Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous

Feeank wrote:

Ahh, didn't realize this was the thread for the sequel, I had this idea that WOTR was a DLC for the original game and the thread had changed its title because of it. Still, love this game even thou my Barony failed on the second Seldon Crisis* called season of the Bloom, I have to go back to a save before the downward spiral kicks in and try to salvage it. Still, looking forward to try WOTR after this one!

*for the Asimovians in the crowd

We’ve been discussing both games here so don’t worry!

tboon wrote:

Kingmaker has turn-based mode. I gather it was added after release, maybe for the Enhanced Edition?

Turn-based is the only way I have played it, but I was late getting around to starting it.

I did not know that. Thanks!

pyxistyx wrote:

started playing this - it's ok! It's pathfinder, so i automatically loathe its unnecessarily crunchy rules-set , but at least i can drop the difficulty and generally ignore that. so far... it's 'aright.

I found that the crunchiness has grown on me ... specifically in the context of a video game.

I played 3.5e back in the day, and ran it ... with a huge third-party library on top of the official stuff. I was in my twenties and had all kinds of time, so that was fine, and I remember that era fondly, I have since sold off most of said library as I don't ever intend to go back to running or playing it on the tabletop.

However, in a video game with a computer managing all that insane crunchiness? I enjoy the super-granular level of customization. And for the record I also play it with the difficulty dropped a lot of the time. The games are SO long that I don't want extra time added by have to save and reload fights constantly.

I am in act 5 now and this game is sooooooo loooooong.

SO much filler that could have been cut.

Also I made the mistake of thinking switching to auto-mode for the crusade mode would be one way to speed things up but actually it's made it slower, as I wait 44 in game days for a tower to be conquered so I can get to a side quest area. And you can't switch back again, so now I need to load up a save from like, 2 hours prior to reverse that decision.

SIGH

There's a neat story in there but holy crap it's a battle to get to the good bits

Oh sh*t. Not only does auto-mode slow down the whole game but it also locks you out of accessing a whole bunch of stuff you need the command table for (including, apparently, an entire ending of the game) AND you can no longer teleport around the various towers which makes moving across the map the absolute WORST.
So...yeah... protip - never use auto-mode for the campaign level game. It sucks slightly less to play it normally, apparently.

(Also, while i'm griping - auto-complete battles is also THE WORST. I've lost battles against the tiniest of enemy forces and then when i replay them manually, win within seconds. It's laughably bad).

Glad you are liking it!

At least it is good to know about the auto-mode. Played it manually in my playthrough, but was expecting to go auto "next time". There is probably some mods out there that can "fix" it, like instant win battles or whatever.

Anyway, yeah, way way too long games. I really like long games, but they could have cut lots of hours from these two games without removing any story or meaningful gameplay. Lots of unnecessary travelling back and forth.
Speaking of mods, there are some that increase travelling speed as well. Must have.

I actually like the campaign system. I'm clearly in the minority here, though.

I've been playing Kingmaker since it was free on Epic. I'm going as a Hospitaler (paladin subclass) and am about to go confront the Stag Lord guy in his lair.

This is my first experience with pathfinder, though I've played a lot of D&D CRPGS, PoE, Tyranny, etc.

Math wrote:

I've been playing Kingmaker since it was free on Epic. I'm going as a Hospitaler (paladin subclass) and am about to go confront the Stag Lord guy in his lair.

This is my first experience with pathfinder, though I've played a lot of D&D CRPGS, PoE, Tyranny, etc.

Good luck, you'll need it!

So I've defeated the Stag Lord and am now in charge of my own barony/kingdom.

Any non-spoilery tips for kingdom management/development?

I finished Wrath! (albeit by cheating and using an editor to basically explode 90% of the creatures in combat for the last stage of the game, and delete attacking armies as soon as they show up in the crusade mode )

MY opinion still stands - GREAT story but so difficult to get into because of the "everything but the kitchen sink" approach that just turns it into a slog. Also would work better as a 5e game because 3.5e SUUUUUCKS.

THAT SAID...

...I decided to give Kingmaker another try because apparently I HATE MYSELF.
(But also now i know there's a super easy to use cheat editor i fully intend to use it to skip the annoying stuff)

Math wrote:

So I've defeated the Stag Lord and am now in charge of my own barony/kingdom.

Any non-spoilery tips for kingdom management/development?

Do pay heed to the time warnings for solving quests / advancing the plot, they may seem like a long time (you get something like a 60 days warning before your barony's collapse in the first couple of "crisis" if you don't finish a quest) but when you have to skip time by a fortnight to upgrade your barony's stats, you'll run out of time in no...time?

starting up kingmaker again has reminded me that i absolutely hate enforced time limits in RPGs.

pyxistyx wrote:

starting up kingmaker again has reminded me that i absolutely hate enforced time limits in RPGs.

I do as well. Hate hate hate it.

However, this one is mostly cosmetic in the sense that you will run out of stuff to do long before it runs out and so kind of fail into satisfying it, at worst. To the point where I wonder why they bothered having one at all.

Kingmaker is weird, there's a lot of stuff in there that is head-scratching why they have it in the game at all. You can definitely tell this is the studio's first game. Going back and forth between Kingmaker and Wrath, they just got so much better at so many things in Wrath. They still need to figure out how to do a macro-level game or not go there at all IMO. Also how to cut content: these games outstay their welcome by 30+ hours.

pyxistyx wrote:

starting up kingmaker again has reminded me that i absolutely hate enforced time limits in RPGs.

While I agree, there's always the story immersion to consider. Pillars of Eternity:Deadfire is basically the exact opposite. "The world is about to be destroyed by a rampaging god, but sure, feel free to take a couple years sailing around the globe exploring, no rush or anything".

If cataclysmic events or dark magic rituals are about to happen it kind of makes sense that they do so on a timeline and ignoring them has dire consequences.

I've nothing against time-limits in RPGs, as long as failing to meet them results in an interesting/difficult fail-state or, conversely, if completing them early gives some bonus. Getting a 'game-over' screen is not much fun, of course.

pyxistyx wrote:

starting up kingmaker again has reminded me that i absolutely hate enforced time limits in RPGs.

I didn't mind the time limit to the first act in Kingmaker, it gave a little bit of direction to what you were trying to do, plus it was really generous enough to give you plenty of time to achieve getting rid of the Stag Lord.

What I didn't like about that first act was all the ways the game gave you to waste that time because it didn't bother to explain how it worked very well. It took me an embarrassingly long time to realise not using rations when camping often meant you were spending 24 hours hunting for food before you even rested.

So I'm still plugging along. Solved the Troll crisis but seem to have missed out on the last companion (the alchemist). This annoyed me but not enough to replay hours from an older save. I created a mercenary to serve in the unfilled advisor (treasurer) slot instead.

Level 6 across the party and combat still seems very uneven. I'm either steamrolling encounter after encounter or I'm being flattened.

Man, I'd go back and reload a save to get that alchemist companion. That's not only a good advisor, but one of the most entertaining characters in the game.

Timespike wrote:

Man, I'd go back and reload a save to get that alchemist companion. That's not only a good advisor, but one of the most entertaining characters in the game.

I wasn't really a fan of Jubilost, and enjoyed travelling with Linzi. Not sure what that says about me though.

So they announced the new Wrath DLC. Its due the 15th of February.
Sounds like an Aion focused campaign since it deals with fixing the timeline

Man, I'm torn if that's the case. On one hand, I'd love some more DLC for that game. On the other, I really couldn't stomach what the aeon wants you to do.

This is what Owlcat sent me. I assume you got this?

"Some of you have certainly noticed the hints we’ve been dropping across our social networks last week. You have guessed it right - your journey to preserve the space-time continuum begins on 15th of February, the release date for the highly anticipated first story DLC: Inevitable Excess! The DLC will be available as a part of Season Pass as well as a separate purchase in major digital stores."

Yeah - I don't see any direct reference to that being Aeon-only, though.

I know.
Its just as you know, Aeon mythic path is all about manipulating the space-time continuum.

fangblackbone wrote:

I know.
Its just as you know, Aeon mythic path is all about manipulating the space-time continuum.

It's also about being a pitiless dispenser of disproportionately-severe punishments and never considering someone done being punished for any wrongdoing. I found it so uncomfortable to play that I switched my character to gold dragon when the opportunity presented itself.

So after leaving the game and coming back to it, I've hit act 2 in Wrath of the Righteous and the crusades management has hit me like a wet sock full of sand. I really, really don't like it. At all. Not really sure why but right now it's stopping me from firing the game up again.

how much do I lose if I automate it all? Is it likely to cause any major problems down the line? I'm not min-maxing - well, not much I guess - but the less I have to do with it the better I reckon.

I did it and while I didn't finish the game, I got halfway I'd guess through act 3.
I don't grock it either. I like watching others play it on stream but it just isn't for me in actuality.

I'd suggest watch some tutorials to see if you get your sea legs. If not, mark the save game, switch to automated, and go revisit that save game if you feel cheated out of something. (I don't think you will)

Also the first DLC is out so it is a perfect time to pick it back up. I haven't started it yet but the DLC happens between act 4 and 5. They also give you the option of starting a new party for the DLC. I don't know if that means your character gets boosted to high levels, I don't know.

Sorbicol wrote:

So after leaving the game and coming back to it, I've hit act 2 in Wrath of the Righteous and the crusades management has hit me like a wet sock full of sand. I really, really don't like it. At all. Not really sure why but right now it's stopping me from firing the game up again.

how much do I lose if I automate it all? Is it likely to cause any major problems down the line? I'm not min-maxing - well, not much I guess - but the less I have to do with it the better I reckon.

Only thing I can think of off the top of my head is you can't get the "secret" ending going that route. But, unless you took certain steps in act 1, it probably already doesn't matter.