Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Dr Skeleton]

"Magnus the survivor", huh?

He had clubfoot too. Don't know how he survived that long.

 

[agris]

Crabcakes rapsdjff Does your engine support borderless fullscreen windowed mode? Despite all of unity's flaws, this is one of the best things about it for us multi-monitor gamers. If the game doesn't support it, do you at least support desktop resolution windowed mode? If you think I'm a crazy edge-case.. you're probably right. But there's a community of dedicated gamers out there who really appreciate these features (WSGF).

 

[rapsdjff]

Yes, we support both borderless fullscreen window mode and window mode at any resolution higher or equal to 1024x768. We've not been able to test the game on a multi-monitor setup ourselves, though.

This is how the video options look in the game for me.

Spoiler

 

[agris]

ahh that's awesome you support it out of the box. for all the AAAs that don't, it seems like indies have no problem offering this.

I was on the fence about buying EA.. you just tipped me over.

 

[rapsdjff]

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.

Good point. I've edited the first post.

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.

Thanks for reporting these. We've fixed the freeze issue as well as the wrong use of "a" and "an" in the engage screen with today's update.

The pathfinding thing is a bit more tricky, but it's on our list. We just have to get rid of all the critical issues first. That graphical glitch is quite odd. You are the second person to report this now.

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?

You actually only take 30% damage - it's 70% damage reduction. Maybe the description was a bit misleading, I've clarified it with today's update.

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.

Yes, I'll add it.

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'm not sure what you mean by that. How does double-clicking rotate the view? Do you mean inadvertently moving the view because of drag-style-scrolling?

 

[Agesilaus]

edit: Well this was a dumb suggestion; remove. totally forgot the mousewheel zooms in battle.

 

[Helly]

I don't really know how it happens and I sadly don't have the logs anymore, but sometimes after a fight, combat status like that morale boost from the captain and such appear on the character sheet. Normally it's no problem, but last time I had the Footwork icon appear on one of my guy and the game crashed when I put my cursor over it with a "missing popup" error message.
Will post it if it happens again.

 

[Agesilaus]

Please give us the option to arrange our men prior to battle. You could implement it as a pre-battle turn where you move your men around a small zone on the tactical map, or you could have us do it on the party equipment screen at the strategic level. It's just a tad annoying having both your bills piled up at one end of your line, or having a brother or two start at the top of a huge cliff, separated from the rest of the army.

 

[Galdred]

It may have been reported already, but caravans sometimes disappear when under escort (it happens when I go to another screen, like party management).

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'm not sure what you mean by that. How does double-clicking rotate the view? Do you mean inadvertently moving the view because of drag-style-scrolling?

I don't know. Whenever I double click on the battle map, it does rotate the view. My double click is certainly not mapped to alt gr(right alt on an azerty Keyboard) or whatever is the shortcut to rotate the map.
It then opens the ground/perks window. On the overland map, double clicking just opens the stash/perk window.
I think the starting party is too random. Starting with 3 useless naked goons on harder just screams for a restart before playing the first battle.

 

[rapsdjff]

I don't really know how it happens and I sadly don't have the logs anymore, but sometimes after a fight, combat status like that morale boost from the captain and such appear on the character sheet. Normally it's no problem, but last time I had the Footwork icon appear on one of my guy and the game crashed when I put my cursor over it with a "missing popup" error message.

Fixed.

Please give us the option to arrange our men prior to battle. You could implement it as a pre-battle turn where you move your men around a small zone on the tactical map, or you could have us do it on the party equipment screen at the strategic level. It's just a tad annoying having both your bills piled up at one end of your line, or having a brother or two start at the top of a huge cliff, separated from the rest of the army.

That's a planned feature.

It may have been reported already, but caravans sometimes disappear when under escort (it happens when I go to another screen, like party management).

Yeah, it's a known bug. I'll see about fixing it tomorrow.

It is weird not to have the saves sorted by

..sorted by? Today's update changed the sorting order to 'last date modified'.

I don't know. Whenever I double click on the battle map, it does rotate the view. My double click is certainly not mapped to alt+gr or whatever is the shortcut to rotate the map.
It then opens the ground/perks window. On the overland map, double clicking just opens the stash/perk window.

That's bizzare. I'm afraid this is probably something on your end, however.

I think the starting party is too random. Starting with 3 useless naked goons on harder just screams for a restart before playing the first battle

We've removed the 'beggar' background from the starting lineup today. Any others you think the player really shouldn't start with?

 

[Galdred]

It is weird not to have the saves sorted by

..sorted by? Today's update changed the sorting order to 'last date modified'.

Indeed, I thought I had deleted this part

I don't know. Whenever I double click on the battle map, it does rotate the view. My double click is certainly not mapped to alt+gr or whatever is the shortcut to rotate the map.
It then opens the ground/perks window. On the overland map, double clicking just opens the stash/perk window.

That's bizzare. I'm afraid this is probably something on your end, however.

Ouch. It is weird as I never encountered this issue before in any other game.
Is double clicking supposed to do anything in the game?
Can it be because I am using an azerty keyboard?
It works as if double clicking was triggering AltGr+C
Is it possible to rebind keys? If so, it would be trivial to remap AltGr and C to nothing as a workaround.

I think the starting party is too random. Starting with 3 useless naked goons on harder just screams for a restart before playing the first battle

We've removed the 'beggar' background from the starting lineup today. Any others you think the player really shouldn't start with?

I don't know actually. I would have to test more. Maybe make it so that the money it would cost to hire the starting party is more or less consistent? I think auto rerolling until starting party is between X and Y gold (and putting the beggar back) could work for instance.

 

[Lucky]

Just talking about the design for a bit, but the fatigue, AP, plus turns combination is a great replacement for cooldowns. It feels way more natural than having your character wait an arbitrary amount of time, before they can do something that you really want them to do every turn. Powerful abilities now have to be applied carefully, but you can spam them if necessary, at the price of lowering your options if the fight drags on. It helps makes their usability in certain fights more apparent too, like the shieldwall against Werewolves – might as well spam it ‘cause the fight won’t last long either way. It also means that you can build mercs around using them in a logical manner without having to go: FEAT – REDUCE COOLDOWN BY ONE TURN. The demo does a pretty good job of showing this in the first Undead battle; having everyone spam shieldwall is a bad idea, while timing it according to how people are positioned can win you the battle.

You actually only take 30% damage - it's 70% damage reduction. Maybe the description was a bit misleading, I've clarified it with today's update.

That’s a substantial difference. I’m tempted to try it out, though I still love my Killing Frenzy. My usual approach is to kill everything as fast as possible, because any hit that comes my way may result in a dead bro. Better to have a razor, than a sponge.

We've removed the 'beggar' background from the starting lineup today. Any others you think the player really shouldn't start with?

That’s too bad. I like how the intro has gaps in what the lives of your starting mercs were like before you founded the company. They might have been beggars before fighting in the shieldwall, or had an injury that meant they had to retire from active service and become beggars – then you find them and offer them another chance at wealth. The story writes itself. Getting a shitty starting party is also fun in its own way. It’s way more rewarding to succeed in having them survive, than when you get some elite founders.


Keep up the great work! The way you’ve been communicative about your plans for the game is part of what convinced me that the game would actually get made. Pretty sure that I’m not the only one either who feels like that. Just don’t burn yourself out on working on the game AND answering everyone’s questions.

EDIT: spelling

 

[Galdred]

Is there a way to not display the trees (only the trunk)? They make it quite hard to assess the surrounding in forest.
Another UI issue : it would be nice to get the stats for each background while mouse overing when recruiting, as they are fixed anyway.

 

[Borelli]

What is the rationale behind treating armor as extra health instead of ... armor? I am not against it i'm just curious since it is a rarely used system (the only one i can think of now is Final Fantasy Tactics).

 

[ColCol]

Goddamn, I don't want to keep buying early access, but I can't resist.

 

[oscar]

Seem to have gotten a corrupted save. Whenever I try to load I get this message and have to end process

"ID mismatch while deserialising script data"

Though was noticing lots of weird stuff before it: towns having no contracts, bandits having no gold and even a town disappearing. Latest patch seems more unstable.

 

[rapsdjff]

Is there a way to not display the trees (only the trunk)? They make it quite hard to assess the surrounding in forest.

Not currently. Clicking behind them turns them transparent. And double-clicking apparently rotates the view.

Another UI issue : it would be nice to get the stats for each background while mouse overing when recruiting, as they are fixed anyway.

I suppose that makes sense. We'll discuss it.

Seem to have gotten a corrupted save. Whenever I try to load I get this message and have to end process

"ID mismatch while deserialising script data"

Though was noticing lots of weird stuff before it: towns having no contracts, bandits having no gold and even a town disappearing. Latest patch seems more unstable.

The latest patch is in fact more stable. Towns sometimes not having contracts is normal, as is bandits not having gold depending on what they're up to. Bandit Raiders, for example, actually carry more gold after they've raided a location than before.

Now, about that corruped save.. I messed up. We did two updates in quick succession on Tuesday. Saves made inbetween those two updates have become corrupted, but saves made before or after are fine. Terribly sorry about this, won't happen again. I was completely exhausted from emergency-bugfixing after release and didn't think things through

 

[asfasdf]

Is it available outside steam?

 

[rapsdjff]

The game can only be played on Steam currently.

 

[Galdred]

Is there a way to not display the trees (only the trunk)? They make it quite hard to assess the surrounding in forest.

Not currently. Clicking behind them turns them transparent. And double-clicking apparently rotates the view.

Concerning this issue, I have not been able to replicate it on another PC, nor have I been able to suppress it on my main PC (updating drivers, turning off services, even with another mouse... ). It is a problem on my side indeed, but being able to remap keys would be a good workaround in the meantime.

 

[Dr Skeleton]

Giant wall of text incoming. Had too much time today, played on hard a lot. Game really has that "just one more battle" feeling.

UI, bugs and cosmetic stuff:
- Option to switch order in which battle brothers are shown would be nice. Currently it's always in order of hiring, I know I would like to group people by level, melee/archers, armor/hp etc.
- Please, please add more colour variety to aketon. At one point I had everybody wearing the same white armor and cap.
- Fatigue. It's the only stat that's better when it's lower and starts at 0. Maybe rename it to stamina and have it deplete with actions and regenerate over time? I can't be the only one who gets annoyed by this, it's just counter-intuitive. If an attack costs 10 fatigue and I have 5 I know I can't attack, if I see 62/65 it looks like I can.
- Shield wall animation sometimes doesn't reset after a turn passes.
- Perks and traits sometimes reshuffle their order when changing weapons. Doesn't affect the stats, but looks weird.

World map

- Navigating hills is a pain. Not only because you move so slowly, but it's sometimes hard to say which terrain counts as hills and where plains/forests begin.
- The way roads connect to villages is sometimes very weird, they encircle the village and enter on the other side.
- Some indication of view radius on the world map would be very nice.
- Shouldn't the world map have some kind of fog of war? I understand that roads and cities are shown (known on maps), but I don't think you should know the exact topography of the wilderness. Exploration is fun.
- I had a quest to destroy a location that was very close to a village, except it was on the other side of the river and the closest ford was a day to the east. Intentional? I'm not saying this shouldn't happen, but on an easy quest for ~500 crowns?
- Scout/raider spawn rate seems too high. Fighting the same group of young orcs 3 times in a row is boring and leads to farming for XP and loot.
- I've had this happen to me twice: I approach a dangerous/deadly location, it spawns an average encounter that attacks me, then I pillage the location which now has a lower rating. Wouldn't it make more sense for the AI to keep the army together when I approach? I understand when you're weak and walk too close to a deadly location, but when I have 12 men armed to the teeth, I don't think the orcs should send HALF of their numbers to attack me.
- Camping would be nice. Healing is pretty slow and that would be a way to make it faster. Maybe at a cost of other resources (and time obviously)? It would also open the possibility of random encounters and being attacked while unprepared, using money (instead of whatever “camping resources”) to rest in towns and villages (the game badly needs more money sinks). Also fatigue penalties for walking for 24h would not be out of place.
- I have a save with a quest to raze a location, where enemies change each time I approach it, including change in difficulty rating.
- Resources: healing herbs never run out (lower hp healed per each?), tools run out extremely fast.

Combat screen

- I'd love an option to highlight impassible terrain. Forests especially are a nightmare to navigate, you can't tell where you can pass without highlighting individual tiles.
- Maps with lots of higher ground often look ugly and have these narrow canyons that screw over the side that was unlucky to spawn inside them.

Weapons and armor

- Daggers are useless. They don't get the accuracy bonus swords and spears have, and their damage is very low. I think they should be more accurate and cost less AP to allow more attacks per turn. AP costs for attacks in general need some work.
- 2h weapons are generally not worth it. They only attack once a turn and not having a shield is a giant disadvantage. The only exception is the billhook, because it works from the second line. Love the billhook btw, it fits nicely between front line with shields and archers. Maybe spears should do that too?
- 1h axes, maces, swords and spears I think are generally in a very good place. Different attacks and skills, varied damage to armour, accuracy bonuses for simpler weapons. Great work. Spears maybe break a little to fast.
- Armor... I don't really have much to say, the system is working very well in my opinion, this is one of the few games where getting the heaviest armor you can for everyone is not a no-brainer.
- I think the items in character's backpack should give fatigue, at least partial. Right now there's no reason to not have a spare weapon and shield on everybody. It would also encourage using smaller weapons like daggers.

Characters

- I don't think you should level up defense (starting at 0), melee/range (~40) and fatigue/initiative (~100) for the same points.
- The system could also be more randomized, for example you get a small bonus to all stats (or bigger to random stats) every level and some points to distribute. Right now I'm just leveling melee/range, defense, HP and sometimes fatigue when I need it for armor. Maybe when you level up stats get increased based on what you're doing? So a character who was shooting a bow is more likely to increase ranged skill than melee.
- I like the perks, I don't like the way you get them, it's too simplistic. Get 3 from one category, unlock 2nd level. Meh, usually you end up picking the same ones. Maybe make the player choose a category and then offer 3 random perks from that category to choose from? (Maybe 3 from that category and 1 from each of the other categories?). Then when you reach high enough level, higher tier perks would enter the poll. Obviously perks need some balancing, but I'd rather have more unique and less optimized guys than 100% optimized and perks planned 10 levels ahead. That could also make some perks more or less likely for different backgrounds, fortified mind for monks and witchhuntes, shield expert for militia and veteran soldiers, pathfinder for hunters and vagabonds...
- Maybe add stat requirements for perks. I don't think a guy with low HP and fatigue should be a colossus.
- Does taunt do anything? I've tried using it several times to attract enemies, never worked, even when I was standing right next to them.
- I think background bonuses should be randomized a little. Right now that I'm 100% sure I'm getting a better deal with a farmer (only bonuses) than a daytaler (nothing). Sure, there are negative and positive traits, but background bonuses are always guaranteed, which leads to min-maxing by picking some backgrounds over others, it's common sense. So, for example, instead of a set bonus, farmers would get +5-15 hp and/or +5-15 fatigue, daytalers would get +0-15 hp and/or 0-15 fatigue, lumberjacks would get +5-15 hp and occasionally +5-10 melee etc. I don't see why all fishermen get an identical resolve bonus. More expensive classes like hedge knights or sellswords would still have better bonuses overall.

Enemies

- Thugs become complete pushovers after a few fights, they have bad weapons and basically zero armor. I recently had a fight with 20+ bandits and all thugs did was give me fatigue by taking damage. I feel like there should be a bandit class between thug and raider. Raiders start deadly and can still be dangerous later on, thugs are only dangerous in the first fight or so.
- Do bandits use crossbows? I've never seen that.
- More leaders! Even smaller locations should have a named leader, even a weaker one.
- The charge attack orcs have... I don't know, it's really annoying to have half of yours guys stunned at the start of every encounter with orcs. It doesn't seem to be affected by riposte, shield wall or anything like that. Not saying remove it, but some tweaking would be nice.
- No orc archers? Maybe at least orcs with javelins? Give the greenskins some reach.
- Vampires are very annoying. I don't mind a challenge, but teleporting to your weakest guy every turn for the entire battle is a little much. Archers are as good as dead when facing vampires and switching to biggest shields for everyone before a battle is pretty stupid.
- Ghouls and zombies are too weak, you can slaughter them in droves even with a smaller company. Ghouls especially, their attacks are weak, they die fast and start fleeing even faster. Are they even supposed to have morale? I recently looted a deadly location with 35 ghouls/zombies with just 11 guys most of whom were around level 2-3, I lost only 1 guy with level 1 and that was mostly just because his spawn location was very bad.

The game could use more enemies. Just with the human template you could make barbarians/wildmen, cultists, outlaw marauders etc.

Overall

- I feel like the overall progression (items, levels, encounters... everything) is too fast. I know it's a very early version and a lot of stuff is simply not there yet, but playing on normal after ~30min and a few battles I already have some of the best weapons and armor and can wipe out most enemies with no loses. There also seems to be no reason not to get to 12 men asap (other than upkeep, but it's not too difficult to handle). It's slower on hard, but not that much.
- This is tied to the previous point, but money rewards for quests are waaaay too high. 500 for finding some location that's not even too far away? 1000 for escorting a caravan? Starting can be rough (especially on hard), but one or two lucky quests with little or no fighting and you're set to recruit 12 men and equip everyone with basically whatever you want. Rewards for quests that aren't “raze this dangerous location” should be cut by at least 50%. Loot seems more balanced, but could be a problem in the long run too.
- Quests and pillaging unrelated locations. Why would mercenaries go out of their way to attack some beast lair in the wilderness when nobody paid them to? Bounties. Bounties for outlaws, werewolf pelts, ghoul heads, orc teeth etc. There's clearly more work than the guards can handle so castles should pay bounties for some of the killed enemies. Notorious bandit leaders or orc warlords would have higher bounties. This would also allow quests to find and kill/capture specific characters.
- Why exactly can't I get more than 1 contract? If I protect a caravan going to the same city someone wants a box delivered to? On the other hand some contracts should have a time limit.
- Last thing: please, please don't be afraid to nerf and buff stuff. There will be people who cry no matter what you do, but the game will be better in the end.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Try using spearwall against charging orcs. Also, how could you say that 2handed weapons are not worth it? ;_; I used to kill few enemies at once with 2handed sword. You just need to use it in certain situations, know your limits and give them to heavy armored guys who can fight well (So they actually have no problems in scoring eg. triple kills)

Other than that, bunch of good points.

Meh, I feel the urge to mod this game so hard :-x Adding late medieval items and other stuff.

 

[Galdred]

Actually, 2 handed users can use a shield if they have the skill allowing them to swap equipment for free :
use a 2 hander, swap for shield+1 hander, press enter.

 

[Lucky]

Giant wall of text incoming. Had too much time today, played on hard a lot. Game really has that "just one more battle" feeling.

I'll answer your wall with my own. Love talking about design sensibilities. :D

UI, bugs and cosmetic stuff:
- Option to switch order in which battle brothers are shown would be nice. Currently it's always in order of hiring, I know I would like to group people by level, melee/archers, armor/hp etc.
- Please, please add more colour variety to aketon. At one point I had everybody wearing the same white armor and cap.
- Fatigue. It's the only stat that's better when it's lower and starts at 0. Maybe rename it to stamina and have it deplete with actions and regenerate over time? I can't be the only one who gets annoyed by this, it's just counter-intuitive. If an attack costs 10 fatigue and I have 5 I know I can't attack, if I see 62/65 it looks like I can.

-Rearranging your mercs is planned. As is an option to position your troops at the start of battle (unless you get ambushed).

-More variety in the art is planned for all the characters, though I’m not sure about armour.

-Can’t say that fatigue ever felt counter-intuitive. Maybe it takes some getting used to?

World map

- Navigating hills is a pain. Not only because you move so slowly, but it's sometimes hard to say which terrain counts as hills and where plains/forests begin.
- The way roads connect to villages is sometimes very weird, they encircle the village and enter on the other side.
- Some indication of view radius on the world map would be very nice.
- Shouldn't the world map have some kind of fog of war? I understand that roads and cities are shown (known on maps), but I don't think you should know the exact topography of the wilderness. Exploration is fun.
- Scout/raider spawn rate seems too high. Fighting the same group of young orcs 3 times in a row is boring and leads to farming for XP and loot.
- I've had this happen to me twice: I approach a dangerous/deadly location, it spawns an average encounter that attacks me, then I pillage the location which now has a lower rating. Wouldn't it make more sense for the AI to keep the army together when I approach? I understand when you're weak and walk too close to a deadly location, but when I have 12 men armed to the teeth, I don't think the orcs should send HALF of their numbers to attack me.
- Camping would be nice. Healing is pretty slow and that would be a way to make it faster. Maybe at a cost of other resources (and time obviously)? It would also open the possibility of random encounters and being attacked while unprepared, using money (instead of whatever “camping resources”) to rest in towns and villages (the game badly needs more money sinks). Also fatigue penalties for walking for 24h would not be out of place.
- Resources: healing herbs never run out (lower hp healed per each?), tools run out extremely fast.

-Agreed. Map art could use some clarification on what terrain counts as which.

-I kind of like it. It feels like the kind of awkwardness you can see in old cities that at one point outgrew their starting locations but still need to be accessible.

-I feel like the vagueness regarding the view radius keeps you on your toes on whether an enemy will suddenly show up. Also not sure how you'dmake it more obvious in an unobtrusive manner.

-Agreed on the exploration, though fog of war tends to be ugly and artificial. I’d personally like to see something a bit different. Maybe have an old fashioned map of the area as the initial background that gets filled in with the current map style as you move across it - with the degree of coloration being dependent on distance to your company, rather than a circle around you. As if you’re charting the less well known areas while guessing the further away bits. You could add stuff like randomising whether a location on it is correctly portrayed, with the chance at mistakes increasing as the distance from the cities increases.

-The spawn rate should be connected to nearby hideouts that are producing. Could be that it is a little high right now though, maybe have them take longer but build up to a greater mass as the game progresses.

-How about this. There's likely going to be a reputation system, so how about having enemies react to it. Being well known could cause them to be more cautious and wait for your approach, while they'll be confident that they can take you if you're not well known and send out parties to meet your advance.

-I think the camping mechanic is planned, though I’m not sure how it’ll get implemented.

-Healing herbs will probably gain more uses when the injury system gets introduced. I figure that we’ll get a better picture of whether they need to be adjusted after that happens.

Combat screen

- I'd love an option to highlight impassible terrain. Forests especially are a nightmare to navigate, you can't tell where you can pass without highlighting individual tiles.

-Instead of marking impassable terrain, I’d rather have it that art is a bit clearer on which parts you can and cannot pass through – stuff like the shrubbery can be deceptive. I agree though that it can be kind of a clusterfuck at times.

Weapons and armor

- Daggers are useless. They don't get the accuracy bonus swords and spears have, and their damage is very low. I think they should be more accurate and cost less AP to allow more attacks per turn. AP costs for attacks in general need some work.
- 2h weapons are generally not worth it. They only attack once a turn and not having a shield is a giant disadvantage. The only exception is the billhook, because it works from the second line. Love the billhook btw, it fits nicely between front line with shields and archers. Maybe spears should do that too?
- Armor... I don't really have much to say, the system is working very well in my opinion, this is one of the few games where getting the heaviest armor you can for everyone is not a no-brainer.
- I think the items in character's backpack should give fatigue, at least partial. Right now there's no reason to not have a spare weapon and shield on everybody. It would also encourage using smaller weapons like daggers.

-The main use of the dagger is currently their puncture ability, which allows you to reliable scavenge great armour from enemies. Making them stronger runs the risk of making them a bit too good.

-The way to get around the less defence problem with two-handers is to take the Quick Hands perk and start the battle with your merc wielding a one-handed weapon + shield. Then switch to the two-hander once you’re in a good position. Switch back again if you need the extra defence. They’re quite devastating when used in this way.

-I really like how the armour mechanics as well. They naturally lead to the player making decisions regarding what armour is a best fit for their needs, rather than always going for the heaviest one.to certain builds decisions

-I noticed some discussion regarding that. It’s not clear whether it’ll get implemented, but it might.

Characters

- The system could also be more randomized, for example you get a small bonus to all stats (or bigger to random stats) every level and some points to distribute. Right now I'm just leveling melee/range, defense, HP and sometimes fatigue when I need it for armor. Maybe when you level up stats get increased based on what you're doing? So a character who was shooting a bow is more likely to increase ranged skill than melee.
- I like the perks, I don't like the way you get them, it's too simplistic. Get 3 from one category, unlock 2nd level. Meh, usually you end up picking the same ones. Maybe make the player choose a category and then offer 3 random perks from that category to choose from? (Maybe 3 from that category and 1 from each of the other categories?). Then when you reach high enough level, higher tier perks would enter the poll. Obviously perks need some balancing, but I'd rather have more unique and less optimized guys than 100% optimized and perks planned 10 levels ahead. That could also make some perks more or less likely for different backgrounds, fortified mind for monks and witchhuntes, shield expert for militia and veteran soldiers, pathfinder for hunters and vagabonds...
- Maybe add stat requirements for perks. I don't think a guy with low HP and fatigue should be a colossus.
- Does taunt do anything? I've tried using it several times to attract enemies, never worked, even when I was standing right next to them.
- I think background bonuses should be randomized a little. Right now that I'm 100% sure I'm getting a better deal with a farmer (only bonuses) than a daytaler (nothing). Sure, there are negative and positive traits, but background bonuses are always guaranteed, which leads to min-maxing by picking some backgrounds over others, it's common sense. So, for example, instead of a set bonus, farmers would get +5-15 hp and/or +5-15 fatigue, daytalers would get +0-15 hp and/or 0-15 fatigue, lumberjacks would get +5-15 hp and occasionally +5-10 melee etc. I don't see why all fishermen get an identical resolve bonus. More expensive classes like hedge knights or sellswords would still have better bonuses overall.

-Can't say that I agree, the current stat system feels mostly fine to me. it's true that you are currently less likely to pick initiative and resolve, but resolve will become more useful once mental attacks get implemented and you'll still want to sprinkle your level ups with initiative so as to not get gangbanged before your turn starts. Both also have some good synergy with a couple of perks and builds based on those. Having your stat gain based on how the character behaved in combat would also make the whole thing more complicated than necessary, not to mention make it unnecessarily difficult to level certain stats (how would you even level initiative?). I’d rather see something like characters earning traits based on using the same weapon for a long time.

-I’d personally just like to see more perks for the player to choose from, or have add perks that you have to earn in some way. Something like each mercs starting with their perk tree randomised could be fun and make for a lot of diversity, but they'd need to add a lot more perks to the game to pull it off and balancing it would require a lot of effort.

-Totally disagree on the stat requirements. One of the best things about the character system is how it doesn’t explicitly tell you which perks to pick for what role, but instead has them as the logical conclusion for it while letting you sue it differently. Say you want a sturdy guy who can take hits. Right now a guy with less HP gets less use out of Colossus, so you’d be more inclined to give it to a high HP guy. You could still give it to the first one, but you would get less mileage out of it unless you focus on levelling his HP. This makes the second option the logical choice, without forcing you to pick it. Putting stats requirements there would only limit your options without actually adding anything, while also not playing nice with the random nature of stat distribution. Planning your build would become a matter of re-rolling, because having it ruined because of missing the requirement by a single point does nothing but piss the player off.

-Resolve needs to be pretty high for it to actually work. I like the idea behind it and it can be effective, but it's not very reliable.

-Some randomisation with the backgrounds would be nice. It would make choosing which ones you hire more exciting, while also making each merc feel more unique.

Enemies

- Thugs become complete pushovers after a few fights, they have bad weapons and basically zero armor. I recently had a fight with 20+ bandits and all thugs did was give me fatigue by taking damage. I feel like there should be a bandit class between thug and raider. Raiders start deadly and can still be dangerous later on, thugs are only dangerous in the first fight or so.
- Do bandits use crossbows? I've never seen that.
- More leaders! Even smaller locations should have a named leader, even a weaker one.
- The charge attack orcs have... I don't know, it's really annoying to have half of yours guys stunned at the start of every encounter with orcs. It doesn't seem to be affected by riposte, shield wall or anything like that. Not saying remove it, but some tweaking would be nice.
- No orc archers? Maybe at least orcs with javelins? Give the greenskins some reach.
- Vampires are very annoying. I don't mind a challenge, but teleporting to your weakest guy every turn for the entire battle is a little much. Archers are as good as dead when facing vampires and switching to biggest shields for everyone before a battle is pretty stupid.
- Ghouls and zombies are too weak, you can slaughter them in droves even with a smaller company. Ghouls especially, their attacks are weak, they die fast and start fleeing even faster. Are they even supposed to have morale? I recently looted a deadly location with 35 ghouls/zombies with just 11 guys most of whom were around level 2-3, I lost only 1 guy with level 1 and that was mostly just because his spawn location was very bad.

The game could use more enemies. Just with the human template you could make barbarians/wildmen, cultists, outlaw marauders etc.

-Maybe give thugs better gear if they successfully manage to raid caravans and such (maybe that already happens?). I figure the bandit faction will get more units eventually though.

-Not sure on the crossbows. I honestly never noticed if they did.

-I think more enemy leaders are planned as a feature of the event system. Like a raiding group getting a skilled leader if they’re successfully raiding caravans for a while – causing a contract for their elimination to get created in the city that they’ve been terrorising. I could be wrong about that particular example, but there’ll be more leaders eventually.

-Their charge is kind of their thing though and a large part of what makes them dangerous. Spearwall is what you want to use in order to stop it.

-Javelins were originally meant for the Orcs, but they found that it didn’t suit their fighting style. Archers straight up work with the idea behind their faction. Goblins will fill this niche, so a full Greenskin warband should make for quite the threat.

-Vampires are entertaining though. They’re dicks, but they make things less predictable. Also the reason why you still want your archers to have some decent armour.

-Ghouls are currently only dangerous if you let them feed a lot and Wïedergangers are purely early game threats. Maybe add something like Elder Ghouls that lead packs of them (could be that they’re already there and I just slaughtered them like the rest) and have Necromancers capable of raising more powerful Wïedergangers for the mid-game.

-More varied enemies is one the things that I’m most looking forward to. More factions, more units for each faction, more possible differences between the same units, etc.

Overall

- I feel like the overall progression (items, levels, encounters... everything) is too fast. I know it's a very early version and a lot of stuff is simply not there yet, but playing on normal after ~30min and a few battles I already have some of the best weapons and armor and can wipe out most enemies with no loses. There also seems to be no reason not to get to 12 men asap (other than upkeep, but it's not too difficult to handle). It's slower on hard, but not that much.
- This is tied to the previous point, but money rewards for quests are waaaay too high. 500 for finding some location that's not even too far away? 1000 for escorting a caravan? Starting can be rough (especially on hard), but one or two lucky quests with little or no fighting and you're set to recruit 12 men and equip everyone with basically whatever you want. Rewards for quests that aren't “raze this dangerous location” should be cut by at least 50%. Loot seems more balanced, but could be a problem in the long run too.
- Quests and pillaging unrelated locations. Why would mercenaries go out of their way to attack some beast lair in the wilderness when nobody paid them to? Bounties. Bounties for outlaws, werewolf pelts, ghoul heads, orc teeth etc. There's clearly more work than the guards can handle so castles should pay bounties for some of the killed enemies. Notorious bandit leaders or orc warlords would have higher bounties. This would also allow quests to find and kill/capture specific characters.
- Why exactly can't I get more than 1 contract? If I protect a caravan going to the same city someone wants a box delivered to? On the other hand some contracts should have a time limit.
- Last thing: please, please don't be afraid to nerf and buff stuff. There will be people who cry no matter what you do, but the game will be better in the end.

-Probably either the levelling rate will get slowed down or it gets tied to the difficulty level. You're right that level and gear progression is way too fast right now.

-Yeah, contract rewards are a little high right now. Maybe tie it to the difficulty level as well or just straight up lower them.

-I'm probably repeating repeating myself, but I expect this to get introduced with the event system. It’s a pretty major feature the absence of which is clearly being felt in a lot of places.

-You mean contracts like deliveries? Maybe add a chance for the people that you’re delivering to die in case a city get raided, or have the amount of money you get be dependent on how fast you deliver it.

-True, that's what Early-Access is meant for (or should be, at least). People will complain either way, so might as well do what you consider to be best for the game.

 

[sser]

The world is randomly generated and then runs procedurally from there. I can speak from experience that the balance is more delicate than it might appear at first glance. When new stuff gets put in there, I think there will be a much better picture from which balancing changes can be made.

As for smaller balancing changes... Daggers have their place. One use is plucking unscathed armor off dead enemies, as noted above. But you also have to take into account that both militia and enemies use pretty much the same weapons you do. You don't want some really buffed daggers and then have motley thugs shanking your near-power armor-wearing Hedge Knights, or have some militiaman doing dagger-heroics through a field of raiders. Two-handed weapons are quite powerful in my experience and they have a lot of usage across the perk trees. I also like to give my cheap hires big orc two-handed weapons just to have fun with. There's something grossly amusing about a dumb daytaler 360-swinging a giant chain around. (I also highly suggest equipping weapons like these just so you know what abilities they have.) Speaking of amusements, I had an occasion where an enemy two-hander swapped positions with his comrade and then slew two of my guys in one swing.

I won't say too much about the events, but JA2 is a listed inspiration for a reason. Be mindful of who you put in your party