Ranged balancing

[Sekata]

I think we’ll just have to shake and part on this one @hruza. Mid-late game most quest combat encounters with bandits include well over a 12 man cap. It’s painless for the AI to spawn any of its armies. It’s not uncommon to fight 2-3 bandit spawns with decent equipment back to back just wandering the world. When the player leaves an engagement and fights again quickly, it has to deal with damaged equipment and brothers with lower health if it doesn’t have replacements ready at all times. A bandit army can sack a caravan and attack your company with absolutely none of that hindrance. It doesn’t have to hire more brothers, it simply spawns them fully formed and adequately leveled from a bandit camp. Camps which respawn themselves. Units spawn with randomly generated equipment, there is no associated cost. I don’t see the advantage as the player’s here when the player has to replace gear and save up for decent equipment. That and perk points are precious. it’s quite a lot to have to invest 1 for every single brother regardless of role to counter a single enemy type. Wounded brothers have to sit out and the player doesn’t always have the luxury of healing up completely from encounter to encounter. I can concede the player’s cognitive advantage, but I’m still convinced that this games equipment scaling (not it’s AI) needs some extra work.

I respect your position. I don’t share it though. To me the whole point of forum engagement like this is feedback for the devs. Mine is strongly in favor of tweaks being made. BB saw a well executed development cycle. That doesn’t mean it’s perfect.

[hruza]

Just quickly looking at the Obituary in my current game (217 days):

From 25 brothers killed by raiders, only 2 were shot by marksmen. That’s less then one in ten.

[Ioci]

hruza wrote:

Just quickly looking at the Obituary in my current game (217 days):

From 25 brothers killed by raiders, only 2 were shot by marksmen. That’s less then one in ten.

in my last 2 expert mode game was 8/30(63 days) and 8/16(51 days), but still, these ranged raiders wont match what those tier 2 skeletons did to me.

[hruza]

Ioci wrote:

in my last 2 expert mode game was 8/30(63 days) and 8/16(51 days), but still, these ranged raiders wont match what those tier 2 skeletons did to me.

You mean legionaries? Those dudes are tough. At last when you have to cut through all that shields and armor. Luckily once you crack their shell, they’re quit squishy inside. And their pikemen are deadly.

[Anonymous]

I think on expert the ranged is more unbalanced (@hruza u gave statistics, would love to know if that was beginner/veteran/expert), when in the early to mid game you go up against 2-4 ranged more consistently, with crossbows and some rng they can decimate your brothers without an ability to react (i.e. with 1 ranged, a crossbow hit to head allows you to move away and protect him from ranged, vs. 2-4 ranged you sometimes don’t have time to react and instead have 4 ranged shots on your guy, giving no time to make a decision to “save” ur pawn). With a small roster and difficult access to quality rdps and heavy necessary investment, to me as a matter of balancing I just think making the crossbow have like a -5%/-10% to crit (to go with its 15% chance to hit increase). At the moment going against a group of raiders with more than 2 crossbow enemies I just know I will lose a brother or 2 because of this effect. And as a matter of realism, I would argue that it is much harder to hit the head with a ranged than with a melee weapon, so even adding something like a -1% crit chance per tile away from target would further balance things. Of course if this unbalances other parts unintentionally its a bad idea, hence why it’s important to have a discussion. Thanks to everyone so far who have included their thoughts in this post.

[Sekata]

@rydinhigh64

Don’t mean to speak for you here @hruza, so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure he plays on Veteran/Expert possibly with Iron Man on.

My problem isn’t difficulty. From what little I understand, higher difficulties spawn more enemies in armies/contracts and things are more expensive, so someone playing on veteran or higher should be facing more marksmen. If he can get through them with 2 losses up to day 200+ then more power to him.

All that aside, I still think they should be toned down. Just because one player likes the balance does not mean that the balance is fine. On the converse, many hating it doesn’t mean that it’s broken. They are an enemy type made unpleasant by their frequency and the lack tools and effective counterplay in the early game before the player has had time to get established.

I expect to get rocked by undead legionaries. You see them en-masse mostly in the undead end-crisis. In the late game. Even with a fairly well trained army, I expect to and do take losses. The undead legionaries are amazing and fun to fight. They create a fun sense of tension, and the sieges in the undead invasion have an awesome atmosphere of a withering resistance holding out against an unstopping and uncaring professional force that has overcome death.

A bunch of guys that start showing up early game with hand-cannons before you have the means to really counter them is just…. Meh. If they’re left as they are, I’d be fine if they were just less common.

[hruza]

Anonymous wrote:

I think on expert the ranged is more unbalanced (@hruza u gave statistics, would love to know if that was beginner/veteran/expert)

Veteran. However as much as I know, difficulty does not alter combat mechanic in no way, it just affect strategic level (money and stuff).

Anonymous wrote:

when in the early to mid game you go up against 2-4 ranged more consistently, with crossbows and some rng they can decimate your brothers without an ability to react (i.e. with 1 ranged, a crossbow hit to head allows you to move away and protect him from ranged, vs. 2-4 ranged you sometimes don’t have time to react and instead have 4 ranged shots on your guy, giving no time to make a decision to “save” ur pawn).

I do go against 2-4 ranged. However:
a, it is extremely rare for them to be all equipped with tier 2 xbows and bows. Usualy it’s 50/50 mix (on average).

b, hitting your guy 2 times in a turn is extremely unlikely too, unless you have exposed your guy. If you keep your brothers, especially more vulnerable ones cowered, chance is very small. Yes, it still can happen, RNG can be bitch, but then you can take two hits to the head from axe in the same turn too.

When I go against enemy group which have that many ranged units, I adapt my tactics and equipment. If you fight battle why enemy have ranged units the same way as when he does not, then it will have consequences.

As a minimum, your whole front line should have kite shields. Unless you fight in the forest and you intend to use natural cover. Then in the battle itself, brothers without shields should always when possible be positioned in a such way, that they are protected from fire.

You can’t influence RNG roll directly, but you can make it less likely to roll against you, especially more times in a row.

[hruza]

Sekata wrote:

so correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure he plays on Veteran/Expert possibly with Iron Man on.

Yes, Iron Man on Veteran.

[ThePinkPanzer]

I swear to God the enemy cheeses its rolls for ranged somehow.

Bandit poachers getting consistent head shots on my archers who are sitting behind my line is simply ridiculous. If not RNG fuckery then I imagine they have a ridiculous skillset (75+ ranged skill or some such). It becomes infuriating since there’s really nothing you can do early-mid game.

[RusBear]

if a simple t1 goblin has 25 base ranged def, why do you think that poacher can’t have 100 ranged skill? )
Real, Rap, just give us good , detailed battle log with all the rolls and chances for enemies – and many questions and indignation if it does not disappear, then at least becomes an agrumented.

[hruza]

One thing I have realized is that some of “amazing” shots at your back line guys are actually misses on your front guys. It can happen to player ranged as well, it’s just that players normally don’t target front guys with shields. Front guys without shields are not hard to hit so not many misses there. AI on the other hand targets shielded guys regularly because they still have higher chance to hit then guys behind.

[Danubian]

They changed something about ranged combat, i dont know what, for one of the beta patches before release. Its been a nightmare fighting ranged enemies ever since. Every shot inflicts a wound, enemies often focus on a single guy, and just murder them in one turn etc. Its kinda making me not wanna play.

[ThePinkPanzer]

I have to agree, I don’t remember this being a problem earlier in the betas either.

[mrbunnyban]

I’m not sure why there is so much hate for enemy ranged weapon fire. Player ranged weapon fire is just as potent, it’s only fair enemy fire is a significant threat. With a little planning in my builds the only time I lose bros to ranged fire is when large amount of crossbows spawn on a hill or my own archers has a new recuit with poor stats in the late game. Previously folks used to not put points into ranged defense in most of their brothers at all in previous betas, which goes to show that enemy ranged fire back then was too weak.

[Author]

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