Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[whydoibother]

I don't get why devs have to invent random shit to fix problems that aren't problems.

The goal of scramble turns is that the first encounter isn't trivial if the player just approaches from the side or whatever, and makes enemies unable to hide.
And since people are all doing XCOM combat now, the second encounter would be you on the defense, set up in Overwatch, waiting for enemies to run into your trap.
XCOM 2 itself, in addition to scramble turns, did timers and other shenanigans to force players to move forward and not just clear the first encounter and sit in Overwatch behind cover.

But yeah, I don't feel strongly against this. I don't mind it, I wouldn't mind it not being used. Just a different way to set up the encounter.
For yet another way to do it, try this demo
Its literally just an arena, an enemies reinforce through the sides, and you can't tell which direction, so sitting behind cover isn't the play.

 

[whydoibother]

Scramble turns are bad?
Its either that, or the first group will be killed off before they can act or cover. Or the first group has to be huge to compensate, meaning if you get a couple of misses you are fucked.

Here's a wild thought. And I'm not sure the world is ready for such a radical idea that has never been tried and totally wasn't a thing in just about every game from the 90s - don't have enemy groups. Have individual enemies with their own awareness and pathing who join the fight or don't based on their own perception.

And they should all have hand crafted names, appearances, backgrounds, unique voice lines acted out by different actors, and a tie-in novel in a PDF shipped with the game disk. But, and I know its a wild thought, that's too much fucking work. And though my example is farcical, yours is also obviously much more work than a studio is prepared to do today, given their profit margins, given how much other work they need to get done.
Designing encounters instead of "organic" big maps that feel real and the player can approach, and then the dynamic systems of sight and sound play on each other, and every enemy has their own alertness and will do their own action based on what they've individually seen or heard, and maybe if one enemy passes near another they can share info and... too much work. Realistically, it will just be enemy packs, and this has been the case for 20+ years.
Even when designing dungeons for something like Oblivion, you place encounters. The set piece fights are with packs, not organically moving individuals doing their own thing.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Scramble turns are bad?
Its either that, or the first group will be killed off before they can act or cover. Or the first group has to be huge to compensate, meaning if you get a couple of misses you are fucked.

Here's a wild thought. And I'm not sure the world is ready for such a radical idea that has never been tried and totally wasn't a thing in just about every game from the 90s - don't have enemy groups. Have individual enemies with their own awareness and pathing who join the fight or don't based on their own perception.

And they should all have hand crafted names, appearances, backgrounds, unique voice lines acted out by different actors, and a tie-in novel in a PDF shipped with the game disk. But, and I know its a wild thought, that's too much fucking work. And though my example is farcical, yours is also obviously much more work than a studio is prepared to do today, given their profit margins, given how much other work they need to get done.
Designing encounters instead of "organic" big maps that feel real and the player can approach, and then the dynamic systems of sight and sound play on each other, and every enemy has their own alertness and will do their own action based on what they've individually seen or heard, and maybe if one enemy passes near another they can share info and... too much work. Realistically, it will just be enemy packs, and this has been the case for 20+ years.
Even when designing dungeons for something like Oblivion, you place encounters. The set piece fights are with packs, not organically moving individuals doing their own thing.

Buying such generic dross sounds like too much work.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

the bullet simulation, which is one of the more involved and demanding systems in the game.

so involved and demanding that x-com made it work flawlessly on 10 mhz and 2 mb ram.
i can't even.

 

[whydoibother]

And the reason we should accept incompetent shits not being able to do what people could do and did 20 years ago with much more primitive tools is?

Its easier to do that kind of shit on more primitive tech, because you aren't also doing dynamic lighting and vegetation moving in the wind and water physics and rag dolls and whatever the fuck else.
At any rate, obviously I do want all that, obviously I'd prefer that detail and extra design effort. I'm just saying you can't expect it. Its great when you see it, but you should be used to not seeing it by now.

 

[Abu Antar]

 

[ArchAngel]

And the reason we should accept incompetent shits not being able to do what people could do and did 20 years ago with much more primitive tools is?

Its easier to do that kind of shit on more primitive tech, because you aren't also doing dynamic lighting and vegetation moving in the wind and water physics and rag dolls and whatever the fuck else.
At any rate, obviously I do want all that, obviously I'd prefer that detail and extra design effort. I'm just saying you can't expect it. Its great when you see it, but you should be used to not seeing it by now.

I guess you didn't play Phoenix Point where every enemy is its own entity and they did it on shitty Unity engine.

 

[Ghulgothas]

Weirdest thing I've noticed from the preview blitz is their take on the weapon modification system. They're not inventory items anymore; rather, you collect scrap metal from sources on the combat maps, which your chosen mechanically-savvy merc then uses to transmute weapons into new forms (with a chance to fail). I think there are more slots and modification choices as whole, but it seems they thought making them all inventory items would be too much inventory bloat.

Also, the hiring screen for what they deem 'Legendary'-tier mercenaries looks a bit odd.

Gold... membership? Seems like there's some system to make it so you have to earn the right to hire the top performers.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

View attachment 35404

There's that "if you only knew how bad things really are" -face.

 

[udm]

And the reason we should accept incompetent shits not being able to do what people could do and did 20 years ago with much more primitive tools is?

Hell, even small indie teams with less money are able to do it (Urban Strife, Project Haven).

 

[Gumsmith]

The problem with not having a pod system isn't that it's hard to do but just that it doesn't work in the nuXCOM formula.

The nuXCOM formula:Small/funneled map design+enemies that are innately inferior to your dudes+other crap like cover shields and the pod system.

Inferior enemies typically meaning your guys have heaps of cooldown based superpowers while they only have 1 or 2 at most.

Phoenix Point does not have a pod system but it does have inferior enemies and as a result most fights in the game are just easy, with enemies providing little threat when scattered over the map.

Phantom Doctrine does not have a pod system and the enemies share the same abilities you do, as such the game turns into a slog and it's VERY easy for a mission to turn into a shit show, not in a fun way but in a "I made 1 mistake and now I'm going to lose." kind of way.

In order to do away with the pod system the game would have to copy something else like Silent Storm or Jagged Alliance 2

 

[Stompa]

Gold... membership? Seems like there's some system to make it so you have to earn the right to hire the top performers.

One of the streams had a pop-up from AIM offering such gold membership, 20k $ up front. Sadly the guy didn't take that offer.

 

[Alienman]

So what?
Why can't player be rewarded for getting a drop on enemies, and besides if sound of gunfire would travel to somewhat realistic distance, then it would lead engagement developing more organically, instead of having to device series of encounters on map.

You can probably kill them all in one go, if you set up overlapping overwatch points.

Besides the pod system, the combat does not look like nuXcom, aka abstracted. The more I look at the videos, the more it actually looks like it uses true line of sight and ballistics. There are some examples in Slattercat's video when they are crouching behind the rock. They can only shoot the guy when peaking over the rock, and the enemy doesn't seem to be able to target them and have to move to get a shot.

 

[oasis789]

So there is friendly fire confirmed?

 

[Alienman]

So there is friendly fire confirmed?

Yes, I saw one enemy shoot their friend in the back.

 

[oasis789]

So there is friendly fire confirmed?

Yes, I saw one enemy shoot their friend in the back.

I am pleased that its a feature but also a bit worried that the AI is retarded

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

Weirdest thing I've noticed from the preview blitz is their take on the weapon modification system. They're not inventory items anymore; rather, you collect scrap metal from sources on the combat maps, which your chosen mechanically-savvy merc then uses to transmute weapons into new forms (with a chance to fail).

Nothing really weird about it, is there? Just another modern "design sensibility". Crafting = collecting trash (because when you launch a computer game then picking up literal garbage is what you want to be doing, obviously) and then, once you pass a threshold, you can magic trash into not trash. Crafting is an almost mandatory checkbox and games where crafting does not equal bin-dipping for padding purposes are extremely rare.

 

[covr]

So there is friendly fire confirmed?

Yes, I saw one enemy shoot their friend in the back.

I am pleased that its a feature but also a bit worried that the AI is retarded

I love when AI shoot at each other by mistake. A triumph of human intelligence over electronic brain.

 

[Papill0n]

So there is friendly fire confirmed?

Yes, I saw one enemy shoot their friend in the back.

I am pleased that its a feature but also a bit worried that the AI is retarded

I love when AI shoot at each other by mistake. A triumph of human intelligence over electronic brain.

Yes... of course, the NPCs supporting you are likely to have the same A.I., so we can expect the usual "miltia-shoots-our-back-unless-we're-crouched-at-all-times fun we had in Ja2.

 

[agris]

A hallmark of ballistic simulation is misses hitting unintended targets. AI is a separate issue, but by itself a wayward shot inflicting friendly fire is a great sign - not a bad one.

I think nuXcom rotted a generation of tactical gamer’s expectations.

 

[Ghulgothas]

They're having another one of those developer interview streams today. Will update this post if anything noteworthy gets said.

Archive

-Did have follow-the-map-marker quest indicators before settling on context clues.
-Acknowledged the bitching from previewers on the hidden CtH, not talking about it until the combat Devdiary.
-I won a t-shirt.
-Again brought up how early on they were split on whether or not to let you kill any NPC on a whim.
-More talk on the lore and worldbuilding from the last Devdiary.
-Senior Narrative Designer doesn't want the world to feel gameish.
-Sector maps are handmade.
-No acknowledgement of Weapon Mod Scrapchantment.
-No chopper, no cars, all boats.
-Game is made on a proprietary engine.

No helicopter, that really hurts.
And it looks like they updated the screenshots on their Steam Store page.

 

[agris]

Ghulgothas if they're taking questions, ask about their shitty craft system and if they'll consider moving to looting / implementing real mods, not magic scrap.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

This game should be good. RPS criticized it and a lot of the comments have been removed.

 

[Lexx]

Might be nitpicky, but I really hate that portraits are not animated. Just give them blinky eyes and basic mouth movement and I'd be happy already. :/

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

It's really amazing how almost every single dev taking a swing at a squad-based tactical game still thinks they can score it big by copying nu-xcom, when even nu-xcom2 failed to do it and it was like, what, 7 years ago?

I have no idea what the FUCK you're even rambling about, given that XCOM 2is an improvement over the first Firaxis "reimagining" under pretty much any relevant metric and the expansion War of The Chosen makes it the gap even wider.