Character Generation

[GOD]

I’ve seen the matter of character creation come up a few times, with people wanting to have more control over it. How about doing something similar to “This War of Mine”? When the player is creating their company you could have the game generate a number of starting mercenaries (let’s say eight) from which the player can pick three to serve as the founding members. That way the player has influence over whom he wants to start with, without giving up the charm of not knowing who you’re going to get.

[Malthus]

I don´t think that would play out. If you would see the possible candidates with their backgrounds + equip you would simply choose the strongest best equipped guys. This is not the way it is intended to be. You shall start with imperfect men.

But what I would welcome is being able to choose how my starting 3 look. You can already choose the names of your mercs, which is nice to have, but you are stuck with their faces :D While I think it is easy to get another name just by calling yourself with another name it is hard to get a different look.

So my suggestion would be to let the player choose how his starting brothers look completely with no limitations if he so wishes, but let him choose only beards and hairstyles afterwards for them and any other mercs he might hire. So the player gets more customization while it stays relatively realistic in the actual game.

-Wish I could get my hair back with just a click xD-

"I am a Paladin!"
>OMG, Malthus, there are no damn paladins in Battle Brothers...<
"OK, OK! Then I´m a wrecked down minstrel drunkard pretending to be a paladin, singing so wrong in the midst of battle that even the undead run in fear... Better?!"

[GOD]

Malthus wrote:

I don´t think that would play out. If you would see the possible candidates with their backgrounds + equip you would simply choose the strongest best equipped guys. This is not the way it is intended to be. You shall start with imperfect men.

A solution to that would be to not show what gear they’ll get and what traits they have. So just the bust + background. Kind of like how you hire them, but without being to see their gear. I’m not sure whether you can even get all backgrounds when starting a new game, so something like the squire background might not even come up. I agree though that the point of something like this should not be to try and minmax your starting party.

Malthus wrote:

But what I would welcome is being able to choose how my starting 3 look. You can already choose the names of your mercs, which is nice to have, but you are stuck with their faces While I think it is easy to get another name just by calling yourself with another name it is hard to get a different look.
So my suggestion would be to let the player choose how his starting brothers look completely with no limitations if he so wishes, but let him choose only beards and hairstyles afterwards for them and any other mercs he might hire. So the player gets more customization while it stays relatively realistic in the actual game.

-Wish I could get my hair back with just a click xD-

You mean like just seeing the head and being able to customise it? I personally prefer some randomness in the character generation. Being able choose their appearance feels rather gamey. More gamey than choosing their names, since it’s so visible.

Hair is a state of mind. You just need to BELIEVE. :P

[PsenBattle]

As you already know we really get a great demand for character customization. So I am sure we will implement it in one way or the other.
It may be hard to hear this over and over again, we cant take any decisions yet.
Allthough we sometimes might not answer (especially now after EA), were reading all of your discussions. So just keep on going!

Hope you enjoy the game :)

Overhype Studios - Let´s roll!

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[GOD]

I don’t actually mind the current way you start the game. This is more of a suggestion for if you decide to change it.

Looking forward to the finished product. :)

[Trig]

I agree on implementing some sort of character generation for your first 3 characters.

I don’t think former millers, grave diggers, deserters on the run would be starting a mercenary company. They’d join it later, sure, but usually it’s ex-soldiers that start such businesses. As it currently is, I just kept restarting the game until I got the first 3 that I was generally able to identify with, which is not th emost optimal way to go about it.

So the player could likely be given a character setup menu where he can mix’n’match his the head of a character, pick the name, possibly write a short background, then select from several military/noble/business-like main backgrounds (better ones, with better gear, like ex-militia, ex-soldier, swordsmaster, errand knight, disowned noble cost more to maintain or even take away more of your starting cash than if you pick some less prestigious ones at start) and one or two additional characteristics, where if you pick a negative one, you can pick a better positive one. Fallen Enchantress had this very nicely done when designing your starting character. You get 2 points to spend on characteristics. But if you pick a negative one, you get an extra point. Something like that…

[PsenBattle]

Another simpler solution would be that you “Buy” your founding members from a big, refreshable list of randomly generated brothers.
Similar to the points you use to build a warhammer army.
So you have lets say 1000 crowns and could decide whether you prefer to get just one boss hedge knight or start out with 5 beggars :)
Just jammin…

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[jimcrowley]

An even simpler solution would be to allow the player to select either one two or three of the characters from the list. This would allow a reasonable freedom of choice without compromising the original design intention and would obviate the need for any sort of character generation.

As a side issue to this, the introductory narrative refers to ‘you’ and three comrades in arms – making four. So where is the ‘you’ referred to, as you only get three starting brothers?

Also it suggests that the three fought in the shield wall with you, which puts them as soldiers. Clearly, a lot of the potential starters are not soldiers, so the beginning doesn’t really fit the narrative. Maybe that could be changed to ‘have fought with you for the past few months’ instead.

I would prefer the ‘you’ to be one of the three initial brothers, picked randomly or otherwise, rather than being an invisible presence.

[GOD]

PsenBattle wrote:

Another simpler solution would be that you “Buy” your founding members from a big, refreshable list of randomly generated brothers.
Similar to the points you use to build a warhammer army.
So you have lets say 1000 crowns and could decide whether you prefer to get just one boss hedge knight or start out with 5 beggars
Just jammin…

I like that. That way you keep the randomisation, while letting people pick backgrounds and appearances that suit the narrative they want. You could also re-use assets from the town recruitment for efficiency. It would need some testing though, to find out whether getting a heavily decked out hedge knight isn’t always the superior choice to taking a bunch of miners and jesters in burlap sacks. From what I’ve seen so far, good armour and weapons can be a real game-changer, so that might need an appropriate price tag attached to it. Maybe make the amount of crowns you get partly dependent on the difficulty level? You could also make it optional and keep completely random version as an alternative?

jimcrowley wrote:

An even simpler solution would be to allow the player to select either one two or three of the characters from the list. This would allow a reasonable freedom of choice without compromising the original design intention and would obviate the need for any sort of character generation.

The problem with that, like Malthus mentions, is that it could lead to the player focusing on trying to minmax the gear and backgrounds of your starting members, only picking the inferior option for role-playing reasons. It could still work, but would probably need to be balanced a bit by something like not letting the player see what kind of gear they start out with.

jimcrowley wrote:

As a side issue to this, the introductory narrative refers to ‘you’ and three comrades in arms – making four. So where is the ‘you’ referred to, as you only get three starting brothers?

You’re basically the cursor and face of the company. Shouting orders, saying who gets what gear, taking on contracts, etc. I figure they didn’t give you a physical presence on the battlefield because otherwise dying would be game over (since the narrative is technically about you) or confusing (who’s the new main character? Who’s the one giving orders?).

jimcrowley wrote:

Also it suggests that the three fought in the shield wall with you, which puts them as soldiers. Clearly, a lot of the potential starters are not soldiers, so the beginning doesn’t really fit the narrative. Maybe that could be changed to ‘have fought with you for the past few months’ instead.
I would prefer the ‘you’ to be one of the three initial brothers, picked randomly or otherwise, rather than being an invisible presence.

I interpreted it as a justification for why the starting members get some combat bonuses, while leaving things open as to when and how long they fought together. Makes for some space in the narrative where you can put your own story. Maybe they’re old war buddies and you decide to get back in touch with them? Or maybe, like you said, you met them only recently and managed to convince them of your plan to form a company.

[screeg]

Allowing the player to generate all three characters from the ground up, or even to choose or buy them from a big pool, would totally throw the balance of the starting game. Customization is wide open right from the first level up, and I feel like that many options would be going too far.

Two other suggestions: give player two completely random characters (like now), let him customize remaining character with their abilities in mind.

Or have the three random starting characters start at “level 0”. Let the player distribute three (five?) points at the beginning as if leveling up to level 1.

[JarricMartell]

I really don’t think it’s a huge balance issue to let you specify your first 3 brethren. They are, after all, only 3 people, out of the 12 you will be fielding.

Also, if you’re using This War of Mine as an example, the players that want to start with two old teachers for the challenge can choose to do so, and the ones that want to start with a scavenger, a trader, and a cook for easytimes have that option as well.

[Trig]

In all such games that I play, to get better attachment to my troopers, I usually name them after my friends or some othe rpeople I identify with. More than the stats in these starting characters I care about their looks, so that they resemble some of these people and that they have the character traits of some of them (asthma included). It’s not as much a balance issue as it is an identification issue for me, why I would prefer a more detailed character generator.

[Jago]

Actually I think a character creation is a good thing after all.

The main reason for the randomized creation is that the player has to deal with what he gets. It makes the game more difficult and interesting, gameplay-wise.
But I don’t think the a character creation eliminates that. I don’t have to use it to start with 3 Raider/Sellswords. I could also start with 3 beggars, if I believe this to be more interesting and entertaining.

Also this is pretty much a sandbox game. People will want to experiment around with different founding members. Let them, I’d say.

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[GOD]

I feel like outright creating your starting mercenaries puts too much focus on them in a game with such high lethality. Kind of like how you don’t choose the looks of your troops in the original x-com. In most RPGs you’re going to spend a lot of time looking at your initial character because you as the player are meant to identify with them, so having them be customisable makes sense. In this game there’s a good chance of all of your starting members dying, so having the start of the game give them a disproportionate amount of attention feels wrong. The banner and name of your company should be more important to its identity than which mercenaries you start with. It also clashes with the atmosphere that the game currently has where all the game elements are abstractions of what feel like ‘real’ actions. Outright creating characters clashes with this.

JarricMartell wrote:

I really don’t think it’s a huge balance issue to let you specify your first 3 brethren. They are, after all, only 3 people, out of the 12 you will be fielding.
Also, if you’re using This War of Mine as an example, the players that want to start with two old teachers for the challenge can choose to do so, and the ones that want to start with a scavenger, a trader, and a cook for easytimes have that option as well.

It’s the gear that feels like the biggest unbalancing factor. Take that away and it’s much less of an issue. I also like the idea of ‘buying’ your starting characters, though I’m rather enjoying the completely random start that the game has right now.

[Sarissofoi]

I think system is not bad for now.
What I would like to see its more options for world generation(or starting option).
Like size of the world, level of bandits/monster infestation, typical enemy on the map etc.
Also some additional higher difficulty settings like:
>lower amount money you can get from selling items
>increase amount of money/food consumption
>increase cost of recruiting characters

Different starting party can be adressed in this options too.
Like:
>Noble adventurer – lead character is Disowned noble/Bastard with two servants/other connected people to him
>There is no salvation – party made from people of religious backgrounds(monks, flagelants, cultists)
>Time for redemption – party made from former(or current) criminals(thief, raiders, killers etc)
#throw some more
It can be nice especially for RPG play if you want lead for example company made from nobles/military only. Or from criminals only. Etc.

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