After playing Kingmaker..

[Stefan89]

3 hours ago, Hulk'O'Saurus said:

I see. 

I am wondering what you'd think of Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines. It being 1st/3d person has turned a number of people away. But it's a great game, still. 

I was absolutely amazed at that game. So sad that it goes to **** in the second half. But holy ****, someone needs to finish that game.

 

edit - someone's making a sequel??! Oh my.

Edited July 23, 2019 by Stefan89

[daven]

edit

Edited July 24, 2019 by daven

[Hulk'O'Saurus]

12 hours ago, Stefan89 said:

I was absolutely amazed at that game. So sad that it goes to **** in the second half. But holy ****, someone needs to finish that game.

 

edit - someone's making a sequel??! Oh my.

There are community patches out there. I can't give you any direction, but Bloodlines is one of the most supported games by it's community overall. 

That said, even the base game is not that bad. 

[vnth]

On 7/22/2019 at 5:57 AM, frogmoth said:

Good for you! You are wrong, of course... Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a great game that knows what it wants to be. Deadfire is nice, but it can't decide if it wants to cater to a casual or a hardcore audience.

Actually, that game's biggest problem is that Owlcat has never figured out what the game is supposed to be. At times it tries to replicate an authentic pnp experience where the player is supposed to get on with the bad rolls, but then it also takes save reloading into design consideration. The result is the numerous well-known balancing issues, difficulty spikes, and other "realism" nonsense. This is really sad, because I actually do like the game, and the dev's ambition is admirable. Ultimately, however, calling the game great is kinda laughable. The game is badly made from both conceptual and technical standpoints. The only good thing is the story (minus the companions), and the story isn't original.

Edited July 24, 2019 by vnth

[xzar_monty]

Could you name some of these balancing issues or difficulty spikes? I haven't noticed any. As for where I am in the game: I just went after a certain character who appeared to have betrayed me, and next I'm going to go after a certain barbarian, who did not.

I see nothing laughable in calling the game great, although I am not sure yet whether I would do so. I would not call either PoE or Deadfire great, although they were definitely both good, and I enjoyed them a lot. (Two games that I would call great: Baldur's Gate II, NetHack. Ultima V for its era, too, but that era has long since passed.)

Edited July 24, 2019 by xzar_monty

[uuuhhii]

2 hours ago, vnth said:

Actually, that game's biggest problem is that Owlcat has never figured out what the game is supposed to be. At times it tries to replicate an authentic pnp experience where the player is supposed to get on with the bad rolls, but then it also takes save reloading into design consideration. The result is the numerous well-known balancing issues, difficulty spikes, and other "realism" nonsense. This is really sad, because I actually do like the game, and the dev's ambition is admirable. Ultimately, however, calling the game great is kinda laughable. The game is badly made from both conceptual and technical standpoints. The only good thing is the story (minus the companions), and the story isn't original.

throw dice in skill check was such a obvious mistake

how can it possibly be repeated after fallout3

why owlcat choose to design the game in this way is beyond reasoning

[xzar_monty]

Ahem, why was it a mistake? An obvious mistake, even?

Are you implying that things depending on skills should be either impossible (because you just aren't skilful enough) or trivial (because you have enough skill and there's no check)? That sounds foolish.

Edited July 24, 2019 by xzar_monty

[vnth]

2 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

Could you name some of these balancing issues or difficulty spikes? I haven't noticed any. As for where I am in the game: I just went after a certain character who appeared to have betrayed me, and next I'm going to go after a certain barbarian, who did not.

I see nothing laughable in calling the game great, although I am not sure yet whether I would do so. I would not call either PoE or Deadfire great, although they were definitely both good, and I enjoyed them a lot. (Two games that I would call great: Baldur's Gate II, NetHack. Ultima V for its era, too, but that era has long since passed.)

Well, you would, for instance, receive permanent damage way before you have greater restoration and heal spells or have the money to buy those scrolls . Generally speaking, how difficult you find the game often depends on how you play it. Even the hardest encounters are quite tolerable if you know before hand what you are facing. Except often time the only way for you to know is by reloading your save. There is no retreat from combat option. But if reloading is necessary then what's the point with the whole dice roll thing? Once you start reloading saves, you are going to do that with everything whenever you got a cripplingly bad roll, which renders the whole premise of the game into a pointless time sink.

Did you finish the game? If not... boy are you in for some surprises with difficulty spikes.

With all of these issues, combining with no customizable tactics despite incredibly dumb AI, I'd say it'd take a lot of goodwill to call the game good, or even decent, let alone great.

 

Edited July 24, 2019 by vnth

[vnth]

1 hour ago, uuuhhii said:

throw dice in skill check was such a obvious mistake

how can it possibly be repeated after fallout3

why owlcat choose to design the game in this way is beyond reasoning

I imagine that's how it is in the pnp. Personally, I hated it but then I also hate the whole dice roll thing.

[xzar_monty]

11 hours ago, vnth said:

Well, you would, for instance, receive permanent damage way before you have greater restoration and heal spells or have the money to buy those scrolls . Generally speaking, how difficult you find the game often depends on how you play it. Even the hardest encounters are quite tolerable if you know before hand what you are facing. Except often time the only way for you to know is by reloading your save. There is no retreat from combat option. But if reloading is necessary then what's the point with the whole dice roll thing? Once you start reloading saves, you are going to do that with everything whenever you got a cripplingly bad roll, which renders the whole premise of the game into a pointless time sink.

I agree there should be an option to retreat from combat. That's a weakness, for sure.

I think the dice roll thing is just fine, no problem with it at all. I've got failed skill chekcs and at least one secret door I didn't find that I'm pretty sure is there (from the way it looks on the map), but that's all right, that's RPGs for you.

Edited July 25, 2019 by xzar_monty

[vnth]

How often you or I or anyone save scum is neither here nor there. I speak to the nature of the design. The issue is that if you are expected to do it at all then how are you supposed to know when not to do it? If you face any kind of problem, how do you know that it's because of you doing something wrong or that it's just supposed to be that hard?

Edited July 25, 2019 by vnth

[xzar_monty]

To me, that's a total non-issue. I don't see a problem at all in what you say.

[vnth]

As I already said, whether something is an issue for you or anyone personally is irrelevant because different people can tolerate different things. Criticism should speak to the objective nature of the design that affects everyone. What's important is how the devs themselves think the game should be played? How should people approach encounters? If you get yourself into a very dicey situation and got your companions killed, are you supposed to just accept that as a legitimate feature of the game? The game is bad because it failed to help players differentiate between their legitimate mistakes and cheesing. As a rule, balancing is a very tricky business without level scaling. Adding randomness to it all is just asking for trouble.

Edited July 25, 2019 by vnth

[xzar_monty]

How did it fail to help players differentiate between legitimate mistakes and cheesing? I don't think that it did. What you are saying has no objective ring to it, in my view.

I find it quite odd that apparently you have finished the game but you still think it would take a lot of goodwill to call it even decent. This begs the question: why do you spend time doing something you don't like?

Edited July 25, 2019 by xzar_monty

[vnth]

It fails in the manner I just said the sentences before. Just how should people approach encounters and whether should they accept perma death?

Again, as I also have said already, I do like the game and I have finished it quite a few times. If I haven't even finished it wouldn't that made me less qualified to say whether the game is good or bad? But liking something doesn't preclude seeing its problems. Different people can tolerate different things. Just because I can forgive the game's mistakes doesn't mean I can recommend it to others who might not share my sensibilities.

Edited July 25, 2019 by vnth

[xzar_monty]

You have finished the game quite a few times, yet you'd say it'd take a lot of goodwill to call the game good, or even decent? That's just astonishing.

I like the game rather a lot, at this point, but when I've finished it once (if that happens), I'm pretty sure I'll never play it again.

You are not making your argument very well -- I am not saying that there isn't a proper argument in there, only that you are not being very clear. Can you give me two concrete examples of the kind of decisions that you think the game fails in? "Just how should people approach encounters" is too vague, as there are so many kinds of encounters. The game doesn't seem to suffer from any conceptual problems that CRPGs in general wouldn't suffer from.

[vnth]

Well, just answer this. If you hypothetically got your companions permanently killed, would you accept that as part of the game realism or reload your save?

I don't think there's anything particular unusual about what I said. Even someone with a lot of goodwill toward the game (such as myself) would have difficulty calling it good (like I do).

Edited July 25, 2019 by vnth

[xzar_monty]

I would almost certainly reload my save, like I did in Baldur's Gate II, for instance. So, in this regard, P:K does not differ from the greatest classic in the genre. I don't see a problem here, at all.

[bringingyouthefuture]

Its funny though, the Pathfinder PnP allows for taking 10 and taking 20 - meaning, if you have the time (non combat or dire situation) you can pass skill checks without rolls, so not sure why PK made the skills checks on things like searching and lockpicking so tedious, unless you think of save scumming as taking 10 or 20.  Maybe just too difficult to separate the mechanic of skill checks in coding, or not sure.  I prefer the DOS / Ultima style of hiding passages and secret doors - disguise the switch to open or make you physically search the location by a command, but that would be really deviating from the rule set for PK.

Edited July 25, 2019 by bringingyouthefuture
SP

[daven]

I actually prefer it when your characters can die and I have to reload it. Even though it's a hassle or whatever. It just means that i failed so i need to try again and do it better.

[vnth]

I don't know which difficulty you played on either but BG 1 and 2 were a breeze in comparison to PK. In the former, corerules was a little more difficult than normal. In PK, weak is closer to corerules than normal. And even on weak the endgame difficulty spikes can still do a number on you. If you played the game on the early patches, you pretty much have to figured out the sliders yourself and changed it every so often. Presumably the idea is for you to come up with a better strategy or buff up every time you failed, which is very much typical in any other game. Somehow it didn't occur to Owlcat that doesn't work well in a pnp rpg, when you are not supposed to redo things when things went wrong. If you want to role play, that is just not possible, because it is impossible to tell when to accept your bad rolls and when you need come up with a better strategy.

[Kilburn]

On 7/24/2019 at 9:16 AM, vnth said:

Actually, that game's biggest problem is that Owlcat has never figured out what the game is supposed to be. At times it tries to replicate an authentic pnp experience where the player is supposed to get on with the bad rolls, but then it also takes save reloading into design consideration. The result is the numerous well-known balancing issues, difficulty spikes, and other "realism" nonsense. This is really sad, because I actually do like the game, and the dev's ambition is admirable. Ultimately, however, calling the game great is kinda laughable. The game is badly made from both conceptual and technical standpoints. The only good thing is the story (minus the companions), and the story isn't original.

This is basically it. Like I said there is a good game in there somewhere, having to stick to D&D is what wrecked it IMO. If they did it with only 1 quarter of pillars 2 budget that is actually fairly impressive. 

It really showcases how bad those old D&D 3rd edition rules were. If they had more freedom to do their own thing instead of using that rule set it probably would be have been much better. deadfire's rule set is the future and I can imagine a blend of kingmaker and deadfire would be pretty darn good. 

[xzar_monty]

Could you please elaborate a bit more on how the D&D rules ruin the game? I don't think there's anything wrong with D&D 3rd edition -- actually it's my favorite system in PnP. And BG2 was superb, even if it was built on AD&D rules that are definitely dodgy in many ways.

 

I finished P:K yesterday, and in my view it's a gem but with several serious flaws. Much of the writing is so bad and full of cliche that it verges on parody (or maybe it is parody?), and the whole game takes a serious turn for the worse once you get to the House at the End of Time; the mobs are just senselessly designed. And the whole endgame is far too long. But, as a whole, the game remains a gem and was definitely worth playing once. I'd say there's no chance of me even considering a replay (but then the same goes for Deadfire, which was also great).

[the_dog_days]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

Could you please elaborate a bit more on how the D&D rules ruin the game? I don't think there's anything wrong with D&D 3rd edition -- actually it's my favorite system in PnP. And BG2 was superb, even if it was built on AD&D rules that are definitely dodgy in many ways.

Pathfinder is a rule set for cooperate storytelling with a live rules arbiter (DM). None of these things are in P:KM despite mostly being a one-for-one conversion of those rules. (This isn't even mentioning that half the feats are still bugged.)

[Kilburn]

D20 doesn't offer enough granularity maybe is the biggest problem. BG2 was great for its time. If i tried playing it now i'm not so sure.