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It has actual story quests and side quests. It has a crafting system. Gear forging, cooking, alchemy. It has improved combat due to active special skills and attacks that make a large impact, as opposed to mostly passive perks like pathfinder or steel brow or whatever. Plus the ability to freely move around a real map, engaging, flanking, kiting if you want, instead of sitting in a 12 man clump on a hex grid while spamming shield wall every turn and missing every other attack. And yes, Battle Brothers but with proper graphics instead of little chess pieces.
There's no reason for Wartales to have as much content as Battle Brothers right now, early access literally just started. And there's no reason Wartales shouldn't totally eclipse Battle Brothers once it's finished. Battle Brothers is 7 years old, was never that ambitious, and took 3 dlcs to really fill out.
Now, they will always be different games. Different enough that you don't need to directly compare them and you could play and enjoy both for different reasons. I loved Battle Brothers for a long time. But now, when it comes to scratching that itch to play a game of this type, Wartales is already doing a better job.
You'll get many hours of gameplay already. They started with a great opening act. Not just a demo or tutorial dungeon or something. But you will reach an end and have to wait for more content. Even if you wait to buy it, keep it on your radar. If you're a battle brothers fan you'll wanna try it at some point.
imho the boredom comes from the lack of challenge not the random map.
I'm a huge fan of the survival game "The long dark". Huge world map, everytime the same one, but you can start in different location. The pleasure comes from the challenge. Even if you know the map perfectly you have to plan your moves.
What I mean is, the replayability comes from challenge. So I hope there will be a harder mode, where you have tons of choices and every choice can have a fatal outcome. Where I have to plan my move more carefully.
I agree with needing a much higher level of difficulty, but without a doubt not in the way it is currently implemented. I think we are both looking for "hard" in a way that the game ultimately will not be able to accomplish. Maybe more "complex" is a better way to put it. Not a "how many things can I 1 shot in a turn and end the battle with little to no damage taken" hard, but a "battle took 22 turns to complete, it was a real back and forth, and 2 of my 8 mercs were unconscious at the end and had to rest for a few days" hard. The game would need MANY more classes/professions for this, and, like some other games whose names we will not mention here, allow you to have a pool of mercs to choose from for each fight. Maybe even have a couple merc groups going at once. Random maps can fill some of this void and add a decent amount of casual replayability, although I understand that is completely not possible with this game design.
re: After reading my post, I realize how much my thousands of hours on XCOM have shaped what I am looking for out of a game.
;-) .... you are right, harder doesn´t mean even more scaling or something like that .. Harder for me means especially better AI, different battlemaps (maybe with special environment and surface etc..) more diversity in different enemy types with unique abilities (fights like the ruins are already something nice, where you can see, where it could lead to) maybe also they could add something like goals to battles, so you don´t always have to kill all of enemies, but to reach some checkpoints etc..
The ruins and cave fights are without question the part of the game keeping me coming back to see whats new. Hoping for more indoor environments for sure. Fortresses, dungeons, caves, towers... would be awesome. Maybe its just the lack of random bear traps...
I disagree with this assessment. They're very different games, and I honestly think BB has infinitely more replay value. However, I do think Wartales is a solid game in its own right and should be looked into.
I'll paste my summary from a previous thread below.
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Wartales is definitely comparable to Battle Brothers in its early access. It's an incomplete game, and there are missing features, and many features are probably going to change before release. Note that before diving in.
The games approach the same ideas very differently. They're both strategy games with a roleplaying layer, but their approach to storytelling and combat are worlds apart in presentation. It's probably best if I speak about them in separate paragraphs.
In Battle Brothers, the narrative is largely your own, but with bits and pieces given to you by lovely sprawls of text describing the actions of your men and the strange things you find on your journey. The world is procedurally generated, so no two experiences will be quite like the other, but procedural generation means you have to sacrifice some depth in certain respects. But thanks to the fairly robust event / trade / settlement systems, the world really feels alive, and you come to know the different towns on a given map really well if you play on it long enough.
Good performance in Battle Brothers combat requires good knowledge of what weapons work best vs. what types of enemies, of the different little mechanics (ZoC, terrain, fatigue, etc) to maximize your performance. The game also tends to leave you battered and bruised after every fight, even when you win. It's an unforgiving world that paints you as the underdog constantly struggling to succeed.
By comparison, Wartales is a more structured experience. You don't really get to determine your own story as much because there's already a pre-written story with different choices you can make. The world reacts to you, but not in the organic way it does in Battle Brothers; rather, it reacts in a scripted fashion like a traditional RPG. This isn't a bad thing, note, but it means that while on the surface it resembles Battle Brothers, it's definitely got more traditional RPG in its blood. Honestly, the games that I keep thinking of for a comparison in terms of how you explore the world and engage with it are Oblivion and Skyrim moreso than Battle Brothers.
With that said, the combat in Wartales is definitely still strategic, but it operates differently. You aren't managing terrain complexities, and you're not playing with formations as much (though some builds do use formations as a key part of generating valor or adding extra damage). You're manipulating conditions and planning how best to mitigate enemy actions. There's more transparency in what enemies can do (you can view their character sheet at any time), though they generally don't act too intelligently and focus on "how can I maximize my damage output without any regard for my personal safety." You don't have a lot of actions per character, but given that you can eventually get 20 dudes on the field at once, I think that's fine.
Another thing to note is the two games present challenges differently. In Battle Brothers you can visually see when an enemy is going to be hard to fight: they look bigger, scarier, and more menacing than their lower tier counterparts. There's no such thing as a Level 5 Orc Warrior; there's just different kinds of orcs (Orc Young, Orc Warrior, Orc Berserker, Orc Warlord) and the occasional named enemy. By contrast, in Wartales your enemies go up in level as you do, meaning there's never a truly easy quest to pursue. When you hit level 5, you face the same enemies you did at level 1, only this time they're scaled up in power and ability. Again, think of Oblivion and Skyrim scaling mechanics as a good comparison.
In terms of presentation, I'll outright say that while Wartales has higher graphics I think Battle Brothers will age better. The music in Battle Brothers is fantastic, and the simple but easily readable visuals make it obvious what's happening at a glance.
With that said, I think Wartales is a fine game. The valor system makes combat really fun, as the ebb and flow of valor and its generation lets you pour out bursts of activity when you want to and play more cautiously when you must. That's its chief source of strategic depth, I think: managing the valor resource and building your party accordingly so you can ensure you're never short of bonus actions.
Overall, I'd lay out the following thoughts as my assessment:
- Wartales is a solid game. You won't have a bad time playing it. It's fun and engaging.
- However, Wartales suffers from being incomplete. Even once it comes out it will probably feel a little incomplete.
- Wartales won't feel as alive as Battle Brothers, but the individual storylines will have more depth because they're pre-written quests. This probably also means a reduction in replayability without mods; you can always tell a new story with Battle Brothers, but I can't see playing a full Wartales campaign more than 4-5 times, assuming all the quests have the same depth they do now. (EDIT: Honestly, given how repetitive battles become, I'm going to say 2-3 playthroughs, not 4-5.)
- The combat in Wartales is fairly intuitive and easy to pick up, but mastery feels rewarding.
- The Valor system is a fun new touch for combat that keeps it interesting.
- The combat overall lacks the same depth of strategy and tactics that Battle Brothers has. It also isn't quite as punishing for a variety of reasons.
- The music in Battle Brothers is plainly superior to the music in Wartales, if that's something that's important to you.
Overall, I'd say that if you're on the fence but have the money, buy it. It's a good game and will improve as time goes on. However, I'd also suggest you compare Wartales not just to Battle Brothers, but to games like Expeditions: Viking and Banner Saga. Its themes are similar to BB, but the way it actually plays is very different, and its storytelling is more akin to a traditional RPG.
Personally, I think the Battle Brothers formula is the better one. However, nothing says you need to choose one or the other. Both are worth playing and experiencing.
Hope that helps!
EDIT: I do want to bring up one more note about the music. While BB's music is definitely the better set of music, I REALLY like how the music in Wartales adapts to the situation. That is to say it evolves as you fight. The music starts on one tone, then kicks up when you're winning, and when you lose warriors it shifts as well. It's nice.
The downside is, again, that the music overall just isn't as good as in BB. I know that isn't important for a lot of people, but I've always been a sucker for a good soundtrack, especially OSTs I can use when running tabletop adventures. The Wartales music just isn't particularly inspiring, whereas the BB music gets me all kinds of emotional.
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One thing I want to add because I didn't emphasize it enough...
While the basic ideas of the two games are similar, the themes are incredibly different. In Battle Brothers you are the underdog even when you're at your most powerful. There are always bigger fish, always bigger armies, always impossible crises you have to contend with. There's a certain melancholy or horror in almost every song that plays, and death can happen in literally 1-2 swings if you're unlucky. It's a grim, gritty world where you have to roll with the punches you're delivered.
By contrast, Wartales paints your band in a more heroic light. Your characters are sturdier, and you never have to worry about a freak hit killing someone that really shouldn't have died. There's less tragedy, and the plotlines of the different regions give you a real sense that you're having an impact on the world. Your little band of mercenaries is a group of movers and shakers in its own right almost from the very beginning.
Neither of these approaches are better than the other. Each player will have their preferences. Personally, I prefer the desperate battles and tragic victories that arise from Battle Brothers rather than the more confident, capable heroes of Wartales. But they're both good games, and I think Wartales does a good job of presenting a serious world where you have a real impact.
Wartales offers more than one way to approach/solve a situation and each path I'd consider content in its own right, because the devs had to put in the logic and 'content' for these options to be plausible. In contrast with BB you only have one way to solve a problem... FIGHT! Oh, and the occasional text driven plot branch here and there. Meh!
Well, that's because Wartales is presenting a limited number of pre-defined quests, whereas BB is presenting a lot of procedurally generated content. But moreover, the situation in Wartales most often devolves to "Fight" or "spend Influence" or "gain a Wanted status."
Also, Battle Brothers combat simply has more strategic depth. Don't get me wrong, I'm enjoying Wartales so far. But the combat in Battles Brothers has a lot of things you have to consider that you just don't have to in Wartales. (Elevation, falling damage, more robust morale mechanics, injuries {both permanent and otherwise}, weapon swapping, zone of control, etc.) When I play BB, I find myself looking forward to the battles. When I play Wartales, I find myself looking forward to advancing the story, and find the battles sometimes feel as if they get in the way.
Again, I am not saying Wartales is a bad game. I am saying that it is an entirely different beast by design, more akin to Banner Saga or Elder Scrolls entries than to the Battle Brothers formula, at least in its current state. And if you want to feel more heroic rather than like an underdog, then it's definitely the better purchase. However, I believe anyone that claims that Wartales offers "more" than Battle Brothers doesn't appreciate the fullness of what Battle Brothers offers.
Both are good games. They're just very different games. Wartales offers a more streamlined experience. Battle Brothers requires you to make your own narrative. I am glad to have bought both.
I think this is a very good assessment on their differences which addresses the OP and wholeheartedly concur. I'm enjoying both as well. Cheers!