Developer Posts

Post

Link

Time

Hi Obsoletion and welcome to the forums! Glad you like the game so far. We felt like there should be a game like this but nobody was making it. Ultimately we decided to take matter into our own hands and here we are ; ) Regarding save scumming, i recently read quite a long discussion on this on rpgcodex.net but i am not really sure what to make of it. Generally we want players to play the game in the way they want to do it. Its a bit like cheating in the old days. If you want to do it there is no developer stopping you but i think cheating ruins a game for you.
We are not decided but i think we will allow free saving during any stage of the game in normal mode. To prevent save scumming we could keep the seeds for the saves so that the results of a role will be the same no matter how often you reload.
On top of that, an ironman mode would be cool where you only have one save and no saving during combat for the “hardcore” crowd. Anyways, we can assure you that the game will be challenging as the possibility of failure and making the best out of your mistakes is an integral part of our game design. Failing writes the best stories ;) (of course as long as the game is not unfair in any way but just hard). Regarding your other question, we have no e-mail list set up but we will dish out updates every week so if you want to get the latest news just subscribe to our RSS or follow us on any of our social channels and your good! The pre-alpha will probably be open, so no worries about not getting in. Cheers!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/#post-431

1

Hey Gotanmarf, appreciate your input, that topic is very important to our overall gamedesign and we spent quite some time thinking about it and we still are. We will have a worldmap in our game with locations like hills, forests, cities and so on. We have not finally decided on how it will look exactly. To get a better grip on the topic of what you call “economics” i think we have to split it in two parts: 1. Basebuilding. 2. Resource management 1. Basebuilding:
Initially, our intent was to stay close to the original Xcom but we soon figured out that that would not make for the best possible gameplay. Having a permanent base, like a castle or such, will make the player very stationary. If you have high-tech Skyrangers at your disposal it is way easier to cover great distances than with a horse carriage. Also, I always found the base building to be a very linear part of the game that didnt allow for much customization or variation in your gaming experience. At some point your main base would always house the same facilities and you would mostly build them in the same order and layout. I dont want to take too much away but we came up with a sort of mobile base that can be tailored to suit your playstyle and support your personal way of taking on the game. We are working on that right now and you can expect a dev blog article on the worldmap soon where we explain all the details, so stay tuned! 2. Resource Management:
As with the basebuilding i can not go into too much detail yet but we will have troop management, equipment looting and management, resource gathering and crafting and a sort of “research” – so you will have all the good stuff in the game ;) Our ultimate goal is to give the player a lot to do on the worldmap and a lot of decisions and freedom. In the end the gameplay on the worldmap has to be just as much fun as the tactical combat.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/economic-part-of-the-game/#post-449

2

We are aware that modding is a really big thing and many games would have vanished quickly without mods. Also, some of the greatest games started out as mods. Some examples for great modding are civ, total war, half-life, skyrim and mount and blade. Thing is, that our resources are really tight and we have to finish the game above all else so there wont be explicit modability during the early access. However, be assured that it is high on our list!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/what-is-your-favourite-turn-based-nonlinear-strategy-except-x-coms-bb/#post-1568

3

Jaysen
Jaysen
Keymaster Thats a great idea to give a little more lore to the game! Unfortunately, we are still extremely busy with putting the core mechanics in the game and balancing them so that we currently have no time to add “just” content. I have been following Darkest Dungeon since their kickstarter over a year back and they have some great ideas and a very distinct artstlye. However, it is very “gamey” and gives me the impression to be somewhat of a “mobile” game that was designed with an iPad-port in mind (no hard feelings, its still a great game!).
I really like the stress idea and the camping mechanic and we already discussed internally if we want something similar for Battle Brothers. That will more go into the direction of camping over night to repair armor, heal wounds and make the night pass faster. Something like “stress” is not planned right now. That is what we have our moral system for ;)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/monsters-weapons-and-armor-lore/#post-1599

4

Hi Zolw, thanks for the feedback and support! When reading the title I was anticipating something like: “You will hear this a lot more… i dont like the busts” but man, was I wrong haha. The combat demo gives a decent idea about the armor system but it will change a lot in the final game. Selecting perks and raising stats when leveling up will help a lot with dealing with the heavy fatigue penalties from armor. However, if you invest into fatigue reduction you will miss out on very powerful offensive and defensive perks so you constantly have to make tough choices. When designing the game it was very important to us to make light armor a viable choice as well and also to give heavy armor some disadvantages – glad to hear that it seems to work out : )

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/you-will-hear-this-a-lot-more/#post-1643

5

Regarding 1)
The map is always randomly generated and therefore the results will vary a lot. The strength of the villages but also the strength of the bandits hideout can vary thus changing the outcome. More importantly, the guard towers and castles send out patrols to secure roads and fight off bandits and other evil-doers. If there is a tower or castle in the vicinity (and the men-at-arms that are stationed there are not under big pressure by other attackers) the bandits will have a really hard time messing with the caravans. To sum up, in this dynamic simulation and procedurally generated world even we as the developers can not say how things will play out ;) Regarding 2)
The contracts in the video are very limited. I think its only 3 of them in the game at that point but we have many more planned. It is very viable to resort to non-combat contracts to start out but traveling the world is always very dangerous. Just like in the third video I walk through a forest just to get ambushed and almost wiped out by a bandit party. So there won’t be a free ride in the game no matter what you do ;) Concerning your tactical combat question:
Yes, there will be perks that mess with your APs ;) Also other perks that greatly benefit 2H weapon wielders. We are currently doing a complete rework of all the 36 perks in the game to make them way more badass. I hope to show them off soon in a new gameplay video!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/few-questions-about-strategic-and-tactical-parts-of-the-game/#post-1649

6

Reducing our workload was actually one of the main reasons for going with this style. Also, you can show a lot of character and detail even when looking at the battle field from far above. If we had full body figures the head would get so small that you cant tell any differences between your guys.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/you-will-hear-this-a-lot-more/#post-1652

7

Hey Jago, we should get you on the team as PR-dude, your answers are pretty spot on ;) We originally considered a base for the game but quickly grasped that it would not be feasible as it takes away too much from the “traveling mercenary” style. Instead we are pondering on a mercenary “trek” that is accompanying your mercenaries and that can be customized and acts as “mobile base”. Here will also be the place for non-combat characters like armor smiths, hunters, scribes, healers and so on. Another thing we have in mind, as Jago mentioned, is a camping mechanic that allows you to set up camp to speed up the night, repairs, wound treatment etc. Unfortunately that all has to wait until after the Early Access. Right now we focus on hunting bugs and the balancing is a really big issue. Making sure the game does not become too easy or too difficult after 4-5 hours is really tricky as it is a very dynamic simulation that can snowball in all directions if you are not careful.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/ideas-for-a-full-experience/#post-1684

8

haha no worries, you’re golden :) What I am personally most excited about are the legendary items we have planned. There is a backlog of over 100 right now but you probably won’t find more than 4-8 in a single game. We want to make them really powerful and change the way you play and give you a real feeling of empowerment. They are all handcrafted and each feature their own short background story.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/ideas-for-a-full-experience/#post-1690

9

Nice idea, we actually had planned a skill similar to this for shields. One that helps protect a character on an adjacent tile. With this you could increase the defense of the other guy instead of your own defense like you do it with shieldwall. However, it turned out that this mechanic is so extremely situational that you will use it only very rarely. So we put it back on the idea-shelf for later. We want all skills in the game to be really useful and meaningful and this one just did not fit in. We still have it in the back of our heads, though ;)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/suggestion-for-a-new-ability/#post-1876

10

We thought about this and it also has been requested before. Thing is, this will give you a really crazy early game advantage to the point where the game is not a challenge anymore. A decked out level 10 merc can singlehandedly wipe whole groups of bandits. This is very hard to balance.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/import-export-for-characters/#post-2732

11

Hmm pretty interesting approach tying the stun chance to other factors like fatigue. I have to think about that a little more but it is definitely an mechanic worth exploring. Not so sure about the armor though.
Right now the chance of the orc charge to stun is just reduced by the shield and shieldwall bonus.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questionsuggestion-regarding-stun-and-charge/#post-4428

12

Pretty accurate answers right there, thanks man! Just one addition to number 5: Yes, duels will happen with the new event system, although it will depend on a character’s background. Does not make a lot of sense for a miller to start a dueling career ;)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/my-top-10-hopeful-questions-for-the-developers/#post-4581

13

Just a quick little clarification regarding the events from our side: – Almost all of the events happen according to certain triggers, there are very few that can be considered a general event and even those are often bound to something like being in a certain tile like a road or forest.
The triggers can be quite complex and just because the player does not instantly realized “why” an event occured, does not mean there is no reason for it. For example some events only trigger when you have a certain amount of crowns or provisions, both high and low. Also, meeting all the requirements for a certain event does not give you a 100% chance of it happening. We intended the events to add flavor and interesting occurances and interaction within the party to the game and we do not want players to be able to trigger certain events on demand. – The outcome of your decisions in the events may vary for most events so if one time something happened it does not mean this will happen like this the next time. We did this to increase replayability and spice things up a little so that even very seasoned players experience a little change from time to time. – If all triggers are met, some events are more common than others. Not all have an equal chance of actually showing up.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/events/#post-5255

14

Some of us did a lot of reenactment over the years so we are aware of the layered armors and how they were worn or better combined into heavier armors. When you look at the armors in the game you can almost always see various layers like gambeson, mail and then a coat of plates for example. We treat all of the higher tier armors as layered but in order to simplify the game and item management we decided to not model the individiual layers. To be honest we considered a system like you suggested it in an early stage of the game but ultimately we decided to not go with it. We think the additional realism and choice that come with a system like that could be a little too much for the average player.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/layers-of-armour/#post-6392

15

Happy to hear that you like the game! Battle Sister will have foremost completely unique backgrounds and wont share any with the male Battle Brothers. Of course the backgrounds come with different starting stat ranges and trait probabilities.
Regarding mechanics we can not say if they will have any different mechanics or so. This is also a bit of thin ice as people can easily get offended by any differences that “reinforce stereotypes” or gender roles ;)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-of-questions-2/#post-7395

16

Hey there,
thanks a lot for all the thought out suggestions!
Many of your points go in the direction of increasing usability and the availability of information. We agree that there is a lot of room for improvment in that area, for example fixable tooltips on enemies so you can see the effects of their injuries.
However, we will do improvments like those a bit further down the road. Firstly, we want to focus on the general gameplay and on getting more content into the game. Anyways, really good points made by you here and we took some notes!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/ideas-sorry-english/#post-16899

17

Post

Link

Time

Hi Martell, ill try and give you some detailed feedback where possible: -> This is on purpose, we want the player to have sub-optimal character like the one you mentioned. We think that this is more interesting, challenging and it makes for way better stories: Imagine an asthmatic, blind peasant slaying that Orc Warlord in the last second and saving the day!
(What we are pretty open to is customizing the look of a character so people can make "themselves" in the game) -> This would not really work as the game is designed in a way that you can lose Brothers in all Battles and still win. If you had to babysit one guy the whole time that would hamper tactical combat a lot. But just make your own rules, say: This is me (rename the guy) and if he dies you restart the game. We do not have to hardcode that. -> Armor and weapons do drop with a reduced durability and have to be repaired back to full strength using up tools and supplies. Also, damaged equip will score you less crowns in the store. -> Like this guy said, we want to separate the fighting from the non-fighting characters. This will be a real big clash of interest: You want to win the fight but you do not want any of your support roles to be killed or wounded. Similarly to number 2 this may turn the tactical combat into too much of a babysitting game. -> Great ideas! We just have a few characters set for this yet. The track of your mercenary company will only be able to accompany a limited amount though. -> As this guy said we will have a deployment phase planned. -> We have two setups now, the ambush and the shieldwall. We will have more eventually like defending a village or fighting in a dungeon. -> The game draws a big part of its design from procedural generation like the characters, the tactical combat maps and the worldmap. This is an absolutely essential feature for replayability and also, do not forget that, it makes the game way more entertaining and divers to watch in Let's Plays. Thanks for the suggestions!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618459931318570941/#c618459931320687288

1

Of course the topic of magic is an important one as soon as you have fantasy elements in a game (like Undead). But for us it was very clear that we want to keep it really low-power meaning no casters on the player side. Although LOTR is not the best comparison: There is hardly any "active" magic in there like shooting lightnings or throwing fireballs. For us this would break the immersion and the feeling of playing normal humans. On the contrary, most of our characters come from a background of hardship and are seriously flawed, not powerful wizards or magicians. Anyways, there will be legendary artifacts and accessories like amulets and such that grant really powerful and sometimes supernatural skills and abilities. But these items will be very hard to come by and very powerful. Additionally, enemies will sometimes use "magic" like a necromancer reviving the fallen on the battlefield so our world is not completely mundane.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171314253375/#c618460171316278369

2

Oh man, we have so much in store for this project and so little time. Let me elaborate a little on this topic: Right now there are only a few contracts in the game that evolve around the people of the land needing your help. These are not randomly occuring but all have a reason for being there: A village looking for a caravan guard - most likely a caravan from that village has been raided during the past days.
A contract to destroy a certain bandit or orc encampment - the village has probably been attacked from there recently. And so on. You see, we want all contracts to have a real reason to be there that stems from the dynamic world simulation we have here. As we do not model societies or factions within the human faction it is hard to have contracts emerging from interaction between these (non-existent) factions. There are two remedies for this and one is on the way:
1. We introduce factions inside the bigger human faction that squarrel with each other and hire mercs to do their dirty work. This would be a lot of work to design, implement and balance as the game is currently designed in a "humans against all odds" way (although other factions like bandits and orcs will fight each other). This has to come with a big rework and redesign of the worldmap simulation but this does not mean we are not thinking about it!
This would also come with a reputation system (that we actually have thought about a lot) to keep track of your reputation in the world. 2. A system with procedural events that put the player in morally questionable situations, dilemmas and tricky situations where a meaningful decision has to be made. We have this planned as our first big project for after the EA release and call it "event-system". These events will all come from within the game and the characters in your party. For example you have a hedge knight in your company and he is then callenged by another knight to a duel. Or you are in a town and you have a brawler in your company that is messing up the local tavern. Or you have a thief that is recognized and authorities demand you to hand them over....
You see the possibilities with this are endless. Although i know that this is not exactly what you had in mind i still think it goes in the right direction. One more thing before i fill an entire book with this: Working against the human faction itself, like attacking caravans and such, would be extremely detrimental to the player in the current game. Towns and villages are the only place to resupply, buy and sell and hire new men. If these run out of trade income the available equipment will be reduced and increase in price until ultimately you have no places to restock.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171315241263/#c618460171316323249

3

First off:
We have so much planned for the game that we can be sure to break savegames at some point. Sorry to tell you that but there is just no way around it if you want to add a lot to the game. Regarding character customization: We get this request a lot and can understand why it is desired. We have it on our list but can not promise when and how it is going to find its way in the game. We think modding would be a great thing to get the community involved. Question is, how much resources we have to support it actively. We have to come back to this later. Also, we really do not like the way the workshop is going turning it into a machine for microtransactions. We want all mods to be free of charge for our game. I just answered the magic discussion over here, have a look: http://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171314253375/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171315403431/#c618460171316337133

4

Regarding potions and so: We do not have any means in the game to heal during combat and this is intended.
Also, we are very sceptical of consumables in general. I personally tend to keep them for the right moment and end up never using them at all ;) But never say never i guess.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171314253375/#c618460171316347827

5

I might add that we are thinking about dynamic "traits" that will be added to a character upon his actions in the game. If someone gets heavily wounded he may gain a trait like "scarred" or if he kills a lot of Orcs he may get an "Orc-Nemesis" trait. You know where we are going here.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171314253375/#c618460171316446653

6

Rest assured that we will keep it low-power even when adding new factions. Orcs are pretty much the furthest we will venture down that road i suppose. We do however want to bring some really original creatures into the game from old european folklore that havent been seen in games/movies yet.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171314253375/?ctp=2#c618460171318108511

7

Right now the humans are a single faction that does not quarrel inside itself despite every town, watchtower and stronghold having their own banner and resources. There are so many external threats like bandits, orcs and undead that the humans would perish real quick if they also fought each other. The worldmap is very alive right now. Nothing is scripted and every location, faction and party has its own resources and agenda that it follows according to its A. So it is more of a dynamic simulation and the player is just a small part of this. We have some ideas about reputation on the shelf and will see if we add it to the game at some point. Just like the idea with the quarreling human factions which we are pondering on as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171318022771/#c618460171318157899

8

We are very conscious about keeping an open world and not chaining the player too close to a story or so. In my mind the new Xcom did this mistake by making it too linear and thus crippling replayability a lot.
We want an overarching storyline for the game to add some purpose but do not think of it in any linear way as player freedom is most important to us.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171321709072/#c618460171323713406

9

Yes, that is due to M&B being pretty close to real medieval weaponry. We take a lot of effort to keep weapons and armor as close to real-life as possible as we are going for that low-power fantasy without massive spiked shoulder-pads. However the legendary items we will add later will look really awesome and we do not stick too close to the real world with those.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171323130729/#c618460171323756374

10

Yes, they will be able to advance from level 1 to level 10. On each level up you can choose to increase 3 character stats (like hitpoints etc) and pick one perk from 42 perks. These perks are distributed into three trees: Offense, Defense and Utility. All Characters will stay with you until killed in combat but there is no way to revive them - they'll be gone forever. However, they can also desert your company. If you run out of provisions to feed them or crowns to pay them they will start deserting you and chase their luck elsewhere so you have to keep a close eye on your supplies and money ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171323983606/#c618460171323997734

11

Yes, you can dismiss your mercs at any time. The provisions are important but once you run out you will still have some time to find more. The mercs will only leave one per day and it will usually be the one with the lowest "resolve" value.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171322561596/#c618460171324139348

12

You can save freely at any time so no restrictions on that. Also, you can go for the easier difficulty but that will not change the to-hit chances in combat or the AI but it will give you more resources to work with and get better equipment quicker. This way we still keep it challenging while the AI is not artificially hampered or cheating. We have battle sister planed for later, take a look at the FAQ (scroll down a little): http://battlebrothersgame.com/battle-brothers-faq/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171324225523/#c618460171324249746

13

Although the game is very challenging and losing men is an essential part of the gamedesign we never even closely considered it to be a roguelike, more like a simulation.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171324225523/#c618460171324808501

14

I think it will be possible to play the game without losing anybody although it would be very very difficult. Paul, our art guy, made a couple of fights with "naked" characters so only weapons and shields and nothing else and managed to beat a couple of scenarios.
He also defeated a group of Orcs with a completely new level 1 band so i am pretty sure everything is possible if you try hard enough.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171324225523/#c618460171325163117

15

We get that request a few times so it is something we are pondering on. I could imagine scenario-like battles where two players chose and equip their Brothers and then pitch them against each other.
Problem is, the game focusses a lot on single-player and the dynamic world and this is where we are putting all our resources right now. We are a very small team and have to be very careful about our possibilities so multiplayer is pretty far down the list im afraid.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171325321171/#c618460171327768579

16

Yes, we have so many ideas and so little resources. The possibilities with the basic game we have here are limitless. Through the Early Access Phase we will constantly add more content and features until the game is finished. After full release we want to possibly put out expansions but I am talking BIG expansions like in the old days. Not these skinny dlcs that you see nowadays. It is very important to us that people get a real value for their money.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171326545214/#c618460171327793609

17

Glad you still like the game ;) We know it can be a bit frustrating at times especially with it being as deadly as it is. For all who have played Xcom (especially the original one) this is pretty familar.
The hit chances are determined by the underlying mechanics and are 100% correct - but missing a 95% attack can feel very frustrating. Sometimes you will miss 3 60% attacks in a row but you have to see the bigger picture. Then there will be times where you hit 3 in a row but people, or me especially, tend to focus on the bad luck and forget about the good luck. In the end it is all about risk hedging and getting the best percentages and it will pay off in the long run.
Also, Bandit Raiders are the best troops at the disposal of the bandits. On top of that, keep in mind that your guys will grow a lot in strength with each level and especially with the perks. I mostly level up their melee (or ranged for an archer), their fatigue and the hitpoints. A guy with level 4 will be so much better than a level 1 recruit.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171327797941/#c618460171327829008

18

Yes, the start can be a it random and that is intended. It is kind of a "play the hand that you are dealt" thing. For now you will have to restart if you get a really bad group, sorry for letting you down on this one.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171326655181/#c618460171328018374

19

Sorry to sink your boat on this one for now. The game focuses pretty much on a "humans against all odds" approach where all other factions are pretty evil (Orcs, Undead, Bandits). Also, we want to keep the other creatures as alien and mysterious as possible. Recruiting them into your warband would really de-mystify them a lot and thus damage the atmosphere of the game.
Also dwarfes and elves will probably not make it into the game. We are following more of an low-fantasy world and we also want to be a bit different from your usual run-of-the mill fantasy world. What we do want to get in the game is creatures from local folklore and myths that have not been seen as such in any game yet so expect some really interesting things in the future ;) Regarding additional Mercs: If we do an expansion to the game it will probably add a completely new part to the map with new terrain, factions, enemies and of course mercenaries with a very different culture.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328258916/#c618460171328371009

20

Yes, the legendaries will be really powerful weapons and armor. But they are as rare as powerful and it will not be easy to get your hands on them.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328749866/#c618460171329531473

21

It depends. The enemies gather resources which the use to assemble more troops. An example:
An Orc camp sends out raiders that successfully raid a couple of caravans and bring home a lot of supplies. Now the camp buys even more raiders so it can raid more caravans and so on. If a certain threshold is reached, the camp may even send Orcs out and found a new camp. Now the Battle Brothers step in and destroy the Orc camp before it gets too powerful - no more raiders, no more new Orcs - the circle is broken. This is just an example for how our worldmap simulation works. So it is a dynamic system that regulates itself but can tilt on one or the other direction depending of the performance of all the factions in the world,

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328222562/#c618460171329596545

22

That is an important thing that we are thinking about. Usually villages, towns and strongholds will spawn a defensive troop to defend their home. So you should be rather safe near settlements (exception: The settlement is too poor to afford a militia)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328222562/#c618460171329642487

23

We have exactly that planned. We already have a backlog of around 100 legendary items each with their own "Legend" that will be around the same length like the character backgrounds. Still, we have a lot of work to do to flesh them out and then put them in the game in a meaingful way. On each playthrough you will only discover a handful of them.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328749866/#c618460171329708023

24

Yes. Although undead will not raid caravans for the money, but to create more corpses for their army ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328222562/#c618460171329715830

25

Here are some clues on how to prevail against the werewolves: Use Spear wall. Use shield and terrain to make you hard to hit. Use sword and riposte skill to return more missed blows than you could otherwise deal yourself. Terrain advantage will give to-hit bonus for riposte. Once in melee, concentrate on one opponent until his death causes others to break, then hit with free attacks when routing from melee. Here is how youtuber Blitz manages to defeat a band of werewolves with a low level merc company together with some Men-at-Arms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqIGS6yUF9M

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328222562/#c618460171329840171

26

It can be quite challenging but if you stick to some very basic rules you should be fine for the start: - Get at least 6 Brothers at the start
- Buy decent armor
- Get shields(!)
- Use defensive abilities like spearwall and shieldwall
- Be very aware of height levels in combat, use knockback to knock enemies down from elevation.
- Don't be too aggressive(!)
- Do not engage in fights that you are not confident to win (not always possible) Also, losing Brothers is an essential part of the game and sometimes makes for the best stories. For your entertainment i tried the first fight in the game with a completely naked crew (except weapons and shields): https://youtu.be/1t8KLrrs8Vg

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364020675449/#c620712364020736204

27

This is the nature of the beast. When designing the combat system you have to make a choice: Do you want lots of small, meaningless attacks that each deal just a bit of damage? -> Very low impact of the RNG. Do you want meaningful attacks that do a reasonable amount of damage and have an actual impact? -> higher impact of the RNG. We want to go with the second as it makes for way more excitement, great stories and awesome moments when your last guy lands a devastating hit decapitating the Orc Warlord at the last moment. On the downsade it puts the RNG more in the center of attention. What can you do about this? Maximise your chances. Always use the high ground, knock enemies down from the high ground, focus on one enemy and make use of the overwhelm mechanic (attack with your light weapons first and finish with a heavy weapon for max overwhelm bonus), use defensive skills like shieldwall to keep your guys alive, do not engage enemies that you are not confident to handle and so on. I could go on for a while but the RNG is working completely normal and the same rules that apply to your guys apply to the enemies. No AI cheating in this game and that is very important to us.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022397253/#c620712364022421835

28

The "problem" here is the open world game design we decided to go with. In a completely linear game you have full control over the challenges the players face but we think a linear structure is extremely boring. Balancing an open world is a tricky task so give us some more time on this.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022265926/#c620712364022689426

29

Great stories here, i mentioned before but this was the main approach when making Battle Brothers - it is not about winning or losing, its about great stories. @Jubelthar: Yes, Villages will get destroyed eventually when raided too often (not implemented yet)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364021324810/?ctp=2#c620712364024551216

30

The game focuses around small unit battles and tactics in dense terrain. Adding horses to the game would scale it up into a kind of larger wargame which we actively decided against while designing the game. However, we have some mounted enemies planned and i guess you should never say never ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022677324/#c620712364022698853

31

Loot will only show up if its durability has not been reduced to zero during the fight. Armor or helmets that got reduced to zero will be considered destroyed in combat just as shields that had their hitpoints reduced to zero.
Taken your example: If the shields where still intact and you did not get them this must have been an error (did you fight together with an AI allies ? They will claim a portion of the loot):

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364024012446/#c620712364024144906

32

Thats right, we want the game to focus on being a highly mobile, traveling mercenary company that can go whereever it pleases (like mundo ;)). If you had a castle/fief you had to protect and manage we would turn it more into a "local lord" simulator - which would be really great as well but just not the focus we had in mind when designing the game.
The camp mechanic is something we are thinking about right now, it will be used to advance time, repair armor, heal up and rest. More on this in the future.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364023329723/#c620712364024182179

33

It is an very easy exploit to lure strong enemy parties into guard patrols and then gather all their equipment. We know that this mechanic is not the optimal way to go about this but maybe you guys have some ideas on how to make this work without being easily exploitable?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364024012446/#c620712364024476517

34

Yes, but if the guard is completely wiped out like norker77 said, this does not make much sense. Problem is, this may encourage the player not to help the allies in order to get as many of them killed (for their loot) until mopping up the remaining enemies.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364024012446/#c620712364024524881

35

Great stories here, i mentioned before but this was the main approach when making Battle Brothers - it is not about winning or losing, its about great stories. @Jubelthar: Yes, Villages will get destroyed eventually when raided too often (not implemented yet)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364021324810/?ctp=2#c620712364024551216

36

We already removed the beggar background from the founding members and may tweak this even more. However, giving you always the same 5 characters would feel a bit boring and takes away a lot from the replayabiltiy and potential for interesting stories so we have to be real careful of making a procedural element more linear.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364029605882/#c620712364029914822

37

We plan on having a mercenary roster way bigger than 12 from which you chose 12 to take into a fight just like you know it from games like Xcom. So for example wounded or exhausted Brothers would have to rest and are not available for every fight.
However, having more than 12 of your mercs in the fight at the same time would get really cluttered and confusing for the player. On top of that, we want to focus on small unit tactics, this is not a wargame like total war and will never be as the individual characters are one of our main focus points. They will get lost if you have too many of them at once.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364029372256/#c620712364030627297

38

Great opinions in here. M&B was definitely an inspiration for us but the main differnece is of course the tactical combat and the character development. As our game develops further the differnces to M&B will become more and more obvious.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364029435476/#c620712364030642768

39

We made the UI not show all the information on purpose. When hovering over an enemy you will see rough estimates of their armor, health moral and so on. We decided to do this in order to keep players from solely focusing on numbers and min/maxing every aspect of the game. The game is designed to create great stories and it is not necessarily about winning (hence the high difficulty).
We feel that giving the player too much info also takes away from the mysteriousness of the enemies. Floating damage numbers fall in line with this. They will give a little too much info for our taste and we also want to display the status of an enemy through his visual appearance (broken armor, blood stains,...). In the existing combat log you will also see the actual damage numbers if you really care for them. Roll numbers would probably fill the log with too much clutter. Customization: We are considering adding visual customization like in the new Xcom. Changing backgrounds and traits is not planned for now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364029511791/#c620712364030673134

40

Thanks! When designing the game our main goal was for the player to create his/her own story, not to actually win the game. Losing was always an integral part of the game and sometimes makes for the most heroic and memorable stories.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364030169263/#c620712364030685990

41

Caravans reaching a trade destination indeed increases resources for both trade partners. Also, watchtowers and castles rely on military supply caravans from towns and villages. If these get intercepted regularly the towers and castles also get into trouble.
Killing of a spawnpoint of enemies close to trade routes will definitely help the villages as it reduced the frequency of caravans getting raided.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364031980415/#c620712364034020239

42

Destroying enemy spawnpoints in the area helps villages a great deal. No enemy raiders spawning = no caravans getting raided = more income/wealth for the villages = more supplies for you and more militia for the village

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364031784087/#c620712364034024655

43

Villages stop spawning caravans when out of resources. We are aware that the endgame needs more tweaking in this regard. In a dynamic simulation it gets more and more tricky to predict whats happening the longer the simulation runs.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364034193893/#c620712364036935435

44

Hey Kalis, thanks for the detailed feedback! Please understand that we cant give detailed answers to all points but be assured that we read and consider all of them. However, there is one point I have to pick out: The stat increase on a level up is always a little bit randomised so you never know how much it will increase. This is also the reason why you can not undo what you have picked. The increase is independant of the character background.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364034273230/#c620712364036964836

45

We will add more ways to further customize your troops, also we want bandits to have their own unique armor, then it will be a lot easier. Right now the main difference is the facing and the Base.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364035301535/#c620712364036978546

46

Thanks for the feedback. With all the procedural elements in the game like the worldmap, the characters, the enemy compositions and the tactical combat maps it is very tricky to balance properly. Be sure that this will be one of our main concerns until the full release and even after that.
Regarding the randomness: This is partly on purpose as it greatly contributes creating interesting and unusual stories. The game draws a part of its appeal from its flawed characters that can turn into heroes against all odds. Starting out with a band of professional soldiers only would feel a bit boring to us. We already removed some backgrounds from the initial setup and we will continue to do so where needed. Adding an option for the player to chose from would of course be the best solution.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364035831393/#c620712364037013251

47

Gifting money to villages does not make much sense given you are a mercenary band. But there are other things we can do about this. One would be to increase their resources when you buy items there. Also tweaking the numbers a little will help: The amount they gain from trading successfully, the amount of resources could also slowly rise over time (through the villages normal business like farming, hunting etc.). We will see how we will adress this exactly.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364034193893/#c620712364037275688

48

Yes, you can kill parties and thus lower the strength of a location. Each location has, say 100 resource points (its not 100, this is just for showcasing) - then it spawns a raiding party worth 30 points. Now the location is down to 70 points if the raiders are killed and so on. You can effectively bleed them try.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364036553191/#c620712364037285186

49

There can be some problems with the AI being too intelligent ;)
Running mindless into a fight you will die in is quite counter-intuitive - when you are protecting your home on the other hand you will probably do this. We have to advance the AI some more to make it avoid stronger parties but not under certain circumstances (like the one you described). You see the problem is not as trivial as it might seem at first.
We will continue to improve the AI to take account of these special circumstances.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364037535328/#c620712364037691328

50

Dragons and griffins probably not but drake-like creatures could be in there. We are thinking into the direction of old european folklore. There are many amazing and scary creatures in those old tales that have never been featured in movies or games. Maybe we will go with some of those. We want bigger enemies as well but it is a bit tricky to implement characters that take up more than one hex at a time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364038082845/#c620712364038155289

51

We plan on having a dialogue option for all parties you encounter on the worldmap so that you can interact with them. This is quite a bit of work to write and implement though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364038706542/#c620712364040880640

52

Thanks for the feedback and great ideas!
Belial already gave some quick answers and they mostly fit with what i would have answered. Horses have been suggested/asked for a lot but we designed the game to be about small scope infantry skirmishes/battles and having all your mercs riding around on horses would challenge one of the core gamedesign pillars. That does not mean there is no way to get some horses in the game later, we just want to be careful about it. We have a lot of weapons and armor planned and also, like you suggested, the progression has to be smoothed out a little by adding more variety. At first Fearies sound like something really crazy but with the right grim, dark and rough take on the faction it becomes much more viable. Thinking of nightmarish creatures stealing kids at night and making them really evil ;) Consumables are a tricky one. Often times they clutter up the inventories a lot without being incredibly useful. I personally keep them for that desperate moment that never comes and so i end up not using them at all. We don't want to knock them completely though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364040356060/#c620712364040918879

53

The game is definitely designed to be about the stories you as the player experience, not about maxing, winning or finishing first. This also explains the difficulty to a degree because we feel that sometimes losing a loved brother makes for the best stories. Also, we want winning to feel like really accomplishing something. If there is no risk in combat it just becomes a dull grind.
But back to the topic: We will increase the level cap to maintaing player progress even after reaching "max level". Can not tell when this will happen though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364039586303/?ctp=3#c620712364040941287

54

There is also a fatality for maces and clubs but it only applies to human enemies.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364043419698/#c620712364043770552

55

Great ideas in here, keep them coming!
On the consumables: One thing we are pretty fix on is no in-combat healing. This would have a massive impact on the deadliness of combat and would take away a lot of tension and consequence of the players decisions. There should be no easy way out if you make a bad decision. There is so much you can do besides "healing": Push away an enemy with knock-back, stun him with knock-out, get out of the ZoC with "Rotation" and so on.
I like the idea about the "Pavesen" the big shields for the archers, although i am afraid those have only been used during a siege so they will probably not fight the scope of our rather small battles. Still, great idea!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364040356060/#c620712364043784440

56

Not sure about the re-roll button, this is not really ment to work this way. Take the new Xcom for example: No re-skilling or re-rolling there but "second wave" options where you could choose to have random number increase on level ups or not. I think this would be the best solution.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364046200703/#c620712999966260464

57

We plan on adding dynmaic traits that can be gained through certain actions (or lost). This would also apply to injuries. However, we do not want players to min-max this like "first you have to do this and that to get this trait...". The system is there to add more character to your Battle Brothers and make them stand out even more, not just to improve their combat abilities.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999965275415/#c620712999966279347

58

All fun aside we are aware that this is very touchy issue and we expected a lot more commotion about the all male thing to be honest. However, we want to have female mercs as well but not just different looking. They will each have a unique background explaining why they are joining a mercenary force (reasons for women may be completely different than those for men). Here is a quick concept of how they might look: http://battlebrothersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/battle-sister.jpg Main reason they are not in the game yet is the resources: We need more assets, writing, sounds and so on to implement them properly.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999965511278/#c620712999966294186

59

We named it "Melee Defense" because it is not about dodging. It is about somehow deflecting, avoiding or countering an attack by any means available. So if your Fighter is "missed" he may well have blocked the blow with the shield but it is not animated in this way. It looks like he is moving backwards and avoiding the blow altogether.
The reason for this: If you had the attacker actually hit the shield there would have to be an according sound and animation and it would most likely look like a hit but with no damage dealt. This would be really confusing for the player as he hits but does no damage and he may not understand why that is the case. Some people even have difficulties right now telling if they hit an enemy or not so this would add a great deal to the confusion. We would like to make it more obvious when the shield is actually hit but I think we will need way better animations in the game to make that work properly.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999965792186/#c620712999966314110

60

With the starting characters we want to go for the middle ground. Not only did we exclude the really good ones like the sword master but also the really bad ones like the beggar. We want to keep the randomness to the start of the game. Sort of the "play the hand that you are dealt" sort of thing.
On the other hand, by removing the really high- and low-end backgrounds we want to at least reduce the randomness a little.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999967755756/#c620712999967984511

61

Makes sense logically and realistically as well but we will have to see about this. It could make javelins a "must have" for all fighters with no drawbacks whatsoever. This could be a bit overpowered given the current combat balance.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999967587892/#c620712999968018997

62

The game has a roguelike touch when it comes to this. Its about the best and most interesting story and characters, not about winning or being as efficient as possible. In this regard it is a bit like the "play the hand you are dealt" and then rolling with it. Knowing exactly which traits to get would just make players avoid all negativ traits and thus eliminating the reason for their existence.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999968068239/#c620712999968091458

63

No, you can only wait once per turn. If you then press space again on a character that already waited it will end the turn. So only one wait per turn per char. When adding some sort of visual cue on this we have to be careful not to clutter things up too much with a lot of indicators and icons...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999968170402/#c620712999970377892

64

It is possible, it is a perk you have to get called "Rotation". Some Bandits have this perk

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999971265645/#c620712999971271211

65

We will introduce legendary weapons at some point and they will be pretty powerful but extremely hard to come by. Some of them will grant "magic-like" abilities but we wont have any fireballs or lightnings flying about

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999973277896/#c620712999973984746

66

Yes a fame thing is something that is pretty high in our favor right now. However, it will probably work with two separate values: One for the professional reputation and one for the moral reputation. These can be changed by your actions in the world but also through events (when the event system is added). So you can be a very professional company (winning all fights, never aborting contracts and so on) while your morals are highly questionable (taking on contracts to extort poor farmers, killing prisoners and so on). Then people will be eager to hire you to get a job done but fear you at the same time.
We are still chewing on this topic as it will influence most aspects of the game so it has to be implemented very well. Regarding owning land: Keep in mind that the characters in your company are mercenaries. If they own land and can live off of that most of them will not have a reason to stay in the mercenary business. Settling down and running a farm or business does not mix very well with the concept of a traveling mercenary company (except for the characters who are in it for the adventure of course).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999974971853/#c620712999976003531

67

Its funny but we had the exact same idea a while ago. However, with the direction the game is currently taking we pushed the whole crafting discussion way back on the bench. We do not want to slow gameplay down by grinding and farming for certain resources. However, its still in the back of our head but honestly not top prio right now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999977791996/#c620712999977900021

68

Yes, right now for us there is no business hours so we just fire away if we are close to any kind of electronic device ;) We already tweked the combat log to show more numbers then before but maybe we will have to increase it some more? We dont want to clutter it with too much stuff though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999977867311/#c620712999977905982

69

The event system will also feature interaction between characters but mostly based on character backgrounds, not randomly.
I liked the Darkest Dungeon comments at first but after a short while they get so repetitive, that they quickly got on my nerves.
We have over 44 backgrounds in the game, giving each a personality and writing texts based on that personality and then triggering that accoriding to all kinds of situations seems like a really big task. It would add character and immersion but we have way more important tasks at hand like improving the worldmap gameplay, adding lategame challenges and so on...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999976862752/#c620712999977919276

70

We are thinking about giving all thrown weapons an additional attack for melee. It will not be as good as a normal spear but still pretty effective. This not set in stone but we are considering it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999978626404/#c620712999981752648

71

Thanks!
Actually, we have most of your points on our list. Let me just give some quick feedback:
- Level Cap rework is coming
- Horses are requested a lot but wont come for now as we want to keep the scope of battle to small unit fights and skirmishes. Have it on the backlog though.
- Having more contracts is something we consider, we just dont want your questlog to clutter up in minutes wow-style. Also, a mercenary company usualy only works for one master at a time.
- Combat deployment is planned.
- You can rename your dudes righ now. Just open the inventory and click on the little icon next to the name and title.
- We are thinking about a faction system.
- Dungeons are planned: http://battlebrothersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/mockup_dungeon4.jpg
- More options in towns are planned.
- Mages that throw fireballs do not fit the setting of the game. We will have powerful legendary items though that grant powerful skills.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/2741975115067603641/#c620712999981765837

72

We will give throwing weapons some more luv in the future. There will be a bigger variety and probably an improvised melee attack as well so you can use a javelin to stab the enemy in the face as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999985291509/#c620712999985772438

73

We will add real legendary items later that each have a detailed backstory, unique stats and powerful abilities. We want to go with that approach for now but I cant tell when they will be implemented.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999982044597/#c620712999985785598

74

Hey, glad to hear that you like the game. Your first two questions really tie together well:
We do not have plans to make any other races playable at this point. The focus of the game is to lead a human mercenary company and the whole game is designed around this concept. It will become even clearer when we get a bit further in the development.
Other factions, like orcs or undead, are really evil in this world, there is no trading or negotiating going on with the humans. This alone would need us to change the whole concept and gameplay upside down when changing to another faction.
Now here comes the second question: All this can be done by modding. However, we will firstly focus on finishing the game before we can allow to put any resources into supporting mods. We have some ideas on the shelf to allow for more customization of your mercenary company and some also include making some choices when starting a new campaign. I cant go into too much detail here as this is all still up in the air.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999987848785/#c620712999989670974

75

hehe thanks!
We want this to feel as immersive as possible and enemy factions will fight each other whenever and wherever so they also do this on the worldmap if you are not around.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633841132564/#c620713633841424797

76

We intentially made it so that you can only accept one contract at a time as it makes the most sense. A mercenary company would never work for two masters at the same time because to which one will the be loyal if it comes down to it?
However, i can understand that in the current state it makes sense from a convenience point of view so we dont want to knock it right out fo the air. We will have to see how the focus and flow of the game evolves and then come back to it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633843180839/#c620713633845473635

77

Thanks for the input! I think i like the idea of different types of contracts that can be active at once but we have to explore this a little further. A time limit for contracts is already planned. I agree that we need more resource drains in the late game. Donating stuff does not really fit the mercenaries-theme as mercenaries tend to be rather greedy and would not want to help people for free. We will come up with something other though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633845845820/#c620713633848549241

78

We have a flee-from battle mechanic planned for enemies so the last enemy will take a run and battle is over. We are constantily goind into revision on all the perks and i can promise there will be a lot of moovement during the Early Access. Some perks might even be completely exchanged for new ones. Not really planned, it was not possible in Xcom or Mount and Blade(big inspirations for us) and this is not really an RPG so we are kind of reluctant to add this. Its on our list! The contracts are pretty basic right now. We have a lot more contracts planned and we will also rework the whole contract system in time to make it more RPG-like with a dialogue and so on. We will need some time for this though. Items as rewards for contracts are planned. The balance between the strategic resources still needs work. We want all of them to be equally important. Really glad that you like the game and thanks for the feedback!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633856242685/#c620713633856671877

79

As all elements of the game are procedurally generated it is really hard to balance the world so that there is still a threat but at the same time villages and castles do not get overrun. As with al dynamic simulations this gets the harder the further you advance into this game. We are constantly tweaking the worldmap to make it as stable as possible. Still, we have pretty big changes planned for the whole worldmap and that will stir things up a lot.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633856453616/#c620713633856683101

80

We put a lot of thought into the armor system and we also thought about the damage reduction system that is mentioned here. When discussing something as important as the armor system you have to keep in mind that in a game like this there will always be a rough simplification of the real world. As much as we want really dedicated people to enjoy a sophisticated armor-system we also have to make sure that we do not go overboard and overcomplicate things. The damage reduction system has some serious drawbacks that can be overlooked quickly and that are pretty hard to remedy by other game mechanics. As characters stack more and more armor they will become almost invulnerable to low-penetration weapons. This would make armor even more important than it is now. When trying to add a remedy to this by adding armor penetration to all weapons you end up with a paradox result where armor, especially light armor, stops mattering because all weapons (to some degree) penetrate it. Also, making characters take more hits can be done but the less of an effect a single hit has, the longer the combat draws out, the less exciting it gets and the more you move from a simulation-style game towards a puzzle game where there is hardly any chance/luck/risk involved but it is about figuring out the "right" move. As you have probably read elsewhere that was not what we had in mind when designing the game but we wanted great stories, sudden changes of fate, heroes against all odds and so on. Keep in mind that this is somewhat of a discussion on various tastes and that there is no wrong or right way to do it - but of course we want to explain the thought process behind the current system. Another point regarding the simplification of the armor system: We had to go for a pretty abstract system as we did not want to overcomplicate the hitzones. It might be realistic for late medieval plate-suits to offer the same level of protection for the whole body but in the game we have a lot of early armor that mostly just covers the vital bodyparts. Other parts like joints, face, shins and so on are mostly unguarded so a hit to one of these areas would almost deal full damage - how do we model this without getting into an extremely detailed hit-zone model? I agree that the system is very minimalistic in the current state and that we also have to do something to make lighter armor more viable. Also we will have a look at the stat increase on level-up as we feel this is not at the right spot yet. So nothing here is set in stone!
Just wanted to take a step back and share some thoughts on the armor system.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633857540321/#c620713633861376117

81

I did not say anything to the Hitpoint debate yet. We agree that hitpoints are not as useful as they should be right now so we definitely want to improve them. Just scaling them up so they matter more seems a bit too simple so maybe we have to think of other ways how to do this. Towards the armor debate: Just a quick reminder: All weapons have an armor efficiency that hugely affects their damage. This is a "damage reduction" that is more tied to the weapon than to the armor but the effect is massive. Some weapons only do 70% dmg against armor, that is an effective dmg reduction of 30% done by the armor. Good idea with the critical hit protection although we model critical hits by hitting the head and we have no crits on the body. Might be a way to make the system more differentiated. What i personally ponder about is damage types for certain attacks like piercing, smashing, cutting and then differentiating the armor to be better/worse against different "damage types" but that is just an early idea.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633857540321/?ctp=2#c620713633863945433

82

Yes, the late game is very hard to balance and right now it tends to lead to starved villages.
Villages will profit a lot from caravans that reach their destination so no use in giving them another bonus for this contract.
Likewise, if you destroy a spawnpoint that sends out parties to harass a village these raids will stop, leaving the village in a better position. So this type of contract already helps out the villages. We think it is more a problem of world generation, enemy spawn rates, militia power, castle/tower patrol power and how much caravans bring their village in trade income. We have to balance all these factors to remedy the situation you mention. We will improve this over time but as you can imagine it is pretty tricky and we have to be careful not to overshoot.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633861844736/#c620713633863967227

83

The availability of armor greatly depends on the resources of a location. However, Castles and Towers have a higher chance of having top level equip. A really wealthy town will have top tier equip as well so it all depends on the economical situation.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633861844736/#c617336568063399586

84

Customizable auto-pause functions would be best so you can tailor the function to your playstyle. I know you must hate this sentence by now but i have to say it again: We have it on our list ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568062898801/#c617336568063415119

85

Not being able to exactly predict what happens next is an integral part of the philosophy behind the game. It is about stories, unforseen events, unlikely odds (positive and negative) and also about flawed human beings risking their life in deadly combat.
We do not want to move into a deterministic system where you can calculate and min/max what happens in the game. We feel that would be very boring. In this sense the game may even be a little rogue-like so you have to play the hand you are dealt.
This aside, we agree that the stat increase on level-up is not optimal right now and we have to see how to improve it in the future. It is not where we want it to be yet. This may take some more work than just tweaking the numbers a bit.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633860040673/#c617336568064277717

86

We have been working on this for almost two years now and putting something as game-changing as human factions into the system is not a matter of weeks but rather a couple of months.
On top of the technical implementation this needs to be based on solid game design, graphical assets, AI for factions, a lot of writing (background stories, events, characters, contracts, descriptions, etc) and most importantly thorough balancing and playtesting. Who said that we are not planning a system just like this as we speak? In fact we are internally discussing this right now so please do not just assume that we do not listen just because we can not implement all suggestions within a couple of weeks. We appreciate everybody's input and check if it makes sense to put it into the game and most importantly if the game will benefit from it. When you take a look around the steam hub and also our own forum there are so many great ideas and suggestions flying around that there is no way that we can put them all into the game. Additionally, we have to check all planned features against our resources: Time and manpower. There is just so much that we can get into the game and in fact many ambitious projects crash because developers try to squeeze in too much in too little time. Not trying to tell anyone off or disregard your ideas. I just want to help you see the game development from our perspective so that you can get a better feeling for our situation and the decisions that we have to make.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568062017333/#c617336568064438860

87

Hey there, i do not want to go into too much detail and not openly discuss all the workings of the worldmap so this is how it goes roughly: Locations do not respawn. Locations that are active (sending out parties, gathering resources) will send out troops to found a new location once they have accumulated enough resources. This will usually be in the same area as the first one (not across the whole map).
Contracts are issued by villages to destroy a location if there is a location close by and also if that location raided/attacked that village before or the location is known to the village.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568065483384/#c617336568066992244

88

hehe thanks a lot!
Although it might sound a bit cheesy feedback like this is what keeps you going as a developer. As you probably know this started out as a hobby project that we developed for a long time without the prospect of any big returns. Long story short: We had some pretty rough patches to get through and the encouragement and positive feedback from people like you helped us get up again and keep going ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568067195886/#c617336568067238832

89

On a quick note: The helmet is not meant to be worth the difference between the deluxe and the supporter edition. The supporter edition is just for those who really want to support us and the helmet is a small token of appreciation, just something special that is not meant to be game changing in any way. We will never offer any micro-DLC. If we decide to make any extra content it will be a full sized expansion with new areas, characters, enemies, items, contracts and so on so it will be worth it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568069467017/#c617336568070857498

90

Dont want to completely jump into the discussion but just a quick note towards the RNG:
As long as there is a 99% chance there will be a 1% to miss. Also, this is a "sampling with replacement" - each draw does not increase/influence the actual chance of the next draw. The probability on the 100th draw is still 99% to 1% so there is still a chance you might miss. This in an inherent characteristic of every system that includes random number generation and that will never go away as long as we have any randomization in the game. I remember going to a casino once and playing roulette. I would sit there and wait for the roll to be "red" 4-5 times in a row and then bet on "black" - it HAS to change to black at some point, right?
Well, i quickly realized that the chance of black and red is still 50/50 no matter how often red has been rolled before so long story short: That strategy was kind of useless ;) The only possible solution would be this: With each miss the chance to hit is increased behind the curtains so that you will never have 4 misses in a row. However, this would make the whole system kind of pointless and it would be better to switch to a deterministic system completely - which will not happen. However, this does not mean that we dont know about the frustration that comes when something really unlikely happens like missing 4 80% attacks and trust me - i get frustrated at times as well by this but this is the nature of the beast.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633857540321/?ctp=6#c617336568075215938

91

We have thought of something similar, especially the cloaked guy with information where you can learn about nearby locations and more. This will come into play when we add the legendary items that you will not just run into but have to collect clous and hints until you know where to search.
Adding more interactivity to locations would definitely a great thing.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568076283443/#c617336568082595710

92

The system you describe sounds a bit like the damage system in the shadowrun roleplay with the physical damage and the "stun" oder "blunt" damage (dont know the English words). It is quite an interesting mechanic but i think it would not really work with our game. We already have the fatigue mechanic and fatigue kind of goes in the direction of a stun damage so that would be a bit redundant.
We have two weapons in the game that do a DoT, the military cleaver and also the orc sword. So the mechanic is there but quite rare. We also want to keep it a very special ability so we want to keep it rare but there will be more weapons with DoT style damage.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633857540321/?ctp=7#c617336568082610736

93

Yes, this is a classic and has come up quite a few times. However, we probably wont implement this soon. We want the troop roster to increase in the future so you will have more mercs to experiment with and it becomes less of a deal if one does not have the perk distribution you wanted.
Also, it does not really fit with the whole perma-death thing and the emphasize we put on meaningful choices and serious consequences. If you could just switch them around later it would make it kind of meaningless what you chose in the first place. For example the new Xcom also does without re-speccing and its not really something i have missed that much when playing it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568079159063/#c617336568082636463

94

We will add a lot more options for player behaviour once we have the event system in the game and then even more when we are reworking the worldmap and adding a reputation system. That will open the game up to way more freedom of choice so you can be righteous or a cruel and bloodthirsty mercenary captain.
However, this is still a mercenary simulation and it is not a medieval sandbox so taking over settlements would be a huge stretch from the idea behind the game. We want the player to be a wandering mercenary and not a local lord or knight. That would be an interesting game by itself but we have to set the scope of the game towards a certain direction at some point.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463106374050339/#c618463106375046815

95

We have thought a lot about a "base" of operation, it was also in the original design of the game but we took it out later.
Having a fixed base will force the player to "hover" around that location to re-stock, manage his troops and return after contracts. This will narrow down the world a lot, it would make it really hard to bring the player to explore far away parts of the map.
Our solution: Give the player a mobile base. A mercenary wagon track that he uses to manage his troops, stash equipment and also have non-combat followers like a smith, a nurse and so on. We think that will ultimately be much more unique and entertaining while keeping the player highly mobile and flexible.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463106374050339/#c618463106379013797

96

We know that this is a touchy issue and a lot of people want recruitable other races but i have to say that it is very unlikely to happen.
This is not World of Warcraft, there is no real magic, no dragons, no elves, no dwarves. This is set out to be more like a pseudo-historical world with added "monsters" and mythological creatures that are very alien to the humans. Many humans in this world may have lived without ever seeing any of these creatures. This is why we want to keep them alien and different and mysterious. There are other fantasy worlds out there where a friendly orc would be really bizarr as well, just imagine the fellowship of the ring bringing some random orcs along to the fight. That would be extremely out of place and would not make any sense in the world. The creatures we are looking at are either very evil or their society and motivation is so far from the humans that there will never be a common ground to act upon. I know never say never but friendly orcs are something we will probably not have in the game at any time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463106373429634/#c618463106379032947

97

We have something in the works but we do not want to put the player in the tactical combat. It would change the game to "babysitt this dude or its over" and that does not really add to the game what we want to add. With the rough combat we have, and characters that can be killed rather quickly, this would end many games within the first couple of days. On the other hand: Making the main character undieable like in MB wouldnt work with the focus on permadeath we have. It would destroy the immersion of the game and you could just send him in every fight and make him tank as it wont have any consequences. Compare it to the new xcom: You get adressed as "commander" constantly but never show up on the tactical combat map.
All players are free to rename a character and make him "you" but of course this will require some roleplaying and many people do not want to do this. Okay, after being all naggy about this idea i want to give you something to look forward to: We want to give the player a more customizeable start and starting company. You may even be able to create sort of a character that is your leader but he will most likely not take part in combat directly. This is in a pretty early stage so dont take all of this as given ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463446156994587/#c618463446158627807

98

Great story, even while you lost most of your men!
This is exactly what we had in mind when designing the game: It is not about winning or losing, but about creating and living your own stories and share them. Just bashing everything out of the way and winning usually does not make for the best stories. There has to be hardship, pain, loss, desparation, hope, tragedy and triumph - just like in your story ; )

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463446165505961/#c618463738381681696

99

Getting a standard into the game is definitely a neat idea and it would add a lot of character to your company. If we ever put it in the game i could more likely see it as an off-hand item that can also be picked up in the battle if the first guy with the standard somehow lost his head ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463738381783192/#c618463738393539170

100

Great ideas right there!
As mentioned before we do not want to just change the gender of the existing characters and jam them into the game. Getting unique and different backgrounds for the female mercs is very important in making them believable characters with a real motivation - so this is exactly what we have in mind ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463738384929352/#c618463738393556532

101

The Orcs are the strongest faction in the game right now and probably the only real challenge for a high-level company. We will add some stronger enemies to the other factions to make them interesting opponents even in the late-game (im looking at you, undead).
The young orcs can be pretty manageable in the early game if you have a half-way decent company and use the right tactics. However, you will probably lose one or more men when engaging the orcs but this is part of the game: Managing the losses. The game is not meant to be played without losses.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463446158243333/#c618463738393565555

102

I think the issue is not really the danger evaluation but players on really low levels encountering really strong enemies.
We want to keep this to be an open world where the player has all the freedom he wants and therefore we do not want to artificially restrict access to more difficult areas or something like that. However, i think the best solution would be to somehow make it that the player is less likely to encounter really strong enemies at the very beginning, then gets wrecked and hence frustrated. This is especially bad for new players.
This is a core problem of open world systems: Giving the player freedom and at the same time minimizing frustration from unwinable encounters.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463446158243333/?ctp=2#c618463738404956617

103

We have thought a lot about weapon specialization but we are not really fond of them. Of course you want your guys to specialize in a certain role but it is a thin line between specialization and creating archetypes that can only fight with one weapon. If you have a character that gets a bonus with a sword, and even a really small one, no player would ever give this guy any weapon besides a sword. That is just not rational to do. Now you have a guy that will only fight with swords for the rest of his life so all other weapons are not viable to him anymore. Now you just cut a huge chunk out of content, customization, options and flexibility. I remember being so annoyed in a lot of games when finding that awesome spear but my main character was specialized to use axes and so i had to throw that legendary spear in the bin. That was very frustrating. We try to give you the possibility to specialize in the direction of certain roles like ranged, shield, tank, support and maybe AOE without forcing a certain weapon on a character thus substantially limiting choices. Regarding the "learning by doing" thing: I know that the old Xcom did it this way and it intuitively makes sense (you know this is a "but" sentence ;)) BUT it is extremely easy to exploit once you have figured out the right triggers.
It can lead to people using a really bad spear with low damage and artificially keep enemies alive to get in 100 successful attacks to trigger that skill increase. Or walk x tiles with a total armor of over 150 to increase fatigue by getting stronger. Although this still might make sense, many players who do not want to min-max may seem forced to employ these tactics or to face a disadvantage in the game. At this point a system like that becomes really tedious. So keeping it a little more abstract is the better choice from our point of view. A quick disclaimer: The Perks are subject to change at all times and it we also might add new perks that allow for a stronger specialization.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618463738407303651/#c598198173698020724

104

We already have loads of painted shields in the game and we already had painted helmets in the game in an earlier version. They will probably make a comeback at some point. Not so sure about surcoats for your soldiers, after all you are controlling a mercenary warband and not a military unit that is aligned to a faction. But we will see about this!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356168525503/#c598198356175082699

105

With the event system and the worldmap rework there will be a lot more freedom of choice for the player. We take extra care to give players the possibility to not only be "the good guy" but also be a ruthless mercenary who takes whatever he wants and is not reluctant to bash in innocent heads if there is money to be made. The first step is the event system which we are working on right now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356169172102/#c598198356175100080

106

We know how much the game will profit from modding and we want to have some kind of mod support at a later stage. Still, it will probably not happen before the full release.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356180743260/#c598198356187066190

107

Once a spawnpoint has gathered enough resources it will send out a party that will found a new location. So if they do well they will start spreading around. Vice versa if you keep them on low supplies they wont be able to start new locations.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356185185233/#c598198356187080709

108

Yes, the are partially randomized. We want to overhaul the whole quest system in time to give them a bigger variety and make them more dialogue-oriented. Cant give you an ETA on that though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356199627649/#c598199244892419253

109

Honestly, we did not have it on the map and it has not been requested yet. Skipping the core part of the game seems a bit odd. Just imagine an auto-resolve for Xcom. The crucial part here is: What if you auto-resolve and your favourite brother dies in that fight against a pretty easy opponent? Then you will probably reload as you could have avoided that. So an autoresolve could cause a lot of frustration this way. So as you said you would only use it for easy battles where nobody dies.
This is a balancing issue right now. The Brothers scale way too strongly in the lategame so many enemies become complete pushovers. This is not yet working as intended. So instead of auto-resolving meaningless battles we would rather balance the game so that there are no meaningless battles. A battle has to fulfill two criteria to not be meaningless: There has to be a risk to force the player to think and take care and there has to be a reward that the player cares about to motivate him. If a battle has no risk but a little reward its a grind, if it has no reward but risk players will avoid it. We want both risk and reward for all battles. This is quite ambitious but we just started EA and put a lot more time into adding balancing and content to avoid boring fights.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446313122829/#c530645446313942404

110

No, it does not, fatigue is recovered by a fixed rate of 15 per turn.
You can also get fatigue back through "rally" and other perks.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446319523385/#c530645446319672061

111

A quick disclaimer:
The game is still pretty early in development and there will be loads and loads of massive changes, content and other additions over the course of the next year. Keeping the game balanced while introducing new content, mechanics and even whole aspects of gameplay is a really tricky thing to do. On top of that, balancing takes an excessive amount of time for playtesting and that is all time that is lost on actually developing the game. So please understand why the balancing may be a little off here and there for the moment! In our view ranged weapons are not really underpowered or a handicap but an asset to year team. I do not want to go fully into the discussion but just add some points to consider: 1. Ranged units are, just like melee units, not really accurate at the beginning of the game. This is intentional and should be self-explanatory. The backgrounds that tend to have higher ranged skill are a bit too random right now. We are working on a change of the way the values from the backgrunds are generated to give more reasonable results. So if you hire a poacher you can be sure that he will have at least a decent ranged skill. I have to agree though, that the ranged Brothers need some more love perk-wise. Maybe even an own ranged perk tree... 2. Ranged weapons are not good in the forest. This should be rather intuitive as there is a lot of cover and other things that obstruct line of sight and line of fire. This should not be a surprise to anyone. 3. Combat setup variations and a depoloyment phase are planned. The current forest-fight setup will not stay this way. 4. Most are forgetting about the main advantage of ranged weapons: You can hit the enemy but the enemy can not hit you.
Without the chance of retaliation it is basically free damage and there is hardly anything the enemy can do about it. Archers are also used to force the enemy to attack and not just hang back. This is a factor that can not be accounted into damage numbers. 5. Regarding the damage curve for ranged weapons:
Tying different armor effectiveness/damage to different distances certainly makes sense from a realism standpoint as the projectiles lose force with distance. However, we do not want to overcomplicate the combat system in that instance and we already have reduced damage over range - well, indirectly - through a lower chance to hit at longer ranges. 6. Enemies will pretty soon be able to flee from the battlefield - no more need to chase that last archer around. 7. Balancing above level 6: We said this on quite some occasions, the Battle Brothers outscale the enemies in the game pretty hard after level 6-7-8 right now. This is a balancing issue that we are looking at and we will have to deal with this through adding tougher enemies, reowrking skills/perks and maybe even the way the leveling system works. I know everyone goes crazy when we "nerf" something but we want a fun game that is a challenge and just stomping anything in the game on higher levels is not what we want. I hope the players can understand this and dont feel like something was taken from them but more like a reason to keep playing added. A game with no challenge is pretty boring after all. 8. More types of ranged weapons will come, thrown weapons as well. Not so sure about different ammo-types yet but this is something i say "why not" to. We just want to keep it a little historically with the ammo types. 9. There is a close combat archer trait that greatly increases damage over short distances, just wanted to throw this in here. 10. Goblins are designed in a special way:
To challenge the players tactics on another level and in another way. You will need new tactics against them and can not just rely on your cookie-cutter setup. We want this for every faction, each should have a unique way of fighting and tactics to keep the combat challenging and interesting.
They will challenge the current armor-heavy, static and "wait for them" approach that seems to be pretty dominant in the game right now. It may also be, that they add an incentive for the player to use more ranged weapons.
One more important thing regarding the Goblins: We will make sure that you are not chasing them around for an hour, that would be just bad gamedesign and pretty boring. Just want to reassure you on this.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446323948130/#c530645446325802799

112

nice ideas, how about a heavy arrow that has an increased armor efficiency? I will take put this on our internal discussion list. However, the fire arrow will be a bit tricky, it will require some more programming and i think historically it was only used to set buildings and so on on fire and not against single fighters as the little basket with the flaming stuff made them fly rather awkwardly. Not 100% sure on this though...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446325611189/#c530645446325817081

113

This is unfortuantely the nature of an open world game. If we had a linear game this would never happen but balancing and controlling the players experience in an open world is really tricky.
Sorry to hear that you had so much bad luck. Smoothing out the difficulty curve is one of our main concerns until the final release and you can ba sure, that a lot of thing will change in that regard.
The game should be a challenge, but not there to punish poeple ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446319789523/#c530645446325836058

114

Yes, it is what we have planned for the "beast" faction. These are basically "neutral" monsters that roam the world and are a threat to all factions.
Right now we have only the werewolves in the game yet regarding the beasts.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530646080854269763/#c530646080860979355

115

I actually have economics degrees from universities of Hamburg, Germany and University of St.Andrews Scotland ;) The economic simluation in the game is incredibly simple, if you could even call it that so the prices you see in towns and villages do change according to some factors but there is no real exchange of goods, supply and demand or any other fancy mechanic at the works here. Our goal is to keep prices to change according to the size and wealth of a location without them being able to spiral completely out of control. The economy may get some more detailed feats in the future, maybe even tradeable produce and goods, but it is not our main concern for this game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=9#c537402115071691872

116

Just a quick little clarification regarding the events from our side: - Almost all of the events happen according to certain triggers, there are very few that can be considered a general event and even those are often bound to something like being in a certain tile like a road or forest.
The triggers can be quite complex and just because the player does not instantly realized "why" an event occured, does not mean there is no reason for it. For example some events only trigger when you have a certain amount of crowns or provisions, both high and low. Also, meeting all the requirements for a certain event does not give you a 100% chance of it happening. We intended the events to add flavor and interesting occurances and interaction within the party to the game and we do not want players to be able to trigger certain events on demand. - The outcome of your decisions in the events may vary for most events so if one time something happened it does not mean this will happen like this the next time. We did this to increase replayability and spice things up a little so that even very seasoned players experience a little change from time to time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530646080857266828/?ctp=3#c537402115079368986

117

Yes, some are more common than others.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530646080857266828/?ctp=3#c537402115079827668

118

We have something in store to adapt the orcs a bit more to the very early game without actually changing their skills or stats. About the lost souls we have to see, maybe we will mix them stronger with other enemies - but that may actually make them even more dangerous ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/537402115095040094/#c537402115095094597

119

Thanks for supporting! However, the scope of the game is set in early medieval times adn we want to stick to that for now. We feel like expanding the time scope too much would not be a good move for the game. We will see about expanding into a later era in a possbile expansion or so but this is not really an option right now. However, all contributions and feedback is always welcome!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541906348047652236/#c541906348053314946

120

Thanks for the feedback!
This is actually how the resolve and moral systems should work. Putting more points into resolve to stop your fighters from turning tail. We were very cautios with making your guys flee too easily as this can easily lead to your guys dying. Maybe we were a bit too cautious and your guys are not put to the test enough. We will have a look at this as the development goes on and then maybe tweak it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541906348044487801/#c541906348053323346

121

We will not do any small DLCs for a charge. We may decide to add some small features after release for free. If we ever do a DLC it will be a bigger expansion adding a lot of new mechanics and content to the game so it will be well worth it.
We will see about additional gore but we think even right now it is a lot more brutal than most games out there.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541906348050183410/#c541906989396322238

122

Thanks for the detailed feedback and really happy to hear that you like the game! A graveyard of some sort is something we had planned all along but i like your twist on it. Generating little stories or tales around the death is a great idea! We could also imagine placing little tombstones on the worldmap whenever a brother has been killed and you could then later hover over it to see the details. But i have to admit that this is something not that high up on our to do list. The named items are another thing that has been suggested on some occasions. We will add more item variety and named items and eventually even legendary items to the game so the need to rename items will become a little less important over time. But if we have time at some point, why not!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541907675756968109/#c541907675758117207

123

Okay, two things: First: Final warning for insulting others as "monkeys", next time there will be consequences. Second:
I*ll answer these points one by one although most of them have been adressed a couple of times already. 1) Magic:
There wont be any magic for the player. We decided to set the game in a low-power fantasy world that is relatively close to the European middle ages. People believed that there are monsters, witches and magicians but this was mostly just scary stories with no proof to them or folklore. Magic is something extremely rare in this world and only very powerful creatures actually have supernatural abilities.
We want the game to be about the struggle of mortal and flawed humans against superior odds and supernatural powers - of course this is not fair but this is not meant to be fair. It is about overcoming these odds and making mortal humans into heroes thus creating great stories.
Magic in this world is supposed to be very alien to the humans and by making it accessible to the player would take away all the mystery from it. What we will have is very rare legendary items that grant unique skills and these skills can be pretty close to "magic" as the are very powerful and can even change some game mechanics around. 2) Firebombs
These have been unsed since roman times, especially in siege warfare. However, we feel that they do not really fit the small scope of our battles. Using siege weapons against single infantry fighters seems to be pretty ineffective. However, this is something we might consider at some point so we wont completly knock it. 3) Siege weapons
Again, using siege weapons in fights with around 20 people does not make much sense, they are called siege weapons for a reason. Maybe with a complete "siege" expansion of the game with fortified walls etc. but this is something that will definitely not be in the first release. 4) Mounts
Another classical point we have answered on various occasions. Main thing is the small scope of the battle with 12 brothers max. Horses were mostly used to perform quick flanking maneuvers, mass charges or for routing fleeing enemies. Horses need a lot of free space to be effective.
Our battle fields seem to be a bit too small and are mostly full of obstacles that would force mounted fighters to dismount in order to fight properly. Adding horses would turn the small scale tactical combat into more of a "warfare" simulation like Mount and Blade with dozens of fighters on each side on huge maps. This is not the scope of the game. One more thing: When suggesting something it really helps to give as much detail as possible and also describe the mechanics of how something would work in the game. For example Mounts:
How do you get them? How much do they cost? Do you have to feed them? What happens if they get wounded? Can you dismount in combat? How far can they move? What effects, positive and negative, do they give to the rider? Do they have any problems with moving through forests, if so which? What kind of weapons can you use from horseback? Do you need a special skill or perk to ride a horse? How are horses healed after combat? How do we display horses in the game without it looking like the battle brother was riding a hobbyhorse on a stick? How do they behave in the enemies zone of control? Are they easier to hit with ranged weapons? And so on... Thinking of all this stuff and writing it down will increase the chances of a suggestion to be considered by us tremendously. I dont want to be a guy who is just looking for an excuse not to implement a feature. My point is that there is a crazy amount of thought and work behind each feature (and this applies to most suggestions) that we, with three dev guys, have to do. So for us it is very important to prioritze our features correctly from "make or brake the game" to "must have" down to "nice to have". It would help us a lot with actually considering a feature if you gave us some more detail on how it is supposed to work exactly and then it is much easier for us to give you feedback on it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541906989411787571/?ctp=2#c541907675761971919

124

Main reason for the extended roster is to alleviate the severeness of losses. Right now, with no backups or reserves, a lost brother on max level is a huge incentive to just reload and we actually do not want the people to reload but to go with the story and with whatever is happening. When having some reserves of well trained brothers you might more readily accept some losses and this is what we want as we do not want to cut down on the mortality rate. Regarding the realism of not taking all Brothers into battle: is it realisitc that in the new Xcom you can afford a super-secret base with top-notch technology and 10 interceptors but you can just send one skyranger with 6 people on a mission? Let's assume for now that the Brothers stay back to guard you supplies or tend to their wounds.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541907867751582537/#c541907867758281631

125

Let me step in here. Everything Malthus said in his very first post is what we said on other occasions before and our stance on that still has not changed. Regarding the static base:
Some years ago the gamedesign started out with a fix base as a core element that you would expand and rebuild over the course of the game. While progressing the gamedesign and shaping it more and more into a mercenary simulation we decided at one point to drop the idea of a static base as it does not fit in with a roaming mercenary company.
One of the reasons is purely practical: The map can be a lot bigger and it will get a lot bigger. Having a base you have to return to periodically would severely limit your range of operations and would take away a lot of the setting: A travelling company.
What is more, we changed the focus of the game towrads the management of a mercenary company and everything that belongs close to this. We do not want a general management game but explicitly a mercenary mangement game (at the beginning we planned on having a full fledged ressource management meta-game but we dropped that too). You have to ask yourself: What is the scope and theme of the game? Is it a medieval ages simulator ? No. Is it a base management game? No. Is it an RPG? No. Is it a trade simulation? No. - only when you have a clear vision of what the game is supposed to be and, even more importantly, what it is not supposed to be, you can make a good game. Many games, greenlight projects, early access games and so on failed because they wanted to be everything to everone - and that is just not possible. We hope that modders will some day be able to add all that to the game but we can not. Now for the most important aspect:
Resource limitations.
We are a small team of three guys and our funds to hire freelancers are very limited. Now imagine yourselves in our position: Which feature or suggestion do you put in the game? Which do you cut? And most importantly: Why? Do we want more features in the game? Yes. Can we get them all in? Definitely no. So where do you draw the line? This is were the vision and scope of the game comes in. You put in what fits the scope and leave things out that do not fit. Of course you have some of features that are on the line between the two and you have to make a close call. I do not want to put off you guys with giving suggestions or ideas for features - we highly appreciate that! But please keep in mind that the general scope of the game is set and that we have to stick to the development plan (that is, by the way, already pretty packed until full release) so it wont be easy for us to implement anything that is a big change or means massive amounts of work outside of what we have planned. I hope you guys can understand that.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541907867781451988/?ctp=3#c541907867785674275

126

The problem with a player character on the battlefield is his mortality. With the dark and grim setting of the game where heads are flying through the air there is no logical explanation for an unkilliable character. If he gets gutted with a sword or his head chopped off with an axe there is little room for him not being dead. We see no possible explanation why everyone else is mortal and he is not.
Personally, the immortality of characters (also Kings and Nobles) in Mount and Blade bothered me a lot. After a long fight were I killed (knocked over) the enemy king in an epic battle he would just wait for me back at his castle. For me that is a big immersion breaker. Now let's assume he can die:
Option 1: If he dies the game is over - with so many brothers dying especially in the eraly game most games would be rather short.
Option 2: If he dies the game continues - So he is basically just a normal Battle Brother? Why not just rename a character and make him "you"? Another point is character custimzation: Changing faces, beards, hairstyles etc. to create yourself in the game would be awesome and we would love to have it in the game. Thing is, this is mostly a vanity feature and not essential to gameplay while we also have to get in features like more combat map tiles, other human factions and so on that drastically improve the whole game. We value those higher.
However, if we end up with some spare time character customization would be swell to have in the game. I like to reference xcom at this point, both new and old versions. You are directly addressed as "commander" so you are a person that actually exists but you never appear as a person - because the commander is you, the player. A meta-creature that is giving orders and making decisions through its subordinates. We have a similar situation here.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541907867781451988/?ctp=3#c541907867786230873

127

The sister wont be an own faction, they will be hireable mercenaries with their own special backgrounds ; )

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/537405286635337154/#c537405286637930762

128

This is true, there is no blocking atm. The shield increases the defense, the defense makes it harder to get hit. It is very simplyfied. We want to change it to a system where your shield gets actually hit if the shield defense bonus is the defense part that actually prevents a hit. Then you would have way better visual feedback for what is happening.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/537405286643817797/#c537405286644232061

129

Wow thanks for the great support dude! This is our first game and as you probably know came to be just as a hobby and experiment, we never thought that we would get this far with it. I hope the people can see that we are making this because this is the game we want to play ourselves and this is our passion. With a project like this it is really hard not to get too emotional about it when doing community management but i think we did okay so far. The marketing will need some more time though. As a completely unkown dev it is pretty rough to get some traction with the media and there is no actual marketing budget. Getting our busts in the game as special characters is actually a pretty funny idea, not so sure about seeing my head flying around though ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719786500799/#c528398719791427019

130

We have something similar already planned out, we call it "legendary items". They will be insanely hard to get and we hope we can make it a bit like a scavenger hunt across the map with various challenges and so on. These items are extremly powerful and some of them grant almost magic-like abilities that have a big influence on gameplay. We are still in the concept phase with this and are not really sure how and when we will be able to get it into the game at all. It could work a little like this: Imagine a one-handed sword that can break shields in one strike, or a crossbow that can shoot through multiple targets.
All of these will come with their own handcraftet stats and background story and of course looks.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/537405286661071152/#c528398719791441155

131

Thanks for the very detailed and elaborate suggestion! I really like that you obviously spent a lot of time on thinking this through and adjusting it to the setting and scope of our game. This helps a lot with actually considering your ideas without coming up with everything ourselves (yes, we are lazy ;)). We had the idea of a mercenary track for a while but it was in a pretty early conceptual state. I really like the way your system works with the followers (also, 6 is a great number) that want to get money from you for their services. This way we also add another money drain to the player economy - a crucial part especially in the late game. I also like the kind of services you suggest like a merchant or smith that offer things you can otherwise only find in small towns thus making you more independant while travelling. What we are pretty much decided on is that we do not want to mix your mercenaries with those non-combat followers. Although the mercs have professions, they left those for a reason. They are mercenaries now and many never want to go back to their old life and their old jobs. Also, i think being a smith is such a demanding job, that you wont have energy or time to be a mercenary on the side and vice versa. Main issue, and sorry for bringing you down, is our ressources. We will do a big worldmap rework next but the non-combat follower thing is not our top priority right now. Hopefully things will continue to progress fast so we can turn our attention to systems like the one you described.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719788520614/#c528398719791510691

132

We changed it around a bit so Spawnpoints will no longer try to intercept you like that and split their forces. There will also be one extremely challenging unique location for each faction.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719789888608/#c528398719792156966

133

If you read the last blog entries you know that we designed the Goblins explicitly to challenge your existing tactics and to force people to adapt to them and to find effective ways of dealing with them.
Of course most people will have a hard time in the first couple of fights against a new enemy and this is fully intentional. We playtested them thoroughly and had a pretty good feeling about the difficulty but of course we will keep a close eye on this and adjust if neccessary. Until then here are some pieces of advice:
- Pick your fights. Do not engage even Goblin troops on very low levels. Against Goblins equipment and levels are pretty important so pick your fights in the early game. They have to be challenging in the early game so that they do not fall off too sharply in the lategame. We have a solution for enemy progression planned.
- Try out new tactics and items you have not used before. Try countersniping them with crossbows etc.
- Play the Goblin Line Battle Scenario to get a feeling for how they play. The scenario is pretty manageable with the right equipment and tactics.
- Play on easy difficulty to adjust to all the changes in the game like direct damage, changed prices and progression rate.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719797580610/?ctp=3#c528398719799137184

134

The weapon derives from an arming sword, not a falchion. So the name sends you towards the wrong comparison. Compare it to the arming sword and you will see it does less damage and has a lower armor efficiency. Goblin weapons do in general less damage, have lower armor efficiency but come with less fatigue costs. The Goblin weapons are not generally superior. Wolfirders mostly use Goblin skewers and some crude falchions.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719802689024/#c528398719802981651

135

Maybe try on easy then, there is no shame. The game is designed to be a real challenge and especially carefully picking your fights and equipping your mercs correctly is crucial in the early game. Also, in tactical combat make sure to use height advantage and defensive abilities like spearwall and shieldwall a lot. On top of that, make sure all mercs have some sort of headgear as hits to the head can take you out of business real quick early on.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719802583111/#c528398719802987377

136

The dificulty changes funds, item prices, item availability and general cashflow. Having more and better equipment with more men will make the game essentially easier.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719800430381/#c528398719803095414

137

There is a very common misconception flying around about the Goblins: There are no tiers for enemy factions: Undead=Orcs=Goblins. A Orc group worth the same amount of resources as a Goblin troop will win 50% of the fights. Goblins, although individually not very tough regarding armor and health, are not supposed to be weaker than any other faction. We had a lot of problems with the player outscaling all enemy factions heavily in the mid-late game. We intended to not fall into the same trap with the Goblins and in order for this to work they have to be somewhat competent in the early game. We will adress the perceived difficulty of the Goblins in the next days.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719801886134/#c528398719804089354

138

Getting poisened only happens when receiving a certain amount of health damage in one hit. So it is highly dependant on the armor and the damage roll of the attacker.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719801886134/?ctp=2#c528398719804116247

139

The dented Nasal helmet has to be compared to the padded nasal helmet which is pretty obvious given the padding underneath it. The normal padded nasal helmet has 130/-7/-1 so the dented version as 15 less ar and 3 less fatigue costs. Do not compare it to the normal Nasal helmet. As you generalize and say "worn armor is better than normal armor" - which other worn armor pieces are better than their normal counterparts? I am curious how this impression can arise and we will make sure to fix it. It is true that the worn armor has a slighty better AR/Fatigue ratio than normal armor making it very suitable for the early game and for characters with low fatigue. On the other hand, the highest AR value on worn armor is 170 for the nasal helmet with rusty mail and 110 for the mail shirt.
Regular armor goes up to 320 AR with the coat of plates and 300 AR with the full helmet. So if you are looking for the lowest possible fatigue penealty, then worn armor is "better" for you. If you actually want AR points then regular armor is "better" for you. There is nothing that is simply better than something else.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719804932463/#c528398719806894418

140

The crude Falchion is actually the best melee weapons the Goblins can acquire throughout the game so please do not compare it to tier 1 or tier 2 weapons like arming swords, morning stars or handaxes. Goblins will get nothing better later so in order not to be completely outgunned in the lategame they have to have some decent weapons. The crude Falchion does 35-45 damage with 70% AR efficiency and +5% chance to hit the head. Now lets compare this to the noble sword: 45-50 damage with 85% AR efficiency. That is an expected damage of 78.4 per turn against no armor and 48.5 against armor per turn (given 2 attacks) versus the cruel falchion with 69.6 versus no armor and 33.6 expected damage versus armor. Especially against armor, and almost all enemies wear armor after mid game, the cruel falchion falls off pretty sharply at some point compared to noble sword, fighting axes and other Tier 3 weapons.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719802689024/#c528398719806949638

141

Please do not just say "balance" - this is feedback that we can not make anything out of. Who and what needs balancing, why does it need balancing, how does it have to be balanced? How do you come to this conclusion, is it your subjective feeling or do you have some numbers, thoughts etc to back it up? Give us something to work with. What are your expectations when starting the game on normal difficulty? Do you keep losing soliders? Then this is completely intended. If you want a more casual experience, try to play on the easier difficulty and you will have a much better time. When facing an enemy gang that is labeled "Even" that really means "even" in strength - a normal player may have a lose/win ratio of about 50% against this gang. So do you anticipate your chances of winning like this when engaging an enemy?

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719805796428/#c528398719806966760

142

We plan on having a reputation system with two values: Professional reputation and moral reputation. The moral reputation will rise and fall by the actions you take and the things you mention will factor into that.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719806334979/#c528398719806976052

143

Thanks for the feedback! The faster travel has been suggested a couple of times and we are thinking about how to implement it. We agree on the early level fights. Sometimes it can take a little while to find an appropiate fight that is challenging but not too hard. We have a couple of improvements in mind for this. With the recruits it is intentional that you get some recruits with bad traits. It is a very fundamental part of the game that you are not a group of superheroes, but a rugged band of characters each with their, mostly sad, history and flaws. Like in darkest dungeon where the negative traits of the characters are an essential part of the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719806504968/#c528398719807027779

144

The price raises were an essential part of the update, we feel that this is the first time the game actually has an item progression. Beforehand, you could just kill some bandit raiders and get highest tier weapons and armor from them without much of a hassle. This lead to players completely bypassing all low-and mid tier equipment. We feel that the price revamp was a big step not in making the game more difficult, but for actually getting some sort of progression into the game. The problem with the Goblins weapons is also a mechanical one: The Goblins will have to use the same weapons in the endgame against your brothers with level 11 and a coat of plates. If we nerfed the Goblin weapons they would be completely laughable in the later game. The other way around, the situation we have now, the maybe feel a bit too powerful for the early and mid game. We already have a solution for this that will make the enemy progression way smoother and solve the above described problem but it will need some more time. The enemy evaluation is a very very very tricky issue. In Battle Brothers the biggest part of success in combat is the players experience, ability and tactical competence. This can never be factored into a strength evaluation.
How do you factor in equipment, levels and number of Battle Brothers while enemies do not have levels? Some people take on young Orcs on level one regularly ( i know our art guy does) and many others get stomped into the ground by young orcs early game. So the difficulty rating is always very subjective. However, we agree that there is a lot of room for improvement.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719805796428/#c528398719807088367

145

As i described in another thread there is a mechanical issue with enemy weapons: Enemies use most of the weapons throughout the game as enemies do not level like the player does. This leaves you with three options: 1: Weapon is okay in the early game - bad and useless in mid and late game. 2. Weapon is Strong in the early game, okay in the mid and useless in late game. 3. Weapon is very strong in the early game, good in midgame, okay in late game. You have to take into account that the majority of complaints we got before the patch was about the late game and that it was way too easy. If you move over to the standpoint of the game being no challenge at all and no fun in the late game and try to remedy this you will end up with a rougher early game. This is no excuse for the early game being very challenging but you have to understand the priorities we had in mind when planning the new patch. We already have a system planned for integrating enemy progression into the game but it will take a while.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719802689024/#c528398719807193030

146

There are some big issues with evaluating equipment. Orcs and Goblins do not have normal items as armor because the player can not loot it. Therefore all of these would need an actual value, which is of course doable.
It gets more tricky when taking the value of your brothers into account: An archer in the later game may have a light amor and no off-hand. His Equipment value would be very low compared to another guy of the same level with a very high armor, helmet, shield and weapon. Both are viable lategame fighters but one gets valued way higher than the other. Just pointing out the difficulties here. Of course we also tried to figure the equipment into the value but it is very tricky.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719805796428/#c528398719807283930

147

sLaughter, i officially love you (personal opinion)! Really great stuff and tactics you also wrote them up comprehensively. This is what we hoped for when designing the Goblins: That people will find their existing tactics not working any more, get out of their comfort zone and then come up with new tactics. However, we too feel that there are a lot of balncing issues in the game (of course as it is still in Early Access) but we will adress them as fast as possible. As a developer however, you always have to be careful not to overreact and tilt the whole thing the other way. Regarding the Wolfriders and Werewolves. Werewolves should be a lot less of a problem now as in the early part of the game they will show up with really small groups of 3-4 instead of 6-7. Also, you can outrun them now, go try it ;) The Wolfriders are pretty strong and deadly in the early game. We will see what we do about that as we do not want unavoidable fights that just punish you, thats not our intent. We are workin on an "enemy progression" system that will allow us to create the same type of enemy with different equipment setups so we can create really easy troops up to fully armed lategame troops and then tie it to player progression. However, this will need a lot of time until we get it in the game (will happen in the upcoming worldmap rework).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719808403199/?ctp=2#c528398719810888077

148

Young Orcs have a melee defense and ranged defense of -5 already effectively giving you a to hit bonus ;). Orc Warriors also have a negative ranged defense as they are pretty big targets.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719810874467/#c528398719811840196

149

We just uploaded a patch that made some balancing adjustments to the game. You should be able to play the game like all others and we adressed the most pressing issues. However, if by "balancing" you mean just making the game easier that is not what we have in mind. The game is ment to be played with a lot of losses and struggle and if you do not lose a brother in 3-4 fights you are playing on a difficulty setting that is prabably too easy for you. I can only recommend to start on the "even" difficulty (see patch notes for details) and you should have a pretty smooth playing experience after you get comfortable with the game and the tactics.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719808403199/?ctp=2#c528398719811909579

150

It is actually a bit more complicated than that. The AI also takes into account all other things it can do like moving to a better position and so on. The AI will not stack all its attacks on the weakest target as this would be unfair and really hard to counter.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/527273452872494096/#c527273452874177189

151

There are several thoughts behind what we did to the economy, the Goblins and so on that only make sense when you see the bigger picture. The main problem of the Early Access is that you are constantly adding new features and systems and reworking old ones so you come into a circle where there are always new features and outdated ones in the same build. This is bound to happen as people basically play a work in progress game that is not finished causing quite some imbalances along the way. Regarding the enemy factions: Yes, the Goblins are by far the faction with the best and most thorough gamedesign and synergies. It is also our newest. We first had to experiment and learn how to design a faction properly and when you take a look at this you can see how the factions are getting "better" over time. This leads to the Undead being pretty "underdesigned" at the moment as they are our oldest faction.
We want a game where each faction plays completely differently and is an interesting and different challenge. That is why an Undead rework is also on our list and the Bandits need some love too. Orcs are pretty okay and are fine with the visual rework for now, Goblins could use another low-level unit for the early game. So what are we about to do to the economy, worldmap, contracts and so on? I know that you all have heard of the ominous "worldmap rework" that is the next big thing on our list. To be honest this will change the game more than any of you guys probably expect, i am pretty sure that it will be hard to be recognized as the same game afterwards. Here is an excerpt of our list (not official, any item can be dropped or changed at any time!):
We want to add more regions with bigger variety in landscapes, coastlines, lakes and a generally more dynamic worldmap generation. The map will dramatically increase in size. There will be a variety of human factions working with and against each other and generating contracts for the player from their own agendas. The number and variety of contracts will increase a lot. There will be a reputation system for your company to both track your overall progress and renown as well as to determine you moral standards. There will be an influence system that factions use to increase their area of influence. There will be neutral locations on the map and generally a lot more to do. The look of towns and villags will also change a lot to a procedural design so each town will look differently. Make looting in general more interesting and rewarding by adding various types of other loot.... and so on. Also other things like an increased roster size, perk system rework, camping and more. These are just some of our design goals for the rework and there is a lot missing on the list. Unfortunatley, this is just a list of things we WANT but it is very likely that we wont get all of that into the game so please do not quote thie list - it is highly inofficial. It is just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the planned rework. When you consider all these big changes you can understand why we do not want to spend an excessive amount of time on polishing and balancing a version of the game that will be completely obsolete in a couple of months. On the other hand, we fell that the game after the Goblin Update is in a pretty good shape and plays way better than it did before. Now we have an actual progression in the game which we did not have before and many of you misinterpret the existence of "progression" with an increase in difficulty - but it is not.
Before the price and loot rework you would kill one or two raider groups and have the most powerful weapons in the whole game (fighting axes, arming swords, winged maces, warhammers, greatswords,...) so you essentially bypassed the whole item progression without knowing it (example for the axes how it should be: Hatchet - Handaxe - Fighting Axe = Early Game - Mid Game - Late Game).
When having a fighting axe on level 3 of course the game was easier because you inflicted a lot more damage. The result was that the game felt way too easy and not challenging and also too short for many because you transitioned from the early game straight to the late game.
We, personally, feel that it is MUCH more rewarding to find or buy a better weapon or armor now than it was before thus givining a lot more motivation to players and a feeling of achievement. If you have trouble with staying afloat moneywise try starting a game on the "even" difficulty as it only changes the money and item economy so prices are lower and cashflow is generally higher. Fights will still be pretty challenging ;) I hope this sheds some light on the direction the game will take and also on what issues are on our mind.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/527273789696981513/#c527273789699050592

152

I do not want to go too deep into any historical discussion because these can go on for a while. Some of the team did some reenactment playing a Vking Warband for roughly 10 years and we are very happy that with Battle Brothers we now have way more artistic freedom. Getting everything "right" is almost impossible so we intentionally only take inspirations from historical armor and just use what we like and put it into a new context.
Also with the regionality: We happily mix up western and more eastern style armors in the game even though this would not make much sense historically. However, we see Battle Brothers more like a fantasy world inspired by history and not a historical world with some fantasy elements.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/527273452880650489/#c527273983048841177

153

just dropping in to let you know we are reading and taking notes. Designing a leveling system that is good for new players but still offers choices, character customization and a sense of achievement is a pretty tricky thing ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/527273452875339585/?ctp=2#c527273983048854807

154

Not really sure about a 2 tile Spearwall. I agree that it makes sense that a "long spear" should more or less work like a normal one but with extended range.
Thing is gameplay: Imagine a double-stacked line of 12 Brothers all with pikes and spearwall effectively making it impossible for the enemy to engage (except for ranged weapons). That would not make for a very fun gameplay. We do not want to turn the game into a phalanx-simulator. Not saying we will never have a 2 tile spearwall ability but it must not dominate tactical combat. Think of the new xcom "overwatch" mechanic. I agree that it makes sense and all but it also turns the game into a rather static "overwatch fest". If you are all for realism you might like it but it does not make for the most thrilling fights.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/527273789693486420/?ctp=2#c527273983048911636

155

We had this discussion come up a couple of times before so let me give you a quick explanation: If there was a character on the battlefield he will be either unkillable (only get knocked out) in combat or he can die. If he can die: What happens when he is dead? Game has to be over as this character is the person holding together the whole company and doing all the contracts, logistics, negotiations, decision making, paying crowns etc.
So you have to babysitt this character in every fight and that makes for extremely passive and boring gameplay. If he can not die: You could just send the guy straight into the enemies to tank up attacks and damage with no major consequences. Also, this would be a complete immersion braker to have an unkillable character in a game where permadeath is one of the core mechanics. Both variants are not what we want in the game. What is more, our biggest inspiration for this game is XCOM and that handles this exactly like we do. You get adressed as a real person "Commander" but never actually appear on the battlefield. We think this is the best possible solution.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/523897277925624057/#c523897653294625501

156

Having bigger campaigns against other factions sounds like a fun kind of contract, we will see if and how we get something like this in the game. Having some really big battles is definitely fun but we have to be carfeul with too many npcs in one battle because it can take quite a while for all of them to act.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/523897653304919394/#c523897653313898032

157

@boatie: Of course every one is entitled to his/her own oppinion but please keep the tone respectful, thanks. Battle Brothers is not a roguelike. Maybe Dungeons of dredmor is one, or guild of dungeoneering, or binding of isaac and of course dwarf fortress and nethack. Battle Brothers has some elements of those games but it is just as much rogulike as Xcom, Mount and Blade or Jagged Alliance. Those are, to my understanding, not roguelike games but they are our main inspirations. Taking elements and inspirations from various settings, game designs and concepts and combining them into something new is the basis of innovation and of new and different games. We think that just making a cookie-cutter version of an existing game and an existing universe is done by way too many developers and leads to a lot of uninspired and unoriginal games. Basically more of the same. The only reason we started making this game is because we wanted our own game that no one else was making. This did not start out to make money and to cater to other peoples views and likings in order to max sales figures. There are enough people out there who are already doing that. As you all know we try to read everything on the forums and bring our own arguments and defend our design decisions but we are also looking for new ideas and input from the community. We explained the reasons for magic and supernatural things only being available to the various monster factions at many occasions. We want the player to feel that he is going up against the odds and that he is facing an alien and mysterious force that he has to overcome with flawed and sub-optimal normal human beings. The bigger the challenge the bigger the feeling of success once you prevail. This setting of an underdog against all odds and "reluctant heroes" is an extremely common movie motif and is also used a lot in books and games as it makes for a very interesting and tense story and situations. We decided to go with this motif and see nothing wrong with it. As to the leader in being present in battle i explained our reasoning for this in page 1 of this thread here: http://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/523897277925624057/. I think the dilemma of permadeath versus consistency and immersion is still tackled best with the approach we decided to go for. I also think that customizing yout company at the start of the game is a great idea. You could also do this a little differently: How about your company is represented by a big mercenary company standard displaying all your heroic deeds and achievements by adding pennants and scrolls to it (think of those large warhammer banners). The composition of the banner could then affect your whole company and give advantages on a company level. In the end each player would end up with a very unique banner depending on his choices, preferences and achievements. -> This is just one of the ideas we have been throwing around and i do not say we will do anything like this. I just put this here as an example of how to approach this in another way than just putting a player character into the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/523897277925624057/?ctp=4#c523898291512637620

158

Having a very tanky playable character is no real difference to having an unkillable player character. With a very tanky player character we would have the same situation: The focus of the whole game shifts away from the company and towards a single character which is typical for an RPG. In a world where each and every character can be permanently killed there is no justification imaginable for having one that is not killable. In fact, this is one of my biggest gripes with the otherwise great mount and blade. Also, Mount and Blade is more of an RPG revolving around your personal player character. Our game revolves around the whole mercenary group, the battle brothers, and not a single individual. An individual was never intended to be the focus of this game. and this is nothing "right" or "wrong" it is just a very basic game design decision we made for the core of the game at the beginning of development. Making this an RPG focusing on a single character would have been a totally reasonable way to go and would certainly make for a great game - but that is not the game we wanted to make. I know that i can not convince any one who has a different oppinion on this (when did that ever happen on the interwebz?) but i try to lay down our train of thought here so you can at least understand the reasoning behind this. To sum up, i am not saying there will never be a person representing your company in the game but it is very unlikely that he will appear on the tactical map for above reasons.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/523897277925624057/?ctp=4#c490121928337716648

159

Thanks for the input and suggestions! Although we really want to keep to the things stated in the FAQ Huggles is right on this on. It is a list of features that we want and plan to be in the game. However, there is no guarantee that all of them will make it into the game. On the other side, we will add a lot of features that are not mentioned there (example: Explorable Worldmap from the last blog post). Regarding the suggestions:
Most of the things you mention in the first part are a bit problematic as they run counter to the core concept of the game: A traveling mercenary company. The player is not any kind of lord holding and managing a fief or a chieftain managing a village. The core of the game is picking up contracts and managing your mercenaries. Having an own village does not make a lot of sense regarding this background and it will also blur the focus of the game: Is it a mercenary sim? A City Builder? A resource management game? A trading or survival game? - we want this to be pretty clearly about the merc sim for now. Actually, some of your ideas regarding towns are pretty close to what we have planned but things are a bit early to talk about this. Regarding 11: There is a unique faction stronghold on the map for each enemy faction in the build you are playing right now. Have you found them yet? 12: We would love to support modding more. Thing with this is that we have a custom engine (the game started as a hobby project) that is not as easily accessible as Unity or so. We will see what we can do about this in the long run.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/487870763303430706/#c487870763313530947

160

We agree that the endgame is a weak spot of the current game as players tend to outscale enemies a lot through perks and character stat progression. The changes to the whole worldmap will be so big with the new update that it is pretty hard to adress single issues right now. Most importantly there will be a renown system that tracks the players over all progress. A well renowned player will be offered more dangerous (and rewarding) contracts than an unknown merc.
On top of that we are working on a "tiered enemy" system that will allow enemies to scale better throughout the game so that they are not like now: too hard in the early game and too easy in the lategame.
With the new human factions and changed settlements the economics will also change around, expect some more info on this in an upcoming blog post. We also have various "win conditions" in mind for the game but this is in a too early stage to quote anything. However, we want player freedom to be above "completing" the game so the game will definitely stay quite free and the player will most likely be able to run an endless campaign if he wants to.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/490123197942089402/#c490123197945623810

161

Sorry to let you down on this but firearms are well out of the time period we chose for setting up the game. We went with an early medieval setting regarding arms and armor around 1000 to 1250 AD. You will for example see no full plate armor but more early medieval armor like chainmails, lamellars and so on. With the first "western" firearms spreading around as early as 1300-1400 AD this is definitely out of scope for the game (I am aware of 1200AD firearms in china but we are talking about muzzle loaded flintlocks or so, not handcannons). I know, it is a fantasy game and everything is "allowed" but in order to create a somewhat consistent world that is believable you have to draw the line somewhere. What is more, we feel that firearms would turn a melee focussed game into a ranged combat focussed game. It would make sense to introduce a sophisticated cover system and so on. It would basically change very fundamental things about the game. BUT: I never say never so alchemical potions like bombs, gas clouds or phosphor is in the range of things we do not knock out of the air, maybe even some really crazy handcannon. However, these kinds of weapons, if ever integrated, will be very rare.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/496880503078785843/#c496881136906780744

162

We had a crafting system planned a while ago but at some point had to make the rough cut and put it on ice. A crafting system is a really big workload and will take a lot of time away from more essential parts of the game.
I myself always liked crafting so it is not that we do not like it. It is just not feasible regarding our resources.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/492378265876831741/#c492378265879406150

163

Hey there, thanks a lot for the suggestions! It is really well thought out and pretty deep. Unfortunately, what you describe can well be a complete game on its own. Are resources are spread thin and we are busy with getting all the core elements in place right now. Urban contracts and maps would surely add to the game but they will just "add". They are not the core of the game. However, i could imagine some contracts that take place in cities but they will probably be based on the event- and dialogue system, not on actual maps. Like the idea about fist-fights you can send your guys to and earn some extra crowns. Well see about that.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/364042262872090117/#c492378806374798838

164

Quick note to not let rumors spread too wildy: We still aim at a full release 2016 with the worldmap update coming probably early next year. A worldmap update release before christmas 2015 will not happen - although we would of course love to get it out to you guys as soon as possible! We are really conscious about putting out a great product. This is our first game so the reputation we establish for ourselves will be determined by the quality of Battle Brothers. We will continue to give you guys updates every week so you can follow the development closely and rest assured that we are making good progress.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/492378265882277671/?ctp=3#c492379159716563077

165

We actually had a bigger roster planned since the beginning but only outside of combat. This way you can better manage your troops and this will also alleviate the permadeath mechanic. We will come back to this after the big worldmap update.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/494631959821071824/#c494631967651857681

166

Having more character customization seems like a really obvious choice for our game and we had planned that all along. People will want to create "themselves" or friends using the assets we have.
The problem is our limited resources. It always comes down to chose between features like adding an important game mechanics or adding "content" or things that look nice or are nice to have. We have to focus really hard on the core mechanics and are not sure how much time we will have left at the end of development to add all those nice to have things.
Anyways, just wanted to let you know that we also think it would be pretty cool to cutomize characters beyond the name!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/494631967666753217/#c494632338489025947

167

Hi there,
i can understand your concerns but there are of course some reasons why we had to do it this way.
The old settlement screen was an extreme close-up with large characters and detailed view of the surrounding buildings.
This has some workload-specific drawbacks: Detailed characters are among the most time consuming things in art production. Also, this close they are very easily recognizable so having the same characters over and over would be not very immersive.
Also, we wanted to have more buildings on the screen to have more services available in the town. For this we had to zoom out. Furthermore, it was impossible to show the surrounding terrain of the settlement which we really wanted to get into the screen to give the player a feeling of really being in another region.
Given these assumptions we had to zoom out to both get everything into one screen, have a lot of variety in the settlements, show the terrain and keep the workload in check. Not trying to convince you here but just trying to explain our train of thought behind the new layout. I personally like the new one much better for its really big diversity between settlements and i think it fits the scope of the game (managing a mercenary company) quite well.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/458604254430317379/#c458604254441186211

168

We are convinced that modding can and will contribute greatly to the game and its longevity and diversity. However, we have to focus on finishing the game first and get it as good as we can before we can think about dedicated mod support at all. We have some thoughts about how to make things easier for modding but adding workshop support or developing dedicated modding tools will be highly unlikely.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/458606248634173641/#c458606248635456492

169

Hi guys, quickly dropping in to add something to the whole country and nobility thing.
Increasing the interaction between your merc party and the leaders of various factions is definitely something we would love to have in the game at some point. Maybe by having "campaigns" that are basically like a longer series of connected contracts or something similar but i can not say when and if this will come. However, i dont want to kill the buzz here but Battle Brothers will probably never be a kingdom- or empire-simulation like crusader kings or MB. If you look at Mount and Blade a core aspect is the player rising through the ranks of royalty and acquiring land, titles, troops and so on. This only works when deciding on a kingdom to join and pledge loyalty to a ruler and serve him. Our game is about a mercenary company that usually works for the highest bidder - that is a big difference in the scope of the game. A mercenary company is by definition only loyal as long as a contract runs and it is paid. Being loyal to someone who does not pay directly is not something a mercenary company will usually do. Adding more freedom of choice to a game is often a good thing and we would be happy if we could give the player more options on how to play the game. Unfortunately, with limited resources you have to make the cut somewhere and this is why we have to focus on the mercenary aspect of the game first. There is just no way we can got both of these playstyles into the game in a way that is satisfying. I hope you guys can see the reasoning behind this and are not too disappointed but i rather be honest about this and let me add that i am personally also a big fan of M&B.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/458606248633204659/#c458606248639551514

170

I can only add some very personal thoughts on this so the following is not official Overhype stuff ;) I exchanged on a couple of occasions with the guys behind DD and have to say i really like them personally and they are great guys with a lot of ambition. It says a lot about the current state of Dark-Fantasy Indie games and especially turn based games that DD seems to be such a major success. I also applaud the guys for the guts to make something new and try out a different approach to a dungeon crawler. However, from the perspective of a gamedesigner and also of a player there is a lot that i do not enjoy about DD and that i would have done differently. The main issue for me is negative reinforcement and downward spiraling which are not really fun things to encounter in a game for me. Of course the whole premise of the negative events and stress of adventuring is new and interesting in itself but for me as a player it can lead to an unsatisfying or frustrating experience. I have seen that DD and BB get mentioned a lot together in forums and such although the games themselves are very different. I can only imagine that the target audience is very similar: People who enjoy turn based tactics game in a dark fantasy setting and also enjoy a big challenge. To sum up, i still think DD is a great game and that it did a lot for the recognition of very challenging TBS games and also got this type of game more into the mainstream awareness. However, i think we are doing fine with BB when we stick to our track ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/458607699625769053/#c412446250040421209

171

We, at one point, thought about having walls and all the good stuff in the tactical combat. Of course it would be awesome. Unfortunately, we have very limited ressources and have to be very cautios of which features to implement and which to push back. The walls pulled the short end of the stick as we firstly have to get all the must-haves and core-features in place. Still, of course we have the idea in the back of our heads.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412446890560073732/#c412447331646797037

172

Contracts will be available in the settlements shown by a scroll on the top left corner of the village screen. You may have to travel between some settlements to find them. Also, you should go to a tavern and talk to the patrons, they will sometimes tell you of places where you can find contracts.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158161932949/#c412448158161995627

173

You can actually cross small patches of sea by just moving over it. If you are on an island there should be a settlement and you can use the docks to board a ship towards another city. If all of the above does not help you will probably have to generate a new world. This may happen on very rare occasions and we are constantly improving worldmap generation to avoid these starts.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/412448158162198143/#c412448158162256740

174

There is a contract in the works where you can actively help rebuilding. Right now settlements will only do this by themselves.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158162724253/#c412448158162838516

175

We reduced the amount of roaming parties especially in the "civilized" part of the world on purpose. Before there was a huge amount of frustration caused by players getting killed by random roaming goblins or so. You will still find roames and especially in the undiscovered parts of the map.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158162272467/#c412448158162846947

176

The road placement might but not at maximum eifficiency due to the procedural generation of the world. We also want the roads to have a more natural look with windings and curves and not only straight lines like "autobahn" - even if that would be faster ;). However, i agree that sometimes the roads produce some really inefficient and odd ways and we can improve on that in the world generation.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158162505365/#c412448158162869507

177

Some quick answers: 1. There is a contract where you are asked to "persuade" a settlement that it needs to be protected by a noble house. The settlement then switches allegiance. We have more contracts like these in the works that will make interaction between the noble houses more present. 2. Yes, although it can take a while and as there are not so many noble house contracts yet it is even more difficult. This will get easier as we add more contracts. 3. When the relations to a noble house detoriate far enough they will attack you and you can attack them. We will add more ways to achive this in the future. Right now you can not just attack caravans. 4. You get two when the settlement is aligned to a noble house, one when the settlement is independent.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158163273978/#c412448158164688840

178

Hi guys, sorry for the confusion but regarding the selling price there is a fundamental difference between loot and trading goods. Trading goods sell for their real value modified by the size of the city and the availability of that specific good there. Loot items like silverware or pearls but also weapons and armor can only be sold for a fraction of their value. This discount had to be introduced to keep the item/money economy healthy.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158164333511/#c412448158164719999

179

Hi guys, with the completely new contract system there is still a lot of balancing and adjusting to be done. Also, we have about 9 contracts including various twists in the game right now with 11 more waiting in the wings to get implemented (Compared to 5 we had in the first version). The new contracts actually scale to the players renown and party power and so do the rewards and the difficulty. In the previous version the contracts were just completely random. So we think this is a big step in the direction of a smoother progression and less frustrating moments when having to fight against all odds. However, as this system is very complex it will need some more time and adjustments.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158163925759/#c412448158164814684

180

Right now they are not openly fighting but this is intentional. The Humans fight "together" for their survival against all kinds of threats like Orcs or Undead and dont want to spend their ressources on an all out war between each other. This is were the players merc company comes in. The player will then be hired to perform all kinds of hostile and damaging actions against other houses without people knowning who is actually behind this in order to avoid an all out war.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158163273978/#c412448158164828244

181

Those count as loot items. You will generally get better prices in bigger cities with more attached locations though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158164333511/#c412448158164951949

182

hehe that is understandable ;) Right now you can not, only if the village or faction the caravan belongs to is hostile to you. There will be contracts later about ambushing caravans though.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158165742924/#c412448158165908138

183

There is no connection between backgrounds or the current stat level and stat increases. The rolls are random.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158165804468/#c412448158165943057

184

We are still working on the balance but this seems pretty odd. Usually a bandit contract will pay around 400-600 crowns and you will encounter more than 6 thugs. Later in the game this scales up as well so there should be even more enemies. It can happen that you encounter very weak bandit troops in there but it should usually not occur.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/412448792345981825/#c412448792347092906

185

Yes, it is always three on each map.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792346234297/#c412448792347194074

186

We want to add more moraly ambigous events that affect your moral reputation but it will need more time until we get around doing that.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792346278166/#c412448792347198449

187

I can just promise that the chance you see is exactly the chance you get. However, with using random generated numbers for hot chances you will always have those strange events where you miss 3 80% shots in a row or miss a 99% shot and that can be very frustrating but that is the nature of the beast.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792346566412/#c412448792347222264

188

Enemy parties should not be faster than the player on the worldmap. We will check back on the raider speed.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792347114717/#c412448792347229068

189

Barber can a bit rare, i will double check on the distribution of special buildings. Each world should have at least one.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792348517653/#c412448792351025765

190

The whole stat point on level up discussion is a pretty tricky one. There was a lot of discussion about it (positive and negative) when we changed it from random to fixed a while ago. Statistically, the values did not change so when before you got +2 fix on MS you now get 1-3 so the expected value is still 2. Of course with the randomness of numbers some characters can get higher and some lower rolls but under the line the total amount of points distributed will be the same if the sample size is big enough. We are ourselves not 100% satisfied with how both stat increase and perk system are set up right now and there are a couple of ideas floating around but i can't tell you anything yet. Most likely, there will be some changes to both stats and perks before the full release. Sorry for being cryptic like that!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792349028442/?ctp=3#c412448792351060929

191

- This is funny because i suspected that before reading the article. I was pretty sure that the chance to hit is secretly higher than what the number actually shows. Given the experience of Battle Brothers i felt that too many 75% shots were hitting in Xcom2 and funnily enough i was right. Now, the question is what do you want in a game? Do you just want to enjoy yourself or do you want a real challenge? I think many people, who are looking for a challenge, feel cheated and deprived of their acheivements once they find out they were fighting with a hidden +10 chance to hit all the time. I have been playing a lot of pen and paper systems and board games and the notion of secretely increasing the chances of dice rolls seems pretty absurd to me at first. On the other hand, i totally understand the emotional perspective and agree with what Solomon says about frustration and expectation of the players and that it has to be hedged. Also, i can assure you that he is not the first in history to have thought of handling things the way he decided to do it ;) In the end i think two things alleviate this problem a lot for us:
Firstly, you can field up to 12 Brothers, that is double the amount of xcom2 so you have more attacks in total increasing sample size of your attack rolls and reducing the impact of RNG-freak rolls.
Secondly, most soldiers (with 1H or Bows) are able to attack 2 times, in Xcom2 they can usually only attack once. This further increases the amount of attack rolls thus lessens the impact of "bad luck".

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792349264018/#c412448792351112900

192

We'll have a look at the event but yes, sellswords are highly skilled fighters but greedy, unthankfull and of awfull character.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792349900322/#c412448792351128846

193

The enemy mercenaries and noble houses already use more perks than other enemies. However, teaching the AI how to use a perk properly is quite a lot of work but it is worth the time as it makes combat a lot more challenging - just like you say.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/412448792356963111/#c412448792366912961

194

The issue is more that the Necromancer only has one skill and he can start using it as soon as there are dead bodies. Before that he is just standing around picking his nose. Maybe we give him another skill that he can use more proactively... just thinking out loud here. We will see when we work over the undead.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792363468876/#c412448792367427420

195

If the camp belongs to a contract they will not attack it as they would mess up your contract ; )

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448792365058803/#c412448792367488222

196

They get increased damage the more hits they land and the more enemies they kill so dispatching them early is a good idea! -ignore the thing that was standing here previously as it was wrong -

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412449431007903567/#c412449508275466274

197

The inventory is limited to 90 spaces, some players accumulate enough items to fill this out and then they will have to pick what to loot and what to leave.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412449431008243050/#c412449508275653186

198

We did want to have a variety of food and drink supplies but adding a "drinking" mechanic seemed a bit too much to add at this point. We will see about it in the future and may at some point build out the "supply" and "survival" aspect a little.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/392183857621034505/#c392183857622019253

199

The Mercs appear in some contracts and twists but we want to increase their presence in the game. They also make for pretty challenging opposition ; )

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/392183857620739216/#c392183857622039867

200

Agreed, would be great to have more weather effects in the combat environment that actual change combat. Not sure if and when we will have time for this so up until then it is only cosmetic.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/392183857620014936/#c392183857622054302

201

We have been experimenting with actual spoken lines that are uttered by combatants but we are still in a very early phase and not sure if we will actually include it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/392183857627138733/#c392183857622573357

202

Thanks for the detailed writeup and feedback! Especially from someone playing on deadly, we do not see that too often ;) Regarding the contracts we think the new system is a big improvement over the old one. We now have proper context and background, multiple steps and stages, twists, interesting tasks, interaction with the contract giver and way more contracts. I think the old system was more of a placeholder system with extremely simple contracts that got boring pretty fast and was not really entertaining or motivating. The thing with contracts that are directly generated from the world is that they can be very very rare as one or more of their prerequisites are not met. The result is a huge lack of contracts that get's even more obvious when you have a limited number of contracts in the game. Right now that approach is not feasible and does not work in the game. We spent a lot of time working on this, testing and thinking through various systems and we are convinced that there was no other solution that could have been achieved with our resources than the current implementation. I can promise that we will expand the contract system and get it back more in the direction of the old system where contracts only occur under certain circumstances (like a contract to fight Orcs only appears when there are actually Orcs in the area). This will need time though and a lot more contracts. Regarding the difficulty of the contracts: We have a new addition to the contract system that will help with the contract difficulty. It will go live with todays update. The Undead are in line for a rework, especially the skeletons (they will also get a completely new look). That rework will hopefully make them a more interesting challenge. Ghouls will also get some love as they are indeed on the weak side. The Perk System is also due for a bigger rework and will see some changes, can't give an ETA on that yet. Regarding the AI and certain skills/perks: Getting the AI to use them at the right time like a human is an insanely difficult task and i think that the AI in our game is pretty good already. Of course it can always be improved upon and we will keep doing that. Regarding Events: We now have 69 Events in the game, there will be two more with todays update. As we keep adding more they will also appear more regularly. We do not want to increase the frequency right now as they would start to repeat rather fast and annoy the player instead of entertaining him. And of course we didnt forget about the new weapons, still have them lying around here somewhere... We are not sure if the heraldic mail will see action again but we want to make unique Armors just like the unique weapons each with their own look and somewhat improved stats.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/392183857623080173/?ctp=3#c392183857626456854

203

I agree with you that the factions have great potentital that is hardly used right now. The first step in making them more important are the faction specific contracts we are working on. In these contracts they will often scheme and intrigue against each other trying to hinder the other factions while grabbing for more power. Having the disparities between noble factions leading to an all out war at some point is also an exciting prospect. However, the noble houses usually do not openly fight against each other as they have their hands full with dealing with external threats like Orcs, Goblins, Undead and Bandits thus they do not have the resources for infighting that much.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/392184289304893507/#c392184342865110498

204

We thought about having a fight club in big cities where you can send your guys to fist-fight for crowns. Finally a good use for your Brawler backgrounds ;) However, those plans lay on ice for now...

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/392183857634881176/#c392184342865135614

205

The chance is that of a normal, unmodified attack. Shields and other defenses apply normally.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/392183857631989473/#c392184342865204850

206

We are thinking about this topic for a while and have different approaches on how to give the player more purpose and make the world more interactive, we are also thinking about a possible end or goal to the game. However, these things are not ready yet to be presented and it will take a while until we can talk about it. I am just dropping this here to let you know that the issue is an important topic for us.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371918937256989415/?ctp=3#c371918937259484483

207

Just to clarify: Even if we eventually implement a way to "beat" or "end" the game the player will always have the option to continue afterwards in the free roaming mode that the game is now. There will be no forced or "hard" end to the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371918937256989415/?ctp=4#c371918937262606113

208

The problem here is that we then have to also teach the AI to pick up ammo from the ground and change quivers in the inventory which is more work than it sounds at first. Also, assume dedicated archers have 2-3 stacks of more arrows in their backpack and Goblins with the quick hands perk can just change them with no action costs. So even if me made ammo limited and gave them additional quivers not much would change. However, if the ammo was limited it would be of course better for the realism but we will have to see when and if we get around to work on this.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/412448158166230016/#c371918937274512693

209

Not everyone wearing a wizard hat is actually a wizard ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371918937277452529/#c371918937282435837

210

An extended roster was planned in the very beginning of the project where you can circle mercs around just like in xcom (old and new) and we are still talking about it internally. I dont want you to get too excited but it is likely that the roster will be extended for the final version.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371918937285510313/#c371918937285927533

211

Of course we can understand very well that many people would love to see faster progress on the game - me included! However, i think that with the almost weekly updates we are doing rather well with a three guy team and of course we will keep working as hard as possible. Internally, we are already working on the mechanics and workings behind the faction feuds but it is too eraly to post anything official about it that will then maybe have to be revamped. That is the reason why we left out any details about it in the last posting. Again, if something does not show up in last weeks posting it does not mean it will not be in the game. There is quite a list of smaller and bigger features that we want to get in the game but we do not feel confident enough to announce all of them officially and then disappoint people even more when realizing we can not get them all into the full release. As promised, we will post more info on what is to come in our weekly updates. All i can ask you guys is to be patient. Also, thanks a lot for all the support and understanding from you guys!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371919771743994899/?ctp=4#c371919771754077483

212

The thing is: We can not really tell ourselves. With this being our first game it is extremely rough to even slightly predict full release sale numbers. Also, it is a bit hard to find similar projects as the turn based strategy section in the gaming market is pretty barren so we do not have any data from other games we can build on. All i can say is that we are pretty positive that the game will be successful enough to let us support it with a couple of bigger expansions after the full release ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371919771746274542/#c371919771754112709

213

Right on and nice image you made!
We plan on adding an own "mercenary" line of equipment so the player has some more unique stuff to don! Can't give an ETA on that though but it will probably go in the style-direction you were going ; )

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/371919771746663846/#c371919771754121749

214

The image is a pretty early Mockup. We will firstly add single items like camp fires, gravestones and the like. We will then hopefully add larger obstacles like small farm buildings, fences and so on.
Having walls that people can actually walk on is not so easy to achieve so i can not promise anything in that direction for the full release.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371919771754838825/#c371919771754845829

215

This discussion has been brought up many times and that is for good reason. In one of the first versions of the game we actually planned for the player to rebuild a destroyed castle over the course of the game. This was a couple of years ago and the game at that point was way closer to the original xcom than it is now. As time moved on we realized more and more that a static base is something that does not work too well with the roaming, adventurous mercenary playstyle we wanted to focus on. There is absolutely nothing wrong with a base and like i said above we had it planned at some point but dropped it for good reasons. It would be much better fitting if for example you were a disowned noble returning to find his old hold in ruins and trying to rebuild it. There will be no fixed base of operations for the full release and the decision for this has been made a long while ago. This is a fundamental game design decision that impacts a lot of other areas of the game and please do not think that a player base could be implemented "quickly" or "on the side". If there is a player base it has to add meaningful things to the game and has to be thought well through and interconnected with all the other game mechanics. I am repeating myself here but implementing a base for the full release is not possible with the remaining development time we have and we also decided against it from a gamedesign perspective. However, i can see it work for a possible expansion but for now we have to focus on getting as many points from our development list into the game before the release.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371919771754987958/#c371919771761944833

216

BB and Quick hands will both be tweaked with the perk rework, just dropping this here so you know we also see the urge to act. Especially rotating 3 crossbows around for a lot of shots is not what we had in mind when designing these perks.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/371919771757261035/?ctp=2#c371919771761953692

217

It is actually a problem with the UI that stops us from doing the formations so unfortunately we have to sort the UI thing out first. Can't give an ETA on that though : (

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/364040166681310887/#c364040166687550932

218

We intentionall did not put in that kind of events for now. It may feel too random and punishing for the player to just lose a Brothers. Especially as the life expectancy in the world of Battle Brothers is pretty low anyways ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/364040961443029327/#c364040961446688379

219

They are generated randomly within certain stat ranges. However, the way it is done now they actually have a chance of not really being better than a normal weapon - just more fancy. We will most likely tune this a bit to make sure they are always better than regular weapons.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/364041776194658115/#c364041776197663038

220

Hi there, the issue has been brought up before and i think above the reasons why we have not tackled this before have been layed out. When making a game you always have a dozen of different tasks at hand and you can not do all of them so you have to pick the one that will benefit the game most while having the lowest amount of work. This way you can progress the game well without spending too much time on things that have little impact on the game. That is the reason for the unlimited enemy ammo. Of course we want enemies to not have unlimited ammo but that will require quite a bit of AI programming in making the enemy pick up arrows and/or secondary weapons during combat. Also, an enemy hardly ever gets to shoot off 20 arrows/bolts in one fight and he qould probably start out with those in his bag. To sum up, this will mean a lot of work for something that has a very minor impact on the game - that does not mean that we do not want it though! It is just that we so far had to focus on bigger/ higher priority issues. When we have some time left approaching the release we can hopefully come back to this!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/357288572113209163/#c357288572117463393

221

Thanks for the input, great ideas here!
We have some things planned to keep the game interesting even when you have beefed up your company a lot. We want to keep the game as dynamic and procedural as possible but it is a tricky task to have world changing events together with procedurally generated content. The concept of invasions, or crisis, is a very interesting one and we ourselves brought it up a while ago. We will see what we can make of it in the end. One point that we want to push is the conflict between the human factions which is hardly present in the current game. Open conflicts between nobles are a great opportunity for mercenaries and this could also lead to settlements changing allegiance thus having a lasting impact on the world. For now we are working on the extended roster which will be published soon. This will also affect the endgame as you will be able to keep a reserve and rotate Brothers around making losses hit you less hard.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/357288572130214293/#c357288572138257664

222

Thanks!
I will just grab a random part from your post and reply to it: The goal of the game. We have been toying around with various solutions to this from a fixed goal to a completely open game. the more we think about it the better we feel about a solution where players themselves can decide when the game will end. Either by a retirement option or by setting the goal of a game themselves in the beginning. We will see where we end up but this is definitely a direction we are exploring.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/357288572130214293/#c358415103477345706

223

There is an autoloot mode in the options that you can activate to automatically collect loot after each combat. This way you cant forget about it anymore.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/357288572138290018/#c358415103477349587

224

We definitely thought about sliders like that as well. However, it is quite a bit of work to make the world generation according to these sliders work and we have a lot of other very pressing issues at hand. I think the chances to have sliders like these for the initial release are not that big.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/358415103476508653/#c358415103477358912

225

You guys will get something really soon, we are working hard on it!
Working on the UI is one of the most resource intensive tasks on ever gamedevelopment project but we are almost there.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/357288572118588074/#c358415103478527665

226

Hi there, a tactical view is not planned at the moment but we agree that the terrain is sometimes a bit trricky to read. You best make use of switching the viewable elevation levels, that helps. Although a tactical view would be helpful, we have to focus on the core of the game first. Same reason for the scalable UI, our resources do not allow for that at the moment. We will see if we manage to get something done later in development.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/358415206078421510/#c358415206078982470

227

We have been keeping back a little on the "viking" style purposely. We want to keep some powder in the keg to add later.
We have more armors and helmets planned but i can not give any details on how they will exactly look right now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/358415206100048647/#c358415738180684455

228

The fletchers can actually be a bit sparse as the conditions for them to spawn are a bit specific. We will look into having at least one in each world seed.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/358415738189509644/?ctp=2#c358415738200161210

229

Some of the Locations also spawn over time like Orc and Goblin HIdeouts. So in the very beginning of the game there are less of these available. We also are tinkering with the total amount of locations and maybe increase it a little at some point. One more thing to make exploration more worthwile: We are planning on adding named armors to the loot of these locations so that exploration is more rewarding.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/358415738213251502/#c358416640400107785

230

We already have written a contract where you get hired to help rebuilding attached locations, it will be in the game eventually.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/366298942107548587/#c359543951700740449

231

1) Armor: We also feel that there are not enough incentives to wear light armor. However, making heavy armor worse/ light armor better always gets very "gamey". After all, a heavy armor is just better at protecting a soldier than light armor, there is no room for discussion here. We thought about giving a defense penalty to heavy armor as you are not as quick and nimble in heavy armor but i personally think this is a pretty weak argument. People in heavy armor are way faster and more agile than you would normally think. We pushed this back for now but we are definitely looking at the issue. 2) Ghouls are the laughing stock of the Battle Brothers world, we have some thoughts about making them more interesting and challenging to fight. We have this planned for a Undead rework that is on our list. 3) We want exploration to be more meaningful and entertaining. Our current approach is to rework named items. They will be more powerful but not dropped by enemies any more or available at stores. They will only be found in secluded locations that are not part of contracts but can only be found through exploration. There will be various ways how to find out about these special locations: Tavern Rumors, Events, Background Specific events or just by wandering about the world. This way we want to make exploration way more rewarding and interesting.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/366298942109774011/#c359543951700815939

232

We really understand your concerns, especially when looking left and right at other Early Access titles. A lot of not so good stories with EA going wrong have brought many people to not buying EA at all. This is actually a problem for us as it reduces the amount of funds we can generate to keep developing the game and it puts pressure on us to actually release the game (which is probably a good thing ;)). We hope to always be as open and forward as possible about the current state of development and about what we are working on. However, there are ups and downs and there are phases with more motivation and also some with less motivation. Having to rework the UI did cost us a lot of time and was a real strain on our power but things like this will always happen in game development and they are mostly impossible to account for in planning. When making a game you have to constantly decide between features, you simple can not get all features into the game. So when you have to decide between feature 1 and feature 2 which one are you cutting from the game and which are you implementing? Both are awesome and will benefit the game greatly, so which do you chose? This is one of the hardest thing in game development but resource limitations simply do not allow to get everything in the game that you want. All this aside we are working as hard as possible to make the best game that we can and keep in touch with the community while doing so. Sorry for the rant, just wanted to share some of our views on the topic ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/366298942113391913/#c359543951700858640

233

The talents increase the additonal attribute points when increasing that stat on level up. 1 star increases the minimum by 1, 2 stars by 2 and 3 stars increase also the maximum by one. Once you start leveling up you will see how it works. Generally a high talent means more points on level ups on that attribute.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/361798516965137015/#c361798516965161381

234

The chance of hitting someone in the line of fire when you are at 60% to hit on the target and the guy in the line of fire has 20% ranged defense is 15%.
Once the hypothesis is formed that the chance to hit your own guys in the line of fire is very high it is almost impossible to argue against it. People will look at incidents confirming the hypothesis and neglect cases that speak against it. We can just encourage you to keep playing so you get a bigger sample size and also be more careful when shooting into melee.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/359547436745968243/?ctp=2#c359547436748387467

235

We will try and keep increasing the readability of the numbers. It is a bit tricky to find a font and color that works for all items while not completely ruining the icons.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/359547436759023518/#c359547436759666060

236

Yeah, we had some plans in this direction a while ago, mainly about choosing a starting leader of your company who would have different advantages to make a new game play differently. However, i can't tell if and when we will have time to actually do this. It will require a lot of thought to go into it. The game is all about replayability and some way to customize your playthroughs will increase that a lot so it would fit very well. On the other side: Time and resources :/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/359547436752262952/#c359547436759697704

237

Sounds reasonable, problem being throwing weapons: These get refiled from the ammunitions as well. If we made it so that one javelin also only needs one ammunition than a javelin would have the same worth as an arrow (or a throwing axe). That sees to be a bit off. However you are right about there being room for improvement, we will put this on our list!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/361798516953971799/#c359547436759718904

238

With the beta build we increased the time span in the early game where exclusively 1-skull contracts are spawned. We will have a look and see if we need to increase this time span even more.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/359547436752872579/?ctp=2#c359547436759731769

239

Adding more interaction to map objects and also add new objects you can interact with in other ways than just combat would definitely help livening up the worldmap. Unfortunately, our time is very limitied and we have to focus on other, more core features for now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/282992646972829591/#c282992646980388857

240

This is not as easy as it may seem. Some new features require basic changes within the code that interacts with your exisitng mercs, their stats, their status, their equipment or experience.
Of course we are aware that save game breaks are really annoying but the alternative would be not adding new features to the game or invest a lot of time and ressources into converting savegames (taking away time from new content and features).
This is still Early Access and thus there will always be save game breaks. We are determined to keep them as rare as possible but it is impossible to not have any at all. Sorry for the unsatisfactory answer but we rather be honest than promise you something we cant hold.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/282992646974470406/#c282992646980409917

241

hehe yes, the good old deadlands ;) We have something planned for the very very late game. Wont be the deadlands but has something to do with it. Hope we manage to actually get it in the game ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/282992646975283543/#c282992646980417736

242

With the vampire rework (necrosavant) we will have another look at how he plays and how to play against him although his basic mechanics will not change. The basic tactic against most enemies is to have a frontline with shields and a backline with archers and polearms. The necrosavant(vampire) was explicitly designed to challenge this tactic through bypassing the shielded frontline and go for the vulnearable backline. We want to offer lots of different challenges to the player to keep the game interesting and demanding and not allow for a "cookie cutter" setup that beats all enemies.
In many otehr games you have one go-to setup and just use that against any enemie. With Battle Brothers we want the player to think about his equipment and setup before fighting an enemy. Orcs will require different weapons and setup than goblins and other than wiedergangers or ancient dead. If that was not the case we would end up with basically the same enemies with just different color and names on them.
One more thing: The necrosavant is a very lategame enemy that is a challenge for max level merc bands and thus is not meant to be easily beaten with lower level companies (we had a lot of complaints about the game getting too easy in the late game).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/282992646978803322/#c282992646980451880

243

We have it on the list (the very long list) for usability and quality of life improvments. We will only have time for this after finishing the core features of the game near the end of the development so i cant make any promises on this yet.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/282992646980028415/#c282992646980455160

244

Hey there, unfortunately any kind of MP is a huge amount of work and we still do not have the core of the game ready. Even after that we think adding more features and content to the base game will likely be a better place to pour our ressources. PvP would make more sense like you pointed out like in the new Xcom but still don't get your hopes up too high for it any time soon.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/282992646982759868/#c282992646984209142

245

Funny idea right there : ) with the ghouls now being no complete pushovers anymore we will have another look at their loot to make sure it is worth fighting them.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/224446614458469255/#c224446614466263387

246

I get your point but other players reported that the world is too big, the traveling takes too much time and that fast travel over land would be helpful. For now we are pretty satisfied with the world size. Adding more regions or even continents is a definite option for possible expansions to the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/215439774852621058/#c215439774870247812

247

Hi Guys, first off all this has to be said again: Keep it civil in here and do not insult each other. We love some passionate discussions about the game but do not take it too personally and do not swear at each other - thanks! (Also on banning people which we get asked for regularly: We really do not want to do this and have hardly ever banned anyone. This is a purposeful decision as we believe a lot of people write things they do not mean in the heat of the moment). Now onto the topic: Most things and features that are "missing" in the eyes of some have been omitted from the game on purpose and are not missing because we are "lazy". Examples are a player base, a player character, Horses, a linear story, legs for characters and so on. We gave very detailed reasons on each of these throughout the development of the game so I wont repeat them here again. Most boil down to two things: The focus of the game as a sandbox mercenary simulator revolving around tactical combat and our very limited resources with 3 guys on the team. Comparing Battle Brothers to other games is also a bit tricky, for example with Thea (the guys behind Thea are btw really awesome and you should get the game if you haven't yet!). The thing is, Thea does not have a tactical combat at all and our games main focus is the tactical combat - so we do not compare well at all. A main point for criticism is the lack of an endgame goal. We have been working for quite a while on this and we agree that the game is really missing it at the moment. You build up your company but you have no final challenge to overcome with that company. This friday we will have a dedicated blog post on the "lategame crises" with more details. These will also include a dynamically changing worldmap within the limits of what is technically possible for us. We hope this will add a fitting climax and sense of purpose to the whole game. Regarding DLCs:
If someone really thinks we are actually planning on withholding content that already exists for DLCs he or she does not know us very well ;) But seriously, we are working as hard as we can to get as much content as possible into the game but with our team size there are very strict limits on what can be done. We constantly struggle with an insanely long list of great features and content and have to decide which 2 of the 30 point list we want to get in the game (numbers just as an example). This is honestly by far the hardest part about making a game: Deciding not what to put in, but what to leave out.
Also please do not underestimate the time needed for certain features. They may sound simple but the devil is in the details and it can turn out that a "simple" feature might delay development for a long time basically kicking out other features. We hope to be able to keep making content for the game in the form of expansions but these will always have a substantial amount of new content and mechanics. However, we will start thinking about this when the game is out and not now. Regarding modding:
We are very aware that whatever way we design the game there will always be people who like it and people who don't. One of the first things you have to realize when making a game is that you can not please everyone - no matter how hard you try. A way to remedy this is a modding community with different mods depending on different playstyles and preferences tailoring the game to each individual flavor. This is a great thing and a lot of great games started out as just mods to other games.
We are very fond of mods and we also plan to open the game up more to modding once it is done. But the same applies as with the DLCs, we will come back to this once the game is released. I know i didn't address every issue in the thread but i hope this helps clarify some of our views on the above topics that came up here!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1843493219418974707/?ctp=5#c1843493219426164258

248

There will be more merc companies wandering around later in the game, especially with the Noble House war as they like to hire mercenaries just like you for the fight.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/154644045358903582/#c154644045359584637

249

Yes, it will be possible to "win" against these crises given you are successful enough in fighting back.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/154644045363991602/#c154644045364211686

250

Those designs are from a very old version of the game when it was much closer to the original Xcom that inspired it. The style and world of Battle Brothers changed significantly since then so they do not fit in any more ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/154644045364666093/#c154644349171304013

251

Hey Steven, thanks for the suggestion! We indeed saw that coffee option MuHa did and it is a neat idea. However, we somehow do not feel good about taking money from people without giving them something back in return. We are happy with you guys buying the game or the supporter edition, spreading the word or even gifting it to a friend. We feel donations, as great as they are, should never be part of a business plan so we prefer to do without for now! Thanks again for the support!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135508833660211022/#c135508833660813234

252

We also implemented the speed up function to help remedy the longer distances and raised contract rewards a little so you get compensated for the food usage.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/135509823660014472/#c135509823659999946

253

The time until this ambition expires should be about 14 days, anything else is most likely some kind of bug.
We will implement a tooltip that shows the remaining time of ambitions before they run out but this will take a little.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135509823661063584/#c135509823661112557

254

The time limit will be visible in the future in the tooltip. After the initial Ambitions you have another option to not have an ambition and will be asked again after some time so only the first few have to be done at some point. The game is in "beta" state for the reason of balancing it, this is what we are doing right now ;) So we want to know if ambitions are too hard or easy to fulfill in your oppinion to make it better for the full release.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/135509823664699404/?ctp=2#c135509823664595396

255

Chances to find them will be slightly increased with the next upcoming patch ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135510393197789682/?ctp=14#c135510669592550093

256

Hey guys,
first of all let me ask you to not swear at us devs, other players or the game. We want a friendly atmosphere here and lately there has been a lot of hatred flying around. Just because we are not taking part that much in the public discussion does not mean that we do not care. We take all of this to heart so please mind your language. Now regarding the RNG in the game. The main problem here is that most peoples view on hit chances is skewed and every game that is not completely determinisitc will suffer from this and put players under a lot of emotional stress. There is a very good Interview with Jake Solomon from Fireaxis (Xcom) on the topic here: http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/266891/Jake_Solomon_explains_the_careful_use_of_randomness_in_XCOM_2.php I want to point out one very important aspect and that is that the big success of Xcom is actually skewing the perceived RNG of players even more. This is why: "“That 85 percent isn’t actually 85 percent. Behind the scenes, we wanted to match the player’s psychological feeling about that number.” That 85 percent, according to Solomon, is often closer to 95 percent." Solomon goes on with a very important observation on how people react to random events:: "“Random is never the way people expect it to be,” said Solomon. “Whether it’s a sequence of shots that you think is impossible, or a sequence of misses you think is impossible, or seeing patterns in the nicknames your soldiers get. We’re human beings--we see patterns.”" So Xcom increases hit chances to match players expectations making real RNG numbers look worse in comparison. This is why people who have been playing Xcom will feel that the RNG in Battle Brothers is intentionally worse for the player while in reality the RNG of Xcom is favourable to the player. This is a wild guess but i assume lots of other RNG based games out there do the same to avoid too much player frustration. We are not doing this so we are getting a lot of hate and frustration from the perceivedly "wrong" RNG numbers. Be that as it may, we do not want to change this for Battle Brothers but maybe it helps understand why the RNG in our game may feel off.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512931366342870/?ctp=3#c135513421438873248

257

It is pretty interesting to be finally able to compare the steamspy numbers with the actual numbers sold, only thing i can tell is that they are somewhat accurate but still have a pretty big margin of error. Main issue is that steamspy does not tell how many copies have been sold during discounts and sales events and how many have been sold in areas with weak currencies. For example in Russia we are basically selling the game at 50% base price due to the weak Rubel. Unfortunately, Puttis is pretty spot on with the 50%(the real number es even higher) that we lose even though we do not have a publisher that is taking revenue shares. Many people underestimate the costs of running a company, even a very small one given things like social security, income and business taxes and so on. To sum up, the game is selling well but we are pretty far from retiring to our own island ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135513421438743944/?ctp=2#c135513421438920082

258

Hey guys, we are aware of the topic and have been thinking about it a lot. just wanting to let you know we are not ignoring it. A lot of the pro and con points have been brought up in this thread. The problem is that players and AI use the same weapons and tactics. This leads to the situation that nerfing ranged weapons also nerfes the players ranged fighters and vice versa. Now the trick is to find the sweet spot between overpowered and useless. I personally think that adding a low tier ranged weapon like a sling could be a good solution as spikes of ranged damage are especially devastating in the early game. Adding a damage penalty with range could also work as it reduces the deadliness of heavy hits in the first two rounds of a fight. The second solution may impact a lot of other balancing points as well so i am not sure if it might do more harm than good.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512931368009105/?ctp=3#c135513421438943582

259

Seeing the attention this topic is generating it becomes pretty obvious that most people play the game way longer than just for one crisis. Before i go into the details of the problem i have to point to the "no crisis" option that we added as a quick remedy for people who want to play an endless game without ever having to worry about cities getting destroyed. Also chosing the noble house war will delay the destruction as the first crisis will not see any destroyed settlements.
I also have to add that the game is not designed to be played without end (with no crisis activated) and that is why it can get really hard after the third or fourth crisis. Now for the issue at hand: Programming a game can be a very difficult and complex thing and sometimes something really simple turns out to be actually really tricky. This is the case for the destroyed settlements. The settlements are connected with basically all other worldmap mechanics and features and can not just be activated and de-activated at will. The point here is we are not doing this because we do not want to but because we did not have the resources for a feature that is beyond the scope of the game. I know this will not satifsy you but i wanted to let you know that we are aware of the issue and give you some background info on the situation we have at our hands.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512305403881723/?ctp=14#c135513421439106312

260

Moving on to a new map would be a lot of work as there are no mechanics in place that are supporting a feature like this, also it would not make much sense within the gameworld. The most straight forward solution would obviously be a contract where you are hired to help retake and rebuild a settlement. Of course another "solution" would be to just not get cities destroyed in the first place by increasing their guards and so on. But if cities do not get destroyed what is the point of the crisis? We added them to create a sense of danger and urgency and also to have to worldmap really show the impact of a conflict and make it more dynamic. We would lose most of the impact of the invasions if they did not have any severe effect on the world so this is not really my favourite approach. With regard to the whole game: I am personally not completely satisfied with it - but i think it would be very arrogant to say that you are completely satisfied with your own product. There is always room for improvement, especially with the long and winding development story of Battle Brothers. It is not only about the game itself but about the resources you have available, the feedback of the community and of course the outcome of countless iterations. Regarding the impact of the crisis it is always a tradeoff: Making them more impactful will make them feel more like an achievement when overcome but on the other hand this shifts the focus of the whole game away from sandbox and exploration towards the crisis even more. We think the strongpoint of the game is the latter, not that much the former so this is a tricky thing to balance.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512305403881723/?ctp=15#c135513421439336247

261

Totall off topic but we would love to do more monsters :)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512305403881723/?ctp=15#c135513421439453472

262

Thanks Wyrtt for the estimation, all these points really press down our earnings. When looking at Steamspy there is a major problem as it does not tell how many sales have been made during discounts and how many have been sold in low income regions. For example in Russia we are selling the game at about 50% of the US price. Anyways, things are looking rather good and we are internally discussing the whole expansions thing. We will let you know in the blog once we have something official on the topic!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512931356959948/?ctp=2#c135513421441977368

263

Ideally we would have a whole contract around helping to rebuild a settlement but that is quite some work so we went with a quicker solution for now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512305403881723/?ctp=17#c135513421442665185

264

Can't tell, highly depends on what is actually implemented. Simple changes are usually pretty easy to implement like changing stats, adding items or so. More complex features or changes that touch the basics of the world or the world generation usually not work reactively.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512305403881723/?ctp=17#c135513421442713255

265

I can personally give a very siimple answer: Yes!
We started all of this because we wanted there to be game that nobody was making. First it was a hobby project and gradually developed into a full fledged game over the years.
Now we have the perspective of keeping to make games which is all we want to be honest :)
I am not going into all the hardships of the whole development, that is another story and i do want to encourage anyone with the right ambition to start making their own game. I am sure a lot of people out there would be really successful if they stopped telling themselves that it is not possible and gave it a shot.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135513421442684567/#c135513421442731573

266

A game+ mode like that would be very complex to pull off. What happens to your reputation? How do you stand towards the new Noble Houses? Have you to unlock noble house contracts again? and so on. Lots of game systems rely on a persistent world. The game is finished officially right now and we will only add minor things outside of an actual expansion. Regarding an expansion we are still discussing if and how we will make one.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135512305403881723/?ctp=18#c135513421442828371

267

Thanks so much for your support!
We can talk for ages about the background of the project but i just want to point out that most of our team are around 35 years of age and we are indeed heavily inspired by the classical games from the 90ies (namely JA and Xcom). It feels really amazing to us that it looks like we managed to capture some of that "spirit" and put it into Battle Brothers :)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/135513534851632104/#c135513549090290032

268

Hi guys, first of all sorry for the long silence but we really needed a break after the latest developments. I will personally try my best to answer any questions you have and have an open discussion. On topic:
Everyone who bought the game has the right to give a positive or negative review for whatever reason he or she sees fit. Some might play it for 3 hours and give it a thumbs up, others might play it over 200 hours and give it a thumbs down. We as developers are not in a position to judge or influence this decision. We offer a game that we made and put a lot of work into, after that people have to decide whether they think they should recommend it to others or not. There have been an increasing amount of recent cases in which reviews have been used to influence developers towards certain decisions - be it for good or bad reasons. As developers we have to live with this and accept it. When we are making a choice we have to be aware that people might like it or not like it and we have to be ready to take the consequences. That is how the whole review system works: To voice an opinion - about the game, the developers and their choices and business practices. We obviously made a choice that a lot of people did not like but for us it was the hardest choice we ever made. We spent a lot of time thinking about this (this is not just said, this is actually true) and changed our minds more than once on it. In the end you all know what came out of it and we accept it with all its consequences. I hope i can give some confidence back to you by entering the discussion again and assure you that we are not gone but instead are working hard on something we hope you will like as much as BB. It will take some more time until we can give more details on it but we are making good progress on it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1457328846183006285/?ctp=16#c2217311444342452290

269

We thought a lot about that but ultimately we do not want the game to be open source by opening up all the files. If we did that we are basically handing out the code to everyone to copy or use it in any way they like. With all the work we put into the game we feel very uncomfortable with just opening up everything. Modding in general would of course be possible, there is hardly anything that can not be achieved if you put enough ressources into it. However, adding at least half a decent way to mod the game would cost us a lot of time and work and also we would have to take care of the support questions around modding the game. The more minimalistic the implementation of modding the more requests we would get about it again binding up a lot of our resources. Modding was not planned when we started the project years ago and adding it later turned out to be quite the challenge - at least if you want to have it in a proper way that keeps the game working. With our new project we are planning for it right from the start and there will be Workshop Support for Steam so we have a working, well implemented solution for it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1457328846183006285/?ctp=16#c2217311444342559458

270

Modding is something we really like in games and lots of games have started just as mods of other games be it Counter Strike or Dota. We always said we like mods and that BB would be a good game to mod and that didn't change. However, modding was not on our "must have" list at the beginning of development and a game that does not support modding is not an unfinished game by definition. We always considered it to be a nice extra. It is something that adds to a game, not something that is essential - there are lots of games on the market that don't have any mods and are still worth playing. We are completely aware that adding mod support would benefit the game, there is no doubt about that. What we as developer have to decide is how much ressources we can put into something like modding or translations or basically any other feature. As i explained above adding mod support after a game is finished that was never planned to support mods is a lot of work. The other option would be to make the game open source by just opening all the files but we do not feel comfortable doing that at the moment. We have definitely learned from all the years of developing Battle Brothers and that is why adding the possibility for mod support is one of the first things we are doing for our next game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1457328846183006285/?ctp=16#c2217311444342944102

271

Thanks for the understanding, i can not spoil too many info on the new project yet but it will have a lot in common with BB. This is the genre we really like and we also feel that there is a lack of decent turn based tactics/strategy games. On top of that, we will also profit from a lot of things we learned from Battle Brothers. I did not want to start a new thread about it as i personally didnt want to make it an official announcement but rather i wanted to enter the ongoing discussion. Maybe i can do that a bit later....

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1457328846183006285/?ctp=16#c2217311444343107512

272

I have to agree that we should have communicated more clearly on the topic of modding and DLC to avoid any confusion. So far we have achieved to manage expectations pretty okay but we made some mistakes towards the end. In our defense i can only say that we ourselves were torn on modding and DLC and that is why we didnt have clear and one-way answers as early as we needed them. Sorry again for that but we have learned and will do a better job in the future! We posted a complete feature list back in September 2016 with all the features that will be put into the game until the full release. We intentionally didnt put any modding or translations on the list as we did not want to promise it, you can see it here:
http://battlebrothersgame.com/dev-blog-82-roadmap-finish-line/
Of course people missed that list or didnt see it or came into the community at a later point so they were not aware of it. Additionally, we should have been more strict with what we say about possible features to not get hopes high for certain things. With a dynamic and sometimes iterative game development this is sometimes hard to do because you have to keep some options open.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1457328846183006285/?ctp=18#c2217311444343638462

273

The robe is an attire made for the village representatives. There are very rare cases in which players can find one but it is mainly an "NPC" clothing piece to give them some more visual variety.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1458455461487211023/?ctp=2#c1458455461497398127

274

Hey, we are already in pre-production of the new project but are not far enough that we can properly reveal it. We want to have a first post with a lot of info on the new project but this might take a little more time. You will definitely hear about it once it is ready. The game will also be a turn based tactics/strategy game but with a different scope and setting - that's as much as i can say right now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1458455461499717733/#c1471966894865441680

275

Nobody here gets banned for stating any opinion, you only get banned if you violate the basic rules of this forum which are the same as in any online community. If you state your opinion without swearing or insulting others there will never be any problem. As Love Gun already linked all the images and infos that are important here there is little to add. The indoor environments have been concepted by us at some point during development. However, we quickly realized that they are not as easily implemented as we thought, that is why we had to cut them at a later point. Developing a computer game that is as complex and has as much content as Battle Brothers is not a straight road. Foreseeing the development of a project for up to 2 years into the future is almost impossible for any project manager. You have to give room for thoughts, ideas and experiments but some will run into dead ends and that is a basic part of any computer game development (or any product development). On the other hand, this experimenting leads to lots of features and additions that have never been planned that made it into the game. We always tried to be as open as possible about features that were not making it into the game. Most importantly in the "Roadmap to the Finish Line" from September last year we wanted to set the expecations straight for everyone to see exactly what is yet to come and what is not coming. We did this to avoid any disappointments at a later point. As it turnes out the list did not communicate well enought what is yet to come but we learned from the mistakes we made with our communications.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1471966894872152120/#c1471966894881275991

276

Hi,
the Orc Warriors have not been changed by us since a while before the full release of the game, they also do not have the backstabber Perk.
However, they have higher total fatigue and also higher fatigue regeneration than humans but they always had this to simulate their superior physique.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1471966894885462519/#c1471966894885872868

277

Hey, that posting from Rap is rather old and not accurate anymore. Meanwhile the 2H axe only procs an effect for each target it hits, but not two times on a single target. This should be the same for every perk that procs on hit. It only procs multiple times if you hit multiple targets for example with the round swing.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1471966894882862560/#c1471966894886163091

278

Hi, if the town destruction is disabled the towns only get a "razed" situation for a while. In this state you can hardly buy things there but the settlement itself gets not really destroyed.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1471967529573219917/#c1471967615839639746

279

The optimal resolution is 1920x1080 but you schould be able to play the game on higher resolutions without big issues. The UI might get really small but you can manually change the UI scaling in the game options to compensate. You can also increase the other elements besides the UI of the game with an additional "scene scaling" option. You might have to experiment a little to find your optimal settings.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/1471967615858434633/#c1471967615860509457

280

Post

Link

Time

It’s awesome to see we aren’t the only ones who’d love to play a game like this. You make a good point about the rogue-esque replayability of Battle Brothers. As much as I enjoy playing games with well done hand-crafted stories and levels, they have the distinct disadvantage of being based on very finite attractions. When developing a game like this, it wouldn’t be long until I’d have seen it all. With procedural content like in Battle Brothers, even after developing it for half a year now, I experience new situations all the time. It still feels fresh to me in many ways and I look forward to play the next build every week. That greatly contributes to my personal motivation.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/#post-438

1

Hello and welcome to our forums! I think Diablo is a decent example for the route we’re going to take in many ways. The story was vague, as was the antagonist. Contrary to you, I also don’t remember it having any great dialogs. Certainly it didn’t have much in terms of character interaction. However, it did an awesome job of creating a suspenseful atmosphere by its presentation – the music, the visual style and the bits of story you did get came together very well. I always felt that my actions were embedded in a story context despite the game’s comparatively few efforts to establish one. Replayability (and hence the procedural generation of much of the game) is a key concept in our game design – but something that doesn’t go well together with heavily scripted stories or game progression. For this reason (and our limited resources) we won’t have much in terms of direct character interaction, extensive dialogs or cleverly written moral dilemmas to navigate through. We definately want to have each encounter to have some context, to have more meaning than just “enemy = loot + xp”. That’s why we want to present each with a short story and illustration, e.g. we won’t just drop you in a fight with a necromancer because why not, but we have the townspeople approach you telling of their cattle perishing, the graves being empty and such. What we’ll have in terms of choice & consequences will be emergent from gameplay and not be pre-determined by us to occur at some set point in the story. For example, not helping a town under siege could mean it being razed and no longer available in the game world as a place of commerce and safety in the region. It’s an actual consequence of a strategic decision for how you, as the player, will continue to play the gamer afterwards in a dynamic world. Not a fake consequence that we tell you a story about. Nevertheless, we want to present a major event like this with a (minimalistic) cutscene to the player to convey the gravity of it. Just as with the combat we’ll iterate on story, immersion and choice & consequences until it feels right. I look forward to your feedback once we have something more to show regarding these!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/my-ideal-version-of-this-project/#post-444

2

I enjoy games with well done stories and dialogs. There aren’t exactly many of those. I enjoyed The Walking Dead from Telltale because even though it was rather weak in the gameplay department, it was many times more gripping to be part of a well-told interactive story than just watching other people argue over mundane stuff in the TV series. That said, different games are build around different strenghts. We aren’t ignorant to immersion through a good narrative, but I think it’s safe to say that this game will be defined by different strengths.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/my-ideal-version-of-this-project/#post-446

3

Hello again! When we use the term world map, world refers to the known world as in medieval times. We won’t have a whole planet with different continents. What we’ll have instead is more akin to a classic fantasy realm; a single continent that may potentially have different climate zones. We use a naive algorithm to generate a landmass that subjectively feels like something that could be real to the layman by adhering to some commonly known principles. We don’t attempt to create an actual simulation of geological and metereological forces, however. Our priority is simply to have a worldmap that looks good and feels good to play on. I appreciate your offer to share your code but it won’t be necessary here as we already have our own solution.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/random-world-map/#post-470

4

Yep. We also have agricultural assets (like farm land) we place near villages and towns, as medieval towns obviously relied heavily on those. While we don’t have natural resources on the map as a gameplay concept, we try to have towns placed near fertile land (grassland, forest, rivers) and not in the middle of some baren wasteland. If you have some further good suggestions, I’d be happy to hear them!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/random-world-map/#post-472

5

No need to excuse yourself! I think it’s awesome that we get feedback from passionate gamers such as you. Our very next blog post, which we’ll post tomorrow or the day after, will cover our plans for the worldmap and should answer some questions. As for sandbox games in general, I think there’s been a shift in recent times towards more open world sandboxy concepts. A few good selling open world games (e.g. Skyrim, GTA) made everyone aware that there is a lot of consumer interest in those. I think we’ll only see more of them.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/random-world-map/#post-478

6

Those are some good questions. I don’t think I can give a definite answer to every single one yet. On the bright side, if you guys have any input, now is the time to let it be heard! Yes, the player controls a single team that can’t be split up. Artifacts are hand-crafted with set names, stats and descriptions that often tell a short story on how the artifact came to be (similar to the descriptions of magical items in Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate, if you know those). Out of a large pool of hand-crafted artifacts, some are randomly chosen to appear in a new game, and not every single one will be available in every game. We’re still undecided on what restrictions we’ll put on managing the crafting and scholarship aspects of the game. They both aren’t implemented yet, and I think we’ll have a better idea once we can test various ideas in the game. It means a day-and-night cycle on the worldmap that comes with changing lighting conditions. Apart from visual variety the time of day or night will influence view ranges and possibly the behavior and strength of certain enemies (like vampires). We’ll see about that. As for different weather conditions, it’s something we’d like to do (and in fact, we already have a rainstorm on the tactical map, which works quite well visually) but which will have to wait until we have the more important game mechanics down. Yes, followers and Battle Brothers expect to be regularly paid. They’re fairly loyal though, and while not paying them for a while will lower their morale (which makes them turn tail more easily if a battle isn’t going well), they won’t ever take up arms against the player. We’ll have to see at which point they’d actually abandon the group, but it won’t be something they’ll do lightly.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/worldmap-reveal-and-strategic-gameplay/#post-499

7

Hello and welcome to our forum! I never played W40k Chaos Gate, so I’m not sure how it compares to that exactly. There won’t be a limited pool of premade characters like in, for example, Jagged Alliance. Instead, all characters will be random generated. There won’t be a hard limit to their numbers, but the number of characters that can be hired at any one place at a time will be limited and likely depend on how that place fares. In other words, the player won’t be able to hire two dozen men at once, but will be able to hire more at a rich city than at a poor village. There is a one-time fee for recruiting new Battle Brothers (an incentive to leave their old lifes behind and to see that you can back up your words with silver coin, if you will), and they also expect to be regularly paid from then on. At this point we haven’t decided on a hard limit for the maximium number of Battle Brothers one can have at a time or on ways to increase that limit. Absolutely. At this time, the player can select 3 out of 6 stats to improve by a randomized amount (dice throw) on levelup. This is still subject to change, however. In addition, the player may select one passive skill (which are basically the same as perks in Fallout or feats in D&D) to further specialize the character each levelup. These passive skills are currently organized into 9 trees (such as Leadership and Mobility) and should allow for specializations not covered by stats alone. For example, there is a passive skill in the Mobility tree that reduces movement penalties on difficult terrain such as swamp, and another one in the Leadership tree that reduces morale penalties from bad events (such as allies being slain) for nearby Battle Brothers. We’ll do a blog article on character progression and details on the passive skills once we have everything a bit more refined and are satified this really works the way we intend it to. In addition to the things I mentioned above, all characters also come with 0 to 2 randomly assigned character traits from the start, which should help define these characters as being unique among their peers. Character traits are essentially also passive skills but can’t be picked on levelup and aren’t necessarily all positive. Current examples are being athletic or fat (mutually exclusive, increases or decreases fatigue recovery rate, respectively) or having eagle-eyes (i.e. slightly increased view range). A character with good eyesight would make a good candidate for a scouting or ranged combat role, but even a fat man with poor eyesight could make a valued Battle Brother – he’ll just probably be the first to be out of breath in a prolonged engagement and not the one to spot incoming enemies, which, in my mind, adds to his character. We’re also toying with the idea of giving each character a short biography of sorts, a single paragraph somewhat randomized to fit a character’s traits, to tell about how he fared before becoming a Battle Brother. However, we have no plans for character traits to influence character relations, as you mentioned, or indeed for there to be any special kind of relationships or gameplay effects based on character relationships. There is no protagonist, so in that sense all squad members are equal. If players prefer, they’re free to rename any one of their Battle Brothers and customize their apperance in order to claim them as their personal character, although there are no gameplay mechanics that come with it. I really liked the personal sidequests that fleshed out my companions’ background in some RPGs – but I just don’t think that this is something that fits our overall game design well. There will be an end goal and several milestones on the way, and we’ll present them as part of an ongoing narrative related to The Greater Evil (the exact nature of which varies from game to game). However, the story will be kept rather loose and non-linear to support the open world sandbox gamestyle and not get in the way of replayability.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questions-on-rp-elements-and-character-progression/#post-527

8

More to this game than tactical combat regarding the character traits, you mean? Good question, but I don’t have a good answer yet. It would depend on whether we can come up with traits that influence the strategic gameplay in intuitive and meaningful ways, enough so to justify blurring the lines between tactical and strategic elements on this. As for more than tactical combat in general, take a look at this. We’d like to. The game is engineered in a way that modding support could be added without any substantial changes necessary. It’s still work, though, writing a documentation, extending the scripting API beyond our own immediate needs, making sure our tools can be used by anyone, etc. Our priority therefore is to our core game first, but we’ll keep modding support in mind and might attend to it later depending on community demand and, well, budgetary feasibility.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questions-on-rp-elements-and-character-progression/#post-530

9

They aren’t necessarily all beneficial or all bad, just the example ones are. Still, you make a good point even with them. I didn’t think about it this way before. We’re currently weighting our options on doing a crowdfunding campaign. We really have to get this game a budget somehow in order to have it move forward with pace, and crowdfunding seems a good candidate. If we’ll do it, it will be only after the combat demo is released, though, and we get some more public attention. Not anytime soon, I’m afraid. Allow me to copy-paste a previous reply from me regarding this (sometimes controversial) topic: It’s not like we’re opposed to having female characters in the game. However, our resources are stretched so thin that we can’t even afford our characters legs – adding female characters in a proper way would burden us with a lot of additional work like new heads, female versions of all light to medium armors, extra sound effects and all texts refering to both genders. Since early medieval battles were predominantly fought by men, and adding females to the game, while offering more variety, would add nothing to gameplay we decided that we’d rather focus our energy elsewhere (like more unique types of enemies). Should our resources allow, we might re-evaluate this in the future.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questions-on-rp-elements-and-character-progression/#post-556

10

Hey. There are two major reasons why we decided not to use a system of natural improvement like you propose. As a general design goal, we want the player to have a certain amount of control over how his or her Battle Brothers develop. With natural improvement, that control could only be exercised in how the player employs Battle Brothers in combat situations, which creates a conflict of interests. On one hand, the player should want to fight as effectively as possible, and we want the player to have an experience that feels natural and (within the limitations of this being a 2d game and all that) be an immersive pseudo-medieval battle. Yet on the other hand, the player would be lured to change his or her tactics for the meta-gaming aspect of making optimal use of the system of natural improvement, e.g. risk the lives of Battle Brothers solely to increase their hitpoints in the long run. A system of natural improvement requires substantially more effort in balancing to work well. It’s not insurmountable, but it is a part that can easily break and isn’t nearly as easily fixed, as even AAA games show (e.g. Skyrim). A system like this is easily exploitable, as you mentioned yourself, and the mindset that it comes with for many players would undermine the atmosphere and feeling of urgency and danger that we’re actively trying to establish.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/natural-improvement-of-characters-stats/#post-581

11

Definately. We keep statistics for every Battle Brother, including a kill count, and noteworthy feats like slaying an especially powerful enemy or being the sole survivor of a battle gone wrong. They can be browsed in the history tab that can be seen briefly in the recent video on the inventory screen (but they aren’t implemented yet and won’t be featured in the combat demo). All Battle Brothers can not only earn titles but potentially also character traits (i.e. actual gameplay effects) for achievements, both good and bad. A character having slain dozens of undead, for example, might earn a title (“the Undead Slayer”) and a character trait that makes him less prone to morale failure when fighting undead again. Titles will probably be freely editable by the player, though, and are considered to be more like suggestions based on what the character experienced (and his peers know him for). Since we’ll probably also allow for hiring a few more experienced men to join the player’s ranks (for a higher fee), I think it’d be a cool idea to have some of them come from noble backgrounds, already have titles like you suggested, and perhaps come with some non-crappy equipment. However, noble men would, at least for as long as they’re part of the Battle Brothers, relinquish their noble privileges, and the gameplay effects of their noble birth would be limited to some character traits that are mostly for flavor. It isn’t high on our priority list but I agree with you that it would be a cool feature down the road. Simulating character relations for individual characters within the group isn’t within the scope of Battle Brothers; we just assume that all members are more or less equally close. That said, we do scale morale loss depending on who it is that falls in battle (recruit or veteran), and we have passive skills in our leadership skilltree for veterans that give a morale bonus when fighting near them. Like I mentioned above, we also intend to hand out character traits on special occasions, like seeing countless brothers die. It’s just that these traits don’t depend on the relationships of individual characters to each other.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questions-on-rp-elements-and-character-progression/#post-604

12

Glad you like it. You’ll be able to hear a first combat tune in the demo very soon. I’m sure we’ll be able to give you guys the soundtrack separately once Battle Brothers is released. When, how, whether it will be free or not, we’ll figure out until then.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/official-sound-track/#post-635

13

Hello, it’s not a bug, it’s a feature. The tile in question is on a height level higher than the current height level of the camera and is therefore cut off. Use the + and – keys, or the buttons in the top right, to adjust the camera height level.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/brush/#post-671

14

It’s normal if you’re using the “Print Key” to make screenshots. We should probably implement a screenshot key in the game itself, but until then, you’d have to use an external tool for fullscreen screenshots.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/take-screenshots/#post-674

15

Damn. I’ll look into that. Thanks for reporting this. Edit: Fixed for the next version.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/the-opponent-dont-work/#post-675

16

No, I’m afraid not. But as Dohon said, it’d be a good idea to upgrade to SP3 anyway.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/why-combat-demo-requires-service-pack-3/#post-685

17

Thank you for the encouragement and feedback! It didn’t make it into the demo, but we’ll have an information window that can be opened for every opponent, giving a text description of the enemy, as well as descriptions (and not just those mildly obscure icons) of all current status effects, similar to how it is for Battle Brothers in the character screen. The two status effects from your picture are “Enraged” (which gives the zombie in question additional action points for the duration of 3 turns, allowing them to make two attacks per turn or move a bit further) and “Swamp Terrain” (the same effect your guys get if they move onto swamp terrain). Maps will never be much bigger than the ones in the demo; we think this is a size that works well to give some room to maneuver without the player getting lost or easily bored. We have no minimap planned, but you can zoom in and out using the mouse wheel to get the big picture. We’ll add key binding functionality in time, but as you guessed, it’s not that high a priority for now. What we could add easily for the next version is to have the Z key work the same as the W key, and the Q key work the same as the A key on WASD keyboards. Would that help you until we have user configurable key bindings? Left-clicking an open tile behind a tree will temporarily hide that tree (and, in fact, all other trees hiding the path that leads onto that tile). There is no global toggle to hide or minimize all trees, though. Is that sufficient or still too cumbersome? No. We decided on the same amount of action points (currently 9) for every Battle Brother for balancing reasons. The way it is now, the player has two actions available with one-handed weapons (e.g. shieldwall + an attack) and one action with two-handed weapons, which really helps to distinguish them. Adding just one or two action points more would, for example, allow the crossbow to fire two times in a single turn, greatly changing the balance of power for weapons.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/combat-demo-feedback/#post-686

18

Having different types of weapons on a character should (hopefully) already give an advantage due to their different skills being suited for different purposes (e.g. axes against shields, clubs for stunning powerful enemies, etc.). This should increase further as we add more weapons that didn’t make it into the demo (like throwing weapons, two-handed axes and warhammers) and their corresponding skills. We then want to make, for example, warhammers better suited against heavily armored opponents by offering an interesting skill that works best against those heavily armored targets, and have swords perform only mediocre or so against them instead of outright break. I’m not sure I understand your question correctly; are you asking if the AI will use formations? If so, yes. It already does to a limited extent and will do so more as we add more intelligent enemies, especially of the human variety. Currently it is only zombies that attack randomly (which I think is pretty in-character given that they’re mindless walking dead), not all the undead. Skeletons, although by no means tactical masterminds, possess more of a cold intelligence and can prioritize targets, split shields if they have a low chance of otherwise hitting their targets, retreat to a defensible position if outnumbered, and such. I suppose the AI should see some improvement in terms of teamwork and specialist roles, though. No, we want to keep the player side relatively down-to-earth powerwise. There will be some items with magical properties down the road, but they’ll be rare and hard to get. None of them will bestow the power of necromancy because we want to have a certain asymmetry in power between the player and the AI; necromancers (and all non-human enemies, really) should feel special and alien in a way for their unique skills that the player doesn’t have access to.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/#post-687

19

Yes, you’ll be able to retrieve any equipment after the battle if you win (or in other words, if you don’t flee and leave everything behind). Equipment that isn’t armor can also be looted while the battle still rages so that you can quickly grab that magical sword from your fallen guy before turning tail. There will indeed be bosses! Like all enemies, they’ll come with unique mechanics and won’t just be a bunch of really high numbers. As the game can be deadly already fighting just regular opponents, you can imagine that it will take the combined effort of all your men to take one of those down. We have a concept for two undead bosses so far which we’ll show once they’ve made it into the game.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/#post-715

20

Glad you enjoy the game! (: The billhook has a range of two tiles and can be used from behind the front line, just like you describe. In fact, having a front line of spear-wielders using the spearwall skill and a few billhook users in the back to attack anything that gets through can be quite effective. I don’t think we’ll change the spear to also have a range of two tiles; it would upset the weapon balance when we’re quite satisfied with how the spear works right now and has a tactical niche of its own. Having a range of two tiles works for the billhook because of the trade-off that comes with it being a two-handed weapon; the user can’t wear a shield at the same time and only has one attack per turn.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/combat-demo-feedback/#post-716

21

Thanks for the kind words. I am impressed the demo kept you entertained all weekend – now that is encouraging for us to hear
The current limit is set at 12 per battle because at some point managing more people could really strain the player’s ability to keep track of everything, not to mention rounds taking forever. That number is not set in stone, though, and we’ll see how it plays for a while and whether we should keep it like this.
Definately! Once we have all the basics in place we’ll add more terrain types for tactical maps, including indoor terrain (dungeons, caves, etc).
The release date at this point depends heavily on when and how we can secure funding to go into full production. We’re aiming for a finished game in about a year from now. However, in all likelihood we’ll have an early access version quite some time before that which will allow you to play the game with most features in place and some content still left to add.
I think that’s a great idea. It has actually come up in our internal discussions before, but would obviously require a substantial amount of additional sounds. It’s not a high priority for us but something we’d like to do as we progress further on in development. A rich soundscape like that, imo, is important to have the battles feel lively especially in light of us having only very limited animations.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/observations/#post-725

22

hat’s great to hear, welcome aboard!
I think the perception of ranged weapon damage at least might be somewhat skewed by the fact that the demo so prominently features skeletons as enemies who have a high resistance against ranged attacks (they only take 20% of the damage), even though they’re pretty fragile in melee (they take the full 100%, like all other enemies). Ranged weapons should work reasonably well against necromancers and the other non-skeleton enemies in the demo, also because none of them wear shields. A hit to the head will usually outright kill a necromancer and the weaker zombies.
Regarding ranged weapon accuracy, for the demo we just went with the same slightly above average value as the ranged skill for every Batle Brother. In the full game you’ll be able to specialize your Battle Brothers upon levelup by increasing their ranged skill and selecting from perks that synergize with their role and thereby increase their effectiveness in ranged combat. That said, being able to attack an opponent without him being able to retaliate can obviously be a huge advantage, one most melee weapons don’t have. The mechanics of a blocked line of fire then are also a way to keep it balanced and reward the player for good positioning.
The player won’t be able to command a magic-user in the sense of a wizard or similar. However, since we will have some magic items, and some of them will come with active skills, a Battle Brother could be specialized to be a magic-user this way. In general we want to keep the player side relatively down-to-earth powerwise. They’ll always be a bunch of regular mercenaries and adventurers – a few of which might just happen to carry magic artifacts. Magic aside, we’ll also keep expanding the player’s tactical options by adding more specialized weapons. This week we’ve added the Warhammer, which excels against armored opponents with two new and mechanically unique skills.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/observations/#post-736

23

Thanks, man!
Yes! We’re big fans of all those little details that come together to give a game that extra bit of atmosphere, sense of wonder and exploration. It’s one of the reasons I personally liked both the original X-Com and Jagged Alliance 2 that much. We’ve talked about handing out short randomized backstories to every Battle Brother, but it’s still undecided for now. We’ll definately have special named weapons to find that come with a paragraph or so of backstory (similar to how it is in Icewind Dale and Baldur’s Gate), and we’ll keep a healthy amount of statistics (like the number of kills, battles, injuries, special foes vanquished, and such) for every Battle Brother in the history tab (that can already be seen in the demo but is empty for now). Every Battle Brother also has some character traits of his own and may earn additional ones based on what he experiences – you can read more about them here.
Good question. I’m afraid I don’t have a good answer yet. We’re still in the process of designing the strategy/worldmap part of the game as we implement it, and we’ll see where it takes us. I really like the idea of being able to rescue your captured Battle Brothers, though, assuming the enemy you’re fighting is taking any prisoners at all. It’s something we may want to consider once we’re further along with the strategy part and see if it would fit well with everything else.
Yeah, that skeleton destroyed the shield using the “Split Shield” skill of his axe. It’s permanently destroyed and will have to be replaced. Looking at it this way, shields are a kind of consumable. However, a shield that is merely damaged and not completely destroyed can be repaired outside of battle and won’t have to be replaced.
You’ll definately be able to set up ambushes – both on the worldmap and on the tactical map. The AI plays by the same rules of limited vision, line of sight and fog of war as the player (safe for perhaps a few special enemies that have an in-lore justification not to). However, we won’t have an overwatch system like in X-Com; it wouldn’t work well with the initiative-based turn system we use. You’ll have to let loose those arrows once it is actually your turn (;

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/some-questions-ideas-i-guess/#post-751

24

Welcome to the forum!
The player won’t be creating any characters from scratch at the start of the game. You’re given a few low level characters at the beginning which you can tailor to your tactics as they gain experience and levels. However, every character comes with a background and character traits which you can’t change, and which sometimes makes characters more or less qualified for certain roles. You’re free to replace your starting retinue with men you hire yourself if you feel that they’d be a better fit.
The worldmap plays in pausable realtime, somewhat similar to Mount & Blade.
Yes, different factions have different strategies and abilities also on the worldmap. The undead, for example, will recruit a portion of all enemies slain in battle as zombies to add to their ranks. Unlike with other factions, undead armies can therefore actually grow from battles, assuming their army wins the engagement.
All armies can in theory set up ambushes and this doesn’t require a special ability. The type of terrain an army is on determines from how far it can be seen – while an army on open plains can be seen from afar, an army in a forest will be spotted only when relatively close. Also, the type of army and faction determines how far it can see – for example, human armies have reduced sight range at night, while undead armies will see just as well. Hiding in a forest, especially at night, then, allows an army to ambush another simply by engaging it without giving the other army enough time to react. The ambush condition will probably determine the starting position of any troops in combat, with the ambushed party starting in a disadvantageous position (i.e. not in battle formation), but we haven’t finalized the details on this yet.
Currently, we don’t have a design for a boss that takes up more than one hex, although we might end up with one later. That said, even bosses that take up only one hex will be clearly recognizable as such, and we already have a boss that, while only taking up one hex, is visually quite a bit larger than common opponents to reflect its physical prowess.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/#post-900

25

There’ll be a rusty/old variant of some of the weapons for skeletons to use, the regular one already in the game, and one or two named and possibly magical ones hidden in the world. So I guess that’s three tiers. We won’t do extensive quality levels (well made, finely crafted, etc), though, or do D&D-like +1, +2 tiers. Generally speaking, low level equipment will remain kind-of-viable all through the game in the sense that it will never be completely outleveled or entirely ineffective. Getting hit with a rusty Greatsword on the head can still kill any man.
None of the enemies get a to-hit bonus when you leave their zone of control currently, it must have been bad luck ;)
Thanks for the feedback regarding the werewolves. There’s still a lot of work to be done with the AI, especially as we get to more intelligent enemies than the undead mob.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/page/2/#post-917

26

Indeed we plan on having events! I, too, liked the events of Expeditions: Conquistador. They’re a great tool to bring some variety for gameplay and support the atmosphere. On the other hand, we have to make sure that they’re no hindrance to our open world gameplay and replayability; randomizing them to some extent, like you said, seems a good option. At this point we’re still pretty much at the “it would be cool to have events” stage and just bouncing ideas, so I can’t tell you how our events will work exactly yet. They probably won’t be as dialogue-heavy as the Conquistador ones, though, not least because none of us is a writer.
Also, nice example event you have there (:

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/events-question/#post-921

27

I’d hope so! While the game punishes mistakes with individual Battle Brothers quite heavily, losing even most of your men does not mean you’ll have to lose the campaign. You’ll often be able to recover from losses and defeat, especially in the beginning of the game. Since you’ll have up to a dozen Battle Brothers in battle, and more than that in reserve, losing some of them won’t be as impactful as in e.g. the new X-Com game where you have just 6 men and where losing just one of them can really cripple you and send you into a downwards spiral to lose the campaign later on.
We generally also try to avoid game mechanics that boil down to pure luck and which can be beat simply be reloading. Everything should be beatable with the right strategy from the start. For example, we don’t have critical hits that do massive unavoidable extra damage on completely unpredictable random occasions. Instead, in Battle Brothers, there is a 25% base chance to hit the head instead of the body for 50% extra damage. Essentially, we flattened the curve to make this less of a random game; you’ll do critical hits way more often, but you also do less extra damage than in other systems when you do. Enough to still be relevant, but in a way that is more predictable. Importantly, you can also actively counter critical hits by equipping your Battle Brothers with headgear.
If you accept that you can’t win every battle all the time and that sometimes fleeing from battle is the right option, I think the game should be completable in ironman mode. That certainly is our goal.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/iron-man-mode/#post-946

28

What you describe is something the game inherited from its X-Com roots; in some scenarios enemies are just placed randomly all over the map, roaming until they see something to attack, or see their allies being attacked. Enemies have limited vision just as Battle Brothers do, and unlike for the player, their individual vision isn’t aggregated into vision for the whole group. This pushes gameplay slightly more towards careful advancement and exploration. On the other hand, in the “Defend the Hill” and “Line Battle” scenarios all enemies know of your position and will attack in concert, which puts an immediate focus on fighting it out.
Both feel slightly different to play, and we’ll probably have both in the final game, weighting more towards battles that play out like in the “Line Battle” scenario, with two armies directly opposing each other once they engage on the worldmap. Certain battle conditions, however, like attacking a bandit camp or arriving late to defend a town that is being raided, would have enemies more randomly placed around the map, without every single enemy being aware of your presence from the start. We’ll try to find a good balance for the final game.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/enemies-doesnt-attack-as-a-group/#post-949

29

Enemies don’t rush into battle once they’ve been discovered (they have, in fact, no idea whether they’ve been discovered or not) but once they themselves discover the player, are being attacked (which reveals the attacker to them, just as it does for the player), see their allies rushing into battle, or have vision to an ally which knows of a player position and shares that information. That is, assuming the enemy thinks that attacking is a good option given the tactical situation; a bandit wouldn’t rush to attack 6-8 men on his own, and even skeletons right now often prefer to retreat to a more defensible position or towards allies if the player has a clear numerical advantage that the skeleton knows about (again, limited vision!), or at the very least play more defensively (use shieldwall, spearwall, etc). Zombies don’t care for these kinds of considerations, though, which is one reason why they’re easy to outplay.
If I understand you right, you’d like enemies to rush towards the player from all across the map once a fight breaks, though, on the basis that they should hear the sound of battle no matter how far away they are?

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/enemies-doesnt-attack-as-a-group/#post-951

30

Thank you for the encouragement! I really enjoy reading those stories about how you guys are playing the game. Reminds me why I work on it ;)
The combat log in the demo feels a bit halfhearted I suppose, but we’ve since added more information and will continue to do so. We may also introduce some filtering options so that the spam doesn’t get out of control. Very important for us, though, is that reading the combat log should never be required for playing the game. All essential information should be accessible from reading the action itself and the log is merely an optional way for people to read up on more detail if they are so inclined – hence also its non-prominent position in the top left corner.
Yikes. I’ll look into it. Seems to be a rare bug.
Being pulled (or for that matter, knocked back) is already quite powerful because it also cancels skill effects like shieldwall, spearwall and riposte. Riposte isn’t used by enemies currently, but that’s only because I felt it didn’t really fit skeletons lore-wise and didn’t synergize with vampire tactics at all. Other enemy types will make use of it when surrounded.
We’ll definately have more status effects later on. For example, being blinded or rooted. Some of those will be exclusive to enemies and some can be employed by Battle Brothers as well, if only via rare magical items.
Just your imagination, I’m afraid. Skeletons are more resistant to ranged weapons but take the same damage from all melee weapons. Not in the combat demo you’ve played, but in the current build, skeletons of the armored variety (like skeleton guards and fallen heroes) are easier to beat with club weapons, though, because those are more effective against armor and do increased damage to it (but not to their hitpoints).
We had quite a long debate about this but ultimately decided against dual-wielding. First, like you said, it’s not a realistic fighting style on the battlefield – though admittedly that may seem kind of an arbitrary reason in a world where undead roam. More importantly, though, we also didn’t find a way to integrate this in a satisfying way with our skill based system. What we’ll have instead will be a few offhand items that provide utility. From the obvious one, shields, to things like throwing nets that goblins like to use (and that apply a rooted status effect).
Yeah, we want to have a small popup window with a paragraph describing the enemy and listing their status effects and passive skills. Currently, you see status effect icons dropping on enemies (e.g. enrage on zombies) and have no idea what they actually mean. And this is only going to get worse as we intoduce more enemy types, status effects and passive skills. We feel that the player is left in the dark here a bit too much.
That said, we won’t give out actual numbers for things like hitpoints and will continue to only show relative values as is. We decided early on that fighting enemies shouldn’t be about numbers and min-maxing, and that enemies would feel less like a bunch of stats but more of an opponent you can never really be sure about by hiding the numbers. It already worked well for the original X-Com and gave more mystery to the aliens, in my opinion.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/demo-experiences/#post-1012

31

Thank you both!
We do already show a kind-of-animated white swing effect for most of the skills – perhaps they’re not visible enough? I guess we could also wiggle the weapons a bit on the characters, Prison Architect style, if you think that’d help – although some enemies don’t carry weapons (e.g. werewolves, ghouls). I can play around a bit with that over the weekend and see how it feels.
Regarding decals sticking around, though, I’m not sure what you mean. What decals we have (blood on ground and weapons, bones on the ground) do stick around forever.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/nice-demo/#post-1094

32

It’s been my experience as well that having armor upwards of mail shirts is a winning proposition in the Line Battle scenario of the combat demo. Armor definately is very important for prolonged melee engagements as characters can die from as much as a single good hit otherwise. In principle, this is working as designed. However, as I see it, four things should make just piling on heavy armor not be the straight forward winning formula for every battle in the full game;
1) Heavy armor decreases maximum fatigue and thereby how often special skills can be employed in battle (like Spearwall and Split Shield); engagements can be won without these, but they provide a lot of tactical flexibility. Ideally, their use should be more valuable in many situations than just duking it out with a lot of armor on. If that isn’t the case, it’s something we should do more balancing work on (like increasing fatigue penalties further).
2) Heavy armor won’t be as readily available in the full game as it is in the demo; it will be expensive to buy and somewhat rare to get your hands on the heaviest of armors. Heaving a full team of heavily armored Battle Brothers is more of a late game option.
3) We did a rework of how weapons work against armor (described in an earlier blogpost here) since the demo. While some weapons are even less effective against heavy armor now (e.g. wooden clubs), two-handed weapons and maces do extra damage to armor, and the warhammer is a weapon specifically designed to counter armor. With the “Crush Armor” skill it inflicts up to 400% damage to armor (though the base damage is lower than that of a sword, making it less suited against lightly armored opponents), making short work of it. This gives both the player and the AI some tools to counter heavy-armor opposition; Skeletons already make use of warhammers and try to target heavily armored Battle Brothers, and other opponents able to wield weapons will do so as well.
4) We’ll have a few opponents against which armor is entirely useless. For example, the recently introduced Lost Soul (described in a blogpost here) using its “Ghastly Touch” attack completely ignores armor and attacks hitpoints directly.
As for lightly armored combatants engaging in melee, making good use of Shieldwall is vital. As will be increasing the melee defense stat on levelup and choosing some defensive perks, such as Shield Expert, which increases the effectiveness of shields and Shieldwall further.
If you have any more thoughts on this or other balancing issues, we’d love to hear them!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/page/2/#post-1103

33

Shadow of the Horned Rat, yeah! Just the other day I was saying elsewhere how that game is my personal inspiration for Battle Brothers. It’s one of my all-time favorites which I still regularly play. While it has a different scope with its regiments and plays quite different in battle, of course, for me it really nailed that grim mercenary atmosphere of working contracts for coin and travelling the land in an entertaining way. It’s something I’d like to achieve with Battle Brothers as well, even though we won’t have a linear campaign like Shadow of the Horned Rat does. Playing it over the years really made me wish for it to have an open world, though; for me to be able to decide where the company goes next and what contracts to take. And that’s what Battle Brothers will allow you to do. It’ll be hard to compete with a linearly scripted campaign in terms of atmosphere and pacing, obviously, but we’ll do our best to present contracts in a non-generic way and to provide ample opportunities in an open world for those who want to explore on their own.
As I played Mount & Blade I was constantly thinking of Shadow of the Horned Rat as well, but it never really clicked atmosphere-wise for me personally. Like you said, it may not have had enough focus on the group itself. Also, while I enjoyed the battles, the world felt kind of empty and directionless, and what you did therein somewhat inconsequential. I haven’t played the Warhammer Fantasy mod for it, though, so perhaps that would take me back to the Grudgebringer days more.
Regarding the Fallen Heroes, there are no hidden mechanics going on in the background. Like all skeletons they take reduced damage from ranged attacks, but if the tooltip claims an 80% hitchance, the hitchance really is 80%. It can feel baffling to still miss several times in a row, unlikely as it is, but that’s chance for you. I’ve read that the new XCOM, at least on lower difficulty levels, secretly increases the hitchance if the player misses several times in a row to avoid these incidents, even though it is technically loaded dice in the player’s favor. We decided not to do this for now.
Thanks for your support and the encouraging words!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/finally/#post-1106

34

Thank you for your feedback and support. I agree with you completely. However, be safe in the knowledge that an ingame menu simply didn’t make it into the demo. We’ll have one working as can be expected when pressing Esc in the full game, allowing for loading, saving and changing options. With only separate missions, no worldmap and no way to load or save in the demo we didn’t consider an ingame menu a necessity at the time, although in retrospect I suppose we could have added a placeholder confirmation box when pressing Esc.
The UI as a whole is still subject to change. Only recently did we redo the layout of the character and inventory screen, and it’s quite possible other things will change as well as long as we’re still tinkering with game mechanics. The UI also only has a placeholder look for now (although quite many people seem to mistake it for a final one); only after we’re sure that the UI is finalized will we go on to skin it and give it a look matching the setting and contributing to the medieval/mercenary atmosphere.
Nevertheless, if you noticed other inconsistencies, please do let us know (:

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/inconsistent-esc-key/#post-1109

35

Glad to hear there isn’t a problem with characters being skipped afterall. With the new morale system it should be more of a gradual process until a character flees, and a change in morale status should be more visible due to a status effect icon dropping on the head. Although we didn’t change the size of the white flag at the character busts, it should be easy now to pick up the fact that someone is panicking and attempting to flee. Also, Battle Brothers will soon shout in panic as they’re fleeing.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/cross-bowbillhook-ctd/#post-1141

36

Welcome to the forums!
As individual Battle Brothers gain more experience there are ways to specialize them to take up the role of a leader. For example, the “Captain” perk adds a percentage of the character’s own bravery to that of allies nearby. A particularly brave character with this perk can then keep his troops fighting and prevent them from panicking and fleeing in close battles. This could be especially useful against opponents such as Lost Souls who rely on fear as their main tool. A similar perk is “Inspiring Presence” which increases the combat effectiveness of nearby allies. In addition, we’ll have a few accessory items that befit a leader, such as a battle horn with which to rally fleeing troops.
We’ll probably have the player start out with a handful of Battle Brothers, one of which is a little more experienced, mostly for flavor. However, you don’t necessarily need an established leader character on the battlefield, it’s just one way to go about it. And one that, while offering clear benefits, may also leave you much more vulnerable if you happen to lose that single character that everyone else depends on. These characters could be regarded as your lieutenants; the real leader, you yourself, is leading from behind the scenes and is not represented by a character and therefore also cannot die. Though you’re free to rename any character to your own name, level him up and equip him to your liking, and generally give him the attention you would give your own character in a game, if you prefer.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/page/2/#post-1144

37

The flee mechanic is something we’re still discussing from time to time. At last count, characters should be able to flee and leave the battlefield on their own. That may still change, however.
As for your suggestion, we consider a character fleeing also as one panicking and unable to act rationally. If he’s not moving, he may be frozen or cowering. Having surrounded characters be able to fight normally would make them essentially immune to the key effect of morale and grant them a considerable benefit for being surrounded. We do have characters that will fight to the death, and the player can influence this to a large degree with a level-up strategy that focusses on bravery and perks relating to morale, but it won’t be a result of just being surrounded.
http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/letting-the-community-help-out-with-contract-ideas-futher-up-the-road/#post-1147
Great idea, we’d love to have the community help us out with ideas for contracts. I’m sure you guys have some great concepts we won’t think off. Like you said, we’d have to draw up some rules and lore-guidelines for this first, though.
To avoid repetition as good as we can, the text part of contracts is actually modular as well. I don’t have an example from a contract yet, but here’s one from the “Adventurous Noble” background story, which works much the same way. The story is randomly put together from a series of parts so that not every adventurous noble will have the exact same story.
{A minor noble | As the third in the line of succession | A young and brash noble | A skilled swordsman}, %name%’s life at court {has grown stale for him | is not exciting enough for him with endless studying of court etiquette and history of lineage | feels like wasting the best time of his life to him}. {Wearing his family’s crest proudly | At the encouragement of his brother | To the frustration of his mother | Finally making a decision to change things}, %name% rode out to {prove himself | make a name for himself | earn glory on the battlefield | test his skills in battle} and {live life | see the world | earn his place in the world | earn the title of Knight by his valor}.
Could produce, for example:
As the third in the line of succession, Ragnar’s life at court feels like wasting the best time of his life to him. To the frustration of his mother, Ragnar rode out to make a name for himself and earn his place in the world.
or
A young and brash noble, Bjarne’s life at court is not exciting enough for him with endless studying of court etiquette and history of lineage. Wearing his family’s crest proudly, Bjarne rode out to test his skills in battle and see the world.
They’re still similar, of course, but if we have enough time those (and, of course, contracts) could be made even more varied. We’ll do a more official announcement to include you guys on this once we’re further up into development of the worldmap and are ready to implement all the contracts. I believe we could then also give out a free game key or two for the best contract concepts as a thank you for all your effort.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/another-first-impression-and-questions/#post-1193

38

Thank you and welcome to the forums!
Bandits (which I assume you mean by barbarians) are out to raid villages, take any valuables, supplies and the odd villager, and then leave. Their aim is neither to destroy a village and rob themselves off their future income, nor to take over a village and take up farming themselves. Only the Greater Evil will completely burn villages and cities to the ground. Even then, a certain faction when being the Greater Evil will make villages and cities their own. I don’t want to spoil anything, though (:
If a Battle Brother falls, you can pick up his equipment after the battle, assuming you win. You can also pick up part of his equipment (not armor) during battle and then get the hell out of there with your surviving men. If you lose a battle, all the equipment dropped is lost, as is the game potentially if you get wiped out completely.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questions-on-towns/#post-1211

39

Thanks a lot for your encouragement and appreciation of the work we do! :)
A slider to adjust the ratio of male to female characters in the game is not something we’ll do. Rather, we’ll build a world wherein both male and female characters exist but – keeping in line with history – the majority of the fighting profession is filled by males. Female characters come with their own backgrounds that take into account how a quasi-medieval world treats them, so they won’t just be male characters with different heads either. Just like their male counterparts, some will be more and some will be less suited to the hard life as mercenaries. It’s your perogative as a mercenary commander to hire or not to hire whoever you want (and can afford).
Changing enemy group composition was the original plan, but as we moved onto a simulated world this isn’t as straightforward a thing to do. Opponents now create parties to move about the world based on the actual resources they have available. Handing out more resources for them to create bigger/meaner parties would unbalance the world as a whole, not only as it concerns the player. Adjusting the scarcity of funds is one of the few things that only applies to the player – and is easily done. I suppose we could “cheat” and give the AI extra units in tactical battles with the player only on harder difficulties. We’ll see.
We’ll look into different starting options in the future. For now we want to concentrate on just getting the core game done.
We’ll start with a relatively simple economy based on the idea that every location has finite resources, ways to spend them and often multiple ways to acquire them, all to the ultimate end of presenting the player a dynamic world which they can actually influence. We’ll do a video soon to explain the world simulation (and present the new visual style of the map) which will probably do a better job showing how the economy works than I could do explaining it here.
Yes, villages do supply towns, watchtowers and strongholds. And also each other.
Well, strongholds would probably send out tax collectors, but we’ve abstracted this to them gaining resources automatically for now.
There are no independent traders currently, every trader belongs to a village (or town or city). The idea is to have a few hidden merchants on the map outside of the usual locations, such as a supposed witch selling you a supposedly magical item. It’s something we’ll tackle after the initial release.
We’ve considered neutral mercenary companies before, but they are not currently in the game. Maybe at some point.
We want to have a tavern of sorts eventually where the player can, among other things, pick up on rumors based on actual world events. It won’t make it into the first Early Access release, however.
No, settlements do not have distinct structures currently. It’s a nice idea, though, to give them more flavor.
This hasn’t come up before. Maybe. We do already have both monk and witchhunter backgrounds for characters you can hire.
Yes.
Also yes. Though probably not at first. We’re a bit short on time, so the first iteration of bandits sadly won’t feature that much unique units or mechanics.
Early next year, as in January or February.
I’m not sure what you mean exactly. If you’re rich, feel free to make us an offer to get immediate access ;)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/some-questions/#post-1448

40

Yes, they actually do collect tariffs, though the income from this is low and we mostly added this for flavor back when we first started with the worldmap. Watchtowers get reinforcements and supplies from strongholds via supply trecks which can be intercepted by opponents and also escorted by the player. Supply Trecks are basically well-guarded caravans more able to defend themselves than the civilian caravans sent out by villages.
Well, we simulate the spreading of information throughout the world to a limited extent, mostly as it concerns the sighting of opponents. For example, if a patrol discovers a bandit hideout it has to actually return to the stronghold in order for the stronghold to gain knowledge of it and to be able to send either an assault party to take it down or offer a contract to the player.
Although the player has exact information only in a small radius around their position (the size of which depends also on whether it is night or day, terrain, and such), events with global significance have visual clues which can be seen from across the map. For example, a village being raided will burn and have smoke spiralling into the sky – so even though the player won’t know who is raiding the village and what exactly is going on, they’ll be able to see that there is conflict on the horizon.
We won’t have a general simulation of the spreading of information by individuals taking news from one place to another over a period of time, but, like I mentioned, we’ll have a rumor mechanic eventually which will also mention refugees and the like for flavor as it fits the events. Knowledge about events such as a city being razed will spread more or less instantly.
Finally, see the next point.
We’ll have wandering pilgrims and similar that act as a source of information, though mainly regarding lore and background flavor. They won’t be depicted as actual units travelling the map but rather via events happening as the player travels the world. If you’re familiar with Crusader Kings 2, you’ll have a rough idea of what I mean by events that have you meet a group of pilgrims on the road.
In the world of Battle Brothers there are no official institutionalized witchhunters to be sent a company of. We may eventually have independent groups of witchhunters roam the world, and we already have a witchhunter background for hireable characters, but those aren’t necessarily professionals as part of some institution, and they aren’t necessarily all that efficient in their work. Individual witchhunters can be on a power trip, paranoid and deluded or outright mad and will leave a trail of falsely accused victims just as they may do actual good. People will call on them for help in their desperation, but they’re often despised as much as the original problem for the collateral damage they do. They’re not above the law either and may see themselves hanged, justified or not, depending also on how the local authority judges their doings.
We don’t know yet since the final version is still a long way to go. It will be in the usual price range of a high quality indiegame with a niche audience.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/some-questions/#post-1450

41

We’d very much like to provide mod support, and I agree that it could add a lot to the longevity and appeal of the game. However, since our resources are quite limited at this point, our priority has to be to our core game first. Depending on how things go and whether there is sufficient demand by the community, mod support is something we could also add post-release.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/modding/#post-1490

42

A core element of the Battle Brothers setting is that regular humans, not even necessarily ones with fighting experience, have to overcome challenges with the means available to them. There are no over-the-top attacks for your Battle Brothers, like your archer shooting 3 arrows at once, just those you could realistically pull off with a real medieval weapon. Sometimes those guys happen to have to fight non-humans or even supernatural foes, which makes for even more of a challenge. This asymmetry between your regular humans, limited by what a human can do, and, for example, a necromancer wielding dark magic, is very much intended; your enemies should feel special, alien to a degree. It’s a great ingredient to many a horror movie and key to the atmosphere we want to build. But it would get lost in your run-of-the-mill fantasy mishmash if your guys started flinging fireballs or were, in fact, Elves or Dwarfs themselves.
That being said, if we get the opportunity, we’d love to expand the world with other human cultures eventually, e.g. one based on medieval Arabia – including weapons and armor of that area, unique cultural backgrounds for your characters, etc.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/how-much-fantasy-do-you-want/#post-1561

43

Yeah. I mean, it was a conscious decision to go with fatigue over stamina. It’s not like doing it the other way never crossed our minds. A chief reason was a better differentiation between the action point resource on one hand and the fatigue resource on the other. The way it is now, just by having one work backwards, they feel all the more different, and as you put it so well, fatigue has that certain thematic elegance to it. Nevertheless I’m of the opinion it’s worth re-examining this in light of how the game has evolved.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/suggestion-rename-fatigue-to-stamina/#post-1595

44

Hey there!
There are no plans currently to add cavalry or artillery for the player. We have a faction in the works that does in fact have a cavalry unit, albeit not in the traditional sense, but it is unique for now. I can also see AoE ranged attacks coming for one or two enemy types, if that’s what you’re thinking of regarding artillery – but again, not in the traditional sense with cannons and such.
We absolutely want to have distinct locations, like caves, dungeons, bridges, camps and such, eventually be present on the tactical maps as well. However, it will take us some time to implement them and they’ll have to wait until more important things have made it into the game. Can’t give you an ETA here but it will be after the initial EA release.
We also want to have semi-random events. If you’ve played any Paradox games, you should have a pretty good idea on what to expect. Maybe your Battle Brother with the thief background is held by the authorities of the city you’re just in and you’ll have to make a decision on how to deal with it. Maybe you just met a group of pilgrims that share a bit of lore about the world’s pantheon. Those events will be where we’ll handle most of the interaction between individual Battle Brothers. This as well will be added after the initial EA release.
Thanks for your support! :)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/page/2/#post-1602

45

Yes. The plan is to have characters gain additional traits based on what they experience. As a basic example, some guy who has slain a dozen orcs could get an ‘Orcslayer’ trait which gives him some bonus when fighting them. On the other hand, characters could also collect permanent injuries, like losing an eye, or psychological trauma if they’re the sole survivor of a slaughter. Those features are not in the game yet and will be added some time after the initial EA release.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/page/2/#post-1605

46

Yep, that’s the idea. We want to show permanent injuries on the characters as far as possible – obviously things will become a bit difficult if we’re talking injured legs and such ;)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-questions/page/3/#post-1607

47

Thanks. I like your suggestion and it’s an interesting idea also with the Battle Brothers able to teach each other. It would make the locations more unique as well, which is something they’re lacking in currently. However, it’s not something we’ll do for now. We may consider this again at a later point in development.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/suggestion-for-skill-buy/#post-1628

48

Yes, the limit of 12 Battle Brothers is still in place. It’ll probably stay around that for battles but we want to remove or at least double the hard limit on how many men you can have with you on the worldmap once we have the time to do a proper UI for roster selection (think starting line up for a football/soccer team). Having more than 12 men available will become more important as we expand the injury system in the future, as this will allow you to rotate injured Battle Brothers who need a bit of time to recover from their wounds.
I actually had that same idea about being able to buy a round or two of beer for your Battle Brothers in a tavern for a chance to raise their moale in the short-term. Trying this too often would run the risk of them suffering from the negative effects of alcohol. Sadly I wasn’t able to convince anyone that this spectacular feature was worth investing time into for the Early Access release ;)
A renown system is something we’re considering to add later on as it would open up a bunch of new gameplay possibilities and solve some minor balancing problems for us.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/ideas-for-a-full-experience/page/2/#post-1717

49

We support this with various perks in the utility tree. For example, the aptly named ‘Captain’ perk increases the bravery of nearby characters based on the captain’s own bravery. The ‘Rally the Troops’ and ‘Inspiring Presence’ perks are two more ways to build characters into leaders that improve the performance of others and make sure they don’t turn tail and run in the heat of battle. We don’t restrict you to have a captain, though – you’re free to have none, one, or several captains and lieutenants depending on your playstyle.
Basing the worldmap figurine on a character the player selects isn’t a bad idea.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/ideas-for-a-full-experience/page/2/#post-1759

50

It’s entries with a black-and-white sketch portraying the enemy, their stats (as far as they’re known; they’re uncovered the more you fight them) and a lore entry about their place in the world.
I rather like it and can see something like this working for Battle Brothers as well in the future.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/monsters-weapons-and-armor-lore/#post-1760

51

We’re at a stage now where we feel we have the minimum variety of what a worldmap should have in order to work. Different terrain is something we’ll definately add, but as with most things, time is the limiting factor. It’s always a trade-off; do we want more interesting contracts first? Do we add more enemy types? Do we invest into different worldmap terrain? The ocean is indeed something we’ve planned, as are unique sights peppered across the lands, like an active vulcano. Mountains can already be crossed, albeit very slowly and using more provisions than normal to keep your men healthy.
It’s obviously a bit early to talk about DLC, but indeed, just from a general perspective, a ‘Seafaring DLC’ would be what we’d like to add. A chunky expansion that adds a whole new dimension to gameplay. Another popular vague DLC concept is the ‘Oriental DLC’ which would add medieval-age oriental equipment, character backgrounds, story events, monsters and southern terrain-types like desert. Like you touched on, Jago, the introduction of just a new terrain type opens up a lot of possibilities for neutral beasts that would roam on that specific terrain, for example in the desert.
It’s pretty much the same with the assets for tactical combat. We’re going to add a lot more of them – for dungeons, caves, ruins, villages and other locations present on the worldmap. This is likely going to be one of the things we’ll tackle relatively soonish after the Early Access release, not least because we’re a bit sick of the green plains ourselves by now.
The image showing the shack above is not a screenshot but a mockup, i.e. something composed in photoshop to test things out. Adding the shack to the tactical combat maps in a satisfying manner proved difficult because of the hex-based nature of the maps and we didn’t find the time yet to really work out a good solution. Hopefully, if the game sells well enough, we’ll be able to start working fulltime on Battle Brothers and really make some progress :)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/more-suggestionsquestions/#post-1775

52

It’s just by chance that the beast faction hasn’t been featured in any of the newer LPs – packs of werewolves actually roam the forests on the map, proving to be quite a challenge for the player in the beginning. As they terrorize villages, there’s also sometimes a contract offered to take them down.
That being said, it’s quite true that the beast faction is the one that has received the least amount of attention from us so far, for no particular reason other than being short on time. They only have a single entry in their roster, the werewolf. We even decided on a minor rework for the werewolf some time ago but didn’t yet find the time to implement it.
Absolutely! Having beasts roam the lands is something we wanted to do from the beginning. I agree that hunting them could feel quite Witcher-esque, but I think it fits very well into this low power fantasy world where, in the absence of a mutant monster hunter, you’d hire a whole group of grizzled mercenaries to take down those menacing beasts.
When developing any enemy we want both the particular type of enemy (say, a zombie) and the whole of the faction (say, the undead) to have a clear theme and a distinct feel when fighting against. The same would be true for any kind of beast in that they should all feel distinct. Having the odd large beast is something we definately want to do, and I agree that it would provide for an interesting change, but we don’t want to limit the beast faction to only having those towering hulks. Additionally, having enemies occupy more than one hex complicates things a lot on a technical level (pathfinding etc.). We may end up with a few seriously large creatures in one way or another, but most will be limited to one hex, which could still make their figurine like twice the size of a Battle Brother.
I like your idea about having heads as trophies. We added werewolf pelts a while ago and would add similar loot for other beasts as well.
Yep. Werewolves already roam the forests of the land, leaving them only to chase prey or to cross into another forest. As we add more types of beasts they should get their own matching habitats and worldmap behavior as well, especially as we also add additional terrain types.
The game has an even narrower orientation than a European one: A German / Scandinavian one. This is mostly reflected in the names of characters and places so far, but we want to also extend this to our bestiary to give the game a bit more ‘cultural identity’ instead of being just another random fantasy world. In this spirit we’re looking into both rebranding some of the enemies already in the game (like Zombies, because of their Voodoo / Carribbean connotations, even though the name has evolved beyond that by now, I suppose) as well as making sure that any future creatures fit in. That doesn’t mean that we’ll now work through a list of mythical scandinavian creatures and check them off, but we’ll think twice before adding creatures which very obviously stem from another cultural background. Finally, while having some popular fantasy creatures star in the game is nice (and gave us a good starting point in the past) we also want to add creations of our own to spice things up. The beast faction is a great place to add creatures that haven’t been featured in other games already but are unique to our world.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/the-beast-faction/#post-1783

53

Flies actually do spawn already as corpses lie on the ground for a long while (10 rounds? I don’t remember exactly), buzzing around and crawling all over them. That is, unless it’s raining.
I experimented with wind moving through trees around the same time I added the flies but it didn’t look very convincing. Maybe I’ll look into it again at some point.
Breath effects in the cold is a pretty cool idea, definitely going to try that. As we add more terrain types, we’ll also add some more fitting weather effects, like dust storms in the wastelands, snowing in the north, and such.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/page/10/#post-1819

54

There are already weather effects on the tactical maps – rain and fog with different intensities. It’s pouring down in the ‘Defend the Hill’ scenario of the combat demo, for example. There’s no thunderstorm yet but it’s on the todo list. Weather currently doesn’t have an actual gameplay effect (though nighttime does), but like Jago quoted, it’s something we want to do as well.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/page/10/#post-1822

55

Thanks for the suggestions! We’re continually expanding the list of names and also removing the odd one here and there that turns out not to fit with the concept of our world as we flesh it out more. The Let’s Play series is on an older build from April 2nd and so, unfortunately, doesn’t quite reflect the recent state of names in the game.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/new-names-suggestion/#post-1838

56

Yes, it’s something I’ve wanted to experiment with for a while. No promises on whether it ultimately ends up in the game, though. And no idea yet if you’ll actually end up needing torches or if it’ll be just for ambience.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/page/11/#post-1873

57

I’d also like to chime in ;)
That aspect of one character protecting another did survive in the ‘Shieldwall’ skill in that multiple adjacent characters using shieldwall give an additional defense bonus to each other, since those guys are now interlocking their shields. This makes a shieldwall stronger, the more people you put together. And it feels pretty authentic to me in the way that works.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/suggestion-for-a-new-ability/#post-1879

58

I believe archers also aren’t all that effective in the combat demo because of the prevalence of skeletons who have a 80% resistance to ranged weapons. It’s less of an issue in the actual game because there are more types of enemies, as well as some perks that make it easier to use ranged weapons even when firing at targets engaged in close combat.
I’m afraid a hit to morale for being missed wouldn’t fit in well with how morale currently works in general.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/morale-impact-for-arrow-near-misses/#post-1882

59

Thanks, glad you like the game! :)
We want to have non-combat followers eventually, tending to the logistical needs of a mercenary company. This would likely include some type of healer helping your injured Battle Brothers to recover faster and from more serious injuries once we add a more complex injury system in the future. Healing in combat is something we want to avoid, as in our opinion it would very much break the flow and detract from how bloody and deadly battles are right now. We may add one or two very rare legendary items with magical healing properties eventually, but that’s about it.
Not planned for now, as we’re focussing more on the early to mid medieval times. You’ll notice that we don’t have any real plate armor, either. Still something that might possibly make it into the game at some point in the far future.
We have a few weather effects already (it’s raining in the ‘Defend the Hill’ scenario of the combat demo, for example), but they’re purely cosmetic for now. We want to add more weather effects in time, depending on where in the world you’re at, and also have them have actual effects on gameplay, like you said.
Resource constraints forced us to go without them for now. They’re planned but I can’t tell you when they’ll make their way into the game. Here is a preview of how one might look. We may add some kind of character generation at the start of a campaign eventually, it’s come up now and again in discussions. However, it’s pretty low on our priority list for now as there are so many more things we want to do with the game.
I don’t believe the concept of action cards would fit with our design. The things you’re describing are already possible without the use of action cards.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/some-thoughts/#post-1936

60

What Jago said. We also want to look into that whole bag issue again at some point and decide if and how we can improve it further. Having some items take up more than one slot would require a complete rework of the whole item/inventory system – not sure if that’s worth it. Having items in the bags instead have a fatigue penalty might be an easy solution to dissuade players from carrying around 4 super heavy somethings.
Jago, your idea of granting weapon specializations as traits to characters that used certain weapons exclusively for a long time is great. That’s roughly the direction we were thinking about going as well, while keeping the perks that can be selected upon levelup a bit more general in nature.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/weapon-carrying-capacity/#post-1946

61

Makes sense to me. That particular placement wouldn’t quite work out because the character names are too long, though. We’ll have to focus on bugfixing and tweaking the game for the next two weeks or so, as I’m quite sure a bunch of problems will now appear that our fairly limited group of testers has never experienced before. Once the dust from the release has settled a bit, we can look into it.
Well, we won’t have common consumables like vodka or bandages. Bandaging wounds in the middle of a medieval battle feels quite a bit off and would break the feeling of fast and deadly combat for us. Healing, or even just stopping the bleeding, is something to do outside of combat on the worldmap. That said, we may add some less common consumables in time. If there’s ever a magical ‘healing potion’ in the game, it won’t be one bought in a shop, but a very rare item gotten via some quest or so that you’ll have to think very carefully about when to use.
I’m inclined to agree. As with the suggestion by Sarissofoi, it’ll have to wait a bit until we can get around to handling this.
Yes.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/weapon-carrying-capacity/#post-1959

62

Basically the game will always be about managing a mercenary company at its core. It’ll never become about managing a group of bandits/outcasts, as this would require quite different game mechanics to really do it justice. However, how exactly a mercenary company should behave in a gritty medieval world is quite open to debate. Here is an interesting thread with some ideas on where we could take this in the future, including some shady contracts that would involve raiding caravans.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/strategic-map/#post-1975

63

I know, and I quite like your example. That general idea of the player having to make tough decisions with logical (and somewhat randomized, for the sake of replayability) consequences is exactly where we want to go with the coming event system. This will also afford the player actions of less than exemplary morals – though to what extent exactly is still something we need to figure out. Sorry that I can’t answer more thoroughly to your very comprehensive suggestion, there’s just a lot going on right now.
Indeed, it would require the introduction of a reputation mechanic first. Like you said, we might want to go with 2 values here. A ‘business reputation’ and a ‘moral reputation’. People might hate/fear you for the atrocities your men commit and not agree with your methods, but you might still be their best shot at getting a job done.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/strategic-map/#post-1978

64

We’d like to support additional languages further down the road but won’t be able to do so anytime soon. Reasons are resource constraints and the game still being in a very fluid state where we constantly change out texts and try different things. The fact that many texts in the game are procedurally generated also doesn’t make translations any easier. *If* we add support for additional languages, German will be one of them for sure, as we’re German ourselves.
No, sorry. The game will be playable on Steam only for now, and what you purchase is a Steam key. While we want to have a DRM-free version eventually, it could take a while.
We estimate to be in Early Access for approximately one year.
Yes, once the game is done we’ll definitely contact them.
Unlikely.
:)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-couple-of-questions/#post-1979

65

I’m of the same opinion. This is a point where gameplay and usability are more important than realism, and even then, the realism point is debatable if we’re talking two-handed weapons in general. It’d be confusing to have some weapons be placeable in the bag but not others for reasons not necessarily transparent to the player, and as GOD pointed out, we’d kill off some interesting tactical options that are just now evolving. I don’t really get the fascination with carrying around 3 Billhooks to begin with, but I don’t see it as unbalanced in any case, which would be my primary concern. If we were to implement that fatigue penalty described above it would mean that while some guy could in theory carry 3 Billhooks at the same time he could hardly fight anymore, which works for me.
I’d personally go with reducing the slots to 1/3 at this time and possibly introducing the fatigue penalty unless you guys have an even better idea.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/weapon-carrying-capacity/#post-1986

66

I like the idea of the sling as well, though I have no idea of its effectiveness. Warhammers are already in, as is an orc variant of the two-handed flail. A two-handed hammer is planned.
It’s only young orcs that use raided human weapons sometimes. The reason why is explained in the blog post that introduced the orc faction. We’ll probably add some more orc weapons and equipment in general in time.
Shepard, Stonemason, Student and Apprentice backgrounds are all in, but the last two are combined into a single background. We’d like to add more background-specific starting gear (e.g. a cleaver for butchers), but just didn’t have the time yet to work on that.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/additional-weapons-and-backrounds/#post-2009

67

I agree, that’d be cool. Get on it, Paul!
We’ll probably do both small incremental updates for fixes, tweaks and minor improvements, as well as larger content updates revolving around one or two major features. For example, the introduction of the Goblin faction.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/roadmap/#post-2241

68

Hehe. We have a kind of ‘Beast Hunter’ background planned, in fact.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/damn-werewolves/page/2/#post-2410

69

Pathfinding hasn’t been changed. If they’re off-roads, they’re fleeing from some enemy.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/the-caravans-are-crazier-than-usual/#post-2474

70

Hm, seems to work for me. Is there anything else you recall about the situation?
That’s the AI proving that knives and daggers are in fact not useless. Their ‘Puncture’ skill ignores armor at the expense of some accuracy and extra fatigue. The AI will use it against amored targets if the opportunity presents itself.
Working as intended for now, but something we may want to change in the future.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/skys-bug-heaven/page/2/#post-2495

71

The thing with ‘Fortified Mind’ is that there are just too few enemies yet that really attack your men’s resolve. We have a bunch more interesting planned with some skills such as charm/dominate, so the perk should end up becoming more useful in the future.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/defense-skill-tree-discussion/#post-2560

72

Locations restock every 3 days with quality und quantity based on their current resources. If a location has a poor selection of stuff to sell, it’ll be because that location either has been bled dry or has one or more parties spawned that are using the equipment currently, such as a large guard patrol in the case of a watchtower. You can see how well a location is doing by the text underneath their name when you’ve entered it, but we’ll probably visualize this also in the background image in some way eventually.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/shop-restock/#post-2643

73

Enemies actually already have access to the same perks that Battle Brothers do. Bandit Marksmen, for example, have the ‘Close Combat Archer’, ‘Bullseye’ and ‘Rotation’ perks.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/no-challenge/#post-2650

74

They don’t level; every Bandit Marksman has the same stats (but different equipment).

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/no-challenge/#post-2653

75

The strength rating will see a rework next week from absolute values to values relative to the player, i.e. to ratings like ‘challenging’ based on the estimated strength of the player’s party. This will probably remain a contentious issue, though, because of the wide gulf of player skill. What is challenging for one player could be quite manageable for another.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/no-challenge/page/3/#post-2860

76

Your core intent, I assume, is that you want formations to play more of a role in the game?
The way we want to go about formations is having them emerge naturally from our game mechanics. Based on the different weapons and skills available, a range of different formations has already been developed between different players against different enemies, and this will only grow as we add additional tactical tools and challenges. Having several people close by employing a Spearwall, for example, makes for a natural synergy in denying any enemy access to their Zone of Control without us having to hand out arbitrary boni. Ideally we’ll do a good enough job with modelling the weapons via their skills to their actual historic use so that the tactics employed in the game will end up resembling actual medieval warfare to a healthy degree.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/formation-squad-buffs/#post-3103

77

Equipment used by your Battle Brothers is automatically repaired. No need to drag it into the stash for repairs.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/2-suggestions/#post-3155

78

Prices currently depend on the resources of individual locations as well as the type of location. Strongholds and Watchtowers generally are more expensive than villages and cities. The economy will probably see a rework in the future, though.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/how-are-the-price-calculated/#post-3175

79

Save for an improvement here or there the UI will be one of the last things we’ll finish on this game. With much of the game still subject to change and much more still to come, I’m afraid it’s just not a good investment of time and resources to polish the UI when it may need to be scrapped and redone a few weeks later again.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/gui-improvments-more-information-less-clicking-more-playing/#post-3196

80

Just to avoid any misunderstandings – adding mod support has not become any more definite and is still something we won’t do any promises on.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/character-generation/page/3/#post-3231

81

More like eventually.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/concerning-perk-balancing/#post-3251

82

That’s the way it works already. Move your guys to the edge of the map and hit retreat – everyone on the edge will safely do so. Anyone not on the edge of the map has a high chance of not making it out alive.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/heavy-armour-close-helmet-and-retreat-issues/#post-3357

83

The orc charge has a high chance to stun, but it can be lowered by equipping a good shield and further lowered by using the shieldwall skill prior to impact.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/why-do-charging-orcs-only-stun-their-target-some-times/#post-3546

84

Very interesting discussion going on in here. This is our stance: We will not add a saving feature to combat because a) it does not fit our design goals, and b) it would cost us a lot of time which we’d rather invest into more important things, and things which we want to have in the game in the first place. Adding a loading feature from combat, on the other hand, is something we’ll eventually do simply for convenience.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/no-saving-in-combat/page/3/#post-3557

85

Of course. All worldmap terrain will be represented on the tactical combat maps eventually.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/page/15/#post-3584

86

The difficulty level has no bearing on weapon durability.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/weapons-duralbity-question/#post-3609

87

That’s a planned event, in fact.
Yeah, showing broken weapons on the ground would be cool, but we’ll need to create the assets for this first.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/derethors-idea-dump/#post-3613

88

The skill used has no bearing on weapon durability at the moment. The cost is always 4 points of durability or 2 with the Weaponmaster perk. Weapons don’t take damage against unarmored or very lightly armored opponents (wearing just cloth armor and such).

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/weapons-duralbity-question/#post-3647

89

We’ve just implemented that parties on the worldmap actually get slower the larger they are. Like you said, this makes it a bit more feasible for the player to outrun large armies, especially at the beginning. Also, AI parties are now less likely to chase each other forever, as one will either catch up in time or the other will lose the party chasing it. It’ll be included in the next update.
Not unlike Mount & Blade we also want to introduce parties on the worldmap leaving footprints. This allows the player to both track down parties and follow them back to their base, and to stay clear off of larger parties in the vicinity without them needing to be in visual range.
Finally, as others have already said, we the way we’ll go about worldmap utility upgrades is probably with non-combat followers, not by making the player decide between combat and non-combat perks for Battle Brothers.
I really enjoyed Expeditions: Conquistador btw.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/support-on-strategic-level/#post-3652

90

We’d like to support modding eventually. However, our resources are limited and our priority is in creating the best possible core game first. It could be a while until modding becomes possible and we can’t make any promises at all at this time.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/congrats-minor-suggestions/#post-3702

91

Different qualities for weapons was something we were discussing a while back, but we’ve decided to go instead with distinct tiers for every weapon type. So instead of having a Masterwork Handaxe with a few points more of damage or similar miniscule differences, we’ll have a clear progression from Hatchet -> Hand Axe -> Fighting Axe where it’s very apparent from just looking at the weapon how good it is. You’re equpping 12+ people in this game, so comparing a dozen items looking almost identical and having only very minor differences probably wouldn’t work out to the player’s favor in the long run. If you take into account the fatigue costs, it may even make sense to deliberately go with lower-tier weapons as backup as not to overly burden yourselves, just like you wouldn’t necessarily go with the heaviest of armors all the time. There are quite a few gaps in weapon progression currently in the game but we’ll fill them up as we go along.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/weapon-durability/#post-3722

92

The tooltip already tells the level of elevation in the top left corner. There’s probably more we can and should do to make terrain elevation a bit clearer to see in the long run, but it’s not a high priority task for us right now. The Defend the Hill scenario is an extreme case made specifically for testing usability issues with height level differences.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/recognising-elevation/#post-3740

93

We’d like to support additional languages further down the road but won’t be able to do so anytime soon. Reasons are resource constraints and the game still being in a very fluid state where we constantly change out texts and try different things. The fact that many texts in the game are procedurally generated also doesn’t make translations any easier. No promises here.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/localization/#post-3760

94

Since we’ve yet to add more range-oriented enemies with the goblins, who could pose a serious problem for a build that specialized, we’ll probably leave Nimble alone for now. The Swordmaster, like most backgrounds, will also receive some fitting events on the worldmap, which in his case could mean that age catches up with him.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/defense-skill-tree-discussion/page/2/#post-3803

95

No, we didn’t. I had to do the UI myself to get us in a position for Early Access, but we want to outsource this as we go on.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/what-ever-happened-to-the-new-ui-guygirl/#post-3834

96

There is no Pike currently in the game, but it’ll be in fact added next. The assets are done already.
With the exception of hidden enemies blocking ranged attacks since 0.4.0.40, the hitchance % shown in the tooltips are accurate, as they’re the same that are used for calculating hits and misses. The game uses Mersenne Twister (MT19937) as RNG for equidistributed numbers. Feel free to suggest a fitting alternative.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pikes-and-the-dreaded-80/#post-3840

97

It doesn’t matter if they’re wearing a helmet or not, but the killing blow has to strike the head for a beheading or for being smashed. Likewise, the killing blow has to strike the body in order for the victim to be gutted. The latter doesn’t stop undead from being resurrected, though. The Bloodthirsty trait just sets the chance of a fatality occuring to 100% given the correct bodypart receives the killing blow.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/question-about-bloodhirsty-character-trait/#post-3842

98

The Thrust skill of spears has a +20% chance to hit, and it says so in the tooltip. The Slash skill of swords has a +10% chance to hit.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pikes-and-the-dreaded-80/page/2/#post-3849

99

I think that’s something we could indeed add in time. In general we want to keep a clear focus on managing a mercenary company – however, in this case I feel that it’d be relatively low effort to implement, and having a few more goods to loot, trade or even get paid with would probably do the game good. It could even help giving the villages a bit more character around what they import or produce themselves. Don’t expect a complex trading simulation, though.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/goods-peddling/#post-3864

100

1) No, that’s not right. I’ve fixed it. 2) You may be thinking of the Full Helm. The Great Helm has 320 armorpoints.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/helmets/#post-3878

101

The ctrl key rotates the view by 180°. There’s a bunch of buttons in the top right of the tactical combat UI (including tooltips that tell of their hotkeys) that many people seem to miss.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/recognising-elevation/#post-3897

102

Well, I think the current level of gore gets the point across. We may add a few more things later on if we feel that it adds to the game (like illustrating that certain boss enemies are especially dangerous), but there are no plans to add any other dismembered body parts. There’ll be lot more sounds coming.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/more-battle-reality/#post-3925

103

We want to keep things down to low power fantasy and promote a certain asymmetry between the player and the opponents in the game; Battle Brothers will always be common humans in a pseudo-medieval setting that sometimes have to go up against non-human and supernatural foes. For this reason, your first three points are never going to happen. This isn’t a balancing issue at core but a design decision on how we want the game to feel. However, wardogs are a planned feature for both the player and the bandit faction. Other animals may or may not be added as well.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/new-companions/#post-3976

104

Yeah, I’ve played that game and enjoyed it quite a bit. I also really liked the camping mechanics in The Dark Eye: Startrail (DSA: Sternenschweif) back in the day. Since in Battle Brothers the player has to manage 12+ people we’ll have to see about camping not involving too much repetitive micromanagement, though.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/interesting-camping-mechanics/#post-3977

105

It doesn’t lower the target’s hitchance, it reduces their damage to half.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/new-debilitate/#post-4009

106

1) Not a bug. Just not every Farmhand has a Pitchfork. 2) Huh?

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/skys-bug-heaven/page/5/#post-4053

107

There is nothing wrong with the RNG. The game uses Mersenne Twister (MT19937) if you want to read up on it.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/problems-with-rng/#post-4054

108

Yeah, the Spearwall skill itself wasn’t nerfed, the AI was just tweaked slightly in handling it by adjusting the value of a single constant that determines to what lengths it will go to avoid running into spearwalls. Wiedergangers still charge mindlessly into spearwalls, but they’re supposed to, as having no regard for their own safety or any tactical considerations is part of their identity as mindless undead.
Generally speaking we’ll always try to enable the AI to handle certain player tactics more intelligently before taking out the nerf bat. I have a bunch of AI improvements on my todo, it’s just that fixing technical issues is a priority still.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/spearwall/#post-4060

109

Companions would be managed separately and wouldn’t use any of the slots used for your fighting force.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/new-companions/#post-4108

110

Just to complicate matters a bit; In the future you’ll also have to consider how different backgrounds play together and what they might bring to the team outside of combat. Putting a bunch of nobles together with a bunch of beggars and vagabonds may lead to social conflict as nobles refuse to treat beggars as equals, and having a Hedge Knight means that he’ll solve any potential disputes involving him the bloody way. An old swordmaster can make a good teacher, but age will also eventually catch up with him. Those things are hard to quantify, obviously.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/whould-the-devs-or-members-of-this-community-be-interrested-in-a-comperative/#post-4178

111

We’re going to change the way stats for levelup are determined. I think we underestimated the compulsion that some players feel to reload until they’re satisfied with the numbers, even if doing this for minutes on end may ultimately be detrimental to their experience playing the game. Not that the game is balanced particularly well at present, but it’s also not meant to be balanced for characters well beyond the statistical average as a result of reloading on levelup on a regular basis. Changing this around isn’t all that much work, but unfortunately it would break compatibility with older save games. For this reason we’ll wait with doing any changes until the first bigger update comes along that will break compatibility anyway.
As for save scumming in general, there is a limit to what we can do without making things inconvenient for all the players. At some point we’ll just have to accept that this is the way that some players apparently want to play the game and that it is their choice to make.
At least the loot distribution is going to change.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/abuse-or-intended-a-discussion-about-possible-exploits/#post-4232

112

Yeah, that’s already the case. Militia is created based on the resources a village has, and when the militia is disbanded, the village gets back resources based on how many militia survived. A village can be drained of resources by losing a lot of militia.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/abuse-or-intended-a-discussion-about-possible-exploits/#post-4235

113

Interesting, I didn’t know about that one. That’s a tricky thing to solve, though. I guess I could have stun last another turn when the character hit only has 2 or 3 Action Points left?
The XP gained for slaying resurrected enemies was at 50% before and has since been reduced to 25% in order to remove some incentive for farming this way. Not sure yet if that is a good number.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/abuse-or-intended-a-discussion-about-possible-exploits/#post-4250

114

Unfortunately this can’t be solved the same way as Shieldwall works because it is a fundamentally different mechanic. Reading your description again, I’m actually fine with the way you’re doing this and don’t think this needs changing. However, I think this can be exploited even more than you initially realized;
Being stunned makes a character lose their next turn. If a character would have already spent most of their AP and then waited, in essence already having concluded their turn save for 2 AP or so, and then get stunned, they’d lose that same turn at the end of the round which they already acted on. In other words, they’d actually lose nothing from being stunned. A possible solution would hence be to extend the duration of the stun into the next round in this case.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/abuse-or-intended-a-discussion-about-possible-exploits/#post-4258

115

Yeah, we had that same thought. The thing is that the effect in many cases would be essentially the same as a character being stunned for real. For example, if I knock back some opponent, he’ll lose 4 ap from the shield bash and then 2 to 4 ap (depending on terrain) for closing in again on me, leaving him without enough ap to perform a skill. Of course, an opponent may not always be able to close in again on me due to Zone of Control, and an actual stun would also be better because it triggers the ‘Push the Advantage’ perk, but my worry is that the actual difference in gameplay between a character being stunned or shield bashed is somewhat negligible. That in turn may also render bludgeoning weapons somewhat obsolete, since their main advantage is the ability to stun. But maybe I’m missing something?

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/abuse-or-intended-a-discussion-about-possible-exploits/page/2/#post-4286

116

With 1 AP damage, there’d be very few scenarios where the perk actually makes any difference. Knocking a target towards an ally would still leave it able to attack normally with 8 AP. In most cases, a target knocked away and then closing in again would be able to make one attack afterwards – with or without a shield bash perk that drains 1 AP. The only scenario where I see this having any effect would be a target closing in again over difficult terrain or a height level difference if wielding a two-handed weapon. I doubt that this is enough to make the perk an attractive pick.
With 2 AP damage, the average target wielding a one-handed weapon would lose one attack. It could only make a single attack if knocked towards something it can attack right away, but would not be hampered at all in its ability if wielding a two-handed weapon. If closing in again after being knocked away, the target could in most cases still perform one attack with a one-handed weapon – but this is true with or without the 2 AP damage. On the other hand, it could no longer perform any attack at all with a two-handed weapon after closing in again, which in this case may make it disproportionally effective, close to a stun.
Just based on the way the whole system of Action Points works, I don’t see this working out in a balanced and even way, leaving it useful enough to make the perk an attractive pick, but not too strong against certain enemies to be easily exploitable. But, again, maybe I’m missing something?
Exactly. We considered this as well, but as you pointed out, knocking a target away and at the same time debuffing it are pretty much two conflicting effects.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/abuse-or-intended-a-discussion-about-possible-exploits/page/3/#post-4360

117

As the description says, it grants a +5 bonus for all positive morale checks, i.e. those determining if the morale state should be upped. This means that optimistic characters have a higher chance to gain morale (e.g. changing from stable to confident) on events such as slaying an enemy or seeing an enemy slain by an ally. It is working as intended.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/trait-optimism/#post-4550

118

Normally, a morale check is only performed when the individual getting hit actually loses hitpoints from the attack. However, if the attacker has the Fearsome perk, a morale check is also performed if the individual merely sustains damage to armor. This does not guarantee morale dropping, but it makes it more likely. You can experience this effect in action when fighting Fallen Heroes, because they have this perk as well. It’s working as intended.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/utility-perk-fearsome-2/#post-4551

119

The Optimist trait does not increase resolve itself. It just puts a +5 bonus on top every time the dice is rolled for a positive morale check. This is not cumulative and will always be a +5 bonus.The Optimist trait does not increase resolve itself. It just puts a +5 bonus on top every time the dice is rolled for a positive morale check. This is not cumulative and will always be a +5 bonus.
Resolve does not increase by killing enemies, with our without the trait, so the answer to your question is yes.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/trait-optimism/#post-4553

120

I didn’t say we’d remove the random element on levelup. We will, however, change the way those stat gains are determined in order to eliminate an exploit with saving and loading the game repeatedly, and for that matter to allow for a cancel button on the levelup screen.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/any-infos-on-the-new-level-up-system-yet/#post-4567

121

Are you sure it happened like this? An Orc Young is not supposed to decapitate people with 300 head armor in a single hit, and the Decapitate skill is not supposed to increase damage vs. armor, only vs. hitpoints. Decapitations (with or without the skill) don’t trigger an insta-kill, it’s the other way around; if a character is killed, there’s a chance this is portrayed with a fatality of some kind depending on the skill that killed him.
So, if what you described did indeed happen like this, it’s a bug. The more information you can give about how to reproduce this, the easier it’d be to fix this, since we’ve never encountered this before ourselves. Thanks!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/decapitate-insta-kills/#post-4629

122

That’s an interesting approach. However, we’d like to wait with balancing changes for the Nimble perk until we have established ranged enemies as more of a threat in the game. The main issue with the Nimble perk is the very specialized swordmaster build currently that, while nearly untouchable in melee, would be relatively helpless against ranged enemies or enemies that may be able to switch to secondary ranged weapons at will, like javelins.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/a-nimble-nerf/#post-4630

123

It always triggers a morale check for the enemy hit. Whether that morale check then results in the enemy’s morale dropping depends on their resolve – which differs between different types of enemies, naturally.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/utility-perk-fearsome-2/#post-4711

124

They actually already do that, but perhaps not by enough. The likelihood of going for the shield is increased by 1.25^n, with n being the number of allies surrounding the target, i.e. one ally adjacent increases the chance by 25%, two would increase it by 56%, and so on.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/real-value-of-ranged-brothers/page/2/#post-4742

125

Accessories, such as amulets, are not in the game yet.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/medallions/#post-4759

126

Yes, more hairstyles, faces, beards and stuff will eventually make their way into the game.
Absolutely, we’ll keep adding backgrounds.
Hard difficulty does not make for higher level opponents, so the suggested description wouldn’t be true. Less starting funds are already mentioned in the description.
Difficulty can be very uneven currently depending on how the world is generated. This should be smoothed out a bit with the coming worldmap rework.
As mentioned elsewhere in more detail, we’re toying with the idea to allow the player to create a non-combat avatar. It’s a low priority feature, however.
Yes, we’re considering it along with a bunch of other medieval weapons and equipment that may make its way into the game.
We’d indeed like to have the environment change dynamically to some degree to reflect events on the worldmap. It’s unlikely this will include pathways developing where the player crosses forests, however.
A sort of memorial wall / graveyard is a planned feature.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questions-feedback-and-suggestions/#post-4778

127

There is no fixed chance for this; your opponents simply get a free attack, and their chance to hit is the same as if they’d do a regular attack when you remain where you are.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/observations-on-combat/#post-4797

128

Taunt makes all opponents more likely to attack the one individual using the taunt skill.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/real-value-of-ranged-brothers/page/3/#post-4810

129

That’s not actually how it works.
Every few days there’s a chance that some mercenaries decide to travel elsewhere and new ones arrive. Some may stay a while in a single town, but they won’t stay forever. Sometimes mercenaries leave, but no new ones arrive for a while. Clearing a town of mercenaries entirely will always result in new ones arriving as not to leave the player without any recruiting options at all.
The fact that you eliminated money as a concern when hiring characters is an achievement, but it doesn’t mean you should be able to do the same with quality of characters available, ever. Not that the recruiting system can’t be improved upon, but there is a reason it is like this. If we wanted you to always have the best recruiting options available, we’d do so. But we don’t. We want you to pick up less-than-ideal candidates and mold them into mercenaries, and we want you to keep an eye out for fitting recruits as you roam the lands, not to lay siege to a town until the right recruit strolls along.
I get that reloading until your dream mercenary comes along can be an annoying experience – but that’s one of your own doing, your own choice on how to play this game. It’s perfectly playable without resorting to this.
We won’t wipe the recruiting roster every 3 days and fill it again. However, we may try to make it more based on the location you’re at and your reputation in the world in the future.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/mercs-available-in-towns-traits-are-underpowered-leveling-system/#post-4842

130

No, I’m afraid there will not be a map editor. The game is designed around procedurally generated maps for replayability, and we’ll focus our resources on improving this aspect instead.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/map-editor/#post-4849

131

I wouldn’t rule it out entirely, but it’s more likely we’ll allow for some customization of individual features, especially those pertaining to added difficulty, instead of turning them off completely. Generally speaking we want to design the game as a coherent whole where all the features interlink for the right balance in gameplay and challenge. Removing single aspects may well cause everything else to break down.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/to-be-able-to-turn-off-or-on-features/#post-4856

132

It’s a Warbrand. In the game it handles as somewhat of a hybrid between a one-handed and two-handed sword.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/page/16/#post-4863

133

Indeed. What Kanoe808 is refering to are not classes (there are no classes in the game other than those imposed by the player) but backgrounds, describing a character’s upbringing and their life before joining the company. Even though characters will effectively become mercenaries by occupation the moment you hire them, that doesn’t change the fact that they’ve been a farmhand or a beggar for most of their life, which obviously has a profound impact on what kind of man (or woman, eventually) they are now and will continue to be for the rest of their lives. Some backgrounds can in fact change with events, but only to extend the original background (e.g. a monk taking up a more radical interpretation of their faith).

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/some-suggestions-for-a-great-game/#post-4872

134

Slavery and human trafficking is outlawed and thus hardly a common practise in the part of the world where Battle Brothers takes place. There’s also a few references to it already in the game, such as the Disowned Noble background having the attempt of human trafficking as a reason for him being exiled. It could be argued that serfdom is only a small step up from slavery, of course, but such is the way it works. That doesn’t mean that slavery isn’t a thing in other parts of the world, for other cultures, and if we were to ever explore those other parts we may well take a look at slavery in the future.
Interrogation has come up before. It’s unlikely we’ll include this as a gameplay mechanic of its own, but it may come up with an event or two after battle.
As we said before, this game will always be fundamentally about commanding a mercenary company, never about leading a bunch of outlaws, a trading caravan, or what have you. Making for good gameplay in the long term that does justice to running a mercenary company in a quasi-medieval world is an ambitious task in itself, and something we still have a lot of work to do on, so we’ll focus entirely on that. Things like running a group of bandits would require a lot of attention in order to be more than just a gimmick.
That doesn’t mean that there won’t be different flavors to running a mercenary company available, and different ways to act in the world – including what you’d call dark, like resorting to raiding the occasional lone farmstead if your men run out of food. The upcoming event system includes opportunity for some less benevolent choices, and events will also trigger based on your reputation in the future.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/dark-topic-but-good-for-time-period/#post-4907

135

The vision attribute is an abstraction that includes view range, field of view, depth perception, the ability to hear, and general awareness – all of which can be negatively impacted by wearing helmets to some degree. For why limited peripheral vision would additionally limit the ability to see at night, I direct you to this article. Wearing a heavy helmet when fighting at night certainly does not make any easier a task that is impractical to this day outside of specialized equipment.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/amazing-game-some-suggestions-for-improvement/page/2/#post-4912

136

Just to clarify this; the second option, like you suggested, does not affect wages. You chose not to raise the pay of your mercs, so their wage doesn’t increase. Some may become greedy, however, which plays into future events. This doesn’t mean that they secretly get paid more afterall.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/events/#post-5160

137

Different AI factions fighting each other is working as intended. They may also attack each other on the worldmap. This goes for orcs and undead as well.
Thanks for letting us know about the sprite issue. I’ll take a look.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/not-sure-if-its-can-be-called-a-bug/#post-5336

138

That’s not a bug. Orcs use the charge skill to get somewhere fast AND for a chance to stun someone. They’re not supposed to charge only people who aren’t stunned or engaged already.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/bug-report-orcs-are-stunning-stunned-guys/#post-5374

139

Glad you’re enjoying the game! In fact the coming update will include some AI improvements – including better decision making of when to go on the offense and when to stay on the defense. Goblins use quite a defensive approach to battle, so they most benefit from this, but all intelligent opponents factor this into their behavior now. There’s a lot more I want to do in terms of formation and tactics, like the good examples you’ve given, but it will have to wait a bit longer :)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/suggestions-forum/page/2/#post-5572

140

The functionality of destroying items was in the game at some point, before Early Access, but was removed again, as it added nothing but people accidently destroying part of their inventory. That image is a leftover from that time.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/bugs-build-0-4-1-5/#post-5617

141

1) Not quite sure what you mean. The Debilitate skill has the correct amount of AP and Fatigue costs shown in the tooltip. These amounts are never shown in the tooltip for perks that unlock active skills, however. Is that what you’re missing?
2) The Crush Armor skill always does 10 points of damage to hitpoints on a hit. The tooltip description says so, too. Maybe the skill should be renamed to better reflect what it does – using the weapon to batter, deform, rip and otherwise render the target’s armor unusable, but not for one big crushing strike or so.
Yeah, the blood is from re-ordering the game’s innards ;)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/bugs-build-0-4-1-5/#post-5622

142

1) Oh I see, that’s already been fixed for the next update. Thanks for reporting it, nontheless :)
2) That’s why I said that maybe the name of the skill should change to better reflect what it actually does; it’s not supposed to be a mighty blow but an attempt to specifically destroy armor, and not necessarily by crushing it. In any case, how weapons interact with armor has changed with the introduction of direct damage recently, so that also changed how this skill works slightly.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/bugs-build-0-4-1-5/#post-5629

143

Direct damage is reduced by 10% of the current armor value, so better armor does give better protection, also against direct damage. With good enough armor, no direct damage will bypass armor at all. The more damaged the armor gets, the more damage will pass through, up to the maximum determined by the attacking skill. You can read the details here.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/whole-company-slain-by-5-goblin-wolf-riders/#post-6039

144

I’ve changed it so that the ranged companion will never be a drunkard now.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/build-0-5-0-1-discussion-of-the-patch/page/2/#post-6060

145

A minimum of 5 hitpoint damage is required to cause bleeding currently.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/cleaver-always-causes-bleed/#post-6071

146

I used that many ranged bros mostly to allow for easier focus fire and to take out as many Goblins as quickly as I could. I put them in heavier armor for protection against enemy archers and to make it less likely that they’d get poisoned (which would mean they’d lose vision and be unable to perform their role). Since the Goblins have no flanking units in this scenario to target my archers, they’re otherwise pretty safe and can move freely. I feel that crossbows perform better than bows in this scenario because of their accuracy bonus.
For my melee line I used spears and swords only because of their superior accuracy against the nimble Goblins, and all the Kite Shields available for their superior protection against arrows. Again I equipped all the guys with heavy armor because Goblins have a hard time destroying it. I actually could have done a better job there with the selection of helmets.
I had my melee guys basically charge around the Goblin line at the top and bottom while being spaced out a bit so that the Shaman had a hard time rooting more than one guy at a time. He still rooted like 5 the very first turn, but this only delayed me a round or two. Once my guys made it halfway, I released 4 of the 5 wardogs to charge into the center and keep the Goblins occupied and unable to focus down on my melee troops as they approached from two sides. All the while, the crossbowmen kept firing into the Goblin frontline – even if they missed, there was a chance to hit the Goblin Ambushers in the second row before they eventually moved further back. As the Goblin frontline collapsed I tried to move on as fast as I could to pin down or at least get the Goblin Ambushers on the move and unable to fire on my men while the crossbowmen took care of the remaining Skirmishers. That is also where I deployed the last of the wardogs, to keep a Goblin Ambusher occupied for a turn until I could catch up. The Goblin Overseer succumbed to focused crossbow fire, while the Shaman and the remaining Goblin Ambusher eventually retreated from battle.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/message-for-the-developers/#post-6177

147

Armor showing up as destroyed in the combat log more than once has been fixed.
Other than that I don’t see anything wrong at first glance; Bandit Leaders have the ‘Nine Lives’ perk, as you pointed out yourself, and while Young Orcs don’t, they do have a lot of hitpoints, so things add up for me. Please let me know if you encounter anything else that seems wrong to you. Thanks!

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/immortal-highlanders-and-our-game/#post-6409

148

Sorry, I don’t see it. Note that some of the damage numbers in the combat log refer to damage applied to armor (i.e. damaging the item) and not damage applied to hitpoints. This is the way I read it from the screenshots;
* Body Armor receives 137 damage
* Hitpoints receive 31 damage
* Body Armor receives unknown amount of damage and is destroyed
* Hitpoints receive 49 damage (for a total of 80)
* Head Armor receives 90 damage and is destroyed
* Hitpoints receive 60 damage (for a total of 140) – at this point the guy would be dead if we’re only accounting for hitpoints, since Bandit Leaders have a maximum of 90. However, since they also have the Nine Lives perk it doesn’t matter if he’s dealt 60 or 6000 damage. He’ll always survive the first ‘killing blow’ and have between 5 and 10 hitpoints left. Judging from your screenshot that seems to be the case. The perk works the exact same way for your Battle Brothers.
Let me know if I’m missing something.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/immortal-highlanders-and-our-game/#post-6419

149

For fatalities to the head (beheading, skull crushed) the bloodthirsty attacker still needs to land a killing blow to the head. Conversely, for a fatality to the body (disembowled), the killing blow needs to connect with the body and not the head. The bloodthirsty trait sets the chance of a fatality occuring to 100%, regardless of weapon/skill, but does not change where the killing blow lands.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/bloodthirsty-trait/#post-6443

150

Yes, there will be independently acting subfactions (like different Orc tribes) that may fight each other.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/page/29/#post-6470

151

Well, this is how a game with random hit chances across the whole spectrum plays out. There is nothing wrong with the random number generation in the game on a technical level, the human brain just isn’t particularly strong at working with chance and probability. Try playing poker for money if you want to get real mad at chances ;)
As mrbunnyban suggested, a possible alternative on a design level would be like Pillars of Eternity handles it; adding more outcomes inbetween the binary choices of ‘hit’ and ‘no hit’ would even out the damage sooner, i.e. require a smaller sample size on average for the actual damage to approach expected damage numbers and reduce the element of luck. However, it would also diminish the impact that a single hit has, both in damage numbers and emotionally, since you’re kind of always hitting for small amounts of damage. This would change the feel of combat (and ultimately the game) quite a bit, away from the generally fast and deadly style we want it to have, more towards applying constant damage over time. It’s not perfect either way, but we’ll probably stick with the system we have.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/before-the-new-big-step-forward/#post-6667

152

A pre-battle formation setup of some kind is a planned feature. This won’t require any perks to use. There still will be occasions where it won’t be available, however, such as when being ambushed.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pre-battle-placement/#post-6690

153

Injury mechanics are a planned feature, although they’ll work a bit different from what you describe. Because this will require giving your Battle Brothers some time to rest and heal every now and then, we want to introduce it only once the player has an extended roster that allows for rotating people in and out of ‘active duty’.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/red-fog-the-impact-of-injury/#post-6722

154

Some events will also make use of the injury mechanics, e.g. the ‘training acident’ event may cause a concussion, or a sprained ankle with penalties relating specifically to movement, instead of the generic loss of hitpoints it has now. Other than that, however, the injury mechanics will work independently from events, and injuries are gained mostly due to your actions in tactical combat.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/red-fog-the-impact-of-injury/#post-6724

155

Battle Brothers will be singleplayer only.
The game is already very ambitious as is for so small a team, so we need to really focus on the game’s core experience and make it the best we can if we want this to turn into a great game that gets finished in a reasonable amount of time. Doing multiplayer right would have meant including it in game design and programming from the very beginning, which would have added a huge amount of work for us, ultimately to the detriment of other features as we spread ourselves too thin. Even without multiplayer there are lots of cool features we’d really like to add but cannot, at least for now, due to the time it would take.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/multiplayer/#post-6764

156

Thanks for your effort! I’m sure some Russian speaking players will appreciate this.
We’d like to support additional languages further down the road but won’t be able to do so anytime soon. Reasons are resource constraints and the game still being in a very fluid state where we constantly change out texts and try different things. The fact that many texts in the game are procedurally generated also doesn’t make translations any easier. No promises when or even if additional languages will be supported.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/about-the-russian-language-in-the-game/#post-6776

157

We have some ideas on how to enable editing a character’s appearance in-game, but it’s pretty far down on our list with so much other important things to do first, I’m afraid.
The game currently does not support modding. We’d really like to support it eventually, but our resources are limited and our priority is to create the best possible core game first. It could be a while until modding becomes possible, if at all, and we can’t make any promises at this time.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/when-can-we-edit-mod-or-characters/#post-6806

158

Neither. It’s a hit with increased damage that can hit either body or head, but on a killing strike will decapitate.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/decapitate-insta-kills/#post-6814

159

A fair point, and something we’ve considered in the very beginning but decided to not go with. The thing is, introducing a system with ‘glancing hits’ would at the same time diminish the impact that a single hit has, both in damage numbers and emotionally, since you’re kind of always hitting for small amounts of damage and individual hits become less meaningful. This would change the feel of combat (and ultimately the game) quite a bit, away from the generally fast and deadly style we want it to have, more towards applying constant damage over time. Consider that missing in combat is also a buildup for when next you hit, which then feels all the more rewarding.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/redefining-a-miss-in-combat/#post-6816

160

You’ll always control human mercenaries in Battle Brothers. Although eventually those may be of different cultures than just the northern european one currently in the game.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/other-fractions/#post-6955

161

We’re considering different ways of improving the experience of playing on densely packed combat maps, like forests. There have been a lot of good suggestions by you guys regarding this, it’s just that we’ll focus on the worldmap rework first, then overhaul the combat tiles, and then see what actions need to be taken. That said, the fact that ranged weapons perform worse in forests and similar environments providing lots of cover is working as intended, and I dare say authentic.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/suggestion-rework-forest-battles/#post-7059

162

Maybe this video can help shed some light. Even though it is almost a year old by now, it still demonstrates how the AI acts on the worldmap independently of the player.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/suggestion-random-roaming-bands/#post-7072

163

Yes, there’ll be a few events concerned with noble backgrounds and their relation to noble houses. It’ll be mostly for flavor, though, and not a big gameplay thing.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/will-noble-mercenaries-have-relations-to-noble-houses/#post-7308

164

There is now ;)
“As Brothers we fight, as Brothers we die!”
“Got an idea on how to improve the game? Let us know!”
“Shields can be destroyed using axes and some two-handed weapons.”
“Shrubbery can hide characters from being detected from afar.”
“A character with a height level advantage against his opponent is harder to hit.”
“Characters can see farther, the higher they are positioned.”
“Overwhelming a character by attacking from multiple sides makes it easier to score a hit.”
“Ranged weapon accuracy drops with distance.”
“A missed ranged attack can hit nearby characters, especially if they are in the direct line of fire.”
“Bows can not be fired and crossbows not reloaded while engaged in melee.”
“Bows perform better against unarmored targets.”
“Ranged weapons work best when firing into groups of enemies – they are bound to hit someone.”
“Consider forming a shieldwall when overwhelmed.”
“Conserve your stamina when in prolonged engagements.”
“Undead are unaffected by fatigue and morale.”
“Crossbows require less skill to fire accurately than bows but are slower to use.”
“Each type of weapon has advantages and disadvantages.”
“Some difficult terrain, like swamp, gives combat penalties.”
“You can rotate the map using the CTRL key.”
“You can change camera height levels using the + and – keys.”
“Clubs and maces can stun or incapacitate targets.”
“Greatswords can hit multiple targets with one strike.”
“You can zoom in and out using the mouse wheel.”
“Spears are good defensive weapons due to their Spearwall ability.”
“Expect to lose some men.”
“View range is decreased at night, both in combat and on the worldmap.”
“Skeletons are highly resistant to ranged attacks.”
“Heavy armor offers great protection, but also slows down the wearer and makes him tire more quickly.”
“Heavy helmets can be hard to breathe in and limit the field of vision.”
“Warhammers are best against heavily armored opponents but not that great against unarmed ones.”
“The Billhook and the Pike can attack over 2 tiles, unlike most other melee weapons.”
“Flails ignore the defense bonus of shields.”
“More and different enemies will be in the final game.”
“Leave us feedback at our website so we can improve the game!”
“A human is no match for an adult orc physically.”
“Orcs rely on raw power and physical prowess.”
“A goblin is no match for an adult human physically, so they rely on wit and dirty tricks.”
“Orc Berserkers gain rage and get tougher to take down, the more blood they have drawn.”
“Lost Souls are lost between the physical world and the world beyond, constantly shifting between the two.”
“Lost Souls test the resolve of your men – the lower, the more likely they are to panic and flee.”
“Two-handed axes can hit both head and body with a single hit.”
“Two-handed axes can hit up to 6 targets with a single round swing.”
“Roads are the fastest way to travel over land, but not always the safest.”
“Forests can hide many dangers within.”
“Wiedergangers are the dead walking again.”
“Difficult terrain, such as mountains and swamp, has your men use more supplies on the worldmap.”
“If you can not win, flee to fight another day.”
“Try to reach the very edges of the map before retreating, or you’ll risk your men not making it out alive.”
“Use the spacebar key to pause on the worldmap.”
“Not every contract is worth the risk.”
“Not every battle can be won.”

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/in-game-tip-list-loading-screens/#post-7428

165

Fatigue also reduces initiative, which makes it -20 initiative effectively. This works the same for any equipment you wear.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/war-dog/#post-12037

166

We’d like to support additional languages further down the road but won’t be able to do so anytime soon. Reasons are resource constraints and the game still being in a very fluid state where we constantly change out texts and try different things. The fact that many texts in the game are procedurally generated also doesn’t make translations any easier. No promises here, localisations may or may not come.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/localisation-incoming/#post-12114

167

Thank you for your suggestions and the kind words. I’ll quickly go over all your points, as you requested.
1) No to nets ‘misfiring’. Maybe to others being able to free their allies.
2) No. It’s important we keep weapon types distinct and useful for different reasons, in different situations. Adding half-swording and similar techniques would blur the difference between weapons too much.
3) Yes, these are in the game now.
4) Yes, also in the game now.
5) Yes and no. We’ll look at leveling and endgame balance when we revise the perk system and introduce a more complex injury system later down the road. However, we’ll not let you scale indefinitely (whether achieved through a level cap or other means) and we’ll not scale enemies with you indefinitely.
6) Yes.
7) No.
8) Escort contracts work differently now, so no.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/cool-new-ideas-old-ones/#post-12209

168

We’ll link it to a reworked mood system in the future to give you a bit more of a buffer when running out of money/provisions. Whether you have an active contract or not already figures into their decision of whether to desert you or not, btw.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/desertion/#post-12643

169

They do get repaired, but it takes time.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/problem-game-thus-far/#post-12838

170

It does go away after a few days, but it can be up to 5. Still, adding a way to give a definite ‘no’ after negotiations took place might make sense.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/decline-a-negotiated-contract/#post-12861

171

Constructive whining ;)
The speed of parties on the worldmap scales with their size, both for the player and the AI. Smaller AI parties will thus be able to catch up with you in time, but you can also run away from larger AI parties in the beginning.
Wind magic and such doesn’t fit the setting, but we’ve reduced the price of fast travel by ship to half for the next update for it to become a better alternative to going by foot. Travel speed in general is something we may still adjust as development continues.
Finally, we’ll also be looking into ways to make retreating from battle a bit less tedious.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/different-parties-should-have-different-speeds-on-the-world-map/#post-12916

172

Changed it so that 3-skull-contracts start to appear only after a few days have passed. Thanks a lot for reporting all these issues, btw :)

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/skys-bug-heaven/page/7/#post-13658

173

Next update will change the contract so that the caravan provides provisions to your men for the duration of the journey.
I don’t know whether the orc marauders were part of the contract or just on their way elsewhere when they spotted the caravan. The contract may sometimes spawn enemies because not running into any opponents at all was a problem for the previous incarnation of this contract, but it doesn’t always do so. It’s usually enemies going about their business in the world that you run into while escorting caravans.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/caravan-escort-disaster/#post-13776

174

Settlements may not send their militia if they consider it suicide. In this case, the vampires aren’t attacking them but you, some mercenaries, so it’s not really worth dying over.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/being-chased-by-the-vamps-city-garrisons-wont-fight-them-huh/#post-16656

175

This is not a bug. The same type of item can have different prices on the marketplace because the marketplace combines offers from different merchants in one place.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/minor-arrow-cost-bug/#post-17108

176

All of the accessories, except for wardogs for obvious reasons, can be put into the bag slots.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/first-feedbacks-after-last-update-new-skills-and-injuries/page/3/#post-17113

177

Don’t go looking for contracts at forts and castles in the beginning. The nobles won’t give you any work until you have amassed more renown, and the civilians living there have no need of you since they have the nobles to take care of them.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/increase-the-number-of-contracts/#post-17401

178

Battle Brothers is about leading a travelling mercenary company of regular human beings in a low fantasy world. Trading, magic and governing castles are all interesting concepts to explore in games of their own, but not in a game which has had a different focus from the very beginning.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/some-conceptual-ideas/#post-17890

179

Given time, settlements already restore those on their own.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/can-you-restore-destroyed-industries/#post-18244

180

No, you can’t suffer additional injuries from bleeding.
No, orcs don’t have the ‘Crippling Strikes’ perk.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/bleeding-dont-kill/#post-18549

181

The next update uses a different color for footprints and has contract-related footprints stand out a bit.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/clearer-contract-related-footprints/#post-18993

182

Fangshire is a unique legendary item, not a randomly generated named item, and thus has no red glow. Legendary items will have a blue-ish glow with the coming update.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/fangshire-has-no-reddish-glow/#post-19211

183

Not to curtail your creativity in any way, but the ability to easily attack other parties that aren’t hostile is a simple convenience feature. It has always been possible to attack them if you sabotage relations to their faction first. As the dev blog explained, there won’t be any new gameplay associated with banditry for now.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/questionsuggestion-for-devs/#post-19273

184

Working as intended. Some opponents act as a leader to others, boosting their resolve.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/bug-report-bandit-leader-still-has-sergant-aura/#post-19428

185

It’s 25% to your initiative for the purpose of determining the turn order.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/how-heavy-is-the-penalty-next-round-if-you-wait/#post-19917

186

The party that initiated combat is regarded the attacker, so if you were to click on them first to open the engage dialog, they’d technically be on the defensive and be free to choose whether to charge or hold position.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/sickening-stalemate-battles-after-being-ceaselessly-pursued-on-the-world-map/#post-20078

187

The update accompanying the DLC will include some balancing changes for late game crises, including how active the enemy is in razing towns across the map, and how long it takes to beat a crisis. I’m afraid that anything beyond this is outside the scope of a DLC focused on beasts and exploration, even though I believe these are good ideas.

http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/late-game-crisis-and-perma-destruction-in-the-dlc/#post-22749

188

Post

Link

Time

Yes, but that would feel like ripping you guys off. I mean, a single ingame item for 5$? Sure it looks cool, but come on. The Supporter Edition isn't really about the additional content you get, but a way for you to support us in further development of the game if this is a project you truly believe in. A bit like it works on Kickstarter - only you get to play the game you're backing right away. You'll get the helmet as a thank you for your trust in us.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618459931321061955/#c618459931321823828

1

We'd like to support additional languages further down the road but won't be able to do so anytime soon. Reasons are resource constraints and the game still being in a very fluid state where we constantly change out texts and try different things. The fact that many texts in the game are procedurally generated also doesn't make translations any easier. *If* we add support for additional languages, German will be one of them for sure, as we're German ourselves.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618459931321768262/#c618459931321852331

2

This game is very much about managing a mercenary company at its core, and we want to focus on that experience and make sure the game really delivers on that instead of spreading ourselves too thin. For this reason you won't ever be able to build castles or take them over. However, we'll introduce some base management mechanics along the road with hireable non-combat followers tending to the logistical needs of the company. Being able to pillage/rob yourself is something we may add in time to some degree, depending also on how the game develops, but not right away.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460129741030836/#c618460129741245365

3

If I may quote myself; this game is very much about managing a mercenary company at its core, and we want to focus on that experience and make sure the game really delivers on that instead of spreading ourselves too thin. It's for this reason that the game will always stay about the player leading a mercenary company taking on contracts. The contract system can and it will be improved by a lot over time, and we'll add other features adding more depth to worldmap gameplay. However, you'll never be able to build up a 'subsistence economy' that would work against the core game loop. Different quality of equipment is something we're looking into. In fact, we already toyed around with rusty weapons for skeletons but weren't quite able to add this in a satisfying way in time to include it in the initial release.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/#c618460129742165526

4

Have any of you played Pillars of Eternity by chance? That idea of mercenaries with a high business reputation but a very low morale reputation reminds me of the Bleak Walkers[pillarsofeternity.gamepedia.com]. I find the concept of different philosophies to handling yourselves as mercenaries quite interesting and can see it working for Battle Brothers in the future, once we have the gameplay to support this in a meaningful way. We just need to be careful not to stray too far away from what is the core premise of the game - leading a mercenary company.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171315241263/#c618460171316714182

5

For a witchhunter, witches certainly exist. Just like they did for witchhunters in real life. Our witchhunters are anything from honest people trying to protect the people from a danger they are too blind to see, to deeply obsessed with their work and not picky about their methods, to power-hungry and mad. As others have pointed out, we're deliberately going for an asymmetric balance of power when it comes to magic. You're leading ordinary humans that sometimes have to prevail even against supernatural foes by going to their very limits. This makes these opponents all the more alien and unique than if their powers were something you had access to as well, and all the more satisfying to take down.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171314253375/?ctp=2#c618460171317183372

6

Zombies that get up again push characters aside if they're standing ontop, so that won't save you ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/#c618460171318216501

7

Werewolves don't feed on corpses, but Ghouls do. They have to stand on the very tile the corpse is on in order to do so. Blocking tiles with corpses on does prevent Ghouls from consuming them and growing in size, since they have no way to push back characters.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/?ctp=2#c618460171318263108

8

Thanks for the encouragement :) We found horses not to fit well with the small scale battles we have now. The game is balanced around skirmish-level infantry combat in terms of map size, game mechanics and skills. I'm not saying horses will never ever make their way into the game, but definitely not for some time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/135510194253284755/#c618460171318323567

9

Not yet, but we want to have some eventually. Female characters will come with their own backgrounds that take into account how a quasi-medieval world treats them, so they won’t just be male characters with different heads either. Just like their male counterparts, some will be more and some will be less suited to the hard life as mercenaries. Here is a preview of how they might look: http://battlebrothersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/battle-sister.jpg

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/?ctp=2#c618460171318376221

10

Not yet, but both of these features are planned. We want to introduce a more complex injury system in time which allows for permanent scarring, missing eyes, broken limbs and also psychological trauma for sole survivors and such. Most of these injuries will be visible on your Battle Brothers (so you can see that a guy really has an eye missing) and they'll lower and sometimes also raise character attributes (so a limping character might be slower, but a heavily scarred character might also gain some resolve, being a veteran that's not easy to scare anymore). Some injuries will be permanent in nature (like missing eyes) and some can be recovered from (like broken limbs), even it may take some time. We also want to introduce non-combat followers, sort of the auxiliary part of a mercenary company tending to its logistical needs. These would include hunters that gather food so that you need to buy less provisions at villages and cities and can journey through the wilderness longer, but also healers, which would help your Battle Brothers to recover faster and from more serious injuries. We're interested in hearing your suggestions here as well!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171320138459/#c618460171320359823

11

Replayability is quite important to us. For this reason both the worldmap and all the tactical combat maps are procedurally generated and look different every time. Sometimes there are orc tribes living quite near, sometimes it's the undead pouring down from the snowy wastes of the north that are the main problem. Same with all the mercenaries you can hire - they're randomly generated and between their individual looks, background stories and character traits there is a lot of variety. The campaign won't be linear and won't have you play through the same missions every time. We'll keep it pretty open as not to conflict with the open nature of our game world. If you've ever played Jagged Alliance 2, you should have a rough idea of where we'll be going with this. The ultimate goal was deposing Deidranna, of course, but you had free reign on how to do that. There were multiple milestones on the way, like taking the airfield, which would make things easier for you but were not strictly necessary. Sort of like optional milestones on the way. Same here. Military outposts and castles actually already offer contracts of their own which can be quite difficult: taking down bandit and orc encampments. There will be more coming, of course, and we're looking into make contracts more interesting, varied and complex in general.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/?ctp=2#c618460171320421215

12

We originally didn't want the player to be able to take up several contracts at once in order to avoid that situation with some RPGs where you'd have several dozen quests in your questlog, not even remembering where you got them in the first place, and just very mechanically checking them off one after the other. I agree with you, though, that it doesn't make that much sense with the errant type contracts currently. As we add reputation mechanics and more time-limited contracts, having the possibility of several active ones at the same time is something which we should take a look at again. I actually really like game mechanics where we don't force an arbitrary hard limit on the player but there's a soft limit just based on what the player can realistically do, like you suggested.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/?ctp=2#c618460171320461181

13

There are no dragons currently in the game. We want to add a lot more enemy types over the course of the Early Access, though, so who knows if one might make it in eventually. If so, they'd be a rare boss-level opponent and not something you'd meet often. We have quite a selection of gear available that is based on real medieval equipment. Legendary items - very rare but also very powerful - are not yet in the game but are a planned feature. Only a few will exist in each campaign, taken at random from a larger collection. They’re also very hard to come by, and you’ll have to invest some resources in order to locate them and claim them for yourself, i.e. they won't just drop as random loot. The only legendary item already in the game is 'The Fangshire' which you get as a thank you for purchasing the Supporter Edition of the game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171321167442/#c618460171321231531

14

Yeah, changing their worldmap behavior is something we might want to do. I think there's a bit more we can do with the day/night cycle in general. Werewolves and undead are already more dangerous at night, because they, unlike your men, don't suffer from penalties to view range and accuracy due to nighttime.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/?ctp=2#c618460171324277524

15

Yes, we'd like to support modding eventually. However, our resources are limited and our priority is in creating the best possible core game first. It could be a while until modding becomes possible.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171322373292/#c618460171322417455

16

Yeah, changing their worldmap behavior is something we might want to do. I think there's a bit more we can do with the day/night cycle in general. Werewolves and undead are already more dangerous at night, because they, unlike your men, don't suffer from penalties to view range and accuracy due to nighttime.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154641879461518480/?ctp=2#c618460171324277524

17

Well, he's a professional craftsman building bows, not a professional archer, but I see your point.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171325777488/#c618460171325847137

18

There is a base value generated randomly and independently from the character background. The background then adds or subtracts a value shown in its tooltip (so +5 Ranged Skill for the Bowyer, I believe). Quite possible it still needs tweaking. Edit: Damn you, Airnesto!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171325777488/#c618460171325800467

19

No, there is no censored version.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171326412195/#c618460171326480309

20

Yes, we'd like to support Linux and Mac in the future. Probably not mobile.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171326989801/#c618460171326992678

21

You get both benefits only against stunned targets. I've clarified the description in the game a bit. Any other descriptions that might need clarification? The Bloody Harvest perk would grant you a benefit also with ranged weapons - if there were any ranged AoE attack for the player. Maybe in the future.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328120840/#c618460171328222060

22

Glad you're enjoying the game! A brave soul has started this wiki for Battle Brothers: http://battlebrothers.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_Brothers_Wikia I like the camp idea as well. We've toyed around with the concept before and it's something we'll probably add in time, together with the non-combat followers that are to come.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328225594/#c618460171328314362

23

An optional ironman mode is something we've wanted to add from the beginning. However, since the game was released less than a day ago it's pretty much inevitable that there are a bunch of bugs that we've never encountered before. We really didn't want you to lose your ironman playthrough due to a bug, so right now you're better of self-enforcing the ironman rule. Once the game is more stable, we'll add a real ironman feature.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328259740/#c618460171328653167

24

Yes, we'd like to add that. Things like offering caravans on the move your services, or getting info from patrols wandering the country.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171328749866/#c618460171328952684

25

Glad you like it! Modding support is something we'd really like to add eventually if we get the opportunity, as we share your opinion that the game would be a good fit for this. However, with our tight resources we have to focus on finishing the core game first. Could be quite a while until we're able to add mod support.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364020145901/#c620712364020804489

26

You can only choose a banner from a premade selection right now. The ability to create your own banner with shapes, colors, etc is something we have planned. I've edited the website because it was misleading in this regard.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364020015170/#c620712364020868915

27

Because the caravan is more juicy, I guess.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364020994384/#c620712364021032306

28

Oh, I see. That's not a bug but a design decision; you can only walk through one ally at a time. It's the same rules for the enemies. We'll add both an indicator where your band is going on the worldmap, as well as footprints left by any party. This way you'll have an easier time finding roaming enemies and can even follow them to their home base by their footprints. The world may even feel a tiny bit more alive this way.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/620712364021437824/#c620712364021046835

29

F5 for quicksave, F9 for quickload

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364020707644/#c620712364021049708

30

They do not currently run out as we didn't have the time to add AI for switching quivers, scavenging ammunition lying on the ground, and such. It's something we want to add, though. The AI really shouldn't cheat in this game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022663768/#c620712364022704896

31

Well, the descriptions don't really match up because we give "running out of provisions" as an example for people leaving. The traits themselves, however, shouldn't be exclusive. Someone can be both spartan and disloyal.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022765012/#c620712364022928842

32

Hover over the difficulty settings when creating a new campaign to see a description. The difference is mostly in the economic aspect: you start with more/less resources and stuff costs more/less. Hitchances, damage, number of enemies and AI behavior are the same for all difficulty levels.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364023463522/#c620712364023471807

33

Hitchances, damage, number of enemies and AI behavior are the same for all difficulty levels. We don't want to jump to any quick nerf action after the game has been out for just over 2 days, but we'll keep an eye on how things develop as you guys get more experienced in battle. Agreed about the mid to late game challenges. There's a lot more enemy types we want to add in the future. In fact, this should also alleviate the 'werewolf problem' a bit, as then there'd be other creatures roaming the woods as well, some of them potentially easier for a starting mercenary company to take on.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022265926/?ctp=2#c620712364023502503

34

No, arrows and javelins probably won't end up being collectible from the ground; they're considered broken once used. Quivers and stacks of javelins can be looted mid-battle, however. We'll have to break savegame compatibility multiple times as we add new major features over the course of the next year - there isn't really a way around it, and you'd want to start a new campaign anyway to get the best out of those features. However, we'll make an announcement when updates do break savegame compatibility. The smaller updates with fixes, tweaks and minor content additions won't break savegame compatibility.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171330125875/#c620712364023521476

35

That's intentional; different people are prepared to pay you different amounts for a task and you have to find contracts that are worth the risk vs. the reward for you. This will become even more pronounced as we overhaul the contract system to include rewards other than money.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364024581693/#c620712364024586948

36

Raise the Resolve attribute of your men and/or make use of the Captain perk so that the Lost Souls can't send them fleeing. The 'Fortified Mind' perk also makes characters immune to their scream, though they can still flee if others start panicking because of them

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364024306367/#c620712364024639393

37

To get out of a Zone of Control you can Knock back the enemy with your shield Hook the enemy away with a Billhook Stun the enemy with the Knock Out skill Use the Footwork skill Use the Rotation skill - although another character would then take their place in the Zone of Control Use Shieldwall before attempting to leave for a much higher chance to get out without getting hit

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022265926/?ctp=3#c620712364024661548

38

Villages will only create militia if they have the resources to create a party strong enough to have an actual fighting chance when going against the enemy spotted. People being grateful for coming to their aid is something we'll definitely add in time, once we have the event system in place.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364024755258/#c620712364024762425

39

Ghouls aren't technically undead, though. They just travel along with the undead, like seagulls travelling with a fishing boat, feasting on corpses. Since they aren't undead, they also suffer from morale and fatigue. Some good suggestions in this thread, we'll discuss a solution to this once we have the critical stuff out of the way.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364023235424/#c620712364025189444

40

We'll rework the rating system. One idea is to have it not be in absolute terms but relative to your own party's strength - so weak would actually mean (probably) weaker than your party. Bandits Marksmen have the 'Close Combat Archer' perk currently, which can make them quite deadly on short ranges.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022265926/?ctp=3#c620712364025230250

41

Crossbows are much too sophisticated for our orcs. However, young orcs will make use of javelins once we have time to write the AI. You can read more about orcs in our world here: http://battlebrothersgame.com/dev-blog-30-orc-faction-reveal/

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022663768/#c620712364025297057

42

There isn't and there won't be. However, we do want to add an info window giving a description of the enemy and more info about their perks and special skills eventually.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025355816/#c620712364025382005

43

Yes, non-combat followers will be blacksmiths, healers and such. We'd like to support additional languages further down the road but won't be able to do so anytime soon. Reasons are resource constraints and the game still being in a very fluid state where we constantly change out texts and try different things. The fact that many texts in the game are procedurally generated also doesn't make translations any easier. No promises here.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/#c620712364025409340

44

Hey there. Thank you for sharing your ideas with us. I'm short on time, so I'll answer only very briefly to your points. Be assured, though, that we read all the suggestions on these discussion boards, even if we might not comment on all of them in detail. 1) Planned, of course. The whole contract system will be overhauled. 2) Definitely! 3) Probably not going to happen as a real game mechanic, but might be something to do as part of a quest. 4) No. 5) Well, there are Goblins coming. 6) Definitely! 7) There won't be a stationary guild home, but there will be a camping mechanic. 8) Definitely! 9) Noted. 10) Yes, it's being discussed. 11) Yes, there will be enemy mercenary companies roaming the world eventually.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364026909615/#c620712364026939732

45

Assuming I understand you correctly; no, you won't ever be able to save and reload during battle.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364026664904/#c620712364026957581

46

Werewolves are not classified as undead, they're beasts. They suffer from both morale and fatigue - it just takes a lot for them to actually become exhausted. The overwhelm bonus is not triggered by surrounding the enemy, but by attacking the enemy in melee.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364022265926/?ctp=5#c620712364026966057

47

XP is and will be gained exclusively via combat. There may be opportunities for raiding caravans and villages as part of some contracts later on.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364027094172/#c620712364027188848

48

There won't be a stationary outpost, but we're thinking of adding a camping mechanic. We'll also expand the roster eventually, allowing you to have more than 12 men at once and rotating people in and out, for example to give the injured time to recover from their wounds. Instead of having an upgradeable base, we'll have non-combat followers. Whereas in X-Com you'd build a radar station to increase your view radius, here you'll hire a scout to see more of the worldmap at once. Other professions we're thinking of are hunters, blacksmiths and healers, for example. Will probably be added in time. Of course!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/#c620712364027205207

49

They're not on the same team, but the werewolves don't attack skeletons on the worldmap because they don't make for a good meal.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364032565028/#c620712364032682232

50

Werewolves and Lost Souls are the only enemy parties actually faster on the worldmap than the player. There are some parties slower than the player, too.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364032544787/#c620712364032689067

51

Skeletons have a 50% resistance against spears and daggers, and 80% resistance against ranged weapons. Maces and Swords inflict roughly the same damage to their health, depending on the type of mace and sword of course, but maces crush their armor faster. There is already a 10% chance in effect. The number may need tweaking.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364031784087/#c620712364032725422

52

No enemy party has a greater view range than the player does at day. At night, the view range of most parties, including yours, is reduced, but undead and werewolves are not affected by this. However, undead have a lower view range than you do at day. Some terrain can hide parties within so you'll have to be closer to them than on open terrain before they're revealed. One example would be forests - which is the reason the AI prefers to lay in ambush in the forest tiles near roads.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364032544787/#c620712364033368621

53

Yes, we'd like to support modding eventually. However, our resources are limited and our priority is in creating the best possible core game first. It could be a while until modding becomes possible and we can't make any promises at this time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364036207263/#c620712364036220906

54

Working as intended. The Billhook cannot target an enemy that high. However, if the user were to stand on the same height level or one less they could pull down the enemy into the gap between them. The enemy would then take damage from the fall, the same as if they'd be knocked down via the Knock Back skill.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/620712364036723812/#c620712364037019954

55

Yes. Planned. I completely agree about keeping the fantasy elements in check and legendary items that should be rare and special. We have a more complex injury system planned, as well as loads of events which we'll use to flesh out rivalries and such between different Battle Brothers. No.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=3#c620712364037601996

56

Locations restock after 3 days based on their resources at that time. Certain events, like being raided, also forces a restock with a smaller selection.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/620712364037670216/#c620712364037751703

57

Probably not. You won't have orcs, werewolves or vampires as part of your party, if that's what you're asking. The idea of tying the deadliness of werewolves to the day/night cycle is interesting; it's something we want do do with vampires. I think there is a lot more we can do with the day/night cycle in general.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=3#c620712364038366894

58

Backgrounds won't change, but dynamic traits are planned.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/154642857137900414/#c620712364040998667

59

Right. Resolve was called bravery at some point, seems we forgot to change it there.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/620712364035932702/#c620712364041265186

60

Time. And in the case of watchtowers also supply treks from the castle.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364041296275/#c620712364041323861

61

Exactly. This is a balancing tweak of which there will be many many more over the course of the next year, some making the game a tad easier, some making the game a tad harder, all with the ultimate goal of making for a balanced and enjoyable playing experience. We'll tinker with perks, we'll try different things with the worldmap, everything is subject to change at this point. Including the very change we've just introduced. We value all your input and do include it in our decision making process, as I hope has become clear by now, but we won't put features up for vote.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364041396665/#c620712364041626452

62

Move order depends on the initiative of individual characters. If you'd like to move first, don't use heavy armor and level up your men's initiative. Even werewolves can be outleveled in this regard.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364044224344/#c620712364044242257

63

Bandit Raiders have the 'Brawny' perk which reduces the fatigue penalty due to armor by half. You can pick it for your Battle Brothers as well.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364044845844/#c620712364045072347

64

Yes, it's one of the options we're currently considering in order to alleviate the problem you mention, and in fact the one I'm personally in favor of. Both points are something we're currently reevaluating based on how the game has evolved from our original design and the resources we'll have available for future development. It's too early to say how we'll handle this ultimately, but we do agree that there's a lot more that could be done to make the world more of an interesting place and to bring the strategic gameplay on par with the tactical one. We've always wanted to add ambient sounds to the worldmap but our resources didn't allow for it until now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999966881619/#c620712999966968459

65

As we've said before on several occasions, we don't see a point in just randomly sprinkling different ethnicities about as if the game world were an international airport. However, if we ever get the chance we'd love to add different cultures to the game with the attention they really deserve. An oriental-based culture, for example, which could come with their own looks, names, character backgrounds, architecture, lore as conveyed by contracts and events, beasts based on oriental folklore, and loads of medieval-era equipment which actually makes a difference in gameplay.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999965511278/#c620712999966987041

66

Character backgrounds will become more important with the coming event system. Some combinations of backgrounds are more likely to lead to conflict than others, for example.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999967093255/#c620712999967268394

67

Actual difficulty of enemy locations didn't change, only their difficulty rating did at a while ago when we changed it to be relative to the player's approximate strength and no longer in absolute terms.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999974947339/#c620712999975293749

68

Day 292, huh? I've got to tell you, noone of us has ever played a single campaign for that long. The game doesn't really have end game content yet, let alone balance. If there's so many orc raiding parties around in your game, it means that orcs have established a lot of bases in that area that are apparently doing well from all the stuff they're looting and pillaging. By finding and destroying these bases, you can put an end to their constant incursions. Glad you're enjoying the game!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/620712999975710388/#c620712999976462464

69

Yes, any skill that can hit more than one target at a time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999980205731/#c620712999980253805

70

It's actually single-target. If several people seemingly flee or lose morale from a single Horrific Scream, it'll be one guy actually being affected by the scream and the others fleeing because they see a comrade of theirs suddenly panick and flee, which can have kind of a ripple effect on morale. Lost Souls will receive a bit of attention with the next update.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999973298292/?ctp=2#c620712999983494486

71

Don't know yet. Different qualities for weapons was something we were discussing a while back, but we’ve decided to go instead with distinct tiers for every weapon type. So instead of having a Masterwork Handaxe with a few points more of damage or similar miniscule differences, we’ll have a clear progression from Hatchet -> Hand Axe -> Fighting Axe where it’s very apparent from just looking at the weapon how good it is. You’re equpping 12+ people in this game, so comparing a dozen items looking almost identical and having only very minor differences probably wouldn’t work out to the player’s favor in the long run. If you take into account the fatigue costs, it may even make sense to deliberately go with lower-tier weapons as backup as not to overly burden yourselves, just like you wouldn’t necessarily go with the heaviest of armors all the time. There are quite a few gaps in weapon progression currently in the game but we’ll fill them up as we go along. We won't do any random enchantments for weapons. We'll do handcrafted legendary artifacts which will be powerful and rare in the world. 1) Items equipped by your characters are repaired automatically. No need to unequip them. 2) Yes, eventually. 3) Yes, eventually. 4) Possibly. 5) Planned. 6) Planned.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=5#c620712999985649613

72

7) There'll be a pike coming soon, but it will have a skill of its own and not share the spearwall skill with spears. 8) There'll be other ways, yes. 9) Yes. 10) You can designate leaders yourself if you wish through a combination of fitting perks (such as captain) and equipment (such as a fancy helmet). 11) Yes, it's something we want to try. It'll require the event system to be in place first, however.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=5#c620712999985767899

73

You can see if a target is immune / resistant to certain effects in the tooltip that appears when hovering over them with the respective skill selected.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999986336970/#c620712999986372100

74

Thanks for the writeup. I think most of these points are pretty obvious and we're already notching the world balance towards a bit less of enemy activity in the late game. We don't want to overdo it and so we're taking this slowly over several updates. The next update will again introduce some changes in this regard. At this point we're still figuring out our resources and how best to invest them into the game. The coming weeks will decide whether we'll be able to transition to working fulltime on Battle Brothers, which would obviously allow us to do quite a bit more with the worldmap. We'd then like to not do these patchwork fixes but rather do a complete rework in order to get the worldmap on par with the quality of the tactical combat. Likewise, we don't want to add any new contracts at this time because the contract system will be completely reworked anyway. As you already figured out, the game isn't really designed to be played for a period of 180 days or longer at this point.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999989303304/#c620712999989606774

75

Shieldwall lowers the chance of being stunned by charging orcs, as does having a shield to begin with.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999975217171/?ctp=2#c620712999989882813

76

The better the shield in terms of melee defense, the higher the chance not to be stunned. Character stats don't currently influence the chance of being stunned outside of the Indomitable perk which grants outright immunity.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999975217171/?ctp=2#c620712999989906473

77

Not that convinced, to be honest. It would break the flow of battle quite a bit to get this popup with every second ranged attack because stray arrows and bolts can easily hit your own guys. I feel that dealing with AoE attacks is something the player can learn quite easily. And as you said yourself, the actual issue for you wasn't forgetting about the implication of an AoE attack but just messing up the hotkey.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/2/371918937267129311/#c620712999990010580

78

It's been requested several times for the worldmap by now, so we may well end up implementing this. As for combat, this is not something we'll do. The situation changes too much between combat turns, with everyone moving about, new opponents being sighted and such, so that this wouldn't be consistently working out as a feature. I'm aware that you're suggesting this for mainly the end of battles where there is little surprise left, but we'd much prefer to take a look at how battles play out at the very end and think of ways to improve that instead.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999989957064/#c620712999990410871

79

Before a constructive discussion on Withered Vampires starts, I'd like to clear up a few misconceptions. There is no bite attack. Vampires simply heal by the amount of hitpoint damage they inflict as indicated by the bite icon dropping on their heads. This effect does not inflict any additional damage to others. This isn't a bug. Withered Vampires have the 'Nine Lives' perk to which your Battle Brothers have access as well when leveling up. One more hit, pretty much regardless of damage, will kill that thing. They don't.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633840077513/#c620713633840117284

80

All enemy factions can send out parties to hunt or scavenge which generates resources for them outside of raiding caravans or villages. If you attack a hunting party, you'll loot more provisions from them the longer they've been on a hunt. After a while they'll return to their base with everything they've gathered and increase the resources of that base accordingly. This in turn allows the base to create more/larger parties. Destroying a hunting party means that the base they belong to suffers resource-wise and will be able to send out fewer/smaller parties. The update simply adjusted the rate at which their hunting and scavenging generates resources for them.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633844192779/#c620713633845429984

81

Hover over the resource to see how much you spend and how long it'll last you.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633843921169/#c620713633845760713

82

Well then, let's see.. Sure. This was actually already in the game but was removed in the first week of release in order to quickly eliminate an exploit. Will be added in again in a fixed state. First we'll add pathfinding at all for the player on the worldmap. Then we can see about what other improvements are needed. That's probably not something we want to do. You have to realize that stats are a tiny part of what makes up a background. They also influence heavily the traits a character can get and will have a huge impact on the coming event system. Sure, a Tailor may seem somewhat useless now and a Swordmaster a must-have just based on their stats, but things will become much less clear-cut as we add complexity to characters over the coming year. That's not something we'll do. I think deadskinmask22 explained well our reasoning for this. Yeah, it'll be added together with other stuff that breaks savegame compatibility eventually. Will probably be added in time. Roster management is a planned feature. The log already tells you whether the body or the head was hit. I'll add the bit about shield damage done to the todo list. What else would you like to see? Makes sense, but it's something that'll have so wait for a while. A pre-battle formation setup or deployment phase is a planned feature. It won't be available when you're ambushed, though. We'll probably change the way that pause works on the worldmap in general. Once that's done we can revisit your suggestion.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633843921169/#c620713633846808908

83

That's not something we'll do, I'm afraid. Way too much work to create a map editor when the game is based around procedural generation. Planned. See http://battlebrothersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/mockup_dungeon4.jpg for a concept piece.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=6#c620713633849145910

84

Currently, 20% of the XP value of an enemy goes to the one doing the killing strike and the other 80% get distributed equally among all your men still alive (including, again, the one doing the killing strike so that he'd get 100% if he's the only one left).

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633849774413/#c620713633849793623

85

All enemies are available from the start. They have different resource costs and sometimes are used for different missions. New bases are created when the old bases have more resources than they know what to do with. Mostly random at this point. The "Exterminate Beasts" contract is an exception in that is only created if there are in fact werewolves terrorizing a village. The contract system will see a complete overhaul in time. It hasn't changed yet, but it's about to change, depending also on the game's success within the next few weeks. The more the game sells, the easier it'd be for us to transition into working on it full time. Some more ambitious goals, like a political layer, can only be realized if working fulltime on the game with a solid budget. It doesn't scale to you, but it does scale with their success. Resources are per base, not per faction, but otherwise this is already the case. The "Exterminate Beasts" contract actually pays you in provisions if the village is below a certain threshold of resources. As mentioned before, the contract system will see a complete overhaul - which will include different forms of payment, including unique items. Planned. Planned. Planned. I'm not sure what that means in terms of game mechanics. Well, we don't want to go overboard and turn this into a trading simulation, but a few types of goods are indeed planned. It could even help giving the villages a bit more character around what they import or produce themselves. There's always the question of that the benefit of something like this is actually for the player given that implementing it would take away time from other features. Planned. Can't say yet if that's something we'll do. Maybe. We won't show individual random travelers on the worldmap, but they'll make their way into the game via the event system instead. For example, a traveler asking to join you on the campfire and take a few provisions in exchange for sharing some lore about the world. The worldmap will get more lively with other parties going about their business, too. I can't give you a number just yet, but yes, they'll be pretty rare. I agree that it'd be awesome and very fitting for this game. It's very much a question of our resources vs. the amount of work it would take to do this in a satisfying way. The coming weeks will decide whether that's something we can do. There'll also be caves. Can't yet comment on other environments but obviously we'd like to do as much as possible given the opportunity. Don't know yet. Yes, that's something we'll experiment with. Agreed. This issue is currently under discussion. No. Not currently planned, but we'll see. Obviously. Planned. Glad you're enjoying it! :)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633849787407/#c620713633849864693

86

No, castles do not depend on caravans currently, although caravans somewhat depend on the protection of a castle.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633850336605/#c620713633850518563

87

Ghouls and Necromancers. Although they both belong to the undead faction, they're not technically undead themselves in Battle Brothers. To quote a bit of lore about Ghouls from the blog article that introduced them: Ghouls are despicable creatures that scavenge graveyards and burial sites for fresh graves where they dig out the recently deceased and feast on their corpses. This is why any band of undead is often accompanied by ghouls just like a fishing boat attracts hungry seagulls – even though ghouls are not technically undead, but living and breathing creatures that also feel pain and are susceptible to morale effects.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999991321760/?ctp=2#c620713633850990257

88

The way it's supposed to work is that either you have to engage the bandits first, before they can engage the caravan, or you're in the immediate vicinity of the caravan as it is engaged, in order to start the battle in formation together. The latter case apparently doesn't work as intended, I'll fix it for the next update.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633859179943/#c620713633861324112

89

Honestly, that's too gamey for my taste and against what we're trying to achieve with the traits in the first place - establishing characters as individuals that are different from one another, with their own strengths and weaknesses, the way humans are. Character progress shouldn't be about molding them into perfect machines without any drawbacks. That said, with the upcoming event system there will be opportunities for characters to lose traits and gain new ones.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633862135318/#c620713633862266497

90

This is something we'll definitely change a bit. I think we underestimated the compulsion that some players feel to reload until they're satisfied with the numbers, even if doing this for minutes on end may ultimately be detrimental to their experience playing the game. Not that the game is balanced particularly well at present, but it's surely not meant to be balanced for characters well beyond the statistical average as a result of reloading on levelup on a regular basis. Changing this around isn't all that much work, but unfortunately it would break compatibility with older save games. For this reason we'll wait with doing any changes until the first bigger update comes along that will break compatibility anyway.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633859346656/#c620713633864847985

91

I'd rather add a way to speed up time for the duration of your travels (and thereby remove one reason for tabbing out of the game in the first place) than have the game play itself in the background while you've alt-tabbed out of it. The way it worked before may have been a temporary solution for you, but it was also inconvenient for others who didn't think of pausing the game first.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568062083729/#c617336568063894271

92

It's been changed now; just being nearby the caravan as it gets attacked should have you start in formation with it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633859179943/#c617336568064372304

93

I agree that we should take another look at the starting values of characters based on their backgrounds to make this feel more coherent.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620713633852685018/#c617336568064427362

94

Yup, dynamic traits is something we're strongly considering for the future.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568067534316/#c617336568067576046

95

There is currently no easy way to do this.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568067203223/#c617336568067582315

96

Yes, we'd like to support modding eventually. However, our resources are limited and our priority is in creating the best possible core game first. It could be a while until modding becomes possible and we can't make any promises at this time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568067203223/#c617336568067725655

97

Honestly, I don't see it. We've tried to be as responsive as possible given our limitations of being only three people working on this game in their spare time. We've already implemented a bunch of improvements that were suggested here and on our forums, and we'll continue to do so. We try to read every bit of feedback and take notes for the larger things we may want to change or add later that have been suggested so far, but we can't answer to everything because we simply don't have the time to do so. Let's also be honest regarding user suggestions. While there are a lot of great ones out there, not all of them are good, not all of them actually fit the game, and they usually don't take into account or can accurately gauge the amount of work required. I don't know what you take offense with specifically, but as an example, this game is clearly labelled as a low fantasy game. It's perfectly fine for people to wish for wizards in their roster, and it's a legitimate suggestion to make, but it's still not something we'll do because it runs counter to what we defined the game as from the very beginning. We can't just add every single suggestion to the game, even if they're legitimately good ideas individually, because it would turn into an incoherent mess that would never get finished. Again, while we value all the input we get, this is not an open source project. Ultimately it is us who bear the risk of this game failing financially, not you.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568062017333/?ctp=2#c617336568068048457

98

It will. We have a more complex injury system planned, including psychological traumata.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568067534316/#c617336568071201010

99

Villages and cities continually lose resources to upkeep and creating caravans they send out. If those caravans make it to their destination, or caravans from other locations make it to them, they make a profit in resources. If their caravans don't reach their destination, they'll slowly bleed out. Although they're self-sufficient to a point, they'll never flourish without trade. In other words, villages don't need to be raided in order to lose resources up to a certain point. Watchtowers invest most of their resources into patrols they send out. While a patrol is out, they'll have little in manpower and equipment available. If the patrol returns, the resources for creating it are refunded, depending on how many men make it back alive.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568076481279/#c617336568077108952

100

Buying or selling gear currently has no effect on a village's resources - but I agree that this is something we should probably add in time. Another major drain on a village's resources is losing militia in battle. Some players like to lure enemies to villages and use the militia as shield, but it does hurt the village quite a bit in the long term.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568076481279/#c617336568077168699

101

I'm afraid multiplayer is not something we can do with this game. It would mean way too much work for us.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568079826268/#c617336568080277684

102

There are no amulets in the game yet.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568083568144/#c617336568083929444

103

I'm afraid there is no such straightforward way currently.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618459931321768262/#c617336568083944693

104

Hah, yeah, SOTH is one of my personal inspirations for Battle Brothers and I remember the tunnel fighting against the Skaven well. We'll have dungeon and cave environments which will feel quite different from open terrain. Not sure about actual tunnels yet. We'll expand the beast faction as a whole with many more independently roaming beasts. A faction of 'rat-men' is not currently planned, but it's a cool concept and something that may ultimately make its way into the game. Can't promise anything, though. No, but we're discussing some options of having the player represented as an actual character outside of combat in the long term. Vampires are much worse ;)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=7#c618463106382729215

105

I agree, that's a cool idea. Yes, setting up camp is a feature we're considering. Independent of this, you'll be able to have larger roster of mercenaries eventually and be able to rotate people in and out of 'active duty' in order to give them time to recover from their wounds and such. We originally planned for one but have since put it aside in favor of other features which we consider more important. We'll still have some light crafting via the event system, but a full-fledged crafting system isn't planned currently. I like it.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=7#c598198173702533243

106

Battle Brothers is intended as a singleplayer only game both in design and programming. Adding multiplayer, I'm afraid, would mean too much additional work for a project that is really ambitious as is for so small a team. Hotseat battles would take the least amount of work from all the possible multiplayer modes, but it's still quite a bit of work which, although no doubt a cool feature for some, doesn't add to the 'core experience', i.e. how 99% of all people play the game. There's a lot of things we'd like to do with Battle Brothers, and there's a lot of great ideas from you guys, but to have the game finished eventually we have to make some tough cuts and set priority for the things we think the game benefits most from in the long run. Hotseat battles, unfortunately, didn't make the cut.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568074133294/#c598198356167493843

107

Indeed, that's something we want to do together with a statistics screen.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356170244327/#c598198356171231159

108

Glad you're enoying the game! A camping mechanic is indeed something we want to try. Planned, see the FAQ. You'll be allowed to have larger roster eventually and to rotate your guys in and out of active duty to give them time to recover from their wounds, especially once we add a more complex injury system. We'll add different kinds of provisions (bread, fish, ..) for flavor which ultimately get pooled into the provisions resource once you acquire them. Maybe beer will be one of them, we'll see. There's also an event on the worldmap concerning beer which may raise the spirit of your men ;) The whole worldmap and contract system will see a rework.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356170567909/#c598198356171255132

109

Indeed. Yeah, it's something we'd like to experiment with, but we'll have to see how everything plays out. For the record, you can already injure opponents by pushing or pulling them down 2 or more levels of height. We've delibarately chosen not do have any classes in the game - other than those imposed by the player. Characters can not learn everything because there is a limit to the skill and perks they can acquire. Both skill and perks are likely to see some improvements over time to make differences between characters more pronounced. There won't be a stationary base as this would run counter to the concept of a roaming mercenary company. However, you'll be able to make camp eventually and hire non-combat followers such as blacksmiths, hunters and healers, for what is basically base management. Indeed we do. See http://battlebrothersgame.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/mockup_dungeon4.jpg for a concept piece. Planned. Not something we'll do, I'm afraid. We're going for a low-fantasy asymmetric balance of power when it comes to magic. You're leading ordinary humans that sometimes have to prevail even against supernatural foes by going to their very limits. This makes these opponents all the more alien and unique than if their powers were something you had access to as well, and all the more satisfying to figure out and take down.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356170567909/#c598198356173043149

110

Yes, it's gone once completely broken.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356180181154/#c598198356180219022

111

We're considering something like that. Indeed, we want to allow the player to design their own banner eventually. That features has been put on hold for now because we want to focus on more important things first, but you can catch a glimpse on how it might work here: http://battlebrothersgame.com/forums/topic/pauls-art-corner/page/13/. Planned. Yeah, we've considered a standard bearer before. Undecided as of yet. It's a good idea. We'd have to see whether that ultimately fits with what we want to achieve with the recruiting system, though, and to what extent the recruiting sergeant would uncover stats of the potential recruit. We'll add a lot more variants of armor and helmets over time, including some with paint jobs and differently colored fabric. The next update will contain a fix for the UI slowing down after renaming characters and confirming with the return key - if that's what you mean. Factions do come with lore of their own, including cultural beliefs and practices. So far it's been hard to impart this, but the upcoming event system is a great tool for doing so. Yes, they eventually will, and I agree that this should a whole new aspect to battle. See here[battlebrothersgame.com] for concept art on new battlegrounds.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=8#c598198356191212555

112

We'll add more ranged weapons for sure. Not sure about longbows specifically.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/617336568076481279/?ctp=2#c598198356191295735

113

The concept of cultists and demons is something we've toyed around with from the very beginning. You may have noticed that there are already a few references to them in the game, most prominently the cultist background. At this time I don't know if a demonic faction will ultimately make their way into the game. If they do, they'll not be of the biblical and fiery kind, but of the alien and eldritch kind, of madness and corruption. They wouldn't be related to the undead faction. We already have a rough concept on how they should feel and what kind of abilities they'd have in battle.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356196283444/#c598198356196722787

114

More than one level of height difference prevents melee engagement.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/598198356198171326/#c598199244886371569

115

Stores take a few days to restock in case you're playing with an existing save game.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446314905108/#c530645446315261291

116

There are no character deaths at events that can not be avoided, and there never will be. There are quite some positive events in the game, some netting you benefits that can not otherwise be gotten. And then there are events that can turn out positive or negative, depending on your actions and the characters in your party. Events make the game more complex, yes, but not harder across the board. If you load up an older save with a full party at max level full of swordmasters and hedge knights, and 20k crowns in your coffers, then yeah, it feels like you'll be getting a lot of negative events. But you're also at the late game already with little challenge left, and this adds at least some additional challenge. When your men demand a larger share of money it's because you have a giant pile of it. When swordmasters get even older, it's because they've been old since you hired them and didn't get any younger in all the time they've been with you - their background story tells you as much when you hire them. When hedge knights start trouble then it's because they're not friendly people - again, their background story tells you as much. And now, slowly, these things actually start to matter. Some backgrounds don't play along well, and others may have uses that may not be immediately appearant. Battle Brothers is about managing a company of mercenaries, and the game is now starting to emphasize the 'managing' part more. Your company is made up of humans that shouldn't be reduced to just their starting stats. As the announcement said, to get the most out of the events you should start a new campaign. And also experiment with different backgrounds.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446314905108/?ctp=2#c530645446316294050

117

You're free to send him to a glorious death if you deem his time to have come, of course. As the swordmaster's backstory explains, the guy is old from the very beginning. His age will catch up with him - it's a matter of when, not if, but it'll take a while. How long exactly is randomized, but it is never in his early levels. Yes, if they live long enough, all of them will eventually suffer from old age. When someone now tells of his swordmasters aging all at once, it's because they have loaded an old campaign with characters who have been with them for a long time. It feels more organic when starting a new campaign. Whether his advanced age then makes him useless is a matter of opinion; he'll gain some resolve and lose some hitpoints, max fatigue, initiative and vision in turn. His melee skill and melee defense are still superior to that of most other backgrounds. Also, as mentioned before, there are other advantages now to backgrounds apart from their stats.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446314905108/?ctp=3#c530645446316502672

118

Yes, we consider all changes in the light of things to come. Swordmasters 'living on borrowed time' will have less of an impact with larger rosters, naturally. On the other hand, gaining resolve will be more useful as resolve in general becomes more of a useful attribute.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446314905108/?ctp=3#c530645446316576989

119

The rationale is that a single character transforming/dying has less impact, the larger the roster is. That's one of the reasons we wanted to have 12 people on the battlefield at once, and an even larger roster in the future - so that the player can actually afford to lose people. With a larger roster, even if the old swordmaster doesn't make it in the starting team anymore, he could still be a valuable asset in the reserve for when things get tight - for example, as people get lasting injuries and are put out of comission for a while. I'd argue that there is player input here - the player makes an informed decision on hiring a swordmaster, being aware of the fact that this is an old guy that's not getting any younger. It's the same as with other backgrounds. A lot of events do include player decisions on how to handle things when they pop up, but at the very least there is always the original decision on hiring these people. Don't want to deal with your hedge knight trying to punch people to death that look at him the wrong way? Then don't hire him when his background story tells you he has serious anger management issues.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446314905108/?ctp=3#c530645446316679111

120

Well, since we're talking hypothetically here, assuming additional features such as an extended roster to be in place, I think it's fair to assume that money would be balanced in a way that actually allows the player to keep reserves and make use of that roster in the first place. It's only gluttonous characters that can get fat via event. Like Casey said, the trait can also be lost again. No, we didn't change this. Player strength vs. opponent strength has always been pretty hard to gauge and this system needs some more attention. A party of 6 level 1 characters vs. 5 Werewolves does sound very wrong, of course, and not working as intended.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446314905108/?ctp=4#c530645446318369749

121

Currently, events will pop up roughly every 2,5 to 4 ingame days while you travel the worldmap. They won't pop up while you're near enemy parties (because it would be weird to have people play dice with you while you're running from werewolves). Just starting a new game and standing around until day 5 or so should get you an event. The moods only show up for individual characters after they've changed from their default neutral state, which is after some events happened. We'll eventually show mood in the UI in a more prominent place and include an average party mood when the whole mechanic is more fleshed out.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446314905108/?ctp=4#c530645446318576049

122

The speed of parties actually does scale with size already, with smaller parties being faster than larger ones, for the reason you mention. There are other factors to speed as well, however, such as what units they contain (undead are generally slower than anyone else, with a few exceptions), the terrain, and also whether it is day or night (everyone is slowed down a bit at night, but not undead). As for uneven difficulty in general, I do agree as well. The game needs more work here, and it'll receive it with the scheduled rework of the worldmap mechanics.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446319148960/#c530645446319319206

123

I agree, tying in the repair and healing rate makes a lot of sense. We're also toying with the idea of having (humanoid, non-undead) AI parties potentially make camp as well. This would offer some additional strategic options of ambushing stronger parties at night, when most are asleep, and give a benefit to operating at night. It's just ideas for now, though, and we'll have to see if that works out.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712999974819245/#c530645446319347996

124

1. Yes - and that's obviously less than ideal. However, we want to wait with any sweeping UI changes (like a dedicated interface for buying and selling resources) until the mechanics have been finalized. Maybe it will turn out that the cap isn't the solution afterall, for example. 2. What events can trigger depends on a lot of factors - the number of characters in your party, how long they've been with you, their backgrounds and traits, your resources, where in the world you are, what time it is, what events already triggered, and so on. Which of the events that apply to your situation then actually pop up is randomized, so it may be that you just happen to have more general events until now. Also, with the event system just starting out, there is a lot of ground still to cover and not all of the backgrounds have interactions with each other yet. We'll fill the gaps in time. 3. Yes, we should include some way for the player to learn where allied parties are going eventually. 4. Sometime next week, probably.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/530645446319488008/#c530645446319858008

125

Items equipped by characters get repaired automatically (if you have the tools) - you don't have to unequip them or mark them for repair each time.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541906348034130896/#c541906348034147889

126

That's already the case; only entities directly in front of the target can block a shot.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541906989411780416/#c541906989412643631

127

The idea is to have all kinds of independently roaming creatures in the beast faction eventually. Some of them will be towering behemoths that wander alone in their habitat, others may be smaller and hunt in packs - such as werewolves, the only current population of a faction that will see a lot of work still until the game is done :)

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/541907867790071759/#c541907867790111618

128

Serfdom is definitely a thing and refered to every now and then. Lore-wise, actual slavery exists in the world of Battle Brothers as well, but not in the region that the game focuses on for now. Think of the game playing in Westeros with Meereen ("the harpy city") somewhere off the map. Maybe we get to expand it to include a culture employing slavery at some point.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/537405286650369142/#c537405286652835168

129

The coming update does in fact add some more 'epic' areas to the game, one for each of the enemy factions.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/537405286658271181/#c537405286662160853

130

That's because Fatigue penalties always also lower Initiative, so the total penalty to Initiative is -20.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/528398719795937622/#c528398719795964442

131

Orcs were considered unbeatable once, and from what I recall we never really changed them. Yet the general perception of them changed quite a bit as people simply got better at the game and figured out ways to beat them reliably. It's still too early to tell whether Goblins need balance adjustments. I'd rather give people some time to come up with ways of beating Goblins before jumping to conclusions. I'd also like to clear up some misconceptions I've read in this thread and give you some hints; Goblins have the lowest hitpoints of all enemies in the game except for Lost Souls. Goblins don't have much armor available to them. Their very best armor has 90 armor points, which is less than a basic chain shirt for your Battle Brothers. Goblins have a Melee Defense of 10 or 15, depending on type. That's higher than most enemies, but not a value that Battle Brothers can't surpass (some backgrounds can even start with 10 Melee Defense). A Goblin Wolfrider has a Melee Defense of 10 and can not carry a shield (which would come with 15 Melee Defense usually, double that with Shieldwall active). Some other enemies, like Withered Vampires and Lost Souls, actually have much more Melee Defense. There is nothing special about the Notched Blade that can ignore armor. In fact, it is worse than the Scramasax which has been in the game from day one and comes with the very same skill. Unlike other humanoid enemies, Goblins can have a hard time destroying armor. To better defend against their ranged weapons, consider shields that come with a large Ranged Defense bonus, such as Kite Shields. Goblins actually have no way to get rid of your shields because they have no axes and their throwing weapons don't damage shields. Since Goblins can be hard to hit, consider using weapons that have a higher accuracy, especially with fresh Battle Brothers. Spears and swords work well for this. Because Goblins are quite fragile, the lower base damage of spears compared to axes and such doesn't matter. Since Goblins often rely on ranged combat, consider attacking their camps at night where they lose range and accuracy with their bows and throwing weapons just as you do.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719797580610/?ctp=3#c528398719799697985

132

That's not a character trait; it's what every character gets when having a one-handed weapon and no off-hand item equipped. Equipping a shield, throwing net or similar in the offhand will remove the effect.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/528398719800683413/#c528398719800727898

133

They have no influence on morale, but they do prevent undead from rising or being raised again.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719801439217/#c528398719801461195

134

The Notched Blade - like the Knife, Dagger and Scramasax - comes with the Puncture skill. This skill ignores armor but has a penalty to accuracy. Weapons inflict more than their normal base damage on hits that connect with a character's head as opposed to their body.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719802480424/#c528398719802512151

135

What Malthus said. There is no bonus shown because there isn't one anymore. Instead, backgrounds now come with their own range of attributes as described here. Backgrounds that come with an advantage outside of those attributes (e.g. faster XP gain) still show this in the tooltip.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719803402264/#c528398719803603828

136

We've actually tested Goblins vs. Orcs in a setup similar to the two line battle scenarios (i.e. 15 Goblins vs. 13 Orcs). The Orcs win, albeit with heavy losses. A lot of Young Orcs and some Berserkers are taken down from range, but once the Orcs finally close the distance, there isn't enough the Goblins can do to take down the Orc Warriors fast enough, let alone the Orc Warlord. Goblins become fatigued much sooner than Orcs, run out of nets and throwing weapons, have no way to get rid of Orc shields, and their poison doesn't proc on Orc Warriors until their armor is heavily damaged. Although missing a lot of swings, Orc Warriors can one-hit Goblins and so just soldier on.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719797580610/?ctp=6#c528398719803954587

137

That's not quite how it works. With the Aimed Shot skill, the Boondock Bow can inflict a maximum of 48 points of damage per shot to hitpoints in the hands of a Battle Brother. Of those 48 points, 40% can ignore armor, which is ~19. Of those 19 points of damage, 10% of the current armor value is subtracted, e.g. 19-15 (4 damage bypasses armor) when at 150 armor. Because damage to armor is applied before direct damage to hitpoints, the current armor value used for the purpose of determining direct damage that bypasses armor will never be the value of entirely undamaged armor. And as you mentioned yourself, shots can also hit the head for a 50% increase in damage, i.e. a total damage of ~72 in this example. Of those, ~29 can bypass armor as direct damage, which is again reduced by 10% of the current head armor value after damage to the helmet is applied. The "effectiveness against armor" is used solely for determining the damage done to armor, which is different from direct damage that bypasses armor. I hope it makes more sense now. Damage done on killing blows will be displayed in the combat log with the next update.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719806924128/#c528398719807611483

138

Also, no, the poison of Goblin Ambushers does not deal any damage.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719806924128/#c528398719807612924

139

No, you don't have to recruit people for new ones to show up. Every three days, some people may decide to move on or stay a while longer in town, and others may decide to visit the town.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/528398719807758964/#c528398719808637549

140

It adds to the overwhelm counter of any target up to and including the one hit, where the swing then stops as per the description of the skill. Depending on what target is hit, if any, up to three targets can have their overwhelm counter increased. If the very first target is hit, then only that one target will have its overwhelm count increased.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/527273983048378080/#c527274088384106722

141

We won't have a punch dagger, but we do want to have a second unarmed skill (probably a kick) and try out non-lethal brawls as part of events. That's where the brawler background will outshine most others.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/537402115073158155/#c527274088398725111

142

This is a nice-to-have feature for us, which means that we'll work on other, must-have features first. Unfortunately I can't give you an ETA at this time, but it won't be until after the worldmap rework.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/527274088397175058/#c527274088398755135

143

Stuff from enemies killed by other enemies should be lootable as well now.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/618460171330260226/#c527274698151794833

144

Payment other than crowns, and even just different payment modalities, is something we're going to introduce with the coming rework of the contract mechanics.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/523898291503085557/#c523898291506216626

145

No, this is outside the scope of the game. Battle Brothers is about managing a mercenary company and we want to focus on making this experience the best we can, and not stretch ourselves too thin.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/496880203081935486/#c496880203081958536

146

Yes, that's something we have on the agenda. Not sure yet what options will be available, but we'll nail those down once everything has progressed a bit further and we know what results in worlds that work out. Feel free to suggest options you'd like to see!

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/496879865901782776/#c496880203081987033

147

There's no need to apologize. These discussion boards are a place to make suggestions to make this a better game, and we do read all of them, even if we don't have the time to reply. We really appreciate the effort you guys put into these. However, not every suggestion can make it into the game for a multitude of reasons; they may be too much work, conflict with other mechanics or not quite fit the game as whole. Many suggestions have already been covered in the past, and in this case, you'll find our answer and reasoning for some of your points in our FAQ. To address your other points; yes, there'll indeed be other mercenary companies controlled by the AI active on the worldmap. And you're quite right, of course, that there has to be an endgame goal for the player, something to work towards. We'll talk about this in detail in one of our future weekly updates as development has progressed a bit further.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/496880203081935486/#c496880503066602233

148

Having seasons is something we considered but put aside because it'd mean basically 4 times the amount of map assets. So, not going to happen for now, sadly.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/496880503073704070/#c496880503077959369

149

You'll be able to fight them, and loot them.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/496880503070460280/#c496880503082187837

150

Working as intended, as far as I know. Characters hiding in bushes are also revealed for one round if they themselves are attacking, or if they accidentally get hit by a ranged attack aimed at someone else. Works the same for the player.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/1/496881136917167796/#c496881136917352600

151

It'll come in a later update. We haven't made a final decision yet on how we'll handle this, but preset formations seem a likely solution at this point.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/365360/discussions/0/620712364025160565/?ctp=16#c496881136927643053

152

Orcs have the 'Crusher' perk that increases shield damage. It's also available for your Battle Brothers.