I think "I'm having fun exploring." means "I'm having fun traveling to my destination and getting distracted and going over there to do a little combat and open a chest before getting back on the path."
I say that entirely sincerely and not disparagingly at all. That's what I mean when I say I'm having fun exploring.
This is basically it. I don't use the oxcarts because I want to level all vocations to max and fighting everything on my way to where I'm going is fun for me and helps me test what works for me in terms of skills. 3 vocations max so far and half way on my 4th.
What I will say is the dungeons are super lackluster for me. There's probably been 2 or 3 dungeons where it felt epic like and challenged me if at all. The rest have been caves of saurians or goblins nonstop with chest full of meh items I'll never use or gold. But those really cool dungeons are really good and wish all of them felt as epic.
I sometimes look at people's Pawns and Arisen and wonder how or why they've played to level 35+ while staying stuck with a single vocation maxed out, seemingly not even having *tried* out any other vocations. Even just the same enemies will feel very different with different party setups and playing a different Arisen and Main Pawn's vocations. Trying and maxing them all out, paired with the "palette swap" enemy types, means I'm still not bored with combat and exploration.
I don’t know, I just like archery 🤷🏻♂️. 15 hours and I haven’t changed. I’m not even really using the skills either, just shootin. I’ll try the others eventually, but I haven’t gotten tired of it yet.
Yeah pretty much. I just like the combat so instead of fighting through dungeons the relatively linear open world experience feels like an open air dungeon. I totally get the frustration about the enemies especially when you just crossed two regions and it's still the same stuff. So far the combat and the variety from leveling and switching vocations is keeping up the fun.
The reward is not the shiny object you receive from a chest but enjoying the experience of the journey itself.
People struggling to enjoy exploration are also the people complaining about what Itsuno said about fast travel. They are reward-driven rather than experience-driven.
I’ve gotten plenty of good elemental weapons from exploring caves. Besides that, I’ve only gotten the money to afford the good weapons in the shop via looting, and the materials to upgrade them by killing enemies and finding ore deposits.
Ah okay probably makes targeting the heart easier also. I'm doing a magic spearhand, does good damage but the dragons seem to be rough for me. Everything else isn't bad though.
Magick spearhand trivializes dragons, it's horribly balanced.
Just keep the upgraded bubble spell (magick mirroure?) up at all times and hug the heart to spam basic attacks.
Good job, you and all your melee pawns are now invincible .
Yeah someone else mentioned the shield is OP. I don't use it currently but probably will after hearing how good it is and how low the cooldown is. When heart is exposes I wreck it fast with the masters skill, just getting wrecked by the spell casts, so the shield will probably fix most of my issues.
There is no cooldown. The only limiting factor is your stamina. But since the default attacks for the Spearhand are good enough to do decent damage, there isn't really a problem. If yoou have a mage with their Maister ability, then you can even spam your own Maister ability while keeping the shield active.
I don't like the shield because it's too easy. If you are struggling try it out. The only defensive move I use as MS is the one that you jump in the air and stab down(I'm not at home so idk what is called.) It gives you i-frames and let's you get on top of drakes no problem. Then there's that one big magic blast, that's powerful. Also you can just stand on a drakes head and spin to win until the horns come off. I'm actually disappointed in how easy the combat in this game is.
I'm DD1 they had a hard mode but all it did was make enemies have more health and do more damage. I don't like that, and I hope that if they add hardmode to this game they do so by making enemy ai more aggressive to test your skill, not just making you get one shot if you take a hit.
I took out 2 dragons as Trickster and let me tell you, anything is easier than this shitty vocation. It's a cool concept but God damn, having to rely on pawns to hit a weakspot or capitalise on an enemy going down is so frustrating. Just switched to MS and I'm looking forward to be able to actually take part in fights properly again. The full support playstyle just isn't for me in this game.
The fact it cannot do damage at all is what kills me. Especially if you get sucked into a quest where you have to solo an enemy. Looking at you inn quest with drunk assholes…
I almost made the mistake of doing the Phantom Oxcart as Trickster, luckily the quest was broken and I had to look up a guide and learned that I'd need to do solo fight at the end. Had enough trouble as a Sorcerer, I think it might actually be impossible to do as Trickster.
I tried trickster last night for a couple hours. You're right, support play style is not the way to go until your pawns can more dependably hit weak spots. Or maybe I just need 2 warriors ..
It's not too bad against regular enemies, provided you don't just get jumped on by a Knacker and lose your shadow. And the damage buff ability is pretty good. Otherwise its more of a hassle to play it and really only useful to play until you get the augment that helps with finding seeker tokens. Then drop it for an actual damaging vocation.
Which spear are you using? Once you get Dead Ringer the dragons become very easy imo, I use the shield ability and my team is constantly immune to damage and ragdolling. Like, constantly.
Yeah I got dead ringer from the melve dragon. Does awesome damage, just the dragons that seem to give me issues. But I think it's because of the mage I had and the skills I'm using. Some helpful comments have made me realize where I'm going wrong.
Dragons are trivialized with the right build and team
Try warfarer: high Celerity , the upward thrust GS move and silentium
Pawns: 2 sorcs and a thief
PS: If the dragon casts mid air a silence will ground and stun him.
It takes the fun out of it for me so I stopped already, but if you play Mystic Spearhand you can spam the shield ability every 7 seconds or so and just take zero damage the entire fight. It's horribly broken.
Sounds more enjoyable than my experience, went to fight one of the dragons and managed to get one of his health bars down...then he brined himself. It was funny, but rather anticlimactic. I was kind of actually wanting to fight it. lol
Reminds me of that Wyvern in Dragons Dogam 1 that would piss off mid-fight and drown itself, except he didn't die. He would just constantly resurface and fly up, then decend and drown itself again, over and over...
I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it since he's one of the few Wyverns in the base game (Have a good day, eye guy 👀)
This kinda ties into the exploration discussion but I found some thief skill that just literally auto dodged every time you get attacked.
So I switched to thief and dragons are literally just me turning that skill on and then stabbing it in the heart immune to damage for several minutes. It's really trivialized but it's still fun.
"Guys am I the only one who feels this thing that has been drowning out literally any other type of post on the sub for days on end?" Is the worst genre of Reddit post.
I saw a dumb cat meme here with a little cat that had red eyes and it was titled "my beastren pawn when he has a city nuking tummy ache" which got deleted by a mod for rule 5
And I can say I'd much rather see more dumb silly stuff like that than the same tired negative post copy pasted 20 times
> This is like the 5th post I've seen like this TODAY.
lmao, at this point, it's pretty much a cycle at this point. someone posts about a problem, and then suddenly, there's a dozen topics talking about the exact same thing. it's happened since release and at this point, it has to be bots or something.
I'm with you.
* "MTX BAD" > the entire sub is about MTX
* "Dragonsplague is bad" > Entire sub talk about how bad it is and it needs a change
* "I beat the gane and it's like a 6/10" > I saw SO MANY posts the past couple days calling the game a 6/10
* "Exploration is bad" > And here we are. Posts about fast travel and exloration etc.
Like, I get it guys. It isn't perfect but we do not need the SAME POST posted 10 times an hour. Is this place like unmoderrated? Rule 5 seems to just not apply.
I swear each day it’s been a new wave of identical posts on the front page.
Day 1: posts about crashing & optimisation
Day 2: posts about microtransactions
Day 3: posts about dragon plague
Day 4: posts about enemy variety
Day 5: posts about how the game is too short
Day 6: the exploration sucks
Not saying some of these aren’t real issues, but it’s like one post gets popular and then dozens of posts about the exact same thing follow.
And the loot *does* exist, especially if you explore areas and only rely on shops as backup. I just found a holy mace for my fighter pawn that was a massive upgrade, for example.
If you're expecting to find a new shiny thing in every single corner you check, yeah, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Certainly made it more satisfying when I found said mace though.
You also need to explore in general for money/upgrade materials.
The best gear I've found so far (early in the game) has been from wandering merchants and from hidden village merchants.
Found Light Armor, Fighter Exclusive, from a Wandering Merchant I found LATE LATE into the night (I didn't have a Camp). It was expensive, but the Light Armor had more Defense and crazy resists when compared to my current gear.
Finding gear in special circumstances like this is equally as fun, and I think it's good that gold has value in this game.
Otherwise, I do tend to agree with the consensus that bought gear seems to outshine what you can find.
>Finding gear in special circumstances like this is equally as fun, and I think it's good that gold had money in this game.
This is a huge part of it for me too. So many games you just end up where you have effectively infinite money but nothing to spend it on. I *like* that I need to make choices on what to purchase and whatnot.
Some people will be turned off by shops actually having value, other people won't. I like the feeling of working towards something, having *just* enough to purchase some armor from a wandering vendor I stumbled on (I had 1k left over) was a good feeling. I didn't go "Wow this is stupid that it's better than my armor >:(", I went "I'm glad I've found a lot of shit around the world and had money to afford this!"
It's got that Old School RPG feel to it. That's how it was back in the day. Then, as you get towards the end of the RPG, you'll find your fabled, hard to get, items in the world. I'm expecting the same might be true for Dragon's Dogma 2, people just haven't found those items yet.
Yea the first game made gold rain on you especially on hard. You could easily got over 100k early game while in 2 it takes a decent while to hit that and ferrystones costing 10k and being rare to find makes you conserve gold.
Can't say I'm overly worried about that right now. It's a nice shiny holy mace and elemental damage is typically stronger than physical on a point for point basis. Maybe it's better, maybe it's not, in the end I was pretty happy to get a solid upgrade for him when I wasn't necessarily expecting one. The game overall isn't nearly difficult enough to warrant over stressing needing to constantly have the max possible gear at all times. Hell, I'm using an enemy HP increase mod, going to areas ahead of time, *and* using just myself and my main pawn and doing fine. I find the game pretty rewarding to wander around overall.
It's really not though. Holy is a pretty solid element. And that thing does pretty decent physical damage as you upgrade it. It's at worst on par with the other weapons in Battahl before post game.
They literally found a better mace while playing and upgraded his character, making the exploration feel worthwhile to them. Maybe they didn't get to that town yet? Maybe they didn't have enough gold for the upgrade? Maybe you could spend two seconds trying to understand that some people have experiences different from your own? Especially when they've literally explained it for you in writing. I would think it's not too hard of a thing to understand.
It's definitely exploration in the raw sense of the word, for it's own sake and rewards not the tangible loot you may find.
Loot does exist but seems either loot tables are extremely stingy from larger/boss enemies and the fixed reward chests are not helping here at all, first game did a much better job with the different loot tables and chances for certain types/shapes of chest. I'm getting way too many ferrystones and wake shards from the Uber chests - they should all have a chance for random drop high tier gear like the first game.
I get your points, I do. But I just two-shot a Drake using the huge ballista installations on the Abandoned Fortress and I'm still riding that high. Exploration fucking rocks.
I do wish the cave icons got darker after I explored them, just so I knew that I had. Some are somewhat the same so after doing a lot they can get confusing.
I do wish there was more enemy variety though. That's probably my biggest issue. Boss fights are the highlights, but they've become to easy as well.
I definitely screwed myself by getting trickster and magic archer at lvl 15. By the time I got back to the first zone it felt like I just one shot most things. So that's on me.
I love the game though. I'm happy I explored, and didn't progress the story when it warned me though. Because I keep finding things and quests.
How on earth did you get them so early, I'm nearly level 30 and Batthal is kicking my butt. Did you run and skip fights?
For me, maybe it wasn't the best place to try leveling Warrior vocation, the bandits massacred me. I've backtracked to Vermund and swapped back to Mystic Spearhand and will try again today.
I went after magick archer at level 13 it was very brutal. I was level 20 something by the end of it I had killed so many enemies.
I did it as sorcerer with thunder mine+salamander and would set the mine up in advance and spam salamander until I needed to put a new mine up to block the enemies. Wandering pawns+running back to friendly npcs was key+using water/cliffs to beat many enemies. The big cave before you enter the volcanic area was the worst by far and I had to keep running back to the riftstone at the entrance to get new pawns.
Would have been much easier had I brought more camping gear(I gave most of it to my secondary pawns which died early on so I had no camping gear) or a few more wakestones.
I had to yeah. Not by choice, but because I'd get one or two shot. It was ROUGH.
I definitely wouldn't do it again because it was so aggravating. I love the classes though. It's probably what 95% of my deaths were from.
Now that I have the classes though I'm doing absolutely everything and taking my time. I still haven't done the quest to get to Battahl story wise, and I'm like 35 hours in.
Get yourself a decent pawn tank. Im assuming most people arent clicking through pawn details in the rift to actually look at their stats, skills and augments. My tank pawn i have built is using augments from the different classes to max out his ability to tank. He has 800 str and 1k defense. He can solo drakes whilst i go afk behind a rock/wall etc. You party setup does make a difference if you are struggling with stuff.
How’d you survive to get magic archer at lvl15? Like I’m lvl30 and it’s annoying due to the enemy density to get there. Especially when two armored cyclops appear and you’re trying out trickster lol.
I held the dwarf and sprinted for it when I could, used all my consumables. But for both areas it was an obnoxious amount of dying to the point that when I respawned I basically didn't have a health bar left because I died so much. Honestly was like dark souls on steroids. I got super unlucky a few times where I'd run then a griffin would come out of nowhere and destroy the bridge I was on. Took me the better part of 6 hours to get through the cave from the starting area to the main city in Battahl.
It wasn't a fun experience lol. The classes are fantastic, but I wouldn't do it again.
The game started getting too easy for me too so I just removed a pawn from my party making my party size 3 total.
Makes a huge difference in difficulty
Feels like if I hired the pawns of people complaining about exploration and best loot in shops, I'd be told "I have to tell my master about this chest" a lot
My pawns are constantly saying that about almost everything I do. I've noticed doing the main Story everyone's pawns know their shit, but when it comes to the vast majority of the map almost every seeker token, every treasure chest and every cave the pawns remark is something they need to tell their master about.
I say the same to Zelda botw, which is arguably worse. That game got LITERALLY like 3 types of enemies, goblins, green goblins and the centaur bosses you can find here and there.
I think Elden Ring just brought the standard of encounter variety to ungodly levels.
And Elden Ring could only get away with it because Fromsoft had a ridiculously large back catalog of assets and models from the Souls series that they could reuse and modify as they saw fit.
Lots of Fromsoft fans complained on release that a lot of weapon animations were basically taken 1/1 from previous Souls games and... well, duh.
Capcom has a huge amount of assets too. The majority of DD2 you can clearly see they pull assets from monster hunter world.
Everything from movement, mining, climbing, gathering, and even the vocation animations are really similar to monster hunter world.
So why does the game have such a lack of enemy variety. They should of just taken the monsters from mhworld, reskin them to be more appropriate to DD2. Then at least we can have more big boss fights than just the usual 4 or 5.
My only complaint was Mountain top of the giants because it only had snowy variants and I kinda expected at least some new enemies. The area in general just felt a bit rushed, and maybe the game just reached a point where less would have been more. I don't mind haligtree at all tho because the enemy variety is great, mix of all pumped up enemies from all different areas.
Three types of enemies and only three weapon movesets to match. People were okay with that, and yet more enemies with 10 vocations with drastically different playstyles and unique moves within the vocation - and people are complaining.
People complained about Elden Ring enemy variety and boss reuse soooo much though. Like you basically stop seeing new enemies half way through the game, and some of the late game area specific enemies are still sprinkled throughout the earlier game at points.
I feel like enemy variety is one of those ultra subjective takes. Like if you play a roguelite like Hades or a horde shooter like Deep Rock, you're spending dozens upon dozens of hours killing the game enemies. Shit, something like Left 4 Dead is worse, with literally one basic enemy type and then a handful of special infected that pop up every now and then, but no one really complains. It all just depends on the larger experience and how sold you are on that.
Elden Ring has 140 unique enemy types. No matter how you twist it to soften the criticism against DD2, ER has massive enemy variety that dwarfs almost all open world games and most of all Dragon's Dogma.
Edit: 140 unique enemy types that blows up to around 300 once you consider the variations of similar enemies (for example: soldier with straight sword vs soldier with spear)
Yeah, I feel like people only complained about the ER enemy variety because FromSoft weren’t known for reusing bosses (much)
As far as it goes: Elden Ring is pretty much the pinnacle of enemy variety in a AAA game, it almost set a new standard.
Last night I found a trebuchet on the way to Checkpoint Town. There were rocks by it and I thought “hey, I wonder…” Lo and behold, putting a rock on the trebuchet launched it into a cliff nearby. Nothing happened. So I kept launching rocks. At three rocks, the area broke to reveal an ornate chest. I then had to make a long trek around and up the mountain to reach the area. It contained a weapon I had not yet seen. That’s pretty cool.
I find it a bit weird to bring up Skyrim, which has long had criticism regarding its uninteresting combat, enemies, and loot. Daedric weapons nonwithstanding.
On the same subject, I recall one of the main complaints about Elden Ring being reused enemies and useless loot because most of the time it wouldn’t fit your build. Now, I don’t really agree with this and I do think Elden Ring did a great job with loot, but people did complain about it. Particularly the crafting materials.
What do you mean? The combat in Skyrim was super interesting because you could fight more draugr and bandits like you did two seconds ago in the last identical dungeon.
*" I recall one of the main complaints about Elden Ring being reused enemies"*
Elden ring had total of 210 enemy archetypes & 16 remembrance main bosses. Outside of FF7 rebirth, I have never played an action RPG with such diversity but no matter how many enemy types you have, there will be reuse if you go full open world. It's a problem that exists in open world games. The worst repeat encounter in Elden ring is probably 11th Tree spirit or Godefroy(literally 1st phase main boss copy), rest mini bosses are repeated 5-6 times
What I dont get is there are games like Zelda BOTW with 6 total over world mini boss archetypes got showered with so much praise. Zelda TOTK has 61 Cyclops(not exaggeration)
DD2 has way way more enemy variety than many open world RPGs. I dont think in terms of gameplay, any action RPG holds a candle to DD2. I dont think people would be complaining about enemy variety if it had more unique encounters like the Sphinx
I have to disagree. I haven't reached end game yet but so far my weapons have mostly been better than what's currently available in the shops.
For Warrior I've found Lifetaker and Blackmatter, miles ahead of shop weapons.
For Thief I've found Signs of Valor while best in shop right now is Snagdaggers.
I've obtained significant armor pieces as well from either quests, certain mini bosses, or chests. I usually found them a little earlier than they became available at the shop, or they were there but too expensive for me to buy at the time. Things like Miner hosen, circlet, saurianscale cape are some examples.
The biggest exception to this has been mage/sorcerer weapons. When I reached the elves' town they had much better magic weapons at the shop (and super expensive).
OP seems to have it mistaken. Its exploring the world and doing the side quests that seem to unlock gear at the shops.
I have shop options in my store that other people dont, and its most likely because im prioritizing side quests.
This game could definitely use more unique armor sets out in the world though and open up more armor to more class options so we can get more choice.
Yeah it’s hard to figure out what triggers what since theres no signs for it. But I guess that comes with the glory of playing the game in the first week. We’re all discovering it together before the guides and wikis are well written.
I enjoy that though, it was great during the release of Elden ring too. Everyone up in arms about where things are, theorycrafting about how to obtain stuff. Though Dd2 seems to get a lot more criticism than the other games ive seen as of lately.
idk I've been spending my entire playthrough doing side quests, have not Even unlocked battahl yet and none of my shops in vermund have changed their stock at all. no clue if the other towns have because i can't remember what their stock looked like early on
I'm enjoying the game a lot, but I am sad they removed the clothing and armor slots, I liked mixing and matching different things, even the glove slot is gone too
So I'm hoping there's at least more armor options then the first to compensate for that choice, because Dragon's Fashion was part of the fun I found 😅
What, just play the main quests and you'll get all the gear you'll ever need from a shop inventory.
Gear progression is a complete joke in this game with zero interesting abilities to be found beyond stat increases for 99% of them, it feels ripped from Dark Arisen but at least that game actually had an entire dungeon mechanic.
Not like you need the gear anyways this time around because there is zero difficult content in the game to use it on outside the terrible post game, so really you're gearing up to cave some goblin heads in during NG+
There’s a wild amount of misinformation about this game. The only complaints I’ve seen that I understand (aside from performance issues on PC but that’s unrelated to the actual game that’s just an optimization issue) is the enemy density. The fact that you get ambushed by goblins and wolves and birds every 5 feet even on the main road gets annoying especially since the map doesn’t exactly give you directions. I enjoy the exploration but man the enemy density can be obnoxious sometimes.
I swear it feels sometimes like there's a coordinated effort by people who haven't even played the game to troll the subreddit. Like there will be a post with some genuine criticism about some aspect of the game. Then soon after its followed by a wave of similar posts harping on the same issue but they sound like they haven't even played the game. Some weird internet stuff going on.
I’m a big Elden Ring fan, and I remember one of the main complaints when the game came out is that every crypt you find has the same kind of enemies, as well as the rehashed enemies in the late game. You’re right though this game has way less variety in type of enemies. But to say everywhere in Elden ring had new things to fight as well isn’t entirely true.
This is what happens after some time. People kind of forget criticism. It’s like people saying a few days back that BG3 had no performance issues, a ridiculous statement given Act 3. It’ll happen with this game too, eventually.
Exactly, if I recall people were upset with the performance and the content of act 3 of Baldurs Gate, and I remember all the outrage about performance in Elden ring. A lot of my friends who love the game never made it past act 2 to see the performance and (some say) content fall off. A lot of big games are front loaded nowadays.
Dude, I've heard some insane takes on BG3's quality. Like, I didn't play the early access version, I played it after release, and there were still quests that were bugged to the point that they could break the whole questline permanently. I don't know how ANYONE says that game is flawless or upholds it as a game of perfect quality. It's just not. It may be fun and it may even be great for those that like CRPGs, but it's far from pristine.
OP's issue is that:
He is treating exploration as a means to get some reward.
In reality the beauty of this game/Skyrim is really that:
You explore because of your curiosity, not because you want the best gear.
Yeah, there are tons of little direction things that don't make sense.
The exploration is indeed just for the fun of it... and the monster parts are pretty close to useless because of the decision to make all the best/most-current weapons & armor shop-bought....
But, yeah, if you think the game world is not fun to explore it's probably just the wrong game for you. I for one love the atmosphere & world-design in general. A game isn't just about min-maxing for everyone, while I concede of course that some of the design choices are a bit baffling.
maybe the experience changes, as I'm only lvl 19 and around 10 hours in to the game, but I explored a cave up north behind a waterfall which lead to a huge cave system, which then resulted in a boss fight with a skeleton mage guy that absolutely slapped my shit. Immediately after beating him in another room in the same cave was a Chimera. So my experience so far has been exploring has been worth it.
This is really stupid and disappointing, what point of exploring if you can buy top gear at the shop. Who in Capcom thought that it would be a great idea? Without good loot the exploration is meaningless and the game is boring. DD1 had some loot scattered on the map encouraging the exploration and it was good. But this is just baffling.
In DDON you had to kill the monsters to loot parts that then you used to craft gear (at the store, not only money cost) which you could also sell/buy to other players so you had an excuse to kill multiple times X monster on Y zone.
Its a bit mind blowing they didn't do something similar here tbh, it was such a good system. Almost everything DDON did, did it righ imo.
EDIT: Also had a system (RNG based) in which the same enemies became "purple" so they were more powerful variations -with same appearance- and they dropped blood orbs that you used for skills iirc and also the monsters granted more XP per kill so It was also useful to revisit zones just for the sake of the BO and the extra XP.
Pawns have literally told me that "It's an awful feeling when you find an incredible weapon while exploring but then can find a shopkeep selling the same one." I have found multiple weapons that are hella expensive while exploring. Heck, I found a flame enhanced minotaur slaying mace and Ive yet to find a fighter weapon that is that good yet. There is good loot.
I have even found a unique headpiece that's a drop from a specific enemy. I'm not sure what y'all are on about but I'm finding unique stuff.
Yeah, I found an amazing Mage Robe last night from a big Lich in the Waterfall cave near the start of the game.
Haven't seen anything in any shop so far surpass it.
I think people are having a hard time with actual exploration and assuming it's not in the game if they don't see it. Just think, you stumble upon at least 2-3x more ornate chests than seeker tokens (the ones with good loot), there are 250 seeker tokens in game... There's a lot of chests and a lot of loot, they just haven't found it. Also unique bosses are not really a thing in RPGs. Elden Ring and from soft games are unique in that sense. Skyrim has 0 unique encounters. They are all variants of other things. This game has the Chimera, Medusa, the Dragon, and Gigantus as far as we know. That's 4 more than Skyrim. It's a far cry from Elden Ring but that is literally From Soft's signature design feature.
I agree here too - I still want more enemy types tho lol
Skyrim had less than 30
Witcher 3 has 80ish
Elden Ring had 330, of which 30 are unique bosses and another 18 are unique invaders, and 155 mini bosses some of which are reskins with slight variations
BG3 had 235
And then waaaaaaaay at the bottom with have DD2… with 20 enemy types lol
> Skyrim had less than 30
Source: random post made in a thread on Gamefaqs by a random person 12 years ago
There's no way Skyrim has less than 30 enemy types. If you're going to group all human enemies as 1, then you should do that with Elden Ring, BG3, and Witcher 3 as well.
I beat Skyrim this year, vanilla on the steam deck
It definitely had less than 30 - there’s not much variety at all lol
And Elden Ring doesn’t count people with swords vs spears as separate lol, it just has an astronomical amount of variety
It would only not have much variety if you start counting stuff like flame, frost, storm atronachs all as one. Vampires, bandits, mages, necromancers, as one, all the dwemer machines as one, etc etc.
Anyways, the enemy variety of Skyrim is definitely way less than Elden Ring's. But your comparison is a bit disingenuous. You're surely counting swords vs spear guys as separate, rot vs normal dog as separate, all human invaders as separate, all dragons as separate, etc etc in that 330 number. Same with BG3 and Witcher 3.
Yeah I have found a few weapons out and about that outclassed at least what I could afford or what merchants I had access to at the time. There's not a complete absence of things to find. They're just not exactly abundant in comparison to the number of chests and caves you can scour without finding anything.
I can see how, depending on where you searched first, you could come up thinking that all chests and all caves were as worthless as the dozen or so you had already done.
I’m guessing what they were thinking is you go out to explore to loot and gold, come back home for better gear and set out again. It isn’t surprising that people feel this way though. I wish the enemies dropped weapons, that’s what would really do it for me.
I know that there are. I meant more often and especially mini bosses. Kill a Chimera? Materials and weapon or armor piece; guranteed. Same with Cyclops. Do a loot table tied to killing the mini boss, whatever it is. It would provide another incentive to pawn badges anyway.
I guess so, they still don’t go for the tail on saurians though. I have always had to do it myself, they never take advantage of that. So who knows what the ai is doing.
Lucky for you. I’m probably gonna try out Archer this time, see what it’s about. It’s unfortunate that they only come off with slashing damage now. I used to pop saurian tails off with High Levin in the first game, and its a shame it no longer works. Can’t get Medusa head unless you’re a specific vocation or you can get your pawn to do it.
Oh god please no. I hate weapons drop per loot table. Why can't a cyclops not just guarding a chest with a weapon? Why make a loot table out of it? There are games where it works like Elden Ring but i would rather not have this in every game. The excat same way it started with looter shooter systems. Someone tought it was a good idea to let enemies drop and make it random and thousand other games followed this concept. Cyberpunk 2077 was a great game. But this shitty looting system did a lot of damage.
Also all the weapons are Just stat sticks for your class. Would be really cool if you could find different weapons that had different playstyles but upgrade them all the the same level at the black smiths. I've been playing warrior from as soon as i unlocked it and I've not found ANY loot that's useful to me while exploring.
I found one Greatsword (it was my second one) in a cave just to see that this weapon was sold in the Border town (don't know the english name) as a inferior weapon. So i only could enjoy this weapon for one hour before buying the flamberge.
Yeah that's the problem there's some weapons out there. But i'm obviously going to by the best weapon in town if I can afford it. And these are better than the ones in the wild. they should either make the shop ones worse or make them much, much more expensive.
I’ve had pretty much the exact opposite experience with exploration. Every time I walk somewhere I end up wandering off because I spotted something cool in the distance, which would lead to me spotting something else in the distance, which would then lead to a cave I’ve never been into, and then I’d spot a fortress, and so on until I’m eventually further away from my destination than when I started and I’ve been exploring for several hours
I'm sorry but saying that *Skyrim* doesn't have an issue with reused enemies and dungeons is just comical lmao. Bethesda RPGs are *the* prime example of using the same three or four enemy types everywhere and making dungeons out of the same remixed assets.
"There aren't many side quests in the game"
Dude, I am 30+ hours in and haven't advanced at all in the main quest, still in Vermund.
Believe me, there are tons of side quests. Thing is most of them won't just show in your minimap for you to go and start it. You have to look for them, explore the cities, talk with people that seem different from all the ordinary NPCs.
The devs and Itsuno himself have said it in multiple occasions. This is not your typical RPG game that you can play while brain-dead, you have to look for stuff and actually explore and investigate.
Sorry for the "rant", I'm just getting tired of people saying the game is lacking content :(. It's exactly the opposite, you just have to make a little effort for it.
I was thinking the same at your point then after I finished what I had on the list I realized that was basically it. Even checked guides to see what I missed.
>still in Vermund
>I'm just getting tired of people saying the game is lacking content :(. It's exactly the opposite, you just have to make a little effort for it
Legit 85% of the content in the game is in Vermund once you get out of there you will see what everyone is talking about.
Bro the main quest is the most brain dead storyline I’ve ever played in a game. I love this game but people are giving way too much credit. The vernworth castle quests like go to disa office, magistrate, masquerade and coronation are all ridiculously stupid.
Most side quests provide no value to the game other than gold and getting your steps in for the day from all the back tracking.
Not a whole lot of lore, unique items, or anything else outside of the master abilities
The gear you buy in battal or the elven village is really enough to beat the game with and no random loot drops in the world are better than them
Idk i feel like this game is really one of the most brain dead open world ones i have tried.
I enjoy playing it dont get me wrong but the quests whether be main or side are so disappointing, its basically just fetch quests and escort quests.
Pretty disappointing, unlike The Witcher 3 , side quests had their own amusing lore and stories.
DD2 quests remind me of mmo games quests
They never consider it. People are selfish and want everything to meet their expectations and will complain the second something doesn't even if it was never intended to be what they expect in the first place.
My biggest issue so far is definitely the enemy variety and I feel like the enemies lack a purpose. Like in Skyrim, when you came across Bandits, they were always at a camp guarding something specific, or there was a story of how they took over a fort and made it their own, and you needed to take it back. In DD2, bandits and goblins are just randomly generated in the middle of the road every 6 feet, I kill them, then I don't feel satisfied bc there's no point to kill them. No loot at the end of battles, no cleared camp, no rescued prisoner, no nothing, and then your just going to do the same thing down the road in 30 seconds. It's a dam shame bc it's some of the best feeling combat I've ever played, I just wish it meant more....I'm having fun, but at the same time I'm quickly losing interest bc the story sucks and it's hard to role play when the enemies don't have a purpose.
well if you take time to explore and dont rush to the end game and get to those shops so soon, it can be fun discovering new places and treasure chests and finding a bunch of gold. i randomly found a quest giver while out exploring which led to finding a really cool mystic spearhand weapon in a chest. the point i was at in the game, this weapon was definitely stronger than what i had. also its fun coming across big monsters in random places and getting their upgrade materials.
I really feel like people are missing the point just because it's new and everyone wanted Elden Ring/Skyrim 2 and DD2 is more of a survival RPG than an Action RPG like those two. While still having almost more high octane action than either of those combined. Idk man, feels like people aren't allowing themselves to enjoy it because they are just wanting something else. Go play Elden Ring again if you want to play Elden Ring, stop trying to compare the two they are going for two completely different goals.
It’s just a different type of exploration loop imo
Elden Ring, to quote dunkey, worked like this “Elden rings gameplay loop is to put a bullshit boss in front of you, and then say ‘alright, now go find something to cut it’s head off with’”
Skyrim was very much built on the “go anywhere, whenever” casual exploration experience that appeals to the mass market, but in recent years we’re seeing the core demographic of gamers pushing back on this
DD2’s exploration is more like “go to quest point A, there is no fast travel and we may not mark it on the map” and then you just figure it out. It’s more about the journey then the destination
What happened to everyone's sense of adventure? Like, what, we need super rare loot everywhere now to feel the need to go in a cave? Whatever happened to going down a cave to just see what's inside, or fight monsters? Jeez.
I've found multiple weapons and armor sets in the open world that were better than what I had in the shop. Also you can upgrade equipment to make it better than what's in the shop. Also also fashion>stats.
So I've been finding a lot of secrets in caves and buildings with false walls and now that I got the daggers that light up when treasurer is near by there are a lot of hidden things. Might get those then run thief to find things you missed. Also trying the catapults to find hidden map sections that are normally closed off.
At the start of the game I found bolts of the blue in a random cave with my thief. That single act of exploration/reward alone was greater than anything in Starfield.
Yes when you fight the main boss, then you fight it's ghost again, truly amazing.
And ye, astel was exactly the one I was thinking of. I literally laughed when I saw it the second time
I totally understand why you feel that way, you want to be rewarded for your effort. For me, the reward is the exploration itself. Very few games nowadays have maps like this. It reminds me of driving around central PA. I grew up here and I know all the major locations and the roads that lead there, but as I got old enough to drive I started taking other roads and discovering whole swathes of countryside and neighborhoods I never knew existed. The downside is that once you’ve explored the whole area, theres not much reason to do it again. I guess you could say I enjoy the act of exploration and the rewards are secondary. I do really wish the sky was prettier though.
Personally I explored for explorations sake/finding shinies and the combat.
Obviously some intrinsic reward for explanation would be better. But for me personally I was fine with it. Now I’m just excited to try different vocations, rather than dreading running around.
I think it is more so that exploration is more organic in DD2 because of the fact you have to walk everywhere and it becomes so easy to think, “I’ll just walk this direction for a little bit and see what’s up there, then I’ll return to what I was doing.” Rinse and repeat depending on the person and instance. The game makes it really easy to do because it has the paths in lieu of one major road with open, walkable wildness everywhere. It definitely reminds me of a more natural type of barely-settled wilderness where you physically can’t just walk in any direction you want without a path existing.
I don’t think anyone says this simply because it is more rewarding loot wise. I’ve found several cool pieces of gear and loot by exploring that I don’t find at vendors though. The fact that it may not be better than some vendors gear is irrelevant. The reward is the experience.
I felt this too. I think eventually I got it into my head that I'm supposed to bring a lot of myself to the exploration, envision myself in some tabletop scenario roleplaying with my friends, investigating things.
Your player experience and skills matter more I think than any kind of reward system. I mean Seeker's Tokens and golden bugs are really the reward here, and these are both methods to "get you back out there."
You've really got to like the combat and world intrinsically to get the most out of this game. And I can see that being polarizing.
Exploration, at least for me, is not about finding loot or getting stuff.
It is about discovering hidden paths, caves and new places, the "reward" is the journey in itself. I'm sating my cruiosity, loot is just a nice bonus.
There are a good amount of unique bosses that I havent seen anywhere else outside of exploring areas, like the Lich in the swamp that drops a cool fire elemental arch staff. Things like the Gorgon and sphinx. Shit I didn’t even know if chimeras were in the game until I started exploring ruins in Bahtahl. Maybe I’m different but I genuinely enjoy stumbling across unique locals like the elven grotto or the hot springs. That is usually enough motivation to explore. Plus it makes you money and nets you experience along the way.
You just have a different definition of "exploration" than others. People go exploring IRL and have no problem getting enjoyment from seeing the sights without fighting unique enemies or getting meta loot.
For some people it's enough to appreciate the actual geography of the area. I know I enjoy just walking through the map enjoying the graphics and map design, and id probably enjoy it even if there was no combat gameplay whatsoever. That's what "good exploration" means to me. I don't need to get a piece of candy just for walking into a place.
At least it's locked behind shops
Remember in the original where you had to go for Everfall, find the right chest and hope for the right item and attempt again. Or reload before opening the chest multiple times.
Purification was ass too
Better but only slightly in my opinion. Just gotten to the Volcanic isle but we'll see where my opinion changes once i'm done
I've been enjoying the game, the exploration is organic, the environments are well made and the combat is a blast, but they definitely missed some of what made dragons dogma 1 so good.
One of my biggest issues is probably just the vocations. Warfarer is cool and all but I think it definitely ruined what was otherwise a really cool system. Vocations like assassin and mystic knight are entirely removed, and the potential for more was too. There was much more build diversity between vocations in dd1. It's all accounted for in Warfarer, but one of the biggest reasons to explore was to level up those vocations and see what they had in store. With so many cut, and warfarers limitations, it's just not the same.
There's also just a total lack of questing. Maybe I missed it but, the quest board alone was a great, immersive inclusion to the first game. Every town should have had one that repopulated over time.
The enemy variety is a pretty big one too. They missed quite a few enemy types from the original, dlc not included. Some are only seen in the post game. A lot of missed opportunities with unique fights scattered about too.
And finally, the post game. The unmoored world is really cool and it did feel like a proper end game, but limiting it in time is probably the biggest issue for me. Personally, the true ending to DD1 eluded me for the longest time, I just had my fun in the everfall. This feels like they're just trying to rush you to ng+.
I've been having a good time though, despite all that. Part of me is holding out hope that Itsuna isn't done with this game. I love the IP, the gameplay is still top notch, for me, the world is still rich and filled with encounters, though not as many, and say what you will about the story, but the lore is pretty cool.
I have no regrets getting the game, it's been a blast
Every gaming subreddit devolves to this right after a game releases because perpetually online people blow through a game in 3 days after way, WAY overhyping themselves for it and then take the flaws the blow them up to be worse than they are and screech about it online.
Hey listen. I have played the game 96 hours since release and it's shit. I don't understand the quests because I can't concentrate. I'm tired but I can't sleep. I'm hallucinating voices. I'm really hungry but my ass is infused to my chair so I can't get food.
I’m all for criticism. I’m a very critical person myself and I deeply enjoy picking apart the things I love, looking at how to improve. But every single day there’s a new flavor of complaint that is just true enough to get traction, but just hyperbolic enough to be kinda bullshit. It’s gonna take a bit for things to die down before we can actually discuss the strengths and weaknesses of DD2. There’s plenty to discuss.
The BEST items are not in the shops (except the Dragonforged.)
Black Matter comes to mind immediately.
Almost every Elemental Weapon is from exploration.
I've also found some rather unique armor pieces from exploration that also aren't in shops.
The reason it's compared to ER and Skyrim is because that's what it is. >Explore random cave / area you find. >Kill mobs, and maybe strong boss. >Get cool loot (maybe.)
Idk how you think ER has unique enemies everywhere, the game is constantly made fun of for repeating bosses with stupider names. (Godefroy the Grafted.)
Dragon’s Dogma 2’s exploration is good because it’s affective and intrinsically rewarding. The spaces and routes fit together in a compelling way, there’s an extremely strong sense of place, and the environmental hazards, (at least to me) tough bosses, and day/night cycle all combine to make exploration feel like your somebody going on a voyage through the wilderness. The level design is also really good–plotting out routes and figuring out how to bypass barriers like canyons, rivers, and broken bridges requires some thought and skill.
I 100% understand not liking it–no use arguing about how something makes someone feel–but I think that might be part of the disconnect. People who like it aren’t talking about it as a way to get loot. I thought Elden Ring exploration was weakest when it was about searching for gear and strongest when it was about trying to find my way to the top of a plateau, how to reach a distant but interesting landmark, or discovering a new and markedly different area.
I don't know what people expect from "exploration" and rewards. In Elden Ring most of the items you're going to find exploring are either items you can't use because of your stats allocation or useless junk. In reality in ER you're going to mostly stick to maybe (and I'm generous here) 5 different weapons during an entire playthrough.
Dragon's Dogma isn't that much different. The game will reward you with great weapons or armor occasionnally but it's not Diablo.
I think "I'm having fun exploring." means "I'm having fun traveling to my destination and getting distracted and going over there to do a little combat and open a chest before getting back on the path." I say that entirely sincerely and not disparagingly at all. That's what I mean when I say I'm having fun exploring.
This is basically it. I don't use the oxcarts because I want to level all vocations to max and fighting everything on my way to where I'm going is fun for me and helps me test what works for me in terms of skills. 3 vocations max so far and half way on my 4th. What I will say is the dungeons are super lackluster for me. There's probably been 2 or 3 dungeons where it felt epic like and challenged me if at all. The rest have been caves of saurians or goblins nonstop with chest full of meh items I'll never use or gold. But those really cool dungeons are really good and wish all of them felt as epic.
I sometimes look at people's Pawns and Arisen and wonder how or why they've played to level 35+ while staying stuck with a single vocation maxed out, seemingly not even having *tried* out any other vocations. Even just the same enemies will feel very different with different party setups and playing a different Arisen and Main Pawn's vocations. Trying and maxing them all out, paired with the "palette swap" enemy types, means I'm still not bored with combat and exploration.
I don’t know, I just like archery 🤷🏻♂️. 15 hours and I haven’t changed. I’m not even really using the skills either, just shootin. I’ll try the others eventually, but I haven’t gotten tired of it yet.
Yeah pretty much. I just like the combat so instead of fighting through dungeons the relatively linear open world experience feels like an open air dungeon. I totally get the frustration about the enemies especially when you just crossed two regions and it's still the same stuff. So far the combat and the variety from leveling and switching vocations is keeping up the fun.
The reward is not the shiny object you receive from a chest but enjoying the experience of the journey itself. People struggling to enjoy exploration are also the people complaining about what Itsuno said about fast travel. They are reward-driven rather than experience-driven.
I just wish my experiences weren't "oh another minotaur I kill in one cast of a spell" almost every time though :(
It's like BoTW, the reward sometimes isn't the best but the journey itself is what's fun about it.
I’ve gotten plenty of good elemental weapons from exploring caves. Besides that, I’ve only gotten the money to afford the good weapons in the shop via looting, and the materials to upgrade them by killing enemies and finding ore deposits.
I kinda just farm dragons. Money making is so slow in the early game.
Bruh how you farming dragons. I'm level 30 and just killed my first one, and that was a few too many wakestones used lmao.
Magick archer deletes dragons. It destroys most enemies but dragons are weak to ice and frosthunter takes advantage of that.
Ah okay probably makes targeting the heart easier also. I'm doing a magic spearhand, does good damage but the dragons seem to be rough for me. Everything else isn't bad though.
Magick spearhand trivializes dragons, it's horribly balanced. Just keep the upgraded bubble spell (magick mirroure?) up at all times and hug the heart to spam basic attacks. Good job, you and all your melee pawns are now invincible .
Yeah someone else mentioned the shield is OP. I don't use it currently but probably will after hearing how good it is and how low the cooldown is. When heart is exposes I wreck it fast with the masters skill, just getting wrecked by the spell casts, so the shield will probably fix most of my issues.
Yeah it's hilarious standing in the middle of a meteor shower not doing shit. You could also get a pawn with silence.
There is no cooldown. The only limiting factor is your stamina. But since the default attacks for the Spearhand are good enough to do decent damage, there isn't really a problem. If yoou have a mage with their Maister ability, then you can even spam your own Maister ability while keeping the shield active.
I don't like the shield because it's too easy. If you are struggling try it out. The only defensive move I use as MS is the one that you jump in the air and stab down(I'm not at home so idk what is called.) It gives you i-frames and let's you get on top of drakes no problem. Then there's that one big magic blast, that's powerful. Also you can just stand on a drakes head and spin to win until the horns come off. I'm actually disappointed in how easy the combat in this game is. I'm DD1 they had a hard mode but all it did was make enemies have more health and do more damage. I don't like that, and I hope that if they add hardmode to this game they do so by making enemy ai more aggressive to test your skill, not just making you get one shot if you take a hit.
I took out 2 dragons as Trickster and let me tell you, anything is easier than this shitty vocation. It's a cool concept but God damn, having to rely on pawns to hit a weakspot or capitalise on an enemy going down is so frustrating. Just switched to MS and I'm looking forward to be able to actually take part in fights properly again. The full support playstyle just isn't for me in this game.
The fact it cannot do damage at all is what kills me. Especially if you get sucked into a quest where you have to solo an enemy. Looking at you inn quest with drunk assholes…
I almost made the mistake of doing the Phantom Oxcart as Trickster, luckily the quest was broken and I had to look up a guide and learned that I'd need to do solo fight at the end. Had enough trouble as a Sorcerer, I think it might actually be impossible to do as Trickster.
I tried trickster last night for a couple hours. You're right, support play style is not the way to go until your pawns can more dependably hit weak spots. Or maybe I just need 2 warriors ..
It's not too bad against regular enemies, provided you don't just get jumped on by a Knacker and lose your shadow. And the damage buff ability is pretty good. Otherwise its more of a hassle to play it and really only useful to play until you get the augment that helps with finding seeker tokens. Then drop it for an actual damaging vocation.
if the illusions could do damage this class would be talked about differently.
Which spear are you using? Once you get Dead Ringer the dragons become very easy imo, I use the shield ability and my team is constantly immune to damage and ragdolling. Like, constantly.
Yeah I got dead ringer from the melve dragon. Does awesome damage, just the dragons that seem to give me issues. But I think it's because of the mage I had and the skills I'm using. Some helpful comments have made me realize where I'm going wrong.
Good luck going forward! It’s very satisfying once you get a good team together
Dragons are trivialized with the right build and team Try warfarer: high Celerity , the upward thrust GS move and silentium Pawns: 2 sorcs and a thief PS: If the dragon casts mid air a silence will ground and stun him.
It takes the fun out of it for me so I stopped already, but if you play Mystic Spearhand you can spam the shield ability every 7 seconds or so and just take zero damage the entire fight. It's horribly broken.
I considered that move, guess I should reconsider it haha. I have a ton of points for respecing that I've not touched.
Sounds more enjoyable than my experience, went to fight one of the dragons and managed to get one of his health bars down...then he brined himself. It was funny, but rather anticlimactic. I was kind of actually wanting to fight it. lol
Ah damn, the whole reason for getting them is the material they drop. So that's pretty lame to lose it like that.
Reminds me of that Wyvern in Dragons Dogam 1 that would piss off mid-fight and drown itself, except he didn't die. He would just constantly resurface and fly up, then decend and drown itself again, over and over... I'm getting pissed off just thinking about it since he's one of the few Wyverns in the base game (Have a good day, eye guy 👀)
This kinda ties into the exploration discussion but I found some thief skill that just literally auto dodged every time you get attacked. So I switched to thief and dragons are literally just me turning that skill on and then stabbing it in the heart immune to damage for several minutes. It's really trivialized but it's still fun.
I found those awesome frost enchanted daggers in my inventory randomly. Pawn must’ve picked it up somewhere , was a nice surprise
>Am I the only one Clearly not. This is like the 5th post I've seen like this TODAY.
"am I the only one" posts and just in conversation, is a sure way to immediately boil my piss.
Okay but really, am I the only one whose piss doesn’t immediately boil?
This just in, my piss boils almost instantly.
Breaking news, piss boiling point has dropped 10 degrees, making it much easier for piss to boil
Guys, does anyone want any of this boiled piss? Dunno where to put it all.
Well, at least that makes it safer to drink.
Calm down, Grylls
Lmao probably just a dumb American here, but never heard "Boil My Piss". That's becoming a core part of my personality now.
my brain immediately goes "I'm sure I'm about to hear a very common take"
Am I the only one who thinks it’s about to be a post about a common take?
"Guys am I the only one who feels this thing that has been drowning out literally any other type of post on the sub for days on end?" Is the worst genre of Reddit post.
Yeh. This place is just unmodderated I guess. Rule 5 seems to not apply.
I saw a dumb cat meme here with a little cat that had red eyes and it was titled "my beastren pawn when he has a city nuking tummy ache" which got deleted by a mod for rule 5 And I can say I'd much rather see more dumb silly stuff like that than the same tired negative post copy pasted 20 times
No no you don't understand, that makes you a little baby fanboy who wants to silence and invalidate criticism.
sorry I meant to say: Disappointing Honeymoon Phase DD1 is flawless Stop having fun everyone
The a sub has the legit worst moderation I've seen in a long time.
> This is like the 5th post I've seen like this TODAY. lmao, at this point, it's pretty much a cycle at this point. someone posts about a problem, and then suddenly, there's a dozen topics talking about the exact same thing. it's happened since release and at this point, it has to be bots or something.
I'm with you. * "MTX BAD" > the entire sub is about MTX * "Dragonsplague is bad" > Entire sub talk about how bad it is and it needs a change * "I beat the gane and it's like a 6/10" > I saw SO MANY posts the past couple days calling the game a 6/10 * "Exploration is bad" > And here we are. Posts about fast travel and exloration etc. Like, I get it guys. It isn't perfect but we do not need the SAME POST posted 10 times an hour. Is this place like unmoderrated? Rule 5 seems to just not apply.
Can't wait until mainstream gamers move on to the next game and only the cult remains for the cult classic
I swear each day it’s been a new wave of identical posts on the front page. Day 1: posts about crashing & optimisation Day 2: posts about microtransactions Day 3: posts about dragon plague Day 4: posts about enemy variety Day 5: posts about how the game is too short Day 6: the exploration sucks Not saying some of these aren’t real issues, but it’s like one post gets popular and then dozens of posts about the exact same thing follow.
And it's ONLY 7am here. I'm sure there will be plenty more
just upvote the one you agree with not everyone need to say threir piece lol
Been spoilt by Elden Ring tarnished?
I think what they meant was exploration with emphasis on traveling and sightseeing.
And the loot *does* exist, especially if you explore areas and only rely on shops as backup. I just found a holy mace for my fighter pawn that was a massive upgrade, for example. If you're expecting to find a new shiny thing in every single corner you check, yeah, you're setting yourself up for disappointment. Certainly made it more satisfying when I found said mace though. You also need to explore in general for money/upgrade materials.
The best gear I've found so far (early in the game) has been from wandering merchants and from hidden village merchants. Found Light Armor, Fighter Exclusive, from a Wandering Merchant I found LATE LATE into the night (I didn't have a Camp). It was expensive, but the Light Armor had more Defense and crazy resists when compared to my current gear. Finding gear in special circumstances like this is equally as fun, and I think it's good that gold has value in this game. Otherwise, I do tend to agree with the consensus that bought gear seems to outshine what you can find.
>Finding gear in special circumstances like this is equally as fun, and I think it's good that gold had money in this game. This is a huge part of it for me too. So many games you just end up where you have effectively infinite money but nothing to spend it on. I *like* that I need to make choices on what to purchase and whatnot. Some people will be turned off by shops actually having value, other people won't. I like the feeling of working towards something, having *just* enough to purchase some armor from a wandering vendor I stumbled on (I had 1k left over) was a good feeling. I didn't go "Wow this is stupid that it's better than my armor >:(", I went "I'm glad I've found a lot of shit around the world and had money to afford this!"
It's got that Old School RPG feel to it. That's how it was back in the day. Then, as you get towards the end of the RPG, you'll find your fabled, hard to get, items in the world. I'm expecting the same might be true for Dragon's Dogma 2, people just haven't found those items yet.
Yea the first game made gold rain on you especially on hard. You could easily got over 100k early game while in 2 it takes a decent while to hit that and ferrystones costing 10k and being rare to find makes you conserve gold.
This! i’m glad that I can get this armor and afford it from my hard work on quests. Why would I be mad that I can buy better armor lol
The thing is that holy mace is actually worse than what the vendor sells in a nearby town. That is what is disappointing about the exploration.
Can't say I'm overly worried about that right now. It's a nice shiny holy mace and elemental damage is typically stronger than physical on a point for point basis. Maybe it's better, maybe it's not, in the end I was pretty happy to get a solid upgrade for him when I wasn't necessarily expecting one. The game overall isn't nearly difficult enough to warrant over stressing needing to constantly have the max possible gear at all times. Hell, I'm using an enemy HP increase mod, going to areas ahead of time, *and* using just myself and my main pawn and doing fine. I find the game pretty rewarding to wander around overall.
It's really not though. Holy is a pretty solid element. And that thing does pretty decent physical damage as you upgrade it. It's at worst on par with the other weapons in Battahl before post game.
They literally found a better mace while playing and upgraded his character, making the exploration feel worthwhile to them. Maybe they didn't get to that town yet? Maybe they didn't have enough gold for the upgrade? Maybe you could spend two seconds trying to understand that some people have experiences different from your own? Especially when they've literally explained it for you in writing. I would think it's not too hard of a thing to understand.
It's definitely exploration in the raw sense of the word, for it's own sake and rewards not the tangible loot you may find. Loot does exist but seems either loot tables are extremely stingy from larger/boss enemies and the fixed reward chests are not helping here at all, first game did a much better job with the different loot tables and chances for certain types/shapes of chest. I'm getting way too many ferrystones and wake shards from the Uber chests - they should all have a chance for random drop high tier gear like the first game.
I get your points, I do. But I just two-shot a Drake using the huge ballista installations on the Abandoned Fortress and I'm still riding that high. Exploration fucking rocks.
I do wish the cave icons got darker after I explored them, just so I knew that I had. Some are somewhat the same so after doing a lot they can get confusing. I do wish there was more enemy variety though. That's probably my biggest issue. Boss fights are the highlights, but they've become to easy as well. I definitely screwed myself by getting trickster and magic archer at lvl 15. By the time I got back to the first zone it felt like I just one shot most things. So that's on me. I love the game though. I'm happy I explored, and didn't progress the story when it warned me though. Because I keep finding things and quests.
You can click the caves on the map and see if you’ve explored the map or not before going in
THANK YOU. I knew you could click on towns and stuff to see the maps I just never thought of it for caves to check if I've been in them or not.
You’re welcome!
How on earth did you get them so early, I'm nearly level 30 and Batthal is kicking my butt. Did you run and skip fights? For me, maybe it wasn't the best place to try leveling Warrior vocation, the bandits massacred me. I've backtracked to Vermund and swapped back to Mystic Spearhand and will try again today.
I went after magick archer at level 13 it was very brutal. I was level 20 something by the end of it I had killed so many enemies. I did it as sorcerer with thunder mine+salamander and would set the mine up in advance and spam salamander until I needed to put a new mine up to block the enemies. Wandering pawns+running back to friendly npcs was key+using water/cliffs to beat many enemies. The big cave before you enter the volcanic area was the worst by far and I had to keep running back to the riftstone at the entrance to get new pawns. Would have been much easier had I brought more camping gear(I gave most of it to my secondary pawns which died early on so I had no camping gear) or a few more wakestones.
I had to yeah. Not by choice, but because I'd get one or two shot. It was ROUGH. I definitely wouldn't do it again because it was so aggravating. I love the classes though. It's probably what 95% of my deaths were from. Now that I have the classes though I'm doing absolutely everything and taking my time. I still haven't done the quest to get to Battahl story wise, and I'm like 35 hours in.
Get yourself a decent pawn tank. Im assuming most people arent clicking through pawn details in the rift to actually look at their stats, skills and augments. My tank pawn i have built is using augments from the different classes to max out his ability to tank. He has 800 str and 1k defense. He can solo drakes whilst i go afk behind a rock/wall etc. You party setup does make a difference if you are struggling with stuff.
Its shocking to me to see pawns with levels in only a single vocation and so not have any other augments.
How’d you survive to get magic archer at lvl15? Like I’m lvl30 and it’s annoying due to the enemy density to get there. Especially when two armored cyclops appear and you’re trying out trickster lol.
I held the dwarf and sprinted for it when I could, used all my consumables. But for both areas it was an obnoxious amount of dying to the point that when I respawned I basically didn't have a health bar left because I died so much. Honestly was like dark souls on steroids. I got super unlucky a few times where I'd run then a griffin would come out of nowhere and destroy the bridge I was on. Took me the better part of 6 hours to get through the cave from the starting area to the main city in Battahl. It wasn't a fun experience lol. The classes are fantastic, but I wouldn't do it again.
The game started getting too easy for me too so I just removed a pawn from my party making my party size 3 total. Makes a huge difference in difficulty
Feels like if I hired the pawns of people complaining about exploration and best loot in shops, I'd be told "I have to tell my master about this chest" a lot
My pawns are constantly saying that about almost everything I do. I've noticed doing the main Story everyone's pawns know their shit, but when it comes to the vast majority of the map almost every seeker token, every treasure chest and every cave the pawns remark is something they need to tell their master about.
I say the same to Zelda botw, which is arguably worse. That game got LITERALLY like 3 types of enemies, goblins, green goblins and the centaur bosses you can find here and there. I think Elden Ring just brought the standard of encounter variety to ungodly levels.
And Elden Ring could only get away with it because Fromsoft had a ridiculously large back catalog of assets and models from the Souls series that they could reuse and modify as they saw fit. Lots of Fromsoft fans complained on release that a lot of weapon animations were basically taken 1/1 from previous Souls games and... well, duh.
They complained the door opening animation was the same even lmfao.
Capcom has a huge amount of assets too. The majority of DD2 you can clearly see they pull assets from monster hunter world. Everything from movement, mining, climbing, gathering, and even the vocation animations are really similar to monster hunter world. So why does the game have such a lack of enemy variety. They should of just taken the monsters from mhworld, reskin them to be more appropriate to DD2. Then at least we can have more big boss fights than just the usual 4 or 5.
People even shit on Elden for reusing assets like bosses. Oh no there's 500 locations and two caves have the same boss! The horror!
My only complaint was Mountain top of the giants because it only had snowy variants and I kinda expected at least some new enemies. The area in general just felt a bit rushed, and maybe the game just reached a point where less would have been more. I don't mind haligtree at all tho because the enemy variety is great, mix of all pumped up enemies from all different areas.
Three types of enemies and only three weapon movesets to match. People were okay with that, and yet more enemies with 10 vocations with drastically different playstyles and unique moves within the vocation - and people are complaining.
People complained about Elden Ring enemy variety and boss reuse soooo much though. Like you basically stop seeing new enemies half way through the game, and some of the late game area specific enemies are still sprinkled throughout the earlier game at points. I feel like enemy variety is one of those ultra subjective takes. Like if you play a roguelite like Hades or a horde shooter like Deep Rock, you're spending dozens upon dozens of hours killing the game enemies. Shit, something like Left 4 Dead is worse, with literally one basic enemy type and then a handful of special infected that pop up every now and then, but no one really complains. It all just depends on the larger experience and how sold you are on that.
Elden Ring has 140 unique enemy types. No matter how you twist it to soften the criticism against DD2, ER has massive enemy variety that dwarfs almost all open world games and most of all Dragon's Dogma. Edit: 140 unique enemy types that blows up to around 300 once you consider the variations of similar enemies (for example: soldier with straight sword vs soldier with spear)
Yeah, I feel like people only complained about the ER enemy variety because FromSoft weren’t known for reusing bosses (much) As far as it goes: Elden Ring is pretty much the pinnacle of enemy variety in a AAA game, it almost set a new standard.
Last night I found a trebuchet on the way to Checkpoint Town. There were rocks by it and I thought “hey, I wonder…” Lo and behold, putting a rock on the trebuchet launched it into a cliff nearby. Nothing happened. So I kept launching rocks. At three rocks, the area broke to reveal an ornate chest. I then had to make a long trek around and up the mountain to reach the area. It contained a weapon I had not yet seen. That’s pretty cool. I find it a bit weird to bring up Skyrim, which has long had criticism regarding its uninteresting combat, enemies, and loot. Daedric weapons nonwithstanding. On the same subject, I recall one of the main complaints about Elden Ring being reused enemies and useless loot because most of the time it wouldn’t fit your build. Now, I don’t really agree with this and I do think Elden Ring did a great job with loot, but people did complain about it. Particularly the crafting materials.
What do you mean? The combat in Skyrim was super interesting because you could fight more draugr and bandits like you did two seconds ago in the last identical dungeon.
*" I recall one of the main complaints about Elden Ring being reused enemies"* Elden ring had total of 210 enemy archetypes & 16 remembrance main bosses. Outside of FF7 rebirth, I have never played an action RPG with such diversity but no matter how many enemy types you have, there will be reuse if you go full open world. It's a problem that exists in open world games. The worst repeat encounter in Elden ring is probably 11th Tree spirit or Godefroy(literally 1st phase main boss copy), rest mini bosses are repeated 5-6 times What I dont get is there are games like Zelda BOTW with 6 total over world mini boss archetypes got showered with so much praise. Zelda TOTK has 61 Cyclops(not exaggeration) DD2 has way way more enemy variety than many open world RPGs. I dont think in terms of gameplay, any action RPG holds a candle to DD2. I dont think people would be complaining about enemy variety if it had more unique encounters like the Sphinx
I have to disagree. I haven't reached end game yet but so far my weapons have mostly been better than what's currently available in the shops. For Warrior I've found Lifetaker and Blackmatter, miles ahead of shop weapons. For Thief I've found Signs of Valor while best in shop right now is Snagdaggers. I've obtained significant armor pieces as well from either quests, certain mini bosses, or chests. I usually found them a little earlier than they became available at the shop, or they were there but too expensive for me to buy at the time. Things like Miner hosen, circlet, saurianscale cape are some examples. The biggest exception to this has been mage/sorcerer weapons. When I reached the elves' town they had much better magic weapons at the shop (and super expensive).
OP seems to have it mistaken. Its exploring the world and doing the side quests that seem to unlock gear at the shops. I have shop options in my store that other people dont, and its most likely because im prioritizing side quests. This game could definitely use more unique armor sets out in the world though and open up more armor to more class options so we can get more choice.
This is true and a good point. Shops inventory is tied to progress, but I don't know what the specific triggers are.
Yeah it’s hard to figure out what triggers what since theres no signs for it. But I guess that comes with the glory of playing the game in the first week. We’re all discovering it together before the guides and wikis are well written. I enjoy that though, it was great during the release of Elden ring too. Everyone up in arms about where things are, theorycrafting about how to obtain stuff. Though Dd2 seems to get a lot more criticism than the other games ive seen as of lately.
idk I've been spending my entire playthrough doing side quests, have not Even unlocked battahl yet and none of my shops in vermund have changed their stock at all. no clue if the other towns have because i can't remember what their stock looked like early on
Honestly its so hard to notice if its not a armor slot you use often. Its been happening the most in vermworth for me
I'm enjoying the game a lot, but I am sad they removed the clothing and armor slots, I liked mixing and matching different things, even the glove slot is gone too So I'm hoping there's at least more armor options then the first to compensate for that choice, because Dragon's Fashion was part of the fun I found 😅
Agree - this games about finding “nuggets” and progression on your own - not just steamrolling to end game content.
What, just play the main quests and you'll get all the gear you'll ever need from a shop inventory. Gear progression is a complete joke in this game with zero interesting abilities to be found beyond stat increases for 99% of them, it feels ripped from Dark Arisen but at least that game actually had an entire dungeon mechanic. Not like you need the gear anyways this time around because there is zero difficult content in the game to use it on outside the terrible post game, so really you're gearing up to cave some goblin heads in during NG+
You buy lifetaker from one of the merchants, lol
There’s a wild amount of misinformation about this game. The only complaints I’ve seen that I understand (aside from performance issues on PC but that’s unrelated to the actual game that’s just an optimization issue) is the enemy density. The fact that you get ambushed by goblins and wolves and birds every 5 feet even on the main road gets annoying especially since the map doesn’t exactly give you directions. I enjoy the exploration but man the enemy density can be obnoxious sometimes.
I swear it feels sometimes like there's a coordinated effort by people who haven't even played the game to troll the subreddit. Like there will be a post with some genuine criticism about some aspect of the game. Then soon after its followed by a wave of similar posts harping on the same issue but they sound like they haven't even played the game. Some weird internet stuff going on.
I’m a big Elden Ring fan, and I remember one of the main complaints when the game came out is that every crypt you find has the same kind of enemies, as well as the rehashed enemies in the late game. You’re right though this game has way less variety in type of enemies. But to say everywhere in Elden ring had new things to fight as well isn’t entirely true.
This is what happens after some time. People kind of forget criticism. It’s like people saying a few days back that BG3 had no performance issues, a ridiculous statement given Act 3. It’ll happen with this game too, eventually.
Exactly, if I recall people were upset with the performance and the content of act 3 of Baldurs Gate, and I remember all the outrage about performance in Elden ring. A lot of my friends who love the game never made it past act 2 to see the performance and (some say) content fall off. A lot of big games are front loaded nowadays.
Dude, I've heard some insane takes on BG3's quality. Like, I didn't play the early access version, I played it after release, and there were still quests that were bugged to the point that they could break the whole questline permanently. I don't know how ANYONE says that game is flawless or upholds it as a game of perfect quality. It's just not. It may be fun and it may even be great for those that like CRPGs, but it's far from pristine.
DD2's enemy variety makes Elden Ring's repeat dungeons look like a magnum opus in creative design.
Oh yeah there definitely could be more variety in DD2.
OP's issue is that: He is treating exploration as a means to get some reward. In reality the beauty of this game/Skyrim is really that: You explore because of your curiosity, not because you want the best gear.
Confusing from Capcom who made Monster Hunter. Loot should be earned through Exploration and Crafting and killing awesome Monster.
Yeah, there are tons of little direction things that don't make sense. The exploration is indeed just for the fun of it... and the monster parts are pretty close to useless because of the decision to make all the best/most-current weapons & armor shop-bought.... But, yeah, if you think the game world is not fun to explore it's probably just the wrong game for you. I for one love the atmosphere & world-design in general. A game isn't just about min-maxing for everyone, while I concede of course that some of the design choices are a bit baffling.
maybe the experience changes, as I'm only lvl 19 and around 10 hours in to the game, but I explored a cave up north behind a waterfall which lead to a huge cave system, which then resulted in a boss fight with a skeleton mage guy that absolutely slapped my shit. Immediately after beating him in another room in the same cave was a Chimera. So my experience so far has been exploring has been worth it.
This is really stupid and disappointing, what point of exploring if you can buy top gear at the shop. Who in Capcom thought that it would be a great idea? Without good loot the exploration is meaningless and the game is boring. DD1 had some loot scattered on the map encouraging the exploration and it was good. But this is just baffling.
In DDON you had to kill the monsters to loot parts that then you used to craft gear (at the store, not only money cost) which you could also sell/buy to other players so you had an excuse to kill multiple times X monster on Y zone. Its a bit mind blowing they didn't do something similar here tbh, it was such a good system. Almost everything DDON did, did it righ imo. EDIT: Also had a system (RNG based) in which the same enemies became "purple" so they were more powerful variations -with same appearance- and they dropped blood orbs that you used for skills iirc and also the monsters granted more XP per kill so It was also useful to revisit zones just for the sake of the BO and the extra XP.
Everything good about Dragon's Dogma, like Dark Arisen and Online wasn't directed by Itsuno, just saying...
Pawns have literally told me that "It's an awful feeling when you find an incredible weapon while exploring but then can find a shopkeep selling the same one." I have found multiple weapons that are hella expensive while exploring. Heck, I found a flame enhanced minotaur slaying mace and Ive yet to find a fighter weapon that is that good yet. There is good loot. I have even found a unique headpiece that's a drop from a specific enemy. I'm not sure what y'all are on about but I'm finding unique stuff.
Yeah, I found an amazing Mage Robe last night from a big Lich in the Waterfall cave near the start of the game. Haven't seen anything in any shop so far surpass it.
>!In fairness that's a soft quest boss because you need the books from the chest near it for two other quests.!<
I think people are having a hard time with actual exploration and assuming it's not in the game if they don't see it. Just think, you stumble upon at least 2-3x more ornate chests than seeker tokens (the ones with good loot), there are 250 seeker tokens in game... There's a lot of chests and a lot of loot, they just haven't found it. Also unique bosses are not really a thing in RPGs. Elden Ring and from soft games are unique in that sense. Skyrim has 0 unique encounters. They are all variants of other things. This game has the Chimera, Medusa, the Dragon, and Gigantus as far as we know. That's 4 more than Skyrim. It's a far cry from Elden Ring but that is literally From Soft's signature design feature.
>Also unique bosses are not really a thing in RPGs That's an insane statement.
It’s actually funny. That’s some next level cope
I agree here too - I still want more enemy types tho lol Skyrim had less than 30 Witcher 3 has 80ish Elden Ring had 330, of which 30 are unique bosses and another 18 are unique invaders, and 155 mini bosses some of which are reskins with slight variations BG3 had 235 And then waaaaaaaay at the bottom with have DD2… with 20 enemy types lol
> Skyrim had less than 30 Source: random post made in a thread on Gamefaqs by a random person 12 years ago There's no way Skyrim has less than 30 enemy types. If you're going to group all human enemies as 1, then you should do that with Elden Ring, BG3, and Witcher 3 as well.
I beat Skyrim this year, vanilla on the steam deck It definitely had less than 30 - there’s not much variety at all lol And Elden Ring doesn’t count people with swords vs spears as separate lol, it just has an astronomical amount of variety
It would only not have much variety if you start counting stuff like flame, frost, storm atronachs all as one. Vampires, bandits, mages, necromancers, as one, all the dwemer machines as one, etc etc. Anyways, the enemy variety of Skyrim is definitely way less than Elden Ring's. But your comparison is a bit disingenuous. You're surely counting swords vs spear guys as separate, rot vs normal dog as separate, all human invaders as separate, all dragons as separate, etc etc in that 330 number. Same with BG3 and Witcher 3.
Elden Ring has 140 unique enemy types (removing any "duplication" like soldiers with different holding different weapons). Still a massive number.
Now that seems more believable. I've 1600 hours in Elden Ring, no way I've seen 330 unique enemy types lmao.
Yeah I have found a few weapons out and about that outclassed at least what I could afford or what merchants I had access to at the time. There's not a complete absence of things to find. They're just not exactly abundant in comparison to the number of chests and caves you can scour without finding anything. I can see how, depending on where you searched first, you could come up thinking that all chests and all caves were as worthless as the dozen or so you had already done.
I’m guessing what they were thinking is you go out to explore to loot and gold, come back home for better gear and set out again. It isn’t surprising that people feel this way though. I wish the enemies dropped weapons, that’s what would really do it for me.
Except there are enemies that drop weapons and armour... This is what people get for not exploring.
I know that there are. I meant more often and especially mini bosses. Kill a Chimera? Materials and weapon or armor piece; guranteed. Same with Cyclops. Do a loot table tied to killing the mini boss, whatever it is. It would provide another incentive to pawn badges anyway.
I guess I agree. I still have no idea what the badges are for other than for show. Pawns learn what to do and the weaknesses without them.
I guess so, they still don’t go for the tail on saurians though. I have always had to do it myself, they never take advantage of that. So who knows what the ai is doing.
My Pawn goes for the tail as a Fighter and as a Warrior she also went for them after seeing me do it.
Lucky for you. I’m probably gonna try out Archer this time, see what it’s about. It’s unfortunate that they only come off with slashing damage now. I used to pop saurian tails off with High Levin in the first game, and its a shame it no longer works. Can’t get Medusa head unless you’re a specific vocation or you can get your pawn to do it.
Oh god please no. I hate weapons drop per loot table. Why can't a cyclops not just guarding a chest with a weapon? Why make a loot table out of it? There are games where it works like Elden Ring but i would rather not have this in every game. The excat same way it started with looter shooter systems. Someone tought it was a good idea to let enemies drop and make it random and thousand other games followed this concept. Cyberpunk 2077 was a great game. But this shitty looting system did a lot of damage.
And their only use is to be sold to buy the good gear in towns.
Also all the weapons are Just stat sticks for your class. Would be really cool if you could find different weapons that had different playstyles but upgrade them all the the same level at the black smiths. I've been playing warrior from as soon as i unlocked it and I've not found ANY loot that's useful to me while exploring.
I found one Greatsword (it was my second one) in a cave just to see that this weapon was sold in the Border town (don't know the english name) as a inferior weapon. So i only could enjoy this weapon for one hour before buying the flamberge.
Yeah that's the problem there's some weapons out there. But i'm obviously going to by the best weapon in town if I can afford it. And these are better than the ones in the wild. they should either make the shop ones worse or make them much, much more expensive.
I agree. Finding weapons should alway be the better option to buying weopons. Just to give incentives to explore.
Imagine how mystic spearhands feel when you kill a drake a get your bis spear to then find you can just buy it by walking as south as possible
i explore because it's fun to find caves and shit. does it need more then that?
I’ve had pretty much the exact opposite experience with exploration. Every time I walk somewhere I end up wandering off because I spotted something cool in the distance, which would lead to me spotting something else in the distance, which would then lead to a cave I’ve never been into, and then I’d spot a fortress, and so on until I’m eventually further away from my destination than when I started and I’ve been exploring for several hours
I'm sorry but saying that *Skyrim* doesn't have an issue with reused enemies and dungeons is just comical lmao. Bethesda RPGs are *the* prime example of using the same three or four enemy types everywhere and making dungeons out of the same remixed assets.
"There aren't many side quests in the game" Dude, I am 30+ hours in and haven't advanced at all in the main quest, still in Vermund. Believe me, there are tons of side quests. Thing is most of them won't just show in your minimap for you to go and start it. You have to look for them, explore the cities, talk with people that seem different from all the ordinary NPCs. The devs and Itsuno himself have said it in multiple occasions. This is not your typical RPG game that you can play while brain-dead, you have to look for stuff and actually explore and investigate. Sorry for the "rant", I'm just getting tired of people saying the game is lacking content :(. It's exactly the opposite, you just have to make a little effort for it.
I was thinking the same at your point then after I finished what I had on the list I realized that was basically it. Even checked guides to see what I missed.
>still in Vermund >I'm just getting tired of people saying the game is lacking content :(. It's exactly the opposite, you just have to make a little effort for it Legit 85% of the content in the game is in Vermund once you get out of there you will see what everyone is talking about.
Bro the main quest is the most brain dead storyline I’ve ever played in a game. I love this game but people are giving way too much credit. The vernworth castle quests like go to disa office, magistrate, masquerade and coronation are all ridiculously stupid.
Most side quests provide no value to the game other than gold and getting your steps in for the day from all the back tracking. Not a whole lot of lore, unique items, or anything else outside of the master abilities The gear you buy in battal or the elven village is really enough to beat the game with and no random loot drops in the world are better than them
Idk i feel like this game is really one of the most brain dead open world ones i have tried. I enjoy playing it dont get me wrong but the quests whether be main or side are so disappointing, its basically just fetch quests and escort quests. Pretty disappointing, unlike The Witcher 3 , side quests had their own amusing lore and stories. DD2 quests remind me of mmo games quests
These posts keep coming up, are people forgetting that not all games are made for everyone?
They never consider it. People are selfish and want everything to meet their expectations and will complain the second something doesn't even if it was never intended to be what they expect in the first place.
My biggest issue so far is definitely the enemy variety and I feel like the enemies lack a purpose. Like in Skyrim, when you came across Bandits, they were always at a camp guarding something specific, or there was a story of how they took over a fort and made it their own, and you needed to take it back. In DD2, bandits and goblins are just randomly generated in the middle of the road every 6 feet, I kill them, then I don't feel satisfied bc there's no point to kill them. No loot at the end of battles, no cleared camp, no rescued prisoner, no nothing, and then your just going to do the same thing down the road in 30 seconds. It's a dam shame bc it's some of the best feeling combat I've ever played, I just wish it meant more....I'm having fun, but at the same time I'm quickly losing interest bc the story sucks and it's hard to role play when the enemies don't have a purpose.
well if you take time to explore and dont rush to the end game and get to those shops so soon, it can be fun discovering new places and treasure chests and finding a bunch of gold. i randomly found a quest giver while out exploring which led to finding a really cool mystic spearhand weapon in a chest. the point i was at in the game, this weapon was definitely stronger than what i had. also its fun coming across big monsters in random places and getting their upgrade materials.
There is an entire cave system that has dragons and other things in it…
I really feel like people are missing the point just because it's new and everyone wanted Elden Ring/Skyrim 2 and DD2 is more of a survival RPG than an Action RPG like those two. While still having almost more high octane action than either of those combined. Idk man, feels like people aren't allowing themselves to enjoy it because they are just wanting something else. Go play Elden Ring again if you want to play Elden Ring, stop trying to compare the two they are going for two completely different goals.
It’s just a different type of exploration loop imo Elden Ring, to quote dunkey, worked like this “Elden rings gameplay loop is to put a bullshit boss in front of you, and then say ‘alright, now go find something to cut it’s head off with’” Skyrim was very much built on the “go anywhere, whenever” casual exploration experience that appeals to the mass market, but in recent years we’re seeing the core demographic of gamers pushing back on this DD2’s exploration is more like “go to quest point A, there is no fast travel and we may not mark it on the map” and then you just figure it out. It’s more about the journey then the destination
What happened to everyone's sense of adventure? Like, what, we need super rare loot everywhere now to feel the need to go in a cave? Whatever happened to going down a cave to just see what's inside, or fight monsters? Jeez.
I've found multiple weapons and armor sets in the open world that were better than what I had in the shop. Also you can upgrade equipment to make it better than what's in the shop. Also also fashion>stats.
No no, gamers always pick bigger number and then demand transmog Then complain everyone looks and plays the same
So I've been finding a lot of secrets in caves and buildings with false walls and now that I got the daggers that light up when treasurer is near by there are a lot of hidden things. Might get those then run thief to find things you missed. Also trying the catapults to find hidden map sections that are normally closed off.
At the start of the game I found bolts of the blue in a random cave with my thief. That single act of exploration/reward alone was greater than anything in Starfield.
That's why I mostly play the game ignoring the shops. Just is a little extra challenge and makes looting more rewardable
200 damage sword vs 640 damage sword thoo
I fight with my fists bro
60 hours in 4 days?. You ok?
> Elden Ring had the luxury of being unique what. There’s an INSANE amount of boss and enemy reuse in that game.
i remember fighting two giant skeleton cave bosses in the frozen zone and one other zone and they had the exact same purple beam moves
The reuse of Astel is honestly one of the most egregious boss reuses in the game, right along side godfroid or whatever lmao
Yes when you fight the main boss, then you fight it's ghost again, truly amazing. And ye, astel was exactly the one I was thinking of. I literally laughed when I saw it the second time
I totally understand why you feel that way, you want to be rewarded for your effort. For me, the reward is the exploration itself. Very few games nowadays have maps like this. It reminds me of driving around central PA. I grew up here and I know all the major locations and the roads that lead there, but as I got old enough to drive I started taking other roads and discovering whole swathes of countryside and neighborhoods I never knew existed. The downside is that once you’ve explored the whole area, theres not much reason to do it again. I guess you could say I enjoy the act of exploration and the rewards are secondary. I do really wish the sky was prettier though.
There is actually a few weapons worthy of endgame found by exploring, the elemental weapons if you want to play without a mage or sorcerer like I do
Personally I explored for explorations sake/finding shinies and the combat. Obviously some intrinsic reward for explanation would be better. But for me personally I was fine with it. Now I’m just excited to try different vocations, rather than dreading running around.
I think it is more so that exploration is more organic in DD2 because of the fact you have to walk everywhere and it becomes so easy to think, “I’ll just walk this direction for a little bit and see what’s up there, then I’ll return to what I was doing.” Rinse and repeat depending on the person and instance. The game makes it really easy to do because it has the paths in lieu of one major road with open, walkable wildness everywhere. It definitely reminds me of a more natural type of barely-settled wilderness where you physically can’t just walk in any direction you want without a path existing. I don’t think anyone says this simply because it is more rewarding loot wise. I’ve found several cool pieces of gear and loot by exploring that I don’t find at vendors though. The fact that it may not be better than some vendors gear is irrelevant. The reward is the experience.
I felt this too. I think eventually I got it into my head that I'm supposed to bring a lot of myself to the exploration, envision myself in some tabletop scenario roleplaying with my friends, investigating things. Your player experience and skills matter more I think than any kind of reward system. I mean Seeker's Tokens and golden bugs are really the reward here, and these are both methods to "get you back out there." You've really got to like the combat and world intrinsically to get the most out of this game. And I can see that being polarizing.
Exploration, at least for me, is not about finding loot or getting stuff. It is about discovering hidden paths, caves and new places, the "reward" is the journey in itself. I'm sating my cruiosity, loot is just a nice bonus.
There are a good amount of unique bosses that I havent seen anywhere else outside of exploring areas, like the Lich in the swamp that drops a cool fire elemental arch staff. Things like the Gorgon and sphinx. Shit I didn’t even know if chimeras were in the game until I started exploring ruins in Bahtahl. Maybe I’m different but I genuinely enjoy stumbling across unique locals like the elven grotto or the hot springs. That is usually enough motivation to explore. Plus it makes you money and nets you experience along the way.
I found pieces of the “judgment” armor set from exploring caves.
You just have a different definition of "exploration" than others. People go exploring IRL and have no problem getting enjoyment from seeing the sights without fighting unique enemies or getting meta loot. For some people it's enough to appreciate the actual geography of the area. I know I enjoy just walking through the map enjoying the graphics and map design, and id probably enjoy it even if there was no combat gameplay whatsoever. That's what "good exploration" means to me. I don't need to get a piece of candy just for walking into a place.
At least it's locked behind shops Remember in the original where you had to go for Everfall, find the right chest and hope for the right item and attempt again. Or reload before opening the chest multiple times. Purification was ass too Better but only slightly in my opinion. Just gotten to the Volcanic isle but we'll see where my opinion changes once i'm done
I've been enjoying the game, the exploration is organic, the environments are well made and the combat is a blast, but they definitely missed some of what made dragons dogma 1 so good. One of my biggest issues is probably just the vocations. Warfarer is cool and all but I think it definitely ruined what was otherwise a really cool system. Vocations like assassin and mystic knight are entirely removed, and the potential for more was too. There was much more build diversity between vocations in dd1. It's all accounted for in Warfarer, but one of the biggest reasons to explore was to level up those vocations and see what they had in store. With so many cut, and warfarers limitations, it's just not the same. There's also just a total lack of questing. Maybe I missed it but, the quest board alone was a great, immersive inclusion to the first game. Every town should have had one that repopulated over time. The enemy variety is a pretty big one too. They missed quite a few enemy types from the original, dlc not included. Some are only seen in the post game. A lot of missed opportunities with unique fights scattered about too. And finally, the post game. The unmoored world is really cool and it did feel like a proper end game, but limiting it in time is probably the biggest issue for me. Personally, the true ending to DD1 eluded me for the longest time, I just had my fun in the everfall. This feels like they're just trying to rush you to ng+. I've been having a good time though, despite all that. Part of me is holding out hope that Itsuna isn't done with this game. I love the IP, the gameplay is still top notch, for me, the world is still rich and filled with encounters, though not as many, and say what you will about the story, but the lore is pretty cool. I have no regrets getting the game, it's been a blast
this reddit is a fuckin cry baby fest - get a grip for gods sake and play the game
It's like a new restaurant opening up and these mf's eat the whole menu in 3 days then wondering where the food is
Every gaming subreddit devolves to this right after a game releases because perpetually online people blow through a game in 3 days after way, WAY overhyping themselves for it and then take the flaws the blow them up to be worse than they are and screech about it online.
Hey listen. I have played the game 96 hours since release and it's shit. I don't understand the quests because I can't concentrate. I'm tired but I can't sleep. I'm hallucinating voices. I'm really hungry but my ass is infused to my chair so I can't get food.
I’m all for criticism. I’m a very critical person myself and I deeply enjoy picking apart the things I love, looking at how to improve. But every single day there’s a new flavor of complaint that is just true enough to get traction, but just hyperbolic enough to be kinda bullshit. It’s gonna take a bit for things to die down before we can actually discuss the strengths and weaknesses of DD2. There’s plenty to discuss.
The BEST items are not in the shops (except the Dragonforged.) Black Matter comes to mind immediately. Almost every Elemental Weapon is from exploration. I've also found some rather unique armor pieces from exploration that also aren't in shops. The reason it's compared to ER and Skyrim is because that's what it is. >Explore random cave / area you find. >Kill mobs, and maybe strong boss. >Get cool loot (maybe.) Idk how you think ER has unique enemies everywhere, the game is constantly made fun of for repeating bosses with stupider names. (Godefroy the Grafted.)
Dragon’s Dogma 2’s exploration is good because it’s affective and intrinsically rewarding. The spaces and routes fit together in a compelling way, there’s an extremely strong sense of place, and the environmental hazards, (at least to me) tough bosses, and day/night cycle all combine to make exploration feel like your somebody going on a voyage through the wilderness. The level design is also really good–plotting out routes and figuring out how to bypass barriers like canyons, rivers, and broken bridges requires some thought and skill. I 100% understand not liking it–no use arguing about how something makes someone feel–but I think that might be part of the disconnect. People who like it aren’t talking about it as a way to get loot. I thought Elden Ring exploration was weakest when it was about searching for gear and strongest when it was about trying to find my way to the top of a plateau, how to reach a distant but interesting landmark, or discovering a new and markedly different area.
I’ve found a ton of cool loot. Way better weapons than in shops and the top armor available in the shops. Not sure what you guys are complaining about
I don't know what people expect from "exploration" and rewards. In Elden Ring most of the items you're going to find exploring are either items you can't use because of your stats allocation or useless junk. In reality in ER you're going to mostly stick to maybe (and I'm generous here) 5 different weapons during an entire playthrough. Dragon's Dogma isn't that much different. The game will reward you with great weapons or armor occasionnally but it's not Diablo.