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

[Shadenuat]

Chaotic Neutral and Chaotic Evil are pure joy. You just bully people and Chaotic Neutral has a lot of "point and laugh" options. Lawful Evil is better for resolving quests though.

 

[Drakron]

Yes it is frustrating when you don't have some cool option, but it is also incredibly rewarding when your character gets his own unique option.

I dont think my point is getting across on this.

The whole neutral thing to refuse to take a side is not trying to be neutral, its having all options removed because you happen not being neutral, I know how it plays out and its just removing a option of the table for no reason ... the game accepts shifts in alignment and you can take options, this is a removal of a option because lack of neutral on your alignment ... I can pick options such as evil but in some cases you get "must be" thats kinda absurd when you can shake down or kill people because it lets you but then forces a alignment straitjacket on a few others ... in dialog options.

Its nice to be seen as a cleric of a specific faith and even recognize others as following the same faith, that is good and its also good being able to act outside alignment but that quest is simply one were you are stuck with your alignment and one of the reasons people complain about alignment, you cannot be diplomatic and just not having to deal with them ... your options are be neutral and having then or genocide, for God sake they allow you to tell the slavers to take one of your party members but "let me investigate this" is the highmark of neutrality, serious now.

 

[Cael]

"Let me investigate this.... Yes. It seems that you really are the slavers you claim to be. As a person of Neutrality, I only have this to say to you: Meh!"

 

[Grunker]

I don't have anything resembling a final opinion on this game yet but damn the slow leveling feels good. Every level is like a succulent treat served by a latin beauty in her underwear

 

[Shadenuat]

The whole neutral thing to refuse to take a side is not trying to be neutral, its having all options removed because you happen not being neutral

one of the reasons people complain about alignment, you cannot be diplomatic and just not having to deal with them ... your options are be neutral and having then or genocide

You can spare both leaders even if you fight them actually.

But yes, game somewhat enforces your alignment choice, and sometimes not in most elegant way. And since everyone has their own ideas about morality some people get pissed (I can't count amount of times people said on Steam you can't play LG and that LG feels not Good enough, while I did full LG playthrough no problem).

Yes it sometimes enforces developers idea on what constitutes what alignment and gives with one hand to take with another, but I just think about that in a similar way to playing a CYOA. I chose particular alignment and some paths in the game get locked. Even if sometimes it feels arbitrary I actually like game enforcing its rules on me. Alignment usually matters shit in games like this.

Now if only due to fucking whiners they did not add that shitty scroll and you could still Fall as Paladin and had to pick LG options to get your levels back like it was in 1.0.

 

[Daidre]

I really like that Owlcat did all extra work to make all alignment-locked options actually meaningful and result in turns of events that are unachievable other way. They overdid it a bit, yes, but for me it is better than a completely opposite approach from both POE (cant think of another RPG for comparison).
There all their race/class/deity checks in best case replace skill check and in worst completely ignored by NPC and lead to the same dialogue node. Especially glaring in Deadfire and I tend to blame voice-overs for this.

 

[Drakron]

You can spare both leaders even if you fight them actually.

A Chaotic Good option mind you.

But yes, game somewhat enforces your alignment choice, and sometimes not in most elegant way.

Ergo, my complain ... it does enforces in some cases, not often.

And since everyone has their own ideas about morality some people get pissed.

This is not a question of morality really but let me go about this then.

You know Tartuccio fooled the Kobolts, you have a pretty good idea that he stolen it and blamed the Mites since he pulled a similar trick with you. You cannot disarm the situation because the Kobots will not believe you (no checks, they flat out wont) and at this point there is no Good or Evil because simply put you have a very reasonable grasp of the truth.

However the game doesnt let you act on that, you can side with the Mites or the Kololts this means you are taking a side over the other knowing both are innocent, so you just get to pick who gets the be the victim.
The whole "must be neutral" makes no sense because lawful you know neither is guilty, they might be guilty of something (and they certainly are) but in this specific case they arent so why neutral? This is not a morality case because we are even in the Law-Chaos axis, Good and Evil arent a factor yet ... just guilty and innocent.

Yes it sometimes enforces developers idea on what constitutes what alignment and gives with one hand to take with another, but I just think about that in a similar way to playing a CYOA. I chose particular alignment and some paths in the game get locked. Even if sometimes it feels arbitrary I actually like game enforcing its rules on me. Alignment usually matters shit in games like this.

Here is the problem, alignment is not a straitjacket and this being locked is the problem ... if it was a shift towards neutrality or lawful I would accept it because we are not talking about things that directly involved alignment mechanics, like spells but rather that your dialog options END the moment "Must be" appears, this is a DM saying the player cannot say that because "its out of their alignment", the option to say "I am not going to pick a side because I can prove someone else stole it" is absent because I happen to not have neutral as a option, mind you both Kobolts and Mites are evil so there is no "pick the middle" of two sides, there is no attempt at balance because its not as if you are put in a situation were both sides are right and wrong and you have to balance then, this is a case of both sides being the victim of Tartuccio.

And yes, this is a reason why people complain about quests because most of the time, you have options ... you can say and do things completely against your list alignment and then you have this options, as I said ... wanted a shift, thats fine but not this.

Now if only due to fucking whiners they did not add that shitty scroll and you could still Fall as Paladin and had to pick LG options to get your levels back like it was in 1.0.

Its not that hard to stay within alignment from what I seen, you kinda have to work to get out of it.

 

[Daidre]

The whole "must be neutral" makes no sense because lawful you know neither is guilty, they might be guilty of something (and they certainly are) but in this specific case they arent so why neutral? This is not a morality case because we are even in the Law-Chaos axis, Good and Evil arent a factor yet ... just guilty and innocent.

Both of them belong to species that is viewed as vermin in all civilized societies. And were actually raiding country side (harming your future subjects) for years, judging by the piles of trash in their caverns.
I think idea was that it takes really special kind of person in Golarion's reality to even think of parleying with them. And in Law-Chaos axis we have Valerie and Amiri comments - they even agree that "cleaning area" is best thing you can do as a future ruler of this land.

They are still nuisance for your kingdom in the years to come even in their best ending.

 

[ArchAngel]

Yes it sometimes enforces developers idea on what constitutes what alignment and gives with one hand to take with another, but I just think about that in a similar way to playing a CYOA. I chose particular alignment and some paths in the game get locked. Even if sometimes it feels arbitrary I actually like game enforcing its rules on me. Alignment usually matters shit in games like this.

Here is the problem, alignment is not a straitjacket and this being locked is the problem ... if it was a shift towards neutrality or lawful I would accept it because we are not talking about things that directly involved alignment mechanics, like spells but rather that your dialog options END the moment "Must be" appears, this is a DM saying the player cannot say that because "its out of their alignment", the option to say "I am not going to pick a side because I can prove someone else stole it" is absent because I happen to not have neutral as a option, mind you both Kobolts and Mites are evil so there is no "pick the middle" of two sides, there is no attempt at balance because its not as if you are put in a situation were both sides are right and wrong and you have to balance then, this is a case of both sides being the victim of Tartuccio.

And yes, this is a reason why people complain about quests because most of the time, you have options ... you can say and do things completely against your list alignment and then you have this options, as I said ... wanted a shift, thats fine but not this.

Just like PnP this game has two alignment related situations. Minor ones and major ones. Those connected with main quests usually have some major option (neutral when dealing with Mites/Kobolds, Evil when when dealing with Tartuk or Vordekai). The main difference is that in PnP one important situation can absolutely change your alignment from your current one into a new one. Here they decided to not implement that (all alignment shifts are minor) but instead implemented these limitations.
What you are asking for is letting you do whatever for no consequence because it is so easy to keep your wanted alignment in this game. Other option would be switching people to Neutral/Evil/Good/Chaotic/Lawful when they make these special decision and that would cause a lot of outcry as suddenly players lose their class abilities and stuff.

 

[Incendax]

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

I’m working on my fourth playthrough right now, and I feel like the leveling is a bell curve. Levels 2-5 were pretty slow even when I knew what I was doing. Then levels get faster as you approach 10, stay decent until 14, and start slowing down again.

Pitax and Castle of Knives have some big XP rewards, and things go faster with the new XP rewards at the end, but nothing like the decent pace of mid game leveling.

 

[ArchAngel]

New hotfix: https://steamcommunity.com/games/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/announcements/detail/1759122740490200719
Whoever said that jaethal is not healed by negative energy weapon can thank me because I reported that to Owlcat immediately and now in the patch notes we get:

Classes & Mechanics

• Undead still received damage from negative energy if the source of the damage was not a spell or an ability. Resolution: fixed.

 

[Grunker]

Why don't they fix the True Strike bug? It's gotta be a fix that takes like 1 second to implement

 

[Shadenuat]

I am following Drakron at least for that Mite vs Kobold situation, but as proved by others who did not find one choice lacking as annoying I really think morality based choices is a ballsy and risky game at which you cannot always win. Players are always hungry for more choices and between 10 choices you present them with they would think of 11th they actually want.

To me alignment restrictions are joy because if alignment in d&d-inspired roleplay does jack shit and by default you can just get some points and lose some points like in Neverwinter Nights 2 it might as well not exist.

I am perfectly fine with DM slapping me and shouting YOUR CHARACTER WONT DO THAT because it is simply that rare and I am happy at least one game sorta tries to do that.

 

[Haplo]

New hotfix: https://steamcommunity.com/games/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/announcements/detail/1759122740490200719
Whoever said that jaethal is not healed by negative energy weapon can thank me because I reported that to Owlcat immediately and now in the patch notes we get:

Classes & Mechanics

• Undead still received damage from negative energy if the source of the damage was not a spell or an ability. Resolution: fixed.

Wow, sweet, thank you. And I just benched her yesterday at the end of the session. Might be worth keeping her for the Vanishing of Varnhold finale then.

Guess I won't be using the Dark Bidding vs undead anymore. Well no biggie, I like the Serpent Prince more anyway.

 

[ArchAngel]

Why don't they fix the True Strike bug? It's gotta be a fix that takes like 1 second to implement

Did you update the game, open it and check if that bug is still in the game? I bet they removed it, they just don't mention all changes in the patch notes.

 

[Haplo]

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

I’m working on my fourth playthrough right now, and I feel like the leveling is a bell curve. Levels 2-5 were pretty slow even when I knew what I was doing. Then levels get faster as you approach 10, stay decent until 14, and start slowing down again.

I don't fully agree. For me levels came at a decent pace till around level 10. After that it seems to have slowed down a lot.

 

[Daidre]

Also switching 'Only skill user receive skill check XP' on lets you do funny things with level progression. You can focus XP profitable skills like Persuasion and Trickery on character who you want to be ahead of everyone.

 

[santino27]

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

It is all the Obsidian hackers

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

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

I think some of it is that people waited to get too far into it because of the reported bugs. Once 1.2 came out, they went all-in, bounced hard off the kingdom stuff (which can be confusing, integrates poorly with the rest of the game, and still has issues), and that's where the sudden spate of recent bad ratings are coming from.

Why don't they fix the True Strike bug? It's gotta be a fix that takes like 1 second to implement

They did fix it in today's patch.

 

[Wolfe]

Only been in the House at the Edge of Time for one hour and this place is fucking horrible. I hate everything. And as I assumed would happen, Amiri's gone because of her bugged companion quest which was broken with patch 1.2. Sigh..

 

[Yosharian]

It's dropping because average gamers are just too stupid to cope with actual game difficulty. I'm playing on Core (actual Core, using custom game difficulty), I'm level 6, wandered into some undead crypt last night, was getting my ass handed by some undead cunt archers. Took me a while, but eventually I figured out to gather them together in a corridor and nail them all with a Grease spell, took em apart one by one. And I was trapped by the level so I had to defeat these guys or reload a previous save. Pleb gamers just can't cope with this kind of difficulty. That's why it's dropping.

suffice to say that the game simply cannot be played above the lowest difficulty level without the use of a guide and regularly save-scumming

 

[ArchAngel]

It's dropping because average gamers are just too stupid to cope with actual game difficulty. I'm playing on Core (actual Core, using custom game difficulty), I'm level 6, wandered into some undead crypt last night, was getting my ass handed by some undead cunt archers. Took me a while, but eventually I figured out to gather them together in a corridor and nail them all with a Grease spell, took em apart one by one. And I was trapped by the level so I had to defeat these guys or reload a previous save. Pleb gamers just can't cope with this kind of difficulty. That's why it's dropping.

suffice to say that the game simply cannot be played above the lowest difficulty level without the use of a guide and regularly save-scumming

Fun thing about that last encounter. You can sneak around that room, avoiding the boss in the middle to get to a box on the other side of the room. In the box you get a Undead Bane greataxe that you can then use to kill all those undead

 

[Haplo]

Hm, nobody's forcing you to go there so soon. At level 6 this must have been quite brutal. It forced me to reload and actually pay attention to what I'm doing at level 11 (on hard, though).

 

[Incendax]

While I don’t recommend it, you can cheat the entire level. Park your party at the entrance, except for your best sneaker. Sneaker pops the tomb and triggers the doors, but can hide before enemies appear. You can sneak your sneaker all the way back out without a single fight with some luck. Then fight the entire level backwards with the ability to rest and the axe.

Even more cheating: You can also just leave the map immediately and your sneaker will teleport outside with you.

 

[ArchAngel]

While I don’t recommend it, you can cheat the entire level. Park your party at the entrance, except for your best sneaker. Sneaker pops the tomb and triggers the doors, but can hide before enemies appear. You can sneak your sneaker all the way back out without a single fight with some luck. Then fight the entire level backwards with the ability to rest and the axe.

Even more cheating: You can also just leave the map immediately and your sneaker will teleport outside with you.

Do you need luck when you got Potions of Invisibility? :D

 

[Daidre]

Do you need luck when you got Potions of Invisibility?

Potions of Invisibility only gives you big + to Sneak skill. You still need lucky roll not to be noticed by enemy with huge perception