Dragon's Dogma

[jsteinhauer]

Originally Posted by Toptube

What's up with the revisionist tendencies of game devs nowadays?

Half the point of Dragon's Dogma is that you do have to walk/run to your destination and back to shelter. Possibly, lacking the time to do it all before night time.

Is this some feeble grab for more players? OH WE HAVE FAST TRAVEL NOW YOU WILL LIKE OUR GAME IT MAKES IT EASY. The watering down of a new property, before a sequel is even out. What if I don't want the fast travel or unlimited items?

Originally Posted by tarvis

If you don't want to fast travel, then don't. Tedium is not fun. Often times, developers are wrong. It's good when they admit their mistakes.

There are always arguments for and against fast travel. Self proclaimed purists tend to be against it. To an extent slow travel is okay, but when you send me there on a story mission, then a gathering mission, then an escort mission, then a gathering mission, then a story mission, then an escort mission, and so on...it's stops being fun. It stopped being hard after the first couple of times. It's a way to pad time into the games. The devs have the option at the outset to create a bigger world, or even a more difficult world to traverse (or at least change up the encounters along the way), and not make me pass the same areas with the same enemies in the same spots eight times.

[Monkey]

I agree the back and forth on Dragon's Dogma was tedious. Glad to hear they implemented a change to help with that.

Overall I wish the world was indeed much bigger with more locations to explore and more variety.

[tarvis]

Originally Posted by jsteinhauer

There are always arguments for and against fast travel. Self proclaimed purists tend to be against it.

Walking seems more of a Japanese gaming convention to me. Whether it's Dragon Quest or The Wind Waker. The Elder Scrolls, including the first game Arena released in 1994, has always had fast travel. Even to areas you hadn't been before. And games like Bioware's Baldur's Gate or Black Isle's Fallout had an overly simplified overworld. Emphasizing exploration of the dungeons and towns.

[Toptube]

but you overlook the point that the game is designed around having to go everywhere by foot. Tension is built by the day/night cycle and the things that bump at night. Which by the way, is very dark. Its possible to unintentionally fall to your death, among other unintended things, due to the limited visibility.

If the first game gets tedious. Well fine. Let's make a new game with actual improvements instead of applying band aids because those are good, right?; Instead of nullifying a major design point of the first, flawed as it may be.

[tarvis]

I haven't overlooked anything. If something is not fun, or is in need of balancing, I think it should be fixed. Like the many patches released for Battlefield 3.

[Icemage]

Originally Posted by tarvis

I haven't overlooked anything. If something is not fun, or is in need of balancing, I think it should be fixed. Like the many patches released for Battlefield 3.

World traversal in Dragon's Dogma isn't all that fun aside from not-very-random ambushes by the occasional Chimera or Golem at endgame. It's not expansive enough to be considered "exploration" in the vein of a Skyrim or Oblivion, even if the occasional bout of combat is more interesting than in any Elder Scrolls game.

[nremdn]

Originally Posted by tarvis

I haven't overlooked anything. If something is not fun, or is in need of balancing, I think it should be fixed. Like the many patches released for Battlefield 3.

Not a very good example....half the patches released for Battlefield 3 were pointless and unnecessary.

[Grim Reaper]

http://www.ps3.qj.net

Red Alert: Capcom has a Warning for Dragon’s Dogma Players

Dragon’s Dogma is a game. Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen is pretty much the same game, but with more stuff to do. It’s an expansion of sorts, but also a standalone title. I don’t know. It’s complicated.

Anyway, if you’re one of the folks who picked up Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen, you’d probably better make note of this warning from Capcom: The latest patch for the game, which went live this week, has the potential to completely corrupt your existing save data.

Capcom is trying to suss out the problem, but for now it’s a good idea to backup your saves on a separate storage device, or to play Dark Arisen offline. Or to take a game break and spend some time outside. Whatever works best for you.

And if you’ve lost your save data due to corruption? Well, unfortunately, it looks like you’re prettty much boned. Have fun starting from scratch!

[tarvis]

I'm really digging Bitterblack Isle. I think it's a lot more fun than the main game. Probably because I'm doing less running around. And it's pretty exciting whenever one of those rare monsters spawn.

[MrTires]

Can someone give me a rundown on pawns? I recently snagged dark arisen and I'm only several hours in.

Besides my main pawn I'm not really sure what pawns to take from the stone. I have several very high level pawns from my friends list. Will adding them to my party sort of take away from the game as they are so far overpowered?

Should I just try to balance out my party skillwise? Does it make sense to quest without the full compliment of pawns as I think I read you get less experience?

[tarvis]

The Internet says having higher level pawns in your party lowers experience. So I just take it at its word. I had Denoku's level 113 or whatever Strider or Ranger in my party for a laugh, but didn't actually check if there was a difference.

I think the pawn AI is so terrible, it almost doesn't matter about balancing a party. Not being a caster and running into Phantoms is always a good time. Although, if you're ranged, you could get a Fighter or a Warrior with their respective distraction skill.

As a Warrior, I usually roll with a Mage and Ranger while my pawn is a Sorcerer. But I've also done Mage, Sorcerer, Sorcerer. Because, while the latter lacks frequency of attacks, at least I know that when they finally do decide to stop jumping around in circles, they'll probably hit something.

As far as maximizing experience. I wouldn't worry about it, personally. Especially when you finally do Bitterblack Isle. I went from 40~ to just hitting 100 after finally beating the last boss.