JA3

[Keyrock]

I've had no difficulty issues, granted I'm a slow gamer so I probably haven't gotten to the challenging stuff yet. I'll probably play on Commando difficulty on a subsequent playthrough.

[Humanoid]

Weighing up whether to download the demo at the moment. I have no doubt I'll buy the game in the medium-term future but don't want to commit to a campaign-style game at the moment.

I've watched enough of the early game on YouTube now such that spoilers aren't a concern, but I don't like repeating content and the demo apparently contains the starting island (which seems pretty generous).

[Zoraptor]

Starting island is maybe 4 hours. Probably a bit less for most.

Only significant 'complaint' I have so far is performance, the game doesn't look good enough to be quite as slow as it is even on an old card. Niggles are there being no buying/ selling, or at least so far as I have got.

Plus the voice acting is far too good for a Jagged Alliance game. Where is the iconic "she. is. evil. . a. driven. bitch" type stuff where it sounds like they grabbed someone off the street and held them at gunpoint to deliver their lines?

Edited July 29, 2023 by Zoraptor

[Hurlshort]

50 minutes ago, Zoraptor said:

Starting island is maybe 4 hours. Probably a bit less for most.

Only significant 'complaint' I have so far is performance, the game doesn't look good enough to be quite as slow as it is even on an old card. Niggles are there being no buying/ selling, or at least so far as I have got.

Plus the voice acting is far too good for a Jagged Alliance game. Where is the iconic "she. is. evil. . a. driven. bitch" type stuff where it sounds like they grabbed someone off the street and held them at gunpoint to deliver their lines?

You could always recruit Omryn if you want bad voice acting. 

Spoiler

Elliot also makes an appearance.

I just finished after 60 hours, and I'm already itching to play again.

[Lexx]

So I've tried using a machinegun, and I think now I get why some folks have issues with ammo. That thing is blasting inside the view cone like there is no tomorrow. It's pretty easy to use up 100 rounds of 7.62 in a single battle. But on the other hand, I'm cutting down enemies so fast... it's highly effective.

[Lexx]

11 hours later, I've triggered a.. uh.. main event. And now crap hits the fan, like literally. I'm completely outgunned, getting f'd on all sides. Spend the last 2 hours on trying to win a fight against 10 enemy dudes, and I'm getting wrecked. Had to retreat a couple times, while picking off a few hostiles here and there, to try to weaken the next wave...  I didn't realize what wimps the legion is... now I'm wishing them back. Jeez. Makes me wonder if I jumped ahead in the story a little too fast, or if it's intended like that. The enemies are rolling over my militia as if it doesn't even exist. Just by pure miracle (probably the god of random) I was able to keep one of my mines. Luckily I'm swimming in cash with half a million ... Decided to set up a 2nd team now, so brought back a few of my old pals. Shadow, Reaper, Scope, and as new addition, Fauda. Will see how that works out.. have to escape from starter island now, which has been completely overrun as well.

Edited July 30, 2023 by Lexx

[Azdeus]

7 hours ago, Lexx said:

11 hours later, I've triggered a.. uh.. main event. And now crap hits the fan, like literally. I'm completely outgunned, getting f'd on all sides. Spend the last 2 hours on trying to win a fight against 10 enemy dudes, and I'm getting wrecked. Had to retreat a couple times, while picking off a few hostiles here and there, to try to weaken the next wave...  I didn't realize what wimps the legion is... now I'm wishing them back. Jeez. Makes me wonder if I jumped ahead in the story a little too fast, or if it's intended like that. The enemies are rolling over my militia as if it doesn't even exist. Just by pure miracle (probably the god of random) I was able to keep one of my mines. Luckily I'm swimming in cash with half a million ... Decided to set up a 2nd team now, so brought back a few of my old pals. Shadow, Reaper, Scope, and as new addition, Fauda. Will see how that works out.. have to escape from starter island now, which has been completely overrun as well.

If you're looking to hire another, I can recommend Thor, his... uhm... candies are real nice. Not that Scopes biscuits are bad though.

[Lexx]

Managed to get a foothold now, slow but steadily. Man, the difference with the new team is huge. 4 people, all high level, and even with their crappy starter weapon they managed to give those army dudes a run for their money. Have to say it was really fun to hunt down single enemies with shadow and knife them dead. Also Scope hasn't missed a single time yet - reminds me of the good old days. I really like how the elite mercs look like actual soldiers, while all the early game people clearly are not.

[ShadySands]

The game got much easier for me when I learned how to do stealth kills better. Now I can clear most maps without major firefights.

Spoiler

It seems like it's a story trigger for the **** hitting the fan. I've triggered it multiple ways and they're all once you learn that the definitely not secret bad guy is actually a bad guy all along. Seems like as long as you can delay that discovery then you can keep grinding up your mercs and militias. By doing that I was able to hold almost everything I had taken, except for starter island.

 

Edited July 31, 2023 by ShadySands

[Hurlshort]

Now that it seems like most of you have hit the 'twist', I've got to say I really enjoyed it. It really ratcheted up the end game. I had to do a tactical retreat with one of my small squads and it was one of the best battles I had in the game.

[Lexx]

Yeah, up to that point I honestly thought I'd be steamrolling through the rest of the game. Boy did they showed me. It actually made me wonder how they thought the initial encounter should play out - do they actually expected your entire team to die, and you would then hire new mercs for revenge? It took me a hell of a lot time to get everyone out alive.

[Keyrock]

I guess I haven't reached "the twist" yet since I'm still steamrolling everything. I've been very slowly and methodically clearing out the map. With 3 diamond mines under my control (and I'm on the way to a 4th) and half a dozen or so diamond shipments intercepted I have so much money. I went ahead and hired 3 more mercs to fill out my main squad of 5 and secondary squad of 4 and make them both full squads of 6. I could have hired even more mercs but I don't particularly see the need right now. I do need to get to a sector where I can craft ammo, though, because I chew through 7.62WP like crazy with the RPK.

[Lexx]

There's two more things I'm not really a fan of: 1. Some of the eastereggs are *really* on the nose, and there's some areas where they seem to show up all the time, right next to each other. Wish it would be way more subtle. And 2. some boss characters have an incredible amount of hitpoints and/or armor protection. I get it, they want to make me have a challenge, but it just kinda pulls me out of the game if there suddenly is a guy that has me blasting magazines and grenades into him and he just won't die.

[ShadySands]

Finished the game. I think I encountered 5 recruitable mercs but I only picked up 4 of them and I'm not sure why I did the last one except to see if I could.

Will probably wait at least 15 minutes before starting again.

[ShadySands]

On 7/31/2023 at 6:40 PM, Lexx said:

And 2. some boss characters have an incredible amount of hitpoints and/or armor protection. I get it, they want to make me have a challenge, but it just kinda pulls me out of the game if there suddenly is a guy that has me blasting magazines and grenades into him and he just won't die.

I've been using a mod that helps with this. Makes all weapons do more damage, including to you, and lowers the health of some of the worst offenders. I die more often when things go bad but I feel like I'm cheating already just by knowing my hit chance, it really does change how I approach each encounter.

Besides my merc and some of the recruitable ones my best have been Fox, Barry, and Livewire from my starting team.

My biggest complaint is performance.

[Hurlshort]

Hitman called me ace one last time when I finished the game and it felt like I finally earned my dad's approval.  

[ShadySands]

I may have to start playing the volume on to hear the VA. I play most everything muted except maybe an RPG that I'm playing for the first time.

[Keyrock]

I finished JA3. It's a dang good game and a fitting sequel to JA2. I'll play again on a month or two on commando difficulty.

[ShadySands]

For my new game I wanted to see what would happen if I was already at LOCATION when EVENT pops off. Plays the same, not that I'm surprised that you can't prevent it with foreknowledge or luck.

Livewire with a few supporting rockets, grenades, and mortars is stupid broken. Automatically (providing you have intel, which you should if you have Livewire) knowing where every enemy is and then pink misting them from beyond their visual range. After my custom merc she's been my VIP on this new playthrough.

 

[Hurlshort]

Livewire has a lot of attitude, but it is pretty justified. I mean, yeah, it's not fair that you have to watch over everyone, but you are damn good at it.

[Keyrock]

Patch 1.1.0 released today. What makes this patch notable is that it includes the first batch of modding tools.

[Lexx]

Patch roadmap: https://community.jaggedalliance.com/index/dev-diaries/devdiary-16-patch-roadmap-r21/

Bobby Ray's incoming! On the one hand, I've really missed the shop, on the other hand, my crew is already fully decked out and I don't really have any issues with crafting the ammo I need. Since I have almost unlimited amount of money now, I fear the shop will make the game even easier.

That said, I do kinda miss the early game difficulty. Rolling with 2 squads of fully geared out mercs with high skills does make the game quite easy most of the time.

[Keyrock]

On 9/16/2023 at 2:57 AM, Lexx said:

Patch roadmap: https://community.jaggedalliance.com/index/dev-diaries/devdiary-16-patch-roadmap-r21/

Bobby Ray's incoming! On the one hand, I've really missed the shop, on the other hand, my crew is already fully decked out and I don't really have any issues with crafting the ammo I need. Since I have almost unlimited amount of money now, I fear the shop will make the game even easier.

That said, I do kinda miss the early game difficulty. Rolling with 2 squads of fully geared out mercs with high skills does make the game quite easy most of the time.

I'll probably start another run when 1.3 comes out and we get Bobby Ray's.

[Keyrock]

1.3 is out and this includes Bobby Ray's!

I'm currently deep into The Talos Principle 2 and nothing is tearing me away from that until 100%, but I'll be returning to Grand Chien soon.