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Deptfordx posted:So what's the state of this now. Should I pick it up or is it wait till at least Xmas for bug fixes and possibly a Steam Sale discount? Wait for Xmas or later, post dlc that I thought they mentioned
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Oct 21, 2018 23:21
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Deptfordx posted:So what's the state of this now. Should I pick it up or is it wait till at least Xmas for bug fixes and possibly a Steam Sale discount? Yeah, wait. I like the game a lot but can't recommend it right now.
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Oct 22, 2018 00:15
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Deptfordx posted:So what's the state of this now. Should I pick it up or is it wait till at least Xmas for bug fixes and possibly a Steam Sale discount? The first 3 chapters of the game are reasonably okay. Some bugs and balance issues, but eminently playable. Everything after that is a complete shitshow. Has anyone even gotten the cheevo for finishing the game yet? So yeah, I'd give it 3 to 6 months at least.
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Oct 22, 2018 00:32
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The bugs are bad. Even without the bugs, the game is slow, with way too many loading screens, obtuse mechanics / explanations of said mechanics, and quite uninteresting fights / very pronounced lack of enemy variety. Also the story and characters are well below the bar set by its competitors-I'd say even if the devs end up patching the bugs, wait for the game to go on sale. And buy the Pillars of Eternity and Divinity games before this one. Hell, even the new Torment game (or Age of Decadence - or Underrail - or the Avernum remakes) are better choices if you are looking for a CRPG, imo.
steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 00:37 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 00:35
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steinrokkan posted:The bugs are bad. Even without the bugs, the game is slow, with way too many loading screens, obtuse mechanics / explanations of said mechanics, and quite uninteresting fights / very pronounced lack of enemy variety. Also the story and characters are well below the bar set by its competitors-I'd say even if the devs end up patching the bugs, wait for the game to go on sale. And buy the Pillars of Eternity and Divinity games before this one. Hell, even the new Torment game or Age of Decadence are better choices if you are looking for a CRPG, imo. A large part of the appeal in this game is the D&D system. If you're entirely new to it, I can't imagine getting much enjoyment out of the game.
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Oct 22, 2018 00:38
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I'm not new to it. I've played through the Baldur's Gate games without any problems. This one, however, is a chore to manage characters and to optimize your builds. It's largely because the UI is absolutely atrocious, especially when you have competing games like PoE that use basically the same RPG system, but are miles ahead in user comfort.
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Oct 22, 2018 00:40
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steinrokkan posted:I'm not new to it. I've played through the Baldur's Gate games without any problems. This one, however, is a chore to manage characters and to optimize your builds. It's largely because the UI is absolutely atrocious, especially when you have competing games like PoE that use basically the same RPG system, but are miles ahead in user comfort. I guess I should have specified D&D 3.5, where the chore of managing and optimizing your build is a core gameplay feature.
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Oct 22, 2018 00:43
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Part of BG2 being easier too is that in 2e there were a lot lets levers for going crazy with charop. Fighters in general had almost nothing going on and even with wizards you could get a shitton of spells from scrolls so there wasn't much to worry about. 3.x/PF added a lot of levers that let you go absolutely nuts with charop and especially in 3.x made the difference between a full on charopped character and something a informed newbie would make insanely high, as well as somehow making fighter still pretty dull and weak compared to the magic users but also super complicated to actually make as strong as you can.
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Oct 22, 2018 00:47
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Cynic Jester posted:I guess I should have specified D&D 3.5, where the chore of managing and optimizing your build is a core gameplay feature. I suppose. I know nothing about the PnP DnD games, so I guess 3.5 was a particularly grognard edition. Which makes for a miserable video game - even the DnD 2 games suffered from the lack of a human DM who could arbitrate certain situations and maybe bend the rules to make the experience better for the player - now in Kingmaker you have a mechanically cruel DM that interprets an even more anal ruleset, and does so sadistically, giving all sorts of bonuses to the NPCs and letting the player to figure out for herself how the game works. All the RPGs I mentioned in the previous post have RPG systems that are much better for video game experience than a blindly translated DnD ruleset, which is something that was adequate 20 years ago, but is lazy today. steinrokkan fucked around with this message at 00:58 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 00:56
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NeurosisHead posted:Do you ever get the ability to create your own magical items? Nope, but there are artisans in your kingdom that can do masterpieces to vague specifications.
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Oct 22, 2018 01:08
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Which isn't nearly as useful as being able to create tailor made equipment ala Pillars. I almost feel bad for bringing up Pilars so often, but it's staggering how much better thought out everything is in that game, and it's not because of a bigger budget, they just knew how to build a game that worked on a very fundamental level.
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Oct 22, 2018 01:12
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Deptfordx posted:So what's the state of this now. Should I pick it up or is it wait till at least Xmas for bug fixes and possibly a Steam Sale discount? Wait until Christmas 2019.
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Oct 22, 2018 01:49
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steinrokkan posted:I suppose. I know nothing about the PnP DnD games, so I guess 3.5 was a particularly grognard edition. Which makes for a miserable video game - even the DnD 2 games suffered from the lack of a human DM who could arbitrate certain situations and maybe bend the rules to make the experience better for the player - now in Kingmaker you have a mechanically cruel DM that interprets an even more anal ruleset, and does so sadistically, giving all sorts of bonuses to the NPCs and letting the player to figure out for herself how the game works. Also, 3.x and PF have a ton of mechanics built around precise grid movement, including stuff like cover, specific combinations of actions to avoid attacks of opportunity or block off attacks against your rearline squishies, interactions of mechanics you might want to use differently turn by turn (like a magus's spell combat ability and choosing when to cast vs attack), etc. Making PF into a non-grid RTWP game is like trying to make XCOM into one while interpreting the overwatch and alert mechanics in the most player-unfriendly way possible.
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Oct 22, 2018 01:53
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Temple of Elemental Evil did it pretty well.
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Oct 22, 2018 07:50
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Has anyone found any good end game estocs? It looks like magi are pretty much locked into using either a rapier, estoc, scimitar or kukri since their class features heavily push them towards a one-hander with a wide crit range. Sword Saints can use estocs without burning a feat on exotic weapon proficiency, but I’m not sure the extra 1.5 damage is worth it if the enchanted rapiers or scimitars you find just end up far superior anyway. I’ve checked some of the weapon lists people have posted, but I haven’t seen any really good looking estocs, whereas I’ve seen a very powerful scimitar mentioned a few times. Also, from what I’ve seen people post, this game looks like it has really whacky balance. Like animal companions being better than most martial characters, but you get a full caster on top of the companion. And I’ve seen more than one report of archery characters outdamaging melee characters while still being capable tanking on the front line. Are these examples of people not building their characters well, is pathfinder just supposed to be like that or is it poor implementation of the ruleset in this game?
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Oct 22, 2018 08:33
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Obliged for all the responses. Into the Steam Wish list mentally marked under 'Give it time' it is.
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Oct 22, 2018 13:11
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Heithinn Grasida posted:Has anyone found any good end game estocs? It looks like magi are pretty much locked into using either a rapier, estoc, scimitar or kukri since their class features heavily push them towards a one-hander with a wide crit range. Sword Saints can use estocs without burning a feat on exotic weapon proficiency, but I’m not sure the extra 1.5 damage is worth it if the enchanted rapiers or scimitars you find just end up far superior anyway. I’ve checked some of the weapon lists people have posted, but I haven’t seen any really good looking estocs, whereas I’ve seen a very powerful scimitar mentioned a few times. Actually in the tabletop Sylvan Sorcerer is way way more insane, because you can (for example) use permanent buffs to turn your animal bipedal and give them armor and magic weapons and poo poo, or cast enlarge person on them to make your bird friend gigantic, etc. Sneak attacks however have been massively buffed by the weird game rules here which makes archery more viable
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Oct 22, 2018 15:48
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corn in the bible posted:Actually in the tabletop Sylvan Sorcerer is way way more insane, because you can (for example) use permanent buffs to turn your animal bipedal and give them armor and magic weapons and poo poo, or cast enlarge person on them to make your bird friend gigantic, etc. Sneak attacks however have been massively buffed by the weird game rules here which makes archery more viable Weapon use is EXTREMELY dubious and generally relies on a ludicrously permissive DM. And while people can certainly get their animal companions armor/barding in the base game, their AC is already heavily boosted here - animal companions in PnP don't have remotely close to 45-46 AC at max level before any buffs whatsoever, but they do in Kingmaker. Also, Enlarge Person is poo poo compared to just tossing Animal Growth on them. Or using a (Beast/Plant/Dragon/Whatever)Shape spell on them. And no, they don't stack. Archery takes a lot of feats to optimize, but the end result is generally pretty good, given they don't actually have to move to full attack. Also, the various spells that completely and utterly shut down archery (if the DM is feeling mean, something like Wind Wall or Fickle Winds flat out kills your build) aren't in the game.
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Oct 22, 2018 16:32
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Lord Koth posted:Weapon use is EXTREMELY dubious and generally relies on a ludicrously permissive DM. No comment on the rest of it, but weapon use isn't dubious and doesn't require a permissive DM when you can cast anthropomorphic animal, which explicitly allows use of weapons. It isn't proficient in them, but there are plenty of ways around that. Prism fucked around with this message at 16:41 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 16:38
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Prism posted:No comment on the rest of it, but weapon use isn't dubious and doesn't require a permissive DM when you can cast anthropomorphic animal, which explicitly allows use of weapons. I've actually never noticed that spell. I'm still not sure why you WOULD, since most of the more optimal animal companions are better off just using their normal attack routine (which they lose most of) and they don't actually gain proficiency with any weapons meaning they're taking heavy penalties without taking feats, but they certainly can. If anything, it seems like it'd work far better with Awakened animals. Anyways, was running the numbers on a Wolf, and its AC in Kingmaker is 21 points higher than its PnP counterpart. All 3 physical stats get heavy boosts as well - STR you could get slightly higher with full magical gear and 4/8/12/16 stat boosts, but DEX and CON are both significantly higher than what would be possible with the PnP version. Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 16:52 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 16:46
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Lord Koth posted:I've actually never noticed that spell. I'm still not sure why you WOULD, since most of the more optimal animal companions are better off just using their normal attack routine (which they lose most of) and they don't actually gain proficiency with any weapons meaning they're taking heavy penalties without taking feats, but they certainly can. If anything, it seems like it'd work far better with Awakened animals. It probably would work better on an awakened animal, yes. I actually only know of the spell because it is something vivisectionists get in tabletop (along with awaken) and so encountered it while looking it up - though they don't in Kingmaker, I assume. Vivisectionists really are supposed to get their Dr Moreau on.
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Oct 22, 2018 16:58
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Found a random lizard leader with +8 Size Bonus to Attack and AC. Despite being apparently six inches tall he boasts a 30 strength and has no problem murdering my level four party members forty damage at a time. I'm done.
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Oct 22, 2018 16:58
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All enemy attributes were chosen through the perfectly balanced method of rolling d100s.
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Oct 22, 2018 17:17
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raverrn posted:Found a random lizard leader with +8 Size Bonus to Attack and AC. Despite being apparently six inches tall he boasts a 30 strength and has no problem murdering my level four party members forty damage at a time. That's hilarious The more I read about this game the less I want to play but the more I want to, uh, read about it e: I'm just imagining this tiny lizard kicking your rear end and going 'yeah I have a size bonus what of it'
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Oct 22, 2018 17:55
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I'm enjoying this game, but the constant loading screens, pretty long too even with a SSD, are annoying. I'm tempted to buy PoE II and shelve this for a few months.
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Oct 22, 2018 20:42
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So after shelving this game after Chapter 3 I reinstalled Pillars of Eternity 1, made a monk, and am already shocked at how not bullshit everything feels. It's wonderful and I think I may have let all the pathfinder class ability tables Stockholm me. Screw waiting for this game to be playable, I would refund it and just buy PoE2 if I still could..
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Oct 22, 2018 20:44
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Zodiac5000 posted:So after shelving this game after Chapter 3 I reinstalled Pillars of Eternity 1, made a monk, and am already shocked at how not bullshit everything feels. It's wonderful and I think I may have let all the pathfinder class ability tables Stockholm me. Screw waiting for this game to be playable, I would refund it and just buy PoE2 if I still could.. It's the opposite for me. I tried to do a Magran challenge Run for PoE2 and aside from switching my weapon set-ups for penetration values and some precautions for dhampirs , I rarely have to pause and think about what to do. SSS dlc finally had some more thought out encounters, but it's almost a drop in the ocean. Though I do wish this game had the speed-up button.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:02
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JamMasterJim posted:It's the opposite for me. I tried to do a Magran challenge Run for PoE2 and aside from switching my weapon set-ups for penetration values and some precautions for dhampirs , I rarely have to pause and think about what to do. SSS dlc finally had some more thought out encounters, but it's almost a drop in the ocean. Though I do wish this game had the speed-up button. I've been replaying PoE2 after trying to play this game past Act 3 and literally everything except the character building freedom is better. Praising this game for combat encounters is silly, as every encounter plays out identically. Prebuff, land crowdcontrol, murder. It's the same as PoE2, just more fiddly, with horrible balance and encounter design after act 3.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:28
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Cynic Jester posted:I've been replaying PoE2 after trying to play this game past Act 3 and literally everything except the character building freedom is better. Praising this game for combat encounters is silly, as every encounter plays out identically. Prebuff, land crowdcontrol, murder. It's the same as PoE2, just more fiddly, with horrible balance and encounter design after act 3. Actual dungeons/areas to go through are also mostly lacking. I guess it's my lovely tastes, but PoE2 feels less the sum of it's parts for anything that is not story/worldbuilding related. Only thing I prefer is when they actually try to implement non-violent solutions in quests. Still, at least I could actually finish PoE2 after quite a few reloads and a few bugged quests. I will not make fun of the state of Obsidian games in the first month anymore, that is for sure.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:35
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JamMasterJim posted:Actual dungeons/areas to go through are also mostly lacking. I guess it's my lovely tastes, but PoE2 feels less the sum of it's parts for anything that is not story/worldbuilding related. Only thing I prefer is when they actually try to implement non-violent solutions in quests. Still, at least I could actually finish PoE2 after quite a few reloads and a few bugged quests. I will not make fun of the state of Obsidian games in the first month anymore, that is for sure. To be clear, just because something is better, doesn't mean I like it more. I know 3.5/Pathfinder is a lovely design for an RPG system, but I still enjoy it. Not enough to actually keep playing it in PnP, but for single player CRPGs, I derive tons of fun from breaking the system in half. PoE2s character system is well designed, without any of the incredibly lovely design decisions that go into 3.5(Trap choices, feat taxes, etc etc) but i find it incredibly boring for most classes. It is objectively better suited for a video game. Probably better for a PnP game too. I still like it less. If this game was bug free and somewhat balanced, I would be playing the poo poo out of it. It is not though, and my expectations for that occurring within the next year or so are low. So PoE2 and Divinity 2 it is instead.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:48
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JamMasterJim posted:Actual dungeons/areas to go through are also mostly lacking. I guess it's my lovely tastes, but PoE2 feels less the sum of it's parts for anything that is not story/worldbuilding related. Only thing I prefer is when they actually try to implement non-violent solutions in quests. Still, at least I could actually finish PoE2 after quite a few reloads and a few bugged quests. I will not make fun of the state of Obsidian games in the first month anymore, that is for sure. The dungeons in POE aren't too interesting - but not any less so than in the "good old" CRPGs. Kingmaker's dungeons are, however, even more uninspired. Just a long string of identical rooms filled with the same encounters with two repeating enemy types. At least with Pillars you usually get some visual candy to keep your mind away from the tedium.
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Oct 22, 2018 21:51
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I think calling what this game has "encounter design" is generous.
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Oct 22, 2018 22:04
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I will give the game credit, I enjoyed the Old Sycamore catacombs quite a bit, they were neat, especially since 'cave system with tiny monsters and spiders' is not initially something I'm inclined to like. The First World was also kinda cool. Really, I kinda dig the oldschool fantasy Britain aesthetic this game has (so is that just a trait of this region of the Pathfinder world or is that all of pathfinder is super-throwbackish). I certainly enjoy not having to try to pronounce something in goddamn welsh when describing the game state to people, I'll give it that over PoE.
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Oct 22, 2018 22:48
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Golarion's main feature as a setting is it has a fantasy counterpart to pretty much every Earth culture ever (including stuff like colonial America) as well as specific settings like a spooky haunted country and a frozen evil fairy tale country ruled by Baba Yaga and a country that is basically Conan the Barbarian vs laser-gun robots.
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Oct 22, 2018 22:56
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Also, Lovecraft. Or more accurately, they love tossing elder mythos stuff around (not so much the other aspects of him). Like, a fair chunk of the APs have some elder mythos diversion somewhere in them, even if it's not the entire point of the AP (i.e. Strange Aeons, which is the specifically occult one).
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Oct 22, 2018 23:20
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They don't emphasize it as hard as they probably should in game, but yeah your neighbour Numeria is a straight up barbarian laser fiesta with giant spider robots and all of the Expedition to the Barrier Hills goodness you could ever want. The Iron Gods adventure path covers it. edit: R'lyeh and Cthulhu with it are canonically on Earth, which is far away in space and in the early 1900s at the time the setting is kept around.
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Oct 22, 2018 23:21
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Lord Koth posted:Also, Lovecraft. Or more accurately, they love tossing elder mythos stuff around (not so much the other aspects of him). Like, a fair chunk of the APs have some elder mythos diversion somewhere in them, even if it's not the entire point of the AP (i.e. Strange Aeons, which is the specifically occult one). The Strange Aeons adventure path is maximum Lovecraft and part of it is set in an area of Ustalav that is basically Arkham Which means the otherwise Hammer Horror Eastern European country has a bit that is inexplicably similar to 1920's Massachusetts but it's fine
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Oct 22, 2018 23:29
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Eox posted:They don't emphasize it as hard as they probably should in game, but yeah your neighbour Numeria is a straight up barbarian laser fiesta with giant spider robots and all of the Expedition to the Barrier Hills goodness you could ever want. The Iron Gods adventure path covers it. I'm usually pretty down on Pathfinder but sci-fantasy bullshit is my jam. I miss weird poo poo like that or the M&M games ending with laser guns vs. dragons.
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Oct 22, 2018 23:35
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JamMasterJim posted:Actual dungeons/areas to go through are also mostly lacking. I guess it's my lovely tastes, but PoE2 feels less the sum of it's parts for anything that is not story/worldbuilding related. Nah you got it right, Deadfire is wholly underwhelming. It took a few dozen hours for PoE1 to click but eventually around White March pt 1 my characters had enough options and were powerful enough that I could get over not being able to do stupid fun poo poo like in the old crpgs or original sin and I was able to finally think "well the main story is bad and poorly told and I barely give a gently caress about anything, but I like this, I enjoy playing it" but PoE2 just feels like a void, a gaping wound of anti-entertainment. Doesn't help that they recycled so much music from 1, most of those not even being particularly exceptional originally, and it still runs like dogshit at arbitrary points. I cleared Neketaka aside from a couple fights in the old city and I have zero motivation or drive to do anything else. Like I can guess pretty well that the next character I'm going to meet by going in any random direction is going to have a lovely accent and be some variation/combination of slaver, pillaging thug, colonialist, and/or monarchist rear end in a top hat and well I think I've had my fill of that by now
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Oct 22, 2018 23:35
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Zodiac5000 posted:I will give the game credit, I enjoyed the Old Sycamore catacombs quite a bit, they were neat, especially since 'cave system with tiny monsters and spiders' is not initially something I'm inclined to like. The First World was also kinda cool. Really, I kinda dig the oldschool fantasy Britain aesthetic this game has (so is that just a trait of this region of the Pathfinder world or is that all of pathfinder is super-throwbackish). I certainly enjoy not having to try to pronounce something in goddamn welsh when describing the game state to people, I'll give it that over PoE. A thing (perhaps the only thing) that Kingmaker has legitimately done better than every other recent CRPG is evoke that old-school D&D-style narrative and feeling - not precisely the gameplay (though some of that as well) but the classic motley-murderhobos-jaunting-through-ersatz-Middle-Earth vibe of your Gold Box games or your Baldur's Gates or NWNs. Not to mention that, while I wasn't really a big Pathfinder fan, what I read about Golarion is really giving me that same kitchen-sink fantasy vibe as FR did and Kingmaker has realised their little corner of it rather well from what I've seen so far. (I've only gotten to the start of Season of Bloom before shelving the game to wait for them to patch it). POE and even Divinity intentionally changed enough of that formula that some people could bounce off of them. Kingmaker unapologetically embraces it. If you actually want that (and god forbid if you want the rulesets that go with it) this is basically your only choice right now. If you want to play a good game or a finished game then you should probably wait. Dallan Invictus fucked around with this message at 23:38 on Oct 22, 2018 |
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Oct 22, 2018 23:35
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