MateKiddleton

This I can say isn't really true. In fact I'd say there are more ways now than JA2 to tackle an engagement. I took an outpost with a combination of knives, stealth pistols, snipers, assault rifles with grenade launchers, grenades/molotovs, mustard gas and machine guns. Coming from JA2's FN-FAL meta and hiding behind walls waiting for interrupts, this was actually the most fun I've had for a long time in terms of combat variety.

Yep, stamina in JA3 is limited to overland travel/activities and in combat, only flashbangs seem to drain stamina (makes them suppressed/tired). Stamina management was a key part of JA1 and JA2, and is a key point of difference to other turn based tactical games, which is why I put it so high on the things that bother me list.

Put Livewire in the same team as Raider and Raven for some hilarious digs at cops

Ngl, I absolutely hated the scripted events when they happened, but they forced me to use whatever I could to survive (including hauling ass behind a large wall for some tried and true JA2-style tactical cheese). In hindsight I grudgingly appreciated being thrown in the deep end.

The two things that bother me most are: 1) Heavily wounded enemies (and mercs) being able to run around like they're at full health. There is no stamina management at all. 2) Reality bending abilities like lightning reflexes. 100% guaranteed condition-free damage mitigation shouldn't exist.

I agree, lightning reactions doesn't make any sense at all. It should be a small chance to evade damage/grazing hit, not 100% plot armour.

You can take her and just not put her on intel duty. Her wallhacks only activate if you assign her to scout beforehand

Yep really wish you could take out the spotlights

Ironically Biff in JA3 looks much more serious than his hilarious pictures in JA1 and 2.

Making sniper rifles more AP costly might not work as well in JA3 because of the smaller AP pool and lower AGI marksman mercs not being able to fully aim, or even fire the rifle at all.

Tbh I felt the same with JA2. Once everyone was fully decked out in top gear and all my mercs had 90+ MRK, the rest of the game was EZ mode. I don't mind too much, it rewards your early struggles.

Enemies do seem to be less aware of you if you approach from behind. Mercs can see 360 however. I believe that they made overwatch the way it is in JA3 to stop the JA2 interrupt cheese. In JA2 you just set up multiple stacking viewing cones like overwatch in JA3. Unlike JA3 however, you have complete freedom, making interrupts extremely powerful and loaded in the player's favour. You essentially get to have your turn in the middle of your opponent's turn. You can aim, you can run, you can shoot, you can correct your mistakes. All this while it's not your turn. You can completely change the course of battle in JA2 just by preventing snowball effects from an otherwise uninterrrupted whole enemy turn. In JA3 overwatch, you fire from the hip. If you miss, you're done. If an enemy rushes you with a machete, you're screwed. If they survive your volley of fire, you're in a bad spot. There is no course correcting.

I liked the inclusion of the JA1 mercs, everything else just made the whole game an edgy milsim. It's not a game anymore, it's a military management excercise. At that point why even call it 'Jagged Alliance', it should just be called 'Spec Ops in Arulco'.

Most are not quests, just extra info. I click on NPCs if I need it. There are plenty to click on as you move through towns so you can carry on exploring while getting more intel

Even with JA2 and Silent Storm knowledge (stealth mechanics are very similar), the game is quite punishing. Just have to adapt to new strategies. Also had a look at a youtube demo of the CtH mod. It really completely changes the game to EZ mode. When you see your CtH change in real time while aiming it really makes it a different game. I had to see it in action to see how big an impact it makes.

I actually like this, instead of following quest markers on NPC heads, you get random bits of info from rumours that pique your interest. Not all of them are quests, some are just hints for other quests.

Didn't JA2 also have three slots for helmet, armour and pants? There was one extra slot for sunglasses/NFG, and one slot for extended ears which quickly became irrelevant as everyone had extended ears and you couldn't put anything else on. JA3 at least has primary and secondary weapon slot loadouts so you can swap in combat, which JA2 did not. As for merc inventory - that could do with some work, at least visually.

Approaching enemies from behind makes you less easily detected, but they can still hear you. Mercs have 360 vision/hearing. Just assume they have extended ears on, and are scanning their surroundings (which they should be doing) at all times.

I can help you with this one, it's in the options under the auto-pause section.

I agree with this, not showing CtH in isolation but showing everything else just makes players focus on the one missing thing. In JA2 they show you nothing, no indication of your bonuses/maluses, so you don't really go looking for it. If they were brave enough, they should've experimented with hiding everything in combat. Or maybe they already did and decided not to do that.

I would say tactical is its strongest and defining feature.

After watching the dev stream, the JA3 overwatch system is definitely a lot more complex than I first thought. And there's definitely more control than the random nature of interrupts in JA2.

Same energy as boomer karens on facebook. But instead of asking to speak to the manager, they ask to speak to the devs 😆

Definitely done for game balancing. You can fire the M-14 roughly twice as fast so they halved the damage of the PSG-1. There needs to be a good reason to pick a one-shot-per-turn sniper rifle over an assault rifle, so they upped the damage.

Heh, you've just described about 70% of the other games I play. I don't really mind, gives me something to do in my downtime, allows progression, and keeps my gear from being too strong. OP gear was a huge problem for me in JA2 endgame, every headshot was 100%, the game turned into ez mode, and subsequently got boring real quick. The most fun I have in every JA2 run is early and mid-game when everyone has terrible gear.