They aren't "irrelevant" because it's still entirely possible to be too wasteful and fail them (especially since kingdom management becomes a factor or when travelling heavy and moving slowly) losing the chance to do something.
They simply aren't too punishing.
I know how traveling works - by "snail pace" I mean how much bloody time it takes to move from one place to the next, do random encoutners, go through the resting process (which takes way too long for how often players are expected to do those). Rinse and repeat.
I stopped paying attention to timers. I was usually waiting for timers to run out (well doing kingdom mangement, which was horrible system in its own right)
So we have timers that serve little to no purpose except for stressing out new players by pretending they matter.
When the premise is incorrect, so is the conclusion you draw from it.
Also, what's even more questionable here is the implied assumption that "stressing" (meaning "pressuring to any degree") the player is inherently a bad thing.
There needs to be a point to it. If pressure leads to interesting choices, then sure. Kingmakers parades with meaningless "hardcore" designs, but it is just shoddily designed, empty campaign. Because here is the thing: remove the timers. How does it affect the game? It doesn't. It's like if Baldur's Gate3 had "find a way to remove tadpole within 1000 rests". Sure, you will probably wont rest 1000 so it doesn't matter, but you will only stress out some people who will fear that they will run out of them. Straight up better solution is Hellblade which tells you there is death limit, but it doesn't actually exist - though I still see it as unnecessary hardtry move.
And when you engage in combat you will learn you don’t have the very specific protection spell that game demands that you have, so you reload, swap companions, re-rest to change spells and do the encounter again.
That's:
- hyperbole
- more tied to the fine tuning and the Pathfinder ruleset than to the travel/rest system-
- ...and consequently not really pertinent to this specific topic
-true
The only time Kingmaker limited rests is in dungeons and its camp supply system is single works implementation I have experience in a cRPG.
No idea what you are even trying to say here.
Sure. My issues are as follow:
- for vast majority of the game supplies are useless - you can rest outside, you can hunt for food. So they don't limit your resting. Most of the maps will allow you to rest and hunt. You are in a two or three maps deep dungeon? Just jog outside and rest.
- So when they do come across one of the few dungeon from which you can't go back to: you might not know that before you enter. Nor know how long they are. Nor what monster you might encounter. It's tied to a wider "inventory problem" problem - having too choose what to take with you, is not a compelling mechanic if there is no way to know what you could benefit from taking. To see a good implementation of the system, see: Darkest Dungeon - you have both an idea of how long the escapade will be and dangers you might encounter (and therefore items you will need), so you make a concious decision. Or PoE1 where devs control your maximum camp supplies so they can pace dungeons. No such think in Pathfinder. And sure, on second playthrough you might remember that in this specific dungeon there is no way back, and there might be one spider encounter, and couple scrolls that might be handy, and 3 rests at the very least. On the first playtrhough though, it is a thoroughly shitty experience, no matter if you do and don't have what you need to have. You just don't know. You will find in 2 hours.
If I didn't already, I should stress that in my opinion Kingmaker is one of the worst cRPG campaigns I have ever played, matched only by NWN1 base campaign. I assume that you disagree, and have no intention to change your mind. I am glad you are enjoying it. But there is not a single thing that I would like to see adopted from that game. I just don't think it is well put together.
