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

[Excidium]

Wasteland 2 threads, where people go lengths to justify bad design.

 

[hiver]

There is a different between two skills and one skill that costs twice as much. The ability to spread it out over 2 characters.
That's the reason for the skill bloat in W2. I'm not sure it's a strictly bad thing with party sizes of 4-7.

It doesnt make any common sense to spread those skills over two characters - who would look retarded if one would do it. And play badly too. There would be no purpose to it at all.

Not that any of it is going to change at all.
I didnt mention it because i think they are going to change it. I say it because IT IS SO.

Its a suboptimal solution that we will be forced to play with - for no good damn reason at all except. because.
The great and awesome Inxile DOES not take suggestions from some random fans. They only buy some icons from them.

Nevermind that.

Move on.


I also quite like the irreverence and tongue in cheek writing in the game. It does seem as a game that is not just Fallout, and i quite like it.
The best thing was seeing what options for your religion you can choose.
Your religious choice can be "Atheist"
and there is a separate "nothing" choice.

I found some robots and got blasted by disco music - that was funny.


Also, from what little ive seen, there seems to be some number of different options in how to solve small quests and how to approach situations - but that definitely needs more testing. Still, looks better then what seemed at first.

 

[Infinitron]

Wasteland 2 threads, where people respond to hiver.

More like this

 

[hiver]

Wasteland 2 threads, where people respond to hiver.

More like this

ach... go back to sucking whatever and whoever you suck for living, whiny faggot.

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

There is a different between two skills and one skill that costs twice as much. The ability to spread it out over 2 characters.

That's the reason for the skill bloat in W2. I'm not sure it's a strictly bad thing with party sizes of 4-7.

Not sure a lot of players would make a party with one character specialized in lockpicking and another in safecracking. I think a better reason for it is that you have more choice with regard to finetuning your character: your non-stealth thief-type would still have both lockpicking and safecracking developed, but can be more specialized in one over the other.

 

[Daedalos]

Out of curiosity... have any of the developers spoken out on the beta's criticisms and such yet?

Other than Brother None and Mark?

Any word from Fargo about what people are thinking?

 

[set]

The obvious solution is, I think, that basic skills should be requirements for specialization skills.

Surgeon now requires level 1 Field Medic.
Safecracker now requires level 1 Lockpick.
Syntheics now requires level 1 Computers.
Gunsmithing now requires level 1 Field Stripping.
et cetera

This makes sense and makes creating the optimal ranger team a little trickier, since your Computer guy has to spend points on synths or you're being a little sub-optimal making some other guy do it and wasting two skill points.

And yes, I am one of those people who has a person dedicated to lockpicking and another to safecracking because it honestly makes sense at character generation. Every ranger needs a combat skill since the game is so combat heavy from the start. You can't afford to have two level 3 non-combat skills and going 2,1 and a level 3 combat skill is pointless, because level 1 lock pick or level 1 safecrack can't open the critical early game loot spots 100% of the time, so it's just more sensible to go 3/3.

 

[Sensuki]

Has anyone seen any "reactivity" based on character creation choices?

I haven't seen anything yet, I thought there was going to be gender, ethnicity, equipment etc based reactions ?

I have a russian whore as my party leader, would be nice if someone called me a russian whore.

This was also something that Brian Fargo stated would be in the game.

 

[set]

Nothing. I assumed that those were just token 'roleplaying' selections.

But yeah, at the very least they should react to people of obvious native american descent.

 

[Daedalos]

What Kind of names will your Ranger party consist of?

My melee, high con, brute force guy.. will be named, Mean!

The leadership, speech and lockpicker woman will be named Helena

My sniper and surgeon is named Frost

My techie, demolitions, lockpicker guy will be named Core

 

[Onholyservicebound]

ach... go back to sucking whatever and whoever you suck for living, whiny faggot.

I think I just added a new word to Hiver's vocabulary.

Oh,

Spoiler

Child killing, thought I'd praise that, I know that sounds fucked up, but Immortal children will forever be a concept I associate with thanks to F3. Too bad the youths don't have different models though, ah well, also, for some reason i thought chopping down that log was dependant on where your ranger was positioned, so I just chopped the first one from an angle that looked like it wouldn't hit him...Heh...

lengths

It doesn't take great lengths at all, let me spell it out for you. Wasteland 2 is wasteland 2, it isn't some OCD project based around creating -the perfectly balanced uber RPG-, cutting out the "skill bloat" is a negative to somebody who wants a Wasteland game, because lots of (Sometimes ridiculous) skills, is part of that experience. Is it a bad design? Maybe, who gives a shit, the alternative where all games strive for the same thing because it's efficient is boring.

But for the sake of argument, let's apply the skill bloat shaving to the game's skills.
All these gun skills are unnecessary, they are all guns,
Guns
Energy weapons
Three melee skills are unnecessary, and only work to make the now trimmed lock , repair medical related skills look less diverse
Melee

Who the fuck needs smithing and stripping, and at the same time something super specific like toaster repair?(Don't give me that bullshit about Wasteland 1, that game does not fit my OCD ideal of how skills should work.)
Repair
These tech skills can be trimmed to prevent bloat.
Science
Wtf, why surgeon cannot into badnages?
Medicine.
safes and chests don't need two skills.
Lockpick

Too much ass, I'm more of a tit man myself.
Speech
Outdoorsman and animal whisperer are both environment related skills:
Survival
The rest of these skills are mostly inane and covered by other attributes, not needed.
These skills behave differently and can stay.:
Demolitions
Move Silently

Wow
Such wasteland
10/10
Nostalgia

 

[set]

Spoiler

That reminds me, has anyone even use the demolition skill yet? I've yet to encounter a reason for it. Is it implemented yet?

It feels like a lot of skills aren't used very much, at least in the beginning. Synthetics, the charisma-based skills, demolitions, and computers are pretty close to worthless, with zero to two total skill checks in both Ag Center and Highpool combined, whereas there are dozens of safes and doors to open up and plenty of opportunities to heal or surgerize people.

@Onholyservicebound You're talking about streamlining the skills, I don't think anyone wants that, they just want them to make sense and/or have compelling reasons to use. I've so far encountered one toaster to fix (and all it gave me was a single bloodpack...). There's pretty much no way you could be a reliable surgeon and not know how to apply a bandage or be able to understand robotic things but not computers at least a little bit. I think a 'level 1 requirement' idea would alteast be sufficient to making things seem a little more reasonable, plus they make skill-heavy characters slightly harder to optimize, which is a good thing.

 

[Tigranes]

Demolition skill - I've only seen two uses for it:

Spoiler

The rigged bicycle in the Rail Nomad camp at the playground, and the grenade which is a quest reward by Kate(?) for fixing the Highpool irrigation. Synthetics is also used I believe on the robot after the Toad fight in the Radio tower, and in the irrigation tunnels there is a broken piece of a robot which the description says could be used with high synth.

I have never ever seen a computer skill check, though I assume there must be one deep in the Ag Center?

 

[Tigranes]

What Kind of names will your Ranger party consist of?

My melee, high con, brute force guy.. will be named, Mean!

The leadership, speech and lockpicker woman will be named Helena

My sniper and surgeon is named Frost

My techie, demolitions, lockpicker guy will be named Core

Nietzsche the blunt weapon Ubermensch, Kierkegaard the angsty sniper, Wittgenstein the hot-footed SMG Man (though in retrospective he should have been a poker-wielding crazy), Zizek the talker/misc useless at fighting dude.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

@Onholyservicebound You're talking about streamlining the skills, I don't think anyone wants that, they just want them to make sense and/or have compelling reasons to use. I've so far encountered one toaster to fix.

That depends on whether or not you consider Hiver anyone.

I'm all for making the skills more useful, but a lot of these skills are likely to have uses, big and small, more late game. The thing about having four rangers is that they don't need to worry about all skills being created equal. But yes, I'd like more uses for them in general, it didn't occur to me that there weren't any because of how small thebeta is, but now that I think about it if there were no uses why include them? Could have left them out like Animal Whisperer. If they included them there must be at least one, somewhere.

What Kind of names will your Ranger party consist of?

My melee, high con, brute force guy.. will be named, Mean!

The leadership, speech and lockpicker woman will be named Helena

My sniper and surgeon is named Frost

My techie, demolitions, lockpicker guy will be named Core

These are the rangers I used in the first Wasteland

Tonka is Melee
Veronica is stealth and lockpicking
Brain is tech and charisma
Raul is vaquero

Nationalities should be apparent..

 

[felipepepe]

Guns
Energy weapons
Explosives
Melee
Repair
Science
Medicine
Lockpick
Speech
Survival
Sneak

Split Guns into Small Guns & Big Guns, and I'm perfectly okay with this.

 

[set]

Demolition skill - I've only seen two uses for it:

Spoiler

The rigged bicycle in the Rail Nomad camp at the playground, and the grenade which is a quest reward by Kate(?) for fixing the Highpool irrigation. Synthetics is also used I believe on the robot after the Toad fight in the Radio tower, and in the irrigation tunnels there is a broken piece of a robot which the description says could be used with high synth.

I have never ever seen a computer skill check, though I assume there must be one deep in the Ag Center?

Spoiler

There is a computer check at the radio tower in the 'tutorial level' where you find Ace's body and the skill can be used to hack doors in Ag Center.

 

[Excidium]

Guns
Energy weapons
Explosives
Melee
Repair
Science
Medicine
Lockpick
Speech
Survival
Sneak

Split Guns into Small Guns & Big Guns, and I'm perfectly okay with this.

Why not individual weapon skills? Or maybe have that as a specialization system.

 

[DragoFireheart]

Split Guns into Small Guns & Big Guns, and I'm perfectly okay with this.

No. Strength requirement is fine for the bigger guns. Otherwise you're going to make Big Guns worthless.

Why not individual weapon skills? Or maybe have that as a specialization system.

This is better done with "perks" or "abilities" that are exclusive to certain gun types. Want to specialize in Sniper Rifles? Take the "sniper rifle" ability.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Split Guns into Small Guns & Big Guns, and I'm perfectly okay with this.

Nope, big guns are illogical skill bloat, gatling lasers, missile launchers, tesla cannons, grenade machine guns, etc, these weapons are all big guns and yet fit into EW and explosives as well, unless big guns affect miniguns specifically, in which case that just is a waste of a skill.

But seriously, if you don't like Wasteland or it's skills then go play Fallout, it's, got what you neeed. Fallout is by far my favourite franchise of all time, I love it's skill system, but in no world would I wish every game had it, that's boring, lame, might as well just get every developer making DLC for Fallout.



...

..
Fuck, I actually really like the sound of that. But no seriously, let Wasteland be Wasteland you degenerates.

 

[set]

I definitely individual weapon skills are necessary for this game, as some weapons are clearly not effective against certain kinds of enemies.

 

[tuluse]

Demolition skill - I've only seen two uses for it:

Spoiler

The rigged bicycle in the Rail Nomad camp at the playground, and the grenade which is a quest reward by Kate(?) for fixing the Highpool irrigation. Synthetics is also used I believe on the robot after the Toad fight in the Radio tower, and in the irrigation tunnels there is a broken piece of a robot which the description says could be used with high synth.

I have never ever seen a computer skill check, though I assume there must be one deep in the Ag Center?

Spoiler

There is a computer check at the radio tower in the 'tutorial level' where you find Ace's body and the skill can be used to hack doors in Ag Center.

Spoiler

You can also fix one of the irrigation systems with computer skill, and there is another check where I used it but I can't remember it now

 

[Excidium]

This is better done with "perks" or "abilities" that are exclusive to certain gun types. Want to specialize in Sniper Rifles? Take the "sniper rifle" ability.

I disagree, I find a sub-skill/specialization system a better way of doing that.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

This is better done with "perks" or "abilities" that are exclusive to certain gun types. Want to specialize in Sniper Rifles? Take the "sniper rifle" ability.

I disagree, I find a sub-skill/specialization system a better way of doing that.

Agreed with Excidium, for this game. Fallout is fine the way it is, I also would reference Borderlands 1's proficiency system as good, where using the weapon subtype increases your effectiveness. Perks are better for abilities specifically, shotgun surgeon for example. Perks to increase generally efficiency of weapon subtypes is skyrim territory, wasn't a big fan, makes choosing perks less engaging.

Speaking of which..I really want to know more about Wasteland's perks and traits. Any info available on that?

 

[Jim the Dinosaur]

This is better done with "perks" or "abilities" that are exclusive to certain gun types. Want to specialize in Sniper Rifles? Take the "sniper rifle" ability.

I disagree, I find a sub-skill/specialization system a better way of doing that.

You mean in the way AoD does it, or something else like picking a skill (firearms) and then a sub-skill (smg's)?