Warhammer Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader - turn-based Warhammer 40k RPG from Owlcat Games - now with Void Shadows DLC

[Rhobar121]

I just finished the game.
Can someone explain to me why there was act 5 in this game?
It is completely detached from the rest of the game.

Spoiler

For some reason we suddenly decide to get the lord inquisitor.
He managed to get some powerful weapon and suddenly we have to stop him because I have no idea what.
It would probably make sense on the heretic's path, but in other cases, why should we suddenly oppose the Inquisition? The guy hasn't given us a single reason to believe he's a traitor.
If they are unable to give the player any meaningful motivation, they should simply end the game with a siege.

 

[bayoubilly]

The devs did a great job of keeping their story consistent with the setting. This is the most important part. And the "you just inherrited [plot device] from a relative so distant you did not know they existed but close enough to be their next of kin" is a recurring theme in the industry. But from there, it always seem to either be 1. "you are a common man surrounded by actual heroes", but you go on to inexplicably be chosen to lead by those heroes and/or somehow survive a prologue that even heroes struggled to survive.

Or 2. you are not an ordinary person and are able to survive in your new found position. And the game does a good job of addressing that. Just holding down your job in any of the orgin options would mean you are an exceptional person in the Imperium, but you also absolutely excelled in your role (e.g. being known for loyalty and bravery amongst your peers - when your peers are commisars, etc.). And those successes are why you were hunted down and requistioned as a possible heir. So that all makes sense narratively. But that brings us back to the issue of your companions having all of these cool abilities that make them uniquely superior to their base class while you are stuck with just the standard universal features.

Even if they didn't give us auto-levels and we still had to grind through build plans, they could have at least given you all of the origin abilities or something to set you apart. I am glad they gave the companions something that makes them more than just a generic alt. And even more glad they found a 40k consistent way to explain why we are here. I just wish they gave the pc some extra mechanical dakka unique to them as well.

 

[True Ukrainian]

Narratively, the main character only became lord captain because of luck. The actual successor mutated into a hideous chaos spawn during the prologue. The companions join you because you're the Lord captain, not they like the main character as a person.

BTW, I really, really hate this generic ass opening.

It's the alternative to the main character being a chosen one. You could cast the main character as an retinue member of Theodora with an established reputation, but that would limit character creation.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

You could cast the main character as an retinue member of Theodora with an established reputation, but that would limit character creation.

I don't see such an option affecting character creation. Your dude could have gone through the same arc as is and then got into the retinue. You'd need probably one extra screen detailing how you got into the retinue and that's it.

 

[REhorror]

My progress is kinda slow once I hit Act 3, just want to savor the Dark Eldar hell and I'm back to work.

Thank you for reading my short blog.

 

[Reinhardt]

i like argenta laugh. especially when she deletes abelard with stray bolt...

 

[ERYFKRAD]

i like argenta laugh. especially when she deletes abelard with stray bolt...

There are countermeasures for that...

 

[REhorror]

i like argenta laugh. especially when she deletes abelard with stray bolt...

Apparently some Steam users hate it because she's too pure and righteous LOL.

As expected.

 

[Reinhardt]

i like argenta laugh. especially when she deletes abelard with stray bolt...

There are countermeasures for that...

she never shoots me, so it's fine.

 

[Reinhardt]

basically me and cassia - right flank, everyone else - left.

 

[REhorror]

There's a very good Active skill for Argenta/Soldier, Controlled Shot, it basically skips any kind of friendly fire.
It's very OP.

This is actually why a Soldier/Arch-militant build is the best for 'eavy gunner, nothing comes close.

 

[ArchAngel]

There's a very good Active skill for Argenta/Soldier, Controlled Shot, it basically skips any kind of friendly fire.
It's very OP.

This is actually why a Soldier/Arch-militant build is the best for 'eavy gunner, nothing comes close.

I never needed it. Both Abelard (when he was main tank) and now Heinrix are Vanguard and took the talent where they automatically dodge friendly fire.
Argenta also has talent that lets her use all weapons in melee range which is best place to shoot burst fire shots from.
Controlled shot is a waste of AP.

Btw Concentrated shot with area weapons like Heavy Flamer or Multi-Melta are lots of fun. Argenta has fun with Flamer and Ulfar with Melta.
Melta is especially cool as it has 60% armor pierce while Concentrated Fire takes care of enemy dodge.

They really fuck you over in Act 3 by giving you Ulfar with Controlled shot and he has no way to battle high dodge elves..

 

[Reinhardt]

really hope wfrp will be next.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

really hope wfrp will be next.

I wonder if this game uses exploding dice. Would explain a few things.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Well, Calligos had some personal issues, but thanks to my influence he is now a good boi.

Anyway, I am in the Act V now and I got to say that the Necron ships seem somewhat underpowered. I have seen their frigates and a light cruiser so far and my heavily pimped out ship is roflstomping them without too much trouble. They get the "resurection" ability, though I usually just retreat from the resurected ships until they self destruct. Hopefuly they will have something bigger along the way.

The infantry Necrons are somewhat more annoying, especially the Destroyers, though even they get gangbanged after a few turns.

 

[ArchAngel]

Just did that Hellbrute fight. Took me 3 tries until he finally didn't one shot Heinrix on turn1 before heinrix got a chance to act and start round 1 buffing chain with him and cassia. After that, Hellbrute died on turn 3, ridicilous Assassin with bugged Aim for the Opening did 633 damage and finished him off.

 

[ArchAngel]

Just did that Hellbrute fight. Took me 3 tries until he finally didn't one shot Heinrix on turn1 before heinrix got a chance to act and start round 1 buffing chain with him and cassia. After that, Hellbrute died on turn 3, ridicilous Assassin with bugged Aim for the Opening did 633 damage and finished him off.

Owlcat_Eyler why does act 4 Hellbrute fight leave no special loot? Neither CSM or Hellbrute had anything and all other stuff is just standard cargo items?!
This would have been perfect place to have some really cool items for Ulfar..

 

[Dayyālu]

Holy shit people didn't joke when they said that Act 4 is the game killing itself.

Quests are bugging out left and right, Yrliet has her companion quest despite being dead and Jae has her despite never being recruited. Skill checks bug out left and right, containers bug out, wrong skills are checked, the entirety of the Colony Management kills itself if you dare fill in an entire planet, enemies survive one turn and then spontaneously drop dead the next one, colony events simply disappear or bug out, empty windows ask for confirmation, equipment given can't be given to anyone, skills and talents on the Exemplar class are completely bugged, random events add stuff to your ship that murder the visual coherency....

I understand that frontloading is a necessity nowadays and that Owlcat has the tradition of throwing out barely-tested crap, but this is going from quaint to embarrassing. We have porn games developers here that have more respect for the final user than Owlcat. I did swear I would have bought this on day 1 and play it because 40k RPG, but here we are not even talking about how the plot stops making any kind of sense and just happens (the writing is completely schizo bar some minor stuff that I believe was probably planned by a single man and it explains why it's coherent) or the combat being designed by aliens xenos that evidently have never played a tactical game, we're talking about making your game not look like a sorry mess.

And from what I'm seeing the popular opinion on normie sites is turning against this quickly as people that don't rush manage to get to the later chapters. How did this survive the open testing? Why did they feel the need to drop this randomly?

Owlcat_Eyler why does act 4 Hellbrute fight leave no special loot? Neither CSM or Hellbrute had anything and all other stuff is just standard cargo items?!

Because they had the model for a fight but they never found a way to write a quest or anything for it, so they drop a random map with recycled assets, bump the stats and hope for the best. This is RPGmaker-tier game design. Dargonus has a Genestealer cult, cool, you have already in the game Genestealer models and the cultists only need a reskin, instead you solve it with broken skill checks and get a shitty reward that's also broken. Why Owlcat didn't design, I dunnow, a good combat encounter where you lead your enforcers against a good wave of Genestealers?

Why? How?

The more I play the more I feel bad, it is noticeable how they didn't give a shit and it feels bad. There are smaller Warhammer games (Mechanicus for example) that despite having problems at least show coherency and love: this feels half-assed, "steal your money and run". Of course, people can tell me that Kingmaker and Wrath were the same, but seeing it first hand is a weird experience.

 

[user]

The more I play the more I feel bad, it is noticeable how they didn't give a shit and it feels bad. There are smaller Warhammer games (Mechanicus for example) that despite having problems at least show coherency and love: this feels half-assed, "steal your money and run". Of course, people can tell me that Kingmaker and Wrath were the same, but seeing it first hand is a weird experience.

WotR was ok at release, but even P:K was better than this. You can tell that a lot of love has been poured into the game, but any user can also tell which parts have been stitched together in a hurry so that the game releases on a designated date - and they are a lot. You can tell how shoddy their code framework is by simple things, like permanent buffs randomly disappearing - like they added those classes in the last minute and never accounted for functions that reset them. You can tell that some choices were also stitched together with the rest of the dialogue at a later date because they don't quite fit.

Whoever took the decision to release it now is an idiot. It's a typical thing for bad managers to lose sight of the big picture, long-term impact and reputation loss, and account for short-term problems, like how the company's schedule must stay rigid so that it keeps being profitable, how the WotR dlcs must not be delayed, or how projected profits on holidays will benefit the company and so on.

 

[Fedora Master]

Who THE FUCK designed Ulfar? I mean seriously. He has Second Skin, which works with Medium Armor, which he will never ever even wear.

 

[ArchAngel]

Who THE FUCK designed Ulfar? I mean seriously. He has Second Skin, which works with Medium Armor, which he will never ever even wear.

Maybe it is a prequisite for Black Carapace
Ulfar has much bigger problems, pun intended.
Starting gear, available gear, no gear for 3 slots and cape slot is also like two items so far..
Cannot use ladders (he should be able to just jump up because SM can), his Charge not working, low cover completely stops his movement (he needs ability that automatically destroys any low cover he passes through - maybe that useless Charge should do that instead of him charging in another direction for 50+ squares until he runs into another group of enemies and starts another combat).

 

[Dayyālu]

Who THE FUCK designed Ulfar? I mean seriously. He has Second Skin, which works with Medium Armor, which he will never ever even wear.

A retard.

Build him as a Soldier/Archmilitant: he's an inferior Argenta with half of his stats wrong, half of his talents wrong, crappy equipment. He can work but he does exactly the same thing as Argenta, only shittier. Also, Dogmatic, so redundant.

Get Toybox, rebuild him as a Warrior/Archmilitant or Warrior/Vanguard. Now he does exactly the same thing as Abelard, he's only inferior to him. Not even rebuilding him from the ground up can salvage him from the in-built maluses that he has. Between the space, the shitty equipment lock-outs, the horrid starting stats and ..... he doesn't even have the blessing of a "origin" that could give him something, he has the generic Death World or something that gives him bonuses on primitive axes an' shit, things he can't even use.

Ulfar has been probably sent to the Expanse to die being the runt of the litter, an embarassment to Russ and the Emperor.

 

[REhorror]

Honestly my first interaction with Ulfar points him to be a maximum retard.
Why is he NOT attempting to escape, why be a caged wolf?

He makes some saga/song and stuff but this introduction doesn't give me the best impression of him.

A true Space Wolf would do anything to break free, this is more like Space Dog.

 

[ArchAngel]

Honestly my first interaction with Ulfar points him to be a maximum retard.
Why is he NOT attempting to escape, why be a caged wolf?

He makes some saga/song and stuff but this introduction doesn't give me the best impression of him.

A true Space Wolf would do anything to break free, this is more like Space Dog.

He explains it, maybe you failed a skill check in conversation. He says he has ability to eat flesh of his enemies and learn information from it. So he was killing xenos and gathering info to come up with a real plan to get away. He tells you this after he is already in your party, his first interaction while he is in a cage is strange, maybe he just does not trust you at that time.

 

[REhorror]

Honestly my first interaction with Ulfar points him to be a maximum retard.
Why is he NOT attempting to escape, why be a caged wolf?

He makes some saga/song and stuff but this introduction doesn't give me the best impression of him.

A true Space Wolf would do anything to break free, this is more like Space Dog.

He explains it, maybe you failed a skill check in conversation. He says he has ability to eat flesh of his enemies and learn information from it. So he was killing xenos and gathering info to come up with a real plan to get away. He tells you this after he is already in your party, his first interaction while he is in a cage is strange, maybe he just does not trust you at that time.

I haven't recruited him yet, but he can kill and eat even more freely if he's free.
Like Commoragh isn't lacking in monsters, he could LARP as another one and it would be more fitting of a Space Wolf.