Wasteland Should I Keep Playing Wasteland 2?

[JohnSmith24601]

Look, bro.

One of us chose not to use assault rifles at all because they sounded overpowered and boring. This person instead experimented with a variety of weapons and character builds, deliberately exploring strengths and weaknesses, improvising various tactics, experiencing surprising victories and hilarious defeats. This person had a dynamic, interesting time with the game and remembers how fun it all was.

The other person found one thing that worked, pressed the same button over and over again for 30+ hours straight, never risked anything, never tried anything new, and hated it the entire time, hoping to prove to someone how tough they are at video games. (Spoiler: no one cares.) This person regrets their time with the game, yet loudly and angrily pats themselves on the back for being so smart.

Which approach do you think worked out better?

The third approach ofc: Repeatedly complaining about how unbalanced and shit the combat is in codex

"On" codex. It's a forum.

 

[Zombra]

You're assuming a lot of things about me, since I JUST said that you don't even need a whole team of AR guys. When you have one basic type of weapons of the game that is so overpowered, you have an imbalance of mechanics. Just because you avoid using it doesn't mean it's not a problem. No amount of pivoting can cover up this glaring weakness of the game.

Hey, nobody ever said Wasteland 2 (or 3) was perfect. If you thought that was my point, you're way off.
I was criticizing you for lashing out at "stupid" people for playing the game in an enjoyable way, whereas you, so "smart", chose to play in a way that wasn't fun at all. Again: good job!

On top of all that, it hasn't even been overhauled or fixed in any way for the last 5 years. Just goes to show how much anybody cares. The new Wasteland came out, not sure if you've tried playing it, but the AR's actually got nerfed to the ground in this one. I saw you roll your eyes at one of my earlier comments. But seriously, roll eyes at this.

You're actually wrong about the W2 overhaul. It was iterated on over several releases, balanced, rebalanced, rebalanced again etc. The final release still had crap balance, but believe it or not it was a million times better than the earliest versions.

If ARs were nerfed out of existence in W3, honestly that sounds like an improvement. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll find some other way to trivialize the experience for yourself.

I stopped following W3 a long time ago but hope to try it someday. (I'm waiting for the inevitable rerelease in a couple years.)

 

[jackofshadows]

I used 2-3 AR bois, it was a breeze except for the last fight IIRC but I'm not sure I'd have more fun if I'd chose not to use ARs at all. The combat is so junky (as everything else, basically), it would be a slog.

Ultimately, I had my fun but I couldn't recommend this game to anyone who doesn't have a strong thirst for postapoc RPGs. Also +1 to "one of the ugliest RPG" remark, the game is ugly beyond beleif.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

Shit

Dude you just have it so backwards that it's become kind of comical at this point. The combat sucks balls. So many people find it a slog to move through the game because the combat is unbelievably stupid. Even you agreed that it's imbalanced. But at the same time, you're saying that the game is not fun for me because people like me are playing this "the wrong way"? Like, wtf? No wonder this game faded into obscurity.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Oh great, we have a Wasteland version of Perkele now.

There's always one. Hurrrr I like to make the game hard for myself therefore it should be nerfed for everyone

 

[Sunsetspawn]

Still better than POE.

Hole up, fo' real, doe?
Damn. I recently knocked out D:OS, which was the prime tits, and now I'm 10 hours into W2 and just feeling the slog. I figured I could move on to POE if I stalled out on W2, and now I read this.
Already time for D:OS2?

 

[sebas]

W2 and PoE are on the same tier for me. Decent game worlds with awful combat design that overstay their welcome by 30h or so. They feel like a slog because they are filled with trash fights and every freaking trashfight plays the same. Otherwise I much prefer Wasteland's goofyness to PoE's loredumps.

 

[Carpincho Pampeano]

I played the ps4 version when it came out years ago, the game was divided in two distinctive parts and i can't remember a single thing about the second one.The combat was poorly balanced, SMGS were inferior to everything and Fargo's vicious hate against christianity it's really blatant, fedora tier.

Like i said it's been years so i can't comment much further, the ending was cool i guess.

 

[Shitty Kitty]

W2DC combat actually feels fine to me. Not fantastic, but certainly good enough. I'm seeing AI RSM actually do vaguely intelligent things like take high ground and ambush with sharpshooters and frankly that's a hell of a lot more than I got from Fallout 2's combat most of the time. I have exactly one character in this playthrough who uses ARs and 2 of the others are Shotgun/EW and HW/melee and they're definitely not the powerhouses the AR dude is but they're doing fine.

Powergaming ruins shit that would otherwise be at least enjoyable, and it's a "you" problem.

 

[gurugeorge]

Are the people dissing W2 here not just reacting to what the game was like for a while after launch (I gather it was a buggy mess)?

I've just started W2DC just now, and it seems fine; it's a decent enough game. Though I could see some people being annoyed by it at the time of its release if it was really buggy, given that it was the first big Kickstarter project.

There's a camera mod for the DC that makes the camera a teensy bit less janky in the zoom area.

Control-wise I wish E and Q for turn would turn smoothly, I hate that the camera turns jerkily but not in any increment I can get used to (if you're going to do a jerky camera do it at 45% ffs).

I've only been playing for a few hours but the combat seems decent enough. If people can call nuShadowrun combat serviceable then this is surely serviceable.

I'm really liking the bleak atmosphere, and the fact that the maps are big and empty, often with no reward for poking your nose around, is a positive for me atm, it adds to the feeling of hopelessness. Along with the slide guitar background music, one feels quite like one is in a US wasteland. The art design is also spot on (particularly outfit aesthetics) and the graphics seem alright, I don't know what people are complaining about - have we gotten so used to rainbow-coloured apocalypses that we've gone off grimdark completely?

Also, I'm finding the way the story is being told, with the highlighted keywords, works very well, it's easily "readable" (in the wider sense) and the way skill checks pop up there is very satisfying too. At first I hated the UI, but now I've come to appreciate its old school clunky 90s aesthetic, as well as the courier typeface There's something to be said for UIs that don't quite work in a generic way, and are tailored to the aesthetic of the game.

I'm going to try having lots of flavour skills and perks spread throughout the team, and not bother so much with min-maxing, just enjoy the story such as it is.

 

[Gradenmayer]

I dropped the game after I figured out how many times the story repeats the same beats.

Hear radio> go into place> talk with folks> there are 2 camps with opposing values> pick one side or force them to make up> repeat the cycle 3-4 times (maybe more I gave up on the 4th).

 

[Darth Canoli]

I've only been playing for a few hours but the combat seems decent enough. If people can call nuShadowrun combat serviceable then this is surely serviceable.

It's better than Braindead's Shadowrun.

• First, you have a real AP system, not NuXcom 2 actions with eventual buffs (at least they exist)
• Second, you can't solve your problems with summons.
• Third, you can position your troops before a combat and set an ambush instead of being ambushed every fucking time (but you're still being ambushed from time to time, like it should be)

Shadowrun itemization is better though, of course, they only had to copy/paste it from the PnP version and character dev, even dumbed down, from shadowrun is better than WL2 but you get full control of your party build so i guess WL 2 wins this one.
And then, half open world for WL 2 against retarded hubs and a linear experience.
But I went of the rails, haven't I?

I dropped the game after I figured out how many times the story repeats the same beats.

Hear radio> go into place> talk with folks> there are 2 camps with opposing values> pick one side or force them to make up> repeat the cycle 3-4 times (maybe more I gave up on the 4th).

As far as I know, you're not locked out of any content past the early first choice.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Did people play this on Normal or Easy, or with Assault Rifles exclusively?

I started a play-through on Ranger (Hard), with not a single AR character, and it's fucking next to impossible to progress. Specifically, the healing and finances seem unsustainable. You don't heal over time, doctors can only heal using consumables, and healing consumables almost never drop. The merchants charge very high prices for said consumables, which between this and having to buy ammo, I just can't afford.

On top of that, I don't know what Hard difficulty does to damage calculations, seems like it's some Bethesda style bullshit, but it takes like 4 shots to kill every "Supafly", meanwhile they do massive damage to your guys. Ran into some giant frog and it took 30 min to whittle its health down.

Really not impressed.

 

[Zombra]

* Plays on Hard difficulty
* Game is actually hard
* "Really not impressed"

 

[dacencora]

* Plays on Hard difficulty
* Game is actually hard
* "Really not impressed"

This is just a classic Porky post.

 

[Cunt Dickula!?]

I played on supreme jerk when it came out and had 2 assault rifles in my party.
The whole game really felt like my assault rifles did all the work and the rest of the party looked cool and did nothing.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

* Plays on Hard difficulty
* Game is actually hard
* "Really not impressed"

This is just a classic Porky post.

See, like most codexers, you guys play either on lower difficulty settings or using some kind of cheese tactics/approaches. So as someone who usually plays games on hard settings, let me explain my line of reasoning here:

There is a big difference between the kind of hard where you need to learn the game abilities better or tactics or whatever, and the kind of hard that's just about fucking impossible to pull off without cheese.

For example, if I play Sekiro, and the boss owns me a few times, that's ok, it's a good game. I just need to get better by playing more. I don't complain about that kind of hard.

But as I explain above about Wasteland 2, on Hard setting, they are not giving you much to work with. You either have to lock yourself into OP assault rifle build, which is probably what everyone here did, and the guy above is honest enough to admit, so that's the cheese approach, or you give up. The game is just not balanced well at the early stages at high difficulties.

 

[Bigg Boss]

1 Pistol and aimed shots.
2 Sniper rifles with appropriate perks.
One brawling.
One blade + demo.
One assault rifle.

Ranger difficulty and not too hard.
Jesus Christ.

 

[gurugeorge]

* Plays on Hard difficulty
* Game is actually hard
* "Really not impressed"

This is just a classic Porky post.

See, like most codexers, you guys play either on lower difficulty settings or using some kind of cheese tactics/approaches. So as someone who usually plays games on hard settings, let me explain my line of reasoning here:

There is a big difference between the kind of hard where you need to learn the game abilities better or tactics or whatever, and the kind of hard that's just about fucking impossible to pull off without cheese.

For example, if I play Sekiro, and the boss owns me a few times, that's ok, it's a good game. I just need to get better by playing more. I don't complain about that kind of hard.

But as I explain above about Wasteland 2, on Hard setting, they are not giving you much to work with. You either have to lock yourself into OP assault rifle build, which is probably what everyone here did, and the guy above is honest enough to admit, so that's the cheese approach, or you give up. The game is just not balanced well at the early stages at high difficulties.

Supreme Jerk is quite doable with an SMG, AR, Machine Gunner (+Demolitions, i.e. grenades), Sniper, Melee blunt and Shottie. I think the "AR is king" meme comes from the original release, Director's Cut is more balanced - though the AR is still very good all-round, the SMG and Shottie are powerful enough with good positioning.

WL2 on Jerk is a bit like nuXCOM on Impossible - you have to position around high cover as much as possible (which often means positioning the team in good cover a bit further back at the start of the fight and starting the fight with a sniper shot) but there almost always comes a time when you can take a risk, position your shottie to obliterate a softened-up bunch (having a good grenade lobber is really handy for that), or get your highly mobile psychotic SMG-er to flank a particularly pesky mob in cover and unload in their face.

Also, what game is balanced early on the hardest difficulties? To my experience, just by the nature of things, because of the rough granularity of having only a few HP to start with, you're always a victim of bad RNG in the early game on the hardest difficulties.

 

[Iluvcheezcake]

Supreme Jerk, 4 chars only (the player created ones), no NPCs.
4 assault rifles, later branched into energy weapons
Int and luck on max (so severely gimped combat wise). It was glorious.
Sniper rifle and SMG are also very strong

Porky i would suggest you restart, seems you snowballed into a blind alley. Also flank them like a mofo

 

[Deuce Traveler]

So the timing is good for revisiting my OP, since I just restarted the game after some new patches came out for Linux on Steam that fixed the bug I was experiencing and I have been able to progress through to Damonta. Angel left my party due to a scripted event at the Canyon, and I haven't run into an NPC that I can replace her with and therefore I've been a bit underpowered. I decided to try and play nice with everyone, but the game makes this impossible. There are two factions in the Canyon; a local militia and the Mad Monks. If you allow the Mad Monks to stick one of their followers with you so you can pass by the raiders in peace, then you run into the militia at a checkpoint and have to fight five of them, hurting your future relationship with the militia. If you have decided not to have a Mad Monk with you, you get to the same check point... and still have to fight at least one of the militia members for no fucking reason.

At that point I was like 'fuck it' then. Come along Mad Monk. I was then given a quest by one of the monk leaders to collect toxic sludge. I find a barrel guarded by some of the raiders and their own Mad Monk. Now the rules of the monks are stupid, but simple. If you pay your tribute (which the raiders have done), then you are protected by the militant monks. You can do violence to people not under the monks' protection, but the moment you attack those that are protected then the monks turn against you. Well I have a Mad Monk with me and I was given a quest to get the sludge by a monk for my passage through the canyon, so you would think that the game would consider the raiders jumping me for the sludge to be a violation of the rules on their part. But nope, I ignore the warnings from the raiders, which initiates combat with them when I grab the sludge anyway, but the monks side with the raiders when the raiders start combat. That whole monks versus militia versus raiders plotline is just fucking stupid and cringe, when I think the developers were going for cheeky and funny. In hindsight, I should have just left, grabbed a combat-oriented NPC to replace Angel, and mowed both factions down.

 

[gurugeorge]

So the timing is good for revisiting my OP, since I just restarted the game after some new patches came out for Linux on Steam that fixed the bug I was experiencing and I have been able to progress through to Damonta. Angel left my party due to a scripted event at the Canyon, and I haven't run into an NPC that I can replace her with and therefore I've been a bit underpowered. I decided to try and play nice with everyone, but the game makes this impossible. There are two factions in the Canyon; a local militia and the Mad Monks. If you allow the Mad Monks to stick one of their followers with you so you can pass by the raiders in peace, then you run into the militia at a checkpoint and have to fight five of them, hurting your future relationship with the militia. If you have decided not to have a Mad Monk with you, you get to the same check point... and still have to fight at least one of the militia members for no fucking reason.

At that point I was like 'fuck it' then. Come along Mad Monk. I was then given a quest by one of the monk leaders to collect toxic sludge. I find a barrel guarded by some of the raiders and their own Mad Monk. Now the rules of the monks are stupid, but simple. If you pay your tribute (which the raiders have done), then you are protected by the militant monks. You can do violence to people not under the monks' protection, but the moment you attack those that are protected then the monks turn against you. Well I have a Mad Monk with me and I was given a quest to get the sludge by a monk for my passage through the canyon, so you would think that the game would consider the raiders jumping me for the sludge to be a violation of the rules on their part. But nope, I ignore the warnings from the raiders, which initiates combat with them when I grab the sludge anyway, but the monks side with the raiders when the raiders start combat. That whole monks versus militia versus raiders plotline is just fucking stupid and cringe, when I think the developers were going for cheeky and funny. In hindsight, I should have just left, grabbed a combat-oriented NPC to replace Angel, and mowed both factions down.

The Canyon is the worst zone in the game for me, it's just messy - messy in terms of navigation, messy in terms of knowing what you should be doing. It's just messy, and as soon as you start getting annoyed by the messiness of the design, the setup changes from being mildly amusing to being stupid and irritating. (It's where I stopped playing the game twice before.)

 

[orcinator]

, then you run into the militia at a checkpoint and have to fight five of them, hurting your future relationship with the militia.

He thinks this game has consequences, how funny.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Yes, I know I can play Supreme Jerk Off mode with ARs, but why? Who wants to be an army grunt in an RPG?

 

[Darth Canoli]

I played it on hard (ranger?) difficulty with a wide selection of weapons, including one energy weapon (and the energy weapon mod), it's only hard if you don't use basic tactics like flanking, aside from some nasty ambush like the first bombers in the canyons, the first cyborgs in the second area, some ambushes in the second area and giants robots in the first area.

It's hard to keep the terminator and followers which are not full fledge companions alive though.

Aside from that, it's challenging at times but alright, just as it should be.

Playing with 4 times the same build because it's stronger is plain boring and absolutely retarded but i suppose that's how fake tacticool players do it.