Pathfinder Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Lacrymas]

It's Free Real Estate: The Setting. It sounds like they were trying to compete with every D&D setting out there, lol. Geb sounds fun, though, I want a campaign set there.

 

[Ziggy]

it's as kitchen sinky as forgotten realms but not as boring and doesnt have all the campaigns set in the same fucking region

it's way too silly for a big serious tabletop campaign, but why the fuck would you have a big serious tabletop campaign, doing some amateur dramatic improv at your kitchen table
just go kill some monsters, it's fun

 

[GrainWetski]

I feel like I've heard this dozens of times before and the outcome was always the same..

https://twinfinite.net/2020/01/path...lity-changes-to-combat-kingdom-building-more/

more accessible to newcomers

We want to fix that in Wrath of the Righteous, to make it more approachable to the players, to explain the rules better and make situations that are difficult (in terms of rules) more easy to understand.

we want it to be accessible by those who are not familiar with pen-and-paper RPGs.

 

[Lacrymas]

Wow, these types of "streamlining" attempts always make me laugh because I understand how people have no idea what actually obtuse and esoteric rule systems and games there are out there. Pathfinder and D&D are extremely straightforward, to the point I don't know how anyone can find them difficult to understand. They might have a plethora of character building options that you have no idea what to do with at first, but that's why you can make a totally normal Wizard or Rogue, or Fighter and see how the system works to get accustomed to the game and its rules while playing. I don't know, maybe I'm just saying "once you get used to it, every game isn't obtuse" since I've known these and similar rules since I was like 12. Maybe I have too much faith in people, lol.

 

[DeepOcean]

Maybe I have too much faith in people, lol.

Multiclassing and some concepts like DC or saving throws can be confusing to dummies, especially because developers for some mysterious reason love to make tooltips that don't explain anything. You could recommend things to people, "Go there and make some basic wizard and don't go wild." but people feel annoyed when they don't have information for making choices, they don't like to do what you tell them to do when they don't know why.

Most newbies wouldn't know things like armor class being more important than life when enemies hit like trucks or that heavy armor restricts dexterity bonus, they would make bad characters and get frustrated and etc, many come from PnP background and expect some DM handholding to make their snow flake characters viable.

There are only three solutions to this, you allow them to respec, you unload tons of information at character creation (what can really slow things down) or you make a standard character as your first character but that temptation of making those sick mage/warrior/thief ninja that don't work will be too strong for them.

 

[Terra]

To be fair there are some steps they can take in-game concerning how they present information at least. My first playthrough (no Pathfinder experience, I guesstimated some aspects based on previous D&D titles - what certain spells do, etc) I had a Magus as my PC and as we know, the game suggests certain feats/abilities and spells when you level up. The game constantly suggested that I take Point Blank Shot, but the feat description makes it sound like it doesn't affect spells. So as someone with no knowledge of the systems do I assume the game is wrong/giving me a bad suggestion, is it an oversight in the feat description, is it a bug, or do I simply not have a good enough grasp on the systems etc? Looking at the wiki, the description is "You get a +1 bonus on attack and damage rolls with ranged weapons at ranges of up to 30 feet." This doesn't exactly suggest that the feat will help out with your spells. This problem with my unfamiliarity with PF systems and feats plagued my first playthrough of the game, so there are definitely steps they can take to better surface and clarify information to the player. And I'm saying all this as someone who usually battens down the hatches at the mention of streamlining.

Never had any issues with the IE adaptations of D&D no matter what class I played, most likely chiefly due to it lacking vaguely worded/misleading feat descriptions.

It was something of a surprise when I came to play the Varnhold DLC and deliberately chose a simpler class to play as (some aldori swordlord/defender iirc) to see just how quickly I steamrolled through the campaign when I didn't feel like I was fighting game's systems.

 

[santino27]

There is still a fair bit they can do to clarify the rules. Some, they've done since the initial launch. I'd still love to be able to hover over a given feat and see a tree of what other feats it was a pre-requisite for (and also what other reqs those other feat have, if any). The current way of doing it (show unavailable > scroll through all the feats in the list looking for the one you somehow already know you want, and then mouse over that to see its pre-reqs) is pretty kludgy.

That said, the UI could be perfect and some players would still complain about everything being too complicated.

 

[Pink Eye]

I feel like I've heard this dozens of times before and the outcome was always the same..

https://twinfinite.net/2020/01/path...lity-changes-to-combat-kingdom-building-more/

more accessible to newcomers

We want to fix that in Wrath of the Righteous, to make it more approachable to the players, to explain the rules better and make situations that are difficult (in terms of rules) more easy to understand.

we want it to be accessible by those who are not familiar with pen-and-paper RPGs.

Oh, new article. Thanks for sharing.

 

[Infinitron]

I feel like I've heard this dozens of times before and the outcome was always the same..

https://twinfinite.net/2020/01/path...lity-changes-to-combat-kingdom-building-more/

more accessible to newcomers

We want to fix that in Wrath of the Righteous, to make it more approachable to the players, to explain the rules better and make situations that are difficult (in terms of rules) more easy to understand.

we want it to be accessible by those who are not familiar with pen-and-paper RPGs.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Interview: New Gameplay Changes, Better Tutorials, & More

There have been many isometric RPGs in recent years that have echoed the design of the genre’s late-1990s heydey, but none of them are quite like Owlcat Games’ Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Designed with a philosophy that adheres more strictly to the pen-and-paper ruleset it’s based on, Kingmaker is an extremely faithful video game adaptation of a TRPG. This has won over a substantial fanbase of passionate players, though it’s also guilty of isolating others as a result of its often daunting depth and lack of solid tutorials.

Now, the studio is planning an even grader sequel called Wrath of the Righteous, but they’re intent on learning from past mistakes and producing something that’s both a complete TRPG experience and more accessible to newcomers.

To get the gist of how Owlcat Games is approaching the development of Wrath of Righteous, Twinfinite spoke with the studio’s creative director, Alexander Mishulin.

Alex: While Pathfinder TRPG players would have been in their element, Kingmaker wasn’t the most accessible isometric RPG at launch. Are there plans to make Wrath of the Righteous easier to understand and less intimidating this time around or are you committed to designing Wrath of the Righteous first and foremost around the TRPG ruleset in the same way?

Alexander Mishulin, Creative Director at Owlcat Games: While making Pathfinder: Kingmaker two of our main goals were to expand the pen-and-paper experience to the CRPG, and also to revive the great old school hardcore CRPG experience, the one we grew up on ourselves.

While we succeeded at it and received good feedback from the hardcore audience, we understand that the huge Pathfinder system ruleset was left tricky and unclear in many ways for the new players unfamiliar with the tabletop game.

We want to fix that in Wrath of the Righteous, to make it more approachable to the players, to explain the rules better and make situations that are difficult (in terms of rules) more easy to understand. And of course, we are leaving space to think and explore, and providing opportunities to learn for those of the players who want it.

To make it so, we decided to develop not just some special tutorial, but a whole new learning curve system that spans through the whole game and helps the player in a number of ways, and is on hand anytime they need it. We are making this system non-intrusive, so the players who prefer a bit more old-school approach can play in the way they love so much.

Alex: Following on from above, would you say that players who don’t know D&D games can play Wrath of Righteousness? What kind of prerogative is being placed on more thorough tutorials and making the game a little more intuitive to newcomers this time around?

Alexander Mishulin: Yes, they can. Although the game is still designed for the players who are willing to put some effort into studying the system, we want it to be accessible by those who are not familiar with pen-and-paper RPGs.

Spoiler

Alex: Kingmaker featured branching dialog, but its choice/consequence system was perhaps slightly less developed in comparison to some other games in the genre. Are you planning on expanding the focus on branching dialog this time around and incorporating a stronger focus on multiple endings?

Alexander Mishulin: I wouldn’t agree that the choices system is less developed [than other games in the genre]. In fact, we believe that branching dialogues and choice variety are among the strongest features of our game – the Kingmaker contains more than 1,2 million words!

Most of those words are devoted to providing the players with a multitude of choices with meaningful consequences. There are many ways you can solve different quests and you can roleplay character of any alignment, with choices supporting this roleplay.

Your alignment changes according to your decisions and special dialog options become available. Some of them change your playthrough quite significantly. For example, at the beginning of the game companions join your party according to the decisions you made. Or at the 2nd chapter of the game some characters are able to befriend trolls or kobolds, leading to special dialogs, consequences that span up until the final chapter of the game, new vendors, special options in the development of the kingdom and unique epilogues.

Speaking of epilogues, there are 6 major outcomes of the story and epilogues for the most important events and decisions throughout the game. There are 171 epilogue texts in total to cover that. And this entire system is connected to the kingdom development – depending on your choices, the visuals, the dwellers, the whole surrounding mood and the way people in the capital are talking and reacting would vary.

In Wrath of the Righteous, we will be building upon the decisions made for Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Some of the decisions players will be making will have a drastic impact on the whole game and on the outcomes (and eventually the endings) that are available to them. We are also improving the ways in which we are showing that some events are in fact consequences of the decisions players made a long time ago.

Alex: Do you have new writers or notable new team members on board to help with story and quest design at all?

Alexander Mishulin: Almost all narrative team members who worked on Kingmaker return to their roles in this new project, with a couple of newcomers as well. And we’re also happy that Chris Avellone is back on board lending a hand and supporting the narrative team as he did with Pathfinder: Kingmaker.

Alex: Will kingdom management be a returning feature and how has it expanded for Wrath of the Righteous?

Alexander Mishulin: The kingdom management and the reactions of the kingdom to your alignment and decisions were a special feature of the Kingmaker for us. We want to continue with the idea of implementing additional layers of gameplay, widening the gaming experience and giving the additional flavor to the role the main character finds themself in.

Of course, in Wrath of the Righteous, it will be presented in a whole different way – adapted to the new game setting and story. We will be ready to reveal the details really soon – stay tuned.

Alex: How do you plan to improve on the combat mechanics this time around, if at all? Is there an impetus to either go further toward real-time or turn-based? As in, will the ebb and flow/pace of combat be sped up or slowed down at all?

Alexander Mishulin: We are focusing on the RTWP system and working on the improvements to the system used in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Those changes should make combat more readable both in terms of the actions of the enemies and the orders that the player gives to the party. But the game production is still in the early stages, so some additional changes could be expected after the playtests.

Alex: What were some of the biggest lessons the team has learned since the first game from community and critic feedback? Have you been convinced to address balancing/difficulty curve, quality of life improvements such as the ability to speed up time, fast traveling directly from the throne room to the world map, better AI controls, etc?

Alexander Mishulin: Yes, we are very grateful to our community. Through this year since the release, we’ve been gathering the fans’ opinions, learning a lot, and already improved a ton of features.

We made the Enhanced Edition with a number of improvements across the board that makes the game we envisioned better. We are continuing support of the game, and still doing patches and adding small features.

Alex: What can the team learn from other successful isometric RPGs like Divinity that have managed to transcend the D&D genre somewhat and find new audiences?

Alexander Mishulin: Every new game in the CRPG genre brings something new to the table and evolves genre a bit. Some of the changes make the genre better, while others are applicable to one particular game.

We like making games based on the Pathfinder role-playing system with a strong story, a lot of choices and consequences, the whole roster of detailed companions and deep mechanics that allow players to build very different characters.

We review every new decision and change in the genre that improves on these aspects and try to understand: Will it work for us? Will it make the game better? How can we achieve similar results but in our game with our system? If it fits the game – we act upon it. That is true for the Divinity: Original Sin series, Pillars of Eternity series, and more recent Greedfall, Disco Elysium, Outer Worlds or even Fire Emblem: Three Houses.

Alex: Can we expect higher overall quality in terms of technical performance this time around with Wrath of Righteousness eg. better visuals, shorter load screens, fewer bugs, etc? Assuming you’re confident that will be the case, why is that? What have you changed that might result in stronger performance (ie. is it an experience thing, or have you changed engines, etc)?

Alexander Mishulin: Yes, it will be a step forward for us. We are working hard on the performance aspect of the new project and we also are intended to keep the level of visuals up to the modern standards. Though, we are not ready to give out more details on that just yet.

Alex: Pathfinder is a CRPG, of course, but would the team ever consider a console release?

Alexander Mishulin: We are working on a console release for Pathfinder: Kingmaker now and would like to see how it will perform on these platforms, before making any serious decisions for the new project. The console port for the Kingmaker will be released in 2020, and we will reveal the release date later next year.

You can read Twinfinite’s review of Pathfinder: Kingmaker for more detailed impressions on the game when it first launched. It’s important to remember, though, that Owlcat Games has since released an Enhanced version of the game and addressed several issues with subsequent updates.

 

[Pink Eye]

Infinitron Thanks for keeping the Pathfinder community informed.

 

[Lacrymas]

It's not really a community when you are the only one in it :p

 

[Pink Eye]

I shall hold the guard for future potential Pathfinder players then. While my exile from steam has left me battered and bruised. I shall forever stand guard and hold the line.

 

[santino27]

Alex: Kingmaker featured branching dialog, but its choice/consequence system was perhaps slightly less developed in comparison to some other games in the genre. Are you planning on expanding the focus on branching dialog this time around and incorporating a stronger focus on multiple endings?

Alexander Mishulin: I wouldn’t agree that the choices system is less developed [than other games in the genre]. In fact, we believe that branching dialogues and choice variety are among the strongest features of our game – the Kingmaker contains more than 1,2 million words!

Most of those words are devoted to providing the players with a multitude of choices with meaningful consequences. There are many ways you can solve different quests and you can roleplay character of any alignment, with choices supporting this roleplay.

Your alignment changes according to your decisions and special dialog options become available. Some of them change your playthrough quite significantly. For example, at the beginning of the game companions join your party according to the decisions you made. Or at the 2nd chapter of the game some characters are able to befriend trolls or kobolds, leading to special dialogs, consequences that span up until the final chapter of the game, new vendors, special options in the development of the kingdom and unique epilogues.

Speaking of epilogues, there are 6 major outcomes of the story and epilogues for the most important events and decisions throughout the game. There are 171 epilogue texts in total to cover that. And this entire system is connected to the kingdom development – depending on your choices, the visuals, the dwellers, the whole surrounding mood and the way people in the capital are talking and reacting would vary.

Glad he pushed back on this one. Kingmaker had a crapton of choice/consequence... that impacted the game a lot more than just via the ending slides that most post-TOB RPGs have now. Makes me wonder if the interviewer actually played it.

 

[<3sRichardSimmons]

Yeah, it’s pretty clear that the interviewer didn’t play Kingmaker for more than an hour or two at most. He puts himself most strongly with that question, but it’s definitely evident elsewhere in the interview as well.

 

[Dodo1610]

The only news from the article is that WOTR will again only have RTWP, I actually thought they would add TB for the sequel. The interview makes it sound like that are no drastic changes from Kingmaker gameplay-wise.

 

[purpleblob]

I doubt WotR will be TB - it might get tacked on later by mod or something again though.

Btw Dhampir is confirmed as a new race on Discord according to Stratgemini

 

[Pink Eye]

>Btw Dhampir is confirmed as a new race on Discord according to Stratgemini
Dope! I remember Dhampir being one of the options for possible new races. It never made it. BUT! The fact that there is a chance for Dhampir to make it into the sequel makes me excited!

 

[Luckmann]

it's as kitchen sinky as forgotten realms

No, Golarion is by far more of a kitchen-sink. Forgotten Realms still (pre-4e) attempted to make some kind of sense in regards to the various regions, and even if you had "not!-Egypt" and whatnot, it wasn't nearly as pronounced.

but not as boring

This is true. It's twice as boring.

and doesnt have all the campaigns set in the same fucking region

Legitimate complaint, but not really the setting's fault. Especially prior to 3.0 and prior to some major successes (relatively speaking) of Salvatore and Baldur's Gate and so on, Forgotten Realm was very far from being centered on the Sword Coast and The North so exclusively.

The Lands of Intrigue books of 2e are TITE.

 

[kain30]

KIckstarter campaign starts February 4th https://owlcatgames.com/news/38

 

[Molina]

Alex: Kingmaker featured branching dialog, but its choice/consequence system was perhaps slightly less developed in comparison to some other games in the genre. Are you planning on expanding the focus on branching dialog this time around and incorporating a stronger focus on multiple endings?

Alexander Mishulin: I wouldn’t agree that the choices system is less developed [than other games in the genre]. In fact, we believe that branching dialogues and choice variety are among the strongest features of our game – the Kingmaker contains more than 1,2 million words!

Most of those words are devoted to providing the players with a multitude of choices with meaningful consequences. There are many ways you can solve different quests and you can roleplay character of any alignment, with choices supporting this roleplay.

Your alignment changes according to your decisions and special dialog options become available. Some of them change your playthrough quite significantly. For example, at the beginning of the game companions join your party according to the decisions you made. Or at the 2nd chapter of the game some characters are able to befriend trolls or kobolds, leading to special dialogs, consequences that span up until the final chapter of the game, new vendors, special options in the development of the kingdom and unique epilogues.

Speaking of epilogues, there are 6 major outcomes of the story and epilogues for the most important events and decisions throughout the game. There are 171 epilogue texts in total to cover that. And this entire system is connected to the kingdom development – depending on your choices, the visuals, the dwellers, the whole surrounding mood and the way people in the capital are talking and reacting would vary.

Glad he pushed back on this one. Kingmaker had a crapton of choice/consequence... that impacted the game a lot more than just via the ending slides that most post-TOB RPGs have now. Makes me wonder if the interviewer actually played it.

1,2 million words ! As much as Disco Elysium !

But I agree. Compared to other games (Obsidian?) we really feel the consequences of our choices. I can't figure out what the journalist means.

 

[Molina]

KIckstarter campaign starts February 4th https://owlcatgames.com/news/38

Fuck. They haven't managed to achieve financial stability?

 

[Lacrymas]

Hhhhhmmmmm, it would actually be better for the backgrounds to be rendered 2D images now that I think about it. The goofy 3D doesn't work very well imo, it has this sort of detached quality to it, as if the objects don't really belong to the rest of the environments, it's uncanny.

 

[Wunderbar]

KIckstarter campaign starts February 4th https://owlcatgames.com/news/38

Fuck. They haven't managed to achieve financial stability?

kickstarter = free advertisement + pre-orders.

 

[Lacrymas]

Pre-orders with a hefty discount, though.

 

[jerfdr]

KIckstarter campaign starts February 4th https://owlcatgames.com/news/38

Fuck. They haven't managed to achieve financial stability?

They say the following in the announcement:

Why Kickstarter, you might ask? We want to make this adventure as epic as we imagined it when playing Wrath of the Righteous at the table. And, of course, we want our next game to become better than the previous one in every aspect. While we already have essential investments, there are a lot of things to add and improve. And you will be able to support us in this endeavour!

Basically, they are using Kickstarter as an advertisement tool, which makes sense. (cf. e.g. Divinity: OS 2 kickstarter)