New Real Time With Pause Dungeons & Dragons RPG - SWORD COAST LEGENDS

[Darkpriest]

If the inflated numders are real then unfortunately i will pass it. I do not need another mmo clone gameplay wise.

[IndiraLightfoot]

"What the fudge!? Inflated HP? Cooldowns? No Vancian magic? Spell tiers?"

 

 

Edited March 5, 2015 by IndiraLightfoot

[Gfted1]

SOLD!

[Stun]

"What the fudge!? Inflated HP? Cooldowns? No Vancian magic? Spell tiers?"

Moral of the story: You can take the developer out of Bioware but you can't take the Bioware out of the developer.

[Darkpriest]

Next thing i will see will be spell and ability dmg derived from the dps of the weapon... (sic!)

[Amentep]

I could see a case being made that the demo gives extra HP to characters so that the game can be showed off without the party dying.  So I wouldn't say that this is necessarily an indicator that the final game is going to have artificial HP inflation.

 

Not that it matters to me, a character getting hit for 7 pts with 26 hit points isn't statistically different from a character getting hit for 70 pts with 260 hps...it'd still take 4 hits like that to kill the character.

[archangel979]

When they said in one interview that it is important that fireball is a mid level spells that does AoE damage more than that it does precisely 6d6 damage, they were not kidding. I was just hoping that it means they are going to give spells a x-xx values or just give them flat average values, not change it all. The HP change will make sure all attacks do more damage and it makes sense with cooldown system where you will get to throw around your "cool" fireballs often instead of once or twice before rest. Now they can give us the action DAO combat we always wanted with no stopping and losing time on unimportant decisions like resting and preparing spells.

Pff, who in 2015 wants to make decisions on which spell to use for next combat, so we are given these cool cooldowns and big health bars so this cool, awesome, shiny battle can last even longer and we can throw even more cool fireballs when they get off cooldown...

Edited March 5, 2015 by archangel979

[Gfted1]

Im trying to figure out the PoE Wizard HP so tell me if this is right:
 
Endurance is base of 30 + 10 / level. So a level 6 Wizard will have 90 Endurance
Health is Endurance x 3. So a level 6 Wizard will have 270 Health
 
And I assume this is based on CON set to 10, so theres room to go up.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Pieces of news from mmorpg.com:

 

"In our demo, we were told that the adventure creator will be very accessible and easy to use, giving you the ability to create encounters in minutes.  You can create adventures and put them out there for others to play, or DM in real-time, and there will be a rating system so that you can find a DM that matches your playstyle.  There definitely seems to be a lot of potential here for your weekly gaming group that just doesn’t seem to be able to get it together to create a fresh new adventure experience every time, as well as an opportunity to find like-minded players on the internets.  Furthermore, Sword Coast Legends will support full-fledged campaigns, which the devs will be discussing in the near future."

 

"In our GDC 2015 preview, we first got to look at a small portion of the single-player campaign and a dungeon delve through the sewers beneath Luskan, which showed off the game’s rich use of Forgotten Realms lore and tactical combat.  Like the single-player RPGs before it, Sword Coast Legends allows you to pause the action to micromanage your party as much as you’d like. The demo also showed off a very prettily realized aboveground Luskan, with classic landmarks that Forgotten Realms buffs will recognize, such as the Cutlass inn."

[500MetricTonnes]

New screenie from GDC:

How about a wizard and with surprisingly high hps to beat (not that I care. I wouldn't miss out on this game for the world):

Nitpicking time:

 

- I still don't like the colour scheme of this game. I'm looking over all the screenshots on the official site and they all look very drab, dull, and dreary, like there's a grey cloud hanging over them. Forgotten Realms isn't a dark and gritty setting, so why does the game look like it's trying to ape The Witcher? In fact, that's not even a fair comparison, because even The Witcher 2 doesn't shy away from contrast and colour saturation.

- If a Level 6 Wizard has 267HP, how much HP do you think bosses will have? I suspect the game will follow the Dragon Age method of artificially increasing the difficulty of boss fights by giving them more HP than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

- Why oh why have developers abandoned the concept of a grid inventory? The sorted list system used by modern RPGs is worse in nearly every way. I've made this post before, but it bears repeating:

 

Here's a grid inventory:

 

 

Every item is represented by an easily-recognisable icon. Not only that, the entire inventory is visible; no scrolling required. You can arrange the inventory as you see fit, meaning that finding an item is more "All right, where did I put it?" and less about tediously scrolling through some long list. Since each party member has their own inventory, you can choose who will carry certain items. For instance, I might decide that, since Minsc has high STR, he'll be carrying all the armour and weapons we pick up, while Aerie, our healer, will carry all our potions and other restorative items.

 

NWN added separate pages, thus allowing for more organisation; I usually decided that page 1 was weapons, page 2 was armour, page 3 was scrolls, page 4 was potions, etc.

 

Now look at the SCL example. There's sorting, but that won't help much when the inventory list can only display eight items at a time. And with four party members, you're probably going to end up carrying a lot of loot.

 

On another point, why do these modern RPGs insist on using ALLCAPS for some (or all) of their UI? Witcher 2 does it. Dragon Age: Inquisition does it. This game does it. Don't the developers realise that making everything ALLCAPS reduces readability?

[Lychnidos]

New screenie from GDC:

How about a wizard and with surprisingly high hps to beat (not that I care. I wouldn't miss out on this game for the world):

 

The layout of the character screen and the inventory is almost completely the same as in DAO. 

[HoonDing]

Muscle wizard confirmed.

[Gfted1]

Seems to be about equal to PoE wizard.

[213374U]

I could see a case being made that the demo gives extra HP to characters so that the game can be showed off without the party dying.  So I wouldn't say that this is necessarily an indicator that the final game is going to have artificial HP inflation.

 

Not that it matters to me, a character getting hit for 7 pts with 26 hit points isn't statistically different from a character getting hit for 70 pts with 260 hps...it'd still take 4 hits like that to kill the character.

 

Yep. Question is why they would choose to go with arbitrary numbers instead of 1d4/level + CON*, or whatever the sourcebooks dictate. Chances are they are messing around with to-hit rolls, damage outputs, etc. This may or may not work out, but it does seem to hint at a departure from the source material. What's the point of making a D&D game... if you aren't using the D&D rules.

 

*disclaimer: I have no idea if that's the actual value in 5e. I'm post-3.5e illiterate.

Edited March 5, 2015 by 213374U

[archangel979]

mages in 5e use 1d6+con bonus for HP, max at lvl 1. 

[Vaeliorin]

I could see a case being made that the demo gives extra HP to characters so that the game can be showed off without the party dying.  So I wouldn't say that this is necessarily an indicator that the final game is going to have artificial HP inflation.

It would seem better to just make the characters immortal, so as not to give an incorrect impression of the game.

 

Not that it matters to me, a character getting hit for 7 pts with 26 hit points isn't statistically different from a character getting hit for 70 pts with 260 hps...it'd still take 4 hits like that to kill the character.

It's mostly just a matter of adherence to the source material, to me. As was said, it seems silly to make a "D&D" game that has nothing to do with the actual D&D mechanics. It seems like they just want to make a Forgotten Realms game, which honestly doesn't appeal to me at all (as it appears 5E Forgotten Realms returns to the boring cliche Realms from 3.X and earlier.)

[archangel979]

I just looked through all screenshots and looked at damage from attacks and stats of creatures when shown.

 

The newer screenshots seem to have a bit strange numbers. Like the lvl 1 creature (duergar theurge) has AC 5 but in older screenshot zombie has AC 12. The first creature (duergar theurge) has HP 60 and they didn't show zombie HP although it said he is also lvl 1.

Higher HP are not strange in D&D 5e, a brown bear is a lvl 1 challenge that has 34 hp. He is meant to be an average challenge to 4 lvl 1 adventurers.

But 60 HP for a lvl 1 characters that also seems to be a caster is too much. So if this represents how the game will be, they gave creatures at least 3x of their standard HP. But the lvl 6 boss has 3300 HP and this is more than 3x of challenge 20 dragons.

 

Next damage. Zombie did 8 damage plus a bonus if he hits with a bite. The caster lvl 1 (duergar theurge) did 4 (probably with his base weapon) but I expect he will do more with spells. Creatures probably always do max damage with their attacks. But zombie creature also had 1d4+10 bite damage so we know there is at least some random element to damage.

Then there are plenty of screens where players do damage to enemies. Highest one I seen was 96 from a Call Lightning. Ray of Frost II usually did around 20 and I seen Magic Missile where each missile was around 11. But I also seen damage under 10. It seems basic attacks do low damage for all attacks (player and creature) but special attacks/spells do about 2x to 3x of core rules.

 

The screenshots also show critical hits, critical misses and saving from spells. Also cooldown on skills I think are a combination of cooldown and duration.

 

My conclusion from all of this is that the game will use cooldown mechanic to have all spells available often and big HP numbers to make battles last longer. The battles will revolve around using same skills in each combat, only combining them with other party members in possible smart ways.

Armor I am not sure if they changed some numbers for GDC demo or if it works differently than in PnP. Since there are critical hits and misses, maybe it does not. Also I would not surprised if they removed saves and put that AC as one governing mechanic for both physical attack and spells.

 

The game will play nothing like IE games, but it might have better combat than NWN games.

[Guard Dog]

What the hell. Count me in.

 

I just pre-ordered. Here's hoping it won't suck.

[ryukenden]

The game is still developing. Some should tell devs we don't want inflated hp. Its needs to stick like its done in the monster manual.

[Guard Dog]

Actually if I could tell them anything I'd say use 2nd ed. rules, setting & Monster Manual and include Greyhawk & Planescape settings. I'd pay double for that. Triple. 

[HoonDing]

Doesn't really matter if monsters have 5000 HP if you do 500 damage per hit.

[Darkpriest]

Doesn't really matter if monsters have 5000 HP if you do 500 damage per hit.

Technically you are correct but i have yet to see a game with inflated numbers that would not be a mindless grind fest with painfully obvious gear checks... gear overshadows skill builds and levels and is used to fuel all dmg abiluties including spells.

[archangel979]

They said on their forums they gave inflated HP on purpose because they want fights to last more than 20seconds as they don't consider 20s to be the sweet area of not to short or too long. 

[213374U]

They said on their forums they gave inflated HP on purpose because they want fights to last more than 20seconds as they don't consider 20s to be the sweet area of not to short or too long. 

 

It figures. I wonder how they are going to compensate the increased TTK vs party survivability. Giving players more powerful or longer-lasting mitigation tools breaks routine encounters, while decreasing boss damage outputs results in "bullet sponge" fights.

 

Of course, the rationale is total bollocks. I didn't kill Irenicus in 20s the first time around, and with an AI that can actually use the level-appropriate tools it should have in a non-brain dead manner, the fight can go on for several minutes. Ain't nobody got time fo' programming decent AI in this day and age, apparently.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

 

They said on their forums they gave inflated HP on purpose because they want fights to last more than 20seconds as they don't consider 20s to be the sweet area of not to short or too long.

 

It figures. I wonder how they are going to compensate the increased TTK vs party survivability. Giving players more powerful or longer-lasting mitigation tools breaks routine encounters, while decreasing boss damage outputs results in "bullet sponge" fights.

 

Of course, the rationale is total bollocks. I didn't kill Irenicus in 20s the first time around, and with an AI that can actually use the level-appropriate tools it should have in a non-brain dead manner, the fight can go on for several minutes. Ain't nobody got time fo' programming decent AI in this day and age, apparently.

 

To be fair, SCS is really damn complex when compared to pretty much any vanilla AI.

 

I do agree though, **** AI in rpgs makes them way too easy.