Thoughts on the problems of Kingmaker

[Apollo Densin]

Pathfinder Kingmaker is a good game, but highly crippled by many things which make it less than ideal to play. I have played the game fairly heavily, working my way up to the last dungeon before needing to step back and stop playing because of the numerous issues I am facing with the game. I will go ahead and list them out here for people to look over, and will try to keep this spoiler free as much as possible

-Weapons: There are so many weapons in this game, this is a boon, and a major crippling factor. Due to the sheer amount of weapons, you may very well end up with a weapon with not a lot of magic versions available. The orc Double Axe for instance I have yet to come across a magical version, and it did not even spawn in regular versions for quite awhile. All of these exotic weapons are put in, but you gotta feat them in order to user them is crippling as well. Essentially you should look into what weapons have good progression before choosing your build, which limits what styles you wish to go. For instance I was using a greatsword, but was stuck basically with a +1 Frost greatsword almost to the end of the game, due to there not being very many. Some weapons as I have mentioned have it even worse.

No Halberds sucks however, I want a Halberd, and no a bardiche is not a Halberd, that is a poleaxe. A halberd has a spear point on top along with a hook.

-Crafting/artisans: This system is one of the worst aspects of the game. You are expecting to use them to help get you some better gear, but the sheer random nature of it, along with being bugged out the wazoo prevents it. Some of the special items they will make, their masterworks, simply do not spawn or happen. There is also the problem of, some of these masterwork items just not being right for your main character, such as the elven sword woman making a special sword for you. There should be an option to point at what weapon you want for her to make, instead you better hope she makes what you need.The delivery of their items seem to be random, sometimes they show up every month, sometimes they show up every two months, or not at all if they so inclined.

Most of the items you will get out of the Artisans will end up being sold for gold, which is good they are worth a lot, but overall just are not worth the effort typically to recruit them because most likely you will never use the weapon or gear they give you compared to the ones you find. An actual crafting system is sorely needed, it can still be tied to artisans, but more control over what they make would be key. I have no one who uses short swords for instance, why the heck would you keep making them and giving them to me?

-NPC companions: Some of them are really badly optimized, which is harped on by numerous people, Valerie is the worst offender, because she does not have the strength to even wield her basic gear, putting her into medium encumbrance right away, Overall she is a great character however, but just is hard to justify taking with you until the later levels when she is better built. The same can be said for some of the other companions. The lack of a true neutral companion is felt, there are companions for every alignment besides neutral evil and true neutral.

Most of the NPC’s are fairly well written however, and are entertaining. I don't really care for Nok Nok however, and there is no way to really get rid of him unlike other characters. I am thinking this is partially because he was a kickstarter tier reward, the other NPCs if you do not like them you can kick out and end them on their way if need be.

-Mercenaries: The system does help in allowing you to build your own party however the price can quickly get out of hand. Grab all of the mercs you want very early, because quickly the price will be a huge money sink. Since they only get 20 stat points compared to the main characters 25, you will feel it, but you can manage if you know what you are doing to a degree.

-Alignment choices: Some of the alignment choices make no sense at all, for instance saving someone from a Daemon is considered chaotic good, with no options to do a lawful good, neutral, or even neutral good for rescuing them. This really is telling in some of the writing of some of the quests, where you help someone who is clearly innocent of the charges brought against them, but there is no good option or other things. Bringing the person to justice is sometimes chaotic action. This is prevalent throughout the game, and it is really easy to be alignment shifted out of lawful good because there are too many neutral good or chaotic actions but lawful options are not present. You need to keep an eye on your alignment if you are a monk or a paladin for instance.

Special mention for the Hellknight questline, which makes no sense in game nor is it well written. This is infamous because of the backer putting his OC into the game, which is super badly written and it does not give you the options you wish. There is no true good way to finish this quest line and not talking about the alignment. It is railroaded and mainly there to show off how awesome this OC is. It is also mandatory to do this questline. There is no skipping it without making your kingdom crumble. . I will not stress this enough of how bad this quest is and its inclusion was because of a backer makes it even worse. It should have spent more time reworking it to make it fun instead of being an ego stroke of whomever bought it.

I should point out that I really like the lore and fluff of the Hellknights this questline does the faction a great disservice, although this is probably because you are facing one of the worst of the orders. There is a kingdom management dealing with another oder, the Order of the Pike, which would be great to have in the game itself because they would be so useful to you and make so much sense lore wise, who are willing to work with you. If the Hellknight prestige class happens, which it almost was funded, having the Order of the Pike as the main option would be really nice, because they fit so well. Just being able to choose the orders would be nice in general however, although I really only like the Order of the Godclaw for the major orders.

-Kingdom management: This will screw you over if you are not careful, you really need to pay attention to how it works, but it is really only manageable if you keep the difficulty of the kingdom down low. You simply do not have enough time to work with it and upgrade your people, Advisors are also really hard to come by in many regards, for instance the counselor position has only one person who can fill it if you are in a good playthrough. Combine this with some bugged requirements for building unlocks, means that you will have problems. The upgrade advisor times that prevent you from adventuring really hurts, but by the end of the game, there is nothing else to do but sit in the kingdom screen training your folks.

This training is vital for your advisors later in the game, where you need to have them really well trained, but you need to spend too much time to do so, and some of the unlocks for advisors take too much time as well.

-Adventuring areas: This is a real kick in the ass, most of the areas to explore, are just copy pasted over and over again. Nothing unique about them, and it is just show up and kill the monster. You can beat these areas typically in a couple of minutes at most, maybe 5 minutes tops. Most of the game is made up of these areas, and oftentimes the loot is not even really worth it, being typical vender trash. There are no stories nor lore backing up these things. Being a story driven game this would be key.

There is just no exploration on these maps, since they are so small, only four screens at most big.

-Fluff: This game sorely lacks fluff. This is really telling in the items, most of the time nothing is explained about the item. If you are not a pathfinder or tabletop fan, you may not even know what these items are, and some of them I had to look up like what the heck a Fouchard is. Named items have it even worse, there are no stories behind some of these items beyond a line or two of stuff, often with nothing about the item. I remember in my first CRPG Icewind Dale 2, there were some items that had tons of fluff behind it, giving stories about wielders and such. I wish this was the same thing here, beyond telling us the item is shiny or smells.
-Scrolls: Do not list what spell list this scroll is a part of, which is really frustrating because you want to know this for copy to spellbook for alchemists, magus, and Wizards. Unless you know it by heart, you will be going down them right clicking to see if you can do it. This is easier if you have no ranks in use magic device, but if you do, good luck as all of them are selectable. Being able to sort them by spell list would be a huge quality of life fix to start off. Being able to see who can cast them would also help immensely.

-Armour Class- Towards the end, especially in the final dungeon, you will quickly find out that Armour class sucks, you are better off going for other defensive options. This comes to most of the attacks become touch attacks, which means most of your armor and gear does not matter. The inverse of this is your foes have AC out the wazoo, sometimes in the 40+ ranges along with special spells to make them even harder to hit. These are not just bosses, but some of the mooks as well. It makes some classes outright useless, such as Fighters because they simply can not hit. You need to buff them/do other things in order to compete, but this also means you will probably spend most of your buffs each fight, even against the regular guys. So AC becomes highly useless for you, but extremely important for your foes. Combine this with some item builds not having items to use, means you may go in without a good weapon to help with these factors.

-Learning Curve: This one mainly stems from you need to have the tabletop rules or have knowledge of them in order to even play this game to a good degree. So much is unexplained because I am assuming the developers thought that they would cater to the tabletop crowd. This really goes into spell effects where they are not mentioned what they do satisfactory. For instance a Magus giving an item Brilliant energy, well unless you do it and look at your item, you have no idea what brilliant energy does.

-Damage reduction: You can build up a high damage reduction, but there is no way to look into how much you have or at least not that I have seen.

-Combat maneuvers: This feature seems to have been discarded or is just not mentioned on how to do it although some of the items talk about it. I have not found out a way you can trip and disarm someone for instance. I know some of these are locked behind feats, like sunder and bullrush, although you could just make the attempts on the tabletop without having to pick up the feats.

-Library: When you get a city, you unlock the library, which is mainly there to show off kickstarter backers. Really should have some other utility, like being able to turn in your books for some reward to fill up the shelves.

Overall this game has a lot of fun elements, but it is hindered by numerous factors. I am unsure if these can be even fixed easily, because as most people like to point out how limited this staff is and studio. Although some of this stuff should not be a factor like the Fluff on items, letting people know what they are with a copy and paste of the SRD would be pretty easy.

I will say the story is pretty decent, but this may stem from being able to pull mainly from the modules. So this means they do have an extremely good framework to work with. Some hiccups do happen, such as the hellknight quest, and some things hit out of left field with no foreshadowing at all. It is keeping me playing, and does have some really great merits.

[Lightning]

I didn't even know there was crafting in this game weird lol, but other than that I'm loving the game probably since I just got it during the lunar sale though played nearly 32+ hours so far and not regretting it tbh.

[Sage]

No turn based combat

[Apollo Densin]

Originally posted by Lightning:

I didn't even know there was crafting in this game weird lol, but other than that I'm loving the game probably since I just got it during the lunar sale though played nearly 32+ hours so far and not regretting it tbh.

When you get your kingdom you can recruit artisans, the first one when you unlock the outskirts as part of your lands. They will let you know what to do when you get them.

[Lightning]

Originally posted by Apollo Densin:

Originally posted by Lightning:

I didn't even know there was crafting in this game weird lol, but other than that I'm loving the game probably since I just got it during the lunar sale though played nearly 32+ hours so far and not regretting it tbh.

When you get your kingdom you can recruit artisans, the first one when you unlock the outskirts as part of your lands. They will let you know what to do when you get them.

Hm, I unlocked the first part of the kingdom I guess but not sure if i had any artisans yet also claimed 2 areas around my main one so far but I guess I might need a 3rd before they show up?

[Apollo Densin]

Should have Kessil I think have you talk to bokken, the alchimeist

[Lightning]

Originally posted by Apollo Densin:

Should have Kessil I think have you talk to bokken, the alchimeist

Oh the guy that has you find flowers for him from Olegs i think yeah still haven't done that yet only have 5 advisors atm and none of them are artisans

[Apollo Densin]

Artisans do not show up in advisor screen as an fyi.

[Lightning]

Originally posted by Apollo Densin:

Artisans do not show up in advisor screen as an fyi.

Ah ok thanks are there anymore advisor slots than just the 5 later on?

[Apollo Densin]

10 in total, although the last one for espionage will probably unlock last, which will bite you if you unlock it too late tbf

[Lightning]

Oh dang k lol, yeah I noticed I have some espionage but no advisor for it yet