Home » SIRTECH CLASSICS » Jagged Alliance: Unfinished Business » Vanilla Modding » Motivation to finish the game?
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| Re: Motivation to finish the game?[message #101194]
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Wed, 14 April 2004 00:09  
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 Kurt |
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Messages:420
Registered:March 2004 |
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The problem is indeed routine. By mid-game you've got your teams together, you have got the weapons you needed, now all there is left is endless micromanagement (replace lost militia, keep your mercs equipped) and of course battles. And I have to admit that battles in JA are very repetitive: Big initial enemy rush, followed by a *long* search for those last hiding enemies, that's all. Battles get tedious. They lack the excitement of the beginning, and they are much too much alike. The only thing which keeps me going is - sightseeing! Yeah, the scenery in UC is outstanding. Makes me want to visit every single sector...
IMHO that could only be changed by enhancing the enemy AI (see that thread, in that forum), so battles would be unique (or at least require more than one player neurone to be fought).
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Master Sergeant
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| Re: Motivation to finish the game?[message #101195]
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Wed, 14 April 2004 00:26
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| KIA |
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Messages:92
Registered:November 2002
Location: Virginia (USA) |
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Actually, I think variety in objectives would make a huge difference. For example, all current objectives are as follows: kill the enemy, clear the sector, repeat. Kill, kill, kill. It gets tedious.
If the objectives were 1) find the power dam in the river above (x city), 2) blow the power generators without destroying the dam and flooding the city, 3) use the resulting blackout to raid the main armory outside of town, liberate weapons and destroy remaining stockpiles, and 4) using the newly acquired resources, raid (x city) and break (informant) out of jail so that informant can assist us with locating (arms dealer) - or something like that - the game would be MUCH more interesting. It is the sheer lack of strategic options which makes the combat into a chore. Endless well-equipped enemies, nagging supply problems, micromanaging increasingly more difficult combats, all interfere with enjoyment. The kicker is, at present, there's no way to change those problems. There is no strategic solution such as cutting enemy supply routes or diverting enemy reinforcements to another sector. If the White Hats can figure out a way to make strategy effective in-game, they will have accomplished a major step toward making this the perfect game.
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Corporal 1st Class
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| Re: Motivation to finish the game?[message #101197]
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Wed, 14 April 2004 06:32
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| Kurt |
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Messages:420
Registered:March 2004 |
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Here are some options to break routine:
- Tanks, indeed. Make a whole enemy tank bataillon rove the countryside - So the player has to play hide & seek untill he has got the necessary hardware to make some hit & run attacks.
- Yes, cause-effect strategic missions like KIA suggests. Another exemple would be having enemy supply convois you can ambush (if you know where and when), and which will lower enemy readyness in some isolated garrisons (and equip your forces!).
- Airstrikes, why not, but I'd rather see helicopter (gunship) strikes, since you usually don't start carpetbombing your countryside just because of a couple of pistol- and shotgun-armed mercs.
- Orders. It's usually when you're about to crush the enemy that you get the order to stop everything, or to concentrate on another point, giving the enemy time to regroup and gather forces.
- Armed factions which can help, but also change side (think Afghanistan). You can't trust them too much, but you desperately need them (like, they have tanks/aircraft). Their loyalty is dependent on lots of money, weapon deliveries and helping them in their very own war against other factions. If you anger them, they won't hesitate to switch sides.
- Add civilian management (think Irak). That means riots, hostile civilians who could be undercover soldiers but you can't just shoot without proof. In the same spirit:
- Suicide bombers (same). You'd have to add a means to issue orders to civilians and to search them.
- Weather! Make it influence visual range, movement rate, merc morale, health, and equipment quality. Implement a fairly inaccurate weather forecast (Internet?)
- Sickness. Malaria and other things like that could defeat the strongest force, forcing you to lose time & money waiting for everybody to be able to fight again.
And so on.
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Master Sergeant
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| Re: Motivation to finish the game?[message #101206]
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Thu, 15 April 2004 01:50
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| ZaPPPa |
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Messages:25
Registered:January 2004
Location: San Jose, CA |
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I definately agree that MERC's get too good too soon, but this can be eaily changed I guess. I haven't looked at that part of the source code, but if you halve the experience points you earn, you can slow the progression down.
Also, if I occupied a town and I knew that a gang of merc's was out to get the mine, I would set up machine gun nests or barricade myself in some way. I just watched the third Band of Brothers episode on TV last night where they took Carentan and those German buggers were hiding on second floors, behind walls, sniping and had machine guns covering all routes into the town.
In JA the soldiers will run right at you, running over open fields to get you. For some reason they will always be on the offense while defending something is way easier and safer than attacking.
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Private 1st Class
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| Re: Motivation to finish the game?[message #101208]
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Thu, 15 April 2004 12:10
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| chanman |
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Messages:47
Registered:August 2001
Location: Delta, BC, Canada |
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I think having more 'Mike'-like characaters would be fun too, rival mercs trying to hunt you down or defending key points.
The armed factions could work like the assassins in DL
about the weapons; I was thinking that maybe some weapons could only be available with the mercs you hire?
for example, it seems odd that there would be so many G-36's in DL, but say only 2 or 3 of the AIM mercs had them, and that was the only way to get them (like the G11 in the original).
making the high-tech weapons rare (among the enemies too, giving them only to characters, for example) would force the player to use plain-jane weapons longer.
To extend this further, it'd be neat if some items were merc-specific, and they took it with them when they left (Gus's G41, for example)
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Corporal
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| Re: Motivation to finish the game?[message #101223]
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Sat, 05 June 2004 05:06
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| trevorColby |
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Messages:26
Registered:August 2003 |
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Quote:a smaller gameworld Yes please... I don't have as much time to play as I used to. I think a perfect size would be 4-5 cities, in a game world that's about half as big.
Do you remember the original "Master of Orion" game ... you got to specify gameworld size as a toggle-able option at the beginning of each game. It would be great if there were something like this for JA2. Small (3 cities), Medium (5 cities), Large (the whole map). Then someone like me could play a campaign in two evenings, and people who want to play the whole thing can also do that.
I have played JA2 over 10 times... maybe 15 times total? That's a LOT of time to fight your way past the tanks, storm the gates of Meduna, capture and defend the Gardens, etc etc. I don't even mind the fighting so much -- I love the combat of JA2 -- but unlocking doors, managing sector inventory, doing mine sweeps, etc just kills it for me.
I'm keeping my copy of JA2, obviously, but I really don't want to start another campaign at this point in life.
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Private 1st Class
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