Head Start 3 Impressions - A chronicle of Character, DM and Dungeon.

Bluddwolf

This is my placeholder thread and beginning at 2:00 PM Eastern I hope to be in-game.  About every two hours, I intend to break away and post the progress of my character, DM sessions and the response to my own published dungeon quest.

YashaX

Cool mate, looking forward to reading more.

Alcuin

I'm on the fence about purchasing this title.  Thanks for taking the time to do this.  Also looking forward to reading.  

Bluddwolf

Ok, so here goes a very brief start to recording my experiences yesterday:

I ran ran through a dungeon yesterday, with an active DM, who put an incredible amount of detail and dialogue into his quest.  During the running of the quest, he used the in-game VOIP to describe some of the events or sounds that were not coded.  The quest took just under 2 hours and it was quite fun.  The player group was a PuG group, and behaved quite well.

One of the players, a previous Steam Friend of mine,  had only picked up the game yesterday.  Both his experience and mine was the first time that we had an active DM.  He expressed seeing great potential for the game.  We all had a great time.  

The fact that the head start has a limited amount of the DM tool set, bodes quite well for the game.  

I also made a list of seven new players to add to my friends list on Steam.  These are players, and one DM I can count on to play well, fairly and made the experience fun.

The game is definitely D&D, with elements of:  5E; Generic D&D; Video Game D&D, and if you put your efforts and mind, it does capture that TTRPG feel.

I don't want to get all involved in splinting hairs on what acronym (genre) the game is.  For me it is a:

CAMRPG (Computer Action Multiplayer RPG).  

PS:  I was taken by surprise that my characters carried over from the previous Head Start.  I thought they were on the fence on that, I guess they let us keep them.  

Bluddwolf

So here is my wrap up on Head Start 3...about 31 hours of game time total (not all actually in dungeons).

I leveled my main (Rogue) up to level 13.  He has a few purple items, nothing really earth shatteringly powerful.  

He is a mix between Scoundrel, Assassin and Two Weapon Fighting.  So for those that complain there is no multiclassing in SCL, well there sort of is.  In 5E rules You can play a Rogue / Thief, a Rogue / Assassin, or a Rogue / Arcane Trickster.   In SCL you can choose skills from any of the following:

Scoundrel
Thief
Assassin
Arcane Trickster
Two Weapon Fighting
Martial
Archery
Skills / Proficiency

This allows for a much more diverse skill set, compared to the 5E rule book, IMHO.

For those that say it is not 5E, well some of it is there, and perhaps more will come with additional classes and races.  

For those that say it is not D&D, well that is simply absurd.  There are ways to play the game that will more closely resemble TT PnP D&D, if they choose to.   The components of which are:

1.  Live DM + Four Players that play well (and that includes play fair and nice).
 
2.  Everyone on Team Speak or some other VOIP (the game comes with in-game VOIP, but I prefer not to have push-to-talk).

3.  Set the Campaign / Quests to Hard Mode  (Medium as a minimum if time is an issue)

4.  Allow for the Pause Feature (DM choice).  

These four things allow for a much more familiar feel to the table top PnP experience.  The pausing allows for you to discuss tactics with your party, just like TT.  The external TS allows for you to set coms at speak-to-talk, and the DM can have his/her setting to "priority" where it lowers everyone else's output, when he or she speaks.  

What I'm excited about:

We have been told there is a lot more, not revealed yet, that will come when the game releases.  That not only includes the single player campaign, but also includes many more DM tools (tile sets, monsters, etc), additional companions and probably a lot more.  

What I hope they add:

1.  A real, in-game, player hub where player characters in much larger numbers can meet up and form adventure parties there.

2.  The ability to read the background of other characters.  Maybe even be able to view their gear and see their character in a closer view.  
 

YashaX

Sounds great, thanks for the write up. From my brief experience playing I found the rogue died really easily and it was hard to control the flow of battle- mobs would run right past my front line.

How did you handle the rogue and were you able to figure out how the AI worked? Or did you only play in groups with the DM directing all the mobs?

Bluddwolf

YashaX said:

Sounds great, thanks for the write up. From my brief experience playing I found the rogue died really easily and it was hard to control the flow of battle- mobs would run right past my front line.

How did you handle the rogue and were you able to figure out how the AI worked? Or did you only play in groups with the DM directing all the mobs?

I always play my rogues like a fearless, sociopath. Duel weapon wielding, charge right in, and hit fast and hard the soft targets first.  It was harder at lower level, but once I got to mid level (7ish) I was able to hold my own with less risk of death.  

Having a 25 Dex, 18 Strength and 16 Constitution also helps quite a bit.  

YashaX

Bluddwolf said:

YashaX said:

Sounds great, thanks for the write up. From my brief experience playing I found the rogue died really easily and it was hard to control the flow of battle- mobs would run right past my front line.

How did you handle the rogue and were you able to figure out how the AI worked? Or did you only play in groups with the DM directing all the mobs?

I always play my rogues like a fearless, sociopath. Duel weapon wielding, charge right in, and hit fast and hard the soft targets first.  It was harder at lower level, but once I got to mid level (7ish) I was able to hold my own with less risk of death.  

Having a 25 Dex, 18 Strength and 16 Constitution also helps quite a bit.  

Excellent, good to know they toughen up a bit.

Alcuin

Thanks for the update- especially for detailing how a group might better emulate a PnP experience.

There can be a lot of talking in a PnP session and it sounds like the DM pause feature will allow for that; certainly not what everyone's looking for, but it's good to know it's there. 

You say you have "purple items."  I've read that loot is random, but is it at all controllable by the DM?  Loot tables, level of items, etc. 

MMOreaver

Sry.. but what you write and what I read here is quite a difference.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/09/22/sword-coast-legends-delay/#comments

Aside from the DM stuff (which is just average and limited) this whole game is average now. It´s just another Action-RPG. Very sad, reminds me of NwN2 when it came out. I do understand anyone who uses the Refund-button. Maybe in 1-2years for 10$ ..after dozens of patches, but then again Divinity 2 might Release
I stick with Shards Online ,they deliver what they promise.

Bluddwolf

MMOreaver said:

Sry.. but what you write and what I read here is quite a difference.
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2015/09/22/sword-coast-legends-delay/#comments

Aside from the DM stuff (which is just average and limited) this whole game is average now. It´s just another Action-RPG. Very sad, reminds me of NwN2 when it came out. I do understand anyone who uses the Refund-button. Maybe in 1-2years for 10$ ..after dozens of patches, but then again Divinity 2 might Release
I stick with Shards Online ,they deliver what they promise.

What I wrote is based on 34 hours of game play, and the realization that we are only seeing a fraction of the game during head start.  What I read in the article you linked does not sound like it was written from someone who actually played the game, or not for very long, but more likely just lazily read a handful of negative posts and regurgitated them.

"It is not very D&Dish" is the silliest of the arguments, although you can claim it is not very 5e I suppose.

btw, few people are more old school D&D as I am.  I only played during the 1E years, from 1977 to 1987, almost daily for several hours per day.   I skipped over 2 - 4 (including Pathfinder) and only bought 5E to use as reference materials for SCL.  

But, to each their own, good luck in finding what you're looking for.