Dragon's Dogma (Series)

[Mr EliteL]

Ah yeah, I don't want to see pretty much the same thing for Grigori this time around, hope there's a notable difference perhaps in it's role or whatever.

Also agree on varities, although I didn't mind the visually different versions like Griffin > Cockatrice instead of Chimera > Gorechimera as it was just a recolour basically but stronger. Because facing the Cockatrice if you didn't come prepared there was always the lingering threat of the petrification attack and that taking affect. I think Gorechimera did have something going for it but forgot what it was but wasn't durable enough so you can still defeat it still.

Bringing over your character/pawn would be cool but I'd personally would rather start anew, even though I'd likely still make the same character (or at least one of them out of the...5 I made) but man, I'll spend ages in the customisation as I usually do to get close to perfection as I want.

[Moonface]

Dragon's Dogma 2 | Capcom Showcase 2023 - Developer Gameplay Overview
During today's Capcom Showcase, game director Hideaki Itsuno went into detail about the pawn and vocation systems for Dragon's Dogma 2, as well as mentioning that the game world will be four times the size of the first game.



No date was given but more details will be shared in the future.

[Dragon Lord]

I just hope with the map being so much bigger that they make fast travel much easier to achieve as well. Having to find port crystals and then having to go back to where you want to place on in order to be able to fast travel sucked on DD1's map. Having to do it that way again on a map that's four times bigger would just be a nightmare.

[Mr EliteL]

At the moment it looks like co-op with other players is off the table, but I'm just hoping they were addressing the fact the single player aspect with up to 3 pawns in your party offline (also online as DD1 had) is still there. Feel like it's a slim chance though that proper co-op is in after this though. Not that I hate that it's back, I'm happy with that option to play by yourself again, it'll just be a huge missed opportunity to have some kind of online co-op with at least one other player, so both can use their main pawn too to make up the four (or play as a duo).

The map being up to four ties bigger than DD1, YES! I agree on the Portcrystals if they're back, hope they can be place on the in-game map instead of having to travel all the way to the spot you want to place it. Or of course something else becomes the fast travel.

Don't mind returning enemies, hoping there's a big bunch of new ones though, maybe even some from DD Online too that most of us didn't get to fight against.

[Moonface]

The only issue I would see with co-op is that it would be problematic with the pawn system. Anything more than two players means pawns can't happen because everyone having a pawn each would put 3+ players over the 4 character party limit, and even with 2 players with 2 pawns (one each) the next issue is that pawns adore running around picking up everything they can get their paws on, and given the game would probably have no communication methods it would be a real pain in the arse trying to indicate you want something the other persons pawn took or whatever. I also forget if you can drop items or not because if not, there's no way for P2 to give something to P1 once it gets collected as they won't have access to the inventory of P1's pawn to hand it to them like you can when loaning out a pawn from someone. Obviously with a sequel they can change stuff to make it work but even then it doesn't sound like a feasible feature logistically to me.

[Dragon Lord]

If they would have done co-op in the game, they could have just added a voice chat option to the game for people (though I think most people playing together would be friends with Discord or something), which would take care of any communication problems. I think it would have been cool to experience this game while talking to your buddy on voice chat, getting to listen to each other's reactions to the sights and surprises of the game.

Capcom could have easily made a great co-op experience for this game, but of course that would require more work and that's not something most developers are keen to do.

[Moonface]

Do you think co-op would've really taken off for this game though? I know Elden Ring has co-op, yet I've rarely ever heard of anyone bothering to touch it at all despite some of the pre-release stuff trying to highlight going through an area with a friend.

[Moonface]

Dragon's Dogma 2 Will Be at TGS '23
Capcom have announced that Dragon's Dogma 2 will be part of their Tokyo Game Show 2023 Online Program that will air on September 21, 7am PT / 10am ET / 3pm GMT, where Game Director Hideaki Itsuno will be sharing new gameplay and info about the game.

The program will run for 50 minutes and currently includes three other games alongside Dragon's Dogma 2, so for now there's a good chance we'll be getting at least ten minutes of coverage for this game.

---

I don't have any particular wishes of what specific info I want to see from this, but right now DD2 is the biggest game in the program line-up and if nothing else gets added I think it'll actually get more like 20+ minutes of coverage. Exoprimal, Street Fighter 6 and the Ace Attorney Trilogy are the other three games and I doubt they'll take up more than 15-20 minutes combined since all three are just getting small updates, as stated on the official website: https://www.capcom-games.com/tgs/en-us/online/

[Mr EliteL]

Cool, I'm not expecting anything specific either, just want to watch and see what they'll show.

[Moonface]

Looking back at what we've seen so far, I'd actually want to see what's actually new for DD2 in terms of mechanics/gameplay since all we got back in June was a look at pawns and vocations which aren't new systems (although I'm sure they're improved). I also wasn't aware the game is being made on the RE Engine which means it should run like an absolute dream since that engine is incredibly good and probably one of if not the best game engine Capcom currently has on their hands.

[Mr EliteL]

Dragon's Dogma 2 | TGS Gameplay Showcase



Hideaki Itsuno runs through a number of vocations and talks about the world of Dragon's Dogma 2. There will be two nations in the game; the human Kingdom Vermund where the Arisen have ruled as King, and the land of the beastren Battahl, their city built on ancient ruins. You may encounter people who call out for you as well as receive quests from those who you aid, with it being up to player whether to continue helping them or not. Night time returns with more dangerous enemies than day time, with camping becoming a new addition similar to Inns as long as you have the camping kit needed to set up. Pawns can now negate fall damage by catching you if they are below you.

Starter Vocations:

• Fighter (Sword & Shield)
  
• Archer (Bow & Arrow)
  
• Mage (Staff)
  
• Thief (Dual Daggers)
  

Advanced Vocations:

• Mystic Spearhand (Duospear & Magick) - Close range with the spear, magick that can teleport to an enemy, block enemy or throw items including an enemy body
  
• Magick Archer (Magick Arrows & Staff) - Long Range Magick using their arrows, support and can now heal as well
  

More unique vocations to discover in-game.

---

Looking similar to Dragon's Dogma which is still good. Wonder if it'll just be two nations or that's it but if so then they both better be huge. Strider being split into two is fine for starting vocations however looks like Magick Archer loses the dual daggers top unfortunately. Given how Assassin and Magick Archer were the strongest vocations plus Strider and Ranger being so versatile with two types of weapons, making them pretty much the strongest of their respective vocation tier for players that liked to be able to move about with ease (ie me, although I enjoyed Fighter too), I suppose they needed some kind of change. I'm still expecting an advanced vocation or higher to bring back the Dual Dagger & Bow combo still. Then again Magick Archer got demoted as it was an Arisen-only vocation so that's why it is without daggers.

[Moonface]

Finally got around to watching this, and the two things I really liked seeing were using the environment against enemies and your pawn being able to catch you from a high fall. The two different nations is an interesting concept too; I wonder if the beastren nation is going to have a faction that has beef with the human nation due to the latter not only having more power but also because they obtained that power by slaying a dragon which those beastren might see as one of their own. There's definitely going to be something to cause tensions between the two somehow just for how the game is making a point that both nations are distinct to each other rather than coming together as one.

As for the vocations, I can't recall if I went with Thief or Archer on my playthrough, or maybe a class that was a mixture of both since I know for sure I had a character that was suited to using bows and daggers together. I expect I'll go with Archer for DD2 since I like being able to pick of enemies from a safe distance in the early game, plus Dragon's Dogma gives me big DnD vibes and I used an archer in DnD so it felt appropriate to use one for DD1.

It's funny how the video mentions that pawns with quest experience can show you where to go when a lot of people playing DD2 at launch are not going to have access to pawns with that knowledge since not many players will have done a lot of the quests yet for their pawns to gain knowledge. Yay for all the pawns being stupid on Day One.

[Mr EliteL]

Yeah didn't think about Beastren possibly having that in their nation, or well part. Unless The Dragon(s) would come torment them as well. But like you said there could a faction somewhere that'll side strongly like that against Humans and even Player if they also choose to be Beastren.

The starting vocation in DD1 was Strider which did combine the two weapons for use, Ranger was similar to Strider but makes sense to have Strider split into two this time around, just hope there will be the combo in a different vocation, I mean it'll likely be true. I didn't see daggers with Magick Archer though. Ah, I forgot to add Staff to that vocation in my summary. But yeah in DD1 Magick Archer had access to Bow, Daggers and Staff but could only equip Dagger or Staff so couldn't have all three at once.
Hmm...that makes me wonder, could there be a Hybrid Vocation there will be able to have three weapons at once? Nah, probably not as Sword/Dagger/Staff shared the same button and Bow/Shield shared the same so really they'll keep weapons equipped to two.

It's possible there'll be AI Pawns like DD1 that could have some knowledge at the beginning...then again I can't remember if AI pawns did or not, perhaps just knowledge on enemies. But yeah unless you find someone's pawn who played from the first minute and are already a few hours in with early quests completed there'll be moot for early days.

[Dragon Lord]

My man curiosity is if they'll nerf Assassin into the ground if that bring it back as one of the Vocations. It was kind of funny that the build that took the least amount of effort in the game (1 > 10 Strider, 10 > 200 Assassin) was by far the most brokenly OP build in the game. Being able to basically instant kill both forms of the harder version of Daimon on BBI with Blast Arrows was always hilarious.

I hope they make magic more fun to play as well. I had always wanted to try a Sorcerer build in the first game, but the amount of effort you had to go into leveling up as different Vocations to get the best stats + the charge time of spells just made it awful to play. Same issue with classes like Magic Archer, who needed to level in so many different classes to optimize the build. All of that work just to still be noticeably worse than a pure Assassin build.

Better balance + more enjoyable game play for certain classes please. Like why the hell did Assassin have the highest STR growth in the game compared to melee classes like Warrior? Bruh.

[Moonface]

I'm surprised the Assassin class wasn't tweaked at all when Dark Arisen was released for the original game, since that would be a perfect time to do sweeping balance changes to the game similar to how Dark Souls II did with Scholar of the First Sin. The fact they didn't makes me cautious now in expecting any significant balance changes to classes for the sequel but I also wasn't aware there were balance issues like that before now, so I guess if they do nothing and I go back to being ignorant again it won't be something that bothers me?