Pachfinder Bugmaker: The Rekkoning

[bugarup]

5 hours ago, Wormerine said:

 Frankly, even that way it was tedious and boring, but at least it took me 5 hours to reach the end credits.

Told ya.

TBH I'm a bit more positive about the game, even did the second playthrough, though cheated and was drunk for the sh!thouse at the end. Truth be told I'm not against yet another run some day, but only if I culled the majority of unfun bullsh!t like encumbrance, bloated stats, permanent debuffs, webs and greases you cannot unsummon, "Help I am crossing a field of molasses" movement speed, etc, etc, etc. It's not even cheating if GM is a griefing ****, it's just DIY QoL.

And yet, Kingmaker has one unique trait among my RPGs - I reveled being evil in it. Like, I'm normally one to talk with every monster and minimize murdering whenever possible - but not in Kingmaker. The memory of how I executed every single official of the city I conquered, then razed it to the ground and refilled with barracks, prisons, gibbets and goblin quarters still warms my heart.

Eagerly looking forward to what can I do in "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Stuffy Hypocrites". 

 

[Sarex]

@algroth It improved it so much it was boring to play... The only thing I hope Pathfinder takes from PoE is the visuals and the voice acting as they were awesome.

Edited April 8, 2021 by Sarex

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, algroth said:

There's probably a good presentation to be made somewhere in comparing Pillars' design with Kingmaker's. Pillars improves a lot on the RTwP base provided by the Infinity Engine games, not least by offering rather extensive tutorialization, by planning out a learning curve and intuitively introducing players to core mechanics and systems and the likes, and largely leaning away from the very binary "puzzle boss" encounter design where not having X in your arsenal is the whole difference between impossible and a cakewalk. Pathfinder feels like it doubles down on a lot of the faults of RTwP and offers virtually no learning curve with which to ease into the game's systems, where most encounters seem to be designed with a single specific solution, and where the key to that solution being available to you is a matter of a coinflip - and yet it also seems to hold some appeal to a specific hardcore niche much in the way ludicrous tactical BG2 mods like Improved Anvil had back in the day. The ubiquitous trash problem doesn't help matters at all either. Personally, it's a game I'd rather not play ever again without cheating, but I'm still curious about the sequel, and whether it'll remain as obtuse in its design.

wrath uses pathfinder rules and adds mythic, so whatever issues you had with kingmaker and its tendency to increasing encourage exploitive bs to survive late/end game battles is gonna be magnified as 'posed to dispelled. more pathfinder options ironic results in fewer choices as players need plan from level one to overcome challenges which sans meta knowledge is unlikely to be anticipated. there is right ways to build a pathfinder character and/or party. for wrath players w/o meta knowledge, is gonna be a whole lotta trap builds and insta-fail parties which perform great for 1/3 to 2/3 o' the game and then become impotent w/o a drastic lowering o' game difficulty.  oddly enough, some o' that metaness(?) is part o' pathfinder's appeal. 

by comparison, there were early game telemetry from poe2 which showed that literal nobody had played a shaman character, so Gromnir prompt created a shaman and realized such a combo were highly effective at virtual any level. 'pon reflection, we most likely had most fun in poe2 with a contemplative (priest of eothas + hellwalker monk) and not 'cause it were the obvious win-button build but 'cause it were offering a relative unique gameplay approach. more than a few pillars diehards were enamored with chanters, and am understanding why, but that class offered a much different gameplay approach compared to our priest focused characters. there were no loser class in poe2, though am admitting that it were possible to make a loser multiclass character, but such were exceptions as 'posed to rules.

and yeah, am thinking that the developers o' poe2, in hindsight, would do something 'bout the brilliance + salvation of time exploits in poe2, but you did not need to use such cheese to win any poe2 battle. 

however, am gonna observe the difficulty slider in wrath makes a big difference. normal is a far different challenge from core. one o' the owlcat developers is (were? no update in near a month) doing a core difficulty play o' the beta material and she were getting gobsmacked by battles over and over and over again. more than once the developer observed how she had played such n' such a battle on normal and it were much easier. by comparison, the owlcat community manager is doing a walkthrough on normal difficulty, and she clear ain't a pathfinder expert with foreknowledge o' battles. the community manager is having a relative leisurely run through wrath's beta material. 

regardless, the pathfinder system is what it is and owlcat is not gonna change the rules particular as kingmaker were, as we understand it, a financial success. example: maximized blade barriers (particular with the new mythic path option which makes 'em do 75% damage instead o' 50% on a successful save) is gonna be endgame cheese in wrath same as kingmaker... but even more so as 'posed to less. should not expect owlcat to fix that which from their pov were not broken, even if Gromnir agrees with you that such degenerative gameplay silliness diminishes our enjoyment as 'posed to increasing. Gromnir opinion don't count, which is probable a good thing.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[bringingyouthefuture]

Pathfinder is better and more fun in turn-based mode, I coudn't finish the game in RTwP - combat was painful, but once I added the turn-based mod (before they released the official turn-based mode) I really started to have fun with the game and was able to breeze through the entire story.  Playing the game at core rules is actually the best.  Owlcat really messed up the harder difficulty settings, anything above normal difficulty is a min/maxing constant reload slog.  Never found any trap builds or anything playing the core rules of Pathfinder Kingmaker ... not saying that they don't exist.

I like how Pathfinder isn't trying to mimic a JRPG by streamlining everything.  Please save the Western RPG and bring back encumbrance, camping, food requirements, stat debuffs, etc, makes games more interesting.  I actually am really starting to dislike the influence of JRPGs on the genre, it makes the game too adventure like, and less RPG like.

Edited April 8, 2021 by bringingyouthefuture

[bugarup]

2 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

  Please save the Western RPG and bring back encumbrance, camping, food requirements, stat debuffs, etc

Just those? No request for toilet breaks, trench feet, STD treatments, haggling with shopkeepers and searching for fences because normal shopkeepers only sell things rather than buy trash, darning socks, hauling the canary cage into the caves with you to prevent gas poisoning, spending a week in shackles pelted with rotten taters because the local noble took offense to how you barged into his dining hall uninvited, things like that, no? Pfffft. Some hardcore grog you are.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

If there aren't stacking penalties for neglecting hygiene, can a game truly be called a RPG?

Anyways to get on topic Kingmaker is uninspiring when it comes to writing, the kingdom management is very boring and annoying, and the wonkiness of Pathfinder mechanics are often as much a negative as a positive. Still, it does benefit from an established ruleset and setting which allows it to be a good enough Pathfinder combat crawl so if you're familiar enough with the ruleset it's pretty good* at that. On the other hand at launch PoE was really a slog for me where I would employ the same tactics almost every fight and slowly graze my way to victory. It did improve significantly after both WMs were released and I'm glad I played it again because my first impression was not favorable at all, but it did burn me out from RPGs the first time I played it. Deadfire did somethings better, but the armor system was worse and I got killed by traps several times due to a mid Perception party and the disentanglement of Mechanics to trap spotting. To say nothing abut the lack of sea monster battles in the ****ing region billed as being infested with sea monsters. I will be eternally butthurt over that, and that we got stupid ass sidekicks instead really feels like a massive middlefinger. It does look much better than Kingmaker or Wrath though.

What I'd really like to see is a game with PoE aesthetics and production values in a setting with a technology level roughly equal to that of the mid to late 19th century along with magic and mechanics that don't result in graze slogs or dumb puzzle bosses like very specific regeneration or immunities that will wipe parties who don't have cold iron or negative damage.

*This is limited by stuff implemented in game though. Magi for instance get hit pretty hard with the lack of Intensified Spell metamagic and touch spells in the base game which leaves them with fewer opportunities to use spellstrike, while knowledge pool not being implemented really hit the potential versatility.

[bringingyouthefuture]

8 hours ago, bugarup said:

Just those? No request for toilet breaks, trench feet, STD treatments, haggling with shopkeepers and searching for fences because normal shopkeepers only sell things rather than buy trash, darning socks, hauling the canary cage into the caves with you to prevent gas poisoning, spending a week in shackles pelted with rotten taters because the local noble took offense to how you barged into his dining hall uninvited, things like that, no? Pfffft. Some hardcore grog you are.

The toilets must flush, I need that quality of life

That being said Pathfinder benefited from the writing and story, character etc already in place from a popular tabletop RPG, but looking back they did bring the world to life really well, and it paid off for them big time in the sequel.  Glad they are making another game.

It's almost like Pools of Radiance way back in the day, weren't the original Gold Box D&D games campaigns too?  I know some were based on the novels.

Edit:  I may have that backwards, but I know the novel Azure Bonds came before the game.

Edited April 9, 2021 by bringingyouthefuture

[uuuhhii]

6 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

If there aren't stacking penalties for neglecting hygiene, can a game truly be called a RPG?

Anyways to get on topic Kingmaker is uninspiring when it comes to writing, the kingdom management is very boring and annoying, and the wonkiness of Pathfinder mechanics are often as much a negative as a positive. Still, it does benefit from an established ruleset and setting which allows it to be a good enough Pathfinder combat crawl so if you're familiar enough with the ruleset it's pretty good* at that. On the other hand at launch PoE was really a slog for me where I would employ the same tactics almost every fight and slowly graze my way to victory. It did improve significantly after both WMs were released and I'm glad I played it again because my first impression was not favorable at all, but it did burn me out from RPGs the first time I played it. Deadfire did somethings better, but the armor system was worse and I got killed by traps several times due to a mid Perception party and the disentanglement of Mechanics to trap spotting. To say nothing abut the lack of sea monster battles in the ****ing region billed as being infested with sea monsters. I will be eternally butthurt over that, and that we got stupid ass sidekicks instead really feels like a massive middlefinger. It does look much better than Kingmaker or Wrath though.

What I'd really like to see is a game with PoE aesthetics and production values in a setting with a technology level roughly equal to that of the mid to late 19th century along with magic and mechanics that don't result in graze slogs or dumb puzzle bosses like very specific regeneration or immunities that will wipe parties who don't have cold iron or negative damage.

*This is limited by stuff implemented in game though. Magi for instance get hit pretty hard with the lack of Intensified Spell metamagic and touch spells in the base game which leaves them with fewer opportunities to use spellstrike, while knowledge pool not being implemented really hit the potential versatility.

most part of pathfinder setting are intentionally obvious and generic

but owlcat actually come up with some pretty interesting character

even though most of them take too long to have a arc because how long the game drag on

[Wormerine]

21 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

Pathfinder is better and more fun in turn-based mode

I somewhat agree. I was constantly switching between the two. I thought BG1&2 worked well in RTwP, but systems there were much simpler. There is so much happening at all times in Pathfinder, that I found RTwP just didn't cut it - not for a party of 6, at least. 

That said, padding and repetitive encounters hurt far more, if one doesn't breeze through encounters. Pacing of PoE2 in turn based was off, and playing Pathfinder is more like playing PoE1 in turn based... probably even worse. 

 

21 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

Please save the Western RPG and bring back encumbrance, camping, food requirements, stat debuffs, etc, makes games more interesting.

So, I actually think Kingmaker did a horrible job with those.

1) encumbrance - Combined carry limit nicely mixes and "stash" idea but still limits it somewhat. So it's good? nah. I think if you create carry limit you can do it for:

• immersion - see BG1&2. It's mostly hassle free, and I don't remember ever needing to leave something importnat behind. BG1 has few unique items, so if you can't carry something its not a biggie, and BG2 provides bag of carrying around the time, you might start running out of space
• gameplay - what you take with you is of importance and you have to make choices.

Kingmakers leans into the 2nd one, yet fails to make gameplay out of it. You don't have information necessary to make decisions, so you kinda need to carry as much as you can, or know what you need thanks thanks to walkthrough/previous playthrough experience. And considering how ruthless the game is, you might find yourself without items you need requiring a tedious treckback or reload. 

I also hated having to fiddle with inventory everytime the game required me to descreese the number of NPCs in my party. Not to mention having to guess how much your party can carry when at your base, as the UI won't tell you as you don't technically have a party. A system without a meaning nor purpose.

2) camping - I liked it first time it appeared. No depth, no choice to make. Bonuses might as well be automatically added to remove tedium. Once the shine of (oh! I can assign NPCs to do things) wares off, it simply wastes your time. 

3) food requirement - I do like the system itself - more NPCs, more food required. Again, game fails to designed around it. It is player's decision to decide how much food they will carry, and yet they don't have information on which to make this decision. For the most part of the game food is useless. Except couple dungeons where a certain amount of rests is strongly encouraged. Not a problem with metaknowledge, but it's a horrible first time experience.

4) stat debuffs - I don't know. I found them to be a pain in the arse and nothing more. I disliked those in BG2, but they were far and few inbetween, and at least they were set up properly (like the game didn't sent you to vamprie den, without teaching for first what you can expect). Maybe in a better designed campaign I would have more appreciation for them.

[bringingyouthefuture]

@Wormerine you make good points in regards to what game developers want to accomplish by adding features that limit the players abilities.  Is it just filler, maybe a type of mini-game, or do they just want to create something that feels more realistic / tangible?  I am all for the realism of it all, also for the strategy it can bring, but mostly I enjoy the small details as it is what brings the game alive.

1) encumbrance, this is a strange thing in games now, and I fully want it in CRPGs, but I want it to feel realistic.  Right now in BG3 you can carry like 6 or 7 leather armors, to me that breaks the game feel, and why do games want you to carry so much?  I mean as loot?  Why not just create more valuable items like gold rings or balance the game with more valuable swords.  Like maybe even 1 in 10 swords actually has the value, the other can be rusted pieces of junk not worth selling.  Anyway I agree with you this is more a immersion thing, for me it makes the game feel more tangible, maybe it is a hangover from playing RPGs in the 90s.  Also, items like bags of holding are fun but not necessary, its okay to make the player agonize on what they want to carry and make them think about it, its like when you go on vacation, should I pack that extra pair of shorts even though it is winter ?  Did PK accomplish this?  To a degree (I mean there are bags of holding in PK), but what PK did do okay with was with the timers on quests and the kingdom aspect, camping combined with encumbrance all became a strategy in exploring the world trying to balance it all, which I liked, so I think there can be a third layer to it all.

2) And that brings us to camping and food requirement.  Camping and carrying food again immersion yes, but also when used well it adds to the difficulty of the game.  I loved that Solasta made food scarce and a requirement to heal during camping.  I like how Pathfinder it gave you buffs and also the ability to heal during camping.  In Solosta I liked the idea that I didn't plan well as a newbie adventure and starved for a few days in the badlands ... upped the stakes.  In Pathfinder I liked how exploring the game world, encumbrance and camping set against the Kingdom timer created a mini-game of exploration and a level of strategizing my exploring.  I know these things are some of the most criticized things in the games but to just get rid of them seems kind of lame, better to give the option to turn them off, or as Solasta did with the food, add easier ways to get food through gameplay and settings.  Also I remember in the 90s playing games where if you camped in a dangerous dungeon your chance of getting attacked was astronomically high, meaning it created a sense of danger while exploring.  I prefer it in games.  I also like in BG3 how food gives you minor healing, I am sure this isn't DnD, but it makes carrying some food handy and gives food more meaning.

3) Stat debuffs are just brutal, I actually prefer what POE1 and 2 did with wounds, but I also think certain enemies should stat debuff - I mean it is such a core rule of DnD for so long I would miss it.  In POE2 I would have preferred that recovering wounds was a little more difficult so they felt heavier.  But agree throwing stat debuffs like PK did so early in the game, and at first not letting you rest and recover them with the cost of scrolls being super expensive.  They did change so you could finally rest to recover the stat debuff, but again I think we agree they were a little heavy handed.  But also if implemented well can make dungeon crawling exploring better.  PK if I had my guess tried to use them as a sort of gating for areas to slowdown the gameplay and keep you out of certain areas, which I think is okay too in games, not every thing needs to be explored from the get go.

So yes can it be stupid filler if not implemented into the game correct, but yes they can be used in a lot of positive ways.  Apples to oranges I guess. 

In general, I like the details in games like flushing toilets that let you interact, but I also think small details like this can add to the game.  I mean with flushing toilets maybe now you let players put bombs in toilets, and mostly it explodes them, makes everyone angry, or maybe it can be used in other ways.  For instance POE2 and the Blow the Man Down quest where you have the option to use a bomb.  I mean in terms of difficulty POE2 made solving quests very easy by limiting the searchable areas and items you can interact with, though they also did squeeze a lot of detail in the game through interacting with the world.  Those interactions made the game better, but I would prefer the puzzles to be a little harder to figure out by disguising them in the world more, I mean one of the things I appreciated about BG2 the most was being able to cast the charm spell on a character to solve a quest - no real hint for this and no I didn't figure it out on my own but thought it was an awesome interaction when I read about it. The problem thing I didn't like about this in BG2 was there was no precedence for it, it was somewhat a hidden interaction.

These puzzles and strategizing are a type of mini-game yes but they have a tradition in CRPGs from way back in the day, and I prefer them better than the type of mini-games that JPRGs introduced that were geared towards consoles.   So yes Wasteland 2 with its random turtle was cool, and yes please include a day and night cycle, and yes make camping difficult, and please please don't let me carry everything, and yes dice rolls.  It seems programing tools are so much better these days, studios like Obsidian are doing it right by making these difficulty options available to turn off and on, I would prefer them to keep the options rather then just get rid of them. 

[Wormerine]

8 hours ago, bringingyouthefuture said:

@Wormerine you make good points in regards to what game developers want to accomplish by adding features that limit the players abilities.  Is it just filler, maybe a type of mini-game, or do they just want to create something that feels more realistic / tangible?  I am all for the realism of it all, also for the strategy it can bring, but mostly I enjoy the small details as it is what brings the game alive.

I think what we will disagree on, is whenever stuff that Kingmaker added brought game to live or made it feel more artificial. To me it was the second one. It constantly took me out of the game and made me think "what the devs were thinking?!". I never felt that "immersion" was a point. In fact, most of my complaints came from an artificial design. My gold example of why I dislike Kingmaker so much and it's various silly systems is as follows:

I am killing time between story missions and am cleaning a map that I just finished doing main mission in. Suddenly I get a message popup that I have a kingdom event. I trek couple hours into my territory so I can see what it is: and behold, Amiri wants to talk to me! Amiri who is in my party.... ok, let's trek back all the way to the capital. I have no teleport in nearby town yet, so have to spent 24 plus going back. Plus camping that takes a bit too long forcing me to show results of character actions every time, and encounters that I will farm, because, hey, I really need more XP. I get back to town and do my chores, go to my throneroom, and Amiri comes and says "Yo, talk to me in the tavern". First I have to load back in into kingdom management map to dismiss the stupid notification "you have talked to Amiri! Good job!", then load back to throneroom, go to tavern and Amiri says" "Hey, can we go to a place, pretty much around where we were when you first got notification, that there is a new event in capital?". So we trek back to where I was to start with, to exerience 5 minuts of actual content...

What pops up to me is not how immersive the game feels, but how poorly implimented missions are. And that's how I feel about other stuff - if as a adventurer I had to make a decisions about how much supplies to take, I would probably sent scouts ahead first, you know just so I don't starve to death accidentally. I would probably hire a servant to stand in my hall, and take stuff I want to sell and sell it for me. I would order wounded companions to heal themselves if they happen to stay for weeks in town. If I want to take a companion to do a quest, but that I would exchange him for someone else, I would just tell the other guy to meet me in a day's time at a meeting point - not wait two days, for companons to exchange themselves. If I am leaving town I would appoint someone to deal with troubles, rather then have everyone sit on their asses waiting for me to come home. I would appoint someone to focus exclusively to research curses, and let someone else act as my advisor. 

I will say, that resting in general is a tricky subject in those games. While I personally feel, PoE1 implimented it best, I haven't seen a really good implimentation. IMO structure created by Bioware in Baldur's Gates doesn't really gel with per-rest casting and resting system. In BG1&2&3 resting is just too easy to do, PoE2 has resting almost as an obligation , Kingmaker has rather punishing resting system but fails to provide information and choice to make it fun. PoE1 managed to limit resting through a semi-logical limitation, while at the same time giving devs a set amount of player available rests to pace it properly - in my opition it achieves all Kingmaker tries to, just better. 

[bringingyouthefuture]

7 hours ago, Wormerine said:

I think what we will disagree on, is whenever stuff that Kingmaker added brought game to live or made it feel more artificial. To me it was the second one. It constantly took me out of the game and made me think "what the devs were thinking?!". I never felt that "immersion" was a point. In fact, most of my complaints came from an artificial design. My gold example of why I dislike Kingmaker so much and it's various silly systems is as follows:

Fair enough, I would in no way defend Kingmaker as the best CRPG I have ever played, but at the same time I appreciated it for what it was and the only time I got annoyed and put down the game was because of its RTwP, I didn't experience the same frustrations that you did.  But I also am not looking for a linear game that lays out the story for me and I just click through it like a visual novel.  I read books on an eReader for that.  I do feel like going from one point of the map to another to talk with companions is every single Isometric CRPG and not really a fair criticism, especially since talking to companions and others gives a lot of lore, backstory, builds the characters and is essential to any RPG.  Was Pathfinder a wealth of well written dialogue, not really - I think that is a fair criticism.

Another fair criticism for Kingmaker is that when it first released it needed still a lot of work, and with the ways they added options much of the Kingdom management criticism doesn't hold anymore, if you don't like that aspect just turn it off now.  I personally like the challenge of it and did a playthrough where I just let the whole thing roll itself out without reloading, and I managed it and it was interesting.

As for wanting the computer to think for you, you may need to wait for better AI that can anticipate what you want to sell and what you don't.  And just because a video game can't address everything to make it like real life, doesn't mean they should do away with real life details completely, would I take all the details you listed out, totally, are most of those even possible today - not sure.

Also camping in POE1 was too simple and basic, it wasn't even needed in most cases, or at all on normal difficulty.  Limiting camping supplies was smart, but you can accomplish much the same thing with limiting food.  One thing I like about DnD is the fatigue factor when you don't rest, again adds another layer of difficulty and planning.

Edited April 11, 2021 by bringingyouthefuture

[Hawke64]

I've started Varnhold's Lot and realized that I don't remember most of character building. Any advice on Rogue builds (who is also the face of the party, thus needs Persuasion)?

I've also installed 3 mods, one of them is Cleaner, which hopefully will allow me to reduce the size of save files if and when I replay the main campaign. By the way, how is it (save file size) for the Wrath of the Righteous? Anyhow better or the same?

[xzar_monty]

On 4/8/2021 at 7:39 PM, bugarup said:

Truth be told I'm not against yet another run some day, but only if I culled the majority of unfun bullsh!t like encumbrance, bloated stats, permanent debuffs, webs and greases you cannot unsummon, "Help I am crossing a field of molasses" movement speed, etc, etc, etc.

I understand all these concerns perfectly well. However, what about these that I think are equally valid:

1) Especially in interiors, the sprites are too big, which means that they can get stuck in all kinds of corners in all kinds of unfunny ways. Even to the extent that once an encounter starts, your characters cannot actually move (except perhaps one by one, and starting backwards) because they all occupy essentially the same spot. That's a funny one. [To be fair, though: In PoE your biggest enemy in the game was in-combat pathfinding. It was a lot more dangerous than any monster.]

2) The area which the game regards as "clicking on the character on-screen" is a lot bigger than the actual character sprite on the screen, which means that you can't direct any of your characters to move close to the spot he's in at the moment. This is not possible, because the game regards "clicking close to the sprite" as "clicking on the sprite", i.e. activating it.

3) Movement speed dropping to your "field of molasses" essentially at random but also essentially in every single fight, at least once. I know you can get it back to normal, but for crying out loud, I shouldn't need to do that in the first place.

4) The blatant cheating in many of the encounters. Monsters appear out of thin air into spaces that were vacant (as far as I know, your regular wolf or goblin cannot teleport), traps appear in places that didn't have traps before, etc. I have no idea what the designers were thinking here.

 

Having said all that, and keeping in mind that the writing is cheesy and poor, it's a miracle that the game is actually good! I have finished it. The last chapter was terrible, the encounter design was so mean and cruel it's beyond belief, but I did finish the game.

[Agiel]

For the benefit of those few who were still on the fence on this game:

He seemed to enjoy it.