Sword coast legend questions.

[Jester David]

How fiddly are the DM tools? How long would it take to try everything at least once, for example?

There's a lot of hidden stuff and you can fiddle and tweak for some time. Plus testing is tricky since you're not given a full party. I can see running through something you created eating up time as you constantly die and nickle-and-dime your opponents.

 

[CaladanGuard]

How fiddly are the DM tools? How long would it take to try everything at least once, for example?

10 minutes?

Sadly...that's probably not much of an exaggeration. The DM tools are pretty basic. Pretty, at some points, but very basic and very samey.

Randomly generated dungeon. Place chairs, crate, lamp, blood pool. Creatures are pre-set and level scale, so no trying out there, just jam them down (But only from two creature sets per dungeon, ie. Undead and Goblins. Or Mercenary and Spiders). Quests are quick shot, twitter length (Literally, character limits on quest text) descriptions, no dialogue to write (Because there is no dialogue in DM tools) Place markers on a little chunk of the northern Sword Coast, or the corresponding Underdark location in their map and link them to your randomized dungeons. Jam players in. Done.

The tools feel like they -could- have been worth something, but currently, they're just not.

 

[Jester David]

10 minutes?

Sadly...that's probably not much of an exaggeration. The DM tools are pretty basic. Pretty, at some points, but very basic and very samey.

Randomly generated dungeon. Place chairs, crate, lamp, blood pool. Creatures are pre-set and level scale, so no trying out there, just jam them down (But only from two creature sets per dungeon, ie. Undead and Goblins. Or Mercenary and Spiders). Quests are quick shot, twitter length (Literally, character limits on quest text) descriptions, no dialogue to write (Because there is no dialogue in DM tools) Place markers on a little chunk of the northern Sword Coast, or the corresponding Underdark location in their map and link them to your randomized dungeons. Jam players in. Done.

The tools feel like they -could- have been worth something, but currently, they're just not.

You can also place individual monsters in the dungeon and NPCs, and the later can be made from any set and have a wide variety of abilities. So you can populate a dungeon full of mini-bosses if you so wish.

So... 20 minutes.

 

[Noctem]

I played 4 hours of this game and I plan on getting a refund ASAP. I've been refused by steam since I played more than 2 hours but it took me 4 hours to figure out how much bs the devs had fed the public. I'll be contacting them over the phone or going straight to my bank.

1. This game does not use the 5e ruleset. That's a joke from the devs. The monsters auto level to ramp as your PC's level. The level up system is totally different and the unlocking of abilities is not from 5e at all. I haven't seen feats at all in the game. I can't believe they actually think they're using the 5e ruleset for this game.

2. Graphics engine the game uses is very old. We're talking Neverwinter nights 2 era and even then NWN2 runs better than this game does. Graphical errors, bad textures, etc.. are on the menu. Considering it's 2015, and the competition for this game archtype is Pillars of Eternity, Divinity: OS and even the enhanced versions of Baldur's Gate and Icewind dale.. This is a total let down.

3. There are quotes floating around of devs stating that they wanted the DM tools to be able to do things like taking the 5e starter set and re-creating it within SCL. The quote in question even states that the DM tools would not be considered completed before they could do this task. This of course is another total let down since the tools in the game wouldn't even be able to recreate the first few encounters, towns and areas the starter set uses for example. All you can actually do is modify existing areas in simple ways. You cannot run a custom campaign, you will be completely limited by what is available. Not saying it's impossible but it's needlessly complicated. We were promised the ability to run entire campaigns via SCL. We were promised customization. They did not deliver at all.

4. Bugs, bugs everywhere.

5. The campaign that comes with the game, which I understand to run around 25~ hours has terrible voice acting. I myself played what I believe is essentially the prologue. The story was interesting for the time I played but the PC constantly speaking at every command combined with the bugs just made it annoying to force myself to play. Combine that with the realization that the game is not using the 5e ruleset amongst other things listed here I think, like others have posted, that this is colonial marines all over again.

All in all, I would give this game 3/10 and will be recommending to everyone asking not to buy.

 

[darjr]

Also I think the advice of folks to play the single player story for longer to give it a chance is a trap, if you do you won't be able to get a refund.