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Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen Comes to PC This January

Lux R7

Member
I got mixed feelings on DD's hard mode tbh. The huge boost to XP and gold drops wreck the early game's economy, and the sped up stamina drain means 1) you can sprint even less than usual which is tedious, and 2) you can use your skills less, which makes the game less fun overall because you either encumber your Arisen with extra shrooms or liquid vims, or just waste more time spamming regular attacks.
I don't know, I spent a bunch of hours playing fresh Mage on hard mode, then reduced to normal and never looked back :/ it's fun for high level characters though.

i can't say anything about the casters because i only play fighter or assassin (and sometimes MK, but in no-caster mode). However, i like hard mode, but i'm that kind of player that tries to kill a chimera on hard mode a lvl 10 (one hit and you die basically) just with rook's help :D I don't know, i love the fact that u aren't in god mode with the skills, u just have to block, stay away, use skill, recover, block again. It's very difficult but it's also very rewarding (souls kind of rewarding, which is perfect to me).
It's a matter of taste maybe.
 

Anteater

Member
They really just need to slow down level progression and do something about enemy placements (mix them up more and randomize them), so you don't outlevel everything before end game.
 

Nemmy

Member
this, a "random enemy" mode would be amazing

I think what they were going for with the static enemy placements was a Monster Hunter-esque feel of "territories" that critters occupy. Like, goblins are attracted to abandoned buildings, bandits guard trade routes, and harpies hunt in the mountains like birds of prey. But there are too few enemy types and Gransys is too barren overall for this approach to work :/

Sweet, never played the DA expansion, waiting out for the PC version and it was worth the wait.

The Bitterblack dungeon in DA has a pretty great difficulty curve as far as I remember.
 

Sectus

Member
They really just need to slow down level progression and do something about enemy placements (mix them up more and randomize them), so you don't outlevel everything before end game.

I'd love to see something like this. Something which keeps an equal amount of challenge from start to finish. I personally don't like becoming so powerful many fights become trviial. Would probably be a massive undertaking as you'd have to mess with all enemy spawns, player progression, and/or all enemy stats.
 

Baalzebup

Member
In terms of difficulty or having enemies somewhat randomly spawn in?

A bit of both. Certain areas have multiple spawning options, there is a factor that can summon even more enemies(usually very tough sons of bitches) mid-combat or right after one and there is a super-powerful optional boss who may also appear at certain areas in the same fashion. Also, once you run though the whole BBI area once, most of the encounter setups become even harder than they were before.

Plus the whole area is much higher level than pretty much anything in the base game. You can clear some floor pretty early, but the bottom areas are past the end-game of the normal areas where monster levels are concerned.

Edit: Oh shit, I should have read the context of your post better :p. Oh well. I guess this works as a general description on how BBI is different from the base game.

I find it weird that on the Steam store page they refer to BB Isle as "the sequel". I always just considered it an expansion. So by their naming the next Dragon's Dogma game would be Dragon's Dogma 3?

Also, Steam cloud support!

It most certainly is just an expansion. The Steam page is just plain wrong to call it a sequel. The story theme of BBI is basically the other half of the issues surrounding the Arisen, the Dragon,
the choice and the Seneshal
 
I find it weird that on the Steam store page they refer to BB Isle as "the sequel". I always just considered it an expansion. So by their naming the next Dragon's Dogma game would be Dragon's Dogma 3?

Also, Steam cloud support!
 

Nemmy

Member
Speaking of Steam cloud, I wonder if there's a chance for multiple save slots? Having one character per Steam account would sort of suck, as without a physical copy you can't exactly have multiple accounts for multiple saves :/ (that's what I did on the X360 anyway, when I wanted to start a fresh game but wanted to keep my level 150 Arisen files, too)
 

Durante

Member
Speaking of Steam cloud, I wonder if there's a chance for multiple save slots? Having one character per Steam account would sort of suck, as without a physical copy you can't exactly have multiple accounts for multiple saves :/ (that's what I did on the X360 anyway, when I wanted to start a fresh game but wanted to keep my level 150 Arisen files, too)
Since it's on PC, I'd assume that at worst you'll still be able to just copy/paste save files.
 

Sectus

Member
I've been working on a list of mods I'd like to see or I might try to work on myself when the game is out. I'd be curious to see what other people would like to see as well.

Sprinting doesn't reduce stamina
I saw someone request this, and this should be easy. There has to be a line of code related to sprinting which reduces stamina and you just need to find that and replace it with NOPs.

Always bolide
I need my casual walk through Gransys with never ending bolide. I imagine this would be very doable too. Similar to sprinting, there has to be some kind of counter being updated, and you just need to find and change that command.

Automatically remember equipment and skill set up when changing vocation
Dragon's Dogma Online does this, and it would be extremely convenient to have this Dark Arisen too. It probably would be very hard to implement though.

Offset camera to the right
If I recall, Dark Arisen keeps the character in the middle of the camera all the time, but DDO has a bit of a "over the shoulder" style camera and I think I'd prefer that. If camera is defined the same way as in RE5/6 this will be easy.

Minimize pawn dialogue
I imagine many players will request this. Part of the pawn personality variables there's one which controls how often the pawn talks, maybe you can directly modify it it to access a wider range of talk frequency.

Freely choose any skills as any class
This wouldn't be balanced at all, but it would be a fun thing to play with. And should be an easy mod to make.

Let pawns play as the hybrid classes
I've always been curious if the pawn AI can handle the hybrid classes. Should be very easy to modify memory values to define which vocation a pawn is currently using. Actually, someone might have already done this on xbox/ps3 via savegame editing, but I've never looked into it.

Make an NPC always follow you around
You have the escort quest where an NPC follows you around, but they obviously stop following you once the quest is over. Might be fun to change that system so the NPC is always with you regardless of the quest.

Ability to shuffle attribute points around
Could be a work around to being forced to play as a specific class for those people who really want to min/max their stats.

More randomized enemy spawns
This is probably the biggest drawback with the design of the world in Dragon's Dogma, but it would probably be really hard to fix unfortunately.

Prevent pawn commands from affecting pawn inclination
Would be a small but very welcome change. Hopefully an easy thing to implement.

Change pawn inclination at any time
Should be easy and good for those who want to make sure your pawn is behaving a certain way.

No scar
No Arisen scar for the Fashion Dogma people. This is super easy as you just need to edit the alpha on one texture.

Xbox/PS3 to PC save file converter
Potentially easy. The save file for xbox 360 is just a compressed XML file. If the format is similar enough, this tool would be easy to make.

An Arisen or pawn with the same look as an NPC
Who wouldn't wanna play through the game as Mercedes? Or Fournival? No idea how hard this would be to implement though.

Importing animations from DDO
DDO has some pretty incredible animations and putting some of those in Dark Arisen would be fun. MT Framework games has had the same format for animations since RE5, so if the animation rig in Dark Arisen and DDO is the same, this will be very doable.

Importing models from DDO
There's some new spiffy outfits in DDO. Like Liz' outfit. I want her outfit for my pawn.

Balanced difficulty throughout the game
I'd like to see a mod which rebalances the game so you're always challenged in combat and you never become too powerful because you're thorough with quests. This would be a big undertaking though.
 

Akiller

Member
I've been working on a list of mods I'd like to see or I might try to work on myself when the game is out. I'd be curious to see what other people would like to see as well.

Sprinting doesn't reduce stamina
I saw someone request this, and this should be easy. There has to be a line of code related to sprinting which reduces stamina and you just need to find that and replace it with NOPs.

Always bolide
I need my casual walk through Gransys with never ending bolide. I imagine this would be very doable too. Similar to sprinting, there has to be some kind of counter being updated, and you just need to find and change that command.

Automatically remember equipment and skill set up when changing vocation
Dragon's Dogma Online does this, and it would be extremely convenient to have this Dark Arisen too. It probably would be very hard to implement though.

Offset camera to the right
If I recall, Dark Arisen keeps the character in the middle of the camera all the time, but DDO has a bit of a "over the shoulder" style camera and I think I'd prefer that. If camera is defined the same way as in RE5/6 this will be easy.

Minimize pawn dialogue
I imagine many players will request this. Part of the pawn personality variables there's one which controls how often the pawn talks, maybe you can directly modify it it to access a wider range of talk frequency.

Freely choose any skills as any class
This wouldn't be balanced at all, but it would be a fun thing to play with. And should be an easy mod to make.

Let pawns play as the hybrid classes
I've always been curious if the pawn AI can handle the hybrid classes. Should be very easy to modify memory values to define which vocation a pawn is currently using. Actually, someone might have already done this on xbox/ps3 via savegame editing, but I've never looked into it.

Make an NPC always follow you around
You have the escort quest where an NPC follows you around, but they obviously stop following you once the quest is over. Might be fun to change that system so the NPC is always with you regardless of the quest.

Ability to shuffle attribute points around
Could be a work around to being forced to play as a specific class for those people who really want to min/max their stats.

More randomized enemy spawns
This is probably the biggest drawback with the design of the world in Dragon's Dogma, but it would probably be really hard to fix unfortunately.

Prevent pawn commands from affecting pawn inclination
Would be a small but very welcome change. Hopefully an easy thing to implement.

Change pawn inclination at any time
Should be easy and good for those who want to make sure your pawn is behaving a certain way.

No scar
No Arisen scar for the Fashion Dogma people. This is super easy as you just need to edit the alpha on one texture.

Xbox/PS3 to PC save file converter
Potentially easy. The save file for xbox 360 is just a compressed XML file. If the format is similar enough, this tool would be easy to make.

An Arisen or pawn with the same look as an NPC
Who wouldn't wanna play through the game as Mercedes? Or Fournival? No idea how hard this would implement though.

Importing animations from DDO
DDO has some pretty incredible animations and putting some of those in Dark Arisen would be fun. MT Framework games has had the same format for animations since RE5, so if the animation rig in Dark Arisen and DDO is the same, this will be very doable.

Importing models from DDO
There's some new spiffy outfits in DDO. Like Liz' outfit. I want her outfit for my pawn.

Balanced difficulty throughout the game
I'd like to see a mod which rebalances the game so you're always challenged in combat and you never become too powerful because you're thorough with quests. This would be a big undertaking though.

You forgot into free mod :p

Jk, i really want to see those mods happen!

But if the mute pawn one will not, i guess i'll choose the JP dub like i did during my PS3 run,at least i won't understand a damn thing of what they say and it'll be less annoying ahah
GOBURUIN DES!OKAMI DES!GOBURUIN DES!OKAMI DES!GOBURUIN DES!OKAMI DES!
 

Sectus

Member
You forgot into free mod :p

Jk, i really want to see those mods happen!

But if the mute pawn one will not, i guess i'll choose the JP dub like i did during my PS3 run,at least i won't understand a damn thing of what they say and it'll be less annoying ahah
GOBURUIN DES!OKAMI DES!GOBURUIN DES!OKAMI DES!GOBURUIN DES!OKAMI DES!
I got a bad feeling Japanese dub won't be available. Some of Capcom's recent PC titles don't give you access to Japanese voices unless you bought the game on a Japanese account.
 

Akiller

Member
Importing animations from DDO
DDO has some pretty incredible animations

Wow, those are some really cool animat-

d0e2ca9793.jpg

Yeah, forget into free, this is now #1 most wanted mod dor Dark Arisen PC.

I got a bad feeling Japanese dub won't be available. Some of Capcom's recent PC titles don't give you access to Japanese voices unless you bought the game on a Japanese account.

Damn, guess we can add that to the mods wishlist?
 

Sectus

Member
Damn, guess we can add that to the mods wishlist?

Speaking of which, if there's anyone here who lives in Japan and doesn't mind helping me out with getting Japanese localization files working on English version, let me know.

And hopefully Dark Arisen will actually have a Japanese release on steam. I've heard someone say the steam store page for Dark Arisen is blocked in Asia.
 
I've been working on a list of mods I'd like to see or I might try to work on myself when the game is out. I'd be curious to see what other people would like to see as well.

Xbox/PS3 to PC save file converter
Potentially easy. The save file for xbox 360 is just a compressed XML file. If the format is similar enough, this tool would be easy to make.

This is all I want/need; reunite me with my pawn/arisen please.
I mean look at them...
 

Anteater

Member
I've been working on a list of mods I'd like to see or I might try to work on myself when the game is out. I'd be curious to see what other people would like to see as well.

Allow Warrior to equip more skills, I don't know why both vanilla and DA have so limited skill slots for warrior, it's easily the weakest class because of that (for me).

Graphical enhancements - Further draw distance, and maybe more vegetation.

Remove weight from quest items - I remember soloing the game and I have to summon pawns just to carry those silly stone tablets in the The Watergod's Altar.

Climbing controls - I actually don't remember my complaint about this, because it's been a while but I remember it's not directional, so your character is a bit like a tank, you press up to move forward, right/left to turn (I think?), it was terrible for bigger monster like the giant dragon, probably impossible to mod though.

I'll think of more stuff later, I hope Capcom adds some new features if they can since they still have a few months, probably too late but a few small easy stuff they can add would be cool.
 

Baalzebup

Member
I've been working on a list of mods I'd like to see or I might try to work on myself when the game is out. I'd be curious to see what other people would like to see as well.

Even more accessory slots
With all the rings that you pick up from BBI, even the increased accessory slot number seemed quite insufficient at the end. Would be cool to rock more of 'em at once. Another "balance" breaking feature, but that is a quite abstract concept for DD in the first place.
 

Anteater

Member
I assume that this will be DX9 and GeDoSato will be applicable :p

Probably, I don't mind that, I like hudless screenshots :p unless they implement it natively, the original has an ingame screenshot feature but with capcom watermark, I wonder what they're going to do with that.
 
Even more accessory slots
With all the rings that you pick up from BBI, even the increased accessory slot number seemed quite insufficient at the end. Would be cool to rock more of 'em at once. Another "balance" breaking feature, but that is a quite abstract concept for DD in the first place.

I think it'd be a lot easier to mod the ring effects directly on your char than somehow add ring slots to the UI and have them work properly.

Randomized spawns, to an extent, would be pretty cool. Overall though difficulty in the original world isn't really high regardless so not sure it'd matter too much and Dark Arisen dungeon already has some sort of randomness to it iirc.
 

Anko

Member
Speaking of which, if there's anyone here who lives in Japan and doesn't mind helping me out with getting Japanese localization files working on English version, let me know.

And hopefully Dark Arisen will actually have a Japanese release on steam. I've heard someone say the steam store page for Dark Arisen is blocked in Asia.

I just checked via VPN. Japan doesn't have it yet. I checked Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea too. I think the whole of Asia doesn't have it. This seems like an EU initiative?

C'mon EU. Share it with Asia. Is Capcom JP blocking the Asian release because of DDO? If so, please keep the rest of Asia out of your JP market's problems. Thanks. You either prevent me from playing DDO only or DD:DA PC only. Not both.
 

Baalzebup

Member
What is into free? Haven't played DD, and I've never heard of any other mod called that. Thanks.

The menu/opening/title music for vanilla Dragon's Dogma, that was changed to a completely different theme for Dark Arisen. The two songs are on rather different sides of the music spectrum. Into free - Dangan was a kinda odd choice, but it grows on you. Definitely different to your usual fantasy game title musics.
 
Now, I've probably brought this school of thought up before but...

Anyone else think that this PC port is just to quell the DDOnline localization demands? I mean, IIRC, most of the western hype for DDO was mainly focused on it being "Dragon's Dogma, on PC!"
 

Baalzebup

Member
Now, I've probably brought this school of thought up before but...

Anyone else think that this PC port is just to quell the DDOnline localization demands? I mean, IIRC, most of the western hype for DDO was mainly focused on it being "Dragon's Dogma, on PC!"

So they would release the game that originally caused the demand for another game, in order to quell the demand for the latter? I think the opposite is more likely. I see this release as means to increase the visibility of the franchise to give the possible western DDO release a better running start. And you know, making money out a game that, I assume, isn't all that expensive to port due to the apparent PC-Compatibility of the MT Framework.
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
Now, I've probably brought this school of thought up before but...

Anyone else think that this PC port is just to quell the DDOnline localization demands? I mean, IIRC, most of the western hype for DDO was mainly focused on it being "Dragon's Dogma, on PC!"

Why would a publisher want their fans to not want their new game?
 

Astarte

Member
And just look at the DDO F2P announcement.
When GAF hears it's a F2P game, they spit at it. Not only GAF, but the majority of DD fans outside as well.

Iunno. I talked with a lot of DD fans who have actually played DDO's beta and we think it's pretty fun. Getting into it isn't even hard either, just proxy it.
F2P sounds bad, but if it's pulled off well then I have no problems with it. The only problem I had with the game is that fighting some stupid flying lich took so long because the only way we could attack it was throwing each other into it or flailing around.
 

Sanctuary

Member
Speaking of Steam cloud, I wonder if there's a chance for multiple save slots? Having one character per Steam account would sort of suck, as without a physical copy you can't exactly have multiple accounts for multiple saves :/ (that's what I did on the X360 anyway, when I wanted to start a fresh game but wanted to keep my level 150 Arisen files, too)

The other thing with the consoles was that you could bring along the pawns you decked out from your other accounts if you wanted to as well. It also made equipping a new character pretty easy too.
 

Nemmy

Member
The other thing with the consoles was that you could bring along the pawns you decked out from your other accounts if you wanted to as well. It also made equipping a new character pretty easy too.

A perfect solution (I think) would be a Dark Souls-like character selection menu, with all your saved characters and pawns being synced online as well. But I don't really believe they'll add stuff like that to the port, awesome as it would be.

I've been working on a list of mods I'd like to see or I might try to work on myself when the game is out. I'd be curious to see what other people would like to see as well.

Freely choose any skills as any class
This wouldn't be balanced at all, but it would be a fun thing to play with. And should be an easy mod to make.

Let pawns play as the hybrid classes
I've always been curious if the pawn AI can handle the hybrid classes. Should be very easy to modify memory values to define which vocation a pawn is currently using. Actually, someone might have already done this on xbox/ps3 via savegame editing, but I've never looked into it.

These seem cool and all, but I'd really hope that at least SOME savegame validation gets introduced into the online if this kind of hackery becomes common. It's one thing to mess with your pawn and Arisen for your own fun, it's entirely another to upload a hacked pawn online - and if reports of hacked pawns breaking the X360 version are true, DD doesn't take kindly to this.

My number one mods will be into free and disabling bandages on the Arisen so I can finally run around shirtless without that one high level belt that normally allowed that. The scar is OK and can stay there as far as my Fashion Dogma sense is concerned :).
 

Sectus

Member
The elixirs already do that in-game.

Did the elixirs change the inclination completely, or just push the pawn in that direction? Either way, yeah, that mod might be unnecessary.

Probably, I don't mind that, I like hudless screenshots :p unless they implement it natively, the original has an ingame screenshot feature but with capcom watermark, I wonder what they're going to do with that.

You could already turn off the entire HUD. I wonder if they'll still keep the function to take screenshots and upload to facebook. If they do, they should have the option to make a local copy rather than uploading.

Now, I've probably brought this school of thought up before but...

Anyone else think that this PC port is just to quell the DDOnline localization demands? I mean, IIRC, most of the western hype for DDO was mainly focused on it being "Dragon's Dogma, on PC!"

I'm thinking Dark Arisen PC is Capcom continuing to push various projects targeting PC specifically. Last year they did RE4 UHD, they did RE5 Gold Edition steamworks earlier this year (alongside DR2 steamworks), and in a couple of months they'll release Dark Arisen PC. I imagine DDO is not related at all.

I hope that if Dark Arisen PC ends up selling really well, that'll convince Capcom to do an English version of DDO.

These seem cool and all, but I'd really hope that at least SOME savegame validation gets introduced into the online if this kind of hackery becomes common. It's one thing to mess with your pawn and Arisen for your own fun, it's entirely another to upload a hacked pawn online - and if reports of hacked pawns breaking the X360 version are true, DD doesn't take kindly to this.

I do wish they had some kind of security for this (would make the most sense to have it server-side, as it would probably be trivial to get around otherwise), but well, we'll probably not see that. Probably best to hiring pawns of friends, or just double check a pawn's stats and equipment before hiring them.
 

Alo81

Low Poly Gynecologist
Localization costs, server costs, marketing costs.

Japanese publishers consider their F2P MMOs too risky for western market.

And just look at the DDO F2P announcement.
When GAF hears it's a F2P game, they spit at it. Not only GAF, but the majority of DD fans outside as well.

They cannot want to localize it while still wanting fans to want it. If eventually enough fans want it, then it would be worth the localization and server costs and they'd probably localize it.

I don't think they want fans to not want any of their games, ever.
 

ppor

Member
My number one mods will be into free and disabling bandages on the Arisen so I can finally run around shirtless without that one high level belt that normally allowed that.

Always found that weird. You're shirtless in the character creator, but all covered up in-game!
 

DaciaJC

Gold Member
Did the elixirs change the inclination completely, or just push the pawn in that direction?

Something in between. One elixir would change the pawn's inclination from one trait to another, but the pawn's ... adherence to that trait wouldn't be very strong. Unless you used quite a few of those elixirs (and even then, you had to use the pawn commands carefully), the pawn would often relapse to the previous trait.
 

Creaking

He touched the black heart of a mod
Heartwarming to see this thread grow so big. I do hope Dragon's Dogma has legs as an offline series, in addition to it's online counterpart.
 

c0Zm1c

Member
I've just tried the demo on Xbox 360 (I've not played the game before). I'm really looking forward to playing the full game now.
 

Nemmy

Member
Something in between. One elixir would change the pawn's inclination from one trait to another, but the pawn's ... adherence to that trait wouldn't be very strong. Unless you used quite a few of those elixirs (and even then, you had to use the pawn commands carefully), the pawn would often relapse to the previous trait.

The chair works in the same way, doesn't it? You can tell the pawn which inclination you choose, but they'll still often relapse after a while.
The worst part is that it's not just pawn commands that trigger the inclination change. Like, I stopped using "Come" and "Help" so that my pawn won't become a Guardian on me again - so she started to go Acquisitor, as apparently picking up a lot of items influences pawns this way... I wish we could blacklist inclinations at least.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
Guardian inclination is the worst outside of maybe a mage healer pawn... and even then, nothing more infuriating that them trying to heal that sliver of health you got instead of buffing your weapon or attacking the monster.
 

Lime

Member
I'm listening to the soundtrack and it just makes me even more impatient for this.

Dragon's Dogma really made you feel like you were doing adventure and on a journey of discovery.
 
Okay, my bro isn't convinced about this game. We both love Dark Souls though. If I had one gif or vid to show him why we are buying it, what would it be?
 
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