Besides the unlimited use ferrystone, which doesn't work in bitterblack isle, that was added to the first game later, the fast traveling works pretty much the exact same.

If anything, there's more fast travel options in Dragon's Dogma 2 thanks to the ox carts which let you skip time until you arrive, or get ambushed, which lets you continue once you clear the ambush. And that's just from well under a few hours of my time in game.

Also in the significantly less than 24 hours I've had, rift crystals, the currency they're selling for "convenience", are quite easy to get, and you absolutely never need to spend them on pawns, just drop the max pawn level to your own level or under and they're free to use.

I've already gotten enough to do a full appearance change, another thing they're selling for "convenience", without specifically trying to get them, just having fun playing the game, exploring, and completing quests.

And the tents? They aren't consumable unless maybe they get broken from ambushes, which I have yet to have occur after over 5 uses of the cheapest tent, likely because I clear the area around me first. All that's affected is weight, which becomes less of a problem the more you play regardless.

Wakestones? If you're dying, you're not prepared or ready enough, come back later, it's really that simple. I've already gotten a wakestone shard randomly, which you combine a few to get a full wakestone, which seems way faster than the first game given the much larger scale of this one. Not to mention that the ones you can buy as DLC are limited in that you can only buy 5 total, ever, but likely you can get endless amounts later in the game.

The rift incense? The one offered is the actual worst one available, it's random, as opposed to the pre-set ones you can get in game.

Even the rift crystals you can only buy a limited amount for "convenience" when you can get unlimited just for playing the game.

I'm sorry if I went off topic and on an extended reply, just a bit frustrated that I've been seeing tons of people spreading outright wrong and incorrect information about basic parts of the game. I've played both games now and gladly will clear up a ton of stuff like that. It's one thing to criticize the microtransactions themselves accurately for what they are, and another thing entirely to lie out of ignorance just to have more to complain about.

Maybe they'll sell a microtransaction that allows people to start over.

I don't disagree, but some of the articles / reactions I've seen are like "you have to pay for fast travel points!" which isn't accurate.

I'm thinking back to deus ex: mankind divided, which had a strongly negative reaction due to the fact that you could buy praxis kits. But if you played through those games...there was absolutely no reason you needed to buy praxis kits. The game was definitely not one where you would find yourself grinding out praxis kits, and in fact buying them would've probably spoiled the experience.

Then there's about a million jrpgs like the Tales of series, or falcom's trails series, where you can buy high potency healing item kits as DLC. Again these are absolutely not needed to finish those games. But they'll make certain achievements a lot easier. And again this has been going on for a long time.

I don't know, while I think this stuff crosses a line (and the fact that they deliberately hide it from reviewers shows they're well aware), the line has been steadily moving for a long time. Personally I have never once in my life bought one of these dlcs (I actually hate when they make them free in complete editions! Don't break game balance as a "bonus"!) but obviously people do cause they keep selling them. I have no idea how gamers reset this. But at the same time, review bombs are just...kind of lame. People will be looking at steam reviews 5 years from now and not even remember what the controversy was.