Kingmaker - Impressions from GeekDad
 

GeekDad did a write up of his experiences at PaizoCon 2017 which includes his impressions of Pathfinder: Kingmaker and some screenshots. GeekDad also captured a video snippet of the game.

Video here

More information.

Looking pretty good, even at this early stage. I'm getting strong "infinity engine" vibes from this!

Hm, couldn't tell much from the snippet, but I like Pathfinder and would love to play a properly implemented cRPG (with a decent story!) based on these rules. Will definitely keep an eye on this…

You will have at least 5 party members and he said the game follow the rules and stuff.
That is enough for now. As they are planning a KS campaign, we will for sure get to see a proper gameplay video

It's good to see the potential is there and they've made this much progress. I'd definitely welcome another isometric cRPG with D&D-like rules. Hopefully it will be at least decently implemented with a good story. I'd probably contribute to a KS campaign if they make PayPal payments available. Not sure I'd ever trust a Russian-based web-funding site.

Death to RtWP!

But why didn't you make it turn-based like Pathfinder… WHY??!!!???

I like rtwp, as long as its done well, which can be hard to do. I hope these guys are prepared to iterate lots on the combat system to get it feeling right.

Noooo, I like RTwP! All combat systems have pros and cons! :(

If it's isometric I will likely get it at some point. I can live with RtwP, even though I would prefer turn-based.

Will we still get an Obsidian Pathfinder game or is that dead?

There are plenty of other modules to do. Maybe Obsidian can make a turn based version :)

Looks ok. I love DnD - so I'll definitely check it out.

That said, I'm kinda over this BG-style genre for the most part, I think. They don't excite me as singleplayer games, anyway.

Sword Coast Legends was interesting because of the cooperative stuff - and the NWN-inspirations.

Well, it turned out to be complete crap - but it COULD have been great.

Looks interesting, though it's still very early.

I love turn based combat but I also like RtWP when its done right like (BG games, NWN, KTOR etc) but I hated it in Pillars where you had to do fuck loads of micro management with sub seconds timers!

WHat you mean by BG-style? you mean top down isometric worlds or is it the party based comabt kind of style?

I mean singleplayer party-based RTwP RPGs in a fantasy setting.

Don't get me wrong, I still like them - and if they implement DnD properly - I will likely enjoy it quite a bit.

But they don't get me excited anymore.

This is practically what I like the best lol

As long as it's all rosy and you don't have to do nasty things during quests ;)

Are you saying that you prefer action combat instead of RTwP now?

No, I prefer turn-based combat - like I always did in singleplayer RPGs with an emphasis on party-based and tactical combat.

Right, when you use your own combat system that's thought for a RTwP game from the start. But when your source material is all turn-based, and all the rules are made for turn-based combat, when every rule and every spell and every skill depend on a turn-based system, why force the change to Real Time?

Exactly.

It smells of sticking to convention out of fear - rather than having a bold vision.

Because the most popular D&D game ever was Real Time. Because in recent times Pillars of Eternity had good success and they are going to be marketing themselves to both BG and PoE fans.

Because the Infinity games were RTwP…and the survey Obsidian did last year which might have had more people prefer RTwP over TB (it made reference to Pathfinder and Obsidian said it was for one of their partners so either Paizo or My.com).

BG games also had better reason to be real-time - because of the multiplayer features.

This is singleplayer only, right?

They were RT because the engine was being developed by Bioware who wanted to make a RTS with it.

Yes it is “story-driven single-player computer RPG,” but there is kick starter stretch goals!

Well, if they implement coop - then I prefer RTwP :)

Another reason to choose RTwP over TB is if you want bigger battles. Torment: ToN had some of those and they ended up being the most boring fights I've experienced in a game for a long time. D: OS only had a few (near the end), and they were also incredibly boring. It just doesn't work with too many units on the field.

Even if you stop an RTwP game every "turn", the actions themselves are still simultaneous (giving 20x orders will end up with 20x actions, but they all happen at the same time, instead of one after the other), so bigger fights are still much, much faster.

My problem with RTwP isn't that it's boring, it's that it's unwieldy and I rarely feel in control to a sufficient degree. Constant pausing in a real time environment feels disruptive and like you're fighting the system, not the enemies. To me, anyway.

And don't forget the atrocious pathfinding which requires more pausing to correct.

Only pro I see to RTwP is it makes trash encounters more tolerable. You know another solution? Not having trash encounters…

Yeah, I'm not a big fan of huge battles or a ton of trash encounters no matter the system, to be honest.

I prefer relatively small and "intimate" combat encounters that aren't about attrition or endless waves of mobs.

Another developpment of a product without an audience.

Four characters to control, that is three too many. Or a pro mastery of the keyboard is required (id est being able to key 1 to 4 and Q to R)

Ah, yes, all the impressively uncommon use of the shift key, in order to stack order and avoid inexisting path finding issues.

As long as there is sufficient emphasis on interesting companions, a good plot, an engaging atmosphere and culture, visually appealing areas, and decent visual effects, I don't mind RTwP one bit. Its when combat becomes the primary focus of a cRPG that RTwP gets tedious. Especially when 90% of the engagements can be won on autopilot.

Just to be clear, I was responding to "Death to RTwP", not just for this game ;)

Also, agree on what Maylander and rjshae said.

Because I value combat less than some of you, I don't like TB so much especially for story driven games. It feels like I am playing something like a chess game in between reading an immensive book - very disruptive.

I don't value combat that much. I would prefer the emphasis to be on something else.

However, most developers don't have the vision or interest in providing similarly rich systems for other features - and combat is the ideal asset-recycler - so it's no surprise it's such a big part of all RPGs.

My point is that if I have to do combat - it better be fun and interesting. Because I like fun and interesting things ;)

RTwP - usually - isn't very fun to me in terms of the combat - but it does get the job done quicker, so that's definitely an advantage.

But, seriously, are we going to consider real-time the better solution because it means we don't HAVE to endure the actual activity to the same degree? ;)

I definitely prefer turn-based over RTwP. I don't mind to play RTwP games, but I tend to pause quite a lot as I prefer to have control over what the characters do and what skills they use in combat.
That said, to me quite often, combat is just the thing that happens to get in the way of exploring the neighborhood and something I want to get done. Very rarely I get an exciting feeling from winning a fight. So I always hope there are a lot of other interesting things to do in games than just fighting.

I like both systems. Actually in the meantime I found out I prefer Xcom type of turn based where one team goes and then next one.
Classic turn based games because of its nature often have irritating UIs (ToEE for example).

BG games were real time but due to how they were made with exact 6s rounds they felt half turn based. It made them very tactical.
The chaos and problems of real time you are talking about here are more present in Pillars of Eternity.
If this Pathfinder game will be made more like BG and less like PoE it will be good.

I tend to prefer turn base because they are more tactical. I really didn't care much for the combat in dragon age origin nor pillars. In the old infinity games (bg/ice-wind dale) it wasn't great but it wasn't horrible - something about those games moved slower than in dragon age origin. nwn combat I wasn't a huge fan but i liked magic in those games.

I like them both too but prefer turn based simply for the same reason Dart mentions above, pausing constantly tend to feel like you are fighting the system and I don't like that.

On the other hand, I don't like lot of "trash" mob style fighting in turn based games as well since they tend to drag and pointless since you know what the outcome is going to be.

Regardless of the combat style, whats really fun is learning the combat system and mastering it. Once you mastered and there is nothing new to come, then I tend to get bored with all systems. Time till boredom after mastery can vary from game to game but it will eventfully come!

That issue is what separates many good RPGs from great ones imo. If a game can offer satisfying, interesting combat that provides a sense of accomplishment on top of a great story, world and characters then that game will be something special. But then, I do generally enjoy combat more so perhaps my bar is actually lower than yours or other people's.