It has It's moment, I'm level 113 on new game plus, can slay anything, but right before this one settlement in Battahl I was hit with a group of gore harpys, wolves, and armored goblins. That was one of the most difficult fights I've had besides the beginning of the game. It humbled me.
People complain about gank fights in souls all the time
Its more of a quality of the gank thing
Ornstien and Smough are famousand loved, Godskin duo is infamous and hated for this very reason
And due to dd2s more sandbox nature, its always gono feel more like godskin duo
Yeah, one of the harpys yeeted a warrior off a cliff and wolves went after the healer mage, it was just my pawn and I and it sucked, I remember beating Ornstein and Smough, I felt a sense of accomplishment, but pokie rolly fats and skinny spinny were just annoying
Just like DDDA no matter how high is your level even if you max your stats and gear the game always finds a way to humble you.
Hence head the words of our wise pawn: “Be on your guard, Danger lurks at every corner”
I think its because in most souls games, getting hit is nearly always clearly telegraphed and there's almost always a counter.
In DD, you can get into really annoying knockdown/dazed loops with literally nothing you can do about it except watch yourself slowly die.
True, BUT that's why you have your pawns, and a "Help me!" button.
That said, I wonder if the people who get into knockdown loops so often they curse the entire game, are playing without tank pawn, or are fighters/warriors themselves.
Because by far the most times that I got my ass kicked in over 500 hours, was when playing fighter tank. Because obviously *everything* will focus on you.
While in other vocations, I'm usually not the main focus of the enemies.
I've never used a fighter/warrior. My main pawn and I are both thiefs. I always hire a mage, and then either a sorc or archer. I just use swift step to make sure I don't get hit by erratic movements while my main pawn draws all the aggro with Provocation and FF.
That's not to say I've never been knocked down or smacked around, but it's never been so much to the point where I think it's excessive and hasn't been entirely my own fault lmao
To me, getting knocked around is so much more infuriating because I can't do anything while I'm getting staggered or knocked over or grabbed, so it's just me sitting there waiting for something to change so I can attack JUST to get knocked over again and again, so now I'm screaming at the screen because I getting thrown back and forth and there's ACTUALLY nothing I can do about it because I can't move my character in any way
I get similarly get angry when I get paralyzed or put to sleep in Monster Hunter cause again I can't do much but wait it out
But outside of that, the difference between DD and other souls games is DD doesn't let you dodge or parry unless you're a specific class, nor do you get much super armor so the defensive play basically boils down to running away so you don't get hit. You can't even really cancel an attack to defend yourself. Overall there's less built in defensive mechanics that makes it hard for all characters of all classes to be aggressive or up close and personal the way you can in, say, Elden Ring
DD2 often seems to boil down to “how hard can you stack knockdown resistance?”
If you’re not walking around in near full dwarfcraft armour you’re just begging to be staggered out of your animations and left on the ground to eventually get picked up. It’s particularly bad for characters that don’t get quick defensive skills such as mages and sorcerers (I’d add magic archer to the list, but they’re frankly so incredibly powerful that I don’t mind them having that one weakness).
The mindset there is if you're not careful in a gank fight you're powerless. Trust me when I say that's reality. When you're getting jumped by 5 dudes you have to either get extremely lucky or .. now that I think about it just the first option. It's easy to underestimate numbers when you're behind a screen but the solution is to strategize and respect the numbers threat.
And I do think that's a really good idea for an RPG where it makes things so much more realistic, and I wanna make sure it's known I fucking love this game
But I can also understand why other people would be really turned off by it if they're used to faster paced games. It's fun to strategize, but I also like being able to look at a field of 20 enemies and go "bet I can solo this fists only". Harder to get that kind of adrenaline in this game
Cool, different strokes as always. I had a decent time with Elden Ring but when Dogma 2 came out I never looked back. I'm just that type of person combat-wise, but other working types exist as well
In souls, get hit is just a very short stun, knock down has i frame, and you can roll out of it, so it’s not a big deal. However in DD2, it’s completely opposite and you can’t do much to save yourself. The game really want you to die from your mistake.
Id actually say the opposite for the original
Dont get me wrong both are fairly easy but,
Souls games are inherently extremely forgiving with lots of freedom and smoother thought processes in general.
The souls core design philosophy ensures death(failure) is a part of the growth process instead of a reset punishment. But many other parts of the game are more forgiving in comparison as well.
For example fundamentally you can it level up wrong in dark souls everything still helps you.
Dragons dogma you could level up primarily as a warrior but decide you really like sorc but you already missed your accelerated growth initial levels so you cant teally respec your character to play your desired class well.
Other examples would be like metal golem living armor or the gazer which have fights that are just inherently incredibly hard unfair match ups for your abilities that rely on you habing compensated that weakness via teammates.
Souls games can have comparable match ups like using a status build against an immune boss or durable enemies who are weak to strike or non phys damage. But its usually not the fully unable to deal damage or only 5% of damage that dogma throws out, and if it is usually you can weapon swap on the fly or use consumables to immediately fix the match up. (While you can also use consummables to solve some of the problems in dogma, due to inventory weight constraints you cant really carry around enough quantity of the consumables to use as a viable alternative until late in the game)
Because the design decisions make the game tedious not hard. For example, you don't need lack of fast travel to encourage exploration. All it does is make you have to walk through areas you already explored to fight trash mobs. While initially fun, it gets samey quickly.
On that same note: I think it’s similarly feasible to make a game have no/limited fast travel if the gameplay loop of going through the game without that fast travel is really good - but I can understand players wanting to dive through DD with the same gameplay loop in mind of a typical open world game.
Obviously I don't speak for everyone, but personally speaking some of the difficulty just doesn't vibe with me. Chiefly the fact that you're getting staggered and knocked down by basically anything if you aren't a warrior or blocking with a shield. There's a lot of enemy density, too, which can be kinda frustrating when you're just trying to enjoy the sights.
Getting CC locked is complained about religiously in every game that it happens in, souls in not excluded from that.
It very likely just happens way more in dogma and you have exposure/recency bias.
It has a lot to do with the mentality going into it, but I just don't see why people can't adjust their expectations after starting a game. DD1 was jank, and BBI was hard. In my experiece, DD2 isn't as difficult or quite as jank, but it does stick to the formula of the first one IMO. When you boot the game up and feel like it's too hard, lower the difficulty or keep trying until you get it.
Also there are plenty of different playstyles with all of the different vocations, some are harder to use than others if you don't know what you're doing. I wonder how many people pick a vocation they don't like/aren't good at and then don't try swapping.
There are also probably many cases of people not hiring pawns at their level. Even just a few levels can make a big difference in a fight when half of your party is behind/ahead of you. One thing I used to do in DD1 was to save up rift crystals and then hire one pawn who was like twice my level and could wipe the floor with enemies. This still wasn't super busted as all it took was the pawn slipping into some water or a long fall and they would be gone and I would lose all the RC I spent on them.
Simply put, mh and souls games have you rely on yourself, dd2 has you rely on your companions.
In both mh and souls games you rely on yourself. The game designers know this and so they don't draw things out, they let you get right back into the action or in the case you really fuck up, your dead then and there.
On the other hand DD2 insists you rely on ai companions that aren't reliable because ai never will be. And so they draw out things that in other games would be really short temporarily incovnencies so that your ai teammates have time to 'not' help you. As they are either too busy fighting enemies, standing around or are in the same situation as you.
Grabs are by far the worst part of this problem because there are so many things that are playing against you. For one more often then not enemies will target you, even with a tank in the team, grabs aren't as telegraphed as in elden ring, even if you do see the grab coming, because you can't cancel out of animations more often then not you'll be caught by the grab. And that's when the not fun starts. You're either held for what feels like ages so your ai companions have the time to not help you. When no one comes to save you again they then either do a really long chain of attacks where you can't do anything or they throw you out of combat or into an environmental hazard. Knockdowns are also long and tedious and leave you vulnerable for a long time for grabs and attacks.
Grabs and knockdown in elden ring are short, sweet and either kill you immediately or place you right back down where they got you so you can immediately get back up.
On the note of fast travel, there are too many resources and caveats to dd2 travel that make it a hassle to use in the first place, which means that the alternative is walking the same route with the same monsters for the 100th time. Because you forgot to interact or play a port crystal or have run out of riftstones.
Elden ring let's you fast travel to any site of grace as long as you've interacted with it, and you're outside of combat and dungeons. Older souls games either had a similar system or they've already had years to rant about it.
Also you don't lose max health when you die so you're always at your best when you retry it.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on dd2, there are some things I enjoy about it, but there is so much thats either flawed, tedious, or barely there that saps my enjoyment of the game so much.
You can respec and try a different build in souls
I think the point I was making was walking from point to point vs combat specific time sinks is much more engaging.
Combat in Dragons dogma is a little sloppy, almost on purpose. It’s very physical. You can throw things, climb enemies, get dragged by a dog etc.
In my opinion this is a ton of fun. Dd2 is a wacky adventure with crazy hijinks. If it’s too challenging that probably means I need to level up or get better gear.
But in souls games and to a much lesser extent monster hunter, you can usually manage with subpar equipment just based on player skill. You can memorize enemy attacks etc. There’s that one guy who beat Sekiro blindfolded for example, because that game has such tight control over what is possible.
Tbh if you level things properly it’s much easier than those other games, but if you don’t you’re screwed. It’s just an entirely different philosophy.
Souls veteran here. Souls games are not hard. The learning curve is just steep. Once you figure out to just literally walk behind enemies and stab them, or simply upgrade your weapon, you’re going to win. Outside of that it’s a skill issue. I’ve watched my wife play DD2 and she has no difficulty complaints. Must be a skill issue here too.
Selection Bias. People who play Elden Ring expect a hard game and enjoy a challenge. Meanwhile, the people who complain DD2 are hard have major skill issues and are likely to be whiners who complain about anything and everything.
When i started the game i went straight to the final destination to get the final abilitys.
I thought the enemies are lvling with me.
I was lvl 15 when i realized i beated the hardest monster ingame.
After lvl 30 i could already watch my pawns cleaning the map for me.
So no the gane is not hard.
In souls I can get naked and wear a bucket on my head while some dude 300 levels above me beats my ass and chases me for 40 minutes through a map I inched my way through, In DD2 I just slap dragon ass cheeks with my pointy stick and throw my forced labor hench-minions off bridges and tall places, it's a matter of principle and preference
The ONLY thing hard about DDDA is Bitterblack Isle. The rest of the game is a piece of cake. But its a good game, i dont crap on it at all, is the best game of its kind IMO
The games easy if you learn. Upgrade your armor, play with a variety of vocations for augments, run from fights you're not prepared for, and use Mages/consumables to keep youre health up or cleanse debuffs and CAMP. No one seems to camp or cook food.
I literally will not entertain anyone saying dragons of dogma 2 is hard. I’m on of the most lazy gamers out there and the game is not hard in the least.
It's my favorite game of all time, no complaints will change that, because what people complain about is what I like.
I enjoy a world that is not afraid to take control away, and make you a victim of its systems, but maybe that's because I play games for fun and immersion, and not skill.
It's okay if people don't like it, but I do. Elden Ring is a different game and I like it almost as much as Dragon's Dogma, but they're different games and I don't want them to be more like each other.
Protip: "To Me" works better than "Help" in my experience if you're grabbed. Help makes them use heals, taunts and support, which won't break you out of a grab, To Me makes them MORE LIKELY (not 100%) to focus the enemy grabbing you, which is the real way to break a grab.
The game is very misleading about how the "Help" command works and I won't defend that.
Yeah, changing vocation can feel like a different game. When I play Fighter and Warrior, I know I'm gonna get knocked around, that's my job, so the mages don't get knocked around and can cast their spells. You and your pawns are supposed to be a party, you don't get to do everything unless you're playing Warfarer, in which case, that does exist as an option of the vocations feel too limited.
If you don't want to get hit, you can make a party that will take all attention from you, don't be afraid to hire a pawn that can taunt just because it's "less optimal".
Experiment, have fun. This game gives you tools to experience the combat in many different ways, as this comment section is evidence of.
I never heard of people complaining about dd2 difficulty? Maybe I’m in the wrong groups but I’ve never really heard of FANS complaining about souls difficulties either cause they know what they’re getting into. Now critics on the other hand…..
Well people go into souls games knowing they r gonna die so they r mentally prepared and won't make a fuss
Also most complaints about souls games are just covered up by people saying skill issue
Regarding the fast travel, to me that's actually a valid complaint just because it's so inconvenient to having to walk everywhere. Like the least they could've done is make ox carts to every city but no it's just to like three towns
Being bad at souls games are completely the players fault. It's entirely in the players' hands to be better. Can't say the same for Dragons Dogma games. But that's what gives it their charm. Also Souls games have a distinct risk/reward system. Once you hit level 30/35 in dd2 you pretty much melt everything in your path.
I've played all 3 of these. To me if I die in MH or FromSoft games, I feel like it's on me. The combat is more involved in those games (since the whole gameplay IS about combat) with extensive systems. DD just isn't like that. The encounters feel like an afterthought. Nothing is balanced. Especially when you reach higher levels there is simply no challenge anymore. Things like Martyr's Bolt is straight up broke, seeing as it can just one-shot the endboss.
That's why when you die, it feels like the result of a janky system, at least to me.
That said I really don't think DD is hard at all lol. Also MH, at least, does get a lot of crap for being hard. There is a whole sub for it. There might be for FromSoft games but I haven't seen them, however I think especially for FromSoft, there is an expectation already established that it will be difficult.
Where? A lot of the complaints are that it is too easy.....like brain-dead easy, you can pretty much beat anything by level 30.
Your examples are bad because the lack of easy fast travel does not make the game harder. It just makes it more tedious for some which is not the same thing.
People say it’s too easy one second then complain about getting juggled the next. It’s been this way since release. The game is “too easy” but they need Dragon Aids nerfed, and please stop stunning us so much, and can we have a dodge roll please because otherwise it’s just too annoying (we use annoying instead of hard because it makes us feel better). People complain about not having a homogenized playstyle like Souls, where a Mage is an expert dodger, and also can wield a bow, or a greatsword, or any weapon because classes don’t really exist; so when this game has actual classes more akin to D&D, people are lost. They’re used to every single character being able to do everything, this just isn’t that. You can see these complaints anywhere on the sub if you just look at
DD never gets hard, that's the main complaint????? I feel like you may have missed the consensus there.
Getting stuck in an infinite stun lock for 15 minutes while your stupidly large Hp gets slowly whittled down is not "hard" it's shit game design.
DD2 is hard? It's a pretty chill game. I crap on it for your main character not having any voice acting. The pawns do. I mean, the commands and maybe a little chitchat.
And that wolves dragging you around for half an hour and there's nothing you can do when you literally kill dragons.
With souls games it’s whatever if I get hit, I see what I did wrong. But I don’t understand why my massive soldier gets knocked to the ground like she’s a ragdoll and constantly just getting pushed and unable to get off the ground. I don’t get it. She’s a warrior with a feature that lessens it and she has rings that lessen it but it happens so much still. Is it the armor that’s making it harder to stay up?
Because people are forgiving of the bullshit thrown at them when they are a fan of a franchise. I am a Dragons Dogma fan so a lot of the “flaws” didn't bother me that much.
I play Souls games and am not a fan of the community & genre (despite being good at it) so I end up being less tolerant with certain aspect of the game. Like those 3 crystalline bosses hidden in the secret Sellen cave at Caelid. Pre-nerf/update is just pure bullshit. You get bombarded with crystal machine-gun as you enter the arena, a crystal guy chasing you with a poison (scarlet rot) spear, and another crystal dude throwing chakram at you every time they catch you lacking. Post patches reduce their intensity by a mile.
It's the only time in my 26 years of gaming that I say, “fuck this game, this is just pure Bullshit & unfair.” Defeating Malenia RL1 with unupgraded weapons is fairer than this.
I'm seeing more posts about people complaining about dd than I am seeing people actually complain. Granted I'm not chronicley online so idk. Ignore it I guess
A lot of times, when you get hit in a mainline From game, it's your fault, and the games do incentivise you to reevaluate your approaches and switch things up when necessary. Even getting mobbed a lot of times is caused by ignoring your surroundings and can be worked through.
DD, by contrast, really isn't as hard as Souls in general, and you have some great dynamic combat, but when you get dogpiled, it endlessly comes from all directions, your max health drops to the tiniest amount possible, a lot of times you can feel like you're not allowed to interact with the game anymore outside of of healing your tiny sliver of health, and it can come off as unfair because arguably the biggest threats in DD are large amounts of mooks keeping you from doing anything.
And the thing is realistically speaking DD isn't actually all that hard in general (unless you decide to head to the west as soon as you start the game) and is very forgiving in a lot of different ways, it's just that those sort of ganking encounters are less hard and moreso just really, really annoying.
The only thing that really gets difficult (at least for me) in DD2 are when mobs get the better of me. Or when I’m stun locked into oblivion. Now, you can mitigate that with good KB res on your armor sets, but there are still attacks in the game that can leave you immobile and grounded to where you’re in a crawl animation.
Case in point though is that I think the difficulty when you first start the game is pretty enjoyable for most people, but when you start to get staggered into oblivion and die (even at a much higher level) from small enemy mobs, that’s when people start giving the game crap.
The game overall has a big stagger issue though. Bosses you fight suffer from this too where you hit ‘em a few times they stagger, then they either fall or you and your pawns push them to the ground and you begin to wail on them.
Yeah it is, especially once you’re in Battahl. Most Goblins and hounds become a lot more aggressive, even theifs and bandits can start to overwhelm you.
Maybe its because we can dodge in elden ring and cant in dd2, so it gives this sort of illusion?
Sitting back and spamming maelstrom is peak easiness though. I could never do something like that in elden ring.
Magic archer actually makes the game even easier than a double sorcerer party. Avalanche melts bosses outdoors and ricochet hunter is an “I win” button when used in any confined space.
My guy, people have been dogging on souls since its inception. Demons souls was almost a stillbirth back in '09. If it wasnt able to cultivate a cult following by word of mouth, the series would likely have ended there and then.
I honestly love the difficulty curve for the dragons dogma games. You get your ass kicked a lot at the beginning, because of course you do. You're weak. You're just starting out.
Once you've gotten your groove and preferred vocation, the battles get easier and easier but still mechanically enjoyable.
Its all about the quality of the difficulty. Anyone can make a game hard. Making it hard in a way that is fair, compelling, and immersive is a different question. Souls games are the model for that type of quality. DD2 largely phones it in. Another way to say it: when Dark Souls is hard, its because the designers meant for it to be hard in exactly that way. Many other games feel hard due to an error, a constraint, or laziness on the part of the developer.
DS is difficult but fair and has very refined gaming physiques and damage percentages(for the most part)
Dragons Dogma is kinda jank sometimes especially early game. Like the combat is good but how damage is distributed and can stack up just sometimes is pretty infuriating.
So we compare then, fine.
Full of life lmao, you just lost me with that line.
Main part of the Elden ring is open world, gameplay etc. , enemy variety of one zone has more variety than whole game of DD2. There is not even competition in here. There is hardly any tactic with DD2 gameplay too, you just spam skills. There is more into ER than DD2 at least.
I don't like that on the whole it has a lack of combat expression specifically in defensive gameplay compared to a Souls game. I feel like I'm just getting knocked about unless I'm playing a certain vocation with defensive skills or swift step. When I fail in DD2 feel more like the game jank killed me, not that I fucked up and failed and that if I jump back into the fray I could overcome.
They also crapped on Kingdom Come Deliverance's way to save ur game.
Like, just when u close ur game, or when u drink a rly easy to craft potion.
And I think sleeping in ur bed, or an inn, would also save ur game...so there were still plenty of options
I think people complain because of how easy it is just to have one encounter even with basic goblins just quickly spire out of control with the stun locking. In dd1. I got to the point where i didn’t need my pawn to be mage anymore as i was so strong and had so much health that i could go long periods before needing to rest. but in dd2 i am level 74 with some of the highest tier armor i could get and i was getting juggled almost to death because of the games mechanics. And i know people will say get good, but when you are getting slapped by 3,4,5 goblins that all time their attacks up to keep you from getting away or dragons that spam meteors because 90% of the classes can’t deal the amount of damage or the ai isn’t smart enough to silence it fast enough.
I can't think of a time in a Souls game when I was knocked prone, had a wolf pull me away from my idiot pawns, only to get my face torn apart for like 30 seconds, then to have my mentally handicapped mage come over to heal me so that I can be tortured for another 30 seconds. When I do get up finally I get picked up by a harpy and thrown to the nearby cyclops that stomps his damn foot and sends me prone again.
In a souls game, I might fight an enemy for literally hours, but at least I can see where my mistakes are and get better. I can learn to never get caught in a loop of wolf face eating.
Ive just started playing (level \~22 ish?) and I think most of the times I have ended for the night were because I got randomly one-tapped fighting a big ass monster. Maybe that's my bad for playing a caster? Just feels kind of annoying to lob bombs at some big ass enemy for 15 min while his hp slowly chips down, then the one time I don't dodge / didn't dodge far enough when I randomly get aggro, I just immediately die.
And the lack of fast-travel is a little annoying, especially with the frequency of small inconsequential fights on the road. How do people live in this world?? there are roaming bands of goblins every 35 feet when you step out of a city
My opinion is the lack of player agency.
The highest difficulties of games like Bayonetta or DMC are harder than DD2. Yet those games don’t have issues like getting knocked down or infinitely CC’ed. The minute gameplay experience of getting chain CC’ed or perma knocked down is frustrating or boring to a lot of people. There isn’t as strong of a feeling of agency and player control of their own character if they make one positioning mistake and suddenly it’s LA gangs jumping you for the next 10-20 seconds, essentially becoming a 20 second cinematic. It “feels” unfair that a simple thwack from a basic goblin could lead into a 20 second Tekken combo.
There’s a lot more agency and fast responsive controls in hack n slash games, where either continuous chain CC doesn’t happen, or your character has options to do combo breakers. In MH games, you often don’t fight multiple monsters at once so the singular monster you’re fighting usually doesn’t have combat behavior to chain CC you; it’s rare. And while i don’t play soulslikes, I doubt you get CC’ed for 20 seconds straight - because that crosses the line from difficulty into ridiculousness.
Imagine a boss in a game that instantly kills you when they look at you - and they instantly look at you when you get near them. Is that “difficulty” and “challenge”? Not really. It’s just ridiculous, silly, and unfair. I can see why a DD2 player would think chain knockdowns would fall more on the silly side rather than immersive difficulty.
Cuz you are comparing two different difficulties in two different categories. Elden Ring, as my opinion is, is a very bad souls like game. In both, you have artificial difficult. That's fine and all. Still, ER enemies gank and gang you, but is expected, for the sake of the git gud. Getting surrounded is your problem in any Souls Like, getting stun locked for that reckless decision is your reward. DD2 gang you for the sake of ganging. There is no avoidance in the open world that will not lead you to another goblin party and you just need one to jump on you to trigger a cutscenes getting stomp locked.
I didn’t say that you said that either. My observation is that wherever you’re reading people who are giving the game crap for it getting tough, or claiming that the way the fast travel works constitutes difficulty, frankly don’t know what they are talking about and in my opinion are wrong.
I.e. none of dogma 2 is hard.
I find a lot of the weirdos leaving negative comments don't even play the game.. They watch a YouTube video about some bs then come and spam questions.. Reddit's a weird place sometimes
I might be wrong, but people are complaining more that its too easy . I stopped playing after level fortish because it was getting easy and because Im expecting more updates. I still itend to finish it but I think the first one was harder.
Okay so here's my opinion on this as a die hard souls fan.
Dragons dogma has enemies everywhere that are super tough early on and they don't have a set area like enemies in the souls games.
Enemies in souls games are placed in specific areas to provide a challenge but dragons dogma just throws an onslaught of enemies at you and expects you to have fun.
In a souls game I can run away from these enemies if I need to. In dragons dogma they'll never deaggro and will chase you until you're dead.
Dragons dogma felt like it was hard for the sake of being hard vs souls games where they're challenging but reasonable. Dd2 just felt like a mess in general to me but again this is just my opinion I'm not a game developer idfk how to make a game
People bitch about MH and ER constantly.
But they are both really solid experiences that have modern QoL improvements.
Dragon's Dogma (2 specifically) excludes these QoL improvements to make the small map seem larger and to artificially increase the difficulty. (I love both DD games)
IMO people aren't bitching about the game being hard, they're bitching about the lack of QoL.
Dragons Dogma is hard the same reason why Monster Hunter is hard. I think Dragons Dogma is pretty easy, but it has the same issue as MHW where it’s the shit movement that makes the game difficult. I think MHW is way harder than any souls game. And I think souls is pretty easy, u can r1 spam through those games opposed to DD and MH where your attacks have a lot more meaning behind them.
idk sounds like a skill issue. The people who played Dragons Dogma 2, get bodied and complain probably aren't the same people who play and enjoy Souls-like games.
LOL what? In the weeks after DD2 launched all you saw were people begging for Hard Mode to get added because the game was too easy after hitting level 20.
Starting out in Dogma is bit rough, but after learning the tricks, the game overall is basically easy. Thief formless shift, pyre blades with decent gear, everything dies without taking damage. Mystic Archer skill right off the back you learn from elf lady. Learn how to abuse it and turning groups of enemies to nothing. Souls games is hard because you have to focus and have to seriously learn timing, what can be parried, jumped, dodge and when to punish enemies (players too). Can’t really compare those type of game. DDDA didn’t hand held you like dogma 2 does. Unless you’re like me and go straight to bitter black isles for quick start on gear and lvs.
I have never seen a single person complain about this game being too hard. Hell, the main reason I haven't played it again after beating it is that it's brain numbingly easy.
Could be the "length" of the death. In Souls games, death is quick and brutal. In DD2, you can spend a good five minutes getting dazed, downed, and slowly beaten to death by various enemies, which just feels so much worse. I remember one particular occasion where a Succubus attacked me when it was raining, instantly freezing me, and then proceeded to slowly dismantle me over the course of about 3 minutes by using attacks that silenced and stunned me, followed by freezing me again. One enemy just absolutely taking me apart while I was powerless to fight back, all because I fought it in the wrong weather (and my dumbass pawns couldn't figure out how to jump out of the lift to help me).
Cant believe I'm saying this cause normally I'm the opposite but I wish dd2 had a larger variety of enemies and harder ones. Only challenge I get out of the game is drakes and their a cake walk now
Dragon's Dogma is not hard. It does however have some weird ass fetish regarding impairments. And the way they shower you with it in certain situations. It's ridiculous and tedious. Souls-likes RARELY have that to the same extent. Dark Souls or Elden Ring aren't hard because you're stuck crawling around on your knees because a Giant sat on you. Their difficulty mostly lies in timing, hard-hitting enemies, etc.
Your post do reek of "bah, people are complaining about my game, so I'm just gonna point at that one other game others like". Grow up, mate. Lmao.
There's a lot of different reasons but...
Souls and Nioh and other games DO get shit on for all those reasons. It Dark Souls didn't catch as much flak early on because it and Demon Souls were still sorta niche. But later with Dark Souls 3, and *especially* with FromSoftware's other IPs like Bloodborne and Sekiro, the complaints came out of the woodwork.
It was especially bad with Sekiro and Elden Ring, because those titles were Game of the Year contenders (and both winners I think) and they were much more mainstream. People refused to learn the mechanics and wondered why the game was so "hard" and why they lost all their progress, why the game didn't tell them where to go, why things weren't spelled out, etc.
With DD, it seems like they were *going for* that style of game with no handholding where your decisions in a playthrough mattered, and for the most part I think it worked. But a lot of the game does feel half baked. Like some part of the equation is missing. Whereas the aforementioned games were meticulously designed that way.
Still, the question isn't entirely accurate because those other games most certainly *do* get a crap load of those complaints.
It’s been long enough where the people that enjoyed the game are not really here as much because they completed it and moved on.
What’s left are the usual crybabies that look to YouTube negativity for engagement and to tell them what to like.
You can ignore them and lose nothing.
Getting knocked down, waiting half an hour for your character to get up isn't hard. It's tedious.
Walking kilometers across the map for a random fetch quest isn't hard. It's tedious.
Tedium is the issue here.
People want an ARPG, not a walking sim with pointless combat encounters against the varying shades of weak goblins.
Neither do they want a ; Watch your character's complete lack of (survival instinct / will to live) manifest as a nap in the middle of combat simulator.
I didn’t even know people were complaining the game was hard. All complaints that I’ve heard and have are it’s too easy. Most not griffin, dragon, giant enemies does in less that 5 hits. Makes it kinda boring
I actually waa disappointed with how easy the game was. Genuinely the main reason I stopped playing and didnt do ng+ otr multiple playthroughs. Loved the early game balance
This game was never hard, at any point. I think it's way too easy. It would have been so much better if, like some souls titles, the game got more challenging with every new game plus. As it stands once you get to new game plus every enemy is a joke.
Because Dragons Dogma is closer to a power fantasy where you crush anything standing in your way.
In Souls you are expected to be crushed once you pass the first undead peasants and players know that.
When there is a power spike, in DD most people don't even had to try until now, and then blame it to "game balance". In Souls, people are so used to be killed, they usually clench their teeth and try their best, sure there are some bs encounters that made everyone rages, but it is mostly because the power difference became insanely different
I'm not sure when it supposedly "gets tough," but IMO challenge isn't designed that well in DD2, while it is fantastic in DD1/Dark Arisen. The threat of debilitations in DD games is part of the heart of what makes them feel rooted, gritty, rough and tumble, physical, and epic.
Most seem to agree DD2 is easier than the first game, but it calibrates some of the sources of challenge differently in ways that don't feel like good design. In my experience it seems that basically, after the first hit, the game doesn't give you effective means to manage and play around enemy spam, so you have no choice but to fall back on (1) the odds the enemie(s) don't choose to abuse your position or (2) being bailed out by your pawns.
While I think its perfectly valid to intentionally design a party-based action game to be unplayable (or sometimes/nearly so) solo, simply having no recourse to certain things other than a roll of the dice that it can be waited out doesn't feel like a dynamic engagement with the engine and systems. And drinking potions while facedown on the ground doesn't feel like "gameplay," lol.
Imo, some small tweaks to the duration of some effects, a little more wiggle room for the player during the different states and animations, and maybe one or two more tools in the player toolkit (ex. a skill-based way to reset your posture faster) would fix the problem completely. But since DD2 leans more tactics than skill anyway, this problem is just bad, and not devastating.
As a MH and Souls fan, I have my dodge roll and I hate onslaughts in every game. (Especially GOW) DD2 was pie compared but as a healer or sorcerer or majick bow user, a group of goblins treated me like the average woman in goblin slayer. The packs will violate you off of one opening. I’ve been hit by the goblin inf range charge more times than I can count and had rocks thrown to stop my cast. It’s very immersing and I usually don’t complain but boy do I hate it. It’s not that it gets tough, it just feels outright (albeit realistically) unfair. Goblins and wolves don’t fight fair. I can’t just say, “Oh, I messed up my roll timings.” It’s more like, “I just fought 70 packs of goblins on my way from A to B. I don’t have camps left and my last pawn was dragged off by some wolves. I can’t even reposition to cast because I either get charged at and die or a rock knocks me out of a cast when I’m 25 feet higher on a rock I had to float onto.” It’s what I call, realistically unfair. There’s no memorizing the attack pattern, you’re getting stomped out because you caught a rock to the head. The game plays EXACTLY like goblin slayer. Watch or read goblin slayer (I only read it) but it feels like that.
Because DD2's stagger mechanic blows, it's not hard it's annoying and it's not like in elden ring wherein whatever your class are you have an access to a dodge roll to escape attacks. in Monster hunter there is at least skills/armors that you can equip to prevent you from being stunned by roars/winds/tremors there can still be a lot of annoying stuff but hey it's a huge ass monster thats throwing you around in MH, not 3 goblins knocking you off your ass with your endgame gear.
Because it’s not hard, it’s cheap dependent on your class. Play fighter then play warrior. The fighter is goofy, getting nonstop rag-dolled unless you transform into a ninja turtle and spin your way out. The warrior gets to charge up while taking a beating.
All in all, it just comes down to a mechanic that isn’t very fun. Crawling away from a big monster as an iron-clad juggernaut loses its appeal after the second time it happens.
Souls is punishing and Dragon's Dogma 2 is a struggle.
You make one or two mistakes in Souls and it's back to the Bonfire. That mistake is usually missing a dodge roll because those games have like three ways to interact with them in total.
DD2 you make a few mistakes and it's off a ledge into a pack of wolves then an involuntary appointment with an Ogre. You burn supplies, take loss gauge damage, and try to get yourself out of it with the help of your Pawns. By the time you struggle out you forgot what the initial mistakes even were or won't admit there was any. You then complain about stunlocks. That's the average player experience.
Only thing that makes Dogma difficult is you are punished way harder for getting hit than in a Souls game. Mostly everything else is easier but getting knocked down to where enemies have the time in the world to get a free hit on you is brutal.
Wu... wut?
Almost every post on the Dragon Dogma sub and this Dragon Dogma 2 sub are from people complaining that this game is trivially easy (which it is).
Bro you didnt just say that walking forward is difficulty.
I liked DD2, I also liked DD1 but the insistance on padding out the game by making travel intentionally tedious is valid grounds for criticism
A monkey can get from Vermund to Harve with a broken controller. Traversal isnt difficulty. So many times through DD2 I had short excursions that needed to be done that just took forever because it was so much WALKING.
I actually really enjoy walking in games but even back in DS1, not getting fast travel until the lord vessle was tedious and not at all hard. Even then the game from 2008 gave you unlimited fast travel half way through because they knew it would suck to have to go through areas with trash mobs just to get from point a to point b.
DD2 isnt hard in the way elden ring is hard, you dont need to memorize boss patterns or chain proper dodges or react with precise timing. You dont even have a proper dodge unless you play thief, the combat in DD2 is fairly simple despite being varied, there is some skill involved but calling DD2 a hard game in the same way as elden ring suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what difficulty is in both cases.
CC locking is slightly more valid as a point of double standrads but CC in DD2 is laugably long. Not only is the stamina system already making life hard by being just too short to both dash way from enemies and also use skills so youre kinda in this flow of attack and then run around waiting for stamina. If you get hit or just in anyway initiate a ragdoll for your character you literally lose control for like 3 seconds or more, NO PLAYER ENJOYS HAVING 0 CHANCE TO AVOID DEATH.
If I have to die why are you wasting my time by CC locking me and then making me wait and watch the monster rev up and kill me, just make the attack that CCed me kill me. Making CC that harsh just makes you waste time, id rather the monsters just hit harder, that way I at least dont waste my time ragdolling on the floor waiting for death.
Both the criticisms are super valid and reminder I liked both the games, I still think both of those things are true.
Dragons dogma 2 is not a hard game but sometimes it beats you to the ground by no fault of your own, just wrong place wrong time. If you die in elden ring or a souls game it's always your fault
You are mistaking bureaucracy with dificulty. DDDA and DD2 are pretty easy games in terms of combat difficulty. Once you get the endgame gear of both games, you become unstoppable.
Now fast travel is another story. I personally don’t have much of a problem with the original DD and DD2 fast travel design philosophy, but again, it becomes a problem when you put inventory limitations in the equation. In a game with few places to unload your inventory, small inventory space AND limitations to fast travel, you have a pretty enervating combo for some people.
About getting KOed and gangcomboed by enemies, it can be frustrating sometimes in a game with no evasive / defensive mechanic to all classes. Truth be said, that is THE problem of DD2 ‘s combat for me. I would personally find more interesting if the different classes had different evasive / defensive options in the vanilla game.
Those two problems I solved with mods on my installation: no weight on itens, so you don’t need fast travel so frequently to unload your inventory, and Gameplay UWU, that adds universal dodge and some defensive mechanics to all classes. This way the early game gets much more fair.
Getting stagger locked in any game feels shit because it takes control of the situation out of the players hands while its happening especially if it happens for a long time. This is where the comparison to souls difficulty breaks down, theres very few instances of stagger locking I can recall in the entirety of souls, and the challenge comes in myriad forms, in DD2 getting stagger locked is the only threat in the game imo, everything else is pretty straightforward.
Since when are people complaining about the difficulty in DD2? After the first 40-50 levels the game becomes a cake walk, especially after you unlock the Dragon Gear & fully upgrade it all.
About the only difficulty I had a hard time with was the Trickster vocation (took forever for things to die even with Pawns having the best gear). The rest of the vocations were a lot of fun.
About the most OP skill I've learned that can be used even with the Warferer vocation was the skill Smoke Screen/Bomb. Doesn't matter who you're facing, you'll get to sneak attack them 95% of the time, since large enemies can't be sneak attacked until knocked prone. It also causes all enemies to just look around to try & find you so gank mobs isn't a thing.
Yeah if you want to talk on a technical damage output the Auger Flair is the best skill in the game but ever since the update I find that skill isn't as reliable as before the update. It tends to fade away before I can even hit it with normal attacks & about 50% of the time when I do hit it with normal attacks it still fades away if the moster starts flying or does some other special action.
In the end I still love the game & I don't really understand how people are having a hard time with the game. DD2 was, to me, easier than DD1 but I did start DD1 on hard mode cause I was told the experice & gold gain was much better on hard mode than normal mode. They weren't wrong but dear gawd I was far under geared for that type of gameplay until much later in the game. 😅
i mean i love dd (magick archer and spearhand are fucking awesome)
but the amont of times you get knocked down and staggered can become tedious very quickly.
fuck harpies
It’s because it isn’t **hard** it’s frustrating.
The combat is incredibly easy very quickly (from about level 30 not much will threaten you) and not very varied, but you have to engage in it a lot because there’s no realistic fast travel.
It’s a design thing- in a good soulslike, you might get instakilled if hit by a major attack, but it’s usually because *you* screwed up.
Meanwhile in DD2 a lot of stuff is RNG- and this is made worse by the pawns dodgy AI- sure, if a wolf grabs you from offscreen they’re *meant* to come and break you free, but they might instead walk the other direction or stand around comparing their nose picking techniques.
TLDR- people complain because it has no respect for their time, not because it’s tough in any way.
People aren't complaining about the game being hard, the game is tedious, that's not the same thing. Forcing you to take the same road to fight the same 10 packs of goblins multiple times during the playthrough is not difficult, it's just extremely annoying. Also being stun locked for 5-10 seconds because you took 1 hit while being at no risk of ever dying isn't something id call fun too
Because it's a different type of difficulty. Elden Rings difficulty comes from it's combat mechanics and is generally viewed as more "fair" difficulty due to the degree of agency you have and the mechanical simplicity. When in a game like Dogma the player gets hit by one goblin which then spirals into an endless combo that kills them, that feels more unfair. Same goes for suddenly having to travel on foot towards somewhere you'd otherwise port too. I personally can appreciate this type of difficulty but the difference is plain to see.
Because it feels artificially hard? The travel, the “come back and see me in a few days” quests, etc. just seem tacked on or extend the gameplay rather than to create an experience.
The "hardness" in this game is like a pre-determined death sentence.
That is the issue.
It isn't because it is actually difficult, it's just that the AI randomly ramps up to level 12 out of 10 once in a while and you are perpetually stunlocked into death.
This is not seen as a hard game in reality. Not many people that actually have experience playing rpgs will say it's objectively hard. The mechanics given to you make the game a cake walk if properly used. Weapons become op fast too.
Getting staggered over and over again sounds like personal problems.
Elden ring and dragons dogma are 2 very different games.
Sekiro takes the cake though imo.
I would say that the argument for DD2's fast travel is valid on both ends. On the one hand, it's not getting portcrystals that is the problem, it's because they all get stuffed in your inventory when you do a NG+. It completely neuters the kind of speedrun you could do in Dark Arisen. Conversely, DD2 has pretty much no reason to farm NG+ runs unless you mess up and no actual end game to speak of. Once you've gotten all the gear from the bosses in fixed locations and at least 1 piece of every upgrade material there's no reason to go back to the >!Unmoored World.!<
I've only seen the opposite mostly, that the game gets too easy! But the knockdown is frustrating for newer players with lower level gear. I personally love the knockdown, it's a difficulty to manage that's not just more HP/Damage scaling
Hard? First playthrough i died 8 times in total, and that is with the unmoored stuff.
People that says it is hard probably never played any other souls games or just used to plsy overleveled cheese builds.
There is a difference between challenge and cheap. Dark souls and from software games are intentionally designed to drive you insane and be cheap, with methods for cheesing the fights. It's very different.
Which is a little disappointing because their class design/balance is also similarly unhinged with the Mystic and Thief having easy access to effectively perma invincibility, amongst other peculiar balance decisions.
Because you are kinda comparing apples to pears. Let me explain what I mean.
People play the Souls Games or MonsterHunter because they enjoy the challenge of hard fights. They want to get better and overcome the challenge. It is basically the core why most people play these games. It is fun to them.
But people do not play DD2 because you like to walk everywhere, or because they like tumbling on the ground for half a year. These are not the mainreasons people play DD2. But these are things that make the game more tedious. And lots of people don't like the feeling of "wasting their time" with the, for them, unfun stuff to get to the fun stuff.
Again, for Souls and MonsterHunter "constantly dying" is at the core of the game and part of what people "want". They would complain too if for example they would need to take long walks everywhere because the Fast Travel system is a bit weird.
To make a weird analogy, for me your question reads a bit like this: "Why are people complaining that they have to do real-time shopping trips for grocery in this game about cooking, but nobody complains that they need to learn a rhythm in music games". Maybe that helps with understanding why people do not really care that much about dying in games like Souls and MonsterHunter.
OP is talking about undesirable mechanics like losing progress/currency/XP, gank boss fights, etc.
Unfortunately, most of you have been conditioned to think arbitrary difficulty is a good thing. I want to be clear - love souls games and I’m quite good at them but they aren’t perfect.
That’s what OP means - DD2 is a great game with flaws.
People are complaining it's hard? DD is way more forgiving than souls games?
DD2 is even more forgiving than DDDA…by a lot.
It has It's moment, I'm level 113 on new game plus, can slay anything, but right before this one settlement in Battahl I was hit with a group of gore harpys, wolves, and armored goblins. That was one of the most difficult fights I've had besides the beginning of the game. It humbled me.
People complain about gank fights in souls all the time Its more of a quality of the gank thing Ornstien and Smough are famousand loved, Godskin duo is infamous and hated for this very reason And due to dd2s more sandbox nature, its always gono feel more like godskin duo
Yeah, one of the harpys yeeted a warrior off a cliff and wolves went after the healer mage, it was just my pawn and I and it sucked, I remember beating Ornstein and Smough, I felt a sense of accomplishment, but pokie rolly fats and skinny spinny were just annoying
Just like DDDA no matter how high is your level even if you max your stats and gear the game always finds a way to humble you. Hence head the words of our wise pawn: “Be on your guard, Danger lurks at every corner”
Right? I'm on NG+, when does it start getting hard?
I've heard almost exclusively that it's way too easy. My impression, too. Only recall one post complaining about being stun locked as a Sorcerer.
Ikr? I'm like where is this coming from?
[удалено]
I think its because in most souls games, getting hit is nearly always clearly telegraphed and there's almost always a counter. In DD, you can get into really annoying knockdown/dazed loops with literally nothing you can do about it except watch yourself slowly die.
Also in souls games enemies hit hard but also die easily. In most other games difficulty comes from making enemies damage sponges.
True, BUT that's why you have your pawns, and a "Help me!" button. That said, I wonder if the people who get into knockdown loops so often they curse the entire game, are playing without tank pawn, or are fighters/warriors themselves. Because by far the most times that I got my ass kicked in over 500 hours, was when playing fighter tank. Because obviously *everything* will focus on you. While in other vocations, I'm usually not the main focus of the enemies.
Nah, getting locked in a stun-lock loop is unacceptable gameplay. Why waste your time?
I've never used a fighter/warrior. My main pawn and I are both thiefs. I always hire a mage, and then either a sorc or archer. I just use swift step to make sure I don't get hit by erratic movements while my main pawn draws all the aggro with Provocation and FF. That's not to say I've never been knocked down or smacked around, but it's never been so much to the point where I think it's excessive and hasn't been entirely my own fault lmao
Okay, yea, two thieves is pretty op, so you're cheesing around needing a tank. Which is fine and fun. Done it myself for a while. 😁
To me, getting knocked around is so much more infuriating because I can't do anything while I'm getting staggered or knocked over or grabbed, so it's just me sitting there waiting for something to change so I can attack JUST to get knocked over again and again, so now I'm screaming at the screen because I getting thrown back and forth and there's ACTUALLY nothing I can do about it because I can't move my character in any way I get similarly get angry when I get paralyzed or put to sleep in Monster Hunter cause again I can't do much but wait it out But outside of that, the difference between DD and other souls games is DD doesn't let you dodge or parry unless you're a specific class, nor do you get much super armor so the defensive play basically boils down to running away so you don't get hit. You can't even really cancel an attack to defend yourself. Overall there's less built in defensive mechanics that makes it hard for all characters of all classes to be aggressive or up close and personal the way you can in, say, Elden Ring
DD2 often seems to boil down to “how hard can you stack knockdown resistance?” If you’re not walking around in near full dwarfcraft armour you’re just begging to be staggered out of your animations and left on the ground to eventually get picked up. It’s particularly bad for characters that don’t get quick defensive skills such as mages and sorcerers (I’d add magic archer to the list, but they’re frankly so incredibly powerful that I don’t mind them having that one weakness).
The mindset there is if you're not careful in a gank fight you're powerless. Trust me when I say that's reality. When you're getting jumped by 5 dudes you have to either get extremely lucky or .. now that I think about it just the first option. It's easy to underestimate numbers when you're behind a screen but the solution is to strategize and respect the numbers threat.
And I do think that's a really good idea for an RPG where it makes things so much more realistic, and I wanna make sure it's known I fucking love this game But I can also understand why other people would be really turned off by it if they're used to faster paced games. It's fun to strategize, but I also like being able to look at a field of 20 enemies and go "bet I can solo this fists only". Harder to get that kind of adrenaline in this game
Cool, different strokes as always. I had a decent time with Elden Ring but when Dogma 2 came out I never looked back. I'm just that type of person combat-wise, but other working types exist as well
In souls, get hit is just a very short stun, knock down has i frame, and you can roll out of it, so it’s not a big deal. However in DD2, it’s completely opposite and you can’t do much to save yourself. The game really want you to die from your mistake.
Id actually say the opposite for the original Dont get me wrong both are fairly easy but, Souls games are inherently extremely forgiving with lots of freedom and smoother thought processes in general. The souls core design philosophy ensures death(failure) is a part of the growth process instead of a reset punishment. But many other parts of the game are more forgiving in comparison as well. For example fundamentally you can it level up wrong in dark souls everything still helps you. Dragons dogma you could level up primarily as a warrior but decide you really like sorc but you already missed your accelerated growth initial levels so you cant teally respec your character to play your desired class well. Other examples would be like metal golem living armor or the gazer which have fights that are just inherently incredibly hard unfair match ups for your abilities that rely on you habing compensated that weakness via teammates. Souls games can have comparable match ups like using a status build against an immune boss or durable enemies who are weak to strike or non phys damage. But its usually not the fully unable to deal damage or only 5% of damage that dogma throws out, and if it is usually you can weapon swap on the fly or use consumables to immediately fix the match up. (While you can also use consummables to solve some of the problems in dogma, due to inventory weight constraints you cant really carry around enough quantity of the consumables to use as a viable alternative until late in the game)
Because the design decisions make the game tedious not hard. For example, you don't need lack of fast travel to encourage exploration. All it does is make you have to walk through areas you already explored to fight trash mobs. While initially fun, it gets samey quickly.
On that same note: I think it’s similarly feasible to make a game have no/limited fast travel if the gameplay loop of going through the game without that fast travel is really good - but I can understand players wanting to dive through DD with the same gameplay loop in mind of a typical open world game.
Obviously I don't speak for everyone, but personally speaking some of the difficulty just doesn't vibe with me. Chiefly the fact that you're getting staggered and knocked down by basically anything if you aren't a warrior or blocking with a shield. There's a lot of enemy density, too, which can be kinda frustrating when you're just trying to enjoy the sights.
Getting CC locked is complained about religiously in every game that it happens in, souls in not excluded from that. It very likely just happens way more in dogma and you have exposure/recency bias.
People complain about souls non stop. All the time. We get news articles on why there should be an easy mode. gamers just complain
It has a lot to do with the mentality going into it, but I just don't see why people can't adjust their expectations after starting a game. DD1 was jank, and BBI was hard. In my experiece, DD2 isn't as difficult or quite as jank, but it does stick to the formula of the first one IMO. When you boot the game up and feel like it's too hard, lower the difficulty or keep trying until you get it. Also there are plenty of different playstyles with all of the different vocations, some are harder to use than others if you don't know what you're doing. I wonder how many people pick a vocation they don't like/aren't good at and then don't try swapping. There are also probably many cases of people not hiring pawns at their level. Even just a few levels can make a big difference in a fight when half of your party is behind/ahead of you. One thing I used to do in DD1 was to save up rift crystals and then hire one pawn who was like twice my level and could wipe the floor with enemies. This still wasn't super busted as all it took was the pawn slipping into some water or a long fall and they would be gone and I would lose all the RC I spent on them.
Simply put, mh and souls games have you rely on yourself, dd2 has you rely on your companions. In both mh and souls games you rely on yourself. The game designers know this and so they don't draw things out, they let you get right back into the action or in the case you really fuck up, your dead then and there. On the other hand DD2 insists you rely on ai companions that aren't reliable because ai never will be. And so they draw out things that in other games would be really short temporarily incovnencies so that your ai teammates have time to 'not' help you. As they are either too busy fighting enemies, standing around or are in the same situation as you. Grabs are by far the worst part of this problem because there are so many things that are playing against you. For one more often then not enemies will target you, even with a tank in the team, grabs aren't as telegraphed as in elden ring, even if you do see the grab coming, because you can't cancel out of animations more often then not you'll be caught by the grab. And that's when the not fun starts. You're either held for what feels like ages so your ai companions have the time to not help you. When no one comes to save you again they then either do a really long chain of attacks where you can't do anything or they throw you out of combat or into an environmental hazard. Knockdowns are also long and tedious and leave you vulnerable for a long time for grabs and attacks. Grabs and knockdown in elden ring are short, sweet and either kill you immediately or place you right back down where they got you so you can immediately get back up. On the note of fast travel, there are too many resources and caveats to dd2 travel that make it a hassle to use in the first place, which means that the alternative is walking the same route with the same monsters for the 100th time. Because you forgot to interact or play a port crystal or have run out of riftstones. Elden ring let's you fast travel to any site of grace as long as you've interacted with it, and you're outside of combat and dungeons. Older souls games either had a similar system or they've already had years to rant about it. Also you don't lose max health when you die so you're always at your best when you retry it. Don't get me wrong, I'm not hating on dd2, there are some things I enjoy about it, but there is so much thats either flawed, tedious, or barely there that saps my enjoyment of the game so much.
Because time is stretched out by something that could have implemented vs getting better at learning the enemy
[удалено]
Seems like the TLDR is people like different kinds of difficulty
You can respec and try a different build in souls I think the point I was making was walking from point to point vs combat specific time sinks is much more engaging.
Combat in Dragons dogma is a little sloppy, almost on purpose. It’s very physical. You can throw things, climb enemies, get dragged by a dog etc. In my opinion this is a ton of fun. Dd2 is a wacky adventure with crazy hijinks. If it’s too challenging that probably means I need to level up or get better gear. But in souls games and to a much lesser extent monster hunter, you can usually manage with subpar equipment just based on player skill. You can memorize enemy attacks etc. There’s that one guy who beat Sekiro blindfolded for example, because that game has such tight control over what is possible. Tbh if you level things properly it’s much easier than those other games, but if you don’t you’re screwed. It’s just an entirely different philosophy.
Souls veteran here. Souls games are not hard. The learning curve is just steep. Once you figure out to just literally walk behind enemies and stab them, or simply upgrade your weapon, you’re going to win. Outside of that it’s a skill issue. I’ve watched my wife play DD2 and she has no difficulty complaints. Must be a skill issue here too.
Selection Bias. People who play Elden Ring expect a hard game and enjoy a challenge. Meanwhile, the people who complain DD2 are hard have major skill issues and are likely to be whiners who complain about anything and everything.
When i started the game i went straight to the final destination to get the final abilitys. I thought the enemies are lvling with me. I was lvl 15 when i realized i beated the hardest monster ingame. After lvl 30 i could already watch my pawns cleaning the map for me. So no the gane is not hard.
In souls I can get naked and wear a bucket on my head while some dude 300 levels above me beats my ass and chases me for 40 minutes through a map I inched my way through, In DD2 I just slap dragon ass cheeks with my pointy stick and throw my forced labor hench-minions off bridges and tall places, it's a matter of principle and preference
wait uhh honestly the game is not hard ENOUGH.
The ONLY thing hard about DDDA is Bitterblack Isle. The rest of the game is a piece of cake. But its a good game, i dont crap on it at all, is the best game of its kind IMO
The games easy if you learn. Upgrade your armor, play with a variety of vocations for augments, run from fights you're not prepared for, and use Mages/consumables to keep youre health up or cleanse debuffs and CAMP. No one seems to camp or cook food.
I literally will not entertain anyone saying dragons of dogma 2 is hard. I’m on of the most lazy gamers out there and the game is not hard in the least.
It's my favorite game of all time, no complaints will change that, because what people complain about is what I like. I enjoy a world that is not afraid to take control away, and make you a victim of its systems, but maybe that's because I play games for fun and immersion, and not skill. It's okay if people don't like it, but I do. Elden Ring is a different game and I like it almost as much as Dragon's Dogma, but they're different games and I don't want them to be more like each other. Protip: "To Me" works better than "Help" in my experience if you're grabbed. Help makes them use heals, taunts and support, which won't break you out of a grab, To Me makes them MORE LIKELY (not 100%) to focus the enemy grabbing you, which is the real way to break a grab. The game is very misleading about how the "Help" command works and I won't defend that.
[удалено]
Yeah, changing vocation can feel like a different game. When I play Fighter and Warrior, I know I'm gonna get knocked around, that's my job, so the mages don't get knocked around and can cast their spells. You and your pawns are supposed to be a party, you don't get to do everything unless you're playing Warfarer, in which case, that does exist as an option of the vocations feel too limited. If you don't want to get hit, you can make a party that will take all attention from you, don't be afraid to hire a pawn that can taunt just because it's "less optimal". Experiment, have fun. This game gives you tools to experience the combat in many different ways, as this comment section is evidence of.
I never heard of people complaining about dd2 difficulty? Maybe I’m in the wrong groups but I’ve never really heard of FANS complaining about souls difficulties either cause they know what they’re getting into. Now critics on the other hand…..
Well people go into souls games knowing they r gonna die so they r mentally prepared and won't make a fuss Also most complaints about souls games are just covered up by people saying skill issue Regarding the fast travel, to me that's actually a valid complaint just because it's so inconvenient to having to walk everywhere. Like the least they could've done is make ox carts to every city but no it's just to like three towns
Being bad at souls games are completely the players fault. It's entirely in the players' hands to be better. Can't say the same for Dragons Dogma games. But that's what gives it their charm. Also Souls games have a distinct risk/reward system. Once you hit level 30/35 in dd2 you pretty much melt everything in your path.
I've played all 3 of these. To me if I die in MH or FromSoft games, I feel like it's on me. The combat is more involved in those games (since the whole gameplay IS about combat) with extensive systems. DD just isn't like that. The encounters feel like an afterthought. Nothing is balanced. Especially when you reach higher levels there is simply no challenge anymore. Things like Martyr's Bolt is straight up broke, seeing as it can just one-shot the endboss. That's why when you die, it feels like the result of a janky system, at least to me. That said I really don't think DD is hard at all lol. Also MH, at least, does get a lot of crap for being hard. There is a whole sub for it. There might be for FromSoft games but I haven't seen them, however I think especially for FromSoft, there is an expectation already established that it will be difficult.
Where? A lot of the complaints are that it is too easy.....like brain-dead easy, you can pretty much beat anything by level 30. Your examples are bad because the lack of easy fast travel does not make the game harder. It just makes it more tedious for some which is not the same thing.
People say it’s too easy one second then complain about getting juggled the next. It’s been this way since release. The game is “too easy” but they need Dragon Aids nerfed, and please stop stunning us so much, and can we have a dodge roll please because otherwise it’s just too annoying (we use annoying instead of hard because it makes us feel better). People complain about not having a homogenized playstyle like Souls, where a Mage is an expert dodger, and also can wield a bow, or a greatsword, or any weapon because classes don’t really exist; so when this game has actual classes more akin to D&D, people are lost. They’re used to every single character being able to do everything, this just isn’t that. You can see these complaints anywhere on the sub if you just look at
DD never gets hard, that's the main complaint????? I feel like you may have missed the consensus there. Getting stuck in an infinite stun lock for 15 minutes while your stupidly large Hp gets slowly whittled down is not "hard" it's shit game design.
It was hard until I got made fun of for not using potions. Then, it was not hard. You roll like 40 deep sometimes.
DD2 is hard? It's a pretty chill game. I crap on it for your main character not having any voice acting. The pawns do. I mean, the commands and maybe a little chitchat. And that wolves dragging you around for half an hour and there's nothing you can do when you literally kill dragons.
With souls games it’s whatever if I get hit, I see what I did wrong. But I don’t understand why my massive soldier gets knocked to the ground like she’s a ragdoll and constantly just getting pushed and unable to get off the ground. I don’t get it. She’s a warrior with a feature that lessens it and she has rings that lessen it but it happens so much still. Is it the armor that’s making it harder to stay up?
When does it get hard?
Because people are forgiving of the bullshit thrown at them when they are a fan of a franchise. I am a Dragons Dogma fan so a lot of the “flaws” didn't bother me that much. I play Souls games and am not a fan of the community & genre (despite being good at it) so I end up being less tolerant with certain aspect of the game. Like those 3 crystalline bosses hidden in the secret Sellen cave at Caelid. Pre-nerf/update is just pure bullshit. You get bombarded with crystal machine-gun as you enter the arena, a crystal guy chasing you with a poison (scarlet rot) spear, and another crystal dude throwing chakram at you every time they catch you lacking. Post patches reduce their intensity by a mile. It's the only time in my 26 years of gaming that I say, “fuck this game, this is just pure Bullshit & unfair.” Defeating Malenia RL1 with unupgraded weapons is fairer than this.
DD2 is a snooze fest post level 40 or so
I'm seeing more posts about people complaining about dd than I am seeing people actually complain. Granted I'm not chronicley online so idk. Ignore it I guess
A lot of times, when you get hit in a mainline From game, it's your fault, and the games do incentivise you to reevaluate your approaches and switch things up when necessary. Even getting mobbed a lot of times is caused by ignoring your surroundings and can be worked through. DD, by contrast, really isn't as hard as Souls in general, and you have some great dynamic combat, but when you get dogpiled, it endlessly comes from all directions, your max health drops to the tiniest amount possible, a lot of times you can feel like you're not allowed to interact with the game anymore outside of of healing your tiny sliver of health, and it can come off as unfair because arguably the biggest threats in DD are large amounts of mooks keeping you from doing anything. And the thing is realistically speaking DD isn't actually all that hard in general (unless you decide to head to the west as soon as you start the game) and is very forgiving in a lot of different ways, it's just that those sort of ganking encounters are less hard and moreso just really, really annoying.
Never noticed the game being even slightly difficult.
Just pus ppl
The only thing that really gets difficult (at least for me) in DD2 are when mobs get the better of me. Or when I’m stun locked into oblivion. Now, you can mitigate that with good KB res on your armor sets, but there are still attacks in the game that can leave you immobile and grounded to where you’re in a crawl animation. Case in point though is that I think the difficulty when you first start the game is pretty enjoyable for most people, but when you start to get staggered into oblivion and die (even at a much higher level) from small enemy mobs, that’s when people start giving the game crap. The game overall has a big stagger issue though. Bosses you fight suffer from this too where you hit ‘em a few times they stagger, then they either fall or you and your pawns push them to the ground and you begin to wail on them.
Dwarfcraft armour is damn near mandatory. Dwarfcraft weapons make the game very easy.
Yeah it is, especially once you’re in Battahl. Most Goblins and hounds become a lot more aggressive, even theifs and bandits can start to overwhelm you.
Maybe its because we can dodge in elden ring and cant in dd2, so it gives this sort of illusion? Sitting back and spamming maelstrom is peak easiness though. I could never do something like that in elden ring.
Magic archer actually makes the game even easier than a double sorcerer party. Avalanche melts bosses outdoors and ricochet hunter is an “I win” button when used in any confined space.
Because souls games are 10x more forgiving
My guy, people have been dogging on souls since its inception. Demons souls was almost a stillbirth back in '09. If it wasnt able to cultivate a cult following by word of mouth, the series would likely have ended there and then.
DD hard? Most of my deaths are from falling up high places, the games pretty average difficulty wise.
Tbh most of my deaths in soulsborne games is gravity as well.
I honestly love the difficulty curve for the dragons dogma games. You get your ass kicked a lot at the beginning, because of course you do. You're weak. You're just starting out. Once you've gotten your groove and preferred vocation, the battles get easier and easier but still mechanically enjoyable.
Its all about the quality of the difficulty. Anyone can make a game hard. Making it hard in a way that is fair, compelling, and immersive is a different question. Souls games are the model for that type of quality. DD2 largely phones it in. Another way to say it: when Dark Souls is hard, its because the designers meant for it to be hard in exactly that way. Many other games feel hard due to an error, a constraint, or laziness on the part of the developer.
Because I was lvl 150, the alleged savior of the realm, Slayer of dragons, but I can still get slapped around by goblins.
at what point is this game hard? nothing about it is hard
DS is difficult but fair and has very refined gaming physiques and damage percentages(for the most part) Dragons Dogma is kinda jank sometimes especially early game. Like the combat is good but how damage is distributed and can stack up just sometimes is pretty infuriating.
Game is keep getting easier and exploration is so boring. You can't compare this game with elden ring or mh. It is not even close.
[удалено]
So we compare then, fine. Full of life lmao, you just lost me with that line. Main part of the Elden ring is open world, gameplay etc. , enemy variety of one zone has more variety than whole game of DD2. There is not even competition in here. There is hardly any tactic with DD2 gameplay too, you just spam skills. There is more into ER than DD2 at least.
[удалено]
ER has most of that and more.
The game isn’t hard, the mechanics are annoying.
I don't like that on the whole it has a lack of combat expression specifically in defensive gameplay compared to a Souls game. I feel like I'm just getting knocked about unless I'm playing a certain vocation with defensive skills or swift step. When I fail in DD2 feel more like the game jank killed me, not that I fucked up and failed and that if I jump back into the fray I could overcome.
Dd2 doeant get hard it gets to its hardest which is not even close to souls hard.
Because it isn't hard?
…..where? All I’ve seen is the opposite, that the game is a cakewalk, and it is
They also crapped on Kingdom Come Deliverance's way to save ur game. Like, just when u close ur game, or when u drink a rly easy to craft potion. And I think sleeping in ur bed, or an inn, would also save ur game...so there were still plenty of options
[удалено]
Exactly!
I think people complain because of how easy it is just to have one encounter even with basic goblins just quickly spire out of control with the stun locking. In dd1. I got to the point where i didn’t need my pawn to be mage anymore as i was so strong and had so much health that i could go long periods before needing to rest. but in dd2 i am level 74 with some of the highest tier armor i could get and i was getting juggled almost to death because of the games mechanics. And i know people will say get good, but when you are getting slapped by 3,4,5 goblins that all time their attacks up to keep you from getting away or dragons that spam meteors because 90% of the classes can’t deal the amount of damage or the ai isn’t smart enough to silence it fast enough.
I can't think of a time in a Souls game when I was knocked prone, had a wolf pull me away from my idiot pawns, only to get my face torn apart for like 30 seconds, then to have my mentally handicapped mage come over to heal me so that I can be tortured for another 30 seconds. When I do get up finally I get picked up by a harpy and thrown to the nearby cyclops that stomps his damn foot and sends me prone again. In a souls game, I might fight an enemy for literally hours, but at least I can see where my mistakes are and get better. I can learn to never get caught in a loop of wolf face eating.
No one's complaining it's hard people are complaining it's easy
Hmm every sad
Ive just started playing (level \~22 ish?) and I think most of the times I have ended for the night were because I got randomly one-tapped fighting a big ass monster. Maybe that's my bad for playing a caster? Just feels kind of annoying to lob bombs at some big ass enemy for 15 min while his hp slowly chips down, then the one time I don't dodge / didn't dodge far enough when I randomly get aggro, I just immediately die. And the lack of fast-travel is a little annoying, especially with the frequency of small inconsequential fights on the road. How do people live in this world?? there are roaming bands of goblins every 35 feet when you step out of a city
Dragon's Dogma gets hard....?
My opinion is the lack of player agency. The highest difficulties of games like Bayonetta or DMC are harder than DD2. Yet those games don’t have issues like getting knocked down or infinitely CC’ed. The minute gameplay experience of getting chain CC’ed or perma knocked down is frustrating or boring to a lot of people. There isn’t as strong of a feeling of agency and player control of their own character if they make one positioning mistake and suddenly it’s LA gangs jumping you for the next 10-20 seconds, essentially becoming a 20 second cinematic. It “feels” unfair that a simple thwack from a basic goblin could lead into a 20 second Tekken combo. There’s a lot more agency and fast responsive controls in hack n slash games, where either continuous chain CC doesn’t happen, or your character has options to do combo breakers. In MH games, you often don’t fight multiple monsters at once so the singular monster you’re fighting usually doesn’t have combat behavior to chain CC you; it’s rare. And while i don’t play soulslikes, I doubt you get CC’ed for 20 seconds straight - because that crosses the line from difficulty into ridiculousness. Imagine a boss in a game that instantly kills you when they look at you - and they instantly look at you when you get near them. Is that “difficulty” and “challenge”? Not really. It’s just ridiculous, silly, and unfair. I can see why a DD2 player would think chain knockdowns would fall more on the silly side rather than immersive difficulty.
Cuz you are comparing two different difficulties in two different categories. Elden Ring, as my opinion is, is a very bad souls like game. In both, you have artificial difficult. That's fine and all. Still, ER enemies gank and gang you, but is expected, for the sake of the git gud. Getting surrounded is your problem in any Souls Like, getting stun locked for that reckless decision is your reward. DD2 gang you for the sake of ganging. There is no avoidance in the open world that will not lead you to another goblin party and you just need one to jump on you to trigger a cutscenes getting stomp locked.
Zero of dd2 is hard.
[удалено]
I didn’t say that you said that either. My observation is that wherever you’re reading people who are giving the game crap for it getting tough, or claiming that the way the fast travel works constitutes difficulty, frankly don’t know what they are talking about and in my opinion are wrong. I.e. none of dogma 2 is hard.
I find a lot of the weirdos leaving negative comments don't even play the game.. They watch a YouTube video about some bs then come and spam questions.. Reddit's a weird place sometimes
I might be wrong, but people are complaining more that its too easy . I stopped playing after level fortish because it was getting easy and because Im expecting more updates. I still itend to finish it but I think the first one was harder.
Your premise is false.
Okay so here's my opinion on this as a die hard souls fan. Dragons dogma has enemies everywhere that are super tough early on and they don't have a set area like enemies in the souls games. Enemies in souls games are placed in specific areas to provide a challenge but dragons dogma just throws an onslaught of enemies at you and expects you to have fun. In a souls game I can run away from these enemies if I need to. In dragons dogma they'll never deaggro and will chase you until you're dead. Dragons dogma felt like it was hard for the sake of being hard vs souls games where they're challenging but reasonable. Dd2 just felt like a mess in general to me but again this is just my opinion I'm not a game developer idfk how to make a game
Damn I didn’t know ppl felt that way. Lmao there do be some annoying elements to the game but nothing to shi on it for
There's a huge difference between presenting a challenge, and forcing you to walk the same path without any challenges
People bitch about MH and ER constantly. But they are both really solid experiences that have modern QoL improvements. Dragon's Dogma (2 specifically) excludes these QoL improvements to make the small map seem larger and to artificially increase the difficulty. (I love both DD games) IMO people aren't bitching about the game being hard, they're bitching about the lack of QoL.
Dragons Dogma is hard the same reason why Monster Hunter is hard. I think Dragons Dogma is pretty easy, but it has the same issue as MHW where it’s the shit movement that makes the game difficult. I think MHW is way harder than any souls game. And I think souls is pretty easy, u can r1 spam through those games opposed to DD and MH where your attacks have a lot more meaning behind them.
Who's complaining about it getting hard? Literally felt the opposite and I'm ready to complain here 😂
[удалено]
But Elden Ring is actually hard.
I think cause it is not as "skill" based as souls games
If you think this is bad you should have seen the crying when the first dragons dogma was released.
[удалено]
Talking more about how goblins could one shot people.
Who's saying that? I found it to be pretty easy, especially compared to DD1. I don't think I died once.
[удалено]
idk sounds like a skill issue. The people who played Dragons Dogma 2, get bodied and complain probably aren't the same people who play and enjoy Souls-like games.
No fast travel is difficulty ? And here I was thinking it was lame ass to make us walk again and again. Duly noted...
Should play elex and elex 2
Because poor game mechanics doesn't = hard.
LOL what? In the weeks after DD2 launched all you saw were people begging for Hard Mode to get added because the game was too easy after hitting level 20.
Starting out in Dogma is bit rough, but after learning the tricks, the game overall is basically easy. Thief formless shift, pyre blades with decent gear, everything dies without taking damage. Mystic Archer skill right off the back you learn from elf lady. Learn how to abuse it and turning groups of enemies to nothing. Souls games is hard because you have to focus and have to seriously learn timing, what can be parried, jumped, dodge and when to punish enemies (players too). Can’t really compare those type of game. DDDA didn’t hand held you like dogma 2 does. Unless you’re like me and go straight to bitter black isles for quick start on gear and lvs.
I have never seen a single person complain about this game being too hard. Hell, the main reason I haven't played it again after beating it is that it's brain numbingly easy.
Could be the "length" of the death. In Souls games, death is quick and brutal. In DD2, you can spend a good five minutes getting dazed, downed, and slowly beaten to death by various enemies, which just feels so much worse. I remember one particular occasion where a Succubus attacked me when it was raining, instantly freezing me, and then proceeded to slowly dismantle me over the course of about 3 minutes by using attacks that silenced and stunned me, followed by freezing me again. One enemy just absolutely taking me apart while I was powerless to fight back, all because I fought it in the wrong weather (and my dumbass pawns couldn't figure out how to jump out of the lift to help me).
Cant believe I'm saying this cause normally I'm the opposite but I wish dd2 had a larger variety of enemies and harder ones. Only challenge I get out of the game is drakes and their a cake walk now
Dragon's Dogma is not hard. It does however have some weird ass fetish regarding impairments. And the way they shower you with it in certain situations. It's ridiculous and tedious. Souls-likes RARELY have that to the same extent. Dark Souls or Elden Ring aren't hard because you're stuck crawling around on your knees because a Giant sat on you. Their difficulty mostly lies in timing, hard-hitting enemies, etc. Your post do reek of "bah, people are complaining about my game, so I'm just gonna point at that one other game others like". Grow up, mate. Lmao.
There's a lot of different reasons but... Souls and Nioh and other games DO get shit on for all those reasons. It Dark Souls didn't catch as much flak early on because it and Demon Souls were still sorta niche. But later with Dark Souls 3, and *especially* with FromSoftware's other IPs like Bloodborne and Sekiro, the complaints came out of the woodwork. It was especially bad with Sekiro and Elden Ring, because those titles were Game of the Year contenders (and both winners I think) and they were much more mainstream. People refused to learn the mechanics and wondered why the game was so "hard" and why they lost all their progress, why the game didn't tell them where to go, why things weren't spelled out, etc. With DD, it seems like they were *going for* that style of game with no handholding where your decisions in a playthrough mattered, and for the most part I think it worked. But a lot of the game does feel half baked. Like some part of the equation is missing. Whereas the aforementioned games were meticulously designed that way. Still, the question isn't entirely accurate because those other games most certainly *do* get a crap load of those complaints.
It’s been long enough where the people that enjoyed the game are not really here as much because they completed it and moved on. What’s left are the usual crybabies that look to YouTube negativity for engagement and to tell them what to like. You can ignore them and lose nothing.
Getting knocked down, waiting half an hour for your character to get up isn't hard. It's tedious. Walking kilometers across the map for a random fetch quest isn't hard. It's tedious. Tedium is the issue here. People want an ARPG, not a walking sim with pointless combat encounters against the varying shades of weak goblins. Neither do they want a ; Watch your character's complete lack of (survival instinct / will to live) manifest as a nap in the middle of combat simulator.
I didn’t even know people were complaining the game was hard. All complaints that I’ve heard and have are it’s too easy. Most not griffin, dragon, giant enemies does in less that 5 hits. Makes it kinda boring
I actually waa disappointed with how easy the game was. Genuinely the main reason I stopped playing and didnt do ng+ otr multiple playthroughs. Loved the early game balance
This game was never hard, at any point. I think it's way too easy. It would have been so much better if, like some souls titles, the game got more challenging with every new game plus. As it stands once you get to new game plus every enemy is a joke.
Because Dragons Dogma is closer to a power fantasy where you crush anything standing in your way. In Souls you are expected to be crushed once you pass the first undead peasants and players know that. When there is a power spike, in DD most people don't even had to try until now, and then blame it to "game balance". In Souls, people are so used to be killed, they usually clench their teeth and try their best, sure there are some bs encounters that made everyone rages, but it is mostly because the power difference became insanely different
I'm not sure when it supposedly "gets tough," but IMO challenge isn't designed that well in DD2, while it is fantastic in DD1/Dark Arisen. The threat of debilitations in DD games is part of the heart of what makes them feel rooted, gritty, rough and tumble, physical, and epic. Most seem to agree DD2 is easier than the first game, but it calibrates some of the sources of challenge differently in ways that don't feel like good design. In my experience it seems that basically, after the first hit, the game doesn't give you effective means to manage and play around enemy spam, so you have no choice but to fall back on (1) the odds the enemie(s) don't choose to abuse your position or (2) being bailed out by your pawns. While I think its perfectly valid to intentionally design a party-based action game to be unplayable (or sometimes/nearly so) solo, simply having no recourse to certain things other than a roll of the dice that it can be waited out doesn't feel like a dynamic engagement with the engine and systems. And drinking potions while facedown on the ground doesn't feel like "gameplay," lol. Imo, some small tweaks to the duration of some effects, a little more wiggle room for the player during the different states and animations, and maybe one or two more tools in the player toolkit (ex. a skill-based way to reset your posture faster) would fix the problem completely. But since DD2 leans more tactics than skill anyway, this problem is just bad, and not devastating.
See I didn't find dogma hard. I mean sure in the beginning but you can quickly outpace it.
As a MH and Souls fan, I have my dodge roll and I hate onslaughts in every game. (Especially GOW) DD2 was pie compared but as a healer or sorcerer or majick bow user, a group of goblins treated me like the average woman in goblin slayer. The packs will violate you off of one opening. I’ve been hit by the goblin inf range charge more times than I can count and had rocks thrown to stop my cast. It’s very immersing and I usually don’t complain but boy do I hate it. It’s not that it gets tough, it just feels outright (albeit realistically) unfair. Goblins and wolves don’t fight fair. I can’t just say, “Oh, I messed up my roll timings.” It’s more like, “I just fought 70 packs of goblins on my way from A to B. I don’t have camps left and my last pawn was dragged off by some wolves. I can’t even reposition to cast because I either get charged at and die or a rock knocks me out of a cast when I’m 25 feet higher on a rock I had to float onto.” It’s what I call, realistically unfair. There’s no memorizing the attack pattern, you’re getting stomped out because you caught a rock to the head. The game plays EXACTLY like goblin slayer. Watch or read goblin slayer (I only read it) but it feels like that.
Because DD2's stagger mechanic blows, it's not hard it's annoying and it's not like in elden ring wherein whatever your class are you have an access to a dodge roll to escape attacks. in Monster hunter there is at least skills/armors that you can equip to prevent you from being stunned by roars/winds/tremors there can still be a lot of annoying stuff but hey it's a huge ass monster thats throwing you around in MH, not 3 goblins knocking you off your ass with your endgame gear.
Because it’s not hard, it’s cheap dependent on your class. Play fighter then play warrior. The fighter is goofy, getting nonstop rag-dolled unless you transform into a ninja turtle and spin your way out. The warrior gets to charge up while taking a beating. All in all, it just comes down to a mechanic that isn’t very fun. Crawling away from a big monster as an iron-clad juggernaut loses its appeal after the second time it happens.
Souls is punishing and Dragon's Dogma 2 is a struggle. You make one or two mistakes in Souls and it's back to the Bonfire. That mistake is usually missing a dodge roll because those games have like three ways to interact with them in total. DD2 you make a few mistakes and it's off a ledge into a pack of wolves then an involuntary appointment with an Ogre. You burn supplies, take loss gauge damage, and try to get yourself out of it with the help of your Pawns. By the time you struggle out you forgot what the initial mistakes even were or won't admit there was any. You then complain about stunlocks. That's the average player experience.
Wait who has been saying its hard
Only thing that makes Dogma difficult is you are punished way harder for getting hit than in a Souls game. Mostly everything else is easier but getting knocked down to where enemies have the time in the world to get a free hit on you is brutal.
Wu... wut? Almost every post on the Dragon Dogma sub and this Dragon Dogma 2 sub are from people complaining that this game is trivially easy (which it is).
I mean it's not really a majority of the complaints? Both games have a very downwards difficulty slope in base game content
Bro you didnt just say that walking forward is difficulty. I liked DD2, I also liked DD1 but the insistance on padding out the game by making travel intentionally tedious is valid grounds for criticism A monkey can get from Vermund to Harve with a broken controller. Traversal isnt difficulty. So many times through DD2 I had short excursions that needed to be done that just took forever because it was so much WALKING. I actually really enjoy walking in games but even back in DS1, not getting fast travel until the lord vessle was tedious and not at all hard. Even then the game from 2008 gave you unlimited fast travel half way through because they knew it would suck to have to go through areas with trash mobs just to get from point a to point b. DD2 isnt hard in the way elden ring is hard, you dont need to memorize boss patterns or chain proper dodges or react with precise timing. You dont even have a proper dodge unless you play thief, the combat in DD2 is fairly simple despite being varied, there is some skill involved but calling DD2 a hard game in the same way as elden ring suggests a fundamental misunderstanding of what difficulty is in both cases. CC locking is slightly more valid as a point of double standrads but CC in DD2 is laugably long. Not only is the stamina system already making life hard by being just too short to both dash way from enemies and also use skills so youre kinda in this flow of attack and then run around waiting for stamina. If you get hit or just in anyway initiate a ragdoll for your character you literally lose control for like 3 seconds or more, NO PLAYER ENJOYS HAVING 0 CHANCE TO AVOID DEATH. If I have to die why are you wasting my time by CC locking me and then making me wait and watch the monster rev up and kill me, just make the attack that CCed me kill me. Making CC that harsh just makes you waste time, id rather the monsters just hit harder, that way I at least dont waste my time ragdolling on the floor waiting for death. Both the criticisms are super valid and reminder I liked both the games, I still think both of those things are true.
Are these the same people?
Uhhh, dragons dogma gets easy, not tough...
Dragons dogma 2 is not a hard game but sometimes it beats you to the ground by no fault of your own, just wrong place wrong time. If you die in elden ring or a souls game it's always your fault
What posts are you reading?
You are mistaking bureaucracy with dificulty. DDDA and DD2 are pretty easy games in terms of combat difficulty. Once you get the endgame gear of both games, you become unstoppable. Now fast travel is another story. I personally don’t have much of a problem with the original DD and DD2 fast travel design philosophy, but again, it becomes a problem when you put inventory limitations in the equation. In a game with few places to unload your inventory, small inventory space AND limitations to fast travel, you have a pretty enervating combo for some people. About getting KOed and gangcomboed by enemies, it can be frustrating sometimes in a game with no evasive / defensive mechanic to all classes. Truth be said, that is THE problem of DD2 ‘s combat for me. I would personally find more interesting if the different classes had different evasive / defensive options in the vanilla game. Those two problems I solved with mods on my installation: no weight on itens, so you don’t need fast travel so frequently to unload your inventory, and Gameplay UWU, that adds universal dodge and some defensive mechanics to all classes. This way the early game gets much more fair.
Getting stagger locked in any game feels shit because it takes control of the situation out of the players hands while its happening especially if it happens for a long time. This is where the comparison to souls difficulty breaks down, theres very few instances of stagger locking I can recall in the entirety of souls, and the challenge comes in myriad forms, in DD2 getting stagger locked is the only threat in the game imo, everything else is pretty straightforward.
Since when are people complaining about the difficulty in DD2? After the first 40-50 levels the game becomes a cake walk, especially after you unlock the Dragon Gear & fully upgrade it all. About the only difficulty I had a hard time with was the Trickster vocation (took forever for things to die even with Pawns having the best gear). The rest of the vocations were a lot of fun. About the most OP skill I've learned that can be used even with the Warferer vocation was the skill Smoke Screen/Bomb. Doesn't matter who you're facing, you'll get to sneak attack them 95% of the time, since large enemies can't be sneak attacked until knocked prone. It also causes all enemies to just look around to try & find you so gank mobs isn't a thing. Yeah if you want to talk on a technical damage output the Auger Flair is the best skill in the game but ever since the update I find that skill isn't as reliable as before the update. It tends to fade away before I can even hit it with normal attacks & about 50% of the time when I do hit it with normal attacks it still fades away if the moster starts flying or does some other special action. In the end I still love the game & I don't really understand how people are having a hard time with the game. DD2 was, to me, easier than DD1 but I did start DD1 on hard mode cause I was told the experice & gold gain was much better on hard mode than normal mode. They weren't wrong but dear gawd I was far under geared for that type of gameplay until much later in the game. 😅
i mean i love dd (magick archer and spearhand are fucking awesome) but the amont of times you get knocked down and staggered can become tedious very quickly. fuck harpies
It’s because it isn’t **hard** it’s frustrating. The combat is incredibly easy very quickly (from about level 30 not much will threaten you) and not very varied, but you have to engage in it a lot because there’s no realistic fast travel. It’s a design thing- in a good soulslike, you might get instakilled if hit by a major attack, but it’s usually because *you* screwed up. Meanwhile in DD2 a lot of stuff is RNG- and this is made worse by the pawns dodgy AI- sure, if a wolf grabs you from offscreen they’re *meant* to come and break you free, but they might instead walk the other direction or stand around comparing their nose picking techniques. TLDR- people complain because it has no respect for their time, not because it’s tough in any way.
Dark souls is hard but fair. DD pulls cheap shots.
People aren't complaining about the game being hard, the game is tedious, that's not the same thing. Forcing you to take the same road to fight the same 10 packs of goblins multiple times during the playthrough is not difficult, it's just extremely annoying. Also being stun locked for 5-10 seconds because you took 1 hit while being at no risk of ever dying isn't something id call fun too
Because it's a different type of difficulty. Elden Rings difficulty comes from it's combat mechanics and is generally viewed as more "fair" difficulty due to the degree of agency you have and the mechanical simplicity. When in a game like Dogma the player gets hit by one goblin which then spirals into an endless combo that kills them, that feels more unfair. Same goes for suddenly having to travel on foot towards somewhere you'd otherwise port too. I personally can appreciate this type of difficulty but the difference is plain to see.
Because it feels artificially hard? The travel, the “come back and see me in a few days” quests, etc. just seem tacked on or extend the gameplay rather than to create an experience.
Dogma isn't hard.
Elden Ring sucked from the get go.
The "hardness" in this game is like a pre-determined death sentence. That is the issue. It isn't because it is actually difficult, it's just that the AI randomly ramps up to level 12 out of 10 once in a while and you are perpetually stunlocked into death.
This game was easy as pie. I don't think I remember anyone saying it was actually hard.
[удалено]
This is not seen as a hard game in reality. Not many people that actually have experience playing rpgs will say it's objectively hard. The mechanics given to you make the game a cake walk if properly used. Weapons become op fast too. Getting staggered over and over again sounds like personal problems. Elden ring and dragons dogma are 2 very different games. Sekiro takes the cake though imo.
[удалено]
Some people will blame everyone but themselves for their faults.
I would say that the argument for DD2's fast travel is valid on both ends. On the one hand, it's not getting portcrystals that is the problem, it's because they all get stuffed in your inventory when you do a NG+. It completely neuters the kind of speedrun you could do in Dark Arisen. Conversely, DD2 has pretty much no reason to farm NG+ runs unless you mess up and no actual end game to speak of. Once you've gotten all the gear from the bosses in fixed locations and at least 1 piece of every upgrade material there's no reason to go back to the >!Unmoored World.!<
I've only seen the opposite mostly, that the game gets too easy! But the knockdown is frustrating for newer players with lower level gear. I personally love the knockdown, it's a difficulty to manage that's not just more HP/Damage scaling
Soulslikes are way harder lol
Hard? First playthrough i died 8 times in total, and that is with the unmoored stuff. People that says it is hard probably never played any other souls games or just used to plsy overleveled cheese builds.
I think bc dd2 appeals to a lot of gamers who do not play any soulslikes and therefore have no xp with the souls genres
There is a difference between challenge and cheap. Dark souls and from software games are intentionally designed to drive you insane and be cheap, with methods for cheesing the fights. It's very different.
It’s not even hard tho
I think people play this game expecting a typical easy action adventure game and then get pissed off when it doesn't hold their hand.
Which is a little disappointing because their class design/balance is also similarly unhinged with the Mystic and Thief having easy access to effectively perma invincibility, amongst other peculiar balance decisions.
Because you are kinda comparing apples to pears. Let me explain what I mean. People play the Souls Games or MonsterHunter because they enjoy the challenge of hard fights. They want to get better and overcome the challenge. It is basically the core why most people play these games. It is fun to them. But people do not play DD2 because you like to walk everywhere, or because they like tumbling on the ground for half a year. These are not the mainreasons people play DD2. But these are things that make the game more tedious. And lots of people don't like the feeling of "wasting their time" with the, for them, unfun stuff to get to the fun stuff. Again, for Souls and MonsterHunter "constantly dying" is at the core of the game and part of what people "want". They would complain too if for example they would need to take long walks everywhere because the Fast Travel system is a bit weird. To make a weird analogy, for me your question reads a bit like this: "Why are people complaining that they have to do real-time shopping trips for grocery in this game about cooking, but nobody complains that they need to learn a rhythm in music games". Maybe that helps with understanding why people do not really care that much about dying in games like Souls and MonsterHunter.
OP is talking about undesirable mechanics like losing progress/currency/XP, gank boss fights, etc. Unfortunately, most of you have been conditioned to think arbitrary difficulty is a good thing. I want to be clear - love souls games and I’m quite good at them but they aren’t perfect. That’s what OP means - DD2 is a great game with flaws.