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IDK, it seems tasteless, but I don’t think it’s out of keeping for the theme they are going for. The game is clearly meant to take place in a world where the default behaviour toward strangers is nasty, selfish, and cruel. If you’re choosing that option, you are choosing to define your mercenaries as morally bankrupt villains, and it uses a storytelling element that has been around forever (band of bad men descends on an isolated home, rapes the women and then kills everyone) as a shorthand for establishing that. In fiction when someone does that they are usually not the protagonists, but that’s not always the case: it’s basically deciding that you’re the Judge from Blood Meridian. Yes it’s gross, but if you don’t want to contemplate it then don’t role play being the evil guys? I suppose there’s an argument that it’s morally desensitising to have the option to play evil paths in games but that ship sailed back in the 2000s.
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Mar 10, 2020 16:16
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kidkissinger posted:I guess I should feel really silly for expecting them to ever add battle sisters Put in the legends mod, and poof they exist. Not really much different from battle brothers either.
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Mar 10, 2020 16:17
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Legends is interesting. It has some very definite flaws and the camping system is the exact busywork bullshit (that is very difficult to balance, considering it can grant you stuff like free extra perks) you expect out of one of these amateur add on mods, but a bunch of the new weapons are genuinely pretty neat and fairly balanced. Some of the new units are fine, too. Weirdly, the Valla actually seems fairly balanced as a battlefield unit given she does something new but doesn't do it so well that it breaks the game. Unlike the Seer. Holy hell is the Seer bonkers once they get going. I do appreciate being able to have a power-nun running around smashing skeletons with a mace like it was D&D though.
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Mar 10, 2020 17:48
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Looks like 300 new posts in the Battle Brothers thread...
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Mar 10, 2020 18:01
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Gyshall posted:Looks like 300 new posts in the Battle Brothers thread... All about the new rape mechanic that's being implemented. Actual Content: Followed a tip from a Tavern saying there was treasure out in the "Cemetery of the Poor." Guarded only by 8 Geists. The treasure was just 73 gold. I guess I can't say I wasn't warned by the title, but womp.
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Mar 10, 2020 18:12
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At some point i'm killing things more for XP than for gold.
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Mar 10, 2020 18:33
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Beefeater1980 posted:IDK, it seems tasteless, but I don’t think it’s out of keeping for the theme they are going for. The game is clearly meant to take place in a world where the default behaviour toward strangers is nasty, selfish, and cruel. If you’re choosing that option, you are choosing to define your mercenaries as morally bankrupt villains, and it uses a storytelling element that has been around forever (band of bad men descends on an isolated home, rapes the women and then kills everyone) as a shorthand for establishing that. Yeah sure, but how may games have you played that actually have rape in it? As something your merry band of lads have committed. The odd funny event popping doesn't really put a dent in the relentlessly misanthropic tone of the vast majority of the content in this game. deep dish peat moss posted:What makes a possibly implied rape of one woman worse than the cold-blooded slaughter of an entire farm worth of innocents? Like, why is the phrase "you hand the woman over" worse than just straight up mass murder? Because people get their jollies writing that poo poo? Some people get off on reading that poo poo? There is no justification for having this content in the game except being edgy. There is a context to rape specifically which makes it not OK to use flippantly. If you are going to write rape into a story you better have a good reason to use it as a narrative device. I did look up the writer after someone named him up thread and yes he appears to absolutely be the kind of piece of poo poo who would put this into a game as part of his artistic expression.
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Mar 10, 2020 18:46
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I mean having said that it’s not like it really adds anything, other than to evoke the specific image of “evil bunch of raiders” via a commonly used theme, which you could also do by describing pretty much anything else sadistic and unpleasant. People being what they are, someone somewhere probably would get off on that too. It just seems an odd assertion that this one line that 99% of players will never see is categorically edgier than any of the other bad guy decisions in this early modern hired killers/peasant misery simulator.
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Mar 10, 2020 19:15
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Beefeater1980 posted:I mean having said that it’s not like it really adds anything, other than to evoke the specific image of “evil bunch of raiders” via a commonly used theme, which you could also do by describing pretty much anything else sadistic and unpleasant. This. The correct opinion isn't 'there's mass slaughter options, therefore adding anything else is okay', it's 'there's mass slaughter options therefore anything else is purely gratuitous and tasteless'. Also people playing the game will not have experienced their peasant village being burned and plundered, but they very well may have experienced sexual assault. If you are going to touch on trauma that real people playing your game may have actually experienced then you need to be incredibly sensitive and cautious about doing so, and you need a pretty good artistic reason.
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Mar 10, 2020 19:46
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"yes but you kill people in the game thus the rape is okay." Or "I'm not sure how you could have read "once you have had your way with her make sure she is dead" as anything remotely to do with rape. It's more about you than the scenario as written."
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Mar 10, 2020 19:47
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"just make sure she's dead after" *cuts to a scene of the mercs playing jenga with her before murder*
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Mar 10, 2020 19:52
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Are we going to be censoring books next because they talk about rape? This is a work of fiction, there's no reason to get a twisted up about it.
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Mar 10, 2020 19:55
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dogstile posted:"just make sure she's dead after" 
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Mar 10, 2020 19:57
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GlassEye-Boy posted:Are we going to be censoring books next because they talk about rape? This is a work of fiction, there's no reason to get a twisted up about it. Hahaha holeee-poo poo
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Mar 10, 2020 20:00
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Like, no one is honestly defending it as something that's good or needed. Yes, it is tasteless. Yes, it is absolutely not needed to drive home the point of 'this world loving sucks'. But why are we talking about it much further than 'hey here's a thing that sucks'? I get that it rubbed you the wrong way man, but just because other people have glazed over it doesn't mean they're all suddenly 'rape defenders'. Like how most of modern media has desensitized us to the sort of horrific poo poo people can inflict on each other, you kind of build up mental defenses against it, most of them involve just looking past it. Is that bad? You could debate that to the end of time, really. I personally wish that sort of poo poo didn't happen, but it's also not something I have the power to affect. I guess the question is, what is the point of arguing about it? Are we expected to boycott the new expansion over it? Should we send strongly worded letters to the dude? I'm not sure what our goal is here.
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Mar 10, 2020 20:48
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Drakenel posted:
I don't think there is any real goal, except to hammer this well articulated point home to some who don't understand why rape in video games is more offensive than fantasy genocide: Alchenar posted:people playing the game will not have experienced their peasant village being burned and plundered, but they very well may have experienced sexual assault. If you are going to touch on trauma that real people playing your game may have actually experienced then you need to be incredibly sensitive and cautious about doing so, and you need a pretty good artistic reason.
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Mar 10, 2020 22:28
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All this (admittedly healthy though needlessly tone-deaf) debate got me thinking though – with the barbarians in the north and slavers in the south, could the coming DLC be some sort of subversive commentary on pre-Civil War America? Fake edit: If so, the Nachos would be a critique on fast food eating habits among the urban middle class, I'm guessing
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Mar 11, 2020 06:21
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I'd say, if you can ascribe any depth to such a shallow setting, the middle is fuedal Europe, north is Vikings, south is Arabs
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Mar 11, 2020 07:25
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Scaramouche posted:I'd say, if you can ascribe any depth to such a shallow setting, the middle is fuedal Europe, north is Vikings, south is Arabs Is it shallow? I haven't picked up the lore book so no idea how much detail they go into Oh that reminds me, not sure if this was mentioned elsewhere... Starting in the central and southern regions seems gimped compared to VikingLand in the north due to the resale value on barbarian drops. One good encounter would roughly equal a contract's value in the early game, if I remember right. My first mercenary company that really got off the ground got their start by bumping into barbarian parties and camps. That's if you don't count trading of course, which I sometimes get into and sometimes don't
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Mar 11, 2020 07:56
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Fighting barb thralls is amazing because they drop trade goods as well. Yeah please, i'll kill the equivalent of 12 thugs and get 1k worth of equipment for it, thanks.
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Mar 11, 2020 11:14
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Good lord some of the posts in this thread. The post below sums it up absolutely perfectly: Alchenar posted:Also people playing the game will not have experienced their peasant village being burned and plundered, but they very well may have experienced sexual assault. If you are going to touch on trauma that real people playing your game may have actually experienced then you need to be incredibly sensitive and cautious about doing so, and you need a pretty good artistic reason. No one is saying we are about to ban books depicting gross things, or that we are censoring stuff. Just like the above post states, adding heavy themes requires a deft touch and a suitable place to be expanded upon. Now please can the thread move on from it.
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Mar 11, 2020 12:56
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The Lord Bude posted:I like to call them Nachos for ease of spelling. I'll second this! Wizard Styles posted:I hope she won her last game of jenga.
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Mar 12, 2020 00:22
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New Dev Blog is up, the subject being some of this expansion's additions to ye goode olde armory of murder implements. http://battlebrothersgame.com/dev-blog-130-southern-arms/ CURVED. SWORDS.
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Mar 13, 2020 19:34
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Being able to just buy Warscythes should be nice.
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Mar 13, 2020 19:38
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I like that they keep adding new polearms that are actually just 2-range versions of regular weapons like maces and hammers and axes. It makes your bros much more versatile when you can take a frontliner and hand them a polearm version of their specialized weapon and still have them make use of the specialization.
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Mar 13, 2020 19:39
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Polearms in this game are just so good and useful.
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Mar 13, 2020 19:40
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vyelkin posted:I like that they keep adding new polearms that are actually just 2-range versions of regular weapons I'd love a pike that works like the spear but with 2 range. I know spears are pretty weak after the early game but drat if making a full two-rank spearwall gimmick company wouldn't be hella fun
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Mar 13, 2020 23:37
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I believe legends adds a few weapons with that characteristic if I'm not mistaken.
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Mar 13, 2020 23:53
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Slightly disappointed to see that they're seemingly not adding any interesting shield variations.
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Mar 14, 2020 00:14
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They said that the new shields have their own stats, implying they're somehow different from buckler, kite, heater, etc, but what those are?  Maybe a pavise will get added eventually and you can use your turn to become immune to ranged attacks.
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Mar 14, 2020 00:59
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A pavise that you could deploy on a hex and hide behind to get a huge boost to ranged defence in exchange for staying on that hex would be pretty cool.
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Mar 14, 2020 01:10
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vyelkin posted:A pavise that you could deploy on a hex and hide behind to get a huge boost to ranged defence in exchange for staying on that hex would be pretty cool. That would be lovely for longer engagements.
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Mar 14, 2020 02:09
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Polemace sounds incredible for distribution of timely stuns, and the new dagger working off disorients/stuns for specials could be a very cool mechanic when leaned into. Use the polemace rear line to drop shieldwalls and melee defense, dagger mastery and the one handed damage buff to just lay out some really focused murdering per turn. Also ties in real well with grenades in hour offhand, since a bunch were status effect related. Mazz fucked around with this message at 02:32 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 02:28
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Polearms really come into their own in the militia start since you can have a hefty backline of guys who usually aren't good enough to be 2-handers/shield bros
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Mar 14, 2020 04:07
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Yeah, that's a big thing about pole weapons. The fighter doesn't have to be your best to contribute quite well.
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Mar 14, 2020 04:12
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Night10194 posted:Yeah, that's a big thing about pole weapons. The fighter doesn't have to be your best to contribute quite well. Isn't that also part of the reason pole-type weapons became so popular IRL as well? After all, when you get right down to it, it's just a pointy stick.
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Mar 14, 2020 09:10
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CommissarMega posted:Isn't that also part of the reason pole-type weapons became so popular IRL as well? After all, when you get right down to it, it's just a pointy stick. Not all pole weapons are easy to use but certainly a simple spear is easier to use with minimal training than many other melee weapons. The historical dominance of pole weapons was more down to the advantage of reach, though relative cheapness of production is also a big factor for many.
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Mar 14, 2020 11:43
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It's easy to give someone a spear and say "stick the pointy end in that guy". You try that with a sword and you get a lot of people who over-complicate it.
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Mar 14, 2020 12:26
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Night10194 posted:Being able to just buy Warscythes should be nice. Brb changing my underwear. Polearm chat: The game loves to generate bros from cheap backgrounds that have mATK potential in the high 80s or even low 90s but also have starting fatigue below 100; which makes for fabulous polemen. The Lord Bude fucked around with this message at 13:31 on Mar 14, 2020 |
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Mar 14, 2020 13:28
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Polemen, cheap and efficient. I don't think I have ever seen a halberd in any of my playthroughs. The billhook isn't the premier polearm? I've literally never seen a halberd.
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Mar 14, 2020 18:49
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