Not to deviate from our fair complain against Capcom for their bizarre practices, interesting news for us fans:

Dragon’s Dogma 2 is Capcom’s most popular single-player Steam launch
https://www.pcgamesn.com/dragons-dogma-2/steam-player-count

Albeit the game is clearly with a lot of performance problems on consoles and pc, albeit Steam reviews are still on Mixed hating the game for its problems, albeit the microtransactions are being hated for its weirdness, albeit Denuvo AntiTamper is Capcom main choice for DRMs (Reason why people are speculating this is one the causes for such terrible performance and many save file corruptions and problems) and albeit there's no "New Game" on the main menu after you start your gameplay...

..people are loving Dragons Dogma 2 and singing praises for its fun gameplay and mechanics to the point of:

"Dragon's Dogma 2 has exploded on the Steam charts, quickly becoming the most played Steam game in developer and publisher Capcom's history."

..and also to the point of surpassing other Capcom giants like Resident Evil 4 and Devil May Cry 5:

"(...) This number eclipses titles like Resident Evil 4 Remake and Devil May Cry 5, which were previously Capcom's heaviest single-player game hitters on Steam. Although Monster Hunter: World's peak player count is 334,684, and Monter Hunter: Rise's peak player count is also higher, both of these titles are co-op games. (...)"

Thus, now we can be certain that Capcom wont abandon this game to the ashes and they will fix the game, as their post shows:

steamcommunity . com /games/2054970/announcements/detail/4106792732433556919

Without paying Capcom a gentle fee, it might be possible the characters appearance can only be changed one time in the entire game, and one time for the main pawn...thats it, i guess.

At least no information available on additional tomes.... so far only 2 tomes found. Indeed, with a 2-3 coin tipp (for my country it costs a bit more) there is endless tomes available, just a question of money.

So, it might not be needed but.... to some people maybe yes... as they might want to use those features which are locked behind a paywall.
https://www.polygon.com/dragons-dogma-2-guide/24106867/change-appearance-hair-body-barbarie-metamorphosis

Ah, indeed... you can NOT start a new game anymore, so it leaves you pretty much with your "messed game" in term something went wrong and there is always just one save... the most recent one. Pretty much a DRM on its own way. At least "New Game" works by deleting all saves, as there is simply only one save allowed.

I wonder how long it takes to get 500 Rift Crystals... because usually people are not paying for things easy to get. Although, comparable to GT7, tipping coins will lead to endless amount of "in game coins".

Good game? Lets see...

Technically i am very mixed, the general performance is clearly way lower than what can be expected from the used hardware and/or the graphics given. Some stuff surely is great but in overall the graphics is totally average when compared to many next gen titles. RT is playing close to no role and i am not sure it is even used on PS5. However, the only RT tech used is "Ray Traced Ambient Occlusion", all the other RT tech is not used (Path Tracing, Global Illumination°° and many more techs). At least the RT will not bring an "average RT hardware" down to its knees, yet, the difference with or without can only be truly seen inside buildings, as the light might look more natural. Especially in the night, a lot of "ambient shaders" was used, kinda is reminding me of ENB or simply some "weather shaders", looks fine but it is nothing a good modded Skyrim shader could not deliver as well... in comparison, so it does not feel to satisfying but still fine at a good level. °°Maybe used, but effect is very weak.

Sure, it is a rather high budget game, which is able to be seen on many parts of the game, but rather just on unique spots... not in general. In general surely one of the better looking RPGs, but again... it comes at a hardware cost.

Gameplay... so far it is simply the "good old stuff" we know from this series. A good RPG, sure, but not above comparable games such as "Dragon Age". I will simply play some more time... not much i can say with just a few hours played.

The "official specs" will involve a "interlacted mode". Something the console gamers got many experience with but pretty exotic on new PCs, kinda a "renaissance". It seems to be used, at the render level, in a certain way in order to "put some lower resolution" frames in between. Basically one of many tricks in order to create a "faked higher quality". Finally, almost no setting except the highest possible is providing "true 4k"... but if there is a noticeable difference i can not say, this surely totally depends on the viewer and the monitor used.

Sure, i had in mind the modern hardware would be powerful enough handling stuff without "dirty tricks"... apparently not.. the good old days are catching up with modern times.

Some people already speak about 8k. Get your stuff together and master 4k first... seriously.

Gameplay got a ugly component, for example, if a quest is "postponed" by going to rest after, the quest is basically broken (timeline issue), Yet, if not noticed quick enough, the game will automatically overwrite the save slot as well with the "failed information", and at this point it will become impossible loading an older save. The game however will not overwrite the save at the inn, but.., this save, in such a case is useless. Not that it is different vs. the first game (there was comparable issues), yet they didnt change this behavior a little bit. "Failing" is simply part of the design it seems.

These Dragon's Dogma 2 micro transaction DLCs look more like Deluxe Edition DLCs cut to pieces. And compared to normal DLCs, these mtx are completely dumb: they are onetime-use, manipulative and relatively easy to obtain in the game. I don't know who in sane mind would buy a Metamorphosis DLC when there's a 500 RC DLC for a half of a price of Metamorphosis DLC, and I believe you can get both pretty quick when you just play the game.

It's easier to understand such implementations in online games (like Diablo Immortal maybe) where you'd want to use a booster to be able to compete with other players, but in the single-player game - it's an absolute waste. No wonder why people are criticizing such things in Dragon's Dogma 2.


Regarding of technical issues: I don't know if it's true, but if the version of the RE engine Capcom use for Dragon's Dogma 2 is the same (or similar) they have used for one of new Resident Evil games, then switching to DX11 might help.

If anything, Diablo's micro-transactions are just scummy.
But in DD2's case there's the question what's worse - Capcom for offering such ridiculous DLC's, or the fools who actually purchase them.

Somehow the biggest issue - the game having DRM - and there already being cases where people had their accounts frozen because they deleted their own save-file - that's something of a side-note. :/

Having only 1 save-file is a bigger issue than having your account locked because you wanted to experiment with said save-file.

Those who need more than 2 tomes...

I do not know what you mean by "quick" but so far, after a couple of hours, i did not get 500 Rift Crystals. Not that i ever used any of them because i only used Pawn at the same level so far. Yet, there are some higher leveled bonus-Pawns that will not require Rift Crystals if someone can find them. So far i only was able to find one but i am at the beginning and the game world surely is huge, a lot to explore.

So far, surely good game... i can not complain with the gameplay,,, in general.

Ah yes, i am at a spot those Metamorphosis Tomes can be gotten but just as been told, only 2 on stock and a lot of expensive stuff there that will require thousands of Rift Crystals (i only got 150 so far).

Slipping in those Mtx after the review period has ended is rather scummy.

Well, regular users are still able to bring up this if they choose to leave a review.

When it comes to ''independent reviewers'' - they knew in advance.

Yes. Though I must repeat myself:

As pointed out before, Capcom is doing this for years now.
Still, as content creator The Rift (video below) pointed out, I doubt Itsuno (director of DD2) and his team at Capcom really want this in their passion project, but 'the suits' (as young people say these days..) at Capcom probably / supposedly forced those practices, because this is happening for years on many Capcom games already.

The Rift - "Dragon's Dogma 2 DRAMA is getting heated..."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3knCrNdm8V0

The situation of accounts frozen and corrupted save files might or not be associated with Denuvo AntiTamper simply because of how it works. See attached image, as posted before in post 15

I really don't understand why companies use Denuvo. Not kidding.

By the little I know about it, which is already scary, (if its completely true) you can't play games with Denuvo in Wine (Thus, no Linux).
You can't preserve a Denuvo game because it needs to connect to servers initially to download files and tie them, encrypted, to your specific hardware and game executable.

If this wasn't enough, game executable with Denuvo will continually and constantly 'check' if the game executable is not cracked, or if there any changes in the executable. Making even modding a hassle and possibly breaking game saves which are tied to servers, as supposedly may or not be the case with Dragon's Dogma 2.

Thus explaining why many games with Denuvo suffer terribly with performance issues and so on.
(Some known cases being DOOM 2016, DOOM Eternal, RE7, ...)

The only way to preserve a game build with Denuvo would be if the company released the exe without Denuvo.

If there are any misinformation about Denuvo above, please, feel free to correct me. In any way, this kind of DRM is the worse that exists today, affecting consumer gameplay and game preservation it seems.

Also, at least in the first game you can start a new game/a new save and easily backup your saves, as they're "simple" encrypted text files.

Not all content creators knew about this.
Many people are hunting creators calling them liars, which is sad. Not everyone received the same email from Capcom apparently.

To understand how you can't trust Asmon in this because its just a short video that only capitalize in the drama without any context from Cowboy's full video, watch the first 8 ~ 20 minutes of this live if you want to understand what is happening:

Rurikhan - Dragon's Dogma 2 Gameplay Part 4 - First Time - Dogma Dwarves
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLFbwumr9g8

Unfortunately, the result is already happening, masses are hunting creators heads saying every creator is liar.

Internet is such a fun way to understand how humans behave. This specific case should be studied in psychological papers.

Players mass complaint for Dragon's Dogma 2 microtransactions for many reasons I guess, be it a reasonable complaint or a simple non-acceptance. Though there was a significant amount of complaints about Resident Evil 4 MTX, but the situation was somehow different because they were added much later. I also assume that RE4 mtx wewren't trashed that much by the players because they are mostly cosmetics, advantages (payed cheats?) and additional content. As far as I can tell, right now there is only one DLC for Dragon's Dogma 2 that may be considered as additional content - custom sounds DLC.

After reading a good amount of complaints I can only tell that people lose patience more often then before because with every new game such microtransaction implementations become more and more ridiculous.

I can clearly understand that the developer team (most likely) wasn't involved in development of mtx model for Dragon's Dogma, and it was created by some marketing weirdo or artificial intelligence even. :)

DD2 players are probably just hyperbolize and appeal to those 'the suits' when they addressing mtx issues to Capcom.

Interesting. I was not aware of any drama. I watched 8mins, because I also am not interested in any drama. ;D

Jesus... imagine trying to help more people and getting punished for it...

I think this best sums up the entire situation.
The game itself might actually have some very good gameplay, but everything surrounding its launch is just one big clusterfuck. (Pardon my French.)

Well, i was playing this game for about 20+ hours now, maybe 5 hours additionally because i had to reload a old Inn-save due to stuff going very bad or even bugged. For example: A follower was trying to "lead me the way", told me there is a "short cut" and boooom he was falling and dead... simply stupid AI... not even sure if Capcom did this on purpose... who knows.

In general, i had to reload many fights because a follower... very rarely myself... was dying during a hard battle. It would require a valuable Wakestone and... sorry people... so far those stones are simply to valuable to me using it regularily for "battle assistance". So, Capcom surely made this game somewhat "grindy" for making it rare. However... at the current time i was tuning the character including main pawn so well that a dead is rarely happening under usual circumstances with the well known fights (Ogre, Minotaur and whatelse).

All the Wakestones, 2 so far, was only used in order to revive some dead NPCs lying around during a mission... which surely was a hard thing to me, knowing its value... but it could have an impact on the game and many outcomes. Currently, after 20 hours, i only got 2 more Wakestones left and in total 5 Ferrystones (never used, currently way to valuable). If you do not reload the game very quick if something went wrong... then it could lead to "waste of those rare stones"... and... of course they can be gotten on the PSN market for "real money". So, to the people struggling ingame it surely can be useful but for the advanced core-gamers (usually those making reviews and telling casuals how useless the buyable things are) surely will not struggle with the ressources available.

Regarding Riftcrystals... so far i only got bit more than 500... another thing that can be gotten for "real money"... although, so far there was not critical use for it because the game is not hard enough in order to justify "burning it". Those Riftcrystals only can be gotten as some rare Quest-rewards or if the pawn was traveling to a rift which happens rarely.

In general, the game is fair regarding the standard difficulty (which can not be adjusted) but... it can happen that some thinga go wrong.... for example some weird bugs where NPCs all of a sudden are attacking the player group and there is no way "deagro" them anymore... and naturally most gamers do not want all those NPCs dead just because they have been gone hostile and even if you run away.... they will stay hostile and attack you next time you meet them. So, in this case... the save is simply broken or bugged. It is important to quickly react if stuff like this go wrong and reload the game very quick. If not... it would mean many dead NPC and many "wasted Wakestones" for raising them... as hilarious as it sounds... this is simply gamemechanics somewhat going wrong... not sure if bugged or even on purpose.

Still, if the game is loaded quick at such unfortunate events... it can become prevented but gamers have to be aware of it... simply game mechanics and maybe some bugs.

One of the Ogres was falling down during fight toward the valley... which was somewhat funny because he was big enough in order to serve as a "living bridge". However... at some point he still was falling and then died because of fall damage. I got no items for this kill and the bugged Ogre kinda was lying down "theoretically dead" but not ultimately tagged as dead by the game. I was not reloading it because somehow i found it funny... but still, this was probably not intended.

In the beginning the game can be hard but, as soon as someone get the "hang of it" learning how to tune the characters properly... it is absolutely doable. The thing adding difficulty is mainly due to the somewhat limited or screwed mechanics which is only allowing one save and always need proper judgement of "should i reload, is everything working as intended"... this is the main thing that will need care.

What i do not like is how IGN is kinda "downsizing" the Microtransaction-issue... i will give you one example how it has been done by them (pretty hidden, have to watch it):

There is a quest called "Monster Culling" and in this quest there are several dead NPCs that would/should require a revive using valuable stones. On the Dragons Dogma-Wiki... they was bringing up the dead NPCs... but IGN on their own guide was not telling a single word about "dead NPCs"... which of course would raise the concerns Microtransactions would be able to bring up.

Wiki: Everything has been included.
https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Monster+Culling

IGN... they act as "It never happened".
https://www.ign.com/wikis/dragons-dogma-2/Monster_Culling

In general, it is well known, IGN was acting rather friendly toward those "unnecessary Microtransactions", which may give them a Capcom-bonus but rather not a player-bonus.

Just to say... yes this is a great game and i enjoy playing it. The exact gameplay type is hard to descibe as it is somewhat a mix of many RPG-genre but surely fun to play. I surely can recommend it releasing it on GoG someday if this will ever be possible... who knows. Although, sure... the game got many issues and some of those issues, apart from the things i already told... is involving the pretty bad performance... even on very good systems such as the PS5 or above...

Regarding the "bottle neck" of performance... both the CPU and GPU can become a bottleneck here. Although, it is MORE LIKELY that the GPU is the bottleneck.

For example, if someone is using a "top notch CPU", and the very best CPU for this game is currently the 7800 X3D, there is no other CPU faster at the current time. This CPU is able to provide a average of 80 FPS without troubles with some peak values above 120 FPS. i would say... although, if any other CPU is used it is most likely something in between 50 and 100 FPS that can be achieved. The "weakest CPU" able to play this game properly is the Ryzen 3700 X, which is the CPU used on the PS5. This CPU is able to achieve at least 50 FPS in most scenarios... if there is a PS5 Pro it could even be 55+ FPS which is surely not a issue and pretty fine. So, as long as the CPU is on the PS5 level and above... this is not a biggie. But... of course... it is IN GENERAL a hardware-destroyer at the current shape.

Examples on those videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DT5p0zzR1YA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twEERkUyAXE

Even more of a issue is still the GPU... a GPU at the PS5 level... which is comparable to a RX 6650... maybe close to RX 6700 (if we take some better optimizations into account) is basically able to provide at least 30 FPS (4k, medium settings) in a "good picture quality-mode".... there are some modes worse as that (1080P. low settings) which may give even better FPS with a GPU in this "performance category", although THOSE MODES will then most likely run into CPU issues if the CPU is weaker than a Ryzen 3700 X.

At native 4k... even a flagship GPU such as the 4090 will barely provide more than 60 FPS... and a "second tier GPU" such as the 3090 TI, 4080/4070 TI, 7900+ RX-series or comparable will most likely reach around 45+ FPS which is surely totally satisfying, but not "great". Not even the 4090 is great anymore... i would even suggest a 5090 which is of course not released yet... in order to overpower this badly optimized game.

This was simply the technical aspect... just as i said this is a great game with some cons and it can surely be played at 30 FPS too. Apart from the mediocre (but playble) performance and some bugs i never had any serious issues on PS5... no crashes or whatsoever.

Regarding my setup (can be seen on screens) i have a "tanker and attacker-setup", which basically means, my main character is currently a Mystic Spearhand (advanced Vocation only the Arisen can use), a mix between physical and magical-attack using double-bladed weapons. I got a skill for "lowering agro" (Thief skill)... so the enemies are less likely to attack me and i can go "all out with lesser risk" this way. My main pawn on the other hand is a tank... and got a skill able to increase agro using provoke. Of course the defense... as a Knight and using a shield is supreme and my main pawn can even throw me up toward the enemies back... if useful.. so a pretty cool combo in my mind. The NPC-pawns are usually filled up by at least one pawn able to make ranged attacks (usually Ranger or Attack-mage) and always some Mage able to give support... including healing. So far a very proven setup for me.

Besides, my starting vocation was "Thief" which i absolutely can recommend because it provided supreme evasion which can be helpful if stuff needs to be avoided and chars are simply to weak. I even was able to learn some special Thief skills at a certain village.

Some screens, have to use external host.. simply way huge for the outdated GoG forum. As i try to use the "original quality", in order to represent content in the best quality possible (a thing of honoring the creators).

https://ibb.co/KXJnwwY
https://ibb.co/VJtMy2B
https://ibb.co/58g7Ch0
https://ibb.co/XZj86gv
https://ibb.co/thVbR26
https://ibb.co/HCJb6cN
https://ibb.co/qnY3SZq
https://ibb.co/XJqHZrJ

And yes, the game is very buggy... dependable on luck and event so many things can go wrong or... apparently "correct".

One example: On "The Arisens Shadow" Quest.

Perfect and intended outcome: Can find him quick, catch him... refuse his "offer" and he will start to fight and during the fight Brant will join in a cutscene and the entire matter will be solved without issues at this point.

First wrong outcome: It takes very long to find him, after catching him refuse offer too... and he will start to fight. There is no Brant with a cutscene and he will die... now i dunno if this works but he will need to be revived else the quest will be over at this point.

Second wrong outcome: It takes very long too....he will start to fight, and another NPC will agro the party.... maybe even several at once. Now... there are several dead NPC and if they got no revive... it could look bad for the future game. No worries.... Capcom got lot of the required stones... for coins of course.

There is simply so many levels of "shit happens" and i think the lack of the Brent custscene is actually a bug. So... in order to get this quest done "properly" it could need many tryouts and getting complicated with low luck involved... just for a single... of many... glitchy or buggy quests.

Or... another option: Simply accept his bribe... and the quest is at least solved but not sure this is a "good choice".

There are some people telling junk as they say "simply grab this quest NPC and drag him to Brent or a Guard"... this surely does NOT work because the quest NPC will not let himself become grabed... just "becoming overthrown"... which is "working as intended". So, with people telling weird, out of fantasy, stuff... it surely gets even more complicated understanding this game and many probably glitchy or buggy mechanics.

I bit the bullet and opened my physical PS5 copy of the game instead of returning it, I thought the fluctuating FPS and Motion Blur wouldn't so bad once I play the game myself...boy, was I wrong, can't stomach playing the game for more than a couple minutes. Motion Blur is the worst thing in games, the framerate being a shitshot doesn't help either.
I'm hoping Capcom gets their shit together and fixes those issues, the game is unplayable in this state (for me at least).

They announced upcoming patches that allow disabling Motion Blur and 'promised' to improve performance, but I'm not holding my breath regarding the fps tbh.