Beta 22.02.17 feedback

[Yolan]

Please, guys. Just slow down. Let’s chill. I think the perfect way to describe the feeling I get from the game right now is that I feel under time pressure, very stressful.

Yes. This very much so.

I just -love- the aesthetic of this game. I really enjoy combat. I love the variety of equipment and potential tactics. The enemies are varied and cool. Overall, just great. But honestly, I don’t feel like playing any more as it is. I’d like a world that is more independent of me, with time to explore it as long as I like. A sandbox. Now it feels like a constant ramping ever upwards of pain. No thanks!

[Danubian]

Sarissofoi wrote:

Third bandits buff
Bandits were always low to mid levels threat and honestly they were here for a player units to gain levels and free lower quality gear. Kinda of less of more safe zone. There were some strong units like rogue knights, sowrdmasters and bandit leaders but most of them were rabble(but even then polearms and xbows were a problem).
Now I do not understood logic why enemy marksmans get buffed. Anyone care to explain this?
They were threat even before now they can snipe my troops with precision. They should not be a that big threat and they can kill single trooper at first turn(especially on expert where they get extra numbers). They should be support troops.
Small suggestion if I can do that.
Strip Marksmen from their perks and skills. They could get better gear and weapons, maybe quick hands and nets for night fights, but lower their ranged capabilities. Its simply not fun to lose guys to ranged enemy fire. Second thing take away puncture weapons from them.
There could be also some mid unit between thugs and raiders – simply better armed thug/worse armed raider with lesser skills and no perks.
Overall bandits should be a kind of filler faction that player face before he can fight Nobles, Undeads or Orks. Also enemy where he can go back when he got stumped so he can recover.

I complained about ranged units (bandit marksmen to be precise) on day one of the beta. I was told (by other forum users) its my confirmation bias. Then i asked a dev and was told nothing is changed about them.

Yeah right. Bandit marksmen are like 5x more deadlier in beta than in vanilla (not sure about last 2 betas though, i kinda gave up on game).

[Fotsvamp]

I personally have no problem dealing with archers in veteran difficulty, but then I run a pretty archer heavy composition myself, usually 4, sometimes as many as 6 ranged characters. Perhaps that is an issue for those with complaints? I simply out-shoot the enemy.

[Mike]

Danubian wrote:

dev […] told nothing is changed about them.

Yeah right. Bandit marksmen are like 5x more deadlier

So, on one hand there’s a guy who actually makes the game, and on the other a dismissive player. Who oh who should we believe?

I can’t wrap my head around the whole “bandit marksman issue”, mostly because I have yet to see it for myself.

At the beginning any bro can die instantly to RNG, nothing new here.
Later on my mainline is shielded (kite shields until they are really tanky) and armored, flankers unshielded but very heavily armored and rangers lightly armored but built for ranged def. Mainline rarely gets hit and doesn’t really care, flankers get hit more often but can weather it, rangers get hit from time to time but have Steel Brow so never get 1-shotted, barring my own silly mistakes (like not putting heavily injured bro in reserve). At any rate, enemy rangers are usually pushing up the daisies by round 2, hard to cause me much grief then.

As far as I’m concerned the whole ranged combat is working OK. Can’t eat the cake and have it too, if you wanna push for offensive capability and turn your 2-hander into a “blender lord” (WHFB-style) don’t expect him to take a face full of bolts and mistake it for confetti.

[le_souriceau]

May be I orc-hater biased or something, but my last encounters with orc warlords was pretty disturbing.

Big orc (who can’t engage melee properly in several rounds — too many of his comrades) just spam-spam-spam his cry behind lines (out of my reach at all), and mercs run shiteless (while I cleary winning in real combat, not even seriously wounded). No sergeant or banner can provide reliable help against such annoying thing.

Something changed in AI? Or may be this overall morale rework play this way. Brothers already in fragile balace since they almost always outnumbered – that morale shattering spam just unbearable for them any long time.

Anyway, something is rather unhealthy in balance this way.

[Namespace]

Fotsvamp wrote:

I personally have no problem dealing with archers in veteran difficulty, but then I run a pretty archer heavy composition myself, usually 4, sometimes as many as 6 ranged characters. Perhaps that is an issue for those with complaints? I simply out-shoot the enemy.

I am fairly certain they already fixed brigand marksmen after we all complained very heavily. There was also some post somewhere that pointed out a bug related to archery and blocking line of sight. After some update 2-3 patches ago I stopped having problems. I finally have the feeling putting some points in ranged defense actually makes a difference again :).

[RusBear]

Let my conscience be pure – instead of my discontent I will leave feedback.
1. A bonus on the size of the inventory – need to be more, or make several options to increase it. (New types of enemies, new tactics, 20 brothers – we need a lot of things to keep in stock). While 118 seats – very little.
2. In the checks of morality, the factor of the level of the brother must participate, and not just his resolve. We are still waiting for a normal answer about the mechanics of the checking in combat.
3. Finally, make sure that the sergeant’s functions are useful. The way the banner and special perk of the “sergeant” is working now does not withstand criticism.
4. The battle log. We need detailed with all the checks and rolls, for those who wish.
5. When the shot misses, the protection of the target in which go the “miss” is still not taken into account?

[Teslarod]

Yeah on Expert Ironman you’re running a tight ship and there is so much that can go wrong, you might survive one bad fight if you’re in good shape. But if you’re barely scraping by already (which is the case half the time early on) and get ambushed or a bad surprise at a location you’re in deep trouble instantly.

I’m not even running much of a 2nd line anymore, your own mid tier archers are great, but target priority for enemy archers kills them sooner or later. Even with someone in front of them the sheer volume of fire will sooner or later kill anyone not wearing 200+ of body and helmet armour. Some random group of bandits with 3 or more Crossbows has good odds to straight up kill someone in the first 50 days or so anyway.
Not saying its impossible or too hard, but there is a problem with Ranged Brothers in general. They take quite a while to get useful, aren’t all that useful against a lot of targets and will probably die sooner or later two a headshot or two with a heavy crossbow.
Necrosavants, Wolfriders, mass or skilled enemy archers will occasionally kill one of them straight away and they aren’t easily replaced where you could just slap some armour on a new “fighty” background to replace a melee combatant.
3+ Archers with Warbows sitting on highground wreak some serious havoc if you have them against Orks or Humans. Getting them to that point can be a serious issue though, and they still don’t contribute much in night fights, against either of the undead or massed heavily armoured opponents like Orc Warriors.
Moral is tedious with Gheists being able to scare your 60+ resolve veterans shitless through 20-40 of Zombies without a way to reach them. There is an effective way to deal with them – running away so the Gheists chase you out of position and can be pummeled. But this takes like forever and then some.
Goblins are still utter bullshit and take forever to get rid of with a lot of injuries and unsatisfactory rewards. Grinding a week in game time to upgrade one piece of armour at a time while avoiding losses, ignoring potential new recruits, avoiding expensive recruits like the plague, until you can make sure they don’t just die in a ditch as soon as someone with a bit of armour piercing weaponry shows up.

The first 50 days are a real challenge, then you get your guys to LVL8 (%based damage reduction perk), have a frontline in good shape to start simply running down Goblins and Bandits before their archers can do serious work. Finally 2 handers come into the equation to serve as force multipliers (High tier armour, Reach advantage and %based damage reduction perk to eat Bolts, 2H Axe hits from Hedgeknights/Mercenaries/Warlords/Knights). Your backline has the necessary Perks to take a hit or to escape combat with an angry Orc Warlord and you’ll have some breathing room in your reserves to cycle in guys with permanent injuries or brothers that simply got benched for their stats.

Damn this game is fun, but Christ it took a few tries to make it far enough.

A few things that are completely unsatisfying at the moment – rare Item drop rates, haven’t seen a single named Item outside of shops for the last 150 days of early/midgame, thats a real bummer – even more so since I wasn’t even close to be able to afford one by buying it so far. Actually apart from right at the start of them game, all my money goes into
1. Tools & Food
2. Affordable backgrounds to get a full company going
3. The best armour I can afford
4. Combat backgrounds
5. no clue never had this much money

My best playthroughs are fueled by slight exploits. Get to day 30 or so, pick the weakest faction on the map, breaking contracts/events that cause hostility until they are attackable. Hunt their Caravans for easy 1.5k+ all over the map without much repercussion than the occasional lost caravan contract.

Cities. It seems like 4/5 contracts a city will give you are caravan contracts or deliveries. Which sucks because you really want to have them on slightly better terms.

Contracts in early game in combination with Map composition. I have some serious issues with a lot of Maps, simply because there is a Motte and a Fortress in between two settlements. Unless I’m already set up to gain contracts from nobles, both locations are more or less worthless. If those locations could provide a limited variation of early game contracts (I’d even be happy about caravan or delivery contracts if that means the cities get more other stuff) that aren’t related to faction reputation but can be used to make money that would be really great.

Tools. Holy crap. Expert wouldn’t be such a damned struggle if you could just sustain a basic level of combat preparation early game without investing at least half your income in tools. Not being able to repair your stuff is what kills your guys early on, keeps you from upgrading your already expensive gear and a single stack can be as expensive as your next contract reward or more if the village is currently suffering from ambushed trade routes. Its not like you can choose not to buy them since you’ve probably bought all available tools on your last location anyway. Their availability isn’t all that great either. Expense based more on equipment quality/points of durability replenished would go a long way to take the difficulty early on down a notch without affecting the game mechanics or mid-/lategame.

Generally speaking, awesome game, time to start over to get after trying to beat some mercenaries way too early again.

[RusBear]

Short conclusions from our last discussion on the moral checks mechanic.
So the game already has a mechanism for counting statistics on a single brother: the days in the team, the number of killed enemies and even the most powerful killed enemy. So it is possible to take into account all these factors in moral check. The level of the brother + day in team + the number of battles + killed enemies – all this should be a bonus when checking moral. But not just rnd for resolve. This seems to be logically, correct and does not affect the “importance” of the resolve, since with a low resolve the brother probably will not live to see these bonuses.

[Sarissofoi]

Spend more time playing and so some more feedback.

A)Inventory space is still small.
Thanks for bringing back some of the old starting space but its still small. Having repeatable ‘cart’ ambitions(each version could be more costly than one before) would be great. And also it could be used as money sink.

B)Talking about ambitions. Can they be used as a way to collect company wide improvements of life?
Like hiring blacksmith for faster repairs(still used the same tools amount just faster).

C)World map generation.
Still kind of wonky. Especially island cities. By the way can a map generate the place as its own continent(big island) so there are visible map boundaries? Currently there is issue with scaling and moving around map edges. Also map could be somewhat bigger.

D)Settlements and settlement buildings.
I must admit that there is too many empty(no buildings other than market) settlements. It would be nice if most of them have a some basic infrastructure like Inn and/or Temple. Other buildings distribution seems all right.

E)Named weapons
Drop ratio seems rather low but its fine. Low ratio for shops is not that great. Thing that is annoying(kind of) is that named items disappear fast from the shops so player must have cash on hand to buy it or its gone. Also it looks like they are affected by negative town effects so its reduce their ratio even more.

F)Morale system work and well I get used to it. Its not bad just need some tweaking. It would be nice if soldiers receive some small buffs to resolve checks if they have nearby allies.

G)Perks. Recent changes are really nice, especially moving rotation lower. Still some could use some boost.

H)Veteran Levels
It would be nice if primary attributes rise by 0-1 value(affected by talents) and secondary by 1-2(also affected).

I)Accessories and inventory space(bags and belt)
Any way to make bags and belts into actual bags and belts(accessory item) instead of current perk? Small and big version that grant additional one or two space?
Consumable items(antidotes,bandages,mushrooms,poison) could be used directly from inventory slots when accessory slot would be reserved either for dogs/falcon or a special items(trophies,sash etc). It would be make more sense and would be more easier for players to use – espeically because now players can not switch saydog with bandage in battle.
Bags and belt perk is currently very weak.

J)Throwing weapons
Maybe they could be placed in the ammo slot? AN then granting throwing attack(with buff to damage/accuracy if used with no weapons?)

Thanks for
reading this.
Enjoying game so far even if its sometimes frustrating.
Also cheers for speeding animations. its look more smoothly than ever.
K)Scouting locations.
Can we get at last some basic info about what we would be facing in ruins? Like bandits,zombies etc with no list of specific units? Currently scouting with units is really tiresome in Iron man and can be easily bypassed by either retreat and reload or alt f4 and reload. Its simply waste time and is boring.

[RusBear]

Sarissofoi wrote:

…
F)Morale system work and well I get used to it. Its not bad just need some tweaking. It would be nice if soldiers receive some small buffs to resolve checks if they have nearby allies.
…

G)Perks. Recent changes are really nice

f/You are satisfied that a veteran of the 20th level who killed 2000 enemies still has RND moral check from a Thug as well as a novice of 1st ?. You are happy then. Personally, I do not like this categorically.
g/Even too OP dodge and what devs have done with the captain-sergeant?
I know you as a person versed in the game and who have a lot of game experience.
Hmm maybe my requirements for the game are too high…

[Namespace]

RusBear wrote:

f/You are satisfied that a veteran of the 20th level who killed 2000 enemies still has RND moral check from a Thug as well as a novice of 1st ?. You are happy then. Personally, I do not like this categorically.

g/Even too OP dodge and what devs have done with the captain-sergeant?
I know you as a person versed in the game and who have a lot of game experience.
Hmm maybe my requirements for the game are too high…

@f: I agree this is kind of stupid. A thug, even 6 thugs are simply no threat to a veteran brother with a 2-hander and heavy armor. Resolve should increase with each level or even battle. If we get 1-2 resolve passively each level it would feel a lot more immersive imo.

@g: I don’t think dodge is all that great. In the early game and on archers its strong but for anyone in heavier armor it’s kind of pointless I think. I miss the old rally the troops, also the old RA.

[Sarissofoi]

Hello Rusbear and Namespace. Glad to see you.

Morale system need tweaking.
Currently it working but there is plenty of unknown. Not very clear and confusing.
I agree that heavy armor should have positive effect on resolve but on the other hand that would boost heavy armored guys over light even more than its now.
I agree that levels should count into resolve check but on the other hand – why then level resolve at all if you got passive growth?
It would be nice if enemy repelled by spearwall do not trigger morale check.
It would be nice if nearby brothers and shieldwall would positive effect resolve rolls. If you have have brothers on your sides and behind you you should be eager to run.
Some perks or traits could also effect it more.
Who knows maybe its really nasty thug. I wonder if ugly characters trigger resolve check more?

Dodge is fine. Is tied with current initiative level and tired soldiers have its effect decreased. It strong but heavy armor and long fights where you use plenty of fatigue decrease its usefulness.

My stance on banner didn’t change from my last post.
Six Banner
Rather underwhelming. Its necessary to have it as there are new resolve mechanics but its weaker than old sergeant perk and you can have only one. And whole banner is also weak weapon and bonus is lost if not used. Sadly banner lack any special or even typical pike skills. Necessary but rather uncool. Taking off confident was fine move but connected with other things it nerfed it too much. Please consider increasing range of banner, % of bonus and add some special abilities to it so its more cool then necessary.

I would expand this if you like.
Banner could be used to cast area orders/buffs like:
-Stand your ground(flat or percentage bonus to defense and resolve)
-Attack(bonus to hit chance and initiative)
-Stay strong(fatigue recovery)
-Mass rally(rally all characters)
Old sergeants could come back with single target long range Rally and their own separate Resolve buff.
Current mechanics make use of flankers really hard. |First single brother is rather weak and he is very vulnerable to morale checks or getting overwhelmed. Secondly is outside range of Banner and in case of panic he can’t be rallied.
Also buffing resolve bonus from Lone Wolf or decreasing range from 3 to 2 when its trigger would be helpful. Currently I do not see a point in this perk.

I am not really happy with all of this but all I can is adapt. Unless you guys wanna team up and storm headquarter of Overhype. We can then throw all of them into dungeons and keep them until they fix the game to our liking.
If so you have my knife.

[Teslarod]

Agreed with Sarissofoi. The Banner is a necessary evil at this point. Would be nice if it had an upgrade later in the game or a very noticeable active skill.
Like a 100% chance to rally fleeing allies with 10-20% drop of per tile distance rolled in or instead of the existing one.

[GlyphGryph]

Why are contracts always SO far away now. It’s so tedious. They keep ending up like literally further away than the three closest towns, often past them.

[Author]

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