Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Strange Fellow]

Silent knife kill is a tad complicated on the interface, cause you first need to prep it by selecting the appropriate option from the aiming menu (which isn't terribly handy to use), then sneak towards the recipient and click through the attack. Awfully inconvenient to do when enemies are still moving in real time.

You don't actually have to click to attack, as long as you've prepared a takedown the attack is executed automatically when you get in melee range. But yeah, the pause mod is a must.

 

[Alienman]

By the way Strange Fellow, what is changed on the hardest setting? Is it in form of health bloat, or just harder hitting bullets?

 

[Strange Fellow]

By the way Strange Fellow, what is changed on the hardest setting? Is it in form of health bloat, or just harder hitting bullets?

I wish the game itself were clearer. All it says is that more elite enemies will appear, and that's what I'm seeing. Enemies may also be more accurate in general, but that could just be my imagination, or a natural consequence of facing more advanced enemies earlier on. I don't think there are any changes to enemy health or damage.

Like I said, the main thing I've noticed is that snipers are about ten times deadlier. Heavy gunners also seem to be a lot more threatening than they used to be.

 

[Alienman]

Sounds good, will have to do a run on maximum difficulty. Because on Commando it's way too easy to get mega rich, which removes a lot of the worry. It also means you can afford big squads.

 

[spectre]

Silent knife kill is a tad complicated on the interface, cause you first need to prep it by selecting the appropriate option from the aiming menu (which isn't terribly handy to use), then sneak towards the recipient and click through the attack. Awfully inconvenient to do when enemies are still moving in real time.

You don't actually have to click to attack, as long as you've prepared a takedown the attack is executed automatically when you get in melee range. But yeah, the pause mod is a must.

Interesting. That's what I'd thought how it should work, but ended up clicking anyway just to make sure.
Takes some save-scumming to get this one right.

 

[Shaki]

Sounds good, will have to do a run on maximum difficulty. Because on Commando it's way too easy to get mega rich, which removes a lot of the worry. It also means you can afford big squads.

It happens on every difficulty, no matter what you do you'll be swimming in money sooner or later, it's inevitable since there is nothing to spend it on other than mercs, and you can only have 15 of them.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Sounds good, will have to do a run on maximum difficulty. Because on Commando it's way too easy to get mega rich, which removes a lot of the worry. It also means you can afford big squads.

Unfortunately the hardest difficulty isn't much better in that respect. Two or three mines will still keep you well in the black with a balanced squad.

At least this seems like something that should be trivial to fix with a mod. It's as easy as lowering mine income across the board. I checked the existing enhanced options mod, but it's not in there. Hopefully someone steps up.

 

[spectre]

At least it's good they didn't resort to HP-bloating enemies on higher difficulties.
More and earlier elite enemies sounds good. I reckon reducing drops was their way of preventing the player from gearing up too early, or is this one still an issue?
Gotta say, I didn't even realize how spoiled I was by the "enemies drop all weapons." Feels down to mow down 8 dunces and only get one an AK for the trouble.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I've had Fox clear entire maps with a knife, without the pause mod. You just have to wait for targets to stop moving (easier on some maps than others). If she misses the throat slit, brutalize always works. If there are two guards, shank one and brutalize the other in the surprise turn.

Interesting that some people are saying the game is too easy which is evidence of bad design. Yet when a veteran player struggles at the game, instead of praising the difficulty, that too is evidence of bad design.

The best are comments like "This game is total shit way too easy piss garbage awful casual trash but I ran out of money and ammo so I had to quit."

 

[Shaki]

I've had Fox clear entire maps with a knife, without the pause mod. You just have to wait for targets to stop moving (easier on some maps than others). If she misses the throat slit, brutalize always works. If there are two guards, shank one and brutalize the other in the surprise turn.

Interesting that some people are saying the game is too easy which is evidence of bad design. Yet when a veteran player struggles at the game, instead of praising the difficulty, that too is evidence of bad design.

The best are comments like "This game is total shit way too easy piss garbage awful casual trash but I ran out of money and ammo so I had to quit."

Are there actually people saying it's too hard? So far I only saw complaints about it being too easy, even normies on reddit seem to have realized that rifles + explosives are absolutely broken and trivialize everything.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Are there actually people saying it's too hard?

Comment on the previous page all about how hard the game was, couldn't hit things, couldn't get stealth kills, free enemy alert movement and "unfair" stats, etc. etc.

Commenter a few pages back said the game was too easy followed immediately that they quit because of no ammo. I don't even know what to say about that. Steam forums are full of similar complaints. "No ammo." "No money" "Mercs left me" "Overwhelmed by constant raids" etc.

 

[raeven]

Nice review!

BTW - you should be able to execute melee attacks that you've "prepared" in advance just by walking next to the enemy - there's no need for a second click to make it happen. If you pick the game back up, that might solve some of your frustrations with melee.

 

[raeven]

I've had Fox clear entire maps with a knife, without the pause mod. You just have to wait for targets to stop moving (easier on some maps than others). If she misses the throat slit, brutalize always works. If there are two guards, shank one and brutalize the other in the surprise turn.

Interesting that some people are saying the game is too easy which is evidence of bad design. Yet when a veteran player struggles at the game, instead of praising the difficulty, that too is evidence of bad design.

The best are comments like "This game is total shit way too easy piss garbage awful casual trash but I ran out of money and ammo so I had to quit."

Are there actually people saying it's too hard? So far I only saw complaints about it being too easy, even normies on reddit seem to have realized that rifles + explosives are absolutely broken and trivialize everything.

No one is saying it's too hard, just that the game is designed wrong because they are running out of certain types of ammo, money, or meds during their run.

The culprit is obviously a combination of incompetence and laziness on the part of the developers.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Trying the game with increased auto/burst damage (not full, just 1.5x) and enemy is in general much more lethal.

Now I can't have Igor and Q just shrugging off gunfire in the open. And Prison Boss burst fire in his confined space pretty much one shot anybody not name Steroid jacked in heavy armor.

Machine Gunners change from "who cares getting tickled by overwatch" to actually lethal. Overall feels like the game is much better this way instead of Sniper headshot bomb fiesta.

30 hours in I feel they need to make the AI less suicidal, just stay in cover and overwatch (its good action economy as you get more attack per AP). As currently is they are too willing to get themselves in the open just to flank your cover. Hopefully mod manager can mod that behaviour in the future. Right now enemies only ever overwatch if they are low in HP and staying in cover.

 

[ArchAngel]

Sounds good, will have to do a run on maximum difficulty. Because on Commando it's way too easy to get mega rich, which removes a lot of the worry. It also means you can afford big squads.

Unfortunately the hardest difficulty isn't much better in that respect. Two or three mines will still keep you well in the black with a balanced squad.

At least this seems like something that should be trivial to fix with a mod. It's as easy as lowering mine income across the board. I checked the existing enhanced options mod, but it's not in there. Hopefully someone steps up.

Better if they implement a gun/mod shop instead of guns and shit lying around in random boxes

 

[POOPERSCOOPER]

I'm still playing the tutorial Island thing and it seems very easy even on Commando. Does the game get harder or should I crank up the difficulty?

 

[spectre]

Nice review!

BTW - you should be able to execute melee attacks that you've "prepared" in advance just by walking next to the enemy - there's no need for a second click to make it happen. If you pick the game back up, that might solve some of your frustrations with melee.

Yeah, strange fellow already covered it for me. Might need some practice with it, but I didn't really want to save scum to get it right.
I wasn't really attempting a review, just some impressions after scratching the tutorial island. I'd need to actually get the feel of the advanced weapons/tactics for the full picture,
but the problem is with the fundamentals, as far as I am concerned - iffy controls I could probably live with and get used to with time,
scramble turn is something I don't really get the point of. It kinda made sense (ok, it didn't, but let's do some devil advocating) in EXCUM
with its brutal flanking bonuses out of cover and smaller pod sizes, so they sorta kinda wanted to setup an even playing field for an engagement.
Here, it just doesn't seem desirable, all it does for me is added hoops for ambushing... which is the order of the day in assymmetric warfare... which is what the game is all about.
That much I have known earlier, but having seen it actually play out it still baffles me as something really unnecessary.

 

[ArchAngel]

Nice review!

BTW - you should be able to execute melee attacks that you've "prepared" in advance just by walking next to the enemy - there's no need for a second click to make it happen. If you pick the game back up, that might solve some of your frustrations with melee.

Yeah, strange fellow already covered it for me. Might need some practice with it, but I didn't really want to save scum to get it right.
I wasn't really attempting a review, just some impressions after scratching the tutorial island. I'd need to actually get the feel of the advanced weapons/tactics for the full picture,
but the problem is with the fundamentals, as far as I am concerned - iffy controls I could probably live with and get used to with time,
scramble turn is something I don't really get the point of. It kinda made sense (ok, it didn't, but let's do some devil advocating) in EXCUM
with its brutal flanking bonuses out of cover and smaller pod sizes, so they sorta kinda wanted to setup an even playing field for an engagement.
Here, it just doesn't seem desirable, all it does for me is added hoops for ambushing... which is the order of the day in assymmetric warfare... which is what the game is all about.
That much I have known earlier, but having seen it actually play out it still baffles me as something really unnecessary.

It also "makes sense" here because they nuXcom this game and cover gives specific hit penalty to random hit rolls instead of just being cover for real projectile simulation.

 

[raeven]

I'm still playing the tutorial Island thing and it seems very easy even on Commando. Does the game get harder or should I crank up the difficulty?

I'm on commando. I'd say it gets harder and to stick with it until you take fleatown (or whatever town you go for first)

 

[Sunri]

Go to prison after tutorial map, i think it's L6 if you want to have fun.

 

[Grampy_Bone]

Cacao/Prison was the hardest part of the game for me, tactically, and I did go there immediately after Ernie.

I like that as the tactical layer gets easier the strategic layer ramps up. Defending bases from constant attack waves while still trying to make progress, keep supplies up, gear repaired, etc. is a fun challenge.

 

[Modron]

Managed to clear the majority of the prison without entering turnbased combat more than once or twice, everyone is pretty isolated minus the upstairs and the two rooms next to jackhammer's office (but even then cleared the balcony and the rightmost room in the main building without alerting enemies). I assume you're talking about the Good Place and not one on the other side of the map I haven't encountered yet. Downstairs was a different story.

 

[spectre]

Some additional info on Leadership mechanics that's not immediately apparent, its effect on travel speed might raise an eyebrow:


Restarted the game, decided I wanna give it a fair spin. Turns out I misunderstood a whole bunch of things (including the way weapon attachments work,
a lesser man would take an opportunity to make a quip that the devs need to look up what "attach" means).

I stand by my opinion that the whole handling of takedowns is shit, but it gets better with practice and if you do it right, you won't even have to suffer any scramble turns
(cleared first two sectors this way, felt good but way too save summy). Thank goodness for the active pause mod. Lets you actually coordinate.
Sadly, the game balance looks extremely fragile (unintended throwback to 1.13?) and I'm worried if suppressed sniper action doesn't trivialize it all.

I'm eyeballing other mods out there, makes me wonder what exactly can be diddled with. A few are straight up cheating, but improved IMP portraits and models seem essential.
Vanilla game is incredibly crappy in this regard, to the point that I contemplated just sticking with mercs, which is sometimes hard to do depending on difficulty
and randomized availability.

Thinking about a chance to hit mod, not that I need it as much, the game seems to give the "feel" for the odds rather easy, but it's tempting to look under the hood.
I saw a version that doesn't give the exact %, just lists the modifiers, which is what I was looking for.

Still not a fan of "magical" abilities on some chars.
Still would like more in-depth inventory management.
And from what I saw early on, the game's economy would basically need to be unfucked and re-done from scratch
cause it looks like it's been stringed together by a series of questionable design decisions.
Gun running doesn't even seem to be a thing at all?

Think I took a leap of faith here, gentlemen, cause what seemed to look like a cautious but still essentially just a road accident,
now is starting to look more like a work in progress, with the the potential to actually get somewhere.
As far as I'm concerned, just being able to mod out scramble turns would be sufficient to elevate it.
Could be possible, if only via a hackjob of giving everyone the equivalent of Fox's unique trait.

 

[Agame]

I know its redundant to repeat here but seeing 'nu-xcom' system in jagged Alliance is simply disgusting. Living in the age of decline...

 

[Grampy_Bone]

I know its redundant to repeat here but seeing 'nu-xcom' system in jagged Alliance is simply disgusting. Living in the age of decline...

Don't listen to Archangel, he hasn't even played it and has no clue what he's talking about.