Best Owlcat Game So Far

[Dark Souls II]

The first part of Pathfinder: Kingmaker until you get the "kingdom" and you can't just hike around with your harem of generic fantasy trope pickme girls and explore anymore but are forced into defeating the same fucking spiders spawning through a portal every 72 hours. For a moment there, at the beginning of the game, I really thought to myself "hey this game is awesome". Then it just goes to shit very quickly.

I tried playing Pathfinder: WotR 3 or 4 times, each time dropped it after 10-15 minutes. From the very start the game looks like it's a NWN2 module made by a special ed kid in an art therapy class.

Owlcat is shit, just not a pure diarrhea ridiculous dogshit with no redeeming factors. That would be Larian.

 

[Lacrymas]

Loved PF:KM. Mixed feelings about WoTR, dropped it midgame but will probably revisit it at some point. Haven't tried Rogue Trader because everyone was saying it's broken, but then again, they said that about PF:KM as well.

P:K was seriously bug ridden at the start though not to the level of being unplayable AFAIR.

I vote P:K because i played and enjoyed it somewhat which i can't say about WotR. The latter, with Wokeless Wrath mod and some improvements in the core game, I plan to try a 2nd time, the 1st attempt was a disaster. RT i might try one day.

Give me Pathfinder: Kingmaker but remove or tone down stuff like the minigame, 3/4 of bad writing, woke-ness, trash combat, high levels. Instead add difficulty not based on stat bloat, better AI/scripts, palatable NPCs, balance made for turn-based mode. Perhaps larger maps for some better exploration. That could have been such an amazing game. I can't see WotR having such potential even with all similar changes but maybe i'm wrong.

90% of the problems in both games come from the source material itself. WotR and Kingmaker are some of the worst tabletop modules for Pathfinder. I really don't know why Owlcat chose them specifically, there were much better options.

 

[Velut]

Loved PF:KM. Mixed feelings about WoTR, dropped it midgame but will probably revisit it at some point. Haven't tried Rogue Trader because everyone was saying it's broken, but then again, they said that about PF:KM as well.

P:K was seriously bug ridden at the start though not to the level of being unplayable AFAIR.

I vote P:K because i played and enjoyed it somewhat which i can't say about WotR. The latter, with Wokeless Wrath mod and some improvements in the core game, I plan to try a 2nd time, the 1st attempt was a disaster. RT i might try one day.

Give me Pathfinder: Kingmaker but remove or tone down stuff like the minigame, 3/4 of bad writing, woke-ness, trash combat, high levels. Instead add difficulty not based on stat bloat, better AI/scripts, palatable NPCs, balance made for turn-based mode. Perhaps larger maps for some better exploration. That could have been such an amazing game. I can't see WotR having such potential even with all similar changes but maybe i'm wrong.

90% of the problems in both games come from the source material itself. WotR and Kingmaker are some of the worst tabletop modules for Pathfinder. I really don't know why Owlcat chose them specifically, there were much better options.

Wasn't Kingmaker one of the best selling pathfinder campaigns? Good choice for a first game.

 

[Serus]

Loved PF:KM. Mixed feelings about WoTR, dropped it midgame but will probably revisit it at some point. Haven't tried Rogue Trader because everyone was saying it's broken, but then again, they said that about PF:KM as well.

P:K was seriously bug ridden at the start though not to the level of being unplayable AFAIR.

I vote P:K because i played and enjoyed it somewhat which i can't say about WotR. The latter, with Wokeless Wrath mod and some improvements in the core game, I plan to try a 2nd time, the 1st attempt was a disaster. RT i might try one day.

Give me Pathfinder: Kingmaker but remove or tone down stuff like the minigame, 3/4 of bad writing, woke-ness, trash combat, high levels. Instead add difficulty not based on stat bloat, better AI/scripts, palatable NPCs, balance made for turn-based mode. Perhaps larger maps for some better exploration. That could have been such an amazing game. I can't see WotR having such potential even with all similar changes but maybe i'm wrong.

90% of the problems in both games come from the source material itself. WotR and Kingmaker are some of the worst tabletop modules for Pathfinder. I really don't know why Owlcat chose them specifically, there were much better options.

Wasn't Kingmaker one of the best selling pathfinder campaigns? Good choice for a first game.

Good for who? The company? Perhaps but why would i care about some else's money? The question is: was Kingmaker good choice for the quality of the computer game. Not for the sales. I don't know, I never played or read any Pathfinder campaign.

 

[Velut]

Loved PF:KM. Mixed feelings about WoTR, dropped it midgame but will probably revisit it at some point. Haven't tried Rogue Trader because everyone was saying it's broken, but then again, they said that about PF:KM as well.

P:K was seriously bug ridden at the start though not to the level of being unplayable AFAIR.

I vote P:K because i played and enjoyed it somewhat which i can't say about WotR. The latter, with Wokeless Wrath mod and some improvements in the core game, I plan to try a 2nd time, the 1st attempt was a disaster. RT i might try one day.

Give me Pathfinder: Kingmaker but remove or tone down stuff like the minigame, 3/4 of bad writing, woke-ness, trash combat, high levels. Instead add difficulty not based on stat bloat, better AI/scripts, palatable NPCs, balance made for turn-based mode. Perhaps larger maps for some better exploration. That could have been such an amazing game. I can't see WotR having such potential even with all similar changes but maybe i'm wrong.

90% of the problems in both games come from the source material itself. WotR and Kingmaker are some of the worst tabletop modules for Pathfinder. I really don't know why Owlcat chose them specifically, there were much better options.

Wasn't Kingmaker one of the best selling pathfinder campaigns? Good choice for a first game.

Good for who? The company? Perhaps but why would i care about some else's money? The question is: was Kingmaker good choice for the quality of the computer game. Not for the sales. I don't know, I never played or read any Pathfinder campaign.

I played three pathfinder modules (including Kingmaker) and all of them were rather disappointing. Honestly, pathfinder is a good system, but I don't think any of their modules are worth the time and Golarion as a setting isn't good either. So I don't think picking a diffrent module would be much of an improvement.

 

[Nas92]

I haven't played Rogue Trader yet, nor have I properly finished WOTR yet (though I'm at the end) but I'm gonna have to be in the minority here and say that WOTR is probably better. Don't get me wrong, I loved Kingmaker, I put more than 200 hours into it and I'm planning on another playthrough soon. Kingmaker is unique in that it's centered around fey which not many video games do. Kingmaker is also more complete than WOTR, I haven't experienced any game breaking bugs in KM while I can't say the same for WOTR. Kingdom management is also a much cooler concept than crusade mode and I have to respect the sheer ambition of trying to deliver two games in one essentially.

That said, I have to rank WOTR higher due to the choice and consequence and the sheer amount of replayability mythic paths provide. I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was. Kingdom management feels like they dropped it into the game without even playtesting that shit or at least they didn't bother trying how it plays with the rest of the game. It speaks volumes that they gave us the option to disable it without any serious consequence. I also much prefer the encounter design in WOTR, it's much less about just trolling the player, it actually feels like I could overcome the challenges with a little thinking. In KM, for example in the dungeon at the end, if you didn't bring a bunch of Mass Heal scrolls and your main wasn't a class who could reliable solo a bunch of ghosts, you could easily get into an impossible situation where you'd have to load an earlier save- But more importantly, in WOTR the boss fights are boss fights. Not like in KM where you had the trash mob fights which could be utter torture and then you get a boss fight which is complete scrub level shit. Though I gotta say, the Lantern King boss was so good that it kind of makes up for all the other dogshit, underwhelming boss fights.

As for the writing and the woke shit... okay, you get the one lesbian trans character in WOTR (who's not even a party member and the whole trans story is hidden anyway), but you also get super based characters like Regill, Daeran, and to a lesser extent Lann. The other party members are okay to tolerable. In Kingmaker the party members were a lot worse. Regongar and Octavia are terribly written and more degen than anything in WOTR. And in both games they try to force you to simp for murderous war criminal bitches to get the "true" ending.

 

[NJClaw]

I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was.

Crusade management in WotR is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. It's the holocaust of videogames. The 9/11 of home entertainment. It's the Vietnam of my generation.

 

[Sweeper]

I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was.

Crusade management in WotR is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. It's the holocaust of videogames. The 9/11 of home entertainment. It's the Vietnam of my generation.

I refuse to believe that it's any worse than kingdom management.

 

[kangaxx]

I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was.

Crusade management in WotR is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. It's the holocaust of videogames. The 9/11 of home entertainment. It's the Vietnam of my generation.

I refuse to believe that it's any worse than kingdom management.

It's far worse than kingdom management IMO.

 

[Sweeper]

I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was.

Crusade management in WotR is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. It's the holocaust of videogames. The 9/11 of home entertainment. It's the Vietnam of my generation.

I refuse to believe that it's any worse than kingdom management.

It's far worse than kingdom management IMO.

If that's true then it's kinda impressive tbh. Takes real talent to make a system that's worse than kingdom management.

 

[Nas92]

I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was.

Crusade management in WotR is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. It's the holocaust of videogames. The 9/11 of home entertainment. It's the Vietnam of my generation.

I refuse to believe that it's any worse than kingdom management.

It's far worse than kingdom management IMO.

In what way? I'm genuinely curious. I hated kingdom management because it actively took away time from actually playing the game. 14 day rankups and then suddenly you have to rush to solve a timed quest, just having to juggle projects, events, rank-ups and so on, I actually missed a bunch of content because of this and I still couldn't get everything to rank 10 and every territory properly upgraded. Not to mention, it was weirdly broken, the success DCs became impossible for even the best advisors in the later stages. I haven't experienced anything near as annoying with crusade mode.

 

[Lacrymas]

Wasn't Kingmaker one of the best selling pathfinder campaigns? Good choice for a first game.

Maybe it was, but that doesn't speak to its quality. Some of the problems include lack of balance, i.e. the encounters are too easy, if you try to make them harder the party levels up too fast and you rush through the first 4 books; the kingdom management is overly involved and tedious, even if you take it seriously the rewards are rarely worth it; the rules for mass combat require too much work to make fun while book 4 and especially 5 lean heavy on the mass combat. The biggest issue, however, is that it's written for people or maybe by people who don't like RPGs or roleplaying a character, or something like that. There are extensive rules about kingdom management and mass combat and the whole set of 6 books are sandboxy. Just a collection of side quests until you decide to go do the main quest. Kind of like Pillars of Eternity 2 now that I think about it.

 

[kangaxx]

I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was.

Crusade management in WotR is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. It's the holocaust of videogames. The 9/11 of home entertainment. It's the Vietnam of my generation.

I refuse to believe that it's any worse than kingdom management.

It's far worse than kingdom management IMO.

In what way? I'm genuinely curious. I hated kingdom management because it actively took away time from actually playing the game. 14 day rankups and then suddenly you have to rush to solve a timed quest, just having to juggle projects, events, rank-ups and so on, I actually missed a bunch of content because of this and I still couldn't get everything to rank 10 and every territory properly upgraded. Not to mention, it was weirdly broken, the success DCs became impossible for even the best advisors in the later stages. I haven't experienced anything near as annoying with crusade mode.

They're both bad, but crusade management angered me more. I hated the lack of taunt/zone control. The fact that one soldier takes up equivalent general slots to a 100k stack of hellknights. Too easy to get ennervate-locked. Too many useless general spells/abilities. AOE ray spells that can take out an entire stack, which is just weird. One bad fight can somewhat end the game if you don't have hospitals. Battles can take ages to resolve even when the result is guaranteed. Just really frustrating in general. I know it can be auto-won via the options, but at least on launch that locked the player out of certain choices.. maybe that's changed, I don't know.

The biggest sin of kingdom management is that it isn't explained well at all by the game, unless I missed something. There is some kind of logic to it when you get it, and it can be done quickly. At least it lets you build things like handy teleports, get some nice artisan loot, adds some interesting RP decisions etc.

Anyway just my opinion. They're both bad mini games that unnecessarily lengthen games that are too long.

 

[Velut]

Wasn't Kingmaker one of the best selling pathfinder campaigns? Good choice for a first game.

Maybe it was, but that doesn't speak to its quality. Some of the problems include lack of balance, i.e. the encounters are too easy, if you try to make them harder the party levels up too fast and you rush through the first 4 books; the kingdom management is overly involved and tedious, even if you take it seriously the rewards are rarely worth it; the rules for mass combat require too much work to make fun while book 4 and especially 5 lean heavy on the mass combat. The biggest issue, however, is that it's written for people or maybe by people who don't like RPGs or roleplaying a character, or something like that. There are extensive rules about kingdom management and mass combat and the whole set of 6 books are sandboxy. Just a collection of side quests until you decide to go do the main quest. Kind of like Pillars of Eternity 2 now that I think about it.

Yeah, I agree with you. What module would you choose over Kingmaker then?

 

[Serus]

I also think crusade mode is a lot more polished and enjoyable than kingdom management was.

Crusade management in WotR is the worst thing to ever happen to mankind. It's the holocaust of videogames. The 9/11 of home entertainment. It's the Vietnam of my generation.

But... but... holocaust never happened. Or so i was told by some Codexers. And 9/11 was inside job. Does it all mean WotR isn't that bad?

 

[Lacrymas]

Yeah, I agree with you. What module would you choose over Kingmaker then?

Curse of the Crimson Throne, Hell's Rebels, Shattered Star and Rise of the Runelords would all have been a far better choice. Maybe even the very first three adventure paths from Dungeon magazine.

 

[Serus]

Wasn't Kingmaker one of the best selling pathfinder campaigns? Good choice for a first game.

Maybe it was, but that doesn't speak to its quality. Some of the problems include lack of balance, i.e. the encounters are too easy, if you try to make them harder the party levels up too fast and you rush through the first 4 books; the kingdom management is overly involved and tedious, even if you take it seriously the rewards are rarely worth it; the rules for mass combat require too much work to make fun while book 4 and especially 5 lean heavy on the mass combat. The biggest issue, however, is that it's written for people or maybe by people who don't like RPGs or roleplaying a character, or something like that. There are extensive rules about kingdom management and mass combat and the whole set of 6 books are sandboxy. Just a collection of side quests until you decide to go do the main quest. Kind of like Pillars of Eternity 2 now that I think about it.

Having rules for mass combat in itself doesn't make anything less RPG or people who add them dislike RPG. It might make it a bad RPG if done poorly though. A good number of rpg systems over the last 40 years had them and they, in the right campaign, make sense. If you want your campaign include "politics" or be "epic" then it might be reasonable to have mass combat. Excluding players from it on some silly reason is not a good idea. This is exactly for better roleplaying not against it as you imply.
Note that I personally don't like such campaigns in fantasy settings, i prefer low level and less Tolkien more heroic fantasy. However they can make sense and my personal liking aren't very relevant.
Neither having a lot of side quests and a sandboxy campaign make something less of an RPG by itself or mean the authors don't like RPGs. It seems to me that they might like RPGs slightly different than You do.
Sorry but you need to do better than that.

Having said the above - I don't doubt Kingmaker module is mediocre or bad. Paizo seemed (in Pathfinder 1ed) able to do reasonably good rules (and even that based on someone else's work) but not much else.

 

[Lacrymas]

Even fans of Kingmaker think there's not enough roleplaying in it. As a DM, you can insert more, but it's extra work for little payoff.

 

[Serus]

Even fans of Kingmaker think there's not enough roleplaying in it. As a DM, you can insert more, but it's extra work for little payoff.

What would anyone care about some "fans" who play Paizo modules?
Are you testing how silly of an argumentum ad auctoritatem you can make? Good job, You scored high with this one.
I already said that I believe in that pnp Kingmaker module is bad. However you reasons aren't exactly waterproof. Authors not liking RPG? Really? That's an argument? Use of mass combat rules by themselves (not counting them being bad) as the proof of bad RPG in general? Or Sandbox-iness? Seriously? That's just you opinion man! :D

 

[Devastator]

I tried the two Pathfinder games but never managed to finish them or touch them a second time, got too bored, even with mods.

Cringe dialogue aside, for some reason, they insist on adding weird mechanics to every title. Just when you start getting into it, the game reminds you that it needs a middle manager for a Walmart HOMM.

 

[Lacrymas]

Even fans of Kingmaker think there's not enough roleplaying in it. As a DM, you can insert more, but it's extra work for little payoff.

What would anyone care about some "fans" who play Paizo modules?
Are you testing how silly of an argumentum ad auctoritatem you can make? Good job, You scored high with this one.
I already said that I believe in that pnp Kingmaker module is bad. However you reasons aren't exactly waterproof. Authors not liking RPG? Really? That's an argument? Use of mass combat rules by themselves (not counting them being bad) as the proof of bad RPG in general? Or Sandbox-iness? Seriously? That's just you opinion man! :D

Ugh, no? I gave several other reasons - lack of balance, kingdom management being overly involved and not worth it (and easily broken if you take it seriously), mass combat requiring extra work to make fun. The end villain comes out of nowhere too. My overall impression of the module is that it's not an RPG adventure, it's something else and it drags it down for people who are expecting an RPG adventure. The sandboxy part is entirely hit or miss and it's a reason why the whole thing is light on roleplaying. DMing it especially feels like work and a lot of burden is placed on the DM to make it coherent and satisfying. Something Owlcat themselves couldn't do.

 

[Shaki]

Rogue Trader and it's not close. By far the best combat, by far the best atmosphere, writing and companions. It's superior to Pathfinders in every aspect. Even the ship combat minigame, is the best of the Owlcat minigames.

 

[Vorark]

I really dig the first chapter of Kingmaker. A simple yet well done call to adventure that could have been a standalone game if Owlcat had expanded the scope a bit. No annoying kingdom management minigame, excessive buffing or high level D&D shenanigans in sight.

 

[scytheavatar]

Wasn't Kingmaker one of the best selling pathfinder campaigns? Good choice for a first game.

Maybe it was, but that doesn't speak to its quality. Some of the problems include lack of balance, i.e. the encounters are too easy, if you try to make them harder the party levels up too fast and you rush through the first 4 books; the kingdom management is overly involved and tedious, even if you take it seriously the rewards are rarely worth it; the rules for mass combat require too much work to make fun while book 4 and especially 5 lean heavy on the mass combat. The biggest issue, however, is that it's written for people or maybe by people who don't like RPGs or roleplaying a character, or something like that. There are extensive rules about kingdom management and mass combat and the whole set of 6 books are sandboxy. Just a collection of side quests until you decide to go do the main quest. Kind of like Pillars of Eternity 2 now that I think about it.

Isn't that basically an Elder Scroll game? Yet people love those games.

The reality is that even the worst Paizo adventure modules are often as good if not better than the best D&D modules. The TT Kingmaker stands out for allowing you to feel like you are exploring wild uncharted lands. It's a feeling the CRPG did a great job at capturing and which WOTR did a poor job at.

 

[mondblut]

The biggest issue, however, is that it's written for people or maybe by people who don't like RPGs or roleplaying a character, or something like that. There are extensive rules about kingdom management and mass combat and the whole set of 6 books are sandboxy. Just a collection of side quests until you decide to go do the main quest.

Sounds like something Gygax would be proud of. Any downsides?