I really wanted to pick this up but the bugs have been a slight mood killer given the price.
have the last two patches improved the situation?
I'm a big fan of the series, but from a PC perspective, if I hadn't already bought I'd wait until the next major patch and see if load times are dramatically increased. It's also likely to see a price reduction, because the current price feels aggressive.
Not to be overly negative - it's a great game, especially if you're into this sort of thing.
I am waiting to continue my game because of the bugs/load times as well. As someone who nitty-gritties games, I'm frequently going back and forth or reloading saves and it got really annoying after awhile. Which sucks because the game itself is fucking fantastic, especially when you get a groove going with your party. The fight where GLORY GLORY HALLELUJAH (yeah, yeah I know) just randomly starts playing is just one of many "Oh damn. . ." moments that I haven't experienced in a lot of Western RPG's (or JRPG's for that matter).
Question to those who finished Wasteland 3 already:
I just finished The Psychopath quest, and while both Refugees and Hundred Families love me, my reputation with Marshall is only at Liked, because in the early game I mostly arrested people myself instead of giving them to the Marshalls. Is there anything I can do at this point for them to like me more?
Question to those who finished Wasteland 3 already:
I just finished The Psychopath quest, and while both Refugees and Hundred Families love me, my reputation with Marshall is only at Liked, because in the early game I mostly arrested people myself instead of giving them to the Marshalls. Is there anything I can do at this point for them to like me more?
Not entirely sure, but i think the first couple of missions might be the deciding factor. They pretty much refused to talk to me afterwards.
edit: BTW is there a mod that lets you re-spec your NPCs? I finally got the companions I want but they are specked terribly.
Finished up the game today on Ranger difficulty and while I need to stew a bit on the game as a whole, I wanted to write a bit of a post-mortem on my team of presets.
The Mentor and Student Dusty - Explosives, Big Guns Sneaky Shit, and Kiss Ass
I dropped her Big Guns for Sneaky Shit. As everybody can tell you Sneaky Shit + Explosives works really well. The problem I ran into is often she wouldn't have anything to do for some turns. I think running a custom character with Explosives/Sneaky Shit/Mechanics would work really well next time I play.
Marie - Small Arms, Weapon Modding Lockpicking, Armor Modding
Marie wound up being my heavy tank with 76 armor. I focused her entirely on shotguns which was a bit of a mistake because shotguns are real bad until Aspen. This build also didn't have much to spend perks on given that the is only one perk between Armor Mod and Lockpicking.
Professor Higgs - Weird Science, Toaster Repair, Small Arms Nerd Stuff
Using Weird Science for a weapon skill was definitely interesting. He used the Brainwave Destabilizer and Meson Cannon the entire game. It worked really well for most of the game but really dropped off at the end. I ended up pretty disappointed in Toaster Repair so I would probably switch it out for something else, maybe a weapon skill that'd let him use the various energy weapons.
Preacher - Automatic Weapons, Leadership, Explosives First Aid
Preacher was the character I felt the best about. This is a really solid set of skills. With his +2M bonus, his leadership radius was comically high. I even had enough skill points to max out Hard Ass in time for the final two big checks.
Lucia Wesson - Small Arms, Barter, Weapon Modding, Survival
Lucia is crazy good with a pistol and Barter/Weapon Modding are good convenience skills. I think she might be the best recruit in the game.
Jodie Bell - Sniper Rifles, Animal Whisperer, Mechanics, First Aid
Sniper Rifles + Mechanic is a bad combination. You almost always want your sniper shooting and so I ended up drastically under using mechanic items. I'd suggest dropping Mechanics for for First Aid or maybe one of the modding skills. Animal Whisperer, on the other hand, works really well with a sniper so I was happy with that.
All in all this was a pretty solid, if not optimized, party. And the only skill I ended up not having was survival which I didn't really fell I needed. Next time I play, I'd probably build two custom rangers to start but still run Prof Higgs and Preacher. They really grew on me over the course of the game.
But it also requires 7 toaster, which could be spent in like... sneaky shit or explosives or weird science instead.
Anyway. Shotguns aren’t weak until Aspen they’re weak until you can stack range chokes and range scopes on them. After which they’re hilariously super dumb. It doesn’t matter that you get a x3 shotgun or not when the shotgun you do have is doing x10 dmg to 10 enemies.
Leadership pairs best with explosives. You’re more likely to multi-kill. You get no benefit from the base bonus of to-hit. You’ve got a lot of turns you’re not going to do much because one or two explosions/fight is usually enough. They also usually don’t need the dmg bonus from sneaky either
Automatics is your best pair with mechanics due to the inherent bonuses to moving around with an SMG and the ability to generate extra AP that you probably cannot use otherwise.
Big guns is similarly a support option and also heavily relies on bonus range.
I just never had places where there were that many enemies bunched together. And with it's low penetration and enemies ever ballooning HP pools, my shotgunner was struggling to do damage. Until Apsen, when penetration seemed to stop mattering for everyone. Maybe I just needed to go deep into Luck with that character.
Aspen was a weird point in my game because that is where all semblance of difficulty disappeared. I don't know if it was the weapons I picked up there or if that's when I started to max out all my skills. But almost every fight from that point didn't last more than 2 rounds. If I got the first shot, I won. If I didn't, I got wiped immediately.
If I got the first shot, I won. If I didn't, I got wiped immediately.
That's the combat balance of WL3 in a nutshell. Every time you talk to somebody and it ends up in a fight, there should be a sort of half-turn where your characters just dive into nearest cover. It would make them less of a "oh great, time to reload" situations.
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
edited October 2020
if you ain't maxing toaster repair you ain't playin' wasteland, is whats I says
edit: though I suppose they did it a disservice in 3 by giving all the other skills "hahaha waaaaaacky!" names.
You don't get anything good from the toasters though. I even took all the perks to make it better. I forgot to use most of my tarjan tokens! I miss having to find the one random person in the wasteland that needs a tube of Preparation H or these used contact lenses.
I just never had places where there were that many enemies bunched together. And with it's low penetration and enemies ever ballooning HP pools, my shotgunner was struggling to do damage. Until Apsen, when penetration seemed to stop mattering for everyone. Maybe I just needed to go deep into Luck with that character.
Aspen was a weird point in my game because that is where all semblance of difficulty disappeared. I don't know if it was the weapons I picked up there or if that's when I started to max out all my skills. But almost every fight from that point didn't last more than 2 rounds. If I got the first shot, I won. If I didn't, I got wiped immediately.
Shotguns with rank 5 and 7 perk don’t need that many close together and range boosts make it a lot easier to get multiple enemies in the same attack. On top of this it clears cover and cover appears to count for per target damage bonuses
So the main thing is think about how cones work. A cone that is 2x as long with the same proportions has 4x the area. And if you have the perks all of a sudden you’re doing huge damage to a bunch of enemies for 3 AP.
On difficulty 3/4 my shotgun gal would regularly kill entire encounters in one round.
Edit: with 20m range rank 7 single shot shotgun you should hit about 1/8th the map with each shot plus/minus things at the edge of range (I think 24m range is possible). 1/8th map is about half the enemies given that enemies usually take up about 90 degrees from your start point. It’s not quite long range HMG/Flamer amount of “hits everything” but it’s pretty close and shotguns do a LOT more damage than flamers
god damn laser turret, you stupid ass hole.
this is the fourth time it just unloaded on to an enemy that's close to an ally and ended up killing my ally and completely missing the enemy, and friendly fire is off....
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The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
You don't get anything good from the toasters though. I even took all the perks to make it better. I forgot to use most of my tarjan tokens! I miss having to find the one random person in the wasteland that needs a tube of Preparation H or these used contact lenses.
Wait did they remove the mechanic of the toasters giving you odd side quest items? The fuck?
Yeah. It got replaced with Tarjan tokens, which can be traded for a random temporary/permanent buff, and golden toaster parts, which lead to the best loot you can get from the skill. It's disappointing. But on the other hand, the toaster repair skill book and trinket are pretty easy to get so you only need to get to 6 and that's a pretty low investment.
god damn laser turret, you stupid ass hole.
this is the fourth time it just unloaded on to an enemy that's close to an ally and ended up killing my ally and completely missing the enemy, and friendly fire is off....
Yeah, not sure why some stuff ignores the friendly fire setting. They need to be more explicit about what does. I'd hate to play with it on...
god damn laser turret, you stupid ass hole.
this is the fourth time it just unloaded on to an enemy that's close to an ally and ended up killing my ally and completely missing the enemy, and friendly fire is off....
Yeah, not sure why some stuff ignores the friendly fire setting. They need to be more explicit about what does. I'd hate to play with it on...
I think elemental damage ignores friendly fire, like explosives and fire.
Had an interesting moment where I felt in danger of falling off the wagon with this game, only for something to happen that not only kept me on but made me realize just how much I've been enjoying it. This more or less happened with the second game, and now that that throughline has been established I'm feeling that "just ten more minutes/one more fight" compulsion all over again.
Of all things, my biggest recurring problems are with the audio; there is just a lot of sound jank. I've had several difficult fights start with a scripted music track for them, had to reload, only to hear that track still playing before the fight. Some music plays just a little too often, too loud, or both - the "Monster Mash" cover wears out its welcome pretty quickly - and at one point the loading screen music was echoing because it somehow started playing twice, staggered by a few seconds. Every confirmation click feels just a little too busy, and some audio cues are poorly explained; it took me hours to figure out that some noise I don't even know how to describe is from the party spotting an enemy. Turning the interface volume down feels practically required for it not to slowly drive me insane.
Such annoyances are petty, but when sustained they can underscore a game's flaws and water down its high points. So it was, for a while - I kept focusing on the poor friendly AI (NO MAJOR TOM THAT SPOT IS ON FIRE GET BACK HERE) or the difficulty of finding money or the regularity with which damage sponge enemies kept showing up, and glossing over the surprisingly many things I think the game does well.
Then I got to the cannibals west of Colorado Springs, and something just clicked. Wasteland doesn't really have a style so much as a mood; let's call it post-apocalyptic western. It's a minor encounter, but the music - a somber, country-ish cover of Wang Fucking Chung's "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" - fit that mood so well that it retroactively highlighted the game's stronger moments. With detritus of the 80s serving as decaying touchstones to the world before, it's strangely fitting that a classic pop song is covered as a dirge. Furthermore, setting the cannibals up as cowboys warps the western imagery, rugged outlaws who are outwardly cheerful but have abandoned almost all pretense of humanity.
What justice is possible in this ruined future? Are you better off minding your own business and just trying to stay alive? What good can a group like the rangers actually do, and how is it any better than the guy ruling with a literal iron fist? These questions are the elephant in the room, and afterwards I realized the writing had been acknowledging it for some time. It's not ground-breaking, but the dilemmas are well constructed, from the Disappeared quest sticking me
between a group of vengeful women and the penitent, defenseless cultist who had helped to take their loved ones
to the Gippers plotline
being fought over a digital Alzheimer's patient.*
Hell, the option to make arrests yourself or turn wrongdoers over to the Marshals lets you contrast your team with the established authorities, and it can quickly become an unflattering comparison if you're not careful.
All this is a clear step up in complexity from the second game, which dabbled with moral dilemmas but generally still had unambiguous good and bad choices. Where it does follow 2's lead is having a flexible quest structure with a lot of smaller decisions to make between the big quest-solving ones. Do I help bolster the Gippers' defenses or do I encourage the neighboring cult to start trouble? Do I engage in overt sabotage or look for an opportunity to discreetly weaken them? When it's all over except the shouting, do I point another group of raiders at the fracas or stop them from getting any funny ideas? Wasteland 1 and 2 excelled at this flexibility on both a narrative and tactical level, and Wasteland 3 is every bit as capable in this regard.
I see what I saw even back in 1988, being way too young to understand the material but nonetheless enjoying this weird, memorable game, feeling like my curiosity and exploration are rewarded more often than not. I see it over 30 years later, still asking me to think, and now that we're both older it's also asking "should you" alongside "can you". I don't yet know if it'll stick the landing, staying interestingly grey rather than falling into relentlessly grimdark, but I'm eager to find out.
For now at least, it's damn good to be back.
*More thoughts about the Gippers resolution:
I'm trying to think of a game where the third, peaceful option made everyone mad at me and coming up short. I really like that I was able to justify my decision to the Machine Intelligence, stating that while the Gippers are insane, I wasn't ready to start a bloodbath over AI Reagan; the Wyman and the kid looking for his mom certainly didn't deserve to die over this. It didn't make the Commune happy but they did accept the apology, which is a nice bit of follow-through for what felt like the least bad option. There's also quite a bit of irony in the head Nancy pretty much treating Reagan like a child and secretly running the show.
I really wish games wouldn't lock you out of quality of life improvements for past choices:
Morningstar and upgrades:
It locked me in the room with Morningstar, otherwise I'd have had him for the turbo charger instead of his weapon. First and only time that's happened. Hope they don't do it again.
Just wrapped up playthrough #1. My initial read was that it's not quite as good as it needs to be for broader appeal, but I've had Discord buddies I didn't even know liked tactical RPGs get into this, so I might be overcorrecting because of nitpicks and backer bias. This is a developer with more confidence in their own product and a clearer idea of what they're trying to make, and it shows in both production values and the nuts-and-bolts gameplay. I have issues, but the fact that I'm ready to jump right back in for a second playthrough says I found those negligible. This is a damn good game with a strong start, a strong finish, and a lot of interesting stuff in the middle.
Regarding the endgame and Angela,
I was hoping for a chance to call her out on how it involved freeing a slaver and basically letting him have Kansas to himself. I think it got mentioned briefly but never really came to a head, and then I realized it's because by springing him free, by recruiting him, I'd made my statement on the matter already. If I really wanted to I could tell him to fuck off, leave him for dead in a fight, shoot him myself, et cetera. Hell, if I felt that strongly about it I'd have shot him right there in his cell. So why'd I spring him? Because a senior colleague and a legacy character asked me to. Because I let someone I inherently trusted do the thinking for me (though I wrongly suspected she was a synth early on, expecting a plot twist regarding her survival that never emerged).
The bloodbath that followed in her ending was genuinely unnerving; I was gunning down people I'd rescued over this. I shot General Woodson's son. Somewhere along the line this went horribly wrong and it felt, at least in part, like my fault. I don't think it's an accident that siding with the Patriarch feels like a less bitter ending, at least in the short term, unless you do things just right. Angie's right that he needs to go, but that doesn't make her plan a good one. Of course it was going to end badly - me trying to please everyone left me with a hodgepodge of wary friends and bitter enemies, and ill-prepared for what it really meant to rip out the tentpole on the only shelter around.
Being a generic do-gooder who sides with one or the other is easy. Going evil for a smash-and-grab is even easier. What's hard is toppling a tyrant and having a plan for the aftermath. That requires thinking long-term, and asking if you're only doing something because someone told you to. The execution of it all isn't perfect, but it felt fitting for the way I was playing, and got me thinking more than I was expecting for the finale. By the time the credits rolled (and that song is great by the way, a novel way to cover your major decisions) I was ready to go back in and do it right this time. Not a small feat for a big RPG these days.
Good/yes, would (and probably will) randomly gift during a Steam sale. Also, starting up again it's remarkable how much detail went into the close-up dialogue modeling and I wish they'd done that more. For instance when first meeting with the Patriarch
you can actually see one of his hands trembling a bit on his hammer, hinting at his condition. You need first aid to ask about it but it's a nice touch.
As for my endgame crew, I was expecting to recruit more NPCs and left half of the slots open for them. Wound up with some redundancies but overall had most situations covered:
- Nathaniel had a shotgun/explosives build with leadership, lockpicking, and nerd stuff; this all worked nicely since it encouraged being in the thick of battle, running up to hack turrets, and taking out multiple targets at once. He lacked for single-target DPS but the rocket launcher crit-on-direct-hit perk made him a solid tankbuster. Lot of wasted points, however - didn't know what to expect from recruitables - and spread a little thin so I was regularly behind on checks for lockpicking.
- Raleigh went assault rifles/melee and hard into medic with kiss ass and armor modding. I learned late in the game that SMGs actually synergize nicely with medic; one of the SMG perks gives you a free attack for moving five spaces and a medic perk boosts your combat speed if someone is KOed. With these two she could skate around the battlefield, getting people back up instantly and usually scoring kills on the same round. Dropping melee to wield both an AR and an SMG gave her amazing flexibility, and her and Nate competed for the overall highest kill count.
- Vyrra was a sniper and tinkerer, going into weird science, hard ass, and weapon modding. Here the build was mostly fine, but like with Nate I wasted some points figuring out what to do with her (Jodie turning out to be a sniper created some redundancy). She found her niche in deleting specific targets and using special weaponry to debilitate enemies between shots. With an energy rifle, overcharge plus marked target on a full strike meter could one-shot almost anything short of a scorpitron.
- Kwon was specced for crowd control and ended up going ARs/flamethrower, seemingly at odds with sneaky shit and toaster repair (someone had to). The latter did give a nice perk for fire damage, however, and being able to discreetly flank an enemy meant he could devastate entire teams on his first turn. I wish I'd gone further into SS and gotten the stealth damage perk, that would've been nuts with a flamer. That said, he could easily shut down enemy armor and excelled at taking a beating.
- Jodie started with an eclectic skillset but found a more balanced SMG/sniper niche over Vyrra. Mechanics made her our primary drone deployer, and animal whisperer meant she'd frequently roll into battle with a fox or a wolf to draw some fire. I goofed somewhat on stat placement so she didn't get as many shots off as other squaddies, but she's a solid force multiplier.
- Lucia is squishy as hell, but an excellent gunslinger who rivaled the PCs in kills towards the end of the game. Trick shot is worth trying on a marked target and slapping the right high-level mod on her pistol means she can practically empty the thing in a single turn. She wound up with survival and barter almost by default and later picked up animal whisperer herself, though I think I'll give her medic next time - extra combat speed and a damage bonus for healing people would make her a tiny wrecking ball.
We were missing a melee powerhouse - I was tempted to keep Scotchmo in for Kwon - and there's a lot of other little adjustments to make with the benefit of hindsight. I'm definitely looking forward to another try, however.
Cordite (and another person) needed a bit better ending:
Sure, you spring him out. Because he's useful. But by the end he's not, so put a bullet in him. Don't let him walk.
All Angela needed to do was wait and the Patriarch problem goes away. Probably to be followed by a shitstorm, so we need to help ourselves NOW. Good luck, Colorado (and Kansas as it turns out). But not our problem atm. Instead she just creates 1 more obstacles to be removed to save the Rangers.
Had the unique experience of playing the game both immediately before and immediately after a patch dropped, which contained a bunch of UI tweaks I thought I was imagining at first. Mostly a lot of bugfixes and tweaks, but this actually resolved a problem I had with a sidequest where a key item didn't appear the first time. Wound up making a short-ish video about said quest, in which I explain some of the mechanics of the game, analyze the various builds, and talk a bit about what I enjoy and what issues I've found.
Also we kill Santa. This is Hannukah turf now, motherfucker.
The Escape Goatincorrigible ruminantthey/themRegistered Userregular
Uuuurgh bought 3 in the sale and I'm already boggling at how the UI worse than 2's. And the tutorial "enemies have detection range! good thing that big fucking robot hasn't seen you yet!" popup was immediately followed by the robot shooting and killing me. I've got a bad feeling about this.
Finally got Wasteland 3 on a discount and have played through it. I don't think I'll do a second playthrough anytime soon because...
I felt like my option was either be a goody-two-shoe rebellion guy...which led to suboptimal results (either arizona or colorado goes kakapoey)...or ally myself with cannibals, slavers and clowns. Which is a bit too evil for me. Wasteland 3 is just a whole bunch of dislikable options.
As for character builds. While nerd stuff/explosives/sneakyshit/mechanic/Hardass/Kissass are skills you definitely need to have topped out on one character I think my two MVP skills were small arms and animal whisperer. Pistols with range enhancement and energy/explosives/heat/cold profiles are hilariously powerful. As were my three animal companions, honey badger, bison and growler cub. The honey badger especially is an immortal death machine, and the bison isn't far behind
"The western world sips from a poisonous cocktail: Polarisation, populism, protectionism and post-truth"
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
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Ninja Snarl PMy helmet is my burden.Ninja Snarl: Gone, but not forgotten.Registered Userregular
edited April 2021
I picked it up recently on discount myself. In many ways, it's a big step up from Wasteland 2, which frustrated me so much that I didn't bother to finish it.
At the same time, I'm getting reeeeeallly fucking sick and tired of being constantly one point below on whatever access skill is important for an area. And some of these checks are completely stupid, like needing Sneaky Shit to disable a trap instead of Mechanics.
There's also a number of these encounters where their designer needs to be barred from fight design permanent. Somehow, the
fight against the clones
is listed as a level 2/3 mission, except each of them can two-shot most of your party, have a ton of HP, heal themselves for a ton, and they get a fucking gun turret for backup. I had to come back hours later to have an actual chance, simply because it was impossible to out-damage their ridiculous health and healing.
Then I get further on and
facing a bunch of asshole clowns sending out suicide exploding pigs.
First off, each fight has you outnumbered some 2 to 1 altogether. Then the enemy can prime the suicide explosives on their turn, but the explosives don't come after you until the allied turn. And they can run fucking half a mile before blowing up in the middle of your group, one-shotting half your team. Naturally, they only explode if the enemy primes them as well, so you can't blow them up at range to punish the enemy with them. So you have to pick off either the suicide enemies or the flame enemies first round, or else it's almost impossible to avoid eating a massive explosion. But then if you flip things around, your explosives won't one-shot any of them, even if you've got a damn rocket launcher with a nuke-shot ready.
Just getting tired of how happily the game piles stacks of HP on enemies as well as endlessly makes checks too high for the actual level you're at. I hate having to go back to explore shit just because of a skill check, and virtually every enemy feels way too fucking grindy. I should not have to focus down one enemy with my whole team when the same enemy can bring down two or three of my squad in a single machine gun burst, particularly when I've also got a machine gun and it's better than what the enemy is using and his armor is less than most of my team.
I picked it up recently on discount myself. In many ways, it's a big step up from Wasteland 2, which frustrated me so much that I didn't bother to finish it.
At the same time, I'm getting reeeeeallly fucking sick and tired of being constantly one point below on whatever access skill is important for an area. And some of these checks are completely stupid, like needing Sneaky Shit to disable a trap instead of Mechanics.
There's also a number of these encounters where their designer needs to be barred from fight design permanent. Somehow, the
fight against the clones
is listed as a level 2/3 mission, except each of them can two-shot most of your party, have a ton of HP, heal themselves for a ton, and they get a fucking gun turret for backup. I had to come back hours later to have an actual chance, simply because it was impossible to out-damage their ridiculous health and healing.
Then I get further on and
facing a bunch of asshole clowns sending out suicide exploding pigs.
First off, each fight has you outnumbered some 2 to 1 altogether. Then the enemy can prime the suicide explosives on their turn, but the explosives don't come after you until the allied turn. And they can run fucking half a mile before blowing up in the middle of your group, one-shotting half your team. Naturally, they only explode if the enemy primes them as well, so you can't blow them up at range to punish the enemy with them. So you have to pick off either the suicide enemies or the flame enemies first round, or else it's almost impossible to avoid eating a massive explosion. But then if you flip things around, your explosives won't one-shot any of them, even if you've got a damn rocket launcher with a nuke-shot ready.
Just getting tired of how happily the game piles stacks of HP on enemies as well as endlessly makes checks too high for the actual level you're at. I hate having to go back to explore shit just because of a skill check, and virtually every enemy feels way too fucking grindy. I should not have to focus down one enemy with my whole team when the same enemy can bring down two or three of my squad in a single machine gun burst, particularly when I've also got a machine gun and it's better than what the enemy is using and his armor is less than most of my team.
Regarding skill checks, I got into the habit of not spending points on characters who had multiple skills, so I had a pool of points spare when failing a check.
I also saved books until I either was close to matching out the skill, or I needed one more point for a check.
Looking forward to some DLC, I've not played it since I finished it not long after launch.
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DemonStaceyTTODewback's DaughterIn love with the TaySwayRegistered Userregular
June 3rd? Man companies need to take a que from streaming shows, don't start showing trailers until the game is nearly out, by June I won't even remember this was a thing.
Actually it's 4/20, so I probably won't remember any of this.
Wait, what? It's not post game? Pillars of Eternity kept doing that and it sucked then!
If you want to sell more of your game don't make me lose progress to do it!
Nope.
Requires you to do the old time travel for your characters. Which for me just kills all interest. My characters aren't going back in time. Give me content that continues from where there are or it's not happening because well... it already didn't happen.
Wasteland 2 is on sale on Steam in two versions: Director's Cut ($7.49) and Digital Deluxe ($11.49).
It appears like each come with a free copy of Wasteland 1, but it's hard to tell on the Steam Store page what else is the difference between the two.
Anyone happen to know?
I think the Director's Cut might just be only the game itself? This section seems to be saying "all this stuff is what makes the Digital Deluxe different."
Wasteland 2 is on sale on Steam in two versions: Director's Cut ($7.49) and Digital Deluxe ($11.49).
It appears like each come with a free copy of Wasteland 1, but it's hard to tell on the Steam Store page what else is the difference between the two.
Anyone happen to know?
I think the Director's Cut might just be only the game itself? This section seems to be saying "all this stuff is what makes the Digital Deluxe different."
So this was the confusing part, because the page for Wasteland 2 Directors Cut (non digital deluxe version) also says it has Wasteland 1.
Wasteland 2 is on sale on Steam in two versions: Director's Cut ($7.49) and Digital Deluxe ($11.49).
It appears like each come with a free copy of Wasteland 1, but it's hard to tell on the Steam Store page what else is the difference between the two.
Anyone happen to know?
I think the Director's Cut might just be only the game itself? This section seems to be saying "all this stuff is what makes the Digital Deluxe different."
So this was the confusing part, because the page for Wasteland 2 Directors Cut (non digital deluxe version) also says it has Wasteland 1.
I'm not sure if this is what it is referring to but
Inside of Wasteland 2 you can find a Wasteland 1 game you can bring back to a computer in your base. It will then let you play the entire game inside of Wasteland 2.
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I'm a big fan of the series, but from a PC perspective, if I hadn't already bought I'd wait until the next major patch and see if load times are dramatically increased. It's also likely to see a price reduction, because the current price feels aggressive.
Not to be overly negative - it's a great game, especially if you're into this sort of thing.
Not entirely sure, but i think the first couple of missions might be the deciding factor. They pretty much refused to talk to me afterwards.
edit: BTW is there a mod that lets you re-spec your NPCs? I finally got the companions I want but they are specked terribly.
The Mentor and Student
Dusty - Explosives, Big Guns Sneaky Shit, and Kiss Ass
I dropped her Big Guns for Sneaky Shit. As everybody can tell you Sneaky Shit + Explosives works really well. The problem I ran into is often she wouldn't have anything to do for some turns. I think running a custom character with Explosives/Sneaky Shit/Mechanics would work really well next time I play.
Marie - Small Arms, Weapon Modding Lockpicking, Armor Modding
Marie wound up being my heavy tank with 76 armor. I focused her entirely on shotguns which was a bit of a mistake because shotguns are real bad until Aspen. This build also didn't have much to spend perks on given that the is only one perk between Armor Mod and Lockpicking.
Professor Higgs - Weird Science, Toaster Repair, Small Arms Nerd Stuff
Using Weird Science for a weapon skill was definitely interesting. He used the Brainwave Destabilizer and Meson Cannon the entire game. It worked really well for most of the game but really dropped off at the end. I ended up pretty disappointed in Toaster Repair so I would probably switch it out for something else, maybe a weapon skill that'd let him use the various energy weapons.
Preacher - Automatic Weapons, Leadership, Explosives First Aid
Preacher was the character I felt the best about. This is a really solid set of skills. With his +2M bonus, his leadership radius was comically high. I even had enough skill points to max out Hard Ass in time for the final two big checks.
Lucia Wesson - Small Arms, Barter, Weapon Modding, Survival
Lucia is crazy good with a pistol and Barter/Weapon Modding are good convenience skills. I think she might be the best recruit in the game.
Jodie Bell - Sniper Rifles, Animal Whisperer, Mechanics, First Aid
Sniper Rifles + Mechanic is a bad combination. You almost always want your sniper shooting and so I ended up drastically under using mechanic items. I'd suggest dropping Mechanics for for First Aid or maybe one of the modding skills. Animal Whisperer, on the other hand, works really well with a sniper so I was happy with that.
All in all this was a pretty solid, if not optimized, party. And the only skill I ended up not having was survival which I didn't really fell I needed. Next time I play, I'd probably build two custom rangers to start but still run Prof Higgs and Preacher. They really grew on me over the course of the game.
Anyway. Shotguns aren’t weak until Aspen they’re weak until you can stack range chokes and range scopes on them. After which they’re hilariously super dumb. It doesn’t matter that you get a x3 shotgun or not when the shotgun you do have is doing x10 dmg to 10 enemies.
Leadership pairs best with explosives. You’re more likely to multi-kill. You get no benefit from the base bonus of to-hit. You’ve got a lot of turns you’re not going to do much because one or two explosions/fight is usually enough. They also usually don’t need the dmg bonus from sneaky either
Automatics is your best pair with mechanics due to the inherent bonuses to moving around with an SMG and the ability to generate extra AP that you probably cannot use otherwise.
Big guns is similarly a support option and also heavily relies on bonus range.
Aspen was a weird point in my game because that is where all semblance of difficulty disappeared. I don't know if it was the weapons I picked up there or if that's when I started to max out all my skills. But almost every fight from that point didn't last more than 2 rounds. If I got the first shot, I won. If I didn't, I got wiped immediately.
That's the combat balance of WL3 in a nutshell. Every time you talk to somebody and it ends up in a fight, there should be a sort of half-turn where your characters just dive into nearest cover. It would make them less of a "oh great, time to reload" situations.
edit: though I suppose they did it a disservice in 3 by giving all the other skills "hahaha waaaaaacky!" names.
Shotguns with rank 5 and 7 perk don’t need that many close together and range boosts make it a lot easier to get multiple enemies in the same attack. On top of this it clears cover and cover appears to count for per target damage bonuses
So the main thing is think about how cones work. A cone that is 2x as long with the same proportions has 4x the area. And if you have the perks all of a sudden you’re doing huge damage to a bunch of enemies for 3 AP.
On difficulty 3/4 my shotgun gal would regularly kill entire encounters in one round.
Edit: with 20m range rank 7 single shot shotgun you should hit about 1/8th the map with each shot plus/minus things at the edge of range (I think 24m range is possible). 1/8th map is about half the enemies given that enemies usually take up about 90 degrees from your start point. It’s not quite long range HMG/Flamer amount of “hits everything” but it’s pretty close and shotguns do a LOT more damage than flamers
this is the fourth time it just unloaded on to an enemy that's close to an ally and ended up killing my ally and completely missing the enemy, and friendly fire is off....
Wait did they remove the mechanic of the toasters giving you odd side quest items? The fuck?
Yeah, not sure why some stuff ignores the friendly fire setting. They need to be more explicit about what does. I'd hate to play with it on...
I think elemental damage ignores friendly fire, like explosives and fire.
I got animal whisperer solely for the
But sadly when the game forces companions out of your party momentarily and then you re add them... they get re-added without their animal companion.
Cool. coolcoolcool.
Of all things, my biggest recurring problems are with the audio; there is just a lot of sound jank. I've had several difficult fights start with a scripted music track for them, had to reload, only to hear that track still playing before the fight. Some music plays just a little too often, too loud, or both - the "Monster Mash" cover wears out its welcome pretty quickly - and at one point the loading screen music was echoing because it somehow started playing twice, staggered by a few seconds. Every confirmation click feels just a little too busy, and some audio cues are poorly explained; it took me hours to figure out that some noise I don't even know how to describe is from the party spotting an enemy. Turning the interface volume down feels practically required for it not to slowly drive me insane.
Such annoyances are petty, but when sustained they can underscore a game's flaws and water down its high points. So it was, for a while - I kept focusing on the poor friendly AI (NO MAJOR TOM THAT SPOT IS ON FIRE GET BACK HERE) or the difficulty of finding money or the regularity with which damage sponge enemies kept showing up, and glossing over the surprisingly many things I think the game does well.
Then I got to the cannibals west of Colorado Springs, and something just clicked. Wasteland doesn't really have a style so much as a mood; let's call it post-apocalyptic western. It's a minor encounter, but the music - a somber, country-ish cover of Wang Fucking Chung's "Everybody Have Fun Tonight" - fit that mood so well that it retroactively highlighted the game's stronger moments. With detritus of the 80s serving as decaying touchstones to the world before, it's strangely fitting that a classic pop song is covered as a dirge. Furthermore, setting the cannibals up as cowboys warps the western imagery, rugged outlaws who are outwardly cheerful but have abandoned almost all pretense of humanity.
What justice is possible in this ruined future? Are you better off minding your own business and just trying to stay alive? What good can a group like the rangers actually do, and how is it any better than the guy ruling with a literal iron fist? These questions are the elephant in the room, and afterwards I realized the writing had been acknowledging it for some time. It's not ground-breaking, but the dilemmas are well constructed, from the Disappeared quest sticking me
All this is a clear step up in complexity from the second game, which dabbled with moral dilemmas but generally still had unambiguous good and bad choices. Where it does follow 2's lead is having a flexible quest structure with a lot of smaller decisions to make between the big quest-solving ones. Do I help bolster the Gippers' defenses or do I encourage the neighboring cult to start trouble? Do I engage in overt sabotage or look for an opportunity to discreetly weaken them? When it's all over except the shouting, do I point another group of raiders at the fracas or stop them from getting any funny ideas? Wasteland 1 and 2 excelled at this flexibility on both a narrative and tactical level, and Wasteland 3 is every bit as capable in this regard.
I see what I saw even back in 1988, being way too young to understand the material but nonetheless enjoying this weird, memorable game, feeling like my curiosity and exploration are rewarded more often than not. I see it over 30 years later, still asking me to think, and now that we're both older it's also asking "should you" alongside "can you". I don't yet know if it'll stick the landing, staying interestingly grey rather than falling into relentlessly grimdark, but I'm eager to find out.
For now at least, it's damn good to be back.
*More thoughts about the Gippers resolution:
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
Morningstar and upgrades:
Regarding the endgame and Angela,
The bloodbath that followed in her ending was genuinely unnerving; I was gunning down people I'd rescued over this. I shot General Woodson's son. Somewhere along the line this went horribly wrong and it felt, at least in part, like my fault. I don't think it's an accident that siding with the Patriarch feels like a less bitter ending, at least in the short term, unless you do things just right. Angie's right that he needs to go, but that doesn't make her plan a good one. Of course it was going to end badly - me trying to please everyone left me with a hodgepodge of wary friends and bitter enemies, and ill-prepared for what it really meant to rip out the tentpole on the only shelter around.
Being a generic do-gooder who sides with one or the other is easy. Going evil for a smash-and-grab is even easier. What's hard is toppling a tyrant and having a plan for the aftermath. That requires thinking long-term, and asking if you're only doing something because someone told you to. The execution of it all isn't perfect, but it felt fitting for the way I was playing, and got me thinking more than I was expecting for the finale. By the time the credits rolled (and that song is great by the way, a novel way to cover your major decisions) I was ready to go back in and do it right this time. Not a small feat for a big RPG these days.
Good/yes, would (and probably will) randomly gift during a Steam sale. Also, starting up again it's remarkable how much detail went into the close-up dialogue modeling and I wish they'd done that more. For instance when first meeting with the Patriarch
As for my endgame crew, I was expecting to recruit more NPCs and left half of the slots open for them. Wound up with some redundancies but overall had most situations covered:
- Nathaniel had a shotgun/explosives build with leadership, lockpicking, and nerd stuff; this all worked nicely since it encouraged being in the thick of battle, running up to hack turrets, and taking out multiple targets at once. He lacked for single-target DPS but the rocket launcher crit-on-direct-hit perk made him a solid tankbuster. Lot of wasted points, however - didn't know what to expect from recruitables - and spread a little thin so I was regularly behind on checks for lockpicking.
- Raleigh went assault rifles/melee and hard into medic with kiss ass and armor modding. I learned late in the game that SMGs actually synergize nicely with medic; one of the SMG perks gives you a free attack for moving five spaces and a medic perk boosts your combat speed if someone is KOed. With these two she could skate around the battlefield, getting people back up instantly and usually scoring kills on the same round. Dropping melee to wield both an AR and an SMG gave her amazing flexibility, and her and Nate competed for the overall highest kill count.
- Vyrra was a sniper and tinkerer, going into weird science, hard ass, and weapon modding. Here the build was mostly fine, but like with Nate I wasted some points figuring out what to do with her (Jodie turning out to be a sniper created some redundancy). She found her niche in deleting specific targets and using special weaponry to debilitate enemies between shots. With an energy rifle, overcharge plus marked target on a full strike meter could one-shot almost anything short of a scorpitron.
- Kwon was specced for crowd control and ended up going ARs/flamethrower, seemingly at odds with sneaky shit and toaster repair (someone had to). The latter did give a nice perk for fire damage, however, and being able to discreetly flank an enemy meant he could devastate entire teams on his first turn. I wish I'd gone further into SS and gotten the stealth damage perk, that would've been nuts with a flamer. That said, he could easily shut down enemy armor and excelled at taking a beating.
- Jodie started with an eclectic skillset but found a more balanced SMG/sniper niche over Vyrra. Mechanics made her our primary drone deployer, and animal whisperer meant she'd frequently roll into battle with a fox or a wolf to draw some fire. I goofed somewhat on stat placement so she didn't get as many shots off as other squaddies, but she's a solid force multiplier.
- Lucia is squishy as hell, but an excellent gunslinger who rivaled the PCs in kills towards the end of the game. Trick shot is worth trying on a marked target and slapping the right high-level mod on her pistol means she can practically empty the thing in a single turn. She wound up with survival and barter almost by default and later picked up animal whisperer herself, though I think I'll give her medic next time - extra combat speed and a damage bonus for healing people would make her a tiny wrecking ball.
We were missing a melee powerhouse - I was tempted to keep Scotchmo in for Kwon - and there's a lot of other little adjustments to make with the benefit of hindsight. I'm definitely looking forward to another try, however.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
All Angela needed to do was wait and the Patriarch problem goes away. Probably to be followed by a shitstorm, so we need to help ourselves NOW. Good luck, Colorado (and Kansas as it turns out). But not our problem atm. Instead she just creates 1 more obstacles to be removed to save the Rangers.
Also we kill Santa. This is Hannukah turf now, motherfucker.
Now playing: Teardown and Baldur's Gate 3 (co-op)
Sunday Spotlight: Horror Tales: The Wine
Looking forward to it, though.
August 2020 does feel like a lot longer ago than it probably is.
As for character builds. While nerd stuff/explosives/sneakyshit/mechanic/Hardass/Kissass are skills you definitely need to have topped out on one character I think my two MVP skills were small arms and animal whisperer. Pistols with range enhancement and energy/explosives/heat/cold profiles are hilariously powerful. As were my three animal companions, honey badger, bison and growler cub. The honey badger especially is an immortal death machine, and the bison isn't far behind
-Antje Jackelén, Archbishop of the Church of Sweden
At the same time, I'm getting reeeeeallly fucking sick and tired of being constantly one point below on whatever access skill is important for an area. And some of these checks are completely stupid, like needing Sneaky Shit to disable a trap instead of Mechanics.
There's also a number of these encounters where their designer needs to be barred from fight design permanent. Somehow, the is listed as a level 2/3 mission, except each of them can two-shot most of your party, have a ton of HP, heal themselves for a ton, and they get a fucking gun turret for backup. I had to come back hours later to have an actual chance, simply because it was impossible to out-damage their ridiculous health and healing.
Then I get further on and
Just getting tired of how happily the game piles stacks of HP on enemies as well as endlessly makes checks too high for the actual level you're at. I hate having to go back to explore shit just because of a skill check, and virtually every enemy feels way too fucking grindy. I should not have to focus down one enemy with my whole team when the same enemy can bring down two or three of my squad in a single machine gun burst, particularly when I've also got a machine gun and it's better than what the enemy is using and his armor is less than most of my team.
Regarding skill checks, I got into the habit of not spending points on characters who had multiple skills, so I had a pool of points spare when failing a check.
I also saved books until I either was close to matching out the skill, or I needed one more point for a check.
Looking forward to some DLC, I've not played it since I finished it not long after launch.
I would totally love to pop back into this game.
But mid campaign DLC isn't going to do it.
Dangit.
Actually it's 4/20, so I probably won't remember any of this.
Wait, what? It's not post game? Pillars of Eternity kept doing that and it sucked then!
If you want to sell more of your game don't make me lose progress to do it!
Nope.
Requires you to do the old time travel for your characters. Which for me just kills all interest. My characters aren't going back in time. Give me content that continues from where there are or it's not happening because well... it already didn't happen.
Wasteland 2 is on sale on Steam in two versions: Director's Cut ($7.49) and Digital Deluxe ($11.49).
It appears like each come with a free copy of Wasteland 1, but it's hard to tell on the Steam Store page what else is the difference between the two.
Anyone happen to know?
I think the Director's Cut might just be only the game itself? This section seems to be saying "all this stuff is what makes the Digital Deluxe different."
So this was the confusing part, because the page for Wasteland 2 Directors Cut (non digital deluxe version) also says it has Wasteland 1.
I'm not sure if this is what it is referring to but