Capcom plan to make Dragon's Dogma 2's dragonsplague less frequent, and more obvious
They're also fixing pawn high fives
Capcom are working on another Dragon's Dogma 2 patch, and this one takes as its target the dreaded dragonsplague, which causes the game's AI-controlled pawns to go nuts and murder everybody, including story-critical NPCs, if you allow it to go untreated for long enough. It'll reduce the infection frequency of dragonsplague, which is spread when pawns mingle with other pawns online, and make the symptoms more obvious. Pawns already get glowing eyes when they're dragonsplagued - I guess they'll be all the glowier in future.
I haven't had a chance to play Capcom's latest fantasy open world-alot properly yet, after failing to conquer the preview build as a wizard, but I've been keeping tabs on player reactions to dragonsplague - many view it as an unfair imposition that forces you to start over. I've also been following the subsequent dragonsdiscourse among designers and armchair designers (hello!), many of whom regard it as a fascinating show of choices actually having consequences beyond you having to restart a quest. This looks like Capcom trying to keep both groups happy. Everybody's going to absolutely loathe it, I suspect.
Capcom aren't just making dragonsplague a little less virulent. They're also, far more importantly, taking steps to ensure that you'll always be able to give your pawns a high five. This happens spontaneously following certain battles and is a lovely, comradely touch, though now that I think about it, high fives are surely a vector for infection.
Once the planned updates go live, Pawns will also be less likely to fall off cliffs, more likely to say things that are relevant to the situation (I think their straight-out-of-leftfield remarks are part of the game's comic genius, personally), less likely to offer themselves for hiring in the field, and more likely to help you when you're grabbed by an enemy.
Some bonus planned fixes: you won't get put in prison for fighting monsters in town, and they're adding the option to zoom on Arisen and Pawn faces in the status and shop screens. I guess that'll help you weasel out signs of dragonplague. Anyway, here's Capcom's rough update roadmap in full.
We all really like Dragon's Dogma 2, launch tech troubles aside, and have myriad thoughts about it. Nic reckons it's an example of genuinely engrossing fetchquest design while Ed, who wrote our Dragon's Dogma 2 review, is deeply worried that his main pawn won't have any friends.