Raeven

Also putting bug in the subject header is just asinine and diverts attention from people actually submitting bugs.

I don't really think any of these changes are necessary or would make the game more fun. I suppose better AI is always good. I think the other things are just fine as is.

As I said in my previous post - this is really, *really* not the case. The variability in viable weapon types is very high and you don't feel railroaded into any specific type. For example, underslung grenade launchers are *hugely* powerful and only available on ARs. Machineguns were nerfed but still incredibly powerful. I'm in late game and am doing the dual anacondas thing. I'm even using a shotgun with Barry and it's playing a key role in destroying cover and targeting multiple enemies in one shot. You *can* outfit everyone with a sniper rifle and win that way, but it's no more overpowered than the varied approach I am using.

I don't necessarily find this to be the case because sniper rifles only let you get off one shot per turn and you are often outnumbered. I agree burst ARs could be stronger but machineguns, explosives, shotguns, and melee are also proving quite useful to me in different roles. Even with ARs, you can get at least two fully aimed headshots off vs just one for a sniper rifle. I'm even running Vicki with dual anacondas and it's working quite well, in line with the other weapons in the squad. Overall I'm finding the weapon balance to be more varied than in JA2 which forced everyone into assault rifles.

My point is that in JA3 it takes time for the enemy to spot you, it doesn't happen right away like in JA2. So the only way to make this system work would be for the game to be redesigned to be like JA2. Try pulling off some simultaneous real time stealth kills, it's fun. It's different than JA2.

It's a gameplay mechanic. It makes the gameplay more variable and interesting to have weather conditions.

JA2 did not have the option to enter turn based mode manually. Only in modded versions. This game is designed differently than JA2. Enemies do not notice you immediately when you approach, instead it's based on a real time timer. If it was turn based as soon as you saw an enemy, but the enemy did not see you, you'd kill everyone easily before they could even react. It's a different game. Try setting up simultaneous stealth kills in real time, if you pull it off it's fun as hell!

You know, I think this is true. One of the biggest complaints people had at first was that stealth was overpowered, yet we are talking about a mod that makes stealth much more powerful being 'necessary'. There's another way to look at it. Yes, the UI is kinda fiddly, and it's a turn base game. But the thing is, the lack of pause does add tension and stress and uncertainty to the stealth system. That's not necessarily a bad thing. @sandman25dcsss said something about it not being fun to have stealth broken because they weren't fast enough, but there's a flipside to that - on a few occasions, I have managed to pull off a simultaneous ranged and melee stealth kill with two different mercs, and while it was really difficult to pull off, when I did it felt *glorious*. I think the real question is, does the game allow you to recover and play through the encounter if your stealth plan falls apart? And I think the answer to that is yes, it does. Not having things always go according to plan is the intended experience I think.

They're not going to do it. You know this, right?

I built my second squad around Wolf as a mechanic and mods keep failing 😭😭😭

Yeah I conquered fleatown and cacao but skipped diamond Red. Oh well, I'll know for next time!

Eh, I think its a good thing for choices to have consequences - even unpredictable ones. Besides, it gives me a reason to replay the game 🙂

Idk, the ARs hav lots of useful mods available and use far less AP, esp. guns like the Steyr aug. Plus you can use grenade launcher which is very powerful. I don't find ARs to be useless by any means...

Dangit, I mistyped this question and I can't delete it now. What I intended to say is that I went to diamond red and Slave Master Graff was not there, and the liberating diamond red quest was gone from my notes. Just wondering if that is intentional?

I finally went to diamond Red after the whole Biff / refugee camp incident and he wasn't there.... Did I miss him? Is this intended?

It would be cool but it will never happen. Tons of new animations would be needed.

I haven't noticed that bug with claustrophobia etc in vanilla myself. I'm playing through the game unmodded and it's just fine. Not sure if I'll do a second playthrough later or not, usually I only play games once. Every one of the mods in the original post lower the difficulty in one way or another, which I haven't felt a need to do on commando. I find the game to be reasonably well balanced without them.

Modding weapons is fun though.

The lack of true RPG style vendors is one of the big letdowns of JA3 for me, although I love the game overall. That said, I think introducing a major vendor into the game as it's currently designed would throw off the balance. The scrap economy is intended to replace selling of items and scarcity is a big part of the games intended design and challenge. I think adding true vendors would only work well as part of a whole slew of other large scale changes in some kind of total conversion mod. I miss item shopping as much as the next player but it just does not fit into JA3, unfortunately. Fortunately I do enjoy the game we have.

I don't think this is true. On my recent playthrough I noticed that single shots were almost always higher damage, sometimes significantly higher damage, than burst shots.

Figuring out the best weapons in the game is a little difficult because different weapons allow different mods. For example, as far as I can tell, the auto-5 is the best shotgun in the game because it can have an extended barrel and increase its range to 20 with sabot shells. Another example is the mp5k, which has a non removable barrel that reduces the AP to 3 but also reduces the range. On @DougS2K's spreadsheet it's listed as the base (unmodded) AP of 4 but since the "mod" is not removable, it's really 3. Basically, the spreadsheet as it currently exists doesn't really show what weapons are best, but there's no straightforward way to represent that since mods are so variable. Any other guns that people have noticed are more powerful than you would necessarily think?

I can definitely respect your point of view on this, especially in the aspects you mentioned, like Merc perk synergies, gun synergies, etc. A mix of JA and D&D doesn't feel too far off the mark, to be honest. While I've really enjoyed that element of the game, in particular the variety of viable playstyles that exist in JA3 compared to JA2 vanilla (machineguns, shotguns, melee, grenades all feel like viable and unique playstyles, particularly when combined with the right mercs / perks), I can see how if more realistic tactical gameplay was your bent how you wouldn't enjoy it as much as JA2, or certainly 1.13. I think there is a bright future for this game in terms of the modding community. I can definitely see a "tactical" mod being released that strips out the perks, grit, bonus AP stuff (like "inspired", high morale, etc), adds LBE, item weight, magazines etc and turns the game into a totally different experience. Of course that's all theoretical but there's nothing about how the game is designed and balanced that would prevent that from being possible I don't think. It will be interesting to see what comes from this! Maybe Haemimont will make a DLC like this themselves, who knows.

Yeah this is an annoying choice that isn't telegraphed very well to the player. Especially with how common it is to temporarily split squads and stuff. Sometimes I throw one of my RPCs into my main squad and then take them out again, forgetting that they're taking half of my ammo with them. Then it's back into the interface to drag it all back... PITA. If squads were generally static it wouldn't be an issue but just like JA2, I don't find this to really be the case. I'm not sure if Haemimont would address something so fundamental with a patch, but it would sure be nice. Along with sector stash auto-sorting like JA2 had, auto-merging of item stacks, and item categories. At a minimum, a "send all squad supplies to different squad" button would be very useful.

Interesting. I have had the opposite experience. I recently played JA2 and felt like the strategic layer was easy and no pressure, whereas JA3 has kept me on my toes. That is also related to my playstyle though which is fairly slow.

It works like that using the NCTH setting of 1.13. The only other game that uses a model like this is Phoenix Point. The tightening of the circle is just a UI element telling you how much you are aiming. The size is not relevant. JA2 works the same way.