Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

[rusty_shackleford]

What good is the huge feat sheet, if half of those feats don't work, and the other half is imbalanced?

Figuring out which ones are which is half the fun. For people who swear to hate balance and LOVE notoriously unbalanced old school roleplaying systems and games, you sure care a lot about efficient game design. Curious!



-Humbaba

I don't find reading a bunch of skill descriptions to be fun.

[rusty_shackleford]

*goes through 10k word dialogue*
*levels up*
*goes through 100k words of skill description text*
*enters combat and kills enemies in one hit*
"WHOA THIS GAME HAS TOP GAMEPLAY!!!!" - dumbaba

going back to playing tunnels and trolls

[maidenhaver]

What good is the huge feat sheet, if half of those feats don't work, and the other half is imbalanced?

I hate balance. Time to pirate.

[rusty_shackleford]

3/10, boring

[maidenhaver]

@WhiteShark merge this with the devs can't make games anymore thread.

[rusty_shackleford]

Tried to play it some more and this is even worse than WotR because it's so damn boring.

Honestly just makes me want to replay something like KotR/2.

[maidenhaver]

I could see just by slices of game they wanted to show off how boring it was. It has no sovl, no grimdark or 80s metal cheese, no Knight Worlds, Comorragh is probably tame, the cities are made from modular containers, the characters are probably non binary, there's a fucking space furry, the menus are dull, I could go on.

[rusty_shackleford]

The time I played was spent running around a ship, then I left that ship to go to another area that looks exactly like my ship and I got bored

[Humbaba]

*goes through 10k word dialogue*
*levels up*
*goes through 100k words of skill description text*
*enters combat and kills enemies in one hit*
"WHOA THIS GAME HAS TOP GAMEPLAY!!!!" - dumbaba

going back to playing tunnels and trolls

Don't mean much, coming from a recovering MMO addict.




-Humbaba

[Oyster Sauce]

Here's the problem for me.
The game plays up how luxurious being a rogue trader is in the intro. You get a megacity sized space ship, wealth beyond measure, tank museums, you rule multiple planets - whatever. I know I'm just going to be some dipshit with a pistol shooting retards and scrounging for loot the entire game. There's (probably) no way Owlcat is going to make me give a shit about being a rogue trader. If the game was called Pistol Wielding Dipshit I'd have reasonable goals I would want my character to achieve.

Or they could at least let you fuck the sister of battle.

[Oyster Sauce]

Kingmaker+Wrath sold over 2 million copies, but the cutscenes in this game feature blurry static paper cutouts that are dragged up and down to simulate walking like an Internet Historian stock image in Photoshop. Actually, no, I'm pretty sure he articulates the fucking limbs.

[rusty_shackleford]

actually laughed when I saw that shit

[somerandomdude]

Voidborn, officer, warrior is very good. To be honest, you could just run 6 of those as soon as you can make mercs and never look back. You could do something a little different with each in the later levels.

[junior]

still better than Starfield

[Reichspepe]

Hello there, not sure where else to ask, but is anyone here interested in modding this game to have no more females or black soldiers/fighters/enemies ( for all non named "ambient" npcs that is) for the player's ship and the imperial/human troops/worlds in general? I'm thinking something like the Better Aesthetics mod for BG3.
Sadly I'm a complete pleb with things like this and can't even find a way to start modding the game in order to see if what I have in mind is even possible. If someone could help me to at least get started with this, that would be great, too and I would even try to do this myself.

[rusty_shackleford]

Hello there, not sure where else to ask, but is anyone here interested in modding this game to have no more females or black soldiers/fighters/enemies ( for all non named "ambient" npcs that is) for the player's ship and the imperial/human troops/worlds in general? I'm thinking something like the Better Aesthetics mod for BG3.
Sadly I'm a complete pleb with things like this and can't even find a way to start modding the game in order to see if what I have in mind is even possible. If someone could help me to at least get started with this, that would be great, too and I would even try to do this myself.

You'd need a tool to extract the asset bundles and replace them with your own assets. I haven't kept up with Unity modding, you'd probably want to start somewhere like here: https://github.com/nesrak1/UABEA

[Reichspepe]

Thanks for the quick reply. I looked into it and it's pretty overwhelming for me, so I don't know if I'll be able to get into it with my limited time. Will try it nonetheless.

On a related note, what would you think about making a thread called something like "Mod Ideas or proposals" on the game mods and tweaks board, so people who aren't modders or just plebs like me who have ideas can post stuff there, and maybe someone capable can take it up if there's interest?

[somerandomdude]

The nigger psyker starts with 1 psy power, but the psykers I roll start with 0. I checked the perk list, the nigger doesn't appear to have the psy power 1 perk. Niggers need bonus points I guess, or people will just insta-bench them.

[somerandomdude]

Sister of battle? Bitch please, the only thing the god emperor needs from you is your womb to mass produce the next generation of gigachads who'll put chaos to heel. Gimme that gun before you hurt yourself.

[Nammu Archag]

What's actually wrong with the game? Based on descriptions from here and the trailers, it just seems like the other owlcat games, which while not perfect are still decent modern crpgs. They are also still far better than 90% of the slop being made today.

[somerandomdude]

What's actually wrong with the game? Based on descriptions from here and the trailers, it just seems like the other owlcat games, which while not perfect are still decent modern crpgs. They are also still far better than 90% of the slop being made today.

It's a hybrid between a CRPG-style combat and nu-xcom.

I don't even read 80% of the text, just enough to get a general gist of what's going on. More impactful choices are typically walled behind skill checks in dialogue, and which are clearly marked, or have [boxes].

Personally, I don't care for cover mechanics, but the good news is they're optional if you just run a lineup that's heavy on tanks. Even in the intro, the tank the game gives you is able to hold his own against a chaos spawn + 3-4 guys shooting at him, and either parries or dodges attacks, or gets hit for peanuts.

I'm maybe 6 or 7 hours into it, and I'm already getting bored with it.

[rusty_shackleford]

It's not good. In fact, I'll explain why it, and other Owlcat games, are not good in depth. This applies equally to the Pillars of Eternity games, they're basically in the same bag. Pale imitations of better games made by people who don't understand why those games were good.
Owlcat games are the paint-by-numbers versions of the IE games, and now somewhat Fallout games I suppose. This is offset by appealing to people who get their jollies by looking at excel spreadsheets.
There is no genuine exploration in the game, as prominent icons clearly mark every interactive element, leading players to simply hop from one map icon to another, interspersed with unremarkable combat encounters. That's right, Owlcat has managed to apply the Ubisoft formula to RPGs and you didn't even notice it, did you?
The game also lacks any meaningful way to interact with the environment or characters:

• Environmental Interaction. The game doesn't provide any real environmental interactions beyond showing a big icon and prompting you to click it. Contrast this to Fallout: the radscorpion cave quest where you can just blow up the cave instead of fighting if the character noticed it and the player thought of the solution(good design), the ability to just blow up doors with explosives.
  • If a door can be blown up in RT, it's clearly marked as such and pointed out to the player with a big icon you click to blow it up. Contrast to Fallout design: letting the player explore the game and figure it out on their own using consistent mechanics(wooden doors can be blown up!) rather than a handful of developer pre-determined doors that can be blown up. This is the reason you see so many modern games throw paint on interactable objects btw, most of these games are static and players just assume they can't interact with things, because why wouldn't they since they otherwise couldn't?
• Character Interaction. Characters are just immobile word banks in Owlcat games. You aren't even allowed to attack them until the game allows you, at least Obsidian got that right, I guess. Did you know nearly every NPC in BG1 can be charmed for unique dialogue? Or consider Fallout's reverse pickpocketing or the (imo) very underrated Tell-me-about.

The hallmark of modern poor RPG design is shoving as much of the game as possible into a dialogue tree and pretending that clicking on dialogue options is gameplay. If you ever find yourself confronted with a CYOA, you are playing a nu-rpg made by people who don't actually like RPGs:

Basically, if Fallout was designed by someone from Owlcat or modern Obsidian, it would look a lot like this:

Not good!

I could go on: referring to this game in particular, lack of any real resource management — you never feel like you're being slowly worn down, you just go from fight to fight at full capacity. And referring only to Owlcat games in general, lack of any combat AI whatsoever(Pillars games did decently enough here), etc.,

---

If you're looking for a good, modern turn-based sci-fi RPG I'd recommend ATOM RPG & its stand-alone expansion Trudograd. Both very good, made by people who understood Fallout, and the devs only ask for a handful of dollars for them despite their quality. And yes, I know Trudograd has that one section with the shitty CYOA scene, I bitched the devs out about it.

[The_Mask]

Another one is the fact that you can't attack whoever you want. Combat sessions are all railroaded.

[rusty_shackleford]

Another one is the fact that you can't attack whoever you want. Combat sessions are all railroaded.

Covered it, but it's even worse than that in RT: You can't even attack enemies until you 'engage' them, so you're forced to run up to them to start combat.

[Lhynn]

Another one is the fact that you can't attack whoever you want. Combat sessions are all railroaded.

Covered it, but it's even worse than that in RT: You can't even attack enemies until you 'engage' them, so you're forced to run up to them to start combat.

What the fuck? It wasnt like that in wrath, was it?

[rusty_shackleford]

Another one is the fact that you can't attack whoever you want. Combat sessions are all railroaded.

Covered it, but it's even worse than that in RT: You can't even attack enemies until you 'engage' them, so you're forced to run up to them to start combat.

What the fuck? It wasnt like that in wrath, was it?

Don't think so, owlcat games just keep getting worse tho.

[Ratcatcher]

Le Rouge Tray Gay

[Oyster Sauce]

What's actually wrong with the game? Based on descriptions from here and the trailers, it just seems like the other owlcat games, which while not perfect are still decent modern crpgs. They are also still far better than 90% of the slop being made today.

Fun adventure in fantasy land > no clear objective in misery space

[rusty_shackleford]

The game also just suffers from serious dissonance that rapidly adds up if you think about it at all. You're on what is basically one of the largest spess fortresses that exists, one of the most important people in at least your part of the galaxy, and nobody can get you anything better than a crappy pistol?

Also a major issue kingmaker had: why is someone so important doing such dangerous work? If the PC died, everything would be chaos, there isn't even a heir after you, there's no good reason for the PC to be out there risking his life.

[Oyster Sauce]

The game also just suffers from serious dissonance that rapidly adds up if you think about it at all. You're on what is basically one of the largest spess fortresses that exists, one of the most important people in at least your part of the galaxy, and nobody can get you anything better than a crappy pistol?

There's an armory full of amazing weaponry you can examine in your bedroom that you have access to at all times but you're not allowed to take them. There isn't even like a "unfortunately, these are biolocked to the previous owner, please enter override code" message it's just "these weapons are the best!"