"KotC 2 Augury of Chaos already exists as a full game for Windows and Mac OS, so there isn't any risk in that respect." ~KS page
I look at this line on the KS page and I know now this is lie.
Initially I didn't download the game, since I saw the comments on the KS page that it's a little rough, so I decided to wait. It's a small indie game so this wouldn't be anything terrible or unusual. I've waited until 4 patches were released. I guessed with 4 the game should be in a decent shape.
I was wrong.
I look at this forum and i can see a whole list of bugs, some heavily impacting gameplay. I myself found out that the game can crash often without explanation in combat, or during loading a save game.
But you know what, if a game is fun I can pull through it, sometimes it's just worth it if a game is really fun.
But then I found how difficult the game is.
Game balance is an important issue in game design. A good game will have a learning curve, the gamer will be given time to learn the game mechanics. Even Dark Souls as hard as it is will slowly scale up in difficulty, the first enemies and first boss aren't totally easy, but they have simple attack patterns and no weird abilities, so the player can learn and be better.
This is not the case in KotC 2.
I've played DnD both with pen and paper, and in multiple PC games. I'm not a genius that knows all of the rules and tricks, but I'm not someone who doesn't know how the game works.
I've created a balanced regular 6 PC party, and seeing that people are posting that the game is very hard I decided to have some fun and I gave all of my characters max HP on level up and MAX abilities scores on creation. This second thing is a joke, impossible in IRL DnD, and my Human Wizard would make any Dungeon Master laugh with his perfect STR CON scores - better then some of the fighters people play.
The first big room fight was a bit rough with enemy spellcasters, but it couldn't stop me. Both fire and pool guardians were possible to defeat, I just needed some good rolls. The first lieutenant was a good fighter, but Grease spell gave my guys enough time to kill his friends and then gang on him.
The second lieutenant was nasty, specially because of the slime & ghoul combo they would summon at start of the fight and multiple enemy casters that would make this fight hell. Luckily after 10 tries my spellacaster had high initiative and he was able to use the one scroll of fireball to wipe 50% of the enemies there, and send the casters into chaos. Still 2 of my guys laid on the floor with 1 HP after that.
So now I've decided to dive into the pool. I'm sending my Dwarf Fighter and 3 LVL Half-Giant Samurai, a total of 90 HP killing machines, both LVL 3, both with water breathing, both with the good armor i found, and a +1 frost sword .
What do I have to fight with two of those guys:
- 2 giant frogs - they are annoying with their reach attack and reach grapple, but once i can get close they have low AC and HP
- 2 sharkman - again those guys are low HP, they can do a nasty charge for ~15 HP dmg but I can take them down both
- 1 sharkman druid - WHAT THE HELL!?!? This guy is a 36 HP caster, that can cast Entangle and Quicksand making my fighters almost useless, multiple Magic Stones, and Flaming Sphere AoE spell with burning, AND HE CAN SUMMON A 40 HP CROCODILE WITH GRAPPLE, AND HE CAN DO THAT TWICE.
WOW! That caster changes that fight from an OK combat to an absolute massacre, where with over 20 tries I managed to take this fight to an 1v1 once. Those summon spells acre something that simply break the fight, almost doubling the total enemy HP in that fight. Not mentioning that the crocodiles will grapple me while im already entangled the moment im summoned.
The only items i can take that will help me are cure light dmg potions, useless with the dmg the enemy is doing.
Of course I can always skip this and go for the main fight.
With multiple enemy casters higher LVL then me.
With enemy casters that again will use summon spells .
Including a Tentacle Horror that can rip apart my fighters like they were CR 1 goblins.
I foresee again reloading this fight 20 times, just hoping that my casters are fast enough to nuke the tentacle summoner before she casts the spell.
Of course i can skip this fight and get teleported out of there, but that's just because I have that option because of the skills my team has. If it was a different team I might be forced to fight.
This is the first hour of the game. Those fights aren't fun, they aren't challenging. This a junior Dungeon Master throwing a ridiculous number of enemies at the party, with less then 10% chances some of them will survive that fight, with no option to retreat, level up on weaker enemies, or get better loot.
KotC 1 was a fun game, I enjoyed it.
This game isn't balanced, it's broken both as a design and as software.
And that is why I feel cheated by what the Kickstarter promised me.