Strange that you were even bothered to make a post about this, I mean I have well over 600 games that I regret buying but somebody out there likes those games. If I was going to get motivated enough to criticise those games, however, I would at least make some refernece to the elements I thought could be considered objectively bad. I bought this game after two days of reading bad reviews and having no knowledge of the game prior to release. I don't even know anything about D&D or this Pathfinder variant. Something in my brain made me buy it, maybe it was all the talk about the game being so difficult as to be broken. Maybe coming from this perspective meant that I had no hopes to be dashed and was expecting the worst but I love this game. A lot of the bugs that were mentioned in the negative reviews I read seem to have been sorted and the amount of options for difficulty settings means you can find whatever works for you so the difficulty argument is now redundant. I think games like this are just not for everybody, rng can be a real bitch sometimes. Some fights can take you hours to win, load and reloading can become tiresome but when it all works out it is so much sweeter. I can understand how some people dont want to have to deal with that when they are playing a game but others like myself enjoy the brute force approach.

I just wanted to say thanks for this nice and concise summary of the different approaches. A nice explanation of why the majority of people feel snubbed on their nose when faced with this games difficulty.

It's like people complaining about BG2 combat on the harder difficultys, that need you to utilize everything you have, even cheese, to finish some encounters. And BG2 is really rather forgiveing in that regard.
It also explains quite well why an approach like "you can't fix stupid" is really just elitism that will hurt this games cloud. Because when you only face the one variety of a PnP-rulesetstyle for 99% of the games you play and now are faced with something different, it is pretty easy to feel "unfairly" beaten down by the difficulty.
More so if that "difficulty" isn't made tangible by explaining the differences in rulesets between the two different approaches, but has to be aquired outside of the game or hidden behind small contextmenus.
In a PnP setting, you'd eventually learn while haveing fun with your friends.
Here you're just sitting infront of a cold unfeeling machine, telling you "no" over and over again. No broken down dicethrows and rules, explained by your buddy next to you. ~ I know you can check dicethrow when you hover over them, stop typeing ~ No enjoyment from slowly mastering the rules and adapting to them, while quicker trial and error is curbed by the loadtimes and long sequences of cascadeing failure, where you end up halfway in a dungeon you can't finish, because you made a mistake earier that cascaded into a landfall of failure, crushing down upon you a few hours later.

In essence, I think the devs should've made the tutorial more "ruleset"-focused instead of "here is how you click an enemy", like it's the standard fair.

One of the best games I have played in ages, once the bugs are ironed out it will be a masterpiece, really hope they listen to the players and work in modding later, that will make it a game for the ages. :)

I wasn't a means to insult or snub, rather it was a process of explanation that I had hoped would achive understanding to why some people differ in the PnP setting and that of cRPGs.



Actually, what makes someone STUPID in this regard is not that they try to play a game that is "difficult", rather it is their "SELF ESTEEM DEFICENCY" that requires them to play a game above "EASY" difficulty because they somehow think they are too smart to play a game that is designed on a strategic application of a given ruleset and then yet too dumb to realize they have no clue what they are doing. It is simple.... really, an intelligent person does not let emotional means restrict them from playing at a level that would provide them enjoyment. It truly is a stunted mind, a deficent mental capacity that would play a game on a higher difficulty and then complain that the game is not easier, hence the comment of "YOU CAN FIX STUPID!".


Hate to break it to you, but we had to read manuals back in the day. That is, in the 80's and 90's, and even early 2000's games didn't have extensive in game tutorials to explain every waking moment of play, to outline and hold ones hand to the point where every detail was explained during play.

What usually was required is you bought the game, opened up a manual on the ruleset and then read eveything about the systems, character development, special features, etc.... before you played. The "how", or "what is the best... xyz...
was left to you decide, to figure out, to contemplate and excel at. After all, it was a GAME, not an entertainment forum for the bored and lazy. That is, those who played these games in the past knew EXACTLY what they were getting into when they bought the game, and if they didn't, they were ENTHUSIASTIC to learn.

I know, which is why I stated such. They still feel snubbed though, because that is the basic process of growth. You face something you can't overcome yet. You feel crushed and bad about it. You decide to improve yourself.
The issue arises when people don't know that they face something they can't overcome, because they operate under the assumption that they allready "have" what it takes, because they fail to realize or don't get told onbviously enough that something fundamentally different is at work behind an identical coat of paint.
They see similiar UI and general mechanics. They asume it's "just like any other cRPG" they played.
Which is why they feel unfairly treated by the game.

I agree on that. It's just regressive to call them stupid, because that carrys a conotation of clear elitism. Because to grow you need to start at a baseline and gradually improve. But to the majority of people who boot this up, they allready asume that they did that with the other countless games they played.
So the problem is a problem of communication between the player and the game. The player basically missconstructing the game in his head, which eventually leads to a hard crash with reality that is perceived as a snub.

And you should probably consider the whole "git gud" mantra and social pressure inside the gameingcommunity as a driveing force behind this "venting". When everyone tells you that you're only a "true gamer" when you play all your games on "nightmare ultimate challange xXx1337xXx"-difficulty, you end up here. With hard being the new normal so everyone can feel good about themselves, with people reacting with a narcistic injury to a game showing them that they need to "learn" about it.

~ This is getting more hillarious by the minute, mate. How aggravated can you become. ~

Anyway, please show me to my issue of the pathfinder rulebook that is issued with the digital copy of the game.
Because there is no real codex to read up on the feats and ingame-uses of them. Not to mention their interconectivity.
Like, you know, in an actual ruleset of pathfinder or even a redacted shortened version in manualform, like for example the old DnD or Wizardry games had
Even the manuals of yore had a lot more to say about their system than the sad little excuse of the "encyclopedia" this game offers up. It's allmost as if accesabilty of the rules behind the graphics wasn't a mainfocus, but rather churning out a quick game to make some bank on.
huh...

Guess I'm just a stupid youngster, unable to learn and educate myself. If only I had been born earlier, with the ability to know, that not everyone who consumes a product has the same level of knowledge I have myself . It's allmost as if the people who play PnP-rpgs and those who play RPGs on a system like the PC are fundamentally different.
Woaw, maybe that does explain why PnP-RPGs are wastly less popular than the digital variety. Which incididentally could reflect the divide we see in the digital forums where people are only looking for someone to spoonfeed them the "best guide to X".
Because they didn't spend hours upon hours before this game, to read up, apply and understand a ruleset or similiar once, to develope streamlineing mechanisms to do so in a unfrustrateing manner.
I don't know man.
What are birds? We just don't know.
[i]
The best part is, how I literally complimented you on your post and you still instantly jumped into a defensive aggressive stance, talking down to me in a condecending manner, as if to say I am "2stopid" to grasp something.

Talk about detaching ones emotions, amirite?[/i]

Neuer,

Is there anything I could say that would come to an understanding with you?

Obviously, you and I have COMPLETELY opposite views on gaming, what people shiould expect, the responsibilites of and such.

You think the rulesets of old or outdated, wrong, opressing, etc....

So, could we at least come to the understanding that there are games I like, and games you like..., and... well... while we may completely disagree with each others tastes, neither is wrong as they are purely subjective?

Understanding that, could you also agree that if a game is designed specifically to a given standard of such in a particular taste, it is rather illogical to expect it to meet standards outside of that intended design goal and those who demand such would be irrational?

This is truely hillarious now.

As so often the case, it all comes down to communication.

I don't argue about the ruleset lying under this games coat of paint. I have no issue with hard games or PnP games.
Or any kind of games.
I just argue that the execution of realizeing this ruleset into a game, by this specifical dev, is wrong on more levels than one. And nothing warrants the defense of this dev or even praise you sometimes have for them.
Unless you are allready a big huge fan of the ruleset, and see me simply stateing, that the allaround execution of this dev is crappy as a personal attack on you, because you are such a huge fan.
Would explain why you try to underhandedly insult me at every point.
And it would also lead to the question of how much criticism you'd be able to take in regards to that ruleset, without instantly being set to a default "this can't be true, let me instead enlighten you"-stance, when someone offers up a differing view. Like, say, this InEffect dude, who just offered up a different subjective interpretation which you promptly avalaunched with a huge loredump that ended on, to summarize; "The creators says it's so, so if you subjectivly perceive it as differently, you're objectivly wrong, as evident by this huge wall of text I just dumped."
You only paid lipservice to the idea of his interpretation maybe being right, instantly followed up with "how you didn't even think about such a viewpoint", which judged by your other posts, you'd probably meant as "it's so out there, I didn't even think someone would hold that view."
But that's just my metanalysis.

Furthermore

That would imply that I had said that.
Which I didn't. I just said that, if you want to introduce people to something that is different in a lot of ways but similiar enough to be easily mistaken for something else, like, I don't know, the rulesets of Pillars or DnD and this ruleset, you'd probably do well in makeing the differences as obvious as possible. Even going so far as highlighting them specifically, so you'd learn quick. Instead of makeing them less pronounced to sell more copys.

I propose this. Let's make a reading-comprehension exercise. Let's read the posts of eachother and try to isolate the arguements made. Once isolated, let's try to express them in our own words. And we meet here again in a few days. Say, sunday next week, to give ourselves enough time to cool down and detach ourselves from this honestly quite entertaining arguement.

Edit: Nevermind, lets continue. It was just the signlimit being a muzzle on my wordflow. We should still do what I explain now

It shouldn't be much skin of your knuckles. But I think, judged on your last post in the other thread, which I curiously can't post replys in anymore, made it quite clear that you either have issues with my writeingstyle or do not read my posts thoroughly enough.
Maybe I do the same.

Let's find out! Shall we, bud?

See you in a week and a few.

Edit:2 After reconsideration

Because, here's the thing. We essentially argue for the same thing, just in different incarnations.
You want games based on the pathfinder-ruleset or games that challange you, of which there are plenty outside of the RPG-genre by the by.
I want games that challange me and also align to my principles as a consumer.

That's what I've been saying since the "apples oranges" metaphor. You argue for this game on the assumption, that it will be good and see me, telling you; to "just wait and reserve judgement for when it's a complet game" as an implicit attack on the "quality" of the "soon to be" game's underlying ruleset.
When all I do, is telling you to not forget what kind of practice you enable when you blindly jump on this game, only because it aligns to ONE of your needs and wants of games.

It's either the same standards or no standards. And if I let one thing slide, because of a certain agenda, that agenda is fundamentally broken, because it trades one bad thing for another.

If I can only have good, challangeing and hard but broken games or easy borring but working games. My option is no game at all. Until a dev delivers it. Maybe this one will too, three games down the line. But I will sure as fuck not buy the next game full price.

This is, I think, the fundamental missunderstanding we face.

edit3: tried to clarify my confuseing sentencestructure.

Not in my campaigns. Emphasis was on role-playing. People unfamiliar with rpgs were welcomed and treasured. min-maxers were a pain in the butt. Number-crunching was for me, the DM.

I am talking about cRPGs. Manuals were often "tomes" of lengthy reading on the extent of the games systems and features.

Pen and paper, naturally there were two basic crowds. The statistic players (or min/maxers) and the "role players" as you stated. I was in the former. I preferred more of a the "game" aspect over the "story/immersion" concept of play. Don't get me wrong, I respect those who liked that sort of thing, but for most of my friends, it wasn't the interest. We liked getting down and dirty in the rules, arguing for hours over various technicalities of play (world physics, combat mechanics,, etc...).

cRPGs back then were about the game play, not the "role play". It wasn't until later games (for the most part) where technology allowed it, where games tried to be more "role" focused in the immersion of story and interaction over that of the statistics and rules of play. Honestly, I always thought the old adventure games were a more proper representation of the "role play" crowd as those games focused entirely on the characters choices and interactions in the world, not the statistics of play.

tbh I never understood why people just assume power-gamers/min-maxers/statistic players, whatever you call it, can't RP. As if crippling deficiencies in character development somehow make you a better RP-er.

My goal in this game:
I chose a bloodmagus with death bloodline (becomes undead on level 20) and hope Jathal opens up a little so we can become a couple :D

How much do you think I need?
Double exp gain or tripple?

double should do it. if you do everything and grind a bit you get lvl19 before the end.

Thanks, I fiddle with the game to my liking at the moment and this would be one requirement for me.