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

[processdaemon]

Have they said anything about romance yet? I normally don't care much about it but DD had my favourite romance system of all time, I'd hate it if they changed it to something more 'traditional' (i.e. excluding fat periapt selling merchants).

 

[Delterius]

They are quite proud of creating furry bait

me, a gamer, in disgust of gaming companies straight up printing money <- clueless

 

[Baron Dupek]

is that Richard Ridings at the end?

 

[Black]

It is payday.

 

[Renfri]

 

[Anonona]

Have they said anything about romance yet? I normally don't care much about it but DD had my favourite romance system of all time, I'd hate it if they changed it to something more 'traditional' (i.e. excluding fat periapt selling merchants).

Seems like in this last interview Itsuno said that not only you can deepen your relationship with NPCs like the first game, but that NPCs will react to others NPCs' opinions of you. The specific example he gave is that if an NPC comes to your house to "play", and then other NPC that likes you catch you together, they may fight.

 

[Reinhardt]

your lover is dead. under suspicion ia every single vendor in the game...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

your lover is dead. under suspicion ia every single vendor in the game...

 

[Shrimp]

I like that DD is a single player game since I feel the pawns being dumb automatons is half of the game's charm, yet I would never have expected the philosophy behind the game not being multiplayer to be "I didn't like inconveniencing my friends by making them wait for me when I had to go to the bathroom"

Probably the most Japanese thing I've heard in a while

 

[Delterius]

"I didn't like inconveniencing my friends by making them wait for me when I had to go to the bathroom"

it doesn't get more honorable than this

 

[mediocrepoet]

I like that DD is a single player game since I feel the pawns being dumb automatons is half of the game's charm, yet I would never have expected the philosophy behind the game not being multiplayer to be "I didn't like inconveniencing my friends by making them wait for me when I had to go to the bathroom"

Probably the most Japanese thing I've heard in a while

The American version is "I don't like being inconvenienced when someone else has to go to the bathroom." cf. modern MMO group behaviour.

 

[Zombra]

It's a cute way of saying the game is intended for each player to experience completely at their own pace. In multiplayer, there is always a pressure not to spend too long on anything because people are waiting for you, which in turn influences the design towards constant action with no reading, no downtime, no complicated management, no nuances except in the primary gameplay. I appreciate that DD2's design is so thoughtful about this.

 

[Cat Dude]

They need to create something bizarre like sex with bear as Eric Bischoff once said controversy creates cash

 

[Skinwalker]

Are boots and pants separate inventory items, or are they fused together like in FS games? This is extremely important information to me.

 

[Skinwalker]

Yes what??? Separate items, or fused together? WHICH ONE?!

 

[Anonona]

Are boots and pants separate inventory items, or are they fused together like in FS games?

In the case of Dragons Dogma 1, both body armor and leg armor had two layers. In the case of leg armor, the lower layers were usually things like pants, underwear, chainmail pants, tights, socks, etc, while the outer layer were usually stuff like boots, greaves, shoes, high boots and such. There were some exceptions but usually that was the rules, so separated.

Now in Dragon's Dogma 2 we still don't know if they will keep this system or if they will fuse both as in FS games. Demo footaged some time ago showed that later may be the case, but as it was early footage we are not sure. Plus, some people on the internet have pointed out that there had been images with different characters using what seemed to be the same armor but different clothes, which was reminiscent of the layered system, but could be just that now there are diferent versions of the same armor.

So in short, DD1 they were separated, DD2 seems like they won't be, but is isn't confirmed yet.

 

[Barbarian]

I haven't played the first game but suddenly find myself hyped for this. A couple of questions:

1- Party size limit is 4? Can you recruit story npcs instead of creating your own? With their own backstories and quests and etc. The story characters described in promotional materials sound like your average party members. I personally never enjoyed creating characters other than the PC.
2- How is itemization? Is there crafting or item upgrades?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I haven't played the first game but suddenly find myself hyped for this. A couple of questions:

1- Party size limit is 4? Can you recruit story npcs instead of creating your own? With their own backstories and quests and etc. The story characters described in promotional materials sound like your average party members. I personally never enjoyed creating characters other than the PC.
2- How is itemization? Is there crafting or item upgrades?

You don't recruit story npcs you recruit actual npcs.
There's a heapload of upgrading weapons and combining consumables to make more consumables. No creating your own items though.

 

[Anonona]

1- Party size limit is 4? Can you recruit story npcs instead of creating your own? With their own backstories and quests and etc. The story characters described in promotional materials sound like your average party members. I personally never enjoyed creating characters other than the PC.

1- No, the limit is 4. You cannot recruit story NPCs, unless it changed for the second game. You only create your character and your main pawn. The other two pawns are recruited from other players online or pre-made by the developers offline. You usually access the Rift to recruit Pawns, but you can find them roaming around your world and you can recruit them on the spot.

2- Without knowing how it will be on the second game, the first one had ok itemization for an JRPG. Things like weight and damage type when picking weapons matter, and damages, status and elemental resistances are quite important when picking armors. There are some weapons armors and accesories that can have interesting effects like improving your skills, making your unarmed combat better and such. Nothing too ground breaking, very simple, but you can experiment a bit with different stuff.
In DD1 you can upgrade armor and weapons by gathering the appropriate materials. Upgrading equipment is the main source of power, more than level and is very important, specially because of the way the game handle damage formulas. Cannot craft armor but you can craft numerous items by combining materials, from curatives to preserved food and spells scrolls and skeleton keys. Quite a lot of stuff, really. DD2 is going to also add a cooking system that will be important for healing wounds and receiving buffs.

 

[Barbarian]

I haven't played the first game but suddenly find myself hyped for this. A couple of questions:

1- Party size limit is 4? Can you recruit story npcs instead of creating your own? With their own backstories and quests and etc. The story characters described in promotional materials sound like your average party members. I personally never enjoyed creating characters other than the PC.
2- How is itemization? Is there crafting or item upgrades?

You don't recruit story npcs you recruit actual npcs.
There's a heapload of upgrading weapons and combining consumables to make more consumables. No creating your own items though.

So it is basically "oblivion, but with a party of 4".

 

[Barbarian]

Also on the subject of worldbuilding, exploration and story - decent or retarded?

I don't expect anything as good as Elden Ring here, but "better than oblivion" at least.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I haven't played the first game but suddenly find myself hyped for this. A couple of questions:

1- Party size limit is 4? Can you recruit story npcs instead of creating your own? With their own backstories and quests and etc. The story characters described in promotional materials sound like your average party members. I personally never enjoyed creating characters other than the PC.
2- How is itemization? Is there crafting or item upgrades?

You don't recruit story npcs you recruit actual npcs.
There's a heapload of upgrading weapons and combining consumables to make more consumables. No creating your own items though.

So it is basically "oblivion, but with a party of 4".

Nonononono you are hiring sentient mannequins

 

[Anonona]

So it is basically "oblivion, but with a party of 4".

Pawns are beings that may look like humans, but are not. They do not posses real will or emotions, and they exist only to serve the Arisen. They come from the Rift, which is said to connect to other worlds. They are literally NPCs both in a meta sense and in a literal sense. They will learn from you as you play and you can modify how they talk, act and fight. Also, pawns you summon will share their knowledge of quest and enemies with you, and in turn, if you pawn is summoned by another player, it will learn things from him and share what it knows with that player. So, for example, a Pawn may tell you the weak point of a new enemy you may have just found if he has knowledge of it from questing with other players.

Also on the subject of worldbuilding, exploration and story - decent or retarded?

Simple but passable, it has some interesting ideas and while being kind of ambiguous, is mostly consistent. It does a good job of mashing game mechanics and lore together. But the fact that the first game had serious development issues means that they had to be very selective about worldbuilding. So there is a focus on the more metaphysical aspects of the setting while the geopolitical matters are touched upon superficially mostly. Seems the second game seek to fix this by introducing multiple countries and races that were supposed to appear on the first game.

 

[Delterius]

So it is basically "oblivion, but with a party of 4".

oblivion wished it had a single character with more personality than the average pawn

 

[mediocrepoet]

So it is basically "oblivion, but with a party of 4".

Except with interesting monsters and combat, a better story, memorable characters, better looking characters and environments, environmental reactivity, actually dark areas that make light sources a necessity, and so on.

Yes. Exactly like Oblivion.