Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[ropetight]

You are actually agreeing with me here (except for the first sentence).
Not sure if I'm getting you wrong or you got me the wrong way around.

You are right: I confused former and latter in the mondblutt's quote, so I actually agree with you in the first part.

 

[Strange Fellow]

enemies receive a short reposition phase when they become alert (unless they are Surprised – but I’ll get to that later). During the reposition phase they are allowed to move a short distance, or very rarely execute a single attack instead of moving. Note that these reposition actions are constrained by a much smaller AP limit that the enemy max AP and in no way equally powerful to an entire combat turn.

If the sneaking character executes an attack before being discovered, there is a chance that the attack will result in a Stealth Kill, slaying a single enemy outright.

This reminds me, have they said anything about morale and stamina?

 

[zapotec]

Weren't reposition in xcom hm

 

[Harthwain]

But for some reason you want an ammo icon dragging minigame, because sure, that's something the merc can't be trusted with...

It's more about equipment distribution. With ammo not being an issue you don't have to worry about how much ammo you spend (read: how efficient you are with it), because you always have more in the "bank". With ammo being limited (perhaps even severly so) you have to think more about how well it's spent and consider using another weapon in case you run out.

 

[Aemar]

Listened to dev stream today. Sounds like all ammo will be in a shared pool, even during combat, not in each individuals inventory. So that's a bummer.

There also will not be weight factored in, however the size of a mercs inventory grid is determined by their strength stat.

Inventory autism is one of the best parts of the genre, 7.62 set the standard for loadouts that would make African guerillas weep and I'm sad JA3 seems to be moving in the opposite direction

Inventory autism is what makes these games the best in their genre, a franchise still unsurpassed since the 90s. Shared ammo pool? Haemimont can go fuck themselves with this travesty of a game. Not a Jagged Alliance game, even if the title says so. Does it sound familiar?

 

[thesheeep]

But for some reason you want an ammo icon dragging minigame, because sure, that's something the merc can't be trusted with...

It's more about equipment distribution. With ammo not being an issue you don't have to worry about how much ammo you spend (read: how efficient you are with it), because you always have more in the "bank". With ammo being limited (perhaps even severly so) you have to think more about how well it's spent and consider using another weapon in case you run out.

Oh sure, but I'm assuming the ammo pool that will be in the game is restricted and you have to conserve ammo anyway (if it's restricted in each separate inventory or in a pool is honestly not that much of a difference).

If it isn't restricted, then yeah... that's dumb.

 

[ArchAngel]

Listened to dev stream today. Sounds like all ammo will be in a shared pool, even during combat, not in each individuals inventory. So that's a bummer.

There also will not be weight factored in, however the size of a mercs inventory grid is determined by their strength stat.

Inventory autism is one of the best parts of the genre, 7.62 set the standard for loadouts that would make African guerillas weep and I'm sad JA3 seems to be moving in the opposite direction

Inventory autism is what makes these games the best in their genre, a franchise still unsurpassed since the 90s. Shared ammo pool? Haemimont can go fuck themselves with this travesty of a game. Not a Jagged Alliance game, even if the title says so. Does it sound familiar?

They went soft and made bad choices in many ways and once we get our hands on it I am sure we will find even more bad design choices

 

[thesheeep]

Nothing about micromanaging ammo is difficult or casual/non-casual.
It's menial. It is so easy to do that it is impossible to fail unless you are entirely braindead. It wastes everyone's time.

This is just not true. Scarcity and scavenging is a big part of Jagged Alliance, at least in the early game. I refer you to my earlier post:

I've often found myself in situations in previous games where a character has run out of ammo. What now? Does he run over to a squadmate and borrow some ammo from him? But now that guy is low on ammo! Does he risk running over to a downed soldier and scavenging his corpse? But oh no, that's the wrong ammo! Better take his crappy gun too, then. Now my guy is a worse shot. He might have to get closer to the enemy before pulling the trigger, or he might be forced to use one of the precious grenades brought along for emergencies.

Can you not relate to this? Then I question whether you've even played the games.

You still get scarcity with an ammo pool - if it is implemented right and not just some unlimited bank not related to what your squad could believably carry with them.
You can still get low on your ammo type and have to think about taking a risky maneuver or not and everything that follows from that.
It's the number of bullets that creates the scarcity, not the number of specific inventory magazine items.

As I wrote above, it depends very strongly on how it is implemented.

Would individual ammo pools per merc be better than a shared one? Sure.
If I made the game, I'd go for single merc ammo pools. You get a slider with how much inventory space you want to reserve for which type of ammo and that's all you need to fiddle with.
With the shared one, you will not have those situations where soldiers are trading magazines. That's one situation among an insanely high number of tense situations.
Good trade, I'll gladly take a shared one if I get spared the hassle of fiddling and dragging individual magazines around in and out of combat.

 

[Zombra]

enemies receive a short reposition phase when they become alert (unless they are Surprised – but I’ll get to that later). During the reposition phase they are allowed to move a short distance, or very rarely execute a single attack instead of moving. Note that these reposition actions are constrained by a much smaller AP limit that the enemy max AP and in no way equally powerful to an entire combat turn.

Nope. Don't like that.

After reading it, it sounds good. It preserves the Jagged Alliance "my turn, then enemy turn". It allows you to still get surprise attacks and eliminate the enemy's chance to pull up their pants. It doesn't do the XCOM stupidity of allowing the enemy to run halfway across the map. But it eliminates the unrealistic (one might even venture "poorly simulated") aspect of combat where at the start of every encounter, one team has to stand their with thumbs up their asses while the entire opposition all make their moves. If you just walk towards them relying on PC Armor to let you go first, it's unrealistic you wouldn't see each other and both sides be somewhat prepared.

 

[Strange Fellow]

If you just walk towards them relying on PC Armor to let you go first, it's unrealistic you wouldn't see each other and both sides be somewhat prepared.

Try that in the previous games. You'll find that the enemies will make their moves if they spot you before you start shooting at them. If, however, you get to start combat on your terms (which can't happen unless you've spotted them but they haven't spotted you, which realistically should give you a big advantage) there won't be an omnipotent referee going "Hold on there fellas, this just isn't fair. Everyone gets to take five minutes to prepare themselves now." That's just stupid. The situation where every member of your group takes their turn shooting the unaware enemies is an abstraction of them all shooting at the same time, exploiting the element of surprise.

But it eliminates the unrealistic (one might even venture "poorly simulated") aspect of combat where at the start of every encounter, one team has to stand their with thumbs up their asses while the entire opposition all make their moves.

What you've just described is turn-based combat, and the issue you highlight is one this series used to solve with interrupts and now solves (less well) with overwatch.

 

[raeven]

But it eliminates the unrealistic (one might even venture "poorly simulated") aspect of combat where at the start of every encounter, one team has to stand their with thumbs up their asses while the entire opposition all make their moves.

What you've just described is turn-based combat, and the issue you highlight is one this series used to solve with interrupts and now solves (less well) with overwatch.

At least overwatch effectiveness varies depending on how much AP you've got left. It's not the same as arbitary AP to spend as you please during interrupt, but it's better than just having a single shot and gives you more depth of choice in terms of how you spend your turn.

 

[bobocrunch]

The inventory autism leads to both more interesting and varied gameplay and directly leads to character progression. To use an example from 7.62, finding tape and getting 2 high capacity magazines put together makes you an elite among the emaciated peasants you're shooting 100 rounds at without stopping, and the idea of setting a slider for the ammo carried onto a mission would instantly turn me off because it's abstracting one of the most important parts of tactical games, resource management and not being a retard with a dumb loadout for a fight. It turns it into making sure you bring enough ammo, which I doubt'll ever be an issue when modern games are designed to make sure you don't have problems like that.

 

[mondblut]

And it seems it wasn't for the JA3 devs, either.

Who would have doubted. Romances coming next.

For me it was all about the heavily stat-driven squad-based combat (with varying squad sizes and very varied "missions")

It's about gun and tacticool porn. Inventory micromanagement and figuring out which chest rig model out of 50 fits best for a given role and loadout is actually the most important part of the game. Combat itself is just an excuse to test your pimped out gun and a 1000$ tactical beard in action. Making a Jagged Alliance game for people who don't care about this crap is like making a Forza game for people who don't care about pimped out cars and just want to get from point A to point B.

Which, I guess, is not far, since everything has to be brought down to the lowest common denominator.

 

[Abu Antar]

Ammo management is a core element of the JA series, imo. I played both JA1 and JA2 vanilla recently. You had to be sure to look up who still had ammo or not. Especially on higher difficulties. Mercs had to share with each other, or pick up other weapons if their ammo was all used.

 

[Shaki]

I used to like inventory autism, but after recently spending another 100+ hours playing JA2 1.13, I'm starting to get nauseous when thinking about dealing with it again.

JA2 vanilla I think was perfect, it has enough autism to make it interesting and realistic, but not so much to make it tedious and annoying - but holy fuck, 1.13 really went overboard with this shit.

 

[Abu Antar]

I used to like inventory autism, but after recently spending another 100+ hours playing JA2 1.13, I'm starting to get nauseous when thinking about dealing with it again.

JA2 vanilla I think was perfect, it has enough autism to make it interesting and realistic, but not so much to make it tedious and annoying - but holy fuck, 1.13 really went overboard with this shit.

Part of why I played vanilla, despite adoration for 1.13. Vanilla is perfectly fine for me.

 

[mondblut]

I used to like inventory autism, but after recently spending another 100+ hours playing JA2 1.13, I'm starting to get nauseous when thinking about dealing with it again.

JA2 vanilla I think was perfect, it has enough autism to make it interesting and realistic, but not so much to make it tedious and annoying - but holy fuck, 1.13 really went overboard with this shit.

Cataclysm DDA: "Hold my beer".

 

[Zombra]

If you just walk towards them relying on PC Armor to let you go first, it's unrealistic you wouldn't see each other and both sides be somewhat prepared.

Try that in the previous games. You'll find that the enemies will make their moves if they spot you before you start shooting at them. If, however, you get to start combat on your terms (which can't happen unless you've spotted them but they haven't spotted you, which realistically should give you a big advantage) there won't be an omnipotent referee going "Hold on there fellas, this just isn't fair. Everyone gets to take five minutes to prepare themselves now." That's just stupid. The situation where every member of your group takes their turn shooting the unaware enemies is an abstraction of them all shooting at the same time, exploiting the element of surprise.

The devs here addressed all this.

First, they made the decision that the player generally should get the first turn, which I support for a few reasons. In particular, real-time exploration is a bitch when you're controlling multiple characters, and often enemies will find a straggler simply because you're scrambling to switch between them all and one who should have been moving was caught flat-footed. So then the enemy all gets a "free" turn when you didn't mean to start combat and combat shouldn't really have started. Not realistic, not good gameplay. At the same time full turn-based exploration would be horrible. So I support this decision.

Second, don't exaggerate about giving the enemies a huge free turn. The diary was very clear that the free move is just a few AP, enough to move a few steps or maybe get off a single shot. That is hugely important and again mitigates the weird feeling of one team executing elaborate time-consuming actions with the other team just standing there. Old JA interrupts were good for sure but again they were either 30AP or 0AP, extremely "all or nothing". It's not like they forgot to do interrupts here, they actually thought out a system that made more sense.

Third, the surprise round as an abstraction in the past was fine ... but here they un-abstracted it by putting in actual surprise mechanics into the game. Surprise wasn't thrown away, it's been redesigned here more intentionally.

I grant you it's different than before and it's not my place to tell you to like the changes, but there's no real case that these mechanics are worse.

 

[raeven]

It's about gun and tacticool porn. Inventory micromanagement and figuring out which chest rig model out of 50 fits best for a given role and loadout is actually the most important part of the game. Combat itself is just an excuse to test your pimped out gun and a 1000$ tactical beard in action.

That's what's most important.... to YOU.

Not everyone likes the same things. Some of us even prefer (*gasp*) Vanilla.

Anyway I largely agree that something closer to JA2 vanilla would be my preference, but to be honest - this doesn't seem like that huge of a deal either way, to me.

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I felt the Codex was vibing with the game but now everyone hates it?

 

[Strange Fellow]

First, they made the decision that the player generally should get the first turn, which I support for a few reasons. In particular, real-time exploration is a bitch when you're controlling multiple characters, and often enemies will find a straggler simply because you're scrambling to switch between them all and one who should have been moving was caught flat-footed. So then the enemy all gets a "free" turn when you didn't mean to start combat and combat shouldn't really have started. Not realistic, not good gameplay. At the same time full turn-based exploration would be horrible. So I support this decision.

It shouldn't be up to them who gets the first turn. The side that surprises the other should get the first turn. It's natural, it makes intuitive sense, and it's fun. You plan ambushes while covering your ass. It worked great in the previous games, and they shouldn't have messed with it. I'll concede your point about managing a squad in real time sometimes being annoying. That's the number one thing that didn't work about it. But there's a perfect solution, which is to introduce pausing outside of combat, and they should have done that instead.

Second, don't exaggerate about giving the enemies a huge free turn. The diary was very clear that the free move is just a few AP, enough to move a few steps or maybe get off a single shot. That is hugely important and again mitigates the weird feeling of one team executing elaborate time-consuming actions with the other team just standing there. Old JA interrupts were good for sure but again they were either 30AP or 0AP, extremely "all or nothing". It's not like they forgot to do interrupts here, they actually thought out a system that made more sense.

I don't experience this weird feeling of yours at all. Combat is done in turns where one side spends its AP and then the other spends its AP. That's how it worked before, and that's how it works now except for the first turn, which needs some little pseudo-turn jammed into it for some reason. It's inconsistent, and it makes it so that you and the enemy aren't playing by the same rules. That should be avoided as much as possible.

Third, the surprise round as an abstraction in the past was fine ... but here they un-abstracted it by putting in actual surprise mechanics into the game. Surprise wasn't thrown away, it's been redesigned here more intentionally.

It sure has. It's been redesigned into a neatly packaged easily-balanced frustration-minimising box. Surprise shouldn't be Surprise with a captial S, it should arise naturally from the interplay of systems.

I felt the Codex was vibing with the game but now everyone hates it?

Nah I'm still somewhat excited. Just tempering my expectations.

 

[mondblut]

I felt the Codex was vibing with the game

What?

"Vibing" with any game is not the Codexian way. Cast those consoomer traitors into the wolf pit. We know only hate.

 

[Zombra]

It makes it so that you and the enemy aren't playing by the same rules. That should be avoided as much as possible.

I acknowledge this point of view but don't subscribe to it. Good challenge, good gameplay, respecting the player's time, a million other things are more important than "the realism" or whatever. But I'm already well documented as not really caring about the perfect simulation so yeah we're gonna disagree here. Actually you're not even advocating realism but PvP boardgame fairness, which .... I absolutely do not care about good PvP in a PvE game. Again I see why you want that but it's meaningless to me.

 

[mondblut]

That's what's most important.... to YOU.

Yeah. That's why different games and genres used to exist. Too bad (((someone))) out there is intent on making everything the same.

 

[Strange Fellow]

It makes it so that you and the enemy aren't playing by the same rules. That should be avoided as much as possible.

I acknowledge this point of view but don't subscribe to it. Good challenge, good gameplay, respecting the player's time, a million other things are more important than "the realism" or whatever. But I'm already well documented as not really caring about the perfect simulation so yeah we're gonna disagree here. Actually you're not even advocating realism but PvP boardgame fairness, which .... I absolutely do not care about good PvP in a PvE game. Again I see why you want that but it's meaningless to me.

I probably shouldn't have included that sentence without backing it up. The only reason I'm insistent on this here is because I sincerely believe it does lead to better challenge and better gameplay. It's not realism for its own sake, it's realism in service to gameplay. This is clearly a very hard thing to get right, but the JA series did and I want anyone making a sequel to give it their best effort. For me it's a defining feature of the series, not because realism itself is an ideal but because it results in such good gameplay. But like you say, different strokes.