Dragon's Dogma 2 or Elden Ring

I'm in the mood for an open world action RPG (haven't played one in a long time) and I'm torn between Dragon's Dogma 2 and Elden Ring.
Which one do you recommend and why?

DD2 isnt even finished. Elden RIng is.

If you haven' played the first dragon's dogma yet you should buy dark arisen. If you have already or if you don't want to, buy elden ring.

Dogma 2, so hard it's not even open to debate. Even with its flaws Dogma 2 was still an excellent game; Elden Ring was so mediocre it killed Anon Babble's devotion towards From.

The only people who hate DD2 were third worlders with poverty rigs

Elden Ring is a better game in every single sense.

Even with its flaws Dogma 2 was still an excellent game

I AM WHEEZING

ER
the sense of exploration is great

I would go for DD2, it looks comfier than Elden Ring.

Elden Ring suffers from the issues AAAA open world games have: bloated with pointless, copypasted content; Dragon's Dogma 2 is a compact, good paced and properly designed game.
The best example is the enemies: Elden Ring boasts about having huge enemy variety but they're just the same zombies and knights with different recolors and armor pieces with the same anemic moveset. Comparatively Dragon's Dogma 2 has way fewer enemies but they have proper movesets and are unique.

looks

Maybe you should play the games

What the actual fuck are you talking about. Elden Ring has like 20 times as much variety of content as DD2. Fuck, there are more unique boss monsters in a subsection of the first region of Elden Ring than there are in the entirety of Dragon's Dogma 2.

My 3060 can't handle DD2, and i'm not into souls-likes

Recolors =/= variety.
Hell, most of ER's content is simply content copypasted from the Dark Souls games.

Can't go wrong with either. Both have good gameplay. I like ERs NPCs and enemies more but DD2 is very satisfying, even if encounters get repetitive. Story is total garbage.
Even if you're one of the idiots that think ER has no story that no story is better than what DD2 has. Post game in DD2 is excellent but it's lish islands of gameplay in a sea of mediocrity compared to ERs grassland landmass

I think ER sucks ass and is the worst nuFROM game, and I like DD2 more, but even I have to admit that Elden Ring is just the more complete package.
DD2 is a blatantly unfinished game that needed at least half a year in development at MINIMUM.
Dragon's Dogma 2 is way more interesting, experimental and innovative, but Elden Ring is more complete (but still unfinished to be honest, just not even remotely to the same extent as DD2)

Are you implying DD doesn't have recolors?

DD does have recolors, but DD's enemies are also far more complex with way more behaviors and interactions than Elden Ring enemies.

There is no difference between any of those bosses since they are all the same from a mechanical standpoint. Wait until they attack dodge and punish, rinse and repeat, most of them don't even mechanical interactions so you're stuck slashing them until they die. DD2 has more enemy interactions and therefore has the superior enemies and bosses, what is the difference between a regular dragon and bayle? None

Dragon's Dogshit 2 but make sure you install this mod nexusmods.com/dragonsdogma2/mods/1016

If you don't count recolors there are still more variety of enemy types in a small area of Elden Ring versus the entirety of Dragon's Dogma.

Get neither retard buy the superior thinking mans RPG Nioh 2

"true open world" is a dogshit concept

Two completely different games. Play both I guess.

Yet another DD2 hater who has never actually played the game.

ER, definately, and I actually liked DD2. DD2 is a game you either get it or you dont.

DD2 has great combat that proves RPGs dont need to be boring as fuck or just be about rolling and poking, but everything around it is rather shallow and half baked, it lacks ambition in ways that just make you feel like there is a game that couldve been amazing but wasnt, it also might not even run well for you, Capcom is on a stint of just not optimizing gmaes and DD2 is one of them. ER is exactly what you expect if youve played a From game stretched wider and expanded in every aspect, its them taking what you know and making it much broader.

DD combat in a world designed by From

t. bethesdrone/ubislopper

YMMW but I liked Dogma 2 more.
For me, the Souls formula has simply run its course. I'm bored of games where all you do is stunlock small enemies to death and play a dodge rolling minigame with larger enemies/bosses and Elden Ring is basically this in a huge map.
And before you say "filtered", I finished ER without summons and SotE without summons or skibidi fragments.
Dogma 2 may be inferior to DDDA but I still liked its approach to world design, quests and combat more than in ER. Not to mention, classical European fantasy adventure is much more comfy than yet another le bleak dying world where you journey to seek Zanzibart's forgiveness.

both are great games but dragon's dogma 2 is clearly unfinished

People make a big stink about gameplay being everything but 100% the reason Dragon's Dogma sticks with me but DD2 didn't were all the NPCs and quest interactions giving them and the world a lot of character.
I hardly remember anyone in DD2 aside from guard nigger and rival nigger. GN for being a pretty solid and competent backer and RN for being horribly written.
In DD however I remember everyone from the witches pawn to the grimore guy that helps you at the tower, the corrupt statesman and his shit ass daughter let alone Mercedes.
DD2 has excellent combat and all the vocations get up to some fun stuff in spite of what some people say but the world matters so much less until post game. That's way to far in to feel rewarded.

both are garbage

everyone must play the same slop as me!!!

finished sote without scooby doo fragments

yeah right...

I'll give you combat but you're insane if you think DD2 has good quest design and characters.
I'd take a million vague Zanzibart NPCs, which ER NPCs aren't, over 90% of DD2s dogshit cast that maybe show up in one other quest once.

Bayle

Massive Blob that has no mechanical interactions besides a stagger

Regular Dragon

Massive Blob that has no mechanical interactions besides a stagger

Different movesets that ultimately require the same strategy: Memorize the patterns and press the roll button.

Besides there is no weak point system in Elden Ring, all bosses take the same amount of damage no matter where your hitting them, this is no Monster Hunter

Both of you are judging the boss not from a mechanical standpoint but from a visual one. That's something almost everyone seems to be doing, it doesn't matter if the gameplay is the same it has a different enemy model, color or name no matter how shallow or samey they are, which is basically Elden Ring in a nutshell

DD2 has multiple quests where you have several options of completing them and the game doesn't even tell you about them and that you have options to begin with and figuring out this shit yourself was fun.
Meanwhile, ER quests are
youtube.com/watch?v=xzc_04yuP0o

ER combat is really bad, and its exploration is also really bad. DD2 has the best exploration and combat in an open world game, Elden Ring has more variety but most of it is just plain bad.

It helps no one to be that reductive. You can claim DD2 fighter is memorize moves and press block.

ER also has alternative outcomes you can figure out. For the love of Christ get your mouth off the shitposting teat and actually find a point.
I can't stress enough I like DD2 but I growing to hate you personally

I had a lot more fun with DD2. It's an incomplete game and has its issues for sure but the core concept is just way better. The thing with Elden Ring is it's kind of nothing but combat, and the combat is just too simplistic and repetitive to have the game be only about that. Yes there are different builds but it's always just about developing a dodge pattern and throwing a quick attack or two between each opening no matter what build you're playing. Being open world doesn't really do it any favors, because all the good parts of the game are in what people have called "legacy dungeons" because those are the places with intricate level design like the other Souls games had. All of the open fields between those areas basically exist to make the world look pretty and be stuffed with copy pasted assets.

DD2's world and combat is more sandboxy, dynamic, and immersive. Sure every time you run into 3 goblins it's not going to be anything special, but if more enemy types also join in it gets more interesting, especially if they're minibosses, also the environment will affect the dynamics of the battle too. The game has actual characters (although sadly not really any great ones like DD1) and quests and villages and cities. The fact that you only travel by foot (no mounts) and have to make camp at night (or fight scarier foes and be blind as shit because there's no moon so it's pitch black outside) and always have your pawn bros with you makes the world feel big (it's not that big really) and real and lived in. The game is kind of like an adventure simulator...

So if you want an RPG because you want to be immersed in a fantasy world I'd pick DD2. If you just want to slay monsters with swords and magic then... I'd still pick DD2 for that personally but maybe ER is more your thing, I don't know man you figure it out.

The side quests are well done, the main quest is complete dogshit. In DD2 the quests overlap and leave you to figure out how to do them yourself and have multiple methods, the problem however, is that these quests and characters are inconsequential.

What it shouldve been is that the people you help have some baring on the story or come back later, so the outcomes actually have payoff, all they do now is give some money and then you never have to interact with them again, they are just a standard NPC now.

help little girl become a mage, and then restrain her when she cant control magic

"thats enough magic for you young lady, and youre a cunt arisen for giving a little girl magic what the fuck are you doing lol"

And none of them are brought up again, in the post game when you have to go around saving people it shouldve had quests like this impact if or who you are saving and if they want to come with you, or help you in the end. The structure of the quests themsleves if great, the outcomes were always universally shit. Im still in awe at the reforged sword questline ending and not even giving the sword as a reward, or doing anything, like there wasnt some display set up with it or nothing, the guy just becomes a generic NPC, everything you were doing to that point was great, then it just ends and its like you didnt do anything.

I'm having a blast with Dragon's Dogma 2

all bosses take the same amount of damage no matter where you're hitting them

yeah this retard has never played a souls game lmao

Yeah I agree. It's the biggest difference between DD1 and 2. Helping people in different ways literally lead to changes in later quests, shop offerings and got some killed in unforseen ways. DD2 lacked that entirely

I would go with ER any day, boss, monster & world variety alone make it superior. DDogshit is a half assed demo of a maybe? cool game that never got made and it still runs like absolute piss out of the ass on my 5080/7800x3d.

play Dragon's Dogma: Dark Arisen

The difference is that most quests in DD2 follow some sort of logical train of thought and are fun to figure out.
Example:

artist asks you to take him to a live griffin so he can sculpt its likeness

asks you to somehow keep the griffin occupied while he sculpts

you can simply kite the griffin next to him but that leads to an imperfect sculpture

your pawns will usually suggest grabbing a medusa head and petrifying the griffin BUT you can also use ice spells to freeze him in place and nothing in the game implies that you can do that BUT IT IS LOGICAL because both turning to stone and freezing in place results in a transfixed griffin.

Meanwhile most quests in ER operate on this bizarre alien logic where Skulmblaith the Thrice Cursed will ask you to find his precious "glimbzt" and when you bring it to him he will laugh and thank you and then invade you in the next zone cursing your name and you kill him and he bumbles something incomprehensible and dies forever. I just can't muster the energy to care about anything that happens in ER's world.

"Do I play Anon Babble's best game of 2022?"

"Or do I play Anon Babble's biggest disappointment of 2024?"

Come on.

They had some stuff like that but again, the culmination of it is nothing

do that whole questline in the church and discover someone is poisoning people there through a long and quite good questline which involves having initiative to investigate things

opens up a forgotten library, neat little area, but no function it seems

quest later has you rescue a diplomat from prison, if you did the aformentioned quest you can actually have the guy set up in the library

cool, now theres a researcher in this area, perhaps Ill come back here for some reason now

nope, guy is just sitting in the library, with no function, doesnt do anything and it leads to nothing

Like what the fuck man. You can feel underneath this like you were suppose to be doing shit to try and get favour with people or something, but then they left it all out, so all you have is people that you do stuff for, they give you a thumbs up, and then you never interact again and get no actual reward for doing anything.

Also, go walk around the castle of the game, its is like a fucking instanced dungeon in an MMO, its gigantic, and you NEVER actually go anywhere in it but the twerps room to talk to him, it is all not used for anything at all. It feel like there couldve been a full on war and you have to fight through the castle with dragons in the halls and shit with how big yet empty it is, the game is full of stuff like this.

The research hall hinting at everfall with a big winding hole into the ground

you go there once to deliver a sword, the whole area is not used for anything but that, it has multiple chambers, unique models and is huge

WHYYYYYYY

The question is how long it takes you boil down a combat system.

Souls:

Hits enemy with light atk > hitstun, some damage
Hits enemy with heavy atk > hitstun, some damage
Hits enemy with backstep R1 > hitstun, some damage
Hits enemy with arrow > hitstun, some damage
Hits enemy with magic atk > hitstun, some damage

That's it.

Parries don't work against most enemies, Same goes for launching and backstabbing.

Dragon's Dogma on the other hand:

Enemies actually catch on fire

Lightning attacks can stun

Ice freezes enemies in place

Launch them in the air

Pull them towards you

High Frigor creates platforms

You can grab enemies, throw and restrain them

The stagger/Knockdown system in general

and a lot of other mechanics that I haven't mentioned. This applies to both games.

Fromsoft has been watering down the franchise for years to appeal to the masses, removing almost everything that made the series unique. And instead of evolving the combat to compesate for this new focus on action they just added a couple of mechanics that hardly evolve the combat. Other series have gone a lot further in fewer tries

Again you're being reductive and I pray retarded on purpose as a joke.
Either way you're not even worth the (you)
Even the political intrigue never really went anywhere or the guy that helps you in a bar fight betraying you for no reason. Hell he shows up in the post game even if you kill him.
There's a bunch of weird stuff like that.

The only possible reason I'd say Elden Ring is if you can't afford to buy games that often. It's a good sunk-cost fallacy kind of game where you will probably keep playing it long after you hate it. If you want an adventure game you won't find it with Elden Ring, you'll find Big Dark Souls. Lots of Roll then attack, enemies will have lots of hyper armor and ignore your attacks, and will delay their attacks so your roll is not useful most of the time. The entire game is basically a balance patch that nerfs the Dark Souls playstyle in favor of making the game more like Dragon's Dogma, i.e. use skills instead of regular attacks, except in Elden Ring you only have one special skill slot per weapon, instead of the 4 per weapon in DD2.

DD2 is amazing but it's likely you'll get burnt out after your first playthrough. The only reason I'd say not to buy DD2 is if you don't like wilderness survival games. You have access to endgame areas shortly after the tutorial, and gearing is only restricted by gold, so you can buy endgame tier weapons so long as you have enough gold to purchase them, which you can get from playing the game without touching a single quest. Enemies are aggressive and ambush you frequently, but there's several unique interactions for every enemy in the game so it's like a polar opposite ER in that regard. Your health is going to low for large portions of the game since maximum health decreases upon taking damage.

ER is a huge game, but a lot of the variety doesn't matter. You'll find hundreds of weapons but none of them will feel that much different from eachother in practice. Enemies are mostly the same in regards to gameplay. The visually unique stuff requires heavy stat investment, and still mostly does identical damage to everything else. You never really feel like you're getting anywhere in ER.

DD2 is a better game but a lot less variety in exchange for a lot more unique playstyles and mechanics.

Get Khazan: The First Berserker

I only played DD2. It took a while for me to see all the layers but its definitely an amazing ride.

the last time I went to replay DD2 this mod wasn't working. I also tried to use a mod that randomizes enemy spawns, but that wouldn't work either.
if I could just have the wild loot mod and a mod that changes (not randomizes) the enemy spawn rates and spawn locations, so that you don't get ambushed by goblins every 10 seconds and enemies like chimeras show up more than twice in an 100 hour playthrough, I'd be somewhat okay with the state of DD2.

at the end of the day the thing I liked most about DDDA was the comfy exploration and pawn silliness, and DD2 delivers on that just as well as the first game if not better.

Il disagree with you about Elden rings progression, if you’re not one anime tier by soul level 130 you are just mucking about the game. Elden ring was designed to be the easiest and hardest of the games. If you specifically play with the over powered tools you’ll steam roll the game. In fact if you play it like classic dark souls it’s easily the hardest souls game available. But if you decide to lean into the anime tier abilities, you will run through the game with easy. You can have 4 unique skills equipped in dark souls as well as having a spell book at your disposal. The problem with Elden ring is transitioning between weapons can make a lot of players who aren’t adjusted to it, think it’s clunky. It really isn’t you can have 4 special moves within a few button pushes between them. i use to run a dagger off hand with blood hound step when I was suffering big time against a boss. Primary would be something Op like rivers, secondary slot would be a catalyst or talisman. And then forth slot whatever you want to play with. Using the equipment load rings is mandatory but it’s one of those items everyone uses anyway

Elden Ring. DD2 is fun for the first third, but the second you start doing city-based quests you feel the joy, and the framerate, nose-dive.

Enemies that are weak to fire do catch on fire.

Lightning causes bodies of water to become electrified dealing aoe

Both also get affected by weather

Freezing is a status ailment that makes enemies take burst damage and become susceptible to physical attacks

You can launch enemies, pull enemies

Parries work against most enemies AND most bosses. You can also parry projectiles and have a bunch of parry related skills.

I just find ironic to see Anon Babble complaining about Elden Ring's "simplicity" when the board has always been very vocal about how complexity is bloat and how simply rolling and hitting an enemy with simple attacks is the peak of videogames.

I didn’t enjoy Elden ring.

I can tell you never played DD2 with how hard you're grasping at straws.

t. played both

You actually haven't played Elden Ring considering you outright lied.

Sincerely, they are both great.
Elden wing will give you more hours I think, but dragons dogma does get pretty insane after a while.
If you played the first dragons dogma, you might be a little mad with the second game, until the twist hits, so keep that in mind.

I'd play DD2 first at least. The open world is so much better than Elden Rings. Then Elden Ring later where the difficulty spike in combat will scratch the itch you need after DD2.