The Dragon's Dogma 2 Thread

[KnightoftheWind]

@KnightoftheWind you're skipping over the fact that the gaming audience has grown massively. Tekken 7 failing to sell more copies than Tekken 3 is a failure on the marketing and/or developers.
The price of games should have gone down, not up. The potential audience for a game like DD2 is magnitudes greater than the first game let alone what it was for games in the 90s. 1 million copies was enough to put you in competition for best-selling game of the year in 2000. Now you'd need to sell 15+ million to even be close to being in the running.

BG2 sold about 500k copies a year after release, BG3 has already passed 15 million.

'Potential customers' have increased, but reality suggests a far bleaker scenario. Tekken 7 should have sold 16 million or more, given how much bigger and more popular gaming is than when Tekken 3 released, but no- it only sold the same amount of units. Games like Baldur's Gate are an outlier. Tekken 8 released fairly recently, and I wonder how much that game will sell. If it still sells around 8 million that would be bad enough, but if it sells 'less', I'm not sure what Namco is going to do with the franchise. They might just double or triple down on DLCs to make up the difference.

[rusty_shackleford]

@KnightoftheWind you're skipping over the fact that the gaming audience has grown massively. Tekken 7 failing to sell more copies than Tekken 3 is a failure on the marketing and/or developers.
The price of games should have gone down, not up. The potential audience for a game like DD2 is magnitudes greater than the first game let alone what it was for games in the 90s. 1 million copies was enough to put you in competition for best-selling game of the year in 2000. Now you'd need to sell 15+ million to even be close to being in the running.

BG2 sold about 500k copies a year after release, BG3 has already passed 15 million.

'Potential customers' have increased, but reality suggests a far bleaker scenario. Tekken 7 should have sold 16 million or more, given how much bigger and more popular gaming is than when Tekken 3 released, but no- it only sold the same amount of units. Games like Baldur's Gate are an outlier. Tekken 8 released fairly recently, and I wonder how much that game will sell. If it still sells around 8 million that would be bad enough, but if it sells 'less', I'm not sure what Namco is going to do with the franchise. They might just double or triple down on DLCs to make up the difference.

Developers should stop assuming they can serve slop and get paid for it.

[KnightoftheWind]

@KnightoftheWind you're skipping over the fact that the gaming audience has grown massively. Tekken 7 failing to sell more copies than Tekken 3 is a failure on the marketing and/or developers.
The price of games should have gone down, not up. The potential audience for a game like DD2 is magnitudes greater than the first game let alone what it was for games in the 90s. 1 million copies was enough to put you in competition for best-selling game of the year in 2000. Now you'd need to sell 15+ million to even be close to being in the running.

BG2 sold about 500k copies a year after release, BG3 has already passed 15 million.

'Potential customers' have increased, but reality suggests a far bleaker scenario. Tekken 7 should have sold 16 million or more, given how much bigger and more popular gaming is than when Tekken 3 released, but no- it only sold the same amount of units. Games like Baldur's Gate are an outlier. Tekken 8 released fairly recently, and I wonder how much that game will sell. If it still sells around 8 million that would be bad enough, but if it sells 'less', I'm not sure what Namco is going to do with the franchise. They might just double or triple down on DLCs to make up the difference.

Developers should stop assuming they can serve slop and get paid for it.

It's a competence issue when it comes to western developers, but I think when it comes to Capcom their talent is being drained by the pressure of developing a AAA game with cutting edge visuals that has to appeal to as many people as possible. Games were complex beasts even in the early 2000s, with lots of complex systems working in tandem. You can see the codebase of games rising dramatically with each generation. I can't imagine how many people are needed to debug a modern game, the lines of code of Dragon's Dogma 2 probably number in the tens of millions. It is a competency issue, but it's also an issue of sheer complexity as well.

[Oyster Sauce]

@KnightoftheWind you're skipping over the fact that the gaming audience has grown massively. Tekken 7 failing to sell more copies than Tekken 3 is a failure on the marketing and/or developers.
The price of games should have gone down, not up. The potential audience for a game like DD2 is magnitudes greater than the first game let alone what it was for games in the 90s. 1 million copies was enough to put you in competition for best-selling game of the year in 2000. Now you'd need to sell 15+ million to even be close to being in the running.

BG2 sold about 500k copies a year after release, BG3 has already passed 15 million:
https://web.archive.org/web/20021207211 ... nfo/about/

In June 2001 Baldur’s Gate II: Throne of Bhaal was released, the expansion pack to the award winning Shadows of Amn, and the conclusion to the Baldur’s Gate series, selling around 500,000 units

The gaming audience has increased, but games are also being released at an insane rate these days. How much of that audience is just playing old F2P games like Fortnite or hopping between FOTM games?

[rusty_shackleford]

The gaming audience has increased, but games are also being released at an insane rate these days

The amount of games worth actually buying is smaller than ever. Any developer capable of making a game that mostly maintains 60 FPS on a decent computer and is fun to play essentially becomes an overnight star.

Half the games in that screenshot are considered all-time classics.

What PC games have released this year so far that are worth buying?

[KnightoftheWind]

But who can tell?. If I don't want to play Dragon's Dogma 2 there are hundreds of games just like it I can play right now, I can even choose to replay a game I already bought years ago like The Witcher 3. It runs a LOT better than Dragon's Dogma 2 does, on weaker hardware, and even takes up less space. Why should I spent $60/$70 on Dragon's Dogma 2?, what can it offer me that other games don't?. It's even competing with the first game in this regard.

[rusty_shackleford]

But who can tell?. If I don't want to play Dragon's Dogma 2 there are hundreds of games just like it I can play right now, I can even choose to replay a game I already bought years ago like The Witcher 3. It runs a LOT better than Dragon's Dogma 2 does, on weaker hardware, and even takes up less space. Why should I spent $60/$70 on Dragon's Dogma 2?, what can it offer me that other games don't?. It's even competing with the first game in this regard.

Singleplayer games don't directly compete with each other unless they release near each other, they aren't SaaS. People who already played Witcher 3 may buy Dragon's Dogma 2 because it's similar. They aren't going to buy it because it currently has 50% positive reviews, runs like shit, and various other reasons.

[rusty_shackleford]

Any developer capable of making a game that mostly maintains 60 FPS on a decent computer and is fun to play essentially becomes an overnight star.

btw, See: Helldivers 2. Probably the only game (fully released) worth mentioning so far this year.
It's a fun game, doesn't antagonize its potential customers, and without many technical issues. Immediately becomes a smashing success. That's how low the bar is for becoming absolutely rich.

It's why you have people wondering why Helldivers 2 is so popular because it seems rather average. This shit is being graded on a curve.

[KnightoftheWind]

There are many games that are "fun games" but don't do nearly as well as Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3. I think it's by sheer happenstance that both games manage to 'click' with so many people all at once. If being a "good game" was all that was needed to succeed, than there are many older re-releases of games on Steam that should be selling by the millions, but don't. Onimusha is a popular franchise, but by all accounts the remaster did horribly, to the point that plans to remaster Onimusha 2 and 3 were scrapped.

And yes, single player games can and do compete with each other. So many games play similarly and have similar storylines and mechanics, that it's no wonder why companies feel the only way they can compete with what's already available is to double down on graphical presentation. People aren't buying Dragon's Dogma 2 because they want to see how much the game has improved since the first game, they are buying it because they want the shiny visuals. "OMG THIS LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE FIRST GAME!" is not an uncommon statement on Youtube videos.

[rusty_shackleford]

There are many games that are "fun games" but don't do nearly as well as Helldivers 2 and Baldur's Gate 3. I think it's by sheer happenstance that both games manage to 'click' with so many people all at once. If being a "good game" was all that was needed to succeed, than there are many older re-releases of games on Steam that should be selling by the millions, but don't. Onimusha is a popular franchise, but by all accounts the remaster did horribly, to the point that plans to remaster Onimusha 2 and 3 were scrapped.

And yes, single player games can and do compete with each other. So many games play similarly and have similar storylines and mechanics, that it's no wonder why companies feel the only way they can compete with what's already available is to double down on graphical presentation. People aren't buying Dragon's Dogma 2 because they want to see how much the game has improved since the first game, they are buying it because they want the shiny visuals. "OMG THIS LOOKS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THE FIRST GAME!" is not an uncommon statement on Youtube videos.

If you're aware of all these fun games that have released you should share them with us

[KnightoftheWind]

I'm not talking about new games Rusty, I'm talking about old stuff that's readily available to buy on Steam right now.

[UnfairTradeCoffee]

Any developer capable of making a game that mostly maintains 60 FPS on a decent computer and is fun to play essentially becomes an overnight star.

btw, See: Helldivers 2. Probably the only game (fully released) worth mentioning so far this year.
It's a fun game, doesn't antagonize its potential customers, and without many technical issues. Immediately becomes a smashing success. That's how low the bar is for becoming absolutely rich.

It's why you have people wondering why Helldivers 2 is so popular because it seems rather average. This shit is being graded on a curve.

Saw some video before the Helldivers 2 release, a trailer or in-game cutscene, and saw a white man with his black wife. Also doesn't Helldivers 2 make you install some rootkit?

[DJOGamer]

lol, somehow my potato desktop (RX480 + i5 6500) is able run this - though it's on Low it rarely drops bellow 30fps (though haven't reached the first city yet, there's plenty to do)

Anyway, the game is exately what I thought it would be - DD1 but improved, polished and with more content
The combat is expanded from the get go, even with the reduction of 6 to 4 skills your PC still has a greater array of moves, consquently the action has more depth and the chery on top is that it feels more beefy and chaotic (part because of the better animations and sound fx, part because of the more "intelligent" enemy AI)
Enemy variety seems mostly the same but they also have expanded behaviours
Pawn AI is far more effiecient, haven't seen any of them running like a headless chicken, like it was so common in DD1, plus pawn commands are more useful
I think this part of the reason the game feels easier
Speaking of difficulty, I think the challenge now is not so much the individual fights like in DD1 (with the exception of bosses) but rather the accumulated "fatigue" of the journey, more focus on the long-term consequences of bad planning, resource management and also bad fighting
It's an cool chance, but I would like if the individual encounters still hit harder, and fortunately to fix that it's not a case of changing enemy AI (since that element is better) but simply increasing the enemy HP and damage (doubling should be more than enough)
The new equipment system is a side-grade mechanically, but an improvement aesthetically
One element DD2 straight up btfo of DD1 is exploration and map design - the game is full of nooks and crannies and there's more considerations when traversing the map
Story I haven't proguessed much, but at least the openning sequence is shorter than the original
So far the only element that is disappointingly inferior to DD1 is the music

All in all the game is good
It's a shame about the performance and Capcom's greed and stupidity
If it weren't for that bullshit I could see the game easily hitting 500k players on Steam

[Nooneatall]

Easy solution: stop with the graphics race. I do not want to play a hyper realistic uncanny game with no soul or style. I'm perfectly okay with a game that looks like it's from the n64 as long as its playable and has good ui. I still play super Nintendo games. Devs should go all in on having a good style and polish rather than shitting out these bleak dark games where the graphics look worse than ps3 but perform half as well as it did.

[rusty_shackleford]

worst part of so-called ""realistic"" graphics is the hyper-emphasis on skin pores, every character looks like they have a fucked up skin disease now

[Anon]

Easy solution: stop with the graphics race. I do not want to play a hyper realistic uncanny game with no soul or style. I'm perfectly okay with a game that looks like it's from the n64 as long as its playable and has good ui. I still play super Nintendo games. Devs should go all in on having a good style and polish rather than shitting out these bleak dark games where the graphics look worse than ps3 but perform half as well as it did.

It isn't the issue, the issue is filling up teams with junior trash devs who can't optimize shit while sending away the competent more expensive people

[Rand]

It doesn't run too badly here; it's only in the city where you encounter trouble. As for the dysgenic NPCs, yes, it's as you said, Netflix fantasy. Well, it's not Europe; there's no economy, no nations, zero environmental interaction. Indeed, it's a fake realm anyway. However, the exploration is very good; it feels like dungeon crawling. You can't heal that easily; you need to immediately heal after a blow, or it stays until the next rest. Then, it's fun finding classes and trying them, but some are totally overpowered. If you liked DD, you will like it for sure; otherwise, I don't see anything that would change anyone's mind.

This is what I was advised.



I have a 9700k and a 2070 super...

[Rand]

See: Helldivers 2. Probably the only game (fully released) worth mentioning so far this year.
It's a fun game, doesn't antagonize its potential customers,

Told alphabet/tranny activists to fuck off with their flag bullshit.
If they get gross political capes, I want the third reich nazi red white and black swastika flag, just to infuriate people like that.
But wise devs said no to all real world bullshit.

[KnightoftheWind]

Easy solution: stop with the graphics race. I do not want to play a hyper realistic uncanny game with no soul or style. I'm perfectly okay with a game that looks like it's from the n64 as long as its playable and has good ui. I still play super Nintendo games. Devs should go all in on having a good style and polish rather than shitting out these bleak dark games where the graphics look worse than ps3 but perform half as well as it did.

The PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 era hits that sweet spot, I think. Just advanced enough as to where you can convey a lot more emotion and detail, but just primitive enough as to not be uncanny or taxing on the designers and artists. Games like Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 5, also from Capcom, have aged tremendously well. You'd be hard pressed to find a game in recent memory that looks as good and artistically cohesive as those games. If Capcom still made games with their old engine, I don't think anybody would complain, but even then they did a horrible job optimising Monster Hunter World for some reason. Same engine as Resident Evil 5, but runs like a dog and I'm not sure why that's the case.

Regardless, despite people being more than willing to emulate these older games, they still scoff whenever a new game is announced and it "looks like a PS2/PS3 game!". People have been conditioned to expect greater and greater detail with each new release, and I don't think these companies can afford to go back. Capcom especially has invested a lot into their RE Engine, and I figure they want to exploit it as much as they can. The funny thing is the engine is more than capable of depicting non-photorealistic settings, after all Monster Hunter Rise uses it. But for every other franchise, they seem obsessed with scanning in real-world models and using their faces. Turning characters like Leon into Instagram gigolos. It's less a problem of the technology, and moreso how it's being used.

[NEG]

I wonder if the performance will be better after the inevitable patching and pirates removing denuvo from it.

From what I hear, this is unlikely to happen for a long time.

Supposedly, Denuvo is a pain in the butt to remove, and the only one who removed it with regularity was a guy named Empress, who got doxed and then fled the internet.

[NEG]

pay to sleep

IIRC, it's 2 kg lighter than the normal one. $3 for 2 kg.

[gerey]

Games like Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 5, also from Capcom

That was Capcom at their peak when it came to character modeling. They're still based on real people for the most part, but tweaked and stylized enough to look better and dodge the uncanny valley.

Haunting Ground and Resident Evil 1 Remake/Resident Evil 5 all use the same IRL model as a base, yet with a few tweaks Capcom managed to make her look like entirely different characters.

Capcom's fixation with face scanning technology has been a detriment to all their games. The characters never come out looking right, and the model they pick mostly look like shit. New Jill is just offputting when compared to Voss, and I have the sneaking suspicion they pick less good-looking female models on purpose.

[The_Mask]

We have finished work on the pawn search feature, and now pawn searches, including those with the Quest Knowledge criteria, should be working properly. We apologize for the inconvenience and hope the pawn search serves you well as you play.

[Nooneatall]

Games like Devil May Cry 4 and Resident Evil 5, also from Capcom

That was Capcom at their peak when it came to character modeling. They're still based on real people for the most part, but tweaked and stylized enough to look better and dodge the uncanny valley.

Haunting Ground and Resident Evil 1 Remake/Resident Evil 5 all use the same IRL model as a base, yet with a few tweaks Capcom managed to make her look like entirely different characters.

Capcom's fixation with face scanning technology has been a detriment to all their games. The characters never come out looking right, and the model they pick mostly look like shit. New Jill is just offputting when compared to Voss, and I have the sneaking suspicion they pick less good-looking female models on purpose.

Everyone's face looks shiny, wet, and like it's shaped from clay it's really weird. What instantly comes to mind for me is Ashley from Resident evil 4 remake but Jill and Claire also suffer from this as well.

DD2 has much better faces for the most part and the pawns created by players are usually pretty good unless they are joke characters.

[pokafox]

Had time to play for a few hours this weekend. tl;dr it's next gen DD1 and as a big fan of the first game this is exactly what I expected and hoped for.

Performance is awful but again I got potato PCs. PC1: i5-6600 / 2060 = 40-50 fps on mostly low / PC2: RYZEN 5 / 1070 = 20-30 fps on low low. The kiddies don't mind tho. Been meaning to upgrade that 1070 for years so looking for a second hand card rn. I agree with the comments they need to stop with the graphics race. I honestly don't think the performance hit is worth the small increase in "graphical fidelity" at all. I almost wish they just made it in DD1's engine that ran hella smooth and didn't have so much visual clutter.

Game wise, again I actually love that the game feels so much like DD1. Character editor weirdly feels like a downgrade from the first game on certain points like others said. Re-created my old trusty Pawn but couldn't get it exactly right. Story is yet another Arisen cycle which fits the first game's "eternal wheel" concept. Combat is fun and tight as expected. I've just been having a blast exploring the first areas so far.

Haven't made it to the Capital yet.

[Rand]

[Mortmal]

It doesn't run too badly here; it's only in the city where you encounter trouble. As for the dysgenic NPCs, yes, it's as you said, Netflix fantasy. Well, it's not Europe; there's no economy, no nations, zero environmental interaction. Indeed, it's a fake realm anyway. However, the exploration is very good; it feels like dungeon crawling. You can't heal that easily; you need to immediately heal after a blow, or it stays until the next rest. Then, it's fun finding classes and trying them, but some are totally overpowered. If you liked DD, you will like it for sure; otherwise, I don't see anything that would change anyone's mind.

This is what I was advised.



I have a 9700k and a 2070 super...

With a 3600X and 4070S in 4K, I'm getting around 30-40 fps in town with everything on high and ray tracing on, and 60 fps most often outside, occasionally hitting 60-80. But everything is on high, so it's hard to get honest answers about performance; people lie about everything, from their configurations to their FPS. Then again, you don't have to put everything on ultra to enjoy this game, or any other game for that matter. I often read people lamenting about the lack of VRAM on our cards, but it never uses more than 8 GB, even in 4K, ever.

[pokafox]

Just had a quick exploration session and I'm honestly falling in love all over again. Picked up from yesterday up in the North, ran into a Cyclop, epic fight ensued, night had fallen so camped in the mountains, found some ruins, explored caves with slimes I couldn't deal with in melee so let my boy's mage pawn deal with them except when I could find bombs to throw at them, got some decent loot, exited the caves from a different exit that brought me back north of the first encampment, trecked there as night was falling, hit the inn, woke up to my pawn telling me of his travels with other Arisens (got picked 5 times got a decent amount of RC), setup a Pawn quest, unlocked vocation skills on me and my pawn, sold loot, crafted all the ingredients I gathered on the way into HP/Stamina pellets, logged my boy's pawns off so they get the RC and re-hired them. Logged off.

This is it for me. The feeling is here. I hope it doesn't go downhill after that but the exploration and gameplay alone are worth it. Dunno if it changes late game but haven't even thought of looking at the cash shop yet.

[Falksi]

I've been spreading this round social media to stick the knives into some normies and FF fanfags, and it's working a treat....

this is a complete lie and juxtaposition though
>DD2 New World and New Areas
it's the same fucking place as DD1 with one new biome added
>DD2 New Story
it's the exact same as the first game

I don't even like FF7 that much and think it's one of the most overrated FF games and JRPGs in general but there's more new shit in FF7 remake (and I assume rebirth considering the first one) than what's new in DD2 because the FF7 remake trilogy is just another set of games in the "compilation of FF7" they are sequels. The FF7 remake trilogy are sequels presenting themselves as a remake while DD2 is a remake presenting themselves as a sequel.

CAPCOM troons coping hard it seems

It's almost as if it's a meme, where intentional falsities are added to troll dumbasses who take it all at face value

[Nammu Archag]

This game is confirmed slop by now and if you are still openly shilling for it you are going on the goy list