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Dragon’s Dogma 2 is one of my favorite games of the year — and I can tell you right now, it is also the cruelest. Don’t even come at me with games like Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree. Dragon’s Dogma 2 has everything else beat thanks to all the weird features and bewildering mechanics that I’m going to struggle to describe. If you’ve played the game, you just know.
And if you’ve played for hundreds of hours like us, there are certain traps you’ve fallen for. There’s no shame in it — we’re all stumbling drunk through the world of Dragon’s Dogma 2, lost and confused, but loving it anyway. And these are the biggest mistakes we made. I’m betting you made some of these mistakes too.
If you’re looking for more fun Dragon’s Dogma 2 stuff, here’s our list of 10 details you might’ve missed.
Actually Carried The Vase
When the Sphinx asks me to do something, I do it. And one of the biggest mistakes I made was listening to the Sphinx without trying to solve her puzzle — which is a totally valid choice! The Sphinx is a monster that spits out riddles, and some of these riddles are deceptively simple. One riddle asks you to bring your love, so throwing one of your high affinity pawns at the Sphinx is all it takes to solve it. Easy, right?
So, when the Sphinx tells you to carry a vase all the way from her shrine to the city of Bakbattahl, of course I’m going to do it! She tells me the challenge is practically insurmountable — and it is. It really, really is. I can’t tell you how many times I reloaded my save trying to carry the most breakable vase in history across a desert that has more monsters per capita than Monster Island. And that place is famous for monsters.
All in, it took me more than an hour of slowly — so, so slowly — carrying the vase, putting it down to clear out monsters, then carrying the vase again and praying a Griffin wouldn’t swoop down and smash the vase instantly. Eventually I gave up and tried to use the ropeway, which was not a good idea. The vase would phase through the cart, or just fall out for no reason at all. I’m sweating like a dog when I finally get the vase to Bakbattahl and solve the riddle.
And there was an easier way all along. Don’t take the vase to the guy, take the guy to the vase. Using a Ferrystone, you can solve this riddle in two seconds. My open wounds have been thoroughly salted.
Did All Those Escort Quests
Dragon’s Dogma 2 induces a kind of paranoia in players. Very early on, you’ll learn that some quests are timed. If you don’t complete a timed quest before the time limit runs out — no, the game doesn’t tell you how long you have — you’re screwed. That quest failed. Whenever you get a quest, you’re afraid that the quest is going to fail. Somehow. There are so many ways to fail quests and very few ways to try again.
So, when an NPC appears outside your house and gives you a quest, we’re inclined to finish it. These escort quests, as it turns out, are totally random quests that only appear with characters you have high affinity with. These characters will show up at your house and ask you to escort them to some ridiculously far away corner of the map. We did it, wasting hours like total dummies. There’s no reason to do these quests. They’re busy work with no reward. Tell your buddies to hit the bricks. We’ve got monsters to slay!
Didn’t Put A Portcrystal in Bakbattahl
Another example of Dragon’s Dogma 2 cruelty is the fast-travel system. You’ll earn plenty of money to pay for cart rides – we’ll call that Slow Fast Travel. Real fast-travel is done with Ferrystones and Portcrystals. There’s a Portcrystal in the main city of Vernworth, in the seaside town of Harve… and that’s it. Seriously. The game throws you two very tiny bones. All the rest of the fast-travel you’ll have to figure out yourself by earning super rare portable Portcrystals. They’re so rare, you’re not going to just dump these things everywhere. You’ve got to think about it first.
And the biggest kick in the butt is learning that Bakbattahl, the other main city, does not have a Portcrystal. You’ve got to place one of your valuable fast-travel points there yourself. But surely the third major area of the game, the Volcanic Island, has its own Portcrystal, right? No! Not at all. If you left without placing a Portcrystal, enjoy the long walk back!
Knocking Enemies Over Is OP
The Fighter is the all-arounder, the simplest vocation for everyone to wrap their head around. You have a sword and you poke the Cyclops in the eye. It’s a great starting class, and you’ll quickly unlock more classes like it — the Warrior, even the Mystic Spearhand is great in its own way. But we quickly learned a dark truth about Dragon’s Dogma combat. Damage output doesn’t matter. All that matters is scoring a single instakill on all the annoying little enemies you’ll have to fight.
The Mystic Spearhand has the special freeze ability, but that takes too long to charge up. We’re busy adventurers, we’ve got places to be! So the Thief is the class that’s best equipped for instantly smashing all those obnoxious little enemies. Use the Ensnare ability with the Thief, and every enemy in the game is a pushover. Flip those big lizard boys over and stab to end the fight immediately. I wanted to play other classes, but if you’re running around and not fighting giant monsters, Ensnare is probably the best skill in the entire game.
Leveled Up All The Vocations Separately
I just talked about how great the Thief is, but I’m a man that enjoys all the vocations. And Dragon’s Dogma 2 includes a whole lot of weird job classes like the Trickster and the Magick Archer that don’t fit into the standard video game fantasy mold. And if you want to experience everything the game has to offer, you’re going to have to play those classes for hours and hours and hours. Or you can just play what you want and level up your vocations another way.
The Warfarer Vocation is easily the toughest class to unlock in the game — and we’ve got a guide for it so check it out — but it’s also one of the best. This vocation gives you access to all the gear from all the jobs you’ve unlocked. It also has a secret bonus feature. While playing as the Warfarer, all of your unlocked vocations will rank up too. Seriously, if you’ve unlocked Mage or Trickster or Magick Archer, you’ll level those up. You don’t need to equip their skills or their gear. All those points will just magically accrue.
There is a downside. Doing this is way slower than playing a single vocation exclusively, but this way you can play New Game+ and totally ignore the jobs you don’t want to play, stick with your favorite skills, and still unlock new stuff. What’s not to love?
Searched For Wakestone Shards
Early in Dragon’s Dogma 2, you’ll quickly realize that Wakestones are a precious gift. These items can be used to revive yourself after dying, saving yourself from reloading a save file and losing hours of progress. If you play the game long enough, you’ll find a Dragon’s Gaze. This unique item shows all the Wakestone Shards on the map that are nearby. That’s a great find! Too bad they’re so rare, and so far away from the starting city.
Oops, no they’re not. There’s a Dragon’s Gaze in Vernworth Castle you can collect right at the start of the game. From the main chambers up the stairs, there’s a watchtower you can access with a big elevator — or you can walk up the rickety stairs. At the top, you’ll find an early Dragon’s Gaze that makes finding plenty of Wakestone Shards way easier. And cheaper. And of course we didn’t find this thing until after starting New Game Plus.
Gave Up On Hard-To-Reach Chests
Here’s a basic problem you’ll encounter so early in Dragon’s Dogma 2 — sometimes treasure chests are impossible to reach. They’re up on a rock or on a ledge that’s too far to jump. And we’re all too lazy to write down where we left an unopened chest. Who’s got time for that. That chest might as well disappear because we’re not going to find it again. But, there are multiple ways to reach corners of the world, and they’re all tied to different jobs.
The Mage is the most basic. A leveled-up Mage gains the Hover ability, and anyone that played as a Mage is going “of course, duh” — while the rest of us are slapping our heads, wondering why we didn’t try to play this vocation earlier. The Hover ability makes your Arisen float and glide a short distance — way, way further than your normal jump’s range.
And that’s not the only traversal ability. The Thief can unlock a wall-jump, which really comes in handy if you want to gain extra height. These are innate abilities for both classes, so if you have a Wayfarer, just equip the weapons — you don’t need to equip the skills — and you can use all the movement abilities all the time.
Bought The Mansion
The biggest waste of gold in Dragon’s Dogma 2 is in the Noble Quarter. In the same area with the high-priced brothel, you can also purchase a mansion of your very own by talking to a very unhappy Real Estate Agent. He’s offering to sell the estate for 200,000 gold. And being the complete fool that I am, I paid up once I’d earned enough scratch.
And here’s a spoiler alert for all of you; the mansion is completely worthless. There are no benefits to buying it. NPCs don’t send you presents here. Characters don’t show up to hang out. There’s a shared treasure chest inventory inside the mansion — sure — but that’s it! That’s the bog standard basic functionality of a house. The cheaper house you can get in Vernworth is objectively better in every way.
And here’s a spoiler alert for all of you; the mansion is completely worthless. There are no benefits to buying it. NPCs don’t send you presents here. Characters don’t show up to hang out. There’s a shared treasure chest inventory inside the mansion — sure — but that’s it! That’s the bog standard basic functionality of a house. The cheaper house you can get in Vernworth is objectively better in every way.
Wasting money at the brothel at least feels like roleplaying. This mansion looks cool, but it’s totally empty. Give me a haunted basement! Something! Anything!
Started The Endgame Early
We’re getting into big time spoiler territory now. If you haven’t finished Dragon’s Dogma 2 I recommend skipping to the next section. Okay, last chance. We’re talking about the true ending.
Because this is Dragon’s Dogma 2, you can totally screw yourself by starting the endgame early. If you blaze through the main game, defeat the final boss, then enter the endgame unprepared, you’re basically stuck in an impossible-to-beat nightmare. If you don’t have plenty of wakestones, you’re better off not even bothering. The endgame map is drained of all water and new powerful creatures spawn everywhere. The tough monsters aren’t even the worst part. We’ve talked about it before and we’re talking about it again. It’s that time limit that’ll get you.
Instead of a traditional time limit, the Unmoored World gives you about 10 rests before the end of the world. Of course, the game also doesn’t tell you how many rests you have left – each rest inches you slightly closer to apocalypse. You can’t rest at camps because the world is too dangerous. If you die, you die permanently – no reloading allowed. You have to use wakestones to continue. Everything about the endgame is hell for players that aren’t prepared. Sure, you can find plenty of ferrystones on the exposed sea floor, and some Portcrystals are revealed at important locations, but otherwise there’s no hope for players that reached this area without all the items they need.
We didn’t have this issue. But it’s totally possible – I’ve heard from friends that made this mistake, and I feel sorry for them. That’s dozens of hours lost because you can’t reload your save and go back. The only way forward is to restart the entire game. And this still doesn’t even compare to the next big mistake on our list.
Wasted The Eternal Wakestone
And the biggest mistake in all of Dragon’s Dogma 2 is wasting the Eternal Wakestone. The rarest item in the game is earned by opening the giant gold chest guarded by the Sphinx. Defeat her to get her giant key and unlock the chest — but the Eternal Wakestone is both better and worse than you think it is. Contrary to the name, the Eternal Wakestone isn’t eternal at all. You can only use it once. And we used it to revive two dead NPCs right next to each other.
The Eternal Wakestone has a much more important function. If your Pawn catches the awful, awful Dragonsplague — a sickness that turns their eyes red and spreads to other Pawns — and you rest in an inn, that pawn will go on a killing spree and can wipe out entire villages. Harve Village? Melve? Gone in a single inn rest.
That’s what the Eternal Wakestone is for. This thing doesn’t just revive a few nearby NPCs. It can revive an entire town of characters all at the same time. And you don’t have to waste it! You can get forgeries made at Ibrahim’s Shop for 30,000 gold. That’s a steep price, but not bad for a one-time-use super item. Save your Eternal Wakestone for the apocalyptic effects of a bad Dragonsplague bender. One of the cruelest events in any video game can be undone in an instant.
There are so many more mistakes you can make in Dragon’s Dogma 2, but these are 10 of the most memorable for us. Let us know some of your worst mistakes — or share your greatest triumphs. Carrying that vase for over an hour without it breaking might be a huge mistake, or it might be one of the greatest triumphs in my gaming career. I’ll let you decide on that.
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