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[Jaysen]

So when will the update be ready? "When it's done"

But here is a new blog post on contracts to shorten the wait. This time we go through a complete exemplary contract:

Dev Blog #62: Progress Update - Contracts, Part 2

In last week’s update we talked about what we feel needs to be improved regarding contracts in the game, and introduced new mechanics to do just that. This week we’ll walk through one of the new contracts together to get a better feel for how those may branch out and how you can affect their outcome. Onwards!

Your Reputation

The contract we’re taking a closer look at today is the ‘Raid Caravan’ one. For a long time there have been requests from you guys to be able to raid caravans yourself - and now, you can. It’s not the same as living as bandits, but it’s the shadier side of mercenary business where your employer cares little for the life of a few peasants if it furthers their agenda.

Because we want to also portray the less chivalrous side of mercenary life, and give you options on how to lead your own company, we have a bunch of darker-themed contracts and decisions available. Being hired to slaughter a bunch of peasants, let no one escape alive and burn down their homes, may not appeal to everyone, and that’s ok, but it’s a way to earn some easy crowns because those peasants will hardly put up a fight against hardened mercenaries.

Your inclination towards actions such as these are now measured with a new ‘moral reputation’ scale, which reflects how people know you to act. If you’re particularly bloodthirsty, people may fear you just for your reputation, which may even unlock some additional actions in contracts and events, while being known as kind and merciful may garner you the goodwill and support of the people.

Raid Caravan

Because we’ve covered contract negotiations in last week’s update, we’re jumping straight to the action. Your employer hired you to raid a caravan, kill everyone and burn everything - their motivations for doing so vary throughout the game, the specifics will differ, but the general structure of the contract remains the same. You’re given information on a caravan travelling from one settlement to another and have to intercept it on your own terms. Predict the way it’s going to take, pick a good spot, pick a good time, and attack.



As you close in to attack, several things can happen. You may be spotted, and the caravan leader may seek a parley to offer you a bribe. You’d just have to return to your employer and tell him that you failed to catch up to the caravan. If you accept, he may even offer you a second bribe to name your employer. Failing to destroy the caravan will hurt your reputation either way, but naming your employer is a betrayal - and if your employer were to find out, he might seek revenge, and will certainly not want to trust you with contracts for the foreseeable future. But then, how should he find out? And it’s a lot of crowns you’re offered.

The caravan may have also taken up travellers along the way. One of them could be a swordmaster, a dangerous opponent that now threatens you to leave alone the caravan that so graciously took him along. Is fighting him at the risk of losing good men worth it for what you’re paid?

Closing in on the caravan successfully, you have several options. You may choose to encircle the caravan for different starting positions in battle - helpful when your orders are to leave noone alive. So are wardogs, of course, to catch up with anyone attempting to flee. If it is night time, you may try to close in even further. Note that while these actions allow you to adjust your approach to the situation, they’re not meant as a replacement for a potential deployment phase, preset formations, or similar.

The battle is done, you’re victorious! Time to report to your employer. Again, several things can happen. Maybe this time, while looking for valuables and burning the rest, your men find some delicate papers about your employer that make for an interesting read. Turns out that this was the reason he wanted to have the caravan burned in the first place. You may choose to burn the papers with the rest, or take them along. As you return to your employer, you can blackmail him with the papers for a large sum of crowns, but at the cost of your relations. Or you can just hand them over. Or keep them for a later time.

And did you let anyone escape alive to tell the tale of your attack? If so, then you better hope they didn’t know who you were, or they didn’t make it, because if the trail leads back to your employer, he probably won’t be happy about being incriminated. And neither will whoever owned that caravan appreciate your involvement.

And that’s a day in a mercenary’s life.

[Jaysen]

New worldmap assets and individual characters for each faction is what we are working on:

Dev Blog #63: Progress Update - Map, Faction Leaders

Time is flying by as the settlement screens get finished and we move on to work on the actual map part of the worldmap. Let’s take a closer look!

What’s been happening?

The settlement screens are done for now, so we’re moving on to polish the worldmap assets. Just like the settlement screens, those, too, had initially been done with placeholder images and are now receiving their final look. Below you can see how the central buildings of settlements, the same ones you previously saw on the settlement screens, look on the worldmap now.



At the same time we’re implementing more faction mechanics and contracts. All factions in the world of Battle Brothers now have a number of characters leading them - family members in the case of noble houses, and influential citizens in the case of settlements. Although those characters don’t have the depth as in a true rpg, we do feel that giving faces to the factions really helps to have them come alive.

As factions give out contracts, you’ll be dealing with individual characters that negotiate with you and to whom you report after all is said and done. You’ll potentially be working with them on several contracts, and they can also become part of contracts themselves. You may be escorting them, you may fight alongside them on the field of battle, or you may even be hired to kill them after having worked with them for some time - in which case they’ll permanently depart from this world, just like your conscience.



The above shows part of the new ‘Factions & Relations’ screen where you can at any time get an overview of the factions in the game, their leading characters, and your relation to them. Factions, too, come with a bit of procedurally generated backstory depending on their traits and values, in order to give you an idea of who it is you’re dealing with. If we find the time, we’ll also add some more clothes and hats suitable for nobility.

[ThtblovesDF]

Good stuff : ) - could help with the lategame thickness, when you reached max level on your chars and just can't really do much else, since the level cap hits so hard...

[a1s]

So when will we be able to touch any of this new stuff? The current beta is from all the way in September.

[dennislp3]

In regards to level cap are their plans to alter that?

An easy way to unlock level caps without making them OP is to use a system similar to unit leveling in Battle for Wesnoth. When a character reaches max level they can continue to level but it only gives them small bonuses such as +1hp.

I personally hate level caps and would love to see something like that...my 50 battle veteran should not be the same as a 10 battle veteran even if the difference is not huge

[Kaje]

If we kill a faction leader or important character, will another always rise to take their place?

[Greenbane]

Looks great!

So when will we be able to touch any of this new stuff? The current beta is from all the way in September.

uhm, thats the tricky one. I assume you wont accept "when it`s done" as an answer? Swore to never say that anyways

It will take quite a while though. Extremely unlikey to have something this year.

[Jaysen]

If we kill a faction leader or important character, will another always rise to take their place?

Yes, they will be replaced for now. Having a whole faction getting completely extinct by just killing the leaders could throw over the whole game balance too much.

[Jaysen]

In regards to level cap are their plans to alter that?

An easy way to unlock level caps without making them OP is to use a system similar to unit leveling in Battle for Wesnoth. When a character reaches max level they can continue to level but it only gives them small bonuses such as +1hp.

I personally hate level caps and would love to see something like that...my 50 battle veteran should not be the same as a 10 battle veteran even if the difference is not huge

Yes, we thought about that solution too. Giving more perks is definitely out of option as player characters already outscale most enemies in the game. We will see about this!

[Kaje]

In regards to level cap are their plans to alter that?

An easy way to unlock level caps without making them OP is to use a system similar to unit leveling in Battle for Wesnoth. When a character reaches max level they can continue to level but it only gives them small bonuses such as +1hp.

I personally hate level caps and would love to see something like that...my 50 battle veteran should not be the same as a 10 battle veteran even if the difference is not huge

Yes, we thought about that solution too. Giving more perks is definitely out of option as player characters already outscale most enemies in the game. We will see about this!

It's just a thought, but what about giving every profession a default unique, scalable perk, which adds a percentage increase to a certain stat each and every level depending on what the profession is known for? It's not chooseable, it's just there - as standard - for every character of that particular professional background.

You could even add a small percentage chance that this standard default perk would 'evolve' into 'legendary' status at a particular level, giving a hugely increased bonus. This might also increase the sense of danger in losing that particular character, as the player wouldn't know when they'd see another legendary evolution in their play-through - if at all.

For example, every soldier with the hunter background would have a default 'Marksman' (I'm sure there's a better name out there) perk which increases accuracy with bows by a set percentage each level - (a small value like 1 or 2% per level) - which would mimic their natural ability improving with practice. This has a 5% chance of evolving on the character reaching level 25 to 'Legendary Marksman', increasing the accuracy boost to 100% (for example) or providing an extra boost to the percentage of getting a one-kill shot at an enemy by finding their weak spot.

A woodcutter might have one called 'Logger' for his two-handed power (or an increase in their chance to 'fell' an opponent in one big swing), a ratcatcher might have one called 'Pest Control' for their blunt weapon skills (or perhaps an increase in their chance to stun an opponent) etc.

It would be a nice way of each profession/background having something unique to them, which grows in power as they do - giving a noticeable difference between lower and higher level characters and a chance for you to uncover the 'legendary' version of that trait which would set them further aside from non-legendary mercenaries of the same level.

[Anvilfolk]

This is actually one of the few good things about the new Mordheim game - the campaign management.

Unit evolution is definitely incremental, but can be significant in the long term. So, say a unit can level to about level 10, and two or three times, you'd get extra action points. These jumps make quite a difference tactically. Furthermore, there are tinier increments, like better hit chance, better armour, better chance to crit, etc - which is already in Battle Brothers.

The way I think things balance out is that in Mordheim, units can become less valuable over time too. So, for instance, if someone is KOd in a mission, they might not die, but might get debuffs, like losing an arm (arguably good sometimes, because it gives you +20% dodge ), losing an eye (reduction of hit chance), etc etc.

So, your warband is generally built out of three tiers: the greenhorn cannon fodder, a mid-tier of troops that have levelled a bit and have a few useful skills, and a core of experienced units that you are very attached to that you protect carefully and that die rarely. Over time, they will get debuffs from injuries, and will become less valuable. At some point, they are no longer particularly good, and this is when one of the better mid-tier units comes takes their place, maybe by switching some equipment over, etc.

With careful balancing, this system can be very compelling (also frustrating). The pro is that that it doesn't give you an end-game where everything is trivial to beat... you are a perpetually changing team of mercenaries, and as you get better, hopefully you'll move more and more units to the top tiers. The con is that it doesn't give you an end-game You never get a steady-state of being awesome. You keep losing and getting new people... and may stop feeling like there is progression.

[Jaysen]

@Kaje:
Intersting thought, this could also be a special perk that you can put points in on level up. It is also pretty tricky to pull of as many backgrounds do not make it easy to come up with an according perk: What about a beggar, a peddler or a Miller?
We also thought about removing the level cap alltogether but only grant one skill point per level up after level 11 and no perk point. This would be incremental but still a reason to keep playing and progressing. A bit like the D3 Paragon System.

@Anvilfolk:
Thanks for the Mordheim-Info, it can be applied really well to Battle Brothers.

In fact, we have been thinking about an injury system for a long while but had bigger fish to fry until now. I can see the drawbacks of it but on the other hand we have a big problem with characters outscaling enemies really hard in the late game. An injury system where your seasoned fighters can also loose effectiveness through injuries would then make the "endgame" more interesting and challenging and would keep a constant flow of new mercs running.
It would also fit the dark medieval setting very well with the permadeath and the very drastic depiction of death and bloodshed, thus adding to immersion and atmosphere. To successfully pull this of we would also have to increase the mercenary roster so you can swap out injured mercs until they recover (if they can recover). Furthermore, a mechanic to maybe retire old and injured mercs would be good so you do not just disband them at some point. Maybe this could then increase the fame/reputation of your company... just thinking out loud here.

[gimli]

What about adjusting the number of oppoments & their stats and/or equipment, based on the player party's measured power = auto scaling. Wouldn't that work?

[a1s]

auto scaling. Wouldn't that work?

Auto scaling sucks. At best it makes progression pointless, and at worst provides perverse incentive for counterproductive actions (to minimize your calculated party level.)

[gimli]

It is a good way to raise the late game difficulty level, but yeah, it has its drawbacks.
Now that I think about it, I think we won't have any problems with the late game, if the injury system will be good enough & quest system will be balanced properly. The quests should become harder as you progress. & quest difficulty should use a basic formula. Ex.: # of completed quests / location & individual NPCs and/or a given faction.
This way, the late game problem will disappear.