Kingmaker - Gameplay Mechanics

Am I the only one worried that this is too good to be true? I love tons of mechanical options, but I'm worried. Its clear they're going to have a successful kickstarter, but the type of mechanics they seem to want to implement are very complex, which means tons of potential for bugs. I'm not sure what they're overall budget and timeplan is, but I wonder if they aren't going overboard with prestige classes, extra spells, extra feats, and what not. For example, many of those things came in the addons to NWN 1 & 2, and not so much in the original campaigns.

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
Am I the only one worried that this is too good to be true? I love tons of mechanical options, but I'm worried. Its clear they're going to have a successful kickstarter, but the type of mechanics they seem to want to implement are very complex, which means tons of potential for bugs. I'm not sure what they're overall budget and timeplan is, but I wonder if they aren't going overboard with prestige classes, extra spells, extra feats, and what not. For example, many of those things came in the addons to NWN 1 & 2, and not so much in the original campaigns.

From my experiences, Russian dev studio generate x4 the amount of content in half the time it takes a NA studios to do it and with just x2 the bugs. They also tend to design for the more "hardcore" gamers.

It's hard to know where they are at in the game development right now, but going by the KS's pitch and some info from the Paizo's forum, all the base Pathfinder stuff is already in the game (or close to it). The KS is to add "more companions, wilderness/dungeons areas and quests", not game mechanics (excluding stretch goals).

Originally Posted by forgottenlor
Am I the only one worried that this is too good to be true?

Originally Posted by azarhal
From my experiences, Russian dev studio generate x4 the amount of content in half the time it takes a NA studios to do it and with just x2 the bugs. They also tend to design for the more "hardcore" gamers.

Yes to both statements!

It really sounds good, doesn't it? Almost too good. Let's hope they can pull it off.

Russian devs don't mainstream their games that much and I like it. Make it hardcore and give the young'uns their "story mode." Two times the bugs sadly also is true quite often. Though, many of the devs worked on great titles in the past and have quite some experience. That makes me confident.

Arkane indeed followed the same slope: provide a tool kit so that players achieve what the devs did not bother achieving: balance.
Tweak this, remove that.
The issue here is that players do not get many runs out of their products, two or three, certainly enough to feel imbalance issues, not enough to understand how to fix them.

Originally Posted by joxer
Bad hairday?

The game is not supposed to be MMO. Which means, unbalanced stuff will be appreciated.
Don't we all play games exactly to find something that unbalances the whole thing so we can abuse it to our cause? Haven't you ever climb something hard to kill trashmobs cannot reach so you can dispose of them easily?

This leads to stereotyped courses of action: spot an imbalance and hammering it over and over again. A type of play bots can take charge of.

Bots usually are involved to relieve players from sitting to their desk and remain behind their screen. Players leave the bot do the stereotyped course of action to dedicate their time to something they find better to dedicate their time to.

On the other hand, gamers prefer games, that is an activity that makes the presence and the involvement of people a center goal, not an element that must be ridden of.

If people have such a thirst to keep repeating the same pattern over and over again, working on a chain is still an opportunity to grab.

More cool info and gameplay videos here: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/06/0…ur-dd-rpg-itch

Originally Posted by Archangel
More cool info and gameplay videos here: http://uk.ign.com/articles/2017/06/0…ur-dd-rpg-itch

Wow, I like what I see! This looks already great for an alpha.

This could definitely be the Baldur's Gate we were looking for (which PoE sadly was not).

Time for a Watch fundraiser?

Looks like fun, but 2 questions:
1) is the no overland exploration? It looks like you move from encounter to encounter on the world map….
2) were those spell cool-down timers I saw!? As in you wait for a power/spell to recharge? I hope not. I don't mind this in a 'new' rule system, but its definitely not Pathfinder, which is basically DnD 3.5++.

Edit: ok, looks like those weren't spell cooldown timers, which is a relief. It really does look like a re-skinned Tyranny though, as azarhal mentions below…

Originally Posted by Darkheart
This could definitely be the Baldur's Gate we were looking for (which PoE sadly was not).

Those video pretty much confirms they are running on POE1 engine (well Tyranny considering the dialog glossary linking stuff and the map) which means it's going to have a lots of the same issues (some even apparent in that video) and all you are going to get that sound like BG are names that also show up in D&D.

In fact, I was reading some stuff about Pathfinder being turned into a video game yesterday and seems like they can't use the Pathfinder rules that come from D&D 3.5e because the open gaming license it use can't be ported to video games… :/

I really really hope that this game does well because the Pathfinder world of Golarion just oozes tons of opportunity. Pretty much any fantasy trope you can imagine is in Pathfinder. There is obviously your typical fantasy, elves and dwarves etc. Then there are different areas that are absolutely bonkers and probably would be tons of fun. There is a permanent gate into the Abyss called the Worldwound that holy crusaders go to fight endless waves of demons. There is a mountain sized crashed space ship with crazy technology and a society built around that. There is tons and tons of political intrigue as the many kingdoms fight against each other for domination. The Golarian world has endless possibilities that could start another video game franchise if done well.

Originally Posted by booboo
Looks like fun, but 2 questions:
1) is the no overland exploration? It looks like you move from encounter to encounter on the world map….
2) were those spell cool-down timers I saw!? As in you wait for a power/spell to recharge? I hope not. I don't mind this in a 'new' rule system, but its definitely not Pathfinder, which is basically DnD 3.5++.

Edit: ok, looks like those weren't spell cooldown timers, which is a relief. It really does look like a re-skinned Tyranny though, as azarhal mentions below…

1) there is overland exploration similar to fallout that then loads into local zones.
2) Game has turns, that was just waiting for turn to end so new action can begin.

I just watched those videos as well. In the last/third clip, one of the companions went down but then got right back up after the combat - are they using the system where everyone just get back up as long as PC is alive like NWN2? And I think I saw insta-heal spell. Those bother me a little.

Originally Posted by purpleblob
I just watched those videos as well. In the last/third clip, one of the companions went down but then got right back up after the combat - are they using the system where everyone just get back up as long as PC is alive like NWN2? And I think I saw insta-heal spell. Those bother me a little.

I think that video was cut there. And characters don't die when they hit 0, they start bleeding on the ground and you can heal them.

Originally Posted by azarhal
Those video pretty much confirms they are running on POE1 engine (well Tyranny considering the dialog glossary linking stuff and the map) which means it's going to have a lots of the same issues (some even apparent in that video) and all you are going to get that sound like BG are names that also show up in D&D. :/

There are multiple interviews where they say they are NOT using the PoE engine, they have built their own using Unity.

I'm a lot less enthusiastic about backing when I see I'm paying $8 more than people who happened to hear about it earlier. It always annoys me when I see that kind of early bird thing.

Originally Posted by Stingray
There are multiple interviews where they say they are NOT using the PoE engine, they have built their own using Unity.

I'll believe that once they rework all their UI graphics and functionality to not be a direct ripoff from Pillars of Eternity/Tyranny.

They basically just inverted the gears icon of the option menu, use basically the same "globe" for time of day/pause, use the same "sneak" icon, have similar "target arrows", have a similar icon system showing the next attack, have the same problem with not seeing your character when they are behind large/lots of enemies *it's a camera angle issue*, have dialogue text glossary link like in Tyranny and similar pathfinding issues,
etc.

So you think they're lying about not using the PoE engine?
What would their motivation be in doing so?

Originally Posted by Stingray
So you think they're lying about not using the PoE engine?
What would their motivation be in doing so?

Not lying, because I haven't seen them say they weren't using it directly (even when asked the question directly on reddit). They say that they were building their engine on top of Unity which is totally accurate even if Pillars/Tyranny engine was used as the base to speed up development.

Although, funny enough, POE used Unity base pathfinding engine at the beginning (somewhat revamped a bit later), so even if they started from scratch and just copied POE UI elements some stuff would be the same (but the copied UI stuff is kinda lazy to me in that case).

Originally Posted by azarhal
Not lying, because I haven't seen them say they weren't using it directly (even when asked the question directly on reddit). They say that they were building their engine on top of Unity which is totally accurate even if Pillars/Tyranny engine was used as the base to speed up development.

This is what I've seen:

GamesBeat: Are you making your own game engine?

Shpilchevsky: We’re making our own engine. We considered — it’s based on Unity, to be clear. A lot of people have assumed we might use the Infinity Engine, that a lot of old RPG games were based on, but that’s not what we’re doing. We’re using Unity and building some of our own infrastructure on top of it.

And from a Reddit AMA they did:

Q: Are you using the Pillars of Eternity engine or starting from scratch. If the latter are you going to use Unity like Pillars, Tyranny and Tides? What about Unreal Engine?

A: We are using the Unity engine.

I guess maybe you could interpret the 2nd one there as a dodge if you're inclined to, but I don't think so about the 1st one.

There isn't really such a thing as the "PoE engine". PoE used Unity. Yes, it was a version modified specifically for PoE, but it's still Unity.

It sounds like these guys are doing the same thing for Kingmaker. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to share the same pros and cons though. It's going to depend on how they modify it.

Originally Posted by JDR13
There isn't really such a thing as the "PoE engine". PoE used Unity. Yes, it was a version modified specifically for PoE, but it's still Unity.

It sounds like these guys are doing the same thing for Kingmaker. That doesn't necessarily mean it's going to share the same pros and cons though. It's going to depend on how they modify it.

How dare you show up here with your logic and facts!