Quests ruin this game

[Whale hunter]

Honestly is there a quest thats not completely broken? how did any of these pass quality control. You have to complete them in the most specific order. Seriously the devs are a joke. Had to restart after 30 hours due to an invincible boss, now I'm 60 hours in with another broken quest chain. Sorry guys, had to rant, happy new year

[Whale hunter]

Originally posted by uncle nick:

The game is called jagged alliance and there are consequences for your decisions. You should be able to double cross the alliance that you make, so some quest will have to fail because of the choices that you made.

The end game is determined by the 3 big bosses that you take down, not by all the smaller boss quests you encounter along the way.

You’re not understanding, I’ll write it very plainly as I’m guessing English isn’t your first language buddy.

If you make difference choices like double cross, it shouldn’t fail the quest. It should be a choice, not a punishment

[uncle nick]

And you're not understanding that you do not need to recruit Smiley. Doing so should have consequences. Work for Booboo and you will now pass the quest.

If you kill both Booboo and Luigi, you will fail the quest.

If you are trying to do Biff quest, ....get sober Larry instead. Smiley quest is just a sideshow. Do you understand what is a sideshow?

[Whale hunter]

Originally posted by uncle nick:

And you're not understanding that you do not need to recruit Smiley. Doing so should have consequences. Work for Booboo and you will now pass the quest.

If you kill both Booboo and Luigi, you will fail the quest.

If you are trying to do Biff quest, ....get sober Larry instead. Smiley quest is just a sideshow. Do you understand what is a sideshow?

So you just proved my point .. COMPLETELY LINEAR IF THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY TO COMPLETE THE QUEST.

Do you need me to tell you what Linear means? or can you google it yourself? tell me your nationality and I will post it in your language so you will understand

[SirHawk]

Originally posted by Whale hunter:

Originally posted by Maj. Crimes:

Yeah, because the devs will now overhaul the whole game because someone is crying about it.

You’re simping over a game. Why are you so excited to tell everyone you’re a beta male lmao

The fk is wrong with you?

[Whale hunter]

Originally posted by SirHawk:

Originally posted by Whale hunter:

You’re simping over a game. Why are you so excited to tell everyone you’re a beta male lmao

The fk is wrong with you?

He brought the hate, don't blame me for responding in kind. Its legitimately not my fault he is bringing the beta male keyboard warrior attitude. He would never say that to anyone in person so its classic little man syndrome

[SumFatGai]

You probably have a different understanding of what linear is.

Linear is when you have only one path to follow, one conclusion to follow, whether you are given multiple choices to get there or not. That's Final Fantasy (except XIV).
Non-linear is when you have multiple conclusions. I'd say you were able to achieve one of the most interesting conclusions and achieved non-linearity. Congratulations.

For you to reach this "bug" conclusion, you made an extremely odd sequence of choices to leave Smiley's quest unfinished despite it being in the next sector. i.e. you had to
(1) Get Booboo's Good Place Mission
(2) Head back to discover/rescue Smiley from the thugs at the church
(3) IGNORE Smiley's immediate confrontation at Booboo's mansion
(4) Cross the river to complete/bypass Port Cacao
(5) Clear the Good Place, rescue Luigi, and THEN come back to Booboo, just for everyone to clusterf*** together.
I'm not sure any dev or player would've done that.
To echo what @SirHawk said, if you kill the quest giver (whether inadvertently or not), the quest is gonna have to end.
You also need to understand the difference between side missions (inconsequential ones, such as recruiting Smiley which is listed under the "Other" category missions), and main objectives (under "The Fate of Grand Chien" category, such as rescuing the prez). There's no Steam achievement for whether you complete side missions or not. I wouldn't sweat it if you missed a few missions that will not even show up in end-game slides.

There's always SOME linearity in a game. It's basic story progression.
There's nothing inherently wrong with linearity if it tells a good story. Not everything has to be completely open world sand-box type.
Else you could argue about making a beeline to rescue the president as your very first quest and ignoring all else. And then after you rescue the prez, multiple quests (whether they show up in your notes or not) are no longer available to you. And then you complain about not being to complete those other quests.
e.g. Refugee Camp gets shut down, and all the mini-quests within disappear.
If you shoot Bastien as he runs away in the first sector, the questline ends too.
You could even argue why can't you just kill Corazon right at the beginning of the game and end the whole intrigue if you knew she was duplicitous. You can't btw, she is immortal.
Or why not kill Emma, the person who hired you in the first place. Join forces with Corazon. Become your own dictator of Grand Chien?

If you're looking for more open world, you should be playing Baldur's Gate 3 (highly recommended btw).
This is Jagged Alliance, focusing on squad management, tactics and constant battles. It's NOT an isometric RPG ike Fallout 1 and 2, or Wasteland.

[Whale hunter]

Originally posted by KKG:

You probably have a different understanding of what linear is.

Linear is when you have only one path to follow, one conclusion to follow, whether you are given multiple choices to get there or not. That's Final Fantasy (except XIV).
Non-linear is when you have multiple conclusions. I'd say you were able to achieve one of the most interesting conclusions and achieved non-linearity. Congratulations.

For you to reach this "bug" conclusion, you made an extremely odd sequence of choices to leave Smiley's quest unfinished despite it being in the next sector. i.e. you had to
(1) Get Booboo's Good Place Mission
(2) Head back to discover/rescue Smiley from the thugs at the church
(3) IGNORE Smiley's immediate confrontation at Booboo's mansion
(4) Cross the river to complete/bypass Port Cacao
(5) Clear the Good Place, rescue Luigi, and THEN come back to Booboo, just for everyone to clusterf*** together.
I'm not sure any dev or player would've done that.
To echo what @SirHawk said, if you kill the quest giver (whether inadvertently or not), the quest is gonna have to end.
You also need to understand the difference between side missions (inconsequential ones, such as recruiting Smiley which is listed under the "Other" category missions), and main objectives (under "The Fate of Grand Chien" category, such as rescuing the prez). There's no Steam achievement for whether you complete side missions or not. I wouldn't sweat it if you missed a few missions that will not even show up in end-game slides.

There's always SOME linearity in a game. It's basic story progression.
There's nothing inherently wrong with linearity if it tells a good story. Not everything has to be completely open world sand-box type.
Else you could argue about making a beeline to rescue the president as your very first quest and ignoring all else. And then after you rescue the prez, multiple quests (whether they show up in your notes or not) are no longer available to you. And then you complain about not being to complete those other quests.
e.g. Refugee Camp gets shut down, and all the mini-quests within disappear.
If you shoot Bastien as he runs away in the first sector, the questline ends too.
You could even argue why can't you just kill Corazon right at the beginning of the game and end the whole intrigue if you knew she was duplicitous. You can't btw, she is immortal.
Or why not kill Emma, the person who hired you in the first place. Join forces with Corazon. Become your own dictator of Grand Chien?

If you're looking for more open world, you should be playing Baldur's Gate 3 (highly recommended btw).
This is Jagged Alliance, focusing on squad management, tactics and constant battles. It's NOT an isometric RPG ike Fallout 1 and 2, or Wasteland.

Thank you for the genuine and kind response, I believe my sequence of events was a little more straight forward then that. I picked up the smiley mission then picked up the Luigi mission then its all gone to hell. the fact that I have to finish the missions one by one surely proves that they are far to linear then an RPG in 2023 should be? All it needs is a line or two of code and dialogue to allow you to complete both missions. I'm fine with the being a hard fight and having to kill both parties, but don't give me a red flag and a failed mission status in my notes.

I really think that you should be able to pick up both quests and still be able to complete them without being forced to fail one of them. Thats my only gripe. Its such a simple fix, luigi wants the boss dead and so does Smiley, they are both there at the same time, but because the Smiley dialogue is triggered first the whole thing is ruined. One line of code would fix it.

[SumFatGai]

Good point that both Smiley and Luigi want Booboo dead.
If so, theoretically you should be able to complete both missions at the same time.
I've never sided with Smiley since I abhor him. I'm not with Luigi either since I really wanted The Thing, so I'm not sure if he will want everyone dead, including Mollie. And if so, then Luigi and Smiley are definitely NOT on the same side.

Here's someone else that experienced a similar issue (right at launch date in Jul), but through a different sequence of events by blowing up the wall with Smiley.
https://steamcommunity.com/app/1084160/discussions/0/7405656898329475691/
Someone else even released Luigi first before finishing up the Smiley quest (especially since you can go straight to the Good Place from Ernie Island). If you sided with Luigi and killed Booboo, what happens to Smiley and Mollie then? No idea.

I actually see that as part of the story and works as coded. As long as you force a confrontation between a sex-crazed, hot-headed Smiley and the committed, Machiavellian Booboo, whatever else that was going on with Booboo is intended to go to sh*t by design.
You can still report that as a bug, would be interesting if the devs don't see it that way.

Probably best not to see Jagged Alliance as an RPG. That implies being able to customize a main character. The IMP merc doesn't count. Since the beginning of JA it was always just meant to be a cheap plug-in merc to give you an additional illusion of customization and fill any gaps in your squad.
Keep in mind, you are the AIM COMMANDER (just like XCOM), you are NOT a merc.
It's mentioned/implied at the beginning of the intro.
https://jaggedalliance.fandom.com/wiki/Commander

[Jean-Luc]

Can someone explain if Finding Smiley is bugged or failed for me?

Here's the order of events:

- Early game. Had not yet met Smiley, just gathered some clues. Got quest from Boss Blaubert.
- Accidentally ended up across the river near Port Cacao with no free port to take me back.
- Ended up having to take Port Cacao which then turned into a huge tangent of me taking the entire city and going to the Good Place.
- Freed Luigi. Finally went back to Fleatown.
- Sided with Boss Blaubert but he got insta-killled by a machete during the opening turn. Nothing I could do, can't reload so BB and Luigi are both dead now.
- Went back to the church, I can see Smiley standing in the back of it but the door leading to him is "impossible" to open and the priest just tells me Smiley is hiding somewhere.

Am I locked out of meeting Smiley? Right Hand Man is marked as failed but Finding Smiley is not.

As a fun sidenote when I went to Cote d'Azur there was a dust storm. I threw a grenade at what I thought were two enemies and ended up aggroing and killing the boat captain there. Didn't even notice until the dust settled both literally and figuratively. Pretty big logistical handicap.

Playing semi-ironman with both Dead is Dead and To the Bitter End is pretty wild but also interesting. Also Biff is dead as a Dodo. I got so delayed at Port Cacao that my northward progress lagged a lot and there was no way for me to reach him in time.

[SumFatGai]

Originally posted by Jean-Luc:

Can someone explain if Finding Smiley is bugged or failed for me?

Here's the order of events:

- Early game. Had not yet met Smiley, just gathered some clues. Got quest from Boss Blaubert.
- Accidentally ended up across the river near Port Cacao with no free port to take me back.
- Ended up having to take Port Cacao which then turned into a huge tangent of me taking the entire city and going to the Good Place.
- Freed Luigi. Finally went back to Fleatown.
- Sided with Boss Blaubert but he got insta-killled by a machete during the opening turn. Nothing I could do, can't reload so BB and Luigi are both dead now.
- Went back to the church, I can see Smiley standing in the back of it but the door leading to him is "impossible" to open and the priest just tells me Smiley is hiding somewhere.

Am I locked out of meeting Smiley? Right Hand Man is marked as failed but Finding Smiley is not.

As a fun sidenote when I went to Cote d'Azur there was a dust storm. I threw a grenade at what I thought were two enemies and ended up aggroing and killing the boat captain there. Didn't even notice until the dust settled both literally and figuratively. Pretty big logistical handicap.

Playing semi-ironman with both Dead is Dead and To the Bitter End is pretty wild but also interesting. Also Biff is dead as a Dodo. I got so delayed at Port Cacao that my northward progress lagged a lot and there was no way for me to reach him in time.

You need multiple clues to "find" Smiley, then get the priest to acknowledge he is being hidden in the back of the church. Everything from:
- Maman in Pantagruel (all the clues on the map that she wasn't kidnapped)
- Optional random clues along the world map (from Refugee Camp to a random hideout south of Pantagruel where Smiley and Mollie were ... intimate)
- Lalee the lootbox guy in Fleatown to spill that the priest knows more about Smiley

Not sure what happens if Booboo is already dead though. Smiley automatically gets Mollie and joins you? If after all of the above, you still can't get the priest to acknowledge hiding Smiley, then you might be locked.

[Jean-Luc]

I have a few clues and have talked to Lalee but haven't yet been to the Refugee Camp or Pantagruel so that'll do it hopefully. It just felt like I'd missed some crucial step. It feels silly to literally be able to see Smiley inside the church while the priest plays dumb. Thanks.

[SumFatGai]

Originally posted by Jean-Luc:

I have a few clues and have talked to Lalee but haven't yet been to the Refugee Camp or Pantagruel so that'll do it hopefully. It just felt like I'd missed some crucial step. It feels silly to literally be able to see Smiley inside the church while the priest plays dumb. Thanks.

In case it wasn't obvious, you can toggle different overlays on the map view (bottom right), including one for "Notes".
That'll usually tell you outstanding missions, and where to possibly go (yellow icons). For Smiley, there should be notes stating "There may be clues about Smiley in XXXX".

[druzilsupreme]

OP your issue is you're getting hung up on every quest in the game needing to be completed successfully. While technically possible, it's not intended that you can do so (or at least, not on a first playthrough).

[WildOne4ever]

Es ist doch fast wie im "echten Leben" . Entscheidungen haben Konsequenzen. Smiley ist es nicht wert angeheuert zu werden. Boss Blaubert hält den Laden am Laufen und zählt praktisch zur Infrastruktur :-) . Luigi ist eher ein schmieriger Kerl, der gerne auch mal seine Verwandschaft killt . Man sollte sich immer mit dem Schwarzmarkt König gut stellen ;-) .
Als ich damals, beim ersten Spieldurchgang, Smiley in der Kirche entdeckte, war ich erfreut, dass ich nicht lange suchen muss. Neben der Kirchenwand steht so ein "schönes" explosives Teil, rot markiert. Beim Entschärfen ist es aus Versehen explodiert . Danach war ein großes Loch in der Wand und man konnte direkt zu Smiley gelangen . Danach ging es zu Boss Blaubert und im Gespräch merkt man doch sehr schnell, dass Mollie nichts von Smiley will. Der war für sie nur das Trittbrett in die "Freiheit".
Sie will lieber im Luxus leben. Und man sollte immer die Wünsche der Frauen respektieren .
Warum sollte man also den lieben Boss Blaubert töten ? ;-)
Er gibt dir dann den Auftrag mit Luigi und später bietet er dir die Zusammenarbeit an.
So gesehen macht alles einen Sinn . Oder anders gesagt. Die Spiele Entwickler haben sich schon Gedanken gemacht, welche Konsequenzen jedes Handeln nach sich zieht . Ein bisschen kann ich deinen Frust nachvollziehen, aber nicht diese Entrüstung über nur eine Möglichkeit zu einem guten Ende zu kommen. Denn der "richtige" Weg wird einem ja in den Dialogzeilen gut erklärt, wie oben schon beschrieben.

[Stone]

Is the Ghost working now? My squad always bugged out after leaving the cellar.