Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[Mangoose]

This is less about aesthetics than it is a game design consideration. Having damage numbers be the center of attention shifts the game more towards becoming a game of numbers altogether.

Strategic games are games of numbers and information.

but one where the very subjective player experience is equal part in the decision-making process.

If you want to simulate fog of war and uncertainty, then you need to feature reconnaissance and information gathering as game mechanics, before the battle. No military goes into a fight without knowledge of what they're up against. They don't just sit there plinking away for 10 minutes just to figure out which enemies are strong or which enemies are weak.

 

[rapsdjff]

Strategic games are games of numbers and information.

And where do these numbers come from? We could serve them all to the player, ready-to-go, reducing a certain enemy to a bunch of stats right away and sidelining the concept of what that enemy is supposed to represent. Or we provide some essential information (again, the exact amount still to be determined) and have the player work to assess and quantify for him or herself the tactical situation to derive the others. We want to go with the latter, the one that doesn't have players just crunching numbers we hand out.

If you want to simulate fog of war and uncertainty, then you need to feature reconnaissance and information gathering as game mechanics, before the battle. No military goes into a fight without knowledge of what they're up against. They don't just sit there plinking away for 10 minutes just to figure out which enemies are strong or which enemies are weak.

We do feature reconnaissance and information gathering to a limited extent, on the strategic layer, but this applies more to enemy group composition and general state than to individual characters within that group. We have no ambition to simulate any military. In any case, I'm not sure what the point of your example really is, since I'm pretty sure a military force doesn't figure out individual enemy strength by the floating numbers above peoples' heads either, or get access to physiological profiles of enemy combatants. On an individual level, I'd assume they go by visual appearance, sound, behavior and finally experience - which leaves them with imperfect information. And that's what we're trying to do as well for now, until technical or artistic constraints would force us to consider more invasive options in order to keep the player on top of things.

 

[Mangoose]

On an individual level, I'd assume they go by visual appearance, sound, behavior and finally experience - which leaves them with imperfect information. And that's what we're trying to do as well for now, until technical or artistic constraints would force us to consider more invasive options in order to keep the player on top of things.

Enjoy wasting your time until you realize that communicating via visuals etc. is a very difficult task.

 

[rapsdjff]

Yes, it is. But then, creating the whole game is a difficult task. That's no reason to not even try to make this thing how we imagine it to play.

 

[Grunker]

Your game represents characters as miniatures for christ sakes.

What "immersion" are you afraid of breaking? People will play this for the combat and the strategy. At the end of the day, gameplay is clearly the no. 1 thing that will make or break your game. Yet you deny the player info out of a weird concern... of what? That the player will end up regarding your miniature boardgame-like figures as... non-human?

That is some eldritch fucking logic. I hope you are not making similar decisions elsewhere that resemble this one; compromising gameplay and clarity for misunderstood "immersion". If your game does not function as a clear, concise, tactical challenge where the player has all the information he needs, I doubt it will function at all.

You're free to do whatever you'd like of course. However my feelings towards the game will be severely chilled if I have to read obscure combat logs or interpret an artist's unclear vision of how 5 damage can be shown as a nosebleed, to get the info I need to make solid choices.

You say you want to avoid turning your characters into a representation of stats and numbers. Well, ultimately, that is what they are. Compromising on clarity in order to obfuscate that fundamental truth is a fool's errand.

Who knows, maybe you'll innovate the entire industry with a brand new form of damage representation that is both clear and hidden. And my fears will be shamed. I doubt it though.

 

[Mangoose]

Yes, it is. But then, creating the whole game is a difficult task. That's no reason to not even try to make this thing how we imagine it to play.

No, the point is that having visually distinctive communication has been basically impossible in the history of game development. If you do, you will be probably the first person to ever do it right. Which is doubtful. Do you not understand that every individual intuits visual feedback differently? You have no way to balance clarity. You're going to have visual biases that certain individuals won't even understand. There is a reason that mathematics is an international language. It is communicable and has high objectivity.

It's a more difficult task than creating your game. You will spend more effort trying to fine tune and get feedback from testers trying to make "visual subjective feedback" work compared to your entire efforts on the rest of the game.

And then you'll give up, and realized you have made terrible time priority decisions and have lost yourself so much time that could be spent making the core gameplay good and balanced and interesting.

I'm really questioning your management skills and your design philosophy. You are prioritizing putting time into visual feedback instead of prioritizing time spent on core gameplay. Design philosophy wise, you are trying to add 'innovative shit' when the fundamental rule of design is K.I.S.S - Keep It Simple, Stupid. Make the game work, make the game interesting, THEN try to do your revolutionary subjective visual feedback experiment.

 

[Jagged Appliance]

I share the rest of the guys' concerns. Give us the numbers! Make them optional if you want but really I find your reasoning behind this decision weak. Ultimately, you can't have good tactical combat without the ability to make informed decisions and I don't think the feedback you're providing is giving the player enough information.

 

[Grunker]

Make them optional if you want.

Sure, works for me.

 

[Vagiel]

The idea you propose is very interesting but I think it would work better if there are certain states instead of hp. Imagine having 3 states healthy, wounded and critical for example where different penalties are applied and a player has a sure way of knowing what it's hit will cause. Then you wouldn't really need numbers to represent anything since the player is fully informed of everything.

Sent from my D5503 using Tapatalk 2

 

[rapsdjff]

Look, I appreciate the time and effort you guys invest into making me come to my senses. It's great that a controversial view on game design finally gets a discussion going in this thread. That you apparently care enough about the game even.

But some of you act like we're attempting to develop some revolutionary technique of visual feedback in our secret laboratory that gives everyone the ability to get the same level of information that raw numbers convey via universal artistic renderings because our figures are really human beings. That notion is absurd.

Giving the player clear feedback for his or her actions and sufficient information to make informed decisions with is key, I get it. I said it before. But what "sufficient information" constitutes exactly is debatable and will vary from game to game. Other games offer stats on enemies to varying degrees. What we're doing on this matter isn't in any way innovative. I'll say again that the original X-Com in 1994 did without floating damage numbers. It wasn't the pinnacle of usability, and in many ways we already offer more information - which makes sense, among other things, because our battles tend to be more congested affairs, and its less easy to keep track of things manually. We also have less technical limitations than back in the day and we're not ignorant to 20 years of improvements in UI design.

All I'm saying at this point is that we don't want to go overboard with numbers, because this game shouldn't fundamentally be about juggling numbers. Maybe your favorite tactical games are, fine. And maybe things won't work out the way we intend them to, in which case we'll go with the game that plays well instead of clasping to our hopes, unable to let go. But this isn't about investing all our energy into portraying 5 points of damage as nosebleeds, this is about figuring out what level of information the player actually needs to play the game comfortably rather than spoon-feeding every bit of information right away.

This can best be done by playing the game, and so I'd ask you guys to keep a reasonably open mind and just give the combat demo a shot next week. If then there's a significant part of players who feel that their enjoyment of the game would be greatly enhanced by floating damage numbers, not because they're used to it, but because the game lacks easily digestable feedback and gameplay suffers for it, and that there is no other straight-forward way to remedy that situation, so be it. That would be a pretty strong argument for adding optional floating damage numbers.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

We don't want the game to be one of perfect information that encouranges min-maxing and similar mathematical minded gaming.

informed decisions

How exactly is "half dead" worse than "12/24"? You wouldn't know how much a new enemy type can take until you try, and then you don't need the numbers, you have the comparison with other situations. "Hey! Olaf needs about two hits for regular zombies and this one took five!"
The important things like position, enemy types, armor, weapons and damage stages are there.

I think the hit/miss representation is fine as it is. Maybe make the hit flash more pronounced, based on the damage dealt? Might scratch that feedback itch.
If you add some visual clues in the end, I'd suggest an "always visible health bars" option rather than floating numbers.

 

[Mangoose]

Oh great, the tech limitation excuse. You sound like an AAA developer. Are you a former EA employee?

 

[Dayyālu]

This can best be done by playing the game, and so I'd ask you guys to keep a reasonably open mind and just give the combat demo a shot next week.

Agreed. I am quite curious about this little thing. Give us the demo, and we'll judge and talk with proper and sound knowledge.

Before that time, suspension of judgment is the best way.

 

[rapsdjff]

You wouldn't know how much a new enemy type can take until you try, and then you don't need the numbers, you have the comparison with other situations. "Hey! Olaf needs about two hits for regular zombies and this one took five!"
The important things like position, enemy types, armor, weapons and damage stages are there.

This. Thank you.

I'd also like to add that our enemy types have visual clues as to their strength. For example, if an enemy is heavily armored, he'll have visible armor. It's not just trial-and-error. It's also not super exact science this way, but it doesn't always need to be. My point is that players won't have to go blindly into encounters with no idea what to expect. Also, we do show numbers for Battle Brothers and their equipment, making comparisons between them easy. It is only enemies where we keep some information.

I think the hit/miss representation is fine as it is. Maybe make the hit flash more pronounced, based on the damage dealt? Might scratch that feedback itch.
If you add some visual clues in the end, I'd suggest an "always visible health bars" option rather than floating numbers.

That's not a bad idea to improve feedback. I'll see about scaling the hit flash intensity along with blood (or in the case of skeletons, bone) splatters with relative damage received.

As for always visible health bars, our characters don't have a lot of hitpoints, possible future bosses excluded. Since we also show injuries in two to three states, depending on enemy, it hadn't come up before. We'll hold with such UI additions until after we get some feedback from the demo, but I think I would personally prefer it over floating damage numbers for their relative nature. We'll see.

Oh great, the tech limitation excuse. You sound like an AAA developer. Are you a former EA employee?

... what? Not agreeing with me is fine, but do you even really read what I write?

 

[Mangoose]

Do you even really read what I write? No game developer has succeeded in what you're trying to do. Have fun with the impossible.

 

[Grunker]

We don't want the game to be one of perfect information

Well, there you have it. This is the core of our disagreement, and on this, I will never agree with you. I cannot for the life of me understand how "perfect information" could ever - in any scenario - be a bad thing.

 

[Kaucukovnik]

And what crucial information do you guys miss?

Would JA2 be destroyed if floating damage numbers weren't there? X-Com just sucks, it gives no feedback on alien health whatsoever!

 

[Grunker]

Would JA2 be destroyed if floating damage numbers weren't there? X-Com just sucks, it gives no feedback on alien health whatsoever!

Yes, class, that is exactly what a so-called 'strawman' is!

 

[Niektory]

The combat demo is out!
http://battlebrothersgame.com/downloads/

 

[rapsdjff]

Damn, you're fast. Below is the official release announcement. As it says, I'll tend to any technical problems after the weekend and look forward to read your feedback and thoughts on the demo once I return. Thanks in advance!

Dev Blog #13: Combat Demo Released!
It’s done. Finally! Get out your party hats as it’s time to celebrate the release of the Pre-Alpha Combat Demo of Battle Brothers. You can download it here!

Just keep a few points in mind when you give it a spin:

• It’s pre-alpha, meaning it is an early release of a product still in development. Everything in the game right now can be improved and most probably will for the final game.
  
• It’s a combat demo. It only reflects part of what the final game will be about and doesn’t cover the strategy part at all. The final game will not consist of a few scenarios but have an open worldmap. Read more about it here in our dev blog article on the worldmap.
  
• The demo can be hard. This is intentional. Every scenario can be consistently beat with the right strategy. That said, the game isn’t properly balanced and if you find something clearly out of balance or plain stupid, let us know.
  

The demo requires an OpenGL 3.0 compatible video card and Windows XP, 7 or 8. If the game refuses to run on your rig and gives you a shader error, update your video drivers!

We’ll take the easter weekend off to recover a bit and lose the crunchtime-related rings around our eyes. Come monday we’ll be back and look forward to your feedback and the inevitable myriad of technical problems. Let us know in our forums how you feel about the game, about any ideas you have and about any bugs you encountered. Thank you guys for your support, and enjoy the game!

 

[Dayyālu]

After wasting a 'lil of my time on the demo (the first two scenarios) :

+ The interface, even at the alpha stage, is clear and efficient. Good to know what blocks what, line of sights and ranges with bows/crossbows.
+ Terrain is readable. That is adequate.
+ "Floating numbers" aren't too vital at this point: the combat log gives you the numbers, the interface gives you the enemy health bar.
+ The shieldwall mechanics are quite interesting, with the second scenario evolving in both my tries in a "shieldwall versus shieldwall" while ranged units/support melee guys try to find a weak point in the enemy line. I can see it being quite fun with 10-15 units and enemies.
+ 15 fatigue reduction every turn is maybe limited, seeing that the unliving foe does not tire. You are quite pressed to crush them fast.
+ AI seems competent.
+ Thing is pretty lethal . Even the second scenario proves a little complex seeing the X-comesque lethality. Armour can save your skin several times or fail completely - my heroic halberdier, after crushing several zombies and skeletons, got killed at full health like a dog by the second-to-last zombie with a rusted knife. Amusing.

First impression is quite good. Let us try the "difficult" scenarios, now.

Of course, the Central European theme is a minus for me: but those are personal tastes. I will wait the inevitable Islamic and Eastern Roman expansions.

 

[Grunker]

Alright, I played the demo a bunch:

+ Basics are very good. I had fun moving and using special abilities to my tactical advantage.

+ I agree that you're pressed to win fast, but the game also suffers a bit from the "HoMM-sickness" of "press space and wait for dumb AI to advance so you get first strike."

+ Kinaesthetics are fantastic. Sound effects and the miniature's response on getting hit feel real and really complement each other.

+ Most visual markers are great. The range indicators for example are simple and unintrusive.

+ Tooltips as well. They show fast, provide all the info you need, and are, again, unintrusive.

+ So far, documentation in the combat itself is great. I hope you will be providing a good "player's handbook" to let your players know about the deeper mechanics?

+ The game is very pretty.

+ Execution of actions is swift and animations are quick. I expect this will be insanely important as the number of actors ramp up.

+ Terrain differences are cool, and unlike many other games that use them, your graphical representation is, again, very clear and the tool tips remove most doubt as to their effects. I was a little in doubt about height of terrain though, does that play into combat?

+ Inventory screen looks nice! I can't wait to actually play these fun matches in context and with customization out of battle.



~ My main worry is content, but you guys can't say much about that right now, obviously.

~ I fear combat could become monotonous quickly unless the cutomization between fights is good and you keep introducing new enemies, terrain, and encounter structure. Goes with worry about content.



- It's a little awkward that you have to Click + Drag to move the screen. Why not just have the screen move as you move the mouse to the edge of it?

- After playing this, the decision to abstain from floating numbers baffles me even more. This game screams for health bars and floating numbers. In fact, I can't remember seeing many games that would benefit more from that than this one. If you're so worried that some players might find it aestaethically displeasing, why not just include it as a toggle?

- The combat log is pretty obscure honestly, placed out of sight with small letters in the top left. But then, the game wouldn't need a superhandy, always-on combat log if every decision you made was clear in terms of choice and outcome. It will be once you implement floating damage numbers and health bars

- Due to the lack of health bars, getting a quick overview of the battlefield is very difficult. This is my biggest niggle. Half-way through a fight, you have to hover the mouse over each character (enemy and friendly) if you want to get an overview of things look. Visual degrading of characters with low health is not precise enough to make a decision.


All in all, I am cautiously optimistic. I liked what I saw, and it was fun to play.

 

[dehimos]

Alright, I played the demo a bunch:


- It's a little awkward that you have to Click + Drag to move the screen. Why not just have the screen move as you move the mouse to the edge of it?

Yes, I agree.

 

[Niektory]

God damn it, this demo doesn't play around. I was thoroughly slaughtered in the hill scenario. Good shit.
I just hope we won't just be fighting undead for the whole game. They aren't exactly the most original enemies, even if there's good variety of them.

I found some bugs:
- In the "early game" scenario I pressed backspace to delay my turn, but the brother disappeared from the queue instead of being moved to the end. Then after everyone else made their move the queue remained empty and I could not continue the game. Hitting spacebar or backspace didn't work. Screenshot
- In the "hill" scenario at one point I couldn't attack anything with one of the brothers. I had the AP and stamina to spare but I couldn't target anything with any attack, and "Invalid target!" would appear when clicking on enemies. Screenshot

Thoughts about the interface:
- Having the same mouse button for actions and moving the camera is bad. If your mouse moves slightly when clicking, the click doesn't register since the game thinks you want to move the camera.
- It's annoying to have to toggle between the brother list and stash when equipping the brothers before a battle. You should be able to fit both on one screen.
- It would be nice to be able to use the basic attack just by clicking on an enemy without having to select it.

 

[Essegi]

Tried first 2 missions, ok. Third beated me up like a noob. Fourth (first considered difficiult) was easy.
Tomorrow i'll try again.
My impression is that this is very tactical.
Loving archer mechanics: if friends are near and enemies away they doesn't block, if enemies and friends are near it's very dangerous... Well, maybe it's me, but result seems different than average stuff!
Loving also detailed terrain mechanics.
Looks fairly polished though not perfect: it's an achievement being first demo!

Ah, demo doesn't start with intel hd3000 for me (not that was a problem...).