Pachfinder Bugmaker: The Rekkoning

[Keyrock]

Thanks for the input folks. I'll likely scoop it up next time it's on sale.

[Chilloutman]

one thing that rubs me wrong way about kingmaker is about classes versus this whole kingdom stuff. I like that management game but on other hand I really liked BG2 approach where it was more tailored to your character even if it was very limited. I mean why would druid became a king? Why can't I make this whole region some kind of magical forest or something. I really would like to try druid character but it just feels so out of place :/

[Keyrock]

Can I be super evil and rule my subjects through fear?

[Chilloutman]

Can I be super evil and rule my subjects through fear?

 

yes you can, aligment have effect on kingdom, as opposed to class

Edited April 23, 2019 by Chilloutman

[the_dog_days]

Thanks for the input folks. I'll likely scoop it up next time it's on sale.

 

Treat it like a Bethesda game and mod the crap out of it.

[Keyrock]

 

Thanks for the input folks. I'll likely scoop it up next time it's on sale.

 

Treat it like a Bethesda game and mod the crap out of it.

 

So, make all the females characters into nude supermodels? 

[ShadySands]

Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Edition announced, releasing on June 6 alongside final DLC

[Gromnir]

4 hours ago, ShadySands said:

Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Edition announced, releasing on June 6 alongside final DLC

kingdom building were what set the kingmaker adventure path apart from other pathfinder ap. unfortunate, the kingdom building as implemented by owlcat were more 'bout frustration and annoyance than anything else. anybody willing to suffer kingmaker ee and provide feedback 'bout real changes made to kingdom building will enjoy our genuine and heartfelt thanks.

HA! Good Fun!

ps as disappointed as we were with owlcat's kingmaker, am hoping they make a second pathfinder game. sure, kingmaker were a buggy mess, but there were obvious potential. would be disappointed if kingmaker were a one-off.

[Mamoulian War]

They were asking few weeks ago on their Facebook page, in what region people would love to play PF CRPG, so they are probably already behind the pitch period of the development, and soon we'll know more.

[ShadySands]

As buggy as it was and as frustrating as kingdom management could be, I still probably played this game more than any other over the last year.  A new game would be an instant pre-order/buy.

[Gromnir]

2 hours ago, ShadySands said:

As buggy as it was and as frustrating as kingdom management could be, I still probably played this game more than any other over the last year.  A new game would be an instant pre-order/buy.

the other sandbox pathfinder adventure path were skull and shackles, which were kinda what we were hoping deadfire would be. obsidian coulda' taken much inspiration from pathfinder's pirates, not least of which were the free sails regatta and neil spicer's island. unfortunate for owlcat, obsidian just did pirates.

carrion crown might be a good option, and one shady would find inherent intriguing. vampires. well, not just vampires, but all the traditional gothic horror stuff. the thing is, we believe carrion crown were paizo's best effort towards making non-combat gameplay central to an ap. could achieve many/most goals w/o combat.  regardless, gots the werewolves and vampires and even frankenstein stuff which some people like and also has unique non-combat opportunities owlcat would no doubt screw every which way so as to make Gromnir regret ever suggesting carrion crown. win-win, no? 

HA! Good Fun!

[Mamoulian War]

My favourites would be Jade Regent, because Eastern setting, and Reign of Winter, well, because Slavic setting And because Owlcat is Russian, I really, really hope, someone would pitch for the Slavic one

[MrBrown]

The Enhanced Edition is out. Apparently it doesn't immediately break everything, except custom portraits.

[Gfted1]

The base game is still $40.00! Guess Ill be waiting for a DEEP sale.

[Tale]

46 minutes ago, MrBrown said:

The Enhanced Edition is out. Apparently it doesn't immediately break everything, except custom portraits.

I was waiting on this. When they announced it and that it'd have new stuff I dropped my old game.

And since it broke custom portraits, I guess it might have to start new...

[Agiel]

1 hour ago, Gfted1 said:

The base game is still $40.00! Guess Ill be waiting for a DEEP sale.

Word of mouth post-launch has really gotten the ball rolling for this game's fortunes, so you may be waiting some time yet.

[ShadySands]

I'm looking forward to another run

[ShadySands]

3 hours ago, Gfted1 said:

The base game is still $40.00! Guess Ill be waiting for a DEEP sale.

27 bucks on GOG at the moment

[Vaeliorin]

Was looking at the Owlcat forums, and it turns out somebody made a turn-based mod for Kingmaker.  Looks pretty decent from the video the creator posted.  Needs Unity Mod Manager, but so do most Kingmaker mods, as far as I'm aware.

Just thought somebody might be interested in it.  I definitely plan to give a try at some point (I'd like to finish the game normally first, though.  Hopefully the kingdom management is less terrible now in the EE.)

Edited June 9, 2019 by Vaeliorin

[MrBrown]

Finally managed to beat the game. 

What to say. I guess "unpolished gem" is the most positive thing you can say about this? There's a lot of good stuff, but it really has it's bad sides too...

[Heijoushin]

Hello, chaps. Is it worth getting this game? Obviously, I love RPGs, but I've also played so many that I don't want to get a game unless its very good or offers something unique. There seems to be a lot of classes, which appeals to me, but how does it play compared to, say, Deadfire?

[algroth]

5 hours ago, Heijoushin said:

Hello, chaps. Is it worth getting this game? Obviously, I love RPGs, but I've also played so many that I don't want to get a game unless its very good or offers something unique. There seems to be a lot of classes, which appeals to me, but how does it play compared to, say, Deadfire?

I wasn't a fan, and it's a massive time-sink, probably twice as long as Deadfire overall and largely because of a lot of trash encounters, artificial timers surrounding the kingdom management system, and a much more extensive main story opposite to optional sidequesting and the likes. However, I would recommend giving it a try at least. It has its worthwhile elements and others have loved it so, who knows?

As to how it compares specifically with Deadfire, well... I think it doesn't. I started a second playthrough of Deadfire as soon as I was done with Kingmaker and the more I played, the more the problems in Kingmaker became extremely apparent. Kingmaker is a pulpy high fantasy power trip, your goal is essentially to rise from novice adventurer to king of an entire new nation, and amidst it all there's numerous threats to your realm and pretenders to your throne, plenty of big epic stakes and enemies, but it's all very surface-level, it's all there for spectacle and entertainment's sake. Nothing wrong with that of course, it knows what it is. But Deadfire, as most Obsidian games, thrives a lot more on a solid thematic foundation, and even at its pulpiest there's still a sense of purpose to much of the content therein, if only to describe another facet of this world that is so deeply tied with the undelying discourse the game presents. And whereas the writing in Kingmaker frequently comes across as crude or generic, there's a life and character to the particular cadence of the Huana or the Valians that is unique, lively and very underrated when in contrast to the former. From a sidequest or side content perspective, there's no doubt in my mind that Deadfire's the better game - most of the side content in Kingmaker is lacking, the sidequests tend to be very straight-forward and not plentiful, whilst 80% of what is there to discover in the world map amounts to endlessly rehashed small areas that act as little more than "arenas" to trash encounters. And whilst the game does react to the choices you make, these are almost exclusively dialogue or build-based, and often dialogue options are gutted outright by arbitrary barriers like alignment - in comparison the roleplay in Deadfire seems much freer and more plentiful, as quests and area design allow for a player to resolve the same in multiple ways just by choosing to *play* the sequence differently instead of merely choosing a different dialogue branch. The freedom of exploration and liveliness of the world stand out a lot more in Deadfire when directly compared to Kingmaker, which on the other hand feels generic to a fault, if no doubt appealing on a sheer comfort-food level.

All this without touching the worst aspect, which to me is the combat. Kingmaker's combat is absolutely woeful, ubiquitous and inescapable. If the first Pillars had a trash encounter problem, this one has it three times over. And all this without taking into account that the game does everything in its power to worsen and exacerbate every flaw in the IE games' combat system as well. This is the kind of game that follows the same balancing principles as a regular combat/strategy mod for Baldur's Gate II in that even in normal difficulties it requires you to have the prescience of knowing what you'll face when and what scrolls and characters to bring alongside you for which area; and since the game is on a timer all throughout, backtreading to acquire X or Y supply or companion is *very* costly. This is essentially a game where prebuffing isn't just a clever and accidental workaround to combat the way it proved to be in the IE games, it becomes a mandatory element through which all encounters are balanced around - and if you happen to forget to prebuff your party for a single trash mob of spiders (which can also occur as a random encounter on the road), then good luck because you'll likely end with two or three characters sporting a massive -8 STR, DEX and CON permanent debuff at the end of it. If you think this is just a single type of creature, or just a couple who can do this, think again, because basically *everything* here is capable of dealing attribute damage or permanent afflictions (see blindness too) to your party - and that's not even touching on several other baffling enemy designs like the AoE paralize auras on the Wild Hunt which themselves become your usual dungeon filler during the end of the game. Other irritating features, as with the IE games, include crowd control conditions and DoT AoE spells alla Wall of Blades, Web or Cloudkill enduring for minutes after combat ends*, rest interrupts and random road encounters consisting of trash mobs are plentiful to the point you could well have four or five of the former and two or three of the latter occur before you finish either action, enemies having a tendency to be dumb and heavy on spamming single moves or attacks (case in point: alchemist enemies tend to bombard you with a seemingly endless and constant barrage of fireball, regardless of whether it's effective against your party or not (say that we've cast communal protection against fire on ourselves for example), despite also wielding a crossbow for example), and these shortcomings in AI tend to be 'balanced' through inflating base stats and abilities to absurd degrees, to the point that even a regular boar in act 1 can have an STR score of 32. It's compared to games like this that you realize just how much great work has gone into redesigning and improving combat in the Pillars series.

All of which also leads me to the bottom line which is... Kingmaker is very likely a game served best by playing with cheats and cheat mods on. Movespeed cheats, difficulty down to a bare minimum, even the removal of random road encounters, anything to not have to deal with the relentless, tedious combat in this game and nevertheless allowing you to experience the story and several companions and companion arcs which are all very decent - I'd likely have enjoyed the game way more had I played it this way and not tried foolhardily to beat the game at the difficulty I did. Anyhow, these are my thoughts on the matter, hope they're worth something.

*: On the matter of endless Wall of Blades, I watched a stream on Kingmaker by Lorerunner a month or so ago where upon defeating the final villain and casting three Wall of Blades to do so, the prologue proceeded to play on top of the battlefield with the Wall of Blades still active. All across the prologue you could hear the grinding sound of the blades and see their animation blurred out in the back, absolutely non-stop. It was rather hilarious. Here's the video, jump to 3:20:00:

 

Edited June 18, 2019 by algroth

[Heijoushin]

@algroth: Thanks for giving such a detailed answer! Much appreciated!

Haha, after reading your review, I think I'm going to give it a pass unless it goes on sale with major discount.

[algroth]

Of course other opinions are available. I know others here have really enjoyed it, just not myself. I'd suggest listening to what they have to say too, to make a decision! And it's not like you can't ever change your mind on it anyways.

[kanisatha]

2 hours ago, algroth said:

Of course other opinions are available. I know others here have really enjoyed it, just not myself. I'd suggest listening to what they have to say too, to make a decision! And it's not like you can't ever change your mind on it anyways.

@algroth, thanks for being so fair-minded. Don't get that from too many people these days.

I'm one of those who absolutely loves P:K. But unfortunately I don't have the time to write a lengthy explanation of the many reasons why. Yes it had some early teething problems, not surprising at all for a tiny studio making its very first game. But they have been superb at listening to fan feedback and releasing patch after patch to fix and improve the game. The current enhanced edition of the game is very solid. P:K, along with the two PoE games, is my go-to game now for repeat-play among classic RPGs so much so that I no longer have much of an interest to repeat-play any of the IE games anymore.