Reply To: [suggestion] Clearly unbalanced enemies
As for claim that your guy can take 2 or 3 orc warriors im confused.
This is a character from my last build.
Sorry, I’m a bit confused. Are you saying this character…
…has the same build and equipment as THIS character?
I’m thinking you may have posted the wrong screenshot, because those two characters are nothing alike.
That said, I typically build my guys to play very specialized roles in my party, so the melee tanks are godly at tanking, but the guys with two-handed weapons and bows shred enemies apart. Nobody works alone. They always work as a team. But I’m not the guy you were asking a question of.
The character Jaffai posted doesn’t look like a character that could take on 2-3 orc warriors that get into melee range – his attack stats are high, but his melee defense is 18, his HP is really low, he wears light armor and he only has 10 bolts with which to fire from afar – but he does look like he’d be able to kill 2-3 orc warriors while there’s a tough dude with a shield standing in front of him. Seems like a solid archer that can quickly turn into a deadly backline warrior. I think I will try that out in my next game.
If there is a part of the content that is so powerful that even you admit its possibly too powerful unless you make a perfect skill progression designed to counter that content specifically – that means we have a balancing issue.
My understanding is that you feel fights in which you lose brothers in the late game are too powerful. Personally, I think that’s where our mentality is different.
You’ve stated several times that this game shouldn’t be a super duper difficulty level game, so I’d like to make it clear: I am not looking for an ultra hard super difficult cannot beat without perfect builds Ironman gameplay experience. Heck, I don’t play most Battle Brothers run in Ironman, only a portion of them. I am, however, more than happy to accept that my Battle Brothers can and will die in the course of a game, even in the late game when they’ve been fully fleshed out, because there are opponents designed to be late-game opponents. That’s GOOD gameplay balance, if you ask me. That means I’m never going to be unstoppable; I’m always going to have some sort of risk of failure; and without that risk of failure, there’s no reason to play. It’s the same reason things like Critical Hits and Critical Fumbles exist in tabletop RPGs. There will always be that chance of great success (or failure) even in seemingly hopeless (or impossible to lose) conditions because that gives every situation that slightest bit of unpredictability, that slightest chance that your plans and the story may change entirely based on a roll of the dice.
Does the game need some balance changes? Perhaps. Should shields be buffed, for instance? I think they could use a bit more toughness. But I honestly think orcs are in a good place right now. They’re tough, they’re dangerous, and if you don’t approach them the right way you’re prone to losing a ton of resources.
Orcs are tough, but they can be made pretty trivial with specialized builds, yes. It isn’t necessary to beat them, but it certainly helps. It can leave you weak in other areas, which I hope we can fix eventually by having reserve troops in the future. Reserve troops would help balance issues immensely.
Also, because the developers are going to be putting the next update out months rather than weeks in the future, I’m going to start working on my video series sooner than later – probably within 3 weeks – rather than when the next update starts. As you asked, I’ll post it here when I start it.
Concerning the character you posted, Danubian:
So, this is why I feel the whole “Put nimble on all the frontliners” thing doesn’t work out well. Your character is a Brawler, which doesn’t really give that much of a benefit for a guy that wants to dodge attacks. Certain backgrounds have high melee defense, but Brawler isn’t really one of them.
This character is probably the sort I would have given a Pike or Billhook and slapped in the backline, or maybe I’ve have made him an archer because he started with 44 ranged attack. Assuming he’s a two-handed weapon specialist, I’d have focused on upgrading his Melee Attack and HP and Fatigue mostly, because in that case he won’t be worried about being murderized in the frontline.
He’d have with him a character or two that either A) use a shield to great effect or B) have the stats to allow themselves to be amazing Nimble defenders (maxing Melee Defense and swinging around a warhammer, a spear, a dagger, a sword, and probably a cleaver or axe). This would make them able to deal respectable damage to any foe (assuming they have 70 melee attack), and they’d be hard to hit by orcs.
If I wasn’t happy with the melee defense of my troops, I could give a character (in fact, this could be one of my Nimble tanks) the Inspiring Presence perk in the Utility tree, which would give my army +melee defense and +attack. If memory serves, there’s also a Holdout perk that I could give any Nimble guy, and it doubles the bonus from Confident… which, IIRC, makes that Confident bonus at the start of the fight pretty substantial.
I hope to show you exactly what I mean once I get the video running, but the point is: specialization is key, and your Brothers may not be able to kill 2-3 orc warriors on their own, but together they should be able to kill quite a darned lot.