[Beta] Ranged hit chances / damage are just insane

[nope100500]

Wargasm wrote:

Since all backgrounds have been given more ranged skill, all backgrounds should also get more hit points to buff against injuries in the early game when decent armour is scarce.

It’s not just early game problem, crossbow bolt to the head can inflict above 40 dmg right through the best helmets in top condition, if I got my math right (70 max dmg on heavy crossbow * 150% headshot * 70% armor pen – 10% armor (best helmet i’ve seen was 334, though game counts it after damage) ). Considering that my bros tend to have about 60 hp (and trying to get more means sacrificing att/def/fat for measly hp gain), that’s just one more bolt away from death. 70% armor penetration is just too high even against best armor.

Even if I were to take Steel Brow to remove crit, that would be above 15 dmg through best helmet in top condition.

Anonymous wrote:

From my experience this is actually one of the main problems. From my testing, and I deliberately tested this, if the ‘obstacle hit’ is triggered, and the obstacle happens to be one of your brothers, he is automatically hit no matter what his ranged defense.

Is there already a bug report for this? Suspected it for a long time, but I’m not sure how to report it an provable/testable manner…

[Kuroi_Kaze]

Sarissofoi wrote:

That is valid point.
Harder difficulties not only makes fights more challenging(more enemies, higher tiers) which is welcome but also bring company progress to a snail speed. Fights are harder which is fine but rewards not.
Player face bigger challenges and get less(compared to lower difficulties) reward ratio. Not even mention that even these less can buy less because of higher prices. And his expenditures are higher because harder fights against more numerous and harder enemies so his cost grows(repair items, medical bills) when rewards not.
Losing merc is easy – leveling them hard and long, can not afford better backgrounds and better equipment which mean fight harder and cost(injuries, dead mercs) more.
You need perfect run and even if you are good, mass ranged can and will first turn kill some unlucky dudes.
Injuries force you to bench mercs or risk them getting killed and you really can’t afford reserves(because upkeep and food costs), waiting is also not a option.

I currently replay some older build and its actually enjoyable. Simpler game but with charm and its actually FUN. Damn.

<stop and think about potential solutions>

Better contract rewards. FAIR PAY. Some contracts could pay half/or whole company upkeep(or at last for a front-liners).
More loot items. When conquering locations enemies I want RICHES.
Maybe nerf armor penetrations/effectiveness against armor? A little? Or buff starting armors(give them more armor at bigger fatigue cost and worse fatigue/armor ratio?)
Reduce visibility penalty for helmets? At last some. This would help archers and really some of penalties don’t have much sense.
Make early levels have bigger stats grown and double perks when late levels lower stat grow and no perk(so end perk build are reached faster but there still place for improvement)? Or make leveling faster?
Some utility perks(like rotation or footwork) could be move lower(as they increase control over company and give more options but not offer straight offensive or defensive buffs).

BTW VETERAN HALL and Prestige(over 11) levels are a joke. Sad joke.
Cost of exp boost scale with level and it small and short lived(ergo it would make more sense to give these boost to the Temples) and where is my perk respec or reroll attributes or straight level buying? There could be possibility to buy some stat increasing traits or maybe even special active skills that would enhance gameplay and what we get is some boost that is hardly used.
Sad.

I don’t get your point at all. You want to get higher money and equipment rewards for higher difficulty? It’s just wrong all the ways term “Difficulty” means. When you play FPS game and choose “Hard” difficulty, you choose it to make game more challenging or to get more guns? Reward for choosing higher difficulty is more challenging gameplay, like if you choose “Insane” difficulty you should be ready to get wrecked, if it’s not what you want, just choose lower difficulty. The difficulty of game process is itself the reward for person who wants it. By getting higher rewards you actually lower the difficulty, so, to justify higher rewards you should increase power of enemies and that’s endless loop.

The other point of this may be that game is mush more dependent on RNGs than tactical decisions, and because of it high difficulty doesn’t let you get result equal to efforts you put in the battles. But to balance this you have to lower RNG influence and make AI smarter to give more challenge. And a lot games are balanced around this. But, as I know, Battle brothers have same AI on all difficulties, so difficulty of game is actually balanced around numbers, income, enemy levels and so on. And that’s how it works, you get lower rewards because you have chosen higher difficulty.

[A.Mortis]

Hello everyone!
I wanted to show a strange moment in the mechanics of archery
Look at this battle
look for ghosts

Mb you know this “Abuse”
what are you think about this?

No skill | Only luck

[nope100500]

@A.Mortis that looks convincing to me, 3 Geists shot out of around 10 total shots near Geists (not all of them through Geists). All successful hits were targeting unit right behind a Geist.

[Wargasm]

Anonymous wrote:

Shadow wrote:

Perhaps the recently increased effect of obstacles (50% -> 75%) on ranged combat should help with this to some extent.

From my experience this is actually one of the main problems. From my testing, and I deliberately tested this, if the ‘obstacle hit’ is triggered, and the obstacle happens to be one of your brothers, he is automatically hit no matter what his ranged defense. This makes my strategy of having a front line of kite shield guys with pikemen behind them completely ineffective, as whenever an enemy ranged unit shoots at me it’s basically a guaranteed hit. If the obstacle hit triggers, one of my kite shield guys takes damage. If it doesn’t, chances are the low ranged defense of the pikemen means he gets hit. Against regular bows this isn’t a huge deal. It is pretty dangerous early game (but I don’t use pikes early game), but after that it’s just negligible armor damage. The real problem I experience is with crossbows, particularly heavy crossbows and the goblin crossbows. Those basically ignore armor and are guaranteed to hit one of my brothers on turn 1, so if the enemy has 2-3 crossbowmen I’m practically guaranteed to lose a guy unless the AI fails to press the ‘shoot crossbow’ button, which is common enough that my party hasn’t been wiped yet.

Before that change, though, I could reliably fire into a group of enemies with a target hit chance well below 50% but hit one of the enemies more than 50% of the time. Since that change, equivalent shots almost always hit nothing. So maybe the nature of the change was really more complex than stated in the changelog.

Or maybe how it goes is that, with a 50% penalty and a 50% raw hit chance, the hit chance against the target goes down to 25% but there’s also a ?12.5%? chance to hit either of the two obstructing troops (making a ?50%? hit chance overall), whereas with a 75% penalty for the same shot the hit chance against the target goes down to 12.5% and there’s just a ?6.25%? chance to hit either of the two obstructing troops (making a ?25%? hit chance overall). So that would reduce (but not eliminate) the chance of kite shieldwall troops getting hit by accident.

[Wargasm]

Kuroi_Kaze wrote:

I don’t get your point at all. You want to get higher money and equipment rewards for higher difficulty? It’s just wrong all the ways term “Difficulty” means. When you play FPS game and choose “Hard” difficulty, you choose it to make game more challenging or to get more guns? Reward for choosing higher difficulty is more challenging gameplay, like if you choose “Insane” difficulty you should be ready to get wrecked, if it’s not what you want, just choose lower difficulty. The difficulty of game process is itself the reward for person who wants it. By getting higher rewards you actually lower the difficulty, so, to justify higher rewards you should increase power of enemies and that’s endless loop.

The other point of this may be that game is mush more dependent on RNGs than tactical decisions, and because of it high difficulty doesn’t let you get result equal to efforts you put in the battles. But to balance this you have to lower RNG influence and make AI smarter to give more challenge. And a lot games are balanced around this. But, as I know, Battle brothers have same AI on all difficulties, so difficulty of game is actually balanced around numbers, income, enemy levels and so on. And that’s how it works, you get lower rewards because you have chosen higher difficulty.

No one said anything about higher rewards on higher difficulty levels (versus on lower difficulty levels). But difficulty comes in many potential varieties (availability/affordability of weapons/armour/supplies/repairs/healing, and amount of enemy parties and their numbers/equipment and troop types). Difficulty could also come in the form of the stats and perks of enemies faced, but these things seem to be identical at all difficulty levels. What we were both saying, I think, is that it should be quicker and easier (on all difficulty levels) to build/repair/heal, but that the pervasiveness/numbers/equipment/skills of enemies faced at each level should be increased. That way, the greater challenge faced at higher levels would emphasize the more enjoyable aspects of the game, rather than the more tedious aspects (e.g. waiting, retreating, running petty errands).

[Kuroi_Kaze]

Wargasm wrote:

No one said anything about higher rewards on higher difficulty levels (versus on lower difficulty levels). But difficulty comes in many potential varieties (availability/affordability of weapons/armour/supplies/repairs/healing, and amount of enemy parties and their numbers/equipment and troop types). Difficulty could also come in the form of the stats and perks of enemies faced, but these things seem to be identical at all difficulty levels. What we were both saying, I think, is that it should be quicker and easier (on all difficulty levels) to build/repair/heal, but that the pervasiveness/numbers/equipment/skills of enemies faced at each level should be increased. That way, the greater challenge faced at higher levels would emphasize the more enjoyable aspects of the game, rather than the more tedious aspects (e.g. waiting, retreating, running petty errands).

That’s a good point. I agree that game still needs a lot of gameplay balancing and maybe some features. Personally I would really appreciate possibility to fast repair armor for crowns in cities.

[dr33mz33]

I have been playing on Expert difficulty (although not Ironman) and what I usually do is wait for their marksman to shoot, then move my front line 2 spaces forward+shieldwall and move and hide my ranged units behind while I aim for their marksmen, so they are hidden behind an obstacle. You need ranged power to do this of course, and Im not sure it works on goblins unless you really have ranged supremacy.

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