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Wasteland Wasteland 3 + Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation Expansions Thread

Chickenhawk

Barely Literate
Joined
Dec 20, 2020
Messages
4
So I just played through this game on ranger difficulty. Steam says 81hrs, I would say a solid 10-20 of that was AFK.

Have to say didn't mind the combat (not really my priority) but I absolutely hated that
you cannot tell Angela that the Patriarch has terminal Parkinson's. Her entire motivation is that the Patriarch needs to be overthrown so that the Rangers can mediate politics in Colorado. It is heavily implied by the ending that you end up doing that with maybe three years of the Patriarch calling the shots, tops. I could easily imagine a Speech 10 character convincing her of that in the meeting at the Hoon homestead, ending her plot.

This is a symptom of a more general bad writing/plot design. All of the Bluff/Intimidate checks to solve quests are written as "hey, do what I want!" Very little digging has to be done to figure out why exactly someone might do what you want to do, the speech checks are not finding an unexpected angle to exploit that you would need to be smart/good with words to figure out.

I think that that in turn is a symptom of even greater writing/design/prioritization problems. They want to create an open world (a simulated Colorado!) that they can barely populate with sidequests, Generic NPCs in scripted zones usually have one rather good conversation that wears thin after your third time through a place, enemies are interesting until you figure out that there are 3 per faction and assorted animals. The problem here is that the premise is Wasteland/Fallout nostalgia, but they can't really compete with the three fallout games we have. They're trapped in a promise they can't deliver on.



That said, I definitely liked this better than Wasteland 2, which I never came close to finishing. If you're looking for a 7/10 isometric RPG with some pretty graphics, this game is here for you. It sounds like DLC will be Pueblo and Kansas ("Steeltown" gets namechecked and the SW corner of the map is incredibly empty, and it's referenced that Scotchmo goes east to Kansas.)
 

Lambach

Arcane
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
12,811
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
From what I recall, it was a common complaint earlier in the thread that in late game battles either you would dominate immediately or they would, with no in-between.

This is also true a lot earlier in the game on Supreme Jerk difficulty. You either wipe out/disable almost all enemies in your first turn, or they wipe you out in their first turn. Enemy damage/HP scaling is pretty out of whack, i.e. even common mooks start hitting the amounts of HP (sorry, CON) you can't possibly reach no matter what your build and level are already during mid-game or thereabouts. This, of course, is offset by their mediocre AI and various tricks and strategies you have access to but they don't.

I'm not sure what the solution to this is, however. Reducing enemy HP/damage would result in a game that's far too easy. Even on Supreme Jerk it becomes a breeze later on with some well-planned builds (e.g. I have a sniper with 107% Crit chance without drugs or other buffs and something like 4+ Crit multiplier that killed a Roboscorpion in 2 shots, I have a brawler with max CHA that takes 3 attacks to charge his Strike Meter for an AoE stun and uses only 1 AP to attack, a sneaky rocketeer that blows up 2-3 enemies before a fight even starts etc.) I guess they'd need to seriously improve AI, but pretty much all developers have completely and utterly given up on even trying to pull that off, so it remains an unsolvable problem it seems.
 

Luckmann

Arcane
Zionist Agent
Joined
Jul 20, 2009
Messages
3,759
Location
Scandinavia
So is this game better then wastland 2? Or is the first one, the only game worth playing?
Better in some ways, worse in many. It's certainly got bigger issues and is more consolized than Wasteland 2 ever was, even with the "Director's Cut". As to whether it's "worth playing" or not, if you didn't feel Wasteland 2 was worth playing, I sincerely doubt you'll find Wasteland 3 worth it.
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 2, 2018
Messages
408
Deth's motivation made absolutely no sense. She wants you to ally with an honest-to-god slaver and savage gang leader, to take down fascism. Lazy plot contrivance. But by that point you're past the most interesting part of the game (the first 3rd), their best ideas are spent and you know pretty much what you're in for the rest of the way. I found it really hard to stay motivated to grind through the last part (Liberty's stronghold).

Don't get me wrong, it's their best game in ages, took the good parts of W2 and made them better, they even managed to not make this a hot garbage SJW fest like so many other projects these days. 1 and a half thumbs up.
 

Lambach

Arcane
Joined
Feb 11, 2016
Messages
12,811
Location
Belgrade, Removekebabland
She wants you to ally with an honest-to-god slaver and savage gang leader, to take down fascism.

135.png


Her plan was to use him to unite the most dangerous gangs of Colorado and lead them away to Kansas, where his "destiny" awaits.

But yes, it's an incredibly stupid bit of writing because she suddenly cares very much about everyone, which is why she abandons her original mission - she wants to help the people of Colorado as much as the people of Arizona. Except that "everyone" doesn't apply to the people of Kansas, I guess, 'cuz fuck those guys.
 

Acrux

Arcane
Joined
Jul 1, 2019
Messages
1,489
I really hope that DLC takes place in Kansas to see consequences of any decisions made. There's even a historical precedent with "Bleeding Kansas" they could draw from that touches on slavery.

I want to love W3, but fighting the lazy writing was a struggle.
 

jac8awol

Arbiter
Joined
Feb 2, 2018
Messages
408
She wants you to ally with an honest-to-god slaver and savage gang leader, to take down fascism.

135.png


Her plan was to use him to unite the most dangerous gangs of Colorado and lead them away to Kansas, where his "destiny" awaits.

But yes, it's an incredibly stupid bit of writing because she suddenly cares very much about everyone, which is why she abandons her original mission - she wants to help the people of Colorado as much as the people of Arizona. Except that "everyone" doesn't apply to the people of Kansas, I guess, 'cuz fuck those guys.

"Ya see rangers, the thing about Angela Deth is, she sees things in a very black and white kinda way. Except when she see things in an incredibly dumb, murky shade of grey, which is right now, because we need one last boss for you to fight at the end if you're chummy with old pappy."
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,773
Eventually we're going to need Ziets to write up an explanation of his narrative decisions in Wasteland 3. +M

On the upside, the work put into filling out the credits on mobygames has been completed. Notable names:

Lead Designers David Rogers, George Ziets

Lead System Designer Eric Schwarz ( :decline: of sea, remember when people on the dex liked this idiot?) By the way Infinitron I was right https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...re-stretch-goal-unlocked.125350/#post-5939615

Senior Narrative Designer Thomas Beekers

Senior Writers Gavin Jurgens-Fyhrie, Nathan Long

Writers Cassandra Khaw, Colin McComb, David Kristofer Fried, Mike Lee, Nathan Lutsock

Additional Writers Alexander Freed, Drew McGee, Matt Wallace

That loser Chris Avellone should update his linkedin already to describe exactly what he did in this as well.
 

DeepOcean

Arcane
Joined
Nov 8, 2012
Messages
7,394
So is this game better then wastland 2? Or is the first one, the only game worth playing?
Depends of how much tolerant you are with popamole, Wasteland 1 is not a brillant but it is a decent RPG, Wasteland 2 and 3 are pure declines from it, no doubt about it.

So, pick your poison. Wasteland 2 has almost double the content than Wasteland 3 and it isnt as consolized but the content in there is alot more unneven so you will spend alot of time doing pure bullshit that gets old quick between the decent content, also, the mechanics and shit like weapon balance even after the Director's cut is really shitty and unrewarding. Combat is as awful and disfunctional as Wasteland 3, so not much of a difference between the two. (I would say that Wasteland 3 is slightly better here because of the changes they did)

Wasteland 3 is alot more streamlined so the content in there doesnt have the massive quality drops that Wasteland 2 has and the game respects your time more because of it, unfortunately, that means they cut a shiton of content so it is a really short game.They also rebalanced most weapons and the progression system in the game, creating characters and playing with the guns is way more fun than on Wasteland 2 also in part because the production values like animations and special effects that are much better than Wasteland 2.(not much the models that remain ugly low polly stuff)
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
Wasteland 3 is alot more streamlined so the content in there doesnt have the massive quality drops that Wasteland 2 has and the game respects your time more because of it, unfortunately, that means they cut a shiton of content so it is a really short game.
Incline!

I tried to replay W2 when Director's Cut came out, but when I remembered how much filler and trash encounters there were, I dropped it.
 

Haplo

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Sep 14, 2016
Messages
6,166
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
They also rebalanced most weapons and the progression system in the game, creating characters and playing with the guns is way more fun than on Wasteland 2 also in part because the production values like animations and special effects that are much better than Wasteland 2.(not much the models that remain ugly low polly stuff)

That should really be emphasized IMO. As for me, playing with builds and guns is like the 50% of the fun I have in cRPGs, so I was very happy with how W3 turned out.
 

Xeon

Augur
Joined
Apr 9, 2013
Messages
1,858
Are they planning any more patches or a definitive edition sort of thing for Wasteland 3 or is it done?
 

Roguey

Codex Staff
Staff Member
Sawyerite
Joined
May 29, 2010
Messages
35,773
You got a source on this?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisavellone
- Narrative Designer/Writer (contractor)
- Did large % of side quest content, scripts, characters, major dialogues for 2 years+ (2016-2018)
- Contract completed in 2018 when content delivered according to spec, approvals, and under budget. (Hardsuit set budget and specs, but the budget and specs changed after studio internal audit in 2018.)

Here's the confirmation that he detailed this after he was fired https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads...adox-interactive.126124/page-408#post-6899149
 
Last edited:
Self-Ejected

TheDiceMustRoll

Game Analist
Joined
Apr 18, 2016
Messages
761
You got a source on this?
https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisavellone
- Narrative Designer/Writer (contractor)
- Did large % of side quest content, scripts, characters, major dialogues for 2 years+ (2016-2018)
- Contract completed in 2018 when content delivered according to spec, approvals, and under budget. (Hardsuit set budget and specs, but the budget and specs changed after studio internal audit in 2018.)

Here's the confirmation that he detailed this after he was fired https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/vampire-the-masquerade-–-bloodlines-2-from-hardsuit-labs-and-paradox-interactive.126124/page-408#post-6899149
Damn
 

StaticSpine

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Dec 14, 2013
Messages
3,232
Location
Moscow
Shadorwun: Hong Kong
They really worked hard this time to make the beginning more engaging.

W2: Hurr-durr, recruit, go to radio tower...
:npc:
VS

W3: PEW-PEW! Shit goes South. You got ambushed. Your squadmates get murdered in front of you. You blow up a robot with your Hummer's cannon!
:popamole:
 

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