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

Dishonoredbr

Erudite
Joined
Jun 13, 2019
Messages
2,442
Bringing Marazhai to every quest during Act 4 has being a good source of laughs.

Drukhari's obession with pain and suffering is so over the top that's circle around to be funny.
 

jf8350143

Liturgist
Joined
Apr 14, 2018
Messages
1,358
I always wondered why they don't have more portraits in the game. Is is really that expensive to have portraits for every NPC?
 

BrotherFrank

Nouveau Riche
Patron
Joined
Apr 19, 2012
Messages
1,806
What I find the strangest about WK40k is that the whole story happens in One galaxy (out of millions or more) and this one galaxy is powering these entities in Warp that does not work like realspace.
Where are "gods" powered by living beings from other galaxies?
This ain’t strange but something alluded to every once in a while.

The working fan theory is everything outside the 40k galaxy is dead space where the tyranids or creatures worst then them have already eaten everything else.
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
21,337
What I find the strangest about WK40k is that the whole story happens in One galaxy (out of millions or more) and this one galaxy is powering these entities in Warp that does not work like realspace.
Where are "gods" powered by living beings from other galaxies?
This ain’t strange but something alluded to every once in a while.

The working fan theory is everything outside the 40k galaxy is dead space where the tyranids or creatures worst then them have already eaten everything else.
Even if that was true the "Gods" would know that because even if living creatures might be "eaten" Warp still exists there. And they would be trying to prepare to survive that instead of just doing random Chaos shit.
 

BrotherFrank

Nouveau Riche
Patron
Joined
Apr 19, 2012
Messages
1,806
What I find the strangest about WK40k is that the whole story happens in One galaxy (out of millions or more) and this one galaxy is powering these entities in Warp that does not work like realspace.
Where are "gods" powered by living beings from other galaxies?
This ain’t strange but something alluded to every once in a while.

The working fan theory is everything outside the 40k galaxy is dead space where the tyranids or creatures worst then them have already eaten everything else.
Even if that was true the "Gods" would know that because even if living creatures might be "eaten" Warp still exists there. And they would be trying to prepare to survive that instead of just doing random Chaos shit.
Oh the chaos gods would know for sure indeed, if someone could just ask them.

And chaos as written seems to have 0 survival instincts no matter which way you cut it, regardless of dead space theory or not. The classic example being had horus won and humanity collapsed, chaos would have been defeated or severely weakened to the point of triviality.

Or how Chaos takes 0 steps in dealing with necrons or tyranids but keep bullying the imperium even though its in the process of desintegrating, again not very smart if they are planning for the long term.

Personally i view the chaos gods as being overrated in terms of intelligence and ability to truly act independently, they are more akin to elemental powers powerlessly following their nature, victims of the circumstances that molded the warp into the fucktarded place it is now. So chaos is incapable of planning to survive and can only do random chaos shit because its their nature.

And since chaos gods have had millenia of being in negative feedback loops via the warp, the only way to get them to act smart would be the same way to turn them “good” or split the gods up into the billions of emotions and themes that make them up: resetting the warp to factory settings before the necrons and old ones fucked it all up.
 
Last edited:

Aarwolf

Learned
Joined
Dec 15, 2020
Messages
572
https://wccftech.com/warhammer-40k-rogue-trader-void-shadows-q-launch-had-way-too-many-bugs/

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader Void Shadows Q&A – DLC Will Be Integrated in Main Story; Launch Had Way Too Many Bugs​


To cap off a memorable 2023 for RPG fans, Owlcat Games (Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous) released Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, the first-ever cRPG based on the beloved setting invented by Games Workshop, last December.

The game earned an 8 out of 10 score in Wccftech's review. Author Francesco Deo Meo wrote:

Despite not being a hardcore fan of the setting, Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader managed to capture my attention right from the get-go, resulting in an enjoyable experience for the over 50 hours I spent with it. While the game by Owlcat doesn't have the wide appeal of Baldur's Gate 3, it is a solid cRPG that is just a step away from being yet another must-buy title of 2023, mostly due to the lack of polish and some unenjoyable mechanics such as space combat.

Six months later, we've interviewed Owlcat Executive Producer Anatoly Shestov to discuss the game's ongoing support (to clean up some of that lack of polish mentioned in our review summary) and the recently announced Void Shadows DLC, which is set to add 15 hours of new story content, a new romanceable companion, and several new features when it launches on August 8. Scroll below for the full transcript of our conversation.

Can you talk about the fans' reception and the commercial sales of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader so far?

Well, we delivered the game to the players in December, and the overall reception was quite positive. We were shocked by the positive sentiment that the player base shared with us. Of course, some people were unhappy with our choices with the companions, story decisions, and other stuff. But overall, we were praised for the best depiction of the Warhammer setting ever, not just in CRPG. And the praises were there, and they were deserved.

We definitely did not do everything that we wanted to do. That's why we continued to support the game, not just with bug fixing but with the overall improvement of performance, quality of life, and the different nuances of the game. By this time, we have already delivered around 10 patches, each targeting different sections of the game.

We're almost there to have the game we want to play ourselves, want to play more, want to replay with different play styles. For example, with the last patch, we delivered the certification of Steam Deck support. It was not just for the player base, for the audience. We just felt that the controls' experience could be better in our game, that it's not so comfortable to dig through text, it's not so comfortable to pick options, so we decided to pursue this not because of the value but because of our internal desire to make this aspect of the game better and based on the players' reception, based on our feedback and internal experience, we feel like we're there on this particular part.

A bit later, we will deliver a huge 1.2 patch to the player base with lots of additional balance tweaks and changes because players found ways to break our game through a bunch of bugs. They found such powerful combinations that they could defeat bosses in one turn, so we wanted to fix this. On the other hand, we wanted to improve those not-so-popular and less-than-effective builds.

Overall, we spent a lot of time on this particular thing and lots of small aspects of the game. For example, the user interface wasn't so nice and stylish and bright, so we tweaked lots of things. Overall, the interaction with every UI element of the game should feel smoother and easier. Our main UI art developer was given the freedom to play himself and fix the things that he felt were not as perfect as he wanted them to be.

Many things we are approaching at this particular moment revolve around our internal experience of playing Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader and adjusting it to feel better. That's basically how we perceive what we're doing right now. Aside from the DLCs that are in the process of being made, we just make sure that every part of the game will see some additional portion of love, attention, and care from the developers.

You mentioned Improving the interface. Does that include improving the controller UI specifically?

Yeah, the overall scheme of interaction with the game was tuned. Most of the annoying bugs were fixed, and playing the game via controller now should feel better. I'm not saying it's ideal, but we made a real effort to improve it.

When do you think this patch will go live?

I won't promise you any precise date, but yeah, the patch is scheduled for this Summer. We will definitely make an appropriate communication to the community closer to the release of this patch.

The recent announcement was about the first Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader DLC, Void Shadows. Can you talk about that and what you're going to add to the game with this DLC?

Sure. Our overall desire to work within the Warhammer universe is the same. It's a desire to tell stories about things that happen there aside from the battlefield itself. Void Shadows, our DLC, is focused on the Genestealer Cult and the Death Cult Assassins. This is our way of discussing things that have happened before and after battles. Whenever you see the actual squadrons and the heavy army taking their place, there is some legwork prior to that. Some preparations are made for it, and these preparations affect the lives of the people, how different parts of the setting react to it, how they protect from it, or how they try to facilitate it.

It's an interesting, fruitful field for telling meaningful stories. That's why we decided to approach it as the first DLC. Of course, it allows us to tell more about the Voidship, more about the life and the people in it, and how it ties the main character with the others. One of the particular challenges was not to make things one-dimensional. Like, this is 100 percent enemies, this is 100 percent friends. Just, like, take your friends and kill your enemies. It's not how we tell stories here at Owlcat. We aim to at least point to the different sides and different perceptions of the events. What we came up with is this kinda emotional and deep narrative.

Mechanics-wise, there will be a new first-tier career and a second-tier career. One will revolve around lots of blade attacks. The second will revolve around different kinds of damage-over-time effects and manipulation with them. We are also introducing a new companion, Kibellah, a Death Cult Assassin built upon these two careers. With Void Shadows, we are also adding new layers of ship customization and several interesting custom-made space battles. And, of course, lots of regular exploration battles.

I also read that there will be some new crew members and officers.

Yeah. To tell the story of the Voidship is to tell the story of the people who live there. We can't just add some random people on the lower decks. We are introducing new officers. There will be different departments of the ship that are not in a good relationship with each other, and the struggle between them will be an important part of the story. I don't want to spoil the fun beforehand, though.


'Our vision for Rogue Trader DLCs is an organic evolution of the initial story'
I wanted to ask if the Void Shadows story takes place after the main Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader campaign, or is it supposed to occur sometime in the middle of it?

It's a part of the main story. It's integrated into the main story, so it's not like a completely separate instance that you're playing as a separate entity. No, it's an addition to the regular story, to the main part of Rogue Trader. The story will happen mostly in the second and fourth chapters of the game.

Any player who has already played the campaign will be able to just continue his own play and receive all the DLC content, while a new player will experience a more polished, more, more organic, I guess, more organic story of the Koronus Expanse itself. That's our vision of the DLCs for Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader. They won't be separate entities but an organic evolution of the initial story, with it branching out for the different aspects of the world and the setting.

You mentioned some improvements to the space battles. Can you speak to that as well?

There are lots of bug fixes, new types of equipment, new enemies, new types of space battles, and more. We are not introducing the option to skip the space battles. If you are inside one, you need to play it, but they are not mandatory at all. We also feel that we crafted quite interesting space battle encounters for this particular DLC.

They've got a unique feeling inside them, and there are even some immersive story elements inside them, so I strongly recommend anyone who didn't like the space battles to give it one more try, and the ones who do, just play through them. It will be worth it.

Actually, earlier this morning, I was browsing the Rogue Trader subreddit. Someone had just written that they liked your game's ship battles more than those of an actual strategy game like Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.

That's a super game. There are lots of fans of that game on our team. We didn't try to copy/paste it. We were trying to grasp the cornerstone feelings of it and to make them viable in a CRPG. What we ultimately came up with is some kind of spice. Not everyone likes it, but the ones who do like it really like it.

We try to aim at such things. We don't aim to create things that everyone will like. We don't do every part of the game for everyone. We just try to find such a proportion of things that any person, any player, will find something for themselves. Whenever some users say, 'We like your narrative, but we don't like your battles,' or vice-versa, that's fine for us. We never thought 100% of our game would appeal to 100% of the audience, not just because it's impossible but also because we don't like compromises.


'We don't aim to create things that everyone will like. We don't like compromises.'
You'll release a free update alongside the Void Shadows DLC, correct?

Sure.

Can you share its main features?

It's balancing, quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and an overhaul of the abilities and items. There's also some additional polish. Some areas will receive fully updated lighting, and others will get huge changes to AI interactions.

Would you consider releasing more voiced dialogues in the future, or is it just too expensive?

That would be very expensive, not just because of the voiceover itself but also because we have over one million words in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader. To fully integrate new voiceovers would be tough. We already added some new voiceover throughout free patches, though, and we are considering the possibility of adding more. Of course, the DLCs will have their own new voiced dialogues.

Owlcat isn't just busy with Rogue Trader, as you've also just released A Dance of Masks, the final DLC for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. That RPG received five DLCs in total. Is that the same amount you're planning for Rogue Trader?

There's no such thing as a desired set number of DLCs. We'd like to add more stories, though. As long as we see the audience's support, we'll deliver new Rogue Trader content. If, at any time, this support should diminish, we would reconsider our options as a business. For now, I don't see any signs of Owlcat stopping support for the game.

One last question. I noticed that you released Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous on Nintendo Switch via cloud. Is there a chance you'd do the same with Rogue Trader?

It's too early to talk about the game coming to other platforms than those where it is already available. However, we are open to any option to make the game available to other audiences. If we find a solid business plan, we'll definitely pursue it. For now, we're just unsure if there is one.

Is there anything else you'd like to say to the Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader community?

We delivered the game with way more bugs than we should have, and we worked our asses off as humanly possible to fix that. So, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone in the community who supported us from the get-go. It means the world to us.

For everyone who has wondered, 'Is it time to play the game yet?' I think it's definitely time now. If you still feel something is missing, go to our Discord, Twitter/X, Reddit, or whatever, and let us know. We will keep trying to improve it.

Thank you for your time.

New companion will be named Kibella.

I can't stop laughing, because in Polish it means basically latrine.

For the love of the Emperor, Owlcat_Eyler please tell me you'll reconsider this name. Or change it to Latrinella, so non Poles could have a laugh too.
 

Ghost Of Iron

Literate
Joined
Jun 23, 2024
Messages
21
If this new career is based on damage over time effects, I hope the promised combat and class rebalancing makes it so that things don't die in the first two rounds so it's actually useful and viable.
 

Owlcat_Eyler

Owlcat Games
Developer
Joined
Mar 10, 2023
Messages
241
https://wccftech.com/warhammer-40k-rogue-trader-void-shadows-q-launch-had-way-too-many-bugs/

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader Void Shadows Q&A – DLC Will Be Integrated in Main Story; Launch Had Way Too Many Bugs​


To cap off a memorable 2023 for RPG fans, Owlcat Games (Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous) released Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, the first-ever cRPG based on the beloved setting invented by Games Workshop, last December.

The game earned an 8 out of 10 score in Wccftech's review. Author Francesco Deo Meo wrote:

Despite not being a hardcore fan of the setting, Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader managed to capture my attention right from the get-go, resulting in an enjoyable experience for the over 50 hours I spent with it. While the game by Owlcat doesn't have the wide appeal of Baldur's Gate 3, it is a solid cRPG that is just a step away from being yet another must-buy title of 2023, mostly due to the lack of polish and some unenjoyable mechanics such as space combat.

Six months later, we've interviewed Owlcat Executive Producer Anatoly Shestov to discuss the game's ongoing support (to clean up some of that lack of polish mentioned in our review summary) and the recently announced Void Shadows DLC, which is set to add 15 hours of new story content, a new romanceable companion, and several new features when it launches on August 8. Scroll below for the full transcript of our conversation.

Can you talk about the fans' reception and the commercial sales of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader so far?

Well, we delivered the game to the players in December, and the overall reception was quite positive. We were shocked by the positive sentiment that the player base shared with us. Of course, some people were unhappy with our choices with the companions, story decisions, and other stuff. But overall, we were praised for the best depiction of the Warhammer setting ever, not just in CRPG. And the praises were there, and they were deserved.

We definitely did not do everything that we wanted to do. That's why we continued to support the game, not just with bug fixing but with the overall improvement of performance, quality of life, and the different nuances of the game. By this time, we have already delivered around 10 patches, each targeting different sections of the game.

We're almost there to have the game we want to play ourselves, want to play more, want to replay with different play styles. For example, with the last patch, we delivered the certification of Steam Deck support. It was not just for the player base, for the audience. We just felt that the controls' experience could be better in our game, that it's not so comfortable to dig through text, it's not so comfortable to pick options, so we decided to pursue this not because of the value but because of our internal desire to make this aspect of the game better and based on the players' reception, based on our feedback and internal experience, we feel like we're there on this particular part.

A bit later, we will deliver a huge 1.2 patch to the player base with lots of additional balance tweaks and changes because players found ways to break our game through a bunch of bugs. They found such powerful combinations that they could defeat bosses in one turn, so we wanted to fix this. On the other hand, we wanted to improve those not-so-popular and less-than-effective builds.

Overall, we spent a lot of time on this particular thing and lots of small aspects of the game. For example, the user interface wasn't so nice and stylish and bright, so we tweaked lots of things. Overall, the interaction with every UI element of the game should feel smoother and easier. Our main UI art developer was given the freedom to play himself and fix the things that he felt were not as perfect as he wanted them to be.

Many things we are approaching at this particular moment revolve around our internal experience of playing Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader and adjusting it to feel better. That's basically how we perceive what we're doing right now. Aside from the DLCs that are in the process of being made, we just make sure that every part of the game will see some additional portion of love, attention, and care from the developers.

You mentioned Improving the interface. Does that include improving the controller UI specifically?

Yeah, the overall scheme of interaction with the game was tuned. Most of the annoying bugs were fixed, and playing the game via controller now should feel better. I'm not saying it's ideal, but we made a real effort to improve it.

When do you think this patch will go live?

I won't promise you any precise date, but yeah, the patch is scheduled for this Summer. We will definitely make an appropriate communication to the community closer to the release of this patch.

The recent announcement was about the first Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader DLC, Void Shadows. Can you talk about that and what you're going to add to the game with this DLC?

Sure. Our overall desire to work within the Warhammer universe is the same. It's a desire to tell stories about things that happen there aside from the battlefield itself. Void Shadows, our DLC, is focused on the Genestealer Cult and the Death Cult Assassins. This is our way of discussing things that have happened before and after battles. Whenever you see the actual squadrons and the heavy army taking their place, there is some legwork prior to that. Some preparations are made for it, and these preparations affect the lives of the people, how different parts of the setting react to it, how they protect from it, or how they try to facilitate it.

It's an interesting, fruitful field for telling meaningful stories. That's why we decided to approach it as the first DLC. Of course, it allows us to tell more about the Voidship, more about the life and the people in it, and how it ties the main character with the others. One of the particular challenges was not to make things one-dimensional. Like, this is 100 percent enemies, this is 100 percent friends. Just, like, take your friends and kill your enemies. It's not how we tell stories here at Owlcat. We aim to at least point to the different sides and different perceptions of the events. What we came up with is this kinda emotional and deep narrative.

Mechanics-wise, there will be a new first-tier career and a second-tier career. One will revolve around lots of blade attacks. The second will revolve around different kinds of damage-over-time effects and manipulation with them. We are also introducing a new companion, Kibellah, a Death Cult Assassin built upon these two careers. With Void Shadows, we are also adding new layers of ship customization and several interesting custom-made space battles. And, of course, lots of regular exploration battles.

I also read that there will be some new crew members and officers.

Yeah. To tell the story of the Voidship is to tell the story of the people who live there. We can't just add some random people on the lower decks. We are introducing new officers. There will be different departments of the ship that are not in a good relationship with each other, and the struggle between them will be an important part of the story. I don't want to spoil the fun beforehand, though.


'Our vision for Rogue Trader DLCs is an organic evolution of the initial story'
I wanted to ask if the Void Shadows story takes place after the main Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader campaign, or is it supposed to occur sometime in the middle of it?

It's a part of the main story. It's integrated into the main story, so it's not like a completely separate instance that you're playing as a separate entity. No, it's an addition to the regular story, to the main part of Rogue Trader. The story will happen mostly in the second and fourth chapters of the game.

Any player who has already played the campaign will be able to just continue his own play and receive all the DLC content, while a new player will experience a more polished, more, more organic, I guess, more organic story of the Koronus Expanse itself. That's our vision of the DLCs for Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader. They won't be separate entities but an organic evolution of the initial story, with it branching out for the different aspects of the world and the setting.

You mentioned some improvements to the space battles. Can you speak to that as well?

There are lots of bug fixes, new types of equipment, new enemies, new types of space battles, and more. We are not introducing the option to skip the space battles. If you are inside one, you need to play it, but they are not mandatory at all. We also feel that we crafted quite interesting space battle encounters for this particular DLC.

They've got a unique feeling inside them, and there are even some immersive story elements inside them, so I strongly recommend anyone who didn't like the space battles to give it one more try, and the ones who do, just play through them. It will be worth it.

Actually, earlier this morning, I was browsing the Rogue Trader subreddit. Someone had just written that they liked your game's ship battles more than those of an actual strategy game like Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.

That's a super game. There are lots of fans of that game on our team. We didn't try to copy/paste it. We were trying to grasp the cornerstone feelings of it and to make them viable in a CRPG. What we ultimately came up with is some kind of spice. Not everyone likes it, but the ones who do like it really like it.

We try to aim at such things. We don't aim to create things that everyone will like. We don't do every part of the game for everyone. We just try to find such a proportion of things that any person, any player, will find something for themselves. Whenever some users say, 'We like your narrative, but we don't like your battles,' or vice-versa, that's fine for us. We never thought 100% of our game would appeal to 100% of the audience, not just because it's impossible but also because we don't like compromises.


'We don't aim to create things that everyone will like. We don't like compromises.'
You'll release a free update alongside the Void Shadows DLC, correct?

Sure.

Can you share its main features?

It's balancing, quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and an overhaul of the abilities and items. There's also some additional polish. Some areas will receive fully updated lighting, and others will get huge changes to AI interactions.

Would you consider releasing more voiced dialogues in the future, or is it just too expensive?

That would be very expensive, not just because of the voiceover itself but also because we have over one million words in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader. To fully integrate new voiceovers would be tough. We already added some new voiceover throughout free patches, though, and we are considering the possibility of adding more. Of course, the DLCs will have their own new voiced dialogues.

Owlcat isn't just busy with Rogue Trader, as you've also just released A Dance of Masks, the final DLC for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. That RPG received five DLCs in total. Is that the same amount you're planning for Rogue Trader?

There's no such thing as a desired set number of DLCs. We'd like to add more stories, though. As long as we see the audience's support, we'll deliver new Rogue Trader content. If, at any time, this support should diminish, we would reconsider our options as a business. For now, I don't see any signs of Owlcat stopping support for the game.

One last question. I noticed that you released Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous on Nintendo Switch via cloud. Is there a chance you'd do the same with Rogue Trader?

It's too early to talk about the game coming to other platforms than those where it is already available. However, we are open to any option to make the game available to other audiences. If we find a solid business plan, we'll definitely pursue it. For now, we're just unsure if there is one.

Is there anything else you'd like to say to the Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader community?

We delivered the game with way more bugs than we should have, and we worked our asses off as humanly possible to fix that. So, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone in the community who supported us from the get-go. It means the world to us.

For everyone who has wondered, 'Is it time to play the game yet?' I think it's definitely time now. If you still feel something is missing, go to our Discord, Twitter/X, Reddit, or whatever, and let us know. We will keep trying to improve it.

Thank you for your time.

New companion will be named Kibella.

I can't stop laughing, because in Polish it means basically latrine.

For the love of the Emperor, Owlcat_Eyler please tell me you'll reconsider this name. Or change it to Latrinella, so non Poles could have a laugh too.
Well, nah. Seems you're doomed to laugh every time you see it
 

Infinitron

I post news
Patron
Staff Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2011
Messages
99,677
Codex Year of the Donut Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 A Beautifully Desolate Campaign Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire Pathfinder: Kingmaker Pathfinder: Wrath I'm very into cock and ball torture I helped put crap in Monomyth
:balance: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2186680/view/4185613970223713932
Rebalance in the Koronus Expanse

c3be0fd9f2bee2f3b6a9e12110a198fc77d1c812.jpg



Greetings, Lord Captains!

Rogue Trader has already been out for some time, and our team has not been sitting idle.

While working on fixes and improvements for the game (a
massive

2,500+ changes are coming very soon in patch 1.2), we’ve also accumulated a lot of important data concerning character progression and player’s reception of the game’s various systems thanks to both your feedback and extensive internal analysis.

Having already dealt with most of the critical bugs, we felt that the upcoming patch would be a great time to revisit game balance. With these balance changes, we are aiming to provide a better challenge, offer more interesting gameplay, and expand the variety of viable builds, especially on higher difficulties.

To do this, we identified the list of key problems that we felt had the biggest negative impact on player experience. These were split into four major categories:


  • Excess of additional turns
  • Overscaling in the late game
  • Sanctioned psykers and pyromancy
  • Arch-militant overtuning

Let’s talk about each of them in detail.

Excess of Additional Turns
While the original design felt engaging, it appears that, in the end, we went too far with the abundance of out-of-sequence turns and attacks. Stacking additional turns gives such a dominating advantage that players who utilize it can entirely trivialize combat, sometimes to the point where the enemy doesn’t even get to take a single turn!

Tuning things like this has to be done carefully and in batches in order to prevent overnerfing, so we began with tweaks to the Officer in patch 1.1. In 1.2, we’re going a step further and implementing major changes to a whole set of abilities that provide additional turns and AP. We want them to stay true to their spirit but do something entirely different than before.

For example,
Seize the Initiative
no longer provides an additional turn to the Officer, instead allowing the Officer and allies under the effect of the Officer's
Voice of Command
to deal additional damage to enemies that have not yet acted in combat.

In the Hero’s Footsteps
now provides a stacking +5 Fellowship bonus when an ally uses a Heroic act and a +5 Toughness bonus when using Desperate measures instead of providing an additional turn.


aa2e889596e44a47bb64918f6c876e61bc7b700d.jpg



Overscaling in the Late Game

Our players are very quick at finding the most effective combinations, but let’s be honest, those single shots for 1.5 million damage that we’ve seen on some player videos were somewhat… beyond our expectations.

Some of these crazy numbers were indeed caused by bugs, but putting those aside, there were still a handful of items and abilities in the game with multiplicative scaling that did silly things when stacked. While seeing 8-digit damage values is fun to an extent, the sheer amount and availability of such options removed the element of challenge, which we believe is not healthy for the overall game experience.

To address this, we’ve updated a lot of abilities, items, and talents across the game that provided multiplicative bonuses (such as 3 x
Intelligence bonus
) to give flat bonuses instead (for example, 10 +
Intelligence bonus
), tweaked some percentage based bonuses to be stronger in the early game but less devastating in late game (such as the Operative’s
Offensive Pattern Prediction
, the Navigator’s
Reveal the Light
or the Exemplar’s
Deadeye Shot
), and fixed a handful of bugs with incorrect scaling such as
Confident Approach
.

Killing Edge
was also tuned down, being one of the main offenders that caused skyrocketing numbers.


e00914b7e51e1b702d6ef37dd8901044f539d205.jpg



Sanctioned Psykers and Pyromancy

Looking at sanctioned psykers prior to this update, we felt that they were always at a significant disadvantage compared to Idira and her higher psy rating.

We have now made it so that sanctioned psykers can take psy rating-increasing talents earlier (at levels 4/14/24/34 instead of 10/20/30/40). This will not only reduce the eventual difference in psy rating when compared to unsanctioned psykers, but it will also allow sanctioned psykers to take advanced psychic powers earlier.

Unsanctioned psykers can now also take those talents a bit earlier (at levels 9/19/29/39), mostly so that different archetypes have similar access to advanced psychic powers.

With these changes, we hope to achieve a certain parity, where the sanctioned psykers will still have a somewhat lower psy rating but will be able to take higher-level psychic powers earlier in order to compensate.

This wasn't our only change to psykers. For a while, we were concerned that the pyromancer, who was always supposed to be a dedicated damage dealer among psykers, had a weaker damage potential than a telepath (and we received a lot of player feedback about it, as well). In this patch we’re significantly boosting damage numbers for most of the pyromancy psychic powers, starting with
Ignite
— it now deals vastly increased damage, and pyromancers no longer need to rely on conventional weapons for the first half of the game.


c4e987d48bea8a7f66b3c60ab329478e6b74d4e2.jpg



Arch-Militant Overtuning

According to our observations and community surveys, the Arch-Militant remains the most effective archetype, with a damage potential so high that skilled players could stack bonuses from versatility extremely quickly, gaining a significant advantage. We’ve slightly reduced versatility generation and scaling from it to put the Arch-Militant more in line with the rest of the archetypes. In particular, we’ve made changes to
Confident Approach
,
Reckless Rush
, and
Wildfire
. Note that we don’t intend to nerf the Arch-Militant into the ground — it will still be very effective, but the numbers will be a bit more reasonable.


9ac1ef8e0c22acc6843ccc1324a6e85e5ad3e162.jpg



Plans for the Future

Our work on combat balance is far from over. However, after this batch of changes and considering the massive wave of bug fixes that are coming with 1.2, we would like to spend some time assessing the performance of the updated archetypes and analysing the feedback from our players. Although we understand that some of you may end up frustrated with losing your archetype power fantasy, many of these changes are necessary for the game to deliver the experience we envision. Let us know what you think — we need to be sure that we’re going in the right direction!

Later, we intend to go over all encounters that are either known to be difficulty spikes or feel too easy for their level and tune them accordingly.

Lastly, although a bit unrelated, you may have seen in our roadmap and known issues thread on Steam that we recognized the limited availability of conviction points. We’ve received a lot of feedback that their distribution is uneven and scarce, forcing players to make certain decisions in fear of being locked out of conviction levels. We’re working to address this, but unfortunately, we are not yet ready to ship it with 1.2. We expect it to come a bit later, in one of the following updates.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. See you very soon in 1.2, where you will be able to see all the changes yourself, and looking forward to hearing your feedback!
 

Dishonoredbr

Erudite
Joined
Jun 13, 2019
Messages
2,442
In this patch we’re significantly boosting damage numbers for most of the pyromancy psychic powers, starting with
Ignite
— it now deals vastly increased damage, and pyromancers no longer need to rely on conventional weapons for the first half of the game.
So i wasn't crazy to think that even a level 30+ Pyromance wasn't dealing a lot of damage compared to Idira.
 

Lemming42

Arcane
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Messages
6,806
Location
The Satellite Of Love
Hi thread, haven't played this since like late December last year, which I aborted because it was buggy and also because I got to like Act 3 or whatever and it sucked. Any big changes that make it worth a replay now?
 

ArchAngel

Arcane
Joined
Mar 16, 2015
Messages
21,337
Hi thread, haven't played this since like late December last year, which I aborted because it was buggy and also because I got to like Act 3 or whatever and it sucked. Any big changes that make it worth a replay now?
By the sound of it for the complete experience you will need to wait for EE.
Even 1.2 seems to only fix a part of the problems.
 

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