Battle Brothers Pre-Release Thread

[V_K]

They srsly need to fix this guys face...
It might be a copy from some retarded middle ages monk but it just isnt translating...

So you're fine with the torso but have a problem with tha face?

 

[Bésame Mucho]

Yeah, the abstraction on the ribs is okayish, but the mentally challenged herp derp face is unbearable.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Yeah, the abstraction on the ribs is okayish, but the mentally challenged herp derp face is unbearable.

Every Skeleton is Beautiful! Stop with the shaming! Leave the ugly retard in, he is a much needed source of joy in the bleak and serious world of Battle Brothers.

 

[Bésame Mucho]

By the way, is it called Battle Brothers because all of the mercs are actually clones and suffer from the Sameface Syndrome? Is there a scifi twist in the game? The Demons are You?

 

[Infinitum]

Derpface aside; fourteen pairs of ribs?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Medieval artists were kinda random about number of ribs.

edit. Also notice those jolly but derpy skeleton faces?

 

[Zdzisiu]

By the way, is it called Battle Brothers because all of the mercs are actually clones and suffer from the Sameface Syndrome? Is there a scifi twist in the game? The Demons are You?

Ha Ha, fuck off you whiny cunt.

 

[roll-a-die]

Medieval artists were kinda random about number of ribs.

edit. Also notice those jolly but derpy skeleton faces?

It's because they couldn't(Legally) cut people open to find out during the medieval period and into some of the Renaissance. Without getting burned at the stake at least.

 

[Bésame Mucho]

That's not true. They had leftover skulls around. Those were just crappy artists. Just like today there are some...

 

[Serus]

Exactly - skeletons were never a problem, fresh bodies might have been but we are not talking about that.

 

[Namutree]

I've been playing the game and have had two issues:

1) The lack of contracts- If a given city even has any contracts it seems like there is only 1 mission available at a time. Maybe I'm missing something, but generally more contracts should be available at a time. Maybe it's based on reputation, but IMO that should be about quality contracts; not basic availability.

2) Hidden contract locations- More than once I was tasked with pacifying a graveyard or something like that only to be unable to find it on the map. This should only be an issue on contracts where the location of my target is explicitly unknown. There was no indicator whatsoever of where I needed to go. Maybe on contracts where the location of your target is not unknown (in game) there could be a magnifying glass icon that centers the camera on the location you are meant to eradicate.

Also just a suggestion:

The upfront cost of hiring people should be 20% lower and the wages should be 10% higher. Overall, the game wouldn't be any easier (except in the beginning; which would probably give the game a smoother difficulty curve), but it would make the game focus more on resource management (as hiring too many mercs would be more plausible, and wages more of a serious concern), and less on hoping that RNG doesn't pwn you. Cuz' right now losing any competent mercs seems like you're basically screwed since hiring even half decent replacement is so expensive.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

The game suffers from Mount&Blade syndrome (which is also apparent in games like Darkest Dungeon). It has some solid battle mechanics but there is nothing to hold player's interest between battles. The world is barren, the quests are barely working, the loot is forgettable and there is nothing to look forward to no mystery.

 

[4249]

The game suffers from Mount&Blade syndrome (which is also apparent in games like Darkest Dungeon). It has some solid battle mechanics but there is nothing to hold player's interest between battles. The world is barren, the quests are barely working, the loot is forgettable and there is nothing to look forward to no mystery.

The only thing I agree with is the game missing an overarching goal to work towards, which will be improved upon according to their development roadmap. All the contracts I've taken in the 40-something hours of playing the game have worked without a hitch and there's usually been plenty of stuff to find on the map(Ruins, bandit/orc camps, necromancer lairs, graveyards, etc) outside of contracts. The contract variety is still a bit lacking, but that is supposedly being worked on as well. The loot is anything but forgettable as the different item types have very distinct uses and getting better tier stuff or a named item is pretty huge for your groups progression as far as I can tell.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

The game suffers from Mount&Blade syndrome (which is also apparent in games like Darkest Dungeon). It has some solid battle mechanics but there is nothing to hold player's interest between battles. The world is barren, the quests are barely working, the loot is forgettable and there is nothing to look forward to no mystery.

The only thing I agree with is the game missing an overarching goal to work towards, which will be improved upon according to their development roadmap. All the contracts I've taken in the 40-something hours of playing the game have worked without a hitch and there's usually been plenty of stuff to find on the map(Ruins, bandit/orc camps, necromancer lairs, graveyards, etc) outside of contracts. The contract variety is still a bit lacking, but that is supposedly being worked on as well. The loot is anything but forgettable as the different item types have very distinct uses and getting better tier stuff or a named item is pretty huge for your groups progression as far as I can tell.

Good to know. Haven't played it for a while. The game gave me good first impressions, but my enjoyment only lasted for couple of hours because of reason I mentioned.

By quests not working I didn't mean that they are buggy. I meant that they are barely differentiate from some random encounter. You just go to a particular place and have a fight with regular enemies you already fought for dozens of times with nothing meaningful to do between recieving quest and starting a fight.

 

[4249]

By quests not working I didn't mean that they are buggy. I meant that they are barely differentiate from some random encounter. You just go to a particular place and have a fight with regular enemies you already fought for dozens of times with nothing meaningful to do between recieving quest and starting a fight.

Ah, makes more sense now. And I can see where you're coming from. I guess the thing that differentiates the contracts is the fact that you get more money from them, which is pretty much necessary to keep progressing. There are contracts with no fights as well, but they're pretty much just delivering stuff from one spot to another, with the occasional event during the trip (which do some times lead to a fight). I'm guessing that the faction/town reputations will start meaning more with the next big patch as well. How to make the combat encounters more unique? I'm not sure how and if it's even necessary, considering XCom is a big influence of the game. More tilesets (buildings, dungeons?) and different conditions maybe. The combat itself is already so good for me that I can live with it and I do count preparing for the different kinds of encounters a big part of what to do before engaging in fights. Leveling up brothers, changing their equipment, changing the formation or moving them between reserve and active duty based on their skills and injury situation.

I wonder if they're planning to add more CYOA'ish elements to the contracts? That could spice it up a bit and differentiate them from the random bands/encampments you encounter in the game world. Their roadmap to release looks pretty promising and should add some variety and meaning to the world.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/dev-blog-82-roadmap-finish-line/

What’s still to come?
With the perk & injury update live and stable, we’ll now start working on the last big update to the game before it leaves Early Access. This is going to be the second-biggest update after the big worldmap update earlier this year and will take us several months to complete.

Here’s the list of major points we’ll be working on:

• Three different ‘Greater Evil’ end game crises for you to get involved in – a war between noble houses, a greenskin invasion and an undead invasion. Each will come with its own set of contracts, events and changes to the world.
• An overarching goal to work towards throughout your campaign, and the ability to retire at any point to receive an illustrated ending screen telling of your accomplishments.
• A more lively and dynamic world, with more opportunities for you to shape it, and more relation between what is going on in the world and contracts on offer.
• A memorial wall screen where your fallen Battle Brothers are listed with their deeds.
• An overhaul of the mood and desertion mechanics on the worldmap.
• An overhaul of the undead faction with new visuals and lore, unique lootable weapons and armor, and the introduction of new enemy types with their own fighting style.
• An overhaul of ghouls as independent beasts that are more interesting and challenging to fight.
• More contracts and events to change things up.
• Various improvements to usability in both combat and on the worldmap.
• Steam achievements.

 

[Abu Antar]

I keep looking at this in my library and then I tell myself to wait for the full release. 2018, I hope I'm still alive.

 

[Jrpgfan]

I keep looking at this in my library and then I tell myself to wait for the full release. 2018, I hope I'm still alive.

I've been watching some let's play of this game just to avoid playing it until release.

BB, Bannerlord and Copper Dreams are the games I'm most looking forward to. I'm thankful ITS is releasing their dungeon crawler soon so I have something to play before those three are released because there's nothing else good to play atm and in the near future(everything is shit).

 

[Kayerts]

I have always felt like if I had not much training and had to fight with a melee weapon (especially against creatures like a bear or monsters or something), that I would want to use a spear. I feel like I could use it better as an inexperienced person as well as I like the distance it allows you to stand off from the opponent-- which would be especially desired if fighting some large powerful creature (like a bear).

Isn't this partly a reason why masses of relatively untrained spear infantry were so widespread in warfare?

Any military historians here on the 'dex willing to correct/elaborate?

Mostlly. Quibble: It's not entirely clear that being noob-friendly is what made spears a good choice. A variety of historical elite warrior types--including Hoplites, Immortals, Roman legionaries, knights, and tercio soldiers--all used spears as primary weapons. Being able to outrange your opponent is pretty valuable at every level of skill. Most notably successful units who didn't use a polearm used a bow. The reason for this is that, regardless of how many awesome sword moves you know, they are not very useful if the only available move is "die uselessly, approximately 18 feet away from guy with spear."

Other reasons:

Polearms are in most situations just a better primary weapon for fighting a battle than most melee alternatives. (This statement is so qualified because the history of warfare is large, and there are a lot of exceptions.)

In addition to points already made, spears are more effective as a weapons system, i.e. they become much harder to defeat when you have a dozen or more of your bros holding them next to you and ensuring that opponents with Really Cool dagger techniques don't get inside your guard.

They let you apply more force to your target, which tends to make them better at piercing armor than e.g. swords. (There are notable exceptions to this.)

They also require less metal than most weapons and less metallurgical tech to make well, which might be a relevant constraint depending on geography and the specific era you're fighting in. (And if metal is cheap and plentiful, that means your opponents will probably be wearing armor made of it, which spears are relatively good against.)

That is an amazing painting.

Curiously enough, it's called The Last Tercio because the battle it's from is widely considered to have been the one that started the decline of the tercio formation, which had been dominant for the past century. (Tercio = mixed pike and musket formation; vaguely like the recommended BB/RPG party in that it attempted to be a jack of all trades and did that pretty well. The eventual counters to it were pure musket formations (only worked if you had supporting troops to keep the pikemen off them) and artillery. So, goblins and AoE nuker mages, basically, the latter of which don't really exist in BB.)

 

[Brancaleone]

I have always felt like if I had not much training and had to fight with a melee weapon (especially against creatures like a bear or monsters or something), that I would want to use a spear. I feel like I could use it better as an inexperienced person as well as I like the distance it allows you to stand off from the opponent-- which would be especially desired if fighting some large powerful creature (like a bear).

Isn't this partly a reason why masses of relatively untrained spear infantry were so widespread in warfare?

Any military historians here on the 'dex willing to correct/elaborate?

Mostlly. Quibble: It's not entirely clear that being noob-friendly is what made spears a good choice. A variety of historical elite warrior types--including Hoplites, Immortals, Roman legionaries, knights, and tercio soldiers--all used spears as primary weapons.

[/QUOTE]

No.

Hoplites and Immortals used spears, Roman legionaries mainly used pila (which are heavy javelins, not spears, and it's even debatable whether they can be considered their primary weapon, since they were cast in a short-distance volley at the approaching enemy), what 'knights' (for lack of a better term) used when they were not using a lot of other war-implements were lances, and tercio soldiers (or more precisely, about two-thirds of them) used pikes. All of which are quite different beasts.

 

[HumanTotemPole]

The game suffers from Mount&Blade syndrome (which is also apparent in games like Darkest Dungeon). It has some solid battle mechanics but there is nothing to hold player's interest between battles. The world is barren, the quests are barely working, the loot is forgettable and there is nothing to look forward to no mystery.

I don't agree with this - surely M&B's well known issues with retaining player interest are precisely because too many additional game mechanics have been tacked onto the core combat engine over the years! (I say that as a fan of M&B too).

The abstract, pared-down nature of the BB's presentation and mechanics are why it is so engaging. There is no insistence on a predetermined plot, no reams of background lore or a handcrafted world. Obviously these can be objectively good things in a game but a brother beheading 3 orc young with a single great sword swing in in BB is far more a engaging event than watching Patrick Stewart get ganked by a scripted assassin in Oblivion.

This is because it is by playing the game the player forms the basis of the "story" with the concise but high quality snippets of text regarding backgrounds, events etc. adding flavour. It encourages you to use your imagination and also to keep playing to fill out a narrative. Bloating the game with too much additional content would only dilute the purity of the experience.

It is also probably the only game I can think of latterly where procedural generation has actually worked in its favour. Something like M&B gets stale because the map, factions, npcs etc hung around an excellent combat system remain static unless you go modding. With BB the map, available brothers, combat encounters and so on are nearly always significantly different.

I appreciate other poster's mileages may vary - this game isn't everybody's cup of tea.

 

[Kayerts]

No.

Hoplites and Immortals used spears, Roman legionaries mainly used pila (which are heavy javelins, not spears, and it's even debatable whether they can be considered their primary weapon, since they were cast in a short-distance volley at the approaching enemy), what 'knights' (for lack of a better term) used when they were not using a lot of other war-implements were lances, and tercio soldiers (or more precisely, about two-thirds of them) used pikes. All of which are quite different beasts.

Yep! Different beasts which share the relevant unifying qualities listed, and which are usually classified under the spear taxonomy!

A javelin is a light spear

The lance is a pole weapon or spear

A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear

Or which might not be so classified. I'm not looking to pick a fight if you've got strong feelings about Spear Ontology!


I do agree that Roman legionaries are a questionable inclusion; most people would either say the gladius was theirs, or that they were a case of fighters who didn't have a primary weapon. (Since the gladius's effectiveness was reliant on some amount of the enemy line's shields being disabled due to having pila in them.) Feel free to discount them from the list of primary spear-users.

 

[Beowulf]

Triarii used spears. But yeah, after marian reforms they got out of style.

 

[Brancaleone]

Triarii used spears. But yeah, after marian reforms they got out of style.

Sure, that's why I said mostly. Plus, Roman armies reverted to more or less hoplitic style phalanx and in part equipment (spear + round shield) in late empire period when they were did not have anymore the resources to train and equip their armies in the more sophisticated previous fashion

 

[Dreaad]

Didn't they switch out from spears because a trained army can use crazy secret techniques... like rotating the front line, which is a lot easier to do when your ranks aren't holding 5 different length spears + you can more easily maneuver larger shields around.

 

[Brancaleone]

No.

Hoplites and Immortals used spears, Roman legionaries mainly used pila (which are heavy javelins, not spears, and it's even debatable whether they can be considered their primary weapon, since they were cast in a short-distance volley at the approaching enemy), what 'knights' (for lack of a better term) used when they were not using a lot of other war-implements were lances, and tercio soldiers (or more precisely, about two-thirds of them) used pikes. All of which are quite different beasts.

Yep! Different beasts which share the relevant unifying qualities listed, and which are usually classified under the spear taxonomy!

A javelin is a light spear

The lance is a pole weapon or spear

A pike is a pole weapon, a very long thrusting spear

Or which might not be so classified. I'm not looking to pick a fight if you've got strong feelings about Spear Ontology!


I do agree that Roman legionaries are a questionable inclusion; most people would either say the gladius was theirs, or that they were a case of fighters who didn't have a primary weapon. (Since the gladius's effectiveness was reliant on some amount of the enemy line's shields being disabled due to having pila in them.) Feel free to discount them from the list of primary spear-users.

Well, I'm against lumping together these weapons (in this very case, not in general) simply because Battle Brothers differentiates quite sharply between spears, pikes, billhooks etc. (where's muh halberd?), so I feel we should do the same.

The point of discussion was whether a spear is, so to speak, more of a "noob" weapon than others. And a cavarly lance is definitely not a noob weapon (apart from aiming, it requires a lot of training to learn to extract it correctly from the enemy while the horse is galloping past, without having it breaking or being wrenched out of the hand). A pike requires a certain amount of training to syncronize with the others pikemen, avoiding clocking on the head your mates five rows in front of you, how and when to hold it properly in order to break arrows' flight, etc., plus it requires two hands to handle, so no shield (or only a small one hanging from the shoulder as in the case of Macedonian pezhetairoi), which poses an additional set of problems, and in general a pike unlike a spear is a bugger in close combat, which is another factor than does not make it a noob weapon. A pilum is more difficult to throw than a standard javelin, since it point of balance is further back along the shaft, and it needs to meet the enemy shield straight on in order for its really thin metal head to wound the enemy behind it, so definitely not a noob weapon. The Immortal spear was of a peculiar kind, with a metal sphere at the butt, which would make it quite unsuitable for throwing (and more difficult to use overarm), but would make the point more nimble and better for precision strikes, so again not a noob weapon.

Conversely, a spear in conjunction with a large shield does not require much training at all to use: keep your shield up, and poke the enemy while holding the spear overarm in order not to inconvenience your mates. Which leaves the Greek hoplites who, incidentally, were for the major part (excluding the Spartans or mercenaries) more or less noobs, certainly not elite troops in terms of training or battlefield experience, since many of them were simply middle or upper-middle class citizens who could afford the hoplitic panoply, and when it was time for war participated as hoplites, then went back to their business.

To wrap it up: the advantages of a spear are reach (compared to sidearms, not certainly to all weapons), cheapness and relative ease of use. It does not certainly have magical "armour piercing" capabilities (outside of movies or videogames), and a spear held two-handed does not "let you apply more force to your target" any more than a thrust for example from a two handed sword, just like a spear held in one hand does not "let you apply more force to your target" any more than a thrust from a pointy one hand weapon (weapon-weight and weight distribution aside).
In general, the fact that a weapon does not require much training to be used at a basic level does not make it any less effective, and saying that it is not so because it was used by elite troops does not make much sense: a flanged mace is definitely an easy weapon to use (bash your enemy with it, you don't even have to worry about edge-alignment as with an axe or face-alignment as with a warhammer), and yet it was used mainly by elite troops (mounted men-at-arms or knights in full armour) against other elite troops (other men-at-arms or knights in full armour).