In order to warn the rest of humanity from this game I decided to post this AAR of a random mission from the new Facebook exclusive, premium content blockbuster title Dungeons & Dragons: Heroes of Neverwinter.
What you should know
Prestigous newfag Roguey already pointed out the shortcomings from this title in the appropriate thread.
Roguey said:
Currently the game features four races (Human, Elf, Dragonborn, Halfling) as well as four classes (Warrior, Mage, Rogue, Cleric).
I suspect they will add more classes and races through microtransactions. Though they are milking the cow pretty hard already. As I mentioned in the linked thread above, this game features - besides the Gold issue that Roguey brought up - an energy bar which limits your capability to go adventuring. Further increasing the need to sink hard earned money into this so called 'game'.
Don't feed the scam artists. DO NOT PLAY THIS 'GAME'.
Please note that due to this beeing my first LP/AAR as well as my nature of beeing a newfag I cannot into Screenshots. You have to live with white borders of brightness throughout the whole AAR. Luckily for you though, it's not that long.
[Mindreading] That's what she said
I already located and successfully removed my newfaggery and further AAR/LPs, if there should be any, will be lacking my almost-trademark white borders of brightness.
And now, without further ado, here is the AAR guaranteed without any stuffies, thingies or elves whatsoever!
Let's fire up the game, shall we?
What's that fair haired devil on the loading screen doing there?! Ah damn it! Forget what I said about no elves involved in this one. OK let's move on, nothing to see here!
The character creation is actually quite nice. You can choose one of four pre-made chars or create your own. But before you get too excited, the game does not believe in feats or skills whatsoever. You pick a race, a class and allocate points into the 6 attributes.
But because I don't want you to get tempted and try the game out for yourself, I skip the character creation screen entirely and choose the character I already brought to level 2, my cleric who goes by the very creative and DnDish name of 'Angelo'.
As you can see on the screenshot - besides Angelo's very power gamy stats - I am able to play two different characters at once or pay for even more character slots.
Besides that, we already get a first glimpse at the Energy bar, currently full at 20/20.
Now on to the Hub area!
From here you can access two different shops (one for Armor/Weapons and one for potions & temporary power-ups), a tavern to hire fellow adventurers, a message board which takes you to a 'mission select screen', your own house where you can jerk off to unlocked achievements and loot a chest once per day to get some random stuffies and/or thingies (wait a second, I just contradicted myself, didn't I? *Or did I?*) as well as a 'Dungeon Workshop' (highlighted in the screenshot above).
Now the Dungeon Workshop is kind of intriguing. Apparently by reaching level 10, your character unlocks the ability to create his own dungeons that you can fill with monsters.
Other adventurers can pay gold (which I assume will get into your virtual bank account) in order to visit the dungeon. I took a peek at the list of available user created dungeons and most were advertised as XP farms with low level, low HP monsters clustered together for convenient AOE attacks in order to level your characters up faster.
Now let's take a look at the local death merchant, the Mercenary Arms Depot.
As you can see, the shop conveniently carries only goods in our level range from 1 to 3. The items are generated randomly and refresh every once in a while. The developers generously give you the option to refresh the items instantly by paying 2 diamonds, the main currency of the game besides gold that can be purchased for real money.
Note my current amount of gold is 169 and the items are quite expensive while I get paid nearly nothing for my battle worn, death reeking, blood stained equipment. I wonder why this is?
The instant item comparison feature is convenient but of course expected from a AAA, highly polished title like this.
Since Angelo can't afford anything noteworthy he is getting quite depressed. Perfect time for a drink at the local tavern to incline his mood! Off we go on to 'The Beached Leviathan'!
Since Angelo doesn't like to drink alone, he will look for some brave
Which brings us to the above screen from the recruiter. Here, 12 characters from other players that are in your level range are randomly picked and you can view their stats (though not their equipment or their skills as far as I can tell).
Hiring other heroes costs an increasingly higher amount of gold or diamonds, tied to their character level.
As you can see, Angelo will have to pay 5 gold per fellow hero. Quite a price just in order to get drunk!
15 gold poorer, Angelo has gathered a well rounded party around himself, sporting a human rogue, a dragonborn fighter and an elvish mage.
WHAT A POINTY EAR? Well, unlike the author of this AAR, Angelo is totally OK with the pointy ears and not biased in any way. In fact, he has shared his fire with many elves in the past. But he doesn't kiss and tell so he will share no more details with his companions. At least not at the first horn of ale!
Before setting off to decimate the rat population in an adventure of epic propotions though, Angelo remembered that he owns a magic chest that refills every day with all sorts of wonders. So he invites his new found friends over to his crib in order to raid his chest of... well wonder, wondering what sort of awesome loot will have appeared out of thin air this time around. Only one wonderous way to find out!
Since Angelo is quite poor, he couldn't afford to hire an interior designer yet. Though he chooses to tell his party that his home got robbed clean the other day while he was away, mocking about with slaying dragons and shit.
Before anybody can start to wonder why the burglars stole everything but his wonderous chest of wonder, he quickly strikes up a conversation why there are no dwarfs to be found in all of Neverwinter and approaches his chest while muttering about conspiracy and the big ale emergency in the nearest dwarf fortress.
Anyways, let's not wonder about the wonderous chest of wonder any longer and claim our epic purple colored item of total annihilation +15!
What you see pictured above is the looting system in all it's glory. I already raided my chest but usually the ten cards display only the D&D logo as seen on the right side and you have to pick a card not knowing what you will receive.
The red potion is a 'Lucky potion' that you can actually use to turn on of the D&D logo cards in the chests around in order to make a better informed decision on what to pick. Sounds good in theory but it's actually one of the less useful things you can get out of a chest.
After seeing the disappointment on his party's faces, Angelo quickly improves the mood with the prospect of glory, loot and battle by the way of adventuring around Neverwinter. The gang makes their way to the 'Adventure Board' and is now facing a difficult decision: where is their mightiness needed the most? *dun dun dunn*
Depicted on the picture above is the city of Neverwinter as well as its' surroundings. Each area consists of several different adventures which have prerequirements to enter like beeing at a certain level or the possession of a certain quest item (which you receive automatically in adventures).
Beeing the natural leader that he is, Angelo doesn't even put the question where his group will find fame and riches today to the vote. He leads the party straight into the
Upon entering one of the areas you get a zoomed in display and are able to choose the actual mission. Adventures that you don't meet the requirements for are identified through the lock symbol. As you can see I can only access two adventures in this particular area.
Most of the other adventure requirements can be met through free content but some adventures can only be unlocked through real money. Also note that the adventure we are going to embark on, 'Goblins in the Woods', has a whooping cost of 15 energy out of the 20 energy that Angelo has. No gold farming in this one ladies and gents!
Before we go into the actual adventure I'd like to show you the equipment and the powers screens. The first one, the Equipment screen should be self-explanatory:
Now this is the Powers screen. On the left side you can basically view all the attacks and skills a character can use. On the right side you see which powers you can choose from on a level up. Each level you have a choice between two different powers.
The powers are either usable once per adventure, once per encounter ('combat room', as you will see shortly) or always (the standard melee and/or ranged attack).
Now the only thing left to do before we can actually enjoy some gory fray is to choose the difficulty we want to play on.
The screenshot already spoils the fun. Harder difficulty = more HP on monsters but better loot to make up for the hardship of slaughter.
There are also Leaderboards and Highscores for every adventure and difficulty. How those points are actually calculated remains a mystery to me. I guess it has something to do with damage taken and time it took to 'clear the stage'.
Upon entering the adventure, you get a pop-up with some flavor. Basically a standard encounter setup every time, no big surprises here. 4 screens incoming for 2 pop-ups (last line cut off in both *grr*)
Finally time for some slaughter!
The game features three level of zoom, though most of the time you will spend in the furthest available zoom layer to keep an eye on the battle.
Mostly because the monsters move and attack so quickly that you have barely time to notice what they are doing or who they are attacking. But beeing on the furthest layer of the zoom you can't read the actual text anymore so you don't get a good look at what spells are cast or how much damage a monster dealt.
Here is how the game looks like in the closest levl of zoom:
Everything is nice looking and big but sadly you can't see very far.
This is the most zoomed out vision you can get:
Much better for the bigger scheme of things.
At the bottom of the main window you can see the initiative order as well as the End Turn button. True to the D&D rules you play with each character individually so you end the turn for the active character only.
To the bottom left you see the mini map. Each encounter area is basically a square room connected with 'door tiles' that you have to walk on. They are marked in blue color.
Not every adventure is as linear as this one, but mostly they are corridor maps with the occasional additional room (usually with a treasure chest in it to award you for your... exploration efforts?)
In this first area we encountered no monsters whatsoever, also no ransacked wagon as the pop-up at the beginning of this adventure would have us to believe. So nothing remains for our brave party but to venture onward into the forest in search for the arguing goblins to kill, skin and eat (in no particular order, of course).
At long last! CHARGE!
But before anybody can react to Angelo's command, one of the two Golbin Sharpshooters looses an arrow that hits our Mage whats-his-name-again in the shoulder, breaking his concentration resulting in his prepared spell to fizzle.
Looks like these Goblins weren't that unprepared after all.
Note: dramatisation of events. There is no actual concentration, spell preparation or spell failure in this game. Spells can miss / deal half damage though when a monsters makes his saving throw.
Our rogue is happy that he hasn't to worry about positioning so much since there is no backstabbing in this game and quickly rains down a Sly Flourish upon the nearest Goblin, resulting in his demise in a rather clunky animated fashion:
He moves up together with our steadfast dragon-born warrior, surrounding the second sword wielding goblin. While the rogue distracts him, our warrior quickly seizes the opportunity in a moment of carelessness and puts the Goblin to rest with a well aimed Steel Serpent Strike.
Note: There are no zones of control in this game, we could just as easily order our heroes to rush past him and attack the ranged Goblins.
With their protectors gone, the first of the two Goblin Sharpshooters gets a taste of Angelo's mace and his Righteous Strike:
A Magic Missile from our Mage deals with the last of the Goblins. Suddenly, the battlefield is engulfed in a eerie silence.
But what is that? Angelo glimpses a sudden movement in the corner of his eyes. The last Goblin Sharpshooter managed to withstand the powerful magic spell.
Or so it seemed, he could hold on to his life at least long enough to warn his tribe mates of their impending doom by the hand of our brave band of adventurers!
With their foes lying in pools of blood and entrails before them, the rogue moves in to defile their bodies and loot their corpses. But before he comes close to the first carcass Angelo lashes out a single word 'Hold!'. After a short pause he adds 'unlike these... creatures, we do honor the dead. Unworthy adversaries as they may be, we do not dishonor their remains.'
The Rogue gives Angelo a gloomy stare but he knows better than to defy his orders. At least for now.
'Over there', the wounded Elven Mage suddenly shouts and points, breaking the tension 'a chest! Looks like there is treasure to be shared after all'. The Mage begins to walk closer towards the chest before the Rogue steps into his way saying 'Hold on, let our Fighter see to your shoulder. I will take care of this chest - it might be trapped.'
Note: Conversation was added for flavor purposes. There is no party banter at all in this game. The only flavor stuff that's going on is through the pop-ups that you sometimes receive upon entering a new 'combat room'.
The rogue opens the chest since there are actually traps in the game (chests as well as floor tiles can be trapped) and the party finds:
A potion of healing. As the description says, it can heal 10 points of damage and is usable during combat. Sounds good? Isn't. Because you can't sell them and we are still in red figures for this adventure (paid 15 gold for our companions back in the tavern, remember?).
After the first taste of blood the party is hungry for more slaughter and more loot. But before venturing on to the next combat area, Angelo heals up the party as best as he can (actually everyone to full HP since we didn't took that much damage - the Mage got hit by an arrow and the Rogue got stabbed by one of the sword wielding Goblins).
The second 'combat room' is filled with 5 Goblins this time around. Also no pop-up with flavor text this time.
At the beginning, the Mage once again gets shot by an arrow (ignoring line of sight):
And I am actually already getting bored by the combat. So few options, IMHO no flavor, the linearity. Banal, shit, boring!
Anyways, we slaughtered three of the five, with two ranged Gobling remaining:
We kill the last of them, no chest here so we move on to the last 'combat room':
This time we face off against six Goblins:
And get some flavor pop-up upon entering:
The mage casting his AOE acid damage + damage over time spell that he can use once per 'combat room' / encounter:
The Warrior clears out the right flank:
And we kill the last remaining Goblins:
Flavor pop-up time once again after defeating the last of the tribe:
Looting time! I hope we'll find something that's actually worth some money this time around:
Oh you damn game! I start to think you hate me as much as I hate you. Finally this ordeal is over. Highscore time!
Back in town I check the shop (didn't know I couldn't sell Healing Potions until then):
Well at least I have 7 now. I'd also like to note that my party members are gone now. You hire them on per-adventure-basis. So you have to spend gold every time you want to go on an adventure.
Given of course, you have sufficent energy.
Checking how much it costs to replenish your energy:
10 diamonds to fill up the energy.
Realising that there is a 'unlimited' energy button:
250 diamonds. Hm, I wonder how much this costs (not that I am tempted the slightest):
250 facebook credits.
How much might that be?
I see what you did there!
And this concludes our little AAR.
Actually it was more work than I anticipated and honestly more than this game deserves.
If you think after reading this AAR that the game is any good: This is only due to my superior writing skills. I might have made some aspects made sound more fun than they actually are. I said it at the beginning and I'll say it now once again: DO NOT PLAY
While you might be thinking now that, when you pay for the diamonds once in order to receive unlimited play time, you'll be all good - you are wrong. Because you still have to pay gold for the fellow party members. Even if you can earn gold with your own dungeon on level 10, there are already established dungeons for XP farming - the real RPers that are interested in a real challenge are too far inbetween to ensure a steady supply of gold. If you want to avoid grind and play more often than 3 times a day, you will have to pay more money. Also remember: the hireling heros get more expensive as you level up.
Aside from the money issues the combat system itself is not very good. It's far too simple to give you any kind of satisfaction. It might be a challenge on the higher levels and difficulties, but only in the sense that you have to buy (through real money, once again) healing potions and, dare I say, stuffies.
I hope you learned something from this AAR. And by that of course I mean taking one for the team :D
