Leaving out % to Hit May Not Be a Good Idea

[anon474]

I do not know how exactly % to hit is implemented in JA3, but, if all the press is correct, there doesn't appear to be ANY WAY to tell if you can hit somebody or not, at ALL, and I think this is a very VERY bad idea.

If there is no way to tell the likelihood of hitting a target, that will just make everybody extremely risk averse and make them all go into shotguns and close proximity loadouts and specs. Not knowing whether you have a 50% or a 70% chance to hit something, even at medium range, will be terrible for people's ability to strategize adequately and know whether they have a good shot at the target, whether they should move in close, if they do hit the target was that hit a 1% chance they have even at long ranges, and they should change range and location and move in closer?

If the system is similar to JA2 which just left out specific numbers but still had a UI bar you could fill, then that's fine. But leaving out ANY knowledge of your likelihood to hit is, in my opinion, a terrible terrible idea. There should at least be an option to turn that percent on in the options somewhere, but I think this option should be default on.

Yes it may not be realistic, many things are not entirely realistic, being hit with more than one bullet is not entirely realistic. Stats like in any strategy or RPG should be front and center not behind the screen, the point is min-maxing.

[Solaris_Wave]

I kind of like the idea of some ambiguity. I always thought having an exact percentage was weird. It could also create frustration if you had a shot at 95% probability and then it missed…twice. I think there should be some kind of indication if a shot has a chance of hitting, however. Maybe an outline of the target that gets thicker with a higher probability, or an intensity of colour temperature. Something that puts it in a vague bracket such as 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%.

When I first read about JA3 having no accuracy indicator, it intrigued me. So much so that I am now suggesting other things to be hidden from the player. I would like it if you couldn't choose what part of the enemy soldier to aim at unless your merc is within a certain range or is using a telescopic sight, is an accomplished sniper, and the target is not sprinting. Otherwise, you will just go for the enemy's head all the time, like other games. It isn't as easy to get headshots as games would have you believe, especially not for moving targets either.

I would also like some vagueness as to how many rounds are left in a magazine. Unless you have an ammo counter, like on an M41 Pulse Rifle, how can you precisely tell how many cartridges are left? There should be an action to check the magazine for remaining rounds, something you would do in a calmer moment. If you are not sure, swap the mag for a new one, top up the shotgun, etc.

I think that with those factors, it could make for some very intense and exciting firefights. Employing light and heavy machine guns would be a valuable asset due to a greater concentration of fire.

Edited April 8, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[anon474]

15 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

I kind of like the idea of some ambiguity. I always thought having an exact percentage was weird. It could also create frustration if you had a shot at 95% probability and then it missed…twice. I think there should be some kind of indication if a shot has a chance of hitting, however. Maybe an outline of the target that gets thicker with a higher probability, or an intensity of colour temperature. Something that puts it in a vague bracket such as 0-25%, 26-50%, 51-75% and 76-100%.

When I first read about JA3 having no accuracy indicator, it intrigued me. So much so that I am now suggesting other things to be hidden from the player. I would like it if you couldn't choose what part of the enemy soldier to aim at unless your merc is within a certain range or is using a telescopic sight, is an accomplished sniper, and the target is not sprinting. Otherwise, you will just go for the enemy's head all the time, like other games. It isn't as easy to get headshots as games would have you believe, especially not for moving targets either.

I would also like some vagueness as to how many rounds are left in a magazine. Unless you have an ammo counter, like on an M41 Pulse Rifle, how can you precisely tell how many cartridges are left? There should be an action to check the magazine for remaining rounds, something you would do in a calmer moment. If you are not sure, swap the mag for a new one, top up the shotgun, etc.

I think that with those factors, it could make for some very intense and exciting firefights. Employing light and heavy machine guns would be a valuable asset due to a greater concentration of fire.

But as far as I know there will be no way to tell the likelihood to hit at all. Like there won't be either a hit % or a bar that fills up like in JA2.

I like precise hit percentage, because the basic essence of all RPG mechanics is this: big number go up. The more number go up, the more dopamine you get. It's that simple. So I want to see precisely how much one merc's number is, vs another merc's number, vs another merc's number.

By this logic maybe we should start hiding stats, and then you just have to guess which merc is better than another merc. It's the same principle, and I bet people wouldn't like it.

Devs say this is to make combat exciting etc, however, I don't think it makes combat exciting, it in fact underwhelms combat by taking away any kind of certainty in this combat, it takes away your ability to make good decisions in combat, you don't know all the variables of combat. I don't hate the dev team, but, this may be a case of a dev team that's very like confident and is like "Yes, I want to add something new to the formula", but it ends up being a "reinventing the wheel" type of thing, where you just screw up already a perfectly fine or balanced formula and genre. I think you can iterate on JA2 formula, but there are other types of iterations that are elsewhere, like how LBE works and so on, and how stats operate. This is very much "fixing what isn't broken" (and messing it up in the process).

[DougS2K]

Personally, I think it's the right idea and true to the series. It makes the battles more unpredictable and takes away the frustration of missing those 95% chance to hit shots. Also when showing hit percentage, most people will never take a shot if it doesn't have 75% or higher chance to hit. I'm glad they did it this way and hope they stick with it. You can probably still calculate a rough chance in your head depend on the merc's marksmanship skill, how much aim focus (AP points) you use, cover of enemy, and distance. 

[Reloecc]

If CtH is calculated from two factors:

1. MERCs ability to hit (based on marksmanship, dexterity, aiming, weapon stats, distance etc. - everything that doesn't calculate specific target) aka ACCURACY
2. TARGETs ability to avoid hit (based on running speed, cover, camouflage, daytime, vision, dodge (melee) - everything attacker can't count for) aka HINDRANCE

I am ok seeing just the accuracy of the attack. So I know how well my people handle their weapon. Ofc it needs to be not presented as "CtH" but something else.

[anon474]

27 minutes ago, DougS2K said:

Personally, I think it's the right idea and true to the series. It makes the battles more unpredictable and takes away the frustration of missing those 95% chance to hit shots. Also when showing hit percentage, most people will never take a shot if it doesn't have 75% or higher chance to hit. I'm glad they did it this way and hope they stick with it. You can probably still calculate a rough chance in your head depend on the merc's marksmanship skill, how much aim focus (AP points) you use, cover of enemy, and distance. 

Noooooooooo I completely disagree.

If there is no way to tell % to hit, i.e. not a JA2 type bar that fills up OR a number %, then this is possibly one of the WORST decisions anybody could make for JA. This would be a CATASTROPHIC decision.

If you want to play something that unpredictable go play the lotto or go play casino lol. Again, if people want ot hid ethings, lets start hiding stats and you have to guess which soldiers is better than another soldier. Do you want that?

Edited April 9, 2023 by anon474

[Solaris_Wave]

As long as there is some indicator, I am happy with it but as I said, it needs to be vague. Having a less than satisfactory percentage chance to hit just means your hand is hovering over the Quick Load and Quick Save keys. Also, unless you are a cyborg or robot, you are not going to have precise calculations such as 84% and so on.

A vague indicator like I previously mentioned, such as a thickening outline or intensity in colour temperature, would give you some idea of your chances. It is unlikely that a shooter would have no idea whatsoever whether their shot would hit or not, but they would still be able to estimate whether it is worth pulling the trigger.

[Reloecc]

1 hour ago, DougS2K said:

.. people will never take a shot if it doesn't have 75% or higher chance to hit ..

That can't be really true, at least from my JA2 experience. You need to keep cover and avoid potential danger while shooting.. and with not-so-dumb AI, you can't go for 75%+ every time - that's lethal.

 

1 hour ago, DougS2K said:

.. You can probably still calculate a rough chance ..

Actually that's a huge issue I believe. If you imagine system, where CtH can be calculated in head from numbers.. people will do it. And you don't really want skill gap that involves math ability in non-puzzle game.

[DougS2K]

1 hour ago, Reloecc said:

That can't be really true, at least from my JA2 experience. You need to keep cover and avoid potential danger while shooting.. and with not-so-dumb AI, you can't go for 75%+ every time - that's lethal.

That's normally what tends to happen in any game that gives a chance to hit percentage.

Quote

Actually that's a huge issue I believe. If you imagine system, where CtH can be calculated in head from numbers.. people will do it. And you don't really want skill gap that involves math ability in non-puzzle game.

Well no, I didn't mean you can do actual math in your head. I meant like if you merc has 90 marksmanship, uses maximum aiming points, has enemy close not in cover, the chance to hit would be high. No actual math calculations in your head to get a percentage or anything.

Edited April 9, 2023 by DougS2K

[Urethra Franklin]

I believe that video games as a whole should be able to move beyond the whole "You have a 87% chance to hit this enemy in the leg." style at this point. I'm sure there are plenty of other intuitive ways to give the player a vague idea of how likely they are to make any given shot without making everything shot you take feel like a coin flip.

Edited April 10, 2023 by Urethra Franklin

[Grim]

They said mercs will tell you when they don't expect to make a shot, or on contrary when they are sure to make it.
The player will guess and learn. CTH will not be on screen but in head, one action after the other, statistics will be integrated in his tactical thinking.
And don't forget the player will have several indicators for the paramaters of the shot. Range to target vs range of the weapon, number of aims, weapon boni/mali, body parts visible, weather conditions, etc.

IMHO it's much better than a crude CTH.

[Reloecc]

8 minutes ago, Grim said:

And don't forget the player will have several indicators for the paramaters of the shot. Range to target vs range of the weapon, number of aims, weapon boni/mali, body parts visible, weather conditions, etc.

Yes.. this is everything we need. But don't make me count tiles, checking weapon range on wiki and multiplying numbers by weapon durability. We need this to be communicated well. In that case, it's better than CtH.

[Solaris_Wave]

Vague indicators will still give a general yes or no. Therefore, there shouldn't be any situations where you are looking up the manual like the old days or Alt-Tabbing to load up a website that tells you things that the game doesn't.

Either the merc can say, "I can't make that shot! It's too far." or there will be some indicator with the on on-screen overlays. The rest will be transparent. The merc themselves will know if they need to adjust the sight for longer ranges and in the game it will just happen.

I think, that if the developers stick to keeping the aiming probability vague (only for what the player sees, not what is actually possible), and include the other things I have talked about in this thread and elsewhere, battles can be tense and dynamic. Getting a critical hit on an enemy will be a surprise, more bullets will be fired to increase chances of a hit (just like reality) and battles will be slightly unpredictable. If body part aiming is also restricted, like I previously said, that will make covering fire useful as your other mercs try to get closer. Indoor battles will be quick and dangerous because at closer ranges, you can aim at specific body zones. The enemy will also be able to do the same to you. Therefore, you will want more than one merc clearing a room, various types of grenades will be important and close range, low action point cost weapons will be valuable.

Edited April 11, 2023 by Solaris_Wave