That’s great to hear, welcome aboard!
I think the perception of ranged weapon damage at least might be somewhat skewed by the fact that the demo so prominently features skeletons as enemies who have a high resistance against ranged attacks (they only take 20% of the damage), even though they’re pretty fragile in melee (they take the full 100%, like all other enemies). Ranged weapons should work reasonably well against necromancers and the other non-skeleton enemies in the demo, also because none of them wear shields. A hit to the head will usually outright kill a necromancer and the weaker zombies.
Regarding ranged weapon accuracy, for the demo we just went with the same slightly above average value as the ranged skill for every Batle Brother. In the full game you’ll be able to specialize your Battle Brothers upon levelup by increasing their ranged skill and selecting from perks that synergize with their role and thereby increase their effectiveness in ranged combat. That said, being able to attack an opponent without him being able to retaliate can obviously be a huge advantage, one most melee weapons don’t have. The mechanics of a blocked line of fire then are also a way to keep it balanced and reward the player for good positioning.
The player won’t be able to command a magic-user in the sense of a wizard or similar. However, since we will have some magic items, and some of them will come with active skills, a Battle Brother could be specialized to be a magic-user this way. In general we want to keep the player side relatively down-to-earth powerwise. They’ll always be a bunch of regular mercenaries and adventurers – a few of which might just happen to carry magic artifacts. Magic aside, we’ll also keep expanding the player’s tactical options by adding more specialized weapons. This week we’ve added the Warhammer, which excels against armored opponents with two new and mechanically unique skills.
