Some ideas for BB

[felipye]

Hi everyone!

Such a great game! I’m really loving Battle Brothers for so many things it does right (plus the absolutely wicked art style). That said, I’d like to pitch in with some suggestions that could (at least for me) turn it into a really dangerous time sink:

1. Since it takes a long time to grind out decent levels for your guys, naturally, losing them in a battle from mid game onward becomes a tragedy (and so one is kind of encouraged to resort to loading an autosave). Well, how about making guys just wounded for a period of time (e.g. unusable for a number of battles) and putting in an (optional) ironman mode. At the same time, making losing battles punishing in some other way (pissing off the contractor, losing stuff, or something of that sort). Since the game is a bit too long to be played as a true roguelike, this might be a compromise that encourages ppl to accept the bad results and not be forced to start anew or savescum.

2. More reason behind the game world events and background politics. The world feels a bit random to me now (ok, might be I haven’t reached the point where things start happening). If different kingdoms fought each other occasionally, making the player choose sides and/or betray some of them, if monsters invaded occasionally, forcing alliances between some kingdoms and such stuff, it would become a “living, breathing world” that keeps going regardless of player’s actions, but gives the player plenty options for acting and influencing it a little bit. Player should also probably be allowed to play nice, join factions, guilds or sth, or just rob caravans and cities while enraging certain kingdoms, pirate style.

3. Things to do. – The game seems to reward (sometimes quite handsomely) pure grind, with mostly harmless caravan missions often being a far better (and more profitable) option than exploring and taking on something more dangerous (and more fun). Its part of the current randomness I guess. Wouldn’t it be awesome if the player had more options with appropriate rewards, so that safe grinding would bring less and difficult missions would bring more. I think this would came naturally if the previous point was implemented (player would have to help in defense from invasions, hunt monsters, invade castles and do an occasional mundane caravan guard duty with rewards being more than just monetary. Or maybe have a caravan mission pay much more if it crosses the enemy territory (making a tough fight much more likely) and a pittance if just traversing safe nearby towns.

4. Option to build (or occupy, or be given) a fort, build different shops in it etc. and look after it. This changes the game fun factor scale the least, but it’d still be nice to have more opportunities to spend teh monies. Might be more interesting if coupled with some more scarcity of interesting items (weapons, armor…) in the game world.

5. Mercenary roster in towns – Again, I have not seen all that the game offers, but from what I’ve experienced, there is no real incentive to buy the very expensive guys, esp since the stats are hidden and not so different, the skins are the same (and any character can be renamed and re-skinned so it’s not like their avatars are in any way unique. I think random mercs with slight variations in stats (plus background traits) should be a cheap way to fill up roster and a way to build the team from the ground up, while the expensive mercs should have real otherwise unattainable qualities (maybe even have some unique actions in battle), and sometimes have certain requirements before they are available. You know, a bit more individuality, a bit more reason to save up or do missions to unlock them and get them in the team.

6. A slight rework in action points’ costs might make for more interesting battles. Right now using different actions is discouraged by their cost vs reward ratio. The only thing other than standard attack that I see a point using is the shield break move (ok, and defensive actions when the character is not fighting and has points to spare). Shield break is very useful and is an auto success. The other stuff, well, seems too expensive point wise, to have such a low chance of success. For example, two handed weapons have only one action per turn. I rarely feel justified to waste it on pushing or pulling opponents instead of attacking (also, those actions lose all value if the two hand weapon guys stay in the second line, since they have no one to push or pull. AoE attacks are (for me at least) an impossible task to perform in most battles, since there is rarely room to manouver the axe wielding merc to perform it without risking to cut off his ally’s head. Why couldn’t this move just target frontal hexes? Does he really have to make a full circle? Might be he’d be too unbalanced then, but then again, maybe make a stat requirement for a merc to be able to wield such weapons and make it so that not many on the roster can achieve it?

Action points and terrain costs prevent much maneuvering, and so does the high chance of getting your head chopped off if you try disengaging a character from close combat. So once the battle is joined, it turns into spamming attacks until one side dies. Might be the way those affairs were resolved in RL, but we can’t let realism stand in the way of fun now, can we…

I’d like to be able (and required if I want to be successful in battles) to maneuver more, to have to choose which action to do when, to choose when I need to disengage and retreat and not have most of those choices either removed or highly discouraged by the system. Don’t get me wrong, the battles are really fun. I just think they have a potential to be a bit more fun.

Sorry if I harped about things that are already in the game (I haven’t reached quite far enough to say for sure). Also, sorry if my ideas are a result of playing a bit too much of Mount and Blade, Pirates! and Jagged Alliance 2. I feel like this game could take a bit more out of those oldies and still come out as unique and brilliant. Especially if the final goal is to make a sandboxy world filled with stuff to do and tough but non-lethal setbacks. If the goal is an escalating challenge which the player should try to overcome through multiple playthroughs, none of my points stand… But even then such a beautiful and vast world should probably become more than a loading screen in disguise for the next battle.

F

P.S. one slight possible bug/exploit mention: There is a mission during which an unavoidable event occurs where you either give up the quest item (some doods head) and forfeit the reward, or get into a tough battle with the other merc group. When choosing to fight, you can easily retreat to the edge of the screen, then order a retreat. That way you don’t have to fight a tough opponent if you don’t really want to, you are not pursued afterwards, and you get to keep the quest item with absolutely no penalties. This should probably be reworked a bit, maybe surround the mercs in a fight, or have them lose the item if they skedaddle.

[Wargasm]

On point 6:

– Shieldwalls, Spearwalls, Riposte, Knock Back and assorted Area-of-Effect attacks don’t cost any more Action Points than other skills with the same weapon (or with the other-hand weapon, in the case of the shield-based ones) but they do induce a lot more fatigue
– If a character obtains favourable level-ups for max fatigue, and/or gets some of the tier-2 perks that increase/restore max fatigue, the cost of the above attacks is no longer so great
– If a character’s melee defence is decently high (e.g. via level-ups, dodge, nimble or shield/shieldwall), you can eventually be quite nonchalant about strolling casually through a slaughterous melee with modest/meager risk of punishment (e.g. a nimble dodger can potentially walk through the gaps in a melee to make contact with several enemy ranged fighters, thus taking them out of action and removing a nimble fighter’s own Achilles Heel)
– If you’re not overwhelmed and use your first 4 Action Points to form a shieldwall, you’ll have a better chance of disengaging from melee with the remaining Action Points (and, if you’re no longer adjacent to any enemies on the next turn, you probably won’t be obliged to build up additional fatigue on that next turn)
– If only one enemy is adjacent and you use Knock Back (+25% chance to hit) so that the enemy is still engaged in melee but you aren’t, the immediate fatigue cost may be high but you probably won’t be obliged to build up more on the next turn
– A communal Spearwall may have a high cost of fatigue, but it has a high chance to keep the enemy disengaged so that your ranged fighters can pick them off, and then (after 2 or 3 turns) you may be able to move forth and finish them off with low-cost attacks
– Especially with the new formation options, a nimble fighter with high melee skill can deliberately surge into combat and get overwhelmed and then use Riposte, which then has a very good return for the fatigue cost (i.e. 2 attacks at each of up to 6 enemies, or 3 attacks if the enemies are direwolves)
– A heavily mailed fighter with a warbrand, greatsword or greataxe can do the above (ideally onto high ground) and use an Area-of-Effect attack, or (with the new formation options) can be positioned behind a gap in the front line that facilitates the Split skill (or: the use of Push or Shield Bash by other characters can manoeuvre enemies into suitable and ideally more vulnerable positions)

[Author]

Posts