Suggestions regarding the combat

[Claudius33]

It's quite a challenge to satisfy both JA2 vets and new players fed with XCOM regarding the combat. May be some options should do the trick and make everybody happy.

Hopefully a least some of them could be implemented without significant modifications of code. It's just display/do not display options that do not change the combat itself or a trigger/do not trigger option the foes initial move.

1/ CTH (journalists/influencers can kill the game just for that)

• This is the way : Do not show hit percentage
• You know nothing, Jon Snow : Show hit percentage

2/ Foes repositioning when the party is detected (some are complaining that kills the ambush they have prepared)

• I'm ready for anything : foes repositioning is allowed
• I love it when a plan comes together! : foes repositioning is not allowed

3/ Show / Do not show cover on projected location (in order to get rid of the the game is too much streamlined potential criticism)

• Behind that rock I'm not a sitting duck : Do not show cover
• You sure I can duck behind that little rock? : Show cover

4/ Show / Do not show lines of sight/fire on projected location (same reason)

• I'm sure I snipe him from there : do not show lines of sight
• Are you sure I see him from there? : show lines of sight

In bold the default options.

 

 

Edited April 23, 2023 by Claudius33
clarity

[Solaris_Wave]

Some good ideas there. If Haemimont really want to have things like free enemy movement upon combat initiation, at least we can possibly have the option to disable them.

One thing I was never keen on from the XCOM reboot was the shield icons depicting cover. It felt too much like the map was some kind of arena for a tabletop game, instead of a location (although I certainly enjoy tabletop games). I can understand that having an icon tells you whether the object you are hiding behind is half-cover or full cover, but I found that with those labels, I was spending more time looking at those icons instead of looking at the map itself. I would prefer to assess that kind of thing myself by looking at the battlefield. If objects and terrain are properly proportioned with the characters (which I feel they are), needing to see a shield icon to determine what is and isn't viable cover, shouldn't really be necessary.

Edited April 23, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[Hongweibing]

31 minutes ago, Claudius33 said:

It's quite a challenge to satisfy both JA2 vets and new players fed with XCOM regarding the combat. May be some options should do the trick and make everybody happy.

Hopefully a least some of them could be implemented without significant modifications of code. It's just display/do not display options that do not change the combat itself or a trigger/do not trigger option the foes initial move.

1/ CTH (journalists/influencers can kill the game just for that)

• This is the way : Do not show hit percentage
• You know nothing, Jon Snow : Show hit percentage

Good idea, and it's also probably smarter to organize all such suggestions is a single topic. Regarding the CTH, while I'm fine with it either way, I'd suggest having three options regarding aiming in general, rather than just CTH (having more might be confusing): 

1) Show all information (basically, what we saw in the beta version + CTH)

2) Show detailed information (only what we saw in the beta version, without CTH)

3) Show minimal information (similar to JA2 - just choose body part and how many points you spend on aiming - no other details like damage, critical chance, factors increasing/decreasing CTH etc. - especially since those factors seem obvious to me - I mean, you don't have to be a genius to understand that if you spend more points aiming, have high marksmanship, shoot from an elevated position etc. your chance to hit is higher, while if your gun is in poor condition, you aim at the head, the range is not optimal etc. your chance to hit is lower - but that's a separate debate)

39 minutes ago, Claudius33 said:

2/ Foes repositioning when the party is detected (some are complaining that kills the ambush they have prepared)

• I'm ready for anything : foes repositioning is allowed
• I love it when a plan comes together! : foes repositioning is not allowed

Here I think the issue is not so much the repositioning as such, but rather that it applies to all enemies once spotted. So rather than simply not allowing repositioning as the second option, I'd suggest the following:

1) New mode: basically, what we saw in the beta - enemies get a repositioning round once they spot you.

2) Classic mode: like in JA2 - switch to turn-based mode upon spotting an enemy, and repositioning is allowed based on an "interrupt" action of sorts once the enemies spot you - if the enemies' stats allow them to interrupt (higher level etc.), they can reposition, or even attack you, but otherwise, you get to finish the round uninterrupted.

(regardless, I think that there has to be an option to manually enter turn-based mode whenever you want)

 

[Reloecc]

47 minutes ago, Claudius33 said:

It's quite a challenge to satisfy both JA2 vets and new players fed with XCOM regarding the combat.

..

In bold the default options.

So you're asking for a toggleable options, am I right?

• Show CtH: Yes / No
• Enemy repositioning: Yes / No
• Show cover: Yes / No
• Show LoS: Yes / No

Just to clarify..

[Reloecc]

2 minutes ago, Hongweibing said:

Here I think the issue is not so much the repositioning

2) Classic mode: like in JA2 - switch to turn-based mode upon spotting an enemy, and repositioning is allowed based on an "interrupt" action of sorts once the enemies spot you - if the enemies' stats allow them to interrupt (higher level etc.), they can reposition, or even attack you, but otherwise, you get to finish the round uninterrupted.

(regardless, I think that there has to be an option to manually enter turn-based mode whenever you want)

This is what I'd want. But I am VERY afraid it'd take many hours to fix current JA3 interrupts. (saying "to fix" because it simply is a mistake, that enemies are moving at combat start).

[Claudius33]

7 minutes ago, Reloecc said:

So you're asking for a toggleable options, am I right?

• Show CtH: Yes / No
• Enemy repositioning: Yes / No
• Show cover: Yes / No
• Show LoS: Yes / No

Just to clarify..

Exactly.

[Claudius33]

17 minutes ago, Hongweibing said:

Good idea, and it's also probably smarter to organize all such suggestions is a single topic. Regarding the CTH, while I'm fine with it either way, I'd suggest having three options regarding aiming in general, rather than just CTH (having more might be confusing): 

1) Show all information (basically, what we saw in the beta version + CTH)

2) Show detailed information (only what we saw in the beta version, without CTH)

3) Show minimal information (similar to JA2 - just choose body part and how many points you spend on aiming - no other details like damage, critical chance, factors increasing/decreasing CTH etc. - especially since those factors seem obvious to me - I mean, you don't have to be a genius to understand that if you spend more points aiming, have high marksmanship, shoot from an elevated position etc. your chance to hit is higher, while if your gun is in poor condition, you aim at the head, the range is not optimal etc. your chance to hit is lower - but that's a separate debate)

Here I think the issue is not so much the repositioning as such, but rather that it applies to all enemies once spotted. So rather than simply not allowing repositioning as the second option, I'd suggest the following:

1) New mode: basically, what we saw in the beta - enemies get a repositioning round once they spot you.

2) Classic mode: like in JA2 - switch to turn-based mode upon spotting an enemy, and repositioning is allowed based on an "interrupt" action of sorts once the enemies spot you - if the enemies' stats allow them to interrupt (higher level etc.), they can reposition, or even attack you, but otherwise, you get to finish the round uninterrupted.

(regardless, I think that there has to be an option to manually enter turn-based mode whenever you want)

 

I agree with your option 3 show minimal information.

Like Reloecc, I'm afraid that Classic interruption mode would require too much modifications. I like JA2 classic interruption mode, but Overwatch is not that bad. After all covering a specific direction and be ready to shoot makes sense. According to one of the youtuber enemies can use overwatch too.

As for the hotkey forcing turn based mode, thanks for recalling it in that thread.

[Hongweibing]

15 minutes ago, Reloecc said:

This is what I'd want. But I am VERY afraid it'd take many hours to fix current JA3 interrupts. (saying "to fix" because it simply is a mistake, that enemies are moving at combat start).

That's the thing, isn't it? Do they even have a separate interrupt system, or does the repositioning round (and overwatch) replace the old interrupt system? Honestly, I didn't see there being any interrupts, so I guess there is no such system, but maybe I just didn't notice. If you need to create the system from scratch then yes, chances are we won't get one, because cancelling the repositioning round without introducing an interrupt system would just make the enemies sitting ducks, while you massacre them for a whole turn before they can react. In that case, a toggle turn-based mode button is probably all we can realistically expect.

[scope112]

2 minutes ago, Hongweibing said:

That's the thing, isn't it? Do they even have a separate interrupt system, or does the repositioning round (and overwatch) replace the old interrupt system? Honestly, I didn't see there being any interrupts, so I guess there is no such system, but maybe I just didn't notice. If you need to create the system from scratch then yes, chances are we won't get one, because cancelling the repositioning round without introducing an interrupt system would just make the enemies sitting ducks, while you massacre them for a whole turn before they can react. In that case, a toggle turn-based mode button is probably all we can realistically expect.

The enemy repositioning trigger is really unrealistic. In various videos I saw the enemy just taking cover positions while they could easily just shoot and kill the player's MERCs. The enemy repositioning feature feels unnatural, it feels like a forced cutscene. Also, the AI just makes illogical choices: why reposition and take cover while you can actually just instantly punish the player by shooting them?

[Hongweibing]

3 minutes ago, scope112 said:

The enemy repositioning trigger is really unrealistic. In various videos I saw the enemy just taking cover positions while they could easily just shoot and kill the player's MERCs. The enemy repositioning feature feels unnatural, it feels like a forced cutscene. Also, the AI just makes illogical choices: why reposition and take cover while you can actually just instantly punish the player by shooting them?

I agree, it's not particularly realistic, the old system made more sense to me. I mean, I understand why they have the repositioning round (so that you wouldn't just massacre them every time you initiate an attack), and why they're not allowed to attack during that round (so that they won't massacre your mercs as part of the repositioning round). I do not, however, understand, why create a such situation in the first place, so that you'd have to artificially balance it out by these (arguably) awkward means? I guess we can only hope that the developers will take this into consideration (though since it seems that there's a whole system that replaces the old interrupts, I'm not particularly hopeful they'd just bring them back).

[Kordanor]

Additional options always sound good on paper, but I don't think that they aren't always a good thing in reality, if they break the developers vision.

What I mean is that on a game like Jagged Alliance Ironman Mode is a nice optional thing, because the game is not designed around ironman, a game like FTL on the other hand, would completely break apart if you have ironman as optional. People would just play through it, and then possibly even complain that the game sucks and is too small and easy.

And I think the same could be true with some stuff here:

• Show CtH:

There was a paradigm change within Haemimont to remove CtH, and at the same time they also seem to have added the Abilities which basically give you extra shots here and there for a discount, to basically create more chaos, have everyone shoot more often. If you add CtH back then this is clearly the more advantageous way to play, which would destroy the developers vision on how the game is meant to be played, and possibly destroy there balancing with it. I am quite sure, that this would lead to totally different gameplay, and the game would be much easier that way, basically meaning that they would need to also implement a difficulty increase, which somehow would need to be selected at the same time to even things out, which makes it even more problematic.

• Enemy repositioning: 

This is also tied together with other game mechanics. If your merc group can attack all enemies in open positions in the first round, and ideally then kill every one of then right away, that would throw balancing off. You would now need to implement mechanics which counter that. Like higher viewing ranges (enemies see you earlier) and similar. I don't think that having this optional would work. It would basically lead to fights which are only consisting of setting up positions and then destroying the enemies within 1-2 turns. ESPECIALLY if hit chances are also shown. So I think a toggle will not work. I am not a fan of repositioning either, but I think it should be removed and the balance by other means (enemy viewing distance and other components) needs to be rebalanced to compensate.

• Show cover: 

I don't see the benefit of removing that. It just leans in to people who claim that JA is too close to XCom, but which seem to have played no other tactics games besides of that. Cover works very differently than in XCom. People who like XCom are irritated that cover is not working like they think it would, people who despise everything xcom did, claim that the game with showing cover is too close to XCom whithout actually understanding how the mechanics work. I see why it could feel like a thing which should naturally be hidden to please these two camps. But I think that this would just be a cave-in to players who have no idea how things work, and at the same time this would open up a batch of new problems. For example some abilities you have require cover. 
Example:
Frogleaping – increased Free Move range when starting your turn in Cover.
If you don't show cover symbols, it would mean that basically it's down to luck (experience) whether this actually counts as "cover" for that purpose or not. Which can make it feel very frustrating.
Cover symbols are not something XCom exclusive and they work very differently in other games where they are used. Phoenix Point being one example, Urban Strife being another. In both games they are just a helpful indication. And I think people should just get away from their XCom perception. Having the display optional would create a batch of new balancing problems / lead to a lot of frustration.

• Show LoS:

I think this is something which is so obvious that players should know what they get into when they really remove it. I think it will lead to a more frustrating experience, but players who disable that, are certainly absolutely aware of that.
I would not disable this myself, but here I see the least harm to implement an option to do so. It certainly will make the game much harder, but I feel like thats then exactly how you would expect it.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Kordanor

[Hendrix]

While watching some gameplay were the streamer was roughly 10 hours into the game I got a feeling that scoped sniper rifles were very overpowered. He was landing headshots consistently (roughly 3/4 shoots altough I did not count) at enemies far away. To me it looked a bit like cheesing through the battles. Move your mercs up, lay them down prone at a good range and engage the enemies while they are trying to close the distance (over open ground) to your mercs.

I would like to see (atleast some) enemies being less suicidal to this tactic and instead hunker down in safe positions, forcing you to close the distance, therby enabling other types of weapons as valid options for short and medium engagements.

[Bearson]

Well, from watching a lot of beta gameplay, here is a couple of things that concern me the most about the combat, the heart and soul of any JA game.

 

  Enemy pod/repositioning mechanic. 

This is a feature found solely in nuXCOM (I could be wrong) and its kinda funny to implement it if you say you dont want your game compared to XCOM constantly. It doesnt feel natural and/or fair and most of all, to me its really annoying. This ties in directly to the lack of enemy vision cones visibility, so you dont know exactly when the enemy will register something off and the combat will start. I also didnt see any sound detection system, I think I saw a player running with a toon near the building outside and an enemy inside didnt react until it saw them. Not sure here, because they do react to hearing shots.

I think the game should ditch this mechanic or at least give us a button to enter TB mode manually. Another thing is, a button for changing between firing modes should always be available, not just when aiming on an enemy. That would be helpful when setting an overwatch, so you could have at least some control over it. Ideally tho, you should be in control of your merc when they interrupt an enemy.

 

  UI shooting interface.

When you click on an enemy, the UI is very cluttered. As someone already stated, those + and - stats are just in the way and are not very intuitive. Much better visualization would be if you would simply color code the appropriate body parts in the current menu, based on the aim level and cover/line of sight. So, a green body part would mean high probability to hit, orange medium, red low and black or grey no chance or LoS. That would probably also remove the need to show actual CtH number that some players are missing.

 

  Weapon balance/progress.

The weapon balance seems kinda weird atm, especially assault rifles, which seem very underwhelming. The reduction of damage per bullet when burst firing is too great I think. Better solution would be to decrease accuracy and increase AP cost for burst fire. Assault rifles should be very powerful, much more than pistols, which should get a damage and AP cost decrease. Or maybe its just too early to tell from 12 hours of gameplay and the situation will remedy itself later. However, the streamer that I was watching had 3 or 4 upgraded sniper rifles 10 hours into the game and was just steamrolling enemy squads with frequent headshots. That felt very unbalanced and way too soon into the game to have that many sniper rifles.

[Claudius33]

1 hour ago, Kordanor said:

Additional options always sound good on paper, but I don't think that they aren't always a good thing in reality, if they break the developers vision.

What I mean is that on a game like Jagged Alliance Ironman Mode is a nice optional thing, because the game is not designed around ironman, a game like FTL on the other hand, would completely break apart if you have ironman as optional. People would just play through it, and then possibly even complain that the game sucks and is too small and easy.

And I think the same could be true with some stuff here:

• Show CtH:

There was a paradigm change within Haemimont to remove CtH, and at the same time they also seem to have added the Abilities which basically give you extra shots here and there for a discount, to basically create more chaos, have everyone shoot more often. If you add CtH back then this is clearly the more advantageous way to play, which would destroy the developers vision on how the game is meant to be played, and possibly destroy there balancing with it. I am quite sure, that this would lead to totally different gameplay, and the game would be much easier that way, basically meaning that they would need to also implement a difficulty increase, which somehow would need to be selected at the same time to even things out, which makes it even more problematic.

• Enemy repositioning: 

This is also tied together with other game mechanics. If your merc group can attack all enemies in open positions in the first round, and ideally then kill every one of then right away, that would throw balancing off. You would now need to implement mechanics which counter that. Like higher viewing ranges (enemies see you earlier) and similar. I don't think that having this optional would work. It would basically lead to fights which are only consisting of setting up positions and then destroying the enemies within 1-2 turns. ESPECIALLY if hit chances are also shown. So I think a toggle will not work. I am not a fan of repositioning either, but I think it should be removed and the balance by other means (enemy viewing distance and other components) needs to be rebalanced to compensate.

• Show cover: 

I don't see the benefit of removing that. It just leans in to people who claim that JA is too close to XCom, but which seem to have played no other tactics games besides of that. Cover works very differently than in XCom. People who like XCom are irritated that cover is not working like they think it would, people who despise everything xcom did, claim that the game with showing cover is too close to XCom whithout actually understanding how the mechanics work. I see why it could feel like a thing which should naturally be hidden to please these two camps. But I think that this would just be a cave-in to players who have no idea how things work, and at the same time this would open up a batch of new problems. For example some abilities you have require cover. 
Example:
Frogleaping – increased Free Move range when starting your turn in Cover.
If you don't show cover symbols, it would mean that basically it's down to luck (experience) whether this actually counts as "cover" for that purpose or not. Which can make it feel very frustrating.
Cover symbols are not something XCom exclusive and they work very differently in other games where they are used. Phoenix Point being one example, Urban Strife being another. In both games they are just a helpful indication. And I think people should just get away from their XCom perception. Having the display optional would create a batch of new balancing problems / lead to a lot of frustration.

• Show LoS:

I think this is something which is so obvious that players should know what they get into when they really remove it. I think it will lead to a more frustrating experience, but players who disable that, are certainly absolutely aware of that.
I would not disable this myself, but here I see the least harm to implement an option to do so. It certainly will make the game much harder, but I feel like thats then exactly how you would expect it.

I totally agree with what you wrote.

YES Show CTH makes the game easier, Preventing the foes initial repositioning makes the game easier.

YES Do not show Cover, Do not show LoS makes the game harder and somewhat frustating.

Default options (no CTH, initial repositioning, show cover, show los) obviously match the developers vision. Players must be severely warned about changing any of these options.

But's it a solo game, why not let the players choose how they want to play it?

My purpose here is to give better chances to attract players.

Look at this review that unfortunately will be read by many : rockpapershotgun

The guy who made the execellent videos on French, though enthusiastic about the game often commented : why not give me the percentage instead of + and -?

Let's say I am reluctant to try the game because there's no CtH, even if JA3 sounds appealing. Wow, they put the an option, CtH is available, let's try it! Several hours later being hooked by the game, I get used to it ... What if I switch back to the no CTH option? Hey, that's more self rewarding ...

No option, perhaps one potential customer lost.

Same thing for the XCOM syndrome. How many times have you read in this forum or the Bear's Pit or Steam, it's just XCOM with JA skins. And yet, except for visuals and (maybe) the initial repositioning, JA3 has nothing to do with XCOM. You can't cope with XCOM like visual help, be my guest.

[Kordanor]

@Claudius33I think that's a bit of an idealist approach, but one which I think will not work for most people, and which will also give very different impressions.

A game like Dark Souls or FTL would have had a completely different representation if you could just freely save during the games all the time. They would feel completely differently. And I think with adding the CTH values, the game would leave a very different impression - and that's also what the developers say, which is why they removed it in the first place. So instead of having the RPS article of complaining about missing CTH values, you would then have others complaining about the game being too easy, not enough chaos going on or different things. And I think only a minority would dare to disable the CTH, because...well...you are massively profiting from it. I think only the most hardcore players who basically memorized everything would actually disable that.
I am actually an advocate for not having a CTH value, but I think if it was available, I would use it (and not disable it), as I would put myself to an artificial disadvantage otherwise. Unless it's part of a super-easy mode or something like that, where it really feels like "ok this is training wheels, you want to try without them?" But again, this might then piss off other players.
You might even end up with JA veterans who don't like having CTH values now, as this hasn't been a thing in previous JA games.

So like with FTL: yes, they might have lost a few customers by not having a "save and reload anywhere" feature, but I don't think the game would have been popular in the first place if this was available.

Edited April 24, 2023 by Kordanor

[Claudius33]

@Kordanor I understand your point of view. Again I'm happy with the game as it is, I did mentionned it in another thread didn't I?

Sorry I've never played FTL, I trust you.

It's just suggestions.

Not only RPS. "Jagged Alliance 3 wants to escape the spectre of XCOM by never telling you the odds - PC Gamer"

As far as I remember Silent Storm had many options to customize the game. There were preset levels from easy to insane (I don't remember the exact names) but in addition you could tailor things like damage reduction/increase, must carry a downed merc out of the aera ...

JA3 has a fair set of options already : Dead is dead (deaths and choices are final), To the bitter end (no save during combat), Lethal weapon (mercs die when their HP are exhausted, no downed state), Forgiving mode (what it says).

CtH could be restricted to Forgiving mode. However, call me idealist, I personally like to think that players can make choices by themselves, especially for a solo game. What if a player wants CtH, save anytime and Lethal weapon? Does it bother another one?

Yet, I share your concern, if CtH becomes available, will I use it? Nevertheless, forbidding an option because I'm at risk to use it or because I want the players not to have it because it's not my vision of the game or because I want to differentiate JA3 from XCOM, hm, hard choice.

Fortunately the choice it's not yours or mine, it's Haemimont and THQ Nordic call. 

Edited April 24, 2023 by Claudius33
syntax

[WILDFIRE]

19 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

One thing I was never keen on from the XCOM reboot was the shield icons depicting cover. It felt too much like the map was some kind of arena for a tabletop game, instead of a location (although I certainly enjoy tabletop games). I can understand that having an icon tells you whether the object you are hiding behind is half-cover or full cover, but I found that with those labels, I was spending more time looking at those icons instead of looking at the map itself. I would prefer to assess that kind of thing myself by looking at the battlefield. If objects and terrain are properly proportioned with the characters (which I feel they are), needing to see a shield icon to determine what is and isn't viable cover, shouldn't really be necessary.

I totally agree with you here. I also do not like these shield icons and over present combat grids. The JA3 combat areas really feel more like a tabletop game and not like a natural environment. My suggestion is also too reduce all those elements. I want a realistic feeling and those icons and colorful grids take away the impression that I act in a real world.

[Solaris_Wave]

8 hours ago, Hendrix said:

While watching some gameplay were the streamer was roughly 10 hours into the game I got a feeling that scoped sniper rifles were very overpowered. He was landing headshots consistently (roughly 3/4 shoots altough I did not count) at enemies far away. To me it looked a bit like cheesing through the battles. Move your mercs up, lay them down prone at a good range and engage the enemies while they are trying to close the distance (over open ground) to your mercs.

I would like to see (atleast some) enemies being less suicidal to this tactic and instead hunker down in safe positions, forcing you to close the distance, therby enabling other types of weapons as valid options for short and medium engagements.

This is something I really did not want to see in JA3. I made my Weapon Characteristics thread for precisely reasons like what you described. I was hoping that Haemimont would use it as a reference. I might have to update it and hope that the arguments that appeared later on in the thread can be ignored.

I found that in JA2, it was too easy for snipers and semi-auto fire to dominate the battles. If the Marksman skill is universal for all guns, so every merc can end up being an expert sniper, and by firing one shot at a time lets you choose the enemy's head as a target, why do anything else? You didn't really need to use fully automatic weapons unless you wanted to wound several people at once, instead of going for a kill. Once sniping became that easy, full auto fire was only really handy if you could guarantee that you could hit an enemy with every bullet. By the end of the game, I'd equip most of my mercs with sniper rifles.

JA3 needs separate Marksmanship skills and sniper rifles should need high skill (and perks?) to use to ensure that a shot can hit at long distance. Sniper rifle damage per bullet shouldn't be any higher than an assault rifle or battle rifle, providing they are the same calibre. Obviously, dedicated sniper calibres will be different but if the game has it where a sniper rifle chambered for 7.62x51mm does more damage than a fully automatic rifle of the same calibre, just because of some game balancing, then it needs fixing.

Full auto fire shouldn't be weaker, whatever the gun. I want to see equivalent weapons, in terms of calibre, doing similar damage to another in terms of damage per bullet. You then adjust the damage slightly based on barrel length and do likewise with the maximum range. Then, you adjust bullet damage depending on the type and quality of the bullet (FMJ, Hollow Point, etc.). That won't make the guns too similar to one another because some guns will fire faster than others, be less accurate, wear down easier and so on.

[WILDFIRE]

@Hendrix: I already wrote down the problematic weapon balancing in my Known Beta issue thread exactly because of these overpowered sniper rifles. 

 

That balancing destroys the whole combat, because you can cheese your way through the sectors when you got your hands on the good rifles and you upgraded them to the maximum level. That should not be possible even in the latest battles of the campaign.

 

The battles should be chaotic, weapons should sometimes jam, the AI should flank us or should stay behind their cover depending on the weapons our mercs use. They should also force us to change positions when they throw grenades.

 

Every fight should feel new, different and open. I saw in the Beta that enemies also flee when they are afraid and that the weather can influence the trajectory of the bullets. That are great features! But now the enemy AI and the weapon balancing need to be improved a lot.

Edited April 24, 2023 by WILDFIRE

[Hendrix]

@Solaris_Wave

Well I guess a bunch of different marksmanship stats could kinda "fix" the issue but I fear we will then end up dangerously close to classes for the mercs.

Therfore my suggestion of having the enemies taking cover in their positions when engaged by snipers and forcing the player to move the mercs closer. Sniper rifles and machine guns should be used to deny the enemies area of access and fixating the enemy to a position while you flank whit the rest of your team and finish them.

Another great way to limit sniper rifles are to increase the penalty for aiming at other parts than torso. Making headshots only a decent option for medium ranges were otherwise assault rifles would be your best option.

This will also be to easy if you always know the enemies positions since you don't have to consider your own flanks.

Completely agree on the part of burst mode for weapons, damage should not be adjusted to limit damage potential!

@WILDFIRE hope you didn't think I stole your comment. Guess I missed it when scrolling through the topics. Agree whit you that the combat should be much more chaotic than whats been shown so far.

[WILDFIRE]

@Hendrix: Everything is fine, I just added this before in my Known Beta issue thread but have not described everything in detail. So your post was a good addition.

 

I think the combat should always challenge us and that not every plan we make turns out the way we wanted just like in real life. Sometimes you need a plan b and I think the combat should feel exactly like that. Chaotic, diversified and always different.

[Solaris_Wave]

4 hours ago, Hendrix said:

@Solaris_Wave

Well I guess a bunch of different marksmanship stats could kinda "fix" the issue but I fear we will then end up dangerously close to classes for the mercs.

Therfore my suggestion of having the enemies taking cover in their positions when engaged by snipers and forcing the player to move the mercs closer. Sniper rifles and machine guns should be used to deny the enemies area of access and fixating the enemy to a position while you flank whit the rest of your team and finish them.

Another great way to limit sniper rifles are to increase the penalty for aiming at other parts than torso. Making headshots only a decent option for medium ranges were otherwise assault rifles would be your best option.

This will also be to easy if you always know the enemies positions since you don't have to consider your own flanks.

Completely agree on the part of burst mode for weapons, damage should not be adjusted to limit damage potential!

@WILDFIRE hope you didn't think I stole your comment. Guess I missed it when scrolling through the topics. Agree whit you that the combat should be much more chaotic than whats been shown so far.

There definitely should be a penalty, or more correctly, a lower chance to hit the head, the hands and the feet. The torso should be easiest to hit, followed by the arms and legs. There should also be a penalty to aim with a telescopic sight if the target is considered sprinting (which is a mechanic I hope gets added). I don't think it should be that easy to choose what body part to shoot at, if you are using a high power scope and the target is trying to avoid being hit.

I really want the battles to be tense and unpredictable. If you find yourself thinking, "*Sigh* Another 20 enemies to kill. Time to click some heads and get it over with." then the combat has absolutely failed. Seeing as combat is a fundamental part of JA3, that could be damaging. If it is that easy and commonplace to do and you are just going through the game half-bored, it is going to be terrible.

I am really hoping (and I have said elsewhere, pushing for it) that Haemimont will limit body part aiming to close ranges and to telescopic sights on sniper rifles, but importantly, restrictions on how easy it can be done with a sniper rifle. It should be difficult, otherwise why bother with any other method? Just like reality, not every combat soldier is a sniper. Just like showing the percentage to hit and people wanting to see it, JA3 is at a crucial point where it could really innovate and show people that it can be just as enjoyable not having precise information. I don't really want to see JA3 do the obvious things just because 'people expect it' and 'other games have it'.

The developers have to get it right by making all weapon types relevant. That can be done by realistic balancing and logic. I made a big thing about it in my Weapon Characteristics thread and it is a shame that the last few posts made the thread turn into an argument. I know I am not working for Haemimont but I have such a clear idea how they could realistically balance the weapons (and there is nothing wrong with realism), that I would do it for free.

As soon as the Combat Dev Diary appears, I am going to be all over it like white on rice.

[Reloecc]

22 hours ago, Claudius33 said:

Same thing for the XCOM syndrome. How many times have you read in this forum or the Bear's Pit or Steam, it's just XCOM with JA skins. And yet, except for visuals and (maybe) the initial repositioning, JA3 has nothing to do with XCOM. You can't cope with XCOM like visual help, be my guest.

I'll name list of things the game looks xcomish for:

1. colorful can/can't shoot movement boundaries (visual)
2. ui (visual)
3. half/full covers (visual)
4. camera shots (visual)
5. reduced max ap, so ap costs can't be finely tuned (gameplay)
6. squad inventory (with ammo etc.) (gameplay)
7. simplified inventory (gameplay)
8. no energy bar (gameplay)
9. unrealistic perks (like more dmg to limbs, or free actions after dmging) (gameplay)
10. overwatch (gameplay)
11. combat start repositioning (gameplay)
12. enemies' detection system (area based, not sound / los based) (gameplay)
13. per map quests (gameplay) and its' quest log (visual)
14. enemy types (all look same, have same equipment, does same things / per category) (gameplay)
15. separated enemy clusters (only few of them goes after you after shooting) (gameplay)
16. free weapons (blood having endless throwing knives + skill, barry pooping granades etc.)
17. action bar with skills that costs full ap to do something, or merge actions for less ap cost (gameplay)

 

 

 

Edited April 25, 2023 by Reloecc

[Kordanor]

I dont want to put you out of context, and I think that is a nice list. I just want to put a comment on each of these:

 

colorful can/can't shoot movement boundaries (visual)
Not sure what you mean with boundaries. Or do you mean the interface? You can also add, that it's 3D (and 3D = Xcom apparently, but at least it's not 3D= realtime anymore)

ui (visual)
Yep, modern interface looks like modern interface. ^^

half/full covers (visual)
Yeah, this seems to confuse people, who apparently only know XCom but no other games which use covers differently

camera shots (visual)
Yep

reduced max ap, so ap costs can't be finely tuned (gameplay)
I don't disagree about the tendency, but of course there is still a long way from like 24 down to 12, compared to the 2 by xcom. I'd say it's still nothing like XCom in that regard. Plenty of granuality. But definitely less than in JA1/2 (turning around, Stamina based AP, reduced AP for shooting again, reculaculated AP needed for shooting so that slow mercs can shoot as often...)

squad inventory (with ammo etc.) (gameplay)
Guess so, don't remember squad inventory or anything like that in NuXCom and havent played XCom2
 

simplified inventory (gameplay)
Yes, but still closer to JA2 and especially JA1 than XCom.

no energy bar (gameplay)
Yep

unrealistic perks (like more dmg to limbs, or free actions after dmging) (gameplay)
Yep (I don't dislike it and I also dont think its unrealistic though)

overwatch (gameplay)
Same as with the shield Icons. Generelly yes, but ofc the implementation is totally different, and there are plenty of other games which also use overwatch differently than XCom. JA3 implementation of overwatch is closer to interrupts in JA1/2 than it is to overwatch in XCom

combat start repositioning (gameplay)
Yes!

enemies' detection system (area based, not sound / los based) (gameplay)
Well, it is LOS based. But there might be some truth to that. Would need to see more gameplay.

per map quests (gameplay) and its' quest log (visual)
Is that an XCom thing visually?

enemy types (all look same, have same equipment, does same things / per category) (gameplay)
Yes, probably a necessity. Unless you make them all the same visually. But yea, definitely closer to XCom here than to JA2.

Separated enemy clusters (only few of them goes after you after shooting) (gameplay)
Haven't seen enough of the game to judge that. Might actually be a good thing, so you can't just exploit KI and kill everyone in a single "overwatch trap" like you could in JA2.

free weapons (blood having endless throwing knives + skill, barry pooping granades etc.)
Yeah...I think for the knives that's fine to remove micromanagement. But with (seemingly overpowered) grenades I do see an issue. Not sure if thats a thing in XCom.

action bar with skills that costs full ap to do something, or merge actions for less ap cost (gameplay)
Yep. Don't think that's necessarily a bad choice, but yeah, thats XCom-like.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Kordanor

[Ivan Dolvich]

I would also add that I didn't notice anywhere that the opponent ran during his turn and when he used up all the action points, he stayed in the running position (because he didn't reach the target point). I noticed that in JA3 case all the characters assume a standing position and even look around. In JA2, the opponent or MERC was stuck in a running position and had even less of a chance to hit because they considered themselves a moving target.

Edited April 25, 2023 by Ivan Dolvich