Decline Wrath of the Righteous is even worse than Kingmaker (which was already shit)

[luj1]

Play Solasta NWN. KotC 2*

*'s user-made modules.

**

***

 

[luj1]

Trying to beat porky's stupid takes? You're not even close.

This thread is literally the only time Porky's been right lol.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Every step you take...
And every move you make...
Porky will be right...

 

[HeatEXTEND]

keeping track of torch supplies on a round by round basis, while yelling at you about how important it is to keep strict time records

That's half the fun

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Wrath Of The Trash Mobs, more like.

I hope that one day people aren't merely going to call out games for supposedly being "too short". But the opposite of that also. Like, developers clearly working on shoestring budgets. And still aiming for LOTR kinda epics. Which as to RPGs has been easy going ever since. And Owlcat have mastered the arts. Copypasta mob combat FTW.

Prime Roger Corman may have been able to tell it all about the fall of the Roman Empire with nothing but five Dollars, two extras and a sage bush. Owlcat aren't Corman though. I swear that if they ever would swap their "quantity over quality" ethos, they'd be in for a masterpiece. Just take a look at their release roster -- churning out 80-100 hours campaigns, numerous DLC and Enhanceds as if they'd be rolling these things straight from the Eastern European CRPG Factory Line.

 

[MjKorz]

There are things to agree with in this thread and things to disagree.

First of all, complaints about ability damage and corruption are just casulbabble. I won't even comment on such trite except for a reminder that the game has multiple segments where you pass the point of no return (Colyphyr, Threshold) and thus don't get the luxury to spam rest in the following areas that act as mini attrition gauntlets. They're not actually hard, but technically you do have to deal with finite resources and regardless of whether you like it or not, this is a variation of usual gameplay that has no consequences for wasting resources. I have nothing against endurance gauntlets.

The problem of prebuffing being tedious is impossible to disagree with, there is a reason BubbleButts - the cheat that supposedly automates buffing (not that I've ever used it) is one of the most commonly used and constantly mentioned cheats. It gets especially painful when you're prebuffing via extended spells as a spontaneous caster who casts every metamagic enhanced spell as a full round (6 seconds) action.

Stat bloat and overabundance of trash mobs are also legit complaints that I fully agree with. Stat bloat is a direct consequence of Owlcat being incapable of designing encounters that create challenge via synergistic enemy party compositions, target prioritization, environmental hazards (like traps), terrain and other factors. Owlcat games need less encounters with more challenge and more elaborate tactical scenarios, not piles of bloated trash mobs mindlessly scattered all over the place.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Stat bloat and overabundance of trash mobs are also legit complaints that I fully agree with. Stat bloat is a direct consequence of Owlcat being incapable of designing encounters that create challenge via synergistic enemy party compositions, target prioritization, environmental hazards (like traps), terrain and other factors. Owlcat games need less encounters with more challenge and more elaborate tactical scenarios, not piles of bloated trash mobs mindlessly scattered all over the place.

Yeah. System depth without encounter design to support it is the definition of being hollow. Kind of like investing into a top of the line home cinema -- and then watching nothing but generic Michael Bay movies on it. On the occasion you can see the potential (Owlcat can do decent encounters too, whenever they actually TRY). But it still remains a promise forever unfulfilled. Whilst encounter design is the most blatant issue holding Owlcat back: I'd argue this goes a little deeper. That "quantity over quality" approach rears its head over many a place. Mostly it's an annoyance though rather than a fully on grind.

Like a couple walls of text that obviously rarely saw an editing pass. Quests that seem finalized as they came, rather than being iterated upon (or thrown out). Ideas that must have looked good on paper or at an early stage of development -- but then stay in the final product even when they prove rather meh. Example of this: The mandatory rotating of the camera to navigate the demon city in WOTR. I'm sure this looked fine and novel. But as the final critical path tasks you with traversing that city and doing errands over the place, it grows tiresome quickly. In particular if you consider that you're moving through a city separated by loading bars on top of it.

If I'd take a guess, it's in the Owclat business model. It seems they have to keep pumping and releasing, or go bust. Reports of them rapidly expanding the company to do several projects simultaneously, rather than having teams working on but a chosen few, would fit that theory. All I can say for sure is that I've never felt as tired as quickly of ever playing a CRPG as with theirs. You're teased with being served a really nice role-playing meal. But then they switch into "canned Solyanka mode" again, and your belly aches.

 

[the mole]

my issue with the core difficulty, is that people said even though the game says these are the x1.0 stats that monsters have, and you're playing on pissbaby mode by asking the game to not crit you, or do 0.8 damage to you or have 0.8 stats

obviously anyone with working testosterone sees that as pussy shit and then if the core difficulty has nothing to do with the pen and paper stats then it's just gaslighting in the difficulty settings

other than that, yea git gud, I mean if there are no hardcore games for people must everything be easy, something that isn't afraid to be hard has a level of charm to it, although it can get into obnoxious territory

like, if you're going through kenebras and you're getting your ass kicked that should be a sign that the game is hard on purpose, it is what it is, you can complain about it, and say it's bs, but atleast it isn't mainstream handholding shit on the other hand

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Difficulty for the sake of difficulty is stupid. It's the other side of the difficulty horseshoe, the choice seems to be either modern handholding shit, where you feel like a retard playing, or some stupid Soulslike shit where you die 400 times to prove how hardcore you are.

Fuck this stupid choice. I want games with reasonable difficulty, games where you have to think and be active to play them, but also have fun and not die every 2 steps or deal with some bullshit. Old school games like Fallout, Gothic, Ultima Underworld, and Deus Ex were like that.

 

[the mole]

Difficulty for the sake of difficulty is stupid. It's the other side of the difficulty horseshoe, the choice seems to be either modern handholding shit, where you feel like a retard playing, or some stupid Soulslike shit where you die 400 times to prove how hardcore you are.

Fuck this stupid choice. I want games with reasonable difficulty, games where you have to think and be active to play them, but also have fun and not die every 2 steps or deal with some bullshit. Old school games like Fallout, Gothic, Ultima Underworld, and Deus Ex were like that.

wut, fallout had some bullshit, go west get raped by mutants, walk over a trap because nobody invests in traps, you saying you never reloaded fallout and got your ass kicked on your first playthrough of it, meh

I'm not going to disagree that pathfinder slightly goes over the top with 40ac enemies especially in act 2 before your builds might get to where you want them, but, I notice that if I die, I forgot to turn on spirit weapon, even when I had time to do it and I wasn't instadead, part of it I think is we're so used to games that aren't challenging that when a game finally is a challenge you aren't really ready for it, I do it all the time, I realize I'm not using all the tools the game gave me, then again, it isn't for everyone, I agree the stat bloat is probably too high, partially because the entire difficulty system is gaslighting

if core difficulty isn't 1x stats from tabletop it's just gaslighting, but when you realize the game isn't fucking around you can do things to adapt to it

dark souls is like normie tier so it has a pretty wide audience, the game is even built around you dying, so slightly more forgiving

 

[luj1]

Yeah. System depth without encounter design to support it is the definition of being hollow.

It's not even proper system depth, it's system bloat

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

This thread is retarded, both games are great.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Whenever Rogue Trader is on sale, all I have to do is calling up the most upvoted Steam review. And the Dark Urge is gone.

This may have well been the review of both of the Pathfinder Games. One does not simply spent hours on games he's never gonna finish (me with WOTR, Kingmaker I did finish after a timeout of six months, grinding through endless hordes of copypasta Wild Hunt ... no more).

Hopefully they're gonna listen. They have it in them. They just need to turn their ethos regarding quantity and quality around.

 

[Fedora Master]

Hopefully they're gonna listen. They have it in them. They just need to turn their ethos regarding quantity and quality around

As I told Owlcat_Eyler , it's become incredibly easy to predict exactly what sort of problems their games will have by now. It was okay to be sloppy and overambitious in Kingmaker, being their first title, but they clearly repeated the same mistakes in Wrath and now Rogue Trader.

 

[Naraya]

To quote the great Lilura, Poncefinder: Cuckmaker was utter crap, as Gregz eloquently outlined here a few years back.

Where is the post? I'd like to read it please.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Ask Greggypoo to link it, he has put me on triple ignore, with a chastity belt and wreath of garlic and a crucifix firmly stuck up his arse, all the works.

 

[onemananadhisdroid]

Hopefully they're gonna listen. They have it in them. They just need to turn their ethos regarding quantity and quality around

As I told Owlcat_Eyler , it's become incredibly easy to predict exactly what sort of problems their games will have by now. It was okay to be sloppy and overambitious in Kingmaker, being their first title, but they clearly repeated the same mistakes in Wrath and now Rogue Trader.

It's quite amusing that everybody is ranting about your average Ubisoft game. The kind of experience that is full of flags to collect, busywork to engage in and low-effort content to keep players under the illusion that they get their 70 bucks of worth. But whenever that happens in CRPGs... it's tolerable. Even WOTR's Codex review concludes like: "Alright, this game doubles down on the filler. But if ya like that kind of thing..."


Owlcat have it in them to move away from being that 70s to low 80s rate of approval kind of company. There's good stuff in there. With the Pathfinder games, they were even influenced by the travel and camping system of the Nordlandtrilogie, which is always incline. But if they can't do 80-140 hour games without the filler, they should just stop doing that. Even if their games were half of that, they'd still rival pretty much anything out there in terms of how long you can place your butt in front a computer before finishing them for good.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

What is it exactly that Owlcat have? Mediocre writing, shit design, boring trash combat, loading screens, sleep inducing meta-games (kingdom/army management), drowning in mountains of shit inventory, I don't recall a single thing worth admiring.

 

[Vermillion]

What is it exactly that Owlcat have? Mediocre writing, shit design, boring trash combat, loading screens, sleep inducing meta-games (kingdom/army management), drowning in mountains of shit inventory, I don't recall a single thing worth admiring.

Covering the niche of turning tabletop adventure paths into singleplayer games. I really wanted Rogue Trader to be good.

 

[MjKorz]

What is it exactly that Owlcat have? Mediocre writing, shit design, boring trash combat, loading screens, sleep inducing meta-games (kingdom/army management), drowning in mountains of shit inventory, I don't recall a single thing worth admiring.

Cuckshit "romances". You'd be surprised how many people are into that sort of thing.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

What is it exactly that Owlcat have? Mediocre writing, shit design, boring trash combat, loading screens, sleep inducing meta-games (kingdom/army management), drowning in mountains of shit inventory, I don't recall a single thing worth admiring.

Turn based combat.

 

[Lacrymas]

What is it exactly that Owlcat have? Mediocre writing, shit design, boring trash combat, loading screens, sleep inducing meta-games (kingdom/army management), drowning in mountains of shit inventory, I don't recall a single thing worth admiring.

Turn based combat.

A compromised version thereof.

 

[skaraher]

What is it exactly that Owlcat have? Mediocre writing, shit design, boring trash combat, loading screens, sleep inducing meta-games (kingdom/army management), drowning in mountains of shit inventory, I don't recall a single thing worth admiring.

Build autism

 

[Supermedo]

I'm going to trigger a lot of people here but:

I'm fine with trash mobs; they give you a bit of downtime, and very relaxing and the game doesn't lack difficult encounters, the optional ones are bullshit level hard.
And I'm not bothered by balance, especially in single-player games? I see people griping about some builds OP or underwhelming, but really, you can finish the game with any shit or broken build. So, what if you can one shot a boss? It's a single-player game. Just play with whatever build you find interesting.

 

[Haba]

Eh, after you've played hundreds of cRPGs, you kinda get tired of doing "trash mobs" aka having chores. Simple fights are necessary for the players to familiarise themselves with the combat system and making the player feel like they've grown stronger and better at the game. But I really don't want to devote tens of hours into repetitive filler.

You can't win everyone. There are a lot of people who like the grind, maybe Owlcat likes to cater to that crowd more. Though I find it likely that even the majority of that segment likes the idea of big lengthy games more than they actually like following through with their playthroughs...