I'm not saying the game is perfect, either. I just think it's being unfairly singled out for doing the exact things so many other games do.
Not just for things other games do too but also for things that cRPG fans insist again and again (in forum after forum and survey after survey) they want in a good cRPG. I think far too often cRPG fans claim to want certain things in cRPGs but in reality don't.
And to be clear, this is a general conclusion I've come to about self-identified cRPG fans in recent years and not something I'm saying aimed at any particular person here.
I remember I heard A LOT about people critiquing skyrim, pillars of eternity, and even Baldur's Gate 2 about the lack of time sensitive quests despite the writing indicating otherwise, then kingmaker comes along and people do not in fact want time sensitive quests.
Also, a lot of people asking for realistic survival rules for travelling times, sleeping, drinking, encumberance and eating and stuff like that, and when a game actually gives you a (not very hardcore in fact) camp mechanics to address that, It shows again that many people do not really want that.
PD: Again, this is a general opinion I read in many forums like rpgcodex, etc It´s not directed to any forumite in this thread.
Also, a lot of people asking for realistic survival rules for travelling times, sleeping, drinking, encumberance and eating and stuff like that, and when a game actually gives you a (not very hardcore in fact) camp mechanics to address that, It shows again that many people do not really want that.
PD: Again, this is a general opinion I read in many forums like rpgcodex, etc It´s not directed to any forumite in this thread.
I didn't really ever ask for realistic survival rules, but there is truth in what you're saying. I installed Frostfall mod for Skyrim just to feel realism and quickly found it to be a nuisance and turned it off. The only two games where I really enjoyed survival aspect was RDR2 and FNV. Especially the first one which I really find the best computer game I have ever played.
I have a question for all you P:Km experts. It's something I have not been able to figure out despite having played the game a number of times. One of the splash screens that comes up during area loading says that you can set a development path for each region in your kingdom, for example focus the region's development on the military or on religion or whatever. How does one do this? Is there a UI screen I'm not seeing where you can set this for each region? Thanks in advance.
I think it just means make all military buildings in one region or all religion buildings in another, different hubs to focus on different stats. At least I think that's what they mean.
I think it's just saying you don't need to build everything in each town and can just focus on getting adjacency bonuses for specific buildings in each town. You probably will be able to build close to everything by the end, though.
Call of the Wild added the court poet skald which is one of my favoritteess since I often run caster focused parties but adore the skald class. With Beneath the Stolen lands and all these mods I could have infinite fun with this game.
Like, it's to the point where I want to finish Icewind Dale since I've only done the base game and never the expansions but every time I'm like, but Pathfinder:Kingmaker hits the same jam for creating your own party but better.
Granted, to fix this I just need to heavily mod IWD but still. XD
I have a question for all you P:Km experts. It's something I have not been able to figure out despite having played the game several times. One of the splash screens that comes up during area loading says that you can set a development path for each region in your kingdom, for example, focus the region's development on the military or religion or whatever. How does one do this? Is there a UI screen I'm not seeing where you can set this for each region? Thanks in advance.
I do not know if it´s the same one, but there are some upgrades that you can apply to your claimed regions when your capital becomes a city in the mid-endgame. Some of them require the completion of projects and others, discovering every resource, the completion of quests or the choices you´ve made in the game.
And to be honest, some of them I do not have a fricking idea why they appear with some characters but not with others; what I know is that some of them are mutually exclusive. They usually give you bonuses to your kingdom, your Councilors or several features in exploration mode inside your kingdom, like faster traveling or attack bonuses against animals.
Ej: If you do not invite Tartuk or Hargulka you can reconstruct the bronze shield fortress for your barony; the upgrades in the outskirts depends on what you do with Oleg´s Taxes; if you pillage the temple of the elk instead of rebuilding it you lose another upgrade, others involve complete Candlemere Tower, the roc´s egg, recruit Vordakai or clear tuskgutters lair. There are some of them that are related to your kingdom´s stats, like high community and loyalty for Silverstep and Dunsward, etc
IDK why people call this game brutal. I recently started to play Dark Sun(1993) and you can leave the starting area(you start as a slave) and find a f**** lv 9 caster(defier) with a 7 minions. Hell, after the first gladiatorial battle, before you could even try to escape, if you say anything to the arena announcer, he will throw a lot powerful monsters to "discipline you"...
And this is considered one of the easiest Gold Box games. Eye of the beholder is considered far harder.
And now, we have game journalists "i need to understand pathfinder rules to play pathfinder kingmaker and can't kill a insect swarm with a sword, 0/10"...
Other guy ranting on yourube because "hur dur, perma blindness doesn't work on video games" when he can just on the difficulty settings make it be recovered after rest. On M&M VI, there are enemies who can insta petrificate you and insta erradicate you; traps that can teleport you to a place with tons of ultra powerful enemies and nobody consider this games "unfair"...
Translation: "People who don't like the same games I like are stupid." This attitude isn't helpful, and doesn't increase appreciation for whatever game is being promoted. In fact, it has quite the opposite effect.
if there is one thing I want other games to steal from kingmaker is the camping system. Skill checks, banter, and resource management (when in dungeons where you can’t hunt). I adore it.
Translation: "People who don't like the same games I like are stupid." This attitude isn't helpful, and doesn't increase appreciation for whatever game is being promoted. In fact, it has quite the opposite effect.
No, people who complain about difficulty in a game where you can tweek EVERYTHING about difficulty. The game is marketed towards RPG veterans who doesn't wanna another press A for awesome game.
so i finally beat this game on challenging and if i could sum up the whole experience in one word that word would be; oi
now, despite the fact that is the word of choice we need some context here;
this time around i used a mercenary party because i wanted to pump out as much torque and horse power as possible, and i didnt want companions with wasted stats ( like valerie and her unnecessarily high CHA even though is makes RP sense, but RP isn't going to save her ass against the owlcat DM's madness sort of speak )
so anyway my team was as follows;
x3 melee assimar chums ( i believe i went with the STR and CHA ones )
1 level of tower shield specialist
1 level of alchemist ( the one that gives you the mutagen at level 1 )
3 levels of paladin
2 levels of traditional monk
10 levels of defender ( whatever its called, basically the dnd version of dwarven defender )
and then the rest into tower shield specialist
cleric was also an assimar ( i believe the WIS and CHA one )
and i choose the same cleric class that tristian is, forget the name ( because its also whack like the alchemist class i chose )
bard was also an assimar ( a DEX / CHA one perhaps? or maybe the one that gets +2 to perception, dont remember )
specialist wizerd evocation and human this time, because i direly needed those feats for some high spell DCs ( so then enemies MIGHT actually have a chance to fail my stuff lewls )
by the end of game everyone hits level 19 ( so close to 20 which perhaps could have been nice )
okay...
so the beginning was super rough, mostly because my main guy was 2600 XP ahead of everyone else so those first couple levels were down right brutal, thankfully though, that OP ability of mutagen from that alchemist class, holy crow is that ability godly useful
now when you look at my melee guys there was some theory behind the madness of why i built them that way; i wanted saving throws and ACs through the roof, plus immunity to fear ( which is VERY handy ) disease and evasion are just extra icing on the proverbial invincible cake, and the only thing i had to sacrifice was to hit, which sounds silly but in this game, it doesnt matter how easy you can hit things, because if you dont have AC and saves to back that up, you wont be doing any damage being dead on the floor
plus the evoker was great at dealing damage, man, rods, holy crap rods run the show, in fact, rods are THE most important item in this game by far, ESPECIALLY that sexy rod that 3 times per day ignores SR and empowers and maximizes any spell, my god, if not for that rod, some fights on challenging would just be straight up impossible....
so anyways, after grabbing some levels everything was going relatively honky doory, and even with the increased difficulty my play through didnt feel much harder, in fact when i went to the "valley of the dead dungeon" to not spoil anything, in theory i didnt even have to bring a single trail ration, there is 12 in that dungeon and i could have just used those ones ( i brought 60 just in case haha ) and funny part is; didnt have to use any of my trail rations, never would have i thought that dungeon was going to be that tolerable, my whacky ass class dipping must have been paying off
and then we get to ancient curse 6 or so and the party is really starting to kick some butt, there was even "harder" battles ( despite the fact that almost every battle in this game is harder this is pointing out to the ones that are harder than those but arent boss battles ) that i was winning without casting buffs on, in fact when it came time to ancient curse 7 battle, i didn't cast a single buff spell and won virtually flawless victory
even pitax was much MUCH more reasonable this time around thanks to that level 9 ice mage spell; ice prison mass? and that wonderful rod, my god was that place SO much better, in fact icy prison mass gets MVS ( most valuable spell ) award from me, because that spell is a life saver and makes battles 1000000 times more tolerable....
so this was all before the house of time or whatever, i was actually getting to the point where dare i say it; might have actually been having..... fun....? poppy cock, blasphemy i say! but hey, when you finally start winning battles without having to cast 10 hours worth of buffs to kill fodder, it makes the game better
then the house of time is where things started to full apart, slowly...
i admit in the beginning i was having a great time, in the beginning i was kicking ass and chewing bubble gum and immediately running out of bubble gum, and the XP in that place, wowzers gadget, those bosses is dishing it out, thanks to that level 9 ice spell, i was able to take out the first witch lady without even buffing at all and virtually flawless victory for a sa-weet 69000+ XP nice....
but then things started going a little bit sour....
the house at the edge of time is still; the house at the edge of time, a relatively boring slog of a dungeon, concept is cool and all, but in game play it kind of sucks ass, and i was starting to get bored of all the fights because everyone has 10 billion damage reduction so each of my hits were doing hand fulls of damage ( aka less than 10 ) and my crits were still dealing 50+ but man, it felt like everyone just had 10 trillion HP, holy poop on a stick, enemies just took forever to take down
it was like i was playing on boring ass heart of fury/legacy of bhaal mode ( although baddies were actually missing me even though it wasn't all the time thanks to my 60 AC ) and i didnt want to waste all my sexy chain lightnings and ice prison mass spells because there are multiple multiple groups of multiple enemies, luckily they weren't doing much damage to me ( except for those wads that were using that cheap ass crystal ability, seriously what the hell is up with that crap ? ) so yeah, dungeon was getting boring, and being a whacky ass maze doesnt help either
but i eventually persevered and made it to the final boss which was a bit of a surprise, again with no buffs took down the final boss in a round or 2, which blew me away ( usually before a boss fight i will go in unbuffed to see what a boss does, and then when i lose i can reload and buff accordingly ) but this time, not necessary, won pretty easily which blew me away
its kind of ironic because i had a way harder time with my previous play through team on story mode difficulty, but whatevs
so that was done and stuff happened bleh bleh blah....
and then we get to the final parts of the game, and is was kind of dreading this a bit, but to my surprise it was quite tolerable....
not to spoil to much, but after the house at the edge of time, you have a curse put on you, and when you read what it does it seems like you are just going to get your pants pulled straight down to your ankles and done in dry, but thanks to my level dipping my AC was hot and my saves were still kicking ass, and i at least could hit a broad side of a barn so that helped....
anyways, you go around doing things and one by one your curse gets weaker and weaker until its gone, and poetically it was kind of nice, from going around with your pants down at your ankles and having the curse getting weaker proverbially lifting your pants up slowly until they are back to where they need to be so you can start kicking butt again without being done in dry
and then the very last part;
started off annoying because even though my saves were god like, there was just so much BS going on at once i was bound to roll a 1, and god damn does that natural 1 on saves crap piss me off; yes its kind of nice for enemies since SO many enemies cant fail without a 1, but jesus, they aren't making 1000 saving throws at once ( and this isn't far off from exaggeration ) so my front dudes would get paralyzed and it was getting super annoying....
but not to worry, just change the spell book up a bit and make sure everyone gets freedom of movement, kind of oprah style; you get freedom of movement, and you get freedom of movement and you get freedom of movement, everyone gets freedom of movement!
so bleh bleh blah, and now we are at the final battle.....
and my god......
this battle to be honest is complete ass.....
and for those of you who are in to booty, this is definitely not your bag baby....
this fight, is arduously stupid, now yes, i get it, its a demigod blah blah, but seriously, did it have to be dumb as hell though....?
in fact doing the melissan fight from ToB with my pathfinder characters ( even if melissan had pathfinder stats ) would have been a trillion times more tolerable
after losing the first 10 times or so i went on to the interwebs to see what other people thought, and i wasnt alone, a lot of people hate this battle, and a lot of them just lowered the difficulty to story just to win it because its so dumb
but i already did that once, and i need the nerd street cred ( aka it was personal now ) of beating this battle on challenging without using stupid cheese tactics to win ( which for the people who beat it on challenging and higher used to win, which is just lame in my opinion )
so anyway, here is the breakdown without spoiling too much;
there are phases in this battle, because why be like bg1 when you just have a bunch chums in a room and just take them all down and life is good? instead we are going japanese RPG style where you are fighting this boss with multiple stages or forms or whatever egh.... so annoying....
so with that, here is how this fight goes;
round 1 determines if you are going to win or lose
which sounds silly but here is what i mean;
round 1 is a very important round, the boss holmes is blasting off a whole heap of special abilities ( a lot of which if you fail your save - DC around 31 or so - is basically game over ) but the most stupid ability of all, is that dispel magic in a 50' radius cant fail around the boss ability which holmes uses on round 2
and for those of us who are playing the home game, you can understand why this is kind of dumb
now the first "real" attempt i didnt pay much attention until i realized i was getting paralyzed like a chump even though i thought i had freedom of movement just to see that it was gone
now, having all my stuff dispelled would have been okay, if the "stages" weren't ass of themselves
not to spoil it, but some stages even without buffs, were all good in the hood, but then there's that one stage, we all know what that one is ( or at least to those that made it that far ) which is the end of your team if you have no buffs, the amount of idiotic damage and save vs diarrhea nonsense, is just out of control, and this is what made me almost want to rage quit
like seriously, this stage is just SO dumb.... that is if you do not have buffs that is....
so what does this mean?
it means that RNG is the only way to win, thats right folks, skill? lol, skill only goes so far when you are fighting masochistic nonsense
so i had to keep reloading, until i could take out stage 1 dummy without getting my crap dispelled, and of coarse holmes has a bajillion HP, so its not easy
and the thing that annoys me more is that when i FINALLY succeeded the first time at doing the almost impossible above task my mage instantly died from a weird spell straight after, ah, power word reload you fickle mistress
so back to the reload board because my mage is MVP during this battle thanks to that sexy rod of awesomeness and blasting out some serious hard hitting chain lightnings so she at least HAS to survive, actually in fact, basically everyone does or else its a crap shoot.....
so any how, i FINALLY get a fast kill at stage 1, my dumbass wizerd ( even though her INT is 30+ ) doesnt die from a weird, and its sailing at this point, not smooth sailing just normal sailing, and at this point i will take it
then that one crap shoot stage comes by and i was able to take it out but... my wizerd died LOLOLOLOLOL ( of coarse she did *sigh* )
but i said screw it, as long as i can take out ass clown before my guy dies then good enough for the girls i go out with...
so finally the last stage comes by, and of coarse i have no - protection of this type lol - so i was blasting mass heals non stop even if i had no damage taken for that half nano second just to make sure to stay alive, and then a miracle happened.....
i actually took down the last stage, my wizerd was dead on the ground, but it mattered little once the game was finished, and holy piss was i glad that ordeal was over, my god was that just frustrating oi
hence the reason why his game can be summed up in one word; oi
now, with that being said, if you are someone who actually wants to play this game and give it another go, i will say this;
dont be afraid to play the game on normal difficulty and dont even THINK about going higher, but at the same time dont play on story mode because you really arent doing yourself justice ( although playing on easy is understandable )
and then when you get to the final boss; if necessary; feel free to slide that difficulty all the way to story mode, that last battle is definitely a doozy
for me, i have no clue when the next time i will play this game again, that last boss fight is really not giving me the motivation to do another play through
just hoping that the next game isnt as crazy sadistic as this game is...
I think you and I had a very very very different experience with the game, maybe because we had different parties. I did not find hard enemies and difficult bosses with strong abilities and difficult fights that need some special trick, a particular tactic, weapons or spells a "stupid" thing (I think you used that expression several times)
The last part of the game was a little annoying for me because there are too many fights in a row but I actually like the overall difficulty of the game. I hope the next game will offer the same or more challenging encounters. But of course a story mode for people that do not like that.
"just hoping that the next game isnt as crazy sadistic as this game is..."
And... You plays on challenging...
with that, challenging is not the hardest difficulty, in fact there are 2 more passed that one, so i could only imagine how crazy those must be, if challenging was what it is
Also, a lot of people asking for realistic survival rules for travelling times, sleeping, drinking, encumberance and eating and stuff like that, and when a game actually gives you a (not very hardcore in fact) camp mechanics to address that, It shows again that many people do not really want that.
PD: Again, this is a general opinion I read in many forums like rpgcodex, etc It´s not directed to any forumite in this thread.
I have some issues with Kingmaker, but none of these were it. In fact, I think the game did a great job of incorporating things like quest timers, camping and inventory management/encumbrance. So much of it is excellent, and means that you have to think strategically as a player about things like party composition and planning out a bit your adventuring excursions. I think these systems can be poorly done at times, but Kingmaker isn't an example of that. And I think when these systems are well done they do a lot of legwork for actually making a roleplaying game feel like I'm actually inhabiting the fictional world.
(And as an aside, the quest timer for the initial quest is not a serious issue. You have ample time to explore virtually every explore-able area at that stage.)
"When you have to overpower the enemy it's not a challenge. It's very similar to grinding - you have to do something else to be able to do this or that encounter."
Correct me if i an wrong, but on DOS2 you don't also spend a lot of time trying to find better gear since most stuff, including spell damage, damage to enemy armor/magicl armor and try to overpower the enemy?
No, that's totally a wrong impression about that game, in my opinion. You can go full naked there, - you need only skills, scrolls, food and potions. Your in-combat actions, positioning and everything that you would call strategy are the keys to successfully play D:OS 2.
Not sure what you call individuality in this context. Characters as personalities? D:OS has them. Characters as unique builds? D:OS has those as well. I can't comment about high-level spells you mention, I just didn't get there.
I never felt, neither in D:OS 1 or D:OS 2 that those were the games about inflating numbers. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey is about inflating numbers, not D:OS.
But this is not about D:OS.
My overall impression about P:K is very similar to @Cahir 's: "The game has really great potential, but it's a flawed gem. There are too many little things that I don't like, that I can't enjoy the game in its state." It's just that I don't want to start using mods because I'm discouraged by the game design. And the more I play it, the clearer those flaws are.
I think this is a weird set of takes from someone who I have found myself in agreement with on the OS games. I think the OS games are *very much* about grinding up your level. Yes, I know there's a certain meta-knowledge that can allow you to beat fights where you're over-leveled. But, I think it's clear that the intended play for the OS games is level up in the areas where the monsters are your level or lower and then come back to the areas with tough fights. And you can most definitely stumble upon over-leveled fights with ease in the OS series. At least that's the intended play for a first time play through. The extremely generous flee system seems to point to this design intention as well.
I'll certainly concede that there's more options at the player's disposal in the OS games, but that's simply because the game overall is designed around more interactivity than Kingmaker.
Tristan just went crazy, took out Vordekai's eye, got blinded in the process, and after that he teleported away, Sarenrae knows where. Can I get him back? I would be really pissed off, if he's gone for good...
Tristan just went crazy, took out Vordekai's eye, got blinded in the process, and after that he teleported away, Sarenrae knows where. Can I get him back? I would be really pissed off, if he's gone for good...
Basically the guy runs with smilidons as tanks that revive easily after combat or resting while takes specializations that will help him to kill enemies even when they pass their saves.
I’ve completed an unfair run. Prologue and Ch1 were very hard - lots of reloading. After Ch1 the difficulty evens out.
The toughest bit was Unfair Lantern King’s first incarnation. Everyone in the party was slaughtered except for charname who managed to stay alive by hiding and letting an allied Nyrissa finish off the LK.
Guys, do i need more than 4 members on my party to pass the Forgotten Heroes puzzle? I don't remember much that part.
if you are talking about the dungeon that has the door timers with the different colored rhombuses, i think you only need 3 at the minimum, 1 member on the one timer, another 1 on another, and as long as one person passes through the final door, then that final door will stay open and you can regroup your guys before you head to far in to the last room
Guys, do i need more than 4 members on my party to pass the Forgotten Heroes puzzle? I don't remember much that part.
if you are talking about the dungeon that has the door timers with the different colored rhombuses, i think you only need 3 at the minimum, 1 member on the one timer, another 1 on another, and as long as one person passes through the final door, then that final door will stay open and you can regroup your guys before you head to far in to the last room
Comments
Not just for things other games do too but also for things that cRPG fans insist again and again (in forum after forum and survey after survey) they want in a good cRPG. I think far too often cRPG fans claim to want certain things in cRPGs but in reality don't.
And to be clear, this is a general conclusion I've come to about self-identified cRPG fans in recent years and not something I'm saying aimed at any particular person here.
PD: Again, this is a general opinion I read in many forums like rpgcodex, etc It´s not directed to any forumite in this thread.
I didn't really ever ask for realistic survival rules, but there is truth in what you're saying. I installed Frostfall mod for Skyrim just to feel realism and quickly found it to be a nuisance and turned it off. The only two games where I really enjoyed survival aspect was RDR2 and FNV. Especially the first one which I really find the best computer game I have ever played.
Like, it's to the point where I want to finish Icewind Dale since I've only done the base game and never the expansions but every time I'm like, but Pathfinder:Kingmaker hits the same jam for creating your own party but better.
Granted, to fix this I just need to heavily mod IWD but still. XD
I do not know if it´s the same one, but there are some upgrades that you can apply to your claimed regions when your capital becomes a city in the mid-endgame. Some of them require the completion of projects and others, discovering every resource, the completion of quests or the choices you´ve made in the game.
And to be honest, some of them I do not have a fricking idea why they appear with some characters but not with others; what I know is that some of them are mutually exclusive. They usually give you bonuses to your kingdom, your Councilors or several features in exploration mode inside your kingdom, like faster traveling or attack bonuses against animals.
And this is considered one of the easiest Gold Box games. Eye of the beholder is considered far harder.
And now, we have game journalists "i need to understand pathfinder rules to play pathfinder kingmaker and can't kill a insect swarm with a sword, 0/10"...
Other guy ranting on yourube because "hur dur, perma blindness doesn't work on video games" when he can just on the difficulty settings make it be recovered after rest. On M&M VI, there are enemies who can insta petrificate you and insta erradicate you; traps that can teleport you to a place with tons of ultra powerful enemies and nobody consider this games "unfair"...
No, people who complain about difficulty in a game where you can tweek EVERYTHING about difficulty. The game is marketed towards RPG veterans who doesn't wanna another press A for awesome game.
now, despite the fact that is the word of choice we need some context here;
this time around i used a mercenary party because i wanted to pump out as much torque and horse power as possible, and i didnt want companions with wasted stats ( like valerie and her unnecessarily high CHA even though is makes RP sense, but RP isn't going to save her ass against the owlcat DM's madness sort of speak )
so anyway my team was as follows;
x3 melee assimar chums ( i believe i went with the STR and CHA ones )
1 level of tower shield specialist
1 level of alchemist ( the one that gives you the mutagen at level 1 )
3 levels of paladin
2 levels of traditional monk
10 levels of defender ( whatever its called, basically the dnd version of dwarven defender )
and then the rest into tower shield specialist
cleric was also an assimar ( i believe the WIS and CHA one )
and i choose the same cleric class that tristian is, forget the name ( because its also whack like the alchemist class i chose )
bard was also an assimar ( a DEX / CHA one perhaps? or maybe the one that gets +2 to perception, dont remember )
specialist wizerd evocation and human this time, because i direly needed those feats for some high spell DCs ( so then enemies MIGHT actually have a chance to fail my stuff lewls )
by the end of game everyone hits level 19 ( so close to 20 which perhaps could have been nice )
okay...
so the beginning was super rough, mostly because my main guy was 2600 XP ahead of everyone else so those first couple levels were down right brutal, thankfully though, that OP ability of mutagen from that alchemist class, holy crow is that ability godly useful
now when you look at my melee guys there was some theory behind the madness of why i built them that way; i wanted saving throws and ACs through the roof, plus immunity to fear ( which is VERY handy ) disease and evasion are just extra icing on the proverbial invincible cake, and the only thing i had to sacrifice was to hit, which sounds silly but in this game, it doesnt matter how easy you can hit things, because if you dont have AC and saves to back that up, you wont be doing any damage being dead on the floor
plus the evoker was great at dealing damage, man, rods, holy crap rods run the show, in fact, rods are THE most important item in this game by far, ESPECIALLY that sexy rod that 3 times per day ignores SR and empowers and maximizes any spell, my god, if not for that rod, some fights on challenging would just be straight up impossible....
so anyways, after grabbing some levels everything was going relatively honky doory, and even with the increased difficulty my play through didnt feel much harder, in fact when i went to the "valley of the dead dungeon" to not spoil anything, in theory i didnt even have to bring a single trail ration, there is 12 in that dungeon and i could have just used those ones ( i brought 60 just in case haha ) and funny part is; didnt have to use any of my trail rations, never would have i thought that dungeon was going to be that tolerable, my whacky ass class dipping must have been paying off
and then we get to ancient curse 6 or so and the party is really starting to kick some butt, there was even "harder" battles ( despite the fact that almost every battle in this game is harder this is pointing out to the ones that are harder than those but arent boss battles ) that i was winning without casting buffs on, in fact when it came time to ancient curse 7 battle, i didn't cast a single buff spell and won virtually flawless victory
even pitax was much MUCH more reasonable this time around thanks to that level 9 ice mage spell; ice prison mass? and that wonderful rod, my god was that place SO much better, in fact icy prison mass gets MVS ( most valuable spell ) award from me, because that spell is a life saver and makes battles 1000000 times more tolerable....
so this was all before the house of time or whatever, i was actually getting to the point where dare i say it; might have actually been having..... fun....? poppy cock, blasphemy i say! but hey, when you finally start winning battles without having to cast 10 hours worth of buffs to kill fodder, it makes the game better
then the house of time is where things started to full apart, slowly...
i admit in the beginning i was having a great time, in the beginning i was kicking ass and chewing bubble gum and immediately running out of bubble gum, and the XP in that place, wowzers gadget, those bosses is dishing it out, thanks to that level 9 ice spell, i was able to take out the first witch lady without even buffing at all and virtually flawless victory for a sa-weet 69000+ XP nice....
but then things started going a little bit sour....
the house at the edge of time is still; the house at the edge of time, a relatively boring slog of a dungeon, concept is cool and all, but in game play it kind of sucks ass, and i was starting to get bored of all the fights because everyone has 10 billion damage reduction so each of my hits were doing hand fulls of damage ( aka less than 10 ) and my crits were still dealing 50+ but man, it felt like everyone just had 10 trillion HP, holy poop on a stick, enemies just took forever to take down
it was like i was playing on boring ass heart of fury/legacy of bhaal mode ( although baddies were actually missing me even though it wasn't all the time thanks to my 60 AC ) and i didnt want to waste all my sexy chain lightnings and ice prison mass spells because there are multiple multiple groups of multiple enemies, luckily they weren't doing much damage to me ( except for those wads that were using that cheap ass crystal ability, seriously what the hell is up with that crap ? ) so yeah, dungeon was getting boring, and being a whacky ass maze doesnt help either
but i eventually persevered and made it to the final boss which was a bit of a surprise, again with no buffs took down the final boss in a round or 2, which blew me away ( usually before a boss fight i will go in unbuffed to see what a boss does, and then when i lose i can reload and buff accordingly ) but this time, not necessary, won pretty easily which blew me away
its kind of ironic because i had a way harder time with my previous play through team on story mode difficulty, but whatevs
so that was done and stuff happened bleh bleh blah....
and then we get to the final parts of the game, and is was kind of dreading this a bit, but to my surprise it was quite tolerable....
not to spoil to much, but after the house at the edge of time, you have a curse put on you, and when you read what it does it seems like you are just going to get your pants pulled straight down to your ankles and done in dry, but thanks to my level dipping my AC was hot and my saves were still kicking ass, and i at least could hit a broad side of a barn so that helped....
anyways, you go around doing things and one by one your curse gets weaker and weaker until its gone, and poetically it was kind of nice, from going around with your pants down at your ankles and having the curse getting weaker proverbially lifting your pants up slowly until they are back to where they need to be so you can start kicking butt again without being done in dry
and then the very last part;
started off annoying because even though my saves were god like, there was just so much BS going on at once i was bound to roll a 1, and god damn does that natural 1 on saves crap piss me off; yes its kind of nice for enemies since SO many enemies cant fail without a 1, but jesus, they aren't making 1000 saving throws at once ( and this isn't far off from exaggeration ) so my front dudes would get paralyzed and it was getting super annoying....
but not to worry, just change the spell book up a bit and make sure everyone gets freedom of movement, kind of oprah style; you get freedom of movement, and you get freedom of movement and you get freedom of movement, everyone gets freedom of movement!
so bleh bleh blah, and now we are at the final battle.....
and my god......
this battle to be honest is complete ass.....
and for those of you who are in to booty, this is definitely not your bag baby....
this fight, is arduously stupid, now yes, i get it, its a demigod blah blah, but seriously, did it have to be dumb as hell though....?
in fact doing the melissan fight from ToB with my pathfinder characters ( even if melissan had pathfinder stats ) would have been a trillion times more tolerable
after losing the first 10 times or so i went on to the interwebs to see what other people thought, and i wasnt alone, a lot of people hate this battle, and a lot of them just lowered the difficulty to story just to win it because its so dumb
but i already did that once, and i need the nerd street cred ( aka it was personal now ) of beating this battle on challenging without using stupid cheese tactics to win ( which for the people who beat it on challenging and higher used to win, which is just lame in my opinion )
so anyway, here is the breakdown without spoiling too much;
there are phases in this battle, because why be like bg1 when you just have a bunch chums in a room and just take them all down and life is good? instead we are going japanese RPG style where you are fighting this boss with multiple stages or forms or whatever egh.... so annoying....
so with that, here is how this fight goes;
round 1 determines if you are going to win or lose
which sounds silly but here is what i mean;
round 1 is a very important round, the boss holmes is blasting off a whole heap of special abilities ( a lot of which if you fail your save - DC around 31 or so - is basically game over ) but the most stupid ability of all, is that dispel magic in a 50' radius cant fail around the boss ability which holmes uses on round 2
and for those of us who are playing the home game, you can understand why this is kind of dumb
now the first "real" attempt i didnt pay much attention until i realized i was getting paralyzed like a chump even though i thought i had freedom of movement just to see that it was gone
now, having all my stuff dispelled would have been okay, if the "stages" weren't ass of themselves
not to spoil it, but some stages even without buffs, were all good in the hood, but then there's that one stage, we all know what that one is ( or at least to those that made it that far ) which is the end of your team if you have no buffs, the amount of idiotic damage and save vs diarrhea nonsense, is just out of control, and this is what made me almost want to rage quit
like seriously, this stage is just SO dumb.... that is if you do not have buffs that is....
so what does this mean?
it means that RNG is the only way to win, thats right folks, skill? lol, skill only goes so far when you are fighting masochistic nonsense
so i had to keep reloading, until i could take out stage 1 dummy without getting my crap dispelled, and of coarse holmes has a bajillion HP, so its not easy
and the thing that annoys me more is that when i FINALLY succeeded the first time at doing the almost impossible above task my mage instantly died from a weird spell straight after, ah, power word reload you fickle mistress
so back to the reload board because my mage is MVP during this battle thanks to that sexy rod of awesomeness and blasting out some serious hard hitting chain lightnings so she at least HAS to survive, actually in fact, basically everyone does or else its a crap shoot.....
so any how, i FINALLY get a fast kill at stage 1, my dumbass wizerd ( even though her INT is 30+ ) doesnt die from a weird, and its sailing at this point, not smooth sailing just normal sailing, and at this point i will take it
then that one crap shoot stage comes by and i was able to take it out but... my wizerd died LOLOLOLOLOL ( of coarse she did *sigh* )
but i said screw it, as long as i can take out ass clown before my guy dies then good enough for the girls i go out with...
so finally the last stage comes by, and of coarse i have no - protection of this type lol - so i was blasting mass heals non stop even if i had no damage taken for that half nano second just to make sure to stay alive, and then a miracle happened.....
i actually took down the last stage, my wizerd was dead on the ground, but it mattered little once the game was finished, and holy piss was i glad that ordeal was over, my god was that just frustrating oi
hence the reason why his game can be summed up in one word; oi
now, with that being said, if you are someone who actually wants to play this game and give it another go, i will say this;
dont be afraid to play the game on normal difficulty and dont even THINK about going higher, but at the same time dont play on story mode because you really arent doing yourself justice ( although playing on easy is understandable )
and then when you get to the final boss; if necessary; feel free to slide that difficulty all the way to story mode, that last battle is definitely a doozy
for me, i have no clue when the next time i will play this game again, that last boss fight is really not giving me the motivation to do another play through
just hoping that the next game isnt as crazy sadistic as this game is...
The last part of the game was a little annoying for me because there are too many fights in a row but I actually like the overall difficulty of the game. I hope the next game will offer the same or more challenging encounters. But of course a story mode for people that do not like that.
And... You plays on challenging...
with that, challenging is not the hardest difficulty, in fact there are 2 more passed that one, so i could only imagine how crazy those must be, if challenging was what it is
I have some issues with Kingmaker, but none of these were it. In fact, I think the game did a great job of incorporating things like quest timers, camping and inventory management/encumbrance. So much of it is excellent, and means that you have to think strategically as a player about things like party composition and planning out a bit your adventuring excursions. I think these systems can be poorly done at times, but Kingmaker isn't an example of that. And I think when these systems are well done they do a lot of legwork for actually making a roleplaying game feel like I'm actually inhabiting the fictional world.
(And as an aside, the quest timer for the initial quest is not a serious issue. You have ample time to explore virtually every explore-able area at that stage.)
I think this is a weird set of takes from someone who I have found myself in agreement with on the OS games. I think the OS games are *very much* about grinding up your level. Yes, I know there's a certain meta-knowledge that can allow you to beat fights where you're over-leveled. But, I think it's clear that the intended play for the OS games is level up in the areas where the monsters are your level or lower and then come back to the areas with tough fights. And you can most definitely stumble upon over-leveled fights with ease in the OS series. At least that's the intended play for a first time play through. The extremely generous flee system seems to point to this design intention as well.
I'll certainly concede that there's more options at the player's disposal in the OS games, but that's simply because the game overall is designed around more interactivity than Kingmaker.
It is a story spoiler
Basically the guy runs with smilidons as tanks that revive easily after combat or resting while takes specializations that will help him to kill enemies even when they pass their saves.
Anyone finished ALL the game on UNFAIR?
The toughest bit was Unfair Lantern King’s first incarnation. Everyone in the party was slaughtered except for charname who managed to stay alive by hiding and letting an allied Nyrissa finish off the LK.
if you are talking about the dungeon that has the door timers with the different colored rhombuses, i think you only need 3 at the minimum, 1 member on the one timer, another 1 on another, and as long as one person passes through the final door, then that final door will stay open and you can regroup your guys before you head to far in to the last room
Summons and animal companions also work.