Jagged Alliance 3 from Haemimont Games

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

I wish they would add ragdolls. The explosions are pretty lackluster without corpses flying through the air and landing in hilarious poses.

You gotta be fucking kidding me. The whole zeitgeist here is that "they do graphics instead of gameplay" and people praise shitty graphics oldfart games over modern shit and you are here, with your gay and stupid take. How dare you!

All things being equal, better graphics and presentation make for a better game.

All things seldom are equal.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

All things being equal, better graphics and presentation make for a better game.

All things seldom are equal.

Well, both statements are correct.

 

[Zombra]

I wish they would add ragdolls. The explosions are pretty lackluster without corpses flying through the air and landing in hilarious poses.

Ragdolling almost always leads to buggy physics comedy. I love the death animations in the game. Don't fix what ain't broke.

 

[Alienman]

I wish they would add ragdolls. The explosions are pretty lackluster without corpses flying through the air and landing in hilarious poses.

Ragdolling almost always leads to buggy physics comedy. I love the death animations in the game. Don't fix what ain't broke.

Major disagree. Canned animations get old after a while, especially when it comes to "kills by force" like explosions. I can however agree that animations in combination with ragdoll make for some truly cool stuff, like having someone touch their face, or whatever place they got hurt, and then slumping over. Also, only having animations never gives you any fun use of explosions, outside of enemies clumping up. You know what will happen each time, so why waste the grenade? It provides no additional fun. And in the case of JA3 it makes me even more baffled, as they went halfway by having a destructible environment, but then for some damn reason left this out. I can't imagine Silent Storm (once again) without these two aspects being part of it.

 

[mediocrepoet]

I like rag dolls in games where you can hit someone with a titanic blow and basically knock them out of their boots and launch them across the street.

 

[gogis]

How are ragdolls "graphics"? I'm honestly surprised, going full 3D and not having ragdoll effect. Even oldfart games (the ones you talk about) like Silent Storm had this. Btw, take your meds, and Merry Christmas.

Cmon, I thought "How dare you!" was pretty fat hint! Merry Christmas

 

[Alienman]

How are ragdolls "graphics"? I'm honestly surprised, going full 3D and not having ragdoll effect. Even oldfart games (the ones you talk about) like Silent Storm had this. Btw, take your meds, and Merry Christmas.

Cmon, I thought "How dare you!" was pretty fat hint! Merry Christmas

Hey, this is Codex, it can go either way. I did suspect it was a joke after a while
Sorry, I will take my meds now.

 

[Tuco Benedicto Pacifico]

Im' noticing that there are a tons of mods adding new mercenaries.
Either the reclutable ones or the "IMP" versions that are basically your avatar.
Some even go the extra mile to add voice lines for each and in some cases even banters with other, pre-existing mercenaries.

No idea if even a single one is good, though, since I didn't try any so far.

Given what they promised with future modding tools, chances are people could do a lot more in the next months, too.
According to the devs is theoretically entirely possible to recreate JA2 in its entirety with the tools offered.

 

[Sentinel]

I think this is my favorite cRPG/turn-based game released since the renaissance in the mid 2010s. Really enjoying it although I'm shit at the financial side of things.

 

[Sentinel]

Btw how the fuck do melee attacks of opportunity work? If there's a melee dude next to my merc and I try to attack him with a ranged weapon, I get stabbed first. If my dude is next to an enemy, they shoot me and I get no AoO. What gives? Is melee AoO a trait?

 

[Zombra]

I think this is my favorite cRPG/turn-based game released since the renaissance in the mid 2010s. Really enjoying it although I'm shit at the financial side of things.

I recommend "Forgiving Mode", particularly if you play at higher difficulty. Sitting around in town waiting for wounds to heal watching your bank account drain isn't JA at its best.

 

[3 others]

Btw how the fuck do melee attacks of opportunity work? If there's a melee dude next to my merc and I try to attack him with a ranged weapon, I get stabbed first. If my dude is next to an enemy, they shoot me and I get no AoO. What gives? Is melee AoO a trait?

I never fiddled with these advanced interactions so how did it go exactly? There's the "Hand-to-hand" built-in trait that some characters (Scully at least) have that explicitly mentions a melee interrupt attack. Then there are 2 selectable upgrade perks (Reactive Fire & Revenge) that deal with interrupt attacks, but are those only for firearms?

As great a game JA3 is, there are quite a bit of confusing or completely undocumented features in it - just try to figure out what exactly a "Stealth" attack on an "Aware" enemy affects without checking a 3rd party Steam guide.

 

[Zombra]

Btw how the fuck do melee attacks of opportunity work? If there's a melee dude next to my merc and I try to attack him with a ranged weapon, I get stabbed first. If my dude is next to an enemy, they shoot me and I get no AoO. What gives? Is melee AoO a trait?

I never fiddled with these advanced interactions so how did it go exactly? There's the "Hand-to-hand" built-in trait that some characters (Scully at least) have that explicitly mentions a melee interrupt attack. Then there are 2 selectable upgrade perks (Reactive Fire & Revenge) that deal with interrupt attacks, but are those only for firearms?

You just described exactly how it works. Some specific abilities give you interrupt attacks, and they are explained right there. That's it.

 

[Zombra]

Jeskis pm_675

What difficulty did you play on, tough guys? Did you have saves enabled?

 

[Jeskis]

Jeskis pm_675

What difficulty did you play on, tough guys? Did you have saves enabled?

Default one. One autosave (don’t remember the name of the mode) and permadeath for party members (although I cheese it at times by reloading a savegame when I see things go grim). That said, I’ve restarted my playthrough recently since I didn’t know all the mechanics and fucked up the strategic layer a bit so that I had to spend shittons of time fixing things up. Other than that I‘m enjoying time management and strict rules the game imposes on you, that’s the fun goddamit.

 

[Zombra]

Default one.

So you don't accept the 25% income penalty to all mines for Commando difficulty, but you do have a problem with Forgiving mode which adds a lousy $1000/day?

 

[Humanophage]

Jeskis pm_675

What difficulty did you play on, tough guys? Did you have saves enabled?

Is it considered inappropriate to have saves? Is non-Iron Man considered bad taste? It's annoying to play without saves if you don't know the mechanics as it is not exactly very intuitive, and all it does is reward real-life concentration (especially in the first several minutes you turn on the game each day when you're more error-prone). On the other hand, it's already too easy (you just snipe everyone) and all difficulty comes from the imperfect interface (like misclicking during stealth).

I'm playing on the highest difficulty with death at 0 HP enabled but it's my first time.

 

[Jeskis]

Default one.

So you don't accept the 25% income penalty to all mines for Commando difficulty, but you do have a problem with Forgiving mode which adds a lousy $1000/day?

Uhm.. yes?

 

[Atlet]

Jeskis pm_675

What difficulty did you play on, tough guys? Did you have saves enabled?

Is it considered inappropriate to have saves? Is non-Iron Man considered bad taste? It's annoying to play without saves if you don't know the mechanics as it is not exactly very intuitive, and all it does is reward real-life concentration (especially in the first several minutes you turn on the game each day when you're more error-prone). On the other hand, it's already too easy (you just snipe everyone) and all difficulty comes from the imperfect interface (like misclicking during stealth).

I'm playing on the highest difficulty with death at 0 HP enabled but it's my first time.

This game will be wayyyyy too easy if you don't play Iron Man (true Iron Man, not the one where you can just reload the beginning of the last battle). Choose the “dead is dead” setting. That's iron man essentially, saving after every turn in combat and pretty much after most actions you do or changing scenes etc.

Then the setting right below called “to the bitter end” states that “saving the game during combat is forbidden”.

Now if you turn on both, you essentially have a game that auto-saves but not during combat, so you can always go back to your most recent save game which is the start of combat. Effectively making the game not a true iron man game.

So when you start a new game, you have to pick “dead is dead” and DO NOT pick “till the bitter end”. The “till the bitter end” option would be best suited for non-ironman players who still want the additional challenge of not being able to save manually during combat.

 

[Stavrophore]

Support for substantial modding with being able to influence core mechanics is needed to rekindle any interest into this game for me.

 

[Sentinel]

Anyone know if the breach & clear perk is bugged? I can't get it to trigger.

 

[Humanophage]

Jeskis pm_675

What difficulty did you play on, tough guys? Did you have saves enabled?

Is it considered inappropriate to have saves? Is non-Iron Man considered bad taste? It's annoying to play without saves if you don't know the mechanics as it is not exactly very intuitive, and all it does is reward real-life concentration (especially in the first several minutes you turn on the game each day when you're more error-prone). On the other hand, it's already too easy (you just snipe everyone) and all difficulty comes from the imperfect interface (like misclicking during stealth).

I'm playing on the highest difficulty with death at 0 HP enabled but it's my first time.

This game will be wayyyyy too easy if you don't play Iron Man (true Iron Man, not the one where you can just reload the beginning of the last battle). Choose the “dead is dead” setting. That's iron man essentially, saving after every turn in combat and pretty much after most actions you do or changing scenes etc.

Then the setting right below called “to the bitter end” states that “saving the game during combat is forbidden”.

Now if you turn on both, you essentially have a game that auto-saves but not during combat, so you can always go back to your most recent save game which is the start of combat. Effectively making the game not a true iron man game.

So when you start a new game, you have to pick “dead is dead” and DO NOT pick “till the bitter end”. The “till the bitter end” option would be best suited for non-ironman players who still want the additional challenge of not being able to save manually during combat.

I restarted with these settings, and it is indeed much better this way. It's especially good for the first playthrough as the AI's ambush attempts and the plot twists are more effective this way. Although there are a few silly things like the poachers inexplicably getting angry at me, invalidating a major quest to get a free NPC.

I am rather enjoying the writing and the setting is fresh enough.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

Anyone know if the breach & clear perk is bugged? I can't get it to trigger.

I recall this perk working during my playthrough, and I can't find any indication on the Steam discussions forum that a bug exists. Perhaps this became bugged in the latest patch/hotfix.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Anyone know if the breach & clear perk is bugged? I can't get it to trigger.

I recall this perk working during my playthrough, and I can't find any indication on the Steam discussions forum that a bug exists. Perhaps this became bugged in the latest patch/hotfix.

Maybe check that none of the equipment you're using is Cumbersome, which removes all movement points. Like Zed, I used this perk and it worked fine, although it's possible that a recent patch might have broken it.

This game will be wayyyyy too easy if you don't play Iron Man (true Iron Man, not the one where you can just reload the beginning of the last battle). Choose the “dead is dead” setting. That's iron man essentially, saving after every turn in combat and pretty much after most actions you do or changing scenes etc.

Then the setting right below called “to the bitter end” states that “saving the game during combat is forbidden”.

Now if you turn on both, you essentially have a game that auto-saves but not during combat, so you can always go back to your most recent save game which is the start of combat. Effectively making the game not a true iron man game.

So when you start a new game, you have to pick “dead is dead” and DO NOT pick “till the bitter end”. The “till the bitter end” option would be best suited for non-ironman players who still want the additional challenge of not being able to save manually during combat.

I restarted with these settings, and it is indeed much better this way. It's especially good for the first playthrough as the AI's ambush attempts and the plot twists are more effective this way. Although there are a few silly things like the poachers inexplicably getting angry at me, invalidating a major quest to get a free NPC.

I am rather enjoying the writing and the setting is fresh enough.

I would never recommend the iron man setting in any game, for the simple reason that bugs happen (and sometimes, constant autosaving impacts performance). If you really want to play ironman, just don't reload.

As for the difficulty in general, it gets easy fairly early on and stays that way for a good while, certain setpieces and special maps notwithstanding. The difficulty does ramp up later on, however, and the endgame can be properly challenging.

 

[Humanophage]

This game will be wayyyyy too easy if you don't play Iron Man (true Iron Man, not the one where you can just reload the beginning of the last battle). Choose the “dead is dead” setting. That's iron man essentially, saving after every turn in combat and pretty much after most actions you do or changing scenes etc.

Then the setting right below called “to the bitter end” states that “saving the game during combat is forbidden”.

Now if you turn on both, you essentially have a game that auto-saves but not during combat, so you can always go back to your most recent save game which is the start of combat. Effectively making the game not a true iron man game.

So when you start a new game, you have to pick “dead is dead” and DO NOT pick “till the bitter end”. The “till the bitter end” option would be best suited for non-ironman players who still want the additional challenge of not being able to save manually during combat.

I restarted with these settings, and it is indeed much better this way. It's especially good for the first playthrough as the AI's ambush attempts and the plot twists are more effective this way. Although there are a few silly things like the poachers inexplicably getting angry at me, invalidating a major quest to get a free NPC.

I am rather enjoying the writing and the setting is fresh enough.

I would never recommend the iron man setting in any game, for the simple reason that bugs happen (and sometimes, constant autosaving impacts performance). If you really want to play ironman, just don't reload.

As for the difficulty in general, it gets easy fairly early on and stays that way for a good while, certain setpieces and special maps notwithstanding. The difficulty does ramp up later on, however, and the endgame can be properly challenging.

Well, I'm not sure about that. For example, I came back from dinner IRL and decided to play. Went into a random dungeon. Didn't know the mechanic and stats for crocodiles and I didn't notice that their retaliation range is actually 2 tiles rather than 1 as for all other characters. One half-dead crocodile approached my squad and stood nearby. I shot at him from across a tile with Kalyna, and it critted her with retaliation, nearly killing her and sending Buns into flight. But I didn't notice that Kalyna was across two tiles and just thought it was a graphical artifact. Then it turns out the red outline isn't the actual range and I was supposed to guess that the crocodile hits from afar. So my Barry who stood 2 tiles away diagonally and was not covered by the red outline threw a molotov. Turns out he was also subject to crocodile retaliation. As Kalyna, he got a crit and nearly died. The molotov also alerted a nearby shooter who shot at Kalyna from across a dark cave in his alertness animation, and killed her. All right, I thought, shit happens. So I tried to move Barry away, and he got another crit from the crocodile that killed him. So all the weeks of training and planning are now lost, and the whole plan for the game is ruined.

But you must trudge on. In reality, you have some replacement characters for that. Sure, it was a bother to make a strong character out of Kalyna with her low wisdom and I was looking forward to use her special ability with hollow point bullets. And I also made Barry the mechanic because Livewire is OP, which took a while, and Barry is quite a key character. Anyway, I got annoyed and alt-F4'd the game on Barry's death. Then I reopened it and it turned out it didn't save all that damage. I played with the croc's range in mind and easily beat that fight. Then I thought that this is cheating and it defeats the whole point of the game. So I wanted to load the battle and have Kalyna and Barry die as they should. But it turns out it already saved the victorious battle.

So ordinarily with strategies, I would consider this game lost due to cheating and start a new one from scratch. But the issue is that it's too much of a traditional RPG to restart. You'll have to do the same dialogues, the same filler fights, and so on all over again. That isn't fun at all.

I concluded that instead of simply dropping the game for good, I will fire Kalyna and Barry or maybe kill them to burn the bridge.

Conversely, if you had the actual saves even to compensate for bugs, you'd be constantly tempted to use saves. "Oh I didn't know the interface meant that", "oh it was a bug that the poachers aggro'd", "oh I didn't know the abstract representation of grenades is like that", etc.

(That said, the inability of the game to communicate what it means is a somewhat annoying source of difficulty.)