Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Owlcat_Eyler]

Owlcat_Eyler i played the beta and there weren't any fists bro...

Were they supposed to be there?

 

[Aarwolf]

Basically... what's your street cred? Why were you sent here, to gaze into the abyss?

Think about poor chap sent to resetera. What are his sins?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Basically... what's your street cred? Why were you sent here, to gaze into the abyss?

Think about poor chap sent to resetera. What are his sins?

Guy probably likes RTwP, the filthy degenerate.

 

[La vie sexuelle]

Basically... what's your street cred? Why were you sent here, to gaze into the abyss?

Think about poor chap sent to resetera. What are his sins?

Guy probably likes RTwP, the filthy degenerate.

Resetera will hate Rogue Trader. Mark my words.

 

[Sarathiour]

All the portraits are terrible, they looks like space pathfinder.

You are unfair. WoTR portaits looks like that:

 

[Zero Credibility]

So, I finally got around to finishing beta. And since the survey is closed (I think?), I'll just randomly post my impressions here. While what we got is actually quite good (or at least promising), I will, of course, mostly focus on bitching about the stuff I found annoying.

Chapters 1 and 2 are quite good, with an occasional bug and placeholder for things to be (hopefully) implemented at some point. I actually liked the fight at the end of chapter 1, though the bad guy just no-clipping his way through my fighter line, then running across half the battlemap to wreck some shit, then running away some more - all in a cutscene while I watch helplessly - felt cheesy as hell. Don't do shit like that in a cutscene - have him try to do it in the game, obeying the same game rules as other characters. Let him try to push away my fighters to clear a path. Let him eat an AoO trying to disengage. Let him actually spend a turn moving and then shooting.

Now chapter 3 is, of course, a buggy mess. Bugs will presumably be fixed, but the chapter is also very linear in comparison to chapter 2. It starts of great, depowering the character badly and forcing you to get by with whatever you can scrounge around... only for the game to then say nah, just kidding, and giving you all your gear and your fully equipped NPCs back. Missed opportunity there, I would have preferred if we played most of the chapter in this state, only recovering our gear and NPCs bit-by-bit.

NPCs are all reasonably interesting, though I did not really get to do anything with the marine character since he comes up so late. I took one look at his char sheet, realized I was supposed to level up his entire second doctrine from start to the end, and just noped right out of there (more on that later). I would also propose to make the elf-chick a marksman rather than adept. We already have two other adepts, but only one marksman, and it fits her just as well if not better, I think.

About the story

There are some narrative issues from what I can tell, especially in Chapter 3 (not very surprising considering its state). Like, the betrayal makes the elf-chick look like an idiot for trusting the spiky drug addict bdsm enthusiasts to... help her find her people, I guess? Is that why she does it? I am still not clear on what she was trying to do, why she thought the bad guys could help her with it, or why in the fuck she thought they would not backstab her as well. Or, at the end of it when it is revealed that your aunty was responsible for blowing up the elven craft world, with glass shards found by her body cited as evidence. Except, it was established that the cult you are fighting this whole time also has access to this material. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume aunty got a sample of it from them, just like you do during the game? Or she got it or bought it from someone else? She was a rogue trader after all. And I don't remember the elf-chick even knowing about the glass shards in the first place, since that all happened before she joined up. Certainly Abelard knows nothing about blowing up a craft world that one time, and nobody else on your crew ever tells you anything about it either, so did she do it with a different ship? Did I miss something else that pointed to her actually doing this? If feels like the game just jumps to this conclusion.

Gameplay itself is a mixed bag. Space combat is ok. As for the strategic level of building up your colonies and trade empire, I am not sure all those stats actually do anything. The trading mechanic is also undercooked - the UI is bad and I easily maxed out all reputations except for the navy half-way through the beta, after which there is no point to 99% of the loot that I can find. As for the heart of the game - character combat - it can be very, very click intensive. Some of the classes are not as bad at this as others, but for adepts, I just kept spamming the same abilities round after round after round. Click this ability, then click this ability, then click this ability, then shoot. Repeat round by round by round. Not sure what can be done about that, maybe taking another look at the active abilities and consolidating and/or making them passive abilities instead where possible?

The biggest issue I have with the game however is the character progression system. To put it bluntly, it's a god damn mess. Characters level up too fast and too often, making it a chore to go through the leveling process over and over and over again. Every time I get from a mission where I leveled up two or three times and see the characters on my ship that I still need to level up, I just die a little inside. It would be far better if there were fewer level, but they were made more impactful. And what makes all this worse it the awful doctrine interface. I have no idea how Owlcat went from the UI of pathfinder games to this mess.

The second problem I have with the leveling system is the whole idea of stopping progression in your first doctrine and continuing in a second one (and then presumably a third one). So, instead of giving me more opportunities to progress in my original doctrine and thus improve the abilities I have already taken, I now have a second doctrine with brand new active abilities (with very little synergy to what I already have) to compete with my existing active abilities for limited APs. Oh, and my choice of the second doctrine is limited as well. Why can my navigator NPC or my shooter leader with zero skills in melee now only level up as a melee tank? Because reasons. What's worse, starting a second doctrine also blocks you out of improving any skills tied to the first one. Want to improve your logic or tech use? Well, hope you did so while you leveled up as an adept, because otherwise you are shit out of luck since no second tier doctrine has those skills. Seriously, at the very least we should have an option of selecting the skills tied to previous doctrines when we level up, if not actual abilities of the original doctrine as well.

There are also smaller annoyances, like scenery blocking view (especially in chapter 3), charge failing randomly, missing cover on objects where it clearly should be, and so on. Anyway, that's all I have for now.

 

[Owlcat_Eyler]

So, I finally got around to finishing beta. And since the survey is closed (I think?), I'll just randomly post my impressions here. While what we got is actually quite good (or at least promising), I will, of course, mostly focus on bitching about the stuff I found annoying.

Chapters 1 and 2 are quite good, with an occasional bug and placeholder for things to be (hopefully) implemented at some point. I actually liked the fight at the end of chapter 1, though the bad guy just no-clipping his way through my fighter line, then running across half the battlemap to wreck some shit, then running away some more - all in a cutscene while I watch helplessly - felt cheesy as hell. Don't do shit like that in a cutscene - have him try to do it in the game, obeying the same game rules as other characters. Let him try to push away my fighters to clear a path. Let him eat an AoO trying to disengage. Let him actually spend a turn moving and then shooting.

Now chapter 3 is, of course, a buggy mess. Bugs will presumably be fixed, but the chapter is also very linear in comparison to chapter 2. It starts of great, depowering the character badly and forcing you to get by with whatever you can scrounge around... only for the game to then say nah, just kidding, and giving you all your gear and your fully equipped NPCs back. Missed opportunity there, I would have preferred if we played most of the chapter in this state, only recovering our gear and NPCs bit-by-bit.

NPCs are all reasonably interesting, though I did not really get to do anything with the marine character since he comes up so late. I took one look at his char sheet, realized I was supposed to level up his entire second doctrine from start to the end, and just noped right out of there (more on that later). I would also propose to make the elf-chick a marksman rather than adept. We already have two other adepts, but only one marksman, and it fits her just as well if not better, I think.

About the story

There are some narrative issues from what I can tell, especially in Chapter 3 (not very surprising considering its state). Like, the betrayal makes the elf-chick look like an idiot for trusting the spiky drug addict bdsm enthusiasts to... help her find her people, I guess? Is that why she does it? I am still not clear on what she was trying to do, why she thought the bad guys could help her with it, or why in the fuck she thought they would not backstab her as well. Or, at the end of it when it is revealed that your aunty was responsible for blowing up the elven craft world, with glass shards found by her body cited as evidence. Except, it was established that the cult you are fighting this whole time also has access to this material. Wouldn't it be more reasonable to assume aunty got a sample of it from them, just like you do during the game? Or she got it or bought it from someone else? She was a rogue trader after all. And I don't remember the elf-chick even knowing about the glass shards in the first place, since that all happened before she joined up. Certainly Abelard knows nothing about blowing up a craft world that one time, and nobody else on your crew ever tells you anything about it either, so did she do it with a different ship? Did I miss something else that pointed to her actually doing this? If feels like the game just jumps to this conclusion.

Gameplay itself is a mixed bag. Space combat is ok. As for the strategic level of building up your colonies and trade empire, I am not sure all those stats actually do anything. The trading mechanic is also undercooked - the UI is bad and I easily maxed out all reputations except for the navy half-way through the beta, after which there is no point to 99% of the loot that I can find. As for the heart of the game - character combat - it can be very, very click intensive. Some of the classes are not as bad at this as others, but for adepts, I just kept spamming the same abilities round after round after round. Click this ability, then click this ability, then click this ability, then shoot. Repeat round by round by round. Not sure what can be done about that, maybe taking another look at the active abilities and consolidating and/or making them passive abilities instead where possible?

The biggest issue I have with the game however is the character progression system. To put it bluntly, it's a god damn mess. Characters level up too fast and too often, making it a chore to go through the leveling process over and over and over again. Every time I get from a mission where I leveled up two or three times and see the characters on my ship that I still need to level up, I just die a little inside. It would be far better if there were fewer level, but they were made more impactful. And what makes all this worse it the awful doctrine interface. I have no idea how Owlcat went from the UI of pathfinder games to this mess.

The second problem I have with the leveling system is the whole idea of stopping progression in your first doctrine and continuing in a second one (and then presumably a third one). So, instead of giving me more opportunities to progress in my original doctrine and thus improve the abilities I have already taken, I now have a second doctrine with brand new active abilities (with very little synergy to what I already have) to compete with my existing active abilities for limited APs. Oh, and my choice of the second doctrine is limited as well. Why can my navigator NPC or my shooter leader with zero skills in melee now only level up as a melee tank? Because reasons. What's worse, starting a second doctrine also blocks you out of improving any skills tied to the first one. Want to improve your logic or tech use? Well, hope you did so while you leveled up as an adept, because otherwise you are shit out of luck since no second tier doctrine has those skills. Seriously, at the very least we should have an option of selecting the skills tied to previous doctrines when we level up, if not actual abilities of the original doctrine as well.

There are also smaller annoyances, like scenery blocking view (especially in chapter 3), charge failing randomly, missing cover on objects where it clearly should be, and so on. Anyway, that's all I have for now.

Thank you for the detailed feedback, I'll pass it on to our team

 

[Jaedar]

Nice taste. Some of my friends praise and love KOTOR too, but I'm not a fan of the Star Wars universe. StarCraft, Warhammer, and Mass Effect are more to my liking.
Safiya's Khaji from MOTB was hilarious

Sir, playing Kotor has nothing to do with Star Wars. I loathe that Disney fairy tale in space, but Kotor 1 and 2 are excellent RPGs.

It saddens me that the codex has fallen so far that a post praising kotor1 receives "prestigious" ratings.

 

[Longes]

And the last portrait, for the time being, is the Female Psyker.

 

[Harthwain]

Looks more like a daemonhost to me. Nevertheless, splendid work.

 

[Peachcurl]

Looks more like a daemonhost to me.

"It's just a matter of time" (TM)

 

[Owlcat_Eyler]

And the last portrait, for the time being, is the Female Psyker.

She's sooooo damn good! Praises to your talent! If you do anything else, please share it with us!

 

[Tyranicon]

Man, it really is over for artists isn't it?

 

[Spectral Pontifex]

Sir, playing Kotor has nothing to do with Star Wars. I loathe that Disney fairy tale in space, but Kotor 1 and 2 are excellent RPGs.

It saddens me that the codex has fallen so far that a post praising kotor1 receives "prestigious" ratings.

I don't really remember anything from Kotor 1 anymore. I just know that I enjoyed playing both of them.

 

[Longes]

Man, it really is over for artists isn't it?

I'm currently taking regular art classes so I can improve. IMO, it's just another tool in the arsenal and you'll never git gud with AI art if you aren't at least passable with traditional art.

 

[The_Mask]

It has been brought to my attention that not everyone has a Twitter account, and, because of Musk's newer policies not everyone can see the text in tweets. Hence the... extended frame for my posts.



"The Imperium extends over a million worlds, spreading across the vast majority of the explored galaxy. The Cult Imperialis unites countless people scattered among stars in the ideas of loyal service to the God-Emperor and fanatical Imperial tenets."

 

[Owlcat_Eyler]

It has been brought to my attention that not everyone has a Twitter account, and, because of Musk's newer policies not everyone can see the text in tweets. Hence the... extended frame for my posts.



"The Imperium extends over a million worlds, spreading across the vast majority of the explored galaxy. The Cult Imperialis unites countless people scattered among stars in the ideas of loyal service to the God-Emperor and fanatical Imperial tenets."

Seems like the poor fellow near the edge was killed by accident

 

[zapotec]

Man, it really is over for artists isn't it?

In this case all the portraits don't fit in the warhammer 40k aesthetic

 

[Storyfag]

Seems like the poor fellow near the edge was killed by accident

It is hilarious how the two guys standing right next to the corpse completely ignore it.

 

[Owlcat_Eyler]

Seems like the poor fellow near the edge was killed by accident

It is hilarious how the two guys standing right next to the corpse completely ignore it.

"You've got something on your boot"
"Yeah, it's just someone's brain, whatever"

 

[ArchAngel]

Can I become a space nigger?

Orkz are not a playable race in the game.

 

[ArchAngel]

ERYFKRAD , perhaps this is my failing as an artist or as a human being. I don't know much about Conan, and based on my research the key visual characteristics of Conan that I could identify were:

• Black hair
• Bad haircut
• Blue eyes
• Sits on a throne a lot
• Muscular

So this is the best I could do while preserving the semi-futuristic look of Warhammer.

Wow, epic!

Maybe you should hire this guy to make a lot more portraits for the base game so people are not required to mod more portraits as 1st thing that makes your games playable

 

[Reinhardt]

first we need to see some iconic wh thingy portrait, like kommissar or something like that, instead of some generic fantasy/scifi mix. for now i didn't see anything i would pick at character creation in warhammer game.

 

[Owlcat_Eyler]

ERYFKRAD , perhaps this is my failing as an artist or as a human being. I don't know much about Conan, and based on my research the key visual characteristics of Conan that I could identify were:

• Black hair
• Bad haircut
• Blue eyes
• Sits on a throne a lot
• Muscular

So this is the best I could do while preserving the semi-futuristic look of Warhammer.

Wow, epic!

Maybe you should hire this guy to make a lot more portraits for the base game so people are not required to mod more portraits as 1st thing that makes your games playable

This question is not in my field of responsibility, I don't hire people. We have an hr department, contacts can be found on the website

 

[Longes]

ERYFKRAD , perhaps this is my failing as an artist or as a human being. I don't know much about Conan, and based on my research the key visual characteristics of Conan that I could identify were:

• Black hair
• Bad haircut
• Blue eyes
• Sits on a throne a lot
• Muscular

So this is the best I could do while preserving the semi-futuristic look of Warhammer.

Wow, epic!

Maybe you should hire this guy to make a lot more portraits for the base game so people are not required to mod more portraits as 1st thing that makes your games playable

I have a real job as an industrial software developer, there's zero chance Owlcat can pay me enough to switch.

And Owlcat's artists are already great and a big inspiration