Sword Coast Legends

And here's the hallmark of a good CRPG - I went back to fight the Deathpriest Heirophant who summons 2 fiends, the one who insta-slaughtered my party earlier on. After careful character building, finding new gear and potions, the fight was much easier and we won handily! So you can find a really tough battle, come back later much better prepared and leveled up and wreak sweet revenge. It was quite cool and led to some great loot and pieces of a powerful bow that can be forged for me (if I can come up with a whopping 30k gold, that is.) I think some of you may be sleeping on this game. The AI is also really good, using their skills wisely and you generally have to just focus on your character, though occasionally switching to another character to use a certain potion or scroll is always handy. But they handle themselves well, too.

On to the next fiendish cult in need of a proper thrashing.

Edit - And no respawns! joxer would like that.

Combat picking up in challenge, especially the boss battles. On Hard the game is difficult the whole way and more consumables need to be used. I had to turn it to Normal to have a funner time with it, but for those seeking challenge Hard should suffice. Lots of optional content and dungeons to delve into, Neverwinter Wood, Lurkwood and more. The character customizing and leveling up is oddly satisfying, as you sometimes get 2 stat points to distribute (which is new to me, other than Planescape Torment the original Infinity Engine games didn't let you do that often) and 3 Ability Points to disperse how you wish. You can freely combine archetypes and abilities, so if you're a Fighter, say, you can choose freely from Battle Master, Champion, Shield Bearer, etc., trees to freely create your character how you want. It's really nice in that regard and as I said they use their Abilities well without your help. I love seeing Jarhild fire a grappling hook at a distant archer to pull them in close for massive attacks. I'll post more impressions if anyone is interested. Just found a secret area via a puzzle to an abandoned sewer spot that led to a quest for an interesting, secretive organization. Pretty sure that was just rewarding my exploration and poking around. There's a good feeling of discovery in the game.

That sounds like the hallmark of most RPGs actually.

I'm glad it's hitting a sweet spot for you right now, but that doesn't make it a good RPG. SCL is average at best. I do think it's better than its meta-rating would indicate, but not by a whole lot.

You're making it sound very appealing. I think I dismissed it at the time, under the impression it was a toy RPG, and because they were selling a $250 edition with a scale model of the demon Belaphoss, which I thought was laughable.

JDR13 said:

That sounds like the hallmark of most RPGs actually.

I'm glad it's hitting a sweet spot for you right now, but that doesn't make it a good RPG. SCL is average at best. I do think it's better than its meta-rating would indicate, but not by a whole lot.

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Just curious but how much of it did you play? And many RPGs lately use level-scaling, excluding some of the Kickstarter Era RPGs. It's nice to be able to get stronger to go back and take down tough enemies that once killed you instantly.

Ripper said:

You're making it sound very appealing. I think I dismissed it at the time, under the impression it was a toy RPG, and because they were selling a $250 edition with a scale model of the demon Belaphoss, which I thought was laughable.

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They probably did that because they knew they were in a tough financial spot, but I hear you. The game is definitely not a toy RPG, it might not be Baldur's Gate 3 or NWN 3 but it's close enough for my tastes. It focuses a bit on dungeon crawling but there's also a lot of well-written dialogue and stories told, too. And it's also written in a way that makes you care and makes it easy to understand, without being "dumbed down" or poorly written if that makes sense. I'm surprised I'm enjoying it as much as I am given that I listened to critics at the time saying it was super casualized or lacked the toolkit from NWN. I'm not finding the former to be very true so far. Streamlined, sure, but not casualized or without depth.

TheRealFluent said:

Just curious but how much of it did you play? And many RPGs lately use level-scaling, excluding some of the Kickstarter Era RPGs. It's nice to be able to get stronger to go back and take down tough enemies that once killed you instantly.

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Like I said, I'm glad you're enjoying it.

Good on you, Fluent!

I played a good 100 hours of SCL. There was a lot to like and they did a great job with what little resources they had. They were ethical about the business model and kept working on releasing a free content update even though they knew they were going to be jobless within the month. The developer died trying to bring us the first 5E D&D game and as it stands it is the best 5E game we have and may well be the only 5E game we ever see.

One of the things that put me off, was talk about it being very linear. You're not finding it too much so?

I am curious, as I do have a lot of nostalgia for the old Forgotten Realms environment, and if the story and the atmosphere are good enough, I might enjoy it.

Ripper said:

I am curious, as I do have a lot of nostalgia for the old Forgotten Realms environment, and if the story and the atmosphere are good enough, I might enjoy it.

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Do you already own a copy? I ask because it's no longer for sale.

Well, if they won't take my money, I can probably work around that.

SirJames said:

The developer died trying to bring us the first 5E D&D game and as it stands it is the best 5E game we have and may well be the only 5E game we ever see.

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It's 5th edition in name only. That's one of the reasons it didn't review well.

Ripper said:

One of the things that put me off, was talk about it being very linear. You're not finding it too much so?

I am curious, as I do have a lot of nostalgia for the old Forgotten Realms environment, and if the story and the atmosphere are good enough, I might enjoy it.

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The voice acting makes things even better. I'd say it's some of the finest voice acting I've heard in a game in a long while, it's really good. Story is surprisingly intriguing and the atmosphere is very good, too. Sound design on the whole with graphical spell effects are on point.

As for being linear, not that much. I've already had several side mission spots to explore, and some you come back to again at a later time and something has updated. It's not open like Baldur's Gate, but it's not 100% linear, either. The start is a bit linear, but once you get to Luskan you're free to dabble about the Merchant District, take side quests and explore. There are rare items to collect and forge at the Blacksmith, and missions often open up entirely new areas you couldn't access previously. I don't feel hampered by it at all. In fact it's a nice change of pace from FFXV which was "go anywhere, do anything, get overwhelmed by 10 million quests." The quests often have charming little stories to tell, and the game does have a lot of charm and love poured into it. You might want to give it a look. I'm 20 hours in and look forward to playing more.

Silver Coin said:

It's 5th edition in name only. That's one of the reasons it didn't review well.

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It's 5th edition with an official seal of approval from Wizards of the Coast.

Everyone wants different things from a D&D game. I feel like they tried to please everyone and ended up pleasing no one at all.

I'd like goldbox, he wants a BG2, she wants NWN toolkit, they want gender to be a spectrum and all races to be equal.

There's always decisions to be made when adapting a board game to be a PC game. How would you handle daily powers? Should we have to come back in 24 hours or is a 5 minute cooldown a fair compromise? There's many ways to do everything in RPGs.

The way a fan favourite, Baldurs Gate, handled resting was so exploitable you could grind on random rest encounters to max level in the first zone. Break the whole game balance. Plus, real-time?! Where's the public outcry? We were all perfectly happy that they trashed turn-based to please their publishers who said modern gamers don't want turn based. Turn based games don't sell well. "Make it more like Diablo", they said. Fast forward to the future and people are giving SCL shit for being a Diablo clone!

5th edition has

- Turn-based combat with initiative system
- Spell memorization
- Resting
- Feats
- Skill proficiency
- 12 base classes
- Multi-classing
- Hundreds of spells
- Cover and terrain
- ect.

What it doesn't have

- Cooldowns
- Skill Trees

Sword Coast Legends has more in common with Diablo than 5th edition DnD.

Silver Coin said:

5th edition has

- Turn-based combat with initiative system
- Spell memorization
- Resting
- Feat progression based on attributes and stats
- Skill proficiency and tools
- 12 base classes
- Multi-classing
- Hundreds of spells
- Cover and terrain
- ect.

What it doesn't have

- Cooldowns
- Skill Trees

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Much better then the 4th edition. As that was simplified and built for MMO's. Sadly these days the holders of the license don't believe in making more single-player RPGs.

SirJames said:

There's always decisions to be made when adapting a board game to be a PC game. How would you handle daily powers? Should we have to come back in 24 hours or is a 5 minute cooldown a fair compromise?

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Daily powers aren't in 5th edition.

"Make it more like Diablo", they said. Fast forward to the future and people are giving SCL shit for being a Diablo clone!

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Who asked for a diablo clone? People were asking for a faithful representation of DnD.

I thought you'd consider those features to be overrated?

You can have a good RPG without any D&D rules at all, correct?

Why would you say cooldowns and skill trees are a problem?

A skill tree is an easy to navigate visual menu. Much more accessible than a text list.

You also didn't answer how you would deal with daily powers and resting. What's to stop the player abusing powers by constantly resting? I've run a solo sorcerer through BG2 so I know how to exploit resting and SCL wouldn't let me do it.

Daily powers? What am I thinking of then?

I'm a PC player, not a tabletop player. My only experience with 5E is from SCL plus it was a long time ago now and not at all fresh in memory.

What's the move on the long cooldown?

The reason for cooldowns, like most of the design choices, was to streamline the game for casual audiences. The end result is a game that doesn't resemble DnD.

You can defend the changes, but it doesn't change the fact that it's DnD in name only.

That's not really true about cooldowns, Silver Coin. They're not casual or MMO-ish as some would say, the cooldowns are long, as in many things you can only use once per battle, sometimes even waiting until the next battle and the ability is still not ready to use.

To say it's D&D in name only is ridiculous, I'm sorry. The lore is very deep here. Not having to rest is a blessing, really. You can still get waylaid on your way to different map locations so you have enough BG throwbacks in there. But cooldowns here are balanced well. And frankly, as big of a fan as I am of BG/IWD/PS:T, etc., resting to restore spells is an unneeded and frankly cumbersome feature in a game like this. While I wouldn't mind it either way, really, cooldowns do not make this a bad game nor does it detract from the other D&D-ness of the overall game.

There are plenty of Rings of Protection, +1 Longswords and many advanced and interesting factions and guilds from D&D present here. You can tell the devs took great care with the source material and did a great job from the lore, story, writing and presentation aspect. Even including obscure D&D creatures, factions, deities, etc. etc..

Skill trees are great in this game because they give you options. They are like Feats, unlocking certain ones at different levels that you can choose. The idea is rather than just be a Champion, or a Battle Master, you can mix and match to create the ideal and customized characters you want. I love the flexibility of it, and I'm usually an old curmudgeon when it comes to this stuff. But having cooldowns and not having to worry about resting + having great levels of customization is right up my alley. Combined with the D&D world and story I am having a great time, but that's just me.

Finally, let's talk about what the game DOES have. Skill checks in dialogue? Check. Often several of them for different stat attributes. Hidden secrets you can only spot with Perception and Search skills? Yup. Some even include little scenarios where you have to do another skill check to succeed in getting whatever it is that is hidden. Puzzles? You betcha, some are very challenging, too. Side quests that tell good stories but also reward with valuable XP and loot? Of course, it's an RPG after all. Intelligent AI companions? Absolutely, probably more so than an RPG I can recall right now. Racial bonuses and racial skills? Yep, each race gets special skills and bonuses, including sub-races. And finally, leveling up is very rewarding. Occasional 2 stat points + 3 ability points per level gives you the feeling of advancement that makes it addictive to play. Choices in dialogue to complete quests in different ways, plus evil/neutral/good choices? Yup. So the game does have a lot going for it.

You're all free to disagree of course, I'm just saying from experience, it feels neither casual nor "dumbed down" and feels D&D to me. And I just did a BG trilogy run including Siege of Dragonspear so I think I am educated enough to discuss the topic.

I'm less trying to defend the changes and more trying to hear if you have a better idea.

I'm getting the impression you haven't played it and are just repeating things you heard back before it was released?

It certainly does resemble D&D. Again, WotC approved of everything. It is literally an official, approved 5E implementation.

I might like to compare 5E to 2.5E and say 5E in its entirety is D&D in name only and barely resembles the game I grew up with, but really that's just my personal preference and nothing to do with what WotC is doing with the brand.