It is not shown IN the system when you are selecting missions, but if you back up a few steps on the star map you can see a rewards bar. They tend to build up to things like item boxes or glory payouts. However, the main thing is they are a source for innoculator components.
Back in beta or early access, according to an AirsickHydra video I was looking at, there was a very different item stat display. If the current one keeps the same basic philosophy, it seems that the “damage” rating you see is the value that is modified by all the other factors, including all the other pieces of gear you have. The power rating…well, it wasn’t clear back then how it was calculated either, but it seems to be a rough estimate of how powerful overall the piece of gear is relative to that level? Dunno.
What’s important is that even if you have a weapon that does less damage, both on the item base stat and with modification, but which has a higher power level/rating, if you equip it your power rating will go up and hence your bonuses vis a vis a lower power level mission will go up (or penalties vis a vis a higher rated mission will go down). So, even if objectively you are doing less damage, in a particular mission you might actually do better with a less effective but higher-rated weapon. Or so it seems. It’s very odd and confusing, really. In early access they also gave you a combat and offense (or DPS) rating instead of the +/- quality indicator.
I kind of thing Neocore is winging it in some ways. They seem to be a talented bunch who are a bit out of their depth.
The documentation in this game is just terrible. Why they would leave so many mechanics just entirely unexplained is nuts.
So example now I have a psychic focus that has a damage rating? Since the stated purpose of the psychic focus is to provide an additional skill slot, why does it have a damage rating? When does this damage rating trigger or affect because the psychic focus itself is a passive buff?
I also find the whole relic enhancement tab in the crafting menu a total mystery.
But instead of giving us fixes to this base game, we’re getting some ridiculous grind fest rubbish.
I’m enjoying the game, warts and all. Hopefully Neocore continues to support it and make improvements including providing decent documentation. If not, well I already have over 40 hours with it which is more than I’ve played a lot of other games.
Things like damage ratings are indeed baffling. As far as I can tell, every item can have any stat added to it, so they’re all just places to put affixes, in addition to whatever primary task they perform. A focus, for example, is nothing but a spell slot, but it has bonuses that apply simply for equipping it, no matter what you put in it. I guess it’s similar to other ARPGs, but in those, usually some pieces of gear have some stats but not others, or are at least more likely to have X or Y; there’s a sort of system. Here, it seems totally random.
A lot of it seems tied to the power ratings of the maps. Their whole balance thing seems built around the dynamic of matching your power rating to that of the missions, and getting buffed/nerfed based on whether you are higher or lower than that rating.But the power rating is only tangentially connected to in-game actual statistics it seems. If there is a direct connection, it’s as obscure as the Davinci Code.
Does anyone understand how skill trees work. There are certain skills with “dashed” borders, some with no borders and some with solid lined borders. I have all the skills on one side/direction leading up to skill with solid lined borders but I can’t select it. Do I need the skills connecting on the other side? Or a minimum number of skills in the tree before I can select this one? The solid border skills seem to be the top skill in the tree, so I assume there’s prerequisite that I am not filling yet.
The skills in the middle portion of the trees seem to require you to get all of the attached skills first, meaning you have to work in from two or more corners to get a lot of the better skills. It’s not necessarily a bad idea, just poorly illustrated or documented. Like, um, everything else in the game.
I mean, i really do like it, but it seems like they figured their success with a B-tier ARPG like Van Helsing prepared them for a major license game with AAA pretensions (at least, the audience sure is treating it like they expected a AAA game). Unlike Blizzard, who though it took a year were able to resurrect D3 successfully, I’m not as confident Neocore can rally the troops enough to keep this one from crashing and burning. These sorts of games need ongoing support I think, a lot of it.
For instance, this one direly needs more tilesets, and more imaginative locations. I get that 40K is a neo-Gothic sort of thing, but, um, not every location that’s not a mining planet or what seems to be a parade ground or the site of a Roman triumph has to be a freakin’ cathedral. There’s a lot more variety in the 40K universe in terms of architecture, particularly internals. Color would be nice, too, to go with the sometimes even garish figurines of the tabletop game.
And for the sake of the Emperor, more and more diverse and appropriate barks for the Guardsmen and enemies. If I hear “Don’t linger, Guardsmen!” one more time…
I’m still lurking and playing when there’s a slot available.
evilekim
You’ve been added! The Emperor approves!
Finished the story campaign on my Psyker, at level 28, power level 707 after the loot from the last mission.
One non-spoiler PSA: if you have self-buffs, like the spell you cast which saves you from a killing blow, or even a force field from a belt item, it will be stripped from you every single time you have a cutscene/interaction, like with a cogitator. It really sucks, because combined with the game’s idiotic insistence that you run up to bad guys to talk to them and then go into combat right then while you are up in their grill, well, doing that with no buffs on makes for some frantic scrambling. It’s simply inconceivable how some of this stuff made it through QA.
That being said, the story is pretty good, very much 40K. I did cheese it a bit at the end, using one of those +50% damage for five mission things for the last four missions simply because I couldn’t be bothered to grind out a few more power levels to mitigate the penalties for the higher-level of the final missions.I just AoE’d everything to the Abyss and back (which I could have done without the buff, too, but it was more fun this way).
We’re all agreed Psykers are OP right? Because I just roflstomp just about every level with hardly any pauses except to melt faces off bosses.
I’m playing a Psyker without using the AoE bugged skill and finding it challenging. Definitely feels like a glass cannon.
Only level 9 so maybe later it will become easy mode as I get more skills and more points in the trees.
You don’t need that allegedly bugged skill to kick butt with AoE, though. AoE is simply super powerful. But then, that’s what wizards/mages or the equivalent generally do in all ARPGs. The trade off is usually single-target DPS. The Psyker, though, gets the molten beam, and combined with all the abilities or perks you can get that give you either damage reduction or increased damage–or both–while channeling that puppy, you get the best of both worlds. The drawback for the Psyker is mobility, as it is the slowest of the bunch, with few mobility options. There are a few one-handed swords with a “teleport to target” type ability, but that’s pretty much what you don’t want to do with a squishy mage.
If you want to see OP, try a melee Assassin with the Carthean sword. With the right perks and gear, it’s like an unstoppable food processor, except it processes Chaos baddies…
What did you use for AoE at lower levels? I don’t get Firestorm for 4 more levels or Haemorrhage for another 6 levels.
Hmm, other than the basic Pyro staff, yeah, I guess I didn’t start to AoE until I got the big stuff. Before that I used mostly that beam I guess. And 'nades.
Yeah I’m using the Pyro staff with mostly heat skills right now. It’s working OK so far.
Just tried to make an Inoculator that showed as three red boxes. When I made it the thing had two yellow boxes and one green. WTF?! So is this broken too?
Edit - According to Steam this is a know bug. Grrrrr…
Sure are a lot of known bugs…
And a host of unknown bugs? There are the bugs we know, the bugs we don’t know, and the bugs we know we don’t know…
dashed skills tend to have an actual effect and not just a % increase to something. the solid one requires all three paths to it to unlock it. It’s kind of like the bonus skill reward for mostly maxing the tree .