Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[SmartCheetah]

Hey, I've had some fun with the 'tutorial' first encounter. Seems like it's scripted so you can't get any of your three guys killed: the two enemies got everyone to 1hp then kept missing as we danced around'em. That's just plain silly.
Also, you can't retreat from that battle, the button does nothing at all.

The scripted battle is there just to work like a tutorial so you might know what to expect later in that game.

I think you guys should add a lot more "not much money, but easy and fast" contracts for people to make some bucks early on. Too bad I couldn't attack caravans myself without a contract, because at one point I was so poor and starving it looked like an obvious choice. This feature should DEFINITELY be in. Falling into banditry territory because you're forced to.

 

[Ninjerk]

Brothers, whatever draws the menus over the worldmap stopped working (e.g. can't see anything when clicking on town, game stops when I press Esc but I can't see menu options, game pauses when I press Spacebar but it doesn't say Paused). I think it's related to alt+tab or minimizing the window.

 

[Modron]

Brothers, whatever draws the menus over the worldmap stopped working (e.g. can't see anything when clicking on town, game stops when I press Esc but I can't see menu options, game pauses when I press Spacebar but it doesn't say Paused). I think it's related to alt+tab or minimizing the window.

Also might be related to loading a save from inside campaign, that has always caused issues back out to main menu and load saves from there if you haven't already been doing that.

 

[MachineCommander]

Brothers, whatever draws the menus over the worldmap stopped working (e.g. can't see anything when clicking on town, game stops when I press Esc but I can't see menu options, game pauses when I press Spacebar but it doesn't say Paused). I think it's related to alt+tab or minimizing the window.

I've had this issue too when I pressed R to open up the faction screen and then pressed R to try and close it but it didn't work. Only thing I can suggest if you haven't is to press Esc multiple times until you get the options menu to show up.

 

[SmartCheetah]

After a while (around 10 contracts, out of which two had negative ending and one very positive with bandit leader slain) my team is rather well fitted with levels 3-4 and some mid-tier equipment on medium difficulty. Now I can find much more contracts and those are well paid in comparison to the early game. Eg. for the bandit leader + 6 bandit thugs I got around 1300 crowns on completion + loot. It's just a matter of luck, and now I'm starting to like it.

 

[rapsdjff]

This is going to be a busy week.

Worldmap Update 0.6.0.9
Whew.

It’s crazy how many issues can all of a sudden pop up once 700 people start playing the game. After yesterday’s hotfixes, here is a larger bugfixing and balance update that contains all of today’s work.

We’ll continue to focus our efforts on fixing any bugs and glaring balance issues until the game is as stable and playable again as it was before.

Have a nice evening!

Changelog

• Changed roaming enemy parties to start out weaker in the early game.
• Changed contract rewards to be slightly higher.
• Changed contracts to appear sooner after starting a new campaign.
• Changed contracts to appear slightly more often.
• Changed employers to be slightly less enraged when the player cancels contracts despite receiving advance payment.
• Changed second tutorial battle to have one less opponent on Even difficulty.
• Changed hotkey to show/hide tracking to ‘Tab’, hotkey for camping to ‘T’ and opening the character screen back to ‘C’.
• Changed the way sounds and music are loaded in order to eliminate some potential crashes for people. This may introduce minor lag as music changes, but with the crashes gone we now can take the time to look for the best solution.

• Fixed potential crash when loading an autosave right before combat.
• Fixed game not saving correctly in rare cases when destroying a location that has a party roaming around it.
• Fixed tutorial battle not triggering correctly because of Hoggart’s hair.
• Fixed bug potentially having the player start out with large amounts of money.
• Fixed battles starting with the player being ambushed when they shouldn’t.
• Fixed issue with contract payment not scaling properly to contract difficulty.
• Fixed ‘Tab’ key making the UI glitch and not accept keyboard input correctly sometimes.
• Fixed the player starting on tiny islands in rare cases with no way to get off.
• Fixed bandits having a leader hostile to them in a twist of the ‘Drive away bandits’ contract.
• Fixed player choice in twist of the ‘Investigate Cemetery’ contract not being registered correctly.
• Fixed player choice in twist of the ‘Armed Courier’ contract not being registered correctly.
• Fixed issue with ‘Investigate Cemetery’ contracts being issued on small islands with no space to spawn the cemetery.
• Fixed issue with player’s wardogs not properly attacking militia and noble house troops.
• Fixed people joining the player via events even when the roster is already at full capacity.
• Fixed several text errors.

 

[Ninjerk]

Could someone link me a description of how reputation works (more specifically the negative)?

 

[Agesilaus]

This is going to be a busy week.

Keep up the good work. I'm downloading the new update and will check it out when I get a moment. The new features are fantastic, you are taking the game in a good direction, it's just the balance and stability problems that are killing it right now. This is definitely on track for GOTY 2016.

 

[oscar]

Sunk an hour into it and liking things a lot beyond a few minor bugs (reloading cured them). I loaded up on Even after the complaints of increased difficulties and things felt about right.

I'm guessing the new trade goods (furs, amber etc) are for some buy low sell high type business (beyond loot from caravans)?

From what I see there's no reason not to ask for more money when initiating a contract. Does it mean they get more annoyed if you fail or you don't gain as much reputation boost as doing it for cheaper?

 

[Agesilaus]

Sunk an hour into it and liking things a lot beyond a few minor bugs (reloading cured them). I loaded up on Even after the complaints of increased difficulties and things felt about right.

I'm guessing the new trade goods (furs, amber etc) are for some buy low sell high type business (beyond loot from caravans)?

From what I see there's no reason not to ask for more money when initiating a contract. Does it mean they get more annoyed if you fail or you don't gain as much reputation boost as doing it for cheaper?

Yep, the trade goods are buy low sell high. The most obvious example is amber. At the small towns which produce amber you can buy it for between 240-300 gold, and then you can sell it at a profit in the large cities/forts that have no amber production. Same goes for dye (which I more profitable I think), etc.

If you ask for more gold, sometimes the person offering the contract will refuse you. I don't know if he will refuse you on your first pay-increase request, but I know for a fact that if you bother him enough he'll withdraw the contract. I think the degree of anger they experience when you cancel a contract is also determined by the amount of gold involved, so if you increased the up-front pay and then cancelled I think they should be a little angrier than usual.

 

[Agesilaus]

Okay, I played around with the new update and it's a huge improvement. Game is better than ever!

Possible bug: When you take a patrol quest, you can just wander off and slaughter as many enemies as you can. Then, complete the route and get an enormous per-head bonus. For example, I went out of my way to have a few giant zombie fights and clear a few bandit hideouts/hunters; by the time I ended my "patrol", I had 60+ heads.

Possible bug: When the game selects towns for your patrol, sometimes it selects off-shore villages. I can't patrol the ocean.

 

[Wolfenswan]

The tavern buffs/debuffs seem a bit bugged. After reloading the "in good spirits" buff disappears on a few characters (and randomly reappears during camp). The "drunk" debuff on the other hand appears to be reapplied after reloading (i.e. i had to rest ~24h more after loading). Furthermore I had the "drunk" debuff during battle despite having the "hangover" debuff already.

That said, the tradeoff of getting drunk seems to outweigh the benefits of being in good spirit.

 

[AMG]

Archer in tutorial needs to get a different sidearm. Considering he can't die, you can just puncture the thugs for 30 rounds or however long it takes. If you restart until they spawn with good armors, with luck you will get 2 decent armors in mint condition. Although, I'd prefer to see this tutorial gone altogether. It doesn't really explain anything to new players and veterans just get more annoying texts to click through. It should be a separate scenario and main campaign should get the old beginning. It was quicker and way more fitting for the low key feel the game is going for.

Possible bug: When the game selects towns for your patrol, sometimes it selects off-shore villages. I can't patrol the ocean.

Your BBros can actually swim short distances now. If you mange to find a strait you can usually cross it.

 

[Jed]

I just started my first game after the campaign was fully implemented. Anyone else getting hung on the reward at Newik? I can't end the conversation/accept the reward ...

EDIT: Went back in, convo worked as expected. Hard crash on next travel. This new build seems pretty buggy.

 

[Modron]

I've had this issue too when I pressed R to open up the faction screen and then pressed R to try and close it but it didn't work. Only thing I can suggest if you haven't is to press Esc multiple times until you get the options menu to show up.

Yeah I just noticed that hitting R while inside faction relations menu actually just opens another relations menu and so forth and while escape flushes the menu graphics away and lets you travel in world you have to hit escape again until you've gotten rid of the invisible x relations menu you have opened up to be able to interact with world. You can test this yourself by opening the menu and hitting r a specific amount and then count the number of escapes you have to use to get control back eheh.

Not exactly game breaking just annoying
.

Ninja: oh yeah would like to request the ability to assign items to be repaired from post battle loot screen.

 

[moraes]

Fuck, I was waiting for this update to begin playing and now the game is worse.

Back to the time machine.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Fuck, I was waiting for this update to begin playing and now the game is worse.

Back to the time machine.

It's better, but there are bugs (to be expected after major patch like this) which are being fixed all the time.

 

[Trash]

Played the game for quite a bit and am enjoying it quite thoroughly. It feels a lot more fleshed out but because they expanded a lot of things partly it somehow feels a bit more disjointed. The previous version felt like a much more simpler yet completer game. Now we got factions, camping, events and more contracts but because a lot of things are left to be developed further it does feel more like a work in progress.

What we do have makes me really look forward to further updates however. More fleshed out factions (can't wait for more beasts and where have my vampires gone?), more contracts (still waiting for a good old fashioned escort mission to appear) and more battle map variants are the stuff I can't wait for. Also very much looking forward to see camping, camp followers and events to get some more love. Not to mention what they will do with the endgame.

Currently there is the usual bitching about balance. Of course the game can use more of it, but it is also the usual whining that every challenging game gets. Orcs have been nerfed consistently since the start and I still see heated posts about people not being able to fight them. Shieldwall, weapons that damage armor, pikes and billhooks and crossbows are your friends. The goblins are little bitches, although I suspect that comes partly from there not being early, middle and late game variants of them. This means that they can start out pretty hard but if your unit progresses they become very easy later on. Do simply remember to raise your shields and advance slowly, pepper skirmishers with arrows and do not waste them on goblin archers, release the hounds when you get close and try and deal as much damage quickly once you are near them. Goblins going down fast is their biggest weakness.

And if you want a real challenge then do pick a fight with another mercenary outfit when the opportunity arises. Best fight I had so far since they use all of your tricks and have the same or better gear. Nasty.

Also can't post without mentioning these guys their dedication. Release day saw already two or three small patches and they've been consistently active on the steam forum while updating the game even further.

 

[Agesilaus]

...
Currently there is the usual bitching about balance.
...

The balance is pretty good right now; perhaps even better than before because the game is a challenge when playing "challenging" difficulty. I'm not bitching about balance anymore, at any rate. That said, did you play this patch on release? The balance was horrendous and game-breaking. "Bitching", or at least pointing this out, was definitely the right thing to do. A combination of imbalance and stability issues rendered the game practically unplayable.

Like you pointed out, though, the team really put in a tremendous effort and succeeded in fixing almost everything. The game is fantastic right now.

 

[Trash]

I played it all day. They patched out the stability issues in a single day. The only genuine balancing problem was the lack of starting contracts. Going round killing off roams and easier locations gave me enough money to keep my company afloat. Climb a mountain for a bigger view to get more of those. Meanwhile trading whenever you visited a location helped with petty cash. Then I got a mission that paid for heads and I killed of a graveyard with 20 enemies and my money problems where over.

Anyway, that was on the release day of the patch. My comment about the bitching was about the usual angry rants on goblins in the steam forums. There is at least one on the first page there. They used to be about orcs but nowadays they're about goblins. Which I attribute mainly to there not really being an early, middle and late variant of groups of them. I wonder how many rants we'll get when missions against human mercenary groups and noble houses become more common. Those are genuinly hard.

 

[Beowulf]

[...] Which I attribute mainly to there not really being an early, middle and late variant of groups of them. I wonder how many rants we'll get when missions against human mercenary groups and noble houses become more common. Those are genuinly hard.

There actually are. But without the knowledge on how to fight goblins it's actually easier to defeat the later groups (the ones with Wolfriders).

 

[Trash]

Yeah, forgot to mention those. The thing is that the goblins keep wielding pretty much the same weapons. A goblin falchion is deadly early on but loses part of its effectiveness later on. Their damage output never really grows and due to your guys getting better you get more and more proficient at hitting them. Which means they die quicker and quicker since they can't take much. Wolfriders are often actually easier because they usually close in on you instead of you having to go after them.

Anyway, I'm sure the game will be balanced and unbalanced in turns in the coming months. Development tends to do that. Mostly I'm looking forward to new enemies. Each enemy so far has felt really unique in both flavour and fighting. Undead who swamp you, orcs that crash through your shieldwall, high damage dealing wolves that falter and fall quickly, ghouls that go down like a joke but can grow to roll up your entire company if you let them eat, goblins that play nasty tricks on you and so on. Love that aspect.

 

[rapsdjff]

The tavern buffs/debuffs seem a bit bugged. After reloading the "in good spirits" buff disappears on a few characters (and randomly reappears during camp). The "drunk" debuff on the other hand appears to be reapplied after reloading (i.e. i had to rest ~24h more after loading). Furthermore I had the "drunk" debuff during battle despite having the "hangover" debuff already.

I'll look into that tomorrow.

Yeah I just noticed that hitting R while inside faction relations menu actually just opens another relations menu and so forth and while escape flushes the menu graphics away and lets you travel in world you have to hit escape again until you've gotten rid of the invisible x relations menu you have opened up to be able to interact with world. You can test this yourself by opening the menu and hitting r a specific amount and then count the number of escapes you have to use to get control back eheh.

Fixed it with today's update. Thanks for letting me know.

Ninja: oh yeah would like to request the ability to assign items to be repaired from post battle loot screen.

Makes sense, I've put it on my (rather lengthy) todo.

What we do have makes me really look forward to further updates however. More fleshed out factions (can't wait for more beasts and where have my vampires gone?), more contracts (still waiting for a good old fashioned escort mission to appear) and more battle map variants are the stuff I can't wait for.

We have an escort contract already written and waiting to be implemented. I was originally hoping to be able to add it this week, but well, fixing any issues has to come first. Paul, our artist, has started with the new look for the direwolves and the assets for all the new combat terrain this week, so things are progressing well on that end. Here's a preview.

Currently there is the usual bitching about balance. Of course the game can use more of it, but it is also the usual whining that every challenging game gets. Orcs have been nerfed consistently since the start and I still see heated posts about people not being able to fight them. Shieldwall, weapons that damage armor, pikes and billhooks and crossbows are your friends. The goblins are little bitches, although I suspect that comes partly from there not being early, middle and late game variants of them. This means that they can start out pretty hard but if your unit progresses they become very easy later on.

Interestingly enough, orcs never really were nerfed - people just got the hang out of fighting them. Despite some rumors on Steam, we didn't nerf orcs this time, either, and we didn't buff goblins. Adding another low-tier goblin variant is something we've considered for a while, so we may just end up doing that.

 

[Agesilaus]

Interestingly enough, orcs never really were nerfed - people just got the hang out of fighting them. Despite some rumors on Steam, we didn't nerf orcs this time, either, and we didn't buff goblins. Adding another low-tier goblin variant is something we've considered for a while, so we may just end up doing that.

The big thing I've noticed about orcs has been the armour buff for the adults. The amount of armour is extremely high, to the point that it takes massed bills and high-tier 1-handers to drop them at a decent rate. In the older version, it was an issue because there were contracts that paid you maybe 2000-3000 to fight large numbers of adults and a warlord; totally impossible to do without severe casualties, if not outright impossible.

In the current version, I've only seen lone adults surrounded by orc young and berserkers. Young orcs and berserkers have never been a problem in terms of balance, although they are definitely dangerous. Taking down one or two adults is perfectly doable by a prepared party, just takes 3-4 bills and mid-tier axes or a warhammer.

 

[Trash]

Ahahaha, that's rich. I could swear I encountered much more orc berserkers and warriors early on. The power of illusion I guess. Anyway, love the wolf graphics. Those things look terrifying.

In the older version, it was an issue because there were contracts that paid you maybe 2000-3000 to fight large numbers of adults and a warlord; totally impossible to do without severe casualties, if not outright impossible.

There are some guides and videos out there of players consistently taking down those groups without having casualties. Though they usually do so with 12 man strong high level companies that are decked out in good gear. A shieldwall with crossbows, pikes and billhooks in the second line and lots of armor destroying weapons in the first is pretty much the gist of it.

Each enemy takes its own approach. Took me awhile to figure out that to battle Lost Souls. I needed a quick party (drop all that armor and go naked since they ignored armor and did direct health damage) armed with boar spears for the bonus chance to hit. Made mincemeat of them since then. The game constantly throws challenges like that at you. Love it.