DevDiary 6 - Combat, Part one

[DougS2K]

On 5/4/2023 at 8:54 AM, 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'm not in favour of it because I think it's terrible and steers the gameplay in a way that becomes less fun. If you can see chance to hit you will take way less shots and battles will become way more predictable. Same thing that happens when you play other games that show chance to hit. Also, it's infuriating when you have a 95% chance to hit and miss. This also creates the potential for save scumming if you do miss whereas if you can't see the chance to hit number and miss, your less likely to quick load and try again.

[Godzilla]

7 hours ago, SWi74 said:

Man, this forum turned into a dump rather quickly, because of a handful of trolls and "experts". I understand the devs not wanting to engage here at all during the first months.

"They made a mistake!" and "I'm disappointed" topics, seriously?

Anyway, to get back on topic:

Best dev diary so far. Everything from graphics to mechanics, direction and gameplay feel seems extremely professional and thought out. These are the only two things I care about, actually.

I love that the process led you to an unpopular decision and you made it anyway. I will choose the game a designer wanted to make over the game that most people "demanded", any day!

Машинки сте. Дано сте свикнали с гласовити скапаняци, повече от мен. Pardon my French...

i have a good idea for a merc i knowja devs never did a yugoslavic or balkan merc why not create one and he does stereotypically balkan things maybe has niko bellic type haircut maybe says things in a balkan language like ivan dolvich does

it would add a lot of character and balkan territory is a very rich ground for very specific characters. because balkans arent exactly east europe. maybe a polish merc too i know theres steroid but hes kind of americanized. i see a real really polish merc that has imperfect english constantly swears in polish. maybe a czech one as well.

most mercs in ja were either from latin america from east europe or first or second generation immigrants in america. hardly any asian mercs by the way. not saying that as a slight to developers or anything.

what are you guys talking about by the way?

[Godzilla]

developers are from czech republic or bulgaria right. they should add a bulgarian merc. maybe hahahaha

"overworked programmer" haha. red bloodshot tired eyes glasses skinny frame drinks coffee and cigarettes has jittery mannerisms. a bit like madlab but more neurotic and tired.

can definitely be a character if not a merc.

[Kordanor]

42 minutes ago, Godzilla said:

developers are from czech republic or bulgaria right. they should add a bulgarian merc. maybe hahahaha

"overworked programmer" haha. red bloodshot tired eyes glasses skinny frame drinks coffee and cigarettes has jittery mannerisms. a bit like madlab but more neurotic and tired.

can definitely be a character if not a merc.

I dont think we know all the new Mercs yet, and I am also not sure about the total number. Initially they mentioned 40 mercs and 30 of them original, but I think there are more than 30 original ones. So not sure if it is "just" 10 new ones.

So far we have seen a Ukranian (Kalyna), a Peshmerga/Iraq (Fauda), Livewire (i think she was israeli) Omyrn and Smiley (no idea about nationality). So who knows who is left 🙂

[Godzilla]

livewire is saudi afaik

but devs should think about adding mercs who arent just "russian" maybe a balkan merc maybe a merc from a country thats in east europe but not russia maybe a swedish merc with a heavy accent who wears a lot of hunting gear in his bio is big into hunting

[Stuurminator]

I think it's too late to add new characters to the base game at this point. Maybe DLC.

You may also have more luck posting this in the General Discussion forum instead of in the comments on an unrelated dev diary.

[Godzilla]

theres no need to be aggressive im just talking about my merc preference stuurminator

i didnt say that they had to developthe mercs before release, just throwing out ideas

[Stuurminator]

6 minutes ago, Godzilla said:

theres no need to be aggressive im just talking about my merc preference stuurminator

i didnt say that they had to developthe mercs before release, just throwing out ideas

I'm not being aggressive, I'm telling you: you'll get more feedback on your concept if you post it in the General Discussion forum. You're not going to get anywhere posting it somewhere that has nothing to do with it.

[Godzilla]

sir please theres no need to yell at me

i hope you have a good day and can enjoy jagged alliance with me on this forum.

[Quardak]

What happens with CtH? XCOM-mimimi…:

I have 90% CtH + I miss = Game is bugged and cheating me!
 

I can enjoy it without CtH… and i will do.

 

[Godzilla]

hello quardak! are you new too? so many new faces...happy to see us all enjoying jagged alliance 😉

[Quardak]

I am sure new here. Like that fanatic Discussion for CtH. Always looking for Forks+Torches around.

 

[Godzilla]

13 minutes ago, Quardak said:

I am sure new here. Like that fanatic Discussion for CtH. Always looking for Forks+Torches around.

 

i wouldnt call it fanatic...justdevelopers made a mistakethats all.

will it cost them? who knows

[Quardak]

We will see. Maybe bad, maybe not. But i really really wana play JA3 🤗

[BossWeapons]

On 5/5/2023 at 9:08 PM, DougS2K said:

I'm not in favour of it because I think it's terrible and steers the gameplay in a way that becomes less fun.

This is pretty much how I feel about it too. Knowing your chances to hit radically change the way you approach combat situations in a game and would most likely turn it into a hunt for that magical 95% where you never take anything less than the absolute best.

It works in X-COM because the game is very simple in its core combat and so much of the missions and how they play out are seemingly designed around those hit chances. One shot is usually enough to take down your guys while the enemies can be hulking behemoths that require several turns of tactical planning before you can land the killing shot. In that game you NEED to know your chances, otherwise the experience would be about as unfun as having your hair pulled.

JA3 doesn't seem to play anything like that despite there being loads of similarities between the titles. The fun in the game is partly in not knowing. And I could predict doing the opposite would throw the gameplay balance out of the window, unless the AI cheats and always knows where to take the best shot against your weakest guys, which really wouldn't make the game a whole lot of fun.

I partly feel people are fighting over CtH so much because they're trying to pull off headshots and such and end up missing the target entirely every time and end up feeling extremely disappointed after the fact when they felt it should have been a sure shot from 2 tiles away with full aim against a seemingly "immobile" target.

[Godzilla]

11 hours ago, BossWeapons said:

This is pretty much how I feel about it too. Knowing your chances to hit radically change the way you approach combat situations in a game and would most likely turn it into a hunt for that magical 95% where you never take anything less than the absolute best.

It works in X-COM because the game is very simple in its core combat and so much of the missions and how they play out are seemingly designed around those hit chances. One shot is usually enough to take down your guys while the enemies can be hulking behemoths that require several turns of tactical planning before you can land the killing shot. In that game you NEED to know your chances, otherwise the experience would be about as unfun as having your hair pulled.

JA3 doesn't seem to play anything like that despite there being loads of similarities between the titles. The fun in the game is partly in not knowing. And I could predict doing the opposite would throw the gameplay balance out of the window, unless the AI cheats and always knows where to take the best shot against your weakest guys, which really wouldn't make the game a whole lot of fun.

I partly feel people are fighting over CtH so much because they're trying to pull off headshots and such and end up missing the target entirely every time and end up feeling extremely disappointed after the fact when they felt it should have been a sure shot from 2 tiles away with full aim against a seemingly "immobile" target.

People like cth for a number of reasons one of which is min maxing and knowing for a fact that you can use 1 merc to get one guy and get the other mercs to go for other guys.

Also how the f are you supposed to tell if youre close enough or not?

 

There are many other problems with cth. This along with a few other missteps will end up in a poor outcome come release time, imo.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Godzilla

[Kordanor]

1 minute ago, Godzilla said:

Also how the f are you supposed to tell if youre close enough or not?

There actually is a display for that.

[Godzilla]

Just now, Kordanor said:

There actually is a display for that.

Unless that display is cth I dont think there is. If you have 20% chance to hit vs 50% vs 70% those are completely different chances and I would never try to get a shot off at 20% but without cth I might be firing like a dumbass wondering why Im not hitting.

Whether people like it or not, not including cth is a mistake.

[Kordanor]

Don't quite understand what you mean. There is a clear distance meter showing the effective range of the gun and the range of your target.

[Godzilla]

7 minutes ago, Kordanor said:

Don't quite understand what you mean. There is a clear distance meter showing the effective range of the gun and the range of your target.

That doesnt make a difference for you having 20% cth or 70% cth.

[Kordanor]

You said "you can't tell if you are close enough or not"

-> You can

And if you are outside of "max" range but 1m off, don't expect your hitchance to drop by 50%.

Edited May 7, 2023 by Kordanor

[WILDFIRE]

I think also in real life you can only guess if you hit a target. There are no percentage numbers. A weapons expert for example can say that he hits a target very sure, because he is very experienced but depending on the distance, weapon condition and weapon behavior the result is different every time.

 

Also you as a player must decide if you think the next shot will hit your target depending on the informations you have. Not a percentage number should take the decision that you have to make. Where is the fun when you only look for the magical 90% and above numbers to continue your next steps? It just feels restricted and less realistic.

 

With the current combat system you have to look into your mercs abilities while you decide your next tactical step. You have to think about the positioning of your team, the distances, chosen weapons and so on. That diversifies the experience way more and gives the combat system its depth.

[chr_isso]

12 hours ago, Godzilla said:

Unless that display is cth I dont think there is. If you have 20% chance to hit vs 50% vs 70% those are completely different chances and I would never try to get a shot off at 20% but without cth I might be firing like a dumbass wondering why Im not hitting.

Whether people like it or not, not including cth is a mistake.

and that is exactly why CTH should not be in the game.
YOU should know if your chances are at 20%, 50% or 70%.
This was always a huge part of JA2 Vanilla -> Do you move closer, maybe to the next wall/sandbag or do you take the shot?
If you decide to move -> how will you cover your merc? Will he run into an interrupt?

If you implement CTH to take all those considerations away because you will solely decide upon your CTH.

no cth = good decision.
cth toggle -> better decision!

[Solaris_Wave]

5 hours ago, chr_isso said:

no cth = good decision.
cth toggle -> better decision!

Do you mean that you would like to see an option to toggle CtH visibility?

To anybody that wants to see that option, if it was there, why not just have it switched on all the time? The temptation would be there because you might possibly think, "Well, everybody else has probably got it switched on, I might as well do it too. Why make it harder for myself if everyone else is making it easier?"

Now that is just a theory, not a complaint towards anyone in favour of a toggle. I know lots of people like to challenge themselves by increasing game difficulty.

[Godzilla]

8 hours ago, chr_isso said:

and that is exactly why CTH should not be in the game.
YOU should know if your chances are at 20%, 50% or 70%.
This was always a huge part of JA2 Vanilla -> Do you move closer, maybe to the next wall/sandbag or do you take the shot?
If you decide to move -> how will you cover your merc? Will he run into an interrupt?

If you implement CTH to take all those considerations away because you will solely decide upon your CTH.

no cth = good decision.
cth toggle -> better decision!

How are you supposed to know that??

Im sorry but theres very big margin of error in knowing how accurate that shot is going to be. And theres no good way to tell. Unless you plan to do the math manually based on distance and know the formula and perks and weapon mods, and change that math anytime a merc levels up or changes their gear, theres not going to be an at all reliable or accurate way to know.

 

Maybe thats why they made the maps so tiny. So that you always have at least ab50% chance to hit?