Wasteland The Wasteland 2 Beta Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[buzz]

Haven't played the beta, can anyone tell me the context of the Ralphie quest please?
It sounds like the choice in itself is very meta-gamey. If the choice is between "do the quest" and "ignore the quest" (which is the way I understand it right now) , it doesn't sound swell. Unless there are other factors into consideration, like if you're pressed by time with other concerns, the saving-quest might involve some real danger or other such tradeoffs. Otherwise, what would stop a newcomer from engaging in the quest?

 

[FeelTheRads]

What sense this makes?

It doesn't, but I think this is more of a inconsistency problem than a design problem.

 

[Brother None]

Try to help him and fail = girl tells everyone that you're an asshole that let the kid die, everyone hates you.
Ignore the girl's plead for help and walk away, resulting in the boy's death = valid option, no one cares, girl never says anything.

What sense this makes?

I think you're misremembering the scenario. She's an Atchinson, she doesn't really tell anyone (she does cry out, but she doesn't talk to people) because she can't talk to Topekans and doesn't want her father to know about it at all. The person who tells is the Topekan witness, the crippled man (IIRC?) by the lake, who either sees the Rangers let Ralphy die/save him and tells other Topekans unless killed, or doesn't see the Rangers at all. In both cases, the logical sequence is the witness either sees or not, and if he sees he either lives or not. Whether people know depends on the witness seeing and living, which makes perfect sense to me.

As for the general town murder, we've already stated a few times there will be global reactivity and consequences for turning on the Ranger's mission like that. Obviously not currently in the beta.

As for "will people get it", that's an interesting part. It's unusual but once you get into the right mindset you learn to try and experiment (I wrote quite a few of the quest logs in the beta and had to experiment a lot during some missions like Ralphy to get all the different branches, and I still missed some things), see what works. I enjoy it, it may take an adjustment, but I'd rather respect the player to be able to do that than spoonfeed them. It is kind of reminiscent of Wasteland 1, though often the skill or attribute use there felt much more eclectic (especially in Finster's Mind Maze, which I recently replayed).

One of the best moments in Fallout 2 I had was when trying to get into Vault City but I was not allowed and I had the idea to strip and remain in my jumpsuit and initiate dialogue with the entrance officer.
I was allowed to enter in no time and the dialogue conveyed the amazement of the officer to see another vault dweller that came from the wasteland!

Yes, another good example of the kind of decision-making and problem-solving you can find in the Wasteland. It's not always obvious but it's often there (or to be put there). As said before, it's still in progress so we're still building out things like reactivity or improving the openworld nature (the way areas unlock etc), if it was where we wanted it to be we would release it, but it's this kind of experimentation and decision-making that WL2 focuses on rather than build-based choices. I think it'll work pretty well in the finished product, once everything's built out and polished up.

 

[felipepepe]

I think you're misremembering the scenario. She's an Atchinson, she doesn't really tell anyone (she does cry out, but she doesn't talk to people) because she can't talk to Topekans and doesn't want her father to know about it at all.

Says the developer/design documents, not the game. To a player, he just entered an area called Rail Nomad's Camp and a girl came to talk to him. The whole "she's not from this tribe, so she won't tel anyone from fear and I can walk away" is happening only in the mind of who wrote this. Even with meta-knowledge that she is the daughter of the other tribe, it makes no sense. You just told that there's a crippled Topekan seeing everything. So he doesn't care about me walking away? And he's dying ffs. He can tell everyone that I let the boy die, but can't fucking call for help?

And if you want players to be immersed in a believable world and making huge stretches of logic to solve issues, first you should have a consistent world... which W2 is FAR from it; vide scrap for currency and raiders killing rangers for metal, but fucking intact planes and helicopter lying around everywhere....

 

[Lhynn]

And how do you figure it should be made so there's no "guessing" but no telling it directly either?

You educate players to think. slowly showing them how any logical solution (and some ilogical ones as well) they can think of is viable?

 

[Brother None]

Says the developer/design documents, not the game. To a player, he just entered an area called Rail Nomad's Camp and a girl came to talk to him. The whole "she's not from this tribe, so she won't tel anyone from fear and I can walk away" is happening only in the mind of who wrote this. Even with meta-knowledge that she is the daughter of the other tribe, it makes no sense. You just told that there's a crippled Topekan seeing everything. So he doesn't care about me walking away?

He can't see you if you turn right around, that's around the bend and a bit away IIRC, he can see you pretty much once the girl drops you off near the lake.

I'm not entirely sure you don't know they belong to different tribes on first entry, I think Angela or Rose explain the conflict when you enter, you hear a radio call which identifies Ralphy as a Topekan and she has Atchinson markings. Still, it's unlikely you figure out beforehand that she won't tell everyone. And that's fine, the player can decide to leave for whatever reason he likes, and when he returns later and learns who Ralphy is and who she is he should be able to figure out why she wouldn't have told anyone. It's not meta-game knowledge, I never read it in a design document, I figured it out by playing the game and listening to what people told me. The point is the game takes your decision to ignore the mission and responds on it in a way that is logically consistent in the world, and which makes sense to you once you do have all available information. You may initially expect to be punished for it, and the game might do so, but in this case it doesn't, because it doesn't make sense in the narrative (perhaps we can add a scenario of Jessie coming at you with a knife, come to think of it).

But that's not even the point, the strength of WL2 does not depend on one situation like this, it's not intended be a "main solution" to the mission, but the strength of the game is that in situations like these it will recognize and respond if you do go off the beaten track, the world reacting to the actions you take rather than the skill-checks you pass (though it often does that as well, just not as its primary facet). The reason Brian is so proud of this title is exactly because this kind of stuff is in there, not *just* the obvious and multi-faceted choices like the Rail Nomad Camp faction conflict and its myriad solutions, but also a ton of these situations where other games would ignore your decision to leave and just leave her and the game state waiting for you at the lake forever. It's a small thing, but it's there, and there's many more like them (more than I know about).

 

[almondblight]

You educate players to think. slowly showing them how any logical solution (and some ilogical ones as well) they can think of is viable?

Or just have a consistent world. If you can't use dynamite to bow up walls the first 30 times you try, it shouldn't be the case that a wall 20 hours into the game is randomly destructible. If healing packs don't work on all the random dying NPCs you come across, that shouldn't be a solution to a situation you come across later in the game.

 

[Lhynn]

You educate players to think. slowly showing them how any logical solution (and some ilogical ones as well) they can think of is viable?

Or just have a consistent world. If you can't use dynamite to bow up walls the first 30 times you try, it shouldn't be the case that a wall 20 hours into the game is randomly destructible. If healing packs don't work on all the random dying NPCs you come across, that shouldn't be a solution to a situation you come across later in the game.

It was kinda implied that i meant that, but yes, i agree.

 

[Grunker]

it wasn't a sarcastic question.

And how do you figure it should be made so there's no "guessing" but no telling it directly either?

You don't see any difference between having to blindly guess that if you just ignore the mission the game will ackknowledge that as a choice, and then a hidden skill check if you investigate an area properly?

 

[Hobz]

You're on the map, Vargas calls via radio and tells you to CHOOSE, without any knowledge of wtf these places even are.

Well that's disappointing.

Brother None What is the idea behind making this choice so "plain" ? Does Inxile feel giving more factors for the player to consider when making the choice would not make the game any better ?

I'm more than ok about having to make a tough call but turning this major choice into a coin flip seems like a waste.

 

[felipepepe]

If you can't use dynamite to bow up walls the first 30 times you try, it shouldn't be the case that a wall 20 hours into the game is randomly destructible. If healing packs don't work on all the random dying NPCs you come across, that shouldn't be a solution to a situation you come across later in the game.

This.

 

[Xeon]

I still kinda wish if it was possible to save both locations instead of choosing one or the other.

I think I or someone else said it would be great to split your party or hire mercs or send one or two party members to stall for time or something. A timer maybe where if you are not able to go to the second location in time, the place is toast and whomever you send will die defending the place or something instead of choosing which one to save.

 

[Brother None]

Consistency doesn't seem to be the issue here? WL2 is pretty clear in that ignoring time-driven missions has consequences. What those consequences are depends on the situation, if it always punishes you for it regardless of context that wouldn't work either. By the time you reach Ralphy you should be well aware that ignoring missions will be recognized (ie it is unlikely to wait around for you forever), brute force and explosives can be used to move/destroy fragile objects (and this is consistent), and that you are capable of killing someone to get rid of a problem like a witness. Nothing in there should be particularly surprising.

Brother None What is the idea behind making this choice so "plain" ? Does Inxile feel giving more factors for the player to consider when making the choice would not make the game any better ?

I'm more than ok about having to make a tough call but turning this major choice into a coin flip seems like a waste.

You do get some information on both locations from Vargas prior to making the decision (mostly on their importance to the Wasteland as a whole). I can't answer for sure why it's built as it is, the main storyline decisions like those are from well before my time. I'd probably speculate it is to confront the player very early with the scope of decisions he will be making and that many situations don't have an ideal solution.

 

[Excidium]

The narrative shouldn't be fully freeform to begin with.

To make that point clear, consider your almondblight's example of reviving NPCs with medkits. That would actually make the game so non-linear that a consistent story would be nigh impossible to write in that regard.

In that case don't make the narrative advancement rely on some people dying in situations where the player could save them if it was in their interest.

 

[tuluse]

One must realize how hard is this to implement. In an ideal case, yes, consistency like that would only be a good thing. But in a world full of deadlines and budgets the story can not be fully free form. It has its moments where it *will* take a course into inevitability. To make that point clear, consider your almondblight's example of reviving NPCs with medkits. That would actually make the game so non-linear that a consistent story would be nigh impossible to write in that regard.

The best solution would be to write a believable story to an extent that it does not become ridiculous when it sacrifices some realism for the sake of plot advancement. That or make life-preserving medikits so rare that they are almost never found.

Don't over use the dying NPC trope, and it wouldn't really be a problem. Tell me, how often did you come across a dying NPC who lived just long enough to tell you vital piece of information in Fallout 1 or 2?

 

[Infinitron]

Brother None editing his posts furiously. I hope people are noticing that!

Don't over use the dying NPC trope, and it wouldn't really be a problem. Tell me, how often did you come across a dying NPC who lived just long enough to tell you vital piece of information in Fallout 1 or 2?

http://fallout.gamepedia.com/Dying_mutant

 

[felipepepe]

Even games that fuck the consistency acknowledge this flaw somewhat and pushes the player towards it "sup bro, how about healing me with that pack, wink wink?". If you're not consistent, and neither signal players about the opportunities, then they will miss a lot of your content. And not in the "we're old-school and happy players won't see all" sense, but purely due bad and arbitrary design.

Besides, even if the player somehow read the developer's mind and finds the alternative solution, what does he get? The chance to evade the quest, hurray. Such shitty pay off, with no sense of achievement whatsoever.

 

[Brother None]

We're supposed to give a sense of achievement for ignoring quests? I'm sorry, did I wander into DeclineDex by mistake? When you ignore a crisis situation, the game resolves it without you. How exactly is this a bad thing?

 

[tuluse]

That is just a motivating example. The larger point here is that full consistency is something that is desirable but not always available. The solution being resource economy and sensible writing.

Full consistency is an ideal. Obviously, sometimes shortcuts will be taken. However, you seem to imply that devs shouldn't even try to achieve the ideal.

 

[tuluse]

How did you arrive at that conclusion?

consider your almondblight's example of reviving NPCs with medkits. That would actually make the game so non-linear that a consistent story would be nigh impossible to write in that regard.

This is a patently false statement. I have played many non-linear RPGs that do not rely on preventing the player from healing NPCs for the plot to work.

 

[felipepepe]

We're supposed to give a sense of achievement for ignoring quests? I'm sorry, did I wander into DeclineDex by mistake? When you ignore a crisis situation, the game resolves it without you. How exactly is this a bad thing?

Hey, you're the one constantly using it as an example here. We have the game forcing you into a dumb quest with binary good/bad solutions, and you telling us how awesome and reactive it is that you can literally run from the quest. Clever thinking and meta-gaming in W2 allows you to skip quests and lose XP, hurray. Now compare that with the example Grotesque gave of using the Vault suit to enter Vault City...

 

[buzz]

We're supposed to give a sense of achievement for ignoring quests? I'm sorry, did I wander into DeclineDex by mistake? When you ignore a crisis situation, the game resolves it without you. How exactly is this a bad thing?

No, there should be a point for ignoring said quest. Again, why would a player ignore the quest for non-larping reasons?

 

[Infinitron]

A long time ago, I said somewhere on this forum that just like, say, combat mechanics can be either "gamist" or "simulationist", so can C&C/reactivity. I think this particular conversation demonstrates that nicely.

 

[Brother None]

Hey, you're the one constantly using it as an example here.

I've given multiple examples where things change because of decisions you make, I have brought up the fact that the game world recognizes you ignoring this mission exactly once just a few hours ago, and that was primarily to make the point of how easy it can be to miss WL2's reactivity because it reacts to actions you may not be likely to make. Shooting the witness to Ralphy's drowning, having Angela with you for the bomb scene, having Angela with you when you talk to the trader in RNC, having Scotchmo with you when you dig up a certain grave, working through missions to back Kathy's candidacy, prioritizing the radio over the pipes, letting the witness to Hegedus live and not convincing him, deciding not to follow up on either AgCenter or Highpool, etc etc. You decided to latch on to this one. The point I was making in general is these decisions are made by player agency (and, secondarily, party makeup), not by build, and a lot of them are unobvious but none of them illogical or random. This to distinguish it from Fallout's focus on build-based decision-making.

We're supposed to give a sense of achievement for ignoring quests? I'm sorry, did I wander into DeclineDex by mistake? When you ignore a crisis situation, the game resolves it without you. How exactly is this a bad thing?

No, there should be a point for ignoring said quest. Again, why would a player ignore the quest for non-larping reasons?

Why isn't really our primary concern, our primary concern is that there are options and paths to take if you follow the obvious path laid out for you, but there are *also* reactions from the game if you take another method entirely, which can be "just walk away". What I like in particular is when dropping one path like this another opens, which is how AgCenter/Highpool currently works. Maybe I'll pen something up to do something similar with Ralphy drowning and Jessie returning with a vengeance later. Like we've said before, things are still being built out.
(I'm just speculating here so don't take me up on this later, but I do hope it's clear changes, tweaks and additions are all still possible)

 

[hiver]

whup,whup, whup... lots of points to catch up.

I first saw the reply BN made and at a glance it seemed ok... they will balance Xp, adjust difficults... etc... But, then a few things caught my eye, so i copied that answer and looked over it in more details later.
and jesus fucking christ...

I've pointed out before but will point out again that balance passes are generally among the last things you do when designing an RPG. These points about skill points and XP balance are more than fair but the assumption that this is "working as intended" as if for a final game is erroneous.

- Who told you that was my assumption? Or anyone's? the crystal ball in your head?
- Do you know how much i know about the final game? fuck all. I am talking about whats in my hands. About what i am playing right now.
- Do you know why exactly your brain made that erroneous assumption about my supposed one? Again. For the hundredth time approximately. Because it seemed as an easy way out.

Or, because you dont have anything real to say.

A lot can and will change about the way skill progression and XP accruing works, until we arrive at a point where the game is satisfyingly challenging for a party-based RPG.

Oh great. so Awesome. - reading through rest of the reply I can just imagine what that "sattisfyingly challenging for a party based RPG" means.

(treating it as if it should have the skill and build scope of a single-PC RPG doesn't really work)

wut? wtf? who is treating it like a single PC RPG exactly? You? Me? Aliens? wtf?

I only said that the skills as they are look like skills made for single player RPG. Because thats the way they look.
And i meant that as: it is a mistake you people made. YOU FUCKED UP. ITS NOT A FUCKING COMPLIMENT!

Not that you are or should treat the game as SP RPG. Since it is not.

- not to mention difficulty levels are actually full implemented (I do not believe they're anything close to now). That's just a part of how this process works.

Fantastic. the... process!

That and yes, if you go somewhere else and grind, the starting areas will be very easy. No shit.

Shit. A lot of it. Heaps and heaps and heaps of shit.

But lets just pretend i didnt explain exactly where i went and what i did and what happened - with three fucking sets of screenshots.

I'll give another go at explaining the dissonance in reactivity and choice and consequence we keep having on the Codex,

ahh... the dissonance is in your heads people - its not in the beta as it is now, oh no. Its all your false expectations and misunderstandings about this game being inspired or leaning onto Fallout games.
And why the fuck would you all think that? huh? huh?

and this is all on high-level conceptual point, not so much speaking to specific quests or locations that need more work (we've said time and again we are still working on and expanding reactivity, pretty much constantly).

Fabulous. Im so excited.

High level concepts... :snort:

We tend to just talk about C&C as one thing but as a concept it encompasses numerous choices and reactive structures you can build into a game, even beyond the idea of "fake" (text-tweak-only) consequences.

Most of your reactivity now is nothing but text tweaks and some laughable failures at achieving some sort of extreme emotional effect. Case in point - ralphie quest, angie killing that trader, and this latest idiotic shit scene with the sick woman asking you to kill her to stop her suffering.
After which her son runs out suddenly as another fucking WITNESS who appears only in that specific moment. And then you can talk him out of ratting on you.

Choices can be restricted by the character build, by player conversation choice, or by player gameplay actions. The reactivity can be local or global, and it can be narrative or emergent.

WOOOOWWW! - mind blown.

Wait... so, the choices in dialogue are not player gameplay actions?

Local or global!... well fuck me sideways... gee, you learn something new every fucking day, dont ya?
Imagine, if this genious of game design hasnt explained that to us... the calamity... the horror!

Fallout is a good example of a heavy emphasis on build-based choices and global reactivity.

Really? And it didnt have emergent gameplay? Didnt have player choices?
who the fuck let you in NMA in the first place?

Dilbert?

Wasteland 2's primary focus is player gameplay choice, with local and narrative reactivity. As we progress we're adding more global reactivity (think of the changes to the radio tower quest)

There you have it people... from the horses mouth, and its worse then even i imagined it so far.

Its the player choices game. Larp it to your hearts content suckers.

and emergent reactivity (such as the Highpool election, which has preceding factors determining and limiting the outcome),

Oh, riiiiiight, the emergent reactiviteah!

In that shit sub plot which brings nothing but text tweak consequences? Wow, brilliant example. Your boss must be so proud of you right now...

but some of the dissonance here is coming from the fact that there is an expectation on WL2 to act like a single-character build-choice-based game like Fallout (or, indeed, AoD).

are you... talkin to me? Didnt you read the review above? Who the fuck is expecting that? Especially for it to act like AoD?

You are not capable of achieving anything close to Fallouts.
Thats why this beta is full of text tweaks that larp as reactivity.
Larping instead of real role playing.

get off your fucking high horse.

That is always going to be a lesser factor (though build restrictions will be a factor, obviously) in part because that's just not what we set out to do (and that is in large part because it makes a lot less sense for a party-based RPG).

Ill repeat it one more time, so it gets through that thick ignorant, assumptions, PR doublespeak, fallacies vomiting skull.

WE EXPECT THIS TO PLAY LIKE A PARTY BASED RPG, AND RPG MEANS A GAME WHERE STATS MATTER AND C&C IS REAL - not larping, pretend.

This is a player gameplay choice based game,

- and tharr she goes...

Into the glittering constellations of mass market heavens.

a lot of times all options will be available to you, and it is up to you to discover them all and choose one of the ones available to you.

All options will be available?... for fuck sake...
Currently, there is no discovery at all, except maybe in a few lonely and very small instances. Which are there probably by some mistake.

All the options are force fed to the players by the game.
How the fuck can you have any discovery when all options are available to you? And none of them are restricted by character stats? HOW?
By going through corridors from one prompt to another?

The idea however that making a choice such as Highpool-versus-AgCenter or RNC conflict resolution or even the different outcomes of Highpool's crisis and election is somehow "false" or "less" for not being restricted by character build is not, in my opinion, the right way of looking at it, because it's still exclusive and real in its consequences.

Players builds having no effect on AG or Highpool is just one side of why they suck so much donkey ass they dont see any light anymore.

or, in other words:

Yo dawg, you wanted to have consequences for AG-Highpool destruction so i made AG-Highpool destruction the consequences.

It would be if we were judging this as a Fallout sequel but it's not, its got its own personality unique in different ways from both Fallout and its direct predecessor.

It has personality of a mass market turd, that only took isometric and turn based combat so the kickstarter project can get enough money from old Fallout fans.

Shut the fuck up about the Fallouts already. Would you? You used it enough during the kickstarter to get around 3 million dollars.

Since now youve admitted that Fallout for you and your company meant just grabbing money and a post apocalyptic funny setting (someone already did that!) - in isometric PoV, with tb combat that is trying to be actiony more then anything else - which fucking defeats the purpose of TB system - you should stop sullying its name further.

And the possibilities you have with player gameplay action as the primary choice factor can be fascinatingly varied and much more granular;

- the game doesn't need to force or guide a player towards these choices or loudly call them out because it's ok to us if people miss them (for instance, it is easy to miss that you can opt not to engage in the Ralphie mission if you desire not to, walk away and the game treats that scenario differently).

:lolcopter:

- this is turning into some kind of absurd stand up comedy.

It may take a long, long time before people work through all the little and large chances and reactive paths the game has.

Yeah, sure.

I can understand a general preference for build-based choice restrictions but that preference does not in my mind negate that WL2's local, choice-based, narrative reactivity is fundamentally more complex and real than the generally cosmetic reactivity that has become the trademark of cRPGs.

A what? Trademark? of what? bioware and bethesda school of design?

Narrative reactivity? The text tweaks?

The non consequences like Angela killing that trader - after you got what you needed from him, so it doesnt matter at all? - because the game gives you three different options to get it so you cant miss it at all?

Like Peter saying he will work harder or sulk?

Like no matter what key words you click or in what order the game still gives you all options with that main Atchinson character?

Like AG center or Highpool destroyed doesnt do anything at all and the player has both of the "consequences" anyway? Both infected places and wreckers base force fed to him?

Like getting the serum even if you let Ag center get destroyed?

Like having Kathy waiting there inside the killer vines and then happily talking to you about dozen different topics and even laughing!? - while the vines are killing her and she hates your guts because you didnt save them?

It shows a fundamental lack of design understanding

hey retard, - i mean, design genious - riddle me this: what is the biggest problem with the design of Leve Lupe mine.
I double dare ya.

Ill even give you time to consult the whole company of design geniuses.

to go "this game does not have build-restricted choices, so it is doing it wrong",

if there is no build-affected and restricted (where appropriate) choices, it is bad and wrong - because then there are no choices at all.

Thats the essence of cRPG games and if youre going to avoid that - then your game is not a cRPG at all. Its a larp simulator. Action game. A malignant mass market induced tumor in the body of cRPGs.

when in the end the game already evinces minor and major choices and consequences with a granularity and scope that rivals early Fallout 1/2, simply framed in a different way.

How you feel about how it's set up, presented and integrated into map design is an entirely different issue.

oh, its how we "feel". An emotional global declaratory ad hominem for all of the codex.

You people are simply too blinded and emotional to see what masterpiece inXile is creating man.
Not like those true fans on facebook, rps, ign, gamespot, steam and inxile forums.

No, the game is not shit, noooo... its just that youre emotional.
Codex hysteria. Best cured with some lobotomy. Just relax, bit down on this - you will feel much better afterwards.

fuck... i didnt even think this will go this deep and this far, but as i read the reply more carefully... these... insanities just kept getting more absurd and absurd.


Are you completely out of your fucking mind?
- rhetorical.



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fallout 1/2 would still demonstrate their c&c if you started with 200% in every skill. Using the example of getting Vic back. The interesting thing isn't really how you've built your character, but the options available to the player from tools he or she has chosen. If you give them all the tools, it would still be an interesting scenario with many approaches.

No it wont. Because having all options means there is no real C&C. Its all just larping.
Which - in Fallouts would be somewhat less disastrous because in Fallouts - the choices have actual real consequences. (along with many smaller and less impactful ones of all kinds)

Wasteland 2 doesnt. Literally.

The problem I have with Wasteland 2 so far is the relative simplicity of the scenarios.

Thats the consequence of retarded design priorities. As BN conveniently explained to everyone, above.

For example in the Ag Center, there is no real alternative to just killing all the bad things. You can't reason with the mutated bunnies, you can't science! your way through the veggies either. Sneaking isn't implemented yet (and it's looks like might never be?), so you can't sneak/steal something to solve the problem. The only solution is a dungeon crawl.

Thats the consequence of the retard design - in which the prime rule is "no restrictions by stat builds of characters" and distorting the game into "player choices" larp simulator.

It doesn't really have anything to do with many good but really tangential complains by felipepepe or Hiver.

Tangential? Why? Because BN strawmaned it in or misunderstood and made another idiotic assumption?

At the end of the day, Wasteland 2 is about choosing which dungeon crawl you want to do and then seeing consequences from that.

There isnt any consequences.

ps, I haven't spent much time with the latest patch, apparently Highpool is a much more interesting location.

No its not. Its just that it has a few things that may turn out to be interesting.... if the game was further changed more in line with what i was suggesting. Since BN admitted nothing could be farther from the truth you can throw that one in to the waste bin too.

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I think you're misremembering the scenario. She's an Atchinson, she doesn't really tell anyone (she does cry out, but she doesn't talk to people) because she can't talk to Topekans and doesn't want her father to know about it at all.

The love of her life is dying in front of her eyes. Nobody would care for the feud or what their daddy would say... for fuck sake.

I already replied to that idiocy several times - but you are so fucking stupid that you think that just pretending you didnt see it means you can just repeat that nonsensical schtick and get away with it.

The person who tells is the Topekan witness, the crippled man (IIRC?) by the lake, who either sees the Rangers let Ralphy die/save him and tells other Topekans unless killed, or doesn't see the Rangers at all.
In both cases, the logical sequence is the witness either sees or not, and if he sees he either lives or not. Whether people know depends on the witness seeing and living, which makes perfect sense to me.

He doesnt see me when i go and shoot the retard myself. Never peeps a word.
And why the fuck would anyone care about that idiotic cheap, nonsensical, completely idiotic scenario taken as a whole at all?

As for the general town murder, we've already stated a few times there will be global reactivity and consequences for turning on the Ranger's mission like that. Obviously not currently in the beta.

I enjoy it, it may take an adjustment, but I'd rather respect the player to be able to do that than spoonfeed them.

Your scenarios are written by ignorant imbeciles and spoon fed to player constantly - your fucking options are cosmetic shit that doesnt have any real consequences onto anything but text tweaks and idiotic laughable attempts at extreme emotional engagement.

It is kind of reminiscent of Wasteland 1, though often the skill or attribute use there felt much more eclectic (especially in Finster's Mind Maze, which I recently replayed).

oooooo... he said word "eclectic". gee! he must know what he is talkin abut!

Yes, another good example of the kind of decision-making and problem-solving you can find in the Wasteland.
It's not always obvious but it's often there (or to be put there). As said before, it's still in progress so we're still building out things like reactivity or improving the openworld nature (the way areas unlock etc), if it was where we wanted it to be we would release it, but it's this kind of experimentation and decision-making that WL2 focuses on rather than build-based choices. I think it'll work pretty well in the finished product, once everything's built out and polished up.