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

[LannTheStupid]

You confuse the brain fungus of the GAE with the underlying American Way that was fast friends with Пётр Вели́кий.

Yeah, and then Николай Первый had to spend all of his reign putting off fires in Europe that were lit by American and then French revolutions. Abominations are to be killed in infancy, not allowed to fester.


Anyway, those last 10 pages gave me a good laugh. I appreciate the effort of all the participants.

There is another matter, though. When monkeys are asking for "modern interface" that "explains formulae" and that the information is "buried in the game" they are more dangerous than they seem.

The problem is - everything costs resources. Writing something as a static text for an adult and then putting it on a static page is the cheapest way. Writing a static text that a mentally challenged child would understand is more expensive and requires a special education teacher. Creating a hyperlink with a tooltip which is dynamically changed according to the input values and shows the calculation formula is the most expensive (I guess). Owlcat Games decided not to spend resources on that, and instead, say, created Nok-Nok, or Jaethal quest line, or developed a happy threesome. Or something.

On the other hand, we have Larian. Their target audience are monkeys, so they overhauled the dice roll animation again. Completely. Now it looks like a spell from Harry Potter, but with numbers. No dreadful arithmetic is in sight. They know that the idea of calculus is foreign to their target audience, so they have to spend the budget to hide it. Meanwhile, the camping still looks like teleporting from the game world to some remote safe location as if the party has Elminster hidden somewhere.

The problem with Owlcat Games is they have to chose between "modern UI" and the rest of the game. The problem with Larian is that they can hire 10 more developers, but then they will have to harvest another million of monkeys. I very much prefer the former, and monkeys be damned. However, it is not a given that Owlcat will be able to do it indefinitely. And that is the danger.

 

[Desiderius]

I don’t think it’s that expensive once one recognizes how important it is. You have a generation that grew up on shitty games so that’s the default expectation. You have to demonstrate your non-shitiness to them directly to change that expectation before they’ll engage the game at all.

An unused or abused +2 SD mind is a totally different animal from a -1 SD, and even a -1 SD is merely slow not stationary.

 

[Desiderius]

American Rev was NG, French CE -> LN. There’s no comparing the two.

Just look who it is denigrating the American Founders today to get your bearings back.

 

[LannTheStupid]

American Rev was NG

Muscogee, Seminole and some other beg to differ.

I don’t think it’s that expensive once one recognizes how important it is.

Yes, it is not "that expensive" or "this expensive". It is the question of priorities. You have fixed man-hours for a given sum of money. So you spend them on monkeys or on the game. My fear is that you're right, and it is time to spend man-hours on monkeys.

 

[Desiderius]

How would you know? In fact most don’t. Those that do are of the same type as Pussy Riot. Do your Siberians not consider themselves Russian? Is this because you asked nicely?

 

[gurugeorge]

You confuse the brain fungus of the GAE with the underlying American Way that was fast friends with Пётр Вели́кий.

Yeah, and then Николай Первый had to spend all of his reign putting off fires in Europe that were lit by American and then French revolutions. Abominations are to be killed in infancy, not allowed to fester.


Anyway, those last 10 pages gave me a good laugh. I appreciate the effort of all the participants.

There is another matter, though. When monkeys are asking for "modern interface" that "explains formulae" and that the information is "buried in the game" they are more dangerous than they seem.

The problem is - everything costs resources. Writing something as a static text for an adult and then putting it on a static page is the cheapest way. Writing a static text that a mentally challenged child would understand is more expensive and requires a special education teacher. Creating a hyperlink with a tooltip which is dynamically changed according to the input values and shows the calculation formula is the most expensive (I guess). Owlcat Games decided not to spend resources on that, and instead, say, created Nok-Nok, or Jaethal quest line, or developed a happy threesome. Or something.

On the other hand, we have Larian. Their target audience are monkeys, so they overhauled the dice roll animation again. Completely. Now it looks like a spell from Harry Potter, but with numbers. No dreadful arithmetic is in sight. They know that the idea of calculus is foreign to their target audience, so they have to spend the budget to hide it. Meanwhile, the camping still looks like teleporting from the game world to some remote safe location as if the party has Elminster hidden somewhere.

The problem with Owlcat Games is they have to chose between "modern UI" and the rest of the game. The problem with Larian is that they can hire 10 more developers, but then they will have to harvest another million of monkeys. I very much prefer the former, and monkeys be damned. However, it is not a given that Owlcat will be able to do it indefinitely. And that is the danger.

I should think that's part of their ROI calculations though. They want as big an audience as they can because they want as much money as they can get; but if at the same time they also want a rich game that covers all capacities from story mode to hardcore, they're going to have to set some time and effort aside to make it understandable for a wider audience.

Plus there's also the point that from an rp/immersion point of view, it's better to stay "in" the virtual world as much as possible. Are your calculations those of a nerd sitting in a Herman Miller, who has no problem reaching out to the bookshelf for that fat, juicy doorstop of a manual, or tabbing out to a .pdf or a website, or are they the abstracted calculations and thoughts-on-the-fly of a denizen of the virtual world as depicted? Even as someone who used to love doorstop manuals and has no problem tabbing out, I would still prefer to have everything in-game with tooltips where possible. The experience is then more continuous, more continuously immersed in the virtual world, there's no being pulled out of the virtual world to do something else.

Also, different teams, with different allocated workloads.

That said, I thought Owlcat did a reasonably good job of presenting the necessary information. For newbies, they could have made it clearer that your characters learn about the creatures and that you can inspect, and that that's an important part of the gameplay, but other than that most of the necessary stuff was presented in-game.

 

[Desiderius]

Is there any reason not to have the Inspect button always on? How much cringe could have been avoided if only it had defaulted to on in P:K along with Show Location Names.

Defaults are important! When in doubt opt out (not opt in).

 

[LannTheStupid]

Are your calculations those of a nerd sitting in a Herman Miller, who has no problem reaching out to the bookshelf for that fat, juicy doorstop of a manual, or tabbing out to a .pdf or a website, or are they the abstracted calculations and thoughts-on-the-fly of a denizen of the virtual world as depicted? Even as someone who used to love doorstop manuals and has no problem tabbing out, I would still prefer to have everything in-game with tooltips where possible.

I've already answered that. There are two "me". One "me" is in the game world, and s/he knows much more about this world than another "me". Like, the me-MC knows how Octavia smells and how Reg is on touch, and what they were talking about while Linzi is not around. The me-I knows why the glitterdust fails on Wild hunt and why Cacophonous Call is good against trolls. The me-I can reach for the book, the me-MC can have a relationship with former slaves.

 

[gurugeorge]

The me-I knows why the glitterdust fails on Wild hunt and while Cacophonous Call is good against trolls.

The you-MC knows that too, surely? Isn't that what the knowledge skills and the concept of "xp" represents? The you-MC is getting wise to the world as he goes, and you-you are right there with him.

 

[LannTheStupid]

The you-MC knows that too, surely? Isn't that what the knowledge skills and the concept of "xp" represents? The you-MC is getting wise to the world as he goes, and you-you are right there with him.

The me-I has more sources to consult with, and they are fundamental as they describe how Golarion works. The me-MC has to talk to the mages, have a keen eye for monsters., or read some studies which can not be as precise as D20.

 

[gurugeorge]

The you-MC knows that too, surely? Isn't that what the knowledge skills and the concept of "xp" represents? The you-MC is getting wise to the world as he goes, and you-you are right there with him.

The me-I has more sources to consult with, and they are fundamental as they describe how Golarion works. The me-MC has to talk to the mages, have a keen eye for monsters., or read some studies which can not be as precise as D20.

Well yeah, that's what's being abstractly represented by in-game knowledge-gathering, "xp," etc. The only difference with having that knowledge in-game (e.g. as tooltips) etc., is convenience and continuity of immersion. It's the same abstraction whether it's printed or a tooltip.

I do take your point that resources devoted to setting that up is resources taken from elsewhere. Maybe for a small team where people are multi-tasking that's something they have to weigh up, but for a team the size of Owlcat, they'll have one team allocated to doing UI stuff, others to doing various kinds of programming, design or graphics, etc., so in that case having the game explained in-game as you go isn't necessarily going to be taking anything away from level design - it might be time taken way from having more menu options or something like that.

 

[LannTheStupid]

a team the size of Owlcat, they'll have one team allocated to doing UI stuff, others to doing various kinds of programming, design or graphics, etc.

Are you sure they have that many people? Because I am not.

It sounds more like Larian than Owlcat Games.

I also know from personal experience that the work distribution between teams in Russia is not as strict as in the West. And UI programmers for surely will be forced to debug everything before the release, and level designers might be asked to create missing icons for something.

 

[NJClaw]

I also know from personal experience that the work distribution between teams in Russia is not as strict as in the West. And UI programmers for surely will be forced to debug everything before the release, and level designers might be asked to create missing icons for something.

What does Owlcat Studios have to do with Russia, though? They're from Cyprus.

Also, there's no way they don't have at least a couple of people doing only UI stuff. Especially considering how relevant the UI is in this kind of games.

Going by this stream, at the very least they have two UI designers. According to their website, they have more than 60 employees, so probably they have a couple more than that.

 

[ferratilis]

If Larian really has an entire team dedicated to UI, they should be fired immediately, just saying. DOS2 has atrocious UI, especially when it comes to readability and scaling. PFK, on the other hand, has one of the best UIs I've ever seen in a cRPG. It's just a pleasure to look at, everything is readable on 1080p screens, you're never confused as to what is where, and most importantly the buttons are actually placed in a way where normal human can see them. Larian could learn a thing or two.

 

[Inhabitants of Khorinis]

Dos 2 UI is nothing compared to the cancer that is BG3 UI. I can hadle the fact that there is no shared inventory (because muh coop) but everything else is just puke.

 

[Pink Eye]

FK, on the other hand, has one of the best UIs I've ever seen in a cRPG.

Completely disagree. Pillars of Eternity and Knights of the Chalice have better UIs with their slick hot key systems.

 

[bayoubilly]

I'm liking kingmaker so far but I have to agree - the UI could use work. It consistently has tool tips that say things like "this is derived from strength" without explaining how it it is derived from strength. Or that it will apply an effect but not the implications of that effect. Easy enough to just remember/reference the pathfinder table top rules but it doesn't follow those rules exactly so they should still define their terms

 

[LannTheStupid]

An olbigatory stupid question: does Dirge of Doom affect the undead? Like, the Cyclops?

 

[Desiderius]

It's not supposed to so I never tried but people were saying it was.

 

[Desiderius]

I'm liking kingmaker so far but I have to agree - the UI could use work. It consistently has tool tips that say things like "this is derived from strength" without explaining how it it is derived from strength. Or that it will apply an effect but not the implications of that effect. Easy enough to just remember/reference the pathfinder table top rules but it doesn't follow those rules exactly so they should still define their terms

If you mouse over the icon it will tell you what each condition does. Turn on Inspect (the eyeball thing) then right click on monsters to bring up all the information. Any condition they have will have an icon you can hover over or right click.

If you get a condition you can do the same thing on your own icons by your portrait.

 

[bayoubilly]

I'm liking kingmaker so far but I have to agree - the UI could use work. It consistently has tool tips that say things like "this is derived from strength" without explaining how it it is derived from strength. Or that it will apply an effect but not the implications of that effect. Easy enough to just remember/reference the pathfinder table top rules but it doesn't follow those rules exactly so they should still define their terms

If you mouse over the icon it will tell you what each condition does. Turn on Inspect (the eyeball thing) then right click on monsters to bring up all the information. Any condition they have will have an icon you can hover over or right click.

View attachment 19989

If you get a condition you can do the same thing on your own icons by your portrait.

Oh yes - thank you - I can see the details when an effect is active on my character. Crucial info like that is available. I am only referring to terms within a description. So for example - if I right click on the demoralize ability - it tells me if successful an enemy will be shaken. It then gives the full mathematical breakdown of how the ability is used and whether it will be effective. But it does not tell me what shaken does. So I know who can use the ability effectively and will obviously have Valerie using it. But without knowing what shaken does, I have no idea if she should swing her sword or try to demoralize. And there is an encyclopedia, but it doesn't include status effects.

POE was cool cause when went into the ability info screen it would include a link to all of the terms used. So I could click on shaken to see the effect, or click on charisma to see what else that benefits, etc. It is not a big deal at all and one could argue that it helps filter casuals. Plus it is a quick google away to remember how big a debuff shaken is if I forget. But I think it was more of an oversight then a devious plan to ensure only actual dnd/rpg fans play the game lol

 

[ferratilis]

FK, on the other hand, has one of the best UIs I've ever seen in a cRPG.

Completely disagree. Pillars of Eternity and Knights of the Chalice have better UIs with their slick hot key systems.

Never played KotC, but what hotkeys does PoE have that Kingmaker doesn't? Afaik Kingmaker has a lot more hotkeys. PoE2 has good UI design when you install the Enhanced UI mod, vanilla feels unfinished. PoE1's UI looks very bland in comparison, but still miles better than anything Larian has pooped out in the last decade. The biggest problem is that it doesn't have good scaling. Sometimes fonts look quite blurry which you definitely don't want in a game that relies on text to immerse you into its world.

 

[Desiderius]

So I could click on shaken to see the effect, or click on charisma to see what else that benefits, etc. It is not a big deal at all and one could argue that it helps filter casuals. Plus it is a quick google away to remember how big a debuff shaken is if I forget. But I think it was more of an oversight then a devious plan to ensure only actual dnd/rpg fans play the game lol

You can click on Shaken to see the effect:

You just need to Shake something, which is good practice in general to get you used to actively experimenting, which is the heart of the game.

I'm not trolling or being cute or shilling or whatever. If you play the game with the attitude that information is missing you'll miss it, if you're actively engaged you'll find everything you need, with maybe an exception or two but you'll have a better play experience with the latter assumption.

 

[bayoubilly]

edit* - on a separate note - how do people feel about the AI and using turn based? still too early in the game to complain too much about how the AI works - but I have noticed Linzi seems to never use her bard songs without manual prompting. (I have the option to let AI use rest limited abilities at will on). If that carries on to arcane casters when we get them - would it be better to just do turn based? I'm too slow to manage the abilities of all 6 characters manually without constant pausing and at that point RTwP may start feeling like a shittier version of turn based

So I could click on shaken to see the effect, or click on charisma to see what else that benefits, etc. It is not a big deal at all and one could argue that it helps filter casuals. Plus it is a quick google away to remember how big a debuff shaken is if I forget. But I think it was more of an oversight then a devious plan to ensure only actual dnd/rpg fans play the game lol

You can click on Shaken to see the effect:

View attachment 19990

You just need to Shake something, which is good practice in general to get you used to actively experimenting, which is the heart of the game.

I'm not trolling or being cute or shilling or whatever. If you play the game with the attitude that information is missing you'll miss it, if you're actively engaged you'll find everything you need, with maybe an exception or two but you'll have a better play experience with the latter assumption.

fair point. I like to armchair general and plan out a few basic combat scenarios ahead of time every time I gain a new character or the party gains a level. there are certainly times/entire games that are far more fun to learn by doingl - although that is somewhat diminished by how well known the game rules already are and having to memorize the numbers on every effect can be a little tedious. I guess it can be liberating to not feel compelled to plan and just play

 

[Desiderius]

Use autopause. RTwP is not designed to use twitch skills. You can also advance time slowly with the V button.

With Lingering Performance you can just start singing before combat then turn it off once combat starts.