Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[hoverdog]

Update time. This should answer your question, Ninjerk.

Dev Blog #45: Named Items
This week’s update adds named items with unique looks and randomized stats as rare loot for the most powerful opponents, fixes a critical bug with last week’s retreat mechanic, adds some new events and includes quite a few balancing changes.

Named Items
As we see it, there are two problems with the item progression currently. Firstly, the player very quickly skips the lower tiers of weapons after just the first few battles because higher tier weapons generally drop as loot and are widely available for reasonable prices. And because mid to high tier equipment is available so soon, there is also little to buy or save for later in the game. This will be addressed with the next big update. Secondly, although the selection of weapons, shields and armor is ever-increasing, there is a distinct lack of reward when prevailing against the strongest of opponents, and little excitement in the looting phase after battle. This update aims to address this.

The strongest opponents now have a small chance to both use and drop as loot named weapons and shields that offer some advantages over their nameless counterparts and come with looks of their own. Their stats are slightly randomized to excel in different areas and some of them are plain better than others. To be clear, named items are not the legendary items we plan on adding eventually – they’re just very well crafted weapons and shields and should make looting in the game a bit more interesting for now, as well as allow you to customize your brothers better with their unique look.

Looking for a Sound Designer!
Going forward we’re looking for a dedicated hobbyist or professional sound designer to join us in making the game come alive. Your responsibilities would include designing the sound effects for various fantasy creatures, general battle sounds, footsteps, ambient noise and user interface sounds. If you’re a fan of Battle Brothers and would love to work on the game yourself, read our full job posting and apply at contact@overhypestudios.com!

What’s next?
Next up is the biggest update to date – the one introducing Goblins and changing quite a few mechanics around. Getting all this done will take us several weeks, so there will not be an update to the game for a while. However, we will keep you posted on our progress and will give you some sneak peeks into the coming green menace along the way.

Unfortunately the Goblin update will break save game compatibility – you will have to start a new campaign.

Changelog

• Added named weapons and shields with slightly randomized stats as rare loot for the more powerful opponents.
• Added 4 new events.

• Changed Rally the Troops skill so that a single character can only be rallied once per round. A single character being rallied multiple times, especially in combination with Perfect Focus, proved to be way too powerful in dealing with almost any threat, which was not how it was intended.
• Changed fatigue costs of Perfect Focus skill to 30 (down from 40).
• Changed Ghouls to make use of the retreat mechanics as well.
• Changed prices of some supplies to be higher.
• Changed movement speed on mountainous terrain to be slightly higher.
• Changed the waiting action to reduce initiative by 25% for the purpose of determining turn order the following turn. This is to lessen the problem of taking double-turns, i.e. two turns in quick succession.
• Changed the Shield Bash perk to have the Knock Back skill cost 10 Fatigue less to use in order to make it more of a viable choice until it gets either reworked or replaced.
• Changed Javelins so that they can be thrown twice per turn and cost less fatigue to use, also reduced their damage and effectiveness against armor with each throw.

• Fixed retreating enemies crashing the game in some instances.
• Fixed orcs potentially charging to tiles they shouldn’t be able to reach.

An easy way to make the high end weapons less obtainable in the early game is to greatly increase their prices. As of now, I can buy a top notch two-handed sword right off the bat, and I still have ~1200 gold for other stuff (on normal difficulty, at least). Such a sword should cost something like 1500, not 300. Of course, selling prices for loot should be proportionally lower then too.


The game is great, BTW. If you're still unsure what's the game like, I invite you to check my codexian LP here. Shameless self-advertising

 

[Crabcakes]

Awesome LP! I just checked it out
Regarding the weapon prices, I agree on that topic. The whole weapon and equipment progression needs to be overhauled and straightened out. As we don't want to do any snap shots it will take some more time to happen.
Can't tell you yet when, but it will come eventually.

Cheers!

 

[Cosmo]

I am the graphics guy, thanks for the compliment!
By the way, the patch included a lot more items than those shown in the Blog pictures

Cheers

I don't want to be a pain in the ass, but some of the overhead map elements feel a little bit rough, like the mountains and the grass. Do you plan on doing another pass on that, or is it outside of your scope ?

 

[hoverdog]

Awesome LP! I just checked it out
Regarding the weapon prices, I agree on that topic. The whole weapon and equipment progression needs to be overhauled and straightened out. As we don't want to do any snap shots it will take some more time to happen.
Can't tell you yet when, but it will come eventually.

Cheers!

Great. Can't wait!

 

[Regvard]

Has anybody gotten a named item so far? Post screens if you did, I am curious.

 

[oscar]

Can't be bothered screenshotting but I captured a unique shield and got a masterwork bow from an event regarding the relevant background.

 

[Lhynn]

Any plans to give stats to the commander?

 

[ST'Ranger]

I generally avoid unreleased titles, but I can never resist X-COM-style combat. The combat in this game is delightful. I especially like that different situations favor different weapons, causing one to always measure the strengths and weaknesses of each option. Movement and planning in combat are extremely tactical, but the mechanics holding things together are generally simple and clear.

I also appreciate devs who stand their ground when it comes to the philosophy behind their design. I don't need to know, in principle, if an orc warrior has 600 or 800 armor, I just need to know that it has loads more than a shirtless bandit. One battle is all it takes to discover fundamental differences between different enemies. In this, you gentlemen have proceeded competently.

There are certainly some balance concerns (5 points of melee defense seems worth far more than 5 points of health, for example), but this is hardly the stage for that kind of thing to be relevant. The one perk I really don't think belongs is the XP perk - everything else can be brought up and down to proper levels.

My one real surviving criticism is that forest battles lack clarity. I spend large amounts of time during forest fights mousing over terrain to map out paths because it's simply not visually clear.

 

[Ninjerk]

Fuck forests.

 

[rapsdjff]

A small progress update.

Dev Blog #46: Progress Update – Worn Armor and Goblin Preview
As we explained previously, the next update to the game will take us a few weeks to get done. In the meantime we invite you to take a look at what we’re working on and how progress is going. This week we’ve added a wide variety of worn armor and helmets for the bandit faction and started work on the Goblins.

Worn Armor
So far, everyone was wearing well-crafted armor and helmets in mint condition. This always felt a bit out of place especially with the bandits who looked pretty much like regular soldiers or militia forces with their equipment. After all, they are supposed to be outlaws living in the woods and they can have a hard time getting materials to repair their gear.

To address this, we’ve made a variety of new armor and helmets with a worn-out look, gear that has been patched up many times, lost some parts or has become rusted. This gives the bandit faction a unique look and makes them stand out from other human factions. What is more, all these items have their own values for armor and fatigue penalties. In general, the worn-out and patched armors are a bit lighter, giving less fatigue penalties but also having less armor points.http://battlebrothersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/bandit_headgear.jpg


Although bandits make the most use out of this new equipment, it isn’t exclusive to them. These items are not sold in shops, but they can of course be looted and used by the player, and some backgrounds the player can hire now also wear ragged surcoats, headscarfs and many more of those new items as starting equipment for a more flavorful look.



Goblin Preview
Goblins are of course the major coming new feature for Battle Brothers. We’ll do a proper reveal in time and talk about their place in the world, their culture, their equipment and their individual troop types in detail. Until then, we didn’t want to leave you without a small teaser of what is to come. So here it is, an image of the Goblin Wolfrider!



What’s next?
Most of the assets for the Goblins are done, and now we’re on to implementing them into the game. Since they come with a bunch of unique skills and an extensive armory of their own, that’s quite a bit of work. Once that’s done, we’ll have to extend the AI to allow it to actually make use of all the new weapons, skills and tactical options. Finally, we have to playtest and balance the new faction to make sure they work as intended and that combat against them is both challenging and fun.

 

[Alienman]

New armor is looking great. Will you tone down the availability of regular armor with this addition? I mean from shops.

 

[Ashery]

My one real surviving criticism is that forest battles lack clarity. I spend large amounts of time during forest fights mousing over terrain to map out paths because it's simply not visually clear.

The easiest route would be to introduce another button titled "Flatten terrain" that eliminates all environmental objects and replaces them with a base tile that indicates either no line of sight or line of sight but obstructed targeting.

(I think those are the two cases that can happen; blame mistakes on the fact that it's 7am.)

 

[Ulminati]

A small progress update.

Any chance of a mount slot for your battlebros so we can have horsemen?

 

[Eyestabber]

Guyz, any chance Battle Bros will ever be ported to mobile devices? It would bring massive to my plane trips.

And would give me an excuse to give you even MORE money...



rapsdjff

 

[Lucky]

Guyz, any chance Battle Bros will ever be ported to mobile devices? It would bring massive to my plane trips.

And would give me an excuse to give you even MORE money...



rapsdjff

Dude, what are you doing. That's what lappies are for!

Any chance of a mount slot for your battlebros so we can have horsemen?

I recall them saying that giving the player horses horses would move the gameplay more towards large-scale combat, which is not the scope that they're going for, so they're not planned.

 

[Elim]

Is there a "re-drawing" of the worldmap/terrain textures in combat and the vegetation planned?
I feel like they are not in the same league as the characters and the equipment.

 

[rapsdjff]

New armor is looking great. Will you tone down the availability of regular armor with this addition? I mean from shops.

Yes, we've redone the prices so that mid to high tier equipment is quite a bit more expensive and less easily attainable now. This should make low tier weaponry and armor something to use for a while longer and the worn armor that bandits now drop a lot more rewarding for the first part of the game. We've also cut down on some of the high end weapons for Bandit Raiders so that those have to be actually bought now.

Guyz, any chance Battle Bros will ever be ported to mobile devices? It would bring massive to my plane trips.

And would give me an excuse to give you even MORE money...

Possibly maybe perhaps after the game is done. We have no plans for a mobile version currently but it's certainly something to consider in the future. I have no clue at this point how feasible it would be in terms of game controls and player interest, however.

Any chance of a mount slot for your battlebros so we can have horsemen?

Dude, what are you doing. That's what lappies are for!

I recall them saying that giving the player horses horses would move the gameplay more towards large-scale combat, which is not the scope that they're going for, so they're not planned.

I'm afraid Goblin Wolfriders will remain the only cavalry unit in the game for now. Mounted combat would require a lot of work to really do it justice, so our focus is on infantry combat only for the time being.

Is there a "re-drawing" of the worldmap/terrain textures in combat and the vegetation planned?
I feel like they are not in the same league as the characters and the equipment.

There's definitely a difference in quality between the earlier assets done by Paul with limited time at the end of the day and after his day job, and the more recent ones since he began working fulltime on the game. We've already discussed how to go about this internally and he wants to revisit the earlier stuff in time to bring it up to par. As for the worldmap specifically, it'll see a lot of work in both visuals and gameplay after we're done with the Goblins and assorted mechanics.

 

[Eyestabber]

Possibly maybe perhaps after the game is done. We have no plans for a mobile version currently but it's certainly something to consider in the future. I have no clue at this point how feasible it would be in terms of game controls and player interest, however.

Game controls should port pretty smoothly. Just look at the New Xcom, pretty playable on android. As for player interest, well, you have one right here!

 

[Ulminati]

Encouraging mobile versions is a terrible idea. It tempts people to cripple the PC version to make it easier to port at a later date.

 

[zwanzig_zwoelf]

Tablet UI for Desktop version!

 

[Lucky]

Game controls should port pretty smoothly. Just look at the New Xcom, pretty playable on android. As for player interest, well, you have one right here!

C'mon, one of the big problems with modern XCOM is how having to think of other platforms screwed up their design priorities. Here's what Harebrained Schemes had to say about not having a mobile version:

Spoiler

"During our Kickstarter, we said that we were focusing all our production energies on Windows, Mac, and Linux. That was for a number of reasons,” Gitelman says. “Number one was quality. When you make a game for PC and mobile simultaneously, you must author for the mobile version throughout to manage performance, framerate, et cetera, and it affects what you put on screen and when.”

As big as today’s smartphone screens are, they can be quite limiting on a text-heavy game meant first and foremost for even larger PC monitors, in other words. There’s also the issue of success. Even priced at a modest £1.93, it can be hard to stand out against a swamp of free-to-play games, as we put it. Though the original Shadowrun Returns has been a modest success on Android – Google Play lists downloads between 100,000 and 500,000 – Gitelman says it hasn’t been profitable enough to make it worth their time.

“Number two was discoverability,” he admits. “Yes, the iTunes and Google Play stores contain a ‘swamp of free-to-play’ games that makes it hard to get attention and play. We found that putting out premium title at a premium price got a lot of love from the audience, but it was a smaller one that we can support at this point in our company’s history.”

It's very unlikely to be profitable for them and it would take away time and effort better spent on the their flagship version. Just do what I did for long trips and get a modestly sized lappy. Easy to use, better games and it looks more fashionable than plinking away at your mobile. Good investment.

 

[Suicidal Meat Slapper]

If I had the money, I'd buy this bullshit right now.

 

[Eyestabber]

Encouraging mobile versions is a terrible idea. It tempts people to cripple the PC version to make it easier to port at a later date.

mmm...didn't think of that. Okay, guess it's best to wait until the game is released.

 

[rapsdjff]

Bros are receiving a makeover this week to bring them in line with the goblins in terms of detail. While we're at it, we're also adding a few more faces, hair and beard styles.

 

[Abu Antar]

Bros are receiving a makeover this week to bring them in line with the goblins in terms of detail. While we're at it, we're also adding a few more faces, hair and beard styles.

Dem nipplez.