Decline Sword Coast Legends Pre-Release Thread

[Grunker]

How is that a "superficial" relationship with an MMO? You play combat encounters like WoW with some minor fidding with your party members to manage threat generation and energy, maximize dps and pop cooldowns.

Here's my experience with WoW: controlling one character, I cycle through pre-learned cooldown loops depending on enemy type, carefully minding aggro (either to get much of it or avoid getting much of it). Sometimes in bosses I am tested platforming/minigame style on my ability to control my character. In single-player most of what I do is grind for levels and random drops.

Here's my experience with DA:O: You balance a few cooldowns and control four characters. There are no cooldown loops, since depending on your resources (unless you abuse the resource system, an issue nearly every RPG I've played has) you run out fairly swiftly and have to use the abilities most relevant for the fight. During combat you fight very large groups of enemies and have to manage mass crowd control spells with single target damage. Managing aggro in the sense of threat output is a waste of time and not even how the system is designed. Instead you use one or two specifically designed taunts at key moments. Terrain is a factor and you switch to different characters to manage their abilities.

In practice, my experience with the two was nothing alike. At a bare minimum, DA:O is like playing WoW but controlling four characters. In reality, the mechanics of the two games are nothing alike. I wonder how much XP and loot grind you did in DA:O and how, seeing as the game doesn't have respawning enemies and zones?

I hated WoW. Even though all my friends played it and I gave it two honest tries, I quickly got tired of the grinding and the Cooldown Loop combat. Since neither of those things were in DA:O, and it had party management, dialogue and C&C, I enjoyed it much more.

 

[Gulnar]

How come no one uses the D&D lisence anymore? inb4 Roguey answer "because it's a horrible system"

3/3.5 is discontinued, pathfinder is in the hand of idiots, 4 is shit, and 5 was just published. Give it a bit of time; maybe we will get the dnd game we expect.

 

[Haba]

They're making a console action-RPG with a fully open world based on the Drizzt Do'Urden character from the FR.

Which waifu will be in? Can you romance Ellifain, Catti-brie, Dahlia Sin'felle and Artemis Entreri?

 

[Apexeon]

'RPG' is the loosest term in the games industry, after integrity. I don't expect anything but an action game.

Everything is now a RPG.

Designing your entire game around a console controller.

View attachment 4400
YOU CAN COUNT ME OUT, MAN!

Now that is ****** old school

Hardcore and old-school are buzzwords nowadays.

I will believe it when I see it, and I sure as hell dont trust Digital Extremes and N-Space.

There's a fairly large group of college students that I met a few weeks ago and the topic of video games came up. They told me that they really enjoy the "old-school, hardcore games of the past." Intrigued but a bit cautious, I responded, "Oh, you mean like the Wizardry games?" I got blank stares. "Ultima?" More blank stares. Out of desperation, I said, "Well you've at least played Doom right?" Nothing. "Well what do you mean by old-school, hardcore games then?" The students then replied, "You know, like Halo and stuff."

Sometimes I wonder if there are some middle-aged uber nerds that frown upon us and be like "stupid popamolers don't even know about oubliette" and the likes.

Nah, the progression from the early days of PC games were an actual evolution due to faster processors and more memory providing increased options in their development. While I do enjoy the fact that text systems provide for more imagination, I don't see graphical systems as being a sell out, just a furthering of ones vision when making a game. Besides, most of the early graphical games were nothing more than taking the previous text systems and overlaying a graphical interface/environment to it. Consider the games today and how they have progressed where they write for inferior systems and the focus of their design is to attend to the lacking traits of kids today (ie designing systems that account for short attention span, lazy effort, etc...).

Yea, so that is why I don't personally have such view of the gamer who lagged shortly after my generation. These days though, today's gamer? They aren't a gamer, they are just blobs moving around looking to smash buttons.

Love codex so much wisdom. This stuff keeps me focused and the wine dulls the pain.

 

[A horse of course]

Here's my experience with WoW: controlling one character, I cycle through pre-learned cooldown loops depending on enemy type, carefully minding aggro (either to get much of it or avoid getting much of it). Sometimes in bosses I am tested platforming/minigame style on my ability to control my character. In single-player most of what I do is grind for levels and random drops.

Here's my experience with DA:O:

You balance a few cooldowns

Like WoW

and control four characters.

Except you control every one of them in the same way you control a character in WoW.

There are no cooldown loops

A cooldown loop? You mean triggering cooldowns in a particular order to maximize dps and reduce unused ability downtime? That's exactly how the system is designed in DA:O. And WoW.

since depending on your resources you run out fairly swiftly

Until your party member auto-chugs a not-mana-potion.

(unless you abuse the resource system, an issue nearly every RPG I've played has)

Why does the AI have programming to automatically use mana and hp flasks if that's "abusing the system"? Why are you showered with these items at every opportunity?

and have to use the abilities most relevant for the fight

In what way do yo-

During combat you fight very large groups of enemies and have to manage mass crowd control spells with single target damage.

So CC combined with tank-and-spank

Managing aggro in the sense of threat output is a waste of time and not even how the system is designed. Instead you use one or two specifically designed taunts at key moments.

wat

Terrain is a factor

When? 90% of fights make no use of terrain whatsoever, except that sometimes the archers are positioned up some stairs? Same as any MMORPG fight?

In reality, the mechanics of the two games are nothing alike.

Now I'm going to talk about mechanics that have nothing to do with combat

party management, dialogue and C&C.

What party management? Finding higher dps hats? Buying candy to improve their heart meters?

Dialogue and writing were serviceable, certainly not as awful as the cringeworthy self-parody that Bioware writing turned into.

There was some gud C&C (hilariously retconned in the worst way possible, but that's not the original's fault) but this is all unrelated to the core combat mechanics.

In practice, my experience with the two was nothing alike. At a bare minimum, DA:O is like playing WoW but controlling four characters.

So playing DA:O is like playing WoW but you have to switch between toons every few seconds. It seems we agree on this point. When the combat is the same "but controlling four characters", somebody fucked up. That's rather more substantial than "superficial", so regardless of the game's other merits, I don't see why you continue to dispute this central problem - the combat, which is the biggest part of the game, is designed like MMO combat. And it sucks.

Just admit Morrigan is your waifu.

 

[Apexeon]

Maybe it is "hardcore" because it has two awesome buttons instead of just one.

They found the Y next to the X button. The y is for whY the **** am I playing this ****.

 

[Sranchammer]

Arcanum:Reloaded confirmed

 

[Perkel]

How is that a "superficial" relationship with an MMO? You play combat encounters like WoW with some minor fidding with your party members to manage threat generation and energy, maximize dps and pop cooldowns.

Here's my experience with WoW: controlling one character, I cycle through pre-learned cooldown loops depending on enemy type, carefully minding aggro (either to get much of it or avoid getting much of it). Sometimes in bosses I am tested platforming/minigame style on my ability to control my character. In single-player most of what I do is grind for levels and random drops.

Here's my experience with DA:O: You balance a few cooldowns and control four characters. There are no cooldown loops, since depending on your resources (unless you abuse the resource system, an issue nearly every RPG I've played has) you run out fairly swiftly and have to use the abilities most relevant for the fight. During combat you fight very large groups of enemies and have to manage mass crowd control spells with single target damage. Managing aggro in the sense of threat output is a waste of time and not even how the system is designed. Instead you use one or two specifically designed taunts at key moments. Terrain is a factor and you switch to different characters to manage their abilities.

In practice, my experience with the two was nothing alike. At a bare minimum, DA:O is like playing WoW but controlling four characters. In reality, the mechanics of the two games are nothing alike. I wonder how much XP and loot grind you did in DA:O and how, seeing as the game doesn't have respawning enemies and zones?

I hated WoW. Even though all my friends played it and I gave it two honest tries, I quickly got tired of the grinding and the Cooldown Loop combat. Since neither of those things were in DA:O, and it had party management, dialogue and C&C, I enjoyed it much more.

You just described why i don't play MMORPGs.

If i would be able to create one i would set some goals like that:

- no raids
- no guilds
- no player trading
- no party system
- no exp
- no cooldows or location limits
- faction system and crime system. Kill a noob for fun in city = put on hit list for vindicators army
- strongest character is as strong as his skill. Meaning few noobs can kill any best ranking warrior
- Guards are guars and they fuck shit up faster than almost anyone especially in group
- no questing, only hints to places or rumors which you need to find, learn and they can lead most of the time to nothing or be unresolved
- no skill cooldowns. Generally no skills at all in traditional sense. More like warband fighting system and stuff that simply you can do better (faster stronger) as time progresses + teachers that can teach you usefull stuff for a price and time (like baking fucking bread)
- absolutely no level scaling. Out of city = out of safe zone

 

[Ebonsword]

Fucking hell, is it really worth arguing over whether the combat mechanics in DAO mimicked WOW or not?

Both games are shit that no Codexer should enjoy.

Here's my experience with WoW: controlling one character, I cycle through pre-learned cooldown loops depending on enemy type, carefully minding aggro (either to get much of it or avoid getting much of it). Sometimes in bosses I am tested platforming/minigame style on my ability to control my character. In single-player most of what I do is grind for levels and random drops.

Here's my experience with DA:O:

You balance a few cooldowns

Like WoW

and control four characters.

Except you control every one of them in the same way you control a character in WoW.

There are no cooldown loops

A cooldown loop? You mean triggering cooldowns in a particular order to maximize dps and reduce unused ability downtime? That's exactly how the system is designed in DA:O. And WoW.

since depending on your resources you run out fairly swiftly

Until your party member auto-chugs a not-mana-potion.

(unless you abuse the resource system, an issue nearly every RPG I've played has)

Why does the AI have programming to automatically use mana and hp flasks if that's "abusing the system"? Why are you showered with these items at every opportunity?

and have to use the abilities most relevant for the fight

In what way do yo-

During combat you fight very large groups of enemies and have to manage mass crowd control spells with single target damage.

So CC combined with tank-and-spank

Managing aggro in the sense of threat output is a waste of time and not even how the system is designed. Instead you use one or two specifically designed taunts at key moments.

wat

Terrain is a factor

When? 90% of fights make no use of terrain whatsoever, except that sometimes the archers are positioned up some stairs? Same as any MMORPG fight?

In reality, the mechanics of the two games are nothing alike.

Now I'm going to talk about mechanics that have nothing to do with combat

party management, dialogue and C&C.

What party management? Finding higher dps hats? Buying candy to improve their heart meters?

Dialogue and writing were serviceable, certainly not as awful as the cringeworthy self-parody that Bioware writing turned into.

There was some gud C&C (hilariously retconned in the worst way possible, but that's not the original's fault) but this is all unrelated to the core combat mechanics.

In practice, my experience with the two was nothing alike. At a bare minimum, DA:O is like playing WoW but controlling four characters.

So playing DA:O is like playing WoW but you have to switch between toons every few seconds. It seems we agree on this point. When the combat is the same "but controlling four characters", somebody fucked up. That's rather more substantial than "superficial", so regardless of the game's other merits, I don't see why you continue to dispute this central problem - the combat, which is the biggest part of the game, is designed like MMO combat. And it sucks.

Just admit Morrigan is your waifu.

 

[Abu Antar]

I've been reading about this and I wonder what I will flip: A table or a magazine stand?

 

[Cyberarmy]

They're making a console action-RPG with a fully open world based on the Drizzt Do'Urden character from the FR.

Which waifu will be in? Can you romance Ellifain, Catti-brie, Dahlia Sin'felle and Artemis Entreri?

if they allow us to romance all of them together.
%25 for olny Entreri romance.
Pirate Bay without Entreri!

Edit:

 

[GarfunkeL]

They're making a console action-RPG with a fully open world based on the Drizzt Do'Urden character from the FR.

Which waifu will be in? Can you romance Ellifain, Catti-brie, Dahlia Sin'felle and Artemis Entreri?

No purchase without sweet sweet incest-love with Vierna Do'Urden. Redeem that tiny spark of goodness in her with your dong of love before escaping Underdark together! For added Jap-appeal, they can make it a shota scenario:

Spoiler

and

Spoiler

 

[A horse of course]

Daily reminder that in videogames writing, having R.A. Salvatore as your lead writer was considered a plus.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Daily reminder that in videogames writing, having R.A. Salvatore as your lead writer was considered a plus.

True horror.

 

[abnaxus]

The Crispy is strong in Drizzt.

 

[GarfunkeL]

The Crispy is strong in Drizzt.

You should see to what lengths he went to remain chaste and pure in the later books. Guy has lived for 100+ years by the time he's an established character on the surface IIRC and has never gotten any nookie. Though I finally came to my senses and gave up on Salvatore when he started writing for 4th edition with the retarded lore changes WotC forced upon Forgotten Realms, so I dunno if he's finally gotten laid. Probably not, wouldn't resonate so well with the waifu neckbeard crowd and the acne-ridden teenagers.

 

[Rostere]

4th edition with the retarded lore changes WotC forced upon Forgotten Realms

Thanks, now that you reminded me of this, my whole day is ruined.

 

[Echo Mirage]

The Crispy is strong in Drizzt.

You should see to what lengths he went to remain chaste and pure in the later books. Guy has lived for 100+ years by the later books IIRC and has never gotten any nookie. Though I finally came to my sense and gave up on Salvatore when he started writing for 4th edition with the retarded lore changes WotC forced upon Forgotten Realms, so I dunno if he's finally gotten laid. Probably not, wouldn't resonate so well with the chaste and pure neckbeard crowd and the acne-ridden teenagers.

He did. He married Catti-brie and got his rocks off before she died. Salvatore has since resurrected her along with everyone else its very likely they are still married.

But I'm not going to read that toilet paper to find out.

 

[nikolokolus]

How come no one uses the D&D lisence anymore? inb4 Roguey answer "because it's a horrible system"

3/3.5 is discontinued, pathfinder is in the hand of idiots, 4 is shit, and 5 was just published. Give it a bit of time; maybe we will get the dnd game we expect.

Oh Christ. I sure as hell hope we don't get the game we expect.

 

[Grubba]

Another Dark Sun game would make me fap with joy...but not an action RPG for consoles. A new DS game would need to be 4 character party and turn-based combat with old school feel similar to what the guys from Serpent in the Staglands are doing. A lot of people are tired with the same old high fantasy bullshit and simultaneously have huge boners for post-apocalyptic settings, so Dark Sun makes a lot of sense. It would just have to be done in a new/old way that satisfies the nostalgia for the old games. I'm not sure WotC and their corporate overlords would privately fund a project like that, though.

I wouldn't mind a Drizzt game done in the style of Dragon Age, Witcher, NWN. I'd definitely play it but it's not the type of D&D CRPG I'm hoping for.

 

[Infinitron]

turn-based combat with old school feel similar to what the guys from Serpent in the Staglands are doing

Uh...

 

[Grubba]

turn-based combat with old school feel similar to what the guys from Serpent in the Staglands are doing

Uh...

So SitS is RTwP? That's besides the point, I was talking more about the visuals and art style. I haven't followed the development very closely or played the beta/demo, but I have seen screen shots and some animated gifs and I love the look. I think a new Dark Sun game done in that style would be the perfect way of doing it.

 

[LESS T_T]

Huh, Dan Tudge was on a PAX 2013 panel named "D&D Digital, Past, Present, Future" with Trent Oster from Beamdog.



Audio is a bit awful, btw.

 

[Zed]

Would be pretty funny if they snatched a D&D project like BG3 or IWD3 from Beamdog, who've been licking Wizard feet ever since their inception. Would be even funnier if they snatched something like KOTOR from Obsidian.

 

[Jaesun]

I'm betting now this will be an action game. Not turn-based.