The endgame zone having a time limit really kills DD2’s replayability because now you have to do a whole new run just to play a 7 in-game day long endgame. DD1’s endgame had no time limit so you were free to really play around and experiment with the toughest enemies in the game.
ya i found that stupid as well i just hope the DLC fix the monster hunting progress otherwise only soft save scumming would be alternate to hunt wargs or sphinx as example
There are no true time limits if you don't sleep, just use wakestones, farm them, and you can stay forever in this world. But, yes, after 12 days enemies stop respawning.
That was a huge turn off. When I reached the endgame things got exciting for once. I finally got all of those large enemy spawns that I wanted, but now I have this timer ticking away forcing me to an objective that I don't want to do.
I think we were all hoping for a progression like Demon Souls to Dark Souls or Borderlands 1 to Borderlands 2 or Witcher 1 to 2 and 3. The first game is more of a proof of concept and lays a solid foundation for the games that follow which build the games upward by expanding and refining the game design. It just doesn't seem to be what we got here.
DD2 is probably what DD1 meant to be, so be basically got a "remake" and not really a new game. Sadly enough there are a lot things worse than in dd1 and a lot the same
i think the consequence of a weightier feel in DD2 is what you are reflecting about here with the big boss enemies. DDDA was a more arcade-y feel so it allowed for faster aggressive bosses. where is DD2 the smaller mobs feel dangerous in packs because getting staggered is very dangerous. So the weightier gameplay slowed the bosses too but to an overall detriment it seems
Hordes of human enemies are probably the most dangerous to deal with since they have the same movesets and the same attack speed as you. In DD1, bandits had more telegraphed attacks but tended to have more numbers. In DD2, you can easily get stunlocked by melee bandits since they have the same moveset as you.
Someone finally said it. Its these "next-gen" physics sucking the fun out of alot of these games that we expect to be faster, flashier, and more free flowing
I hit a very big brick wall after about 80 hours. The game just tops out and becomes bland. It's a good game, but shallow. The lack of equipment, capabilities, and overall progression. Progressive story,map, and surprise.
@@anything_idc_right like why tf is there like 5 fucking armor sets for each class? 🤣 this game is bullshit man. They better start dropping some free content or something
@@stampiboy1 that might be but the story was faster over than DD1 also the DLc is really needed for DD2 to raise it from death also i want to mention that it is very hard to keep ur motivation to reach 999 lvl so we need official Vergil in DD2
I did notice myself being a lot less wary of large enemies in this game compared to DD1, ogres in particular, but I couldn't put my finger on why. It makes sense now, after seeing this video.
The ogres were a lot less dangerous for me in this game than in DD1. If I recall correctly, the ogres slightly smaller in DD1 so their hitboxes feel tighter compared to the DD2 ogres where they would overshoot their attacks if I'm too close to them. In DD2, I don't think I've ever been hit by an ogre's dropkick cuz I feel like they're too tall so they kick above me. It doesn't help that there's a lot more ogres in the wild in DD2 and most of the time, the terrain is uneven so they'll miss even more. I don't think I've ever seen ogres in DD2 do the jump slam when you're climbing them so they feel less intelligent than in DD1. DD1 were deceptively dangerous since you encounter cyclopses (which carry weapons) in the story and assume it's just a weak ape monster. Ogres made up for their smaller size with their aggression, intelligence, and speed but in DD2, they just feel like a slightly faster cyclops.
The drakes in DD1 would even breath-cancel sometimes and chain attacks, it was vicious. The DD2 dragon just looks like it is breathing fire aimlessly like a fool
One thing I got a sense of that was missing were things like Blue Moon Tower, and other areas which felt like small dungeon crawls with little checkpoint objectives to stop for loot or enemy encounters. I really enjoyed that in DD1, especially the Everfall, and BBI was a literal dungeon crawl DLC. I love the wild sense of exploration, that feeling of turning a corner with no idea of what's on the other side. Even though I may not find loot the sole reason for exploration, it's sad that most areas feel like they lack any incentive.
I remember first fighting those ogres in dragons dogma 1 in that long mine in-between Gran Soren and the area where the lesser dragon spawn. It was scary, and difficult as things got more and more desperate as the supply of curatives started getting lower and lower. Never had an experience in DD2 where enemies felt threatening or scary, not at all, from level 25 or upwards i found every enemy to be a walk in the park as i leveled up in the course of the game. I hope the rumored DLC will be a game changer. if not, then i guess i will accept that DD1 was a much more special and distinctive game than i realized and something that i somehow managed to take for granted for all of these years, the greatness was already there, i just did not realize it. Still, I am a fan of DD2 as well, but I think i will wait some time until i play through it again.
If you want more aggressive monsters, then they'll have to give I-frames for getting knocked down. That's what made things reasonably forgiving in DD1, and I've already been stun-locked by enemies in DD2 with their current level of aggression.
I agree mostly but we also have drawven smithing now which makes stun locking significantly less of a threat. If you're a warrior with drawven smithed armor you just never get staggered.
From what he says in the video, Nihil is fine with the aggression of the smaller enemies. He wants the bigger enemies to be more threatening, like they were in DD1.
As a story-focused game enjoyer I can't see this game beating the first one in terms of story, and I actually think it's pretty different from DD1 if you analize the plot progression. we have the same elements of lore and dialogue structure that was present in the first dragon's dogma but the story is unfocused, and the dissonanse of gameplay elements with the story play a big part on the reason why it feels like it doesn't really matter what you do through out the game, as long as it keeps you entertained with challenging bosses and enemies. The biggest plus I can give the story is the pawn system, because it's very well integrated into the world 's logic and gameplay. I like the ending A LOT just because of my pawn but that's about it. Greg the dragon from DD2 is not as cool as Grigori from the first game and I think that dissapointed a lot of the fans as well. The music was bland since we didn't get Mr. Makino to write the music for DD2, with the exception of some remakes. Overall There is more bad than good with this game for me but I still enjoyed the combat a lot. It's a shame that THIS is supposed to be the ideal sequel that Hideaki Itsuno had planned since DD1 and honestly, even saying that makes me think he wouldn't even believe it himself. It's like you said. Ten years have passed and things have not changed.
It's really bizarre how many times I see people say you can't compare the two due to one having DLC and the other not. I can compare Elden Ring without DLC to Dark Souls 1 with DLC, and that's about the same difference in time. Hell, I can compare Bloodborne without DLC to Dark Souls 1 with DLC and that was a release gap 1/4th the size of the gap between DD1 and DD2.
DD2 is a great simulator of "going out for a walk and enjoying the scenery which gets interrupted by monsters and bandits, but camping with my pawns is relaxing"
Another thing that bothers me in DD2 is how there are more boss monsters are scattered around everywhere so they lose their novelty when you fight them. It makes me wonder how anyone even gets around without the arisen since large monsters or small hordes of enemies always litter the roads and they spawn super fast. You'll level up so fast to the point that those enemies become trivial really fast. In that sense, the more realistic approach they were going for gets contradicted since it feels less like a living ecosystem that has creatures minding their own business and more like an arcade game that's afraid that you'll lose interest if there's no combat every 30 seconds.
I dunno I think the world feeling they wanted to convey was that the world really goes to shit when the dragon is active, NPCs talk about how it's become really dangerous to venture out in the wilds and even the city aren't infallible, as we see with monster raids that we can come across. Personally I liked the roaming bosses made the trekking through the world more enjoyable
A big thing i felt while dealing with large enemies in DD2 is that the much more passive feel and slower movements were buffered by the fact I rarely felt i was just facing 1 large enemy. I think the only time i faced just 1 enemy was with very specific large monsters like Medusa, Chimera, and dragons. Every other large enemy i felt like was accompanied by a group of smaller enemies. Fighting a cyclops? Well you'll also need to deal with these 8 goblins. Fighting a griffon? Don't forget about these 10 wolves. Fighting an ogre? Dont shrug off the pack of 6 harpies who are nested 3 feet away. This isn't necessarily exclusive to DD2 but it was definitely something i felt more than in DDDA. It felt like the artificial difficulty from Dark Souls 2 where it wasn't that individual enemies were difficult per se but that facing large mobs of them made it more difficult. The difference being that in DD2 it wasn't an increase in difficulty as much as just being more annoying. But while i don't like the large enemies being slower and less difficult i wont ever complain about missed hits and wiffed attacks because that felt more like the game having much tighter and polished hit boxes then the AI being bad and constantly missing. The game wants you to actively be fighting and moving around the large enemies so the hits don't feel designed for you to just be sitting there waiting to get attacked. It does suck though that while my confidence fighting large enemies accompanied by a small pack of goblins or harpies or wolves was through the roof, my confidence facing bandits with 3 SnS users would plummet knowing all they had to do was gang up on me using shield bash so that i could never stand and recover stamina or regain my composure in battle. Shout out to the phantom ox cart quest where almost every enemy used shield bash so that i would be forced to lay on the ground and watch them continuously knock me down so i couldn't fight them.
In my whole life of gaming since a was a kid, only two games I've waited years for them to come out that I bought day one, Cyberpunk 2077 (since the first trailer ever) and Dragon's dogma 2 (Hoping it would come the moment I finished dragon's dogma 1 back in the xbox 360. When it comes to cyberpunk and that whole disaster of a launch it had, the game at it's core was good, Amazing lore, story, voice acting, map, setting, aesthetic, vibe. The launch was sad, but minus the bugs, I had extreme fun on that game, One that I still play to this day. With Dragon's dogma 2 tho? By the time I reached level 30 I knew it didn't feel the same way as as the first one, and my disappointement reached it's peak after realising there's no endgame loop, hard difficulty and a lot of things missing from the first game. The whole experience left a genuine sour taste in my mouth, it saddens me. I doubt i'll get the dlc until years after release until it becomes extremly cheap. a disappointement of a lifetime this is, still mad at myself for waiting this long for that.
I played DD2 when it came out, never touched a DD game before, however I had bought DD and played for about 2 h before giving up since DD2 was being released the next day. Loved the new game, the graphics, movement, fighting, etc. However, after completing the game and starting new game + (took it very slow, pretty much did everything, played for around 180 hours although maybe only half were actual gameplay) It became stale. It was fine, since 180 h is a lot of time so I moved on. Recently, and thats how I came across your channel, I started playing DD 1, immediately was hooked by it, didnt care about the old graphics, combat was fun, enemies were tough, it was all great until I came across BBI, man what an experience, every room was exciting, the concept was great as well, it became amazing for me. Also loved the classes, magic archer and specially mystic knight were great, strider and ranger, sorcerer, were also a lot of fun. Fights were hard and challenging, could have played for many more hours (unfortunately Elden Ring's DLC just came out), that was until I found out that the loot (BBI cursed drops) were predetermined, meaning that it was no RNG (well some RNG when the list was created but thats it) and there was nothing I could do to change it, and that put me off entirely. Still, I think DD was a more enjoyable game than DD2 in many aspects, both are good but DD felt a bit more special, maybe DD2 will overtake it with its DLC, who knows!
Radical, a new upload! I'm playing DDDA right now, just dealt with the rotunda of dread, the eliminators and elder ogres encounter. After seeing you and these new fellas, I was shocked. Really feels like a let down. They could have been so much more dangerous. Like grabbing the arisen by the leg and swinging him like a club. We have all these new physics engines and that's what they gave? Just seems like they tried to play it safe.
I'm with you, man! While I do like Dogma 2. I don't see myself coming back to it, after the initial sheen fades. DD:DA on the other hand, I fully intend to return to. The way I look at DD2 is it's a Fisher Price version of Dogma. If you want a game that beats you down, because it wants to make you stronger, you turn to Dark Arisen.
Also, time gating the endgame was a crap idea, if I have to make due without an eternal ferrystone, and be forced to manually replace my port crystals, they could have at least let me stay in endgame long as I please.
the real problem that they tried to solve is: "how do we convince the vast majority of people that never got into DD1, to get into DD2?". Their answer was: improved graphics (duh), dumbed down mechanics, dumbed down classes, dumbed down bosses and big enemies. What a major letdown...
Might have nerfed the big bosses to balance the overall lack of I-frames. With the exception of fighter and thief, nobody has parries or reliable dodges anymore. I miss MK.
Hopefully hard mode, if it comes, raises enemy aggression for big bosses, since like mages have a party wide shield bubble, Archer can quickly reposition himself with jump kicks and slides, warrior has barge and can counter with charged attacks and skills, Mystic Spearhand has the cc bolt, shield bubble and reposition skills, Trickster is all about cc, sorcerer could levitate out of the way, magick archer I feel is the only class that doesn't have any defensive option even sorcerer can at least run away with levitate and for smaller mobs thundermine is sort of a safe zone
I just went back to playing DDDA. DD2 has good things about it but overall it just makes me miss DD1. DD2 just changed to much of what I like about DD1.
I just want the mage/sorcerer spells that got taken out back,the music from the first game,including the music that plays at night,bitterblack isle content,Daimon,equipment customization of the first game,ur dragon,a real-life fight with the pathfinder dragon,I hated how the last thing you do is just climb up the dragon,though that pawn cutscene was peak,amd most of all,I want the Senechal back,only more challenging this time,the music,the dialog, the fact that the Senechal can switch to your arisen when facing it again was just amazing
My hope is that the director of DA/BBI will be the director of what comes next for DD2 instead of Itsuno as I get the feeling he understood the strengths of the first game better as he was able to mostly improve upon the first game where as Itsuno was not able to do so with the sequel for the most part and perhaps his full vision just isn't for the better for fans of DD1.
They need to get itsuno tf out of there. He’s clearly out of touch. They were supposed to go batshit crazy with DD2 😭 I’m so hurt still I was so hyped for this game
@@dododog6out of touch seems about right. I think he lost his vision compared to how much he did with what little he had back then. Now, he had so much and did so little, it's honestly disappointing to not get the product we were all expecting.
Garms are just reskins of wolves, no big deal, fighting them like wolves, even trolling the same: their unpredictability comes exclusively from bugs (bugged hitbox, bugged animations, bugged AI). Now hellhounds, these are pesky muthas. Very smart too (see how they are climbing at Duskmoon). And inflict terrifying debilitations.
In that first exclusive IGN gameplay video the Ogre that the Warrior fought was so much more agressive, his dropkicks were like a homing missile with how accurate and fast it was, and it felt like he was using a lot more of his moveset, makes me I wonder if they nerfed the big monsters afterwards because how badly that player was doing in the video, because its pretty weird how it feels like the big enemies are pushovers while the small mobs are crazy agressive like one was nerfed in a rush and the other wasnt.
Pretty sure this just needed a team that gave a shit. Dogma 2 reeks of, "Oh yeah, we have this great IP from more than a decade ago. Maybe we should crank something out in the next 5 months!" 12 years post 'damn near perfection', the rise of AI systems, voice recognition, hardware improvements, more than a decade of player feedback to draw upon, etc. If the team just dedicated some time to Dogma 2, it would show. This seems like a rush-job.
Thank you for your content man! I absolutely agree. I’ll be playing DD2 a little by little, will see what will come with the update. I really wish they make the boss enemies and make big enemies AI better
A well put together video, explaining some of the games current weaknesses. O cant wait for the dlc to come out and hopefully provide the same level or thereabouts of difficulty that bbi had.
I hope these decisions were made for money, rather than incompetence... but communities like this lose regardless. There was an interesting stat in Dark Souls where only ~30% completed the game. I'd be curious about seeing the same for Dragon's Dogma. I certainly remember playing the game the first time - release day for XBox - then dying on the way to the bandit fort and turning the game off for years. I didn't put the bulk of my play time into it until DD:DA on the PC, a long time afterwards... and that was only because I hate leaving this type of game unfinished. My point is: I wonder if the choice to make killing big enemies easier and making the game overall easier is to make money. More people will play the game and more will complete it, so it more likley people will buy DLC or another sequel. The sacrifice is the small, core audience... I can see modern corporations deciding that's ok.
honestly the moment i unlocked the unmoored world i was completely bored that i didn't even bother finishing the game, this game had 12yrs to develop yet is half-assed couple things improved but the rest is a step back from DD1
I gotta wonder if Itsuno actually was being honest with this "the game I wanted to make" thing. DMCV feels like a natural evolution of DMC, giving the time and budget it was sorely in need of; coming off of DMCIV. But DD2? Nah, this game feels like it was rushed and was only really being patched together. I smell CAPCOM corporate meddling; if the shitty DLC on day one was any indication, and while I'm glad the game did well, I get the feeling they'll take the wrong lessons from that success.
I agree with you almost completely, it's just that the shitty micro transactions aren't indicative of anything since Capcom has been putting those in in all of their games for the past 10+ years, even dogma 1 and DMC4SE had those back in the day
I think which one to play is based on mood. Both are great games in their own right, and I think with just a bit of tweaking, DD2 could have the challenge we’re looking for in big enemies. Love your point about small enemies. I respect goblins in DD2 way more than in DD1. I would also like to shout out the new Saurian types. They’re fantastic additions. The large enemies are the weakest part.
Drakes and Dullahans are probably the best, I would hope that if they add a Hard mode it also improves the aggressiveness of larger enemies so that they don't have as much downtime as they do now, so that you really have to earn those critical hits
If big enemies were speed up a bit and a smidge more aggressive then I can see this game becoming a lot more enjoyable as a DD1 vet. Maybe clean up hit boxes to limit those hiding spots while hugging the enemy. Also wish there was a sort of level lock system in the game. Could've been a part of the story as you can't over level without your real heart. I'll just play DD2 with minimal armor and solo.
I feel like the bosses are not even on normal but on easy mode… I only noticed when I picked a fight with an ogre with an all female party… level 25 or so and we just iced him… I don’t think it even got one hit in
I think DD2 was under budget; Capcom didn't think it would sell so kept the money tap closed.. I also think DD2 had to be skilled for a new player. I'm hoping the success of DD2 gives us a decent DLC.
Starfield and Dragon's Dogma 2. Two big name developers, two games that were "waiting for the right time", two disappointments, two awful post launch supports. What a damn shame. Also, as a Warrior main in DD1 I really don't mind them feeling much heavier in 2, at least it makes them feel more unique as a melee class. What I do mind, is that their attacks are so slow that most smaller enemies recover from off-balance state before you land your next attack, making kill moves near impossible to pull off in most encounters, you just stunlock enemies until their hp depletes. I have no idea how they managed to overlook something so obvious during playtests.
Nice video Nihil. I hope this iteration of Dogma 2 wasn't the vision Itsuno had in mind. I'm clinging to the hope Capcom wanted Dogma 2 released on time at the cost of optimization, boss combat mechanics, and storyline/lore. I think they can fix those with DLC. I'm guessing they made conscious decisions to take a weapon slot away from all vocations except fighter, which they nerfed from DD:DA. They also took away 2 skill slots and made sure there were fewer equipment options. Those seem to be deliberate decisions. I don't think they'll be apt to reverse them in DLC. That said, if Elden Ring's DLC crushes it, Capcom and Itsuno are going to have to up the ante in their own DLC to revitalize interest in Dogma 2.
But that's the thing, we can't keep supporting companies just so they can get away with putting out a half baked game to then later "fix it" with DLCs. I wouldn't even call it fixing it, it's more like putting strawberry frosting on a pie made of shit, or using duck tape so your bike pedals don't fall off.
While i agree the small enemies are more aggressive which is nice, i really cannot find them any fun on the long run. It feels like every small mob encounter is the same, same 3 or 4 type enemies with barely 1 or 2 unique move per variant mobs. Same engagement with all of them, proceeding to do the same hit stuns and then the same attacks then possibly waiting their turn (or worse, perma stunning which is not "difficulty" in my book, it's a waste of players time) In DD1 sure they were easier and less aggressive, but at the same time the difficulty came from larger packs, a bit more variety that i recall (even goblins, from the small ones with different weapons to the big ones, you could tell which was which. Where here you see 5 different goblins, but they all act the exact same in most scenarios) and real fights against them (instead of perma hit stun jump attacks, you'd had to be weary of your stamina, they'd deal HP damage, sometimes status effect and you had to manage to get to them and hit them. Where here they jump attack you, hit the same attacks over and over and you don't really take damage, the danger is mostly perma stuns) I think overall the fights in this game remind me more of a poorly done monster hunter than an upgraded system to DD1/DDDA/DDON which is pretty sad The story is fine and the open world (aside dungeons, just the open areas) are so much better, we're just missing the gameplay in those, and hopefully the dcl and mods fix that quickly
I notice that dragon are less aggressive when their heart are not expose for the first time yet, though after the first expose they will just add spell into their moveset, and not until 3 health bar left did they try meteor move. All that and just 1 silence spell put them back to the state where they act as if their heart is not expose for the first time. 😂
I had a moment that really soured the game for me bc it just showed how little care went to the side quests in this game. The timed quest where you have to save the boy from wolves in checkpoint town, very near the path you have to follow, if not on it I don't exactly remember, there's another quest that, if you go towards it, forces that quest to advance, takes you literally half way across the map, and progresses time by a day. also the new stagger system really prevents me from enjoying the new combat.
I was wondering if anyone knows anything about the "dynamic difficulty" the game claims to have. I've been searching and only finding assumptions based on what other games have done. Have the devs ever explained how it affects combat in DD2?
My theory is that every boss enemy is meant to be fought with wolves, goblins, or harpies. That’s why they’re just spammed all over the place and have the ability to stun lock you.
I would not be surprised with DD2 was pushed out sooner than it was ready to, honestly. It's hard to believe with what Itsuno had done with DD1 for this to be what DD2 was "supposed" to be. I know some telling of the grapevine that CAPCOM wanted to push this game for 2024 release since it was the main financial driver for this year, but it was still at it's core somewhat of a disappointment. I think it stands to reason that more mobs and boss encounters would have made the game a more complete package, but as you stated through examples, the general direction of the game had shifted pretty tremendously -- irrespective of what CAPCOM's financial decisions were. Good game still, and honestly not a bad reboot if that was the case (yes I know about Gran Soren in UW lol) and it definitely got the attention it deserved (for better or for worse) and hopefully evolves into a more refined version of the DD experience that was so realized in DD:DA.
Feels alot like they made the combat in DD2 easier to speal to a larger audience. So done with slow enemies. I want to try in every fight, i want to have to out menuver and pull out all the stops. Be rewarded for exploiting weaknessess of each enemy. No idea what happened to DD2.
If you're a pc player there is a mod that speeds up the monsters you can set how fast they are which will lessen this but it does not get rid of the fact that the monsters do not have many different attacks so you are just doing the dance faster still I think you'll like it if you are not above modding ;P
That’s not the biggest issue for most vocations outside of sorceror because most classes get one or two core skills, meaning we usually get 5-6 total skills at any given time. The only reason we got eight skills in DD1 is because we had two weapons per class, and each gave 4 skills per weapon. In DD2 we only get one weapon and 5-6 skills per weapon. So if we’re talking about how many skills we get per weapon, we actually get more skills on average than DD1.
@@oventop311 Yeah, sorc got nerfed pretty hard. Having two fewer spells is huge. The stamina boost spell is amazing, but I think sorcs should get a better damaged based core skill. Mage gets halidom for free, so sorc should get a free spell. Maybe a version of ingle from the first game since they removed that spell completely.
Bruh. After 200 plus hours I finished DD2 with all the achievements unlocked, and most if not all of the side quests done... Then, I started playing DD1, as a virgin... It did not take me long to realise that Dogma1 is superior to Dogma2. You are right and your videos prove it. Case closed.
The pretentiousness almost bothers me more than anything. It just feels like this game takes itself far too seriously for what it actually does and is. Especially considering the director whining about how his genius was just being held back... the dude is, even more evidently now, absolutely no Miyazaki. The game is fine. Not as bad as bad gets. Not as good as it was directed to be...
That Ogre is nowhere near as fast and aggressive as the ones in the first game. It actually reminds me of Skyrim bandits, draugr and Trolls with their useless shield drumming/weapon pointing/hopping animations giving you free openings.
If you are into video games you will understand why capcom did that. This era of video games needs to be this way, like easy gameplay (or i prefer to call it not hard to play and finish 100% content without much effort) because this way the game can reach more players and have a huge base of fans, more player than just the hardcore players. One good example of that is Elden Ring, the game created by the same studio that created the souls serise, but they did change some major things to make the game easier and more "playable" for players that dont like to die 100 times to kill one boss, and they success with that, Elden Ring is more successful than the souls game serise with bloodborne compined. For me as a person who love to play games that require skills and effort to be good with it this is sad, i was so disappointed when i first played DD2, but as i said, i understand why capcom took that way. Second, im gussing that theyre saving the real things that took them 12 years to "think of" for DLCs, just like any other game nowdays, which is bad and shameful, but thats the way video game industry became.
Once I got the plat on DD2 I felt really sad because it wasn't what I wanted, DD1 felt so much better, the dd2 story sucked, theres something missing. Won't play it til the dlc comes out, sadly. Was really hoping for maxing my pawn out etc, but no thanks I'm bored of it and the map, characters and game couldve been waaaaaaaaaay better :p
Changes I really really hate about Dogma 2: -My 2 favourite vocations (Assassin and Mystic Knight) are gone. Replaced by a Darth Maul wannabe that's clunky af and a vape nation joke that can't even be called a vocation. (Jesus it's so f*cking bad) -More than half of the spells from Dark Arisen are gone; 27+22 (DD2) 45+55 (DDDA) -The Mage vocation is locked into a support vocation, there's no incentive whatsoever to try to build it for damage. "Literally just pick Sorcerer" kinda vibes. -The Sorcerer on the other hand, only does one thing, and that's damage. Your only option for sustained damage or cc it's probably Maelstrom, that's locked behind a hidden quest, takes forever to cast, locks you in a 4sec animation post-cast and it doesn't even do that much damage anyway. "Ew, if you want to do cc just pick Mage" or something idk. -There's like... 3-5 special/unique big monsters you can find exploring around, some of those bleed heavily into the main story, and most of them you'll probably 100-0 them in 30 seconds by the time you actually find them. (Took me like a minute trying to get my Pawns to hit the "serpent lady" in the forest using the useless smoke vocation, so yeah.) -The enemies take forever to do a single attack, it's like Elden Ring but the winding up is x3 and the mobs always aim a bit too high to actually hit you. -There's no variety in the equipment, the only thing that you can choose is how hard you hit and how much you can tank. There's no fun builds like unarmed, pawnless, etc. -Following the one above, vocation augments are worse than in the first game. Sure, in DDDA there were augments that quite literally didn't do anything, but at least there were a few funny ones to play with. >>Lets give the Thief Augments a quick look (because I've already sh*tted on the magic vocations quite a bit): _Subtlety. "Decreases the likelihood of being targeted by foes". Literally a waste of a slot, if you play with Pawns with magic vocations you want to be focused instead of them, and if you play with warrior vocations, they already have means to maintain aggro. __Gratification. "Slightly restores Health when you deliver the killing blow to a foe." Sounds good, but it's a nerf to the same effect you'd get from rings in DA, it can't heal you past the "injury limit" or whatever's called that basically forces you to camp/go to an inn. Also, just get a Mage pawn if you need heals, or carry herbs, they don't weight that much. _Poise. "Reduces the Stamina consumed when struggling in a foe's grip". See, this one would be great if enemies would actually try to throw you down, but even Cyclops that have hand-made animations to grab you (or their helmet) take like x2 the time to do the same motions they did on the older game. You have plenty of time to let go, fall to the ground, hit their knees a couple times and climb back before they finish that animation. _Vigor. "Reduces the Stamina consumed when clinging to or pinning down foes." Finally, one that's actually useful for the vocation, yes you'd want to keep as much stamina as possible while climbing enemies to keep hitting. _Verve. "Augments your Strength". Quite simple and boring for the final augment of the vocation but... Yeah, you are def going to pick this one over any of the others. It's like a bag of chips, 80% air, a full chip and a few broken pieces in the bottom. And this applies to the game as a whole sadly. And worst of all, I can't even feel robbed because I did like the first 30-40h of gameplay, but f*ck it hurts so much to see one of my favourite games ever get such a disappointing sequel.
I kinda like the specialisation thing they have going on between sorcerer and Mage, sorc big damage mage support, in dogma 1 never felt compelled to bring a mage with me, since a sorcerer would do the same things but better than that, now I'm picking them both mage for a player that's not skilled is almost mandatory, and they have their role in damage too against undead with anedoyne and empyrean being a few of the sources for holy damage
The worst part is that augments like verve which increases your damage only increase it by a flat number making it essentially worthless. Meanwhile the damage reduction augments decrease damage by a percentage making them a must have.
Did you test the rings ? Can you copy enhanced gear with sphinx ? Best min maxing to get all cap stats until lvl 100-120? What is the threshold for knockdown power and resistance so adding more makes no sense ? Inclination tests in battle? There is so much to cover in this game Complete order of sidequests in order to complete All hidden unroomed world chests Testing all smithing because now there is no reason to use anything but dwarwen Dragon forged skill and vocation environments tests?
As someone with over 5000 hours in DD DA, Itsuno owes all OG fans an apology. This game is a disgrace to all OG fans. Go and look at the map for his original interpretation of the first game…WHY TF IS THAT MAP 10x better than the shitty ass one we got in DD2? They need to fire his ass and put someone in position who’s willing to take some risks. I can’t see a DD3 at this point so far they need to shape tf up.
@@Nihil0.0 I'm enjoying the crafting and the combat in it. You can even enchant your gear that will have good buffs but also adds debuffs sometimes that makes it even harder. Just food for thought. Hope you find a game that fills the void. Always enjoyed your videos.
I play games like valeim and age of empires 2 and accept gaming is going to be stagnant for however whenever. Gaming isnt made by gamers, therefore it lacks any real creative ingenuity. Its stuck on the over monetization shelf in its little box and its why we will keep getting the same reskinned product again and again and again. Shrugs, is what its is.
I stopped playing it at 100h right before the fight with gregori , i didn't had batteries for the xbox conte. roller , and now ( this is my thing ) i generally struggle to aproach a finale , ( never watched the last episode of breaking. bad for example ) but to be honest i found out the gorgone fight incredible lame just stayed on his back attacking , she never trough me down or something , and overall bathall was a nice setting but with unnecessary places and bland . Big bosses are cool and all but i was levelling the sorcerer vs the colossus and he literally died with 2 tornado , if you cast 1 on the knees he run trough it and everything broke . 😅 Overall magic is funnier to play and archer as well(surprisly) , thief is for solo gameplay i'm sure of it , is just too strong . Fighter and warrior both cool idea and the lancer guy i found it to be trash .
The incenser guy , i understand is a tank and a buffer but why would you want to play it , maybe for a pacifist playtrough but it needs to heal to have a bigger role .
I've always thought Ogres were sh@t in DD2 cus you never fight them in tight corners like in DD1. But damn seeing your footage, I really have no defense for DD2 's ogre. (Though it's somewhat understandable ? I made my friend play DD1 for the first time, and he kept getting destroyed by the ogre in the mine , thus, he quit playing DD1 altogether ww
Bro i was thinking if you have ever played Lineage 2? It was my favourite game back in 2000 and still is the best mmorpg for me. I was wondering if you know it, i think it will be perfect in dragon's dogma world, using the classes of lineage 2 like blade dancer, dark avengers, phoenix knight 😊
@@Sentinel82 ahhhh, Sulpher was the next song I was thinking. Great band. Every album changes female vocals, giving each album a very different approach.
It bothers me so hard that they did so much wrong with this game. I played it for over 200h but stopped like a month ago. It had potential but they just copy paste so much stuff. 90% of all Weapons and armors are just copy paste from the first game, no loot weapon or armor is really good besides endgame drops. The endgame is time and enemy limited, the stealth missions are awful, the music isnt as catchy and the one of the biggest problems for me: THE Dragon plays simple no role in this entire story until the end. No interaction, no thread, no epic boss fight in stages like against Grigori and way way to easy.
It's not just you. It's the entire gaming industry. Something is lacking. People are going back to skyrim, dragon age inquisition, dragons dogma dark arisen, and so on.. these games are a decade or more old but the new market isn't able to compete with them. Same devs same studios but unable to continue the legacy and it really makes you wonder why. What happened??
Multiple thousands of hours in DD1 and DDDA, over 100 in DD2, so I'm just going to comment on some things here: I'm just going to say this here: How much have you tested with pawns involved in the fights? My experience with Ogres (and the other large monsters) in DD2 has had them a LOT more aggressive than the ones you showed here, and while I do use (and have for the majority of my playtime) Custom Difficulty Tweaks, I don't remember that actually making changes to the AI.The immediate difference is that I'm not running solo. It's entirely possible the AI for large monsters is a little different in aggression level with vs without pawns in play. I'll also note that main game, instead of post-game in DD2, has a LOT more going on with chaotic fights precisely because of the small mobs all over the place getting dragged into the fights. That's not so much in the end-game unmoored world. Just some food for thought there. I'm also going to point out you are comparing end-game challenge dlc enemy against base game here. Yes, they are still referred to as Garm, but there is naturally a massive difference between 'this boss only spawns sometimes and in direct response to you massacring things' and 'this is an uncommon enemy', as they are in DD2. Except, oops, that's a warg you show off here, not a garm proper. Wargs specifically being a weaker, more common version of the enemy. On a related note,, the 'advanced' ogres in DD2 are specifically GRIM ogres, not ELDER ogres. So, again, they are intended to be in the same category as stuff like grimgoblins and gorechimera, not equivalent to a necrophage. Before commenting on difficulty, maybe wait until the 'endgame' DLC drops, if it ever does. Or at least focus on apples to apples comparison a bit more. By all means, go fight a bog standard ogre in DDDA at lvl 70, then go fight an ogre in DD2 at lvl 70. You will find them dying just about as fast, assuming lack of cheese in play, and just about the same threat level. The big additional threat from DD1's ogre, is it's grab is lethal, instead of an inconvenience. The level scaling, in DD2, for better or worse, seems to be damn close to DD1's pre-DA scaling. Main game starts to lose challenge between lvl 20-30, with only the fresh, souped up variants of enemies introduced in tainted mountain/batttahl and endgame/postgame being still a threat on their own. Your endgame/postgame enemies are outscaled by about 50, much the same as DD1. Even in DA, the post-game tier enemies are a joke in BBI, except for when placed alongside other enemies, just like how things play out in DD2. The drake fight LOOKS 1 to 1, but you also make attempts to evade against DD2's Drake, while literally standing still against DDDA's, after specifically complaining about it being easy to walk out of the way of attacks. That seems to show a fair bit of bias there, unintentional as it may be, in that you AREN'T giving equal chance to both. The tail spin and the chasing overhead breath are the only attacks the DD1 drake does that you couldn't just walk around. Yes, DDDA's has shorter gaps between attacks. But DDDA doesn't have DD2's longer vuln periods from getting knocked down/staggered, nor it's longer animation lock in general. I noticed that longer animation commitment right away when playing Fighter on my first run in DD2, and it has carried through every other class, with even the mages subject to it. The player is a bit slower, so the monsters are too. This possibly ties into what I said about enemy aggression earlier, with enemies potentially being less aggressive with only one assailant than they are when multiple are around, where you can get saved by pawns drawing aggro or preventing stunlock, which isn't the case if you are solo. Entirely possible that is intentional. Don't know for certain, as I haven't done comprehensive testing. If I seem annoyed, it's because I'm quite tired of the constant issue of people comparing pre-DLC DD2 with DDDA, instead of base DD1. The only thing DD2 really lacks compared to base DD1, is an endgame that isn't timed, and a loop experience like the everfall. God forbid we talk about the complaints with no basis in reality, like the complaints about number of enemies, particularly big 'boss/miniboss' ones, available. I'm only counting different 'types' here, not variants bearing gore/grim in the name that are just extra hp + 1 or 2 moves. I'm also not counting DA additions: DD1 has cyclops, ogre, chimera, golem, dragon, lich/wight, hydra, griffon, cockatrice, drake, wyrm, wyvern, evil eye, and metal golem. Oh, and I guess, Ur. DD2 has cyclops, ogre, chimera, golem, dragon, lich/wight, medusa, griffon, minotaur, garm, lesser/diseased dragon, dullahan and drake. I don't count Talos, but I could easily count the unmoored's brine dragons/wyrms. I'll also shout out skeleton lords as possible inclusions, despite not having typical boss healthbars, It won't change the numbers much if it's only counted for one game but not the other, but I won't actually count them, despite them being more of a boss in DD2 vs DD1. DD1 = 15 DD2 = 13, 14-15 depending on if you count the umoored special dragons. Skelelords would add either 1 to DD2, or 1 to both, depending on how you choose to count them. EXCEPT: DD2's drake combines the different combat types of DD1's 3 sub-dragons into one monster. Cockatrice is literally a reskinned griffon that trades the lightning element for poison and petrify attacks. While evil eye and hydra aren't present, we got dullahan and medusa, as well as the minortaurs. Garm was also made a base-game enemy, in a weakened form. Metal golem is gone, but I can't find myself feeling bad about it, or like the game is lacking for it, due to how much of a gimmick the metal golem was. Ur was literally the dragon reskinned and with multiple exhaustable weak points instead of just 1, alongside a massively inflated health bar. True, the 'lesser dragon' in DD2 falls into the same category, just for the drake instead of the dragon proper. The actual numbers, are at best when exluding DA exclusive enemies, 1 off from each other, when looking at base 'big' enemies. Variants wise, numbers pull into DD2's favor, even worse if we add up small monsters. Could they have had more? Would I have loved more? Certainly. But we don't really know what DD2 was working with for budget/corporate support, nor do we know how long it was actually in development for certain. Everyone would always love more, but what we got is not dissimilar, and I'm sick of seeing people comparing the two games, without actually double-checking what the first game did and did not have. The reason DD2 feels like it has 'less variety' is because it's mostly monsters from DD1/DA, ported over to have almost the same movements and asthetics, alongside a MUCH higher density for most of them, making them wear out faster. The game world's much larger size works against it here, as you will run into FAR more enemies across it, made worse by it's increased density of encounters. They already feel 'not-new' to returning players from DD1/DDDA, but you also run into them more frequently for most of them. Then there are the performance complaints, which like to claim DD1 and DDDA didn't have performance issues.Which is just flat out WRONG, at least in reference to the original launches on the initial consoles. Sure, later hardware could brute force it, but the launch platforms had HORRIBLE performance. DD2 is following the same pattern, although I'd argue it's nowhere near as bad, as it seems to only really struggle in Vernworth/Volcanocamp/Bakbattahl, as opposed to the first game which struggled everywhere. I can't be the only one who remembers managing to chug the game against basic enemies, solo, with basically ANY class, right? Meanwhile in DD2 I've only noticed that happening when multiple mages are going ham at the same time, or in cities where the low frame rate is ugly, but not gameplay impacting. Overall, my biggest complaints with DD2 have been the lack of an endgame play loop, and the disappointment around available vocations. Part of that disappointment comes down to expectations, but that was explicitly informed by their own marketing, so it's a bit more up in the air as to whether that's a consumer or developer issue. Biggest issue in that regard, for me, is the loss of MK. I went in treating it like the AA release it is, a passion project from a senior dev not currently locked on other projects. I went in expecting DD1.5, not DDDA 1.5, and that's what I got. Managing expectation is something of a lost art these days it seems.I have no problem with them leaving a 'true endgame' for a DLC release a ways down the line, because that gives them a chance to incorporate feedback and make something that addresses those concerns, instead of being stuck with systems that are ill-received. Feels weird being the optimist instead of the cynic for once, but it is frustrating seeing everyone just being overwhelmingly negative and derisive with no real basis. TL:DR? I disagree, my own experience was a bit different, and I explained why above. Also a bit of ranting on one of the common community 'claims' regarding DD2 being inferior.
Dude, wtf is this essay. First of all, there's no need in being rude to Nil, it's completely uncalled for. If you're not going to be respectful, don't expect your opinion to be heard, much less respected or regarded, second, I believe in terms of knowledge towards game mechanics such as hit boxes, animations, AI, enemy reactions and pawn behavior, among many other things, we all trust Nil's arguments not just based on what he's shown us, but also based on his reliable sourcing, extensive research and many videos surrounding all of these and many other topics. You may try and discredit his work and try to prove that what he was talking about isn't true, but you won't succeed. The game has had nothing but mixed reviews, disappointing standards and destroyed expectations for everybody that has played DD1 and knew what we experienced back then. DD1 outclasses DD2 on many fronts and clearly shows that despite DD1 being the "incomplete" game, DD2 is clearly rushed and lacking testing and polishing. The game was released under full knowledge of its flaws and nothing will change that, no amount of DLC will, and certainly no amount of support from unreasonable and ignorant players.
@@ugn154 but he wasn't rude to Nihil, just pointed out a different experience from his side, which is completely fair Nihil priorities playing solo and it could really be that enemy AI is influenced by the size of the party. It's not like he said he's an idiot who doesn't know what's he's talking about, plus half the comment of op is about the response of the community to DD2 with certain critiques being kinda not true or blown out of proportion.
@@ugn154 Wow, so you label me 'rude' for daring to have a different opinion and point out errors in shown testing, try to use that to arbitrarily toss out everything I said, and then proceed to mindlessly fanboy at Nihil, who is MORE than capable of speaking for himself if he has an issue with what I said. Oh, and then we have a load of crap toward the end there that shows your clear closed-minded approach to the situation, where you have LITERALLY declared that you will NEVER accept views that differ from yours, even going so far as to label people who don't agree with you as 'unreasonable and ignorant'. I think your problem is VERY much self-inflicted here.
DD2 is not an AA game, it is sold by CAPCOM for 70 DOLLARS, with a deluxe edition for 80 DOLLARS. All this text just ends up saying is "I have really low standards and will accept mediocrity if it makes me feel better for an argument."
tote agreement compared to what it coulda shoulda been its complete fkn letdown. I can imagine there are excuses or reasons mayb issues like rush job, covid, budget ruined a potential game of the century. Imagine better climbing combined with ac terrain parkour and real life professional rock climbing. Imagine underwater caves and combat with huge sea monsters and marine with graphics like stellar blade. Imagine ship combat like ac with pirates n rival monster hunters. Imagine more spells classes or even mounted combat omfg sometimes in this game my kingdom for a horse. Imagine bigger longer dungeons and missions and more gear to loot. Im nota story fan but im purty sure u could speedrun main quest ina few hrs. Beastren schmeastren just do more elven kingdoms as they are atleast mentioned in berserk which is the world this game was originally based on. More demon bosses and undead would also tie in to the berserk theme. Also mayb extra stats like karma and glory? Imagine more real life based character animations like actually try to emulate how people move when they are idle but breathing or the breath variations after different actions. Folks roll around and tumble alot when falling even when they are kod. Muscle flexion and movement sweat and dirt and monster blood. Lady physics ever see a curvy girl run? But the main failure in my opinion no multiplayer. Potentially a huge business opportunity completely ignored? Bad capcom. Also itsa capcom game. So many successful productions from this company streetfighter, castlevania, shadows of rome omg plz remake shadows. Why are they holding themselves back like this. I thought businesses were interested in making money why not make a game that outsells everything then keep improving with new regions and content? It just leaves a massive opportunity for a rival company to swoop in and do everything u have failed to do and make a fortune that coulda shoulda been yours. Mayb 1 day someone will get it right, the way things are going its the devs attitude not the lack of skill or recourses thats preventing gamers from entertainment and game companys from becoming vastly more wealthy. Or mayb the devs are just doin what they are told and its some ceo that wants his or her company to fail.
the game is chock full of weird and stupid decisions i dont know what they were thinking but the game has good bones sad to see what its like now after so much waiting and excitement
At least if the bones are good they can add more meat with an expansion, I finished my first playthrough with 120hours can't say I'm disappointed, I'm not happy with all the changes but most of all I would like even more stuff and a proper hard mode, other than that I'm fairly happy with the game
Bon je commente en français, la traduction automatique fera son œuvre, peut-être > DD-2: +300 Heures de jeu actuellement DD-1: 2000+++... Je pense donc pouvoir être objectif et crédible. Le problème de DD-2 selon moi, c'est les animations trop complètes et détaillées qui veulent trop en faire pour paradoxalement perdre en lisibilité. Les Ogres et les Gobelins qui ont un saut qui arrive instantanément et peut importe la distance vers toi........ Là où DD-1 était certes limité financièrement et même pour Capcom, il y a dû avoir des concessions qui ont fait que les animations étaient très basiques, voire limite 'sommaires', mais c'était parfaitement lisible et fluide. La maîtrise était parfaite. Ici dans DD-2 ils en font trop pour rien. Perte de fluidité, et perte de lisibilité des paternes. Les animations des 'boss' ne sont plus les mêmes, et sont moins bonnes. Beaucoup moins de maîtrise. La difficulté beaucoup trop facile... Pas de mode difficile. Une A.I totalement absente. La map plus grande, c'est cool et appréciable. Mais infiniment moins charismatique et prenante que dans le 1. Trop de relief tue la visibilité ainsi que les possibilités. Histoire OK sans +. Moins de twist que dans le 1. Moins épique à suivre. ... un bien pâle hommage. J'attends beaucoup du potentiel DLC.
I don't have to play DD2 to see that it's a complete trash bro. For what? upgraded graphics? which also look like bad design when it comes to certain things like magic etc. DDDA was worked on by people from DMC, MH and RE. DD2 clearly was done by noob team. AI sucks, animations are stiff and lame, concept overall is a terrible downgrade. I stick to DDDA, it remains the best game ever. Sadly, the potential was there to expand it.
I'm on the extreme "negative" side. I honestly think DD2 is one of the worst AAA games ever made. The massive over emphasis on taking away player control through stuns, knockdowns, needing assistance to pick yourself up, being knocked vertically into the air or off of a cliff makes the game so frustrating. Every class being so slow, every boss enemy being a slow wall of HP that does minimal damage to you but slows down your pace through excessively strong CC abilities... it makes the game very frustrating to play. I mentioned in a post on another video that I personally think you're in the 50/50 camp because most of your play time has been on Thief and not a slower class like Warrior or Sorcerer. I think that if you tried a fresh playtrhough with another class, something like Warrior or Archer, your opinion of hte game would sour even more because you'd see very clearly how obviously the dev team demands that you take a gaggle of pawns with you juct to prevent getting stunlocked to death. I can't even imagine how shit something like a solo MA or Trickster would be.
The first one was initially carried by a dlc and it seems everything hinges on the second one doing that as well. I dont like the toggle mechanic being removed to break free. I dont like watered down enemies. If the dlc brings hard mode with tough enemies then it ill give it two thumbs up, enjoy it for what its worth, and go about my time.
The endgame zone having a time limit really kills DD2’s replayability because now you have to do a whole new run just to play a 7 in-game day long endgame.
DD1’s endgame had no time limit so you were free to really play around and experiment with the toughest enemies in the game.
Even if it didn't have a time limit, the new spawns that are unique to the endgame don't respawn
ya i found that stupid as well i just hope the DLC fix the monster hunting progress otherwise only soft save scumming would be alternate to hunt wargs or sphinx as example
There are no true time limits if you don't sleep, just use wakestones, farm them, and you can stay forever in this world. But, yes, after 12 days enemies stop respawning.
That was a huge turn off. When I reached the endgame things got exciting for once. I finally got all of those large enemy spawns that I wanted, but now I have this timer ticking away forcing me to an objective that I don't want to do.
It gets worse when you realize you can finish unmoored without fighting anything.
I think we were all hoping for a progression like Demon Souls to Dark Souls or Borderlands 1 to Borderlands 2 or Witcher 1 to 2 and 3. The first game is more of a proof of concept and lays a solid foundation for the games that follow which build the games upward by expanding and refining the game design. It just doesn't seem to be what we got here.
DD2 is probably what DD1 meant to be, so be basically got a "remake" and not really a new game. Sadly enough there are a lot things worse than in dd1 and a lot the same
i think the consequence of a weightier feel in DD2 is what you are reflecting about here with the big boss enemies. DDDA was a more arcade-y feel so it allowed for faster aggressive bosses. where is DD2 the smaller mobs feel dangerous in packs because getting staggered is very dangerous.
So the weightier gameplay slowed the bosses too but to an overall detriment it seems
Hordes of human enemies are probably the most dangerous to deal with since they have the same movesets and the same attack speed as you. In DD1, bandits had more telegraphed attacks but tended to have more numbers. In DD2, you can easily get stunlocked by melee bandits since they have the same moveset as you.
@@Watchful049 Smoke screen.
@@Watchful049warrior players don't know what getting stunlocked is.
agreed. slowing the whole game down to compensate for weight made climbing feel absolutely terrible.
Someone finally said it. Its these "next-gen" physics sucking the fun out of alot of these games that we expect to be faster, flashier, and more free flowing
No wonder torpor and throwblast was left out of DD2. The lager enemies would have been ridiculously easy to beat otherwise.
tbf u dont need to cheese them, just play thief and u are immortal
i also think right now its lack of content as well
I hit a very big brick wall after about 80 hours. The game just tops out and becomes bland. It's a good game, but shallow. The lack of equipment, capabilities, and overall progression. Progressive story,map, and surprise.
@@anything_idc_right like why tf is there like 5 fucking armor sets for each class? 🤣 this game is bullshit man. They better start dropping some free content or something
@@dododog6 It's definitely getting a DLC, but it's also definitely gonna be a paid DLC.
Oh puck you im in 180 h there is st amount of content
@@stampiboy1 that might be but the story was faster over than DD1 also the DLc is really needed for DD2 to raise it from death also i want to mention that it is very hard to keep ur motivation to reach 999 lvl so we need official Vergil in DD2
I did notice myself being a lot less wary of large enemies in this game compared to DD1, ogres in particular, but I couldn't put my finger on why. It makes sense now, after seeing this video.
The ogres were a lot less dangerous for me in this game than in DD1. If I recall correctly, the ogres slightly smaller in DD1 so their hitboxes feel tighter compared to the DD2 ogres where they would overshoot their attacks if I'm too close to them. In DD2, I don't think I've ever been hit by an ogre's dropkick cuz I feel like they're too tall so they kick above me. It doesn't help that there's a lot more ogres in the wild in DD2 and most of the time, the terrain is uneven so they'll miss even more. I don't think I've ever seen ogres in DD2 do the jump slam when you're climbing them so they feel less intelligent than in DD1. DD1 were deceptively dangerous since you encounter cyclopses (which carry weapons) in the story and assume it's just a weak ape monster. Ogres made up for their smaller size with their aggression, intelligence, and speed but in DD2, they just feel like a slightly faster cyclops.
Dragon's Dogma 2 large mobs fight like they're that skilled friend playing a competitive game with you but holding back so you don't feel bad.
The drakes in DD1 would even breath-cancel sometimes and chain attacks, it was vicious. The DD2 dragon just looks like it is breathing fire aimlessly like a fool
This is a great game, if you’ve never played Dragon’s Dogma before.
One thing I got a sense of that was missing were things like Blue Moon Tower, and other areas which felt like small dungeon crawls with little checkpoint objectives to stop for loot or enemy encounters. I really enjoyed that in DD1, especially the Everfall, and BBI was a literal dungeon crawl DLC. I love the wild sense of exploration, that feeling of turning a corner with no idea of what's on the other side. Even though I may not find loot the sole reason for exploration, it's sad that most areas feel like they lack any incentive.
I remember first fighting those ogres in dragons dogma 1 in that long mine in-between Gran Soren and the area where the lesser dragon spawn. It was scary, and difficult as things got more and more desperate as the supply of curatives started getting lower and lower. Never had an experience in DD2 where enemies felt threatening or scary, not at all, from level 25 or upwards i found every enemy to be a walk in the park as i leveled up in the course of the game. I hope the rumored DLC will be a game changer. if not, then i guess i will accept that DD1 was a much more special and distinctive game than i realized and something that i somehow managed to take for granted for all of these years, the greatness was already there, i just did not realize it. Still, I am a fan of DD2 as well, but I think i will wait some time until i play through it again.
If you want more aggressive monsters, then they'll have to give I-frames for getting knocked down. That's what made things reasonably forgiving in DD1, and I've already been stun-locked by enemies in DD2 with their current level of aggression.
Probably fantastic for a group of small monsters. Not a good news for singular big monster.
I agree mostly but we also have drawven smithing now which makes stun locking significantly less of a threat. If you're a warrior with drawven smithed armor you just never get staggered.
From what he says in the video, Nihil is fine with the aggression of the smaller enemies. He wants the bigger enemies to be more threatening, like they were in DD1.
As a story-focused game enjoyer I can't see this game beating the first one in terms of story, and I actually think it's pretty different from DD1 if you analize the plot progression.
we have the same elements of lore and dialogue structure that was present in the first dragon's dogma but the story is unfocused, and the dissonanse of gameplay elements with the story play a big part on the reason why it feels like it doesn't really matter what you do through out the game, as long as it keeps you entertained with challenging bosses and enemies.
The biggest plus I can give the story is the pawn system, because it's very well integrated into the world 's logic and gameplay. I like the ending A LOT just because of my pawn but that's about it. Greg the dragon from DD2 is not as cool as Grigori from the first game and I think that dissapointed a lot of the fans as well.
The music was bland since we didn't get Mr. Makino to write the music for DD2, with the exception of some remakes. Overall There is more bad than good with this game for me but I still enjoyed the combat a lot. It's a shame that THIS is supposed to be the ideal sequel that Hideaki Itsuno had planned since DD1 and honestly, even saying that makes me think he wouldn't even believe it himself. It's like you said. Ten years have passed and things have not changed.
Nihil0.0, Subscribed because your videos always make me smile!
It's really bizarre how many times I see people say you can't compare the two due to one having DLC and the other not. I can compare Elden Ring without DLC to Dark Souls 1 with DLC, and that's about the same difference in time. Hell, I can compare Bloodborne without DLC to Dark Souls 1 with DLC and that was a release gap 1/4th the size of the gap between DD1 and DD2.
DD2 is a great simulator of "going out for a walk and enjoying the scenery which gets interrupted by monsters and bandits, but camping with my pawns is relaxing"
Another thing that bothers me in DD2 is how there are more boss monsters are scattered around everywhere so they lose their novelty when you fight them. It makes me wonder how anyone even gets around without the arisen since large monsters or small hordes of enemies always litter the roads and they spawn super fast. You'll level up so fast to the point that those enemies become trivial really fast. In that sense, the more realistic approach they were going for gets contradicted since it feels less like a living ecosystem that has creatures minding their own business and more like an arcade game that's afraid that you'll lose interest if there's no combat every 30 seconds.
I dunno I think the world feeling they wanted to convey was that the world really goes to shit when the dragon is active, NPCs talk about how it's become really dangerous to venture out in the wilds and even the city aren't infallible, as we see with monster raids that we can come across. Personally I liked the roaming bosses made the trekking through the world more enjoyable
A big thing i felt while dealing with large enemies in DD2 is that the much more passive feel and slower movements were buffered by the fact I rarely felt i was just facing 1 large enemy. I think the only time i faced just 1 enemy was with very specific large monsters like Medusa, Chimera, and dragons. Every other large enemy i felt like was accompanied by a group of smaller enemies. Fighting a cyclops? Well you'll also need to deal with these 8 goblins. Fighting a griffon? Don't forget about these 10 wolves. Fighting an ogre? Dont shrug off the pack of 6 harpies who are nested 3 feet away. This isn't necessarily exclusive to DD2 but it was definitely something i felt more than in DDDA. It felt like the artificial difficulty from Dark Souls 2 where it wasn't that individual enemies were difficult per se but that facing large mobs of them made it more difficult. The difference being that in DD2 it wasn't an increase in difficulty as much as just being more annoying. But while i don't like the large enemies being slower and less difficult i wont ever complain about missed hits and wiffed attacks because that felt more like the game having much tighter and polished hit boxes then the AI being bad and constantly missing. The game wants you to actively be fighting and moving around the large enemies so the hits don't feel designed for you to just be sitting there waiting to get attacked. It does suck though that while my confidence fighting large enemies accompanied by a small pack of goblins or harpies or wolves was through the roof, my confidence facing bandits with 3 SnS users would plummet knowing all they had to do was gang up on me using shield bash so that i could never stand and recover stamina or regain my composure in battle. Shout out to the phantom ox cart quest where almost every enemy used shield bash so that i would be forced to lay on the ground and watch them continuously knock me down so i couldn't fight them.
In my whole life of gaming since a was a kid, only two games I've waited years for them to come out that I bought day one, Cyberpunk 2077 (since the first trailer ever) and Dragon's dogma 2 (Hoping it would come the moment I finished dragon's dogma 1 back in the xbox 360.
When it comes to cyberpunk and that whole disaster of a launch it had, the game at it's core was good, Amazing lore, story, voice acting, map, setting, aesthetic, vibe. The launch was sad, but minus the bugs, I had extreme fun on that game, One that I still play to this day.
With Dragon's dogma 2 tho? By the time I reached level 30 I knew it didn't feel the same way as as the first one, and my disappointement reached it's peak after realising there's no endgame loop, hard difficulty and a lot of things missing from the first game. The whole experience left a genuine sour taste in my mouth, it saddens me. I doubt i'll get the dlc until years after release until it becomes extremly cheap. a disappointement of a lifetime this is, still mad at myself for waiting this long for that.
I played DD2 when it came out, never touched a DD game before, however I had bought DD and played for about 2 h before giving up since DD2 was being released the next day. Loved the new game, the graphics, movement, fighting, etc.
However, after completing the game and starting new game + (took it very slow, pretty much did everything, played for around 180 hours although maybe only half were actual gameplay) It became stale. It was fine, since 180 h is a lot of time so I moved on.
Recently, and thats how I came across your channel, I started playing DD 1, immediately was hooked by it, didnt care about the old graphics, combat was fun, enemies were tough, it was all great until I came across BBI, man what an experience, every room was exciting, the concept was great as well, it became amazing for me.
Also loved the classes, magic archer and specially mystic knight were great, strider and ranger, sorcerer, were also a lot of fun. Fights were hard and challenging, could have played for many more hours (unfortunately Elden Ring's DLC just came out), that was until I found out that the loot (BBI cursed drops) were predetermined, meaning that it was no RNG (well some RNG when the list was created but thats it) and there was nothing I could do to change it, and that put me off entirely.
Still, I think DD was a more enjoyable game than DD2 in many aspects, both are good but DD felt a bit more special, maybe DD2 will overtake it with its DLC, who knows!
The journey to 50% sale continues....
Radical, a new upload! I'm playing DDDA right now, just dealt with the rotunda of dread, the eliminators and elder ogres encounter. After seeing you and these new fellas, I was shocked. Really feels like a let down. They could have been so much more dangerous. Like grabbing the arisen by the leg and swinging him like a club. We have all these new physics engines and that's what they gave? Just seems like they tried to play it safe.
I'm with you, man! While I do like Dogma 2. I don't see myself coming back to it, after the initial sheen fades. DD:DA on the other hand, I fully intend to return to.
The way I look at DD2 is it's a Fisher Price version of Dogma. If you want a game that beats you down, because it wants to make you stronger, you turn to Dark Arisen.
Also, time gating the endgame was a crap idea, if I have to make due without an eternal ferrystone, and be forced to manually replace my port crystals, they could have at least let me stay in endgame long as I please.
the real problem that they tried to solve is: "how do we convince the vast majority of people that never got into DD1, to get into DD2?". Their answer was: improved graphics (duh), dumbed down mechanics, dumbed down classes, dumbed down bosses and big enemies. What a major letdown...
i agreed with your video, i wish more from DD1 come to DD2. Not saying DD2 is bad just saying DD2 could be greater
Might have nerfed the big bosses to balance the overall lack of I-frames. With the exception of fighter and thief, nobody has parries or reliable dodges anymore. I miss MK.
Hopefully hard mode, if it comes, raises enemy aggression for big bosses, since like mages have a party wide shield bubble, Archer can quickly reposition himself with jump kicks and slides, warrior has barge and can counter with charged attacks and skills, Mystic Spearhand has the cc bolt, shield bubble and reposition skills, Trickster is all about cc, sorcerer could levitate out of the way, magick archer I feel is the only class that doesn't have any defensive option even sorcerer can at least run away with levitate and for smaller mobs thundermine is sort of a safe zone
I just went back to playing DDDA. DD2 has good things about it but overall it just makes me miss DD1. DD2 just changed to much of what I like about DD1.
Dear Dark Arisen, "I'm coming back, let's fight".
IMO DD1 is leagues better than 2. I personally don't like the heavy Monster Hunter influence in 2, it should have just been it's own game.
Even Monster Hunter has a faster paced combat compared to this.
I just want the mage/sorcerer spells that got taken out back,the music from the first game,including the music that plays at night,bitterblack isle content,Daimon,equipment customization of the first game,ur dragon,a real-life fight with the pathfinder dragon,I hated how the last thing you do is just climb up the dragon,though that pawn cutscene was peak,amd most of all,I want the Senechal back,only more challenging this time,the music,the dialog, the fact that the Senechal can switch to your arisen when facing it again was just amazing
My hope is that the director of DA/BBI will be the director of what comes next for DD2 instead of Itsuno as I get the feeling he understood the strengths of the first game better as he was able to mostly improve upon the first game where as Itsuno was not able to do so with the sequel for the most part and perhaps his full vision just isn't for the better for fans of DD1.
They need to get itsuno tf out of there. He’s clearly out of touch. They were supposed to go batshit crazy with DD2 😭 I’m so hurt still I was so hyped for this game
@@dododog6out of touch seems about right. I think he lost his vision compared to how much he did with what little he had back then. Now, he had so much and did so little, it's honestly disappointing to not get the product we were all expecting.
I think Yoichiro Ikeda was missed. he was combat director of the first DD and DMC 5
10:54 Is that a puppy garm? Cute little bastards.
In DD2, the wargs are just smaller red garms instead of the little poison wolves from BBI.
So probably tbh
Garms are just reskins of wolves, no big deal, fighting them like wolves, even trolling the same: their unpredictability comes exclusively from bugs (bugged hitbox, bugged animations, bugged AI).
Now hellhounds, these are pesky muthas. Very smart too (see how they are climbing at Duskmoon). And inflict terrifying debilitations.
Hellhounds were ACTUALLY terrifying. I'm WAY more scared of Hellhounds than Grigori in dd2
In that first exclusive IGN gameplay video the Ogre that the Warrior fought was so much more agressive, his dropkicks were like a homing missile with how accurate and fast it was, and it felt like he was using a lot more of his moveset, makes me I wonder if they nerfed the big monsters afterwards because how badly that player was doing in the video, because its pretty weird how it feels like the big enemies are pushovers while the small mobs are crazy agressive like one was nerfed in a rush and the other wasnt.
I miss real Garms and Death. We need some good DLC like Dark Arisen and obviously a hard mode.
it needed another year of deveopment
Needed a more competent director. This is what happens when something is in development hell.
Pretty sure this just needed a team that gave a shit. Dogma 2 reeks of, "Oh yeah, we have this great IP from more than a decade ago. Maybe we should crank something out in the next 5 months!"
12 years post 'damn near perfection', the rise of AI systems, voice recognition, hardware improvements, more than a decade of player feedback to draw upon, etc. If the team just dedicated some time to Dogma 2, it would show. This seems like a rush-job.
Feel the same here. It’s good the old game is still there and it plays beautifully on a steam deck.
Thank you for your content man! I absolutely agree. I’ll be playing DD2 a little by little, will see what will come with the update. I really wish they make the boss enemies and make big enemies AI better
A well put together video, explaining some of the games current weaknesses. O cant wait for the dlc to come out and hopefully provide the same level or thereabouts of difficulty that bbi had.
I hope these decisions were made for money, rather than incompetence... but communities like this lose regardless.
There was an interesting stat in Dark Souls where only ~30% completed the game. I'd be curious about seeing the same for Dragon's Dogma.
I certainly remember playing the game the first time - release day for XBox - then dying on the way to the bandit fort and turning the game off for years. I didn't put the bulk of my play time into it until DD:DA on the PC, a long time afterwards... and that was only because I hate leaving this type of game unfinished.
My point is: I wonder if the choice to make killing big enemies easier and making the game overall easier is to make money. More people will play the game and more will complete it, so it more likley people will buy DLC or another sequel.
The sacrifice is the small, core audience... I can see modern corporations deciding that's ok.
honestly the moment i unlocked the unmoored world i was completely bored that i didn't even bother finishing the game, this game had 12yrs to develop yet is half-assed couple things improved but the rest is a step back from DD1
I gotta wonder if Itsuno actually was being honest with this "the game I wanted to make" thing. DMCV feels like a natural evolution of DMC, giving the time and budget it was sorely in need of; coming off of DMCIV. But DD2? Nah, this game feels like it was rushed and was only really being patched together. I smell CAPCOM corporate meddling; if the shitty DLC on day one was any indication, and while I'm glad the game did well, I get the feeling they'll take the wrong lessons from that success.
I agree with you almost completely, it's just that the shitty micro transactions aren't indicative of anything since Capcom has been putting those in in all of their games for the past 10+ years, even dogma 1 and DMC4SE had those back in the day
Killed four Garm so far. This vid first time seen what their attack animation is. So cheers for that as now I know. Good vid.
I think which one to play is based on mood. Both are great games in their own right, and I think with just a bit of tweaking, DD2 could have the challenge we’re looking for in big enemies.
Love your point about small enemies. I respect goblins in DD2 way more than in DD1. I would also like to shout out the new Saurian types. They’re fantastic additions. The large enemies are the weakest part.
Drakes and Dullahans are probably the best, I would hope that if they add a Hard mode it also improves the aggressiveness of larger enemies so that they don't have as much downtime as they do now, so that you really have to earn those critical hits
It needed to just be an expansion on DD1. Not whatever it became. Imo
If big enemies were speed up a bit and a smidge more aggressive then I can see this game becoming a lot more enjoyable as a DD1 vet. Maybe clean up hit boxes to limit those hiding spots while hugging the enemy.
Also wish there was a sort of level lock system in the game. Could've been a part of the story as you can't over level without your real heart.
I'll just play DD2 with minimal armor and solo.
tudliluu? Omg it's happening! Nihil is growing a soul! He has a sense of humor!
I feel like the bosses are not even on normal but on easy mode… I only noticed when I picked a fight with an ogre with an all female party… level 25 or so and we just iced him… I don’t think it even got one hit in
I think DD2 was under budget; Capcom didn't think it would sell so kept the money tap closed.. I also think DD2 had to be skilled for a new player. I'm hoping the success of DD2 gives us a decent DLC.
Starfield and Dragon's Dogma 2. Two big name developers, two games that were "waiting for the right time", two disappointments, two awful post launch supports.
What a damn shame.
Also, as a Warrior main in DD1 I really don't mind them feeling much heavier in 2, at least it makes them feel more unique as a melee class. What I do mind, is that their attacks are so slow that most smaller enemies recover from off-balance state before you land your next attack, making kill moves near impossible to pull off in most encounters, you just stunlock enemies until their hp depletes. I have no idea how they managed to overlook something so obvious during playtests.
Old school drake got that Dog in him!
Nice video Nihil. I hope this iteration of Dogma 2 wasn't the vision Itsuno had in mind. I'm clinging to the hope Capcom wanted Dogma 2 released on time at the cost of optimization, boss combat mechanics, and storyline/lore. I think they can fix those with DLC. I'm guessing they made conscious decisions to take a weapon slot away from all vocations except fighter, which they nerfed from DD:DA. They also took away 2 skill slots and made sure there were fewer equipment options. Those seem to be deliberate decisions. I don't think they'll be apt to reverse them in DLC. That said, if Elden Ring's DLC crushes it, Capcom and Itsuno are going to have to up the ante in their own DLC to revitalize interest in Dogma 2.
But that's the thing, we can't keep supporting companies just so they can get away with putting out a half baked game to then later "fix it" with DLCs. I wouldn't even call it fixing it, it's more like putting strawberry frosting on a pie made of shit, or using duck tape so your bike pedals don't fall off.
Would be curious to hear what you start playing, hoping you find something! Have a good one man, appreciate the content.
hopefully the game's hardmode will add more content and aggression boss monsters should be far more aggressive they have the assets as you show cased
While i agree the small enemies are more aggressive which is nice, i really cannot find them any fun on the long run.
It feels like every small mob encounter is the same, same 3 or 4 type enemies with barely 1 or 2 unique move per variant mobs.
Same engagement with all of them, proceeding to do the same hit stuns and then the same attacks then possibly waiting their turn (or worse, perma stunning which is not "difficulty" in my book, it's a waste of players time)
In DD1 sure they were easier and less aggressive, but at the same time the difficulty came from larger packs, a bit more variety that i recall (even goblins, from the small ones with different weapons to the big ones, you could tell which was which. Where here you see 5 different goblins, but they all act the exact same in most scenarios) and real fights against them (instead of perma hit stun jump attacks, you'd had to be weary of your stamina, they'd deal HP damage, sometimes status effect and you had to manage to get to them and hit them. Where here they jump attack you, hit the same attacks over and over and you don't really take damage, the danger is mostly perma stuns)
I think overall the fights in this game remind me more of a poorly done monster hunter than an upgraded system to DD1/DDDA/DDON which is pretty sad
The story is fine and the open world (aside dungeons, just the open areas) are so much better, we're just missing the gameplay in those, and hopefully the dcl and mods fix that quickly
I notice that dragon are less aggressive when their heart are not expose for the first time yet, though after the first expose they will just add spell into their moveset, and not until 3 health bar left did they try meteor move. All that and just 1 silence spell put them back to the state where they act as if their heart is not expose for the first time. 😂
I had a moment that really soured the game for me bc it just showed how little care went to the side quests in this game.
The timed quest where you have to save the boy from wolves in checkpoint town, very near the path you have to follow, if not on it I don't exactly remember, there's another quest that, if you go towards it, forces that quest to advance, takes you literally half way across the map, and progresses time by a day.
also the new stagger system really prevents me from enjoying the new combat.
I was wondering if anyone knows anything about the "dynamic difficulty" the game claims to have. I've been searching and only finding assumptions based on what other games have done. Have the devs ever explained how it affects combat in DD2?
My theory is that every boss enemy is meant to be fought with wolves, goblins, or harpies. That’s why they’re just spammed all over the place and have the ability to stun lock you.
I would not be surprised with DD2 was pushed out sooner than it was ready to, honestly. It's hard to believe with what Itsuno had done with DD1 for this to be what DD2 was "supposed" to be. I know some telling of the grapevine that CAPCOM wanted to push this game for 2024 release since it was the main financial driver for this year, but it was still at it's core somewhat of a disappointment. I think it stands to reason that more mobs and boss encounters would have made the game a more complete package, but as you stated through examples, the general direction of the game had shifted pretty tremendously -- irrespective of what CAPCOM's financial decisions were. Good game still, and honestly not a bad reboot if that was the case (yes I know about Gran Soren in UW lol) and it definitely got the attention it deserved (for better or for worse) and hopefully evolves into a more refined version of the DD experience that was so realized in DD:DA.
Feels alot like they made the combat in DD2 easier to speal to a larger audience. So done with slow enemies. I want to try in every fight, i want to have to out menuver and pull out all the stops. Be rewarded for exploiting weaknessess of each enemy. No idea what happened to DD2.
Your captions are comedy 😂😂
If you're a pc player there is a mod that speeds up the monsters you can set how fast they are which will lessen this but it does not get rid of the fact that the monsters do not have many different attacks so you are just doing the dance faster still I think you'll like it if you are not above modding ;P
didn't we used to get to have 8 equippable skills in the first game? and there's just 4 in this one.
That’s not the biggest issue for most vocations outside of sorceror because most classes get one or two core skills, meaning we usually get 5-6 total skills at any given time.
The only reason we got eight skills in DD1 is because we had two weapons per class, and each gave 4 skills per weapon. In DD2 we only get one weapon and 5-6 skills per weapon. So if we’re talking about how many skills we get per weapon, we actually get more skills on average than DD1.
You can only equip 3 skills per weapon, so 6 in total, unless you are warrior, then you only got 3.
thankfuly there is a mod that allows you to equip like 4 more.
The core skill change makes this fine imo.
To me sorcerer is the only one that feels nerfed
@@oventop311
Yeah, sorc got nerfed pretty hard. Having two fewer spells is huge. The stamina boost spell is amazing, but I think sorcs should get a better damaged based core skill. Mage gets halidom for free, so sorc should get a free spell. Maybe a version of ingle from the first game since they removed that spell completely.
Bruh. After 200 plus hours I finished DD2 with all the achievements unlocked, and most if not all of the side quests done... Then, I started playing DD1, as a virgin... It did not take me long to realise that Dogma1 is superior to Dogma2. You are right and your videos prove it. Case closed.
I think capcom is going to pull a dark arisen and add a ton of content into a DLC what do you guys think they would add if they did?
Dude the highlight of this video is that song you put minute 13. what is the band name and song? it sounds good.
Sulpher, by Project Hate
The pretentiousness almost bothers me more than anything. It just feels like this game takes itself far too seriously for what it actually does and is. Especially considering the director whining about how his genius was just being held back... the dude is, even more evidently now, absolutely no Miyazaki. The game is fine. Not as bad as bad gets. Not as good as it was directed to be...
That Ogre is nowhere near as fast and aggressive as the ones in the first game. It actually reminds me of Skyrim bandits, draugr and Trolls with their useless shield drumming/weapon pointing/hopping animations giving you free openings.
If you are into video games you will understand why capcom did that. This era of video games needs to be this way, like easy gameplay (or i prefer to call it not hard to play and finish 100% content without much effort) because this way the game can reach more players and have a huge base of fans, more player than just the hardcore players. One good example of that is Elden Ring, the game created by the same studio that created the souls serise, but they did change some major things to make the game easier and more "playable" for players that dont like to die 100 times to kill one boss, and they success with that, Elden Ring is more successful than the souls game serise with bloodborne compined. For me as a person who love to play games that require skills and effort to be good with it this is sad, i was so disappointed when i first played DD2, but as i said, i understand why capcom took that way.
Second, im gussing that theyre saving the real things that took them 12 years to "think of" for DLCs, just like any other game nowdays, which is bad and shameful, but thats the way video game industry became.
They could easily accommodate both audiences: just have a hard mode where big mobs don't miss so often and don't clown around half the time.
Once I got the plat on DD2 I felt really sad because it wasn't what I wanted, DD1 felt so much better, the dd2 story sucked, theres something missing. Won't play it til the dlc comes out, sadly. Was really hoping for maxing my pawn out etc, but no thanks I'm bored of it and the map, characters and game couldve been waaaaaaaaaay better :p
Changes I really really hate about Dogma 2:
-My 2 favourite vocations (Assassin and Mystic Knight) are gone. Replaced by a Darth Maul wannabe that's clunky af and a vape nation joke that can't even be called a vocation. (Jesus it's so f*cking bad)
-More than half of the spells from Dark Arisen are gone; 27+22 (DD2) 45+55 (DDDA)
-The Mage vocation is locked into a support vocation, there's no incentive whatsoever to try to build it for damage. "Literally just pick Sorcerer" kinda vibes.
-The Sorcerer on the other hand, only does one thing, and that's damage. Your only option for sustained damage or cc it's probably Maelstrom, that's locked behind a hidden quest, takes forever to cast, locks you in a 4sec animation post-cast and it doesn't even do that much damage anyway. "Ew, if you want to do cc just pick Mage" or something idk.
-There's like... 3-5 special/unique big monsters you can find exploring around, some of those bleed heavily into the main story, and most of them you'll probably 100-0 them in 30 seconds by the time you actually find them. (Took me like a minute trying to get my Pawns to hit the "serpent lady" in the forest using the useless smoke vocation, so yeah.)
-The enemies take forever to do a single attack, it's like Elden Ring but the winding up is x3 and the mobs always aim a bit too high to actually hit you.
-There's no variety in the equipment, the only thing that you can choose is how hard you hit and how much you can tank. There's no fun builds like unarmed, pawnless, etc.
-Following the one above, vocation augments are worse than in the first game. Sure, in DDDA there were augments that quite literally didn't do anything, but at least there were a few funny ones to play with.
>>Lets give the Thief Augments a quick look (because I've already sh*tted on the magic vocations quite a bit):
_Subtlety. "Decreases the likelihood of being targeted by foes". Literally a waste of a slot, if you play with Pawns with magic vocations you want to be focused instead of them, and if you play with warrior vocations, they already have means to maintain aggro.
__Gratification. "Slightly restores Health when you deliver the killing blow to a foe." Sounds good, but it's a nerf to the same effect you'd get from rings in DA, it can't heal you past the "injury limit" or whatever's called that basically forces you to camp/go to an inn. Also, just get a Mage pawn if you need heals, or carry herbs, they don't weight that much.
_Poise. "Reduces the Stamina consumed when struggling in a foe's grip". See, this one would be great if enemies would actually try to throw you down, but even Cyclops that have hand-made animations to grab you (or their helmet) take like x2 the time to do the same motions they did on the older game. You have plenty of time to let go, fall to the ground, hit their knees a couple times and climb back before they finish that animation.
_Vigor. "Reduces the Stamina consumed when clinging to or pinning down foes." Finally, one that's actually useful for the vocation, yes you'd want to keep as much stamina as possible while climbing enemies to keep hitting.
_Verve. "Augments your Strength". Quite simple and boring for the final augment of the vocation but... Yeah, you are def going to pick this one over any of the others.
It's like a bag of chips, 80% air, a full chip and a few broken pieces in the bottom. And this applies to the game as a whole sadly.
And worst of all, I can't even feel robbed because I did like the first 30-40h of gameplay, but f*ck it hurts so much to see one of my favourite games ever get such a disappointing sequel.
I kinda like the specialisation thing they have going on between sorcerer and Mage, sorc big damage mage support, in dogma 1 never felt compelled to bring a mage with me, since a sorcerer would do the same things but better than that, now I'm picking them both mage for a player that's not skilled is almost mandatory, and they have their role in damage too against undead with anedoyne and empyrean being a few of the sources for holy damage
The worst part is that augments like verve which increases your damage only increase it by a flat number making it essentially worthless. Meanwhile the damage reduction augments decrease damage by a percentage making them a must have.
I already killed 2 ogres before reaching level 15, ya the big monsters are just weak and not frightening at all
Did you test the rings ? Can you copy enhanced gear with sphinx ? Best min maxing to get all cap stats until lvl 100-120? What is the threshold for knockdown power and resistance so adding more makes no sense ? Inclination tests in battle? There is so much to cover in this game
Complete order of sidequests in order to complete
All hidden unroomed world chests
Testing all smithing because now there is no reason to use anything but dwarwen
Dragon forged skill and vocation environments tests?
Yes you can copy any gear with sphinx I tested it
Tbh...dd2 was a bit disappointing but I played for 400+ hours so I can at least say I got my money's worth. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
**huffs copium**
As someone with over 5000 hours in DD DA, Itsuno owes all OG fans an apology. This game is a disgrace to all OG fans. Go and look at the map for his original interpretation of the first game…WHY TF IS THAT MAP 10x better than the shitty ass one we got in DD2? They need to fire his ass and put someone in position who’s willing to take some risks. I can’t see a DD3 at this point so far they need to shape tf up.
Have you tried No Rest for the Wicked? It's top down, but the combat is intense. Been playing that after DD2.
I've seen it. Was interested, just haven't pulled the trigger
@@Nihil0.0 I'm enjoying the crafting and the combat in it. You can even enchant your gear that will have good buffs but also adds debuffs sometimes that makes it even harder. Just food for thought. Hope you find a game that fills the void. Always enjoyed your videos.
Dd2 is the most disappointed ive been in a game in several years. I still like it, but damn, i expected so much more.
Back to Elden ring we go lol
I play games like valeim and age of empires 2 and accept gaming is going to be stagnant for however whenever. Gaming isnt made by gamers, therefore it lacks any real creative ingenuity. Its stuck on the over monetization shelf in its little box and its why we will keep getting the same reskinned product again and again and again. Shrugs, is what its is.
I stopped playing it at 100h right before the fight with gregori , i didn't had batteries for the xbox conte. roller , and now ( this is my thing ) i generally struggle to aproach a finale , ( never watched the last episode of breaking. bad for example ) but to be honest i found out the gorgone fight incredible lame just stayed on his back attacking , she never trough me down or something , and overall bathall was a nice setting but with unnecessary places and bland .
Big bosses are cool and all but i was levelling the sorcerer vs the colossus and he literally died with 2 tornado , if you cast 1 on the knees he run trough it and everything broke . 😅
Overall magic is funnier to play and archer as well(surprisly) , thief is for solo gameplay i'm sure of it , is just too strong .
Fighter and warrior both cool idea and the lancer guy i found it to be trash .
The incenser guy , i understand is a tank and a buffer but why would you want to play it , maybe for a pacifist playtrough but it needs to heal to have a bigger role .
I've always thought Ogres were sh@t in DD2 cus you never fight them in tight corners like in DD1. But damn seeing your footage, I really have no defense for DD2 's ogre.
(Though it's somewhat understandable ? I made my friend play DD1 for the first time, and he kept getting destroyed by the ogre in the mine , thus, he quit playing DD1 altogether ww
Bro i was thinking if you have ever played Lineage 2? It was my favourite game back in 2000 and still is the best mmorpg for me. I was wondering if you know it, i think it will be perfect in dragon's dogma world, using the classes of lineage 2 like blade dancer, dark avengers, phoenix knight 😊
how about also compare it with DDO?
Anyone know the name of the music he used in this video at 12:46 ?
Project Hate is the band. Allegence is the song, I think
@@Nihil0.0 Thanks a bunch!
Edit: The song was SULPHUR but close enough! You got me in the general vicinity, lol.
@@Sentinel82 ahhhh, Sulpher was the next song I was thinking. Great band. Every album changes female vocals, giving each album a very different approach.
It bothers me so hard that they did so much wrong with this game. I played it for over 200h but stopped like a month ago. It had potential but they just copy paste so much stuff. 90% of all Weapons and armors are just copy paste from the first game, no loot weapon or armor is really good besides endgame drops. The endgame is time and enemy limited, the stealth missions are awful, the music isnt as catchy and the one of the biggest problems for me: THE Dragon plays simple no role in this entire story until the end. No interaction, no thread, no epic boss fight in stages like against Grigori and way way to easy.
It's not just you. It's the entire gaming industry. Something is lacking. People are going back to skyrim, dragon age inquisition, dragons dogma dark arisen, and so on.. these games are a decade or more old but the new market isn't able to compete with them. Same devs same studios but unable to continue the legacy and it really makes you wonder why. What happened??
This game had potential, they wasted it.
Multiple thousands of hours in DD1 and DDDA, over 100 in DD2, so I'm just going to comment on some things here:
I'm just going to say this here: How much have you tested with pawns involved in the fights? My experience with Ogres (and the other large monsters) in DD2 has had them a LOT more aggressive than the ones you showed here, and while I do use (and have for the majority of my playtime) Custom Difficulty Tweaks, I don't remember that actually making changes to the AI.The immediate difference is that I'm not running solo. It's entirely possible the AI for large monsters is a little different in aggression level with vs without pawns in play.
I'll also note that main game, instead of post-game in DD2, has a LOT more going on with chaotic fights precisely because of the small mobs all over the place getting dragged into the fights. That's not so much in the end-game unmoored world. Just some food for thought there.
I'm also going to point out you are comparing end-game challenge dlc enemy against base game here. Yes, they are still referred to as Garm, but there is naturally a massive difference between 'this boss only spawns sometimes and in direct response to you massacring things' and 'this is an uncommon enemy', as they are in DD2. Except, oops, that's a warg you show off here, not a garm proper. Wargs specifically being a weaker, more common version of the enemy. On a related note,, the 'advanced' ogres in DD2 are specifically GRIM ogres, not ELDER ogres. So, again, they are intended to be in the same category as stuff like grimgoblins and gorechimera, not equivalent to a necrophage.
Before commenting on difficulty, maybe wait until the 'endgame' DLC drops, if it ever does. Or at least focus on apples to apples comparison a bit more. By all means, go fight a bog standard ogre in DDDA at lvl 70, then go fight an ogre in DD2 at lvl 70. You will find them dying just about as fast, assuming lack of cheese in play, and just about the same threat level. The big additional threat from DD1's ogre, is it's grab is lethal, instead of an inconvenience. The level scaling, in DD2, for better or worse, seems to be damn close to DD1's pre-DA scaling. Main game starts to lose challenge between lvl 20-30, with only the fresh, souped up variants of enemies introduced in tainted mountain/batttahl and endgame/postgame being still a threat on their own. Your endgame/postgame enemies are outscaled by about 50, much the same as DD1. Even in DA, the post-game tier enemies are a joke in BBI, except for when placed alongside other enemies, just like how things play out in DD2.
The drake fight LOOKS 1 to 1, but you also make attempts to evade against DD2's Drake, while literally standing still against DDDA's, after specifically complaining about it being easy to walk out of the way of attacks. That seems to show a fair bit of bias there, unintentional as it may be, in that you AREN'T giving equal chance to both. The tail spin and the chasing overhead breath are the only attacks the DD1 drake does that you couldn't just walk around. Yes, DDDA's has shorter gaps between attacks. But DDDA doesn't have DD2's longer vuln periods from getting knocked down/staggered, nor it's longer animation lock in general. I noticed that longer animation commitment right away when playing Fighter on my first run in DD2, and it has carried through every other class, with even the mages subject to it. The player is a bit slower, so the monsters are too. This possibly ties into what I said about enemy aggression earlier, with enemies potentially being less aggressive with only one assailant than they are when multiple are around, where you can get saved by pawns drawing aggro or preventing stunlock, which isn't the case if you are solo. Entirely possible that is intentional. Don't know for certain, as I haven't done comprehensive testing.
If I seem annoyed, it's because I'm quite tired of the constant issue of people comparing pre-DLC DD2 with DDDA, instead of base DD1. The only thing DD2 really lacks compared to base DD1, is an endgame that isn't timed, and a loop experience like the everfall. God forbid we talk about the complaints with no basis in reality, like the complaints about number of enemies, particularly big 'boss/miniboss' ones, available.
I'm only counting different 'types' here, not variants bearing gore/grim in the name that are just extra hp + 1 or 2 moves. I'm also not counting DA additions:
DD1 has cyclops, ogre, chimera, golem, dragon, lich/wight, hydra, griffon, cockatrice, drake, wyrm, wyvern, evil eye, and metal golem. Oh, and I guess, Ur.
DD2 has cyclops, ogre, chimera, golem, dragon, lich/wight, medusa, griffon, minotaur, garm, lesser/diseased dragon, dullahan and drake. I don't count Talos, but I could easily count the unmoored's brine dragons/wyrms. I'll also shout out skeleton lords as possible inclusions, despite not having typical boss healthbars, It won't change the numbers much if it's only counted for one game but not the other, but I won't actually count them, despite them being more of a boss in DD2 vs DD1.
DD1 = 15
DD2 = 13, 14-15 depending on if you count the umoored special dragons.
Skelelords would add either 1 to DD2, or 1 to both, depending on how you choose to count them.
EXCEPT:
DD2's drake combines the different combat types of DD1's 3 sub-dragons into one monster. Cockatrice is literally a reskinned griffon that trades the lightning element for poison and petrify attacks. While evil eye and hydra aren't present, we got dullahan and medusa, as well as the minortaurs. Garm was also made a base-game enemy, in a weakened form. Metal golem is gone, but I can't find myself feeling bad about it, or like the game is lacking for it, due to how much of a gimmick the metal golem was. Ur was literally the dragon reskinned and with multiple exhaustable weak points instead of just 1, alongside a massively inflated health bar. True, the 'lesser dragon' in DD2 falls into the same category, just for the drake instead of the dragon proper.
The actual numbers, are at best when exluding DA exclusive enemies, 1 off from each other, when looking at base 'big' enemies. Variants wise, numbers pull into DD2's favor, even worse if we add up small monsters. Could they have had more? Would I have loved more? Certainly. But we don't really know what DD2 was working with for budget/corporate support, nor do we know how long it was actually in development for certain. Everyone would always love more, but what we got is not dissimilar, and I'm sick of seeing people comparing the two games, without actually double-checking what the first game did and did not have.
The reason DD2 feels like it has 'less variety' is because it's mostly monsters from DD1/DA, ported over to have almost the same movements and asthetics, alongside a MUCH higher density for most of them, making them wear out faster. The game world's much larger size works against it here, as you will run into FAR more enemies across it, made worse by it's increased density of encounters. They already feel 'not-new' to returning players from DD1/DDDA, but you also run into them more frequently for most of them.
Then there are the performance complaints, which like to claim DD1 and DDDA didn't have performance issues.Which is just flat out WRONG, at least in reference to the original launches on the initial consoles. Sure, later hardware could brute force it, but the launch platforms had HORRIBLE performance. DD2 is following the same pattern, although I'd argue it's nowhere near as bad, as it seems to only really struggle in Vernworth/Volcanocamp/Bakbattahl, as opposed to the first game which struggled everywhere. I can't be the only one who remembers managing to chug the game against basic enemies, solo, with basically ANY class, right? Meanwhile in DD2 I've only noticed that happening when multiple mages are going ham at the same time, or in cities where the low frame rate is ugly, but not gameplay impacting.
Overall, my biggest complaints with DD2 have been the lack of an endgame play loop, and the disappointment around available vocations. Part of that disappointment comes down to expectations, but that was explicitly informed by their own marketing, so it's a bit more up in the air as to whether that's a consumer or developer issue. Biggest issue in that regard, for me, is the loss of MK.
I went in treating it like the AA release it is, a passion project from a senior dev not currently locked on other projects.
I went in expecting DD1.5, not DDDA 1.5, and that's what I got. Managing expectation is something of a lost art these days it seems.I have no problem with them leaving a 'true endgame' for a DLC release a ways down the line, because that gives them a chance to incorporate feedback and make something that addresses those concerns, instead of being stuck with systems that are ill-received. Feels weird being the optimist instead of the cynic for once, but it is frustrating seeing everyone just being overwhelmingly negative and derisive with no real basis.
TL:DR?
I disagree, my own experience was a bit different, and I explained why above. Also a bit of ranting on one of the common community 'claims' regarding DD2 being inferior.
Dude, wtf is this essay. First of all, there's no need in being rude to Nil, it's completely uncalled for. If you're not going to be respectful, don't expect your opinion to be heard, much less respected or regarded, second, I believe in terms of knowledge towards game mechanics such as hit boxes, animations, AI, enemy reactions and pawn behavior, among many other things, we all trust Nil's arguments not just based on what he's shown us, but also based on his reliable sourcing, extensive research and many videos surrounding all of these and many other topics. You may try and discredit his work and try to prove that what he was talking about isn't true, but you won't succeed. The game has had nothing but mixed reviews, disappointing standards and destroyed expectations for everybody that has played DD1 and knew what we experienced back then. DD1 outclasses DD2 on many fronts and clearly shows that despite DD1 being the "incomplete" game, DD2 is clearly rushed and lacking testing and polishing. The game was released under full knowledge of its flaws and nothing will change that, no amount of DLC will, and certainly no amount of support from unreasonable and ignorant players.
@@ugn154 but he wasn't rude to Nihil, just pointed out a different experience from his side, which is completely fair Nihil priorities playing solo and it could really be that enemy AI is influenced by the size of the party. It's not like he said he's an idiot who doesn't know what's he's talking about, plus half the comment of op is about the response of the community to DD2 with certain critiques being kinda not true or blown out of proportion.
@@ugn154 Wow, so you label me 'rude' for daring to have a different opinion and point out errors in shown testing, try to use that to arbitrarily toss out everything I said, and then proceed to mindlessly fanboy at Nihil, who is MORE than capable of speaking for himself if he has an issue with what I said.
Oh, and then we have a load of crap toward the end there that shows your clear closed-minded approach to the situation, where you have LITERALLY declared that you will NEVER accept views that differ from yours, even going so far as to label people who don't agree with you as 'unreasonable and ignorant'. I think your problem is VERY much self-inflicted here.
I appreciate the time it must have taken to type this out. It's a shame 90% of people won't take the time to read past the first paragraph.
DD2 is not an AA game, it is sold by CAPCOM for 70 DOLLARS, with a deluxe edition for 80 DOLLARS.
All this text just ends up saying is "I have really low standards and will accept mediocrity if it makes me feel better for an argument."
tote agreement compared to what it coulda shoulda been its complete fkn letdown. I can imagine there are excuses or reasons mayb issues like rush job, covid, budget ruined a potential game of the century. Imagine better climbing combined with ac terrain parkour and real life professional rock climbing. Imagine underwater caves and combat with huge sea monsters and marine with graphics like stellar blade. Imagine ship combat like ac with pirates n rival monster hunters. Imagine more spells classes or even mounted combat omfg sometimes in this game my kingdom for a horse. Imagine bigger longer dungeons and missions and more gear to loot. Im nota story fan but im purty sure u could speedrun main quest ina few hrs. Beastren schmeastren just do more elven kingdoms as they are atleast mentioned in berserk which is the world this game was originally based on. More demon bosses and undead would also tie in to the berserk theme. Also mayb extra stats like karma and glory? Imagine more real life based character animations like actually try to emulate how people move when they are idle but breathing or the breath variations after different actions. Folks roll around and tumble alot when falling even when they are kod. Muscle flexion and movement sweat and dirt and monster blood. Lady physics ever see a curvy girl run? But the main failure in my opinion no multiplayer. Potentially a huge business opportunity completely ignored? Bad capcom. Also itsa capcom game. So many successful productions from this company streetfighter, castlevania, shadows of rome omg plz remake shadows. Why are they holding themselves back like this. I thought businesses were interested in making money why not make a game that outsells everything then keep improving with new regions and content? It just leaves a massive opportunity for a rival company to swoop in and do everything u have failed to do and make a fortune that coulda shoulda been yours. Mayb 1 day someone will get it right, the way things are going its the devs attitude not the lack of skill or recourses thats preventing gamers from entertainment and game companys from becoming vastly more wealthy. Or mayb the devs are just doin what they are told and its some ceo that wants his or her company to fail.
Preach!
I recon this RE engine wasn’t the best for this game
the game is chock full of weird and stupid decisions
i dont know what they were thinking but the game has good bones
sad to see what its like now after so much waiting and excitement
At least if the bones are good they can add more meat with an expansion, I finished my first playthrough with 120hours can't say I'm disappointed, I'm not happy with all the changes but most of all I would like even more stuff and a proper hard mode, other than that I'm fairly happy with the game
I think DD2 did some things better than 1, and some things worse than 1
Bon je commente en français, la traduction automatique fera son œuvre, peut-être >
DD-2: +300 Heures de jeu actuellement
DD-1: 2000+++...
Je pense donc pouvoir être objectif et crédible.
Le problème de DD-2 selon moi, c'est les animations trop complètes et détaillées qui veulent trop en faire pour paradoxalement perdre en lisibilité. Les Ogres et les Gobelins qui ont un saut qui arrive instantanément et peut importe la distance vers toi........
Là où DD-1 était certes limité financièrement et même pour Capcom, il y a dû avoir des concessions qui ont fait que les animations étaient très basiques, voire limite 'sommaires', mais c'était parfaitement lisible et fluide. La maîtrise était parfaite.
Ici dans DD-2 ils en font trop pour rien. Perte de fluidité, et perte de lisibilité des paternes.
Les animations des 'boss' ne sont plus les mêmes, et sont moins bonnes. Beaucoup moins de maîtrise.
La difficulté beaucoup trop facile... Pas de mode difficile.
Une A.I totalement absente.
La map plus grande, c'est cool et appréciable. Mais infiniment moins charismatique et prenante que dans le 1. Trop de relief tue la visibilité ainsi que les possibilités.
Histoire OK sans +.
Moins de twist que dans le 1. Moins épique à suivre.
... un bien pâle hommage.
J'attends beaucoup du potentiel DLC.
I don't have to play DD2 to see that it's a complete trash bro. For what? upgraded graphics? which also look like bad design when it comes to certain things like magic etc.
DDDA was worked on by people from DMC, MH and RE. DD2 clearly was done by noob team. AI sucks, animations are stiff and lame, concept overall is a terrible downgrade. I stick to DDDA, it remains the best game ever. Sadly, the potential was there to expand it.
I'm on the extreme "negative" side. I honestly think DD2 is one of the worst AAA games ever made. The massive over emphasis on taking away player control through stuns, knockdowns, needing assistance to pick yourself up, being knocked vertically into the air or off of a cliff makes the game so frustrating. Every class being so slow, every boss enemy being a slow wall of HP that does minimal damage to you but slows down your pace through excessively strong CC abilities... it makes the game very frustrating to play.
I mentioned in a post on another video that I personally think you're in the 50/50 camp because most of your play time has been on Thief and not a slower class like Warrior or Sorcerer. I think that if you tried a fresh playtrhough with another class, something like Warrior or Archer, your opinion of hte game would sour even more because you'd see very clearly how obviously the dev team demands that you take a gaggle of pawns with you juct to prevent getting stunlocked to death. I can't even imagine how shit something like a solo MA or Trickster would be.
The first one was initially carried by a dlc and it seems everything hinges on the second one doing that as well. I dont like the toggle mechanic being removed to break free. I dont like watered down enemies. If the dlc brings hard mode with tough enemies then it ill give it two thumbs up, enjoy it for what its worth, and go about my time.