Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Helly]

 

[rapsdjff]

High time for another update. Next up will be a new Let's Play series and then we'll hopefully be able to announce a release date.

Dev Blog #41: Progress Update – Weapon Durability, New Perks, Clouds

So much work! Our current focus is on getting the balance right for our upcoming Early Access release and hunting down all those pesky bugs. Over the last two weeks we had two major changes: We’ve added durability of weapons and did a rework of all 42 perks in the game. Also, we managed to squeeze in moving clouds on the worldmap.

Weapon Durability
When playtesting the game and focusing on progression, difficulty and overall balance, we realized that the game is in need of more challenges in the later stages. The player would reach a point where money is obtained too easily through looting lots of weapons and selling them, and there aren’t enough ways to spend the money once you have 12 mercenaries and decent equipment.

To remedy this, we implemented ‘weapon durability’ for all weapons similar to how armor condition already works in the game. Every weapon has a certain amount of durability points which deteriorate on hitting armor as the weapon gets damaged. Hitting unarmored or lightly armored opponents will not deteriorate a weapon’s durability, so a sword won’t ever break from hitting cloth armor. If the durability reaches zero, the weapon will be permanently destroyed. Above that, weapons will be repaired over time on the worldmap just like armor, at a cost of some resources.



We were originally hesitant to add a mechanic like this as we wanted to avoid unnecessary micromanagement. As it turned out, however, equipping Battle Brothers was one of the most fun aspects for many people playing the game, and actually not done all that often between battles, so its something we could expand on.

Here is a rundown of further things to know:

• Weapons don’t break randomly, their current and maximum durability can be seen in the game.
• Different weapons have different durability, further reinforcing their specialties. While swords inflict more damage against unarmored targets, they’ll break much sooner against well-armored targets than a warhammer does.
• Weapons don’t usually break in a single battle unless in really drawn-out engagements, against highly-armored opponents or if the weapon in question is seriously ill-suited for making forceful impact with armor (such as a simple knife).
• There is now more incentive to equip your Battle Brothers with spare weapons and to pick up dropped weapons mid-battle, which was a rare occurence before.
• Damaged weapons, just as damaged armor, will be sold for a reduced price. Looted equipment will now generally bring less money and no longer be the primary source of income. This makes fulfilling contracts more rewarding over just fighting and looting randomly. It’s a good thing because we don’t want to lose focus on the player being a mercenary.

In conclusion we keep the way of letting you loot what you can see your opponents using, including the odd high tier weapon early in the game. However, these weapons may be damaged now and thus require some investment of resources and time to get to a good condition unless you want to run the risk of them breaking permanently in combat. You’ll still be rewarded for taking on well-equipment opponents, just not as much that it completely turns over balance and progression in the long-run.

This new mechanic seems to work out nicely so far, but we’ll keep a close eye on it for potential further adjustments.

New Perks
We’ve gone through with a complete rework of all 42 perks in the game because the old ones weren’t really cutting it. We really want choosing a perk on levelup always be something to look forward to, a tough decision because there are just so many good looking options. The new perks should give the player more of a reason to really think about how they want to use a certain Battle Brother and what role to specialize in.

Perks are still divided into offense, defense and utility and each tree is divided into three tiers that are unlocked as more points are invested into them. In the third and final tier are two especially powerful perks of which only one can be unlocked. It’s up to you to decide whether to concentrate on one tree to unlock the powerful third tier as soon as possible or go with more of a generalist build with your Battle Brothers.

Previously, all perks were passive and this made for a clean separation between active skills from weapons and passive skills from perks. After some discussion we’ve changed our minds and now there are several active skills that can be unlocked within the perk trees. These skills provide different utility missing before and open up new tactical options – like the ‘Taunt’ skill described below. None of them are attacks, however. Those are still exclusive to the weapons you equip your Battle Brothers with.

So how do these new perks look like? Here’s three examples, one from each tree.

Berserk (Passive). RAAARGH! Upon killing an opponent, 4 Action Points are immediately regained. Characters can not gain more than their maximum action points, but this perk allows for a rampage especially against fragile opponents.



Nine Lives (Passive). Has this character survive with a few hitpoints left on taking a killing blow once every battle. A good insurance for your favorite Battle Brother.



Taunt (Active). How appropriate, you fight like a cow! Using this skill increases the chance for opponents to take offensive actions instead of defensive ones (such as covering behind their shields), and to attack this character over another, potentially more vulnerable one. The higher this character’s bravery, the more effective the taunting is. This also means that characters with the ‘Cocky’ character trait are better at taunting their opponents.

Not all is good, however. Many enemies in the game make use of those very same perks available to you. It shouldn’t come as a surprise then to hear that an Orc Berserker has the ‘Berserker’ perk as well and can go on a true killing spree through your ranks if he ever gets started.

Clouds
While balancing and bug hunting is our focus, we also did a little cosmetic upgrade to the worldmap to have it look more alive and give it some more depth. That upgrade is clouds that gracefully pass over the lands. We’re still working on the exact look but here is a first impression for you.

 

[Agesilaus]

High time for another update. Next up will be a new Let's Play series and then we'll hopefully be able to announce a release date.

Nice, I'm looking forward to the next LP. I was under the impression that the release date for the EA was the end of this month, though?

 

[Crabcakes]

Right now we are aiming at early April, we are 99% sure that it will definitely happen in April . When we announce the Early Access it will be on a pretty short notice, but we cant name a date until we got the last legal issues out of the way.

Cheers!!

 

[sser]

I've made a horrible mistake.

Spoiler

 

[Norfleet]

Can weapons and armor be repaired, like how in JA2, you often had some men you hired purely to sit in camp and fix your stuff?

 

[rapsdjff]

Yes, weapons, armor and shields can be repaired, unless they've been completely obliberated. Items equipped by your Battle Brothers are repaired automatically over time at a cost of resources, whereas items in the stash currently have to be explicitly marked in order to be repaired. This allows you to choose which looted items you'd like to get to fighting condition before using them and which to spend resources on for repairs. Items marked to be repaired look like this currently.

Unlike in JA2, you don't have to put your Battle Brothers on repair-duty, they'll make sure to keep their equipment in working condition themselves as best as they can. In the future, as we add non-combat followers, a dedicated smith you hire may increase the repair rate and/or lower the resource cost for all repairs while being unable to take part in combat himself.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Expecting this game to be really sweet, I definitely need to add it to my backlog.

Why didn't I discover you earlier, when you were looking for a goddamn composer.

 

[Helly]

Do ask if you need a japanese translation though

 

[rapsdjff]

Here we go, a new Let's Play series!

I'd also like to take the opportunity to thank sser for joining us in writing for the game. He's already contributed a lot of the different background texts that characters can have and has now moved onto contracts. Whenever you're presented with a wall of text in the game, it will be to no small part by his doing. There isn't that much story presented to the player yet but I believe we have a solid base now and there's a lot of untapped potential for us to work with. In the long run we'll overhaul the contract system to allow for more complexity, and add events that contribute to atmosphere and ask for some difficult decisions outside of combat.

Early Access Preview - Let’s Play Part 1

While we can’t give you the Early Access yet, we can give you the second best thing: A new Let’s Play series!

The build we’re showing is pretty close to the version you’ll be able to get at release as we won’t add any major new features until then. We’re mostly bug-hunting, polishing and improving the overall balance of the game now.

So here are the adventures, fortunes and (mostly) misfortunes of “The Red Hogs”..

 

[rapsdjff]

A minor addition: Individual orc tribes now have their own banners to give them a bit more character.

 

[oscar]

Looking forwards to the EA. Glad to see the AI being sharp.

 

[sser]

Building a bro'.

The Swordmaster is an old fart who is slow, frail, and sweats just thinking about a long walk. But he's also one of the most flatout dangerous guys you can hire. Due to this rather unique dichotomy, he's one of the characters I have a great deal of fun building around. +20 melee defense/melee offense is absolutely huge, especially the defense which is quite hard to build up compared to other stats. Right out of the gate, this guy will mop the floor with just about anybody, so long as he doesn't tire out first (his rockbottom initiative stat also means he will almost always be going last in the turn). This particular recruit garnered a quick trait (lightning bolt, +10 initiative, very lucky for me) as well as a drunkard (+10% dmg, but at the cost of some melee skill, which in this case is largely irrelevant). Because I give him a one-handed sword without a shield, he also earns a 25% dmg boost, bringing us to a whopping 35% damage boost for a guy that already slaughters the shit out of people.

There's a number of ways to build this character. I tend to put most of his attributes toward recovering his fatigue and initiative, occasionally sprinkling some into his defense or offensive skills. A reinvigorated swordmaster, as you can see above, is quite the treat to look at. The perk system offers a few variables as well. I personally feel as though offense is overkill with this guy and instead opt for defense. (There is no doubt, though, that you could turn this guy into a murderous killing machine once you get to the last level of offensive perks.) If you notice in the picture, the guy's melee defense is through the roof and currently parrying the moon. 76 is insanely high. At this point, he is essentially unhittable. Because swords have the counter-riposte skill, wherein you counter-strike for every missed swing, this guy does very well sitting in crowds making a mess of attackers. I haven't yet done it, but there is a 'Taunt' perk in the Utility tree, and my Dream Swordmaster Build is to have Taunt and just use it to get enemies to run recklessly into his dancing blade.

To get a defense that high, though, I have to take the Nimbleness perk, which gives you 100% melee defense if your off-hand is free. This means no using shields, which means you're quite susceptible to ranged attacks. (In fact, at 4, they really won't miss you.) But then there is another perk that gives you +3 ranged defense for every hex between you and the shooter. So the old swordsman, by this point, can merrily traipse through a battlefield like he would a field of poppies. Thanks to rebuilding his fatigue/initiative, I can also give him heavier armor without turning him into a boulder. And there you have it, an old swordmaster that lives up to the rumors and hearsay.

 

[Crabcakes]

Awesome guide!
Allthough my last swordmaster got decapitated and eaten by werewolves

 

[Agesilaus]

Does everyone have this game except me?

 

[rapsdjff]

Only us working on the game.

Here's the next episode.

 

[Agesilaus]

Awesome, going to watch it tomorrow I think, you guys do a great job LP'ing this game.

 

[Essegi]

Mmhh... I 've ust opened moddb... I see release date 1st may...
http://www.moddb.com/games/battle-brothers
True or not, can't wait!

 

[Helly]

We need moar LPs ! :kwanzania:

 

[rapsdjff]

Agreed. Jaysen should stop lazying around and get to work.

In the meantime here is a preview of a new tundra-style terrain type we squeezed in to make the worldmap less samey looking.

 

[rapsdjff]

A new Let's Play episode is out.

 

[rapsdjff]

Another episode is available. Also, to quote from today's blog post:

Battle Brothers is now in a state that we feel comfortable releasing into Early Access. However, before being able to actually sell it there are still some minor business-related and organizational hurdles to be cleared. We’ll let you know as soon as we have the date set!

 

[Agesilaus]

Another episode is available. Also, to quote from today's blog post:

Battle Brothers is now in a state that we feel comfortable releasing into Early Access. However, before being able to actually sell it there are still some minor business-related and organizational hurdles to be cleared. We’ll let you know as soon as we have the date set!

That is some fantastic news; let us know the moment we can get our hands on this.

I noticed some graphic glitches during the battle in episode 4, and it made me think back to the last LP; did you release an update that caused problems again with the old saves? I noticed the glitches during the battle with the raiders, it made the youtube video go blurry every 20 seconds or so. The obvious explanation would be a buffering issue, but I recall the LP guy recognising the problem in the past.

 

[rapsdjff]

I asked Jaysen about it but he's not really sure what causes this. It's some kind of encoding issue with the video. Apparently it was fine before Youtube processed it. In any case, it's not all related to the game itself.

Recent changes did indeed break savegame compatibility, however. It's why the LP series is still on an older build from April 2nd and doesn't feature any of the changes made in the past two weeks. These include minor additions like new terrain and birds on the worldmap, new contracts, some redone music and the bandits gaining a new utility skill for some more tactical options. There are also some glitches shown in the LP that have already been fixed by now, like the archer spawning too close to the player. Somewhat poor planning on our part, but we thought we'd better break compatibility now rather than after the game's been released.

 

[vonAchdorf]

Can't wait to play this. You added lots of great stuff to the game since you first presented it here.