceptions (being much older games). I dislike open worlds in principle and very very few games have made it work to their advantage.

I was annoyed by the faux Shakespearian medieval tone or whatever the hell that dialogue is supposed to be. Again, you never really get a sense that the people in this game have a culture, just that the devs thought old English was cool and wrote some kind of weird imitation of it. The dialogue got to be truly grating after a while.

I personally welcome faux Ye Olde English any day of the week over the ubiquitous Valley Girl dialect that's so prevalent in modern games. However, that's my preference - you might love the idea of everyone in an ostensible medieval fantasy world speaking like either valley girls or Tyrone.

Lots of trash item spam and economic bloat where you could easily knock a zero or two off all of the gold and prices of stuff to make it reasonable.

A non-issue. Again, contrasted against the tight and highly motivational economy of which game, exactly? It's elementary to break the economy of every single game out there, especially of this type.

A completely basic and forgettable story about a dragon who steals your heart or whatever. I wasn't the least bit interested in it and remember very little about it now.

I don't give two shits about the story in DD and still think it plays great. We're addressing gameplay complaints here, no?

 

[Kruyurk]

Jank is used to described games that technically are playable but do not feel smooth / polished / skillfully crafted. It can be used to describe mechanics, story, world design, lots of things.

As I understand it, jank relates to technical implementation problems, for example a broken pathfinding or a shitty camera. If you apply the word to things like story or world design, it loses its meaning and just becomes a generic term for "bad". Jank refers to the technical aspects, not design (be it design of the game mechanics or of the rest).

An example of a janky game would be Kenshi. The game is overall functioning but if you play long enough you start to encounters some minor bugs or mechanics that are not always working properly.
DD is not janky at all, it always felt like a high budget and polished game to me.

 

[Late Bloomer]

- The combat feels decent but there are a lot of trash mobs and HP bloat, which is indicative of the autistic Japanese love for grinding just for the sake of it.

You seem determined to dislike the game because it's Japanese. The HP bloat only shows up if you have a shitty pawn setup. This does not apply to Bittlerblack (which you didn't do) though. You actually need gear in Bitterblack.

- I don't remember finding the classes or leveling progression to be all that interesting. Just basic fighter, archer, etc learning new combos to button spam. I don't recall if the magic system was any better.

Those are the basic vocations. This is a list of the vocations available.
Basic Vocations of Fighter, Strider and Mage
Advanced Vocation of Warrior, Ranger and Sorcerer
Hybrid Vocation of Mystic Knight, Assassin and Magick Archer.

- The game is open world but doesn't really capture that feeling of immersion and exploration and open-world games are known for. The world and characters feel very stiff and lifeless, and are not convincing at all as real people living in a real place.

I greatly enjoyed the exploration aspect. There is a lot of nooks and crannies, caves, temples, ruins, environmental storytelling etc. Just have to get out and explore. There actually liked a fair bit of the characters. It certainly wasn't the games strong point, but they were mostly favourable. Not that schlock from western and western aligned companies where the npc's are constantly talking down to the player character, rude and obnoxious.

- I was annoyed by the faux Shakespearian medieval tone or whatever the hell that dialogue is supposed to be. Again, you never really get a sense that the people in this game have a culture, just that the devs thought old English was cool and wrote some kind of weird imitation of it. The dialogue got to be truly grating after a while.

Old English sentence structure and words are cool. It was great to hear and read. A lot better than the ultra generic modern british and american accents.

- Lots of trash item spam and economic bloat where you could easily knock a zero or two off all of the gold and prices of stuff to make it reasonable.

The trash items weren't really that cumbersome. I agree on the gold. More games need to tone that shit down. Those big numbers are silly.

- A completely basic and forgettable story about a dragon who steals your heart or whatever. I wasn't the least bit interested in it and remember very little about it now.

I don't think you actually played the game. Not sure why I responded to your post at this point. Oh well.

 

[Silverfish]

The HP bloat only shows up if you have a shitty pawn setup.

Which I actually did (usually two fighters / warriors and one strider / ranger) and HP bloat still wasn't that bad. Granted, I played the old version that doesn't have hard mode.

 

[Zanzoken]

I'm glad you guys liked the game. I stand by my critiques though and compared to say, Gothic 2, I think DD is hokey generic shit. Just my opinion though, hope you guys enjoy the sequel.

 

[mediocrepoet]

In short: "Just add the feature I want, nothing else will change" is very naive and frankly selfish.

Yeah, but you should be selfish when it's your money.

Yeah. Selfishly spend it on any of the innumerable games that has that feature and fuck off.