The Pathfinder games were pretty fun, not flawless, but I certainly never felt like I wasted my money on them, looking forward to hearing more about this one.
Looks promising. What matters is the execution of course.
I haven’t played the Pathfinder CRPGs yet, though I’ve always wanted a classic CRPG set in the Warhammer world. I’d prefer the Warhammer Fantasy setting to 40K, though I’ll be willing to give this game a chance, assuming the reviews are favourable.
El Torro wrote: Looks promising. What matters is the execution of course.
I haven’t played the Pathfinder CRPGs yet, though I’ve always wanted a classic CRPG set in the Warhammer world. I’d prefer the Warhammer Fantasy setting to 40K, though I’ll be willing to give this game a chance, assuming the reviews are favourable.
They're huge, sprawling and complex (and long). And buggy for a good long while after release (though they do slowly fix things). Their writing is... not great. Some of its the original adventure paths, some of it is a translation issue (the studio is Russian and whoever they have translating to English does not always Subject Verb well), and some is just... not great writing. (between the first and third factors, especially in Kingmaker, some of the late game villains don't really have a motivation beyond 'be here for the player to fight')
They're fun for RPG-combat and exploration though, if you like older-style isometric games. Just... don't rush out and buy it for the first several months. Or year. Kingmaker is fine now (it was really bad on release) and Wrath... still isn't really finished. Too many classes and rules, not every interaction works, and some class features are still just missing (I'm very salty that the Warpriest's war blessing is simply not in the game, despite being straightforward and being one of the signature abilities of the patron goddess sponsoring the story's campaign, and its the War domain in a story primarily about War. That it is just not implemented is honestly baffling).
This has promise, though (they get there eventually), and like Wrath and Kingmaker art, you're probably looking at several of the companion NPCs in the splash art.
I want to like this but I'm torn. On the one hand it's cool to see this kind of RPG for 40k. I'm definitely interested in that. On the other hand the RNG in Kingmaker was so infuriating that I couldn't bring myself to keep playing. If I want a game where it makes no difference if I roll a D20 or a D4 three quarters of the time, I'd just play tabletop Pathfinder.
Oh, no. Using the pathfinder rules wasn't ever an option.
Both for the licensing agreements involved (no) and the settings have wildly different assumptions (high scale heroic adventure where the heroes usually win vs... 40k grimdark) and that affects the systems massively. A d20 based 40k would assume that Guardsman Bob could actually tank a hit from a Hive Tyrant rather than exploding into meaty chunks in the same swing that takes out Fred and Steve as well.
[Though to be fair, we'll likely see some player plot toughening, just based on the fact that the game is throwing a daemon engine at the party in close quarters]
Plus last week (week before?) Paizo firmly denied rumors that Owlcat's next game would use Starfinder rules (which is frankly a relief, as Starfinder has some real inanities to it- 'you must be level 6 to use this missile launcher' and reloading is a incoherent mess of tracking how many hands you have and how many actions you have to spend changing your grip on a weapon, before you can spend an action to reload it and more actions to re-grip it. And remember which of those actions are 'free' but only usable once.).
I figured the 'meets pathfinder' was just a nod to the fact that those are the two games Owlcat has done as a studio.
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Hopefully the cleaner & smaller system will help keep the release bugs down. Though they'll be less familiar with it, so... wins and losses in that respect.
Just so you're aware, Only War already lets you be a hell of a tank. My Guardsman survived an Autocannon round to the face in my first run, and the Stormtrooper I was playing in the other could've survived a crit from a Multi-Melta. Meanwhile, Orc boys couldn't really damage him through his Carapace and Tougness combined. So there's still extremes possible.
Sure? Most game systems have ways to go to extremes. (I assume 'Only War' is the most recent 40krpg?)
But the default assumption of D&D/Pathfinder/etc is that you will be fighting giants and dragons and demon lords and they will be pounding on you for several rounds of combat and you'll simply walk it off afterwards. Because you're heroes. (and there's healing and rez magic, and you'll probably need both in an Owlcat game, because they've got a skewed view of how the numbers in the d20 system's game balance works)
Most 40kRPGs have tended towards more lethal, and the assumption that normal characters will die, badly. Because lives don't matter. (and in terms of system balance, adding +5 to stats AND +5 directly to defenses matters less in d100 system than it does in a d20 system, so Owlcat's weird approach to difficulty shouldn't matter so much)
H.B.M.C. wrote: Technically Dark Heresy 2.0 was the last set of core rules they made.
And this is based on the actual Rogue Trader by FFG. That has me excited.
Less excited about having a Marine party member though (and a Woof, no less... ughk...).
Going by past precedent, if an NPC companion isn't a plot device (there are a couple of those in Kingmaker and Wrath, like 1 or 2 in each game out of 10 or 11 companions), they're perfectly rejectable or even murderable. To say nothing of having a companion impatiently, accidentally charging ahead and dying. So sad.
Of the potential NPCs in the art, I'd guess the Navigator is most likely to be indispensable, and you won't be able to get rid of or reject that character (because they're rare and you're boned if you don't have one).
If the Marine was a Deathwatch Marine, then I could live with that. Hell, at the absolute worst, given that it's set on the Koronus Expanse, a Storm Warden would be ok as they are the closest Chapter.
If the marine is a Space Wolf, then there's a good chance he's the navigator's bodyguard. That's the most obvious lore reason for a lone SW to be hanging out with a rogue trader's crew.
Eihnlazer wrote: yeah theres no real reason to use a D20 system for a 40krpg anyway.
And even less reason to use a D6-based dice pool... (/anti-WANG bias).
*cough*
Eihnlazer wrote: FFG already wrote out a very good system for 40k with their Rogue trader stuff so its obvious using the D100 system is the way to go.
Which is why I'm glad they're adapting it. It won't be 1:1, obviously, which is fine - nor should it be, really - but I'm glad that that's their starting point. Their base.
Owlcat games are always very ambitious, very atmospheric but also very buggy. We should probably expect a game that’s true to a 4-5ed 40k setting (when the rpgs where published). It will likely get 40k very well and have a grand scope. We should also expect a very buggy launch.
Grimskul wrote: I'm hoping that if this does well that we'll be one step closer to getting a Mass Effect style game with an Inquisitor or Rogue Trader.
Maybe. But if GW is willing to let their CRPG licensee go back to an old licensed PnP RPG, I want a WFRPG set in the Old World.
Give me a convoluted chaos cult iwith red herrings leading to the beastmen in the forests and skaven and necromancers in the tunnels underneath the city and a last minute clash to disrupt a ritual.
Honestly, if someone wants to flesh out Shadows over Bogenhofen and just do that, I'd be OK with it.
Bobthehero wrote: Just so you're aware, Only War already lets you be a hell of a tank. My Guardsman survived an Autocannon round to the face in my first run, and the Stormtrooper I was playing in the other could've survived a crit from a Multi-Melta.
Yeah, though its worth mentioning that is only happening if the damage roll is low.
Assuming you have a toughness in the 40s and Stormtrooper carapace, that gives you a total damage reduction of 10. Autocannon has a pen of 6, so it negates your armor completely and does 3D10+8. You might have 20-25 wounds if you're higher level, but even minimum damage is going to do 11 wounds. Maximum or close to maximum is going to drop you unless you are a space marine in power armor, and its still going to hurt.
"Tanky" in the FFGRPGs really just means you can mostly shrug off lasgun hits. Bigger weapons are still very much a threat.
Even Space Marine's don't have many more wounds than human characters, you just have massive toughness and armor bonuses, but that which does go through hurts a lot. Of course, going to negative wounds isn't fatal. You have to take 5-6 wounds beyond your maximum to actually start losing limbs or dying. Going negative just means you need to really avoid getting hit at all.
You know one thing I've been very impressed by with these newer games is they do a great job of expressing the sheer scale of 40k. I think that is such an important part of the aesthetic which goes beyond the "nu-gothic" architecture.
Partly because they still have to deliver the 3rd (of 3) DLC for Wrath of the Righteous (tentatively July) and when they released the 2nd DLC, (shortly before the RT announcement) they randomly promised a second set of 3 more DLC packs. (for 'fall').
Interesting.
I presume the setup here is that You, Player Character von Valancius, have recently inherited your mother's holdings and Writ of Service (or whatever its called).
So, bets on whether this guy is...
Father Figure
Wise Advisor
or
Bitter Advisor of Inevitable Betrayal ("I built this!")
I had a game once where the narrator/advisor was playable and he could "die" just like any of your other units. If he did, he was no longer playable but still appeared in all the cutscenes, he was just "greviously wounded" and was from then on a non-combatant.
Rogue Traders aren’t always searching for a successor who can just steer a wheel. Some of them are looking for someone who can fight an enemy that just happens to be closer than hundreds of miles away. And venerable Commissars are the obvious choice.
Very exciting, I always enjoyed my RT books so I'm happy to see a cRPG being made. I'm assuming they're using the original RT rules-set or will it RT setting using a newer one like Wrath and Glory for instance?
Voss wrote: Buggy, undeniably.
But 'scamdev'? They do deliver products and put a lot of time/hours into fixing their games so far.
They released an un-completable Kingmaker, making the first two hours passable to avoid refunds, and refused to call it "early access" because they knew they'd lose money. They censored bug reports on their forums and reddit because they didn't want their sales on release to be negatively impacted by customers being factually informed as to how buggy it was.
Voss wrote: Buggy, undeniably.
But 'scamdev'? They do deliver products and put a lot of time/hours into fixing their games so far.
They released an un-completable Kingmaker, making the first two hours passable to avoid refunds, and refused to call it "early access" because they knew they'd lose money. They censored bug reports on their forums and reddit because they didn't want their sales on release to be negatively impacted by customers being factually informed as to how buggy it was.
So no, they don't deliver.
As someone who recently bought kingmaker and has almost finished it I can say that there’s still a few bugs in there, but nothing game breaking. The devs have shown ambition and a willingness to fix their games issues. I for one will buy this game on release but not actually play it for 6-12months. I feel like that will give the devs time to fix things.
Voss wrote: Buggy, undeniably.
But 'scamdev'? They do deliver products and put a lot of time/hours into fixing their games so far.
They released an un-completable Kingmaker, making the first two hours passable to avoid refunds, and refused to call it "early access" because they knew they'd lose money. They censored bug reports on their forums and reddit because they didn't want their sales on release to be negatively impacted by customers being factually informed as to how buggy it was.
So no, they don't deliver.
Er, no. Some of the secret endings didn't work, but Kingmaker was 'completable.' It was a buggy mess early on, but you could get to the end. Saw several youtubers/streamers get that far.
As far as censoring, I have legitimately no idea what you're talking about. You can still find bug reports from the pre-release beta on their forums. (their forum software suggests other threads you might like, and isn't good about the selection criteria, so dredges up old stuff all the time). If they censored bug reports, they were really bad about it. Can't speak to reddit at all, but the steam page, steam reviews, streamers/youtubers and their own forums weren't even vaguely shy about how buggy it was. If you didn't know, that was definitely a user error.
They didn't call it 'early access' because it...wasn't (EA is customers paying to be beta testers). It was just a buggy release.
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There are reasonable concerns that this game will be a buggy mess on release. But if that's a concern, pick it up on sale 6-12 months later.
The precedent with both kingmaker and wrath that they get the games to a good state... eventually. But not that they scam or don't finish the games.
Though the DLC tends to be poor, and not very fun as a rule. I'd happily recommend that people skip the dlc and season passes.
Hecaton wrote: They were cebsoring people on their forums and reddit from posting about bugs because they wanted to keep the hype train going. It wasn't user error.
Yeah, you said that before. But like I said, I can find lots of stuff on their forums about bugs, stretching all the way back to before release. Its really weird to repeat a claim of censorship when there are uncensored forum posts to be found.
And the steam reviews and influencers weren't shy AT ALL about bugs. So whatever 'hype train' was going on, it would've happened on Steam, not on the developer's tiny forum.
(which... it was a new dev studio with a fairly niche game. There wasn't much of a hype train at any point. Even on paizo's pathfinder forums, which you'd think would draw an audience, it was barely talked about)
If anyone bought that game at release not knowing about bugs, it was because they didn't look. I said 'user error' to be kind.
Voss wrote: Yeah, you said that before. But like I said, I can find lots of stuff on their forums about bugs, stretching all the way back to before release. Its really weird to repeat a claim of censorship when there are uncensored forum posts to be found.
Before release it was definitely the case that reporting bugs were cool. Right at release... nah, there was dead silence and people who pointed out bugs were getting suspended or banned with no explanation.
Voss wrote: And the steam reviews and influencers weren't shy AT ALL about bugs. So whatever 'hype train' was going on, it would've happened on Steam, not on the developer's tiny forum.
Also reddit, which likes DnD. Their Steam forums were censoring reports of bugs as well as anyone who talked about refunding the game.
Voss wrote: If anyone bought that game at release not knowing about bugs, it was because they didn't look. I said 'user error' to be kind.
If anyone bought the game thinking it was complete and not early access, they were hoodwinked. Not mistaken, misinformed.
Right, at this point I'm going to pat you on the head for your cute little conspiracy theories and let it go. The game _was_ a mess on release, and five minutes of looking into it told anyone who cared that was the case. There was zero hoodwinking or misinformation.
useally when someone claims "people where banned for reporting bugs!" and you can prove that people wheren't what they mean is "I posted an agressive entitled "bug report" that insulted the devs,etc and got banned"
BrianDavion wrote: useally when someone claims "people where banned for reporting bugs!" and you can prove that people wheren't what they mean is "I posted an agressive entitled "bug report" that insulted the devs,etc and got banned"
Would be ideal, but I can't imagine modern GW validating anything the FF guys did; I always got the impression they were reallll salty about how FF got 40k better than them.
And this whole game is based on FFG's Rogue Trader RPG, which was written by GW and handed over to FFG to complete.
I'm fairly certain the Storm Wardens were a FFG creation.
And they were created for Deathwatch, which came after Rogue Trader.
When Black Industries was shut down, everything they had was handed over to FFG, which included one nearly completed book and lots of notes on a few upcoming things. After that everything became an FFG product.
Navigator characters are always weird ones. On the one hand, they're fascinating, but on the other hand, there really is very little reason they should ever leave the ship. (Except on civilized worlds and negotiating with navigator houses or other important trade folks)
Curious if this will be a NPC or they'll try to shoehorn her into the party. With the attendant risk of 'Navigator's dead, you're stuck here forever'
The Red Hobbit wrote: Yes indeed, the Navigator is a precious commodity so risking one on an adventure never seems to be worth it.
I wonder, will the game allow you to create a party, or is it mostly pre-made NPCs, or both?
Previous games have been both, but...
a) you miss out on story content
b) custom mercs have been _much_ lower point buy (for stats) than pre-made NPCs. On the other hand, several of the premade NPCs have terrible stat choices for their class and Owlcat insists that their classes are fundamental to their stories... somehow. Even when it never comes up. (It makes sense when 'Cleric of <Bob>' _is_ their backstory (though that's a little dull), it doesn't make sense for 'archer,' which accounts for a surprising amount of NPCs so far)
Not sure how the system change will affect NPCs vs mercs. With enough system mastery in pathfinder, it was easy to make 'better' characters, but the lack of connections with the story always felt bad, even though some of the NPCs have terrible stories.
Curious if this will be a NPC or they'll try to shoehorn her into the party. With the attendant risk of 'Navigator's dead, you're stuck here forever'
Could be a funny, and suitably grimdark issue. Or they'll just handwaive that away for game mechanic reasons.
Or, as I've seen a few tactical RPGs do, sometimes you have characters that can "die" in the combat, but they'll only just become gravely wounded. They'll become unplayable, but will still be alive for cutscenes and stuff, sometimes with changes to appearance to show they're permanently disabled or something. IIRC some of the Fire Emblem games did this.
Curious if this will be a NPC or they'll try to shoehorn her into the party. With the attendant risk of 'Navigator's dead, you're stuck here forever'
Could be a funny, and suitably grimdark issue. Or they'll just handwaive that away for game mechanic reasons.
Or, as I've seen a few tactical RPGs do, sometimes you have characters that can "die" in the combat, but they'll only just become gravely wounded. They'll become unplayable, but will still be alive for cutscenes and stuff, sometimes with changes to appearance to show they're permanently disabled or something. IIRC some of the Fire Emblem games did this.
They sort of did that with Kingmaker. Whoever (of the initial companions) you recruit last in chapter 1 is 'wounded' and can't (won't) help for the remainder of that chapter. Which is weird in a setting with high powered healing magic, but whatever.
Also, various companions take off and and are unavailable for various reasons, so game engine-wise, they could do something with a wounded status. System mechanics, I don't remember off hand how the 40krpgs handle healing (though I also suspect some level of handwaving so it isn't terribly unfun).
Well, the FFGrpgs basically made healing extremely difficult. Outside of spending fate points to heal, you had psychic powers, the extremely limited Medicae skill, and just bed rest. Medicae could only be used once per injury or to speed bed rest which could be as slow as 1 wound a week without medical attention. Especially for low to mid level characters, basically any fight would leave you critically wounded.
No health potions in the grimdarkness of the far future, no long rest for 8 hours to heal up. Unless you've got a biomancy psyker or a healer in the party you're basically out of action for a while.
Voss wrote: Navigator characters are always weird ones. On the one hand, they're fascinating, but on the other hand, there really is very little reason they should ever leave the ship. (Except on civilized worlds and negotiating with navigator houses or other important trade folks)
Curious if this will be a NPC or they'll try to shoehorn her into the party. With the attendant risk of 'Navigator's dead, you're stuck here forever'
Dead navigators pop up in various stories, a few of them end up being "we're a derlict vessel adrift in the void because we can't find our way home, lets become cannibals while we wait for rescue", but some of them instead end up as "This is Captain Janeway of the Rogue Trader Voyager. Our Navigator's dead, we will have to take the long slow painful way home using high risk short-distance warp jumps calculated by our nav-computer. We should reach our destination in approximately 750 years if everything goes smoothly, too bad things won't go smoothly". I also seem to recall reading somewhere that there are what are basically "rogue" navigators that are basically unsanctioned by the Navis Nobilite or who have left/abandoned/been exiled from their houses because they found the isolation of that lifestyle to be too constricting and they want more adventure in their lives, etc. Many of these end up employed by Rogue Traders and often end up as "battlefield psykers" through the course of their adventures as a result of their impulsiveness and unwillingness to abide by the rules.
They sort of did that with Kingmaker. Whoever (of the initial companions) you recruit last in chapter 1 is 'wounded' and can't (won't) help for the remainder of that chapter. Which is weird in a setting with high powered healing magic, but whatever.
Yeah and then there's the chapter with the plague and they're using healing potions while performing exploratory surgeries which reminded me that I don't really like high magic settings all that much. Tends to lose the verisimilitude and grounded aspect pretty quickly.
Really love the artwork they've shown so far. The main picture shows a Space Wolf and Sister of Battle but doesn't mention them as party members; those are two of my favorite imperial factions so I certainly hope that's an option.
Also hoping there will be plenty of diplomatic options with the xenos so not everything is resolved with bloodshed.
Interesting. Backgrounds are probably the best way to go for character customization. Didn't expect Commissar or even Criminal, though.
Not sure how the heir of a Rogue Trader ends up as a Commissar. That's some seriously incompatible world views, operational methods and social roles. I guess it could function for a 'kill them all' RT, but the level of doctrine they're immersed in seems hard on the flexibility required for the new position.
I don't think a Commissar-cum-Rogue Trader is that far-fetched. Theres been examples in Black Library and other sources of Commissars becoming planetary governors and other figures of nobility, etc. (though it might be better to say they "inherit" those roles rather than "become" them). In fact, I think most Imperial nobles and planetary governors in the fluff usually have some reference to prior military service in some capacity in their background. Commissar is just one of several paths those nobles might take in the path of military service.
Within the context of a Rogue Trader - I think its reasonable to think that a scion of a Rogue Trader dynasty might end up in the Schola Progenium if their parent(s) are lost or killed in the course of their adventures, etc. From their they may end up in the Commissariat and do time there before age/injury/other events sees them muster out of service and return to take the reigns of the dyansty, especially if the issue of succession is a bit complex (i.e. younger child of a Rogue Trader dynasty - the older one gets to run things, the younger one ships off to the Schola, has a career in the guard/commissariat, etc., then the older one bites it and the warrant of trade passes to the commissar which is basically a "get out of imperial service free" card that lets them move back home and run the family business).
The excellent Warhammer Horror novel The House of Night and Chain covers a similar situation (albeit involving the planetary governor rather than a Rogue Trader). No real spoilers follow as this is all character background that gets covered in the first couple chapters:
Spoiler:
Basically, the main character is the previous planetary governors distant relative (don't recall the exact relationship, might have been his third uncle thrice removed or something like that, or even a member of a cadet branch of the family that was related only by marriage, either way) - when the planetary governor bites it, he inherits the responsibility, but he's an officer in the guard and serving in a warzone at the time, so his wife basically acts as governor in his stead while he's away (until she dies). His kids end up wards of the state, as it were, because nobody is around to care for them after his wife passes. After some time, he gets mustered out of the guard and put out to pasture, at which point he resumes the role of governor of the planet (which up until then was basically functioning as a democracy being run by the legislative council or whatever). By that point, his daughter (older child) is an instructor at the Schola Progenium (so not quite a Commissar, but close), while his younger son is basically a stereotypical trust fund kid living off of daddy's name and money. Presumably, this means that his daughter, the Schola instructor, would be the next in line as planetary governor if the governor were to die.
So yeah, kinda just imagine a situation like that.
Thats an... odd... take. Life isn't a fantasy novel where everyone is locked into very narrowly defined archetypes for their entire lives, people can and often do change careers as they go through life (shall we count how many Presidents and other heads of state had prior careers in the military or went on to become CEOs at Fortune 500s, for example?). This complaint is silly.
wtf?
No, _life_ isn't. But the idea that a 40k CRPG is more like real life than a fantasy novel is utterly bizarre.
But we're talking about character backgrounds for a computer game. Those _are_ explicitly narrowly defined archetypes defined around themes! That's the entire point of having main character customization centered around backgrounds!
Yes... its a BACKground, I.E. the stuff that happened to you in your *past* that was formative to who you are in the *present*. Its not who you are *forever*, just like how when you're designing your DnD character, your background might be "Sailor" or "Soldier" or "Court Jester", but that doesn't stop you from being an adventurer in the present.
Rogue Traders aren't just one type of person. Sure, the popular image is they are a swashbuckling rogue who would very much chafe at the strict discipline of the Schola. But the vast majority of them are simply merchants, plying the stars with their private fleets of ships. Merchants who want stability and order, which would put them in the mindset that would be very compatible with being a Commissar.
The families of Rogue Traders will be large extended affairs with long traditions. There could easily be families who send all of their children off to the Schola Progenium because that is tradition, its what they do. The Schola isn't 100% just filled with orphans, there are plenty of people who are sent/choose to go. Not like the Imperium is going to turn down willing volunteers.
Voss wrote: Interesting. Backgrounds are probably the best way to go for character customization. Didn't expect Commissar or even Criminal, though.
Not sure how the heir of a Rogue Trader ends up as a Commissar. That's some seriously incompatible world views, operational methods and social roles. I guess it could function for a 'kill them all' RT, but the level of doctrine they're immersed in seems hard on the flexibility required for the new position.
They were the 5th son, shunted off to the schola so they couldn't cause problems after they were getting a bit too "friendly" with the daughter of a rival Rogue Trader dynasty.
Who could have foreseen the Catastrophe of Ilyas VI, which resulted in the patriarch of the family and sons 1 through 4 losing their lives? So the warrant fell to son 5, currently serving as the commissariat attachment to an artillery regiment, safely positioned kilometres behind the front line. His disposition and approach to his duties was unlike that of many of his peers. This was partly because he personally didn't see the point in wasting men just to make an example when other less permanent methods worked, and also as a survival tactic to avoid the high-rate of "accidental" friendly fire incidents which afflicted many of his particular profession who took to their duties with over-zealous brutality.
Remember, PCs in any RPG are the exceptional, the unusual.
Who could have foreseen the Catastrophe of Ilyas VI, which resulted in the patriarch of the family and sons 1 through 4 losing their lives? So the warrant fell to son 5, currently serving as the commissariat attachment to an artillery regiment, safely positioned kilometres behind the front line. His disposition and approach to his duties was unlike that of many of his peers. This was partly because he personally didn't see the point in wasting men just to make an example when other less permanent methods worked, and also as a survival tactic to avoid the high-rate of "accidental" friendly fire incidents which afflicted many of his particular profession who took to their duties with over-zealous brutality.
Remember, PCs in any RPG are the exceptional, the unusual.
Sounds like he was friends with Caiaphas at school
Who could have foreseen the Catastrophe of Ilyas VI, which resulted in the patriarch of the family and sons 1 through 4 losing their lives? So the warrant fell to son 5, currently serving as the commissariat attachment to an artillery regiment, safely positioned kilometres behind the front line. His disposition and approach to his duties was unlike that of many of his peers. This was partly because he personally didn't see the point in wasting men just to make an example when other less permanent methods worked, and also as a survival tactic to avoid the high-rate of "accidental" friendly fire incidents which afflicted many of his particular profession who took to their duties with over-zealous brutality.
Remember, PCs in any RPG are the exceptional, the unusual.
Sounds like he was friends with Caiaphas at school
In our new game, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, we've introduced a lot of unique and unusual mechanics that were not present in our previous projects. We decided to not stop there and took it a step further.
Since the very first day we started working on Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, we've concluded that travelling across the Koronus Expanse with a friend would be a lot more fun, and now we're excited to finally announce it! Cooperative mode will be available on PC at launch and introduced to consoles at a later date!
We'll be back with the details soon enough, but for now - stay tuned!
Co-op play prioritizes flexibility; I can have friends join me on my campaign at any time, just by choosing the co-op mode, generating a code to share, and loading a save. What’s more, my companions can keep the save after our run, allowing them to advance on their own if they so choose. Rogue Trader is a massive game, and the co-op system seems to focus on allowing players to join up with friends at any point over maintaining a consistent role-playing campaign for each participant.
Reviews have started flowing in for this game, looking very mixed so far. With buggyness/tedious mechanics/encounter balancing being the worst of the issues. Hopefully it can still be patched into something worthwhile throughout next year.
Thargrim wrote: Reviews have started flowing in for this game, looking very mixed so far. With buggyness/tedious mechanics/encounter balancing being the worst of the issues. Hopefully it can still be patched into something worthwhile throughout next year.
From what I have heard of Owlcat's other games, that's pretty much to be expected.
Yeah. I'm definitely waiting on this one (if at all).
Bugs are supposedly not as bad as the wrath of the righteous launch, but the bigger problem seems to be that the combat is meh. (Build stacks of <random jargon> to burn later)
Tedious and repetitive and class abilities never got turned into coherent, digestible versions. You can learn it, but a lot of people won't want to, and it'll bring the buzz down a lot.
You'll be staring at options like adding +((50 + 10 x Ballistic Skill bonus) / number of enemies in the area of effect)% damage with an additional +(10 + 2 x Ballistic Skill bonus)% dodge reduction to your next ranged area-of-effect attack, and wondering who thought making it all so bitty was a good idea.
Well, that article was fun to read. Big reminder why I felt detached by the end of Kingmaker and was glad to finally finish it. Which is a shame, because the worldbuilding in the game is great. But the actual gameplay is, to use the same phrase as the article, absolute tedium.
Thargrim wrote: Reviews have started flowing in for this game, looking very mixed so far. With buggyness/tedious mechanics/encounter balancing being the worst of the issues. Hopefully it can still be patched into something worthwhile throughout next year.
From what I have heard of Owlcat's other games, that's pretty much to be expected.
Pretty much. Pathfinder has its issues with abilities and magic and stuff spiraling out of control on higher levels, which isn't something I'd blame on Owlcat, but their encounter design and game flow is pretty terrible. I lost my saves from my previous, unfinished playthrough of Kingmaker and since I didn't feel like going through the same slog again, I played the game on stupid easy difficulty. Which, I found, left me the time and patience to really look into the design goals. It feels like these guys are incapable of designing their game for something that could be described as normal difficulty. As a GM playing the tabletop game in the past, it's amazing how jacked up and stacked against the player pretty much every encounter outside low level areas your party has successfully leveled out of are. It's like the goal is to have normal difficulty be a hardcore experience every single time with these guys, and throwing ARPG hordes at you at in slow and sluggish turn based combat.
For this reason alone I'm not in a hurry to buy Rogue Trader. There may be technical differences to the Pathfinder games, but it seems clear that the design ethos is the same. I don't need that kind of slow, frustrating game design in my life. I'm interested in the story and the game may be cheap and complete enough down the line, and I might feel masochistic enough to give it a try. Paying full price for that experience with all the glorious early game bugs thrown in for seasoning doesn't appeal, though.
It's like the goal is to have normal difficulty be a hardcore experience every single time with these guys, and throwing ARPG hordes at you at in slow and sluggish turn based combat.
Party. Sometimes, from the way they talk its about the 'challenge.' Other times they just didn't seem to realize that the way pathfinder (& D&D) works, they'd raise base attributes and secondary stats in a way that stacks, and the random number generator is still a d20.
Even on low difficulties, their templates and changes would bump a creature from +8 to hit to +16 to hit, and things would spiral. You've gotta do full buff stacks or just grow to love the load save button.
----
With this one, I have no idea at all what they think the baseline is. Which is worrisome.
Well, if you were to be super hopeful, you might believe that they at least have a better grasp of a system they came up with themselves.
But yeah, I'm not willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to this crew. Funny you should mention templates, Voss. I can't even remember the number of times I thought they took the baddest monster they could find, dip it in glue and roll it around in a box of templates to boost it even more like that's all it takes to design an encounter.
Doesn't even matter much if it's done for the challenge or out of incompetence, if they understand the game rules of Rogue Trader better, there's every chance they still make encounters a simple numbers game instead of trying to allow for tactical gameplay. Well, that's my concern anyway. I haven't looked too much into the actual game yet, but past performance certainly doesn't encourage taking that kind of interest.
Yeah that was a big turnoff from WOTR, I wanted to enjoy it, but once I hit the point where my all Cavalier/mounted party began to fight regular mobs that they had to hit on 20's, I just gave up. The Devs apparently expected everyone to roll out with magic and constant long term buffs and I am just not into that.
RT, at least, seem not to have as much reliance on those, from what I gathered, so there's hope that way.
It sounds as if they took inspiration from Baldurs Gate 2, and the way that enemy mages in that game all had contingency-based defensive spells that would snap into place the moment they entered combat, and then had to be slowly peeled away by your party mage's spells, and asked, "How can we make this even more frustrating and tedious?"
Bobthehero wrote: Yeah that was a big turnoff from WOTR, I wanted to enjoy it, but once I hit the point where my all Cavalier/mounted party began to fight regular mobs that they had to hit on 20's, I just gave up. The Devs apparently expected everyone to roll out with magic and constant long term buffs and I am just not into that.
RT, at least, seem not to have as much reliance on those, from what I gathered, so there's hope that way.
I've already heard some muttering (from the beta period) that buffstacks still exist (and may well be still mandatory, but not sure myself yet), but they're something you accumulate resources for in early turns and roll out en-masse mid-combat.
Especially as the game goes along, as you've got basic classes into advanced classes into a catch-all 'top level' class that reinforces your earlier choices.
Certain origins and backgrounds are also extremely important, so you've got 3-4 sources (origin, background, class, and advanced class) of abilities to manage for each character, and advanced class kicks in around the end of chapter 1. Some things synergize a lot better than others, so there's already a lot of 'best builds' floating around out there.
Geifer wrote:But yeah, I'm not willing to extend the benefit of the doubt to this crew. Funny you should mention templates, Voss. I can't even remember the number of times I thought they took the baddest monster they could find, dip it in glue and roll it around in a box of templates to boost it even more like that's all it takes to design an encounter.
Kingmaker left some scars. Tabletop-standard profiles were (at least at one point) the difficulty below 'normal' and still had templated champion skeletons (particularly the archers) that suddenly jumped to insane bonuses and 100 hp each.
Wrath on 'core' difficulty has the potential to snap the NPC companions in half during the prologue, with lots of one-shots to zero hp, which just seems unreasonable. No chance to customize, get better equipment or even pick spells, and the trash monsters can just roll right over the party.
Working my way through the tutorial now, playing on the easiest mode, because I am a fluffing tourist after all. Still getting bombarded with a lot of info and keywords, but at least combat feels a bit more potent now, I am actually hitting and killing things for once, as opposed to the beta, where I couldn't even finish the tutorial due to how tough the daemon was. Though this is probably due to playing it in story mode hehe. Also nice the amount of options you get in character creation.
But the game is still missing a fair share of art assets it seems, ability icons are still missing, some characters, like the rogue trader who you are the heir to, are not voiced. I can see why they would only voice some parts of the game, but it's weird that the lady in charge is unvoiced, while deck officer L-86 does get voiced lines.
Played for a few hours so far and have some thoughts.
Combat is deadly, you will need to be very careful with your decisions and use cover. But the inverse is also true, the enemies are generally also very squishy and they are just as likely to mow their own dudes down when shooting as your own guys. AOE attacks are very useful, always have someone with a shotgun.
I'm not sure how I feel about how they handle heroes going down. On the one hand, you don't need to worry about healing between fights since everybody just gets back up with traumas that go away when you go back to the ship. On the other, sometimes it is very annoying to not have the normal ability to just use a heal to get downed characters back up that most games would have(unless those abilities come later maybe?.??)
Only had 1 bug so far. One fight had about 15 enemies spread out over a very large area, large enough that I don't think it meant to draw them all in. I think it was intended to be a couple seperate fights, but it got globbed together. Anyway some enemies seemed bugged out and wouldn't animate or do anything other than move, and some would take about a minute to pass their turns for each enemy. Bug resolved after I had killed a few of them and moved closer together. Fortunately it seems there is some time-out thing that passes the turn if an enemy does nothing for about a minute so you could at least move forward eventually.
A season pass is also available, offering two new companions:
1. Void Shadows
(coming June 2024)
The first major story expansion is all about the Rogue Trader's voidship, the life of its crew, and the threats lurking in its holds. Dive into a new epic story integrated into the main narrative, battle new enemies, and recruit a new companion — a death cult assassin. Explore new decks of your voidship, unlock new upgrade options, and master the mechanics of void combat. Meet new members of your crew on the bridge, such as the Astropath, the chirurgeon, and others.
The events of this story will be reflected in the game's epilogue.
This expansion offers 15 hours of gameplay.
2. Lex Imperialis
(coming December 2024)
The second major story expansion sees the Lord Captain join forces with a new companion — a member of the Adeptus Arbites. As the past of House von Valancius begins to present itself in a new light, the Rogue Trader faces difficult decisions that may affect the future of the entire Koronus Expanse.
Over the course of this story, you will get a chance to learn more about the collection of the Imperial Tithe, otherwise known as the Grand Harvesting. Interfere with this fundamental process of the Imperium at your own peril. Discover new areas, game mechanics, and archetypes — and of course, encounter new horrors of the Immaterium.
This expansion likewise offers 15 hours of gameplay.
Apparently, a lot of the achievements are bugged and triggering not when they are supposed to. Both of those are triggering on your first dodged attack and first critical hit. The exploring all the planets one is also triggering when you explore your first planet.
I also got the exploration achievement triggered way too early, still in the starting sector and I already got it. I think the dodge and crit achievements keep popping up because they are in progress. Normally this shouldn't happen unless there's a progress tracker visible on the achievement itself, whenever you hit a milestone, 100/500 or so, it may pop up to show you your progress. But no such thing here.
But fun so far, some things feel a bit off fluff / description wise, the number salad that comes with each skill is a confusing mess, but other things hit just right or go places you don't see normally, like having Navigators be proper mutants like in the older fluff instead of just being a baldie having a third eye on the forehead. Cassia doesn't just have a pale skin and red eyes, she weeps blood, has freakishly elongated limbs and visible gills. Also, her trying to describe warp travel is another chef-kiss to older fluff. 👌🏻
I just wrapped up the prison planet, didn't fare too poorly there but the next planet/starport was tougher (on normal difficulty). I ran a noble officer, which to me felt the most natural. I had to restart a few times, unlike in BG3 where I knew I wanted to play a healing cleric.. however in this game I had no idea what I was trying to accomplish building my character.
It would've been cool to get a Votann/squat companion, the two season pass companions sound cool but hopefully we get 1 or 2 more after those.
Playing as a Commissar / officer class and somehow I managed to pick the right skills / whatnots so that she, alongside Cassia (also an officer), both have the ability to give other characters a full activation when inspired, which ought to feel a bit broken, but I quite like how with the right stuff, an inspired Abelard can run up to, then hack & slash several opponents in a single activation, severely cutting down the enemy numbers and the slowdown they create during combat. Already had twice that there were so many enemies in the encounter that it broke the camera.
Also, so many friendly-fire incidents, or an encounter opening with an enemy spraying full-auto, only to kill one or two of their own.
But keeping it spoiler-free, I am hooked by what breadcrumbs I've been fed so far plot-wise. Still in the first system, but the locations have been fun and interesting.
It's making me seriously play a CRPG for the first time in a long time again, minor gripes aside such as missing assets and skills being a mish-mash of math, this game gets a lot right and while it uses an established setting (Koronus expanse), it's doing its own thing with it instead of re-treading material from the source books.
It's been a good year for 40k games (Boltgun and a slew of Darktide updates) and Rogue Trader makes me feel I'm ending 2023 on a high note 40k-wise. I look forward to Mandalore Gaming doing a review on this one a year from now.
Completed the first chapter. Pretty tense, even on normal difficulty.
Spoiler:
The Aurora fight had me equal parts “Do I restart or do I uninstall?” I got stomped easily 4 times before my final attempt and was gonna put the game down for a bit to read up on it.
5th attempt, I started the squad out in cover to avoid the opening salvo. I sent the Navigator to take out the sniper, while the psyker took out the mobs. All the others, melee’d the Word Bearer as much as possible. Lost 3 followers, but by the time he got to the last shuttle, he was down to 1 hit point and the Inquisitor hit him with incinerate, turning the Word Bearer to an ashen heap. Then mopped up the last of the mobs.
One thing I do notice is that the writing is all over the place sometimes when it comes to player dialogue. At times you talk in a refined tones, while some of the options are blunt "what's a rogue like me got to do to get a drink around here, my dogs are barking!"
And wahey, unlocked space travel properly, some fun exploration and choices ahead.
I’m of the opinion this game is pretty excellent. Didn’t really follow this game during development because I was all in on BG3 hype so didn’t know what I was getting into. There is a lot more substance to this game then I had expected.
Combat and Space battles can get challenging if you are careless. Story is pretty wild too. From the beginning I thought’d be just Chaos vs. Imperium but its been pretty diverse.
Spoiler:
Just got taken to Comorragh…
Prior to the events that led me there, I faced off against 3 or 4 Genestealers in a remote waystation. Completely caught me off guard.
There was a Khrave temple or some sort that had a puzzle and it got me a pretty good force sword. No Khrave though, which would probs be a death sentence, if memory serves on how powerful they are.
Apparentlly the machine spirit of the ship is actually an Abominable Intelligence?
I romanced the Cold Trader chick and because she’s a smartass joker, she broadcast our “extracurricular activities” on the loudspeaker to the whole ship. Her quest to get her a trading certificate of some sort or something was a pretty funny/tedious lesson in Imperial Bureaucracy.
Ran into 3 Forgefiends so far. First one was pretty brutal, but the next 2 were a bit easier because I had better gear/skills. Same with the 2nd Chaos Marine that I’ve killed. Much easier than the first.
Been playing (as I tend to do on my first RPG playthroughs) as the goodest of good guys. I feel like its set me up for failure multiple times because this is 40K. Like when I should’ve noticed and spoke out on a corrupted Tech-priest but instead I followed him without rancour. next thing I know, I’m starting combating with said tech priest and molten metal poured on my party and I.
Already decided to go full heretical on the next playthrough.
Finally finished chapter 2, had somewhat soft-locked myself due to not having enough navigator points to travel to sealed off systems, so that took a LOT of travelling through orange and red routes to get more points..
But loving the enemy variety so far, they've not been holding back at all! Most games only have daemons to one chaos god in there, but here we get all of them.
Happy unintentional side effect of constantly being boarded by daemons is that my party has been levelling quite a bit, making them pretty good at dealing with fights with minimal hassle so I can more fully focus on the story. Abelard in particular has become a melee beast in my party, easily smacking the gak out of both mobs and solos in a single turn.
BrookM wrote: Finally finished chapter 2, had somewhat soft-locked myself due to not having enough navigator points to travel to sealed off systems, so that took a LOT of travelling through orange and red routes to get more points..
But loving the enemy variety so far, they've not been holding back at all! Most games only have daemons to one chaos god in there, but here we get all of them.
Happy unintentional side effect of constantly being boarded by daemons is that my party has been levelling quite a bit, making them pretty good at dealing with fights with minimal hassle so I can more fully focus on the story. Abelard in particular has become a melee beast in my party, easily smacking the gak out of both mobs and solos in a single turn.
Had similar conundrums. I misinterpreted how the Navigator accrued the points and ended up wasting them on trival stuff.
And speaking of wasting stuff. Got bored with the constant demon infestations and such that I started to arm up the crew with weapons/relics from cargo and then exhausted my cargo... :( .
BrookM wrote: Soft-locked myself into the administratum now, either a clerk isn't spawning in or it is a feature to accurately depict the futility of the system.
BrookM wrote: Soft-locked myself into the administratum now, either a clerk isn't spawning in or it is a feature to accurately depict the futility of the system.
The bug is a feature
What did you expect? That the allmighty bureucracy wouldn't grind you to dust just because you got a warrant of Trade?!
H.B.M.C. wrote: Is this worth getting? Or is it a buggy incomplete mess and I'm better off waiting for patches/all the DLC?
I've been enjoying it immensely.
I have one playthrough that's fairly deep in the game (tail end of Chapter 4) and I didn't really encounter any game ending bugs. There have been hotfixes hitting what seems like every other day. The most bugs that I encounter are weird cinematic pauses when scripted stuff starts. A few bugs in combat that make it drag while the AI decides what to do, but its few and far between. Some pathfinding hijinks as well.
I started a "Heretic" playthrough and a lot of the bugs that I encountered in the initial playthrough mentioned above are gone.
I had Steam refund credit, so I don't feel like I paid full price for it, but there is nothing here that makes me think its not worth its asking price of $49.99. YMMV
Spoilers :
Spoiler:
Not a big fan of the Space Wolf. By the time you get him, you more than likely have a solid, high level, well equipped crew that jives well and the SW can't use most of the standard equipment that you'll have accrued. I'm always underwhelmed when I use him. Its possible that I'm using him incorrectly though.
The Dark Eldar character though, has none of the SW's issues.
H.B.M.C. wrote: Is this worth getting? Or is it a buggy incomplete mess and I'm better off waiting for patches/all the DLC?
Its definitely not incomplete. The occasional minor bug, but nothing you cant save scum away. And you'll be save scumming a lot anyway. Just get in the habit of manually saving since the autosave doesn't happen often enough.
So, about 25% into my "Heretic" run as a Psyker/Arch-Militant, by choosing that option in dialogue every time, unless is makes me fail a quest or kills a party character :
Spoiler:
I've dominated 2 Forgefiends and now they are an option to defend the ship during warp jump incursions, rather then using my party, or arming up the ship crew with gear out of my cargo. Didn't expect that! I haven't used them yet, as I fear they will get killed and be a one and done option.
The combat bonuses and gear that Heretics get is pretty awesome too.
I'm hoping the ship will slowly "Chaosify" as I run deeper into my playthrough. Also hoping I can turn a good amount of my party members to Chaos as well, but I think a few will be hard/impossible to convert.
I've been playing slowly. I finally finished Chapter One last night.
Spoiler:
The Aurora fight is annoying. He's insanely overpowered, to the point where if his AI was even half-way intelligent, he could solo the party. The fact that he's so powerful, and the fact that his AI is so bad made it a less than satisfying fight.
Eumerin wrote: I've been playing slowly. I finally finished Chapter One last night.
Spoiler:
The Aurora fight is annoying. He's insanely overpowered, to the point where if his AI was even half-way intelligent, he could solo the party. The fact that he's so powerful, and the fact that his AI is so bad made it a less than satisfying fight.
Yeah, AI is pretty atrocious :
Spoiler:
In Act 2, I found a planet(Frozen Princes star system) that had 3-4 Chaos Marines, a dozen traitor guardsmen/culists, and a Hellbrute. When I initially landed on the planet I marched straight into the Hellbrute by accident and it made short work of my people. 2nd attempt, I killed all the marines but the Hellbrute would take out one or two of my party per turn once it got into range and had LOS. Then I noticed that the guardsmen were shooting at the Hellbrute, giving it a stackable damage buff, at the expense of its health.
So on my victorious attempt, I just stayed out of LOS where it couldn't fit, killed the CSMs and the Hellbrute just stood there and took the damage from its own people. For like a dozen turns I just stood in cover and the Hellbrute was ground down. Only thing that really threw a wrench in the plan was that some of the guardsmen could turn into Chaos Spawn, which would attack, but at this point in my game they were easy pickings. After the Hellbrute was dead, what was left of the traitors attacked and they were taken out easily.
With half way competent AI, I would've left this planet and maybe returned when I was leveled up, as it would be impossible against that kind of force. Reading about it, it seems to be a Chapter 4 plot/quest, but you can access it in the early chapters. I hope I didn't bug the game out by taking it out early.
Speaking of bugs, my second playthrough as a Heretic is much buggier then my initial good guy run.
This game has really re-ignited my interest in 40K lore and such.
Spoiler:
Found a world that had a very well protected vault of alien items. Ork (!), Necron, both major varieties of Eldar, and other items that reference obscure 40K alien races. Once I got to a Necron pylon of some sort, I got attacked by a group of Necrons who teleported in. Pretty big shock as I hadn't encountered them yet in game, and honestly didn't even know they were in this game. Luckily I had equipped my Techpriest with a rifle I found in this vault that stops/impedes Necrons from repairing/resurrecting. As expected, they were a pretty tough fight, but once I figured out that the scarabs were key to them repairing, I took them down one by one.
Another world had a palace of some sort that looked like a ghoul from the AoS Flesh Eater Courts had started decorating. Piles of dead bodies and gore, with docile combat servitors milling about. At the end of the palace, a solitary "corrupted aristocrat" sat. From the description text, he appeared to be some sort of vampire. He had tons of hit points, and about 9 combat servitors of various loadouts who turned hostile. Made short work of them, and looted the main guy. He gave me something called a "Halo Device" that drastically increased strength, agility and toughness, as well as giving buffs in combat when causing damage, at the expense of willpower and intelligence. It can't be unequipped once its on. My Psyker/Assassin may benefit greatly from it, but I'm worried it will ruin my character in unforeseen ways.
At this point, I'm expecting a Man of Iron to show up or something crazy.
Annoying bugs aside, this is a great 40K game and a pretty damn good RPG.
And now the Dark Eldar character. Hope they impress.
My question is how do you even get a dark eldar character. You must have to play as heretic for them to even consider teaming up with you. Knowing dark eldar they'd look at you like cattle and sheep rather than a mutual trading partner.
And now the Dark Eldar character. Hope they impress.
My question is how do you even get a dark eldar character. You must have to play as heretic for them to even consider teaming up with you. Knowing dark eldar they'd look at you like cattle and sheep rather than a mutual trading partner.
Spoiler:
Simplifying it, but the player character and the Dark Eldar character are both betrayed and sentenced to die in the arena. You can kill him, but you can also appeal to his desire to survive and team up with him, then he joins the party and you fight out of Comorragh. He also made a bargain that he can’t fulfill with a clan of Mandrakes and they vow to hunt him down, hence the Dark Eldar character is using the player character as protection.
I used to be a big CRPG fan back in the day, but never found the right motivation to get immersed into one again since Divinity and Pillars of Eternity, mostly because these games tend to eat up time like few others.
When RT was announced, I was mostly indifferent towards it for that reason and a due to a healthy wariness of licensed 40k games, but I decided to give it a try anyway...
I've been playing through the entire weekend and couldn't wait to get back into the game after work this week, even staying up late to get some more hours in. The quality is a lot better than I expected, as far as the characters, dialogues, voiceover and overall adaptation of the setting goes. They seem to have done their research for the most part and the fact that you are playing as a RT does give some leeway to bend the rules wherever it's necessary for the plot to develop.
I've never played Dark Heresy, but the mechanics of the ruleset seem fun and varied enough so far. Not sure I'd go for a second playthrough at this point, even though there are some meaningful differences in how you can approach situations, but it'd probably just take too long.
Instead, I'm hoping for new content down the line, hopefully fueled a robust modding community. Ideally, I'd want to see more ways to customize appearances and additional character origins that meaningfully alter gameplay. That and more voiced companions, preferably a Kroot tracker and some sort of former death cult or hive ganger agent.
Of course, I've also started building a small squad of operatives on the tabletop, with Sister Palos doubling as my Argenta, and the KT navy breacher sergeant as my naval officer.
And now the Dark Eldar character. Hope they impress.
My question is how do you even get a dark eldar character. You must have to play as heretic for them to even consider teaming up with you. Knowing dark eldar they'd look at you like cattle and sheep rather than a mutual trading partner.
Instead, I'm hoping for new content down the line, hopefully fueled a robust modding community. Ideally, I'd want to see more ways to customize appearances and additional character origins that meaningfully alter gameplay. That and more voiced companions, preferably a Kroot tracker and some sort of former death cult or hive ganger agent.
There are a couple of announced DLC for this year. The first takes a closer look at your ship, specifically decks and crew. The other features the Imperial Tithe (which no Rogue Trader would *ever* skim part of...).
About had a heart attack when the final fight showed up. Chaos Space Marine is scary AF. Only had to save scum a few times, but it was a tough fight. Stacking abilities makes it managable, but man if you made it there with a suboptimal build for your characters you could easily find it impossible
So we get this corrupted admech fellow as a boss fight. Now, I know this is a long shot, but given that most character models in the game seem to be faily accurate to their miniature version, could this be a sneaky preview of a future dark mechanicum release?
About had a heart attack when the final fight showed up. Chaos Space Marine is scary AF. Only had to save scum a few times, but it was a tough fight. Stacking abilities makes it managable, but man if you made it there with a suboptimal build for your characters you could easily find it impossible
I mentioned him earlier. His AI is pretty bad. If it were even half-way decent, he'd probably wipe the floor with even the most min-maxxed parties.
In some respects, that makes the fight even more annoying, imo.
Still stuck in act 3, just can't find the motivation to get through that slog, might also be due to how my character is not really built for what I'm being put through right now.
Is it possible they are getting damaged in combat?
I also unequip them for the same reasons as BrookM. Do they serve any function outside of the text spam? I always wanted grenades, stims and medpacks instead.
They're a fun and fluffy addition, but they take up a slot better used for actual kit, unless the text spam provides some other buff or bonus I am not seeing.
Speaking of pre-order bonuses, weren't we able to customize our throne at some point as well?
The game is definitely rough around the edges. I found a nice promethium canister for the backpack slot of my heavy flamer militant, but the game keeps hiding it from time to time. Not sure if it's after reloading, but it happens specifically to that item/model while capes remain consistent.
Same goes for familiars, but as some have mentioned, they are more distracting than anything with their text boxes obstructing the screen all the time. I'm also sure the game keeps ignoring some of my mouse inputs. I regularly find myself having to click a second time before my character gets moving. I suspect this is due to scenery elements in the foreground blocking the cursor.
BrookM wrote: They are pumping out patches at a steady rate though, so they're on top of things at least.
Yup, there have been a few; but for some reason, GOG refuses to allow me to download the latest one for some reason :/ . Don't know if that's GOG or the game, though. Does anyone else have this problem?
BrookM wrote: They are pumping out patches at a steady rate though, so they're on top of things at least.
Yup, there have been a few; but for some reason, GOG refuses to allow me to download the latest one for some reason :/ . Don't know if that's GOG or the game, though. Does anyone else have this problem?
I was able to download the most recent patch through Steam. Make of that what you will.
Some achievements either trigger way too early, or randomly alright! It's also interesting that some achievements are not unlocked until you boot up the game again.
My big two headscratchers are when I got the exploration achievement when I first opened the star map and I got the romance achievement for.. just talking to one of my companions, without even thinking about flirting!
Just got to the point in the game where it warns you that you are at the point of no return. Farthest I've made it with any of my 3 characters. I gave up my Heretic run because a good portion of my guys took off when I got to a certain level of "heretic".
I definitely learned some hard lessons with this playthrough, though I might not be in a hurry to play again until they add some more content and polish it up a bit more. Maybe a harder difficulty, but at a certain point this game gets pretty grindy, and leveling characters feels like a chore at times, weirdly.
Spoiler:
First planet I landed on after going through the portal was a Necron tomb world with what looks to be the bloody remains of a mechanicus or Inquisitor expedition. Just explored ( it was late) and going to start the first combat encounter. My first go around with Necrons was pretty rough because I wasn't expecting them, but this time I'm prepared.
Looking forward to whatever Necron enemies the game throws at me.
Overall, I give it a 8/10. Story is great, combat is fun/rewarding, music and sound effects were excellent. Had Baldur’s Gate 3 not dropped in 2023, this would have been the best RPG that I’ve played in years. A bit more polish and production value, this game could’ve been pretty iconic.
What I disliked:
-Bugs were the biggest source of frustration, without a doubt.
-The bloated character progression. I’m not even sure what level I was when I struck the final blow against the endboss, as I just stopped looking at the skills/upgrades after level 30.
-Wargear is also needlessly bloated, a million pairs of boots but maybe 10 that were worth keeping, for instance.
For the ending :
Spoiler:
You fight a weakened, long dormant C’tan shard, which was pretty awesome.
The story endings, I’m a bit more down on. I thought I was doing the right thing with most of my story choices(Iconoclast in 99% of my choices I think), but in the end I was crafting a realm that seemingly split off from the Imperium to try to found something better and more humane. That kind of caught me off-guard, as it wasn’t something I envisioned nor intended. Thought I was just being a decent, loyal dude.
I got the impression that the buildings that I put on my colonies also affected the endings, which was another thing that I didn’t expect. I was just going for the buildings that gave me good wargear or character perks. Now I’ll know for next time, if thats the case.
I’m 100% certainly not allying with the Dark Eldar character in any of my next playthroughs. Part of his story epilogue involves the daughter of another member of your retinue and its so messed up. I was hoping to have had a civilizing effect on the Dark Eldar character, but alas he is in fact a Dark Eldar. I’m just gonna kill him.
My ending epilogues were pretty inconsistent and sometimes contradictory, but I guess that reflects how much my choices varied throughout the game. Or its bugged.
Kind of want to play again, but not so soon. Definitely looking forward to more content.
I think the best thing is that there is tons of potential for spinoff games. More content for the Rogue Trader side of course, but we could also get Dark Heresy, Only War, or Deathwatch games with the same system.
Only War in particular could be interesting. Potential for a lot of procedural generation of a campaign set in a warzone with your squad of guardsmen trying to survive battle after battle.
Grey Templar wrote: I think the best thing is that there is tons of potential for spinoff games. More content for the Rogue Trader side of course, but we could also get Dark Heresy, Only War, or Deathwatch games with the same system.
Only War in particular could be interesting. Potential for a lot of procedural generation of a campaign set in a warzone with your squad of guardsmen trying to survive battle after battle.
One can hope its the bedrock of something more.
I thought the same for Chaos Gate: Demonhunters and nothing came of it. So far at least.
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Chaos Gate hasn't even been out for two years yet. So we may yet see another 40K game from the same developers. As it is, the last DLC was released just six months ago.
This is our first major update for Warhammer 40000: Rogue Trader, containing a total of over 1800 changes, including brand new voiceover and narrative content, QoL improvements, balance updates, numerous bug fixes and hundreds of fixes for optimization, performance and co-op stability (we've done our best to squeeze some of these together to make the patch notes a bit less devastating for you to read). The patch notes are so huge that we were forced to split it into multiple parts. Console version of the patch will be available within ~24 hours depending on region, as usual.
We are deeply grateful for your feedback and reports that made this update possible, and hope that this update will vastly improve your experience with the game!
Important: due to the unprecedented scale of changes to abilities and balance, all existing saved games will receive an additional free respecialization for every character in the party. Enjoy!
Here’s a glimpse of what’s expecting you:
Highlights
Brand new full voiceover for the Prologue and companion chatter across the game;
New visual effects and icons;
Narrative tweaks and new reactivity options;
Fixes for broken quests and dialogues (including the long-anticipated Price of Humanity quest fix);
Fixes for incorrect and inconsistent epilogues;
A massive amount of fixes for incorrectly functioning abilities and items, including those that led to silly damage multiplication;
Balance updates, including survivability and damage buffs to Space Marines, nerfs for Officers, weapon balance, encounter balance, and changes to calculations of many stats, bonuses and difficulty modifiers, resulting in an overall smoother game experience;
A lot of performance improvements and optimization;
Reputation thresholds for vendors being lowered by about 20%;
Improvements for NPCAI, reducing the cases of friendly fire and unnecessary triggering of Attacks of Opportunity;
Co-op desync fixes and possibility to hire mercenaries during multiplayer sessions;
QoL UI improvements, including ability sorting, recommended skills and visibility of quests and extractums on the map;
Marazhai and Yrliet gaining access to many previously human-restricted items;
Full patch notes contain spoilers, so are not linked here.
Same, doing a new playthrough because well, act 3 is just horrible and I feel my build was suboptimal for that, plus my first playthrough was quite buggy to say the least. I know we get a respec for every party member, but might as well start over.
where?
