Reply To: [suggestion] Clearly unbalanced enemies
The thing battle brothers lacks is transparency more than anything else. An even band of orcs will be a lot worse than an even band of bandits. At most the label is wrong, but the balance is fine.
No what the game lacks is balance.
It needs more gradual transformation of enemies within each faction.
1. Orcs are supposed to be physically stronger than humans. Orc young will hit harder than a normal battle brother, and an orc berserker can pretty easily kill all but the most prepared of your brothers. As a trade off, berserkers don’t wear armor, and are pretty easily to riddle with arrows before they close distance. Learn the strengths of your targets.
Orcs can be made physically stronger than humans AND still not be able to 2 hit kill a heavily armored brother. Is that too difficult to do? Because im fairly certain its not. For example they could rebalance the armors or weapon stats so that armors play a bigger role and actually provide something to the player. You know its not really that outlandish to ask the developers to make armors do what armors are supposed to do: keep people alive. If i spend 10 hours leveling up and equipping my brothers with best items in game, i expect them to obtain a bit more survivability than they used to have at level 1 with 30 armor.
Im in a fight against about 15 Orcs. About half are Orc Warriors and about half are Berserkers. I have 3 archers. So how am i supposed to get rid of Berserkers before they close in? I can take out 2, 3, maybe 4 if im lucky. If i make half of my team archers, i might pick off Berserkers, but then Orc Warriors will slaugher me. Even with crossbows you can stop them at range in large battles. You will have to take them on in melee.
In any case if you have to make such drastic decisions just to beat a single opponent – thats usually an indications that something is out of balance.
There are many different ways to make Orcs unique, without making them overpowering at the same time. Look at those undead zombie thingies. Those fights are brilliantly fun and entertaining, nobody is complaining about those. Or bandits.
2. As for goblins, the solution has already been mentioned in this post. If you go after the little buggers at night time with one or two war dogs in tow, the fights can be ridiculously easy, especially with kite shields.
Nope. The solution hasnt been mentioned because i dont think people read what the problem is. Or maybe i didnt explain it well enough. So ill try again. Unlike Orcs, that are clearly brokenly OP and out of balance, the Goblins are not OP or out of balance. The only problem with them is that they are tedious, annoying and boring to fight. First of all just for the record lets differentiate some things. Goblin parties consist out of melee fighters and Ambushers. Melee fighters are unique and do their own thing (throw nets and bola thingies) and i have no problems with them, fighting them is a straightforward process thats fun. The problem are Ambushers and their hit and run tactics. And not so much their damage or their brutal strength – because in both cases they are just meh – but because they have a tendency to run around. This running around is forcing me to chase them around the map, and that part is BORING. I will spend 2x more time just moving around the map trying to catch them than i do fighting their melee fighters. And thats a problem. Youre making me waste my time. Its neither challenging nor fun its just tedious. And yes, i do have and use dogs. And no dogs are not a magical solution for goblins. If you release dogs before melee fighters are dead, since dogs are very smart they will just run straight into them and get slaughtered. And if you release dogs after melee fighters are dead, Ambushers will already have started to fall back and that means probably between 5 and 10 additional turns of chasing after them. Sure you think “wow theyre smart” first time you see their tactic. Sure youre amused first 5 times chasing after them. But after 10 times it just becomes repetitious and boring. A simple waste of time that doesnt add to the “fun” factor of playing a game.
If anything battle brothers needs a manual filled with tips about enemies and strategies. For the most part, there is a strategy for dealing with most enemies in the game pretty easily if you know their strengths and weaknesses. The part that I find most brutal is the ambush system, where the game spawns an insane amount of enemy bands around your company to keep you from getting to an objective.
Diversity is fun, having to change your entire team just to be able to survive a single enemy type is not fun (specially when youre a higher level). Its another indication that something is out of balance.
Other than that, the game is pretty balanced. The superior physical nature of the orcs and the skirmish tactics of the goblins is what makes the factions distinct. Changing the composition too much would water down the experience and make certain encounters far too easy.
The current abilities Orcs have dont make them distinct, it makes them stupidly OP.
The current tactics Goblins use dont make them distinct, it makes fighting them a needless effort of micromanagement and an utter unfun waste of time.
Take some time to learn more about the game. I had the same complaints you did before I learned how to play.
I have pretty much figured out how to play the game – after 3 level 10 parties. The difference between you and i, is that you simply accepted poorly balanced things, got yourself familiarized with them and youre comfortable with the way things are. Whereas i wish to have them improved and dont want to simply settle for how things are because i know they could be done in a better and more fun way.
Ill give you an example.
You will repeat again that Orcs are physically stronger than humans, and i will tell you that this is poor game design/complete lack of balance. Just in case i will explain what that screenshot shows. Thats one Young Orc destroying 2 shields with a single hit in a single game turn on easiest difficulty level. There is no RPG game where you will see that. But at the same time i dont wish to take that away from you, if thats how you want to play BB. Just use the highest difficulty setting and have fun.
As for the skeletons and the orc warriors, weapons have different stats that make them better or worse against certain enemy types. Skeletons don’t have vitals, and so arrows don’t do a whole lot of damage. Use smashing weapons.
Sure, i figured that arrows are only partly good against skelies (you can still kill their armor and pick off necromancers, they die in like 2 arrows which is great). Didnt have problem with any other type of weapons though, swords, morning stars etc all works just fine (also they often die in just 1 hit).
As for the orc warriors, use crossbows (which have a higher armor penetration stat) and weapons that crush armor. Most of your complaints come from a gap in knowledge. There’s a lot to learn in BB, and no way to learn it but trial and error.
I would love to see you take on 10 Orc Warriors with 12 brothers around level 5. I cant do it at level 10 with 3 dedicated archers (who can switch between bows and crossbows). If i put more crossbows, i have fewer melees, who then get rushed and overwhelmed. Nope, we do have a balance problem. Sure make Orcs more powerful than humans, just dont make them that powerful.