Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Zboj Lamignat]

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.

I'm talking about the fact it underperformed and the franchise went south, you dimwitted nufiraxis fanboy.

 

[Jinn]

Yet another negative preview from Rock Paper Shotgun getting me hyped for a new game. They're like double-agents of decline/incline over there. Keep up the good work, you stupid fucks! The preview read basically like "the game has too many numbers, it's too easy to lose, and it doesn't play like nu-Xcom, aka how EVERY western tactical game should play in modern day. Me confused!"

We're probably never going to get anything quite like JA2 again, but I appreciate that there will be something new to play that somewhat pays homage to times past.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

What is PODs?

 

[Junmarko]

Interesting.

Didn't know Ian Currie was actually involved with this. Maybe it might turn out half decent.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

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. :/

quite sure animated portraits are one of the more involved and demanding systems in the game.

 

[Gumsmith]

What is PODs?

When you are spotted by a cluster of enemies, the game plays a little "enemy spotted" cutscene and the group of enemies that spotted you gets a free turn to run into cover before your turn resumes, that's a "pod".

The name comes from the objects aliens were usually hanging around in the first nuXCOM I think.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I'm talking about the fact it underperformed and the franchise went south, you dimwitted nufiraxis fanboy.

No, it didn’t. You rotten mongoloid.
You can go and check any source, from SteamDB to Steamspy, and verify yourself that aside for being a vastly better game XCOM 2 ran circles around the first under any relevant metric: top concurrent users, amount of estimated purchases, amount of reviews, amount of "followers" on the Steam page (by a 4X factor, too), etc.

I'm not sure why you seem to think that boldly making some unsubstantiated shit up equates to reshaping reality.

 

[Papill0n]

What is PODs?

When you are spotted by a cluster of enemies, the game plays a little "enemy spotted" cutscene and the group of enemies that spotted you gets a free turn to run into cover before your turn resumes, that's a "pod".

The name comes from the objects aliens were usually hanging around in the first nuXCOM I think.

That feature annoys me as well. I get it that it is designed to help the AI from being summarily slaughtered and may encourage stealthy play by users...as it looks like you can avoid them repositioning as long as you remain undetetced. Still I think proper mapmaking, a non-braindead AI and a decent interrupt system should fit the bill as well for these purposes rather than an absurd, tacked-on, gamey "free turn" with a cut scene, that - surely - will never get old after watching it 20 times...

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

I'm talking about the fact it underperformed and the franchise went south, you dimwitted nufiraxis fanboy.

No, it didn’t. You rotten mongoloid.
You can go and check any source, from SteamDB to Steamspy, and verify yourself that aside for being a vastly better game XCOM 2 ran circles around the first under any relevant metric: top concurrent users, amount of estimated purchases, amount of reviews, amount of "followers" on the Steam page (by a 4X factor, too), etc.

I'm not sure why you seem to think that boldly making some unsubstantiated shit up equates to reshaping reality.

Having more following on steam over the long haul and being extremely popular for this type of game (which, similarly to nuciv, is unfortunately undeniable) does not mean the game did not underperform. It was a big title with big expectations. You can find multiple articles and even discussions on the codex on how this game did not sale as much as expected. It completely tanked on consoles, I remember reading an article on how it sold like 15k over the first week on xbox, which is absolutely laughable. Both the dev and the publisher constantly deny following up on the series over the years, all they did was release some spinoff that no one liked and then moved to some weird capeshit card game that tanked too and important folk responsible left the company. All of this while civ gets constantly pumped with dlc, passes and what not.

Finally, the most important point I'm making - I can't think of a single tactical game that emulated nuxcom that would become a big success. And quite a lot of these games had good production values, some decent new ideas etc. And a lot of them were horror shows, like that spy game that drove the dev out of business despite being a good looking title with fresh setting and so on. It's obvious that the formula has run out and what we are left with are people banging their heads against the wall and the entire franchise polluted with ingenious ideas like pod popping and arbitrary move and shoot retardation in place of proper AP.

 

[Gumsmith]

What is PODs?

When you are spotted by a cluster of enemies, the game plays a little "enemy spotted" cutscene and the group of enemies that spotted you gets a free turn to run into cover before your turn resumes, that's a "pod".

The name comes from the objects aliens were usually hanging around in the first nuXCOM I think.

That feature annoys me as well. I get it that it is designed to help the AI from being summarily slaughtered and may encourage stealthy play by users...as it looks like you can avoid them repositioning as long as you remain undetetced. Still I think proper mapmaking, a non-braindead AI and a decent interrupt system should fit the bill as well for these purposes rather than an absurd, tacked-on, gamey "free turn" with a cut scene, that - surely - will never get old after watching it 20 times...

Allow me to remind you, fine gentlemen, that what you're doing here is essentially complaining your ass hurts instead of saying no to homosex.

The free turn is not the issue. Enemies being arranged into inseparable setpiece groups (pods) is. Make them all work independently and the free turn issue goes away as well. And if that comes at the cost of less realistic grass, then so be it.

Unfortunately the homosex is integrated in the game, breaking the pods apart would just throw the balance out of whack.

 

[spectre]

The free turn is not the issue.

The free turn is exactly the issue because it basically fucks with any attempts to setup an ambush with firearms. If a shot doesn't 1-hit kill, suddenly everyone scrambles for cover fucking with your meticulously deployed kill squad.
There would be no issue if there was an interrupt roll when e.g. you miss a shot and high level enemies would get a chance to react. Y'know, the proper jagged alliance way.

It's just a leftover from the excum engine, where you'd get all the flanking bonuses against guys standing out in the open, so it was a rather ham-fisted attempt to balance encounters so that AI doesn't get roflstomp'd.
What I can see here is a lame attempt at facilitating "stealth" by slapping the takedown special ability on top of things so people don't bleat you can't go about killing mooks all sneaky like.
As far as I could tell, the cover/flanking/damage system is not identical to excum's, so it's especially baffling for such a vestige to still be there, unless it's hardcoded into the engine.

I reckon this and many other engine limitations is why we can't have nice things, at least somewhat faithfully recreated from the original (repair/attachments system, I am looking at you).
Also, yes, I take personal offense whenever I see this scramble turn nonsense. It breaks the flow of turn based combat in a fundamental way when one side gets an arbitrary free turn to do whatever.

 

[Angthoron]

Scramble turns suck ass. Might as well just click around the map and hit the "Next encounter, lol" button, then position your troops in a pre-assigned zone of control while the AI does the same.

It largely stems from the decision to use "pods" to begin with, though, and everything that's connected with that particular mechanic. There's no point to try to simulate AI hearing gunshots, no need to manually position the units in challenging yet believable ways, no need to set up patrols, no need to work on AI teams being independent from each other (eg not aggroing the whole map by attacking one guy), etc.

It's extremely lazy, but it plays in to "replayability", since in theory each encounter is "unique", as AI takes positions in accordance with the battlefield.

In reality, it's extremely samey, at least out of the box. Modders tried to improve it, but you can't truly improve the game without throwing out the entire "pod"-based foundation.

Imagine JA2 or Silent Storm with pod-based combat

 

[Modron]

Imagine JA2 or Silent Storm with pod-based combat

No.

 

[vota DC]

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

It depends. NPC in dialogue says that those soldiers are retarded. If AI Is based on enemies skills and Expert soldiers are smart It would be nice.

 

[Zboj Lamignat]

The pod system et al just stems from the fact that once your start designing your game like that, it quickly spirals out of control and you need another arbitrary rule to keep the previous arbitrary rule from breaking the game and so on. Which is something people itt already pointed out.

And then, in the end, you get bitten in the ass anyway. Like the movement system forcing you to either go through a poison cloud or not positioning your squaddie where you want to. Or enemies literally falling from the sky in auto-overwatch just randomly losing a mission for you if you get unlucky. Because god forbid winning/losing depending on the player learning and mastering well-crafted mechanics, instead of gaming an arbitrary ruleset that looks like something taken from a board game meant for ages 6 and upwards. Or disgaea-like tactical jprg, which was a more likely source of inspiration tbh.

 

[Harthwain]

My biggest issue is the lack of interrupt mechanic (looks like it has overwatch instead), but overall it looks very decent. Certainly much better than I expected when I first heard about it.

 

[HansDampf]

My biggest issue is the lack of interrupt mechanic (looks like it has overwatch instead)

You mean like nuXCOM?

 

[Surf Solar]

This should have stayed in sprite based 2d isometric.

 

[Harthwain]

You mean like nuXCOM?

Looks that way, yeah.

 

[Modron]

My biggest issue is the lack of interrupt mechanic (looks like it has overwatch instead),

I'd be willing to settle for a hybrid of the two systems, putting down a cone then letting the player decide how many and what kind of shots they take based on remaining AP at enemies that cross that area. If they weren't going to give us a full interrupt system of course.

 

[Lord of Riva]

I haven't followed this in the least but saw some gameplay vids coming up on YT but have no time to engage really atm.

Whats the codex opinion, will this end up decent?

 

[Modron]

I haven't followed this in the least but saw some gameplay vids coming up on YT but have no time to engage really atm.

Whats the codex opinion, will this end up decent?

I think it's safe to say it will be the best Jagged Alliance game in the last 19 years but it remains to be seen if it will be anything more than just good for what it is since it's got overwatch instead of interrupts, doesn't appear to have full ballistic modelling, and it's got an xcom pod system.

 

[thesheeep]

Certainly much better than I expected when I first heard about it.

That's my main impression.
Not as good as JA2, but at least not as terrible as all the other "remakes"/"sequels" etc. in the last 20 years...

 

[don_tomaso]

I always thought I had outgrown the codex. I enjoy good gfx and causal stuff nowadays, I don't care much about stuff. And I only got good feelings when hearing about ja3, nothing bad.

And then then the pod talk came now. Im ok with the occasional pod like shown in the video. But a full blown pod assault?? I can't take this. I'm going to become a codexer again why... Can't we have good things? Why?

 

[don_tomaso]

Despair emoji plz.