When will be available to non backers??? I an already sick of low level dungeons & kobolds, already finished bg3 ea and solasta. Wanna play this masterpiece soon!!!
I wouldn't be so excited about WoTR having in mind Kingmaker. I really hope Owlcat can deliver a true RPG this time, with exciting plot and locations. I would not worried about game mechanics, this was actually the strongest part of P:K, but I dont't want to see WoTR becoming RPG-strategy hybrid. And for the love of god, no time sensitive quests this time.
And tune the difficulty down so that you don't have to powergame to win.
In P:Km you can easily do this in the difficulty settings, which are extremely robust. And you can freely change the settings at any time. No restrictions.
Only the final optional chapter is over the top in this regard, because it is just a series of pain in the ass battles one after the other. But even that chapter, once I turn the difficulty down, I can easily breeze through.
I liked Nyrissa (especially since she's voiced by the VO actress I adore) but in my 60 hours total in P:K I am still clueless on what is happening in the world, who is the main antagonist (if it's Nyrissa, I can't tell as the last meeting we had she prepared an ambush and fled). The game is absolutely not pushing the player into the story: you're just a mercenary who has to go to another land to get what? Barony? Because you were attacked in the castle? That is not a motivation that works alright. I concur with @Cahir on that and I also believe @deltago said writing in P:K was its weakest point.
Overall, I hope P:WotR will show they grew as the studio and the stories they will tell there will be more captivating.
..."Because you were attacked in the castle"? What? No. You were already going to the Stolen Lands to defeat the Stag Lord before that. How could you possibly have missed that? The reason you're at the castle when the attack happens because you're an adventurer going into the Stolen Lands and they're having a ceremony before they send you off.
I'm sorry that I'm getting exasperated. But this is literally spelled out to you. You have to willingly choose to ignore the dialogue not to understand what is happening.
I liked Nyrissa (especially since she's voiced by the VO actress I adore) but in my 60 hours total in P:K I am still clueless on what is happening in the world, who is the main antagonist (if it's Nyrissa, I can't tell as the last meeting we had she prepared an ambush and fled). The game is absolutely not pushing the player into the story: you're just a mercenary who has to go to another land to get what? Barony? Because you were attacked in the castle?
There is a reason to why Nyrissa is doing it... Only cuz you din't got why, doesn't mean that she has no reason. The reason on spoiler
She is a pawn of the Lantern King. It is shown in a way that makes you sympathize with her. The Lantern King made her move the strings to create and destroy kingdoms only cuz he enjoy toying with humans.
And you din't understood the story. The Stolen Lands was occupied by bandits and the Stag Lord. The quest giver offers nobility titles and that land to those who can free the lands from the Stag Lord. The castle is attacked cuz is a high valuable target. IMO a much better adventure for a low level party than "lets start a game with a midnflayer spelljammer ship fighting an draconic army and the players will start at lv 1". Only after later chapters, you can understand what is really happening on the stolen lands.
A lot of pathfinder deities will become important on the story.
I know that is a unpopular opinion but I wanna an starfinder game. I wanna play as a technomancer!!!
I think the intent is your character saw an ad saying "Hey, work for us and you'll get your own BARONY!" and your character is like "RAD" so it's under the assumption your character wants a kingdom.
I think the intent is your character saw an ad saying "Hey, work for us and you'll get your own BARONY!" and your character is like "RAD" so it's under the assumption your character wants a kingdom.
^This. Kingmaker's player reason is the very same as in Neverwinter Nights 1: some highups publish applications for specific roles, adventurers take their shot at it and that's how the game gets the plot rolling.
The game was just pretty uneven. Sometimes, the story/lore/concepts were interesting and engaging - I liked learning about Jaethal's history, Nyrissa and the king of Pitax who's name currently eludes me. There were other parts of the game that were just a little less interesting. The Children of Bloom chapter wasnt the finest in storytelling. Neither was Armaug's Tomb.
This is to say nothing of the final required chapter, which was just an absolute slog to get through.
The characters were also uneven. Some were interesting (Linzi, for example). Others were not (Reg).
I enjoyed the game quite a bit. If the game had been less uneven and more consistently at its highest points, then I think it would be an absolutely fantastic game worthy of replay every year or two. As it stands, I may try to replay it again one more time... in the future. Maybe after WotR.
One of my biggest gripes with the game is that the "good" answer is the key to just about the happiness of all of your NPCs, even the evil ones. From what I've seen and read, an evil playthrough will not be much rewarded by evil NPCs. That seems like an enormous missed opportunity in a game that clearly gave you so many good/evil/neutral choices to deal with each NPC companion quest.
@BallpointMan That's because good benefits everyone, no matter their alignment. Evil is pretty self defeating, and even "evil" people want good for themselves.
Everyone likes to feel "good", true. But situations that make said people feel "good" don't necessarily have anything to do with the aligment axis of the same name. That goes even more so for WotR. Let's just say that the companions inside the alpha have a... very broad variety of individual needs. Similarly, situations that are objectivly good aligned aren't equally desirable for everyone. And may even result into outright hostility.
In other news, I really like the fact that the alpha allows for wearing armor and robes at the same time. This brings back nostalgic Morrowind flashbacks.
@BallpointMan That's because good benefits everyone, no matter their alignment. Evil is pretty self defeating, and even "evil" people want good for themselves.
Pretty strong disagree. I think a nuanced story teller can find a way that the good result to a situation benefits the characters who are good and want that result, and doesnt benefit the evil characters. Similarly, if the character finds common purpose with the evil characters, then they would be rewarded in that action to the good character's detriment.
PF:KM does this some of the time with respect to the story, but never with the evil characters. It's uneven.
To use a comparison to avoid spoiling the game for anyone, imagine the loyalty missions from Mass Effect 2.
PF:KM's version of loyalty missions all have good/neutral/evil choices, and for all characters (except 2, of which you cannot fail to keep their loyalty/) - the good choice is always the preferred one.
To me, that's lazy and uninteresting. If I play the lawful good ultra perfect paladin, I want my evil NPC companions to eventually find purpose to leave my party if that mechanic exists in the game. If I am ultra evil, I want the same to happen to my good companions.
Instead - it's just be good and everything works out.
@BallpointMan That's because good benefits everyone, no matter their alignment. Evil is pretty self defeating, and even "evil" people want good for themselves.
Pretty strong disagree. I think a nuanced story teller can find a way that the good result to a situation benefits the characters who are good and want that result, and doesnt benefit the evil characters. Similarly, if the character finds common purpose with the evil characters, then they would be rewarded in that action to the good character's detriment.
PF:KM does this some of the time with respect to the story, but never with the evil characters. It's uneven.
To use a comparison to avoid spoiling the game for anyone, imagine the loyalty missions from Mass Effect 2.
PF:KM's version of loyalty missions all have good/neutral/evil choices, and for all characters (except 2, of which you cannot fail to keep their loyalty/) - the good choice is always the preferred one.
To me, that's lazy and uninteresting. If I play the lawful good ultra perfect paladin, I want my evil NPC companions to eventually find purpose to leave my party if that mechanic exists in the game. If I am ultra evil, I want the same to happen to my good companions.
Instead - it's just be good and everything works out.
Fortunately it sounds like they're tackling that for WotR in a much better manner than Kingmaker.
One evil companion has it reversed, though.
If you do the good thing you lose Jaethal. Pretty much any of the evil outcomes you get to keep her.
Harrim's quest is pretty much you have to at least do it, but either outcome you get to keep him. It's really whether you get golems in your kingdom or not that's a factor for his quest.
@BallpointMan That's because good benefits everyone, no matter their alignment. Evil is pretty self defeating, and even "evil" people want good for themselves.
Pretty strong disagree. I think a nuanced story teller can find a way that the good result to a situation benefits the characters who are good and want that result, and doesnt benefit the evil characters. Similarly, if the character finds common purpose with the evil characters, then they would be rewarded in that action to the good character's detriment.
PF:KM does this some of the time with respect to the story, but never with the evil characters. It's uneven.
To use a comparison to avoid spoiling the game for anyone, imagine the loyalty missions from Mass Effect 2.
PF:KM's version of loyalty missions all have good/neutral/evil choices, and for all characters (except 2, of which you cannot fail to keep their loyalty/) - the good choice is always the preferred one.
To me, that's lazy and uninteresting. If I play the lawful good ultra perfect paladin, I want my evil NPC companions to eventually find purpose to leave my party if that mechanic exists in the game. If I am ultra evil, I want the same to happen to my good companions.
Instead - it's just be good and everything works out.
Fortunately it sounds like they're tackling that for WotR in a much better manner than Kingmaker.
One evil companion has it reversed, though.
If you do the good thing you lose Jaethal. Pretty much any of the evil outcomes you get to keep her.
Harrim's quest is pretty much you have to at least do it, but either outcome you get to keep him. It's really whether you get golems in your kingdom or not that's a factor for his quest.
Yeahh. I get the impression that WotR was normally an AP that expected the PC to be the good guys, and Owlcat has made it so that there is a totally viable evil playthrough in there as well for people who dont only want the Good axis.
It's an exciting development. Despite my criticism, PF:KM was a good game, and I imagine it was only Owlcat's first foray into the genre (at least, on this level). So I'm very hopeful for it moving forward.
I think I said this before, but I almost never Kickstart anything - and I made sure to back WotR. I dont regret that decision one bit.
Evil choices don’t seem to have harmed Boris Johnson or Donald Trump much to date
Trump is only safe from direct punishment as long as he is in office. Even then, he's kind of living his worst knightmare right now. He seems to care greatly about being liked, so much of his statements while in office have been complaints that people don't like him, even though he "won". He's living with the knowledge that the nearly the entire world hates him, and all he is capable of doing is hating back. He is NOT the picture of a happy man.
I don't know enough about Boris Johnson to comment.
A thief doesn't want someone stealing from them. Everyone wants good for themselves. Evil choices in games also tend to fall on the side of pointless acts of cruelty, which gives zero benefit to the person who makes that choice. Even lesser evil options have negative consequences for pretty much everyone involved.
A thief doesn't want someone stealing from them. Everyone wants good for themselves. Evil choices in games also tend to fall on the side of pointless acts of cruelty, which gives zero benefit to the person who makes that choice. Even lesser evil options have negative consequences for pretty much everyone involved.
I... dont think we're arguing the same thing anymore.
I'm not purposing that evil characters want to be treated evilly. What I am saying is that if I am given a good/neutral/evil option, I want the good option not to always be the correct one. Here's an invented scenario
Let's say our neutral evil rogue companion wants to steal money from a mutual acquaintance of ours (Say, our employer). My three options are:
A - Convince him not to steal (Good)
B - Say "whatever" and walk away, letting him do what he wants (Neutral)
C - Watch his back/help him while he steals (Evil).
If I'm playing an evil character, I want to be able to take the 3rd option. Since I'm evil and the other rogue is evil, I dont want to find out 100 hours into the game that I set the rogue on the disloyal path that will lead to him betraying me because I did the thing that fit his and my alignment. If anything, I would expect he would be more likely to support me since I have supported him.
Or at a minimum, given the above, I would like the good character to have a similar arc (I stop him from stealing, and that sets *him* on the path of betrayal down the line).
PF:KM doesnt do a great job of this, because despite all the characters having all their different alignments, the game expects you to always pick option A.
@BallpointMan In the scenario you present though, the good option is literally the best possible one. I don't really think it fits your argument. B and C lead to pissing off your employer at a bare minimum, there's go any further pay or contracts. The rogue is also more likely to betray you, if they think it profitable at all.
@BallpointMan In the scenario you present though, the good option is literally the best possible one. I don't really think it fits your argument. B and C lead to pissing off your employer at a bare minimum, there's go any further pay or contracts. The rogue is also more likely to betray you, if they think it profitable at all.
I mean. No. You're inventing circumstances to fit your view. It's no better or worse than the other scenarios.
Who's to say the employer ever finds out it was us? How the story proceeds from this point decides what the best scenario was. The rogue may never betray me, or may actually help me because I helped him.
That's literally the point. The good option shouldnt be the default correct option for ever situation. If it is, that's lazy writing.
I think people have made some excellent points both in defending Kingmaker and it revealing its weaknesses.
IMO, it's simply not a game where you should care alot about the story. I think it's perfectly acceptable to design an RPG that way. Some people liked Icewind Dale's story, but I think it's objectively inferior to BG and Planescape Torment.
Personally, I didn't feel that Kingmaker's weak story or weak motivation given to the player got in the way of delivering what the designers intended. Which, as others have said here, was a heavy number-crunching RPG, where every single tactical or strategic decision by the player mattered. Personally, I agree with Victor. Kingmaker is a masterpiece in that it achieves the goal its designers intended (aside from some bugginess and roughness).
I'll reiterate what I said in the actual Kingmaker thread. It's a game best enjoyed while fully embracing its difficulty as a complicated puzzle to overcome. And not necessarily as an RPG where you're focused on progressing the story as some kind of play reward.
@BallpointMan In the scenario you present though, the good option is literally the best possible one. I don't really think it fits your argument. B and C lead to pissing off your employer at a bare minimum, there's go any further pay or contracts. The rogue is also more likely to betray you, if they think it profitable at all.
I mean. No. You're inventing circumstances to fit your view. It's no better or worse than the other scenarios.
Who's to say the employer ever finds out it was us? How the story proceeds from this point decides what the best scenario was. The rogue may never betray me, or may actually help me because I helped him.
That's literally the point. The good option shouldnt be the default correct option for ever situation. If it is, that's lazy writing.
Every one of those non-good options has obvious bad consequences baked into them. In no universe is encouraging the rogue companion to steal from the people they work with NOT have consequences. The good option has no potential bad consequences baked into it. Anything that comes of it would be influences outside the choice itself.
@BallpointMan In the scenario you present though, the good option is literally the best possible one. I don't really think it fits your argument. B and C lead to pissing off your employer at a bare minimum, there's go any further pay or contracts. The rogue is also more likely to betray you, if they think it profitable at all.
I mean. No. You're inventing circumstances to fit your view. It's no better or worse than the other scenarios.
Who's to say the employer ever finds out it was us? How the story proceeds from this point decides what the best scenario was. The rogue may never betray me, or may actually help me because I helped him.
That's literally the point. The good option shouldnt be the default correct option for ever situation. If it is, that's lazy writing.
Every one of those non-good options has obvious bad consequences baked into them. In no universe is encouraging the rogue companion to steal from the people they work with NOT have consequences. The good option has no potential bad consequences baked into it. Anything that comes of it would be influences outside the choice itself.
They're irrelevant if present, and I dont even think they are present. They arent baked in because I didnt give you enough context to know. If your employer doesnt find out, you might have just made extra money with no downside (b/c you passed all the skill checks, or whatever)
You could just as easily write it out so that the employer does find out, but earning the friendship/loyalty of your evil rogue friend is more important and saves you something precious down the line.
Anyways. This argument is fruitless. It's circular and about an invented scenario. PF:KM has issues with choice as it relates to its companions (but sometimes, the choice as it relates to the story is quite nice). Hopefully they'll improve upon it in WotR
The scenario outlined isn't the best. Let's say you're alone on a street with no one else and a noble walks down it by themself. Do you murder hobo him and steal his stuff if no one is watching and you know the guards are occupied doing something else? In this scenario if you take any of the good or even neutral options, you lose out. If you mug him or straight up kill him, you get stuff and maybe xp.
In real life, being evil without getting caught has great rewards. Here's a great bunch of real life examples https://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-2171-evil-things-huge-companies-have-done/
In those scenarios they all even got caught and only paid relatively minor fines while they raked in millions or even billions doing shit like helping the Nazis or distributing HIV tainted meds and causing thousands of deaths. Hell, some of them got away completely free. Man, we need to make laws so that all profits from this kind illegal shit are confiscated in addition to the fines.
@DrHappyAngry " In this scenario if you take any of the good or even neutral options, you lose out. If you mug him or straight up kill him, you get stuff and maybe xp."
@DrHappyAngry " In this scenario if you take any of the good or even neutral options, you lose out. If you mug him or straight up kill him, you get stuff and maybe xp."
What, no rp exp?
Not in a game I run, since it shouldn't be easy to be good.
@DrHappyAngry " In this scenario if you take any of the good or even neutral options, you lose out. If you mug him or straight up kill him, you get stuff and maybe xp."
What, no rp exp?
Not in a game I run, since it shouldn't be easy to be good.
Have you tried going and doing evil irl? Its easier to just not.
@DrHappyAngry " In this scenario if you take any of the good or even neutral options, you lose out. If you mug him or straight up kill him, you get stuff and maybe xp."
What, no rp exp?
Not in a game I run, since it shouldn't be easy to be good.
Have you tried going and doing evil irl? Its easier to just not.
It depends on what kind of evil you're talking about. Bwahahaha levels of evil aren't easier, but smaller evils are incredibly easy to do constantly, like bullying or stealing from the homeless or low income and disenfranchised who have no recourse. Smart evil like in the corporate examples above isn't easy, but in a lot of ways it was easier than actually doing the good thing and recalling tainted meds or standing up to the nazis.
@DrHappyAngry " In this scenario if you take any of the good or even neutral options, you lose out. If you mug him or straight up kill him, you get stuff and maybe xp."
What, no rp exp?
Not in a game I run, since it shouldn't be easy to be good.
Have you tried going and doing evil irl? Its easier to just not.
It depends on what kind of evil you're talking about. Bwahahaha levels of evil aren't easier, but smaller evils are incredibly easy to do constantly, like bullying or stealing from the homeless or low income and disenfranchised who have no recourse. Smart evil like in the corporate examples above isn't easy, but in a lot of ways it was easier than actually doing the good thing and recalling tainted meds or standing up to the nazis.
I disagree. Going out of your way to harm someone is more effort than just...not.
@DrHappyAngry " In this scenario if you take any of the good or even neutral options, you lose out. If you mug him or straight up kill him, you get stuff and maybe xp."
What, no rp exp?
Not in a game I run, since it shouldn't be easy to be good.
Have you tried going and doing evil irl? Its easier to just not.
It depends on what kind of evil you're talking about. Bwahahaha levels of evil aren't easier, but smaller evils are incredibly easy to do constantly, like bullying or stealing from the homeless or low income and disenfranchised who have no recourse. Smart evil like in the corporate examples above isn't easy, but in a lot of ways it was easier than actually doing the good thing and recalling tainted meds or standing up to the nazis.
I disagree. Going out of your way to harm someone is more effort than just...not.
It doesn't have to be going out of your way to perpetrate evil and not doing something to be good. How about this example, you see someone attacking someone for being gay on the street, do you stand by and do nothing or intervene and risk harm to yourself? In that example doing the right thing and standing up for them has risk to yourself. Walking by might be considered neutral, but doing the good thing here requires action. Most of the corporate examples from that cracked thread would have actually required going out of their to accomplish the good thing.
Comments
Only the final optional chapter is over the top in this regard, because it is just a series of pain in the ass battles one after the other. But even that chapter, once I turn the difficulty down, I can easily breeze through.
Overall, I hope P:WotR will show they grew as the studio and the stories they will tell there will be more captivating.
I'm sorry that I'm getting exasperated. But this is literally spelled out to you. You have to willingly choose to ignore the dialogue not to understand what is happening.
There is a reason to why Nyrissa is doing it... Only cuz you din't got why, doesn't mean that she has no reason. The reason on spoiler
And you din't understood the story. The Stolen Lands was occupied by bandits and the Stag Lord. The quest giver offers nobility titles and that land to those who can free the lands from the Stag Lord. The castle is attacked cuz is a high valuable target. IMO a much better adventure for a low level party than "lets start a game with a midnflayer spelljammer ship fighting an draconic army and the players will start at lv 1". Only after later chapters, you can understand what is really happening on the stolen lands.
A lot of pathfinder deities will become important on the story.
I know that is a unpopular opinion but I wanna an starfinder game. I wanna play as a technomancer!!!
^This. Kingmaker's player reason is the very same as in Neverwinter Nights 1: some highups publish applications for specific roles, adventurers take their shot at it and that's how the game gets the plot rolling.
I think that could have been handled better as well as why everyone thinks you out of everyone else should be the Baron.
There are a lot of ‘whys’ in the writing that I don’t like and unable to question them.
I’ll also say, it takes A LOT to impress me with writing in a video game.
Besides that, the quests are suitable and I actually backed this project because I believe Owlcat can learn from its mistakes and improve.
This is to say nothing of the final required chapter, which was just an absolute slog to get through.
The characters were also uneven. Some were interesting (Linzi, for example). Others were not (Reg).
I enjoyed the game quite a bit. If the game had been less uneven and more consistently at its highest points, then I think it would be an absolutely fantastic game worthy of replay every year or two. As it stands, I may try to replay it again one more time... in the future. Maybe after WotR.
One of my biggest gripes with the game is that the "good" answer is the key to just about the happiness of all of your NPCs, even the evil ones. From what I've seen and read, an evil playthrough will not be much rewarded by evil NPCs. That seems like an enormous missed opportunity in a game that clearly gave you so many good/evil/neutral choices to deal with each NPC companion quest.
Everyone likes to feel "good", true. But situations that make said people feel "good" don't necessarily have anything to do with the aligment axis of the same name. That goes even more so for WotR. Let's just say that the companions inside the alpha have a... very broad variety of individual needs. Similarly, situations that are objectivly good aligned aren't equally desirable for everyone. And may even result into outright hostility.
In other news, I really like the fact that the alpha allows for wearing armor and robes at the same time. This brings back nostalgic Morrowind flashbacks.
Pretty strong disagree. I think a nuanced story teller can find a way that the good result to a situation benefits the characters who are good and want that result, and doesnt benefit the evil characters. Similarly, if the character finds common purpose with the evil characters, then they would be rewarded in that action to the good character's detriment.
PF:KM does this some of the time with respect to the story, but never with the evil characters. It's uneven.
To use a comparison to avoid spoiling the game for anyone, imagine the loyalty missions from Mass Effect 2.
PF:KM's version of loyalty missions all have good/neutral/evil choices, and for all characters (except 2, of which you cannot fail to keep their loyalty/) - the good choice is always the preferred one.
To me, that's lazy and uninteresting. If I play the lawful good ultra perfect paladin, I want my evil NPC companions to eventually find purpose to leave my party if that mechanic exists in the game. If I am ultra evil, I want the same to happen to my good companions.
Instead - it's just be good and everything works out.
Fortunately it sounds like they're tackling that for WotR in a much better manner than Kingmaker.
One evil companion has it reversed, though.
Harrim's quest is pretty much you have to at least do it, but either outcome you get to keep him. It's really whether you get golems in your kingdom or not that's a factor for his quest.
Yeahh. I get the impression that WotR was normally an AP that expected the PC to be the good guys, and Owlcat has made it so that there is a totally viable evil playthrough in there as well for people who dont only want the Good axis.
It's an exciting development. Despite my criticism, PF:KM was a good game, and I imagine it was only Owlcat's first foray into the genre (at least, on this level). So I'm very hopeful for it moving forward.
I think I said this before, but I almost never Kickstart anything - and I made sure to back WotR. I dont regret that decision one bit.
Trump is only safe from direct punishment as long as he is in office. Even then, he's kind of living his worst knightmare right now. He seems to care greatly about being liked, so much of his statements while in office have been complaints that people don't like him, even though he "won". He's living with the knowledge that the nearly the entire world hates him, and all he is capable of doing is hating back. He is NOT the picture of a happy man.
I don't know enough about Boris Johnson to comment.
@BallpointMan "Pretty strong disagree. "
A thief doesn't want someone stealing from them. Everyone wants good for themselves. Evil choices in games also tend to fall on the side of pointless acts of cruelty, which gives zero benefit to the person who makes that choice. Even lesser evil options have negative consequences for pretty much everyone involved.
I... dont think we're arguing the same thing anymore.
I'm not purposing that evil characters want to be treated evilly. What I am saying is that if I am given a good/neutral/evil option, I want the good option not to always be the correct one. Here's an invented scenario
Let's say our neutral evil rogue companion wants to steal money from a mutual acquaintance of ours (Say, our employer). My three options are:
A - Convince him not to steal (Good)
B - Say "whatever" and walk away, letting him do what he wants (Neutral)
C - Watch his back/help him while he steals (Evil).
If I'm playing an evil character, I want to be able to take the 3rd option. Since I'm evil and the other rogue is evil, I dont want to find out 100 hours into the game that I set the rogue on the disloyal path that will lead to him betraying me because I did the thing that fit his and my alignment. If anything, I would expect he would be more likely to support me since I have supported him.
Or at a minimum, given the above, I would like the good character to have a similar arc (I stop him from stealing, and that sets *him* on the path of betrayal down the line).
PF:KM doesnt do a great job of this, because despite all the characters having all their different alignments, the game expects you to always pick option A.
I mean. No. You're inventing circumstances to fit your view. It's no better or worse than the other scenarios.
Who's to say the employer ever finds out it was us? How the story proceeds from this point decides what the best scenario was. The rogue may never betray me, or may actually help me because I helped him.
That's literally the point. The good option shouldnt be the default correct option for ever situation. If it is, that's lazy writing.
IMO, it's simply not a game where you should care alot about the story. I think it's perfectly acceptable to design an RPG that way. Some people liked Icewind Dale's story, but I think it's objectively inferior to BG and Planescape Torment.
Personally, I didn't feel that Kingmaker's weak story or weak motivation given to the player got in the way of delivering what the designers intended. Which, as others have said here, was a heavy number-crunching RPG, where every single tactical or strategic decision by the player mattered. Personally, I agree with Victor. Kingmaker is a masterpiece in that it achieves the goal its designers intended (aside from some bugginess and roughness).
I'll reiterate what I said in the actual Kingmaker thread. It's a game best enjoyed while fully embracing its difficulty as a complicated puzzle to overcome. And not necessarily as an RPG where you're focused on progressing the story as some kind of play reward.
Every one of those non-good options has obvious bad consequences baked into them. In no universe is encouraging the rogue companion to steal from the people they work with NOT have consequences. The good option has no potential bad consequences baked into it. Anything that comes of it would be influences outside the choice itself.
They're irrelevant if present, and I dont even think they are present. They arent baked in because I didnt give you enough context to know. If your employer doesnt find out, you might have just made extra money with no downside (b/c you passed all the skill checks, or whatever)
You could just as easily write it out so that the employer does find out, but earning the friendship/loyalty of your evil rogue friend is more important and saves you something precious down the line.
Anyways. This argument is fruitless. It's circular and about an invented scenario. PF:KM has issues with choice as it relates to its companions (but sometimes, the choice as it relates to the story is quite nice). Hopefully they'll improve upon it in WotR
In real life, being evil without getting caught has great rewards. Here's a great bunch of real life examples
https://www.cracked.com/pictofacts-2171-evil-things-huge-companies-have-done/
In those scenarios they all even got caught and only paid relatively minor fines while they raked in millions or even billions doing shit like helping the Nazis or distributing HIV tainted meds and causing thousands of deaths. Hell, some of them got away completely free. Man, we need to make laws so that all profits from this kind illegal shit are confiscated in addition to the fines.
What, no rp exp?
Not in a game I run, since it shouldn't be easy to be good.
Have you tried going and doing evil irl? Its easier to just not.
It depends on what kind of evil you're talking about. Bwahahaha levels of evil aren't easier, but smaller evils are incredibly easy to do constantly, like bullying or stealing from the homeless or low income and disenfranchised who have no recourse. Smart evil like in the corporate examples above isn't easy, but in a lot of ways it was easier than actually doing the good thing and recalling tainted meds or standing up to the nazis.
I disagree. Going out of your way to harm someone is more effort than just...not.
It doesn't have to be going out of your way to perpetrate evil and not doing something to be good. How about this example, you see someone attacking someone for being gay on the street, do you stand by and do nothing or intervene and risk harm to yourself? In that example doing the right thing and standing up for them has risk to yourself. Walking by might be considered neutral, but doing the good thing here requires action. Most of the corporate examples from that cracked thread would have actually required going out of their to accomplish the good thing.