toblix

Wasteland 2

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To continue the allusions to dicks and all that I'm disappointed to say that the game never brings me to climax. I've been playing for over 25 hours and the experience has been consistently good but there's never a good sense of momentum or payoff. I reached the second boss and once again there were no revelations in the story, just the standard "FUCK RANGERS *KABOOM*"

Right now I'm about to hand over a nuclear device to some shady people, hopefully so I can get some really good gear, which will hopefully keep the combat easy enough so that I can enjoy the story, so I am motivated to finish the game. But I really don't want to give these guys the device because it runs counter to how I've been role-playing. I want to reach Los Angeles before I quit, I'm a sucker for the big cities in WRPGs.

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FUN FACT: If any of your party members die in the midgame, reload immediately!

 

Even if you can recruit a new ranger, they will never level up in time for you to pass a single skill check.

 

Every Brute Force check and Smart-/Kiss-/Hard-Ass speech check now requires level 5 and above, which requires me pushing 8 more skill points (leveling up four more times and putting points nowhere else) into each of my rangers who are only at level 3 in any one of those skills.  Since I've prioritized other skills I'm just barely keeping up with (Surgery, Leadership), I will likely never use Speech or Brute Force again.

 

I'm seriously starting to think that you should put points into Assault Rifles only, except for one person for Surgery and Medical.  Boring!

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I think I'm going to quit. There has been a string of quests that have misleading and or inaccurate directions. I haven't fallen in love with any of the characters. The combat has not evolved. At this stage everything is taking longer and longer to accomplish. I slogged through a very combat-heavy area with the promise of a safe town ahead, only to find that town full of killer robots. It's like the game dangled the prospect of characters and dialogue in front of me for hours and and then pulled a switch-a-roo. 

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I think I'm going to quit. There has been a string of quests that have misleading and or inaccurate directions. I haven't fallen in love with any of the characters. The combat has not evolved. At this stage everything is taking longer and longer to accomplish. I slogged through a very combat-heavy area with the promise of a safe town ahead, only to find that town full of killer robots. It's like the game dangled the prospect of characters and dialogue in front of me for hours and and then pulled a switch-a-roo. 

 

Yeah, I'm feeling that, too.  I just completed the dumbest fetch quest: "collect three piles of sludge on your way to the temple!"  I arrived at the temple to be told, "just kidding, go back and collect three more piles of sludge."  There was an interesting power dynamic in this area that I thought I'd learn more about, but instead it's just sludge sludge sludge.

 

This is the Temple of Titan area, and the reason given for me being punished to find more sludge is because of all the Mad Monks I killed along the way (though how would they know?).

 

Every group traveling through the canyon gets a monk to guide them.  My monk killed himself in our very first battle, rushing into a group of three raiders while everyone else took cover.  I was less than 50 yards from my starting place so I walked back to tell the monk guarding the outpost that Brother So-And-So was dead.  The monk told me that I would have to make the journey alone now, "without Titan's protection."

 

Supposedly, groups with monk guides won't attack other groups with monk guides, but they will attack everyone else.  This meant I got attacked by raiders, monks, Diamondback Militia members (who promised to be interesting but have only attacked me so far), and more Honey Badgers over and over again.

 

And now I get to do it all over again for more sludge.

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That is fucking terrible. If I had to get three more sludge I would have quit the game at that point, especially if I knew what I know now about what follows. I have a big rant ready to unleash but it's not worth it. :( x 1000

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Instead of going to bed on time, I've been playing more of Wasteland 2!  This week I have played the same "boss battle" to completion four times, redoing it until I was satisfied with the results.

 

I realize that technically I'm still doing the very first quest of the game: "Attach a responder unit to two radio towers."  But the game keeps redefining the goals of this quest and has left it incomplete 59 hours (Steam time) into my playthrough.

 

I just fought the Tinkerer in Damonta, a cyborg you've never heard of and reveals nothing about the plot.  Then she explodes.  I replayed the battle until I saved the girl I never met, made sure Jaime the suicidal discobot survived, and successfully shut down the evil robot signal (I think?).

 

Like Three Dog in Fallout 3, radio DJ Werewolf Wally refuses to let me continue on the main quest until I did this sidequest for him.  But if he keeps his word, I can use his tower to complete the very first mission of the game!

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Oh, I forgot about the sludge quest I was on!  I legitimately think it's impossible to complete.

 

After spending hours unable to find the very last sludge barrel, I attacked the Mad Monks in suicidal frustration.  In response, they incapacitated my crew and started the countdown for their nuclear missile!

 

But then another Monk stopped the countdown and imprisoned us.  He let us out on the condition that we complete a quest for him: track down a rogue brother and the missile he has.

 

I completed that quest in a way that will probably make the monks even more hostile to the Rangers, but it got me past their dumb valley!

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I really burned out in the Rail Nomads camp, haven't fired it up since then.  Every few days I think about playing it some more, but then I decide to watch some Farscape instead. 

 

It's weird, the game was just nailing it perfectly for me right up to that point.  I should probably power through it and see if it picks that vibe back up once I'm out of there.

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I'm into the Los Angeles portion of the game now (that shouldn't be a spoiler, I think, since it's in the marketing materials.)  It definitely gets more talky and less shooty as it goes on, but the game is seriously missing some narrative thrust.  The major quest of Act 1 is

hook up some radio towers so we can find out what's going on

and the major quest of Act 2 seems to be

hook up some radio towers so we can find out what's going on

.  The individual areas are interesting, and have some reasonably well-told small stories within the universe, but the overall narrative of the game does nothing to push you forward.  It's not like good RPGs, where I feel like I'm betraying the mission a bit when I go off and do sidequests, it's more like they counted on their players to be so interested in sidequests that they don't bother giving you a reason to do anything, other than "oh, the next section is sort of that way."

 

I'm still having fun with it, and I appreciate their commitment to the world and the reactivity of your decisions.  It just feels sometimes like they set up an interesting world with interesting characters and then left any actual story-telling plot work to the player's imagination.

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I just got to Los Angeles and got murdered by robots.

 

I have leveled up one of my characters to level 9 (of 10) in Computer Science, the skill that lets you take over hostile mechanical people!

 

However, nearly maxing out that skill only gives me a 63% chance of successfully commanding these LA robots.  My character critically failed a challenge, then four other unseen robots ran halfway across the map, surrounded my party, and beat us to death.

 

These are just some random robots at the first location we visited.  And it's for the dumbest, most trivial quest:

 

An old man says, "Please search for my dogs!"

 

lobotomy42 is right about the major quest of Act 2 and it's so underwhelming.  Los Angeles is just as aimless as Arizona, but without the promise of anything more interesting to look forward to.

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Yeah, I quit this game. Valley spoilers:

 

I gave control of the valley to the Diamond Backs in exchange for access to their best wares and free passage through the Valley. The storekeeper told me he was going to sell me new items; there were no new items. I was told I could pass through the valley for free; the guard at the gate asked me for the toll and when I refused the entire place starting shooting me. This is after a series of quest-breaking scripting bugs and zero response from the developers as to what I was supposed to do.

 

Somehow the game went from, everything I want to do is supported in this game and the communication is excellent, to, nothing I want to do in this game is supported and I can't tell if that's because of a lack of contingencies in the design or if it's bugs. 

 

Yeah, the game lacks a narrative thrust. Or rather, it doesn't thrust hard enough to ever be satisfying (see sexual references earlier in the thread). There comes a point in an RPG where I must care about at least a couple of characters, and if that doesn't happen then I'm done. Who killed Ace? Well, who was Ace anyway? Why should I care? 

 

Having to constantly reload the game because every system in the game demands it means I'd never see this game to the finish. Reloading a boss fight multiple times to get a victory with non-disasterous side-effects? Try that for everything. The worst is reloading because you see a dialogue option, decide you'll chose it after another one, oh shit where did that dialogue option go? 

 

The game also encourages you to stock up on skill points and only apply them in when you are in need. My characters went from know-nothings to experts in their fields in a matter of clicks, or wait, maybe if I reload the game they could be like this... Having played many games lately that deal with permadeath and other extreme difficulty things very well I can say that this old-school way of doing things is over for me.

 

Here's an example: in Baldur's Gate you would find one-time use spell scrolls and if you passed a skill check then you could write that spell to your book permanently, but if you fail the spell check then the scroll is destroyed. I don't know anyone who wouldn't save scum that shit. There's only one or two Fireball scrolls in the first half the game, are you really going to risk destroying them? Wasteland 2 has a similar thing with gun attachments: you can remove an attachment and put them it on another gun. In my mind every tiny thing I can do to increase my abilities in combat is another tiny bit of a chance that I won't loose a party member and have to reload. The game is already hard right now, for all I know the end-game of Wasteland 2 is fighting Gundams or Aliens or something. So I am going to save scum that shit.

 

And before I know it I'm save scumming everything: someone died; there was a bug; I walked across the map for what turned out to be no reason, faster to reload than walk back; I spent skill points on something that turned out to be useless; an NPC committed suicide-by-raider; a trade for a quest item was a big rip-off; a boss blew up and killed the entire party (this happens a lot!).

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The game also encourages you to stock up on skill points and only apply them in when you are in need. My characters went from know-nothings to experts in their fields in a matter of clicks, or wait, maybe if I reload the game they could be like this... Having played many games lately that deal with permadeath and other extreme difficulty things very well I can say that this old-school way of doing things is over for me.

 

Every reason you gave for quitting this game is correct, especially this.  I have one character who has amassed 16 unused skill points, but I am afraid to use them.  She's my surgeon and animal whisperer, so until I encounter an animal attack or sickly NPC, I will wait to use them.

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Almost to the 100 hour mark in this game and the main quest is literally just to collect as much kitty litter as possible.

 

Every skill check in Los Angeles requires at least level 8 out of 10 to even attempt to unlock a door, turn a steam valve, smash a wall, pet a goat, pass a speech check.  It's better to just keep punching people!.

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After 113 hours, I have to give up on Wasteland 2.  I've made it impossible to complete any remaining questline, including the main quest.  Did anyone manage to beat this game?

 

All of Los Angeles is a fetch quest and there's nothing left I can fetch.

 

After collecting kitty litter for radiation suits, the game immediately tells you the new main quest is to collect "zeolite" for radiation suits.  The kitty litter-infused suits open up two new areas: Hollywood and the Bastion—the headquarters of God's Militia.

 

I was unable to complete Hollywood's main quest to uncover evidence of slavery, but I don't have a high enough lockpick skill level to break into the slaver's safe.  I killed him, but he carries no key.

 

In the Bastion, a walkthrough tells me I'm supposed to steal an eyeball, but I don't have a high enough lockpick skill level to get it.  There is no other way to get it.

 

For a sidequest, the sheriff of Hollywood tells me to give him three arbitrary junk items: a badger's testicles, a rabbit's foot, and lipstick.  These are all random drops—and no one in Los Angeles has dropped the last two items.  I spent an evening going back to every trader in LA to see if I ever got a rabbit's foot or lipstick, but they seriously never dropped during the whole second half of the game.  

 

I don't have a high enough lockpick level for anything, and no remaining progress I can make in any quests that would get me any skill points.  If I want to finally break any locks, I have to walk around the overworld and trigger and beat at least 20 random encounters that will take 20+ minutes each to beat.  This will be a huge waste of ammo and medpacks just to make sure my lockpicking skill isn't 0% Impossible.

 

So long, Wasteland 2!

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I just watched the credits roll on Wasteland 2 and I just wanted to say a bit about it. Give it its due, or something. The latest posts on here seem pretty negative and I totally empathize with that, though I really enjoyed my 80 hours or so with it. I should say I finished the game on the easiest difficulty and I think that really affected my enjoyment. I never had much trouble in combat, but I couldn't resolve all the quests the way I wanted due to lacking skill sets. I should also say that Fallout's one of my favorites and I get pretty psyched about a post-apocalyptic setting. I think they did a good job and made a game that probably would never existed without fans.

 

But, damn, passing skill checks based on random number generators is just insane. I wish some developer would tell me why they did that. Maybe I'm just obsessive, but I save-scummed the shit out of every little locked box. I was relieved when the game told me it was just flat out impossible to crack a safe. Maybe if the game didn't tell me the percentages I would feel better about it, but I would probably still try until I get the nice little "Success" sound. I was really excited about dumping skill points into characters and rounding out my party with specialists that I defined, but to put those points there and then have a 12% chance to succeed, but a 45% chance to fail permanently is just the game laughing at you while you waste your time reloading. With essentially infinite saves, I do not understand this system.

 

I saw someone also mentioned the lackluster characters. I was never too attached to any of the NPCs, but there were a few that showed up more than once that I kept helping out, and Angela Deth really kicks ass at the start, at least in combat. I like that some characters have items they will not let go of, but I get that it's not exactly a deep backstory. However, I spent a long time customizing my 4-person party at the start and I really liked role-playing them. They were each experts at a few things (and playing on easy probably made this stand out more) and they came together to form a rag-tag wrecking crew. It's usually the other way around for me. The hero is kind of a boring character, but the people around him have interesting personalities.

 

One more thing: when you finish the game, your high-level characters are saved as templates, so you can start a new game with your level 30+ characters. I didn't play them, so I don't know if things scale, but maybe that's how you are supposed to beat the high difficulties? That seems rather ridiculous. I'll admit I did play through the game thinking I might try a harder difficulty with different choices later on, but I am kind of doubting that it would hold up, especially given the game length. This seems like a game about your choices. The world is in ruins and you have to make some tough calls and then stick with them, so why invite save-scumming and multiple playthroughs?

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Thanks, McDoom!

 

I played on the default difficulty and it's frustrating to hear that skill checks are still difficult on an easy setting.

 

Mid-game in Arizona I felt frustrated and trapped, so I attacked the nuclear-armed monks in a suicidal frenzy.  I was impressed that the game responded to that, giving me a new quest instead of just ending the game.

 

But I then got just as stuck in Los Angeles and killing doesn't solve anything.  So unrealistic!

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So after posting in the Fallout 4 reveal trailer thread, I came here because Wasteland II is on sale on GOG and wanted to get an idea of what the game was like as I've got a hankering for post-apocalyptica. These last few posts have put me off tho. Curious if this skill check problem was patched out.

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Curious if this skill check problem was patched out.

 

Me, too!  They are developing an enhanced version of the game so I'm interested to see what that would be like.  I'm going to keep an eye on it and might get tempted to return.  I don't know if it's worth buying now or if you'll automatically get whatever the new version ends up being, though.

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Me, too!  They are developing an enhanced version of the game so I'm interested to see what that would be like.  I'm going to keep an eye on it and might get tempted to return.  I don't know if it's worth buying now or if you'll automatically get whatever the new version ends up being, though.

 

Scanned this article, and most of the 'gameplay balances' that are promised seem to be about combat, which doesn't seem to address the problems you folks have been bringing up. Derp. Unfortunate b/c it looks so appealing.

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I decided to take another run at Wasteland 2 since the Director's Cut came out.  You have to start over, it's a new install of the game and old saves are not compatible with the new version.  It's supposed to have had a graphics upgrade, but I haven't fired them up side by side to check.  It looks the same based on my memory.  I'm really not seeing a big difference so far.  Combat encounters are supposed to have been rebalanced across the board, but going through the first few hours I haven't seen any differences yet.  Those might change deeper into the game, I'm only about halfway through Highpool (did the Ag Center in my original playthrough so wanted to try the other route).

Other changes:

Quirks -  These are new options you have to add to a character during creation, each of them has a positive and negative effect.  I don't like these so far. I made two different parties with about a half dozen different quirks between them.  There's one quirk that's god tier, a couple that are okay on very specific builds, and a bunch that are complete shit.  There's two that lower movement speed.  Since movement speed is tied to AP in combat, this is just functionally an AP reduction.  And it locks you out of any equipment that further lowers movement speed (heavy weapons and heavy armor).  There's one that gives you 5 skill points and 1 attribute point, but you can't use trinkets.  Trinkets can be worth up to 28 skill points!  The tradeoffs aren't interesting, the negative trumps the positive in almost every case.  

Perks - Generally positive addition, every 4 levels you get a perk, most of which are unlocked through leveling up skills.  Gives some more leeway for players to design a unique character and adds some more theorycrafting options, as some of the non-combat skills have perks that can help in combat, so there's a bit more reason to put some additional thought into which skills are on which characters.  I'm building an explosives only character, which I think should be more feasible thanks to some of the perks.

Changed loot drops and locations - Haven't noticed anything yet

New voiceovers - Generally good, there's a bunch more voicework and it adds more personality to a lot of characters.  The only bad is that there sometimes a jarring difference between the original voicework and new, as sometimes you can hear the difference when they are played back to back (pretty sure at least one character has two different actors now). 

Overall though I'm enjoying starting this again.  I liked my original playthrough, I just burned out at a point and never went back.  We'll see what happens this time as I progress.

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I liked my original playthrough, I just burned out at a point and never went back.  We'll see what happens this time as I progress.

 

Thanks for this overview.  I'm still a little gunshy; the mechanics weren't as fun as Shadowrun to me and the story was way too dry.

 

But if you end up completing it this time maybe I will, too!

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I cleared the rail nomads camp (where I originally stalled out) and am in the Prison now, as far as I've ever played.  Still having a good time with it.

I know that several people were frustrated with the sheer number of skills and making sure everything was covered without having too much invested in Intel.  I think the DC version alleviates a lot of that, with some planning.  My suggestions are:

Asses: The 3 asses all include a perk now that adds a free skill level.  Between that, skill books and trinkets, they only have to be manually raised to 7 (and 6 in the case of Hard Ass which has a gun that adds to it as well).  Distribute these on combat focused characters with low intel, since they can save 20-26 points.  Or plan on picking them up on recruited companions.

Explosives - Now has 3 perks that 1) gets you more explosives and 2) makes them somewhat better in combat.  I'm swimming in dynamite and pipe bombs.  This should go on a made character with no combat skills and a 10 intel.  You can easily do 5 or 6 skills on this character, and it can still help out in combat when needed thanks to boom booms.  All those explosives also mean that...

Safecracking - I think this can be completely skipped.  Explosives can open safes without breaking the contents inside.   Some safes take safecracking, others take Computer Science.  You'll save 30+ skill points by just bombing open the non-CompSci safes.  If you recruit the hobo, he starts with 2 in both safes and lockpick, but has a very low intel.  Not leveling up Safes would let you focus on his Lockpick and shotgun in the early game.  

 

Mechanical Repair - Has an early perk which prevents Critical Failures.  This means that as long as you don't mind having to try a few times on any Repair checks, you don't need as many points invested since you'll never break the item.  So you can skip the last couple of levels in it, saving a dozen points (figuring getting 2 levels from trinket/skill book).  It also means you will always get 2 checks on lockpicks, since you can repair critical failed lockpicks one time. 

Weaponsmithing - Now includes a (very early, only takes 4 skill points) perk that gives a bonus Action Point when wearing light armor.  I kinda hate movement penalties, so only wear light armor.  Knowing that you can get this perk early on might be worth considering when assigning Stat points, save a couple in Coordination and put them in Awareness for initiative, or into Intel plus another point to get to 4, which would then way more than pay for the skill points needed to add it.  Also might be worth adding to multiple characters later in the game if you've maxxed, or near maxxed, the skills they need.

Toaster Repair - Take it, or recruit Ralphy in Rail Nomads.  There are a few skill books that can only be had through trading toaster items.   It mostly pays for itself.  Mostly.


So thanks to Explosives, Repair, Safecracking and Asses, you can save most of 2 whole skill trees worth of points, which takes a lot of the pressure off of feeling spread too thin.  My made characters are running 10/4/4/1 Intels, and I recuited the mutant, Vulture and the hobo specifically because of their skills.  I'm better at combat thanks to better stats (I had way more Intel in my original game), and I havne't felt annoyed at not being able to do any non-combat stuff.

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So a big patch dropped for this, and in the changes were some significant buffs and a few nerfs to perks and quirks.  This kinda bugs me.  In a large, 80+ hour single player RPG, some of these changes represent either significant changes to existing characters, or better possible uses of perks/weapons going forward.  If there was a way in game to respec, I wouldn't consider it a big deal, but it feels wrong to change a player's single player game, altering their characters from the design that they made at character creation.  Like, theorycrafting and character design is one of the primary things I love about a game like this. 

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Unless you're on steam you could just not patch it. GoG's version is pretty good for not patching itself of it's own volition. What did they change?

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