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[A Thing]

The art in this game is masturbatory.

As in it's jerking itself off or as in it makes you want to wank? You're not explaining your feelings all that well here.

[Jaysen]

Finally it is here, the update has been released to the public beta branch! Now you can try out all the new features like the reworked perk system and the injury system:

Update released to Beta Branch!

Here we go - the new update is now live for the beta branch of Battle Brothers!

What’s new?

This update started out with two major goals: reworking the perk system and introducing more complex injury mechanics. Both are included in this update, and while were were at it, we’ve also included lots of other changes and additions. Here’s the shortlist of features.

- A new contract
- 25 new illustrated events
- 18 new and detailed mercenary banners to pick from for your company
- 3 new character traits
- 2 new character backgrounds
- An ironman mode
- A reworked perk system, less constricted and with more perks to choose from
- New injury mechanics with different types of injuries and usable temple buildings
- A talent system whereby more talented characters regardless of their background can reliably reach high skill
- More powerful but also more rare named weapons, armor, helmets and shields of every type hidden across the world
- More tools to use in combat, like bandages and poison
- Changed shield mechanics in combat
- Changes to weapon progression and balance
- New sounds for humans; every character uses one of six different voices now to shout and scream. More sounds for all voices incoming.
- Various bugfixes and smaller improvements, such as to AI

Note that this update is not compatible with older savegames. You will have to start a new campaign!




Why put this in a beta branch first?

This update makes changes to many of the game’s mechanics with a rework of the perk system, the introduction of temporary and permanent injuries, and lots of smaller things all over. Extensive changes like these will inevitably upset the game’s balance and introduce new  issues. Participating in the beta is optional for everyone that wants to experience the new content now and doesn’t mind a few hiccups - we’re thankful for your feedback and bug reports! Everyone else may want to wait a few weeks until the game is more balanced and any issues that popped up have been ironed out.

Please report any issues you encounter in the forums here. Do not leave them as comments to this dev blog, they’d only get buried and lost.

How do I access the beta branch?

In order to access the beta branch of Battle Brothers you need to do as follows:

Go to your Steam library.
Right-click on ‘Battle Brothers’ and select ‘Properties’.
Go to the tab labeled ‘BETAS’.
Select ‘beta’ from the drop down menu.


Steam should now download the beta branch and once it is finished you can normally run it via your Steam library.

[ThtblovesDF]

Alright the synthwave battle brothers lasted 156 Days already anyway, thats plenty. Time to test the new version!

Last time I had "solid" frontline troopers with shields & armor, while new recuits got a 2h Axe and told to storm the flanks - if they surived for a while, they got promoted to rank & file.

[Tack]

Note that this update is not compatible with older savegames. You will have to start a new campaign!

Noooo!

Well, almost. Stuck on a goblin ambush contact so seems about time to ditch the Winter Suns.

Speaking of- a banner and symbol color-change UI would be amazing, and hopefully not too ambitious.

[symonthewise]

Last time I played I lost a couple of my OG mercenaries, the soul of the company, thus it is a good time to begin a new save game.

[Jaysen]

We have come a long way with developing Battle Brothers but there is still a lot to do. However, we are now ready to present you the final roadmap to the finished game!

Roadmap to the Finish Line

Battle Brothers has come a long way since it entered Early Access over a year ago, in April of 2015. Every update has brought it a step closer towards being a finished game - and there’s still a few more steps to take. Read on to learn what changes and additions are yet to come!

What’s still to come?

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

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

- Three different ‘Greater Evil’ end game crises for you to get involved in - a war between noble houses, a greenskin invasion and an undead invasion. Each will come with its own set of contracts, events and changes to the world.
- An overarching goal to work towards throughout your campaign, and the ability to retire at any point to receive an illustrated ending screen telling of your accomplishments.
- A more lively and dynamic world, with more opportunities for you to shape it, and more relation between what is going on in the world and contracts on offer.
- A memorial wall screen where your fallen Battle Brothers are listed with their deeds.
- An overhaul of the mood and desertion mechanics on the worldmap.
- An overhaul of the undead faction with new visuals and lore, unique lootable weapons and armor, and the introduction of new enemy types with their own fighting style.
- An overhaul of ghouls as independent beasts that are more interesting and challenging to fight.
- More contracts and events to change things up.
- Various improvements to usability in both combat and on the worldmap.
- Steam achievements.
Not included in that list are the countless smaller additions and improvements we'll be doing along the way. As usual, all the major points and most of the minor ones will be explained in detail in future dev blogs as we go along, so you’ll always know what we’re working on and why.



This big update, once published, will then be followed by a couple of smaller updates for balancing, bug fixing and further improvements based on your feedback until the game is ready to be released.

So does that mean…?

It means that Battle Brothers will not be released in 2016. We’re looking at a release in early 2017 and you’ll be the first to know once we have a set date - most likely to happen when the last big update is live. It’s important to us that the finished game feels complete, polished and well worth its price, so we’ll take the time necessary to ensure just that and won’t rush anything.

It also means that some features that were considered at one point in development or another have been cut and will not make it into the game for now. While some concepts simply won’t fit anymore with how the game has evolved, others would still be cool to have but also require a lot of time to do right. Time that we then couldn’t spend working on other things. Game development is often about hard choices and setting priorities - what feature best to spend our limited time on? What feature will benefit the game the most? Our choices on what’s most important are reflected in the list above. If ever there is an expansion to Battle Brothers, we may revisit some of the concepts that didn't make it into the game at first.



Also, the game has been updated

That’s right. The game has just been updated to version 0.7.0.10 with a new contract, balancing changes, a multitude of AI improvements and a couple of bug fixes. Find the changelog below.

- Added new 'Defend Settlement' contract type.
- Added '-nosound' command line parameter to start the game without any sound or music.
- Changed loot in lootscreen to be sorted by type.
- Changed amount of ammunition and medicinal supplies dropped by enemies as loot to be lower.
- Changed 'Spear Mastery' perk to have spearwalls inflict full thrusting damage on a hit, and no longer give a bonus to hitchance.
- Changed mechanics and cost of 'Rally the Troops' skill to better synergize with everyone's resolve, as well as the 'Sergeant' perk.
- Changed 'First Aid' and 'Drink Antidote' skills to be usable only when bleeding or poisoned, respectively.
- Changed AI to make more intelligent use of the 'Puncture', 'Lash' and 'Decapitate' skills.
- Changed AI to better handle engaging into enemy spearwalls when equipped with a shield or throwing weapons.
- Changed AI of more intelligent opponents to be less prone to gift the player free attacks by charging without any action points left on arrival.
- Changed AI to better handle range advantages and disadvantages when deciding whether to engage or hold a defensive position.
- Changed AI to make use of the wait function in more situations as to waste less action points.
- Fixed wardogs not being affected by night time.
- Fixed issue with dead wardogs that could result in other things not working properly down the line.
- Fixed 'Sprained Ankle' injury not lowering initiative like it is supposed to.
- Fixed 'Shoot Stake' skill being able to knock back rooted targets.
- Fixed issue with contract-related footprints not appearing if accepting a contract immediately after traveling by ship.
- Fixed contract-related worldmap parties sometimes not being attackable by other factions even when they should.
- Fixed behavior of worldmap parties not being properly saved and restored in some cases.
- Fixed various minor things.

[Crazy Horse]

Great stuff. Been playing the latest version and it's pretty solid and entertaining. Good luck with the road map plan!

One thing I miss in the latest version is the insanely lethal Goblins. Never thought I would say that but now that they are such a push-over at night I kind of miss them being pretty much the strongest enemy in the game. In every other game Goblins are low level cannon fodder so it was funny to see them totally own one game.

[Jaysen]

hey, we got so many complaints about the goblins because they are too strong it feels really good to hear someone being happy about that The problem is indeed the expectation management as players commonly expect goblins to be really weak early game enemies. However, we do not want any faction in the game to be pure cannonfodder or better swordfodder.

We also agree that Goblins are really easy to take out at night and that is why we decided to reduce the ranged combat penalties a little with the next update. This will help the goblins a little on those night fights.

[Jaysen]

Here is this weeks dev blog on what we are doing with enemy factions and subfactions:

Dev Blog #83: Enemy Factions

With work on the last big update now on the way, let’s take a look at what we’re going to do with enemy factions on the worldmap in order to make the world more interesting and dynamic, and how it’ll affect you as the player.

Enemy Factions

Enhancing the presence of factions for a more dynamic world is one of the goals of the upcoming update, and this includes enemy factions. Previously, enemy locations, like bandit camps, just got different banners assigned randomly, which then were also used by any parties created by that location, and that was it. Now, we’re going to introduce actual independent sub-factions, like orc clans and goblin states, which occupy territories on the worldmap and seek to expand them.

Orcs, goblins, bandits and undead each received half a dozen or more new banners on par in quality with the new mercenary banners introduced not long ago. You’ll be able to see by those banners on the worldmap where a faction holds power much like you currently do with noble houses. Take a look below to see a very strong orc faction fond of grates in the southern part, smaller goblin and orc factions bordering them, and a strong goblin faction to the north.



Factions are most active near their territory - sending out patrols, hunting or raiding parties, and actively defending their territory against intruders. While this was somewhat the case before already, it now also applies to contracts. In previous versions we often had to spawn locations and enemies all around the world artificially as part of contracts, just to give you enough to do. With a steadily increasing number of different contracts, however, we can now go back to having contracts appear when there is actually a specific threat in the vicinity, safe in the knowledge that there’ll always be some kind of work to be found.

For example, settlements bordering orc territory are now much more likely to require your help in fighting off orcs, and conversely, destroying that single orc camp near a town will erase that threat, and thereby the need for contracts against orcs, for good. Or at least until other orcs make their way into this part of the world. If you prefer to stay clear of orcs for now, you’re advised to just travel to a different part of the land where orcs have less of a foothold. Of course, those orcs may then expand their territory and grow stronger while you’re not there to keep them in check.



To underline further that you’ll be fighting not just randomly spawned parties, but parties actually belonging to factions and doing their part in helping theirs to expand, the combat engage screen now shows banners of all enemy factions involved in a battle in full detail on the right, and your own banner, as well as the banners of all allies taking part in the battle, to the left.

[ThtblovesDF]

Oh so we can fight some already wounded Partys? Would be lovly to have enemies as thick with Battle scars and Storys as our own Battle Brothers.

[Neonivek]

hey, we got so many complaints about the goblins because they are too strong it feels really good to hear someone being happy about that The problem is indeed the expectation management as players commonly expect goblins to be really weak early game enemies. However, we do not want any faction in the game to be pure cannonfodder or better swordfodder.

We also agree that Goblins are really easy to take out at night and that is why we decided to reduce the ranged combat penalties a little with the next update. This will help the goblins a little on those night fights.

What made me personally know that Goblins weren't pushovers... was that they weren't part of another faction.

But then again I play a lot of videogames.

[Retropunch]

The faction update looks great!!

Whilst I know you're near to finishing, I believe that factions would be an ideal place for further updates (or even an expansion of sorts). There's so much that can be done with them, in terms of helping one faction against another (either directly or indirectly) and the factions themselves having a bigger impact on the world itself.

[Yolan]

Looking great as always!

According to steam I've now played battle brothers for 129 hours. ;-)

But I have a conundrum.

Do many other people play iron man? If I have an iron man option, I just have to take it. Even if I don't have the option in other games I often
force myself to play iron man. At the same time I like high difficulty levels. Playing on easier difficulty and/or with the option to
re-load feels like cheating for me with these kinds of games.

But unfortunately this game actually -is- hard! I had maybe ten party wipes with the wounds update a few weeks back. I made a lot
of progress in how long my party could survive, and learnt a fair bit about how to properly play the early game. And that was super rewarding.
But I do feel like the way the game is balanced at the moment means that it's not too hard to end up completely wiped out by a bad
encounter. Half the time it might be my fault for getting cocky. But sometimes it does feel a bit unfair.

So I'm at an impass. Kind of like what happened to me in Invisible Inc. I don't want to lower the difficulty, or re-load after wipes, but
I also can't bring myself to constantly replay the initial 20-30 days of a campaign.

Some suggestions for possible ways to help with the balance here:

- Maybe some way to bridge the difficulty gap between fighting thugs, and fighting raiders. Maybe a third type? Raiders seem to have maybe twice the skill level of thugs, and their weapons can be just brutal on even a fairly skilled character. Meanwhile thugs can feel quite easy.
- Maybe some more low level risk, lowish reward quests. I don't mind grinding my way up cautiously, but I often end up rail-roaded into trying quests that are too hard for me out of desperation at having no other options while running out of coin.
- Perhaps some further balancing with the way difficultly is spread over the map might help.

Anyhow, I -love- the difficulty, and I really don't want the game to be made "easier", but some balancing with iron-man players in mind would be very appreciated by me. ;-)

[Tack]

A thought on the 'memorial wall'.

It could be interesting to do gravestones on the map where brothers have fallen. They could be places to camp, and could affect morale one way or another amongst your party when you pass by.
If it was a particularly bloody battle, there could be an event involving sullen veterans and curious rookies.
If it's in a bad area... your fallen comrades could prove to be a terrifying challenge for your band.

[A Thing]

A thought on the 'memorial wall'.

It could be interesting to do gravestones on the map where brothers have fallen. They could be places to camp, and could affect morale one way or another amongst your party when you pass by.
If it was a particularly bloody battle, there could be an event involving sullen veterans and curious rookies.
If it's in a bad area... your fallen comrades could prove to be a terrifying challenge for your band.

I really like this idea. I can see a player returning to an area after a long time away and finding the burial mound of some of their best mercenaries taken over by necromancers or bandits or even some arrogant nobles ("It looked like quite the beautiful spot to bury my horse!") I can also see the events where your veterans get phantom pains when they pass by the site of a gruesome battle too. I'm kinda a sucker for memorial wall features and very few games make extended use of them so I think it would be pretty nice to see stuff like this.