Licensed Computer Games Warhammer 40,000; Rogue Trader Videogame

[Wormwoods]

I've been having a good time with it, just finished the first major act. As tends to be the case more often than not the techpriests are the best characters. Feels like a pretty solid translation of the old Fantasy Flight rules, and as a videogame you don't have to mess around with the D100 stuff yourself, which is a bonus. 

 

Music isn't as good as Mechanicus, but still good. 

 

My main issue is that I now want to try out a bunch of different characters. Maybe a Commissar next...

[Dr. Clock]

Just an hour and a bit in. Custom built voidbord scoundrel/soldier... she's pretty cool. VERY STRONG Dark Heresy vibe.

 

So far combat feels great, just need to figure how to use Charge correctly (I'm annoyingly always too close to use it). They make a lasgun seem terrifying - very interested to see where this goes.

 

But yeah... might be too much conversation text by half.

 

Cheers,

 

The Good Doctor.

[Kastor Krieg]

2 hours ago, Dr. Clock said:

need to figure how to use Charge correctly (I'm annoyingly always too close to use it)

Shotguns or anything else that does pushback are your friends here :)

[Etruscan]

Having an absolute blast playing it. Something of a steep learning curve what with an entirely novel set of abilities, classes etc. (never played the RPG the rules are based on) but I like a challenge and it's been rewarding to work things out for oneself. Also, the combat has been satisfyingly difficult at times and I like the fact that the game doesn't hold your hand too much during boss fights so sometimes you have to work out that a certain something needs to be done in order to win, outside of just killing everything in sight.

 

They've done a great job on the setting and the voice acting is really good. I was really disappointed with Baldurs Gate 3 so I'm over the moon to have my CRPG itch relieved by this game.

 

There's definitely been a few Holy moments which were great.

 

Edited December 10, 2023 by Tyriks
do not dodge the swear filter

[Scribe]

1 hour ago, Etruscan said:

I was really disappointed with Baldurs Gate 3 so I'm over the moon to have my CRPG itch relieved by this game.

 

[Nagashsnee]

On 12/9/2023 at 1:07 PM, mecanojavi99 said:

In the actual Rogue Trader TTRPG you could get up to a Grand Cruiser, a Frigate is fine as a starting point but any Rogue Trader worth its Warrant of Trade would definitely try to get the best ship around, a Grand Cruiser would be a testament the Rogue Traders power and wealth and in the case of the Koronus Expanse you have 2 other Rogue Traders rto compete with.

 

Yeah and in deathwatch i could gimmick the rules to throw chaos space marines into near orbit. In dnd i could pass a rock along a chain of people to create a rail gun, etc etc.

 

TTRPG rules and what they allow you to do in game should never ever be taken as lore accurate. I love them, but after many many years of these kind of games i would be very very careful translating what they allow you to do as a player who is meant to have fun vs actual lore.  

 

Tho it would be very 40k grimdank  if the game gave you the option of getting a grand cruiser and upon getting it informed you that you cannot afford to fuel it, lack the  80.000 trained personnel to man it, lack the military's might to kill the lower deckies who have overrun the ship and have lost 2/3 of the search parties you sent in there, there not dead, they are literally lost in the countless miles of corridors.  The mechanicum wasnts to know what its getting for staffing the engineering,your navigators house wants to re negotiate its contract as clearly you are doing all right for yourself and the navy wants to tear out anything of military grade on it. 

 

Like it could happen, but its such a extreme rare case.  Its the kind of thing the game would be build around. 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2023 by Nagashsnee

[roryokane]

As someone who's never played a CRPG or anything like D&D before - I mean, I've played RPGs before, but I literally learned this week (aged 33) that CRPG was not "card RPG" but Computer RPG as in "we took as much of the mechanics from things like D&D as possible and shoved them into a computer" - which i sortof assumed was what RPG games like Dragon Age or the Witcher were - so my entire understanding of video games has had to change (which I dislike) - is this worth playing?
Bear in mind I usually go for strategy games, and am very happy to have RPG elements in my turn based games (looking at you XCom and the original Chaos Gate!)... I'm just wondering whether this is worth diving into?

[Wormwoods]

34 minutes ago, roryokane said:

which i sortof assumed was what RPG games like Dragon Age or the Witcher were

I mean you're not wrong, but that's not the whole story. I think most people consider videogame RPG as the wider genre, and CRPG is when it's DIRECTLY based on a tabletop RPG, not just inspired or cribbing off one. Things like Baldur's Gate - old or the new one - are very much in that style of direct translation of the tabletop. Same for those Shadowrun games from a few years back, and same here for Rogue Trader. It's never a 1-to-1 copy, but the intent is to be a digital version of a campaign.

 

Anyway, it's pretty good! Funny, too.

 

Spoiler

 

[Blindhamster]

22 hours ago, Etruscan said:

I was really disappointed with Baldurs Gate 3 so I'm over the moon to have my CRPG itch relieved by this game.

Whut?? That genuinely seems crazy to me. Would love to hear more of why you didn’t like it (perhaps through messages)

 

I’ve not picked up rogue trader yet. But it’s on the to-buy list for sure. Honestly my only issue is I’ve never been overly interested in rogue traders. My 40K poison has always been eldar and space marines lol. At least both are available as companions in some form.

[mecanojavi99]

18 hours ago, Nagashsnee said:

 

Yeah and in deathwatch i could gimmick the rules to throw chaos space marines into near orbit. In dnd i could pass a rock along a chain of people to create a rail gun, etc etc.

 

TTRPG rules and what they allow you to do in game should never ever be taken as lore accurate. I love them, but after many many years of these kind of games i would be very very careful translating what they allow you to do as a player who is meant to have fun vs actual lore.  

 

Tho it would be very 40k grimdank  if the game gave you the option of getting a grand cruiser and upon getting it informed you that you cannot afford to fuel it, lack the  80.000 trained personnel to man it, lack the military's might to kill the lower deckies who have overrun the ship and have lost 2/3 of the search parties you sent in there, there not dead, they are literally lost in the countless miles of corridors.  The mechanicum wasnts to know what its getting for staffing the engineering,your navigators house wants to re negotiate its contract as clearly you are doing all right for yourself and the navy wants to tear out anything of military grade on it. 

 

Like it could happen, but its such a extreme rare case.  Its the kind of thing the game would be build around. 

 

 

You are comparing exploiting the rules for unwanted effects to a legitimate option, this is like saying that level 20 spells are OP and absurd in DnD so you shouldn't be able to get past level 10.

 

Why are you acting like a Rogue Trader is some kind of knock-off Jack Sparrow that can't afford to fully man a ship? The Rogue Trader you incarnate in the game is the ruler of a multi planet empire, with millions of subjects, direct relations with the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Inquisition and entire armies at your disposal, but somehow you are telling me that such person would be unable to commander a Grand Cruiser?

[Nagashsnee]

5 hours ago, mecanojavi99 said:

 

 

Why are you acting like a Rogue Trader is some kind of knock-off Jack Sparrow that can't afford to fully man a ship? The Rogue Trader you incarnate in the game is the ruler of a multi planet empire, with millions of subjects, direct relations with the Adeptus Mechanicus and the Inquisition and entire armies at your disposal, but somehow you are telling me that such person would be unable to commander a Grand Cruiser?

He did fully man a ship, a frigate, which you were not happy with.  You then jumped the light cruiser, cruiser and battle cruiser and went straight to the grand cruiser. Which yes i find pretty ridiculous., out of curiosity why not just got for a full on battleship?   But anyhow you do you. 

 

And for the record, jack sparrow IS a great example of how many rogue trader would operate, take as much as you can when you think you can get away with it while abusing every ounce of your non existent but put on authority while within imperial borders to fool anyone stupid enough to be fooled by it, and run run run at the first sign of someone with a brain and the muscle to back it up. Whose fortune relies just as much on luck as anything else. Just cleaner and with the ability to speak without slurring. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by Nagashsnee

[Aarik]

How complicated are people finding the combat system?  I was thinking of picking it up to try out, but I was put off by a portion of this review:

Quote

I failed high school math, so I’m just happy to nab the recommended talents upon a level up rather than trying to decipher tooltips like this:

Precise Attack: For the next attack against a target affected by an exploit, that target’s cover efficiency will be reduced by -(5 + (PER bonus x stacks of exploit))%. This attack will have +(5 + PER bonus x stacks of exploit)% hit chance.

 

I'm familiar with RPGs and have played and enjoyed Baldur's Gate 2 (back in the day) and 3 (recently), Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights, etc., but I'm a little worried that Rogue Trader will be too complicated for me to enjoy in the short spurts of gaming time I have now.  What do people think of the combat mechanics here?  I'm sure I could figure it out, but I'm just not sure if I want/will need to spend 30 minutes of the hour I have to play each time trying to do so.  Can you get by just fine on normal difficulty with a more surface level understanding, or does it require some advanced number crunching?

[Cactus]

You don't need any serious number crunching during combat. Once a character has learned one of those talents the game will show you the derived number rather than the equation.

 

You can (and I did) spend a lot of time comparing talents when levelling up characters but i) you can choose one of the handful of recommended talents and probably not go wrong, and ii) you can put talents on a favourites list so if you see something cool you can mark it for easy finding later.

 

Also you can respec your characters (maybe a limited number of times?) so don't worry that an ill-chosen advance early on will cripple your gameplay. You can fix those when you're more comfortable with the game.

 

Here's a not-really-a-spoiler tip for prioritising your first quests in the prologue:

Spoiler

Get the navigator first. I didn't and found the prison much harder as a result.

 

I'm playing a step up from 'normal' difficulty, on the setting where I get no bonuses and the enemies get no debuffs. There are four(?) easier settings before that so it should be possible to tune things such that you can get through a decent amount in an hour without becoming bogged down in a tactical sim.

Edited December 12, 2023 by Cactus

[Sothalor]

47 minutes ago, Aarik said:

How complicated are people finding the combat system?  I was thinking of picking it up to try out, but I was put off by a portion of this review:

 

I'm familiar with RPGs and have played and enjoyed Baldur's Gate 2 (back in the day) and 3 (recently), Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights, etc., but I'm a little worried that Rogue Trader will be too complicated for me to enjoy in the short spurts of gaming time I have now.  What do people think of the combat mechanics here?  I'm sure I could figure it out, but I'm just not sure if I want/will need to spend 30 minutes of the hour I have to play each time trying to do so.  Can you get by just fine on normal difficulty with a more surface level understanding, or does it require some advanced number crunching?

 

It's really not that complicated in practice; the software is dealing with all the formulas and equations "behind the scenes" for you. When you're actually using abilities in combat the tooltips will display the final numeric values.

 

The formulas are displayed in areas like talent selection when leveling up so you get breakdowns of things like which Characteristic(s) affect the ability and so on.

 

Honestly, the combat isn't anywhere as obtuse as some of the hack outlet reviews present it. 

 

There does seem to be quite an extraordinary amount of character customization and development options, but you are free to engage with that as little or as much as you like.

[Squark]

If I recall, you could certainly start with a cruiser in FFG Rogue Trader, but it would be rather battleworn and your finances would be a disaster. Starting with a frigate meant you could give it a few unique touches, and afford to buy something nice after character creation

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

I'm loving the back and forth on reviews between 40k fans on here and CRPG fans on steam

 

Ton of customization vs not as much customization as previous owlcat offerings (DLC should take care of that)
Too much text vs too many 40k terms

complicated combat vs usual CRPG fare

[MegaVolt87]

On 12/11/2023 at 5:48 PM, Nagashsnee said:

 

Yeah and in deathwatch i could gimmick the rules to throw chaos space marines into near orbit. In dnd i could pass a rock along a chain of people to create a rail gun, etc etc.

 

TTRPG rules and what they allow you to do in game should never ever be taken as lore accurate. I love them, but after many many years of these kind of games i would be very very careful translating what they allow you to do as a player who is meant to have fun vs actual lore.  

 

Tho it would be very 40k grimdank  if the game gave you the option of getting a grand cruiser and upon getting it informed you that you cannot afford to fuel it, lack the  80.000 trained personnel to man it, lack the military's might to kill the lower deckies who have overrun the ship and have lost 2/3 of the search parties you sent in there, there not dead, they are literally lost in the countless miles of corridors.  The mechanicum wasnts to know what its getting for staffing the engineering,your navigators house wants to re negotiate its contract as clearly you are doing all right for yourself and the navy wants to tear out anything of military grade on it. 

 

Like it could happen, but its such a extreme rare case.  Its the kind of thing the game would be build around. 

 

 

 

This is Faulty Towers in space, with Clease as the rouge trader. I want to play this version. 

[Marshal Reinhard]

Anyway game is good, kinda struck me how weird it is we havent gotten 40k crpg like this before now

[Halandaar]

19 hours ago, Marshal Reinhard said:

Anyway game is good, kinda struck me how weird it is we havent gotten 40k crpg like this before now

 

Not sure if it's correct, but anecdotally it felt like CRPGs where in a bit of a slump in popularity from after the days of Icewind Dale etc (so 2000ish) up until Pillars of Eternity in 2015 seemed to launch a bit of a resurgence. Maybe that, combined with the potentially expensive cost of the 40K License put people off until the genre started to pick up again, which it certainly has in recent years.

[Marshal Reinhard]

1 hour ago, Halandaar said:

 

Not sure if it's correct, but anecdotally it felt like CRPGs where in a bit of a slump in popularity from after the days of Icewind Dale etc (so 2000ish) up until Pillars of Eternity in 2015 seemed to launch a bit of a resurgence. Maybe that, combined with the potentially expensive cost of the 40K License put people off until the genre started to pick up again, which it certainly has in recent years.

Perhaps strange wasn't the right word, as I agree with most what you say.

 

Perhaps it'd be better to say it's a pity that the circumstances had arranged themselves so that noone would dare attempt the union of a crpg type game with the 40k license until now because I find that it tickles a want I didn't know I had (Or rather that I would have had it to this degree.)

 

I've still barely scratched the surface of this game but know that I will eventually tear through it, and once done i hope there won't be decades before we see another game of this type for 40k.

 

(Also makes me think that as much as I liked Inquisitor Martyr, I wonder if it hadn't be even more to my liking if it was more like this...)

 

[Amocat]

I'm not unhappy with the game overall, I kickstarted this game and I've been really excited for my favorite genera of RPG set in 40k.  The tone and lore are spot on, but I have to say that the labyrinthine leveling system, (similar to Larians Pathfinder games) is sucking a lot of the fun out for me. I'm not a min-max guy, but I also don't want to make a broken build. The dozens of options every level up, which happen every other combat, makes what would otherwise be exciting a chore.  While I don't want something oversimplified, I find I spend almost as much time looking at skills and trying to find synergy as I actually do playing. The combat so far (early game) also feels a little repetitive, with enemies presenting no real tactical puzzle. I think less might have been more in the character development side, and maybe some time spent making enemies more tactically interesting. I'm hoping there might be an overhaul to the system down the road, but for now I'm slogging through not because I enjoy the tactics, but to follow the story. I think my recent plays of BG3 and Chaos Gate, with their excellent Story and Combat polish, might have set me bar a bit high for what I expected from this game. 

[Emperor Ming]

The amount of loading screens, 

 

esp when you go to warp travel

 

Is driving me crackers

[MoriyaSchism]

9 hours ago, Amocat said:

I'm not unhappy with the game overall, I kickstarted this game and I've been really excited for my favorite genera of RPG set in 40k.  The tone and lore are spot on, but I have to say that the labyrinthine leveling system, (similar to Larians Pathfinder games) is sucking a lot of the fun out for me. I'm not a min-max guy, but I also don't want to make a broken build. The dozens of options every level up, which happen every other combat, makes what would otherwise be exciting a chore.  While I don't want something oversimplified, I find I spend almost as much time looking at skills and trying to find synergy as I actually do playing. The combat so far (early game) also feels a little repetitive, with enemies presenting no real tactical puzzle. I think less might have been more in the character development side, and maybe some time spent making enemies more tactically interesting. I'm hoping there might be an overhaul to the system down the road, but for now I'm slogging through not because I enjoy the tactics, but to follow the story. I think my recent plays of BG3 and Chaos Gate, with their excellent Story and Combat polish, might have set me bar a bit high for what I expected from this game. 

What's the skill system like? Are you forced to assign points every time you level up or is it more like Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines and Arcanum where you can save your skill points and invest when you need to spec into something? I don't have any experience with their Pathfinder games so I don't know.

[Brother Captain Vakarian]

You have to invest every time you level up, and you only get one or two things at each level (either a “skill,” an “ability,” a “characteristic increase,” or a “talent”). Skills are your pretty traditional in-game checks like persuasion or healing. Characteristics are what you’d expect too (Ballistic Skill, Agility, Intelligence, etc). Abilities and talents are the fun stuff that makes your characters unique.

 

But, here’s the nice part—you can respec any of your characters pretty much whenever you want with one of the NPCs on your ship, for free. So if you accidentally pick a useless talent or just don’t like your build you can re-do all of your level-ups. The only thing respec’ing can’t change is your origin decisions (homeworld, class, base characteristics, etc). 

[Cactus]

To be clear, you don't have to pick your level up advances immediately. You can wait and do them later.