Salperticon

[Salperticon]

GOD wrote:

That’s the thing though, going without a helmet into combat is just about the worst mistake you can make. Not having a helmet is something for movies, as you’d just die without one in a fight.
Toggling them on and off would also conflict with the idea of everything that you see on the map actually being there and would remove an important visual short-hand for what state your merc is in.

I agree on that one in so far, that the visual aspect of seeing how well protected the heads of your BattleBrothers are is a very important point.
Which is why I suggest an option to toggle it on or off – that way, each player could decide for themselves if they rather go with one or the other.
I mean, just take a look at the picture of the latest dev blog: Nine characters, of which five have no helmet.
Just because it looks nice if not everyone is armoured up all the way to their noses.
There might be a better way to do so instead of the option to toggle the appearance on or off, of course.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

I’m going to hijack this thread for a moment, since my question is also related to helmets.
Does anyone know if there is a feature planned to turn off the visualisation of helmets ingame?

I mean, don’t get me wrong.
They look awesome and I really like the aspect that they wittle down visibly when they have to endure much damage.
But the beards and hair of the characters is plain awesome, too.
It is a shame that I never see it again after the start, because it is quite a bit risky to go into battle without any headwear.
Therefore, an option to turn the visualisation of the helmets manually off and on would be neat.

And to answer the original post:
Nope. Even after more than sixty ingame hours, I have not seen a helmet with an armour of more than 300.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

One way to deal with archers is to not chase them, but fall back.
Retreat into some bushes with a soldier or two and fall further back with the rest of your team.
The archer will come looking for your troops if he cannot see any, and then you can ambush them with your hidden units.
The ranged units of the enemy will only retreat if they see you getting nearby.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

This is the double rotation use I talked about earlier:
Strange use of Rotation by the AI
I am not sure why the bandit raider did this, but as it is not my let’s play and I therefore have no access to the saves, I cannot reproduce it at the moment.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

That’s one heavily armoured band of axe swingers, Rus Bear.
And an expensive one, too.
How do you handle their high needs for fatigue?

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

I’ve got a question about bug hunting.
We’ve been discussing the AI behaviour a bit over there in the Game Suggestions part of the forum, and iason told me that it were not only archers, but also different types of units who act in a certain way.

That made me wonder:
Is it worth / useful for the developers at this point of the game, if we as the players actively to go and run a deeper analysis of such cases?
Like trying to reproduce such cases from other people and see if we can find the same problem.
Or will there be a particular beta phase for bughunting at some point, and during alpha we just pick up what we find on the way because it changes too much?

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

Thanks a bunch for the input so far, all of you.
The way the AI works and acts surely has a deep impact on the game and how enjoyable it will be to play it in the end, and therefore is a very intresting topic to talk about.

Without taking into consideration how hard it would be to implement it into the game, I want to point out a few things which should be kept in mind when tinkering with the battle behaviour of the opponents. I have a lot of trust in the capabilities of our beloved developers, but still. Cannot hurt to mention it.

At the moment and from my personal point of view, the enemies mostly use abilities which come with the weapon of choice – split shield, stun, riposte, shield bash and shield wall. However, they seem to use these rather randomly. The rare exception is the rotation perk (level two in the defense tree), which I personally never saw in use so far – but in BumpyMcSquigums’ let’s play on Youtube I could see two bandits swapping their position twice by using that perk, so they ended up in the very same position as beforehand. I’ll try to look up the exact part when I am home, and link it as a reference.

However.
If we are going to improve this however, we should take a close look at who and how far. The orcs for example excel by being absolute killing machines in a duel, which is a good reason not to take them on alone, or at low levels at all. Which is totally fine.
But giving an enemy a broader skillset and a better AI to use these, could also be utilized as a way to set apart the different factions from each other. So while orcs would rely not much on any weapon abilities or perks which require finesse (like riposte), it seems totally fitting for them to use shieldbash and other actions which rely rather on strength. I would not expect any of them to have a great sense of positioning, though. Goblins, on the other hand, are a totally different matter.

So all in all, I would encourage to give the enemies more access to the perks besides the normal weapon abilities, but make it strongly dependant on the faction – and even within the faction. If bandit thugs were using their skills in the same, smart way as bandit leaders, it would not only make the game probably a bit too difficult without the ability to tune it further for less skilled players, and also waste some potential which could otherwise be used to differentiate the particular types of enemies within the same faction.

GOD:
I wholeheartedly agree to the idea to back the necromancer up with a guard. It is not only very fitting, but will also make him much more useful. Just yesterday, I engaged a group of undead in a hideout; two normal skeletons, two skeletons with hookbills, eight fallen heroes and one necromancer. It was labeled as ‘deadly’, so I was very careful about my positioning and movements during the fight. The necromancer however, did absolutely nothing in this fight. He kept lurking way too far from the frontlines to be able to resurrect any of his minions, so it never happened. Then he took a hit from an arrow because he was the only really useful target for my archers – and then fled when enough of the fallen heroes were down to send a shieldbearer after him. An undead guard who could shield him from the arrows and make him a bit harder to catch would be awesome.

guidon101:
Horray for lots of text! It was quite nice to read.
In most of your described cases I would agree, in particular to your last sentence: If it is not broken, do not fix it.

But in a few cases I have made a different experience. For the enemy archers, they quite reliably aim for my un-shielded troops. The only times where I see them shooting at shieldbearers is, when they do not have any other valid targets. What I am more concerned about with them, is when they try to shoot and when they try to move. The positioning seems to be very difficult for them, especially in forest battles. It has happened a few times already to me, that I had to scout the map after the battle for that one last archer in the forest, who was confident sitting where he was and not participating in the fight at all.

The other point is the defensive AI tactic. I agree to the behaviour which you described above, where the AI tends to move onto a hill and camp there if necessary, so they keep the advantage of the high ground. However, if you move all your troops out of sight from them, they will come and look for you. In most cases, only with a few of their men, so they split their forces.

If nobody pointed it out by now (took a while to write this all up at work), bushes work just fine to conceal your units. However, if the enemy saw you moving into it, they will remember your unit being there for a while. So not only your battle brother has to be hidden to make this work, but also his movement into that cover. Therefore, they really work best as am-bushes (sorry for the pun). Fall back, retreat some guys into bushes, the rest further. The enemy will come to them, even with his archers.

Focus and teamwork: This is one of the biggest advantages I currently have over my oponents, and which allows me to beat much tougher enemies if I can prolong the start of the fight until I have reached a forest. Therefore, out of very personal, selfish reasons, I like the fact that I am able to separate the opposition well there and would like to keep it at that. However, I can understand that others might want a smarter behaviour, a bit more of a challenge in this regard, and improve their behaviour. Causing the AI to stick together more closely in confined circumstances like forest battles will surely help them a fair bit. And I think I have already seen some group tactics, as they already spread out in open fields before they engage to make it more difficult for your archers to hit them with a lucky fluke, should they miss their intentional target.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

While I personally do enjoy the ‘ironman’ mode for this particular game, I think it is the right choice of the developrs not to enforce it. I do not play ironman in many games, but here it did not even occur to me to reload at any point until I read about it in the forum. I had way too much fun to deal with what I got.

Still, everybody to their own likes. Why not reload after you got bad rolls during a level-up, or after you lost that one dearly loved battle brother to the undead horde? If people like to play that way, I do not see why they should not. It hurts nobody.

Luring raiding bands into castle patrols or viallages to get their help is a bit different, though.
Because in my opinion, there is a lot of potential here to include it into the game as a proper feature. Maybe it is already underway, even.
What I mean is, that castle patrols and city militia can currently support you in a fight – but they can also make it worse. You know what I mean once you had a few necromancers raise all those well equiped soldiers during an attack of the undead, or after that one orc berserker who had slipped from your overview feasted on the townsfolk before taking on your soldiers.

But there is even more. If I understood this correctly, villages will prosper or degenerate based on the number of caravans that make it through, as well as how often they are raided. If drawing the enemy into a town to get help from their militia means that their losses will also affect the overall town wealth and their ability to defend themselves, I will surely think twice before I do that again. But at the same time, it still stays a valid option, especially for tough fights.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

One simple example why I do enjoy the engagement rules as they work right now:
Yesterday, I had to deal with a little group of orcs. Nothing major, just a couple of younglings and two warriors or so.

I had all of the minor threats cut down except of one, who had ventured a bit further up north in the beginning for sightseeing purposes, and was now making his way back to watch his two bigger comrades getting hammered by my men. Because I was not looking forward to have my guys being charged in the back by an infuriated orc young while they were pushed around by the two warriors on the front, I sent up a single greatsword in heavy armor to deal with him. The orc was on high ground, but I engaged nevertheless because I did not want to suffer his charge.

This was only possible, because I knew my move would pin him up there, lock him in place by the sheer presence of my guy and keep the pressure off of the rest of my group. With their current equipment, the two orc warriors were more than enough for them.
However, I underestimated the young orc a little bit. I missed the first hit -it happens to the best of us and I don’t blame my guy for that- and in his own turn, he completely tore the heavy armour on my greatsword to shreds and reduced him with a second hit to one, exactly one hitpoint. Suddenly, I was not so fond anymore of keeping him alone up there, all by himself.

If zones of control and disengaging were not much of an issue, this situation would have not been as tense. But it was, and I really enjoyed it. My mind raced and my hand shivered as I gave the next commands, fearing for the life of one of my best soldiers.

The solution was -funnily enough- presented by zones of control again. While most of my guys kept bashing at the last orc warrior (his comrade had fallen by now), I moved a pikeman and a shieldbearer up to my greatsword. The pikeman managed to push the young orc off the hill, the shieldbearer took his place, and my greatsword was free to move away and into safety. He was out of any control zones and the orc was pinned down by my shieldbearer, and thus could not pursue his beloved punching bag.

So instead of simply moving the greatsword away, I had to utilize the abilities I had to get him out of this mess. On the other side, I could use the very same tactic against the orcs to keep them effectively from pursuing that last hitpoint as it limped away.
Moments like this make the battles much more enjoyable (especially in forest fights, which I absolutely love) and therefore I strongly recommend to keep the engagement rules as they are.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

Strangely, I did not have that problem at all yesterday.
Not sure why exactly it occurs and when.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

I love it that they included javelins in the game.
I have to admit that I did not make much use of them yet, but I intend to lateron when my shieldbearers gain enough levels to get some utility perks.
For two-handed weapon users like greatswords, pikes and the like I usually go with crossbows, but I can definitely imagine javelins for my other melee guys for the reasons you described above.

The only times when I do not switch to a ranged weapon and take a pot shot before engaging in melee, are when I need to pin the enemy in his position – and when I fight orcs. Don’t want them to get the charge on me, nu-uh.
But aside of that, short-ranged sidearms like javelins are superb to soften up the enemy before the deadly melee ensues.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

That was a very nice read, I have to admit.
Well done!
I seriously hope we will see another of that kind from you in the future again.

Also, as a quick question: How do you make those awesome screenshots?
Uploads on imgur as .jpg as far as I have seen, but how do you make them in the first place?

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

I went with the “Plague Rats”. Obviously.
The idea behind it was to have a band of lowlife individuals, who are mostly frowned upon by many of the normal people, and especially the nobility.
Yet, their services are somewhat of an ugly necessity in these times, and so they are hired again and again to fight off orcs and bandits, undead and werewolves.
The flavour texts in the game actually reflect that type of band pretty well, in particular if you often deal with those rather healthy merchants in blue robes.

To show that ingame, I decided to work only with specific backgrounds for my characters.
Everything related to nobility or even well educated classes is not allowed to join, so I will not pick up adventurous nobles, bastards or swordmasters, neither minstrels, historians or apprentices (just a few examples). Those would refuse to join a group of individuals with such low, questionable backgrounds.
On the other hand beggars and deserters, poachers and hedge knights, gamblers and vagabonds are very much welcome.
Backgrounds of the social middle range like lumberjacks, retired soldiers or tailors are accepted on a case by case basis, depending on their particular background. A butcher who had to leave hsi town because he used… questionable meat sources would be agreeable, for example.

Was a bit tough to get a starting group who fits into that and still gave me enough people of that kind for hire; I had to reroll several times. Often I had someone in the starting three who did not fit – and when those were fine, I could only hire historians and swordmasters. The problem was less to get capable characters, mind you, but ones who would fit into the background schematic. Beggars were totally fine.
Eventually, I ended up with a lumberjack, a graverobber and a deserter as the founding members, and hired a gravedigger, a miner and a wildman before setting out. The miner is sort of expendable (which is why he got the title “the Redshirt”), but so far he refused to die – unklike the gravedigger, who was too eager to dig his own grave right in the first battle.

The only really tricky part is ranged combat, since both bowyers and legitimate hunters do not fit into the bunch of outsiders. I have not found a poacher yet and I think I would also take along a witchhunter, but so far my brawler (the only character I could find with a somewhat decent ranged skill) seems to be content with shooting with the bow instead of trying to bash it over peoples’ heads. He even hits a target on occasion.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

Nice! I really appreciate giving us a bit room for such stories.
Might want to make this introduction post a sticky though, just because.
Oh, and what are AARs, if I may ask?
Absolutely Astonishing Roleplays?

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

[Salperticon]

Same here, but I have not taken a close enough look at the circumstances either so far.
For me, it often ahppened after frequent tabbing in and out of the game.
I will try to locate it more precisely this evening, if possible.

Plague Rats - we're not famous, but we get the job done.

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