The second worst gaming experience of my life, I finished it mid last year and haven't played anything since.
I beat JA1 in a couple days (good game btw) and jumped straight into JA2, I played on intermediate difficulty (huge mistake) + iron man mode.
Playing this game felt like having a full-time job. When I beat it I felt nothing but relief that I wouldn't have to play it anymore.
I wish I could explain my experiences in more detail but I've literally blocked the memories out.
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i agree completely but get ready for nostalgia gays to shit on you
Bait. I do prefer JA1, tho.
compared to the other games i play, JA2 is like a stroll in the park. Maybe its just not for you
>JA2 is like a stroll in the park
You played on easy mode or you copied other people's strats.
I get why iron man would be hard for a first run
But like don't use it if you can't manage it?
Why not use it yourself then? Nobody except your autistic ass says you should jump on harder difficulty right away
Hey man, I know you're coming from Ganker so you're used to having to use bait to start a thread that actually lasts more than 7 minutes, but here, you can actually be honest and effortpost, the thread will still be here in a few days, especially for a beloved game like this. I understand where you're coming from and honestly man I have done the same shit as you, many times, but here on /vst/ you don't need to pretend to be super angry or bitter to get people to respond to you - it's a refreshing change of pace.
Yeah. The AI that mostly just runs at you makes it kind of a cakewalk. Interrupt actions and rooftop prone snipers are king.
I really like Stracciatella as well, i suggest people play that instead of vanilla and then try 1.13 if they want more /k/ autism and such. Also 7.62
much as i used to really enjoy james' videos, he would never play this fricking game. and the tactical combat is probably the best part, aside from the atmosphere, writing, voice lines, etc...
it's more like, the world map is 'relatively' static compared to something like UFO:Defense or TFTD, so every time you replay the game, you can sort of do it the same way if you want. I've tried a lot of different paths, but my typical order is Drassen, Drassen SAM, Cambria, Central Sam, Chitzena, Chitzena SAM, Alma, Tixa, Balime, Orta, Meduna.
If you hire the right people at the start + your custom merc, you can go pretty damn far.
Not the any of the posters to whom you replied to.
The easiest way to kill AI is urban combat, hide in a corner next to a door, fire once and wait.
My town list:
>Cambria, San Mona (permanently station boxer, and get Joey back so I can recruit Vince), Cambria SAM, Tixa (for Shank), Drassen, Drassen SAM, Alma, Balime, Orta, Chitzena, Chitzena SAM, Grumm, Meduna
G9 Cambria is usually my repair base, it have a shop where I can buy repair kits, and electronics for my mechanics to fix in case they are idle. And with luck Devin is permanently stationed in the diner there too, so you can buy explosives (mostly mines, and late game LAW's, and mortar shells).
how do you use grenades in this game, i found them too low range inaccurate and small AoE to be worth using most of the time would rather shoot burst from AR than waste my AP on it. Made the gameplay kinda dull and low variety
>how do you use grenades in this game, i found them too low range inaccurate and small AoE
yup
you don't
Grenades are situational, but generally are a meme. I believe a lucky grenade can damage a tank. A grenade through a door/window can break up an ambush. I’ve thrown mustard gas grenades into a room, then closed and locked (lockpicking) the door, but I could have just shot the baddies just as well.
>how do you use grenades in this game
gas grenades to do area denial
explosive grenades to blow enemies away from their cover, also to break their aim and make them hit the ground
also if you do 60-something damage to a tank with a mortar or LAW, it's cheaper to spend a grenade to finish it off rather than another LAW or mortar shell
>too low range
throw with stronger mercs
or use grenade launchers instead of hand grenades
>inaccurate
throw with more dexterous mercs, or those that have the Throwing skill
>small AoE
again, gas grenades
>Made the gameplay kinda dull and low variety
i bet you didn't even go for hand-to-hand knockouts or knife/machete fights
>>Made the gameplay kinda dull and low variety
>i bet you didn't even go for hand-to-hand knockouts or knife/machete fights
This was something that i hardly ever did years ago but do much more of now, it can be really fricking effective at clearing certain city areas and especially the prison complex on the south road into Medina. You can get a strangle hold on some otherwise nightmarish zones by taking out the guards using stealth/knives/silenced weapons and not alerting the map. Still working on it but its a game changer once you know how.
Just a basic interface thing as well, you can via the mini-map see all items in a zone and equip them from the minimap to your merc without having to stop and trade in game, saves so much time and i dont think everyone realises you can do it.
They are very situational. If you play with bugs you will need to stockpile your mustard gas ones for them, its not recommended for beginners lol. Stun grenades are probably the ones i use the most to kill singular enemies, particularly ones that will never move from a set spot. In group situations mortar's and rocket launchers are the big damage hitters but with tear gas and mustard gas you can knock out multiple enemies ability to catch a breath and move, and then start lobbing in hand grenades to further k/o them or just shoot them on the ground. Quite a lot of enemies are equipped with gas masks tho so its not always the mass kill youd hope for, they will flee and regroup. Smoke grenades are maybe most useful indoors or fleeing in daytime outdoors.
Not exactly an answer i suppose but get JA2 1.13
it sucks I know
the tactical combat part is a dogshit
but I understand why so many people like it, it is great in many regards
JA2 doesnt frick around, i still have to save scum like a mf particularly early on with no money, but once you get some decent merc's/gear and learn a few tricks it can get much more smooth.
First merc pro tip, one of the best in the game is Raven because of her night op's skill and her excellent marksmanship/solid allround abilities, equip her with UV goggles asap and the best automatic weapon with range you can. If you attack zones at night she can turn into a wrecking ball, i like to pair her with Buzz who doesnt have the same movment but is probably even more accurate and is good backup. With her night op skill she see's enemies a square or two before they will see you and this is enhanced with UV googles (they are better than the night vision ones), might be as much as 2-3. So, machine gun burst fire the enemy, back away 7+ squares, and the enemy wont know where you are and wont toss a pin-point accurate broken light at you. Retreat some more, and go again. If theres 20+ enemies in a zone it takes a bit of planning and you will need a full squad as back up and you can get out flanked and over run, but in zones with 5-10 enemies she's not the hunted but the hunter.
You need to look after the mine towns you capture fiercely. Raven's bff Raider has very high leadership and mercs with high leadership train militia quicker and better than those without. Also hire a good mechanic and get the cheap ones avaliable for next to nothing - Dynamo/Gasket/Madog. Have them repairing guns in Cambria when you take it 24/7 to ship up to Tony and you can make literally 100,000 $ if you have the tons of guns setting on and enough patience to clear out many zones and bide your time.
I thought JA2 has pre-determined rolls in order to make savescumming useless?
true, JA3 is better
I'm playing Jagged Alliance 3 right now and i'm having a blast(literally, LMAO, i love shaped charged and destructible environments).
Same. So may people sa the story is worse than ja2, but is it really? Doesn't seem any more cartoony than ja2 but alot of people said it was flanderized. Didn't ja2 have mutant bugs and bolters from warhammer?
>Didn't ja2 have mutant bugs
only in the 'sci-fi' setting which you pick when starting the game (personally i never did)
>bolters from warhammer
most "sci-fi" looking guns were the rocket rifles and some H&K prototypes, but all guns still were at least prototypes in real life (even the rocket rifles - look up Gyrojet)
as far as the story goes, JA2 is a fairly conventional "dictator bad, remove" scenario with just a bit of backstory, no twists or quirks. the straightforwardness is what makes it good.
The story in JA3 is fine, just a little bit lacking but it doesn't actively make the game worse at least. The setting is 10/10 though, very flavorful and varied yet believable. If anything I really dislike the entirety of legion being naked warpainted Black folk.
I love the warpaint Black folk in 3. I feel like Col Kurtz doing an ethnic cleansing.
Can you guys sell me on this game? I really want to try it. Is the voice acting 1/4th as good as JA2?
They can't, because they're shitposting.
I like JA2 as a podcast game, when I have nothing better to screw around with. My most recent game I try to max out my personal character stats. I'm 500 days in, the first 400 I just captured Drassen, Cambria, and the two SAM sites tied to the cities, and trained my mercs, while I had a designated boxer (Bull) in San Mona earning additional funds (like an extra mine). It was not as boring as you'd think.
The enemy constaly assaulted Cambria SAM site every few days, killing most if not all militia, and gradually destroying the fences, tank traps, rocks, and foliage around the site, before if any surviving attackers run into the main building to be gunned down by my mercs at the door. Training militia there is how you improve your leadership.
You have to attack an enemy patrol every week, so Miguel won't complain about lack of progress, and sometimes your squad get injured, that is how you train your medical skill. You pick up all loot, and repair it, that is how you train your mechanics and dexterity skills. Sometimes you even buy electronics from the store, and repair them to train with, if you have nothing else. I was lucky and the explosive selling guy Devin was always at the diner in Cambria, so I was able to buy a bunch of landmines, and planting them near foliage in Cambria SAM site is how I trained my explosives skill, but what trains it even more is spotting mines on the ground, when coming to pick up loot near them later (because characters seem to forget mines they themself planted). Marksman ship maxes out easily from ambushing patrols, if your personal character is the one who gets to shoot first.
Agility improves from dodged shots, or dodged punches (my designated boxer is nearly maxed out without training), that I won't grind to max, takes too long. Strength improves from carrying stuff, or punching enemies, even cows (save the cows until your merc have trained to 85 strength, or have him box). Wisdom increases from using doctor kit. cont.
Wisdom also takes extremely long to level. And final stat Health can be improved by travelling, don't really go out of my way to train that, just have my personal merc carry the heaviest loot, and it gradually improves.
During character creation, I went for Night Ops +2, because of longer sight during night, and less sleep needed.
As for other mercs: Barry, Bull, Buns, Conrad, Danny, Flo, Grizzly, Ira, Maddog, Razor, Scully, Shadow, Shank, Stephen, Thor, Trevor, Vince
In hindsight, my only regret about picking mercs is retaining Flo, and Razor, instead of getting Grunty very early on, and maybe retaining Red (who I had early on as explosives trainer), or retaining Hamous instead of Red for giggles, or get Reaper but later in game. While Flo have a hidden advantage of better prices at stores, and Razor is good budget merc, but I resent having to go on MERC site every two weeks to pay them.
I usually hired every new mercs for 420 days immediately, so I can avoid paying them their fee increase as their skill increase for a long while. It resulted in losing some of that savings by the end, due to Scully (the most expensive merc I wanted to hire) leveling while working for AIM, making his hire more expensive.
I prefer all mercs having all skills avaible, and the only exception I ended up tolerating was Danny, because he is the best trainer for Agility and Health. As for mercs I picked on mainly based by sympathy, early on tried a few dedicated trainers like Raider, and Red, but found it's not necessary, because your main merc picks up faster on the job, and it trains his side skills as well, and he can train the others.
Something keep in mind, that you cannot escort the Chitzena tourists (two) if you don't have space in your roster (18 merc max, including player character), this side mission can be skipped entirely, but if your want to do it, you might want to do it early.
Some mercs also hate each other, so much that one of them leaves if you hire both.
Add to this, gameplay was most fun when on the defensive at Cambria SAM site, watching the two computer controlled soldiers teams going at each other, and wrecking the terrain. By the time there was little obstacle on the northwest side of the compound, enemy started to accidentally poke holes on the main building. Also you should save before every expected battle, because game can crash on explosions. Once cleared multiple towns, it became a chore to catch every partrol before they can reach far towns. Or had to use a vehicle
Big game error, that the gas station west of Balime always fuels up your Humvee, even if you go there with the Ice Cream Truck, and you have to fuel the ICT manually.
What late game made medical training easier, that enemies started using more explosives, and every battle had plenty of wounded, and plenty of gear to repair.
Also for repair, if you only use one merc at a time to repair, switch to an other one once have 100 mechanic skill, because mechanic skill levels way faster than dexterity, and you can max out the mechanic skill of all your mercs, before you could max out the dexterity of a few.
As to sleep schedule, when trainer goes to sleep, you should manually make all students sleep as well, so there is no idle time when trainer don't have active students, or active students don't have an active trainer.
As to storing gear, I picked the roof of the convinience store in Cambria, just dropped everything there, so no npc-s would pick them up, or accidentally blow them up.
Also add that I play non-sci-fi mode, so no alien creature attacks on town, just vanilla human enemies. They still use (fictional) rocket rifles late game though.
Always suspected this, guess /vst/ was always full of autistic nolifers.
>What if good game....BAD???
Genius insight there, zoomie.
>play iron man on an old game that's challenging
>get upset at being challenged
>sorry, I can't explain why it sucks, uuuuh... I blocked the memory! Yes, haha, that's how bad it was
>btw this was one and a half years ago and I'm making a thread about this now
Look, I appreciate every JA2 thread that comes around, but just make one without being such a spastic.
>give JA3 a chance now that it's got quite a few updates
>just gives me the urge to play JA2
>get weak after 5 hours
I'll give them that it's the first post-2 sequel that feels like any effort was put in. It's not bad. But I can't equip my squad like I can in 2, and that's half the fun. Spending hours in the game and finding the same four guns over and over is just not satisfying. Some of the voice acting is pretty bad too. Give me
>She is evil, a driven b***h.
any day.
Ja2 vas has soul.
depends a lot on which mercs you pick though
Grenades are for cover clearing and breaking ambushes or doors. Throwing mercs and launcher mercs can send them far
Agreed, dont play it because it will make all other TTRPGs seem shit by comparison and you will get an eternal itch nothing else can scratch again.
>I beat JA1 in a couple days (good game btw)
doubt
In JA3 you are fighting for a diamond company and killing hordes of Black person warriors
Is it just me, but it feels wrong to spend so much money on mercs in JA2? As in I get it, why risk death for pocket change, but when I add up mercs yearly wage, those are in the few million range, and not even level 10 mercs yet. It just bothers my mixed view or immersion, while being aware of game rules, where a $0 IMP, Ira, Maddog can do everything just as well as $80000/2week LVL6 Trevor. Even just $500 a day for Vince is $182500, just to have a medic, which my main character or Ira could do just as well. Or for example paying Hamous half of that, paying $91250 a year for an mentally moronic third worlder. Again I get it, why would they risk getting shot or blown up for less, but that's money my main character could bring home at the end of the operation instead. If one would pay with immersion, and the main goal would be saving up for a retirement account for our main character, why waste any money. Shank's $20 a day is the only actual wage I'm not bothered by (around the hourly wage of cheapest AIM mercs in game, or a current era american low skilled worker). Bull is ok, because he earns multiple times his wages with boxing, even at higher levels (but that activity becomes tiresome chore).
>yearly salary
Most merc contracts are not yearly, dude.
Most of them don't work the full year. Look up any PMC / private security company.
I know, but I was writing from the perspective of trying to be immersed in player perspective, while also knowing gameplay that how little difference do better mercs make in the game. I'm having a playthrough that is over 500 days, and starting to think of the money that was wasted on mercs being idle, and training while on my payroll. I understand that real mercs don't want to get killed for pennies, and in real life their skills are accumulated with years of training, that is what they paid for, as opposed to a few weeks or months of field training can bring up almost any stat or physical attribute to 85/100 in this game, making skills non unique.
Also this is late 90s third world jungle fighting, current era skills and physical attributes might even worth less despite inflation, due to low survivability caused by drones.
>yearly wage
you can complete the game's main objective in 3 weeks
Yeah, but than your merc would not have a giant retirement fund. Also if you want speed, you could speedrun in a few days, with a single merc. There is a youtube video about it, running to Cambria, picking up a few LAWs, repairning them enough to be used, and shoot your way into the queens palace, without fighting anyone else.