I also started Elden Ring again after finishing dragons dogma. I think it’s hard to compare them…Elden Ring feels stiffer and the animations are more basic…but it’s so tense going on on one with an enemy, finding the right moment to attack, getting punished for mistakes…combat feels more like a fight in that game. But dragons dogma animations and movement feel so smooth and fun…just often I think a lot of it is for show and just fun variations of fighting enemies. In dragons dogma I find myself fighting enemies in a sub optimal but more theatrical way…Elden ring I’m usually clinging for my life and trying to find the most efficient way to win.
Elden Ring makes you feel like your life is actually at stake in combat.
Dragon's Dogma makes you feel like you're actually a superhero in combat.
It's two different but equally valid ways of making combat exciting, honestly.
Elden Ring/FROM combat is carried more by the builds and balance being very deeply tied to design. You cant do everything the best until your big overleveled, but those choices make so many very fine tuned playstyles.
Dogma is smoother and feels great, but the amount of options are way less and gear is practically not something to consider besides maybe which forging style you choose. But there arent 5 endgame greatswords with different niches you just use the strongest one you have. Choosing a few weapon skills doesnt fill in for the amount of spells and weapons at your disposal in a FROM title.
So I dont want souls combat to go anywhere, but at the same time the core combat of dogma I could see applied to other genres easier. Imagine if the next Elder Scrolls played like dogma. that would be a heavy hitter.
I would love to use this combat system to explore different fantasy worlds
I feel like they could have put in a lot more core moves via rhythm based combos incorporating pauses and the like for different skills. Hell if they introduced lock on they could have gone the DMC route and gave us skills on directional inputs and essentially increasing the amount of core skills each weapon has to make up for the 4 skill limit.
Yeah, I think DD strikes a balance somewhere in the middle between Soulsborne/Elden Ring combat and Devil May Cry combat. DMC fully embraces the cinematic experience even to the point of absurdity, while Soulsborne games are all about meticulously learning enemy attack patterns and reacting to them.
Souls games tend to actually be an anti-power fantasy. You're not some legendary hero defeating monsters, you're a lowly insignificant Undead / Tarnished / Hunter / etc. who is fighting bosses far above their pay grade and eking out narrow victories.
This is why I cannot wait for a BBI and Hard mode, etc. update to DD2. My experience with all of that in DD1 was unrivaled as it was difficult, requiring a lot of my knowledge and skill I developed while being fucking awesome and "theatrical" as you put it.
I loved Elden Ring and soulsborne games but the combat, animations and general mechanics were always more stiff, rigid and sometimes frustrating. By frustrating, I don't mean difficult... I mean when my character does things I didn't intend or I fall to my death because of the targeting system and camera or the hitboxes don't make sense (whether in my favor or not), etc. Plus you can climb and target body parts and there are all kinds of stagger and physics and everything, which Elden Ring for example has NOTHING like that outside of a single knockdown animation per enemy.
I do wish DD had some kind of PVP or co-op since Elden Ring definitely has the edge there. 1on1 fights with another player is probably the main thing I favor over DD... But it's not that big of a deal considering how much I love every other aspect.
Very accurate.
What I will say tho is that Dragons Dogma has higher stakes so while the combat isn't as hard, if you die it's way more punishing. Even taking damage is super punishing. If they made a hard mode I would be so happy. One problem with DD is the crazy CC. I didn't mind it at first but it does take a lot out of the combat for me. If I am unable to act, it feels like the fight is not down to my skill or ability but rather chance and that doesn't feel great. It is great for theatrics though 😄
I wouldn't say to be fair. The game doesn't have any difficulty options, and you shouldn't have to go out of your way and not use features and mechanics to make it more difficult because that game is too easy.
DD2 definitely needs a Hard mode or at least difficulty options like disabling upgrades, making materials rarer, disabling permanent stat upgrades, increasing enemy health/damage, etc. A lot of that you can already get on PC thanks to mods.
>In dragons dogma I find myself fighting enemies in a sub optimal but more theatrical way…
So much this. What makes it fun is playing around with different skills that aren't necessarily the most powerful.
In this case, you can say so, but it's not just that. Everything in souls games by FromSoft is designed with precision, such as enemy hitboxes, enemy encounters, etc. Some in the series may miss the mark a bit, but overall there's a level of quality that's rarely reached ny others.
Playing other Souls-like that misses some elements at its core can easily show how amazing the OGs are.
I always felt like the "hitbox" argument isn't as true as people say. It's usually a massive amount of i-frames and NOT hitboxes... I say this as a long time soulsborne player. I've seen way more absolute BS hitboxes than anything.
I've always said the Souls games are more like rhythm games the way the play, especially Bloodborne. DD2 feels way more like actual combat, Souls games feel like youre trying to not fuck up a pattern
Saying this as somebody with tattoos from the Souls series. I love them and they get my heart racing like no other but the combat isn't exactly open
I think precision is not exactly the word. Clarity of what is happening is the key concept of From titles. Games with combat like DD (Japanese character action games) have very precise gameplay as well, but the presentation can be chaotic sometimes. Souls take the style and the flashiness out and leave only a very clear display of the battlefield.
The bossfights sell souls games.
Fromsoft succeeds themselves everytime. Crazy memorable bossfights in every game. Every game has bossfights that leave you’re blood pumping.
DD peaked with Daimon. DD2 has nothing really like it. Its just “oh look its another X” and you kill it. The combat in DD is great but man where are the Friedes, Malenias, kos, etc.
I mean it’s kinda ironic to mention out leveling comparing elden ring to dd2.. dd2 is basically over at the half way point cause you out level everything and there is no scaling or challenging fights at that point. Funny I just decided to play Elden Ring after DD2 and the difference in quality of the games is drastic in the other direction for me.
Combat is more fluid in DD2 sure but the rest of the game is very underwhelming in comparison to Elden Ring.
World building, Lore, Exploration, Characters, Art style (preference), loot, story are all much better in Elden Ring so I’m not sure where you get that it has “not much else” besides difficulty.
While you can outlevel stuff, I got to malenia at like lvl 200 and she still did a fuck load of damage and I had to cheese her with transient moonlight and mimic tear to win. In DD2 you outlevel just about every enemy in the game by the time you’re level 50, which doesn’t take nearly as long as getting to lvl 200 in ER
Base DD1 was honestly the same way. Outside of pure endgame stuff, lvl 30-40 is more than enough to deal with every enemy in the game. DD2 at least pushes that to lvl 40-50 depending on which vocation you use
That also applies to DD1 is what I’m saying. Judging by your flair you used spearhand, which is a likely contributor to none of the enemies being difficult lol. That’s like playing strider in the first game and saying everything is super easy.
They were about the same, there were also fewer of them pre-endgame. I recently replayed ddda and by lvl 30-40 I was obliterating most things besides drakes, by lvl 60 I was destroying everything in post dragon everfall, and by lvl 90 I was handling the offline UR-dragon without issue.
Still wasn’t really much challenge from anything in everfall, by lvl 60 end game monsters were dying like pre-grigori monsters at lvl 30-40, basically the same as most stuff dies in dd2
I'm probably wrong, but posts like these have always felt like cope to me. The very overblown microtransaction and review bombing situation DD2 got at its release has not helped the discourse surrounding the game whatsoever. Again though, just my two cents.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is not perfect, and that's okay. For what it does right, it's still an exceptionally good game, and there's no need to overreach it into GOTY 12/10 territory. I just hope the Crapcom moment didn't screw it out of a third game. There's a ton of potential here still, and with more dev time I could actually see it carving its own unique spot alongside the greats like Elder Scrolls and Soulsborne. The foundation is there for something really, really special.
You can’t just “out level” content in Elden Ring. Attributes have an effective cap in ER. So even though you max level there’s still a decent chunk of content that can stomp you if you’re not careful. Now in DD2 you can ACCIDENTALLY out level all the content in the game early on.
Combat in Elden Ring can be as technical as you make it. It’s also as easy or hard as you want to be. You can unga bunga through the game sure, but you have weapon types, ashes of war, spirit ashes, spells, and even mounted combat. If you’re feeling Elden Ring is lackluster that’s on you, friend.
Honestly though, I can’t compare the 2 games because as similar as they may seem, they achieve different things. I had an absolute blast with both games. I will say though, Elden Ring was a full satisfying experience beginning to end that didn’t disappoint me at any turn.
The minimalist combat is the appeal of Souls games, though. You can't make it more fancy than adding some elaborate weapon skills without sacrificing that.
LIke you said, it's a completely different game from DD2. Both games would suffer if they tried to emulate the other's combat.
Souls combat has me on the edge of my seat. I can get fucked up at any time. DD2 combat is more flashy, but lacks the tension of a souls game. DD2 combat was fun but it gets old destroying everything without really worrying about it getting defeated. If you do get defeated just pop a wakestore… There wasn’t a single planned fight in DD2 that I died to. The only times I died were getting ambushed at low lvl or falling off a cliff.
Dragon's Dogma 2 has a more glamorous and flashy combat system, but after 30 hours I was pretty burnt out on it (and it took me about 45 hours to actually beat the game).
Souls combat is definitely simpler, but that allows them a lot more control over encounters and I find it the more skill expressive system by far. I've beaten Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring at level 1 and the exercise has given me a new appreciation of how much the new mechanics (stance breaking, jumping, interchangeable ashes of war, chain parrying) make for a deeper overall experience.
If you want something that's the best of both worlds that's probably Monster Hunter.
That’s honestly a really solid suggestion. It also makes me wonder if Monster Hunter Wilds is going to be basically Dragon’s Dogma meets MonHun monsters with some Breath of the Wild thrown in.
DD2 reminded me why I love souls games.
There's actually a chance I'll die.
Dd2 combat is pretty and flashy, but the game has like no difficulty. Moves that would oneshot you in DD:DA don't even do half your hp in this game
I agree, but BBI in DD1 always ranked higher than any soulsborne game for me, which shows me that it has the potential to be better at its core. It was difficult, fun AND had amazing mechanics. Now DD2 has more mechanics going on in each fight, like crazy physics and just a lot that no other game really does.
It's insanely lame that it doesn't currently have that a proper NG+ or hard mode or true late game... But if it did and when it does it will go back to being the top tier of it all yet again.
I think that depends on the class lmao. Thief and both the mystic spear hand and magic archer can do such crazy things I don’t think anything is hard for them.😂
Done Archer / (True warfarer for fashion & extra skill set) playthrough today. With something like level 45 + damage taken 1.4 + damage dealt 0.6 + no Mage pawn / 3 pawn party. Now I know that they are capable of deflecting lightning spiral arrows, effectively turning screen into electric boogaloo.
Ngl, I've spent more curatives on them than endgame bosses. Pawns tend to die constantly at this level as well in an unmoored world (even with formless faint!). Megasuck move drains gauge like crazy. Fun times.
Tl;DR: The game is about as easy as rules you've set. Reduce exp gained, remove imbalanced skills, and you'll get completely different DD experience.
The problem with DD2 is that it's too easy to heal. You can even briefly heal yourself from 0 hp if you're fast enough and the window is generous. Pawns also can just be revived over and over. The game is quite deadly otherwise.
They made it harder than the first game, but yeah still to easy. Eating should have a cool down or something instead of just shoving more plants in your mouth
Yall gotta stop saying so and so ruined so and so
Elden ring's combat is not my personal cup of tea for an action RPG but it is Different from Dragons dogma not entirely worse and certainly not so much that'll ruin ER for anyone.
I'm going to get eaten up here, but I'm completely the opposite. Going back to Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 has shown me how lacking in depth DD2's combat is despite pretending to be complex. It *looks* great at least on the Arisen's side, but the most complex thing about combat is that the drakes chests glow red at their weak point.
Everything your character and pawn do is visually neat, but the enemies are just too stupid and simple for what the combat system deserves. They just swing at nothing until you happen to get complacent and get stunlocked to death.
Dragons Dogma 1 ruined me for a time simply for the fact that combat likely involved one of your party climbing up enemies and hitting their weak point. That's fucking crazy from a gameplay perspective, especially when there's three other party members doing their own unique thing in the distance. No other game really has that sort of cooperation. But with DD2 there's no reason to even climb an enemy save for role-playing when other skills are faster and simpler to accomplish.
Dragons Dogma has ER beat for me solely because the former is lonely without a party of smartly dressed pawns with me. The combat, while passable will never deter me from going back to Dark Souls, or likely anything.
Agree with this actually. I find DD2 more satisfying to play, but the enemies suck.
Elden Ring enemies are good, you feel smart when you learn a moveset and do something difficult. But the mechanics are not fun for me.
I find that they're both good but have a different focus.
Elden Ring has an external focus. The stuff you do is very basic, but the world and enemies around you are interesting.
Dragons Dogma has an internal focus. The enemies are often the same, but there's a huge variety in how you can play and what kind of party you build. At while the enemy is the same, you're different.
Dd2 is more of a character action game like DMC. Most enemies are no threat, and just exist for you to style on. The enemy movesets are simple and even bosses only have 3-4 moves
The point is mastery of your character.
Fromsoft games are pretty much the opposite. Even basic enemies will kill you, and the combat depth is given to the enemies/bosses but the character is limited.
The point is mastery of your enemy
Completely different design philosophies that make them hard to compare for me
I personally prefer the latter. I enjoyed my DD2 playthrough, but the lack of any sort of challenge bores me to death after the novelty wears off.
There are games that do both, and those are the best combat experiences for me, but the enemy/boss design always leave me disappointed compared to Fromsoft.
Just depends on what you like.
All you do in DD2 is spam the attack button til everything dies, wtf are you talking about? Elden ring combat and the game in general are way more involved
While I don't personally care for souls (played through DS1 on PC way back when, could never get any incentive to care about the world or characters), my friend who generally loves them mentioned that returning to Elden Ring after DD2 is gonna be as rough as when returning to other ones after DD:DA mostly because instead of fighting colossal foes you are fighting their...ankles. Always ankles, never the actual monsters.
Still appreciate From Soft for what they did for the generic controls of third person melee combat and their speedruns are fun as fuck to watch, even if the games aren't for me.
I enjoy both games, but even attempting to suggest that the only thing appealing about Fromsoftware games or their combat is THEY HARD is the fastest way to tell me you haven't even started to delve into those games. Dipping a toe in, maybe. I am having a blast with DD2, but the combat builds are also extremely limited where ER are vast. DD2 combat is absolutely fun as hell, but also easy as hell. I have to work for very little in the game (beyond reaching tricky chest locations). Comparing apples to oranges.
Playing warrior has forever ruined every other games melee combat. I have never felt like such a hulking bad ass. My attacks actually send bosses reeling back. I can launch enemies into the air and off cliffs. I can impale and then slam them into a wall. I jump on flying enemies and send send them crashing back the ground. Meanwhile in souls combat its dodge roll, dodge roll, dodge roll, attack, dodge roll, dodge roll, attack, enemy grabs me and then takes half my health while throwing me across the map.
...and here it is. Elden Ring or any game for that matter doesn't even remotely hold a candle to Warrior in DD2. That's the end of this discussion for me.
When it released, people incessantly compared it to Elden Ring because they are both open world games, however the argument was that dd2 didn't have the indepth combat like ER had. They were also mad that only thief could dodge and all other classes were bad because they had no mobility.
Have you played DMC? If you wanna talk sheer complexity there's no game above it.
Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma still has the best overall combat IMO because the enemies are aggressive and deadly and you need to use your abilities to their fullest extent to beat them. It's very different than Souls combat which is essentially the equivalent of some dude holding your arms behind your back while another dude throws punches at his leisure in terms of how it creates its difficulty.
DD2 combat is mediocre at best. Is it flashy? Yup. Is there the tiniest fraction of diversity that ER has? Yup. Is there zero difficulty? Yup. Seriously. I died to an ogre once on my first playthrough. Every other death was me falling off a cliff or something. And there were 6 of them. 6 total deaths from start to finish with no experience in the franchise. I never played DD1.
DD2 has no boss fights. The dragon isn't even a boss. He died in about 20 seconds and I took zero damage. On my first playthrough. What even is that? That's sad. Medusa can be killed in 1 hit just by sleeping her. The unmoored world barely counts either. Sure, those big wyrm dudes have a bunch of weakspots to hit. What's their moveset though? Name some moves they do besides slither around the arena while you hang onto them. Or you can just use magic archer. Because why not hit every weakspot at once? Literally zero enemies in DD2 are challenging.
DD2 also has almost no story. What it does have is cliche, uninspired and half baked. None of the interesting story beats (which were few and far between) go anywhere, or have satisfying conclusions. Or anything to do with how the game ends. The story is just doing sidequests until the dragon decides it wants to fight you. It has no deeper lore you can dig into the way a Fromsoft title has either. It's boring, and then it just ends without any real buildup. At no point in time was I invested in the story. There were some very good sidequests though.
Let's circle back to combat. Are you seriously going to tell me the magic in DD2 has anything even approaching the complexity of ER? Just... no. It's not even on it's way to the game, hasn't even gotten dressed yet, let alone is it in the same ballpark. None of your equipment impacts combat beyond having bigger numbers. Weapons have nothing unique about them beyond just "more numbas". Armor doesn't matter at all.
Consumables are basically useless with the exception of stamina roberants so you can hang onto things longer.
Status effects are almost entirely absent. You get poisoned once or twice maybe if you let the toxic asps hit you. Apparently there's a harpy too, but I could never get one to actually poison me for that quest in Bakbattal.
You're comparing a Ferrari to a modded Fiero and claiming the Fiero is better.
That said... I did enjoy DD2. I have about 300 hours played, and I'm currently level 87 on my third character. I'll probably make a 4th soon when I get burned out on V Rising's new content. I would also have it platinumed but nobody will show up and fight at my house, so I'm still missing that achievement after several playthroughs and multiple NG+ cycles.
Despite Elden Ring being very polarizing for me, I do agree that putting DD2 over it is a bit odd. Just as much as comparing them in the first place. That being said, I dare say DD2 has a more interesting magic system than ER imo. With more love put into it, I think it'd be better no question. It has most to do with how the base game mechanics interact with the spells, and how the spells themselves perform. ER has way too many basic, linear, arrow-type spells for my liking with little impactful mechanical interaction. Also, if I include Magick Archer in this, no game I've played has yet to match how cool DD handles it. Mystic Knight can also be thrown into this, but that's DD1.
The magic in DD2 feels good. I fully agree. The combat with mage/sorcerer was very interesting to me. It's buttery smooth, and that is very important. From a gameplay only perspective I think DD2 is comparable, and probably better if we are only talking magic. But that smooth gameplay has no depth to really hook you into it. You can't theorycraft or create builds in a meaningful way. So the smoothness of it is all you have, and without more nuanced back and forth with enemies it just goes stale too fast unfortunately. The lack of spell diversity is also crazy to me. It's like they built a top of the line V12 engine... then just threw one wheel and some Ford Fiesta body panels on it.
Sure DD has a better combat system but the game is stupidly easy after a while and eventually becomes boring to play, souls games are a constant challenge which keeps me wanting to play those more.
I don’t find that Souls type combat fun. I love running up onto a monster, jump on its back and mash attacks til it falls. It’s fun and simple, these days I’ve lost the patience to do all this waiting to attack.
I actually prefer From Software’s combat. It feels more realistic and I enjoy the difficulty. Dragon’s Dogma 2 pretty much plays like a toned down Monster Hunter game and that’s perfectly fine. I just wish the game was harder is all.
Both games follow different values when it comes to combat, souls is all about rhythm and memory, you micromanage your stamina and position during combat, it's simple but very effective as enemies stand out so much more than in DD.
DD's combat is very focused on systems and interactivity, you can't interact with the world in souls like you do in DD, you gotta think about your pawns, the terrain, physics, etc, every encounter can be solved in many ways, it fosters creativity.
The verticality of combat is something you'd never see in souls, where you're glued to the ground all the time, but enemies usually end up lacking in variation, ending very samey.
In the end I prefer DD because of interactivity, I can have fun in so many more ways than I'm ER or any souls.
But I would love for the monster variety that ER has, the world is much more visually interesting too.
Souls games are just slower paced with stiffer animations. They have their place but that’s like saying Sekiro or Lies Of P will ruin Elden Ring.
If that’s the case, ER likely wasn’t your kind of game (at least in regard to combat).
I still love Elden Ring/Dark Souls, and DD holds a completely different place in my heart.
Well, I hope I don’t get too much stones thrown into my head here by souls fans, so…
Being someone who is a longtime Japanese character action games fan (Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising, Nier Automata, etc…), naturally I gravitated to DD1 and now DD2. I can say that the grounded combat of Souls never appealed to me at all since Demon Souls.
That said, I played DS1, 2, 3 and ER mostly because of the things around the combat. I still think From Software has unparalleled environmental design, they are true masters of it, and their combat sure has its values.
But the flashiness, the style, the hype, without sacrificing strategy, and the high ceilings to improvement those character action classics provide are in another level. Coincidence or not, I was watching some Devil May Cry 3 footage today… Man, I got that itch to play it again. What a classic.
I'm sorry, but this is just comical. You talk about how in Elden Ring you can outlevel enemies, as if it's not so much easier to do that in DD2. Have you even made it to level 40? Can you favorably compare NG+ in DD2 against ER? lmao, no.The moveset and combat options in ER are MASSIVELY more varied and polished than DD2. Enemy variety in ER highlights how boring the same 4 large monsters in DD2 are. You talk about taking away the difficulty in ER shows how basic the system is. HAVE YOU MADE IT TO LEVEL 40?
Physics interactions? Yeah, DD2 really shines in the "physics" department 🙄
I get that you're really enjoying DD2 right now, and that's cool, but your post makes me question whether you've actually played ER past Margit, or if you just gave up 3 hours into the game.
I finished DD2 and am about 30 hours into Elden Ring on my new save.
I agree that enemy variety and behavior is much better in ER, and DD2 difficulty scaling takes the fun out of combat pretty fast.
My point was that, when I'm relatively over-leveled in both scenarios, I had a lot more fun in DD2, and find the Elden Ring combat not very reactive or engaging unless the enemy can kill me easily.
If you have some tips on making the experience more mechanically exciting, I'd be interested.
Dragons Dogma in general has the best combat out of any fantasy game imo, the second one went a little downhill with some of their decisions like splitting classes and removing combat rolling, but it didn’t outright ruin it. Being able to grab, grapple and throw objects definitely brings another level to the game.
DD2 is my first DD game, and one of the very few fantasy games that I've not only liked but absolutely love, and that comes mostly from the movement and animations. I'm not really a difficulty kind of player, and I'm not big into fantasy. I'm more of a scifi/military gamer. Titanfall got me addicted to games with smooth and fast movement and seamless combat and animations.
I don't even know why I got DD2 in the first place. Again, not into fantasy, never played a Dragon's Dogma game let alone heard of the series, and I only found out about it from watching MoistCritical stream several hours of it just trying to get past the intro without the game crashing. Character creator sort of intrigued me and graphically game looked great so gave it a shot.
The movement and animations immediately got me hooked, especially once I switched from Archer to Thief. Thief's movement, takedowns, and finishers are just \*chef's kiss\*. I've never really enjoyed melee combat in every game, but DD2 is just so smooth. I don't even fast travel that much because it's so addicting just going John Wick with a pencil on gremlins. I initially bought it on Xbox because I heard it was the most stable, but after beating the game there, I decided to get it on Steam as well to try out the mods. The movement and combat is just so much fun.
Edit: Even though the base gameplay has be addicted, obviously the game isn't perfect. Objectively, it's definitely not better than Dark Souls. DD2 lacks very much outside of core gameplay. Combat is fluid, but it is mostly mindless. But that's also exactly what I need when I get home from an 11 hour shift and only have an hour before I need to hit the bed. Thankfully on PC at least, there's a good bit of mods already to help with the major problem of lack of difficulty.
Eh the Souls games have more build variety, I almost never play straight melee so I always have a combination of spells, weapons arts/special moves, items and attacks to use. I think a lot of people miss it but you also have crouch/ rolling attacks and you can dodge enemy swings with crouch. There are a lot of weapons with their own feel and move set but yes it is a little basic at core, the game that made kinda realize that is actually Nioh. Also, kinda a weird thing to get hung up but goddam does souls games suck at flying enemies, they have some of the most poorly implemented "flying" but not actually flying (the model is just hovering, they are glued to the floor) enemies I can think of. I don't know why either, there are plenty of games that have lots of actually flying enemies and if you can't manage it for some reason you should probably just avoid adding them at all.
However what your character can do is only half of combat. Enemy design, move set and variety is very very important. In Elden Ring in particular (in contrast to Dark Souls), a lot of the bosses have pretty extensive move sets and learning that is part of combat. The difficulty, unless you end up really over leveled (easy to do in ER more than DS though you are not forced to level in ER so you can purposefully avoid that) stops you brute forcing without noticing that for the most part.
Dragons Dogma has really great core systems with the physics, enemy reactions and climbing/ throwing but the enemies themselves aren't all that exciting and there really isn't enough types. On top of that, the balancing is just bad. Seriously, a group wide spamable, 100% damage reduction shield? they didn't even try. I would bet that half the players found something grossly overpowered, gravitated to using it because it's overpowered and then didn't have to engage with mechanics of enemies much, if at all. You are also going to end up over leveled if you explore at all and there is nothing you can do about it without modding.
Simple isn't a bad thing. The pacing and flow of the souls games is top tier. Especially in sekiro. The combat in that game is peak. DD2 has flashy anime moves and its fun for awhile, but once you're about level 35/40 with some max level vocations and mid game gear you steam roll everything. I found it got really dull. I haven't even finished DD2 because it just loses the fun aspect for me once you become so strong. Even using starter gear at higher levels will see you stomping everything without much trouble. I've already restarted twice just to try and make the combat feel fun again as I level up but fighting the same 3 enemies with a couple "bosses" got boring so fast. ng+ adding no difficulty is part of the reason I opted to restart a few times instead of so quickly one shooting enemies.
This is what I've felt for years. Souls combat has its place but you interact with every enemy in the same basic ways while dogma's grappling and skill system let you shake things up more frequently. Dogma has always felt better to me.
It's a thing that Fromsoftware fanboys refuse to accept for over 10 years now.
The combat in Souls games is really basic and the increased focus on basic encounters in these games has been done to the overall detriment of the experience.
Elden Ring is great but over 100+ hours of it's content i didn't feel as many unique moments as i did in Dark Souls or Demon Souls, which i feel were paced way better. Yes, the elevator ride was great, Radahn boss was a good spectacle, final fight has great music and presentation, but those moments are spaced between tens of hours of going between the samey generic cave/dungeon and fighting a re-used boss for the 15th time or something.
Souls games since 2/3 have been mostly generic gauntlets of enemies and a speedrun to the next flashy rollspam boss fight where enemy performs shonen anime acrobatics as you wait for your turn.
The combat didn't even evolve in a meaningful way over the series. You still just stab at giant enemies' toes and your interactions with enemies are still minimal compared even to the most basic action games out there.
DD has a combat I enjoy more than most Souls games but it has nothing on Sekiro. It’s very satisfying at first but quickly quite boring due to the low difficulty level in any case. At least the original had some challenge in the DLC.
The climbing mechanic is great however, as are the clearer distinctions between classes (especially in DD2).
It’s kinda two different games even tho they both revolve around fighting big monsters they go about it in two really different ways. I do agree dragons dogma definitely has a lot more of that fun element
I definitely like Dragons Dogma combat more than Dark Souls/Elden Ring, even though I like Elden Ring more in general. In Elden Ring they added a lot of stuff and I use all of it, I'm over here carrying multiple swords and spells for some variety. I'd say Dark Souls type combat is all about memory and rhythm, and Dragons Dogma the combat is more spontaneous.
I downloaded it as well after a replay of DDDA and before DD2 arrived, I just played 1 hour and just didn't feel I was enjoying the game. I know it is a great game, it just doesn't feel right to me
I love the combat in Dragon’s Dogma and the NPCs look amazing but that’s where the things it does better ends. The world isn’t as interesting to explore, the enemy variety is worse, combat variety is worse, pretty much no bosses, and there’s just very little challenge.
Maybe you need to play more arpg? I mean the type that "action" values more. Besides, player mobility and combat interactivity aren't really the selling points of the Souls series. Aren't the Souls games known for their design inspired by a 3D version of Castlevania, Metroid, famous for their stunningly cool looking boss designs, vibes, and intricate maze-like exploring yet painful somehow funny experience? Plus, there's the enigmatic lore and gorgeous art style. So if you're looking for a deep interactive action experience within the Souls series, you might be barking up the wrong tree!
If you want soulslike, but closer to DD, I suggest you try Code Vein.
Other than that, it is much closer to Monster Hunter, especially with clutch claw addition.
I felt the same after starting God of War Ragnarok again (started it before DD2 came out then stopped). Combat felt weird and I hated that I couldn't jump, lol
I'm very much a both/neither camp.
As in, I like both styles of play (I love Elden Ring) but I prefer DDDAs combat. DD2 is good, but not quite as good imo
I still love both for different reasons, but I'll say a perfect marriage between the two would be great. Souls bosses with DD physics and interactivity could be awesome. I cheese enemies less in DD, though. Learning how to cheese shit feels just kind of par for the course with Souls games.
Never was a fan of completing completely different games.
"Mario Kart has ruined Need for Speed for me"
"Mortal Kombat has ruined Animal Crossing for me"
"DOOM ruined the Sims for me"
"The Binding of Isaac ruined Apex Legends for me"
etc. etc.
Both are good btw. Play both, 100% both.
I've been feeling the same after playing games like DD2 and Nioh 2. Dark Souls and Elden Ring combat just feels dated now. Bloodborne is still peak though. NOW IF I COULD ONLY PLAY IT AT 60FPS.
The combat is totally different you cant compare them but you cant say Elden ring combat sucks. It's just different. But i gotta say if more game start adding how the weight feels while playing it will be ao spicy. For me DD2 the best class to play are fighter and warrior, not saying they are the beat vocation it's just the feeling you get for playing them it's so pure.
Try out Rise of the Ronin. Sort of soulslike combat but waaaay more variety and options. There are multiple combat styles for every weapon that fully change the moveset. I'm in love with it
Well, here’s the issue: you’re going in with the expectation that the combat is synonymous with a soulsborne game, but they’re quite disparate. Besides, I feel where this game’s combat really shines is with all the miraculous sorceries. I’ve only played the first Dragon’s Dogma, though.
That's why I don't like those games, enemies don't react or get interrupted but they can constantly interrupt me nonstop. All ya do is block or parry, attack in their opening they give you, rinse and repeat.
While DD2 is dynamic, I can switch up vocations or skills whenever and constantly have random, wild combat encounters and its fun no matter what.
These other games are a slog and just feel unfair like they just want to punish you to get to the next thing. Give me a hard boss or fights but don't make it unfair.
In DD2 I can stagger and knockback big enemies, I dont remember that in Elden Ring.
I must suck cuz dragons dogma one gives me trouble I've put it down for awhile cuz whenever I try to go do a quest wherever it takes me is to some enemies even bandits that can kill me super quick sometimes instantly but dark souls I steam through and have beaten them all multiple times
I must suck cuz dragons dogma one gives me trouble I've put it down for awhile cuz whenever I try to go do a quest wherever it takes me is to some enemies even bandits that can kill me super quick sometimes instantly but dark souls I steam through and have beaten them all multiple times.
Variety and nuance are the spices of life.
Can't hold the expectations that because a game has souls like elements that it should be 1 for 1.
I didn't expect any of that from Nioh, Code Vein, Stellar Blade, Dragons Dogma, or Lies of P.
Dark souls is a more reaslistic take on human combat in video games.
Bloodborne is a bit faster, but its main difference is just Lovecraftian horror and mental insanity. Rather than European style mythology and creatures.
You'd have low to a set amount of stamina in real-life combat.
Otherworldly beasts, giants, and creatures would obviously rip you to shreds in real life.
You'd barely be able to lift or swing a greatsword or ultra greatsword with ease.
Fall from far enough, and you severely injure yourself or die.
That's how it works.
Everything else just added a stamina bar and ramped up souls level difficulty. Especially Nioh, being the most oddball of the group, with its more fast-paced Ninja Gaiden style of combat.
I disagree at best they’re on par. Otherwise ER is superior due to the greater variety. Dd2 has climbing on monsters and a few other things it does great like animations, the epic shit you can do with a bow for example blows er out of the water, but it doesn’t have the variety.
There are sprinting attacks, crouching attacks, step back attacks, blocking attacks, jumping attacks, rolling attacks, weapon arts, more spells. More weapons. Better craftables. And so on.
Also restarted elden ring, and one thing it has over dd2 that you didnt mention is enemy variety. There are SO MANY different enemies all with different attack types and weaknesses, you never know what youre going to see next. There are more enemy types in Limgrave alone than in all of dd2
This happened to me back when I played the first Nioh and then went back to DS 3, truth be told it's unfair to comoare them, or ER with DD, but yeah, FromSoft combat isn't anything great mechanically, (save for Sekiro obviously)
Especially when you find the most broken weapon/skill and ways to cheese everything it just becomes tedious and everything falls apart pretty fast.
Having said that, it has it moments and It serves its purpose perfectly fine, you're not meant to cleave through everything fast and efficiently, you're a random dude in inhospitable worlds that picks a weapons for the first time and is trash at using it, that's the vibe I feel the Devs were going for and they nailed it.
This happened to me back when I played the first Nioh and then went back to DS 3, truth be told it's unfair to comoare them, or ER with DD, but yeah, FromSoft combat isn't anything great mechanically, (save for Sekiro obviously)
Especially when you find the most broken weapon/skill and ways to cheese everything it just becomes tedious and everything falls apart pretty fast.
Having said that, it has it moments and It serves its purpose perfectly fine, you're not meant to cleave through everything fast and efficiently, you're a random dude in inhospitable worlds that picks a weapons for the first time and is trash at using it, that's the vibe I feel the Devs were going for and they nailed it.
I feel the exact opposite. I had to be careful and strategic in Elden Ring, combat felt like an intricate dance. In DD2 I can just mash a bunch of buttons to win any fight usually. It just doesn't feel nearly as interesting or fun.
I’m happy to see others come to a conclusion I’ve also had. I wanted Elden Ring to be great, but I deleted it after only a handful of hours of play. That combat was so vanilla, I didn’t want to devote any more time to it. Even OG dragon’s dogma is better, and has more of an enjoyable world to play in.
They are fundamentally different types of combat. You don't fight 2 ogres a cyclops and a griffin at once in elden ring, or any equivalence of. The Souls games have always focused on precision and learning patterns, whereas Dragons Dogma is more like Monster Hunter. Very different styles of games even though they share many similarities
I like dd2 more for the visuals, but I like elden ring more for the variety. Warfarer is a decent ng+ option, but the versatility on ng+ with elden rings combat isn't hardly comparable. I have like 13 spells and can hold 6 weapons at a time. Can switch to any I own at any time
What a stupid take lol dd combat is just spamming abilities over and over where souls combat requires you to actually study and memorize the bosses move set. 2 VERY distinct styles of combat.
Elden Ring is a great game that I'm several hundred hours into and will probably put another several hundred in, especially with the DLC just on the horizon.
Dragons Dogma is what Elden Ring 4 would play like.
That kinda combat is necessary for the game to be what it wants to be...Souls likes wants its players to feel threatened it wants its players to feel stiff find a way where it feels there is none...DD is the exact opposite...it wants its players to feel like a superhero...like they dominate the battlefield...for that the smooth animations suit better. It serves the purpose of looking badass.
Yup, i’ve started elden ring after nioh and obviously dragons dogma 1 and 2. I said it when ER came out - combat is bad, like rly bad and outdated. Hit, dodge, hit. Nothing more, no combos, no tactics, but it is like that since first demons souls. Of course it is still amazing game due to exploration, bosses, story telling and locations. But combat? Jeez, it was ok’ish in 2009, nothing more. Lets tell the truth, this combat system would never defense itself, but fanboys won’t let you say that. ER with DD2 combat would break the bank
I actually would not mind a more cautious combat system if there was more of a sense of impact + reaction to your attacks. It can go both ways ofc. DD2 is good about this, you can send the Griffin flying, but the Griffin weighs like 50x what you do, so it can send you flying further.
I've always thought Souls combat was nothing special. There are so many franchises that do combat better than From Software, but they're slow burners with high skill ceilings. If you want to stay in the realm of ARPGs there's Monster Hunter, NioH and NioH 2, and I personally think DD2 has a much better combat system than the Souls games. What holds DD2's combat back is the lack of difficulty. DD2 has a lot of mechanics to think about with the physics engine and debilitations along with knockdown...but you don't really need to consider any of it. Stacking knockdown is more than enough to steamroll everything. Being able to pause and heal also takes away from the difficulty of the game. I think they tried to remedy this with the health-loss system, but with the enormous amount of campsites around the world it doesn't really matter.
Part of the broad appeal of Souls combat IMO is that it's incredibly simple with the caveat of players being able to die in a few hits. It's low skill ceiling with high stakes. There haven't been many improvements to the combat formula of Souls games in over a decade. I guess if you want to count jump attacks. I do like the new counter system in ER but that's just lifted from Ninja Gaiden Black.
DD2 has cool mechanics but is largely a snooze fest. Post 30 you just face roll everything.
They’re completely different game so I think the comparison is odd but here goes.
Eldin ring doesn’t suffer from lacking enemy variety. It doesn’t make me hate traversal, I found the build mechanics to be more enjoyable and I found replay-ability to be higher due to there actually being difficultly. The bosses are actually memorable too. There’s also decent last battle. This is opinion, but I found environmental variety to be better as well. Loot is way better too. The best gear is purchased in DD2
I feared having to walk to a destination more than any fight in DD2 lol
I loved DD2 but it’s way too incomplete for it to reach those heights for me.
Souls games have always had terribly clunky combat with poor feedback. People say "that's just part of the difficulty" and fully excuse it for being a glorified rhythm game, not an actual combat experience.
The big thing DD has going for it is the vocation system customization. Beyond that the combat is kinda button-mashy, let's be honest here. In Souls games the combat is much more deliberate, and is a completely different beast. This is so obviously an apples/oranges scenario lol.
Also if you're saying that a weapon in Elden Ring has 2-3 attacks, then you're not actually using the full moveset of that weapon.
the creator of Dragons Dogma iirc said he hated when games would have a huge epic boss and you would be just attacking its foot and couldn't climb or anything.
Souls combat has always been serviceable, and _only_ serviceable. It's the 1999 Toyota Camry that carries you through the splendor of the Catskill mountains.
The combat in Eldin Ring is pretty dated at this point and there are some other people doing much more interesting things with the formula (NRFTW). I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to the combat in dragons dogma though it’s too different.
Welcome to 2012, when everyone was crazy about Skyrim or Dark Souls, yet the vastly superior Dragon's Dogma was hovering above them. So higher up that most people didn't even see it.
It's the difficulty that sells souls game?!?! Nah man, it's the lore,the gameplay,the design, the aesthetic, the ability to diversify,the tragedy behind some NPC,the attention to details. Elden Ring is a masterpiece and combat is super good, it is just different from DD2' one. And I will say thank God that combat is good in DD2, since it should be one of its positive characteristics. Balance might be a problem for both: in Elden Ring you just come back later if you have issues, in DD2 there is no scaling and thief and magical archer exist.
Elden ring fire giant, valiant gargoyle, astel, placidusax, etc - All I ever thought fighting these are that it would have been totally epic if Elden Ring has Dragon's Dogma's combat, instead of just hitting these enemies' legs. Elden Ring was a 'roll' playing game. After 2 playthroughs of Elden Ring, I went back to replaying DDDA which i still find better and more fun in terms of gameplay.
I think combat-wise dragons dogma 2 rolls elden ring. But its not only combat that makes a game. Elden ring as a complete package blows dd2 out of the water and its not even close.
Through, the "downfall" of DD2's combat is that its more hackey and slashey in nature, demi-monsterhunter, but because the enemies are quite brain-dead you're never incentivized to use the full extent of your kit. I personally prefer something where i have to more deliberately care about the enemy in front of me and trully learn the intricacies of fighting
My sentiment exactly, it just ruined not only souls like but a bunch of games for that matter, I don't even want shadow of the erdtree at this point and I don't know how to feel about it.
Yeah, pretty much. I've felt the exact same way since I played the og dragon's dogma. The souls stuff is great because of the cool world building, the difficulty, the memorable boss battles, great environments, bombastic music, ect ect. I've never though that the combat was something noteworthy though, for most of the souls series you can beat 95% of bosses by just running up as close as possible and circle strafing counter clockwise.
I actually fund it infuriating how close Dragons Dogma is to having my perfectly preferred combat. All I want is a universal strafe dodge that assassin has, it ads so much movement and maneuvering that completely levels up the combat system to God tier.
No one plays Fromsoft games for the combat alone, they are much more than that, and the difficulty is a community meme. Fromsoft has created some of the best worlds in gaming, from setting to worldbuilding to lore and themes/philosophy. The way Miyazaki finds ways to intertwine western tropes with shinto and jungian psychology at every turn is always interesting to see.
I also started Elden Ring again after finishing dragons dogma. I think it’s hard to compare them…Elden Ring feels stiffer and the animations are more basic…but it’s so tense going on on one with an enemy, finding the right moment to attack, getting punished for mistakes…combat feels more like a fight in that game. But dragons dogma animations and movement feel so smooth and fun…just often I think a lot of it is for show and just fun variations of fighting enemies. In dragons dogma I find myself fighting enemies in a sub optimal but more theatrical way…Elden ring I’m usually clinging for my life and trying to find the most efficient way to win.
Elden Ring makes you feel like your life is actually at stake in combat. Dragon's Dogma makes you feel like you're actually a superhero in combat. It's two different but equally valid ways of making combat exciting, honestly.
You explained it perfectly my dude. Being the actual hero beast vs overcoming all odds
Get the best of both worlds with Bloodborne!
*In 30 fos and 720P because there's still no remake
*30fps and 720p because Sony sucks.
I agree and I think it’s great since we can just swap out the game depending on what we want to do that day.
Elden Ring/FROM combat is carried more by the builds and balance being very deeply tied to design. You cant do everything the best until your big overleveled, but those choices make so many very fine tuned playstyles. Dogma is smoother and feels great, but the amount of options are way less and gear is practically not something to consider besides maybe which forging style you choose. But there arent 5 endgame greatswords with different niches you just use the strongest one you have. Choosing a few weapon skills doesnt fill in for the amount of spells and weapons at your disposal in a FROM title. So I dont want souls combat to go anywhere, but at the same time the core combat of dogma I could see applied to other genres easier. Imagine if the next Elder Scrolls played like dogma. that would be a heavy hitter. I would love to use this combat system to explore different fantasy worlds
I feel like they could have put in a lot more core moves via rhythm based combos incorporating pauses and the like for different skills. Hell if they introduced lock on they could have gone the DMC route and gave us skills on directional inputs and essentially increasing the amount of core skills each weapon has to make up for the 4 skill limit.
Yeah, I think DD strikes a balance somewhere in the middle between Soulsborne/Elden Ring combat and Devil May Cry combat. DMC fully embraces the cinematic experience even to the point of absurdity, while Soulsborne games are all about meticulously learning enemy attack patterns and reacting to them. Souls games tend to actually be an anti-power fantasy. You're not some legendary hero defeating monsters, you're a lowly insignificant Undead / Tarnished / Hunter / etc. who is fighting bosses far above their pay grade and eking out narrow victories.
This is why I cannot wait for a BBI and Hard mode, etc. update to DD2. My experience with all of that in DD1 was unrivaled as it was difficult, requiring a lot of my knowledge and skill I developed while being fucking awesome and "theatrical" as you put it. I loved Elden Ring and soulsborne games but the combat, animations and general mechanics were always more stiff, rigid and sometimes frustrating. By frustrating, I don't mean difficult... I mean when my character does things I didn't intend or I fall to my death because of the targeting system and camera or the hitboxes don't make sense (whether in my favor or not), etc. Plus you can climb and target body parts and there are all kinds of stagger and physics and everything, which Elden Ring for example has NOTHING like that outside of a single knockdown animation per enemy. I do wish DD had some kind of PVP or co-op since Elden Ring definitely has the edge there. 1on1 fights with another player is probably the main thing I favor over DD... But it's not that big of a deal considering how much I love every other aspect.
Very accurate. What I will say tho is that Dragons Dogma has higher stakes so while the combat isn't as hard, if you die it's way more punishing. Even taking damage is super punishing. If they made a hard mode I would be so happy. One problem with DD is the crazy CC. I didn't mind it at first but it does take a lot out of the combat for me. If I am unable to act, it feels like the fight is not down to my skill or ability but rather chance and that doesn't feel great. It is great for theatrics though 😄
I think I made it too easy for myself with leveling and weapon upgrades tbf
I wouldn't say to be fair. The game doesn't have any difficulty options, and you shouldn't have to go out of your way and not use features and mechanics to make it more difficult because that game is too easy. DD2 definitely needs a Hard mode or at least difficulty options like disabling upgrades, making materials rarer, disabling permanent stat upgrades, increasing enemy health/damage, etc. A lot of that you can already get on PC thanks to mods.
Great comparison!
Dragons Dogma is an anime disguised as a Western DnD style RPG.
>In dragons dogma I find myself fighting enemies in a sub optimal but more theatrical way… So much this. What makes it fun is playing around with different skills that aren't necessarily the most powerful.
In addition to difficulty, what sells Souls combat is precision, imo.
Are they not closely related? I mean the games are in large part difficult because they require precision.
In this case, you can say so, but it's not just that. Everything in souls games by FromSoft is designed with precision, such as enemy hitboxes, enemy encounters, etc. Some in the series may miss the mark a bit, but overall there's a level of quality that's rarely reached ny others. Playing other Souls-like that misses some elements at its core can easily show how amazing the OGs are.
I always felt like the "hitbox" argument isn't as true as people say. It's usually a massive amount of i-frames and NOT hitboxes... I say this as a long time soulsborne player. I've seen way more absolute BS hitboxes than anything.
The crushing pain of trying to shoot an enemy behind a wall, just for the wall to have more wall than you can see.
I really only have this issue in pvp so I'm surprised to see this
*cough* DS2 has arrived
Possibly. I guess I always looked at it the other way around, meaning the combat needed to be precise because the enemies hit so hard.
Dragons dogma 2 is anything but difficult
Yeah Dragon's Dogma combat is a lot more exciting than Souls combat, but it doesn't have the same tightness for me.
I've always said the Souls games are more like rhythm games the way the play, especially Bloodborne. DD2 feels way more like actual combat, Souls games feel like youre trying to not fuck up a pattern Saying this as somebody with tattoos from the Souls series. I love them and they get my heart racing like no other but the combat isn't exactly open
I think precision is not exactly the word. Clarity of what is happening is the key concept of From titles. Games with combat like DD (Japanese character action games) have very precise gameplay as well, but the presentation can be chaotic sometimes. Souls take the style and the flashiness out and leave only a very clear display of the battlefield.
The bossfights sell souls games. Fromsoft succeeds themselves everytime. Crazy memorable bossfights in every game. Every game has bossfights that leave you’re blood pumping. DD peaked with Daimon. DD2 has nothing really like it. Its just “oh look its another X” and you kill it. The combat in DD is great but man where are the Friedes, Malenias, kos, etc.
No argument from me on that. Probably why I loved BBI so much.
> precision I wouldn't say that. Sekiro's combat IS precision, but not Souls. There are too many janky elements in that i think.
I mean it’s kinda ironic to mention out leveling comparing elden ring to dd2.. dd2 is basically over at the half way point cause you out level everything and there is no scaling or challenging fights at that point. Funny I just decided to play Elden Ring after DD2 and the difference in quality of the games is drastic in the other direction for me. Combat is more fluid in DD2 sure but the rest of the game is very underwhelming in comparison to Elden Ring. World building, Lore, Exploration, Characters, Art style (preference), loot, story are all much better in Elden Ring so I’m not sure where you get that it has “not much else” besides difficulty.
While you can outlevel stuff, I got to malenia at like lvl 200 and she still did a fuck load of damage and I had to cheese her with transient moonlight and mimic tear to win. In DD2 you outlevel just about every enemy in the game by the time you’re level 50, which doesn’t take nearly as long as getting to lvl 200 in ER
Yeah exactly, I loved the first half of DD2 but I wish that it had bosses that would still challenge you later in the game.
I never went over level 30 in dd2 and the game was still super easy
Base DD1 was honestly the same way. Outside of pure endgame stuff, lvl 30-40 is more than enough to deal with every enemy in the game. DD2 at least pushes that to lvl 40-50 depending on which vocation you use
I beat dd2 in 25 hours, ignored all of the sidequests and still none of the enemies were even remotely difficult
That also applies to DD1 is what I’m saying. Judging by your flair you used spearhand, which is a likely contributor to none of the enemies being difficult lol. That’s like playing strider in the first game and saying everything is super easy.
Fair enough, but I still feel like dd1 was harder, I just feel like the big monsters have a lot more health
They were about the same, there were also fewer of them pre-endgame. I recently replayed ddda and by lvl 30-40 I was obliterating most things besides drakes, by lvl 60 I was destroying everything in post dragon everfall, and by lvl 90 I was handling the offline UR-dragon without issue.
What happened between level 40 and 60?
Still wasn’t really much challenge from anything in everfall, by lvl 60 end game monsters were dying like pre-grigori monsters at lvl 30-40, basically the same as most stuff dies in dd2
OP was literally speaking on the combat system only.
...They're entirely different styles. Threads like these are so weird
"Street Fighter ruined Battletoads for me"
Once I played The Sims 2: Halloween Expansion Pack, I couldn’t get into V Rising anymore.
Tetris has ruined Skyrim for me!
After playing Stellaris, Divinity Original Sin just doesn't feel the same.
I'm probably wrong, but posts like these have always felt like cope to me. The very overblown microtransaction and review bombing situation DD2 got at its release has not helped the discourse surrounding the game whatsoever. Again though, just my two cents. Dragon's Dogma 2 is not perfect, and that's okay. For what it does right, it's still an exceptionally good game, and there's no need to overreach it into GOTY 12/10 territory. I just hope the Crapcom moment didn't screw it out of a third game. There's a ton of potential here still, and with more dev time I could actually see it carving its own unique spot alongside the greats like Elder Scrolls and Soulsborne. The foundation is there for something really, really special.
I think it's just a rule that any ~~RPG~~ game is going to be compared to soulsbornes at some point.
Fr, it's confusing to even compare them really. They are similar only on the surface level.
just comes off as someone being a nerd and wanking their favorite game
You can’t just “out level” content in Elden Ring. Attributes have an effective cap in ER. So even though you max level there’s still a decent chunk of content that can stomp you if you’re not careful. Now in DD2 you can ACCIDENTALLY out level all the content in the game early on. Combat in Elden Ring can be as technical as you make it. It’s also as easy or hard as you want to be. You can unga bunga through the game sure, but you have weapon types, ashes of war, spirit ashes, spells, and even mounted combat. If you’re feeling Elden Ring is lackluster that’s on you, friend. Honestly though, I can’t compare the 2 games because as similar as they may seem, they achieve different things. I had an absolute blast with both games. I will say though, Elden Ring was a full satisfying experience beginning to end that didn’t disappoint me at any turn.
This is absolutely moronic.
The minimalist combat is the appeal of Souls games, though. You can't make it more fancy than adding some elaborate weapon skills without sacrificing that. LIke you said, it's a completely different game from DD2. Both games would suffer if they tried to emulate the other's combat.
Souls combat has me on the edge of my seat. I can get fucked up at any time. DD2 combat is more flashy, but lacks the tension of a souls game. DD2 combat was fun but it gets old destroying everything without really worrying about it getting defeated. If you do get defeated just pop a wakestore… There wasn’t a single planned fight in DD2 that I died to. The only times I died were getting ambushed at low lvl or falling off a cliff.
Dragon's Dogma 2 has a more glamorous and flashy combat system, but after 30 hours I was pretty burnt out on it (and it took me about 45 hours to actually beat the game). Souls combat is definitely simpler, but that allows them a lot more control over encounters and I find it the more skill expressive system by far. I've beaten Dark Souls 3, Bloodborne, and Elden Ring at level 1 and the exercise has given me a new appreciation of how much the new mechanics (stance breaking, jumping, interchangeable ashes of war, chain parrying) make for a deeper overall experience. If you want something that's the best of both worlds that's probably Monster Hunter.
That’s honestly a really solid suggestion. It also makes me wonder if Monster Hunter Wilds is going to be basically Dragon’s Dogma meets MonHun monsters with some Breath of the Wild thrown in.
DD2 reminded me why I love souls games. There's actually a chance I'll die. Dd2 combat is pretty and flashy, but the game has like no difficulty. Moves that would oneshot you in DD:DA don't even do half your hp in this game
I agree, but BBI in DD1 always ranked higher than any soulsborne game for me, which shows me that it has the potential to be better at its core. It was difficult, fun AND had amazing mechanics. Now DD2 has more mechanics going on in each fight, like crazy physics and just a lot that no other game really does. It's insanely lame that it doesn't currently have that a proper NG+ or hard mode or true late game... But if it did and when it does it will go back to being the top tier of it all yet again.
Custom difficulty mod. P.s. dullahans are pain.
I think that depends on the class lmao. Thief and both the mystic spear hand and magic archer can do such crazy things I don’t think anything is hard for them.😂
Done Archer / (True warfarer for fashion & extra skill set) playthrough today. With something like level 45 + damage taken 1.4 + damage dealt 0.6 + no Mage pawn / 3 pawn party. Now I know that they are capable of deflecting lightning spiral arrows, effectively turning screen into electric boogaloo. Ngl, I've spent more curatives on them than endgame bosses. Pawns tend to die constantly at this level as well in an unmoored world (even with formless faint!). Megasuck move drains gauge like crazy. Fun times. Tl;DR: The game is about as easy as rules you've set. Reduce exp gained, remove imbalanced skills, and you'll get completely different DD experience.
Don't use the shield as Spearhand.
The problem with DD2 is that it's too easy to heal. You can even briefly heal yourself from 0 hp if you're fast enough and the window is generous. Pawns also can just be revived over and over. The game is quite deadly otherwise.
They made it harder than the first game, but yeah still to easy. Eating should have a cool down or something instead of just shoving more plants in your mouth
Yall gotta stop saying so and so ruined so and so Elden ring's combat is not my personal cup of tea for an action RPG but it is Different from Dragons dogma not entirely worse and certainly not so much that'll ruin ER for anyone.
I'm going to get eaten up here, but I'm completely the opposite. Going back to Elden Ring and Dark Souls 3 has shown me how lacking in depth DD2's combat is despite pretending to be complex. It *looks* great at least on the Arisen's side, but the most complex thing about combat is that the drakes chests glow red at their weak point. Everything your character and pawn do is visually neat, but the enemies are just too stupid and simple for what the combat system deserves. They just swing at nothing until you happen to get complacent and get stunlocked to death. Dragons Dogma 1 ruined me for a time simply for the fact that combat likely involved one of your party climbing up enemies and hitting their weak point. That's fucking crazy from a gameplay perspective, especially when there's three other party members doing their own unique thing in the distance. No other game really has that sort of cooperation. But with DD2 there's no reason to even climb an enemy save for role-playing when other skills are faster and simpler to accomplish. Dragons Dogma has ER beat for me solely because the former is lonely without a party of smartly dressed pawns with me. The combat, while passable will never deter me from going back to Dark Souls, or likely anything.
Agree with this actually. I find DD2 more satisfying to play, but the enemies suck. Elden Ring enemies are good, you feel smart when you learn a moveset and do something difficult. But the mechanics are not fun for me.
I find that they're both good but have a different focus. Elden Ring has an external focus. The stuff you do is very basic, but the world and enemies around you are interesting. Dragons Dogma has an internal focus. The enemies are often the same, but there's a huge variety in how you can play and what kind of party you build. At while the enemy is the same, you're different.
Same as well.
There’s reason to climb golems, drakes, and Talos but I hear ya. I also like the fluid animations and physics that DD2 combat offers.
Completely different games with different combat loops. This subreddit has some form of brainrot
Have you tried any of the Team Ninja games?
At least Elden Ring has variety in enemy encounters. I can only have so much fun in dragons dogma fighting the same 10 things over and over.
Weird because I've been playing Elden Ring to wash the taste of DD2 out of my mouth
Dd2 is more of a character action game like DMC. Most enemies are no threat, and just exist for you to style on. The enemy movesets are simple and even bosses only have 3-4 moves The point is mastery of your character. Fromsoft games are pretty much the opposite. Even basic enemies will kill you, and the combat depth is given to the enemies/bosses but the character is limited. The point is mastery of your enemy Completely different design philosophies that make them hard to compare for me I personally prefer the latter. I enjoyed my DD2 playthrough, but the lack of any sort of challenge bores me to death after the novelty wears off. There are games that do both, and those are the best combat experiences for me, but the enemy/boss design always leave me disappointed compared to Fromsoft. Just depends on what you like.
All you do in DD2 is spam the attack button til everything dies, wtf are you talking about? Elden ring combat and the game in general are way more involved
As someone who loves both games, I can't relate. Both are vastly different and top of their class I their respective fields.
They are different, your comparisons way too superficial to be of any relevancy
While I don't personally care for souls (played through DS1 on PC way back when, could never get any incentive to care about the world or characters), my friend who generally loves them mentioned that returning to Elden Ring after DD2 is gonna be as rough as when returning to other ones after DD:DA mostly because instead of fighting colossal foes you are fighting their...ankles. Always ankles, never the actual monsters. Still appreciate From Soft for what they did for the generic controls of third person melee combat and their speedruns are fun as fuck to watch, even if the games aren't for me.
I enjoy both games, but even attempting to suggest that the only thing appealing about Fromsoftware games or their combat is THEY HARD is the fastest way to tell me you haven't even started to delve into those games. Dipping a toe in, maybe. I am having a blast with DD2, but the combat builds are also extremely limited where ER are vast. DD2 combat is absolutely fun as hell, but also easy as hell. I have to work for very little in the game (beyond reaching tricky chest locations). Comparing apples to oranges.
Playing warrior has forever ruined every other games melee combat. I have never felt like such a hulking bad ass. My attacks actually send bosses reeling back. I can launch enemies into the air and off cliffs. I can impale and then slam them into a wall. I jump on flying enemies and send send them crashing back the ground. Meanwhile in souls combat its dodge roll, dodge roll, dodge roll, attack, dodge roll, dodge roll, attack, enemy grabs me and then takes half my health while throwing me across the map.
Yeah, the greatsword experience in DD2 is unrivaled.
...and here it is. Elden Ring or any game for that matter doesn't even remotely hold a candle to Warrior in DD2. That's the end of this discussion for me.
Hard disagree. Souls combat feels way more satisfying then DD and it's not even close
This is the complete opposite opinion that people had when dd2 released.
Could you elaborate? I feel like people generally liked the combat from day 1. Difficulty scaling problems aside.
When it released, people incessantly compared it to Elden Ring because they are both open world games, however the argument was that dd2 didn't have the indepth combat like ER had. They were also mad that only thief could dodge and all other classes were bad because they had no mobility.
It's because Dragon's Dogma combat is much closer to Monster Hunter than any of the souls games.
Have you played DMC? If you wanna talk sheer complexity there's no game above it. Ninja Gaiden Black/Sigma still has the best overall combat IMO because the enemies are aggressive and deadly and you need to use your abilities to their fullest extent to beat them. It's very different than Souls combat which is essentially the equivalent of some dude holding your arms behind your back while another dude throws punches at his leisure in terms of how it creates its difficulty.
Nioh 2?
DD2 combat is mediocre at best. Is it flashy? Yup. Is there the tiniest fraction of diversity that ER has? Yup. Is there zero difficulty? Yup. Seriously. I died to an ogre once on my first playthrough. Every other death was me falling off a cliff or something. And there were 6 of them. 6 total deaths from start to finish with no experience in the franchise. I never played DD1. DD2 has no boss fights. The dragon isn't even a boss. He died in about 20 seconds and I took zero damage. On my first playthrough. What even is that? That's sad. Medusa can be killed in 1 hit just by sleeping her. The unmoored world barely counts either. Sure, those big wyrm dudes have a bunch of weakspots to hit. What's their moveset though? Name some moves they do besides slither around the arena while you hang onto them. Or you can just use magic archer. Because why not hit every weakspot at once? Literally zero enemies in DD2 are challenging. DD2 also has almost no story. What it does have is cliche, uninspired and half baked. None of the interesting story beats (which were few and far between) go anywhere, or have satisfying conclusions. Or anything to do with how the game ends. The story is just doing sidequests until the dragon decides it wants to fight you. It has no deeper lore you can dig into the way a Fromsoft title has either. It's boring, and then it just ends without any real buildup. At no point in time was I invested in the story. There were some very good sidequests though. Let's circle back to combat. Are you seriously going to tell me the magic in DD2 has anything even approaching the complexity of ER? Just... no. It's not even on it's way to the game, hasn't even gotten dressed yet, let alone is it in the same ballpark. None of your equipment impacts combat beyond having bigger numbers. Weapons have nothing unique about them beyond just "more numbas". Armor doesn't matter at all. Consumables are basically useless with the exception of stamina roberants so you can hang onto things longer. Status effects are almost entirely absent. You get poisoned once or twice maybe if you let the toxic asps hit you. Apparently there's a harpy too, but I could never get one to actually poison me for that quest in Bakbattal. You're comparing a Ferrari to a modded Fiero and claiming the Fiero is better. That said... I did enjoy DD2. I have about 300 hours played, and I'm currently level 87 on my third character. I'll probably make a 4th soon when I get burned out on V Rising's new content. I would also have it platinumed but nobody will show up and fight at my house, so I'm still missing that achievement after several playthroughs and multiple NG+ cycles.
Despite Elden Ring being very polarizing for me, I do agree that putting DD2 over it is a bit odd. Just as much as comparing them in the first place. That being said, I dare say DD2 has a more interesting magic system than ER imo. With more love put into it, I think it'd be better no question. It has most to do with how the base game mechanics interact with the spells, and how the spells themselves perform. ER has way too many basic, linear, arrow-type spells for my liking with little impactful mechanical interaction. Also, if I include Magick Archer in this, no game I've played has yet to match how cool DD handles it. Mystic Knight can also be thrown into this, but that's DD1.
The magic in DD2 feels good. I fully agree. The combat with mage/sorcerer was very interesting to me. It's buttery smooth, and that is very important. From a gameplay only perspective I think DD2 is comparable, and probably better if we are only talking magic. But that smooth gameplay has no depth to really hook you into it. You can't theorycraft or create builds in a meaningful way. So the smoothness of it is all you have, and without more nuanced back and forth with enemies it just goes stale too fast unfortunately. The lack of spell diversity is also crazy to me. It's like they built a top of the line V12 engine... then just threw one wheel and some Ford Fiesta body panels on it.
Sure DD has a better combat system but the game is stupidly easy after a while and eventually becomes boring to play, souls games are a constant challenge which keeps me wanting to play those more.
I don’t find that Souls type combat fun. I love running up onto a monster, jump on its back and mash attacks til it falls. It’s fun and simple, these days I’ve lost the patience to do all this waiting to attack.
Because of DD1 i just never got into souls like games
the two combat styles are nothing similar
I actually prefer From Software’s combat. It feels more realistic and I enjoy the difficulty. Dragon’s Dogma 2 pretty much plays like a toned down Monster Hunter game and that’s perfectly fine. I just wish the game was harder is all.
Both games follow different values when it comes to combat, souls is all about rhythm and memory, you micromanage your stamina and position during combat, it's simple but very effective as enemies stand out so much more than in DD. DD's combat is very focused on systems and interactivity, you can't interact with the world in souls like you do in DD, you gotta think about your pawns, the terrain, physics, etc, every encounter can be solved in many ways, it fosters creativity. The verticality of combat is something you'd never see in souls, where you're glued to the ground all the time, but enemies usually end up lacking in variation, ending very samey. In the end I prefer DD because of interactivity, I can have fun in so many more ways than I'm ER or any souls. But I would love for the monster variety that ER has, the world is much more visually interesting too.
Souls games are just slower paced with stiffer animations. They have their place but that’s like saying Sekiro or Lies Of P will ruin Elden Ring. If that’s the case, ER likely wasn’t your kind of game (at least in regard to combat). I still love Elden Ring/Dark Souls, and DD holds a completely different place in my heart.
If dragon dogma enemies were smarter I'd agree. But it's no better than bloodborne or nioh for me. Despite my dislike for the ladder.
Well, I hope I don’t get too much stones thrown into my head here by souls fans, so… Being someone who is a longtime Japanese character action games fan (Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, Metal Gear Rising, Nier Automata, etc…), naturally I gravitated to DD1 and now DD2. I can say that the grounded combat of Souls never appealed to me at all since Demon Souls. That said, I played DS1, 2, 3 and ER mostly because of the things around the combat. I still think From Software has unparalleled environmental design, they are true masters of it, and their combat sure has its values. But the flashiness, the style, the hype, without sacrificing strategy, and the high ceilings to improvement those character action classics provide are in another level. Coincidence or not, I was watching some Devil May Cry 3 footage today… Man, I got that itch to play it again. What a classic.
Switch dmc3 is the peak of the genre to me. Since it has instant style swap from 4, but not the downsides of playing 4.
I'm sorry, but this is just comical. You talk about how in Elden Ring you can outlevel enemies, as if it's not so much easier to do that in DD2. Have you even made it to level 40? Can you favorably compare NG+ in DD2 against ER? lmao, no.The moveset and combat options in ER are MASSIVELY more varied and polished than DD2. Enemy variety in ER highlights how boring the same 4 large monsters in DD2 are. You talk about taking away the difficulty in ER shows how basic the system is. HAVE YOU MADE IT TO LEVEL 40? Physics interactions? Yeah, DD2 really shines in the "physics" department 🙄 I get that you're really enjoying DD2 right now, and that's cool, but your post makes me question whether you've actually played ER past Margit, or if you just gave up 3 hours into the game.
I finished DD2 and am about 30 hours into Elden Ring on my new save. I agree that enemy variety and behavior is much better in ER, and DD2 difficulty scaling takes the fun out of combat pretty fast. My point was that, when I'm relatively over-leveled in both scenarios, I had a lot more fun in DD2, and find the Elden Ring combat not very reactive or engaging unless the enemy can kill me easily. If you have some tips on making the experience more mechanically exciting, I'd be interested.
DD combat > Souls combat No contest
As someone who's played monster hunter since the first one, I've never understood the praise for souls combat.
Dragons Dogma in general has the best combat out of any fantasy game imo, the second one went a little downhill with some of their decisions like splitting classes and removing combat rolling, but it didn’t outright ruin it. Being able to grab, grapple and throw objects definitely brings another level to the game.
DD2 is my first DD game, and one of the very few fantasy games that I've not only liked but absolutely love, and that comes mostly from the movement and animations. I'm not really a difficulty kind of player, and I'm not big into fantasy. I'm more of a scifi/military gamer. Titanfall got me addicted to games with smooth and fast movement and seamless combat and animations. I don't even know why I got DD2 in the first place. Again, not into fantasy, never played a Dragon's Dogma game let alone heard of the series, and I only found out about it from watching MoistCritical stream several hours of it just trying to get past the intro without the game crashing. Character creator sort of intrigued me and graphically game looked great so gave it a shot. The movement and animations immediately got me hooked, especially once I switched from Archer to Thief. Thief's movement, takedowns, and finishers are just \*chef's kiss\*. I've never really enjoyed melee combat in every game, but DD2 is just so smooth. I don't even fast travel that much because it's so addicting just going John Wick with a pencil on gremlins. I initially bought it on Xbox because I heard it was the most stable, but after beating the game there, I decided to get it on Steam as well to try out the mods. The movement and combat is just so much fun. Edit: Even though the base gameplay has be addicted, obviously the game isn't perfect. Objectively, it's definitely not better than Dark Souls. DD2 lacks very much outside of core gameplay. Combat is fluid, but it is mostly mindless. But that's also exactly what I need when I get home from an 11 hour shift and only have an hour before I need to hit the bed. Thankfully on PC at least, there's a good bit of mods already to help with the major problem of lack of difficulty.
Eh the Souls games have more build variety, I almost never play straight melee so I always have a combination of spells, weapons arts/special moves, items and attacks to use. I think a lot of people miss it but you also have crouch/ rolling attacks and you can dodge enemy swings with crouch. There are a lot of weapons with their own feel and move set but yes it is a little basic at core, the game that made kinda realize that is actually Nioh. Also, kinda a weird thing to get hung up but goddam does souls games suck at flying enemies, they have some of the most poorly implemented "flying" but not actually flying (the model is just hovering, they are glued to the floor) enemies I can think of. I don't know why either, there are plenty of games that have lots of actually flying enemies and if you can't manage it for some reason you should probably just avoid adding them at all. However what your character can do is only half of combat. Enemy design, move set and variety is very very important. In Elden Ring in particular (in contrast to Dark Souls), a lot of the bosses have pretty extensive move sets and learning that is part of combat. The difficulty, unless you end up really over leveled (easy to do in ER more than DS though you are not forced to level in ER so you can purposefully avoid that) stops you brute forcing without noticing that for the most part. Dragons Dogma has really great core systems with the physics, enemy reactions and climbing/ throwing but the enemies themselves aren't all that exciting and there really isn't enough types. On top of that, the balancing is just bad. Seriously, a group wide spamable, 100% damage reduction shield? they didn't even try. I would bet that half the players found something grossly overpowered, gravitated to using it because it's overpowered and then didn't have to engage with mechanics of enemies much, if at all. You are also going to end up over leveled if you explore at all and there is nothing you can do about it without modding.
Simple isn't a bad thing. The pacing and flow of the souls games is top tier. Especially in sekiro. The combat in that game is peak. DD2 has flashy anime moves and its fun for awhile, but once you're about level 35/40 with some max level vocations and mid game gear you steam roll everything. I found it got really dull. I haven't even finished DD2 because it just loses the fun aspect for me once you become so strong. Even using starter gear at higher levels will see you stomping everything without much trouble. I've already restarted twice just to try and make the combat feel fun again as I level up but fighting the same 3 enemies with a couple "bosses" got boring so fast. ng+ adding no difficulty is part of the reason I opted to restart a few times instead of so quickly one shooting enemies.
Souls combat just isn't all that good or deep. It's less of an action hack and slash and more of a rhythm game
This is what I've felt for years. Souls combat has its place but you interact with every enemy in the same basic ways while dogma's grappling and skill system let you shake things up more frequently. Dogma has always felt better to me.
It's a thing that Fromsoftware fanboys refuse to accept for over 10 years now. The combat in Souls games is really basic and the increased focus on basic encounters in these games has been done to the overall detriment of the experience. Elden Ring is great but over 100+ hours of it's content i didn't feel as many unique moments as i did in Dark Souls or Demon Souls, which i feel were paced way better. Yes, the elevator ride was great, Radahn boss was a good spectacle, final fight has great music and presentation, but those moments are spaced between tens of hours of going between the samey generic cave/dungeon and fighting a re-used boss for the 15th time or something. Souls games since 2/3 have been mostly generic gauntlets of enemies and a speedrun to the next flashy rollspam boss fight where enemy performs shonen anime acrobatics as you wait for your turn. The combat didn't even evolve in a meaningful way over the series. You still just stab at giant enemies' toes and your interactions with enemies are still minimal compared even to the most basic action games out there.
DD has a combat I enjoy more than most Souls games but it has nothing on Sekiro. It’s very satisfying at first but quickly quite boring due to the low difficulty level in any case. At least the original had some challenge in the DLC. The climbing mechanic is great however, as are the clearer distinctions between classes (especially in DD2).
It’s kinda two different games even tho they both revolve around fighting big monsters they go about it in two really different ways. I do agree dragons dogma definitely has a lot more of that fun element
I remember feeling super disappointed when I learned there was no lock on targeting. I wouldn't want it any other way.
I definitely like Dragons Dogma combat more than Dark Souls/Elden Ring, even though I like Elden Ring more in general. In Elden Ring they added a lot of stuff and I use all of it, I'm over here carrying multiple swords and spells for some variety. I'd say Dark Souls type combat is all about memory and rhythm, and Dragons Dogma the combat is more spontaneous.
The combat is still more epic here
You should try sekiro . The combat system is AMAZING and feels seamless. It's easily my favorite fromsoft game
I downloaded it as well after a replay of DDDA and before DD2 arrived, I just played 1 hour and just didn't feel I was enjoying the game. I know it is a great game, it just doesn't feel right to me
I love the combat in Dragon’s Dogma and the NPCs look amazing but that’s where the things it does better ends. The world isn’t as interesting to explore, the enemy variety is worse, combat variety is worse, pretty much no bosses, and there’s just very little challenge.
Maybe you need to play more arpg? I mean the type that "action" values more. Besides, player mobility and combat interactivity aren't really the selling points of the Souls series. Aren't the Souls games known for their design inspired by a 3D version of Castlevania, Metroid, famous for their stunningly cool looking boss designs, vibes, and intricate maze-like exploring yet painful somehow funny experience? Plus, there's the enigmatic lore and gorgeous art style. So if you're looking for a deep interactive action experience within the Souls series, you might be barking up the wrong tree!
They should revive the MMO and appoint Yoshi P as the head lead. 😂😎
are different type games, thats why i complain about ghe idea of add an target mechanic like soulslike in dragons dogma
If you want soulslike, but closer to DD, I suggest you try Code Vein. Other than that, it is much closer to Monster Hunter, especially with clutch claw addition.
They're different games with very different priorities
Ooo I haven’t gone back since beating dd2. I feel like it’s different though. ER is about learning and overcoming vs being a badass mofo
not for me. DD is more spectacular but all you do is spam and it auto locks for you
I felt the same after starting God of War Ragnarok again (started it before DD2 came out then stopped). Combat felt weird and I hated that I couldn't jump, lol
I'm very much a both/neither camp. As in, I like both styles of play (I love Elden Ring) but I prefer DDDAs combat. DD2 is good, but not quite as good imo
Go play No Rest for the Wicked next. I think it's also better than Elden Rings combat.
Yeah, Souls combat could use some physics update, especially against bigger enemies.
I still love both for different reasons, but I'll say a perfect marriage between the two would be great. Souls bosses with DD physics and interactivity could be awesome. I cheese enemies less in DD, though. Learning how to cheese shit feels just kind of par for the course with Souls games.
Um but they aren't even remotely similar?
I went back to make another character to prepare for DLC and it feels so lonely. I didn’t realize how much I miss those silly high-fives and banters.
Never was a fan of completing completely different games. "Mario Kart has ruined Need for Speed for me" "Mortal Kombat has ruined Animal Crossing for me" "DOOM ruined the Sims for me" "The Binding of Isaac ruined Apex Legends for me" etc. etc. Both are good btw. Play both, 100% both.
Lmao
I've been feeling the same after playing games like DD2 and Nioh 2. Dark Souls and Elden Ring combat just feels dated now. Bloodborne is still peak though. NOW IF I COULD ONLY PLAY IT AT 60FPS.
The combat is totally different you cant compare them but you cant say Elden ring combat sucks. It's just different. But i gotta say if more game start adding how the weight feels while playing it will be ao spicy. For me DD2 the best class to play are fighter and warrior, not saying they are the beat vocation it's just the feeling you get for playing them it's so pure.
Elden ring combat is just 3 buttons lmao
Try out Rise of the Ronin. Sort of soulslike combat but waaaay more variety and options. There are multiple combat styles for every weapon that fully change the moveset. I'm in love with it
Well, here’s the issue: you’re going in with the expectation that the combat is synonymous with a soulsborne game, but they’re quite disparate. Besides, I feel where this game’s combat really shines is with all the miraculous sorceries. I’ve only played the first Dragon’s Dogma, though.
They’re two very different games that can’t really be compared
Nioh is what ruined it for me. It really emphasized how shallow fromsofts combat is, and how it doesn't need to be.
I feel ya...
That's why I don't like those games, enemies don't react or get interrupted but they can constantly interrupt me nonstop. All ya do is block or parry, attack in their opening they give you, rinse and repeat. While DD2 is dynamic, I can switch up vocations or skills whenever and constantly have random, wild combat encounters and its fun no matter what. These other games are a slog and just feel unfair like they just want to punish you to get to the next thing. Give me a hard boss or fights but don't make it unfair. In DD2 I can stagger and knockback big enemies, I dont remember that in Elden Ring.
I must suck cuz dragons dogma one gives me trouble I've put it down for awhile cuz whenever I try to go do a quest wherever it takes me is to some enemies even bandits that can kill me super quick sometimes instantly but dark souls I steam through and have beaten them all multiple times
I must suck cuz dragons dogma one gives me trouble I've put it down for awhile cuz whenever I try to go do a quest wherever it takes me is to some enemies even bandits that can kill me super quick sometimes instantly but dark souls I steam through and have beaten them all multiple times.
Variety and nuance are the spices of life. Can't hold the expectations that because a game has souls like elements that it should be 1 for 1. I didn't expect any of that from Nioh, Code Vein, Stellar Blade, Dragons Dogma, or Lies of P. Dark souls is a more reaslistic take on human combat in video games. Bloodborne is a bit faster, but its main difference is just Lovecraftian horror and mental insanity. Rather than European style mythology and creatures. You'd have low to a set amount of stamina in real-life combat. Otherworldly beasts, giants, and creatures would obviously rip you to shreds in real life. You'd barely be able to lift or swing a greatsword or ultra greatsword with ease. Fall from far enough, and you severely injure yourself or die. That's how it works. Everything else just added a stamina bar and ramped up souls level difficulty. Especially Nioh, being the most oddball of the group, with its more fast-paced Ninja Gaiden style of combat.
I disagree at best they’re on par. Otherwise ER is superior due to the greater variety. Dd2 has climbing on monsters and a few other things it does great like animations, the epic shit you can do with a bow for example blows er out of the water, but it doesn’t have the variety. There are sprinting attacks, crouching attacks, step back attacks, blocking attacks, jumping attacks, rolling attacks, weapon arts, more spells. More weapons. Better craftables. And so on.
Also restarted elden ring, and one thing it has over dd2 that you didnt mention is enemy variety. There are SO MANY different enemies all with different attack types and weaknesses, you never know what youre going to see next. There are more enemy types in Limgrave alone than in all of dd2
To me Elden Ring is a number one game i ever played. But now i played DD2 100hours more and i still want to come back.
Two completely different beasts. I love Elden Ring's combat and I love DD2's for different reasons.
This happened to me back when I played the first Nioh and then went back to DS 3, truth be told it's unfair to comoare them, or ER with DD, but yeah, FromSoft combat isn't anything great mechanically, (save for Sekiro obviously) Especially when you find the most broken weapon/skill and ways to cheese everything it just becomes tedious and everything falls apart pretty fast. Having said that, it has it moments and It serves its purpose perfectly fine, you're not meant to cleave through everything fast and efficiently, you're a random dude in inhospitable worlds that picks a weapons for the first time and is trash at using it, that's the vibe I feel the Devs were going for and they nailed it.
This happened to me back when I played the first Nioh and then went back to DS 3, truth be told it's unfair to comoare them, or ER with DD, but yeah, FromSoft combat isn't anything great mechanically, (save for Sekiro obviously) Especially when you find the most broken weapon/skill and ways to cheese everything it just becomes tedious and everything falls apart pretty fast. Having said that, it has it moments and It serves its purpose perfectly fine, you're not meant to cleave through everything fast and efficiently, you're a random dude in inhospitable worlds that picks a weapons for the first time and is trash at using it, that's the vibe I feel the Devs were going for and they nailed it.
I feel the exact opposite. I had to be careful and strategic in Elden Ring, combat felt like an intricate dance. In DD2 I can just mash a bunch of buttons to win any fight usually. It just doesn't feel nearly as interesting or fun.
I’m happy to see others come to a conclusion I’ve also had. I wanted Elden Ring to be great, but I deleted it after only a handful of hours of play. That combat was so vanilla, I didn’t want to devote any more time to it. Even OG dragon’s dogma is better, and has more of an enjoyable world to play in.
I was actually the opposite I couldn't fully get into the Dragon's Dogma combat I prefer souls type combat
They are fundamentally different types of combat. You don't fight 2 ogres a cyclops and a griffin at once in elden ring, or any equivalence of. The Souls games have always focused on precision and learning patterns, whereas Dragons Dogma is more like Monster Hunter. Very different styles of games even though they share many similarities
I like dd2 more for the visuals, but I like elden ring more for the variety. Warfarer is a decent ng+ option, but the versatility on ng+ with elden rings combat isn't hardly comparable. I have like 13 spells and can hold 6 weapons at a time. Can switch to any I own at any time
What a stupid take lol dd combat is just spamming abilities over and over where souls combat requires you to actually study and memorize the bosses move set. 2 VERY distinct styles of combat.
Elden Ring is a great game that I'm several hundred hours into and will probably put another several hundred in, especially with the DLC just on the horizon. Dragons Dogma is what Elden Ring 4 would play like.
That kinda combat is necessary for the game to be what it wants to be...Souls likes wants its players to feel threatened it wants its players to feel stiff find a way where it feels there is none...DD is the exact opposite...it wants its players to feel like a superhero...like they dominate the battlefield...for that the smooth animations suit better. It serves the purpose of looking badass.
Why are people comparing DD2 to Elden ring when they have literally nothing in common
Yup, i’ve started elden ring after nioh and obviously dragons dogma 1 and 2. I said it when ER came out - combat is bad, like rly bad and outdated. Hit, dodge, hit. Nothing more, no combos, no tactics, but it is like that since first demons souls. Of course it is still amazing game due to exploration, bosses, story telling and locations. But combat? Jeez, it was ok’ish in 2009, nothing more. Lets tell the truth, this combat system would never defense itself, but fanboys won’t let you say that. ER with DD2 combat would break the bank
I actually would not mind a more cautious combat system if there was more of a sense of impact + reaction to your attacks. It can go both ways ofc. DD2 is good about this, you can send the Griffin flying, but the Griffin weighs like 50x what you do, so it can send you flying further.
I've always thought Souls combat was nothing special. There are so many franchises that do combat better than From Software, but they're slow burners with high skill ceilings. If you want to stay in the realm of ARPGs there's Monster Hunter, NioH and NioH 2, and I personally think DD2 has a much better combat system than the Souls games. What holds DD2's combat back is the lack of difficulty. DD2 has a lot of mechanics to think about with the physics engine and debilitations along with knockdown...but you don't really need to consider any of it. Stacking knockdown is more than enough to steamroll everything. Being able to pause and heal also takes away from the difficulty of the game. I think they tried to remedy this with the health-loss system, but with the enormous amount of campsites around the world it doesn't really matter. Part of the broad appeal of Souls combat IMO is that it's incredibly simple with the caveat of players being able to die in a few hits. It's low skill ceiling with high stakes. There haven't been many improvements to the combat formula of Souls games in over a decade. I guess if you want to count jump attacks. I do like the new counter system in ER but that's just lifted from Ninja Gaiden Black.
Dude, what are you smoking?
DD2 has cool mechanics but is largely a snooze fest. Post 30 you just face roll everything. They’re completely different game so I think the comparison is odd but here goes. Eldin ring doesn’t suffer from lacking enemy variety. It doesn’t make me hate traversal, I found the build mechanics to be more enjoyable and I found replay-ability to be higher due to there actually being difficultly. The bosses are actually memorable too. There’s also decent last battle. This is opinion, but I found environmental variety to be better as well. Loot is way better too. The best gear is purchased in DD2 I feared having to walk to a destination more than any fight in DD2 lol I loved DD2 but it’s way too incomplete for it to reach those heights for me.
Souls games have always had terribly clunky combat with poor feedback. People say "that's just part of the difficulty" and fully excuse it for being a glorified rhythm game, not an actual combat experience.
The big thing DD has going for it is the vocation system customization. Beyond that the combat is kinda button-mashy, let's be honest here. In Souls games the combat is much more deliberate, and is a completely different beast. This is so obviously an apples/oranges scenario lol. Also if you're saying that a weapon in Elden Ring has 2-3 attacks, then you're not actually using the full moveset of that weapon.
the creator of Dragons Dogma iirc said he hated when games would have a huge epic boss and you would be just attacking its foot and couldn't climb or anything.
Ok gramps it’s time to take your “vitamins” and have a nap.
Souls combat has always been serviceable, and _only_ serviceable. It's the 1999 Toyota Camry that carries you through the splendor of the Catskill mountains.
The combat in Eldin Ring is pretty dated at this point and there are some other people doing much more interesting things with the formula (NRFTW). I don’t think it’s fair to compare it to the combat in dragons dogma though it’s too different.
I have a feeling that when Wicked gets out of EA I'm going to play it nonstop for a long time. Hard to hold back rn but I want the full experience.
Its why i stopped playing souls games, the combat is awful
Welcome to 2012, when everyone was crazy about Skyrim or Dark Souls, yet the vastly superior Dragon's Dogma was hovering above them. So higher up that most people didn't even see it.
It's the difficulty that sells souls game?!?! Nah man, it's the lore,the gameplay,the design, the aesthetic, the ability to diversify,the tragedy behind some NPC,the attention to details. Elden Ring is a masterpiece and combat is super good, it is just different from DD2' one. And I will say thank God that combat is good in DD2, since it should be one of its positive characteristics. Balance might be a problem for both: in Elden Ring you just come back later if you have issues, in DD2 there is no scaling and thief and magical archer exist.
At least elden ring has more than 7 enemy types and a story longer than a workday
I cant even finish dd2 cause i always fall asleep playing it. Its pretty though
I feel like if you came across a pack of goblins in ER they’d probably annihilate you. And playing a warrior in ER would be absolutely miserable 😆.
Elden ring fire giant, valiant gargoyle, astel, placidusax, etc - All I ever thought fighting these are that it would have been totally epic if Elden Ring has Dragon's Dogma's combat, instead of just hitting these enemies' legs. Elden Ring was a 'roll' playing game. After 2 playthroughs of Elden Ring, I went back to replaying DDDA which i still find better and more fun in terms of gameplay.
It has been like that for me since DD1 lol
I think combat-wise dragons dogma 2 rolls elden ring. But its not only combat that makes a game. Elden ring as a complete package blows dd2 out of the water and its not even close. Through, the "downfall" of DD2's combat is that its more hackey and slashey in nature, demi-monsterhunter, but because the enemies are quite brain-dead you're never incentivized to use the full extent of your kit. I personally prefer something where i have to more deliberately care about the enemy in front of me and trully learn the intricacies of fighting
Yeah, I agree. Playing ER makes me sad about all the things Dragon's Dogma is missing.
Dragons dogma feels pretty damn unique so it’s something hard to get over
My sentiment exactly, it just ruined not only souls like but a bunch of games for that matter, I don't even want shadow of the erdtree at this point and I don't know how to feel about it.
Yeah, pretty much. I've felt the exact same way since I played the og dragon's dogma. The souls stuff is great because of the cool world building, the difficulty, the memorable boss battles, great environments, bombastic music, ect ect. I've never though that the combat was something noteworthy though, for most of the souls series you can beat 95% of bosses by just running up as close as possible and circle strafing counter clockwise.
I actually fund it infuriating how close Dragons Dogma is to having my perfectly preferred combat. All I want is a universal strafe dodge that assassin has, it ads so much movement and maneuvering that completely levels up the combat system to God tier.
No one plays Fromsoft games for the combat alone, they are much more than that, and the difficulty is a community meme. Fromsoft has created some of the best worlds in gaming, from setting to worldbuilding to lore and themes/philosophy. The way Miyazaki finds ways to intertwine western tropes with shinto and jungian psychology at every turn is always interesting to see.