Dragon’s Dogma Darkness Arisen 2023

[Huntn]

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I looked at this in 2020, got excited, then got bogged down planning a class build and ended up setting the game aside. Ok 3 years later, I rediscover this game, and I want one thing in advance, some good class builds. As compared to the 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. As you can probably tell, 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.

 

[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 Didciplines 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, though it in a folder with a description

 

[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. :oops: 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.