Dragon’s Dogma 2: Tips & Tricks for New Players

My dudes and dudettes and all of you others who want some spoiler-free Dragon’s Dogma 2 tips and tricks you’ve come to the right place. 

We will give you some basic advice about how multiple systems work in the games and try to prevent you from committing grave mistakes that will possibly put your save file in the garbage forcing you to start a new game.  

So without further ado let’s drop them, shall we?

1. Use both game saving mechanics

Let’s start with a simple one that will spare you a lot of grief. Some people have had their entire run bricked because auto-save threw them into a situation where they died over and again without any way to get out. 

Here is how it works, you have one save file. This is done to avoid save scumming and makes your decisions permanent. This is something that we like and agree with. The game will save under this file every time it auto-saves or you save manually.

However, there is another separate save file that you can use as a backup if something gets bricked, and that is an Inn save. It’s simple, every time you sleep in an Inn it will create an Inn save that will not get overridden by your autosave. 

So make sure you do it often, Arisen, as a backup point that you can come back to if something goes wrong. We recommend you use it often, you never know what might happen.

2. Learn how fast travel works

We will start here as this game does not have a traditional fast-travel system. It is a game about exploring and walking around and we are all for it. Think more like Red Dead 2 and less like Skyrim.

Here are a few ways you can fast travel in this game:

Fast travel using an oxcart 

Same as carts in Skyrim you can rent them for a cheap sum. After you are done paying the good Uber man, you can sit down and chill. Take in the sites on the way to your new destination or you can skip the ride by dozing off. 

But beware! You can be intercepted by different types of monsters and if the fight centers around the cart too much it can get destroyed, leaving you at best stuck halfway to your destination.

Fast travel with portcrystals or ferrystones

Now this is an actual teleportation system. 

Portcrystals are like a focus point you can teleport to. Some locations like towns have their own but most don’t, and you need to place them down manually. They can be placed anywhere on the map but are the rarest item in the game and you won’t get more than 2-3 in your entire playthrough.

Ferrystones are the items you use to teleport to Portcrystals. Also quite rare and expensive they are simple to use once you obtain one. Find a spot outside where you can see the sky and use one from your inventory. The map will pop up with all the Portcrystals on the map. 

Simply choose one and shazam, you are there in a pop.

All of your pawns and NPCs that you are escorting will come with you, and on a fun note, you can even kidnap others by grabbing them and using a Farrystone while they are still flung over your shoulder. What are pawns you ask? Well, that brings us to the next section.

3. Make full use of your pawns

Pawns are your trusty companions. They will follow you on your adventure, help you out, and fight alongside you. You can have a maximum of 4 in your party.

There are 2 types of pawns: your main pawn, and other players’ pawns. 

You will create your main pawn quite early in the story and you can customize whatever you want, from their appearance to their gear, vocations, specialization, and so on. Gear is self-explanatory. 

Vocations are classes that we will go over in the next section and specializations are skills that your pawns can learn from a scroll that can be found in the world. For more info about specializations follow our site. For now, just make sure you equip one of them to make your pawn more appealing to hire.

You can set up your pawn’s quest and quest rewards. It’s quite simple, you set up a quest like kill Cyclops or get my pawn a certain item I need that I don’t want to farm. If another player completes it, they get the reward you set up for them, being either gold or items.

Other player pawns are equipped and customized by their master and can be hired by you in the Riftstone. If they are the same level as you it will cost you nothing to hire them otherwise you will have to pay a sum of Rift Crystals currency which is a separate currency from normal gold. 

You can’t change a hired pawn’s appearance but you can change their gear. Beware, however, as all of the gear you equip them with will be gifted to their master once you dismiss them from your party.

A final tip about pawns that can help you out immensely is going under the advanced section in the Rift and clicking the option to show you the pawns that know about the quest that you are currently on. If you get stuck on the quest and don’t know where to go they can guide you to your next destination.

4. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different vocations

Vocations are classes in the Dragon Dogma 2 universe. You start with four basic ones: Fighter, Thief, Archer, and Mage. You will choose one of them for yourself and your Pawn in your character creator screen. 

If you are worried too much about your choice don’t be, you are not locked into it and can swap vocations freely for both yourself and your pawn in some Inn-s or vocation guilds.

You can unlock 6 more vocations in the world and as arisen you can use all 10 of them while your pawn can only use 6. For the sake of keeping this article spoiler-free we won’t talk about the other 6 vocations but if you want to know about them check our our dedicated guide to Dragon’s Dogma 2 vocations.

Except for mage that is essential in all the parties (unless you want to spend an ungodly amount of consumable healing items), make sure you have a good balance of vocations in your playthrough. Archer to deal with flying targets and keep poking at the weak spots from afar, a Fighter to stay close and personal, taking the hits, and a Thief to climb on monsters and poke their eyes out with his daggers.

That is if you want to have a tool for every time of enemy and situation out there. 

However, if you want to make things difficult for yourself you can always take your main pawn only and give him only support spells, while you deal with challenges around you.

5. Take your time with quests

Dragon’s Dogma 2 doesn’t really handhold as far as questing goes. The game leans more towards the Elden Ring method than something like Skyrim. There are no quest markers over NPC-s heads. For many quests there will be no markers on your minimap unless the quest giver specifically does it for you.

While this might seem annoying at first, we feel like the “Ubisoft” method where you are being told where to go and who to talk to by 17 map markers is getting stale and frankly was not too much fun to begin with.

This doesn’t mean you need to pick a random location and hope you will finish the quest. There are plenty of tools to help you and they are done in a really fun and immersive way. 

Here are a few:

• Pay attention to the world around you. Most NPC-s with quests will have a dialog that will suggest they need help. Many will stop you in your tracks if you pass close to them and they need your help. There will also be a lot of gossip happening around town that will point you in the right direction of a quest giver. Keep your eyes and ears open, Arisen.
• Visit the Oracle. There is an NPC that is marked on your map as the Oracle. This psychic individual can help you with the next step of the quest with a little note containing useful tips…for a small fee ofc, nobody works for free.

• Use pawns who have completed the quest. We mentioned this before in our pawns section. You go into the Rift and under advanced search, you find a pawn with the quest knowledge. It’s almost like having a cheat code since the pawn will guide you to the next stage of your quest. Cool system.

6. Nebulous Dragon’s Dogma 2 tips

Why do you ask? I told you I would avoid spoilers. Just read the list and do it. Don’t ask too many questions. You’ll thank me later.

Take a picture of the map location when you pick up your first Seeker’s Token.

Seeker’s Tokens are collectibles found around the world. You pick them up, take them to the vocations NPC, and you can unlock some cool rewards with it. Why do you need to take a pic of the location of the first one you pick up? Who knows, it’s quite a “riddle” right? 

Examine your pawns. 

What do I mean by that? If you want absolutely zero spoilers I suggest you stop reading now and skip to the next tip. However, given how punishing this mechanic is, I think you should stay. You will find out about this in your first few hours of gameplay as your pawns will talk about it. I dismissed it as bullshit or a random dialog. Big mistake.

Your pawns (or the loyal servants to the arisen, your main character) can contract a dragon plaque disease. Symptoms include things like not obeying commands, sassing you but most importantly and easy to spot, pulsing glowing red eyes.

Every time you are about to hire one check their eyes and if they have an STD, DO NOT take them with you no matter how hot or scantily clothed they are!

Why? Oh quite simple, after you sleep in an INN they will go batshit crazy, laugh like a serial killer then turn into a shadow dragon and kill everyone in the city you just rested in. 

Yes, that includes the quest-givers, vendors, and all other important NPCs. This is not Skyrim my dudes, there is no such thing as an immortal NPC. There is a way to get them all back to life but it requires doing one other quest perfectly and it takes hours of work so we suggest you avoid triggering it in the first place.

So what do we do if the pawn is disobedient, wipes his forehead, holds his head like he has an elevated temperature, and has pulsing red eyes? That’s right. We don’t hire the fucker. Or we send him back home to his master so he can spread his STD there. 

If this happens to your main pawn, well, one nice throw into the river and waiting until he drowns should cure them right up.

Wrapping up

This wraps up our Dragon’s Dogma 2 tips & tricks guide. We hope they will save you from becoming a dragon’s chew toy… or contracting an STD. Keep your wits about you and your journey through the game should be a smooth one. Happy adventuring in Dragon’s Dogma 2.