Dragon’s Dogma 2 is a lot bigger and more ambitious than its predecessor, which means there’s also a lot more to get to grips with. Whether you’re a newcomer or longtime fan, we’ve prepared a few tips for you before you begin your journey in Dragon’s Dogma 2.
Have a Mage For the Early Game
If you don’t want your main character or your pawn in Dragon’s Dogma 2 to be a Mage, that’s completely fine. That being said, I’d highly recommend at least hiring one Mage from the Rift to help fill out your party. The reason being that Mages can provide healing and curative support, which is very crucial early on. In addition to that, Mages can also buff your weapons with elemental affinities, which deals a ton of extra damage to a lot of early game monsters and bosses.
Basically, Mages were great in the first game, and they’re still very useful in Dragon’s Dogma 2. You can change Vocations once you reach Vermund — the first major city in the game — if you ever decide you want to reclass into a Mage. But even if you don’t, consider recruiting one for your party.
Don’t Leave Side Quests for Too Long
As if we needed this game to be even more anxiety-inducing, it’ll please you to know that some side quests in Dragon’s Dogma 2 are timed, but the game won’t always explicitly tell you if that’s the case. Whenever you take on a new side quest, make sure to check your quests tab to see if there’s an hourglass icon next to it. If there is one, that means the quest is timed, and you’ll have a limited amount of time to complete your objective before something changes.
Do your best not to camp and pass time when you get a timed quest, and prioritize it above all else.
With that in mind, and adding on the fact that fast travel in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is very inaccessible early on, I recommend taking on one side quest at a time. Instead of claiming a whole bunch and potentially screwing one up because you didn’t realize it was time-sensitive, it’s much safer to do them one at a time to ensure you don’t miss anything.
Watch Your Food
For added realism, the food and raw ingredients you pick up in Dragon’s Dogma 2 also have a timer. If you leave them untouched in your inventory for too long, they’ll eventually ripen and rot, and give you debilitating effects if you try to consume them.
For instance, a Scrag of Beast will eventually ripen after about an in-game day, but if you leave it for much longer than that, it’ll be named Rotten Scrag of Beast in your inventory, letting you know it’s no good for consumption. When this happens, it can no longer be used for crafting.
That being said, there is a benefit to letting food sit in your inventory until it ripens. Ripened food will offer increased curative effects and potency than regular food, so it’s a fine line that you have to tread. Always check on your food items, and don’t let them go to waste.
The good news about meat in particular is that you can cook rotten meat at camp, and still get a slight boost to attack and defense. The boost won’t be as significant as ripened or regular food of course, but it’s better than nothing.
Watch Your Weight
Speaking of picking up items, make sure to watch your carry weight as well. Just like in the first game, Dragon’s Dogma 2 features a weight system that can severely impact how you perform in combat and while you’re traversing the open-world. The game is pretty stingy with how much you can carry at the start, and as you get closer to your max encumbrance limit, your weight goes up.
There are five weight classes in Dragon’s Dogma 2: Very Light, Light, Average, Heavy, and Very Heavy. As you go up the weight class, you’ll start to notice that you drain stamina much faster, and your stamina recharge rate also slows down significantly. This can be a huge hindrance in combat as climbing and using combat skills will drain stamina, so keep an eye on that.
The good news is that you can increase your carry weight for every five levels you gain, and by picking up Golden Trove Beetles that are scattered all over the open-world. For every five levels, your max encumbrance goes up by 3kg. Each Beetle you pick up increases it by 0.15kg.
Don’t Travel at Night
The open-world of Dragon’s Dogma 2 isn’t all that scary in the day, but it’s a completely different story at night. Not only is it pitch black unless you light your lantern, the enemies you encounter in the dark are also far more dangerous than the ones that show up during the day.
Zombies, for instance, are surprisingly resilient, even if they don’t seem to do all that much damage. However, they can be very dangerous if they swarm you. You may also encounter ghost-like enemies, which you’ll find are much harder to take down than regular foes. So yeah, don’t travel at night, at least in the early game. Once you’ve got your party geared up a little better, then you can start dipping your toes in.
