Dr.Kuhn

Personally, I'd love to, but I'll be physically at work. I'll still keep an eye on it.

Even if true, why'd they move away from the "you see an enemy or they see you and combat immediately starts" system from JA2? What about that design philosophy irked the current devs THAT badly???

I do enjoy that a dev actually came on this specific thread with threats against people like yourself that post baseless claims of others having sock accounts. I'm not sure which person you think I am, and I'm not sure whether to be flattered or insulted, but please, stay on topic, or, if there is a god, the dev's MIGHT actually follow through on giving YOU the perma-ban hammer.

Which players? If you think I enjoy having my small squad completely surrounded in night combat with inferior NVG's is a blast, I'd ask for your dealer's number. Jagged alliance has always been trying to find an optimal route where you totally dominate the enemy team with superior strategies because you're ALWAYS outnumbered and don't have the raw firepower the enemies do entering a sector. JA 1.13 introduced new methods in this regard as well, with the addition of the "spy" ability. Being able to potentially disable the alarm in Alma to get the rocket rifle could be a massive jump in firepower, all for being able to avoid combat completely (albeit temporarily). Things like that are interesting. Solving the puzzle is interesting. Arbitrary combat designs in a game that goes completely turn based, while simultaneously allowing the enemies to move to protect themselves....isn't actually fun.

Literally nobody thinks that any company's forums are an accurately reflection of a company's values and beliefs. You ever work customer service? I'm assuming "no" because you'd probably not come to these awkward and extreme conclusions that you have. The forums are NOT for selling the game, they're for discussing it. You seriously think people that have never played a Jagged alliance title are coming on here instead of...say...steam? Like...really?

This decision by the dev team is arguably not better. It's a completely made up restriction that ONLY exists in this game. This isn't for the sake of "fun"; it's because the dev team clearly made the basis of "needless complexity" or "unusual amounts of scarcity" a core tenant to the game's architecture.

They used the excuse of "balance" but that's just bizarre. It's as if they're downplaying the idea that superior tactics shouldn't win out. If I have a good idea of where an enemy is, and I know a fairly optimal approach to ambush them, why should they get a massive leeway when it didn't work like that in JA2 or real life? It's why ambushes are so incredibly dangerous: you hold the element of both surprise and superior position. Position HAS to matter. The scrambling at the beginning of combat is the absolute worst, xcom-y feature they've added to the game that I truly wish they didn't. Of EVERYTHING they've added to the game that I genuinely despise, this is the one thing I'd say HAS to come out.

They do, indeed, go lower and functions the same as JA2 from what I've seen. Go to the 12:34 mark in the video.

This is interesting since I haven't seen any night battles with the german players. Leaves me a bit confused that the night atmosphere is closer to normal Jagged alliance visuals but day time is like you have total awareness of the enemies at all times. A glimmer of hope for the night combat then.

You really think the "poor devs" can't defend themselves? lol Listen, I already pre-ordered the game because I'm hopelessly addicted to ja2 1.13, but I'm thinking of the game in the overall scope of things for them. I don't need to make the sales, they do. Your awkward, pedantic attempts at putting what I'm saying into quotation marks doesn't actually prove or do anything. Strength being significantly less relevant because of "the bag of holding" inventory, and no weight system is factually true. It's not a debatable talking point. It's why it's worth discussing the mindset behind the design decision. Will any devs even come to this forum? No idea. I more or less present the idea to the community to get feedback. Realistically, nothing is going to change about the game a week before release and anyone would be a fool to think otherwise.

I've watched multiple german uploaders gameplay videos where they have constant awareness of where the enemies are in a sector with zero line of sight. It actually plays into the live stream they did today. When Brad mentioned the difficulty in balancing out stealth combat...I bet! lol When you have total awareness, you aren't really taking "risks" anymore. On top of how powerful knife combat already looks, I'm almost shocked they wanted to include melee combat. It made sense to me why the one dev saying they needed to nerf melee after he solo'd the game with 1 mercenary and just doing knife combat. I'm almost curious what the pre-nerf state even looks like.

Addressing a game design flaw is "hostile"? What else is "hostile" to you? I'm not walking on egg shells because some nobody on the forums doesn't fully approve of my choice of words to describe an issue.

Sorry your toxic positivity doesn't resonate with me.

Literally just this 1. I'm not perusing the forums to see if this point has been made or not, as it doesn't seem to be a topic the devs talk about during the livestreams and it seems like a fundamentally glaring flaw in the game design.

Willing to bet money you cried up a storm on the forums, both on steam and here, about losing your change to hit percentage. You have xcom fanboy vibes all over you.

The inventory system is already a circus show with the implementation of a shared stash that ignores weight and distance but tying Strength to it to determine the size of your "stash" legitimately makes me think someone was doing drugs in the office that day, but worse, that idea didn't just hit the table but also went into the game like it was some kind of 4-D 5000 I.Q. chess move. When I make my IMP, I really need a reason to not give him something like 35 strength when I have zero intention of trying to engage in hand to hand combat in a shooting simulator. With the exclusion of fatigue as it was presented in JA2, and nothing really stopping you from carrying 6 mortars, either in your personal stash or in the shared stash, I really hate how Strength as a stat got caught in the crossfire of these HORRENDOUS design decisions. It's putting salt on the wound when a poorly designed inventory would've been more than enough for me to be like "Is Haemimont aware their core player base has more than 2 brain cells and aren't mentally crippled from having to manage their inventories in other Jagged alliance games???"

You're not accounting for something: Your I.M.P. merc

I think it came down to too many hands in the pot, so to speak. It sounds like there were too many conflicting personalities in the studio and it's led to specific things making it into the final cut of the game. The UI, the graphical animation choices, the inventory system being a clown show, constant awareness in a sector without line of sight, etc. I want a passionate team but I think there was a lot of agenda's in that office when everyone walked in and all of them clearly had a vision for what they wanted to game to be and now it's a bit of a mish-mash of things. I'm holding my breath and just hoping the game is fun regardless of some of these glaring gameplay flaws. If it isn't, well, fortunately $35 isn't bank breaking and we always have a passionate modding community.

Appeal to whom? They already abandoned the Chance to hit numbers thing, and according to the devs during one of their live streams, to a lot of disagreements and dismay. Go on steam right now and zip through their forums for JA3; you'll see endless crying about having no magical percentage number. So if it isn't the xcom crowd they're aiming for, who's this mysterious "other" demographic they're aiming at that'll give them financial success? We need to face the facts and accept that JA3 won't be a game of the year or a block buster hit. If I were Haeminmont Games, I'd be focused solely on the Jagged alliance diehards and keep them happy. The genre is already niche enough and I'd hope they didn't set their financial targets TOO high. This is a game that the long time fans will give a chance and might be aggressively forgiving because we haven't gotten anything worth mentioning in 23 years minus the 1.13 mod.

There's still the issue of line of sight being entirely irrelevant. It changes the A.I. logic completely and the player's as well I'd hope for obvious reasons. There was a literal cheat code for ja2 1.12 that allowed you to see enemies through the walls. It was a cheat. It was broken because constant awareness shouldn't be possible and gives you an insane tactical advantage because the A.I. has to operate by the rules limiting them to at least pretending they don't know where you are. You could argue that because they get the awareness as well that it just evens out right? Wrong. The overall gameplay is functionally different from a Jagged alliance title then. You're just solving a puzzle for a different game in an entirely different way. Will it still be fun regardless with that feature? I really don't know and I certainly hope so but constant awareness for you or the enemy is just such a bummer of a concept. It just wasn't necessary to make Jagged alliance fun and they forced it in.

Yeah these do seem a bit odd. It's almost like they're taking the natural state of the guns, plus the normal attachments on it and trying to break it down to a really technical degree. Maybe it's just me, but it's hard to imagine they didn't waste a lot of time on those features and they could've better spent the time else where improving the game.

I can SOMEWHAT understand why they might've been against the "interrupt" system, as is wasn't a perfect science to calculate and perhaps they thought it was too random. It'll remain to be seen if "overwatch" is the appropriate answer to that though, as it's like taking full control over "interrupt" and allowing both the player and the enemy to just force what would be "interrupt" situations, with significantly less options available (can't just shoot a shot and run, or throw a mustard grenade and dip, etc.).

See, my thing is, I don't necessarily have an issue with introducing NEW mechanics that could fundamentally be possible, or were likely impossible to implement back in 1999. I totally get trying something new. I don't mind the idea of perks and overwatch. I have to see what weapon perks are....that sounds weird. However, that being said, when they literally take 10 steps back from an established position from their previous golden title, THAT makes literally no sense and gives the impression the dev team is nowhere near as unified as they'd like us to believe. I'm not one of the diehards I see on the forums that thinks they should literally make jagged alliance 2 with updated graphics; while I'm certain that'd be fun, I DID want something different, but different didn't need to translate to "your mercs forgot how to wear a helmet and nvg. Also, the enemy ALWAYS gets to respond to you ambushing them with superior positioning, which of course you can determine because you have total omniscience of where all the enemies are regardless of line-of-sight".

This is all you needed to say. That sounds awesome, especially if the militia is intelligent like in ja2 1.12, and if the increased difficulty modes involve enemies attempting to use mortors and noob-tubes to try and regain a sector (1.13 style). That'd be pretty cool, but that's why it won't get hit their idea table...not xcom-y enough.

I half expected us to rely on the modding community to make this game closer to the actual Jagged alliance experience, but I was also equally hoping we wouldn't need them. Alas, you're right in that this bizarre design inclusion just seems like one of those "blind folded dart at a dart board" decision and makes literally no sense. This arbitrary restriction makes literally no sense since you could equip a helmet and nvg in Ja2, either version, AND you can do so in real life, so they just made up a fictional scenario where both are in conflict and not allowed in this game. How much it impacts the game will depend on the rest of the game and what we find and how we can interact in the dark but purely from the design stance alone, this wasn't a necessary design decision and feels like there was a disconnect in the studio.