Wasteland Wasteland 3 Pre-Release Thread [GO TO NEW THREAD]

[onemananadhisdroid]

I hope the camera is better this time than in part deux. My squad is ready for more action.

 

[Infinitron]

Game Informer pushing out all their content at the last minute: https://www.gameinformer.com/2020/0...d-to-know-about-wasteland-3s-vehicular-combat

Everything You Need To Know About Wasteland 3’s Vehicular Combat

In Wasteland 3, you’ll manage a team of up to six Rangers as they battle for survival while exploring Colorado’s Rocky Mountains. However, the most valuable member of your team might be your car. To help you explore this winter wasteland, your team boards a tank-like truck – called the Kodiak – outfitted with a wild assortment of weapons. This machine is named after the bear, which is fitting because this car can take a lot of damage and is incredibly fearsome in combat. During random encounters, the Kodiak tears through large groups of enemies and is instrumental to your survival. We talked to game director Tim Campbell about what makes this monstrous motor so special.

On the Kodiak’s origin:
“We experimented with a lot of different takes on how the vehicle drives, how it handles, how fast it should it go, and even how many vehicles there should be. There was a lot of sifting through ideas and taking this thread from this idea, and this thread from another idea, and consolidating them all together. One of the things that came out of the team's early prototypes that we built on was the idea of your vehicle coming into combat with you, and having that be a big addition to your Ranger squad.”

A look at Wasteland 3's open world map

On vehicle uses during combat:
“You can move this vehicle around in combat. It has a lot of offensive capabilities. You can use it as cover. It can smash through things. And, of course, it has guns. We felt that we should go ahead and make the vehicle fun to use. Development would have been a lot easier if we didn't have all that – if we just had the vehicle take you from point A to point B, but using it in combat was so much fun. So we zeroed in on that, and then we built upgrades and progression elements and all these other systems to support that.”

On Kodiak upgrades:
“As you play through the game, you have choices and make mutually exclusive decisions about how to improve your vehicle. I think that's gonna lead to some really interesting party styles. You can upgrade its chassis, its engine, its armor. There's a lot of different stuff you can upgrade all the way to hood ornaments on the front that you collect from different factions, so it's like a drivable trophy. Those ornaments are cosmetic, but everything else affects the vehicle stats. You can adjust how fast your vehicle moves, both when you're driving around the world map and in combat. You can get an ability to launch orders offscreen to bombard an area. You can give your vehicle new turrets, which have a range of different abilities, so depending on what you're up against, you may want to adjust your turret type. There are different defensive things you can get, like armor upgrades, too. The Kodiak doesn't go through a leveling system like your player characters, but you will be upgrading it consistently throughout the game.”

On bringing the Kodiak into main story missions:
“A lot of the story involves characters going into locations where it wouldn't make sense to have a vehicle along with you. We didn't want to force roads through levels so the vehicle can go with you every time, so finding a balance where you can use the vehicle sometimes was one of the difficult things that we worked through. There are some story missions that involve your vehicle, maybe at the start, or at the end, or at a key point in the middle. The Kodiak is involved all the way up to the end fight of the game.”

Expect a few foes to match your Kodiak's capabilities

On overpowering the Kodiak for side missions:
“The random encounters use the vehicle almost 100 percent of the time. Not exactly 100, but the bulk of the time your vehicle is with you in combat. That allowed us to have an overpowered vehicle some of the time, and we could balance up the enemies to compensate, so you'd have a big high-octane set of fights. Other times, when we knew that the vehicle wasn't going to be with you, we could tilt the balance a different way to give you a different sort of challenge. The feeling of being in the field without your vehicles is very different because you lose your most powerful tool.”

On driving around the new world map:
“Going to Colorado, we wanted to bring the nuclear winter to life. We wanted to show the different biomes, where the weather changes, the sound changes, and just bring this new landscape to life. You're driving around the vehicle and you see the vehicle kicking up snow and ice is as it moves. You get headlights lighting up trees and casting shadows. You see deer and crows getting startled, and you can have fun just driving around. As part of development, we drive around the world map for hours at a time to take notes on different things. It's become a really fun part of the game and something that I think really brings Colorado to life.”

 

[Quillon]

Chris worked on this too right? But shhh

 

[NPC451]

Chris worked on this too right? But shhh

Source? You might be confusing him with George Ziets.

 

[Infinitron]

Chris worked on this too right? But shhh

Source? You might be confusing him with George Ziets.

 

[NPC451]

RIP

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Zombra]

It may be useful, but I still take my Survival skill mostly for show.

 

[Retcon Raider]

For what it's worth, it does look like all of the non-combat skills will have at least some use in dialogue challenges or random skill checks, outside of their obvious primary functions. It doesn't come up much in the Beta, but there are a couple of points in the Beta where you could use the Survival skill when talking about hunting or tracking.

 

[Nifft Batuff]

Multiplayer. One of the few things wasteland fans don't care a bit, it has obviously forced in the sequel.

 

[Quillon]

Multiplayer. One of the few things wasteland fans don't care a bit, it has obviously forced in the sequel.

It has obviously "DOS"ed into the sequel, not interested in it one bit but can't blame them.

 

[Infinitron]

Siding with Faran Brygo:

 

[Infinitron]

 

[Quillon]

Kodiak so far looks like an overkill in every aspect, especially its size in combat.

 

[Infinitron]

Wasteland finally has stealth:

 

[Infinitron]

Social media vote:

Spoiler

 

[Hellion]

They've also posted the story of a different character couple on their FB account.

 

[Saduj]

What is this “starting pairs”? Sounds like something that best be optional.....

 

[Abu Antar]

What is this “starting pairs”? Sounds like something that best be optional.....

It is.

 

[Hellion]

As seen in the Backer Beta, you have the option to either start the game using one the of the available premade couples, or start your own 2 characters from scratch.

 

[Roguey]

That writing is terrible.

Furthermore, using "they/them" pronouns for Cochise.

 

[Lemming42]

That is weird as hell but it seems to be only the synths that refer to Cochise as "them" - the narrative voices uses "it". Might just be some weird-ass synth talk, or referring to Cochise as a collective or some mad shit.

Is "save the kid" an intentional in-joke or is that literally the only scenario Fargo can think of?

 

[Infinitron]

Nice:



https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3/updates/1269

Wasteland 3 Beta Improvements + Mac & Linux Delay

Greetings Rangers,

Your testing and feedback during the Beta was invaluable, and we’ve already incorporated a number of your requests—in addition to fixing bugs, improving performance, and continuing to finish up the game. We wanted to share details on a few of those with you today.

First though we have some news for our Mac and Linux players—we’ve made the difficult decision to focus Wasteland 3’s initial release on Windows 10, Xbox One, and PlayStation 4. We’re prioritizing the work for Mac and Linux post-launch, and expect it to be complete by the end of the year. This wasn’t an easy decision to make, but ultimately will result in a better overall product for Mac and Linux as well. We’re still a small studio considering the size of the games we like to make, and this allows us to keep our engineers dedicated to the core game systems.

We know that for some of you the additional wait will be frustrating, and we want everyone to feel satisfied with their experience, so we’ve taken steps to ensure we can offer refunds beyond the standard Fig and Crowd Ox refund cutoffs. We know Wasteland 3 will absolutely be worth the wait, but we respect your pledge, and we want you to be confident in continuing the journey with us. Contact us through the inXile support site if you’d like to discuss that option. Please be aware that once retail keys are distributed, and/or physical rewards are shipped, we will no longer be able to offer refunds—rewards are expected to be sent in the next few weeks.

Beta Makes It Better
Before we get to the improvements we’ve been working on since Beta, it’s important to note that this isn’t a comprehensive update on all the features, fixes, and feedback we’re working on—these are some of the things that we have fully implemented. We’re looking forward to sharing a few more as development wraps up.

Alternate Firing Modes
One of the most common requests from Beta participants was bringing back firing modes for automatic weapons. Our thought in removing them was that the types and variety of weapons we have in Wasteland 3 will more than make up for single- and multi-shot choices, but the message was well received.

That said, we couldn’t just throw it back on a few assault rifles and call it a day. Wasteland 3 (like everything else) punches it up to 11, and we’ve added additional firing modes to many weapons across the game. That’s right, no matter what weapon type you’re using, be it a shotgun, assault rifle, pistol, or sharpened road-sign, you’ll likely have access to an alternate firing mode. These are attacks that aren’t inherently better, but provide you with situational flexibility—and in the right circumstances they can be devastating. These alternate firing abilities won’t generally be found on powerful or unique items, or weapons with their own secondary effects.

Here’s a quick look at some alternate firing abilities that can be found.

Custom Portraits
This one wasn’t so much a Beta request as a question we get from time to time, and we can confirm that custom portraits are in, and they are spectacular. This is a PC-only feature that allows you to create, name, and once again add a custom face to each of your squad members. Might we recommend a squad made entirely of your family and friends? Or the various ingredients in a ham and cheese sandwich?

However you choose to roleplay your squad, custom portraits can help put on a finishing touch.

Custom portraits should be 420x337px as either a JPG or PNG and placed into a self-created folder named: C:\Users\[USERNAME]\Documents\My Games\Wasteland3\Custom Portraits\

Sell Junk
Yes, we will indeed have a sell junk button when visiting merchants. We’re not exactly challenging the paradigms of game design here, but it was a common Beta request/mention. Good job, you.

Hide Armor
We shared this on social a while back, but this is a good place to show it again—with an update! Based on Beta feedback we’ve added the ability to hide your armor, and that now also includes leg armor.

All Animal Companions in Combat
One of the features we’ve gotten consistently positive feedback on has been the Animal Whisperer system and bringing animals along with you in the game; however, there was a clear message we received that people would like to see more animal friends taking an active role in combat. You’ve spent the points, you’re bringing these furry friends with you, and so it only makes sense that they’d be able to assist you with claw and fang as you explore Colorado.

To that end we’ve added attacks and attack animations to all creatures in Wasteland 3, allowing all animals to join you in combat, and making this a more fulfilling skill to put your points into. We’ve also redone all the animal walk, run, and idle animations.

Here’s a short video of their attacks in action:

As we mentioned at the top of the article, this isn’t an exhaustive list of Beta feedback-led changes and adjustments but are some of the systems that are already fully implemented.

We’re of course looking forward to continuing to share updates as we near Wasteland 3’s release on August 28!

 

[OSK]

I'm surprised Microsoft didn't decide to delay the PS4 version as well.

I'd be more upset, but I'm waiting for the inevitable Director's Cut before playing this game.

 

[SharkClub]

The secondary fire modes are cool.