Profit Factor is Weird

[Pamparampampamparam]

So I was led to understand that Profit Factor is supposed to represent the sum total of all the money-making assets in your possession, hence why its only a requirement for buying stuff and not an expense. This can take the form of a factory, business, or lucrative connections of some kind that net the Rouge Trader a sizable income.

So you really want me to believe that buying a few mutants from a Freakshow from some random commoner would require me to exchange 2 of these lucrative assets? Or that buying a BROKEN servitor that is going to be scrapped anyways (from one of your palace servants no less) would cost 1? I really don't understand...

Well, I guess I kinda do. These are game-play considerations to make decisions more challenging. But the devs should have understood going into a game like this just have momentus a single point of Profit Factor really is and only tie really important decisions to them. At the moment it just feels like an alternative currency no more significant than gold, just with different rules.

[PureOrionBelt]

Profit Factor is a general sum of buying power of your Rogue Trader. It is an intangible thing and has o do with a lot of factors like property owned, production capability, manpower, literal cash, reputation, favors exchanged, etc.

It is not a specific amount of money. If you were buying mutants in an open freakshow then the sector would know about it and you would lose prospective buyers and reputation in the 40k world and it would be harder for you to trade goods that you own.

[F-Man]

The relative value is quite wierd sometimes, yes.
You make choices that effects a whole or all planets and you only get two points.
Those equal the handful mutants or that servitor does indeed feel off.
But the concept itself is really good imho.

[Pamparampampamparam]

I'm also just not sure how precious it really is. Right now I feel you shouldn't reduce your PF at any cost as there are few opportunities to gain it, but then you can just throw it away doing favors to skip the line at your own DMV (another quest that feels off given who the PC is) and need to spend 1 point to retrain.

Maybe once I get farther in the game will really make it rain and losing a point wont be such a big deal anymore?

[The Seraph of Tomorrow]

I ran into a weird bug at the forge world where allowing the priest during a world event to settle on my planet gave me 2000 PF, a clear bug but certainly made my issue of gaining PF no longer an issue.

[Myth Alric]

If you buy a person you have to feed and home them for the rest of their life, which actually is expensive.

[zastcat]

Originally posted by Myth Alric:

If you buy a person you have to feed and home them for the rest of their life, which actually is expensive.

not for a rogue trader, really the entire issue is another weird conflict between the rogue trader rpg and their changes to make it a crpg (along with the fact they went with something much closer to the dark heresy 2e rules instead of the actual rogue trader rules)

profit factor in rogue trader is basically more like the fantasy of being rich, you don't need to look at the price tags for things smaller than a void ship, most of the time failing an acquisition test just means there aren't any there for you to get or the people with the expertise to do the work are unavailable

you could buy out an entire armory without even noticing a scratch in your profit factor, the things that actually cut into it are *big* expenses like establishing and maintaining colonies or buying void ships (another thing the game doesn't include since you're stuck in a frigate the whole time)

this game meanwhile is trying for something closer to the 2 pathfinder crpgs where your access to items is much more restricted (both by the merchants' stock and by the expense) which... does not work well with the financial and influential power of a rogue trader especially not 1 whose dynasty is supposedly on par with the 2 big names of the koronus expanse and whose warrant of trade came directly from the emperor

it's something that obviously is a gameplay concern so you don't just immediately roll into footfall and walk out with your entire party wearing power armor and the best weapons available, but it's done in a way that makes very little sense

the rpg balanced thing by having multiple factors contribute to the target you'd need to beat to make a successful acquisition check, things like the rarity and quantity of the item(s) you're planning to buy as well as their availability in the place you're trying to buy them at, raise profit factor enough and you can get some really powerful stuff fairly easily but that's after effort on your end

this game instead feels kind of random with it, you'll have standard equipment like medical kits that are somehow available to you *only* through specific powerful factions of the expanse that won't even consider selling them to you until you've handed them materials worth more than the building they live in only for them to give you 5... or you can get several times that just picking them up off the street or looting people who wouldn't see a fraction of the wealth your character can throw around if they spent their whole lives trying

you could have a planetary governor indebted to you and giving you resources to avoid a conflict and get 2 profit factor then turn around and free some mutants from a street show and lose just as much, and that's *not a matter of reputation*, that's the devs deciding there needs to be a cost and deciding profit factor is the only available way to get at you regardless of how disproportionate the differences in gaining and losing profit factor are

edit:

to give a different example, retraining and hiring mercenaries both take from your profit factor (after you get through the free respecs), what reason is there for this? because respecs and mercenaries cost money in the pathfinder crpgs and owlcat wants them to be an expense you can't just spam to work around whatever challenge you have next

there is no understandable gameplay reason that hiring a handful of mercenaries will cost you a chunk of what you get from a personal empire spanning several star systems, including multiple high profile worlds whose contribution is considered a major factor for the most important station in the koronus expanse, but because profit factor is the standard they went with it's the only way to keep you from just spamming things without some even more debilitating penalty like permanent debuffs

[PureOrionBelt]

Originally posted by Myth Alric:

If you buy a person you have to feed and home them for the rest of their life, which actually is expensive.

Not in 40k. People are a commodity to be traded for profit and they are expected to build and provide their own housing. Housing people is only expensive if they are nobles, who are expected to provide for their benefactor, like running factories and prisons and such, which should later increase your PF or you should purge the family line.

Originally posted by Pamparampampamparam:

I'm also just not sure how precious it really is. Right now I feel you shouldn't reduce your PF at any cost as there are few opportunities to gain it, but then you can just throw it away doing favors to skip the line at your own DMV (another quest that feels off given who the PC is) and need to spend 1 point to retrain.

Maybe once I get farther in the game will really make it rain and losing a point wont be such a big deal anymore?

I am at the end of chapter 2 and have 85 PF, so maybe there is too much? Might slow down after Chapter 3, or maybe I will need to exhaust it to get past endeavors?

[JimmysTheBestCop]

It shoots up to over 150 act 4 cause you can do tier 5 projects on colonies

[Pamparampampamparam]

Yeah, I hate when games do things half-way with giving you a really powerful title and then making you feel like an errand boy who has to do everything themselves.

Surprised they picked this game and not Rouge Hersey, where a traditional crpg formula would make sense right out of the box. Instead of playing as the big boss Inquisitor you play as their best operatives with enough power to make the big decisions games like this like to advertise but not enough that the constraints needed to keep the game balanced feel forced.

if you want the actual Rouge Trader experience, you go play Starsector.

[zastcat]

Originally posted by Pamparampampamparam:

Yeah, I hate when games do things half-way with giving you a really powerful title and then making you feel like an errand boy who has to do everything themselves.

Surprised they picked this game and not Rouge Hersey, where a traditional crpg formula would make sense right out of the box. Instead of playing as the big boss you play as the Inquisitor you play as their best operatives with enough power to make the big decisions games like this like to advertise but not enough that the constraints needed to keep the game balanced feel forced.

if you want the actual Rouge Trader experience, you go play Starsector.

the rogue trader rpg wasn't perfect, it actually had to devote a few blurbs on its rulebooks to trying to find ways your players can't answer everything with "alright send in our private army", but out of the fantasy flight games it's the only 1 that fits the adventurer feeling that owlcat knows

dark heresy 1e and 2e (even though they took more of the rules from 2e than rogue trader) both suffer from you being an agent of the people with actual authority and thus would make players feel even more restricted than the game does now

only war you're just a single part of an imperial guard regiment and you have no real control over where you're deployed or what you're issued so it would work better for a shorter more narrow campaign (like the roguelike-esque dlcs for the pathfinder crpgs) than a full crpg

deathwatch you're absolutely powerful and have some autonomy but it still works best for short missions with a looser connection

black crusade you're restricted to chaos and there's no way the mainstream rpg audience will tolerate a story where you're not only a bad guy but you're working for *the* bad guys, if you need an example of that look no further than the fact that barely any rpg can make a dedicated evil campaign without it 1: falling into cartoon villainy instantly, 2: ending in the players losing anyway so the good guys still get a win, or 3: getting panned by almost everybody as edgy garbage

rogue trader was the best option out of the fantasy flight games, wrath and glory was a garbage fire so they couldn't use that, and imperium maledictum is still so new it has nothing but a core rulebook and an intro adventure

really wasn't much in the way of options, I just wish it was closer mechanically to the namesake

[katzenkrimis]

Originally posted by Pamparampampamparam:

So, you really want me to believe that buying a few mutants from a Freakshow from some random commoner would require me to exchange 2 of these lucrative assets?

Yeah, that scenario sucked, but I've long since moved on from it. It's not a big deal. You have plenty of opportunity to grow.

I love the financials in this game. It's so nice to play something unique for a change, while other developers do the same old thing.

Looting is easier. Buying and selling is easier.

And I don't mean dumbed-down. It's just good to experience something different.

[Khloros]

When you stop thinking of it as a currency and think of it as a rating it all makes sense.

[BingusDingus]

Just think of it has a numerical value of your buying power.

[gurugeorge]

I look at it like the equivalent of "being good for" this or that, as the English saying goes. It's more like a Standard & Poor rating or something like that.

[Pamparampampamparam]

Originally posted by zastcat:

dark heresy 1e and 2e (even though they took more of the rules from 2e than rogue trader) both suffer from you being an agent of the people with actual authority and thus would make players feel even more restricted than the game does now

I don't think an Inquisitorial Interrogator (not an actual Inquisitor, just their primary agent) would have anywhere near the same amount of power a Rouge Trader does in general, much less a Rouge Trader in their personal fief. Plus you could give a good reason as to why you can't call upon the full authority of the Inquisition by saying your supposed keep a low profile and not throw your weight around. Would explain why you'd have a more traditional RPG economy as well since you'd be expected to acquire your own gear 'on site'.

Honestly the more I think about it, the more perfect playing an Inquisitorial Agent fits as a modern RPG. Its basically just Mass Effect with cathedrals.