Xeth Nyrrow

You've just described what is called, "Word-of-mouth marketing" Word-of-mouth Marketing

Agree about CTH, not sure I agree about auto weapons if you're implying the way they balanced it is good. As for the skills/perks/abilities, this is the evolutionary part of the series where the devs get to add their spin to the game. Does this make the game spin more toward XCOM? Yes it does. Is this a good thing? Remains to be seen but those against it have been pretty vocal. Personally I think it's going to alter the game enough to make it not feel/play like a classic Jagged Alliance game but I'm open minded that it will still be fun. I am very concerned about balance though because it seems to me it opens many doors to cheese tactics being the best way to win encounters which diminishes the core game flow.

It's not just the portraits though, the voice acting and dialog are also larges parts of it with some big misses there (such as Magic). They wouldn't be able to please everyone for sure but I think if they stayed truer to merc foundations there would have been less vocal opposition. The real irony is that isn't this the part of the game that Ian Currie was hired specifically to handle? Maybe it was more story quest stuff but it seems to me this is the main reason to have him on the team: for character continuity.

Barry going dark actually feels like a natural evolution of a seasoned merc seeing a lot of action. I liken it to him doing a full tour on Arulco and, "seeing stuff". Magic going from grim mr. business to chipper swag daddy makes less sense though. Maybe he took his friend Ice's advice to lighten up a bit too much? LOL!

You do realize that it's mostly this one person who keeps getting banned and making alts, right? Though I don't think they are the sole reason for lack of dev interaction, I'm sure it hinders it. Also the dev team is quite large for an, "indie" team and the larger the dev team, the less interactive they tend to be. However they are doing very well to communicate things with many dev diaries and streams which is easier to reach a larger audience with.

Your JA2 1.13 example is completely flawed because that was the modding community who made those changes, not the devs. The devs didn't even support native modding for the game. I agree that modding makes games have the most longevity, it's allowed Skyrim to sell at $50 for 10+ years! In terms of that, JA3 is promising a robust system which is great. Complicated games can sell well but often don't as the hardcore market is the minority now. Back when JA2 came out though it was the majority of the market. Want proof? Look at how many billions are spent on game, "cheats". Things to help players do artificial grinds that are designed in to most games. Also paying for the privilege of doing those grinds (battle passes). it's absolutely disgusting but this is the market of today. The only way you get a quality product these days is from smaller studios who care more about making the game in their vision than making money. In my mind that is where the threshold for the term, "indie game" changes. When a game becomes more of a mass market to make money game it's no longer, "indie". And to be fair, I'm sure the vast majority of the developers on all games want and try to make the best game they can in their vision.

LOL...but also, you're not wrong. I think his was the biggest visual change and it goes farther away from his persona rather than evolving more in its natural direction.

Those are worlds better, I guess we are half way there.

Assuming portraits can be modded, I assume a die hard purist will use AI to upscale the old JA2 art work and put it in the game and we can all be happy.

Regarding the portraits specifically, I think they are hit or miss but something does feel a bit off in the general art style. My poor guy Fidel looks 20 years older and not very psycho anymore which is a shame.

I agree, but there isn't really a set rule as to what being an, "indie" developer means except NOT working exclusively for or being owned by a publisher. Also with a $45 price tag, it falls in to the, "AA" quality of expectations and I would consider that not a true, "indie" developer either just because of the size.

With all the talk you do about how bad the game is going to be and how much it costs you STILL plan on buying it?! That seems rather... unintelligent. Haven't you heard about voting with your wallet?

That's an interesting idea though they'd definitely have to code the game to allow switching of models which I doubt will happen. The issue as I understand it is that showing gear on top of the models is a lot of extra work because each merc has a unique model. Ironically if they made the models more generic with say 3 body types per sex (like JA2 did) that it would be much less work.

Aside from the subscription part I agree. Xcom 2 did it right in this department where you could be completely uniform or a rag tag group of weirdos. The devs already said that merc customization would be a very difficult task for them so I don't see this happening even later. This means they didn't think to add the capability when developing (modifying) their engine which is what make it difficult to add after the fact. What's so incredibly ironic here is that there are quite a few who wanted uniform soldiers AND gear customization. So the miss on customization is felt by those people that as well. It still might be possible to eventually replace the in game models but that requires decent art skills. Even doing that, you'd shave to pick a look you want and keep it without it being adjustable in game.

Ironically, I hope that the more elite enemies become more uniform soldier looking. Kind of like when you saw the black shirts in JA2 so you know they mean business. Leave the lower level grunts looking like clowns though.

I remember seeing someone this but it makes more sense they did it for balancing reasons. Unfortunately it makes half the reason to aim at a torso pointless.

Yeah I think we're all pretty much in agreement that this is the best way to do it. I wouldn't stop at only mags though, nothing from the shared inventory should be able to be accessed in combat. This might already be the case, we don't know, except for ammo which apparently was made an exception.

Movement in turn based games is usually very exaggerated as it would be boring to play if not. This gets compounded if there's little consequence to running around so freely which is my concern. I wonder if the misses that hit other body parts doing no damage is a side effect of full auto being OP. Just seems to be they broke the game in so many ways to try and ad full auto. Like the overwatch system would probably be good enough if there wasn't a constant threat of mercs running up and blasting full auto all the time.

Hilarious though you picked the worst character since there's a lore reason why he dresses funny. Personally I like the characters to look visually different. Making them all look the same is so boring and takes away a part of their persona.

It's really tough I think to get melee right because it's quite unrealistic in the vast majority of situations the game will put you in. So it has to be fun and rewarding but not too strong all while being somewhat believable. They already admitted on stream it's probably too strong and might get nerfed. My concern is if those nerfs which might be higher AP costs, damage adjustments, or increased target dodging will make melee nearly useless while ignoring the potential root cause of a lack of interrupts? I hope I'm wrong but time will tell.

JA2 had a chance to dodge so maybe they added it already. Personally I don't like this and would prefer making melee attacks be expensive AP wise but deadly. Stabbing with a knife should be quick but less lethal unless you hit the head. Swinging a sword or other bigr melee weapon should take a lot of AP since it's much slower than pulling a trigger but be very damaging. This all assumes getting in melee range to a target is difficult which is currently quite in doubt.

As a huge fan of the custom IMP merc in JA2/3, I think it would be a bad idea. It takes away from the core game play of the, "jagged alliance" of mercs. Also they would need a lot more voice/art for this so you don't end up with duplicates.

Guys if you keep feeding the troll you then become trolls yourselves... it's how they reproduce.

I'm sure that's exactly the reason. I'm all for time savers like this so long as they don't detract too much from the game play. In JA2 it sometimes feels like I spend more time managing sector inventory than playing the game. Not having to manage some aspects of inventory in combat does take away from game play though for sure. It's anything from a non issue to a major one depending upon who you ask. Without playing the game we can only guess as to its impact in JA3 though. I think it's fair to say it does remove a strategic element to the game but it's unknown as to how large of an impact it is. The realism aspect shouldn't be dismissed though as it does make the game, "feel" weird. About as weird as hiring a team of mercs who enter a war torn country with only pistols? Maybe...

I appreciate the acknowledgement here. Since you made it a point to specifically comment on moderation, I will jump in here to say that I think you guys really need to consider warning then banning people for being disruptive to the forums in general. This isn't a place of free speech, but a game forum that is trying to sell a product. I'm not saying to stifle criticism about the game just bad behavior of some individuals regardless of their opinions. Letting this continue just makes it look like your company supports toxic behavior. The whole flag thread going on for as long as it did is another example of waiting too long to do what's best for the companies' interests and appearance. I'm looking forward to further discussing the game in a less toxic environment, thank you.