Decline Sword Coast Legends Pre-Release Thread

[prodigydancer]

DA:O was great. Minor side quests were mostly filler crap but everything else was top notch or close to that. Even combat wasn't really bad. Personally I prefer DA2 combat to DA:O combat but I'd gladly sacrifice that much if it would mean getting consistent and enjoyable experience throughout the entire trilogy.

 

[eremita]

http://www.dagonslair.com/dossiers/sword-coast-legends-interview-dan-tudge/

Sounds GREAT except for cooldowns (although those can be done right too). New NWN is here, I'm excited Fuck the haters!

 

[Dreaad]

This gonna be good.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

DA:O was great. Minor side quests were mostly filler crap but everything else was top notch or close to that. Even combat wasn't really bad. Personally I prefer DA2 combat to DA:O combat but I'd gladly sacrifice that much if it would mean getting consistent and enjoyable experience throughout the entire trilogy.

 

[ArchAngel]

Sounds GREAT except for cooldowns (although those can be done right too). New NWN is here, I'm excited Fuck the haters!

No, you cannot do cooldowns good in a D&D game. Cooldowns and diminishing limited resources are opposite concepts.

 

[eremita]

No, you cannot do cooldowns good in a D&D game. Cooldowns and diminishing limited resources are opposite concepts.

Well, the concept of limited resources is superior in CRPGs, I'm not gonna argue about that. But there is a way to do cooldowns right. You can balance them so they basically work as a limited resource in particular encounter or even across the whole dungeon crawl (waiting is cheating! Or at least lame) if balanced right.

It's all relative in the end really. You can simulate no resting accros the whole dungeon with cooldowns and waves of enemies in one battle (the dungeon is equivalent to one long fight).

 

[ArchAngel]

No, you cannot do cooldowns good in a D&D game. Cooldowns and diminishing limited resources are opposite concepts.

Well, the concept of limited resources is superior in CRPGs, I'm not gonna argue about that. But there is a way to do cooldowns right. You can balance them so they basically work as a limited resource in particular encounter or even across the whole dungeon crawl (waiting is cheating! Or at least lame) if balanced right.

It's all relative in the end really. You can simulate no resting accros the whole dungeon with cooldowns and waves of enemies in one battle (the dungeon is equivalent to one long fight).

Waiting is not cheating, most people are going to wait and then complain about needing to wait just like they complained about "needing" to save scum in WL2 to bear the container opening RNG or some idiots that complained about going back to Inns in PoE to get infinite rests.

And even with long cooldowns you don't get the freedom of choice of a real D&D game. From the videos the character has ONE Fireball that goes on cooldown while in PnP you can have more lvl 3 spells and you get to choose which one to cast. Cooldowns are per spell here, not per spell level.
This is going to be an action game, at least that is how it looked in gameplay videos so far.

 

[Jimmious]

Still though, should we actually give a fuck about such complaints? I mean for people that actually waited for like 6 loading screens in PoE to get some more bonuses, is their opinion actually important?

 

[ArchAngel]

Still though, should we actually give a fuck about such complaints? I mean for people that actually waited for like 6 loading screens in PoE to get some more bonuses, is their opinion actually important?

PoE was a side example, but in WL2 most players save scumed and I am sure most were irritated by it. (I didn't, if I failed I just continued on). Just like in IE games most players rest spammed and then complained how it made the game too easy.

Also, SCL is going to designed around having access to all resources for each encounter. In videos they spam everything in each combat. Only thing Cooldowns prevented is spamming healing because to fully heal you need to wait through multiple cooldowns.
With cooldowns they basically made DA:O system, not D&D. Except DA:O has cooldowns that outside of combat you didn't need to wait at all.

Lots of people complained about the cooldowns in SCL so maybe maybe they give some options for all of us.

 

[you know what time it is]

DA:O was great. Minor side quests were mostly filler crap but everything else was top notch or close to that. Even combat wasn't really bad. Personally I prefer DA2 combat to DA:O combat but I'd gladly sacrifice that much if it would mean getting consistent and enjoyable experience throughout the entire trilogy.

Rampant TW3 fanboyism proves once again that marketing always triumphs over common sense.

 

[Jimmious]

Still though, should we actually give a fuck about such complaints? I mean for people that actually waited for like 6 loading screens in PoE to get some more bonuses, is their opinion actually important?

PoE was a side example, but in WL2 most players save scumed and I am sure most were irritated by it. (I didn't, if I failed I just continued on). Just like in IE games most players rest spammed and then complained how it made the game too easy.

Also, SCL is going to designed around having access to all resources for each encounter. In videos they spam everything in each combat. Only thing Cooldowns prevented is spamming healing because to fully heal you need to wait through multiple cooldowns.
With cooldowns they basically made DA:O system, not D&D. Except DA:O has cooldowns that outside of combat you didn't need to wait at all.

Lots of people complained about the cooldowns in SCL so maybe maybe they give some options for all of us.

I'm not really in favor of cooldowns to be honest but seeing for example the reception the resting system of PoE got, I can't say that I can blame them. Obsidian tried to create something kinda restrictive to create extra tension when in dungeons etc and just got people angry that they couldn't rest after every battle. Go figure

 

[Doktor Best]

Well they should add a tier based system with the regular spell slots and add individual cooldowns for each of them.

for example you can cast 3 lvl 3 spells with a cooldown of 15 minutes realtime. you fire one fireball then 2 minutes later you fire another one. Now you have one spellslot left, one with a cooldown of 13 minutes and one with a cooldown of 15 minutes. if you fire all 3 of them at once youll have 3 fireballs ready again in 15 minutes.

this would actually add to the limited spell use system as you cannot restscum (this shit was stupid anyways)

 

[prodigydancer]

Well they should add a tier based system with the regular spell slots and add individual cooldowns for each of them.

It certainly would be a sensible compromise but something tells me they'll use short per-spell cooldowns because those are easier to implement and more suitable for casual/mainstream crowd.

 

[ArchAngel]

Well they should add a tier based system with the regular spell slots and add individual cooldowns for each of them.

for example you can cast 3 lvl 3 spells with a cooldown of 15 minutes realtime. you fire one fireball then 2 minutes later you fire another one. Now you have one spellslot left, one with a cooldown of 13 minutes and one with a cooldown of 15 minutes. if you fire all 3 of them at once youll have 3 fireballs ready again in 15 minutes.

this would actually add to the limited spell use system as you cannot restscum (this shit was stupid anyways)

No chance of that. They implemented cooldowns in first place because they want it to be more action like for MP play which is their focus.

 

[Morality Games]

Mm? I believe Dragon Age: Origins is generally well regarded on the Codex, if not much talked about.

What the fuck have you been smoking and where can I get some? There's like that one guy in Playground who weakly trolls people by praising DAO and that's it. Everyone else went "good for what it is" only cause it doesn't seem so bad now that we've seen DA2 and DAI. Oh, unless you're Vault Dweller in which case you have to stand by your review until the heat death of the Universe.

People have become far less positive about it over time. That's the only concession I'll make.

 

[Lhynn]

DA:O isnt that bad tbh, it just the best parts arent very memorable and the lows are lows indeed.

 

[Jimmious]

It was the only Dragon Age game I actually finished which for me says a lot. It's not up there with the best but comparing to other crap , it was pretty darn good back then.

 

[Trodat]

DA:O isnt that bad tbh, it just the best parts arent very memorable and the lows are lows indeed.

I played DA:O again recently and I must say it is / was better than I remembered. There's very little to no chance that SCL will be as good.

Even the so called "shitty bioware writing" was easily serviceable / ok, like I've watched youtube videos of DA2 and DA:I and I think the writing was a lot better in the first game of the series.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Holy fuck you idiots. It was not a good game. Filled with Bioware choices that end up not mattering - yeah, you think you have to make a big choice between the child and the mother but turns out you can rescue both. Same thing continues throughout the game. Nothing but pointless filler combat, aside from few boss encounters that were still too easy. Derp roads. You have one tiny "city". Quest board like in MMOs. Quest NPCs, monsters and items only appear once you have the quest. Mostly small maps. Derpy companions, most of whom want to fuck you. The retarded hats. A stupid villain that will happily doom his country to oblivion because he'd rather see himself on the throne for the last weeks than a king he thinks is incompetent. Autohealing after combat which completely defeats the purpose of the filler combat. Incredibly lame and stupid game mechanics that are the bastard child of World of Warcraft and D&D 4th edition - just increase 1 stat depending on your class and you're good to go for example. Aggro mechanics in a single players game - easily testable as well by putting a fighter in a doorway to block it and observe how enemies will magically squeeze through to get at your casters. Plot highlights stolen from KOTOR that stole them form NWN: "secret member of special order, go gather 4 MacGuffins, and so on".

It was not a good game and I'll never understand why VD reviewed it so highly. Certainly the sequels are even worse but DAO is still shit.

 

[dragonul09]

Holy fuck you idiots. It was not a good game. Filled with Bioware choices that end up not mattering - yeah, you think you have to make a big choice between the child and the mother but turns out you can rescue both. Same thing continues throughout the game. Nothing but pointless filler combat, aside from few boss encounters that were still too easy. Derp roads. You have one tiny "city". Quest board like in MMOs. Quest NPCs, monsters and items only appear once you have the quest. Mostly small maps. Derpy companions, most of whom want to fuck you. The retarded hats. A stupid villain that will happily doom his country to oblivion because he'd rather see himself on the throne for the last weeks than a king he thinks is incompetent. Autohealing after combat which completely defeats the purpose of the filler combat. Incredibly lame and stupid game mechanics that are the bastard child of World of Warcraft and D&D 4th edition - just increase 1 stat depending on your class and you're good to go for example. Aggro mechanics in a single players game - easily testable as well by putting a fighter in a doorway to block it and observe how enemies will magically squeeze through to get at your casters. Plot highlights stolen from KOTOR that stole them form NWN: "secret member of special order, go gather 4 MacGuffins, and so on".

It was not a good game and I'll never understand why VD reviewed it so highly. Certainly the sequels are even worse but DAO is still shit.

You just described every game made by Bioware/Obsidian.

 

[GarfunkeL]

Not BG, not BG2, not Kotor2, not MotB, not NWN2, not SoZ but thanks for trolling.

 

[dragonul09]

Not BG, not BG2, not Kotor2, not MotB, not NWN2, not SoZ but thanks for trolling.

You are telling me that NWN 2 is better than Dragon Age Origins? In terms of what?
And the only thing that Motb beats DAO is the storyline.
SoZ was a new low from Obsidian,the only thing that i liked was the traveling on the World map and some encounters.

You may have some good points here and there but NWN 2 is not that good of an example to compare it with DAO

 

[Gangrelrumbler]

MoTB beats DAO in character development (DND>>>>>>shit>>>>DAO system), setting, characters and storyline. DAO is only superior when it comes to combat, and it's still meh as fuck.

 

[tuluse]

DAO is actually fun to play unlike NWN2 engine games.

 

[GarfunkeL]

DAO is actually fun to play unlike NWN2 engine games.

Wat.

No it's not. I had more fun making a variety of characters builds (and party builds in SoZ) than in DAO. Even bastardized D&D 3.5 mechanics beat Bioware's own system. Of which they were so proud that they hid all the mechanics under the hood, which forces you to use a mod to see them and when you do, whoop-de-doop, it's all "+0.5 here, +0.5 there, +0.1 sec duration increase" if I remember correctly.

SoZ had you build your custom party - impossible in DAO. SoZ wins.