A discussion of tone/balance

[Sekata]

Hello.

Hopefully this reaches the eyes of a dev or someone associated with the devs.

I know that I’ve been one of the critical voices here on the forums. Just to be clear, I love the game. I’ve seen rumblings of another patch coming to address the combat log and balance issues. It must be odd to have so many other voices chime in and give feedback into something that you had an initial vision and plan for. Personally, I’d prefer a pure consistent vision of the game even if it’s not the kind of game that I myself on these forums have advocated for. Consistency is important and the experience will be better overall if you as developers are allowed to fully realize exactly what game you wanted. If that’s a game where necrosavants roflstomp the player on day 22, that’s your decision to make. My view of the game may not be the view that a player is intended to go into the experience with.

My point is that your community wants to help you fine tune the game to the experience that you imagined it to be. I’m afraid of sweeping balance changes to address whining on the forums (mine included) if they compromise the intended tone and idea. On the other hand, I’m excited at the prospect of giving feedback that can help you as developers create the type of experience that you intended.

My view of BB as an outsider playing is a hardcore strategy game that I can play and come back to frequently where I can have a game go up past 400+ days and enjoy the experience at leisure. I have been viewing it as an management/rpg where one playthrough can last forever if played properly, but I realize that might not be intended. Which means that all of my feedback on the forums has not been pushing the game in a direction consistent with dev planning.

My question is this. How do you as developers see your game? Between games like Warband (that you can play for hundreds of hours on a single playthrough) and xcom (where a single playthrough is intense and relatively short) where do you see Battle Brothers in the “diet” of a gamer? I ask because the answer influences how we as a community give feedback, and what we focus on criticizing. My frequent issues with necrosavants and crossbows don’t mean diddly if the game is meant to be bone tough and kill the player frequently on bad dice rolls.

If you find the time to answer that question, my next question would be what is the most effective feedback that we can give to help you achieve the balance that you wanted in your game? You’ve got beta testers that put hundreds of hours into this game. Use us.

[RusBear]

I think Jan almost answered this question in one of his interview. The game is designed/balanced for 140-160 days. Victory of the crisis and deserved rest or loss. All these 2000 days and the company of terminators in the emperor’s armor and full unique outfit and 30+ level are already on the conscience of the players and the developers are not responsible for the psychological trauma in this case )
Personally, I do not see anything wrong with the fact that the developers heard the players’ opinion about the battle log. The main thing that it was done correctly and not as shown in facebook. Need full and detailed information. Make the battle log optional and everyone will be happy. Who does not want to think to count and who wants to know why his knight with a defense of 70 killed by three daggers in a row).
However, I am also afraid if changing the balance to please all these whines from the steam. If listen them… soon will be nerf of thugs …

[mekaerwin]

I’m just glad they hid the black obelisk away. Otherwise players would find it on, like, day 30 and say, “developers are stupid, that is never possible.” It always shocks me how people have the expertise to make such statements after so few hours of play.

[Nibblewerfer]

Frankly all they need to do is allow modding, if that is even possible at this point, as if players can mod the game in any meaningful way the lifespan of the game will increase and so will sales. To add modding now would probably be difficult and if it takes to long it might be to late for more people to buy the game because of it.

[Sekata]

Nibblewerfer wrote:

Frankly all they need to do is allow modding, if that is even possible at this point, as if players can mod the game in any meaningful way the lifespan of the game will increase and so will sales. To add modding now would probably be difficult and if it takes to long it might be to late for more people to buy the game because of it.

That would be a great idea. I could see pouring tons of hours to understanding the code to make a few tweaks here and there. The game is awesome as is and I can definitely see it as the type of free roam game players keep coming back to over and over.

Just wish the devs were a bit more involved in helping guide community feedback.

[Namespace]

RusBear wrote:

I think Jan almost answered this question in one of his interview. The game is designed/balanced for 140-160 days. Victory of the crisis and deserved rest or loss.

Very interesting. I usually find the first 100 days a real chore until my guys hit lv11. If the game is designed for ~150 days playthroughs I really think they should increase the levelling speed.

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