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[Jaysen]

Just a quick progress update so you get an idea about what we are working on:

Dev Blog #46: Progress Update - Worn Armor and Goblin Preview

As we explained previously, the next update to the game will take us a few weeks to get done. In the meantime we invite you to take a look at what we're working on and how progress is going. This week we've added a wide variety of worn armor and helmets for the bandit faction and started work on the Goblins.

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

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



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



Goblin Preview

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



What’s next?

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

[rumpel]

Looks promising! Thanks for the progress update.

[Jaysen]

Thanks! We try to keep the pace so here is this weeks blog on wardogs, a new armor mechanic and a visual rework of older assets:

Dev Blog #47: Progress Update - Wardogs, Armor Mechanics, Visual Makeover


Work continues on implementing Goblins. While that’s going on, we’re also doing some things that have been on our todo list for some time - adding wardogs and changing the armor mechanics. In addition, Paul is doing a makeover of many of the older assets in the game, especially the Battle Brothers themselves.

Wardogs

That’s right, wardogs have made their way into the game and you can soon have them in your mercenary company. These dogs are of a large and aggressive breed and they come with their own name and one of several different looks. But what is their purpose?

Goblins will rely heavily on ranged combat and kiting their opponents, so Battle Brothers need a new trick up their sleeves as well. And while the recently introduced feature of retreating enemies does alleviate the issue of having to catch the last remaining enemies, we want to go further. Wardogs are a tool for the player to chase down any enemy and hold them in place until Battle Brothers arrive, as well as to find any enemies hidden in the fog of war. It’s a tool that makes a lot of sense in a medieval fantasy world, and at the same time is something to have fun with and get invested in. Afterall, who doesn’t like dogs?

Wardogs are not individual characters in your party but are treated like an item - at least outside of combat. They can be bought in settlements and then assigned to a character before combat. Ever noticed that empty slot in the top left of your characters’ paper doll? That’s the accessory slot, and that’s where wardogs go, among other things.



In combat the character handling a dog has a unique skill called ‘Unleash Wardog’. The unleashed dog will spawn on an adjacent free tile and will act immediately after the handler has finished his turn. The dog is not controlled by the player but by the AI following a distinct behavior - it will straight up charge for the next free opponent and engage him in melee all while doing a lot of barking. Wardogs don’t actually do that much damage, at least not against armored opponents, but they are very useful in pinning down archers or other elusive targets in the opponent’s backline for your Battle Brothers to follow up. What’s more, they can track down hidden enemies. If you don’t know where the last few enemies are hiding on the map, unleash a dog and he will find them for you.



Wardogs bring a lot of utility to the table, but they also require a bit of careful thinking of when to best be unleashed. They’re not humans and so will run happily into enemy spears only to kill themselves. Just like for your Battle Brothers that spells perma-death for them.

Armor Mechanics

First, the punchline: We’ve changed how weapons and armor interact. While we believe that the armor system as it was worked decently well, there were a couple of issues we want to address with this change.

Because armor effectively acts as additional hitpoints, the game as it were encourages stacking a lot of armor. In fact, it encourages doing so over increasing hitpoints because raising maximum fatigue in order to wear more armor yields more effective hitpoints than raising actual hitpoints on levelup. In addition, getting hit with any kind of weapon and just shrugging off the damage as long as your armor is intact is a simplistic approach. In reality you often suffer at least some small bruise or blunt trauma, even if your armor is not penetrated. Finally, we have no way of correctly modelling weapons that penetrate armor very well without doing much damage to the armor itself. A good example is the crossbow which has a very high armor efficiency causing it to do a lot of damage against armor because we had no other good way of modelling penetrating attacks.

To remedy the above points we’re introducing the concept of ‘Direct Damage’ as an addition to the armor mechanics that are already in place. Direct damage is a new characteristic of every attack skill (e.g. Slash, Thrust, etc) that determines what amount of damage done is not absorbed by armor immediately but may directly affect hitpoints, whether by actually piercing through armor or by blunt force trauma that is felt through armor. Let’s go step by step to see how damage is applied:

Firstly, armor damage is applied to armor (if any) based on the ‘Armor Effectiveness’ of the skill and weapon used. Secondly, and this is new, ‘Direct Damage’ is applied to hitpoints based on the skill used but reduced by 10% of the current armor value. This means that the better the armor, the less direct damage gets through, and the more damaged an armor gets, the more direct damage will get through. Finally, if there is no armor left, the remaining damage is applied directly to hitpoints.

So how does that address the issues above? With direct damage, both armor and hitpoints matter. A character getting attacked by weapons that can inflict a lot of direct damage - such as crossbows or maces - can now get killed even while he has armor points left. On the other hand, a character can never get killed with any hitpoints left. Because hitpoints heal a lot slower than armor is repaired or replaced, Battle Brothers may also take attritional damage now by way of cuts and bruises that add up over several battles, further emphasizing the need for a larger hitpoint pool for longer campaigns. With the introduction of direct damage we can now correctly model weapons like crossbows that were built to penetrate armor, not to destroy it. This also gives us a more freedom for introducing different skills and weapons in the future. Finally, modeling most attacks as inflicting at least some damage to the target in the form of blunt trauma, concussion or bruises is arguably more realistic than assuming that armor would prevent all damage.

While unfortunately this added mechanic does take away a bit from the clear and simple way it worked previously we’re confident that this is well worth the trade-off. We want to strike a good balance between having realism in our combat system and keeping the mechanics easy to pick up, and we feel that the concept of direct damage makes a lot of sense intuitively.

Visual Makeover

As you may know, we started out doing this game in our free time, in the few hours we had each evening after our day jobs. With very limited time we had to make some tough calls and couldn’t give everything the attention we wanted to.

This changed since we moved to working fulltime on the game about a month ago, and this also shows in the game’s visuals. The newer assets - such as for the upcoming Goblins - are a lot more detailed, making the older assets look a bit dated by comparison. To remedy this, Paul will be revamping many of the older assets and giving them a makeover so that they’re on par with the new stuff for a consistently detailed look.



First up are the Battle Brothers themselves - and while we’re at it, we’re also adding a few more faces, hair and beard styles as well!

[PanH]

Really nice. I noticed too that increasing hitpoints was way less important than fatigue. Now both are important. I'm gonna look at how all this works now. I might try an all direct damage company, though I fear they would be weaker against ghouls, zombies and unarmored stuff, though I don't have a lot of time right now.

Wardogs looks nice. It might make the always number superiority of the enemy less important. Though, I'm guessing wardogs disappear if they die during battle so you might not want to always use them.

[Jaysen]

Yes, the wardogs die permanently and are not really tanky so if you do not immediately follow up with some brows they will probably be wasted. On top of that, they are not really cheap. We do not want the player to always spam 12 Wardogs on top of their 12 brothers

[Majestic7]

Maybe we should get dog handler-type traits which boost the dogs and allow you to specialize a member or two into being your dog dudes.

[Retropunch]

Maybe we should get dog handler-type traits which boost the dogs and allow you to specialize a member or two into being your dog dudes.

This would be really good. Perhaps you could have it that they could equip another dog in the off-hand or quiver slot? That, plus the trait giving the dogs a bit of a buff would make it a viable choice, especially against goblins/fast movers.

[Jaysen]

Dog-specific traits sound like a good idea! We are already writing up some dog-specific events that will come with the Goblin update.

Here is this weeks update on throwing weapons, ranged combat and the ongoing visual rework:

Dev Blog #48: Progress Update – Throwing Weapons, Visual Makeover Continued
The first Goblins have made their way into the game and are now being playtested. While that’s going on, as always, we’ve implemented a bunch of smaller things from our todo. The most important one this week: Throwing Weapons and a bit of love for ranged combat in general. Also, Paul has been busy as ever continuing his visual rework. Wiedergangers and all armors in the game got a makeover!

Throwing Weapons
Let’s talk about ranged combat in general for a moment. There’s some things that work well already, such as the difference between bows and crossbows, line of fire and friendly fire. But then there is the issue of ranged combat, generally speaking, not having quite enough of an impact on how the game is played. Players seldom invest into the Ranged Defense attribute, as ranged opponents usually don’t pose enough of a threat, and using ranged weapons themselves is usually reserved for a token archer or two.

To address this, we’ve taken several steps. First, view range for all units has been increased by one, and the range of bows and crossbows has been increased by one as well. This way we’re emphasizing the strength of ranged weapons and make for more situations where they can be of use, while at the same time making it easier to find enemies running. Second, we’re rethinking the place of throwing weapons in the game and introducing a bunch more. Here we go.

Whereas bows and crossbows are best for long-distance ranged combat by ranged specialists, throwing weapons are supposed to be secondary weapons that can be used at least somewhat effectively by everyone over short to medium distances. That’s why throwing weapons get an accuracy bonus to start off but have their accuracy drop much more sharply than for bows and crossbows the more distant the target is. New throwing weapons are Throwing Axes, Javelins and – spoiler – two devilish Goblin throwing weapons. Crude Javelins, previously already in the game, are now an orc weapon again, as originally intended.



Those throwing weapons are being handed out to some melee opponents as we speak. Not to everyone, of course, but Goblins are very fond of them as they synergize well with their other tools, and Bandit Raiders may also throw an axe your way every now and then. Even a few Young Orcs may now carry javelins to throw before a charge. If the only alternative is charging into your spearwall, your opponents may now opt to just pelt you from afar and punish your static defense line.

With ranged weapons now more common, Ranged Defense should also become a more important choice on level-up and in choice of shield for keeping your Battle Brothers safe. It’s still not a must-have, but it makes a difference – and very specialized builds, such as the famed Nimble Swordmaster, now come with a clear weakness that can actually be exploited by the AI.

Visual Makeover Continued
Continuing with the visual makeover we announced last week, Paul has given the Wiedergangers some attention. Not only have they received some polishing, they now also sport their very own hair and beard styles fit for half-rotting corpses.



Those of you who follow Paul’s Art Thread, our Facebook or Twitter will already know – most of the visual makeover this week has been armor. We tried to give all the armor are more realistic and detailed appearance, but also a bit more of a used and less fresh look. Pieces of armor were extremely expensive in the middle ages and used for a long time, sometimes over several generations.



At the same time we’re looking to make the progression in armor value something to be more visually recognizable. Heavy armor should look the part, which is why Heraldic Mail no longer has the highest armor value in the game but is now situated more closely by the other mail armors. We’ve also filled quite a few gaps in progression with entirely new armor and will shuffle values around a bit for everything.

[Jaysen]

The Goblin update draws closer but we are not there yet - here is this weeks topics we have also been working on:

Dev Blog #49: Progress Update - Character Backgrounds, Goblin Teaser, Visual Makeover Continued
All the different Goblins have made it into the game now and are being tested and balanced. All their sounds are done as well - the most extensive work for any creature yet. You can find a short teaser at the very end of this update. In the meantime, we also changed how character backgrounds work and gave all helmet visuals a makeover.

Character Backgrounds
Hiring new mercenaries is a core part of the gameplay of Battle Brothers and we put a lot of effort into making characters feel as unique and memorable as possible. That’s why we keep adding new faces, hairstyles, items and background stories all the time. The background of a character, essentially what they did before joining up with you to become a mercenary, is an especially defining factor of who they are today. It determines their starting stats, their traits and factors into events involving the character.

However, there are two issues with how character backgrounds work currently. The first issue is that because characters have randomized stats within a certain range to reflect different talents and dispositions, it’s sometimes hard to predict their stats based on their background. A hunter is someone you’d want to hire when looking for a ranged specialist - yet with an unlucky roll you can end up with a guy quite bad with ranged weapons, despite the Hunter background adding a flat amount of ranged skill. This is understandably frustrating for players that are explicitly looking for a ranged character and have invested quite a bit of crowns.

The second issue is that because backgrounds change a character's stats by a fixed amount, it makes things too predictable on other occasions. A Hedge Knight is always better than a Farmhand overall. There is no single Farmhand that can match a Hedge Knight in strength, anywhere. This is a problem because it quickly divides backgrounds into those considered must-have, and those considered bad and only to be hired at the start of the game, outside of roleplaying reasons. We want to have some diversity in the player's rosters and not just two or three different backgrounds with the rest essentially skipped.



To address these points, we’ve changed how character stats are determined. Instead of rolling stats in the same range for all characters and then having the background add a flat amount on top, backgrounds now have their very own min and max values when rolling for each stat. What does that mean? Well, you can find characters skilled in ranged combat with all kinds of backgrounds, some even more skilled than the Hunter you’ve just hired - but the Hunter is guaranteed to know how to use a bow and will always come with a good level of ranged skill now. And while with a Hedge Knight you know you’ll be getting a beast of man, there’s always the chance that you’ll find that random exceptional Farmhand that is even stronger and more physically fit - the Hedge Knight is just guaranteed to be at a good level.

Founding Members
When starting a new campaign you enter the world with 3 founding members in your mercenary company. Those founding members previously came with a background chosen at random, with only the very weakest and the strongest backgrounds excluded, which made for some interesting scenarios at times but also contributed to the very uneven difficulty in the early game.

You may have noticed before that the introductory screen explains you starting a mercenary company with three companions who worked as sellswords before and fought alongside you personally in the shieldwall. It never made much sense that you’d then end up with a fisherman and a tailor who didn’t know the first thing about fighting, so we’ve changed that. The three Battle Brothers you start with now come with a unique Companion background that can’t be found anywhere else. They have some respectable fighting experience and some fighting gear that has already seen battle, as well as background stories that tell of your exploits and how you originally met. They’re competent fighters and should make the early game a bit less bumpy, but they’re not necessarily on the level of some of the other characters you can hire later on in the game. Where to take it from here, and whom to hire next, is your decision to make.

Visual Makeover Continued
Continuing with our visual makeover, Paul has had his crosshairs on helmets this week. Those are now in line with the new body armors and also boat a grittier and more detailed look.



Goblin Teaser
Here we are - a new teaser of the upcoming Goblins. This time we're showing the Goblin Skirmisher, their melee infantry, with a couple of different deadly tools available to them.



We're currently busy testing them in the game, balancing their difficulty and adjusting their behavior to make for some unique challenges very different from other opponents already in the game. All their sounds have been done this week as well - with an actual sound budget now we're able to give Goblins voices that really underline their mischievous character.

[Jaysen]

Like a good movie each game needs a great score to reach its full potential:

This time we let you in on the ideas, inspirations and techniques behind the soundtrack to our game (article by our composers Breakdown Epiphanies)

"Orchestrating the Onslaught" - The Music of Battle Brothers

Music in an integral part of any game and even more for a fantasy game like Battle Brothers. It sets the atmosphere for a relaxed visit to the town or a bloodcurdling fight against undead at night. In addition to our regular progress updates we want to take the opportunity to give you insights into how the Battle Brothers music is coming to life. The following article is written by our music composers Breakdown Epiphanies and has them explain in their own words their thoughts, inspirations and techniques behind the various musical pieces of the game.

Introduction

As we just finished a musical make-over for the bandit faction, we would like to give you a quick update on how the soundtrack to Battle Brothers has evolved in the course of the last few months. First of all, we are happy to announce that the game already features more than 80 minutes of music and we will continue to produce more pieces as Early Access moves on. Today we would like to showcase the new bandit and beast faction themes as well as talk about some of the music that has already been in the game for some time now.

The Bandit Battle Themes

After recording the fabulous music for The Order 1886 (which features exclusively lower register instruments and voices), composer Jason Graves told a journalist that he "always thought that choosing the instruments you don’t use is just as important as choosing the ones that you do". For Battle Brothers, we tried to adopt this mindset and came up with various constraints while writing for each faction. A lose concept for the bandit faction was "instruments you can carry around on your back". We did not fully abide by that rule so the pieces would still fit in the overall sound of the soundtrack but it was a nice guideline to give the bandits their own signature sound. Both tracks are carried by smaller percussion ensembles and lots of steel-string guitar, going for a mix of folk and orchestral music. The melodies are played by single instruments like a solo violin or a trumpet. (There is a pretty dominant cello at some point, too. That one is obviously carried around by an athletic wildman.)

The first piece is the more guitar-heavy of the two, with a fingerstyle middle section and even some prepared guitar towards the end. We went for the good ol' "let a bent paper-clip bounce on the strings" approach. The idea of the prepared guitar refers to the "prepared piano" famously employed by John Cage in his works from the 1940s and 1950s.

Battle Brothers OST - 2nd Bandit Battle Track

The second track is a waltz that ends with some double bass drums and a rather sad and longing string arrangement. Besides the obvious topics like battles and war we feel that Battle Brothers' world rings with these emotions, too, the nostalgia of travelling around and the life of a group of ordinary people that one day decided to live by the sword.

The first Beast Battle Track, Werewolf Woods

The beasts are not supposed to be a homogeneous faction in Battle Brothers. At the moment they only consist of the werewolves but there will be different animals and creatures from folklore added as development goes on. That's why the first piece of music we dedicated to them is more of an ambient piece that is supposed to reflect the atmosphere of a forest hunted by something menacing and wild, moving bushes, reflections of eyes, all that good jazz.

Battle Brothers OST - Beast Battle Track One

That's it for the news for now but if you are still curious about our compositions, we'll use our time in the spotlight to talk a little bit more about our thought process behind some of the tracks that are already in the game and that have already accompanied you on your travels and in countless battles.

The 2nd Orc Battle Track

The second piece for the Orc faction strays a great deal from the more sound-designy approach we went for with the first one. While our earlier track does not move that much and establishes a general tone of heaviness and brutality, we wanted this one to reflect that fighting orcs in Battle Brothers can very much feel like getting hit by a truck. The greenskins furiously charge into your men, break shieldwalls, stun people left and right and occasionally make short work of allies that you did not protect well enough. So the second battle track for this faction feels more up-tempo and agitated than the first one while still maintaining the signature drum and brass sections. As fighting orcs reminded us of moshpits at metal and hardcore shows, we even added a half-tempo breakdown in there for good measure.

Battle Brothers OST - 2nd Orc Battle Track

The 2nd Undead Battle Track

The inspiration for the undead music came from re-watching scenes from 60's mythology movies, most famously Ray Harryhausen's stop motion skeletons in “Jason and the Argonauts”. Those things used to scare the crap out of us when we were kids and later we still admired how unnatural and – for the lack of a better word – “wrong” their movement felt. We based the track on quick snare rhythms quantised in a way that sounds too precise for being played by actual human drummers and then went with a lot of low-register strings (no brass in the themes for the undead faction). Inevitable church bells and various percussion elements that are supposed to emulate the sound of sticks playing on a ribcage round up our take on orchestrating the undead onslaught.

Battle Brothers OST - 2nd Undead Battle Track

The 2nd Town Theme

This is the music that plays during your visits to the larger and more prosperous towns in the game. The piece we presented you in our last devblog post is slower and less uplifting as it is meant for small and (as long as no bandits or orcs decide to go for a raiding field trip) peaceful villages. This one conveys a more lively atmosphere while still featuring a lot of rhythm work on guitars and melody lines on cello.

Battle Brothers OST - Town Theme II

The Stronghold Theme

The strongholds are pretty important locations in the game as it stands because they are the only places where you can buy military grade equipment and they spawn the Landsknechts parties that patrol the roads and help you defend the land's towns and villages. They even spawn very lucrative and dangerous contracts. Paul painted a beautiful screen for the strongholds so we tried to write some music that does justice to the tone that is set by his visuals. Its a waltz featuring a lot of military style percussion and again the foundation is laid by some chords on the acoustic guitar. The guitar will act as a signature element for the human faction in the game, much like the undead and orcs have their own “sonic footprint”.

Battle Brothers OST - Stronghold Theme

We hope you've enjoyed the music in the game so far and we are looking forward to the next updates and the musical opportunities they will bring. Currently we are busy working on the music for the upcoming Goblin faction. If you'd like to be up to date on our work and the soundtrack to Battle Brothers or want to ask us any questions about the music, please get in touch with us on twitter or soundcloud!

Huzzah!

Dennis and Patrick

[PanH]

Lots of really great news ! Thanks for keeping us updated here. I think I'll wait for the Goblins update to start a new game, but there's plenty stuff I want to try now.

Also, about character stats, I'm not sure I understood everything. Like, a hedge knight will have a higher threshold but less variation possible (e.g. strength) and a farmhand a lower threshold but more variation possible ? So, it's kind of a buff to weaker backgrounds ?

[Crazy Horse]

As I understood it variation applies similarly to all class types with new minimum possible values depending on background. It's more like a buff to professional classes or at least a better guarantee you get your crowns' worth. In my last game I hired then fired four hunter/poachers with no higher than 39 ranged skill; with this change I'd assume they should have something like 45-50 range skill.

Been holding off for the Gobbo update as well -- looking forward to it!

[Kaje]

This is just goddamn awesome stuff - thank you for being active, receptive, and simply fantastic developers.

[Jaysen]

As I understood it variation applies similarly to all class types with new minimum possible values depending on background. It's more like a buff to professional classes or at least a better guarantee you get your crowns' worth. In my last game I hired then fired four hunter/poachers with no higher than 39 ranged skill; with this change I'd assume they should have something like 45-50 range skill.

Been holding off for the Gobbo update as well -- looking forward to it!

Yes, it works more like this to make sure that you get at least decent stats for the appropiate professions.

[HARD]

any chance for some character creator? i would like to make my own leader at the start