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

[Daedalos]

yet I'm the one with the fanboy tag?

Should be Infinitron's and not mine....

 

[WhiteGuts]

We can have two fanboys.

 

[Xeon]

I don't think Infinitron ever bashed a Kickstarter game or spoke strongly against it, The only time I saw any sort of discontent AFAIK and remember was in the Warhorse thread.

Spoiler

What I wrote was that an RPG is a game were character skills matter more than player skills. That's what makes Deus Ex more of an RPG than a shooter for instance. Is morrowind a skill game? Or are the damage you deal governed by your stats?

In my opinion, RPG is a game, where PLAYER takes ROLE of some CHARACTER and becomes him. ROLE PLAYING GAME. The difference between any other game and RPG is, that the "simulation" of the character behaviour and his progress and development is much deeper. I can get better, stronger, smarter, sick, married etc. and my actions affect the world as well. Some things must be represented by numbers, because there is no other way how to tell the player how good he is at something, because he cant feel his body (strenght), some other values could be represented visually and realtime, because graphics made a huge leap forward since 70s when it all started, but in the background, its still numbers and stats, player just doesnt need to see it, because he sees the real thing.

And then, you have the combat. That is the part where some old school people will have problems. Skill based realtime gameplay is evil! In the old days, it was just not possible to make a fencing simulator, so it was "simulated" with dice throws and some rules. But in the real world, fencing is skill based and if I want to play the role of a swordsman, it only makes sense, that the game will ask me to show some skill. Problem is, that fencing is hard, I can tell you, I had few fencing lessons, so since the game is done for entertainment purposes, it will make the fencing much easier, but will still require some skill. What is wrong with that? There is still huge difference between action game and rpg game combat. My character still has lots of stats that affect the combat (strenght, agility, stamina, perks....), I have lot of equipment that I modified. Isnt that roleplaying? In my opinion it is. But anyone has different tastes and I cant do anything about that

Mrowak and the rest of you guys need to stop with the apologetic devil's advocate bullshit. Every self-respecting Codexer knows that Vavra's answer to that second-to-last question is not fucking kosher. It's the classic "old RPGs were like that of because technical limitations" canard, like Matt Findley's interview from 2011 that he now wishes was buried under 50 feet of cement.

Now, that doesn't mean Vavra's game won't be a decent sandbox action-RPG in the end, because, well, those horrible technical limitations do still exist, so he will have to add in some stats.

 

[Infinitron]

I don't think Infinitron ever bashed a Kickstarter game or spoke strongly against it, The only time I saw any sort of discontent AFAIK and remember was in the Warhorse thread.

Spoiler

What I wrote was that an RPG is a game were character skills matter more than player skills. That's what makes Deus Ex more of an RPG than a shooter for instance. Is morrowind a skill game? Or are the damage you deal governed by your stats?

In my opinion, RPG is a game, where PLAYER takes ROLE of some CHARACTER and becomes him. ROLE PLAYING GAME. The difference between any other game and RPG is, that the "simulation" of the character behaviour and his progress and development is much deeper. I can get better, stronger, smarter, sick, married etc. and my actions affect the world as well. Some things must be represented by numbers, because there is no other way how to tell the player how good he is at something, because he cant feel his body (strenght), some other values could be represented visually and realtime, because graphics made a huge leap forward since 70s when it all started, but in the background, its still numbers and stats, player just doesnt need to see it, because he sees the real thing.

And then, you have the combat. That is the part where some old school people will have problems. Skill based realtime gameplay is evil! In the old days, it was just not possible to make a fencing simulator, so it was "simulated" with dice throws and some rules. But in the real world, fencing is skill based and if I want to play the role of a swordsman, it only makes sense, that the game will ask me to show some skill. Problem is, that fencing is hard, I can tell you, I had few fencing lessons, so since the game is done for entertainment purposes, it will make the fencing much easier, but will still require some skill. What is wrong with that? There is still huge difference between action game and rpg game combat. My character still has lots of stats that affect the combat (strenght, agility, stamina, perks....), I have lot of equipment that I modified. Isnt that roleplaying? In my opinion it is. But anyone has different tastes and I cant do anything about that

Mrowak and the rest of you guys need to stop with the apologetic devil's advocate bullshit. Every self-respecting Codexer knows that Vavra's answer to that second-to-last question is not fucking kosher. It's the classic "old RPGs were like that of because technical limitations" canard, like Matt Findley's interview from 2011 that he now wishes was buried under 50 feet of cement.

Now, that doesn't mean Vavra's game won't be a decent sandbox action-RPG in the end, because, well, those horrible technical limitations do still exist, so he will have to add in some stats.

Kingdom Come wasn't a Kickstarter game back then.

Seriously, I've been negative about Kickstarter games before, including this one. Sometimes in a behind the scenes capacity, sometimes in public. My opinion remains that Wasteland 2 could have had more deep thought put into it before it went into production, but I just don't understand how you go from that to "completely unfun game that's also worse than Shadowrun Returns OC".

 

[FeelTheRads]

Infinitron is a Kickstarter fanboy, maybe.

The have like a cool site and stuff, pretty good graphics, not many bugs, good intentions, maybe too high fees but definitely worth the bookmark.

 

[SuicideBunny]

but I just don't understand how you go from that to "completely unfun game that's also worse than Shadowrun Returns OC".

hyperbole stemming from a stronger failure to meet the much higher expectations. it's their own fault for getting so many high profile people on board.

 

[Infinitron]

but I just don't understand how you go from that to "completely unfun game that's also worse than Shadowrun Returns OC".

hyperbole stemming from a stronger failure to meet the much higher expectations. it's their own fault for getting so many high profile people on board.

Thing is, in the end, Wasteland 2 didn't have that many high profile people on board in an actual, operational role. It has six areas designed by Chris Avellone in a short six month preproduction period. A bunch of old fogies from Wasteland 1 who also did some of that stuff during that same period, before scampering off too. Actual production was done by inXile's merry band of green-behind-the-ears younglings. The lead designer is in his early 30s and has never designed a serious CRPG before, and the main writer has never worked on games before.

 

[felipepepe]

Shadowrun Returns kickstarter ran after W2 and had about half the budget, with no super-star dev team or insane promises. Hell, it started as a tablet game. But they first released a mediocre/dissapointing game (but with great graphics & soundtrack, a solid editor and better combat than W2). Then they went back to the drawing board, took the feedback to heart, made an expansion that attends most issues and got praised by Roxor is his review.

 

[Infinitron]

better combat than W2

No, see, now you're doing it again. Because you don't enjoy Wasteland 2's overall experience, you exaggerate flaws and make ridiculous comparisons.

The reasons behind Wasteland 2's poor reception from some quarters are fundamentally structural in nature, that is, related to the game's overall structure.

What were late 90s RPG fans looking for? They wanted huge towns to become lost in, like Athkatla or the Hub or New Reno, with grid-like layouts. Instead Wasteland 2 gave them dungeons.

They wanted dozens of NPCs with deep dialogue trees, that they could spend hours on, just hopping from NPC to NPC sucking up all those walls of text and enjoying all the little choices and consequences, like in Planescape: Torment. Instead Wasteland 2 gave them keywords to click on before they go back into the fray.

They wanted a huge open world where they could go anywhere, even speedrunning the entire game in 15 minutes. Wasteland 2 gave them an "openish" world with lots of plot gating, ala Baldur's Gate 1.

Put simply, it is not the kind of RPG you were expecting, and this is the reason for your unhappiness, not all the little nitpicks that you've been throwing for weeks now about weird quests or juvenile humor or bad art direction or whatever. All of those things can and would have been overlooked if the game had fit your structural expectations.

I believe that inXile can be blamed for not parsing the fanbase's structural expectations correctly before they began production of the game. As I said, if they had hired people like Brother None earlier, a lot of this grief could have been avoided. As it is, the game is what it is and I don't believe you can say that it is bad as such.

 

[Athelas]

I'm pretty sure people pledged to/hyped up the game so much because they saw InXile as some sort of continuation of Black Isle, and because of the 'Brian Fargo = creator of Fallout' meme. Neither of which is correct, of course, but then again, Kickstarter is more about marketing and presentation than anything else.

 

[hiver]

Could someone inform infinitron not to use imbecilic fallacies and strawman arguments he is pulling out of his ass, pls?

Like these:

No, see, now you're doing it again. Because you don't enjoy Wasteland 2's overall experience, you exaggerate flaws and make ridiculous comparisons.
The reasons behind Wasteland 2's poor reception from some quarters are fundamentally structural in nature, that is, related to the game's overall structure.

I mean, you really have to be an obnoxious delusional retard to just go and strawman this in after me and felipepepe spent a lot of time and effort to write about specifics of every game feature - instead of some idiotic invented notions about "overall experiences" and "fundamental structures in nature".

- latest review of mine on page 154 for anyone who didnt see it. btw.

 

[felipepepe]

better combat than W2

No, see, now you're doing it again. Because you don't enjoy Wasteland 2's overall experience, you exaggerate flaws and make ridiculous comparisons.

No, I'm not:

W2's combat: 8 kinds of weapons, 1 stance and cover.

SRR's Combat: 9 kinds of weapons (each with about 7 skills), 2 levels of cover, classes unique skills (mage's spells, shaman's totems, barries and summons, Adept's Chi Casting) Drones, environmental use, criticals, buff drugs...

SRR's combat does everything that W2 does, but with more complexity and more options. Even stuff like range plays a great role, while in W2 it means shit after you fired the first shot. Hell, a single pistol alone can be shot in 8 ways in SRRs! It only loses on the simplistic actions points, but W2 doesn't do anything interesting with them anyway.

Not to mention that enemies also have all that variety a hand, meaning more interesting fights than pew-pew from cover or melee guys bum-rushing you.

The reasons behind Wasteland 2's poor reception from some quarters are fundamentally structural in nature, that is, related to the game's overall structure.

What were late 90s RPG fans looking for? They wanted huge towns to become lost in, like Athkatla or the Hub or New Reno, with grid-like layouts. Instead Wasteland 2 gave them dungeons.

They wanted dozens of NPCs with deep dialogue trees, that they could spend hours on, just hopping from NPC to NPC sucking up all those walls of text and enjoying all the little choices and consequences, like in Planescape: Torment. Instead Wasteland 2 gave them keywords to click on before they go back into the fray.

They wanted a huge open world where they could go anywhere, even speedrunning the entire game in 15 minutes. Wasteland 2 gave them an "openish" world with lots of plot gating, ala Baldur's Gate 1.

Put simply, it is not the kind of RPG you were expecting, and this is the reason for your unhappiness, not all the little nitpicks that you've been throwing for weeks now about weird quests or juvenile humor or bad art direction or whatever. All of those things can and would have been overlooked if the game had fit your structural expectations.

I believe that inXile can be blamed for not parsing the fanbase's desires correctly before they began production of the game. As I said, if they had hired people like Brother None earlier, a lot of this grief could have been avoided. As it is, the game is what it is and I don't believe you can say that it is bad as such.

So, there are no bad games, only wrong expectations? SERIOUSLY?

 

[Infinitron]

So, there are no bad games, only wrong expectations? SERIOUSLY?

Not harsh enough for you? A lot of people would have treated what you just quoted as the most definitive takedown of Wasteland 2 yet.

When somebody reads your criticisms, they might think to themselves "Hmm, that sounds bad, but maybe they'll fix it." When they read what I just posted, they'll probably run for the hills and never think of this game again.

(I don't even know if what I posted is completely true, of course. Maybe the game's structure changes and becomes more Fallouty later on, in California. Or maybe even before that in Damonta. For now though we can only go with what we've seen.)

 

[sea]

Everyone saw your review, hiver. It was... rather hard to miss.

In any case:

• Balance and mechanics can and will be fine-tuned right up to release. A huge number of complaints relate to balance in combat, of attributes and skills, of loot drops, the in-game economy, etc. but with content still in a state of flux this is some of the last stuff worth locking down and spending time on if it just needs to get changed again later.
• Likewise, individual quests and things like companion reactivity in the game world are still being tweaked.
  
• The game is going to be more open-ended and less gated than the beta indicates at this time, and you may see changes to that effect going forward.
• There are going to be more hub-style locations, which have more significant non-combat and exploration elements. However, the game is still going to be more objective- and combat-oriented than Fallout (it is what it is, as Infinitron mentioned that's just how much of the game has been built).
• There is significant reactivity that manifests towards the mid and late game, which is hard to get a sense for now. Remember, even with the Prison area, the beta is only about 25-30% of the game. Again, spoilers, can't talk about it, etc.
• I agree about the mine area having room for improvement, and submitted my thoughts on that a couple weeks ago already (though remember it's still ultimately a small side quest, so don't expect a massive sprawling dungeon). Can't say what's being done as it's a lower priority compared to other tasks right now.

It also goes without saying that all the information above is subject to change, and that I do not know the specifics related to all those topics (plus if I started blabbing too much, Brother None would have to send Lithuanian hitmen after me).

 

[SuicideBunny]

Instead Wasteland 2 gave them dungeons.

dunno about felipepepe but for me the point is that plenty of those kinda suck and soz tried the same thing but did it better. small filler areas like level up mine or the robots map just kinda feel sucky. you have a tree graph map design that could be taken directly from rage, skyrim or oblivion, no skillchecks for anything other than loot and it's just combat node after combat node... if you are that keen on combat, make special unique random combat encounters, don't friggin waste an entire area on filler combat that only serves to give you xp, which you don't really need to begin with considering random encounters are level scaled.

 

[felipepepe]

W2 is not X, it's Y.

W2 is not X, it's Y. And it sucks at it.

That's the difference.

 

[Infinitron]

random encounters are level scaled.

Huh?

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/inxile/wasteland-2/posts/633697

Certain parts of The Wasteland are populated by particularly dangerous enemies. You are more likely to trigger high-level encounters while travelling in those areas. We do not conduct any form of level scaling in this regard; so if you wander off the beaten path you better be ready for a tough fight.

W2 is not X, it's Y.

W2 is not X, it's Y. And it sucks at it.

That's the difference.

See, what I believe is that it's actually

W2 is Y and I didn't really want Y in this sort of game so I'm gonna complain about lots of things that other people would just ignore because they're too busy enjoying the Y.

 

[hiver]

better combat than W2

No, see, now you're doing it again. Because you don't enjoy Wasteland 2's overall experience, you exaggerate flaws and make ridiculous comparisons.

No, I'm not:

W2's combat: 8 kinds of weapons, 1 stance and cover.

And one kind of combat encounter.

In any case:
Balance and mechanics can and will be fine-tuned right up to release (a huge number of complaints relate to balance in combat, of attributes and skills, of loot drops, the in-game economy, etc. but with content still in a state of flux this is some of the last stuff worth locking down and spending time on if it just needs to get changed again later).

Thats what i wont to hear. Not how its all awesome and fallacy on top of a fallacy on top of a strawman arguments.

The game is going to be more open-ended and much less gated than the beta indicates at this time, and you may see changes to that effect in the coming weeks (though I can't confirm any specifics myself; suffice it to say this is basically our #1 piece of feedback from fans and changes are being made as a result).

Ditto.

There are going to be more town hub style locations going forward, which have more significant non-combat and exploration elements. However, the game is still going to be more objective- and combat-oriented than Fallout (it is what it is, as Infinitron mentioned that's just how much of the game has been built).
There is significant reactivity that manifests towards the mid and late game, which is hard to get a sense for now. Remember, even with the Prison area, the beta is only about 25-30% of the game (I played through all of Arizona recently, there is still significant gameplay remaining there). Again, spoilers, can't talk about it, etc.

All good.

I agree about the mine area having room for improvement, and submitted my thoughts on that a couple weeks ago already (though remember it's still ultimately a small side quest, so don't expect a massive sprawling dungeon). Can't say what's being done as it's a lower priority compared to other tasks right now.

Very easy to change so its more sensible, interesting and engaging, without changing much of its setup or layout. Making it into massive sprawling dungeon never even crossed my mind.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Huh?

looked level scaled to me. gonna test it thoroughly when i have some time.

 

[Athelas]

Why would anyone ever think something like plot-gated travel is a good thing? They could've saved time and resources by implementing free travel from the start, instead of having to overhaul it now.

 

[sea]

Also worth mentioning: since some of you seem to think we are not listening - we compile and prioritize fan feedback from several forums (including those of the variety) on a weekly basis, and send it to the appropriate people for review. Just want to let you know that the comments here are not falling on deaf ears.

 

[ZagorTeNej]

See, what I believe is that it's actually

W2 is Y and I didn't really want Y in this sort of game so I'm gonna complain about lots of things that other people would just ignore because they're too busy enjoying the Y.

Except he already compared W2 with other Ys (TOEE, KOTC, Fallout Tactics etc.) a few pages back (and found W2 lacking in that case as well) but whatever, continue trying to discredit/dismiss any criticism of game's actual content as merely being a side-effect of the displeasure of players who were expecting orange but got lemon-lime.

 

[Infinitron]

Except he already compared W2 with other Ys (TOEE, KOTC, Fallout Tactics etc.) a few pages back (and found W2 lacking in that case as well) but whatever, continue trying to discredit/dismiss any criticism of game's actual content as merely being a side-effect of the displeasure of players who were expecting orange but got lemon-lime.

First of all, Wasteland 2 is not a fantasy RPG. I've written before about how post-apoc can't really compete with fantasy games in terms of tactics. (and of course "fantasy" in this context also includes Shadowrun)

Second, I don't think Wasteland 2 is the same "Y" as Fallout Tactics or JA2 or other "tactical RPGs". Call those "Z", if you will.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

Second, I don't think Wasteland 2 is the same "Y" as Fallout Tactics or JA2 or other "tactical RPGs". Call those "Z", if you will.

So what games can W2 be compared to then?

 

[tuluse]

I have not and I will not call Wasteland 2 worse than SRR. You're sort of right that a lot of the disappointment is that W2 is not the style of RPG I was expecting, but it's not very good at what it's trying to be either.