Yeah, I’m going to avoid talking TOO much on this topic, but I’d say the randomness feels like it’s in about the right place when I play. Good strategy wins the day, and stacking bonuses in your favor works, but you always do have at least a slight risk of failure… which keeps things exciting. I like it.
Personally, one thing that I’ve pondered in the past is if “graduated” successes / failures might be good. In one of my favorite tabletop RPG systems, Dungeon World, every action taken has three different kinds of results: failure, success with a cost, and outright success without cost. For instance, a Hack and Slash attempt in Dungeon World varies from a simple failure to both you and the enemy taking damage to JUST the enemy taking damage. I keep wondering if this principle – degrees of success, let’s call it – can be applied to Battle Brothers in some way.
…But then you’d still have complaints about the RNG if degrees of success WERE implemented. Besides people having outright bad luck sometimes, confirmation bias is also a thing. And Lord knows I’ve had some HORRIBLE luck in certain games. I guess I just like the feeling of tossing the virtual dice every time I go in for a kill. It keeps things tense.
But one thing I REALLY hope gets done? I hope the injury system allows Battle Brothers to sometimes be knocked out in a fight without actually being killed. I think if THAT was done, we’d have a lot less complaints about the RNG of the system, and frankly a chance of being knocked out instead of killed would allow the devs to make the game less forgiving in other areas.
