Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Lucky]

Turning to bandrity when no lucrative contracts are available is part of the core mercenary experience.

It doesn't seem like it'd be too hard to implement. Give your band a reputation with each city. Rep goes up a little when you complete contracts. (Up a lot for the city you did it in, moderately for neighbouring cities). Rep goes down when you break contract or murder civilians. Rep goes down enough, you can't get volunteers, goods become more expensive and guards may chase after you. Do missions elsewhere to slowly repair rep.

But eh... If they have a vision they'd like to implement, it shouldn't be compromised over what one guy on a forum says. Especially when they already have my money. It just seemed like regional/global reputation would make sense to have. And my band (The Battle Brofists) was running low on food after trekking through the wilds when some plump, puny caravan showed up. If I'd been allowed to turn bandit (hell, just let me trade with a moving caravan. clicking on it did nothing), my bros wouldn't have gone hungry and left.

I’m kind of on the same page. I’d would have liked to have something like robbing implemented with logical penalties if you do it too much, as mercenaries historically tended to be assholes. So if you rob people (and kill those that resist) you make less resources available to that region. Meaning less supplies for the city, so less goods to buy and weaker militia. Doing it too much would be counter-productive, as you'd just make it easier for enemy factions to destroy you all. Also, you'd no longer be welcome in cities. I can see how it would unbalance the early game though, as you'd want to do a few small raids to get a strong start and then use that to do harder contracts for extra reputation. I still would like to see something implemented that simulates pissed off, underpaid and hungry mercenaries getting rowdy.

 

[rashiakas]

Some thoughts about weapon balance. Lets look at the damage to fatigue ratio of the better weapons first:

Weapon | Health Damage per Fatigue | Armor Damage per Fatigue

Greatsword 7,8 / 11,3
Greataxe 9 / 17,5
Billhook 5,66 / 8,77

Fighting Axe 3,65 / 5,23
Warhammer 2,68 / 5,9
Mace 3,46 / 5,85
Noblesword 4,75 / 4,95
Boar Spear 3,5 / 4,2

In the two handed category, the greataxe would win by a large amount, but the greataxe also always hit head and body armor and I'm not sure how the game calculates damage here. If you take a look at the combatlog after an greataxe hit, you'll notice the damage is way lower then it should be. Still, always hiting (and criting) the head is great, but in reality the greatsword is probably the better weapon with 5% increased hit and a 30% chance to stun. The billhook has reach and a 5% hit bonus.

The one handed Category looks balanced for the most part. The weakest weapon here is the Boar Spear, but with its 20% hit bonus the calculated damage increases to 4,2 / 5,04 which is rather good. With low fatigue cost per hit the noble Sword is the clear overall winner with 10% hit bonus, giving the weapon a calculated damage of 5,23 / 5,45. The Fighting Axe and Mace are used to destroy shields and armor respectively, leaving the Warhammer as least useful weapon overall.

In conclusion I think the weapons are in a good spot overall. Personally I think the warhammer should do more armor damage and the mace should do a little less. The Greataxe does to much armor damage on paper, and it might be to strong versus highly armored targets.

 

[Eyestabber]

So my campaign so far:

I'm starting to get the hang of things, did a couple of quests and got some decent gear. However, during a fight with some crappy bandits (whom we were completely butchering) one of my guys took a VERY UNLUCKY arrow and sadly, passed away. Even though his death didn't mean game over (far from that) I had to scale back a bit and currently the only quests I'm getting are Fedex "go to city X" quests. No more contracts to kill stuff. Also, there is a "destroy den" contract, but it's WAAAAAY above my power level. The game became pretty slow atm, since those Fedex contracts give very little profit. Usually half of the reward goes toward merc upkeep. Any tips? Also: is there any way of checking a guy's stats BEFORE I hire him? This is specially annoying with archers, since most guys that come equipped with a bow are NOT competent archers AT ALL.

 

[Eyestabber]

Oh, that battle was GLORIOUS btw, despite the loss. One bandit thought he was safe behind his heater shield, my (now deceased) axe dude shattered his shield, followed by a two-handed attack from another guy that resulted on a delicious one-shot-kill on that bandit scum! Nice!

 

[Trash]

Glad to see these guys added an option to upgrade to the supporter edition. I never ever buy anything like that as they usually don't offer anything I want. For the sheer awesome that Battle Brothers is I'm however more than happy to throw down another 20 euro. This early access is scratching an itch I've been having since UFO and Darklands.

 

[rashiakas]

More thoughts on stats and perks this time. At the moment I only level melee offense, melee defense and stamina for almost all my brothers. This is why:

Hit points are pretty useless in this game, because even early on you'll get armor with 100 hp and later on you'll wear 300 hp plate armor. Increasing your hp from 50 to 80 at level 10 just isn't worth it. I highly suggest to double the amount you get and also increase hp by 50% with the colossus perk. Armor increase would still be better, but at least it could be useful for a lightly armored barbarian or somesuch.

Fatigue is either mandatory or useless. Your heavies need it, your backrow don't since a billhook hit costs exactly 15 fatigue. A change I'd like to see would be percent based recovery of fatigue. At the moment you get 15 per turn no matter what, if you'd get like 20% of your fatigue it would probably work better. The fatigue perks should get a redesign as well, because right now they are a bit underwhelming. Brawny is worth 17 fatigue in a coat of plates, thats not even a single shieldwall. I think it should at least include fatigue from helmets, if not from weapons as well. Weaponmaster should probably give you a fixed amount of stamina reduce instead of 20 percent. Right now you'll get enough stamina reduce for swords to get unlimited attacks, but for most other weapons the perk isn't really worth the cost. With the low numbers it also is a bit confusing how it is being calculated, 20% of 13 is 2,6 - do I get 2 (15%) or 3 (23%) stamina reduction?

Resolve - you only need one guy with high resolve and the captain perk. I think this would be better if it only worked for morale checks, but things like maneuver (pushback, stun etc.) shouldn't be affected by the captain perk.

Initiative is a pretty weak stat because you get your action anyway. Linking it with dodge is a good idea, but the bonus should last the whole fight.

 

[Lucky]

New blog post.

Spoiler

Recap: One week of Early Access

Battle Brothers launched into Early Access just about a week ago and so far it has been quite a ride!

First of all, a big thank you to all who have supported us by buying the game, giving feedback and suggestions, and reporting bugs! Please keep it up and keep spreading the word and help us getting people to know about Battle Brothers!


It’s now possible to upgrade your game to the Supporter Edition directly on Steam if you’ve enjoyed yourself playing the game and want to further support the development of Battle Brothers.

During the past week we were busy mainly with answering questions and fixing the most urgent of bugs. Nevertheless, we managed to squeeze in some smaller balancing changes and quality-of-life improvements based on your requests. Now that the dust of the launch is slowly settling we’ll soon change our focus again on adding new features to the game.

What’s next on the list?
We’ll soon start working on our first new feature: The event system.

While traveling the world a lot of unforeseen things can happen and surprise you. These events can occur anytime and anyplace and will force you to make tough decisions outside combat. Just to give you random example of what might be; if there is a Battle Brother with a criminal background in your mercenary company, a passing guard patrol might recognize that character and demand you hand him over as a prisoner or face the consequences. Similarly, individual characters in your group might interact depending on their backgrounds and traits – will the adventurous noble get along with the lazy sluggard beggar?

Events like this will not be entirely random but depend on what happens in the world and which characters are in your company. Their outcomes will be partially randomized for the sake of replayability. The possibilities for creating interesting, challenging and morally ambiguous events are limitless.

The event system is also much more than just the events themselves. It lays the foundation for a dialogue system that allows the player to interact with all parties on the worldmap like caravans or patrols. This will open up a lot of opportunities to create interesting encounters and make the player feel a lot more like a part of the world. Depending on how the event system works out, the whole contract system may also see a complete overhaul in the future to make for something more engaging than the current wall of text.

At this point it’s difficult to estimate how long it will take to get the event system into the game so we won’t give an ETA here. Make sure to follow our developer’s blog to always get the latest updates and we will tell you about our weekly progress.

Event system is looking promising and it seems like everything is on schedule.

There's also a new article by RPS that is drawing some attention.


For those that don't want to feed RPS:

Spoiler

Jagged Alliance With Skellingtons: Battle Brothers

Mercenaries are great. I’ve never met one in real life, mind, and don’t think I’d want to, but they’re invariably great when they pop up in games. Perhaps part of the appeal is that their apparent amorality lets us play soldiers without considering politics or aftermath – whatever the reasons may be, I’m usually glad to see a band of guns/swords-for-hire. Whether they’re a shortcut to short-term success in a strategy game or the delightful bastards of Jagged Alliance, the mercenaries of gaming are alright with me.

Now we can add Battle Brothers [official site] to the list of Good Mercenary Games. Currently in Early Access, it’s a very lovely thing indeed.


It’s entirely possible that you’ve turned your nose up at the mention of Early Access. Turn it back down again. No, that’s too much. Now it sort of looks like you’re glowering at me.

Here’s the thing – Battle Brothers is already capable of providing good times. Every new game begins with the creation of a world, made up of settlements for shopping and quest-gathering, and other places for actual questing. You’ll hire your band of brothers (sisters may be added before full release), each with their own background, traits and skills, equip them, and then take a job.

Some of those jobs are escort missions. You’ll click on the target location and watch as your squad trundle across the map, hoping that they don’t encounter anything unpleasant. Or, if you’re anything like me, you’ll hope that they do encounter something unpleasant so that you can play around with the excellent turn-based tactical combat. It’s simple enough, with ranged weapons, melee skills, elevation and flanking advantages – everything you’d expect – but it’s all pitched just right. Maps are small, encouraging swift resolution and focus on the fine details, and the graphics are crisp and clean.

At first, you’ll be fighting bandits and the like, but darker forces soon come into the picture. We’re talking skellingtons and other unpleasantries. There’s no overarching story at the moment, although one will be added later, but there’s a decent sense of progression even though the current version (updates/fixes have been almost daily since the launch last week) doesn’t have a great deal of content.

The stuff that’s already there is great, though. Each class of weapon has a unique attack rather than simply changing stats and combat is brutally tense, as a perfect blow can kill even the mightiest mercenary. You’ll spend a lot of time replacing fallen brothers, as well as gear that deteriorates over time, and even though you’ll see the same text cropping up again and again, the backgrounds and traits of your soldiers are just detailed enough to hang stories on. You’ll miss them when they’re gone.

All of this is to say that even in its current state, Battle Brothers is well worth a look and certainly one to keep an eye on as development continues. Hurrah!

Surprisingly positive.

 

[Agesilaus]

Some thoughts about weapon balance. Lets look at the damage to fatigue ratio of the better weapons first:

Weapon | Health Damage per Fatigue | Armor Damage per Fatigue

Greatsword 7,8 / 11,3
Greataxe 9 / 17,5
Billhook 5,66 / 8,77

Fighting Axe 3,65 / 5,23
Warhammer 2,68 / 5,9
Mace 3,46 / 5,85
Noblesword 4,75 / 4,95
Boar Spear 3,5 / 4,2

In the two handed category, the greataxe would win by a large amount, but the greataxe also always hit head and body armor and I'm not sure how the game calculates damage here. If you take a look at the combatlog after an greataxe hit, you'll notice the damage is way lower then it should be. Still, always hiting (and criting) the head is great, but in reality the greatsword is probably the better weapon with 5% increased hit and a 30% chance to stun. The billhook has reach and a 5% hit bonus.

The one handed Category looks balanced for the most part. The weakest weapon here is the Boar Spear, but with its 20% hit bonus the calculated damage increases to 4,2 / 5,04 which is rather good. With low fatigue cost per hit the noble Sword is the clear overall winner with 10% hit bonus, giving the weapon a calculated damage of 5,23 / 5,45. The Fighting Axe and Mace are used to destroy shields and armor respectively, leaving the Warhammer as least useful weapon overall.

In conclusion I think the weapons are in a good spot overall. Personally I think the warhammer should do more armor damage and the mace should do a little less. The Greataxe does to much armor damage on paper, and it might be to strong versus highly armored targets.

This is interesting, thanks, I would add a few things:

Greatsword is the best two hander because it can strike up to three adjacent targets, or two deep. That allows you to regularly hit multiple enemies while standing next to other brothers. The Greataxe can only attack one target, or every single adjacent person. That means you cannot easily use it against multiple opponents without killing your own men. Bill hook is second because it lets weaker brothers hide behind the line.

Also, what's the turn to damage ratio? I find this to be just as important. I need to know how much damage I can do in a turn; it's important to know how fast you'll drop the enemy, regardless of cost.

Finally, I'm guessing the statistics you gave are just regarding the regular swing types? not the special multihits, cleaving, etc

 

[rashiakas]

Yes, damage is with regular swings and 20% extra armor damage (since this is a nobrainer perk). I think the specials can`t be compared because they are situational or do no damage at all. As for damage per turn, Great Axe and Greatsword wins even single target, while for onehanders it depends a lot on which enemy you fight. Overall, the best one handed dpr weapon is probably the fighting axe.

 

[Lucky]

Making the dodge bonus last the whole fight would make it way too good though, especially for a tier 1 perk. You'd need to reduce the bonus to make it somewhat balanced. It would also make it too much of a must-have perk.

Fatigue recovery being percentage based would require a reworking of the way fatigue cost for attack is determined, otherwise high fatigue mercs would get too much mileage out of it.

It's still up in the air how resolve will turn out, since the planned enemies whose attacks affect it directly haven't been introduced yet. We have Ghosts, but you don't see those often enough to matter.

So my campaign so far:

I'm starting to get the hang of things, did a couple of quests and got some decent gear. However, during a fight with some crappy bandits (whom we were completely butchering) one of my guys took a VERY UNLUCKY arrow and sadly, passed away. Even though his death didn't mean game over (far from that) I had to scale back a bit and currently the only quests I'm getting are Fedex "go to city X" quests. No more contracts to kill stuff. Also, there is a "destroy den" contract, but it's WAAAAAY above my power level. The game became pretty slow atm, since those Fedex contracts give very little profit. Usually half of the reward goes toward merc upkeep. Any tips? Also: is there any way of checking a guy's stats BEFORE I hire him? This is specially annoying with archers, since most guys that come equipped with a bow are NOT competent archers AT ALL.

You can go off-roading and look for hideouts to plunder. There's loads of them. Find one that's appropriate to your level and depopulate it. That should give you some experience, gold and loot. You can then sell some of the loot for more gold. You can also try to jump into a fight between patrols or militia and some Orcs. If you're lucky, they'll soak up most of the casualties and soften up the Orcs for you. If you're unlucky, they warm up their berserkers who'll then proceed to massacre you. Great fun either way.

Nope! No way to check. It’s part of the challenge; you have to make the best of your company of cripples.

 

[Eyestabber]

USUALLY guys of Noble background are better than everyone else (stat-wise, that is), but that's about the only pointer I had so far when it comes to hiring. Will try whacking some dens when I get home.

 

[Lucky]

New patch hit me like a truck. Rally the Troops down from 100% of users resolve to 50%. Still really good, but it means my berserkers ran out of steam earlier than I had been expecting . . . that being right near an Orc Chief in the center. So they died. And then my shield guys died. And then my flankers died. And then my archers ran and got run down. First party wipe in quite some time. Had a blast trying to salvage the situation. Next goal is making a new and improved berserker team.
Good to see that the developers are not afraid to smash my toys in pursuit of perfection, that's exactly what Early Access is for.

 

[Eyestabber]

Making the dodge bonus last the whole fight would make it way too good though, especially for a tier 1 perk. You'd need to reduce the bonus to make it somewhat balanced. It would also make it too much of a must-have perk.

Fatigue recovery being percentage based would require a reworking of the way fatigue cost for attack is determined, otherwise high fatigue mercs would get too much mileage out of it.

It's still up in the air how resolve will turn out, since the planned enemies whose attacks affect it directly haven't been introduced yet. We have Ghosts, but you don't see those often enough to matter.

So my campaign so far:

I'm starting to get the hang of things, did a couple of quests and got some decent gear. However, during a fight with some crappy bandits (whom we were completely butchering) one of my guys took a VERY UNLUCKY arrow and sadly, passed away. Even though his death didn't mean game over (far from that) I had to scale back a bit and currently the only quests I'm getting are Fedex "go to city X" quests. No more contracts to kill stuff. Also, there is a "destroy den" contract, but it's WAAAAAY above my power level. The game became pretty slow atm, since those Fedex contracts give very little profit. Usually half of the reward goes toward merc upkeep. Any tips? Also: is there any way of checking a guy's stats BEFORE I hire him? This is specially annoying with archers, since most guys that come equipped with a bow are NOT competent archers AT ALL.

You can go off-roading and look for hideouts to plunder. There's loads of them. Find one that's appropriate to your level and depopulate it. That should give you some experience, gold and loot. You can then sell some of the loot for more gold. You can also try to jump into a fight between patrols or militia and some Orcs. If you're lucky, they'll soak up most of the casualties and soften up the Orcs for you. If you're unlucky, they warm up their berserkers who'll then proceed to massacre you. Great fun either way.

Nope! No way to check. It’s part of the challenge; you have to make the best of your company of cripples.

I lucked out and got a contract to raze an orc den near Wallendorf. Hired 3 extra cheap guys as meatshields and managed to win! Ironically enough, the shittiest recruit (beggar background) was the sole survivor of the meatshield trio. Lulz

Check it out:

http://postimg.org/image/qbak6y06n/

 

[ColCol]

Fighting orcs berserkers with a low level party is reminiscent of an action rpg. One guy effortlessly cleaves through 12 minions in a minute. Except, your guys are the minions.

 

[Eyestabber]

I can see clearly the Xcom inspiration on this game. Just lost a battle cuz RNG decided to give me the middle finger. 70% CtH? How about 5 misses in a row?

Anyway, no matter. Restarted with more metagame knowledge. Spears are actually quite good! Low fatigue buildup, okay-ish damage and a nice CTH bonus.

 

[Ninjerk]

gib

 

[oscar]

Wish I had something really cool and expensive to blow all my gold on in-game.

 

[Jack Dandy]

I never got to play FTL or the "Overworld exploration and combat with CYOA" sort of games.
But I figured the little stories that appear there can start getting repetitive.
I hope you'll implement the mercenarie's perks and personalities as much as possible into these adventures: This will probably end up making a shitload of variations on "stock" adventures!

Also, I am a bit depressed since my heart won't let me start playing until you guys go out of Early Access. It seems lots of people are having fun with it already.

 

[Galdred]

I like the nerf to rally the troops (+ it makes the other fatigue skills in the tree better).
I think quickhands has been nerfed too hard : it needed to be nerfed, but now, you have little reason to use it on anything else than a 2 hander so that he gets a shield one turn out of 2 : it cripples archers willing to equip a close combat weapon, but still allow 2 handers to swap for shield once every 2 rounds.
I think it would work better to have the skill only be usable before any attack is made (or at the beginning of the round, when 0 AP have been spent), and set it back to 0.

The lower tier of utility is very weak IMO :
student : as in every games with this line of perks, this one takes a slot for no good reason. Either allow the replacement of the perk at max level, or change it entirely. Maybe if the level cap was raised a lot. But a trainer skill which would help level other battle brothers would certainly help more.
shield bash : this one is not very useful : you add small damage and fatigue damage to an utility skill. I'd rather have the cost of the skill decreased (fatigue mainly, but AP could work too), or its chance to hit increase.
The added boni don't make it very worthwile.
Taunt : I have not found the skill very useful, but it is hard to measure its effect. Rotation works much better to protect your brothers in arms. Add an accuracy penalty if other characters than the last opponent having used taunt?
Deep pocket is pretty situational. Maybe for some extra quivers, but with the nerf to quick hand, you have little reason to want that many items.

Tier 2 seems good, especially with the nerf to rally the troops, but certainly not worth going through the underwhelming tier 1 (unless you want to go for the tier 3 skills of course).

 

[Agesilaus]

I like shield bash and always take it on my tanks. It's a skill I use fairly often; a lot of the time it's better than the swap position skill, because it is able to get a wounded brother out of danger and hurt the enemy at the same time. A brother can also save himself; shield bash and then take two steps backwards. That said, the skill could be better, perhaps a low chance of stun? Also, the game should clarify that you can't shield bash adult orcs and warlords if that is the case. I feel like it never succeeds against them.

Also, I had a hilarious battle against zombies where they would constantly climb up a cliff to my men, who were all waiting to bash them down to the bottom again.

As for deep pockets, I get it for a lot of my characters not only because I'm going for the second tier talents, but because it improves fatigue. If you equip a shield and/or a weapon larger than a dagger in your backpack, you suffer a fatigue penalty; this skill removes that penalty.

 

[Galdred]

Actually, I also love shield bash, but my problem with the perk is that it does not improve it much.

 

[rashiakas]

Making the dodge bonus last the whole fight would make it way too good though, especially for a tier 1 perk. You'd need to reduce the bonus to make it somewhat balanced. It would also make it too much of a must-have perk.

I don't agree with you about the dodge perk. Compare it with the now buffed hold out perk, thats how a well designed perk should work. You get a good boost early on when you often get into negative morale due to losses and later on you get a nice boost from inspiring presence. Whereas dodge only gives you some good value early on when armor wont lower your initiative as much and fights are short and brutal, but later on when everyone is wearing heavier armor and get even more initiative penalties due to high fatigue, the perk wouldn't be that good even if it lasted the whole combat.

 

[Eyestabber]

Let's discuss early moves. The way I see it, the initial crowns should be spent on decent shields and okay-ish armor for your initial Brothers. Hire an extra guy if you can, but ensuring the survival of the "founding" bros is usually my priority. For weapons, I prioritize spears and swords over everything else, mostly due to the CTH bonuses and the fact that early game enemies lack proper armors. If I can start with a zweihander I do it. I think the risk is worth it, chopping 3 guys on a single turn is an instant "I win!" situation. The AI doesn't seem very bright, so Spearwalls are really useful, with foes taking a lot of free damage until they actually manage to get into melee range.

From my experience, bows and greataxes are utterly useless. Bows have awful CTH and even when they DO hit, their damage is awful. Greataxes deal great damage, but they lack a CTH bonus and are just overall lackluster when compared to greatswords. Billmen seem effective, specially as a rookie training tool, but I've had billmen getting sniped by enemy bowmen, really sad when it happens but it does. Axes, maces and warhammers have their uses, but are best avoided early on, since they lack a CTH bonus and have higher fatigue buildup.

I wonder if an "assassin party" is viable. Dagger-shield-puncture combo, I mean...maybe?

 

[Eyestabber]

Wish I had something really cool and expensive to blow all my gold on in-game.

Plate armor?

 

[oscar]

Can't find anyone who sells it. Or even chainmail for that matter (all mine has been looted or came with the mercenaries upon hiring). Sitting on a cool 26,000.