Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Latelistener]

Musicbros: what's that distinctive woodwind flute at the beginning of the main theme? Very evocative sound.

Not really an expert, but sounds like something ethnic. Tambin maybe?

 

[Infinitron]

Damn, they really went all-in with a full studio soundtrack. No wonder it sounds that little bit nicer than comparable orchestral background music in other games, even though only handful of the tracks are particularly memorable.

Quality orchestras in Eastern Europe are pretty affordable.

 

[thesheeep]

About 12 hours in, the game just kind of started boring me and I stopped playing.
I'm not entirely sure why.

Sure, the game is far from perfect.
Stealth basically seems to trivialize encounters and the maps are just too tiny, making weapon ranges appear comically short (what is the shotgun range? Looks like < 5m. Bit shit, isn't it?
The game fishes for savescumming to an odd degree (like rolling for weapon modifications, get the fuck out of here with crap like that).
The character voice lines managed to annoy me not even 10 hours in

Still, I don't think the game is crap and I actually had fun at the start, so I'm still somewhat surprised I didn't even last 30-40 hours.
Maybe I just shouldn't have played this right after 100+ hours of BG3, might've just been burned out on TB combat like that for a bit (especially with BG3 having vastly more options in combat to keep things a bit more interesting).
Or maybe the setting just doesn't have the same draw on me as it used to have - I noticed that with the rise of real-world based cover shooters years back, my interest in real-world (or very close) settings has dropped significantly.

 

[Old One]

rolling for weapon modifications, get the fuck out of here with crap like that

That's one of the reasons it needs Bobby Ray's to be implemented.

 

[spectre]

I'm not seeing how Bobby Ray's helps with attachments under the current system.

It's basically this - finding a lens lying on the ground means you have yourself an optical sight, what you need is the scrap currency and a mechanic to make it happen - the sight of your choice
materializes on your boomstick as long as the mechanic makes the roll and stays welded there. Sometimes when you scrap the gun, you also get the lens back, but it's not guaranteed.

This is inane on so many levels i don't see it working without a complete redo of the whole system - let us attach and detach the fucking scopes and have them appear in the inventory, instead of having this wildcard loot system.
Funny thing is, it's probably possible to mod in, but will take a lot of work and will fuck up the current inventory system, unless the scopes go directly to squad inventory.
At this point, the whole scrap as currency thing should be discarded as well along with scouring the countryside for herbs to treat shrapnel wounds nonsense.

With such a rework, BR would indeed help bringing the new system together (and will remain useful with more guns and things being added), but with the way things are,
I'm just not seeing it being anything but yielding to nostalgia fags with no understanding of the underlying system. Only thing it does is either
shattering the already fragile balance, or being utterly redundant. At least the code is there for modders to use.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[destinae vomitus]

I did a quick replay and can attest that the store, in terms of positives, helps to make the more uncommon mid to late game guns less of a toss-up to find (though I still never saw a G36 or AK-74 until the game was pretty much over). Outside of that though I found that it makes all resources a complete non-issue, to I guess appease all the retards who complained about running out of ammo, meds and the like. Not only can you buy ammo in bulk but gunpowder too on top of that, and I already had more than I knew what to do with thanks to the weapon shipments they'd added. Towards the end I had a stupid surplus of everything and had no trouble affording to field two squads + militia trainers, so it's not much of a moneysink either.

 

[Zombra]

[Project Haven is] possibly the Jagged Alliance 2 successor we have been waiting ages for.

In case you didn't hear, Jagged Alliance 3 is actually good.

 

[agris]

[Project Haven is] possibly the Jagged Alliance 2 successor we have been waiting ages for.

In case you didn't hear, Jagged Alliance 3 is actually good.

If you aren’t starving, wait a year+ and it’ll be really good

 

[Silva]

Anyone playing this on PS5? Are the controls and performance good?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Bought this finally.
Should I wait for 1.4 version before playing?

 

[PanteraNera]

Bought this finally.
Should I wait for 1.4 version before playing?

I would. I really enjoyed playing it on release, but stopped when I saw how much things they changed/added & planed to do.

 

[Beowulf]

I would wait as well. 1.5 will be about modding, so 1.4 should be last patch with bigger changes (and re-balance of sat ops), for a while at least.

 

[Zombra]

Bought this finally.
Should I wait for 1.4 version before playing?

Slightly improved SAT view? 1.4 appears to be little more than a UI upgrade. Noncombat sector operations are neat and better balance is always welcome, but this is not a big deal at all. I see no reason not to start playing immediately if you're excited.

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

Bought this finally.
Should I wait for 1.4 version before playing?

Slightly improved SAT view? 1.4 appears to be little more than a UI upgrade. Noncombat sector operations are neat and better balance is always welcome, but this is not a big deal at all. I see no reason not to start playing immediately if you're excited.

I could play new System Shock instead.
Bought it on same time and it doesn't seem to be getting major patches anymore.

 

[Beowulf]

Bought this finally.
Should I wait for 1.4 version before playing?

Slightly improved SAT view? 1.4 appears to be little more than a UI upgrade. Noncombat sector operations are neat and better balance is always welcome, but this is not a big deal at all. I see no reason not to start playing immediately if you're excited.

I'd agree , but the thing is, that it might make your save games incompatible with the new version. Especially if you are playing with mods. And 1.4 should come soon.

 

[spectre]

Another thing to consider, a lot of mods will require starting a new game, and major modding probably won't take off until 1.4.
Vanilla should be "playable", for what it's worth, with minor modding to fix some of the annoyances. I wasn't really keeping up with the patches, so not sure if they'd integrated the active pause, but this IMO is the first mod to get.
Rebalancing the loot tables in particular requires starting a new game which put me off. I was rather far into my first playthrough and couldn't be bothered to go over it again.

I'd have a quick look at the demo to see if the game looks appealing or salvageable to you and have a serious look around for mods before taking a plunge.

 

[agris]

Another thing to consider, a lot of mods will require starting a new game, and major modding probably won't take off until 1.4.
Vanilla should be "playable", for what it's worth, with minor modding to fix some of the annoyances. I wasn't really keeping up with the patches, so not sure if they'd integrated the active pause, but this IMO is the first mod to get.
Rebalancing the loot tables in particular requires starting a new game which put me off. I was rather far into my first playthrough and couldn't be bothered to go over it again.

I'd have a quick look at the demo to see if the game looks appealing or salvageable to you and have a serious look around for mods before taking a plunge.

This is why I said that, if you can wait, waiting a year will be the best way to enjoy the game. After the 1.5 patch which introduces more significant modding tools, I expect some of the ja2 mod crowd will go full weaponized autism and we'll see more hardcore tactics / resource mods for the game, making it more difficult and better - imo.

 

[spectre]

This is why I said that, if you can wait, waiting a year will be the best way to enjoy the game. After the 1.5 patch which introduces more significant modding tools, I expect some of the ja2 mod crowd will go full weaponized autism and we'll see more hardcore tactics / resource mods for the game, making it more difficult and better - imo.

Still, there will be some time before major mods take off, if only for the modders to learn the framework.
Then there's the matter of getting the folks who know what's good on board. At the time of release, I haven't really seen anyone at the bear's eager to jump right into.
Things might have changed. Haven't been around there of late, and people seem to be doing lots of shit with AI with decent results.

Bottom line of this: waiting for the game to get good might take a bit of time... and one might find it fundamentally flawed and unsalvageable.

 

[Beowulf]

The game is very good and totally playable as it is.
If you want to install mods then the one unlocking more configuration options is the way to go, so you can increase the scrap values or herb gathering to your liking, as those are things that most new players have troubles with.
Personally I'd also add the combat attire mods to make mercs look a little more realistic (in action movie terms at least) and the one adding bigger diversity to the Legion soldiers.

Other mods might come in handy only when you have played for a couple of hours and see what you'd like to change (be that combat rebalance, enemies bonuses, attachment system and unlocking more slots etc).

 

[Zombra]

I'd agree , but the thing is, that [patching] might make your save games incompatible with the new version. Especially if you are playing with mods. And 1.4 should come soon.

Good point. Reminder to anyone playing now, turn off automatic updates until you verify that new versions are compatible. (I'm doing that right now.)

EDIT: Wait, what the fuck, I can't turn updates off any more?

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

EDIT: Wait, what the fuck, I can't turn updates off any more?

On Steam?
That's been the way things are there for ages.

They might offer older versions as beta-branches.

 

[Old One]

It's entirely playable already, but I would wait. I enjoyed it quite a bit, but ultimately decided to set it aside until more content is complete.

 

[Roguey]

EDIT: Wait, what the fuck, I can't turn updates off any more?

On Steam?
That's been the way things are there for ages.

They might offer older versions as beta-branches.

"Only update this game when I launch it" has always been the case as far as I remember. It's useful if the game doesn't have Steam DRM so you can just launch it from outside the Steam client while still being able to use Steam. I understand there are ways to roll back patches, but it's a complicated mess. Unfortunately JA3 uses Steam DRM so you have to use GOG if you want a no-mess exe you control.

 

[gogis]

Tried the demo. Realized that there is no option to initiate turn-based combat even in the presence of the enemies. In other words, you have to stealth kill multiple enemies fully in real time with no pause.

Did they even play their own game? Why is it so hard for them to just remake a 25 years old game with the same rules, but new graphics?

They were probably just too lazy to code so that the whole game could work both in the real-time and in the turn-based modes.

You guys keep talking about 1.13. It's not "original game". Original game was vanilla JA2