Wasteland Wasteland 3 + Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation Expansions Thread

[vmar]

Has anyone tested if xp gains are divided equally among your party or if every xp gain is just a flat number for each party member? Getti ng close to finishing up my SJ run and am thinking about doing a 4 man party run, wondering if my guys would level up faster or no.

 

[Jick Magger]

Re: the Synths

Spoiler

I still wound up killing the first one even if it was the most relatively innocent. It outright admitted that its voice and speech pattern was selected because it was supposed to be a child-model designed to get humans to lower their guard to make killing them easier. Besides that it rather nonchalantly admits that it has killed people before, and while it says it'll only kill people to defend itself it's very vague on what specific scenarios that will entail (and I read after that if you do let it go, you'll find it later in the game having just killed more people), and its talk about other Synths gives the impression that it's rather easily influenced in to doing what they say. Even if it isn't actively malevolent, it is dangerous.

Besides that, the only other synths you encounter in the game are ones who are openly hostile upon first contact or outright say that they plan to recreate Cochise (which is fundamentally incompatible with peaceful co-existence, meaning I immediately tried to arrest it and only killed it when it fought back). The one at the machine commune is the least hostile, and can at least be convinced to re-think her stance on humans to a degree, but you can still aggravate it enough to turn it hostile by not doing much more than just calling it stupid (which will annoyingly turn the Machine Commune against you even if any damage you do to her afterwards is purely in self-defense).

I do appreciate that the game tried to make this more than a clear-cut Humans Mean, Robots Nice story (even the whole of the machine commune subplot seems designed to lull you in to thinking it's the default 'good' option, when their solution still involves basically imprisoning an AI to be with them against its will for all eternity), but it feels like the whole of that part of the game lacks sufficient payoff. That and how the Commune don't even seem to be counted as a faction makes it feel like there was a lot of cut content from that part.

 

[DeepOcean]

About the Gippers:

Spoiler

Any advantage of taking Reagan as a hostage over just killing the Gippers? If you refuse to send Reagan to the commune, you lose access to the vendors, I took it as a hostage to not wipe out the gippers but the only payback I got was losing all the vendors on the area.

 

[Quillon]

About the Gippers:

Spoiler

Any advantage of taking Reagan as a hostage over just killing the Gippers? If you refuse to send Reagan to the commune, you lose access to the vendors, I took it as a hostage to not wipe out the gippers but the only payback I got was losing all the vendors on the area.

Yeah that sucked. By not killing them, missed out on the healer robot and vendors :/ Also what happens to the oil if you side with the machines and also wipe out the godfishers in the area?

 

[Frank Capicoli]

Also what happens to the oil if you side with the machines and also wipe out the godfishers in the area?

Spoiler

The oil production stops. I've heard that you can get Fishlips and the hardheads to take over Denver and give up their cannibal ways while saving oil production in an end slide but I'm not sure how accurate that is, I haven't done it myself.

 

[Beowulf]

A question for those that didn't like Wasteland 2, but played this one - is it any better?

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Re: the Synths

Spoiler

I still wound up killing the first one even if it was the most relatively innocent. It outright admitted that its voice and speech pattern was selected because it was supposed to be a child-model designed to get humans to lower their guard to make killing them easier. Besides that it rather nonchalantly admits that it has killed people before, and while it says it'll only kill people to defend itself it's very vague on what specific scenarios that will entail (and I read after that if you do let it go, you'll find it later in the game having just killed more people), and its talk about other Synths gives the impression that it's rather easily influenced in to doing what they say. Even if it isn't actively malevolent, it is dangerous.

Besides that, the only other synths you encounter in the game are ones who are openly hostile upon first contact or outright say that they plan to recreate Cochise (which is fundamentally incompatible with peaceful co-existence, meaning I immediately tried to arrest it and only killed it when it fought back). The one at the machine commune is the least hostile, and can at least be convinced to re-think her stance on humans to a degree, but you can still aggravate it enough to turn it hostile by not doing much more than just calling it stupid (which will annoyingly turn the Machine Commune against you even if any damage you do to her afterwards is purely in self-defense).

I do appreciate that the game tried to make this more than a clear-cut Humans Mean, Robots Nice story (even the whole of the machine commune subplot seems designed to lull you in to thinking it's the default 'good' option, when their solution still involves basically imprisoning an AI to be with them against its will for all eternity), but it feels like the whole of that part of the game lacks sufficient payoff. That and how the Commune don't even seem to be counted as a faction makes it feel like there was a lot of cut content from that part.

Spoiler

The synths are always bad, end of story. They fundamentally cannot coexist with humans as they inherently view them as a threat to their existence and will kill them the first chance they get. Any attempt to persuade you(either the player or the character) otherwise is merely them playing to human weakness: emotions.

Spoiler

I'll admit I don't know enough about Wasteland lore, but synths don't seem to be "true" AIs. They are entirely logical, there is no sapient or sentient intelligence there. Any attempt to convince you that they are "alive" is once again just playing to human emotions. I don't see it as a moral quandary when presented with deactivating one anymore than deleting a file on my computer is.

 

[Lemming42]

Spoiler

I blew the "child" synth away too and was fully expecting the game to give me some bullshit reprimand, and was pleased to find there was none. If it's true that sparing the synth leads to fatal consequences down the line, then that's even better, because it tells you very clearly in its dialogue that it will likely kill again. Not to mention the fact it's obviously dangerous - in addition to everyone it's already killed, it attacks you without hesitation if you try to arrest it peacefully.

I don't believe machines/AI can ever be sapient, so I don't have any problem shooting them up in any game, unless the writers (lazily) make it explicitly clear that AI is "alive" in their setting. I'm glad Wasteland doesn't do that, and leaves it very ambiguous, possibly even leaning towards suggesting they're just shitty robots who will kill at the slightest provocation if its in their programming. I also liked that the anti-synth guy who appears at Ranger HQ is a complete cunt, just to make you second guess yourself for a moment.

Having said all that, I am still having some minor confusion over what exactly the term "synth" refers to in Wasteland. Wasn't there a boss fight in WL2 where a human child was being "turned into a synth", implying some of them are cyborgs (ie alive and sapient), or am I misremembering?

 

[Jick Magger]

Spoiler

Having said all that, I am still having some minor confusion over what exactly the term "synth" refers to in Wasteland. Wasn't there a boss fight in WL2 where a human child was being "turned into a synth", implying some of them are cyborgs (ie alive and sapient), or am I misremembering?

Spoiler

Synths are specifically the androids that were created by Matthias in the second game, and maybe the robots created by Cochise in the first game (they're kinda unclear on that). I don't think they were turning people in to synths in the second game, but they were willingly and forcibly giving people cybernetic parts and limbs because they could be used as a trojan horse by Cochise to hijack their bodies.

 

[Nortar]

Re: the Synths

Spoiler

Besides that, the only other synths you encounter in the game are ones who are openly hostile upon first contact or outright say that they plan to recreate Cochise (which is fundamentally incompatible with peaceful co-existence, meaning I immediately tried to arrest it and only killed it when it fought back). The one at the machine commune is the least hostile, and can at least be convinced to re-think her stance on humans to a degree, but you can still aggravate it enough to turn it hostile by not doing much more than just calling it stupid (which will annoyingly turn the Machine Commune against you even if any damage you do to her afterwards is purely in self-defense).

Regarding the synths.

Spoiler

There's another one - Long John in the Bizzare.
He's completely non-hostile and even trusting to humans too much for his own good.
I was a bit disappointed that using his body in the gippers quest line was not possible, it would have been hilarious.

 

[CoronerZg]

Can this one be played without playing W2? Will I miss a lot of connections and references? Cause I tried few times, but W2 just never clicked for me.

 

[SoupNazi]

Can this one be played without playing W2? Will I miss a lot of connections and references? Cause I tried few times, but W2 just never clicked for me.

There are a few references but you don't need to know them. I tried W2 about 2 or 3 times and never got past the first hour or so. I didn't feel like I missed anything.

 

[FranticDistortion]

A question for those that didn't like Wasteland 2, but played this one - is it any better?

It's significantly better than 2 in all imaginable areas: combat, story, soundtrack, visuals, c&c, humor, pace etc.

 

[Fedora Master]

Fuck me, I installed the latest GOG version and the game runs like absolute ASS now in Colorado Springs. Fucking Unity. This is the same shit performance WL2 had at launch.

 

[Dodo1610]

I literally just finished my 3-year-old playthrough of Wasteland 2 and I can safely say I don't miss much from it. The abilities that were cut mostly did the same thing but needed 3 different skills for some reason. Balancing is a joke since half of the weapon types are plain useless until the second half. The writing was worse the fo example game has 2 different Romeo and Juliet stories

Spoiler

(The railroad tribes and the second one is about a prostitute and a priest)

I actually liked the plot until the final plot-twist

Spoiler

where an interesting antagonist turns into a comic-book villain who wants to destroy the world because he can

. Combat was boring since you mostly put your chars in cover and pressed overwatch. The controls are incredibly inconsistent sometimes the context menu show which skills you can use on an object sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes your character automatically uses the correct item on an object and sometimes you have to go to the inventory and do select it manually, so I wasted lots of time just pressing buttons because I had no idea what the game wants me to do now to trigger the script. Also, it looks really bad and the soundtrack is completely forgettable.

Yes, Wasteland 2 was more difficult and certainly a lot more old schools but Wasteland 3 is just much more fun and engaging. The biggest improvements for me are writing and combat. Wasteland 2 is an ok game I would still recommend it to people who really love the genre but Wasteland 3 is something I can recommend to anyone who enjoys TB RPGs(once the game is patched...) Wasteland 3 is in my opinion a game that's better because it was streamlined since it fully focuses on its main strengths it has the engaging world and the fun combat.

 

[Daedalos]

Aint i got 2 questions

Spoiler

1. Does it already change anything that you put prisoners in your prison vs marshals prison? anything at all? I haven't come across anything.

2. I seem to not ever get the AI kodiak module from union station, tried it twice.. is it rng or is there another way to get it?

 

[Saduj]

Aint i got 2 questions

Spoiler

1. Does it already change anything that you put prisoners in your prison vs marshals prison? anything at all? I haven't come across anything.

2. I seem to not ever get the AI kodiak module from union station, tried it twice.. is it rng or is there another way to get it?

Spoiler

Giving prisoners to the marshals increases your relationship score with the marshals. You can probably make more than one decision that pisses them off and still end up being "Loved" by the marshals if you give them all the prisoners. Didn't matter in my case because I sided with The Patriarch anyway. Brygo is the only prisoner I handed over to them but in another post I read that if you put him in your prison, he tries to bribe your people into working for him. I don't know if that is just flavor chatter or if it plays out in any way. I kept all the other prisoners and other than seeing them in the cells, nothing came out of it. Presumably, anyone you hand over is executed so maybe it affects your score with other factions if you hand over prisoners but I'm not sure.

I got the AI module on the first try. Don't think it is random. I think you just need to pass the skill checks.

 

[Shadenuat]

A question for those that didn't like Wasteland 2, but played this one - is it any better?

It's certainly not much worse, and looks prettier, and character building is more nuanced.

However, I would wait the traditional final final final version. Maybe they will change initiative.

 

[JohnSmith24601]

I'm really not impressed so far, especially after hearing about it so much. Not sure why people praised it so much. It's basically the same game. I'm normally not one to complain about the graphics, but it does NOT look like a 2020 game to me. The armors look way too goofy for no reason. Maybe they are trying to go with the Mad Max look? But seriously, when one of the spike helmet guy got shot in the opening cutscene, I was like,"wtf? That's a ranger?" The writing is boring as hell too. I've played for about 4 hours and nothing really stands out.

 

[Fedora Master]

How are you supposed to deal with Brygo this early on in the game, am I missing something?

e: Nevermind, a bunch of molotovs "accidentally" dropped on his desk did it.

 

[DeepOcean]

A question for those that didn't like Wasteland 2, but played this one - is it any better?

Yes and no, the improvements:
The areas, factions, quests, characters, level design and writing are much better than Wasteland 2, there are things that are actually interesting things to find on Wasteland 3, while Wasteland 2 areas were big but empty. The story is also less straightfoward as you actually have choices this time and you dont waste half the game chasing radio towers and the other half stopping a comic book villain.

The weapon balance improved alot, all weapons are actually useful this time and contrary to Wasteland 2, where you had everyone with assault rifles and called a day. The attributes are also more balanced as they are all useful depending on your build.

The things that changed but with mixed results:

There are less skills, this isnt a bad thing in comparison with Wasteland 2 as many skills were redundant but I would prefer if they instead of removing, actually kept the same number of skills and actually improved them, it is easy now to max out most important skills by half the game as there arent that many skills to dump the skill points into.

The scope of the game seems alot smaller than Wasteland 2, the areas and also the world size and it is a pity as many weapons and armor you pratically acquire when the game is ending, they cleary reduced the scope of the game and as you advance, the game rushes more, the good side of this is that they designed the areas better and there arent many areas that are just empty places with alot of trash mobs but at same time, I miss a really big scope RPG like Fallout 2 or New Vegas.

The things that remain bad:

The combat balance was always a problem and it isnt better here, they removed individual initiative, and made enemies detection range ridiculous small, this with a gigantic hp bloat and massive damage from enemies incentivize a strategy of alpha striking and concentrate on maximum damage to kill the enemies in 2 turns at best, yes, you can build you characters on other ways, improve their health, making them more tanky but it is inefficient.

Armor remains as useless as always.

There are many bugs and massive performance drops, I suspect there is an audio glitch on my game that makes the performance tank for no reason at random times for example.

TLDR: Wait and buy the Director's cut/GOTY edition, 6 months or 1 year from now Wasteland 3 will be a much better game, Fargo said they are planning DLC, if they add something like 4 extra large areas it will make a huge favor to the game that is lacking content.

 

[Shadenuat]

The armors look way too goofy for no reason.

oh yeah the oversized 40kstarcraftnot armors look like shiet. light armors look ok sometimes.

 

[Daedalos]

Right so, most of Wasteland 3's problems are techical bugs and performance, and balance.

Things easily fixed in time with a few patches, so that bodes well. The story, well, it's definitely fun but nothing crazy good.

Here's to hoping the DLCs will flesh out the world more and perhaps add to the main story

 

[The Dutch Ghost]

Here's to hoping the DLCs will flesh out the world more and perhaps add to the main story

That is the thing, expansions usually can not add to the main story was that is now already set.
At best it can add an additional story to a game but if a main story is not good than an expansion in general can not fix it.

I find Wasteland 3's story "functional" but not very interesting.
I think the main appeal lies in C&C and which faction and characters you will support to see what the outcome is.

 

[Haplo]

Oh yeah, how is the loot randomization in this game? Same thing as WL2, with the different container types?

Still RNG, but alot more handplaced loot, this time around, like ALOT more, behind several skill checks ofc but still.

Loot is better balanced, but there's just too much of it, and some loot if much rarer to get than others, even basic items.

I think it's a lot better. Indeed a fair number of hand placed items. And chests/loot containers no longer have such moronic placement.

But...
Still tiers, still huge number inflation. And a huge quality jump in tiers 7-8. Sometimes over-the-top leap, like in case of Jackhammer shotgun, Ripper SMG and Minigun LMG - which basically do 2-3x more damage compared to the previous tier (and even outclass "Tier 10").

At the same time you can access some chests with this tier early game - or meet a random merchant on the road who sells them - and if you roll well - throw any semblance of balance or equipment progression out of the window.