Warhammer Necromunda: Underhive Wars - tactical RPG from Mordheim devs

[Fedora Master]

No one is better than my beloved Delaque though.

The humble servand of our God-Emperor, Klovis of House Cawdor would like a word:

Scourge and purge!

 

[baud]

Yes, I believe you're right. I just think anyone who has any kind of affinity with the IP (even if a nuXCOMer) will find the differences jarring. If I'm right then it would mean they're banking on hooking in those without any knowledge of the IP... and I'm not sure why they'd buy this.

People can know that Necromunda is part of the 40k and be interested, even if they've never played the TT. And they'd buy this as there hasn't been a lot of mainstream nuXCOM style games recently

No one is better than my beloved Delaque though.

The humble servand of our God-Emperor, Klovis of House Cawdor would like a word:

Scourge and purge!

(taken from this thread, which has all the Redeemer comics and some other 40k)

 

[Storyfag]

Yes, I believe you're right. I just think anyone who has any kind of affinity with the IP (even if a nuXCOMer) will find the differences jarring. If I'm right then it would mean they're banking on hooking in those without any knowledge of the IP... and I'm not sure why they'd buy this.

People can know that Necromunda is part of the 40k and be interested, even if they've never played the TT. And they'd buy this as there hasn't been a lot of mainstream nuXCOM style games recently

No one is better than my beloved Delaque though.

The humble servand of our God-Emperor, Klovis of House Cawdor would like a word:

Scourge and purge!

(taken from this thread, which has all the Redeemer comics and some other 40k)

Keep in mind Cardinal Crimson is *not* Klovis the Redeemer. But he too is a wholesome servant of the Emperor.

 

[Infinitron]

And here's some extended gameplay footage, finally:

 

[kangaxx]

And here's some extended gameplay footage, finally:

@ around 7 minutes... hit after hit after hit with a heavy stubber from point blank, and the guy stands there having a seizure... but just loses half his health or something.

Definitely a "wait a year until the whole game has been released and then buy on sale" for me.

 

[LESS T_T]

Conspiracy theorist in me imagines that this has become a scapegoat among the turf war between Nacon and Focus Home. Rogue Factor, as a subsidiary of Nacon, seems to have another project in the works (seemingly led by the Art Director of DX:HR), so who knows how many people actually worked on this game, the competing publisher's game, all this time.

 

[Zombra]

@ around 7 minutes... hit after hit after hit with a heavy stubber from point blank, and the guy stands there having a seizure... but just loses half his health or something.
Definitely a "wait a year until the whole game has been released and then buy on sale" for me.

What asshole decided that whittling down hit point bars automatically makes for more compelling gameplay?

 

[Jaedar]

@ around 7 minutes... hit after hit after hit with a heavy stubber from point blank, and the guy stands there having a seizure... but just loses half his health or something.

Yeah, it doesn't look very good. Infinite number of perks/traits, etc but they all do minor things like +10% this and that. Flamers that can't even hit two targets standing on the same small platform, point blank gatling guns that barely do half a health bar of damage...

I remember in the tabletop version, I spent like 30% of my starting cash on a plasma cannon and then the first few turns of every fight positioning him, then fire once to score 2-3 casualties.

The verticality with the elevators, ziplines, jumping could be cool but it won't carry a game with bad gameplay.

 

[Harthwain]

What asshole decided that whittling down hit point bars automatically makes for more compelling gameplay?

A side effect of reducing the number of gang members, most likely.

 

[FritzedProcess]

A side effect of reducing the number of gang members, most likely.

No, it was done the same way in Mordheim and bands there were twice as large. I think the devs found the original d6-based mechanics not granular enough.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Jinn]

Flamers that can't even hit two targets standing on the same small platform

When they used the flamer there (6:10), they not only hit both enemies for damage, but the one to the left had some kind of resistance to flame and the damage was reduced for them.

point blank gatling guns that barely do half a health bar of damage

Guess this probably depends most on the type of enemy being targeted by the gatling gun. Enemies in Mordheim often times needed to be hit a good 3-4-5 time to be taken down too, depending on the who was attacking whom.

I remember in the tabletop version, I spent like 30% of my starting cash on a plasma cannon and then the first few turns of every fight positioning him, then fire once to score 2-3 casualties.

And while they are trying to adapt the tabletop somewhat faithfully, it's of course going to have to be an adaptation to videogame form when all is said and done.

My main point in responding to these things is that anyone who enjoyed Mordheim as much as I did (a lot), has a lot to look forward to here. My biggest gripe would have to be the limited size on the gang members. Besides that, this looks like a Mordheim in a new setting with expanded features. Now my biggest hope is that we get some better map variety than we had in Mordheim for non main-campaign missions. I'm also looking forward to the opportunity to have 2v2 skirmishes online.

So again, might not be what the hardcore tabletop fans were looking for, but for fans of the studio's last game, it looks like the quality is going to hold up nicely despite the (expected) jank that we're seeing here and there.

 

[Zombra]

If they wanted to make Mordheim 2, they should have made Mordheim 2. This is less an "adaptation" of Necromunda and more a total conversion of Mordheim with Necromunda skins.

 

[Strange Fellow]

My stance on this issue is that getting a good product is more important than getting a faithful adaptation of the source material. Sadly, diverging from the source and dumbing down often go hand in hand, but that doesn't have to be the case. What I'm seeing here, as a person who doesn't know anything about either tabletop game, is another cool-looking squad tictacs video game from a dev that already proved they can make a cool squad tictacs video game. In that sense, by far the biggest issue is the squad size, like Jinn says. That is far more unequivocal decline than HP replacing wounds IMO (from the sound of it, anyway), on top of being a massive change coming not just from the tabletop but from their previous video game as well.
Not saying the purist position is unreasonable, it just doesn't resonate with me personally.

 

[kangaxx]

Yep, and I come from the other angle. I see why people will enjoy it, but I can't help but see it as a wasted opportunity. I wish they'd just said upfront "this will not be like the TT game", because I'd have just switched off and it would have saved me a bit of disappointment.

Oh well, never mind!

 

[Infinitron]

If they wanted to make Mordheim 2, they should have made Mordheim 2. This is less an "adaptation" of Necromunda and more a total conversion of Mordheim with Necromunda skins.

(Pssst, as I understand Necromunda tabletop is very similar to Mordheim and if anything what people are upset about here is that this isn't more similar to the Mordheim video game)

 

[Darth Roxor]

Yeah, I'd be perfectly content about getting Mordheim with Guns too. However, right now I am very strongly concerned about the 5-man team limits. Small squad sizes have been the bane of tactical games for years on end now (I blame that piece of shit neuxcom and its entire breed I hope Firaxis burns to the ground holy fuck), and I am very sceptical as to how this will work here in practice.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Lots of let's plays popping up.

 

[Strange Fellow]

This looks pretty bad, to be completely honest. No fog of war, no initiative rolls (or was that just in the tutorial?), halved squad size compared to Mordheim and yet somehow it looks like they've made it even slower. Hit chances look way too high as well, but that's hard to say for sure just looking at some videos. The maps are gorgeous, I'll give it that.

 

[Jinn]

No fog of war

While I enjoyed this to a degree in Mordheim, I kind of understand why they decided to remove it in this, particularly considering the amount of verticallity at work.

no initiative rolls

(timestamped at 10:40)

halved squad size compared to Mordheim and yet somehow it looks like they've made it even slower

Yeah, the halved squad size is the absolute worst aspect of this, though I don't know if it's even slower. I think the guy is just playing slow as fuck.

Right now, the biggest problems for me are - again - the five man squad size and the fact that your campaign squad is apparently separate from your multiplayer squad this time. So there is a campaign you play through, then you can play in a free-mode called "Operations" I believe, which you can play singleplayer and also multiplayer with a persistent squad. The sacrifices in design we are seeing here were clearly made in favor of fitting everything into a multiplayer experience. Absolutely decline, but the game could be saved for me if the multiplayer is fun and satisfying as a result.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Fog of war always makes things better. It's not as if combat looks particularly lethal.

(timestamped at 10:34)

Then later he goes on to note that the rolls stay the same across rounds, so either the rolls happen at the start of each battle and stay fixed throughout, or initiative is completely deterministic. I don't think that guy knows how it works.

Right now, the biggest problems for me are - again - the five man squad size and the fact that your campaign squad is apparently separate from your multiplayer squad this time. So there is a campaign you play through, then you can play in a free-mode called "Operations" I believe, which you can play singleplayer and also multiplayer with a persistent squad.

I didn't think the story missions and the random skirmishes meshed all that well in Mordheim, but yes, making them separate is another step in the wrong direction. It probably means that they haven't made any effort to improve the procedural elements in order to make random missions less monotonous, either, I'm guessing.

 

[Jinn]

Fog of war always makes things better. It's not as if combat looks particularly lethal.

Just because I understand why they might have done it doesn't mean I agree with the decision. I'm sure another contributing factor was "well, if you're looking down at a tabletop set-up, you can see where all the units are." We both know this is inconsistent reasoning with their design, but alas, we have an inconsistent game both here and in Mordheim.

rolls happen at the start of each battle and stay fixed

Pretty sure this is the case from what I saw.

 

[Thac0]

HYYYYYPEEEEEEE

Spoiler

Slightly concerned because a lot looks very bad and they seem to be catering to a very wrong audience. Especially with the ultra misleading trailers and all that framing the game as if it was a god damn covershooter.

 

[zapotec]

Yea 3 years for a mordheim reskin looks like a cash grab for console audiances to me