Meeky

[Meeky]

Cleavers are great, either the war cleaver or the orcish ones, in the hands of a character whose background has a ton of fatigue. See: Wildman.

I generally don’t find myself using the billhook often. Pikes work better for me because I typically need to push someone away, not pull them toward me.

Flails are the one weapon I don’t like. They’re pretty lackluster compared to other weapons. Warhammers and maces break armor better; swords are defensive; axes can bust shields; axes and cleavers both can gut anyone that’s unarmored. Even daggers are useful: you can ignore armor and go straight for murder, letting you loot items you otherwise might destroy. But flails… they just don’t have a niche. I really and truly cannot bring myself to enjoy them.

[Meeky]

As an aside: one thing I’m trying to decide presently is whether or not Perfect Focus is still worth taking. It seems to still be fine on melee characters, but archers feel pretty lackluster with it right now. The nerf was needed, though; at least there’s an actual limit on how many shots you can fire in a round now.

The offense tree is still useful, but the top tier feels a little lackluster. Killing Frenzy is probably the better of the two options, but I’m going to run a company with Perfect Focus and the horn blowers before I run a rampaging horde of berserkers. Tier 2 Offense seems to be in a good place still.

I’m actually thinking that an archer could spend 8 points in Offense before dipping into other trees. Since Battle Flow doesn’t equate to infinite fatigue anymore and Perfect Focus has real limits, it feels to me that an Archer would want to take the following:
Sundering Strikes
Executioner
Head Hunter
Fast Adaption
Bullseye
Killing Frenzy
Close Combat Archer
Berserk

And then you’d take these two traits from Utility:

Bags and Belts
Quick Hands

For obvious reasons.

Now, if Weapon Master in the utility tree provided more fatigue reduction, I’d consider archers with Perfect Focus more seriously. The trouble I ran into is that Quick Shot costs 30 fatigue when you use Perfect Focus. Even if your archer has 120 fatigue, he’s going to be drained completely in 4 shots, and then he’ll need a LOT of turns of horn blowing to get back to the point where he can fight like a normal person again. But if Weapon Master was stronger, it might still be worth doing, as you’d still have fatigue left over.

Interestingly, the one type of Battle Brother who still benefits a LOT from having Perfect Focus is the two-handed weapons guy. A pike wielder wearing heavy armor with Full Force can deal over 100 damage in one hit to the body, and that attack normally only costs 15 fatigue and 6 AP. With Perfect Focus and Berserk, such a Battle Brother can get 3 attacks like that in one turn with no problem whatsoever.

[Meeky]

Okay, I just have to bring up a couple things I’ve observed during gameplay.

1. Bounty Hunters.

Holy CRAP, this is annoying. So, I got a job to go clear out a bandit den. No biggie. There’s a bandit leader, and his head is worth money apparently. Cool. But as I’m running along back home, I get attacked by bounty hunters.

Okay, so the bounty hunters aren’t that big of a deal. There’s 8 of them. They’re better equipped, but I murder ’em with relative ease. No problem.

…But I barely take a few more steps on the world map when another group of bounty hunters attacks. This time, it’s an army. You know, 17 guys.

Okay, so at this point I just load the autosave. That’s ridiculous. I want to turn this guy’s head in to see what happens.

What? I get attacked by bounty hunters again! But this time it’s just 8 or so more guys, so I kill them. …And then the next group… and the next group…

Seriously, dial down this bounty hunter problem.

2. Reputation Degradation

Reputation degrades WAY too quickly. Consider this: if I want to work on my reputation with a village, I have to pray that the village gives me multiple jobs in a row, because it will cease being “open” to me and start being “neutral” with 1-2 day’s time passing. I just can’t keep any villages to stay friendly with me. The same goes for the noble houses: they’re cool and all, but when you get stuck doing patrols, you just can’t progress with their reputation too well.

Case in point: It’s Day 70, my reputation is Glorious (2885), and the only reputations I have are Neutral, Neutral, and Open. That’s a problem.

[Meeky]

“diSTINKtive”

You are a truly wicked man.

So, I wanted to know: when we enter a noble’s castle in-game, will their banners be floating on the town screen as well as the world map?

Also, I recall that the villages in Battle Brothers have slightly differing looks when they have different measures of wealth (I.E. impoverished and recently raided towns look overgrown and decrepit while not-so-impoverished-and-raided towns look clean-ish). Is similar planned for the towns on this worldmap? Or for the town screens?

Do note: I’m fishing for chances to see your art. I’m nosy.

[Meeky]

As an aside, a cool reward for difficult dungeons might be a Battle Brothers guaranteed to have good starting stats offering to join your group. I.E.: You just rescued someone from a dungeon, and the former prisoner is eager to fight for you. Or maybe you rescue someone’s niece or nephew or sibling or whatever, and they decide to offer you their services.

[Meeky]

Have a little bit of story, maybe a unique dungeon you have to go through with several battles without being able to repair items or heal in between. Or even a corrupt Human faction that has a super huge castle with 50 knights and 30 crossbowmen and guys dumping boiling oil on you from above.

I definitely like how you think.

Truth be told, the first time I was ever concerned was when I saw that the idea of a “greater evil” would be largely removed from the game. I understand the reasoning behind it completely – it keeps the gameplay open rather than linear, better fitting the game design that’s present – but I definitely feel there should be some sort of true “end game” beyond hunting for the nastiest camp of uglies on the map.

I’ve seen Mount and Blade come up as a comparison to this game in the past, and I think it fits perfectly for my purposes here: I hate how the game only gets easier as you progress rather than harder because you quickly begin playing mop-up with the enemy. Whether you’re creating your own nation or helping someone else become ruler, the end game is only what you decide it is, and it’s hard to have an end game when you’ve already “won” unless you want to do something silly (like prop someone up as the ruler of Caladria and then subsequently reconquer the world to build it in your image).

Now, I do find this encouraging:

Not all is lost, however, as Orcs, Goblins and Undead can now experience special events causing a surge in power. As individual orc clans unite for a time and sweep across the world, or the undead rise from their graves, new challenges arise for the player. Repelling an invasion such as this will no longer end the game or be a winning condition, but will bring variety to the game and change the playing field without constricting you to follow a linear story.

But I guess I’m hoping that these enemy factions might wield some powers that are truly end-game worthy, like a goblin clan that summons up plant-monsters to attack the player, or orcish armies that actually bring siege engines to bear into battle against your brothers. If these end-game-level invasions happen, the bases they’re coming from should be deadly.

And I definitely would love to see some gray (exploration) locations on the map that are essentially superdungeons. Like Drygord said: huge, multi-level dungeons with no healing or ammo replenishing in between, complete with traps and torchlight, remnants of a bygone era… or maybe we could have a dragon’s lair on the map, a place filled with treasure but guarded by a creature pretty much guaranteed to kill some (or all) of your Battle Brothers… This sort of content would make the game very replayable. I’d love to come back to see what new mega-challenges I might run into when I generate a new world, what monsters I haven’t discovered yet, etc.

And I’ll note: I know that if content like this is added, it won’t be for a while. Battle Brothers is run by a very busy three man team, after all. But this is the sort of stuff I’d love to see later on down the road, the dessert following the main course.

[Meeky]

It’s a single player game. If there was a multiplayer element I’d have an issue with people reloading their saves to get better stats but since their chosen route doesn’t affect my play experience I don’t understand why this “exploit” needs to be fixed

+1.

People will find ways to abuse game mechanics in single player games to cheese the system. This wasn’t a bug; it was just good ol’ fashioned traditional “save scumming.” If players don’t reload for better stats, they’ll still reload to get the best possible mercs before entering a town for the first time (as that’s when they spawn – I tested it), or they’ll reload battles to get the best possible result.

Anyway, long story short: it wasn’t an exploit any more than loading the game in any other given circumstance was. While I don’t like loading the game for stat rerolls, I don’t think the stat rolls made the game unbalanced.

There are some good things about not having rolls (like consistency in stat layouts), but it doesn’t have the same zang that the old system did. I’m looking forward to the revamp of the system when it comes. Hopefully, Brothers’ backgrounds will influence what stats level best or something. (Wildmen getting lots of fatigue? Hedge Knights getting lots of HP? Sellswords getting good Melee and Ranged attack on level up?)

One thing I’d actually love to see is every stat being leveled up a little (because who the heck actually chooses initiative, really?), but being able to choose a few stats as a “focus” for that level that gets a better increase than the others. This might require rebalancing of enemies, though.

[Meeky]

Hot dang Jaffi, I’ve never thought to all out max fatigue a guy including using light armor and then perfect focusing with a 2 hander. It seems so obvious now

I’ve done it a few times myself because two-handed weaponry is my favorite in the game. It works like a charm, but I don’t use it in every battle. Some fights pretty much demand you have that extra armor. It’s why I always keep extra gear in my pack: suits of armor, both heavy and light, spare weapons, different ranged weapons (I typically use archers but may switch to crossbows for fighting orcs / Fallen Heroes)…

One thing I’d like to note: I almost always take Perfect Focus instead of the other perk nowadays, no matter the character. Perfect Focus just has such good synergy with anything that reduces fatigue, especially Rally. Invariably, no matter who I choose to do what, when I have both Berserkers and dudes with Perfect Focus in my army, the Perfect Focus troops outperform the Berserkers.

The above is the same reason my go-to ranged weapon is a bow, but I’m able and willing to swap to a crossbow.

[Meeky]

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.

[Meeky]

I mentioned this in another thread myself (“More Brothers”), and it’s definitely my favorite solution to the problem of having horribly wounded brothers sitting in your army, or brothers that are poorly trained to deal with the sort of battle you’re running into. I think inns would be the best place, or a mercenary guild of some sort, but not a place that you own. It should definitely be a place that you owe rent, and you should only be able to have so many brothers on leave.

Maintaining reserves is definitely something we should be able to do in Battle Brothers, though I don’t think those reserves should be very largely (I lean toward the number 6 as the size of your reserves).

[Meeky]

The issue is that for the early and middle stages of the game Orcs Warriors – a mortal enemy. 5-6 orc warriors smear your party level 4-5 for a few rounds without a chance. It’s all clear and the dispute itself is only in the way that some say “I won”, while others say – “it is impossible”. Perhaps, they were just different levels of troops :).

I think this is pretty spot on. It doesn’t apply to all the arguments, but it’s definitely true. I play carefully around orcs until I’m confident in the abilities of my army… at least, that’s the case until I get offered a sum of money I can’t refuse.

I had a case when an orc warrior one surrounded by three of my brothers stood at a low level – I had 6 misses streak to him with a chance to 60+. But he answered 4 times hit in the head and almost killed two of my 11 brothers leveled in excellent armor to perk cancellation critical blow to the head and perk on umeshenny damage through armor.

That’s part of the randomness of the game, as you mention later in your post. It can swing in your favor, too. I’ve had an archer with a 5% chance to hit ghosts kill 3 in one turn thanks to perfect Focus, and an archer with only two shots kill 2 ghosts. It’s all about how the dice roll.

I’m going to draw a comparison to another video game: Battle for Wesnoth. Like Battle Brothers, it’s a turn-based strategy game with RPG elements. Battle for Wesnoth is incredibly similar in the cases of hits vs. misses; either you hit an enemy or you miss them and that’s that, and there’s no such thing as a 100% chance to hit. Ergo, there have been times during that game when I had a 90% chance to hit an enemy, had 4 attacks in that round, and the enemy had to hit me three times in a row (out of three attacks) with a 20% chance to kill me… and in that melee engagement, my guy with the hugely greater chances of winning would die. Bad RNG? Yeah, but that’s just how random numbers work. They’re random. But the big thing is: while that was bad for me, I was able to turn the tide despite the loss of one of my best units and win the battle, albeit no longer having that fellow in my retinue did hurt.

Battle Brothers is very similar. Yeah, bad luck can happen, but if you’re planning the battle right, you can mitigate the effect of that luck. If you play by saving and loading, you can avoid bad luck altogether, but otherwise… you really just have to learn to roll with the punches.

Some people don’t like that in a game that involves strategy, but I’d argue that it keeps you on edge and adds realism and adds fun. There’s a bit more anticipation that accompanies each move: will your Battle Brother be able to survive that round? Will that darned Goblin Ambusher get another couple of lucky shots off? Will the enemy rush at your seemingly exposed flank, which is a trap, or charge somewhere else?

[Meeky]

I know sometimes its hard to understand why we are so strict regarding anything that is not “make or break” for the game. But if we dont leave everything out that is not 100% neccessary this project would totally fail with just the 3 of us working on it.

That is totally understandable. That there are going to be three levels of civilian and military buildings is nice, though. It should create a bit more diversity than village-or-city and tower-or-fort.

Out of curiosity, will the old watchtowers still exist? I’m assuming if they do, they’ll be attached locations.

I’m looking forward to the next developer update. I’ve got a couple questions still concerning art, but they might be answered by the next blog.

[Meeky]

This would be useful on forest maps for sure. I’d like to see a hexagon toggle for sure.

[Meeky]

It’s really frustrating when you’re protecting a caravan and a band of raiders attacks, then they sit on defense. There should be some sort of requirement to make the attackers actually attack. If they attack the caravan i’m protecting, they shouldn’t be able to sit there forever and force me and mine to charge into their shield wall in order to progress the game.

I’ll bring up another video game here for an idea of a solution: Age of Wonders III.

In Age of Wonders III, sitting around as the attacker waiting for the defender to come to you will count as a retreat for you if you wait too many turns. Once you retreat, you get penalties on the worldmap (namely, you lost a battle, so your faction’s morale is reduced, and your army’s morale is reduced, and you lose all remaining movement points, etc.).

While all those mechanics won’t transfer over to Battle Brothers well, I could see the enemy being forced to go on the offensive if they’re the attacker after X number of turns.

[Meeky]

Texan wrote:

@Meeky
About question, you should read this

I did. As I recall, however, that blog post is talking about the interface screen differences, not the worldmap icon differences. To make my point…

The all-new village screen shows a panorama of the whole settlement and not just a single street corner anymore.

…which to me sounds as if what’s being confirmed is specifically the village interface, not the stuff we see on the worldmap.

In the screenshots Psen has posted, we can clearly see the differences between the towns / forts / etc. But can we notice that on the worldmap at a glance? That’s what I’m asking.

[Author]

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