Windows Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

[Huntn]

I just stumbled over this on Steam, and thought this will be a simple game to play, and then this:

Steam Community :: Guide :: The Arisen's Handbook: A Guide to Adventuring in Gransys

This guide contains a wealth of information on various topics, such as manipulating pawn behavior, notable items and equipment, general questing/exploration advice, and a complete missable sidequest g

steamcommunity.com

Holy Crap! Not simple! Or is it, and I'm just a bit overwhelmed at all the material. And this is just one of many long articles on things like Vocation and Inclinations. Anyone playing? I'd like to hear from you. 😀

According to this thread, it plays on Mac via boot camp:

Dragons Dogma on Mac

Thought that may have gotten your attention :) Dragons Dogma runs under Bootcamp, goes without saying really. If you want run it on your Mac here is the link for the Wine wrapper - http://portingteam.com/files/file/8259-dragons-dogma-dark-arisen/page__st__15#commentsStart I have tested the...

forums.macrumors.com

 

[Larvas]

It's a fun game, especially when you're low level. I personally loved it 🙂 Later on once you become OP world travel becomes a bit boring, but I would def play it again.

 

[Nermal]

I played through it several years ago and enjoyed it. Try not to get too scared off by the complexity 🙂

 

[Huntn]

Guys sorry for the late response 😬 Thanks! I’ll just jump in sometime soon and give it a try, not worrying about anything in particular and see what happens.

 

[Huntn]

Ok 3 years later, I rediscover this game, and I want one thing some good class builds. As compared to
last RPG I seriously played, CP2077, I could actually make heads or tales out of the class system, where actual tables where the path from beginning to end was exposed in it’s entirety.Unless I missed it, not so here. And my last serious build in CP was mostly a melee build, so I thought this time, I’d play mage/sorcerer but online I read things like:

I started DDDA last night. This game has potential, but the class build system appears to be a secret, a mystery or a mess. And I’m not the type who likes to wing it in this department. I went online seaking good class builds and ran into little bits and pieces from around the net, no concise class build guides.

• Strongest class: Sorcerer
• But Sorcerer: Glass cannon
• Then you need to add some stamina to the build 10 levels of Mage, 40 levels of Strider, 100 levels of Sorcerer as a vague suggestion without any specifics.

The most annoying is the lack of conciseness and thoughness, basically I want my hand held in this department. 😀

Last night as a low level mage, I had a party of 4, fighter, mage, strider (dps), and me another mage. I woke up to a giant 5 headed viper attacking the outpost, and during the entire fight I spent my time running around trying not to be eaten, I had one heal spell that I could not apply to anyone, and my power spell sent little sparkles at the snakes heads and it did not really feel like I was aiming just pointed at in the direction of the snake that somehow found their way to one of the heads. So it might be said that as compared to hack and slash which I got a chance at in the prolog, magic feels underwhelming at least at the start of the game.

So if anyone knows something, I’d like to hear it. 🙂 I don’t have the inclination to stumble though the game trying to figure out a proper build. And I like melee plenty so I am not vested in just a magic build. 🙂

Btw my first post has a extremely long Steam guide link that I need to study, but glancing though it, I saw no class builds, maybe they are buried in there.

 

[Huntn]

Dragon’s Dogma- ok I’m over my DDDA angst regarding class builds. Picked fighter which is much more enjoyable than mage at the low levels, paying attention to Attributes which are serious buffs in the game such as reduce stamina expenditure by half, or increase health, then there Disciplines that are stronger attacks.

And it’s a little tricky, but manageable to have keys assigned to primary and secondary attacks, and then use left or right mouse button depending on what you want.

There is an outpost you head to in the course of the story and just beyind that a large band of bandits 7 or 9 to your party of 4 and they kicked my party’s ass the first attempt, but after I had about 2000 xp, I upgraded myself and my dedicated pawn, a mage who has her own xp, me and my party went back to that camp and kicked buttocks. 🙂

Although I’m enjoying it, its save system is a nightmare. Last night I accidentally told a significant NPC I would not loan her money, then looked it up and I should have. So I thought no problem, I’ll jump back to the last checkpoint, omg it put me back to the previous day before my party had a somewhat difficult fight with some large lizards in a cave at the bottom of a well in the starter town. The save manager I’m about to describe, at least got me back to the start of the current play session.

So I have a mod, actually it’s an independent .exe called DDDA Save Manager, picked up at Nexus mods that does a piss poor job of managing saves. It is supposed to keep a copy of every auto and manual save, but it does not, I’m lucky if I get a single save a session generated.

I know where the game save is kept, I might start making my own copies of saves after every important event if I jump out of the game leaving it running, make a copy of the save, and throw it in a folder with a description.

 

[Nermal]

Although I’m enjoying it, its save system is a nightmare. Last night I accidentally told a significant NPC I would not loan her money, then looked it up and I should have. So I thought no problem, I’ll jump back to the last checkpoint, omg it put me back to the previous day before my party had a somewhat difficult fight with some large lizards in a cave at the bottom of a well in the starter town. The save manager I’m about to describe, at least got me back to the start of the current play session.

Sounds familiar. Back in the day, I loaded up DD after playing something else. I walked up to an important NPC and pressed the Talk button... from the other game. It's the Attack button in DD.

 

[Huntn]

I‘m supposed to find a missing girl in the Witchwood, so I head to the encampment escorting a pretty merchant, then as I head out in the direction of the Witchwood, I run into the local Commander who wants me to escort this monster part on a wagon to the Capitol City, no problem. Once there I stop by the Pawn Guild and allow myself to get enlisted checking out a new presence in the Everfall, a large cavern below the Pawns Guild. That quest is interesting because the only way out of there is to run away fast, as fast as you can which requires multiple stamina restore elixirs. That only took me about 30 min to figure out. 🙂

There is also a large ape thing that it‘s helpful if you have some toss-able bombs to throw. In a video I watched they actually killed this thing, but in my game at about half health it ran away or fell to it’s death leaping over the side into the cavern.

After spending an hour+ down there, I’m told by the game, my quest to find the missing girl is void. So not happy but I’ve decided I am willing to repeat the journey into the Abyss, I turn to my game saves willing to sacrifice that evening of adventure. 😳 Maybe if I go find the girl in the Witchwoid first, I’ll be upgraded enough to kill the big ape when I return.

Although it does appear to be fully functional, I have the DDDA Saver Mod running so there are some options there, it’s good for reverting to the previous play session. I’ve discovered the game save locations keeps the active save and a number of backups, which can be altered to recover an older save, these I am now copying daily, and to be safe I’m experimenting with turning off Steam cloud saves to make sure the game does not get overly confused. I may turn it back on, but Steam Cloud saves in the past do not display much utility other than holding on to the last save you make (I think).

So instead of a simple revert to a previous save, there are some hoops to jump through. I’ve discovered that despite the ability to save the game often, after your party dies, last checkpoint is far from the best option, as I think the games distinguishes between “check points” which can be spaced far apart and saves. 🤔

 

[Huntn]

Starting as a fighter, I’m enjoying the melee combat. I like having a standard (left click) and a strong (right click) attack, along with Primary fancy attacks (control) LC and RC+ E key and Secondary (Alt) defensive/offensive skills LC and RC + E key. So that is 8 attack/defenses which are manageable with keyboard mouse. Plus you can jump on larger monsters and cut them until they throw you off, plus you are very mobile and can maneuver in and out of melee range.

My current concern moving forward is that there are encounters with groups of enemies, in some cases, ideally you get the first ranged shot to start the fight, maybe several shots in, before the other group can get close enough to strike back, there are encounters with flying mobs and I can’t tell my ranged AI party members who to attack first. I’ve read this can be an issue at later stages of the game, when the party is led (by you) as a melee class and a reason why you might want to switch to Strider or Ranger.

But I have no clue, is this a good idea and what is the best way to make this transition, any suggestions?.

 

[Huntn]

One of the big drawbacks of DDDA is that you have limited ability to control your party. There is come, go there, and help! You can’t direct your Strider to shoot or your mage to zap someone as a means of starting an engagement. Therefore I changed to Strider and although I can easier dictate how a fight starts, still have limited control over the party. I can run away and tell them to come as a means of disengaging but it does not always work.

Strider does not have the armor of a fighter, but this easily (in my limited experience) is the most capable dangerous class in the game. You just have to pay attention to your staMina so you don’t end up bent over exhausted in the middle of a fight.

• Fast travel-restricted.
• Save writes to and edits the active save, what genius thought of this? Don’t be a fool and choose last checkpoint to restart after you die, you may be surprised how far back you go.

This from another post:
Playing on Steam. I like the combat mechanics, crafting is reasonable, a large world to explore. Yet the save mechanics suck, when you manually save the game it writes over the current save, and when it hiccups which for me has not been that infrequent, you may lose a substantial amount of progress. My advice is after every major event make a copy of the active save. (Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\548xxx\36xxx\remote\DDDA.sav) Your user number maybe different, but DDDA saves folder will start with 36. I save both the files in the 36xxx folder, and place them in their own seperate save folder of mine. So when the game freezes during a save, you won’t end up pulling your hair out. Not sure how things are handled if you have cloud saves turned on, but I have them on and I can substitute my own saves and so far it has been a viable method to preserve progress.

 

[Huntn]

Sorry to say, but I’ve decided to move on. If anyone wants to know why, I’ll tell. 🙂

 

[Nermal]

And now we get to return to Gransys (I think that was the name); DD2 was announced today.