anon474

It really is interesting. When one leaves, another shows up saying the same thing... Peculiar, most peculiar.

Or I should say, you're not wrong that things are complex regardless of how it's quantified in the UI, but generally it's better to have UI that fully show the various factors that impact a given system in strategy, so that we can 1 make good decisions 2 see when something goes up or down. And that if something like XCOM shows a very important "factor" that JA doesn't show, that's probably not good.

That's what I mean in a way, 80% of the original fanbase will check out and look at JA3, but maybe only 20% of the generic normie mainstream population that just in general likes RPGs and CRPGs will. On balance they end up more or less similarly sized, imo. I say about 20% of the general audience because of how unfamiliar the general audience is with something as niche and specific as tactical strategy and tactical turn based strategy. The genre is very unfamiliar to mainstream audiences, and if they are familiar with it, they're more familiar with something like XCOM, which is a much more mass appeal version of tactical strategy, imo.

Yes it is a sophisticated analysis "another guy with a 1 hour old account suddenly agreeing with all other suspicious brand new accounts who also basically admitted to us he's an alt for another user on this forum in another thread" " Showing / not showing CTH isn’t about the underlying complexity of any of these games" Yes it is. Big number scary I know. More numbers = more complexity, less stupidity. FPSes have numbers too. But because FPS audiences aren't interested in numbers (or maybe they are, I'm not hating on FPS fans), the genre naturally loses complexity because there's less math, there's less precision, and overall less min-maxing. Min-maxing is important here. Furthermore, if you can see precise numbers you can make better decisions. Otherwise how are you supposed to make precise informed decisions. Well you can't. So you'll end up guessing. There are also other reasons we want to see precise CtH because only in strategies with complex enough mechanics would that number even matter, or grow or change significantly character to character, because those characters will have different stats and loadouts. Also I didn't say CTH is the only thing that makes JA complex or uncomplex, but it's certainly a bad look if XCOM has a complex feature that your strategy doesn't. Since XCOM is a more mass appeal strategy, I would say. Also it's about respecting your audience enough to let them know precise information like precise CtH versus letting them guess. "nuXcom uses a probabilistic system, as does Arcanum." As literally any other RPG does? What RPG doesn't use RNG? ????????????? "Neither are simulating ballistic or martial attacks." Yes they are. Arcanum has ranged weapons, arcanum has ranged spells, arcanum has melee attacks. Huh? "Both of their systems are actually more simplistic than what we know about JA3," You give me such @Solaris_Wave vibes, it's ridiculous. You're 100% giving me those vibes. He also spoke about "ballistic modelling" and "simulation". You must be him. You also got super mad at me when I criticized your little post 1 month ago lol. "although the Arcanum comparison is really an apples to oranges situation." Not really. There are things that are dissimilar, and things that are similar. Both arcanum and JA2 are turn based strategies with squad mechanics. There's a lot of similarity. There's a bit of unrealistm in that Arcanum is still a ability-based RPG, versus JA which is an item based RPG, but aside from that. "Not showing CTH was a deliberate design decision for JA2, " LMAO no it wasn't, they were over budget and over time, stop it. They also had no resources (at least by modern standards). There's probably a bigger dev team working on JA3 than on JA2. "not a limitation of technology at the time." It's not just a question of technology, it's a question of the maturity of the genre. You're getting mad at Call of Duty 1 not having a zombies mode, because it came out at a time before designers even figured out a zombie mode. "It’s a promising sign that Haemimont have a strong vision for JA3" Omg ok bro. Stop being PR manager for 2 seconds please. "and aren’t chasing what is safe - a chronic problem that’s led to the failure of all the JA2 sequels, including Flashback." 🤣 Excuse me, allow me to laugh again: 🤣 You think CTH is what led to the failure of other JA clones and franchise entries? CTH? SHOWING A LITTLE PERCENTAGE CHANCE TO HIT is what you think caused them to be unremarkable? NOT real time combat (and very very average 3D graphics)? Not Flashback only having 10 dollars in a budget they raised from kickstarter?? 🤣 "We have an active thread on this topic in General Discussion, let’s not derail this thread." Let's not derail this thread meanwhile you're literally on your 10 alt accounts posting endlessly about CTH brother. "Our opinions are known and arguments made." Oh ok, and our alts are made as well aren't they mr "agris" who already knows how to use the website, set up his profile pic and background photo, and has

Omg another CTH purist. CTH has been a staple of all tactics since time immemorial. 1.13 implemented it instantly. The only reason why they didn't implement CTH back in JA2 is because JA2 came out in 2000 when age of empires 2 came out, when we didn't even have 3D Graphics. CTH was also implemented in JA flashback and maybe a few other JA titles, I'm not sure. It was certainly implemented in XCOM. If JA2 would've implemented CTH it would've fit right in and fit with the level of seriousness and complexity JA2 was aiming for. If XCOM is more complex than JA3, you know you got problems. And making it to where the strategy with the numbers vs the one without is XCOM would be to reduce complexity from JA, and to also create a number of other problems. Even XCOM 1 had it. Even CRPGs from back in the day like Arcanum AFAIK had CTH on melee attacks etc.

Yeah, I worry with all of this "chaos" this might turn into a "crazy wacky adventure" in the style of XCOM or some more quasi-comedic title. Listen I'm not hating, and I support the devs and the franchise. But if they want feedback for how to make JA3 more like JA2, I can do what I can to point them in a few right directions.

I'm going to be honest: I dont think it's a good idea to not include CtH or some very accurate and high-accuracy representative of CtH like the JA2 1.13 bar. I don't think it has any redeeming features or reasons. The reason why JA2, in my opinion, plays like XCOM is because of all of these things like freemove and grit, and also because of the 10 different unique abilities like Kalyna's armor pen talent which turns JA into an RPG with unique abilities and cooldowns. CtH was not responsible for JA playing like XCOM (which is the reason that developers gave for why they opted to get rid of CtH).

A concise-ish list of requests, to potentially make JA3 more like JA2: 1 perhaps not have freemove and grit systems. I realize and understand that it's a bit unrealistic since they're already implemented and balanced, but I'm just saying what would be ideal, in my opinion. 2 perhaps get rid of all active abilities, like kalyna's armor ignoring ability, or igor's talent ability. the only abilities a JA strategy should have is, the ability to move, to shoot (or use another item like a grenade or a knife) and to set up overwatch/reaction (but without a cone, if the merc can see the enemy even at 45 degrees, then then a reaction can be triggered). 3 have some levels that have more in-depth and more longer enouncters, where instead of just taking over a small 200 square feet of a town, have some missions where you need to take over an entire military base, and the base is intentionally set up to resist assault, and it becomes about planning your assault and how you enter the base...and from which direction...all these things. I don't think its a big deal or a bad thing the way current enemy encounters seem to be set up, but I only saw very narrow small-ish encounters in parts of the map, and I think maybe there should be levels where the entire map is the encounter. 4 add night vision goggles, and similar types of items 5 get rid of ammo and attachment crafting and force you to have to either find the items or buy them, and balance it correctly so its not impossible to find a silencer for something like a 9mm gun but its not too easy either. I can keep going, there's many more different ways to make JA3 more strategy-orientated. I wrote a big forum post on it in general discussion if anybody wants to see it. That aside I think you guys are doing a great job, even though I think some of the mechanics are not exactly what I would prefer, but its ok and I'm not going to complain too hard about it.

Brother, excuse me for presuming, but I think you got your wires crossed and referenced JA2's mods which are XML/JSON based, and tried to use that in an argument about modern engines which are very proprietary, and the video games that they create are very hard to modify (to modify a game made in unity or unreal, afaik, you'd literally need project files for the game, and then, you'd need to modify the project files and create a whole new separate game entirely). There are some exceptions, I installed some mods on some projects made in unity and unreal. But they were borderline cheats. I installed a mod for a small unity game, and it was literally a RAM modification software, that had to be launched simultaneously along with the game, and had to be running in the background. This kind of modding is not easy AT ALL. And because it's RAM modification its not even modding, this is like borderline cheat installs, this is how cheats work.

"It's also not 2011 where you need proprietary things like Skyrim's creation kit to make big mods. I have made mods for a game this year that only required me to, "code" with a text editor to make changes." ??????? LIKE WHEN Only time I remember doing something like that with JA2 because it has those XMP files you can modify settings in. No idea what you are talking about, sorry. Things get more complex and more proprietary, not less.

It's not 2002 unfortunately, modding isn't so simple especially with proprietary engines. Modding would require a tool like Bethesda releasing their mod tools to the userbase, and unless those tools or some kind of editor is released, modding will be difficult, and few modders will have the skills necessary to create mods. Half Life and Warcraft 3 were so moddable because they were both very simple, and written on very easy to unpack or mod engine foundations.

I don't want to say you're right...but it appears that you are right, there was no bar that fills up to show chance to hit. An argument I can use at this point is to say that JA2 came out so long ago that even things we take for granted and staples of the genre, or any RPG, have not been implemented yet back then and people were still trying things out and "figuring things out" (not that all of the conventions of modern video games are good but...)

I actually don't think it came from XCOM, I think this came from CRPGs and was indeed a new creation of the dev team. They wanted to add new things to the formula of JA, which by itself is a great intention, but sometimes the things you'll come up with will be too far in a given direction and will be undesirable. Creation is often 100% new ideas but only 50% you should end up implementing, so to speak.

CtH was already in, there was a bar that very closely showed the percentages and went up to 100%. Also almost all tactical RPGs show % to hit, this isn't new at all.

"JA franchise* and JA2 were very interesting for very different reasons" rather, please forgive my English