Sword Coast Legends

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I'm glad someone actually found a game worth playing in all this, I had high hopes when I first fired it up, only to see those hopes shattered.

Have you tried Hard mode? I was getting killed a lot early on and put it on Normal, but now 25 hours in I might bump it back up to Hard. Although I have died several times, I mean total party wipes. Characters often get killed in combat but you can stabilize them if you are careful and don't get attacked while doing it. Potions have a cooldown, too, so you can't spam them. But you can prepare for tough battles with the usual stash of D&D potions.

I quite enjoyed it - I have played some 5th Ed, and yeah, it is loosely based on the actual game system (perhaps very loosely), but I paid very little for it and it had the flavour of D&D when I had nothing new to play, so I enjoyed it. I think people were angry because the game started out promising (or implying) something with far deeper mechanics, and the petered out. But I still found it fun. I would likely have been quite put out if I'd backed it on KS though :-) The free expansion I got was crap though.

Originally Posted by booboo
I quite enjoyed it - I have played some 5th Ed, and yeah, it is loosely based on the actual game system (perhaps very loosely), but I paid very little for it and it had the flavour of D&D when I had nothing new to play, so I enjoyed it. I think people were angry because the game started out promising (or implying) something with far deeper mechanics, and the petered out. But I still found it fun. I would likely have been quite put out if I'd backed it on KS though :-) The free expansion I got was crap though.

I think people just expected NWN 3 and a much deeper mechanics system. The bottom line for me is if the game is fun, and this game is very fun. It has good D&D atmosphere, great lore and world-building, very good writing with excellent voice acting, excellent pacing and interesting side stories with a very intriguing main story. Mechanics are great to me but your mileage may vary, especially if comparing it to NWN.

Originally Posted by TheRealFluent
Yes, Steam Achievements work. I've got about 13 so far.

I made this silly video about the game showing some of the skill trees in the game. Boring, but might be of interest to someone who's interested in how to build characters in the game.

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Thanks Fluent. And thanks for the vid too! I need all the help I can get as I remember the skill trees being a little…awkward.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
Since I was just looking for an rpg and not for the resurrection of AD&D,

AD&D is 2nd edition. This was supposed to be based on 5th edition, which was only a year old when Sword Coast Legends came out.

The developers were extremely privileged to receive a license, and if they had just followed the rules they wouldn't of gone bankrupt.

It's unlikely now that there will ever be another 5e CRPG, because WOTC doesn't want to repeat the trainwreck that was Sword Coast Legends.

Originally Posted by Heckle
Thanks Fluent. And thanks for the vid too! I need all the help I can get as I remember the skill trees being a little…awkward.

You're very welcome! They are a little awkward at first but not bad once you understand them. They look intimidating, like the Skills and Proficiencies tree, but it's pretty easy. The harder part is building your synergy with party members as I briefly discussed in the video. If you spec your Cleric to do all the healing then you want to spec your other characters to bolster her and not be healers themselves. Stuff like that. It's open to your own creativity, though, which is why I really like it. That and it's very flexible.

I'm pretty certain I was playing on hard mode, and it just didn't seem difficult at all. The mechanics overall seemed pretty slim to me, and the combination only served to chase me away. Who knows though, maybe someday I'll give it another go, stranger things have happened!

Originally Posted by Carnifex
I'm pretty certain I was playing on hard mode, and it just didn't seem difficult at all. The mechanics overall seemed pretty slim to me, and the combination only served to chase me away. Who knows though, maybe someday I'll give it another go, stranger things have happened!

In my 25 hours I've had to re-load several times. And it's not uncommon for a character to go down in a fight at any time. But I did spec my characters pretty well, making Jarhild a real tank and letting my 2 Rangers + Cleric attack at range, and that seems to work pretty well.

IIRC one thing I did to make it more to my liking was turn off the party AI. Let's you control everyone a la puppet mode in BG or NWN2. To it's credit the game does have quite a few options that allow you to tweak how it plays. I think there's an auto pause too to help with the occasional tactical situation.

By comparison I've been playing NWN:EE over the last week on a persistent world. The depth of character building, level of customisation and ye olde D&D mechanics are great fun. Playing on a persistent world does add that extra little bit of oomph being that you can't just load your last save if you take a dirt nap. It might be old but it still thrashes SCL by a mile.

I tried playing this like 3-4 times. It just never clicked with me.

Originally Posted by Silver Coin
AD&D is 2nd edition. This was supposed to be based on 5th edition, which was only a year old when Sword Coast Legends came out.

The developers were extremely privileged to receive a license, and if they had just followed the rules they wouldn't of gone bankrupt.

It's unlikely now that there will ever be another 5e CRPG, because WOTC doesn't want to repeat the trainwreck that was Sword Coast Legends.

Yet they love to lease the name and licensee it to MMO developers.

Link - https://www.ddo.com/en/game

Link - https://www.arcgames.com/en/games/neverwinter

Doubt we will ever see more Single -Player D&D games. Anyway that might be a good thing, or it might end up like the WarHammer & WarHammer 40K license.

By that I mean any two bit developer can make a below average game for money.

Originally Posted by Ovenall
I tried playing this like 3-4 times. It just never clicked with me.

How far did you get? It gets more interesting once you get to Luskan and can do side quests and side dungeons.

One minor gripe I have is the party size. I understand it's balanced for 4 characters but you get so many cool companions (I have 8 now) that you want to travel with them all! Would be awesome if the game had ToEE level of companions, 8 plus a guest. I guess that's unrealistic but still, it's hard when every character is interesting and you want to travel with them. It does add to replayability, though.

Originally Posted by TheRealFluent
How far did you get?

Like you are going to get further lol or even ever finish this game!

I played through on hard and it got pretty easy after the first third. The final boss was a joke.

I intended to play the small add-on too, but lost interest at some point to play on with my over-powered party.

The game is good for what it is, but don't expect anything even near a Baldur's Gate.

There's our Fluent, seeing awesomeness even in games almost everyone else hates

I never got this game, after reading reviews and impressions… But then I really dislike RTwP so they'd have to be pretty outstanding for me to take a gamble on it.

The voice work is outstanding, the story and music is very good and the gameplay is fun. Lots of character customization and synergy between party members that you create. I wouldn't say it's the best game ever but it's a worthy RPG no doubt about it. 8/10 for me.

Edit, from someone on Steam:

While i played the game I thought that Ion Zur was using a template with samples! No that was the full real orchestra but not just any orchestra that was one of the best in the US!

There is more. There were two orchestraters and the composer conducted, then there was a producer and others that worked on the song and editing. I am guessing someone took the midi data from the sequencer and orchestrated it and edited it.

As you play the game your not just hearing the orchestra but Ion Zur conducting and some of the finest players. They used all live players that means session player just for the Cello in that dungeon piece.

Then there are the artists a slew of top people worked on this game. The foley sounds were amazing! They used top Sound Crew from Dragon Age Origins. (A lot of music sounded like DAO)

All of that would hit over a million no sweat.

Top Voice Actors were involved in this game as well.