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

[Cowboy Moment]

Speaking as someone who hasn't touched the Beta at all, skills not being interchangeable enough may be a consequence of this being a party game. Skill interchangeability may be a big deal in AoD or Fallout, where you have one dude with a limited skillset, but with a party of 6, you have a much greater breadth of options. So relaxing/diversifying requirements for certain actions (which is what people asked for in AoD, and rightfully so imo) could just lead to you being able to do literally everything with no tradeoffs.

Stop making shitty excuses as to why i cant do shit in my crpg i should be able to do in PnP, we have enough limitations in this medium to emulate tabletop for people to come here and impose more because of "balance". Balance can suck my cock, find another way.
(Not talking about wl2 specifically, just crpgs in general).

It's not about "balance", it's about different parties having different capabilities. If there are five ways of opening a door, then basically any party can do it, at which point you may as well remove it, as it makes absolutely no difference, aside from flavor.

I'd tell you to go play PnP if that's what you want, but I do sympathize in a way. It must be very difficult for autistic people to find PnP groups willing to put up with them. My heart goes out to you, bro.

 

[Lhynn]

It's not about "balance", it's about different parties having different capabilities. If there are five ways of opening a door, then basically any party can do it, at which point you may as well remove it, as it makes absolutely no difference, aside from flavor.

I'd tell you to go play PnP if that's what you want.

Fuck that shit, dont be retarded, the whole reason cRPGs exist is to emulate PnP. If there are 5 ways of opening a door and anyone can do it, make opening the door have some sort of consequence, like making noise and alerting enemies, failing the checks being outright dangerous for your team like your fighter spraining his shoulder, the bomb going off, having to spend ammo, and a fuckton of etcs. Flavour is one of the most important things a cRPG can have anyway, so i have no idea why you would not want it there.

Also dont strawman.
(PS: i play and/or DM every week)

 

[Pope Amole II]

It's not about "balance", it's about different parties having different capabilities. If there are five ways of opening a door, then basically any party can do it, at which point you may as well remove it, as it makes absolutely no difference, aside from flavor.

Of course not. Let's take opening chests in kotor 2 as a simple example:

- You can simply bash the lock off, that requires no skill investment, but some of the items in the container may get broken.
- You can blow up the lock with the mines, using the demolitions skill. You waste a mine, but demolitions has other uses as a skill.
- You open the lock using the specialized security skill - don't need to spend anything that way and you even gain some experience for the effort, but security isn't useful for anything else.

Simple and efficient. Of course, in-game the difference doesn't change shit because kotor 2 is shit in terms of gameplay, but that's just a bad imlementation of a good idea.

And mind you, nobody asks for drastically different results. But party rpgs have a strong element of management, that's why they're liked by their fans, and it's silly to ignore that.

I'm not eager to argue about that "skills in the game are fine" crap- too tired for that. I'll just say that we've had Darklands in the fucking 1992 and that's it.

You already have 4+ party members, isn't that enough versatility? Give them any more points and the effect on game difficulty will be crippling.

Of course not. We have a party of up to seven one-trick ponies with minimal tactical options - where's the versatility here? And the effect on the game's difficulty can be easily adjusted by the designer, it's not something insurmountable.

Also, pretty sure having to skip optional content is by intention.

The game doesn't offer enough content to merit this. Skipping content is cool in an overblown game like Morrowind, where pretty much no one will see the hundred percent of it. W2 is rather padded and stretched as it is so it really can't afford that.

 

[tuluse]

The game doesn't offer enough content to merit this. Skipping content is cool in an overblown game like Morrowind, where pretty much no one will see the hundred percent of it. W2 is rather padded and stretched as it is so it really can't afford that.

?

The game is too long so it can't afford being made less long?

 

[Pope Amole II]

The game is too long so it can't afford being made less long?

Dude, there's good long and bad long. I.E. the actually good content and boring crap which was put there simply to reach that mark of 50 hours playtime. Skipping first doesn't make the second disappear. And, when you play for the first time, you don't know that, for example, infested farm, infested village & shiitake farm & wrecker's stronghold & levelupe mine are just fillers without anything interesting going on. You learn that only after you finish them - fuck, I've run about 3 or 4 circles around the stronghold, just refusing to believe that that was it and there was nothing more to discover or do.

 

[Infinitron]

Of course not. We have a party of up to seven one-trick ponies with minimal tactical options - where's the versatility here? And the effect on the game's difficulty can be easily adjusted by the designer, it's not something insurmountable.

Let's take your statement that the party is made up of "one-trick ponies" at face value (which we really shouldn't as it is an obvious exaggeration)

Why is a single-character RPG with a PC who can do seven things "good", but a party-based RPG with seven characters who can do one thing "bad"? In both cases, you get to apply the same amount of skills.

 

[Pope Amole II]

Why is a single-character RPG with a PC who can do seven things "good", but a party-based RPG with seven characters who can do one thing "bad"? In both cases, you get to apply the same amount of skills.

Umm, if you forgot, we were talking about characters having almost no options in combat, not about skill usage. And the difference between 1 character with 7 combat options and 7 characters with 1 combat option is that in first case, you can perform 7 types of turns (that's if you can use only 1 option per turn - if more this number grows rather quickly) so you actually have to choose which one to do. And in the second case you will always get one and the same turn because you can't really choose anything - you just click on enemies until you (or they) die.

I'm oversimplifying it, but honestly - maneuvering means next to nothing in W2, like, no flanking or backstabbing, and in many kinds of encounters there's zero need to spread your fire in a specific manner (and when there is, it's all about take down the strongest one first). So the difference between your turns (and the amount of stuff you can do) is rather negligible.

 

[buzz]

How many Desert Rangers does it take to screw a lightbulb?

 

[t]

:grabs popcorn:

 

[Infinitron]

Why is a single-character RPG with a PC who can do seven things "good", but a party-based RPG with seven characters who can do one thing "bad"? In both cases, you get to apply the same amount of skills.

Umm, if you forgot, we were talking about characters having almost no options in combat, not about skill usage. And the difference between 1 character with 7 combat options and 7 characters with 1 combat option is that in first case, you can perform 7 types of turns (that's if you can use only 1 option per turn - if more this number grows rather quickly) so you actually have to choose which one to do. And in the second case you will always get one and the same turn because you can't really choose anything - you just click on enemies until you (or they) die.

I'm oversimplifying it, but honestly - maneuvering means next to nothing in W2, like, no flanking or backstabbing, and in many kinds of encounters there's zero need to spread your fire in a specific manner (and when there is, it's all about take down the strongest one first). So the difference between your turns (and the amount of stuff you can do) is rather negligible.

Meh, you act as if switching weapons during combat is something that happens in RPGs all the time. Letting your character become skilled in BOTH shotguns AND pistols from the beginning probably isn't going to make combat much more interesting.

In any case, if you're so dying to use more weapons, just play the game some more and improve those skills. RPGs are supposed to have character development, right? Making the Rangers all super-tactically proficient from the beginning would somewhat defeat the purpose of leveling up.

 

[tuluse]

I'm oversimplifying it, but honestly - maneuvering means next to nothing in W2, like, no flanking

That's flat out wrong. Cover is direction based.

 

[Zorba the Hutt]

How many Desert Rangers does it take to screw a lightbulb?

That's not quite final yet, but the next lightbulb and matchstick pass should firm that up.

 

[sea]

- You can simply bash the lock off, that requires no skill investment, but some of the items in the container may get broken.
- You can blow up the lock with the mines, using the demolitions skill. You waste a mine, but demolitions has other uses as a skill.
- You open the lock using the specialized security skill - don't need to spend anything that way and you even gain some experience for the effort, but security isn't useful for anything else.

In Wasteland 2:

• Brute Force can be used to open containers, some locked doors, break down fences, break down walls, used in rare cases to get machinery working, etc. Also has the risk of breaking items inside containers.
  
• Lockpicking is used to pick locks but has no other use.
• Safecracking is used to open safes but has no other use.
• Gunfire and explosives can open certain containers and doors, but if these are destroyed the containers can have items inside destroyed, and it costs ammo.
• Computer Science may be able to open certain rare locked containers but can also open certain locked doors and can also be used to hack robots in combat.

I'm not seeing the problem. Each skill/option either has a dedicated but limited use or multiple, broader uses but with drawbacks.

 

[Pope Amole II]

That's flat out wrong. Cover is direction based.

Sure. Only problem is, it's utilised so damn (in terms of level design) well that I nearly forgot it even existed. And let's not forget that about half of enemies in the game (if not more) are melee.

Meh, you act as if switching weapons during combat is something that happens in RPGs all the time. Letting your character become skilled in BOTH shotguns AND pistols from the beginning probably isn't going to make combat much more interesting.

Lol, of course it will. In fantasy, mage characters usually have an access to a shitload of different attack options. And everyone considers it to be ok. But God forbid that in the modern setting a guy is able to use both shotguns and pistols, that's so fucking unrealistic...

There is the talk of mages being constantly overpowered, of course, but it's another case of this - mages are actually given the decent gameplay while everyone else (like archers or warriors) are given "click enemies to their death" bullshit. That's the design tradition, of course, but that's also the reason why the combat in the majority of RPGs in existence sucks.

In any case, if you're so dying to use more weapons, just play the game some more and improve those skills. RPGs are supposed to have character development, right? Making the Rangers all super-tactically proficient from the beginning would somewhat defeat the purpose of leveling up.

The game is not balanced around that. You already have to struggle to cram all the content-opening skills in, and there is zero room for pumping up extra weapon skills.

 

[Infinitron]

http://wastelandrpg.tumblr.com/post/90669603686/dr-goochman-would-like-to-share-his-thoughts-on

 

[Excidium]

In any case, if you're so dying to use more weapons, just play the game some more and improve those skills. RPGs are supposed to have character development, right? Making the Rangers all super-tactically proficient from the beginning would somewhat defeat the purpose of leveling up.

Not in a good system

 

[buzz]

I wonder if you can make doctor Goochman kill himself

 

[Athelas]

Looks like a less putrified version of the Master. The quote is also pretty much identical to the Master's ideology.

 

[Jaesun]

I would love to know who is writing that character...

 

[Zombra]

In any case, if you're so dying to use more weapons, just play the game some more and improve those skills.

The game is not balanced around that. You already have to struggle to cram all the content-opening skills in, and there is zero room for pumping up extra weapon skills.

Huh. Have you tried it? I haven't played the whole beta, but pretty much my whole team has multiple fighting skills. Keeps combat much more interesting.

 

[Ninjerk]

I would love to know who is writing that character...

How funny would it be if it was MCA.

 

[Excidium]

I believe all MCA did was the Ag. Center and the novel

 

[tuluse]

I believe all MCA did was the Ag. Center and the novel

He was involved with Highpool too I believe.

 

[Infinitron]

I believe all MCA did was the Ag. Center and the novel

He was involved with Highpool too I believe.

MCA did 6 areas in the game. I think each version of Highpool and Ag Center counts as a separate area, though.

Looks like a less putrified version of the Master. The quote is also pretty much identical to the Master's ideology.

However, unlike the Master, this guy is not the game's "end boss".

 

[Pope Amole II]

Huh. Have you tried it? I haven't played the whole beta, but pretty much my whole team has multiple fighting skills. Keeps combat much more interesting.

Sure it does, but even with 6 int all around, you'll have to sacrifice some skills for that. Maybe not the greatest ones (like perception or demolitions), but still. And it's bad design anyways - for example, people say that critical hits are boring and broken in the Fallout 1-2. But if you play 2 with the flarethrower build, suddenly, this brokenness ceases to be and different targets for the aimed shot (at the very least eyes/head/legs) become perfectly viable, the system begins to work extremely well. But does that mean that the system is not broken?

While you're often forced to do it, in reality, it shouldn't be the player's task to metagame around the game, trying to squeeze fun out of it. It's the game designer's job.