From time to time I’m likely to provide my opinion on games, books, etc. that relate to D&D specifically. Recently I’ve found an app game called Warriors of Waterdeep that I’ve been playing for a little while. Since the game uses characters from Forgotten Realms and seems to be licensed by Wizards of the Coast, it seems fair to address it here.
What is it?
Warriors of Waterdeep is a single player, party based combat simulation, that attempts to capture the feel of a D&D game (I’m assuming that’s what they’re going for) on your phone or tablet.
There are three primary modes of adventure: Explore, Battle, and Challenge.
In Explore you progress through a short series of dungeon adventures, combating foes in 2-3 rooms before exiting and unlocking the next adventure.
In Battle you are pitted against another player who currently ranks in the same arena level as you do. Combat functions the same with the exception of a timer, which limits the time you have to take your turn with a character to 10 seconds.
In challenge, you enter a larger dungeon consisting of 9 rooms, in which you will encounter the same boss at different difficulties 3 separate times, each time earning you a reward die, which you roll after the challenge is exited (finished or not), and which generates rewards that you choose from.
What I like About it
It’s fun, especially at first. Each character has a short backstory, unique abilities and gear that is tailored to them. Combat is quick to learn, and of course combat against monsters is easy early on.
Rewards are seemingly overflowing early on, with new items, characters, etc. showing up often and quickly.
The Explore adventures, in particular, are at least somewhat satisfying. Though there’s no travel in the game, or any real exploration, this mode best captures the traditional sense of “questing”.
What I Don’t Like About it
Sadly, pretty much everything else.
The game is free, but the entire game advertises “freemium” content. For a one time payment you can buy yourself gems, which you can use to speed up your progress. For a subscription you can increase your rewards from dungeons. For a one time payment you can unlock more quest rewards (not from actually defeating foes, or do-gooding, but from doing things like moving a character so many time, winning so many battles, etc.).
Challenges go up ridiculously fast in difficulty. This will result in you doing the same challenge over and over grinding for rewards, all the while desperately longing for the day when your characters can actually beat it. This will take longer and longer as you progress to more difficult challenges.
The entire system revolves around collecting cards. Get enough cards of the same piece of gear and you can upgrade it, IF you have enough gold. Upgrade your gear and the character who uses it will get an amount of xp (because that’s how RPGs work!). Gold is in scarce supply and is used to level up gear and characters, ensuring that you’ll want lots of it, but you can always get more with gems.
Adventuring is typically done with a party. Choose 4 warriors to be in your party and go into combat. This makes sense.
But when you go into Battle against other players, your warriors are chosen from a larger group called your roster. Your roster grows as your player level increases, which means that if you want to be successful you need to keep all the characters in your roster leveled up, but that needs more gold, and when you level your characters up, your player level goes up and your roster gets bigger, so you need to level up more…
You get the idea.
Probably what bugs me the most is the fact that characters level up by leveling up their gear. Finishing a challenge might grant 80+ xp, but leveling up a level 0 piece of common gear is worth 50 xp, then 100xp, and so on. This isn’t D&D, it’s a cheap way to bilk players out of money for a lousy gaming experience.
Would I Recommend?
If you’re looking for something to do while waiting at the laundromat or dropping some friends off at the pool, there are worse ways to spend your time.
If you decide to spend money on it…don’t tell me or my opinion of you will almost certainly diminish at least slightly.
I’m honestly a little bit ashamed of WoTC for licensing this junk. It could have been made with a unique world and characters, but I know a lot of people will find it, play it, and pay for it, just because it has the Dungeons and Dragons name brand. It’s not a good game, it’s not (in my estimation) worth more than about $0.99, but they charge $14.99/month for a subscription, which is as much or more than a full bodied MMO.
Long story short, I would not recommend.