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

[Desiderius]

"We'll fix that!"

Good, good. I knew we could all get along.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Desiderius]

Now get those two all the help they need to get this gem polished up nice and bright.

 

[Darth Gnome]

Anyone know what the devs have planned for world reactivity? The current state is a on the disappointing side.

A day after a decades long demonic occupation, a siege, and a massive battle, Drezen is in tip top shape, with flags fluttering, and peasants blissfully wandering the streets. Meanwhile, Kenebres, in Act 4, is still a smoking crater.

 

[Aarwolf]

They who control the ukraine rule the world.

You can have Ukraine, but we have Ukrainians.

 

[LannTheStupid]

we have Ukrainians.

People die.

 

[Desiderius]

They who control the ukraine rule the world.

You can have Ukraine, but we have Ukrainians.

If they’re anything like Vindman you can keep them.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.rpgwatch.com/articles/pathfinder--wrath-of-the-righteous-early-access-review-508.html

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous Early Access Review

In 2018, Owlcat Games pleasantly surprised cRPG fans with their debut title, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, widely considered as one of the best spiritual successors of the Baldur’s Gate series. A year after the release of Kingmaker, Owlcat Games revealed their second title, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and a Kickstarter campaign was launched in February 2020.

Wrath reached its initial funding goal within a day of the Kickstarter launch and ended up raising $2 million in total. Several great stretch goals were unlocked during the Kickstarter campaign – most notably:

• 2 additional mythic paths - Swarm-that-walks and Gold Dragon, on top of the originally planned 7.
• New races - Oread and Kitsune, in addition to the originally planned Dhampir.
• New classes - Warpriest, Cavalier, Skald and Hunter, in addition to the originally planned Arcanist, Bloodrager, Oracle, Shaman and Witch.
• New Prestige class Winter Witch, in addition to the originally planned Hellknight, Hellknight Signifier and Student of War.
• One additional archetype per class which will add up to a total of 6 archetypes per class at its release.

As I thoroughly enjoyed Kingmaker, I have been closely following the development of Wrath and participated in the pre-alpha, alpha and beta test phases. Having recently finished my beta run, I can confidently say Wrath is an improvement over Kingmaker in almost every aspect.

Before you read any further, just note that this preview may contain some minor spoilers and I have used a custom portrait for my player character in my screenshots.



I can’t wait to play as an Angelfire Apostle coupled with the acolyte background!

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is based on an existing Paizo adventure path module like its indirect predecessor, Pathfinder: Kingmaker. However, the tone of Wrath is more mature, dark and epic compared to Kingmaker. This time, players embark on a journey to a realm overrun by demons as a Mythic hero, capable of feats beyond mere mortals. Such power comes at a great cost, and you will need to carefully decide how you shape the mysterious powers bestowed upon you or you may end up potentially losing them, along with your companions or your very humanity. The Mythic path system is undoubtably the most unique and important feature in Wrath, as it not only adds a layer of complexity and fun to class building but also a tremendous amount of replayability to the game.

There currently are 6 different mythic paths to choose from in the beta - Angel, Azatas, Aeon, Trickster, Lich and Demon, while the full game will also feature Gold Dragon, Swarm-that-walks and Legend mythic paths. I chose to play as a Trickster heroine in the beta and also tried out the Angel and Azatas mythic paths in the alpha – all 3 runs were extremely enjoyable as Owlcat Games did a fantastic job at fleshing out each path according to their own theme.

As a Trickster, I was able to prank both my allies and enemies alike. While I was a little uneasy tricking my allies, I had great fun playing some nasty jokes on my enemies – there were so many great moments that I felt I could *almost* relate to the Lantern King, the infamous fey prankster Elder in Kingmaker.

Azatas was my favourite path so far with lots of whimsical and chaotic but seemingly harmless choices. You can invite all sort of strange misfits to join your army, decide on how you will decorate your very own floating rock above the clouds, and you get a cute little friend who loves chocolates and cookies a little too much.

Although the Angel path felt a bit cliched compared to the Trickster and Azatas, it was still an extremely satisfying experience playing as a protector of good. The Angel mythic also comes with lots of powerful abilities and is considered one of the two most flexible mythic paths that can work with many class choices.

Spoiler

Choices, choices… which mythic path would you choose?

Each of the 6 mythic paths in the beta comes with their own mythic abilities and spell books aligned to their theme. As the mythic path progression tree is not visible during character creation, I chose the class which I felt matched the theme of each mythic path. While my class/mythic choices would not be considered ‘meta’ or ideal, I still had a lot of fun and equally as powerful in my runs playing as a Warpriest/Angel and then Arcane Trickster/Trickster.

There are also mythic exclusive quests and storylines for each path, which provides different viewpoints and insights on certain events and characters depending on your chosen mythic. For example, an Angel mythic hero will find out what role a certain demon played in the demise of Lariel, an important early figure and for what purpose – a revelation that’s hidden from other mythics.

All 6 mythic paths are assigned unique mentors and a hub of sorts, while some mythic paths get their own specific companions. Mythic mentors will share their opinion on lots of matters and you can decide whether you want to heed their advice or not, however this will have a huge impact on the development of your mythic powers as the game progresses.

Each mythic path will also be able to resolve several shared quests in a different way which doesn’t become apparent until you replay the game – for example, Azatas gets an option to persuade your allies to rush to a hidden demon lair and prevent a bunch of slaves from suffering a horrific fate, while other mythic paths have no choice but to wait for Queen Galfrey to arrive first.



Fish. Missile. You know its good when a game lets you fling flapping fish at firey fiends.

It’s important to note that you don’t start off your journey by choosing which mythic path to follow. As the story progress, you will be able to unlock different mythic paths by performing certain actions and/or obtaining specific objects. It wasn’t difficult to unlock all 6 mythic paths as specific dialogues and actions will be hinted with the relevant mythic theme song playing in the background. It’s worth pointing out that each of the 6 mythic theme scores are beautiful, perfectly representing their respective mythic paths which really adds to the atmosphere.

In the early game, you will simply level up as a mythic hero until you get a choice to lock in 1 of 6 mythic paths towards the end of chapter 2. At this stage, there is no alignment restrictions in unlocking the initial mythic paths, as you are still in a process of shaping your power. The full mythic transformation will take place in the later stages of the game - we were not able to experience it in the beta, which consisted of the first 4 chapters. Once you lock in your initial path, your actions and alignment will have to match the chosen mythic as it is likely that you may not gain full access to your chosen mythic powers if you deviate in alignment. Should you wish to, and fulfil the relevant requirements, players will likely be able to switch mythic to 1 of 3 paths available in the late game - Gold Dragon, Swarm-that-walks or Legend instead of fully investing in their initial mythic. This also provides players the freedom to redeem themselves for good, or corrupt their powers to evil.



Mythic hero progression is a lot more intricate than Mythic companion progression

Mythic powers that you receive also flow down to your companions, albeit in much less powerful and more restricted form. As companions don’t get to choose their own mythic path, they only get access to a shared pool of generic mythic abilities, which you also have access to in early game as a mythic hero before you lock in a path.

There are 12 potential companions available in the beta, including Woljif Jefto who was added as part of a Kickstarter stretch goal. Companions in Wrath have very vivid and quirky personalities, which resulted in me having clear favourites and dislikes in the early stages of the game. However, as the story progressed, I came to appreciate each and every companion for who they are. I never imagined that I would come to respect and rely on an evil Hellknight so much, heed the wisdom of a child clearly detached from reality, or make a conscious choice to let a girl with questionable morals stay in my party because I was curious to see how her story unfolded. Most companions are delightfully crazy in their own way and they do fantastic job of lifting up the gloomy underlying atmosphere in Wrath when needed.



Companions in Wrath have a lot more banter and interjections which makes them feel much more alive than their Kingmaker counterparts

You will get access to 3 companions in the prologue and a further 4 companions will be recruitable in chapter 1, while some companions won’t show up until as late as chapter 3.

The prologue and chapter 1 act as a tutorial, especially for those who aren’t familiar with Pathfinder rules. Owlcat Games implemented an enhanced interactive tutorial which I found rather delightful as relevant information pops up based on gameplay. This feature seems to require a bit more work as I have seen a number of tutorial messages with incorrect information appear due to too generalised rule triggers. As an example, a tutorial message appeared pointing out that Daeran, a spontaneous spell caster, gained a free slot to memorise spells upon him levelling up. While this is a potentially useful reminder to new players, it is also confusing if they aren’t aware that spontaneous casters don’t need to memorise spells. Owlcat Games is aware of these inconsistencies, and will hopefully have them ironed out in the full release.



The interactive tutorial provides an in-depth explanation of what is happening and how you can overcome the issue

Another improvement I really liked is that the game UI now shows which items and buffs have non-stacking bonuses. It was quite a shock to realise just how often I was casting buffs that were not required anymore and this feature was extremely useful to cull out spells and abilities that were no longer practical as I geared up.



Wrath has a plethora of equipment slots – from goggles on top of circlets, to stylish robes on top of armour

The story progression from the prologue to chapter 1 is linear and takes place in the city of Kenabres. After surviving a devastating and unexpected demon attack, you are tasked with gathering allies scattered all over the city and guiding them to a rally point in order to build a strong enough force to storm the Grey Garrison and retake Kenabres from the demons.

Once successful in that task, you will be appointed as a Knight commander by Queen Galfrey as she declares the beginning of the Fifth Mendevian Crusade. Your objective now is to raise an army to retake Drezen, a city-fortress which was overtaken by the demonic hordes of the Worldwound during the First Mendevian Crusade.

While the player party can travel past most of the demon legions in the world map, you will have to defeat a number of demon fortresses with your crusading legions before being able to travel beyond. Each of your legions has its own morale, strength and detailed unit composition, for example one of my legions was composed of 1 unit of 110 archers, 1 unit 8 clerics and 2 units of footmen – one with 119 footmen and another with 110 footmen. In combat, high morale provides a chance for units to take an additional action in a round, while negative morale introduces a chance for units to become dazed or skip an action in a round. Army strength measures the total strength of each legion and allows players to make an informed decision on the likelihood of victory when in combat with an enemy army. Upon defeating each demon legion, your legions will receive experience points and other rewards such as materials required to hire specific army units and leaders. Each of your units possesses relevant class abilities – for example, paladin units can cast smite evil and lay on hands. Similarly, legion leaders also come with a variety of abilities and spells while also allowing each legion to learn additional skills as they gain more experience. While you can hire several leaders for your army, only one leader can be assigned per legion.



Owlcat Games took inspiration from the Heroes of Might & Magic series for army combat and management in Wrath

Retaking Drezen concludes chapter 2 and allows you to use the city as your base, thereby expanding the scope of army management beyond just combat. It is worthwhile noting that the army management feature is still very much in draft phase and the beta had lots of missing features and texts. The basics of army management appear to be similar to Kingdom management in Kingmaker, minus the dice roll success and failures. You will be able to assign your party members to 4 advisor positions and each companion fulfills their role by providing you with advice when needed, completing projects to help raise army morale, unlock different army units, craft magical items and appeal to the crusade’s supporters such as noble houses and the royal court. You will also be able to construct a variety of buildings, such as barracks and archery ranges, in the fortresses you control in order to increase the number of units you can raise per week. I felt that army management system was more integral to the gameplay and story elements of Wrath, instead of a separate mini-game as in Kingmaker’s kingdom management, which I believe is a strong positive change.

Chapter 3 takes a more open world approach following the rather linear progression of the story up until to the conclusion of chapter 2, and was by far the longest chapter in the beta with many new features introduced. While players have much more freedom to explore the Worldwould at their own pace, you may end up visiting some of the areas tied to the main plot much earlier than planned depending on your chosen mythic path – this also means some paths will gain mythic levels much earlier than others as mythic level is tied to story progression rather than the amount of experience gained.



It’s not all twisted hellscapes - You will get to visit many different locations with varied aesthetics, including some nice outdoor areas!

As your forces establish a strong presence in and around Drezen, your allies will start to show up including some familiar faces from Kingmaker. Storyteller makes a return but this time he is interested in finding out about his own past which seems to be closely tied to the main plot of Wrath.

The story also picks up the pace in chapter 3. The main antagonist of the game openly approaches you for the first time towards the end of chapter 2, revealing more of her intentions while showing a particular interest in you throughout chapter 3. The story deepens in chapter 4 where you get to travel to the heart of demon operations and gain insights on the connection between the main antagonist, some of her notable allies and their overarching plans. As with companions, Owlcat Games did an excellent job at developing the notable demon characters. I couldn’t help but fall in love with some of them and even tried my hardest to save them from trouble in a few occasions.



What plans does she have in store for us… for the whole world?

Unfortunately, chapter 4 in the current version of the beta is relatively unfinished with most of the mythic specific and companion quests either unimplemented or broken. It is fair to say that there are still a lot of features that need to be implemented and fixed before the full release of the game. Despite this, I played through all of the beta in Real Time with Pause mode without encountering major technical issues and found the beta fairly polished and in a similar state to Kingmaker at its release. Others playing the beta in Turn Based mode seemed to encounter more issues, with the most common complaint being characters getting stuck at doorways during the combat.

Wrath beta provided me with more than 75 hours of pure enjoyment as a completionist. As the full game will include 2 more chapters, my impression is that Wrath could be roughly the same length as Kingmaker but with tremendously more replayability. While those who are short on time will get plenty of joy out of a single playthrough, I believe many players who delve into Wrath wouldn’t be able to resist replaying the game to explore other mythic paths.

Wrath of the Righteous is currently targeted to release in Q3 2021. While the current version of the beta, which was released back in February 2021, is still in rather a rough form, I look forward to playing the updated beta which is planned to be released at the end of April. Having played through pre-alpha to beta versions of the game, I am cautiously optimistic that Wrath of the Righteous will be released in a decently polished and complete form in Q3 2021.

 

[Pink Eye]

Very cool! Thanks for sharing! I am dubious that it will be released in the third quarter of 2021. They may possibly delay.

 

[Ontopoly]

https://www.rpgwatch.com/articles/pathfinder--wrath-of-the-righteous-early-access-review-508.html

Such a great coverage, I'll have to check out that website. Why can't we have great write-ups like that?

 

[Infinitron]

https://forum.owlcatgames.com/t/07-04-2021-owlcat-dev-stream-level-design-qa-write-up/37654

(07.04.2021) Owlcat Dev Stream: Level Design QA write-up

A word of warning. There were some minor spoilers on the locations of the game.

I might have missed some questions, shortened some answers and removed some banter so I’d suggest watching the VOD itself 6 for the complete experience.




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A word of warning. There were some minor spoilers on the locations of the game.

Previous stream write-ups:

(11.12.2020) Owlcat Dev Stream: UI Stream Special + Q&A (Unofficial Transcription) 4

(06.11.2020) Owlcat Dev Stream: Game Design Special Unofficial Transcription

(05.02.2021) Owlcat Dev Stream: Community Quest and Q&A 1

Spoiler

KEY POINTS
Introduction

[08:00] Q&A starts 4

[33:00] A sneak peak at a Chapter 4 location 8

[50:00] Talking about Thiefling hideout design + clip 1

[1:03:00] Gray Garrison - from AP to the Game 3

[1:55:00] Estrod Tower location 2

[2:08:00] Drezen 1

[2:27:00] Q&A continues 2

INTRODUCTION
Participants (From left to right):

Lisa Krymova — community manager.

(Special guest) Andrey Saenko — level-designer;

Yulia Chernenko — Game Designer;

Andrey:

I’ve made several locations. I’ve made Woljif quests locations, Grey Garrison, every location in Trickster’s mythic path and I’m currently making a location in the later chapter I can’t talk about. But it’s very big and unusual. Yulia: Yeah, and really nice fights will be there. Very painful, suffering fights. Also I’ve made 2 small locations in chapter 4 and we’ll show one of them later.

[08:00] Q&A STARTS 4

• What does a level designer do?
  Andrey: Level designer in our project is the one who connects the story created by our Narrative Designers with our artists to make the gameplay that is covered in the art of our beautiful locations. We make the basic layout and then we give it to our level artists and they turn our “blocks” into the really cool looking locations. So, we always communicate with our narrative team, the artists, and for sure the game designers and programmers. The game designers make mobs for our locations. We are also scripting the events written by our narrative team. We get dialogs and the results of the events in our locations and make it live in the locations. So, if you do the quest and something goes wrong you can blame us a little.
  
  
• (11:30) The final part of the community quest closed?
  Yes, today we’ve published the final story. Because of your previous choices he’s chosen the Angel mythic path and all that’s left is a final Community quest trailer and we’re currently working on it. If you wonder about the story, check out our social media.
  
  
• What is the most challenging part of your job as a level designer?
  There’s a lot of challenging parts and the most challenging one is keeping up to deadlines. We have a lot of things to do and always run out of time. The second challenging part is coming up with the basic ideas for the location. At the start of the work I’m given a basic script of the events that happen in and then I start to think of what I can grow out of it. Like, for example in our big dungeons there might be 2 or 4 story events but the whole dungeon is much bigger and the rest of the content in ideas comes from us as level designers. It’s always a challenge to come up with the first idea. You have some pieces of the story and have to figure out where they take place, what will be there, in between. I always want to add something to the location, to expand the story and the believability of the world. Our main goal is to make a location that you can remember and believe that it’s real, putting some life into it. It’s very difficult. It takes some time to connect all pieces of this puzzle together.
  
  
• Is there something you wanted to implement to the game but couldn’t because of engine limitations?
  There’re a lot of these things. We’d like to make big, vast locations but we’re limited. Not due to the particles but more due to mechanics optimization. The more AI and interactive objects you have, it affects the performance a lot. You can make a big sparse location but if you want to make it “condensed” you’ll run into issues. For example, Grey Garrison was one single location in the first Alpha and I’ve had to divide it into multiple locations with a loading screen. Yulia: I think there’s also limits with the number of active units.
  
  
• How close does the level design team work with the other teams (items, story and encounter design)?
  Very close (Yulia, jokingly: Too close, I’d say. Skipped some banter here). Yulia: Each time a level designer gives us a task we usually have to talk with them about how implementable monsters, items and the level mechanics are. Some of the mechanics we can do as the game designers but some are up to level designers, like traps and summoning monsters. Due to our plot and choices you can take you might not see every event in that location in a single playthrough. But when we make a location we make them all with the required triggers. Sometimes we start to make a location that hasn’t got enough monsters of the required level and we have to ask our game designers to make some. Yulia: Like, for the late chapters the core bestiary rules basically don’t work and we have made new, unique stuff with a certain CR. When I started to work on the later chapters and saw what I have and basically had nothing and started to write to Yulia. Yulia: We’ll see in the final game how good I’ve made my job at balancing everything.
  
  
• Do you have to approach the level design differently now when you have to consider that the player can rotate the camera?
  Yes, sure. There are 2 sides here. For the fixed camera angle it’s easier to make multi-layered locations (with different heights, like mountains) without the camera going into walls/objects. When you have a rotating camera It’s harder to make it not annoying by getting the camera into some big object. It’s always a trade-off, like in Drezen you have to make large walls. Liza: See you later in our rotating camera Dev Diary.
  
  
• Yulia: How do you feel about doors?
  I love doors. It’s an important tool for level design. But they sometimes create some issues. When I make a level I assume the doors are always working as intended. For example, a few days before Beta being public we found out that players could pass through the closed door in TBM. I was shocked because it ruined a lot of my scripts. So doors are powerful but also dangerous. There are also currently some encounters in the beta that don’t work properly with doors
  
  
• How long does it take to make a level?
  Depends on the size of the level. If it’s a small level like for some companion quest it’s much faster than when you make a big dungeon. Grey Garrison took a long time to make - several weeks, about a month. And some polishing afterwards.

[33:00] A SNEAK PEAK AT A CHAPTER 4 LOCATION 8
It’s a tower in a big city you get into in chapter 4. It ended up pretty unique even in this city. It’s a magic tower. Our artists say that it’s an upside-down tower. There gonna be traps and puzzles. Now we’re showing the way it works without spoiling anything. When you rotate the camera, stuff starts to move. Isles go up and down and bridges start to rotate.




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• A perfect place to hide some optional secrets
  Apart from the perception mechanics, a rotating camera is very useful as you can hide objects just like in real life. For example, in the Grey Garrison there is one chest that is one chest that is not hidden, not locked, it just rests in a corner. And a certain puzzle in the prologue.
  Andrey: If you see a really difficult puzzle in the game, it’s not by me. There’re some people in our team who really like puzzles.
  In the latest beta you’ll be able to meet a trap you can’t disarm yourself. It’s disarmed by a button. You see a line that connects the trap to the button and sometimes it’s easy to get to the button…and sometimes it’s not.
  
  
• What is a good amount of secrets to find in a playthrough?
  I have an interesting case for Grey Garrison. I’ve a lot of places where I can hide some things but then I found out the total gold worth calculated for my locations. I’ve had more places to hide items than good rewards (magic items). So I’ve had to place some scrolls and some other stuff. I’d like to put more secrets but I have to limit myself due to other design concerns (blame InanKy)
  
  
• Are you planning to ever add “pixel hunting” secrets, like in old Baldur’s Gate games where if you knew where to look you could get freebies
  I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s a good idea. Yulia: I actually like pixelhunting. But no. Not in our game as we like to make everything straightforward. Also it’s not possible to make in our game as interactable objects are highlighted.

[50:00] TALKING ABOUT THIEFLING HIDEOUT DESIGN + CLIP 1
We’ll start from a small location. This is an example on how level designers respond not to the story but to the world. When I was making the location for the first Woljif’s quest (thiefling hideout) I got a script: There’s some place you should go, there will be certain characters there, there will be a dialog and you’ll have to figure out the rest of the quest. I wanted to make the location more deep. The idea sounded like a thieves guild. They have all of the thief stuff going on, their relationship so they have some common funds they distribute. I’ve placed a character that sells some things (their ganged treasure). I thought about the hideout as a place where the members gather there, trade things, and bring the money made by their exploits. The place provides some rest for the people (where they can hide for a few days, they’re not living there permanently) and there’s a locked place where they keep their money. Obviously, this all was not in the script and our narrative guys only found out about this when I asked them to make some barks for this. But there was supposed to be only one quest dialog.

(Skipped some discussion on this area implementation, invisibility and dimension doors.)

[1:00:00]

Some late game and Swarm Path teasing from the devs.

[1:03:00] GRAY GARRISON - FROM AP TO THE GAME 3
I’ll talk about the Grey Garrison. About it’s little details, the way it evolved from the AP to our game.




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As you can see, it’s really small in the original AP. The wardstone doesn’t go through the whole building. There’s a tiny piece of it that is located on the 3rd floor (room P18). I wanted to have some connections between the AP locations and the one in the game so people who played the AP can find familiar stuff. If you played the game version, there’s a room P8 (the hidden armory) in there and is roughly the same. Both rooms P7 and P8 are there (if you remember the statues). The room P4 made into the game as well (the room with an Altar). P5 is also in the game (the museum being destroyed) and P15 (the basin with bodies). P16 is next to it (the barracks). P11 is also in the game and is a bit bigger (the room with Jeslyn, the main boss of the AP GG) but similar in shape. I’ve taken the most remarkable rooms from the AP and transferred them into our version. You can still see the connections if you look for them. For me the most connected room is the one with the puzzle (the P8) with it’s unusual shape.

The version you see in the game is the 3rd version of the layout and here’s the first version of it (still without the art):




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This is the 2nd floor of the Grey Garrison. You can see the big green thing in the middle - the wardstone used to be there. You start from the basement, go to the 2nd floor and see the wardstone a bit after that. But our team’s decided that players need to see the wardstone much more. In this version the third floor was just a small room . I’ve had to rearrange this layout so that you can see it on all floors as it’s big and gool. It was a very good decision.

Here’s the wardstone as you can see it on the 2nd floor currently in the game.




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• Its right there… why bother climbing?
  You actually need to find the corrupted part of the wardstone, so you have to do some climbing. You can see it at the very start of the game with Minagho and it’s really important for the story.

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I’ve managed to keep almost all the layout shown earlier, adding some things. I only had to remove one room as it was damaged by the wardstone.

When you get out of the basement you can already see the wardstone.




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I really like the way it looks from the 3d floor. You can feel that it all is the same location, and you can also see Irabeth fighting there.

This statue is not damaged when you visit the GG first but is damaged on your second visit to GG and demons are all over there. There’re a lot of small things like that in our game but we know not all players find them.




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This location was actually harder for me to make as you’ve got to visit it twice, using absolutely different routes. I’ve had to seal some parts of the location on the first visit but it was hard to make the layout that works well on both visits.

This is the 3rd floor. It’s currently intact but after you get there for the first time the roof falls and it blocks the way. So when you visit for the 2nd time you have to use a different route and find the key to open the access to it. So it’s basically two absolutely different paths. Fortunately, I didn’t have many locations that had different layouts after that.




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Screenshot of the area in the game editor.

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• Did you like creating multiple layouts for one area?
  A: Yeah. It’s cool but to be honest for most people it’s just one location. For me it’s actually two locations that share the same setting but are actually absolutely different. During your first run you mostly work with Irabeth and Staunton. There’re a lot of scripted scenes and most of the encounters are made for Irabeth as her level is much higher than yours and she easily can break through most of the encounters. The second run heavily uses the mechanics of followers that you can enlist in the first chapter. It was a pain to script. Depending on what you do before the GG you can get different followers. You can get desnian priests, thieflings, inquisitors and the mages of the Flaming Lance. They act all in different ways - mages cast a powerful haste, for example.

[1:55:00] ESTROD TOWER LOCATION 2
There is a location called the Tower of Estrod. Because of the story we come to a big hideout of the big bunch of cultists. Our fellow Greybor (who is not a companion at that time) says: “Don’t go there, return when they go somewhere” (After they attack the DF). So, when you get the goal to meet the big bunch of baddies you can’t win against, it’s not good. Players can play the game any way they want so it’s hard to expect them to listen to some dwarf saying not to attack the cultists. If you attack right away there’s a high chance you get beaten by a bunch of cultists so I’ve had to find a way for players to beat the encounter. So I’ve come up with an idea that you can look at the area and use the columns to kill the monsters. There’re 2 columns on sides, each one kills 3 monsters and the encounter becomes challenging but beatable. If you don’t do this you probably can still overcome but it’s way over the top for your level.

[2:00:00] Estrod Tower encounter shown




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So, that’s why I said to blame the narrative designer for making an unbeatable encounter but we’ve made our job to make it beatable. A column meme request.

[2:08:00] DREZEN 1
This wasn’t made by me but I saw a request on twitter to say something about the Drezen so I have to ask my lead something.

Drezen is a very important location to our game. It was made by Jenia Sanin, our lead level designer and it’s very big and complicated. It was one of the earliest locations made for this game (early stage of the development of the siege of Drezen, not the capital state). It was really a task that can’t be compared to any of the Kingmaker’s. It was a next-level for us and a hard challenge. We’ve successfully beaten it despite being hard on the mechanics. Jenia started to look for references in games of our genre but there was nothing that can be really compared to what we want to do. He also looked into the games of different genres and he was referencing a lot of Starcraft 2 missions that have a series of encounters that you have to overcome over time. From the narrative team there were limited directions like that there’s a Balor in the end, there are 3 ways you can start the map from, etc.




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This is Drezen as it’s seen from the editor. You can see how big and complicated it is. A lot of it is due to siege events like breaking through gates that hasn’t been done in our game. It was the first time we’ve done it and it was a success. There were times we thought that if we can’t make some features quick, we’ll cut it out (like they guys breaking through the gates while we fight). Jenia managed to make it pretty fast. Another hard part is that Drezen will eventually become our capital. So when designing the area like this we have to think about the future events and places that should already be here. So there are 2 states - the siege and the capital of the crusade. It’s still the same location so you have to recognize the place you see later in the quests and they should already be there. It should be taken into account during the making of this part. For the reference, since Jenia didn’t find any proper reference in games of our genre he looked at the old game Robin Hood: The Legend of Sherwood.




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The game takes place in an environment that is pretty close to the one we use in our game. I haven’t played the game myself (BTW, Drezen is such a big and important location it’s taken the work of the big part of the team so we’re going to film a Dev Diary about it).

There was an idea of giants using catapults that came from Jenia when he made this location (it wasn’t in the initial scripts). Drezen is very heavily scripted with giants shooting at you, for example. Our visual effects artists made a great job of making the feeling of the real siege, like arrows falling around, etc. We wanted to create a feeling of real siege happening around you with a lot of stuff happening besides your party. It was the first area to implement the followers mechanics. You could find the crusaders that are fighting against demons and you get them to follow you.

• How long did it take to make this?
  I honestly don’t remember. I wasn’t working on Drezen so I can’t say. But it was quite a challenge that’s taken some weeks.
  
  
• Having played in the alpha, I noticed that it seemed like there were more people living in Drezen than it seemed like there were houses for. Do the houses in Drezen need upgrading, or is there an in-universe reason?
  Drezen is a fortress, actually. Both in our history and in the AP it’s usually a small fortress that’s surrounded by villages. Walls protect people but most people are not living in the fortress.

[2:27:00] Q&A CONTINUES 2

• How much does the narrative design team influence the look and layout of a level / how much free hand do you have designing a level?
  Our narrative team, they write down the summary of what needs to be done. It’s usually about the events and basic information of the location (like this’s a fortress). From time to time it’s special locations, like I want this in this room or I want a special character. In the Grey Garrison I’ve had the event in the fight at the place the player can’t reach, the scenes with Minhago and her friend and a succubus scene. The rest was completely out to me.
  When we make a big dungeon there’s always a lot of freedom for us. There’s a number of events that are smaller than the area so I have a big space where I can do something for myself. We’re connecting the story with the gameplay and as I mentioned before making the world believable. In GG there was a place where you take a first mythic level and you need to fight with these superpowers. It was a narrative moment that is actually an encounter. It was a complex task both for me and the game designers. It was a strange fight that is based not on your skills but on some greater mythic powers. You should feel that you’re powerful but you should still feel like fighting. We don’t have fights like this that basically ignore your stats.
  
  
• I haven’t played Paizo’s tabletop version of Wrath, so when I see a level you’ve made, I don’t know how much is your original work/interpretation and how much is reference material from Paizo. What would you say the ratio is between things you create yourselves and things that are created from reference to Paizo things?
  It really depends. There are places that take a lot from the original AP that you can recognize and there are some locations like Ivory Sanctum that are completely different. In our game it’s a circular dungeon while in the Paizo version it’s a usual dungeon with square rooms etc. Most of the time it’s our work as in AP dungeons are usually much smaller. In the tabletop a single fight might take a few hours while in our game you can do a whole dungeon faster. It’s always an adaptation - you need a different scale, there are different gameplay nuances from the computer version. Paizo serves us mostly as an inspiration. I use some pieces from the original dungeon just to entertain the players who played the original AP. I don’t need it to copy precisely. Sometimes in the late part of the game our story differs from the original AP and the further we go the bigger differences in encounters you see.
  
  
• Are boulder traps in Ivory tower actually walking people?
  I think Jenia Ivanov knows better but I suppose that they are. I’ve already told you about my columns that are doors. The lifts you see in the chapter 4 location are also doors. It was my idea to use them in such a way. A few months later our programmers fixed some bugs while making optimizations and my doors stopped working as a lift. I’ve had to create a task as I was basically using a bug so they’ve had to make a special command for me.

 

[The_Mask]

Kind of interesting to choose Legend of Sherwood as an inspiration for design. I remember back in the day that game was both praised and criticized for it, since it was at times better than its predecessors, and at times worse.

 

[the mole]

will the player character be fighting demons in this game

righteously

simply enthralling

 

[Infinitron]

Because you can't have an isometric fantasy RPG sequel without a talking weapon:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous/posts/3166624

Beta Update Announcement and a New Mini-Companion

Hello, crusaders!

We’ve been hard at work since we released the beta version of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous back in February. Not only were we watching your streams, reading your feedback, and fixing bugs, but we were also working on major improvements for some aspects of the game, we made new content, new art, and worked on some features that were added as our stretch goals. On the 5th of May, after we publish an update that everything is ready, you will be able to launch your Steam and download the new version of beta. We will soon tell you more about what has changed in the new version, but today we’ve prepared an update on one of the stretch goals you helped us meet!

Different people play RPGs for different reasons. Some like to make new friends. Others like to find powerful artifacts that will make enemies shake in fear. And we would like to introduce you to someone who both types of players might enjoy - Finnean. A friend, a companion, a curious soul. A talking weapon.



You will meet - or, perhaps, it’s better to say “find” - Finnean early in the game, and he will happily accompany you on your crusade. He’s a charming and friendly type, and won’t hesitate to speak up his mind when he feels strongly about something. There’s only one problem - he has no idea he’s a weapon. Travel with Finnean to uncover the mystery of his past, earn his friendship and unlock his hidden powers. And in return, Finnean will reward you by turning into any weapon of your choosing. That’s right - he can become any weapon! And you will be able to either fight with him yourself or give to one of your companions, but as long as Finnean is in the party, he will act like a party member, interrupting conversations, chatting when you stop to set up camp, and so on (unless you ask him to shut up, but why would you do such a thing?).

Finnean will join you on your adventures very soon, after you download the new version of the beta! So if you have Early Access, you will be able to find a new friend on the crusade. Don’t forget to join our very active and friendly discord server before the next stage of beta begins, and save your discord name in the ‘Get a Discord Role’ field in your profile on our pre-order portal to get access to the beta chat. Additionally, please check what you see in the ‘Purchased Items’ tab when you log into your account. If you backed our game on Kickstarter, but can’t access your account or don’t see your Kickstarter pledge in it, please email us at team@owlcatgames.com, and we will help you. We also keep collecting shipping information from backers with physical pre-orders, and names for the game’s credits from those whose pledge includes it, so please update your account information on our portal if you haven’t done it yet.

To arms!

Owlcats.

 

[Lacrymas]

Being able to become any weapon type is a very good idea, as long as it doesn't overshadow every other weapon in existence. Sometimes, unique items make you want to build a character around using that weapon, so we'll see how it's implemented.

 

[Dishonoredbr]

I hope this game somehow gets release this year yet. It's the only Western RPG coming ''soon'' that's looking like going to be great imo.

>And in return, Finnean will reward you by turning into any weapon of your choosing.

As long this weapons aren't like stupidly good entire game and don't overshadowed normal weapons, this is a good feature. Especialy because avoids the problem of lack of good choices for certain weapons like KM had.

Anyway , i'm replaying KM and man i forgot how good that game was.. I loving playing a Monster Tactician , it's so fun.

 

[Haplo]

Being able to become any weapon type is a very good idea, as long as it doesn't overshadow every other weapon in existence. Sometimes, unique items make you want to build a character around using that weapon, so we'll see how it's implemented.

I disagree. Turning into any weapon type takes way from the character of the weapon. None of the "morphing" weapons were ever particularly interesting.
A weapon should have a strong identity. If you like the idea, you can specialize in its type. If you don't care about it / prefer other weapon types, you can simply specialize in another category.

 

[Lacrymas]

Being able to become any weapon type is a very good idea, as long as it doesn't overshadow every other weapon in existence. Sometimes, unique items make you want to build a character around using that weapon, so we'll see how it's implemented.

I disagree. Turning into any weapon type takes way from the character of the weapon. None of the "morphing" weapons were ever particularly interesting.
A weapon should have a strong identity. If you like the idea, you can specialize in its type. If you don't care about it / prefer other weapon types, you can simply specialize in another category.

That's why I said unique weapons make you want to build around them. However, being able to become any weapon fixes the problem of not having uniques for certain weapon types. Which is a very common issue in such RPGs due to the staggering number of types. Sure, it would be better for the devs to implement uniques for every possibility, but that's not realistic imo.

 

[Efe]

If they are adding a lot banter, they wouldnt want you to skip it because of weapon's type.
and its too early to say whether it has a strong identity or not

 

[Delterius]

None of the "morphing" weapons were ever particularly interesting.

because thats something that happens very often

 

[InD_ImaginE]

5th of May huh. My country has a long holiday the next week due to Islamic holidays. Good time to spend time playing the Beta.

The fact that there is no new Chapter pretty much seals the deal that the game won't make the June 2021 deadline.

Consider that they need 2 months at the very least for each new chapter (and that being generous considering the state of the current chapters in Beta 1) I would assume the game won't be released until late Q3 or even the end of the year.

https://forum.owlcatgames.com/t/07-04-2021-owlcat-dev-stream-level-design-qa-write-up/37654

Since the info is public now honestly I really dislike the rotate camera to change the environment. I decently like rotating camera on base game because it is convenient general looks and how area is built but I am not really a fan of "camera puzzle" tbh.

 

[The_Mask]

Whenever something like this gets brought up, things always turn for the worse for monks. I wanna see how they dig themselves out of the hole, because fists don't have a sheath.

 

[Delterius]

Whenever something like this gets brought up, things always turn for the worse for monks. I wanna see how they dig themselves out of the hole, because fists don't have a sheath.

only quarterstaff monks allowed

 

[Desiderius]

I hope this game somehow gets release this year yet. It's the only Western RPG coming ''soon'' that's looking like going to be great imo.

>And in return, Finnean will reward you by turning into any weapon of your choosing.

As long this weapons aren't like stupidly good entire game and don't overshadowed normal weapons, this is a good feature. Especialy because avoids the problem of lack of good choices for certain weapons like KM had.

Anyway , i'm replaying KM and man i forgot how good that game was.. I loving playing a Monster Tactician , it's so fun.

KM doesn’t have a shortage of some weapon types, it has a shortage of people who even try to manage their kingdom so the rest miss out on the better half of the content.

 

[Background Character]

Nothing will ever beat Lilarcor