@wolfgrimdark please answer this in spoiler tags. I’m also currently playing this part and don’t want to know what happens if i fail to make it in time. Thanks.

@JDR13 - Aye you can completely revamp who your character is at the start if you want. They also let you select pre-determined packages (based on alignment/morals roughly) as well if you want or never played POE1. You can also walk through manually to answer questions to make your own "package" carried over. I just prefer doing it from an actual save myself. So I was a druid but added the sub-class during the start of POE2 which seemed to fit well enough to how I played him before anyhow.

I don't consider this a spoiler at all so didn't tag it but happy to do so since someone asked (it didn't even occur to me in the slightest to tag it as such which is why I didn't to start with). It is my answer to what happens if you don't finish a timed quest in time, aka the boss bandit fight as an example:



But it makes sense, to me anyhow, to do everything you can first - simply to be better prepared for the fight. You have options to go head on in (that is super tough and you can lose a certain character if you go that path - which I never knew till the second time I did it and found all kinds of ways to "weaken" them for the final battle - which is why I love this game so much. So many options, many so very, very subtle.



Kingdom difficulty was not as flexible first game as they added a LOT of features since then to make it easier to manage and less time consuming - as you can access the kingdom farther away for some things, they have "critical" points you can earn and then spend on an advisors working on problems to increase their chances of success - you get a point for each advisor/kingdom upgrade I think, with 5 max. In addition some easier modes.

Anyhow first time I played on normal easiest and still had to reload once. Second I played one level below normal. Mainly because I just like building the kingdom and wanted to see it really grow. Now on my third play through, knowing the game well, I play on normal for kingdom and challenge for overall game.

I should note I seldom play games on anything higher than normal and usually on easy. FO4 was the first game I played on the hardest and enjoy it … but for some reason I love the combat in FO4, find it very satisfying.

Still I am on challenging for PF:KM now and find it also satisfying. I would not enjoy it any higher than that though. I don't want to micro-manage so much movement and spell casting that battles take forever :P Just me though.

I would consider DOS2 a clear evolution of the same kind of game, but that's also largely because I'm a huge PnP fan. As in, I greatly enjoy the traditional PnP experience - which is about the social experience and the freedom of choice more than anything.

To me, as much as I adored BG back in the day - it was always quite rigid and simplistic compared to the true PnP experience - which is what Bioware openly said they were trying to emulate.

They DID implement multiplayer - which was a big deal back then, but they didn't do a great job of it.

NWN was always much closer to my heart in terms of getting to that kind of experience.

DOS2 is more like a combination of U7, BG and NWN. Sadly, they sort of missed the opportunity to promote the editor and custom content - and didn't set the game up well for that kind of thing.

But the fidelity of interaction from U7 combined with the strong party interplay from BG - and finally the great (coop) multiplayer from NWN all make up one hell of a cocktail.

With that said, I appreciate the love of sticking with the good old stuff that you used to immerse yourself in back in the day.

We're all different in that way.

I still have a strong fondness for BG (though my first love was Pool of Radiance ten years before that) - but I will always prefer evolution, and I can't possibly enjoy a singleplayer CRPG to the same extent as a CRPG with proper cooperative gameplay.

Some people prefer PoE over PoE 2.

Personally, I think PoE 2 IS that much better, yes.

The story does continue - but it takes a very different tone very quickly. It's less depressing and more vibrant.

I'm certainly one who prefers the first PoE over the second. The combat in the second game just didn't really match the kind of fun set pieces in the first for me; in general it is easier. Nothing came close to the experience of fighting Adra Dragon on Path of the Damned in the first game for me. Neriscyrlas was ok at the end of Beast of Winter; but it was fairly straight forward once you knew what you were doing and space was never an issue.

For me the sequel is also arguably not as dynamic without the sixth character if one isn't into multi-classing everyone and prefers pure classes. Plus certain frustrating liberties were taken in bringing back particular characters after you've killed them (hello Concelhaut) with the resulting battles being never in the same league. The lack of reactivity on certain questlines (slavers/Circle of Magi/Arkemyr) also disappointed me in the sequel.

Having said this, I still need to play the "Seeker, Slayer, Survivor" DLC to have had the complete PoE 2 experience. This definitely makes the sequel quite replayable, given the amount of faction quests to choose from next time around. It probably won't be anytime soon given my backlog, but hey, there's another perspective.

I've really got to try giving Kingmaker my fullest attentions soon. My first couple of hours were fine but there was a sensation of some character content feeling too derivative of Baldur's Gate. One character felt like Alora and Imoen combined.
I also tend to agree with JDR on travelling on the map - I wasn't feeling that desire to explore at the time, so I left it for awhile. Hopefully it calls me back soon. :)

On the Kingmaker timers discussion… @JDR13

As long as you save your game before you pass significant amounts of time (basically world map travel, or starting a kingdom event that require the main char's participation) you can normally always just re-load and take care of something, if a timer expired while you were passing the time. At least in the latest version of Kingmaker as of last fall, I don't recall there being anything really bad that can happen as a result of a timer expiring, where you aren't either immediately notified that it has expired, and/or it's obvious in the quest log that it will expire. Also for some things, the game gives you reminders when the expiration time is nearing. Not sure how it was at release, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal at the point in time that I played. You can set the game to keep up to something like 50(?) autosaves and quicksaves - I'd recommend doing that if you're the OCD type who wants to make sure nothing ever happens that you didn't want to happen.

Also there is one companion you can miss (Jubilost) if you don't do things in a certain order, and you really don't want to miss out on him, so you may want to look that up.

I remember with the bandit timer I was worried about it too, but I ended up exploring everywhere and completing the chapter with a huge amount of time remaining. It's hard to imagine how much time you'd have to waste for it to be a problem.

The only issue I ever had with timers was if I took an action on the realm management screen that took my character multiple weeks to complete. I learned it was a good idea to save before doing that.

I wouldn't worry about the timers, they give you PLENTY of time. Also, this is the part that originally scared me from the game (I hate timers) as I too would normally stress out about them. They didn't bother me in the least. One small piece of advice- remember to fully complete your companion quests! They often need to be completed by talking to them back at your town/city and it is easy (at least or me) to forget.

Not sure where is that place cRPGs moved. I suppose I didnt pay attention when it happend and was left behind. Is it still possible at that new place to enjoy cRPG with tactical, party based combat, story and exploration in one package? … :-)

Man I hope they put some new portraits in!! Those were the same ones from Kingmaker!

Yep. For me this old formula still works. The success of PF:KM shows that I'm not alone.

Yeah, that's the only "mod" I've used so far, the selection of portraits was tiny so I downloaded a pack of several hundred more to find an appropriate one for my MC.

Super fun to make one's own as well. I love firing up Skyrim and spending an afternoon finding the right outfits, setting, weather, time of day, etc. to take a character portrait and then importing it into PF:KM.

I made my own custom portraits for all three of my characters, Fenn, Wulver, and Lobo, as well as one for a mercenary - Thrynn. I am fine with the defaults for all the companions though - changing those wouldn't feel right to me.

Still I am positive they will add new ones to the sequel - they have to considering they have new companions and important characters. Not to mention a whole bunch of classes and races.

Pretty crazy way of making your own portraits. I like it :biggrin:

That's actually pretty cool. But there are so many great portraits that really fit into the game I found downloading a lot simpler.

The hard part was actually choosing which portrait to use when I suddenly had 20 different Half-elf/Human/Rogue/Knifemaster to choose from. I'm glad I didn't start by picking a portrait (instead of class), that would've taken hours!

The default Portaits were, as usually the case in most RPG's, lacking in decent dwarven Males. I can't play my beloved Dwarves if they look like a Gnome of Halfling! :)

That aside, i hope for a better Barony Management System if they are going to reuse the Kingdom RTS Idea in any way. They had to Patch Part 1's Kingdom Managment for a couple of times before it was actually playable and fairer balanced for non RTS Players.

As far as I understand the Kingdom management will be replaced with Crusade management in WotR, so I'm guessing it will be different. Personally I really enjoy the fact that you have those kind of aspects in an RPG that aren't JUST money dumps, which I found they did good in PF:KM although the implementation might not have been perfect.