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

[Jezal_k23]

I got Linzi and Valerie even though I stole the money. In fact, just because Linzi said she refused to take it, I made her pick it up herself. Checkmate.

 

[Fedora Master]

Hoooooooly shit I just met Jubilost. The Chaotic Evil option of just smashing that little shits face in is probably the most tempting I've seen in a game so far.

 

[bataille]

Hoooooooly shit I just met Jubilost. The Chaotic Evil option of just smashing that little shits face in is probably the most tempting I've seen in a game so far.

Do it and post screenshots. Since I won't be able to play for a couple more days, I need some incline in my bloodstream.

EDIT: Also, anyone who has played far into the game, please tell me in which chapter Nok-Nok is met. Without any details, just approximate chapter/hour.

 

[TwinkieGorilla]

Playing on normal and it's fine. Not sure what the fuck the fuss is about.

 

[Volrath]

This answer doesn't make much sense to me because their game is clearly very heavily combat focused anyway,

Yeah no shit. I'm betting it's IWD/BG2 fanboiism. You can make a turn-based game with quick resolutions you just have to make the animations speedy. Look at Arcanum. A proper turn-based game should have faster battles than this sluggish molasses combat anyway.

Nigger please.

Also Twinkie, normal is for fags.

 

[panda]

-(Neutral not allowed b/c alignment, fuck you)

That actually sucks, i agree then.

Making enemies extremely hard and then expecting the player to deal with them non-violently is rather cheap when they are enemies the player would nominally think are easy, like kobolds. If there had been a bunch of ogres and trolls fighting, I would have run the hell away.

On that one i disagree, there were many participants even in first encounter and they used words like "king", "queen", "war", so IMO that was obvious warning about challenge level. Initially i wanted to kill them all myself too, but then decided to at least take look first.

Btw, do you have Valerie in party?

 

[Alienman]

I have the death door option on, and the tooltip says I need to find a priest to fix it in the capital. Where is that priest? With capital I guess they are referring to your own barony?

 

[Stokowski]

I got raped by two Manticores. /need to take a break

Fun fact: In DnD, Manticores have multiple spikes in the tail for even moar rapage! The original only had a scorpion tail.

NB: Scientists did later label this part of the Stegosaurus the thagomizer ... after this Far Side cartoon. {link}

 

[rusty_shackleford]

I have the death door option on, and the tooltip says I need to find a priest to fix it in the capital. Where is that priest? With capital I guess they are referring to your own barony?

You can just rest at your city to get rid of it.

 

[yes plz]

Probably already been mentioned but the latest patch fixes Valerie's quest for me.

Also, where am I supposed to go during the Guiding Beacon quest (the one where the wizard in the Lone House asks you to retrieve a whip some trolls stole)? I'm assuming a new area was supposed to pop up on my map but either I've ran into another bug or I had already discovered it. Like with a lot of quests the journal is useless.

 

[saeci]

I cannot kill king Hargulka on Challenging. My main tank with 102 HP + 33 AC + several buffs is killed in 2-3 hits.

Spoiler

I killed him 1st try on Normal difficulty but this was really frustrating. I've spent 30+ minutes on this fight and my party simply didn't have the tools to disable this guy. Also the fight starts after a dialogue cutscene therefore you cannot avoid taking damage.

To be honest, I'm wondering if someone was able to do it on Challenging. Is there any spell which debuffs Haste?

Afterwards the game informed me about new events in my capital but there were none when I reached the place.

Hideous laughter

 

[Mortmal]

Playing on normal and it's fine. Not sure what the fuck the fuss is about.

you cant select all your chars and send them in combat with just one click like in POE , people probably never played old IE games or completely forgot how they were doing it. That and a few unfair encounters, wich are legit complaints.

 

[archaen]

What was their reasoning for not going TB?

From my understanding, PoE couldn't because they promised BG type of game but in Pathfinder, there isn't a game like that to bind it I think and in the interview they said Pathfinder is a TB system and got changed into RTwP, that probably took longer time to translate things into that, no? so I don't get why did they decide on that.

They answered it in this interview:

http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...go-to-new-thread.115243/page-166#post-5804981

What was the thought process behind having the combat in Pathfinder: Kingmaker be Time-Stop when the source uses a Turn-Based system? Do you have any intentions of adding a Turn-Based mode onto the game later down the line?

Aleksandr: When we are making a cRPG, we have to be sure that no particular aspect of the game is grabbing too much of the player’s attention if it leaves another aspect wanting. In Pathfinder:
Kingmaker, there are a lot of those aspects: combat, story, exploration, kingdom building. Turn-based battles are attention hogs. It takes a lot of time to finish one and there are many battles to be fought. Since they take up so much time and attention, these battles have to be different and unique, and that makes the game too combat-oriented for our taste.

For Pathfinder: Kingmaker, we wanted a classical RPG experience where your experience is varied – an experience where you go from fighting a couple of easy battles to talking to an NPC, to exploring an area to find an entrance to the cave, fighting through a couple of challenging fights to the boss,
obtaining interesting loot, and so on as you continue adventuring. For this experience to work, the easy battles have to be quick, and that makes real-time a better pick. On the plus side, these battles are also more visceral and provide a better feeling of the confrontation.

But that does not mean our battles lack tactical depth or deprive you of choices. You can stop the battle at any time to assess the situation on the battlefield and choose which spells or abilities to use. Area of effect spells can be placed precisely and their location can be changed while the spell is being cast. You can set up auto-pause to stop the game at the moments that are important for you. There is even an option to stop the game at the end of each round for each of the party members, which would make your experience quite close to turn-based battles.

This is kind of bullshit. If this was turn based they could have cut all the filler combat that is liberally sprinkled about and total game time would be the same or better.

 

[Alienman]

Man, every fight now is: Get into encounter, fight a shit ton of monsters, after at certain time a super version of that monster you have been fighting spawn, often in company of a caster. This time around it was a Doomspider. It kinda gets old somewhat. So much fighting only to get curbstomped at the end of the encounter by something that does incredible damage fast as fuck and apparently can crit every time too. You never know what you get into in this game, will this quest be possible? - yes yes yes yes maybe yes yes no no noooooooooooooooooooooo...

 

[Shadenuat]

how do you like a price for 7th level mercenary at a modest 24.500 gp

and someone did not like BT4 tokens

 

[Jenkem]

bataille jerfdr YES there is a reason not to? what reason is that

 

[Serus]

Playing on normal and it's fine. Not sure what the fuck the fuss is about.

you cant select all your chars and send them in combat with just one click like in POE , people probably never played old IE games or completely forgot how they were doing it. That and a few unfair encounters, wich are legit complaints.

Implying that you couldn't do it in IE games*... Now all of a sudden IE games were difficult? When did that happen?

*Ok, not in every fight, but in very many of them.

 

[Thonius]

Wow I member POE2 and at day 3 there was like 50% drop in players.... this game lost like 1k from 15.5 peak...
PS still no reviews from jurnos... PC gamer writes about wow addons (Oh my god)
RPS writes about some card retarded games, mmo taunts and shit....

 

[Israfael]

Is there any spell which debuffs Haste?

PT equivalents of Web, Slow, Mordekainen Disjunction, Lesser/Normal/Greater Dispel and so on. Probably he is meant to be kited if you have something to get him stunned / dazed etc.

I got into a random encounter with two of them.

Get Zen Archery / Blind-Fight to negate the concealment debuffs / misses, for some reason people overlook those two extremely useful feats

 

[bataille]

bataille jerfdr YES there is a reason not to? what reason is that

Well, you don't get the bonus. If you know the spell list and are sure you won't run into some nasty surprises (like picking opposite schools that soft block haste or blur or something), then it's wiser to specialize. But I guess universalist is a good alternative if you're unsure of what to do with your caster or just want to use a little of everything. Some people just don't use anything other than evocations or illusions or whatever.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Wow I member POE2 and at day 3 there was like 50% drop in players.... this game lost like 1k from 15.5 peak...
PS still no reviews from jurnos... PC gamer writes about wow addons (Oh my god)
RPS writes about some card retarded games, mmo taunts and shit....

ofc there are no reviews, russians can't afford to bribe the scam artists

if anything, how well it's selling is proof that game journalists should go jump off a cliff

 

[Fedora Master]

Okay, how the hell do you keep a barbarian like Amiri alive? Enemies seem to love to focus her down all the time and I've already stuffed her full of +AC gear.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Okay, how the hell do you keep a barbarian like Amiri alive? Enemies seem to love to focus her down all the time and I've already stuffed her full of +AC gear.

replace her with an archer

the enemies do way too much damage to justify having anything but a ridiculously high AC frontliner

 

[Mech]

The wolves encounter was easy as fuck playing on normal. I assume it was more difficult on the harder difficulties?

It's RNG. If they get initiative and their trip attacks hit, they get free hits at +4 Attack and you are toast.

Wear some heavy armour?

 

[Infinitron]

First review, I think: https://screenrant.com/pathfinder-kingmaker-review-heir-apparent/

Pathfinder: Kingmaker Review - The Best Tabletop Sim

Pathfinder: Kingmaker requires little introduction to the subsection of gamers who it appeals to most. The Pathfinder tabletop role-playing game is one of the precious few iterations of the genre to ever truly challenge Dungeons & Dragons for both depth and popularity, although part of that is because it is ostensibly an off-shoot of the official D&D game. The Pathfinder brand still has a number of passionate fanbases across the globe that swear by its particular brand of fantasy, though, making it a desirable target for spin-offs of its own.

Deep Silver and Owlcat Games are hoping that their take on Pathfinder can do wonders for the property, especially given the recent resurgence of tabletop gaming as a pastime. Pathfinder: Kingmaker follows in the footsteps of recently popular titles like Pillars of Eternity and Divinity: Original Sin, but manages to do enough to separate itself from the pack and create yet another deep, engaging experience in an isometric RPG setting.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker wants players to feel like they are playing a tabletop RPG, and it succeeds at every step in simulating that experience. Whether it’s the complex array of skills and abilities that refresh as time progresses, much like a tabletop campaign, or the rolls of the dice in the combat log that determine how successful a battle will be, Pathfinder: Kingmaker nails the tabletop experience.

With that said, it’s at least a little curious as to why Deep Silver and Owlcat Games felt the need to embrace the tabletop feel quite so ferociously. Part of what makes isometric RPGs appealing is the way they can hide some of the more cumbersome mechanics of real-life fantasy gaming. While Pathfinder: Kingmaker never threatens to really break under the pressure of so many numbers and algorithms, the fact that they’re almost constantly on display by default is surprising, especially given the way that combat is structured.

Battles are instigated by a player-initiated attack or when a party is spotted by an enemy, and things progress in typical isometric RPG fashion from there. Players can pause to adjust their tactics at any time, but otherwise the game plays out smoothly, with combat progressing in real-time. Positioning party members and wisely employing their limited use abilities to best effect is crucial to success in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and it’s a welcome tactical element that marries the better parts of tabletop and video gaming together.

Like any good fantasy tabletop campaign, Pathfinder: Kingmaker also features a multitude of options, many of which enable players to avoid all but the most important fights if they choose to do so. While random encounters are hardly worth advance planning for, some of the mid-boss style fights can be anticipated and prepared for. In one instance, knowing that bandits were likely to reciprocate an attack the party had made earlier, the player is given the option to coat the walls of their hold in oil and launch a fire arrow at the walls once the bandits try to breach them. Things work out the way one might expect and the light show is very satisfying.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker also gets skill checks right in a way that it feels like many modern RPGs are moving away from. Skills in what amounts to the equivalent of Lore often feel useless in less methodically made games, but in this one knowing a bunch about nature is actually incredibly useful and comes up often. The same is true for every other skill, too - each map seems meticulously designed to enable the player to tackle things the way they would like to.

Two things stand out beyond the excellent craftmanship in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. The first is the storybook moments that occur with a relatively decent frequency throughout the narrative campaign. Key moments are read out of a character’s on-going chronicles of the player’s journey, and are presented in the book, complete with illustrations. Players are then forced to make a choice based on a number of options, quite like a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, and must then deal with the consequences. For whatever reason, this mode feels like a home run, once again paying homage to some of the earliest methods of fantasy roleplay available.

The second innovation is the Barony management portion of the gameplay. After the game’s introductory chapters, the player will suddenly find themselves in possession of a lot of land, and a number of subjects to rule over. From there, players will be tasked with addressing threats to their land, expanding to increase their power, appointing advisers to handle less important tasks, and meeting with diplomats and townsfolk alike. If that sounds dull, perhaps in a different game it would be - the sheer amount of variety and detail put into each and every one of these managerial elements makes them a lot of fun, and they have some serious importance to the overall game too. For those uninterested in the Sim City-like management portions of the game, there’s also the option to auto simulate them, ensuring that the cities will never fail.

If there are any stumbles present in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, it’s in the pace of play. While the combat itself is fluid and moves in real-time, the narrative moves slowly, and the emphasis on passing days or weeks can be a real drag. While it makes sense that the campaign would feature an open world and a lot of choices to be made, sometimes it comes across as more aimless than inspiring. The introduction of the game, in particular, drags - players don’t even get access to their Barony for several hours, which is puzzling since it’s one of the more innovative and welcome elements of the title. That’s a major issue, since RPGs are already time sinks and failing to make much of an impression in the first six-or-so hours of gameplay is playing with fire.

That being said, there’s plenty to dig into in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and even if the early introduction overstays its welcome, there are many more hours afterwards that make the game worth the wait. If gamers can find room for yet another long, beautifully-crafted isometric RPG in their schedules, they probably can’t do much better for recent offerings than Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is available on Steam. A Steam review code was provided to Screen Rant for the purposes of this review.

OUR RATING:

4 out of 5 (Excellent)