Warhammer 40k Inquisitor: Martyr

So this game is due to come out in the next two weeks, with the final beta releasing today. I have played a LOT of the beta over the last year, and quite enjoyed it.

I don't know that I would suggest getting the game today, since there will no doubt be a final character wipe in two weeks when it goes live... or if you are a dedicated min/maxer then maybe get it today knowing that you'll be forced to apply what you learn in the next two weeks to your final build at launch.

Martyr takes place in a previously unused sector of Warhammer 40K space, and you play the part of an Inquisitor who was sent to investigate the mysterious appearance of the long lost battleship Martyr from warp in the sector, and a chaos invasion that spawned from it. The Beta has only had a small portion of the campaign available, so I can't really say more than that... since they haven't covered it yet.

Martyr is an ARPG built in the Warhammer 40K universe, where you choose between a Crusader and two other classes but why would you play them?

Kidding, the Crusader is a pseudo tank in the game, with the Psycher as the Buff/Healer and Assassin as DPS... though all classes do a fine job of mass destruction if you build them right.

Offensive skills are determined by the weapon used, with a given weapon type giving 2 or 4 skills. Essentially there are right and left click skills for all weapons, and then two bonus skills for most weapons if you wield only that weapon that are assigned to the 1 and 2 buttons. The only divergence from that is 1H melee weapons that only get the R/L attacks. A weapon or shield that is equipped in your off hand will get it's two primary skills tied to button 1 and 2 to complete the 4 skill build. 2H weapons will always have the same 4 skills.

Anyway, if anyone else decides to play I'd like to discuss strategies and builds here. Crusader wielding a Greataxe FTW!

Sigh... final beta pushed to Wednesday.

I hit the end of the beta story line missions and I must say that, bugs and all, this is shaping up to be one hell of a WH40K story. As a WH40K nerd (lite) my mind boggles at how they can carry out this story to a satisfying conclusion without breaking the WH40K universe.

Granted, it's WH40K, so the most persistent canon is that everything is terrible and everyone dies to hubris, eventually. :lamo

I love the Warhammer universes (both fantasy and 40k)

I spent thousands of dollars on the figurines

The only way Id play a beta version is if they pay me to do it.

Lord Tammerlain said:

I love the Warhammer universes (both fantasy and 40k)

I spent thousands of dollars on the figurines

Click to expand...

Well, the story to this game is sufficiently dark and sinister, and there is a branching campaign surrounding a major discovery in the ancient battleship Martyr that pops up out of warp. You play an inquisitor investigating the appearance, and in the process do battle with Chaos, Rebel and Nurgle demons swarming from the warp.

It's definitely a grindy game, but it is grind in a good way, I think. There are power rated story missions and you decide on how easy or hard they will be by grinding side missions for levels and better gear before you run them.

PoS said:

The only way Id play a beta version is if they pay me to do it.

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They aren't all terrible experiences. Subnautica and Inquisitor were pretty good experiences, as well as Rimworld and a few others.

They have announced that the first free expansion will be a three chapter investigation involving Dark Eldar, the second free expansion will again be a three chapter investigation involving Khorne. After that there will be a paid expansion, but they didn't say what that would involve.

Also worth noting, and I think it's pretty cool, is that the initial investigation will have a moral decision three that drives you towards "Radical" or "Puritan" positions that unlock a new skill tree, and new unique items. Based on what I am seeing in those skill trees, "Puritan" will more rely on passive damage bonuses while "radical" seems geared on warp mitigation... based on the skill trees alone, "Puritan" seems the clear leader.. leading me to believe that balance of the "Radical" power will come from unique items.

So I decided to go full tank on my Crusader build and, without even really trying to tweak my gear, I achieved immortality. Long live the Emperor!



What you are seeing there is all of the passive damage mitigation kicking in by the time I am at about 40 health... by then I am auto-healing faster than I take damage.

OK, my final thoughts on the release build of the game:

It's fun, it's is steeped in Warhammer Lore and introduces something new to the WH40K universe... or at least as an active participant. You take part in a story that seems like the beginning of the Empyrium, and what would be in the WH40K world, to borrow from Francis Fukuyama, the end of history. Or, at least as far as the split brought to Humanity by the Warp is concerned. Dark Eldar, Orks, Tyranids and so forth would still pose a problem.

But then it is very WH40K and any such plan would be doomed to failure... but it is interesting, nonetheless.

Is it buggy? Yes.

Is the game too forgiving to dedicated Min-Maxers? Absolutely. The power you can bake into builds is just insane. It is quite possible to create a fully realize build from conceive to achieve in a matter of a few days of concerted effort, so the game's meta is is constantly churning even without a nerf hammer.

When you have a build you like, there is not much more to do other than grind for your cabal (guild), or level another toon.

The story appears to have been cut off prematurely for a stand alone game, feeling more like a season cliff hanger than a full story arc. I don't know how I feel about that... it seemed to go by too fast, and I feel I am running to the end of the game for me until a new patch. That being said, it should be pointed out that I have 200 hours in the game, so it's not like it didn't hold my interest.

What is currently missing: Boss Fights and Named gear.

It's silly to want named gear in a game where the existing top level gear makes you an unkillable machine... but then the best builds in Diablo 3 and elsewhere achieve much the same result. Maybe require named gear as a right of passage to the unkillable death machine builds...

As for bosses, there is really just one boss, but by the time to face them you are just too powerful to care. It's weird that I find myself missing the gimmicky phase-based boss fights that I thought I hated, but I guess I do. The game definitely needs bosses that exploit weaknesses in either your theory crafting or button clicking skills.

All that said, when you land on a build you are comfortable with and just destroy armies of warp-mutated heretics it is darn fun.

There has been a major update to this game in preparation for 2.0. There is a lot I like about the patch, but whether it will change anyone's opinions I don't know.

What has changed:

1) Game speed... all units and cool downs have received a buff, speeding up the game to something closer to a standard ARPG speed.

2) The old Tarot system was scrapped, and now tarot cards can be applied directly to random missions. Tarot cards usually make a mission more difficult with some added reward, or desired augment... like 30% more damage from mobs, but 50% more XP, or influence the RNG to drop more of a specific item class during the mission. This is a a major change for the better and improves QOL for us end-game grinders.

3) Gear score has been removed so now gear is purely level/class based. This is a welcome change since the old system had some bizarre side effects since main missions were gear score locked while other missions (like tarot missions) were leveled to gear score.. meaning that after you finish the main missions you run out of reasons to raise your gear score, which is a primary driver for running missions in the first place.

Anyway, so far so good. Looking forward to the expansion "Prophecy" which will add an Adeptus Mechanicus class to the game and the Tyranids. That should be fun.


My primary problem with the game is propably the deal breaker for a lot of people... they have paid DLC that should just be included in the game, like short side campaigns that cost $3 a pop.

Dawn of War was the only WH game I really liked because it allowed you to play other factions- its the one game franchise where I dislike playing the human imperium side (I find them to be silly and too medieval for my tastes).

PoS said:

Dawn of War was the only WH game I really liked because it allowed you to play other factions- its the one game franchise where I dislike playing the human imperium side (I find them to be silly and too medieval for my tastes).

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Yeah, I can see where that would be a draw back for many. I am one of those people who like playing the Imperium. I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic and steampunk-ish themes.

But yeah, DoW is my favorite franchise in WH40K.. though I preferred DoW2 to DoW1. Whenever I think of that series I immediately think of a picture that gave a younger me chills. It was a load screen, I think, from DoW2 that showed a planet undergoing a Tyranid invasion... it was a very simple and ominous way to demonstrate the scale of such an invasion:

So I have a few more hours of the pre-2.0 patch under my belt and I think I am figuring it out. It is definitely a serious attempt at changing the ARPG paradigm... that carries a lot of scars from its past failures. But all in all, I think it is much improved, and there is, as always, a descent amount of difference between the avatars to change the game base don who you play and how you play them.

It isn't as varied as PoE, for certain, but more varied in-class than Diablo 3 I think.

I think my favorite addition to the game is the Void Mission system that creates a small-ish lattice work of branching missions, each capable of being tarot-modified, that increase in level requirement with each step. A Level+1 mission is pretty easy, but the scale ramps up to +5 being very hard, and +8 requiring very well geared players. There are three possible end-boss fight missions that you have to weave your way to, so when you are still gearing up you can do a quick 2 mission jump into a boss fight, while you can linger and pick up some bonus missions which increase your per-mission and end-mission rewards considerably.

I don't know why, but I really like the system to anything the other ARPG titles offer. I hate the PoE Ascendancy mechanic with a white hot passion... this is like taking the Ascendancy mechanic and making it not awful.

On a side note, there seemed to be a bug in the RNG yesterday because all of my relic gear that dropped had movement speed bonuses on them... and three of them rolled 2 identical speed bonus stats. For fun I slightly modded them, but kept all the speed stats, and tried them on in a mission... I'm not hating it, I will say. I am liking it so much that I think that I'm going to stick with this speedy build for a while even if it is a bit less tanky and a bit less murdery than my previous build. The piece of gear that is in major need of upgrade is my 2H Ax anyway, so once I find a replacement there I think I'll stick with this.

Have you ever been in a position where you like a game so much that you spend a lot of time on forums discussing it, and know the game or a class well enough that you get good at creating builds? I'm usually not in that position, but I am with this game.

My problem is that it is an admittedly very small community, and Neocore sees all within the traditional forums, so when I stumble on a really good build I have, in the past, been prone to share it, and every one of my builds then gets the nerf hammer. It's starting to feel personal

I have once again devised a build for my melee crusader in the game that has made me essentially invulnerable through stacking of various perks, skills, etc. I am so invulnerable that I have opted to roll out of all but a few defensive gear affixes and go max DPS, and I think I broke the game. It is easily the most impervious build I have ever made. For the first time I have created a build whose defensive prowess scales linearly with enemy DPS AND my DPS Output likewise scales linearly with Enemy level. Kind of proud of it...

But I can't share it or it will get nerfed.....

First world problems.

Interesting bit of news today...

Games Workshop has hired Frank Spotnitz, the guy behind Amazon's adaptation of The Man in the High Castle, to create a TV series set in the Warhammer 40K universe. The main character will be an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos.

That is intriguing. The IP has never really had a serious treatment on the screen, and hiring Spotnitz indicates that it may get a fair treatment.

Granted, the WH40K universe is full of narrative killing conventions that Spotnitz will have to navigate, so we shall see.

Also, how can a WH40K TV show not be too expensive?

jmotivator said:

Interesting bit of news today...

Games Workshop has hired Frank Spotnitz, the guy behind Amazon's adaptation of The Man in the High Castle, to create a TV series set in the Warhammer 40K universe. The main character will be an Inquisitor of the Ordo Xenos.

That is intriguing. The IP has never really had a serious treatment on the screen, and hiring Spotnitz indicates that it may get a fair treatment.

Granted, the WH40K universe is full of narrative killing conventions that Spotnitz will have to navigate, so we shall see.

Also, how can a WH40K TV show not be too expensive?

Click to expand...

I expect lots of CG, but hopefully it is good. I love the Warhammer universes

Lord Tammerlain said:

I expect lots of CG, but hopefully it is good. I love the Warhammer universes

Click to expand...

I think Games Workshop has visions of a Game of Thrones style show, which would probably work quite well.

Hit a wall in the game on Friday, and probably won't be back until the launch of the new campaign.

The issue I hit was in the game's Morality gear system. In order for morality gear to work -- for it's signature affix to work -- you need to be maxed out in your morality power.

I have a serious problem with this system. Why? Because the game throws moral choices at you through the campaign that, until 2.0, eventually triggered the unlock of a Morality skill tree, and that was it. You could make meaningful moral choices along the way as you see fit. So, in the end, if you didn't pick ALL Puritan (Pro-Empire) or ALL Radical (Warp madness), when 2.0 rolled out you were pretty much screwed, since there is no considerable way to gain morality in game after the campaign.

That is not good planning on their part...

Hopefully the new campaign will have more morality choices built in to compensate...

PoS said:

Dawn of War was the only WH game I really liked because it allowed you to play other factions- its the one game franchise where I dislike playing the human imperium side (I find them to be silly and too medieval for my tastes).

Click to expand...

I really loved SotHR and Dark Omen, however. Those are great.

"FLEE! WE FEAR THE ENEMY!"

Maggotkin ftw; oh, and nighthaunt...and death guard... and underworlds... and warcry.

Obscurity said:

I really loved SotHR and Dark Omen, however. Those are great.

"FLEE! WE FEAR THE ENEMY!"

Maggotkin ftw; oh, and nighthaunt...and death guard... and underworlds... and warcry.

Click to expand...

I like the Necrons and the Tau.

PoS said:

I like the Necrons and the Tau.

Click to expand...

Space Communists and Death Squad? Man, they ruined Necrons in 8th until the ne supplements dropped. Couldn't deal with Tau, I dislike having no psychic phase.

Nerds!! :2razz:

jmotivator said:

Nerds!! :2razz:

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Hey man, all in a days work. Besides, I was a big GT guy for over a decade. Colonial GT, Crossroads GT, etc.

jmotivator said:

So this game is due to come out in the next two weeks, with the final beta releasing today. I have played a LOT of the beta over the last year, and quite enjoyed it.

I don't know that I would suggest getting the game today, since there will no doubt be a final character wipe in two weeks when it goes live... or if you are a dedicated min/maxer then maybe get it today knowing that you'll be forced to apply what you learn in the next two weeks to your final build at launch.

Martyr takes place in a previously unused sector of Warhammer 40K space, and you play the part of an Inquisitor who was sent to investigate the mysterious appearance of the long lost battleship Martyr from warp in the sector, and a chaos invasion that spawned from it. The Beta has only had a small portion of the campaign available, so I can't really say more than that... since they haven't covered it yet.

Martyr is an ARPG built in the Warhammer 40K universe, where you choose between a Crusader and two other classes but why would you play them?

Kidding, the Crusader is a pseudo tank in the game, with the Psycher as the Buff/Healer and Assassin as DPS... though all classes do a fine job of mass destruction if you build them right.

Offensive skills are determined by the weapon used, with a given weapon type giving 2 or 4 skills. Essentially there are right and left click skills for all weapons, and then two bonus skills for most weapons if you wield only that weapon that are assigned to the 1 and 2 buttons. The only divergence from that is 1H melee weapons that only get the R/L attacks. A weapon or shield that is equipped in your off hand will get it's two primary skills tied to button 1 and 2 to complete the 4 skill build. 2H weapons will always have the same 4 skills.

Anyway, if anyone else decides to play I'd like to discuss strategies and builds here. Crusader wielding a Greataxe FTW!

Click to expand...

When Inquisitor was mentioned, I thought (and was hoping) it may have been some kind of investigation/adventure game akin to Detroit: Become Human and the like, or perhaps an RPG similar to Deus Ex, so I have to admit I was disappointed to discover it was a diablo style hack and slash, but as they go, it looks pretty awesome.