PoE 2 or Pathfinder Kingmaker? Need opinions!

[Snaz]

Pathfinder Kingmaker has had a lot of bug squashes and content updates from what I've seen, so it looks very appealing at the given moment.

They're both on a discount over at GOG's store, and it kind of seems like a waste to get both?

In your humble opinions, which of the two games should I buy, or just get both? Is the different experience worth the time/money between the two games, etc.

Edit: I've purchased both games. Currently I'm playing PoE 2 RTwP and will then move onto Pathfinder: Kingmaker. That being said, thanks to everyone that took time from their day to share their thoughts and opinions in the comments. It's really appreciated and it helped a lot. Hopefully it'll help others in the future as well with their decision.

Cheers!

[Gearwar]

I played both games. Poe 2 and Pathfinder (although im not 100% through with it). If you would force me to pick one id go for Pathfinder seven days of the week. The reason for this is the fact that the character system is deeper, the story does not build upon a previous game and the choice you make matter a lot more.

Poe 2 is certainly a good game but if you opt for it you should know that most of its "value" comes from a big world with LOTS of interesting sidequests that barely mean anything in its greater context. Like you get a quest you go there, there is a small cool story about it but once you finish it its over and you will never hear from it again. The main story itself is really not good. Its neither intriguing nor executed well. Its just a follow up featurette.

I loved Poe 1. I was so addicted to the game I had to stop myself after 4 hours each day because I just wanted to keep playing. It had a mature, interesting story that was coherent and weaved into the world. Poe 2 opts for a weak main quest and LOTS of sidequests, none of which are really "important" for the bigger picture. The DLC is supposed to be good though.

Pathfinder so far has an interesting main story. Not the best writing but its coherent. You are the baron of a kingdom, and deal with whatever is happening in there. There is a clear red line you follow (story wise) and you can make your own choices while exploring it. I personally like it. I like to keep playing and expand my kingdom and either be a cruel or a well meaning ruler.

If your choice is between poe 2 and pathfinder, id say go patherfinder 100%. It is the more interesting game, but it does have a bit of a "light" fantasy feel to it. Nothing really feels dramatic or cruel or mean or authentic. It is truly a fantasy game. Its great though.

If you can get it in "sale" my personal go to game would be Poe 1. It is addicting. Has a great story, mature themes, great characters and an intersting narrative.

If you insist on poe 2 or pathfinder. 100%: pathfinder. Its just better.

[dulany67]

P:K, but I wasn't a fan of the pirate setting in PoE2. But both are worth playing.

[Snaz]

Originally posted by Gearwar:

I played both games. Poe 2 and Pathfinder (although im not 100% through with it). If you would force me to pick one id go for Pathfinder seven days of the week. The reason for this is the fact that the character system is deeper, the story does not build upon a previous game and the choice you make matter a lot more.

Poe 2 is certainly a good game but if you opt for it you should know that most of its "value" comes from a big world with LOTS of interesting sidequests that barely mean anything in its greater context. Like you get a quest you go there, there is a small cool story about it but once you finish it its over and you will never hear from it again. The main story itself is really not good. Its neither intriguing nor executed well. Its just a follow up featurette.

I loved Poe 1. I was so addicted to the game I had to stop myself after 4 hours each day because I just wanted to keep playing. It had a mature, interesting story that was coherent and weaved into the world. Poe 2 opts for a weak main quest and LOTS of sidequests, none of which are really "important" for the bigger picture. The DLC is supposed to be good though.

Pathfinder so far has an interesting main story. Not the best writing but its coherent. You are the baron of a kingdom, and deal with whatever is happening in there. There is a clear red line you follow (story wise) and you can make your own choices while exploring it. I personally like it. I like to keep playing and expand my kingdom and either be a cruel or a well meaning ruler.

If your choice is between poe 2 and pathfinder, id say go patherfinder 100%. It is the more interesting game, but it does have a bit of a "light" fantasy feel to it. Nothing really feels dramatic or cruel or mean or authentic. It is truly a fantasy game. Its great though.

If you can get it in "sale" my personal go to game would be Poe 1. It is addicting. Has a great story, mature themes, great characters and an intersting narrative.

If you insist on poe 2 or pathfinder. 100%: pathfinder. Its just better.

Both of them definitely seem like great games. That being said, luckily it's not about money for me, but rather time. Learning and exploring both of these games, playing hundreds of hours and keeping up with other game releases is just very time consuming and not very feasibly for me, which is why I inquired about which of these two seems more appealing. It is very subjective indeed, but considering it from my point of view, I'm 50-50 and it's hard to decide.

Regardless of which, thank you very much for weighing in with your opinion.

[Snaz]

Originally posted by dulany67:

P:K, but I wasn't a fan of the pirate setting in PoE2. But both are worth playing.

A lot of people seem to prefer P:K from what I've read online (considering recent updates), and apparently nobody is a fan of the ship text based combat. Very subjective though. :D

[Takkik]

I find po2 boring. The main quest is not that interesting and you pass 90% of the game doing something else. Side quests/world is very basic. You visit lot of small places, do 1-2 quests and never comeback or care about NPC... POE1 was a more focused experience (and still I find they didn't explored enought the watcher theme).

Kingdom management don't please every one but at leats it's a central part of the story/game. In Poe2 the ship thing is just an underused gimmick like the stronghold was in poe1. In a pirate/caribbean theme they could have done much more with the ship & ship combats.

They tried so hard to 'balance' the game in poe2 that they made the game dull in my opinion. Magic items just give you some small % (and they nerfed them even more after release) you can ignore them. I like that martial classes get abilities, they are more dynamic than in pathfinder but at same time their resource management push you just to spam your best ability.


Pathfinder is close to Baldur's gate &co. I miss the 'simplicity' of AD&d2 (pick a class and go adventuring without worrying too much to screw your build). More old school (but you can customize the rules and make it simpler). You need to take care of healing, poisons, curses, camping, raise dead etc...

If you prefere a more strealined gameplay and don't care about the story, you have poe2.

[Gearwar]

Originally posted by Wunka:

Originally posted by Gearwar:

I played both games. Poe 2 and Pathfinder (although im not 100% through with it). If you would force me to pick one id go for Pathfinder seven days of the week. The reason for this is the fact that the character system is deeper, the story does not build upon a previous game and the choice you make matter a lot more.

Poe 2 is certainly a good game but if you opt for it you should know that most of its "value" comes from a big world with LOTS of interesting sidequests that barely mean anything in its greater context. Like you get a quest you go there, there is a small cool story about it but once you finish it its over and you will never hear from it again. The main story itself is really not good. Its neither intriguing nor executed well. Its just a follow up featurette.

I loved Poe 1. I was so addicted to the game I had to stop myself after 4 hours each day because I just wanted to keep playing. It had a mature, interesting story that was coherent and weaved into the world. Poe 2 opts for a weak main quest and LOTS of sidequests, none of which are really "important" for the bigger picture. The DLC is supposed to be good though.

Pathfinder so far has an interesting main story. Not the best writing but its coherent. You are the baron of a kingdom, and deal with whatever is happening in there. There is a clear red line you follow (story wise) and you can make your own choices while exploring it. I personally like it. I like to keep playing and expand my kingdom and either be a cruel or a well meaning ruler.

If your choice is between poe 2 and pathfinder, id say go patherfinder 100%. It is the more interesting game, but it does have a bit of a "light" fantasy feel to it. Nothing really feels dramatic or cruel or mean or authentic. It is truly a fantasy game. Its great though.

If you can get it in "sale" my personal go to game would be Poe 1. It is addicting. Has a great story, mature themes, great characters and an intersting narrative.

If you insist on poe 2 or pathfinder. 100%: pathfinder. Its just better.

Both of them definitely seem like great games. That being said, luckily it's not about money for me, but rather time. Learning and exploring both of these games, playing hundreds of hours and keeping up with other game releases is just very time consuming and not very feasibly for me, which is why I inquired about which of these two seems more appealing. It is very subjective indeed, but considering it from my point of view, I'm 50-50 and it's hard to decide.

Regardless of which, thank you very much for weighing in with your opinion.

In that case 100% pathfinder. THe class system is just that much deeper. Sure you can play the same game 3 times over but once you know the story, you just know the story. Pathfinder has A LOT more class options compared to Poe 2 so different party setups can be customized further compared to poe2. Also the choices in the main story seem to matter a lot more than in Poe 2, which barely has any.

[merlance]

Get both. And get them on Steam during the summer sale in about a week.

Kingmaker is fun with the pathfinder ruleset and all, but the world just seems kind of sterile, generic fantasy. Theres plenty of challenging encounters (and the occasional infuriatingly difficult, at least on Challenging difficulty) but its a sold game. Its also seemed a lot longer, but that was mostly because of the loading screens at release

Deadfire has its own set of problems (the Main Quest being one), but the pacing is better, and I liked the sea exploration and pirate themes.

[你的爸爸]

The scale of the story and exploration is immense in pathfinder, sompared to a few measly islands in PoE2. PoE 1 however is very strong runner up. PoE 1 actually is far superior to dreadfire. All that childish voiceover like that terrible female priest NPC or even the narrator, dreadfire is just some terrible mash-up with pirate theme and doesn't even come close to PoE1 in terms of story, depth and character development. Dreadfire has better visuals, but that's about it.

[Dorian Gray]

Currently working on both as well. I consider both of them very good, in their own ways.

[Snaz]

Originally posted by merlance:

Get both. And get them on Steam during the summer sale in about a week.

Kingmaker is fun with the pathfinder ruleset and all, but the world just seems kind of sterile, generic fantasy. Theres plenty of challenging encounters (and the occasional infuriatingly difficult, at least on Challenging difficulty) but its a sold game. Its also seemed a lot longer, but that was mostly because of the loading screens at release

Deadfire has its own set of problems (the Main Quest being one), but the pacing is better, and I liked the sea exploration and pirate themes.

Is there any particular reason why I should wait to get either on Steam? I reckon getting them on Steam for the Workshop.. but, alas, I don't see the need for either of these to download mods, and even if I had to I could easily use steamworkshopdownloader.io or Nexus?

[InEffect]

You meant to say the game with garbage writing vs the game with decent writing?
That's totally a hard choice, yes.

[belangf]

They are both great but I prefer Kingmaker. I don`t like the way wizards works in PoE2 and cleric spells feel underwhelming.

The great thing about PoE2 is that you can choose to play real time or turn based. Another thing I prefer about poE2 is that you have more choices to customize the look of your character. Character models are more realistic while they look more cartoonish in Kingmaker.

[Eonwe]

I played both extensively and i think P:K is vastly superior to PoE 2.

PoE 2 tho is a lot easier to understand mechanics wise, so i see why some people would rather play that.

If you're new to the pathfinder settings, expect to restart a few campaigns before you get the hang of P:K mechanics.

[djinnxy]

Both. No need to be indecisive that way. I've got over 900 hrs. in poe2 and over 300 into this and still play. There's still some broken stuff, but they work on it little at a time. I won't get long winded. Just divide the price of both by 1200 hrs. and tell me if your entertainment is worth that per hr.

[Cabel_Blacke]

I can't argue with "play both," but if you're stretched for time and really want a meaty RPG you can sink your teeth into, P:K is the way to go. It feels the most like the old Infinity Engine games of old (BG, Icewind Dale) and the overall presentation feels a lot more consistent and polished.