Preview Rock Paper Shotgun's Massive Wasteland 2 Preview

[Vault Dweller]

Realistically, yes, but game mechanics are usually abstract as they must support different classes and builds, both for the player and the enemies. Shadownrun has a melee class of enemies and this class is useless. It's an issue. The situation described in RPS where the party wipes out melee fighters without breaking a sweat is also an issue.

 

[tuluse]

There are a lot of ways to balance that. Bullets being expensive, levels that aren't just open flat areas, so the melee characters can get close without being shot to death, armor that the pre-alpha starting location NPCs don't have that do better against bullets than melee attacks.

 

[Crispy]

Hate to reinforce VD's joke about mods will fix it, but, to be fair,

Release 1.0.2

New Features, Improvements
- SMG: Aimed Shot now uses 4 bullets, down from 6.
- SMG: Spray and Pray now uses 6 bullets, down from 8.
- SMG: the Beretta, Uzi, Colt, and HK are slightly more accurate.
- Shotgun: Kneecap now has a HP DMG penalty of -6, up from -3. It now has a -5% accuracy penalty, and a cooldown of 3.
- Shotgun: All shotguns have had their accuracy falloff increased slightly, lowering hit chance at long ranges.
- Rifle: Full Auto's accuracy penalty was not being applied properly at high skill levels. It should now always be 15% lower than a single shot's percentage to hit.
- Rifle: Smartlinked rifles were less accurate at very long ranges instead of more accurate. This has been resolved.
- Rifle: The FN HAR and HK G12 were very similar in every aspect except price. The FN HAR is now more accurate and holds more ammunition than the HK G12.
- Rifle: Ammo capacity of the HK G12, Colt M23, and Ares Alpha have been reduced to 32, 34, and 38 respectively.
- Rifle: The Colt M23's damage is now 15, down from 16. The Ares Alpha's damage is now 16, down from 18.
- Grenades: Reduced store prices of all grenades.
- Grenades: HE Phosphorus grenades were not showing up in the store. They should now be purchasable along with the other Tier 3 weapons.
- Cyberware purchase screen is now more user friendly.
- Vendors will now sell more things in various places throughout DMS campaign (such as more med-kits).
- Visual improvements to the summoning grid.
- General UI Improvements.
- Added additional debugging for finding walkable tiles in debug mode.
- Added messaging to alert user when last auto-save occurred.
- Black IC is now less lethal.
- Added an explanation of how Leylines work in the world of SR:R.
- Added a definition of SIN in glossary.

Bug Fixes
- Player can no longer sell a currently equipped outfit.
- Swapping outfits will now correctly give the correct enhancements.
- Player can now equip an outfit if they do not currently have one equipped.
- Drones will now retain their Rigging bonus between levels.
- Wired reflexes no longer dodge friendly effects.
- Spirit death from overwatch no longer causes occasional hardlock
- Reduced load times when loading new assets after version update.
- First time OSX play will start in windowed mode to work around a crash issue for some users.
- Move marker will now be visible over walls.
- Fixed a crash that could occur when transitioning characters one-by-one out of the scene and into the next.
- Fixed issue with equip screen item filtering.
- Fixed issue with installing upgraded cyberware on individual locations of a pair.
- Fixed issue with hiring screen adding incorrect selected runner.
- Fixed a slew of typos.
- Fixed cases in conversation where attribute or skill checks were applied incorrectly.
- Fixed character preview not showing 3D Character in some cases.
- Fixed bug where user could enter missions that require a decker without having any runners with a Cyberdeck.
- Fixed various issues with hiring Coyote.
- Work around some Steam Workshop upload timeout issues
- Editor: Changes to scene or story variables will refresh that variable in the scratchpad.

Known Issues
- We are investigating reports that some users are encountering problems downloading subscribed stories from Steam Workshop.

Note the shotgun tweaks. Apparently the kneecap and the others nerfs to it are pretty substantial. I'll be testing it out more tonight myself.

 

[Vault Dweller]

Not that substantial. I've never used kneecap simply because I've never felt the need to (kinda like I've never used the stances in KOTOR 2- why bother?). The accuracy range nerf might have some impact, but I doubt it.

 

[Crispy]

Last comment about this from me ITT so as not to hijack it, but I will concede your point about "mods fixing it" since the more I get into the campaign and the more I read about what's possible in the game's editor the more I realize the lost potential there. Curses, foiled again.

 

[Vault Dweller]

There are a lot of ways to balance that. Bullets being expensive, levels that aren't just open flat areas, so the melee characters can get close without being shot to death, armor that the pre-alpha starting location NPCs don't have that do better against bullets than melee attacks.

Balancing will only take you so far because such tweaks (as you described) will introduce new problems. The system should be designed from the ground up to accommodate melee and ranged properly.

- expensive bullet - will nerf ranged (not that i mind, but it's unlikely)
- level design - to a certain degree; not every place can be a 'maze'
- better armor - certainly, but by then you should have better guns too. In general, low level weapons shouldn't be OP against low level armor.

 

[tuluse]

I meant specific armor that was strong vs ranged but weak vs melee.

 

[Infinitron]

The system should be designed from the ground up to accommodate melee and ranged properly.

How? Keep in mind that making melee equally as effective as ranged will elicit outrage from the "simulationists". Firearms ARE more deadly and effective than knives in real life, after all.

 

[Crispy]

Okay, this really is my last post ITT about Shadowrun, promise.

One simple change to instantly balance out melee vs. ranged: get rid of the unlimited ammo. Done.

 

[Vault Dweller]

RPG mechanics were always abstract because good game design demanded it. Firearms ARE more deadly and effective than knives, yet if implemented realistically, nobody would specialize in knives/melee. So, if you can either remove melee altogether (basically, if you ran out of bullets, you're dead) or make it a viable choice, which means that melee enemies vs a ranged party should be a decent fight, not target practice shooting.

How to make it a viable choice? The best way is to give ranged a distance advantage and a disadvantage when it comes to up close and personal. The bigger advantage, the bigger the disadvantage, i.e. sniper rifles are the best when it comes to sniping, but they should be next to useless if you have an enemy next to you, even if you're aiming at someone else. If Shadowrun had any point-blank penalties, I didn't notice them. The movement range should fit in there as well and be balanced against the number of party members and their combined firepower. If 6 party members can shoot 2-3 times per turn, that's 12-18 shots. You put 4-5 guys against them and they will be dead within a turn. Etc.

 

[Infinitron]

RPG mechanics were always abstract because good game design demanded it. Firearms ARE more deadly and effective than knives, yet if implemented realistically, nobody would specialize in knives/melee. So, if you can either remove melee altogether (basically, if you ran out of bullets, you're dead) or make it a viable choice, which means that melee enemies vs a ranged party should be a decent fight, not target practice shooting.

How to make it a viable choice? The best way is to give ranged a distance advantage and a disadvantage when it comes to up close and personal. The bigger advantage, the bigger the disadvantage, i.e. sniper rifles are the best when it comes to sniping, but they should be next to useless if you have an enemy next to you, even if you're aiming at someone else. If Shadowrun had any point-blank penalties, I didn't notice them. The movement range should fit in there as well and be balanced against the number of party members and their combined firepower. If 6 party members can shoot 2-3 times per turn, that's 12-18 shots. You put 4-5 guys against them and they will be dead within a turn. Etc.

OK, Brother None, take notes for Wasteland 2.

I don't see why distance-based tweaks of damage or accuracy values would require "design from the ground up", though.

 

[I_am_Ian]

Firearms would also miss a lot more in real life I'm guessing. Even world class shooters miss stationary targets in pressure situations as seen on the show Top Shot. In combat against moving targets the odds of hitting decrease a lot unless you're using an automatic weapon which can be mitigated somewhat through ammo limitations.

 

[Infinitron]

Firearms would also miss a lot more in real life I'm guessing. Even world class shooters miss stationary targets in pressure situations as seen on the show Top Shot. In combat against moving targets the odds of hitting decrease a lot unless you're using an automatic weapon which can be mitigated somewhat through ammo limitations.

In real life, you'd miss more often at long range, not close range.

That said, there's plenty of missing in RPGs, when you're low level.

 

[Vault Dweller]

True. I'd say realistically, your chance to hit running targets would be about 30%, but most players would have a heart attack if they see these odds displayed.

 

[I_am_Ian]

It's true the closer you get the more effective your gun is. How do you make melee weapons effective at all when the gun is the most deadliest in melee range? Probably make melee a secondary combat choice and guns the main focus. As much as I like the idea of melee having a big an impact on the battlefield as guns it really doesn't make sense.

 

[Crispy]

Enhancing melee via additional characteristics such as cybernetic implants, magic, extra perks and feats, etc., can help to close the distance between the two, no pun intended.

The Fallouts and New Vegas did a decent job of this. You just need a milieu that supports the sci-fi and/or fantasy notions that make it possible. The world of Wasteland 2, I'm not so sure. It's a little less fantastic than that of Fallout or Shadowrun, for example, IIRC. (Edit: Actually, my bad. Plenty of robots, cyborgs, etc. Poor memory kicking in there)

Are there going to be any exclusively melee builds/classes in Wasteland 2?

 

[Cowboy Moment]

True. I'd say realistically, your chance to hit running targets would be about 30%, but most players would have a heart attack if they see these odds displayed.

Realistically, a single hit would either incapacitate or outright kill the target, so the increased accuracy can be balanced out by the decreased lethality.

 

[Roguey]

It was a pre-alpha video (And the 2008 video was around 2 years into the process).

Ha, I got Alpha Protocol and Aliens mixed up in my timeline. Fine.

How? Keep in mind that making melee equally as effective as ranged will elicit outrage from the "simulationists". Firearms ARE more deadly and effective than knives in real life, after all.

Tell that to proton axe users from Wasteland.

Also here were the ~values~ from the vertical slice video:
SVD Sniper Rifle : 22-26 damage, 5 AP
AK-57: 14-16 damage, 4 AP
Club: 24-26 damage, 3 AP

I imagine there's been some balance work done since then but the club's value over the sniper rifle is that it costs fewer AP to use, requires no ammo, and has slightly higher average damage. The downside is having to get up close. I suppose melee enemies are at a disadvantage because they can't use a stealth skill to close the gap before combat starts, though there are always ambushes.

 

[himmy]

Without missing a beat, the world went turn-based

So no more "pew-pew-pew" screen bullet holes effects then? I appreciate the Sergio Leone vibe of if, but I think it would have gotten fast very quick.

 

[Sranchammer]

The Revolution must go on

 

[Gurkog]

Distract the enemy with ranged fire while flanking the enemy with your melee unit(s). Unfortunately, most games only have 1 path to the enemy.

 

[Outlander]

The system should be designed from the ground up to accommodate melee and ranged properly.

How? Keep in mind that making melee equally as effective as ranged will elicit outrage from the "simulationists". Firearms ARE more deadly and effective than knives in real life, after all.

In general yes, but it depends on the enviroment. Ideally, you´d prefer SMGs, handguns and even melee wepons if you are battling in close quarters. Long assault rifles and heavy machine guns are not the best choice for this situation.

 

[Luzur]

im gonna buy it.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Locations looked open enough, though not quite as free-roaming as, say, Bethesda’s take on Fallout.

 

[Machocruz]

Armed law enforcers have been stabbed to death by knife wielding attackers running at them from 15 feet away. The knife attackers even suffered numerous gunshot wounds during their charge. They say most urban shootouts happen within 10 feet, with shooters often missing. This is almost always when pistols are involved though.

And that's just with knives. A combatant can potentially still be operative while receiving multiple wounds from a small knife, enough to keep unloading their handgun or counter with a melee weapon of their own. Not so much after a katana slash or sledge to the head.

The advantage still lies with firearms. But reality does provide a basis for which to make melee effective in game.