Gameplay Finetuning: Way Overpowered Mechanics

[scope112]

I have observed a few mechanics that are way too overpowered in JA3, and greatly take away from the experience:

 

1) Livewire's Scouting perk: When she scouts a sector, the exact location of each enemy soldier is revealed the entire time, irrespective of yours mercs actually seeing the enemy or not. In essence, there is no fog of war anymore. 

By removing the fog of war, there is no element of surprise anymore, and you can anticipate your enemy soldiers at all times.

I would suggest to nerve her ability to still maintain fog of war.

 

2) Overwatch is overpowered: your mercs can deliver 2-3 shots in overwatch, and it is always activated when an enemy enters the overwatch cone. With this setup, players are incrntivized to camp all the time, which makes combat easier and less fun.

 

Therefore, I suggest to reduce the number of shots in overwatch / reduce its accuracy. Furthermore, overwatch should not be activated at all times. The enemy should be able to bypass overwatch (i.e. your Merc did not respond in a timely manner).

 

3) Sniping is overpowered: It is rather easy to conquer sectors by using 2-3 mercs as snipers and take away your enemies from a distance. If you use Livewire's scouting ability (which eliminates fog of war) in combination with 2-3 snipers, you can easily pick apart all the enemies in a sector. This is not fun.

 

4) Enemies rush in excessively: The enemy AI is configured to aggressively rush in and overwhelm the players. After a while this tactic becomes too predictable. Enemies should use more varied strategies: flanking, grenades, baiting the player, etc.

 

5) Inventory Sorting Options: JA3 is in desperate need of inventory item sorting options. The current UI is highly cluttered.

 

[Xeth Nyrrow]

I agree with all of these points. Overwatch it so weird in that you can get more shots off using it than possible during your own turn.

Also going back in to stealth is too easy. You shouldn't be able to take a shot, miss then go back in to hidden next round because the you are so far away from the target. Unless the engagement is completely broken off you should be unable to hide again after alerting an enemy.

[Skaldy]

1) Livewire was a cool idea to introduce new hacking mechanics. Which absolutely destroys games feel. It is very sad.

2) I dont agree, as turn based tactics game veteran i would say, overwatch is executed very well(weapon and char builds are really interesting and gives you multiple options), sadly entire thing is ruined by monkey banan AI.

3) Sniping should be overpowered, decent sniper gun and decent sniper build is really should be OP. Again in this game sniping is OP because poor map design and monkey banan AI.

4) yep, last 20 years we have difficulty based on if AI is going to cheat or not. Instead of giving them simple logic or gimmick, everyone goes with lazy choice. For example Jackhammer, this boss is just missed opportunity make a fun and meaningful game. I even fixed this boss in my mind.
easy fix: give higher level enemies(commanders, bosses) gimmicks which players use, taking cover and over watch.

meaningful fix: give enemies some character, why this guy is boss of the prison? So you see this guy became so paranoid over the years he built himself perfect fort room, upon activating his room gets locked down, window shutters close and people who enter to his room uninvited gets stuck with his shotgun, people who try to snipe him from windows of his office has to blow up their way into his office or have to disable power source other side of the map to unluck the room OR like presented in game has to travel through underground area to reach his closet room, inside his room.

Enemies should reflect their status and power, goons being goons not being able to use regular mechanics makes sense. They even tried this with certain characters(raid leader, machine gunners) but entire thing falls flat on its face because instead of AI being smart we get bullet sponges.

5) It is not that bad, specially when you discover, regional stash mechanics, which game does very poor job explaining or showing. So no i dont agree with this one.

Edited July 22, 2023 by Skaldy