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Out of idle curiosity, is anyone here in the alpha, given it's scheduled to drop tomorrow? There will absolutely be Youtubers covering it, but I'm wondering if there will be more personal impressions in the thread. Particularly about the combat system, given just how much is being ported from tabletop versus being a completely new system is still up in the air at the moment.
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Dec 6, 2022 20:43
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I’ll have an alpha key. I don’t know when I’ll get around to it with Dwarf Fortress just dropping, though. Maybe this weekend.
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Dec 6, 2022 20:59
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Lord Koth posted:Out of idle curiosity, is anyone here in the alpha, given it's scheduled to drop tomorrow? There will absolutely be Youtubers covering it, but I'm wondering if there will be more personal impressions in the thread. Particularly about the combat system, given just how much is being ported from tabletop versus being a completely new system is still up in the air at the moment. I will. I never play RPG alphas, but a rogue trader CRPG has been my dream game for a very long time and I couldn't resist. Never played the tabletop though so I won't be able to compare to that system.
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Dec 6, 2022 21:04
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D-Pad posted:I will. I never play RPG alphas, but a rogue trader CRPG has been my dream game for a very long time and I couldn't resist. Never played the tabletop though so I won't be able to compare to that system. Posting an overview and your own impressions of the combat system will let other people pick it apart for comparison perfectly fine.  I'm still waffling on the alpha/beta issue here. Beta in particular isn't too much more than the base game so I suspect I'll eventually cave on that (and only $10 more than the cost of a standard AAA game, so really not particularly excessive), but for alpha it's more a matter of if I break down and get the collector's edition. It's really tempting, but that is not a cheap price tag. Seeing first impressions will probably contribute to my ultimate decision. VV edit: ...So it does. Misread them just now. Doesn't really change the decision making, but nice to know the premium bells and whistles are optional. Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 21:42 on Dec 6, 2022 |
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Dec 6, 2022 21:20
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Lord Koth posted:Posting an overview and your own impressions of the combat system will let other people pick it apart for comparison perfectly fine. The core digital pack includes Beta access for $40.
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Dec 6, 2022 21:38
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Some Alpha footage here. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jxY8asSigdM
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Dec 6, 2022 23:23
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sounds like an owlcat game alright
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Dec 6, 2022 23:34
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JamMasterJim posted:Some Alpha footage here. oof, that looks rough. Starting the alpha as level 15 characters rather then low level isn't great. If the combat is a problem at that point it makes low level combat sound dire. Hearty lol at the ship based battle mechanic being absolute trash so far. It looks like they just tried to massively upscale the square grid turn based stuff. pentyne fucked around with this message at 00:04 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 00:01
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Do we know anything about what system they're going to be using? Please tell me it's going to be something less stupid than Pathfinder.
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Dec 7, 2022 00:49
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Jack Trades posted:Do we know anything about what system they're going to be using? Please tell me it's going to be something less stupid than Pathfinder. It's based on the Fantasy Flight Games 'Rogue Trader' ttrpg. Thought that game, as discussed just a bit up thread, doesn't do well with the Owlcat style D&D combat encounter structure. They've already said they are making changes from that system but for the most part thats likely what its coming from. That systems a class based, spend xp from tables that are unlocked at xp breakpoints (so 1000 xp spent unlock access to table 2 etc), big rocket tag combat, money system is a large scale 'profit factor' financial mechanic. The default assumption of the ttrpg is you start with a warship capable of levelling cities with thousands of troops and crew living on a generational ship under your command. kingcom fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 00:52
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you can feel the "traces" of previous pathfinder games in this lol
frajaq fucked around with this message at 01:17 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 01:00
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Looks like they're gonna force all of D&D's bad decisions into a system that doesn't even nessesarily have them, huh? Oh well.
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Dec 7, 2022 01:03
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As someone who has DMed a Fantasy Flight Games Rogue Trader game (which sadly petered out), "levels" aren't a thing in the TTRPG. There are XP and ranks. You earn XP, and buy advancements on a rank table. If you spend enough XP, you open up the next rank. These advancements are specifc, individual items, like training a new skill, advancing a skill from baseline +0 to +10, or buying a talent (equivalent to feats). Your character is the sum of their characteristics (eg attributes, seen in top right corner next to portrait on that screenshot), trained skills, and talents. There are no levels involved, nor is anything like HP or save rolls etc tied to a level. So whatever Owlcat is doing is not strictly by the book TTRPG.
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Dec 7, 2022 01:10
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frajaq posted:you can feel the "traces" of previous pathfinder game in this lol How many levels of fighter do you think Commissar Yarrick has? Obviously I was expecting them to change things about the combat system specifically (the 38hp for example would be impossible to get even at a super high xp Rogue Trader game) but yeah that definitely raises some questions about what is being implemented and how. kingcom fucked around with this message at 01:27 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 01:16
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Jack Trades posted:Looks like they're gonna force all of D&D's bad decisions into a system that doesn't even nessesarily have them, huh? Oh well. That's Pathfinder in a nutshell, where they engineered all the fun out of the game.
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Dec 7, 2022 01:37
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"Fighter" could also refer to fighter craft, which would imply the 15 would refer to the complement of fighters the character can deploy/command in space combat (you know this game is going to have space combat). Also, looking over the sheet, it looks pretty accurate to core Rogue Trader rules? As for the little blocks on the right, it looks like they break down as follows: 1. General options anyone can use as part of the core rules, sometimes requiring certain skills (charging, taunting, medicae, etc.). This is pretty much the same as how heal checks, charging, feints, etc. were translated in the PF titles. 2. Benefits from one's lifepath (looks like only homeworld and occupation are reflected here; it's possible that the full lifepath system is implement, but only homeworld and occupation have ongoing effects for your character, they might be there just as flags during conversations/cutscenes to have special dialog pop when needed) 3. Gonna theorize that this is to do with your small craft complement, hence "Fighter" has a 15 on it. 4. Talents
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Dec 7, 2022 01:39
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Wow, 38 hp?
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Dec 7, 2022 02:00
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EclecticTastes posted:"Fighter" could also refer to fighter craft, which would imply the 15 would refer to the complement of fighters the character can deploy/command in space combat (you know this game is going to have space combat). Also, looking over the sheet, it looks pretty accurate to core Rogue Trader rules? As for the little blocks on the right, it looks like they break down as follows: Thats a pretty bizarre take, placing that number under 'features' and next to the portrait with a filling bar akin to xp. Also fighter craft are something most ships in Rogue Trader don't even use and 15 is a huge number for squadron count (and tiny for individual fighters) unless you're in a ship thats loaded with squadron bays and very few lance or macrocannons. It's okay if they've transitioned to a more fixed levelling system because a combat focused take on this game would really want to make sure you have some minimum threshold of power you're hitting , which the xp spend system would present the idea that you can go completely non-combat capable. Though Fighter is a weird name for it. BrotherJayne posted:Wow, 38 hp? The virgin chaos space marine vs the chad rogue trader. kingcom fucked around with this message at 02:09 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 02:00
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kingcom posted:Thats a pretty bizarre take, placing that number under 'features' and next to the portrait with a filling bar akin to xp. Also fighter craft are something most ships in Rogue Trader don't even use and 15 is a huge number for squadron count (and tiny for individual fighters) unless you're in a ship thats loaded with squadron bays and very few lance or macrocannons. Whatever it is, I can't really tell what impact it's having on the character sheet. The stats all look pretty normal, though it looks like they've added a normal HP system since RT's location-based damage determined solely by toughness bonus and armor, as noted, lends itself to rocket tag (and also location-based damage in an isometric CRPG would likely be a pain to deal with). Scrapping the normal damage/wounds system also allows them to change the math for how much damage weapons do, how armor mitigates damage, and generally make itemization more like a traditional CRPG.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:14
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1stGear posted:The Eisenhorn books are about (most of) this exact cycle and keeping the POV entirely first-person does a good job of showing how he justifies each of his steps on the road to hell. the underlying joke of the Eisenhorn books is so loving good Eisenhorn is an Amalathean; part of a faction within the Inquisition that holds that all is basically proceeding according to the God-Emperor's designs, and that it is the task of the Inquisition to maintain the present state of equilibrium. personally, he is a pretty nice guy! ideologically, the people who have had their voice-boxes ripped out and replaced with a loudspeaker that screams PRAISE THE EMPEROR, PURGE THE HERETIC are saner than he is, because at least they look at the 40K universe and see something that needs fixing as opposed to something that's trucking along just fine actually Jack Trades posted:Do we know anything about what system they're going to be using? Please tell me it's going to be something less stupid than Pathfinder. the Rogue Trader system is stupider than Pathfinder, but in the opposite way. where Pathfinder has been bloated to near-unusability, Rogue Trader is a far simpler game, where nobody involved in writing the rules had ever touched a calculator, or gave any thought to how systems were supposed to interact. optimizing in pathfinder is a matter of knowing how a dozen different rules for five corner case subclasses' features interact. optimizing in Rogue Trader is "pick tech priest. give them a bolter." so theres a lot of room for them to get creative, and we get to see how that looks.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:18
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Buschmaki posted:If I were Owlcat I'd make one of the recurring antagonists an Ork Freebooter who's basically like an ork version of I hate that this certainly won't happen because I really want it now that I've read it.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:28
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BrotherJayne posted:Wow, 38 hp? That's at level 15 too.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:35
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That techpriest thing reminds me... let's look at Deathwatch, the game that followed RT and was about Space Marines. The barrage toughness bonus for a character was around 30 or 40. Lets just say it's on the 40's. Space marines had an Unnatural Toughness that that doubles their TB (Toughness Bonus, which was just the ten's digit of your Toughness score). TB was a flat damage reduction, so the average marine would flat out ignore 6 or 8 damage even without armor. Space marine armor was about 8 or 10. So even an average player character would have combined damage reduction that let them ignore lasguns (1d10+3, 0 armor pen). A tech marine had cheap Toughness increases, for a fairly easy +20 to starting score. So let's say you have am advanced Techmarine with 60+ Toughness. 12 damage reduction butt rear end naked, can casually stroll through a platoon of lasgun fire with minimal concern. A techmarine only talent that gives up to +5 armor that stacks with actual armor. 17 damage reduction completely in the buff. Easy access to high quality armor that was armor 11 or 12? Plus extra Toughness bonus to various hit locations granted by cybernetics. And exclusive access to pretty strong weapons. A tech marine can easily approach damage reduction levels matched by actual tanks. I only used Deathwatch because I don't own any RT books. But from what I've read all Mechanicus/techpriest careers were pretty similar in that they could get ridiculously tanky with easy access to pretty crazy weapons compared to other careers. EDIT: Although for comparison's sake, an actual antitank weapon, a lascannon, does something along the lines of 6d10+10 with 10 armor pen. IthilionTheBrave fucked around with this message at 02:44 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 02:37
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pentyne posted:oof, that looks rough. Starting the alpha as level 15 characters rather then low level isn't great. If the combat is a problem at that point it makes low level combat sound dire. It looks more like a take on putting psuedo-Battlefleet Gothic (the tabletop game, not the computer game) in the game on a grid. For instance, in both brief battle examples the relevant shield quadrant entirely absorbed the first barrage while further ones in the same quadrant did actual HP (hull) damage. Whether this game mode turns out good or not is a different matter, and could of course be somewhat subjective as well. HP being inflated isn't really a surprise, as the base game can devolve into super rocket tag incredibly quickly and unlike D&D systems there are no resurrection mechanics - while you're not quite expected to lose a character, as mechanics for "your character didn't really die, just got horribly maimed" do exist, it's definitely something you should be prepared for. Particularly Psykers. And that's just not something that's really going to work in a long form CRPG with established companions*. The question is how said HP inflation interacts with the rest of the combat system changes, and that's not particularly well-illustrated from that one brief video. Levels I assume is some way of converting the whole "you gain 2000 exp, now spend it how you see fit, unlocking new tables once you've spent certain total amounts" into a more understandable to the wider audience system. Without having any context on just what the level cap is I'm hesitant to make any real judgement on that yet. Like if it's level cap 40, then the characters there really aren't that far into the game. Hell, it could be something like a level is roughly equivalent to 1000exp, and your choices on level up are a selection of things you'd be allowed to spend exp on in the base game. With more options being available at higher levels (representing unlocking new tables). *: Admittedly, playing with pure mercenaries (if available) using full bore Rogue Trader gameplay combined with Owlcat encounter design would be funny to see just how many you could go through by the end of the campaign. Lord Koth fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 02:39
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It's also that a turn based only game would need to have at most 1/2 the amount of encounters they normally make. It needs to be a mix of lore/setting appropriate low level fights and a handful of big epic fights with meaningful rewards.
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Dec 7, 2022 02:49
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IthilionTheBrave posted:That techpriest thing reminds me... let's look at Deathwatch, the game that followed RT and was about Space Marines. The barrage toughness bonus for a character was around 30 or 40. Lets just say it's on the 40's. Space marines had an Unnatural Toughness that that doubles their TB (Toughness Bonus, which was just the ten's digit of your Toughness score). TB was a flat damage reduction, so the average marine would flat out ignore 6 or 8 damage even without armor. Space marine armor was about 8 or 10. So even an average player character would have combined damage reduction that let them ignore lasguns (1d10+3, 0 armor pen). A tech marine had cheap Toughness increases, for a fairly easy +20 to starting score. So let's say you have am advanced Techmarine with 60+ Toughness. 12 damage reduction butt rear end naked, can casually stroll through a platoon of lasgun fire with minimal concern. A techmarine only talent that gives up to +5 armor that stacks with actual armor. 17 damage reduction completely in the buff. Easy access to high quality armor that was armor 11 or 12? Plus extra Toughness bonus to various hit locations granted by cybernetics. And exclusive access to pretty strong weapons. A tech marine can easily approach damage reduction levels matched by actual tanks. yeah, that is the less broken variant. in Deathwatch, a significantly more combat focused game, they put more than zero thought whatsoever into how the combat math worked, and so tech-marines get the niche "can use the weird guns, is basically a tank, ps anti-tank weapons exist." when everyone else in the party is a different flavor of combat superman, super-techie is well ahead of his friends, but they can absolutely still contribute. in Rogue Trader, the Explorator Magos could easily be matching the tech-marine's armor and damage output, in a play environment where any attack that might inconvenience them will instagib any other member of the party.
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Dec 7, 2022 04:43
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If Owlcat decides to shoehorn in Vancian Casting into this game somehow then I'm gonna scream.
Jack Trades fucked around with this message at 07:20 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 06:50
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Jack Trades posted:If Owlcat decides to shoehorn in Vancian Casting into this game somehow then I'm gonna scream. I'm usually first in line to poo poo on Owlcat for their poor QA and eagerness to offload said QA work onto paying customers, but I think a lot of assumptions are being made based on two contextless numbers on an otherwise-accurate character sheet. The alpha's supposed to go live soon, and to my knowledge there's no NDA involved, so people can probably explain what those things are meant to be in the near future, but as far as "faithfulness to the RPG" goes, Owlcat's track record is pretty good (on that and basically nothing else), so this is one and exactly one thing I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on.
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Dec 7, 2022 07:54
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Rate equipment by how heretical it is. Tier 0 is a lasgun. Tier 5 is a Halo Artifact.
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Dec 7, 2022 07:58
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Anything made by the Dark Eldar would probably tick a lot of boxes for both being xenotech and having Chaos-adjacent aesthetics, just for a start.
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Dec 7, 2022 09:28
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I hope there's Necrons involved, at least a little bit.
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Dec 7, 2022 09:38
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EclecticTastes posted:I'm usually first in line to poo poo on Owlcat for their poor QA and eagerness to offload said QA work onto paying customers, but I think a lot of assumptions are being made based on two contextless numbers on an otherwise-accurate character sheet. The alpha's supposed to go live soon, and to my knowledge there's no NDA involved, so people can probably explain what those things are meant to be in the near future, but as far as "faithfulness to the RPG" goes, Owlcat's track record is pretty good (on that and basically nothing else), so this is one and exactly one thing I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt on. yeah there's zero reason to freak out at the moment, "levels" can easily mean "advances"/what-would-have-been-500-1000xp-chunks in WHFRP/40k RPG parlance, and we were literally just talking about how they'd almost certainly need to adjust the wound rolls to make repeated and routine combat compelling imo the similarities to the Pathfinder interface also aren't concerning - it's still modeling a reasonably crunchy tabletop game with exception-based design that resolves everything through dice rolls/etc. and there's no reason to reinvent the wheel in a lot of cases the "alpha" state also sort of makes it a bit hard to evaluate because if you take that seriously (always fraught with public "alphas"/"betas") you'd expect it to be unpolished and potentially lacking features/having placeholder systems in place Lord Koth posted:It looks more like a take on putting psuedo-Battlefleet Gothic (the tabletop game, not the computer game) in the game on a grid. For instance, in both brief battle examples the relevant shield quadrant entirely absorbed the first barrage while further ones in the same quadrant did actual HP (hull) damage. Whether this game mode turns out good or not is a different matter, and could of course be somewhat subjective as well. and pseudo BFG combat is precisely how the tabletop RPG handled it so its possible the issue that reviewer had was it being too *faithful* to the tabletop (we're all speculating on not enough info ofc, but the prominence of party members in the tactical interface shots makes me lean that way given how it worked in the RPG) strategic layers have been a weak point for owlcat, but just at a glance the strategic tactical layer looked substantially more developed/involved than the pseudo HOMM battles in Wrath
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Dec 7, 2022 10:21
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Yeah the problem with all the FFG stuff was that it was based on the Warhammer Fantasy 2E rules. Which is a great system! But it's scaled for 'Ratcatcher with a small but vicious dog', ascending to 'Guy in Plate Armour' and the highest end weapons are Muskets and Twohanded weapons. It does not handle post-human supermen with Plasma weapons well.
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Dec 7, 2022 10:26
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I really respect ACG and he's put out a positive-sounding hands on for Rogue Trader, officially hyped now. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euR690Q6Ivg
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Dec 7, 2022 16:29
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Same with morty https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHann2Dsh5o
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Dec 7, 2022 16:42
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Mad Wack posted:I really respect ACG and he's put out a positive-sounding hands on for Rogue Trader, officially hyped now. I do like how they seem to have abstracted trading, where you just bulk sell stuff for trader reputation/influence rather loving around selling a laspistol +1 for hard currency. That said, some bits of that video sure activated my  about 40k lore.
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Dec 7, 2022 16:52
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Cynic Jester posted:Same with morty That dude's channel has blown up like crazy since last Fall when I was watching him for WOTR videos. Went from sub 10k to 100k in less then a year Went ahead and bought the founders edition and I'm in the alpha. First impressions, it seems like they're taking their combat ideas from Pillars of Eternity 2 and Divinity OS2. Most obvious thing is that you get 0 cost total heal after combat, and a 'trauma' system for stacking severe damage effects like in Pillars. Combat defense has Deflection: flat dmg reduction by a number amount Absorption: % dmg reduction after deflection Dodge: avoid attack entirely Resolve: seems like AP, gained at turn start and after kill Starting Equipment example chainsword 14-18 dmg, 2 penetration Las Pistol 6-8 dmg 1 penetration The base RT starts at rank 15 (definitely not level so it's probably going to be total rank of like 100) with 38 HP, 2 Def, 20% Abs, 70% Dodge. Bad news for some, the armor gives a racial bonus +10% absorb against human enemies, so it does seem like itemization is going to be a mess of effects, bonuses, and specific skills/boosts. pentyne fucked around with this message at 18:13 on Dec 7, 2022 |
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Dec 7, 2022 17:05
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So to sum up, your traveling murder band will be accumulating an absurd horde of relics, most of which could make any lesser man a hero, a saint or a corpse, then putting them in storage to gather dust because they have more important things to deal with? Maybe Owlcat is the right studio for this project after all.
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Dec 7, 2022 22:58
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CommunityEdition posted:So to sum up, your traveling murder band will be accumulating an absurd horde of relics, most of which could make any lesser man a hero, a saint or a corpse, then putting them in storage to gather dust because they have more important things to deal with? There's a feature called "catalog all" where you just dump everything into a item type 'container' that eventually hits 100%, and it says you trade those to factions for special things or reputations I guess. Haven't explored it yet but curious if you accidentally 'catalog' a +5 relic if it's gone forever.
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Dec 7, 2022 23:06
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Known Alpha Issues: Known issues list: Some items may be impossible to equip for some characters, but it is not reflected anywhere in the tooltip; Visuals on models and equipment are work-in-progress and may not reflect the final appearance; Space combat, exploration and colonisation are in draft stage and may significantly change later; Healing system may feel confusing, for example characters can’t die out of combat - will be updated; Psykers are overall incomplete and lack their own skill trees, they will be added later; All numbers and stats are subject to change - none of them are final; Ship parts cannot be used for now, but their presence in the cargo may be checked in some events; There will be way more types of loot, such as implants; Visuals of the star system map and movement of the ship over it are incomplete or may look odd - this will be improved later;
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Dec 8, 2022 02:32
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