Pathfinder Kingmaker Critique

[@robertgalindo5979]

If any game deserves a one year later retrospective this one does. Its current state is night and day from its launch.

[@Swift_Mei_Mei]

Agreed My Dude.

[@dudeguybro]

Not to say they haven't improved the game, but it will always put a bad taste in someone's mouth when a company releases a garbage game in hopes people will forgive them. Customers won't trust your initial release titles and will wait for reviews and buy the game on-sale (I rarely buy games new to begin with, but point made). There's really no point in releasing a retrospective of sorts for a game where the developers essentially released a game one year too early. It really seems like the good ol' days are gone where companies released a game when it was ready versus trying to bring in the revenue ASAP and hope for the best. I bought this game last year when a lot of things were fixed and was also on-sale. Based on its initial reviews and such, there would've been no way in hell I would've bought this game when it first came out. If I had, I would've asked for my money back (circa Blizzard's disastrous Warcraft 3 Reforged release). We pay for completed products, not a player on injury reserve.

[@AndragonLea]

@@dudeguybro I think "garbage" is a really harsh word for it, at least in this instance. You can clearly tell they worked hard on the game, had a solid vision and didn't phone it in deliberately like some companies (looking at you Bethesda) are wont to do. That said, I do agree with the Shigeru Miyamoto philosophy here: “A delayed game is eventually good, a bad game is bad forever.” The problem is that, unlike a relative industry giant like Blizzard or Bethesda, this title was crowd-funded and had a very finite budget to play with and not as much experience in what is and is not achievable with the budget, manpower and time available. They overreached and it cost them, which is sad. I think this game would have benefited from having some features added later as opposed to trying to make everything work in the initial development phase and ending with the many bugs it had as a result. So yeah, while I agree with you that games should be finished, polished products on release and not disguised early access or beta products with a promise that it'll eventually be good, I also think that mitigating factors should be considered on a case by case basis.

[@forrestorange]

Exactly what I wanted to ask, thank you!

[@Neagnosis]

Looking forward to finally playing it, I held off since launch and forgot about it. Can’t wait to dig in!

[@bluntlyhonest6803]

For those who watch this in 2020 i can confirm that pretty much all bugs are gone (i didnt encounter a single one apart from the Odd graphical bug here and there, nothing gamebreaking) the game is in its best state and i can highly reccomend to give it a go, especially if you like DnD or Divinity original sin.

[@Zoober0001]

TY I'm picking this game up next month for Christmas.

[@bluntlyhonest6803]

@@Zoober0001 I hope you like reading ;)

[@sephelutis]

If anything this game runs much more smooth than pillar 2 which to this day still remains to be a laggy mess -_-

[@bluntlyhonest6803]

@@sephelutis Cant say if it does, havent played pillers of eternity.

[@thegumonyourshoes]

Yeah, it’s been fun playing so far. Shame it’s gonna have this legacy.

[@TrickyTrickyFox]

"Going from world map to throne room or having the ability to buy building points directly on the kingdom map would be good" - they actually added both :D

[@alteredbeast7145]

Yeah but a trip back to the capital for the average system is still 45 min for some fairly basic area transitions

[@markearl7172]

@@alteredbeast7145 on your shit rig yeah but most dont have ancient hardware

[@ironl4nd]

@@alteredbeast7145 You´d have to have a pretty fucking old piece of shit computer for it to take long.

[@Canadish]

A year or two on and it's great on PC, a real credit to Owlcat. For context for anyone stumbling onto this, the Publisher forced it out the door, Owlcat later bought themselves free of the publisher and fixed the game on their own dime.

[@Grrymjo]

Also, they're Russians. Which means while they have to address Western "feelings" to have commercial success, they are not risking their jobs with any innovation in the opposite to what's happened to Mr. Chris Avellone .

[@Canadish]

@@Grrymjo I thought I recalled they made a pretty level-headed statement saying that they'd await more substantial evidence of misconduct before making a further statement about Avallone? It was by far the most sensible response to the allegations given that all we had presented was evidence that Avallone is REALLY bad at pick up lines and clearly understands that no means no. The whole situation with Bloodlines 2 felt like someone just trying to backstab him to climb the career ladder.

[@Geraduss]

Bugfinder Loadmaker, a great game with a few issues.

[@faselfasel2864]

Or rather great issues with a few game.

[@ajxx9987]

@@faselfasel2864 is fixed now?

[@faselfasel2864]

@@ajxx9987 well, you can play the game now from start to finish from what i've heard. There are still loads of bugs though. Feats not working correctly or at all. Bugged quests, there were still no balance changes for endgame. Kingdom management balance is untouched and a lot of necessary information about how things work is also still missing. So i'd say no.

[@Geraduss]

@@ajxx9987 I played it the other day and the blatant merchant&inventory bug was something new that wasn't there before. Can't change merchant tabs to see select items and clicking on it changes your inventory tabs instead. If something like that slipped by during the latest big patch I wonder what else broke.

[@Shinieris]

@@ajxx9987 It's still loadmaker. I played it for 26 hours on record. 1 hour was spent creating my character, which I had no real problem with since I have no knowledge of the Pathfinder universe. 6 hours was spent actually playing the game before I was kicked out to Windows over and over shortly after entering Old Sycamore (a place you absolutely have to go to continue the story) every single time. The rest of the time, around 19 hours? It was spent watching the loading screen. They weren't kidding when the starting loading screen said it was going to take several minutes, it took me 20-30 minutes to load the menu every single time. I even went to the grocery story to buy ice cream and when I came back it still wasn't loaded.

[@_Dingu]

Honestly the turn based mod saved this game for me. I used to play a lot of RTwP games, but now I realize I enjoy turn based a lot more. The option to switch between the two is a feature that I never knew I needed. Now I'm wishing every crpg could swap between the two on the fly

[@comyuse9103]

RTwP is fine, but pathfinder is literally a tabletop RPG and owlcat replicated the ruleset as faithfully as they could have, which means it was literally made for turn based combat. there are other issues that stem from the game being primarily designed with real time in mind (trash encounters), but the system is so much better when you use turn based combat in a really tough fight.

[@gurugeorge]

Very much agreed. The opportunity to switch between the two is really amazing. I think the problem with it though is that it adds to the developers' workload, because you basically have to have different AI systems for the two modes. This was really obvious when it was only the mod that made the game turn-based, but since the "official" turn-based version, Owlcat adjusted some aspects of the AI for turn-based mode, and the Kingmaker AI mod makes turn-based even more challenging (for example, enemies will sometimes - not always, to the point of tedium, but sometimes, to the point that you have to be careful - make a bee-line for your caster or healer, and that type of thing). At any rate, this adding to the workload for developers who always have to do triage with their time and energies anyway, is probably the reason why we haven't seen more games with the combination of the two modes and the ability to switch between them on the fly.

[@satanspy]

On the other hand theres guys like me that skipped Divinity because it was turnbased and played POE or Pathfinder instead and also refuse to play BG3 because Larian is developing it and its just more turn based trash.

[@_Dingu]

@@satanspy different strokes for different folks. You do you

[@ducky36F]

@@satanspy man honestly this TB vs RTwP hill isnt something worth dying on. You said you haven't even tried Divinity? Give DOS2 a proper chance and see if it can't win you over. As someone who didn't play cRPGs growing up and had only played Dragon Age Origins until Pillars and Divinity had came out (now I've played most of the big cRPGs), the two modes aren't even that different and I'd say RTwP is harder to get used to. No sense missing out without even giving it a chance.

[@ryanmartini6965]

You’re my favorite video game essay person. very analytical, entertaining and fair.

[@Hennesg]

I loved Divnity 2 and PoE 2 but Kingmaker Im torn about. It is so difficult to get into. Not only are the dicerolls and all the different layers of mechanics overbearing and sometimes not properly explained but the system itself is rather unforgiving. I play games like these to have an interesting and fun journey where I can see my raise in powerlevel through my own skills, needs and goals. In Kingmaker you basically have to study every system and think at least 5 levels ahead but prefferably you should already know what your endgame build and party looks like and how it all fits together. Because if not you end up with a shit party. Basically the game gives you the illusion of choice, theres 5000 ways to build every character but only 10 are viable and 2 are preffered. Everything else is a path to misery. And I think its straight up poor design. Also if you pick up a party member you have to study their class, study possible feats and skills, study all the possible multiclasses and then make a desicion which of your options might WORK. Normally the different build paths should give youi options to play your character/class in a way you feel like playing. Here its a puzzle of how to not fuck up your build.

[@zzxp1]

"Basically the game gives you the illusion of choice, theres 5000 ways to build every character but only 10 are viable" Welcome to D&D, the key aspect of the system is freedom, yo can make something that breaks the game or something as absurd as taking 1 level in every class. You do indeed need to research quite a bit before deciding what to do, but that is at least for me part of the appeal. Now the problem when taking this system to a computer game format is that you don't have people around you to ask questions, you only have the game explanations, and the game does a poor job at that

[@robingomez9319]

If you can't be arsed to read things for multiple classes (which is totally understandable) just lower the difficulty. No shame in that as normal mode basically assumes you are 6 players at once, and each player knows how its class works

[@jabberwocky9968]

@@robingomez9319 On my first playthrough, I went with easiest difficulty because I was not familiar with the system and knew I would most probably skill my characters wrong. On easiest difficulty, I thought the game would be forgiving enough so that I could have fun without having to min max the shit out of my builds. I was wrong. In every single encounter the most frequent thing that happened was my characters missing their attacks. What's more: The game's prologue up until you become baron of your own little dominion is so riddled with combat encounters that I was asking myself if I had not better play Diablo 3 instead. I am a tabletop dungeon master for D&D, have been for several years. I don't consider myself the most experienced of dungeon masters. But even I know that a dungeon where every encounter is a cookie cutter combat encounter is boring to the point of exhaustion. Especially when your pc's can't hit a barn door from a meter away. It gets better, though: Later in the game, there is a quest that you simply MUST NOT EVEN TRY TO COMPLETE. You get a quest, and it demands you show up alone without companions at a specific location. An npc will wait for you there, supposedly to give you a reward for something. Instead, the npc turns against you and keeps spawning high level monsters to kill you. There's no way you can win at this level, especially if you come alone as promised. So you either die or you don't do the quest and let it rot in your quest journal. Always taunting you for the rest of your playthrough. Whose idea of fun is this? If I was a tabletop player and my DM pulled this shit I would pack my things and go. And never come back. And this is precisely what I have done with this game. And I recommend people to stay away from this shitshow. I got the game for 14 bucks in steam sale. It wasn't even worth that amount. Atrocious quest and encounter design. Unavoidable and unfun combat. I never was so bored, frustrated and exhausted from a CRPG before. And I played them all.

[@robingomez9319]

@@jabberwocky9968 well allow me to disagree with everything you just said. I for one think it's one of the best games of all times. The only thing I agree with is how unforgiving it can be for new players. Do not forget though that this project is a game made by Pathfinder fans for Pathfinder fans. Maybe now that they have some money in the bank and an even more successful Kickstarter they'll make a more extensive tutorial in WotR (though honestly I don't know how you can make a tutorial for actual RPG mechanics, how can you summarize hundreds of pages in a small Tooltip?) This specific quest you're talking about you can "stealth" away. As in there's a path you can take that only makes you face a regular wolf. What happened to gamers that now they can't figure out things on their own? If I remember correctly they even added a warning screen just before entering the map telling you to bring a Greater Invisibility potion The only quest design I agree is bad is one made by a backer where you meet Hellknights. Other than that the quest and encounter design is what makes the game so good. Do not forget you can rest. The one thing annoying in this game is how unforgiving the Kingdom system can be. I bought this game 40€ or something and played 400h so I'm quite happy with my investment 😉

[@Yarxov]

I've really enjoyed the game aswell. If combat isn't your thing this simply isnt a game for you. It took me ~45h to figure out whats going on, barely finished act 1, restarted and absolutely breezed through it the second time. When you figure out how to build your characters you can do anything you want. This isnt a story heavy rpg and thats a shame, but its still excellent and one of my favorites.

[@nergalsmom]

"Jubilost is a smug little prick, Octavia is a thot" rip my sides

[@comyuse9103]

its true, and thats why we love them

[@SchinTeth]

Another great indepth critique. Thank you man

[@Wintermist-SWE]

Wow, what an incredible video you put together! Thank you!

[@williamblackfyre4866]

Well, they fixed most if not all the bugs, and they added a few of those 'quality of life' things you mentioned. So I didn't encounter many issues when I got the game a few months back. It's fucking great.

[@antoniozeros]

Exactly this, the game is all fine now.

[@jlaw3504]

Did they add a speed option?

[@quickpawmaud]

J Law I don’t think so

[@FilthyNobeard]

Yo, why is this the second time I'm reading this brand of BS lol? This is a lie. If most of the bugs are fixed that speaks volumes about how buggy it was to begin with, because presently the came still has wasp hives worth of bugs. Fucking hell.

[@williamblackfyre4866]

@@FilthyNobeard Why is it BS? I didn't buy the came when it came out so I didn't have any problems. So why exactly is my experience with the game BS? They fucked up but took the time to fix the bugs so future players can play it without a problem. Regardless of what you may think, that is worth something.

[@ankujo8924]

If you haven't gone back to Kingmaker recently, I really recommend it. 100% true and fair criticism at the time of your video, but they did in fact get everything fixed and sorted out. Ended up easily one of my favorite games of all time

[@zzxp1]

Wrong, there is still several bugs and issues.

[@robingomez9319]

@@zzxp1 would you care to elaborate? I have about 240 hours on record, 200 of them in the past 3 months or so and I only encountered like 3 bugs which were in no way gamebreaking, which is a pretty decent number.

[@zzxp1]

​@@robingomez9319 For example, in kingdom management, when you are building, if you buy BP from there, the BP count on the top freezes and doesn't display the actual number you have. The feat steal soul doesn't work, if you pick it up you basically have a dead feat. I wasn't able to respec the main character by using the ingame method, i had to download a mod to do that... also one little detail that says that some classes can use slings but slings are not in the game. Let me remind you that i was not actively searching for bugs, i simply stumbled uppon these in my play time from chapter one to two where the game is supposed to be more bug free, so who knows what lies ahead or what did i miss because im not really good at finding this kind of things. So yeah, while they are not game breaking, they are still pretty annoying and should be things the developers should be polishing instead of making a kickstarter (after pathfinder did well in sales remind you) for their next game.

[@robingomez9319]

@@zzxp1 I'll give you the BP one indeed it still exists, though there are slings in the game. I encourage you to continue your playthrough unless one minor bug is enough to make you drop the game 😛

[@Rolatii]

"Everything" is a very strong word to use about Kingmaker. I love the game, but you only need to start a timer until you find your first bug.

[@cloverraven]

Downloaded pillars of eternity 2, Divinity original sin 2, and Pathfinder Kingmaker all in a span of 4 days. And this is exactly what I was looking for. Great game.

[@LeBurns-63]

Would LOVE to see you play this game again with all the patches and new content and re-evaluate the game again.

[@vitaminc2161]

I wouldn't play the game if I know I have to savescum and look for explaination of the feats from internet.

[@devo4ka_soso4ka]

@@vitaminc2161 You don't have to savescum. Wanna do every quest the right way and open every chest? Sure go savescum, just like in every other game. Don't wanna savescum? Just skip the chests you were unable to lockpick or return later, just allow your quest events to unfold the way you deserve by playing them (for better or worse) instead of retrying for better outcome. As for feets? Well, most of them do have correct descriptions, and if you look for some certain interaction of different skills with each other, you can: a) save, respec, level the skills you are curious about and look what happens, b) watch some builds on youtube for good combinations. Most of the internet information comes from the table version and surprise, table game skills don't work the same way as pc game skills. For example, you can indefinitely stack bite attack ingame and that's intended, there are bite-trip builds with a special item that trips the enemy whenever you bite them. The game is a bit hard to understand if you never played dnd or pathfinder before, but that's understandable - it's more or less the same with every other dnd based game, especially oldschool. You still wouldn't play it? Okay, and i wouldn't play new NFS games, but i don't go and tell others that (usually). It's your preference, not devs fault. And don't get me wrong, i think the devs are not okay - they still haven't fixed lots of bugs i reported multiple times and don't intend to do so, instead they launched the development of the next game (and what stops it from being abandoned buggy just like the first one?), so i'm not just saying it because i'm some Owlcat paladin. Quite the contrary.

[@williamblackfyre4866]

@@devo4ka_soso4ka What are you talking about? I've played the game through about 3 times in the past couple months, did all the quests, tried most of the classes, went to every place on the map. I haven't encountered a singe bug.

[@devo4ka_soso4ka]

@@williamblackfyre4866 Loads of typos, bugged endings (you make one line of choices regarding your kingdom and get another line of choices' ending), Darven's quest outcome can only be negative if you side with Lynxia (you lost lots and lots of points because quest is bugged and Darven doesn't appear for many months, Lynxia's "investigation" doesn't help the process, when he finally shows up no matter how you behave even if you completely side with her at the end she doesn't reward you and promises to send her troops one day to you for you are a pitiful ruler), artisans masterpieces are often impossible to obtain in a playthrough (there is an achievement to get all of them, i'm trying for 6th time already, i've done everything thats needed from every possible guide about the topic and still some artisans just stop coming or never bring their masterpiece even if i wait until Nyrissa ruins my kingdom in "last" chapter). More than just that, you know they announced a bug with respecing after you've got the Shining King's curse in the last chapter? I reported it HALF A YEAR before they announced that "oh my god we have a critical bug you should know about", and for HALF A YEAR they did nothing with it, and i even called them on it in their official group in VK (russian social network), and has shown them proofs that i did indeed report this bug half a year ago. What did they answer me? "Oh well, you reported it in a special thread we created for reporting bugs, but we don't actually check it, so if you'd report it through the game built-in report feature then maybe..." even though i did that too, but there is no way to prove that.

[@devo4ka_soso4ka]

@@williamblackfyre4866 Oh, and lets not forget lots of small things. Like, for example, the combined barbaric-themed artifact (don't remember it's name) that allows you to transform into an animal. It does so by providing you a spell you can use any time, as much as you want. But there is a single problem. Normally that spell works for a minute per level in a class that provides it, and it _gives you the reversion spell_ you can use at wish. So if you transformed into an animal form with a normal spell, you can revert back to normal any time you want. But it's not like that with an artifact transformation. Even though it should work the same, it only transforms you for 1 minute AND DOESN'T GIVE YOU REVERSION SPELL. So if you use it you are stuck as an animal until the time is out or until something else dispells it. It is NOT normal, and there are LOTS of such things. I actually tried to build a druid mc with stacking bite attacks, beargod thunderclaw weapon, the cape that trips an enemy when biting and this artifact (to constantly be in an animal form with all of the above mentioned stuff working with it). And i was SEVERELY disappointed when mid game my build crumbled apart just because some key item didn't work properly. You might think, there's not many artifacts in game that you gather from parts, and they are really something special, at least they probably did them the right way? Nope, they didn't, and they DON'T INTEND TO FIX IT. Not because it's not a bug, just because i reported that too and they ignore it.

[@johndeighan2495]

It's interesting to compare this game with the Pillars of Eternity franchise. They both have complex systems. But only in one case - Kingmaker - did I feel it was worth the effort of mastering them. Why was that? I think there are a few reasons, not just one: 1. The Pathfinder system is tried and tested, not invented on the hoof like the Pillars system. 2. The Kingmaker story had a very simple and compelling initial premise. "Tame these untamed lands and become their ruler." I was immediately hooked. 3. To keep the hook in, Kingmaker does the basic RPG things consistently well: good characters, good main story, good writing, good pacing. 4. Kingmaker doesn't rely on heavy, immersion-breaking lore-dumps. There will be other things too, but if I was to sum it all up, I'd say Kingmaker just does things consistently better at the micro level than Pillars. It gets the small things right, and when you add it all up, it amounts to a big difference: one game I completed twice, the other I abandoned after 20 hours.

[@enriquepena2199]

Damn interesting, I did the exact opposite beating Pillars of Eternity 1 + 2 twice, vs Kingmaker quitting at 36 hours

[@Mystra]

Have you visited the game recently? Definitely has improved a lot.

[@klefthoofrobert787]

I'm just getting the Imperial Edition right now, i saw it has change A LOT and they fixed almost everything , can't wait to see how the game is , i'm a CRPG fanboy , but i skipped this one and Tyranny because i kept hearing about bugs and unfinished features, so i just prefered to wait for the final version to buy it.

[@Mystra]

@@klefthoofrobert787 Good idea, it has improved so much and also quite a few nice free additions to the game as well.

[@megamastah]

@@klefthoofrobert787 Same, just bought the Imperial edition. Don't forget to install a couple of must have mods, like fast travel, cleaner, kingdom resolution and the like.

[@AeonQuasar]

I started recently, not being part of the bugs in the begining. But for me there is so often the game freeze that it's kinda ridiculous. Everytime (90% of the times) I first start the game, it freezes at the fully loaded loadingscreen. It stops working entirely and only way to stop it is having two monitors so you can have the task commander on the other side and from there force it down. Or else you have to restart the computer. The second time, it usually work again. Also, if I look at the other screen or alt+tab sometimes, there is a 10% chance the game will freeze. I love the game so far, but bugs sucks. No good solution to be found. My Pc is top notch so that is not the problem.

[@megamastah]

@@AeonQuasar weird, I have zero issues, no problems with load times either. I have a couple of mods installed (listed above), but they shouldn't matter.

[@sapare7838]

Your review(more specifically your more recent video about the best CRPG games in the last decade) convinced me to finally give this game a shot, I have played Pathfinder table top for years but due to never quite enjoying Baldursgate and Pillars of Eternity I was shy of trying any CRPG. But it is very good, and the turn based mode they added(while not flawlessly implemented) really helped someone like me to enjoy the game. Thankyou for the recommendation. But I wanted to make this comment because I am on the "differences between table top and Kingmaker" section and as someone who is decently(if not expertly) versed, some of the differences do really bug me. Can't describe it any better than the phenomenon where, the closer closer we get to realistic graphics the more small mistakes in visuals leap out. Here the game is SO close to the real thing that when it decides to flaunt the rules it really gets under my skin. I do think a lot of the issues come from the late addition of turn based combat mode having to marry itself with the real time adaption, but I hope in future games they can re-add the things they simplified/changed.(Crossbows reloading mechanic, flanking mechanics, drinking potions not triggering Attacks of Opportunity(this one is just a weird change..)) But my major complaints when it comes to rule changes are the scenarios where the game LIES to you because the descriptions are based on Pathfinder but Kingmaker changed the mechanic. That is honestly really shoddy and I have two examples: 1.) All the attributes(INT,DEX, etcetera) in the game say what happens if you hit 0 score(most knock you unconscious, only one of them actually kills you), this description is that way in Kingmaker and Tabletop. But in Kingmaker any char who hits 0 in any stat just instantly dies, there is even a hint that tells you this. So why not bother to fix the ability descriptions so they are accurate to the game? 2.) Raise Dead says that coming back from the dead gives you two negative levels permanent, but the game does not actually do this. I am not sure if permanent levels exist in Kingmaker or if they couldn't/did not want to implement them, but why did they leave the description in? It is doubly weird because its not even the base description of the spell, they already modified it for Kingmaker, but then never fixed it. I don't think that permanent negative levels would have been a good idea with the current balance of the game, but I feel like they had a broader solution to the balancing issue and then never found the time to fix it.(the way the game says that clerics can help you raise dead, for a fee, when in reality all they do is sell you the scroll, it just seems like there was more planned) How much time would it have taken to just change the description of the spell so it does not mention negative levels? Eitherway, game is amazing, even if sometimes broken and awkward, thank you for your videos.

[@haloa92]

Thank you for the deep critique. Really good content here. Hope to see more about this game from you as they release new stuff!

[@Dan-uf2vh]

a very amusing aspect is that the bugs would start mounting along with the kingdom malices and chapters progressing, making you feel becoming more drowned by the whole thing: malices or bugs, they went together; reality being warped by powers unseen to destroy you and your kingdom ^^

[@CrimRui]

You know, I don't really mind stuff like slow walk and load times. My biggest issue is the damn Kingdom management. It's so tedious and frustrating when I'm bombarded with issues and have no people to deal with because they are doing other errands. It's like... IRL if I could not go to a damn store on working days, only on Sunday. Did these people ever heard of multitasking? I'm afraid to go adventuring because I don't know when some issue will appear that will be a deadly penalty. And not only that, but it's a useless feature. There is nothing to enjoy from it, you don't get anything. Sure I can put it on auto but that's like turning off half of the game.

[@heberrodriguez3310]

Well, thats reality.

[@Dan-uf2vh]

having played through twice, second time on hard difficulty, I can say that you should ignore building altogether up until chapter 4 and instead focus solely on completing kingdom assignments and ranking; once you are in chapters 4-5, then you can start focusing on building up you kingdom with buildings, especially teleporters once you have access to these

[@thegigaassassin8962]

2 years later, seems a much cleaner experience.

[@JustDaZack]

After having watched this video 3 times and also your "Ultimate CRPG Guide" I finally bought and played this game. And I absolutely adore it! This really is the *new* Baldur's Gate so many games always promised but never quite delivered. Sad that this game might never reach the same level of praise as BG due to its miserable launch. On the other hand, who knows 10-20 years down the road this hopefully will be handled as classic just like BG, Knights of the Old Republic, Mask of the Betrayer and so on. In my eye it certainly deserves it.

[@JoonKimDMD]

This game has super steep learning curve and it won’t age well. They don’t explain 1d6, -4 penalty for range, why fatigue so often, permanent str penalty by early spider swarm etc.

[@SaberToothPortilla]

@@JoonKimDMD Well... they *do*, for most of those at least, but you do have to look for the tooltip. If you don't seek, you will not find. I think the biggest, I guess you could call it a, problem is that the Pathfinder ruleset is so large that even attempting to clarify every little thing explicitly in play would be unwieldy, especially considering that they actually do adapt a lot more of the ruleset than they probably even needed to. To be honest, I think this game will be pretty neutral with age. It'll age at least as gracefully as Baldur's Gate, both of which aged like milk in most regards, but were still very solid where it mattered. Maybe it was a mistake of sorts on Owlcat's part, but assuming the audience wouldn't be coming in on zero information probably seemed reasonable at the outset. Classic CRPGs were the same way, try playing Baldur's Gate or Fallout without already at least having an idea of what you're doing, and you're gonna have a bad time. It's just the nature of the beast for systems that involved.

[@Empowerless]

@@JoonKimDMD True but I'd argue the Infinity Engine games explain even less (unless you read the manual) and they are still regarded as classics over 20 years later.

[@kalenics123]

My bigest problems with this game are the lack of information and loading times

[@Shinieris]

My biggest problem with this game is the lie about system requirements and also the clearly unoptimized game, but mostly the lie about the system requirements. Though I do agree about the long loading times. I played the game for 26 hours. 1 hour was spent creating my character which wasn't bad, probably one of the best rpg character creator in recent history. 6 hours was spent playing the game. The rest of the time was spent watching the loading screen. I removed the game after getting kicked out of the game when I went into Old Sycamore every single time. And if you play the game, you know that going to Old Sycamore is absolutely necessary.

[@alexoelkers2292]

@@Shinieris really? i haven't had any frame rate or optimization issues and im on a 2012 CPU and a entry level graphic card. Its the bugs that were killing me but they seem to be mostly fixed with the newest release.

[@alexdollesin300]

Same, not enough information at all

[@alexoelkers2292]

@@Shinieris yeah I agree about the loading times... god it takes forever to even save your goddamn game and I have a SSD.

[@alexoelkers2292]

I didn't mind the lack of information... the game is made for D&D fans and fans of CRPGs but the loading screens... god I hated those loading screens.

[@quixadhal]

There would be an easy fix to save scumming to redo dice rolls. It's one Civilization uses, and would be trivial to implement. Use a fixed random seed, which is set when the game is started. This doesn't mean the game events aren't random, but it means the same sequence (or sub-sequence) of dice rolls will result in the same results. The only way to get different results is to change the number of things you do, so the position in the sequence for a particular dice roll is different. For example: if you cast 3 spells and the AI attacks 4 times, and that 4th attack is a critical hit that kills you... reloading the save when the random seed is fixed means if you still do 3 spells and the AI still does 4 attacks, that 4th attack will still be the same critical hit. However, if you change your tactics so you cast 2 spells and do 2 attacks (for example), the random result will now be different since it will be rolled against a different position in the sequence. That means, you can reload saved games to try and do things differently, and that's still a valid tactic... but you lose the ability to just keep doing the exact same thing and hope the RNG lets you win this time.

[@PubliusRutiliusLupus]

When are we getting a Wrath of the Righteous retrospective?

[@maximiliangeiger169]

Personally I got very frustrated constantly exploring areas with enemies that Im only supposed to face once I've racked up in numbers. It defeated the sense of exploring for me as it felt there were only a few "right" paths to take, which you have to find first... Kinda like a pathfinder... Okay, sorry. I might try it on the easy setting once a few patches have passed in order to still get the joy of experiencing the story at least.

[@dmas7749]

as an impatient person, i play action games far more than RPGs, and when i do play them it's for tactical choice and consequences as i can't stand grinding in them, this just isn't for me, someone who thinks levels and stats should play a factor but unconditionally take a backseat to skill and strategy...oh yeah i also have a vehement hatred for dicerolls and RNG now this being a grindfest doesn't mean it has no right to exist, even if i don't wanna play it, but that's sort of the beauty of it, and i respect its legacy...i'm also curious to know if you've given it another go

[@maximiliangeiger169]

@@dmas7749 It's funny you're answering this now because I've just recently picked it up again! I don't know if the devs played around with the balancing or maybe it's because I just have a better party-composition but the "pathing"-proplem doesn't feel as severe to me now (still playing on normal difficulty). There are still enemy-packs that you're not meant to beat when you first encounter them but the majority of hard fights can be dealt with using good strategy. USing good strategy however means knowing the encounter or at least having a good grasp of the game as a whole... I think there is a lot of different things to enjoy in this game, but I would never recommend it to an impatient person :D.

[@dmas7749]

@@maximiliangeiger169 i'm glad to hear it

[@remythewroth]

Picked this up about a month ago? Have around 60 hours in. Great game, so happy with it. Bugs got fixed!

[@CrimRui]

The biggest problem is that the people are still bad mouthing it, even though the game is miles better then it was at the start. Seriously I'm loving the game. The atmosphere, the quests, the characters. Haven't felt this good since I played the good old Baldur's Gate 2. And I still have yet to play Divinity Original Sin 2.

[@shawngillogly6873]

Agreed. Cohh's postmortem from a month ago much more accurately reflects the current state of the game.

[@megamastah]

@@CrimRui Word of advice - if you value quality mature gaming over goofy strategy sandbox, don't play Divinity Original Sin 2. You will save yourself some disappointment.

[@tebogotwala5185]

i recently discovered this channel and i fell so in love!

[@AndragonLea]

I'd add to this that some dice rolls that fail shouldn't be final things that require a reload at all. Sure, in real life it's possible for your character to miss a ruin in a nearby meadow as they pass. I absolutely agree with that. But what I don't agree with is that (at least as it was explained to me) each character only rolls that perception once, regardless of how often you pass by an area. So if your actual party failed finding a certain optional side area or hidden item (which can include important or powerful items like parts of legendary pieces), they just won't be able to find them that run, no matter how often you canvas the area again. Same for unlocking a chest or disarming a trap. Unless your character is completely inept and somehow managed to brute force break a lock, there should really be no reason your character can only try to unlock a chest once. Similarly, a trap should only be triggered on a critical failure and additional attempts to unlock it should be possible. If the game is to have no reload cheesing functionality (and some games do go to trouble to do that by making rolls once and saving the result in a master "save file" for that run, referencing said master file when you reload so you can't just reload again and again to hope for a different outcome), then the rolls that are critical, game-changing and with heavy consequences have to be few and relatively easy to pass or foreshadowed so you can and should influence them beforehand or offering alternatives so you can bypass them in favour of different rolls that play more to your strength. Anything else in a game with 100 hour + of potential playtime will just lead to massive frustration and lead to a lot of aborted runs because one critical roll failed by sheer dice fiat and the player in question not wanting to go on because a critical NPC died to fat fingers or a critical event failed because the well-prepared and capable NPC companion you sent to solve it showed up drunk and disorderly. There's a balance to be struck there and I think allowing players to cheese their runs if they want to is probably the wiser way to go about it. Sure, it'll let players ruin their own experience, but if they're the kind that is a perfectionist and wants each action to work, not being able to reload will ruin the experience for them anyways, while the option will make no difference for the people that don't want it because they simply won't take advantage of it, similar to cheat codes in other games. That said, I also play games where the devs don't allow cheating or make it as hard as possible. Either option is fine with me and I'm saying that as someone who WILL reload a save if the thief fatfingers the unlocking of a chest simply because I don't think that should be a one-time roll unless it's a critical fail and he managed to jam his junk into the lock so hard it crusted over and turned into enchanted mithril. I'd also add that the reason dice rolls are to be respected in PnP is at least partly routed in the massive freedom of both the player and the DM. The player can absolutely decide that instead of picking a very difficult lock, they'll just take a small lock box with them - something most PC games won't allow. They can decide to examine the lock closely to see if a failed attempt is likely to break it or have a wizard cast spells to see if it is magically trapped to give the DM a chance to give them hints or let them know about consequences, something most games also don't allow. Lastly, when a DM gives the party something to roll on they have complete control and knowledge over the choices the player made, how critical the roll is for the future of the campaign, how frustrating or disastrous failing it would be for the players, how the players will likely deal with said frustration and whether or not they want to let the player taste this bitter fruit of failure or not. As a result, they can decide to allow further rolls, decide whether or not to give players a different option to salvage the situation despite failing it or to allow attempts the players come up with for same to succeed. They can also spontaneously come up with pity events to let players salvage a critical situation in general (i. e. if the players flub 4 or 5 routine events due to disastrous luck, bringing the kingdom to the brink of ruin, a DM might decide to throw the players a really easy event or two that will stabilize it again or a hard event that plays to the strengths of the party to salvage the situation, something the game might not do at all or not in the specific failure state a given player finds themselves in). In a situation where the game developers can't account for every possibility or dynamically respond to instances of extremely bad luck and where failures of dice rolls can lead to game over states in a campaign of up to a hundred hours or more, some way to undo these seems necessary to me if I am to enjoy the game and I'm convinced that this is true for most players.

[@LoLNight]

But you can actually reroll perception/lockpick checks in the game. Yes, you need to level up and increase corresponding skill, but it's possible. The majority of people (myself included) would just reload, but I know a few people who actually did this and revisited locations.

[@RialuCaos]

Having just had my 20 hour playthrough get ended by an ambush on my encampment and my main PC killed before I could even get up and take a single action, I agree quite a bit with this.

[@jmmywyf4lyf]

I've tried, for more than 80hrs, to get into this game. I love absolutely everything about it, except actually playing it... I keep running into impossible encounters, that completely destroy it for me. It feels like I have to be a Pathfinder ruleset expert, and more troublesome, I need to already know the what's ahead, to prepare for it. You're constantly having to reload and THEN prepare for a fight you have no possible way of knowing how to handle, without the gift of foresight! While some bugs are going to be a thing, these are designs, and won't be addressed.

[@HDMoustache]

I quitted because when I took improved two weapon fighting feat, the game removed the old two weapon fighting feat and I basically got all penalties from dual wielding with my level 11 character...

[@SanDiegotoStLouisR1]

This is a great in-depth look at the game. I appreciate the work. Personally, I quit playing the game thanks to the focus on world building and craptastic action combat system that DOES NOT do justice to what could have been a fantastic rpg.

[@paulpicu7932]

Real peculiar watching this and comparing it against my own experience. Ive spent the last 2 months playing and absolutely loving Kingmaker. By now, most bugs have been squashed, which is great if you're coming to this late - but I can see why they would leave their mark if you supported it early and had to experience the game at its worst. The size, depth, choice, progression, story, characters, passing of time - all made Kingmaker feel like Baldurs Gate one and two combined. Big words - but true for me. You start as a nobody, build up, all the way to King and even fighting a God. Special mention for mods - Like turn based? There is a mod for that. Want to rotate camera - get the mod. Want more character portraits... Etc I'm already thinking of my next character - will embrace evil - as I've been told the look of your home castle changes depending on allignment! Evil types have gallows and cages with skeletons... and can even recruit a certain lich as advisor. My mind was blown. Sorry you experienced the game at its worst. But it's now grown up - gloriously... And any rpg fan should swallow this up.

[@khatack]

One thing: the game REALLY is very poorly explained. There are tooltips that are missing crucial information. For example, I don't think that anything in the Paladin's class description actually mentions that Paladin spellcasting is Charisma based and not Wisdom based like it is in 3rd edition D&D, the BAB progression isn't stated anywhere in the Class descriptions etc etc. Then there's the kingdom management that is left utterly unexplained; the only thing that is told is what the different stats 'represent' but you're left completely clueless as to what the fuck do they actually do. Being newb friendly is one thing, but concealing crucial information you need to make sound decisions is just unacceptable.

[@foulwin9719]

One reason I refunded was after I mentioned that light weapons weren't listed, I was told to look them up in the pathfinder RPG book. Sorry, that's not my job and it's not a good response.

[@Entropy3ko]

I though Paladins were always Charisma based... at least they were in AD&D if I recall correctly

[@athernandez666]

@@Entropy3ko it is stated in-game as well.

[@zzxp1]

That moment when an old ass game like neverwinter nights does a better job at explaining classes (it was still incomplete), but here you have classes that are missing information or straight up lying (druids can use slings, oh wait, they don't exist in the game lulz)

[@robingomez9319]

There actually is, it's mentionned when you pick the class in the details window, and it's also mentionned when you buy your attributes in the description of said attribute but also there's a big green thumb up next to Charisma saying it's an important ability for a Paladin

[@ChristiantrospectiveGamer]

The savescumming for re-rolls wouldn't be so prevalent if the RNG didn't give consistently bad rolls. Also, the main difference between tabletop and video game RPGs is that video game RPGs force combat 90% of the time. I also noticed that enemies in the game are unnaturally difficult, even on normal mode. (Again probably RNG) but even trying spells with saves that attack the lowest save of a monster miraculously always gets saved against.

[@rezokiladze2334]

This basically, almost all the combat is unnatural, has too many enemies too frequently and holds no real value on story or side quests. Forcing combat onto you every minute is just nope.

[@miloinindo]

I played Kingmaker tabletop and it was inspiration for my friends and I to form our own game studio and make a game (Forged of Blood). When the video game came out, it was buggy and I ended up shelving it. I came back to it last December and I have to say it's a wonderful game at this point. Still imperfect. Still some bugs. Not being turn based means magic is far less effective. This means that magic is relegated to supporting roles. Etc. However, as an rpg, it's the closest experience I have had to a tabletop game in a video game. It tops Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale. It does deviate from the original ruleset but it does so for a reason and it does so well. While not the best RPG I've ever played, it's a must play for any RPG fan.

[@Grimbanks]

A really genuine, well-made critique. I’ve been debating whether or not to get the game, and if so - under what condition(s); this video really helped me in making my decision. Well done, sir.

[@NeverKnowsBest]

Glad you found it helpful

[@Owlr4ider]

I think you should make a retrospective video about Pathfinder: Kingmaker, now that most of the bugs have been fixed and various DLCs released, it really deserves a new overlook. Also with its sequal upcoming it's a pretty good time to revisit it.

[@KaiSaeren]

I adore this game, I couldnt even complete it when it first came out but even so I stuck with it because its just got so much of what I love and now the game is in nearly perfect state its reputation is great. Oh and the creators are making a new one, the kickstarter is still going strong and from what I have seen so far I cant be anything but extremely excited :) I agree that the impact the city management has is small, I would have appreciated more events related to how well or badly your city does and see more change. The city changes but only like once or twice, but aside for that I love the management, im a sucker for these kinds of things, events and lore, beliavable things happening even not while out in the field, I really enjoyed it in DA Inquisition and I like it here as well. Tho the initial load times and travel time between the throne room and places was INCREDIBLY annoying, its fixed now and a lot of quality of life things were added but still its not something I will forget :D PS: I genuinely cried when Linzi "dies", she is such a sweetheart.

[@shawngillogly6873]

This needs an update with regards to the changes made in recent patches and the expanded edition. The game from 7 months ago is much less enjoyable than the game now. Bugs are essentially squashed. Most of the QoL aspects he mentions are included, and load times are noticeably improved. And as I noted in the Pillars Retrospective, I think the real culprit for the end game load times is the Unity Engine itself. Every large scale game using Unity has had optimization & loading issues at launch. Battletech remains a resource hog, despite multiple attempts at optimization. This is hardly coincidental.

[@TheColemancreek]

I 100% agree with you. Wasteland 2 is another Unity game with similar issues (now fixed). For those people standing on the fence not sure about Pathfinder -- GO OUT AND BUY IT. I am an old school RPG fan who started with CRPGs on the C64 like Curse of the Azure Bonds and I can say that Pathfinder is one (if not my favorite) CRPG of all time (so far..am like 25 hours in Chapter 2). For those who are familiar with D&D you will have no issues understanding Pathfinder -- it is pretty simple and much easier to understand than this video eludes to. The game has so many classes/builds, from psionic wielding knights to corrupted druids (each class has 4 sub classes). Can't believe this game flew under the radar for me for so long.

[@BirdieImagineeBCH]

@@TheColemancreek I've always been interested and on the fence on this game but reading your comment helped my decision greatly. Getting this game now for sure!

[@TheColemancreek]

@@BirdieImagineeBCH Imaginee Pathfinder is just AD&D 3.5 ruleset located in the same universe as like forgotten realms but in a different solar system with different gods. It's at the same time both familiar and new due to the new setting. I would not at all think that anyone that has played AD&D would find the game complicated. 2 tips going in -- 1) be mindful of you individual/group weight 2) remember to double click on the spot you want to move to (single clicking makes you walk rather than run).

[@gurugeorge]

As others have said, the bugs problem is no longer relevant, most of those sorts of problems have been ironed out. The difficulty and lack of explanation are still a bit problematic overall, but if you're up for that sort of challenge, the game is bloody amazing.

[@okamichamploo]

idk if this was a later edition but there is one mechanic to prevent save scumming. I think it's called the Iron Mode. It only allows you to keep one save, and it saves automatically. That's how I play. I like modes like these cause it removes the temptation to undo your choices. Although the game really needs to be designed with this in mind.

[@candemirayak8981]

This game is Truly a masterpiece

[@andruism7]

I've had a *relatively* smooth journey. I think the biggest bug I had was when I would be attacked every time I tried to take a long rest on a map. I wasn't sure if that was intended (maybe I wasn't supposed to be camping there as it was 'dangerous') or a bug. I realize now that it was a bug.

[@bavettesAstartes]

I think most people have now forgotten that Baldur's Gate 2 was impossible to complete by default. There was a bug that would crash the game right after Irenicus drags you to hell. There was a fix for that, but it took some months. I don't think I have ever played any grandiose ambitious game without such bumps.

[@ararerraaarawra117]

Bought bg2 on premiere, didnt have this bug for me.

[@bavettesAstartes]

@@ararerraaarawra117 it was something to do with the cds. Cd 4 was bugged and would drop the game. I, my sister and two of my friends had this issue.

[@shawngillogly6873]

Later on there was one that killed the game in Spellhold. And Fallout 2 was virtually unplayable at launch. Weapons didn't work. Dialogue choices were dropped, breaking quests. It took a fan patch to fix everything...just like Arcanum.

[@nashwise4everGM]

I really enjoyed the game and I can see so much love that the devs spent on their game. It's sad that people being so harsh on the game. Anyway nice analysis, keep it up.

[@Nergal134]

People are so harsh because they also love the game or what it could have been.

[@mightymickey8879]

People are being harsh because the game is a totally broken mess. Aside from game breaking bugs, many... MANY... of the mechanics don't function properly (finesse weapons applying correct power attack damage, mithral armor not giving extra Dex to AC in addition to armor master, weapon training not functioning, gloves of dueling no functioning... and that's just fighter alone). The game is a facade of what could be one of the greatest crpgs ever but underneath it's gears are either broken or not turning at all.

[@Dermetsu]

People gave it shit because nobody likes spending money to be a glorified bug tester in an essentially early access title.

[@disk3001]

I am so happy that I got into this game after the Mandaloregaming review, in 2021 almost everything is fixed , quality of life features are added, turn based mode is added and this truly becomes the punishing crpg hell crawl we crave. Probably the fastest 150+ hours of gaming I've ever spend

[@MegaCygnusX1]

Your footage of the crag linnorn fight at 35:56 makes me smile because it's like Onyxia's lair in WoW. Valerie even charges in a la main tank while the "raid" runs up the flank to attack from the side. Amusing!

[@joej2285]

Another fantastic video game review ASMR!

[@kalenics123]

Guys there is an awesome turn based mod for this game. Makes the game more tactical albeit a little slower. Other mods that I recommend are Faster Travel for obvious reasons. Call of the wild and Proper Flanking 2 for some extra classes, spell and more challenge.

[@Venislovas]

Turn based makes game manageable

[@pc6864]

50h in.... This game simply is a masterpiece. The balance between the story and the kingdom administration is perfect. Realy makes you feel like a ruler.

[@TESkyrimizer]

Compared to PoE or Tyranny the game has a very mediocre story and dialogue. Plenty of lore and background stories but nothing compelling. Very generic dialogue characters and interactions.

[@FoamingPipeSnakes]

This game is like crappy PoE

[@andrewvincent7299]

@@TESkyrimizer Pathfinder is a classic high fantasy game. Of course it will come off as generic. You should have expected that when buying this game and seeing the marketing campaign. I love high fantasy and to be honest, I'm getting so sick of these nihilistic games that take itself so seriously like POE. It was so dull and the seriousness of the game was so contrived. Pathfinder was a breath of fresh air since games that are a deconstruction of high fantasy is in right now. I think it's so played out

[@TESkyrimizer]

@@andrewvincent7299 good point but folk like me arent savvy enough to predict that. I gotta say though is it really a deconstruction if it just plays it straight?

[@megamastah]

@@andrewvincent7299 Agree. Playing P':K I wanted to experience the best CRPG of the new era when it comes to fun take on a tabletop ruleset, and I got exactly that. If I were holding it to BG2 standard I'd be disappointed.

[@KaiSaeren]

Man I hate rewatching your videos, whatever you talk about I feel the need to go play again. And honestly, now its in a fantastic state, they didnt give up on it, there is plethora of dlcs, updates and fixes that put it straight into one of my favorites, and I wasnt even able to finish the game first time around :)

[@keypusher0]

They bit off more than they could chew, it's pretty clear. They have shown they can deliver a solid experience, if you look only at the early game experience. It's absolutely true there are issues with the current game, but I really hope they can follow through and deliver on the full experience. Realistically, I think it's going to be a few months before that happens though.

[@danrebeiz4598]

Curse of the stretch goals

[@shawnjohnson4732]

We are all still playing a very expensive beta. That said, there is a kernel of a great game at the center and I am sticking it out, but it would be nice for the developers to acknowledge their mistake in releasing this thing in such a state and maybe as throwing us a bone for it. I have poured an absurd amount of time into this thing and have loss no less than 3 play throughs to corrupted files from them "fixing" things. I'm also a little annoyed that DLC is being sold before the damn thing even has the kinks worked out.

[@rpg8278]

So many problem but charming game. Thank you for good review :D

[@jurgen4466]

Best RPG and they have now fixed the bugs. Great done!

[@elear9506]

Fortunately, the bugs will eventually be fixed (a great deal of them are going to be fixed with the release of the 1.1 major patch in a week or so) while the greatness will remain.

[@bruhbruh4329]

I saw that announcement. Over 1000 bugs fixed. If you have that many bugs on release, your game needs to be fukin delayed

[@elear9506]

Can't argue with that, it'd definitely have been much better for everyone if this game got delayed. It's not the developers' fault though, it's the publisher who decides when to release a game. And apparently the publisher got scared of very low PoE2:Deadfire sales and decided that they won't get the money spent on the development back in any case and forced the game out of the door to cut the losses. Which was obviously a stupid and wrong decision, but it's not Owlcat's fault, it's the publisher's. Owlcats actually, in my opinion, deserve a bit of praise on how quickly they tried to resolve the issues.

[@shawngillogly6873]

@@elear9506 Especially since QA is often the publisher's arm at least as much as the developer's. Certainly I think (and Owlcat's own postmortem confirms) that they suffered from not killing their darlings in development. OTOH, in a gaming climate where everyone plays it safe and wants a clone of the last big hit, if not the annualized version of said hit, to see a new developer take huge risks ought to be applauded, not denigrated. Customers complain that every RPG wants to be Skyrim. Here's a game that utterly rejects the AAA model, and gamers complain that it offers too much.

[@ajxx9987]

The devs are really generous, I bought bugs and they give me a game por free xD

[@Dan-uf2vh]

loading times destroy any enjoyment from the kingdom management; events popping and bursting behind the rank-up 14 day spending, unable to pause advisors from handling projects to handle immediate issues, unclear problem management; broken chapter 6 progression; the game is very deep and rewarding during the first chapters and some hidden content at the end game is exceptionally precious; you can be a zealot (e.g. lawful good idiot) missing deep puzzles and this fact is intriguing: often a neutral or even a chaotic neutral approach can turn out to be the wisest; a lower threshold check more valuable than the more difficult one

[@TenchiSawada]

Respec is part of the original pathfinder games. It takes time and money to do so, but it is part of the pen and paper game.

[@shawngillogly6873]

It's in the Enhanced Edition. And it's very forgiving. 1st 3 times are free. Then it charges on the basis of level and frequency used. All characters can be respecced. I wouldn't change the story NPC classes, because it can cause disconnect with their stories. But if you make mistakes in feat or stat allocations, you can fix them. And your created characters can be changed.

[@DouglasBurton]

I've been playing the game for about 30 hours now and almost all of the negatives mentioned in the video have been changed, looks like the developers listened. Even some of the suggestions are exactly what they did, like making camping supplies heavier. Still a great critique but definitely feeling outdated.

[@herveglandu4847]

I continue to play .... around a table with my players :)

[@deisophiagaming8216]

I finished this now in 2019, absolutely amazing game, did hit a few bugs in the final puzzle dungeons. But the coding for the 'mist' is fairly complex. The balance hotfixes now lead to comfortable well balanced play. The kingdom management has been made easier (such as BP bought directly on the management screen). People still complain if they lose their advisors (such as when Tristain "leaves") and most people don't like the timer on various quests, particularly Ekundayos timer. But I never had these issues. Because if you're paying attention and save often it's easier to know what to do. Like Arcanum, this game has initially been married by its buggy reputation, but it's well worth a play through as the enhanced edition truly reveals how incredible this game is. Edit: also you should really build teleport circles in your cities so you can fast travel around your kingdom (saves in-game travel time too) Also play on the lost azlanti mode if you want to not constantly reload kingdom events (personally I went mad , and rerolled nearly every single event to ensure I had only successes, wasted quite a lot of time)

[@Dan-uf2vh]

it's the most practical to build nothing until chapter 4 (or to start building artisan shops as they happen, later teleport buildings); money early on should be spent on important projects and time on leveling your kingdom ranks as possible between assigning events and adventuring; you also have to not get lazy and move to clear out the land as it becomes available in order to be properly leveled up and equipped

[@Getz-Da-Chompy]

Does anyone know what the state of the game is now? Did they ever fix most of the bugs?

[@freerangepork9072]

H. J. I’ve been playing through, I had one bug/issue and had to reload and replay about a level but aside from that it’s been fine so far as I can tell

[@Getz-Da-Chompy]

@@freerangepork9072 Oh, sounds good, thanks for the info!

[@АйдоралСмертестойкий]

They did. A lot of bugs are gone. The game is greatly improved but there are still some crashes and the loading time is horrendously long.

[@AndresGrelan]

I started a new playthrought recently and installed a mod which adds a turn based mode. I haven’t faced any bugs so far and the game is so much better with a fully functional turn based mode (really if you like it you should check it out - they even implemented 5-foot step). I’m having a blast with it right now - can’t stop playing

[@Getz-Da-Chompy]

Thanks for the added opinions guys, much appreciated. Will have to look into getting this game now

[@brothermutant7370]

Well said. And thank you for both warning for the spoiler and offering a way to fast forward to the conclusions section of this video. You do an excellent review sir.

[@Scarletglaceon1]

This game was phenomenal. I never got to finish it due to a deteriorating PC, but now that I'm playing the Tabletop adventure it is based on, I can go through that with fewer spoilers.

[@quixadhal]

Nice video! One comment I'll add about the lack of documentation. Pathfinder is a pen-and-paper RPG system that evolved from the D&D 3.5 ruleset. There are dozens of books with thousands of pages in them. The core player's guide is something like 600 pages long. Since the game tries very hard to adapt THAT experience, it stands to reason that the core ruleset *IS* the manual, and some of the confusion would be reduced if players had a copy of the player's guide. That said, of course they have to take some liberties when adapting the game to be a computer RPG without a live DM who can make judgement calls. It would be glorious if they'd release a PDF (or other electronic document) describing all the CHANGES from the actual Pathfinder RPG system, so we could know right away if a thing was working as intended or not. That would be especially useful if you also have the PDF format pen-and-paper rule books from Paizo, since an entry in such a changes document could tell you where the original entry was in the actual pen-and-paper version (and even hotlink if you had both pdfs).

[@teatimee]

The game is really about learning the rule-set. I spend hours levelling up the characters. Its just like P&P where you want to make the best choices for your character. Just in this game the DM is a bloody bastard. (and the bugs)

[@1911odisea]

Is the name of your channel a reference to FLCL? Also, great analysis!

[@NeverKnowsBest]

Yeah it is. Or at least it was when i first used it as a username for something many years ago and then i just kept using it.

[@mattjharrisyahoo]

Retraining is part of the pen&paper game - it is in Ultimate Campaign.

[@firstMDMX]

Loadscreen: Savescummer Maker! RPG? Nah, it's charbuilder for those who love to crunch the numbers.

[@kainv.9221]

Would you like to make a review of the Wrath of the Righteous? People praise that game, but I like Kingmaker more for being more grounded - the cosmic scale of the second game seems to be a little over the top (imho.)

[@ChaoticRad]

I think this review is a bit out of date. It is still a very dense game, and understanding the game system is still challenging. However, I think that most of the 🐜 🐜 have been squashed and some QoL improvements have been added. Like being able to respec characters... It’s still not perfect, but it’s a great game.

[@dani3po]

This game is not for you: valid for 99%of gamers.

[@jarlbregadan914]

Hey, remember that option when the Hellknights were doing chaotic evils deeds by threatening your subjects and your "Lawful Good" option was to let them go UNPINESHED? Punishing evil deeds and the breaking of the law was an evil action.

[@Edgar_A_Bro]

Were they actually doing evil deeds or just threatening people? See the problem with alignment is its arbitrary. Hellknights are supposed to be LN with the ends justify the means it's not good for sure but if your Lawful your character probably knew what they are like and the dev's did their best to write the option. Idk I'm getting to chapter 3 but I'm a Paladin but I do stretch my alignment if the choices dont seem to fit my character

[@Zajin13]

Well, *lawful* good IS the most restricting alignment in Pathfinder. If the law doesn’t forbid threatening people you are basically out of luck. Take Eddard Stark from A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones for instance. He is the shining example of being lawful good even if it would cost you a head and is objectively stupid to do.

[@andrea2169]

There is a mod that makes it turn based now, just google it and it makes the game playable for me!

[@teddybeddy123]

Amazing video, love to see you cover Baldur's Gate!

[@blazer168]

I tried this game for 2 hours before I returned it on Steam, because I had absolutely no idea how it worked. I had no idea what most of the stuff in the character creator was so I couldn't even begin to plan what I wanted my build to be. I had no idea why I could only use a spell (or ability) once and why I couldn't use it again, whether it was on cd or I could only use it a few times IDK. Basically, I guess it was too complex for me to play; which is disappointing because I heard the story was good and was looking forward to it. Oh, and this is from somebody that has never played D&D before but likes RPG games and the closest thing I've played is Divinity Original Sin 2

[@maltimoto]

was it harder than Divinity 2?

[@blazer168]

@@maltimoto Yes, Divinity 2 was easy compared to this

[@maltimoto]

@@blazer168 oh my god :-) wont play it then

[@blazer168]

@@maltimoto do what I did, buy it on Steam, play for less than 2 hours, and if you think it's too complicated get a refund. My problem is that all the stats like AC, initiatives, spell limits, etc were not explained to me and since I've never played D&D before had no idea what they were.

[@maltimoto]

@@blazer168 Yeah good idea

[@ruinsage2677]

People don't understand that pen and paper systems work because there's a person who's job it is to adjust, tweak, or downright cheat to not make it frustrating and unfair.

[@randychan583]

The only issue I have (ever) is when the games gets longer it makes my computer quite sluggish. Hope they can fix that issue and maybe I can add more 200+ hours on their next games

[@Harrison11106]

The game has SO MUCH potential, but what you said at the last part of your critique hits home. Hindsight being 20/20 Paizo &/or OwlCat games REALLY should have left this game "in the oven" for a bit longer, either until the end of this year or release it after the new year, but what's done is done. I'm at a point in the 3rd chapter where I went from a "serene" Kingdom to "troubled", I've no idea if that's due to the story or due to a bug. I've halted playing for the time-being in either case. I've told people who ask me about the game to hold off getting it for the time being due to these bugs. I'd love to tell them to get it now, as I see the potential, but I can't in good conscious do that, not in the state that it's in. I hope that it gets patched to an actual good working condition. I'm old enough to remember the D&D sandbox titles (Ruins of Myth Drannor, Champions of Krynn, the 2 NWN games, etc); I want to see a return of those kinds of titles & this game COULD herald the return of those games... if the bugs don't destroy this title first. Bad word of mouth can easily kill any title.

[@Drunkenvalley]

So one thing I'm going to have to throw in here. In pen and paper, if I fail to open a chest then I usually have other options for opening it. For example, I can ask my DM if I'm able to attack it, etc. In Pathfinder: Kingmaker, if I fail to unlock a chest... that's it. With some caveats anyhow. Savescumming is unfortunately the closest approximation to the adaptability players and DM have in their games. It also helps that, if I die in a pen and paper game I just... continue with a new character. The only actual downtime being the time to cook up a new character. The DM decides how to reestablish the plot with new characters. Once more, these things don't exist in Pathfinder: Kingmaker. If my party dies, the game is over and I return to start, unless I reload the game. Again, savescumming is the closest approximation we have to actual tabletop RPGs... Anyhow, just a late response to this vid. Still enjoying the content.

[@robingomez9319]

In pnp you don't get the amount of magic items you get in this game so I'd say missing a chest here and there isn't that bad 😉

[@Cerulean0987]

Regarding saving. No one is forcing you to save and reload. That is your choice on how to play.

[@faselfasel2864]

You might as well then abandon some of your playthroughs completely and start all over again, because there are countless decisions and even some dice rolls, that in hindsight completely bricked your game. You either reload or you start a game you easily put over 100 hours in all over. Yes, it's your decision, but a pretty heavy-handed one.

[@IKnowHowItEnds]

So when ever your party wipes.. Start over..

[@kubhak]

Im slowly at the end of Your list of videos and that hurts me. Bring us some more its pure joy for us, careful listeners.

[@Rastayeti666]

to be honest, pathfinder totally deserves a second look. Its now so much better than both pillars of eternities

[@ThiagoGraunke]

Interesting comment... May u please detail why?

[@Rastayeti666]

@@ThiagoGraunkedo you mean why a second look or why its better as pillars of eternity?

[@FearTheLivingDFG]

@@Rastayeti666 Both?

[@Rastayeti666]

@@FearTheLivingDFG they fixed nearly all bugs, they rebalanced it and did a great job with it, they added a lot quality of life stuff and the dlc's added aditional content. Why its better as pillars? The journey of the characters is more epic, the story in the different chapters is more consistent and grows more and more, the balance is better even with more levels, classes and abilities, the side quests are better, every single character has worthy characte quests, the management part is not just a "yeah we do it in because of kickstarter goal" and instead a full fleshed out part of the game, the ruleset is more consistent (not might for spell power and bending bars). Overall its in every part as good or BETTER as pillars, just the visuals are not as good

[@bofad6074]

WRATH OF THE RIGHTEOUS WHEN . I was kinda lukewarm on kingmaker despite playing 200hrs but the sequel (so far) is honestly mindblowing

[@molliethomas2585]

Downloaded this game about a week ago. Took almost an hour, but if that means that I get a game that has most, if not all, if these issues fixed, then it's worth it.

[@SonAlexander]

How have you never done one of these incredible retrospectives on the KOTOR series???

[@khatack]

I think the problem is free saving. I think that an RPG such as this should have a lot more forgiving encounters, but much more limited resting and saving opportunities. One idea would be to have a permanent world where everything you do is automatically written to the save file so that you can only utilize your saved games to continue a game from where you left of previously and not try again, another would be to strictly limit saving so that you can only save when resting at an inn or something like that.

[@arcamemnon9193]

Save scum is necessary due to the fact most table-top RPG sessions only last a few dozen hours if that long and perma-death is part of that short gaming experience. A game that lasts hundreds of hours and covers a full multi chapter campaign would be unacceptable if you were forced to live with a lost fight that killed the entire party and needed to start over from the beginning. Only a true masochist would possibly find that kind of experience enjoyable, most people would hate it. So unless the game is only intended to last a few dozen hours, save scum must be in there lest people revolt. Now how often and for what you choose to use save scum is up to the individual player, and choice is always a good thing when making design decisions for a game you want as many people as possible to play. Arguing that players must be forced to live with draconian limitations because an old pen and paper game had them is a bit surreal. And as you said there is no DM there to warn you when you start to make a possibly game ending bad decision because you don't know all the rules that make the game tick. I could see it if the game was muti-player, fair play with common community wide rules all must abide by makes sense, but single player? I say let people play and enjoy the game as they choose to. Now if you want to get players to save scum less, rather than force the issue, entice players by having the game track reloads. If players go through an entire level without a reload, give them an extra bonus during level-up or something. Special feats, or any kind of reward would work. The point being give player a reason to want to try and hard core their levels and you should see a lot less save scumming. But force it on people and I guarantee loud protests and community wide revolts will ensue.

[@rezokiladze2334]

I dont know what rpg horror stories you encountered but wipe/tpk doesnt necessarily mean that all of you should die and start over. There is tona of stuff you could do to continue playing without giving players plot armor.

[@_shmeezy]

I really don't agree RE: turn based vs RTWP, I think real time allows a greater degree of planning and strategy vs the more reactive turn based choice. This is to say nothing of how slow turn-based combat can be. I vastly prefer the system in the pathfinder games than Divinity for this reason.

[@BlimberryBoi]

i couldent even finish the game , it just crashes during linzis event at the academy after the fight with king peacockhead dont know what to do.

[@BlimberryBoi]

oh ya and the load time was terrible i swear half the game was loading screens

[@jordanneller2300]

when one of my saves gets corrupted the rest of the saves under that character become corrupted also. so my version of the game is unplayable. :(

[@OmegaEnvych]

I played this game for about 135 hours and now I'm stuck at the teleporter that doesn't teleport me to the room with the third key. I so want to love this game, but bugs literally stopped me from progressing to the ending. Great video. I hope that bugs will be fixed and I'll be able to tell my story properly. Maybe even make my first video on KZbin, focused on the game.

[@NeverKnowsBest]

That sucks. Hopefully patch 1.1 helps solve your issue. Good luck if you do make a video on the game. If you let me know when its done i'd watch it.

[@Diskhate]

CRPGS are my favorite games together with the souls-sekiro-bloodborne games. I've played all of them pretty much all of them since the old SSI games like Pool of darkness / Curse of the azure bonds (which are from around 1989 or so) It really was painful, when this game was released, to realise how this would have been, bar none, the best CRPG ever made were it not for how many bugs were present. However now, with all the patches they released, the game is i would say at least 95% fixed, both from a bug fixing perspective and quality of life. Owlcat has been excellent in taking feedback..every complaint pointed out in this review, for example, have been addressed.. -The bugs pointed out to features like teleporting between cities you own (with a specific upgrade) -You're able to buy build points from the kingdom management screen and you can to exit from your room directly to the open world map without spending 3-4 minutes walking out of it... -Not only they added the option to play turn based, but you can switch between the 2 modes at any time...Use real time for easy encounters and turn base for hard ones I recently replayed through the entire game for the 3rd time, because i wanted to have a refresh-new experience before it's sequel (Wrath of the righteous) came out. The game, in it's current state, is in my opinion the best CRPG ever made..and as someone that has considered Baldur's Gate his favorite game of all time...this is a huge thing to realize And it's sequel which came out not long ago, incorporates all these quality of life features, and it's incredible. PS: also, the Epic Games store has given the game (in it's version without DLCs tho)

[@joedatius]

It would of been nice if the developer was just more upfront with their preferred combat system rather then just making excuses. alot of those reasons almost giving more reason to switch to turn based, like having less combat encounters but making them more interesting. the positive of RTwP being good for easy encounters just shows that there just shouldn't be so many easy encounters for you to even need such a thing and you should have more focus on better pacing. I have nothing against RTwP but I feel many games with it stuffer with bland and uninspired combat encounters and uninteresting level design where the vast majority of combat areas are geneic open roomed dungeons, open fields and town areas. all of them only having a very basic level of variation like a couple of big rocks or boxes. Not to mention the absolutely terrible AI of almost every RTwP game where the majority of enemies just run straight at you without without thinking and only wizards and ranged only enemies being only barely smart enough to not go into melee but even then thats not consistent. It really feels like alot of encounters are made by random generators rather then people taking time to really think about how the next combat scenario is going to be interesting and different from the las. but instead you get uninspired map layout and and a bunch of enemies just running at you without strategy or variation. I wish more RTwP games cared more about player expression and creativity which is the main value of the tabletop games they want to represent and less about numbers and metagaming, there is a point where it just becomes spreedsheets and finding the most OP character build rather then being creative or even actually roleplaying.

[@zealgaming8161]

I never knew this game existed until a few weeks back. Im im chapter4, and so far, i absolutely love this game! Have yet to encounter any major bugs. Haven't had this feeling since Dragon Age:Origins. I feel like the devs of this game really nails what i seek from my taste of RPGs. The insane amount of customization and lack of handholding. My main gripes so far has been enemy encounters being too simple, not enough enemy spell casters and complex creatures who utterly destroy you unless your prepared. It feels hard because most enemies just feel like they got much more damage and hp then you do. Instead of hard because the encounter you are trying to beat has some deadly creatures who blast you with deadly effects such as instant death, deadly sneak attacks, summons and crowdcontrol which you have to overcome with a proper strategy and spell loadout. And the loading screens, my god... Still such a superior game compared to Divinity 2 and Pillars, both which i grew bored off very fast due too some design choices that i loathe. I think PoE2 did almost everything worse then this game, especially the dialogue was just bloated with pointless, menial banter like the first game. Divinity2 had a ton of incredible design choices, but for me, the armor system, itemization, and how chapter 2 felt like a mmo themepark in design just killed the entire game for me. Pillars 2 was okay, until i got to the main city, the city of loading screens and meaningless banter! Spent a few hours in that city, and was absolutely burned out after that and just stopped playing. I think this game is a really niche game. But it's my niche, and trying too change it, would probably make the game, not for me. I am very happy that there is devs out there that still design niche games, just catered for a specific type of player. Because it is impossible to please everyone, if you try to do that. You end up with a game like PoE2.

[@williamblackfyre4866]

You should try Tyranny. Obsidian made it in-between PoE and PoE 2. You play as the bad guy for the most part and you have a ton of choices. I really enjoyed those more than either PoE.