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[zkorejo]

Created Geralt of Rivia using guide from one of the YouTube vids it was the best Geralt. And made Jaskier/Dandelion as a pawn and I am pretending like this game is in Witcher universe when Geralt was taken by wild hunt and lost his memory. It's working so flawlessly it's giving me Witcher levels of immersion with this roleplay.

Overall I'm loving the game. Absolute blast. Hours flew by and I realized I stayed up entire night to play it.

Level 14 already in one sitting. My only gripe so far is weight limit. And also loot is mid so far.

 

[Buggy Loop]

This game just gets better and better the more I play.

The combat encounters are epic and unpredictable. Night time combat is absolutely crazy.

GOTY

Took a different path to return to capital last night that kind of followed the coast but went into caves.

Had an epic battle with an ogre with an overarching rock formation.

The level design is so good

 

[Draugoth]

I didn't know Deborah Wilson was also in this game?

Her resume sure is incredible!

 

[Madflavor]

I didn't know Deborah Wilson was also in this game?

Her resume sure is incredible!

Lol she really is everywhere. I like her, she's kind of a gaming legend in my book.

 

[Topher]

Was in the bar in Vernworth. Saw some woman slapping some man repeatedly. Finally the guy hit back and then beat the ever-living shit out of her to the point she ran out of the bar screaming "I don't want to die!"

Some of the best shit in this game is the random shit. lol

 

[DavidGzz]

What's up with those groups of other adventurers? Found a few already but don't know what's their deal.

Idk, I found one group of cats that fucked me up in one hit early on lol. I was killing bandits, when I spoke to them they said I wouldn't try anything so of course I did and they rekt me. I did fuck up a group of fat mages not too long ago and almost used a wake stone on one when I was trying to loot them. I threw them in a river to get rid of the evidence.

 

[Kacho]

Idk, I found one group of cats that fucked me up in one hit early on lol. I was killing bandits, when I spoke to them they said I wouldn't try anything so of course I did and they rekt me. I did fuck up a group of fat mages not too long ago and almost used a wake stone on one when I was trying to loot them. I threw them in a river to get rid of the evidence.

Yeah I encountered a group early on and they wrecked me

 

[Exentryk]

Really getting into this the more I play. There is something satisfying defeating the larger enemies and doing that while you're growing with different equipments, skills, pawns, etc. Each battle can be so dynamic and different that it doesn't get boring. Night time is actually dark (just like DD1) and it's just as great as before. Loss gauge, night time, being far away from any camp sites or town, etc, can really add some tension to the experience.

The world this time around seems more labyrinthine compared to the previous game which was more large open plain fields. Some of the areas like venturing into the Elven base is designed quite well and you can really start feeling those Elven vibes as you're getting there.

Also enjoying the pawns and can't wait until I can build them so they handle all large enemies just by themselves. Did the same in DD1 and it was awesome walking around and just letting the pawns massacre everything.

The only annoying thing is I don't have enough time to play this

Created Geralt of Rivia using guide from one of the YouTube vids it was the best Geralt. And made Jaskier/Dandelion as a pawn

Hah, my Arisen is also Geralt and main pawn is Triss XD

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Made him stumble headfirst into the spiked barrier

was brutal and hilarious at the same time.

 

[Balducci30]

not sure if you liked the exploration in elden rings, but i hated its exploration because everywhere you went you got something useless for classes you werent main-ing. Either that or it was some bs boss that took 10-15 tries then gave a crappy reward.

This game is much more fun because of all your coop buddies. The stuff you do find out in the wild is mostly helpful with very rare gear for classes you arent using. you are mostly earning xp which lets you unlock actual skills and abilities instead of putting in 1-2 points into your str, dex etc. a level every few hours.

to me, an open world souls game is a tedious exercise in frustration. this is an open world game done right.

I loved the exploration in Elden Ring. Partly because of the art design - and the hidden boss encounters. But more just the feeling of it felt like I was genuinely discovering things in a way I don’t get from most open worlds. Idk it just had a feeling, hard to intellectualize why it felt so much better than other open worlds. Probably one of my favorite games of all time.

 

[DavidGzz]

It’s interesting to me that some people think this game surpasses Elden Ring’s exploration. I get some of the points being made, but so far the craziest optional thing I’ve found was a fairly large cave with a Chimera and Lich in it, and the reward was some Robes. It was fun, don’t get me wrong. But there are entire zones, giant sprawling zones that are so beautiful and visually unique in their design, that you can accidentally stumble upon in ER.

I get to an extent the fun of exploring the world with a party, but Pawns barely have personalities, and you’re constantly swapping out half of them, so I don’t feel attached to them. Not to mention this dumb fucking Dragonsplague system has me on edge constantly, and not in a good way.

Again, despite my whining I am enjoying the game. But seeing some of the reactions online, it’s like I’m playing a different game from people.

The multilevel caves with collapsible bridges that make ladders, the hard to reach chests(I've personally found some great loot), let's not pretend loot is great in Elden Ring, it was spawned from Dark Souls which gives things like rubbish in out of the way areas. The cooperation or all out help pawns give to reach chests. The fact that you can hire other people's pawns who can direct you to missions so that you don't have to keep opening your map to make sure you're on the right track. The large Lord of the Ring like battles against 1 or multiple large creatures. I'm having a blast exploring in this and I had a blast exploring in Elden Ring but eventually all the dungeons in that game were pretty samey with the same dog and cat statue mobs and bosses. I just reached a whole new country that looks entirely different in Dragon's Dogma 2.

I love both games and they have different strengths that make them amazing. This is the new hotness so I currently like Dogma more, but it's also the honeymoon period so I will wait a while to see which one I love more when the dust settles. I did put 400 hours into Elden Ring, idk if this game will provide that. I hope there is a good modding community because that's really the reason I have so many in ER.

 

[Joho79]

So far the fighter somersault strike is my worst enemy. Died two times falling off from great heights.

 

[Northeastmonk]

Are you heavy weight then? Does weight matter or is it just speed ?

I am Heavy. I am actually Very Heavy but I have two rings that reduce weight. I also used a scarab that increased my carrying weight by .15 or .17 kg. It’s manageable now. I don’t really notice it. It takes me back to Havel’s Ring from Dark Souls.

Weight slows you down and reduces your running speed. You can get the necessary buffs and you’ll be running at a good speed. You wouldn’t think my character was the weight he is. I notice it when I get thrown in prison and all my stuff gets unequipped.

 

[Madflavor]

The multilevel caves with collapsible bridges that make ladders, the hard to reach chests(I've personally found some great loot), let's not pretend loot is great in Elden Ring, it was spawned from Dark Souls which gives things like rubbish in out of the way areas. The cooperation or all out help pawns give to reach chests. The fact that you can hire other people's pawns who can direct you to missions so that you don't have to keep opening your map to make sure you're on the right track. The large Lord of the Ring like battles against 1 or multiple large creatures. I'm having a blast exploring in this and I had a blast exploring in Elden Ring but eventually all the dungeons in that game were pretty samey with the same dog and cat statue mobs and bosses. I just reached a whole new country that looks entirely different in Dragon's Dogma 2.

I love both games and they have different strengths that make them amazing. This is the new hotness so I currently like Dogma more, but it's also the honeymoon period so I will wait a while to see which one I love more when the dust settles. I did put 400 hours into Elden Ring, idk if this game will provide that. I hope there is a good modding community because that's really the reason I have so many in ER.

Loot in ER is better. So far in DD2 I haven’t found any loot (besides upgrade mats) in the world that I didn’t later find out I could just buy it from the shop. People had an issue with loot in ER because more often than not they found useless gear because it didn’t befit their build. That’s not the game’s fault, it’s just the nature of having multiple playstyles in a game. But all those amazing outfits and sweet weapons with crazy skills attached to them, were all found during exploration in ER.

The big epic battles are fun, but half the time I don’t know what’s going on. You can’t control your pawns, so there’s not much strategy behind these fights. I’ve killed Cyclopses, Minotaurs, Ogres, Chimeras, Lich, a Dragon, and a Hippogriff. All I did was whack at them, occasionally climb on them and whack them some more. When they get staggered, I don’t know how it happened, whether it was something I did, or if one of my pawns that I can’t control did something. There’s no challenge to these fights. There’s no “Oh man that’s a Chimera? I better unlock my skills and get better gear before I take on this challenge!” The sense of power progression just isn’t good.

The performance is such dogshit too, like holy shit. People complain about how bad it is in a crowded town, but the game also chugs during big fights. I fought a Hippogriff just now, and the game ran like it wanted to kill itself.

 

[Topher]

Loot in ER is better. So far in DD2 I haven’t found any loot (besides upgrade mats) in the world that I didn’t later find out I could just buy it from the shop. People had an issue with loot in ER because more often than not they found useless gear because it didn’t befit their build. That’s not the game’s fault, it’s just the nature of having multiple playstyles in a game. But all those amazing outfits and sweet weapons with crazy skills attached to them, were all found during exploration in ER.

The big epic battles are fun, but half the time I don’t know what’s going on. You can’t control your pawns, so there’s not much strategy behind these fights. I’ve killed Cyclopses, Minotaurs, Ogres, Chimeras, Lich, a Dragon, and a Hippogriff. All I did was whack at them, occasionally climb on them and whack them some more. When they get staggered, I don’t know how it happened, whether it was something I did, or if one of my pawns that I can’t control did something. There’s no challenge to these fights. There’s no “Oh man that’s a Chimera? I better unlock my skills and get better gear before I take on this challenge!” The sense of power progression just isn’t good.

The performance is such dogshit too, like holy shit. People complain about how bad it is in a crowded town, but the game also chugs during big fights. I fought a Hippogriff just now, and the game ran like it wanted to kill itself.

I'm not a soulsborne fan so not going to compare DD2 to ER, but I do like this system where loot is primarily purchased rather than just found or dropped from enemies. Other games make vendors almost useless because they rarely have equipment that is better than dropped loot. Money also becomes irrelevant. DD2 is much more financially based and that has its own appeal to me as motivation to not just fast travel everywhere since I'm bypassing potential earnings. Finding items of high value can be pretty exciting.

Performance outside of towns has not been a problem for me at all. That was the case before I implemented the DLSS mod. What are your system specs?

 

[rofif]

ER is all about the loot. You do everything for loot and new areas discovery.
DD2 is all about combat. You do stuff for combat, everything is centered around combat

 

[Madflavor]

I'm not a soulsborne fan so not going to compare DD2 to ER, but I do like this system where loot is primarily purchased rather than just found or dropped from enemies. Other games make vendors almost useless because they rarely have equipment that is better than dropped loot. Money also becomes irrelevant. DD2 is much more financially based and that has its own appeal to me as motivation to not just fast travel everywhere since I'm bypassing potential earnings. Finding items of high value can be pretty exciting.

Performance outside of towns has not been a problem for me at all. That was the case before I implemented the DLSS mod. What are your system specs?

I’m playing on the PS5 because I heard how fucked the PC version is, even on high end rigs. Not that I was expecting anything much better, but this game was not ready for release.

 

[Kacho]

I just saw something straight out of RDR2

Spoiler

Encountered a ghost cart at night. It had blue lanterns and people in a cage. I tried running to it but it sped off and disappeared. Cool AF!

 

[Madflavor]

ER is all about the loot. You do everything for loot and new areas discovery.
DD2 is all about combat. You do stuff for combat, everything is centered around combat

That’s absolutely not true about ER. Both games are very combat focused. Weapons in DD2 increase your damage. Weapons in ER change your playstyle due to their unique abilities. Most loot in ER is locked behind combat heavy sections and bosses.

 

[Topher]

I’m playing on the PS5 because I heard how fucked the PC version is, even on high end rigs. Not that I was expecting anything much better, but this game was not ready for release.

Definitely needed another patch or two, but the game is hardly "fucked" on high end rigs.

 

[Draugoth]

For anyone playing on PC, download this mod:

DD2 CPU Priority - Free Fps at City and Towns

Please Endorse the mod, and it works amazingly for both Old and Modern CPU'S, INTEL OR RYZEN it doesn't matter.This mod is a simple registry File which alters the CPU priority for Dragons

www.nexusmods.com

 

[Madflavor]

Definitely needed another patch or two, but the game is hardly "fucked" on high end rigs.

The performance should not be running this poorly on such powerful specs, that tons of PC players are widely reporting. If the game is having a stroke when I’m in town, and I’m playing it on Bruce Wayne’s computer, that makes the situation fucked in my eyes.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

so there’s not much strategy behind these fights

There's a lot of strategy behind the fights, sure you can just wack at them till the health bars deplete, but actually going after the weaknesses makes health bars disappear and the dynamic of the fight change rapidly; plus you need to damage specific areas of an enemy if you want them to drop specific upgrade materials.
This comes from a bit of trial and error, but your pawns will learn from the encounters and will tell you what the weaknesses are or what doesn't work, heck if they have enough knowledge you can just sit back and watch them exploit the found weaknesses.
Like for saurians the pawns might remark "their skin is as tough as stone", this means slash weapons aren't effective, but also that you can actually use them as throwing objects against each other. And for saurians specifically, their tails are actually weak to slashing, cutting it off will instantly dock like 80% of their health bar and also serve them up for execution and potentially drop the saurian tail material for crafting.

Yeah sure you can go and wack them in the face button mashing dynasty warriors style, or you can use one charge attack at their tail and pretty much instantly kill them. All enemies have these things and for the big ones the music will change when you've exploited the critical weakness.

 

[Agent_4Seven]

Played for 9 hours so far.

It is one of the best games with open world I've played since BOTW and Elden Ring and it's MILES BETTER game than the first DD, even though the weigh mechanic is absolute shit (moded it out of the game, FUCK YOU with this BS Capcom) and stamina out of combat is not unlimited. Performance is not great to say the least but whatever.

They clearly designed this game with BOTW and Elden Ring in mind cuz every time you'll get to some serious hight, the view distance is amazing and you can clearly see some cool shit to explore and find, scratching you head as to how the fuck you can get this goddamn chest out there etc. etc. etc. Exploration in this game is incredibly good and there's ALWAYS something for you to find every 20-30 meters, be it chests, hidden caves, catacombs, ruins with hidden passage, shortcuts with slides to let you come back to where you were.... It's absolutely amazing work that they've done in this remake and I love it to death.

Thank fuck for mods cuz if it weren't for them, it could've been wery tough to swallow the weight mechanic and lack of unlimited stamina out of combat.

 

[zkorejo]

Wow. Jadeite orb quest

Spoiler

fucked me over rough. I lost everything and the ahole shopkeeper kept taking bribe and still didn't help. Lost all my money and ended up in jail.

Atleast got my gear back.

 

[Madflavor]

There's a lot of strategy behind the fights, sure you can just wack at them till the health bars deplete, but actually going after the weaknesses makes health bars disappear and the dynamic of the fight change rapidly; plus you need to damage specific areas of an enemy if you want them to drop specific upgrade materials.
This comes from a bit of trial and error, but your pawns will learn from the encounters and will tell you what the weaknesses are or what doesn't work, heck if they have enough knowledge you can just sit back and watch them exploit the found weaknesses.
Like for saurians the pawns might remark "their skin is as tough as stone", this means slash weapons aren't effective, but also that you can actually use them as throwing objects against each other. And for saurians specifically, their tails are actually weak to slashing, cutting it off will instantly dock like 80% of their health bar and also serve them up for execution and potentially drop the saurian tail material for crafting.

Yeah sure you can go and wack them in the face button mashing dynasty warriors style, or you can use one charge attack at their tail and pretty much instantly kill them. All enemies have these things and for the big ones the music will change when you've exploited the critical weakness.

I do know about some of that. I knew to chop off the Snake tail for a Chimera, same for the Saurians, and also going after the Minotaurs horns. But I find that if you have a well balanced party, the AI of your Pawns are programmed to exploit weaknesses, and since you can’t control them, they just do it for you. Hence why I don’t think there’s much strategy behind these fights.

The challenge and strategy seems to be “How fast can you kill it?” But not so much “Can you kill it?” But okay you chop off that one tail so you can get an upgrade for your weapon, even though you’re not having much issue with killing anything in your way, so yay I guess?

 

[DavidGzz]

Loot in ER is better. So far in DD2 I haven’t found any loot (besides upgrade mats) in the world that I didn’t later find out I could just buy it from the shop. People had an issue with loot in ER because more often than not they found useless gear because it didn’t befit their build. That’s not the game’s fault, it’s just the nature of having multiple playstyles in a game. But all those amazing outfits and sweet weapons with crazy skills attached to them, were all found during exploration in ER.

The big epic battles are fun, but half the time I don’t know what’s going on. You can’t control your pawns, so there’s not much strategy behind these fights. I’ve killed Cyclopses, Minotaurs, Ogres, Chimeras, Lich, a Dragon, and a Hippogriff. All I did was whack at them, occasionally climb on them and whack them some more. When they get staggered, I don’t know how it happened, whether it was something I did, or if one of my pawns that I can’t control did something. There’s no challenge to these fights. There’s no “Oh man that’s a Chimera? I better unlock my skills and get better gear before I take on this challenge!” The sense of power progression just isn’t good.

The performance is such dogshit too, like holy shit. People complain about how bad it is in a crowded town, but the game also chugs during big fights. I fought a Hippogriff just now, and the game ran like it wanted to kill itself.

At least what you find in DD2 is usable super easy, you don't need a full respec. You can just visit the vocation guild and the best items are even automatically equipped from your inventory...

Also, the performance is great for me. I feel like this is this generations Dark Souls on 360 for console owners. It's 70-90fps for me and since I put shadows on medium, even in town I'm above 60fps most of the time.

Anyway, the battles aren't even comparable if we're going to get on that topic. Elden Ring is always pretty samey. It's cool that they added the horse but it's been pretty much the same since Demon's Souls. Combat is Dogma's greatest strength and overall it crushes the Souls formula. Right now I'm playing a warrior, I do the shoryuken strike with the great sword, hit but then am immediately swiped aside while the physics engine has me rolling sideways and into a wall. My main pawn goes down and another picks her up and brings her over to me to revive her. I'm charging a big swing as my mage pawn floats over me raining down lightning. There are soooo many other emergent things that happen. It's not even close. I mean look at the griffin fight Reizo posted. Shit is just epic on another level compared to ER combat.

Where ER excels is seeing a new vista like that witch who lets you respec's fortress or some other amazing sight. After Dragon's Dogma, I hope From Software brings it because the same Souls formula will seem bland now.

 

[rofif]

At least what you find in DD2 is usable super easy, you don't need a full respec. You can just visit the vocation guild and the best items are even automatically equipped from your inventory...

Also, the performance is great for me. I feel like this is this generations Dark Souls on 360 for console owners. It's 70-90fps for me and since I put shadows on medium, even in town I'm above 60fps most of the time.

Anyway, the battles aren't even comparable if we're going to get on that topic. Elden Ring is always pretty samey. It's cool that they added the horse but it's been pretty much the same since Demon's Souls. Combat is Dogma's greatest strength and overall it crushes the Souls formula. Right now I'm playing a warrior, I do the shoryuken strike with the great sword, hit but then am immediately swiped aside while the physics engine has me rolling sideways and into a wall. My main pawn goes down and another picks her up and brings her over to me to revive her. I'm charging a big swing as my mage pawn floats over me raining down lightning. There are soooo many other emergent things that happen. It's not even close. I mean look at the griffin fight Reizo posted. Shit is just epic on another level compared to ER combat.

Where ER excels is seeing a new vista like that witch who lets you respec's fortress or some other amazing sight. After Dragon's Dogma, I hope From Software brings it because the same Souls formula will seem bland now.

haha good dark souls 1 analogy. I played that game like 3 times on 360 and fps never bothered me aside from blighttown

 

[Topher]

The performance should not be running this poorly on such powerful specs, that tons of PC players are widely reporting. If the game is having a stroke when I’m in town, and I’m playing it on Bruce Wayne’s computer, that makes the situation fucked in my eyes.

And the console version is not "fucked"? PC already has a couple of performance mods.

 

[Topher]

Wow. Jadeite orb quest

Spoiler

fucked me over rough. I lost everything and the ahole shopkeeper kept taking bribe and still didn't help. Lost all my money and ended up in jail.

Atleast got my gear back.

I read a guide on that one ahead of time so knew the best way to handle it financially, if not morally. My pawn's wagged their fingers at me though. lol

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I knew to chop off the Snake tail for a Chimera,

See, this isn't it's actual weakness, the chimera's behaviour changes based on which head is in control, you can actually kill the lion head first, this makes it completely blind and suck at melee attacks and take huge chunk of its health away; killing the goat enrages the lion and makes it hyper aggressive, killing the snake doesn't do much, it gives you a free down but the goat can just heal it back. And all three heads are weak to something else:
lion: magic
goat: physical
snake: slash

A "well balanced party" isn't going to be able to decide which one to kill first, you'll have to actively go after one.

The challenge and strategy seems to be “How fast can you kill it?” But not so much “Can you kill it?”

Well, I mean that's the case for most games , even the souls games are 'exploit weakness for great results!' which tend to be circle strafe for backstab, or just dump your points in the most OP build and cheese every enemy

 

[Madflavor]

And the console version is not "fucked"? PC already has a couple of performance mods.

Did I say it wasn’t?

Anyway, the battles aren't even comparable if we're going to get on that topic. Elden Ring is always pretty samey. It's cool that they added the horse but it's been pretty much the same since Demon's Souls. Combat is Dogma's greatest strength and overall it crushes the Souls formula. Right now I'm playing a warrior, I do the shoryuken strike with the great sword, hit but then am immediately swiped aside while the physics engine has me rolling sideways and into a wall. My main pawn goes down and another picks her up and brings her over to me to revive her. I'm charging a big swing as my mage pawn floats over me raining down lightning. There are soooo many other emergent things that happen. It's not even close. I mean look at the griffin fight Reizo posted. Shit is just epic on another level compared to ER combat.

The battles definitely aren’t comparable in the sense that so far I can kill everything in DD2 in my sleep. But saying ER is always samey, considering the huge breadth of different playstyles, feels like a pretty disingenuous way to put down the game so you can prop up DD2.

See, this isn't it's actual weakness, the chimera's behaviour changes based on which head is in control, you can actually kill the lion head first, this makes it completely blind and suck at melee attacks and take huge chunk of its health away; killing the goat enrages the lion and makes it hyper aggressive, killing the snake doesn't do much, it gives you a free down but the goat can just heal it back. And all three heads are weak to something else:
lion: magic
goat: physical
snake: slash

You brought up certain materials only being acquired by cutting off certain parts of an enemy. That’s what I was referring to with the Chimera tail.

A "well balanced party" isn't going to be able to decide which one to kill first, you'll have to actively go after one.

Well, I mean that's the case for most games , even the souls games are 'exploit weakness for great results!' which tend to be circle strafe for backstab, or just dump your points in the most OP build and cheese every enemy

Since ER has been brought up for comparison, I would say Elden Ring's challenge definitely isn't about how fast you can kill something, at least on your first playthrough. It's just about killing it. And so far by having a well balanced party, I haven't ran into an enemy mechanic that at least one of my Pawns or myself didn't have an answer to.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I would say Elden Ring's challenge definitely isn't about how fast you can kill something, at least on your first playthrough. It's just about killing it.

The souls games definitely have gank squads just waiting to overhelm the player with numbers, and the best strategy for them is to kill each one as fast as possible, the longer you let them live, the worse it gets for you; Or you just kill them with your OP magic or whatever.
The bosses are largely the same, it's entirely beneficial to be able to do as much as damage as possible when the boss is open to it so you minimise dying to something stupid when you can't attack it; boss encounters are mostly just geared around pattern recognition though, they aren't emergent like dragon's dogma, a lot of wild shit can happen where souls is just a test of how much you can remember the enemies' moveset and then still get fucked over by the surprise second phase because fuck you

 

[Topher]

Did I say it wasn’t?

That's what I gathered from your previous reply. If that's not what you meant then fine.

I’m playing on the PS5 because I heard how fucked the PC version is, even on high end rigs. Not that I was expecting anything much better, but this game was not ready for release.

 

[Madflavor]

That's what I gathered from your previous reply. If that's not what you meant then fine.

It’s fine. In an even earlier post I brought up how poor I think performance is.

 

[SantaC]

Bought my own house for 20K, expensive as fuck but atleast i can rest and replenish my health for free. Plus i got a storage box.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

Bought my own house for 20K, expensive as fuck but atleast i can rest and replenish my health for free. Plus i got a storage box.

There's a way more expensive house lol ;P

 

[SantaC]

There's a way more expensive house lol ;P

okey, but i am often cash strapped

 

[Madflavor]

The souls games definitely have gank squads just waiting to overhelm the player with numbers, and the best strategy for them is to kill each one as fast as possible, the longer you let them live, the worse it gets for you; Or you just kill them with your OP magic or whatever.
The bosses are largely the same, it's entirely beneficial to be able to do as much as damage as possible when the boss is open to it so you minimise dying to something stupid when you can't attack it; boss encounters are mostly just geared around pattern recognition though, they aren't emergent like dragon's dogma, a lot of wild shit can happen where souls is just a test of how much you can remember the enemies' moveset and then still get fucked over by the surprise second phase because fuck you

Killing something fast is just a general strategy to making a fight easier, but let’s please observe the difference between the two games here.

In Elden Ring, if I play like shit, I’m most likely going to die. In DD2, if I play like shit, I’m likely still going to win because of my Pawns. Overall Elden Ring is a game that is way less forgiving for mistakes for poor play than DD2.

 

[IAmRei]

Finally my ps5 disc of DD2 is arrive, and i spent hours on character creator XD haha. Then i tried full an hour gameplay, so far so good <3 gotta sleep first, will continue after working tomorrow.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Encountered my first minotaur, he was kinda easy lol. I wonder if the same monster can have different difficulty levels so to speak. Some ogres fall pretty quickly while others are more aggresive. Might just be the adaptive difficulty I guess.

 

[Madflavor]

Finally my ps5 disc of DD2 is arrive, and i spent hours on character creator XD haha. Then i tried full an hour gameplay, so far so good <3 gotta sleep first, will continue after working tomorrow.

I know the feeling. I restarted 5 times on Day 1 because I was never fully satisfied with my character and pawn. 6th time was the charm though.

Encountered my first minotaur, he was kinda easy lol. I wonder if the same monster can have different difficulty levels so to speak. Some ogres fall pretty quickly while others are more aggresive. Might just be the adaptive difficulty I guess.

I’m really hoping endgame content will have a huge difficulty spike. I remember loving the Dark Arisen content more than the base game stuff in DD1.

 

[Raven117]

Can you restart a new game and erase your first character?

 

[IAmRei]

I know the feeling. I restarted 5 times on Day 1 because I was never fully satisfied with my character and pawn. 6th time was the charm though.




I’m really hoping endgame content will have a huge difficulty spike. I remember loving the Dark Arisen content more than the base game stuff in DD1.

yes, i too also restart three times, because i missed some point and the face on cutscene got ugly. im roleplaying as Leon isekai'ed btw : ))

 

[Mr Branding]

It’s interesting to me that some people think this game surpasses Elden Ring’s exploration. I get some of the points being made, but so far the craziest optional thing I’ve found was a fairly large cave with a Chimera and Lich in it, and the reward was some Robes. It was fun, don’t get me wrong. But there are entire zones, giant sprawling zones that are so beautiful and visually unique in their design, that you can accidentally stumble upon in ER.

I get to an extent the fun of exploring the world with a party, but Pawns barely have personalities, and you’re constantly swapping out half of them, so I don’t feel attached to them. Not to mention this dumb fucking Dragonsplague system has me on edge constantly, and not in a good way.

Again, despite my whining I am enjoying the game. But seeing some of the reactions online, it’s like I’m playing a different game from people.

Welcome to… opinions!

ER is great but the combat and physics in this are miles better. Exploration is also way more intense for me. I cheesed everything with the horse in ER, here you have to commit to exploration.

 

[Madflavor]

Welcome to… opinions!

ER is great but the combat and physics in this are miles better. Exploration is also way more intense for me. I cheesed everything with the horse in ER, here you have to commit to exploration.

I think all of this will be worth revisiting when DD2 has been out for more than a month, and Shadows of the Erdtree is released.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

In Elden Ring, if I play like shit, I’m most likely going to die. In DD2, if I play like shit, I’m likely still going to win because of my Pawns. Overall Elden Ring is a game that is way less forgiving for mistakes for poor play than DD2.

Well, again, you're describing the majority of games here, you can play most gives like shit and still win. You only have to take a lot at a random streamer for any game to realise how terrible the average player actually is at videogames.
Souls games are a different thing and designed to be unforgiven, but this doesn't really have any bearing on how 'strategic' or not you approach combat, it's mostly just memorisation of patterns so you don't get hit, or brute forcing your way through with stats.

If you truly wish to campare the two in this fashion, you can just venture out solo, I'm not sure if it's the same here, but in the first game you got extra xp for being alone and also had augments that would only activate solo; a single pack of wolves can quickly kill you solo if you make a mistake, so I'd say it can be fiercely unforgiving when played like that as well.

 

[Karak]

LOL. Despite my warnings the discord folks SLIGHTLY enjoying DD2

 

[Yerd]

The golden bugs apply benefits to both you and the pawn at the same time, if anyone hasn't realized. Use them up.

Just an FYI. I'm a "pick up everything I find" type of person. I was exploring the western part of the map and one of my hired pawns had the specialty Hawker. They buy/sell items. Every time I talked to her there was never an option to do this, so I was beginning to think this was broken. Finally at camp she forced a dialog on me to either sell or not sell. I said yes since all my pawns were at heavy or very heavy. Then she goes and just takes all the weapons and armors and rare materials I had and I'm not sure what happened to them, other than they were no longer in my inventory. I'm not sure if maybe they go to your storage, but I suspect not? All I know is I'm never using a hawker specialty ever again. There was no other screen after. "Yes" to sell is her authorization to sell all the shit you wanted to keep.

Anyway in a panic, I loaded my last save and luckily it was right before that happened and got all the gear back.

I have killed 2 enemies that were my first encounters that ended up death by water. No option to retrieve rewards. So aggravating. I killed a lich that was in waist high water, you could stand over the items for a second or 2 before the brine killed you. No gather option.

Encountered my first dullahan and died right quick. Accidently said no to the wakestone.

Killed a drake! Super hard encounter, at level 25 or so, Archer class.

I finally maxed Archer vocation and switched to thief since the armor is sometimes interchangeable. Got the daggers from the token turn in. Turned my mage pawn into the Archer to make use of my old gear.

I think Archer might be the weakest class in terms of fun in this game. You really need to be grappling the big creatures. There is a tutorial page that says if you use exploding arrow while grappling, it melees the arrow into the creature. I never could figure out how to facilitate that. When you activate a special arrow, they have to do like a "dipping" motion to attach whatever tool.

Anyway, on to level 1 thief vocation leveling.

Encountered my first minotaur, he was kinda easy lol. I wonder if the same monster can have different difficulty levels so to speak. Some ogres fall pretty quickly while others are more aggresive. Might just be the adaptive difficulty I guess.

I have yet to even see a minotaur myself. But cyclops come in different levels. Some can have armor. Drakes come in all different types. I just recently saw 2 and fought 1. It's been a while since I fought drakes in the first one, but the one I fought seemed to have an extra skill that made him very hard.


Edit, forgot to add, I had a green grass camp kit and got attacked at night, where that dullahan was...The camp kit got destroyed I guess. Never knew that was the case. Now I can't camp until I find another kit.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

I think Archer might be the weakest class in terms of fun in this game. You really need to be grappling the big creatures.

Blasting a heavenly arrow into a big enemy weakspot literally never gets old lol.