Dragons Dogma 2

Penn

I'm kind of waning on this a bit. Still playing and progressing, but combat becomes very repetitive after a while, and because of how restrictive the fast travel section is as it's reliant on expensive/rare consumables you either have to run back and forth, encountering the same enemies in the same locations most of the time, or take an oxcart which will often be attacked halfway through the journey, destroyed, and then you have to run and fight for the rest of the journey anyway. And most journeys involve a constant stop-start of attack three minor enemies, go forward a little bit, attack four more minor enemies, go forward another little bit, attack three more minor enemies, go forward a little bit, fight Ogre/Cyclops, go forward a little bit, attack three minor enemies…. it can feel incredibly exhausting.

It's a game that really wants you to explore and traverse the world rather than just mainlining quests, but when you have already explored areas and get to the point where you want to complete a few quests to lighten your load of collected items, upgrade your weapons/equipment or when you kind of do need to progress some main or important side quests, the game can feel very repetitive, restrictive and often just annoying. Just trying to get from one main town to another is more of a pain than the actual fights themselves.

Maybe I should be taking the opportunity to level up other vocations during these smaller journeys, but because even your armour can't always be used for other vocations you would have to be carrying more and swapping them out repeatedly. Plus I like my vocation and don't really want to swap at this stage either.

Icyseanfitz

The only thing so far that has me annoyed is finding a vocation I liked (warrior) and having it maxed before leaving the first main area, I assume I'll unlock no more skills etc. And only upgrade gear for it from now on

Penn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121991893#Comment_121991893

There is a Maister ability for each vocation to find, usually by completing a quest of finding a particular NPC. I maxed out Mystic Spearhand ages ago but over the weekend found the MS NPC while doing something else and helped him take down a dragon, and he gave me a scroll which unlocked the most powerful MS ability.

I've gotten the maister ability for most of the vocations just by doing their quests even without playing those vocations. Can't remember the warrior one in particular but chances are you'll unlock it later in the game. They do serious damage so can't really unlock them too early. But yeah, it kinda means other than upgrading or finding better weapons for your vocation, you're stuck with your current abilities for the foreseeable future.

Penn

Yeah I think I'm done. Reached a certain point in the main questline and looked up what the rest of the game entails, and I just don't particularly want to do it.

It's a great game, no doubt about it. But it's a game where once you've experienced the bulk of what the game has to offer, it starts to feel like a slog. If the fast travel had been more like Elden ring, where you could freely fast travel between campfires or riftstones that you've found in the open world, it'd be a much more enjoyable game. It would at least mean you have to explore the world to find those fast travel points, but afterwards if you just wanted to return there to take the left path rather than the right path, you could do so. Instead you're constantly forced to walk up and down the map managing your sprint meter, encountering same enemies in the same places, listening to the same pawn dialogue, and you rarely find anything useful in most of areas you explore because a lot of weapons and items are tied to the different vocations and switching vocations and levelling them up is a burden.

Again, to compare to Elden Ring, sure you have a particular build and you're putting your skill points into particular things, but you still have the freedom to wear a huge amount of the different armours, and for the things you're levelling up there's a huge amount of different weapons with different abilities you can still use. With the vocations, you can only wear particular armour (and if you change your vocation, it literally removes and changes your armour), and most of the weapons are just the same for each vocation, maybe with a different elemental or strength/magic buff.

So yeah, think I'm going to tap out.

McFly85

It’s a strange one, this. I’m definitely enjoying it, it does give a strong feeling of adventure when it works, but there’s a few things that feel a bit sub-par.

First one is definitely travel. Feels like the design decision really just wants to be no fast travel while making some strange and annoying concessions knowing people will drop the game without it. Ferrystones are rare or expensive enough that I don’t want drop cash on them or use the ones I have, and the oxcart system is okay but still restrictive. Either have fast travel available once you get to a place or be able to hire an oxcart to bring you wherever you’ve been before(even if it was more expensive). I don’t think restricting fast travel is a worthy game mechanic anyway, all you’re doing is disrespecting the players time. Allowing fast travel to places you’ve already travelled to is the best compromise.

Combat - I’ve really just been in the warrior classes as my main pawn is my mage(and it’s typically how I play these games), it feels pretty basic. In general it’s chaotic too with pawns doing their own thing while you’re swinging away. And while the first time I saw felled an ogre was great but the next few are a chore, just swinging away at its legs while it goes down. Maybe I’ll have to change my vocation to find something that might be more enjoyable for me. It’s also very imbalanced - can wander through a place with low level goblins to then just be rinsed by some massive beast(thankfully you’re not really punished for that though).

I do like the world and exploration, and the pawn system. It’s a game where it feels like I would enjoy the early game, and the late game(where I’m at a high enough level to take on some of the bigger challenges), but getting through the mid-game could be a bit of a slog.

brady12

Only found sacred arbor after finishing the game 🤣

Birneybau

I really enjoyed the first so I'm waiting for this to go to at least half price

Potential-Monke

Picked this up a few weeks ago what with the update to add variable frame rate on the PS5 at the cost of RT and something else. I can echo most sentiments on here, and indeed across the interwebz, that the first 10-20 hours are amazing, but then it becomes boringly repetitive. Beating the big monsters the first time is fun, but every time after that it's the same. The climbing monsters mechanic is cool, but again becomes boring after a while.

Started with Warrior and main pawn as Mage, maxed both of them fairly quickly. Changed pawn to Sorcerer and myself to Mystic Spearhand and suddenly no one heals anymore… I was wondering why I was getting hapes of materials to make healing items when my pawn constantly healed everyone. That's just a mage ability so really makes me not want to have my pawn as anything else… even so, combat is very simple. Hack, strong hack, 4 specials moves from a list of 10+, climb, stab, repeat. Initially it was fun, but now not so much. Mystic Spearhand looks cool, but you can't dodge, parry or block, aside from 1 specific special move. I actually hate games that don't have a block or dodge mechanic, as it's the most simple and basic requirements for fantasy combat imo!

Exploring is fun, but as noted you meet the same enemies in the same places every time. Exploring often results in very meh rewards too, and the weight management gets annoying quick. Constantly looking for towns/villages just so I can empty the inventory. And while the game more or less forces you to run everywhere (or pay real world money when the in game items don't cover the requirements), they should have been a bit more lenient on the stamina drain outside of combat. Or just get rid of it outside of combat altogether. Same thing annoyed me 10-fold in Skyrim, but Skyrim felt more rewarding overall. In my 20ish hours so far, I've found maybe 3 swords… the game is very obviously focused on making you spend money so you can spend real money then.

I'm probably gonna call it quits tbh, as every time I start it up lately I'm immediately bummed about all the running I have to do again… it's a game with great ideas and some cool experiences, but completely ruined by the fast travel limitations, stamina drain and repetitive exploration, coupled with a very basic combat system that is a by the numbers experience. Performance is still not fantastic. Not a hope I'm locking to 30fps, so with variable it's better but very variable. I've seen smoothness turn to jank without anything much changing on screen. Towns are full of frame drops. Pawns won't shut the fuk up saying the same 10 lines over and over. I went into the place to get new pawns once looking for an archer, and not a single one loaded… There's a good game here, but it's held back with back choices and repetitive gameplay.

Sgt Hartman

I had the main quest beaten in just over a week which is ridiculous . The game was such a let down after a promising start.