KickStarter Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pre-DLC Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[ArchAngel]

Yay! Lvl 4. Now we have TWO smilodons in party.

That is such a noob choice. Smart players take Leopards.

 

[Reinhardt]

Why? I understand mastodons but why leopards?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Men, are portraits restricted when hiring custom mercs? trying to make a bloke or five but smug rogue face and some other portraits are missing.

 

[fantadomat]

Soooo Nok-Nok or Nig-nog?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Soooo Nok-Nok or Nig-nog?

Nig-nig.

 

[ScubaV]

According to Gog forums, endgame is still janky even after 1.1. Should I wait for 1.2? I really want to play this, but I'm willing to wait for a relatively bug-free full completion run.

 

[Serus]

Why? I understand mastodons but why leopards?

Leopards are quite good, at least on paper, as well. They are among the few pets with 2 additional, 3 total attacks, only smilodons get more. However leopards compared to smilodons:
- get better AC, eventually by a good few points,
- can trip enemies with main attack which is always nice as it can provide with AoOs for everyone within reach,
- after a few levels they should be using DEX for both attack and damage rolls (I think). And of curse DEX is also AC. This is handy when you want to buff them,
- and finally they end as medium sized instead of large. If you use several pets in addition to some characters on the frontline it might be a plus. Supposedly it can get too crowded while using several large pets in some situations.

However smilodons still get 4 additional attacks instead of "only" 2 and can't be beaten in terms of raw damage output so I wouldn't say that they are "noob choice". They're THE choice if raw damage potential is what you are looking for in a pet. If you want more AC and want the pet to contribute something to the party other than their own damage then leopard becomes very good. Personally I'd probably diversify if I had more than 1 pet in party. 1 smilodon + 1 leopard for example. But that's just me, not some objective truth. I'd like some diversity in my zoo.

 

[ArchAngel]

Why? I understand mastodons but why leopards?

Leopards are quite good, at least on paper, as well. They are among the few pets with 2 additional, 3 total attacks, only smilodons get more. However leopards compared to smilodons:
- get better AC, eventually by a good few points,
- can trip enemies with main attack which is always nice as it can provide with AoOs for everyone within reach,
- after a few levels they should be using DEX for both attack and damage rolls (I think). And of curse DEX is also AC. This is handy when you want to buff them,
- and finally they end as medium sized instead of large. If you use several pets in addition to some characters on the frontline it might be a plus. Supposedly it can get too crowded while using several large pets in some situations.

However smilodons still get 4 additional attacks instead of "only" 2 and can't be beaten in terms of raw damage output so I wouldn't say that they are "noob choice". They're THE choice if raw damage potential is what you are looking for in a pet. If you want more AC and want the pet to contribute something to the party other than their own damage then leopard becomes very good. Personally I'd probably diversify if I had more than 1 pet in party. 1 smilodon + 1 leopard for example. But that's just me, not some objective truth. I'd like some diversity in my zoo.

Dead pet does 0 damage. I will leave it at that.

 

[Reinhardt]

I need pets only for carrying loot.

 

[Shadenuat]

 

[rusty_shackleford]

According to Gog forums, endgame is still janky even after 1.1. Should I wait for 1.2? I really want to play this, but I'm willing to wait for a relatively bug-free full completion run.

wait for 3.0

 

[Chippy]

Well that was an interesting first playthrough...my kingdom is destroyed and it's game over. I was travelling around doing quests, more than slightly concerned that the evil fey were playing tricks on my populace and doing a great job of destroying my barony. So after looking here: https://pathfinderkingmaker.gamepedia.com/Advisors and realizing that I had all the advisors I was ever going to get, swapping the extra ones around and not having an advisor to deal with the situation - I expected it to be an advisor currently caught up in a 40+ day problem. Well apparently what they were doing was more important, because now my kingdom is kaput.

So I expect it's the stability stat at 6 - every other one is above 40, economy at 60, loyalty at 94. So if I can't build some buildings to get stability up while these fey wreck my kingdom in the time it takes to free up an advisor ... I'm fucked.

I can't tell if I should be impressed or outraged. Not being able to pull your advisor off a job is like being on a building site and accidently hitting a water main, resulting in the house filling up with water @ 6" per min...but the plumber has to finish fitting the toilet so that everyone can have a piss like civilised gentleman before he can tackle the emergency.

Edit: Can't solve the problem. Colour me impressed. I think.

 

[Shadenuat]

Oh yes the way you can sometimes fuck yourself with advisors is trolly. Even I after 2 full playthroughs recently sent all my advisors to do some shit 20 days before Bald Hilltop. Suffered a total -7 to all stats before Jubilost returned from far away observatory he dicked around in to manage my insecticide buys and kill off some fey spiders.

It all could have been easier if King/Queen could attent Problems while being in Capital same as when they attend Projects.

 

[ArchAngel]

1.2 at around Christmas should have kingdom management improvements. 1.3 might even tackle last two (unfinished) chapters (this me being Fabulously Optimistic).

 

[Serus]

I need pets only for carrying loot.

In that case the dog is strangely enough the strongest afaik. Man's best friend. And also the best beast of burden it seems.


Edit: In fact, the animal companion's stats are all over the place in P:K. They don't make perfect sense in the pnp but they're a bit less ridiculous in that regard. Owlcat buffed animal companions but by doing caused them to be almost funny. A dog can get up to 37 str in this game. To compare how silly that is, an average (adult) dragon in Pathfinder will get STR score in mid 30s.

 

[Vulpes]

Alright, it's now been about two months since release. Is the game finally fully playable from start to finish? And how are the loading times? Are they under a minute now?

 

[ArchAngel]

Question about Ahmad's Tomb

Spoiler

Linzi told me about finding its location in a book or something, very unspecific. So I went to talk to her book seller teacher but she has no info about it and by browsing all the books she sells I didn't notice any useful books. What is the deal with this?
I started the 30 day project, I guess/hope you got more than 30 days to finish this quest when they let you find it that way..

 

[Israfael]

Question about Ahmad's Tomb

Easier to find it manually, it needs around 33 perception to locate it on the map, it's close to barbarian war location. I'm not even sure if you can be there in time if you do 30 day project.

 

[Yosharian]

Ferrari could make more profit if they started making SUVs

ferrari is making a suv

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75tgpwrjjp8

Ok but they're still making sportscars, that's my point

 

[LESS T_T]

A bit misleading title: https://en.ostrog.com/1522/

Pathfinder: Kingmaker Developers on Working with Obsidian, ''Mentality Check'' and Console Release
We’ve listened to an 80-minutes podcast with Owlcat Games and picked the most interesting things on the game development, Pathfinder roleplay system and working with Chris Avellone


Pathfinder: Kingmaker development leads Oleg Shpilchevsky (studio head) and Alexander Mishulin (creative director) took part in the podcast of the Russian entertainment site Disgusting Men. They talked about the development of the game, working with Obsidian and Chris Avellone, favorite tabletop and video games, as well as their plans for the future. Previously, Oleg had already given an interview to App2Top.ru

Oleg and Alexander come from Nival Interactive — developers of Heroes of Might and Magic V and Silent Storm. As a part of Mail.Ru Group (parent company of My.com), they took part in developing Allods Online and Skyforge. At first, Mail.Ru were not very enthusiastic about developing a singleplayer RPG, publishing primarily online games. Nevertheless, they caved in.

Their team was an experienced mix of their former colleagues and some fresh blood. All of them were huge fans of classic CRPGs, such as Baldur’s Gate, Fallout and Planescape: Torment. They were on the same page — feeling ‘’enthusiastic and lifted’’. It was an ‘’opportunity to realize a dream’’ — one that puts you on the industry’s map

On the idea behind the game
They wanted their own classic ‘’singleplayer, hardcore’’ RPG a long time ago, even before Heroes of Might and Magic V. Then it seemed that the genre was dead, and singleplayer worked only in major franchises. Online and mobile games were at their peak, and they did not want to risk.

On meeting Obsidian
One of the Obsidian’s teams was developing Armored Warfare for My.com (Editor’s note: more on this can be read in Jason Schreier’s book ‘’Blood, Sweat and Pixels’’). When Oleg visited the company’s office, he saw the project that would later become Pillars of Eternity. He asked Feargus Urquhart (Obsidian CEO) about it and learned that they were developing a CRPG. At the time he was surprised, because it was a risky project with little profit opportunities. However, the game itself was ‘’awesome’’.

Then PoE blew up, and the team set on making their RPG yet again. They saw the hungry audience and the opportunity, so they founded Owlcat Games in 2016.

On the real-time battles

It was one of the main arguments during the development and a tough decision. Alexander said that it was a success, being more dynamic and pleasant to play, while preserving the depth of the combat system.

Two aspects were important in this decision: the pace of the game and the balance between the different gameplay elements. Turn-based combat ‘’takes a lot of time, attention and effort’’. They wanted players to enjoy the game as a whole — that is why they opted for real-time combat, ‘’defocusing’’ that part of the game and blurring the lines between combat and exploration (a major trend nowadays).

On difficulty
There were many talks in regards to the game’s difficulty. It would be safe to assume that the new casual audience was not ready for true CRPG game, but Oleg stated that experienced players also expressed similar opinions.

They put a lot of effort into difficulty settings, building a complex system with many options, such as automatic skill distribution for the characters. Relatively high difficulty was a deliberate choice, with the highest setting being the closest one to the tabletop rules
Difficulty settings ‘’allow you to choose your own gamemaster’’, finding something that fits your style of gameplay. Still, they received enough complaints, which they tie to the perception problems. The thing is that most of us are used to ‘’normal’’ difficulty being a hassle-free walkthrough, with ‘’hard’’ offering some challenge. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker, standard setting was already challenging.

Funnily enough, they fixed this problem by changing the order of the difficulty settings. ‘’Normal’’ button was made bigger and moved to the center, while other settings got some additional splashes of blood, further hinting on their difficulty

On script and Chris Avellone
The studio worked with Chris due to the combination of luck and mutual acquaintances. They needed a Western screenwriter to do a ‘’mentality check’’ — to evaluate if the game developed by the Russians will be understood correctly on the West
They wanted to bring in Brandon Sanderson (American fantasy and science fiction writer), but he was busy at that moment. So they went to Feargus — he suggested a couple of guys from Obsidian, but they were not up to par.

Obsidian also suggested Avellone. Oleg wrote his proposal to Chris, who was not too enthusiastic initially. Then he found out that the game is based on Pathfinder and lit up, being a fan of their RPG system. In 2016, they met on one of the events in Krakow, discussed the details and agreed on their partnership.

At the beginning of the project, Chris dedicated almost all of his time to it. Then he did a ‘’mentality check’’, making sure that Russian ideas are appropriate to a Westerner. He went through the text, editing and working on the stylistics. He also wrote one the companions — a goblin named Nok-Nok, and introduced several ideas on the in-game philosophy.

Owlcat Games also worked with writers from Paizo Publishing (Pathfinder publishers), who wrote Pathfinder Modules. Notably James Sutter and John Compton — they each wrote a major questline.

On choosing Pathfinder universe
The choice was almost instant, as they played the game themselves, along with Dungeons & Dragons. Paizo proved to be a lot more open than D&D publishers Wizards of the Coast, who were a bit closed on the business side.

They also described Pathfinder as ‘’the legacy of D&D 3.5 plus engaging stories’’. Pathfinder creators expanded upon the familiar mechanics, introducing their ‘’cool’’ new world, adding new classes, systems and guilds. The Kingdom was not an exception, as they designed it specifically for Kingmaker campaign.

On their favorite games and influence
Alexander: Assassin’s Creed and Persona 5 among the recent ones. Baldur’s Gate and Infinity Engine games influenced him the most. On the other hand, Pillars of Eternity did not ‘’click’’ for him — he describes it as uncanny valley, which looks familiar, has familiar names but the nuances are very different. He also does not really like dark fantasy

Oleg: Baldur’s Gate — they looked at many of the game’s elements thinking how they would look like today

On profits
Oleg did not give exact figures, since it is still too early to evaluate, but he assured the hosts that ‘’everything is fine’’. Their experiment was a success.

On future plans
In the next patch, they plan to add support for changing the font size to accommodate players with smaller screens. One DLC is in the works, two more will follow.

Console version is still at the initial stage, but the studio has already received their devkits. No Switch support for now, as it is a unique console ‘’from another world. While Xbox One and PS4 versions can be done at the same time, Switch needs a separate approach.’’

Oleg shared that they wanted to do the simultaneous release on all consoles, but it would have significantly delayed the release. He said that they will need to change the interface for consoles, and it will be the main point during the porting. Right now they are ‘’only beginning, looking at the competitors’’.

Alexander concluded with a positive example of Divinity: Original Sin 2 — the game has a lot of text, but it plays really well on console — new interface did not get in the way.

 

[Lawntoilet]

A bit misleading title: https://en.ostrog.com/1522/

On profits
Oleg did not give exact figures, since it is still too early to evaluate, but he assured the hosts that ‘’everything is fine’’.

Isn't that what Obsidian said about Deadfire, too? Only it was more like

 

[Roguey]

It was one of the main arguments during the development and a tough decision. Alexander said that it was a success, being more dynamic and pleasant to play, while preserving the depth of the combat system.

Two aspects were important in this decision: the pace of the game and the balance between the different gameplay elements. Turn-based combat ‘’takes a lot of time, attention and effort’’. They wanted players to enjoy the game as a whole — that is why they opted for real-time combat, ‘’defocusing’’ that part of the game and blurring the lines between combat and exploration (a major trend nowadays).

So they went to Feargus — he suggested a couple of guys from Obsidian, but they were not up to par.

Obsidian also suggested Avellone. Oleg wrote his proposal to Chris, who was not too enthusiastic initially. Then he found out that the game is based on Pathfinder and lit up, being a fan of their RPG system.

On the other hand, Pillars of Eternity did not ‘’click’’ for him — he describes it as uncanny valley, which looks familiar, has familiar names but the nuances are very different.

 

[Serus]

It was one of the main arguments during the development and a tough decision. Alexander said that it was a success, being more dynamic and pleasant to play, while preserving the depth of the combat system.

Two aspects were important in this decision: the pace of the game and the balance between the different gameplay elements. Turn-based combat ‘’takes a lot of time, attention and effort’’. They wanted players to enjoy the game as a whole — that is why they opted for real-time combat, ‘’defocusing’’ that part of the game and blurring the lines between combat and exploration (a major trend nowadays).

They didn't "defocus" shit. Game is (almost) all combat*. Which is a good thing BTW. I sincerely doubt there was really any "main argument" and "tough decision" involved. They wanted to make an IE-like game or though that it will SELL better. Or both. Everything else is just a post-facto rationalization and smoke screen. Which is also completely unnecessary, it's their game and their decision, and most important - their money and work. No need for additional explanations.

*Plus the kingdom management part but that's not relevant to this point.

 

[Roguey]

They didn't "defocus" shit. Game is (almost) all combat*. Which is a good thing BTW. I sincerely doubt there was really any "main argument" and "tough decision" involved. They wanted to make an IE-like game or though that it will SELL better. Or both. Everything else is just a post-facto rationalization and smoke screen. Which is also completely unnecessary, it's their game and their decision, and most important - their money and work. No need for additional explanations.

*Plus the kingdom management part but that's not relevant to this point.

Surely it's not as combat dense as Icewind Dale 2 or even Icewind Dale, doubt it'd be liked as much if that were the case.

 

[Shadenuat]

Killing 3 undead cyclops in RtWP can take 20 seconds, while in TB it would take at least a few minutes, that's what they probably mean.