Mike

[Mike]

Namespace wrote:

Could you please tell us what actually does affect the contract difficulty?

I second that request

[Mike]

I agree that they could use some more tactical diversity but I think that you’re exaggerating a bit when you list problems with them.

Apart from throwing axes resistances make sense, they have no flesh or organs to pierce nor veins to cut. You only damage the bones and it’s not easy to hit those with a sharp point. This has been an understandable and accepted staple with various fantasy games for literally decades.
I assume that the inability to tell whether a hammer pierces or crushes is a joke.

You say that they make “builds” useless – but 1 or 2 perks don’t constitute a build. If you have a generally good bro he can do allright, maybe give him a different weapon, that’s all.

If, one the other hand, you’ve made a fearsome-crippling-executioner-dagger specialist you’re simply being faced with the flip side of any specialisation – while doing great against some enemies it performs poorly against others. You wouldn’t call orcs broken just because a swordmaster can’t crack them, now would you?
At any rate, that’s what you have the reserve roster for – keep your builds somewhat varied and simply switch bros based on their effectiveness in each battle.

Also, skeletons resist missles – their armors don’t. They have more armor than HP so just equip your rangers with crossbows and watch the skellies mostly melt before they even reach your line. Then switch xbows to longaxes or billhooks.

As for specific options let me point your attention to the fact that they often miss either body or head armor, while usually carrying shields. Flails with mastery completely ignore shields and let you choose whether you want to jit head or body. Do you own math.

Of course later you meet fully-armored skellies but it’s the same with humans and orcs, so no big deal. The difference being that decayed shields are trivially easy to break, giving your hammer much easier task.

Also from my observation they have somewhat low accuracy, they rarely hit my shielded tanks. So just suit up and grind them to bonemeal.

P.S. As for seeing through bushes – they are magically reanimated dead. They don’t HAVE eyes. Why would you assume they “see” the way the living do?

[Mike]

Wargasm wrote:

there aren’t more enemies later in the game that are suitable for “farming” experience for raw recruits …

That’s precisely the problem, later on the game world gets harder and the company has no option of picking fights with weaker opponents, they all get stronger and/or more numerous!

Even if the new recruits could do some damage there is still the problem with AI focusing on the weakest unit whenever possible, so you have little choice but to make them an immobile tin can stuck in the back line. I say: boring!

Another option would be to simply give ALL the recruits some levels as the game progresses. Easier to do for sure, would make little sense fluff-wise but at this point I’d gladly take any solution other than the current grind.

[Mike]

Danubian wrote:

dev […] told nothing is changed about them.

Yeah right. Bandit marksmen are like 5x more deadlier

So, on one hand there’s a guy who actually makes the game, and on the other a dismissive player. Who oh who should we believe?

I can’t wrap my head around the whole “bandit marksman issue”, mostly because I have yet to see it for myself.

At the beginning any bro can die instantly to RNG, nothing new here.
Later on my mainline is shielded (kite shields until they are really tanky) and armored, flankers unshielded but very heavily armored and rangers lightly armored but built for ranged def. Mainline rarely gets hit and doesn’t really care, flankers get hit more often but can weather it, rangers get hit from time to time but have Steel Brow so never get 1-shotted, barring my own silly mistakes (like not putting heavily injured bro in reserve). At any rate, enemy rangers are usually pushing up the daisies by round 2, hard to cause me much grief then.

As far as I’m concerned the whole ranged combat is working OK. Can’t eat the cake and have it too, if you wanna push for offensive capability and turn your 2-hander into a “blender lord” (WHFB-style) don’t expect him to take a face full of bolts and mistake it for confetti.

[Mike]

+1

I know it’s supposedly “working as intended” but as it is a reasoning bug on the side of devs (sorry guys, love ya all still) I’m going to up any and every thread complaining about this

[Mike]

It will appear again. Maybe not the next time that you are presented with options to choose from as they are picked semi-randomly from a bigger pool (as far as I can tell), but sooner or later it will come up.

[Mike]

+1

since we can already hire (former) Raiders from settlements it’d make sense that a bandit faced with certain death might sometimes offer to join your company instead.

He’d have to be dialled down a bit in the process so he wouldn’t be too strong in comparison to others (I’d say just reset his lvl progression and make him lvl 4 raider), but it’d make for an interesting development.

Especially when either his former comrades or old enemies come calling.

[Mike]

+1, it shouldn’t be a 100/95% chance.

Though personally I think it should have more to do with the equipment a bro is currently holding – hilarious as it may be I find gobbling up my pikemen – weapon pointy end towards the stomach, one would assume – rather unbelievable.

Sir Michael Starr wrote:

Right now it’s unbalanced

Here I disagree as it is relatively simple to prevent it from happening. Here are my tips:

– if there are just a couple Nachs mixed with other undead (usually wieders) , snipe them first before thay can feed. Small ones aren’t very durable. If you can’t snipe them, see below

– if you are fighting Nachs exclusively, control where you kill them – don’t shoot all over the place letting them feed while they advance towards you, either hold your fire or jab each one with single arrow to wound but not to kill (mostly viable at the beginning because later on it’s easy to one-shot them with rangers, but at that point you can massacre them easily anyway). As you kill them in melee perform an orderly advance – simply walk on top of the bodies so they can’t be devoured. Keep your formation!

– they have poor resolve, so if you’re confident in your ranged capability (my go-to band composition is 4 bows and 2 crossbows in the backline, with optional thrown weapons on the frontaline… pretty overwhelming volume of missiles each round) you can try to rout them in a single round, before they can either reach your line or feed on the dead. My preffered method later on when I have both high accuracy and Fearsome

– if you start a battle with huge Nachts already around, focus-fire them with your rangers, preferably bowmen. You can either kill them outrifght or seriously cripple them before they can reach your lines

– if the above fails, spearwall is a great way to keep the gluttons away from your men. Without armor it’s easy to whittle them down. You can also use nets and dogs as both give you more time to perforate them at range

– if they still manage to reach a bro, don’t panic! They need to be standing there for a round undisturbed before they can gobble up your man, and you can disturb them with: stuns (maces), shield bash (bucklers/shields), repel (pitchforks/pikes. probably the only one time when the skill becomes useful), breaking their morale (Fearsome perk comes extra handy here) or moving the bro away (either footwork or shieldwalled retreat). I did not try it myself (never really had to as above works really well) but I’m guessing that taunt could possibly move them away as well.

– last but not least, killing them fast also works ;] Can’t do it if they are fresh but if you followed the above steps they’re likely almost dead as they reach you, so moving a well-armored brother or two out of formation to surround them, coupled with reach weapons from 2nd line can finish them off in a hurry.

Hope it helps!

[Mike]

I can also get them a variety of food, lead them to victory in battle, fulfill ambitions, etcetera.

All different ways of boosting their mood and all completely beside the point risen in the topic.

[Mike]

RusBear wrote:

Of course, selling levels – is nonsense. Pay and win!

Not to be rude, but I don’t think you paid much attention. Allow me to reiterate: I don’t ask to be able to instantly level brothers to the max using training hall. I want to be able to train low-level brothers a bit, say to level 4-5, after I both have to pay and wait some time before they are done training.

We are already able to hire people with a couple of ready-trained levels, and the cost to do so is proportionately higher than the same recruit (with the same equipment) at lvl 1. So we’re basically paying for their previous training. How would be the training hall any different in this regard? And in any way, money doesn’t exactly rain on you in this game, so even if it was like you said you’d still have to earn that coins first somewhere. And there are no gambling halls around AFAIK.

It’s a feature that’d be most useful in mid- and late-game, as by that time you’ve probably already got both equipment and spare funds, but as you’re consistently facing stronger and more numerous opponents you’re bound to take some losses. Losses that are hard to replace because the raw recruits are barely able to carry hi-quality equipment, let alone fight enemies effectively.

So at that point if you lose a brother his replacement is stuck in the second line cowering behind the kite shield until he can gather enough collateral exp to be able to somehow contribute to a fight. Until then – he’s a dead weight. And you are HIGHLY unlikely to recruit someone who has at the same time desirable backround, satisfactory stats/traits AND a couple levels ready to be spent.

[Mike]

Um… isn’t it the whole point of ambient music? To reinforce the mood as appropriate for the current events?

I understand there’s no arguing tastes but I’d say that if you feel unnerved while fighting unholy monsters the devs are doing things right.

[Mike]

A lot of useful tips and combinations that I didn’t use before, thanks guys.

Wargasm wrote:

You didn’t mention the Taunt perk. Has anyone ever picked that

I take it for at least 2 of my “tanks” (shield users) to draw attention away from heavily injured bros that I cannot immediately remove from melee for some reason. Comes in handy especially when I get surrounded and rotation wouldn’t achieve much.

nope100500 wrote:

6. Gifted – what you propose is god perk.

I wouldn’t consider it a god-tier as the extra points would be spread around various attributes, but if that’s a concern it could only bump the weakest rolls – turn 1s into 2s and 2s into 3s. I just think it’s not worth it at all right now because you sacrifice a very valuable perk point for a one-off increase to much less valuable stat points. I consider the level-up completely meaningless, you can always grind more exp.

Wanderer wrote:

Adrenaline I use on my Longaxe with Berserk Brother; weaken in one round, hit Adrenaline, kill and trigger Berserk to whack another guy

Sounds really neat, will give it a try.

Wanderer wrote:

rather rare to use, is the Warscythes, which give you two-tile distance AOE.

It’s so rare, in fact, that in my latest playthrough I’ve already gathered a dozen artifacts, and not a single scythe. feelsbadman. Still, the fatigue reduction is a generic bonus and while other weapon groups get something interesting in addition, polearms get something that is useless because it improves an useless attack.

Wanderer wrote:

Lone Wolf assumes you have a badass with a Great Axe to maximize Swing potential

Still, I only need to get him literally 1 tile away from the others to use him as intended an also get benefits of having backup close by. The way it works right now I’d have to get out of my way and put myself in unnecessary danger just so I can benefit from a perk, which is counter-intuitive to me.

Wanderer wrote:

Fast Adaptation stacks in order on AOE attacks. Meaning if you miss the first guy, Adaptation triggers for an additional 8% to hit on the second hit. If miss, that’s two stacks in one round. In reverse also, if you hit the first guy, but miss the second, you’ll still have one stack at the end of the round to use elsewhere.

Just WOW o_O I had no idea. Consider me instantly converted to the Church of FA.

Ferqal wrote:

Gifted is that its a single use replacement for other perks (shield expert, anticipation, fast adaption).

I too woul prefer if it was more of a long term thing, maybe adding a star on a chosen characteristic now that that mechanic exists.

I beg to differ on Gifted as the boni bestowed by other perks go beyond a simple equivalent of stat points – shield expert for instance makes precious named shields a fair game against axe-wielders, something that I would consider too risky otherwise.
+1 on adding a star, makes much more sense than my own idea TBH

Human Warlord wrote:

And i have question about anticipation perk (…)

well you get bonus 1 + 10%(Base Def) per 1 tile, so in your example it’s 30 + 6x(1+3) = 54 total ranged def.

[Mike]

Before I didn’t appreciate all the details watching items in in-game res, but damn… That emperor armour is positively gorgeous, as is the second one.

I gotta say that the generally down-to-earth tone of most equipment i8n BB really brings out the uniqueness of the top-quality stuff, unlike in some other games that try to wow you ;] with battle-bling on every other piece of junk you find.

Great job as always!

P.S. Is there any chance of us getting back some various-color paint on metal armors, or at least the helmets? I mean the regular stuff, not noble versions. I’ve got a slight OCD regarding colours and would really like to have my bros in an uniform color theme fitting my battle standard. Pwetty please? ;]

[Mike]

I second “that makes no sense” statement. The morale check is supposed to be triggered by getting surrounded. But in this case the bro not only doesn’t get overwhelmed, he successfully attacks the enemy.

How the hell is that supposed to be a bad thing? “Omigosh I just stabbed that nice fella in the guts but maybe he just wanted to give me a hug, I feel so guilty”?

[Mike]

I find tools are not that much of a problem if you are picky about which looted items you repair before selling. Most of the low-quality armor and weapons are not worth it anyway, so I just sell them exactly as I find them. That leaves most of the supply for the items that your brothers use.

Might also have something to do with my generally defensive playstyle – means less armor damage to repair after each battle.

bobombnik wrote:

regardless of relationship w/ faction or town, markets will only give you a fraction of the value

The prices actually become more favourable as your rep with that particular town improves. It’s also generally better to do your shopping in bigger settlements. A final hint: if you’re not pressed for cash keep the most valuable stuff in your inventory until you come upon a city with “Ambushed trading routes” status – their stuff costs more to buy, but the also pay more for yours.

[Author]

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