Enemies look too cartoony? too much masquerade?

[Goliath]

So i love everything so far, but the enemies outfits... from the footage so far most of them look like they come from a costume party.
skull masks or painted faces?

and that on nearly every enemy?


come on, why not just give us mostly normal, human, militant enemies, and maybe only some special freaks rarely in between?

everything looks so good and gritty, and then we get these clowns that completely take away from the immersion.

please, pleeease change that


 

[Woody]

I wouldn't say they come from a costume party, but they are dressed in civilian clothes with no clear armor equipped (or LBE or backpacks), it makes everything look a bit weird.

[KyleSimmons]

29 minutes ago, Woody said:

I wouldn't say they come from a costume party, but they are dressed in civilian clothes with no clear armor equipped (or LBE or backpacks), it makes everything look a bit weird.

I agree with this, they look like volunteer insurgents.

[Image Miroir]

Design is a sensibility and it's difficult to please everyone from that perspective.

I thing they didn't want to give the idea of a structured army, quite the opposite from that. They wanted to reflect the poor equipment and the greedy opportunism of the local dictator.

It's not illogical and therefore blurs the line between soldiers and civilians; what we see in many African militias.

[Woody]

I agree that there are always downsides and supsides to everything, but on balance, having people dress as civilians is ridiculous.

People can have their own unique clothign underneath, but the vest should always exist.

Even for the Hitman character, if he's in a vest, just have him be in a shirt maybe. Vest + shirt could work.

[Stuurminator]

So far, we've seen footage of the early game, with early game enemies, which are explicitly described by NPCs as poorly trained bullies. They look ragtag and unprofessional because that's what they are. I'm sure the more competent, later game enemies will have a more professional appearance.

[DougS2K]

I think their decision to not show armor on characters is adding to this the more footage I watch. I think if they simply showed equipped armor on characters it would add a lot to how the characters look and make them look more like actual military/insurgents/militia/etc.

[KyleSimmons]

14 minutes ago, DougS2K said:

I think their decision to not show armor on characters is adding to this the more footage I watch. I think if they simply showed equipped armor on characters it would add a lot to how the characters look and make them look more like actual military/insurgents/militia/etc.

Yeah you can't have a modern fighting soldier without a vest.

This is just too out there imo.

Where do you put the mags in? In your pockets? What about the side holster. What about the armor.

[LoboNocturno]

The enemies types looks nice in Ghost Recon Breakpoint, Jagged Alliance 3 should follow the same route. There are also enemies with face paint but at least with camouflage painting, in JA3 they few notches too flamboyant.

 

[Solaris_Wave]

I think that the enemies that we have seen so far are your local militia and paramilitary guys. By the time your mercs start causing serious pain, the main antagonist will hopefully bring in their regular troops with berets, helmets, matching uniforms and standardised gear. Then, there will be their elite forces (even if only 'elite' by their standards), individual named enemies and hopefully, enemy mercs and contractors hired to target your mercs, specifically.

[WILDFIRE]

I also hope that these colorful enemies are just the local militia that fights in the early areas of the game and that we get realistic looking troops later. Diversified groups of enemies is a good thing but these masked/face painted soldiers are too cartoony in my opinion.

[Godzilla]

a little color is ok but in some cases maybe enemies look a bit goofy

just my opinion

[LoboNocturno]

23 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

I think that the enemies that we have seen so far are your local militia and paramilitary guys. By the time your mercs start causing serious pain, the main antagonist will hopefully bring in their regular troops with berets, helmets, matching uniforms and standardised gear. Then, there will be their elite forces (even if only 'elite' by their standards), individual named enemies and hopefully, enemy mercs and contractors hired to target your mercs, specifically.

Got the very same imagination, hopefully those colourful African rebels called their self "Legions" are the weakest enemy type of enemies but then even those colourful "Legion" guys got veterans in them and are still colourful.

Hope there will be also a mid class enemies as you said with proper military or paramilitary outfits and some gear and then the elite ones as black mercs (hired foreign elite mercs), sure if there will be also several enemies with names it would be much better, but there is a evidence that there will be more then just 1 named enemy then just Pierre.

 

See this description :

 

 

[Goliath]

Ok, even if they are just level 1 local militia, it still is glaring immersion breaking if ALL of them have the same painted face! 

I mean, same clothes could be more excused, but the exact same painted face makes them scream "hey I am a duplicated game character, not a real enemy!" 

How can you even sink into the game, get immersed in it if it's so immersionbreaking? 

[Martin]

On 5/4/2023 at 1:33 PM, Goliath said:

So i love everything so far, but the enemies outfits... from the footage so far most of them look like they come from a costume party.
skull masks or painted faces?

and that on nearly every enemy?


come on, why not just give us mostly normal, human, militant enemies, and maybe only some special freaks rarely in between?

everything looks so good and gritty, and then we get these clowns that completely take away from the immersion.

please, pleeease change that


 

I agree the outfits are toooooo extremely clown like... there should be some exceptions that someone can be dressed funny like cowboy style mercs or somthing like that... but more casual outfits would be better... IDK about that painted faces.. I think its not really a bad thing but there should be normal enemies casualy dressed but these painted guys would be like special enemy sometimes accomodating them... but I guess you are right and make a good point the mercs and enemies are really clown like dressed and that its too much... ruining the immersion... 

[Stuurminator]

3 hours ago, Goliath said:

Ok, even if they are just level 1 local militia, it still is glaring immersion breaking if ALL of them have the same painted face! 

I mean, same clothes could be more excused, but the exact same painted face makes them scream "hey I am a duplicated game character, not a real enemy!"

I agree. I have no problem with flamboyantly dressed enemies, but they have to be generic at the same time.

The basic Marauder enemies are great. Face paint, bandana, no shirt - sure, totally believable, especially if Grand Chien has a history of warrior paint in its culture. Colours seem to vary from enemy to enemy, too, which helps a lot.

Other enemy types? Not so much. One of them has an artificial leg, which means all enemies of that type have the same artificial leg. Quite a coincidence!

[Solaris_Wave]

There definitely needs to be some practicality to their look. I can imagine that the paramilitary Legion are wearing face paint to look part of a coherent group and to appear dangerous. Outside of that, they are just random bandits, armed and angry former civilians, and gangs all brought together for a common cause.

While they might see themselves as serious, they are still paramilitary. The background of Grand Chien suggests that an actual army should be present, that helped the change of power to occur in the first place. I can't picture a paramilitary force on its own, having enough clout to overthrow a government unless the whole nation was so fragmented beforehand. What state was the country in, to allow such a force as the Legion to form and overthrow the government like they did?

I reckon that Legion will be the most numerous and then there will be a professional army to face. Maybe at some point, the two will fight alongside one another, so you are not just seeing one force get supplanted by the other.

[Image Miroir]

Maybe they are kind of religion or cult. The influence would be more Haiti than western Africa.

[LoboNocturno]

1 hour ago, Solaris_Wave said:

I reckon that Legion will be the most numerous and then there will be a professional army to face. Maybe at some point, the two will fight alongside one another, so you are not just seeing one force get supplanted by the other.

I can also imagine a scenario like that and am somehow sure with the right approach we can get Pierre to our team around mid of the game. (You hear it here. 😉)

 

6 minutes ago, Image Miroir said:

Maybe they are kind of religion or cult. The influence would be more Haiti than western Africa.

Grand Chien has surely Haiti vibes indeed even if it takes place somewhere in Africa.

[LoboNocturno]

🤡🧸

[Image Miroir]

1 minute ago, LoboNocturno said:

if it takes place somewhere in Africa.

I still wonder which way they'll represent western Africa... as central and eastern Europeans aren't that good at understanding the African continent.

[BossWeapons]

The enemies do look a bit goofy, I must admit. But, I'm giving the devs the benefit of a doubt and blindly accept the unproven fact that there will be more actual military looking goons in the late game, and how in the beginning we're just fighting some radicals who have nothing better than simple weapons and face paint.

Edited May 7, 2023 by BossWeapons

[Grim]

I just read an article about "Stranded : Alien Dawn", another game by Heamimont. Although it must be another team developping it, I was surprised to see character portraits very adapted to Jagged Alliance. More serious, realistic, centered and looking forward. This style would have been very good in JA3 (IMHO).
Current portraits don't bother me that much, but the coincidence was interesting and fun.

[Solaris_Wave]

Those are good portraits. Maybe the JA3 portraits are more fitting in terms of colour and appearance as they kind of go hand in hand with their bold caricatures and aliases. The ones from Stranded: Alien Dawn have a more serious look to them, although I agree with the fact that they have a better profile by facing forward. Many of JA3's portraits have their faces tilted up or down while looking at you. It almost looks as if they are cocksure in their attitude.

[WILDFIRE]

6 hours ago, Grim said:

I just read an article about "Stranded : Alien Dawn", another game by Heamimont. Although it must be another team developping it, I was surprised to see character portraits very adapted to Jagged Alliance. More serious, realistic, centered and looking forward. This style would have been very good in JA3 (IMHO).
Current portraits don't bother me that much, but the coincidence was interesting and fun.

Funny I also saw these portraits in this game a month ago and thought exactly the same. So sad that we do not get this realistic look for the portraits. It looks so much better. But I guess the art designer is maybe not the same, because the Haemimont Games Team is big.

 

But I wish the whole art direction would be like this. Gritty, serious and realistic.