Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Alienman]

Now that you guys mention it, it does ring true. I guess I'm too X-com damaged. But at least in JA2 you could easily tell who were good at shooting and who were not. And how likely a shot will hit, I do hope they got something similar as replacement in JA3.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

I crossed this post on another forum (RE) from a guy who witnessed a press preview:

I was able to go to a press presentation at Gamescom where lengthy gameplay segments (both tactical gameplay and the strategic layer were shown).

TL;DR, the game is looking great and like it will be a worthy successor to Jagged Alliance 2.

Highlights:

• Merc recruitment and inventory systems are just like in JA2 and very close to it. The Merc system in particular looks like the original too (internet browser window and all).
• For recruitment you will have to negotiate contracts, their duration, deal with mercs wanting more money if your men get wounded too often or get killed, dislike other characters in your team etc. You will also need to renegotiate contracts for each Merc once they expire.
• Inventory system has slots for weapons and different armor, all of them will degrade through use. Classic inventory management like in the past.
• Strategy layer is VERY similar to JA2 and very in depth, you will NEED to have multiple teams of up to 6 characters each, as you don't only need to take territory, but also defend it and also handle combat exhaustion and travel times.
• You can train militia forces to defend your territory, if your mercs are present when an area is attacked you get to play out the battle, otherwise it is automated/gets calculated. Both your forces and enemy squads move over the 'real time with pause' strategy map through a grid system representing the areas you and the enemy control.
• You can make taking bases much easier by doing side missions on the world map - e.g. cut off diamond shipments to the enemy forces to weaken their numbers and finances.
• There is exploration on the "combat maps", which means you can run around, talk with NPCs etc. If you get close enough to a group of enemies to be spotted or attack them/alert them, turn based combat starts.
• Similar to CRPGs your characters get to pass checks such as "wisdom checks" in the background during dialogue, so they might e.g. notice the NPC is lying.
• Combat system is VERY tactical due to a classic Action Point system and an aiming system that is close to Valkyria Chronicles and very close to Phoenix Point, so no "% to hit or miss" system. The less AP you use to aim, the likelier it is that you will miss the enemy.
• Bullet trajectories get calculated real time, you can actually end up hitting stuff like other enemies or even explosive barrels meters away by accident even if you weren't aiming for them (if they are within the aiming reticule and the bullet deviates that way).
• As this system works on true line of sight, you can prevent an enemy from hitting you by going prone behind line of sight blocking cover, but won't be able to shoot back either. That said, if legs or arms are poking out of cover, you can shoot them.
• Overwatch works with cones.
• There is cover penetration accompanying cover destruction. If you have a sufficiently high powered weapon, you can just shoot through e.g. thin metal sheet walls and hit the enemy hiding behind them.
• The various climates on various maps have effects on both your men and the enemy, with sand storms on desert maps reducing sight and lowering the noise you make (so you can sneak up easier), while other times the heat waves will cause exhaustion for everyone in the battle due to the temperature.
• Decisions in dialogues do matter and have long(er) term repercussions.

The Devs experience with Tropico definitely shows in how well they seem to handle the strategic layer.

Really looking forward to the game, though it is extremely likely to come out in 2023 rather than this year, as the publisher is giving the devs the time they need to polish the game.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I crossed this post on another forum (RE) from a guy who witnessed a press preview:

I was able to go to a press presentation at Gamescom where lengthy gameplay segments (both tactical gameplay and the strategic layer were shown).

TL;DR, the game is looking great and like it will be a worthy successor to Jagged Alliance 2.

Highlights:

• Merc recruitment and inventory systems are just like in JA2 and very close to it. The Merc system in particular looks like the original too (internet browser window and all).
• For recruitment you will have to negotiate contracts, their duration, deal with mercs wanting more money if your men get wounded too often or get killed, dislike other characters in your team etc. You will also need to renegotiate contracts for each Merc once they expire.
• Inventory system has slots for weapons and different armor, all of them will degrade through use. Classic inventory management like in the past.
• Strategy layer is VERY similar to JA2 and very in depth, you will NEED to have multiple teams of up to 6 characters each, as you don't only need to take territory, but also defend it and also handle combat exhaustion and travel times.
• You can train militia forces to defend your territory, if your mercs are present when an area is attacked you get to play out the battle, otherwise it is automated/gets calculated. Both your forces and enemy squads move over the 'real time with pause' strategy map through a grid system representing the areas you and the enemy control.
• You can make taking bases much easier by doing side missions on the world map - e.g. cut off diamond shipments to the enemy forces to weaken their numbers and finances.
• There is exploration on the "combat maps", which means you can run around, talk with NPCs etc. If you get close enough to a group of enemies to be spotted or attack them/alert them, turn based combat starts.
• Similar to CRPGs your characters get to pass checks such as "wisdom checks" in the background during dialogue, so they might e.g. notice the NPC is lying.
• Combat system is VERY tactical due to a classic Action Point system and an aiming system that is close to Valkyria Chronicles and very close to Phoenix Point, so no "% to hit or miss" system. The less AP you use to aim, the likelier it is that you will miss the enemy.
• Bullet trajectories get calculated real time, you can actually end up hitting stuff like other enemies or even explosive barrels meters away by accident even if you weren't aiming for them (if they are within the aiming reticule and the bullet deviates that way).
• As this system works on true line of sight, you can prevent an enemy from hitting you by going prone behind line of sight blocking cover, but won't be able to shoot back either. That said, if legs or arms are poking out of cover, you can shoot them.
• Overwatch works with cones.
• There is cover penetration accompanying cover destruction. If you have a sufficiently high powered weapon, you can just shoot through e.g. thin metal sheet walls and hit the enemy hiding behind them.
• The various climates on various maps have effects on both your men and the enemy, with sand storms on desert maps reducing sight and lowering the noise you make (so you can sneak up easier), while other times the heat waves will cause exhaustion for everyone in the battle due to the temperature.
• Decisions in dialogues do matter and have long(er) term repercussions.

The Devs experience with Tropico definitely shows in how well they seem to handle the strategic layer.

Really looking forward to the game, though it is extremely likely to come out in 2023 rather than this year, as the publisher is giving the devs the time they need to polish the game.

It's RE so I am inclined to take it with enough salt to collapse the planet but huge if true.
Any word on merc creation?

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Any word on merc creation?

No additional comment of any kind past that message, so far.
Still, if nothing else while the quality of the result is not assured by any mean, it's comforting to know that they ARE including some key features of the original.

 

[Nutria]

Bullet trajectories get calculated real time, you can actually end up hitting stuff like other enemies

This alone is really important. It's the difference between a simulation and a board gamey abstract puzzle.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Digital Monocle what fucking part of the quote isn’t clear, exactly?

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Digital Monocle what fucking part of the quote isn’t clear, exactly?

That button is more of a wtf than a what ho.

 

[underground nymph]

Lengthy exposure to Larian forums has made Tuco prone to piss off.

 

[Spectacle]

https://www.pcgamer.com/jagged-alli...pectre-of-xcom-by-never-telling-you-the-odds/

How will you tell if you guys improve if you can't actually see his chances improving? And I assume stealth is totally out the door, since you can't plan around actually hitting someone - quietly. I like RNG, since it makes things unpredictable, but this RNG is just way too retarded.

By seeing that he actually hits more often?

I'm liking what I see so far from JA3. It may not be an exact replica of JA2 in 3d, but it's the closest thing to a turn based combat sim we've seen since Silent Storm, a far cry from the boardgame style XCOM+clones.

 

[vota DC]

I wonder if they will do a melee overwatch with your mercs charging for short distances with machete or chainsaw (psychos like Reuban) the enemy. Unlike Xcom this series has level factor that decides who interrupts who.

Negotiating contracts with mercs is great, they must be greedy and not fearless robots. In Deadly Games Postie was supposed to form an Union and being like Hoffa but they scrapped It, there are some dialogues still (or It was just an ingame joke)

 

[Modron]

I crossed this post on another forum (RE) from a guy who witnessed a press preview:

Ask that person how reaction fire works, hopefully it's not nuxcom where everyone continues to spend their reaction and ammo at the first target only no matter if it already died.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Ask that person how reaction fire works, hopefully it's not nuxcom where everyone continues to spend their reaction and ammo at the first target only no matter if it already died.

That was already fixed in vanilla XCOM 2, incidentally.

 

[geno]

Devs showing the game at Gamescom.

 

[Alienman]

Game looks entertaining. The movement and the sneaking around reminds me of Solasta. Looks a lot more promising that JA: Flashback. Man, that game was a disaster.

 

[udm]

Started playing JA2 again. Man. Everything is just so well done in there. Gambling on Interrupts and trying to outflank your opponent is always intense and never gets old. I really don't see how Haemimont can meet those expectations based on what we've seen from the gameplay trailers, but I'll gladly eat crow if they do.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Vanilla JA2 doesn't show chance to hit either. You see your guys improving because they're landing more hits.

You can make an informed guess about your hit chance by combining the size of your dude's targeting reticle with the colour of the cover the enemy is standing in. Showing nothing whatsoever for this is retarded.

 

[HansDampf]

Iirc from my recent playthrough, the different colors only indicate visibility (green = completely visible, yellow = not visible when prone, etc.). I had enemies crouching behind trees that were visible just fine (green or yellow), but the tree would absorb almost all of my shots. The game also doesn't tell you if extra AP spent on aiming would be wasted because your hit chance may already be at maximum, or how a target being outside your weapon's range affects total hit chance (cuts it in half).

 

[agris]

Vanilla JA2 doesn't show chance to hit either. You see your guys improving because they're landing more hits.

You can make an informed guess about your hit chance by combining the size of your dude's targeting reticle with the colour of the cover the enemy is standing in. Showing nothing whatsoever for this is retarded.

A mechanism like the color coding of cover per tile would be nice, but the reticle size was actually just conveying how many AP you were devoting to the shot. A snap shot versus medium focus versus sniper-level of attention (or whatever). So while it’s true that medium had a greater hit chance than small, and largest reticle was the greatest chance; those chances could be 10/20/30% per size for one situation, and 75/85/95% for another.

It worked a bit differently than your implying because of that.

Edit: said another way, the AP-equivalent of a snap shot always displayed the same size reticle, whether the chance to hit was 10% or 75%.

 

[Humbaba]

I always thought estimating how much AP one should spend on a given shot was part of the game's skill ceiling.

 

[Infinitron]

https://wccftech.com/jagged-alliance-3-impressions/

Jagged Alliance 3 Impressions – Returning to the Past​

There's little doubt that Jagged Alliance as a series has faltered, or more accurately, it never really managed to follow the high of Jagged Alliance 2, released in 1999. Having gone through many publishers and developers, THQ Nordic has been the owner of the IP since 2015, then publishing (under the Handy Games label) Jagged Alliance: Rage! Last year, they finally announced Jagged Alliance 3.

If there's one thing worth saying, developers Haemimont Games are the most experienced team to have worked on the franchise, having created titles like Tropico 4 & 5, Omerta - City of Gangsters, Victor Vran and Surviving Mars. While I couldn't get hands-on with Jagged Alliance 3 at Gamescom, I was shown a presentation and asked a few questions while at it. The inevitable question is what I thought about this first look at Jagged Alliance 3.




In a first for the series, Jagged Alliance 3 is moving to the real world. This doesn't mean the series hasn't gone for a level of realism before, but it's the setting this time. Still a fictional state, Grand Chien, you'll be finding yourself leading your mercenaries in Africa. The army has kidnapped the president, and his daughter has hired you to rescue him. I should also mention it's in the early 2000s, so we've got some old tech on the go.

With this setting, you get the variety of biomes and conditions that come with it. The jungle could bring you monstrously heavy rain, limiting your and your enemies' range of visibility and reducing how far sound travels, offering stealthy opportunities for your mercs. In the desert and a sandstorm, your weapon will likely jam. These features should make for a more tactical outing than the previous Jagged Alliance and bring the series even more modern and advanced sensibilities.

What the setting also brings is an influence on how the game works. Much like some real-life states, Grand Chien is prominent in the blood diamond trade, so earning money to pay your increasing group of mercenaries will see you capturing diamond mines. In addition, maps and structures show signs of their colonial past. It all adds to the sense that this is an actual wartorn African state that has only just elected a democratic leader, and the vested interests of those before have led to the current conflict.

Aesthetically, Jagged Alliance 3 looks good from the presentation. There are lovely throwbacks to earlier entrants in the series, which include the design of your laptop (going full retro) and the equipment you'll be using. After all, this is set only a few years after Jagged Alliance 2. Even the overall strategic map had a nice bit of flair to it. The tactical maps have the most attention to detail, with a brighter colour palette and seemingly high-quality models helping them stand out.





As mentioned, you'll find yourself with both a strategic and tactical map, leading mercenaries through both. Those familiar with the series won't find anything odd, but there are a few elements to try and help Jagged Alliance 3 stand out. First, the mercenaries - forty in total - will all be fully voiced, with voice actors hired from all over the world to add to the authenticity. Several mercs will return from previous titles, but all of them will interact. Those with linked backstories can result in unexpected consequences depending on what happens in the game. For example, there's a married couple; if one dies, the other may leave forever.

The main strategic map is split into around sixty sectors, standard for the series, with other water-only areas adding to the flavour and offering strategic locations. Once you've captured areas, such as outposts, you can hire militia to protect the site in addition to the squads of mercenaries you can hire - six mercenaries to a team. What happens to be the clear new feature is when you move into the tactical battles rather than the overall strategic map.

Chance. Chance has always been a deciding factor in how you even act within a turn-based tactics title. Haemimont Games have decided to remove chance, or at least remove the visible aspect of chance. When you select an enemy to target, you will not get shown anything along the lines of "a 90% chance to hit".

Tests by Haemimont have shown that showing this not only has the inevitable comparisons with games like XCOM, but it also means players keep playing the same way. Haemimont wants to bring back the unexpected and the surprise of Jagged Alliance. Fighting between mercenaries and the army should be messy, dangerous, and exciting.




The question will be if Haemimont manages this. We won't honestly know until some unrevealed time in the future. THQ Nordic isn't pressuring Haemimont, letting them get the game right. I can't say if this will be a true Jagged Alliance; it was a thirty-minute presentation. My first impressions are that Jagged Alliance 3 is on the right track, but only time will tell.

 

[Darth Roxor]

the reticle size was actually just conveying how many AP you were devoting to the shot.

I confess to having no idea how the mechanics of JA actually worked under the hood, but I'm pretty sure the reticle was much smaller for a guy with high marksmanship compared to someone half-blind even when you put no additional AP into the shot.

 

[Stavrophore]

Vanilla JA2 aiming was pretty dogshit, even OCTH from 1.13 is a good improvement, and good compromise between autist NCTH.

 

[Papill0n]

the reticle size was actually just conveying how many AP you were devoting to the shot.

I confess to having no idea how the mechanics of JA actually worked under the hood, but I'm pretty sure the reticle was much smaller for a guy with high marksmanship compared to someone half-blind even when you put no additional AP into the shot.

For Vanilla Ja2, the former is true.

For Ja2 1.13's New Chance to Hit system, the latter is true.

It is indeed part of the player's skill in vanilla ja2 to guestimate his merc's chance to hit for any given shot. Now is that an essential aspect of Jagged Alliance as the recent news wants you to believe? of course not.

 

[Strange Fellow]

They're not lying in the blurb. Vanilla JA2 really WAS about getting a feel for how cover, marksmanship skill, gun and distance affected chance to hit, and planning accordingly. It was an excellent system. Working with incomplete information is at the heart of all compelling tacticool action, which is why removing fog of war, which some so-called turn based tactics games have been doing recently, is such a monumentally retarded move and why I'm so against it.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Devs showing the game at Gamescom.

Ngl, kinda excited for it.