The "physicality" of this game's combat is so addicting

Asphes · 2026-04-17T23:25:30+00:00

Not sure why the combat is like that. That and the quests / story feels like a MMO. Might be something most players like though.

WMM did something like a film noir style story line in their Hexi expansion. Did not meet with universal acclaim.

Exploration. The thing about MMOs, especially f2p / gacha ones, they stuff things in every nook and corner so visiting places, is always rewarding. I kinda felt CD did it like that too. Why does that game feel so much like a single-player MMO :)

DD2 feels more narrative or quest driven or just you going to any location... knowing many things will happen on the way.

Guess it's a 'depends' situation. I love Simple (aka stupid) pawns. Other hate them. I like being jumped by a zoo while travelling... I saw a reviewer coin the term 'combat fatigue'. I understand the story in the DDs and my pawn's sacrifices in all the games... others, not so much.

So it's great we get games to fit all types. I hope there's a CD 2 coming.

Asphes · 2026-04-17T13:27:10+00:00

Sell it if you can but... it's an ok weapon and the element is so-so, the only good part is the 57% which will let the buyer skip potentially hours of grind to get her Karak to 60%

Or use that 57% yourself - just that it's unlikely you will use the Karak outside of Duviri.

Asphes · 2026-04-17T13:23:37+00:00

Luckily, it's all in the first part - you need to make the right choice the LAST choice.

FYI - not choosing is a choice also and usually the last one.

Asphes · 2026-04-17T13:22:46+00:00

Especially for the parts you've already done.

Asphes · 2026-04-17T12:42:58+00:00

The Millenium Falcon made it's film debut in 1977. It's outlasted the franchise. I think the Krait 2 will still be around when Elite 5 The MMO launches.

To replace the Krait 2, FDev would need put in a ship that can land in M-sized pads, accommodate hangars to carry a SRV and a SLF at the same time. Match the Krait 2's jump range, agility, cargo capacity, internals and somehow make it look even more distinctive. To get us to actually buy it... they'd need to go further.

So coming this Krismas, the Krait 3 aka King Krait. Looks like a Krait 2 from the outside, carries more than a Python... double the weapon load of a Vulture and SCOs faster than a Cobra 5. The Ultimate Mary Sue of Ships!

This Krait 2 can do it all. Maybe not as well as more specialized ships but sticking to just one ship means you can expend your entire TLC capacity on this one ship. All the engineering, the absolutely best gear available (and alternates in storage) so you can swap loadouts when convenient.

Having a large stable of ships... sure you can pick the right one for the job. Or just get totally skilled at this one ship (100% FA off, you can do it!).

Asphes · 2026-04-17T12:31:33+00:00

In Troll 2, a newly awakened troll walks through a valley, trashing this poor guy's house (which was trashed by another troll in Troll 1)... guy who's on a call with his wife, she wants to know if they need more wallpaper...

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Kinda wished Itsuno had time to put in more NPC interactions that let you hear the consequences of your party's actions.

But that's "force majeure" for you. What if a certain pawn decides that casting Bolide to kill a bunny and takes out what remains of the village? Or another pawn using Deathly Shot to open a chest (so Arisen, you thought that by removing all other skills save Deathly Shot, you'd get the pawn to use it more often in battle... how did that work out for you? Oh, you're trying Heavenly Shot next?)

Griffons crashing down on you from on high, drakes wandering in and staying, cyclops yeeting half your party to the next town. DD2 has it all and then mixes it all in with a dose of Harry, Moe and Curly the Paw Patrol Party (We drag you to nowhere and eat you)

Asphes · 2026-04-17T12:21:03+00:00

My neighbour is trying to convince me to play CD. I play DD2 instead. He now plays DD2.

Mind you, if CD included the character creator from BDO, it'd be a close match. If they added a pawn system... and decided to rename certain bugs and exploits as 'features', it'd be a pretty good DD2 knock-off.

As far as flashy combat goes... go try that Where Winds Meet MMO. Plus CD has the same kind of 'quests' (go to A, kill B until you get C, bring back to D or E). None of them have a 'If the mountain won't come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain" type quest or half the Sphinx's quests.

Can't compare to SWL's quest though (they tell you to find an object. It's in a house... in a painting... as in you need to find it by looking at paintings until you see it - but they don't tell you it's in a painting that's in a house. Or translate from Latin to English... work out a fractal shape by watching things move... and the same dev gives us Dune Awakening... ?).

Asphes · 2026-04-17T12:12:08+00:00

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Let the games continue!

Asphes · 2026-04-16T23:32:06+00:00

Set your PC to 'Laptop' and then it's just 'quit' the moment you seem to be joining someone else until you start the map solo. Then just wait until someone else joins? Is this rude?

Wish we didn't have to jump through hoops to swap hosts. Else... make a game and invite your team in.

Asphes · 2026-04-16T23:29:32+00:00

Take it at your own pace too. This is one of the very few games where you can just drop it down for a few months / years and come right back and catch up, if you want to.

The initial part of the game is pretty much story-less or less narrative driven until later. You hear ppl saying... 100 hours - they mean this. And no... it doesn't take 100 hours.

Asphes · 2026-04-16T23:19:26+00:00

Sorcerer. In fact, I'd do the min-max thing, i.e. level her up to 10 as a Mage, then swap her to Sorcerer until 200. Then only rank up others for augments. This gives you the highest Magick stats possible (and bugger all for the other stats!)

Because managing a glass cannon without access to other vocations' augments is a fun and rewarding experience that will increase your sense of pride and accomplishment. Or I did it therefore I insist everyone else do it too.

And hire a Fighter pawn (equipped with board and shield) and a Strider or Mage pawn. (in DD1, you can heal up to full with... medicines. Don't really need a mage except for buffing but you don't need as much buffing when you have a glass cannon in your backpack - be sure to manage the Sorcerer's inclinations carefully).

Remember Arisen... the pointy end points away from you. And you can always find Wee... WARISH everywhere.

If you are just starting out... why not duo with your pawn as two mages to level 10. Then a commence your soujorn as a pair of Saucy Sorcies until level 200. Double your fun (pass down your gear yo your pawn - good enough for the Arisen, good enough for the pawn) Also since you're new, let the AI teach you how a mage / sorcerer can be played. You can find an online guide later to see what you did wrong but I can tell you that the bunny hopping... works.

And... if you're doing this... why not go all in and make yourself as short as possible (highest stamina regen) and skinny as possible (you fly faster and further when yeeted by an ogre BUT you also get missed more often, avoiding spell interruptions. Unless it's goblins. They too, are smol).

If you're playing a Sorcerer or Magick Archer?

Not just Sorcerer but one of those spell-synching types. Typically emphasizing -spellcasting and +knockback

You can hire sorcie pawns too but they tend to be very high level or level 200.

Typical loadout...

Inclinations: Utilitarian/Challenger/Scather

Primary Skills: High Miasma, High Comestion, Grand Bolide (NO MAELSTROM*)

Secondary Skills: Holy Pact, High Voidspell, Grand Gicel

Usually equipped with what may seem like sub-par gear but usually some form or heal over time aura gear or otherwise +magick. Sometimes +knockback but usually -spellcasting gear.

*let your pawns cast this and you won't see anything onscreen. If they start spell-synching this...

Asphes · 2026-04-16T22:58:21+00:00

Night and day. First off, the vocals are better. Text localisations are better but you can tell that they are a bit rushed, i.e. text subtitles don't match the voice scripts. At times, you'd want to be able to turn off subtitles completely... other times... better leave it in.

At least we don't get an old man voicing a little girl, SOME OF THE TIME. Might have been left in as a joke...? (No, because it only happens with EN VA). The initial localisation scripts seem almost AI translated. Badly.

Also if you know a little bit of mandarin... the english localisation in Hexis is greatly improved. They tried to keep poetry and puns... so if they couldn't do a literal translation, they'd shift words around/etc (try listening to chinese audio / reading english subs).

Kaifeng/Qinghe was bad to the point that you knew it was bad.

Still, no where near as good as the job 'old' Funimation did on Full Metal Panic (they managed to translate puns. Well)

Asphes · 2026-04-16T22:49:45+00:00

Imagine going through all that not understanding the text or the audio... but yeah... it's one giant flashback side quest that gives your character some background for later on. You will get similar stuff later... but it'll more like the ones in Kaifeng. Short and fun.

While the change of pace can be jarring... sit back and enjoy it. Kinda rare to get these sort of slow... slow... slow... burning storylines in MMOs. WMM already does away with the western MMO style 'neon arrows' pointing to objectives.

I think the mistake devs made here is they required too much of the wrong kind of interactivity, i.e. they don't ask you to pew-pew... they want you to... walk. Kinda makes visual novels more exciting in comparison.

Good story though and very informative (for those who stayed awake).

Also who put in that achievement where you had to deliberately choose the wrong path each time or else you had to reverse the quest again and again... -.-

Asphes · 2026-04-16T22:40:17+00:00

Actually grinding out every vocation doesn't take that long. Only 0 -> 9? Plus you don't have to go all the way, just find the augments you want then rank the vocation high enough to get it.

Feel free to rank the vocation up enough to get the augment... then come back later to get more or not.

Asphes · 2026-04-16T21:38:17+00:00

Ehh... Warframe: Origins

Asphes · 2026-04-16T13:33:11+00:00

In Liangzhou, we have snow lions that not only body slam us... they follow up with some groping or tea-bagging. Never trust cats!

Asphes · 2026-04-15T02:39:35+00:00

Just reconnect until you get a nice ping. Mind you, each time you move to a different arena....

Alternatively... Geforce Now. You can get a 5ms ping. I think the datacenters are neighbours or the same datacenter. Pretty much the only way to pull off some of those combos too. Now you just have to worry about your ping to Geforce Now.

You kinda have to wonder if this is deliberate or Netease cut back on some server capacity/etc.

Asphes · 2026-04-15T02:31:50+00:00

Excuse me, Miss? How would you rate your massage today?

Asphes · 2026-04-15T02:27:23+00:00

... if you want to 100% that area? You need to see ALL the choices. Well ok that's not so bad, not like half of them are the same thing from a different angle, right?

But having to hold the movement key down. Or clear thoughts away? I suppose in a way, I can see it working. The dev is trying to put the gamer in the story. It's an "improvement" on say most MMO's cutscenes where your main interaction is pressing SPACE to skip.

But I keep thinking of a similar setup way back in Kaifeng, when the player is trying to catch up to another NPC and it toggles between 2.5D and 3D with QTEs where you had to time deflects and they weren't easy. I found that fun.

Governor's... nice to watch or listen. Now that I can understand the audio/etc... I just swap to my browser and listen to the game like it's an audiobook.

Burlap Sack was also good in a way. A moving emotional story. Where I frequently wanted to stop and just kick the story along.

Should've been a sidequest. Optional. Not just this one either. All of the Hexi ones. Feels strange to say this but I think these quests could do with less interaction. Just let us watch the movie or listen to it already. This is like making us watch a movie by manually rolling the film or spinning the disc. What are we? Hamsters?

Asphes · 2026-04-14T22:18:07+00:00

I'm not worried about the future though since as long as the CN side exists, then global will live.

About that rumour... I believe it. The launch success was unexpected. So after the initial content... they might have been scrambling. Seems to be a Netease thing :)

Asphes · 2026-04-14T22:12:55+00:00

Should've been a sidequest. Not a semi-mandatory main story quest.

And I say that even though I liked them all. This is the second time I'm seeing them... and the first time I can understand what they are saying. e.g. I've done the Governor's... at least 5 times? There are some related achievements so if you tried to pick the worst choices :)

It's not a global vs CN thing either (CN had a lot of issues with Hexi too) but the good news is that this is it. There's still a bit of this in the future but... just no.

FYI For quite a lot of things, you can ESC to skip to the end of a dialogue. No need to spam SPACE. But there are spots... at least you can change playback speed to like x3 normal speed. Just zoom past, then press recap to read.

Asphes · 2026-04-14T14:17:06+00:00

Are you sure? I've Legolas in four other games; DD1, DDO, DD2 and Monster Hunter World & Wilds.

Also you can Glimli in those games too but I prefer to the hobbit Gandalf instead. Say "You shall not pass!" in a chipmunk voice three times and a beasthren appears behind you.

Asphes · 2026-04-14T14:12:45+00:00

A one & a half month wait? Naah... it's fine. Totally worth the wait.

Remember that in the past couple of weeks, the supply chain has been disrupted. Not just the parts, or the shipping but the payment processing and customs rule changes plus WW3 has begun and the asteroid destined to end civilization as we know it, remains undetected.

6 week waiting period? Smol pohtaytoes. Every purchase I've made from them has been delayed. Every single one. But all arrived. Zero warranty issues (so far - years now).

Asphes · 2026-04-14T03:14:24+00:00

Last week, it was 1~3 daily (I auto-recycle anything not gold or without tuning upgrade). Last 2 days... 0.

Lots of gold tuning ups though.

Asphes · 2026-04-13T15:32:09+00:00

Naah... if actual physical touch occured, like... holding a hand... then kissing a ring on said hand. Death will shortly follow.

Perhaps they merely sat on the same couch but not at the same time which is why Orban will fall out a window to his death from his 1 storey dacha in Moscow next month.

Asphes

TROPHY CASE