Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 3

[kanisatha]

There's so much interesting discussion in this thread, not just about bugs and the like but about the game itself and its story and characters. I just wish you guys would consider posting this awesome feedback in the Owlcat forum or bringing it up on their Discord channel where the game devs will have some chance of being exposed to them and potentially reacting to them.

[xzar_monty]

Fair point. I'm not going to enter the Owlcat forum, though, this one's enough for me. But, as I said, fair point. It *would* be better if Owlcat had a chance to see this (provided that they respond to feedback).

[Gromnir]

52 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

There's so much interesting discussion in this thread, not just about bugs and the like but about the game itself and its story and characters. I just wish you guys would consider posting this awesome feedback in the Owlcat forum or bringing it up on their Discord channel where the game devs will have some chance of being exposed to them and potentially reacting to them.

based on our experience with the owlcat boards, discovering the developers make any serious effort to read posts would surprise us. sure, the official wotr forum is an obvious and reasonable place to post concerns and the community may offer solutions/insights, but am having little faith in the usefulness o' reaching owlcat developers by means o' the owlcat forum.

converse, we has been told that developers do in fact interact with the community via discord, but am having no experience with owlcat and discord. 

HA! Good Fun!

[xzar_monty]

Here's another little point about the game: the worldbuilding is a bit silly, in many respects. I am happy to admit that this is not a major problem, but then again, it does take away from the immersion. A good example of this is that there's just an awful lot of stuff lying around everywhere, and it sort of makes you wonder what kind of world this is: why is every place positively littered with stuff that you can pick up? There's gold everywhere, for instance. No one will care if you take it all.

I just entered the Abyss, and the same goes on there, too. In a random stack of loot, I found a smoking pipe and such, all the same stuff you find on the material plane. And so I find myself asking: what were the game-makers thinking? It's the abyss for crying out lout. Smoking pipes lying around?

[uuuhhii]

stop trying to read owlcat forum for a while now

the ui just isn't that good

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

5 hours ago, Gromnir said:

keep in mind, 'ccording to owlcat, stauton's jaunt with the sword o' valor were "unauthorized." the unwise military escapade encouraged by a demon's machinations were illegal by its very nature.  staunton knew what he were doing were a violation o' orders. converse, hulrun, like it or not, is acting with the authority provided to him and his cruelty is not driven by a desire to see others suffer or as an excuse for personal gain, or so the alignment argument goes. like it or not, hulrun has clear been given broad discretion to root out infidels and fifth columnists, real or imagined. hulrun's zealotry and paranoia is displaying monumental bad judgement but is quite possible he is acting under color o' law and is arguable he ain't even doing evil as his intent is not tainted-- he believes he is literal fighting on the side of the angels.  regardless, is specific noted staunton's taking o' the sword of valor were unauthorized. one may only assume the inquisitors o' the crusade, such as hulrunn, is given wide latitude to ferret out threats. owlcat is clear embracing a simplistic but nevertheless rational interpretation o' lawful... and might not be appropriate to blame owlcat neither

While I think the treatment of Hulrun and Staunton is consistent with Lawful (as the cosmic force in PF), it just seems to jar with the Good (cosmic force) nature of the crusades and their deities. As much divine and planar intervention is already going on in the crusade, you'd think some holy being would have communicated to Hulrun that he needs to curtail the persecution or gave Staunton some encouragement to keep on trucking. Even factoring in the leeway given to Inquisitors and that Hulrun himself isn't Good, it just feels that his actions and attitude deviate too far from benign to be sanctioned by a Good deity.

Of course alignment is flawed and the games would mostly be better without it. Still, it is weird that the (Lawful) choice is usually the same act as the (Evil) one, or barring an (Evil) choice is the most obvious stand in for it. Given the alignment wheel wonkiness, it puts you in the very strange position of falling as a Paladin if yo⁹9u commit too many (Good) acts.

3 hours ago, kanisatha said:

There's so much interesting discussion in this thread, not just about bugs and the like but about the game itself and its story and characters. I just wish you guys would consider posting this awesome feedback in the Owlcat forum or bringing it up on their Discord channel where the game devs will have some chance of being exposed to them and potentially reacting to them.

I'm too lazy to get into discord and Owlcat's forum is hard to navigate.

[kanisatha]

Fair enough. I don't do Discord myself as a hearing impaired person. But I post somewhat frequently on their forum, and from what others there say about comments Owlcat devs have made in other settings such as social media, Discord, and Reddit, it would appear they have people assigned to reading and reporting on what's being discussed on the forum.

[ShadySands]

Discord also works as a message board as I've never used any voice or audio communication on it. I'm on their Discord but I don't really care for navigating it.

I'm also not a fan of alignment systems and especially Owlcat's implementation. I guess that's why there's a mod to change it so alignment shifts only occur on the listed axis. It hasn't been an issue in any of my games so far but i haven't played any classes with alignment restrictions other than just testing them out.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

13 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

I'm also not a fan of alignment systems and especially Owlcat's implementation. I guess that's why there's a mod to change it so alignment shifts only occur on the listed axis. It hasn't been an issue in any of my games so far but i haven't played any classes with alignment restrictions other than just testing them out.

Which one? ToyBox just locks it.

[Gromnir]

30 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Fair enough. I don't do Discord myself as a hearing impaired person. But I post somewhat frequently on their forum, and from what others there say about comments Owlcat devs have made in other settings such as social media, Discord, and Reddit, it would appear they have people assigned to reading and reporting on what's being discussed on the forum.

is amusing you mention, 'cause in a recent video release an owlcat community manager mentioned all the ways they track community feedback, and he literal forgot the forums until somebody else reminded him. *chuckle* were especial amusing when guy introducing his fellow owlcat personages got to the discord guy and exclaimed, "jesus christ!" noting how good they guy's accent were, which the developer attributed to so much time spent doing the discord bit. even so, were kinda funny how the forums were initial overlooked and we genuine cannot recall which owlcat person present were s'posed responsible for the forums, 'cause am pretty sure nobody were mentioned-- were early in the video and we were acclimating to accents, so we missed a bit. 

as to alignment, am obvious not a fan. more immediate relevant, @KP on top of ZA WARUDO and Gromnir is in agreement regarding owlcat's implementation o' lawful being  difficult to square with deities and characters who is s'posed good. we mentioned elsewhere that lawful choices in the game is functional what would regill do in this situation, and regill is lawful evil. am recognizing that in pathfinder a god may have multiple aspects and just 'cause iomadae shows mercy and benevolence as one would expect from a paladin, that don't mean such is the iomadae hulrun worships.  our bigger issue were with owlcat making lawful options in their game skew much in the direction o' dispassionate cruelty.  

am also not a fan o' the owlcat mechanics insofar as alignment. got a lg character who chooses the good dialogue every time and a sprinkling o' lawful response will nevertheless shift to neutral good rather quick, which is gonna be annoying for paladins and the like. is what am believing @ShadySands is referencing.

however, interloper gods offends our aesthetic more than does alignment. have interloper gods who correct their flock and make pronouncements to their followers ruin our notions o' faith and kill the chance for many storylines, including those focusing on redemption. we noted how in pnp, the hulrun at the start o' the adventure were reflecting on the harm he had done earlier in life. a hulrun who survived day 1 o' the pnp adventure mighta' come to the conclusion that his actions were fundamental wrong and sought to make amends, but such would be meaningless if iomedae through her herald, direct communication or a withholding o' inquisitor powers, let hulrun know, w/o doubt, that his behaviour were inappropriate.  is bs and is also why we were particular impressed with the obsidian pillars solution to this narrative issue common in so many crpg settings. 'course kp is correct and if you got a setting with interloper gods who all too frequent involve themselves in mortal affairs, the explanation as to why they do not chastise a hulrun is never gonna be satisfactory. 

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

2 hours ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

Which one? ToyBox just locks it.

I think it's called alignment shifts that aren't dumb. I just looked at it and I was wrong, it doesn't change it to a one axis switch but rather lawful or chaotic instead of neutral when you pick a good or evil option. I think it works based on your existing alignment but that way your paladin won't switch to neutral good by only picking good options, or looking at it another way, the only way to switch to neutral will be actually taking neutral options.

E: I guess taking opposite alignment actions will work as well

Edited January 2, 2022 by ShadySands

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

Just got booted to the Abyss. There's some weird occurances where the fps just collapses. I've tried turning down the settings and that doesn't seem to work. I'm not sure if it's because I have a ton of buffs on everyone or if it's something else, because it doesn't seem to be an issue in certain areas with said buffs.

Oh yeah, and ran into Playful Darkness. By god, what a broken beast. I can see tons of people wiping here if they don't know what to bring or how to cheese.

[kanisatha]

On 1/1/2022 at 6:31 PM, Gromnir said:

is amusing you mention, 'cause in a recent video release an owlcat community manager mentioned all the ways they track community feedback, and he literal forgot the forums until somebody else reminded him. *chuckle* were especial amusing when guy introducing his fellow owlcat personages got to the discord guy and exclaimed, "jesus christ!" noting how good they guy's accent were, which the developer attributed to so much time spent doing the discord bit. even so, were kinda funny how the forums were initial overlooked and we genuine cannot recall which owlcat person present were s'posed responsible for the forums, 'cause am pretty sure nobody were mentioned-- were early in the video and we were acclimating to accents, so we missed a bit.

Interesting. It's entirely possible they used to pay attention to the forums right after release but perhaps not anymore now. People posting in the forum has now died down quite sharply, as is to be expected.

But the main point I'm making is that Owlcat, way more so than any other game developer to my knowledge, has a record of being welcoming of and receptive to player feedback. They seem to take player feedback seriously, and give it sincere consideration even if not all feedback results in changes to the game. And in the case of WotR, just like with Km, I expect we will get a "Definitive Edition" release later this year that has meaningful changes and upgrades to the game. So player feedback continues to remain useful, imo.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

The demon city is a real pain to navigate. I swear those damn walls are designed to stay closed when you wait by them.

[Sarex]

19 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

The demon city is a real pain to navigate. I swear those damn walls are designed to stay closed when you wait by them.

The trick is to

Spoiler

rotate the camera for them to move.

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by Sarex

[Gromnir]

39 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

 

But the main point I'm making is that Owlcat, way more so than any other game developer to my knowledge, has a record of being welcoming of and receptive to player feedback. 

am not certain how you may make such an observation on this board.  perhaps one reason am arguable unfair measuring owlcat as being poor in their responsiveness is 'cause we need measure 'em 'gainst obsidian.  just as an example: https://forums.obsidian.net/forum/157-grounded-technical-support-spoiler-warning/

see all the obsidian responses on only the most recent page? now view the wotr:  https://forum.owlcatgames.com/c/pathfinder-wotr/bug-reports/22 point to us the developer responses.

fans had long and serious discussions 'bout issues in all recent obsidian games, and were rare we were in the dark as to what were the obsidian perspective. sure, we were annoyed that josh in particular retreated from the obsidian boards to make his announcements, but via tumblr, twitter and a myriad o' other sources, we got far more feedback from obsidian... and as far as at least acknowledging bugs, obsidian absolute buries owlcat and most other developers. 

regardless, is an odd observation to make and make in this place.

@KP on top of ZA WARUDO am believing your wall issue is not imagination. recommendation: do not have your party bunched up immediate adjacent to a wall or building which appears designed to move. back up a smidge, 'cause if you do not then in our experience adjusting the camera will frequent fail to produce changes desired.

as for fps drops in the abyss and elsewhere, am suspecting is a memory leak issue based on feedback at owlcat. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

[ShadySands]

Agreed on standing back from the walls. I had that issue too though I think at some point I just started using dimension door out of laziness.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

30 minutes ago, Sarex said:

The trick is to

  Reveal hidden contents

rotate the camera for them to move.

 

I can't find a gif that conveys just how much I am screaming internally.

29 minutes ago, Gromnir said:

am believing your wall issue is not imagination. recommendation: do not have your party bunched up immediate adjacent to a wall or building which appears designed to move. back up a smidge, 'cause if you do not then in our experience adjusting the camera will frequent fail to produce changes desired.

I've been doing that. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Probably the most headache inducing is trying to get into the arena.

22 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Agreed on standing back from the walls. I had that issue too though I think at some point I just started using dimension door out of laziness.

I've been doing that. There have been a few roofs I've had to teleport on to grab loot, not sure if rotation provides access but it's easier to just cast.

[Gromnir]

rooftops are frequently inaccessible save through dimension door. a few locals may be overheard mockingly referencing how difficult it must be for non flying mortals n' such trying to navigate the city, which am suspecting were owlcat's clumsy way o' letting you know some chests n' such would not be accessible save through extraordinary means. in the lower city there is a particular noteworthy belt and a star knife (in the unlikely event you use star knives) which you may only acquire with dimension door. the belt involves a fight with a boosted deathsnatcher (not playful darkness level, but tough even so) and a few adds, at least one which has a significant fear aura.  am mentioning just as forewarning that going to the roofs via dd may involve lethal traps and encounters. 

if you are not immediate adjacent to a wall, camera rotate does work, but is indeed finicky and requires patience. annoyance o' need finding the exact right camera angle is no doubt why shady simple used dimension door as often as not.

HA! Good Fun!

[Sarex]

18 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

I can't find a gif that conveys just how much I am screaming internally.

Wait, did you know how the walls work? Was it just buggy?

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

2 minutes ago, Sarex said:

Wait, did you know how the walls work? Was it just buggy?

Not really, there's nothing in the game that tells you to rotate. But I did frequently rotate around the moving walls and they didn't move, so I assume it's also buggy. Like I said it's a cool idea but a pain in practice.

[Sarex]

2 minutes ago, KP on top of ZA WARUDO said:

Not really, there's nothing in the game that tells you to rotate. But I did frequently rotate around the moving walls and they didn't move, so I assume it's also buggy. Like I said it's a cool idea but a pain in practice.

Yeah, the only reason I know is because I watched a streamer, who in turn got told by chat. Though he didn't encounter any issues that I noticed on those maps.

Edited January 3, 2022 by Sarex

[Achilles]

19 hours ago, Gromnir said:

a few locals may be overheard mockingly referencing how difficult it must be for non flying mortals n' such trying to navigate the city, which am suspecting were owlcat's clumsy way o' letting you know some chests n' such would not be accessible save through extraordinary means.

IIRC there's a loading screen tip. Re: the camera rotation mechanic, at one point there was a tutorial that popped up when the player first entered the area. Not sure if that was ditched in the final release, but I do recall seeing it a few times in the beta.

[Gromnir]

1 hour ago, Achilles said:

IIRC there's a loading screen tip. Re: the camera rotation mechanic, at one point there was a tutorial that popped up when the player first entered the area. Not sure if that was ditched in the final release, but I do recall seeing it a few times in the beta.

is actual a separate issue. the camera thing occurred to us 'cause we necessarily had to move the camera to track our party through the labyrinthine lower city during the beta.  we saw buildings move (at first it was a heard as 'posed to seen kinda thing) moments after entering alushinyrra 'cause the developers put a hairpin turn on the map which is unavoidable and results in a pov which blocks your party if you don't shift the camera. am s'posing is possible to miss, but the building shift mechanic is made kinda in-your-face. however, assume one is stuck at an immovable wall, developers no doubt believe eventual a player will turn around and go back whence they came, which is also likely to result in a change in camera views. 'course, as we noted, if you have your party bunched up against a wall, is chances the wall don't actual move and all you get is the sound-effect, which is most annoying and could make the build shift missable. 

am s'posing the developers coulda made more obvious w/o being overt, but the hidden quality o' building shift didn't bother us none. what were annoying were fact the shifts occurred so slow and were extreme sensitive in select areas. ever so slight tap o' the mouse and perhaps the building sudden starts going in the exact wrong direction?

different issue entirely is the problem with so much content being on the roofs o' alushinyrra. camera angle change will not get you access to much o' the roof content. if you didn't build one o' your casters to have dimension door, you could be in for a rough time accessing such otherwise inaccessible content. the conversation regarding the handicap to non fliers we mentioned doesn't actual apply to camera angles. after all, buildings (and later whole sections o' the city) do move to provide terrestrial bound critters access to additional portions o' the map. nevertheless, got arueshalae in your party doesn't give you access to rooftops even if she has wings 'cause there is no player flight and only other game flight is scripted (as with the dragon or vrock assassins sudden pouncing), but no such scripting gets you on rooftops even with flight capable party members. unless we missed something fundamental, you need dimension door, and if you only have limited access to such via wands or a small number o' scrolls, then you might be fubar if you don' have such stockpiled. we didn't check, but we don't recall significant quantities o' dimension door scrolls being for sale in alushinyrra.

as an aside, for our first abyss run, all the traps on roofs is what convinced us we needed to access roofs and as such we needed nenio back in our party to be reach those areas. importance o' roof access were not gleaned through a loading screen tip or the conversation we reference but the simple recognition that if the roofs is trapped, is 'cause developers no doubt put other content up there as well. 

HA! Good Fun!

[Gromnir]

making a second post (apologies) 'cause would be ez to miss in the wall-o-text which is our normal posting practice.

recommendation: try and dimension door to every roof in alushinyrra.

many roofs which visibly look like they could have content or is big enough to accommodate your party is inaccessible to dimension door, which am s'posing is the developer's way o' not wasting your time. the problem is there is a few rooftops with hidden 1007, some o' which is the best stuff you will find in the abyss. unless you wanna find a guide, am gonna suggest attempting dimension door every roof. tedious? indeed.

warning: potential one of the most difficult encounters in the game occurs on a roof accessible only through dimension door. surprise. 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited January 4, 2022 by Gromnir