Decline Sword Coast Legends Pre-Release Thread

[ArchAngel]

Some guy with a peg leg and a parrot on his shoulder shoved this shit into my hands so don't judge me.

I started a new single player adventure and got ready to spend 50 minutes rolling dice (ok i didnt). Character creation gives you the choice between 6 classes and 5 races, I chose a human wizard and chose some shit that gave me +1 int as background. Slid some sliders left and right to make a retarded looking bearded man, put difficulty on hard and started out. Game drops you off in some guild hall which is under attack by unknown assailants, you have to gather your friends and gtfo so it's kinda like NWN2 in that regard. The fog of war animation looks fucking annoying, first I thought my character was in some kind of dream/trance state, screenshots don't do it justice because it keeps fucking shimmering. Also couldn't find a way to get my mouse to scroll when getting to the edge of the screen so I had to use keys to scroll around.

Got outside the first area, found some scrolls (Melfs Acid Arrow), can't fucking put 'em in my spellbook. Guess I don't even have a spellbook. Fuck. Story so far is full of tropes and cliches, every other npc wants you to help him find their daughter/save their dog/talk to some asshole etc. Sexy elf girl is there, grumpy scottish dwarf is there. The main character is having nightmares of demons and blabla, you're also part of a mystic order from ancient times blabla. Dialog is also very... dull but usually quite brief as well (especially after playing the shit outta AoD), the voice acting is of made-in-slovakia-indie game studio quality (except for the dwarf who sounds like every other dwarf in history of dwarf voice acting).

Playing some more and holy shit you get 3 ability points when you level up. Not that it really matter cause fuck me are the spells bland. I put my shit into mage armor and conjure animal because the rest of the spells were mainly single target damage spells and I already had the highest level magic missile (4) chosen at character creation (I know wtf right, some spells do have lvl restrictions, not sure why MM doesnt have it, it does have a whooping 30 second CDR). Normally I'd consider taking a point in a weapon proficiency, but since you can select some spells as a 'regular' attack (its called 'cantrip') this seems a waste. I'm currently shooting firebolts like it aint no thang, my cleric can do 'divine strike' as cantrip. I'm not sure why I'm playing this and am going to do something else.

TL;DR - it's about as bad as you think it is. As far as I could tell from the short hour I played, it's like they took a checklist of D&D tropes, looked at some RTwP games, watered it down so anyone who ever played World of Warcraft could understand it properly and called it a day. The lack of personality is my biggest non-mechanical gripe so far. The story/type of characters is kinda similar to NWN2 (which was also very bland imho) but at least there the dialogues were better written. Character system is totally butchered and cooldown-based spell system is fucking horrible.

Out of that whole story only thing DnD 5e there are cantrip spells. You also cannot choose them all in PnP and can only get a couple but they level by themselves, without any other additional investment.

 

[btbgfel]

Having played less than 2 hours and have just reached the second area of first dungeon, I could already make a guess at the main plot.

Spoiler

Some idiot made a prophecy about bringing a random balor to faerun, and it's from one of the order of burning dawn,which pc belongs to. Inquisitiors of Helm hired thugs to kill everyone of that order. During investigation of the attacks, pc blows it up and releases the balor. In the end pc kills the demon. Happy end

Also the horse,the traitor and the dog in side quests, quests are very predictable. I could be wrong though, for I was wrong once. I found a cave whose entrance got quite a pile of bones, I expect wolves, but I found spiders instead. Guess spiders threw their victims' bones out of cave for sport.

Now time for a refund.

 

[Infinitron]

How linear/open is it?

 

[btbgfel]

How linear/open is it?

Of area design, you got a solid choice: forward further into corridor or backward. Of quest, you get a third option: “Me kills you and took your stuff!”

 

[prodigydancer]

How linear/open is it?

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

Time for me to stop wasting time looking at this drama and decline, but worth pointing out the sterling efforts "fake Bubbles" is making to defend this game - in this case against an accusation that dialogue choices are all meaningless:

 

[pippin]

He rolled a 20 so I guess he's right.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Time for me to stop wasting time looking at this drama and decline, but worth pointing out the sterling efforts "fake Bubbles" is making to defend this game - in this case against an accusation that dialogue choices are all meaningless:

That's to obvious to be anything but trolling.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

But it's true :S

 

[Mustawd]

But it's true :S

 

[Shammy]

Literally every story is full of tropes, they're the building blocks that stories are made out of. Seems like a weird thing to complain about.

100% true, but keep in mind that just because tropes are inevitable doesn't mean you have to go the extra mile and make everything tropey. I mean seriously, look at that list of companions. That is text book generic fantasy companions 101 in video game form, I can't even wrap my head around how cliched they are. And cliche/tropes are fine, but when the entire narrative design reeks of it then you're left with a sour taste of pagodas in your mouth.

 

[Mustawd]

https://forums.swordcoast.com/index...ode-is-entertaining-do-not-worry-no-spoilers/

God their forums really are a wasteland of apologist fanbois.

Seems meh. too early to tell. What bothers me most is the lack of evil/rude options in conversations, this might change later, but I dont want to play a polite little dogooder.

Also the game does the same thing every single rpg seems to do which is "you are a newbie/young" for once I would like to play an older character that doesnt get referred as kid/rookie all the damn time.

Welcome to CRPGs, where you very rarely get to play anything close to evil ever, just look at every bioware game ever. as for being a jerk, There have been several greedy/rudeish options that i have seen.

Someone needs to log on and post a link to AoD, and save these poor souls from cRPG hell.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

"Also the game does the same thing every single rpg seems to do which is "you are a newbie/young" for once I would like to play an older character that doesnt get referred as kid/rookie all the damn time."

Very unfair criticism, as this level-scaled game takes a refreshing break from stale CRPG conventions and allows you to start the game with a legendary 20th level character trained up in special "training modules" easily found online. Sure, the in-game fluff text may not always recognise this but it seems the haters are getting desperate now.

 

[Mustawd]

Very unfair criticism, as this level-scaled game takes a refreshing break from stale CRPG conventions and allows you to start the game with a legendary 20th level character trained up in special "training modules" easily found online. Sure, the in-game fluff text may not always recognise this but it seems the haters are getting desperate now.

They just don't realize how inclusive this great game really is.

 

[Somberlain]

https://forums.swordcoast.com/index...ode-is-entertaining-do-not-worry-no-spoilers/

God their forums really are a wasteland of apologist fanbois.

Welcome to CRPGs, where you very rarely get to play anything close to evil ever, just look at every bioware game ever.

 

[Mortmal]

As for tropes.. Maybe some of you remember neverwinter 1 release, everyone started doing his own mods , most of them mediocre, the inn with the rats quests, the caravan ambushed by bandits,scottish dwarves npc, cliché mediocre quests from people without imagination without much skills but some good will and giving it for free. Well i have kinda that feeling when playing sword coast main story , its slightly better than the above but not by much , scottish dwarf, caravan ambushed by bandit...retarded fighter ,wrapped in combat similar to POE . I have a feeling of deja vu. however in this case its 34 euros to get this, 60 euros even to get the full game .

At 60 euros i could get the witcher 3 instead,a vastly superior game in every aspect, or i could get legends of einsenwald+ age of decadence +underail and some other indie.Its a Licensed big D&D release, yet its nowhere near witcher 3 o even old skyrim AAA graphics levels ,the gameplay, quest design, is not nearly as good than the indies RPG i mentioned.Worst value for your money possible.

There's not even any communication with the devs, we dont really know how long we can play the story during that " headstart" if character and saves will be wiped as its a different steam folder. Compare that to eisenwald for example, i had one problem with an encounter, one dev personnally answered me by mail and offered to do the fight for me, fix my save, and gave me advices...

Two completely different worlds , on one side greedy lazy fucks with a big license who obviously dont care much about what they are doing , laughing and pissing on gary gygax grave, on the other hand people who really like what they are doing and do the best to provide the best gaming experience they can taking even some of their free time to do support.

 

[Telengard]

While I am personally on record declaring that this would be a huge pile of shit (and predicted why), it still must be said that any devs who have hired even a semi-competent marketing team, that marketing team won't allow the devs to say even a single non-scripted word. Because allowing artistes to speak is what leads to meltdowns and PR nightmares. (see Mitsodas) Even when directly interviewing devs with marketing behind them, you are only ever really speaking to the marketing department with the devs as a talking parrot, so it's pointless to even interview them, really. You might as well just call up the marketing department and get answers direct from the source - save everyone some time.

And doing things that way, giving marketing sole control of the message, that's the only way to get the big bucks. Because marketing is all about controlling the message, and artistes are easily egged and sidetracked.

 

[Kem0sabe]

So i pirated this to see what all this bad buzz was about... and boy is it deserved and more even.

This is worse than anything i could have imagined, the presentation, the UI, the character progression system, the combat... the fucking voice overs... its beyond bad.

Dunno how anyone at WotC could have greenlighted this mess.

 

[Mustawd]

And doing things that way, giving marketing sole control of the message, that's the only way to get the big bucks. Because marketing is all about controlling the message, and artistes are easily egged and sidetracked.

I would say it's more necessary to maximize your income, rather than just getting the big bucks. While you have your core crowd, each ancillary audience you try to reach becomes more and more difficult.

Detailed and in depth discussions about mechanics, game design, etc. is all well and good for an audience that understands the type of decisions you've made and can accept them, if not agree with them. I think this is definitely obvious when you look at how AoD has interacted with its core audience on the Codex and its own ITS forums.

However, as you move away form the core, the audience is less invested and/or knowledgeable. Which leads to generic statements, controlled messages, less real interaction with the audience. Most video game players who say "Just be transparent and everything will be fine!" are missing an important point about commerce in general: In that the utility of a product or service will vary widely in range depending on the type of audience and how many audiences it's trying to reach. So if everyone sees behind the curtain then the amount of sales would fall quite a bit.

So in essence, marketing is all about showmanship. Companies showcase the best and most attractive parts of the product and don't focus on the negatives. Cream y peanut butter? Yum (but high as hell in calories). Great tasting tequila? So very cool! (but can lead to alcoholism and responsible for many drunk driving deaths). Any company selling its product/service to the public does this to some extent. Apple, Toyota, Starbucks, Coca Cola, etc. Name a well known brand and you won't find the transparency of, say an AoD or an Underrail.

So devs have to choose which one they'll be. Based on the CEO's little meltdown, n-Space never really understood this as well as they thought they did; until it got close to release and people started clamoring about transparency, etc.

 

[Jaesun]

Dunno how anyone at WotC could have greenlighted this mess.

$$$$$$$$

 

[Tigranes]

All this ever was from the start was a C-grade Russian shovelwarey game, minus the Russian charm. The only mystery is why we have 95 pages on it.

 

[Bubbles]

D&D license.

 

[agris]

Decline be with you.

 

[Irenaeus II]

Dunno how anyone at WotC could have greenlighted this mess.

In earlier pages, I pushed forward the conspiracy theory that Hasbro wants to keep D&D down on purpose so as not to hurt the sales of their goldmine (Magic the Gathering). It's a wild guess.

 

[Jaesun]

Neither is a competing product though.

I think it is just straight up pure incompetence on the part of either HASBRO or WotC. They just don't seem to give a fucking shit about the D&D brand when it is just slapped with it. I think they too believe that as long as you just slap the D&D name on something the cash will flow. They don't seem to give a shit about anything else. Similar to Aliens: Colonial Marines.