KickStarter Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Shadenuat]

Also it might be why Normal is always kinda very easy. People outright REFUSE to notice that, say you have damage slider that can cut incoming damage by 80%. Nobody wants to play on Easy or Storymode, because you're a loser if you play those, they're for journalists and your grandmother, right? And you're RPG player who finished such prestigious masterpieces on normal/hard like KOTOR, DAO or even PoE. And now it turns out "I am not actually Normal? Can't be, it is the game that is not Normal, something is wrong with it".

This is probably why Normal = Easy, Hard is often not Hard, and only +++ difficulties are hard, because at that point there is no shame to say you can't play "Unfair" or "Path of the damned" since they are for autists and shit.

Note that AoD has 81%, and the reason is it has no pretty graphics and was marketed as really hard game and "random" people just don't care shit to write negative reviews about it probably for it to matter.

I think this all is a quite interesting study.

 

[Safav Hamon]

The problem isn't that it's too hard, but it's hard for the wrong reasons. Stat bloat, over-dependence on RNG, and poorly optimized companions. When I die, it doesn't feel like it was because of a lack of skill.

It's still an okay game, so I'm writing it a positive review.

 

[Roguey]

From 81 to 66%, ouch.

Funny to see how Pathfinder fans are criticizing these cargo cult Russians for inflating enemy stats even on normal difficulty (in addition to the whacked-out random encounter tables but apparently that may be a bug??). They should have stuck to the RAW.

I don't think there are any particularly too terrible inflated stats on Normal. It's just that most people pick higher than Normal and there enemies get bonuses already which is where stat thing comes from. Many reviews have this i.e. "I picked challenging/hard assuming I am good but enemy stats are bloated can't progress halp"

I dunno.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198005478926/recommended/640820/

Major problem I am having is that every encounter other than the random ones absolutely destroy my team. I fully understand that there are some places you cannot go right away, but every single location?

This is dissapointing because I played the original pencil/paper kingmaker, and it was nothing like this. We were excited to find fixed locations and encounters, yet in this game im forced to reload saves every time I visit one because my entire team gets 1 shot by enemies that I cant even land a single blow on.

This is normal difficulty. So grind on random encounters until you get higher level to tackle encounters you found right away? No thanks.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197960695132/recommended/640820/

Damage reduction and inflated combat statistics for enemies, even on 'Normal' difficulty, make this game feel like an untested, unplayable mess immediately after the admittedly-balanced tutorial.
...
This difficulty spike began straight out of the tutorial. These are just horrific examples. Enemies possess such high statistics out of the gate that they're hitting you with almost every attack, dealing insane one, two, or three-shot damage values, and you're missing them with almost every attack even with +6 to hit yourself. Why? This is on Normal difficulty, I remind you, at level two. Add awkward damage reduction to that and you're dealing literally zero damage in an encounter with no real way to play yourself out of it.

https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198043232397/recommended/640820/

Devs ignored all constructive criticism during Beta. Encounters are horrifically overtuned for something so close to actual Pathfinder Tabletop gameplay. Enemies multiple levels ahead of you on story required fights in numbers. While XP and Gold/Treasure value is reduced by 75% (Or more since it doesnt take into account ENCOUNTERS just individual NPCs).

If you actually recieved the proper amount of XP for what you have to go through you'd be nearly level NINE at the end of the first Act (There are 6 and you should be level 4 at the end of the first). Hell the last 2 encounters for the "Sycamore Tree" "Dungeon" are so extreme you could have gotten an entire level off of them alone at the level you SHOULD be.

You're also bombarded by groups of fully optimized enemies capable of disabling half your team with spells before you can do anything since Initiative got thrown right out the window. And in one situation just stand there spamming channel energy to Harm Living which their horde or meat shields ignore thanks to perfectly chosen feats.

Everything BUT the balance of this game is fantastic (Aside from the hefty amount of bugs) I just can't recommend it due to the horrific balancing.

Take it from someone who has played tabletop RPGS for near 30 years and has played kingmaker twice and DM'd it 3 times. If i had thrown these encounters at my players they would have quit and refused to ever play with me again. That's not fun. Having to reload a fight 12+ times while exploiting buggy A.I. in order to get a fair and appropriate challenge isnt fun. Having to reload a fight 12+ because the "boss" has 1d4+14 damage against my frontliners and downs them in 3 or less hits isnt fun. Having to deal with companions with stats that are so poorly assigned that they have a 20% higher miss chance and i cant get custom ones made because they cost 4500 gold which is near half of what i've found in the whole chapter ISNT FUN.

If they actually change the horrific balancing i'll swap my recommendation and wrath a 5 paragraph review praising it.

Oh, I was also a $110 tier Backer.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/UncleCarmine/recommended/640820/

Where do I even begin. Probably best to start with my roots on this genre I suppose. Started with BG 1/2 and IWD 1/2 back in the ancient era of Windows 95, and more recently Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity, as well as about 20ish years playing tabletop roleplaying games ranging from 2nd edition D&D to Pathfinder to WoD and most things in between, both as DM/GM and as player. This is the most capricious, painful D&D style CRPG I've ever played.
...
Most of these encounters, by tabletop rules, would be considered epic battles that the party has slim chances of surviving regardless of tactics. Did I mention we're on Normal Mode? Oh, here's the kicker. Most of these fights are considered to be CR 1 at best, so the XP you get for surviving said combats is of the double digit variety. When you need several thousand to level reach the next level.

 

[Shadenuat]

"Poorly optimized companions" like

a fighter with 20 con
a barbarian with 18 str 16 con
a cleric with 18 wis 14-16 con and str
a rogue/wizard with 18 dex and 18 int

 

[Jenkem]

If you chose to chase your rival, does that close off chasing the bandits? Wondering what the devs meant from that difficulty comment.

I went after the bandits first and a quest notice like thing popped up saying that my rival must have surely left the ruins by now and that maybe it was all looted.. I went there and there were ike 5-6 mercs hired by that dude and they oneshot me

on difficult btw

 

[Jenkem]

I don't think there are any particularly too terrible inflated stats on Normal. It's just that most people pick higher than Normal and there enemies get bonuses already which is where stat thing comes from. Many reviews have this i.e. "I picked challenging/hard assuming I am good but enemy stats are bloated can't progress halp"

I chose challenging because Normal had a ton of debuffs applied and I wanted to play core rules...Of the preset options only challenging is close, though it ticks the other way on a few things. Why core rules wasn't just its own thing even when there's an achievement for beating the game on core rules or higher, I dunno.

 

[Shadenuat]

Oh you know it is all a pile of garbage Roguey. "ihh played pathfinder for 99 years and can't kill first 3 assassins"

I never played Pathfinder and I'm wrapping Stag Lord Fortress right now on Hard. The bonuses enemies have can be simply overriden with some pre-buffing n shit. I agree difficulty slider could be better and have maybe 1.5 extra difficulties (especially Core Rules it should have one really), and the whole thing is problematic due to it being swingy low level D&D with semi-open world and enemies with resists/immunities, but if you played Pathfinder for 9999 years and can't kill 3 wolves or don't know that Swarms require aoe damage it's just nonsense.

 

[Roguey]

The bonuses enemies have can be simply overriden with some pre-buffing n shit.

It would be hilarious if this was in fact a Brian Mitsoda situation. Josh made the more player-friendly call by removing prebuffing.

Additionally, it's really funny how Roqua was frothing all over the place talking about how this would be an easy game for children because of a line from an interview, only for it to turn out to be the opposite.

 

[deuxhero]

Does the game come with a pdf manual?
If yes, can somebody upload it

https://www.d20pfsrd.com/

Seriously, though, the game does come with a manual but the bloody thing is 150 pages of like 8pt text, walls of it. Don't do this to yourself, just play.

Are you sure? I haven't found any mention of it.

Look under steamapps\common\Pathfinder Kingmaker\OGL\OGL

I was wondering how they complied with the OGL requiring the rules be visible if you aren't WotC. How big is the OGL folder? I wouldn't be surprised if the reason the game is so big is they put that in the most retardedly inefficient file format possible.

1,91MB.

Well it was worth checking.

 

[Brancaleone]

And now it turns out "I am not actually Normal? Can't be, it is the game that is not Normal, something is wrong with it".

Perfect resume of the current state of affairs.

 

[Bohrain]

I wish the delivered the enemy stats a bit more explicitly. Having to use trial and error and looking up the combat log for enemy defenses feels a bit awkward.

 

[glass blackbird]

I'm glad they're going to look into the difficulty for bosses if you go out of order. I think it's good to be able to go somewhere, realize you're out of your depth, and flee, but especially the Temple of Elk is an example of this causing problems since the boss there is pretty strong, making that likely... except as soon as you enter the Temple at all, the Rival storyline also advances. IMHO it should either adjust to make the encounter more appropriate or, (and this would be preferable) just don't advance the other quests unless the player actually completes the one in the Temple. As it is, it's just sort of frustrating because there's no way the player could know that area was too advanced, but there are storyline consequences for going there regardless.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Additionally, it's really funny how Roqua was frothing all over the place talking about how this would be an easy game for children because of a line from an interview, only for it to turn out to be the opposite.

Or did it?

Man, I must be doing something wrong, these fights are pretty brutal. I'm only at the difficulty above the default and almost every fight with bandits is just - the barbarian chick dies instantly from full health to two arrows while all the melee bandits simply walk around the stupid failed-paladin-lady, invoking attacks of opportunity that do nothing because she has no offensive power, to murder my bard and sorcerer in one hit on each of them. That's after instantly oneshotting both the dogs I summoned to slow them down.

That's funny. I put it on the same difficulty and did not have any issues or even once need to think or try.

 

[glass blackbird]

Valerie's shitty Dex is barely workable on Normal; on higher difficulties I'd imagine she may never hit an enemy at all, short of crits.

 

[jf8350143]

Part of the difficulty problem comes from the fact that areas you can visit early on has tons of hard monsters that should not be put against a level 2 team. And it's not just the optional areas, also the major quest related areas. Even weighted dice can't help you defeat a 26 AC monster with a level 2 team. In other words, the game punishes you for exploring the world from get go.

Also will automated your kingdom management let you wandering around freely without worrying about having going back to throne room regularly? If that's the case I'm really tempted to do that.

 

[Fairfax]

Swarms are difficult, as swarms of tiny creatures are immune to weapon damage in Pathfinder and require special handling with fire, alchemical fire or AoE spells.

That's fair, but they shouldn't be immune to Magic Missile, Inflict Light Wounds, and other spells. It's either a bug or they implemented "weapon damage" as everything except elemental.

 

[bataille]

Valerie's shitty Dex is barely workable on Normal; on higher difficulties I'd imagine she may never hit an enemy at all, short of crits.

But isn't melee attack rating determined by strength bonus...

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Valerie's shitty Dex is barely workable on Normal; on higher difficulties I'd imagine she may never hit an enemy at all, short of crits.

But isn't melee attack rating determined by strength bonus...

yes, but he's still right
14 str is awful

 

[deuxhero]

It is unless you have weapon finesse or are very small.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

if you want to min/max and still have story companions you can just go edit them by hand in your save folder, the saves are just zips with a different extension. json inside.

 

[Mortmal]

Valerie's shitty Dex is barely workable on Normal; on higher difficulties I'd imagine she may never hit an enemy at all, short of crits.

But isn't melee attack rating determined by strength bonus...

Yes it is and dps, that's not even her role. Stack as much AC you can on valerie,natural armor necklace + any buffs you have and send her charge in the middle of the enemy group , casters first. Nothing will damage her, she will tank any boss. The barbarian chick is a damage dealer, very squishy . Seems some people aren't even trying to understand how it works then they whine its too hard.

 

[DeepOcean]

The trick is to have a circle around where the player starts the story and have most of the low level stuff to be on this circle, some sort of little sandbox so casual player get the taste of some fighting without things going too insane. Another trick is to label high level areas like: Forest of DOOM, The Evil Bad mountain and have NPCs talking how those areas are fucking no no so the casual player should no those are higher level areas and going in there won't be easy.

Another trick they could use was to change the names of the difficulties, make normal = easy, and hard = normal then have the real difficulty modes for decent player separated and along side stuff like iron man mode so the hordes of lazy shitty players can feel good about themselves without knowing how shit they are.

Then after this, you have a retarded proof game.

 

[bataille]

Part of the difficulty problem comes from the fact that areas you can visit early on has tons of hard monsters that should not be put against a level 2 team. And it's not just the optional areas, also the major quest related areas. Even weighted dice can't help you defeat a 26 AC monster with a level 2 team. In other words, the game punishes you for exploring the world from get go.

Also will automated your kingdom management let you wandering around freely without worrying about having going back to throne room regularly? If that's the case I'm really tempted to do that.

What are some of those areas? So far (I've played around 5 hours) I've only encountered 1 impossible enemy who you clearly have no business fighting: the shambling mound on top of the hill near the sycamore tree. The second one probably was the mature leopard guarding the +1 bow, be it can be killed by disabling it with a stunning shield or something. No frost giants or such in sight...

 

[Ibbz]

Another trick they could use was to change the names of the difficulties, make normal = easy, and hard = normal then have the real difficulty modes for decent player separated and along side stuff like iron man mode so the hordes of lazy shitty players can feel good about themselves without knowing how shit they are.

For the average steam player, you'd need to change the Normal difficulty description to Hard - its astounding the amount of people complaining about the difficulty when the game even lets you adjust it at any time.

 

[panda]

So far i finished tuturial dungeon + bandits both on normal and hard.
Hard is actually hard, but to constantly(or even occasionally) die on normal in those encouners one must be really, really special.

I mean seriously, just look at this shit:

"Poorly optimized companions" like
a fighter with 20 con
a barbarian with 18 str 16 con
a cleric with 18 wis 14-16 con and str
a rogue/wizard with 18 dex and 18 int

Valerie has 27 melee AC or something like that lvl 2 ffs.