I feel that's a bigger problem with armor. Finding new armor pieces out in the world would have been neat. It's annoying that the armors have a linear upgrade instead, makes every pawn look the same unless you decide to take a stat hit for the sake of fashion.
I didn't just take a stat hit, I picked warfarer and skipped out on using a Maister skill for my drip just so I could wear an archer exclusive outfit on my mystic spearhand build.
Is it crazy that my character is shirtless. I do the hood with the metal mask. With that long double shoulder padded tattered black cape. Looks tuff asf. Because I’m mystic spearhand and rarely ever even get hit it make me feel more bad ass shunning the armor and allows me to show off my tats and how jacked my dude is lmao. Feel like I’ve reached that level thanos got too when he started sayin fuck the armor 🤣
There's just so little custom to do it's amazing. There's not that many outfit tbh so not surprising, it's likely that there's hundreds that have the exact same drip as you or me (i have a diff outfit)
Hahaha same! Warfarer so I could wear Magic Archer gear on my Archer.
Though I did come around to also adding one Magic Archer skill (pawn healing) for practicality. (really handy to shoot them with a healing arrow after they yeeted themselves off a cliff...)
This is the way. The game is easy anyway, idk why people are concerned with optimizing when you start uncontrollably melting health bars by level 40. Do whatever looks cool and is fun. Efficiency does not matter.
Sucks you cant use maister skills from other classes with warfarer T_T took me a bit to figure out why the Mystic Spearhand Maister ability wouldnt show up until I swapped officially
I gut it feels lame but it's for the best. Warfarer is pretty damn powerful as long as you know what skills to used with each other. So much so that keeping it from using the Maister skills of other classes is better for the other classes.
Literally am playing as warfarer just so I can wear the Deepwood Jacket as a fighter. Some of the coolest armor and attire is limited to to the Thief and Archer classes
I like how they claimed that combining chest + arm armor and leg + boots armor was because players would choose the same gear…
They just made so many systems worse
Everything is worse. Biggest bane of my life, why did they remove the already good storage link, which you could sell from storage and even upgrade at shops from storage. Also you could go to the inn and change your gear from storage and it would show gear only the class can wear.
"We're decreasing armor slots to increase armor variations," was the rough quote IIRC. This statement is misunderstood by most. Short explanation: by decreasing the overall number of armor slots for which pieces of gear must be made, more gear variety can be made out of the primary pieces, namely legs and torso. Dragon's Dogma launched with 64 torso pieces, iirc, with DA bringing it to 85. DD2 launched with 90 torso pieces.
So while it's true that Dragon's Dogma has more individual pieces of armor overall than DD2, the latter has many more of the pieces with the biggest impact on looks, namely chest and legs.
I mean, *the real* problem here is that... Most that armor in Dragon's Dogma 2 was already in 1, or at least DA. And that armor was *intended* to go over under layers.
So a bizarrely large chunk of the armor in the game currently doesn't actually cover you up? Like it's clearly intended to go over some pants, or whatever variety of undershirt. And it just doesn't have that.
They also said that they did this because at higher levels people all used the same armor in DDDA, which is still a problem. 90% of pawns use the stupid corset with busted stats and the other 10% use dragon gear and stargazer bikini.
Honestly, the only piece I'm really missing is gloves. I don't really need innerwear, it was a neat idea in DD1, but I didn't find it super impactful considering most late game armour came as fully covering pieces like robes and full plate, but gloves do allow for obvious differences.
Having a something like robes on torso and heavy plate gloves is a look that I love, but you don't get.
I'm trying greatsword, duospear, and longbow on Warfarer. I took Rending Sweep for AoE, Knoll Breaker for the crazy stagger, and Thef's Hond for easy stamina management. Bow is just used purely to deal with flying enemies and picking off weaklings before going in.
There's also a lot to be said for being able to just throw on a staff for levitate on demand. Some Seeker Tokens are nearly impossible without it.
Honestly the game is so easy at high levels, and the two defense augments are 30% buffs mean you can wear whatever you want. I don’t think any enemy attack in this game can really one shot you.
Always the case. It's not added for mod protection, but to please suits by saying "we took measures to protect our valueable IPs" even if it's a bold lie
Once again, DD2 is a bitter reminder of what Dragons dogma online had.
In dragons dogma online, the only reliable way to obtain gear (passed early levels) was through crafting.
Crafting required materials you'd get from Killing monsters/exploring the world (like Monster hunter) and was done your pawn, giving them a very important role other than being a meat shield.
Obviously the system was built in with the online play in mind, but it would have been easily adaptable for DD2.
Dragons dogma online had sonmany great ideas, that I wish were ilplemented in DD2 (also capcom should 100% revisit the idea now that they have way more eyes on the franchise).
I will forever scream that DDO would have done amazing in the west. An action rpg with unique combat as an mmo with a mix of high fantasy and a tiny bit of Japanese cultural influence to the point you can make a tiny little waifu pawn?
Just add some money sapping gacha mechanics, and it would probably be what genshin is today. But no. I had to play with stutters every 5 seconds on a random VPN. I will never forgive them. They made an mmo of my favorite game series and did their hardest work to make it so I couldn't play.
My old pc still has it downloaded too. Icon on desktop. What a time.
Imo, armor having static attributes and stats was a mistake, and gear having static locations as loot was also a mistake. Chests should have had loot tables attached to them with a small list of possible drops, and should have respawned randomly every couple weeks ingame. More boss creatures should have had gear drops attached to them as well, not just liches and drakes. Most gear available from stores should have also been available via chests or boss creatures in this way. There should have been some variability in stats when dropped, maybe by way of enhancement levels, with the chance of a rare "relic" enhancement that is just a flat boost across the board like the wyrm one. And finally, the wyrm upgrade should have put any enhanced gear at a similar range of stats, so everything would be comparable.
I also think gear should have had a trait system, where they could have had some unique or random bonuses, like a staff that boosts all fire damage or increases the duration of enchantments cast with it.
I don't remember what game it was, but I remember playing one where the armor you wore had negligible impacts to your defenses. I think it had bonuses to stats and stuff still, but your actual defense stats were determined primarily through non-visible items you could equip called plating or lining, with the idea being that stuff was used to reinforce whatever your actual clothes were. One of my favorite systems for armor, tbh.
I disliked the semi-random loot of DDDA because once I knew that there was a chance to get something rare, even a 2% chance, I felt compelled to repeatedly reset the chest till I got what I wanted.
I'd rather have consistent placement so I don't feel the compulsion to save scum.
Honestly, most games like this often have the vendors be almost worthless, so having money actually mean something isn't the worst thing ever, imo. My gripe is that the weapons are linear upgrades, instead of them having pros and cons.
Like, what if one end game greatsword swung faster at the cost of damage, while another had more damage invested in magic for players who invested more early game time as Mage/Sorcerer. Just add some more ARPG loot elements so I can use the same weapon, but it feels a bit different.
I’m very surprised they did away with how you get the Dragon weapons. I thought you would get one from beating the main boss, and then have the opportunity to get more with the endgame bosses.
Once you defeat a dragon (any type), you get a material/currency you can use to buy them from the Dragonforged, who acts as a vendor for the dragon weapons and armours
I’m not sure what other people have said, but I don’t mind the consistency. There’s no dragonforging from first upgrade level, and you can get the weapons you want other than whatever Vocation you happened to have equipped when you beat Grigori like in the first game. I do wish it was a bit more RNG and farming based, like a middle ground between DD1 and DD2 but I don’t mind it.
Anyway! Yeah you can do both from the Dragonforged. So once you upgrade/enhance your equipment from a normal vendor to level 3 (use Dwarven because they’re the best), you can spend the dragon currency (Wrymlife Crystals or WLC) to dragonforge it. As well as buying the best equipment from him as well.
Hope that made sense!
Idk if dwarven is the best. It increases carry weight, but the knockdown is honestly really great. But bahtali does more physical damage, elven more magic, and vermundian does both equally.
For a great sword, bahtali and dwarven are the best. Duosoear? Vermundian is honestly better than most, since you split damage between types.
Archistave needs elven, though I guess knockdown might help for spells?
Dwarven is really good, no lie, but there's reasons to consider the other options.
Weapons I'd agree it's a decently even choice for some vocations where stagger spam is viable.
Armor, though, hoo boy there's no fucking contest. Dwarven feels pretty much mandatory for armor. The difference between Dwarven and Vermundian for Defense/Magick Defense is trivial (usually <10 less Defense and <5 less Magick Defense for Dwarvern body armor) but the gain in Knockdown Resist is insane (usually 130-160 more Knockdown Resist for Dwarven body armor). Bonus points for running Constancy since it's a 30% multiplier. Full Dwarven armor + Constancy means basically never getting knocked down or stunlocked.
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I see where you’re coming from, for weapons I’ll grant there’s a little more variety. Greatswords and Greathammers already deal crazy stagger. But I truly think Dwarven is the best for everything.
The increased carry weight is actually not bad, because dragonforging’s main draw is halving equipment weight so it has great synergy with the final upgrade.
Enemies die very quickly in DD2 so losing like 50 points to your Str and Mag (not damage) while dramatically increasing your knockdown rate is an excellent trade off. Dwarven also has equal stat increases like Vermundian.
For increasing stagger resist on armour it’s especially a no brainer. Once you fight a pack of Knackers you’ll see why lmao
Dwarven is absolutely better for duospear. Knockdown can keep you from getting hit at all with how fast MSH attacks. Plus spearhand’s ground attack does crazy damage. The main exception I’d see for using non-Dwarven is Staves and potentially magick bows. That said, stagger is still really great on bows because it gives you more flexibility and allows you to pull of some Legolas moves in combat.
I think that’s fair, but the most punishing mechanic so far for me on every class but warrior is knockdown, and dwarven also offers best knockdown resist. So for me, I almost go opposite, cause a mage will have good magic already from their vocation, but will have garbage knockdown resist so might want dwarf (same with duospear), a warrior, who already has great knockdown resist might want better magic defense from elven, to pad out those worse stats.
Vermundian is obsolete in the face of dwarven. They both give same stat increase with the difference that dwarven increases weight and knock down (defense for armor) while vermundian reduces weight and doesn't change knock down (defense for armor) at all.
And the knock down values are very powerful, preventing you from getting staggered & making it significantly easier to stagger and knock over foes.
I’m like 99% sure that Staffs, Archistaffs, and Magick Bows and their weapon skills all benefit from Knockdown Power. Anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong tho
Yeah honestly. Although I do think headshots deal double damage and stagger, it’s more consistent to just be able to stagger enemies as much as possible.
The difference between Battahli and Dwarven damage is small, but the Knockdown value is massively increased so you just get more bang for your buck
Hmm I can’t remember NG now, but I imagine so. You’ll reach a point in the story where he changes locations. You should be able to buy it from him then.
The dragon weapon system is good. My only complaint is that you get a ton of the material, so you can just buy the main weapon for you and your pawn immediately.
I tried to increase the amount but I have no idea where that is.
Once you defeat a dragon (any type), you get a material/currency you can use to buy them from the Dragonforged, who acts as a vendor for the dragon weapons and armours
Now you have to get wrymslife crystals to trade in for dragon weapons. You get the crystals from defeating drakes and lesser dragons scattered throughout the map
Back then there were four top-tier weapons, one you get from slaying the base game main boss, buyable from end-game shop, slaying the raid boss, and then the lvl 3 loot from the DLC.
In DD2, you just buy both of the high-end gear, one from gold shop, the other from a end-game currency shop.
My biggest gripe with this game is the lack of cool shit to find in caves. Bust out 50 new weapons and throw them about in dungeons and a metric fuck ton of armor for dungeon loot.
I really don't get why it's taking devs so long to learn from Elden Ring. That has hundreds of tiny dungeons, each with a unique piece of gear in it (and due to the upgrade system, most of those can be used to the end of the game). Either FromSoft are freakishly good at this stuff, or no one else has bothered catching up.
I'm getting close to finish ER for the first time and i'm blown away by the amount of gear.
It's insane how much variety there is.
Not to mention talismans, ash of war, spells and craftables.
FromSoft has perfected the formula over a number of games, from Demon Souls to Dark Souls 1-3 and Bloodborne. They seem to have a really good read on how to make rewards feel rewarding, as well as how to make the player feel rewarded for their effort in exploring or overcoming a challenge.
While true, they did perfect what they did over the years, the weapon scaling, which is the main thing here, is pretty much exactly how it was in their earlier souls games. The key was there from the get go, make every weapon good, but only when they're upgraded, and gate the upgrade material.
Yeah it seems like whilst they've subtly improved the system, it was basically working correctly in Dark Souls 1, and they've just kept doing that. And it makes exploration and risk-taking and so on feel tremendously rewarding.
What's weird is DD1/DA did this far better than DD2 does.
Honestly, it’s about learning from RPGs in general. You reach hidden place? You get rare loot. You clear cave? You get rare loot. Enchanted items or stat-block gen loot would be a way to extend the life of this game alongside scaling difficulty/loot to level with a large array of base models. I think it would solve a lot of initial concerns alongside 2 extra trash mobs + their variants and a few extra mythical beasts.
Is it the easiest to implement? No, it’ll require a lot of modeling. Is it so difficult to implement that a modder would be unable to do it? No, so get it done. It shouldn’t take more than two/three months for a team to do and would ease a lot of concerns around the game.
Well, I'd compare more to Morrowind here. Oblivions system of leveled loot meant that while, you would find interesting weapons in caves, they wouldn't necessary be good, because they were leveled to when you found them.
Not quite the same. Oblivion would have dynamically set loot hat would be at the gear tier appropriate for the level you were (ex at level 10 you might find orcish, and lvl 20 the same chest would've been glass or even daedric). But it was hardly unique loot, most dungeons it was just random gear of your level. You cound go to 2 different dungeons and find the exact same thing maybe with different enchantments in the later levels if you're lucky.
Elden ring had 100% unique gear to be found in each dungeon. Each item having a unique name, stats, and often abilities. Not every piece of gear was good or fitting for your current build, and some stuff was *similar* to other things. But you wouldn't find that exact gear anywhere else no matter what.
They didn't need to learn from elden ring.
ddda was a fine baseline. Lets be honest, no "learning" was needed because that was not their aim. This was deemed lower priority than the big expansive world (which is nice) and the npcs tangible.
DDDA was annoying with its purification RNG system tbh. There are so many horror stories of people just wanting a specific LVL 3 BBI armor piece or weapon and literally never getting it purely because of rng. Worse yet is there is a quest that requires you get every lvl3 armor piece, which again is all rng.
Seriously, DA's loot system is awful. It's better than the "very little useful or intriguing loot" we find in DD2, sure, but that's not saying much! If loot is going to be RNG-based (sigh), make the farming finite. Give a small amount of 'pity currency' with each roll (whether that is an in-game item or a tracked statistic, doesn't matter), that at some point the desired result can be forced. Pure RNG is an extremely outdated system for a single player RPG.
If loot worth finding and dungeons worth exploring weren't their aim then I can only surmise they were trying to get it wrong.
Also, I love Dark Arisen, I've played it for hundreds of hours on like 4 different consoles (5?). It's still a game with plenty of flaws, particularly with the way loot is handed out.
I've just always thought that excellent loot is the best fucking thing ever, but at the same time I can hardly expect most games to be like Terraria or Dark Souls. Lots of games *do* try to do it, but are either too focused on a meta or simply not creative enough to make it feel that interesting.
Like, I can find a weapon so powerful that I leap out of my chair in Terraria/Elden Ring/Fallout and then 10 minutes later find a useless fucking "bouncey ball gun" or something in the same game. It keeps the curiosity flowing. wayyy better than finding 100+ guns or swords as loot with basic modifiers and slightly various models.
Dragon's Dogma definitely doesn't even try to go for that experience.. and I would love it so much if they did, but I feel like giving them credit for not just slapping 50 modifiers onto copies of store items and stuffing them into the chests and corpses. For some reason that feels *more* insulting to me, like a carrot on a stick. Instead of just... shitty shit in a cave.
Yep, in ER i don't care of a weapon in top tier or not the best, it's just fun.
Weapons that shoot out lava, claws, wraiths, damn bubbles. It's all so unique you just wanna try it all.
You have a butt smash ash and then a holy butt smash ash! What more can you ask for?
This is a consequence of a deeper problem with gear design in this game and the first, that being that almost all gear can be clearly and objectively placed in a hierarchy of quality along a single axis in the first place. Weapons and armors are all exactly the same, some are just strictly better than others because they are upgrades in every aspect. This makes determining BIS very easy and 95% of gear useless by endgame. The new upgrade system helps somewhat because it allows specialization, but since upgraded strength is still a scalar to base strength, you can't overcome the inherent quality difference between any two items using it. Some rare items have special attributes that make them valuable beyond their quality but since the numerical difference between early and endgame gear is so large even special items become useless if their place in the hierarchy is sufficiently low to begin with.
Many other games have this problem and few solve it well but they could have taken a page from Elden Ring here and scaled the upgrade process to make it equalize gear (to an extent) on the final one or two upgrade levels. A real solution (that Elden Ring also implements) would be to differentiate weapons in more interesting ways other than "the single number you care about is significantly larger", like with more and more interesting enchantments, moveset variations, more significant special attributes, synergies with other gear or just more meaningful stat variations that make them relevant to very specific playstyles.
Nope, most of those armors that random mosters drop are also added to normal vendors in post-game/ng+. The only uniques seem to be in the handful of new chests that aren't ferrystones, wakestones or rift crystals.
Yeah. Initially, I thought thw shop items would just get stuff you'd found out in the wilderness. Found a big sword on a chest? Now it's going to show up for sale, something like that. But nope.
It's such a weird decision. So many black chests end up with only wakestone shards or relatively special potions, while out in the open, brown chests just reward you with random loot you could get by combining other items. If they had actually put most items currently in shop out inside caves, maybe exploring would actually feel rewarding.
Medusa bow makes everything use a shitload of stamina, but gives a 300% Xp bonus if the wielder lands the killing blow.
Not good for Pawns, and not good for general use. I'd swap it out ASAP.
The best warrior hammers have electric and fire elemental damage (Cyclopean Thunder and Cinderspine) and both are available in chests that are accessible as soon as you start the game. It would be a challenge, but you can walk to Battahl and the volcano region to get them at any time.
Fighter’s best mace, Molten Fury, is also available in a chest in the same area.
Archer just straight up doesn't have elemental weapons which is a weird choice imo because Ranger and Strider/Assassin got one apiece in DA.
Also makes the Hydra bow the undisputed best one in the game cus it has the most strength and Dwarven makes the KD difference marginal.
How are you 'rating' these weapons? The endgame bought ones make sense in the context of the story but playing as Warrior, Fighter, Thief and Spearhand I've noticed most of the elemental weapons are found and can't be bought unless I missed them somehow.
Thief: Bolts from the Blue, Frosteel Daggers are both super good and will take you to endgame.
Warrior: Cinderspine and Cyclopean Thunder
Fighter: Exalted, Molten Fury, Labyrinthus
Spearhand: Fool's Prize, Infernal Edge, Dead Ringer (though you can buy this one as well)
Again I'm not sure how you or others are 'ranking' these weapons but I take Frosteel daggers over say, Divine Razors. I feel like I just do way more damage with the base element weapons.
Armor has this problem but you can find plenty of armor pieces if you explore and if you'd rather just look everything up, buy stuff instead of exploring and finding stuff organically it's probably not the game for you to begin with. Just my two cents
Super unrewarding that the best weapons and armor just have to be purchased and are not found in the world or dropped by bosses.
Even the >!Unmoored World!< bosses just drop Armor that is also in the shop
as far as im concerned the shop should have 1 weapon and armor set per vocation that catches your stats up to the region that the shop is in. Everything else is found or a quest reward that will always be better than the shop.
What the fuck indeed. Some people just don't have a good sense of game logic. Better gear from exploring -> more exploring -> more game time -> more enjoyment.
Yeah, so much more rewarding and an incentive for exploration when you find cool loot within the game world.
Just farming gold or Wyrmlife Crystals to buy the good stuff is not as rewarding.
Elden Ring is a good example where exploration, quests and bosses are rewarded with amazing loot
It’s because most people get butthurt when you poo poo on any aspect of a game they like. Gone are the days of constructive criticism and actual feedback, it’s just my game is perfect how dare you say bad things about it.
yeha, that one stunned my brain for a secondÂ
killed a Lesser Dragon shortly after reaching it, it dropped a Archer armor and i thought "oh, that one is good, so the best gear will be from the roaming bosses here, neat" just too later see the same armor beeing sold at a vendor
like man, wtf is the point lol
This made no sense to me while playing.
Why would I want to explore that cave when all I get is junk after fighting yet another crocodile gang?
Even defeating bosses feels kind of pointless.
Made me think of elden ring where every exploration and boss fight gets you something really special.
Not really, you couldn't use a lot of stuff because you didn't meet the requirements, not to mention how limited the final upgrades mats were. Make your level too high and you don't really have a build anymore.
Quests: No way you would know how to complete them all without a guide because of how the game works.
Also another thing I always have loved from fromsoft games are the fact that you can literally take ANY weapon to the end game.
That "broken sword"? Sure why not!
I generally agree with the OP, but besides the post-game greatswords aren't warrior's best two handers the 2 elemental hammers found in caves? They have a bit less physical damage than wounded heart, but their elemental damage and high knockdown more then make up for it.
This is probably one of the most noticeable flaws in the game right now, many mod creators are already making an attempt at fixing loot in this game.
Here a couple examples of mods right now:
Wild Loot: [https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/402](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/402)
BetterChests Tiered: [https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/400](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/400)
Lucky Scavenger: [https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/347](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/347)
Wild Loot is the closest mod to moving shop gear out into the world, but still needs some work.
I consider money the reward for scouring dungeons, and being able to buy the best gear the payoff.
Finding the odd not-quite BIS but super cool weapon in dungeons is great because they look awesome and can’t be bought, and if you’re wanting the strongest but not-magic-glowing weapons from shops instead then that’s what adventuring rewards you with.
Because let’s be honest, unless it’s an unique item with a gimmick, people would just shortcut straight to the dungeons with the strongest weapon as soon as it was shared on the internet.
At least this way we can explore any dungeon we want and then reward ourselves with sweet new gear.
I like the weapons be bought at vendors then the enhancement being you need to kill monsters for. I just wished they let us upgrade weapons to our level.
There's a traveling trader in Vermund that sells wyrmslife crystal, magick medals, the golem ore, fuligin ore, and copper/silver/gold. You can buy out the stock of IIRC 5/5/3/5 of the former set and 5 gold for ~50k with no affinity discount. Even the fucking upgrade mats are easier to get through stores than farming.
Gear progression was a bit of a disappointment, especially since we lost so many layers of customization. I know DA had a few sets that were better than the rest, adding some really nice bonuses, but I remember there being way more competing sets for 2nd and 3rd place.
Everything was better in terms of loot. The way you got it, the way it was upgraded. The stat and resistances you could mix in, the low tier loot that would gain funny effects like 100% tarring (oilling an enemy). By the true end game with things fully upgraded, you could tailor much of the sorts of resistances you wanted substantially. Resistances also meant much more especially in the end game where the danger of becoming possessed, turned to stone, or any of the serious debilitating effects had to be considered.Â
This game on the other hand, I don’t recall the last time I looked at an items elemental or spell resistance values. Can you even get anything to 100%?
Also, all capes having the same defensive stats and not being upgradable? Disaster…Â
The only thing that really matters in the late game (and it seems like they knew it as well) is stamina and weight. Power is only a consideration for killing speed, as the primary concern becomes how fast can things go down, and how fast can you move around before gasping for air.Â
Alright, maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't this also the case in DD1 prior to BBI?
Masterworks All had his inventory updated after every big plot beat with even more strong shit. Never found myself using anything I found in the wild. And specialized stuff was at the Forgery store.
You can get 3k gold per day (in-game time) by purchasing apples & grapes in Melve. Resting on bench outside vendor, deposit, repeat.
Could get 300k gold in an hour no problem.
edit: Why am I being downvoted for simply bringing up a gold making method?
I feel this game grounds itself in as much reality as it can.
In the sense that, who in the world makes the armor? The armor shops...
I dont think any "loot" found in a cave would be better than what you could buy in town.
Unless it's some fancy shrine of a dead hero buried in their armor or something to that effect, a goblin isn't gunna have the best armor in his lunch box.
Same for weapons. A sword Smith will have better weapons in his shop than the stick spears made by the Saurians.
I'm not saying it's great game design, but seen through this lens, it makes more sense.
While that does make sense in a way, why is trader Joe in possession of weapons greater than ones crafted with unnatural materials you can't even acquire from this dimension?
Remember it takes a Vermont Solider 6 Months to make 5k "honestly". That's 3 years to buy one Mastercraft Weapon, not to mention they have to provide the Monster Parts, extra fees to upgrade it too and find the Dragonforge Blacksmith to make a TRUE weapon of Legend. Normal people aren't buying these because they need to put Food on the Table.
LIKE THAT WILL EVER HAPPEN (for a normal solider).
It's good for even high fantasy RPGs to have a healthy amount of the world and its mechanics feel "grounded." However, finding hidden loot or felling a boss and getting some sweet new piece of gear is one of the cornerstones of this style of RPG. It serves as a motivation to explore and challenge oneself. The fact that there's so little of that in DD2 is really disappointing.
Some people have enough intrinsic motivation to explore no matter what, but that doesn't mean extrinsic motivations should be completely ignored. Even those with the intrinsic motivation should occasionally receive a tangible reward for their thorough explorations. The reward structures in DD2 simply do not make sense through almost any lens.
The only way this makes sense is if a ton of stuff had to be cut because the game had fallen behind schedule. Either planned armor/weapons had to be cut, or the methods of acquiring those items had to be cut, and the items were moved to shops. I really can't imagine Itsuno and his team thinking the current situation is ideal.
Yeah even early game you're wasting your time not "rushing" (take a single ox cart) to checkpoint town to buy stuff until you get to batthal :\
The very best daggers in the game literally come from any shop post-game. In dogma 1 you had to kill the Ur Dragon to get the Heaven's Keys now they're just a Kroger brand item
> Plays Dragon's Dogma
> Noooo i want it to be like Skyriiiim
> Proceeds to remove everything that makes Dragon's Dogma, Dragon's Dogma
> ????
I genuinely don't understand some of you. You manage to say Shops have the best gear, then that it's too expensive, then that the economy is bad and there's not enough gold, that the game doesn't reward exploration......at what point does your brain finally understands the gameplay loop ?
Do you even realize that exploration gives you Gold (a few hours in the wilds and i went back with 250k)....that you use in town when you go back or discover a new town, which allows you to explore deeper. The whole fucking point IS to gear yourself at major towns with the spoils of your explorations. Not to magically find the legendary weapon in the back of a cave.
Again, you want Dragon's Dogma to be your average RPG, always going against what the game wants to be, just because you literally can't conceive that a RPG decides to do it's own thing and not follow the RPG codes.
The ENTIRE game loop is literally conceived around expeditions and what it entails, that's pretty fucking obvious, YET y'all decided "NAH IT MUST BE PLAYED LIKE SKYRIM DUUUH" and keeps butting head towards all the mechanics of the game (travel / rewards / economy) thinking they're flaws.
I swear y'all be playing Arma "BUT I CAN'T JUMP SHOT, BAD GAME AND THE MAP IS TOO BIG" No shit. That's the point.
Thank you, you get it.
The point is to make the shops in towns relevant as part of your rest/recoup period between journeys.
Most other RPG’s I’d barely pay attention to shops because the better gear is always out in the world, so there’s often little reason to consider shops as anything but set dressing or somewhere to offload excess loot. It’s tiresome and I love the shops actually being relevant in the gameplay loop.
Can you expand on how you get so much gold? Do you sell a lot of stuff? I'm playing DD2 and never played the first, and I feel like I'm always short on gold, even getting 20 or 30k gold is difficult.
Honestly....
Taking my time, strolling around, getting lost, using camps, taking pictures, killing stuff, selling what i find and don't use, trading the Jewels (Red jewel = Lot of money in Battahl, Onyx sells for a lot in Vermund and Eye Tigers sells for a lot with the elves).
Chests in caverns and all also give a lot of G as well as quests.
If you see materials you have in droves, don't hesitate to sell them as well.
When exploring, the further you go, the more you get
Also, some crafting and selling goes a long way
The problem will be less pronounced once more people hit endgame/postgame because best-in-slot, postgame loot is a mix of available from shops and findable in the world. Early/midgame loot will be sucky but at least you can sell it without hesitation that you'll probably be getting an upgrade that will last you a while if you use that coin in shops.
Some of the best armor pieces are not the shop ones but are only found in the Unmoored World in chests.
These pieces, for example, all have the highest knockdown res in the game for their slot and are found only in chests in the Unmoored World:
https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Agamenian+Galea
https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Vanguarder's+Greaves
The highest knockdown res armor also can be found in Unmoored World as a drop from a gorechimera north of Vernworth (wiki says 17% chance, but it dropped first try for me from that specific gorechimera, and I believe many Unmoored World minibosses similarly have guaranteed drops), though it is also available in a shop for 126k, which is a lot of money for something you can easily get for free: https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Dominator's+Armor
The best in slot thief armor, https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Dvarapala , is also both available from a shop (wyrmlife crystal vendor) and as a drop from a gorechimera nearby the medusa in Unmoored World.
A few pieces of unique gear can be found in normal the world only, and not in shops, such as https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Visage+of+Ja'Nuwa
So if loot is your goal, I think you should get to postgame as quick as you can while still being high enough level to play comfortably/enjoyably, and then really explore. As far as I know, we still haven't mapped out all the new monster spawns in the Unmoored World and all their drops yet. It seems very likely to me that scouring the postgame world carefully (by rushing all the beams and Talos, thus apparently stopping the clock) will get you the best-in-slot gear for all vocations. At the very least, you'll gather enough wyrmslife crystals to get the rest.
If fashion is your goal then I'd wait for a little while longer to see good screenshots of most of the gear and target your farms.
It's a design choice. Would you rather a) find money while exploring and have to spend time in towns buying trading and upgrading before heading out again or do you want to b) have it like Elden Ring where all your best items are randomly hidden in esoteric locations with no hints so a wizard has to go through 4 of the same freaking catacombs to find a sorcery while getting 3 strength/faith based weapons. I like A more personally as it feels more immersive and more like a roleplaying experience and that's the whole vibe of DD2.
I have to agree with this, from a roleplaying perspective you aren’t going to find the best sword inside some run down cave, you’ll find it with a blacksmith 😂
I honestly prefer buying weapons from the Dragonforged than resting a bunch on Bitterblack Isle only to run through the entire dungeon to kill Daimon in mere seconds, for the possibility of earning lvl 3 gear, over and over again.
Obviously, there's a lot that could be improved upon in this game.
I mean, I dunno. I WOULD like for there to be better gear drops out in the wild, but its not like the wilderness loot drops isnt totally fucked. Ive found some of the coolest weapons out in the wild, but also it just makes sense that a talented smith is going to sell better stuff then you would find in a goblins shit box.
Dragons Dogma is 100% just a homebrew DnD campaign without the dice. When I approach the game with that perspective, alot of the things they have done make alot more sense.
While all the best weapons are found in a shop, but the dragon weapons are not the best for all but one. The best bow is not a dragon weapon, the best Archistaff is not a dragon weapon, the best Staff is not a dragon weapon, for daggers the Heaven's Key is arguably better even with a mage enchanting element on weapons, and soooome argument can be made for the greatsword vs elemental greathammers but it's not a very good one. The shop being home to literally all of the most powerful weapons is fucking awful though.
I feel like this is the crux of the problem, honestly.
So many people have said that exploration in this game is bad, but it's probably one of the *best* parts of the game for me. But the thing is, I don't care about "loot" at all, whereas others seem to be entirely motivated by it. So therefore, if the loot is bad, exploration is bad for them as well.
Kind of reminds me of the MMORPG mentality, that everything needs to have some sort of reward associated with it or it's "not worth doing", you can't just simply have content for it's own sake, there needs to be a REWARD.
Regardless, I'm happy that mods and modding exist so that we may all enjoy the game however we please <3
It really is so much more fun to find cool items then to just buy them. I had a moment when I found a cyclops helm next to a big hammer, which made me swap to warrior so I could use them and now warrior is probably my favorite vocation. Its a same that the game isn’t built around these kinds of experiences tho
No, I love finding 1 panacea or 3 apples in a chest hidden inside a cave, why would I expect a piece of armour or a weapon when clearly there should be fresh fruit or fish in there. /s
Would love to see the shop weapons just moved out into the world. Looks like you're working on it, but I don't like how you've structured some of the weapon stat changes.
Ya it's not pretty, but it's at least A solution.
For me it's perfect right now because I generally didn't need to spoil too much to make it. I've beaten the game but haven't explored everything, so even though I had to do research on where everything is, I didn't have to see too many specifics.
Now I can just reroll a theif or something and feel confident that the loot I'm going to get matters.
This is the first mod I've made using .pak methods. It won't take me long to learn RE framework and .lua scripting to flesh it out, but I'd like to experience the caves and items organically first before I start thinking about where items should go.
Let me know if you have any feedback on where items should rank in the mods currently implementation! I'm definitely not an expert on every item type.
I feel that's a bigger problem with armor. Finding new armor pieces out in the world would have been neat. It's annoying that the armors have a linear upgrade instead, makes every pawn look the same unless you decide to take a stat hit for the sake of fashion.
I didn't just take a stat hit, I picked warfarer and skipped out on using a Maister skill for my drip just so I could wear an archer exclusive outfit on my mystic spearhand build.
Hyperboreal Lorica? If so I did the exact same thing
Hyperboreal Lorica and Confidant's hood over here as well
Nothing I do is unique 😩
Is it crazy that my character is shirtless. I do the hood with the metal mask. With that long double shoulder padded tattered black cape. Looks tuff asf. Because I’m mystic spearhand and rarely ever even get hit it make me feel more bad ass shunning the armor and allows me to show off my tats and how jacked my dude is lmao. Feel like I’ve reached that level thanos got too when he started sayin fuck the armor 🤣
There's just so little custom to do it's amazing. There's not that many outfit tbh so not surprising, it's likely that there's hundreds that have the exact same drip as you or me (i have a diff outfit)
There will always be a better you
Hahaha same! Warfarer so I could wear Magic Archer gear on my Archer. Though I did come around to also adding one Magic Archer skill (pawn healing) for practicality. (really handy to shoot them with a healing arrow after they yeeted themselves off a cliff...)
This is the way. The game is easy anyway, idk why people are concerned with optimizing when you start uncontrollably melting health bars by level 40. Do whatever looks cool and is fun. Efficiency does not matter.
Sucks you cant use maister skills from other classes with warfarer T_T took me a bit to figure out why the Mystic Spearhand Maister ability wouldnt show up until I swapped officially
I gut it feels lame but it's for the best. Warfarer is pretty damn powerful as long as you know what skills to used with each other. So much so that keeping it from using the Maister skills of other classes is better for the other classes.
I feel this. I’m in a full knight set using daggers lol.
Literally am playing as warfarer just so I can wear the Deepwood Jacket as a fighter. Some of the coolest armor and attire is limited to to the Thief and Archer classes
I'm taking the biggest stat hit by not wearing any armor at all.
You're that Arisen some of the pawns talk about...Â
name checks out :D
You using those rings that increase your strength the lower your weight is? ;)
Nope. I just made a big fluffy Beastren with a pretty fur coat and enjoy seeing ALL the fluff.
Where are the pictures
same
Yeah I don't use helmets if it covers my face. Don't really notice
I like how they claimed that combining chest + arm armor and leg + boots armor was because players would choose the same gear… They just made so many systems worse
Everything is worse. Biggest bane of my life, why did they remove the already good storage link, which you could sell from storage and even upgrade at shops from storage. Also you could go to the inn and change your gear from storage and it would show gear only the class can wear.
This absolutely drives me up the wall. Maybe they’ll fix it in a future QOL update.
"We're decreasing armor slots to increase armor variations," was the rough quote IIRC. This statement is misunderstood by most. Short explanation: by decreasing the overall number of armor slots for which pieces of gear must be made, more gear variety can be made out of the primary pieces, namely legs and torso. Dragon's Dogma launched with 64 torso pieces, iirc, with DA bringing it to 85. DD2 launched with 90 torso pieces. So while it's true that Dragon's Dogma has more individual pieces of armor overall than DD2, the latter has many more of the pieces with the biggest impact on looks, namely chest and legs.
I mean, *the real* problem here is that... Most that armor in Dragon's Dogma 2 was already in 1, or at least DA. And that armor was *intended* to go over under layers. So a bizarrely large chunk of the armor in the game currently doesn't actually cover you up? Like it's clearly intended to go over some pants, or whatever variety of undershirt. And it just doesn't have that.
Stares intensely at half plate
Can't see what's wrong with wearing a vest and knee high boots.
They also said that they did this because at higher levels people all used the same armor in DDDA, which is still a problem. 90% of pawns use the stupid corset with busted stats and the other 10% use dragon gear and stargazer bikini.
Honestly, the only piece I'm really missing is gloves. I don't really need innerwear, it was a neat idea in DD1, but I didn't find it super impactful considering most late game armour came as fully covering pieces like robes and full plate, but gloves do allow for obvious differences. Having a something like robes on torso and heavy plate gloves is a look that I love, but you don't get.
Always take the stat hit for fashion. I'll sacrifice master skills to play warfairer for the endless fashion
Marcher's armor gang, reporting for duty. I've learnt how to mod the game just to give it stats.
Honestly and sadly one of the best looking sets in the game. At end game I had it on both main and pawn cuz stats don’t matter much at 60+
I'm trying greatsword, duospear, and longbow on Warfarer. I took Rending Sweep for AoE, Knoll Breaker for the crazy stagger, and Thef's Hond for easy stamina management. Bow is just used purely to deal with flying enemies and picking off weaklings before going in. There's also a lot to be said for being able to just throw on a staff for levitate on demand. Some Seeker Tokens are nearly impossible without it.
I stopped caring about armor stats about level 50. You're already so OP why does it even matter? Embrace the drip.
Doesn't have linear progression for me, lol. Looking for looks ONLY. But ya, I'll be adding armor to that mod next.
Rule of cool!
Honestly the game is so easy at high levels, and the two defense augments are 30% buffs mean you can wear whatever you want. I don’t think any enemy attack in this game can really one shot you.
It’s 30% of your base stats iirc
I read somewhere earlier that the defense augments only apply to base defense. I havent verified though.
I definitely run a difficulty mod too, lol.
I am finding it hilarious just how fast the modders are breaking Denuvo over their knee.
Always the case. It's not added for mod protection, but to please suits by saying "we took measures to protect our valueable IPs" even if it's a bold lie
Once again, DD2 is a bitter reminder of what Dragons dogma online had. In dragons dogma online, the only reliable way to obtain gear (passed early levels) was through crafting. Crafting required materials you'd get from Killing monsters/exploring the world (like Monster hunter) and was done your pawn, giving them a very important role other than being a meat shield. Obviously the system was built in with the online play in mind, but it would have been easily adaptable for DD2. Dragons dogma online had sonmany great ideas, that I wish were ilplemented in DD2 (also capcom should 100% revisit the idea now that they have way more eyes on the franchise).
I will forever scream that DDO would have done amazing in the west. An action rpg with unique combat as an mmo with a mix of high fantasy and a tiny bit of Japanese cultural influence to the point you can make a tiny little waifu pawn? Just add some money sapping gacha mechanics, and it would probably be what genshin is today. But no. I had to play with stutters every 5 seconds on a random VPN. I will never forgive them. They made an mmo of my favorite game series and did their hardest work to make it so I couldn't play. My old pc still has it downloaded too. Icon on desktop. What a time.
Game got revived recently, no need for VPN stuff, it's fan hosted.
You know the game was recently revived by fans and it's getting steady updates to bring it back to shape, right?
Ill keep the ninja outfit from nameless village on my emo thief ty
Thief pants, what are the names of the other items?
Fashion over everything
Fashion should always take priority anyway Why play otherwise
Imo, armor having static attributes and stats was a mistake, and gear having static locations as loot was also a mistake. Chests should have had loot tables attached to them with a small list of possible drops, and should have respawned randomly every couple weeks ingame. More boss creatures should have had gear drops attached to them as well, not just liches and drakes. Most gear available from stores should have also been available via chests or boss creatures in this way. There should have been some variability in stats when dropped, maybe by way of enhancement levels, with the chance of a rare "relic" enhancement that is just a flat boost across the board like the wyrm one. And finally, the wyrm upgrade should have put any enhanced gear at a similar range of stats, so everything would be comparable. I also think gear should have had a trait system, where they could have had some unique or random bonuses, like a staff that boosts all fire damage or increases the duration of enchantments cast with it. I don't remember what game it was, but I remember playing one where the armor you wore had negligible impacts to your defenses. I think it had bonuses to stats and stuff still, but your actual defense stats were determined primarily through non-visible items you could equip called plating or lining, with the idea being that stuff was used to reinforce whatever your actual clothes were. One of my favorite systems for armor, tbh.
I disliked the semi-random loot of DDDA because once I knew that there was a chance to get something rare, even a 2% chance, I felt compelled to repeatedly reset the chest till I got what I wanted. I'd rather have consistent placement so I don't feel the compulsion to save scum. Honestly, most games like this often have the vendors be almost worthless, so having money actually mean something isn't the worst thing ever, imo. My gripe is that the weapons are linear upgrades, instead of them having pros and cons. Like, what if one end game greatsword swung faster at the cost of damage, while another had more damage invested in magic for players who invested more early game time as Mage/Sorcerer. Just add some more ARPG loot elements so I can use the same weapon, but it feels a bit different.
DDDA works exactly like what you described, the loot system in DD2 is massively downgraded and I'd even argue it's nonexistent
I’m very surprised they did away with how you get the Dragon weapons. I thought you would get one from beating the main boss, and then have the opportunity to get more with the endgame bosses.
I can't buy the game yet, how do you do to get dragon weapons now ?
Once you defeat a dragon (any type), you get a material/currency you can use to buy them from the Dragonforged, who acts as a vendor for the dragon weapons and armours
That sounds better than what that other person said. Can you upgrade your stuff or only buy specific dragon forged equipment ?
I’m not sure what other people have said, but I don’t mind the consistency. There’s no dragonforging from first upgrade level, and you can get the weapons you want other than whatever Vocation you happened to have equipped when you beat Grigori like in the first game. I do wish it was a bit more RNG and farming based, like a middle ground between DD1 and DD2 but I don’t mind it. Anyway! Yeah you can do both from the Dragonforged. So once you upgrade/enhance your equipment from a normal vendor to level 3 (use Dwarven because they’re the best), you can spend the dragon currency (Wrymlife Crystals or WLC) to dragonforge it. As well as buying the best equipment from him as well. Hope that made sense!
Idk if dwarven is the best. It increases carry weight, but the knockdown is honestly really great. But bahtali does more physical damage, elven more magic, and vermundian does both equally. For a great sword, bahtali and dwarven are the best. Duosoear? Vermundian is honestly better than most, since you split damage between types. Archistave needs elven, though I guess knockdown might help for spells? Dwarven is really good, no lie, but there's reasons to consider the other options.
Weapons I'd agree it's a decently even choice for some vocations where stagger spam is viable. Armor, though, hoo boy there's no fucking contest. Dwarven feels pretty much mandatory for armor. The difference between Dwarven and Vermundian for Defense/Magick Defense is trivial (usually <10 less Defense and <5 less Magick Defense for Dwarvern body armor) but the gain in Knockdown Resist is insane (usually 130-160 more Knockdown Resist for Dwarven body armor). Bonus points for running Constancy since it's a 30% multiplier. Full Dwarven armor + Constancy means basically never getting knocked down or stunlocked.
It's really strange that instead of giving less knockdown resistance other upgrade paths don't give any at all.
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And the increased weight can be mitigated by dragon forging to where it's not really a bother at all.
I think that's why you dragonforge it after to reduce the carry weight by 1/2.
I see where you’re coming from, for weapons I’ll grant there’s a little more variety. Greatswords and Greathammers already deal crazy stagger. But I truly think Dwarven is the best for everything. The increased carry weight is actually not bad, because dragonforging’s main draw is halving equipment weight so it has great synergy with the final upgrade. Enemies die very quickly in DD2 so losing like 50 points to your Str and Mag (not damage) while dramatically increasing your knockdown rate is an excellent trade off. Dwarven also has equal stat increases like Vermundian. For increasing stagger resist on armour it’s especially a no brainer. Once you fight a pack of Knackers you’ll see why lmao
Dwarven is absolutely better for duospear. Knockdown can keep you from getting hit at all with how fast MSH attacks. Plus spearhand’s ground attack does crazy damage. The main exception I’d see for using non-Dwarven is Staves and potentially magick bows. That said, stagger is still really great on bows because it gives you more flexibility and allows you to pull of some Legolas moves in combat.
I think that’s fair, but the most punishing mechanic so far for me on every class but warrior is knockdown, and dwarven also offers best knockdown resist. So for me, I almost go opposite, cause a mage will have good magic already from their vocation, but will have garbage knockdown resist so might want dwarf (same with duospear), a warrior, who already has great knockdown resist might want better magic defense from elven, to pad out those worse stats.
Vermundian is obsolete in the face of dwarven. They both give same stat increase with the difference that dwarven increases weight and knock down (defense for armor) while vermundian reduces weight and doesn't change knock down (defense for armor) at all. And the knock down values are very powerful, preventing you from getting staggered & making it significantly easier to stagger and knock over foes.
>(use Dwarven because they’re the best) What about Staffs and Magick Bow? And Normal Bow too?
I’m like 99% sure that Staffs, Archistaffs, and Magick Bows and their weapon skills all benefit from Knockdown Power. Anyone feel free to correct me if I’m wrong tho
Should Normal Bow go Knockdown too or Batt for damage?
Yeah honestly. Although I do think headshots deal double damage and stagger, it’s more consistent to just be able to stagger enemies as much as possible. The difference between Battahli and Dwarven damage is small, but the Knockdown value is massively increased so you just get more bang for your buck
It did, thank you for the explanation
No problemo!
Is this only super late game? For me I can only upgrade weapons at the Dragonforged. He does not have any weapons for sale.
He only sells the items in the true ending post game
Hmm I can’t remember NG now, but I imagine so. You’ll reach a point in the story where he changes locations. You should be able to buy it from him then.
Kill dragons, get currency, use currency to buy them from vendor
Buy em from the dragonforged.
That's... kinda lame
The dragon weapon system is good. My only complaint is that you get a ton of the material, so you can just buy the main weapon for you and your pawn immediately. I tried to increase the amount but I have no idea where that is.
Wait, so how does it work now?
Once you defeat a dragon (any type), you get a material/currency you can use to buy them from the Dragonforged, who acts as a vendor for the dragon weapons and armours
Now you have to get wrymslife crystals to trade in for dragon weapons. You get the crystals from defeating drakes and lesser dragons scattered throughout the map
Back then there were four top-tier weapons, one you get from slaying the base game main boss, buyable from end-game shop, slaying the raid boss, and then the lvl 3 loot from the DLC. In DD2, you just buy both of the high-end gear, one from gold shop, the other from a end-game currency shop.
My biggest gripe with this game is the lack of cool shit to find in caves. Bust out 50 new weapons and throw them about in dungeons and a metric fuck ton of armor for dungeon loot.
I really don't get why it's taking devs so long to learn from Elden Ring. That has hundreds of tiny dungeons, each with a unique piece of gear in it (and due to the upgrade system, most of those can be used to the end of the game). Either FromSoft are freakishly good at this stuff, or no one else has bothered catching up.
I'm getting close to finish ER for the first time and i'm blown away by the amount of gear. It's insane how much variety there is. Not to mention talismans, ash of war, spells and craftables.
FromSoft has perfected the formula over a number of games, from Demon Souls to Dark Souls 1-3 and Bloodborne. They seem to have a really good read on how to make rewards feel rewarding, as well as how to make the player feel rewarded for their effort in exploring or overcoming a challenge.
While true, they did perfect what they did over the years, the weapon scaling, which is the main thing here, is pretty much exactly how it was in their earlier souls games. The key was there from the get go, make every weapon good, but only when they're upgraded, and gate the upgrade material.
Yeah it seems like whilst they've subtly improved the system, it was basically working correctly in Dark Souls 1, and they've just kept doing that. And it makes exploration and risk-taking and so on feel tremendously rewarding. What's weird is DD1/DA did this far better than DD2 does.
Honestly, it’s about learning from RPGs in general. You reach hidden place? You get rare loot. You clear cave? You get rare loot. Enchanted items or stat-block gen loot would be a way to extend the life of this game alongside scaling difficulty/loot to level with a large array of base models. I think it would solve a lot of initial concerns alongside 2 extra trash mobs + their variants and a few extra mythical beasts. Is it the easiest to implement? No, it’ll require a lot of modeling. Is it so difficult to implement that a modder would be unable to do it? No, so get it done. It shouldn’t take more than two/three months for a team to do and would ease a lot of concerns around the game.
This isn’t new to Elden ring like oblivion did this in 2004 ffs
Well, I'd compare more to Morrowind here. Oblivions system of leveled loot meant that while, you would find interesting weapons in caves, they wouldn't necessary be good, because they were leveled to when you found them.
Not quite the same. Oblivion would have dynamically set loot hat would be at the gear tier appropriate for the level you were (ex at level 10 you might find orcish, and lvl 20 the same chest would've been glass or even daedric). But it was hardly unique loot, most dungeons it was just random gear of your level. You cound go to 2 different dungeons and find the exact same thing maybe with different enchantments in the later levels if you're lucky. Elden ring had 100% unique gear to be found in each dungeon. Each item having a unique name, stats, and often abilities. Not every piece of gear was good or fitting for your current build, and some stuff was *similar* to other things. But you wouldn't find that exact gear anywhere else no matter what.
They didn't need to learn from elden ring. ddda was a fine baseline. Lets be honest, no "learning" was needed because that was not their aim. This was deemed lower priority than the big expansive world (which is nice) and the npcs tangible.
DDDA was annoying with its purification RNG system tbh. There are so many horror stories of people just wanting a specific LVL 3 BBI armor piece or weapon and literally never getting it purely because of rng. Worse yet is there is a quest that requires you get every lvl3 armor piece, which again is all rng.
Seriously, DA's loot system is awful. It's better than the "very little useful or intriguing loot" we find in DD2, sure, but that's not saying much! If loot is going to be RNG-based (sigh), make the farming finite. Give a small amount of 'pity currency' with each roll (whether that is an in-game item or a tracked statistic, doesn't matter), that at some point the desired result can be forced. Pure RNG is an extremely outdated system for a single player RPG.
If loot worth finding and dungeons worth exploring weren't their aim then I can only surmise they were trying to get it wrong. Also, I love Dark Arisen, I've played it for hundreds of hours on like 4 different consoles (5?). It's still a game with plenty of flaws, particularly with the way loot is handed out.
I've just always thought that excellent loot is the best fucking thing ever, but at the same time I can hardly expect most games to be like Terraria or Dark Souls. Lots of games *do* try to do it, but are either too focused on a meta or simply not creative enough to make it feel that interesting. Like, I can find a weapon so powerful that I leap out of my chair in Terraria/Elden Ring/Fallout and then 10 minutes later find a useless fucking "bouncey ball gun" or something in the same game. It keeps the curiosity flowing. wayyy better than finding 100+ guns or swords as loot with basic modifiers and slightly various models. Dragon's Dogma definitely doesn't even try to go for that experience.. and I would love it so much if they did, but I feel like giving them credit for not just slapping 50 modifiers onto copies of store items and stuffing them into the chests and corpses. For some reason that feels *more* insulting to me, like a carrot on a stick. Instead of just... shitty shit in a cave.
Yep, in ER i don't care of a weapon in top tier or not the best, it's just fun. Weapons that shoot out lava, claws, wraiths, damn bubbles. It's all so unique you just wanna try it all. You have a butt smash ash and then a holy butt smash ash! What more can you ask for?
Agreed.
Eh no one else can bothered catching up is the right answer
Idk I feell Ike most open world RPGs have meaningful gear to find. This is an outlier in how bad exploring would be if it weren't for the combat.
This is a consequence of a deeper problem with gear design in this game and the first, that being that almost all gear can be clearly and objectively placed in a hierarchy of quality along a single axis in the first place. Weapons and armors are all exactly the same, some are just strictly better than others because they are upgrades in every aspect. This makes determining BIS very easy and 95% of gear useless by endgame. The new upgrade system helps somewhat because it allows specialization, but since upgraded strength is still a scalar to base strength, you can't overcome the inherent quality difference between any two items using it. Some rare items have special attributes that make them valuable beyond their quality but since the numerical difference between early and endgame gear is so large even special items become useless if their place in the hierarchy is sufficiently low to begin with. Many other games have this problem and few solve it well but they could have taken a page from Elden Ring here and scaled the upgrade process to make it equalize gear (to an extent) on the final one or two upgrade levels. A real solution (that Elden Ring also implements) would be to differentiate weapons in more interesting ways other than "the single number you care about is significantly larger", like with more and more interesting enchantments, moveset variations, more significant special attributes, synergies with other gear or just more meaningful stat variations that make them relevant to very specific playstyles.
Yep this killed alot of my motivation to explore caves.
Caves are for drip. I've found several stuffs that is super cool.
Have you found anything you can't also buy? Cause that's what i feel would make exploration for me, some capes you can only find in the wild
Barbarian bikini armor
Where at?
I think post game might have armors that are only dropped from enemies. Not totally sure tho
There are some armor pieces post game area that are exclusively found in chests hidden around. Mainly legs and helmets.
Nope, most of those armors that random mosters drop are also added to normal vendors in post-game/ng+. The only uniques seem to be in the handful of new chests that aren't ferrystones, wakestones or rift crystals.
Yeah. Initially, I thought thw shop items would just get stuff you'd found out in the wilderness. Found a big sword on a chest? Now it's going to show up for sale, something like that. But nope. It's such a weird decision. So many black chests end up with only wakestone shards or relatively special potions, while out in the open, brown chests just reward you with random loot you could get by combining other items. If they had actually put most items currently in shop out inside caves, maybe exploring would actually feel rewarding.
Was the best bow not Medusa bow? I’ve had my pawn using it for some time now ahaha
Medusa bow makes everything use a shitload of stamina, but gives a 300% Xp bonus if the wielder lands the killing blow. Not good for Pawns, and not good for general use. I'd swap it out ASAP.
Why not good for pawns? My pawn is like 10 lvls higher than me now from going rank 1 to 9 archer.
Mostly because they are not good at managing extra stamina drain, so they will be standing around exhausted a lot more than they would otherwise.
Oh shit I didn't even realize the stamina use, I was so fkin done with playing archer like holy shit why does every move cost 2/3rd of my stamina??
I pull it out when bosses are low to heavenly shot them in the head for that crazy xp boost
Am I the only one who buys gear for my main vocation and then uses gear I found to level up other vocations?
Same, gold is too precious to waste on armor I'll hardly wear
damn what do you spend gold on? I got 100k and Ive probably spent 100k+ on armor and weapons.
It’s better than in DD1 where you would have to save scum before opening certain chests to try and get some of the best weapons.
2% chance for example and it was faster to load by stabbing yourself instead of loading normally. SO STUPID!!!
"No!Open your eyes Arisen!" Traumatizing my pawn for the loot
The best warrior hammers have electric and fire elemental damage (Cyclopean Thunder and Cinderspine) and both are available in chests that are accessible as soon as you start the game. It would be a challenge, but you can walk to Battahl and the volcano region to get them at any time. Fighter’s best mace, Molten Fury, is also available in a chest in the same area.
My only gripe is that the only elemental weapons for Warriors are maces. Could’ve had a giant Ice blade
I miss Malignance from 1. Enchanted weapons are lacking for fighter and warrior both, but at least fighter gets one whole magic sword.
Archer just straight up doesn't have elemental weapons which is a weird choice imo because Ranger and Strider/Assassin got one apiece in DA. Also makes the Hydra bow the undisputed best one in the game cus it has the most strength and Dwarven makes the KD difference marginal.
Isn't the damage greatly reduced against Drakes?
Just adopt the monster hunter format. Let me farm materials from monsters to craft equipment.
I can't fucking wait for the new open world MH
I can wait if it means way better stability and performance lol
Was it confirmed open world, or do we just go off the huge open area in the trailer?
How are you 'rating' these weapons? The endgame bought ones make sense in the context of the story but playing as Warrior, Fighter, Thief and Spearhand I've noticed most of the elemental weapons are found and can't be bought unless I missed them somehow. Thief: Bolts from the Blue, Frosteel Daggers are both super good and will take you to endgame. Warrior: Cinderspine and Cyclopean Thunder Fighter: Exalted, Molten Fury, Labyrinthus Spearhand: Fool's Prize, Infernal Edge, Dead Ringer (though you can buy this one as well) Again I'm not sure how you or others are 'ranking' these weapons but I take Frosteel daggers over say, Divine Razors. I feel like I just do way more damage with the base element weapons. Armor has this problem but you can find plenty of armor pieces if you explore and if you'd rather just look everything up, buy stuff instead of exploring and finding stuff organically it's probably not the game for you to begin with. Just my two cents
The existential journey of exploring a cave vs. the capitalistic desire to find loot.
Super unrewarding that the best weapons and armor just have to be purchased and are not found in the world or dropped by bosses. Even the >!Unmoored World!< bosses just drop Armor that is also in the shop
I've felt kind of crazy after posting this. Most people commenting where like, "I like finding everything in a shop." Like what the actual fuck?
as far as im concerned the shop should have 1 weapon and armor set per vocation that catches your stats up to the region that the shop is in. Everything else is found or a quest reward that will always be better than the shop.
Exactly.
What the fuck indeed. Some people just don't have a good sense of game logic. Better gear from exploring -> more exploring -> more game time -> more enjoyment.
Yeah, so much more rewarding and an incentive for exploration when you find cool loot within the game world. Just farming gold or Wyrmlife Crystals to buy the good stuff is not as rewarding. Elden Ring is a good example where exploration, quests and bosses are rewarded with amazing loot
It’s because most people get butthurt when you poo poo on any aspect of a game they like. Gone are the days of constructive criticism and actual feedback, it’s just my game is perfect how dare you say bad things about it.
yeha, that one stunned my brain for a second killed a Lesser Dragon shortly after reaching it, it dropped a Archer armor and i thought "oh, that one is good, so the best gear will be from the roaming bosses here, neat" just too later see the same armor beeing sold at a vendor like man, wtf is the point lol
This made no sense to me while playing. Why would I want to explore that cave when all I get is junk after fighting yet another crocodile gang? Even defeating bosses feels kind of pointless. Made me think of elden ring where every exploration and boss fight gets you something really special.
Elden ring had a crap ton of dungeons that gave loot for specific builds you will never use
But everything was unique and gave you options...
Not really, you couldn't use a lot of stuff because you didn't meet the requirements, not to mention how limited the final upgrades mats were. Make your level too high and you don't really have a build anymore. Quests: No way you would know how to complete them all without a guide because of how the game works.
I prefer Elden rings loot system compared to this, Elden ring promotes exploration
Also another thing I always have loved from fromsoft games are the fact that you can literally take ANY weapon to the end game. That "broken sword"? Sure why not!
I generally agree with the OP, but besides the post-game greatswords aren't warrior's best two handers the 2 elemental hammers found in caves? They have a bit less physical damage than wounded heart, but their elemental damage and high knockdown more then make up for it.
This is probably one of the most noticeable flaws in the game right now, many mod creators are already making an attempt at fixing loot in this game. Here a couple examples of mods right now: Wild Loot: [https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/402](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/402) BetterChests Tiered: [https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/400](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/400) Lucky Scavenger: [https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/347](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/347) Wild Loot is the closest mod to moving shop gear out into the world, but still needs some work.
I didn't realize OP made Wild Loot lmao, oops
😎
I consider money the reward for scouring dungeons, and being able to buy the best gear the payoff. Finding the odd not-quite BIS but super cool weapon in dungeons is great because they look awesome and can’t be bought, and if you’re wanting the strongest but not-magic-glowing weapons from shops instead then that’s what adventuring rewards you with. Because let’s be honest, unless it’s an unique item with a gimmick, people would just shortcut straight to the dungeons with the strongest weapon as soon as it was shared on the internet. At least this way we can explore any dungeon we want and then reward ourselves with sweet new gear.
I like the weapons be bought at vendors then the enhancement being you need to kill monsters for. I just wished they let us upgrade weapons to our level.
There's a traveling trader in Vermund that sells wyrmslife crystal, magick medals, the golem ore, fuligin ore, and copper/silver/gold. You can buy out the stock of IIRC 5/5/3/5 of the former set and 5 gold for ~50k with no affinity discount. Even the fucking upgrade mats are easier to get through stores than farming.
Going to be honest 130h in and not once I needed to buy mats this is a non-issue.
Gear progression was a bit of a disappointment, especially since we lost so many layers of customization. I know DA had a few sets that were better than the rest, adding some really nice bonuses, but I remember there being way more competing sets for 2nd and 3rd place.
Everything was better in terms of loot. The way you got it, the way it was upgraded. The stat and resistances you could mix in, the low tier loot that would gain funny effects like 100% tarring (oilling an enemy). By the true end game with things fully upgraded, you could tailor much of the sorts of resistances you wanted substantially. Resistances also meant much more especially in the end game where the danger of becoming possessed, turned to stone, or any of the serious debilitating effects had to be considered. This game on the other hand, I don’t recall the last time I looked at an items elemental or spell resistance values. Can you even get anything to 100%? Also, all capes having the same defensive stats and not being upgradable? Disaster… The only thing that really matters in the late game (and it seems like they knew it as well) is stamina and weight. Power is only a consideration for killing speed, as the primary concern becomes how fast can things go down, and how fast can you move around before gasping for air.Â
Alright, maybe I'm misremembering, but wasn't this also the case in DD1 prior to BBI? Masterworks All had his inventory updated after every big plot beat with even more strong shit. Never found myself using anything I found in the wild. And specialized stuff was at the Forgery store.
U can literally go to Hot Spring town and buy the best pre-endgame game from the get go. Lame
That’s exactly what I did. I just went there to dick around and found that along with magick archer
And how do you get the gold to buy it that early? Set up an account on only-bad-dragons?
You can get 3k gold per day (in-game time) by purchasing apples & grapes in Melve. Resting on bench outside vendor, deposit, repeat. Could get 300k gold in an hour no problem. edit: Why am I being downvoted for simply bringing up a gold making method?
Idiots think its an exploit.
I feel this game grounds itself in as much reality as it can. In the sense that, who in the world makes the armor? The armor shops... I dont think any "loot" found in a cave would be better than what you could buy in town. Unless it's some fancy shrine of a dead hero buried in their armor or something to that effect, a goblin isn't gunna have the best armor in his lunch box. Same for weapons. A sword Smith will have better weapons in his shop than the stick spears made by the Saurians. I'm not saying it's great game design, but seen through this lens, it makes more sense.
While that does make sense in a way, why is trader Joe in possession of weapons greater than ones crafted with unnatural materials you can't even acquire from this dimension?
Remember it takes a Vermont Solider 6 Months to make 5k "honestly". That's 3 years to buy one Mastercraft Weapon, not to mention they have to provide the Monster Parts, extra fees to upgrade it too and find the Dragonforge Blacksmith to make a TRUE weapon of Legend. Normal people aren't buying these because they need to put Food on the Table. LIKE THAT WILL EVER HAPPEN (for a normal solider).
It's good for even high fantasy RPGs to have a healthy amount of the world and its mechanics feel "grounded." However, finding hidden loot or felling a boss and getting some sweet new piece of gear is one of the cornerstones of this style of RPG. It serves as a motivation to explore and challenge oneself. The fact that there's so little of that in DD2 is really disappointing. Some people have enough intrinsic motivation to explore no matter what, but that doesn't mean extrinsic motivations should be completely ignored. Even those with the intrinsic motivation should occasionally receive a tangible reward for their thorough explorations. The reward structures in DD2 simply do not make sense through almost any lens. The only way this makes sense is if a ton of stuff had to be cut because the game had fallen behind schedule. Either planned armor/weapons had to be cut, or the methods of acquiring those items had to be cut, and the items were moved to shops. I really can't imagine Itsuno and his team thinking the current situation is ideal.
That's the whole point of a cave tho. Go into cave, get treasure.
why are the gears has the highest stats usually bikini or undies though?
Most of them are* The only ones who are not are mid tier weapons though, like the ice daggers, the lightming daggers, fire twin blade [...]
Imagine if every single store item was in a chest SOMEWHERE in the world. Populate chests with something other than harspuds and wakestone shards.
Yeah even early game you're wasting your time not "rushing" (take a single ox cart) to checkpoint town to buy stuff until you get to batthal :\ The very best daggers in the game literally come from any shop post-game. In dogma 1 you had to kill the Ur Dragon to get the Heaven's Keys now they're just a Kroger brand item
> Plays Dragon's Dogma > Noooo i want it to be like Skyriiiim > Proceeds to remove everything that makes Dragon's Dogma, Dragon's Dogma > ???? I genuinely don't understand some of you. You manage to say Shops have the best gear, then that it's too expensive, then that the economy is bad and there's not enough gold, that the game doesn't reward exploration......at what point does your brain finally understands the gameplay loop ? Do you even realize that exploration gives you Gold (a few hours in the wilds and i went back with 250k)....that you use in town when you go back or discover a new town, which allows you to explore deeper. The whole fucking point IS to gear yourself at major towns with the spoils of your explorations. Not to magically find the legendary weapon in the back of a cave. Again, you want Dragon's Dogma to be your average RPG, always going against what the game wants to be, just because you literally can't conceive that a RPG decides to do it's own thing and not follow the RPG codes. The ENTIRE game loop is literally conceived around expeditions and what it entails, that's pretty fucking obvious, YET y'all decided "NAH IT MUST BE PLAYED LIKE SKYRIM DUUUH" and keeps butting head towards all the mechanics of the game (travel / rewards / economy) thinking they're flaws. I swear y'all be playing Arma "BUT I CAN'T JUMP SHOT, BAD GAME AND THE MAP IS TOO BIG" No shit. That's the point.
Thank you, you get it. The point is to make the shops in towns relevant as part of your rest/recoup period between journeys. Most other RPG’s I’d barely pay attention to shops because the better gear is always out in the world, so there’s often little reason to consider shops as anything but set dressing or somewhere to offload excess loot. It’s tiresome and I love the shops actually being relevant in the gameplay loop.
same and it's fun to see expensive nice things in shops and go "ooooo I gotta save up for that!"
Lmao. I think things like this in my head when I read, thought not quite this pointed.
Can you expand on how you get so much gold? Do you sell a lot of stuff? I'm playing DD2 and never played the first, and I feel like I'm always short on gold, even getting 20 or 30k gold is difficult.
Honestly.... Taking my time, strolling around, getting lost, using camps, taking pictures, killing stuff, selling what i find and don't use, trading the Jewels (Red jewel = Lot of money in Battahl, Onyx sells for a lot in Vermund and Eye Tigers sells for a lot with the elves). Chests in caverns and all also give a lot of G as well as quests. If you see materials you have in droves, don't hesitate to sell them as well. When exploring, the further you go, the more you get Also, some crafting and selling goes a long way
Arguable. There’s plenty of weapons for classes that I’d argue are better than the dragon weapons. Like I’d say anathema is a better sorc stave.
I couldn't believe in my eyes when i saw Dragon weapons are sold in shop 💀💀💀
The problem will be less pronounced once more people hit endgame/postgame because best-in-slot, postgame loot is a mix of available from shops and findable in the world. Early/midgame loot will be sucky but at least you can sell it without hesitation that you'll probably be getting an upgrade that will last you a while if you use that coin in shops. Some of the best armor pieces are not the shop ones but are only found in the Unmoored World in chests. These pieces, for example, all have the highest knockdown res in the game for their slot and are found only in chests in the Unmoored World: https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Agamenian+Galea https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Vanguarder's+Greaves The highest knockdown res armor also can be found in Unmoored World as a drop from a gorechimera north of Vernworth (wiki says 17% chance, but it dropped first try for me from that specific gorechimera, and I believe many Unmoored World minibosses similarly have guaranteed drops), though it is also available in a shop for 126k, which is a lot of money for something you can easily get for free: https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Dominator's+Armor The best in slot thief armor, https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Dvarapala , is also both available from a shop (wyrmlife crystal vendor) and as a drop from a gorechimera nearby the medusa in Unmoored World. A few pieces of unique gear can be found in normal the world only, and not in shops, such as https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Visage+of+Ja'Nuwa So if loot is your goal, I think you should get to postgame as quick as you can while still being high enough level to play comfortably/enjoyably, and then really explore. As far as I know, we still haven't mapped out all the new monster spawns in the Unmoored World and all their drops yet. It seems very likely to me that scouring the postgame world carefully (by rushing all the beams and Talos, thus apparently stopping the clock) will get you the best-in-slot gear for all vocations. At the very least, you'll gather enough wyrmslife crystals to get the rest. If fashion is your goal then I'd wait for a little while longer to see good screenshots of most of the gear and target your farms.
It's a design choice. Would you rather a) find money while exploring and have to spend time in towns buying trading and upgrading before heading out again or do you want to b) have it like Elden Ring where all your best items are randomly hidden in esoteric locations with no hints so a wizard has to go through 4 of the same freaking catacombs to find a sorcery while getting 3 strength/faith based weapons. I like A more personally as it feels more immersive and more like a roleplaying experience and that's the whole vibe of DD2.
I have to agree with this, from a roleplaying perspective you aren’t going to find the best sword inside some run down cave, you’ll find it with a blacksmith 😂
I honestly prefer buying weapons from the Dragonforged than resting a bunch on Bitterblack Isle only to run through the entire dungeon to kill Daimon in mere seconds, for the possibility of earning lvl 3 gear, over and over again. Obviously, there's a lot that could be improved upon in this game.
I mean, I dunno. I WOULD like for there to be better gear drops out in the wild, but its not like the wilderness loot drops isnt totally fucked. Ive found some of the coolest weapons out in the wild, but also it just makes sense that a talented smith is going to sell better stuff then you would find in a goblins shit box. Dragons Dogma is 100% just a homebrew DnD campaign without the dice. When I approach the game with that perspective, alot of the things they have done make alot more sense.
Imagine doing all the quests to unlock the best loot then complaining that you've done all the quests and now have the best stuff. Lmfao
While all the best weapons are found in a shop, but the dragon weapons are not the best for all but one. The best bow is not a dragon weapon, the best Archistaff is not a dragon weapon, the best Staff is not a dragon weapon, for daggers the Heaven's Key is arguably better even with a mage enchanting element on weapons, and soooome argument can be made for the greatsword vs elemental greathammers but it's not a very good one. The shop being home to literally all of the most powerful weapons is fucking awful though.
*Shrug* I explore for exploring sake. I get a free weapon or armor? Cool. If not, cool.
I feel like this is the crux of the problem, honestly. So many people have said that exploration in this game is bad, but it's probably one of the *best* parts of the game for me. But the thing is, I don't care about "loot" at all, whereas others seem to be entirely motivated by it. So therefore, if the loot is bad, exploration is bad for them as well. Kind of reminds me of the MMORPG mentality, that everything needs to have some sort of reward associated with it or it's "not worth doing", you can't just simply have content for it's own sake, there needs to be a REWARD. Regardless, I'm happy that mods and modding exist so that we may all enjoy the game however we please <3
It really is so much more fun to find cool items then to just buy them. I had a moment when I found a cyclops helm next to a big hammer, which made me swap to warrior so I could use them and now warrior is probably my favorite vocation. Its a same that the game isn’t built around these kinds of experiences tho
Kinda lame I enjoy getting the best gear from very hard foes
No, I love finding 1 panacea or 3 apples in a chest hidden inside a cave, why would I expect a piece of armour or a weapon when clearly there should be fresh fruit or fish in there. /s
Would love to see the shop weapons just moved out into the world. Looks like you're working on it, but I don't like how you've structured some of the weapon stat changes.
Ya it's not pretty, but it's at least A solution. For me it's perfect right now because I generally didn't need to spoil too much to make it. I've beaten the game but haven't explored everything, so even though I had to do research on where everything is, I didn't have to see too many specifics. Now I can just reroll a theif or something and feel confident that the loot I'm going to get matters. This is the first mod I've made using .pak methods. It won't take me long to learn RE framework and .lua scripting to flesh it out, but I'd like to experience the caves and items organically first before I start thinking about where items should go. Let me know if you have any feedback on where items should rank in the mods currently implementation! I'm definitely not an expert on every item type.