[suggestion] Clearly unbalanced enemies

[Jaffai]

Well alone he can take 2 orcwarriors if lucky 3. He can also take down 5 goblin ambushers in first turn, so there is no need to run after them.

But I agree generally what you are saying. Orc warriors are bit too tough, it forces player to make party specialized just to kill them.If you make bad choices lvling ur brothers they are imposible to win, but when you know best builds then they are too easy. I would like to see party of 30 orc warriors.

Its huge difference if your brother is lvl 10 or 11 as usually the last perk will finish the synenergy with the build.

I like perk system now, its well thought. 10 perks is just perfect ammount to build ur brothers and there is some synenergy. Like perfect focus + battle flow. I think devs told that they will remake perk tree someday, but they are focused in adding new content now to make the world more interactive.

Only time i saw orc one shotting max gear brother was orc berserker 2handed axe headshot.

Another note, noone is forcing you to fight them.

[Danubian]

Jaffai wrote:

Another note, noone is forcing you to fight them.

If there is a part of the content that is so powerful that even you admit its possibly too powerful unless you make a perfect skill progression designed to counter that content specifically – that means we have a balancing issue.

Also i can make the same argument you did:

Another note, noone is stopping you from playing on highest difficulty setting, if brutal challenge is your thing (whether it be overall difficulty which i find alright or specific enemies, in which case i call Orc Warriors brutally OP).

[Danubian]

As for claim that your guy can take 2 or 3 orc warriors im confused.

This is a character from my last build.

He cant take a single orc warrior on (well he can obviously survive but it would take turns and turns to kill them, i just dont have weapons that can inflict enough damage on hits to kill orc warriors fast enough so that i could handle them in big numbers, even with nimble they do hit me occasionally, and even with 1handed orc weapons all it takes is a couple of hits – like 3 or 4 – to kill this fully armored brother).

So whats the catch? I have all the same weapons you have, except for that axe.

[Jaffai]

Well my guy cant obviously tank orc warriors, but he can kill 3 warriors in one turn. The key is perfect focus, battle flow, maxing max fat and melee attack. Play around with perfect focus, its insanely good skill. You need guy with Rally too and tanks which will prevent orc warriors to attack you perfect focus guys. The guy you posted is filling the tank role, they arent expected to make major damage.

I dont want to sound cocky or anything, but you are spreading your points all over the board. Your guy has too much max fatigue if you are playing with rally. I dont see point to build up hp that much, but maybe I’m wrong.
Difficulty level doesnt make orc warriors harder, if you hover your cursor over difficulty levels you see what is difference between them.

All the points in melee attack, melee defense and ranged attack. I have been playing around with dodge, I really starting to like it. End game is all about material of your brothers, I end up starting new game after I have lvl 11 guys.

“Happiness is a journey, not a destination; happiness is to be found along the way not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over…”.

[Meeky]

As for claim that your guy can take 2 or 3 orc warriors im confused.

This is a character from my last build.

Sorry, I’m a bit confused. Are you saying this character…

…has the same build and equipment as THIS character?

I’m thinking you may have posted the wrong screenshot, because those two characters are nothing alike.

That said, I typically build my guys to play very specialized roles in my party, so the melee tanks are godly at tanking, but the guys with two-handed weapons and bows shred enemies apart. Nobody works alone. They always work as a team. But I’m not the guy you were asking a question of.

The character Jaffai posted doesn’t look like a character that could take on 2-3 orc warriors that get into melee range – his attack stats are high, but his melee defense is 18, his HP is really low, he wears light armor and he only has 10 bolts with which to fire from afar – but he does look like he’d be able to kill 2-3 orc warriors while there’s a tough dude with a shield standing in front of him. Seems like a solid archer that can quickly turn into a deadly backline warrior. I think I will try that out in my next game.

If there is a part of the content that is so powerful that even you admit its possibly too powerful unless you make a perfect skill progression designed to counter that content specifically – that means we have a balancing issue.

My understanding is that you feel fights in which you lose brothers in the late game are too powerful. Personally, I think that’s where our mentality is different.

You’ve stated several times that this game shouldn’t be a super duper difficulty level game, so I’d like to make it clear: I am not looking for an ultra hard super difficult cannot beat without perfect builds Ironman gameplay experience. Heck, I don’t play most Battle Brothers run in Ironman, only a portion of them. I am, however, more than happy to accept that my Battle Brothers can and will die in the course of a game, even in the late game when they’ve been fully fleshed out, because there are opponents designed to be late-game opponents. That’s GOOD gameplay balance, if you ask me. That means I’m never going to be unstoppable; I’m always going to have some sort of risk of failure; and without that risk of failure, there’s no reason to play. It’s the same reason things like Critical Hits and Critical Fumbles exist in tabletop RPGs. There will always be that chance of great success (or failure) even in seemingly hopeless (or impossible to lose) conditions because that gives every situation that slightest bit of unpredictability, that slightest chance that your plans and the story may change entirely based on a roll of the dice.

Does the game need some balance changes? Perhaps. Should shields be buffed, for instance? I think they could use a bit more toughness. But I honestly think orcs are in a good place right now. They’re tough, they’re dangerous, and if you don’t approach them the right way you’re prone to losing a ton of resources.

Orcs are tough, but they can be made pretty trivial with specialized builds, yes. It isn’t necessary to beat them, but it certainly helps. It can leave you weak in other areas, which I hope we can fix eventually by having reserve troops in the future. Reserve troops would help balance issues immensely.

Also, because the developers are going to be putting the next update out months rather than weeks in the future, I’m going to start working on my video series sooner than later – probably within 3 weeks – rather than when the next update starts. As you asked, I’ll post it here when I start it.

Concerning the character you posted, Danubian:

So, this is why I feel the whole “Put nimble on all the frontliners” thing doesn’t work out well. Your character is a Brawler, which doesn’t really give that much of a benefit for a guy that wants to dodge attacks. Certain backgrounds have high melee defense, but Brawler isn’t really one of them.

This character is probably the sort I would have given a Pike or Billhook and slapped in the backline, or maybe I’ve have made him an archer because he started with 44 ranged attack. Assuming he’s a two-handed weapon specialist, I’d have focused on upgrading his Melee Attack and HP and Fatigue mostly, because in that case he won’t be worried about being murderized in the frontline.

He’d have with him a character or two that either A) use a shield to great effect or B) have the stats to allow themselves to be amazing Nimble defenders (maxing Melee Defense and swinging around a warhammer, a spear, a dagger, a sword, and probably a cleaver or axe). This would make them able to deal respectable damage to any foe (assuming they have 70 melee attack), and they’d be hard to hit by orcs.

If I wasn’t happy with the melee defense of my troops, I could give a character (in fact, this could be one of my Nimble tanks) the Inspiring Presence perk in the Utility tree, which would give my army +melee defense and +attack. If memory serves, there’s also a Holdout perk that I could give any Nimble guy, and it doubles the bonus from Confident… which, IIRC, makes that Confident bonus at the start of the fight pretty substantial.

I hope to show you exactly what I mean once I get the video running, but the point is: specialization is key, and your Brothers may not be able to kill 2-3 orc warriors on their own, but together they should be able to kill quite a darned lot.

[Anonymous]

To summarize what Meeky is saying.
-None of your battle brothers can do every job well, that’s why we get 12
-Decide early and specialize your guys for their intended roles
-Melee tanks, 2-Handed death dealers, Crossbowmen (not archers) and second line melee. You’ll need them all.

My own rules of thumb
-have 3 brothers to fill each role
-make crossbowmen proficient with 2-handers so using Quick Hands they can defend themselves
-between 70-80 fatigue is a good level to maintain for everyone except for your tanks, they’ll need more for the Shieldwall

Just my two cents.
One of my favorite builds is a 2-Hand sword wielder in medium armor with Battleflow and Bezerk, high attack (80-90) high initiative (100+) and low defense (0-15). He waits until the end of the round to close with the enemy and then at the beginning of the next turn can take 2 sweeping attacks before the enemies do anything. His ability to reliably kill 3 enemies in 1 turn before they can act means he doesn’t even need melee defense. And if he does get hit, the medium armor will shrug off 2-4 hits anyhow.

[Anonymous]

To Danubian

screen shot to back up my big mouth:
I’ll definitely do that. I’ll make a point to post a pic tomorrow (halloween day). I’m about to end game raid an orc stronghold.

as for 10+ archers, you shouldn’t have that many as that leaves you with no flexibility and that’s why you can’t kill the orcs.

spearwall + crossbows doesn’t beat orcs, it only buys you more time to soften up their key units before the real (melee) fight starts

as for the bows vs crossbows thing, I will grant you that you don’t have to do anything and every archer can fire twice in a round. So can my crossbowmen. They can also move 2 spaces. I’ll post a screen shot of a crossbowman build tomorrow but the premise is that the only drawback crossbows have is their absurdly expensive reload. And this can be circumvented by 2 perks. Quick Hands and Bags and Belts. Together with a 2-handed weapon, your crossbowman will have 3 spare shots and they don’t have to be reloaded. Which means 2 rounds guaranteed of 2 shots per round. That’s more than enough opportunity to get a kill and then start landing 1 shot kills from there on out every round. And since I only use 1 shot per round there is no need to carry extra ammo beyond your 1 quiver. Also, crossbows can still be fired while in melee. They can’t be reloaded but they can be fired. Bow’s can’t.

As for where bows hands down beat crossbows is with the Perfect Focus feat. Reloading crossbows just costs too much fatigue for that. But I don’t see it as a bad thing because that means I can get Rage instead and have +50% damage per shot and that combined with +50% from Close Combat Archer means I have +100% damage (same as 2 shots) and all that damage combined with the fact that crossbows have better armor damage and higher %armor piercing means your guys will reliably kill in 1 shot.

[Anonymous]

This is a build for my ranged guys. Honestly any 2-Handed weapon is fine, I just like swords. They have the most flexible special attacks, have +10% to hit, have 30% chance to stun on a normal attack and are light. The lightness gives my guy a solid chance of having higher initiative which means when an enemy closes to melee range there is a good chance my guy can quick swap for 1 melee attack and then again the next round by having higher initiative.

And this is that initiative based 2-hander I had mentioned except I’ve built him to use his perk points for defense

[Anonymous]

But to address the OP’s topic.

Orcs are tough and I fully agree with them being as hard as they are. The way I look at it is orcs are badass a la Tolkin and nobody other than soldiers and heroes take them on… and even they still die in the books.

As for game mechanics, the game needs a late game opponent and orcs fill that role very well. Which means the player should not mess with the orcs until both highly experienced and well equipped and even then be ready to turn and run.

[Danubian]

Meeky wrote:

Sorry, I’m a bit confused. Are you saying this character…

…has the same build and equipment as THIS character?

Nope thats not what im saying.

What he posted to me appeared as paper armored character which he claimed could take on 2 or 3 orc warriors which i simply couldnt believe, so i offered one of my own characters that i designed to fight orc warriors using the nimble build someone suggested earlier. You can clearly see that they are not the same build. I did however state that i do have roughly same weapons as he did though. Every one of those archers has both a crossbow and a two handed weapon as a backup.

[Danubian]

Anonymous wrote:

To Danubian
as for 10+ archers, you shouldn’t have that many as that leaves you with no flexibility and that’s why you can’t kill the orcs.

Good because i dont have 10+ archers, in fact every one of those characters is also equipped with a crossbow (i was experimenting after some things you said) and a two handed weapon, and they arent dedicated archers, they also have melee stats.

Anonymous wrote:

spearwall + crossbows doesn’t beat orcs, it only buys you more time to soften up their key units before the real (melee) fight starts

Well im not using spearwall vs orcs, its pointless.

What i was doing was shooting bows and crossbows at them until they close in on my nimble armored fighters, and then i switch to two handed weapons and deal damage from range (if possible).

[Danubian]

Anonymous wrote:

To Danubian

as for the bows vs crossbows thing, I will grant you that you don’t have to do anything and every archer can fire twice in a round. So can my crossbowmen. They can also move 2 spaces. I’ll post a screen shot of a crossbowman build tomorrow but the premise is that the only drawback crossbows have is their absurdly expensive reload. And this can be circumvented by 2 perks. Quick Hands and Bags and Belts. Together with a 2-handed weapon, your crossbowman will have 3 spare shots and they don’t have to be reloaded. Which means 2 rounds guaranteed of 2 shots per round. That’s more than enough opportunity to get a kill and then start landing 1 shot kills from there on out every round. And since I only use 1 shot per round there is no need to carry extra ammo beyond your 1 quiver. Also, crossbows can still be fired while in melee. They can’t be reloaded but they can be fired. Bow’s can’t.

As for where bows hands down beat crossbows is with the Perfect Focus feat. Reloading crossbows just costs too much fatigue for that. But I don’t see it as a bad thing because that means I can get Rage instead and have +50% damage per shot and that combined with +50% from Close Combat Archer means I have +100% damage (same as 2 shots) and all that damage combined with the fact that crossbows have better armor damage and higher %armor piercing means your guys will reliably kill in 1 shot.

Now this is something completely new to me that i havent even thought about, and something i need to try out.

[Danubian]

Jaffai wrote:

I dont want to sound cocky or anything, but you are spreading your points all over the board.

Maybe? My first priority is to get mobility (the skill that reduces movement penalties in elevetions so i can chase stupid goblins), get those utility skills that allow for weapon swapping, get that skill that reduces fatigue from armors (silly me assuming that armors are something that actually makes your bros survive in melee), and then pretty much focus on getting that skill which prevents them from panicking when fighting enemies that attack morale (those ghosts). I never took that when i played first time so when i ran into ghosts they all broke and ran away.

I will however try out some things you posted.

Jaffai wrote:

Your guy has too much max fatigue if you are playing with rally. I dont see point to build up hp that much, but maybe I’m wrong.

I wasnt playing with rally, my thinking was “lets build a melee with a lot of max fatigue that can go out dish damage and survive”. Thats what i kept going for, until someone say “ditch the shield and go for nimble” so i tried that out, and i must say im loving. Other than the fact that ive now encountered another problem. Now i can survive Orc Warriors (unless my bros get surrounded), the problem is, i cant deal enough damage fast enough with 1handed weapons to kill them before they surround me (which is why i keep saying that fighting a couple of them with this build is alright, but i cant beat them if theres more than like 8 or 10). If so they will surround my nimble tankers and then the rest goes for bow/crossbowmen/second line melees with 2 handed weapons and slaughter them.

Perhaps i need to ditch nimble and focus on some sort of 2 handed build (instead of trying to survive them, try to deal as much damage as possible).

Jaffai wrote:

Difficulty level doesnt make orc warriors harder, if you hover your cursor over difficulty levels you see what is difference between them.

Yeah exactly. It doesnt. But it should. There should be the lowest difficulty setting where you dont need to perfectly optimize your party to do some things. You know for people who enjoy playing casual tactical battles (like i do). BB right now is just too much unforgiving, maybe youre right, maybe there is a way to figure out a perfect build that would allow one to beat any enemy. Its just that 99% of people playing games are not willing to put 10s of hours into figuring that out, and i feel that if this is the game design philosophy, devs might end up making a game that appeals to a very small number of players that want a very specific (very hard) experience. And IMO thats bad.

[Jaffai]

I said my sell sword can kill 3 orc warriors. He has no armor and health but he can kill them in one turn before they can even attack.
Danubian, your perk tree is perfect for tanks, i was talking about skill points you can put in hp,fatigue, etc..

Use perfect focus. Killed that wounded orc berserker, kill triggered berserk giving him 4 more AP, Switched to 2 handed-axe and moved him next to orc warrior, killed him, moved next to other orc warrior, killed him.

Berserker dead and 2 orc warriors in one turn.

Moved my tanks to protect him.

[Anonymous]

Hot dang Jaffi, I’ve never thought to all out max fatigue a guy including using light armor and then perfect focusing with a 2 hander. It seems so obvious now

[Author]

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