Dragon's Dogma 2 - expectations, thoughts, opinions, concerns

[Cahir]

I've been following the development of Dragon's Dogma 2 for some time, and lately I've been pondering if I should buy it or not. Let me try to summarize below what I learned about the game so far and what does those details mean to me as a player.

I've tried Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen, and while I like the exploration and combat part, the writing was what put me off after a short while. Not the content or the story, but the actual writing. It looked like it was machine translated to English from another language. But, I'm assuming with a long development period and a lot more money put into it, this will be improved in DD2.

Now, just as a heads-up clarification - if you'll find some of the things written below as a criticism to the game, it's not. It's rather concern of a player that got used to handholding and quality of life features in modern open world games, who almost forgot how to play old school games. With that set, let me list what I know/read already.

• Vocations (classes) - a pretty standard set up of 4 basic vocations (Fighter, Thief, Mage, Archer), where fighter is a one-handed weapon/shield tank, thief is a dual-wield dagger type of assassin, archer is your dps dealer and mage is kind of more of a support/healer (although with a chunk of offensive powers too), 2 advanced vocations (Warrior and Sorcerer) and 4 hybrid vocations (Magick Archer, Mystic Spearhand, Trickster and Warfarer). Warrior is a two-hand weapon version of a fighter, with supposedly the highest dps potential of all vocations and sorcerer is a more offensive oriented version of a mage. Both basic and advanced vocations can also be taken by pawns (later about pawns in the next bullet point). Magick Archer seems to be a mix of archer with a mage, with more support options than regular archer, Mystic Spearhand looks like a double-edge lightsaber wielding Jedi, that hits with insane speed and grace, Trickster being a kind of illusionist who tricks enemies into kill themselves or each other or distracts them and Wayfarer looks like a jack of all trades, a little bit of every basic vocation. Just glancing on the list, I kind of miss an advanced version of thief and archer. A proper assassin would be nice. But all in all, I can see myself playing almost every vocation out there, which is a good sign.
• Pawns - I played too little of DD1 to fully assess the whole Pawn system, but I try to gather my thought about it. What seems to be cool is that you can basically recruit pawns from a pool of those created by other players. I believe it's something unique to Dragon's Dogma, as I haven't seen such a feature in other games. What concerns me is that their behaviour is AI generated, which means they won't be like a regular companions know from other games and interactions with them would be on a more basic level (no deep bonding possible). It's kind of a bummer, because I find companion interaction a vital part of any computer rpg. They will comment a lot about events in the game, giving hints about quests, places etc., but it won't be as "deep" as for normally written characters. Plus, your main character is like a "master" for them, so this relation would be more of a master-subject, rather than a typical friendship. But, on the bright side, from what I've seen on Youtube so far, the party feels like an actual tabletop rpg group, teaming up tightly to survive in combats. It looks fun and dynamic, the cooperation between pawns and your main character seems vital to your success.
• Exploration - I'm having a strong Skyrim vibes, after watching the latest introduction, narrated by Ian McShane, and I mean it in a good way. Exploration was IMO the strongest part of Skyrim and I can sense it could be also a strong part of DD2, especially since it's apparently huge (around 4 times bigger than DD1).
• Time based quests - this is apparently a very common sight in DD2. I am not a fan of time base quest, especially if the game doesn't give you the slightest hint that the quest you have active is time based. I don't mind this time pressure, if it's logical and hinted in journal entries, dialogues or by pawn comments. What worries me specifically is that it's not only finish the quest, that's time based, but also simply accepting them. From what I understood, if you don't take some of the quests in time, they could be locked, because of NPCs death or other reason. I'm not sure if this means, accepting the quest *after* learning about them, or simply just not talking with a quest giver long enough. If it's the former, I can accept that, but if it's the latter, this isn't so good. The fact that a lot of quests are time based, means that you shouldn't take too many quests at once. This is a good thing, as it urges you to take a more methodical approach when it comes to questing. And it's more natural and immersive.
• No quest markers - I admit, I've gone softly lately and this scares me a bit. This means, the game requires the full attention and shouldn't be played casually, if you want to avoid failing quests, because you spent too much time going in circles, not knowing where to go and what to do next. You need to read everything carefully and listen to pawn comments, as they often give hints what you should do. It's a very old school approach, and I'm worried, I may have lost patience for old school approach. On the other hand, I hope DD2 reignites this spark of enjoying to not being held by hand for a change.
• Fast travel - it's scarce in DD2. From what I understand, there are just two ways of fast travel. First is using an ox cart, which can only take you from one major settlement to the other. The second is using a ferrystone, which is a pretty rare consumable teleport stone, that should be used wisely. This lack of free fast travel gives me a strong Morrowind vibes, where you travelled a lot on foot, using road signs and landmarks as a navigation points. Again, gives this old school feeling, this time less concerning than lack of quest markers.
• Only one save slot - and I really mean just one. You can save manually, but the game autosaves very often, overwriting your manual save. So, unfortunately, no save scumming guys. Every decision counts, so if I screw something, I screw something. Again, immersive approach, but scary as hell.
• The game is unforgiving - this could be either be a showstopper for me or something exhilarating. From what read, planning your treks is crucial here. If you venture unprepared on a long journey, you may end up finding yourself with a low health and stamina in a hostile environment, without the way to reach to a safe location. Even camping in the open is dangerous, as nights are pitch black and all kinds of undead waking up to haunt you. Again, sounds very immersive, reminding me of an actual tabletop adventures, where you have to be prepared, or your DM will come after you.

If I decide to buy it, I plan to treat the game as a D&D-like live-action adventure, a chivalrous kind of adventure. It will be tough, my ass will be wiped many times, but I'll try to suck it up and survive. I'm very close to pre-order, probably decide today.

And what are your thoughts about Dragon's Dogma 2? Anyone excited about it?

 

[Black Elk]

I'm quite excited myself!

Capcom has already achieved what I was hoping Larian was going to do for the BG3 character creator. I legit spent the better part of 3 years trying to suggest this exact sort of plan for a fantasy RPG character creator. Also suggested that the first studio to pull it off in earnest would reign supreme and leave everyone else in the dust playing catch up, for years probably. Well Dragon's Dogma 2 seems to have pulled it off lol

Sadly I'm not nearly as attached to the setting or the gameplay as I would have been for a Dungeons & Dragons game set in Faerun. In 2020 the BG3 character seemed pretty close to best in show, but I immediately felt its limitations on replay. Sure you'd get maybe a dozen hours in there playing around with the options and the various things introduced to create the illusion of cosmetic variety, but as far as the Tav was concerned, it's basically the same half dozen heads. I see every player use them (just with a different haircut, or makeup color or whatever.) This contributes to the sense that the custom player character isn't really all that unique. Very hard to port a table top character concept or a classic portrait idea into something like that, cause there are only so many lego blocks in that box. I wanted it for Wardrobe as well, these were my main wishes as a player, along with the party of 6.

I had hoped for many more legos, I was convinced the full release would have a lot more content, but it was essentially identical to the stuff in Early Access for 3 years (aside from Dragonborn heads I guess). I still hope the definitive thing will bring a bit more to the table, but again it's basically a series of presets and highly curated. One could make the case, well just leave it for the Goblins to kill (aka let the Mods do all your modelling) but honestly that takes forever and requires professionals to do all the stuff in maya and blender and whatever. Then aggregating it all, and making allowances there for disparity in artist skill, all that stuff, on nexus? That's hard cause it's not guided or curated in the same way, just from whatever legos are in the given box and how easy the art tools are for the player to riff on. And to have it look cohesive or stylized in the same basic way.

Meanwhile in Japan...



https://www.reddit.com/r/BG3/comments/1bc1w5g

The character creator takes what the modelling artist would do and gamifies that in a way that allows the player to become their own casting director and create their own headshot, and amazingly to sorta recreate their own face, or almost any face, in-game. More bodies. Pretty much blows the competition out the water, and they're leading with it. So basically exactly what I kept saying over and over and over again on the Larian boards. That a good character creator buys time and keeps the playerbase engaged while they wait for gameplay and campaigns to materialize.

So yeah, anyone trying to make a D&D RPG now, they're going to be chasing after that one right? Anything that falls short is going to feel pretty lackluster and very limited by comparison.

I think where a studio might catch up, if say trying to develop a D&D character creator for a follow up to a GOTY, is to do all that stuff that Dragons Dogma is doing for the visualization, but then marry that to the gestural emotive stuff which was very strong in BG3. But even that's not going to be enough now. They need to take all this cinemscope stuff and bridge it to a more familiar TB style of combat system and an established setting, then they'd have the D&D game with legs for days. As it stands there might be a new Dragon in town now hehe.

I have some similar feelings about the gameplay for Dragon's Dogma 2 and how 'classes' and such work, just what I've seen of it, or comparing it what I've seen of the first few outs. The visual aesthetic is quite strong. Like good enough to spawn a Netflix animated series, so I know they know what they're doing there, but it's a bit further afield in terms of the gameplay systems than what I'd typically want from a party based RPG. Still, hats off! They're getting very close now to the ultimate dream of a genuine player-side portrait/avatar creation suite. Other studios will have to answer I think, or players will scratch their heads like "why can't we have that too?" hehe

I expect many hours will be spent creating Arisens. Even if I think it's kinda silly, it's very catching! Plus that Deadwood narration, I mean that was a pretty good call too! They found a real Gem there!

ps. I bet the hardest part though will be making sure it doesn't go like lego just did off into kruncha and nuckal territory with rogue spins. It's probably like some kinda crazy arms race right now to see how to just do the hair alone in the various stylized ways. But then also if it's the main character in the typical rpg like where only the views are mostly at a slight remove, it's already incredibly impressive that the avatar can be made to look like many familiar faces and doppelgangers and such. Just being able to create a tool that lets people riff off the templet is wild. Feels pretty next level. I like the approach because I think that's the sort of thing that makes a game endlessly replayable, like BG with its 2d portraits or sounds, but some new iteration on that. I can't even believe it's like almost right around the corner somehow. Lived long enough to see such times! hehe

Kinda cool, but we'll have to see I guess

ps. also, just fooling around with a controller again for this was also a fun change of pace! It was free to demo so that was pretty rad

 

[Cahir]

Yeah, DD2 character creator is probably the best I've seen so far. The only lackluster element (and I *really* mean lackluster) is character voice selection. It's so bad, I suspect what they shipped in free version of character creator, is simply a placeholder. It cannot be that bad in full version, otherwise it would be an oversight of truly epic proportions.

 

[Black Elk]

Yeah and voice is so so key too! Like it can have everything going for it, but then fall off the rails with a voice fail, or a gameplay fail. Like there are just so many other things that go into making a good game, but a fun character creator in an RPG, that'll catch my eye. I am also assuming placeholder status for much of what is in the avatar creator as well, like for the bases, with more to come in a week, otherwise people will be stuck like trying to make Bobbleheads and reliving the final scenes of Beetlejuice for a lot of models lols. One of the issues with sliders is always this bizarre mini game where people sorta know what they're after but not how to get there incrementally through a series of tiny morphs, so it's sorta fumbling around till you find a winner I guess. I think to do it up to the nines probably needs more of those ready to rolls, and then the player can riff towards the goal from there. For voices they just need to cast such a wide net. I agree though when I tried checking out the first one way back when, the writing was not what wowed me. For that one I'd rather have it untranslated like Ninja Scroll or something rather than a dub. Not always the case for me, but it just seemed cooler. Same deal with the netflix show when I checked that out haha. But yeah, more zots into the voices, need more gravel there and just a better spread across the board. Fingers crossed, I already bit the bullet just in case it ends up as glorious as one might hope

 

[Antimatter]

I'm still in the "wait & see" camp. The character creator in this game seems exactly what any RPG fan has wanted since Dragon Age: Inquisition in 2014. BG3 was disappointing in this regard. The limited number of presets and a complete inability to create certain looks on certain races is one of the biggest downsides of one of the best RPGs. "You can be yourself, but in a D&D world" didn't really work in BG3 for me exactly because of that. So Dragon's Dogma 2 seems to be the solution, and I hope other games will follow this model.

However, the info we have about the game tells a story that DD2 will be a quite hardcore game, where you have only 1 save, many time-sensitive quests, no fast travel, and lots of things you need to figure out on your own. In comparison, BG3 gave players many choices: want 1 save - sure, go for it, but others can enjoy the game more casually.

I'd compare it to the FromSoftware design approach: their Soulslike games do not have a difficulty setting, because it's by design. I respect that and think it makes their games better, but at the same time, it makes me unlikely to play their games. For a different example, the game I tried recently, Nier: Automata, while being of the new genre, still provided me with numerous options to tweak the game's difficulty as I wished. This helped me when I was still new in the game and made me continue after the prologue.

I'll be interested in reviews and opinions of fellow Tavern remembers who are braver than me and give Dragon's Dogma 2 a go. New experiences are always a treasure.

 

[Cahir]

Well, seems I'm now in "Screw it, let's do it!" camp, so I guess I'm among those brave Who knows, maybe what I really need, for a change, is no hand-holding at all.

Besides, maybe I missed that, but I haven't read anywhere, that there will be only one difficulty setting. I find all those restrictions more of immersion adding factor, rather than something, that suppose to make the game more hardcore.

 

[Black Elk]

Heheh all in! Like high stakes poker, or maybe speed UNO meets Crazy 8s?

I quite enjoy games that challenge my hand eye motor coordination and dexterity of the thumbstick. Strolling down memory lane, some of my favorite all time gaming memories were like trying to hit the upside down in centipede or falling off platforms on the very last life sidescoller hehe. Stomping the turtle shell on the steps in og Mario, or later shell surfing on Pyramids in Mario 64 -that was good too hehe. Going golden in 007 to try and get whatever unlocks for the MP levels and weapons, darting to the body armor. If it's a fighting game, basically trying to hit a blue fireball or a handcuff or something. If it's FPS style in the 3rd dimension like black ops for the 501st on Hoth, or flying some kind of tie fighter, like as long as I can invert my Y axis I'm pretty happy to strafe around and do backflips. Blast while simultaneously running away or using the knives like Rambo. It's all of a piece for me with games that have that structure. If it's Madden just give me some kind of wild juke or hurdle, and I'm still game. Cupheads sorta just exploding from the anxiety of in the moment gameplay and tactical keybashing lol. I always love them when done well, especially if there's a character creator riff on it, MK Armageddon status!

It was probably unfair for me to immediately compare & contrast a Fantasy RPG D&D with the DD lineage, which is just paced differently. They both key more off like very specific systems knowledge, but with a different sort of thing going between say party comp synergy on the one hand or in the moment badassedry solo stuff on the fly - just that I wish some of what I'm seeing could translate and apply in a party based Fantasy RPG or a TB take on the same. Like one that used some of the familiar stuff from that genre.

I think it's bound to be somewhat harder doing Sci Fi or Fantasy than it is for say just Modern (or historical period specific). Like for the same reason that it's harder to do wardrobe and makeup for a make believe Fantasy show, than it is to do that for a television procedural show or period drama where you can just sorta raid the good will or whatever. If one only needs human characters that are sorta spectacularly good looking following sartorial trends - always well dressed and well made up, it seems relatively straightforward to make a character creator for something like that.

I mean I can imagine what it would look like at least and have seen a few iterations on that for sure. Sci Fi I think sorta just leans into the pastiche on that generally, but Fantasy is particularly wild cause it's got the same sort of pastiche, but over a much longer period of time. Like there are just so many potential get ups in a typical fantasy sword and swashbucklery type film. To do it in a D&D setting like Faerun, you'd have to have the wardrobe of like every film ever made that wasn't a Western or set in WW2 or late 19th century when people basically dressed sorta the way we do now lol.

That's why it's so hard to pull off convincingly probably, just such a wide net on it to pull from all those quarters. And that's just for what the character is wearing. Faces and Bodies that have distortion or cartooning or like stargate animal heads and all that with horns or whiskers or whatever, and yeah, I mean of course it takes a lot. Somewhat harder than Sci Fi even maybe, because the formula for hollywood monsters hitting the re-cyclotron is sorta similar, just depends on how the aliens are getting dressed and whether they have laser weapons or battleaxes and such.

One thing I will say about the character creation suite in DD2 in it's current demo presentation is that, while I can do a pretty insane amount of sliding around, or riffing off their ballpark defaults, it also still doesn't quite present things in a way that teaches the player how to riff at a glance. Like giving a visual for the morphology like some kind of matrix or primer or grammar to describe what morphs are going to balance well off each other. Right now it's at the level of recording the numbers for the individual sliders based on whatever value for each element. Like Head HEXs. That's good, but it's sorta randomized, as it often is, rather than presenting a bunch of topological riffs that could quickly go in say a grid with preview models say 10x10 and grouped in columns and rows by whatever similar feature. I think the challenge for that is probably always the same of not wanting to give the appearance of prioritizing any one specific visualization over another. In other words if you have everything as some form of thin/thick light/dark tall/short set along a slider it's harder to build off that into anything the everything at once display. I think anytime it's sliders, choosing a visual for the avatar is gamified where the player is just somehow always trying to slot in something they find more attractive/appealing, more symmetrical, more beautiful like basically the fashion magazine version or the hollywood version. Best analogy would be trying to make a nice looking character in Vanilla Skyrim, but just always being 'slightly' off the goal post, cause invariably it's kinda like that lol.

I think a truly next level Char Creator for a party based Fantasy cRPG would perhaps just the entirety of classic cinema across maybe like a 50 year period, and find all those visual types and tropes for the Human character actors. Like all the various Chaplins and Keatons and such and just create a whole catalogue of gestural emotive stuff for the face and body to translate into the avatar. The stuff that gets used in cartoons for parody, or like the bread and butter on it, just so players have an easy way to riff off some basics that way. I think BG3 did an alright job of establishing compelling types. Like it's not the visualization that makes a shadowheart a Shadowheart, but the character with all the gestural stuff too then informs that specific visualization and turns it into an archetypal character concept. The sort of thing that can serve as a visual shorthand, or guidepost to just see what the Char creation tools are capable of.

I'm excited to see this stuff for a Character creator like PHB style, but what I really want in the Monster Maker like MM/DMG style, but that's probably still a ways off. Humanoid Monsters and Grotesques are inherently way more stylized and unique looking than your standard Humans and Elves and Hylians. I think that's why I'm always more interested to see things like Goblins or Githyanki or Devils or Animal/Dragon people in those games, just to see what they do there. Cause I kinda know what Conan and Subotai and Valeria are supposed to look like. I know what Thulsa Doom and the Snake princess and Random Barbarian #2 are supposed to look like hehe. But show me a Doctor Zaius or a Ludo or something, and suddenly it's like wow! Now it's creature workshop! One of these days someone will work all the angles at once, and then that game can just rule!

Meantime, if it's like a few bones here and there to catch the latest best attempt, I figure why not. But then I also lack impulse control heheh. Will report back how the full version Char creator feels, likely with some screen and some commentary on the sounds. Voice is critical!

Ps. Well, I guess this will go down as a cautionary tale about the utter absurdity of a microtransaction for fast travel when the pitch was slow roller lol. Or put another way, they can do many things right, but still face plant if trying to dime on it at the door. Talk about misreading the room

Dragon's Dogma 2 Launches To "Mostly Negative" Steam Reviews Over Microtransactions

Dragon's Dogma 2 has been slapped with "Mostly Negative" reviews on Steam due to performance issues and the addition of microtransactions.

www.thegamer.com

 

[Antimatter]

Well, sometimes, "wait & see" is worth it... I don't even know what to say.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1771134929394352243

 

[Antimatter]

So, the game launched, and got mostly very positive reactions and reviews. The MTX horror doesn't seem to affect the release except for the first wave of negative reviews on Steam.

I keep reading opinions about Dragon's Dogma 2 because the game is still a mystery to me. I'm still not ready to give it a try, and yet I keep reading opinions about the game, because it's an RPG and seems to be different from what the market usually offers.

Here are a few pieces I wanted to share:

https://cohost.org/dreamcastaway/post/5275166-abandon-all-delusion - it's a (more or less) deep analysis of the game's design and an author's take on why it's good we got this game

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1771685895286018464

Check out responses to this question, seems that even with effort, not many respondents can highlight the story or characters.

Seems the game is more about exploration, creativity, combat (and pawns' AI learning), less about stories themselves. A bit like a sandbox game perhaps?

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1772282448342053119

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1772342929660498305

There are many comparisons with Elden Ring, and I've noticed many players who adored ER now play DD2 and enjoy it (even if DD2 is not a Soulslike).

 

[Zaxares]

I haven't been playing this myself, but a couple of friends have. Their verdict is "It's quite Skyrim'ish and pretty fun... but it's OBNOXIOUSLY monetized." So... Given that I'm still having a great time in BG3, I think I'll give DD2 a pass. XD

 

[Nimran]

*cracks knuckles* Time for some input from someone who plays it.

Pros:
Character Creation— Since the character creator has already been discussed, and I didn’t really spend that much time in it for want of playing the game, I won’t talk about it much here. It’s the most extensive character creator I’ve seen in a game. I felt a bit daunted by it honestly. 10/10

World map/exploration— The meat of the game, combined with some rather fun gameplay to create a very entertaining sandbox experience. The world is big, and seamlessly open. No loading screens except for when booting the game or dying/reloading. 9/10

Combat— Very fun ARPG gameplay, which is a strange thing for me to type, since I hate ARPGs. This game does it mostly right, though I still get bonked a bit more than I’d like when playing certain vocations due to their lack of defensive options. 8/10

Vocations— A lot of variety here. Fighters do some fun swordsmanship and tank. Warriors do big, slow charge attacks and also tank. Thieves do fun melee DPS and tricks. Archers can turn the game into a third-person shooter, and have some trick shot skills. Mages buff, heal, and provide some magic damage. Sorcerers ditch the healing and support to go all in on big damage spells. Magic archers are archers, but with fancy magic trick shot skills. Mystic spearhand is from a Star Wars game, but he got lost and ended up in DD2 instead. Trickster is for players who like doing no damage/don’t mind losing out on loot due to enemies dropping off cliffs and into the sea. Warfarer is a somewhat inconvenient way of mixing together other vocations, so people who really miss striders and rangers from the first game can get a watered-down version in this one. No real replacement for the best vocation in DD1, mystic knight, forces me to lower my score somewhat. 7/10

Mehs:
Pawns— From a gameplay perspective, they have been largely improved (still jumping off cliffs and killing themselves, but not as often). They seem to have fixed the AI so that the pawns no longer prove an outright liability in the late game. That’s the good news. The bad news is that, like the first game, they won’t ever stop talking. I have already started tuning out their banter, but some other people can get really annoyed by it. 6/10

Shopping— Good news, you can buy almost every weapon, every piece of armor, every item in a store. That’s also the bad news. There are no unique weapons that you can only find out in the wild. The ones you can’t buy are quest rewards. 4/10

Voice acting— Not to rag on anyone’s performance too hard, but boy, some of these voices are so wooden you get the feeling they came from trees. They can often fall into the ‘so bad, it’s good’ flavor of acting, though, with line deliveries that make me chuckle with how unintentionally funny they sound. 5/10

Cons:
Story— What story? Jokes aside, the very bare minimum of time and effort has been invested into cobbling together a bland, basic revenge story/political nonthriller rife with plot holes that only manages to get you to want to explore the world some more instead. 2/10

Characters— The only one whose name I can think of off the top of my head is Brant, but not because he’s an engaging character. No, it’s because you spend a lot of time with him while doing the main quests, so you see his name on the screen a lot. 2/10

MTXs— Why? Why do they exist, Capcom? They don’t add anything to the game, they don’t make the game easier, there are no cheat weapons or items, everything they offer you can get in the first hour of playing normally. They aren’t intrusive, and there are no in-game advertisements. But they exist, for no reason other than to con people into giving the company more money. 0/10

 

[Antimatter]

Thanks for sharing this, @Nimran, really appreciate the detail! Yeah, with the cons as you listed them, I'd rather pass on the game, at least currently. I'm happy you've enjoyed the game's exploration and combat though.

 

[Nimran]

A big part of the game’s exploration being great is the scenery. Climbing a hill and looking out over the distance to see towns, ruins, and beautiful landscapes that stretch out for quite a long distance. Dungeons and ruins that feature detailed architecture of a long-lost civilization. It’s a beautiful game for sure, despite the flaws in other areas.