Build 0.5.0.1. Discussion of the patch.

[Jago]

Wow, the goblins are tough.

With this update I started to boost my hitpoints more, in combination with colossus to counter the new armor system. Still it didn’t save me against the melee attacks of the goblins. High evasion and directly attacking the hitpoints is a deadly combination, no matter the physical strength. It makes me want to try a swordmaster build with a dagger.
The archers are the best of all factions. Lower damage is easily outweighed by the high hit-chance and the poison. They hit very often, maybe I should boost my ranged defense more. Not sure how to do that – all other stats are now so important, too. Even in melee the goblins archers are very dangerous, because they just like the other melee fighters, hard to hit and attack your hitpoints directly.
My archers have a lot of trouble hitting the goblins, although I had quite a few lucky one-hit-KO against goblins without helmets. Against shields it’s tricky, luckily most goblins so far didn’t have shields.
And there are the wolfrider. Pretty strong with their three attacks. Manageable, but I usually have to swarm them in order to take them out quickly. I’m currently using chainmail, but none of my guys survives fighting a wolfrider on his own.

Imho the goblins are a bit to well all-rounded. They don’t have any real weakness, on the battlefield or on the world map. All goblins on the world map I’ve seen were super fast, but maybe these were just the ambushers. I managed to win an even fight without any real losses. Two guys died, but I only hired them recently. Two guys of my main crew only survived barely.

The first was fighting a goblin on his own and was dangerously reduced to minimum health. He was wielding a 2-handed weapon which is probably a mistake against goblins, and the archers fired at him as well (2 of ’em), but miraculously missed. Then the goblin in melee missed as well. My other brothers came to aid and finished the goblin of.
The other one was chasing an archer, again on his own was critically stabbed and only saved because he could knock the archer away with his shield. In the following turn the goblins were retreating, so he was save. The goblin archers are to good in melee I think.

Visit the Battle Brothers Wikia

[Anonymous]

Goblins
-I find the key to fighting them is to use shields. Equip shields on everyone but the archers and advance 2 squares at a time using shieldwall until within 4 spaces for the charge. Having my archers stand behind the shieldwall gives them an advantage in the ranged fight. My two-handers always get the quick hands skill so they can switch to a billhook or pike if they need the extra range to make them useful when 3 spaces away from the enemy. This allows them to use the shield while advancing alongside my one-handers. I only have my two-handers carry a shield when I see goblins coming for me on the overworld map.

Character advancement
The +2 melee attack really unbalances game as far as weapon choice
-ranged attack gets +3, new weapons, more piercing damage, counters goblins… they become the clear winner over melee characters
-lvl 11 daytaler will often have the same melee attack as a lvl 1 hedge knight
-we MUST choose melee attack on level up as there are only +20 max and missing out is terrible, so we only have 2 real choices for skills to level

Some really fun things due to the new mechanics
-archer with quick hands, large pockets and bezerk allows one guy to fire 3 xbows, downing 3 full health bandits or goblins in one round
-archer with quick hands and a 2-handed sword lures a wolfrider while taking shots then swaps to melee and then really goes to town
-swordmaster vs 4 orc warriors kills them using his sword without destroying the armor
-my axemen don’t care what armor bandits are wearing, they die in 1 or 2 hits.
-using bushes to shield my men vs goblins and then pouncing never gets old

[Erendir]

I’ve got an initial battle brother Wendel, “one of the more talented marksman you’ve encountered in your travels” and so on.
Excited after this description I take a look at his stats: melee skill is 49, ranged is 38. Oo
Well, he is drunkard resulting in -5 melee and -10 ranged, but even without this penalty it’d be 54 and 48 — still not enough to be a talented marksman imo.

[Rap]

I’ve changed it so that the ranged companion will never be a drunkard now.

Overhype Studios - follow us!
Facebook Youtube
Twitter

[Erendir]

that’s nice, thanks. What are the ranges for melee and ranged skills on a ranged companion?

[Hobbes]

Further testing with the goblins definitely implies they’re too well “prepared” as an OpFor. They seem to have answers for most things and the AI -knows- this. My immediate advice would be to reduce their throwing weapons numbers down a bit so we don’t get Battle Brothers focus fired down into paste from skirmisher groups (because at the lower levels that’s what you run into and they’re absolutely horrific).

I like the idea that they enforce a more combined arms approach but if the only solid solution is “Lots of archers” that more or less enforces a one note fix to one army, and then you wind up carrying a lot of inventory around to deal with different types of force composite. That might be fine for the late game, but not so much for the early game.

[RusBear]

Perk’s tree and 11 level cap- not ready for goblins’s patch.( you may build party which can fight vs goblins or vs all other cuz it must be 2 different parties) Unplayble vs goblins in present moment. 3 times i was start battle vs “weaker” goblin pack try different tactic and kite shealds and 3 times all my party was dead till 4-6 round. That’s all. I will take rest for some time.

[iason]

I played 10 hoers since the patch and now I feel comfortable fighting Goblins. With a lot of losses (and ideas from other players) I have developed some good strategies to fight them, like I developed Strategies to fight orcs in the beginning. Key part for me playing the game right now is always looking who i am going to fight (bandits, orcs, wolfriders, ambushers, etc.) and prep my Brothers accordingly before the fight.

Strategie 1, against mixed groups ofgoblins: Half of the Brothers with decent or al least not absolutely terrible Range-Skills get Crossbows or, if not available, bows. Other half has shields (kite if possible) and throwing weapon + sword or spear in the packpack. Front row with shields use mostly shieldwall to protect themself and the Crossbowmen behind them. With such overwhelming Firepower the goblins go down like flies.

Strategie 2, Good against mostly Ambusher Goblin-Groups: Attack only at night, all Brothers get Shield + Sword or Spear.

Strategie 3, against Wolfriders: 3 Crossbows, rest with Shield + Sword (or Spear). Use Riposte in Melee and with the Crossbows you can get the circeling riders in range and can still shoot.

A big compliment to the Designers, the Goblins fill the intended spot very good, have a good difficuty and are fun to fight (when you get used to it). They are only too strong when you don’t adapt you strategy and to force the player to that is a good thing (in my opinion).

Stay strong.

[thenewromance]

Have the spawning rules for enemy groups been changed? I was obliterated within the second day. First encounter: the tutorial one, no problems. Second encounter: “challenging” or “deadly” (don’t remember exactly) bandits. Fled towards the help of Landsknechts. Third encounter: “deadly” goblins. Fled towards the help of “deadly” Landsknechts, who in turn turned and ran from the goblins. Fortunately, “impossible” Landsknechts arrived. The two Landsknecht squads and my brothers combined were able to defeat 5 goblins and make one rout, at the cost of 2 Landsknechts and several wounded. It was 24 against 6. Goes to show how hard goblins are… even comparably strong Landsknechts run. Now, fourth encounter: “challenging” bandits away from any help. Game over.

That didn’t happen to me in earlier builds. There was the odd unmanageable werewolf attack, but apart from that the difficulty ramped up nicer. I really believe there shouldn’t be “deadly” goblins beside the main route and castle on day one or two. Neither should overwhelmingly powerful bandits be besetting you within minutes of starting the game.

[Aktenschredder]

I love the update. But some critical comments nonetheless:

1. The game also got considerably harder in the early stages. Lethality amongst my brothers is higher than ever. The new armor system + an AI that focus fires fairly well means that I suffer losses in engagements that I would have considered “easy mode” before this patch.

2. Early game balance might be off. With higher prices, your brothers tend to wear weaker equipment for much longer – which is good – but it also means that there are more enemy bands running around the map that a low-level mercenary band can not defeat. Result: you spend a lot more time running away!

3. The new stat system for backgrounds has made weaker backgrounds lose value. Under the old patch, I used to take chances on weaker backgrounds. If the stats proved unsatisfactory, that battlebrother got to suicide in battle or was simply fired as soon as I could afford a better replacement. I have found some pretty amazing talent that way.
Under the new patch, you will still hire a few cheap guys to get your company started but they tend to suck. Only the expensive backgrounds seem to give you real quality. In contrast, these backgrounds now give much better stats than ever before.
Simply put: I think you went a bit too far here as well. Weak backgrounds tend to be too bad now, while the elite backgrounds are so good anything else is simply not worth hiring … unless you are too poor.

4. I hope the next point on your to-do-list is a world map overhaul: A larger map with more locations (cities/villages/etc) but also other more exotic stuff (the hut of a heremit, an isolated abbey (perhaps offering some healers that could patch your band up?), a fair (a loaction where you get a really great market with good prices or even some exotic goods – however this location woulnd’t be permanent but only available for a week or so), the construction site of a big castle (you might be able to hire some stoneworkers there), broken down bridges, the ruin of an old city (perhaps with some rare treasure?), the forge of a mastersmith (rare weapons/armor available for sale against truely hefty prices)). There are countless possible locations that would make the world feel more varied and more alive.

5. Another long time issue: it would be nice to have more contracts available. Too often there are none available at all – but your mercs depend on contracts to keep the band running (especially early on). More choices would be nice as well.

Last but not least, a big compliment: This is an exceptionally well run early-access! Your small team does a fantastic job communicating with the people who bought your game: Frequent blog updates, Paul’s art corner, …
Keep up the great work!

[Erendir]

Just saw a hedge knight available for hire for 8000 gold.
I must say, I really love the new prices. (no sarcasm, I really do)

[Aktenschredder]

Another unfortunate side-effect of the changes to the economy is that now the boring “messenger boy” phase lasts much longer. This is the worst part of battlebrothers: your party is too weak to defeat most enemies or take out their hideouts and all you do is go from city to city delivering messages while avoiding orcs, wolves and now goblins and desperately hoping to stumble over some bandit thugs so that you can gain some xp and steal theri equipment.

So much awesome new stuff but such terrible balance now.

[Jago]

After playing the newest patch for more hours, I took the following notes:

-There’s no way to buy nets. I’d love to use them more often, but I can only get them by hiring fishermen. Goblins haven’t dropped them yet.
-Is the accuracy of throwing weapons determined by the ranged skill, or entirely by the distance, no matter how skilled the user is?
-When using War Dogs in battles with the militia, the militia attempts to kill them! ;( Haven’t seen melee attacks, but ranged attacks.
-The bandit armor decreases the max. fatigue less then regular armor with the same durability. Same for vision. Also these bandit helmets with the red cloth appear very often for me. Most of my brothers have this helmet now, and I never had to buy any new helmets.
-I still get loot from enemies I didn’t kill. Is that supposed to be this way?
-I lost an even battle against the orcs (ugh…). So I reloaded and the orcs became stronger! I fought again, lost, reloaded, and they became even stronger! Even —> Challenging —> Deadly
-The young orcs name is “Orc Young”. Shouldn’t it be “Young Orc”?

I’m really enjoying this build. The goblins are very challenging and a bit overpowered. I lost two men against a puny goblin scout group, due goblin archers stabbing them to death. I had this one guy cornered with two of my BB, but they kept missing and missing for 3 turns (darn you RNG!), until the goblin killed one of them. The other one barely survived with critical health.
Also orcs appear to have better armor now. The warriors and leader are much tougher. Really hard to take down. Can’t imagine how it’d be to take on dozens of orc warriors at once, like in the old builds.

Visit the Battle Brothers Wikia

[Harlequin]

Im not one to complain, but… I drew an ‘even’ band of goblin ambushers into a fight with a ‘challenging’ band of orcs. I pulled my brothers back, and let them fight it out. The result? All 13 Orcs were dead, and none of the 8 goblins were even wounded?! An even group of goblins absolutely annihilated a challenging group of orcs, that is way overpowered.

When I defeat a band of goblins the cost of the brothers lost, the equipment damaged/destroyed can easily cost $1000-2000 and the payoff is $800-900

This is very frustrating…

[Hobbes]

If the accuracy of thrown weapons is determined strictly by range, this may go some way to explaining the absolutely absurd accuracy the goblins have with their bolas, seriously, they have a hit rate in the upper 70’s with those things at the outer edge of that range during daytime, but they won’t use them at all during night (I’m guessing this is because the AI knows the chance to hit and therefore assumes it’s a waste of time).

[Author]

Posts