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

[CaesarCzech]

So much closer to that GGILF

Where is da Queen. Do you now the wei ?

Well it seems we found it.

 

[fantadomat]

QUEEN WATCH
Stars achieved: 21
What we need: 1 achievement from the following list
YT Subs: 15,000/20,000
Twitter Followers: 11,804/12,000
Twitch Followers: 9,051/10,000

Are you telling me that your love for the game is ....only this? What are 200 twatter sock accounts for a true fan?

 

[LannTheStupid]

I have just read the article about "etudes" as the way to organize the world state instead of a set of unrelated flags. I think it's great idea. May be they will not use it to add some amazing reactivity, but it will reduce the number of unintended or senseless flag combinations for sure.

 

[Reinhardt]

QUEEN WATCH
Stars achieved: 21
What we need: 1 achievement from the following list
YT Subs: 15,000/20,000
Twitter Followers: 11,804/12,000
Twitch Followers: 9,051/10,000

Are you telling me that your love for the game is ....only this? What are 200 twatter sock accounts for a true fan?

Why would he care? She's not even monk.

 

[Pink Eye]

What? No. I want monk content.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Why would he care? She's not even monk.

She is not a Kitsune, either.

 

[Reinhardt]

So one + and one -

 

[Dishonoredbr]

7 minutes of combat:

This looks so good. I might even Kickstarter/fund this shit.

 

[deuxhero]

Combat shows height difference. Wonder if new game has mechanics for it or if it's just a way of creating a barrier (like during the Stag King fight)

 

[Generic-Giant-Spider]

7 minutes of combat:

Goddamn this looks fucking good. I love how there's fighting going on all around between the NPCs too, really gives you that feeling of chaos (in a good way, not clusterfuck). I appreciate after coming from BG3's gameplay how much more 'serious' and toned down the game world is in this game as well. Streets littered with bodies and blood, fighting a bunch of crazy cultists trying to set the place ablaze, even the music sounds good and helps create that sense of urgency. That was a quick seven minutes.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Combat shows height difference. Wonder if new game has mechanics for it or if it's just a way of creating a barrier (like during the Stag King fight)

Seems to be the latter. There are shot of the enemies using ladders to climb but there is no actual climbing, I doubt they will add z-axis variable to the game.

 

[LannTheStupid]

What I like in this clip is how the second game looks almost like the first one. There is one problem with some Russian developers: they strive to make every iteration of established franchise revolutionary. This approach killed S.T.A.L.K.E.R., as every "revolutionary" iteration ended up buggy unpolished mess, so all the good ideas just did not shine.

I'm very happy that Owlcat are building on their previous success.

 

[Desiderius]

7 minutes of combat:

Warhammer P:K, er, P:WotR

I foresee that our Acid Pits will be well fed.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

What I like in this clip is how the second game looks almost like the first one. There is one problem with some Russian developers: they strive to make every iteration of established franchise revolutionary. This approach killed S.T.A.L.K.E.R., as every "revolutionary" iteration ended up buggy unpolished mess, so all the good ideas just did not shine.

I'm very happy that Owlcat are building on their previous success.

This is most likely because this footage is pre-alpha or alpha. The screenshot in the KS page do feels different (color a bit more muted, definitely higher resolution).

 

[Ghulgothas]

7 minutes of combat:

Lookin' good for an Alpha, and the companion voice sets sound decent, even if they're just using placeholder portraits for now.
Juding from the combat log, I think Seelah, Lann, Ember and Irabeth are the companions. Alongside a "Camellia".

 

[Ontopoly]

I have just read the article about "etudes" as the way to organize the world state instead of a set of unrelated flags. I think it's great idea. May be they will not use it to add some amazing reactivity, but it will reduce the number of unintended or senseless flag combinations for sure.

I'll take your word for it. I barely kept up with what they were saying.

 

[Ontopoly]

Goddamn this looks fucking good. I love how there's fighting going on all around between the NPCs too, really gives you that feeling of chaos (in a good way, not clusterfuck). I appreciate after coming from BG3's gameplay how much more 'serious' and toned down the game world is in this game as well. Streets littered with bodies and blood, fighting a bunch of crazy cultists trying to set the place ablaze, even the music sounds good and helps create that sense of urgency. That was a quick seven minutes.

Imagine that battle in hard or unfair. Especially because they said they're going to do more than just higher stats for difficulty.

 

[deuxhero]

7 minutes of combat:

Lookin' good for an Alpha, and the companion voice sets sound decent, even if they're just using placeholder portraits for now.
Juding from the combat log, I think Seelah, Lann, Ember and Irabeth are the companions. Alongside a "Camellia".

Irabeth is one of the Siege of Dragonspear writer's special snowflake NPCs that exists for virtue signals (HER GIRLFRIEND IS TRANS! DID YOU KNOW SHE'S TRANS! Helps evil to enrich self but still good guy BECAUSE TRANS!). Instead of deleting the crappy writing , they made it more prominent. Huge

 

[Xamenos]

7 minutes of combat:

Lookin' good for an Alpha, and the companion voice sets sound decent, even if they're just using placeholder portraits for now.
Juding from the combat log, I think Seelah, Lann, Ember and Irabeth are the companions. Alongside a "Camellia".

Camellia was confirmed in the latest update as a half-elf noble Shaman and a romance option.

And that combat footage triggers me to no end. It could not be more obvious it was a retarded journo playing on journo difficulty. Imagine the screeching if they'd make him play on normal or (gods forbid) challenging. I can already see the headline: "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is the Dark Souls of cRPGs".

 

[LannTheStupid]

So, after reading both technical articles I came to the conclusion that they put real emhasys on reducing the developer's work.

Scenes used to be loaded as one big precompiled piece and every change required total scene recompilation. Now they are structured so that different parts of the scene can be changed independently. What was slightly structured mess of event flags becomes a self-contained structure that is called when an event happens and handles all the relevant conditions inside. And so on.

They care about graphical performance, for sure - but I like this push to decrease boring and tedious developer's work which is especially prone to errors. If they manage to pull this off I have high hopes for the next game.

 

[Ghulgothas]

I wonder if that Bot that playtests the game for them has a "Game Journalist" setting.

 

[user]

I can already see the headline: "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is the Dark Souls of cRPGs".

Neh that would be praise, more like:
"Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous wants to be good, but sucks so much because of bAlAnCe IsSuEs and FrUsTrAtInG gAmEpLaY, 6.8/10"

 

[deuxhero]

I can already see the headline: "Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is the Dark Souls of cRPGs".

Neh that would be praise, more like:
"Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous wants to be good, but sucks so much because of bAlAnCe IsSuEs and FrUsTrAtInG gAmEpLaY, 6.8/10"

No, it will get 10/10 goty because of the virtue signaling.

 

[ArchAngel]

Combat shows height difference. Wonder if new game has mechanics for it or if it's just a way of creating a barrier (like during the Stag King fight)

Height advantage is only +1 to hit in Pathfinder, not important to implement.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-wrath-of-the-righteous/posts/2770937

The Sound and Music of Wrath of the Righteous

Dear Pathfinders,

In this update, we’re going to tell you a little bit about how we’re creating an atmosphere through sound for the new project from Owlcat Games.

Wrath of the Righteous is our second game, and in this project we’re taking everything we did best in Pathfinder: Kingmaker and building on those achievements. We have set out a clear creative vision for the sound in our game: our main goal was and remains to create the feeling of an epic adventure in a fantasy setting – the feeling we all got when we played Baldur’s Gate or Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura in our youth. We’ve drawn on a wide range of sources for inspiration: classic CRPGs and fantasy movies, tons of illustrated materials from Paizo Publishing, as well as our own experience of playing the Pathfinder tabletop game – our whole team spent countless hours gathered around the table, rolling dice and trying to find our way out of the sticky situations thought up by our ingenious Game Master.

Working on Wrath of the Righteous has introduced new challenges: the key themes being explored have changed, as has the setting. Instead of the green forests and meadows of the Stolen Lands, we’ll be spending most of our time in the bleak wastelands and cities conquered by the demons on the edges of the Worldwound, in corrupted dungeons, and even in the Abyss itself.

Before getting started on the audio design, we spent a few days discussing what themes and motifs we wanted to put at the heart of our game’s sound, and how to ensure that the game didn’t feel too dark or oppressive. We also needed a sound palette that would work in harmony with our core principle: the player should feel like they’re on an epic adventure, which will naturally evoke a broad range of emotional responses – not just sadness and misery, but also a sense of fun, curiosity, and levity where appropriate.

In the end, we decided that the best approach was to strike a balance between the two key themes, which will set the tone for our whole story. The first of these is all about the Mendevian Crusade – Golarion’s armed alliance formed to fight the demon invasion. The driving force behind the Crusade are the paladins of the Church of Iomedae. Iomedae herself is the goddess of righteous valor, justice, and honor, so the music connected to her conveys life-affirming energy, the high drama of battle, and unshakeable faith in victory. We worked hard to express all these ideas in our game’s main musical theme.

The other key theme is the Abyss and all it entails – Corruption, Demons, and Chaos. The music conveys the disquieting, alien, and menacing nature of the Abyss, provoking a sense of anxious dread or stirring us into action when we meet truly formidable opponents.

Like in Kingmaker, the music that we’ll hear most often in the game will be the location themes, which have been grouped together for different settings. Our journey will take us to a winter forest, a scorching desert, horrifying dungeons, the mysterious domain of Nocticula, the heroic sieges of demon-controlled cities, and the infiltration of corrupted places. To create a varied feel for all these different places, we’re not only using orchestral music but folk instruments as well – even synthesizers make an appearance. But one of the central pillars of the Wrath score will be choral music, symbolizing the people’s united resistance against Evil.

Meet the Composers
While working on Kingmaker, we invited the internationally recognized composer Inon Zur, the man behind the music on projects such as Baldur’s Gate 2, Icewind Dale 2, and the Dragon Age series. Inon’s experience working on CRPGs was the deciding factor for us: he composed four incredible themes, which were not only used in the game, but also served as a reference for our other composers, who were responsible for scoring the rest of the game. It was a fantastic collaboration and we are so grateful for Inon’s contribution to the project.

This time around, when we were gearing up to start work on the music for Wrath of the Righteous, we had complete confidence in the talents of our composers, who gained essential experience from working on Kingmaker. Now they are composing the music for Wrath of the Righteous. Meet the composers:

Dmitry V. Silantyev: composer on Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Working in the game industry since 2011, Dmitry has composed the music for many projects released in Russia in recent years (Armored Warfare, Skyforge, Niffelheim, Aima Wars). We liked his penchant for expressive melodies and his ability to create atmospheric music that you never tire of listening to even after hours of gameplay.

Mikhail Kotov: composer and founder of Principle Sound Design, which began its creative journey in the early 2000s. Mikhail has worked on the music for projects such as World of Warplanes, Allods Online, Beholder, and Skyforge, and has also turned his hand to a series of popular casual games. Mikhail works with orchestral music, researching and implementing new ways to imitate the sound of a symphony orchestra using virtual instruments. He takes inspiration from various film composers in his work, including Jerry Goldsmith, Bernard Herrmann, Joe Hisaishi, and Bear McCreary.

Dmitry “Dryante” Makarov: even though music was only his hobby not too long ago, Dryante has gained popularity by making cover versions of music from RPGs such as Lineage II, The Witcher, and Gothic. Dryante’s talent as a multi-instrumentalist was what first got our attention, and he wrote several musical compositions that players heard in the taverns in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. We were excited to invite him back to work on a similar task for Wrath of the Righteous.

In this video, our composers talk about their work on the game (you may need to turn on the English subtitles):

Aesthetics and Mechanics of Game Sound
Wrath of the Righteous has inherited Kingmaker’s soundscape and its working principles; for example, you will hear the familiar sound effects for combat and magic, and characters will react to your actions in roughly the same way as before.

However, a whole lot has changed in the game’s overall aesthetic, which has in turn influenced the sound used in locations. Where the Stolen Lands were filled with forests and ravines teeming with life, the lands affected by the Worldwound are largely deserted or in a state of devastation. Under the long-term influence of corruption, life abandons the places it once called home, and we want to convey this sense of desertion and doom through the audio as well: the key location sounds will be the whispering of the wind, the rustle of withered trees, falling rocks, the distant shrieking of monsters, and strange and unnerving tonal sounds, the origin of which you can only guess at.

Of course, from time to time we will encounter vibrant locations that are full of life. One of these locations will be our own field camp, where the paladin army under our command will rest and plan its next military operations.

Voicing the enemies in this game also presents an interesting challenge: the majority are the humanoid demons and monsters that typically pervade the Abyss. Our goal is to make the monsters sound as expressive as possible, and to help us achieve this, we’re once again calling on the talents of our fellow Owlcats, who are always willing to lend their voice as the basis for yet another fearsome beast.

One of the less obvious but significant changes to the sound is comprehensive support for our new in-game camera, which will not only be able to zoom in, but also fully rotate 360 degrees. As the camera turns, the position of sounds produced by objects and characters in the scene will change, but the camera will also affect the position of sounds that are entirely virtual and that add texture to the location’s sound. When the camera zooms in, the general background noise and ambient music fade slightly while characters and objects in frame get a little louder. This means that when the player comes across something of interest, they can “zoom in” with their eyes and their ears.

In addition to all this, we still have plenty more to come: Players with surround sound will be able to take full advantage of all their speakers for full immersion in locations; we’re working on how to control sound better during battles with a large number of opponents; and some of our old material is going to be updated and enhanced. And, needless to say, we’re going to do everything we can to ensure that the game’s sound is as great to listen to in hour 50 as it is in hour 1.

Thanks for reading!

Owlcats