Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous, Part 4

[xzar_monty]

The DLCs for P:K were, in my view, only notable for their lack of quality. I was only going to go for one of the DLCs this time (can't remember the name), but after the Ukraine war started, even that became a no-no.

[Gromnir]

On 4/24/2022 at 10:02 AM, ShadySands said:

I heard it's super buggy and much harder than the base game. I'm waiting for some patches

we got more than a couple annoying bugs in the base game post patch/dlc, so yeah, am gonna wait for at least the next patch.

HA! Good Fun!

ps there was a small update today which fixed more than is listed. example: the covenant of the inheritor was most assured not fixed in our game, but is now working as described, albeit with a null value addition to the item description. 

Edited April 26, 2022 by Gromnir

[Hawke64]

Considering that there is a dedicated thread, posting my review here:

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is an RPG. Considering how few actual role-playing games that require the player to actively participate in the story, instead of watching one non-interactive cut-scene after another, are there, where the avatar is customizable and does not auto-dialogue some nonsense, I highly recommend this game, despite its numerous flaws, from optimisation (poor, but better than Kingmaker) to balance (non-existent) to length (120 hours) to writing (subjective).
Disclaimer: I am a backer and I had to purchase the game again in order to be able to play it without interruptions. While one could argue that the flaw is with Steam, the developers also could have released a finished product.

But purchasing it now on Steam is less recommended - either choosing a DRM-free platform or waiting for 2 years is preferable, due to the frequency and size of updates. One could see end-users as paying beta-testers, but such developers at least should add the "Early Access" tag to their games. Also by default, the game attempts to send save files and statistics to the developer. It is possible to disable in-game or to black-list the application via firewall.

The available portraits for the main character are lacking - not all combinations of races, classes and weapons are featured, which makes them effectively useless. It is possible to use images on your PC for the portrait, but it is disappointing that it cannot be generated by the game.

The combat is built around pre-buffing and given the diversity of classes, races and equipment, one could find themselves unable to progress if not for the ability to decrease enemies' stats and damage drastically via the settings. Wrath of the Righteous is extremely combat-heavy and it is impossible to increase the animation speed in the real-time-with-pause mode, while it can be tripled in the turn-based mode. The size of the locations vary from a few rooms to enormous dungeons. There are no fast-travel options for the latter.

It is impossible to attack non-hostile NPC first without initiating dialogue and explicitly informing them about it. In terms of story, the consequences of decisions can be shown 50 hours later the choice, while the choice itself might not be transparent. In other words, in some cases dialogue flags are not properly communicated to the player. Confusingly, usually it is explicitly stated why which option is available and even what it does (such as Mythic Paths or attacking). The quest journal, the map and dialogues can lack crucial information necessary to complete side quests, i.e. the party is often required to go to a certain location, but no directions are given and the location is not marked. There is no persistent dialogue log.

The save files, while smaller than in Kingmaker, are large (up to 25MB) and located in a hidden folder (\username\AppData\LocalLow\Owlcat Games\Pathfinder Wrath Of The Righteous\Saved Games). The loading times without an SSD are long, thus it is strongly recommended to install on an SSD. The game allows to set the number of quick and auto-saves used. Frequent chance-based skill checks encourage using quick saving and loading often. It also can be used for the Crusade mode, as auto-resolution of battles seem to use RNG as well.

Completing a single playthrough, with dropping the difficulty to the lowest possible by the last area, took me 120 hours (118 hours 27 minutes), not counting reloading.
---
Repurchased on GOG shortly after realizing that it would be the same as with KM - patch after bug after patch, so encountered only one progress-stopping bug and several minor glitches, but was able to play when and how I want.
I also would strongly prefer something shorter, around 40 hours for a completionist run, certainly not 120.

On an unrelated note, Owlcat Games are based in Cyprus, wherever they were founded.

[xzar_monty]

On 5/6/2022 at 6:54 PM, Hawke64 said:

In terms of story, the consequences of decisions can be shown 50 hours later the choice, while the choice itself might not be transparent. In other words, in some cases dialogue flags are not properly communicated to the player.

I am somewhat puzzled by this, so could you perhaps clarify? There is a clear criticism implied here ("not properly"), but what exactly would you want the game to do?

In my view, one of the most interesting things about RPGs is that your choices matter, so you may find that something becomes either available or unavailable because of a choice you have made somewhere along the way. But, and here's we may differ considerably, I would certainly not want the game to tell me this beforehand. What would be the point? If the game gives me two choices, I want to choose on the basis of the character I am playing, not on the basis of what the game tells me the choices will do.

[Hawke64]

4 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I am somewhat puzzled by this, so could you perhaps clarify? There is a clear criticism implied here ("not properly"), but what exactly would you want the game to do?

In my view, one of the most interesting things about RPGs is that your choices matter, so you may find that something becomes either available or unavailable because of a choice you have made somewhere along the way. But, and here's we may differ considerably, I would certainly not want the game to tell me this beforehand. What would be the point? If the game gives me two choices, I want to choose on the basis of the character I am playing, not on the basis of what the game tells me the choices will do.

I meant the immediate results, such as an item or an "NPC approves +5"/"vital plot information is acquired" message, as opposed to something more long term, e.g. the traveller from the vescavor canyon in Act II. It was shown for the Crusade management part - the tooltip explicitly told what you are getting. Or, if compared to other cRPGs, what Tyranny and, to a lesser extent, Pillars of Eternity had. It was possible to be unable to access some main locations in Tyranny depending on the ally chosen, but the game told explicitly how loyal the ally is to you and when you are breaking the alliance. 

Spoiler

[xzar_monty]

Ok, I understand now, thanks. I disagree, but that's fine. I don't want to have all that information on display, because it'll make me feel like everything is based on calculations (which it is, but I prefer the illusion of a living world inside the game).

[Gromnir]

new patch

fewer fixes than anticipated, but am knowing is typical a few corrective measures which go unpublished. 

will maybe give the dlcs a shot now that there has been a couple patches.

HA! Good Fun!

[xzar_monty]

After surfacing from the Abyss, I find that I cannot find much enthusiasm to continue the story. It's not very interesting and it's all over the place. I wonder if this is a common experience. I found Chapter III quite interesting, and some of the Abyss was good, too, although there far too many silly battles against oversized monsters, but now, at Chapter V, it's just getting very tiring. I have also reached the level cap (but I'm still one short of the maximum mythical level), and this always feels like the kiss of death for me: nothing to aim at, anymore.

[uuuhhii]

8 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

After surfacing from the Abyss, I find that I cannot find much enthusiasm to continue the story. It's not very interesting and it's all over the place. I wonder if this is a common experience. I found Chapter III quite interesting, and some of the Abyss was good, too, although there far too many silly battles against oversized monsters, but now, at Chapter V, it's just getting very tiring. I have also reached the level cap (but I'm still one short of the maximum mythical level), and this always feels like the kiss of death for me: nothing to aim at, anymore.

act 5 certainly have the most problem

short ivory iabyrinth without another baphomet fight are the most disappointing

the nenio quest have the most annoying dungeon certainly didn't help either

[kanisatha]

19 hours ago, xzar_monty said:

I have also reached the level cap (but I'm still one short of the maximum mythical level), and this always feels like the kiss of death for me: nothing to aim at, anymore.

This is what happens with me as well. Hits my motivation to keep playing very hard.

[bugarup]

I'm okay with maxing out, but Chapters 5 and especially 6 are boring and your party being ludicrously overpowered at max level doesn't help any. I did manage to finish two runs but eventually went back to low...well, lowish level parties to try different classes and different party setups. Maybe I'll even unbench Greybor for a while...nah, who I am kidding. The guy's useless.

[Sarex]

Are updates still coming out for this?

[xzar_monty]

Yes.

[Gromnir]

possible wotr related... but likely not

btw, paizo has confirmed it is not 

Spoiler

a starfinder game. 

based on previous owlcat comments, if the teaser is promoting a new pathfinder ap, is likely 1e. reign of winter, strange aeons and iron gods are obvious choices. 'course reign of winter is a functional nonstarter given the russia thing. is a few other 1e ap with space related themes, including ruins of azlant, but seeing as much o' that ap takes place underwater, am gonna guess not.

2e strength of thousands ap includes doorway to the red star.

new ip?

some kinda dlc?

dunno. regardless, is not starfinder.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Azdeus]

1 hour ago, Gromnir said:

possible wotr related... but likely not

btw, paizo has confirmed it is not 

  Hide contents

a starfinder game. 

based on previous owlcat comments, if the teaser is promoting a new pathfinder ap, is likely 1e. reign of winter, strange aeons and iron gods are obvious choices. 'course reign of winter is a functional nonstarter given the russia thing. is a few other 1e ap with space related themes, including ruins of azlant, but seeing as much o' that ap takes place underwater, am gonna guess not.

2e strength of thousands ap includes doorway to the red star.

new ip?

some kinda dlc?

dunno. regardless, is not starfinder.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Not gonna lie, I'm hoping for a proper Dark Heresy or maybe Rogue Trader game.

[Agiel]

As correctly speculated by @Azdeusand mentioned in the news thread Owlcat's next joint that looked sci-fi oriented will be an adaptation of <<Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader>>.

Edited June 1, 2022 by Agiel

[Sarex]

On 5/31/2022 at 9:33 AM, Azdeus said:

Not gonna lie, I'm hoping for a proper Dark Heresy or maybe Rogue Trader game.

Not gonna lie, I'm impressed.

[Azdeus]

2 hours ago, Sarex said:

Not gonna lie, I'm impressed.

Not gonna lie, I'm extremely happy!

[kanisatha]

Very happy for you @Azdeus and other Warhammer fans.

But this game is not for me for multiple reasons, so I will be passing on it. Too bad, because Owlcat is one of only a very few studios making the kind of cRPGs I love. Even Obsidian, my other much-loved studio, sadly seems to be moving away from cRPGs to more action RPGs.

[xzar_monty]

48 minutes ago, kanisatha said:

Too bad, because Owlcat is one of only a very few studios making the kind of cRPGs I love. Even Obsidian, my other much-loved studio, sadly seems to be moving away from cRPGs to more action RPGs.

Heck, there don't seem to be any of them around anymore... Oh well. I can live without these games. It'll be just fine if it turns out that BG2, PoE and Deadfire were the pinnacle, and that was it. There ain't ever gonna be more high-quality Pink Floyd albums, either.

[kanisatha]

6 minutes ago, xzar_monty said:

Heck, there don't seem to be any of them around anymore... Oh well. I can live without these games. It'll be just fine if it turns out that BG2, PoE and Deadfire were the pinnacle, and that was it. There ain't ever gonna be more high-quality Pink Floyd albums, either.

Nice analogy. I stopped paying attention to new rock music around 1995, and just keep playing my 260+ CDs from the '50s-early '90s.

But with RPGs, I can keep replaying old games only so much, and do feel a need for something new, even if that means playing something not as awesome as those games of old. So yeah, I still have the BG, PoE, and Pathfinder games, plus Solasta. But I'll also keep playing games like DA and Witcher, and try out new games like Dark Envoy, Vendir, Zoria, Starfield, and Avowed.

[Gromnir]

am playing through the ashes dlc. we typical play on hard and this content represents a serious difficulty boost, due in large part to low levels but not entire. unless you are a serious glutton for punishment, we would not recommend any difficulty beyond core... and make an animal companion heavy party regardless. is our advice to go with leopards and horses as these is the best low level choices for animal companions. leopards in particular are amazing tanks and a couple o' leopards goes a long way towards mitigating difficulty spikes. 

observations w/o any real organization:

is bugs remaining, but so far has been playable w/o having us rage quit.

am liking the alternatives to combat but there is no avoiding much o' the combat. 

writing is owlcat standard and meh at best but chances are if you are bothering to read this and have any intention o' playing the dlc, you already are aware of owlcat writing limits and are ok with their standard fare. 

there are transitions 'tween areas which is... annoying. recall willodus' mansion in alushinyrra? click on the door and then you gotta choose options and make text-based skill checks to get through the mansion? not nearly as straightforward or rational as were the skill checks to reach the dragon's lair in act 3, yes? the through the ashes dlc takes what were bad 'bout the willodus mansion interaction and multiplies, then repeats the experience many times. 

am suspecting am halfway through 'cause am a bit beyond level three and am understanding level five is max.

quest based xp is kinda nice as 'posed to per kill. in fact, for most o' the cemetery map we used one o' our leopards to draw undead into encounters with bandits and monsters at which point the baddies would kill each other. no lost xp for fail to personal kill baddies avoids the degenerative xp farming gameplay. in fact, based on our run thus far, you ordinarily gain more xp for using alternatives to combat, although a few such alternatives will rely on rope or tools and those items is also having a premium value and may be needed for those annoying text-based map transitions we already mentioned.  do you topple a statue to kill a powerful spellcaster or do you keep the tools you need to knock down the statue 'cause you most definite will need at some point in the future?

...

overall am enjoying though is only our preternatural obstinance which has us playing on hard difficulty. repeating for emphasis: this dlc is extreme unforgiving. nevertheless, while am only halfway done,  we would recommend... save to note the enhanced edition o' wotr is only a few months remote and it might be better to wait... though no doubt the enhanced edition will create new bugs which will bork a few builds and quests and then you will possible need wait a couple more months.

well, here is looking forward to the second half o' the dlc wherein we presumably need fight demons sans cold iron weapons.

HA! Good Fun!

 

[bugarup]

I still have not patched my game since the patch that nerfed Liches and merged spellbooks because I have some more Liches and Liches-to-be rattling about. Did anyone try a patched Lich per chance? Maybe there isn't that much difference on Core? 

Other than Lich, I finished with a Legend who was basically a walking...well, riding cheat even though not too much optimized (all levels of Deliverer + some sneaky paladin for saves and sneakiness + Sanctified Slayer for buffs, sneakiness and domains + Sohei for a horse, reach weapon specced into cleaving and intimidation). All I had to do was sic this guy onto groups of mooks and enjoy chain gib showers. 

[Gromnir]

am done with through the ashes. will offer thoughts in a bit. for the moment am gonna offer minor spoilers for those who have not yet played the dlc.

Spoiler

weapons available in the game are limited, and am not even speaking o' magic weapons or cold iron varieties. is a few weapon types you ain't gonna find anywhere in the game, or only find/buy during the last half hour of gameplay, which kinda sucks if choose falchion as a level 1 weapon focus feat. greatswords get the best representation followed by bardiche, daggers, clubs and longbows. is a cold iron bastard sword and a cold iron club you may purchase from a vendor near the entry point o' the rich quarter, which entails much o' the last third o' the game and is where you will be fighting demons although cold iron ain't sooper important unless you are playing higher difficulties.

millorn is a catacombs vendor. consider purchasing his two rainbow quartz. one o' the refugees you encounter later in the game is able to brew potions of lesser restoration, but she requires bezoar and rainbow quartz. 'course is no reason to know you is gonna maybe need a few extra rainbow quartz until you meet ina, at which point you cannot return to millorn to purchase the quartz. the potions is particular useful in the dlc as they is sometimes a text selection in dialogs when addressing refugee sickness. 

refugee illness advances over time; resting to heal and rememorize spells will exacerbate illness o' the sick refugees. do not rest more than absolute necessary.

am not sure if is a bug, but there is an amulet of mighty fists available in the rich quarter along with a scroll of cure disease, but the loot is in/under a rock revealed only by a perception check, albeit a low/ez dc check. the bug is it ain't possible to make the perception check until... am not sure what is the trigger. is no failed perception check and even with a perception o' +20 we weren't able to find the amulet on one playthrough o' the rich quarter. however, when we came back to the same spot once it became dark/night, the secret rock hiding place were discoverable. extreme northwest corner o' the rich quarter map. 

gelatinous cubes is annoying life savers. one o' the unaddressed game bugs is that while blunt damage (at release o' the dlc, only elemental/energy harmed cubes) is now effective against the cubes, if you have a weapon or spell with a dual damage type which is including blunt, your weapon may nevertheless be deemed ineffective. more important regarding the cubes is they is slow and indiscriminate murder bots. in most (not all) situations, if you encounter cubes (ordinary or monolith) you may easily elude them and then afterwards lure more troublesome monsters into a confrontation with the mindless ooze.  

 

 will add to this post after we take care o' a few rl responsibilities.

edit:

ok, so concluding thoughts--

~11 hours of gameplay, but as we noted earlier, the difficulty is a bit less forgiving than the base game, so we likely spent a bit closer to 20 hours actual completing the dlc. 

once we hit level four our animal companions (leopards and horse) received their boost and we exploited protective luck + chant with our wildland shaman, we were a bit more reckless with gameplay 'cause we were noticeable more effective in combat and less likely to die from a single crit. 

am now kinda disappointed with the 40k announcement and the rumors owlcat and paizo is suffering a fractured relationship, 'cause this dlc made us look at owlcat design a bit different, a more favorable "different." is not that we dislike the idea o' a 40k game, but this most recent dlc convinced us we would be much anticipating the next pathfinder release from owlcat. yeah, a bunch o' the alternatives to combat were scripted outcomes direct tied to limited use rope or tools items, but we saw potential in the scheme. beyond such scripted encounters, owlcat obvious had made efforts to allow players find other options to straight up combat as well as to include methods for taking advantage o' geography and environmental interactions to skew the odds in favour o' a party facing difficult odds if they chose to try combat.  the implementation o' such options were not perfect, but we were much encouraged.

owlcat writing is still somewhere 'tween mediocre and bad, but it weren't so bad we wanted to quit. story elements from owlcat is providing little more than a crude raison d'être to explain why your presumably sane protagonist and their companions would choose to face moment-to-moment near death encounters. the dlc were also too short to embrace romances, which we consider a win given what we has seen from past owlcat romances.

one o' the problems with a shorter dlc and a huge number o' highly specialized player choices such as is the case with wotr is that the possibility those player creation and progression choices will be wrong increases. wrong spell or weapon choice may serious undermine a character's usefulness and unless you know what kinda enemies will be encountered and what weapons will be available, the possibility to choose wrong increases. am understanding how the dlc could be frustrating if a player failed to build an effective party, and it were all too ez to build wrong for this dlc.

regardless, were an enjoyable ~20 hours spent on the dlc and we will likely play a couple more times with different parties. 

will possible add more in a bit... 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited June 8, 2022 by Gromnir

[Gromnir]

new update/patch

am increasing confident a few turn-based mounted combat bugs will never be addressed. am similar dubious the quirk o' animal companions loosing the tandem trip feat if chosen at leveled and not conveyed via sacred huntsmaster or hunter ability will be addressed. is getting to the point where the base game mechanics is as fixed as they is gonna be and only content busted by new dlc is addressed with noteworthy probability. 6/9/22 wotr is hardly optimal, but am once again recognizing the title is more stable (far more) than we expected given our experiences with kingmaker and acknowledging all the additional archetypes and epic content o' owlcat's second (last?) pathfinder ap. 

am debating whether to wait for the enhanced edition before tackling inevitable excess.

HA! Good Fun!