Xeth Nyrrow
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Posts posted by Xeth Nyrrow
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13 hours ago, Dr.Kuhn said:
You really think the "poor devs" can't defend themselves? lol Listen, I already pre-ordered the game because I'm hopelessly addicted to ja2 1.13, but I'm thinking of the game in the overall scope of things for them. I don't need to make the sales, they do. Your awkward, pedantic attempts at putting what I'm saying into quotation marks doesn't actually prove or do anything. Strength being significantly less relevant because of "the bag of holding" inventory, and no weight system is factually true. It's not a debatable talking point. It's why it's worth discussing the mindset behind the design decision. Will any devs even come to this forum? No idea. I more or less present the idea to the community to get feedback.
Realistically, nothing is going to change about the game a week before release and anyone would be a fool to think otherwise.
Glad you admitted to attacking the devs at least. Ever heard of getting more bees with honey rather than vinegar? It's true that it might be too late to have changes for release but they might change things after release based upon feedback. From yesterday's stream https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1864846518 at 1:32:08 they answered my question and said they are open to the idea of possibly changing missed shots hitting other parts of the body.
Now do you think if I asked that question like you, saying they are on drugs or something, that they would have even taken my question? Yeah probably not. I even expressed my opinion that it's, "weird" but I wasn't mean to them. You could have the best solution in the world but no one is interested in listening to you if you are always crass in your speech. This is what I mean by being counter productive.
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This is way more than I hoped for from the modding tool. Awesome news! Being able to assemble our own 3D model with it is above and beyond what I would ever could hope for and that's great.
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1 hour ago, GODSPEED said:
guess if you look at numbers and measure success that way, yes, it is a much better game.
Careful with the word, "better" here. One game being good or, "better" is mostly a matter of opinion. However success is very measurable as a fact. Just because XCOM2 was hugely successful doesn't make it a better game.
JA3 like most games was created to make money. Part of that equation is to make it more appealing than JA2. Did they go too far and ruin the magic formula that made JA2 a cult classic? Time will tell but my guess is simplifying the parts most players find tedious will be better for the game's success. Of course for people who got a lot of entertainment value from those features they will be disappointed.
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1 hour ago, Dr.Kuhn said:
Addressing a game design flaw is "hostile"? What else is "hostile" to you? I'm not walking on egg shells because some nobody on the forums doesn't fully approve of my choice of words to describe an issue.
What do you mean exactly by, "addressing a game design flaw?" If it's to complain to anyone who will listen then go right ahead, but that isn't, "addressing" the issue. Now if you are hoping to change the game by, "addressing" the issue then maybe not insulting the developers is a good start. I'm not saying you have kiss up to them but being mean to someone you want to listen to you is rather counter productive.
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3 hours ago, GODSPEED said:
It really depends HOW they implemented those. In JA2, a certain action could be affected by more than one stat. Not sure what you mean by "more complex" though.
I think she meant the RPG part specifically is more complex, not the stats. In the stream with Ian Currie he talked about how he would have loved to have fleshed out the RPG elements more in JA2 and that JA3 did this. Streams have shown how you have multiple choices that are not just stat based but also trait based. The devs had said that these decisions will have other repercussions later on as well in true RPG fashion.
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2 hours ago, GODSPEED said:
+1 ^
What playes want out of JA3 is extremely divided it seems. Anyways, from my point of view over the years of following convos and such on the Bear's Pit. It seemed to be way more unified what players wanted from a JA3 than what I've been seeing as we get closer to release. Seems as though way more people seem to want a game clsoer to X-Com that doesn't deal with the macro-management part of Jagged Alliance.
Maybe that is due to playstyle? Types of games played? Age?
As an example, I'm more of a macro-management type of player. I tend to prefer games that go far into crazy detail like walking speeds, bullet count, realistic magazine capacities, recoil. I tend to like games like Jagged Alliance 2, Brigade E5/7,62mm High Calibre, Alfa, Hired Guns, etc... for the more precise approach at those details.. over games like xcom that don't worry about those and focus more on "big picture" stuff.
Brigade E5 / 7,62mm High Calibre even had multiple different walking speeds, but that game also played more like Back in Action (real-time w/ pause).
I want a game that kind of takes pointers from 1.13 with the pouches, vests, gear over a game that ditches those in favour of a inventory system that harkens back to JA1.
For the same reasons I would never go back to JA1, simply because I find the management of the inventory, mercs and other fine detail too simplistic, I also want the detail found in 1.13, but in a new game.
I also find such "unnecessary" detail like walking and running to be important. Anyways, you've mentioned exactly the same reasons I had. But yeah.. I think that stuff is important to the overall feel of the game.This type of player base division is common in older games being remade when mods have been involved. These, "unnecessary" details for the majority of players don't add value to their game and actually have a detrimental effect in discouraging some players. It's not that one way or the other is better, but surely you realize you have a minority opinion about these things? Obviously it's good business sense to appeal to the 80% and not the 20%.
Most people don't want busy work in their games. So much so they pay real money to avoid it (see: mobile games industry). On the other hand, we have people who play games that are basically jobs (most ,"Simulator" games). A lot of games like this one fall in the middle so compromises have to be made.
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48 minutes ago, Raeven said:
Serious question, how many accounts have you made on these forums?
You got that feeling too? Even if it's their first time, their hostile out the gate demeanor isn't welcome either way.
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9 hours ago, D13 said:
Interesting. Only two months ago, in May's DevDiary 6 on combat, they said:
- An average rookie merc has around 10-12 AP per turn.
- We intentionally kept the numbers relatively low to ease the mental calculations
Maybe after reading the posts on this forum, they have come to realize that JA players are very intelligent?
Likely due to internal testing more than us crying here on the forums tbh. Either way it's a good idea. I think going to 100 AP would have been excessive but now they have a little more room to tweak numbers.
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One important clarification about, "burst" fire because most people seem to get it wrong. There are 3 fire modes for automatic weapons: single, burst (3-5 rounds?), and full auto (half the magazine about). It's only the full auto mode that has the damage reduction. The devs insisted on adding it to the game to allow suppression fire to be a mechanic but instead of just adding an ability to do this, they added full auto which has other balance issues.
Back to the OP, differing weapon damages like the guns shown above has more to do with item progression than realism. It's usually not an issue in fantasy RPG type games because it's not obvious why Sword of X does more damage than Sword of Y. Here it sticks out like a sore thumb so it's obviously done for game balance reasons. JA2 balanced weapons by mostly making sure the high caliber weapons didn't come in to the game until later on with a roughly 9mm -> 5.56mm -> 7.62mm progression. JA3 instead gates item progression with the guns and not the ammo type. I'm guessing this is because they wanted inferior quality weapons that have high caliber rounds to be used earlier in the game.
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37 minutes ago, Kordanor said:
I am a streamer (well, youtuber) myself and you got to make some calculation yourself.
You will not stream games which don't interest your audience (and probably also not those who arent interesting to you) and on the other hand, the Publisher is also not interested in giving smaller streamers access, especially if they dont follow some press standards or even have to sign something (as they were only allowed to play the first 12h).
Even as small youtuber I had to pass on games because I knew they would not have gotten interest and not "worth" the time investment in terms of channel growth (for me its not really revenue yet, but for bigger youtubers/streamers it is). In the end, for a youtuber/streamer time is money. So you need a "high level" streamer with a fitting audience and interest to cover this game, where covering this game isn't their "loss". And Jagged being as popular as it is in Germany, its not too surprising that streamers were mostly german, and US coverage was mostly done by media or streamers who were maybe not "first row" (but I saw at least 2 english streamers/yoututbers, maybe not at day 1)I think we agree they should have gotten some professional streamers who are middling in size and play these types of games. The streamers suggested in posts above are some good examples of those who qualify. The main point being is that there were plenty of viable streamers who fit the criteria to effectively promote the game but they didn't use them. The result will cost them some sales in English speaking markets but as I've said before companies are really bad at marketing their games.
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2 hours ago, Kordanor said:
You could also see it from the other perspective. Maybe there werent that many people from the US interested in that stuff?
Two other points I wanted to quickly mention:
1. JA2 also flopped in US Sales.
2. With the recent announcement of physical copies you can also see that 60% of all boxes are GERMAN Language. That kinda shows where the market is - and my guess is that it's no different from JA2.Also keep in mind that THQ already published JA Rage, and they have preorder numbers. I am pretty sure that they know what they are doing.
Except there's one big issue here: the monetary cost for them to put it on multiple streams is nothing. I'm sure there are many streamers who would love to play the game early at no cost and that's who they should have given the game to. I do not think they should hire/pay for big streamers to be forced to play this game, one they may or may not like as that would have been bad.
As for previous sales and marketing, it's wise to invest MORE time/money/energy in to a market you want to get in to gain traction in, not less. They have already paid money for English Internet ads so we know they have interest in the market.
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57 minutes ago, Stuurminator said:
I've seen someone by the name Ohmwrecker in the official Jagged Alliance discord. There's a YouTuber (and streamer?) by the same name who may be worth looking into.
Jagged Alliance is not the sort of game he usually posts on his channel, so I wouldn't suggest it if he (or his discord counterpart) hadn't shown genuine interest in JA3, but he could provide exposure to an audience that's not generally aware of the tactical combat genre. He got me into at least one game outside of my comfort zone, so there's precedent.
I think these are the best types of people to focus marketing attention on for a game like this. So many of the bigger ones are just there to make a buck without being interested. JA3 isn't going to make anyone famous so people would avoid streaming it for that. But those who are passionate about the game? Yeah, help them promote it.
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9 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:
This is just a question and not an argument, but do you have proof that turn-based strategy is not popular in the US market anymore? What about games like Civilization, the current XCOM games, BattleTech, Panzer Corps II, to name a few? Are RTS games more appealing to the US market? This isn't just games like Company Of Heroes and similar Command & Conquer styled games, but even grand strategy games that act turn-based in their nature but are actually real-time. Games like Stellaris, Crusader Kings III and Hearts Of Iron IV.
Civilization continues to always sell well, I think. Even if it pretty much the same thing every time. However, I don't really keep up with any computer game market these days. I don't know what is popular on consoles anymore and I don't follow the trends. I tend to just buy and play what I want, sticking to single player experiences. Multiplayer games don't really appeal to me anymore due to the stress (even if I was good at them). Not to mention the toxicity of a lot of their communities.
Therefore, I am unaware of whether the US is radically different from anywhere else, with the exception of Germany, which as I mentioned earlier, often seems to really enjoy strategy games and obscure simulators.
I haven't done any actual research, I'm just looking at the available market of games vs other types compared to 20-30 years ago. I'm sure they are less popular in other parts of the world too but I haven't looked. Of course there are some popular TBS games out there but they are exceptions rather than the rule.
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They obviously have made features and changes to appeal to a wider audience so why not actually try to capture a larger audience with marketing? The collector's edition and the lack of English streams was bad form on their part. I'm not surprised though, it's exceedingly rare for video games to even remotely be marketed well these days.
On a positive note, what they have shown us on their streams has been much better than most companies though. I suspect some NA streamers will be given access to the game to hype it up but this should have been done at the same time. TBS games are really not popular in the US market anymore but I don't think they should have been ignored like they did.
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14 minutes ago, scope112 said:
It is odd that pretty much all the early previews are either German, French or Russian
The market for JA2 (and thus JA3) was very Euro driven due to the popularity there. I do think it's a large mistake to have not put similar effort in to the American market though since it's so large.
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1 hour ago, Solaris_Wave said:
It would be a good time to ask how many people actually struggled with JA2's inventory system? Or at least, found it a chore?
This can apply to vanilla and the v1.13 patch. If it did become a nuisance, when did you feel that way? Throughout the entire campaign, midway or only towards the end?
I would be interested to know why Haemimont were so keen to create the shared inventory and how many JA2 players really asked for a different system. Did Haemimont do it based on feedback or did they just create something they all thought we wanted?
I definitely felt that way once I had enough extra gear laying around. This happened usually after taking about 3-4 POIs and needing to shift all the excess equipment around. 20+ years ago this type of hyper, micro-management of inventory was the norm but that doesn't mean it's the best way to do it. Inventory QoL aspects have evolved over the years for various reasons which is a good thing for all players.
Having said that, I think the player getting a magical bag of holding is going too far though. Removing the tactical aspects of limited gear/ammo is a dumbing down thing for sure to let the player focus more time playing the core game functions. In addition to this, I'm 100% certain this was done to appeal to a larger audience. I'll even go so far as to say it appeals to more people than it turns off because people have to remember that we are the vocal minority.
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I think there might be some modders who would do this but I doubt the developers would want to rehash an old story. I'd rather they spent time making something completely new as a DLC and leave old content to the modding community. Also, your user name is basically the tl:dr answer, LOL
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15 hours ago, D13 said:
That is strange, because you can hit persons other than the targeted person if they happen to be behind or in front of the target. It almost seems like it would be more work for the developers to restrict hits to the initially targeted body part.
Strange is being nice, stupid is much more accurate. Also this is likely something we won't be able to change easily with mods but I hope it either gets changed by release or we can eventually mod it to be included.
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I assume not because you paid in advance. A dead merc isn't going to be able to refund you.
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47 minutes ago, Carmine said:
No land-vehicle ?
Maybe there will be but don't know it yet.
"Me name is Hamous".
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44 minutes ago, Stuurminator said:
Maybe I lack subtlety (actually, scratch that "maybe"), but this isn't too much for me, assuming the enemies are appropriating Grand Chien's tribal history for effect. Your employer says the Legion are poorly trained bullies, so it would make sense for them to use extreme outfits in order to look more intimidating.
This is how I see it too. The outfits being made so apparently non professional soldier in nature are to convey that they are indeed NOT professional soldiers.
Also I think many people would be fine it it was just blue dots vs red dots and anything outside of that they would call too elaborate or over the top.
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1 hour ago, Stuurminator said:
For all I know, Ian Currie may be the reason, or part of the reason, the writing is what it is.
This was my take too as he was brought on board specifically to do writing. Another possibility is that it's assumed the characters were going to be the same as JA1 & 2 and not, "evolved" in JA3 though they should have adjusted stats too in that case.
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Robbing diamond shipments and mini missions to weaken outposts are exactly the kinds of things evolving the JA series needs. This looks really good with important UI/UX details being addressed to make it look very promising.
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Yeah it could be an event like liberating Drassen gives access to Bobby Ray's
Always running
in General Discussion
Posted
Not a jerk and yeah maybe a bit nitpicking but a valid opinion still. For me the mercs moving at different speeds in real time was super annoying because I have to wait for the slowest one. This often let to mercs being in weird positions when the combat started unless I micro managed each ones' movement.
I would have rather they all moved at the same speed of the slowest one when they were moving as a group instead. It is realistic? Yes and no. No because they have different speeds, but yes because if they are moving in formation then they should stay in formation even if some could move faster.