Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Infinitron]

I think that's more than 152, but I'll try to do something with it.

 

[kazgar]

rapsdjff should edit his first post now its in a new and bigger forum, as all the people who haven't read it in workshop may want the steam link and some of the lets plays and where the games at (and may not want to wade through 23 pages to find out)

Maybe should've been a new thread, but that's a different discussion for another day.

 

[Agesilaus]

Try to find a 3000 crowns contract. Holy shit you are in for a surprise. My gang of merry men got wiped out. Orc warriors are terrifying

Meh, I slaughtered three Warlords so far, and about 5 berserkers, so I'm not scared of orcs. At some point, your equipment is good enough that each character can shrug off several hits without dying, and then you just need to do some superior maneuvering to win.

I found an "invincible" undead location, though, so I know where I'm going next. I'm thinking that I need to trade in some of my heavy armor, because fatigue is going to be an issue if I have to chop down hundreds of zombies.

I wish there was a tavern or barracks where I could drop off heroes to be picked up later. I want to recruit a gimmick army of all shields and javelins, plus that skill that gives you shield bash damage.

 

[oscar]

I think that's more than 152, but I'll try to do something with it.

It's 84.

Meh, I slaughtered three Warlords so far, and about 5 berserkers, so I'm not scared of orcs. At some point, your equipment is good enough that each character can shrug off several hits without dying, and then you just need to do some superior maneuvering to win.

Orc warriors are a lot better than beserkers due to all their heavy armour and shields. Plus my battle with them was particularly punishing because it took place in a swamp where they would do that tackle skill to knock my guys off the solid land and into the swamp terrain which gives you penalties. Quite smart actually.

 

[Infinitron]

I think that's more than 152, but I'll try to do something with it.

It's 84.

Letters, not words!

 

[Eyeball]

Anyone else crashing on startup in this? How do fix?

Ze admin mode, it does nozeeng.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Game is great. Having a real blast. With bigger difference between foes, deeper specialization and more content overall, it might as well become one of my favorite games of all time.

My only serious fear is lack of moddability. I hope that eventually we would be able to at least create our own stuff like character backgrounds, equipment or enemies. Never liked to play with .dat packages. :C

 

[Alienman]

Try to find a 3000 crowns contract. Holy shit you are in for a surprise. My gang of merry men got wiped out. Orc warriors are terrifying

Meh, I slaughtered three Warlords so far, and about 5 berserkers, so I'm not scared of orcs. At some point, your equipment is good enough that each character can shrug off several hits without dying, and then you just need to do some superior maneuvering to win.

I found an "invincible" undead location, though, so I know where I'm going next. I'm thinking that I need to trade in some of my heavy armor, because fatigue is going to be an issue if I have to chop down hundreds of zombies.

I wish there was a tavern or barracks where I could drop off heroes to be picked up later. I want to recruit a gimmick army of all shields and javelins, plus that skill that gives you shield bash damage.

I have not faced Beserkers or Warlords so far. The group I encountered was mostly Orc Warriors. My puny weapons only dented their shields and armor, while the Orc axes cut through my men like butter
Good luck with the invincible undead location

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Lucky]

So I heard about this game yesterday here on Kodex. Looks gud but is it really? I'm getting the vibes of HoMM3 combat from the Steam gameplay trailer, am I correct? I assume it has more RPG elements though?

Game is ace. I got sold on the game when I got slaughtered by some bog-standard zombies in the demo for breaking formation. Fights can go badly rather quickly if you’re not careful.

Combat is similar to HoMM3, in that it takes place on a grid and is turn-based, with turn-order being decided by initiative. There are also zones of control; friendly fire by archers; fatigue, morale and armour mechanics, with an injury system on the way. The troops themselves are single characters that you level up, rather than troop stacks, and you don’t level up the ‘hero’. Same goes for gear. You don’t kit out a hero but your mercenaries and what gear they have decides what skills they have. That’s one of the things I really like about the game, since it incentivises switching between weapons as the situation demands it rather than always using the same things.

The overworld map is where you travel around in real-time (with pause, if needed). There’s a day/night cycle that affects travel speed and visibility, plus traveling takes up money (mercenary wages) and supplies. Running out can mean desertion. There’s no base like with HoMM3. You can recruit mercenaries in towns and get supplies, but those are locations to visit rather than bases you control. This also means that losing all your mercenaries in battle means game over (though you can try and flee during the battle). Towns are also where you get contracts, which are your main source of income, and can get destroyed by enemies. There’s also a lot of emphasis on exploration, with enemies and sites that aren’t towns being hidden from you until they come into sight. You can also get ambushed in this way.

Right now the story is fairly bare-bones, but the developers plan to expand on that with there being a Great Enemy for you to fight that grows in power as the game progresses. However, the emphasis is on replayability, so while there will always be a ‘Great Enemy’ that tries to sweep the land, which one of the factions it turns out to be will vary per playthrough as it’s the natural result of the interaction between the different factions. You can also knee-cap it by disrupting the factors that would allow it to gain power.

Game is great. Having a real blast. With bigger difference between foes, deeper specialization and more content overall, it might as well become one of my favorite games of all time.

My only serious fear is lack of moddability. I hope that eventually we would be able to at least create our own stuff like character backgrounds, equipment or enemies. Never liked to play with .dat packages. :C

I think they're planning on adding modding tools if the game's successful enough, though that would probably be quite some time after early access.

 

[HiddenX]

Oh, hey, why isn't this thread in GRPG yet?

Seems quite popular. Is it Kodex Kurator worthy?

yes

 

[sser]

The game is fairly sandboxy at the moment, but there's a lot of stuff in the pipeline.

If you want a real challenge just sit in town for a few days and let the nasties of the world run amok.

 

[Perkel]

Why none of you motherfuckers told me about this game ?
On other hand that is quite awesome now that it is released i don't need to wait for release !

Gotta try it next week.

 

[Alienman]

Tell my mother I loved her

 

[Lucky]

But think of the loot....

 

[Dr Skeleton]

• Fixed edge-of-screen scrolling not working correctly on the worldmap.

Thank god, this was driving me mad.


Small bug report. I was playing from an old save if that helps.

Spoiler

Same as yesterday, freeze during combat on enemy turn. It just repeats from "Script error" for the rest of the log.

Both parties were just standing near the ford, unable to cross. Orcs were moving back and forth a little. Navigating fords and near rivers in general is pretty iffy, you sometimes get blocked on seemingly nothing.

Don't have a log for this, sadly.

Also when it shows enemies before combat it says "a (number) (enemies)" and sometimes it ends up as for example "a orc", should be "an" before vowels.

 

[Agesilaus]

Good luck with the invincible undead location

Done and done. It was a tough fight, some of my weaker brothers died, but overall 9 of my best brothers survived. I had to fight a total of 24 enemies, plus 3 re-animated brothers. 2 Necromancers, 4 ghosts, 4 skeleton archers, and then just an immense horde of skeletons (heroes and regulars) who kept being re-animated.

Highlight of the battle was having my sturdiest brother march through the middle of the battle, and then kill both necromancers at once with a single greatsword swing.


I've encountered a bug that has ended my game, though, so I'm just going to start anew. Basically, I saved right before engaging a group of strong bandits. After I kill them all, the game doesn't show me the loot screen, and I can't leave combat without retreating. This means I"m forced to lose a bunch of brothers in the auto retreat, which is kind of lame.

 

[Agesilaus]

The high level offensive and utility stuff is great, the defense not so much. With offense, the damage boost is pretty significant whenever you make a kill (and you get 4 ap back from the second level skill), and the utility allows you to make everyone confident and mass-cure fatigue. Defence... lets you drop your defence to nothing, but then only take 70% damage? Also, lets you stun people who attack you, I suppose, but does anyone use either of these abilities?

 

[Modron]

Could you guys implement and auto pause after battle, I cleared a dangerous outpost only to be attacked immediately afterwards before I could assign levels/save. Game likes to freeze on enemies turns if you are scrolling around the map while camera tries to center on enemies (usually scrolling far enough out fixes this but if you haven't spotted the enemy this usually turns into a circumstance where you have to alt+f4 out).

 

[Agesilaus]

This game is a lot, lot harder if you play it on hard difficulty ironman style. I've gotten to the point where I can smash the beginning battle with ease (the four or five bandit thugs, one marksman), but then I'm dumb enough to take a caravan mission and get mauled by bandit raiders. I did have a successful run for a little while, though; I took one of those "find the location" missions (they suck, by the way), and instead of finding the place I just razed a whole bunch of weak sites. That rakes in the money, gets plenty of experience, and I was doing really well until 8 werewolves showed up at night (8 werewolves should not be listed as weak, btw, but this is just sour grapes).

 

[Galdred]

I really like what the game has to offer currently. I would rank it among the early access done right kind of games (with Sovereignty, Invisible Inc, and Mount and Blade), as it is pretty enjoyable as is. I have a few issues with the UI, though :
I hate the way double click is handled (maybe there is an option to change that, though) : as I have to click and confirm, I end up double clicking a lot, which rotates the tactical view and open a panel with the items on the ground. I'd rather have the option to shift+click, or a button to loot items on the ground.
I wish it were possible to leave the stat distribution panel on level up (ie, I click to allocate skill points, but then want to check the traits and perks).

 

[Modron]

Just reporting a minor quirk had a fleeing battle brother end his turn on top of the same hex another one was in which didn't cause issue with either of their next turns so not exactly a game breaking problem but nevertheless.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Hmm, the game is getting a little too easy on normal, let's try hard.

Spoiler

Oh.
Granted, my staring band was exceptionally bad (daytaler, refuge and some other hopeless guy, not one good item between them), but less gold and higher prices in the beginning make a giant difference.

 

[Lucky]

The high level offensive and utility stuff is great, the defense not so much. With offense, the damage boost is pretty significant whenever you make a kill (and you get 4 ap back from the second level skill), and the utility allows you to make everyone confident and mass-cure fatigue. Defence... lets you drop your defence to nothing, but then only take 70% damage? Also, lets you stun people who attack you, I suppose, but does anyone use either of these abilities?

Same. It’s not that they’re useless, just that the other ultimates are better. Same goes for some of the other perks as well. Why take Executioner, when you can have Battle Forged? If their HP is lower than 50% then 20% more damage isn’t going to matter much, while decreased armour damage is nearly always useful.


Really looking forward to the dungeon environments and more factions getting put in. Here's hoping that the additions will provide challenges different from those already in the game. Game right now gets substantially easier once you’re good enough to keep your mercs alive, so that you can spend the money on gear. This is especially noticeable late game when you start having multiple guys with ultimates. An offense oriented swordsmaster with Berserk and Killing Frenzy is just a goremaster. Keep him in the second line for when the Orcs charge so you don’t have to worry about stun and javelins, then swing away. You can build up momentum pretty easily and just carve through an entire flank. They make for better berserkers than actual Orc berserkers.

Hope they don’t nerf Werewolves – their speed, power and aggression makes for exciting early game encounters. They’re also really only dangerous if you get caught off-guard and undersupplied, or get cocky. I hope they can retain that Dark Souls feeling of an early-encounter enemy tearing your head off if you underestimate them.

A little worried about the steam suggestions getting thrown around, but the dev team has avoided feature-bloat so far and seems to know what kind of game they’re going for.

 

[Jack Dandy]

Dr Skeleton "Magnus the survivor", huh?