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I wanted to provide feedback on this pc/consol game as a long time Paizo and Pathfinder lover. I have been playing it now for the past three weeks. I do love how you can really create the character and class you love. And I love that is sticks pretty close to the AP and to the feel of it. I love the npcs and the different side quests to help them. I also have enjoyed seeing how kingdom building is in a electronic setting. It will help me to better GM and possibly play the path.
That said, I have a few critiques that I have left Owlcat and I wanted to share them here. Please understand, I am not trying to belittle the amazing work done by both teams on this. I just want to share some of the frustrations in trying this and then leaving a bit sullen. And, what it may share with potential PC and Console gamers that could be converted to loving TTRPGS.
I am disappointed in the quest time limits and being forced to follow it closely instead of having freedom to play and enjoy the setting. Unless you just follow the main story, you lose your kingdom no matter how well you build it. I think this is not a good thing and puts on pressure that you don't find in many other RPG games for the PC. And, it takes away all of the good work you are doing. Most of us gamers and RPGers who play it are NOT used to KINGDOM BUILDING.
I do like kingdom building and being faced with tough choices. And I love the variety of responses you can choose to get different outcomes. However, to then put the added pressure of "choose the right decisions on the side running of the kingdom" and then "oh by the way, you have a main quest with a time limit that will destroy everything you build" is more RAILROADING than open world play.
Please, please, please, Owlcat Games and Paizo, please learn from this and allow for the open fun that is the Table Top RPGs. Also please embrace what you teach us as GMs and players that the players write the stories and should be allowed to follow more open courses to have an enriching experience of building their character's story. This game flies in the face of that in SO many ways.
The quests, structure of them, and the kingdom building are amazing. The time limit and you must follow the main quest or else you lose everything I HATE. And I do as a GM. It goes against everything we try to teach in a table top RPG and for some people who will learn to game and love those through this vehicle, you will fail them at that and teach them hack slash and stick to the main story or else you will fail. Not good. More open architecture, time limits and building. And more intuitive ways to let them make choices without losing.
This is just one Pathfinder Player and GM's opinion.
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I'm having fun playing the game. There are a few rough edges — most notably, there are some vital quests which depend on you talking to the right person. If you miss speaking to them (or don't notice them on the map), your kingdom can fall. I've had to do some online searches, and go back to previous saves a couple of times for just that reason.
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If you don't talk to Nok-Nok at the goblin village, the location of the goblin fort doesn't get revealed, and you can't progress the Season of the Bloom plot.
If you don't talk to Maegar Varn after you free the Varnhold citizens, the Twice-Born Warlord quests don't start (although the negative effects do). Note that you can't talk to Maegar Varn in the Throne Room, right after you defeat Vordakai; you have to go to the chamber to free the citizens, which then teleports you to the exit that they leave by (which wasn't there before). I initially went back to the room where the citizens had been, to check for loot, and didn't see Maegar Varn by the exit; I ended up leaving by the original entrance. So Maegar Varn just waited in the tomb forever, instead of going back to my capital. Without the Twice-Born Warlord starting properly, the Flintlock Grasslands location wasn't revealed, and I couldn't do anything about the barbarian invasion. The Betrayer's Flight info wasn't given either.
A reply to a post on the Steam forums got me a reply which pointed me in the right direction; I went back a level's worth of gameplay, loaded an old save, spoke to Maegar Varn, and was able to continue normally.
Ouch. I'm not sure about console version, but in PC version talking to Nok Nok isn't that critical. I thought the situation was like what you described after I killed him, but if you walk around the Kamelands you will get random encounter with goblins who reveal the fort location. (I was worried with the deadline approaching and still no fort reveal, but that was just because I had been doing stuff in OTHER regions)
My experience of Vordakai dungeon was seriously impacted by lack of rations, and lack of nearby save game which made me just try to ultra endurance/efficiency it. In the end, despite loss of a character thru some zoning glitch (or maybe because of having 1 less mouth to feed) I was able to scrounge enough food for the remaining characters to rest after just barely scraping thru mega zombie horde with almost no daily spells/etc left. Although really, that was one of most compelling challenges in game, for me... all this being on the +1 difficulty (which I believe most clostly matches tabletop). (I only got as far as Barbarian Tomb before my computer and drive "died", and didn't have will to restart from beginning again)
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I had reloaded a save to do something slightly different, and forgot to talk to Nok-Nok again. So I didn't kill him; he just stayed tied up there until I came back and talked to him several game weeks/months later.
I wish there was something between "challenging" and "hard" difficulty (I've noticed enemies having 4 higher AC on hard). I find that there's a few encounters that aren't really doable on hard difficulty.
I've been playing on challenging, which I agree seems about right.
I don't know if it existed in previous builds, but the recent version of the game on PC has an option for preventing kingdom failure.
I am not sure if that's in/compatible with the auto-kingdom management, though.
I find it's best to set the Kingdom BUilding to Automatic, unless one really wants to make that a big part of the game. The PC game is much more fun as a pure dungeon-crawler.
I do absolutely love having a turn based mode
I wish there was something between "challenging" and "hard" difficulty (I've noticed enemies having 4 higher AC on hard). I find that there's a few encounters that aren't really doable on hard difficulty.I've been playing on challenging, which I agree seems about right.
You can toggle a lot of the individual challenge options in settings to get something between the two
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I am disappointed in the quest time limits and being forced to follow it closely instead of having freedom to play and enjoy the setting.
I truly despise the quest time limit, as I feel it goes against the exploratory nature of an adventure path like Kingmaker. My own game ended suddenly when I was one movement point away from Oleg after killing the Stag Lord. I left a review with some better ways a time limit might work for what they were going for beyond a game over, and I hope Owlcat listens. Punishing people for daring to explore is unwise at best, and if I did this while running Kingmaker, my players would have left.
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I haven't seen that, at least for the main quest. There's definitely stuff you can miss, but the main quests have seemed fairly straightforward to me. Or maybe I just happened to talk to the right people at the right time.
On the time limit complaint though, as I'd forgoten to mention earlier: One thing I've long hated in CRPGs is quests that appear to be urgent, but will actually just wait paused until you bother to get around to them. No matter how long you mess around doing other stuff the final attack will be happening when you show up.
Some kind of time limit is great to minimize that feeling.
it seems we are of opposite mindsets here.
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The first time I played through the game, I lost my kingdom and had to revert back to a much earlier save because I'd been operating in the mode I usually do with CRPGs. (I.e., do all the sidequests before you get the main quest too far along, so you don't lose the opportunity to do the sidequests.) I realized that when a new main quest comes up-- and you'll know because there are dire kingdom events that keep popping up-- to resolve directly, and then I would have something like 100-200 days to do other things before the next kingdom quest woudl come up.
After reading some early reviews of people having their games end prematurely when their kingdom failed I enabled auto kingdom management and just played the game like any other CRPG. I got to level 15 or so before I was distracted by something else and haven't gone back since.
Anyone know if the kingdom management issues have been resolved since shortly after release?
there has been a console update as of two days ago. Not sure what that means as I have not started a whole new kingmaker game yet(still mad that I have to do that because owlclock wants to punish those who dare to explore and sleep) and nowhere online as an explanation as to what it did. I have also heard another update is coming.
Personally, I found the time limits generous. And I believe they implemented them to avoid level grinding random encounters. Then again, I also:
- Did not use the hunting option if i could afford rations, Ekundayo and Okbo were great for helping carrying capacity.
- Build Apiaries to cover and manage the whole kingdom.
- Build teleporters on each town and place as to minimize travel time.
Humbly,
Yawar
Personally, I found the time limits generous. And I believe they implemented them to avoid level grinding random encounters. Then again, I also:
** spoiler omitted **Humbly,
Yawar
none of that helps at the very beginning of the game when you are still learning the map/where everything is and how long it takes to get there.
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What was timed other than the main quest stuff? And that generally warned you pretty clearly - either explicitly with a time limit in the first chapter or with the escalating attacks to deal with in later ones.
Kingdom of the Cleansed (companion quest) and Rescuing Mim from Talon Peak are two that I can think of.
The biggest issue for me are the quests that require you to talk to someone to get things started, especially main storyline ones.
none of that helps at the very beginning of the game when you are still learning the map/where everything is and how long it takes to get there.
True, but the time limit at the beginning is very. However, I must note that I played a later build of the game so maybe we played different versions of the game.
Humbly,
Yawar