Necessary upgrades before launch

[Raeven]

3 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:

Is it possible for Haemimont to do right in people's eyes?

Apparently not. The criticism has been ruthless and often nonsensical. It's pretty disheartening tbh because I'm incredibly excited for the game, and I can't imagine why a fan of the previous games wouldn't be. There are changes, sure, but there's *nothing* even remotely like this out there.

I guess people just want another iteration of what came before.

Look, JA2 is very playable, and very good. Just play it if that's what you want. JA3 is its own thing. It's not "dumbed down", it's just different. JA2 has a TON of weaknesses as a game. A lot of aspects that barely work, or work poorly. A lot of corners cut. But we all still love it in spite of those huge flaws.

Just wish people would give this a chance. It's not like another game is gonna come along in the series anytime soon... Maybe ever. I think it looks really, really good so far. 🤷‍♀️

Edited June 15, 2023 by Raeven

[Uncle Nick]

In the tribal areas (not cities), do they not got these characters protecting their livelihoods with the AK47? What is the problem? You all got 1st world problems.

Multi-tasking Woman.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Uncle Nick

[ShadowMagic]

4 hours ago, Raeven said:

Apparently not. <snap> Maybe ever. I think it looks really, really good so far. 

🤷‍♀️

Point is, why not doing it right the first time (which is actually a way of working in IT world).

Now there is a chance many potential customers won't buy the game because they simply hate the way it looks or how their beloved characters are portrayed with poor writing accompanied. This increases the chance the game will be a massive flop (again) thus burying the franchise for good.

So you should embrace the criticasters instead of putting them in a corner point at them and calling them ungrateful. Without criticasters, devs won't learn and the industry will do what they want and stop improving.

[D13]

It takes resources to only release when everything seems perfect, and even then many will not agree it is perfect. I think the days of releasing "perfect" versions 1.0 are behind us (at least for consumer products). For JA2 there was a public demo and one year later they released the game. Impossible today? Nowadays companies embrace concepts like "fail fast, learn fast", and developers are urged to create the "minimum viable product".

I don't like it but I will admit that this way, you generate cashflow early and then you get feedback from real users (not only testers and media), and then you can make adjustments based on their feedback.

[Solaris_Wave]

8 hours ago, Raeven said:

Apparently not. The criticism has been ruthless and often nonsensical. It's pretty disheartening tbh because I'm incredibly excited for the game, and I can't imagine why a fan of the previous games wouldn't be. There are changes, sure, but there's *nothing* even remotely like this out there.

I guess people just want another iteration of what came before.

Look, JA2 is very playable, and very good. Just play it if that's what you want. JA3 is its own thing. It's not "dumbed down", it's just different. JA2 has a TON of weaknesses as a game. A lot of aspects that barely work, or work poorly. A lot of corners cut. But we all still love it in spite of those huge flaws.

Just wish people would give this a chance. It's not like another game is gonna come along in the series anytime soon... Maybe ever. I think it looks really, really good so far. 🤷‍♀️

I agree with a lot of your points, although I will admit that I maintain my own particular criticisms of the game and that some of it definitely is dumbed down. Or, if not dumbed down, made overly convenient. Shared inventory, weapon modding and crafting, some combat mechanics; those are my own personal concerns.

I find that some of the things that I don't like will leave me liking the game for what it is, rather than anything more than that. That is no bad thing, but it is like enjoying something that is good, very good even, just not truly great. I will still enjoy it but instead of it being a landmark game, it will fall shy of what I hoped for and gave plenty of suggestions for.

We've all got different opinions of whether the game either looks all-out great, a worthy and fun addition to the franchise, or a missed opportunity. I can fully understand @MagicShadow's concerns but I made my comments about whether Haemimont could avoid criticism or not, when it comes to enemy appearance. Several of us aren't keen on the face painted militia in one way or another because, despite tribal origins, the worry was that they looked cartoony (and I think some look better than others). Haemimont then goes in a different direction and features enemies in camo battledress, with one soldier wearing a shemagh scarf. That brought criticism too.

That could probably be demoralising for Haemimont to read as they could do something and get criticised, take the opposite approach and get criticised again, only for them to finally say, "Sod it, we will do it our way and ignore you all."

While that may sound like I am targeting @MagicShadow directly, that is not really the case, as I have often found myself agreeing with other things he has pointed out.

You could sum it all up and say that 'you can't please everyone'. We have all got ideas of what the perfect JA3 would be and I have been on the forums long enough to see that we have sometimes got conflicting views of what that perfect version actually is.

Edited June 15, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[LoboNocturno]

Just saw it on the "Wider Trailer" you can see there even different type of enemies of the recent dev diary "Satellite View" pic where they were a guy with red beret, 2 with grey hat and 1 bonnie all appears to be in grey & black camo outfits.

Now in the Wider trailer you can see a guy with blue beret & camo face, grey beret (looks like they got on dark grey trench coats) and 1 finally with a green steel helmet. Those type of enemies seems much better, more professional. Hope they AI is also more advanced (better range of sight, more tactical gameplay that they also try to flank you or ambush you.) then the goons and they are surely much more equipped.

 

But what i have also noticed, either on battlefield or in the tactical map once we fight and our mercs, militia or the enemies die they will just darken the portraits, so no more classic Jagged Alliance (we got used it in JA1 & JA2) way once they are death there should come the iconic skull 💀 imagine.

 

Not last but least why all of our militia are whites ? I mean we train and make Grand Chieniens militia or do we bring them from some other continent ? So it doesnt make sense, if not all, most of them should be black. 

 

Then again no female militia or enemies in sight as yet.

[Lunokhod]

24 minutes ago, LoboNocturno said:

no more classic Jagged Alliance (we got used it in JA1 & JA2) way once they are death there should come the iconic skull 💀 imagine.

100%. Agreed. Wtf Haemimont? Where is f*cking skull?

27 minutes ago, LoboNocturno said:

Not last but least why all of our militia are whites ?

Not all of them. But yes, this is strange. Why Rookie and Elite are black and Veterans are white? I mean are they something like chameleons that change skin color when they become more skilled. Wtf is that?

31 minutes ago, LoboNocturno said:

Then again no female militia or enemies in sight as yet.

100%. If my squad will be destroyed, I want it to be destroyed by sexy grey elite girls! ❤️

[Jaywalker]

2 minutes ago, Lunokhod said:

100%. If my squad will be destroyed, I want it to be destroyed by sexy grey elite girls! ❤️

So far the only "grey" ladies with guns were the "coffee beans" 🤣

[LoboNocturno]

@Lunokhod They should be either mixed up or been black since Grand Chien is a African country or county. I was expecting most NPC`s to be black but we got many whites too. Maybe they wanted bring in a balance idk, also why they painted all the goons like clowns could be a reason they dont wanted to get criticism about racism that we kill plain Africans in a game so that could be a reason why they thrown in so much paint to their faces or completely white paint like Quan Chi from Mortal Kombat. I would suggest if they put at least to our militia balaclavas on it could take away a little the clone feeling.

 

@JaywalkerOh true, they are 4 or 5 of them i think. Imo very silly opponents, just as the trained hyenas.

 

 

[Solaris_Wave]

It would definitely make sense for your trained militia to be predominantly black. They are, after all, recruited from the population. This is their land.

[D13]

6 minutes ago, Solaris_Wave said:

This is their land.

But maybe that is also the reason why they will not fight by our side 🤔 It might be wishful thinking but in JA3 I see a lot of potential for "good" and "bad" not being as black and white clear-cut as in JA2.

[Lunokhod]

1 hour ago, Solaris_Wave said:

It would definitely make sense for your trained militia to be predominantly black. They are, after all, recruited from the population. This is their land.

Absolutely. And I dont like those cloned faces of the new elite enemies. Whats the problem with drawing more faces? Modern technologies allows u to create unique faces for everyone in this game. God... its 2023... use AI...

[Stuurminator]

1 hour ago, D13 said:

It might be wishful thinking but in JA3 I see a lot of potential for "good" and "bad" not being as black and white clear-cut as in JA2.

I feel like that's in the cards. In JA2, virtually everyone you spoke to hated Deidranna, making it clear that you were on the side of angels. A lot of Grand Chien's populace, on the other hand, don't seem to give a shit about the president.

[WILDFIRE]

I am extremely grateful that we get Jagged Alliance 3. That is not a matter of course. But still I wish the portraits would be animated. So I am really sad that this feature is missing, because that made JA2 special to me. In the bond between you and your mercs that was a key element.

 

I guess with the other changes and the cartoony art style I can get used to. When we all play the game I think maybe some criticism will be gone, because in the overall context the gameplay will be good. So lets wait and see how it feels in the end.

[Lunokhod]

44 minutes ago, WILDFIRE said:

But still I wish the portraits would be animated. So I am really sad that this feature is missing, because that made JA2 special to me.

Bro in every your post on this forum I read about this "animated portraits". When will u realize that this won't happen? They did unique images and 3d models of all mercs instead.

[WILDFIRE]

@Lunokhod: We talked here about fair criticism of JA3 and I think the animated faces were a key element in JA1/JA2 so it is justified to criticize that they are missing in JA3.

 

We all already know that there will be no animated portraits in the final game but as I stated that is one aspect I will definitely miss while I can get used to the other criticized elements.

[Solaris_Wave]

@WILDFIRE, would you consider the lack of animated portraits more serious than things like the shared inventory, using scrap to build guns and attachments, and the damage reduction for automatic fire?

I'm not criticising here, I'm just asking.

Edited June 20, 2023 by Solaris_Wave

[LoboNocturno]

@Solaris_Wave Damn so its true in the release version the assault rifles will not be that damaging ? Though it was like that just in the beta version and that they would balance it. In JA1 (yea you got only the M-16) and especially in JA2 the assault rifles were the most used and most effective weapons (snipers were good too but they eat too much APs for a single shot and the late enemies didnt die from 1 headshot like in JA3) overall and so it should stay.

So it seems like in JA3 the most powerful weapons will be the sniper rifles, on the beta gameplay it looked like walk in the park killing all enemies from the distance.

 

To your question to @WILDFIRE i would most definitely choose animated portraits over shared inventory but your right shared inventory, scrap build (they copy it a lil from The Last of Us) and that the assault rifles will be doing less damage its also not so pleasant.

[D13]

I like the idea of a shared inventory, I just hope it will be shared only between mercs in the same sector (although in that case, I wonder what happens when one merc leaves the sector).

If it makes things too easy, we can voluntarily restrict ourselves to using the individual inventories for items that may be used during battle. Between battles it should not make a difference anyway. 

In JA2 I sometimes felt that too much time was spent on deciding who should be carrying "just in case" items like spare toolboxes, fancy guns without ammunition (or vice versa), or a growing LAW collection.

[ShadowMagic]

On 6/20/2023 at 7:02 PM, WILDFIRE said:

@Lunokhod: We talked here about fair criticism of JA3 and I think the animated faces were a key element in JA1/JA2 so it is justified to criticize that they are missing in JA3.

This area, they completely misfired. As with combat animations. Both look really silly and even worse than JA2 even though 25 years have passed.

Imagine not being able to produce better portraits and animations with modern tech. SirTech just happened to have more talented personnel I guess.

 

[Uncle Nick]

Anyone who creates them in-game, will know that animated portraits are not real. They're just a looping series of portraits with moving mouth parts and facial expressions. There is no way they can be in-sync with the all the different voiceover spoken dialogue. It would just look so weird, that you guys will just start another topic complaining about it. There are ways of doing it properly, but the expense and game file size will be huge.    

[WILDFIRE]

@Solaris_Wave: The first and most important feature when I think about Jagged Alliance are the mercs, their personalities, their jokes and the bond you have with them. The first thing I remember from back in the days are the talking lively faces. After a while the mercs are a part of your team. You cared about your soldiers and to this day no other game could replicate that.

 

The talking faces are so unique and special to JA that I think a big selling point is missing now. But I can understand that it is maybe not possible with the budget of JA3 and I know that this feature needs realistic looking faces so that everything looks believable. Overall it is hard to create but the atmosphere would be so much better. The AI example that someone postet here in the forum showed the potential. 

 

A lifeless picture can't transport the emotions of the mercs. But that is important, because you care about your mercs. You want to keep them alive and these lively faces helped to give you that intense bond. So yes for me it is one of the most important features but that doesn't mean the game will be bad. Maybe I get used to the portraits of JA3 but I know that something important is missing that I loved in JA2.

[Solaris_Wave]

8 hours ago, LoboNocturno said:

@Solaris_Wave Damn so its true in the release version the assault rifles will not be that damaging ? Though it was like that just in the beta version and that they would balance it. In JA1 (yea you got only the M-16) and especially in JA2 the assault rifles were the most used and most effective weapons (snipers were good too but they eat too much APs for a single shot and the late enemies didnt die from 1 headshot like in JA3) overall and so it should stay.

So it seems like in JA3 the most powerful weapons will be the sniper rifles, on the beta gameplay it looked like walk in the park killing all enemies from the distance.

Well, don't quote me on that. They might have actually changed it since they said about the reduction in damage. They did say they tried alternatives and were looking at others but they also said that you could just run one of your mercs up to an enemy and fire full auto into them.

I would have thought that the best way of trying to balance this out would be to increase recoil per bullet (so the more bullets you fire in one pull of the trigger, the greater the dispersion) and to make the enemy AI have better reactions, whether that is covering fire from comrades or to leave some action points for interrupts. If you are able to run up to them and shoot or melee them each time, that flaw will remain even with damage reduction.

Also, what is to stop you from just taking shotguns and doing the same thing for max damage at close range?

 

8 hours ago, D13 said:

I like the idea of a shared inventory, I just hope it will be shared only between mercs in the same sector (although in that case, I wonder what happens when one merc leaves the sector).

It still doesn't make sense if it is in the same sector. Unless the shared inventory is only available outside of combat and no enemies are present, it is too fantastical. Your mercs are not always close together and might be split up, getting ready to engage the enemy. During combat, how does one merc pass a magazine to another merc that is 10 metres away? Do they all have accurate throwing and catching skills (that bypass the actual throwing skill), do they have handheld teleporters, is there an unnamed but tirelessly devoted servant that carries one item to another or from the supply cart behind them (I often use that analogy)?

Also, if one merc runs out of ammo for their primary weapon, they now don't have to worry about carrying a backup weapon, like a pistol. Unlike reality.

 

8 hours ago, D13 said:

If it makes things too easy, we can voluntarily restrict ourselves to using the individual inventories for items that may be used during battle. Between battles it should not make a difference anyway.

House rules make sense for card and board games but less in the case of a computer game that can be more quickly revised or patched.

 

8 hours ago, D13 said:

In JA2 I sometimes felt that too much time was spent on deciding who should be carrying "just in case" items like spare toolboxes, fancy guns without ammunition (or vice versa), or a growing LAW collection.

I always liked battle preparation and tooling up for the next engagement. I admit that it did become cumbersome towards the late game when you needed mortar teams to compensate for the weight and size of each mortar shell, and when enemy tanks appeared, you needed a lot of M72 LAWs. However, isn't that like real life? Having to carry items and distribute between a squad to cover each situation they might face?

 

As for your comments, @WILDFIRE, thank you for your explanation. I understand where you are coming from. I have said this before and I think that with the hand drawn portraits it has made it harder to animate such a picture. The JA2 portraits were from the era of less colours and larger pixels, with less detail. It was a lot easier to move eyes, eyebrows and mouths. Even then, they didn't change much and each movement was looped. Such a thing was very common throughout the games of the 1990s. It worked very well but resolutions, colour palettes and effects have increased since then.

The only alternatives in the modern age of games seems to either have static portraits but one for each emotion, alternating between them (which I have seen in games), purposefully adopt a classic approach (like with games that have retro 2D graphics), or to take photos of an actor, use motion capture and map it to a 3D model.

[ShadowMagic]

7 minutes ago, Solaris_Wave said:

It still doesn't make sense if it is in the same sector. Unless the shared inventory is only available outside of combat and no enemies are present, it is too fantastical

Agreed. This is a game breaker. 

Instead of doing it like in JA2 they came up with their own idea and somehow got approved by the game diretor.

Just shows how much he knows about TBS and JA in general.

[LoboNocturno]

@Solaris_Wave I never really used shotguns in my countless playthroughs since 25 years lol. Guess am simply not the shotgun type of guy (also in real life). Even in very close range i can use assault rifles or dessert eagle, also at times the throwing knife (with a throwing expert like Dimitri).

Using snipers much less then assault rifles as well since they eat too much AP.

 

Hope we will not encounter a very over powered weapon in JA3 as the "Rocket Rifle" in JA2. It was by far the most powerful weapon in the game.