The Old School PC RPG Megathread: Gaming with rose-colored goggles

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fezball: Nov 8, 2009

JustJeff88 posted:

I just wanted to second that the GBC does indeed have a tool where, in essence, at level up it temporarily converts any character into a human so that the game will ignore level limits when levelling, so the fear of making a bad race choice is greatly diminished.

If we're talking about the Krynn games that is not as much of an issue as with the Pools series anyhow, racial level caps still exist but are much more reasonable there.

# ? May 27, 2020 13:16

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 00:26

DirkDonkeyroot: Feb 25, 2007

Have any of you ever come across a version of silver blades where all characters no matter if pc, npc or monster 100% failed all saving throws? When I was a kid playing through my first time I had this going on. Made for some interesting encounters where life or death was determined in which side got spells off first. Those god forsaken BC and legion high priests and their slay living spells were absolute hell to fight in any kind of numbers.

# ? May 27, 2020 15:53

Genpei Turtle: Jul 20, 2007

fezball posted:

If we're talking about the Krynn games that is not as much of an issue as with the Pools series anyhow, racial level caps still exist but are much more reasonable there.

Specifically, it's worth noting that elves have no level cap for either clerics or mages in the Krynn trilogy so there's no real reason not to go full-bore elven multiclass with your mages/clerics than try to muck around with pure casters. You won't advance as fast but you'll still be plenty powerful to cast whatever you want and fight in melee at the same time. This is especially important if you're going to do the whole trilogy as the last game has some really nasty screw-you fights where magic isn't allowed and pure casters become worthless. My first time through the trilogy I had some pure mages and really regretted it. (In fact I had to turn down the difficulty for those fights to even win them)

Also like all Gold Box games thieves are kinda useless long-term; a kender cleric/thief is really nice (hoopaks are great) in Champions but becomes kind of dead weight by the end of the game.

# ? May 27, 2020 17:39

Boldor: Sep 4, 2004; King of the Yeeks

BadAstronaut posted:

Thanks man. Yep, I had an 'original' DKK (from Japan) but with in-game text in English. I don't know where but I managed to get the adventurer's Journal thing from someone and photocopy it (my one was all in Japanese). These games were very, very hard to come by in South Africa, compared to, say, the Sierra adventures which everyone seemed to have. This was also a few years before everyone had internet access and you could find everything online.

Oh, good old-fashioned photocopy the important manual bits, heh.

BadAstronaut posted:

I've played a lot of hours of a few of the others I mentioned, but just not completed them. I feel very familiar with the engine, systems, combat etc.

How do the stories hold up? Maybe that's going to be the deciding factor here.

Don't expect anything sophisticated for plot ... but you probably already know that. Exploration does matter quite a lot.

Curse and Pools both still stand up fairly well, I think. Curse doesn't let you roam the world at will, unlike either Pool of Radiance or Pools of Darkness, in favor of more (but somewhat railroaded) plot.

Secret doesn't, but has never been regarded well anyway. It's definitely the weak link in all of Gold Box for all of plot, exploration, and combat.

Gateway and Treasures both have a huge world to explore that nonetheless feels rather empty; there's also a shortage of things to do that aren't the main plot/quest, which is what got all the attention.

Champions "feels" Dragonlance-ish in ways that the two later games don't, to me, although I'm not familiar with the novels like many people were back in the day. (That's not really a criticism of Dark Queen as that mostly takes place outside of Ansalon.)

Yes, the lighthouse in Dark Queen is notoriously awful. Not awful in a good way like that ship in Countdown to Doomsday, either.

The last game in each of the mini-series (Pools of Darkness, Dark Queen of Krynn, Treasures of the Savage Frontier) has significantly more difficult combat than any predecessor.

DirkDonkeyroot posted:

Have any of you ever come across a version of silver blades where all characters no matter if pc, npc or monster 100% failed all saving throws? When I was a kid playing through my first time I had this going on. Made for some interesting encounters where life or death was determined in which side got spells off first. Those god forsaken BC and legion high priests and their slay living spells were absolute hell to fight in any kind of numbers.

I haven't seen that one, no.

(High Dexterity for everyone!)

# ? May 27, 2020 19:35

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

The Cheshire Cat posted:

Probably more often than you'd think what with the trend of just deciding "gently caress numbers, it's just Doom, or Tomb Raider, or Hitman".

I feel like having that sort of big interconnected web of games would be really cool to get again, but I can kind of understand why nobody does it because you have to have a ton of confidence in your systems to be able to say "this will support a good half-dozen or more games to the extent that save data will be cross-compatible between all of them". You really only could do it with an adaptation of a system like D&D that already has decades of history and refinement behind it. It also means you have to find a way to balance a power curve across multiple games, many of which you probably haven't even written yet. The fact that older editions of D&D had extremely an extremely straightforward leveling process probably helped with this.

Yeah it is certainly a rarity that any game lets you name someone now, and there are exponentially more games coming out every year now than in the 1980s, so I imagine the graph would be a pretty steep decline.

Your point about the stability and complexity of the base system is a good argument in favor of making D&D computer games, one I had never thought of when the question arises of why in the world you would make a D&D game when you can just make your own thing.

Cardiovorax posted:

There's a trailer that shipped with Baldur's Gate 2:

There are so many glorious things in that preview, which wow I must have watched precisely once 20 years ago and never again considering I remember that "guy with room full of bizarrely-spaced monitors" but would have never known where it came from.

Also-wow, right there, it says it will be based on 3rd Edition rules, which shoots down The Cheshire Cat's point that I assumed to be accurate that they had no idea Neverwinter Nights would use a new edition of the game. Maybe they were just assuming Neverwinter Nights' multiplayer focus would provide a way to import a living god without ruining the game? Hmm.

Boldor posted:

You probably know several reasons why naming a character is less likely these days:

It makes voice acting less practical. (Fallout 4 and similar efforts notwithstanding.)

Making a PC a blank slate makes building a plot difficult as well. (I'd say you shouldn't play a game to begin with, if you want plot over all else. That's what books/movies/TV shows are for.)

Voice acting is definitely the bane of extreme customization of the player character; I remember picking what I thought was a cool first name for my Mass Effect character, and I honestly never saw it used a single time in the game; why did they even bother?

Also, you make an interesting point generally about how video games are not the proper medium for intricate plot, particularly considering I stopped reading fiction to focus on video games and this seems like a bad trade-off under these guidelines. Clearly games that make a good go of plot are often held in high regard, but I also do not really mind not being able to name the, uh, Nameless One

Boldor posted:

If you're on an Apple ][, it'll occasionally support some strange transfers between completely unrelated games. (More than the PC RPG Bard's Tale I/II to Dragon Wars, and nothing else.)

That's partly because 1st Edition AD&D actually had official rules to support transfer of characters to and from things like Gamma World, so people used to have some small expectation that you'd be able to transfer a character from Ultima to Wizardry. Most older CRPGs wouldn't really be that hard to design import from, at least in principle, as they're stable entities that aren't going to change. It's also not easy to balance "transfer from this game" with "start afresh", especially with the additional incentive not to cause a continuity lockout that books/movies/TV shows also have.

Every now and then, I think about what it'd be like to build something that lets you import a character from basically any older game. Then I'd have to consider that some joker is going to import a character from Nethack 1.3d or ADOM 0.9.9o, where you can wish for more wishes.

I forgot where I read about someone actually trying an import from like Wizardry to Wasteland on the Apple II or whatever absurd thing it was, and how ultimately it was not much different than just making your own character. Not to dissuade anyone from making a game that lets you import someone from virtually any other game...it would certainly be delightful to uh, TORG, so to speak, your way through oldschool CRPGs.

This whole early game-to-game thing is kind of before my time, so I am not sure if this was a thing or just something a couple of older guys I knew did, but was the "having one legendary party you kept running through these games over and over again" thing common back when the number of games you could spend your time playing was so much lower? This memory is based off a guy I met who carried a copy of his Wizardry party in a disk box in his backpack. Was he maybe just lying to me

Boldor posted:

I always get annoyed at low length limits. Original Final Fantasy with 4, Magic Candle with 5, for instance.

I still remember Magic Candle being the worst ever for me, as somehow I am great with four-character and six-character names, but I just could not do anything with five. Ugh, who uses five?

Cardiovorax posted:

So do modern RPGs, really. It's why every Shepard is Shepard, or why every player character of Dragon Age 2 is named Hawke. It's a way around the problem, but it's a bit of an awkward one. It only gets more so if you allow the player to do it for every character, which is why hardly any game does that.

Still waiting for the game where everyone calls you "scrub newb" by default or something else incredibly insulting

# ? May 27, 2020 20:53

The Cheshire Cat: Jun 10, 2008; Fun Shoe

Dr. Quarex posted:

Still waiting for the game where everyone calls you "scrub newb" by default or something else incredibly insulting

There's always Fable where it was very easy to pick up the nickname "Chicken Chaser" by accident.

# ? May 27, 2020 21:03

Lunchmeat Larry: Nov 3, 2012

I called my Battletech character Larry "TootHorn" Fuckbeard and they use the full name just rarely enough that I burst out laughing every time someone in a grave and serious moment called me Commander Fuckbeard

# ? May 27, 2020 21:16

quantumfoam: Dec 25, 2003

Weird, I was able to handle the janky mouse driven control scheme/game mechanics in ShadowCaster 1993, however I'm finding everything in Ultima Underworld 1 tedious and aggravating. Mouse control in UU1 is maddeningly imprecise even with mouse sensitivity jacked up in DOSBox.

Just to escape from UU1 frustration, installed Knights of the Chalice 1 (due to the KotC2 kick-starter) and I have no idea what I'm doing with the builds. The D&D 3rd edition ruleset a certain era of cRPG's use just overwhelm me with options when I have no loving clue what weapons/skill specializations will actually be there in the early game. Same complaint goes for Temple of Elemental Evil with the Circle of eight mega-mod.

# ? May 27, 2020 23:43

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

The Cheshire Cat posted:

There's always Fable where it was very easy to pick up the nickname "Chicken Chaser" by accident.

Lunchmeat Larry posted:

I called my Battletech character Larry "TootHorn" Fuckbeard and they use the full name just rarely enough that I burst out laughing every time someone in a grave and serious moment called me Commander Fuckbeard

Well, these are two glorious and very opposing name tales, so thank you for those both.

Also it gives me a great idea what to name my character if I ever play Fable

Oh, anecdote I will never get a chance to repeat anywhere and might even fit this thread generally: in Anarchy Online, the game randomly generates a first and last name for your character, and you get to choose your codename or whatever that other players actually use to communicate with you in-game. I rolled something like "Ernest Flowers," and I thought that was a great name but needed some solid subversion so I was "Ernest 'Dead' Flowers," and literally without fail every time I logged into the game I would have a screenful of archived messages like this:

"AGAIN DAMMIT THIS GAME IS BULLSHIT"
"anyway but thanks"
"YET AGAIN!!!!!"

...and it actually took me a few seconds to realize people were rage-messaging after dying, and forgetting to type in the name of the person they were actually trying to talk to.

# ? May 28, 2020 00:36

chaosapiant: Oct 10, 2012; White Line Fever

So Shadowrun is a game I never finished. I'm finishing up the main campaign which I like quite a bit, and hope to finish Dragonfall and Hong Kong before too long. Two questions:

1. How replayable are these three campaigns?
2. Are there any really well done user made campaigns out on the Workshop? I saw a remake of the SNES game and something called "Shadowrun Unlimited". Has anyone tried those?

# ? May 28, 2020 05:02

pun pundit: Nov 11, 2008; I feel the same way about the company bearing the same name.

Dr. Quarex posted:

Still waiting for the game where everyone calls you "scrub newb" by default or something else incredibly insulting

Just play a round of any MOBA

# ? May 28, 2020 05:57

Boldor: Sep 4, 2004; King of the Yeeks

Genpei Turtle posted:

Specifically, it's worth noting that elves have no level cap for either clerics or mages in the Krynn trilogy so there's no real reason not to go full-bore elven multiclass with your mages/clerics than try to muck around with pure casters. You won't advance as fast but you'll still be plenty powerful to cast whatever you want and fight in melee at the same time. This is especially important if you're going to do the whole trilogy as the last game has some really nasty screw-you fights where magic isn't allowed and pure casters become worthless. My first time through the trilogy I had some pure mages and really regretted it. (In fact I had to turn down the difficulty for those fights to even win them)

Also like all Gold Box games thieves are kinda useless long-term; a kender cleric/thief is really nice (hoopaks are great) in Champions but becomes kind of dead weight by the end of the game.

The recommendation I made for playing all three games is still linked from the first post:

1 human Knight of Solamnia
1 Silvanesti elf Ranger/Cleric of Kiri-Jolith
1 Qualinesti elf Fighter/White Robe Magic-user/Cleric of Majere
1 Qualinesti elf Fighter/Red Robe Magic-user
1 Qualinesti elf Fighter/Red Robe Magic-user/Thief
1 human White Robe Magic-user

You need at least one knight for many quests, so that's a given. You also want at least one pure warrior-type for maximum dragonlance-wielding power, but one knight works well for that.

One other heavy-ish fighter works well. Some people like dwarf single-classed fighters, which aren't pointless as they are in the Forgotten Realms, but dwarves also don't provide the flavor messages they do in many other games. A second knight is also good if you like them. I prefer the ranger/cleric, personally.

Qualinesti elves cap at level 14 in fighter, but that's enough to get 2 melee attacks every round with good THAC0. You can drop the C in the F/M/C if you prefer to run fewer triple-classed characters, but all your clerical casters being on the front line can cause trouble with monsters that can poison or paralyze.

One pure human mage also contributes a lot, because high level helps penetrate magic resistance in Dark Queen. You won't get the mountains of experience you would in the Forgotten Realms games for multi-classed characters to get to high enough levels. Leveling one magic-user well into the 20s makes facing enchanted draconians go so much more smoothly. (Some people like two single-classed magic-users, actually, but I'm not one of those.)

Kender are fun in Champions, but they start to become a liability by late Death Knights.

Boldor fucked around with this message at 07:38 on May 28, 2020

# ? May 28, 2020 06:59

Boldor: Sep 4, 2004; King of the Yeeks

Dr. Quarex posted:

Also, you make an interesting point generally about how video games are not the proper medium for intricate plot, particularly considering I stopped reading fiction to focus on video games and this seems like a bad trade-off under these guidelines. Clearly games that make a good go of plot are often held in high regard, but I also do not really mind not being able to name the, uh, Nameless One.

The modern preference seems to be converging on making only a single character a blank-ish slate, which seems like a reasonable compromise. I've never thought a full blank slate was ever really helpful -- partial is enough for most purposes.

I don't miss the days when people went so far with maximum blank slate that the main character would often have amnesia. I thought that was overdone even 30 years ago.

Dr. Quarex posted:

This whole early game-to-game thing is kind of before my time, so I am not sure if this was a thing or just something a couple of older guys I knew did, but was the "having one legendary party you kept running through these games over and over again" thing common back when the number of games you could spend your time playing was so much lower? This memory is based off a guy I met who carried a copy of his Wizardry party in a disk box in his backpack. Was he maybe just lying to me

Oh no, that was not rare at all. In the days when just the concept of being able to wander in a maze and gain experience was fascinating and new, people would play their Wizardry characters up to totally absurd levels.

You can complete the game just fine around level 13-15, but lots of people (including me) went up into the mid-20s or so, and I knew people who got much higher. (It wasn't useless -- if the monsters get the jump on you, they can do absurd damage in some cases. You needed 25-30 minimum for a reasonable guarantee of survival.)

Ultima was also around, but it has never allowed the "you can always get another meaningful level" play that some people like.

Some people also did this in earlier Bard's Tale or Might and Magic, but by that time I think there were already too many games.

quantumfoam posted:

Weird, I was able to handle the janky mouse driven control scheme/game mechanics in ShadowCaster 1993, however I'm finding everything in Ultima Underworld 1 tedious and aggravating. Mouse control in UU1 is maddeningly imprecise even with mouse sensitivity jacked up in DOSBox.

Are you trying to move your character around the dungeon with the mouse? That doesn't work well.

Using the mouse for combat (which doesn't require precision) and selecting/moving objects wasn't ever a problem for me.

(Also, play a druid. There's not much point to Dexterity or Dexterity-based skills in the Ultima Underworld games, and Dex is the druid dump stat.)

# ? May 28, 2020 07:28

BadAstronaut: Sep 15, 2004

OK, Champions of Krynn it is. Any other advice whatsoever, or do I just dive in with GOG version + GBC and run the party you advised in the post above?

# ? May 28, 2020 08:11

Boldor: Sep 4, 2004; King of the Yeeks

BadAstronaut posted:

OK, Champions of Krynn it is. Any other advice whatsoever, or do I just dive in with GOG version + GBC and run the party you advised in the post above?

Nah, go ahead and dive in.

If you're worried about points of no return, that doesn't happen until you're quite far into the game.

# ? May 28, 2020 08:32

quantumfoam: Dec 25, 2003

Boldor posted:

Are you trying to move your character around the dungeon with the mouse? That doesn't work well.

Using the mouse for combat (which doesn't require precision) and selecting/moving objects wasn't ever a problem for me.

(Also, play a druid. There's not much point to Dexterity or Dexterity-based skills in the Ultima Underworld games, and Dex is the druid dump stat.)

I went tinker/unarmed/search in UU1 because I have a gift for choosing terrible punishing playstyles if given a chance (Hello Valley Without Wind series)

SXAD-ZC movement keys in Ultima Underworld 1 are fine.
Nope, instead it's training myself that Right Mouse button = GOOD/GOD, LEFT mouse button = BAD/BAD TOUCH in UU1, .....and me realizing how good I had it with Arx Fatalis (aka Ultima Underworld 3) and it's drawing out spell-rune shape combos. Or Shadowcaster 1993's now extremely polished looking "height gems" gimmick to raise/lower views in-game.

# ? May 28, 2020 09:21

Hannibal Rex: Feb 13, 2010

Boldor posted:

The recommendation I made for playing all three games is still linked from the first post:

One pure human mage also contributes a lot, because high level helps penetrate magic resistance in Dark Queen. You won't get the mountains of experience you would in the Forgotten Realms games for multi-classed characters to get to high enough levels. Leveling one magic-user well into the 20s makes facing enchanted draconians go so much more smoothly. (Some people like two single-classed magic-users, actually, but I'm not one of those.)

Kender are fun in Champions, but they start to become a liability by late Death Knights.

That's a good party, and you're spot on about single-class casters in DQK. While an elf F/M/T is ultimately the most powerful thief character you can bring, Kender are perfectly fine in the first two games, and pretty drat useful against skeleton warriors and the final boss in DKK. I'd say they bring enough unique advantages to the table to make the gameplay more interesting, especially for someone who might only play Champions.

Backstabbing becomes much less impactful in Dark Queen. I had my cleric/thief equipped with some infinite-use Eyes of Petrification you can find, which still made him plenty useful.

# ? May 28, 2020 09:48

DirkDonkeyroot: Feb 25, 2007

As I recall, a kinder thief can backstab at range with a hoopak.

# ? May 28, 2020 10:11

BadAstronaut: Sep 15, 2004

It's not Dragonlance without a kender thief.

# ? May 28, 2020 12:05

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

chaosapiant posted:

1. How replayable are these three campaigns?

This is completely personal opinion and I can only speak to Dead Man's Switch and Dragonfall, but I would say "not terribly so?" There isn't a lot of hidden content or any split routes and such. At times, you have the choice to solve situations in different ways, but by and large, what you see the first time is what you see every time. Dragonfall in particular is mostly focused on telling its story and telling it well, it doesn't really do replayability in that sense.

# ? May 28, 2020 12:25

chaosapiant: Oct 10, 2012; White Line Fever

Cardiovorax posted:

This is completely personal opinion and I can only speak to Dead Man's Switch and Dragonfall, but I would say "not terribly so?" There isn't a lot of hidden content or any split routes and such. At times, you have the choice to solve situations in different ways, but by and large, what you see the first time is what you see every time. Dragonfall in particular is mostly focused on telling its story and telling it well, it doesn't really do replayability in that sense.

Awesome, thanks for the run down!

New question: I've heard that Might and Magic III is a great place to start with the old blobbers. What's a good "go to default first time baby playing easy mode" party configuration?

# ? May 29, 2020 21:32

Babylon Astronaut: Apr 19, 2012

The default party is fine. The only thing you can really mess up is not having anyone whom can cast waterwalking.

# ? May 30, 2020 04:51

pmchem: Jan 22, 2010

anyone play Tower of Time? what'd you think? it's 70% off on GOG during their summer sale
https://www.gog.com/game/tower_of_time

looks like it might be a good little RPG? decent reviews

# ? May 31, 2020 16:11

Zereth: Jul 9, 2003

Babylon Astronaut posted:

The default party is fine. The only thing you can really mess up is not having anyone whom can cast waterwalking.

Can't you get by with an item that casts it and the sorceror spell to recharge items?

# ? May 31, 2020 16:24

Thuryl: Mar 14, 2007; My postillion has been struck by lightning.

Zereth posted:

Can't you get by with an item that casts it and the sorceror spell to recharge items?

Kinda, as long as you're willing to wait until you get both of those to do any sea exploration. Probably easier to just pick up a Ranger or Druid hireling when you need one, though, if you didn't start with one. The Nature spell list in M&M3 has enough good unique early-game spells like Nature's Cure and Frost Bite that a Ranger doesn't feel like a waste of a party slot anyway, and they'll be a solid melee combatant by the time nature magic starts to fall off.

World of Xeen doesn't have hirelings but it also doesn't have unique Ranger/Druid spells any more, so you don't have to worry about bringing one once you get to those games. (I mean, you can still make one if you just think they're super cool and want to have one along, but your party's not gonna be missing anything if you don't.)

Thuryl fucked around with this message at 22:59 on May 31, 2020

# ? May 31, 2020 22:56

BadAstronaut: Sep 15, 2004

And I think you can pick up a ranger and a druid in the tavern in the first town in MM3 anyway.

# ? Jun 1, 2020 00:26

Max Wilco: Jan 23, 2012; I'm just trying to go through life without looking stupid.

It's not working out too well...

pmchem posted:

anyone play Tower of Time? what'd you think? it's 70% off on GOG during their summer sale
https://www.gog.com/game/tower_of_time

looks like it might be a good little RPG? decent reviews

It looks interesting, and I thought to put it on my wishlist...only to find that I already own it. :psyduck:

It was given away as a freebie late last year, and I just forgot about it.

-

I don't know if it counts as an 'old-school' RPG, but I was curious about Pathfinder: Kingmaker. I saw it brought up briefly in another thread recently, and while the comments aired on the negative side, a lot of the criticisms were on things inline with what you deal with in the Infinity Engines games. That said, the top reviews for it on GOG and Steam also air on the negative side.

# ? Jun 1, 2020 02:34

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

If you're reading reviews, I'd recommend looking more at recent ones rather than older. The game had a lot of technical issues at launch that (supposedly) have been mostly fixed at this point. A lot of the early negative reviews are more about that than anything, so if you're looking at the average, that'll skew it somewhat and not necessarily represent the current state of the game.

# ? Jun 1, 2020 02:42

Kuros: Sep 13, 2010; Oh look, the consequences of my prior actions are finally catching up to me.

chaosapiant posted:

Awesome, thanks for the run down!

New question: I've heard that Might and Magic III is a great place to start with the old blobbers. What's a good "go to default first time baby playing easy mode" party configuration?

IMO, due to the need for nature magic, I suggest Knight or Barb, Archer or Paladin, then Ranger, Robber or Ninja, Sorc & Cleric. You can fill in the rest with hirelings if needed.

Knight gets better armor and weapons, Barb gets more HP and attacks more often. Archer for more Sorc spells, Paladin for more Cleric spells. Robber is tankier and gets more Thievery, Ninja gets more attacks. It depends on if you want to play more offensively or defensively.

Kuros fucked around with this message at 21:21 on Jun 1, 2020

# ? Jun 1, 2020 21:19

Max Wilco: Jan 23, 2012; I'm just trying to go through life without looking stupid.

It's not working out too well...

Cardiovorax posted:

If you're reading reviews, I'd recommend looking more at recent ones rather than older. The game had a lot of technical issues at launch that (supposedly) have been mostly fixed at this point. A lot of the early negative reviews are more about that than anything, so if you're looking at the average, that'll skew it somewhat and not necessarily represent the current state of the game.

From the top-listed Steam reviews, both from last month:

Steam Review posted:

until the final two chapters. End of the game became a perseverance against a sadistic game master and in certain times, it became unfairly difficult in a way I felt I was being cheated. As an experienced RPG player, I like complex systems and challenging games. Finished Sekiro twice, finished both Divinity Original Sins in hardest difficulty. Played other DnD games in higher difficulties but this one definitely was the most brutal I've ever played. The problem is the scaling of DCs and ACs of enemies in higher difficulties and how many you encounter. It becomes ridiculously hard to hit any enemy, even if you have increased spell penetration + spell focus...

In any case, normal difficulty is fine, until you hit the final two chapters of the game. GM forces you to lose a party member (permanently and you have to find other members one by one in an unfair environment. If you don't know what you are doing (like I was in the beginning), you might get lost in the dungeon and reduce the difficulty to even story mode and feel weak and stupid. Once you get through this part of the game, in the beginning of the final chapter, you get a debuff to everything (-60% BaB, AC, number of attacks, spells you can cast) etc and it just feels like a ♥♥♥♥ you to the players face. If you want somebody debuffed, bring them to lower levels and let them gather their strength by leveling up again and again, that's better than giving people the feeling that they are extremely gimped because of a stupid debuff, which btw has ZERO added value to the story, whatsoever.

Another Steam Review posted:

Give it a shot, but make sure to play Baldur's Gate 1,2, Planescape Torment, Icewind Dale 1,2, Pillars of Eternity 1,2, Tyranny, and Divinity Original Sin 1,2 first. Pathfinder: Savescummer is similar to those games but with a few key differences:

-A main quest time limit, which I thought the entire CRPG designer community agreed was the worst part of Fallout 1 and should never be repeated. So, what a great idea to present players with a huge explorable world, then punish them for the thought of straying off the path.
-Constant skill checks that give even specialized characters a 40% chance to succeed at best, with interesting failure conditions like, "damages your entire party", "fatigues your party," or in the really interesting consequences, "fatigue or damages a specific party member" (so you quickload 1-5 times until you succeed)
-Gripping level 2 encounters that feature massive damage to your party with all of the tactical options low level d20 is known for not having (so you quickload 1-5 times until you succeed)

It feels like the Owlcat team made a solid 40-60 hour game then had the brilliant idea to rely overmuch on dice, so you would have to reload encounters until you say "Wow! The main story took 150 hours!" So, its a great game to play if you're quarantined for 2 weeks and aren't interested in any other game in your library, but not so great when you want to make reasonable progress in the story on a work night.

In general, it sounds like there are balancing issues in terms of difficulty.

# ? Jun 1, 2020 21:56

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

That's one of the biggest issues, yeah. Some classes just really don't hold up well in the long run and it can really gently caress you over if you don't know how to multiclass for greatest effect. Weapon types aren't distributed equally, so if you pick exotic weapons, for example, you'll eventually run out of decent upgrades. Some of the companions are way more useful than the rest and a few start with godawful builds that you can only adjust in a few directions if you want to make them viable at all.

You can set some basic tips and warnings about issues here: https://beforeiplay.com/index.php?title=Pathfinder:_Kingmaker

# ? Jun 1, 2020 22:11

FuzzySlippers: Feb 6, 2009

I dunno why time limits always seem to make some people lose their minds. The FO1 timer is really hard to hit and so is every timer in Kingkmaker. A mild pressure to keep the story moving is really not a big deal. Hell I wish Kingmaker had harsher time limits so they could've balanced the game around less tedious tactics. The time limits in Xcom 2 led to a much better game.

We've gone over Kingmaker a bunch of times in this thread so I'll just repeat that with the turn based mod it becomes probably my favorite CRPG of the last decade or two. Pillars is better designed, D:OS is more polished, and there have been plenty of games with better stories but Kingmaker is the best overall experience and with TB mode integrated into the sequel I can't wait.

# ? Jun 1, 2020 22:31

quantumfoam: Dec 25, 2003

FuzzySlippers posted:

I dunno why time limits always seem to make some people lose their minds. The FO1 timer is really hard to hit and so is every timer in Kingkmaker. A mild pressure to keep the story moving is really not a big deal.

The game-over timer in Fallout 1 was hard to hit and extendable in-game. A cRPG with a challenging time limit is Challenge of the Five Realms. Anything else cRPG + time-limit is easy mode by comparirson to Five Realms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Challenge_of_the_Five_Realms

# ? Jun 2, 2020 00:01

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

It's just a mental thing for some people. Not everyone deals well with deadlines. I hate having the feeling that I'm not allowed to play a game at my own speed and however I feel like. The time limits in the Fallout games are really pretty much just there for the sake of appearances and you need to make an active effort to hit them, but there's something about having a clock ticking down that always makes me feel pressured to rush.

# ? Jun 2, 2020 00:06

Big Mad Drongo: Nov 10, 2006

I think the question is: what does it add? Big, open RPGs are generally about exploration and character building, and don't benefit from a sense of urgency.

Haven't played Kingmaker so I won't comment whether it works or not there, but Fallout giving X days to replace the water chip didn't make it any more interesting than "we need a new water chip in the vaguely near future."

# ? Jun 2, 2020 00:18

Cardiovorax: Jun 5, 2011; I mean, if you're a successful actress and you go out of the house in a skirt and without underwear, knowing that paparazzi are just waiting for opportunities like this and that it has happened many times before, then there's really nobody you can blame for it but yourself.

It did make sense for Fallout 1 because running out of potable water actually is a time-sensitive situation. 80 days is also more than plenty to get that part over with, at which point you're freed from the time limit for the larger portion of the game. It's when it keeps hanging over your head that it really starts to be more annoying than anything.

# ? Jun 2, 2020 00:22

Halloween Jack: Sep 12, 2003; I WILL CUT OFF BOTH OF MY ARMS BEFORE I VOTE FOR ANYONE THAT IS MORE POPULAR THAN BERNIE!!!!!

Fallout 1 and 2 build the narrative around an urgent desperate situation, but every other gameplay incentive is to go on discursive sidequests just for the hell of it. That makes it feel like a real gently caress you when you actually see the "logical" consequences of not speedrunning for that water chip.

# ? Jun 2, 2020 01:10

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

I do find it fascinating that any RPG uses time limits when I doubt anyone would refuse to play a game without them, but people definitely refuse to play games with them.

Also I am now suddenly scared for my Kingmaker game hearing that there is a full-game time limit

# ? Jun 2, 2020 02:44

Chairchucker: Nov 14, 2006; to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Agreed time limits suck. Any gameplay mechanic that means that every save you made for the last several hours is worthless because of some overall game mechanic that has screwed your game is a bad game mechanic. Like adventure games where you could get stuck because you neglected to pick up a pixel in act one. Time limits are, similarly, for jerks.

# ? Jun 2, 2020 14:34

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 00:26

GreenBuckanneer: Sep 15, 2007

That's one of the reasons why I can't really play the Atelier games, or My Time in Portia, or other similar games. Having a deadline really bothers me and makes me super OCD more than I already am because there is a clear best route.

Adding a sense of realism by doing that doesn't make the game enjoyable to me, it makes it less enjoyable to me.

The artifact of pacing is thus a problem of the player and not entirely a problem with the game, per se.

Though, the developers could just do better with not dumping 99 quests in between time sensitive main quest events.

# ? Jun 2, 2020 15:15

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