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

[Infinitron]

I can't believe I didn't do this sooner.

 

[CrustyBot]

I haven't really kept up with the thread, beyond skimming and watching posters nitpick, but my first impression when playing the beta/alpha was how narrow and corridor-like the map design was. KotOR level design instantly popped into my head. So I definitely agree with that sentiment and find it hard to find ways to excuse that. There's a lot of moving parts with regards to mechanics and the like, and stuff like that is easier to change, so I won't comment on that.

Still, I have little doubts it will have more tactical depth than W1 combat, or F1/F2 combat since a lot of people will draw that comparison. So that in itself is a win.

But the map/level design really bummed me out. Still enjoyed what I played, but I may have to Lower My Expectations™.

 

[felipepepe]

I can't believe I didn't do this sooner.

What? Ah, the title...

 

[Surf Solar]

That thread title change is funny, since its Infinitron mostly doing the 'leave wasteland 2 alone ;___;' posts :D

 

[Emily]

Can someone fill me in why do you have access to every skill i noticed people talking about this?

 

[Excidium]

Can someone fill me in why do you have access to every skill i noticed people talking about this?

You control up to 7 characters

 

[FeelTheRads]

Enter area, get briefing about what your mission are, then proceed to execute it in any fashion or order you desire. Find side-quests along the way that are actually related to the main mission and offers you new approaches. Enter any building and use it to your tactical advantage. And there are secrets here and there that can either help you out or provide a optional tough challenge... not to mention that you can party with a ghoul, a deathclaw and supermuntant and jump on a tank, cruising the wastes... oh yeah, and multi-player.

Come on, man. I don't remember that map specifically, but I do seem to remember that most missions in Tactics were railroaded. At most you'd have a couple of paths that were explicitly laid out to you: here mines, here mobs! choose!

You control up to 7 characters

And how's it gonna be in PE? Plus I thought it was awsum that you can get all skills with all classes in PE?

 

[Arkeus]

And how's it gonna be in PE? Plus I thought it was awsum that you can get all skills with all classes in PE?

There are 11 classes in PE and only 6 characters, so it would be kind of hard to play them all at once.

Also, as infinitron mentioned, the presence of magic also brings a whole lot of new combinations.

 

[hiver]

Can someone fill me in why do you have access to every skill i noticed people talking about this?

You control up to 7 characters

- you get XP multiplied for every character (encounter gives 100 xp alltogether, - but each ranger gets 100 xp alone)
- too much of xp in general on top of that.
- too few skills which are designed for a Single Player RPG game.
- a lot of them are flavor skills anyway

 

[felipepepe]

Come on, man. I don't remember that map specifically, but I do seem to remember that most missions in Tactics were railroaded. At most you'd have a couple of paths that were explicitly laid out to you: here mines, here mobs! choose!

You're underestimating the game. Sure, some map are straight up dungeon-crawls, but others like Quincy are quite complex. Here's a ultra high resoution map of the area with all encounters and a run-down of the map from GameBanshee:

Beastlords & their pet deathclaws have taken over the town of Quincy, and made the population hostage.

Main objectives:
- Rescue the Mayor (#3)

Optional objectives:
- Turn off the main alarm (#3)
- Save the power plant (#4)
- Rescue the Mayor's daughter (#6)
- Rescue the prostitutes (#8)
- Rescue Warden Felix (#10)
- Help the ghouls (#11)
- Rescue Gorgi (#12)

Other points of interest:
- Entry point (#1)
- Mayor's assistant that will brief you (#2)
- Beastlords's patrol (#5)
- Secret tunnel leading to brothel (#7a)
- Ambush (#8)
- Optional Challenge: Two extremely tough deathclaws guarding awesome loot (#9)

No railroading, you can do it in any order and with any amount of optional objectives. And they are all tied down well to the setting, not just random shit because "quests are good". Some are very hard to do; i.e., if any beastlord spots you and spound the alarm, they will activate the timers on the bombs and you'll only have one minute to save the power plant from blowing up. Same thing, if anyone spots you approaching the prison, they will shoot the Warden kept as hostage. get spotted near the brothel, and they'll start to shoot the prostitutes.

And the game reacts to that in various ways. You're helping the Mayor so she seals an alliance with the Brotherhood of Steel, and if you perform badly (let the generator blow and/or the hostages die), she will be pissed off and might not make the alliance. Let her daughter die, and she will banish you from her town. Help the ghouls & save Gorgi, and they will offer to join the BoS and will be available as recruits. Save Felix, and he will join BoS as well and the mayor will be very thankful. Rescue the prostitutes and you get a karma boost, but the BoS elders will be displeased. Plus loads of "reactivity", with every NPC in town saying something different according to who and what you saved, and some even reacting to special party members, like having a deathclaw with you. And again, you can enter any house, snipe enemies from indoors, explore freely and complete objectives in any order and any amount.

And this isn't a end-game area and I'm being unfair, it's mission #6 of 22. But honestly, from what we seen so far, I honestly doubt that any area in W2 can rival to this in design.

 

[Infinitron]

And how's it gonna be in PE? Plus I thought it was awsum that you can get all skills with all classes in PE?

Well, I don't think you'll be able to use your party's skills in dialogue checks (only the main character's), so at least for those, PE works more like Fallout. Outside of dialogue, yeah, you can probably cover all non-combat skills, especially since there aren't a lot of skills in the game in the first place.

That's no different than the IE games, of course.

 

[Emily]

Can someone fill me in why do you have access to every skill i noticed people talking about this?

You control up to 7 characters

- you get XP multiplied for every character (encounter gives 100 xp alltogether, - but each ranger gets 100 xp alone)
- too much of xp in general on top of that.
- too few skills which are designed for a Single Player RPG game.
- a lot of them are flavor skills anyway

that sounds terrible.

 

[felipepepe]

That means that playing with 7 people is always the best thing to do. Even ammo isn't an issue, just give them one level in melee and a crowbar and they are already useful.

The obvious solution was already discussed: make the currently pointless Charisma attribute limit the amount of party members you can have, something that would fix issues ranging from "every party has every skills" to combat difficulty and even replayability... but we're still waiting on any reply on that.

 

[Emily]

That means that playing with 7 people is always the best thing to do. Even ammo isn't an issue, just give them one level in melee and a crowbar and they are already useful.

The obvious solution was already discussed: make the currently pointless Charisma attribute limit the amount of party members you can have, something that would fix issues ranging from "every party has every skills" to combat difficulty and even replayability... but we're still waiting on any reply on that.

Wouldn't that again just turn main character into charisma dump? I mean why wouldn't you want to have 6 other people for the price of one...

 

[felipepepe]

Wouldn't that again just turn main character into charisma dump? I mean why wouldn't you want to have 6 other people for the price of one...

There's no "main character", so it should be based on the average Charisma of the squad. So you can make one bad-ass character ignoring Charisma, or have a full party of Rangers that are chartismatic but weak. As I posted earlier:

ATM you start with 3 in every attribute, having 7 points to spent freely. Playing solo (1 CHA) would mean that you have 9 points to spread, while playing with 7 rangers (avg. 9 CHA) means that the average ranger will have only 1 point to freely spent (without reducing other attributes, that is). As I said, solo Snake Plisken Vs. 7 Girl Scouts.

 

[Infinitron]

lol replying to hiver

Do I really need to point out how boneheaded that "OMG MORE PARTY MEMBERS = YOU GET FREE XP!!!111" complaint is? If a game has decided not to use the traditional "divide XP between all party members" system - and I'm not aware of any law that says that a game must use that system - then that's just how it's going to work. Obviously, if they decided to switch, then each enemy currently in the game would have the amount of XP it grants multiplied by 7, so that the end result would be the same if you were using a full-sized party.

I'm in favor of examining felipepepe's Charisma-based incentive system towards using a smaller party, rather than the traditional "divide XP between the party members" system, because I think it's not necessarily a great idea to make the members of smaller parties turn into high-level demigods faster. Smaller parties deserve to have the same sense of pacing that larger parties do.

 

[Decado]

Can someone fill me in why do you have access to every skill i noticed people talking about this?

You control up to 7 characters

They really need to fix this. So far, the idea of tying party size to Charisma sounds like the best way to do this.

 

[Ladonna]

Also, as infinitron mentioned, the presence of magic also brings a whole lot of new combinations.

I know I haven't been bothered to keep up to date on this game, but...magic? Is this a leg pull? I really, really hope it is....

 

[Infinitron]

Also, as infinitron mentioned, the presence of magic also brings a whole lot of new combinations.

I know I haven't been bothered to keep up to date on this game, but...magic? Is this a leg pull? I really, really hope it is....

He's talking about Pillars of Eternity

 

[hiver]

lol replying to hiver

Do I really need to point out how boneheaded that "OMG MORE PARTY MEMBERS = YOU GET FREE XP!!!111" complaint is? If a game has decided not to use the traditional "divide XP between all party members" system - and I'm not aware of any law that says that a game must use that system - then that's just how it's going to work. Obviously, if they decided to switch, then each enemy currently in the game would have the amount of XP it grants multiplied by 7, so that the end result would be the same if you were using a full-sized party.

I'm in favor of examining felipepepe's Charisma-based incentive system towards using a smaller party, rather than the traditional "divide XP between the party members" system, because I think it's not necessarily a great idea to make the members of smaller parties turn into high-level demigods faster. Smaller parties deserve to have the same sense of pacing that larger parties do.

:sigh:... replying to infinitron... who i cannot ignore, unfortunately, because the codex staff butthurt.

As usual, you just go into some obnoxious, idiotic assumptions in your head and then reply - to your own HEAD.

example one:

Do I really need to point out how boneheaded that "OMG MORE PARTY MEMBERS = YOU GET FREE XP!!!111" complaint is?

Its not a fucking complaint based on some idiotic dislike of the "idea", you moron - its the way that the game works - and in the scope and range and gameplay of the game it does not make any FUCKING sense at all.
-edit- (well, it certainly works if your main design goal is player choices and skills)

i.e. - I am not complaining just because i dont like its "style", - but because it functions horribly!
Stick those invented high fantasy strawmans back to where youre pulling them out of!

Obviously, if they decided to switch, then each enemy currently in the game would have the amount of XP it grants multiplied by 7, so that the end result would be the same if you were using a full-sized party.

i.e. - It would be the same fucking thing - with the exact same effects.

I'm in favor of examining felipepepe's Charisma-based incentive system towards using a smaller party, rather than the traditional "divide XP between the party members" system, because I think it's not necessarily a great idea to make the members of smaller parties turn into high-level demigods faster.

Oh Rlly? You mean fast turning into high-level DEMIGODS AS THEY DO RIGHT NOW? EH?

If me and felipepepe do the eventual mod, you can bet that idea of his would be included. bro.

Smaller parties deserve to have the same sense of pacing that larger parties do.

What so unfair in having a relatively harder time when doing same missions with three rangers (instead of 6 or 7) - but getting a bit more XP for it per individual ranger as a result?
And where did you get any idea that i would even allow becoming any sort of a demigod, whichever way i would change the system?

Not to mention that when playing with three ranger party you presumably would not have all skills at your disposal? (although, right now, you can get them all with just three characters too - the way XP and skill points are dumped onto you)
And therefore you wouldnt be able to just choose every option there is in the game. (rare and cheap and superficial that they are)

 

[DeepOcean]

I think the party charisma limiting the amount of rangers could be very interesting, you dump points in charisma and make your characters weaker to get more people, I think that supplies could be an interesting factor in limiting the party size as well.

With seven people, you can carry seven times the amount of water but consume seven times as fast as well but water run out fast and if you are going on a mission in the middle of nowhere, avoiding radiation areas, it will come to a point that every drop of water found and other supplies need to be shared by seven people. Going with a smaller group on a difficult area to travel could be the smart idea as you don't know if you are going to have the water for the return trip for everybody. Investing on outdoorsman could help but it should be still tricky to keep everybody supplied.

This needs balance testing to make it work like cutting the amount of resources and oasis and watch the butthurt until some balance is reached but, to the moment, it appears that inXile is too occupied with bug smashing and 3 months don't look like a lot of time to balance and test the game. Outside a few things here and there, so far, this Early Access looks like glorified and unpaid beta testing like many cynics pointed out.

 

[felipepepe]

Multiplying per party members rewards too much huge parties, and splitting creates solo demi-gods. There should be a table for Xp distribution, like this:

This way a solo character has an advantage and get more Xp than the army of 7 rangers (264% more XP, in this example), but is not something broken like it getting 7 times the Xp of a ranger in a large group.

 

[SuicideBunny]

Do I really need to point out how boneheaded that "OMG MORE PARTY MEMBERS = YOU GET FREE XP!!!111" complaint is? If a game has decided not to use the traditional "divide XP between all party members" system - and I'm not aware of any law that says that a game must use that system - then that's just how it's going to work.

it isn't boneheaded. more party members make combat easier unless you implement some form of scaling to offset that, like xp split which is supposed to slow down progression when you run with bigger parties. here you instead have xp multiplied by party members which means bigger party has a faster progression since you will be able to take on harder encounters more easily, especially with many hired chars having better stats.
so effectively, outside of some reactivity with some hired npcs, which we cannot currently judge very well, running with a smaller party is totally gimping yourself since you do less total dmg in combat, can absorb less dmg yourself, waste xp by not running with a full party, you have lower max water which may or may not be irrelevant and finally you have less room for taking every skill there is and be able to actually do everything.
in short, it kinda sucks from a design perspective.

 

[Infinitron]

so effectively, outside of some reactivity with some hired npcs, which we cannot currently judge very well, running with a smaller party is totally gimping yourself since you do less total dmg in combat, can absorb less dmg yourself, waste xp by not running with a full party, you have lower max water which may or may not be irrelevant and finally you have less room for taking every skill there is and be able to actually do everything.
in short, it kinda sucks from a design perspective.

It's imperfect from a design perspective, yes. That's why I'm in favor of examining felipe's system.

But the truth is that in most RPGs of the past, a full-sized party was the way to go even when they DID implement an XP-splitting system. Especially since most of them had a level cap, so the smaller party just hit the cap faster which really sucked.

In short, it's hardly an outrage.

 

[tuluse]

You guys are assuming that smaller parties are intended to be a valid choice, which I don't think they are. You are supposed to be rolling with a party of 7 and swapping out the NPCs as you see fit.