Wasteland This combat is very annoying

[Levenmouth]

Yeah, I've seen dudes move something crazy like 6 turns' worth in the Prison Danforth fight. It really is incredible how that's a release day bug.

I thought it was actually pretty funny. You start a game and notice how the rabbits can run from outside of your sniper range and attack you. All right, they're post-apocalyptic giant rabbits, so I guess it makes sense. Then you run into brawler raiders who do the same. Well, maybe they're supposed to run from cover to cover or something. Then guys carrying LMGs do it while walking very, -very- slow. It's comedy gold.

I wonder how a fix will change the balance of the game. If everyone suddenly stops being Olympic athletes, all weapons with short range will become significantly less useful, while assault and sniper rifles will be unstoppable. My first team consisting solely of riflemen probably wouldn't be all that any more.

 

[Darth Roxor]

What's wrong with Scorpitrons? Isn't there all of about 3 in the entire game? They're start-screen icons. How can you hate them?

Having not encountered one yet, I would say it's hardly a tactical battle when all you did is simply outlast the behemoth HP monster over rounds and rounds of bullet spam and healing, is it?

Pretty much this. Fighting the scorpitrons is a massive borefest, you might as well just leave the shit on a macro that will play the game for yourself and come back in 10 minutes.

And in the fight against Dugan it's hardly even a waste of resources. You can just hide all your dudes behind the big-ass container to the right and then shoot it 30 times with an anti-materiel rifle using popamoling (out one square, SHOOP, in one square) while chasing off the mini scorps from time to time. This is *not* good design.

And speaking of not good design, at first I didn't believe it when people said heavy armour is a shitty thing to have because of all the energy weapons users at the endgame, but ho ree fuk were they right. WTF, a mob of synths with 2 melee dudes that die fast and 5 pulse gunners that can for some reason hit my folks for 300 fucking domoges? And they can even CRIT with said ENERGY WEAPONS even though it's impossible? And then suddenly all armour is removed and they do 15 damage per hit. Who the *hell* designed this.

EDIT: Oh hey, another scorpitron, and this time with 3500 hp instead of 3000. And some 10 minutes after the last one, no less.

oh my gooooooooooooooooooooooood

 

[Visperas]

This game needs more tactical options like the Tied Up rifle. A smoke bomb that block LOS, something that creates cover, something that creates impassable or harmful terrain (Molotov coctail), some kind of decoy... things like that.

 

[Jasede]

Levenmouth:

Assault Rifles are already statistically the very best ranged weapon in the game. Only the final shotgun is more efficient when used against groups, and the Gamma Ray is very good as well. So if they fixed this it'd not change the balance, only skew it even further in favor of the already best weapon type.

My concern is different: if they do fix it, wouldn't the game be far, far too easy? I'm playing on Supreme Jerk and I can tell you right now that nothing would ever get into melee range if this was fixed.

 

[Levenmouth]

This is my point also. I doubt they didn't know about this issue. It is too obvious and probably something that has been on the back burner for quite some time now, since fixing it would indeed completely break the balance of the game. W2's take on X-COM combat is a bit of an oddity.
To be fair though and not to dismiss the value of a glorious bayonet charge, but there is a good reason why all modern armies are armed with assault rifles.

 

[Shadenuat]

I'm starting to favourably remember Fallout's Small Guns & Big Guns. Granted it is a cheap copout and a nobraner on what you level up each level, but you don't specialize in "side arms" or optional weapons and always have options, like carrying a shotgun as main weapon for some cleaning up and a pistol with low AP cost - and you are always good at both. And system of perks allowed you to turn your big gunner into a flame tank with right perks, for example.

 

[Jasede]

I think my biggest problem with this game is the engine. I just spent an hour trying to figure out how to talk to Werewolf Wally only to finally read that there's an intercom I must have missed. Shit is so hard to see, even with the highlighting. I don't remember having this problem in Fallout.

 

[SniperHF]

I'm starting to favourably remember Fallout's Small Guns & Big Guns. Granted it is a cheap copout and a nobraner on what you level up each level, but you don't specialize in "side arms" or optional weapons and always have options, like carrying a shotgun as main weapon for some cleaning up and a pistol with low AP cost - and you are always good at both. And system of perks allowed you to turn your big gunner into a flame tank with right perks, for example.

The answer is AoD style synergies.

What we have is a mediocre attempt at maintaining a holdover of WL1's weapon skill system but not including it's equally crucial linearish weapon progression. So in WL1 you start with pistols/melee. Then you go through and get SMGs>Rifles>Assault Rifles>Proton Axe>Energy weapons. Mix in AT weapons in there throughout.

WL2 gives you all the weapon skills but none of the progression. It's not expected that every character will use assault rifles in WL2 where in WL1 it was. That's fine except it creates the situation you describe. limited weapon options as you are always restricted by a specific skill. To avoid that simply create synergies between skills.

So what WL2 did was please neither WL1 fans who wanted to stay true to the roots and maintain linear progression or those who wanted a more Fallout style with choices/options for weapons at any given moment. I think it was pretty clearly intended that characters should take more than one weapon skill in WL2 but in practice I find this pointless. It just adds to your ammo micromanagement. I only give snipers a second weapon skill. If multiple weapon skills were more necessary/advantageous this problem also would not exist.

I argued for synergies pretty heavily when all this was being kicked around on the official boards to a surprising amount of resistance.

 

[sser]

What's wrong with Scorpitrons? Isn't there all of about 3 in the entire game? They're start-screen icons. How can you hate them?

Having not encountered one yet, I would say it's hardly a tactical battle when all you did is simply outlast the behemoth HP monster over rounds and rounds of bullet spam and healing, is it?

Pretty much this. Fighting the scorpitrons is a massive borefest, you might as well just leave the shit on a macro that will play the game for yourself and come back in 10 minutes.

And in the fight against Dugan it's hardly even a waste of resources. You can just hide all your dudes behind the big-ass container to the right and then shoot it 30 times with an anti-materiel rifle using popamoling (out one square, SHOOP, in one square) while chasing off the mini scorps from time to time. This is *not* good design.

And speaking of not good design, at first I didn't believe it when people said heavy armour is a shitty thing to have because of all the energy weapons users at the endgame, but ho ree fuk were they right. WTF, a mob of synths with 2 melee dudes that die fast and 5 pulse gunners that can for some reason hit my folks for 300 fucking domoges? And they can even CRIT with said ENERGY WEAPONS even though it's impossible? And then suddenly all armour is removed and they do 15 damage per hit. Who the *hell* designed this.

EDIT: Oh hey, another scorpitron, and this time with 3500 hp instead of 3000. And some 10 minutes after the last one, no less.

oh my gooooooooooooooooooooooood

Your capacity for pressing through games always impresses me. I'm struggling just to get through Arizona. Are there fights that aren't borefests? I'm more intrigued by the ability to pass up fights when possible.

 

[RK47]

Yeah. I think I gave this enough of a chance.
Need 6 more months of patching.

 

[Darth Roxor]

Your capacity for pressing through games always impresses me.

In fact, I finished it today. And well, it's not like I didn't enjoy it, in the end I'd rate it as alright/10 - it certainly could have been better in many ways, but it's not wasted potential either.

Are there fights that aren't borefests?

Like I wrote earlier, the fights start to get better (or at least less boring) around the middle of Arizona (Titan Canyon+) once your dudes get better skills and bigger boomsticks, thanks to which you can properly dispose of high-threat targets before they get to act and you no longer suffer from 50% thc vs everything. They never do quite reach brilliance, though, except maybe the shootout at the farm in the Prison - that one actually gave me some minor JA2 flashbacks.

But otherwise, meh. Some shootouts are better (synth ambush at a farm NE of Santa Fe Base, LA aqueduct), some are worse (various trash fights against badgers, synth pulse gunner hordes before the endgame), some are infuriating (who the fuckerty fuck designed that one side-location with a brothel overrun by God's Militia is beyond me, same with scorpitrons). The enemy long-distance runners who can cross the entire map in one turn are also annoying, but after a certain point you get used to them, and considering that my boxing kung-fu jihad dude could dish out 450 damage a turn, well, those long-distance runners were heading straight into the meatgrinder.

 

[RK47]

I ran out of patience after this whole chickenshit

 

[Shadenuat]

It should be said that whole location has enemies that grealy outlevel you RK. If you get there after you bought a bunch of M16's from Ranger Citadel no movement bug will stop you.

 

[Levenmouth]

That interesting, they weren't hostile to me when I approached them despite having cleared the previous Scorpion camps. That let me basically take position on top of that barn and use one of my characters to block the ladder from above. It was pretty straight forward after that. I guess it's also kind of cheating.

 

[palmito]

Next patch should resolve the movement bug, upgrade loc, fix the memory leak issue and no doubt a long list of other bugfixes and tweaks, particularly as we polish up LA. I don't have full notes yet. The next patch doesn't introduce new content or Steam achievements yet, to the best of my knowledge, fixes have priority.

Targeting end of this week currently.

 

[Norfleet]

That interesting, they weren't hostile to me when I approached them despite having cleared the previous Scorpion camps. That let me basically take position on top of that barn and use one of my characters to block the ladder from above. It was pretty straight forward after that. I guess it's also kind of cheating.

They aren't hostile to you, normally. They're hostile to him because he SHOT them. Blocking the ladder doesn't really stop them, anyway. The issue is their crazy movement: Did you see how they would run clear around the house to get to him?

 

[RK47]

It should be said that whole location has enemies that grealy outlevel you RK. If you get there after you bought a bunch of M16's from Ranger Citadel no movement bug will stop you.

The complaint..isn't about levels nor combat difficulty. For the record: I still won.
But can I honestly be happy when playing with this?

 

[Shadenuat]

The complaint..isn't about levels nor combat difficulty. For the record: I still won.
But can I honestly be happy when playing with this?

Nah. Prison is probably the worst combination of LOS issues and AI weirdness, it's inexcusable and nobody should take combat seriously in W2 until they fix it. I was just giving a tip on how to avoid the pain of playing that area, since there are better and fairer areas out there imo (robots in Damonta are p. good in comparison).

 

[Norfleet]

Yeah, I find the robots generally moved at a reasonable rate, except those flying bastards. Also, because they aren't humans, you don't expect them to obey the rules that humans do. If a robot is inhumanly fast, well, you sort of expect that from something which ain't human.

 

[Mangoose]

This is my point also. I doubt they didn't know about this issue. It is too obvious and probably something that has been on the back burner for quite some time now, since fixing it would indeed completely break the balance of the game. W2's take on X-COM combat is a bit of an oddity.
To be fair though and not to dismiss the value of a glorious bayonet charge, but there is a good reason why all modern armies are armed with assault rifles.

Except, they aren't. A firesquad is (usually) armed with one regular rifleman, squad leader with rifle (or perhaps shotgun) and grenade launcher, a light machine gun, and an assistant to the LMG (said assistant carrying a rifle). Light arms are for assault, and it doesn't really matter what they carry as long as they flank/assault the enemy while the enemy is suppressed (well, it does matter what they carry depending on the situation). "Heavy" arms is for fire support aka suppression, and the assistant has a rifle because he's at long range. If LMG guy falls assistant takes over, rifle doesn't matter. Fire and movement/maneuver, learn about it sometime.

 

[RK47]

Except, they aren't. A firesquad is (usually) armed with one regular rifleman, squad leader with rifle (or perhaps shotgun) and grenade launcher, a light machine gun, and an assistant to the LMG (said assistant carrying a rifle). Light arms are for assault, and it doesn't really matter what they carry as long as they flank/assault the enemy while the enemy is suppressed (well, it does matter what they carry depending on the situation). "Heavy" arms is for fire support aka suppression, and the assistant has a rifle because he's at long range. If LMG guy falls assistant takes over, rifle doesn't matter. Fire and movement/maneuver, learn about it sometime.

Suppression is non-existent. Enemy has no morale.
Moving in formation is not implemented because formation is not important outside combat.
Until you get into a fight, lose initiative and get killed by AOE fire.

 

[Levenmouth]

Except, they aren't. A firesquad is (usually) armed with one regular rifleman, squad leader with rifle (or perhaps shotgun) and grenade launcher, a light machine gun, and an assistant to the LMG (said assistant carrying a rifle). Light arms are for assault, and it doesn't really matter what they carry as long as they flank/assault the enemy while the enemy is suppressed (well, it does matter what they carry depending on the situation). "Heavy" arms is for fire support aka suppression, and the assistant has a rifle because he's at long range. If LMG guy falls assistant takes over, rifle doesn't matter. Fire and movement/maneuver, learn about it sometime.

You might be referring to fireteams, not firesquads. A squad is much bigger than a fireteam and a firing squad is something else entirely. More importantly, fireteams are a fairly limited phenomenon. For instance, if we look at something like the former Soviet military, the structure of which persists in modern CIS armies, the smallest military unit would indeed be a squad, consisting of up to sixteen individuals depending on its branch (designated medic squads traditionally consist of only four people, often unarmed, allowing for easier evacuation of the wounded). This changes the distribution of LMGs drastically. Furthermore, you will find very few shotguns in any given modern army or police unit. This is very much a US-centric phenomenon. Most armies rely almost exclusively on automatic rifles for most of their personnel, with specialised weaponry given to specialised roles. Not knives, clubs, anti-materiel rifles or shotguns. Even in your fairly specific example, three out of four men would be carrying a rifle.
I left it out quite purposefully, since it's largely irrelevant to W2, which has no suppressive fire mechanics and only a fairly rudimentary depiction of explosive weaponry, but there you go. X-COM was a much more interesting game in this regard. Here's a picture of a glorious Swiss army squad armed with glorious Swiss rifles next to their equally glorious Swiss APC:

Spoiler

 

[Norfleet]

Regardless of how you want to slice it, it's clear that the assault rifle represents the dominant baseline weapon. Giving a soldier a different weapon makes him a specialist: The assault rifle performs every role: Not as well as a more specialized weapon, but specialist weapons lose a lot to fill one niche, the assault rifle can do a mediocre job at everything, which is sort of relevant when you're in a war and may be suddenly called upon to improvise in any role.

 

[Shadenuat]

Are Rangers really soldiers? They look more like post apoc adventuring militia to me. Lot less militarized than Brotherhood of Steel. Like a D&D ragtag team, but with guns. In post apoc setting it fits for everyone to have limited training and access to weapons. Say you get native american with big club join you to help save his tribe, he is not going to come to the team with knowledge how to use sniper rifles.
Plus the cool factor. In Wasteland I'd rather play a D&D-like adventuring group with ex soldier, a raider, an indian and a hobo with shotgun. I can play realistic soldiers in Commandos or Silent Storm.

 

[Levenmouth]

Just want to say that I am in no way disagreeing with your general statement that LMGs are important, Mangoose.