Sword Coast Legends - Delayed

Originally Posted by Rills
As for this not being exactly 5e in rule sets. NO video D&D game has ever exactly represented the rule set it was based on.

The fact that no D&D game can ever exactly represent the rule set is no excuse for them to not even trying. It feels to me that they had an engine and sold it to WotC to put the "D&D" name on it, so instead of the game being done for the ruleset, the ruleset had to be forced into whatever the engine could do.

Originally Posted by wolfing
The fact that no D&D game can ever exactly represent the rule set is no excuse for them to not even trying. It feels to me that they had an engine and sold it to WotC to put the "D&D" name on it, so instead of the game being done for the ruleset, the ruleset had to be forced into whatever the engine could do.

Most likely scenario. You think like a business man

I played the headstart, and got my refund. I posted on their board and on the Steam forums problems with the skills system not resembling 5e rules and not feeling like D&D at all. Feats, spells, class abilities are all lumped into a point-buy skill system. There are no subclasses or cleric domains, it's all just a free-for-all out of the limited selection of skills for the class (or classes for some skill trees). Skills have power levels you buy, so there's Magic Missile I, II, III, IV that just add more missiles, so no proper spell levels or metamagic feats or anything like that.

I was reading their board today and it seems there are a lot of issues with not following 5e that I didn't even get to in my two hours. Stackable stat increasing items seems to be a big one. All the broken math that 5e fixed is out the window and people are soloing and one-shotting "hard" content.

I took some time to read a lot of user feedback, here and elsewhere. Definitely pleased I cancelled. Sounds like an awful mess.

As for D&D games never properly implementing the ruleset…ToEE did a splendid job overall, with by far the best combat implementation of any D&D game, and the IE games did reasonably well at adapting the (admittedly ridiculous) AD&D character system. Sounds like SCL is nowhere close.

Dear Sword Coast,

I know this will be hard for you to read once you get this message and I will try and go easy on you. As you know I was never down on you and had hopes that would pull through and shine in my life.

It would seem this is relationship is not going work between us. Well at least not right now, you just have to many flaws for me to make it work. I just hope you take some time to work on you and as I will be here. I just hope when you have gotten yourself together I still have time in my life for you.

Sorry for breaking up with you over the internet,

Celtic

Originally Posted by Rills
As for this not being exactly 5e in rule sets. NO video D&D game has ever exactly represented the rule set it was based on.

Actually Incorrect. The old Gold Box Pool of Radiance very accurately depicted the version of D&D it was made from at the time down to the very minor details

Of course thats a long long time ago.

Originally Posted by suibhne
Any RPG fans here with experience in the preview weekends? The game sounds like a mess right now - I've read numerous reflections that it's a terrible adaptation of 5E, and videos make it look like it's really unsuitable for any DM'ing that involves narrative and/or non-combat gameplay (vs. straight-up dungeoneering).

I pre-ordered for the (minor) discount, but I'm on the fence about cancelling.

Originally Posted by DArtagnan
I'm guessing SirJames had access to it, and I'm surprised we haven't heard his feedback yet.

I played a Human Fighter to level 18. I also made a module with a bit of everything to check out the tools. Clocked about 20 hours playing all weekend.

I'm not really sure how to write this post since it has the potential to be a very lengthy preview.

To answer your questions, suibhne, I think the 5E adaptation is decent. The combat plays out properly with all the standard D&D attack rolls, AC and features like disadvantage. The races are pretty close to 5E and the classes, while missing a fair amount of cool 5E stuff, end up very solid and fun to play and build.

I played a few games with a very enthusiastic DM who went all out doing crazy goblin voices and really trying to give some background behind what was happening in the dungeon (over VOIP). He's still very optimistic about the future of the game. However, most people seemed to be afraid of potential troll DM games or just wanted to work on their main characters so very few games were DM.

As for my feedback, It's not too good. My issues are mostly technical. The game is extremely buggy, poorly optimized and laggy. It will always run at 100% of GPU use on any settings and can really overheat your system. The network lag is awful and the game would desync frequently. However, no character related data was ever lost, no rollbacks or forgetting to save type loss, so none of that fear was around to ruin the game.

The tools are very limiting and don't provide even the basics of what I need to make a good campaign, but I know these are very much in development.

Also worth mentioning, since pre-orders were mentioned, the Tome of Knowledge won't give you an unfair advantage. You get a lot of extra ability score points leveling up and can only raise a score to 20. (items can go beyond this).

If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them.

Been following this game closely for many, many month. Ever announcement looked really bad up until this one. I applaud the decision to put more work into the game before release. It was abundantly clear the game isn't worth playing at this point. The tools are not feature rich enough for would-be campaign builders, and who cares if you play the single player game this fall vs. next spring.

A more fun question…if you were planning to play this game starting in a few weeks, what would you play now instead? I'm looking at Witcher 3 or Shadowrun Hong Kong. Thinking I might save Witcher based on feedback that is it so awesome it spoils all other RPG experiences for many months.

Originally Posted by bizorker
a more fun question…if you were planning to play this game starting in a few weeks, what would you play now instead? I'm looking at witcher 3 or shadowrun hong kong. Thinking i might save witcher based on feedback that is it so awesome it spoils all other rpg experiences for many months.

D:OS ee should be out soon, I would hold of on TW3 if you haven't played it until all expansions are released.

I also got the game refunded. There are many people saying the same thing with problems, bugs, clunky. I'm not optimistic enough to see thru it. Maybe maybe I'd have had a different mindset if it was an indie development that was more open in communication.

As it is, its not what I expected, and not what I felt was communicated. No go from me.

Originally Posted by CelticFrost
D:OS ee should be out soon, I would hold of on TW3 if you haven't played it until all expansions are released.

I agree with frostface.

I have sponsored it on kickstarter, and I am glad I did! I am hoping that after a few patches it will be playable. So many games are released half finished now days. I just hold off for a bit til they are properly done!

Originally Posted by bizorker
A more fun question…if you were planning to play this game starting in a few weeks, what would you play now instead? I'm looking at Witcher 3 or Shadowrun Hong Kong. Thinking I might save Witcher based on feedback that is it so awesome it spoils all other RPG experiences for many months.

Coming this October:
- Age of Decadence (Oct 14th)
- Wasteland 2 GOTY (free for people that already own it? I haven't followed it much, Oct 13th)
- Divinity: Original Sin EE (free for people that already own it, Oct 20th? might slip)
- Dragon Age Inquisition GOTY (Oct 6th)

After that there is Fallout 4 (November 10th). Also, I can say that Witcher 3, Wasteland 2, D:OS and DAI are all long games (as in you can easily put 100+ hours in a single playthrough). Shadowrun Hong Kong isn't a very long game (~20 hours ish).

Originally Posted by bizorker
A more fun question…if you were planning to play this game starting in a few weeks, what would you play now instead? I'm looking at Witcher 3 or Shadowrun Hong Kong. Thinking I might save Witcher based on feedback that is it so awesome it spoils all other RPG experiences for many months.

If I may add another suggestion, since I was a bit on the same boat a couple of weeks ago, may I suggest Satellite Reign?

I ended up not starting to play Witcher 3 right now, since I will wait for a later time (when all expansions are available), and I started to play Shadowrun: Hong Kong. For some reason the game didn't grab me as well as the previous two games in the series, so I started to play Satellite Reign alongside it (since it isn't a story-heavy game), and this game ended up taking most of my gaming time.

Originally Posted by FunktionJCB
If I may add another suggestion, since I was a bit on the same boat a couple of weeks ago, may I suggest Satellite Reign?

I ended up not starting to play Witcher 3 right now, since I will wait for a later time (when all expansions are available), and I started to play Shadowrun: Hong Kong. For some reason the game didn't grab me as well as the previous two games in the series, so I started to play Satellite Reign alongside it (since it isn't a story-heavy game), and this game ended up taking most of my gaming time.

Heh same thing happened to me. Grim Dawn had a big patch release at same time as SRR: HK and I spent way more time playing Grim Dawn. I only done few missions in HK and cannot get in the mood to continue. I know I will eventually but not right now. I didn't have such problems with previous two SRR games.

Plenty of games get delayed - PoE, W3, D:OS etc etc. I think people are being too precious but then I very rarely get invested in things - especially when there's no previous track record to go by.

Regarding it not being 100% true to 5E, this is from Feb 2015…

We had the opportunity to interview Nathan Stewart, Brand Director for Dungeons & Dragons & Wizards of the Coast and Dan Tudge, President of n-Space to find out more.

MMORPG.com: What have you done developing this game to make it feel like fifth edition as opposed to 3.5, 4.0, or the open 20 systems?

Stewart: As Wizards of the Coast was developing the latest edition we very specifically wanted to take emphasis off the rules and focus on the feel of the game. As part of the playtest and creation of the new edition we looked back at all previous editions and made sure we had clear ideas and descriptions for the most important elements. An example is magic, more specifically let's focus on the fireball spell. It isn't important that the Fireball spell does 8d6 damage or has 150 range in all our games, but is instead important that in each instance it is a mid-level spell that explodes and causes a wider range of damage. In other words, for our partners it's critical they capture the feel of the latest edition of rules, but not necessarily the specific mechanics.

Tudge: In SCL we have adapted the fifth edition tabletop ruleset to better work in a videogame; however, n-Space and Wizards of the Coast have worked very closely to ensure we deliver an experience that feels "true to D&D."

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g…re/9410/page/1

So if/when bugs are sorted are people still going to poo-poo it because game mechanics not being what they imagined in their uninformed minds… Even if the mechanics still work as a PC adventure game? I think that's short-sighted.

I'm more interested in the campaign and the creation tools that seem a bit limited as things stand. To build on the product they need longevity and the best way to achieve that is giving users the ability to create content relatively easily.

My 2cp.


-kaos

It isn't important that the Fireball spell does 8d6 damage or has 150 range in all our games, but is instead important that in each instance it is a mid-level spell that explodes and causes a wider range of damage. In other words, for our partners it's critical they capture the feel of the latest edition of rules, but not necessarily the specific mechanics.

First time I seen this. It sounds like total bullshit to me tho.
If you want to use D&D, then use it.
If you don't, then don't.

D&D doesn't have exclusive rights to a fireball. If you want to make a fireball, just make one. Don't call it a D&D fireball with no D&D rules..

Am I the only one that thinks that statement is retarded?

FWIW - that statement came from the WotC/D&D brand rep not the game devs.

-kaos

Originally Posted by kaos_war_monk
FWIW - that statement came from the WotC/D&D brand rep not the game devs.

-kaos

Does not mean anything except WotC is employing retards now. Their best people left