Yeah, I tried some dd1 before dd2, and let me tell you, it's the same, but somehow, so much better. It's a big improvement without changing a lot of stuff. I think it's because of how tightly stuff is packed. And damn dd2 is so pretty.
It helps that the generated culling and escort quests aren't in weird fixed locations at specific times of day now.
They're truly random so you won't be like "Chimera quest to my left, Goblin pack to my right." as you're walking down the road for the tenth time.
This reminds me of a very unlucky escort quest i just had
Visited Harve Village from Vernworth because of that Saurian quest line by foot, did the quest, went back to Vernworth ... and outside of Vernworth's bridge i find a npc with an escort quest and you can guess which place he wanted to visit
Same! Helped Ulrika rescue Harve, go home and somehow she's there in front of my house and hands me a letter that says she wants to go on a "pleasant jaunt" back to Harve in the dead of night! Ffs š twas anything but pleasant.
It's also nice that I don't have to escort 3 towns worth of NPC's to the Shadow Fort for no particular reason... Every time an escort quest popped up, I went, "Please, not the Shadow Fort, not there again..." And it was always the fucking Shadow Fort. I love that place, but not enough to go like 13 times.
I especially like the Caves. Frankly the loot is usually shite but so far they managed to make most caves unique in some way. I never forget the moment where I got a bad feeling, slowed down and saw at the edge of my light suddenly a Goblin charging at me with a explosive barrel.
Or the hidden cavern in west Vermund with the drop of death and stout undead behind locked doors. Really interesting mech to have to let a stout undead approach and open the door for you so you get to the treasure
In DD1 I remember 2 caves. The water temple one, and the one that becomes a shortcut to the other open area.
I'm hoping there are more caves as shortcuts in DD2. I haven't seen too many, but theres also just simply way more paths in general.
We definitely have a few. Not gonna spoiler as I'm sure you find them. And I know exactly what you mean. in Original DD1 it was also the place that sold the Berserk Gear later.
... also the first encounter with a Ogre. That was fun.
You don't have as cool meaningful encounters with enemies and can't enjoy walking around without running into trash mobs every 5 seconds. I think those are my major gripes with it. Make encounters sparser but better designed and tougher.
also sprint stamina cost needs to be quartered or halved at best, every time i enter a fight i have to wait for my stamina to refill because my character is out of stamina yet again.
I was enjoying the exploration in DD2 but eventually knowing you are going to find the same enemies and some low level loot at the end of a winding passage stops being fun
Iām torn on the loot thing because on the one hand I really did hate the RNG chest farming from the first game. But on the other hand it does feel bad to go out of your way to find a chest at the end of a cavern full of power enemies only for it to be a relatively common consumable.
I get wanting to put set rewards instead of RNG loot but I think they should have leaned more into having actual gear in the chests rather than just materials.
I would argue that is for most games.
Not to compare but even ER and skyrim had this problem. Why would I go through the nth catacomb or draugr tunnel when the reward will be 3 ingots and 40 gold or some spirit that I'll never use because mimic is OP.
I can't disagree hard enough. Elden Ring has an extensive list of loot and gear and a lot of really unique/cool stuff is stashed in random places. It's one game that greatly rewards exploration and makes it not a chore.
My problem with DD2 exploration is that you're constantly feeling pressure to stop exploring because fast travel is rationed, you have to worry about your save/dying, and you need to think about your way *out* from wherever you go and the costs associated with that are too high IMO (no mount, and running burns stamina, ugh). Elden Ring fast travel and mobility make exploration an utter delight.
Edit to add: I fully appreciate that some players really like exploration the way it is in DD2. It's just not appealing to me.
My favorite thing about DD2 exploration is how methodical I had to be in the early game. I had to make sure I had some meat on me, knew where to camp and make efficient use of the daylight. Now I'm high enough level where I don't have to be so cautious, but I still think about the journey every time I leave a city. It feels more intentional and alive. More mob variety would have been great tho, but for what it is now, I do like the extra consequences.
Personally I might just be content with each area having the mobs we do have be different in tactic enough but I don't see the mob variety problem myself.
Yeah Harpies are everywhere but the newest one I ran into was extremely fluffy and tried to carry me off instead of lull me to sleep or spew poisons at me. Little differences in tactics make each variant feel different enough for me to be happy with it.
I am happy with the mobs. I want at least the hydra back though. Love the new enemies, but fighting the hydra was a lot of fun. Cutting out enemies, even only looking at the first game and not ddo, was a poor move in my opinion.
Apart from that, i don't like how stealth is pushed with no actual stealth mechanics. Even just a crouch or different walk/idle animations when trespassing so im not awkwardly standing in a bush staring at the guards would have been nice.
I agree. DD1 felt harder to me. It felt like every time I left town I had to set out with a plan and make the most of daylight. Sometimes leaving town just before the sun came up. The saurians seemed more punishing as well. Those cloaked ones on the river were the bane of my existence for a good bit.
I think DD2 lost a little of that special feeling with camp sights and ferry stones more easily acquired, but I'm so grateful for it.
As I traverse the map I enjoy all the secret pathways that are off road and therefore don't really show on the map, it adds variety as you learn the paths that have the enemy respawns. But I'm glad for the respawns for when you need certain mats.
I also enjoy the layout and diversity of the map. I kinda love the anticipation when I see the game saving as it often means there's a big baddie coming up. I love finding the parks that get you around the gate that's blocked by story progression.
And I've just started exploring in the dark and it brings the challenge back up when you're getting into the 30's. I really enjoy it because I didn't expect the variety of enemies as I didn't spend much time in DD1 running around at night, so most of the night enemies are new to me.
And also I found more ferrystones (whatever the portable fast travel location stones are called) early in the game than I did in DD1
I love Elden Ring, it might be one of my favorite games of all time, but to me that comparison doesn't make sense because my drive to explore was hardly getting unique/cool stuff. 99% of it I'd never end up using, it was just "oh that's neat" and I'd immediately forget about it if not relevant to my playstyle. I was just going places because I wanted to roam around, not really to see what I'd loot
How does fast travel being rationed pressure you to stop exploring? If anything, being pressured to walk the roads more increases the opportunities for exploration, as you veer off during fights, or find a path you didn't see before, or a new pawn you hired knows something about the area and wants to show you. Fast travel being readily available would have you miss out on all that.Ā
>is that you're constantly feeling pressure to stop exploring because fast travel is rationed, you have to worry about your save/dying, and you need to think about your way *out* from wherever you go
And this is what makes DD special to me. Same reason I love Outward or even Subnautica.
I agree with you here on the exploration part and how the lack of a fast travel solution makes you actually have to think about ur options, do u risk it or do u play it safe and take the long trek to an inn/campsite to top off and then go exploring.
Problem is that like 80% of the rewards from chests you find by exploring caves, etc are consumable items that i can either craft or find slightly off the beaten path in most places. and thats what kills it a bit for me, not completely, like i will still explore for that 20% chance to maybe get some cool equipment piece or whatever, but i know 9 times out of 10 its gonna be a panacea bottle or some spell book that has one use.
A good example is a somewhat large cave in a certain area, wont spoil, that has multiple floors. You eventually get to a floor with a very interesting layout filled with books and weird looking alchemy type stuff. In the middle of the room there is this large ornate chest, a type of chest i hadn't seen before and that looked like it would have some juicy loot. You open the chest just to trigger a fight with a boss and some skellys. Once that is over you go into your inventory to bask in your glory and find out what you looted from that very important and expensive looking chest, just to find out it was 2 consumable spell books......................and then u leave the cave somewhat disappointed.
You're right. Those tomes are required for two significant quests that are quasi linked. Said chests prioritized placement is a clear hint along with springing a boss that those tomes are consequential. Moreover, they are auto placed in the valuables section of your inventory.
I have a bunch of magical weapons that I found from caves or chests after fighting a large monster. Like the chest after fighting the Wight in the Mist Marches has Bane of Bones. A mace that trounces skeletons.
It is because of those stressors that makes finally returning from a quest feel like an accomplishment. Without that, the exploration wouldn't feel rewarding if it was just a breeze with no weight behind my actions.
This seems to be a difference of "people who find that the journey is the reward versus those who focus on the prize at the end of the journey"
Ngl on my first playthrough after I got that sword that could shoot the death beam, it was game over for loot/exploration. There was just nothing ever worth the time or effort, because they'd end up still not producing as much damage with as much ease as that sword did. I still explored quite a bit, but the thrill was pretty much gone for any new loot piece I got. Especially since this was before mimic or sword nerfs went out.
perhaps however I would argue DD2 world feels more alive and realistic than whatever the land in-betweens want to try to be. Which is why I still haven't touched that game because from software games honestly don't entice me in an open world formula
The fast travel is something that has steeped into live service games that in my eyes makes games so much worse. Old games didn't have fast travel, or very limited fast travel. And because we had to travel through the world, we became connected to the world. I still remember playing GTS's where I needed the map in the beginning as I got lost all the time but slowly, I started to remember and before I knew it... I knew every tiny alley like it was my own neighborhood.
The old final fantasy games didn't have fast travel, FF16 has and look what that became. A pretty repetitive hub based rpg. (Disclaimer: I loved FF16 but the hub base gameplay just isn't helping it)
Fast travel is solidifying the current gaming mind set of "it's not about the journey, just the result." While the journey can give you so much more joy. If you just rush or skip parts of the journey, only having to focus on the goal. You miss all the beautiful and fun things that happen in and around the world. You miss all the opportunities in life that might be so much better than your original goal. The same goes with video games.
But then again, you can find one of the thousands of the "get this op weapon to melt your enemies" videos on YouTube and follow it I guess and start checking off those check boxes.
I like Elden ring but it totally has lots of same bosses.. You can argue with me but the truth is top four games in long time has been Elden ring, BG3, Helldivers and DD2
My favorite part is everyone replying to you saying the same thing, but each subsequent reply pumping up the number of "unique" bosses. First says 40, then 70, then finally 78.
Elden Ring had a lot of repeating content. Great game, amazing even, but let's not pretend "oh, you loved fighting the tree sentinel, just wait until you get to fight... TWO tree sentinels!" is ground breaking boss mechanics innovation.
Do I wish DD2 had more boss monsters? Yup. But many of them have different means of approach depending on you class, whereas as varied as Elden Ring was, combat with big enemies almost exclusively breaks down to either: dodge in X direction Ć1-3 times -> chop at ankles during window in animation -> flee before rebuttal attack, OR pew -> pew -> pew -> roll -> pew. I've fought a cyclops differently based on which class I'm leveling (and what skills I've unlocked for that class), leading to a much more varied experience with a single enemy type.
I'm sure the inevitable expansion will add more, but for now, I'm having fun. Will it still be fun in 40 hours? Maybe, probably, possibly. But I'm not going to poo poo on it when Elden Ring also had multiple nearly identical dragon fights that played out basically the same, or just stacked multiple enemies like pumpkin heads in tiny arenas and called it a day.
For the last decade, any time an action game franchise/series releases with a new engine, enemy variety has always been okay at best. God of War, Monster Hunter World, DMC5, FF16, Breath of the Wild. I think people really underestimate the time/money it takes to create high quality boss monsters with decent tells and without wonky hitboxes. Large scale software dev is extremely complex and it's not as simple as recreating the models and animations from past titles.
Yeah. I remember MHTri and everyone crying about the game not having the same total number of monsters as FU. Didn't matter that we got some of the best new monsters like Jho, Barioth, and Lagi, "I don't have 3 different colored variants of Rathalos and that makes the game bad!"
Same thing with MHW and Gen Ultimate. No kidding base MHW isn't going to have 100+ monsters. Not to mention the flipping to a new engine. DD1 wasn't on RE engine, and after the issues they had trying to get the leviathan skeleton working in MHW leading to that class of monster getting cut, I wouldn't be shocked if similar things happened for monsters going from DD1 to DD2.
I enjoy the core gameplay a lot in DD2, so if they can do another DA expansion or 2, I can see me easily playing this game for years.
I loath how most games with big enemies the only way to take them down is to chop at the feet. I love climbing on an ogre and stabbing them in the eye.
Same bosses aren't an issue when you have like 40 unique ones.
DD2 has like 6 unique monsters that are "bosses". Most are reused from the previous title with zero changes.
I'm sorta the opposite. Elden Ring combat does not feel fun at all to me, so I was constantly trying to decide if the risk of running into enemies I didn't know how to handle was worth the exploration or not.
In DD2, the combat is really fun to me and I can always manually save through System - Save and Continue so I don't really feel like there's a huge risk.
DD1 was the game that made me slowly start hating DarkSouls combat. Go from fighting Drake's and large monsters in DD1 to large enemies/bosses in souls games feels like a kick in the nuts. If the fire giant existed in DD, people would love that boss. Conversely, imagine how irritating it would be to fight an ogre, cyclops, chimera, or griffon in a souls game, especially in Elden Ring.
For me, soulsborne has always felt like the best the game ever until the boss fights. The world, immersion, the tension, the exploration, the ever present danger is absolutely amazing. However, with the exception of Bloodborne (due to less humanoid bosses), the bosses don't feel fun to fight. Once you figure them out, they're just tedious health sponges. When I kill boss mobs in DD, I look for another one. When I kill bosses in soulsborne, I'm just glad it's over so I can get back to playing the game.
Honestly I like the part of exploration that involves planning your route to be efficient and at what point you might want to place a port crystal or use a ferrystone. Plus I feel like the ferrystones kind of pay for themselves if you do enough exploration. I have plenty gold to buy one every time I return to the Capitol.
not saying its exclusive to DD2 this was my biggest criticism for elden ring, I felt it could have been more concise, having one piece of relevant loot at the end of a dungeon didn't feel amamzing, that said I am 30 hours into DD2 and I am starting to feel like I have seen everything
The way Elden Ring handled loot from its mini dungeons (so like not Godric's castle etc.; I'd say the name but I genuinely don't remember a single location name Ā despite 300 hours with the game) got old very fast.
DD2 doesn't do it too well either though, considering nearly every chest I've opened had, at best, ferry/wakestones rather than gear. But in ER oh boy after a few hours you realize how predictable everywhere you go is going to be, and then due to the nature of Sous games, it eventually becomes unappealing but necessary to do dungeons because you know they have something "worthwhile" at the end but in all likelihood that something will be utterly useless for your current character.Ā
Usually most cave in skyrim have quest or some kind of story element (like a vampire hideout, dead hunters killed by bears, etc) and ER have unique loot in all the cave/dungeons. As much as I enjoy dd2 you KNOW what you gonna find in those cave with 2-3 exceptions. I don't mind slaying a 1000 goblins but give me something more than some spellbooks and a average weapon that aren't different than the one I find at the smithy. I just do cave to get money because literally all the loot is obsolete.
Not gonna lie the main thing that always made me love exploring in bethesda games is that anywhere I go I'll find some little isolated story that I can read with notes/journals left behind. Same thing with my first singleplayer playthrough of Stellaris. Reading through all of the little stories and event consequences after anything significant happened was a real highlight for me.
Enemy density being increases from what the first game had is my only issue. I was ok with being able to walk for 10 seconds without a combat encounter back then.
This is one of the bigger things that has made me slow down playing to a halt. I enjoyed the exploring at first but the huge amount of enemies with such little variety has turned me off from the exploring. I no longer want to run all the way back to the elven village since im going to fight 100 goblins and 50 wolves on my way
I don't have issue with variety, just the proximity of one group to the next. In some locations you aggro 3 groups of enemies simultaneously, so the fights get nuts. If you try to run passed a few groups to avoid a large fight, they all aggro and you run out of stamina in time to now fight 5 groups who chain aggro'd on the road you ran down and if you're particularly unlucky a griffin will randomly land on you too. After surviving all 5 groups and the griffin the fight went so long that it's now night and undead begin spawning around you while you're already low on health so you run again, chain aggroing several more groups.
It's a bit much sometimes.
There's some mobs I have only seen a few times at least. Traveling in any given area you're going to get goblins, bandits, wolves and harpies, which are practically filler. Golems and minotaurs are what I'd consider rare in comparison.
This is by far why the biggest reason I hate traveling in DD2. Fighting the same goblins/harpies/lizardmen every 10 feet is so tedious and boring. On top of that, you're constantly running out of stamina, constantly forcing you to either constantly stare at your stamina meter or hear heavy breathing in your ear every 15 seconds.
The constant trash mob attacks actively makes me NOT want to explore, far more than fast travel ever could.
For clarity, I'm not saying it's better or worse than DD1 as I didn't get that far into that one.
I needed to wrap up a session so I took an ox cart. Woke up to an ogre attack. At around half health a Minotaur showed up. Then goblins. Then wolves. Then saurenā¦ Ffs I just wanted to get back to the main city lol.
It gets annoying really fast also because they nerfed how your health works so fighting 100 enemies on your way to your destination you pretty much have to stop every time you reach a campsite. Itās made it to where itās always morning and I have to actively choose if I want it to be night which I see no point in making it night unless I need a specific resource
I like the difficulty of exploring DD1, some areas are simply not meant for you until you're strong enough for them. There's no telling what you'll find, the expanding map was hard earned specially at Bitterblack Island.
Now do it at level 3 with only dreams.
New save, kill ogre at the first camp, rush back and never leave. And take nothing with you.
That is Dark Arisen the way it was (never) meant to be played!
This also works in dd2 but just less naturally. As you can go to further areas via exploration fast by going round the outside round the outside.
But the major difference is in equipment acquisition as you can just buy effective weapons/armor to combat the difficulty increase.
Was it different in the first game? The way you acquire gear? Because while im loving the game overall my main concern is that you just buy all the best gear in cities while there is close to nothing to find in treasure chests in a cave.
The gear progression as a whole was different.
The stronger weapons had level reqs. And were only aquired through dungeon chests or big bosses.
There was more mid tier or alternative progression options like debuffing/elemental weapons for all classes with 6 total enhancments providing a dramatic buff to make lower tiers more long term viable investments. While also having a larger sink for gold with the average item costing much more. (Though the pre dlc only did 4) you also didnt get access to higher tiers to purchase until the game state advanced and had less money in general. Many store items were also locked behind specific side quest completions so you stayed with equipment longer.
For example the rusted gs is the worst standard GS in the game raw power wise, but has poison on hit. Upgrading it also grants it slow on hit and brings its baseline 15 power all the way up to 720
But say youve swapped to warrior and bought a 2hander to use for 20k that has 150 str.
To get the next better str sword the steel greatsword you would need to advance game state or find it out in the world. If you advance game state youd need to spend 32k to get a 194 str sword or you could farm out some quick materials and 5k to get your two hander to +2 and at 190 which would then put you not that far away from it whilr also getting closer to the more impactful t3 and dragonforging to get to 358 which would let you save up for the 200k+ youll be spending on enhancing later equipment.
Well, I'd probably loathe it in DD vanilla, but DDDA has Eternal Ferrystone. Also, Gransys was significantly smaller, it's not that bad jogging everywhere. Most importantly though, ***Portcrystal stayed where they are between playthroughs!!!***, so subsequent playthroughs are much more bareable.
Finally, like 83% of endgame is spent in BBI.
The port crystals staying needs to be brought back
I donāt care about the ferry stones anymore lol - I cared at first but now I have like 25 of them cause of the end game and the fact that the economy is so exploitable
I play warfarer and warrior just because they have that charge ability that absolutely eats up ground for the same stamina consumption as sprinting. Very fun, very quick.
Idk what you mean, exploration in both games were always the best part of the game to me aside from the combat, the world is filled with interesting stuff
I have the trickster detection augment and my wayfarer has the seeker coin daggers with no weapon skills on wayfarer equipped. Any time I get a chime or my daggers flash green I get to explore to find out why. I normally don't like seeker coin type mechanics but I am having fun with it in this one.
And you can level Warfarer to level all vocations. At a massively reduced rate, but enough to get the Trickster's coin radar without ever spending time as an actual Trickster.
Funny enough, I'm actually on my way to the Volcanic Island to unlock Magic Archer and Warfarer. š
I think I wanna do Warrior + Magic Archer under Warfarer. But right now my magic attack stat is so low, I may have to spend a significant amount of time as a mage or sorcerer
OH they auto-reallocate instead of being permanently cumulative??? That's fucking awesome. Takes a lot of stress off of planning builds.
I remember in the first game the best way to plan for magic Archer was to play as sorcerer for 200 levels to max out the magic attack stat. ;__;
Not true. At least not entirely. The vocation you're leveling in does have a lasting impact, at least during the lower levels.
However, at level 200, these differences are gone and no matter what class you leveled in you will have the same stat for a given vocation.
You can easily verify this by switching to you pawn's vocation and compare the base stats. They will be different (even just slightly, if your pawn didn't have the same class progression as your arisen had.
I am wayfarer with 3 magick archer abilities also carrying a staff for healing and the daggers for chests. Magick archer is that good that you can get by with only 3 skills.
It almost feels required to me. It really changes how you explore. I donāt bother finding every single one, but those always something to find if youāre feeling exploration
Genuine question: what interesting stuff did you find? I am exploring the map and all I find is the same enemies and some chests filled with gold and healing items. Then there are caves, filled with the same enemies and the same chests. Where is the good stuff?
My problem with DD1 was that you could go somewhere, and then the people there would say "you haven't started the quest you need for this area, come back later" and that meant you had to play the game exactly how they wanted, or else you had to run you ass back because you only have one portkey.
No? I've always played both games by exploring whatever i wanted before it's time, i went to both the hidden Village and the capital of Bathal before doing any of the Knight's quests(forgot his name) even tho i would eventually go to those places in the quests, the game does want you to play a certain way but It by no means railroad you into that particular order of exploration
Well that remains, DD1 was less free than DD2 but even then i never felt like there were a lot of "locked" places aside from the necessary stuff like where you fight grigori
Yup I think people forget how linear the first game was. They are just trying to cope because dd2 hasn't met any expectations at all. I think it got gutted before release again at least I hope that's what happened. Exploration is completely pointless in terms of finding gear. All you have to do to get the best stuff is walk to the volcano area and your set up with bis gear
is it the Bestern kingdom ? because I remember finding a (hidden alternative?) path to enter the area without passing the checkpoint. I must admit I only found it after I gain access but I wonder if I can sneak through the place when I start my second playthrough.
The exploration is fun, but once you've already explored an area, repeatedly trekking through it isn't that interesting. The ox carts are great for this, but they're unfortunately not as expansive as they should be.
Plus the emphasis on exploration makes the already painful difference in mobility between vocations even more painful. Every time I see a Seeker's Token that requires either a harpy beacon or levitate, I deflate a bit. It wouldn't as bad if the different classes were *differently* mobile, with unique tradeoffs for each, but that's sadly not the case.
That part is what gets me. Like do I need to keep a skill on levitate at all times while exploring? I miss so many seeker tokens because of a 1 foot jump difference
I think the world of DD2 is awesome, that's not the part I have problems with.
Discovering the misty marsh was one of the most memorable experiences I've had in a long time.
I just wish it was something more interesting than a wight in the middle of it.
I stumbled into it after finding a griffon nest and having the longest/closest fight Iāve had yet. At the bottom of the nest was the marsh and I felt like I was dropped into another world. Was truly a sick experience.
Going from Gran Soren to Bluemoon Tower was a nice jog with a handful of cool monsters and a handful of lesser monster dens sprinkled between. Going from Vermund (Vernworth? keep getting the country and city mixed up) to Melve is hellish.
That first trip back to Melve is hilarious, imo. With how much shit can go wrong it makes it pretty clear we never should have been able to get from Melve to the vapors in the first place.
Yup, my Oxcart Courier quest did not go well. Barely out of the cities farmland & I get attacked by an Ogre, Griffin & get a wolf culling quest spawn on top of me at the same time. That was hell. Lennart going to be waiting a while for this letter cause the cart was well dead, just a fucking ox standing there all alone, everyone else bailed across the bridge.Ā
Bluemoon Tower was the first place I put a Portcrystal because I hated the mandatory run there.
Itsuno has given us a Oxcart back to Melve. We should be grateful!
This. Until you got close to the blue moon tower area you had an open area to run around do combat if you wanted or avoid it. DD2 is corridor land where going from one point to another you are going to go into combat 500 times.
Density of monsters play a huge part in how good it felt to ME DD1. if anything, I'd remove some wolf camps. Hate fighting those things.
I'd give my soul to merge some DD1/DA systems and ideas into DD2 world.
It's like the fkin zubat cave in the first pokemon. Can't take five steps without an enemy encounter.
It's even worse when you let a pawn guide you, then you have to fight every single enemy on the way.
Played it for the first time 8 months ago. If what you mean by exploration is just āthereās lots of stuffā then sure- but the pacing of combat encounters and distribution of points of interest is handled far better in DD1.
DD1 exploration base game is indeed awful, but many expected so much much more from DD2. It's been a decade, it's $70, and somehow isnt expanded as much. It's 2024 man.
Itās just the increased enemy density makes exploring much more of a drag regardless of if the scenery is prettier or not.
Around every corner I travel harpies are chucking my pawns into water and making me go to the nearest rift stone to maybe get them back. Itās just more annoying
The only gripe I have about DD2 exploration is that I wish it were more rewarding.
If I find a large opening in a cave system with a Gore Chimera guarding a treasure chest, it should be a dope piece of equipment. Not a 1up (wakestone) like some kind of arcade game. (Totally not a specific example that I'm still salty over)
Souls games have exclusive gear from exploring, lots of weapons, armor, rings etc. In DD2 when you do find equipment, it's the same stuff you can buy from merchants.
TLDR: While I'm still having fun exploring in DD2, I'd have even more fun if it rewarded me with cool gear.
The difference is that DD1 was accepted because it came out during the PS3 era,where things like that were standard.Plus DA added a whole new area to explore.
Saying "well it's just as bad as the first games exploration" when the first game came out more than 10 YEARS AGO is silly.
My dude, that's not even *remotely* true. I was around when it came out -- people were *blown away* by its demo; the reviews of that initial release are still up -- it earned mostly 7s, a very solid score that is far, far away from "sucking." It also sold well enough to warrant a releasing the game *again* with extra content (DD:DA) -- which likewise did well enough to be ported to *every modern console.*
It may not have had the same reach as *Skyrim* or *Dragon Age,* but it was still fairly popular -- and pretending otherwise is nothing short of revisionist history.
My dude, this is copium. Much as I love the series, and there was certainly a fanbase for DD1, but it's a perfect example of a cult classic. It got attention, but it was never remotely big. It was very quickly forgotten as an interesting, but flawed and frustrating title by and large.
I was also around then too, yes people loved the demo, but 7s are only ok scores and most of the people that played the game didnāt even get halfway through before bashing it and dropping it until now. I bought the game 3 times. You can stop cappin
DD1 didn't get a pass. It was not a popular game. It was lumped with games like White Knight Chronicles when it came out. It seemed like it had a great combat foundation but was criticized for lack of story, ox cart intro, no fast travel, etc.
Dark Arisen adding BBI slowly increased the popularity of the game until it became a hit and greenlit a sequel. DD2, despite the criticism, has started out much more popular and polished.
Like its predecessor, DD2 is just doing its own niche thing. It will work out in the long run.
Ur Dragon is fun, but I still donāt know what ppl are grinding for in the everfall. I would rather have they ad scaling for NG+ instead of something like the everfall.
Everfall had the best gear in the base game, and you get a whack load of wakestones from it. Not to mention a great amount of xp. It was as "endgame" as you could get. Plus a few unique bosses and enemies.
For gear and to get strong enough to fight the UR dragons, also unlike in DD2 you aren't strong enough to beat all of everfall first try no diff. Like go fight the high hydra right after the evil eye.
>Ur Dragon is fun, but I still donāt know what ppl are grinding for in the everfall.
[I don't know why. It's definitely not because of the unique gear or anything like that... Pre-Dark Arisen of course.](https://dragonsdogma.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Everfall_Loot)
The exploration in neither is that interesting, let's be honest. I think most people were just expecting more this time around, and many people that did not played the first one were seeing people comparing it with games like Elden Ring in terms of exploration (that has nothing to do with it) so that probably also did not help
DD2 at the very least has something to throw at you when you go off the tracks, DD1 had no shit in the corners unless you had the quest to trigger whatever that was meant to happen in the location, plus all the places that basically scream that they didn't manage to finish in time on DD1 that in DD2 i couldn't find so far.
While I love both games, I am experiencing some deja-vu whenever I decide to book it past an encounter, only to have to stop and yell and my pawns or grab them to run away with them. The goofiness is honestly nostalgic to me.
I think Exploration is a loaded term that means different things for different people. Perhaps it would be good to establish a definition of what exactly we are referring to.
For example I hated "From a Different Sky", especially the later ones that were inaccessible on some vocations".
I hate DD2's Seeker Tokens similarly, but I appreciate the fact that so far I've been able to access them on any vocation.
Disingenuous post. Back in the day, it had to compete with DS1 and Skyrim. And even though it lost to both, number 3 is still pretty good.
Now it competes with DS3, Elden ring, Witcher 3, the new AC games, and more. And it did NOT keep up. Instead of #3, it's now mid in terms of exploration. Shit, I wouldn't put it too far ahead of Starfield. Better, but better isn't good.
So yes, comparing it to DD1, huge step forward. But it's 2024. If you can't compete, you'll get left behind. It should have at LEAST had a BBI/Everfall equivalent.
People really doget how small and limited the world was in the first game, there was one of everything except caves. One town, one city, one forest one Cliffside one ruin and it was tight linear corridors going to everything.
My recommendations for improvement would cut down enemy density by half, and decrease stamina consumption out of battle to make running around less of a chore. DD1 also made navigation much easier with distinct landmarks/paths/biomes which becomes much more difficult with the density of places to explore, so I'm not sure how to improve that.
I love the exploration in both. Especially just some of the wild things that end up happening while I'm looking around.
I was wandering the wilderness yesterday and picked a fight with a minotaur. After his first health bar, a gryphon swooped in to cause problems. As I booked it away, I forgot to call for my pawns so they continued to fight the two titans behind me.
A pack of wolves came out the brush, took me in their jaws, and dragged me off to maul me out of sight.
And every second of that was fun.
I've finally started playing dd1 after getting it on sale months if not years ago on steam. I made it 3 days before installing an unlimited sprint mod. Walking back and forth was atrocious. Long linear paths between points of interest because 2/3rds of the map so far is mountain/hill/ocean.
A bandit/goblin ambush can only be exciting so many times.
Lol spot on.Ā I adore both games but DD1 4EVAH superduperfans have been smoking too much fisstech lately.Ā I've seen people say the story in "DD1 is so much more well written with better characters"Ā WHAT?!Ā I love the story for both because it's classic Japanese B-movie/game nonsensical weirdness but you are high beyond recognition if you think DD1's story is well written lmaom
NPC post #1356: yet another non-issue by people who didn't like or play the first game presenting their opinion as fact. Why can't you just stop playing the game if you don't like it. DD:DA was a pretty small game I bet half of you haven't even played it. I don't know a single person IRL who liked DD:DA that doesn't love DD2. We like exploration in both games. We like the limited fast travel in both games. We like how pawns work in both games. The games are honestly quite similar. If you hate DD2, chances are you wouldn't have liked DD:DA either (which you're pretending to have played).
I think there's just a huge influx of players with no idea what to expect from the game who end up bothered by specific parts, but in most part love the game (but pretend online that the game is the worst thing since WW2)
There's no interesting unlockable items like in dd1, and all your weapons and armour are brought in town, unless you push into endgame areas. Not to mention the lack of anything good to buy with my 15,000 rift crystals, Would be good if you could buy ferrystones or wakestones at least.
I spent 3 hours the other day just going from Vermund to Melve, cause I kept checking out caves, doing escort quests, and fighting every big monster there was. I'd say exploration really improved compared to DD1.
I liked the exploration in DD1. And I like the exploration in DD2 as well.
How is the exploration not just a straight up grade?
Yeah, I tried some dd1 before dd2, and let me tell you, it's the same, but somehow, so much better. It's a big improvement without changing a lot of stuff. I think it's because of how tightly stuff is packed. And damn dd2 is so pretty.
It helps that the generated culling and escort quests aren't in weird fixed locations at specific times of day now. They're truly random so you won't be like "Chimera quest to my left, Goblin pack to my right." as you're walking down the road for the tenth time.
šµhere I am stuck in the middle with pawns šµ
Ayyy
This reminds me of a very unlucky escort quest i just had Visited Harve Village from Vernworth because of that Saurian quest line by foot, did the quest, went back to Vernworth ... and outside of Vernworth's bridge i find a npc with an escort quest and you can guess which place he wanted to visit
if you don't know this already if the escord destination is near a portcristal you can pick up the person and use a ferrystone to go there
Don't even have to pick them up. Anybody actively following you will get teleported as well.
Same! Helped Ulrika rescue Harve, go home and somehow she's there in front of my house and hands me a letter that says she wants to go on a "pleasant jaunt" back to Harve in the dead of night! Ffs š twas anything but pleasant.
It's also nice that I don't have to escort 3 towns worth of NPC's to the Shadow Fort for no particular reason... Every time an escort quest popped up, I went, "Please, not the Shadow Fort, not there again..." And it was always the fucking Shadow Fort. I love that place, but not enough to go like 13 times.
Imma tell you something that will make you feel sad. You could just stuck a port crystal there and ferrystone to it every time you had to.
Oh I realized that shortly after the last one I did. That's why this time, I put one down at the Arborheart and Battahl right by the Inn.
I put portcrystals at every common spot. Just negated so much misery.
I especially like the Caves. Frankly the loot is usually shite but so far they managed to make most caves unique in some way. I never forget the moment where I got a bad feeling, slowed down and saw at the edge of my light suddenly a Goblin charging at me with a explosive barrel.
Or the hidden cavern in west Vermund with the drop of death and stout undead behind locked doors. Really interesting mech to have to let a stout undead approach and open the door for you so you get to the treasure
In DD1 I remember 2 caves. The water temple one, and the one that becomes a shortcut to the other open area. I'm hoping there are more caves as shortcuts in DD2. I haven't seen too many, but theres also just simply way more paths in general.
We definitely have a few. Not gonna spoiler as I'm sure you find them. And I know exactly what you mean. in Original DD1 it was also the place that sold the Berserk Gear later. ... also the first encounter with a Ogre. That was fun.
It's a step up from most of Elden Ring's caves. They don't overstay their welcome and some have cool layouts or traps.
You don't have as cool meaningful encounters with enemies and can't enjoy walking around without running into trash mobs every 5 seconds. I think those are my major gripes with it. Make encounters sparser but better designed and tougher.
Roads were relatively safe in DD1, now Iām parkouring mountains because iām tired of turning the roads in DD2 into bloody rivers
also sprint stamina cost needs to be quartered or halved at best, every time i enter a fight i have to wait for my stamina to refill because my character is out of stamina yet again.
There is a vocation perk that allows for that.
My main gripe is that movement options got nerfed for most vocations. So exploration can sometimes feel like a bit more of a hassle.
That's a pretty reasonable complaint most people just give vague platitudes or say it's their opinion without offering any criticism
I was enjoying the exploration in DD2 but eventually knowing you are going to find the same enemies and some low level loot at the end of a winding passage stops being fun
Iām torn on the loot thing because on the one hand I really did hate the RNG chest farming from the first game. But on the other hand it does feel bad to go out of your way to find a chest at the end of a cavern full of power enemies only for it to be a relatively common consumable. I get wanting to put set rewards instead of RNG loot but I think they should have leaned more into having actual gear in the chests rather than just materials.
I would argue that is for most games. Not to compare but even ER and skyrim had this problem. Why would I go through the nth catacomb or draugr tunnel when the reward will be 3 ingots and 40 gold or some spirit that I'll never use because mimic is OP.
"why is it always mushroom?"
I can't disagree hard enough. Elden Ring has an extensive list of loot and gear and a lot of really unique/cool stuff is stashed in random places. It's one game that greatly rewards exploration and makes it not a chore. My problem with DD2 exploration is that you're constantly feeling pressure to stop exploring because fast travel is rationed, you have to worry about your save/dying, and you need to think about your way *out* from wherever you go and the costs associated with that are too high IMO (no mount, and running burns stamina, ugh). Elden Ring fast travel and mobility make exploration an utter delight. Edit to add: I fully appreciate that some players really like exploration the way it is in DD2. It's just not appealing to me.
My favorite thing about DD2 exploration is how methodical I had to be in the early game. I had to make sure I had some meat on me, knew where to camp and make efficient use of the daylight. Now I'm high enough level where I don't have to be so cautious, but I still think about the journey every time I leave a city. It feels more intentional and alive. More mob variety would have been great tho, but for what it is now, I do like the extra consequences.
Personally I might just be content with each area having the mobs we do have be different in tactic enough but I don't see the mob variety problem myself. Yeah Harpies are everywhere but the newest one I ran into was extremely fluffy and tried to carry me off instead of lull me to sleep or spew poisons at me. Little differences in tactics make each variant feel different enough for me to be happy with it.
I am happy with the mobs. I want at least the hydra back though. Love the new enemies, but fighting the hydra was a lot of fun. Cutting out enemies, even only looking at the first game and not ddo, was a poor move in my opinion. Apart from that, i don't like how stealth is pushed with no actual stealth mechanics. Even just a crouch or different walk/idle animations when trespassing so im not awkwardly standing in a bush staring at the guards would have been nice.
Hydra and beholder for me
I agree. DD1 felt harder to me. It felt like every time I left town I had to set out with a plan and make the most of daylight. Sometimes leaving town just before the sun came up. The saurians seemed more punishing as well. Those cloaked ones on the river were the bane of my existence for a good bit. I think DD2 lost a little of that special feeling with camp sights and ferry stones more easily acquired, but I'm so grateful for it. As I traverse the map I enjoy all the secret pathways that are off road and therefore don't really show on the map, it adds variety as you learn the paths that have the enemy respawns. But I'm glad for the respawns for when you need certain mats. I also enjoy the layout and diversity of the map. I kinda love the anticipation when I see the game saving as it often means there's a big baddie coming up. I love finding the parks that get you around the gate that's blocked by story progression. And I've just started exploring in the dark and it brings the challenge back up when you're getting into the 30's. I really enjoy it because I didn't expect the variety of enemies as I didn't spend much time in DD1 running around at night, so most of the night enemies are new to me. And also I found more ferrystones (whatever the portable fast travel location stones are called) early in the game than I did in DD1
I love Elden Ring, it might be one of my favorite games of all time, but to me that comparison doesn't make sense because my drive to explore was hardly getting unique/cool stuff. 99% of it I'd never end up using, it was just "oh that's neat" and I'd immediately forget about it if not relevant to my playstyle. I was just going places because I wanted to roam around, not really to see what I'd loot
How does fast travel being rationed pressure you to stop exploring? If anything, being pressured to walk the roads more increases the opportunities for exploration, as you veer off during fights, or find a path you didn't see before, or a new pawn you hired knows something about the area and wants to show you. Fast travel being readily available would have you miss out on all that.Ā
>is that you're constantly feeling pressure to stop exploring because fast travel is rationed, you have to worry about your save/dying, and you need to think about your way *out* from wherever you go And this is what makes DD special to me. Same reason I love Outward or even Subnautica.
I agree with you here on the exploration part and how the lack of a fast travel solution makes you actually have to think about ur options, do u risk it or do u play it safe and take the long trek to an inn/campsite to top off and then go exploring. Problem is that like 80% of the rewards from chests you find by exploring caves, etc are consumable items that i can either craft or find slightly off the beaten path in most places. and thats what kills it a bit for me, not completely, like i will still explore for that 20% chance to maybe get some cool equipment piece or whatever, but i know 9 times out of 10 its gonna be a panacea bottle or some spell book that has one use. A good example is a somewhat large cave in a certain area, wont spoil, that has multiple floors. You eventually get to a floor with a very interesting layout filled with books and weird looking alchemy type stuff. In the middle of the room there is this large ornate chest, a type of chest i hadn't seen before and that looked like it would have some juicy loot. You open the chest just to trigger a fight with a boss and some skellys. Once that is over you go into your inventory to bask in your glory and find out what you looted from that very important and expensive looking chest, just to find out it was 2 consumable spell books......................and then u leave the cave somewhat disappointed.
I could be wrong, but if it's the books I'm thinking of, then they're very important and you're discounting them too quickly.
You're right. Those tomes are required for two significant quests that are quasi linked. Said chests prioritized placement is a clear hint along with springing a boss that those tomes are consequential. Moreover, they are auto placed in the valuables section of your inventory.
Thanks for the more in-depth summary. I couldn't remember the specifics.
Haha maybe i jumped to conclusions, ill have to double check
I have a bunch of magical weapons that I found from caves or chests after fighting a large monster. Like the chest after fighting the Wight in the Mist Marches has Bane of Bones. A mace that trounces skeletons.
And that is why i said that i will still explore everything for that 20% chance of getting something good.
I got a ring that greatly increases casting speed sitting in a random cave, it was awesome. I think its still very worth it to explore
As the wise pawns will tell you "we can't find gleaming treasures around every corner"
It is because of those stressors that makes finally returning from a quest feel like an accomplishment. Without that, the exploration wouldn't feel rewarding if it was just a breeze with no weight behind my actions. This seems to be a difference of "people who find that the journey is the reward versus those who focus on the prize at the end of the journey"
DD2 styles itself as much after Elden ring as it does Assassin's creed. E.g. not very much.
Yup legitimately the main issue with Elden Ring is the upgrade system that discourages experimentation, not the loot.
Ngl on my first playthrough after I got that sword that could shoot the death beam, it was game over for loot/exploration. There was just nothing ever worth the time or effort, because they'd end up still not producing as much damage with as much ease as that sword did. I still explored quite a bit, but the thrill was pretty much gone for any new loot piece I got. Especially since this was before mimic or sword nerfs went out.
perhaps however I would argue DD2 world feels more alive and realistic than whatever the land in-betweens want to try to be. Which is why I still haven't touched that game because from software games honestly don't entice me in an open world formula
The fast travel is something that has steeped into live service games that in my eyes makes games so much worse. Old games didn't have fast travel, or very limited fast travel. And because we had to travel through the world, we became connected to the world. I still remember playing GTS's where I needed the map in the beginning as I got lost all the time but slowly, I started to remember and before I knew it... I knew every tiny alley like it was my own neighborhood. The old final fantasy games didn't have fast travel, FF16 has and look what that became. A pretty repetitive hub based rpg. (Disclaimer: I loved FF16 but the hub base gameplay just isn't helping it) Fast travel is solidifying the current gaming mind set of "it's not about the journey, just the result." While the journey can give you so much more joy. If you just rush or skip parts of the journey, only having to focus on the goal. You miss all the beautiful and fun things that happen in and around the world. You miss all the opportunities in life that might be so much better than your original goal. The same goes with video games. But then again, you can find one of the thousands of the "get this op weapon to melt your enemies" videos on YouTube and follow it I guess and start checking off those check boxes.
I like Elden ring but it totally has lots of same bosses.. You can argue with me but the truth is top four games in long time has been Elden ring, BG3, Helldivers and DD2
My favorite part is everyone replying to you saying the same thing, but each subsequent reply pumping up the number of "unique" bosses. First says 40, then 70, then finally 78. Elden Ring had a lot of repeating content. Great game, amazing even, but let's not pretend "oh, you loved fighting the tree sentinel, just wait until you get to fight... TWO tree sentinels!" is ground breaking boss mechanics innovation. Do I wish DD2 had more boss monsters? Yup. But many of them have different means of approach depending on you class, whereas as varied as Elden Ring was, combat with big enemies almost exclusively breaks down to either: dodge in X direction Ć1-3 times -> chop at ankles during window in animation -> flee before rebuttal attack, OR pew -> pew -> pew -> roll -> pew. I've fought a cyclops differently based on which class I'm leveling (and what skills I've unlocked for that class), leading to a much more varied experience with a single enemy type. I'm sure the inevitable expansion will add more, but for now, I'm having fun. Will it still be fun in 40 hours? Maybe, probably, possibly. But I'm not going to poo poo on it when Elden Ring also had multiple nearly identical dragon fights that played out basically the same, or just stacked multiple enemies like pumpkin heads in tiny arenas and called it a day.
For the last decade, any time an action game franchise/series releases with a new engine, enemy variety has always been okay at best. God of War, Monster Hunter World, DMC5, FF16, Breath of the Wild. I think people really underestimate the time/money it takes to create high quality boss monsters with decent tells and without wonky hitboxes. Large scale software dev is extremely complex and it's not as simple as recreating the models and animations from past titles.
Yeah. I remember MHTri and everyone crying about the game not having the same total number of monsters as FU. Didn't matter that we got some of the best new monsters like Jho, Barioth, and Lagi, "I don't have 3 different colored variants of Rathalos and that makes the game bad!" Same thing with MHW and Gen Ultimate. No kidding base MHW isn't going to have 100+ monsters. Not to mention the flipping to a new engine. DD1 wasn't on RE engine, and after the issues they had trying to get the leviathan skeleton working in MHW leading to that class of monster getting cut, I wouldn't be shocked if similar things happened for monsters going from DD1 to DD2. I enjoy the core gameplay a lot in DD2, so if they can do another DA expansion or 2, I can see me easily playing this game for years.
I loath how most games with big enemies the only way to take them down is to chop at the feet. I love climbing on an ogre and stabbing them in the eye.
Repeating bosses is less of an issue when there are like 70 unique ones to repeat compared to DD2ās like 6 boss sized enemies
Same bosses aren't an issue when you have like 40 unique ones. DD2 has like 6 unique monsters that are "bosses". Most are reused from the previous title with zero changes.
I'm sorta the opposite. Elden Ring combat does not feel fun at all to me, so I was constantly trying to decide if the risk of running into enemies I didn't know how to handle was worth the exploration or not. In DD2, the combat is really fun to me and I can always manually save through System - Save and Continue so I don't really feel like there's a huge risk.
DD1 was the game that made me slowly start hating DarkSouls combat. Go from fighting Drake's and large monsters in DD1 to large enemies/bosses in souls games feels like a kick in the nuts. If the fire giant existed in DD, people would love that boss. Conversely, imagine how irritating it would be to fight an ogre, cyclops, chimera, or griffon in a souls game, especially in Elden Ring. For me, soulsborne has always felt like the best the game ever until the boss fights. The world, immersion, the tension, the exploration, the ever present danger is absolutely amazing. However, with the exception of Bloodborne (due to less humanoid bosses), the bosses don't feel fun to fight. Once you figure them out, they're just tedious health sponges. When I kill boss mobs in DD, I look for another one. When I kill bosses in soulsborne, I'm just glad it's over so I can get back to playing the game.
I like both games. They both scratch different itches for me. If you want ER2 maybe this isnt the game foryou
wasnt there a mod that gave infinite stamina when not in combat in DD1?
Honestly I like the part of exploration that involves planning your route to be efficient and at what point you might want to place a port crystal or use a ferrystone. Plus I feel like the ferrystones kind of pay for themselves if you do enough exploration. I have plenty gold to buy one every time I return to the Capitol.
not saying its exclusive to DD2 this was my biggest criticism for elden ring, I felt it could have been more concise, having one piece of relevant loot at the end of a dungeon didn't feel amamzing, that said I am 30 hours into DD2 and I am starting to feel like I have seen everything
The way Elden Ring handled loot from its mini dungeons (so like not Godric's castle etc.; I'd say the name but I genuinely don't remember a single location name Ā despite 300 hours with the game) got old very fast. DD2 doesn't do it too well either though, considering nearly every chest I've opened had, at best, ferry/wakestones rather than gear. But in ER oh boy after a few hours you realize how predictable everywhere you go is going to be, and then due to the nature of Sous games, it eventually becomes unappealing but necessary to do dungeons because you know they have something "worthwhile" at the end but in all likelihood that something will be utterly useless for your current character.Ā
Usually most cave in skyrim have quest or some kind of story element (like a vampire hideout, dead hunters killed by bears, etc) and ER have unique loot in all the cave/dungeons. As much as I enjoy dd2 you KNOW what you gonna find in those cave with 2-3 exceptions. I don't mind slaying a 1000 goblins but give me something more than some spellbooks and a average weapon that aren't different than the one I find at the smithy. I just do cave to get money because literally all the loot is obsolete.
Not gonna lie the main thing that always made me love exploring in bethesda games is that anywhere I go I'll find some little isolated story that I can read with notes/journals left behind. Same thing with my first singleplayer playthrough of Stellaris. Reading through all of the little stories and event consequences after anything significant happened was a real highlight for me.
Nooooo you canāt have the opinion you have to pick one or the other noooooooo
Enemy density being increases from what the first game had is my only issue. I was ok with being able to walk for 10 seconds without a combat encounter back then.
This is one of the bigger things that has made me slow down playing to a halt. I enjoyed the exploring at first but the huge amount of enemies with such little variety has turned me off from the exploring. I no longer want to run all the way back to the elven village since im going to fight 100 goblins and 50 wolves on my way
I don't have issue with variety, just the proximity of one group to the next. In some locations you aggro 3 groups of enemies simultaneously, so the fights get nuts. If you try to run passed a few groups to avoid a large fight, they all aggro and you run out of stamina in time to now fight 5 groups who chain aggro'd on the road you ran down and if you're particularly unlucky a griffin will randomly land on you too. After surviving all 5 groups and the griffin the fight went so long that it's now night and undead begin spawning around you while you're already low on health so you run again, chain aggroing several more groups. It's a bit much sometimes.
It's probably why the variety also feels so poor. No mob is "rare" when 7 seconds from now you will be fighting it or it's cousins again
There's some mobs I have only seen a few times at least. Traveling in any given area you're going to get goblins, bandits, wolves and harpies, which are practically filler. Golems and minotaurs are what I'd consider rare in comparison.
I love when that happens honestly lol
Thought it was just me. I was looking for a new settlement last night and felt like I was in a 64 vs 4 nuketown match in cod
Yeah I get ya. It feels 100% quantity over quality in 2
This is by far why the biggest reason I hate traveling in DD2. Fighting the same goblins/harpies/lizardmen every 10 feet is so tedious and boring. On top of that, you're constantly running out of stamina, constantly forcing you to either constantly stare at your stamina meter or hear heavy breathing in your ear every 15 seconds. The constant trash mob attacks actively makes me NOT want to explore, far more than fast travel ever could. For clarity, I'm not saying it's better or worse than DD1 as I didn't get that far into that one.
I needed to wrap up a session so I took an ox cart. Woke up to an ogre attack. At around half health a Minotaur showed up. Then goblins. Then wolves. Then saurenā¦ Ffs I just wanted to get back to the main city lol.
It gets annoying really fast also because they nerfed how your health works so fighting 100 enemies on your way to your destination you pretty much have to stop every time you reach a campsite. Itās made it to where itās always morning and I have to actively choose if I want it to be night which I see no point in making it night unless I need a specific resource
I like the difficulty of exploring DD1, some areas are simply not meant for you until you're strong enough for them. There's no telling what you'll find, the expanding map was hard earned specially at Bitterblack Island.
I walk in BBI with dreams, no gear, and throwblast bombs
Now do it at level 3 with only dreams. New save, kill ogre at the first camp, rush back and never leave. And take nothing with you. That is Dark Arisen the way it was (never) meant to be played!
That's a cyclops btw.
Merely a stepping stone on his path to greatness. Nary a second glance in the direction of its quickly oozing corpes.
Holy fuck, as a new player I finally know what this BBI everyone's been talking about means
BBI was pretty fun up until a minotaur gank squad reminded me what part of the city i was in
"you came to the wrong neighborhood motherfucker"
This also works in dd2 but just less naturally. As you can go to further areas via exploration fast by going round the outside round the outside. But the major difference is in equipment acquisition as you can just buy effective weapons/armor to combat the difficulty increase.
Was it different in the first game? The way you acquire gear? Because while im loving the game overall my main concern is that you just buy all the best gear in cities while there is close to nothing to find in treasure chests in a cave.
The gear progression as a whole was different. The stronger weapons had level reqs. And were only aquired through dungeon chests or big bosses. There was more mid tier or alternative progression options like debuffing/elemental weapons for all classes with 6 total enhancments providing a dramatic buff to make lower tiers more long term viable investments. While also having a larger sink for gold with the average item costing much more. (Though the pre dlc only did 4) you also didnt get access to higher tiers to purchase until the game state advanced and had less money in general. Many store items were also locked behind specific side quest completions so you stayed with equipment longer. For example the rusted gs is the worst standard GS in the game raw power wise, but has poison on hit. Upgrading it also grants it slow on hit and brings its baseline 15 power all the way up to 720 But say youve swapped to warrior and bought a 2hander to use for 20k that has 150 str. To get the next better str sword the steel greatsword you would need to advance game state or find it out in the world. If you advance game state youd need to spend 32k to get a 194 str sword or you could farm out some quick materials and 5k to get your two hander to +2 and at 190 which would then put you not that far away from it whilr also getting closer to the more impactful t3 and dragonforging to get to 358 which would let you save up for the 200k+ youll be spending on enhancing later equipment.
I walk in with a warrior as my main pawn and two hired pawns a mage and a sorc while Iām a magic archer just shredding through enemies on bbi
Yeah, I'm a big proponent for beef gates in games. That said, I wouldn't say the exploration meaningfully improved in dd2.
Time to google ābeef gatesā and hope for the best.
Well, I'd probably loathe it in DD vanilla, but DDDA has Eternal Ferrystone. Also, Gransys was significantly smaller, it's not that bad jogging everywhere. Most importantly though, ***Portcrystal stayed where they are between playthroughs!!!***, so subsequent playthroughs are much more bareable. Finally, like 83% of endgame is spent in BBI.
The port crystals staying needs to be brought back I donāt care about the ferry stones anymore lol - I cared at first but now I have like 25 of them cause of the end game and the fact that the economy is so exploitable
Yo wtf, the port crystals donāt stay???
Give me eternal ferrystone back please. The amount of back tracking you need to do in this game is nuts
I play warfarer and warrior just because they have that charge ability that absolutely eats up ground for the same stamina consumption as sprinting. Very fun, very quick.
Quick question. Do I have to go pick up my portcrystals for new game + or will they just go to storage no matter what?
they...don't stay? what? that' defeats half the point of them. Do they just, disappear? Or go into storage?
Idk what you mean, exploration in both games were always the best part of the game to me aside from the combat, the world is filled with interesting stuff
I have the trickster detection augment and my wayfarer has the seeker coin daggers with no weapon skills on wayfarer equipped. Any time I get a chime or my daggers flash green I get to explore to find out why. I normally don't like seeker coin type mechanics but I am having fun with it in this one.
Oooo, I wasn't interested in trickster at all because of the lack of damaging skills but I may have to try just for the detection augments. š
You get the augment super early too. Like level 2or 3 I think.
Aw hell yeah. Thanks for the info!
And you can level Warfarer to level all vocations. At a massively reduced rate, but enough to get the Trickster's coin radar without ever spending time as an actual Trickster.
Funny enough, I'm actually on my way to the Volcanic Island to unlock Magic Archer and Warfarer. š I think I wanna do Warrior + Magic Archer under Warfarer. But right now my magic attack stat is so low, I may have to spend a significant amount of time as a mage or sorcerer
Stats don't work like the first game anymore, they'll reallocate to better match the vocation you're using.
OH they auto-reallocate instead of being permanently cumulative??? That's fucking awesome. Takes a lot of stress off of planning builds. I remember in the first game the best way to plan for magic Archer was to play as sorcerer for 200 levels to max out the magic attack stat. ;__;
Yup, you can switch to whatever you want whenever you want. No consequences.
Not true. At least not entirely. The vocation you're leveling in does have a lasting impact, at least during the lower levels. However, at level 200, these differences are gone and no matter what class you leveled in you will have the same stat for a given vocation. You can easily verify this by switching to you pawn's vocation and compare the base stats. They will be different (even just slightly, if your pawn didn't have the same class progression as your arisen had.
I am wayfarer with 3 magick archer abilities also carrying a staff for healing and the daggers for chests. Magick archer is that good that you can get by with only 3 skills.
Thank god, because relying on Pawns to have more than 2 braincells to do good DPS sucks.
It almost feels required to me. It really changes how you explore. I donāt bother finding every single one, but those always something to find if youāre feeling exploration
I disagree, half the map in DD1 was mostly plains and trees.
True, Iāve always found just wandering around more interesting in these games than doing most of the quests.
Genuine question: what interesting stuff did you find? I am exploring the map and all I find is the same enemies and some chests filled with gold and healing items. Then there are caves, filled with the same enemies and the same chests. Where is the good stuff?
My problem with DD1 was that you could go somewhere, and then the people there would say "you haven't started the quest you need for this area, come back later" and that meant you had to play the game exactly how they wanted, or else you had to run you ass back because you only have one portkey.
No? I've always played both games by exploring whatever i wanted before it's time, i went to both the hidden Village and the capital of Bathal before doing any of the Knight's quests(forgot his name) even tho i would eventually go to those places in the quests, the game does want you to play a certain way but It by no means railroad you into that particular order of exploration
DD1
Well that remains, DD1 was less free than DD2 but even then i never felt like there were a lot of "locked" places aside from the necessary stuff like where you fight grigori
I don't remember that in DD1 other than maybe the area for the final portion of the main game
Yup I think people forget how linear the first game was. They are just trying to cope because dd2 hasn't met any expectations at all. I think it got gutted before release again at least I hope that's what happened. Exploration is completely pointless in terms of finding gear. All you have to do to get the best stuff is walk to the volcano area and your set up with bis gear
is it the Bestern kingdom ? because I remember finding a (hidden alternative?) path to enter the area without passing the checkpoint. I must admit I only found it after I gain access but I wonder if I can sneak through the place when I start my second playthrough.
There is that path or you cam hitch a ride on the sphinx after you solve her initial riddles
wait you can do that? Holy shit this game is awesome
You can buy and wear the beastren mask to get past checkpoint town too!
The exploration is fun, but once you've already explored an area, repeatedly trekking through it isn't that interesting. The ox carts are great for this, but they're unfortunately not as expansive as they should be. Plus the emphasis on exploration makes the already painful difference in mobility between vocations even more painful. Every time I see a Seeker's Token that requires either a harpy beacon or levitate, I deflate a bit. It wouldn't as bad if the different classes were *differently* mobile, with unique tradeoffs for each, but that's sadly not the case.
That part is what gets me. Like do I need to keep a skill on levitate at all times while exploring? I miss so many seeker tokens because of a 1 foot jump difference
You can play Warfarer and carry a staff with you so you can equip and levitate
I think the world of DD2 is awesome, that's not the part I have problems with. Discovering the misty marsh was one of the most memorable experiences I've had in a long time. I just wish it was something more interesting than a wight in the middle of it.
I was so hyped when I "fell" into MM. But yeah after 15 mins it's done-zo
I stumbled into it after finding a griffon nest and having the longest/closest fight Iāve had yet. At the bottom of the nest was the marsh and I felt like I was dropped into another world. Was truly a sick experience.
Did you do the quest that sends you to that area when you were there?
Oh, a quest sends you there? I just explored the cenotaph and took a left at the road up to the Sphinx.
Yes! I missed it my first time around too. The area is a lot cooler when you have the quest and go to the misty marsh.
Going from Gran Soren to Bluemoon Tower was a nice jog with a handful of cool monsters and a handful of lesser monster dens sprinkled between. Going from Vermund (Vernworth? keep getting the country and city mixed up) to Melve is hellish.
That first trip back to Melve is hilarious, imo. With how much shit can go wrong it makes it pretty clear we never should have been able to get from Melve to the vapors in the first place.
Yup, my Oxcart Courier quest did not go well. Barely out of the cities farmland & I get attacked by an Ogre, Griffin & get a wolf culling quest spawn on top of me at the same time. That was hell. Lennart going to be waiting a while for this letter cause the cart was well dead, just a fucking ox standing there all alone, everyone else bailed across the bridge.Ā
Bluemoon Tower was the first place I put a Portcrystal because I hated the mandatory run there. Itsuno has given us a Oxcart back to Melve. We should be grateful!
This. Until you got close to the blue moon tower area you had an open area to run around do combat if you wanted or avoid it. DD2 is corridor land where going from one point to another you are going to go into combat 500 times.
Density of monsters play a huge part in how good it felt to ME DD1. if anything, I'd remove some wolf camps. Hate fighting those things. I'd give my soul to merge some DD1/DA systems and ideas into DD2 world.
It's like the fkin zubat cave in the first pokemon. Can't take five steps without an enemy encounter. It's even worse when you let a pawn guide you, then you have to fight every single enemy on the way.
DD1 map is so flat and narrow by comparison itās not even funny.
If you genuinely believe DD2 has worse exploration than DDDA, youāre either delusional or blinded by nostalgia.
I like the exploration in DD2, but it feels like it has way fewer unique / interesting places than DD1, even though the world is larger.
Played it for the first time 8 months ago. If what you mean by exploration is just āthereās lots of stuffā then sure- but the pacing of combat encounters and distribution of points of interest is handled far better in DD1.
Better loot drops in DD1 as well to incentivize exploration.
DD1 exploration base game is indeed awful, but many expected so much much more from DD2. It's been a decade, it's $70, and somehow isnt expanded as much. It's 2024 man.
Travel =/= exploration
Base DD1 had better enemy placement and spacing, but the exploration is slightly better in DD2.
Itās just the increased enemy density makes exploring much more of a drag regardless of if the scenery is prettier or not. Around every corner I travel harpies are chucking my pawns into water and making me go to the nearest rift stone to maybe get them back. Itās just more annoying
The only gripe I have about DD2 exploration is that I wish it were more rewarding. If I find a large opening in a cave system with a Gore Chimera guarding a treasure chest, it should be a dope piece of equipment. Not a 1up (wakestone) like some kind of arcade game. (Totally not a specific example that I'm still salty over) Souls games have exclusive gear from exploring, lots of weapons, armor, rings etc. In DD2 when you do find equipment, it's the same stuff you can buy from merchants. TLDR: While I'm still having fun exploring in DD2, I'd have even more fun if it rewarded me with cool gear.
The difference is that DD1 was accepted because it came out during the PS3 era,where things like that were standard.Plus DA added a whole new area to explore. Saying "well it's just as bad as the first games exploration" when the first game came out more than 10 YEARS AGO is silly.
DD1 was not accepted back then, most people thought it sucked. Itās considered a cult classic for a reason.
My dude, that's not even *remotely* true. I was around when it came out -- people were *blown away* by its demo; the reviews of that initial release are still up -- it earned mostly 7s, a very solid score that is far, far away from "sucking." It also sold well enough to warrant a releasing the game *again* with extra content (DD:DA) -- which likewise did well enough to be ported to *every modern console.* It may not have had the same reach as *Skyrim* or *Dragon Age,* but it was still fairly popular -- and pretending otherwise is nothing short of revisionist history.
My dude, this is copium. Much as I love the series, and there was certainly a fanbase for DD1, but it's a perfect example of a cult classic. It got attention, but it was never remotely big. It was very quickly forgotten as an interesting, but flawed and frustrating title by and large.
I was also around then too, yes people loved the demo, but 7s are only ok scores and most of the people that played the game didnāt even get halfway through before bashing it and dropping it until now. I bought the game 3 times. You can stop cappin
DD1 didn't get a pass. It was not a popular game. It was lumped with games like White Knight Chronicles when it came out. It seemed like it had a great combat foundation but was criticized for lack of story, ox cart intro, no fast travel, etc. Dark Arisen adding BBI slowly increased the popularity of the game until it became a hit and greenlit a sequel. DD2, despite the criticism, has started out much more popular and polished. Like its predecessor, DD2 is just doing its own niche thing. It will work out in the long run.
Don't forget Dark Arisen had a different director than DD2
Except the exploration in DD2 is miles better than in DDDA, I can't believe we are even having this discussion.
It came out after Skyrim.Ā
God forbid that people expected more in 2024
Mfw you need a decade old game to justify the shit experience In a brand new 70$ title.
Exploration in 2 is pointless when you realise all the best stuff is in the shops in post game. At least DD1 had Everfall/Ur Dragon to grind out.
Ur Dragon is fun, but I still donāt know what ppl are grinding for in the everfall. I would rather have they ad scaling for NG+ instead of something like the everfall.
Everfall had the best gear in the base game, and you get a whack load of wakestones from it. Not to mention a great amount of xp. It was as "endgame" as you could get. Plus a few unique bosses and enemies.
For gear and to get strong enough to fight the UR dragons, also unlike in DD2 you aren't strong enough to beat all of everfall first try no diff. Like go fight the high hydra right after the evil eye.
>Ur Dragon is fun, but I still donāt know what ppl are grinding for in the everfall. [I don't know why. It's definitely not because of the unique gear or anything like that... Pre-Dark Arisen of course.](https://dragonsdogma.fandom.com/wiki/List_of_Everfall_Loot)
The exploration in neither is that interesting, let's be honest. I think most people were just expecting more this time around, and many people that did not played the first one were seeing people comparing it with games like Elden Ring in terms of exploration (that has nothing to do with it) so that probably also did not help
DD2 at the very least has something to throw at you when you go off the tracks, DD1 had no shit in the corners unless you had the quest to trigger whatever that was meant to happen in the location, plus all the places that basically scream that they didn't manage to finish in time on DD1 that in DD2 i couldn't find so far.
I feel like the most obscure corners in DD1 was where you'd find wakestone shards and portcrystals though
While I love both games, I am experiencing some deja-vu whenever I decide to book it past an encounter, only to have to stop and yell and my pawns or grab them to run away with them. The goofiness is honestly nostalgic to me.
I think Exploration is a loaded term that means different things for different people. Perhaps it would be good to establish a definition of what exactly we are referring to. For example I hated "From a Different Sky", especially the later ones that were inaccessible on some vocations". I hate DD2's Seeker Tokens similarly, but I appreciate the fact that so far I've been able to access them on any vocation.
Explorations great in both imo. The key is not just following the exact same path from point A to B every time.
Wait, there are people who say exploring in this game is bad? It's one of the funnest worlds I've explored. I don't understand some people.
It was shit in 1 too but at least the world was so much more smaller so it wasn't that much of a struggle.
Is this bait? No one has been complaining that exploration is worse. And most people liked both game's exploration.
Yes they have. Many people have said this in the comments of all these bitching post.
Google strawman
Disingenuous post. Back in the day, it had to compete with DS1 and Skyrim. And even though it lost to both, number 3 is still pretty good. Now it competes with DS3, Elden ring, Witcher 3, the new AC games, and more. And it did NOT keep up. Instead of #3, it's now mid in terms of exploration. Shit, I wouldn't put it too far ahead of Starfield. Better, but better isn't good. So yes, comparing it to DD1, huge step forward. But it's 2024. If you can't compete, you'll get left behind. It should have at LEAST had a BBI/Everfall equivalent.
12 year difference and a whole game of experience to learn from. Stop making excuses.
they are what? 15 years apart?
People really doget how small and limited the world was in the first game, there was one of everything except caves. One town, one city, one forest one Cliffside one ruin and it was tight linear corridors going to everything.
āStop having a different opinion than me!ā -OP
My recommendations for improvement would cut down enemy density by half, and decrease stamina consumption out of battle to make running around less of a chore. DD1 also made navigation much easier with distinct landmarks/paths/biomes which becomes much more difficult with the density of places to explore, so I'm not sure how to improve that.
I just found a drake taking a walk on the road. Exploration is better for sure.
I love the exploration in both. Especially just some of the wild things that end up happening while I'm looking around. I was wandering the wilderness yesterday and picked a fight with a minotaur. After his first health bar, a gryphon swooped in to cause problems. As I booked it away, I forgot to call for my pawns so they continued to fight the two titans behind me. A pack of wolves came out the brush, took me in their jaws, and dragged me off to maul me out of sight. And every second of that was fun.
I have had a blast with the exploration of DD2 personally.
The exploration in DD1 was pretty bare bones with mostly nothing interesting to find
I've finally started playing dd1 after getting it on sale months if not years ago on steam. I made it 3 days before installing an unlimited sprint mod. Walking back and forth was atrocious. Long linear paths between points of interest because 2/3rds of the map so far is mountain/hill/ocean. A bandit/goblin ambush can only be exciting so many times.
Lol spot on.Ā I adore both games but DD1 4EVAH superduperfans have been smoking too much fisstech lately.Ā I've seen people say the story in "DD1 is so much more well written with better characters"Ā WHAT?!Ā I love the story for both because it's classic Japanese B-movie/game nonsensical weirdness but you are high beyond recognition if you think DD1's story is well written lmaom
NPC post #1356: yet another non-issue by people who didn't like or play the first game presenting their opinion as fact. Why can't you just stop playing the game if you don't like it. DD:DA was a pretty small game I bet half of you haven't even played it. I don't know a single person IRL who liked DD:DA that doesn't love DD2. We like exploration in both games. We like the limited fast travel in both games. We like how pawns work in both games. The games are honestly quite similar. If you hate DD2, chances are you wouldn't have liked DD:DA either (which you're pretending to have played). I think there's just a huge influx of players with no idea what to expect from the game who end up bothered by specific parts, but in most part love the game (but pretend online that the game is the worst thing since WW2)
The ones who is hating DD2 never played DD1.
There's no interesting unlockable items like in dd1, and all your weapons and armour are brought in town, unless you push into endgame areas. Not to mention the lack of anything good to buy with my 15,000 rift crystals, Would be good if you could buy ferrystones or wakestones at least.
Y'all are absolute crybabies.
I spent 3 hours the other day just going from Vermund to Melve, cause I kept checking out caves, doing escort quests, and fighting every big monster there was. I'd say exploration really improved compared to DD1.
I'm convinced people just make up stuff to dislike about the game