We’re thrilled to announce that we just released the ‘Goblin Update’ to Steam! After reading about all the additions we made to the game for the past weeks, you can now finally dive into the game and experience them yourselves.
The changes and additions go way beyond adding Goblins. If you haven’t done so already, you can read up on many of the bigger changes in our dedicated posts linked below. Also check out the extensive changelog at the bottom for an overview of all the new features, balancing changes and fixes.
- Bandit Armors and Worn Armors
- Wardogs, Direct Damage Mechanic and Visual Makeover
- Throwing Weapons and Armor Rework
- Character Backgrounds, Companions and Helmet Rework
- Orc Visual Rework
- All about the Goblin Faction
Please note that due to the many changes with the update, your old saves won’t load anymore and you’ll have to start a new campaign.
Enjoy!
Changelog
- Added Goblin Faction with 5 different units, 12 usable weapons and shields, their own music track and sounds.
- Added ‘Line Battle (Goblins)’ and ‘Wolfriders’ scenarios.
- Added a second music track for fighting bandits.
- Added Wardogs and Armored Wardogs as purchasable items. Wardogs can be equipped in the accessory slot and unleashed during battle to chase and pin down enemy units.
- Added Houndmaster background.
- Added more named items.
- Added lots of background specific clothes and hats. Some more background specific stuff is in the pipeline.
- Added Tree Limb and Cudgel as lower tier orc weapons used by Young Orcs.
- Added Morning Star as a lower tier variant of the Winged Mace.
- Added Throwing Axe and Javelin. The Crude Javelin is now an orc weapon again, as originally intended. These weapons have been added to several types of opponents as sidearms.
- Added condition deteriorating with use for ranged weapons as well.
- Added a variety of worn armors and helmets for use by bandits and as starting items for some backgrounds.
- Added a variety of new armors to be bought at cities and strongholds.
- Added cancel button to levelup screen.
- Added warning icon as status effect when a character’s weapon is in poor condition and about to break with the next few attacks.
- Added small animation to using Spearwall skill.
- Added repair icon to all damaged items equipped by a character to make it more obvious that these are repaired automatically and need not be unequipped. This is a purely cosmetic change; equipped items have always been auto-repaired.
- Added new banners to choose from when creating your mercenary company.
- Added three more late game locations with great enemy numbers for a challenge.
- Added ability for the AI to make use of throwing weapons.
- Added ability for the AI to make use of crossbows and added them to the Bandit and Landsknecht arsenals.
- Added lots of other smaller things.
- Changed how weapons and armor interact; weapons now inflict varying amounts of direct damage that may pass through armor (whether by blunt force trauma or piercing through it) and potentially kill a target without destroying every bit of armor first.
- Changed a lot of armor efficiency stats for different weapons that are better simulated with a high direct damage because they aren’t necessarily good at actually destroying armor.
- Changed view range to 7 (up from 6) for all characters.
- Changed range of Crossbow to 6 (up from 5) and Hunting Bow to 7 (up from 6).
- Changed throwing weapons to have a range of 4 tiles and a bonus to accuracy on short ranges which declines rapidly with distance.
- Changed ‘Battleflow’ perk to reduce current fatigue by 30% of the character’s base maximum fatigue (before penalties due to armor are applied) on a kill, as opposed to current fatigue, in order to have characters with more maximum fatigue benefit the most from this. This effect now only triggers on the first kill each turn so that it isn’t disproportionately effective against low-hitpoint targets (such as Goblins), especially in combination with ‘Perfect Focus’.
- Changed ‘Brawny’ perk to also reduce fatigue penalty of helmets by half in order to make it a more impactful pick for tanky characters.
- Changed name of ‘Crush Armor’ skill to ‘Destroy Armor’ to better reflect the idea behind it.
- Changed attribute increase on levelup to use fixed values now per attribute instead of random numbers as before. While we still like the randomized values in principle, they won’t work well with planned changes to the perk system, so we dropped them. We’ll reveal the planned changes to the perk system in time.
- Changed renaming of a character to change their name also in their background description.
- Changed higher tier equipment to be more expensive but left prices of lower tier equipment largely untouched. This is to reinforce a progression of equipment where the player starts with low tier stuff and slowly picks up better gear. Looting better equipment should feel more rewarding this way and there is actually better equipment to save crowns for and spend on in the later parts of the game now.
- Changed starting funds to be higher on all difficulties, especially on Easier.
- Changed reward for contracts to be slightly higher.
- Changed value of some loot items (werewolf pelts, vampire dust, etc) to be slightly higher.
- Changed quivers to show as empty in inventory if they’re, well, empty.
- Changed a few events to take into account how the player needs more crowns now.
- Changed a lot of equipment for AI opponents around for a better progression and less easily attainable high tier weaponry.
- Changed character backgrounds to no longer come with fixed boni and mali to attributes but instead individual min and max values for every attribute.
- Changed starting lineup for the player to always consist of three people with the new ‘Companion’ background which comes with some decent combat skills, weapons and backstories that may include the player.
- Changed all humans, as well as Wiedergangers, to have a new and overhauled look.
- Changed Orcs to have a completely new look.
- Changed Melee and Ranged Skill for player characters in all scenarios to 65 (up from 60).
- Changed bandits on the worldmap to no longer raid villages and only ambush caravans and travellers now. With the Goblins, Orcs and Undead raiding villages, the guys can relax a bit.
- Changed battle at worldmap locations to always start in line battle formation, regardless of terrain.
- Changed enemies killed by allies (militia etc) to no longer drop loot for the player.
- Changed AI to make better use of specialized skills such as Knock Back, Repel, Hook and Rotation.
- Changed UI to switch faster between characters when ending turns.
- Changed lots of other smaller things.
- Fixed pause sometimes not working correctly after leaving towns.
- Fixed town window potentially opening while an event is shown.
- Fixed bug that prevented event cooldown times from working correctly, potentially resulting in individual events firing either too often or not at all.
- Fixed bug that prevented the AI from using Split Shield skill against better shields.
- Fixed bug that prevented the AI from using the Puncture skill in some instances.
- Fixed issue of individual AI characters sometimes defending a position while others choose to engage, especially if they’re far apart. The decision to defend or engage is now always done at group level for consistent enemy group behavior.
- Fixed compatibility issue with Windows 10. Hopefully that’s the only one, but we’ll see.
- Fixed lots of other small bugs and issues.
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I noticed Steam updated yesterday. It’s great how you keep having a steady stream of updates :)
Great work, thx!
Ausgezeichnet!
Finally! Great job.
Thank you guys, you’re awesome! :)
Gonna try that out as soon as I get home!
And my Gambeson arrived today as well! Gonna play Battle Brothers now dressed as a Battle Brother! :P
Thats the spirit! Just dont lose your head…like a Battle Brother :)
Love the new content, it really breaths a longer life into a playthrough and equipment progression is soooo much more meaningful now.
I have only played to where I have a few lvl 5 brothers but… I have one easily changed but major issue.
Melee attack in the level up system – I like the randomness being removed from leveling up. It just feels better for me personally. All of the values are good too (HP +3, Fatigue +4) except for melee attack, which instead of being +2, should be +3. Melee attack is only +2 while ranged is +3. There are a few problems with this.
-Because of the new damage system, bows and xbows punch through armor very well (an excellent change) but this plus the fact that characters regularly start with 50+ ranged attack, means the early game is more even (between a brother using range or melee) it means I can see the late game becoming horribly unbalanced in favor of ranged combat. Include goblins and ranged weapons become a clear winner. My army right now has 4 defensive spear/shieldmen and 8 ranged attackers and I can destroy deadly groups without much issue… at level 5.
-Even if a brother upgrades melee attack every level, he will only gain a total of +20. So a level 11 daytaler could end up being as good as a level 1 hedge knight. It removes the benefit of keeping a poor/average brother alive through countless battles and incentivizes late game swapping for just a few background types (knight, noble, raider, sellsword)
-Because a character MUST either be extremely expensive to acquire or upgrade melee attack every level, the player is left with only 2 real choices of what skills to increase at level up for the majority of the game.
-Mathematically, the returns are higher at skill higher levels when upgrading characters. Improving from 50 to 52 reduces the chances to miss by only 4% (50% miss to 48% is a relative change of 4%) while an increase from 70 to 72 is a 7% reduction. What this does is it means at low levels, the marginal skill increases have very low game impact and as a result, the characters don’t actually get better at an appreciable rate. In short, I don’t feel like my characters are getting all that much better. So I’m far less invested in the characters and don’t care nearly as much for their safety, happiness or even if they die. I care more about keeping the equipment they carry.
I do not know what your plans are for the new perk system but until that comes out, please increase the melee attack skill increase from +2 to +3 as I believe it will make the game just play so much better.
Well, you’ve been working hard! Well done. I’m more concerned about the overarching campaign, but I suppose you haven’t finalized how you want to handle it yet.
Doing an extensive overhaul of the worldmap is the next big thing on our todo list. We think that there’s a lot more we can do here (an actual continent with sealine and more terrain types, villages and cities with identities of their own, more engaging contract mechanics and presentation, more engaging gameplay), so we’re going to invest several months into this after the dust from the ‘Goblin Update’ has settled in a few weeks.
Hi,
I’m not sure whether it’d be better to post some first impressions from the “goblin update” here or on fb, but here goes:
The game is much more difficult now, which is definitely good (it used to plateau in difficulty after the first 40 days or so, depending on the quality/kind of contracts). However:
The goblin faction is way too powerful, as it is. The wolfriders are displaying a terrifying hit ratio, even against defenders on a shieldwall with base defense in the low 30’s. They hit too often and too hard. They’re supposed to be puny creatures.
Their archers are, to put it simply, deadly. Combined with all the other tricks up their sleeves (spiky balls, nets etc.) they are devastating to an -unavoidably, up to a certain extent- infantry-reliant company. I cannot know what their melee and ranged skills are, but even scouting parties described as “puny” on the world map can cause serious difficulties. Dogs are too weak and costly to be used effectively, more often than not becoming easy morale-raising kills instead of a hindrance to the back line of the enemy.
The heavy weapons of the orcs are truly devastating. Chains have insta-killed three times my best defenders (mid-thirties base defense, shield raised, helmets around 170 hp, armor around 150). They don’t even destroy the armor or helmet any more, they just turn the mercs into mush inside their armor. That’s more realistic than before, admittedly, but now that the increase in skill per level has been locked to a certain amount of points, the mercs seem weaker than before (plus, it’s less interesting leveling them up, as we know what will happen stats-wise. With the previous system, it was more of a surprise, plus a really lucky level-up could turn a mediocre merc into an interesting prospect).
The bandits are much more balanced and interesting to play against, now that they’re using throwing axes and javelins. As far as I can tell, a “puny” party or settlement will cause very little problems indeed, unlike those devilish goblins. Or maybe I’ve had more experience playing against the bandits.
Still, my last 4 campaigns have ended in defeat against goblins and apart from the very first one, where I was caught completely by surprise by a “challenging” (read: bloody deadly) enemy raiding party, the other three defeats were with full companies of level 4-5 characters against ambushers and skirmishers. Perhaps you could look into their skill stats, while I’m trying to improve my tactics.
Overall, very interesting update, the world of Battle Brothers is richer and far more interesting now.
Forgot to mention a few glitches I’ve noticed:
A character who had been trapped under a net in one battle, continued to displace the “break free” icon in subsequent battles.
Another character who had his shield broken by an orc beserker (overall, all enemy factions do a much better job breaking shields, even kite and battle shields, not just the regular round ones) continued to display the “raise shield” icon, although he clearly held no shield.
Sometimes, on the order scroll at the bottom of the screen, some characters (battle brothers, haven’t noticed the glitch with enemies) are displayed a bit higher and outside the scroll.
P.S. Orc warriors are also much improved. Faced 3 of these guys, along with 3 young ones and a beserker. I managed to escape with just one battle brother, they were breaking shields left right and center, and landing head blows with ease. Brutes, only to be approached by battle-hardened companies.
Speaking of which, I like the fact that it’s tougher to gain levels, with the new update I haven’t managed to get a single brother to level 11 -I’ve been playing way to aggressively, though.
On a related note, perhaps the game could introduce enemies more gradually. Facing 5 werewolves during the first week or so invariably leads to a slaughter.
I just had a glitch I’d never encountered before: tried to hire a wildman, and ended up with this:
[IMG]http://i16.photobucket.com/albums/b40/Ambrakas/2015-08-25_00001_zpsqsepqcyc.jpg[/IMG]
In case “this” doesn’t show properly, basically the battle brother has zero in all his tats, moral displays normally, as well as damage, chance to hit head and stamina.
I read over at Steam that you’ll be out of office for the week, but I just thought I should let you know.