Game is good but some things are just bad

[Where'sMySupersuit!!]

The first zone is boring af and its kinda a bad introduction to the game. And when you get to the first major city (which is the actual game) it can be kinda boring walking around for a decade. I can see a ton of people giving up at least before the first major city also due to the performance being so bad in cities its a nightmare to walk through (at least for me).


- Idk if its just me but the story hook just kinda sucks. I find it interesting the idea of you being a "ruler" due to being an arisen and being thrown into slavery but the game just speeds past anything that would make that cool. Also you don't have the dragon landing on a beach moment like the first game but they have it as a lame flashback due to amnesia. I know the game would have a long intro if it was extremely story heavy but I rather have that than no real investment at all. Wish the story was better focused than it being sidelined as I see it.


- I don't understand side-quests in this game, I've done barely any but that's cause I have no clue how to get them other than the random times I'm forced into doing them. Sure talk to people may work but it seems like most NPC do nothing in this game and waste your time. Which makes me question why they even bother with overloading the CPU when the NPC are kinda useless in this game, plus the AI is bad as well.

- The enemy variety is lacking it seems, though imo I don't care about the small enemies and more so the larger ones. Like the "werewolf" thing and ogres, feels like you fight ten million of them and as cool as they are to fight they start getting a little annoying due to them being so common.

If there are more actually different types of big enemies that would be nice. Plus when it comes to the small ones those are lacking too it seem. Sure they have variants but they don't really do anything different other than having a main gimmick to slightly annoy you.


- The entire Sphinx area (literally that entire area) is great, idk how to describe it other than perfection. And in general the way the map functions on a exploration front is undeniably amazing. For the small amount I feel like Ive seen of the map I just love it and find it one of the best game worlds ever made (at least at the moment, maybe it become bad idk).


- Personally I think the pawn system kinda sucks, great concept but bad execution. Specifically I don't care to get pawns from other players and I rather I have my own full party. Being able to freely customize them and level them up would be better than constantly switching them out.


- The save system is garbage and idc what anyone tries to say otherwise. Auto save and Manual save should be separate. Also the load at last Inn rest just deletes your main save progress if you haven't used an Inn in a long time. Either completely remove it from the game or put it in the bottom right corner of the screen so you cant accidentally click it. To add I dont see the reason not to allow multiple saves, It feel like the director just wants to be cool with saying you only get one and not because theres a legit reason other then limiting options.


- The AI is just downright terrible for random NPCs, friendlies, and pawns. They just love to kill themselves which although funny can be really annoying especially if its your own pawns. Also they just have terrible decision making, idk how to describe it further it just feels like they do random stuff instead of the "smart" option.


- Hope to god they work to fix the performance, for me its actually not bad at all as long as I'm not in a city or Town.


- Walking all over the place isnt as bad as I thought. I would rather the game had a horse to ride for get from one long distance to another but if your just exploring its not bad. Exploring and finding caves, side paths, bridges, buildings, etc are so distracting that you want to go to those spots which makes walking around not as bad as it could be.

- Its clunky as hell, movement in this game is really junky and you can almost end up killing yourself super easly. Sliding from object and micro inclines is annoying and doesn't seem to have any logic. The climb on large enemy mechanic feels like its ripped straight from the first game with barely any improvement. Also who ever thought setting the dash button and gather to be the same thing is really dumb, almost yonked myself off cliffs multiple times due to it.

- Microtransactions. yeah there just bad nothing more to saying other than I hate that Capcom keeps doing this to their games.

- The pre-order and Deluxe Edition content, this stuff is straight garbage and imo one of the world collection of items I seen a game give. Especially the pre-order items literally become trash practically instantly, Once you enter the first major city to check the items at the Inn there already garbage which makes no sense because that's technically the real start of the game.



Overall once I started truly exploring areas and finding solutions to problems it just clicked. Despite the stuff I mentioned it doesn't make the game itself bad but just aspects I think are bad and could of been better. Though for many I can see these as being too critical to accept and drop it due to them which is fine.

[Alekthos]

I think your last paragraph more or less answers the first four points.
Did you play the first one?

100% agree about the setting, the Dragon's Dogma series has the best open worlds I have come across.
Personally, I like the pawn system, I think of pawns as somewhere between another build tool and blue spirits from the souls series and as you progress they don't get swapped out nearly as much.(Plus if they don't cooperate just pick em up and chuck em at a problem)
The save system is bewildering for sure, if you look at what they were trying to do it almost makes sense until you start thinking about why. And there are some apparent oversights too, for instance, can you just infinitely dupe items for other players by sending a pawn home, then reloading and sending them again? Haven't tested it but yeah...
The AI is kinda ♥♥♥♥ and buggy for sure.
Performance is def something they could improve.
The prospect of walking everywhere is tedious but the reality is so interesting. Playing skyrim without fast travel is an interesting comparison which really highlights what DD does well.
Yeah the movement not being great tracks with the first game but I'm playing a mage and watching the pawns is hilarious and stomach-churning.
The microtransactions are being overblown. I'm with you but the folks screaming bloody murder aren't helping anything. I suspect how effective their MTX is plays into how they will develop the series further.
There is a lot you can do before you hit the first city and the gear helps a lil bit but yeah the preorder bonus sucks and that's the way it should be. I think it's more of a cosmetic appeal with the gold and all. The deluxe stuff I can't comment on but some of it seems useful.

I'm glad it clicked for you, there isn't really anything else out there quite like it.

[Where'sMySupersuit!!]

Originally posted by Alekthos:

I've played very little of DDDA but I couldn't get into it. There was a bunch of minor problems with that game that made it really hard to get past for some reason. Though I definitely need to get over it and try it again. I read and heard people say this game is harder but I feel like the first game is much more difficult from what I remember.


All in all I'm just glad to play an actual good new game and not something I think is just fine at best.

[Echorion]

That is about how I would chop the game up (assuming performance gets fixed, not improved, but fully fixed).

I would just call it "Good" Not great, not amazing, but not bad either. Just...alright.

Worth it on a strong sale day, but not at launch.

[Myo]

Originally posted by 5P3K73R:

Text wall detected opinion rejected.

good we don't need ur intellectual thoughts polluting the pool anyways. OP offered a good thoughtful read.

[Where'sMySupersuit!!]

Originally posted by 5P3K73R:

Text wall detected opinion rejected.

I mean what do expect, kinda the only way to say pretty much exactly what I'm thinking.

Also I'm pretty sure my Gotham Knights hate discussion post (pretty much review) was much longer.

[Zeus]

I agree with the walking part. Its not has bad but when you're far away and you want to fast travel to the nearest part only to discover that the last portcrystal is on the other side of the map is not a fun thing knowing you'll have to go back from where you were by walking slowly or running.
The people coming to see you for a quest sounds good on paper, but just meh in execution. I just basicly run around until I trigger one of them. A big yellow ! would have made for a better result imo.
15 HOURS into the game and I'm seeing some of the same mobs over and over again and its starting to get annoying.
I don't know if its a thing but a beastiary would be a nice cool addition.
The 1 save slot is dumb imo. People like to say player choice matters yada yada yada, but I'm sure in games like witcher 3 or bg3 player choice also matter and they have multiple saves.
Not a fan of the health chipping only being solved by either going to an inn or camping
No new game is a flaw imo.
The optimization needs to get fixed asap.
I'm currently playing fighter and sometimes I'm not feeling that oomph in the attacks.
I will say the boss fights is where the games shines the most. So far, I'd give my experience of the game a 7-7.5/10.

[Where'sMySupersuit!!]

Originally posted by Zeus:

- The people coming to see you for a quest sounds good on paper, but just meh in execution. I just basicly run around until I trigger one of them. A big yellow ! would have made for a better result imo.

- I don't know if its a thing but a beastiary would be a nice cool addition.

- Not a fan of the health chipping only being solved by either going to an inn or camping

- No new game is a flaw imo.


I'm currently playing fighter and sometimes I'm not feeling that oomph in the attacks.

- Yeah I wasn't originally going to mention the side-quest stuff but I'm doing something that requires me to go back to the starting area and I decided to use a cart but out of nowhere some dude just start rapping at me to help him do his job. Its kinda jarring to have someone randomly start telling you to do something when your so focused on another task. And I realized that that's pretty much every side-quest I've seen, your doing something and then some random just interrupts you.

- Yeah if it is a thing I didn't notice (I know there's the people you meet thing), I would hope it shows a model and a text wall and not just text if it is a thing.

- I actually don't have a problem with the "perm" health loss mechanic though if your in the middle of nowhere I can see it being annoying.

- Yeah, I don't know why they didn't think to add it in the first place. I'm guess its cause them having to delete your character/pawn data will mess with the core of the game. idk



Sorry for my long ass response

[Noahverse]

I just played and felt some of the same things. The npcs felt dull. I mistakenly didn’t get more abilities at the first in so combat was boring on the way to the city. Especially with fighting only 3-4 mob types. I refunded it when I got to city and started lagging. It felt like there was only a few people who lived in the city.

[WeylandYutani]

Just watch the AI, pathfinding, combat (Harpies especially), enemy spawn and placement, it's all totally broken. Consistantly fighting half a dozen enemy types all at once in bright daylight on the mainroads while in the first game they had their correct placements ???

All the time dead NPC's in weird places died from falling or by fighting Harpies which the AI can't handle at all not even the Pawns attack them for the most part.

I recommend cheating yourself some lazarus stones at least it is what I will do the moment I have a certain amount to make cheat engine work.

[Where'sMySupersuit!!]

Originally posted by Noahverse:

It felt like there was only a few people who lived in the city.

Yeah thats is something that did confused me initially about the city. I runs terrible (for me at least) but there arent that many NPCs. Though I think its because at ton of them are focused in one building while the remainder are somewhat spread in the middle of the city or in the two major corners.

Originally posted by WeylandYutani:

Just watch the AI, pathfinding, combat (Harpies especially), enemy spawn and placement, it's all totally broken. Consistantly fighting half a dozen enemy types all at once in bright daylight on the mainroads while in the first game they had their correct placements ???

Smaller normal enemy placement either is really random or actually makes sense. I think the enemies that have the least logical placement are the bigger mini-boss enemies. Also yeah I guess that's why they made the harpy lure because the AI does kinda struggle with fighting them in air. Though imo the harpy lure is the most useless item ive seen in a long time.

[Mojo]

My game seems to have decided that Battahl is always in night-time or something because a ridiculous amount of monsters are spawning there as I try to make it though.

[COUGH COUGH]

Originally posted by WeylandYutani:

Just watch the AI, pathfinding, combat (Harpies especially), enemy spawn and placement, it's all totally broken. Consistantly fighting half a dozen enemy types all at once in bright daylight on the mainroads while in the first game they had their correct placements ???

All the time dead NPC's in weird places died from falling or by fighting Harpies which the AI can't handle at all not even the Pawns attack them for the most part.

I recommend cheating yourself some lazarus stones at least it is what I will do the moment I have a certain amount to make cheat engine work.

There is a mod that lets you buy them for cheap in the first few towns already. same with any of the MTX type ♥♥♥♥.

[93@*&^%jdttk36FGT2d@lt%(fjs569]

Quest design on this game is SO ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ BAD!!!!! Coming from someone who played the first one multiple times through. Both vanilla and Dark Arisen. Yeah, the quests in this game are appalling. Not only did they bring back the worse type of quest from DD1, ESCORT QUESTS! THEY MAKE IT ESSENTIAL TO NPC RELATIONS! I just LOVE having npcs show up my house in the dead of night so I can pack them halfway across the map to some pointless location! Not only that, I can't tell you how many quests actively point you in the wrong direction! Some quests are absolutely misleading and lead you down the wrong path on purpose for some undgodly reason. Not to mention one of these is a TIMED QUEST! People are on some serious copium on this game for some reason. It doesn't suck, but there are some GLARING issues, especially with quest design that pale in comparison to the first one which released over 10 years ago. I'm disappointed with this game to be completely honest.

[93@*&^%jdttk36FGT2d@lt%(fjs569]

Originally posted by Mojo:

My game seems to have decided that Battahl is always in night-time or something because a ridiculous amount of monsters are spawning there as I try to make it though.

That's just how this game works my dude. That's their intended monster density in this game for what ever reason. Developer goes on and on about exploration and ♥♥♥♥ but floods you with a nonstop flow of annoying enemies. I've literally come up on 5 or more packs of enemies back to back before. It's ridiculous and actively discourages you from exploring!

[93@*&^%jdttk36FGT2d@lt%(fjs569]

Originally posted by Where'sMySupersuit!!:

Originally posted by Zeus:

- The people coming to see you for a quest sounds good on paper, but just meh in execution. I just basicly run around until I trigger one of them. A big yellow ! would have made for a better result imo.

- I don't know if its a thing but a beastiary would be a nice cool addition.

- Not a fan of the health chipping only being solved by either going to an inn or camping

- No new game is a flaw imo.


I'm currently playing fighter and sometimes I'm not feeling that oomph in the attacks.

- Yeah I wasn't originally going to mention the side-quest stuff but I'm doing something that requires me to go back to the starting area and I decided to use a cart but out of nowhere some dude just start rapping at me to help him do his job. Its kinda jarring to have someone randomly start telling you to do something when your so focused on another task. And I realized that that's pretty much every side-quest I've seen, your doing something and then some random just interrupts you.

- Yeah if it is a thing I didn't notice (I know there's the people you meet thing), I would hope it shows a model and a text wall and not just text if it is a thing.

- I actually don't have a problem with the "perm" health loss mechanic though if your in the middle of nowhere I can see it being annoying.

- Yeah, I don't know why they didn't think to add it in the first place. I'm guess its cause them having to delete your character/pawn data will mess with the core of the game. idk



Sorry for my long ass response

A lot of people are forgetting that the first one's city had a loading screen I think. This one has no loading screens for the cities. And I think that and the npcs are causing the issue maybe.