Need an option to disable Void Combat, or a Mod

[Amoc]

Just like Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker, the worst party of this game (aside from the bugs) is the void combat. It could have been a cool system, just like WotR's Crusade system could have been, but Owlcat didn't bother doing much with it. As a result, it plays like a half-baked and depthless proof-of-concept that wastes the player's time.

As with any other online criticism for any game out there, there's always going to be folks saying, "I really liked it. It was a nice change of pace." If that's actually true, good for you, but this system is objectively shallow and I'd struggle to find a worse turn-based combat system in any game, ever, that wasn't Wrath of the Righteous' Crusade system.

I don't understand why Owlcat keeps doing this, and even worse, hasn't clued in that disabling it as an option is vital to a lot of people's enjoyment of the game. With Wrath of the Righteous, I full-on quit the game until mods came out that made the Crusade Battles auto-win without even going into combat. I didn't do that because the Crusade Battles were hard. I did it because it was a joyless waste of time that didn't challenge me with anything but busywork.

Ship combat is the same. You don't really have choices to make in how you load up your ship. There aren't many different compenents to use to begin with, and there are certain ones that are objectively way better than others. Those are the ones you pick, and so combat plays out similarly every time. The only difference from one battle to the other is where your enemies spawn. Sometimes they spawn on top of you, go first and take you down to 25% before you even get to move. Sometimes they are out of range, and graciously fly close enough that they'll be in range for your turn so they can die immediately.

Having played through most of the ship combat through Act IV in my first run, I never felt like I did anything good or bad in these fights. It was just sort of how the dice landed when I started. In my second playthrough, I've turned it down to easy-as-possible settings, and I'm not missing it one bit. The only thing that sucks is that I still have to go through the loading screen and the ponderous turn animations of the enemy ships so I can get out and get on with the actual game.

[I Denizen I]

Originally posted by Amoc:

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

My point though is entirely valid, the OP stated this was an addon system that was not needed, nor wanted, my rebuttal was "We're Rogue Traders, and a key point of that is owning a starship."

Your point, and your rebuttal, were both goofy. I said we needed an option to skip void combat, because it's a shallow and boring waste of time.

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

it's not some after thought, its a core part of the RT RPG system, it's what makes it significantly different than DH, or OW, or DW, you play a Starship owning RT who travels on it doing RT things.

You can't even argue that it wasn't an afterthought. Compared to the party-based combat, the void combat is a sad joke - just like the Crusade system in WotR. They advertised an idea, made a proof of concept, and then never put any time, effort or resources into it. To say that the mechanics are shallow is generous.

Even from a narrative perspective, void combat is lazy. If they want the Von Valencius dynasty to be based in a sword class frigate, that's fine, but then sending us into battle against full-sized Chaos cruisers with 2-3 escorts of their own, or worse, is cringe.

You seem to be struggling real hard with the basics here.

Before you or I purchased this video game, It was a no brainer it was going to contain ships, ship combat, ship exploring. because it is a video game about Rogue Traders.

And my suspicion about its lack of depth and complexity is because Games Workshop also sell a game called BattleFleet Gothic Armada, and it would be virtually impossible for Owlcat to produce an indepth combat system here with ships, that would not automatically be accused of just copying BFGA into this game, because everything is the same, everything. which opens a whole can of legal worms.

So blame GW if you want to blame someone, they created this mess by licencing BFGA to one company, and licencing RT to Owlcat.

[FunkyMonkey]

It's pretty terrible, but better than either side hustles from Pathfinder games. That is a very low bar, though, buried under ground.

Luckily there is Toy box so I can just kill all enemies the instant combat starts and play the part of the game I actually enjoy.

[Urponaattori]

GIve us more ships!

[Rookie0879]

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

We have an original Emperor signed Warrant of Trade, there is no justifiable reason for us to have just a frigate as our personal capital class ship, except we were supposed to get a larger vessel at some point and that content was cut.

To be honest, it makes no sense for us to have a frigate to begin with. Winterscale has a grand cruiser. Rules over 8 worlds (what we know of). Chorda has a grand cruiser. Rules over five worlds (that we know of). Both have fleets supporting them. Pirates. Have cruisers. And then we have our dynasty. A meager frigate and an off-screen fleet of several frigates that guards our worlds, but not really.

Either the starting ship should have been bigger and should have been destroyed in the prologue or we should've been a new Rogue Trader. It makes no sense that our Dynasty could ever pass as a rival to the other two Rogue Traders, not with the resources we have. It's like we are playing the Crusade from WoTR, but the other side has all cool units. IMO, if the devs cut out the content about getting a proper ship and a fleet, they should have added an option to skip space fights. Because while fun at the start, they soon shatter all immersion when we take cruisers or larger ships with our tiny thing.

[Amoc]

Originally posted by REhorror:

Space combat is very fun tho, so I'm not sure what you are smoking.

We have two turn-based combat systems in this game:

One gives you 6 party members, varying battle terrain, 60 levels worth of skills for close to a dozen archetypes, each playing very differently and synergizing together.

The other gives you less than 5% as many customization options in terms of gear and ability, no battle terrain, and you only have one unit and one class to control, ever.

SpaCe ComBaT SO fun!

Originally posted by REhorror:

It needs more variety but it's probably the funniest/most engaging mini/side-system that Owlcat has made, it just needs well, more variety and bigger ship(s) for you.

Saying this is the most engaging mini-game Owlcat has made so far might be right, but that's like saying that it's the least stinky mess they've made in their underwear overnight.
Just like the Crusade system from WotR, it could have been good, but they did nothing with it. It needs more everything to be a compelling use of game time - bigger ships, more components, escorts, more abilities etc. Based on the Crusade system from Wrath, however, we can almost guarantee we're not going to get that.

[woops]

Originally posted by Amoc:

Saying this is the most engaging mini-game Owlcat has made so far might be right, but that's like saying that it's the least stinky mess they've made in their underwear overnight.
Just like the Crusade system from WotR, it could have been good, but they did nothing with it. It needs more everything to be a compelling use of game time - bigger ships, more components, escorts, more abilities etc. Based on the Crusade system from Wrath, however, we can almost guarantee we're not going to get that.

yes, it's the best one so far but it's still a joke and boring and I don't want to do it. I never even finished their previous games because of the horrible minigame mechanic and I can already see how impossibly hard ship battles might do the same for me in this game because it just feels so utterly bad to be a rogue trader and then go into ship battles with one ship and I get swarmed by 10 other ships. Am I the representative of the imperium and powerful or not man.. if I am then I should have more than a single ship

[Amoc]

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

You seem to be struggling real hard with the basics here.

Naw dog. That's you. You're arguing with yourself about points nobody is making.

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

Before you or I purchased this video game, It was a no brainer it was going to contain ships, ship combat, ship exploring. because it is a video game about Rogue Traders.

Yes, but that didn't mean the ship combat had to be a shallow pile. It didn't mean that Owlcat had to spend next to zero time on it.

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

And my suspicion about its lack of depth and complexity is because Games Workshop also sell a game called BattleFleet Gothic Armada, and it would be virtually impossible for Owlcat to produce an indepth combat system here with ships, that would not automatically be accused of just copying BFGA into this game, because everything is the same, everything. which opens a whole can of legal worms.

Your suspicion is also goof. BattleFleet Gothic 2 was made by Tindalos and Focus (licensed by GW), was released half a decade ago, and received its last patch over four years ago. If there was a licensing problem, this game would have never been made. You're literally trying to tell us that the terms of the licensing agreement are, "You can make ship combat, but it has to be really shallow and not very good." Ooookay.

[I Denizen I]

Originally posted by Rookie0879:

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

We have an original Emperor signed Warrant of Trade, there is no justifiable reason for us to have just a frigate as our personal capital class ship, except we were supposed to get a larger vessel at some point and that content was cut.

To be honest, it makes no sense for us to have a frigate to begin with. Winterscale has a grand cruiser. Rules over 8 worlds (what we know of). Chorda has a grand cruiser. Rules over five worlds (that we know of). Both have fleets supporting them. Pirates. Have cruisers. And then we have our dynasty. A meager frigate and an off-screen fleet of several frigates that guards our worlds, but not really.

Either the starting ship should have been bigger and should have been destroyed in the prologue or we should've been a new Rogue Trader. It makes no sense that our Dynasty could ever pass as a rival to the other two Rogue Traders, not with the resources we have. It's like we are playing the Crusade from WoTR, but the other side has all cool units. IMO, if the devs cut out the content about getting a proper ship and a fleet, they should have added an option to skip space fights. Because while fun at the start, they soon shatter all immersion when we take cruisers or larger ships with our tiny thing.

I agree, it was the one thing that truly made me feel disappointment, the moment I realised I could not get a better/bigger ship.

It's a common theme, you start at the bottom, with basic stuff, you gain experience, gain gear and become more powerful in virtually every type of game, but especially in RPG's, so that is what makes me believe there was supposed to be access for the player to more powerful vessels, it's a no brainer, it's an important progression path for a RT and I cannot see the devs overlooking that fact.

As I said elsewhere in other topics, they could have done a prolonged combat mission, which starts in space, you disable an enemy vessel, then have multiple missions where you try and take it over (they could have borrowed the idea from Me3, where you can pick and choose companions to lead different boarding teams to different objectives with differing levels of success based on their skills, gear and talents.) they could have had timers to represent the ship crew effecting temporary repairs and being able to retreat.

They could have had you go on a large quest chain, that ends with you finding a decommissioned or deserted vessel, and had you bring parts and specialists to it toget it moving and back to your shipyards for a refit, and had pirates appear and try stealing it en route.

They could have done a great many things that would have added considerably to the game play experience to add a bigger ship, and my guess is it got cut in the rush to get the product out before christmas, and it's my vain hope we get a DLC doing one or more of these things in the near future.

As for the complexity of the designed system, again just my thoughts here, but I think they had to produce a system that was functional and not like BFGA because of either licencing issues with GW itself, or material copyright or issues with the company that produced BFGA under license from GW.

[revan1229]

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

It's pretty terrible, but better than either side hustles from Pathfinder games. That is a very low bar, though, buried under ground.

Luckily there is Toy box so I can just kill all enemies the instant combat starts and play the part of the game I actually enjoy.

Yeah, but the side games in the Pathfinder games could be made optional. No such luck here.

[FunkyMonkey]

Originally posted by revan1229:

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

It's pretty terrible, but better than either side hustles from Pathfinder games. That is a very low bar, though, buried under ground.

Luckily there is Toy box so I can just kill all enemies the instant combat starts and play the part of the game I actually enjoy.

Yeah, but the side games in the Pathfinder games could be made optional. No such luck here.

They could, yes, but with a cost to your play through. You would miss out on items/quests etc. Not really optional, to me at least.

[I Denizen I]

Originally posted by Amoc:

snip

No, again you fail to grasp what is being said, how do they not be accused of just copying BFGA here in this game?

Like literally how do you go about it.

All BattleFleet Gothic Armada is, is a game where ships from the lore of 40k fight against each other in space battles.

Every ship has the same name/class
Every faction has specific ships
Every Weapon system has the same name / functions the same way ( a lance is a lance).

So what do you do?

Did GW tell owlcat their original idea would need an additional licence from them? because it was just a copypaste of BFGA?
Did GW tell owlcat there is a riser in the contract with the company who produced BFGA that no other game can be made about BFGA without them being offered first refusal X amount of years after it's published?
Did GW tell them sorry we have plans for a reboot of BFGA in the near future and we do not want you to produce a system so like the current BFGA PC games.?

Name me one other video game where one company copied wholesale the ideas and execution of a game system designed by another game company, just one, that did not result in legal action.

I don't know if you know this, a company (Cyanide) made a game called Chaos League, based around fantasy races and American Football, GW took a pretty big exception to it and sue'd the ass off of them, part of the remuneration was to produce Bloodbowl for GW.

Now you can argue that fantasy races are not owned by GW (they aren't) and that American Football is not owned by GW (they aren't) and yet GW was successful in its actions in court against this video game company, for two things they categorically did not own, nor create. And you don't wonder what loops owlcat where forced to jump through to produce a space combat system that was not significantly alike to BFGA.

[revan1229]

Originally posted by FunkyMonkey:

Originally posted by revan1229:

Yeah, but the side games in the Pathfinder games could be made optional. No such luck here.

They could, yes, but with a cost to your play through. You would miss out on items/quests etc. Not really optional, to me at least.

Fair point.

[Amoc]

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

No, again you fail to grasp what is being said, how do they not be accused of just copying BFGA here in this game?

Because it's a completely, totally different game? Rogue Trader is a CRPG with a small turn-based ship-combat minigame. BFG:A is a real-time space combat game with full fleets. If licensing around ship combat was a problem, GW would have never granted the license to Owlcat. That's the end of your argument right there.

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

Name me one other video game where one company copied wholesale the ideas and execution of a game system designed by another game company, just one, that did not result in legal action.

First off, Tindalos and Focus don't own or control the 40k IP. They didn't design or come up with Lances, or Macro-Cannons, or any of the ship names. They already existed in the old tabletop game, and they were adapted for the computer game. When GW grants a license for a 40k game, it doesn't tend to give many exclusive rights to the licensee. That's why we have literally dozens of games with space marines and chaos space marines, orks and eldar with all of their battle regalia on Steam.

Regardless, your whole argument boils down to the goof idea that void combat is shallow because of licensing, as if GW only granted the license under the condition that it be half-assed. That's absurd.

[I Denizen I]

Have you looked at GW back catalogue of video games?

There are many many examples of the games being crap because of GW and licensing, and them interfering.

For decades we have had crap video games specifically because GW did not want to kill the golden goose, the table top side of the company, the shops, the miniatures, the paints.

And you think GW scuppering something is absurd? tell us you don't know GW and GW's history why don't you.

I notice you also didn't give me a name for a game company that copied another game companies work and got away with it, either from the developers, the IP holders, or the players.

[Amoc]

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

Have you looked at GW back catalogue of video games?

There are many many examples of the games being crap because of GW and licensing, and them interfering.

Yes, there is a wasteland of bad GW licensed games out there. Most are are bad because they're badly made, not because GW interfered. You can find games like DoW 1, beloved and still played nearly 20 years later, and you can find abortive messes like DoW 3, which nobody wanted to play even on release. The difference was almost always the design and execution, not GW causing licensing problems.

Originally posted by I Denizen I:

I notice you also didn't give me a name for a game company that copied another game companies work and got away with it, either from the developers, the IP holders, or the players.

Because it was irrelevant. I don't need to entertain your pointless red-herring when your core argument is this bad. Void combat in Rogue Trader sucks because they evidently put no time or effort into it. Giving you bigger ships, escorts, more abilities and customizations etc wasn't going to cause licensing problems. All that IP stuff is already in the game. Owlcat just didn't do any of it, because they rushed it out the door and, just like with WotR, they knew it sucked and released it anyway.