Wasteland Wasteland 2 Suggestions

[Volourn]

FUCK OFF! It looks awesome.

 

[Cazzeris]

FUCK OFF! It looks awesome.

No, it doesn't.

They've chosen a typical Arial font that has nothing to do with Wasteland setting, and it should be changed for the WL's soul's sake.

I'd suggest something like this:

Imagine the "Encounter begins!" message written this way. Gorgeous, isn't it?

 

[Onholyservicebound]

How about getting rid of trinkets? Or at least keeping them to a minimum of like, 1 positive effect. Skill trinkets are especially lame, +3 to demolitions? Brilliant, the downsides are completely pointless as no one will use them in combat.
They tend to be of two categories:
Completely worthless = -2 ap for 10% chance to hit
or just a means to make your character builds feel less meaningful
+3 to skill, don't bother wasting more points here.

A boost for stats is nice as switching in combat isn't something you'll do, so there's no cheese. I liked trinkets back in the beta, where there was a ranger star and luck rabbit's foot, they've definitely lost their charm now.

 

[Onholyservicebound]

Hp bloat and more importantly armor bloat, I don't mind the hp on honey badgers that some people bitched about, not even slicer divers, scorpitron is pushing it, but eh, it's k. the hp bloat I hate is the kind where nuns and raiders have hundreds of it, being able to take tons of lead and keep standing, even my weakest ranger is more durable than a honey badger. As for armor, every human enemy in LA seems to have at least 6-7, even enemies that blatantly have no armor. Being as durable as robots while wearing robes seems nonsensical to me, I dun like it.

 

[Shadenuat]

You see Wasteland 2, this game looks like it's in dire need of repairs

How about getting rid of trinkets? Or at least keeping them to a minimum of like, 1 positive effect

Make trinkets pump skill beyond 10 instead, so I won't have to savescum through things like safe in Mannerite's sewers that has 25% chance to open with Safecracking 10.

 

[Revolucas]

Cool thread!

The game desperately needs an awesome button and by that I mean a key that allows players to enter turn-based mode whenever they want.

This was ultimately decided against for the same reasons stealth was dropped - it's game-breaking and not in a good way. Usually combat toggles are really glitchy and exploitative.

Note, the assessment below is just my opinion/take on it, but I feel it's probably pretty accurate...

First, players expect a certain degree of reactivity, and what happens if you can freely toggle combat everywhere? Oh, this guy in a quest is just gonna be hostile to you forever despite the fact that you initiated combat, walked away for 2 weeks, and then his dialog indicates something "just happened" and now makes no sense. Or the game is checking for an "NPC was killed" trigger and now some later reactivity that depends on that no longer fires or makes sense, so you have massive content bloat to account for it all. Or maybe you shot someone in a town and now the combat state screwed up the rest of the NPCs there. Or now she's following and chasing you around the entire map and making the area unplayable. Or the save system has to be able to track it and it leads to all sorts of crazy bugs when you save/load/exit the game/area transition/etc. Or now you broke some scripting and the designers need to write alternate versions of scripts for every single combat encounter in the game when there's already a massive amount of reactivity that is far more meaningful to players that needs to be implemented.

Second, it's exploitative. We all know that classic cheap "tactic" in RPGs of taking pot-shots at enemies, running away, canceling combat, and coming back later only to shoot again and slowly but surely whittle enemies down in a manner that is just really cheap and stupid looking. It's also not that realistic in the context of the game - how easy is it to actually escape a firefight with someone anyway, when you're a team of people? - and ultimately doesn't make combat any more fun. Sure, you could put this in, but then you're just inventing a ton more design problems to solve for relatively little benefit.

So part of it is a scope issue in that it's an extremely complicated feature to put in, and part of it is that doing it in a way that's not just shitty and broken is not feasible given the cost/benefit.

I'm not advocating the implementation of the feature but I really don't buy the excuse. You can already attack anyone you want. The addition of a combat toggle feature wouldn't make it anymore broken. You can simply disallow ending combat when there are aggro'd enemies; it's already like this.

 

[Gold]

I want a simple thing, can I have a fullscreen window where I can move the cursor across my monitors?

 

[FeelTheRads]

FUCK OFF! It looks awesome.

No, it doesn't.

They've chosen a typical Arial font that has nothing to do with Wasteland setting, and it should be changed for the WL's soul's sake.

I'd suggest something like this:

Imagine the "Encounter begins!" message written this way. Gorgeous, isn't it?

It would be better if it was removed completely, but if has to be there it could be at least in a suitable style, I agree.

Fonts are ugly across the board, though. The end turn button is hideous and those white/blue flags, whatever they are, were they made in Paint?

 

[MrBuzzKill]

I agree with the fonts thing. Also, not to be nitpicky, but the main menu kind of looks like a mock up:

Spoiler

If you remove the awesome concept art, its looks as if it were made in 5 minutes in Photoshop. I'd personally enjoy some cool-looking technological/wasteland-themed buttons and panels.
Compare with F1's main menu (admittedly not the best ever, but at least it looks in style with what the game is about - a worn photograph, pipboy-style buttons etc)

Spoiler

Here are some cool looking menus for comparison:

Spoiler

 

[Cazzeris]

FUCK OFF! It looks awesome.

No, it doesn't.

They've chosen a typical Arial font that has nothing to do with Wasteland setting, and it should be changed for the WL's soul's sake.

I'd suggest something like this:

Spoiler

Imagine the "Encounter begins!" message written this way. Gorgeous, isn't it?

It would be better if it was removed completely, but if has to be there it could be at least in a suitable style, I agree.

Fonts are ugly across the board, though. The end turn button is hideous and those white/blue flags, whatever they are, were they made in Paint?

I wonder how long does it take to change a couple of fonts and make a decent main menu. They should ask for community help for this kind of banal issues.

Also, it would be interesting to know what are inXile future plans for this game. They should try to polish it and keep open to people's suggestion to fix as many problems they could and then release T:ToN before making another Kickstarter campaign, because there are a lot of people that are disapointed with WL2 (just go to inXile forum and see) and that could be quite harmful for inXile's future.

 

[Immortal]

You could change a million things, but you know what, all I really need is just one, simple change.

Balance walking speeds.

It looks stupid to have everyone run 50m in the time it takes you to fire a bullet, and it also diminishes tactical options. What's the point of positioning your characters just right if enemies can run right up to your sniper? How can you have effective chokepoints with your melee brawler if everybody can run past him (even if he's blocking the only square, diagonal movements are possible, so even a simple doorway in the corner of a room would need 2 blockers)? In a game where there is no attack of opportunity or anything like that?

Simplest solution would be to decrease movement speed, then perhaps compensate by also decreasing PCs' speed or alternatively beefing up enemies' armour a little more. A more interesting solution would be to increase AP costs when you are moving past an enemy - e.g. 1 AP to move to a square next to an enemy, but 3 AP to then move to another square - to simulate the care you would have to give.

In fact, do enemies even play by the same rules as the player currently? It makes no sense to me that many enemies only shoot once or twice a turn even without moving, but when they move they can move about 25 tiles.

 

[Volourn]

"Also, it would be interesting to know what are inXile future plans for this game. They should try to polish it and keep open to people's suggestion to fix as many problems they could and then release T:ToN before making another Kickstarter campaign, because there are a lot of people that are disapointed with WL2 (just go to inXile forum and see) and that could be quite harmful for inXile's future."

Fuck those losers. Whiny crybabies liek them are the reason why we have dumbed down shit like DOS, AP, and ES series. Fuck 'em.

 

[RK47]

Fuck these people who are easily satisfied with an under-delivering product that over-promised simply because they wear nostalgia-tinted glasses.

 

[Volourn]

Nostalgia? I didn't even play WL1 until a few eyars ago, and didn't even bother to finish it because the controls wer ehsit nor did I even bother to back this retartet game. But, it's fukkin' awesome. But, go jerk off at your shitty RPS shit!

 

[Shadenuat]

I want Leadership skill added to hotbar so it could work like Perception, showing you the area of it's effect.

 

[Norfleet]

In fact, do enemies even play by the same rules as the player currently? It makes no sense to me that many enemies only shoot once or twice a turn even without moving, but when they move they can move about 25 tiles.

According to my searches through the Google, apparently, the insane enemy run rates are due to a bug.

 

[RK47]

In fact, do enemies even play by the same rules as the player currently? It makes no sense to me that many enemies only shoot once or twice a turn even without moving, but when they move they can move about 25 tiles.

According to my searches through the Google, apparently, the insane enemy run rates are due to a bug.

Enemies aren't even aiming to kill.
For some reason they just target shit at random.
Fought Dr. Larsen and he got one of my ranger down to 6-7 HP and he just ignored him completely next turn, firing at 4 random targets in quick succession.
Not sure if this is 'standard AI that doesn't give a fuck' we come to expect.
In Fallout we know when we're dead. The AI lock on and kills.
In Wasteland 2, they just jump and swipe at random.

 

[Shadenuat]

[druidfag]Pls make Animal Whisperer give XP in combat thx, it's unfair computer science does but AW doesn't[/druidfag]

 

[Black]

1) More ways to define your characters and I'm not talking about sexual orientation. Perks/traits/talents/whatever depending on your attributes, skills and maybe the shit you've done or failed to do.
2) Better camera for the love of god, racofer agrees. At least make it more diagonal.
3) Divide huge maps into multiple smaller areas, like rail nomad camp.
4) Allow us to place our own flags on the map, fuck, shit.
5) Deeper combat, there are so many effects that hardly come into play. Aimed shots. Why can't we break legs and shit? Most you'll ever see is bleeding and concussion.
6) Ability to delay your turn to go after another character.

 

[gromit]

Unless I'm missing something here, I think this is a misunderstanding.

what happens if you can freely toggle combat everywhere?

The request wasn't to freely toggle combat, it was to freely initiate it... or more accurately, not initiate combat (we already can) but to initiate turn-based mode. Most of the problems you list have to do with stopping combat arbitrarily. The other bits -- maps flooded with hostile quest-givers, etc -- can (and do) arise already, since you can force-fire at will.

Some serious questions / oddities / annoyances arise from the current handling.

From a rules perspective:
What's not exploitative about (potentially) giving a free turn to your entire squad at the start of combat? Select high-initiative snipers, force-fire, combat formally begins, snipers shoot again, and then the target finally gets a turn.

Then (more importantly) from a user perspective:
What is so special about that opening shot, that it, unlike every other shot in the game, is based on real-time click-accuracy in a limited window of opportunity? With the with the small character size, idle-state wanderings, camera rotation, spread-out interface, and the line-of-sight problems... it can be frustratingly common to have the target become unavailable right before (or as) you click.

I seriously doubt one of the system's goals is to provide a brief, mouse-only Crusader-style minigame to reward player skill with extra opportunity.

A cheap solution would be forcing the combat state to start whenever you click the weapon slot... but that makes bashing a serious annoyance. RTWP-style pause-and-target is a decent workaround for the second problem, but not the first.

So let us slap the space-bar when not in combat, and give the opening turn to the selected character. For multiple-selected, give it to the first / left-most on the selection bar (highest initiative would make more "sense" but isn't as clear.) Then we can take that "first turn" at our leisure, AND it isn't completely free / simultaneously taken by multiple characters.

That could allow actual exploits re: positioning... cheesing your way into cover through the "engagement radius" or even running your melee right up into the back-line's faces. IMO that's a less severe exploit than the seven-gun salute, and more easily squashed. This (one) idea's a bit of a band-aid, but it's logical and consistent...

Say we're in the "pre-combat turn." That is: we're in turn-based, but no attacks have been made, the selected character is outside hostile awareness / proximity. Essentially, nothing has happened that would cause the game-as-delivered to initiate the combat state.

Each character who is hostile-by-default (i.e. if they became aware it would trigger combat) could have temporary "ambush mode," maybe even full-on interrupt to be fair to melee. Or, maybe even more simply / naturally: if you do any (non-attack) action to that violates the non-combat state, that turn stops, and combat starts as if you had done the same thing in real-time.

Maybe slap on another check to squash the seven-gun salute for good: if in RT, and requesting to force-fire, instead start a turn with the "first selected" character... or even have that one character take the shot, and then proceed as if that was the start of their turn, filling in the rest of the initiative queue behind them.

 

[Volourn]

"3) Divide huge maps into multiple smaller areas, like rail nomad camp."

NO.

Only pieces of shit prfer tiny pathetic area. Big ass areas are AWESOMDSAUCE.

 

[Black]

It's not fucking awesome walking your dudes for 5 minutes so you can exit to the world map.

 

[gromit]

Maybe it should let you open the world map for travel in an area when it's safe (maybe better defined as "there are no characters which are hostile-by-default.") Of course, the problem then is, anything like a scripted ambush on the way out is telegraphed.

 

[Ivan]

Maybe it should let you open the world map for travel in an area when it's safe (maybe better defined as "there are no characters which are hostile-by-default.") Of course, the problem then is, anything like a scripted ambush on the way out is telegraphed.

THIS

If out of combat/no hostile npcs around, you should be able to use the world map.

 

[Higher Animal]

Wasteland 2 has a series of very significant flaws of which only a handful could be fixed.

Movement speed. Everything is Face to Face or kiting. Super dumb. This is clearly a large oversight on the part of Inxile.

IQ is gimped for a couple of reasons. The first, fixable reason is that skill gain happens rapidly. Rather than give players an easy stat to gimp their characters they should be required to balance investing more points in IQ at the expense of practicable skills. So the first skill point per level increase should happen at level 5 and then the second should happen at level 9. Additionally, remove the action point increases from IQ. Second, IQ as a stat is far more beneficial to an aspiring lock picker than coordination which makes little sense. A level 10 Coord lock picker with 1 skill point invested in lock picking needs to have a higher success rate than a level 1 Coord lock picker. Ideally, the level 1 Coord lock picker should need three or four skill points in lock picking to be able to achieve the same rate of success as a level 10 Coord lock picker with just one skill point in lock picking. Along this same line of thinking Charisma/Luck need to produce higher success rates for skill usage. If you want to potentially rebuff IQ after justifiably de-gimping it then give it the CHA exp bonus.

Alarms that don't have any consequences for activating them.

Insta-hit explosives.

Reduction of enemy HP and increase in vendor scarcity. (Protip for Volourn: This would make for a more difficult game because it reduces the grind and encourages smart, tactical play. What you want is a longer, grindier game.)