Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Part 2

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

12 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Did you play them in Co-op?

Most people I know that generally have otherwise good taste and like those games played them in co-op

Yes and no. I play 2 with enough mods to make the initial loading take like 5 minutes before I started using the script extender. 

[Sarex]

39 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I don't think that's a big deal. He was able to make Icewind Dale 1 and 2 after all. Really I think it suffered from bad implementation of some good ideas, some bad ideas, and stretch goal stuff.

Like the whole build up of Defiance Bay and the big factions there just disappears after the big trial. And then we visit a half-baked city with some factions we barely get to know before getting thrown through the endgame meat grinder. Really disappointing and I stopped giving a **** around then.

PoE classes are wildly unbalanced lmao. Like Rogues get shown up by everyone, Barbarians and Monks are martial gods, and the slot casters predictably start ****ing up everyone after the mid point.

There is a pretty big difference between the base game and TWM. But I guess that just like NWN (another game Josh worked on) the expansions end up making the base game look lame.

And DOS games are great. Fite me irl. 

I can only imagine that he didn't have that much control over the game direction for those 2. What's funny is that IWD2 is my favorite IE game....

Tbh I could have lived with the city and the story, because the art was gorgeous. Although I do agree that the city felt empty and a pale shadow of Baldur's Gate (the cities in Kingmaker suck too).

I played PoE when the last patch came out and to be honest all the classes felt underwhelming. The mages didn't have any cool spells that make mages cool...Oh my god, you made me remember the health mechanic in the game...I had suppressed that atrocity.

D:OS is a spawn of something unholy, I do not wish to think about...especially because BG3 is shaping up to be like it.

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Sarex

[InsaneCommander]

This will be interesting, especially if someone runs into a game breaking bug. Not gonna watch though. lol

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 minutes ago, Sarex said:

I can only imagine that he didn't have that much control over the game direction for those 2. What's funny is that IWD2 is my favorite IE game....

Tbh I could have lived with the city and the story, because the art was gorgeous. Although I do agree that the city felt empty and a pale shadow of Baldur's Gate (the cities in Kingmaker suck too).

I played PoE when the last patch came out and to be honest all the classes felt underwhelming. The mages didn't have any cool spells that make mages cool...Oh my god, you made me remember the health mechanic in the game...I had suppressed that atrocity.

D:OS is a spawn of something unholy, I do not wish to think about...especially because BG3 is shaping up to be like it.

 

It's hard to say. Given that he got burned out working on Deadfire, I hope he gets to work on something he's passionate about next.

The art and music were definitely high points of both games. It's a shame because in a lot of ways it was close to being an extremely good game but they really fell short in some key places.

I dunno, the Barbarian whirlwind attack, the ice fireball that paralyzes people, and the Cipher abilities all stand out for me. The Rogue and Fighter are really forgettable and the Chanter takes too long to ramp up though.

So you're saying DOS was born from the egg of the king?

[InsaneCommander]

The D&D/Pathfinder rules and setting are much more appealing to me than any other system. I like my mages weak in the beginning and very powerful later. And balance be damned.

Still really enjoyed PoE and Deadfire. There are many things that work better in these games. For example: you can click on a body beside a character and the body is selected, instead of the character. Better to reach max level and see all the spells and abilities the game has to offer than to pass difficult skill checks to win a million xp in a single quest in order to reach level 20 in Pathfinder (the grimoire quest for the pirates). And I definitely get tired of pre buffing...

As for D:OS, I played the first one 2-3 times (never finished one of my runs) and I could happily replay it again if I had the time. But once was more than enough for the second one. The armor/magic armor system is too annoying, no more option to start a battle with status effects like in the first one. Poison cloud, flame arrow to blow it up, electrocute or freeze water... That was really fun.

BG3 will be closer to what I like than D:OS2 and D:OS so I imagine it will be good for me.

[Sarex]

Just now, KP the meanie zucchini said:

It's hard to say. Given that he got burned out working on Deadfire, I hope he gets to work on something he's passionate about next.

The art and music were definitely high points of both games. It's a shame because in a lot of ways it was close to being an extremely good game but they really fell short in some key places.

I dunno, the Barbarian whirlwind attack, the ice fireball that paralyzes people, and the Cipher abilities all stand out for me. The Rogue and Fighter are really forgettable and the Chanter takes too long to ramp up though.

So you're saying DOS was born from the egg of the king?

I hope so too, because I think he can make a great game. I honestly think that the whole problem was that he invested so much time in fixing things that didn't need fixing.

I wish that somehow Owlcat decides to do make the third game isometric and hand drawn.

To be honest I don't remember much of what I played, but I don't think I preferred any of the characters I had. Was there a barbarian companion? Either way I didn't have any difficulties going through the game.

I'm saying that the game you played was a fever dream and you actually never played D:OS, but you think you did.

[Sarex]

8 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Still really enjoyed PoE and Deadfire. There are many things that work better in these games. For example: you can click on a body beside a character and the body is selected, instead of the character. Better to reach max level and see all the spells and abilities the game has to offer than to pass difficult skill checks to win a million xp in a single quest in order to reach level 20 in Pathfinder (the grimoire quest for the pirates). And I definitely get tired of pre buffing...

Wait did that quest give a million xp? I don't remember how I solved it. I think I kept the grimoire... In fact I think I discovered the pirates after I got the grimoire...

Edited September 21, 2021 by Sarex

[InsaneCommander]

17 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Wait did that quest give a million xp? I don't remember how I solved it. I think I kept the grimoire...

I might have exagered a bit.  There were multiple high level skill checks. I don't remember the exact values, but I do remember that I had leveled up just before the Pitax Palace and after that I did this quest and leveled up again. Maybe I'm mistaken.

There was an athletics check to open a door, two to intimidate someone to give you the key (that I dropped on the floor to do the skill check for the door ), and several to intimidate the guy writing the grimoire and the pirate captain.

Edit: This was a quest I had to do again because I hadn't talked with the pirates first and I wondered if I had missed something. And I had. So I checked a guide and found out about all of this. Since I was not sure I would max my level, I decided to take advantage of all these checks.

I highlighted the relevant checks below:
 

Quote

 

Your troubles are just beginning, however, as two more difficulty skill checks await. You may want to consider backing out of the conversation and saving again, just in case. When you’re ready, pick the [Perception] dialogue, after which you can ask “Where does he live?” and “Give me the key.”. In the former case you’ll have to succeed at a [Diplomacy 45] or [Intimidate 45] check to get him to cough up the information, or failing that pay a whopping 10,000 gold. None of these options are necessary, as the location you’re looking for should be easy enough to find on your own; just look for the “Middle of Nowhere” area north and slightly west of Pitax, or west of the Rushlight Fields. Succeeding at these skill checks is worth trying for their own sake, however, as they’ll give you a great deal of experience - tens of thousands, in fact.

On the other hand, the option “Give me the key.” will also result in similar options; [Diplomacy 45], [Intimidate 45] or forking over 10,000 gold will get you the key you seek. This, too, isn’t necessary, as there are other ways to get into Blakemoor’s domain (more skill checks), but again, these are worth attempting for the massive influx of experience you’ll get for passing them. Getting over 100,000 experience in two dialogue checks is a pretty big deal.

Now that your business with Blutmond is concluded, talk to Captain Martyn. You can chat with him about his purpose for being in the city, his ship and his crew, but most of this information is just flavor, or something you’ve heard from Wellar and Blutmond before. It’s still worth doing, however, as this should start the quest The Impatient Pirates of Pitax, tasking you with resolving the pirate’s impasse… one way or another.

If you want to act on Wellar’s conspiracy, you can turn him in [Lawful Neutral], which will net you a hefty 20,000 gold coins. Deposing Captain Martyn takes a bit more work. Pick the dialogue option “Hand over command to Wellar before the crew hangs you.”, after which you’ll need to pass an [Intimidate 45] check, a [Bluff 40] check or a [Diplomacy 40] check. The higher the difficulty, the more experience you’ll earn, and those five points of difficulty are worth an awful lot of experience. Afterwards you’ll have to pass one of three skill checks: [Bluff 45], [Knowledge (World) 35] or [Perception 40]. After this, three more skill checks are required to overthrow Captain Martyn: [Intimidate 45], [Bluff 40] or [Knowledge (World) 35]. Again, the higher skill checks reward significantly more experience, and it’s not impossible to walk away from this encounter with nearly 200,000 experience. In addition, you’ll gain the following kingdom stats: Economy +5, Relations +5 and Espionage +5.

Overthrowing Captain Martyn will cause the quest The Impatient Pirates of Pitax to fail, however. If you just care about squeezing experience (and perhaps gold) out of this, you can always succeed at two such skill checks, before abandoning the effort by saying *“That was a joke.”, after which you can turn in Wellar for 20,000 gold. 100,000 experience and 20,000 experience just from some chatter isn’t a bad bit of business… and you can still attempt the aforementioned quest! If you’re uncertain as to what you want to do, you can always postpone making a decision for now and worry about this later. Perhaps after dealing with this Blakemoor character?

 

I think there are at least 8 of these DC 45 skill checks.

Edited September 21, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[ShadySands]

7 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

The D&D/Pathfinder rules and setting are much more appealing to me than any other system. I like my mages weak in the beginning and very powerful later. And balance be damned.

I really like OP endgame mages but I'd be lying if I said I didn't also enjoy PoE's more useful at lower levels ones even if I thought they were lacking at the top end. It's not a trade off I'd like to keep though and I had a few arguments discussions about it with some posters in the PoE section who wanted magic to be essentially mundane. I didn't think a fireball should just be a grenade or a missile spell just be different VFX arrows, make them a little more magical. 

 

[xzar_monty]

Ha. I remember well those absolutely ridiculous amounts of XP you got from succesful skill checks in P:K. The mind boggles.

[InsaneCommander]

1 minute ago, xzar_monty said:

Ha. I remember well those absolutely ridiculous amounts of XP you got from succesful skill checks in P:K. The mind boggles.

Yes, just choosing a DC 45 instead of a DC 40 made a huge difference, something like going from a few thousand XP to a few dozen thousand.

Playing as a Sorcerer helped since I could just equip the +10 persuation robe at all times.

[Sarex]

Getting no XP for fights or skill checks is not good either...

[InsaneCommander]

58 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

This will be interesting, especially if someone runs into a game breaking bug. Not gonna watch though. lol

Ok, so I decided to check it and one of them is playing right now. Or was.

Spoiler

She decided to try kill the water elemental.

 

[HoonDing]

at least you can enslave nations with necromancy

[xzar_monty]

20 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Getting no XP for fights or skill checks is not good either...

This, btw, was an absolutely huge mistake in PoE. So, Josh Sawyer & co decided to essentially remove XP gains from battles. Fair enough. But they forgot to remove the battles. So, PoE is absolutely full of trash mob battles that give you NO XP and NO LOOT. They are nothing but a huge waste of time. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

[Gromnir]

4 hours ago, Sarex said:

 

 

The fact remains that with all the hype of PoE being the spiritual successor of the IE games and the old crew working on it, they still failed to reach 1 million copies (not even going to mention PoE2) and Kingmaker with it's disaster of a launch and no name behind them still did much better. WoR is most likely going to do even better then Kingmaker from what I see right now.

you do realize this is a joke, yes? kingmaker sold over a million copies three years after initial release and the reason is 'cause the title were bundled with another title, outward, which sold over 600k copies. so the publisher claimed kingmaker sold in excess o' a million copies 'cause 600k + kingmaker solo sales = more than 1 million copies.

and the anecdotal, i beat it without a problem stuff is always amusing 'cause is not difficult to find equal compelling anecdotal from many others who sudden found their endgame kingmaker party useless, in part 'cause that is what pathfinder does to the uninitiated player and also 'cause owlcat implementation o' stat bloat to account for reload makes the situation worse for those playing w/o knowledge o' the system and the game itself. build a party with feats and spells appropriate for early game and you may be roll stomping your way to victory for dozens o' hours, only to find that sudden at mid or late levels you can't hit anything with spells or weapons and you can't defend from a constant barrage o' sneak attacks. is not that those players complaining o' kingmaker difficulty spikes were stoopid, but they didn't know in spite of all the available choices, there were a far more limited number o' right ways to play a pathfinder game. pathfinder has trap build and trap feats and trap spells. 

not enuff special weapons feels? can't respond to that one. is a legit observation though 'cause feels is important, just not particular helpful.  that said, am thinking the poe2 approach were much better for weapons than were poe with the ability to customize many weapons a major improvement o' the sequel. 

it was bad 'cause josh hates ie games?

*chuckle*

am thinking obsidian did make a mistake and underestimated nostalgia. pillars was never gonna be bg3 although many expected such. no d&d license, so pillars couldn't be bg3 in any event. couldn't be pathfinder for same reasons. so developers tried to identify what made the ie games fun and with poe they achieved great success with many players (which is why the fig campaign for deadfire brought in more money by a fair amount than did the wotr kickstarter... if you want a money argument,) but the problem is that poe turned out being niche and the developers o' deadfire made clear they were going for more niche than were poe. all the d&d, pathfinder and ie game purists who played poe and realized it were not bg3 were not happy to hear that deadfire were gonna get even more distant from the rosy-hued memories o' bg2. obsidian spent far more money on the deadfire development than they did on poe, but they were curious unaware they were making a game with more narrow appeal. 

and yeah, josh admitted he didn't particular like ie game implementation o' d&d rules, but josh were not the boss on poe. that point appears to be forgotten. what josh did do was he asked the frothing purists offended by poe implementation why per kill xp rewards, pre-buffing, hard counters, spells which became useless after a few levels, prerequisite feats which were individually useless but essential for some later feat or power, and a multitude o' other ie game or d&d staples were essential to a spiritual successor to the ie games? never got decent answers. the problem josh and obsidian made is that they were rational. ignore the, "How PoE weapon, armors and other items never felt special," 'cause such an observation is wholly subjective and kinda meaningless don't change fact people still had their feels. is a significant % of poe backers and purchasers who were expecting their idealized bg3 and when they didn't get it, they were quits with the franchise.

am suspecting obsidian, in part 'cause poe were an ip created by obsidian, coulda' made profitable poe games for many years, but deadfire were a colossal blunder o' expectations. obsidian spent more resources making the poe sequel when they shoulda' realized the were necessarily selling to a smaller audience than poe enjoyed. fig campaign revealed just how much support there were for a poe sequel, but while the dollar numbers were better than poe or wotr kickstarters, the number o' backers were actual diminished. obsidian created a rabid fanbase for a homegrown ip and then flubbed the sequel by failing to recognize those rabid fans were more niche and less numerous than poe purchasers.

one o' the longest pre release poe threads were ie purists complaining 'bout the announced absence o' per kill exp. serious. there were just no reasoning with the feels crowd, but they were earnest and they were disappointed by poe.

HA! Good Fun!

(edit) full disclosure: never finished kingmaker 'cause it were so buggy and the terribleness o' kingdom building severe undershot our minimum threshold for fun. however, we understood the appeal o' the title regardless o' fact it wrecked the best part o' the pnp ap. kingmaker appeal were not writing or, ironic, kingdom building. kingmaker were a pathfinder game which implemented a pathfinder ap allowing folks to fully indulge the addictive loot and level grind while presenting players with a decent realization o' paizo combat encounters. is a whole lotta bloat and trash in the pathfinder rules, but (ignoring bugs for the moment) owlcat did a decent job o' implementing pathfinder and they made the game look nice and play intuitive. we couldn't finish kingmaker, but we saw the potential and we understood the appeal.  

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The forum software is hungry today.

1 hour ago, InsaneCommander said:

The D&D/Pathfinder rules and setting are much more appealing to me than any other system. I like my mages weak in the beginning and very powerful later. And balance be damned.

I disagree, and I'll just point to the 5e Sorcerer. That class is awful, it comes up short next to every other caster class in the edition. It needs to be buffed across the board just to come up to par.

And that's why I think balance is important, if there's an option for the same role that is clearly inferior in most situations or by most metrics, then something is really wrong. Not every single option has to be equal, but situations where there is no real reason to pick one choice are not very good.

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

I'm saying that the game you played was a fever dream and you actually never played D:OS, but you think you did.

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Getting no XP for fights or skill checks is not good either...

I like Pathfinder 2e's approach, you get XP for encounters and obstacles, but it's relative to challenge rating. So you won't get anything if you bully some goblins or pick a level 1 lock as a level 10 party, but you will get rewarded with XP for beating stuff around your level.

And really less trash mobs and mostly hand placed encounters would be very nice.

[Gromnir]

quest xp makes so much more sense than trying to tie an xp total to every possible action or activity. the obvious reward for disarming a trap is not being blown to smithereens by the trap. the reward for opening a lock is being able to take a shortcut past ______ or being able to loot whatever were in the locked chest. quest xp makes so developers need not try and balance xp rewards and it encourages creative gameplay. if sneaking past a bunch o' critters or bluffing your way outta a fight gets you closer to your goal, then you need not be concerned 'bout what happens when the player bluffs for an xp reward and then kills the enemies for xp. sure, not killing the goblins means you don't get their rusty swords and battered helmets, but you aren't sacrificing xp by choosing the non murder route. degenerative nonsense avoided. quest rewards make so awards is balanced and it also makes possible for players to achieve goals in ways even the developers did not expect w/o such efforts needing result in an xp sacrifice.

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Edited September 21, 2021 by Gromnir

[Sarex]

1 hour ago, xzar_monty said:

This, btw, was an absolutely huge mistake in PoE. So, Josh Sawyer & co decided to essentially remove XP gains from battles. Fair enough. But they forgot to remove the battles. So, PoE is absolutely full of trash mob battles that give you NO XP and NO LOOT. They are nothing but a huge waste of time. Unbelievable. Absolutely unbelievable.

As Gromnir mentioned there was supposed to be alternate ways to resolving conflicts and sneaking around trash mobs and such, funny how that turned out...

27 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Why you make me sad...

28 minutes ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I like Pathfinder 2e's approach, you get XP for encounters and obstacles, but it's relative to challenge rating. So you won't get anything if you bully some goblins or pick a level 1 lock as a level 10 party, but you will get rewarded with XP for beating stuff around your level.

And really less trash mobs and mostly hand placed encounters would be very nice.

I agree, but then you run in to the issue of the world feeling empty.

@Gromnir I think the only reason they got as many sales as they did with PoE was because of the bait and switch with the whole "spiritual successor" spiel they did when funding the KS. Afterward, with the developer updates, they tried to temper expectation but the genie was out of the bottle by then. That explains what happened with Deadfire.

We will see how many sales P:WoR gets and that will tell us if it was the bundle inflating the numbers or if simply Owlcat made a more popular game.

As for the rest. I think time has shown how right they were with their decisions. There is obviously a market for "cRPGs", it may not be mass appeal one, but it's there and more then enough to be sustainable. That they are jumping the ship with their next installment of PoE, show where their confidence in making a "cRPG" is at.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

 

We will see how many sales P:WoR gets and that will tell us if it was the bundle inflating the numbers or if simply Owlcat made a more popular game.

 

bad logic detector. develop your syllogism. 

sales o' deadfire failing to match expectations did not reduce sales o' poe. 

is a fact kingmaker sales exceeded a million after the outward bundle. is a fact the clearing o' one million threshold occurred three years after the release o' kingmaker. how many titles can you name which received a sudden spike in sales three years after the initial release w/o similar bundling? *chuckle* am recalling interplay did something similar with ps:t... announced a sales achievement but were sneaky in not mentioning such were achieved following a bundling with, of all things, soulbringer. not three years however.

and am agreeing there is a market for crpgs. 

ok? now what?

one reason we went and supported wotr in spite o' our criticisms o' kingmaker is 'cause it were functional the only option available for the kinda crpg we ordinarily prefer. we played the bg3 beta for a few hours and have no desire whatsoever to play more bg3. is a good chance if there were a poe3 being released simultaneous with wotr, we would never play a minute o' wotr, but such ain't reality. 

perhaps amusing, but o' the three new titles we played most in 2018, battletech is the one we continue to play and the other two titles were crpgs. sure, we put a whole lotta hours into deadfire, but battletech has had the enduring appeal. if there were a battletech sequel being released 2021, then am guaranteeing our wotr gameplay hours would be negligible. instead, we already has many hundreds o' hours invested in the wotr beta. 

HA! Good Fun!

ps battletech is another case where lack o' a sequel is less telling than one might expect. 

pps anybody who got baited by specific by "spiritual successor" puffery deserves to be mocked and ridiculed. am s'posing is same people who act surprised when their new and improved laundry detergent doesn't clean any better than the previous version? oh, and to be clear, obsidian never claimed "spiritual successor." had this debate with @Amentep and others years past. were claim o' "homage" to past ie games. 

(edit: added the pps and homage link in part to lament the recognition there is absolute nothing new to be said on these issues.)

Edited September 21, 2021 by Gromnir

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

Why you make me sad...

1 hour ago, Sarex said:

I agree, but then you run in to the issue of the world feeling empty.

Maybe, but just thinking of say BG1, I don't really remember any of the random encounters that filled up most maps. I do remember that crazy cleric, the belt ogre, and the basilisks though. I'd take fewer hand placed encounters like that over random hordes, even if it does feel more sparse.

[InsaneCommander]

4 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

I disagree, and I'll just point to the 5e Sorcerer. That class is awful, it comes up short next to every other caster class in the edition. It needs to be buffed across the board just to come up to par.

And that's why I think balance is important, if there's an option for the same role that is clearly inferior in most situations or by most metrics, then something is really wrong. Not every single option has to be equal, but situations where there is no real reason to pick one choice are not very good.

I was thinking more on the lines of D&D 3e and Pathfinder. In fact, the only experience I had with the 5e was Solasta. But yes, some balancing is good, no doubt about that.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

15 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

I was thinking more on the lines of D&D 3e and Pathfinder. In fact, the only experience I had with the 5e was Solasta. But yes, some balancing is good, no doubt about that.

Ah ok. I think it's funny on how 3.5 -> Pathfinder the Sorcerer got buffed across the board.

[xzar_monty]

9 hours ago, Sarex said:

As Gromnir mentioned there was supposed to be alternate ways to resolving conflicts and sneaking around trash mobs and such, funny how that turned out...

In many of the quests, this works very well and deserves applause. It was a really good idea.

But many outdoor areas, some levels of Od Nua and even some interiors (such as Galvino's workshop) are utterly hopeless. There's a trash mob every few steps, you can't avoid it and you get absolutely nothing for dealing with it. It's a dreadful waste of time.

[Sarex]

8 hours ago, KP the meanie zucchini said:

Maybe, but just thinking of say BG1, I don't really remember any of the random encounters that filled up most maps. I do remember that crazy cleric, the belt ogre, and the basilisks though. I'd take fewer hand placed encounters like that over random hordes, even if it does feel more sparse.

BG1 definitely felt sparse and empty and I ranked it second to last of the IE games.

@Gromnir Deadfire showed that all the people who tried PoE were not interested in the sequel. Kingmaker had an atrocious release, where it was almost unplayable, so it makes sense that the sales came in when the game was in a more playable state. As I said WoR will be a good indicator of the popularity of Owlcats game.

As for the whole spiritual successor/homage deal you seem to be stuck on, they did in fact name drop all the IE games and did nothing during the kickstarter to mange expectations, they only started after the funding was finished with the kickstarter updates.

Had no luck in finding it, but there was a video in a limo where Feargus pitches the game to publishers and gets laughed at, it was essentially the announcement of the PoE kickstarter, I'm pretty sure they talked about the IE games in there.