After beta streams reactions

[Solaris_Wave]

I was thinking similarly about those damage numbers but I didn't want to act like I was criticising everything I saw. Looking at those big damage numbers are distracting however. Almost as if it is driving home the point it is just a 'game'. Thankfully, there was no sign of a flashing jackpot 100 number for a one shot kill.

Seriously though, a smaller size font would be better. They don't really need to be that obvious. Maybe that could be a scalable setting in Graphics or Game preferences (Off, Small, Large, JACKPOT BONANZA).

[LoboNocturno]

Nice 20 hours of gameplay review but its in German.

 

 

[LoboNocturno]

The roof view looks not bad.

[Lunokhod]

6 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

Seriously though, a smaller size font would be better. They don't really need to be that obvious.

Bro they can fix it in one click. Its not a problem. They need to concentrate on combat, they need to do something decent with combat.

35 minutes ago, LoboNocturno said:

Nice 20 hours of gameplay review but its in German.

Looks very unfinished. Doesn't look like they can release it this year. It's too many work here.

22 minutes ago, LoboNocturno said:

The roof view looks not bad.

World design not bad in this game. It would be better if they took a step towards realism. Im not talking about battle simulator, but more close to simulator. Alot of unnecessary things here. They spent a lot of time on all sorts of nonsense. All this XCOM camera movement. It looks sucks in XCOM, it looks suck here. Better spent time on character animations, they looks "woody" as hell.

[Acid]

14 hours ago, Specky said:

That's the one. It reminds me of that. 

Also another game with Germans set in WW2, "Forgotten but unbroken", check it out on steam.

[WILDFIRE]

I still think the crosshair should be reworked. I want to aim freely and directly on the specific body part. It should be just like it was in JA2 but advanced. I want to move the cursor directly on the head, arm and so on. The crosshair should move to the specific body part and should not be static on the whole body. 

 

Maybe it could also be more dynamic, so that it moves a little bit over the target and is not just a static menu. Different crosshair types for the different weapons would be a nice addition.

[Hendrix]

10 minutes ago, WILDFIRE said:

I still think the crosshair should be reworked. I want to aim freely and directly on the specific body part. It should be just like it was in JA2 but advanced. I want to move the cursor directly on the head, arm and so on. The crosshair should move to the specific body part and should not be static on the whole body. 

 

Maybe it could also be more dynamic, so that it moves a little bit over the target and is not just a static menu. Different crosshair types for the different weapons would be a nice addition.

That would be awesome, as long as the game somehow clearly indicates what body part you are indeed aiming at so there's no confusion. Isometric 3D and "strange" camera angles can be finicky sometimes and with enemies moving a little that arm shot you are going for can easily become a shot aimed at a leg or torso instead.

My experience of these mistakes being the games Brigade E5 and 7.62 High Calibre.

[Flowable]

I like how it looks so far and am confident that i's will be dotted and t's will be crossed before launch. The devs seems to try to do right by the Jagged Alliance legacy, albeit that legacy is somewhat tarnished over the last few years. They seem to put in a lot effort to whipe that slate clean. 

It's not going to be a JA2 v1.13 #3 but it's going to be JA3. I hope it will be well recieved on it's release and that it is going to be a solid fundament where can be expanded upon. 

[Solaris_Wave]

It is nice to see that screenshot of the roof of the building, namely because it shows that mercs can still lay prone. I was worried that that had been omitted when I didn't see it in the videos.

 

2 hours ago, WILDFIRE said:

I still think the crosshair should be reworked. I want to aim freely and directly on the specific body part. It should be just like it was in JA2 but advanced. I want to move the cursor directly on the head, arm and so on. The crosshair should move to the specific body part and should not be static on the whole body. 

 

Maybe it could also be more dynamic, so that it moves a little bit over the target and is not just a static menu. Different crosshair types for the different weapons would be a nice addition.

I have to disagree with this, unless I am misinterpreting what you are saying. I really like how you can't aim at specific body parts. The shot should randomly hit the limbs or head, with the greatest probability hitting the torso. How often can you really precisely aim at a specific part of a person? Especially when they are moving.

The only exception is at close ranges and with a sniper rifle with a telescopic sight. I am personally pushing for this to make the battles more tense and exciting. At mid ranges, you can't choose what part of the body you hit. At closer ranges, you can now choose the head, torso, arms and legs. This way you get to do the old Mozambique Drill.

With a sniper rifle and telescopic sight, you can also choose what part to aim at. However, the shooter must be skilled enough as a sniper to have that opportunity and the target must not be sprinting.

Otherwise, if you can always aim at the head, why aim anywhere else? Unless you want to prolong a battle between your merc and the targeted enemy, going for the head is the best way to eliminate them.

[Kordanor]

Haven't read all the entries here, so I guess lots of things have already been mentioned, but still, wanted to share my opinion here. ^^

What I liked:

-Difficulty settings for "True Ironman" (no manual save loading) and "JA Ironman" (no saving during combat)
-Quest Design seems to be quite branched and deep, not just "be the hero" and be the "A-hole" answers like in Bioware. Seems like Grey areas going on here. Also more and deeper than expected
-AI seems to be "ok". I am saying "ok" because it's hard to judge and in JA2 it was less than ok (they just ran into your traps like lemmings). Like how the enemies on Steinwallen Stream didnt come out of the bunker but just repositioned within it, and AI was also praised in the gamestar preview
-Interface management looked to be quite easy and intuitive
-How strongly Mercs injected themselves into dialogues with their own comments

What I disliked:

-Respositioning Turn of enemies. It would be fine if they spot you first. But If they ALWAYS get it (except stealth kills) it takes away the fun of setting your team up
-Enemy vs Merc "durability": From Steinwallens Stream it very much looked like there was a big difference between how much both could take.Enemies usually died with two shots. But it felt like his mercs were almost invincible. His mercs took burst after burst and only got a scratch. Even an enemy bursting one of his mercs point blank was totally harmless. These things would have gotten you killed in previous JA games. So it felt a bit like enemies are "trash monsters" which are being killed in large numbers, but they were not equal to your mercs like they were in previous games. Felt more like Jagged Alliance Online in that regard.
-Chance based upgrade actions. This WILL cause savescumming for everyone not playing on true ironman. Better to just have minimum requirements. Or maybe have a (known) skill at which the crafting is guaranteed to work
-Only gracing hits during fog...that made no sense to me
-some fiddely setup in realtime sometimes with enemies running around, patrolling. That could already be problematic in JA2. Maybe a hotkey to manually enter turn based mode for navigation pre-combat would be great. (alternatively a pause in realtime mode)


Where I am sceptical:

-I am a bit sceptical of the simplified AP system and the removal of stamina. Sleeping is also not a thing anymore. Apparently you will get a debuff and you need to get back to the city and use R&R to remove the debuff. That's something where I guess I would need to see it first until it convinces me. AP system is more basic. Faster mercs will be able to shoot more often than slower ones (in JA1/2 that was not the case). Merks wont get exhausted in combat anymore. Probably all not a big deal, but it still takes away a bit of "realism". Some things might actually turn out to be better though, as for the AP system could cause some weird effects in JA2 (exhausted person being able to shoot much more often than a fit guy due to rounding issues).
-Frequency of long Merc Barks might get annoying quickly (if they are not just saying "roger" but more like a one sentence "funny" bark they repeat over and over

 

 

Edited April 20, 2023 by Kordanor

[Wigen]

Quote

"Of course, if Jagged Alliance 2 is what you've been craving to revisit for the last 24-odd years, then I'm sure Jagged Alliance 3 will tick a lot of boxes for you." - RPS

Yes, this is almost exactly what I want most. What do you think is negative about it?

[Solaris_Wave]

In response to @Kordanor comments, there are some interesting points. I haven't seen all the recent videos, I think. Therefore, I was not aware of some of those things.

• The quest branching sounds like it will be more interesting. I rarely, if ever play a bad guy in RPGs that allow such choice, because it isn't 'me'. Judging by what I have read over the years, there doesn't seem to be much of a benefit to being a massive bastard in games either. NPCs don't want to interact with you and shops penalise you. Any game that can make those choices more transparent and not 'punish' you for taking a certain route, which they nevertheless allow due to design, is to be commended.
• The repositioning of enemies once combat starts, thus giving them free movement has got to be either altered or removed entirely. Quite a few of us have now shown dissatisfaction of this game element. Maybe such a feature can only happen with high-tier special enemies or individuals, due to better skills. Either that or only let such a thing occur if you are spotted during a stealthy approach. Otherwise, waiting for an ambush opportunity or simultaneous takedown will frustratingly never be allowed.
• Durability: I am hoping that the preview that was played was with introductory enemies. I didn't see if body armour was worn by your mercs, that would allow them to sustain more hits. Nevertheless, I saw one moment in a video, maybe the one that @Kordanor was describing, where a close range burst hit a female merc, a fountain of blood exploded from her and she remained standing. I've commented about the enthusiastic blood cloud elsewhere but a bullet's damage capability should be the same for whoever it hits.
• Chance based upgrade actions. I can see the scenario that @Kordanor has described as very likely to happen.
• Fog causing glancing hits. I didn't see the video on this so I am only going by what @Kordanor has said. If true, it doesn't make sense (assuming I read correctly). Fog should impede a chance to hit but if the bullet hits, it should cause the same amount of damage.
• Having a key to enter turn-based mode is an excellent idea. If would be handy for fine tuning positions before battle starts, especially if mercs are spread out and moving in on an outpost. It is then up to the player if they want to do things faster outside of combat, by remaining in real-time mode.
• Exhaustion and fatigue are no longer something to worry about in combat? I don't know if that is good or not. I didn't play the previous JA game that had your mercs quickly exhausted and falling over, while the enemy didn't suffer likewise. Reading about that, was clearly over the top. For JA3, why not have it so exhausted mercs can't run anymore and give a slight accuracy penalty, due to tired arms. Then leave it there. Outside of combat, the fatigue slowly builds up until they can rest. Any future combat actions once again allow them to run and shoot normally but total action points per turn are lowered. They will continue to lower until resting.
• Confirmation speech is good but spacing out the frequency will avoid repetition. I eventually found myself getting irritated by Skyrider's similar responses in JA2. In the end, I shortened what he had to say by editing the sound file.

[Wigen]

BTW, where is gore seen in previous trailer?

Edited April 20, 2023 by Wigen

[Kordanor]

11 minutes ago, Solaris_Wave said:

• Fog causing glancing hits. I didn't see the video on this so I am only going by what @Kordanor has said. If true, it doesn't make sense (assuming I read correctly). Fog should impede a chance to hit but if the bullet hits, it should cause the same amount of damage.

 Tip when loading a foggy area is "Ranged attacks against concealed foes may become granzing hits"
And they are then displayed right away when aiming (little red stripes), seems to happen every single time then, even on very close distances at 10 tiles or so.
https://clips.twitch.tv/DullPrettyWerewolfTinyFace-nZe77--myfZC3xkR
In this example you can also see the enemy Extra Turn

 

 

11 minutes ago, Solaris_Wave said:

• Exhaustion and fatigue are no longer something to worry about in combat? I don't know if that is good or not. I didn't play the previous JA game that had your mercs quickly exhausted and falling over, while the enemy didn't suffer likewise. Reading about that, was clearly over the top. For JA3, why not have it so exhausted mercs can't run anymore and give a slight accuracy penalty, due to tired arms. Then leave it there. Outside of combat, the fatigue slowly builds up until they can rest. Any future combat actions once again allow them to run and shoot normally but total action points per turn are lowered. They will continue to lower until resting.

Exhaustion is now a debuff you get at some point. So it is tracked, but it's not gradual.

So I think at some point you will get an "exhaust" debuff, then you need to back to the city and use "R&R" for 18h to get rid of the debuff and then you are ready again.

[Kordanor]

11 minutes ago, Wigen said:

BTW, where is gore seen in previous trailer?

Here, when the grenade hits:
Jagged Alliance 3 | Showcase Trailer 2022

 

[BossWeapons]

After looking more through all the gameplay videos, just as many people have mentioned, the game could probably use some sort of pause functionality when you want to setup an ambush on the enemy since the game doesn't automatically put you in the turn based mode when you spot an enemy.

In at least one of the videos the player had issues initiating the combat from a position where anybody could have gotten the perfect sneak attack on the enemy, but they couldn't fiddle through the UI in time to issue all the orders before the enemy just turned around and spotted the merc. I knew exactly what the player was going for, but the execution looked so painfully clunky.

Enemies are also very static when they get shot. Infact, everybody is. There should probably be some sort of reaction animations, fluff and stuff to make it more believable. In older games getting shot would sometimes put you off the aiming stance (which would require more AP to fire off a shot later since your gun was down), sometimes the shot would make the target turn a few steps, putting their aim and facing off or knock the merc down and make soldiers play wounded animations when they were hurt.

The amount of hits mercs could soak was very high as well while the easier enemies only had like 20 points of health to lose in comparison before they went down. It's not that bad when you think about your starting gear. Wouldn't be very fun probably when it takes 6 shots to put a basic mook to sleep, but it felt wrong anyway.

I didn't see any "downed" or "dying" enemies so I suppose it's not a thing in this game where if somebody is knocked down to low health they are incapacitated and bleeding out? Not sure if it would really make things any different in the long run. I can't remember the AI ever trying to patch up dying soldiers in the older games anyway. But I'm all for the grittiness of combat and things like that help with the immersion.

Really all my issues so far seem to lie in goofy animations and little visual things like that. Overall I'm still quite pleased with how the game looks and plays. I guess I just want better animations for that glorious visual feedback, damn it. 😺

[Wigen]

As far as I'm concerned, I'm personally not interested in any reviews about Jagged Alliance 3. It's been 24 years since the release of the second part of the series and everyone has different expectations now, a lot of mods have been released over the years. Some were better, but it happened that they were made and worse, but the truth is that Jagged Alliance 2 lives to this day thanks to the modding communities.

However, some may expect JA 3 to take advantage of some of the features that have found their way into the mods, while others may not care at all and just ignore it. Therefore, in my opinion, no one should convince anyone that the game is good or bad, because they expected this or that, but it did not happen. So I don't really trust reviewers who are too objective in this case.

That's why I think the best way to know if this game is or isn't for me is to just watch the streams on Twitch or YouTube and make up your own mind about it.

After watching a few such streams, I don't think I noticed any glaring problems, the graphics look good, and the gameplay itself is definitely X-Com, but it also has its own different mechanics.

On streams, even if it was still a teaser for a game that doesn't have an announced release date yet, it looks pretty polished and didn't have too many noticeable bugs or crashes. So I don't see any glaring problems with this game. To me it looks very cool at this stage of development and I wouldn't mind playing it.

Watch the streams and draw your own conclusions. 🙂

[Kordanor]

I still don't get how people can say that the gameplay "is xcom".

There is basically nothing in common with XCom. Besides of being 3D now, having a 3D camera, and having a modern interface. Mechanically it's still closer to the Original JA.
-AP instead of 2 Actions
-Realistic Hit calculations instead of simplified system (which I think confuses streamers quite a bit as cover doesnt work as they learnt from XCom)
-Different Aiming system
-You can shoot multiple times
-Yes there is overwatch now, but overwatch is more versatile than in XCom and in that way right in between XCom and interruption of JA. (in XCom its a designated action, in JA you can either spend all your AP, but then you shoot multiple times, or you only spend the remainder of your AP after you already shot, you have to look into the right direction).

Only the adaption of Perks can be seen as something closer to XCom....oooor...any other RPG.

[LoboNocturno]

@Kordanor There is some similarities for sure, you got even intel just like XCOM2. I watched now more then 10 hours gameplay and i would say its a mixture of JA Rage & XCOM2. Many streamers also complained that the % is missing like in XCOM2, as it was there in the very first trailer but they took it away. There will be surely lots of missed shots but lets see.

 

Also you said the enemies dying faster then our mercs (which are more durable), dont forget most of the streamers played in easiest difficulty which make the enemies more vulnerable.

[LoboNocturno]

Go directly to the last 30 mins of the video, you will see a intensive battle.

 

 

[BossWeapons]

1 hour ago, Kordanor said:

I still don't get how people can say that the gameplay "is xcom".

I suppose it comes with the territory. To many people X-COM (the modern reboot) is the only thing they can compare the game against. It's been such a long time since the previous actual JA title (I don't really count Back in Action or any of the other weak attempts of trying to benefit from the name of the franchise) and I don't think even back then JA 2 made much of an impact when it came to how popular a video game was. It's a gem, but seems like nobody's heard of it.

When people throw this argument, they usually only see the outside visuals and completely fail to understand the underlying mechanics that drive the game forward. People just don't pay attention before they start foaming in the mouth.

The game has lots of X-COM-like systems in place judging from the videos that I've seen, but calling it X-COM is just wrong, because the games simply don't play similarly at all.

[BossWeapons]

25 minutes ago, LoboNocturno said:

Go directly to the last 30 mins of the video, you will see a intensive battle.

 

 

That last fight was pretty intense. Looking good. Just one thing that I only noticed now. The game doesn't seem to have suppression mechanics? Was that a thing in the unmodded JA2? I seem to remember people being forced to dive down if they got shot at enough which also reduced the amount of AP during their next round or was that a mod thing.

Edited April 21, 2023 by BossWeapons

[Kordanor]

I think you get a suppression debuff now. But I don't know exactly what it's doing. But guess it also reduces AP.

 

One thing which came to my mind which is actually very XCom Like is the alerting of others and the extra movement turn. Maybe this also leaves a very strong impression as it's so prominent.

[Kordanor]

One other thing: I just watched the Preview of Joerg Langer, a journalist who is following and reporting about JA since the olden days.

While he generally likes the game, he is actually contradicting two points which I mentioned:

-He says the AI is relatively stupid. Enemies act very individually, not as if they had a "plan" of some sort (regarding how they act together)
-His biggest criticism was actually inventory management. Swamped in items, not having any sorting or filtering options.

[LoboNocturno]

About AI not so sure yet, Corazon Santiago says : "Those Legion guys arent smart and also not well trained" that could be also a reason why they are less organised, lets see how more elite enemies will act on battlefield and as i mentioned most streamers playing it in easiest level, a streamer also mentioned that the AI is sometimes easy but at times also very tricky, it should get a little more balanced imo.