Pathfinder Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition - now with turn-based combat

[ERYFKRAD]

Kill All Fey

I'd buy that

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Max Damage The player is mostly coping with crisis. It's the birth-pangs of carving a kingdom out of a cursed land. Expanding territory and then fortifying/building settlements is about all that can really be done in that stage. Those decisions seem mediocre, but settlement placement and buildout is crucial. Not just for loot, but kingdom stats, rest/resupply points, and the all important teleporters.

Pitax definitely shows signs that Owlcat was losing momentum. I strongly believe that the undead and barbarian chapters should have been cut entirely. Instead, The River Kings chapter should have immediately followed conclusion of The Bloom. If they wanted an invading army, it could have simply been Pitax's. That would have been more thematically sensible than the barbarian horde. We kept hearing about Pitax's threat all game, but it was mostly absent until you're suddenly raiding the palace.

I would have kept Vordekai's Tomb has a side quest or random dungeon though. While KM has quite a few good dungeons, VTomb is probably the best.

 

[Desiderius]

Any break from adventuring is a mini game. It's a mini game baked into the game whose meat and potatoes is being an excellent successor to BG. The overarching theme is obtaining a kingdom and managing it but the management alone has nothing to do with enjoying the game for what it is. Did you dislike the first act because you had no kingdom to manage?

What do you gain by engaging in a management mini game that you wouldn't gain from actually questing? You could also defeat monsters to obtain them and/or craft powerful items yourself.

Just sounds like you're trying to justify it being there. It's a mechanic I could do without.

It's... not a break. The adventure is making a kingdom. You can't murderhobo your way to that. Yes, I did miss it during ch1 which is why on some later playthroughs I turboed thru it, but it makes sense that you murderhobo ch1 because there's already another baron in place you've got to take out.

I am crafting powerful items myself, by skillfully marshalling resources to acquire territory and attract artisans to my kingdom. Not coincidentally in order to do so I also have to do the actual questing you love.

I don't need to justify it being there. It is the game. Sounds like you're trying to justify sucking at it.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Every time they tack on a kingdom management mechanic into a crpg it feels like they're trying to make you play a phone game in the middle of your adventure. I used to think I disliked it because it's a parting from your usual murderhobo type stuff, but it's also because it gives you chores that seriously affect the pacing of your gameplay. It says a lot that they gave you the choice to basically never fail at the management minigame. I remember it being awful at communicating things to you.

 

[LannTheStupid]

the game whose meat and potatoes is being an excellent successor to BG.

Who told you that?

The lead designer Alexander Mishulin surely did not think this. The leading people of Owlcat Games have a long and decorated history as Russian game developers, the name Nival is quite famous in the Russian speaking countries. Even now, their Allods Online receives the boost in popularity after Blizzard left the Russian market.

So I do not see Kingmaker as "BG2 v.2.0" in the eyes of its developers. The marketing, oriented to the West - sure. But being mislead by marketing campaign is nothing new.

 

[LannTheStupid]

And also, I would say that when someone sees "Owlcat Games" as the game developers one has to expect some kind of strategic layer to be present in the game. They have Kingdom Management in Kingmaker. They have mini-HoM&M in Wrath of the Righteous. They will have spaceship combat and galaxy exploration in Rogue Trader.

So either ignore their games or be prepared to miss, like, 20-25% of the content you paid for, being it in money or in traffic and time.

 

[KainenMorden]

Any break from adventuring is a mini game. It's a mini game baked into the game whose meat and potatoes is being an excellent successor to BG. The overarching theme is obtaining a kingdom and managing it but the management alone has nothing to do with enjoying the game for what it is. Did you dislike the first act because you had no kingdom to manage?

What do you gain by engaging in a management mini game that you wouldn't gain from actually questing? You could also defeat monsters to obtain them and/or craft powerful items yourself.

Just sounds like you're trying to justify it being there. It's a mechanic I could do without.

It's... not a break. The adventure is making a kingdom. You can't murderhobo your way to that. Yes, I did miss it during ch1 which is why on some later playthroughs I turboed thru it, but it makes sense that you murderhobo ch1 because there's already another baron in place you've got to take out.

I am crafting powerful items myself, by skillfully marshalling resources to acquire territory and attract artisans to my kingdom. Not coincidentally in order to do so I also have to do the actual questing you love.

I don't need to justify it being there. It is the game. Sounds like you're trying to justify sucking at it.

What about on your first run in Ch.1? Did you play it for the management mini game or because it played so similar to other crpgs you enjoyed?

Thanks for proving my point, there's no reason for the mechanic to exist and it's not what draws players to the game. To the contrary, it drove players away which is a real shame.

They tried to reinvent the wheel but bit off their nose to spite their face.

They could have remade a number of PF modules that didn't include kingdom management and it would have been just as good, if not better.

It probably would have sold better too. I'm still taking the time to learn the system but I'll never see the appeal to it.

 

[KainenMorden]

And also, I would say that when someone sees "Owlcat Games" as the game developers one has to expect some kind of strategic layer to be present in the game. They have Kingdom Management in Kingmaker. They have mini-HoM&M in Wrath of the Righteous. They will have spaceship combat and galaxy exploration in Rogue Trader.

So either ignore their games or be prepared to miss, like, 20-25% of the content you paid for, being it in money or in traffic and time.

Oh, I see, so it's another game in the vein of the classic Russian dnd crpgs that are rtwp.

Thanks for clearing that up.

I'm willing to deal with it but it doesn't belong in a crpg. It's too different from what made people fans of the genre.

They should just release a management game and see how that sells.

 

[Max Damage]

Mr. Magniloquent Pitax taking place after Season of Bloom would be nice, but KM would still suck. Kingdom stats are abstract and do nothing except being health bars, there's nothing to buy outside of capital no matter how much you upgrade, and you can rest anywhere on the map for free if you have Nature. I guess teleports are sort of nice, but how often do you return to Varnhold, for example? Most of the map you explore once and be done with it, also makes those optional scouting assignments pointless.

 

[KainenMorden]

https://medium.com/expload/pathfinder-kingmaker-a-story-behind-the-game-6fc11e05e8fd

"Pathfinder: Kingmaker is a classic isometric RPG with real-time combats and a tactical pause, inspired by Pillars of Eternity and Baldur’s Gate. "

That's according to Mishulin. It's directly influenced by BG and obviously the "tactical pause" isn't the only part of BG that influenced this game.

 

[LannTheStupid]

I'm willing to deal with it but it doesn't belong in a crpg. It's too different from what made people fans of the genre.

It does not matter in the end. Wrath sold 1 million copies, and it seems Owlcat Games are OK with it.

Also, Rogue Trader will be exclusively turn-based. Which means I will wait for a while before purchasing it, because I will not play the game with turn-based combat without interruptions.

Also also, the turn-based mode is present in both Pathfinder games.

 

[Mr. Magniloquent]

Mr. Magniloquent Pitax taking place after Season of Bloom would be nice, but KM would still suck. Kingdom stats are abstract and do nothing except being health bars, there's nothing to buy outside of capital no matter how much you upgrade, and you can rest anywhere on the map for free if you have Nature. I guess teleports are sort of nice, but how often do you return to Varnhold, for example? Most of the map you explore once and be done with it, also makes those optional scouting assignments pointless.

I get where you're coming from.

Logistics are a bid deal in KM, and they're between everything you want. Teleports aren't nice to have, they're essential. Camping supplies might not cost much to rest, but hauling your loot back to towns costs a tremendous amount of time. Quests events popping up hither and thither will have you running everywhere. More time. More travel comes with more resting, which also costs time. Loot is bought indirectly through artisans. Teleporters are established via regional expansion. Your money is spent accelerating expansion to get both. Even still, you should be flush. Especially after VTomb. Pitax has some choice shopping. Chapter 2 is strenuous, but if you can put in the work then, it goes from being a burden and turns into an asset just before or when the bloom starts.

If a player isn't particularly interested in the kingdom building fantasy, it can feel like an impediment. I liked it, but I'm hating the HoMM-lite in WotR. It makes me more sympathetic. I have two major complaints with kingdom management. 1) Unlocks are byzantine. I don't recall the player being given any actionable information on the arbitrary gates to unlock regions or advisors despite being highly specific. 2) Advisers. The MC can't handle any events and NPCs can only fill certain roles. It would make sense if they had strengths/weaknesses, but prevented from a roll entirely? Unforgivable.

 

[Max Damage]

Teleporting would've felt like a big deal if you actually had to defend your villages/towns, or supress rebelions. In practice, you don't have to visit anything but your capital ever once you've done artisan quests and claimed resource points, so all it does is save a bit of time. That's my problem with KM, how little you get out of it despite all the effort it requires, and you're ruler only in fluff. It doesn't matter how big your military and arcane numbers are, you will never get to order your army to attack other kingdom or even just help a little with defending Bald Hilltop - there is no army, only endless card events that shuffle your stats up or down a bit. Even "economy" doesn't do shit - you get weekly BP mostly through advisor ranks, and there's no way to convert BP into gold, only the other way round. I'm not even going to get into costs of curse researches, late game building or upgrades, shit's useless either way.

 

[Lios]

I respect trying new stuff in an old formula, so while I'm not the biggest fan of Kingdom Management, I consider the game one of the best crpgs of the last 10 years easily. KM has depth and is actually well implemented, for the kind of tool that it is, mechanically.
The thing is, I wanted an adventure, where I will visit exotic settlements, browse their stores, loot many bigger and smaller dungeons around them, talk with questgivers scattered inside houses/castles/plains etc, find pieces of artifacts to assemble ancient weapons (and finding them being an adventure, or at least a eureka, in itself), you get my point. This game does not offer an adventure of this type.
What the game does offer though, it offers in spades.

 

[Desiderius]

What about on your first run in Ch.1? Did you play it for the management mini game or because it played so similar to other crpgs you enjoyed?

Thanks for proving my point, there's no reason for the mechanic to exist and it's not what draws players to the game. To the contrary, it drove players away which is a real shame.

They tried to reinvent the wheel but bit off their nose to spite their face.

They could have remade a number of PF modules that didn't include kingdom management and it would have been just as good, if not better.

It probably would have sold better too. I'm still taking the time to learn the system but I'll never see the appeal to it.

I bought it five months after release to give time for the bugs to die down. Part of the reason I bought it was because I saw vids of other people doing the KM and was intrigued by it. I sucked at it at first too, in no small part because I fell for the memes and was doing it badly. Then I tried different things and got better. Same with the combat.

Thanks for proving my point, there's no reason for the mechanic to exist and it's not what draws players to the game.

Suuuuuck my dick with this shit. Whoever you've fooled with assigning demonstrably false mental states to people isn't flying here, cumbucket. Try again.

There's a lot of things you'll never see with this psychopathic approach.

I'll poast a KM guide later so you can get a taste of not completely sucking at it, which you would need to make an evaluation anyone cares about hearing.

 

[Desiderius]

Mr. Magniloquent Pitax taking place after Season of Bloom would be nice, but KM would still suck. Kingdom stats are abstract and do nothing except being health bars, there's nothing to buy outside of capital no matter how much you upgrade, and you can rest anywhere on the map for free if you have Nature. I guess teleports are sort of nice, but how often do you return to Varnhold, for example? Most of the map you explore once and be done with it, also makes those optional scouting assignments pointless.

I get where you're coming from.

Logistics are a bid deal in KM, and they're between everything you want. Teleports aren't nice to have, they're essential. Camping supplies might not cost much to rest, but hauling your loot back to towns costs a tremendous amount of time. Quests events popping up hither and thither will have you running everywhere. More time. More travel comes with more resting, which also costs time. Loot is bought indirectly through artisans. Teleporters are established via regional expansion. Your money is spent accelerating expansion to get both. Even still, you should be flush. Especially after VTomb. Pitax has some choice shopping. Chapter 2 is strenuous, but if you can put in the work then, it goes from being a burden and turns into an asset just before or when the bloom starts.

If a player isn't particularly interested in the kingdom building fantasy, it can feel like an impediment. I liked it, but I'm hating the HoMM-lite in WotR. It makes me more sympathetic. I have two major complaints with kingdom management. 1) Unlocks are byzantine. I don't recall the player being given any actionable information on the arbitrary gates to unlock regions or advisors despite being highly specific. 2) Advisers. The MC can't handle any events and NPCs can only fill certain roles. It would make sense if they had strengths/weaknesses, but prevented from a roll entirely? Unforgivable.

Region unlocks are shown on the Region pop-up. EDIT: checked and they do not. Can find on wiki. Shld be in game I think - would help give direction in KM.

Companions handle the advisor roles and each has different strengths and weaknesses along with different preferred approaches.

 

[LannTheStupid]

What about on your first run in Ch.1? Did you play it for the management mini game or because it played so similar to other crpgs you enjoyed?

Thanks for proving my point, there's no reason for the mechanic to exist and it's not what draws players to the game. To the contrary, it drove players away which is a real shame.

What if the main enjoyment for me was seeing peasants bowing down before my baron after all the hard work and dungeon crawling in Act 1? And then the ability to build gallows in the town?

See, Owlcat Games have something for everyone.

 

[Cael]

The big complaint about the stupid kingdom management thing is that you can't set someone to, say, absorb a territory without your toon being directly involved. Since when has a king need to personally lead a territorial conquest? Just send the general. That's his job. In fact, every one of the tasks that you have to spend days on personally does not need your personal touch. On the other hand, they do not allow you to personally take care of events when you are out of advisors... why? You are the leader, after all. "Sorry, Your Majesty, but you are not allowed to speak with the diplomat from another nation because that's not your job."

 

[Average Manatee]

The whole kingdom management gameplay is designed around that. If you break down the time your characters spend based on the in-game clock it would look something like:

Days spent fighting or resting to get ready for a new fight: 2%
Days spent going back or forth between areas on the map: 8%
Days spent doing kingdom tasks that pass time like ranking up advisors, annexing land, or certain improvements: 90%

You'd need to fundamentally rework how kingdom management works without 90% of the time being taken up by the (essentially) required kingdom tasks to keep up with kingdom event difficulty. Most players probably run out of kingdom tasks at the tail end of the game and end up spamming the skip time button for like 5-10 mins straight to finish the game.

My biggest issue is just how much IRL time it takes to do everything. The UI should be snappy and have no load times. Kingdom management could just as easily be a 2D screen rather than an in-game throne room. Compare kingdom management in Kingmaker vs. base management in X-Com.

 

[Desiderius]

The whole kingdom management gameplay is designed around that. If you break down the time your characters spend based on the in-game clock it would look something like:

Days spent fighting or resting to get ready for a new fight: 2%
Days spent going back or forth between areas on the map: 8%
Days spent doing kingdom tasks that pass time like ranking up advisors, annexing land, or certain improvements: 90%

You'd need to fundamentally rework how kingdom management works without 90% of the time being taken up by the (essentially) required kingdom tasks to keep up with kingdom event difficulty. Most players probably run out of kingdom tasks at the tail end of the game and end up spamming the skip time button for like 5-10 mins straight to finish the game.

My biggest issue is just how much IRL time it takes to do everything. The UI should be snappy and have no load times. Kingdom management could just as easily be a 2D screen rather than an in-game throne room. Compare kingdom management in Kingmaker vs. base management in X-Com.

They’ve streamlined a good bit of that but absolutely agree and same with Wrath. Will be interesting to see if that’s a focus in Rogue Trader like (excellent) Tutorial was in Wrath.

If they get it right in RT then you’ll see people backmodding it into Wrath/P:K, with Owlcat *maybe* patching it in like TB mod in P:K.

 

[KainenMorden]

What about on your first run in Ch.1? Did you play it for the management mini game or because it played so similar to other crpgs you enjoyed?

Thanks for proving my point, there's no reason for the mechanic to exist and it's not what draws players to the game. To the contrary, it drove players away which is a real shame.

They tried to reinvent the wheel but bit off their nose to spite their face.

They could have remade a number of PF modules that didn't include kingdom management and it would have been just as good, if not better.

It probably would have sold better too. I'm still taking the time to learn the system but I'll never see the appeal to it.

I bought it five months after release to give time for the bugs to die down. Part of the reason I bought it was because I saw vids of other people doing the KM and was intrigued by it. I sucked at it at first too, in no small part because I fell for the memes and was doing it badly. Then I tried different things and got better. Same with the combat.

Thanks for proving my point, there's no reason for the mechanic to exist and it's not what draws players to the game.

Suuuuuck my dick with this shit. Whoever you've fooled with assigning demonstrably false mental states to people isn't flying here, cumbucket. Try again.

There's a lot of things you'll never see with this psychopathic approach.

I'll poast a KM guide later so you can get a taste of not completely sucking at it, which you would need to make an evaluation anyone cares about hearing.

Haha are you serious? So you think the management draws people to the game?

Come on now, there's no way you believe that.

Speaking of psychopathic, it's funny, as soon as your toy is criticized, you fly into a rage like a scorned child.

 

[LannTheStupid]

You'd need to fundamentally rework how kingdom management works without 90% of the time being taken up by the (essentially) required kingdom tasks to keep up with kingdom event difficulty. Most players probably run out of kingdom tasks at the tail end of the game and end up spamming the skip time button for like 5-10 mins straight to finish the game.

It's funny.

I was missing Kingdom Management in the Vordakai's Tomb. Which is, arguably, the longest uninterruptible dungeon crawl in the game. Maybe with the exception of the last dungeon, but there is no kingdom at that moment.

 

[Cael]

The whole kingdom management gameplay is designed around that. If you break down the time your characters spend based on the in-game clock it would look something like:

Days spent fighting or resting to get ready for a new fight: 2%
Days spent going back or forth between areas on the map: 8%
Days spent doing kingdom tasks that pass time like ranking up advisors, annexing land, or certain improvements: 90%

You'd need to fundamentally rework how kingdom management works without 90% of the time being taken up by the (essentially) required kingdom tasks to keep up with kingdom event difficulty. Most players probably run out of kingdom tasks at the tail end of the game and end up spamming the skip time button for like 5-10 mins straight to finish the game.

My biggest issue is just how much IRL time it takes to do everything. The UI should be snappy and have no load times. Kingdom management could just as easily be a 2D screen rather than an in-game throne room. Compare kingdom management in Kingmaker vs. base management in X-Com.

The other problem is how very few things is actually worth doing/building. Half the treaties lose you money. 99% of buildings aren't worth the money. You just don't get back enough for the investment. It is ALWAYS lose. That is what makes kingdom management a chore, not a game. It is worse than busywork.

 

[Desiderius]

as soon as your toy is criticized, you fly into a rage like a scorned child.

It's not my game. It's one I enjoy and want to do well so other people will buy it and the devs can afford to make more and so other devs will make similar games.

You lied to to the forum in a way so transparent you insulted the intelligence of anyone reading your comment. I returned the insult in a way just as unmistakable so you wouldn't think you'd gotten away with it. It's a shitty way to act.

So you think the management draws people to the game?

Come on now, there's no way you believe that.

Now you're intimating that I'm lying about my own subjective experience that I've transparently explained? Not good.

Yes, it drew me. A lot of people out there like kingdom-building stuff so probably drew them initially too. Implementation wasn't great (as I said I didn't like it at first) and people like you were already getting the brainworms started so people let themselves get talked out of figuring it out and stayed bad at it so didn't like it. People never gave Wrath Crusade a chance because the mindless pile-on was so so sweet but that wears off after awhile and Wrath sales have done well so they'll probably find a softer target on which to feed.

If RT gets it right then there will be a lot of people who forget that they hated it. Just like there's a lot of people now who forget that they loved Oblivion when it came out or whatever.

 

[Desiderius]

The whole kingdom management gameplay is designed around that. If you break down the time your characters spend based on the in-game clock it would look something like:

Days spent fighting or resting to get ready for a new fight: 2%
Days spent going back or forth between areas on the map: 8%
Days spent doing kingdom tasks that pass time like ranking up advisors, annexing land, or certain improvements: 90%

You'd need to fundamentally rework how kingdom management works without 90% of the time being taken up by the (essentially) required kingdom tasks to keep up with kingdom event difficulty. Most players probably run out of kingdom tasks at the tail end of the game and end up spamming the skip time button for like 5-10 mins straight to finish the game.

My biggest issue is just how much IRL time it takes to do everything. The UI should be snappy and have no load times. Kingdom management could just as easily be a 2D screen rather than an in-game throne room. Compare kingdom management in Kingmaker vs. base management in X-Com.

The other problem is how very few things is actually worth doing/building. Half the treaties lose you money. 99% of buildings aren't worth the money. You just don't get back enough for the investment. It is ALWAYS lose. That is what makes kingdom management a chore, not a game. It is worse than busywork.

Some things are better than they look (things snowball if you use marginal advantages like buildings to get things unlocked early) but on the whole this is correct. None of the cost reduction projects are worth it (going the other direction the loan really is) and very few of the Region upgrades, some of which appear to have never been implemented at all. Add that to endgame buildings doing nothing and it's a real missed opportunity.

The rewards of doing KM well are very much there, but yeah most of the tools at your disposal don't meaningfully further that goal.