Xbob42

6 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Sounds like user error to me.

 

If you do the quest correctly, you go to the cave with the goblins and in that cave are the weapons and they are crappy weapons, and you turn that into the guy.

 

Now the quest says "find a greatsword or archstaff" which seems to apply to any one you pick up. I just so happened to pick up the one in the cave before any other weapon. Hell remember you can make fake duplicates of items in this game, you could have duped the ones you had and given him the fake (probably, I didn't try this)

If you can do it "incorrectly" then it's absolutely game error. 

For one, no one ever mentioned anything about a cave. Unless he mentioned a cave when he said goblins interfered with their delivery, which was a passing comment from several hours prior in my playthrough. For two, the NPC says to just find a weapon. Not to get some specific bad weapons from a cave. 

After turning in an archistaff, the weapons vendor started to talk about how I had "one of his weapons" (??? The archistaff wasn't even from the same race let alone this dude) and to turn it in to the vocation dude. Turn in the weapon I already turned in that was made by an entirely different race but is your human weapon...?

Clearly, the quest has some intended route where I was supposed to speak with someone that I didn't,  as my other quests naturally led me elsewhere. The game had no idea how to handle this and shat the bed. If freely approaching quests however you like in a non linear game proud of its limited direction and quest markers is user error, I expect we're all gonna have a lot of user error by the time this is done. 

Two big tips:

1. When your health bar is empty, you can still use a health recovery item. If you don't use one in a second or two, you die. So just because your health is empty, that doesn't mean you're dead!

2. Lots of big enemies can fall prey to environmental stuff. Cliffs, waterfalls, boulders, etc. Even if the "arena" isn't clearly designed around it. It's just something you can trigger, so keep an eye out if a monster is giving you trouble.

EDIT: Also, you can stand on enemies! You don't just annoyingly slide off! So if you run out of stamina but don't want to have to jump off from atop an enemy, you can position yourself to stand and recover stamina!

Man, this game is kind of kicking ass. A lot of the areas you can explore are genuinely beautiful in that sort of low-fantasy-high-fidelity way. Just a real nice sun-dappled grove as the sun sets with some glowing mushrooms. As much as the raytracing can kinda look funky with certain elements, it really shines in these areas.

Beyond that, I've loved that I'm just following whatever kind of interesting thing happens without even caring about progressing the plot. Some elven dude standing there eyeballing human made bows? Sure I'll buy him one. And that instigates an on-and-off series of little quests that just culminated now, hours later, with a big fight where I had to get creative, because I had less than half max HP but it always also time sensitive, so no time to rest at an inn. I made a save directly before the boss fight, but because you lose a bit more HP each time you reload your save, by the time I had worked out a proper plan, I could barely take a single hit!

But I still managed to pull through and win the fight, which was awesome. The combat feels so good. It's one of the few games where you can be a sword and shield character and you're free to just continually swing forever without it stopping for some kind of minor recovery animation or having to deal with a combo, which in a way kind of also functions like a recovery. The ability to just keep swinging like that, while still having freedom of motion, makes the combat feel much more mobile and frenetic. And because I'm getting more used to my abilities, when a harpy showed up out of nowhere I was able to use my skyward strike to jump to its exact position and bring it down in a single stroke. Was fucking awesome.

The visuals plus the stillness in the soundscape during non-combat (rarely much music, for example) creates this ebb and flow between tranquility and bursts of energy that is really satisfying, and keeps me from becoming exhausted from constant combat. The first game, especially at night, was just NONSTOP combat in the open world. There's plenty of combat to be had here, but the quiet moments between where you're looking for treasure and collectibles (both well hidden, involving lots of minor puzzle solving/platforming, which I adore) really makes the whole package. The pawns are more chatty in a good way, sometimes noticing things I missed. If they suggest something, you can tap up on the D-Pad ("Go!") and they'll try to actively enact their suggestion, whether they want to try something in combat or want to blow up a destructible wall. They catch you if you fall, they help you when you run out of stamina (same as the first game), they bring downed pawns back to you, the wait command prevents them from drowning themselves, though I've only had that happen once as one tried to follow me into deep water, etc.

Then there's little things, like being able to pick up or push/pull so many enemies, which is a legit strategy that can sometimes be more effective than outright attacking, as they can't fight back while you hold them. The fact that enemies' eyes are just tiny glowing dots reflecting your torchlight is both spooky and cool as fuck in a way I don't think I've seen in a game yet. Plenty of games have monsters with literally glowing eyes, but here, it feels much more believable as a reflection of light and they're so small that it doesn't feel like something done to be dramatic, just to be accurate and help you keep track of enemies in the dark. Plus it just looks cool as hell.

The first game never quite clicked with me, but this is beginning to click with me quite hard. Here's hoping it continues to be great!

Okay, here's a REAL PSA:

To unlock at least two of the advanced classes, the vocation guy will tell you they're all out of those weapons, and won't be getting any of those weapons in because of goblins or whatever. So if you want to register as those vocations, you need to find your own weapon.

Simple enough, right?

Well, I found a town that sold a very nice version of one of those weapons and bought it. But when I went to turn it in, you GIVE the dude the weapon, and then they start you off with a little bitch version of that weapon archetype.

In other words, you're surrendering a weapon to get a likely much worse weapon that the dude claimed to not have. Seems like some wires got crossed in the quest design because it makes no fucking sense.

Luckily, this is an instance where "return to last inn save" came in handy, as I used the inn at said city that sold the weapon, and was able to purchase a dirt cheap version of the needed weapon. C'mon Capcom, get your shit together.

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

The framerate is perfectly fine on PS5. You're crazy to miss out on this. 

See, this is why I hate terms like "perfectly fine" or "runs alright" when performance is easily measured. And as we see from the DF videos, the game dips as low as 20 FPS on the PS5 and has absurdly crazy frame pacing issues on top of not being capped at 30, so the performance swings are even more keenly felt.

It doesn't come down to it being "fine," it comes down to whether you personally care about consistent and smooth performance. If you don't, it won't bother you, but it objectively runs much worse than a standard game.

57 minutes ago, best3444 said:

NEW UPDATE:

 

PSA: Don't use the 'Load from Last Inn Rest' option in Dragon's Dogma 2 unless you want to risk permanently losing progress...

Uh, what do you mean by this?

You kind of phrase it as it's a bug, but as I understand it, it simply loads whatever save you had when you last rested at an Inn, which isn't going to be very common. Is there a bug or something?

2 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

Drop everything and give me Alone in the Dark impressions

Booted it up, played for about 30 minutes, was enjoying it. But have yet to fire a weapon. I think I'm getting to that point soon, but I was too tired to continue. Definitely not AAA quality but based on reviews I was expecting the basics to be worse. Hope to get back into it tonight. I do like the tone, setting and acting so far! Got a very L.A. Noire vibe.

I've got this downloaded and ready to go, but there's a very low chance of me being able to get to it any time soon. DD2 alone is a big one, but there's so many other games I'm still working through. This is the first or maybe second time I can think of in my gaming history where I've actually been completely overwhelmed by games I actually want to play. Normally if there's a lot of games coming out, I'm only interested in a couple. Now I'm way behind, dealing with Infinite Wealth, Scarlet/Violet DLC, Princess Peach Showtime, DD2, Rise of the Ronin, Alone in the Dark, Persona 3 Reload, Remnant 2 (still haven't finished it!), Octopath Traveler 2 (same!), Lies of P, The Thaumaturge, Granblue Relink, Lunacid, Helldivers 2, Nayuta, Star Ocean 2, ughhhh. That's not even close to a complete list!

And that's WITH me getting some big titles like Rebirth, Crisis Core, the entire Yakuza series outside of IW, etc. finished up!

47 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Life’s to short. Why can’t we just fucking live together. 

gotta get my eternal virgins or whatever in the true life that comes after this that my magic book says is very real

4 hours ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

it is the kind of thing that throws suspension of disbelief out of the way all of a sudden too, as that is just untenable for a civilization to survive at all if the world is this savage and inhospitable in its density of perils.  Especially when the story so far isn’t “man, there are more creatures than ever by a significant magnitude, please help”.  

It's mentioned near the very beginning by multiple NPCs that all the monsters have started going nuts since the dragon showed up, even the land itself is doing weird shit as you see early on. This isn't how the people usually live.

4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Like I said, it's not a new thing for Capcom. They did it for DMC5. You can buy red or blue orbs and everything in between. It's just stuff you could get from playing the game normally. You don't have to pay for it at all, it doesn't hurt anyone by being there. And if some guy wants to pay money to get a wakestone instead of finding it in the world then more power to them.

You guys. Not everyone plays every video game. Not everyone bought DMC5 half a decade ago. This game is massively more popular if the numbers are anything to go by, so you're gonna have a lot of people whose first impression of Capcom is both terrible optimization and "sneaking" in pay-to-win DLC after launch. Whether they informed their corporate shills writing reviews beforehand is going to be irrelevant, because most people don't like reviewers anymore either. It's not trolls, as someone said, it's people who don't like microtransactions. Which is still a lot of people, turns out. You can say they can "deal with it," but Capcom is the one dealing with it. So it seems to me like the "trolls" have the upper hand in the conversation. Because I already know dozens of people who won't even touch the game because of the mostly negative rating. That shit is an instant red flag.

Whether this is good or bad? Well, it's neither, it is what it is. The idea of a bunch of randos having so much "power" over a corporation can be annoying at times, like if there's a 8/10 instead of a 10/10 woman in the game and they lose their minds. At the same time, Capcom has no one to blame but themselves for poor optimization and trying to sell the thing they said they intentionally didn't add to the game. I don't care what your response is, "it's against our design philosophy to add too much fast travel, also please purchase our fast travel" is bad optics. No one gives a shit if corporate forced them. If corporate can completely supersede a core design tenet of your game, how about instead of talking you just go sit in the corner and let corporate do all the talking.

As for me personally, I don't care too much about the microtransactions. I can cheat engine myself anything I want and I've really never given a shit about a developer's "vision" for a game if it gets in the way of my playing it. So whatever, add microtransactions for every piece of gear in the game if you like, who cares?

The part I care about is the optimization. With the game running so poorly, or rather, so inconsistently, it should've been delayed a bit until a fix was prepared. And I'm probably having the best possible performance out of 99% of gamers right now as my lows are in the mid 70s in the most populated city. That said... it doesn't quite feel like 70. In fact, the feel of FPS anytime I'm near a town or settlement is much lower than what is actually reported. Unfortunately I can't get RTSS to display its overlay, so I can only use a simple FPS counter. I've never quite experienced whatever is happening in this game before. Even if I'm getting 110 FPS in Melve, the camera will judder and feel bad just slowly spinning it.

A completely uneducated guess is that the engine has some kind of limit on CPU-based instructions? Like let's use arbitrary units. 1 NPC walking around town consumes 10 CPU units. The engine is limited to 500 CPU units. But in towns, it's trying to utilize 750 CPU units, but it can't, so it's like despawning stuff to get under 500, and succeeds, then renders the new NPC, but because something is fucky somewhere, the thing it erased is immediately like "HEY WHAT ABOUT ME" and it has to repeat the process infinitely which causes it to feel hitchy and strange in town.

As I said, a completely uneducated guess, no idea what the fuck is actually going on. I only base that guess on the fact that NPCs sometimes fade in startlingly close to the player, and the fact that my CPU usage/temperature/etc is not maxing out, which one would expect if the game was pushing a CPU to its limits, no? But it's also clearly CPU limited, but it's like... artificially CPU limited?

4 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

I think what the issue is actually, or maybe just me, is that on the way to the capital you don't have a chance to upgrade your vocations. I was level 12 by the time I got to the city, I couldn't tell you what I was before I left, but I would imagine 6 or 7. Being able to upgrade your own and pawn's vocations along with the other 2 pawns that travel with you is a big part of making the game easier and you don't get that chance early on.

 

Where I'm at now, I just learned like 4 or 5 skills because it took so long to get there so now I'm ready to kick some ass.

What? You can upgrade your vocation at the very first in at Melve.

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

This is really bad guys. My game keeps freezing at the same location after you rest and create your pawn. Any recommendations?

 

I can move the camera but can't do anything else. Help!

 

Edit: Never mind. Its my connection. After I slept its trying to connect to the server and everything is frozen until it connects. Thank God. 

You can disable the connection in the options menu until you get it sorted out.

I didn't grind anything, but I also did all the side content, so it depends on what you've done. The optional boss fights are significantly harder than anything in the main story, as per usual.

2 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

 

 

I mean, I've been staying at 120 FPS outside of town, and about 70-100 in town. It's got some issues in town, though. I wonder if the consoles are improved at all? They looked completely miserable from that IGN preview.

1 hour ago, Spork3245 said:

JFC

Trying to hawk this shit on PC (Capcom does it with many of their games sadly) is especially funny. Buddy, cheat engine is free!

24 minutes ago, Spork3245 said:

Just to add to this: VRR can greatly vary depending on the TV you have. I know many LEDs are a 40-120hz range, with most Sony TVs even being the weird choice of 48-120hz that PS5 has. LG OLEDs are one of the best in terms of range as VRR can stay active below 20hz. The outputting hardware also matters as it may have it’s own range limitations (I can’t find a clear answer for XSX, but PS5’s range is only that 48-120hz range, though I believe it can be overridden if the devs program for it on PS5). 
It makes me wonder what display they were using in their review.

Yeah, it's similar with monitors. A proper native Gsync monitor works from 1Hz to your monitor's max Hz, whereas pretty much anything outside of that, similarly to TVs, works from 30ish or so, to as low (on the max range end) as 70 to as high as... 144 maybe? I'm not sure.

Kinda why I like sticking to gsync. It definitely results in a more expensive display, but it's got a full VRR range.

The basic movement and traversal feels so much better than the first game. While I'm a little sad you can't jump nearly as high (at least to start with) the basic physicality of the locomotion and how your character feels weighted in the world is really satisfying in a way I'm not sure I know how to explain. The first game was super loosey goosey and that made it fun in its own way, but this one has a certain weight to everything that even makes opening doors more satisfying, which is a weird minor thing but since those are the things you do earliest in most games, they're what I tend to notice first.

Also jumping grabs to tackle enemies/NPCs from various angles, chucking enemies off cliffs, so good. Plus all the added weight, despite seemingly making it more "realistic" makes big arcadey style hits land that much more intensely. It's great.

Don't really care too much about the microtransaction shit. I'm on PC, I'll give myself whatever I want whenever I want -- but it is a pretty scummy thing to do. Reviewers should start making addendum reviews after microtransaction launches focused solely on scummy practices to really highlight them. Also rage bait is great clickbait!

Anyway, performance is definitely all over the place. I can lock to 120 FPS in most areas, but it quickly drops into the 70s/80s around the small populated areas I've been in. Haven't yet been to the bigger city yet, which is where performance is apparently worst. It hasn't been nearly as bad as some prerelease footage, but it's far from smooth or consistent.

Also, nights are super dark in a fun way, whereas nights just kind of sucked ass in the original. Here it really feels like you're trudging through inky darkness to get around, without a fucking dire wolf coming to tear your jugular out every 15 steps. God DAMN it was annoying to get around DD1 at night.

lol, what

There is no broad consensus that the controls were bad at the time. There is a consensus they haven't aged well, but that's a different argument. And most of that is to do with having to stop to shoot. 

Also, there's tons of achievements and rewards for beating the game with no healing, without accessing the item box, minimum saves, etc. The ranking is purely for speedrunning.

1 hour ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

More rule-breaking for a good cause:

 

 

 

 

I like how the top and bottom videos are normal, but the middle one is a Tiktok video and encapsulates how Tiktok is just fucking ruining videos. Postage stamp size, ultra low quality, Youtube poop levels of overly loud meme music kicking in with terrible comedic timing, abysmal. Worst video I've seen all week!

Also those ladies are hitting HARD. Should send them to kill the dragons!

2 hours ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

In addition to that the side activities do have some sort of story attached to them with a payoff and also rewards for doing them. So if a person doesn't like doing the minigames they are actually missing out on some stuff.

Tough shit! Games should not be made with the idea that every gamer is going to see every scrap of content. That's such a tiring way to design games and doesn't leave any interesting stories to tell since everyone does every single thing.

There's so much weird hidden shit in OG FF7 that I'm still learning about because it involved you going to certain areas during specific points in the game when you might not have a reason to go there, it makes the game world and story feel so much bigger than it was because you never know what little scrap of content is left over, what little hints are out there.

Hell, if I recall correctly, the truth about Sephiroth is actually completely missable in the OG game.

Not quite the same as minigames having little story bits, since these were all basically cutscenes (though many did involve minigames like the submarine!) but coming off of Yakuza, let minigames have bits of story attached! It makes them that much more rewarding to do! And if someone hates them, Youtube it bitch! Stop forcing yourself to do everything when you're not enjoying it, don't treat everything like a checklist you're obligated to do you OCD motherfuckers! Grow a spine and say "no, I'm good" if you don't like it!

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

So it's available at 8am eastern time? 

It's available at 5PM PST on Steam, no idea when the PS5 version is available.

He's saying that most VRR, especially on TVs, operate within a certain range of viable framerates. Low framerate compensation can make up for this, but I don't know the specifics so I'm not sure it would apply here.

Further, he's saying that the stutters aren't just tiny thing you might get with general framerate variance, but actual big stutters that VRR can't compensate for. VRR isn't magic; if something stutters, it'll stutter in VRR. If something has BIG stutters, VRR won't even help dress it up in a skirt and cheap makeup.

9 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Yeah fuck that... I never thought there was such a thing as being TOO British.  I know he's speaking english but I'll be damned if I can make out what he's saying and I can watch Guy Ritchie movies without subtitles. Somebody summerize this shit.

Game is kind of a hot mess on every platform right now, mostly due to CPU overutilization with regards to "NPC state models and location tracking," which Capcom is investigating and hope to have a patch out.

Honestly the game is running way worse than it should for no apparent reason, as it's not much of a looker and there's not actually much happening in the world. This ain't even doing 1/100th the simulation work of a Tears of the Kingdom. In fact, it appears to be largely the same kind of CPU load you'd expect out of the first game. Hopefully they get it resolved quickly.

24 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

@best3444

 

 

Wow they even got a British guy to make it as similar to DF as possible!

It's amazing how little I think about this game until someone actually mentions it. It just came and went, left absolutely no impression on me whatsoever. Can't even bring myself to take a little dump on it anymore, it's just so thoroughly uninteresting.

16 minutes ago, stepee said:

 

It depends on the tv, but LFC can be used below 40fps, essentially doing the blank frames thing to make those dips below the vrr threshold still look okay.

Isn't low framerate compensation precisely where the PS5 fails when it comes to VRR? Or did they ever fix that?