Wasteland Wasteland 2 Thread - Director's Cut

[Gregz]

So, playing for the first time and I think I fucked up a build for one of my characters.

1) How generous is this game with experience and skill points?
2) How forgiving is it towards jack-of-all-trades type of characters or does every character have to be combat-ready ?

jack-of-all-trades team is a bad idea.

Good team builder video:



Accompanying table with stats/quirks/skills/perks

http://i.imgur.com/vaNLjJ7.jpg

Every class should have 2-3 utility skills they specialize in, and at least 1 combat skill. Later you'll want to branch into 2 combat skills for each character. The NPCs shown (the last 3) have generally best in slot skills. Rose is a must in my opinion, from there it's debatable.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

So, playing for the first time and I think I fucked up a build for one of my characters.

1) How generous is this game with experience and skill points?
2) How forgiving is it towards jack-of-all-trades type of characters or does every character have to be combat-ready ?

jack-of-all-trades team is a bad idea.

Good team builder video:



Accompanying table with stats/quirks/skills/perks

http://i.imgur.com/vaNLjJ7.jpg

Every class should have 2-3 utility skills they specialize in, and at least 1 combat skill. Later you'll want to branch into 2 combat skills for each character. The NPCs shown (the last 3) have generally best in slot skills. Rose is a must in my opinion, from there it's debatable.

Is it worth sacrificing critical strikes for higher base damage on melee character?

 

[Zombra]

So, playing for the first time and I think I fucked up a build for one of my characters.

1) How generous is this game with experience and skill points?
2) How forgiving is it towards jack-of-all-trades type of characters or does every character have to be combat-ready ?

Are you playing on max difficulty to prove what a tough guy you are? If not, don't worry about it.

The first half of the game is significantly easier than the second half, and you'll build up a ton of levels, easily enough to max a combat skill on every character. And you'll be swimming in skill points by the end. A few wasted here and there, no problem. Don't worry at all about your starting skills.

Now if your stats are horrible across the board, that might be a problem. Really Combat Initiative is the main stat to worry about. If your dudes are all below like 12, you fucked up. Otherwise ... I say press on.

If you really are on maximum difficulty though, I can't say; that's not fun for me. Talk to the "cookie cutter optimal or gtfo" people.

 

[Roguey]

1) How generous is this game with experience and skill points?

You'll be feeling the squeeze if anyone has fewer than 4 points in intelligence. 8's pretty good, but not mandatory.

2) How forgiving is it towards jack-of-all-trades type of characters or does every character have to be combat-ready ?

Think about how things are going to scale in the endgame. Someone with a low number in outdoorsman, a speech skill, or one of the many unlocking skills in the late game isn't going to be able to utilize those abilities at all. They balanced it so that you have to keep up with the treadmill.

Since you can have four pre-mades and three recruits, you can get away with having a 10-int skillbot, though it'll be rougher in the early game.

 

[DosBuster]

Wow, I quit at Rail Nomads, that fucking area man.. I mean, it's cool as a side area but it's just bloated with bullshit. The main quest, while having the potential to be interesting is marred by just how boring the gameplay is. It has good intentions and I see the reasoning behind why certain decisions were made, but I think they should've cut it down and spread its content throughout other areas that needed more life & development. (Prison Outskirts, Damonta)

 

[Gregz]

Is it worth sacrificing critical strikes for higher base damage on melee character?

Never made a melee character at start (used the guide), but in late game they are pretty fun. One of the NPCs you pick up is very strong at melee. Anyway, for melee I would focus on strength and speed primarily. Although I haven't found offensive melee to be effective, used defensively (i.e. your group gets zerg rushed) it's very effective. There are some people who've made melee only parties, google around a bit?

Ammo isn't much of a problem (at least on Ranger difficulty).

SJ difficulty is a completely different game I'm sure, so make sure as the above poster suggests to google for the difficulty you plan on playing on. I don't know why anyone would want to play SJ on their 1st play through, not my idea of fun.

 

[DramaticPopcorn]

Restarted, made a more balanced party, and now at the Rail Nomads, the ride is not too bad so far. Certanly not as bad as people made it out to be.

The writing is fine, but VO ranges from terribad to so bad it's good.

One major complain is the UI. It's a real pain to navigate and it's very obtuse. Especially the stylized combat/chat log

EDIT: Another thing of note is odd gear progression: first few missions i was stuck with starting gear b/c nothing better was dropping (although that didn't stop enemies from doing easily 2x or sometimes 3x damage per shot comparatively). However, when I got to ranger HQ and shopped for a bit, I quickly became way stronger than enemies

EDIT2: I'm on hardcore difficulty, not SJ

 

[Gord]

EDIT: Another thing of note is odd gear progression: first few missions i was stuck with starting gear b/c nothing better was dropping (although that didn't stop enemies from doing easily 2x or sometimes 3x damage per shot comparatively). However, when I got to ranger HQ and shopped for a bit, I quickly became way stronger than enemies

EDIT2: I'm on hardcore difficulty, not SJ

AFAIK Ranger difficulty means that you do 0.67x base damage, while enemies do 1.5x damage. In other words an enemy using the same weapon will do over 2 times as much damage compared to your guys.
Most of the time it's also easier/faster to buy better weapons than to wait until they drop. E.g. once Ranger Citadel is open to you, or from the travelling merchant you can find in a random encounter. Take into account, however, that early access to some tier 3 weapons (like M16) can trivialize most of Arizona combat.

 

[GrapeJam]

Man, I really want to love this game, but JA2's combat system has really spoilt me, the retarded AI also doesn't help.

Why couldn't Wasteland 2 just copy JA2's combat system, it'd been so much more enjoyable.

 

[DeepOcean]

Okay guise, thinking on playing DC, is there a reason to not give everyone an assault rifle?

 

[Zombra]

Can we please roll all Fallout 2 PA helmet accounts into a single account with no password?

 

[Zombra]

Okay guise, thinking on playing DC, is there a reason to not give everyone an assault rifle?

Ammo, and melee enemies. But I think you can survive both of those. I vote try it and see what happens.

 

[Roguey]

Why couldn't Wasteland 2 just copy JA2's combat system, it'd been so much more enjoyable.

No it wouldn't.

 

[Gregz]

Okay guise, thinking on playing DC, is there a reason to not give everyone an assault rifle?

The problem with that is:

1) ammo isn't completely scarce but nor is it plentiful, it certainly isn't cheap. From that standpoint I found it best to have no more than 2 rangers with the same weapon type. 2 AR, 2 Sniper, 2 Energy, and 1 Shotgun. This is so you can make use of the ammo you find, and not have everyone competing for the same ammo.

2) Extreme range is useful, especially with the 'ambush' function, in that respect sniper rifles are better.

3) There are some areas with all robots that are quite hard, energy weapons shred those enemies while ballistic weapons aren't as effective. But I expected a lot more than there were, so it's not as big a deal as I thought it would be.

If I had to reroll for pure combat effectiveness I'd probably go 3 sniper, 3 AR, and 1 energy with everyone's 'backup' (endgame) weapon skill being blunt melee (best weapon in the game is blunt not blade). Although there would be a real rough patch in the mid-game where 6 rangers would be relying on the same ammo. Might be a pain.

Why couldn't Wasteland 2 just copy JA2's combat system, it'd been so much more enjoyable.

JA2 is the best strategic modern combat system ever made for a PC game, and it may well be that there will never be a game in the future that surpasses it in that area, ever. They put so much work and care into that system, and it puts demands on the player to learn how to use it properly. The current trend is to dumb down for the lowest common denominator. I think WL2 was a fair compromise between the two, given the current market dynamics.

 

[Akratus]

I think encounter design and AI are bigger problems in Wasteland 2 than the combat system.

 

[Abu Antar]

I think encounter design and AI are bigger problems in Wasteland 2 than the combat system.

Yeah, enemies basically rush you. Just make sure to snipe off as many as you can before using close range weapons.

 

[Roguey]

Well there's really nothing else a melee enemy can do but run towards you.

 

[Doktor Best]

The problem with energy weapons is not the balance itself but that the e-weapons ) later in the game are significantly worse than their ar/sr counterparts.

Also perks are a bit lacking behind (they wouldnt if they were cumulative).

They could be made more useful with some minor tweaks.

 

[kwanzabot]

Is the 2nd half of the game really that much better? I havent played the game in like a year but in my playthrough I had cleared out canyon of titan and was just about to go to damonta but I got bored and quit but in my play through(half anyway).

I usually played on supreme jerk because I like the idea of losing people as I go so when squad members died unless it was my main guy I didn't reload ( if i remember right casualties included angela, rose, ralphy, scotchmo, and chisel and one of the guys i started with named raven a pre gen character).

My 4 starting rangers I made 1 myself then used the pre gen characters pills/raven/hex, pills being the medic hex being hacking/lockpicking and my guy has a shit ton of unspent skillpoints and a few assault rifle points incase I need anything. One thing that did bother me in this game alot was I felt I always needed some unspent skill points incase there was something I needed to level, like in the canyon of titan to get in some secret militia base/cave/whatever you needed to use a bunch of difference skills in sequence on some box and I had to go get some skill points in either explosives or computers(dont remember what that skill is called) before I could get inside which was a pain in the ass.

All my guys used the assault rifles except scotchmo who used shotguns, raven who used sniper rifles and some mutant girl I recruited who uses energy weapons. I never really tried smgs but pretty much every gun i used was shit except assault rifles, all my guys pretty much just had some m16 looking gun(dont remember if it was called an m16) and I tried to keep everyone stocked with like 150 bullets each and I never really ran out, with 5-6 guys using burst fire with m16 guns i pretty much mowed everything down pretty easily except some giant robot which I had to turn the difficulty down to kill. Sniper rifles and shotguns were also really shit in the game so when scotchmo and my sniper died i didnt even care about reloading for them

For difficulty I played probably 80% of the fights on supreme jerk but there were a few fights where I just put it on the easiest or 2nd easiest, in the canyon of titan there were these retard ass monks with mini nukes attached to them and they would arm then nuke and run toward your party and destroy all their clothes and usually kill them which i thought was fking retarded so i put it on easy mode and killed those guys quick, I dont remember if i put the ag center on an easier difficulty aswell, i might have i dont remember. Supreme jerk was actually really hard at some points but I felt like all the easier difficulties were a bit too easy, but like I said I turned it down a few times during fights I thought were a bit cheap or annoying. Either way wasteland 2 on supreme jerk is like JA2 on the middle difficulty(which I also replayed this summer thanks to the steam summer sale lol )

1 thing that rly pissed me off about this game were the random encounters, idk if any of you remember the encounters in fallout but i replayed 1/2/tactics this summer when I picked them up during the steam summer sale and whenever I ran into a team of dumass raiders or geckos i could just run away in like 30 seconds and be out either to my car or too the map, in wl2 not only were all the enounters hostile but fk me some of them were like 20 minutes of my life gone fighting a bunch of trash bandits who drop worthless revolvers and pistols, i turned the difficulty to easiest for those random encounter fights too because i thought they were a waste of time.

Either way I'm not sure if I'll ever finish, I have 38 hours played and I think I'm about halfway through but the games missing something that made fallout 1/2 special imo, Considering the playtime of most games these days I'd say i got my moneys worth and I'll probably buy anything inXile makes just because I like Fargo.

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I mean cmmon lol

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Okay guise, thinking on playing DC, is there a reason to not give everyone an assault rifle?

Not really. You should be fine with full Assault Rifle team. I mean, as long as you're autistic wannabe-hardcore gamer who'd rather spend half of the playthrough save-scumming containers for ammo, than make a varied team with slightly inferior damage output.

 

[United Nations]

Playing Wasteland 2 Director's Cut with the Youtube "Monkey" Team guide that everybody has been linking.

I set the difficulty to Supreme Jerk, and boy is this ever a motherfucker...

I'm getting owned left and right and I can't farm or loot resources and scrap fast enough!

That said, RNG all day everyday.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

So when will we get modding tools for Wasteland 2? Remember those were promised. Would play with them. Brother None?

 

[United Nations]

Also, did anyone sell their squad's backpacks chose during party creation to earn extra scrap in the beginning of the game?

I noticed that they yield a marginal profit ($8) and look to have no funcitonal use outside of being ornamental.

 

[Zombra]

Also, did anyone sell their squad's "packs" when to earn extra scrap in the beginning of the game?
I noticed that they yield a marginal profit ($8) and have no functional use outside of decoration.

Are you that desperate for $8? Don't forget you can also sell your pants.

 

[United Nations]

Also, did anyone sell their squad's "packs" when to earn extra scrap in the beginning of the game?
I noticed that they yield a marginal profit ($8) and have no functional use outside of decoration.

Are you that desperate for $8? Don't forget you can also sell your pants.

hahaha...

I wish I chose the tranvestite panty option for @ least one of my custom rangers during creation.