Core rules inflates enemy stats beyond Pathfinder rules, same as the previous game. It's balanced for people really knowledgeable about the systems. They even include bold red text telling you not to choose it if you're unfamiliar with it and a warning box asking you if you're absolutely sure if you actually click on it. Normal and Daring are the normie-gamer settings, casual and story are for the "I am really bad at games/just here for the story" people.
Out of curiosity, what are the better options for non-writing aspects? The other big IE-like games like Tyranny and PoE have trash-tier combat. NWN1 is not strategic. Underrail is great, but not squad-based. Fallout is like a simpler Underrail (excluding its non-combat/non-build aspects). Ditto for Age of Decadence, with somewhat worse combat than Underrail. ATOM RPG is nice but combat and builds are relatively simple. Avernum and Geneforge are good, but also simpler. IWD1 and IWD2 are simpler and even more railroaded versions of P:K. As much as I like BG1 and BG2, the builds are much more simplistic there. You basically just keep pressing level up. Battle Brothers are nice, but the combat is dragged out and the abilities are a bit basic. Arcanum and P:T have terrible combat. D:OS2 has awful itemisation. Wizardry is a different genre and not tactically very interesting anyway. Jagged Alliance 2 is a fair alternative, but not the best game for builds. KOTC1 is good but too streamlined and puzzle-like.
Hard seems to be good for a first run if you're experienced with combat RPGs. Don't you want some challenge from an RPG? I don't see what's overtuned with them, encounters usually last just a few rounds. It's about the same difficulty as KOTC or AoD.
They're drawn out because you suck. Git gud.
Just get a fucking writer. Or scratch that, soon enough AI will write more interesting characters.
Your ancestors already did.
There's really few , if you go d&d syle , there's kotc2 you already mentioned and solasta, both are quite barebone outside combat, nothing better than those besides the top 10 classics, but thats like 20 years+ ago now. You could include some jrpgs and stuff like troubleshooters, it does have everything.Eventually baldurs gate 3, non ironically, even lacking many classes, which will turn out the best of them.
I agree that there's too much focus on "show, don't tell". It's true for fiction books or films, but it is not true for games, which can incorporate things like encyclopaedias that don't have to be woven into the narrative. If anything, the attempt to incorporate all that lore into the dialogues ("show! show!") instead of simply having a civilopedia is what produces these unrealistic walls of text.
Actually what i said is the opposite. Exposition is often overused over narrative or worldbuilding means to explain the world or actions in said world. Granted, exposition through too much of cutscenes/small movies[hello death stranding] can be as annoying as overuse of text.
I am referring to this: "There's no clear answer, a high school lesson answer might be a cookie cutter for things set in this world, biographies, real world novels, thrillers, crime books, but when you are put in completely distant fantasy setting, with customers who have no idea about the pathfinder series, you need some exposition, it's virtually inescapable. You can't just show everything through narrative, actions or the worldbuilding, because the game would be way too costly and require way more effort, something that can be prevented with just few words of exposition, instead of building a custom quest, scene of a humungous battleship destroyed across the desert of grazing tribes."
And this is bad, why?
While I agree with this in general, a link to the Encyclopedia in Seelah's speech when the party finds the Radiance is too Tyranny for me. Let her say it explicitly.
