How to make WotR into a more pleasant gaming experience

[neowmix]

I like how ambitious and complex the Pathfinder games are. I like the feeling of there being countless possibilities to craft my own character and experience. BUT -- overall the game lacks finish because I really get the impression the people developing it didn't spend much time *playing* their own game. There are a bunch of glaring examples of things that reduce player experience. A few notable examples:

1. Everything about crusader army management. It feels like a really janky Heroes of Might & Magic clone. Honestly it kind of ruins the midgame because it's so time consuming and gatekeeps exploration of the map. Plus there's a whole crapton of mechanics that don't work right or are unfriendly to players. I wouldn't mind if it were just removed from the game entirely. It doesn't do anything particularly well.
- Loading screens on loading screens. I spend so much time looking at loading screens for every tiny little thing - every single little meaningless fort has loading in & loading out, loading for citadel HQ, then loading again after clicking the crusade management table. Loading everywhere, all the time. It gets tiring really fast.
- Long, drawn-out battles; sometimes battles take hundreds of turns watching large armies dink each other for piddly damage. Add perma debuffs like enervating attack to the mix and nobody ever dies. Battles should be fast and tactically oriented, or have a button to auto-resolve like every other game of this variety has.
- Sloooooooow overland map movement. If you sped it up 10x it still wouldn't be fast enough. Why would you make your players sit there watching the army crawl along at 0.00000000001 mph. It doesn't make any sense.
2. Resting takes too long - after the initial resting screen, there's like 2 or 3 subsequent screens for you to deal with before you can continue. For a game that forces you to rest A LOT, it really needs to be faster & more streamlined.
3. Even after 2 games, preferences are STILL whack. I turned off all tutorials, but the game gives them to me anyway. The previous Pathfinder game did this too! How hard could it possibly be to fix this?!
4. For the vast majority of the early/mid game, spellcasters are severely underpowered because of the dominance of melee. Using a damage spell feels weak and useless for what you have to give up (one of your limited spell slots). And enemies generally have high enough saving throw to make attempting those spells risky at best. Casting a spell rarely ever FEELS powerful - ultimately that's what spellcasting players want.
5. Accumulating corruption on resting is a poorly thought out mechanic. Why have it at all? What's the harm allowing players to rest more often? This ties into the previous point about why spellcasters are nearly useless in the early/mid game. Having better resting mechanics can be one of the ways to give spellcasters their mojo back. You shouldn't have to be a lvl 15-20 minmaxed spellcaster to finally be on par with even the most pedestrian of melee builds.
6. Making enemies with impossibly high AC, saves, and immune to everything is the laziest way to make a "hard" encounter. It seems like every "hard" encounter is to (1) make it impossible to hit and (2) ramp up its melee damage. There are so many other mechanics to take advantage of that could make encounters challenging. I feel like most of the really tough enemies, the only way is to just brute force it - there's no elegant and tactically advantageous way of doing it.

I can easily see how this game *could* be one of my favorites ever -- but it still has a lot of work to do to improve overall player experience. Yes, I know there's mods; but I'd like to think we shouldn't NEED mods for that.

[Thrax]

Turn off Crusade.
Set Rules To Core.
Adjust Monster Stats to 2nd lowest.
Enlarged Encounters.

[dulany67]

Originally posted by Ser Soapy Gudness:

Set Rules To Core.
Adjust Monster Stats to 2nd lowest.
Enlarged Encounters.

This is basically what I've settled on for difficulty.

[Andante]

set difficulty to core

then midgame comes up the difficulty to either hard or unfair because game is too easy with OP mythic abilities.

people struggling probably picking feats like abundant casting on fighters or something stupid and then complain about "min maxers"

[The Konrad]

Originally posted by Andante:

set difficulty to core

then midgame comes up the difficulty to either hard or unfair because game is too easy with OP mythic abilities.

people struggling probably picking feats like abundant casting on fighters or something stupid and then complain about "min maxers"

Yeah, yeah, sure it's very easy to complain about stupid people picking stupid talents.

But if your giant Mammoth doesn't get the "Scribe Scroll" you are playing the game wrong.
Because having the giant woolly Mastodon in your party sitting at the camp weaving its magic words, quill in trunk, on parchment is the only TRU WAY™ to play.
Everyone else is doing it wrong.

[neowmix]

Originally posted by Gottkanzler Konrad:

Originally posted by Andante:

set difficulty to core

then midgame comes up the difficulty to either hard or unfair because game is too easy with OP mythic abilities.

people struggling probably picking feats like abundant casting on fighters or something stupid and then complain about "min maxers"

Yeah, yeah, sure it's very easy to complain about stupid people picking stupid talents.

But if your giant Mammoth doesn't get the "Scribe Scroll" you are playing the game wrong.
Because having the giant woolly Mastodon in your party sitting at the camp weaving its magic words, quill in trunk, on parchment is the only TRU WAY™ to play.
Everyone else is doing it wrong.

Better yet, why can't I pick a velociraptor companion, then have it use ME as a mount for mounted combat? Literally unplayable

[dulany67]

Originally posted by Andante:

set difficulty to core

then midgame comes up the difficulty to either hard or unfair because game is too easy with OP mythic abilities.

people struggling probably picking feats like abundant casting on fighters or something stupid and then complain about "min maxers"

You seem to be an unpleasant fellow. Work on the aggression.

[Andante]

Mythic charge and pounce is probably the most OP wtf LOL thing I've ever seen. I respecced one of my companions to skald battle scion with in game respec NPC, grabbed greater beast totem so that he can give all party members pounce ability.

Pounce allows you do all your attacks in a round so if your duel wield guy attacks 6+ times a round (possible with haste and monk dip for flurry of blows on monk weapons), pounce lets him do all the attacks, and applies mythic charge ability 1d6 x mythic level holy damage PER ATTACK ON ALL THE ATTACKS.

My guys were doing like 300 damage or something stupid in the first round PER melee character since skald gives pounce to everyone.

I was literally one shotting "hard" bosses in one round on unfair. Party can probably output 1000 damage first round with party wide pounce and mythic charge.

Game is easy, no idea why anyone plays on easier difficulty levels

[Mike]

Originally posted by Andante:

Mythic charge and pounce is probably the most OP wtf LOL thing I've ever seen. I respecced one of my companions to skald battle scion with in game respec NPC, grabbed greater beast totem so that he can give all party members pounce ability.

Pounce allows you do all your attacks in a round so if your duel wield guy attacks 6+ times a round (possible with haste and monk dip for flurry of blows on monk weapons), pounce lets him do all the attacks, and applies mythic charge ability 1d6 x mythic level holy damage PER ATTACK ON ALL THE ATTACKS.

My guys were doing like 300 damage or something stupid in the first round PER melee character since skald gives pounce to everyone.

I was literally one shotting "hard" bosses in one round on unfair. Party can probably output 1000 damage first round with party wide pounce and mythic charge.

Game is easy, no idea why anyone plays on easier difficulty levels

If you are playing turn based (or pausing a lot to charge) this seems like a huge upgrade to pretty much every party.

What character do you recommend making into a skald?
I hate designing a party comp and losing a key character and now I can't pick locks or something like that. (stupid woljif left)

Anyone know what characters stick around for most of the game?

[Conquista]

for crusade management, just pick a mage general and focus on recruiting archers and you won

[:bestgamerchina#1最好的中國]

I mean those mechanics are great. This game really cares about my social and mental life at times.
Here is how it went today and how i went out with my dog
1)Started the game
2)Went into XX on the map
3)XX crawls with undeads with negative-level auras
4)Kill all undeads in first fight
5)2 failed rolls on Darean and 1 on loser mc artist
6)6 restorations later Daeran still has 2 negative levels
7)quit the game

Very good experience 10/10

[T.W. Hamill]

Originally posted by neowmix:

2. Resting takes too long - after the initial resting screen, there's like 2 or 3 subsequent screens for you to deal with before you can continue. For a game that forces you to rest A LOT, it really needs to be faster & more streamlined.

Hit space.

3. Even after 2 games, preferences are STILL whack. I turned off all tutorials, but the game gives them to me anyway. The previous Pathfinder game did this too! How hard could it possibly be to fix this?!

Because in this game in particular there are particular tutorial popups that MUST pop up or you wont understand how to play. (Look at the number of people - high dozens, maybe hundreds in this forum alone - who didnt understand that you could rotate Alush with the camera. Because there was a bug preventing that pop-up from coming up.

AFAIK, those are the only type that continue to pop up no matter what.

4. For the vast majority of the early/mid game, spellcasters are severely underpowered because of the dominance of melee. Using a damage spell feels weak and useless for what you have to give up (one of your limited spell slots).

Limited Spell Slots? Whut? I never ran out of spells on any caster after obtaining Abundant Casting.

And enemies generally have high enough saving throw to make attempting those spells risky at best. Casting a spell rarely ever FEELS powerful - ultimately that's what spellcasting players want.

I had Nenio and Daeran blowing up entire mook encounters with one spell each. Dont know what you're on about.

And for enemies with high saves, you use spells that dont allow saves (Bolstered Battering Blast + Force Dagger, Bolstered Magic Missiles + Force Dagger). There are plenty. God forbid you have to attack an enemies weakness.

5. Accumulating corruption on resting is a poorly thought out mechanic. Why have it at all? What's the harm allowing players to rest more often?

Particularly with Abdundant Casting, youd trivialize entire areas because you could go completely ham on every single encounter.

That being said, i never reached Corruption 1 in my entire playthrough. You arent, for instance, forced to stop and camp when you hit exhausted. Just keep moving. Most random encounters (there are a few exceptions, like pack-o-smilodons) can be overcome even WITH exhausted. And you can clear it immediately from your entire party with Mass Heal (sorta lategame) or quickly by using Seelah's LOH + Fatigue and Exhaustion clear orisons.

This ties into the previous point about why spellcasters are nearly useless in the early/mid game. Having better resting mechanics can be one of the ways to give spellcasters their mojo back. You shouldn't have to be a lvl 15-20 minmaxed spellcaster to finally be on par with even the most pedestrian of melee builds.

Good thing you dont then.

6. Making enemies with impossibly high AC, saves, and immune to everything is the laziest way to make a "hard" encounter. It seems like every "hard" encounter is to (1) make it impossible to hit and (2) ramp up its melee damage.

The "impossible to hit" thing comes up a lot and ive never found it to be remotely true, with a few very notable exceptions, and those exceptions have a LAUGHABLE touch AC. You're supposed to counter them with touch spells/attacks. Ones that have both a high AC and Touch AC tend to have garbage SR and saves, and can be save-or-sucked (usually instakilled) pretty easily. You can examine your enemies. Their weaknesses are right there.

Every time someone has posted a "i cant hit this AC except on a 20 at this place/level" (in a thread ive seen, at least, im sure there are lots i havent), ive posted a breakdown on what a melee who isnt built like a potato should have and in most cases you should have an AB that is as large as the AC in question meaning youll only miss your first attack on a 1 (and mayne not even then, if you have Trickster tricks). And even in the cases it didnt, it was still on a 5 or better, meaning a 75% hit chance. Thats fine.

There are so many other mechanics to take advantage of that could make encounters challenging. I feel like most of the really tough enemies, the only way is to just brute force it - there's no elegant and tactically advantageous way of doing it.

Cool story. Laughing Darkness or whatever its name is? Killed it without even taking damage and without ever actually fighting it. Lay a chain of Pillar of Light down the hallway... send Lann or someone with Dimension Door/Expeditious retreat up the hallway to "aggro" her, and run down the hall.

Shell implode herself on the Pillars even if she saves for half on all of them. Splort.

[LoneEagle]

I usually make sure my MC has the ability to disarm traps and pick locks in all of these RPGs because I agree that it's annoying to not be able to do these things and you never know if your thief is going to stick around or betray you (kind of why they are a thief). My MC is an Oracle: Seeker and his trickery skill is the highest in the party (even higher than Woljiff).

Yeah, I agree having a mage general plus archers is a really good strategy in the crusade management. I also enhance the energy and hospital abilities. I just started recruiting Monavic Devas (angel path) for my army. Got 15 so far. Are these really good and is it worth it to keep recruiting them? They seem like more powerful versions of clerics maybe?

All those comments about the pounce with the skalds and charge, etc. seems great and all but we all like to build parties differently and RP differently. If you enjoy doing 1,000 damage in the first round and one-shotting everything, then way to do you, but some of us might get bored with that and not enjoy it. I'm sure there are many ways to exploit the game's mechanics if you look for them. My party is pretty powerful now at level 11 plus mythic level 4. Most of the battles are pretty easy for me now, but there is still some challenge. Overall I am enjoying the game, but I do agree with most of the OP's points. It doesn't really seem like the developers spent much time playing their own game....

[mbradtke]

5. Accumulating corruption on resting is a poorly thought out mechanic. Why have it at all? What's the harm allowing players to rest more often?

I don't think you get what this game is about at all.
Kingmaker had more time limits and ration resting, this one has corruption.
They already made it easier through coruption and you are still complaining, as long as you are close to a safe area you can rest as much as you want and save up on your consumables. Only in the case that there is no close safe area you would have to save on your spells/skills. The game would be boring if they trivalized this even more because you could just fullbuff-> kill eveyrthing, rest and repeat, the game is also about some realismn, even it is a video game

[Tyler Durden]

Originally posted by Gottkanzler Konrad:

But if your giant Mammoth doesn't get the "Scribe Scroll" you are playing the game wrong.
Because having the giant woolly Mastodon in your party sitting at the camp weaving its magic words, quill in trunk, on parchment is the only TRU WAY™ to play.
Everyone else is doing it wrong.

This made me laugh a lot harder than I should've. Take this award with my blessing. You've more than earned it.

[Mike]

One tip that I usually fail to follow:
Don't read any builds on line. Making your own is so much more satisfying and there are many that are strong enough. The more I read about a game like this the less I want to play because I feel like there is less surprise and discovery left.