Skills: Passive gain, weapons/equipments and perks

[mark_valley]

Hello everyone! My first post here.
Unfortunately I won’t be able to purchase the game on early access due to my old gear not supporting OpenGL3. On the other hand I have watched some gameplays on youtube and was very impressed: this game have the potential to be a “must have” for every turn-based strategist player.

Based on the thinks I saw I would like to give some suggestions, some of them are from Xenonauts and I think are very nice.

Passive skill gain: Instead of choosing where do you want to put your skill points after each promotion I think it would be more interesting to improve skills slowly after each fight/mission according to what each brother did during it. For example: if a brother moved a lot during a fight he could gain a little bit max fatigue, maybe increase his strength if he delivered a lot of blows during the brawl and so on.

Weapon/Equipment skills: there is a nice discussion about it on the general forum and I agree with a lot of things there. Brothers could have skills according to specific weapons and other equipment types (bucklers, shields, heavy/light armor) and these skills could increase as they use those items during battle (Passive skill gain).

Perks: As the brother accomplish some marks he could gain some kind of badge that will bring benefits to him. Examples: 1) after killing a certain number of orcs he could become an “orcslayer” (stole this idea from an older post) and have some bonus fighting against then. 2) After managing to block a certain number of damage with a shield he could become an “oakenshield” and get a bonus using shields. 3) After hitting some arrow shots he became an “eagleeye” and so on…

I think those ideas would be nice to help the development of unique and very specialized brothers. For me the game would have much more flavour with it.
Thank you!

[lfish]

Passive skill gain systems too often lead to very ‘gamey’ behavior by players; i.e. not killing the last enemy so a player can move their troops around the field and build up their fatigue, or letting the last enemy hit their characters multiple times to build up hp gain. Might be possible to come up with an implementation that works better, but I’m not sure what it would be.

I think something like the perk system you described is planned for the game, although there aren’t any details yet as far as I know. I think that medals and maiming will allow the brothers to become more unique through battlefield actions.

[GOD]

The problem with passive skill gain is that the player would start acting really bizarrely in battle if they want to have any control over their stat progression (which you really want, considering how the battles work). Need more fatigue? Better hit-stun an enemy with some guys so that you can run around for a bit. Levelling hitpoints (being near death?), resolve (passing morale checks maybe, but that makes it harder to level if you have less resolve) and initiative (don’t see how) would be even more difficult.

The traits gained through achievements (or failures) of a merc is something I’d also like to see. Would have to be minor bonuses though, since you don’t want to encourage specialisation too much.

Game isn’t coming out of Early Access until next year anyway, so no rush to upgrade. I don’t think you’ll need a beastly machine for it either, as this seems to be the kind of game pretty suited to laptop gaming. :)
Agreeing on that must have potential. In terms of fun I’ve had, it’s already been worth the price of purchase and if they further build on the basics it can become real classic.

EDIT: Seems I got sniped. :P

[PsenBattle]

Hey Mark,
here are some thoughts on your points.
Regarding passive skillgain: We didnt implement that on purpose. Like mentioned above passiv skillgain calls for exploitation. Back in the day when playing Ultima Online people always equipped cursed weapons lowering their stats so they’d have a bigger chance of passively gaining skillpoints.
Its similar with gainable traits by special actions. People will tend to minmax their play according to these actions. For example they’ll “feed” all orc kills to one guy just to unlock the trait.
Neverthelss gainable traits are on our discussion list. We will probably start with the injury system related traits (one eyed, scarred, lost ear etc) and see where we go from there.
Cheers

Overhype Studios - Let´s roll!

Facebook Youtube
Twitter

[GOD]

Minmaxing like that is why, if they’re implemented, I’d have it not be based on something quantifiable like kill-count and either have there be a chance for it be positive or negative with a weak bonus or nerf, or have the trait be both be a blessing and a curse.
Something like: Vengeance. Has chance of being obtained after the merc in question is the only survivor of a battle where you started with at least 12 mercs. The other mercs need to have died in battle (so no fleeing and letting them die to try and grind it). Trait does something like: Mercenary never drops below wavering when fighting [FACTION]. Mercenary cannot retreat from battle against [FACTION].
It should be something special that only triggers under rare occasions and which you cannot reliably get even if you know the circumstances under which it triggers (hence the chance of triggering). Also, if you get it, it changes how you use the merc, but does not make them substantially stronger or weaker. Just different.

[PsenBattle]

Exactly. We would hve to think of triggers and exceptions you cant really control.

Overhype Studios - Let´s roll!

Facebook Youtube
Twitter

[GOD]

Yeah, you’d essentially need to turn them into the trait equivalent of legendary weapons. Something that you don’t build your playthrough around when you start it, but an exciting surprise when you do come across it.
Could be quite a bit of work for something you might never see so it’s probably pretty low on the list (if it is even on there), but it would be a really cool thing to have happen to your merc while playing.

This is also pretty much why I’m really looking forward to the legendary weapons. :D

[mark_valley]

Hi again! Thank you for your answers.

Yep. I can understand your point. I am not a player that min/max to these levels but for sure, others will do that. Talking about passive skill I think its a matter of personal taste: I always felt somehow not confortable with the idea of choosing your stats actively, even with classic RPG games. But this will not be a major problem.

Keep doing your nice work guys!

Thanks!

[RealityCh3ck]

I completely agree with not gaining passive stats in battle in an easy to farm manner. One direction passive stat gain could be taken would be through training in camp (which I believe is being implemented in some way in the future).

If passive stat gain were gained while training in camp on the strategic world map, there would be trade-offs to using the system. While training, you would be immobile and unable to loot hideouts, complete contracts, etc. You would also be paying your troops with food and crowns during this time.

I usually feel safer traveling around the map during the day. I feel more likely to outrun a tough fight during the day. So if the camp training was implemented, I could see myself stopping at a town in the evening and training up my troops knowing I will have some militia to help win a desperate fight in that location. I may also decide to camp (and train my troops in this manner) for the night before raiding a hideout if I feel I would have the archer advantage.

Some form of passive stat gain could be beneficial to character progression. By having a limited number of chances to gain stats, I find myself only leveling up the same three stats on each character mostly. If I did not feel this hard cap on skill gain, I may go for a more balanced leveling progression (I would have more choices).

Passive skill gain on the strategic map (camping) may also be easier to balance. Getting too many super-troopers? Decrease the stat gain. Too many characters gaining too high of a value in any particular stat? Perhaps a Battle Brother can only gain points to the point of the highest value on the team.

I’m just pitching a few ideas into the pot. I have not thought hard on these, considered balance in a meaningful way, etc. I love the game so far, and trust the devs to continue with their vision. I would like minor passive stat gain though so thought I would speak up.

[Sky]

PsenBattle wrote:

Exactly. We would have to think of triggers and exceptions you cant really control.

For that to work properly the reserve units need to be implemented first. So the players would be able to make the right squad against right enemies. Togerther these two systems could make up to an endless combinations in squad composition, regarding the enemy in sight. With events on top of that, it would make the active squad composition even more a tactic choise even while travelling, except if the events would allow you to chose the startup.

Otherwise it will be just a disaster where the player always ends up losing, just because one or two sellswords have the wrong affiliations.

Tipps for new players
BB Wiki

[Author]

Posts