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

[Excidium]

No penalty for moving and shooting on the same turn seems completely

Why should there be a penalty?

Because shooting while moving is a bit hard.

 

[Zombra]

Wat, seriously? Sixty American USD Dollars ? I assume the finished game will cost less than this, so why are they selling the bug ridden demo for such an exorbitant price? Is this common practice for Early Access games?

Well, backers who pledged 18 months ago paid $55 for "early beta access". It would be kind of a kick in the teeth to them if Joe Pinchpenny got the same product one day later for a lower price.

 

[Infinitron]

#3 best seller.

Wat, seriously? Sixty American USD Dollars ? I assume the finished game will cost less than this, so why are they selling the bug ridden demo for such an exorbitant price? Is this common practice for Early Access games?

Backers had to pay at least $55 to get beta access and they don't want to screw their backers, it's as simple as that.

As much as $55. You could get the beta cheap with a $15 tier + $20 beta addon = $35.

 

[tuluse]

Eh. So we can abstract a guy making two nonsimultaneous overhand swings with a sledgehammer, but we can't abstract a guy taking two steps and then aiming and firing a pistol? That seems like changing the model to fit your desired outcome.

The whole thing is an abstraction. Sometimes it means one thing, sometimes it means another. Certain things are happening simultaneously.

As for the gameplay argument, re: interesting choices, that does hold water to a point, but it kind of sucks in a variable AP system. If Character A has 3 AP and fires his pistol for 3AP, and Character B has 5 AP and wants to fire his pistol for 3 AP, why should he be penalized for using his other 2 AP to move? This creates a situation where faster characters are, on the average, worse at attacking.

1) Don't spend the extra AP, and he's exactly the same, so that's really not a problem.

2) Move after attacking, and you're fine. With the other proposals I made regarding positioning, you should be able to deduce how this would still be interesting.

 

[dibens]

IS IT GOOD? Please be good.

 

[AstroZombie]

#3 best seller.

As much as $55. You could get the beta cheap with a $15 tier + $20 beta addon = $35.

Oh yeah, forgot about the add-ons.

 

[Tigranes]

Used to be mostly fine, now that I've started a new game since the Update it's crashing every 3 minutes, and graphical bugs besides, it's getting unplayable. Are there any general tips for avoiding CTDs?

 

[Excidium]

IS IT GOOD? Please be good.

Just watch the videos. Looks p. basic.

 

[Zombra]

The whole thing is an abstraction. Sometimes it means one thing, sometimes it means another. Certain things are happening simultaneously.

So it means whatever the devs intend it to mean? Fine with me. In this case, moving and then firing appears to mean moving and then firing, even if you don't want it to.

As for the gameplay argument, re: interesting choices, that does hold water to a point, but it kind of sucks in a variable AP system.

1) Don't spend the extra AP, and he's exactly the same, so that's really not a problem.

It is a problem if I spent Attribute points on a character to increase his AP to make him be able to do more things, and then I start taking penalties when I do more things.

2) Move after attacking, and you're fine. With the other proposals I made regarding positioning, you should be able to deduce how this would still be interesting.

I didn't see your other proposals yet, but I concede that it could be interesting. I maintain that it is not necessary for an interesting system, and the way it is now isn't some kind of problem.

 

[Blaine]

Re: Eye shots in Fallout/Fallout 2:

Everyone seems enamored with them, but I never bothered. When playing with a min-maxed gun build or the classic diplosniper, I preferred Fast Shot, and my favorite tactic was to unload SMGs into people at point-blank range. This "hurt" me later on in the game when going for the eyes would have been significantly more efficient, but I really didn't give a damn.

It also enabled me to get away with allocating fewer points to gun skills initially.

 

[Excidium]

Oh the wonders of AP-based systems.

 

[aratuk]

IS IT GOOD? Please be good.

It looks like it has the potential to be good, if influenced in the right direction. I'd like to believe it's going to be good when it's done. The beta is kinda fun, but there is a lot missing. I think "alpha" is probably closer to the right description than "beta".

 

[tuluse]

So it means whatever the devs intend it to mean? Fine with me. In this case, moving and then firing appears to mean moving and then firing, even if you don't want it to.

It means it's ~abstracting~ what's happening, ie it's not a literal representation.

The argument, "I did x, then y" holds no water within the context of a single turn.

It is a problem if I spent Attribute points on a character to increase his AP to make him be able to do more things, and then I start taking penalties when I do more things.

Only certain things. If you have 6 ap, you can shoot twice. Moving and shooting might still be valuable with a penalty. Getting closer could be more advantageous than the penalty is harmful, getting a better firing angle, or finding cover are all useful things. Except..

I didn't see your other proposals yet, but I concede that it could be interesting. I maintain that it is not necessary for an interesting system, and the way it is now isn't some kind of problem.

The system is kind of boring and there's not many tactical decisions to make. For the most part the only thing that matters is attacks per turn, which means that moving and attacking in one turn rarely does anything for you.

My full proposal: http://www.rpgcodex.net/forums/inde...cess-now-available.88397/page-20#post-3006128

 

[undecaf]

1) Don't spend the extra AP

On a sidenote, I'm a bit out of the loop with this matter... Do unspent AP count towards evade - like in Fallout, where unspent AP counted towards AC? As in, is there a benefit to not use AP?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

It's second!

 

[tuluse]

On a sidenote, I'm a bit out of the loop with this matter... Do unspent AP count towards evade - like in Fallout, where unspent AP counted towards AC? As in, is there a benefit to not use the leftovers?

I don't think they do anything as yet.

 

[Zombra]

Yep. In Fallout it just became a game of "shoot the eyes every single time" because why wouldn't you? It's essentially a fluff mechanic. In Wasteland and Wasteland 2 the assumption is that you always want to make the most lethal shot possible; it's abstracted a little more, but requires less user input for the same result.

That's because eye-shots become ridiculously easy around the second town of the game (if you have less than 100% small guns/melee/unarmed in Junktown/Den you're doing it wrong), and once you get more skill and better, more accurate weaponry, it only gets more ridiculous from there. Many balance mods make eye-shoots HARD, through.

I also remember that when you're sniping lots of enemies from far away, leg shots are awesome, actually a bit too cheesy because some enemies just mill around and stand while being shot if their legs are crippled. Also groin shots are a excellent way to get a knockdown, good way to take a buff and dangerous enemy out of the game for a while until you kill the weaker ones, or to kill a hard-to-hit enemy by knocking him down and whaling on him. Eye shots are not exactly magical, I remember many of my eye shots dealing pathetic damage and no cripple.

So we agree that hit locations can be cheesy and gamebreaking. I'll concede, though, that it is also possible for them to be brilliantly balanced such that they only enhance the depth of the combat system, never hurting it. My answer to that is: Wasteland 2 is already going to have a hard time keeping things balanced and interesting, and adding this now would introduce gigantic headaches for the dev team, QA, and we the testers, and postpone release by god knows how long.

Leaving that argument aside as a practical one and returning strictly to theory, I maintain my other argument: that the game is already complex enough without adding more layers. Remember, the devs have always said that combat is not intended to take hours, so more complexity for the sake of more complexity is not part of the vision. It may be part of a given player's vision of an ideal game, but Wasteland 2 was never intended to be Jagged Alliance 3. I for one don't want to have an extra 3 buttons to click every time I take a shot with each of my 7 characters. I just want to shoot a dangerous dood and make him dead, then move on to the next one. We already have positioning, cover, weapon loadouts, a ton of character variables, weapon types and armor vulnerabilities. It's already way more complex than Wasteland 1. Maybe not complex enough for everyone's tastes, but enough to satisfy old school RPG enthusiasts in my opinion.

 

[undecaf]

On a sidenote, I'm a bit out of the loop with this matter... Do unspent AP count towards evade - like in Fallout, where unspent AP counted towards AC? As in, is there a benefit to not use the leftovers?

I don't think they do anything as yet.

I'd hope that they'll do, eventually. I've been, out of habit, playing as if they did.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

It's first. So we dont have to worry that Fargo will lack money for development. We are on the righ track I think. Does anybody actually know how much money being first on steam can bring per day?

 

[Gord]

It is a problem if I spent Attribute points on a character to increase his AP to make him be able to do more things, and then I start taking penalties when I do more things.

Only certain things. If you have 6 ap, you can shoot twice. Moving and shooting might still be valuable with a penalty. Getting closer could be more advantageous than the penalty is harmful, getting a better firing angle, or finding cover are all useful things. Except..

Kinda siding with Zombra here, I could get behind stuff like snap-shot/normal shot/aimed shot costing progressively more, which would be a better way to abstract simultaneously actions in a AP-based system, imho.
Snapshots would allow for relatively much movement, but reduce aim greatly, normal shot would probably leave you with enough AP for some short movement, and aimed shot would take up so much AP that you don't have much left for walking anyway (but give you much better aim, obviously).

The problem with abstraction is that it can go both ways, as Zombra has already pointed out - some actions might make sense to assume that they are happening simultaneously, others not so much. Where do you draw the line?

 

[Zombra]

It means it's ~abstracting~ what's happening, ie it's not a literal representation.
The argument, "I did x, then y" holds no water within the context of a single turn.

I don't get why "I moved, then fired" holds no water, but "I swung a sledgehammer, then swung a sledgehammer " holds a gallon.

 

[Excidium]

Because Wasteland 2 combat system is garbage.

 

[tuluse]

Kinda siding with Zombra here, I could get behind stuff like snap-shot/normal shot/aimed shot costing progressively more, which would be a better way to abstract simultaneously actions in a AP-based system, imho.
Snapshots would allow for relatively much movement, but reduce aim greatly, normal shot would probably leave you with enough AP for some short movement, and aimed shot would take up so much AP that you don't have much left for walking anyway (but give you much better aim, obviously).

The problem with abstraction is that it can go both ways, as Zombra has already pointed out - some actions might make sense to assume that they are happening simultaneously, others not so much. Where do you draw the line?

I draw the line right where it would be more interesting. Which I've explained in detail multiple times now.

 

[dibens]

Dat ladder climbing animation! Did they hire prosper to do them?

 

[Zombra]

I draw the line right where it would be more interesting. Which I've explained in detail multiple times now.

I have no quarrel with this argument.