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Pathfinder : Kingmaker

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  • PsicoVicPsicoVic Member Posts: 868
    edited May 2021
    Uh, you know my previous post about the difficulty spikes? Just ignore it. :D
    Clipboard01.jpg

    Ay mamacita, this could wipe out your entire party even in story mode XDD

    You can skip this optional fight, tho. The critical path is not that hardcore.
    Post edited by PsicoVic on
    mlneveseJuliusBorisov
  • PsicoVicPsicoVic Member Posts: 868
    https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/640820/view/3012324802829162085

    Aaand they´re still patching the game 2 years later... They end up fixing the annoying "immunity" message
    Skatan
  • FelipefplFelipefpl Member, Translator (NDA) Posts: 119
    I'm glad they still support the game after those years just like beamdog, this is what ALL companies should do.
    JuliusBorisovmlnevese
  • DinoDinDinoDin Member Posts: 1,567
    Agreed, the Vordakai section is one of the highlights of the game, arguably one of its best dungeon sections. And has a real throwback kind of feel to dungeon crawler RPG's of old.
    JuliusBorisov
  • Jaheiras_WitnessJaheiras_Witness Member Posts: 614
    What's amusing is that Vordakai's Tomb is also one of the areas that some people complain about the most :D. It's a big spike in difficulty, there are some new types of opponents that drain stats, and there's no backing out.

    I'm with you guys, I love it, one of the most fun areas. Also just about exactly the right length - you feel drained and exhausted by the end of it, but not bored or tedious. It feels so satisfying when you walk out of that dungeon...and straight into the next act, there's no let up now, you're in one of the crunch points of the plot!
    DinoDinJuliusBorisov
  • CahirCahir Member, Moderator, Translator (NDA) Posts: 2,819
    I agree, Vordekai's Tomb was actually one of the few locations that impressed me in P:K and was clearly not copy/pasted like many others. It was really fun and challenging too.
    JuliusBorisov
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    I liked (but did not love) Vordekai's Tomb. Comparing it against the other major set piece dungeons in the game, it's probably the best (Better than Trobold, and the Womb. Much (much, much) better than the last dungeon as well. The next act's dungeon isnt bad either, although I think considerably less compelling.
    JuliusBorisov
  • bleusteelbleusteel Member Posts: 523
    Owlcat is having a free play this weekend for Kingmaker on Steam:

    https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1184370/view/2983059739691732922
    JuliusBorisovArvia
  • DinoDinDinoDin Member Posts: 1,567
    edited August 2021
    All very well said, I especially think your point about quest priorities should be emphasized. Do the mainline quests as soon as possible. Then prioritize companion quests. Then do any sidequests available in your chapter and/or random exploration. Once you've completed all those things, then it's the best time to do kingdom management stuff that involves eating up time -- i.e. leveling up advisors. There is some balance needed here, you shouldn't stray out of the kingdom for so long that kingdom events expire without you assigning an advisor. Part of the game's wonderful strategy imo.

    A second thing is your point on buffs. A definite yes to this, many, many of the 10 minutes per level, 1 hour per level buffs are absolutely excellent and the best use of your spell slots in many cases. And the game is very much designed for areas with multiple fights expecting you to buff up your party a bunch and then efficiently run down mob after mob.

    A third point I'd add on to this, if you're finding combat challenging but don't want to turn difficulty down, is a general strategy. Summons + relying on ranged with your party members + AoE disabling spells like Grease or Web or others. On its base difficulty settings, the game can be punishing to melee NPC's. You really only want to roll with the one or two or three (in the case of your own) best tanky NPC's, and have everyone else be ranged. The OP combat strategy very much resembles BG1, generally. Even on top of this, animal companions are also very strong, because they are somewhat immune to the permadeath mechanic. Many subclasses offer an animal companion and there's a strong, ranged NPC with one too. So if you want to play with an edge you can build a party around that.

    A fourth point is that you ought to play the game on a somewhat difficult setting. The base, normal difficulty is quite fine here. It's not really a game that has the same kind of rewards with interesting plot twists or interesting character choices, IMO. Those things are there, but they're not the game's strength. Its strengths are its deep combat system and its deep party management strategy that Julius mentions. And you'll really miss out on what this game delivers best if you strip those elements away.

    If you buy the full game with all the DLC, there's a rogue-like dungeon mode, Beneath the Stolen Lands, that can be great for exploring builds if you aren't sure on one, something like the Black Pits. Worth giving a go if you're worried about sinking tens of hours into the wrong character.

    I'll agree, the game did take awhile to win me over as well. But if you like it, it can feel like a masterpiece because there's just so much danged content -- SoA + ToB amounts.
    StefanObleusteelJuliusBorisovArvia
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    Good to see some people coming around to/changing their view of Kingmaker. It's what I expect if people give it a fair chance. I believe it will end up as a classic. It's recent sales have been quite excellent even if belated, almost to D:OS2 sales.

    I agree with most of @JuliusBorisov's points. One that I would emphasize is to NOT put kingdom management on auto. If you don't like that aspect of the game, which would be understandable, at least put it on the super-easy setting, but not auto. In auto, the AI makes some silly decisions which can really screw over your kingdom and your game, whereas making sound decisions in the kingdom management mini-game (which is actually pretty easy to handle once you get the hang of it) goes a long way to having a happy and satisfying playthrough.
    bleusteel
  • JuliusBorisovJuliusBorisov Member, Administrator, Moderator, Developer Posts: 22,714
    edited August 2021
    The Edge of Time thoughts:

    So, I've been reading a lot over the Internet about complaints regarding this final area (and I mean that, A LOT).

    I liked the challenge of the fights - I think the fight against the Wriggling Man was the most interesting in the game (and later I learned it was an optional fight), I had to think thoroughly about how to beat his magic and regeneration. The infamous Wild Hunt, after I read somewhere that you have to beat their monarchs first (or they just cannot die), was a huge pain - because the game doesn't explain the part about the monarchs. It's so unfortunate that nobody in-game explained to you how they can be killed. But their abilities, including paralysis, seemed cool: I liked the game finally made me use Free Action spells I prepared a long time ago. It took me hours to google the info about why enemies just don't die at near dead, and hours in-game when my party was obliterated again and again.

    I never wanted to decrease the difficulty, or something similar, - I just couldn't (for the sake of it) - understand how the monarchs work. Even golems couldn't be killed if they came with the Wild Hunt units. That was counterintuitive and had no in-game explanation.

    What I didn't like (in addition to the monarchs) was actually a story bit. A big spoiler.
    They killed Jaethal without me being able to influence anything. I was SO MAD at that decision and still am. Imagine losing, say, Aerie, when you come to Hell with Irenicus just because of the story choices. Or imagine your BG2 party coming back from Ust-Natha, and on the surface, Keldorn, who wasn't in your party, just kills Viconia "because of story choices". Yes, I read online how you can save her, but I didn't want to kill Tristian, neither did I want to choose a "good" ending for Jaethal. Also, this required metagaming very much, and I try to play without spoilers.

    This is so silly. Not only she was a vital party member with spells manually picked for each level (and I relied on her undead status a lot - eg. someone panicked, she had an anti-fear spell; someone got paralysed, she had a free action spell ready), she had a great story and I just don't agree she could be killed in that situation by Tristian. At the very least, the game should have let me pick sides and help one character against the other. And during the whole game, there were 0 hints these characters would hate each other - compare it to BG banters between opposing characters.

    They also killed Lindzi. Not that she was my main party character. But she also had those spontaneous spells, which I manually kept picking during the whole game. So in a moment, I lost 2 characters who could help tremendously in the most difficult fights of the whole game. Losing 2 characters with Vancian magic at this stage of the game, for whatever story reasons, is a bad design decision.

    What I also didn't like is that the game (again) didn't explain in detail how the fog actually works (that it's similar to teleports - for quite a long time I thought it worked just as a gate - you pass through the fog to get to the other side of it. It didn't occur to me that it's a teleport to another place until I started reading about the dungeon online.

    It's actually very sad, the final area creating so many problems for the player, and not good problems I have to say. I remember the final locations of other games (PoE, DOS 1, DOS 2, original BG, IWD) and I have to admit this is where P:K lets you down big time.

    Since this is a final area of the game, it leaves the last impression on the player (at least it did on me), and that's not good. And I found the displease towards the final area among different players seems to be universal.
    Post edited by JuliusBorisov on
    bleusteelBallpointMan
  • bleusteelbleusteel Member Posts: 523
    @JuliusBorisov

    I remember being frustrated with the HATEOT on my first playthrough. I had nightmarish flashbacks to the horror that is the Fell Wood in IWD2.

    Now that I’ve gone through the House a half-dozen times, many of those without the benefit of 18 months worth of patches, I have come to respect what the developer put together. Player agency shouldn’t be removed to this extent without fantastic reasoning. Once I realized the gravity of what my party was facing, it dawned on me that the design was really almost genius.

    I don’t want to be spoilery so I’ll stop here. I can’t wait to hear your thoughts once you’ve finished your playthrough.
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    The final area and chapter were tacked on to the game as a KS stretch goal. Suffice it to say that's a bad idea for a stretch goal. The game would've been just fine ending without that extra (poorly put together) chapter.
    As for lost companions, yes I always hate that in any game. In this game in my first playthrough, I had happened to read a post somewhere about Jaethal and so was able to set up my choices ahead of time to ensure she and every one of my companions ended up surviving. But of course Linzi is the one companion you cannot save. And I truly liked Linzi, and had her in my party continuously from the beginning. So I was really pissed about her utterly pointless death.
    JuliusBorisov
  • bleusteelbleusteel Member Posts: 523
    edited August 2021
    Edit: Sorry, non-sequitur. Some people were wondering.

    Coup de grace can be used to eliminate regenerating foes without using special damage effects.
    JuliusBorisov
  • BallpointManBallpointMan Member Posts: 1,659
    Yeah. One of my biggest issues with the whole game relates to that situation. A single dialogue choice made literally 80 hours ago reverberates so strongly that you lose a character or two at the end of the game. I appreciate that the developer wanted choices to matter, but I still feel it was shoddily handled. I wouldnt mind it even if those decisions made things harder/worse at the end of the game, but there was still some means to keep the characters you want - provided you were willing to do what was necessary.
    JuliusBorisov
  • SorcererV1ct0rSorcererV1ct0r Member Posts: 2,176
    Julius liking kingmaker? I'm glad that you are finally enjoying this masterpiece.

    BTW, I hint. Create a druid merc.

    Druids are amazing. Mainlyu when they get creeping doom

  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    has anyone finished the "rogue-like" mode of beneath the stolen lands yet?

    i seem to be having trouble in finding one of the bosses;

    the captor and the captive

    so what happened was on level 13 or so, one of them showed up ( from the looks of it, 2 were supposed to be there? ) but anyway, there was only 1, so i annihilated the dude, and kept going, but now im on level 37 and still haven't found the other guy ( and my journal has not updated saying that i have succeeded, which is what the journal does when you kill one of the dungeon bosses)

    is this something that happens regularily? i saw one post online where someone said that had to do 18 runs before they were able to kill all the bosses ( because for some reason it seems to be random on each play through? ) and i say F*** that, the rogue like mode is kind of cool and all the first 2 or 3 times you play it, but by play 4, its basically just the same garbage same pile over and over again

    is there a quicker way to do this? because if not, im just going to crank the difficulty down to the easiest setting and give everyone scythes to speed run these play throughs because mindless grind is pretty boring
  • VallmyrVallmyr Member, Mobile Tester Posts: 2,457
    It took me like 100 hours or so to beat kingmaker but I currently have 600 hours total just from the roguelike mode. Yes, you only get one boss per run, and the boss of each run is randomized, so you do have to run it multiple times. I viewed it as a fun side mode to try out different class compositions and builds. I think truly 'beating' it is near impossible because you have to find items as well for the true ending and those items may or may not appear each run, I think it's like 16 items total? 4 for each boss, and then you have to kill each boss at least once.

    Alternatively you can just do the 4 bosses I think and fight the last boss without the extra stuff. Honestly, if you're not enjoying making dif characters and trying out the dif classes, I wouldn't even bother 'beating it'.
    mlnevesePsicoVic
  • sarevok57sarevok57 Member Posts: 5,975
    Vallmyr wrote: »
    It took me like 100 hours or so to beat kingmaker but I currently have 600 hours total just from the roguelike mode. Yes, you only get one boss per run, and the boss of each run is randomized, so you do have to run it multiple times. I viewed it as a fun side mode to try out different class compositions and builds. I think truly 'beating' it is near impossible because you have to find items as well for the true ending and those items may or may not appear each run, I think it's like 16 items total? 4 for each boss, and then you have to kill each boss at least once.

    Alternatively you can just do the 4 bosses I think and fight the last boss without the extra stuff. Honestly, if you're not enjoying making dif characters and trying out the dif classes, I wouldn't even bother 'beating it'.

    the reason why i would like to beat it, is for the achievement, but man that is some gratuitous grind to get it

    how far down do i have to go before i can start over? usually i only hit around level 37 or so and start over, and so far i have done 4 runs, and found 2 of the items and 4 or 5 notes or whatever
  • DinoDinDinoDin Member Posts: 1,567
    While you can't change their initial levels, Kingmaker does give you pretty broad freedom in multiclassing. So you can still make companions very different.

    I'm personally not a fan of how the multiclassing system works here or even how it's worked in D&D from 3rd ed on. The system is pretty rife with min-max abuse that makes little sense in a "role-playing" sense. For example, lots of bonuses at level one for various classes, a true min-maxer is encouraged to do things like toss on one level of monk, paladin, alchemist (two in this case) to many builds.

    Very well said on the difficulty settings though. I wish Kingmaker had harder difficulties that weren't just loading the dice against you.
    JuliusBorisovbleusteelBallpointManmlnevese
  • mlnevesemlnevese Member, Moderator Posts: 10,214
    I'm actually considering a single class only playthrough... eventually :)
    JuliusBorisov
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    mlnevese wrote: »
    I'm actually considering a single class only playthrough... eventually :)
    You daredevil you!! ;)
    mlnevese
  • kanisathakanisatha Member Posts: 1,308
    Yeah my P:Km parties always include Amiri, Valerie, and Linzi. You cannot beat Valerie for tanking defense, or Amiri for 2H weapon crit damage. And Linzi's just too sweet for me to leave out. :)
    JuliusBorisovDinoDin
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