Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

user

Savant
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
835
Even after all the patching game's recent review score keeps dropping LOL
Now it is 63%, it was 64% last time I checked and 66% before that. Funny thing before 1.2 patch hit it was at 68% and seemed to start raising. I guess 1.2 brought back people that put it on pause so they now also decided to share their negative ratings..

Wtf is going on with these ratings... I understand the initial shock with the bugs and all, but even the difficulty was nerfed now, why does it keep dropping? Anyone got an explanation? It's really fucking unfair if such a game is not recognized more.

People be stupid?

I am sure a lot of people are spamming rank ups and skip days only to get swamped by problems and not understand how they lost. I am sure many still pick the challenging/normal difficulty, get frustrated and quit, because some kind of childish ego doesn't let them pick something lower. I am sure many people aren't used to getting their asses handed to them just because they took a wrong turn and want "fair fights" everywhere. I am sure many completely messed up their characters without looking up anything they didn't know or having an understanding of the rules. But wtf why are there so many mobile gamers out there?
 

Grunker

RPG Codex Ghost
Patron
Joined
Oct 19, 2009
Messages
27,385
Location
Copenhagen
People don't understand the game at all is my guess. It was clunky for me working everything out, especially how they translated the rules into the practical clicking-and-controlling stuff and I can recite the rules from memory more or less, including all features of all classes + have played a million games like this.

Someone going into this knowing nothing except "original sin was kindda cool" or whatever is gonna be completely and utterly lost.

A shame but probably unavoidable, because the reason newcomers are understandably put off is the reason we're enticed.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,882
Even after all the patching game's recent review score keeps dropping LOL
Now it is 63%, it was 64% last time I checked and 66% before that. Funny thing before 1.2 patch hit it was at 68% and seemed to start raising. I guess 1.2 brought back people that put it on pause so they now also decided to share their negative ratings..

Wtf is going on with these ratings... I understand the initial shock with the bugs and all, but even the difficulty was nerfed now, why does it keep dropping? Anyone got an explanation? It's really fucking unfair if such a game is not recognized more.

People be stupid?

I am sure a lot of people are spamming rank ups and skip days only to get swamped by problems and not understand how they lost. I am sure many still pick the challenging/normal difficulty, get frustrated and quit, because some kind of childish ego doesn't let them pick something lower. I am sure many people aren't used to getting their asses handed to them just because they took a wrong turn and want "fair fights" everywhere. I am sure many completely messed up their characters without looking up anything they didn't know or having an understanding of the rules. But wtf why are there so many mobile gamers out there?
From my experience of watching different twitch people playing Kingmaker seems some don't understand how kingdom part works, some missed some companions/advisors (like the your only early treasurer) and some prefered to spend their limited time by going around the map and resting often instead of leveling up advisors and then they get into later parts where they need to tackle DC25 problems with +8 modifier advisors.

EDIT: And on steam forums I have seen regularly people complaining how they lost their kingdom due to not doing main quest fast enough and similar shit like that.
 

Jarpie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
6,603
Codex 2012 MCA
PFK's UI isn't even that clunky, IMO PoE's is worse, plus combat isn't as "messy" as in PoE which becomes impossible to follow due overly done spell effects. I can understand idiots getting overwhelmed by the rule set with all the feats, but you can always google builds.
 

hell bovine

Arcane
Joined
Sep 9, 2013
Messages
2,711
Location
Secret Level
Now, formerly there was one last resort - killing the guy, then rezzing him. That seems "fixed" as well, if you try to do that now that character will still be polymorphed after the rez. So... that's it, no way to get rid of it. Pretty sure dispel magic should work on it, and it did work some time ago, but apparently that's no longer the case.
You could try this: https://steamcommunity.com/app/640820/discussions/0/1743355067129602563/
Kind of hilarious, but if it works...
 

user

Savant
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
835
Uhh... found a youtube sample. Got my fairly civilized reply deleted too. Don't click it if you don't want to give it views, or don't want to spend your evening facepalming.
 

user

Savant
Joined
Jan 22, 2019
Messages
835
Uhh... found a youtube sample. Got my fairly civilized reply deleted too. Don't click it if you don't want to give it views, or don't want to spend your evening facepalming.

What did you write?

I merely suggested lowering the difficulty, giving it another shot because most of these complaints stem from spontaneous rage, that using knowledge/intuition should be considered a legit way of adding difficulty, that rng is the spice of games and should be appreciated even if when it doesn't work in his favor, that a believable world shouldn't homogenize encounters in order to pamper players that get frustrated by a nasty surprise, and some other similar things, and also that he can suck a dick and go to hell.


(just kidding about the last part)
 

santino27

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2008
Messages
2,678
My team has the sexiest and deadliest waifus you can recruit.
Even after all the patching game's recent review score keeps dropping LOL
Now it is 63%, it was 64% last time I checked and 66% before that. Funny thing before 1.2 patch hit it was at 68% and seemed to start raising. I guess 1.2 brought back people that put it on pause so they now also decided to share their negative ratings..

Wtf is going on with these ratings... I understand the initial shock with the bugs and all, but even the difficulty was nerfed now, why does it keep dropping? Anyone got an explanation? It's really fucking unfair if such a game is not recognized more.

Reddit literally had someone complaining last week that one of the mobs in the ancient tomb had a 20 ac and his people could therefore only hit that mob with a natural crit (and that the game therefore sucked). If someone doesn't even understand how bonuses work (or how to mouse over an attack roll and see bonuses/penalties), there is no way to lower difficulty enough to make them happy.
 

purpleblob

Savant
Joined
May 16, 2014
Messages
564
Location
Sydney
ArchAngel Kingmaker was released on 25 Sept 2018 so it has been out for a bit short of 5 months still.

I think most of the people leaving a bad review are either:

1. Just riding a hate train - some retards say the game is unplayable or too hard when steam shows they played the game for less than a few hours.
2. Wah wah why does it play differently to PnP?
3. Dislikes Kingdom system - can symphasis with this lot a bit although I quite enjoyed managing kingdom.

Such a shame really.
 

80Maxwell08

Arcane
Joined
Nov 14, 2012
Messages
1,154
As someone whose total experience with the pnp version of pathfinder adds up to 1 and a half dungeons with my sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids, I will say I have no idea what I'm doing here. I've yet to make a character I'm fully satisfied with, even with the generous help of some people in the build thread (thanks Daidre Haplo Yosharian santino27 Incendax ArchAngel ). I am having fun making new characters though. In my experience, compared to other rpgs I've played, leveling up is really slow in kingmaker. I wouldn't say I have a problem with it, but I could see how it turns off some people who want their numbers to go up quicker but don't know how to make insane builds like some of the ones I've seen. It's just a game that demands more from the player. At least on normal difficulty. I'm still refusing to lower the difficulty to easy.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
19,882
As someone whose total experience with the pnp version of pathfinder adds up to 1 and a half dungeons with my sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids, I will say I have no idea what I'm doing here. I've yet to make a character I'm fully satisfied with, even with the generous help of some people in the build thread (thanks Daidre Haplo Yosharian santino27 Incendax ArchAngel ). I am having fun making new characters though. In my experience, compared to other rpgs I've played, leveling up is really slow in kingmaker. I wouldn't say I have a problem with it, but I could see how it turns off some people who want their numbers to go up quicker but don't know how to make insane builds like some of the ones I've seen. It's just a game that demands more from the player. At least on normal difficulty. I'm still refusing to lower the difficulty to easy.
Slow leveling is one of the best features of this game. I would even like it to be slower by devs adding more dungeons and quests so you can still reach lvl 20 by end of the game.
 

80Maxwell08

Arcane
Joined
Nov 14, 2012
Messages
1,154
As someone whose total experience with the pnp version of pathfinder adds up to 1 and a half dungeons with my sister, brother-in-law, and their two kids, I will say I have no idea what I'm doing here. I've yet to make a character I'm fully satisfied with, even with the generous help of some people in the build thread (thanks Daidre Haplo Yosharian santino27 Incendax ArchAngel ). I am having fun making new characters though. In my experience, compared to other rpgs I've played, leveling up is really slow in kingmaker. I wouldn't say I have a problem with it, but I could see how it turns off some people who want their numbers to go up quicker but don't know how to make insane builds like some of the ones I've seen. It's just a game that demands more from the player. At least on normal difficulty. I'm still refusing to lower the difficulty to easy.
Slow leveling is one of the best features of this game. I would even like it to be slower by devs adding more dungeons and quests so you can still reach lvl 20 by end of the game.
I'm not saying its bad, but I understand new players not being used to leveling being this slow compared to more modern games, and some people wanting more instant gratification getting bored. I don't think they should change it at all. Can't say much about your suggestion on account of my longest playthrough being 3 hours before I got myself stuck and decided to remake my character entirely rather than roll back an hour.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
The thing that annoys me is enemies using baleful polymorph. Apparently they've changed a few things. Yesterday I had one of my guys turned to dog DC 46.
Difficulty inflates all DC including Use Magic Device and Break Enchantment checks. Your best bet would be your own high level caster with it (maybe even with Heighten Spell? unsure) since scrolls have a set DC level.

IIRC they even had to patch stuff like necro cloak because description said remove curse is one DC but difficulty inflated it into another.

People don't understand the game at all is my guess. It was clunky for me working everything out, especially how they translated the rules into the practical clicking-and-controlling stuff and I can recite the rules from memory more or less, including all features of all classes + have played a million games like this.

Someone going into this knowing nothing except "original sin was kindda cool" or whatever is gonna be completely and utterly lost.

A shame but probably unavoidable, because the reason newcomers are understandably put off is the reason we're enticed.
Moment I began playing PK I felt like since IE games I wore clothes bought at the store but PK felt like a tailored suit. For a person who like IE games and BG2 playing PK should feel as natural as breathing, at least felt that for me. The tempo of buffing, killing some baddies, checking your resources, pressing further, looting stuff, trying to press further again with no rest, fucking over something difficult, reading your spellbook, beating it and continuing; clearing dungeons and ruins just has all the right feels.

Also put difficulty on Hard at least.

Wtf is going on with these ratings... I understand the initial shock with the bugs and all, but even the difficulty was nerfed now, why does it keep dropping? Anyone got an explanation? It's really fucking unfair if such a game is not recognized more.
It is all the Obsidian hackers :outrage:

But honestly aside from people not liking it because we like it, the biggest one is probably timers and pressure the decisions put on players, and how game often lacks ideal resolutions for quests and stuff. The inability to be in complete control over things and so many things able to go wrong probably piss the fragile players off.

But ultimately it is a combination of many things. It's like what VD was talking about, having some things in your game today would just lead to lower ratings, always.
 
Last edited:

Jarpie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
6,603
Codex 2012 MCA
On my first, now abandoned playthrough I finished the Varnhold vanishing, and I never had any issue with the timers, and now on my second one I'm between Bloom and Varnhold, and I still don't have any issues with the timers. Modern players must be on double digits.
 

Drakron

Arcane
Joined
May 19, 2005
Messages
6,326
I think its more about it doesnt explain things properly, for example I cannot see the spells and their schools when I pick up a Feat thats annoying since I have to pick something and then go back and fix the Feat. And lets not even go about Domain Spells.

Also as for "ideal resolutions", some stuff is oddly implemented ... the Mites and Kobolds force you to make a choice and that would be fine if not the "just let me check things" is not locked behind a Must Be Neutral option that honestly, its horseshit, I am not against checks but a "I do not care, leave me alone" is not "I shall now slaughter you all" and that is exactly what it is.
 

Funposter

Arcane
Joined
Oct 19, 2018
Messages
1,773
Location
Australia
On my first, now abandoned playthrough I finished the Varnhold vanishing, and I never had any issue with the timers, and now on my second one I'm between Bloom and Varnhold, and I still don't have any issues with the timers. Modern players must be on double digits.

I can only imagine that people either rest constantly, even after encounters where they lose miniscule amounts of health (which explains complaints about timers in the first chapter), or they get completely absorbed in the kingdom management aspect within later chapters. Of course you can put a bunch of things on a timer, go out adventuring for a week and return to have literally nothing update on the management side, but I don't think people do this. I think they sit in the management screen for an hour and then say, "Oh shit! I need to do a bunch of adventuring!" and get stresses out by the timer. I also think that the presence of a timer on its own is a huge source of stress for modern gamers, even if the timer has an ample amount of time on it.
 

Shadenuat

Arcane
Joined
Dec 9, 2011
Messages
11,955
Location
Russia
the Mites and Kobolds force you to make a choice and that would be fine if not the "just let me check things" is not locked behind a Must Be Neutral option that honestly, its horseshit
Yes it is frustrating when you don't have some cool option, but it is also incredibly rewarding when your character gets his own unique option. During my first playthrough I played Neutral character and while I did not get a lot of cool shit, right in the beginning I got my "personal" druid like mediation thing between two monster factions which made my alignment choice feel rewarding from the start of the game and also complemented my class choice nicely.
 

Daidre

Arcane
Joined
Jan 30, 2019
Messages
1,975
Location
Samara
Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture
Also as for "ideal resolutions", some stuff is oddly implemented ... the Mites and Kobolds force you to make a choice and that would be fine if not the "just let me check things" is not locked behind a Must Be Neutral option
This option is good for RP reason but bad for everything else. Played this route today since it is prerequisite for Worship Me achiev and thought of leaving behind ~2.5k XP and ~3k gold made me want to cry.

But I loved evil one where troll king eats Tartuccio.
 

Jarpie

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 30, 2009
Messages
6,603
Codex 2012 MCA
On my first, now abandoned playthrough I finished the Varnhold vanishing, and I never had any issue with the timers, and now on my second one I'm between Bloom and Varnhold, and I still don't have any issues with the timers. Modern players must be on double digits.

I can only imagine that people either rest constantly, even after encounters where they lose miniscule amounts of health (which explains complaints about timers in the first chapter), or they get completely absorbed in the kingdom management aspect within later chapters. Of course you can put a bunch of things on a timer, go out adventuring for a week and return to have literally nothing update on the management side, but I don't think people do this. I think they sit in the management screen for an hour and then say, "Oh shit! I need to do a bunch of adventuring!" and get stresses out by the timer. I also think that the presence of a timer on its own is a huge source of stress for modern gamers, even if the timer has an ample amount of time on it.

Yeah, could be that. New games have taught the players that they can take their time doing shit, and I think part of the "problem" is that they have hard time deciding/timing when to do upgrades which requires the baron to take time off.

I think its more about it doesnt explain things properly, for example I cannot see the spells and their schools when I pick up a Feat thats annoying since I have to pick something and then go back and fix the Feat. And lets not even go about Domain Spells.

Also as for "ideal resolutions", some stuff is oddly implemented ... the Mites and Kobolds force you to make a choice and that would be fine if not the "just let me check things" is not locked behind a Must Be Neutral option that honestly, its horseshit, I am not against checks but a "I do not care, leave me alone" is not "I shall now slaughter you all" and that is exactly what it is.

One of the things they could work on is to show for which feats the feat is required for, for example if you hover over power attack, it'd show that it's required for cleave and cornugon smash, might help players who are not familiar with the system to plan their builds, and divide them into categories, combat, defence, magic etc.

the Mites and Kobolds force you to make a choice and that would be fine if not the "just let me check things" is not locked behind a Must Be Neutral option that honestly, its horseshit
Yes it is frustrating when you don't have some cool option, but it is also incredibly rewarding when your character gets his own unique option. During my first playthrough I played Neutral character and while I did not get a lot of cool shit, right in the beginning I got my "personal" druid like mediation thing between two monster factions which made my alignment choice feel rewarding from the start of the game and also complemented my class choice nicely.

I personally like to play much more lawful or neutral character, but for next playthrough I might pick chaotic or evil to see how it differs.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom