Kordanor

But why adding the Hammer & Sickle? I think that's unnecessary and also makes no sense besides of THQ wanting to score with that association.

But this is not about the mercs themselves. Its only you who is making it about the mercs. Question is if a single mercenary should represent the whole game and in which way. And I don't think Ivan with a Hammer & Sickle is the best choice.

Maybe the topic starter is indeed a troll. But I do think there is a valid point. And this isn't about cancel culture. It's about common sense. You also wouldn't want to have Grunty on the cover wearing an armband with a swastika for some reason. And on the opposite, I am against trying to bring todays political correctness in the game.

Yeah, this would be problematic. I checked the firefights again and noticed another thing. The very last firefight with steroid actually reduces the AP properly. However in that firefight the "enemy visible calculation" is also being done even before the shot is displayed. Meaning all the calculations are being done right away and this is being shown. (which I think is bad, takes out the tension if you just keep looking that how many enemies are visible). However this is not the case with the first firefight. In that first firefight the number is only reduced after the full animation is played out and the body hit the floor, basically seconds later after the shot. That leaves the question about why there was this difference. Maybe the two different battles were taken from 2 different game versions?

Which either way is irrelevant for the discussion though.

Nobody wants to ban Ivan from the game. And as mentioned it's not about what people think who know and love Jagged Alliance anyways. It's about what outsiders think. Furthermore THQ wanted to clearly score with the "cool sowjet" card by even using the hammer and sickle on the hat which hasn't even been used in the original games. And for anyone not familiar with JA, that clearly paints the wrong picture. Also not sure if that even makes sense in regards to the Game Lore.

Yeah, but its showing Brenda, the antagonist, and some Merc which doesnt exist in game (or I have no idea who its supposed to be) and they also didn't have any pre existing characters which could cause people to think of "good old times back in the bushes with Ivan" or something like that. But it's still my favorite cover of them all (and I am a bit torn whether its also my favorite game in the series)

Yeah, ofc splash title with a random guy with a gun or knife like in JA2 or UB would of course be an alternative, albeit a boring one. I also agree it shouldnt try to make any political statement by putting a ukranian there and then showing the ukranian flag as nobody would know otherwise. That can only go wrong as well.

In general I would say that I don't think that JA should go into todays politics or try to be 100% political correct (no stereotypes possible). But in this case I actually agree, and it didnt even come to my attention. And for JA fans it really doesnt matter because we know what it means. But for every "outsider" there is definitely a point to better change it. Imagining people who have no association with JA and then seeing the main character being a russian guy with hammer and sickle on the hat wielding an AK (btw he didnt even use hammer & sickle on the hat before) - certainly gives them the wrong picture of the game. Ivan being one of the most iconic characters of the series I think he can still be on the cover, but maybe not that prominent. Ofc Ivan also has the advantage of being that stereotypical that the hat is enough to know who that character is for JA enthusiasts. I mean a character like Shadow just looks generic. But maybe someone like Leech (JA 1 / DG) or Raider could create some burt reynolds / Tom Selleck / magnum association, similar to the Jagged Alliance 1 cover having a guy looking like Hulk Hugan (no idea if that should represent any character). Maybe Grizzly one handedly wielding a big ass machinegun would be cool. Bit like Schwarzenegger in Predator/Commando. Or some metal/rocker guy like Static or Nails. Going a bit into Waynes World of Bill & Ted. It might actually be a cool idea to engage with the community to vote for characters which could be in the center. But the developer should make a pre-selection of characters which could also represent JA and its 80s style to the outside.

There is no such thing as "real gaming" 😛 But for now the Game is PC only though, and I hope that they also design the interface for a good use on PC first, and don't make it "streamlined" for console already, with everything split into an interface like a BIOS with thousands of differnt sub-sections with lists to scroll through. You could argue that all the simplifications in Firaxis Xcom are thanks to consoles. And I actually strongly dislike that game. And I also think that Rage is overall, like JA FB and JAO not just a bad JA game, but also a bad game in general. But I digress... I do agree that a console port makes sense though. But they should adapt the interface afterwards for that version. Generally more platforms means more money for the developers, potentially meaning more potential budget worth to be put into the development. So it could be seen as console releases financing our voice overs these days. 😉

I would actually say that there are plenty of small things which are kind of funny in that trailer (But I agree, the comment about russian women isn't, thats a bit bland). But just check the autocompletion of when she is searching in the search engine. Or read the small print on the AIM page. Or the FA-MAS description. To me that's pretty much the humor we also had in previous JA games. Always little details. But we do need to accept that this isn't a JA2.5 but a JA3, which changes some things and drops some other. I might have mentioned it before, but when JA2 came it I was actually somewhat disappointed. -I prefered to fight over each sector -I was missing the daily summary -I prefered the old Guard/Harvester setup and management -I was missing sectors where you get an extra reward for being stealthy (in JA they could recognize you and then push a buttom which made some crates with weapons go boom) -I am not a fan of being able to save in combat (they added a "ironman mode" in the gold version to fix that) -Item management in base was also more comfortable -I strongly disliked the "rocket rifle" near the end of the game, which you can't even get rid of by disabling the sci-fi mode, which I never used And then small details -I also liked the mini animations when lockpicking or opening a door -Weapon mods didnt change the picture of the weapon anymore (in the old game you could combine a weapon with steel and got a completely new weapon) -I liked the narrator reading each item name. Pointless but kinda cool -I liked this item which you could use to listen into NPC talk (not the one to hear which direction they were coming from, but you got actual dialogue snippets, no idea if they ever had any use) What I wanted to have was rather a JA 1.5, but I got a JA 2, which at the beginning was a disappointment to some degree. But I leant to like some of the new features, and changed my mind on some changes. While I still think that there are several aspects where JA 1 was nicer. I am just saying, that this isn't just a remaster (which maybe would have been a better idea, you could also just have reused all the voices) but a new version which is going to have some changes. We can just hope that it keeps the DNA of what made JA great. JA in general, not JA2 or 1.13

Thanks for clarifying. Yeah, it does exist. It did come up in the other thread that magazines could potentially not exist. But to me that idea sounded very far fetched and overly pessimistic anyways.

There just has been an announcement for the games being presented at the Gamescom. JA3 is NOT one of them. Which I guess makes it rather unlikely that the game is going to be released this year.

Actually I did mention that a year ago, but forgot about it 😄

Oh nice, totally missed that. Good find!

Ok, maybe I should clarify and distinguish a bit more. First of all, the system Firaxis XCom ueses is a super simplified hit system. In Firaxis XCom, ONLY the range, type of cover and angle towards the cover matters. Anything in between the target and the shooter does not matter in XCom as long as it's not adjacent to the target. For example, in XCom it does not matter whether a car is blocking the visual towards the target. For the calculation the car does not exist, undless its considered a wall, blocking the sight completely. Also in XCom an a shooting angle difference of 1 Degree makes the different of being "behind full cover" with a 25% hit 10% crit chance and being behind no cover with a 65% hit chance and 60% Crit chance. One thing which we can definitely see is that Jagged Alliance 3 uses a much more sophisticated and realistic system to calculate the hit chance which considers everything between the shooter and the target. This does not mean neccessarily that JA3 didnt take any shortcuts. For example it might be possible that Bursts and Shotgun shotguns are only using one main calculation for all the bullets and not for each bullet individually. And indeed there is good evidence that this is indeed simplified. After rewatching the trailer again I am actually quite sure of that. But let's get to that in a bit. Let's have a look at a couple of fights and dissect them. At 1:03 we can see the following: -3 Bullets are fired (also confirmed if you look at the ammo in the rifle) -The first enemy is hit by 2 bullets. The first one is doing 11 damage, the second one is doing 10 damage, which add up to 21 damage -The enemy behind that is hit by 3 bullets. First one doing 6 dmg, second one doing 5 dmg (11 total), 3rd one doing 5 dmg (16 total) So 2 bullets must have gone through the first enemy and then hit the second while 1 bullet missed the first, but then still hit the second. So far the facts. Let's look how we can interprete that: Possible explanations for the Damge on the Second target: As all 3 bullets do the same damage on the 2nd target (and not 1 doing higher damage as it didnt go through a body before) I assume that this one is hit in a less vital body part with all 3 bullets. It might however also be possible that the game uses a simpler mechanic for calculating damage on non-primary targets. We have seen that glancing hit are a category of hits in the weapon screen. So it might be possible that all hits are just considered as glancing shots and therefore do less damage. This might then be unrealistic. Possible explanation of one bullet hitting the first target: Ofc it might just be a real spread. However it might also be possible that for bursts the trajectory is only calculated once, shots a are fired, and then the enemy has a chance of "dodging" each bullet individually, which is not visually represented. This would indeed mean that there is no actual spread. At 1:34 we can see the following: -3 Shots are fired and visually go through the enemy (if you check frame by frame, you can indeed see that they go through the enemy) -Only one damage number pops up Possible explanation: As mentioned in the example at 1:03 it is very likely that the trajectory was only calculated once. Dodging the bullets is being done individually, resulting in two of the bullets being dodged. At 1:56 we can see the following: -The first thing we actually see is the impact of a "main shot" before that shot is even fired visually (watch youtube using , and . to go through it frame by frame, you can see that the pole is destroyed even before anything else happens) -One single bullet is coming out of the rifle -Multiple bullets come out of the shotgun, very drastic shotgun spread -Bleeding is applied to enemy before damage is displayed -damage is displayed but only one number My interpretation would be the following: -The game only calculates the trajectory once (not for every single bullet). The impact is then shown right away before even the bullets got there. -A "main bullet" is following that trajectory. This might be some kind of unintended glitch -The spread of the gunshot later on is then just for fluff. The single bullets are not calculated individually -Unlike bursts where each bullet can possibly be individually dodged, it seems in this case, only one actual shot and calculation is being done, and only one damage number shows up. This might actually be problematic. Does that mean that on shotgun you dodge either everything or nothing? That would make it super unrealistic and kinda contradict the purpose of shotguns where the intention is that some bullets will always hit the target. At 2:03 we can see the following: -A burst of 3 Shots are being fired at the enemy at distance -All 3 shots go past the first enemy behind the wall, not doing any damage -Target Enemy is being hit by all 3 bullets My Interpretation: Even going through it frame by frame, I wouldn't want to draw any conclusions here. It actually seems like all 3 shots go past the first enemy and not through him. there is no frame which shows that a bullet is clearly entering the body or exiting the body. This might however just be coincidence. So either way, I would consider this as inconclusive. This is where you are wrong though. No matter if each bullet in a burst or shotgun is calculated by itself in a realistic way, Jagged Alliance 3 uses a realistic trajectory for the attack itself, where XCom does not. I actually don't think so, and when I saw it I thought the opposite and was happy that the bags of all characters are displayed on the same screen. In "typical console style" they would have used one screen for each character. Keep in mind though that there has to be a separate screen for attributes. So it might still be messy. I hope you are trying to be funny here (and you are not). If you followed the history of Jagged Alliance you know that: In Jagged Alliance 1: Ivan spoke Russian only In Jagged Alliance 2: Ivan speaks ok english if he wants to, just falls back into Russian. I'd go with "That which does not kill us makes us stronger". You are mixing it up with "critical hits" which reduce stats (we haven't see that in the trailers so far though) I think this is rather common practice. You will also find pictures of guns in JA2 which got a magazine "attached" to it even if the gun is empty. This, as many of the other things you mention, like weapon range or skills I would consider as your personal taste and/or bean counting.

Most what you say is down to opinion, so I will not repeat mine. But regarding the stats and physics / realistic bullet calculation we have clear evidence that they are in the game. Unfortunately we haven't seen a stats window yet, but we know that stats are in because we saw log messages of them being increased. Will they be as important as in JA2? Probably not, because we also have other things like active abilities now. I think that can be a nice improvement. But ofc it can also be a terrible idea. Impossible to tell yet. But I don't see an issue that the game is moving forward, like JA2 moved forward from JA1 (and there are actually things I prefer from JA1) as long as it's not scrapping core elemenst of JA (as in AP based combat, somewhat realistic physics, high focus on merc personalities...) Regarding bullet calculation it's very obvious that its in if you check out the first trailer which still shows the hitchance, and then see how this hitchance is in different positions. The position fidel runs into (to use is grenate ability) has a hit chance which can only be explained by a "realistic" calculation. In the second trailer you can see how bullets go through one target and hit also the target behind (first target is hit by 2, the one behind by 3 bullets).

Well, always depends on where you look I guess. But so far we only have the inventory screen, the modding screen, the tactical screen. We are basically missing the Character Stats Screen (btw, we know that there are stats, Barry gut a +1 when being hit) and a management screen for the worldmap. We do have some hint of a hiring screen in the first trailer. But my guess is that these are also the very last things which are going to get finalized.

While this is ofc also pure speculation it might be possible that NV goggles and anything like that are modifications for the helmet. Would then be a bit weird that you needed a helmet for these, and I would say it's rather unlikely, but I guess its a possibility. With backpack slot you mean slot FOR a backpack? Maybe you only have one armor slot and that slot also determines how much inventory space you have. Maybe you can "add" additional slots to it, a bit similar to rage. But indeed an interesting point. I noted these books as well, and also instantly thought "skillbook", but if I remember correctly JA2 also had magazines and they were just fluff (well, the magazines you found in JA2 were also less likely to contain any stuff which would help you on a mission I guess ^^)

Not sure if you saw that, but grenades have a "Mishap chance", in the new trailer that was at 17%. My biggest fear for grenades is a different though: Jagged Alliance didnt have realistic ranges for weapons in the past, and will not have them in the new game. Thats fine. But it seems like grenades can be thrown quite a long way (also see first trailer). The second trailer actually showed an enemy type as grenadier. A couple of other games showed already that having enemies throwing grenades at you from basically the unknown at max shooting range, with a almost 100% hit chance and devastating damage is nothing but frustrating. So I hope this is not the case here.

Dont always throw xcom into the comparison. That makes absolutely no sense. Yes, XCom is maybe the first game which overhauled the graphics, and what it did is also simplifying the game mechanics. I actually do hate XCom to a certain degree. Well, not "hate hate", but I tried to play it and couldn't. It just feels terribly wrong to me. But various other games already showed that one thing has nothing to do with the other. Phoenix Point being a great example. It has basically nothing to do with Firaxis XCom in terms of Game Mechanics, hence it looks similar, because...well...its 3D and modernized. I already explained in the other thread that Overwatch is nowhere similar than in XCom and likely even more realistic. I think its a choice I would probably have done the same way. Just recently I had someone saying in a forum on how clunky the JA2 interface was (well, it was on the world map, but still). I also dont see anything wrong in being "locked" onto the enemy when aiming further, or deciding that you want to go burst mode instead, which means that you don't memorize hotkeys to switch to burst and so on anymore. I think this choice is very reasonable and also goes hand in hand with the decision of being able to hit additional body party like feet and hands which would be impossible to do on normal view. From the trailers and screenshots we can see regarding landscape: Djungle Steppe Desert "Rocky Desert" Villages Mines Bunkers (or something like that) So what we haven't seen is something like a pine forest or a snow covered area. And well, considering its situated in Central Africa this time, this is something where it makes sense we are not going to see it. We also got indications of day/night and weather. We have a few scenes with a sandstorm. We also have this scene in the new trailer (the overwatch one) which looks like a battle at night. In addition we can also see in the weapon attachment screen that there is a flashlight mounted to the weapon, which only makes sense at night. Old Screenshots and Trailer also showed something at the top left showing "Clear Whether" ans similar. That not present in the new trailer anymore. Maybe because its just not necessary to show. I think the new trailer showed quite a few new things, but there is indeed lots of stuff left out. Like we are still at very few characters, most characters shown already showed up in the first trailer, though the hiring menu in the first trailer indicated there are many more characters. We still have hardly any idea about the management system. Also very brief idea about character system (we know the have signature abilities and the old stats, you can see that Barry got a gain when he got shot, but we never saw the full system)

I would kinda disagree with both parts. To me this system looks more intuitive and also seems to be more standardized. And Standard isn't always bad. Imagine you still had games with controls like in System Shock 1. Or WASD not usable. You can also argue that shooting at Arms/Hands is one of the most important options, a level of detail not possible in JA2. The Interrupt System in Jagged Alliance 2 works well, but I think it's so complicated that only a fraction of even the veterans fully max it out. If you have someone in the building, possibly aiming at a window, you'd need to do the following: -Possibly make a nose close to another part of the room. No idea if that does anything, but maybe the enemy will then look or move to that direction -Sneak with your character next to the window or (open) door. -Turn your character so that he/she looks against the wall -Press ALT, which turns normal movement into sidestep (unless I think you are not standing, which causes different behaviour), and then move sidewards towards the window -At this point the interrupt is calculated. If you made no noise and sidestep, seeing the enemy at the same time, you didnt give any chances anway. If the enemy kept looking at the window, its down to your Levels (and maybe Wisdom, not sure) which determines whether or not the enemy gets an interrupt. And in addition, on interrupts it can also happen that: -If you miss your interrupt shot, you might cause the interrupt to cancel, you never really know -Your interrupt shot might have highlighted your character to a new enemy. This can cause an interrupt within an interrupt I think that system is super complex and complicated, and the additional complexity doesnt add that much over an Overwatch mechanic, which is much simpler to understand and execute. In addition, note, that this overwatch differs in several ways to XCom overwatch: 1. Overwatch can be setup in realtime, outside of combat and be used to interrupt first enemy movemet 2. You can decide the direction of your overwatch 3. You can decide the length of the cone of your overwatch 4. You can decide how many points you want to use in your interrupt, giving you up to 3 attacks You might even argue that overwatch is more realistic, as this is more of a reaction. So on overwatch you can only shoot on that target and not freely run around.

You're welcome. Hope you also saw the english summary above the video 😄 My (first?) playthrough will very likely on my German Channel once it releases, but once it's review time, there will also be coverage on the english one. 🙂 I vote for Razor and Haywire instead 😉

Time for an update with the new trailer. Unfortunately its not possible in this forum to edit old posts, so I cant update the main thing. I did a new Trailer Analysis (German, see in the bottom). But here is the summary of what I (and others) found in the trailer: New Characters: Grunty, Barry, Red, Raven, Omryn (new), Smiley (new) Clear new Info: Some Weapon Bonuses only apply on max aim Morale implemented Overwatch area range can be decided by player Overwatch can be set up outside of combat Overwatch can be triggered up to 3 times of max AP are used Enemy get extra move when starting combat This extra Move can trigger Overwatch Multiple height levels (up to 3 were visible in trailer) Projectiles can pass through enemies Grenades have a "mishap chance" Grenades cann destruct environment (not just at pre determined positions) Unclear New Info: Some kind of challenge showing in tactical view 0:30s shown during combat in the top As you can attach lights on your weapons it's likely you got night missions in darkness Neither the original trailer nor the new trailer features voice acting during combat, which makes is extremely unlikely that there will be voice-acting in the final game (outside of Intro and similar) Differences to previous trailer: Hit percentage no longer Shown Weather display no longer shown on tactical map

While I personally dislike Early Access as I want to play the games when they finished, and as I also record let's plays that usually means that nobody cares about the game anymore. Objectively early access can be good and can be bad. Factorio and Darkest dungeon being the prime examples where it went good. Especially factorio gained a lot of popularity during early access and the project exploded. But on the other side you have games like SpaceBase DF9 by the Ex-Lucas-Arts developers at DoubleFine. For them it was like "meh...early access doesnt sell, let's tack a 1.0 on it and be done with it" As last resort when you run out of money and desparately need money, yeah, I would definitely prefer them trying EA rather than calling it a release version and then patching all the stuff after release.