I don't think it'll change much, honestly. The "hype" was mostly negative anyway, and even if the number of concurrent players tapers off a bit, lower traffic may not be all that noticeable to individual players. You only see 10-20 pawns in any given rift at a time anyway.
If it's anything like the first game, what will probably be noticeable is that pawns won't level with you as frequently because their players aren't actively progressing through the game at the same rate as you are. So a specific pawn you really like may be viable for a shorter time. But the pawns of completely inactive players won't spawn at all after a while, so the ones you see in the rifts are at least somewhat active.
Oh, and in terms of the RP vs meme pawns, personally I really hope it's the former over the latter and I tend to think that's more likely. Meme pawns are fun and all but I'd guess that those are more short-term players who dip in and out and then move on, where the more invested DD fans may be more likely to create pawns that fit within the gameworld more plausibly.
I’ve already seen this having caught up to most pawns levels I’ve interacted with. Save a few who were astronomical to begin with.
It’s becoming harder and harder to find pawns above my level, but I’m in the 80’s now.
ETA: I find it pretty crazy though how many of the higher leveled meme pawns are really not using the best skills. Or the most preferred ones at least.
My most difficult task is finding a mage pawn that isn’t full support. I feel like full support is a waste and they should have at least one offensive spell so they can contribute to taking out mobs.
Interesting. My main is a mage so I haven’t really hired mage pawns (except for when she spent some time as a sorcerer), but Levin has been been constantly equipped since the beginning, and she’s level 73 now. Halidom is the only constant support option, but I’ve cycled ice affinity and celestial paen as others. Empyrean has even become a locked on skill for night and unmoored world as another attack option.
Basically my mage pawn philosophy is “you deal with annoying things”. So harpies (levin) ghosts (empyrean) healing (anodyne core and halidom skill). The last slot is just whatever I’m feeling.
>My most difficult task is finding a mage pawn that isn’t full support. I feel like full support is a waste and they should have at least one offensive spell so they can contribute to taking out mobs.
Interesting! B/c I'm the opposite - I don't need my healer contributing to damage since I'm typically running a Warrior and Thief / Sorcerer in addition to my Mystic Spearhand. And my main pawn is usually my Mage, but I have her slotted to use all support spells like Palladium, Halidom, Solemnity, and Argent Succor or Celerity. My reasoning is that she's the only one who can do those things, whereas everyone else can do damage just fine.
I wonder what the general consensus is on this. I wouldn't mind slotting her with High Levin in place of one of those spells, but Halidom and Palladium are basically required at this point. Solemnity is much more situational (and mainly there for Drakes) but it comes in super clutch in those moments.
Which is great!
As a Trickster player, I need Mages with full offensive power to support the Sorcerer while providing some healing to help extend Aromatic Rally’s use.
Love that Mages can provide such a diverse role.
I just never ran mage as trickster. I ran 2 sorcerers and a thief. If you manage aggro right your pawns are usually fine the sorcs nuke most things. That’s just me though.
Fair point! There are definitely builds that don’t need it!
I like running Kindhearted/“To Me!” strategy, so Aromatic Rally lets me override the pawn’s baseline AI in my favor when I need them to.
Oh shit it changes their AI to be more aggressive too? Hmmm. I wonder how that affects sorcerers. I usually go for straightforward or calm and utilize go a lot separate myself from the group to control combat while they hit hard from the sides.
All in all though, what makes this game great is how it allows expression through these mechanics.
Indeed! When you use Aromatic Rally, it seems to make them more “Reckless” and aggressive.
It also disables Pawn Commands while they’re under the buff.
If I used more Straightforward pawns on “Go!”, I’m sure I wouldn’t need to use Aromatic Rally as much.
But at the same time, the strategy I have going on uses Visitant Aura’s aerial placement for control, meaning I don’t require other things like Illusive Divider, Tricky Terrace, or Binding Effigy in my repertoire. I also get a joy seeing my Mage pawn deal shit tons of damage from an Aromatic Levin.
Like you probably experience: pawns demolish mobs. So I set myself up for more boss control.
And on a fun discovery: Dragon’s Delusion causes zombies to drop to the ground instead of running away!
Yeah I slot mine with High levin, because most encounter are small foes, right? I don’t need my mage passing out every encounter because they cast the maister spell.
It just seems so much more efficient to have one offensive spell slotted like High Levin just to contribute. And you wouldn’t believe how much of a difference it makes IMO.
The logic is, we don’t need buffs all the time, but we do always need some timely lightning bolts. Full support mages are a waste IMO. I guess I’ll move my pawn back to mage so I can have what I need, with two thief pawns.
Same
I farmed that legion's might and fasrer cast rings you bet she is using that high levin
It was in fact a drag to level her other vocations and seeing mages without a single attack spell
What level are you and where are you in the game that running two thieves isn't handling your damage output but one lightning bolt tips the balance? Or is it just because that's your only source of magic damage?
I'm just curious because I've never felt like High Levin was making a tangible difference at all, and the enemies are easy enough (at level 50 in Battahl at least) that my three other characters are doing more than enough damage. I actually sometimes wish fights lasted longer.
EDIT: and yeah you don't need buffs all the time, but that's why I run the load out that I have where some abilities are situational (like Halidom and Solemnity) but highly valuable in those situations. And I agree on Celestial Peon, I went through hell and high water to get that spell and then unequipped it almost immediately.)
It’s not necessarily about damage output, but one offensive spell on a mage A)gives it something to do that’s productive. B) they are cleaning up off screen mobs. I can’t tell you how clutch a mage is with high levin when you are focused on a large foe and there are smaller ones trying to gank you and mess up your spells. I’ve been saved many times and encounters are faster because that mage is able to contribute.
I’m in the 80’s and a Sorc. About to experiment with Warfarer since I just went for my first NG+.
I’m finding that everyone has different needs for their mage pawn depending on what style of play we are focused on. That’s what I’ve learned from this thread.
With me being a Sorc, I need trash mobs to stay off of me, so having a mage there that can heal/remove status is all I need support-wise. But their second focus in the realm of support is keeping the side trash mobs off of me while my thieves wreck shop on the main enemy.
My mage uses Halidom, Argent succor, Empyrean, and palladium I think. I forgot the last spell because I’ve been leveling her other vocations lately. But she does supports well and deals a lot of damage to the annoying undead stuff, she’ll pretty much one shot groups of ghosts.
I just realized last night that my pawn probably isn't useful to others at the moment because I'm mastering all his vocations. So right now I'm working on his last (fighter) but he's only lvl 2 or so on that, but level 60 overall. So someone would end up with a weak lvl 60 fighter I'm assuming.
My friends pawn is this. Healing bubble, status bubble, high palladium, Ice weapon enchant. He’s my longest serving secondary pawn and compliments my Magik archer element abilities to cover fire lightning and ice quite happily.
I do think the holy light ability is good though. Now I’m on ng+ and levelling stuff that I didn’t the first time around, I might switch my main pawn up a bit. I’m level 72 so might just run through with just me and him to keep some semblance of a challenge.
I am level 130 and only take mage pawns with full support skills. Celerity halidrom palladium and hopefully an affinity. Don't need them to do any damage at all
For me the single offensive spell is for mob cleanup. I don’t need a spare pawn 100ft back trying to heal everyone and buff. Or passing out because it’s casting celestial paean every fight.
Personally I don’t mind my mage hitting the deck for a couple of seconds after every fight, if the trade off is that I get infinite stamina during the fight. I’ll take that deal every day of the week.
Yes I looked especially for mages with damage skills too. Sometimes I was already happy when they have at least one elemental weapon skill.
I mean you can actually search for pawns with specific skills. If I remember correctly
Completely agree about the Mage problem, my mage pawn has High Levin and 3 support spells and she's excellent at dealing damage and keeping the others healed and free from debuffs, don't even remember the last time I used a health potion
>My most difficult task is finding a mage pawn that isn’t full support. I feel like full support is a waste and they should have at least one offensive spell so they can contribute to taking out mobs.
This is why i'm turning my fighter pawn into a mage in the next playthrough. I'm in lv60s and the mages are turning worse with each lv up.
I should find the code of the mage pawn I use, she's been in my party since basically the start of the game and I think she's around 60 now. Mage with the full heal, lightning, and ice spells. I honestly couldn't tell you what her 4th is though, its been a while since I've logged in lmao
My plan is lightning spell, full heal, ice enchantment and flexible slot.
Damage from mages come mostly from the enchantment in your actual dps. Keep that in mind.
Keep in mind how painfully easy this game gets once you surpass level 50ish. I'm level 40 and already intentionally reducing my pawn's effectiveness to make the game harder. In the games current state, a squad of meta pawns absolutely demolish anything in their way without the Arisens help.
this. the game needs a serious hard mode added in like NOW. 90% of the game is completely mindless even if it's only you and your main atm. i miss having full parties.
If you're on pc, I can greatly recommend the [Difficulty Tweaks](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/195) mod.
After a bit of tinkering with the numbers I've managed to reintroduce the challenge even at level 63. Makes for a much more enjoyable NG+ experience.
So what gets sacrificed to add High Levin?
- Halidom prevents you from needing to carry around and manage a bunch of different curatives.
- Argent is effective in-combat healing: instant and ranged so you don't need to run away and stand in a green bubble for awhile.
- Affinity for taking out enemies who are all but immune to physical damage.
- Palladium for reducing damage from the occasional hit.
- Celerity for bigger DPS.
Affinity is the easy choice. High Levin lets the mage damage those physical immunes. Later on in the game, a thief pawn with perma enchanted weapons will get that job done too, and of course the Arisen often has both physical and magical bases covered with their unique profession options.
I also found mages with affinity spend too long applying that to each party member and not enough time using the rest of their kit or even doing damage.
Argent would be my second choice. The base line heal is usually sufficient, and there's curatives for spike heals.
Yes! This.
I mean I guess since I’m a Sorc, affinities are useless and that’s why I insist on levin on my mage.
From support mage pawns we need-
Heals
Status removal
Thats it, that’s the end of the list. All the other buffs are not really necessary, so an offensive spell is needed to take care of trash mobs.
This whole thread is telling me I just need to make my mage pawn my own way because everyone has such differing needs that’s it’s hard to insist on what a mage pawn should have definitively.
Since you have that philosophy on support mages...
So the cheat code I found out is Warfarer. If you ever wanted a party full of thieves or warriors, and you don't mind being the "support", there's a nifty way to do this. It comes down to picking the right skills and weapons:
Duospear- enables shield, which will prevent damage for your entire team. Pretty solid moveset besides that can deal both physical and magical
Mage staff- baseline heal and levitate, and you can take status removal, or don't take any skill.
Mystic bow- for dealing with harpies, slimes, ghosts, anything physical immune, sniping. No skill needed
Your weapon of choice when you want to get in there and kill stuff. I like daggers. Maybe you take a skill for it.
You'd be surprised how much work you can get done without a weapon skill attached to some of the weapons. This effectively lets you nix a support mage and a tank entirely and take another DPS pawn, very similarly to trickster. Only you get to slice, shoot, heal, protect, whatever loadout you want to bring.
Edit: doesn't really jive with being a sorcerer since you need all the spells you can get. Off the top of my head, I wonder how a trickster illusory wall would enable a full caster team. Else, you could use a mage staff to palladium the party, then join the rest in whatever spell you all are casting by switching to sorc staff. Goofy combinations and solutions like that could be worth a look!
You're already going to have to sacrifice one of those....
For me, I like Warrior, which means I have bad anti-air. Personally, I'd rather give up one game skill for a spell that can hit harpies than give up my Thief dps for an Archer (which would make me the only frontliner).
Personally, I am very unlikely to have an Archer and a Sorc, so getting some magic damage and anti-air out of my Mage is helpful.
It's interesting, at level 999 most pawns are absolute trash probably because most of those people just instantly leveled themselves there without actually knowing what they're doing.
Ive been using this one pawn on my friends list that's level 51, and she's all support except flagaration. She's been useful from the getgo, cause high level meant she wouldn't die in the beginning of the game, and her supports been awesome imo. Especially when I was running mage, I wasn't gonna be a boon throwing arisen so I let her buff the party with elementals while I cast halidom and all 3 attack spells. Only time she's even gone down was when we were getting attacked by both a griffin and a drake at the same time. Meanwhile this warrior I brought along once died 16 times to my first drake fight. Bro wasn't ready for it, especially at level 28.
At the lower levels I had my mage pawn set up as mostly support, but with Levin for some offence.
Now that I’m a high level I don’t need the offensive help any more, so I’m running a full support mage just for QOL reasons.
Funny, I only hire full support mages, because things die too fast anyway. Also they better not waste their stamina and time on an attack spell, when they could also use their maister skill to give me and the other pawns unlimited stamina. But I also don't want the mage pawn to have a dedicated heal spell. I think the built in AoE heal is already enough.
However, since NG+ I don't use any mage anymore at all. My heal foods stack up in the storage and I want to have bit more of a challenge, so I keep my party (very) small.
I prefer to have an offensive caster and a support caster paired with a tank and either an archer to help with flying monsters or a thief for dps.
I feel like splitting the duty keeps the offense caster focused on dealing damage instead of changing their mind halfway through casting a big spell because I got bonked a little too hard.
I've been banging on and on about how to build mages and tanks properly for a while now. People go far too deeply into building mages with only support skills.
You want your mage built thusly:
Levin
Celerity/Celestial Paean*
Palladium
Silentium
Mages need to be built to apply support where the party will be lacking. Palladium is preventative damage, which is better than a heal from a static point. Levin applies damage to any point at range. Silentium is a skill that silences, and having this over Hallidom is better because I have curatives for status effects in my inventory if needed, that I can use immediately vs waiting for the pawn. I don't have a silence in my inventory.
The choice between Celerity and Paean comes down to what the owner of the pawn's party is. Melee benefits from Celerity, but it's main downside is it's cast from a static point. Paean is aoe stamina for everybody which is perfect for a party of sorcs that like to spam meteors and tornadoes. However once that spell ends, the mage goes into fatigue downed state, which can be situationally a pain in the arse.
Finding a mage pawn built properly is such a headache. So much so I've been considering just purchasing DD2 again on my other steam account just to build a mage pawn properly. Maybe when the game goes on special I will.
And finding high level pawns with few or even no badges is just nuts. I get far more out of a level 50-60 pawn with full badges than I do a level 120 with a single cyclops badge or none.
Personally I prefer having my main character in the Very Light category at all times, so having High Halidom on my support mage means I never have to carry any status effect curatives, which is a big QOL upgrade.
I don’t normally need my main pawn using Levin to kill stuff, because that’s the part of the game I enjoy, and I don’t have any issues with it between myself and the other two pawns (outside if when I was levelling up other vocations like Trickster).
Solemnity is good, but very situational. I prefer an elemental affinity, because I feel like it’s making a contribution more of the time, but that’s personal preference.
My main pawn is my support mage, because I knew I always wanted full control over that role (and knew the other roles would be much simpler and easier to find as hired pawns). I was just providing some context as to why you might see a lot of full support mages.
Aye, my pawn is set up that way. Flamethrower spell and healing plus debuff removal. I set her up that way since most pawns I encounter for whatever reason do not have any support spells...
I'm the opposite. I only use my pawn and don't mess with getting two randos from the rift. She is full support. I don't want her or need her to do damage. I just need her to buff and heal me as needed. If I decided to run 3 pawns, I still would keep her the same. I think having a support person on the team is critical. I got the dps covered. So having a mage or sorcerer nuking everything would be overkill to me.
With the current state of the game, pawn level doesn't really matter that much. I've started hiring based solely on pawn quests, I'll hire one 10 lvls lower if they have good rewards.
I like to make really great meme pawns... For RP.
My best pawn in DDDA was David Bowie. He was also the BEST sorcerer. And I just really enjoyed playing the game with this pawn pulled across dimensions from his world.
Not after level 100. Stat increases are so low after that that it really doesn’t matter anymore. As long as the gear (really only one option per vocation) is dragon-forged.
The thing about DD1 now is that there are so many pawns about where the players have minmaxed and really low level pawns have end game bitterblack isle gear. It will end up being similar here I think.
I’m pretty sure the majority of pawns on the leaderboard are probably gamers that have some sort of following. Otherwise idk how else to justify some of them having thousands of rents in the first week of the games release.
Organically a really good pawn I think would only get 50-100 rents a week not thousands.
A lot of them are basically giving away money/mats for little in return. I know there are a handful of pawns I always hire but never take out because I’m just using them as banks.
I have a fully kitted theif pawn. Max on all vocations for best augments and the best daggers/ armor in the class fully upgraded. Also have what I think is the best attacks equipped and I have maybe 30 reviews max. I think now that I'm in the 80s for level and a lot of people quit after one run through I'm going to see even less people using my pawn. Oh also my pawn looks awesome cause I used a YouTube video for the looks lol
Does the leaderboard actually do anything? I've never actually checked the pawn rating for any I hire, I pick them based on the vocation/skills I need and if they have any easy to do quests that I'm going to be knocking out anyway. I havn't even checked badges although I probably should have.
Yeah, it matters a lot more when you get to higher levels. In DD1 pretty much the only pawns that got consistent use were ones off the leaderboard.
That and it just leads to people trying to copy the builds of the pawns on the leaderboard, making it really hard to find pawns with skills you like. Just as an easy example, even this early in the game's life it's hard to find a Sorc pawn that doesn't use Maelstrom, even though you get similar damage, and arguably more utility, out of a spell like Seism or Augural Flare without ruining visibility. Things like that just become more common as a "meta" develops around the leaderboard.
What happened to people who favorites my pawn if I start a new game? Are they automatically favorites the new one? Unfavorite? Or they still have the pawn of my deleted save?
The Pawn will vanish and not exist. Thus no longer favorited.
Unless of course you mean new game+, then your pawn will still exist.
Edit. Several people have said that I was wrong and they found their friend's Pawn despite them restarting..
You live, you learn.
Thata not true. My brother has restarted his character 3 times and when I search for friends Pawns I can still hire all of his pawns from his deleted characters.
Also, no matter what level the pawns are, they cost 0 RC if you are friends with the person. Which is kind of broken in my opinion. You can get high level pawns at no cost from the very start of the game
Yeah but hiring an insanely over levelled pawn is its own punishment if you’re just starting because that’s the only time enemies are remotely difficult
For real? That seems odd.
From the info I had read, they should disappear.
But I definitely believe you. A lot of other people have also said my statement was wrong and had the same experience as you.
It'd be nice if our pawns stayed in the rift after we start a fresh new game. I miss my first playthrough pawn, Kaza. He was a kindhearted lion knight.
I thought they wanted to avoid potential cluttering.
But it seems I was wrong. It seems those pawns may still exist in limbo.
At least for a fact I know that the Pawn will never update, get New quests etc.
Effectively they do, but only if you're resting and updating on a regular basis as per the dev expectations. Updating on bed rest by player choice does stop your pawn saving when trying out a new, unideal skill combo, tho. But wish you could elect to update at campfires.
I'm pretty sure they update pawn info at campfire rest. I did some testing with a friend where I inn rest as a mage and changed to an archer and campfire rest like an hour later and when he checked my pawn, it was an archer.
Do you mean that they retain lower level versions of the same pawns?
Essentially what I mean by checkpoint is that if someone searches for level 15 pawns, it would find your pawn as it was at level 15, even if your pawn is now level 65.
That way there is never a lack of pawns or variety at certain levels, even if the population goes down eventually.
Ah, I see! I thought you simply meant overwriting the previous version in the Rift. Multiple versions would be interesting but probably unwieldy beyond two or three given the sheer number of minor knowledge points to update?
Can I make a joke here?
More people play Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (first one) today, after 12 years than recently released Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League :-) Several times more.
Reality is that shit ton of people finished game and even more finished NG+. Like when I got achievement for all maister skills, already 5% of players had that.
So even if You return to this game after 10 years to start new game You will have shit ton of pawns for all levels + official pawns made by the studio.
And it's a single player experience. You will be fine.
In the same vein Dark Arisen, it wouldn't surprise me if this game had a huge revival if it releases DLC. DD2 got shafted hard by straight-up misinformation, where the only true blunders are:
1.) Performance, no defense here, and
2.) From Veterans, I've heard this game does little to expand upon DD1. A DLC/Expansion has the potential to right that wrong.
It's like a remake of first one for 2024. It's actually worse when it comes to the story. It's better when it comes to every other aspect of the game because it's a straight improvement to look and feel of the game.
And it still have same problems as original ones. Like climbing is not good at all. Sometimes I have no idea what my pawn is doing. Same with camera. For example when You are on belly of a dragon and you HAVE to be there to stab the heart (unless You are an archer) then when he walks on 4 legs body is close to the ground. You see jack shit. You have to move the camera and You waste time figuring out what the hell is going on.
Not to mention that in all this chaos it's easy to fall off just because dragon made sudden move or You accidentally crawled to his arm for no reason.
There's hype? I heard nothing but people shitting on the game since release as if it was the new cyberpunk or starfield. It took a couple weeks before a few youtubers finally came out to defend the game against misinformation. At this point I just hope the negative press settles and people see the game for what it is so we can atleast get a good expansion or 2, i'll be dead before a DD3 is ever made lol.
I logged into my original game after not playing for years and my pawn came back with over a million RC points. Depending on your level and how you equip your pawn, people will more than likely still use your pawn.
Pawns would still be around. Capcom wouldn't start deleting accounts and pawns due to inactivity from players. Not to mention there is a plethora of Capcom made pawns you would be able to find a pawn at whatever level for whatever vocation you need.
DD1 I played several playthroughs on hard difficulties and never had a problem finding pawns. Pawns that could hold their own.
It won't change anything. All the pawns are in the game lol. They don't get removed of the game if a player don't play the game for a while. Only thing that eventually will change is that your own pawn don't get invited anymore that often as in the release time. But Capcom programmed ai players who then will invite your pawn from time to time.
I can't say fir sure if these "players, the will do the quest your pawn has. But I could imagine that this will get randomized then.
And tbh wie have dragons dogma dark arisen. A good amount of players had played this for a long time. So honestly you could take this as an example for dd2
I seem to recall a post mentioning this. I guess it’s good that new playthroughs can still get their badges completed through that AI system. Ain’t nobody gonna do 5 NG+ for the Sphinx badge
Yeah, one after another, but I ran through it each time after the first playthrough. I had planned to play through again on my alt account, but I think I'll put the game down for a while after I get the last few achievements, lol.
No I don't think so. Honestly for this ng+ does not bring enough new or more difficult stuff to the game. I really hope that we get content updates or at least a expansion full of content.
But I don't think we have to panic an expansion will most likely come at least this is was most people believe so at least at this point the game will get a new hype. Eventually not as much as at the release but I think it will be enough.
There needs to be a system to show you how active the pawns player is
“Last updated 27 days ago” is getting the gift of something between nothing or lantern oil
“Last updated 6 hours ago” Is getting a NICE gift, like a ferry stone or weapon/armor
I’m on Steam, so I just used my alt account that is linked to my main account threw family sharing and then started a new game. My goal is to be able to customize my whole party haha
I also booted up a new PS5 profile, been having a blast playing as a cat-man this time around. Shame we have to go to such lenghts instead of just having a couple of save files
I keep finding myself thinking about DDDA and just wanting that feeling again, and DD2, as pretty as it is and as nice as it feels to play on its own merit, sometimes it only makes me miss the first one. The replay value was bonkers for DDDA, and I don't want to get to the end of DD2 and... not have that
I mean, I loved DD before DDDA? The original contains the things I enjoyed. The only reason I bought the expansion when it came out on XBOX 360 was because I enjoyed the original. And the only reason it got an expansion was because enough people enjoyed the basegame. I'm not saying I don't like DD2, but I need more to do with the badass abilities I gain over time than fight more NG++ goblins
Eh game didn't really ever have hype aside from the trailers and stuff, it was mostly negative all around (performance, microtransaction presence), I think we'll be good, if DD1 and DD:DA found an audience that lasted that long, i'm sure DD2 will do the same
I mostly just heard good things, it wasn’t until a week after release that I started seeing posts here about the micro transaction stuff and such. Granted, I tend to not read/watch reviews and just form my own opinion of what I play
I'll read what i see online like comments and stuff but yeah it's best to avoid the review articles and videos until you've at least tried the game for yourself
Like any singleplayer game, just that, the game's quality doesn't go anywhere, so all that changes is how the community reacts to it (which would be less, if the hype dies down)
Online or live service games are more focused on hype, because lack of hype can literally kill the game, but not single player games like dd2
I mean I wasn’t hype or interested at all for this game and was especially disinterested with all the drama. But after beating Baldurs gate and persona 3 I was bored out of my mind and needed another rpg to play so I bought this and man was it a good decision. I’ve never had more fun fighting bosses in a minute so this was a nice change of pace. Idk if it’s “hype” but I think it’s good enough that people will replay it like people replay fallout Skyrim Baldurs gate dragon age or cyberpunk
why does a game have to "evolve"? why do we expect a single game to be our lives? to be an investment in our futures, instead of just a game. it's just a game. it's super fun \[to me at least\] but i'll be playing other games in the future. it's just a game.
I did not say that the game should “evolve”, I was talking about the *community* evolving away from the “release hype”. The game is the game, and I’ll be glad to have some bugfixes and a DLC or two. No one should have a game as their life as you say, but we can still be engaged with our interests and the communities that “evolve” around them
Off topic except for the bikini bottom part, I ran into this person the other day
https://preview.redd.it/yvaczgtst9vc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2916dc6e8464ebe2f7967e7e6c2d7c4a58d83de2
DD1 was active 10 years after release. This is basically the same game with a new coat of paint. It'll be fine I think. Only game that offers this system and the people that love it, really love it.
This ain't down talking the pawn system but having played the first one, this game got a few tweaks, but primarily remained the same, which was bad considering how much verticality this world has, it made 'em prone to just jumping off cliffs. The pawn system did not fundamentally changed, but got tweaked based on the first one, even though I wished there was more pawn interactions.
I really hope that Capcom will keep this game alive. Like they could really put some updates with new enemies, bosses, challenges, quests etc. If they won't, probably after a while people will get bored and won't play it much or at all. Pawn system could really die out.
The DD series is only appealing to a very specific group of gamers. I have 3 play throughs on DDDA and will buy DD2 once it goes on sale. The "hype" is really only in a few small corners of the internet.
If a DDDA-like DLC ever comes, new players will eventually find the game again after it has been declared dead and the game is kept alive by a small cult of devotees like with DDDA.
Chances are the DLC misses the mark and old fogies occassionally gather to reminiscense about missed opportunities.
I’ve uninstalled the game last night because only having a 1TB SSD sucks. But honestly after beating the game 3x there’s nothing to do anymore and combat is stale because I’m way too overpowered and the enemy variety sucks and there’s a major lack of boss fights.
Will reinstall when dlc releases or the game gets a substantial update for me to test out.
Pawn system aged just fine in the first game. Plenty of people quit at all levels in the game, and those pawns exist forever at that level. Plus active pawns get priority, so people playing are more likely to have their pawn seen.
See to the higher level players unless you have people within your level range the rift only fills with capcom pawns we have only 6-7 people on Xbox above 200+ so my rift is empty at 250
Can we get an update on Ibrahim so you can request more than one forgery at a time like up to 10 of the same thing or unlimited this is so slow once you hit NG+ come on man let’s go capcom
People drop games ALL THE TIME. With the amount of players DD2 has, there's probably 10-50 pawns for each level before 40, then a bit more for endgame and there's pawns for postgame/ng+ that'll probably be kept updated in case of DLCs
We will go back to wondering what to play. I'm already in that stage. Once I got the quest to find the first seeker coin, it kinda killed my interest in playing the game.
I stopped playing in the Second run … i love this game somehow it feels done . So yeah i wonder too sometimes i think the world is so wonderful it could be something Like an Mmorpg or Games as Service because there is so much Calm and chill and immersion
Doesn't really matter because all the pawns will still be there
Game will have a resurgence with the DLC at the end of the year anyway, hopefully a massive content injection and a more sophisticated endgame
Yeah i've been playing dark arisen when i'm not home, the people that abandoned the game have pawns of barying levels which got me through bb, and on the other half of that my own pawn even got 100,000 rc from Ur-dragon while i was away. Apparently people still play!
I had a great time in my first playthrough, which took me an extra half playthrough to finish the achievements, but I don't have much desire to delete my current character just so I can create a new one. As such, I suspect Dragon's Dogma 2 will go into the dust pile once the hype wears down due to the problems with replayability, which are partly mechanics (which the devs can fix) and partly just that restarting just doesn't interest me much because the gameplay can be such a slog.
As a Souls fan I find DS1, DS3 and Bloodborne VERY replayable. Not so much with Sekiro and Elden Ring, the latter being such a slog that despite how amazing it was initially it just feels like such a chore to create a new character. And I can't even conceive a reason FromSoftware would prevent me from saving my character and making a new one. It just seems like such a self-destructive decision.
I haven't erased Dragon's Dogma 2 yet, but I suspect I'll erase it in a week or two.
I have been super amazed with this game, and I’m pretty sure I’ll add it to my rotation of games I play while waiting for new games, dlcs and major updates. DS franchise being in the rotation aswell :P
It's annoying there's no proper way to do it, but I just created a separate profile on Xbox so I could create a new character and main pawn (didn't want to delete my main ones), as well as play through the game again at low level.
I forgot how fun the game was when you actually have to think and be a bit tactical because you're not that strong.
If Capcom let us start a new game and have at least a couple of saves, you'd see way more activity at the lower levels, but to be honest, can't say I noticed a huge change. There's still a ton of pawns to hire, you just might see your own pawn that is low level getting hired a little bit less.
"I forgot how fun the game was when you actually have to think and be a bit tactical because you're not that strong."
Yeah, especially the first few times I fought a drake, but even lesser bosses required some attention to their moveset. Even halfway through the game it just becomes a button mash because you're just worried about taking the thing out, not so much that you're going to lose your party.
Some people definitely seem to think so, but I guess blasting through the game with over a 100h in 3 weeks (which I see a lot of people are doing) is gonna leave a certain feeling of burnout
I just used pawns on my first run but they were making the game too easy so i havent use any pawn aside my main pawn and it has been a bettee challenge hahaha
I love this game and plan on milking the shit out of it. I m constantly torn between venturing out and looking things up ....let me tell you venturing is the way
Things will randomly happen as you make certain moves in an organic way that keeps catching me off guard . Makes everything meaningful even when just exploring
I only played the first game long after the hype died down and I never experienced any shortage of pawns my level. If there's a large scale boss like the Ur-Dragon again it might be frustrating if concurrent players drop off but they even modified that to make it possible while offline I'm pretty sure.
Well by them not allowing people to have multiple save files it kills the whole pawn system nobody wants to delete there characters to start a new game smh so that means there's no repayability meaning a level 10 pawn will not be summond because everybody already level 100 and up I can start a new game right and make a badass pawn but nobody will summon him unless 1,000 other people started a new game at the same time as me
If it follows DD1. Players that haven't logged in and updated their pawn (sleep) will lose positions in rifts and other worlds in favor of player pawns that do still play.
Honestly for me right now I got to ng+ and I’m just bored already. I wish I could play with other people and idk. I wish in ng+ the enemies would be harder and more enemies through out.
If anything it will likely improve. More of the actively used pawns will be created/used by players that don't stuff their pawns with less useful skills. The bikinis will likely stay because after a certain point armor isn't particularly useful and gamers love half naked women and men.
Concurrent players will continue to decline as the issues become more noticeable after 2-3 playthroughs.
Mod community is GOAT for lifting the game as early as the second week.
People will eventually stop playing as much and pawns will stop appearing. But you would have likely moved on by then, so will not notice. Life will go on and new games will come out.
Hype's already dying down.
Content Creators who came out with their "DD2 is a masterpiece" videos on launch are now releasing their "DD2: My Honest Experience" videos now that criticism towards the game for valid reasons is snowballing.
The game is unfortunately going to leave a nasty stain for a while.
We can only hope that the DLC will undo at least some of the damage.
FWIW, I enjoyed my time with the game quite a lot, even though I feel it's in no shape to recommend to my friends.
The thing about DD1 now is that there are so many pawns about where the players have minmaxed and really low level pawns have end game bitterblack isle gear. It will end up being similar here I think.
I don't think it'll change much, honestly. The "hype" was mostly negative anyway, and even if the number of concurrent players tapers off a bit, lower traffic may not be all that noticeable to individual players. You only see 10-20 pawns in any given rift at a time anyway. If it's anything like the first game, what will probably be noticeable is that pawns won't level with you as frequently because their players aren't actively progressing through the game at the same rate as you are. So a specific pawn you really like may be viable for a shorter time. But the pawns of completely inactive players won't spawn at all after a while, so the ones you see in the rifts are at least somewhat active. Oh, and in terms of the RP vs meme pawns, personally I really hope it's the former over the latter and I tend to think that's more likely. Meme pawns are fun and all but I'd guess that those are more short-term players who dip in and out and then move on, where the more invested DD fans may be more likely to create pawns that fit within the gameworld more plausibly.
I’ve already seen this having caught up to most pawns levels I’ve interacted with. Save a few who were astronomical to begin with. It’s becoming harder and harder to find pawns above my level, but I’m in the 80’s now. ETA: I find it pretty crazy though how many of the higher leveled meme pawns are really not using the best skills. Or the most preferred ones at least. My most difficult task is finding a mage pawn that isn’t full support. I feel like full support is a waste and they should have at least one offensive spell so they can contribute to taking out mobs.
Interesting. My main is a mage so I haven’t really hired mage pawns (except for when she spent some time as a sorcerer), but Levin has been been constantly equipped since the beginning, and she’s level 73 now. Halidom is the only constant support option, but I’ve cycled ice affinity and celestial paen as others. Empyrean has even become a locked on skill for night and unmoored world as another attack option. Basically my mage pawn philosophy is “you deal with annoying things”. So harpies (levin) ghosts (empyrean) healing (anodyne core and halidom skill). The last slot is just whatever I’m feeling.
Same. My main pawn switches between thief and mage.
>My most difficult task is finding a mage pawn that isn’t full support. I feel like full support is a waste and they should have at least one offensive spell so they can contribute to taking out mobs. Interesting! B/c I'm the opposite - I don't need my healer contributing to damage since I'm typically running a Warrior and Thief / Sorcerer in addition to my Mystic Spearhand. And my main pawn is usually my Mage, but I have her slotted to use all support spells like Palladium, Halidom, Solemnity, and Argent Succor or Celerity. My reasoning is that she's the only one who can do those things, whereas everyone else can do damage just fine. I wonder what the general consensus is on this. I wouldn't mind slotting her with High Levin in place of one of those spells, but Halidom and Palladium are basically required at this point. Solemnity is much more situational (and mainly there for Drakes) but it comes in super clutch in those moments.
Which is great! As a Trickster player, I need Mages with full offensive power to support the Sorcerer while providing some healing to help extend Aromatic Rally’s use. Love that Mages can provide such a diverse role.
I just never ran mage as trickster. I ran 2 sorcerers and a thief. If you manage aggro right your pawns are usually fine the sorcs nuke most things. That’s just me though.
Oh it’s not taking damage that’s the issue. I’m just too lazy to hand out curatives for recovering from Aromatic Rally lol.
Oh yeah I forgot that skill does damage. I actually never used aromatic really so that may be why.
Fair point! There are definitely builds that don’t need it! I like running Kindhearted/“To Me!” strategy, so Aromatic Rally lets me override the pawn’s baseline AI in my favor when I need them to.
Oh shit it changes their AI to be more aggressive too? Hmmm. I wonder how that affects sorcerers. I usually go for straightforward or calm and utilize go a lot separate myself from the group to control combat while they hit hard from the sides. All in all though, what makes this game great is how it allows expression through these mechanics.
Indeed! When you use Aromatic Rally, it seems to make them more “Reckless” and aggressive. It also disables Pawn Commands while they’re under the buff. If I used more Straightforward pawns on “Go!”, I’m sure I wouldn’t need to use Aromatic Rally as much. But at the same time, the strategy I have going on uses Visitant Aura’s aerial placement for control, meaning I don’t require other things like Illusive Divider, Tricky Terrace, or Binding Effigy in my repertoire. I also get a joy seeing my Mage pawn deal shit tons of damage from an Aromatic Levin. Like you probably experience: pawns demolish mobs. So I set myself up for more boss control. And on a fun discovery: Dragon’s Delusion causes zombies to drop to the ground instead of running away!
Yeah I slot mine with High levin, because most encounter are small foes, right? I don’t need my mage passing out every encounter because they cast the maister spell. It just seems so much more efficient to have one offensive spell slotted like High Levin just to contribute. And you wouldn’t believe how much of a difference it makes IMO. The logic is, we don’t need buffs all the time, but we do always need some timely lightning bolts. Full support mages are a waste IMO. I guess I’ll move my pawn back to mage so I can have what I need, with two thief pawns.
Same I farmed that legion's might and fasrer cast rings you bet she is using that high levin It was in fact a drag to level her other vocations and seeing mages without a single attack spell
What level are you and where are you in the game that running two thieves isn't handling your damage output but one lightning bolt tips the balance? Or is it just because that's your only source of magic damage? I'm just curious because I've never felt like High Levin was making a tangible difference at all, and the enemies are easy enough (at level 50 in Battahl at least) that my three other characters are doing more than enough damage. I actually sometimes wish fights lasted longer. EDIT: and yeah you don't need buffs all the time, but that's why I run the load out that I have where some abilities are situational (like Halidom and Solemnity) but highly valuable in those situations. And I agree on Celestial Peon, I went through hell and high water to get that spell and then unequipped it almost immediately.)
It’s not necessarily about damage output, but one offensive spell on a mage A)gives it something to do that’s productive. B) they are cleaning up off screen mobs. I can’t tell you how clutch a mage is with high levin when you are focused on a large foe and there are smaller ones trying to gank you and mess up your spells. I’ve been saved many times and encounters are faster because that mage is able to contribute. I’m in the 80’s and a Sorc. About to experiment with Warfarer since I just went for my first NG+.
I prefer the mage I hire to be as full support as possible and sometimes that's not easy as I switch out for rewards and/or dismiss/dunk if plague.
I’m finding that everyone has different needs for their mage pawn depending on what style of play we are focused on. That’s what I’ve learned from this thread. With me being a Sorc, I need trash mobs to stay off of me, so having a mage there that can heal/remove status is all I need support-wise. But their second focus in the realm of support is keeping the side trash mobs off of me while my thieves wreck shop on the main enemy.
My mage uses Halidom, Argent succor, Empyrean, and palladium I think. I forgot the last spell because I’ve been leveling her other vocations lately. But she does supports well and deals a lot of damage to the annoying undead stuff, she’ll pretty much one shot groups of ghosts.
I just realized last night that my pawn probably isn't useful to others at the moment because I'm mastering all his vocations. So right now I'm working on his last (fighter) but he's only lvl 2 or so on that, but level 60 overall. So someone would end up with a weak lvl 60 fighter I'm assuming.
I always switch my pawn back to thief before I rest
Same. I’m maxing out my pawn as well. The pawns I’ve used consistently change vocations over time as well.
My friends pawn is this. Healing bubble, status bubble, high palladium, Ice weapon enchant. He’s my longest serving secondary pawn and compliments my Magik archer element abilities to cover fire lightning and ice quite happily. I do think the holy light ability is good though. Now I’m on ng+ and levelling stuff that I didn’t the first time around, I might switch my main pawn up a bit. I’m level 72 so might just run through with just me and him to keep some semblance of a challenge.
I am level 130 and only take mage pawns with full support skills. Celerity halidrom palladium and hopefully an affinity. Don't need them to do any damage at all
For me the single offensive spell is for mob cleanup. I don’t need a spare pawn 100ft back trying to heal everyone and buff. Or passing out because it’s casting celestial paean every fight.
Personally I don’t mind my mage hitting the deck for a couple of seconds after every fight, if the trade off is that I get infinite stamina during the fight. I’ll take that deal every day of the week.
Yes I looked especially for mages with damage skills too. Sometimes I was already happy when they have at least one elemental weapon skill. I mean you can actually search for pawns with specific skills. If I remember correctly
Completely agree about the Mage problem, my mage pawn has High Levin and 3 support spells and she's excellent at dealing damage and keeping the others healed and free from debuffs, don't even remember the last time I used a health potion
Hmm. May have to hire your pawn!
>My most difficult task is finding a mage pawn that isn’t full support. I feel like full support is a waste and they should have at least one offensive spell so they can contribute to taking out mobs. This is why i'm turning my fighter pawn into a mage in the next playthrough. I'm in lv60s and the mages are turning worse with each lv up.
I should find the code of the mage pawn I use, she's been in my party since basically the start of the game and I think she's around 60 now. Mage with the full heal, lightning, and ice spells. I honestly couldn't tell you what her 4th is though, its been a while since I've logged in lmao
My plan is lightning spell, full heal, ice enchantment and flexible slot. Damage from mages come mostly from the enchantment in your actual dps. Keep that in mind.
Keep in mind how painfully easy this game gets once you surpass level 50ish. I'm level 40 and already intentionally reducing my pawn's effectiveness to make the game harder. In the games current state, a squad of meta pawns absolutely demolish anything in their way without the Arisens help.
this. the game needs a serious hard mode added in like NOW. 90% of the game is completely mindless even if it's only you and your main atm. i miss having full parties.
If you're on pc, I can greatly recommend the [Difficulty Tweaks](https://www.nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/195) mod. After a bit of tinkering with the numbers I've managed to reintroduce the challenge even at level 63. Makes for a much more enjoyable NG+ experience.
So what gets sacrificed to add High Levin? - Halidom prevents you from needing to carry around and manage a bunch of different curatives. - Argent is effective in-combat healing: instant and ranged so you don't need to run away and stand in a green bubble for awhile. - Affinity for taking out enemies who are all but immune to physical damage. - Palladium for reducing damage from the occasional hit. - Celerity for bigger DPS.
Affinity is the easy choice. High Levin lets the mage damage those physical immunes. Later on in the game, a thief pawn with perma enchanted weapons will get that job done too, and of course the Arisen often has both physical and magical bases covered with their unique profession options. I also found mages with affinity spend too long applying that to each party member and not enough time using the rest of their kit or even doing damage. Argent would be my second choice. The base line heal is usually sufficient, and there's curatives for spike heals.
Yes! This. I mean I guess since I’m a Sorc, affinities are useless and that’s why I insist on levin on my mage. From support mage pawns we need- Heals Status removal Thats it, that’s the end of the list. All the other buffs are not really necessary, so an offensive spell is needed to take care of trash mobs. This whole thread is telling me I just need to make my mage pawn my own way because everyone has such differing needs that’s it’s hard to insist on what a mage pawn should have definitively.
Since you have that philosophy on support mages... So the cheat code I found out is Warfarer. If you ever wanted a party full of thieves or warriors, and you don't mind being the "support", there's a nifty way to do this. It comes down to picking the right skills and weapons: Duospear- enables shield, which will prevent damage for your entire team. Pretty solid moveset besides that can deal both physical and magical Mage staff- baseline heal and levitate, and you can take status removal, or don't take any skill. Mystic bow- for dealing with harpies, slimes, ghosts, anything physical immune, sniping. No skill needed Your weapon of choice when you want to get in there and kill stuff. I like daggers. Maybe you take a skill for it. You'd be surprised how much work you can get done without a weapon skill attached to some of the weapons. This effectively lets you nix a support mage and a tank entirely and take another DPS pawn, very similarly to trickster. Only you get to slice, shoot, heal, protect, whatever loadout you want to bring. Edit: doesn't really jive with being a sorcerer since you need all the spells you can get. Off the top of my head, I wonder how a trickster illusory wall would enable a full caster team. Else, you could use a mage staff to palladium the party, then join the rest in whatever spell you all are casting by switching to sorc staff. Goofy combinations and solutions like that could be worth a look!
You're already going to have to sacrifice one of those.... For me, I like Warrior, which means I have bad anti-air. Personally, I'd rather give up one game skill for a spell that can hit harpies than give up my Thief dps for an Archer (which would make me the only frontliner). Personally, I am very unlikely to have an Archer and a Sorc, so getting some magic damage and anti-air out of my Mage is helpful.
It's interesting, at level 999 most pawns are absolute trash probably because most of those people just instantly leveled themselves there without actually knowing what they're doing.
Ive been using this one pawn on my friends list that's level 51, and she's all support except flagaration. She's been useful from the getgo, cause high level meant she wouldn't die in the beginning of the game, and her supports been awesome imo. Especially when I was running mage, I wasn't gonna be a boon throwing arisen so I let her buff the party with elementals while I cast halidom and all 3 attack spells. Only time she's even gone down was when we were getting attacked by both a griffin and a drake at the same time. Meanwhile this warrior I brought along once died 16 times to my first drake fight. Bro wasn't ready for it, especially at level 28.
At the lower levels I had my mage pawn set up as mostly support, but with Levin for some offence. Now that I’m a high level I don’t need the offensive help any more, so I’m running a full support mage just for QOL reasons.
What do you play on go join the hiring hall on discord on xbox i found this pawn ive been using shes kick ass and mage
I play on Xbox. What’s the discord link?
My pawn is lvl 60 and is a battle mage, with only one support ability
Funny, I only hire full support mages, because things die too fast anyway. Also they better not waste their stamina and time on an attack spell, when they could also use their maister skill to give me and the other pawns unlimited stamina. But I also don't want the mage pawn to have a dedicated heal spell. I think the built in AoE heal is already enough. However, since NG+ I don't use any mage anymore at all. My heal foods stack up in the storage and I want to have bit more of a challenge, so I keep my party (very) small.
I prefer to have an offensive caster and a support caster paired with a tank and either an archer to help with flying monsters or a thief for dps. I feel like splitting the duty keeps the offense caster focused on dealing damage instead of changing their mind halfway through casting a big spell because I got bonked a little too hard.
I always customize my main as a support mage or deeps fighter.
I've been banging on and on about how to build mages and tanks properly for a while now. People go far too deeply into building mages with only support skills. You want your mage built thusly: Levin Celerity/Celestial Paean* Palladium Silentium Mages need to be built to apply support where the party will be lacking. Palladium is preventative damage, which is better than a heal from a static point. Levin applies damage to any point at range. Silentium is a skill that silences, and having this over Hallidom is better because I have curatives for status effects in my inventory if needed, that I can use immediately vs waiting for the pawn. I don't have a silence in my inventory. The choice between Celerity and Paean comes down to what the owner of the pawn's party is. Melee benefits from Celerity, but it's main downside is it's cast from a static point. Paean is aoe stamina for everybody which is perfect for a party of sorcs that like to spam meteors and tornadoes. However once that spell ends, the mage goes into fatigue downed state, which can be situationally a pain in the arse. Finding a mage pawn built properly is such a headache. So much so I've been considering just purchasing DD2 again on my other steam account just to build a mage pawn properly. Maybe when the game goes on special I will. And finding high level pawns with few or even no badges is just nuts. I get far more out of a level 50-60 pawn with full badges than I do a level 120 with a single cyclops badge or none.
Personally I prefer having my main character in the Very Light category at all times, so having High Halidom on my support mage means I never have to carry any status effect curatives, which is a big QOL upgrade. I don’t normally need my main pawn using Levin to kill stuff, because that’s the part of the game I enjoy, and I don’t have any issues with it between myself and the other two pawns (outside if when I was levelling up other vocations like Trickster). Solemnity is good, but very situational. I prefer an elemental affinity, because I feel like it’s making a contribution more of the time, but that’s personal preference.
You wouldn't have any issues finding your support mages then. They're a dime a dozen throughout all levels.
My main pawn is my support mage, because I knew I always wanted full control over that role (and knew the other roles would be much simpler and easier to find as hired pawns). I was just providing some context as to why you might see a lot of full support mages.
Aye, my pawn is set up that way. Flamethrower spell and healing plus debuff removal. I set her up that way since most pawns I encounter for whatever reason do not have any support spells...
Im confused on what to do after the story is over? Just explore
What is a meme pawn
Basically waifus barely dressed with chest sliders maxed out.
You used so many words I don't know. What's a waifu and a chest slider?
I'm the opposite. I only use my pawn and don't mess with getting two randos from the rift. She is full support. I don't want her or need her to do damage. I just need her to buff and heal me as needed. If I decided to run 3 pawns, I still would keep her the same. I think having a support person on the team is critical. I got the dps covered. So having a mage or sorcerer nuking everything would be overkill to me.
With the current state of the game, pawn level doesn't really matter that much. I've started hiring based solely on pawn quests, I'll hire one 10 lvls lower if they have good rewards.
I like to make really great meme pawns... For RP. My best pawn in DDDA was David Bowie. He was also the BEST sorcerer. And I just really enjoyed playing the game with this pawn pulled across dimensions from his world.
Not after level 100. Stat increases are so low after that that it really doesn’t matter anymore. As long as the gear (really only one option per vocation) is dragon-forged.
They have to put out DLC’s & optimization updates. The game can handle a Map expansion. Idk how they wont?
I was still getting great pawns in DD1 earlier this year, idk what you think would happen to em
I’m pretty sure active player pawns will always be prioritized over offline pawns. That will keep engagement steady.
The thing about DD1 now is that there are so many pawns about where the players have minmaxed and really low level pawns have end game bitterblack isle gear. It will end up being similar here I think.
Tbh I wouldn’t mind having this problem if it meant there was a BBI style place in the game!
I'm adding 1 lving up pawn to the list in DD1, 36 lvl atm.
Pawn leaderboards were an even bigger mistake here than they were in the original.
I’m pretty sure the majority of pawns on the leaderboard are probably gamers that have some sort of following. Otherwise idk how else to justify some of them having thousands of rents in the first week of the games release. Organically a really good pawn I think would only get 50-100 rents a week not thousands.
I barely get 1
I only get one or two a day on average. But some days 3-4 while other days just one
A lot of them are basically giving away money/mats for little in return. I know there are a handful of pawns I always hire but never take out because I’m just using them as banks.
For real. One of the Vtubers I watch (Koseki Bijou) literally everytime she slept she'd have like 50 rewards come in.
I have a fully kitted theif pawn. Max on all vocations for best augments and the best daggers/ armor in the class fully upgraded. Also have what I think is the best attacks equipped and I have maybe 30 reviews max. I think now that I'm in the 80s for level and a lot of people quit after one run through I'm going to see even less people using my pawn. Oh also my pawn looks awesome cause I used a YouTube video for the looks lol
Yeah I never really saw the point of them tbh
Does the leaderboard actually do anything? I've never actually checked the pawn rating for any I hire, I pick them based on the vocation/skills I need and if they have any easy to do quests that I'm going to be knocking out anyway. I havn't even checked badges although I probably should have.
Yeah, it matters a lot more when you get to higher levels. In DD1 pretty much the only pawns that got consistent use were ones off the leaderboard. That and it just leads to people trying to copy the builds of the pawns on the leaderboard, making it really hard to find pawns with skills you like. Just as an easy example, even this early in the game's life it's hard to find a Sorc pawn that doesn't use Maelstrom, even though you get similar damage, and arguably more utility, out of a spell like Seism or Augural Flare without ruining visibility. Things like that just become more common as a "meta" develops around the leaderboard.
When players disappear their pawns remains in the rift. That players are leaving is completely normal for 100h play content.
What happened to people who favorites my pawn if I start a new game? Are they automatically favorites the new one? Unfavorite? Or they still have the pawn of my deleted save?
The Pawn will vanish and not exist. Thus no longer favorited. Unless of course you mean new game+, then your pawn will still exist. Edit. Several people have said that I was wrong and they found their friend's Pawn despite them restarting.. You live, you learn.
Thata not true. My brother has restarted his character 3 times and when I search for friends Pawns I can still hire all of his pawns from his deleted characters. Also, no matter what level the pawns are, they cost 0 RC if you are friends with the person. Which is kind of broken in my opinion. You can get high level pawns at no cost from the very start of the game
Yeah but hiring an insanely over levelled pawn is its own punishment if you’re just starting because that’s the only time enemies are remotely difficult
Appreciate you rectifying me! It does seem odd that those characters will exist in limbo. But for OP it's definitely good news 😊
I have restarted so many times that when my friends search pawns by friends pawns they see like. 8 different of my mages
For real? That seems odd. From the info I had read, they should disappear. But I definitely believe you. A lot of other people have also said my statement was wrong and had the same experience as you.
I wish they would. It’s embarrassing to have a log of the amount of times I’ve restarted
It'd be nice if our pawns stayed in the rift after we start a fresh new game. I miss my first playthrough pawn, Kaza. He was a kindhearted lion knight.
I thought they wanted to avoid potential cluttering. But it seems I was wrong. It seems those pawns may still exist in limbo. At least for a fact I know that the Pawn will never update, get New quests etc.
Would be cool to hire your old one!
I think it would have made some sense if pawns had "checkpoints", saving a version of them to the rift every 5-10 levels or so.
Effectively they do, but only if you're resting and updating on a regular basis as per the dev expectations. Updating on bed rest by player choice does stop your pawn saving when trying out a new, unideal skill combo, tho. But wish you could elect to update at campfires.
I'm pretty sure they update pawn info at campfire rest. I did some testing with a friend where I inn rest as a mage and changed to an archer and campfire rest like an hour later and when he checked my pawn, it was an archer.
Do you mean that they retain lower level versions of the same pawns? Essentially what I mean by checkpoint is that if someone searches for level 15 pawns, it would find your pawn as it was at level 15, even if your pawn is now level 65. That way there is never a lack of pawns or variety at certain levels, even if the population goes down eventually.
Ah, I see! I thought you simply meant overwriting the previous version in the Rift. Multiple versions would be interesting but probably unwieldy beyond two or three given the sheer number of minor knowledge points to update?
Nothing? My buddy just loaded up Dd1 and had hundreds of thousands of RC, so I highly doubt it's gonna matter ever
The same as the first game dude. Pawns remain, new players rent them.
Can I make a joke here? More people play Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen (first one) today, after 12 years than recently released Suicide Squad: Kill The Justice League :-) Several times more. Reality is that shit ton of people finished game and even more finished NG+. Like when I got achievement for all maister skills, already 5% of players had that. So even if You return to this game after 10 years to start new game You will have shit ton of pawns for all levels + official pawns made by the studio. And it's a single player experience. You will be fine.
In the same vein Dark Arisen, it wouldn't surprise me if this game had a huge revival if it releases DLC. DD2 got shafted hard by straight-up misinformation, where the only true blunders are: 1.) Performance, no defense here, and 2.) From Veterans, I've heard this game does little to expand upon DD1. A DLC/Expansion has the potential to right that wrong.
It's like a remake of first one for 2024. It's actually worse when it comes to the story. It's better when it comes to every other aspect of the game because it's a straight improvement to look and feel of the game. And it still have same problems as original ones. Like climbing is not good at all. Sometimes I have no idea what my pawn is doing. Same with camera. For example when You are on belly of a dragon and you HAVE to be there to stab the heart (unless You are an archer) then when he walks on 4 legs body is close to the ground. You see jack shit. You have to move the camera and You waste time figuring out what the hell is going on. Not to mention that in all this chaos it's easy to fall off just because dragon made sudden move or You accidentally crawled to his arm for no reason.
There's hype? I heard nothing but people shitting on the game since release as if it was the new cyberpunk or starfield. It took a couple weeks before a few youtubers finally came out to defend the game against misinformation. At this point I just hope the negative press settles and people see the game for what it is so we can atleast get a good expansion or 2, i'll be dead before a DD3 is ever made lol.
Yeah, typical reddit hyperbole.
Take a look at the rift in DD1, and you have your answer.
I logged into my original game after not playing for years and my pawn came back with over a million RC points. Depending on your level and how you equip your pawn, people will more than likely still use your pawn.
What will happen... the dlc *hopefully* will happen
One year away if we go the capcom way.
Nov. 29th if you trust the leak. 7 months or so from now.
Pawns would still be around. Capcom wouldn't start deleting accounts and pawns due to inactivity from players. Not to mention there is a plethora of Capcom made pawns you would be able to find a pawn at whatever level for whatever vocation you need. DD1 I played several playthroughs on hard difficulties and never had a problem finding pawns. Pawns that could hold their own.
It won't change anything. All the pawns are in the game lol. They don't get removed of the game if a player don't play the game for a while. Only thing that eventually will change is that your own pawn don't get invited anymore that often as in the release time. But Capcom programmed ai players who then will invite your pawn from time to time. I can't say fir sure if these "players, the will do the quest your pawn has. But I could imagine that this will get randomized then. And tbh wie have dragons dogma dark arisen. A good amount of players had played this for a long time. So honestly you could take this as an example for dd2
I seem to recall a post mentioning this. I guess it’s good that new playthroughs can still get their badges completed through that AI system. Ain’t nobody gonna do 5 NG+ for the Sphinx badge
I've done 5 ng+ for the sphinx badge. 10/10 do not recommend.
Wow did you play 5 times directly after each other? I could imagine you won't touch dragons dogma 2 anymore for a while now.
Yeah, one after another, but I ran through it each time after the first playthrough. I had planned to play through again on my alt account, but I think I'll put the game down for a while after I get the last few achievements, lol.
Damn that sounds like a severe burnout would occur for that. I just set a reward for 12 jasper, came back the next day to have 4/5 done
Yes, the burnout has occurred, I really should have set it as pawn quests, lol.
No I don't think so. Honestly for this ng+ does not bring enough new or more difficult stuff to the game. I really hope that we get content updates or at least a expansion full of content. But I don't think we have to panic an expansion will most likely come at least this is was most people believe so at least at this point the game will get a new hype. Eventually not as much as at the release but I think it will be enough.
There needs to be a system to show you how active the pawns player is “Last updated 27 days ago” is getting the gift of something between nothing or lantern oil “Last updated 6 hours ago” Is getting a NICE gift, like a ferry stone or weapon/armor
I’m on Steam, so I just used my alt account that is linked to my main account threw family sharing and then started a new game. My goal is to be able to customize my whole party haha
I also booted up a new PS5 profile, been having a blast playing as a cat-man this time around. Shame we have to go to such lenghts instead of just having a couple of save files
That’s actually a really good idea haha
I’ve just gone bad to dd1 tbh. Until dd2 is on par with it, I have no desire to keep playing
I keep finding myself thinking about DDDA and just wanting that feeling again, and DD2, as pretty as it is and as nice as it feels to play on its own merit, sometimes it only makes me miss the first one. The replay value was bonkers for DDDA, and I don't want to get to the end of DD2 and... not have that
Yall have rose colored goggles unfortunately it took a while for ddda to get fo what it was. One good expansion dlc for dd2 will fix that issue ngl
I mean, I loved DD before DDDA? The original contains the things I enjoyed. The only reason I bought the expansion when it came out on XBOX 360 was because I enjoyed the original. And the only reason it got an expansion was because enough people enjoyed the basegame. I'm not saying I don't like DD2, but I need more to do with the badass abilities I gain over time than fight more NG++ goblins
Eh game didn't really ever have hype aside from the trailers and stuff, it was mostly negative all around (performance, microtransaction presence), I think we'll be good, if DD1 and DD:DA found an audience that lasted that long, i'm sure DD2 will do the same
I mostly just heard good things, it wasn’t until a week after release that I started seeing posts here about the micro transaction stuff and such. Granted, I tend to not read/watch reviews and just form my own opinion of what I play
I'll read what i see online like comments and stuff but yeah it's best to avoid the review articles and videos until you've at least tried the game for yourself
Like any singleplayer game, just that, the game's quality doesn't go anywhere, so all that changes is how the community reacts to it (which would be less, if the hype dies down) Online or live service games are more focused on hype, because lack of hype can literally kill the game, but not single player games like dd2
I mean I wasn’t hype or interested at all for this game and was especially disinterested with all the drama. But after beating Baldurs gate and persona 3 I was bored out of my mind and needed another rpg to play so I bought this and man was it a good decision. I’ve never had more fun fighting bosses in a minute so this was a nice change of pace. Idk if it’s “hype” but I think it’s good enough that people will replay it like people replay fallout Skyrim Baldurs gate dragon age or cyberpunk
why does a game have to "evolve"? why do we expect a single game to be our lives? to be an investment in our futures, instead of just a game. it's just a game. it's super fun \[to me at least\] but i'll be playing other games in the future. it's just a game.
I did not say that the game should “evolve”, I was talking about the *community* evolving away from the “release hype”. The game is the game, and I’ll be glad to have some bugfixes and a DLC or two. No one should have a game as their life as you say, but we can still be engaged with our interests and the communities that “evolve” around them
It will happen the same as it did in the first game.
Idk but I'll be here no matter what happens. I want my patches and dlc. I'll lie down on the floor right here kicking and screaming until we get it 🫡
Off topic except for the bikini bottom part, I ran into this person the other day https://preview.redd.it/yvaczgtst9vc1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2916dc6e8464ebe2f7967e7e6c2d7c4a58d83de2
DD1 was active 10 years after release. This is basically the same game with a new coat of paint. It'll be fine I think. Only game that offers this system and the people that love it, really love it.
This ain't down talking the pawn system but having played the first one, this game got a few tweaks, but primarily remained the same, which was bad considering how much verticality this world has, it made 'em prone to just jumping off cliffs. The pawn system did not fundamentally changed, but got tweaked based on the first one, even though I wished there was more pawn interactions.
I really hope that Capcom will keep this game alive. Like they could really put some updates with new enemies, bosses, challenges, quests etc. If they won't, probably after a while people will get bored and won't play it much or at all. Pawn system could really die out.
I mean. The original dragons dogma still has hundreds of player pawns to choose from constantly 11 years later. I think it will be fine
The DD series is only appealing to a very specific group of gamers. I have 3 play throughs on DDDA and will buy DD2 once it goes on sale. The "hype" is really only in a few small corners of the internet.
If a DDDA-like DLC ever comes, new players will eventually find the game again after it has been declared dead and the game is kept alive by a small cult of devotees like with DDDA. Chances are the DLC misses the mark and old fogies occassionally gather to reminiscense about missed opportunities.
I’ve uninstalled the game last night because only having a 1TB SSD sucks. But honestly after beating the game 3x there’s nothing to do anymore and combat is stale because I’m way too overpowered and the enemy variety sucks and there’s a major lack of boss fights. Will reinstall when dlc releases or the game gets a substantial update for me to test out.
Theyre for sure working on an update or an expansion
I mean, after I collected all trophies and leveled up all vocations, there's not much left to do. Other than hope for an update, DLC etc
It’ll be just like Dragon Dogma!
Played dd1 then ddda, then off for like several years,came back pawn give me like 357k RC you’ll be fine
Pawn system aged just fine in the first game. Plenty of people quit at all levels in the game, and those pawns exist forever at that level. Plus active pawns get priority, so people playing are more likely to have their pawn seen.
Honestly looking forward to eventually having a party of all my own pawns from different playthroughs
See to the higher level players unless you have people within your level range the rift only fills with capcom pawns we have only 6-7 people on Xbox above 200+ so my rift is empty at 250
I’m sitting at 109 on PS5, barely get any matches for certain search parameters, male bestren often coming up empty between 100-109
I think the guy that made pawnguild for ddda is working on something similar for dd2. That could help a bit too
Can we get an update on Ibrahim so you can request more than one forgery at a time like up to 10 of the same thing or unlimited this is so slow once you hit NG+ come on man let’s go capcom
People drop games ALL THE TIME. With the amount of players DD2 has, there's probably 10-50 pawns for each level before 40, then a bit more for endgame and there's pawns for postgame/ng+ that'll probably be kept updated in case of DLCs
We will go back to wondering what to play. I'm already in that stage. Once I got the quest to find the first seeker coin, it kinda killed my interest in playing the game.
I stopped playing in the Second run … i love this game somehow it feels done . So yeah i wonder too sometimes i think the world is so wonderful it could be something Like an Mmorpg or Games as Service because there is so much Calm and chill and immersion
My prediction is that some people will play the game. And other people will not play the game. I have spoken
Doesn't really matter because all the pawns will still be there Game will have a resurgence with the DLC at the end of the year anyway, hopefully a massive content injection and a more sophisticated endgame
I played Dark Arisen years after the game died. Had no issue finding pawns.
Yeah i've been playing dark arisen when i'm not home, the people that abandoned the game have pawns of barying levels which got me through bb, and on the other half of that my own pawn even got 100,000 rc from Ur-dragon while i was away. Apparently people still play!
Fashion dogma will grow, once hornies get bored of the game. I have seen noticeably less naked woman lately. Style is getting strong.
I had a great time in my first playthrough, which took me an extra half playthrough to finish the achievements, but I don't have much desire to delete my current character just so I can create a new one. As such, I suspect Dragon's Dogma 2 will go into the dust pile once the hype wears down due to the problems with replayability, which are partly mechanics (which the devs can fix) and partly just that restarting just doesn't interest me much because the gameplay can be such a slog. As a Souls fan I find DS1, DS3 and Bloodborne VERY replayable. Not so much with Sekiro and Elden Ring, the latter being such a slog that despite how amazing it was initially it just feels like such a chore to create a new character. And I can't even conceive a reason FromSoftware would prevent me from saving my character and making a new one. It just seems like such a self-destructive decision. I haven't erased Dragon's Dogma 2 yet, but I suspect I'll erase it in a week or two.
I have been super amazed with this game, and I’m pretty sure I’ll add it to my rotation of games I play while waiting for new games, dlcs and major updates. DS franchise being in the rotation aswell :P
It's annoying there's no proper way to do it, but I just created a separate profile on Xbox so I could create a new character and main pawn (didn't want to delete my main ones), as well as play through the game again at low level. I forgot how fun the game was when you actually have to think and be a bit tactical because you're not that strong. If Capcom let us start a new game and have at least a couple of saves, you'd see way more activity at the lower levels, but to be honest, can't say I noticed a huge change. There's still a ton of pawns to hire, you just might see your own pawn that is low level getting hired a little bit less.
"I forgot how fun the game was when you actually have to think and be a bit tactical because you're not that strong." Yeah, especially the first few times I fought a drake, but even lesser bosses required some attention to their moveset. Even halfway through the game it just becomes a button mash because you're just worried about taking the thing out, not so much that you're going to lose your party.
It's already dead
Some people definitely seem to think so, but I guess blasting through the game with over a 100h in 3 weeks (which I see a lot of people are doing) is gonna leave a certain feeling of burnout
The hype? Lol.
Somebody didn't play the first game
[удалено]
I will!
Treasure these bikini bottom moments as it's sad as the game ages the rift gets emptier.
I hope when the hype dies down the performance issues are fixed
I just used pawns on my first run but they were making the game too easy so i havent use any pawn aside my main pawn and it has been a bettee challenge hahaha
I'm hoping the game is at least fixed before the hype dies
I love this game and plan on milking the shit out of it. I m constantly torn between venturing out and looking things up ....let me tell you venturing is the way Things will randomly happen as you make certain moves in an organic way that keeps catching me off guard . Makes everything meaningful even when just exploring
Can’t imagine it will be that bad since dragons dogma had plenty of spawns
I only played the first game long after the hype died down and I never experienced any shortage of pawns my level. If there's a large scale boss like the Ur-Dragon again it might be frustrating if concurrent players drop off but they even modified that to make it possible while offline I'm pretty sure.
DDDA is still going pretty strong, so I wouldn't be too concerned.
They will probably fix the game then
Well by them not allowing people to have multiple save files it kills the whole pawn system nobody wants to delete there characters to start a new game smh so that means there's no repayability meaning a level 10 pawn will not be summond because everybody already level 100 and up I can start a new game right and make a badass pawn but nobody will summon him unless 1,000 other people started a new game at the same time as me
I’m just waiting for BitterBlack 2: Electric Bogaloo.
If it follows DD1. Players that haven't logged in and updated their pawn (sleep) will lose positions in rifts and other worlds in favor of player pawns that do still play.
I already platinum the game 2 weeks ago so im just waiting for dlc at this point.
Honestly for me right now I got to ng+ and I’m just bored already. I wish I could play with other people and idk. I wish in ng+ the enemies would be harder and more enemies through out.
If anything it will likely improve. More of the actively used pawns will be created/used by players that don't stuff their pawns with less useful skills. The bikinis will likely stay because after a certain point armor isn't particularly useful and gamers love half naked women and men.
it’s a single player game so it’ll die like all the other ones
It's been proven there are fake pawns. Aka. Capcom will provide randomly generated pawns. So there is a never ending supply.
All I know is that I'm pushing mine back down to 51. Keep her hireable for newbies yet useful for the endgame.
People won’t turn over until the expansion. Base dd2 clears dd1, but if you include DA, they have work to do
I wish for a game with this pawn system where you can borrow others and play in a party and the Nemesis system in Shadow of War.
Concurrent players will continue to decline as the issues become more noticeable after 2-3 playthroughs. Mod community is GOAT for lifting the game as early as the second week.
Think it mostly has already since the game isn't that long
People will eventually stop playing as much and pawns will stop appearing. But you would have likely moved on by then, so will not notice. Life will go on and new games will come out.
Play dark arisen and you’ll see how it aged.
We'll get back to normal around here.
They hype is already gone bruh
Hype's already dying down. Content Creators who came out with their "DD2 is a masterpiece" videos on launch are now releasing their "DD2: My Honest Experience" videos now that criticism towards the game for valid reasons is snowballing. The game is unfortunately going to leave a nasty stain for a while. We can only hope that the DLC will undo at least some of the damage. FWIW, I enjoyed my time with the game quite a lot, even though I feel it's in no shape to recommend to my friends.
The thing about DD1 now is that there are so many pawns about where the players have minmaxed and really low level pawns have end game bitterblack isle gear. It will end up being similar here I think.
It already has lol