guidon101

[guidon101]

mrbunnyban wrote:

Xizzie wrote:

Soar wrote:

Salperticon wrote:

I did not fight many undead until now, but I assume they are immune against the stun.

I’m pretty sure I’ve successfully stunned a Fallen Hero before.

If I’m not mistaken, only Orc Warriors and Warlords are immune to stun.

What? On top of knockback immune, they’re also immune to stun? That’s rather extreme. All those stun based skills are more worthless then I thought. After all, the orcs are the hardest things on the map

Actually, from my experience, the orc warriors and warlords are immune to other key tactical skills: hook, shieldbash/pikepush, stun.

So it’s really scary when they bash through my lines (and sometimes they double bash) into my soft dps core units, which is why I adopted a more mobility/dps approach to skills and weapons. It does make fighting them a harrowing but epic experience though.

[guidon101]

Does anyone know if clubs, maces and the like do more raw damage against them?
Like arrows and bolts do less than normal in return.

IIRC, only skeletons penalize Ranged Weapons (arrows, bolts, javelins), but don’t actually penalize spears/daggers/thrust attacks. But I also don’t notice any bonus damage from blunt or slash weapons, but I tend to 1HKO them using warhammer or noble swords, so I can’t really tell (would be nice to show more stats in the combat log).

For my favorite weapons: (my general battle approach is about positioning/mobility and sustained dps, less use of tactical skills)
Early Game: Spears – need that +20% to hit, Bows – somehow hits stuff even below 30%, so yes please!
Mid Game: Winged Mace/Armed Swords combo for anti-armor and followed up by flavor sword fighting (just have a personal like for swords); billhooks/pike – for 2nd-line melee dps; bows
Late Game: warhammer/noble sword combo (yes, miltary cleaver/orc sword is probably > noble sword, but I just like the noble sword); billhooks; 2h axe for burst; bows
Did I mention bows?

Disfavored weapons:
Dagger/armor-bypass family of weapons – I tried to use them so I could get some undamaged armor, but not very reliable at low skill and high fatigue cost, and by the time I have higher skill, it’s more effective to just destroy the enemy and I don’t need to scrap for armor; I really think there is potential here, and I would find them fun, but currently not effective in practice for the player (especially since we generally have to mow down many more than our numbers); I think these actually should have reduced AP/fatigue cost
xbows – decent opening shots (potentially 4 shots in two turns, with 4 xbows in rotation), but shorter range and not able to sustain dps same as a bow could; bows just eclipse the xbow in sustained effectiveness

I started to play around with Orc weapons too and found them quite deadly on a strong BB, but I like to play in my own thematic way, and stick to “human weapons”. I tend to play with my band as a bunch of pretentious misfit geeky nobles, each with a “family sword”… The inherent strengths/weaknesses add to my enjoyment.

[guidon101]

Wow, this is a great discussion. First, I have to say that I like the current system too as-is with the fatigue and fleeing mechanics. Now, to play Devil’s Advocate:

I do agree about the oddness of being able to attack beyond the limit of fatigue, but it is also a good point about max fatigue units being essentially neutralized threats if attacks were always limited by fatigue. I personally don’t feel that your idea would necessarily reduce tactical depth, but I think I appreciate GOD’s point; “dangerous decisions = depth”, whereas for me “more viable options = depth”.

Just wanted to explore your point from another angle: let’s say all attacks are limited by fatigue.

That mechanic then becomes another tactical weapon for the player to exploit (I don’t mean exploit in a “cheating way”, but rather a “good tactical way”, if that makes sense), in the sense that now, I could put a high-defense warrior next to the enemy and actively withdraw, draw out their attacks and induce fatigue on them until they become exhausted or all their Attacks of Opportunity become used-up, and therefore effectively neutralized for at least one turn. (granted, this comes at an opportunity cost to me; e.g. a highly specialized defensive-tank whose weapon is not “attack-based” but rather “taunt-based” or “disable-based”, drawing out aggro and soaking up enemy fatigue, not actually dishing out damage attacks on his turn).

So actually, I just realized this may change the tactical/mechanical depth of the battlefield in an interesting way without taking out depth, as GOD was saying; it’ll just be a different dimension of depth, and maybe deeper to some, shallow to others.

However, in practice, because there are many enemies with very high fatigue limit (orcs) or no limit at all (undead) in the current game world, having all attacks based on fatigue will play out more likely along the lines GOD described, where tired-out units become useless, and this is much more likely to happen to the player than the enemy (due to the natural enemy stats)…

So then again, we could argue that there are also several fatigue-management skills that can help mitigate these issues, and allow for a mechanic where all attacks are fatigue-based without sacrificing tactical depth (options). It’ll play very differently than it does now for sure, whether for good or ill in its actualization (if an idea like this is implemented poorly, it may ruin the game for a lot of people, since the combat is one of the most lauded features in the game currently).

Whew…I think I just argued with myself there a bunch, but I really appreciate both sides of the argument, and at the end of the day, I want to play a FUN game for ME. As it is right now, I hate chasing down fleeing enemies, and I actually actively try to never route them, and burst them down before they break…and when they break I thank God (not the same GOD, at least I don’t think!) that I get “unlimited” free attacks on them so I don’t have to chase them all over the map for the next 20 minutes (one of my biggest frustrations in the game)…

There may be ways to implement the spirit of your suggestion effectively without sacrificing depth/danger and without exacerbating the map mop-up issue.

[guidon101]

I support you writing it up :)

I think such info would be invaluable to new players, especially at this time the game is still so new, not a lot of info/discussions out there yet.
I, for one, had the BB Wiki, Sky’s skill discussions, and assorted game mechanics discussions open in the background all the time, to quick-check/reference while I played the game when I first started out. I still constantly refer to the BB Wiki for the background and traits info, but by now I have some familiarity and formed my own opinions of the skills, backgrounds, and traits, but I find it good to hear another perspective; I usually learn something new from other players to enhance my game or experience. But I am too lazy to write up a comprehensive guide/analysis, so please be our guest! :)

I would only caution that we’re in really early Early Access, so there is so much changing in the game in terms of content and mechanics, for example that some skill analysis discussions have already become somewhat outdated — so just keep that in mind, and maybe organize the info to lend itself to be easy to update.

[guidon101]

By rare, I meant the scenario where the starting bandit lair is close enough to the road when we generate a new campaign, or close enough to get help from the caravans — at least something I haven’t seen yet (or because I haven’t really tried to do it) in 20+ games started (I probably have 3 campaigns that I played for long, but now I started to do “ironman” campaigns and the start is really rough, especially at Hard, so I’ve wiped many times)

When you get that nice placement scenario though, then I can see how you could do it every time a caravan passed by, but then the lair gets destroyed once and that’s it, unless another one spawns close to the road. The rest of the lairs are usually far enough from the road that caravans are out of range, at least from my experience so far.

You bring up a good point though, like why would caravans go out of their way to help us destroy a lair, or in general participate in offensive battles, especially since they bring with them the veritable Donkey? I would recommend lairs in general start far enough from the city/roads, as it would also make more sense lore-wise; and in that case caravans will never be in range to help against lairs.

[guidon101]

I switch to hammer to take out armor then switch to cleaver to cut flesh

When I learned to do this, my durability issues were mitigated.

I love using only swords just for the visual and thematic feel (thanks Hollywood!), but they break too fast against armor (hitting a fully armored orc brings a Noble Sword from 100% to 88% in one swing, and of course only inflicts about 25% of that orc armor in damage), so I also use hammer as my primary “shock” weapon and switch to swords when fighting unarmored opponents. At first, I didn’t like this low durability for both armor and weapons, but now it has grown on me, and for me makes the battles feel more tactical, dynamic, and gritty (people die easily, weapons and armor break easily). Maybe Newton’s 3rd Law applies, as much damage as I am doing to a well-made heavy armor, I can imagine my well-made sword receiving considerable damage too. Not sure how it was historically, but this game seems to be aiming more for game play experience/balance.

The only thing that I’d like to have is an indicator of currently equipped weapons(items) durability for example like Sarissofoi did on ui suggestions. To always see right away the state. It realy becomes a heavy micro management thing, and very unnecesseraly, in long battles or when more battles in rapid successions to check, remember, try to calculate, remember, check the equipment status. I’d say the ideal representation would be on a small papperdoll in the corner, maybe as in reign of kings with depleting and coloring, or with percentage. It’s way too much unconvenience at this moment to manage the gear degradation. But since ui is one of the last things that will be done (I belive there are few critical elements that should be added asap) just got to carry replacement items in inventory to swap between battles and a weapon in every belt…

Yes! I second, third, and fourth-vote on this! Not just weapon health indicators, but also have quick slot items upfront for easy access without going into the inventory screen.

[guidon101]

First, in my opinion, I think the AI adjustments to the skill (and reactions to other skills too, like shieldwall) are great and going in the right direction!

With regard to the Spearwall experience, I noticed the same as you that the AI tend to avoid spearwalls now, but not always, as Sky mentioned. In addition to having no choice on choke points, I also notice the AI may have a “skill confidence check” routine where it knows that I just put up a Spearwall with a level 1 recruit with bad melee skill, so actually it doesn’t mind charging at him and seeing his spear consequently whiff.

In short, with more I in AI, I think this is a good change. As awesome as it was for my team to have the AI impale themselves like mindless zombies on my spearwalls, it was just bad AI, so the new challenging behavior is so very welcome. The fact that the AI avoid it under certain conditions is exactly something that makes the skill even more useful now in a tactical way, as Sky pointed out (i.e. if the enemy wants to take the scenic route, around my spearwall, please feel free to take some arrows in the face while they are it) — the AI adapted to player tactics, now the players get to adapt to the AI tactics, and good gameplay ensues!

So, IMO I wouldn’t call it a nerf to Spearwall, but an upgrade to the AI.

[guidon101]

2) First job exploit
Even the very first job can be exploited when a caravan starts from the starting town. It is a free win scenario.

Sky calls it “exploit”, I call it “strategic genius” on Sky’s part! :)

I think what he meant by that screenshot is that when you first start the game, and there is a caravan close enough to the nearby bandit lair, you get the help of the caravan to take out the lair. In my opinion, this is relatively rare — never had the opportunity myself — potentially exploitable, but I think not really a big deal (maybe a quick fix would be to make sure the starting town lair doesn’t spawn close to a road).

[guidon101]

There is this:
Gambler’s Fallacy

But in general, I notice the “odd” RNG result here and there, but I agree with Sky. I’m not sure that the system is rigged, or you just have bad luck streak there (happens to me too, but I chock it up to luck, not system imbalance because it also happens the other way around, where a giant badass Orc Warrior whiffs consecutively on my new level 1 recruit with no shield on even even ground– I am usually holding my breath as I watch the whiffs in slow motion (read: interface lag), so I can count on that happening to me as many times to save my arse with good RNG as also to ruin my day with bad RNG).

Maybe because of my expectation, I also “see so many” misses at 95%, with my melee, some with over 100+ melee attack rating, but I think in the long run, if I actually logged the statistics, the actual successful connects would probably be up there in the 90%. It’s just super frustrating and very noticeable when I miss at 95%, but I don’t usually notice or remember the 90 out of 100 times that I hit. My opinion/conclusion is that the melee RNG system is probably fine, although I wouldn’t mind if someone came out with a log showing actual hits vs. misses ratio from in-game associated with different % chances to prove it.
It is helpful they include the factors in the tooltip! I strongly encourage this to help players understand the details and give us the WYSIWYG impression.

On the other hand… What seems really strange to me in terms of the RNG are the RANGED vs. MELEE %…
Ranged seems to hit waaay more often at low percentages (I’m talking like 5%-30%) — whereas I know my melee pretty much never land those kinds of hits, I can actually rely on ranged, even at those low chances. But it also seems to play the other way around, where high hit-chance ranged, still feels lower, so in the end Ranged attacks always feel like a 50-50, which is reliable enough for me. This is very noticeable at low levels, where my level 1 45-ranged-attack archer has 8-10% Chance-To-Hit, connects 3 times in a row (hits 3 out of 4 shots over two turns), insta-killing 2 thugs at 4+ range. Of course, I was like, “Cheers!” (read: I have the opposite reaction when I have 92% CTH and I miss 3 times in a row). And that only happened once in probably 30+ hrs of gameplay, but of course I remember the incident very well.

final comment/suggestion:
1) I shouldn’t say you don’t see an RNG problem, so I wouldn’t discourage other people and the devs to take a look at the RNG; let’s prove it with statistics!
2) I feel like the RNG problem is more in our psychology than in the system, currently
3) If there is a problem with the system, I sure hope we find it and fix though!
4) More transparency WYSISWYG: I like how they show a lot of info on tooltips, so I encourage this trend; but also keep in mind that some players like more abstraction or blind/noinfo for immersion purposes (e.g. instead of saying “90% CTH”, say “High Chance to Hit”), so the current system currently caters to us who like more info, and it helps understand/debug the mechanics

[guidon101]

Thanks, Rap!

Want to say you guys are awesome at pushing out updates and listening to community for feedback and bugs!

Also really love the new auto-pathfinding for the player on the world map! Thank you thank you! Makes travel feel less like playing Pac-Man, granted Pac-Man was epic in its own way, I much prefer this pathfinding helper :)

On a separate “bug” note, since you made some updates to skills, I noticed that some skill descriptions were not updated, like for example, the new “Captain” skill the way it works with Resolve still has the old text, so it’s a bit misleading, unless the same description applies still. And “Rally the Troops” doesn’t say the effective range.

Thank you, and looking forward to the next update!

[guidon101]

Ok, this time it happened againm and it keeps happening on the same battle I try to reload.
Basically,
1) fighting undead army
2) weirdganger spawns and pushes ghoul out of way
3) ghoul locks AI turn

on the log, it repeats:
Ghoul: Engaging to melee range with Kori the Older (visible)
accepted_distance=0
Ghoul: Failed to execute path for Melee Engage – No path found
getCostForPath() called with no path calculated.
the index ‘Pos’ does not exist

Hope it gets fixed soon in a hotfix or something, it’s now actually scary to fight undead because of this bug.

Attachments:

1. log6.zip

[guidon101]

Had this issue happen once in about 20+ hrs of play, and I’m not sure if my experience explains the problem a bit. Sorry I don’t have a log file from it (happened yesterday and I just ALT-F4 out of frustration too quickly)

Anyway, here’s how it happened to me:
1) fought a battle with an Undead army (attacked a holding). There was a necromancer, wiederganger, skelly, fallen lords, etc.
2) I noticed the necro kept raising skellys from already dead skellys, so I thought.. hmm… farm xp
3) I then thought, wouldnt it be better if the raised skelly had no weapons? So I picked up weapons from the ground of the dead skelly (it may have been a wiederganger, but looked like a skelly to me, whatever the necro raise)
4) when they raised, they had no weapons
5) Normally, I had enough men around that every newly raised undead would die before their turn, and I kept farming them for a while, maybe 50+ turns
6) But once, one skelly was raised too far for my men to kill before his turn… so, when his turn came, the raised skelly with no weapon LOCKED the ai turn…

So, not sure if this explains the culprit, but maybe offers some clues to help…Sorry no log file…by the way, where are the save files located?

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