Crispy™ Is Kinkmaker gud?

[Haplo]

Yeah, my Reg is CN also.

 

[Jarpie]

He turns CN if you choose not to follow the slaver and save the slaves from burning during his and Octavia's quest.

 

[luj1]

Too bad chapter 2 casuals are able to vote. This game gets progressively and precipitously worse the longer you play it.

I've been playing computer role playing games for over 30 years. In all that time I have never felt compelled to leave a negative review for a game. Kingmaker is a tremendous lost opportunity.

The Good:

1. Character creation and leveling follow the pathfinder ruleset closely.
   
2. Combat mechanics are satisfying (despite being real time with pause, instead of turn-based).
   
3. Custom party formation is a welcome quality of life feature.
   
4. High fidelity graphics and visual effects.

The Bad:

1. Encounter design is terrible.
   
2. Kingdom management is a tedious and joyless experience. The option to play with it disabled doesn't work. There are many cases where you can lose the game by "misplaying" this mechanic, without explanation.
   
3. Maps are reused 4-5 times in places.
   
4. Very slow party travel across maps, with no ability to change walk speed.
   
5. Choices have consequences, which would be great if you were given a clue what they were.
   
6. Alignment based dialogue is poorly thought out and forces the player to 'roleplay' according to Owlcat's definition of alignment, which is often wrong.
   
7. Enforced encumberance forces you to leave valuable loot behind.
   
8. +5 weapons, worth thousands of GP, can be found in barrels and crates in towns during the end game.
   
9. Annoying toy chow dogs barking, and NPCs coughing and grumbling at every other rest location. Are these quaint and relaxing sounds in Russia?
   
10. Heavy, expensive, and limited 'camping provisions' are required to rest in dungeons.
    
11. No ability to craft + poor itemization and very limited vendor selection.
    
12. Random encounters offer almost no XP, and a bunch of loot you can't carry.
    
13. Failure to resolve quests before deadlines results in losing the game.
    
14. Tedious unsatisfying puzzles.
    
15. Custom quests are poorly described, requiring unintuitive actions from the player (like using torches to kill swarms).
    
16. If your character isn't charisma (CHA) focused you'll miss out on an entire level of party XP because you can't make the throne room event skill checks.
    
17. Unbearable load times. Frequent required trips back to your throne room to solve kingdom management issues makes this especially painful.
    
18. XP is doled out at certain times and locations only, like a bad CYOA novel. You cannot farm meaningful amounts of XP to level your party using random encounters.
    
19. The game ends abruptly before you can maximize your character's level.
    
20. Inumerable bugs, many of which are game breaking.

I lost two long games to game breaking and quest ending bugs.

I considered not leaving this review in the hopes that more people would buy this game, complain, and perhaps as a result Owlcat would fix their mess. Instead they ignored the obvious deep flaws with their game and put out a DLC.

Some curiosities I noticed so far (started last night):

- Game resets options every time you run it
- Very few portraits, majority of them female
- Annoying and loud voice acting
- Very mediocre and flat OST
- Too much obtrusive info on screen (EDIT: can be remedied via "Immersive mode")
- Lore-bloaty introduction

 

[luj1]

When you have a ruleset-heavy RPG it really hurts to have half the stuff not work

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder...ar/list_of_mechanics_that_do_not_work_yet_as/

I thought this was a joke but apparently not

 

[luj1]

I am noticing a lot of strong, independent women so far. It's literally one Aribeth behind every corner.

 

[Cael]

I am noticing a lot of strong, independent women so far. It's literally one Aribeth behind every corner.

Son, those wymmyn are called prostitutes...

 

[Kyl Von Kull]

I am noticing a lot of strong, independent women so far. It's literally one Aribeth behind every corner.

Keep playing. Most of them are neither strong nor independent.

 

[aeroaeko]

Hows the writing in this game?

 

[Sykar]

Hows the writing in this game?

Decent imho.

 

[aeroaeko]

Decent imho.

Is it better than D:OS? I dropped that game because I couldn't take the writing.

 

[Sykar]

Decent imho.

Is it better than D:OS? I dropped that game because I couldn't take the writing.

Quite a bit. I too struggled with the writing in DO:S, but am fine with Kingmaker. Might want to wait for other players opinion though.

 

[Haplo]

Decent imho.

Is it better than D:OS? I dropped that game because I couldn't take the writing.

I honestly don't know a game with worse writing then DOS, so that's an awfully low benchmark.
But yeah, I also find it decent here - not much bells & whistles but serves its purpose well enough - or perhaps because of it.

 

[anvi]

It is kind of fun in short doses, which makes it the best RPG ever. If you played TOEE it is basically the same game only it lasts 10000 hours.

 

[hell bovine]

Decent imho.

Is it better than D:OS? I dropped that game because I couldn't take the writing.

It's standard fantasy. Nothing brilliant (except for Nok-Nok, who is a little ball of murder & love), but neither nothing terrible, or terribly boring like DOS.

 

[Urthor]

It's good but not the best thing ever.

Kingdom Come Deliveroo was robbed for GOTY.

Absolutely robbed

 

[purpleblob]

I am noticing a lot of strong, independent women so far. It's literally one Aribeth behind every corner.

Most of the companions seem pretty one dimensional early on, but they all go through pretty good character development. Just keep playing and you will see.

 

[ArchAngel]

Writing and stories are mostly standard rpg fare (like Baldur's Gate and NWN) but without lore dumps every conversation (so not like PoE).
Also you run into really fun quests and conversation here and there. Not just with Nok Nok.

 

[anvi]

What game doesn't have shitty generic writing? This is why storyfags must be stopped.

 

[anvi]

Decent imho.

Is it better than D:OS? I dropped that game because I couldn't take the writing.

DoS has terrible writing, it is aimed at 12 year olds. DoS2 does a far better job, but still generic fantasy shit writing like every game ever. DoS is worth playing though if you just skip the writing, the combat can be fun. DoS2 I didn't like because it was just more of the same only it felt dumbed down somehow. It had a few fun battles though, but it even those were just like the first game all over again. The world was bigger and better, the writing was better, but they had a chance to elaborate on the combat they created in the first game and they failed miserably.

Pathfinder is very different. It doesn't have the fun but dumb blowing shit up combat that DoS has, instead it has 1990s tactical RPG combat which is both good and bad. The writing is better, I suppose, but if you care about writing in games you are dead to me anyway. The overall story is more mature and interesting than DoS which doesn't take much, but it still has shitty annoying kiddie characters. But again, if you play it like a sane person and mash escape when anyone opens their mouth, you are left with a traditional RPG. Loots to get, stats to choose, chores to complete, goblins to blow up. It is all there. I found the combat mostly satisfying at first but it just gets so repetitive after a while, the difficulty is really weak too, everything just goes splat on normal difficulty. You could increase it but it would only make it more tedious. The kingdom management gimmick is shit and an incredible waste of development time, but you can skip that too.

 

[luj1]

I am noticing a lot of strong, independent women so far. It's literally one Aribeth behind every corner.

Keep playing. Most of them are neither strong nor independent.

I can't comment on character development yet. What I am referring to is exposition.

First I encountered the barbarian as she instagibbed 3 assassins, thought she was cool, probably based on a character from the original module. Moment's later, I came across the inquisitor girl sporting a scythe (?) who greeted me with over-the-top mystery and self-centered powertrip ("I'm undead y'know"). I'm like okay. Then I stumbled upon that Brienne of Tarth copy-paste (this is all happening in a matter of minutes) as she's carrying poor men out of the flame as if they were helpless children. Finally, I found my host dispatching a frost giant and a manticore taking up half of the screen in dramatic fashion.

I have nothing against a well-designed (and well-placed), "dramatic" female figure, but have some sense of measure for god's sake. The intro mansion feels like playing Tyranny (a feminism simulator).

 

[ArchAngel]

Host is a high level warrior, undead chick has nothing to do with feminism, "brianne" wannabe is a much weaker character but equally broken and amiri goes splat herself in first real combat where she gets to tank.

 

[luj1]

I don't need an interpreter AA. Yeah Jamandi is a high level warrior, no shit.

Anyway, various QoL improvements are awesome (such as displaying leftover loot upon exiting an area) and the overall aesthetic is very pleasant. Most KS RPGs nail this.

The story feels standardly good as you would accept from a tabletop campaign. Also, I loved textbook C&C during the prelude and the brief CYOA segment was cute. I just hope this game isn't frontloaded like PoE.

 

[Morkar Left]

When you have a ruleset-heavy RPG it really hurts to have half the stuff not work

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder...ar/list_of_mechanics_that_do_not_work_yet_as/

I thought this was a joke but apparently not

That's a lot shorter than I thought...

 

[hell bovine]

Then I stumbled upon that Brienne of Tarth copy-paste (this is all happening in a matter of minutes) as she's carrying poor men out of the flame as if they were helpless children.

And have you noticed she becomes fatigued once she does so? Her strenght is so low, she's literally encumbered by the equipment intended for her class. If anything, Val's a parody of Shar-Teel from BG1; can't hit anything in combat, but has the constitution of a dwarf and can be employed as a brickwall.

 

[Thonius]

When you have a ruleset-heavy RPG it really hurts to have half the stuff not work

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder...ar/list_of_mechanics_that_do_not_work_yet_as/

I thought this was a joke but apparently not

That's a lot shorter than I thought...

That's short list and it's 5 month old, right?