Battle Brothers - Update 1.1 released

HiddenX · June 17, 2017

Update 1.1 for Battle Brothers has been released:

The Conclusion: Update 1.1 Released

The 1.1 update to Battle Brothers is here and brings a bunch of additions and changes, as well as various bugfixes – see below for the complete changelog. Also, we’re talking about what we’ll be doing next.

The Conclusion
Making Battle Brothers a reality has been a great ride. Back when we still worked our evenings and weekends on the game, we never imagined quite how many and how much people would fall in love with it, and all the support we’d get from you. Playing the game now ourselves, we’re genuinely happy with how things turned out. For all its flaws, Battle Brothers is fun to play, it’s satisfying to see what we achieved with our means, and we’re happy to say that we’ve learned a lot on game development as we created our first game together.

A part of game development is making tough decisions on where to spend your limited time. In creating Battle Brothers we, too, had to make concessions in order to make the game happen. Unfortunately, this now makes things like translations and mod support unfeasible, as much as we’d like to offer them, and expanding the game beyond its initial concept an increasingly unwieldy endeavour.

We’ve thought long and hard about where we want to go from here. After working on the same game for almost five years now, we’ve come to realize that it is time to move on. Creating Battle Brothers has always been about building the game we want to play ourselves, and furthering ourselves as game developers, and we believe that taking all the lessons learned here to create a new game dear to us is the right next step to take.

Development on Battle Brothers is concluded with today’s update – although we’ll of course continue to provide bugfixes, as necessary. We have a very good idea of the game we want to create next, and we’re enthusiastic to get started. It won’t be Battle Brothers 2, but if you enjoyed playing Battle Brothers, chances are good you’ll really enjoy our next game, too. We look forward to tell you all about it in the future. It’ll even have legs!

Changelog

Added 18 new illustrated events.

Added 3 new player banners.

Added 63 colored variants of most common helmets for more customization options.

Added more options to customize campaign difficulty by introducing separate settings for 'Economic Difficulty', 'Combat Difficulty' and 'Starting Funds'. See tooltips for more information.

Added optional 'Reset Equipment After Battle' setting to automatically place equipment back into the inventory slot it was in before battle, if possible.

Added additional ambient sounds for settlements.

Changed combat log to show more detailed information, including hit chances, dice rolls for enemies and damage to shields.

Changed 'Bags & Belts' perk to also remove the fatigue penalty for carrying items in any bag slot.

Changed fatigue cost of ‘Indomitable’ perk active skill to 20, down from 25.

Changed various minor things to improve game balance and pacing.

Fixed 'Lone Wolf' perk effect sometimes not updating correctly after movement.

Fixed potentially wrong healing time displayed in medical supplies tooltip.
Fixed specific ambitions not being recorded as fulfilled when engaging two enemy parties in quick succession.

Fixed issue with 'Armed Courier' contract during an active late game crisis.

Fixed two potential issues with the 'Siege Fortification' contract.

Fixed issue when retreating at a specific point during the 'Free Greenskin Prisoners' contract.

Fixed game potentially hanging when loading an ambush with a large number of opponents.

Fixed auto-loot sometimes granting loot to the player even if not having won the battle.

Fixed cultist conversion events also changing daily wages.

Fixed situations at settlements sometimes not being resolved correctly.

Fixed tavern rumors about famed helmets incorrectly referring to them as weapons.

Fixed various minor issues.

More information.

TheSHEEEP · June 17, 2017

It was really a strange decision of them not to plan for mod support.
Rarely has a game screamed for that feature as much as this one.
Of course, it is fully understandable that they don't want to spend months now to rewrite half their game to support mods.

Oh, well. It's still great fun, but I doubt it will have much longevity without mods.
Hoping they don't repeat the same mistake with their next game - and take less than 5 years to develop it

you · June 17, 2017

Still not on gog

Hastar · June 17, 2017

No expansion, no mod support and no Battle Brothers 2. Crappy news to wake up to on a Saturday morning.

The no mod support really stinks. This is the worst news for me since JVC sold New World Computing.

screeg · June 17, 2017

I'm glad they're going to start on their next game. A lot of people are crying about "mod support", like it's something they could just whip up in a few weeks, or months. If the game architecture wasn't designed with mod support in mind (it wasn't), and they say it's not practical to implement, then it just isn't.

It's the best tactical game I've played since Jagged Alliance 2. But it's their first game and they didn't think of every last detail five years ago when they got started. It happens.

Hastar · June 17, 2017

screeg said:
I'm glad they're going to start on their next game. A lot of people are crying about "mod support", like it's something they could just whip up in a few weeks, or months. If the game architecture wasn't designed with mod support in mind (it wasn't), and they say it's not practical to implement, then it just isn't.

It's the best tactical game I've played since Jagged Alliance 2. But it's their first game and they didn't think of every last detail five years ago when they got started. It happens.

They made promises of adding features like different battlefield maps with huts and walls and graveyards. Also, talked about battle sisters and different racial backgrounds like Asian brothers. Talked about having non battle perks like crafting and logistics. Seems to be they could have at least released 1 DLC with things that were originally promised to be in the game. If adding mod support was too hard then they could have supported the game for at least a few more months.

I gave them a lot of money and hyped the game to anyone I could. I still love the game but it could have been so much more. They have abandoned the game to work on their next game and that has pissed off their most loyal customers.

forgottenlor · June 17, 2017

Hastar said:
They made promises of adding features like different battlefield maps with huts and walls and graveyards. Also, talked about battle sisters and different racial backgrounds like Asian brothers. Talked about having non battle perks like crafting and logistics. Seems to be they could have at least released 1 DLC with things that were originally promised to be in the game. If adding mod support was too hard then they could have supported the game for at least a few more months.

I gave them a lot of money and hyped the game to anyone I could. I still love the game but it could have been so much more. They have abandoned the game to work on their next game and that has pissed off their most loyal customers.

They could have made some good money with a DLC containing some of the features you talked about. Still I respect their decision. They are a 3 man team, unlike Obsidian, for example, and they can't just stick a couple people in to hammer out a DLC. When you work on something for a long time, my dissertation comes to mind, or a couple of the rpg maker games I've made, sometimes you want to draw the line and move on. You're proud of what you've accomplished, but you're exhausted by it and need some distance and then its good to work on something new. So while it might not be a wise business decision, it may be a wise artistic decision. And it could very well be when they've had some time and distance, they'll return to Battle Brothers and create an even better Battle Brothers 2.

rjshae · June 17, 2017

Art is never finished, only abandoned. --Leonardo da Vinci

Drithius · June 17, 2017

So many salty people on the Steam forums.

As new developers, I commend them for going where their passion takes them and not subverting it for an angry mob of fickle players. The same players who are altering their once glowing reviews because, after playing for hundreds of hours, it's suddenly a horrible game due to lack of mod support.

They Live · June 17, 2017

Mountains of Salt on steam, i followed this game since its first steps and i got way more than i paid in terms of hours and fun.

Still can't understand this decision, with all the positive feedback a dlc would sell very well and the main structure of the game it's already there.

I respect there decision but it's sad to see this game not expressing its full potential.

Hastar · June 17, 2017

Yeah the game still gets a great score in my book and I will keep an eye on their next game. I am just disappointed that more could have been added to the great sandbox they made.

screeg · June 17, 2017

Drithius said:
…after playing for hundreds of hours, it's suddenly a horrible game due to lack of mod support.

That's what's really effing backwards. Sure I played it for 300 hours, but now I'm not getting what I want! How dare they!

I mean, is there a point where the entitlement ends?

Carnifex · June 17, 2017

I still look forward to playing this one day. It already sounds meaty enough to me for the price.

screeg · June 18, 2017

I would've paid $50 for it if I knew what I was getting.

Heck, I paid that for Diablo when it came out and back then $50 could actually buy you something.

ChienAboyeur · June 18, 2017

Hastar said:
They made promises of adding features like different battlefield maps with huts and walls and graveyards.

Also introducing a reptilian faction.

forgottenlor said:
They could have made some good money with a DLC containing some of the features you talked about.

They have already made good money. Beside, providing a DLC featuring only half of the features claimed, especially mod support could have turned in a money/time sink and then an unsound business decision.

Drithius said:
The same players who are altering their once glowing reviews because, after playing for hundreds of hours, it's suddenly a horrible game due to lack of mod support.

It is a common behaviour. Reviews are supposed to assess finished products, not half baked products.
Now it is common for crowdfunded devs to tease their customers by making it sound like the final product will definitively be better than the current version.

The process has been exposed many times already: devs tease a better tomorrow, customers are hyped and consider that channelling resources toward the project is their best chance to reach the better tomorrow. To that goal, they write dithyrambic reports that are nothing but promotional leafets to attract if not fool other people into spending into the project.
The devs pull the plug without delivering, the review of the final product happens.

The point is that it has never been an excellent product. Players fancied the final version to be an excellent product as the result of devs promises. They decided to promote the product on that basis to attract money and make the final product happen.

ChienAboyeur · June 18, 2017

The story of hours is already gross by itself but applied to crowdfunded projects, it oozes arrogance.

Crowdfunded projects release unfinished products. It is praised and described as a fantastic opportunity for players to participate and provide a feed back.

BB is time consuming and any participation require dozens of hours.

Over the years, a guy who participated only four times finished with 150 or more hours.

Mechanically, it adds.

People who spend hours to participate to the greatness of crowdfunded projects are later blamed to have participated.

Crowdfunded projects are great because they let people participate. Participate though, and you will be blamed for participating.
The thing that was never meant to be.

On to this, on this site, when you find another way to assess a product, like watching streamers, it is also blamed.

Hastar · June 20, 2017

The release of Crimson Court this week for Darkest Dungeon is almost like rubbing salt in the wound for Battle Brother fans. What could have been :bigcry:

BB is one of my favorite games and I just wish their was mod support.

I have in the last few months replayed Gothic 2, Oblivion, HoMM3, Homm4, Temple of Elemental Evil and a few other older games. All of these games were heavily modded that added or totally changed the game. I loved them all. This is what I wished for BB. To still be playing the game 10 years after release.

My favorite game since HoMM 3 is Eador Genesis. I still play a game every few weeks because of the mod New Horizons. I am not sure I would be playing the base game all these years later if not for mod support.

ChienAboyeur · June 20, 2017

Now the product hit the final release, the count down for played hours has begun.
Not sure that people are going to pour hundreds more hours in it.

Terry · June 21, 2017

Who is to say that after they recharge their batteries on a new project they may revisit the Battle Brothers in the future. Their biggest mistake was being too honest, in the internet age just about anything you say or do will result in much wailing and gnashing of teeth by some one. If they had came out 6 or 12 months from now with the announcement they were moving on to a new game it would have been much less of a reaction.
But WTH these are three guys who make games not a some corporate talking head who knows how to spin shit in to gold.

ChienAboyeur · June 21, 2017

They hinted at that.

Five years in developpment for BB. Completion of the new project plus holidays, like three to five years.

In these conditions, parts of BB will be 8 to 10 years old. Going back to six, seven year old work is somewhat tedious already. They stated they did not want to delve into the DLC because BB was poorly structured.

They might as well try to go for a BB 2, recycling assets that can be recycled.

Battle Brothers - Update 1.1 released

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