Pathfinder Kingmaker is bigger then Deadfire

[PatrioticChief]

I definitely enjoy PF so far but you can tell it was made by folk with less resources than say Pillars. I'm playing normal and nothing about the combat has come across as unfair. Heck, it's even too easy and that's for someone with only a rudimentary understanding of the mechanics. But there are too many quality of life issues for me to invest significant time in the game. I'll wait until they clear out the bugs and institute some quality of life changes and then I will restart it. In the meantime Pillars DLC dropped the same day so I've enjoyed that instead.  

 

EDIT: To clarify I really like what I see and have enjoyed it so far. It's just if you only have five or six hours for gaming a week why waste half that time watching your characters slog across a map because they are fatigued and you can do nothing about it?

Edited September 27, 2018 by PatrioticChief

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

God damn I can't wait to finish work to go play.......! Euuurggghhhh! 5 hours and 51 minutes.

I feel you. I have loads of work coming up this weekend, so I'll have to settle for just a few hours more of P:KM, when I just wanna binge.

[Mamoulian War]

Can you please post a screenshot of auto-pause menu options?

[Wormerine]

The game is getting Mixed on Steam. Why?

 

Because its higher difficulty levels are effing HARD AS HELL and most players aren't even familiar with the setting.

That sort of indicates that the game isn't very well designed, though. There is difference between high skill sealing, or high difficulty, and game not explaining its mechanics or having balance issues. If it is a fairly faithful table-top adaptation than it is an uphill battle (don't know the system, and didn't try the game myself - just guessing). Just like with D&D those don't translate elegantly into a digital setting. From the comments it seems much more like a "game problem", rather than "player problem". 

[IndiraLightfoot]

Can you please post a screenshot of auto-pause menu options?

Your wish is my command! Here are my settings currently:

The list of options is long. It continues here:

[IndiraLightfoot]

 

The game is getting Mixed on Steam. Why?

 

Because its higher difficulty levels are effing HARD AS HELL and most players aren't even familiar with the setting.

That sort of indicates that the game isn't very well designed, though. There is difference between high skill sealing, or high difficulty, and game not explaining its mechanics or having balance issues. If it is a fairly faithful table-top adaptation than it is an uphill battle (don't know the system, and didn't try the game myself - just guessing). Just like with D&D those don't translate elegantly into a digital setting. From the comments it seems much more like a "game problem", rather than "player problem". 

 

It's like all of the above! To the joy of a few and to the detriment of others.

 

Josh circumscribed so many D&D PnP-like issues and problems, especially when he designed Deadfire. Gratz to that! But in so doing, he made a game where you can have five super-balanced party members with super-balanced skills and everything, and if you use your AI settings, well there isn't much variety or urgency left. Well, sometimes - I exaggerate - but with 5 guys in your party, you'll mow down the opposition without even clicking, and you don't have to know the system very well in order to do so.

 

Here, we have the opposite. A pretty faithful PnP conversion, where timing, choices of skills, spells and attacks used matter and you need adapt to each and every situation (This is where the skill ceiling becomes so important, and learning it, well, mileage may vary), and simple random outcomes of die rolls during combat (those in themselves, aren't skill-based, just based on pure chance) will be a matter of life and death during our starting levels, even the tutorial. Is it good digital game design? Perhaps not, but is it Pathfinder? Definitely. These first levels are a bit like the good old Fighting Fantasy books. Oops! I took the wrong door. I died. I'll start over, or rather, I'll flip back a few pages and try another door. So, save-scumming, absolutely legit, especially if you're new to this kind of game. Just keep reloading, my friend, since you're gonna die, a lot.

Edited September 27, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot

[Manveru123]

 

The game is getting Mixed on Steam. Why?

 

Because its higher difficulty levels are effing HARD AS HELL and most players aren't even familiar with the setting.

That sort of indicates that the game isn't very well designed, though. There is difference between high skill sealing, or high difficulty, and game not explaining its mechanics or having balance issues. If it is a fairly faithful table-top adaptation than it is an uphill battle (don't know the system, and didn't try the game myself - just guessing). Just like with D&D those don't translate elegantly into a digital setting. From the comments it seems much more like a "game problem", rather than "player problem". 

 

I get what you're saying, but considering that all of the difficulty sliders can be changed at any time, I feel like everyone can find a difficulty level appropriate for them. Negative reviews are mostly the result of salt. That's how gamers react when they're getting trampled and lose bragging rights because suddenly they can't even handle the Prologue. I'm pretty sure when Dark Souls first came out, it was the same, but look at it now.

[Manveru123]

Here's a perfect quote from Steam:

 

"After PoE 1 & 2, people have been (rightfully) clammering for a more hardcore experience, with innovative features, a less traditional story, less forced progressive ideology, and less spoon feeding, but when they finally get it, they don't appreciate it because they mentally can't handle the fact that they're not familiar enough with the game yet to play it on hard/unfair mode. "

Edited September 27, 2018 by Manveru123

[TheMetaphysician]

All this talk of how hard the game is makes me really happy! I'm so looking forward to playing a game with real difficulty, where difficulty settings below the highest one are still quite hard. That makes me care about the story so much more. I love one of the posters' comment that he felt like he had to back off of some of his encounters. I love having to make that kind of decision! The game sounds perfect for me.

 

I backed it, but haven't had a chance to play yet. I'm glad to hear it exceeding my expectations for difficulty.

[Chilloutman]

I dont feel like game is hard, its just sometimes too punishing or reterded, as mentioned previously wikth stats regain, I am now in situation when my char got low str, so I decided to rest for few days. Ok now every rest I got some 'choose your advendure' type action and no matter what I select I wake up exhausted, and that action is repeating EVERY night, so I am sitting in middle of map with STR 2 character and can't move. Tell me how this is difficulity issue...

[Gfted1]

Do all damages cause some kind of stat loss? I know you mentioned spiders earlier but what about for example "random bandit mook"?

[Manveru123]

That's related to a quest. If you can't move, you're probably encumbered. Not something I'd normally say to a guy, but.. strip.

 

@Gfted1

No, only some abilities do that.

[IndiraLightfoot]

@Chilloutman: Just you wait! There are negative energy levels. Soon, you'll be drained of levels too in that very same way. IMHO, you should never allow that to happen. If you see your stats or levels dissipate like that, load an earlier save, since you're either doing something you shouldn't or pushing the envelope a bit too far for now. 

 

Similarly with combat: In a game like this, you cannot just throw caution to the wind and bumrush the baddies. You'll just die horribly (which, by the way, you actually can do in Deadfire, even at PotD-difficulty, lasso your party and just order them to attack en masse, that is. Is that good game design? Not so sure.) At times, there are swarms of tiny enemies, so if you don't adapt, using AoE stuff, you'll get drained of stats and just die, no matter how strong/good your characters are, since you were dealing with the encounter in a suboptimal way or even the wrong way. And obviously, P:KM includes a few classical cases, where you need to kill monsters like trolls and werewolves, using special weapons and damage types.

 

Alright, I've hidden these screenies behind spoilers:

 

One example of my mid level 2 party backing away, simply because, no, you don't take on something like that at lvl 2:

 

 

 

 

 

And I mentioned that it took me like 5 hours until I found my first magical weapon. Well, two screenies of this too (still a lvl 2 party here):

 

 

 

 

 

And yet another example of neat alignment reactivity

 

 

This time, Linzi and I had a little chat with a gurgling drowned one, hidden by the UI below. Spooky!

 

 

Edited September 27, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot

[Starwars]

Is the game focused on combat like BG or more of a mix like something like Fallout? Not familiar with Pathfinder.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I'd say that it's like BG (prolly more encounters, perhaps like Temple of Elemental Evil?), but Act 2 and onwards, you have a pretty intricate kingdom building/maintenance/defence feature going, not exactly a city in Civilization, but more advanced than your castle in NWN2, for instance. Stuff you find on your explored maps may give your kingdom more visitors, more resources, tactical advantages, and so forth.

Edited September 27, 2018 by IndiraLightfoot

[Tale]

I ran around the map grinding random encounters, then went back to the area I was having trouble at. Fought a few things I thought would be too strong, found they weren't, and eventually hit level 3. And then ended up in a place that rounded out my party to 6.

 

Let's do this!

 

Only downside is I don't have enough rations to rest inside a dungeon.

[IndiraLightfoot]

I ran around the map grinding random encounters, then went back to the area I was having trouble at. Fought a few things I thought would be too strong, found they weren't, and eventually hit level 3. And then ended up in a place that rounded out my party to 6.

 

Let's do this!

 

Only downside is I don't have enough rations to rest inside a dungeon.

And another problem, when planning for dungeons, you buy those camping rations, and the darn things are very cumbersome. I made the mistake of buying 22 at one go, and my party was moving like in syrup, so I had to bite the bullet, and sell a few of them back to the vendor. Now, I'm just bringing the right amount for a dungeon (given that there's no hunting).

[Manveru123]

Is the game focused on combat like BG or more of a mix like something like Fallout? Not familiar with Pathfinder.

BG wasn't focused on combat. IWD was. This game feels like a mix so far.

[Tale]

Oh, and word of advice. There's a tooltip that tells you that torches do AOE damage and swarms hate them. The tooltip is a bloody liar.

 

Who gives a swarm something like 30 HP, anyway? It's madness!

[Mamoulian War]

I dont feel like game is hard, its just sometimes too punishing or reterded, as mentioned previously wikth stats regain, I am now in situation when my char got low str, so I decided to rest for few days. Ok now every rest I got some 'choose your advendure' type action and no matter what I select I wake up exhausted, and that action is repeating EVERY night, so I am sitting in middle of map with STR 2 character and can't move. Tell me how this is difficulity issue...

This might be probably bug, but try to put down all your armour before sleep. In PnP sleeping in armour unless you have Endurance feat makes you fatigued/exhausted. I do not know how the game handles this though. Still had no chance to buy it.

[Tale]

 

I dont feel like game is hard, its just sometimes too punishing or reterded, as mentioned previously wikth stats regain, I am now in situation when my char got low str, so I decided to rest for few days. Ok now every rest I got some 'choose your advendure' type action and no matter what I select I wake up exhausted, and that action is repeating EVERY night, so I am sitting in middle of map with STR 2 character and can't move. Tell me how this is difficulity issue...

This might be probably bug, but try to put down all your armour before sleep. In PnP sleeping in armour unless you have Endurance feat makes you fatigued/exhausted. I do not know how the game handles this though. Still had no chance to buy it.

 

Game handles it automatically. If you get ambushed, armored characters fight without.

[kanisatha]

 

The detailed digital walk-through is behind schedule so they will release what they have now, which only goes through chapter 3, and release the whole thing later when it gets done.

 

 

Why is the game developer spending any time on a walkthrough? Assuming you are right here, I find this quite baffling. I thought they just made the game, and others played it. If someone out there wanted to do a walkthrough, they could, but I don't see why. (Isn't using a walkthrough the best possible way to ruin your game? Like, voluntarily giving the joy of discovery to other people, not having any yourself?)

It was a KS add-on you could buy. I agree it's not the best use of their time, especially given they're a very small team, but it also means doing crowdfunding was also something they were learning on the fly. I think it is honorable that they are sticking with all their KS promises, even the ones that are not quite ideal.

[Chilloutman]

Oh, and word of advice. There's a tooltip that tells you that torches do AOE damage and swarms hate them. The tooltip is a bloody liar.

 

Who gives a swarm something like 30 HP, anyway? It's madness!

 

I just gave up, got back to post and bought like 10 firebombs and bombrushed that effing swarm.

[Tale]

I have a bunch of firebombs. But the firebombs only do 1 damage to each swarm. The swarms move too fast and then I'm stuck throwing into melee at -8 penalty. I'd need to roll an 18 to hit.

[Chilloutman]

@Chilloutman: Just you wait! There are negative energy levels. Soon, you'll be drained of levels too in that very same way. IMHO, you should never allow that to happen. If you see your stats or levels dissipate like that, load an earlier save, since you're either doing something you shouldn't or pushing the envelope a bit too far for now. 

 

Yeah I get it, but I just dont want to rest after each battle with 3 spiders or centipides

 

I loade erlier save and just got to that location game forced me to to get rid of that effing dream. Stupid desing