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

[felipepepe]

RPS preview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/19/wasteland-2-preview/

RPS critter doesn't know what is a beta. News at 11.

I beg to differ:

I keep telling myself that despite the confident ‘beta’ tag this is just an alpha

 

[skuphundaku]

RPS preview: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/12/19/wasteland-2-preview/

RPS critter doesn't know what is a beta. News at 11.

I beg to differ:

I keep telling myself that despite the confident ‘beta’ tag this is just an alpha

I was referring more to this:

Other than performance, the other huge bugbear with the current build is that it costs $60 (reflecting the Kickstarter tier necessary to gain beta access), which is a hell of a lot to pay for a game that currently only features 30% of the planned areas, runs like a three-legged dog and is in need of a (planned) UI overhaul.

The point in taking part in the beta is to influence where the game is going so that the final game turns out better. Looking at it just from "I want to play the game NAO!" is a valid point, but willfully ignorant of the fact that the game is not ready yet.

 

[Brother None]

Good point, skup. His perspective there is probably informed by AAA-industry betas which are more for promotion and doing some balance tweaks, whereas we will do some major systems and design iteration passes based on feedback.

 

[Zombra]

Charisma

It's a dump stat right now and it has no place in the character system if all it's going to do is act as an arbitrary skill cap or another skill check.
One good use is to follow Arcanum's model and have it affect the max party size:
1-3 = 1 followers; 4-7 = 2 followers; 8-10 = 3 followers

This is powerful because each new follower means one free turn per combat round. Therefore treating Charisma as a dump for more party members is actually smart. It's still balanced by the party size limit, too. But, it isn't ideal because only 1 character in the party still needs it.

There has been talk on the Wasteland board of using the party average Charisma for a bonus/penalty. This could easily be adapted to your idea, and makes intuitive sense for number of followers: you might have one guy who's a delight to travel with, but if his three friends are complete assholes ...

Party average Charisma 1 (total 4) = 0 followers; 2 (total 5-8) = 1 follower; 3 (total 9-12) = 2 followers; 3.5+ (total 13+) = 3 followers

This way, one character could carry the whole "burden" himself, if you really wanted to plump for a 10 Charisma on one guy ... or the party could share the "responsibility".

 

[hiver]

The leg wound from arrow in the knee cannot be cured by anything or anyone.
Surgeon or field medic cannot do anything about it and doctor in Highpool cannot either.


My saves constantly get fucked up - the loading just continues indefinitely. Then one of them - usually the auto save somehow suddenly works.


It seems there is no path to the east to Damonta, after i get told about it by ranger citadel after i visit Ag center. All paths to east show red.


I cant seem to apply bandages or blood packs while in combat - but i can use surgeon skills indefinitely.


There is a loot stash that cannot be interacted with, all the way to the east (and a bit down south) in the radiation zone, right next to what looks like a pass towards eastern small area that is surrounded by a wall of higher mountains. i cannot go through that pass - its all red.

There is a invisible wall in Ag center, directly opposite of the broken satelite dish - radio i am supposed to find.
-

Angela and Scotchmo keep repeating the lines they say when we enter Ag center everytime we return to the entrance.

When i get the radio call about Ag center and High pool, there is an option that requires 3 in smartassing. I gave Scotchmo 3 in smartass and i select him as a leader before that so he answers the call.
Apparently his 3 points in smartass are not acceptable.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

just lay here on the table and relax Onstupidretardationservicebound.

lmao, this is why I can't ignore you hiver , you crack me up. If you were maybe, 10% less ridiculous I'd label you as an asshole and hate your fucking guts. But you're just over the top retarded enough for it to be genuinely funny.

Charisma

It's a dump stat right now and it has no place in the character system if all it's going to do is act as an arbitrary skill cap or another skill check.
One good use is to follow Arcanum's model and have it affect the max party size:
1-3 = 1 followers; 4-7 = 2 followers; 8-10 = 3 followers

This is powerful because each new follower means one free turn per combat round. Therefore treating Charisma as a dump for more party members is actually smart. It's still balanced by the party size limit, too. But, it isn't ideal because only 1 character in the party still needs it.

There has been talk on the Wasteland board of using the party average Charisma for a bonus/penalty. This could easily be adapted to your idea, and makes intuitive sense for number of followers: you might have one guy who's a delight to travel with, but if his three friends are complete assholes ...

Party average Charisma 1 (total 4) = 0 followers; 2 (total 5-8) = 1 follower; 3 (total 9-12) = 2 followers; 3.5+ (total 13+) = 3 followers

This way, one character could carry the whole "burden" himself, if you really wanted to plump for a 10 Charisma on one guy ... or the party could share the "responsibility".

Definitely the best application for Charisma so far, I wonder if those against party based charisma would go for that idea. Argument against it so far has been that it's unrealistic( ) for the party to have an effect on speech and other skills, as well the bonus would make no sense if you made your other rangers wait behind. This is a decent solution, and makes sense as the follower will always be exposed to the party.

I assume with this build the charisma of followers isn't added to the average, otherwise if it's really low it might mess up the system by putting the average below what it would require to actually recruit them. Would also be nice to show what your party charisma average is as well.(If this was implemented.) Still curious about the unimplemented things BN references in the W2 Charisma thread.

----------------------
Also, had the same issue as Hiver with the arrow in the knee. I almost think it's an intentional troll, I would hope having the joke in the game 4 times is also the same thing.

So not only is the status retarded and unfunny, but there's seemingly no way to get rid of it.

 

[hiver]

just lay here on the table and relax Onstupidretardationservicebound.

lmao, this is why I can't ignore you hiver , you crack me up.

Yeah sure. That only means you actually cannot explain any of the stupid shit you splurged and you are as pathetic and stupid as i say you are. Arent you dumbfuck? Just another shitbrain who can only spout declarative statements that he cannot explain.

cmonn,.. your slackjaw retarded inbred mother must have thought you to speak and answer what is asked of you, didnt she?

 

[tuluse]

The leg wound from arrow in the knee cannot be cured by anything or anyone.
Surgeon or field medic cannot do anything about it and doctor in Highpool cannot either.

It's a metaphor for how the inclusion of the meme itself can only be "cured" by complete removal.

 

[hiver]

removal of the beta from my HDD?

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

I think it makes a perfect sense that only 1 character in a team will need a high charisma. I mean any small team with more than 1 leader is doomed to disagreements and fight for power. Actually it would be a nice reactivity possibility if player has 2 high charisma npc in a team and they fight over, giving penalties to everything for everyone.

 

[Tigranes]

Brother None Having now 'finished' the Beta, here are some final impressions and suggestions, focusing on stuff that hasn't been talked about to death. Generally, I really like it - it was not so impressive in the first couple of hours but once I got into it I think it is a very good game, though not a classic. My only major gripe is simplistic combat (see below).

Skill Use Opportunities
There are obvious problems with how infrequently some skills are used, but I imagine that is being addressed. There are numerous opportunities in the beta content:

• The Highpool crane could be out of commission, requiring a specific part to fix it. One could find the part by breaking down the mortar (field stripping), repairing the computer (computer tech), or if all fails, find one amongst the car wreckage without skill use (in which case the spare part could be sold for a substantial sum). That's the least work-intensive solution requiring no new dialogue or level design, just an example.
• The Juvies surrounding Vulture's Cry could also be driven away with one of the three dialogue skills, and/or something more wacky - i.e. Animal Whisperer on the dog to get it to go berserk and chase the juvies, use of Southwest Lore to make up some crazy story about the woman and magical curses to scare them away, after which VC herself would wryly note your methods.
• Highpool irrigation machines - there are currently 4, with only 1 requiring any work (computer tech). It's also an incredibly boring area: you just start left or right and go in a circle (linear), fight some trash mobs, click on some machines, call it a day. One could add a few more corridors to the level, add some much more difficult, mutated monsters, who happen to hold the shiny objects that are needed to repair the machines. Either you repair without (computer tech), beat down the monsters and take the parts, break down some non-critical machinery (field stripping? brute force?) to fix the machines but receive a lower reward, strategically break a couple of tubes (perception? brute force?) to flood and drown the monsters... there are many different options, some of which could be implemented relatively simply.
• The Wrecking Crew camp is currently a straight up firefight, AFAIK. It could be made harder, and then spiced up with some skill-based options for sabotage. Simple solutions might include the option to approach them from behind by navigating some hazardous cliffs (outdoorsman - e.g. succeed on 4+, succeed but take some random damage from slips on 2-4, cannot try on 2-); the option to rig and blow something up in the environment to do some damage (demolitions)...
• The RNC drowning kid: high perception could add a line to the skull tower description, i.e. 'this tower seems particularly unstable; if it toppled, it could go anywhere.' As for the Topekan witness: I know they are Rangers, but in WL2 I feel like such a goodie two-shoes. Where's the option to use high level Hard Ass to scare him off talking, or even a high level pistol skill check to shoot him point-blank? The arsehole Ranger who says, 'the cost of this idiot sabotaging our peacemaking mission is higher than his one life'?
• The RNC coffee can bomb could, again, be detected 'earlier' with high perception, giving more time to defuse, though it would still require demolitions.
• The RNC in general - where are the high intelligence checks to demonstrate knowledge of trains and pre-war machinery? Couldn't a high INT character have some things to say when negotiating with Kebbabah and Casey - e.g. "sounds like for X and Y reasons they could not have sabotaged your train that way", or something?
• The Area You Did Not Save - so I don't know if this already happens in some way, but I feel like skills should determine how much or little information you get about what happened. E.g. a low level field medic / surgeon check to see the Ag Centre sabotager has gunshot wounds rather than plant wounds; a science check to see what exactly is wrong with the radio tower; all in all an opportunity to just learn a bit more about what must have happened. In my own experience, it was effective in comign to see what my inaction had wrought, but only because I had seen a large chunk of Ag Centre in a different playthrough.

Lastly, I think the skill use takes too long. My experience with Wasteland 2 is that you walk around for 20 seconds, find a mound, take 5 seconds or whatever to dig it up, pick up 5 scraps, and then keep going. I don't see why it has to take this long. The only time-dependent mechanic related to skill use is unconscious/death countdown, but that could be adjusted to match this, too. It's tension-inducing if your guy dies in 30 seconds, not if he's bleeding to death for 240 seconds and you're using Surgeon 20 times and failing. The skill use takes so long, the icons don't even begin filling up immediately, which contributes to a felt sense of tedium. Finally, skill use should be instant in combat. It doesn't make sense that in turn-based combat you suddenly use surgeon and it takes 8 seconds of real-time waiting. It is boredom with no upside.

Combat
Combat is the bread and butter of WL2 and I think for any significant system changes between now and release, combat should be the focus. Even if you can't change everything you want to / we suggest for other things, I think combat is the priority. As has been mentioned in the Codex, it's too simple at the moment.

I think it is ridiculous there are no aimed / special shots of any kind, and this is the one thing about the game I want to make a huge fuss out of. The experience of combat right now is just move, shoot, cover. I do like how the AI is smart enough not to come out of cover just because you are too far away for them to hit, and it makes even the last 1 or 2 enemies more than a chore to finish off. But when you ARE shooting at each other it's far, far too simplistic. There are other ways to complexify combat, of course. More demolitions. Greater weapon variety encouraging you to mix and match. But even if in the full game we had more weapons to play with and plenty of grenades, I think it's imperative that there are some basic shot options implemented: arm for aim accuracy, leg for movement (especially for superfast enemies like bunnies), burst shots, etc. Sure, it wasn't the most balanced in Fallout, but that's no reason to make it even worse by taking them all out.

Minor points:

• Ranger difficulty I think is appropriately difficult, with frequent unconscious characters if you are not careful. I would appreciate easy .ini tweaks to adjust enemy THC / health / damage globally - it may not be the best thing but it is a nice way to easily 'mod' difficulty for those who want it.
• The way armour works is weird - it seems to be a flat damage reduction, so when I had 3 of my guys with light armour they were taking 0 or 1 damage from, say, melee weapons, animals, about half the ranged shooters.
• The proximity penalty for sniper rifles should be 2 or 3 squares rather than 1; right now you just step back and shoot. Because sniper rifles cost 6 AP per shot, and most characters will have at least 7 AP (but not 12), the cost of moving one square is minimal.

Story, Quests, Reactivity
I didn't expect too much on this point - the actual people working on WL2, I don't know enough to have any trust in their pedigree or expect a particular style. Indeed, I think it's decent, but nothing special. No line that made me laugh or really stop and think, nothing truly memorable on that front. I don't mind hugely, and I know I won't have seen everything the Beta offers (e.g. I eventually couldn't reconcile the RNC factions). One thing I will say is that not having played WL1 very much, the Rangers only got interesting after talking to everyone at the HQ: outside there are some hints, but really I didn't come out with very strong impressions about Rangers' identity. Which is odd, because I saw a lot of talk about it... maybe it's more a comment on how much I liked the dialogue in the HQ.

World Map
Everyone's pointed out the problem with water. Apparently it's bugged at the moment, but in any case, there are far, far, far too many oases. Does outdoorsman impact the rate of water consumption? It should. I think the land of milk & honey + some corridoring + lack of anything interesting to find except caches and oases all result in a very boring world map. I don't know what kind of special events and locations and encounters there are to discover in the full game but I imagine that will be a key part of making the World Map worthwhile.

Minor Usability Tweaks
These were the things that were substantially annoying and remained so after 5+ hours, which I think could be addressed without too much hassle:

• Combat animation for multiple attacks in round. On 2x speed at least, there is a noticeable delay, up to 1 second, between when the first attack animation finishes and when the second one fires. This is both the case for enemies, and for PCs, where you can't target the enemy again after your first attack until the delay is over. This noticeably slows combat down and makes it feel sluggish.
• Automatic camera zoom in area transitions. Entering and exiting various houses in RNC or Highpool, the zoom has the effect of making the transition feel longer than it is, especially since you stay in most houses for less than ten seconds. A simple zoom in/out would do, since as far as I can tell there's no actual loading here, just teleporting the party.
• Please implement a 'Reload All' button outside combat, for obvious reasons.
• Please make sure that in Trade, items you place in sell window are saved when you switch across characters.

Anyway, all in all I like the beta, it's grown on me. I'm going to probably leave it now and wait for the full release, but thanks for your hard work BN et al.

 

[Brother None]

Thanks Tigranes, good stuff, agree on many points (and a lot of it is stuff that's already on the to-do list of course). Feed it directly into CenterCode too if you haven't!

Three quick points:
- You can actually shoot the witness, and the town will never know what happened with Ralphy (and yes, skill checks are constantly added in passes, there's definitely some more opportunities for dialog checks in particular)
- Difficulty settings actually kind of don't work right now, haha. I mean Ranger works as the default, but the other two settings really only flag a few variables. I do agree the normal setting is appropriately difficult (when we fix the problems with awareness and how armor works in particular), but those who wants a bigger challenge will probably have to wait a bit.
- Having all party selected (or press F to do so) and then R is reload all guns

 

[Monad]

I feel like you guys got what you asked for with the combat. Everyone seemed to want it to be quick and not too involved.

 

[hiver]

One last before i delete the beta. I think the priority should be dealing with saves corruption. Or with whatever bug happens that causes eternal loading syndrome.

- if you go into the main hall in RN, from the side where the tracks are, you go into a corridor that goes around the main room, then you come to locked doors. You can force-bum rush through those doors with all of the team if you pile them up on it and just keep clicking onto the floor on the other side. After a while everyone squeezes through.

- in Highpool i cant get everyone in the elevator, someone always stays out if i move the team as a group, then i have to manually move them inside one by one. I think some also fall through the floor of the elevator and the elevator can be lowered onto someones head without any consequence. They just "go through" as if nothing happened.

 

[felipepepe]

The Juvies surrounding Vulture's Cry could also be driven away with one of the three dialogue skills, and/or something more wacky - i.e. Animal Whisperer on the dog to get it to go berserk and chase the juvies, use of Southwest Lore to make up some crazy story about the woman and magical curses to scare them away, after which VC herself would wryly note your methods.

I was very butthurt that I killed the juvies (and the entire town) to save her, then she got scared of me, said I was a evil person and ran away. Coward.

Also, you can slay EVERYONE in the game and Vargas is still cool on the radio, but let the goddamn kid drown and he knows it immediately via magical ranger's telepathy and gets very angry. Obviously beta stuff, but I found it funny nonetheless.

 

[Roguey]

I feel like you guys got what you asked for with the combat. Everyone seemed to want it to be quick and not too involved.

You really don't need aimed attacks or stances to have good turn-based combat. You can do a lot of things with enemy variety, placement, and area layouts.

Knowing inXile, adding those things would just make it worse.

 

[shihonage]

In other words, while it bears the slightly lesser-known Wasteland name, it knows full well that its diehard cRPG audience has arrived looking for the true-blue Fallout threequel that never happened. From combat to perspective to freedom to movement to dialogue that involves everyone being a bit of an arsehole and a lot of cheesy puns and sci-fi references, it tries very hard to deliver both in mechanics and in tone.

Reviewer cannot into Wasteland.

[...]which leaves me with mixed feelings. I most certainly enjoy the warm cuddle of nostalgia, and the chance to see what roleplaying games might have become if Bethesda and Bioware hadn’t forcibly dragged them off in more of a BIFF! direction, but there’s a guilt to it too. I call it ‘MOJO-fear’, the anxiety that if I’m not careful I might mire myself in the past and grumpily mutter about kids today, how it’s all just noise and it’ll never get better than when I saw Dylan at the Roundhouse in ’67.

I came here to read about your anxiety problems, dammit. Don't pussy out on me now with some "Wasteland" crap.

My own old man fears aside, Wasteland 2 doesn’t feel actually archaic, other than in some of its dialogue – 1973 called, it wants it soylent green gags back (and yes, I know there’s sad irony in my using the geriatric ‘year called’ meme to illustrate that, but goddamnit I’ve run out of coffee)

How's your back? How's grandma? What's up with the coffee prices these day, am I right?

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Yeah sure. That only means you actually cannot explain any of the stupid shit you splurged and you are as pathetic and stupid as i say you are. Arent you dumbfuck? Just another shitbrain who can only spout declarative statements that he cannot explain.

cmonn,.. your slackjaw retarded inbred mother must have thought you to speak and answer what is asked of you, didnt she?

Was waiting until I had a comment to make on the game before replying to this, but nothing new happened, so I'll put this to rest now, apologize to those who are sick of this inane shit, this is the last post I contribute to it I swear.

It means exactly what it says, you honestly made me laugh with that last response. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to act all "I aint even mad" I just don't think you realize how ridiculous some of the things you say are. Must be the language barrier. Anyhow, I'm not getting into a repeat that will go nowhere like last time, nor am I finding and quoting your posts for you because you're too retarded to remember them. Even if I did have the will to do that, to what end? There is absolutely nothing worth arguing about here any more, worst case scenario, It turns out you didn't actually say anything, which has already been acknowledged as a possibility in another more recent comment. In that same comment I went as far as to say you won, and even gave you a clapping smiley! But like a PMSing bitch that wasn't enough for you, you want to drag it out further, maybe you just like the attention, idfk.

So this is my legitimate final response to you, this conversation has been exhausted completely, and the current one is basically arguing whether or not you've actually said anything at all, in which case, let me say it agian. You win, congratulations, you're the man, . You're free to go on a long tired tirade about how wrong about w/e I am, quote all my expletives from previous pages, and even write an inane diatribe about me. But don't expect any more responses .


I'm not going to ignore you because you aren't really offensive or anything, a bit tedious, but I've gotten some genuine laughs out of all of this. Besides that, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and seeing as pretty much everything you've said to me has been blatantly taken from my previous posts I assume you must really like me.

 

[hiver]

Thats a rather long and convoluted way to admit that you are a stupid shitbrain moron, full of shit.
As for being offensive - i wasnt even trying. I was just describing your personality, character and level of stupidity.
As for winning, i won automatically pages ago when you failed to make a simple Int check and replied to my post with that splurge of stupid shit. But thats not the point. you only think so - because you are stupid. I dont care for you admitting that or posting smileys about it. Since you are a shitfaced subhuman scum your thoughts about it are meaningless and irrelevant.

Instead of simply quoting what i actually said and explaining something as moronic as fell out of that asshole in your skull you just kept repeating same stupid shit, same fallacies and same goal post shifts over and over, as is this last one in desperately trying to keep some face - and only succeeded in making it brown even more.

So, youre not only a stupid and ignorant shitbrain but youre a pathetic coward too.

 

[Tigranes]

The Juvies surrounding Vulture's Cry could also be driven away with one of the three dialogue skills, and/or something more wacky - i.e. Animal Whisperer on the dog to get it to go berserk and chase the juvies, use of Southwest Lore to make up some crazy story about the woman and magical curses to scare them away, after which VC herself would wryly note your methods.

I was very butthurt that I killed the juvies (and the entire town) to save her, then she got scared of me, said I was a evil person and ran away. Coward.

Also, you can slay EVERYONE in the game and Vargas is still cool on the radio, but let the goddamn kid drown and he knows it immediately via magical ranger's telepathy and gets very angry. Obviously beta stuff, but I found it funny nonetheless.

Yeah, I didn't really try things to 'break' the game, I was a good little Ranger.

Combat could be improved with encounter design, but if you have 3 guys with guns fighting 3 guys with guns there's only so much you can do. They already have some enemy variety (Ag Centre), exploding barrels, cover, etc. I think the worst is encountering animals on open ground.

 

[Reza]

Hi all. I'm a lurker of codex. Been reading it since 2010 I think. I like it here. The critique and reviews are worth staying over. I don't really think I should make this post, but the recent "arguments" between the two members were really harsh and to be honest really sad and depressing. Let's just not forget that behind every avatar is a human being who has feeling, who has dignity and like any real human being out there is the real world love and care for his/her parents and siblings.

Smart mounting and being sarcastic is one thing, but outright insults and verbal abuses such as these is just wrong. Hurting each other in this kind of manner over a video game is just unbelievable. I'm not kidding if I say that I was shocked by some of the comments and the sheer amount of hatred and disdain being thrown at each other here.

Don't want to call anyone or anything and yes I know codex is more tolerant than any other places in regards to this kind of speech, but I just felt I share this words with you. Again, let's just not forget behind every avatar is a human being who has feelings.

Oh, and I look forward to play Wasteland 2 when it's complete. I'm a fan of original Fallout games. Haven't played the original Wasteland yet, though. I know, embarrassing.

Oh, and I hope they'll edit out those Skyrim arrow to the knee jokes. I remember how I loathed that meme back in the day and having that in Wasteland 2 is just awkward. Well, that screenshot showing "you took an arrow to knee" was fun to be honest, but the repetition is unbearable.

 

[OSK]

Hi all. I'm a lurker of codex. Been reading it since 2010 I think. I like it here. The critique and reviews are worth staying over. I don't really think I should make this post, but the recent "arguments" between the two members were really harsh and to be honest really sad and depressing. Let's just not forget that behind every avatar is a human being who has feeling, who has dignity and like any real human being out there is the real world love and care for his/her parents and siblings.

Smart mounting and being sarcastic is one thing, but outright insults and verbal abuses such as these is just wrong. Hurting each other in this kind of manner over a video game is just unbelievable. I'm not kidding if I say that I was shocked by some of the comments and the sheer amount of hatred and disdain being thrown at each other here.

Don't want to call anyone or anything and yes I know codex is more tolerant than any other places in regards to this kind of speech, but I just felt I share this words with you. Again, let's just not forget behind every avatar is a human being who has feelings.

Fuck you.

 

[1eyedking]

Those who possess the powers of Art Direction knew from the beginning that this game was going to be a TOTAL FAILURE.

Seriously you fuckers, the game oozed blandness at every goddamn screenshot and piece of writing. And if that wasn't enough for you, the cartoonish graphics were still a dead giveaway.


But know this: comfortably on his chair, bathed by the warm glow of a monitor, with a smug smirk on his face, somewhere out there... a nerd is gloating at the Codex's butthurt. And what's more, he knows there's even more to come: Project Shiternity, Tides of Naeueroremera, and Age of Teleportance...

The feeling that possesses him now, has happened few times during his lifetime. But he has come to know it as...happiness.

 

[Davaris]

The feeling that possesses him now, has happened few times during his lifetime. But he has come to know it as...happiness.

I believe the word you are looking for is schadenfreude -> Harm joy.

 

[1eyedking]

No. It is happiness.