Beat the game with rangers around levels 27-28, and overall enjoyed my time with it. Sided with Buchanan, and got a good ending. Thoughts on what I liked and didn't like about the game:
Things I liked:
1. Constant C&C Everywhere: Most if not all quests offer multiple ways of resolving them, including outright murder of quest-related npcs in cold blood and having the game react appropriately. All major characters can be agreed with, antagonised or held at arm's bay with neutral responses, subsequently affecting faction reputation and future interactions with them. Outside of conversations, each area is littered with exploration skill checks that can bypass entire sections of levels, or help the party approach a challenging fight from a different direction, catching enemies off guard. At least 1 area in the game changes dramatically based on the player's choice of companions to bring along.
2. Agenda-Free Writing: WL3 shows admirable restraint in not peddling any sort of blatant political message. To the game's credit, I didn't come across the writers including some out of place social issue that jars one's suspension of disbelief. Also, unlike many modern games, there's no heavy handed attempt to police how the player interacts with the characters and the events presented in WL3's fucked up world. The game allows the player to freely associate with and aid slavers, cannibals, etc., and while there are consequences both positive and negative to doing so, the game is never judgemental about the player's choices. As a result, WL3 is one of the rare RPGs that's able to provide a satisfying evil playthrough.
3. Satisfying Character Development: Attributes, skills and perks are the 3 building blocks to WL3's character development, and I liked WL3's approach to all 3.
I found all 7 attributes to be useful depending on the equipped weapon, but I particularly appreciated skill points per level being decoupled from the Intelligence attribute. In other similar RPGs, Intelligence always felt mandatory in order to not feel crippled when it came to skill points, but WL3's approach of standardising skill points to a specific number per level that can be boosted through a Quirk that has a negative side effect is the best approach I've seen so far. Also rewarding an attribute point every level up ensures the character development never plateaus.
After recently playing through Realms of Arkania 1, I appreciated how there is no wasted skill in WL3; every single skill in the game has at least a few skill checks somewhere. While certain skills are far more frequent and mandatory than others, I was happy with the balance the game reaches. The only issue with the skills implementation is that by level 20, a party of specialists with 3 skills each will have almost all relevant skills at 9 or 10 with the aid of skill books.
Similar to Underrail's approach, WL3's perk design significantly changes underlying combat mechanics which in turn influence character building. For instance, the brawling perk that reduces the brawler's attacks to 1 AP makes it beneficial to boost Charisma, so that the brawler will be able chain stun enemies in an AOE multiple times per round. Without this perk, I would never have given the Charisma attribute a second thought for a Brawler. Also, the ability to mix and match perks from two very different skills can lead to some fun and broken combinations. That said, I wish the game had perks associated for all available skills; presently, skills such as lockpicking, hard ass and kiss ass have no associated perks, and a character who picks a combination of these skills will have a surfeit of perks with nothing to spend them on.
4. All Combat Playstyles Perform Well: Playing a party with 6 specialists that each focused on different combat styles, I was pleasantly surprised to not find any dead weight. It's a far cry from Wasteland 2 where it was a no-brainer to run a party with multiple Assault Rifles, ammo permitting. I was also impressed with how powerful Mechanics was in turning around seemingly lost fights. That said, Shotguns over performed relative to the other weapons over the course of my playthrough, thanks mostly to critting for a few thousand damage in a cone.
5. No RNG Stat Checks: Last but not least, WL3 moving away from WL2's rng-driven checks is probably the single biggest positive change, especially considering the torturous loading times that would have otherwise accompanied save scumming skill checks.
Things I didn't like:
1. Team-based Initiative: Just like in the Expeditions games, WL3's team-based initiative acts to the game's detriment when it comes to effective combat tactics. Almost all the fights in the game favour the side that goes first in combat. If the AI goes first, it leads to multiple downed rangers irrespective of their armour and defensive stats, and the rest of the fight is spent reviving downed rangers. If the player goes first, most encounters are trivialised due to the most dangerous enemies being taken out instantly without a chance to put up a fight. As a result, 99% of my fights in the game played out similarly due to the initiative system: open with a sneak attack from a sniper/rocket launcher or choose the [attack] option in dialogue to prevent enemies from acting first. I find team-based initiative to work best in X-COM and its clones because the player is literally kept in the dark about the type, number and positioning of enemies. In crpgs with fixed encounter design where the player can clearly see all the participants joining the fight, I prefer individual initiative since it allows for combat tactics that aren't just mass alpha strikes on turn 1, and allows both the player and the AI to react better to the fight going pear-shaped. I unfortunately suspect that the change from WL2's individual initiative to WL3's team-based one was influenced in part by the addition of the co-op mode that typically plays better with team initiative.
2. Horrendous Loading Times: WL3 subjects the player to HDD-like load times even on an SSD. Of all the Unity-based games I've played, WL3 holds the ignominious crown of having the worst loading times by far, with "quickloads" frequently taking upwards of a minute in mid to late game areas. My patience got so ragged watching that loading bar making such infinitesimal progress during the second half of the game that I couldn't even bring myself to reload earlier saves and explore all the different C&C options the game provides.
3. Experience Reward Mechanics: WL3 overwhelmingly rewards combat over non combat resolutions when it comes to raw experience allocated to the team. A level 10 skill check to avoid a fight gives less than 200 experience to the ranger who passes said check. On the other hand, the same fight will probably net the entire team upwards of 200 experience each. Experience and levels never stop mattering because of the accompanying extra attribute points. On a similar note, I wish experience for passing a skill check was divided and allocated equally (before exp bonuses) to all party members to avoid situations where a 1 Charisma ranger with no additional experience bonus is 1000s of exp ahead of the rest of the team due to the frequency of lockpicking and mechanics skill use opportunities.
4. Item Progression Inexplicably Stops: I found the game to stagnate when it came to the final tier of weapon and armour progression. Weapons requiring more than level 7 or 8 skills to use without penalties are incredibly rare compared to the the abundance of lower level weapons. For instance, it is particularly bad with brawling weapons since I never found a brawling weapon that required more than 8 brawling to use, and the highest non-energy brawling weapon I saw was a level 7, obtainable early game. Ideally, every weapon category should have had obtainable weapons that go up to level 10, in addition to the unique ones that are already present (it would also help if the highest level heavy machine gun unique wasn't bugged to have 0 ammo of its kind available in game). Speaking of armour, while heavy armour is well represented, light armour stops progressing with the spectrum assault armour, which is obtainable well before the end game. WL3's bizarre end to its item progression is the one aspect of the game that is absolutely begging for a director's cut treatment or a content patch that addresses the issue.
5. Missing UI Elements: The inventory needed more categories, especially a utility tab to keep track of all the cyborg and non-cyborg utilities one finds. Also the lack of a combat log was sorely felt after witnessing my sniper miss a disproportionate number of times despite a 95% hit chance indicator.
Despite my issues with the game, I found it to be worth a playthrough owing mostly to its C&C and party building options. It's just a pity that the initiative system makes the combat and encounter design so mindless.
