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Author Topic: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous  (Read 6075 times)

TheSHEEEP

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Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« on: September 06, 2021, 05:31:45 AM »
So... who's digging in?

I've been playing this basically most of the previous weekend  ;D

Honestly a MUCH better launch than their previous game.
Yes, there are bugs, but I haven't encountered any major or even progress-breaking ones so far.

My impression of the writing so far is that it is actually pretty good and even in what little I've played so far, there were some little plot twists I honestly did not expect.

The turn-based mode is really wonderful and opens up a much more fluent experience for more challenging fights.
While you can just go real-time for filler combat encounters.
Best of both worlds, really.

I'm also surprised at myself that it only took me about 1.5 hours to create a character, given all the choices available.
And I haven't restarted. Yet.
 

Allvaldr

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #1 on: September 09, 2021, 06:21:58 AM »
- Mounted characters are bugged to hell and back. I originally wanted to play a cavalier but quickly gave up on that savegame. I restarted as a banner cavalier, but forgot they still get a mount, just at later levels, and ended up abandoning that game as well the moment I got my mount.
- On my third try, I thought I'd play a LE Hellknight but really, the evil conversations are so crap. It's obvious that they know how to write decent evil characters, because the evil companions are pretty good, but as a player character my only options are basically, whenever I see someone "[Attack] I don't like your face!" In general, I'm not a fan of how they're interpreting alignment at all. The Lawful vs Chaos axis also has quite a few inconsistencies in how Owlcat interprets them. But Evil is really the one that's mangled the worst.
- Fourth try I decided to try something fun and wanted to go for a Rahadoum character. Atheism deity selection mentions there should be a regional background for Rahadoum Faithless but this one isn't showing up in the backgrounds. Not sure if it's a bug or if it's cut content that they forgot to remove all references to. I adjusted it to a Desnaite and went with CG Azata Path and so far I've been having fun with that.
- It's pretty obvious that Turn Based Mode is something they copy pasted in, but wasn't originally designed for. Even if you set animation speed to the max, several of the fights in the game contain so many allies and enemies that they will break the game when you try to fight them in TBM. Personally I prefer RTWP, but if you're a hardcore TBM gamer and only want to use that mode, be warned the game will break at several points.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with the game, and don't regret getting it at all. I definitely see myself playing this game 2 or 3 times from start to finish before I get bored of it ... but it's far from perfect and I hope they put out some important patches very soon.
 

TheSHEEEP

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #2 on: September 09, 2021, 06:34:50 AM »
I also think that one of their biggest fuck-ups (and not one that can be patched) is how they treat alignments in dialogue.
It's a big exception from the writing that I otherwise like.

But the alignment options very often make zero sense.
E.g. killing a Paladin that has obviously fallen and turned full-on evil is considered "chaotic", as if removing a corrupted officer of the law would not in itself be lawful.

So, yeah, I would not recommend playing an evil character at all - or at least not if you expect the dialogue options "made for" evil to make any sense. They're basically just "[evil] Kill dis".

Quote
- It's pretty obvious that Turn Based Mode is something they copy pasted in, but wasn't originally designed for. Even if you set animation speed to the max, several of the fights in the game contain so many allies and enemies that they will break the game when you try to fight them in TBM. Personally I prefer RTWP, but if you're a hardcore TBM gamer and only want to use that mode, be warned the game will break at several points.
Can't agree with that at all.
I've had several of the long fights with LOTS of enemies and nothing broke. I only use RTwP for super easy fights (which are thankfully very rare, at least on Hard).
One thing I love is how seamlessly you can switch between the two modes.

However, I will say that pathfinding/blocking is definitely bugged. Characters will just move through other characters seemingly at will - so the usual blocking of e.g. doorways, etc. will simply not work.
Sometimes. Sometimes it does work and your characters block enemies as you would expect. I really don't know what's up with that.
Happens in both TB and RT, too.

Allvaldr

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #3 on: September 09, 2021, 08:13:32 AM »
Quote
- It's pretty obvious that Turn Based Mode is something they copy pasted in, but wasn't originally designed for. Even if you set animation speed to the max, several of the fights in the game contain so many allies and enemies that they will break the game when you try to fight them in TBM. Personally I prefer RTWP, but if you're a hardcore TBM gamer and only want to use that mode, be warned the game will break at several points.
Can't agree with that at all.
I've had several of the long fights with LOTS of enemies and nothing broke. I only use RTwP for super easy fights (which are thankfully very rare, at least on Hard).
One thing I love is how seamlessly you can switch between the two modes.

However, I will say that pathfinding/blocking is definitely bugged. Characters will just move through other characters seemingly at will - so the usual blocking of e.g. doorways, etc. will simply not work.
Sometimes. Sometimes it does work and your characters block enemies as you would expect. I really don't know what's up with that.
Happens in both TB and RT, too.

True; I agree completely on the Pathfinding issues. Also character that suddenly decide to just run circles after their tail rather than go anywhere.

Regarding the TBM, have you tried a fight like the invasion of Drezen or the attack on the tavern in TBM?
I constantly ran into bugs there and even if I got lucky without bugs they would take 4-6 hours from start to finish. I could have played an actual tabletop game night in that time!

TheSHEEEP

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #4 on: September 09, 2021, 03:53:47 PM »
Regarding the TBM, have you tried a fight like the invasion of Drezen or the attack on the tavern in TBM?
I constantly ran into bugs there and even if I got lucky without bugs they would take 4-6 hours from start to finish. I could have played an actual tabletop game night in that time!
Yes, both.
No problems here - sure, it takes a while, but at 3x speed, it was maybe an hour for the tavern fight - and that was a TOUGH one.

But this IS a very buggy game (playable in comparison to their first game's release, but still).
I don't doubt I might have just gotten lucky.

Allvaldr

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #5 on: September 10, 2021, 02:37:53 AM »
Alright :) It was mostly on the ally turns that things got stuck for me on those big fights. But cool that you didn't have too many bugs.

I've been enjoying the game a lot, even if I have been having some bug difficulties, and still keep replaying prologue and Kenabres :P Abandoned my Azata game after I took Drezen because I wanted to try something else. The only thing I am making sure to avoid at all costs is a LG Cavalier going Angel and romancing the queen, because I'm saving that run for my final playthrough once there's a director's edition with all DLC and the bugs patched out.

LiferGamer

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #6 on: September 17, 2021, 02:18:45 PM »
The story certainly comes out swinging, and overall, I'm more engaged than with Kingmaker.  Obvious evil party member is obvious, and FUCKING MONGRELMEN?  Ugh.  I remember my reaction when I discovered them in the MM2 back in the day.  There's a place for your weird deformed mutants... and that is in bad post-apocalypse settings.

That's my own bias.  That and the bad voice acting in general means I quickly installed a cheat that set the mercenary price to $0.00.  That was one thing that REALLY held me back from Kingmaker - I just plain didn't like the party member choices.

The other one is I have NO Pathfinder (or 3rd edition) knowledge, so I get a lot of decision paralysis, character build wise.
Your Forgotten Realms was my first The Last Jedi.

If the party is gonna die, they want to be riding and blasting/hacking away at a separate one of Tiamat's heads as she plummets towards earth with broken wings while Solars and Planars sing.

Novastar

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #7 on: September 17, 2021, 03:28:27 PM »
I find myself keep falling back to Zen Archer (Monk) builds.
I want to go Lich for a build, but am not a fan of spellcasters in PF. Maybe I should go Inquisitor, with sharable Tactics...  :-
Quote from: dragoner;776244
Mechanical character builds remind me of something like picking the shoe in monopoly, it isn't what I play rpg's for.

TheSHEEEP

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #8 on: September 17, 2021, 05:05:43 PM »
That and the bad voice acting in general means I quickly installed a cheat that set the mercenary price to $0.00.  That was one thing that REALLY held me back from Kingmaker - I just plain didn't like the party member choices.
I really don't find the voice acting bad - not sure what bothers some people about it, but you are not the only one.

Either way, the game has a serious problem with its companions. Or rather their introductions.
Companions (or important characters) like Camellia, Daeran, Nenio, Irabeth or Greybor are introduced like completely unlikable buffoons or the most bog standard "good guy template" imaginable.

I can understand anyone who first meets these and goes "hell, no", builds their own companions and leaves the pre-made ones untouched.

But then you do miss out on their companion quests - not all of them are on the same level, but especially the evil or more mysterious characters (like Camellia) are just really interesting once the game actually gives you the time to deal with them.
Without spoiling anything, some of the stuff that you can find out about Camellia made me go "Wow... I did NOT expect this. That's pretty intense. Took some minor guts to write."

As usual, the good characters are the less interesting ones, but that is probably in itself a trope by now.

tl;dr: I truly wish the game introduced its companions better.

LiferGamer

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #9 on: September 17, 2021, 05:30:04 PM »
I did discover a little more about Camellia taking her on a mission in town.  Her voicework sounds like one of the interns who got paid in Starbucks coffee, but has story potential.  Daern is eye-rollingly cliché, and the Japanese 'scientist' gal I just plain chased off after listening to her once.  The paladin is boring, the lesbian couples character traits begin and end with them being lesbians (the only relationship 'announced' at all.)  And the two Mongrelmen are cartoonishly saintly and evil respectively... which is odd in a small, isolated community - you'd think they'd be more similar in outlook. 

I DID like how the queen is portrayed so far, her response to my Chaotic Neutral warlords flirting was the right kind of classy; acknowledgment without encouragement.

To be clear, they do seem like they might be *characters* this time, where as they were empty stereotypes in Kingmaker, and I don't mean to shit on the game or its writing - it's head and shoulders over most of the recent RPG fare.

I just need to find some decent build guides, and I'll be round-robining one of the companions through my party to give them a chance.
Your Forgotten Realms was my first The Last Jedi.

If the party is gonna die, they want to be riding and blasting/hacking away at a separate one of Tiamat's heads as she plummets towards earth with broken wings while Solars and Planars sing.

3catcircus

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #10 on: November 04, 2021, 05:57:00 PM »
I'll wait a year to get this - I'm still playing Kingmaker  ;)

One thing that I don't like and it doesn't sound like they fixed in this game is the inability to customize the companions to the extent I want.

I don't want a companion with everything selected at the start that you then have to work around.  I want the ability to, aside from "he's a barbarian" to be creatable by me from level 1.  Maybe I want a male halfling barbarian instead of a female human barbarian. Maybe I don't want a ginormous bastard sword and would prefer a fauchard...

TheSHEEEP

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #11 on: November 04, 2021, 06:01:45 PM »
I'll wait a year to get this - I'm still playing Kingmaker  ;)

One thing that I don't like and it doesn't sound like they fixed in this game is the inability to customize the companions to the extent I want.

I don't want a companion with everything selected at the start that you then have to work around.  I want the ability to, aside from "he's a barbarian" to be creatable by me from level 1.  Maybe I want a male halfling barbarian instead of a female human barbarian. Maybe I don't want a ginormous bastard sword and would prefer a fauchard...
You can create custom companions instead - called mercenaries or sth like that. Altough by default, that does cost some gold, which is very sparse in the beginning.
Of course, mods fix everything so there are mods that make recruiting them free.
Voila! No more annoying companions. At least after you get access to that recruiter.

3catcircus

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #12 on: November 04, 2021, 06:09:18 PM »
I'll wait a year to get this - I'm still playing Kingmaker  ;)

One thing that I don't like and it doesn't sound like they fixed in this game is the inability to customize the companions to the extent I want.

I don't want a companion with everything selected at the start that you then have to work around.  I want the ability to, aside from "he's a barbarian" to be creatable by me from level 1.  Maybe I want a male halfling barbarian instead of a female human barbarian. Maybe I don't want a ginormous bastard sword and would prefer a fauchard...
You can create custom companions instead - called mercenaries or sth like that. Altough by default, that does cost some gold, which is very sparse in the beginning.
Of course, mods fix everything so there are mods that make recruiting them free.
Voila! No more annoying companions. At least after you get access to that recruiter.

I don't mind the story background of the companions, I kind that I can't customize them.  In Kingmaker, they also have mercenaries.

What I don't like, for example, is that the companions have stupid choices that were made in the build.  Attributes not selected properly, archetypes that don't compliment the story background, etc.  I mean, in Kingmaker, why did they give Octavia a level of rogue?  Pretty much means you gotta make her specialize in casting rays.  What if I wanted her to specialize in elemental magic or divination?

Just give me a background.  Ideally, when you pick up a companion, it goes right to a chargen screen to customize.  If you wanna lock it so you can't change the race or class at level 1 (she's a gnome sorcerer), fine, but let me roll or point but the attributes, pick skills, spells, feats, etc.

Novastar

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #13 on: November 04, 2021, 07:34:05 PM »
I mean, in Kingmaker, why did they give Octavia a level of rogue? 
Because she's purpose built to go into Arcane Trickster; I may be wrong, but I think she'd the only companion that Auto-level's into a Prestige Class, actually.
Quote from: dragoner;776244
Mechanical character builds remind me of something like picking the shoe in monopoly, it isn't what I play rpg's for.

3catcircus

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Re: Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous
« Reply #14 on: November 04, 2021, 08:13:17 PM »
I mean, in Kingmaker, why did they give Octavia a level of rogue? 
Because she's purpose built to go into Arcane Trickster; I may be wrong, but I think she'd the only companion that Auto-level's into a Prestige Class, actually.

And that's a problem.  Making it so there is only one viable class progression is terrible game design.