# Sword Coast Legends is not D&D



## Dargrimm (Sep 23, 2015)

I'm not sure if this post belong here but...

After seeing tons of videos about the game (specially the character creation videos) I must say that I am totally disappointed about the game. It is nothing like D&D. I was expecting an experience similar to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights rule wise and what I found was a Diablo clone...

I already preordered and won't get a refund from Steam. I'll wait until I play the completed game, but so far I'm totally disappointed


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## Sacrosanct (Sep 23, 2015)

Keep in mind that the game is designed to be  played real time multiplayer.  THat means no real pausing and turns like in a tabletop.  And that of course means cool down times rather than short/long rest recovery.

Sorry to hear that it didn't meet your expectations, but really that's the only way of going about it


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## I'm A Banana (Sep 23, 2015)

Dargrimm said:


> I'm not sure if this post belong here but...
> 
> After seeing tons of videos about the game (specially the character creation videos) I must say that I am totally disappointed about the game. It is nothing like D&D. I was expecting an experience similar to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights rule wise and what I found was a Diablo clone...
> 
> I already preordered and won't get a refund from Steam. I'll wait until I play the completed game, but so far I'm totally disappointed




No joke, if you're looking for a BG/NWN experience, go with Pillars of Eternity. It is that kind of game.


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## MoonSong (Sep 23, 2015)

I'm A Banana said:


> No joke, if you're looking for a BG/NWN experience, go with Pillars of Eternity. It is that kind of game.




No sorcerer, no sell...


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## Bal Sofs Tihl (Sep 23, 2015)

Yeah, if they're looking for a game to re-skin as D&D, the game they are looking for is X-COM. Single player could have you controlling the entire party, with multiplayer allowing each person to control a single character or multiple characters together as they work through the campaign. Throw in a map/campaign editor and, if they're feeling really froggy, a capacity for a player to actively play as the DM, controlling the enemies and making on-the-fly modifications. I don't know, I really feel like it shouldn't be that difficult...


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## JetstreamGW (Sep 23, 2015)

Dargrimm said:


> I already preordered and won't get a refund from Steam.




Why won't you get a refund from Steam? Steam put in a refund policy months ago.


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## Scorpio616 (Sep 23, 2015)

Oh I think the early previews showed the bosses have better HP than 4E solos so those paying attention were warned already.

But wasn't it proven by folks going through the game code that even the BG and NW games actually use a completely different random number calculation than an actual 1 to 20 for to-hit and saves, invalidating any claim the games were using the D&D rulesets?


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## Dargrimm (Sep 23, 2015)

JetstreamGW said:


> Why won't you get a refund from Steam? Steam put in a refund policy months ago.




Because I surpassed the 2-hour limit for a refund. I spent all weekend trying to play the Head Start but the game *always* hanged indefinitely when I try to start a game until I was forced to force quit the game, but the Steam clock continued counting anyway so even if I was't able to play a single second it shows that I've been playing for over two hours. So no refund for me.

Anyway I don't want to cancel the preorder and get a refund. I think the game is going to be fun and all *but* I'm disappointed because it is not the D&D experience I was expecting. It is just a Diablo-esque game with a D&D costume. (And I love Diablo, don't get me wrong)

There is no pen-and-paper D&D for me because there is no one around here who plays it. In fact the last time I've got to play D&D was like twenty years ago with AD&D 2ed. Since then I haven't found anyone, so video games are my only valve of scape for my D&D cravings. BG and NWN did a wonderful job and I was very excited about Sword Coast Legends because I thought it was going to be similar to those games but I was wrong.


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## Dargrimm (Sep 23, 2015)

I'm A Banana said:


> No joke, if you're looking for a BG/NWN experience, go with Pillars of Eternity. It is that kind of game.




I already own it and enjoy it.


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## Rya.Reisender (Sep 23, 2015)

I'd say none of the video games are like real D&D. Even Baldur's Gate... the battle system alone makes it feels so much less like normal D&D. A real D&D game should be turn-based.


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## Will Doyle (Sep 23, 2015)

Bal Sofs Tihl said:


> Single player could have you controlling the entire party, with multiplayer allowing each person to control a single character or multiple characters together as they work through the campaign.




Multiplayer turn-based games are rarely very popular, especially when they're designed to support more than two players. If they want to appeal to more than just the TRPG crowd, it sort of has to be real-time.


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## Li Shenron (Sep 23, 2015)

Dargrimm said:


> After seeing tons of videos about the game (specially the character creation videos) I must say that I am totally disappointed about the game. It is nothing like D&D. I was expecting an experience similar to Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights rule wise and what I found was a Diablo clone...




I don't have the game, but I've also seen previews, and honestly I had the opposite feeling... to me it seemed a lot more like Baldur's Gate than Diablo.

I played both a long time ago, and Baldur's Gate to me was mostly about *story* and *exploration*, plus a little bit of character *interaction*. Combats were always different because of the variety of opponents, and they very *tactical* because of that and because of the option to pause and think about it.

Diablo is a_ shoot-em-up_. There is almost nothing tactical in Diablo combats, they are just too many and too fast to even think about it, and monsters are all very similar to each other. There is only *strategy* in building your character by carefully choosing combos that optimize attack and defense around a small set of options (like one debuff trick, one area attack, and little more). The only tactics required are when to use either of those few options. Then just repeat for a thousand hours to unlock all cinematics.


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## Ranes (Sep 23, 2015)

I too have watched the videos and - apart from the fact that I think their videos betrayed a lack of experience of level design - I agree with the OP. It isn't quite what I was hoping for, which was something along the lines of NWN. Someone upthread said X-COM was the template for a turn-based D&D game and I totally agree but, as someone else has pointed out already, that lacks appeal for the multiplayer audience.

And on an aesthetic level, I'm disappointed that SCL's dungeons look more like Space Hulk interiors than dungeons.

I played PoE and found that it lacked the tactical depth and variety of Baldur's Gate but was otherwise pretty good. I'm holding out more hope for a better BG-like experience from Tides of Numenera. But what I'd really like to see is a multi-player D&D game which enables party members to act in pseudo-real time out of combat and then move to turn based once the PCs or bad guys go loud. I'm thinking in terms of the flawed but so almost-there Temple of Elemental Evil, which is next on my list to replay with the Circle of Eight mod.

I'll keep an eye on SCL and it might have enough appeal as a computer game to tempt me into buying it but it increasingly seems to be aimed at a much more casual gamer than this grognard.


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## Mirtek (Sep 23, 2015)

Basically there are two kinds of RT D&D games:

Those like BG who give the necessary concessions to make it work while still trying to stay as close to the D&D rules as the framework allows (e.g a fireball still dealing 6-48 damage)

Those like SCL who just put some D&D skins over whatever system they came up with (e.g a fireball dealing 750 damage to the 900hp bossmonster)


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## Treantmonklvl20 (Sep 23, 2015)

Rya.Reisender said:


> I'd say none of the video games are like real D&D. Even Baldur's Gate... the battle system alone makes it feels so much less like normal D&D. A real D&D game should be turn-based.




My wife and I have been playing Divinity: Original Sin.  It is a multiplayer that uses turn-based combat.  I would love to see a D&D game built a similar way.  However, to the OP I recommend looking up Divinity O.S. on Steam, it's a good buy.


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## Rya.Reisender (Sep 23, 2015)

The most frustrating thing is that 4E would have been perfect for a video game if implemented exactly as the ruleset. Yet there's no video game that implemented the ruleset fully.


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## Jan van Leyden (Sep 23, 2015)

I'm A Banana said:


> No joke, if you're looking for a BG/NWN experience, go with Pillars of Eternity. It is that kind of game.




Hmmh, Pillars of Eternity for the BG experience, but does it offer NWN-like building as well?


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## EthanSental (Sep 23, 2015)

I didn't play 4e (watched friends play it a few times) but played Neverwinter through level 20 and thats what cemented my opinion that 4e was video game like with the powers and such (rogues bamf'ing around like Nightcrawler, etc).  Neverwinter might not have captured all of what 4e was but it seems to have done a decent job.


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## Mirtek (Sep 23, 2015)

Rya.Reisender said:


> The most frustrating thing is that 4E would have been perfect for a video game if implemented exactly as the ruleset. Yet there's no video game that implemented the ruleset fully.



I have to disagree here. Anything other than a turn based game that asked basically every player before and after every action or reaction or interrupt if they want to use their interrupt or reaction could not implement the ruleset exactly.

You'd spend more time clicking away the question whether you want to interrupt/react than you would spend on clicking your actual actions on your turn


EthanSental said:


> I didn't play 4e (watched friends play it a few times) but played Neverwinter through level 20 and thats what cemented my opinion that 4e was video game like with the powers and such (rogues bamf'ing around like Nightcrawler, etc).  Neverwinter might not have captured all of what 4e was but it seems to have done a decent job.



 Actually Neverwinter is like SCL in that regard, it just slapped 4e skins and terms on a very non-4e ruleset


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## Xanthais (Sep 23, 2015)

Dargrimm said:


> There is no pen-and-paper D&D for me because there is no one around here who plays it. In fact the last time I've got to play D&D was like twenty years ago with AD&D 2ed. Since then I haven't found anyone, so video games are my only valve of scape for my D&D cravings.




Roll20 or Fantasy Grounds both get you playing actual D&D with other people.

As to the notion of turn-based video games...that's why I loved the old Pool of Radiance game for 3E. Especially POR: Ruins of Myth Drannor. I like having friendly fire off, as well as turn-based so I can actually position my caster in places to try and not get the AoE on my party and other tactical stratagem like that.


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## Rya.Reisender (Sep 23, 2015)

> Anything other than a turn based game that asked basically every player before and after every action or reaction or interrupt if they want to use their interrupt or reaction



Exactly that. That works much better in a video game than in Pen&Paper.


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## I'm A Banana (Sep 23, 2015)

Jan van Leyden said:


> Hmmh, Pillars of Eternity for the BG experience, but does it offer NWN-like building as well?




Not as far as I know.


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## Raloc (Sep 23, 2015)

I think the biggest problem right now is the hyper-limited Campaign Toolset. That said, N-Space has said they plan to update it with branching dialogue and larger text limits (right now you can only add text to an NPC via a "quest action - give, update, complete", and only 3-5 lines).

As for the mechanics, it plays more like D&D than Diablo by far - I suspect people who are saying it's "Diablo-like" haven't played Diablo in ages, and are misremembering how it worked. For one thing, you don't have click-per-attack like in Diablo and other ARPGs. Secondly, you can pause and even auto-pause every round, in multiplayer (and it works fine). 

If they fix the toolset up some, I think it will be good fun for dungeon crawling and some medium-complexity campaigns. No, it won't be like having a v-tabletop with a rules engine, but I don't think that was ever on offer anyway.


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## Silverblade The Ench (Sep 23, 2015)

Rya.Reisender said:


> I'd say none of the video games are like real D&D. Even Baldur's Gate... the battle system alone makes it feels so much less like normal D&D. A real D&D game should be turn-based.




Temple of elemental Evil, and Pools of Radiance ~ Myth Drannor ARE turn based D&D CRPGs 

and, of course, the Gold Box games


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## Jester David (Sep 25, 2015)

I don't expect 100% accuracy. But they're really pitching it as the successor to Baldur's Gate and NWN, which did follow all the rules of D&D and *were* successful. BG1 helped make BioWare an industry name. That's certainly a proven market for that type of game. And SCL is a small game, it's not a AAA blockbuster that has to play safe. It can go niche.
And BG2/NWN came out after Diablo.

You can do a fun D&D hack-and-slash game. The two Dark Alliance games were a blast. I'd buy that... but that's not how they're selling the game. 

It's certainly disappointing to hear that it's a Diablo clone with a veneer of D&D. It takes more than familiar names to make a game into a D&D game. That was pretty obvious from the Arena of War mobile game.


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## ZickZak (Sep 25, 2015)

Dargrimm said:


> There is no pen-and-paper D&D for me because there is no one around here who plays it. In fact the last time I've got to play D&D was like twenty years ago with AD&D 2ed. Since then I haven't found anyone, so video games are my only valve of scape for my D&D cravings.



You can start your own game. Or a club with younger people, perhaps even kids. There are online "pen & paper" games held by many people over TeamSpeak / Skype.


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## ppaladin123 (Sep 25, 2015)

Yeah, this thing is MUCH less faithful to the ruleset than Baldur's Gate and NWN I &II were. We are not talking changes to make a turn-based PNP game work for a real time video game...those changes would be understandable. We are talking skill trees like old WoW.  Wizards buy spells with skill points and then invest points in them to make them more powerful (no spell books). Clerics don't have domains or turn undead. There are no spell slots. Everything is an encounter style power with a cool down. It is only d&d in the sense that there are fantasy races and fantasy "classes" and it takes place in the FR. That doesn't mean it is bad, but it is not an adaptation of the 5e rules at all.

I expect people are going to have a similar reaction to the one fans of World War Z had when the movie came out...it's calling it D&D that will upset people, not the content per se.


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## Dargrimm (Sep 25, 2015)

ZickZak said:


> You can start your own game. Or a club with younger people, perhaps even kids. There are online "pen & paper" games held by many people over TeamSpeak / Skype.




Yes, I know. The problems is that I live in Japan and most of those games are with people from the USA or Canada. That makes joining one of those games quite difficult because we are in very different time zones...

Still I'd love to try someday.


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## RedSiegfried (Sep 25, 2015)

Scorpio616 said:


> But wasn't it proven by folks going through the game code that even the BG and NW games actually use a completely different random number calculation than an actual 1 to 20 for to-hit and saves, invalidating any claim the games were using the D&D rulesets?



I don't know about BG since that was 2E IIRC, but Neverwinter Nights definitely uses the d20 system - you can clearly see what the results of all your rolls are and see the game math at the bottom of the screen, though some argued that the random number generator was not as random as it could be, and as a result IIRC you had the ability to specify an alternative algorithm be used in the config file.  Anyway, Neverwinter Nights fairly close to the 3.0 rules for a realtime game.

Now, if you were talking about Neverwinter, the MMORPG, I've played that a grand total of three times so I have no idea.


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## RedSiegfried (Sep 25, 2015)

As far as this game goes though, I appreciate the ability to DM far more than was given in Neverwinter, but I would prefer it to be much closer to D&D rules.  I still think that Neverwinter Nights is the best multiplayer D&D computer game experience out there when you factor in multiplayer capability, modability, and the full-featured DM client.  

I'm not too interested in Sword Coast at this time.  If I want to play multiplayer computer based D&D (and oh yeah, I can play with more than four other people) I'll just go back to 3.0 and play NWN.

In my dreams, for the perfect turn based experience, I'd love it if someone worked out a way to make Temple of Elemental Evil fully multiplayer.  You'd have to rewrite the entire game almost from scratch though - even though there is some MP code in it, it was never meant to actually be used with the rest of the game engine.


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## Ahrimon (Sep 30, 2015)

Dargrimm said:


> Yes, I know. The problems is that I live in Japan and most of those games are with people from the USA or Canada. That makes joining one of those games quite difficult because we are in very different time zones...
> 
> Still I'd love to try someday.




If you are anywhere near a US base you can find americans there to play.  It's harder, but you might be able to find some online to play too.


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## Lanliss (Oct 1, 2015)

For what it's worth, I think X-COM would be perfect for dnd. It already has a class system, and a movement system that would be perfect for the speed system of dnd. It has AOE weapons that can be reskinned to be the various spells. I now find my self hoping for this, even though it may never happen.


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## Dargrimm (Oct 1, 2015)

Ahrimon said:


> If you are anywhere near a US base you can find americans there to play.  It's harder, but you might be able to find some online to play too.




I'm a Spaniard living in a small city in Osaka. No US bases near here.


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## trancejeremy (Oct 4, 2015)

Lanliss said:


> For what it's worth, I think X-COM would be perfect for dnd. It already has a class system, and a movement system that would be perfect for the speed system of dnd. It has AOE weapons that can be reskinned to be the various spells. I now find my self hoping for this, even though it may never happen.




There was a game for the Playstation Portable called D&D Tactics. It was essentially like X-com


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## Lanliss (Oct 4, 2015)

That might be enough for me to get a psp. I know basically nothing about video game making/modding. Would it be difficult to make a full mod for XCOM to make it dnd? Would need a melee mechanic(do not believe com had melee, but might be wrong). 

Also, as far as the reactions go some people complained it would be annoying to cycle through everyone saying yes or no to the chance. I think this could be handled by having ranges set. So if two fighters are next to each other, one could react to an enemy attacking the other, if the enemy is in melee range, but if the enemy is out of range(like on the exact opposite side) a reaction is impossible.

I think I might be turning this into a discussion for a different thread.


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## Tia Nadiezja (Oct 6, 2015)

I was rather disappointed by that too... I was hoping to see the subclass system implemented; instead we got this weird skill tree system that's just baffling.

Actually... subclasses were the big 5e innovation I was looking forward to playing about with in a video game.


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## Tyranthraxus (Oct 7, 2015)

I just wish the Mandate had been more 'Stick to the 5e rules and if that means that the game has to be a single player focus then so be it'.


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## gyor (Oct 11, 2015)

Its a shame that there is still no good D&D games that feel like they're repective editions since NWN2, the last D&D game out there that actually felt like D&D and worth actually playing.

 I wonder if it possible to create a 5e mod for NWN2?


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## gyor (Oct 11, 2015)

Tyranthraxus said:


> I just wish the Mandate had been more 'Stick to the 5e rules and if that means that the game has to be a single player focus then so be it'.




 Me too.


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## DaveDash (Oct 12, 2015)

I am a computer gamer AND D&D player. I enjoy games like Diablo for what they're worth.

However I am disappointed in this game. It was advertised as a D&D game, and while I can understand changing some things to make it more MP/CRPG friendly, this game is basically a mix of Diablo and Divinity Original Sin.

No standard D&D skills. No skill checks. Very limited DM control. Quite hard to play with less than four players because of the way scaling seems to work.

This was advertised as a game that could be a digital TTRPG but it's nothing like it - at all.

There are better CRPG single player games and better CRPG multiplayer games. Even NWN with a DM offers a much better TTRPG experience than this.

It may get better over time, we'll see, but I think there are fundamental assumptions in the game that will prevent it from ever being great.


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## JNC (Oct 13, 2015)

I'm not sure how OFF-TOPIC this is but here goes.


Glad to see there are many frustrated gamers. I pretty muched stopped buying games b/c there aren't very many that offer anything more than an avenue to waste time.

The only games that really appeal to me are mindless replayable indie games like Nuclear Throne, The Binding of Isaac, or Crypt of the Necrodancer. After the learning curve, games like that are super fun.

I hope Fallout 4 doesn't suck as bad as I think it is. Just walking around shooting gets old fast, no amount of mods can fix a shooter with a bad story-IMO-Not knocking anyone else's enjoyment. Can't wait for the next Obsidian Fallout. Obsidian does a much better job with story and DLC.


Who's to say multiplayer can't be enjoyed as a long-term turn-based experience? With internet and saves, it would be easier than hunting down players IRL. X-com's popularity shows these games can be successful.

If Sony or Microsoft were serious about winning the console war, games like Warmachine/Hordes, Malifaux, D&D/Pathfinder or games like those would be developed by in-house studio for digital only exclusives. 
There's no good reason boardgames shouldn't be represented digitally- as popular as they are.


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## Mergon (Oct 13, 2015)

MoonSong(Kaiilurker) said:


> No sorcerer, no sell...




  The wizard in Sword Coast Legends is much more like a sorcerer than being anyway near like a wizard. No spell book, no ability to change your spells, etc.

  I pre-ordered the cheapest version of the game but I doubt I'll buy any of the DLC unless some major changes are made; especially to the wizard class.


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## MoonSong (Oct 13, 2015)

Mergon said:


> The wizard in Sword Coast Legends is much more like a sorcerer than being anyway near like a wizard. No spell book, no ability to change your spells, etc.
> 
> I pre-ordered the cheapest version of the game but I doubt I'll buy any of the DLC unless some major changes are made; especially to the wizard class.




But still a wizard, wizards are a big no no for me, thank you but I pass....


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## Ahrimon (Oct 14, 2015)

MoonSong(Kaiilurker) said:


> But still a wizard, wizards are a big no no for me, thank you but I pass....




A rose by any other name...


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## MoonSong (Oct 14, 2015)

Ahrimon said:


> A rose by any other name...




If it can't safely dump intelligence (and real dump, not a 10-11 dump, I'm talking 3-5 low) I'm not interested...


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