What you need to know
- As Dragon’s Dogma 2 launched on PC Thursday evening, a previously hidden suite of microtransactions became available for purchase.
- Things you can buy for the single player ARPG include fast travel points, Rift Crystals for hiring Pawns and buying special items, appearance change and revival consumables, a special camping kit that weighs less than normal ones, and a few others.
- In response to the microtransactions, Dragon’s Dogma 2 is being review bombed, with the game currently sitting at “Mostly Negative” on Steam.
Dragon’s Dogma 2 is being review bombed
No, it’s not. Review bombing is a reaction caused by an extrinsic factor. DD2 is being reviewed negatively because of what’s built into the game.
Yeah, too many “journalists” chuck around the term review bombed to mean when a AAA game gets a load of (deserved) hate.
Good journalists go back, edit their original review to call out the bait and switch of hiding the microtransactions from reviewers, and adjust their score accordingly with microtransactions taken into accout.
And release a follow up “article” just letting people know what happened and that they’ve updated the review, so it doesn’t fly under people’s radar.
Seriously, reviewers need to stop softballing when this shit happens. It’s one thing for review copies to maybe be missing the final coat of polish. It’s something completely different to completely leave out a feature known to be contreversial in an attempt to pump up scores, then turn it on after the initial wave of buyers can no longer return their purchase. Not like they spontaneously developed this shit since review copies went out.
It’s still a form of review bombing. If the game is good (I have not played it nor seen any review so I don’t actually know, but the article is making it sound like the only issues are the mtx) aside from the predatory mtx, does it deserve a mostly negative rating ?
I wouldn’t necessarily disagree, but I can also see reasons to if one thinks that you are not getting a much worse experience by not paying for these micro transactions.
Also, it’s fucking Capcom. They have good studios but they have always been greedy bastards. So I can’t say I’m surprised by any of this.
If the game is good (I have not played it nor seen any review so I don’t actually know, but the article is making it sound like the only issues are the mtx) aside from the predatory mtx, does it deserve a mostly negative rating ?
Yes. Yes I think it does. Seems like many other people agree!
The microtransactions are one issue among many. To be frank, putting microtransactions in a $70 USD title would still warrant negative reviews in and of itself, but the the game is also having catastrophic performance issues and crashing on PC for what seems to be the majority of players, to the point of many Youtube channels covering it that did not get press copies being all but unable to play at all.
It doesn’t matter if a game has a lot of good elements, if it has bad ones and people cite those bad elements in negative reviews it’s not review bombing, it’s consumers giving an honest review of a product.
Imagine that you’re having the best dinner of your life. Everything you like, jizz-in-your-pants delicious, served by beautiful people of your preferred sex. Then dessert comes, a massive cake, but while you’re enjoying it, you notice a different flavor. And a smell. You look and in the middle of the cake, there is a half-consumed turd.
Would you still rate it “9/10 great except for the turd”? Or would you remember it as the restaurant that served you a turd?
(I stole this hyperbole from the Angry Joe Show’s GOT review)
Lmao, ok, downvote me for providing context. I’m not even disagreeing. Personally I don’t think this is review bombing. Y’all need to chill.
The problem is that those two things look exactly the same without the added context that you can’t fit into an easy title and people won’t read the details anyways.
I’ve never heard of your definition before. It was “review bombing” when Payday 2 added MTX to the game, which I think was one of the early uses of the term even.
Review bombing is when people organize and get other people to review a game poorly for something they’re opposed to, rather than the product actually being bad as a whole.
This isn’t to say it isn’t deserved for DD2. I have seen tons of reviews of bad performance and things like that. Also one where someone got stuck in the floor and had to delete their save to be able to play the game again. The MTX stuff mostly sounds overblown from my experience with DD:DA, but it does suck it’s there are all. I can’t tell you if it deserves mostly negative or not because I haven’t played it.
Imagine putting microtransactions, paid character edit vouchers, Denuvo, and anti-cheat into a $70 single player only game. They know what’s happening, they’re just trying to shift blame onto the community.
…putting microtransactions, paid character edit vouchers, Denuvo, and anti-cheat into a $70 single player only game
This reads like satire wtf
Think of it as their very shitty solution to mods and cheats that so many dumbasses pay for. “Hey, why let those cheat makers profit off of our games? Let’s make the cheats ourselves! But you know, for better profit, let’s chop off parts of the game and call them cheats instead.”
It has Denuvo Anti-tamper and Denuvo anti-cheat. If they didn’t include the latter, you could just bypass the microtransactions entirely.
There’s a mod right now that adds the item you need to change appearances to a vendor for like 10 gold, so I’m not really sure what cheats it’s preventing exactly.
The very fact it’s called a “review bomb” is an attempt at controlling the narrative. Fuck game “journalism”.
$70 price point for entry, microtransactions for stupid shit, and launches with severe technical issues.
I’m so sick of your shit Capcom.
When a game releases with multiple purchases along side it, it just means you chopped up my full price game and are charging me extra for what I should have already gotten
WWE 2k24 in infuriating like this. If you want the full game on release, it’s actually like $150.
Supposedly a lot if not all of these micro transactions are simply faster unlocks to the content/feature, still though not a good look.
This is what I’ve pieced together as well. Everything can be fairly easily found and used (or hoarded) in game. However, this in no way excuses the other issues.
That said, I don’t blame the devs. Someone light the C-Suite bonfire.
Thanks for letting us know. Removed from my wishlist.
Things you can buy for the single player ARPG include fast travel points
What in the fuck.
Wowwwww that is noxious. Maybe I’ll check it out in 5 years, but for now this is a hard pass.
I was so hyped for this game too. The original had something special if a little underdeveloped. I was excited to see if they could make it bloom.
Guess not anyway
LOL THEY MANAGED TO MAKE THE FAST TRAVEL WORSE THAN IN THE FIRST GAME?! HOW?!
Not defending the mx in Dragons Dogma 2 but at least in the first one I think the way fast travel works was kinda good. It’s cumbersome and not very flexible but it fits the kind of game it is and you have to actually think about where you want to go instead of zipping around the map. Imo
Besides the unlimited use ferrystone, which doesn’t work in bitterblack isle, that was added to the first game later, the fast traveling works pretty much the exact same.
If anything, there’s more fast travel options in Dragon’s Dogma 2 thanks to the ox carts which let you skip time until you arrive, or get ambushed, which lets you continue once you clear the ambush. And that’s just from well under a few hours of my time in game.
Also in the significantly less than 24 hours I’ve had, rift crystals, the currency they’re selling for “convenience”, are quite easy to get, and you absolutely never need to spend them on pawns, just drop the max pawn level to your own level or under and they’re free to use.
I’ve already gotten enough to do a full appearance change, another thing they’re selling for “convenience”, without specifically trying to get them, just having fun playing the game, exploring, and completing quests.
And the tents? They aren’t consumable unless maybe they get broken from ambushes, which I have yet to have occur after over 5 uses of the cheapest tent, likely because I clear the area around me first. All that’s affected is weight, which becomes less of a problem the more you play regardless.
Wakestones? If you’re dying, you’re not prepared or ready enough, come back later, it’s really that simple. I’ve already gotten a wakestone shard randomly, which you combine a few to get a full wakestone, which seems way faster than the first game given the much larger scale of this one. Not to mention that the ones you can buy as DLC are limited in that you can only buy 5 total, ever, but likely you can get endless amounts later in the game.
The rift incense? The one offered is the actual worst one available, it’s random, as opposed to the pre-set ones you can get in game.
Even the rift crystals you can only buy a limited amount for “convenience” when you can get unlimited just for playing the game.
I’m sorry if I went off topic and on an extended reply, just a bit frustrated that I’ve been seeing tons of people spreading outright wrong and incorrect information about basic parts of the game. I’ve played both games now and gladly will clear up a ton of stuff like that. It’s one thing to criticize the microtransactions themselves accurately for what they are, and another thing entirely to lie out of ignorance just to have more to complain about.
I don’t know exactly how true this is, but I read in another thread that you can’t even delete your save and start over
I’ve read that you can start over. But not in any kind of sensible in game way.
You have to completely delete all of the game’s files off your computer and steam cloud
You have to start from a fresh install every time
FWIW the items to do this are also available in game. I haven’t played yet so I don’t know how reasonable it is to get these in game.
I get that, but they’re really exploiting their customers with impulse control issues. This is all designed to fleece whales and I think it’s a pretty disgusting practice that’s becoming too normalized
I don’t disagree, but some of the articles / reactions I’ve seen are like “you have to pay for fast travel points!” which isn’t accurate.
I’m thinking back to deus ex: mankind divided, which had a strongly negative reaction due to the fact that you could buy praxis kits. But if you played through those games…there was absolutely no reason you needed to buy praxis kits. The game was definitely not one where you would find yourself grinding out praxis kits, and in fact buying them would’ve probably spoiled the experience.
Then there’s about a million jrpgs like the Tales of series, or falcom’s trails series, where you can buy high potency healing item kits as DLC. Again these are absolutely not needed to finish those games. But they’ll make certain achievements a lot easier. And again this has been going on for a long time.
I don’t know, while I think this stuff crosses a line (and the fact that they deliberately hide it from reviewers shows they’re well aware), the line has been steadily moving for a long time. Personally I have never once in my life bought one of these dlcs (I actually hate when they make them free in complete editions! Don’t break game balance as a “bonus”!) but obviously people do cause they keep selling them. I have no idea how gamers reset this. But at the same time, review bombs are just…kind of lame. People will be looking at steam reviews 5 years from now and not even remember what the controversy was.
