I Spent Way Too Much Time In Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous' Character Creation This Week | MMOR

System · September 2021

I Spent Way Too Much Time In Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous' Character Creation This Week | MMORPG.com

Bradford doesn't too much care for character creation tools. The identity of the character's he plays in games is moreso in his own head rather than on display on screen. However, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous might just hold the record for the longest he's ever spent in a creation tool - and he regrets nothing.

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seraphis79 · September 2021

Amazing game until you run into the crusade.

The crusade mechanics were an absolute immersion destroyer for me and I find myself having a hard time forcing my way through Act II because I've heard Act III is even worse for the crusade.

I wish they didn't bolt on these half baked mechanics on the RPG. It's a shame because I was absolutely loving the game up to that point. I'm gonna look for some mods that will remove/speed it up without breaking side quests.

Scot · September 2021

You can't make a character in Pathfinder without following a guide and the same for the management side of the game. There are too many pitfalls and the game does not hold your hand to steer you clear of them.

Sovrath · September 2021

Sharne said:

Your probably right but in Pathfinder Kingmaker, you had the option to forego the Kingdom management side of the game, there was an option to automate the kingdom management because they realised I guess that not everyone would want to do all the mundane kingdom management tasks involved.

Saying that, I didn't turn it off, so don't know how much impact it had on the game but I am surprised that a similar option isn't in the sequel.

I believe there is an option to turn off kingdom management in this game.

I believe this reviewer mentions it ...

Scot · September 2021

Sovrath said:

Sharne said:

Your probably right but in Pathfinder Kingmaker, you had the option to forego the Kingdom management side of the game, there was an option to automate the kingdom management because they realised I guess that not everyone would want to do all the mundane kingdom management tasks involved.

Saying that, I didn't turn it off, so don't know how much impact it had on the game but I am surprised that a similar option isn't in the sequel.

I believe there is an option to turn off kingdom management in this game.

I believe this reviewer mentions it ...

Yeah but then you are chucking out a solid bit of gameplay, all you need to do is some reading and you realise the likes of when to make a day go by and when to eke every bit of gameplay on the board before you push the days forward again. It is not rocket science.

Abimor · September 2021

Scot said:

You can't make a character in Pathfinder without following a guide and the same for the management side of the game. There are too many pitfalls and the game does not hold your hand to steer you clear of them.

I made a charachter and the problem is you dont know if your even going to like it or its viable I wish the had some training room to just test out different things before making a commitment.

marcjt20 · September 2021

The Crusades portion of the game is like King maker, Its filler so they dont have to spend more time actually developing more to the game.

Sovrath · September 2021

Scot said:

Sovrath said:

Sharne said:

Your probably right but in Pathfinder Kingmaker, you had the option to forego the Kingdom management side of the game, there was an option to automate the kingdom management because they realised I guess that not everyone would want to do all the mundane kingdom management tasks involved.

Saying that, I didn't turn it off, so don't know how much impact it had on the game but I am surprised that a similar option isn't in the sequel.

I believe there is an option to turn off kingdom management in this game.

I believe this reviewer mentions it ...

Yeah but then you are chucking out a solid bit of gameplay, all you need to do is some reading and you realise the likes of when to make a day go by and when to eke every bit of gameplay on the board before you push the days forward again. It is not rocket science.

It's not really a solid bit of gameplay if the player doesn't want to do it.

Unless you are saying that once you take that chunk out there's not much left?

To me, if they offer the option then they recognize that it's a whole different experience and not one that everyone will like.

ShankTheTank · September 2021

“… I understand why they exist and I'm very glad they do for my friends who love to while the hours away tinkering with just the right angle of eyebrow tilt…”

Me. Bradford is talking about me

Viper482 · September 2021

Scot said:

You can't make a character in Pathfinder without following a guide and the same for the management side of the game. There are too many pitfalls and the game does not hold your hand to steer you clear of them.

Agreed. Options are great until it gets to the point where you are doing a research paper just to figure out how to create your character.

Scot · September 2021

Guys it is really not that difficult, You work out what sort of avatar you want to play, melee mage or whatever. You check out the guide to tell you what does that best, every time you level you check the guides for your team level picks.

You get an overview of normal gameplay and the management play, if you want to be perfect then check every quest and read up but you don't need to do that. Just get the idea that time marches slowly by as you move, check every road as something may appear off it. That sort of thing, you don't need a degree for this.

Some tips:
Get a pet they are great.
Spell conservation can be tricky, so you may want to limit how many mages and clerics you have but do have one proper "mage" and one proper "cleric".
You can't cover every option of character creation and work out what you need all the way to top level without losing some hair, so just save your hair and follow the guide.
Some management tasks immediately make weeks go by only do these when the map is as clear as it can be.
Do follow the tip guides and introduction guides to gameplay and when management starts look at that. Use "Kingdom cannot be destroyed" if you like but not "Turn Off management." Thats just boring.

Scot · September 2021

Abimor said:

Scot said:

You can't make a character in Pathfinder without following a guide and the same for the management side of the game. There are too many pitfalls and the game does not hold your hand to steer you clear of them.

I made a charachter and the problem is you dont know if your even going to like it or its viable I wish the had some training room to just test out different things before making a commitment.

A training room would only help if you could see how your avatar would do up to top level. Your early choices effect your later ones drastically. Just use a guide everything from ranged pet classes to berserk fighters are there to followed.

I should say this is not a favourite RPG, but I liked that they tried to do something different and be as faithful to the table top game as possible.

Kratier · September 2021

yup all the paid hype and whatever about this game made me finally revisit kingmaker, which suffers from all the same issues.
i sat there looking at the creation screen for kingmaker for like days, multiple headaches. but you can boil it down, strip away the fluff and you have like really only 2 or 3 choices of classes. and you should just go with your gut and whatever you desire to play, rather than what the game tries to railroad you into being.

QSatu · September 2021

I naver used a guide in Kingmaker. I've made some mistakes and still finished the game just fine./ It's actually refreshiung that a game doesn't treat you like an idiot and you can have to use your brain while making a character.
Sadly it seems many players want more simplified rpgs.

Scot · September 2021

QSatu said:

I naver used a guide in Kingmaker. I've made some mistakes and still finished the game just fine./ It's actually refreshiung that a game doesn't treat you like an idiot and you can have to use your brain while making a character.
Sadly it seems many players want more simplified rpgs.

The problem is that there is only one direction gaming can go in "ever easier". Any title that stands out from that gets panned for it. Personally I like both styles and remember games that require some thinking and reading are so rare we may have to play another ten easy mode ones before another "Pathfinder" turns up, that's not a big ask.

Kratier · September 2021

"doesn't treat you like an idiot" is another way of saying a poor job of surfacing information to a player to make a informed choice
the whole argument of "old school is better" game design is based on this flawed mentality. you are failing as a developer and product designer if your product doesn't thoroughly display information and assist the player with making the right choices

you're like the kind of person who legitimately believes path of exile has a well designed skill tree

Sovrath · September 2021

Kratier said:

"doesn't treat you like an idiot" is another way of saying a poor job of surfacing information to a player to make a informed choice
the whole argument of "old school is better" game design is based on this flawed mentality. you are failing as a developer and product designer if your product doesn't thoroughly display information and assist the player with making the right choices

you're like the kind of person who legitimately believes path of exile has a well designed skill tree

I think it's important not to make blanket statements about things.

"old school is better" can refer to so many things.

For my taste "old school is better" for many reasons including having to figure things out as you go along.

But there are so many different areas that works and doesn't work.

My thought is that it's always ok for the player to fail if they make an error in judgement. It's also necessary to have the player learn from those mistakes and then make better decisions.

If you fail in a game because you didn't know something then that's very acceptable to my tastes provided I can now use my new found knowledge and rectify those decisions.

If I can't do that then I agree with you and that's a problem.

Scot · September 2021

I look forward to more RPG's taking up this idea of a management system of some sort, not necessarily like Pathfinders but it is a gameplay direction that needs more exploring.

When it comes to table top I have dallied with some kingdom management myself but usually it has been small scale or more about handling a "headquarters". Anything that opens up new ideas about play is of interest.

EponyxDamor · September 2021

Sovrath said:

Scot said:

Sovrath said:

Sharne said:

Your probably right but in Pathfinder Kingmaker, you had the option to forego the Kingdom management side of the game, there was an option to automate the kingdom management because they realised I guess that not everyone would want to do all the mundane kingdom management tasks involved.

Saying that, I didn't turn it off, so don't know how much impact it had on the game but I am surprised that a similar option isn't in the sequel.

I believe there is an option to turn off kingdom management in this game.

I believe this reviewer mentions it ...

Yeah but then you are chucking out a solid bit of gameplay, all you need to do is some reading and you realise the likes of when to make a day go by and when to eke every bit of gameplay on the board before you push the days forward again. It is not rocket science.

It's not really a solid bit of gameplay if the player doesn't want to do it.

Unless you are saying that once you take that chunk out there's not much left?

To me, if they offer the option then they recognize that it's a whole different experience and not one that everyone will like.

Enabling auto mode for crusade actually prevents the player from accessing certain content, and also has the ability to brick progression for Lich mythic path.

Overall the game is “okay”, I’d say. It’s very, very buggy though; the further you progress into the game (past act 3) the more apparent it becomes. Ive had to restart completely twice because of them.

The crusade mode is unpolished, crunchy, and poorly balanced/implemented. Kingdom management made sense in Kingmaker because it provided additional context and an avenue for the “building a kingdom” loop of gameplay. In Wrath, however, Crusade mode only really allows you to fight demons … which you can already do. And it does so poorly, making this game mode feel like a poor supplement to the main gameplay loop.

On top of that, it is super easy to fail an entire campaign because of how easy it is to snowball. Which is what happened in my first play through. You lose your army to poorly balanced game mechanics (like an enemy mage being able to completely obliterate your units in a single cast without any form of counter play). As a result, your morale spirals down, you have no units, your unit replenishment is reduced, so you can’t make more units … and it just spirals down from there.

Lots of inconsistencies in the way in which rules are applied and what they are and are not applied to, and in several cases they attempt to apply tabletop rules to mechanics that just *shouldn’t* work that way in a CRPG. For instance, some buffs cast on your own party members are subject to your parties spell resistance, therefore can “fail”. While this is technically a mechanic in 3.5e, it has a work around (albeit quite a silly one, IMO) which is not present in the CRPG rendition.

Most classes that weren’t in Kingmaker are fundamentally broken somehow. Arcanists not being able to regenerate spell slots. Bloodrager abilities not working. Cavalier being borked because of how broken Charge is.

Wrath should’ve spent another 6-8 months in the oven. Honestly, Wrath will be a *great* game … in a year when Owlcat releases the Definitive Edition. Just like Kingmaker.

EponyxDamor · September 2021

For some reason the forums aren't letting me edit my other post and its formatting strangely.

Having so many classes in the game is fine, but not when so many of them are broken or not working as intended. The variety of base classes is a welcome change from so many RPGs, but the sheer volume for a CRPG is a bit unnecessary. Especially when the majority of the variations are so minor and mostly serve RP purposes on tabletop. Furthermore, mods did a much better job implementing these same classes in Kingmaker than Owlcat has done in Wrath.

Its also very easy for someone new to build incorrectly and become very frustrated with the game. Pathfinder and 3.5e is a confusing system even for those that actually play regularly. There are so many different rules and exceptions to those rules that it is hard to track them all while playing an actual tabletop game. So, for someone unfamiliar with Pathfinder, playing Wrath it will be very frustrating when there are lots of places in the game where encounter balance is very skewed.

Power spikes happen frequently, and enemies become exponentially tougher as you go on even on Normal difficulty (which is significantly easier than true tabletop rules). If a player doesn't understand the concept of AC vs Touch AC it can become impossible; some enemies will have an AC of 45+ but a Touch AC of only 20+. The game tries to explain this concept, but does a poor job of it. The similarity in naming can be very confusing for someone new, especially when you get into the differences of Melee Touch vs Ranged Touch. At moments like this, its very easy for a new player to just give up or stop playing because it truly does seem impossible to beat at times.

Honestly, I don't think there's *any* amount of hand holding that could make Pathfinder or 3.5e acccessible to someone unfamiliar with the rules. Unless someone has the desire to know more about how the mechanics work and opens up D20PFSRD its not likely that they will understand these concepts from the game itself. I truly feel bad for any "casual" player buying Wrath (or Kingmaker, honestly) expecting a CRPG experience like DOS, POE, or BG3.

Scot · September 2021

Some of what Epony has said is why I don't get games at launch, hopefully by the time a definitive edition is released the bugs will be sorted.

EponyxDamor · September 2021

Scot said:

Some of what Epony has said is why I don't get games at launch, hopefully by the time a definitive edition is released the bugs will be sorted.

I probably went a bit too deep on the flaws — It’s really not a bad game, it’s just a poorly balanced CRPG that needs a lot of bug fixing and polishing still. Heck, even building “correctly” you’re likely to run into 1-3 feats or abilities that don’t work according to the tool tip (or at all) which could easily make your build ineffective enough to warrant frustration. After getting to Lv 15 and finding out that the abilities I wanted to use don’t work as intended, I had to make a new one. Ive done that a few times as I’ve leveled. A slew of minor bugs that cause more irritation as you play, and on a game that can easily last 100+ hours, those small bugs add up quickly.

Have I enjoyed the game? Overall, yeah. There are some great moments, fun fights (in turn based), semi interesting storyline, and what I consider to be some well-written characters. Ive played about 100 hours across three incomplete playthroughs and easily got my $50 worth even if I don’t finish. Cheat mods like ToyBox are basically keeping the game duct-taped together for me, allowing me to fix broken things and avoid Crusade mode entirely.

Owlcat is releasing a lot of patches on fix stuff, but that speaks to the volume of things that are broken; even then, they break a few things more with each patch, requiring more hot fixes.

Would I recommend the game to someone who wants to play a CRPG (someone who played DOS/POE on normal/story)? Absolutely not. Right now, I would only recommend Wrath if you’re very into Pathfinder/3.5e rulesets and have the patience to beta test. Wrath/Kingmaker are *very* accurate to tabletop, and I’ve gotta commend Owlcat for that.

EponyxDamor · September 2021

Tip for anyone playing: Lich, Golden Dragon, Swarm, and Demon mythic paths are fairly bugged and will probably result in you being unable to complete the game without serious game file tweaking. Lich less so due to some recent patches, but definitely the others.

EponyxDamor · September 2021

Update from the developers. Respecing your main character after act 2 (the first few hours of the game) is likely to have bricked your ability to finish the story. Primarily effects Lich and Demon playthroughs, but possibly any mythic path.

If you have respecced after act 2, it’s better to restart or start from a time before respecing to ensure you are able to complete the game. Even after patching the problem, it is not likely to fix any save file that respecced after act 2.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Pathfinder_Kingmaker/comments/pnzyzj/avoid_respecs_until_the_next_patch/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf

Arglebargle · September 2021

DnD based rules sets have always been horribly haphazard and murky. Fiddlacious fun for rules lawyers.

While going to computer based gaming should help apply all those number cruncher situations, it appears the Pathfinder Kingmaker guys are not firing on all cylinders. I've enjoyed the early parts of Wrath, but I suspect I should stop playing for a while to wait for a fully working game.

EponyxDamor · September 2021

Arglebargle said:

DnD based rules sets have always been horribly haphazard and murky. Fiddlacious fun for rules lawyers.

While going to computer based gaming should help apply all those number cruncher situations, it appears the Pathfinder Kingmaker guys are not firing on all cylinders. I've enjoyed the early parts of Wrath, but I suspect I should stop playing for a while to wait for a fully working game.

My save game is completely gorked after this patch. Enemy AI behaving improperly (attacking each other or themselves), suuuuuuper long loading screens (previously only 10-15 seconds on SSD), items with blank stat screens, saving rolls that are failing/passing that shouldn't, cape GFX getting "stuck" on geometry and just stretching all over the screen ...

A myriad of fixes came with today's patch, but they clearly have broken previous saves. There's a slew of forums and reddit posts with new issues introduced.

It really is baffling. I would commend them for all the fixes, but it seems like the game is far, far closer to a beta state that previously thought.

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