The ending text for winning an endgame crisis is a downer

[soupidity]

A small suggestion, but it had me thinking about it enough to warrant a post

The highlighted white text at the end of an endgame crisis (I just completed my first one! huzzah! Expert is hard) which states that the player may not find as balanced an experience for playthroughs lasting longer than 2~ endgame crises, and would you like to retire now or press on?

The main reason I’m taking the time to write this one is because I have a suspicion that this text is somewhat of a remnant from BB before y’all knew you’d be expanding the game so! In any case, may I suggest a rewording of that bold, white text marking the end of a crisis? At day 133 I feel like my band of mercs have just started getting into the swing of things, and I feel like I’ve barely scratched the surface of what I can do in the world within this campaign.

Cheers guys

[soupidity]

P.S.

I realise that maybe the ending text isn’t a ‘remnant’, and the game really is still meant to be as short as 2 endgame crises… my point is just that the player may prefer to live in denial of the coming end.

As a side note, why can’t you guys make the dang game longer, man! hahaha… No, really! The biggest appeal of the game (in my eyes) isn’t the winning and replaying and winning and replaying. Ney! It’s the experience of building (and rebuilding [and rebuilding]) a mercenary company, the trials and tribulations, the losses and the sacrifices. I want to steep myself in one campaign for a really long time, long enough for it to develop a real stinky flavour; long enough for lots of different things to happen.

I’m not saying that the game should last for 1000 days… I’m saying that everything you’ve created, the world, the mechanics, the locations. It’s enough to warrant a longer campaign! I would pay any number of sheckels for a BB ‘extended mode’ or whatever ;P. Anyway, sorry. This was a bit of a greedy rant, but it’s what I feel most strongly about with BB right now.

[Ledgren]

Not quite. That text was never there after the 1.0 release and has only popped up recently. I guess it might be as recent as the norther barbarian DLC, but it’s definitely a later addition to the game.

I honestly think its a result of a design conflict in the game. BB has the infrastructure of a long haul experience like Mount and Blade. Levels, a deep inventory system, reputation that goes up very slowly over time, but game tips and text suggest the devs want it played like a rougue-like. Which is why you get “tips” like Losing is fun and BB may lose balance after the 2nd crisis.

Either way, there’s definitely a disconnect with how many players experience and want to interact with the game, and how Overhype views it being played.

New profile, old player.

[soupidity]

Either way, there’s definitely a disconnect with how many players experience and want to interact with the game, and how Overhype views it being played

Yes… I’ve vaguely felt that to a certain degree for a long while, too. I guess that’s why I mentioned that I thought the text might’ve been a remnant of when BB was still young. I think it’s just the nature of BB’s development, in that I don’t think the devs ever intended for it to snowball and become as big and beautiful as it is. Maybe that’s where this ‘disconnect’ comes from.

[Dray]

Couldn’t disagree more, though its coming from a different perspective. For some background i’ve been playing the game on and off for roughly over a year now, have switched to Ironman after a few successful runs. The thing about Battle Brothers is that the more experienced a player you become, the more you realize which fights can be taken and the faster you’ll get to a point where your company is strong and capable of beating most foes in the game. If my company can enter a sea of tents or a big barbarian camp by day 90 and exit victorious on the other side with only some bruises to show for it, what is there to do after the first crisis?

Legendary locations (with the exception of the Ijirok, who offers a balanced ratio of risk and reward both in the Ice cave and in the hunting grounds) are there mostly to test your company strength since by that point you’ll be much stronger than any other enemy that can be fought with the exception of huge Chosen, ancient dead or nomad camps. During and after that, all other battles will be downright banal because you’ve outscaled the game long ago if you can do the Monolith or Library. The appeal of BB is the combat and how the systems outside of it tie into battles. Before you get to the stage of the campaign where your company is so strong that every encounter that isn’t Chosen or Necrosavants consists of mindless clicking on foes until they die, every weapon category has its place. Flawed brothers can still turn out to be beneficial, every mechanic and battle has a lot of weight to it because there is actual risk of death and a wipe. Every victory feels significant since not only are your men getting stronger, you’re also making progress equipment and finance wise. You’re always moving forward and recovering from past failures. In the extreme lategame (or really the postgame since the game is won after the first crisis) this all goes away and champions are your main burst of excitement in the grind to obscene amounts of power that is nearly without consequence.

On the topic of endgame crisies, the two nonhuman ones are kind of a let down. The old, old dev blogs on this very site mention how in the latter one might encounter goblin shamans supporting orc warriors, but this does not seem to ever happen ingame even on expert. I assume it was toned down during testing because that would absolutely wipe new players like its nothing, but it would be nice to still have an option that happen for people who aren’t interested in +100 day runs and would instead do more fresh starts after winning (and considering the stats on steam, this is the majority of players anyhow).
That’s my request, patch in more things to tweak during starting a new game for a greater degree of customization, there’s a lot of empty space there anyhow and its the way to handle this that would make everyone happy. Have one option that makes the crisises happen maybe a tad slower, but have them be aptly apocalyptic. Make the difficult parties occasionally consist of Necrosavants with Geist support, the aforementioned shamans with warriors, Honor guard with a necromancer or two to resurrect them contentiously, and so on. There’s enough enemy types for both unified factions to make this work and create interesting mixes.

[Ledgren]

@Dray I’ve been playing the game since it was in beta, the perk tree was unrecognizable and armor was an extra health bar with no deeper mechanics.You don’t need to explain the mechanics or the risk to reward ratio.

This is a game where the devs early on stated that Mount and blade and similar games were inspirations. Xcom was too, to be fair, and Xcom is a game that lends itself to play-wipe rouge-like style sessions. Where you play, you take hard knocks and you might have to restart. That’s fair. They’re drawing from two different pools of ideas and they appear to clash sometimes. That’s not the say that the game can’t be played in the sub-100 day fashion you mentioned. It’s just not the only way to play the game, and feeling like the devs are making a decision for me as a player of how I should interact with the game outside of mechanics is a little frustrating.

That said, unless I’ve missed something, I think that enemy encounters are based heavily on renown level and the strength of your group when it comes to crisis gen. I think that if you’re super high up by the time the green skin crisis rolls around, you can still fight that kind of group. I’ve been wrong in the past though and it’s bound to happen again.

New profile, old player.

[MoraleBooster]

the endgame content needs to be more fleshed out, i agree that after 100 days when a crisis ended without you doing anything already says game over is sadge.

[Dray]

@Ledgren Actually, I agree. It does feel at times like battle brothers is trying to be two games in one and in particular swim between the “your men are your tools” or old XCOM and “your men are your dudes” of the new ones. Sometimes it works out but sometimes it doesn’t.

[Author]

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