GOD

[GOD]

Thanks very much. :D I’m glad to hear that I’ve got a reputation to uphold!

I have a thought regarding the bow and crossbow being better as archers. You see, in addition to opening up those kind of hit-and-run tactics, I had the idea of the sling allowing you to field proper skirmishers because of how you can wield it one-handed. That’s a role that you currently cannot really give to a merc. For example: you can give it to a lightly armoured unit with a shield in the other hand, put them in front of your battle line and then have them pelt the enemy as they advance, forcing them to move at your pace while the shield protects the slinger from archers. When the enemy comes close, you can have the slinger switch to a melee weapon and join the shieldwall, move away and continue to harass the enemy, draw away enemy flankers, flank the enemy when they engage, join your ranged units, or move around the enemy flank when they’re pinned and engage their archers. Flexible, rather than a specialist.

With the change to Quick Hands, a one-handed ranged weapon like this makes it possible for the slinger to easily switch between ranged and melee, making them less vulnerable when close to the frontline and allowing them to take on different roles as the situation demands it. Meanwhile, not being as good a pick as the bow or crossbow for a dedicated archer, nor the slinger being as heavily armoured and skilled as the tank, means that it doesn’t diminish the usefulness of those weapons and roles. The slinger can provide fire support, but he wouldn’t be as good at it as the bow or crossbow. He can join the shieldwall, but the loadout for a skirmisher would make him less of an asset than the tank (you need lots of free fatigue to move around, so he couldn’t wear heavy armour). However, smoothly switching between those roles is something neither the tank nor the archer can do. Same goes for the javelin, because of the sling being less powerful and therefore less suited for seriously softening up before joining the fight, while its lower fatigue requirements and greater range let it take on roles that the javelin cannot. A weapon like that gives the player a new tactical option, without lessening the ones already available.

Regarding the Rat-men. Yeah, that’s why I thought how making them a sub-faction might be a good idea, like the Orcs and Goblins are to Greenskins. I figured they could avoid the Warhammer element by not having some of the more outlandish aspects that Rat-men have there and focusing more on the actual rat part. The mental image of masses of rats flowing across human lands was just too tempting a mental image for them to not have the option of becoming a Great Enemy. ;) Having them be a part of the Wetland faction is a really interesting idea, though. It’s like a less stereotypical Beastmen faction that employs cultural elements typical to the Germanic region, which you never see in fantasy and which would really strengthen the Germanic vibe of the game. American swamps, sure, but not the wetlands typical to that part of Europe. Rats are also versatile, so they could spread to other areas in their searches, but the swamps would be their home-turf and they’d be joined by units based on other wetland fauna. It also fits the association of decay frequently given to swamps in folklore. I considered something like that when I was wondering whether to mention the water vole when naming potential units, because it’s often mistaken for a rat, but I like your idea better. Very nice solution.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts! Discussing suggestions like this is quite fun and hopefully it’s of use to the devs. :)

[GOD]

Multiplayer isn’t currently planned, as that would take too much work for a small team.

Last I heard, their plan is cities that are destroyed to remain that way. The enemy is the only-one able to build new areas. Somehow strengthening cities might get in, but don’t quote me on that. ;)

–

Thought of another unit.

Restless Lord:
Undead unit. The spirits of ancient lords, given a burial tomb but still unable to find rest. They have high-quality equipment that has been preserved better than that of skeletons. Their stats are good and they are intelligent fighters, being able to use their gear just as well as they did in life. The armour is fully corporal and can be hit like normal, with no extra penalties to being hit. They are also not able to move around as freely as Lost Souls while wearing their equipment and thus receive movement penalties for difficult terrain. However, like the Lost Souls they lack a stable physical form, so they do not have hitpoints and landing a single hit on their true form destroys them. Their better stats make their true form even harder to hit than Lost Souls, though. If all their equipment breaks they revert to Lost Souls (and gain the appropriate abilities), having lost that what ties their former selves to the world.

[GOD]

It depends on what playstyle you’re comfortable with. Me, I wouldn’t recommend reloading too much since it can get frustrating if you repeatedly fail anyway and with stat-gains tending to even out as you level up. I can see how people would reload a lot though, especially in the early game, to make sure they’ve got good mercs.

Yeah, it seems a bit random when you can and can’t edit. I think it’s either related to how much time has passed or whether you’ve logged out since then.

Interesting note about fighting near cities, by the way. A town expends resources to create militia, resources that are recouped for any that survive the battle. So using the militia too much can result in the town weakening over time and less goods becoming available. It’s still a good strategy when you’re not confident that you can take an enemy, but there’s definitely advantages to taking them on yourself (if you win ;) ).

[GOD]

Oh, there’d mostly be there to add more depth to the human side. I agree that I wouldn’t want to see the monsters get shafted! That’s why I’d also like to see the same done for the supernatural factions, like the different Orc groups having different warband compositions and leaders with different perks (one featuring more berserkers, another fielding a large amount of young Orcs). Details like that breathe more life into the world map and the groups wandering around on the map. There’s just so much that can be added relatively easily and that I would like to see. I almost hope that Early Access takes longer and that we won’t see the finished project until a year later. :D

It’s actually rather interesting to see people frequently bring up similarities to Mount and Blade. I haven’t played it myself, so the X-COM elements stand out more to me. Is it really that good?

[GOD]

Exactly. The current contracts are tame in terms of risk and reward, so well-paying jobs that also punish failure would be a great addition. I can also see it kicking off an event sequence if you happen to fail and have to deal with the family of the dead noble. Fellow mercenaries coming after your head. :D

I’m just holding out hope for multiple expansions. A game like this just gets better the more content you pump into it. Norse invaders. Byzantine empire. Slavic kingdom. The Spanish. The French. Dutch, Portuegese, Rus. Sea travel. More in-depth cities. Struggles between nations. More units for all the factions. Etcetera .

[GOD]

Sure: here and here. It just tends to happen slowly so you usually never notice. But when they do wake up and you happen to be carrying them…
I just saw your experience is with the newer one though. I prefer the openxcom version myself, as the new one is just too disjointed design wise. I also can’t stand the mega-shoulder pads and how you can change the appearance of the soldiers. Curse you space marines!

I haven’t gotten to trying to playing M&B, but disappearing bodies would be something that I could see the purpose of (system load), but would just look weird to me. Though the combat there is not separate from the world map, correct? Battle Brothers has a very controlled map where everything that you see actually exists and can be interacted with, so someone or something disappearing is a much bigger deal than on a map with many different soldiers that are less important individually.

As for iron man, it’s more that I’d like the challenge to be fair and not reliant on the main objective only being achievable through luck. This is kind of tricky, since I’m all in favour for not being able to reliably pull of your actions. But it’s the difference between gambling wrong, or not being able to affect the end-result at all. It would be like the stun rod randomly electrocuting the target for no clear reason, rather than just missing or the target resisting it. The game does that really well so far, since there are no unfair mechanics that randomly screw you over. There’s always something that you could have done better. And regarding targeted subdual, I’d like to see difficult and risky mechanics that make it akin to a kidnapping, so something you’d only want to do if it’s really worth it. Easy to botch, high reward (in terms of contracts) when successful. Like taking a rival noble prisoner for a contract, but with a high penalty if you screw up and kill them.

Also, just to clarify, I’m not against taking prisoners becoming possible. It’s just that I’m nitpicking about how it would be executed. ;) It would take quite a bit of effort to do it justice (if you want to involve it in contracts and such), but could be really cool if done right.

[GOD]

The disagreement on the other half is rather crucial though. ;) Units rendered unconscious in X-COM are stunned and can still wake up, so they’re still in the fight and not in a separate death state. That’s the point I’m making. The only people completely out of the fight should be the ones that are dead, not the ones rendered temporarily unable to fight, because otherwise it’s just an improved version of a kill – especially in a game like this where missing several turns can be game changing. What X-COM does have is intact bodies turning out to occasionally not be dead in the post-battle screen, which, like I said above, I have less of a problem with.
The thing with the club is that hitting someone on the head is a very bad way to to take them out, if you’re planning on taking them as a prisoner. It’s a weapon for a reason and a blow to the head is extremely lethal. They’d need to add some sort of subdual mechanics to make it work, though you’d keep the problem that trying to non-lethally subdue someone on a battlefield could easily look weird.

Save scumming was in reference to certain contracts requiring you to capture specific people. That would encourage save scumming, since it’s quite easy to accidentally kill someone with the current combat, even while whittling down their armour. Hence you’d save scum to restart the mission until you get it right. That’s design that encourages retrying until you get it right.

[GOD]

It’s not the system itself seems difficult to me, but the conflict with design of the mechanics that are already present which would take effort to deal with. Currently, a random chance of post-battle revival facilitated through a companion is the only one method that seems like it would be suitable. This could change if they add mechanics facilitating the proper taking of prisoners.

One problem that won’t go away though, is how adding capture mechanics that have to be applied in battle can quickly get complicated, as you can’t just have characters get captured during the battle itself. A capture in battle would be the equivalent of adding a certain kill, as someone who is captured is effectively dead and can no longer contribute to battle. Furthermore, you can’t remove anyone from the field, since every participant is represented on the battlefield at all times, meaning that a potential prisoner would also have to remain on the front line. After all, they can’t teleport off the battlefield. To take your net example, it would mean that the person restrained by the net would have to remain in that position until the end of battle for them to count as a prisoner, because they are not dead and therefore still a part of the battle. In the meantime, they would have the opportunity to escape by getting loose or being released by someone else. In other words, the actual capturing would still have to take place post-battle. For that to also work, the net would have to be persistent, rather than temporary, of which we don’t know yet whether that is the case. A club wouldn´t actually be fitting for a role like that, since it only stuns for a turn (which is more like a concussion) and a longer stun would be way too powerful (and basically mean you turned them into a vegetable).

The idea of taking prisoners in the middle of a fight would be weird anyway, since it isn’t really possible to take people prisoner in the midst of an intense scrimmage. It’s usually a group as a whole that surrenders. This’ll get better reflected in the mechanics once enemies can retreat.
As for save scumming, people are free to do that if they want, but a game should never incentivise it when it isn’t necessary. That’s just poor design.

[GOD]

I still feel like stat debuffs aren’t interesting enough to base a perk on; there’s a reason why there are currently no other perks that do it. I’d rather see more perks like Rotation or Quick Hands.

[GOD]

Limiting it to the enemy makes it stand out even more that the enemies are arbitrarily made to be harder to kill than the mercs. That’s a bad thing, since it undermines the equality between units regardless of what side they are on (a bandit is not fundamentally different from a merc).

I could only see prisoners work with the current system if the healer-companion gives you a chance of keeping some enemies alive. That way you side-step the issue of death states, since the point of the healer (last I checked) is to give you a random chance of saving a merc who gets killed (but with an intact body) in battle. You’d just be applying the same mechanic to the enemy as well for the purpose of taking prisoners. You also avoid the problem of wanting to target certain units and save scumming, because you simply wouldn’t be capable of doing that. A deeper system would otherwise require creating a lot of new mechanics to make it work.

[GOD]

Two death states would be weird in this game, as that would mean that potential prisoners have more survivability than your own mercs have in battle. Currently a death is a death, adding another death state would create strange situations where your own mercs are dead if you win, but might survive if they were captured.

You also have the problem of reliably getting prisoners, since the battle system has fatalities and you can’t exactly patch up someone who’s lacking a head or guts. You’d mainly want prisoners for the purpose of more quests and events, so if you can’t take the guy prisoners who you need for the quest then the system just becomes a source of frustration and save scumming.

[GOD]

Rap wrote:

With 1 AP damage, there’d be very few scenarios where the perk actually makes any difference. Knocking a target towards an ally would still leave it able to attack normally with 8 AP. In most cases, a target knocked away and then closing in again would be able to make one attack afterwards – with or without a shield bash perk that drains 1 AP. The only scenario where I see this having any effect would be a target closing in again over difficult terrain or a height level difference if wielding a two-handed weapon. I doubt that this is enough to make the perk an attractive pick.
With 2 AP damage, the average target wielding a one-handed weapon would lose one attack. It could only make a single attack if knocked towards something it can attack right away, but would not be hampered at all in its ability if wielding a two-handed weapon. If closing in again after being knocked away, the target could in most cases still perform one attack with a one-handed weapon – but this is true with or without the 2 AP damage. On the other hand, it could no longer perform any attack at all with a two-handed weapon after closing in again, which in this case may make it disproportionally effective, close to a stun.
Just based on the way the whole system of Action Points works, I don’t see this working out in a balanced and even way, leaving it useful enough to make the perk an attractive pick, but not too strong against certain enemies to be easily exploitable. But, again, maybe I’m missing something?

No, you’re not missing anything. I just goofed and misremembered two-handers having a 5 AP attack. :P I checked the AP costs and you’re also right that the 1 AP would be too situational for it to be worth taking the perk. I think I’ve figured out a way of getting AP damage to not disproportionally penalize high AP attacks, though.
Rather than having the shield bash perk do AP damage, have it increase the AP costs of abilities by 1 for a single turn (so movement cost is not increased). So it turns into a method that can be used to prevent the other unit from using two 4 AP abilities, while a two-hander would only be unable to attack when moving across difficult terrain (and not having taken the Pathfinder perk). It also enhances offensive use of shield bash as a way of dealing with an entrenched opponent taking potshots (shield up, stab or slash) by breaking the deadlock. You remove their positional advantage, take the spot and then force them to either use their shield or attack as they can longer do both, for that turn, while standing still. Or make it more useful for breaking a battle line, since people knocked out of it will have more trouble effectively joining the fight again. That way you make the perk increase the flexibility of shield bashing, while two-handers not being able to attack should be situational enough that it is not exploitable (and make pathfinder more attractive for two-handers).

I also thought of a change that is closer to what you currently have with the fatigue damage. Rather than having the shield bash perk do a flat amount of fatigue damage, make it increase the amount of fatigue that actions take in the unit its next turn by a percentage. That’s more flexible and useful than the 10 fatigue damage it does now, with a percent based increase in cost being stronger against high fatigue attacks. This could be in addition to the AP increase tweak above, in case that isn’t strong enough on its own, or as a replacement if the two-hander is still too exploitable.

[GOD]

You basically need it to properly display the graphics. It’s related to what graphics card you have.

These are the system requirements, by the way:

OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8
Processor: 1.2 Ghz
Memory: 1024 MB RAM
Graphics: OpenGL 3.0 compatible video card
Hard Drive: 500 MB available space

If you have that, but still can’t play it, then there’s probably a bug of some sort in the demo.

No big deal if you can’t run it yet though. The game will still be in Early Access for about a year, so by then you’ll probably have found a dirt cheap lappie to run it on. ;)

[GOD]

No problem. :) It seems there’s been a change in plans though, as the latest dev blog suggests that they are now planning to add conflict between human factions.

It’s more the capturing mechanics themselves that I have my doubts about. I could see prisoners working as part of the event system, but reliably taking prisoners seems out place in the high lethality combat that the game has.

[GOD]

Can you run OpenGL 3.0? That’s what’s required to play the game. Other than that, the system requirements are light and you should even be able to play it on an old laptop.

–

Really? That must be a new addition because I’ve never had any survivors when I retreated, though I only retreated in older versions (DEATH OR GLORY!).

I’m rather curious how they intend war dogs to work, since we haven’t seen anything like that so far. Should make for an interesting addition.

[Author]

Posts