Pathfinder: Kingmaker

[Crice]

What a gamble this will be. My oldest has been patiently waiting for this to come out.  




https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WY2Ynxnh...e=youtu.be

[Vllad]

Only 40 hours of content?

These old RPG's were good but at 40 hours I could play that through in a week and be done with it.

[Slamz]

The impression I got was more of an open ended sandbox. Although maybe like Fallout (or so I hear, never played it) the "open ended sandbox construction" part of the game isn't filled out enough to stand on its own so you end up with a game on rails and "some construction" on the side.

It would be interesting to get something like an RPG Rimworld. Something a little more zoomed in with even more attention to detail on the characters and the combat, with more world exploring while maintaining a focus on construction. Rimworld has a lot of great concepts but I might actually be done with it finally because in the end I find the combat portion of it to be entirely unfulfilling.

[Zouji]

You could always play Cataclysm. Plus it is free. The person that has created the majority of the content for the game takes lots of delight in hearing people's stories of dying horribly in the game.

[Crice]

So far the game seems like D&D on the PC. The character creation is spot on. This reminds me of the first fallout game but better. The game does a good job at making you feel like you are in the story but it gets rather repetitive.

[Slamz]

How much is this game sandbox versus "on rails".

i.e. I thought Witcher 3 was a great story but very much "on rails" in terms of progressing through levels and areas whereas Elder Scrolls games tend to be more sandboxxy.

[Crice]

I have been playing this game a bit and really enjoy it. I suggest making your own character and not picking one of the pre-made. This is very D&Dish... which it is supposed to be... They did a great job. It gets a little redundant IMO traveling around but the thrill of wanting to get to the next level keeps me going. I suck at reviews. I am still not happy I paid $70 for it but I like to support what I feel are "out of the box thinking" games.

I just got to level 4 and choice web as one of my spells.

[Vllad]

I just got it for $39 on steam? Why did you pay $70?

[Crice]

My son wanted the pets that came with the other edition.

[Skelas]

Reviews are all over the place. Many people saying it's crazy hard.  Are they just being little bitches? Also, the time limits sound annoying, are they?

[Vllad]

Their are options to make the game very difficult that make more sense than your paradox easy, medium and hard game settings. You can customize the difficulty settings but in a nut shell if you are a caster and get engaged in melee, you can be one shotted. If you are a fighter and get caught against a mage you can be one shotted.

It is an unforgiving game if you play it like you would an arcade game or Diablo. Just running around munching on things is not part of this game in general which I could see being a turn off.

I am betting this would appeal to the Diablo players but it is way more cerebral than Diablo unless you want to die a lot so Diablo players may reject it. I can see why this is not the game for your average player.

It reminds me very much of another game I just recently played. Dominions 5. Dominions 5 looks simple to play until you get your assed handed to multiple times in a row and then you start to realize maybe this may require some actual strategy.

I am not sure this will be a popular game because of the reasons I list above. That and I am not sure there is enough content for the difficulty. Playing Witcher 3 on hard is probably the more attractive option given the content but I figured I would play it out and find out. For me the most important thing is, if you set it up correctly the games can be very difficult which I am more than good with. Otherwise it would get boring.

[Crice]

Reviews are all over the place. Many people saying it's crazy hard.  Are they just being little bitches? Also, the time limits sound annoying, are they?

It was annoying difficult but I feel that is because I didn't look into damage types, resist and such. It takes a brain and some strategy. Time limit? Not sure what they are talking about. Maybe the time they give you to kill the Stag Lord? I didn't have any issues and had plenty of days left over. The story line is good and somewhat of a choose your own adventure.

[Veraphim]

I watched a couple hours worth of "Let's Play" and other than the better graphics, I don't see much difference between this and Neverwinter Nights(the 2002 Bioware one) or even Baldur's Gate for that matter.

What's the multiplayer like?

[Crice]

It's single player. I have companions I equip and either have an AI run or I manage the leveling up choices, that's it.

I just got into the story portion of becoming a baron. I now have a new learning curve of running the stolen lands. I hire advisory peeps and assign them to different tasks within my little shit hole kingdom. I have a build mode to add structures that do various things. When becoming a baron I had to choose between 3 advisors. All 3 have different alignments, chaotic, good and etc... now back to figuring out how to run this kingdom.

[Crice]

What do you think of the game? Little repetitive? Hard? Easy? Once you kill the stag lord and become a baron it all changes.

[Vllad]

Well the thing I don't think people are getting in this game is up until the point you kill the Stag Lord it is just like Baldur's Gate. However once you become a Baron and own your own Kingdom it is now more like Rimworld.

The biggest complaint about the game in general is "once I got my own Kingdom it failed and now the game is over"

So this game is like Baldur's Gate in how you execute the D&D portion of the game but it is primarily about using D&D mechanics to keep your realm from sinking. My first Kingdom went down in flames and I have to start over. When the Kingdom dies so does your character. Game Over Man!

Like Rimworld (which I was never a fan of the randomness of that game) you have a Kingdom and random shit happens that you have to manage in order to keep your realm running. However I find that since I am developing characters in a way that makes sense to me (D&D Style) and I am dealing with the issues D&D style I am perfectly happy to play Rimworld D&D.

When your Kingdom is running ok you can go out an adventure some more.

To give you an example.

I thought my kingdom was running fine so I went out across the map to chase down some quest and explore a bunch of the map I hadn't seen. When I got back I had numerous Troll raids that happened to my Kingdom that my advisors couldn't handle which sent my stability spiraling down to zero and my Kingdom collapsed.

You have to balance sitting at home running the Kingdom and going out to adventure (leveling up, getting gold etc).

On my second play through I had a Kobold attack on my Kingdom that I just flat out lost and died in. That immediately ended my game.

So... I really have no idea just how bad the events get or how random they are. I have no idea if really it is just a matter of time before your Kingdom fails. I guess it depends on the difficulty you play it. However I can tell you that from my perspective this is Rimworld D&D. That is my take anyway. It depends on your settings but in general I don't think it is as brutal as Rimworld but I don't have enough experience with the game to make the long term judgement of it.

It is entirely possible once you get the Kingdom management piece down that running a Kingdom is a piece of cake. I am not good enough at it now to judge that. However if that happened I would just up the difficulty anyway. Even if the Kingdom portion does eventually become mundane at higher levels I have no problem just going back to the Baldur's Gate of exploring and questing.

If you liked Rimworld you will like this game but not as much as Rimworld. If you didn't like Rimworld because of bullshit then you will like this game more than Rimworld.

If you love just RPG's like Never Winter or Bulders Gate and you hated Rimworld, I don't see that crowd liking this game. People don't want all the RPG investment to just go down in flames because the Kingdom failed.

[Slamz]

Well NOW it sounds more interesting.

Is it annoying having to kill the stag lord every time you restart? Rimworld was a game where your kingdom was really meant to go down in flames so restarting puts you right back into the game. You don't have to do some tutorial or quest that's the same at the start every time.

[Vllad]

Is it annoying having to kill the stag lord every time you restart? Rimworld was a game where your kingdom was really meant to go down in flames so restarting puts you right back into the game. You don't have to do some tutorial or quest that's the same at the start every time.

Is it annoying? 

Not for me. You have to do it every game but that mission is timed. You only have 83 game days to do it. If you fail game over. 

I have ended up taking every last day to get my guys leveled up fast enough before I go kill the Stag Lord. I would sum it up as you get 83 game days to get yourself ready to run your own realm. Technically if you really wanted to just get to it, it is only like 4 quest to kill the Stag Lord. However I find myself wanting to kill the Stag Lord at the list minute to give my characters more time to level up before realm time. The Stag Lord has ended up just being prep time and I want to take every last day to do it. 

Once it is Realm time you want the best party you can have to deal with shit. 

So you could just kill the Stag Lord like an hour into the game but once you get your realm I don't see that as optimizing your chances of surviving. 

You can't forget, this game kicks the shit out of you which is something other D&D (Bulders Gate, Never Winter, etc) games didn't do. I don't see this game being popular with a younger audience because even on normalish settings this game is difficult. 

You will find yourself optimizing those 83 game days.

[Crice]

I spent as much time as I could leveling before taking on the stag lord. Once you are a Baron it seems like I have lots of stuff to do. I set my city on easy mode so I didn't have to worry about it as much. I am busy clearing the region and following story line quests. I can't seem to kill the Troll King, he is a beast. I will try some different tactics.

The most entertaining part of the game for me is the choices you make decide the story line. I have been trying to stay Chaotic Neutral. I kill people I probably shouldn't but oh well.

[Zouji]

So you play the game just like you do your MMO's.

[Crice]

That is correct Zouji. You going to try Pathfinder when it goes on sale?

[Slamz]

Seems to me like the game isn't well laid out. You can have a string of easy battles and right around the corner will be a battle you have no chance what-so-ever of winning. There's no way to gauge it short of trying. I guess the intent is to make you come back later but the constant reloading due to "well I guess I can't go that way right now" is annoying.

I also frown on the initial lack of choice in companions. If you don't play as a wizard then you aren't getting a wizard.

[Vllad]

I also frown on the initial lack of choice in companions. If you don't play as a wizard then you aren't getting a wizard.

The companions you get to pretty much start with are:

Cleric (multiple past stag lord)
Tank (multiple past stag lord)
Barbarian
Bard (which can be played as a caster or rogue, your choice)
Rogue/Wizard (Octavia can be played as both or either since she is duel classed)
Fighter/Wizard (Regongar can be played as both or either since he is duel classed)

That pretty much covers the gambit depending on what you are. 

You have access to 11 by level 4 or 5.

Some of the ones that chose to go on without you later will return. This is your max amount of options assuming you don't get them killed permanently. Which you can do if they die while under deaths door. Deaths Door gets applied when they get killed in a combat and go below -5ish (not sure of the exact number), if they die again while under deaths door they die forever. You will see their portrait as red splashes of blood over it if they have Death's Door applied.

i.e., say you are fighting a tough mob and one of your guys gets critted and sits at -10. You heal them up during a battle and now deaths door is applied to them and they get critted again and go to -10. They are dead for good. They just become bones. I have no idea if raise the dead works.

[Dharus]

Raise dead works. You get a free one and the Bard can use the scroll. Just don't loose two guys because a raise dead scroll is 6000 gold.

There are so many story choices during the Stag Lord part and a large choice of party makeup. I'm having trouble just getting past Stag Lord because of it. I've restarted for fun several times.

This is like real old RPGs. You cannot just go out and complete a quest in one go sometimes. The fact that its a realm management game is a bonus.

[Slamz]

I just reload from quick save if someone dies. I guess I'd leave them dead if it was such a nasty fight that after the 8th try I won with one death, I'd keep it, but it's not really like Rimworld where you can absorb deaths.

But it IS like Rimworld where randomness is a huge factor and sometimes you just get plain unlucky. A guy with 4 hit points left gets crit for 30 and is instantly dead-dead. For that I just reload. It's basically cheating but I don't think you can play this game on challenging without heavy use of reload.

(I also reload anytime anyone sets off a web trap. Christ those things are annoying. It's quicker to reload and replay the entire battle than to wait for the fat dwarf cleric to work his way out of a web trap and god forbid you have to turn around and go through it again.)