Sword Coast Legends E3 Previews
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We have rounded up some write-ups on Sword Coast Legends that have been coming out of this year's E3. The DM and Campaign Creation modes have clearly made a good impressions on the journalists that attended at the event, though we don't learn much about the core moment-to-moment gameplay. Hopefully we'll get more detail previews on that aspect of the game soon.
While the game has other aspects to it, this "build a campaign" feature feels like the next evolution of Dungeons & Dragons. Forget hours of setup and boxes full of pieces everything you could ever want to play with is available here. I can definitely see this being used to host D&D games, especially for playgroups that may have become separated over the years as people move from place to place; all you have to do is log on voice chat and boom, you may as well be in the DM's living room.
I played as a dwarven rogue, fond of drink and stabby-style abilities. My ability to search and disarm traps was instrumental to the group's survival as we moved through the dungeon, and I'll admit I was probably too far ahead of the group in a lot of cases, placing me in harms way often.
RPGFan writes about the single player and DM mode. A bit on the latter:
DMs also control the ebb and flow of combat both indirectly and directly. You can promote or demote enemies, making them more dangerous or perhaps giving a slight respite if things get too tough. I was reminded of the glorious AI director in Left 4 Dead, though now I'm the one making the decisions instead of math calculations. All of the dungeons are randomly generated, but one could argue this keeps the focus on the encounters instead of level design. The developers told me I would have the opportunity to directly control the giant spider at the end of the dungeon, but the party killed the poor harmless creature too fast for me to fully comprehend everything I was capable of.
The developers talked a great deal about balancing the DM side of things as I placed a near endless supply of spider eggs and traps in a room, and this seems to be the make or break part of SCL for me. At this current stage, it seemed way too easy for me to completely overwhelm the party and end their pathetic existence (though a "cheat" kept at least one party member alive at all times for purposes of the demo build). I could directly target party members to make sure the healer stayed on the ground at all times, continue to swarm them with more and more enemies and traps, and even spawn some hard-hitting beasties directly behind them so long as they were out of a fairly small threat range. It was all good fun on my end, but I can imagine this being an utter nightmare for the heroes.
Before we started our dive into this dungeon, the GM player made some modifications to what we would face. The obvious options, like enemy types and placements, were included, but the GM can go even further. He can customize the entire experience right down to the placements of torches on walls and bloodstains on floors. Each enemy can be made special, or quick sets can be created to populate dungeons.
And what would any good D&D dungeon be without a boss at the end. We battled our way through legions of low-level mages and archers while taking out large spiders only to stumble upon a MASSIVE spider who was acting as a boss. Once the boss gets found, the GM player can actually take control of the boss, making it even tougher to win.
Speaking of combat, playing was similar to an MMO. Each character had a selection of attacks, spells, and items at their disposal. Some moves could be used over and over while others were limited to a few or even just one move. These attacks also featured cool-downs, just like attacks in MMO games. The entire display is in a isometric style, with a fixed overhead camera looking down at the action.
When talk turned to gameplay, that's when things got interesting. For non-dungeonmasters, the game brings in traps and treasures. As you may have guessed, these make rogues more valuable to the player party. A rogue can disarm traps, open locked doors, find more treasure, and enhance the amusement of the whole party. Most MMOs get rid of these kinds of mechanics since they're generally a bit of a pain in the butt and limited in their utility when they're available for just a single class that may not even be in every party.
Fortunately, SCL has improved on the tropes in the event you've gone dungeon-delving without your trusty rogue friend. First, you can just soak the damage from traps. Bring healers; if someone dies anyway, you can actually rez her yourself, no matter what class you are. And warriors can just break down doors. Both are serviceable options that may allow traps to make a comeback people are satisfied with, but that remains to be seen.
Ability-wise, I found my character didn't feel as iconic as I expected it to during my demo. I had one rogue move everyone at the demo told me to use; it teleported me behind my target to position me for a sweet backstab, but nowadays that's a pretty standard rogue move, especially in a top-down, isometric game. I can at least spin my camera to look at my surroundings, but it didn't blow me away. My racial, however, was much more interesting. Dwarves have a (secret flagon) that heals the player character a bit and gets you quite drunk, causing you to miss more. I can appreciate that nod to realism and roleplay, since racials are becoming something MMOs eliminate in the quest for ultimate balance.
Each of us had a different character to play and one person was assigned to the role of Dungeon Master. For the first half of the session, members from the development team took us through the campaign creation process. Our goal was to find out what happened to an NPC that hasn't been heard from in a while. Simple enough, right?
They pulled up an editing menu and loaded a premade map of a town. From there, they placed NPCs around, gave them dialogue, created a merchant with a merchant's wagon, gave him potions to sell, and created the quest NPC. Once speaking to her, we would be sent off to an abandoned shack in the middle of the forest. The forest was currently set to day time, so in order to make it a bit spookier, they switched it all to night time and created a heavy lightning storm. The mood immediately shifted.
The impressive part of all this is just how quickly it was accomplished. Granted, they had pre-written all of the quest dialogue and descriptions, but all of the other tweaks and placements were happening on the fly. Switching from day to night was a matter of clicking an option in a dropdown menu. Turning the rain on was equally as simple. It happened in a matter of seconds, without loading screens, really showing how powerful the campaign creation system can be.
