Pathfinder Kingmaker
Installation: For a year they had time to iron out the bugs and I guess people are still having issues with them. The patches can be a nightmare as they seem to modify various files at once. I read that installing any patches requires the entire installation of the game. Or if you are trying to patch from v1.0 to v2.0 you pretty much have to download the whole game over again. Trust me, you will want to download those patches as they fix "numerous bugs" too long to list appropriately in any patch list. This isn't fun when the game is 45GB. Although the "Enhanced Edition" includes all three DLC packages, none of them seemed appealing to me. The first one is a new race and class, the second one is a bonus campaign that takes "6-12 hours to complete", and the third one is an endless random dungeon generator.
Learning Curve: The biggest problem I had with the game wasn't the "game-breaking bugs" as many of the negative reviews have pointed out on. It was how vastly different, or you could say particular, the game mechanics were from other games. 9 races, 16 classes (each having 4 sub-classes), and 7 "special" classes that require certain conditions to be met. I thought "Kinectic Knight" would be interesting but was baffled on why strength wasn't a recommended trait for someone carrying a shield. You have to carry around these campfire materials with you every time you get tired which weigh 10 pounds each. Carry too much equipment and you get encumbered and can barely move. The more materials you carry, the slower you travel and the faster you get tired. The one thing that got me was that they don't "instantly" heal you like your typical RPG. You will need potions or healing abilities to do that. There seems to be a wide-range of abilities from your "preparation" range that last a minute or two but can be used as many times as you like and "standard" that can only be used a set number of times until your next campfire. Make sure you have the proper equipment on because you will be needed some sort of AoE ability against the spider swarm or non-slashing weapons for skeletons. That one undead character you have can't be healed with potions or cleric abilities. The only way seems to be through using "negative energy" abilities like "inflict light wounds" which totally makes sense, right?
Difficulty Curve: I also had a major issue with how things unfolded. One of my first major encounters was at a trading post out in the middle of nowhere. Before my crew could even charge against the invading bandits, my ally died. How can this be? One of my first encounters was against a manticore that entirely wiped my party. I can take spiders down instantly but a spider swarm kills everyone in sight? There is definitely something wrong with the progression here. Though the biggest contributor to this is how the game revolves around RNG of your typical table-top experience. You roll the dice and have a chance of doing 1-8 damage with your sword. Without taking into consideration the miss variables, it can take about three swings to finish your opponent. But your enemy also has that advantage as well it seems. You can try to lessen the load with various "modifiers" but everything revolves around the roll of the dice and chance.
Complications: When I first started playing the game, I was overwhelmed with the amount of information thrown at me. What astounded me was that with all those different classes and "feats" to choose from, there isn't that much variety in the way to customize your character. I think you have a total of 35 portraits to choose from which barely covers 2 for each sex, race, and gear-dependency. I guess that's why they only offer 3 body types, 6 face options, and maybe a dozen different hair styles and colors. The "chart" of what you get for each level didn't help me either with an icon with initials on it without properly showing what you get. I guess it was easier for them to say "you get an ability" instead of showing what abilities are offered. Game-wise, I wasn't happy with the fact that you had a set time-limit to explore the world or that completing certain events would exclude others to occur. Web traps were utterly annoying as my characters continuously got stuck for minutes at a time. And there were times I saw my characters run back-and-forth until their comrade died. Seriously? The AI didn't seem that smart at all.
Review: After playing for 10 hours (5 in-game), I couldn't take it anymore. A game is supposed to be fun and spending half my time reading a wiki after being destroyed by some new game mechanic is not fun in my book. The other half was probably saving and loading after poor RNG. I do not recommend this game.
11-14-2019