Pathfinder Why Owlcat's Kingmaker Sucks, in Plain Language

[Haba]

Pacing in Pathfinder is also shit. I don't feel like a king. Why all of a sudden I have a kingdom

The original adventure path is even worse, so in this regard Owlcat improved it quite a bit.

 

[LannTheStupid]

Because doing all the coding work required again from the scratch is so crazy it is financial suicide?

If Josh Sawyer can be believed, Obsidian tried to do just that in their Pillars of Eternity II. They tried to change the horrible Unity save/load system to some asset streaming and stuff. They improved loading times, but in the process killed the franchise, and Josh choose alcohol over game development.
I think it's much better that Owlcat do not follow Obsidian's example.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Well, I can't really argue against criticisms of the NPC companions. While they are alleged to have their characters significantly expand and develop later in the game, I haven't gotten far enough to see that. Presently, I struggle to find one I enjoy beyond perhaps, Jubilost. I have yet to recruit Nok-Nok, though I intend to.

Beyond NPCs though, I find all of the other criticisms hollow and without merit.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Jubilost is the only one that really stood out.
Didn't care too much for the rest, Jubilost made me want to know more about the bleaching, where his people were from, etc.,

 

[AdamReith]

Jubilost is the only one that really stood out.
Didn't care too much for the rest, Jubilost made me want to know more about the bleaching, where his people were from, etc.,

I still can't believe they could add John Oliver as a character and thought that it would be acceptable in any way.

 

[Darth Canoli]

Jubilost is the only one that really stood out.
Didn't care too much for the rest, Jubilost made me want to know more about the bleaching, where his people were from, etc.,

Well, it's a matter of taste, i guess.
While i loathe most companions back-stories and dialogue lines, some are alright.

My favorite is probably Jaethal, the only one i'd keep as it is.

Harrim is alright but his quest is meh and camping dialogs aren't very interesting (none really are now i think of it)
Valerie and Linzi are alright too.

Amiri is probably the worst offender : "hello, i'm a 8 years old barbarian with a big sword and i'm retarded" (*)
Fuck, did these morons ever read Conan ? And i don't even mean the masterpiece from R. E. Howard, the comics alone is 1000 times more interesting.

And the threesome thing with Regongar and Octavia ... Thank you so much DAO for bringing the genre from BG romance retardation to gay pride for all.

Spoiler

*Now i think of it, did a codexer wrote Amiri backstory and lines ? It would explain everything ...

 

[Daidre]

I still can't believe they could add John Oliver as a character and thought that it would be acceptable in any way.

Imho, you a way too optimistic about russian writer's level of familiarity with British stand-up comedy scene.

 

[Tigranes]

I do suspect a lot of Codex goodwill to Kingmaker hinges on how conservative/traditional it is

Yeah. It's so traditional that it uses a cardgame/facebook game to replace questing

It relies on many tried and true formulas to achieve that cohesiveness.

It actually did both. It was very traditional in regular, isometric game parts in regards of map exploration & NPC dialogues. Went even beyond that in terms of combat and build crafting. And that's exactly what the game is praised for. The fact they decided to smack an annoying card management mini game on top of that is a whole separate thing.

"Kingmaker is a comforting old school fantasy romp which uses tried and true formulas very well! I am enjoying it!"

"RARGH ARE YOU SAYING THE CARD GAME KINGDOM IS CONSERVATIVE RARGH I HATE U"

Never change luj my friend

Anyway, the irony is that Kingmaker then used that familiar basis to try and add some hugely ambitious components. Pseudo-strategy layer kingdom/castle management I feel has never been really done right in a CRPG and is really hard to do right. Where it does work well, you're really enjoying the questing that comes along with it rather than the paper thin layer of management-specific stats and activities. I thought PKM tried hard and did better than others in this regard (miles ahead of POE, etc), but in the end it's just a browser game. The camp management system is basically like Conquistador, but where the rest of the systems made it matter in Conq, here it's a completely pointless "yep pass every check rest" thing.

Not that the lesson is to never try new things. On the grand scale of things I think it's cool that we have PKM's kingdom management to look back to as a notable attempt.

 

[Tigranes]

I was amazed until the kingdom management. Something similar to Witcher 1 - Chapter one in the village is just perfect and then they just throw all the shit at you.

Pacing in Pathfinder is also shit. I don't feel like a king. Why all of a sudden I have a kingdom

You don't. You have a Barony. 100h later when you feel like a King, you will have a kingdom.

Oh you mean "oh hey some barbarians showed up and you got rid of them! YOU DESERVE KING SO MUCH i know you showed up out of nowhere and got lucky with a barony last year and you know back then everybody talked about who you'll pledge fealty to and who will want to eat you up and none of that happened and basically everybody left you alone anyway NOW YOU KING!!"

I guess historically some kings have won the title for less

 

[Daze]

I liked BG 2 when i played it like 15 years ago.
But i never asked for that many BG clones.
Boring RTWP, trashmobs, stupid companions and 120 hours of slogging along.

 

[Crispy]

I've been going back-and-forth with Gregz (the op) over this issue in Shoutbox for the past year. Despite the fact that I absolutely abhor the final dungeon, I'm a big fan of this game and subsequently of Owlcat in general. Obviously, Gregz is not. Yet every time in said past year that I've asked him to summarize his dislike for the game, or to generalize any complaints he has about it, he always cites and references Steam reviews. And I mean without exception. He utterly refuses to iterate using his own words what irks him so much about it, always instead quoting or linking what other people have written about it. Notice how everything written in op is in quotations?

While this fact does not necessarily discredit everything that has been quoted in op of this thread, it certainly calls into question Gregz' credibility on the subject, and, in a more broad sense, his motivation(s) for starting this thread in the first place.

 

[Daidre]

I liked BG 2 when i played it like 15 years ago.
But i never asked for that many BG clones.

I wonder where you actually found that many BG clones?
2 PoEs and P:K are only games of note in last 10 years or so and PoEs relation to its spiritual successor is questionable at best since its system and setting has nothing to do with D&D.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I liked BG 2 when i played it like 15 years ago.

Boring RTWP, trashmobs, stupid companions

It just means you're 15 years older. Spoiler: at the end you die.

 

[Daze]

I liked BG 2 when i played it like 15 years ago.
But i never asked for that many BG clones.

I wonder where you actually found that many BG clones?
2 PoEs and P:K are only games of note in last 10 years or so and PoEs relation to its spiritual successor is questionable at best since its system and setting has nothing to do with D&D.

Fucking Dragon Ages.
Fucking NWN 2.
Fucking Drakensangs.
Fuckings Stagland game.
Fucking Tyranny.
Fucking D:OSes are just BG in tb disguise.

 

[Darth Canoli]

I wonder where you actually found that many BG clones?

• NWN x2
• IWD x2
• PoE x2
• BG2

And so many more Real-Turds with Pause games out there we shouldn't even name.

 

[Daidre]

I liked BG 2 when i played it like 15 years ago.
But i never asked for that many BG clones.

I wonder where you actually found that many BG clones?
2 PoEs and P:K are only games of note in last 10 years or so and PoEs relation to its spiritual successor is questionable at best since its system and setting has nothing to do with D&D.

Fucking Dragon Ages.
Fucking NWN 2.
Fucking Drakensangs.
Fuckings Stagland game.
Fucking Tyranny.
Fucking D:OSes are just BG in tb disguise.

Ok, any RPG released in last 20 years, no matter if it is TB, RT or RTWP is secretly BG in disguise. Even if it uses German's PnP system, single-character controlled, in 3d or sports fooking MMORPG cooldowns.

Can't argue with this logic.

 

[Gregz]

He utterly refuses to iterate using his own words what irks him so much about it, always instead quoting or linking what other people have written about it. Notice how everything written in op is in quotations?

You're a liar.

For the fourth time, here are my Steam and Codex reviews

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/is-kinkmaker-gud.126707/#post-6055444

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.p...2019-review-thread.127606/page-2#post-6134107

 

[Trashos]

At least the bf2 story felt centered on me. In kingmaker I felt like a non-entity. It felt like a burden to be given control of that state, couldn't even appoint a private guard of hot babes or crush the peasantry with unreasonable taxes.

You can crush the the peasantry with taxes.

 

[Daze]

I liked BG 2 when i played it like 15 years ago.
But i never asked for that many BG clones.

I wonder where you actually found that many BG clones?
2 PoEs and P:K are only games of note in last 10 years or so and PoEs relation to its spiritual successor is questionable at best since its system and setting has nothing to do with D&D.

Fucking Dragon Ages.
Fucking NWN 2.
Fucking Drakensangs.
Fuckings Stagland game.
Fucking Tyranny.
Fucking D:OSes are just BG in tb disguise.

Ok, any RPG released in last 20 years, no matter if it is TB, RT or RTWP is secretly BG in disguise. Even if it uses German's PnP system, single-character controlled, in 3d or sports fooking MMORPG cooldowns.

Can't argue with this logic.

Nah from my list only D:OSes are the outlier.
But the whole "mah epic 120 hour journey" and stupid fucking companions that don't shut up are clearly BG inspired.
Too much BG for me.

 

[Crispy]

My point still stands, Gregz. Why couldn't you leave your opinions on the game alone then? Why start a new thread quoting other people? You could have just bumped your own "review" and said something silly like, "I still feel the same way about this game!"

It's almost as if you're ashamed of your own opinion or something. Or unsure of it.

 

[Pink Eye]

I liked BG 2 when i played it like 15 years ago.
But i never asked for that many BG clones.

I wonder where you actually found that many BG clones?
2 PoEs and P:K are only games of note in last 10 years or so and PoEs relation to its spiritual successor is questionable at best since its system and setting has nothing to do with D&D.

Fucking Dragon Ages.
Fucking NWN 2.
Fucking Drakensangs.
Fuckings Stagland game.
Fucking Tyranny.
Fucking D:OSes are just BG in tb disguise.

Ok, any RPG released in last 20 years, no matter if it is TB, RT or RTWP is secretly BG in disguise. Even if it uses German's PnP system, single-character controlled, in 3d or sports fooking MMORPG cooldowns.

Can't argue with this logic.

Nah from my list only D:OSes are the outlier.
But the whole "mah epic 120 hour journey" and stupid fucking companions that don't shut up are clearly BG inspired.
Too much BG for me.

>But the whole "mah epic 120 hour journey" and stupid fucking companions that don't shut up are clearly BG inspired.
Anon, I, uh, what?

 

[Daidre]

But the whole mah epic 120 hour journey and stupid fucking companions that don't shut up are clearly BG inspired.

Wow, so Japanese made whole subgenre out of BG Clones! These crazies were so crazy that they even started 20 years before BG had been made!

 

[Pink Eye]

My point still stands, Gregz. Why couldn't you leave your opinions on the game alone then? Why start a new thread quoting other people? You could have just bumped your own "review" and said something silly like, "I still feel the same way about this game!"

It's almost as if you're ashamed of your own opinion or something. Or unsure of it.

I love Pathfinder! I don't need to let other people know why I love Pathfinder. I can write you an entire thesis of why I love Pathfinder, and why I think it's a Baldur's Gate spiritual successor.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

So... as one of only two people to actually complete this game on Challenging or above (according to Steam stats), I would like to say that I approve of OP's message, though I feel like he does not go nearly far enough to shit on the Turdfinder: Shitmaker.

 

[Daze]

But the whole mah epic 120 hour journey and stupid fucking companions that don't shut up are clearly BG inspired.

Wow, so Japanese made whole subgenre out of BG Clones! These crazies were so crazy that they even started 20 years before BG had been made!

3 years before Wizardry 1? Wow. Ahead of their time.