Cool New Ideas & Some Old Ones Too

[Amazing Aardvark]

Hello, all.
This will be my very first post. Before I begin, there are three things to say. Number one, I really love the game and respect the developers. Second I’ve played 100+ hours. Third, Iv’e stalked the forums for a while without being registered, but am still not an expert on all the great ideas. If I repeat someone else accidentally and label them as my ideas, I apologize.
Devs, It would be really cool if you could respond to this post. It doesn’t have to be long. Just put the number corresponding to my idea and say “yes, no, good idea, bad idea, or interesting idea.” I know your busy so I won’t take too much of your time. From America With Love, Amazing Aardvark.

My Ideas

1. Dynamic Nets.
First, if a battle brother gets caught in a net, any adjacent BB (Battle Brother) should have the option to target him and attempt to cut him free in the same way that he would try to get himself out. BBs are all about teamwork and brotherhood and this would be a cool and hopefully easy feature to implement. Second, nets should have a chance to backfire ensnaring the user. I’m tired of goblins throwing nets perfectly every time without fail. It’s unrealistic, and think how satisfying it would be for a goblin to get himself tangled up in his own net only to have his face smashed in by Hammerfist Beergut. In the heat of battle, not everything works perfectly, and when anyone tries to throw a net, BB, goblin or someone else, it should have a chance to backfire. Let’s say 10%. My inspiration for this came from Psalms 141:10 “Let the wicked fall into their own nets, whilst that I withal escape.”

2. Half-swording.
Half-swording was a common medieval technique used against armored opponents that I think would add tactical depth and flair to two-handed swords. If you want to learn more about it, you can watch a wonderful video by a popular youtuber here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwuQPfvSSlo Basically, Greatswords and Warbrands should have a Half-swording move that functions like the dagger’s pierce armor attack. For an increased fatigue cost and with less of a chance to hit, a successful half-sword would ignore all the targets armor and do normal damage to their health.

3.Defend Village/Town/City/Castle quest.
Let’s say that a town fears they are the target for an upcoming attack, so they hire your company to defend them for three days. Each day there is a 50/50 chance that an enemy party (orc, bandits, undead, other noble house, etc.) is spawned near where you are defending and takes a direct path to it.It would be possible for more than just one party spawned. You could end up having to fight an enemy party every single day if the odds are against you; also, you may not have to fight at all. That’s the juicy risk. The size of the party would correspond to the money offered to defend the village. If the village is still standing after the third day, then you grab the money and run.

4. High level recruits should come partially pre-leveled.
If I hire a hedge knight for thousands of gold, it would be completely nonsensical for him to be so untrained, inexperienced, and so weak that he can’t even wear the armor that he came in and who get’s killed in his first battle. Basically, when you buy a new unit, depending upon the background type, you should get free level ups. In tandem with naturally higher stats, you should get to choose a few stat increases to specialize him and get free perks. Let’s say a 1-4 levels head start. Here are som examples: Beggars and such get none, Farmers get one, lumberjacks get two, Retired soldiers get three, and sell-swords and hedge knights get four. When I’m running around with 12 high leveled BB and one gets killed. It’s almost impossible to replace him because you can’t level up the newbie before he dies too. This leads to my next point which is also where my original ideas end.

Not Completely My Ideas

5. Remove the level cap, or at the very least, increase it.
Instead of limiting the game play with a level cap, the amount of fun and adventures to be had should be increased as follows. The enemies should get bigger, badder, meaner, and there should be more of them. I don’t mean you should add stats to the same enemies like Fallout Four does. Instead of simply scaling up the level of the baddies, there should be more of them. They should come in bigger groups further from civilization. There should be bigger and badder types of enemies, similar to how the bandit leaders and orc warlords are the best of bandits and orcs. How cool would it be for 12 battle brothers to take on a war party of 12 bandit leaders. In summary, don’t limit the fun potential and overall game play by capping growth, rather add to the possibilities with new and more dangerous challenges for professional mercenaries to overcome. Thus expanding game play indefinitely. This leads me to my next point.

6. Monsters.
You guys said that you were planning on adding to the beast faction. Well, here are some of mine and other’s desires. I want boss enemies. And I don’t mean those puny orc warlords either. I want a challenge for my 12 level 30 battle brothers. I want boss enemies that take up four hexes and eat noble knights for breakfast. I’m talking about ogres, trolls, fire-breathing dragons, and all sorts of monstrous horrors like Grendel from Beowulf. If you want this game to go far, and I know you do. There should be super rare, super dangerous, and super lucrative quests for mercenary companies with the cojones (balls) to take them on. And I believe these beast, boss battles are just what this game needs.

My last tow points are not mine at all but the game really,really needs these features.

7. Horse armor! I’m just kidding. I want mounts!
There are so many great ideas on how to do this I won’t even bother to try to add to them. Just know that your fans and myself really want horses and other mounts to be implemented. It would appeal to a broader audience and add depth and flavor to the game play.

8. An option to automatically follow caravans.
PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE!

In conclusion, this is your game, and I love it and respect you guys for making it how you wanted it to be. But I see so much untapped potential for Battle Brothers that could make it one of the best indie games to come along in a very long time. I mean better than Besiege, better the Faster Than Light, and better than almost all of the indie games that make it to the front page of Steam nowadays. If you want your game to be great, then listen to what your people want. Respect the community and it will respect you. However, I don’t want you to sell yourself out either, but please, don’t sell yourself short.

Sincerely,
Amazing Aardvark

P.S. I can barely wait for the next update. It’s looking to be a good one.

[Marsh The Muddy]

That is awesome! I see that you really put much time in thinking and writing all of these ideas…
I have a few objections however…
About points 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7:
1.That idea of nets backfireing seems pointless… The idea of professionally trained soldiers trapping themselves… I would say only if they have the clumsy trait…
The ability to cut the net… seems nice!
2.To have a giant sword that deals 100 damage (insta-kill on most humans) that also can ignore armor… Seems too overpowered…
3.This is one of my favorites! I would say however that those contracts should only be available when the settlement is under attack…
4.I would say 4 levels is too much! Maybe 2 at most… They are hedge knights, not old swordsmen…
5.Removing the cap… I don’t think would be a good idea (at least not any time soon)… With the increase, I agree… Maybe level 15 – 17 at most for now…
6.I love the idea of big monsters (ogres, trolls, yetis, giants etc)… No complains here…
7.I just see no use for mounts… In the world map, sure! They could increase your speed… On the battlefield… What?… Horses aren’t killing machines as far as I know…
8.Why not? That sounds good!

[Rap]

Thank you for your suggestions and the kind words. I’ll quickly go over all your points, as you requested.

1) No to nets ‘misfiring’. Maybe to others being able to free their allies.
2) No. It’s important we keep weapon types distinct and useful for different reasons, in different situations. Adding half-swording and similar techniques would blur the difference between weapons too much.
3) Yes, these are in the game now.
4) Yes, also in the game now.
5) Yes and no. We’ll look at leveling and endgame balance when we revise the perk system and introduce a more complex injury system later down the road. However, we’ll not let you scale indefinitely (whether achieved through a level cap or other means) and we’ll not scale enemies with you indefinitely.
6) Yes.
7) No.
8) Escort contracts work differently now, so no.

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[scaryned]

Cool list

1 totally agree

2 unless the weapon receives a severe decrease in damage an is only available as level up skill, this would be very over powered.

3 totally agree, possibly available for the next update.

4 totally agree. Although farm hands and lumber Jacks shouldn’t know a single thing about combat.

5 maybe… although the difficulty level for monsters works by preying on the small and avoiding the impossible. More levels would be fun, but may get overpowered at some point.

6 I mentioned this at some point as well. With some coding trickery you can get 4 ‘units’ to move as 1, acting like a single massive unit. Dragons would be a good place to start with. Also, ‘puny’ orc warlord??? You must play a lot of DF to have Co Jones that big.

7 totally agree

8 TOTALLY AGREE!!!!!

Also, don’t worry about dev/com relationship. Regardless of untapped potential or not, this will be an awesome game.

RL

[Amazing Aardvark]

Thank you for replying, Christof. Really, thanks. You’re a pretty cool guy, and you have my best wishes for the next update to be the finest one yet.

Truly,

The Amazing Typing Aardvark.

[Author]

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