Hi everybody,
So for the people who don’t want to read all of this, what I understand, I’ll resume the point of this topic here : PLEASE, PLAY THE GAME IN HARDCORD WITH ALL NEGATIVE PERK AND JUST DO THE MILLER QUEST BEFORE GOING TO RADZIG, SPEAK TO EVERYONE, AND DO EVERYTHING !! IT’s THE BEST GAME EXPERIENCE I HAD SO FAR IN MY LIFE.
*This topic may contain very minor spoiler about one or two side quest for somebody who never launched the game
First, sorry for my bad english, I’m from Belgium and i don’t speak very well, but I’ll try my best. So to put a bit of context, I played Kingdom come as it release but like a lot of people know, it was very buggy and unfinished (literally). But the story telling was astonishing, and the mechanics where amazing (leveling, eating, all the animation for the simplest action…). In fact when I was younger I passed days to mod oblivion because I wanted it to be what kingdom come give us today ! (leading to dekstop all the time lol).
So I stopped, more or less when I !!!SPOILER!!! courted theresa !!!SPOILER!!! because it was bugged and it broke my immersion, but I swore to myself that if this game would come to be finished, I’ll be back to it.
It was the last game I’ve played sins because after I had to much IRL things to do.
So what’s the point of this topic ? Well When the game came out with all dlc I jumped on it like a lot. I wished to play in hardcord absolutely, so I did. The story was as amazing has it was before and you really felt like the game has been very polished. So everything’s fine BUT I had a problem with the main quest, and I find out that some other people felt that too. See, i’m the kind of guy who likes details, that the reason I like this game a lot, details. So when the main quest sent me all around the map to achieve my vengence, at first I was like “ok, i’m gonna take my time to do this game, I have some quest with the miller, some with other guys, when I get a break I’ll do it”.
BUT there is no break in this damn MQ, every time I arrived to Uzithz, I wanted to learn what you can learn in Uzhitz, but it says it take several days, why in heavens name would Henry take several days to learn this since he his on an important mission, why would he let the track get cold ?? People are saying you : “come to see me tomorrow, come to see me tonight” so why would you arrive 5 days later with a new armor a new horse and your reputation dropped to 0 inbetween ?? At first I though I was crazy but I saw that I was not the only one that was annoyed by this.
AND on the other hand, starting the main quest put you directly with Bernard and you can become a master swordsman in two hours if you know a bit the mechanics already (even with numskull, in 2 hours IRL I was beating bernard so hard with the mace that he gave up by himself) and after this, he give you bandit hunting quest and doing the main quest unlock a lot of other side quest, but you have so much quest that sometimes I was like “Ok, what to do first, and if I’m the powerful ward of my liege, why would I risk everything by stealing for the miller ?”
I couldn’t imagine that the devs (who put so much attention in this game) didn’t think about it. So I searched for a logical link between all of this. I started the game over and over again. I was asking to myself “What’s the point, should we choose between being bad or evil ? Like little childs ? Or should we be just the guy who’s trying to pass by all of this ? Stealing to survive ? But come one, you are under the authority of your liege, and you are strong enough to kill any bandits on your way, why do you care the 150 groschen that miller give you ? If you go and steal anyway, you are not somebody who’s trying to pass by, you are an a**hole who love to steal”. I don’t say that for people who love to steal in game, i love too, but henry is clearly not somebody who will do bad things only for pleasure, not at first. So it was not immersive to me, but I REALLY wanted to do these gameplays,…
So I just took the hole situation in : You fled from the enemy, you lost the sword, you desobeyed your lord orders, you stole an armor,… Why would you go to see your liege in the first place anyway ?
And people, I swear, it’s the best way to play the game for me. The game is clearly designed to make you easy to begin the MQ, but the game also give you just another little quest : the millers.
When you work for the millers , you are sent all over the map to do things, and so you speak to everybody, and so you can do A BUNCH of very cool quests and everything is well insert in the story.
When you woke up, you had to pay your debt, you did it. But after this two choices : Going to see your liege after all you did wrong, with your dirty clothes, your 2 groschen in the pocket, like a stray sheep incapable of taking care of herself so you go to see radzig because your father told you he’ll take care of you ?
Or you work your way out of misery, and you try to forget a bit what happened in skalitz, because you don’t think you can retrieve this sword anyway. And the great things with this, is that when you arrive to Sasau and find old friends, its a great part to begin to think again about skalitz and decide to go back to your family duty ! The game never put you in an akward dialogue where you will answer something related to the main quest that you didn’t start in any side quest.
It’s not surprising that Henry would take a time to travel a bit since He was speaking of it in skalitz, and its not surprising that he would try to help his folks. In rattay, you are asked to steal rattay people and lords, and everybody there in talking sh*t about people from skalitz, why would you respect them ? (but If you already met sir Hanush, its impossible for me to steal from this guy, really. So better to do it before !). Then when you work for Woyzcek, He sent you to lendtchenko, you meet a guy who want you to go to sasau, there you find more of your people, you want to help them… Ect, ect…
Untill now for what I saw, the game is really divised between thieving quests, fighting quests, searching/investigate quest, and some random stuff quest but before you begin the main quest, all the side quests available are only thieving and bringing things, gathering informations, healing people… Which is logic sins you don’t have any training. That’s another interesting thing : you are weak. Really weak. You must rely on bow, axes, and avoid combat if they outnumber you. don’t expect to fight cuman until you have a horse, avoid bandit camp until you can sneak on them.
Right now I’m like 40-50 hours gameplay and I didn’t start the MQ yet. I’m lvl 8 to 12 in all secondary skills, lvl 7 in main level and only lvl 1 in axe, 3 in bow, and 1 in sword (and 3 unarmed), yeah I managed to get lvl 9 in pickpocket with numbskull and shakes… It was a pain in the **** though.
I really felt like the game have this “other way” to play than the main quest. In fact you really feel like you are lost in this domain, with only yourself to survive. You have no pression from the MQ and you don’t owe anybody. I’m pretty sure this is the way the devs created it, and that’s why they put you directly with the possibility to work for the miller.
We all know that you can enter the castle and see Radzig, but it’s not stupid to thing that henry would at least go and make some money to AT LEAST come after a good bath to see some lords.
When I first started the game I enjoyed the “hurry” feeling. You wake up, and you do what your daddy says. You are weak but you rise up from the deads and become a valiant knight. But this (for me) break every possibility to do thieving, and you don’t need to learn how to do alchemy then, you don’t learn to shoot bow, you just have a need of your sword.
If you play like me, you’ll have to train EVERYTHING but sword actually. And it makes the game really, really enjoyable.
So that’s it, this topic is for people who knows a bit the game, and are annoyed by some immersion breaking stuff, or incoherence in theyr character representation.
The final word is : Play in hardcord, take the 9 negatives perks, and wait for the main quest. Personally, I’m pretty sure I will enjoy the main quest a lot more sins I have all this experience now. a month passed in game (like really, 30 days) I met a lot of people, became an expert in shady arts (which is useful sins the MQ is mostly an investigation at first). I will soon come back to rattay for a side quest, (and i finished everything in sasau anyway) it may be the good time to go and explain myself with my liege (and i need to do the raid side quest sins I trained pickpocketing a lot in rattay and my reputation is sh*t with rattay folks 
)
SO FOR THE PEOPLE WHO ARE STILL ASKING ABOUT :“WHAT IS THE BEST MOMENT TO DEVIATE FROM MAIN QUEST” IT’S SIMPLE : DON’T EVEN START IT ! GO AND MAKE YOUR WAY IN THE DOMAIN AND WHEN YOU FEEL READY, WHEN YOU FEEL LIKE YOU HAVE AT LEAST SOMETHING TO OFFER TO YOUR LIEGE? GO AND GET THAT SWORD BACK !
Thank you all for reading me, I’ll be going now. It’s 5 AM, I’m hungry, my dog too, and we have a long road to make. I hope Sir Radzig will be pleased to see me alive after all this time.
God bless.