PipBoy's Big List of Suggestions

[PipBoy]

Hey guys, first post. I have to say, Battle Brothers is pretty much my dream game. This is the kind of thing I lay awake in bed at night thinking “man this would be a cool game.” So I am stoked. The following is my list of suggestions and thoughts. I’ll update it as I log more hours.
I’ve currently experimented with the following groups, playing about 30-50 days each, just so you know where I’m coming from. I also am a big fan of games like this, XCOM, Darkest Dungeon, etc, so I’ll try and balance my feedback in ways that maintain the brutal nature of the game, but also help balance.
The Ravens–4 pikes, 2 great weapons, 6 shields
The Black Blades–2 pikes, 4 archers, 4 shields, 2 great weapons
The Ghosts–4 archers, 6 shields, 2 great weapons
+ random starts and restarts and wipes :D
“Classes”
Archers seem under powered. I’m not entirely sure what they need. Perhaps more work in the skill tree (more on that later). During tougher battles, even with the Sunder skill, they’re basically worthless against anything wearing chainmail or heavier. Another thing I have noticed is that enemy groups won’t advance on you unless you have archers. So having archers forces the AI to think “oh shit I gotta advance” and run right into your field of fire.
There are a few ways I can think to help archers out.
1. Crossbows and bows should be more differentiated. As of now, they’re not that much different. Crossbow should get even more armor damage (or maybe ignore it, like the Shank skill).
2. Bows should have longer range. As of now, units start out 8ish squares away, bows have 7 range. The battle should begin with units in bow range, this forces instant action.
3. Dear god, please add early firearms.
Pikemen
I like the pull/push idea of the pikes/billhooks, but I never found much use for them. One addition would be to make pikes/billhooks function like shieldwall, but for spears. IE, backing up your spearwall with pikes in “set” mode means more spearwall damage or something. I’ve basically found that another unit with a spear/shield is more useful. Better survivability and better for overwhelming the enemy.
Two-Handers
The power is brutal, the mobility is terrible. I love these guys, but more often than not, I find myself just running them after everyone else, just dying for that rare chance to get set for a good swing.
Maybe add a Charge skill? High fatigue, but works like the orc charge so you can burn all your fatigue to move+attack?
Sword and Board
Beard and butter. Nothing to say, really.
Rogues
I tried out a build I called “Shank you very much” (Perfect Focus+Dagger=any one thing dies). It was hilariously devastating, but my rogues were often short lived. Any plans for a basic stealth system later?
Weapons and armor
In addition to the crossbow/bow comments up above, some of the weapons are due for some tweaking, I think.
Take the billhook and the pike. Exact stats except that the billhook does more armor damage. The only other difference is the choice between pull/push. Why is this? I don’t know!
There is basically no reason to not wear the heaviest armor you can. I fought 34 skeletons and 2 necromancers with my all melee, heavy party. I maybe skipped 1-2 turns on single units to regain fatigue. Armor should be important, yes, but other builds should be viable. Perhaps the Dodge skill needs to be built in to all characters?
Any plans for dual-wielding in the future? I’d love a rapier/parrying dagger build :D
Perks and Attributes
I’ll only mention the ones I think are basically worthless.
Taunt–I have no idea if this is even working. Maybe it should force a Resolve check, and if they fail, they get lowered defenses?
Push the Advantage–It’s far too situational compared to the other choices.
Steel Brow–If I’m going defense tree, I should already be wearing a massive fuck-off helmet.
Anticipation–As above. Archers can’t hurt me when I’m wearing heavy armor.
Killing Frenzy–It sounds good on paper, but most of the time the bonus is wasted.
Honestly, the Defense tree needs the most work. In general, the trees feel too specialized. I’ve always been a fan of free-form systems that allow for more freedom.
Does anyone use Ranged Defense? I’ve never put a point into it and haven’t had trouble with archers, unless they’re firing at my archers. Armor is just so damn good vs arrows, it doesn’t matter.
More information about how these stats interact would be helpful. I need to know if there’s diminishing returns and what-not.
Misc
Maybe it’s just me, but forest battles are annoying. They don’t feel like they’re adding much in terms of tactics, they’re just frustrating. I vote for a “remove trees” toggle button.
WTB character/party creator for the start. Maybe randomly generator by theme? IE: Fallen Noble House, Common Folk, Outcasts, etc.
I almost never need healing supplies. Most of my buying supplies is spent on tools for repairing armor. I realize this is part of the management portion, but it needs work. Right now it feels more like a chore than an actual choice.
I’d like to be able to see all the stats of a perspective hire before I spend the gold on them. Oooh, a raider? Oh he’s a daft coward with brittle bone syndrome. There goes 300g.
More to come, for now it’s back to action.
PS.
Hey devs, you guys have totally read The Heroes, haven’t you? :D

[Sky]

Here are some thought on these topics from my gameplay point of view.

About the classes or the weapon type bearers. Archers as such are not underpowered imo, they are extremely good if they have bows. The xbows are in my play more of a secoundary weapons for my fighters just like javelins. While javelins are nice agains low armor no shield enemies, the xbow is the one range atack that any of my men can do before the enemy or they close in. It is possible since most on my men have the quick hands and the ones that don’t have still need only 6 ap to shot and swap they are mostly 1 weaponers be that a 2h or a single 1h. The said xbow deals massive damage if it hits. It usually annihilates the enemy armor/helm making everything quite easier. Only few enemies have high enough armor to ignore the shot out, like orc warriors or fallen heroes, leaders. Making it more armor damaging would be a big issue rendering even those absolutely useless. When an enemy reaches you without an armor even the weakest can 2 shot them. The archers with bows are a tactical unit that usually moves around quite a lot especially early in the game in my plays. Changing position for clear shots, high grounds or covering a unit in need. As for now I can say that 2 archers feels very few, 3 are mostly good but 4 are sometimes too much. I tend to go for 4 early game but if or better when I lose one it is not a problem. The main difference is that the bow can shot 2 times a turn (without focus) and does not need a reload while the xbow needs one, and no the argument that you can have more xbows and shot up to 2 in a single turn does not matter in most battles you can keep up only the first 2 turns with the bow. The damage is clearly different imo and the armor penetration aswell. And I do agree that there have to be more firearms especially early game ones. There are only 2bows 1xbow 1javelin.

Pikemen
You refer to the 2 hex reach weapons. There are 2 type of these, the pike/pitchfork and the billhook. The first ones are to hold the enemy back, push away and deal damage from a longer distance while the hook ones are to get the enemy closer tear them from their formation or advantageus position. As any of the enemy place changing abilities these are more tactical than damage dealing ones, to push an enemy back from surrounding one of yours, to pull them closer from a highground or push from the hill so they not only lose the position but also health and have a long run. Best use on uneven terrain. For the damaging abilities of these weapons as you mentioned the spearwall it is not a good one since the spears stops the enemy from closing in. But these are the perfect line weapons while the front row shields up you can freely attack from the back row without needing armor or any defense and deal massive amount of damage if you hit, especially with the billhook. Started with having 1 of these now playing with 2-3 and one of them is always a billhook while an other is a more heavy armored support one who can save a frontliner with rotation if needed.

2h
They are the hardest one to breed. Unfortunately at this moment I found that the only usable 2h weapon is the sword sometimes the orc chain. The sword can attack in a line just as 3 around and usually you can easily setup so that they don’t hit your own. Nothing is more facepalm when you behead your own guys with a careless swing. If you do a line tactic then just place them at the end of the line, they will attract enemies around and can do good use of those swords. But they need skills like berserk, armor, and lots of fatigue to be extremely effective on their own. It is very satisfying in a rush attack to exterminate the filth with those big swords. Tend to have 1-3 of these.

Rogues
Well, half of your concept of the rogue is the weapon, and the ther one is focus. Focus can be used with any weapons, it is deadly even on an archer with no atk skill and just a blunt weapon. Imo you should look for ways to improve the way of the rogue to be more unique and not depending on just one skill. You can try the swordmaster lone wolf build with the dagger I belive it will be much more usable. I’d even go further and would go mainly in the support tree for the footwork, weaponmaster, battleflow, fearsome. While getting dodge and nimble from defense. Since you have no armor to worry about you don’t realy need the attack tree skills, maybe the tier one for tohit only.

Weapons / Armors
You are only half right. There sure is no reason not to go heavy armor while maintaining a good fatigue. And you realy should do that. Except if you going more special builds that do not need that or that is a disadvantage in their situation. There are more other builds that are viable. Some examples: swordmaster build(no shield dodge nimble), the light assault builds(high mobility units to go for archers necromancers), or the glasscannon pike/billhook builds(just pure damage no defense). You can make anything for any tactical situation. There is no builds as in some mmo but rather a general direction ones, you can achive similar results with different ways.

Perks
Yep these are cornerstones of the characters and usually you can find more topics discussing them all the time. You can read more about these skills from other player perspectives in the discussion part of the forums. The topics you are looking for are “Offense tree, Defense tree, Utility tree” there you will find many points of view and feel free to add any thoughts and leave any comments there so it will be more centralized.

Misc
Forest battles. My personal problem is that independent of you attacking or defending you aways start in a chaotic position. But as of lately it seems the devs did change the spawn radius of your troops or i was just lucky and had no strange solo spawn away from team. Mostly it is ok now. The trees and bushes are a layer of difficulity for you, since you don’t see all the enemy and can’t realy use ranged units. At least not soo freely. Besides it hinders not only visual range but the movement and placement. I find the forest a good diversity. But I agree the trees sometimes can be annoying.

There will be some customizations added in later. The devs already confirmed that.]

Medical supplies. I belive they will be much more useful when the “reserve” will be implemented (when you have an active 12 man group and some amount in the reserve) as for now it has almost no use and I’m sure it will be balanced.

The traits and stats of the hirelings. Imo that is absolutely something this game does not need at all. But there might be some changes to it aswell. Too early to say.

For the closing, if you are interested in what other players think or came up with I’d strongly suggest checking the discussion forums there are a lot of interesting ideas around both for gameplay and about the game itself.

Tipps for new players
BB Wiki

[PipBoy]

I just woke up so I’ll reply more later, but just wanted to touch on something.

The miss/hit chance “caps” at 5% which means even a build with tons of dodge will eventually get hit. If they’re not wearing armor, they’re probably going to die. Hence, armor is still necessary.

I also realize what the billhook and pike are for, I just don’t think they’re as useful as another character with a shield/one handed weapon. But maybe that’s just my personal style.

[PipBoy]

About the classes or the weapon type bearers. Archers as such are not underpowered imo, they are extremely good if they have bows. The xbows are in my play more of a secoundary weapons for my fighters just like javelins. While javelins are nice agains low armor no shield enemies, the xbow is the one range atack that any of my men can do before the enemy or they close in. It is possible since most on my men have the quick hands and the ones that don’t have still need only 6 ap to shot and swap they are mostly 1 weaponers be that a 2h or a single 1h. The said xbow deals massive damage if it hits. It usually annihilates the enemy armor/helm making everything quite easier. Only few enemies have high enough armor to ignore the shot out, like orc warriors or fallen heroes, leaders. Making it more armor damaging would be a big issue rendering even those absolutely useless. When an enemy reaches you without an armor even the weakest can 2 shot them. The archers with bows are a tactical unit that usually moves around quite a lot especially early in the game in my plays. Changing position for clear shots, high grounds or covering a unit in need. As for now I can say that 2 archers feels very few, 3 are mostly good but 4 are sometimes too much. I tend to go for 4 early game but if or better when I lose one it is not a problem. The main difference is that the bow can shot 2 times a turn (without focus) and does not need a reload while the xbow needs one, and no the argument that you can have more xbows and shot up to 2 in a single turn does not matter in most battles you can keep up only the first 2 turns with the bow. The damage is clearly different imo and the armor penetration aswell. And I do agree that there have to be more firearms especially early game ones. There are only 2bows 1xbow 1javelin.

My usual team is 6 shields, 4 archers, 2 heavies (two handers). I think archers get really good at high levels, but early on they’re pretty terrible when compared to shield/weapon guys.

Pikemen
You refer to the 2 hex reach weapons. There are 2 type of these, the pike/pitchfork and the billhook. The first ones are to hold the enemy back, push away and deal damage from a longer distance while the hook ones are to get the enemy closer tear them from their formation or advantageus position. As any of the enemy place changing abilities these are more tactical than damage dealing ones, to push an enemy back from surrounding one of yours, to pull them closer from a highground or push from the hill so they not only lose the position but also health and have a long run. Best use on uneven terrain. For the damaging abilities of these weapons as you mentioned the spearwall it is not a good one since the spears stops the enemy from closing in. But these are the perfect line weapons while the front row shields up you can freely attack from the back row without needing armor or any defense and deal massive amount of damage if you hit, especially with the billhook. Started with having 1 of these now playing with 2-3 and one of them is always a billhook while an other is a more heavy armored support one who can save a frontliner with rotation if needed.

The fact that these weapons function as “heavy” weapons and only get 1 attack per turn limits them a lot, imo. They have their uses, but with all my experimentation, I don’t feel they’re that great.

2h
They are the hardest one to breed. Unfortunately at this moment I found that the only usable 2h weapon is the sword sometimes the orc chain. The sword can attack in a line just as 3 around and usually you can easily setup so that they don’t hit your own. Nothing is more facepalm when you behead your own guys with a careless swing. If you do a line tactic then just place them at the end of the line, they will attract enemies around and can do good use of those swords. But they need skills like berserk, armor, and lots of fatigue to be extremely effective on their own. It is very satisfying in a rush attack to exterminate the filth with those big swords. Tend to have 1-3 of these.

I find swords way more useful than axes. Axes should maybe get another special attack to help balance them. Greatswords are just way more versatile.

Rogues
Well, half of your concept of the rogue is the weapon, and the ther one is focus. Focus can be used with any weapons, it is deadly even on an archer with no atk skill and just a blunt weapon. Imo you should look for ways to improve the way of the rogue to be more unique and not depending on just one skill. You can try the swordmaster lone wolf build with the dagger I belive it will be much more usable. I’d even go further and would go mainly in the support tree for the footwork, weaponmaster, battleflow, fearsome. While getting dodge and nimble from defense. Since you have no armor to worry about you don’t realy need the attack tree skills, maybe the tier one for tohit only.

See my previous comment, plus what I really wanted was some form of stealth.

Weapons / Armors
You are only half right. There sure is no reason not to go heavy armor while maintaining a good fatigue. And you realy should do that. Except if you going more special builds that do not need that or that is a disadvantage in their situation. There are more other builds that are viable. Some examples: swordmaster build(no shield dodge nimble), the light assault builds(high mobility units to go for archers necromancers), or the glasscannon pike/billhook builds(just pure damage no defense). You can make anything for any tactical situation. There is no builds as in some mmo but rather a general direction ones, you can achive similar results with different ways.

The main issue is that no one but a “captain” (utility spec) will be wearing the super, super heavy armor, simply because they won’t have the fatigue, even if you put points into fatigue every level. The second issue is that when given the option between wearing heavy armor and missing a turn to recover fatigue, or wearing lighter armor and attacking one more time, the armor option will win out almost every time. There should be some benefit besides fatigue to wearing lighter/no armor (dodge %, 1 more hex of movement, etc)

Medical supplies. I belive they will be much more useful when the “reserve” will be implemented (when you have an active 12 man group and some amount in the reserve) as for now it has almost no use and I’m sure it will be balanced.

Good point, but I still rarely buy them. I’ve never run out just using the ones gained from battles.

[Bahamutschampion]

PipBoy wrote:

Archers seem under powered. I’m not entirely sure what they need. Perhaps more work in the skill tree (more on that later). During tougher battles, even with the Sunder skill, they’re basically worthless against anything wearing chainmail or heavier. Another thing I have noticed is that enemy groups won’t advance on you unless you have archers. So having archers forces the AI to think “oh shit I gotta advance” and run right into your field of fire.

I’ve been running four archers in my party and while they’re painful to level up I feel they really take off once you’ve got them leveled and have some bow skill on them. Four archers with high bow skill and the berserk perk shred enemy forces. Generally I’ve been trying to run a front of six spears&shield guys with archers behind and 1 greatsword on either side of the archers for if the enemy tries to flank around spearwall and I find it works very well. Basically I use the spears to tank while the archers kill everything and have the two handers focus down anything that manages to flank around and get my archers in melee. Also, giving archers quick hands and a spear (I always go with spear for the +20% chance to hit) usually allows them to finish off a weakened enemy in melee if necessary and swap back to their bow. They are weak against armor, but I’m hoping higher tier bows might fix this in the future.

[PipBoy]

I’ve been running four archers in my party and while they’re painful to level up I feel they really take off once you’ve got them leveled and have some bow skill on them. Four archers with high bow skill and the berserk perk shred enemy forces. Generally I’ve been trying to run a front of six spears&shield guys with archers behind and 1 greatsword on either side of the archers for if the enemy tries to flank around spearwall and I find it works very well. Basically I use the spears to tank while the archers kill everything and have the two handers focus down anything that manages to flank around and get my archers in melee. Also, giving archers quick hands and a spear (I always go with spear for the +20% chance to hit) usually allows them to finish off a weakened enemy in melee if necessary and swap back to their bow. They are weak against armor, but I’m hoping higher tier bows might fix this in the future.

This is usually how I run too, although I’m experimenting with crossbows instead of bows now.

The problem is that ranged weapons are only great against unarmored enemies. Ghouls and young orcs get destroyed, anything else and they’re meh. They also take about 5 levels to get to a point where they feel worthwhile.

I think the Blocked Shot penalty should be greater, but the base hit chance of all ranged weapons increased. Shield Wall should provide more ranged defense too, maybe. This way you can slowly advance on archers, but running up without a shield is a death sentence.

Not to mention, Skeletons resistance to archers is possibly a huge problem. If the story of the game requires a lot of fighting skeletons, no one is going to use many archers. I know you’ll be able to have more men and swap them out, but I feel like as they are now, archers are too much of a time investment to make them worthwhile.

The other problem is that base ranged skill starts out about 20-30 points lower than melee skill. This contributes massively to early game archers being whiff-cannons.

My suggestions–
1. Lower the “whiff” factor of crossbows and archers, to make them deal out damage more consistent with melee.
OR
2. Raise the armor penetration of both the crossbow and the bows. This makes trained archers a better investment, as more enemies wear armor as the game progresses.
OR
3. Have Aimed Shot have a greater % chance to hit the head and raise its base hit chance. Right now it’s almost always better to take 2 quick shots than one aimed shot (two 20% is better than one 40%, statistically)

I think playing around with ideas such as these could lead to archers having a progression more like melee characters.

[Bahamutschampion]

PipBoy wrote:

I’ve been running four archers in my party and while they’re painful to level up I feel they really take off once you’ve got them leveled and have some bow skill on them. Four archers with high bow skill and the berserk perk shred enemy forces. Generally I’ve been trying to run a front of six spears&shield guys with archers behind and 1 greatsword on either side of the archers for if the enemy tries to flank around spearwall and I find it works very well. Basically I use the spears to tank while the archers kill everything and have the two handers focus down anything that manages to flank around and get my archers in melee. Also, giving archers quick hands and a spear (I always go with spear for the +20% chance to hit) usually allows them to finish off a weakened enemy in melee if necessary and swap back to their bow. They are weak against armor, but I’m hoping higher tier bows might fix this in the future.

This is usually how I run too, although I’m experimenting with crossbows instead of bows now.

The problem is that ranged weapons are only great against unarmored enemies. Ghouls and young orcs get destroyed, anything else and they’re meh. They also take about 5 levels to get to a point where they feel worthwhile.

I think the Blocked Shot penalty should be greater, but the base hit chance of all ranged weapons increased. Shield Wall should provide more ranged defense too, maybe. This way you can slowly advance on archers, but running up without a shield is a death sentence.

Not to mention, Skeletons resistance to archers is possibly a huge problem. If the story of the game requires a lot of fighting skeletons, no one is going to use many archers. I know you’ll be able to have more men and swap them out, but I feel like as they are now, archers are too much of a time investment to make them worthwhile.

The other problem is that base ranged skill starts out about 20-30 points lower than melee skill. This contributes massively to early game archers being whiff-cannons.

My suggestions–
1. Lower the “whiff” factor of crossbows and archers, to make them deal out damage more consistent with melee.
OR
2. Raise the armor penetration of both the crossbow and the bows. This makes trained archers a better investment, as more enemies wear armor as the game progresses.
OR
3. Have Aimed Shot have a greater % chance to hit the head and raise its base hit chance. Right now it’s almost always better to take 2 quick shots than one aimed shot (two 20% is better than one 40%, statistically)

I think playing around with ideas such as these could lead to archers having a progression more like melee characters.

A lot of good points, I especially like the hit head % idea for aimed shot. Another thing that would probably help is if some accessories (whenever they get implemented) could add to your armor piercing or allow you to bypass it altogether.

[PipBoy]

Having run with crossbows for awhile, I think they need some work too. The 1 shot per round really limits them, even if they hit harder.

A. Raise the accuracy/damage to make the single shots more effective
B. Give the crossbow a melee attack, like a bash that maybe knocks back enemies for a little damage. This gives crossbowmen some more versatility.
C. Include Pavaise’s in the game

Also, would love more information in the combat log with options to disable some of them, but for nerds like me we could have a wealth of info.

Floating combat text is always fun too.

[Holy.Death]

I find swords way more useful than axes. Axes should maybe get another special attack to help balance them. Greatswords are just way more versatile.

Axes crush shields and armor better than greatswords. That’s why I prefer axes over swords.

[PipBoy]

They do, but how often do you use the axes 360 swing? The 3 hex cleave and 2 hex swing from the greatsword seem to outweigh the axe’s increased damage.

If I want to destroy a shield, I’ll use a 1 handed axe from another warrior, to set up the dude with the giant 2 hander. Wasting a 2 handed attack to break a shield is sorta meh.

Your mileage may vary, but that’s just what I’ve found suits my style.

[PsenBattle]

Just mentioning I’m reading all of this and like what I see :)
Not promising anything but maybe we’ll tweak the two handed axe a little, as the 360 swing is really difficult to employ in an effective manner.
We’ll see.

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[PipBoy]

PsenBattle wrote:

Just mentioning I’m reading all of this and like what I see
Not promising anything but maybe we’ll tweak the two handed axe a little, as the 360 swing is really difficult to employ in an effective manner.
We’ll see.

Dev reply! :D Yeah, I’m not sure what the axe could gain. Maybe a passive chance to damage shields? A swing that deals no damage, but forces all enemies to move 1 hex away? Or maybe a Perk that allows AoE attacks to auto-miss allies. Again, the main issue is the versatility of the greatsword. It might deal less damage, but it’s more tactically viable.

I’ve finally managed to put every Perk tree into action and I’ll post my thoughts up asap.

Keep up the good work, love your game :D

[Holy.Death]

PipBoy wrote:

They do, but how often do you use the axes 360 swing? The 3 hex cleave and 2 hex swing from the greatsword seem to outweigh the axe’s increased damage.

I don’t, because more often than not I don’t have enough stamina to use other abilities, so the greatsword ends up being used mostly for standard attacking. That’s why I like the two-handed axe better. However, I do agree that in terms of potential the greatsword offers more tactical options.

[ManaSeed]

2h axe’s Round Swing has low damage per fatigue cost, and -20% chance to hit. I would bet 5 cents that one of the devs was injured by an axe’s round swing when he was a child. It’s not payback or anything, it’s just nature of human.

Sword, king of all weapons. Greatsword, king of all swords. I thought it’s not that hard to understand this. I don’t even see why you two should argue.

…….just kidding.

Greatsword, is good for most occasions, and best against groups of weak enemies.
Greataxe, can kill orc warrior faster than greatsword with its Split Man skill.

[Author]

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