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Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

rapsdjff

Overhype Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
330
Regarding the perk design, from the update, you will balance the perk on current combat balance? Or will you tweak the combat difficulty as well? The reason the aforementioned perks being so strong is because, well, the game demands it, especially on Deadly.
Making sweeping changes like a revised perk system will inevitably upset game balance, which is also why we're pushing the update to the beta branch first. Difficulty of both combat and worldmap gameplay will see several more balancing passes until the game's release.

I'm curious about other new features you have planned for that release. This seems to become a major update now. Not only we get Injuries/new perk system/unique weapons and armor but even more additional content.
The additional content is referring mostly to named weapons/armor/shields. They'll be more powerful but also much more rare now, and hunting them down is supported by a series of events and more useful tavern rumors. We'll also have new and more detailed player banners, and a few new game mechanics. Details next week!

Provided that something new comes later on, do you consider adding more levels/more perks connected to these "things"?
If by "things" you mean additional game mechanics, then yes, we'd consider adding perks that interact with them in interesting ways later on. Just like we added new perks now that interact with the upcoming injury mechanics. The new system also makes it easier for us to add additional perks without breaking anything.

Also, a little idea: how about additional few perks (totally on the side from those we have already) like "Undead slayer", "Goblin slayer", "Orc slayer" etc. - given for specific backgrounds and after killing <x> number enemies of that specific kind? All of them giving small bonuses to damage or hit chance against that kind of enemies.

That would be awesome. Hiring an assassin who starts with "Human killer" perk, making him even more specialized towards fights with bandits.

I kinda like what Hard West did with combat injuries. Combining that with negative traits could allow some unique character development (i.e. char starts with negative "traumatized by goblins" trait), after he kills enough goblins that is turned into "goblin avenger" with positive effects).
Sounds pretty neat, though it would be more in the realm of what we do with character traits and events.

I'm sorry to read this. I like the idea of shield bash a picked it a few times before I realized it wasn't the greatest choice. I thought adding a stun chance would have given it more utility.

Giving it a stun chance or a disarm chance in addition to knockback always seemed like it would make it more useful.
Yes, but giving the ability to stun would encroach too much on maces and their specialty, and it would lower the value of using maces together with shields. We could have added another kind of effect (like disarm, though that one specifically comes with a lot of potential problems), but shields are useful as is, and there isn't really a need to turn them into weapons beyond their ability to knock people around, which they retained.

Shield-bashing shouldn't be a perk, shield-bashing should be an innate functionality of having a shield at all. Any warrior who does not intrinsically grasp that a shield can bash has simply failed at being a warrior. People have this strange conception that shields are defensive-only and that using them offensively as a weapon is an unusual exception. This is simply not true: A shield is a weapon, one that happens to be oriented towards defense, but still a weapon.

I thought they meant the entire skill not just the fairly underpowered perk.
The skill granted by shields is called 'Knock Back' and wasn't changed. You can still use shields to bash and knock around the enemy like you're used to, and you don't need any perk to do so. Like sser pointed out, only the perk actually named 'Shield Bash' was dropped. With that name now free and available, we could certainly rename the skill in order to make things more clear in the future.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
The additional content is referring mostly to named weapons/armor/shields. They'll be more powerful but also much more rare now, and hunting them down is supported by a series of events and more useful tavern rumors. We'll also have new and more detailed player banners, and a few new game mechanics. Details next week!

Provided that something new comes later on, do you consider adding more levels/more perks connected to these "things"?
If by "things" you mean additional game mechanics, then yes, we'd consider adding perks that interact with them in interesting ways later on. Just like we added new perks now that interact with the upcoming injury mechanics. The new system also makes it easier for us to add additional perks without breaking anything.

Looking forward to the named item quests and how they integrate with the tavern rumours.
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
4,456
Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
There's something wrong, or at least very different, with the latest version. It seems the weapon skill has to be much higher to land hits, and even when you're in the 70s it's still iffy.

I've been watching the percentages, and it's been ridiculous at times. I just had a person miss 6 times in a row at 64% chance to hit. I had another person miss repeatedly at 92% chance (72 weapon skill, on a hill, swinging down at a zombie). What happened? It definitely wasn't like this before.
 

Thonius

Arcane
Joined
Sep 18, 2014
Messages
6,495
Location
Pro-Tip Corporation.
There's something wrong, or at least very different, with the latest version. It seems the weapon skill has to be much higher to land hits, and even when you're in the 70s it's still iffy.

I've been watching the percentages, and it's been ridiculous at times. I just had a person miss 6 times in a row at 64% chance to hit. I had another person miss repeatedly at 92% chance (72 weapon skill, on a hill, swinging down at a zombie). What happened? It definitely wasn't like this before.
Pretty much stopped playing because of constant misses in current pathc. Challenging difficulty but still feels wrong.
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
4,456
Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Perhaps hit chance is just displayed wrong?

Well, the percentage displayed certainly isn't correct, but at any rate I don't think the game is working as intended. The underlying rules have been changed, because the percentages shown appear to be the same as they always have been; I'm not seeing an unusually high or low percentage being displayed. It's just the results that are unusual; specifically, the result for high melee skill characters. I don't see the big difference between 50~ melee skill and 70+ melee skill anymore.
 

rapsdjff

Overhype Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
330
Works like it always did, nothing about it was changed.

Remember when you found it hard to believe that we didn't change the stats of direwolves? Same thing here, it's feelings. Just because you feel you deserve to hit doesn't mean you'll actually hit, and it doesn't mean that anything is broken if you don't. A 64% chance to hit is also a 36% chance to miss, and this is true no matter how many times that chance is presented to you. See also this.
 

Agesilaus

Antiquity Studio
Patron
Developer
Joined
Aug 24, 2013
Messages
4,456
Grab the Codex by the pussy Codex USB, 2014 Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
On a different note, is there any way to see exactly how weapon damage is affected by enemy type? Arrows, for example, do very little to unarmoured skeletons.
 

rapsdjff

Overhype Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
330
The only enemy type currently with a damage reduction against particular weapons are skeletons. It shows up only as "Resistance vs. Piercing" in the game and there is no way to see exact numbers.

They are
  • 90% damage reduction against arrows and bolts
  • 75% damage reduction against javelins
  • 50% damage reduction against spears, pikes and daggers
 

Dim

Not sure if advertising plant?
Joined
Feb 24, 2012
Messages
562
Location
Syndi Vegit notanatzi
and there is no way to see exact numbers.
thats not good
clear.png


Disagree x 4
What you want the minmaxers to do research and statistics or something? Turn 23; Pilferer throws Masterwork Pilium at purple skely archer one height up. misses
 

rapsdjff

Overhype Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
330
blog_header_banners.jpg

Dev Blog #81: Progress Update – Other Improvements
Progress is going well with redoing the perk system of Battle Brothers. While it’s not quite ready to go yet, we have improved the game in other aspects as well. That’s what we’re going to talk about this week, so let’s start!

Talent & Backgrounds
Certain backgrounds, like sellswords, could vastly exceed other backgrounds in effectiveness if you could afford them. That makes sense, of course, in a game that is about sellswords, but what if some farmhand or former militiaman were talented enough to eventually catch up or even surpass them?

All characters now have three attributes in which they’re especially talented – how talented is determined by a star rating of between one to three stars. The way that attribute increases on levelup used to work, you couldn’t predict exactly how character attributes would develop, and if your men would always manage to take away the right lessons away from what they experienced. Being talented in a particular attribute now means that this variance and randomness is lowered or even removed; characters will consistently roll higher on attributes in which they’re talented. Of course, the more talented, the more rare. Can you find that prodigy that has full stars with all their attributes?



In addition, we’ll be introducing two new backgrounds to the game with the coming update. We’ll also add a whole bunch of new events that take into account your party composition. Depending on the characters in your employ, you’ll have different options with events and may gain access to rewards that you otherwise couldn’t. For example, that historian you hired might just be able to make sense of the old map that appeared useless at first glance. We’re currently at 18 new events, but that number is likely to grow further before the update launches.

Shields
Attacks missing in combat happens all the time, but it can still feel frustrating as veteran mercenaries make themselves look incompetent by seemingly swinging at nothing but air. In reality, they’d miss because the opponent does their best to avoid getting hit, of course, as they dodge, block and parry the attacks. When it comes to shields, that’s something we’ll emphasize more from now on.

Any attack that misses because of the defense bonus granted by shields, or in other words because the opponent uses their shield to actively block the attack, now actually does hit the shield. This is shown visually, accompanied by different sound effects depending on the material the shield is made of, and actually damages the shield by one point. The durability of shields has been increased, so one point doesn’t mean that much, but it can slowly whittle down shields in prolonged engagements. To effectively get rid of shields, the best way is still to use the “Split Shield” skill of axes and some two-handed weapons, just like it used to be.



These changes should help to make combat feel more authentic, and misses less frustrating, as you’ll have a better idea of why you didn’t hit, and even if you didn’t hit, you may have still caused some damage to your opponents.

Overwhelming and Surrounding
Time to do some cleaning-up. The Overwhelming mechanic has been in the game since the very beginning – way back in the public combat demo that was released in 2014, a full year before the game became available on Steam Early Access. And yet, it’s remained one of the more nebulous things for players. It’s not that intuitive to understand, and even if you do understand how it works, it leads to awkward use of the wait-function in combat to make the best use of it.

Come next update, Overwhelming will be replaced by Surrounding. The new mechanic is quite easy to understand; every ally beyond the first that is adjacent to an enemy counts towards the Surrounded bonus, which increases the hit chance of anyone attacking that target in melee. It goes for you just as well as for your opponents, and there’ll be new perks interacting with this mechanic in interesting ways. And if you think that’s how Overwhelming already worked, that’s just one more reason for why this changed was needed.

Banners
The next update will also include a rework of the banners that you can choose from when creating your mercenary company. We did the current ones way back when we scrambled to get the game ready for Early Access, and we’ve now taken the time to create actual unique mercenary banners that are distinct from those of noble houses and much more detailed.

 

Beowulf

Arcane
Joined
Mar 2, 2015
Messages
1,963
This is Early Access done right. I'm constantly amazed by actual quality content being added on a rather regular basis.
 

Dr Skeleton

Arcane
Joined
Nov 9, 2014
Messages
811
Steve gets a Kidney but I don't even get a tag.
Are talents tied to backgrounds in some way or completely random? I think it's a good idea overall, the problem of higher starting stats and the same level cap remains but with potentially higher rolls on level up the difference will be smaller.

Good change on the shields but is the 1 damage on block universal for all weapons? 1 shield damage seems hardly noticeable (especially with buffed shield durability, and they badly needed that too). Why not have a bigger hp bar for shields (like armor and helmets have) and different weapon damage -> shield damage conversion rates for different weapons? 2h weapons and axes should damage shields faster than daggers or arrows. Or if that's too complex, have "x damage to shields when blocked" on attacks.
 

rapsdjff

Overhype Studios
Developer
Joined
Jan 31, 2014
Messages
330
Are talents tied to backgrounds in some way or completely random? I think it's a good idea overall, the problem of higher starting stats and the same level cap remains but with potentially higher rolls on level up the difference will be smaller.
They're largely independent, but there's a few exceptions to avoid wonky and contradictory combinations (e.g. a deserter who is a prodigy in resolve).

Good change on the shields but is the 1 damage on block universal for all weapons? 1 shield damage seems hardly noticeable (especially with buffed shield durability, and they badly needed that too). Why not have a bigger hp bar for shields (like armor and helmets have) and different weapon damage -> shield damage conversion rates for different weapons? 2h weapons and axes should damage shields faster than daggers or arrows. Or if that's too complex, have "x damage to shields when blocked" on attacks.
The specialty of axes to quickly depose of shields works well and makes for a unique choice in weaponry. That's not something we want to take away from or make overly complex, so the 1 damage on hits being deflected with shields is universal for all weapons outside of the Split Shield skill. When deliberately going for the shield with the Split Shield skill, the damage to shields still varies depending on weapon used, of course.
 

vonAchdorf

Arcane
Joined
Sep 20, 2014
Messages
13,465
The specialty of axes to quickly depose of shields works well and makes for a unique choice in weaponry. That's not something we want to take away from or make overly complex, so the 1 damage on hits being deflected with shields is universal for all weapons outside of the Split Shield skill. When deliberately going for the shield with the Split Shield skill, the damage to shields still varies depending on weapon used, of course.

I agree with this. I think it doesn't need to be more complex than this.
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
You know, it seems a terrible sin for a German developer not to show up at Gamescom, but it's not my place to judge.
 
Self-Ejected

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing
Joined
Aug 7, 2013
Messages
7,817
It's probably too expensive if you don't manage to get a deal with some indie booth.

Yeah, but I'm still puzzled how The Great Whale Road ended up booking their own booth with ~800 copies sold. Maybe they're just bad at business.
 
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