LordMidas 13-Dec-2023**\

Based on a lot of feedback over the past several months with regards to the new Reach mechanic, and overall balance of shields and 1h weapons vs 2h weapons, we have identified the following 3 core issues:

1. Reach can lead to sudden swingy situations if it gets stacked to high levels or if it drops to 0.
2. Shields are unreliable for the player. Spltting enemies' shields on the other hand is useless in the vast majority of the game.
3. One-Handed weapons generally feel inferior to Two-Handed weapons.

Point 3 is partially caused by the Reach mechanic and is partially its own independent issue in Battle Brothers.

In order to systematically address these issues we have come up with rather unique ideas that approach the situation in a non-linear fashion. Some of these changes directly affect the mechanics, whereas others add unique new twists and angles to round off the mechanics and open interesting new avenues of interaction and tactics.

The issues with Reach are addressed while keeping in view the underlying philosophy and vision about the mechanic:

• Reach should remain a core consideration in matchups on the battlefield.
• It should represent the advantage that longer Reach brings when two entities try to engage one another.

In most matchups on the battlefield one can expect a Reach difference of up to 2. Greater differences than this are rarer, or are caused by perks or effects that stack Reach. Therefore, most of the issues caused by Reach were because of:

• Being Stunned or Fleeing dropped Reach to 0 - effectively giving the entity a death sentence.
• Reach could be stacked indefinitely and linearly. Leading to situations where Reach provided extremely large bonus.

The first issue has been dealt with i.e. being Stunned and Fleeing no longer affects Reach. Fleeing morale already provides significant debuffs to all attributes, and Stunned is also a major debuff in that it forces you to skip a turn. The removal of the drop of Reach to 0 takes care of a significant chunk of the swingyness.

The second issue is resolved by adding diminishing returns to Reach. So each point of Reach contributes an increasingly small bonus. So previously where 5 points of Reach Advantage would grant a total bonus of 25%, now they will grant 5+4+3+2+1 = 15%.

As a result of these changes, the first few differences in Reach are the most impactful which fulfils the vision of the mechanic, while keeping its scalability in check.

Key perks that interact with Reach have been adjusted in view of the goals of this balance update.

• Sweeping Strikes (t5): was a major problem because it granted ever-increasing Reach if one had the AP to do multiple attacks in a turn. It has now been reworked to work only with AOE attacks. It no longer stacks. Increases your Reach by +3 until your next turn. Additionally reduces the targets' Reach by -3 for their attacks against you. Note that the latter only applies for those targets' attacks against you. With a delta of 6 Reach, this in total corresponds to a maximum possible bonus of 16%, but the gains from this perk will be smaller if there was already a Reach difference between you and the other entities.

• Formidable Approach (t7): This was a more or less staple pick on all builds because of the very strong +2 Reach bonus that it granted. With the diminishing returns, this would now have been a rather weak perk, so it has been reworked: Now grants +1 Reach passively. Additionally if you have a Reach Advantage, then each point of the advantage is buffed by +2 without diminishing returns. The zone of control rules are the same as before.

We have also added indirect ways of overcoming Reach Disadvantage:

• Nimble and Poise (t6): In addition to previous effects, if your Initiative is greater than that of your target, ignore 1 Reach Disadvantage when attacking. This represents your lithe and fluid motions to find an opening in your opponent.
• Battleforged (t6): In addition to previous effects, for each 300 combined current head and body armor durability ignore 1 Reach Disadvantage when attacking. This represents the fact that a person in heavy armor can be more carefree when approaching an opponent.

We have tried for months to achieve a balance with shields where it remains a viable tactic for the player, while also keeping shields themselves viable for use by the player. Unfortunately, the two things work against each other - if you incentivize breaking shields, you disincentivize their use by the player and if you make shields strong, you disincentivize breaking them.

Problems with the Split Shield mechanic:

• Split Shield (axes) is probably one of the least used skills in Battle Brothers. It is only used in very particular situations e.g. Schrats and then too with axes.
• Split Shield (other weapons) is probably never used.
• There is no way for the player to counteract Split Shield or its effects.

From a thematic point of view, attacking someone's shield isn't something you want to do in a battle. You want to attack the person, or work around their shield. Shields are very durable, and attacking someone's shield will probably end up damaging your weapon or making your weapon get stuck in the shield, hence disarming you, instead of doing much harm to the shield.

We believe this is one of those areas where the vanilla game's design is poor. However, improving this design requires some outside-the-box thinking. Our solution is as follows:

• Make shields virtually unbreakable. Most shields now have a very high durability. This solves the issue where players avoid shields because they are unreliable. We no longer have to worry about balancing shield reliability with incentivizing shield breaking.
• Instead we add an active tactical aspect to Split Shield with immediate gains, and ways to counteract it:
  • The defense provided by Shields now drops linearly as you build Fatigue, down to a minimum of 50% at maximum fatigue.
  • Split Shield now also inflicts Fatigue on the target. So you get immediate benefit out of it by wearing out the shield user. This makes Split Shield useful even on non-axe weapons.
  • With the availability of Recover on everyone, shield users can use it to recover their shield defenses.

The above changes are a significant improvement on one of the most unused skills in the game and now makes it interact actively with other mechanics.

• Shield Expert: No longer reduces damage to shields. Instead reduces the maximum drop in shield-provided defenses from 50% to 25% at maximum fatigue.
• Axe Mastery: No longer increases damage to shields. Adds the Hook Shield skill to equipped axes.
  • New skill: Hook Shield: 3 AP, 15 Fatigue. Uses Melee Skill but ignores shield defense. If successful, applies the Hooked Shield effect on the target, which reduces the target's shield defenses by 75% until the start of their turn or until they use a skill. Removes Riposte and disables Rebuke while it is applied. Cannot be used against targets who are under the effects of Shieldwall.

These changes keep Axes relevant as an interesting choice of weapon against shields - except instead of breaking them you have a thematic and interactive skill to work against them.

The player can protect themselves against Hook Shield by using Shieldwall preemptively. So it provides mechanical possibilities to both the shield user and the attacker to work with the presence of the shield.

The vanilla game added Double Grip to one-handed weapons to give them a damage boost and perhaps try to make them competitive with two-handed weapons. Even so, the meta in vanilla still is mostly two-handed weapons. In our view, this design space can be improved. Especially in Reforged where we have several two-handed weapons with 4 AP attacks (in addition to the vanilla 2h cleavers), the design space is wider. In our view the vision should be:

• Two-Handed weapons do more damage and have Reach advantage.
• One-Handed weapons do less damage, but are more versatile and easier to use, primarily coupled with a shield.

This means that the main strength of one-handed weapons is the fact that they can be coupled with a shield. So this combo should provide significant bonuses to make it competitive with 2-h weapons without going the rather boring route of just trying to equalize damage.

• Duelist: Gain +25% armor penetration with 1h weapons, +35% when using a shield, +15% with two-handed weapons. Only applies to <=4 AP attack. Gain +2 Reach with two-handed weapons. Shields now also ignore the target's Reach Advantage when attacking.

This change makes a shield user with Duelist able to ignore most Reach Disadvantage situations, while the +35% armor ignore offsets some loss of the double grip bonus.

• Rebuke: Increased the chance to proc with shields from 35% to 40%. When proccing without a shield equipped, builds Fatigue equal to the Fatigue cost of the attack triggered. In this case, can only trigger if you have sufficient Fatigue.

This makes Rebuke a significant DPS option for shield users. So coupled with high defenses, a shield user can continue to dish out damage even during the off-turn.

• Throwing Spear: No longer does damage to shields.

We don't have a good solution for Throwing Spear in the current new rebalance. We will try to find a niche for it eventually, but for now we have removed its ability to take out shields - as we want shields to be reliable, while having more interactive ways to counter them.

• Exploit Opening: Now provides +10% chance to hit or ignores the target's shield defenses, whichever is greater, for the next attack.

This makes Exploit Opening a possible perk for characters to counter shield users.

• En Garde: The Rebuke provided by En Garde has the same properties as the one for shields i.e. 40% chance to trigger and doesn't build Fatigue.

This keeps En Garde stronger than regular Rebuke because it requires you to not move. This helps maintain swords with a character different from other weapons.

• Shield Splitter: Removed from the Axe perk group and from all enemies.

For obvious reasons.