ForumDweller

[ForumDweller]

I know it’s totally premature to talk about the future, but I’d looooove to see a Battle Sisters DLC (as would many others, I’m sure).

That, and a sort of ‘Captain’ perk tree, where you get XP for successfully fulfilling contracts, and then level up the company’s crippled Captain (ie., the Player). This tree could have specialized perks that affect the world, like the company’s speed on the world map, the price of goods, the availability of better recruits showing up in towns, etc.

Regardless… TAKE MY MONEY! DO WANT DLC! :D

[ForumDweller]

laViper wrote:

Wow good list with a lot of good ideas.

About Recover, I think this perk can be passive and restore as now 5% + 5% * (remained AP). You can restore 50% as now by skiping turn, or restore 10% after two attacks.

Not a bad idea. There’s a bunch of times you’re left with 1 or 2 APs you can’t use (either due to positioning or fatigue), and having them serve Recover would definitely synergize well with the perk.

[ForumDweller]

Harry_Krishnaa wrote:

hell.. this is realy a -master list- XD
– a lot of good suggestions i think.

Thanks! :)

It’s the result of months of playtime, and it grew gradually, one point at a time as I was playing. Also, not all of them are mine – a couple are from the Steam forum as well (‘A New Land’ ambition).

Sekata wrote:

*The more damaged armor becomes, the more hp damage characters take on hit. To me, that makes your suggestion for the indomnitable perk less than ideal. A single hit from an orc can all but destroy even good armor, so having to be hit again to get use out of the perk would be a death sentence. I could see making it last for more turns than it does on use.

True, but you have to look at it in context: you’d take such a perk only for Brothers who already wear the heaviest of armors (ie., they can survive a few hits), and who have low or non-existant melee/ranged defense. I always get a veteran or two in my playthroughs that ends up with nice HP, fatigue, melee attack, but absolutely atrocious defensive stats. A reworked Indomitable would be a godsend for such characters, since they can’t use shields due to having to put out 2H damage, and they’re bound to get hit sooner or later. So on top of heavy armor, they get another layer of defense with a damage-lowering Indomitable that’s always active and protects their plated asses! :D

Sekata wrote:

*Exp gain should absolutely not be dropped. If the player is supposed to get used to losing soldiers, and ok with losing entire games, then it shouldn’t take forever to build a combat ready veteran. Your suggestion for the Veteran Hall could mitigate some of that frustration though.

I disagree, but it’s more a matter of personal taste. I play very conservatively and carefully, and do everything I can to minimize risk. Once my core fighting force is past level 6, it’s mostly smooth sailing (unless RNG screws me over with an ambush or a shitty spawn location). If anything, I find the men to level too quickly, and a lot of the fun is gone for me once I’ve got mostly veterans. But again, it’s more a matter of personal taste.

Sekata wrote:

*Early game is tough enough without deadlier 2h raiders/thugs.

Very true. However, late-game it’s been my experience that of all the hostile humans, the 2-handed crowd becomes the least threatening. I’m all for buffing them later on, though not so much at the start of a new campaign.

Sekata wrote:

*I strongly doubt that they will add new factions, but I do like the suggestion.

That’s just the thing though – they should. Consider the ‘snow orcs’ I suggested – you take the regular orcish textures (green skin and grey armor), tweak the RGB values in GIMP or Photoshop, turn the skin white and armors blue, change some named strings, up the stat variables, and there you go, a whole brand new visually distinct faction that can be put into the game to roam the outer edges of the snow-swept north. Same thing with the ‘Rebel’ faction – use existing assets to create heavy late-game enemies for the Player to fight. It takes a bit of work, sure, but nothing that can’t be done in an afternoon or two. Blizzard was infamous for repainting sprites in the first 2 Diablo games, and buffing their stats to ‘create’ new mobs. And you know what? It works. It adds visual diversity, and gives players more enemies to fight. The return-on-investment, time-wise, more than justifies it.

Sekata wrote:

*I love your suggestions on quest generation. There absolutely need to be more on offer. I’m still not sure why I can’t take more than one quest at a time.

Would love a sort of ‘quest log’, tbh. Oh well, a man can dream… :(

Sekata wrote:

*It makes sense that the AI targets characters with the lowest def. I’m definitely looking for a high percentage when I’m picking a target. I certainly don’t consider it cheating. I do wish there was more variability than the predictable ranged turtling, but even that makes sense.

I’m all for realism and smart AI, but not if it trumps fun. I know we, the players, focus-fire enemies to whittle them down quickly and minimize the damage output that’s directed towards our own force. It makes sense. It’s logical. But it’s also really not fun when 5 archers and 5 crossbowmen lategame all focus-fire a single frontliner and kill him before he can even act simply because all enemies have 2 distinct advantages over the Player: there’s always more of them, and they all have insane initiative scores. So, realistic? Yes. Fun? No.

Sekata wrote:

*I like the difficulty of obtaining named items, so I’m not too keen on the reliquary idea. If anything, the frequency of these items popping up in armories should be dropped and the player should be able to find multiple at once by raiding borderland camps.

Why not have both? I’m all for hunting down treasure in the wild, but sometimes I just want to complete a set, for the aesthetic value if nothing else, and no matter how many enemies die, none of the gits wanna drop that rare helm that goes with the armor my company champion is wearing. So the Reliquary would be more of a ‘fill-in-your-blanks’ kind of thing, than a fantasy Wallmart for uniques. Also, its prices would be astronomical, so it all balances out nicely in the end! :)

Sekata wrote:

Most of your quality of life improvements are great, but I’m a bit less excited about some of the leveling suggestions. I’m pretty sure that some of the level up rolls are capped for the sake of balance. In that vein though, the player should absolutely know if that 12,000 hedge knight has a club foot, and said knight should have a much better likelihood of being very talented in certain stats. He’s survived this long hasn’t he?

Well, since we can field a maximum of 12 brothers — and often fight enemy forces that are 3 times as large — I see no reason why our elite veterans can’t have more powerful stats. I mean, have you seen the HP on an orc? And their armor? Some missions have you facing 10 of those moving mountains! Plus a bunch of their young and ‘zerkers. You’re really telling me +2 on each Brother’s stat is unbalanced? :D Note also that not everyone would have 5 stars in everything – in fact, it should be exceedingly rare to find a recruit with even 4 stars, let alone 5. But when you do find one? Oh, the joy! ^^

Sekata wrote:

Some of your perk suggestions, like retrain, I love. Others, like Deathless not so much. It’s implied that the merc band is a human group fighting horrifying forces far larger than themselves. It’s a central feeling of the world since even the noble houses could crush you if you angered them. The band has no special relationship with undead or foul magic to justify the perk.

I realize any justification is flimsy, but I was approaching it more from the side of role-playing, ie., our company’s sergeant falls to a foul necromancer and is raised from the dead, but keeps his personality. I always considered Fallen Heroes to be the equivalent of WoW’s Death Knights – not mindless undead, but sapient men with their own agendas, who work together with necromancers toward personal (yet evil) goals. Again, it’s all flimsy excuses to get an undead Brother and stuff him in a pimpin’ suit of corroded plate with a Grim Reaper hood on top! ^^

RusBear wrote:

Thanks for the big work done, many normal comments and suggestions, but many suggestions for perks look absolutely broken present fragile balance

Well, they’re just that – suggestions. Also keep in mind that the perks are supposed to be late-game elite veteran picks when your 12 men have to face down 3x 25 enemies in town defense or siege missions.

[ForumDweller]

~ LATE-GAME CRISES ~

The late game crises are quite enjoyable, except for the tiny detail of them reducing the entire map to a wasteland. Sooner or later, the player is overwhelmed by enemy forces, which demolish most of the settlements in the world. Since players depend on settlements for contracts and resupplying, one can see how this kind of setup is problematic. Furthermore, many people get attached to their characters, and they shouldn’t be penalized by being forced to re-roll a new map.

The solution, however, isn’t to disable the crises – they’re quite fun and add an enjoyable challenge to the game! Ideally, players would be able to work with friendly AI to ‘reseed’ lost/destroyed cities, and help them rebuild. But with Overhype’s limited manpower, it’s unrealistic to expect any large changes to the core mechanics.

With all that in mind, here are some ‘quickfix’ suggestions that don’t require large overhauls, and could be ‘squeezed in’ relatively quickly and painlessly:

1) Allow enemies to raid towns and villages and castles, but have them stop once the outer dwellings have all been demolished. While not very realistic, it’s the quickest and easiest way to retain crisis events without permanently destroying settlements. Furthermore, this approach is quite balanced because it robs players of valuable resources, but not to the point of no return.

2) Scale the crises gradually, in that the 1st one wouldn’t be a full-blown invasion, but rather a sort of warm-up. After that, they’d get progressively more difficult. Also, increase the grace period between the crises. Controlling how many enemies spawn — and when — should be trivial.

3) Beef up the noble patrols during the Undead and Orc crises. Have them spawn more heavy units like knights, and in greater numbers. Once on the map, send them to safeguard the settlements belonging to their House. This makes sense, from a gameplay perspective. From a story one as well, because the player and their company aren’t required to protect human habitats. After all, it’s highly unlikely that an entire province would entrust their safety exclusively to a band of roaming sellswords! Ergo, knights.

4) Allow players to collect 100,000 crowns as part of a new late-game ambition to sail to a new and distant land! This would generate a new map, skip the tutorial, port over the Player’s current party (including the stash), and reset their Renown to 0. It’s the equivalent of continuing a high-level game, but with a new and fresh map to explore (in case the old one gets demolished). Having to earn Renown in a new land — alongside the trust of its people! — would add a wonderful amount of depth to the game. It’s coincidentally also my favorite approach of the 4 listed here… and the one that would require the *least* amount of tinkering and effort, since you guys already have the world-generation scripts working as intended; all that’s needed is a new Ambition+Event. Someone on the Steam forums also suggested to have Brothers arrive at their destination with full beards, due to the length of the trip! Imagine how cool and immersive that would be! :D

~ A WORD ABOUT OPTIONS ~

The playerbase is divided on a host of issues, and it’s impossible to cater to everyone. What one person wants (ex: crises destroying the entire countryside), another absolutely hates. It’s for this reason that I think Overhype would be best served by making most such decisions modular. Simply add check-boxes for some of these hotly contested issues, and give each player individual freedom! This way, everyone can tweak the game experience to what they enjoy, without stepping on each others’ toes.

TL;DR: Include toggle-able options for the following…

~ an option to have a single crisis repeat ad infinitum (ex: Noble War, which doesn’t destroy cities)

~ an option to have hostile forces stop attacking a town once it’s lost its outer ‘defensive’ layers

~ an option to let us mouse over a potential recruit, and discover his stats/feats/traits/stars/etc.

~ an option to sail to a new land, in the form of a late-game, expensive Ambition (100,000 crowns)

~ an option to greatly increase the spawn/drop rate of unique items, both in shops and on enemies

~ an option to face even more enemies in battle (increases the size of hostile groups by 25-50%)

~ an option to face even more deadlier challenges (4-skull and 5-skull contracts mid/late game)

~ an option to run an ‘elite company’ (maximum of 30 Brothers in reserve, and 15 on the field)

~ an option to fight on a ‘frontier’ map (map is generated with a *heavy* greenskin presence)

~ an option to nudge RNG/rolls to the Player’s benefit (read a few Steam threads for context)

~ an option to increase the amount of crowns earned while playing (people struggle /w money)

[ForumDweller]

Namespace wrote:

ForumDweller wrote:

* when dogs/bleeds/allies last-hit-kill an enemy, the Player loses out on loot (solution: check overall damage)
[to elaborate: if an enemy dies, and the Player did 50% or more *total* damage to it (Armor + HP), then drop]

I think they fixed dogs a few patches ago. I noticed that enemies killed by my wardogs drop loot now. I am fairly certain that people who bleed out still don’t.
I also like your quality of life suggestions.

Did they? I hadn’t noticed.

Also yeah, if there’s anything at all Overhype takes from the list I wrote, it’d hope it was the camera stuff. It’s really unfun watching the camera automatically focus every single enemy as they’re moving around. It adds like 10 minutes to large battles.

[ForumDweller]

~ PERKS FEEDBACK ~

I’ll mention only the ones I think need tweaking; the ‘good’ ones are omitted! ;)

The Recover perk is lamentably weak, and favors large pools… allow it to flush 50% of max, not *current* fatigue.

The Adrenaline perk is extremely situational… rework it so it expands maximum Action Points by +5 for 2 rounds.

The Pathfinder perk is quite underwhelming… have it remove *all* penalties from traversing difficult terrain.

Rework Fortified Mind to give a static boost (percentages favor Brothers who’ve already invested in the skill).

Steel Brow is somewhat lackluster… buff it a tiny bit by also making it give stun immunity (but not net/root).

Merge the Bags & Belts and Quick Hands perks into a single one… separately, neither warrant a precious point.

Buff Lone Wolf… exposing Brothers is a death sentence, so at least make it tantalizing (+30%, instead of +15%).

Rework Nimble. Damage reduction with light armor is counter-intuitive, inefficient, and risky; instead, make it give the character a buff called ‘Nimble’ which has 5 stacks – each time the character would have been damaged (ie., if an attack managed to penetrate their melee or ranged defense), one stack is used up and the character takes 0 damage… if all 5 stacks are used up, the next successful attack goes through normally… Characters automatically regenerate +1 stack per round, but stacks can never exceed 5/5! Finally, each +100 total armor on the character reduces their maximum stacks by -1 (so a Brother wearing a 200 chest & 200 helm could never exceed 1/1 stacks, and a brother with 300 chest & 200 helm would not get any stacks at all (it would say 0/0 in such a scenario)). This kind of system protects ‘naked’ characters, while also affording some use and versatility to lightly-armored ones who will roll into combat with 2/2 or even 3/3 stacks (also, characters start combat with their stacks full!).

Rework Indomitable. Turn it into a passive ability that bestows a stacking +10% damage resistance each time the Brother is damaged in combat. This incremental counter would grow to a maximum of 50% damage resistance, but it would also decay at a rate of -5% per turn… so basically, the more you get hit, the more resistant you become (up to a max of 50%) – but it ‘slides off’ and returns to +0% after a few turns of not taking damage… This would be a perfect perk for those unlucky front-liners in heavy armor that get shafted by RNG and end up with low melee/ranged def.

Make it so that characters with the Overwhelm perk cannot be overwhelmed themselves… Makes sense, thematically. And speaking of Overwhelm, it’s basically just an inverse Reach Advantage… To make it more unique and distinct, rework it so it debuffs *damage*, not hit-chance! This makes sense, mechanically, since you can still score a hit or two while overwhelmed, but the attack angle will be awkward and the force that’s generated will be diminished as a result (ergo, less damage). Also, make it stack up to -100% damage done (10 stacks of Overwhelm). Alternatively, make Overwhelm impart a -1AP penalty per stack (the tooltip description even says ‘…leaving few oppenings to effectively attackfor himself’). People _HATE_ missing attacks, but they wouldn’t whine nearly as much about a -dmg. debuff, or a limited -AP penalty.

~ PERK SUGGESTIONS ~

If possible, add a few brand new, higher-level perks (the current ones are extremely situational, and thus quite unsatisfying):

Many of these would alleviate problems brought on by levelup RNG that punishes players with suboptimal stat rolls.

They’re rough ideas, so take what you like and ignore the rest! ;)

Note: [P] = Passive (always on; can’t be used) // [A] = Active (usable ability that must be activated in battle)

~ [P] Action Hero: gives the Battle Brother a permanent +1 Action Point (expanding their AP pool from 9 to 10)

~ [P] Indefatigable: gives the Brother a permanent Fatigue boost of +25 points, expanding their maximum fatigue

~ [P] Backswing: every time a Brother swinging a two-handed weapon misses, he gets 100% chance to re-roll *once*

~ [P] Rebound: every time a Brother with a one-handed weapon hits, he’s refunded 50% of the attack’s fatigue cost

~ [P] Quickshot: every time a Brother with a ranged weapon attacks, there’s a 25% chance no APs will be spent

~ [P] Juggernaut: increases the head and body contributions from armor by 33% (basically gives +33% more armor)

~ [P] Slippery: permanently makes the Brother immune to anything that hinders mobility, magically or otherwise!

~ [P] Immovable: permanently makes the brother immune to forced relocation (would be a godsend against the orcs)

~ [P] Dedicated: gives the Brother a one-time boost of +15 to their stat of choice (a la Gifted, but for 1 stat!)

~ [P] Manmower: the Brother is an expert at fighting humans; all attacks aimed at them are done with +20% accuracy

~ [P] Horde Hunter: the Brother is an expert at hunting greenskins; all damage dealt to them is increased by +33%

~ [P] Undead Slayer: the Brother is an expert at slaying undead; all weapons against them gain +50% armor penetration

~ [P] Followthrough: every time a Brother lands a melee attack, there’s a 25% chance to automatically land a follow-up

~ [P] Monkey Grip: use an unorthodox grip to wield 2H weapons… AP cost and damage of abilities are both reduced by 50%

~ [P] Pound of Flesh: any attack that would reduce a Brother’s HP by 20% (or more) of its total will instead do only half

~ [P] Spiked Carapace: the Brother’s armor is covered in spikes… when damaged by an adjacent enemy, it returns 33% dmg.

~ [P] Armor Sloping: every 4th attack that lands on the Brother will now automatically glance off their armor for no dmg.

~ [P] Instructor: after battles, every Brother (who’s lower level than the Instructor!) gains +15% XP from the encounter

~ [P] Titan: automatically makes the Brother roll ’10’ on his HP at every levelup (perk does nothing apart from HP rolls)

~ [P] Smithy: any weapon equipped/carried by the Brother loses durability much slower and costs less repair tools to mend

~ [P] Retrain: spend a perk point to allow the Brother to respec, once (this perk is greyed & unselectable afterwards!)

~ [P] Shifty: the Brother will never go above ‘Wavering’ morale, but gains the ability to ignore zone of control!

~ [P] Threatening: makes enemies much *more* likely to prioritize attacking this Brother, instead of his mates

~ [P] Camouflage: makes enemies much *less* likely to notice this character, and thus focus on attacking him

~ [P] Defender: grants the Brother a permanent +10 to Melee Defense and Ranged Defense (static values, not %)

~ [A] Incriminate: turns a human target against its allies! (1 use per battle, and can’t be used on bosses)

~ [A] Blitzkrieg: instantly restores the Brother’s Action Points back to full; can be used only once per battle

~ [A] Charge!!!: allows the Brother to move 9 tiles for free, without spending APs on movement {costs 25 fatigue}

~ [A] Enrage: doubles the Brother’s melee and ranged damage, but reduces all their defenses to 0 {10 fatigue; 1 turn}

~ [A] Warcry: 6-tile AoE radius; boosts accuracy of allies by 15% and nerfs damage of enemies by 30% {15 fatigue; 1 turn}

~ [A] #@?&%!: trash-talk one enemy, bringing into question their parentage (-50% accuracy, 5-hex range) {costs 9 fatigue}

~ [A] Evasion: the brother becomes unhittable by melee and range attacks for 1 turn, but can’t move/attack {costs 9 APs}

~ [A] Parry: doubles a Brother’s melee and ranged defenses for 1 turn; not usable with shield {costs 3 AP & 15 fatigue}

~ [P] Deathless: if a Brother dies, he will rise again as a Fallen Hero, with all his stats, skills, and perks intact, but will not be able to gain XP and progress any further (the Brother’s XP bar would be greyed out) [the Brother would also become immune to Fatigue loss and Morale change, like regular undead!](this perk also makes the Brother immune to zombification at the hands of hostile necromancers)

[ForumDweller]

~ GENERAL SUGGESTIONS (Part 2/2) ~

* add a ‘rest until morning’ button to taverns… doing so should give the company a small ‘Rested’ buff (+5% all stats for 12 hours)

* add a checkbox for new games that allows players to pick the kind of terrain they favor and want most of (snow, tundra, forest, etc.)

* decouple resource caps (max tools & food) from game difficulty… challenge should come from encounters, not arbitrary resource limits

* decouple harbor transportation fees (traveling via ship) from Brothers’ levels… instead, make it scale per number of Brothers in party

* greatly reduce the chance of direwolf pelts and nezsch teeth dropping, but vastly increase their sell prices (treat them like trophies!)

* add a new faction of late-game, roaming human enemies called ‘Rebels’ (they’re armored, insurrectionist troops of a foreign Great House!)

* remove the ‘getting old’ event for the Swordmaster… it’s frustrating, and casual gamers will review-bomb your game when it happens to them

* speaking of Swordmasters, they’ve been nerfed to oblivion… if you won’t remove the ‘getting old’, then at least halve the event’s penalties

* tone down the amount of enemies with the ‘Overwhelm’ perk… it’s fine for the odd direwolf, but becomes a chore when *every* mercenary has it

* add a new game checkbox titled ‘Beautiful Map’ (round land mass, 5 evenly-spaced-out harbors, snowy mountains in the north, woods in the middle)

* increase the likelyhood of Hunters and Wildmen spawning in remote settlements… the game *really* doesn’t need 90000 beggars and rat catchers

* add a new ‘Cultist’ faction that roams the map… assemble it from available assets, but give them new names like ‘Flaggelant’ (has a flail)

* introduce 4- and 5-skull contracts that would start appearing during mid and late game… use these to drive the game’s difficulty spike

* reduce the chance that mountainous terrain will spawn during map generation… too much of it chokes the world, in a visual sense

* simplify Brothers’ stat distribution so that *every* stat can roll 1-5 on levelups… also, increase possible stars from 3 to 5

* simplify how stars work, because it’s confusing and counter-intuitive… have each star increase the lowest possible roll by +1

* [debatable] let us allocate Brothers’ levelup points via +/- next to each stat (allow for more granular, fine-tuned min/maxing)

* add some randomness to the targeting algorithm of enemy marksmen… currently, they ‘cheat’ by focusing the lowest-def Brother

* tweak dogs’ AI to have them target squishier enemies like archers… also, make them *always* prioritize fleeing/routed foes!

* make unique shields salvageable after being destroyed… by all means, make the repairs very expensive, but let us keep them

* let us purchase goblin poison from vendors… it doesn’t need to be super-available, as long as it pops up from time to time

* after the tutorial, give the company a unique ring item as a token relic of their fallen Captain that dies at the start :(

* the game needs more items in the vein of unique jewelry… also, late-game Undead encounters should drop *much* better loot

* add a ‘Randomize’ button to the Barber… logically, it would give the selected Brother a random face/hair/body combination

* if Paul has some time on his hands, it’d be nice if he could draw 3-4 more tattoos for Brothers’ bodies (even just recolors)

* speaking of Brothers’ bodies, it’d be cool to get a 3rd, hyper-muscular body texture for those 125-HP Colossus’d Wildmen! :D

* somewhat nerf the initiative score of Raiders – they’re mostly level 6-7, and even their heavy units have insane initiative

* nerf the initiative score of all Undead – they’re shambling corpses that are tough and powerful; must they be fast as well?

* either make the Orc charge roll against melee defense, or have it use up the attacking orc’s *entire* pool of Action Points!

* increase the survivability, maneuverability, and lethality of Thug/Bandit/Brigand/Raider enemies wielding two-handed weapons

* increase the ‘evasiveness’ AI of necromancers… currently, it’s far too easy to jump and kill them; they need to move more

* tone down the accuracy and/or damage of Noble crossbowmen – they’re too powerful, and can one-shot even armored Brothers

* slightly increase the damage of Fallen Heroes, but add a 1-corpse-per-turn limit to Necromancers’ raising shenanigans

* and on the topic of risen undead – if their armor/helm was destroyed, how come they have it again when resurrected?!

* add more legendaries, change their color to purple, and get someone to write the items’ backstory (I volunteer! ^^)

* after being stunned (by whatever), make it so the victim gains a 1-turn immunity… this would prevent RNG chains

* implement dual-wielding… no new art assets are needed; simply place the 2nd weapon in the Brother’s shield slot

* allow cities to *gradually* rebuild and repopulate after being destroyed by Orcs and Undead (players should help!)

* if you can’t make cities respawn, then at least have enemies stop attacking once they’ve destroyed the outer areas

[Author]

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