Dragon’s Dogma 2’s getting an update which nerfs dragonsplague, stops Pawns incessantly yapping, and makes them ‘less likely to fall off cliffs’

Dragon’s Dogma 2 has another update coming this month, bringing good tidings for anyone fretting over whether their Pawns have contracted the terrible scourge that is dragonsplague. Not only does it make the disease less appear less frequently, it also makes it easier to spot whether your Pawns are afflicted.

Dragonsplague, if you don’t know, is a mysterious illness that affects Pawns–the game’s customisable NPCs. When contracted, the illness will eventually drive the infected Pawn mad, causing them to turn violent and wreak havoc in the game’s towns and villages. You can check if a Pawn has dragonsplague by examining whether their eyes are glowing. But not only can it be hard to see a Pawn’s eyes in the game to begin with, their virtual peepers only glow intermittently anyway.

The update intends to take a three-pronged approach to adjusting players’ experience with dragonsplague. First, it is “reducing the infection frequency” of the disease, so you’ll outright have to deal with it less often. In addition, it will be “adjusting the signs of Pawns infected with dragonsplague to be more noticeable” adding “For example, when infected, glowing eyes will be more noticeable.” Finally, the update is also “adding the option to zoom in on the faces of the Arisen and Pawns in the status screen, shops etc”. Although it isn’t the stated reason for this change, this should make it easier for players to check for signs of dragonsplague.

Beyond these medical advancements, the bulk of the update dedicates itself to adjusting Pawn behaviour, reducing the frequency of their dialogue lines, improving how their statements reflect events in the game world, and fixing behaviour issues like being unable to high-five the player. My favourite fix, though, is the one that makes Pawns “less likely to fall off cliffs”. Personally, I quite like the idea of wandering around an open world with Wile E Coyote, but I can imagine it gets annoying after a while.

Other notable changes include fixes to issues where “the player could be jailed when fighting monsters in town”, and a slight alteration to the minimap that stops treasure chests from being displayed once they are acquired. It also fixes a bunch of crashes and “miscellaneous” bugs not specifically listed.

One thing the update doesn’t mention is any improvements to the game’s extensively reported performance issues. Last we heard, Capcom was “looking into ways” to improve performance it contends with the fact that many of these issues relate to heavy CPU usage due to the game’s extensive character simulation. But there’s been no further update on this as yet. Consequently, the game still sits with a Mixed rating on Steam, despite being an excellent game otherwise.

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