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

[Pink Eye]

Oooh. Well I hope newcomers enjoy Kingmaker!

 

[Gregz]

Oooh. Well I hope newcomers enjoy Kingmaker!

That's a switch

 

[Sweeper]

That's a switch

Shut your retarded ass up faggot.

 

[Kruno]

That's a switch

Shut your retarded ass up faggot.

no u, but only after I've shaved!

 

[DalekFlay]

Well it depends on the rest of the game really, not every story needs a big huge epic ending. I agree it can be annoying and tryhard if it doesn't match the tone of the rest of the story (like Fallout or something) but something like Kingmaker or DA:O or KotOR, where it's appropriate, is something I find satisfying if it's well-executed.

Most of the best storyfag games have a more personal-scale story, but that doesn't make epic-scale stories inherently bad.

I guess I wrote that poorly because I don't mean story stuff at all. I mean "let's make this epic by throwing 100 enemies at you in a tireless onslaught of madness!!!" Final levels or areas tend to throw everything they've got at the player, ramping up the challenge and possible frustration a large amount compared to what came before. I understand this impulse... make the finale grand and epic... but I think games are different from movies and by the time you're at the end of a 150 game you probably don't want that. That's just me though.

 

[LannTheStupid]

DalekFlay you do sound like an OCD brainsick who has neither insurance nor money for medication.

There are always shortcuts. One can read the end of the book. One can torrent a movie and watch its ending. One can drop the difficulty to "Story" amd right-click the final battles.

But some people cannot do that and are forced by their brains to suffer till the end. Let them rest in peace.

 

[Delterius]

games aren't movies, they are shows

multiple chapters of filler quests that teach you the value of family when you return to the witch's hut for the fourteenth time

 

[Xamenos]

Xamenos I do think BG1 would have been improved without the opening Sarevok animation. Without it, there isn't any initial connection between your attempted murder and the iron plot that unravels. The player doesn't have much reason to suspect the "armored figure" is THE villain, rather than a menacing henchman. The moody dreams and emergent powers aren't connected to anything, and provide a sense of mystery--something to look forward to, be curious about. Only when you come full circle back to Candlekeep do you get the big reveal over these mysteries and how they are intertwined.

That's very different from BG2, where Irenicus is your object the entire time. BG2 isn't about discovery, it's about the ride. The story is about getting Imoen back or exacting revenge. His early reveal is necessary, because he gives you somethinig to do. Curiosity is a very distant motivation and not supported well. Where BG2 would have been much improved, is if Irenicus had stolen your soul from the beginning and inflicted MotB-esque problems on the player. Holy cow, would that have been incredible. Different topic though.

The problem with Kingmaker's plot, is that it tries to create a grand sense of mystery about where the problems come from, which it basically tells you their source from the get-go. Every NPC expounds about the crisis being unknowable, when the player (functionally) does know. The game throws some twists in there, but as a player I ultimately didn't care because there was nothing to really discover in the first place. That's the importance of mystery. It gives the person something to be curious about, something to discover. It's a motivation to move forward. The allure of the unknown is powerful. In an age of instant information verging omniscience, that's a fantasy trope with a lot of value.

It is not a good thing to have the villain unconnected from the player's actions. "Why do I care about any of this" is a very natural question for RPGs, and having someone hunting you from the beginning is a powerful motivation. Mere curiosity pales in comparison. It is one of the things PoE failed at.

I had a look at a few of Pathfinder's adventure paths, and their plots often seem to be along the lines of "Villain A is manipulating Villain B who's manipulating Villains C, D, E and F, who have a bunch of lesser villains under their orders, and the lesser villains also have their own servants." The existence of villains A and B is something that the players usually learn quite late, and it's quite possible that the party won't even get a chance to kick Villain A's ass. Such things may work in pen-and-paper, but I don't think they'd be very satisfying in a video game.

They don't work in PnP either. You do not want the players asking "who the fuck is this guy and why do I care about him" when the ultimate bad guy is ultimately revealed, and it is inevitable when you have those retarded twists just for the sake of having twists. Thank fuck Owlcat fixed it, as I've explained previously there was no way in tabletop for the players to learn that Nyrissa even existed before Pitax.

The only game I can think of where a mystery villain worked well was PS:T, and that was a game with fare more mysteries than the villain.

 

[LannTheStupid]

having someone hunting you from the beginning is a powerful motivation. Mere curiosity pales in comparison. It is one of the things PoE failed at.

Isn't the Watcher hunted from the start of PoE-I? Or were you talking about PoE-II?

 

[NJClaw]

I had a look at a few of Pathfinder's adventure paths, and their plots often seem to be along the lines of "Villain A is manipulating Villain B who's manipulating Villains C, D, E and F, who have a bunch of lesser villains under their orders, and the lesser villains also have their own servants." The existence of villains A and B is something that the players usually learn quite late, and it's quite possible that the party won't even get a chance to kick Villain A's ass. Such things may work in pen-and-paper, but I don't think they'd be very satisfying in a video game.

They don't work in PnP either. You do not want the players asking "who the fuck is this guy and why do I care about him" when the ultimate bad guy is ultimately revealed, and it is inevitable when you have those retarded twists just for the sake of having twists. Thank fuck Owlcat fixed it, as I've explained previously there was no way in tabletop for the players to learn that Nyrissa even existed before Pitax.

The only game I can think of where a mystery villain worked well was PS:T, and that was a game with fare more mysteries than the villain.

Both Icewind Dale games have """mystery""" villains in a certain sense, even if in the second one you find out who the final enemies will be pretty soon. I think it worked pretty well in both games.

 

[Xamenos]

Isn't the Watcher hunted from the start of PoE-I? Or were you talking about PoE-II?

You are never hunted in PoE. You get mixed into Thaos's ritual by accident and you go after him and his organization for answers. In the beginning he doesn't know you exist, and he doesn't consider you a threat or does anything specifically to stop you before the very end of the game. It suffered terribly from the "why the fuck am I doing this" problem I described above.

Both Icewind Dale games have """mystery""" villains in a certain sense, even if in the second one you find out who the final enemies will be pretty soon. I think it worked pretty well in both games.

While I wouldn't go as far as to claim they were bad, I wouldn't really describe either ID game as having a good story. I'd certainly put them as having the worst story out of all IE games, with the lack of a proper villain like Sarevok or Irenicus being a not insignificant factor.

 

[Drowed]

The whole plot of POE1 is essentially its "magical illness/power" that says that you-possibly-will-go-crazy-someday because every Watcher is supposed to end up crazy sooner or later or whatever. And for some reason it's assumed (which is a super leap of logic) that the guy who did this to you (indirectly, you got caught in the middle of the thing) for some reason could undo it. The rest comes from that.

Initially, you have no direct link to the villain because technically what he "did to you" wasn't even intentional, and you have no specific reason to believe that he can solve your problem beyond the fact that he is the one who caused it. It's not like he burned down your hometown, or is universally known to be evil or anything. That's why Thaos is such a weak villain, there's no clear opposition between him and the protagonist for most of the plot.

 

[Desiderius]

The whole plot of POE1 is essentially its "magical illness/power" that says that you-possibly-will-go-crazy-someday because every Watcher is supposed to end up crazy sooner or later or whatever. And for some reason it's assumed (which is a super leap of logic) that the guy who did this to you (indirectly, you got caught in the middle of the thing) for some reason could undo it. The rest comes from that.

Initially, you have no direct link to the villain because technically what he "did to you" wasn't even intentional, and you have no specific reason to believe that he can solve your problem beyond the fact that he is the one who caused it. It's not like he burned down your hometown, or is universally known to be evil or anything. That's why Thaos is such a weak villain, there's no clear opposition between him and the protagonist for most of the plot.

Watcher felt like Nameless One from PS:T

 

[Desiderius]

The whole plot of POE1 is essentially its "magical illness/power" that says that you-possibly-will-go-crazy-someday because every Watcher is supposed to end up crazy sooner or later or whatever. And for some reason it's assumed (which is a super leap of logic) that the guy who did this to you (indirectly, you got caught in the middle of the thing) for some reason could undo it. The rest comes from that.

Initially, you have no direct link to the villain because technically what he "did to you" wasn't even intentional, and you have no specific reason to believe that he can solve your problem beyond the fact that he is the one who caused it. It's not like he burned down your hometown, or is universally known to be evil or anything. That's why Thaos is such a weak villain, there's no clear opposition between him and the protagonist for most of the plot.

Watcher felt like Nameless One from PS:T

A journey to find out what/who you are.

 

[Lawntoilet]

The whole plot of POE1 is essentially its "magical illness/power" that says that you-possibly-will-go-crazy-someday because every Watcher is supposed to end up crazy sooner or later or whatever. And for some reason it's assumed (which is a super leap of logic) that the guy who did this to you (indirectly, you got caught in the middle of the thing) for some reason could undo it. The rest comes from that.

Initially, you have no direct link to the villain because technically what he "did to you" wasn't even intentional, and you have no specific reason to believe that he can solve your problem beyond the fact that he is the one who caused it. It's not like he burned down your hometown, or is universally known to be evil or anything. That's why Thaos is such a weak villain, there's no clear opposition between him and the protagonist for most of the plot.

Watcher felt like Nameless One from PS:T

A journey to find out what/who you are.

It reminded me more of the Spirit-Eater in MotB. Unlike in MotB, though, it didn't feel like that was particularly connected to the rest of the things going on around you.

 

[Drowed]

The question that differentiates POE from other examples is the way in which the relationship of the protagonist with the villain is constructed from the start. The Trascendent One is the "antithesis" of the protagonist (not exactly but you get what I mean), the events that drive the story of The Nameless One are direct consequences of the villain's actions - which in turn are also consequences of the protagonist's own attitudes. Everything is connected and nothing is by chance. In fact, coincidences are cheap, they are terrible ways to motivate the player or advance a story 90% of the time.

In POE, with the progress of the story, you discover that there is a greater relationship between Thaos and the protagonist. And that's great! But the problem is that this relationship is not directly related to the events that motivate the quest that moves the story. You just happen to have suffered the consequences of a "thing" and only later you discover that the person that caused the thing is also responsible for several other things. If it hadn't been for that coincidence at the start, the whole plot simply wouldn't have happened - which can be fine if it's done in a way that the coincidence is used as a tool to trigger the relationship between the events and characters.

For example, let's say... Perhaps when seeing Thaos for the first time, at that moment, the protagonist has his first vision as a Watcher. The the meeting was the trigger for his situation, instead of that "magic event" (that could still happen anyway, maybe showing other scenes), but the encounter with the future villain was the beginning of the journey. It would not be difficult to find some in-universe justification to explain later why the presence of antagonist caused this "awakening."

Thus, although the beginning is relatively the same (the protagonist and the antagonist meet by pure coincidence), the condition of the protagonist becomes intimately linked with the existence of the antagonist, which regardless of whether or not he has the cure for his condition, justifies his search for him. Each new discovery only reinforces the connection that already existed. His visions happened for a reason: was it destiny? Divine providence? Some kind of soul-connection? Who knows, but here you at least put a greater connection between the two since the beginning of the story.

A good story can only be as good as its villain, and a villain is only really good when there is some contrast between him and the protagonist.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Xamenos The issue with villains in PFKM, is that the player doesn’t need one. Not for a long time. The player is attempting to seize what has been impossible to hold. Forging a kingdom is its own problem. You don’t need a villain. The player is attempting to tame the untamable. Through the course of that, discovering the root is emergent without a Big Bad.

So the region can’t sustain a kingdom because of ancient curses woven into the land? It’s only natural that the tamer would pursue the root of the curses. An early Nyrissa reveal spoils that. It doesn’t matter if there is a twist with Nyrissa—we know she’s the problem because they show her to us immediately. BG1 gives us unrelated issues that tie together later. PoE simply fails miserably in the delivery. PFKM plot problem, is that it pretends to be a mystery after they’ve deliberately spoiled it from the onset.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

PFKM plot problem, is that it pretends to be a mystery

It really doesn't tho

Like the moment you get the Kingdom and follows the quest to get "her reward" she already blatantly shows her motivation and the fact the previous kings all failed due to her. After that she becomes a clear villain through and through (either directly or by proxy). Even Vordakai's subplot has her interfering albeit not being the main villain of the chapter.

By the time you finish the bloom, the greater scope villain is also established. This is basically the first half of the game, The rest of the game is ensuring your kingdom survive the various attempt by Nyrissa to crush you directly or indirectly.

What PfKM failed to do is tying The Ancient Curse quests to this plot point. For most of the game, it is disconnected to the overall plot and only acts as a timer for the player. It should be easy to tie The Ancient Curse to the overall beat of the plot instead of it acting on its own.

 

[Pink Eye]

>Even Vordakai's subplot has her interfering albeit not being the main villain of the chapter.
Actually no. She had nothing to do with that specific subplot. That was all by the king of pranks. During a specific segment, before that chapter starts. You will visit her in a dream like place. You can ask her questions about whether or not she was responsible. She will reply she had nothing to do with it. If you played the Varnhold DLC you get information about the Lantern King and his whole prank on the Lich.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Actually no. She had nothing to do with that specific subplot. That was all by the king of pranks. During a specific segment, before that chapter starts. You will visit her in a dream like place. You can ask her questions about whether or not she was responsible. She will reply she had nothing to do with it. If you played the Varnhold DLC you get information about the Lantern King and his whole prank on the Lich.

The defaced sisters are still hindering you, baiting you to tell your true name the whole time so that the crow can learn of it I guess?

They still try to incite the Tiger Lords against you.

Nyrissa might not be the main villain but she stills use the opportunity to kill you regardless.

 

[Pink Eye]

Oh right I forgot about that.

 

[Desiderius]

Xamenos The issue with villains in PFKM, is that the player doesn’t need one. Not for a long time. The player is attempting to seize what has been impossible to hold. Forging a kingdom is its own problem. You don’t need a villain. The player is attempting to tame the untamable. Through the course of that, discovering the root is emergent without a Big Bad.

So the region can’t sustain a kingdom because of ancient curses woven into the land? It’s only natural that the tamer would pursue the root of the curses. An early Nyrissa reveal spoils that. It doesn’t matter if there is a twist with Nyrissa—we know she’s the problem because they show her to us immediately. BG1 gives us unrelated issues that tie together later. PoE simply fails miserably in the delivery. PFKM plot problem, is that it pretends to be a mystery after they’ve deliberately spoiled it from the onset.

I didn’t take it as spoiled, she’s just an embodiment/personification of this particular aspect of the nature of reality (as you noted, the difficulty of establishing order amidst chaos, especially an order with oneself at the head), akin to Mother Nature or suchlike.

 

[Sweeper]

Full disclosure, never actually completed Kingmaker even though I love it.
If you're gonna make a fucking game where you've got a party traveling all around the fucking enormous world map, entering and exiting locations, fucking entering exiting...
OPTIMIZE THE FUCKING LOAD TIMES YOU MONGOLOID RUSSIAN JEWS
I just, I needed to let that out.
Also my PC is shit.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I am repeating myself, but: according to Mr. Sawyer, one of the goals during Deadfire development was save/load optimization within Unity limitations. He was proud that this goal was achieved, and save/load times of Deadfire were significantly improved despite the fact that development was not trivial and took some time.

And now everyone can compare Pathfinder: Kingmaker and PoE-II and make a conclusion regarding development priorities.

 

[Sweeper]

Honestly? Maybe I've been too hard on Deadfire.