Xeth Nyrrow
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Posts posted by Xeth Nyrrow
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Nice list, could you add a column (and thus a sorting option) for, "AIM Category" please? Recruit, Veteran, Elite, and Legendary are the groups they are in. Thanks!
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13 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:
I was pointing out that a vague indicator is more basic in appearance than a percentage with a specific number, such as 41%. It is more down to the appearance of complexity, rather than actually being more complex. I probably should have worded it differently and even now, I am not entirely sure I am managing to describe it the way I want to.
I think I understand what you're saying by the appearance of complexity. A lot of games do that like adding a bunch of features that actually do the same thing in different ways but really are only 2 choices not many.
But that doesn't make sense in the context of CtH showing or not so maybe not? Without CtH the player is supposed to calculate these things mentally and decide if it's, "good enough" to take the shot. Range, cover, environment, gear, skill of a merc are all considered then estimated. Good players will do well, bad players won't. Showing CtH removes all this player skill and reduces the decision to if that number is, "good enough". There are of course other tactical factors of skill like enemy positioning, amount left, condition of your team, etc. But those are shared regardless of CtH showing or not.
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1 hour ago, Solaris_Wave said:
In some ways it is correct to say that. In other ways, it makes it more complex but needlessly and unnecessarily so. Instead of estimating your chances of a hit as being impossible, average or great, you are slapping a more precise number on there, such as 42% or 67%. How does anyone calculate it down to those very numbers unless, like myself and others have said, you are a machine? That extra 2% or 7% doesn't really help me decide any better.
Besides which, those percentages can be incorrect, according to multiple conversations I have seen on other sites, when it comes to the XCOM reboot. There are quite a few frustrated gamers saying that the estimated percentage doesn't reflect the way the battles are playing out.
In what ways does it increase complexity? The devs said it best when they said it changes the game to be about playing the numbers rather than tactics. Also like you said people aren't calculating percentages but are using the number as an easy guide to follow. 50% = coin flip, 66% means hitting 2 out of 3 shots on average. We take the percentages and dumb them down even more in our head to something relatable and decide from there.
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2 hours ago, Grim said:
I wish great enjoyment to those who bought this CE.
I would have bought one if the content was interesting to me. Sadly, I didn't find those goodies at my taste.
Image Miroir mentions a few ways this could have gotten more interesting, adding something one could not find elsewhere.
The collection cards could have been something of interest, however they offer nothing more than basic info and portrait you can find in the game. They could have contained special intel, hints about them, or present like a "file", helping the player to choose his team. Or be a card game in itself with stats to play with, or be part of a role playing game or anything.
Collector's editions should be made by dev teams, not marketing teams. They need passion, detail, intellectual value more than gadget value, much like old game boxes filled with info dense manuals, maps, cyphers and whatnot.I think the issue with collector's editions is that the people who procure them aren't in touch with their player bases at all and aren't gamers themselves. They probably have never purchased a collector's edition of a game either. Part of the reason is companies that make these things, "have a deal" on something that's unrelated (like a box). But to the buyer, a great deal is a great deal! Ironically the JA3 t-shirts are almost a no brainer and should have been in every collector's edition box.
Music bands make a bunch of money off their t-shirts and stickers and it seems to me games could get in on this by selling game branded stuff like this for extra money quite easily. Imagine if they sold minis of all the mercs from the game, they could have made a a nice sum doing that. Also popular are collectables that do something such as a small, JA3 branded laser pointer shaped like a gun that activates with a trigger pull.
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2 hours ago, Tzg said:
No, it is not included in every other strategy game, lol.
It is included in most console-focused, hardly strategic games for kids with the attention span of a goldfish. However, in some games, it makes kind of sense due to, say, advanced technology - Battletech being one - I have no problem there as 'I am inside of a massive machine with advanced computing capabilities' equally, me sitting with a firearm in the bushes - I can't tell my chance to hit. Simples.
Neither of the reasons you describe is suitable or needed - if you played JA2, you would know your merc would tell you they can't hit something. Also, you would see when the firearm is outside of the effective range. The beauty of JA2 is in the fact that you know your merc. You know which one can hit from a distance and which one will never do it. You know you need to get your camouflage kit, NV, and sneaky guys to do specific ops. You don't need stupid % to tell you that... and if you do need it - this game is not for you. Move on.
This is the point I was going to make, that showing CtH is actually a, "dumbing down" feature is why it's in so many games. I'm sure this idea will shake Godzilla's core because he's of the mind that it makes the game more complex but it's actually a simplification of game mechanics being reduced to a single number to help the player only have to consider that number instead of all the other factors.
Developers have to decide what things they want to make easier or harder and that can be the interface itself many times. I applaud JA3 for going this route as it's obviously a controversial decision but a good one.
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1 hour ago, Grim said:
AFAIK, inventory works like this :
- Each merc has his own inventory, where he can put items in several slots. He can exchange items with another merc when close.
* Slots : Their number depends on the STRENGTH value (more STR, more slots). One slot can contain a small weapon, an item (medic bag) or several small items (grenades, knives...). You can put ammo there too. Two slots can contain a large weapon (rifle, rocket launcher, etc)
- Each squad has a shared inventory, dedicated to ammo, scrap and medicinal herbs. It is accessible by any member anywhere in the sector's map. It eases the reloads as ammo is taken from this pool.
- Each sector has an inventory (sector stash), where any item can be stored. It can be accessed only from this sector, and not outside of it.
I hope this clarifies a bit what we are talking about.This is how I understand it too. The only point of contention I think really is if the mercs can access the squad inventory in battle. If so, even just ammo, that's horrible. If not then I think it's fine. Best would be that it's accessible upon first entering a sector until combat starts. Then it should be inaccessible until ALL enemies have been cleared from the sector. Having a physical bag on the screen that you can run all the way back to for more equipment/ammo during this inaccessible time would be a nice touch though.
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Project Haven just released another demo today. This is how tactical combat gun play should be done:
Project Haven -
Yeah, usually movement is used not to increase hit chances but for alternative firing angles because of cover (flanking falls in to this) and/or to get better cover. Getting closer is the direct way to increasing hit chances but it's a double edged sword where you become easier to hit as well. And any half way decent play knows you'd rather keep good cover with bad shot chances over bad cover with good shot chances unless you are mopping up the last enemy maybe.
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8 hours ago, chr_isso said:
As like in so many game devs - i would really love to see more responses and better communication from the DEVs.
The issue is that the communication has to be both ways earlier in development. We are getting info sent to us but not really much feedback from what we've suggested. This is typical of any game dev once they are of a certain size. They have been responding directly more recently but it's in the form of answering questions about what's already been decided and not able to affect change.
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7 hours ago, Solaris_Wave said:
So far, my concerns are as follows: <snip>
This list is extremely solid and I think the majority of people can agree on the majority of the points raised.
I think I had an epiphany here, a solid JA successor game isn't really possible in today's game development culture/business. The game we all want takes too many resources for an indie studio to pull off and studios with enough funding don't have their ear to the ground with the player base to be able to capture what we are asking for.
JA3 devs are trying their best though but relied on internal testing too much. If they did any external testing, it was from people who are not big JA fans. Also throw in that pretty much no dev team wants to make JA2+ and wants to put their own spin on it as well as market pressures to make a game for the, "cool kids" of today and here we are.
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Project Haven has a very similar system (demo out tomorrow I believe) with their free aim system. The bullets cluster more in the middle and different guns have better/worse spread plus based upon your marksman skill. You can see it in action here:
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3 hours ago, Stuurminator said:
Are you referring to a light machine gun? There were three of those, IIRC. One of them had "mini" in its name (the Minimi), which is about as close as any got to a minigun.
Yes that one, I think the confusion comes from that...including my own. The M134 is the, "Minigun" that people refer to usually but the term, "minigun" is rather vague and could be applied to many things:
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1 hour ago, MateKiddleton said:
I already blocked him, life is good
I'm hoping at some point the mods here will realize just how much he is poisoning the conversations/community and just IP ban him. You and I both have seen on discord that fans have no desire to engage here anymore because of this one person making it an almost hostile environment.
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0 to 12 as of now, all in favor for not showing CtH. I wonder how many alt accounts that kid will make to try and skew the poll.
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The, "minigun" wasn't the vulcan type seen in movies but rather a different one that still fired an impressive 6 rounds at a time.
47 minutes ago, Image Miroir said:The entire team with minigun in full-auto fire mode and hollow points rounds and it was quite easy.
Yeah if I had one at the time, LOL. I was mid game when I tried it and I maybe had one top end AR.
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1 hour ago, Solaris_Wave said:
Yeah, that bug Queen was one tough enemy to fight! I had to do a lot of saving and loading to avoid having my mercs killed.
I never made it to the queen in the one time I went after her the, "traditional" way. I ran out of ammo half way to her and all I brought was HP ammo which was the most effective against them. The other alternatives are to use the robot or the smell camo which makes the whole thing too easy.
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I liked what Sci-Fi mode brought to the game on the surface of it but it just became annoying. Also going after the bug queen was so not fun needing to either cheese the encounter or bring dump trucks of ammo that it wasn't entertaining in a tactical sense.
The NPCs elements (like the wheelchair guy) and the robot though were cool additions though. Something like this I could see as a DLC but would take too much focus away from the core game to be in at launch.
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It looks like they are using guns as a sort of progression system like JA2 did based upon everyone using a pistol in the games we've seen. As unrealistic as it is, it does make for a better feel of progression in the game. We can't upgrade from a sword +2 to a sword +3 so better guns is the way to go. There can be slight variations in stats of course but a gun is a gun unlike a lot of fantasy RPG weapons. With so few equipment options it's either force various gun types like pistols -> shotguns -> SMGs -> ARs -> LMGs/Snipers or add gear like armor, vision accessories, etc or even weird stuff like JA2 did with some devices you could build.
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52 minutes ago, Solaris_Wave said:
I wonder if the inventory could be modded? At the moment, the idea of a shared inventory just sounds like your mercs have a medieval squire pushing a weapons cart behind them and waiting for them to call him, so he can run up with some ammo.
I went into quite a lot of detail with my own Weapon Characteristics thread, on the inventory (simplifying it a little as I continued to post in the thread) and that was before I saw the current, basic looking setup. Surely, there can be something better than what is there now, without being too complicated, but not reaching implausibility for the sake of simpler gameplay?
Not likely something that can be modded without extensive work, not an, "off the shelf" type mod. Anything in games dealing with the UI tends to be an order of magnitude more difficult.
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My fondest memory of JA2 is a bug with the Shady Lady where Fidel got the key to the place but the enemies didn't mind if he walked around without paying. He was able to visit every single room, launching the, "sex" scene in each one after another, until he walked out the front door and immediately collapsed from exhaustion.
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50 minutes ago, DougS2K said:
Are you sure on that? Last I saw devs said there will be no Bobby Ray's equivalent but there would be a merchant on map which I guess would cover Tony but I used Bobby Ray's more personally. I didn't hear any mention of ammo mags or NVGs in the dev streams and I've watched them all. Maybe I just missed it???
I can understand that some people don't like to micro manage inventory. I on the other hand enjoy it. I like equipping each merc with enough mags of ammo and such to withstand the battle. To each their own but at least we agree that the shared inventory is not a good design.
Yeah this is what I'm hoping at the least.
Again, I enjoyed this element in JA2. Having a mule merc run guns back to Tony for income and worrying about getting attacked was fun for me. Maybe I'm just weird like that and like all the little details/micro managing. Haha
No Bobby Ray's but merchants at least. Sounds like more local merchants which would be less wait time for equipment than Bobby's Ray's. On the most recent stream one of them said NVG very casually, I think near the end.
Inventory management simplification is often seen as a big QoL thing in games. I tend to agree with this, but maybe wouldn't have 10-15 years ago until I was spoiled. In JA3's case it takes away a significant game play element of ammo/gear managedment so I am against that part. There's nothing wrong with enjoying micro management of inventory but it's likely not popular with most players these days.
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I suspect they made the maps smaller specifically to make shorter range weapons be more viable and longer ranged ones less so. They seem to be head over heals with the double barrel shot gun but who brings that to a war? Of course I was always put off by the fact the whole thing starts with pistol fights which make no sense but I disgress...
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I agree with a lot of the list. #1, #4, and #7 are basically confirmed in the game in some fashion if you watch the dev streams.
The one thing I'm not set about is that the new inventory system is bad or at least all bad. Is it realistic? Hell no. Does it save time so that I can play the game more instead of micro managing inventory? Yes. The missing part is that inventory is a non issue in combat now which takes away a strategic element. From that point of view I think reloading from sector inventory is bad and should not be allowed.
A lot of the game play elements like perks/traits, bleed chance, militia size, etc...those will probably be moddable. I hope the same is true for adding your own custom merc pics.
#9 is definitely a convenience thing to keep the player moving and not micro-managing to make a buck. Similar to inventory it's, "busy work" that isn't really fun so it's trading realism for more fun game elements. It's only of those things realism people want but after playing with it feels really nice and convenient.
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14 minutes ago, Godzilla said:
Very correct, most people who are apologizing for the devs are apologizing not because they have actually thought about the issues, but instead are apologizing because they havent and want JA to do well.
Its not a real disagreement, almost all of the real fans see what and where the problems are.
Most of you are just responding because you want this issue to go away and for you to return to your ignorant bliss as you await the release.
I hope JA3 does very well, because you know who will be the first person to remind you that I told you so: me.
Better hope that in august or december it doesnt turn out to be a dud...
You are much more likely to affect change by being kind, open to ideas and helpful than vitriolic as you have been. I have helped change be made to other games by being an active member in the community and garnering support for what I wanted to be changed. Your efforts here and on Steam actually have the opposite effect of pushing people and developers away from you and your goals because of the way you act. It's not the CtH issue going away people want to go away at this point but rather you and your extremely contentious attitude toward the subject. You aren't interested in discussing it, just trying to label people against your opinion as wrong or ignorant.
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Burst/Auto fire balance - A different root cause
in General Discussion
Posted
It has nothing to do with stealth or detection, this happens in the middle of combat they are saying. So the issue is there's not enough counter threat (interrupts and overwatches) to you just moving your mercs around the map in the middle of combat.