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The Lone Badger posted:OTOH any resources that were already in this backwater can’t leave. Most of the resources that are mentioned in the game are in transit to the Koronas expanse. One of the major themes of the Inquisition is they are generally assholes engaging in petty power politics It's just a little hard to believe that they're sending a massive fleet into space Deadwood during what's basically the apocalypse. It's not really a major plot hole because maybe the single most defining aspect of the imperium is that they make bad decisions, I just find it kind of annoying It would generally have preferred a more grounded game more focused on the Rogue Tradery side of things.
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Feb 27, 2024 02:20
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Eifert Posting posted:This all makes the extreme level of interest The Inquisition has in the events of this game quite weird. I wouldn't call one Lord Inquisitor and the resources appointed to him for his job of monitoring the Expanse and his ability to levy just about anything human in the Expanse by the powers of his station an 'insane' amount of resources. Before the 13th Black Crusade, this was Calcazar's post. After the 13th Black Crusade, it's not like he can LEAVE that post. The Rogue Traders themselves are supposed to operate in backwaters like this, preparing them for integration into the Imperium or, failing that, extracting resources and tithes and sending them back to the Imperium. Incendia, Calligos, and Theodora were all--more or less--doing their jobs. And that's without throwing in the question of scale or what affect pulling the local forces--most of whom are marshalled under the Traders themselves--out of the system would have on anything. The answer is piss in an ocean compared to what was already in the Cadian sector or already mobilized to reinforce Cadia. And after the Rift... The Lone Badger posted:OTOH any resources that were already in this backwater can’t leave. In the epilogue one ship makes its way into Koronus in the Dogmatic Nomos ending. Koronus is on the wrong side of the rift to be of any help to the Indomitus Crusade and the Imperium at large. The best they can hope to do is find a stable route back through The Maw which probably won't happen for a good long while. At least not at the scale needed to help with anything.
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Feb 27, 2024 02:29
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The Imperium seems to be quite decentralized in general anyway. Which makes sense if the development is on the planetary basis but sectors all have hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of useful planets.
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Feb 27, 2024 02:46
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Nessus posted:The Imperium seems to be quite decentralized in general anyway. Which makes sense if the development is on the planetary basis but sectors all have hundreds/thousands/tens of thousands of useful planets. It's only a few inches shy of space feudalism because there is, quite frankly, no way to centrally manage the Imperium with the technology they have.
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Feb 27, 2024 02:50
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The Imperium the Emperor intended was pretty much stillborn, and the Imperium we know today was put together by Roboute Guilliman and the loyalist factions of the various post-Horus institutions. If the Emperor had had his way the Imperium would have been a centralized empire with the state capacity to govern the whole galaxy. As actually constituted it's more like a renaissance state: the center would really like to do absolutist imperialism but finds it practically impossible, and while there are strong central institutions they have only a limited presence in most places. So the situation is that the Imperium is a medieval feudal state unless and until you piss somebody off enough for the heavy hammer of the Imperium to start swinging in your direction.
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Feb 27, 2024 04:21
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Arglebargle III posted:The Imperium the Emperor intended was pretty much stillborn, and the Imperium we know today was put together by Roboute Guilliman and the loyalist factions of the various post-Horus institutions. If the Emperor had had his way the Imperium would have been a centralized empire with the state capacity to govern the whole galaxy. As actually constituted it's more like a renaissance state: the center would really like to do absolutist imperialism but finds it practically impossible, and while there are strong central institutions they have only a limited presence in most places. So the situation is that the Imperium is a medieval feudal state unless and until you piss somebody off enough for the heavy hammer of the Imperium to start swinging in your direction. And yeah, the limiting factors of Imperial governance seem to be "some other aspect of the Imperium decides to come kill you" more than, like, laws (for the most part).
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Feb 27, 2024 04:41
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It is specifically the Holy Roman Empire, but with every aspect exaggerated into parody.
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Feb 27, 2024 05:02
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The Lone Badger posted:It is specifically the Holy Roman Empire, but with every aspect exaggerated into parody. Which is pretty hard to do since the HRE was pretty much self-parody. 
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Feb 27, 2024 05:08
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Itemization in this game is weird, to a noticeable degree, as if they sort of planned around specific character builds people would tend to and added items solely for those. There was a similar thing in WOTR where you found some extremely high level wizard items with buffs to Illusion spells, and the main NPC wizard was an illusion specialist. Psykers get unique heavy armor that reduces psy phenomena but boosts psy rating when phenomena is triggered, which seems extremely tailored for Idira except taking heavy armor proficiency on her does not seem like a good idea unless you know that item exists. Idira in general is just a vastly superior psyker thanks to the unsanctioned "buff". With right equipment you can get her psyker rating to 12+ in one round and she will one shot kill any summoned demons in addtional to any and all enemies in range. Unique psyker gear seems to favor Idira in general will all the boosts to triggering phenomena, except for having literally 2 force swords in the game, a regular and an ancient, so wanting to go with a melee psyker means your only option is sword/gun and staff. There's no 2h force weapons to take advantage of all that extra psyker melee damage. Same for Pasqal, there's a unique Ad Mech power armor which isn't insane but you'd still think that he would come with power armor proficiency then as part of his character design. I'm still waiting on finding power armor for Argenta or Abelard, I dealt with the other RT in Act 4 and ran all the companion missions available to me. It does help that I accrued enough cargo for several reputation levels but even with priority focus on the Explorators its only at 31/35. This doesn't even address the massive, massive gap in power between single shot heavy weapons and the heavy bolter. Flamers and meltas are essentially only good for room clearing and stacking up body count for the bonuses to rate of fire for the bolter. Single enemy damage there is no viable reason to swap out the heavy bolter for anything else. pentyne fucked around with this message at 09:30 on Feb 27, 2024 |
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Feb 27, 2024 09:25
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Everyone keeps saying the ending slides make no sense and contradict everything up to that point, now that the text UI was updated to show in light blue things that result from your actions I'm seeing several contradictory things show up, sometimes back to back like "Heinrix respects you" make benign dialogue choice, "Heinrix responds this way because he has contempt for you" This might be the worst so far.   Like, what? Literally 0 heretical points and the game is, according to this, flagging me as a chaos worshipper which will certainly have some kind of impact it shouldn't later on. Finding this now after it being impossible to resolve Quezta Temar because there were no Iconoclast options it was probably because the game didn't recognize my playthrough as Iconoclast.
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Feb 27, 2024 09:52
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Democracy is heretical.
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Feb 27, 2024 09:53
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I'm not that far into the game but I fully expected that at some point iconoclast path throws you into the hands of chaos. The setting doesn't make a lot of sense to me if fascism isn't necessary to fight pure evil. Edit: I get that this is satire and the imperial fascism is inhumane and inefficient. But it wouldn't make much sense to me if you could just behave like a good guy and kill Chaos gods with the power of friendship. I guess it would make sense if the Iconoclast path is especially difficult both gameplay-wise and narratively. ilitarist fucked around with this message at 11:13 on Feb 27, 2024 |
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Feb 27, 2024 11:05
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hmm ..
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Feb 27, 2024 11:07
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Illiterate AND militarist you say
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Feb 27, 2024 11:21
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ilitarist posted:I'm not that far into the game but I fully expected that at some point iconoclast path throws you into the hands of chaos. Fascism has never been necessary to fight pure evil in 40k. That’s the point. The Empire is a nightmarish machine that makes their primary problem worse, directly and measurably, by existing in the way that it does. It might as well be dedicated to Khorne.
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Feb 27, 2024 11:30
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This point gets lost often in very straight portrayals of the setting. RT is fresh in that it's not like that and focuses on normal people instead of supersoldiers. But from what I've seen playing up to act 2 your Iconoclast decisions do not get a real push from companions and authorities. It's like the empire allows people to be good. Sometimes before you make the decision you're told that genocide is necessary for the greater good, but then when you make the decision there's no pushback, no one tells you that the society will collapse the minute you stop daily public executions. This feels wrong, people around you don't strongly care about the necessity of evil to fight greater evil, and they're still portrayed as deeply devout brainwashed people.
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Feb 27, 2024 12:04
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ilitarist posted:But from what I've seen playing up to act 2 your Iconoclast decisions do not get a real push from companions and authorities. I don't think anyone in first two acts has authority over Rogue Trader, true Inquisitor appears later.
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Feb 27, 2024 12:16
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Szarrukin posted:I don't think anyone in first two acts has authority over Rogue Trader, true Inquisitor appears later. I suppose it's still an early part of the story. It just rubs me wrong for now.
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Feb 27, 2024 12:55
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You do get punished for iconoclast in trying to rescue people from the world in the prologue
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Feb 27, 2024 13:06
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ilitarist posted:This point gets lost often in very straight portrayals of the setting. RT is fresh in that it's not like that and focuses on normal people instead of supersoldiers. But from what I've seen playing up to act 2 your Iconoclast decisions do not get a real push from companions and authorities. It's like the empire allows people to be good. Sometimes before you make the decision you're told that genocide is necessary for the greater good, but then when you make the decision there's no pushback, no one tells you that the society will collapse the minute you stop daily public executions. You never enter the Imperium in the game. The player is well within their rights to do whatever they like, including ally with aliens. Abelard does get mad at you for that and for negotiating with labor though.
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Feb 27, 2024 13:33
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ilitarist posted:I suppose it's still an early part of the story. It just rubs me wrong for now. I think that few people outright states that they put out with your poo poo only because you have Warrant of Trade, a biggest "get out of jail free" card in entire Imperium.
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Feb 27, 2024 13:50
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Szarrukin posted:I think that few people outright states that they put out with your poo poo only because you have Warrant of Trade, a biggest "get out of jail free" card in entire Imperium. Yeah, I get that the game had to do something like that to give you any freedom at all. So far nobody told me anything like this. Recently I had an episode with Idira where you could let Argenta shoot her dead. I expected it to be a hard choice where you'd have to choose between two party members. But Argenta wasn't even disappointed when I stopped her. Same with the end-of-prologue decision, I saw some consequences but there were no consequences you'd expect from being the only non-fascist in a land of fascists. It reminds me of Tyranny which handled somewhat similar premise with more finesse.
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Feb 27, 2024 15:35
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ilitarist posted:Yeah, I get that the game had to do something like that to give you any freedom at all. So far nobody told me anything like this. Recently I had an episode with Idira where you could let Argenta shoot her dead. I expected it to be a hard choice where you'd have to choose between two party members. But Argenta wasn't even disappointed when I stopped her. Same with the end-of-prologue decision, I saw some consequences but there were no consequences you'd expect from being the only non-fascist in a land of fascists. One of the things in the Trader's favor is that part of the Imperial brainwashing is to respect your betters. A good Imperial doesn't question it when the noble tells him to chop off his own hand. The noble is better than you in every conceivable way, and knows what's best for you, so even if you think you're better off with two hands you're just a dumb idiot serf and you'd best get to chopping. Now imagine you're not just a noble, but a certified agent of Big E with His signature on your certificate of definitely the most important person in any given room. And power flows down from there. Why doesn't Argenta question you? Because you have a piece of paper signed by the hand of her God saying you call the shots and your decisions are right. Who is she to question the Emperor's anointed champion? You've got to do a lot more than grant clemency to a psyker or pal around with a xenos to invalidate that authority. Similarly, on Rykad the only two people who are really in a position to contradict you are Abelard and Heinrix. The former would honestly prefer things to be a bit less fashy, so you valuing human life is a nice breath of fresh air. And the latter knows full well that if he pushes too hard you might very well just put him in an airlock.
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Feb 27, 2024 16:46
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Cassia could go on strike but has clearly drunk the koolaid herself
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Feb 27, 2024 16:58
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Cassia's written as a horrible sneering upper class monster and I think that along with her romance and her place as a noble mutant make her a very fun character.
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Feb 27, 2024 17:14
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Nessus posted:Cassia could go on strike but has clearly drunk the koolaid herself Cassia has spent her life marinating in the koolaid. She's legitimately surprised that you allow your crew members to have functioning vocal cords because why would they need to be able to speak? They're just servants.
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Feb 27, 2024 17:25
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Kanos posted:Cassia has spent her life marinating in the koolaid. She's legitimately surprised that you allow your crew members to have functioning vocal cords because why would they need to be able to speak? They're just servants.
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Feb 27, 2024 17:37
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Warmachine posted:One of the things in the Trader's favor is that part of the Imperial brainwashing is to respect your betters. This is a very well explained point of view and it will probably enhance my experience. Thank you.
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Feb 27, 2024 17:44
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I would really struggle to find an example of human civilization at any point in actual history that is as lovely as the imperium. It's not a good time at all for like 99.9999% of humanity and even the people who are in relatively cushy situations still live in fear. There are other science fiction dystopias that actually seem like they would be a bit of a wash from where we seem to be heading (alpha complex seems pretty nice TBH, thank you friend computer) but 40K or even 30K are definitely not that.
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Feb 27, 2024 18:04
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Eifert Posting posted:I would really struggle to find an example of human civilization at any point in actual history that is as lovely as the imperium. It's not a good time at all for like 99.9999% of humanity and even the people who are in relatively cushy situations still live in fear. I do think there are large numbers of planets that aren’t being in the front lines of war where life may be crappy but like “ life in the Soviet bloc” crappy, not “toiling in the Roman salt mines” crappy.
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Feb 27, 2024 18:13
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Kanos posted:Cassia has spent her life marinating in the koolaid. She's legitimately surprised that you allow your crew members to have functioning vocal cords because why would they need to be able to speak? They're just servants. a decent number of RPG characters are just a metaphor played straight. Cassia is part of the exclusive club that pulls it off. hey, check it out, a horrifyingly inbred mutant who has been raised from birth to believe she is the only reason for her inferiors' existence and her family are the only other people who exist and/or matter. the reality of the rest of the universe is something she treats with polite incomprehension, let alone the idea those are people who have thoughts/feelings/etc, and when she is upset she outright -overwrites- the feelings of anyone near her with her own. subtext, cowards, etc
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Feb 27, 2024 18:38
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Yeowch!!! My Balls!!! posted:a decent number of RPG characters are just a metaphor played straight. Cassia is part of the exclusive club that pulls it off. Argenta is in a similar state of delusion but at some points comes off as just unbelievably dumb as well over it in a way Cassia does not.
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Feb 27, 2024 18:43
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Nessus posted:Ah but consider the value of so many individual humans existing! I am very smart and post on LessWrong. The "Imperial Worlds" you can pick as an origin are generally farm planets or mixed light industry worlds(i.e. similar to our planet's concept of industry rather than forge or hive worlds) where people can live relatively normal lives mostly unfettered by utterly crushing dystopian despair. They're still rife with inequality and subject to a strict class system, and you're still beholden to a state religion and authority structure that kills you if you fall out of line, but not everyone in the Imperium lives on a slice of nutraloaf and a scoop of gruel between 22 hour work shifts. The Cain novels have a lot of examples of normal non-hellscape Imperial planets.
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Feb 27, 2024 18:53
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The game does give you a bunch of bad outcomes for iconoclast choices. Not all the time and it’s mostly in ending slides, but they’re there. Chapter one has a bunch of gut punches if you try to do the nice thing at the end. Incidentally, does Yrillet even have any good endings? I romanced her and her ending was she ended up being just as disappointed in humanity as she was in fellow eldars and she ended up becoming a miserable space pirate whose apparent only friend was Marazai, because they both understood the horrors of enduring warp travel the human way.
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Feb 27, 2024 19:28
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I expect Iconoclast choices to have lovely outcomes and endings. I don't expect the game to directly say "you sold your soul Chaos fool!" and then flag future consequences with that choice.
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Feb 27, 2024 19:54
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I haven't seen that flag in my Iconoclast - rank 4, but I also had rank 2 of Dogmatic. I'm not sure if it's "protecting" me or just fun bugs. Though not going pure Iconoclast at every choice means I doubt I'll be able to hit rank 5 and that might bite at the ending.
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Feb 27, 2024 19:59
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pentyne posted:Argenta is in a similar state of delusion but at some points comes off as just unbelievably dumb as well over it in a way Cassia does not. She has always existed in an environment where not being unbelievably dumb about her prescribed assumptions probably gets her a bolter shell to the cranium at best. She doesn't strike me as a particularly intelligent character but she's definitely got an ulterior motive for being oblivious at times. Most of the decisions she actually makes in the game were good calls even though she can't really show her work.
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Feb 27, 2024 20:00
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I think Owlcat went too nuts with choice outcome flags and the whole decision tree/whatever is too complex to fix without a ton of work. So many of the problems with the ending have to come down to a bunch of misflagged events and contradictions.
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Feb 27, 2024 20:03
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I ran a full iconoclast run and had none of the issues you appear to be having so whatever broke for you isn't a 100% thing, at least. Curious what might have busted though.
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Feb 27, 2024 20:12
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Psycho Landlord posted:I ran a full iconoclast run and had none of the issues you appear to be having so whatever broke for you isn't a 100% thing, at least. Curious what might have busted though. I'm only starting to notice from that "light blue text" thing that appears that you can mouse over and it explains its from a past choice. Most of it is accurate, people you've saved or sided with, but I noticed every so often when I check its something I'm almost certain I didn't do or it's back to back in the same conversation and giving contradictions, like the Heinrix example.
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Feb 27, 2024 21:30
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