DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

[Reloecc]

11 minutes ago, WILDFIRE said:

A combat system with CTH is simply a percentage puzzle to me. You mostly choose the body part where you get the best percentage numbers. So there is no need to aim at the parts with the lower numbers. 

With the current system in JA3 you are not limited. You have to choose the right decision depending on the informations you see on the battlefield and how good you know your different mercs. The players have to use their brains and not just look for numbers. That feels way more natural and is more realistic. Aside from that you try strategies and experiment more with the weapons you have.

It's about risk vs reward, yes? If there is not enough reward for a risk, why bother? It's about leg / arm hits had no impactful outcome in JA2. Yes.. soldier may collapse or drop a weapon. But if he has enough AP to shoot in the next round, it's nothing compared to headshot. It's not about seeing / not seeing %.

Btw I am not pro CtH on screen. But be sure your (and devs') arguments about "not looking just the numbers" works only if the system is built around it. I am very sure seeing % may work very well if other game aspects are respecting it. Devs decided they want a chaos and crazzines.. no doubt. Visible % goes well only with seriousness and tactical combat.

[WILDFIRE]

@Reloecc: Sure the balancing must be right and the combat results should feel logical. I hope the combat invites you to try different strategies and weapons (that can fail sometimes) but also rewards you if you choose the best logical decision in that specific situation. Total random chaos is not what I want.

[Reloecc]

12 hours ago, anon474 said:

A concise-ish list of requests, to potentially make JA3 more like JA2:

We should get the list going and keeping it for a modding community. Like making a github and issues already. Even I am afraid modding is very very far away. 

[KyleSimmons]

I'm a little bit worried about the inclusion of CtH but I have full support behind the dev team

 

[Kordanor]

Just now, KyleSimmons said:

I'm a little bit worried about the inclusion of CtH but I have full support behind the dev team

 

You mean exclusion? As a CTH display is not included.

[KyleSimmons]

Just now, Kordanor said:

You mean exclusion? As a CTH display is not included.

Yes, forgive me. I mean CtH is probably a good idea to include. It's included in almost every other strategy game right?

[Kordanor]

5 minutes ago, KyleSimmons said:

Yes, forgive me. I mean CtH is probably a good idea to include. It's included in almost every other strategy game right?

Only modern games, possibly taking XCom as a blueprint.

Back in the days, CTH was not always shown. JA1 , JA DG, JA2 didnt Show the chance. Neither did XCom (the original) or Terror from the Deep.

The thing is, that in nuXCom the Hitchance needs to be displayed as you only have 4 characters each with 1 attack (2 actions: 1 Attack + 1 Move). So you need to weigh in chances exactly for every single action. A miss of a single shot might also end up being super frustrating, a downward spiral very quick.

With old XCom and Jagged Alliance that is not the case. Old XCom you had many more characters, and you had Time Units (TU), same as JAs Action Points. So you could shoot like up to 10-15 times per turn. So each shot has much less of an impact and things start to "average out".

Edited May 4, 2023 by Kordanor

[KyleSimmons]

6 minutes ago, Kordanor said:

Only modern games, possibly taking XCom as a blueprint.

Back in the days, CTH was not always shown. JA1 , JA DG, JA2 didnt Show the chance. Neither did XCom (the original) or Terror from the Deep.

The thing is, that in nuXCom the Hitchance needs to be displayed as you only have 4 characters each with 1 attack (2 actions: 1 Attack + 1 Move). So you need to weigh in chances exactly for every single action. A miss of a single shot might also end up being super frustrating, a downward spiral very quick.

With old XCom and Jagged Alliance that is not the case. Old XCom you had many more characters, and you had Time Units (TU), same as JAs Action Points. So you could shoot like up to 10-15 times per turn. So each shot has much less of an impact and things start to "average out".

Not really, CTH was in lots of RPGs going back to Icewind Dale.

Basically every RPG had CTH

I'm sorry but none of the reasons you described pan out

Silent Storm had CTH

modern jagged alliance sequels like Rage had CTH

All old and new RPGs have CTH

XCOM has CTH

[Woody]

Thank you for your post Boian!

I in general think that there are reasons for doing everything and anything in JA3, but I think maybe there should be an emphasis to try to capture the tone of JA2.

I saw somebody else bring up the Grit and Free Move features, and while it's not a deal breaker I do think it's a step away from the essence of JA.

Strategies have a specific look and sound, and have specific design philosophies that go into creating them.

[Woody]

@KyleSimmonsYeah I have no idea who the f wouldn't be in favor of showing chance to hit, this is pretty much a staple of all modern RPGs and even non modern ones. I could count the amount of RPGs without chance to hit on one hand most likely.

[KyleSimmons]

Just now, Woody said:

@KyleSimmonsYeah I have no idea who the f wouldn't be in favor of showing chance to hit, this is pretty much a staple of all modern RPGs and even non modern ones. I could count the amount of RPGs without chance to hit on one hand most likely.

I don't think this is something that needs to be debated very much, there are much better things to debate.

There should be CTH in JA3 and even if for some reason devs don't want to include it, they should allow people to toggle it.

I think the developers honestly began trying to come up with new ideas for JA, which is great, but then they forgot to check if these new ideas, despite being new, were also a good fit for JA. Which they are not, some of the time.

New ideas are good, but if the new ideas suck or are better suited to another genre (and almost every new idea is good in some way or has something going for it, but it doesn't mean it should be implemented in every genre or franchise), and it doesn't mean every new idea should be implemented in the current project being worked on.

[Woody]

6 hours ago, Reloecc said:

That's the brute-force approach I mentioned. But don't get me wrong.. I am not saying you'd need to manipulate trajectories. I wrote that statistically distribution is shifted. Because if you ommit all miss shots, that would otherwise hit a target, you are changing a shape of distribution - shifting it away from the target. See image below, if you ommit all misses that could hit a target in other body part and your miss shots may land in the green area only, your distribution of where misses can go is highly altered.

Aiming a chest is the worst scenario because a ratio of green to red is enormous (in this particular accuracy, defined by the blue circle).

Actually.. I just realized while drawing this masterpiece that if the misses are related to accuracy (see bellow) it may be harder to hit a chest than head in certain accuracies (circle sizes) because of the rule "miss can't hit other body part". We saw on the streams (and it has been said on this forum multiple times) that headshots are too easy to land, thus op.

By saying "misses are related" to accuracy I mean there's no flat % predefined on misses. Like for example head allways have -30 % CtH and CtH is calculated without bullet simulation. And it also means there is not CtH cap (95% e.g.). If CtH is capped and your bullets may fly out of the accuraccy circle (because there's no accuracy circle) I am out.. that would be really bad 😞 so hoping that's not the case.

 

I don't think this is a good idea, or necessary, or the best way to do tactical strategy.

Just assign hit percentages to body parts, if they don't hit, oh well.

You don't even have to do what you're proposing, all you have to do is to ask "this body part is within 1 feet of this other body part, which means there's a corresponding amount of chance to hit another body part. No fancy cone based calculation necessary.

If you really want to be 400 IQ and intelligent, what you should really be thinking of, not just "what body part I can hit" but instead of that, organ modelling, and body part modelling like "I want to hit the bones of the arm" or "I want to hit the knee", which would obviously lead to vastly different results.

Also create accompanying conditions, due to, for example, bullets hitting a knee, bullets hitting a leg bone and shattering that leg bone, bullets not doing any of the above and only hitting the muscle, bullets grazing the skin and fat layer which should be mildly uncomfortable but otherwise alright, bullets hitting the eye and disabling or limiting vision, bullets kicking up dust that can go into the eye without adequate eye protection...these are the ideas you should be thinking of, imo.

[Kordanor]

52 minutes ago, KyleSimmons said:

Not really, CTH was in lots of RPGs going back to Icewind Dale.

Basically every RPG had CTH

I'm sorry but none of the reasons you described pan out

Silent Storm had CTH

modern jagged alliance sequels like Rage had CTH

All old and new RPGs have CTH

XCOM has CTH

I think our definition of "modern" is a bit different 😄

[Reloecc]

49 minutes ago, Woody said:

I don't think this is a good idea, or necessary, or the best way to do tactical strategy.

Just assign hit percentages to body parts, if they don't hit, oh well.

You don't even have to do what you're proposing, all you have to do is to ask "this body part is within 1 feet of this other body part, which means there's a corresponding amount of chance to hit another body part. No fancy cone based calculation necessary.

If you really want to be 400 IQ and intelligent, what you should really be thinking of, not just "what body part I can hit" but instead of that, organ modelling, and body part modelling like "I want to hit the bones of the arm" or "I want to hit the knee", which would obviously lead to vastly different results.

Also create accompanying conditions, due to, for example, bullets hitting a knee, bullets hitting a leg bone and shattering that leg bone, bullets not doing any of the above and only hitting the muscle, bullets grazing the skin and fat layer which should be mildly uncomfortable but otherwise alright, bullets hitting the eye and disabling or limiting vision, bullets kicking up dust that can go into the eye without adequate eye protection...these are the ideas you should be thinking of, imo.

I am sorry, but I am not sure how to get you. You are saying "I don't think this is a good idea" .. but I am not sure what you mean, as I didn't propose anything. I am just pointing to flaws current implementation could have. Please explain.

[Woody]

19 minutes ago, Reloecc said:

I am sorry, but I am not sure how to get you. You are saying "I don't think this is a good idea" .. but I am not sure what you mean, as I didn't propose anything. I am just pointing to flaws current implementation could have. Please explain.

First I don't think its a good idea because it just generates random misfirings or random hits even when you missed the part you were aiming for, like Boiyan said. I mean I actually don't think this is the worst case in the world as long as you clearly communicate why a shot didn't hit a particular body part but still hit another body part. But the cone approach is unnecessary. Just ask how close the hand is to the chest, if it's not close enough, then you can't miss by hitting the hand but hitting the chest.

It appears that you're doing circle based measurements, but this is just unnecessary and may be very expensive computationally (or may not).

And the second part of what I said was that what people should be thinking about is potentially having an organ impact system, where you can aim at specific organs, or things like joints, and then model that.

Because if you think about it, hitting the hand, hitting the leg, this is just so silly, imo, if you think about it. There's no reason why hitting the hand just through the virtue of hitting the hand should do anything, inherently.

But hitting the joint of the wrist? Yes, absolutely will have massive consequences. While if you hit the muscle, well now it's lesser consequences. Organ modelling would be the cool and correct way to make JA more complex etc.

Edited May 4, 2023 by Woody

[agris]

2 hours ago, KyleSimmons said:

CTH was in lots of RPGs going back to Icewind Dale.

Basically every RPG had CTH

I don't mean to be rude, but this is fundamentally incorrect and not applicable to type of hit system used in JA3, described in this very update!

IWD, Fallout, and most of the renaissance-era cRPGs used probabilistic hit systems rooted in rolling dice. In IWD and all of the Infinity Engine engine games, "chance to hit" is never displayed! All except IWD2 use something called THAC0 - To Hit Armor Class 0, a threshold reference value by which you understand your chance to hit something based on the roll of a 20-sided die. Fallout 1 & 2 used a GURPS-like system loosely based on d100 rolls.

Rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of exactly why you're incorrect, I'd rather focus your attention on the fact that what was determining hits or not was the roll of dice, that's the probabilistic component.

JA1, JA2, X-COM 1 & 2, and JA3 don't use this type of system. They use ballistic modeling, which computes bullet trajectories. There is a "random" component, owing to how they account for marksmanship skill and what it does to the sway of the firearm, but it is a fundamentally different system than the games you are trying to compare it to. Those fundamental differences are precisely why it makes sense for JA3 to not show CTH, and why if they wanted to show it, it isn't a simple matter of "just" displaying the value. It doesn't make much sense that way, and has a lot of pitfalls associated with it. Those pitfalls are described in this very dev diary! Rather, for a displayed CTH to make sense, it would be part of an alternate game mode involving probabilistic (nuXcom) style to-hit mechanics.

That isn't JA, and I think is a waste of their time and resources. The developers are being brave, in comparison to their peers, to do something different than the current trends. I would hate to see their resolve flag and them design and implement a parallel system which dilutes their uniqueness and pushes the game more in the direction of nuXcom, away from JA.

 

1 hour ago, Woody said:

Just assign hit percentages to body parts, if they don't hit, oh well.

Woody, I think this comment reflects a lack of understanding of how the JA3 bullet trajectory and hit system works. You should re-read this Dev Diary and ask some questions if you need clarity, but what you've suggested here is not really compatible with the underlying mechanics. The existing bullet simulation system is why it's "easy" for the devs to compute when targeted shots miss whether they hit other body parts - it's already being computed by their bullet trajectory calculations used to determine the hit/miss! It's part of the same system that lets bullets pass through enemies and material, potentially hitting others. What's different with their targeted shots is that they've disabled the missed shot striking other parts, even if the computed trajectory says it would have. They say this could confuse players, but I don't think that's the case.

Edited May 4, 2023 by agris

[WILDFIRE]

I just read the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article about JA3 where the author criticizes all the vague informations shown in the current combat system. They say that the informations are very confusing and do not tell you exactly what they mean in the overall context.

 

I am open in this discussion, because maybe there is no right or wrong. For me I appreciate every aspect that tries to go away from the typical nuXCOM formula. But I know that the shown numbers in JA3 can also be confusing. I am just afraid that the people are too used to the nuXCOM combat that they can not try something different but I want more freedom.

 

I would like to see a combat that is chaotic (where things can go wrong like jamming weapons, where the own bullets can hit team members or civilians/the environment, where mercs do unexpected actions, where the bullet trajectory is not predictable every time) but at the same time the combat result should be plausible at the end.

 

I hope the chaotic approach and the shown informations in JA3 make sense and that tutorial menus help to explain everything in detail. Sure all this is useless when there is no logic behind the current combat system/crosshair menu.

Edited May 4, 2023 by WILDFIRE

[Woody]

7 minutes ago, WILDFIRE said:

I just read the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article about JA3 where the author criticizes all the vague informations shown in the current combat system. They say that the informations are very confusing and do not tell you exactly what they mean in the overall context.

 

I am open in this discussion, because maybe there is no right or wrong. For me I appreciate every aspect that tries to go away from the typical nuXCOM formula. But I know that the shown numbers in JA3 can also be confusing. I am just afraid that the people are too used to the nuXCOM combat that they can not try something different but I want more freedom.

 

I would like to see a combat that is chaotic (where things can go wrong like jamming weapons, where the own bullets can hit team members or civilians/the environment, where mercs do unexpected actions, where the bullet trajectory is not predictable every time) but at the same time the combat result should be plausible at the end.

 

I hope the chaotic approach and the shown informations in JA3 make sense and that tutorial menus help to explain everything in detail. Sure all this is useless when there is no logic behind the current combat system/crosshair menu.

I definitely think there's very little point to not having CTH, it's so silly

@KyleSimmons said it correctly, developers were thinking of new ideas and new ways to change the formula, but not all new ideas are good. Sorry. Or even if they are good, then maybe they should be developed further, or maybe used in another context. Or maybe they're just not good ENOUGH to justify being implemented, and while the new idea might be good in some way, it's not good ENOUGH to be used.

[Kordanor]

11 minutes ago, WILDFIRE said:

I just read the Rock, Paper, Shotgun article about JA3 where the author criticizes all the vague informations shown in the current combat system. They say that the informations are very confusing and do not tell you exactly what they mean in the overall context.

But their argument was basically: XCom and Into the Breach (lol) set the standard, and everyone else got to follow it.

[Woody]

19 minutes ago, agris said:

I don't mean to be rude, but this is fundamentally incorrect and not applicable to type of hit system used in JA3, described in this very update!

IWD, Fallout, and most of the renaissance-era cRPGs used probabilistic hit systems rooted in rolling dice. In IWD and all of the Infinity Engine engine games, "chance to hit" is never displayed! All except IWD2 use something called THAC0 - To Hit Armor Class 0, a threshold reference value by which you understand your chance to hit something based on the roll of a 20-sided die. Fallout 1 & 2 used a GURPS-like system loosely based on d100 rolls.

Rather than get bogged down in the minutiae of exactly why you're incorrect, I'd rather focus your attention on the fact that what was determining hits or not was the roll of dice, that's the probabilistic component.

JA1, JA2, X-COM 1 & 2, and JA3 don't use this type of system. They use ballistic modeling, which computes bullet trajectories. There is a "random" component, owing to how they account for marksmanship skill and what it does to the sway of the firearm, but it is a fundamentally different system than the games you are trying to compare it to. Those fundamental differences are precisely why it makes sense for JA3 to not show CTH, and why if they wanted to show it, it isn't a simple matter of "just" displaying the value. It doesn't make much sense that way, and has a lot of pitfalls associated with it. Those pitfalls are described in this very dev diary! Rather, for a displayed CTH to make sense, it would be part of an alternate game mode involving probabilistic (nuXcom) style to-hit mechanics.

That isn't JA, and I think is a waste of their time and resources. The developers are being brave, in comparison to their peers, to do something different than the current trends. I would hate to see their resolve flag and them design and implement a parallel system which dilutes their uniqueness and pushes the game more in the direction of nuXcom, away from JA.

 

Woody, I think this comment reflects a lack of understanding of how the JA3 bullet trajectory and hit system works. You should re-read this Dev Diary and ask some questions if you need clarity, but what you've suggested here is not really compatible with the underlying mechanics. The existing bullet simulation system is why it's "easy" for the devs to compute when targeted shots miss whether they hit other body parts - it's already being computed by their bullet trajectory calculations used to determine the hit/miss! It's part of the same system that lets bullets pass through enemies and material, potentially hitting others. What's different with their targeted shots is that they've disabled the missed shot striking other parts, even if the computed trajectory says it would have. They say this could confuse players, but I don't think that's the case.

Didn't you just get accused of being a bot in another forum thread?

"I don't mean to be rude, but this is fundamentally incorrect and not applicable to type of hit system used in JA3, described in this very update!" You not being rude, you're being hysterical and mad.

Nobody was even talking to you.

Chill and relax. You already got accused of being a bot on this forum once, don't make me think you're going to be a permanent problem now.

[agris]

9 minutes ago, Woody said:

Didn't you just get accused of being a bot in another forum thread?

"I don't mean to be rude, but this is fundamentally incorrect and not applicable to type of hit system used in JA3, described in this very update!" You not being rude, you're being hysterical and mad.

Nobody was even talking to you.

Chill and relax. You already got accused of being a bot on this forum once, don't make me think you're going to be a permanent problem now.

I'd like to see JA3 succeed in its goal of being a JA2 successor, not nuXcom 3 with a south american coat of paint.

Yes, one of the other forum members is unwell and perceives coordinated bot attacks against their opinion when disagreed with.

Re: "hysterical and mad", anything but. It's good the community is debating things, where I can I'd like to help us do it from a common set of facts, not vague recollections and imprecise assertions. Many JA2 successors have failed chasing a mythical "wider audience", using trendy mechanics of the day. None have tried using JA2's mechanics, and as much as I think it's correct, I'll do my best to highlight why I think they're appropriate in 2023.

Edited May 4, 2023 by agris

[KyleSimmons]

12 minutes ago, Woody said:

Didn't you just get accused of being a bot in another forum thread?

"I don't mean to be rude, but this is fundamentally incorrect and not applicable to type of hit system used in JA3, described in this very update!" You not being rude, you're being hysterical and mad.

Nobody was even talking to you.

Chill and relax. You already got accused of being a bot on this forum once, don't make me think you're going to be a permanent problem now.

Yeah honestly this @agris guy is being kinda troll-y.

[KyleSimmons]

Oh god, he wrote another essay

@agris Please stop talking

[Reloecc]

1 hour ago, Woody said:

First I don't think its a good idea because it just generates random misfirings or random hits even when you missed the part you were aiming for, like Boiyan said. I mean I actually don't think this is the worst case in the world as long as you clearly communicate why a shot didn't hit a particular body part but still hit another body part. But the cone approach is unnecessary. Just ask how close the hand is to the chest, if it's not close enough, then you can't miss by hitting the hand but hitting the chest.

It appears that you're doing circle based measurements, but this is just unnecessary and may be very expensive computationally (or may not).

And the second part of what I said was that what people should be thinking about is potentially having an organ impact system, where you can aim at specific organs, or things like joints, and then model that.

Because if you think about it, hitting the hand, hitting the leg, this is just so silly, imo, if you think about it. There's no reason why hitting the hand just through the virtue of hitting the hand should do anything, inherently.

But hitting the joint of the wrist? Yes, absolutely will have massive consequences. While if you hit the muscle, well now it's lesser consequences. Organ modelling would be the cool and correct way to make JA more complex etc.

Now I am sure you didn't get what my image represents. It's NOT a PROPOSAL. I am not suggesting it should work this way! I draw how I think it's working now and what's a statistical outcome of a rule "miss can't hit another body part".. key?

[KyleSimmons]

Just now, Reloecc said:

Now I am sure you didn't get what my image represents. It's NOT a PROPOSAL. I am not suggesting it should work this way! I draw how I think it's working now and what's a statistical outcome of a rule "miss can't hit another body part".. key?

Dang is your name Agris?

Why are you yelling?