Sekata

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GOD wrote:

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.

I think our difference in opinion might come down to one of perspective. It doesn’t seem like an incredibly difficult thing to do from my point of view. It’s already well known that all of the items that are going to be in the game aren’t in yet. On the feature listing about the goblins, nets have been listed, which is just one item of many more that could potentially be added to the game. I don’t see why it would be impossible to have an item specifically for incapacitating a target, both usable to players and enemies. % Chance of capture could be extremely low at the outset and could go up based on fatigue, hp, resolve state, etc. If one of your own people gets captured on the field, its implied that they were taken prisoner whether you lose or flee. Prisoners would be represented on the UI in slots similar to non-combat personnel that are with the company. There wouldn’t have to be a feeling of inequality, since both sides have access to the same tools.

Even ignoring potential items in the game that could facilitate a prisoner system, there are items currently in game that already lend to the possibility. As has been mentioned elsewhere, a blow to the head with the mace does not have to be fatal to incapacitate a target. The same goes for many other crippling injuries. I like the lethal feel that the game has. I wouldn’t want to sacrifice or undermine it, but the fact that every battle can only end in death when the human urge is self preservation makes things unrealistically one dimensional. Not to mention the potential for game play expansion that a prisoner system would allow. If people want to play their games the wrong way then they will. File tampering, save-scumming, etc. Its going to happen. People who want an iron man experience will do just that. No reason to gimp potential game play in fear of what players that don’t want the real experience are going to do.

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Wolves wrote:

Greetings fellow Hauptmänners!

Wouldn’t it be of use for the dev team if we as community would discuss a bit about possible ABUSES and/or EXPLOITS in the game? I could imagine it would.

1) SAVESCUMING – Lost a battle / mercenary? A lvlup wasn’t as good as a roll as you wanted it to be? Well, you could simply save every time before something like this could happen and reload and try again. You can ALT + DEL and just reload the autosave currently. Hire a mercenary and if the traits are bad, just load etc. etc.

2) LURING – Just lure enemy battlegroups into the castle / city / villages / towers and using the milita / landsknechts to fight, tank and die for you. You get all the loot btw.
Any more YOU have encountered and / or thought of and tested it? Feel free to write it down here.

Happy pillaging!
Wolves

As far as re-loading to re-hire a different mercenary, i’m not sure that’s an exploit. I would imagine that the full game would feature the ability to let members go from the group, so reloading for a hire is more of an unfortunate stop-gap.

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GOD wrote:

The regular ability is great. The perk from the utility tree, however, is not currently worth taking. That’s the one I’m talking about. It’s a bit confusing, because we all tend to call the knock back skill shield bash as well.

My mistake. The skill is useful, but I wouldn’t touch the perk with a 10 foot pole.

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GOD wrote:

Some comments on the above suggestions:

Map size
Map size is kept limited because the player is meant to be able to reach everywhere on the map despite their mobility. We might see it get bigger, but it’s not a certainty.

Caravan companies
I know that competing mercenary companies will get implemented, so we might see some aspects of this.

Regional Factions
Interfactional conflict isn’t currently planned, last I heard, as that could get in the way of the theme of humanity defending itself against forces of destruction. However, we might see some elements of this with the event system.

Reputation
A reputation system with two different values is currently planned, those being something akin to how professional and moral you behave.

More character.
More in-depth quests are planned as is an event system that allows for different choices.

Bad Blood System
Mercenary companies are planned, though it’s still unclear exactly how.

Surrender System.
The AI being capable of retreating from combat is planned. I haven’t seen them say anything about surrendering. I personally have my doubts about how you’d add something like that in this kind of game, while having it be both mechanically meaninful and elegant.

No plot
The actual end-game hasn’t been implemented yet, with consists of a Great Enemy for you to fight that builds up according to how the different factions interact. This will get expanded on as development continues. The focus is also on a company on the move, so no establishing lands of your own.

Turn-based world map
I don’t think they’ll move away from controlling a single company, as your group is the centre of that narrative and forms a natural limit against battle overload. The map will get more involved as time goes on, though (like tracks to follow).

Obtaining characteristics
If something like this gets implemented, it’ll be a lot rarer and not reliably achievable. Gets mentioned here.

Thanks for keying in on the suggestions :D. As for the surrender system, i imagine that it could be handled by making prisoner slots similar to the slots that will be filled by non-combatant members of the company. This might allow for collecting bounties on some of the named bandits, or even turning over captured scouts to jailors for interrogation to find out where their base of operations is.

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SlyFox wrote:

Turn-based world map

The Fighting system is one of the best I’ve ever seen. The World map is not. Let’s be honest. Your target audience is not those who choose “Whitcher” or “Dota”. You make game for those try-hards who play chess, df, Banner Saga, HoMM and table-top party games. Give them an opportunity to control several different squads of battle brothers, build villages and strongholds. World map as it is can not provide such opportunity.

And Thanks for the Battle Brothers, guys. I really enjoy your Game! =)

Not too sure that this is accurate. Firstly it assumes a bit much about their target audience. As a player of games like mount and blade, I love the map system, and the intimacy that’s fostered by the current map and band management system. I think that turning the map into a turn based system and making several different bands of brothers would take away that intimacy and the artistic identity that BB currently has.

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GOD wrote:

Yup, my suggestion is to apply this change to the shield bash perk in order to make it more viable, since it’s not very useful right now. It seems strong enough of a boon to make it worth using, while weak enough not to conflict with stun or requiring the perk to become tier 2.

Really? The bash seems to have pretty fair utility as is, like clearing enemies that get close to archers, or forcing them to lower ground.

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Bad Blood System

This would be a subsection of reputation. IF other mercenary companies were implemented into the game, the Battle Brothers might find themselves fighting groups of the same occupation but different employers on some contracts. Some interaction with these groups could create enmity and competition between the two bands. That’s assuming that their entire band wasn’t wiped out though, which makes me think…

Surrender System

If I was a bandit on the losing end of a fight gone wrong, I might be convinced to drop my weapon and surrender. Brothers might initiate a capture by surrounding a human enemy on all hexes when said enemy is of low morale. Bandits might be given over to jailors in town for a price or a rep boost. When fighting other human groups that aren’t on the bad side of the law, perhaps the survivors could ask for peace. Peace terms could include certain terms (The right to strip the dead on the field, gold, etc). If a group of brothers is fighting guards, or another band of mercenaries, then granting lenient terms could be beneficial for reputation, while demanding a lot would create some enmity. Mercenary companies let off with a slap on the wrist could be friendly towards the Brothers in the future, while those who are denied certain dignities in a truce may turn hostile if they rebuild and see the player on the map. Of course, it wouldn’t apply to orcs, bandits and things that bump in the night. They just want to eat your gibblets come hell or high water.

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This thread made my day.

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The Red Wheel:
Torleif had a brother-in-law who scrapped what little coin he had saved up to start a caravan. The man helped the only way he knew how, and became a caravan hand to guard his long time friend on the road. When a bandit raid saw the entire operation destroyed, and his sister’s husband dead, Torlief became depressed. When news of the loss spurred his sister to suicide, he was completely shattered. For months he continued on quietly while keeping to himself. When he had saved enough capital of his own, he and two friends started a mercenary band named The Red Wheel in reference to the tragedy that caused its creation. It was dedicated to protecting other caravans from a similar fate, but has since branched into other types of contract work. Below is their marching song.

“Our war rolls on without a cause. Our glories pile without applause.
No one mourns a sell-sword’s life, we die for coin and live for strife.
Are you a client or a toad crushed along our winding road?
Who will buy our strength today? Who will stand in Red Wheel’s way?
Bones have cracked between the spokes, Wood has stained from many soaks.
All else breaks while we roll on! Crows eat well where we have gone!

Speak up brothers, shout with zeal. How fare the men who fight the wheel?
‘Cold and quiet as the grave, ground into the road we pave’
‘They feel what priests and dead men feel, their weapons break against the wheel’!

What of the ones that don’t stay dead? The ones with veins already bled?
‘Breaking the cycle is a sin! They rise and so we kill again!’
‘They feel what proper dead men feel, we grind their bones under the wheel’!

And of the orcs – foul, unclean, ugly, stupid, huge and mean?
‘With skin of green and blood of red? They number too among the dead!’
‘They feel what priests and dead men feel, we crush their strength under the wheel’!

Raise your steel and honor well the ones who fought where you do now.
‘New blood in when brothers fall, new spokes till we’ve replaced them all.’
‘New recruits repair the wheel, and reinforce the rim with steel!’
‘All else falls under our weight, all else meets the same old fate’
‘For priests and dead men cannot feel, and were long left behind the wheel.’

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I’m not sure how i feel about horses, but I don’t think it would be so hard to balance cost wise.

If a horse cost 5000-7000 gold to buy and added 25 to maintenance, players might think twice. That, and making it all but useless on anything but the plains. With only 12 slots for brothers and each one absolutely needed in some of the high tier fights, it would be risky.

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GOD wrote:

Like you say, a lot of what seems random is because you have to get used to the mechanics.It’s not that the game is random, but that it requires a different kind of playstyle compared to most other games. That is what it makes it special, though, so rather than make the beginning easier it would be better to have the start menu point starting players more clearly towards the scenarios. Those are actually closer to tutorials, rather than side-missions, as they help you get used to the combat under controlled circumstances. I noticed that this really helped me get into the game easier, as it made it obvious what I was doing wrong and how to improve on it. That’s harder to do when you keep getting thrown into different situations, while you don’t understand the basic mechanics yet. If you’re still having trouble, I’d recommend giving them a spin and seeing how you like them.

It might be helpful to know though that a deployment phase is planned, so that you can rearrange the position of your mercenaries at the start of combat, unless you get ambushed of course.

This thread and this thread also contain a lot of helpful tips that might help you get used to some of the more difficult aspects of the game.

GOD! It is you *choir music*.

Yea, a lot of it is just a huge learning curve. I’m not against that. I’ve been a fan of fire emblem and xcom for a while, and i got hooked on monster hunter just because of the learning curve and emphasis on player skill. The LAST thing I want is for them to make it easier. Just a few more tutorial missions as you’ve mentioned. I took advice from wolves’s post and am doing a lot better already just using the boar spears on my front line. Now i’m just worried that there’s not a whole lot of reason to use anything other than boar spear for non undead enemies. Fantastic game all around though. Can’t wait for more content

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Gotta say wolves, that boar spear suggestion already made early game so much more doable. Thanks for the tip!

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