elenhil

As some Polish firefighter used to day, 'Damn it all to hell!'

Look, they got nice ragdoll effects and stuff! No more identical death animations from early vids. And I spied some nice ballistic goodies, like pre- and post-target environment destruction.

Nah... They said missed targeted shots miss completely and can't hit another body part. So much for bullet trajectory simulation. Sigh...

Excellent devlog, and excellent UI idea, that timeline is! I'll expand on rwp's idea, though, and suggest its scale change with time scale. Intuitive!

Teenage me disagrees.

These AI-generated portraits are, in fact, weirdly reminiscent of the current hand-drawn JA3 ones in that they make stupid baseless changes. Like, why is the AI's version of Dr. Q. suddenly smiling? It makes the character totally different. And the answer to my question is: (dare I call it that) artistic sources. AI algorithms use photos of, inevitably, smiling people to teach themselves. H's human artists unconsciously (or is it consciously?) use things like Fortnite imagery. And the result is essentially the same.

I think the cravat is the least of Barry's problems. Compared to JA2 where Barry had a youngish, friendly face (and character, mind you), this Barry looks outright mean (blame the ubiquitous head tilt) AND old.

Sheesh... Do the mercs ever get tired from semi-squatting all the time?

Aha! Animation Lead. So now we know the person responsible for the ubiquitous head tilt, the smirk, and the harsh lighting. Sigh.

Er... Am I reading this right? There's literally THREE peeps on this forum that want CtH back, and still they keep on flogging this horse? That's a vocal minority all right.

Moreover, as we know from JA2 source code, chauvinism, sexism, and xenophobia is in the game's DNA :⁠-⁠) Okay, not akl of the above made it into the Vanilla JA2, but I heartily laugh at all its mercs' 'political' likes and hates, e.g. Steroid refusing to work with those Russians (iirc). It takes a lot of real-life stress awat to be able to laugh at these things.

Don't know what aar is, but NCTH made the circle represent the possible the exact possible locations that a bullet can pass through (at some point in time unaimed shots had circles half the map wide, haha). Sort of like Phoenix Point, but in isometric 2D

Plus, scoring cheap party-political points with make this game age VERY fast. Compare that to decades of JA2's undying splendour.

The thing I love most in JA dialogues is the fact that they are blissfully non-PC. And that (that, and gratituous violence), I think, is the essence of that 90s B-movie action flicks vibe that a true JA successor needs to capture.

This. The 1.13 or Phoenix Point approach is excellent UI design: a true WYSIWYG solution which, incidentally, solves the 99% miss problem.

Why not make the reticle's aiming circle represent the CtH, just like it is in JA2 v1.13, or sort of like it was in Phoenix Point?

Most probably. All the hallmarks of someone who learnt English in a Russian school are there.

Nah. Better make a second Elliot that would get slapped a lot. You can change the userpic but you can't change your self Ж)

I really like the thought you put into your post. Thanks a lot. I really wish the devs take note of it. However, I sincerely doubt the will substantially rewrite (and rerecord) merc lines because of cost concerns pure and simple. Sigh. Your point about arbitrary abilities is spot on, too. I am reminded of me being really disenchanted with Civilization V (or was it IV?) when a couple of patches down the line I realized all these Civics and Tech tree unlocks were almost completely arbitrary (because they kept changing and rejiggering them), shattering whatever illusion of historicity I still had. They looked cool and historical, but were essentially arbitrary 'buffs' that bore little relation to their names or place in the system.

Yep. That looks suspiciously like he's an 'essential NPC' (think Skyrim). Can't kill them other than through dialogue choices. As for 'pleasant small-talk'. Imagine the number of extra dialogue AND voiceover to accommodate for wounded status. Again, how many stages? Merely wounded? Lightly/severely wounded? Lightly/severely/near death? That's some serious extra dev costs.

There's only so much tweaking you could do if the map itself is tiny. Anyone seen surprize out-of-sight-range grenade attacks yet?

Yeah, right. Let's turn a beloved franchise into a running political commentary. Surely it will age well.

OMG, a 100 yeses! The 'direction' of these portraits is very noticeable (the tilt and the harsh lighting), and, unfortunately, one I just happen not to dig.

Nah. I hope their biggest mistake would end up choosing this specific merc art director/artist. I mean, I get where they were coming from, but the result just lacks the recognition factor for me. These are NEW faces that have very little to do with what I have grown to know and love. Really hoping for a decent legacy portraits mod.

Personally, *my* concern is whether the core gameplay is up to JA2's standard. No amount of XCOM2-like customization and progression goodies can replace a solid tactical (and strategic) layer.