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

[jaekl]

Yeah, it's a bit lame you're forced to take Lucia with you, but you're still the "new guy" at that point and she is a local from a powerful family, so it's fair to accept some political shit... anyway, you need her just to clear one short area and it's even fine if she dies during the mission. And that's the only time game does that. I think you should give it another try. If nothing, W3 is pretty much bug free at this point.

Well it's not really about Lucia, that was just the last straw (I only carry between 1 and 3 straws). It's more about the art, writing and tone making my brain itch, as if the game was sending earwigs into my skull through the headphones. That's why I went to play Wasteland 2. I said to myself "wait a minute, I don't remember wasteland 2 being this retarded, am I remembering wrong?" So I went back to play it and turns out that I wasn't remembering wrong. Wasteland 2 was non-abrasive and a pleasant experience except for how it was made in the unity engine which ruined the entire game.

Something happened with RPG writing and art direction lately where it makes all my gaskets burst and I start hollering, throwing things, physically/verbally abusing my friends and family etc. They really need to do something about that.

 

[gurugeorge]

Yeah, it's a bit lame you're forced to take Lucia with you, but you're still the "new guy" at that point and she is a local from a powerful family, so it's fair to accept some political shit... anyway, you need her just to clear one short area and it's even fine if she dies during the mission. And that's the only time game does that. I think you should give it another try. If nothing, W3 is pretty much bug free at this point.

Well it's not really about Lucia, that was just the last straw (I only carry between 1 and 3 straws). It's more about the art, writing and tone making my brain itch, as if the game was sending earwigs into my skull through the headphones. That's why I went to play Wasteland 2. I said to myself "wait a minute, I don't remember wasteland 2 being this retarded, am I remembering wrong?" So I went back to play it and turns out that I wasn't remembering wrong. Wasteland 2 was non-abrasive and a pleasant experience except for how it was made in the unity engine which ruined the entire game.

Something happened with RPG writing and art direction lately where it makes all my gaskets burst and I start hollering, throwing things, physically/verbally abusing my friends and family etc. They really need to do something about that.

I actually had a similar allergic reaction to WL3 at first, and I agree I much prefer WL2 as an RPG. Recently, while talking about UIs in the BG3 thread, I realized that a lot of it's to do with modern scaleable UI looks and feels, it really makes everything look bland and console-y to me and sets my teeth on edge too (e.g. while I love the functionality of the Solasta UI to bits, it has that same bland look and feel, which is quite annoying).

That said, you should give WL3 another chance some time, at the end of the day, the tactical combat side of it is actually quite good IMHO!

 

[Roguey]

Wasteland 2 was very retarded. "You suck!"

 

[jaekl]

It's a very delicate balancing act when you're making a game that's got some silliness to it. It's like Saints Row 2 (good) vs. Saints Row 3 (dogshit). The atmosphere built by all the little pieces fitting together artistically are what's important to me. I don't care if it has the most amazing tactical combat ever known to man if my eyes and ears are being assaulted with tackiness.

 

[ferratilis]

You'll have a much better time with Wasteland 2/3 and DOS1/2 once you start treating them as comedies, and focus on combat and RPG elements. If you come in looking for something serious and reflective, you'll just get disappointed. That's what got me through these games and made me appreciate them.

However, that tactic didn't work in Pathfinder WotR because, while I'm fighting a crusade against the demons, I have to put up with idiotic middle school tier dialogues. The way jaekl felt about W3, that's how I felt about Wrathfinder. But in W3 changing your mindset helps a lot, since the setting is already wacky enough to facilitate that.

 

[jaekl]

You'll have a much better time with Wasteland 2/3 and DOS1/2 once you start treating them as comedies, and focus on combat and RPG elements. If you come in looking for something serious and reflective, you'll just get disappointed. That's what got me through these games and made me appreciate them.

However, that tactic didn't work in Pathfinder WotR because, while I'm fighting a crusade against the demons, I have to put up with idiotic middle school tier dialogues. The way jaekl felt about W3, that's how I felt about Wrathfinder. But in W3 changing your mindset helps a lot, since the setting is already wacky enough to facilitate that.

Oh for sure man, wotr is what I'm talking about multiplied by 1000x. I'd rather only play wasteland 3 for the rest of my life than read even one more single word out of Pathfinder. It's not *really* wacky tone I'm complaining about, it's more about the razor's edge of wacky you must stand on to keep out of cringe comic book territory. My tolerance for this kinda stuff has gotten much worse as I age.

 

[ds]

Wasteland 2 had factions that were silly but still somewhat grounded if you squint hard enough.

Wasteland 3 on the other hand goes full

with multiple murderclown factions and the player involvement half the faction conflicts being "kill those guys for us or we will fight you to the death". Does the job at getting you into combat situations but is otherwise a bit retarded at times. That only gets worse with the expansions.

 

[CoronerZg]

Personally, I think Wasteland 3 is great if you play it as a paladin type and just purge the retards without exception.
Dirty Harry type MC also works perfect in the W3 world. Cause the gangs will always try to be funny, cute or edgy
about their degeneracy and then you just calmly purge them *chef's kiss* ...and as you keep purging them,
your fame will increase and they will start to fear you, which also plays perfectly into the whole role.

 

[DY050503]

The first battle music is good. However, the game has very forced choices for player on topics.

 

[Shuruga]

I'm playing W3 for the first time now and haven't played either of the previous games. I'm finding the combat and character progression to be enjoyable and overall the game is built well. However, the "shape the narrative" RPG elements have been pretty light so far, especially if I use Fallout 1 and 2 as a point of reference (though to be fair I'm only like 10 hours/2 hub areas in).

The tone is also way too absurdist for someone who prefers games that take their setting a bit more seriously, so I find myself agreeing with those above who have suggested approaching the game with a comedy mindset. Overall I'd rate this as a "B" game for me.

 

[razvedchiki]

Is it worth it to start with the custom pairs to get their trinkets?

 

[OSK]

Is it worth it to start with the custom pairs to get their trinkets?

Yeah, the trinkets are unique and among the best you'll find. Once you finish the tutorial you can dump them for custom characters.

 

[razvedchiki]

i play with difficult skill checks and was wondering if its worth it to have a skill focused char, with very high INT.
also what AP should i go for for the ranged weapons?

 

[Shuruga]

i play with difficult skill checks and was wondering if its worth it to have a skill focused char, with very high INT.
also what AP should i go for for the ranged weapons?

I'm still working on my first play through so I am definitely not an expert, but I've found INT to be reasonably useful and have a couple of my squad members with INT pumped, both to enhance critical chance and to try and stay ahead of skill checks for things like lockpick. A variety of specializations seems to be the way to go, with each squad member specializing in one (maybe two) skills not directly related to combat.

AP for ranged combat depends on what kind of ranged weapons you use. I have one character mostly using pistols, which (so far at least) take 3 AP, so getting to 9 AP allows three shots per turn. My sniper uses a 6 AP rifle, though, so while having more than 6 is useful for repositioning, the end-of-turn defend action, or using a quickbar item, I don't know that pumping that character's AP past, say, 8 would do much.

Just my impressions so far!

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

i play with difficult skill checks and was wondering if its worth it to have a skill focused char, with very high INT.
also what AP should i go for for the ranged weapons?

If you want a skill check guy, I would rather go for very high Charisma. He's gonna level much faster due to 30% extra xp from the skill checks and eventually you can get the other attributes pretty high as well.

 

[Abu Antar]

Apparently, I hadn't touched the game since April of 2021.

I went back to it today. I ended up fighting Reagan in the Denver ruins. My party ere holed up in the building. I used my sniper, and heavy weapons user to decimate everything outside, and the rest were put on overwatch.

The Kodiak got a few pot shots every now and then. I still think that it is a decent game, although far from a masterpiece.

 

[Shuruga]

I finished my first playthrough recently and thought the game was OK; the impressions I described upthread didn't really change. But I thought I'd post again to point out that I found it hilarious that one of the Kodiak upgrades (the mortar) has damage that scales with the main weapon. So if I had a minigun as the main weapon, which did low damage per bullet but shot a bunch of bullets, then the mortar multiplied out the damage of one bullet and was pathetically weak as a result; it was like splashing my enemies with hot soup.

But, if I swapped my main weapon into a single shot powerhouse like a Tesla cannon (or was it a railgun? I forget the name...), then the mortar behaved like a tactical nuke and one-shotted like 7 tough enemies. It was such a vivid contrast that I almost actually laughed out loud the first time it happened.

But yeah, the game is too silly for my tastes, but the combat was OK and the story was interesting enough to keep me at it.

 

[Yosharian]

Yeah it's just a really goofy game

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

So I've played a bit of it in coop, I'm kinda enjoying it, too bad I've ignored it for so long, but then again I thought that after mid WL2 and decrease in quality ever since this would be complete trash. Pleasant surprise for me.

 

[FreshCorpse]

I go back and forth on it. The battles can be very slow paced and lack the lethality of even nuXCOM. There are also too many of them and too often they are against trash mobs. I played the first expansion on release and suffered some pretty annoying bugs I cannot remember the details of.

However there are moments when it feels really good, the turn-based combat and the RPG elements working really well together. I had a great time wiping out the gippers to a man when we fell out over whether or not to lobotomise an NPC.

I didn't finish it. Eventually I just felt like it wasn't good enough to merit the considerable time investment it was asking (probably another 20-30 hours to finish from where I was).

 

[Psquit]

So I've played a bit of it in coop, I'm kinda enjoying it, too bad I've ignored it for so long, but then again I thought that after mid WL2 and decrease in quality ever since this would be complete trash. Pleasant surprise for me.

Just skip the dlc, maybe... MAYBE try Steel Town but avoid the rest.

 

[NaturallyCarnivorousSheep]

I didn't buy them cuz people told me they're garbage. Also the soundtrack is surprisingly neat

 

[Atlantico]

I didn't buy them cuz people told me they're garbage. Also the soundtrack is surprisingly neat

Never trust people when it comes to rating RPGs. Especially on the Codex.

This place is such a hive-mind of midwits

 

[OSK]

I didn't buy them cuz people told me they're garbage. Also the soundtrack is surprisingly neat

Cult of the Holy Detonation is bad. It's a giant slog through infinitely spawning enemies. Steeltown is fine. If you're really enjoying the main game, it's largely more of the same. But if you're not super into it, you can skip it.

 

[Infinitron]

I didn't buy them cuz people told me they're garbage. Also the soundtrack is surprisingly neat

Never trust people when it comes to rating RPGs. Especially on the Codex.

This place is such a hive-mind of midwits

Trusting the Codex is fine, the problem is people only see what they want to see.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/rpg-codex-goty-2020-results-cool-graphs.136813/

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/rpg-codex-review-wasteland-3.142272/