I can't recall the number of seemingly "Frak you's" from the developers in this game, the way over the top difficulty that doesn't represent pathfinder CR ratings at all. Running into scrub weak creatures like mites and Kobolds with over the top hp, attack bonuses and defense bonuses, so that a small party are doomed to fail. Running into fire elementals that you can't run from because they move as fast as you do and every turn you run they get an attack which they need to roll a 2 or better to hit you.

The fact that you can't form your own party means you are more likely than not, to have an unbalanced party composition during the first few levels when the game seesm to assume you have a well balanced party. Min maxing characters is key to success which is the hallmark of a failed system not a sign of good design. And there are Frak you events within the Kingdom building segment that I can only believed where designed to troll players.

You pick the wrong option with the wrong advisor the first time you play the game and you can literally kill your kingdom before you even start. How? Because some options on the kingdom screen cause you to fast forward and you appear to be locked into that fast forward which means that if you fast forward past an event you keep going and get hit day after day with negative results and why? Because the game thinks it cool to have this kind of options just to screw with the player. Any normal game would say "Hey! bad things happening!" pause the fast forward in time and allow you to deal with the event and then wait for you to resume the fast forward of time. Not this game nope you are just stuck with being screwed because that is... What? cool? nope just craptastic game design.


This games seems to delight in setting a "trap" for the player and destroying the players experience just for shits and giggles for the developer.


I am fine with running into tough enemies but when scrub mites and kobolds are more powerful than my party that just feels like the developer is giving me the middle finger and laughing as it counts my money.


The developers are tweaking the first couple of trolling issues but leaving the core screw you attitude of their game intact. There are so many examples of way over the top and not at all represented of the PnP CR ratings for creatures while claiming to be faithful to pathfinder it is a joke. I would recommend returning this game if it frustrates you. It is going to do so over and over again and it is not going to be fun.


Hey if you like the game fine I say go play it as all that matter is if you are enjoying it. It shouldn't matter to you that I don't enjoy it. But I have to wonder why so many people claiming this is the best game ever seem to spend all their time on the forums and not actually playing.

Yeah, it's a sinister plot by the developers to irk their customers. Riiiiight!

Actually if you read the previews, there was one talking about (one of) the devs being a mean pnp dm and loving to destroy the players. I wish he wasn't the guy who make the encounters. :/



https://venturebeat.com/2017/05/31/pathfinder-kingmaker-launches-500000-kickstarter-for-extra-content-not-the-base-game/


GamesBeat: For each of you, what’s your favorite class to play in Pathfinder?

Mishulin: It’s a bit difficult to answer for me. Usually I’m the game master, so that’s my favorite class. But if I’m playing as a player, it’d be cleric.

Shpilchevsky: He’s a very ruthless game master. Just a month ago he killed off our whole party. As for me, I like the alchemist. It’s a really crazy class. You can kill both your enemies and your friends that way.

I play a sword and shield Paladin on hard difficulty and had three party wipes, before fighting the stag lord. First time against the spider swarm. Didn`t expect that enemy then, but it seems in newer patches they make you aware of it before. Second time against the Tech league, when I met them at level 2. Reloaded, took another route and next time I met them was at level 3 and actually beat them then. Third time was against a random encounter against two high level enemies, who one shot me. That was indeed odd, but also seems to be taken care of now in patches. Overall I felt the difficulty to be fitting for playing on hard. My party was btw, not a custom one but solely consisting of the MC and official companions. Also followed Tartuccio first, which seems ot be easier.

The fight against the Stag Lord (was at lvl4 then) felt too hard though. Or well let`s better say getting to him, without resorting to turn back and rest ,which I didn`t want to do, because it woudn`t make sense for roleplaying reasons to rest several hours and expect no one becoming aware of the attack on the fort and several corpses laying around.

Generally though my impression is that the game becomes easier at higher levels. Btw Kobolds where no problems, since I usually have Amiri rush their alchemists and shamans. Other Kobolds felt more like cannon fooder actually. Allied with Mites, so can`t comment on their difficulty.


The two week time forward without any chance to intervene to anything happening in this time, is indeed bad game design though. There they definately should let you take a break in case of emergency events.

Adjust the difficulty level downward. There's a custom difficulty setting so everyone should be able to get exactly what they want.

Also, you can hire mercenaries. If you hire them after you save the trading post but before you level up, they're way cheap. So I don't get the complaint that you can't make a custom party. It's dead wrong.

It's fine to complain about bugs in a game, but the things the OP is complaining about aren't actually bugs, they work just fine.

Those are unintended balancing issues. Nobody is going to design a product that will intentionally be unpleasant to the person buying it.

*cough* EA *cough"

Im enjoying it but some of the needless stat bloat on "normal" pathfinder rules is annoying. But what I hate the most is the Damned scripted encounters. It ruins any player planning. Any party I've been in would never allow minions to encircle them while being forced to talk to the boss, or the boss teleporting to a sniping spot needs to be explained better than theatrics.

Kingdom building is frustrating. Why would it force me to pass time and miss 3 events while waiting for the completion of one?

It honestly feels like it was released a bit early with some of the bugs/oversight i've encountered, and generally poor setup for somethings. No manual, use the not finished ingame encyclopedia that you can only access after making your character is a legitimate complaint for newer user. While all the difficultly selection options make most of the complaints on that funny. It could have been avoided by having a Pathfinder setting(or as close as possible).

I'm loving it, but does it not almost feel like they either were forced to stick to the planned release date. Or were running out of cash or something. Its underbaked a bit it seems to me. But to their credit they are working nonstop to fix most of the real issues. But perhaps give the team a off day and check the code of the patch (silly invisible spell).

Im worried that all the push back, will harm the company or prospects of another game. How awesome would a rise of the runelords CRPG be! /sigh


Edit, Also WTH is up with 10lb rations, even Iron rations are only 3lbs. if its because of water there is create water, if its camping gear, it should be a one time added weight.

I agree that this is very annoying, and this is not a really good (because expensive and not always awailable) solution, but there are (minor) bags of holding in this game. I've seen 2 minor ones, one regular one, so that's -400 weight. Makes quite a difference with regards to treasure collecting.

Does encumbranc affect enemies as well? If it does, casting ray of enfeeblement would cause double debuff to enemies. If not, it's just a badly implemented mechanic only to gimp the players.

The thing I hate is when one of your party member is slowed down such as being entangled/webbed, the whole party would lose their normal jogging speed and have to walk till that one single member is freed from the spell. Speaking of drag the whole party.

That's not how those bags work. He's talking about the killer penalties spellcasters have on their personal encumberance. If you give them a ranged weapon like a crossbow, to keep them from running into combat like morons, then it weights them down. It's worst on the bard or alchemist characters because the penalty hits tinker skill pretty hard.

That is is really odd. Encumbrance on spellcasters i mean. Unless you are equiping them with armor, in which case you are doing it wrong.

Also, i don't understand the need to loot everything in this game.

There's an option to turn off encumbrance penalties.

But it will not turn off total weight of inventory and encumberance of party members (Valery gets weak and encumbered every time).