Pathfinder Why Owlcat's Kingmaker Sucks, in Plain Language

[Theldaran]

Seems to me that Owlcat is preparing the ultimate slam dunk to be bought off by Microsoft

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's still an indie game, and it shows.

The classics were AAA games in their time.

That's why we can't have nice things today. POE squandered all our hopes when it gathered 4M and spent them unwisely. After that, many people said "enough".

In fact, KS may have killed the classic RPGs forever.

Even the most successful kickstarters from devs in poor countries don't get enough money to fund a AA game let alone a AAA game.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance got ~1.8m USD from their kickstarter -- one of the most successful games on Kickstarter at the time. That covered less than 5% of the entire development cost.

 

[Theldaran]

It's still an indie game, and it shows.

The classics were AAA games in their time.

That's why we can't have nice things today. POE squandered all our hopes when it gathered 4M and spent them unwisely. After that, many people said "enough".

In fact, KS may have killed the classic RPGs forever.

Even the most successful kickstarters from devs in poor countries don't get enough money to fund a AA game let alone a AAA game.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance got ~1.8m USD from their kickstarter -- one of the most successful games on Kickstarter at the time. That covered less than 5% of the entire development cost.

That also reinforces my point.

To make something legit good, they need more money. But I can't shake off the feeling that many people are suspicious to contribute (even to buy) after POE. Not a good prospect.

The way may be to ignore KS funding altogether (something pretty difficult), and pull a Bioware: make your first game memorable, and build from there.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

To make something good they need to be willing to eat ginger and turmeric roots to survive.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Hey guys, I love BG2! It has plenty of romances complex encounters and a talking sword that makes noise all the time resource management. I even got an elf pregnant killed a dragon! Hardcore old-school stuff with dee and dee.

 

[Theldaran]

To make something good they need to be willing to eat ginger and turmeric roots to survive.

Dog eat dog world, mate.

If their first game is disappointing (like Stygian), they don't deserve to be in the industry either.

They also may want to drop the graphics a bit, and invest in the true aspects of an RPG.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

To make something good they need to be willing to eat ginger and turmeric roots to survive.

Dog eat dog world, mate.

If their first game is disappointing (like Stygian), they don't deserve to be in the industry either.

They also may want to drop the graphics a bit, and invest in the true aspects of an RPG.

Bg2 had a team of bazillion people, plus volunteers working nonstop to fix the bugs and the game was still released with tons of them. So yeah, it was expected that this game would be even buggier because they had fewer resources.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

To make something good they need to be willing to eat ginger and turmeric roots to survive.

Dog eat dog world, mate.

If their first game is disappointing (like Stygian), they don't deserve to be in the industry either.

They also may want to drop the graphics a bit, and invest in the true aspects of an RPG.

Bg2 had a team of bazillion people, plus voluntaries working nonstop to fix bugs and the game was still released with tons of bugs. So yeah, it was expected that this game would be even buggier because they had less resources.

You're overlooking the benefits 20 years of technological advancement brought to an already very young industry.

 

[NJClaw]

It's still an indie game, and it shows.

The classics were AAA games in their time.

That's why we can't have nice things today. POE squandered all our hopes when it gathered 4M and spent them unwisely. After that, many people said "enough".

In fact, KS may have killed the classic RPGs forever.

You can't kill a corpse, so your argument is invalid. Kingmaker proved that there is a big market for combat-focused rpgs based on a complex system like Pathfinder and that genre enthusiasts are willing to go over some glaring flaws to enjoy a full-fledged rpg experience if the system is interesting and the content is good enough.

 

[Theldaran]

Care to share some Kingmaker sales figures?

 

[Silly Germans]

It's still an indie game, and it shows.

The classics were AAA games in their time.

That's why we can't have nice things today. POE squandered all our hopes when it gathered 4M and spent them unwisely. After that, many people said "enough".

In fact, KS may have killed the classic RPGs forever.

Even the most successful kickstarters from devs in poor countries don't get enough money to fund a AA game let alone a AAA game.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance got ~1.8m USD from their kickstarter -- one of the most successful games on Kickstarter at the time. That covered less than 5% of the entire development cost.

That also reinforces my point.

To make something legit good, they need more money. But I can't shake off the feeling that many people are suspicious to contribute (even to buy) after POE. Not a good prospect.

The way may be to ignore KS funding altogether (something pretty difficult), and pull a Bioware: make your first game memorable, and build from there.

Owlcat's second kickstarter racked in a lot more money than the first. They seem to have gained trust with their first game.
People seem to be capable to differentiate between Kickstarter projects depending on the developers. It might be harder to
get your first project running, but for a successor it seems not to be a problem.

 

[Deleted Member 22431]

Bg2 had a team of bazillion people, plus voluntaries working nonstop to fix bugs and the game was still released with tons of bugs. So yeah, it was expected that this game would be even buggier because they had less resources.

You're overlooking the benefits 20 years of technological advancement brought to an already very young industry.

It doesn’t matter the quality of the software. New bugs will be generated on a daily basis and the attempt to fix them will generate more bugs. You can only fix these problems with manpower, and this resource, especially for smaller studios, is scarce.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Bg2 had a team of bazillion people, plus voluntaries working nonstop to fix bugs and the game was still released with tons of bugs. So yeah, it was expected that this game would be even buggier because they had less resources.

You're overlooking the benefits 20 years of technological advancement brought to an already very young industry.

It doesn’t matter the quality of the software. New bugs will be generated on a daily basis and the attempt to fix them will generate more bugs. You can only fix these problems with manpower, and this resource, especially for smaller studios, is scarce.

The point is that they don't have to rely entirely on in-house software but instead software that's developed by large corporations who do have the manpower to fix said bugs.
BG2 had 21 programmers.
PF:K has 4 programmers in their credits.

PF:K also has more developers listed in their credits overall than BG2 does, by nearly 150 people.

 

[Desiderius]

Bg2 had a team of bazillion people, plus voluntaries working nonstop to fix bugs and the game was still released with tons of bugs. So yeah, it was expected that this game would be even buggier because they had less resources.

You're overlooking the benefits 20 years of technological advancement brought to an already very young industry.

It doesn’t matter the quality of the software. New bugs will be generated on a daily basis and the attempt to fix them will generate more bugs. You can only fix these problems with manpower, and this resource, especially for smaller studios, is scarce.

The point is that they don't have to rely entirely on in-house software but instead software that's developed by large corporations who do have the manpower to fix said bugs.
BG2 had 21 programmers.
PF:K has 4 programmers in their credits.

PF:K also has more developers listed in their credits overall than BG2 does, by nearly 150 people.

Playerbase is manpower. Watch us on WotR.

 

[Desiderius]

It's still an indie game, and it shows.

The classics were AAA games in their time.

That's why we can't have nice things today. POE squandered all our hopes when it gathered 4M and spent them unwisely. After that, many people said "enough".

In fact, KS may have killed the classic RPGs forever.

You can't kill a corpse, so your argument is invalid. Kingmaker proved that there is a big market for combat-focused rpgs based on a complex system like Pathfinder and that genre enthusiasts are willing to go over some glaring flaws to enjoy a full-fledged rpg experience if the system is interesting and the content is good enough.

Non-Western countries have the advantage of being relatively free of the carriers of cultural Alzheimer's like our Know-Nothing Nihilist Nitwit patrol here.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

It's still an indie game, and it shows.

It's not an indie game. It was published by one of the largest publishers in the world.
It's as much of an indie game as Metro: Exodus.

 

[Desiderius]

The butthurt theory is especially interesting. What exactly am I butthurt about? I'm loving the best RTwP game in years and can't wait for the next one. Currently trying to salvage a good TB game via Divinity Unleashed and assorted mods.

Don't think there's much mystery where the true butthurt is.

 

[Theldaran]

I suppose it is better than POE (both RTwP so no apples to oranges), if only for the Pathfinder system.

But the system is not its weak point. It's the strongest suit.

Like POE, it is replayable on paper, but why would I want to replay something non-memorable?

 

[LannTheStupid]

why would I want to replay something non-memorable?

May be it's time you check up for early-onset Alzheimer's? Memory loss is a serious symptom.

 

[Theldaran]

LannTheStupid

Location: Soviet Union

 

[Desiderius]

LannTheStupid

Location: Soviet Union

I mean, they did win the Cold War, so they've got that going for them. Local AWFL cops going positively orgasmic shutting down everything that moves (tennis courts and running tracks today) so our empty hospitals don't get overwhelmed.

 

[Gregz]

POSTED: MARCH 30
TL;DR: Like a good old evening of table-top DND, if prior to beginning the DM found out you’re f***ing his wife.

At the outset of this review I would like to declare my bias. I am completely partial having logged 350+ hours into Pathfinder: Kingmaker at the time of writing. 350 miserable, insult-hurling, keyboard smashing hours.

I bought P: K (and its various DLC) because at face value it resembles all the games of its genre I’ve loved in the past (Planescape: Torment, Fallout 1 & 2, Baldur’s Gate, Arcanum, Neverwinter Nights, Tyranny, Star Wars: KOTR, Pillars of Eternity - you get the point.)

Pathfinder: Kingmaker is nothing like those games. It will tell you it is. It’s not. It’s far, far more sinister.

I have finished this game. Twice. Earned more than half of its bloody achievements including the damned Tenebrous Depths secret. I finished this game not because of the above beloved classics, but for the same exact reason I finished Getting Over it with Bennet Foddy. They’re the same game. GOI is just honest from the get-go.

Me, I hate-f***ed this game.

Don’t let anyone tell you “you've just gotta get used to the pathfinder rule-set”. Bull. There’s nothing genius or outlandish to it. A few visits to a sub-reddit will have you fluent in no time.

No, I hate this game because it hates me. It hates you. It hates the player, hates fun/clever/rewarding game design, hates not perma-nerfing your NPC’s stats, hates not meta-gaming, hates not dilligently prepping each and every member of your party before every fight, hates not spending 30 minutes pre-buffing, hates completionists…etc etc.

Like a wife-beater with an expense account it tries just the tiniest bit to keep you from leaving - namely through world-building and characters deserving of a far more competent game-design team.

In this way, P: K is akin to a good old table-top DND session, if prior to starting the DM found out that you’re f***ing his wife.

There is one subset of players who should ignore the above. I’m talking to the masochists out there, the ultimate min-maxing, rubix-cube with a blindfold solving, virtual mountain-climbers who get off on finishing a game that hates being finished. You will play it, you will agonise through it, publish your incredible speed-runs and game-breaks on Youtube and feel a shred of dopamine for what you’ve done.

For everyone else, for everyone who loves all those games I listed at the start – run. Don’t play this game. Pathfinder: Kingmaker is for the gamer who can hate a game almost as much as he or she hates themselves.

 

[Pink Eye]

You hack, you didn't even link to the steam review.
Edit: The review for those who are curious: https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198036372085/recommended/640820/

 

[Pink Eye]

>There is one subset of players who should ignore the above. I’m talking to the masochists out there, the ultimate min-maxing, rubix-cube with a blindfold solving, virtual mountain-climbers who get off on finishing a game that hates being finished. You will play it, you will agonise through it, publish your incredible speed-runs and game-breaks on Youtube and feel a shred of dopamine for what you’ve done.
Makes sense why I love pathfinder. I only get my rocks hard when getting brutally punished.

 

[Lord brunitius]

Methink people that says this game suck are not very good at playing it. Just saying.