Dev Blog #91: Miscellaneous Improvements

Dec
09

Dev Blog #91: Miscellaneous Improvements

Work has shifted to the upcoming late game crises, the ‘Greater Evil’. It’s not quite ready yet to present it to you this week, so instead we’re taking you on a tour throughout the numerous smaller improvements we’ve made to the game for the next update – many of them based on your feedback. Let’s go!

Miscellaneous Improvements

Playing Battle Brothers at a high resolution and finding the UI to be too tiny? The next update is about to solve things, with two additional sliders in the game’s video options, allowing you both to scale the size of the UI and the size of the scene (i.e. everything that isn’t the UI) independently.

The worldmap has received a lot of minor improvements over the last couple of weeks. Ever wondered how it is that your company can apparently swim across the water, or what straits can be crossed and what straits can’t? With the next update, any crossings across water now have additional visuals to clearly identify them as such, so that you’ll always know where you can go and where you’ll have to find another way across the water.

Regions controlled by noble houses are now much more coherent, and also often larger than before, which makes patrolling between settlements less of a hassle. What’s also less of a hassle now is pursuing enemy parties – clicking them outside the radius to immediately engage in combat now results in your company automatically following them and trying to get in range, no matter what turns they make to shake you, for as long as they remain in sight. No more frantic clicking all over them in an attempt to catch up!

A common request is for the introduction of a ‘camera lock’ feature – having the map always show your mercenary company at the center of the screen and scroll the map as the company moves. The next update introduces just that as an option you can enable or disable at any time via a button in the top bar or hotkey.

Different settlements offer different services, which is a good thing, because it makes them more unique. Currently, it also means that you, as the player, are required to either memorize or write down what services are on offer in what settlement, however. The next update makes things easier by showing in a settlement’s tooltip every specialized building present in that settlement – all that’s required is that you visit the settlement at least once. Speaking of buildings, every newly generated map is now guaranteed to have at least one of every type of building present.

The tactical combat also has seen some improvements, of course. Of note is that allied units – militia, noble house troops or even wardogs – no longer block movement for your men, and you can hop over them just as you can with your own men, which makes maneuvering in larger battles quite a bit easier.

And finally, hovering over a brother in the roster view will reveal a few combat-related statistics once the next update hits – how many battles the man has seen, how many kills he’s made and the most fearsome opponent he’s slain. If there’s more stats you’d like to see, let us know in the comments below!

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21 comments

  • Avatar photo
    Harry_Krishnaa
    Dec 9, 2016 @ 16:02 pm

    very nice again…. so excited for the update :)

    What about an information/stat .. where the Brother got hired!?

    “Hired in “CityName” 10 days ago. Took part in 1 battle…” -for example-

  • Avatar photo
    Texan
    Dec 9, 2016 @ 16:07 pm

    A memorial wall screen where your fallen Battle Brothers are listed with their deeds? (As in the first blogpost about update)

    • Avatar photo
      RusBear
      Dec 9, 2016 @ 16:49 pm

      +1
      Also for brother statistic : % of successful hits and transferred injured, despite that he is still alive or not)

  • Avatar photo
    Ulrich
    Dec 9, 2016 @ 16:14 pm

    These small improvements are great!

  • Avatar photo
    Hans
    Dec 9, 2016 @ 16:31 pm

    Ouu jéé :D
    GJ as always. But those things was really needed.

  • Avatar photo
    Mleko
    Dec 9, 2016 @ 17:40 pm

    Another small improvement. – it would be nice to see and switch brothers weapons without opening inventory in combat.

    Keep great work!

  • Avatar photo
    Dirk Tillaard
    Dec 9, 2016 @ 18:29 pm

    Higher resotion UI is much appreciated :)

  • Avatar photo
    Rafał Dudek
    Dec 10, 2016 @ 0:13 am

    Please let me check the stats of people that died in combat in the combat results screen.

    Most of the time I can’t fully figure out who I lost so the emotional impact is dampened and it’s harder to figure out who to replace. It’s silly that I cant check their stats, builds and EQ once they’re dead. Please put that info into combat results screen.

  • Avatar photo
    Trenton
    Dec 10, 2016 @ 1:40 am

    All very cool additions! Hoping to see more buildings becoming available soon, like the veteran hall.

  • Avatar photo
    Oh Brother
    Dec 10, 2016 @ 8:48 am

    Wow, thanks for implementing two of my suggestions! I am looking forward to playtesting further updates, and provide more feedback.

  • Avatar photo
    Anonymous
    Dec 10, 2016 @ 15:21 pm

    Really excellent “small” additions. This game is a throwback to the qualitative games of the 90s, which the beastly megamonoliths of gaming have destroyed….. these little changes are all the brilliance that is needed.

    Could you please do a Battle Brother obituary screen also?

  • Avatar photo
    Wargasm
    Dec 10, 2016 @ 21:25 pm

    – # of battles fought
    – % of attacks hitting target
    – average total damage per successful hit
    – average hit-point damage per successful hit
    – # of injuries inflicted
    – # of enemies killed
    – % of times hit when attacked
    – average total damage when hit
    – average hit-point damage when hit
    – # of injuries sustained
    – # of times surviving after being struck down in combat

  • Avatar photo
    Cheetie
    Dec 10, 2016 @ 21:56 pm

    I love all the changes. As statistics are concerned – I’d love to know how many times he was injured or how much damage he took in his whole career.

    Also, a little idea: how about adding roadside taverns in the wilderness? You know, spots between some of the cities/villages where you can actually hop in, drink or recruit someone, gamble and gossip. Could help a lot on different occassions, and you can always recruit a meatshield for a nearby forest run instead of visiting a city.

  • Avatar photo
    Sarissofoi
    Dec 10, 2016 @ 22:02 pm

    Good news. Especially scaled UI. Few things I would like to see if possible.
    -button to minimize Contract, as sometimes it block some vision
    -quick access to items in inventory and switching weapons
    -logbook for rumors and news, new, retired and lost brothers etc
    -increased max rooster of company, 18 is to small thanks to injury system, need to have specialized trooper for specific enemies, if player want try other builds he need dismiss his veterans – let money be main factor reducing company size
    -other issue that would be reduced by increasing reserve rooster size is recruitment – currently player need to either dismiss soldiers or keep some slots open if he want to look or check new ones, if player have more free(even temporary) slots for new recruits so he can check their stats and traits it would greatly reduce this issue
    I would not mind if increased rooster size would be linked either to ambitions, renown or just increased by spending cash. Bigger inventory or chance for bigger inventory or bigger supplies slots in the same manner also would be great.

    About stats for a trooper. Maybe biggest kill count from single battle, the greatest damage dealt or/and received?

  • Avatar photo
    frank_will
    Dec 11, 2016 @ 11:34 am

    Great little improvements guys, thank you very much, cannot wait for the big update!
    It is nice to have the number of kills, do you guys plan to have a page dedicated to this kind of stats? So that you can easily compare your brothers in a single page?

  • Avatar photo
    sqw
    Dec 11, 2016 @ 16:08 pm

    Would a town grow/shrink as time goes on? Would player action and quests actively promote changes to the landscape or are all the landmarks static with pre-allocated facilities upon map generation?

    It’d be a shame to watch your merc company grow and faction ties develop all the while knowing nothing you do matters to the ‘world’ other than kill count.

  • Avatar photo
    Dec 12, 2016 @ 11:23 am

    If I am not asking for too much maybe even fatigue spent or hexes traversed or his initial stats, contracts completed(for which he actively fought). I like the idea of keeping the stats of brothers that died.

  • Avatar photo
    Asmodius
    Dec 31, 2016 @ 8:00 am

    It would be nice to add:
    1. a worldmap UI icon of battle brother who suffers from temporary injury. It is annoing thing to check rooster all the time until BB is healed.
    2. a third row in battle ranks (for more tactical depth) and/or a perk which allows to place BB in deployment area in start of each battle for free AP/fatigue.
    3. some more life in worldmap mode – animals running, animated buildings, blinks on water.

    I have to say that the game you are making is awesome and I can’t wait for release.
    And happy New Year to all!

  • Avatar photo
    BobombNik
    Jan 20, 2017 @ 20:47 pm

    Yessss. Thank you for the battle and kill stats per man. :)

  • Avatar photo
    Colin
    Feb 16, 2017 @ 5:26 am

    When will this update be ready? Just bought the game, but it is pretty much unplayable on my laptop because the text is too small to read. It sounds like this is being sorted out, but I can’t really play the game until the update I guess.

  • Avatar photo
    Svetoslav Antonov
    Feb 27, 2017 @ 12:19 pm

    Thank you so much for the UI and high resolution improvements!
    I haven’t played this game for a while now because my 4K monitor was making it impossible to see things. Didn’t really expect any effort would be made to remedy that.
    I love your game, thanks for this :)

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