Incline Battle Brothers + Beasts & Exploration, Warriors of the North and Blazing Deserts DLC Thread

[hivemind]

It is a general problem with many of those "tough" games that they reward an overly conservative approach and attention to routine detail, so you know what to do but it takes too long to do boring repetitive things

this

. It is a big issue with BB for me that contrary to its claims, losing there is not fun. This aspect is even less fun than in Darkest Dungeon.

this

Except King's Bounty is actually less grindy and more diverse.

not this(never played it so not sure if I can fully agree with your assessment)

There are many games where losing is fun.

this

For example, Civilization 4,

not this

Dominions 4, or Eador. Many roguelikes like ADOM have fun losing.

this

he reason is that their early game is diverse enough and recovery is entertaining. Meanwhile, in BB, you have to do the same bandits with roughly the same brothers ad nauseam. And the middle stage of BB is also roughly similar, not really contingent on how you were developing so long as you keep your most experienced troops alive, so you are simply restarting roughly the same company to achieve roughly the same results. There isn't much space for experiment. The upshot is an acute feeling that you are wasting your time on grinding.

this

The tactics part is generally good, otherwise I wouldn't bother playing.

not this

 

[Sarissofoi]

What does BB do that makes losing more interesting than any comparable game? The game actually rewards perfectionism more than most games, so it ends up like King's Bounty, where losing any troops at all ends up hurting you disproportionately (because of the huge bonus for no loss fights). Except King's Bounty is less grindy and more diverse.

There are many games where losing is fun. ... The reason is that their early game is diverse enough and recovery is entertaining. Meanwhile, in BB, you have to do the same bandits with roughly the same brothers ad nauseam. And the middle stage of BB is also roughly similar, not really contingent on how you were developing so long as you keep your most experienced troops alive, so you are simply restarting roughly the same company to achieve roughly the same results. There isn't much space for experiment. The upshot is an acute feeling that you are wasting your time on grinding.

They taunt you with Ironman, but in reality it just ends up artificially prolonging the game without letting you explore more of it.

Well, all true. But what can be done to fix it? Any thoughts?

 

[hivemind]

nothing can be done beyond like releasing DLCs that bait people into playing for another 10-15 hours to explore the new content

the game is ultimately fundamentally flawed and nothing can be done to remedy that

 

[Barbarian]

nothing can be done beyond like releasing DLCs that bait people into playing for another 10-15 hours to explore the new content

the game is ultimately fundamentally flawed and nothing can be done to remedy that

It's a good, fun game. People expecting to throw away 500 hours at it without losing interest are simply being unrealistic. Sure it has flaws, but no game doesn't.

I'm clocking over 80 hours and will certainly play more once this and (hopefully) more dlcs come out. It was well worth the money. Don't remember the last game that managed to keep me hooked so long.

 

[hivemind]

why give me butthurt rating if you agree with me

 

[Damned Registrations]

I think the game could be made much better by lowering the consequences of losing guys in battle to encourage less conservative playstyles. It also desperately needs some basic qol stuff like faster time skips and not taking 40 seconds to end a round where nobody does anything.

 

[Tigranes]

why give me butthurt rating if you agree with me

We explained to you like 50 pages ago why

 

[hivemind]

We explained to you like 50 pages ago why

ok, my bad

I am sorry

 

[Latro]

We explained to you like 50 pages ago why

ok, my bad

I am sorry

you better be !

 

[Sarissofoi]

This thread

Autistic screeching x21

 

[Vault Dweller]

What does BB do that makes losing more interesting than any comparable game? The game actually rewards perfectionism more than most games, so it ends up like King's Bounty, where losing any troops at all ends up hurting you disproportionately (because of the huge bonus for no loss fights). Except King's Bounty is less grindy and more diverse.

BB doesn't directly reward you for losing party members, of course, but sometimes it's a price to pay for winning a very tough battle. In one fight one of my guys was struck down and lost an eye and I had to accept it because I fought it 6 or 7 times and that's the best I could do. In another fight I lost a bro (31 orcs, many berserkers and warriors, one leader) but gained a unique. I fought this fight many times but couldn't beat it without losing at least one guy.

Fortunately, it's relatively easy to level up a new recruit to level 10 as he can rely on his tougher bros. Plus, once you have more money, you can afford to be get a guy with much better stats (including defense, which new teams tend to neglect) so once he's level 10, he will be a much better replacement and the extra levels (past 10) don't mean that much and odds are his stats will still be higher.

 

[Teut Busnet]

What does BB do that makes losing more interesting than any comparable game? The game actually rewards perfectionism more than most games, so it ends up like King's Bounty, where losing any troops at all ends up hurting you disproportionately (because of the huge bonus for no loss fights). Except King's Bounty is less grindy and more diverse.

BB doesn't directly reward you for losing party members, of course, but sometimes it's a price to pay for winning a very tough battle. In one fight one of my guys was struck down and lost an eye and I had to accept it because I fought it 6 or 7 times and that's the best I could do. In another fight I lost a bro (31 orcs, many berserkers and warriors, one leader) but gained a unique. I fought this fight many times but couldn't beat it without losing at least one guy.

Fortunately, it's relatively easy to level up a new recruit to level 10 as he can rely on his tougher bros. Plus, once you have more money, you can afford to be get a guy with much better stats (including defense, which new teams tend to neglect) so once he's level 10, he will be a much better replacement and the extra levels (past 10) don't mean that much and odds are his stats will still be higher.

Without Training for the XP boost it will take a Bro about 50 fights to get to lvl 11. About 40 with heavy use of the 'Veterans Hall'.

That still translates to double-digit hours of gameplay.

I'm not necessarily saying it should be quicker - because BB is by no means the 'Meatgrinder' some claim and a loss of a Veteran Bro should hurt - but I don't think you can call it 'relatively easy'.

 

[Vault Dweller]

I spent 275 hours adventuring so I'm fine with investing 'double-digit hours' to make a fighting man out of a bearded boy.

 

[Tigranes]

Also, I would argue that if you are a seasoned party taking in a new bro, and you've got yourself a great background bro with good gear ready to go because you can afford it, you don't need to wait until level 11 for him to start pulling his weight - I've found that around level 5 he can take care of himself, and soon after he can come along to even the tougher fights. It's not like a later game party is always fighting 5 unholds and 20 necrosavants every time, after all.

Sure, maybe another tier of expensive high level recruits might be the way to go, but it's never been my experience where you lose one bro and you spend 20 hours just grinding.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Agree. With good starting stats and 2-3 stars in the weapon skill the new recruit will start kicking ass around level 5, especially if you give him a long reach weapon and let him hide behind the tougher bros. The gear isn't a huge factor by that time but good skills are worth the extra effort.

 

[Jrpgfan]

Colony Ship 2049 release date confirmed ITT.

 

[Barbarian]

Where is muh dlc release date?

 

[Kalarion]

Yeah, bringing a bunch of nets is great and all, but it's not like I fucking chose to be in the fight. And since my guys that normally had 80% chance to hit had about 50%, daggers would have had about 10% hit chance. No way in hell that would have worked. Never mind trying to wear him down with one guy at a time when he's two shotting people and using a weapon he can swing twice in one turn. Realistically what I needed was about half a dozen stacks of overwhelm. Or in other words, like another 30 fucking days of levelling up, at which point I can only assume the game would throw at me 6 hedge knights and some necromancers instead.

Is this maybe a case of improper expectations? BB is very roguelike in its attitude toward progression. You're expected to deal with getting your nuts crushed by a steel vise that came from a direction you had no idea about multiple times. The result should theoretically be that you slowly build an inner library of institutional knowledge that you then use to grab the vise, reverse it, and (with immense pleasure) apply it to the game's nuts. In the Codex's case, you also have the immense privilege of having that library already built for you, so long as you're willing to do some minor trawling through the thread :D.

Played on its own terms I don't feel the argument "I didn't know what to do in X situation after 2-3 tries" is legitimate. To circle back to this specific example: yes, it sucks when you first start encountering the super-killers of the game; Hedge Knights, Orc Warlords, Necrosavants, Lindwurms and so on. But the idea is you figure out either (1) intuitively or (2) by ramming your head repeatedly against the brick wall, what each of their achilles heels are. And with the possible exception of Lindwurms (and the definite exception of Alps... I agree 100% with you here, they're fucking terrible post-rework), I assure you that each and every one of them have those heels.

Full disclosure: the latter method, above, is what I have done throughout this game. I just don't have the head for immediately grasping, say, powerful skill synergies, or for lateral thinking (it took me dozens of hours of playtime to learn how powerful nets and eagles are, for instance). But I love this type of game, so I ended up enjoying all that "wasted time" immensely. If you don't enjoy that kind of inching, incremental progress, keep at it for a bit longer. It seems like an acquired taste, maybe it'll grow on you (it grew on like new stuff or whatever? for example

). And if not (I hate to say this because it almost invariably comes off as patronising and sneering), maybe the game's just not for you.

Here is a walkthrough on dealing with Hedge Knights. Not because I don't think you can figure it out, but because I really enjoy spreading the Gospel of Shivving.
(1) Equip all of your frontline bros with daggers in their belts. Weapon tier doesn't matter.
(2) Equip all of your frontline bros with nets in their offhand, or their belt if they're 2h wielders. Reinforced Nets are a bonus, but not necessary.
(3) Make netting the Hedge Knight a priority throughout the fight. Start by having your 1h bros throw their nets and then pop their shields on. And I mean, every single 1h should be throwing if needed. And every 2h.
(4) Deal with everything else while you keep the Hedge Knight more or less locked down (this can of course sometimes go hilariously awry but whatever).
(5) Surround (and I mean literally, fill all 6 tiles with your bros) the Hedge Knight with bros and bring out the knives once you have dominance in the fight. Not everyone needs to be dead, but as long as you feel you can control the rest of the combatants you should be moving into this stage.
(6) Start shanking.
The beauty of dealing with HKs this way is that you don't need super high Melee Attack to make it work. Just the basic flanking bonus from that many bros ensures a 10% overall bonus to hit chance (-20% for pierce, +30% for five flankers). If you have a couple backstabbers it's even more ridiculous. And that's before counting in negative morale bonii! A surrounded NPC, even a HK, will start hemorrhaging morale once the HP starts dropping. And the net gives the AI paroxysms... half the time rather than trying to eliminate you, the HK will be using all actions to attempt to break free. If he breaks out, no problem... re-net and repeat.

Two major takeaways: a dagger horde, even an ad-hoc one without full dagger talent kits or high melee attack, can be absolutely vicious against a high priority human target (HK, Bandit Leaders, Blademasters). So every melee bro should have a dagger, even a shitty one, without exception. More importantly, nets are game changers on almost every type of enemy. Whenever possible you should have a net for each and every one of your melee bros, and if you can fit it, 1-2 for your archers as well. If you go on the roads with nets and daggers, I guarantee you'll start seeing 60+ day runs with no problem at all. The combo is that powerful.

Do a couple more runs with that in mind and see if your attitude about the game changes.

 

[Barbarian]

Where is muh dlc release date?

Do you guys remember how long it took for the previous dlc to be released after announcement?

 

[Teut Busnet]

Where is muh dlc release date?

Do you guys remember how long it took for the previous dlc to be released after announcement?

First 'Hint' at Beasts and Exploration was on July 27th (the official announcement a week later), release date November 29th.

The teaser for this one is from January 25th...

 

[Barbarian]

Should be a few weeks away then I guess.

Weird, I thought this was a much smaller dlc in comparison to b&e. Maybe they decided to add more than originally planned and it got bigger. I'm sure all agree that is a good thing.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Should be a few weeks away then I guess.

Weird, I thought this was a much smaller dlc in comparison to b&e. Maybe they decided to add more than originally planned and it got bigger. I'm sure all agree that is a good thing.

Another fall to OVERHYPE secret tactics. Nobody expect that. Its not like it happen before or they put any leads anywhere like in company name.

Spoiler

Also my loot from defeating 21 screaming Codexian autists. I expect nothing and still were disappointed.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The thing is, while playing roguelike games, the draw is that the earlygame is new and interesting each time. That isn't the case in this- you're not going to find some game changing equipment or party member. At best you might find a town that gives you a good trade route or easy access to cheap tools or dogs or something, but that's really just a straight up benefit, because you want all those things in every party anyways. The only thing that really changes is which missions you get, but there's really no change in gameplay between fighting some thugs you had to chase vs fighting some thugs that jumped a caravan vs fighting some thugs in a shitty hideout. Fighting zombies might be somewhat different from spiders or direwolves, but it's not like I have any real option to find those missions anyways and probably half the missions don't even give you a hint as to what you're going to fight until combat starts, so you have to be super generalized instead of making some quirky specialty party that is great vs spiders and wolves or whatever, not that you can even afford to try with such poor availability of characters and gear. The differences between characters are laughably small, especially at low levels before their growth kicks in and they have some perks. Equipment is the same every time too. Whats the difference between a mace and a flail and a sword? Basically nothing. The flail can cheapshot hatless dudes and the mace is especially crap because it has no accuracy bonuses. Woo. It feels like I'm just grinding up money and the individual items and characters are meaningless. None of my parties felt like they had any identity to them, no story to tell. They all had basically the same spread of weapons, maybe one had a couple more flails and another had a couple more swords or pikes. Did finding an early tier 4 axe mean I was able to go on a bandit hunting spree and kill dudes with shields especially well? No. I still took whatever random ass missions I got fed at the few towns that were worth gaining rep with because waiting around for better missions is a terrible idea.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Yea. I agree. The most memorable and to be honest only character is Hoggart and that is all. Lore suck ass nothing really interesting - its based on generic themes plus krauts so it destined to fail anyway.
Power creep is real and to even use some setups you need perks and stats even more than costly equipment - FAT and Accuracy is the king. Early game is mostly the same and twists that happen drown in grinding anyway. And still early game is most fun.
If you turn off settlement destruction nothing you do really matter.
To be honest if not recently hacked in modding possibilities I would ditch this game long time ago.

 

[jungl]

There basically one way to make early game different. Raid settlements and stay hostile to two the entire campaign. Bandits are easiest group in game so everything should just about work. gear setup does matter...Having 2 orc greataxes is like having 2 guys with rocket launchers. Its great against stuff like orcs early but extremely risky against goblins wolf riders and falls off tiny bit late game. Game never advertised itself as a rogue like.