Wasteland Wasteland 2 Pre-Release Discussion Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Infinitron]

Infinitron
Some weapons were replaced by other weapons during the course of history. Why? Because the new weapons were better. Police all over the world is geting rid of revolvers in favour of pistols. Why?

Because real life isn't a CRPG.

Besides, even if you want to take a quasi-realistic approach, what's best for cops isn't necessarily the best for post-apocalyptic Wasteland rangers who engage in more diverse tactical situations, to say the least.

Seeing the above is not arguing in favour of DPS.

But it is arguing for something DPS also ends up facilitating, ie, clearly superior and inferior weapons, and usually in the exact same way (more damage)

 

[DeepOcean]

Damage per action point is only really bad when it is the only thing relevant when deciding to make a choice of weapon. If a shotgun and a pistol has the same damage per action point and mechanicaly wise the shotgun don't have any relevant unique advantage like light armor penetration and etc., it is just a pistol that only shots at close range, there is no point in chosing a shotgun. Without enough detail, it is impossible to say that is such a bad thing. If they come with shit like: shotguns have the same damage per action point that of a pistol but does an incredible 25% more damage at close range, then there is reason to worry. To me, a shotgun should be a complete beast at close range and to someone that want a gunslinger fantasy should accept that a pistol will be a really inferior option to a specialized weapon. A pistol should have other advantages and disadvantages than pure damage like higher initiative, concealability, advantage if attacked at melee range, can only do damage to armored enemies if hitting critical points or using special ammunition that isn't cheap.

 

[Liston]

Can anyone explain to me what is wrong in measuring damage in "damage per action point"? It's kinda more relevant than the raw "damage" score.

It stinks of overbalancing weapons and thus making them bland, instead of going the "realism" route and making actually better weapon being better in-game.

Well that is a rather pointless argument. X per unit of time is a really common denotation for units of time derivatives and is hardly invented by MMOs. Do you also consider cars overbalanced and bland WoW clones because you can see km per hour on the dashboard? I can understand that someone can link traumatic experiences such as playing MMOs to unrelated things that simply happened at the same time but you have to see that you are being unreasonable here and that MMOs aren't boring because of terminology they use but because they are designed for retards. If you hadn't rage because of a use of such a common term and had read the rest of the update (or watched the gameplay video) you would have known that weapon usefulness can't be described with a single stat and that dmg/AP isn't the only thing that they balance weapons by (from the top of my head there is also accuracy, character speed and ammunition cost). Every turn-based game that I have played that used AP also used dmg/AP for balancing among other things (classes of weapons that dealt more dmg usually also required more AP to use) and I really don't see what is the problem there. Do you want all weapons to use the same amount of AP? Or maybe you want that they assign AP to weapons without regard to how much dmg they deal so we can have bazooka that uses less AP than pocket knife, then we will surely avoid overbalancing and "realism"?

 

[Kz3r0]

DPS has absolutely nothing to do with realism. Real combat is about hitting, not damage. One good hit is usually all it takes to remove an opponent from the fight.

Yeah, multiple stab wounds do nothing, LOL.
And fire damage is DPS in real life, just saying.

 

[tuluse]

Itt: everyone is over reacting because damage per action point was specifically contrasted against other positives and negatives in the update.

 

[MicoSelva]

X per unit of time is a really common denotation for units of time derivatives and is hardly invented by MMOs. Do you also consider cars overbalanced and bland WoW clones because you can see km per hour on the dashboard?

This would only be true if all cars were classified by their KPH capability alone.

I can understand that someone can link traumatic experiences such as playing MMOs to unrelated things that simply happened at the same time but you have to see that you are being unreasonable here and that MMOs aren't boring because of terminology they use but because they are designed for retards.

I have no traumatic memories from playing MMOs, because I have never played one for more than a couple of hours.

If you hadn't rage because of a use of such a common term and had read the rest of the update (or watched the gameplay video) you would have known that weapon usefulness can't be described with a single stat and that dmg/AP isn't the only thing that they balance weapons by (from the top of my head there is also accuracy, character speed and ammunition cost).

I've seen the gameplay video, with machete dealing more damage than a gun, which is exactly one of the artificial balancing issues I was talking about.

Every turn-based game that I have played that used AP also used dmg/AP for balancing among other things (classes of weapons that dealt more dmg usually also required more AP to use) and I really don't see what is the problem there. Do you want all weapons to use the same amount of AP? Or maybe you want that they assign AP to weapons without regard to how much dmg they deal so we can have bazooka that uses less AP than pocket knife, then we will surely avoid overbalancing and "realism"?

Whatever strawman arguments You want to put in my mouth, I've already said that I just want a system that will be coherent from common sense point of view.

 

[Spectacle]

DPS has absolutely nothing to do with realism. Real combat is about hitting, not damage. One good hit is usually all it takes to remove an opponent from the fight.

Yeah, multiple stab wounds do nothing, LOL.
And fire damage is DPS in real life, just saying.

How many fights are settled by those? Once a good hit is landed the target is largely defenseless and easily finished off.

 

[Liston]

This would only be true if all cars were classified by their KPH capability alone.

And because weapons in W2 aren't classified by its dmg/AP alone (as you surely know because you read the update) we can say that W2 isn't taking something from MMO?

I've seen the gameplay video, with machete dealing more damage than a gun, which is exactly one of the artificial balancing issues I was talking about.

Didn't you complain that you don't want "realism"? Maybe I misunderstood you. Is the fact that a single bullet doesn't cause serious injuries also "artificial balancing"? Can you give as some guidelines on how much realism we need in our games so you won't consider them MMO clones. Also everything in games is artificial.

Whatever strawman arguments You want to put in my mouth, I've already said that I just want a system that will be coherent from common sense point of view.

Well those are the only two cases I could come up with that dmg/AP isn't used for balancing. I either missed something or you didn't express your arguments clearly enough.

 

[MicoSelva]

Didn't you complain that you don't want "realism"?

No, I didn't.

Maybe I misunderstood you.

Maybe You did.

I'd love to stay and argue a bit more, but my shift is over, and it's time go home.

 

[undecaf]

Good fucking update for a change. Informative and with somewhat good news on their direction.

 

[Brayko]

DPS is bullshit. It removes all sense of style.

Yes, and in a simulationist type of game where long swords are ALWAYS better in every way than short swords, "because that's realistic", long swords have more DPS than short swords. A single measure of quality, rather than various weapons with various qualities.

People ITT are arguing against themselves and they don't even realize it.

This is retarded.

Long swords are not better because they have higher DPS. Especially when DPS is ONE of the methods of balancing combat for different weapon types. JUST ONE OF THEM.

You have a point, but I personally don't like having DPS thrown in my face like it's the be all end all of combat. If I want specialize in clubs I don't like it to be shown blatant that it's not as powerful as a Greataxe at base level, I know that some clubs are unique and that there's some really nice magical clubs out there that fit my playstyle. To me, DPS encourages min-maxing and limits character style significantly. Some people like that sure, and it may seem minor to the dude who just wants to hit things the hardest and that's cool to, but as a consequence other, more subtle strengths seem to be downplayed. maybe a minor issue, sure, but the theory of it is certainly arguable.

 

[Hobz]

DPS is the ENEMY of the gamist approach of making various types of weapons useful. Because it funnels everything down into a single measure of weapon quality, which is precisely what you want - weapons that are unequivocally better than other weapons.

DPS is merely an aggregation of two stats, it's not a game mechanism, it's not an approach to design games or the ENEMY of anything. Now, having ONLY dps to differentiate weapons would be bad, but it's not going to happen anytime soon in Wasteland 2.

 

[Kirtai]

To me, a shotgun should be a complete beast at close range

Shotguns can be complete beasts at longer range too. It annoys me that every game designer seems to think that they have a tiny fraction of their actual range.

 

[Gozma]

I like DPS because I like games to do one step of pertinent arithmetic for me

 

[t]

I like DPS because I like games to do one step of pathetic arithmetic for me

That's what I read for some reason.

 

[Blaine]

I like games to tell me exactly where to go next, and point it out with a flashing marker. After all, that's just saving me some intermediate steps I'd have to do to figure it out myself.

I appreciate instant travel in games. I'd just have to navigate to my destination anyway. That saves me all KINDS of steps.

I prefer it when I can just tape down W and LMB to win. I'm going to win anyway, right? Why go through the bother of actually playing the game in order to reach a foregone conclusion?

The decline didn't arrive in a grand procession greeted by magnificent fanfare, except for Ultima IX. It crept in quietly, a little bit at a time. DPS is just one of many insidious facets of the decline. No massive, overpowering argument exists that I can present to show that DPS is completely horrible. In fact, it's quite easy to argue that it's a reasonable and convenient feature. That's how it goes.

 

[EG]

Aren't quest compasses a little different than actively obscuring the control schemes necessary to play a game?

Right, sometimes I forget where I am.

 

[Blaine]

actively obscuring the control schemes necessary to play a game

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

 

[Infinitron]

I appreciate instant travel in games. I'd just have to navigate to my destination anyway. That saves me all KINDS of steps.

 

[MicoSelva]

I like games to tell me exactly where to go next, and point it out with a flashing marker. After all, that's just saving me some intermediate steps I'd have to do to figure it out myself.

I appreciate instant travel in games. I'd just have to navigate to my destination anyway. That saves me all KINDS of steps.

I prefer it when I can just tape down W and LMB to win. I'm going to win anyway, right? Why go through the bother of actually playing the game in order to reach a foregone conclusion?

You should somehow mark that You are being sarcastic Blaine, or some people will take Your post at face value...

 

[Syl]

Round 39! FIGHT!

 

[Infinitron]

We've already had that fight

 

[FeelTheRads]

I like games to tell me exactly where to go next, and point it out with a flashing marker. After all, that's just saving me some intermediate steps I'd have to do to figure it out myself.

I appreciate instant travel in games. I'd just have to navigate to my destination anyway. That saves me all KINDS of steps.

I prefer it when I can just tape down W and LMB to win. I'm going to win anyway, right? Why go through the bother of actually playing the game in order to reach a foregone conclusion?

The decline didn't arrive in a grand procession greeted by magnificent fanfare, except for Ultima IX. It crept in quietly, a little bit at a time. DPS is just one of many insidious facets of the decline. No massive, overpowering argument exists that I can present to show that DPS is completely horrible. In fact, it's quite easy to argue that it's a reasonable and convenient feature. That's how it goes.

This is exactly how the decline was achieved. In small steps, by removing things that "weren't necessary anyway" or adding little helpers that "were obvious anyway". And people fell for it. Cause yeah you totally loot everything anyway why not have infinite inventory lol

 

[BlitzKitchen]

I like games to tell me exactly where to go next, and point it out with a flashing marker. After all, that's just saving me some intermediate steps I'd have to do to figure it out myself.

I appreciate instant travel in games. I'd just have to navigate to my destination anyway. That saves me all KINDS of steps.

I prefer it when I can just tape down W and LMB to win. I'm going to win anyway, right? Why go through the bother of actually playing the game in order to reach a foregone conclusion?

The decline didn't arrive in a grand procession greeted by magnificent fanfare, except for Ultima IX. It crept in quietly, a little bit at a time. DPS is just one of many insidious facets of the decline. No massive, overpowering argument exists that I can present to show that DPS is completely horrible. In fact, it's quite easy to argue that it's a reasonable and convenient feature. That's how it goes.

This is exactly how the decline was achieved. In small steps, by removing things that "weren't necessary anyway" or adding little helpers that "were obvious anyway". And people fell for it. Cause yeah you totally loot everything anyway why not have infinite inventory lol

Whelp, I don't support infinite inventories and other unrealizms. But you were probably going to go back for that loot anyway, and kick the ass of whatever person or creature you might randomly encounter. Then you drop it all in your super safe or sell it for game breaking amounts of money.

 

[EG]

This is exactly how the decline was achieved. In small steps, by removing things that "weren't necessary anyway" or adding little helpers that "were obvious anyway". And people fell for it.

We never should have left command-line programs, really. It was GUIs that doomed us.

Then again, maybe it was acronyms and pre-built scripts . . .

The size of storage mediums . . .

Moving from a paper display to electronic . . .

Fuck, it was the very nature of semiconductors that contributed the most.

Everything was better in analog.

But then we have the mass-marketing of tubes.

actively obscuring the control schemes necessary to play a game

I'm not sure what you mean by this.

It should be pretty clear . . . What's the opposite of attempting to streamline something's meaning or utility? Obscuring it.

Great way to remove streamlining, for example: Arcanum's lack of tooltips. Just have to guess what DX means (not that that's a fucking challenge, particularly once the game starts and tooltips more-or-less start to appear in one place on the screen), unless you're in-game. Was that intentional (did they ban tooltips in development?) or did they have not the time|experience|bodies to add them? Did this make it a better game because of it lacked tooltips?