None of that happened, per usual to your other fanfictions like trying to use area loading as a 1% low metric.

Originally posted by Grr. SG CMD Majah Lazah:

None of that happened, per usual to your other fanfictions like trying to use area loading as a 1% low metric.

BLOCKED

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by Grr. SG CMD Majah Lazah:

None of that happened, per usual to your other fanfictions like trying to use area loading as a 1% low metric.

BLOCKED

lmao

Digital Foundry says yes it's better, a lot of stutter inside cities removed. Of course you found something else to ♥♥♥♥♥ about anyway.

It did improve performance yes. Still room for improvements tho

Originally posted by rane:

Digital Foundry says yes it's better, a lot of stutter inside cities removed. Of course you found something else to ♥♥♥♥♥ about anyway.

Surprisingly he didnt complain as much, he just pointed out about story and gameplay being lacking lol. The story is lacking tbf XD

Originally posted by Amon:

Surprisingly he didnt complain as much, he just pointed out about story and gameplay being lacking lol. The story is lacking tbf XD

story "lacking" is being nice, more like "lets make a deep espionage type story line about a false arisen then we will have the arisen sneak in and gather info then.... then.... uh, we'll have them kill the dragon yeah then boom roll credits" ... "Sounds good to me"

They straight up gave up on the story when traveling to Battahl,

Originally posted by VDRSK:

Originally posted by Amon:

Surprisingly he didnt complain as much, he just pointed out about story and gameplay being lacking lol. The story is lacking tbf XD

story "lacking" is being nice, more like "lets make a deep espionage type story line about a false arisen then we will have the arisen sneak in and gather info then.... then.... uh, we'll have them kill the dragon yeah then boom roll credits" ... "Sounds good to me"

They straight up gave up on the story when traveling to Battahl,

I hope whatever they pull with the DLC redeems the story

It's hardly a "deep espionage" story. It's a sideshow that occupies you and mostly serves to point you at, and involve with, the deeper plot with the Royce dragon affair, which then makes the Arisen show actual volition and break the system.

This is where the game is the most similar to its predecessor, taking mostly the same beats: after leaving the village with a potential love interest (what'shername vs Ulrika) where you met the dragon, in escort of soldiers (Cassardis/Melve), you start a list - not a chain - of quests in the capital. There, while you were doing menial tasks unrelated to the core conflict (Duke's fully pointless Dragon Hunt distraction vs trying to depose the Regent Queen), the actual threat emerges (Dragon actual) and as the consequence of what you did the world gets fully derailed and broken (Everfall vs Unmoored). At this point both games kinda expect the player to piece the puzzle together on their own and while DD2 is actually a bit better at explaining what just happened, ultimately many how and whys are merely left implied in both games.

The major difference and contrast between the two - and I disregard Dark Arisen here as it seems to break some of the world's established rules - is that in DD1 the cycle works fully as exepcted, while in DD2 the Arisen successfully breaks it, and for a good reason.
And while in DD1 during the story climax Elysion gets offed and Duke tries to sabotage you, in DD2 Sven still supports you staunchly and Phaesus grudgingly helps you (and it turns out your goals pretty much aligned in the long term).

The core story is good, I do wish some of it was more elaborated upon (the Empress is woefully underutilized), but I don't really play either game for the story and even if it were godlike tier, the combat is still where the real fun happens.

People pretending the story of the first game was something amazing. Get real. You don't play these games because of the story. everyone knows that.

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by Grr. SG CMD Majah Lazah:

None of that happened, per usual to your other fanfictions like trying to use area loading as a 1% low metric.

BLOCKED

Cool story, meanwhile NPC density is precisely the same as it was.

Originally posted by NoiT:

People pretending the story of the first game was something amazing. Get real. You don't play these games because of the story. everyone knows that.

It was god tier, or should I say seneschal tier, compared to the story in the sequel.

I have a 3060ti and a 10600k, which are definitely on the lower end of the spectrum for this game's requirements. I played the 2 hour demo just to see if the performance was bad as I feared. I was actually surprised at how not terrible it was. The wilderness stayed a pretty consistent 60FPS (I capped it there) even in combat with several NPC's involved. In populated camps the game dropped to 50-55 FPS. In the main city, it never got higher than 56 FPS and occasionally dropped down into the 40's . That wouldn't be so bad if it weren't constantly and obviously fluctuating as the game struggled to claw its way back to 60. Changing graphics settings doesn't seem to have much of an impact, so it's definitely a CPU bottleneck.

Overall, I definitely think this game would be totally playable for me in its current state. However, I'm not exactly encouraged by the vibe of the reviews--or the fact that I've only seen two enemy types total in the space between the starting location and the capital. I'll either wait for a DLC, further significant performance improvements (which don't seem likely tbh), or a deep sale in a couple of years. I absolutely loved DDDA, so I'm just kind of generally bummed with the stuff I've heard (and now seen, to a small extent).

DD1 had the everfall for post game content, this game has a total and complete nothingburger for post game content. They need to add some free post game content, and then bring more content with an actual expansion.

Originally posted by Reaganball Z:

However, I'm not exactly encouraged by the vibe of the reviews--or the fact that I've only seen two enemy types total in the space between the starting location and the capital.

You will only have seen a very small part of DD2, while the monster variety is largely regionally determined. Here's a list of all the creatures you can slaughter (including chickens and rats). So it's not quite as little as is often suggested here. And think about how long the game has been on the market. There may still be something to come:

Asp ♦ Bandit ♦ Bat ♦ Bird ♦ Blackdog ♦ Brine ♦ Chicken ♦ Chimera ♦ Chopper ♦ Coral Snake ♦ Crow ♦ Cyclops ♦ Doe ♦ Dragon ♦ Drake ♦ Dullahan ♦ Garm ♦ Goat ♦ Goblin ♦ Golem ♦ Gore Harpy ♦ Gorechimera ♦ Goreminotaur ♦ Gorgon ♦ Griffin ♦ Grim Ogre ♦ Harpy ♦ Hobgoblin ♦ Island Encampment Purgener ♦ Knacker ♦ Leapworm ♦ Lesser Dragon ♦ Lich ♦ Lost Mercenary ♦ Magma Scale ♦ Medusa ♦ Minotaur ♦ Nex ♦ Ogre ♦ Ooze ♦ Ox ♦ Phantasm ♦ Phantom ♦ Pig ♦ Rabbit ♦ Rat ♦ Rattler ♦ Redwolf ♦ Rogue ♦ Rooster ♦ Sacred Arbor Purgener ♦ Saurian ♦ Scavenger ♦ Seabird ♦ Serpent ♦ Skeleton ♦ Skeleton Lord ♦ Slime ♦ Sludge ♦ Specter ♦ Sphinx ♦ Spider ♦ Stag ♦ Stout Undead ♦ Succubus ♦ Talos ♦ Undead ♦ Venin Harpy ♦ Vermund Purgener ♦ Volcanic Island Purgener ♦ Warg ♦ Wight ♦ Wild Boar ♦ Wolf

source: https://dragonsdogma2.wiki.fextralife.com/Creatures+and+Enemies

Wait and see is certainly a good idea. When I heard about DD2, I had no idea if I would even like this type of game, so I started playing DDDA a few months ago that I must have completely missed in the past. I loved it a lot (and still do), but like you I was also very discouraged by all the negative reviews. But then curiosity got the better of me and I bought it after all. I'm now about 85 hours in and love it even more than DDDA.

I think it depends on what kind of gamer you are. I've been playing computer games for 40 years (it's hard to call a Commodore C64 a PC) and I'm definitely "old-school" when it comes to gaming. Besides a lot of RPGs, I've also played a lot of roguelike games in the past. Strangely enough, apart from the much better (absolutely stunning) graphics, DD2 feels even more old-school than DDDA in certain aspects. Especially the hunting and exploring in the wilderness (preferably at night!) is where the game really shines and surpasses anything I've played before.

From the look of it, your system specs seem to be similar to mine: RTX 3070, i7-9700KF CPU @ 3.60GHz, 32 GB Ram. As long as you don't make completely excessive demands and are willing to make a few minor concessions in the graphics settings, it should be playable. It's true that a lot of performance depends on a good CPU (the KF version of my CPU is suboptimal), but you can still tweak the graphics options a bit. Incidentally, the game has been running absolutely stable for me so far and I haven't had a single crash or CTD. With one exception, but that was clearly my own fault.

But again: waiting certainly can't hurt.