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Wednesday, July 22, 2026
Barrier to Entry Games
For Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, I have the "Devoured by Darkness" achievement, which you get if you finish the tutorial. Only 59% of players have that. I also have the "Burning City" achievement, which you get at the end of Act I, and only 40% of players have that. In other words, of all the people who actually launched Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (Steam doesn't count owners, but players for achievements), 40% didn't make it through the tutorial, and 60% didn't make it through the first chapter out of six. The game has a high barrier to entry in the form of the very complex Pathfinder ruleset, and that drives people who try it away.
But as JFK once said, we don't play highly complex games because they are easy, but because they are hard. Which is why I for example increased the difficulty level of my Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous run after overcoming that barrier to entry. Creating one character in Pathfinder is hard, creating a whole group of 6 that works well together is extremely complex. I am now at the end of Act II, which is 15 hours of battle in the Siege of Drezen, and there is joy in finding that you built a group that is able to handle the various different combat situations that arise in that huge battle sequence.
As a consequence I ended up buying all the DLC content for both Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. That adds other, smaller campaigns to those games, and things like a rogue-lite endless dungeon crawl mode. In short, more content to play without having to replay the same main campaign again.
I was especially interested in the modes which let me actually create my whole party from scratch. I do understand why with the given barrier to entry to just creating one single character and then adding companions to the group, the developers didn't want to force players to create six characters. But once you understand the Pathfinder system better, there is interest in exactly that from me. And the main campaigns are very much linked to the companions, so playing it without companions and using self-created mercenaries instead would actually make some story lines go very weird, like the Lost Chapel sequence.
So I am finding a lot of depth and fun behind that barrier to entry. I am happy the two games, Kingmaker and Wrath, are implementing the full rules for maximum depth. But I do see how a lot of players don't make it over this barrier to entry and to the fun point, which is kind of a shame.
- posted by Tobold @ 9:43 AM Permanent Link
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A lot of the value of the companions is the storyline they bring. Not just forcing the players to make less characters. I would even say some of the storylines are more surprising/interesting than the main story of the 2 pathfinder games.
Less players that have tutorial achievement in Pathfinder then the equivalent achievement in Eldenring. I wonder if that says anything about Game Design because I would have assumed it would be the other way around considering the type of player to even try a Pathfinder game likely already has some experience with CRPGs and Eldenring became part of the zeitgeist and was a lot of people's first soulsborne game.
I wonder if complexity is more likely to drive people away then just "normal" difficulty. Silksong doesn't have a tutorial really but the closest thing i could equate one to there is getting your first Crest and over 70% of people did that so thats also higher then Pathfinder.
Moving over to another Owlcat game, 40k Rogue Trader 74% have completed the Prologue which is akin to its tutorial. So I wonder why more folks were inclined to finish the tutorial there but not in Pathfinder. I do think Rogue Trade is a simpler game but its still a fairly complex CRPG.
Interesting to think about.
I wonder if complexity is more likely to drive people away then just "normal" difficulty. Silksong doesn't have a tutorial really but the closest thing i could equate one to there is getting your first Crest and over 70% of people did that so thats also higher then Pathfinder.
Moving over to another Owlcat game, 40k Rogue Trader 74% have completed the Prologue which is akin to its tutorial. So I wonder why more folks were inclined to finish the tutorial there but not in Pathfinder. I do think Rogue Trade is a simpler game but its still a fairly complex CRPG.
Interesting to think about.
As someone who actually runs Pathfinder at the table I bought both of these games and then stalled on them because I realized all that stuff I like about Pathfinder is specifically enjoyed at the table with friends, and in computer game format loses all that magic for me. I do want to to play them, but I just can never find the time to devote to it, and there are infinite other computer games out there with a lower barrier of entry. I wonder how many people like me are in this camp....
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