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KickStarter Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

Quantomas

Savant
Joined
Jun 9, 2017
Messages
260
Setting up their forum did take at least one week longer than expected, so they are definitely behind schedule in their site administration.

I take it you watched the mmorpg.com stream live?
 

Perkel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 28, 2014
Messages
15,804
Huh i just found about this today. Good at least it got funded.

Still happy that we actually will get isometric turn based game*

*assuming devs won't be shut down before release.
 

*-*/\--/\~

Cipher
Joined
Jul 10, 2014
Messages
909
On a side note, what is the feature you dislike about dnd/pathfinder/d20 in general?

For me, it would be the hitpoint bloat, starting with 12 hp and ending up with 300 or something. Plus the "everyone is a 1st level commonder, just the pcs are speshul" outlook.
 

passerby

Arcane
Joined
Nov 16, 2016
Messages
2,788
First signs of proper round-based combat from Owlcat's forums.

TheMetaphysician said:
quote_icon.png
Originally Posted by Perpetual Nothing

To TheMetaphysician: We are currently experimenting with it. It is very simple with paladin – he can just use his lay on hands in the middle of a full attack and not bat an eye. More than that – he uses it on himself, so he will never need to go anywhere to do that. So this can be done by just paladin casting lay on hands on himself between attacks or even during one (if we will remove the animation from it and only leave the FX). But magus is more complex cause at the start of a full attack you need to know whether is casting this round or not – he gets -2 to attack and cannot use his natural attacks on the round he did cast a spell.

So currently the system I envision here is somewhat like this - if magus casts a spell and then attacks he will attack immediately and will fit all his attacks into the round duration, suffering the -2 to attacks and so on. If he didn’t cast a spell this round and you give a command to cast a spell in the middle of an attack, and he does not need to go anywhere to cast this spell – he will wait until the attack ends and a new round begins, then he will cast a spell and continue his attack. If he needs to go somewhere to cast a spell – he will interrupt the attack and will go there. I should point out that actual realization is a fair bit more complex than this (there are far more cases to consider) and may change later due to playtests and feedback on it.

Very cool. This makes me realize that the mechanics of this game are going to be importantly different from other RTWP games like Baldur's Gate/NWN etc. -- which is cool, because it is a new system to learn. I'm excited to see what you guys end up with.

Except this is how RTWP in Baldur's Gate/NWN works, as opposed to pure RTWP like Aarklash for example...
 

Iznaliu

Arbiter
Joined
Apr 28, 2016
Messages
3,686
For me, it would be the hitpoint bloat, starting with 12 hp and ending up with 300 or something. Plus the "everyone is a 1st level commonder, just the pcs are speshul" outlook.

These two features are hardly unique to D&D/PF.
 

Abu Antar

Turn-based Poster
Patron
Joined
Jan 19, 2014
Messages
13,512
Enjoy the Revolution! Another revolution around the sun that is. Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-kingmaker/posts/1954999
Harrim: The Frailty of Life
Posted by Berserkerkitten

Pathfinders! Today we introduce another one of your future companions: a brooding dwarf cleric called Harrim.

In the world of Golarion, religion is not a topic for abstract philosophical discussions, but a matter of life and death. Various deities directly interfere with the lives of mortals — some change them for the better, some for worse, and some just make them... Stranger.
51d19150afea753fc6befb67e3dc600b_original.jpg

During his life in the Five Kings Mountains, Harrim aspired to follow Torag, the Dwarven god of craft. Unfortunately, no matter how much he studied the holy books, he failed to meet the crucial requirement for a cleric of Torag: he never learned to make anything with his hands. It was worse than just regular clumsiness: Harrim couldn't forge a single nail or carve a wooden spoon to save his life. Some dwarves ridiculed him, others suggested that Torag must have cursed him — and this was what Harrim himself eventually believed.

Betrayed and forsaken by the god he was ready to dedicate his whole life to, Harrim went into exile, searching for some other purpose in life. He found it when he met a traveling cult of one of Golarion's most obscure deities — Groetus, the god of the End Times. A colossal skull-shaped moon looming over Purgatory, Groetus is waiting for the day when Pharasma, the goddess of death, won't be able to contain him anymore, so he can go to the Material plane and put an end to it. This fateful day is nowhere near — it would take aeons for Groetus to become free — but it's inevitable, and comes closer with each passing second. Groetus is patient, and so are his worshippers — hiding in shadows, listening to their god's faint whispers, meditating over their own mortality, and frailty of life.

It is said that the worshippers of Groetus slowly sink into madness. Harrim dismisses such slanderous rumors. The way he talks and acts might seem eccentric, but it has nothing to do with so-called insanity — he just delves deeper into the fundamental truths, understanding the world's nature and the inevitability of its demise... He's happy to explain his religion's teachings — though he rarely finds anyone willing to listen.

Harrim's philosophy hasn't made him a passive observer. He's always ready to use his god's power to heal his allies or bring punishment upon their enemies — though after the battle expect him to say something about the perishable nature of all mortals. He embraces the fact that death will eventually take everyone, but he doesn't hurry to meet it — so he has trained to wear heavy armor and wield a shield. Despite Harrim’s bleak philosophy, he’ll save your life more than once during the many battles that await you in the Stolen Lands.
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Should you rely on Harrim's help in ruling your realm, you will benefit from his wisdom and charisma. A calm, level-headed man, Harrim is surprisingly good at making well-considered decisions, as well as talking to people — that is, until he starts rambling about the End of Days.

6acf901b4f2da3cadb7c919820336e78_original.png

Dev response: Magus Archetypes

You may have missed this one: our mechanics designer has created a massive forum post, where he discusses all the archetypes our community has suggested for the Magus. He talks about which of them may work well with the game, which of them might be complicated to implement, how and why certain archetypes would or wouldn't work and much more! If you'd like to learn more about the thought process that goes into our class design, come on over to the forums and have a chat with us!

Hail to the kings!

Owlcats

e94639ac9cc5d71687fc3070884fa252_original.png
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
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Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-kingmaker/posts/1959460

Going with the flow - The water in Pathfinder: Kingmaker
Posted by Berserkerkitten


Dear Pathfinders,

Today's update is all about water rendering in our game. Water is the most complicated rendering object from a technical point of view. To make the magic happen we use various subsystems of the game engine and thoroughly prepare both procedural and baked textures. Besides, we need a combination of programming skills, the abilities of our technical artists, lots of patience and a bit of luck. For our update, let's not dwell on trivial things, such as calculations of water lighting. Instead we are going to tell you about the difference between water rendering and rendering of regular geometry. Let's dive right in!

Density

Perfectly clear water is usually almost colorless, and only if its layer becomes thicker, it gets a bluish shade. However, there are only a few places on Earth, where you can find such clear water in a natural environment, e.g. Blue Lake in New Zealand. In most cases, water contains tiny particles of other substances, which can color it into various shades. This effect is especially noticeable in rivers and streams, where running water carries more of such particles.

However, water color depends not only on particles of other substances, but also on some other parameters, and the most relevant for us is density. To make things easier, we'll make the assumption that the water color depends on depth (layer thickness) multiplied by density. In shallow water it becomes easier to see what's beneath, and in deeper places we can see more color of the water itself. The density is adjusted by our artists, and as for the depth, we calculate it via shader, using z-buffer.

2ed7bfa180e6375f466fb96476d71d9a_original.gif

Reflect or refract?

Actually, we need both reflection AND refraction. The hard part is this: while rendering water surfaces, we need to prepare two textures - one with the reflections, and another with all the objects that are located underwater. If we approach this problem bluntly, we can just render all the objects located underwater to the refraction texture, and all the objects located above the water to the reflection texture, adding a mirror camera matrix. If we choose this approach, we'll need to draw each object 3 times: 1. to the refraction texture, 2. to the reflection texture and 3. to the screen.

b4b0caaf39b9fe5af54b7e9bb5a45bae_original.jpg

However, after giving this some thought, we came up with a better solution. We moved the water textures in the rendering queue, so they are rendered after all the other objects. When the other objects are drawn, the we draw the water, so we just copy everything we've drawn before on the screen to the new texture and use it as a refraction texture. This way, we have fewer objects to draw. We can't do this with the reflections, though, so we render all the objects to a separate texture. At this stage another question appears: should we calculate the light for these objects? We decided it consumes too many resources, especially when taking into account the minimal hardware requirements for our game. That's why we draw all the reflections in monochrome, and artists can adjust the colors later.

Distortion is adjusted by artists as well, but this parameter, just like density, depends on depth, so we again turn to the z-buffer to calculate proper distortion.

267ae2901d23640aadefb56e3cf03176_original.gif

Twice in the same river

So, now we can set the water color, reflection, and refraction. The only thing left to do is to make water flow.

In the first iteration, we animated texture coordinates of bump-textures. If this animation is done right, we can also adjust water for lakes and ponds.

95374083f0ef213aba7f00297c2c5838_original.gif

In Pathfinder, there are lots of locations with rivers and streams. We wanted the player to see that water curves around the stones and readily flows through all the turns of a watercourse. To do that, we used flow maps. They contain encoded vectors of flow direction. Artists can draw these flow maps by themselves, which gives them more opportunities to control the looks of the flow.

30ac1fe89218000ec382e515c8e8a7cb_original.gif

What else should we add…

What we have now, looks rather good already, but still not good enough - something's missing.

eb1b14bd311a4e855c384189ba4fd329_original.jpg

Right! Foam!

To draw foam, we use 4-channel texture, where each channel contains a foam texture with different density. While rendering, we once again use z-buffer to estimate water depth, and in the locations with minimal depth (usually near the shore) we add foam. Less depth means increased foam density.

da952baca5d0e2f3ca46079a199c9cae_original.gif

But if we use depth as our only reference, sometimes we can't show the foam everywhere our artists want to see it. That's why we added a special mask to one of the channels of the flow map. This mask determines, where the foam will be shown, regardless the depth. This helps to highlight the spots with stronger flow.

3117b40644a2fd0d4059691739134bfd_original.gif

Combined together, it looks like this

013ed6cea6ee78c9544125bb71dba8de_original.gif

What if I want to walk in there?

This part of the content is still under construction, so we'll describe this process, using examples and imagination. ☺

In previous updates you may have noticed our characters can already interact with grass. To establish this kind of interaction, we draw special textures, which are projected on the location from above. When a character moves, he leaves a trail in this texture. Then, when we render grass, we take information from this texture and animate the grass, if it happens to grow under the character's trail.

Interaction with water works the same way.

a31d53db60c0399a27d535a2515dea24_original.gif



Let's kill all the things and dump the bodies in the water!

Yeah, about that... killing people underwater is less subtle than you may think, because the blood shows up in the water. We run actual fluid simulation and make the blood flow downstream.

f2f56e18d88639fd0277d1041c0c0043_original.gif

And that concludes today's update. We hope you've enjoyed it! If you have any questions or comments - feel free to leave them on our forum, and we'll be happy to answer!

Hail to the kings!

Owlcats

e94639ac9cc5d71687fc3070884fa252_original.png

Non-game image sources: https://collections.yandex.ru/card/570508316635180020da4ed9/
http://zapal.ru/pivo-s-pogruzheniem/
 

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
Chris Avellone on companion BALANCE: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/owlcatgames/pathfinder-kingmaker/posts/1969999

Game Basics: a companion’s guide to companions - Part 1
Posted by Berserkerkitten


Dear Pathfinders,

Companions are the meat and potatoes of every good party-based RPG. Today's update is the start of a small series of articles about our approach to writing and developing the adventurers, who will accompany you on your journey across the Stolen Lands. These updates are brought to you by Narrative Designer Chris Avellone. Enjoy!

Companions are a complicated bunch.

They can run the range: Your buddy. Your crush. Your source of exasperation. Your sibling you always wished you had. Your dependent. Your source of unease. Your pal. Your one true love. Your sibling you wished you could throttle. Your (budding) arch-enemy. Your rival. Your dark mirror. Your better you. Your mentor. Your conscience. And sometimes, yes, your annoying fire support who you don’t give a submachinegun to because he unleashes burst mode on everyone – often spraying bullets on you and your own allies at the same time (Fallout 1 true story with the companion “Ian” – although it’s worth noting that this arguably unfavorable tactic gave ol’ Ian more personality than anything else – it became his signature move).

I’ve written several companions over the years, and one key aspect to their creation I don’t often discuss is math.

Yes, math.

COMPANION ARITHMETIC

I understand math is the worst subject for any ex-English Major to discuss with any authority, I know, but “the maths” have so much to do with companion design and companion arcs that it deserves some explanation. Or, in this case, a lot of explanation. Because you know us writers, we love them words.

That said, here’s a list of system questions we ask about each companion for the sake of math – and why it’s important for narrative to take these mathematics into account when constructing a companion.

- Every piece of data on a companion is important. By this, I mean all facets of data that define a character – including alignment. Factoring in alignment may seem strange to some, but when you have a game where the companions do pay attention to your actions, you’re allowed to play the game however you wish (good, evil, neutral, lawful, chaotic), and you can build a party, then you have to make sure you have a balance of companions that are suited to each character archetype. An evil player should have the chance to build a party of evil (or evil-tolerant) companions as much as a good character can do the same with a party of good (or good-tolerant) companions.

- If you don’t have a lot of companions for the game (not a problem in Kingmaker), then it’s important you make certain choices in companion personalities or quest lines that would explain why differing alignments would work together (and they can, which can create interesting quests and moments if staged correctly). These “will work with anyone” can also be done psychology-wise and setting-wise as well – and I’ll use Firefly as an example. So every member of the crew on the ship Serenity arguably has a markedly different alignment, but they also have a dependency or psychological flaw – ex: Jayne’s not too bright, Simon has a dependent, Zoey follows orders, Wash is tied to Zoey, etc. – all of these psychological bricks are mortared together and it keeps them on board and working together. In Planescape: Torment, even though you could sacrifice and force people to leave, there was a reason your party of differing alignments were drawn to you – and they definitely still fought with each other.

- Next question – if you do have a party limited by good and evil, are the companions that split along good and evil party lines balanced? (Ex: If all the Fighters in the companion list are Lawful Good, that’s an imbalance.)

- How does the character systematically fit into this party – does the companion showcase one of the range of races the game offers, especially ones unique to the game and franchise? (Goblins in Pathfinder, for example, exemplified by the companion Nok-Nok in Kingmaker.)

- Class is important narratively as well – not only for franchise-specific classes (hey, here’s a sample of one of the unique professions in the world), but also because you can’t divorce character class from a character’s backstory or their personality – a druid is likely to have a much different upbringing outlook on the world than a rogue, for example, and you need to know what “career” the companion fell into/choose in order to backtrack through their life to build the reasons they chose it – or why the class chose them.

- Is the companion progression done in such a way where the introduction makes sense (ex: you don’t want 2 fighter companions at the outset of the game, but you might want 1, and perhaps also a cleric for healing because giving the player a tank or healer early on as a companion is a great idea – even if the player is a member of both classes). In Planescape: Torment, we introduced Morte first, not just for narrative reasons, but because he is a floating shield that can take a lot of damage, can intercept enemies for you (or lure them to you), carry your stuff (he’s a floating backpack), and inform you about the world.

- Be careful on how you build the companion’s attributes and skill set – they need to follow the exact same rules as the player, and you want to build them in such a way that you don’t make them so specific they can’t make use of certain items in the game (extreme example – but if the paladin companion isn’t built in such a way that she can make use of the best paladin sword in the game, then you’re going to have some angry players – also, it goes without saying, that if the PC is a paladin, the PC gets the best paladin sword).

- It’s an excellent idea to give companions unique traits, unique inventory items, but take care that the companion is not “built” incorrectly (ex: he has higher attributes than the player would be allowed to have) – it’s irritating for a PC to traverse a game with a companion who has the same class as they do but they happen to have an unfair rack of stats, which means the player ends up being second fiddle, math-wise. And players will calculate each point and do comparisons, it’s a given. So mind the rules, even if you’d like to move points around.

- A dash of systemic spice is always welcome. What I mean by this is that the companion may have some item, trait, ability, or twist on their skills that complement their personality. It can be a diary or a space hamster. It can be a unique weapon only they can use (just don’t make it better than any other weapon a player can get, and try to give it room to grow).

- Be careful in assigning skills and attribute points to companions so that you’re not dumping points in skills and attributes they can’t even use. Example: Some games don’t allow companions to “speak,” which often means that giving them Charisma bonuses or adding to their Charisma is useless because it doesn’t do anything – if that’s the case, you might want to expand any attribute or ability that only the player can use but the attribute is shared by both the player and companion (this can be solved in other ways depending on the game design – either never allowing Charisma to be added to, or re-designing the dialogue interface – what I call “Tony Evans style” – so everyone can participate in a conversation and each one can use their stats).

- Balance the placement of the companion so that they are introduced in an area where they systemically shine (not just narratively, but combat, exploration, and tools-wise). Make sure that when the companion is gained, he’s useful immediately and if possible, he’s awesome in the immediate environment. Example – during your adventure, you might be trapped in a field of explosive spells and deadly traps, and Nok-Nok suddenly walks up (perhaps walking across the mine field in his own special trap-detecting way). Perfect. You have your own goblin mine-detector (one way or the other).

- But don’t solely have the placement be something that is a challenge or obstacle, introduce reward with it that the companion can help you reach (you may have encountered a locked chest you couldn’t open earlier in the map, or have a chance to unlock doors and cages in a mage’s storeroom). Maybe you’re a fighter who just found a wicked dagger called The Onyx Vertebrae which happens to be a dagger +2, +4 with Backstab – it’s a good weapon, but you already have a better sword. Still, when Nok-Nok appears, you know exactly who to give it to. After you teach him not to hold it by the blade.

- It’s to your benefit not to let the player get too comfortable with their roster if you’re introducing a lot of companions or introducing companions late in the game. Some players “lock-in” their party and are resistant to change depending on when you introduce a companion (this is why Final Fantasy games often have specific intros for each companion where you are forced to journey with them long enough to get used to them, then they’d be free to be removed from your party – it’s more like forced exposure, but it’s done with the purpose of showcasing that companion).

- Even death involves math – an extreme example, but the tragedy of having decide to save one of two companions is made cheaper when one has a skill set that nobody else. And it’s worse if that same skill grants the player the ability to gain special items, access to more chests, or access to secrets and bonus areas vs. the generic “fighter”. The choice then becomes less a role-playing a choice vs. “well, if I lose him, I’d lose my ability to pick locks anywhere in the world.”

- Lastly, the companions should reinforce or interact with the key systems in the game as well – for example, the player’s Kingdom. Having companions or not having certain companions should cause (and does cause) changes in one’s kingdom in Kingmaker, sometimes for the best, sometimes for the worst – each companion needs to have that “system kingdom arc” spelled out, as when writing them, you’d need to foreshadow and explain personality-wise and dialogue-wise why certain events may occur.

So let’s take our squat little maniac goblin Nok-Nok as an example and examine his schematics. He’s franchise-specific (goblin), he fulfills a role rarely held by other party members (rogue – a class that I find not many people I know seem to take as their primary character, but every seasoned RPG’er knows they always want a rogue in the party to open stubborn locks and get to places only thieves can go as long as it’s not the player that has to waste the skill points). Furthermore, he’s evil-alignment-friendly and can round out a part of evil characters although arguably his trait of being doggedly loyal means he can bond with other alignments (though they may not appreciate this), and he has a few goblin and personality-specific skills that Owlcat and I have kicked around for him being a goblin – some examples (not set in stone) – he may have the ability to gain ugly pets (goblins have the worst “pets,” but Nok-Nok can help you gain them), or he may gain unusual “trophies” (junk) that bolster his confidence as he regards them as relics, and if possible, he may even have the ability to have a unique trap disarm that uses his body as a shield for the damage – and trap damage resistance as a result of being the victim of this ability once too often.

Furthermore, his motivations are very much intertwined with the religion of the world and the religion of the goblins – and then takes it a step farther by wanting to be part of the goblin pantheon as their fifth god. He has impacts on your Kingdom (and on this, I can’t give spoilers). So there you go!

Last word on companion math – I know maths are the unsexy stuff. Necessary, but unsexy. I say necessary because if you avoid the steps above, people are less likely to want the companion at all no matter how well you’ve written them and carefully crafted their backstory (and I didn’t say “don’t want,” I said, “less likely” – there’s certainly exceptions to the rules above).

For Kingmaker, we strive to intertwine both the mathematical and narrative aspects to create a helpful ally as well as one with a deep backstory and an agenda of their own.

Chris Avellone

Narrative Designer, Pathfinder: Kingmaker

Stay tuned for our next update, where Chris explains the narrative process of building outlines and character arcs!

Hail to the Kings!

Owlcats
 
Last edited:

Infinitron

I post news
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
97,228
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
I've gotten an email that the backer portal is now open.
 

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