Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - A Dance of Masks DLC

[purpleblob]

Well, I can answer it for me personally. In terms of combat D20 is a ruleset about managing ressources . For non-trivial combat you need spell slots, potions, scrolls, wands, hit points, ability usages etc.
So for me, especially in this game, it wasn't about only winning encounters, but winning while using minimal ressources. And in RTwP I just couldn't play as efficient as in TB.

I'm also thinking about a replay when the final DLC is released. But I don't feel like messing with the the unnecessarily complex Mythic paths again, or fighting repetitive battles for 300 hours.
So I'm thinking about switching to some easy difficulty playing RTwP and just breeze through. But that would take away half of the fun...

And the there's the pointless crusade management...

That sound awfully negative and I thought you enjoyed WotR from your previous posts.

I think the fun of combat is winning with given resources, not hording everything game gives you and not using them - so I don't understand using "minimal" resources bit.

Also Mythic path isn't just about mechanics - its also about their unique story as well. Altho, I love the unique mechanic part Mythic path brings as well. For me, its what made me enjoy WotR much more than Kingmaker.

 

[Morrandir]

That sound awfully negative and I thought you enjoyed WotR from your previous posts.

Yep, I really enjoyed it! As I said back then WotR and Kigmaker for me were the best party-based isometric RPGs in the past years (and they still were until very recently).
If I hadn't really liked WotR, I wouldn't even consider replaying.

I think the fun of combat is winning with given resources, not hording everything game gives you and not using them - so I don't understand using "minimal" resources bit.

Well, there's nothing to understand. I personally just liked the challenge of spending minimal ressources.

Also Mythic path isn't just about mechanics - its also about their unique story as well. Altho, I love the unique mechanic part Mythic path brings as well. For me, its what made me enjoy WotR much more than Kingmaker.

Yep, you're right! I really liked the story part. However I still would have to deal with the mechanics in a replay.

 

[purpleblob]

Yep, I really enjoyed it! As I said back then WotR and Kigmaker for me were the best party-based isometric RPGs in the past years (and they still were until very recently).
If I hadn't really liked WotR, I wouldn't even consider replaying.

Well, there's nothing to understand. I personally just liked the challenge of spending minimal ressources.

Yep, you're right! I really liked the story part. However I still would have to deal with the mechanics in a replay.

Each to their own I guess. If you end up replaying, I hope you do it enjoy it.

 

[SveNitoR]

Haven't played WotR yet (waiting for the final DLC), but doesn't it let you swap between turn-based and RTwP anytime, like what they added to Kingmaker? Don't have to fully commit to one or the other like PoE2. So it doesn't seem that big of a problem, just switch to RTwP for easy fights.

The problem is that, at least on non-easy difficulties, a lot of the "easy" fights are difficult in annoying ways. I only played RTwP and even the easy fights often have ability damage, and heavy buffing is mandatory in a lot of fights.

This leads to three annoying problems:
1. A lot of pre-fight buffing, especially as levels increase and the amount of buffs with them.
2. A lot of after-fight healing with spell slots for ability heal being important.
3. A lot of time spent resting.

Include reloads due to bad tactics or unlucky RNG, and it gets more annoying. It's just not a fun type of problem solving for me, but more of a chore.

Therefore, whenever I get back to playing this (sometime after all DLC), I will solve it by decreasing difficulty and not having permanent ability damage. And maybe there's mods to autobuff after rest/before fights? That would save a lot of time.

BTW, the real time AI is not very clever, so it's possible to cheese a bit (kiting, pulling aggro and running away while the rest damage from afar) if playing RTwP, making some fights easier in real time than in turn based.

 

[wolfgrimdark]

You can really fine tune the difficulty - remove all negative things after battle/rest, companions rise after battle, etc.,. It is a long game though for sure.

I play with equal damage and abilities between me and enemies, a harder setting, but make it so negative stuff is removed after battle, companions rise as long as player lives, etc., as that to me is quality of life. I know I can use spells to remove bad stuff, resurrect, go to a cleric, return to sell stuff, come back, done all that before ... it's just a time grind to do all that which is why I eventually disabled some of that extra micro-management. But it depends on how you play. I never liked spending 5 minutes pre-buffing every fight either. Preferred how it was done in BG3.

 

[purpleblob]

This leads to three annoying problems:
1. A lot of pre-fight buffing, especially as levels increase and the amount of buffs with them.
2. A lot of after-fight healing with spell slots for ability heal being important.
3. A lot of time spent resting.

Therefore, whenever I get back to playing this (sometime after all DLC), I will solve it by decreasing difficulty and not having permanent ability damage. And maybe there's mods to autobuff after rest/before fights? That would save a lot of time.

Ability damage can be mitigated with right spells. In terms of pre-buffing, I never found need to pre-buff often - I just chuck on long duration buffs then only use short duration buffs for tough encounters. There is also mythic ability which extends duration of spells. But if you want to use mod, I heard bubblebuff mod is good. There is also mythic ability called abundant spells which gives you additonal spellslots. With all these, I felt I can juggle both heal/buff and offensive spells without feeling restricted.

 

[gabrielarantest]

I've seen the same complaint from a lot of players. I think Owlcat tried to do too much by including both real-time and turn-based modes. They should have just went with one or the other. I feel like the amount of combat is balanced for real-time, but they included turn-based to cater to more people. The end result is a game that's way too long (for many) when you play turn-based.

Completely agree with you. I played turn-based because for a game that is based on a turn-based tabletop game chosing between TB and RTwP is a no brainier for me personally. But yeah, in TB the fights get too long.

However, I think the root of the problem with WotR goes beyond that. It's the over-the-topness of the game as well. By the end of the game the amount of buffs and debuffs of your party and the enemies gets so overwhelming that it is hard to follow what is going on even in TB, let alone RtwP. But the main issue why the game feels too long is the lack of enemy variety. You only face demons and cultists from beginning to end, it's exhausting.

I honestly think that, in terms of campaign, Kingmaker is a way better game. Even WotR DLC through the ashes is more interesting in my opinion because all of these issues mentioned above.

 

[JDR13]

Well, I can answer it for me personally. In terms of combat D20 is a ruleset about managing ressources . For non-trivial combat you need spell slots, potions, scrolls, wands, hit points, ability usages etc.
So for me, especially in this game, it wasn't about only winning encounters, but winning while using minimal ressources. And in RTwP I just couldn't play as efficient as in TB.

Yeah, I can understand that. I've only messed around with WotR a little, but when I get around to actually doing a full playthrough, I'm going to try to stick with RTwP. I'd prefer to just lower the difficulty if I need to rather than swap back and forth between two different modes.

 

[soola]

I prefer turn based as well but I may have to switch on RTwP if I ever want to complete the game.

Even if some of the battles are over-wrought, there are still some pretty great ones in there.

 

[Vaelith]

I remember at release time TB was pretty wonky and a lot of skills bugged or didn't work well. That's usually the tax you have to pay for having both modes in a same game, not everything will work well and be well balanced. Owlcat did a pretty good job, regardless.

Honestly, I rather they stuck with just one mode and perfected it, but I can't complain either way. It's just every now and then this RTwP vs TB debate comes up, and all I can do is grab some popcorn and sit in the middle since I enjoy both equally. I just want the game to be as good as possible.

 

[soola]

There has to be some way to have both in a game and have it work.

Maybe we could start another thread on it but what if portions of battles were turn based and other parts were RTwP?

Baldur’s gate 3 sort of did this with being able to pause the game at any time and choose to go TB.

It’d be interesting to brainstorm this idea but I understand why developers haven’t done this; it’s too experimental and they’d probably prefer a tried-and-true model over a maybe-this’ll-work one.

 

[vanedor]

However, I think the root of the problem with WotR goes beyond that. It's the over-the-topness of the game as well. By the end of the game the amount of buffs and debuffs of your party and the enemies gets so overwhelming that it is hard to follow what is going on even in TB, let alone RtwP. But the main issue why the game feels too long is the lack of enemy variety. You only face demons and cultists from beginning to end, it's exhausting.

I came to write pretty much that.

Actually, I really enjoyed the early game. Character creation was a dream comes true. But it's as if they felt the need to always add more. More over-uber-epic stuff. It became a chore to deal with all of that. Add to this, the lack of enemy diversity.... Near the end of the game, I just got sick of killing the same immune-to-everything demons, lost interest and gave up.

 

[gabrielarantest]

Actually, I really enjoyed the early game. Character creation was a dream comes true. But it's as if they felt the need to always add more. More over-uber-epic stuff. It became a chore to deal with all of that. Add to this, the lack of enemy diversity.... Near the end of the game, I just got sick of killing the same immune-to-everything demons, lost interest and gave up.

Exactly as I feel. But you know, they did the opposite of this over-the-topness with the DLC Through the Ashes and I loved it. They did a pretty good job. You should try it. It is still with demons though.

 

[vanedor]

Exactly as I feel. But you know, they did the opposite of this over-the-topness with the DLC Through the Ashes and I loved it. They did a pretty good job. You should try it. It is still with demons though.

Yeah, I played it and enjoyed it for a while... until, if I remember well, I faced some critters I couldn't kill because I had not way to inflict magic damages.

 

[SveNitoR]

Ability damage can be mitigated with right spells. In terms of pre-buffing, I never found need to pre-buff often - I just chuck on long duration buffs then only use short duration buffs for tough encounters. There is also mythic ability which extends duration of spells. But if you want to use mod, I heard bubblebuff mod is good. There is also mythic ability called abundant spells which gives you additonal spellslots. With all these, I felt I can juggle both heal/buff and offensive spells without feeling restricted.

I got both mythic abilities for my spell casters, making some things less tedious, but it's such a boring mythic ability to want to chose a skill to reduce tedium. The one with more spell slots is fun, allowing more game play variation.

I'm guessing that if I had played through several times it would be much easier and less tedious, since I'd know which fights are hard and which aren't. As it is now a lot of fights are a complete unknown leading to me probably buffing more than necessary.

I could probably read guides, but I've always enjoyed learning on my own before, so don't really want to.

The better solution for me is probably as I wrote before: lower difficulty, remove permanent ability damage and use a buffing mod.

Thanks for the mod tip!