A game review sort of...

[Duran]

Hello all,

As a person interested in buying this game but sadly too late to the party to join the Kickstarter :(, I have been watching the games development, especially in the last few months with the beta video releases. And since we have just one more month until release I have some concerns about the game.

I’d like some answers to a few of these, or at least to raise some awareness here. I know I might be upsetting some people who are really hyped about this game. And to be honest I am too… I want it to be good. But that doesn’t mean that I can ignore the things that I feel need to be addressed.
A glaring problem I have noticed is with the kingdom building system.
While the events where you send and assign companions in different positions of power looks like it could grow into some interesting aspects, the town founding and building itself is ... lacking.
Bluntly put, the TT rules in all their broken potential for exploitation look more interesting.
The first issue is one of presentation. It looks like a cheap online freemium city builder, actually some of those seem to put more effort into it than this. a square grid of 9 slots with no defining feature of any of the cities you claim or found, no geographic influence on them except MAYBE you lose the pier slot if it's not near water, but above all else: no character. Every town including the capital, as far as the beta is concerned, looks like a carbon copy of each other. There's no character to any of these towns, either in how they look, certainly not in how they are built. And while I could move past that in terms of generic random villages, the capital village following the exact same template is glaring.
Next is one of mechanics. I understand some depth was meant to be added to the game via making buildings influence and supplement each other in logical fashion (you get a brewery, a windmill to grind the harvest to provide some material for the brewery, and a tavern to sell the produce at in the same town, well those 3 form a production chain that boosts the effects of each building. Same with windmill into bakery). However, ... adjacency bonuses? This could not have been a worse idea. yeah, in concept they work, in practice ... you've just compounded the issue of lack of character and differentiation for each town. Adjacency systems are a simplistic system to add false depth that in truth results in one thing only: cookie cutter city layouts and cloned city as far as the country-side can see. You will NEVER build a barracks for example, without slapping a blacksmith, longhouse and watchtower next to it because to do so would be a waste. You will never slap a monument in every town, because without the shrine/temple next to it, it's benefits are castrated, to say the least. And if that town is already occupied by other "optimal configurations" to maximize benefits ... I guess you're ♥♥♥♥ out of luck. I also guess you're ♥♥♥♥ out of luck if you wanted a theme or to build certain things for RP reasons because then you lose the bonuses. Yeah, not all people play to optimize, but it's nevertheless a glaring flaw within the system.
Next on the table, I have noticed some concerning issues with the RPG elements/story.
Spoilers for the tutorial part of the game if you want to avoid knowing anything about the story.


The problem I have here starts the moment when Tartucio gives you that ring. We have prior information related to Tartucio and what kind of a person he is, so it is not hard at all to see a possible trap coming.
Furthermore, the entire ring scenario smells like it was written for a … for lack of a better word stupid good archetype. It feels insulting when you as a player see it coming a mile away. Furthermore, how the hell do I as a lawful evil or chaotic evil or any kind of evil character allow someone to play around with me like that? Especially considering some of those alignments define the type of people who are SUPPOSED to be the scheming and treacherous? Compound this with a Demonic bloodline sorcerer or a cleric of Asmodeus. This game was designed for role-play, right?
It creates glaring problems of behaving out of character, it creates problems later in the story, it just breaks immersion and it’s a horrible first impression. It makes you as the player look like an incompetent dunce.
Say Tartucio was smart enough to hide the ring on the corpses of those guys and claims to know that the guy had a good ring on him and that you should use it. Or even better, you just loot it and he congratulates you on a good find (it would also make him at least pretend to be a nice guy). That would make far more sense and you could RP around it.
You are later accused of having the ring and find out what it was. At that point if the plan was actually well executed. Slow clap and prepare for payback. As an example, you can later find a letter from Tartucio bragging about his great idea to some of his collaborators. And use that letter to prove you are innocent.
All I am saying is that there were far better ways to write this scene, especially considering is one of the first things that happen in the story. I have to ask then: how much actual RP will there be here when this is what I got in my tutorial as a choice, my very first choice a binary one in a 9 alignments system, where the 2 chosen alignments look slapped on there at random? How great are those characters, because all I can see here are cardboard cut-out generic characters acting in ways you should be able to call them out on.
What then is the selling point here? Will the city be building change in later chapters? Will your town grow bigger and get more districts to build in so you can have more than 9 buildings in each? Will you actually be able to have a replica of your glorious capital to walk around in, in game, with looks to represent your kingdoms character and layout lifted straight from how you designed it in the building interface (so if I build a barracks on main street and opposite it a temple, when I walk down main street I will walk between a temple and the barracks), is that even possible considering the cookie cutter ultra-simplistic grid system it features?
IN SHORT. For the people who like it this way, my problems with this game are 3 fold.
- The construction of a capital/ empire is severely lacking and just reminded me more of an online freemium game than anything else. The events have potential, but what if a chosen minister is not there to solve a said event? Do you as the King not have any emergency solution to call upon? Can you not take time out of your adventures to go there yourself? The system itself has a very bad introduction and first impression is what I’m saying.
- The story. It’s just there to be honest. I don’t how I could describe it better. Sure some interesting things pop up here and there (later) but the rest feels shallow and not even remotely worth our time. Paper thin characters, and childish story for the most part. Maybe it gets better when we reach the Kingdom part. But a bad first impression is a hard thing to shake, ESPECIALY considering the 2-hour refund period of steam, if the first impression is bad, people can’t afford to see if it “gets good later”.
- This game was designed for RP right? Because I sure as hell don’t see it. Options should not be binary choices. I mean IF I want to be chaotic good, what I should I choose in the tutorial? Chaotic evil? Lawful neutral? I betray my alignment no matter what I choose. This feels oddly restrictive and predefined to force you to “game” the system to keep the alignment you want/start with by making decisions not for RP reasons, but because they give you the correct points to stay in alignment. Basically, the choices read like they were made for a binary moral system, not the dual axis of law-chaos and good-evil pathfinder has.
Thank you for taking the time to read this… review? I don’t know what I should call it but here it is. And I hope we will get more stuff reworked, especially the construction /empire system.

[BloodDragon]

It's imppossible to write dialogue options that fits every single possible character.
It's a CRPG so roleplaying is allways limited. These games are more about fighting and getting loot, if you want to role play you need to play PnP or tabletop with real people CRPGs can only imitate this expierience.

[GrandMajora]

I would like to remind you that during the tutorial level, you have the options to loot the castle and leave the nameless soldiers to burn to death as you rush to the aid of the person who's offering to make you a baron.

For the purpose of accepting the magic ring, that could easily be chalked up to your character thinking "hey, it's a free ring of protection!" And he does say that he gives it to you so that you can do a better job of protecting him.

And although I have yet to see anybody actually take this option, yet, you can choose to attack Tartucio when he acuses you of being a spy. Which is something I imagine CE, CN, or NE characters would try to do in that situation.

And a sorcerer's bloodline doesn't explicitly affect how they are as a character. I mean, draconic sorcerers don't go around acting like dragons, unless they're planing to become disciples at some point.

[thainen]

Just one question: did you try taking the ring off before talking to Jamandi? :)

[kreivi]

What you (AP) write would be true if game would be released and all we get would be alpha or beta. (After all just few option to build, like you told generic settlements where you can not even enter)

But we can easily see there have been done MUCH more (just check for Gamecon videos, you can see how for example city building have changed plenty).
Allso there are plenty of options in tutorial. As mentioned before you can choose to rob place and take all what you can carry, let innocent guards burn, attack "T" in throne room when he complain your actions and act like "villain". OR you can leave all as they are, save soldiers, explain what happen to leader and even show that no, you do not even have that ring in your hands.

Tutorial can not be too complicated, if you do not understand some things during it and only (maybe much) later find some notes (which some people do not even bother to read) telling a cunning plan from big T.. that would be kind of confusing for some new player who actually just need tutorial for things like "how do I move, how do I manage my party, this is first computer game I am playing" kind of things.

[00DeadMonkey]

As a consumer who has been watching this game like a hawk but was unable to fund the Kickstarter I am honestly only disappointed on two fronts: 1) the romance options seem to be missing someone since one character in particular has a very endearing scene that feels like the start of something but apparently not. And 2) The current lack of Arcane Armor training feats and Arcane Strike feats since these are essential to some Eldritch Knight builds.

The positives that I'm looking forward to: 1) the class options just fine and seem very well thought out to allow for over a dozen very powerful and creative builds that I have pulled off in the pen and paper and can attest to being very fun. 2) The fact that a little thing like looting the wrong thing can affect someone's outlook on you is amazing and feels like the old Ultama and Fallout games which are still some of the most choice filled RPG's to date. 3) The promise of DLC means I expect regular updates which means little things like not varied backgrounds can be fixed as well as additional features that the fans really want. Who knows maybe they'll do a Valentine's Day DLC and add more stuff to the romantic aspect of the game since having an heir is kind of a big boon to your kingdom.
Also I want my Barbarion WIFU thank you.

I'm hopeful and they can shut up and take my money!

[Duran]

First of all, thank you for taking the time to take part in this debate.
Allow me please to address all provided commentary in order.
@dodo00d. I for one think that one could strive to make more out of this CRPG style. That was the idea I feel with making a Pathfinder game were you got so many alignments. Surely you have the chance to play around with more than 2-3 choices. The limit is only set by our lack of desire for more.
@ GrandMajora
You sort of can and can’t think of it as a free item, because remember who is giving it to you. Again this feels written just for the sake of being there. This is still a RPG, CRPG or not. You are asking me to play a character that is at best a good guy that has not enough wits about him to see through a trap. And let us be honest here. You can suspect Tartucio to be the sort of shady character to do something like that. It doesn’t take an Einstein to see that coming and that is what I feel is more disturbing than anything.
We all were promised importance and care given to the story, customers and potential customers alike. The options are far too shallow and limited in my humble opinion. And that is what saddens me the most. Again there are mostly just binary options. What more can I say…

@thainen Sadly I did not have the chance to play it myself. And if the Option to take the ring off would have some effect there is still the problem with Tartucio not proving himself as a leader. But apparently is seen in the eyes of all, except Linzy, as such. While you as the player just stay there looking funny for not seeing the great leader that Tartucio is. Plus, the lack of alternative choices can feel somewhat disappointing.
That is why I did not mention the abilities and such because I couldn’t play around with them myself.
@kreivi
Sadly, I could not find above mentioned improvements. If I may ask for myself and maybe some other people interested in the topic for a link regarding this?
Did the adjacency bonus go away? Did the construction screen change? Do we have more liberties in terms of “building” our own capital and empire? Can I actually feel like building a wall? Or will I just planting a wooden plate in the corner of my map and call that my defense against possible attacks?
Regarding the tutorial, the options again are binary, rob the place or not, save the people or not, and the reason I emphasis this is maybe I would like to have some alternatives. Maybe allow one companion to stay and help while you go with a diminished force to save the day, and get your allies only later in the fight. See what I mean? Options to handle events, not just events with binary choices. CRPG or not a RPG is not defined by choosing between black and white.
As well you are right regarding my example, it was sadly not the best. But it was just an example. The people who will be mostly interested in this game will be the type of people that have played pathfinder or know of it. So I suspect a better story would be appreciated more than some simple elements of story.
@00DeadMonkey: I agree there are more things that we could want. And it is clear that some effort was put into the game. But... Point 2 should be a given. Point 3, we can hope, but what we can hope for is a wild card that can give us anything (good or bad). Again I want it to be this way too, but forgive me for not sharing your enthusiasm and optimism for that matter. The game promised me 2 things. A good story and the chance to build my empire. And in both cases I feel I got the short end of the stick.

[shadowspawn]

Guys and Girls remember, this is based on an adventure path in the pathfinder roleplaying setting. The city builder is probably a bit vanilla, true. But that is how it is presented in the original written text. Personally i cant wait to give this a run, Ive played through the paper and dice version, that was fantastic. From all ive seen and read, this will be a true, honest attempt to bring the magic of this setting to a pc or mac. Lets not expect too much, i mean we arent expecting the developers to rediscover the wheel are we?

[00DeadMonkey]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von T.G.2theResQ:

@00DeadMonkey: I agree there are more things that we could want. And it is clear that some effort was put into the game. But... Point 2 should be a given. Point 3, we can hope, but what we can hope for is a wild card that can give us anything (good or bad). Again I want it to be this way too, but forgive me for not sharing your enthusiasm and optimism for that matter. The game promised me 2 things. A good story and the chance to build my empire. And in both cases I feel I got the short end of the stick.

If its the kingdome building system that's the fault of the base game more than the developers. Pathfinder's kingdom making game has always sucked on toast, I've played both the original in Kingmaker and the one in UC both suck hard. That said I think once we get to interacting with other kingdoms and you know the inevitable wars we will start that might scratch that ich. Same for the story, after you get astablished the story picks up and you start seeing things. It was the same for the pen and paper. Things get really good around
book 3 with some very spoopy stuff and you start learning that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Just remember to ask why and you might notice the web your standing in.

And no point 2 is not a given. I can't think of any other RPGVG in the past decade (maybe two) that has given us this much wiggel room for classes, multiclassing, and other options. There are litterally thousands of builds here. If there is another game around with that kind of options please let me know becues I have been hunting for it.

[GrandMajora]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von T.G.2theResQ:

Snip

At this point, I'm going to assume the building system will be expanded upon when the game officially comes out. For one thing, the wall is specifically referred to as a "wooden wall" which leads me to believe we can upgrade to a stone one later on. The devs have also confirmed several times on here that we will be able to select what religion is worshiped in our shrines and temples, as well as our kingdom's alignment having an affect on which allies we gain access to. Golems, Hellknights and Undead being just three examples given so far.


And as for your capital city being small and cookie cutter looking, I also want to point out that shortly after your declared a baron, one of your supporters makes comments about the idea that your capital will expand in time, which I am inclined to believe.

The capital shown off in the store page videos looks a lot different from the former bandit fortress shown in the beta.


As for the dialogue options, that is something I'm a bit concerned about. Some of these classes are heavily dependent on being a specific alignment, and that's going to be difficult to maintain if you're constantly forced to pick options that fall outside the alignment. The best idea I can think of at this time is to just pick options that fall within the general field (Good, Neutral, Evil) and then pick the branch options (Law, Neutral, Chaos) when they become available.

[Duran]

I'm sorry to ask this, but in which sense do you mean expanded? The problem starts with the system altogether. I mean there are online games that did it better than this building interface does. The problem is the core concept of building the city this way.
Sure we may have some diversity in regards to our building choices but... I don't know I feel like getting the short stick here.
If this was a problem from the start, why not try to come up with something better? Again there are online games that did it better, one could learn from them. Not to mention that geography has no importance and that all cities look the same.
I hope you have seen a video regarding the building aspect just as a reference, if not please do.

@00DeadMonkey we must give credit where credit is due. Sure the class diversity is fantastic. The problem is with city/ empire building aspect and story which do not promise to be what we all hoped they would.

[GrandMajora]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von T.G.2theResQ:

I'm sorry to ask this, but in which sense do you mean expanded? The problem starts with the system altogether. I mean there are online games that did it better than this building interface does. The problem is the core concept of building the city this way.
Sure we may have some diversity in regards to our building choices but... I don't know I feel like getting the short stick here.
If this was a problem from the start, why not try to come up with something better? Again there are online games that did it better, one could learn from them. Not to mention that geography has no importance and that all cities look the same.
I hope you have seen a video regarding the building aspect just as a reference, if not please do.

@00DeadMonkey we must give credit where credit is due. Sure the class diversity is fantastic. The problem is with city/ empire building aspect and story which do not promise to be what we all hoped they would.

By expanded, I mean if / when your capital city grows, it will probably obtain more squares for more buildings. I would also expect your settlements to at the very least act as safe camping zones on the world map, especially if they're going to give you the option of where to place them at.


Honestly, even if it is a little bland, I don't mind. I've never played anything involving Pathfinder before, so this will be my first experience with the genre. Plus, I've enjoyed what I've seen from the story so far and would like to explore the rest of it when the full game comes out.

[kreivi]

I have to write quick reply here for that "story do not promise be that great". Kingmaker is 6 module long (around from level 1 to level 17) adventure path and around 10 year Pathfinder have been around it have been voted, nominated, told and so on to be "the" best adventure path.

So yes, some things in prologue might be "boring" or force player hand.
But for how many game we have played where you have to start for basic like "this is how you move, now try to jump, pick up an object, hey try to press mouse button and you can hit an object".

It is true that in orginal game there was no "preluge" you start from chapter 1 (after reading a letter your GM give for you) with your party. I personally think that having some background where you actually learn some things and (hopefully) get some feeling from your future party members and even some opponents is better way.

I still think that after that kind of fast first "introduction" to the game it will be one of the best computer RPG what have be made.

[Nerot]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von GrandMajora:

By expanded, I mean if / when your capital city grows, it will probablyobtain more squares for more buildings.

It was in beta (0.4.3). After filling 10 original positions you've got 10 more.
Video from Gamescom 2018 showed capital with 40 of them.

[Grifta]

@Nerot; Cheers for pointing out the Gamescom playthrough. I missed that getting posted, and that looks aresome.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujqJrsxK-uU

Just making sure that we've got the correct context here. So this sort of review is based on watching beta 0.4.3 footage?

*edit* Corrected Nerot's name

[Avenger93]

So the solution to the capital being the same slot affair as all other cities is ... making it bigger? Can't other towns also grow bigger thus negating the point? And even so, just more slots? Ok ... yey I guess, I can get to put down all the ideal adjacency set-ups and move on.

As for class diversity, oh it's more compeling than most games, but for a module such as kingmaker I feel the developers dropped the ball HARD on the classes and archetypes selected. I mean ... we are ostensibly supposed to be able to make a kingdom based on any of the alignments right? So ... where's my Anti-paladin Tyrant? Where's my Knight of the Sepulcher? Or what about the very location based vigilante class who could build his own town/kingdom as a reflection of his principles? It just feels like only the most cookier cutter vanilla choices were included in the game, as opposed to classes and archetypes that would fit thematicaly. Worse still, there seems to be an active bias against expressly "evil" classes.

And yeah, I know how the kingmaker module goes. I know what twists the story has later. The problem is. as the OP highlighted, the way the introduction is handled in the game, as well as the binary way in which alignments seem worked into the story creates a bad first impression. I can tell you now, that ring deal would make me refund if I was still under the two hours limit on steam. And given how the story is supposed to be adapted later on by the same people who wrote that prologue ... excuse me while I don't wait with baited breath. The genius of the TT version was that, unlike the video-game, the choice of solution to the quest was a blank space for the party to fill out and you could do ANYTHING to fit your alignment or disposition, menwhile here we are reliant on the devs to write in solutions players would perhaps want to take, and they seem to be writing just the standard binary choices. If that's the case, then perhaps a more elegant way of doing things while not making characters have to pick glaringly conflicting choices is to drop the compound label and simply label choices one of 5 things: lawfull, chaotic, good, evil or neutral.

As opposed to my lawfull evil tyrant-type character having to pick a lawfull good response because I have no other choice if I don't want to trade away one of MY subjects to a random party of slavers. And they didn't even have the courtesy of offering a decent price in the process!

The problem here is one of potential, not of actual promise shown. The city builder as far as I can see is a complete write-off. More of the same personality-less slots. Great. This will have NOTHING compared to the way KCD did it where you could physicaly see the town grow even if you did not place the buildings down yourself (and it was a unique town compared to every other place of settlement on the map, as opposed to here where cloned towns seem inevitable). The class system is fine (not groundbreaking considering I still played TT all these years so I won't get my mind blown by just what EVERY self respecting class based RPG should feature), even though it has some glaring omissions from the line-up as far as evil classes are concerned which do bring it down a notch. And I would sing the praises of a game that FINALY ditches the stupid binary morality Bioware inflicted on PC RPGs for decades, were it not for the absolutely poor binary choices you seem to get pelted with as soon as you start playing.