Wasteland 2 - Impressions start page 8

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 1:05 am

Just found one melee character, but doesn't seem much like a character, but I'm keeping him in my group since I need someone to carry more loot, and grenades.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:19 am

So far they have been fairly spread out for me.

Assault Rifle/Melee(blunt)
Pistol
Melee(blade)
Shotgun
Melee(blunt)

And one more that I don't recall.

I had to drop one in the base so that I can go gather up two other ones. Not sure who I'll add back in once I have them in a central location.

TiLT · Post by **TiLT** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 3:57 am

I've also noticed that the majority of the NPCs I've found have been exclusively melee focused, but that's the nature of Arizona in that setting. Ammo is expensive, and you're not exactly picking your recruits from the top shelf most of the time.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Sat Oct 04, 2014 6:24 pm

Just hit the Hollywood area. Holy crap, that's one buggy-ass locale. Camera problems and quest scripting problems abound. For example, there's one part where the camera is evidently supposed to cut to another area of the level, but does not. Instead, it stares at a fog-of-warred location while I hear gunfire and then someone accuses my rangers of being worthless wastes of skin because they just stood by and watched. Well, maybe if the camera didn't get stuck up somebody's armpit, we wouldn't have that problem.

I guess since they didn't feature this area in the beta, it didn't get nearly as much polish as Arizona.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 12:30 am

I have a pet Night Terror! He likes candy...

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 1:30 am

Lordnine wrote:I have a pet Night Terror! He likes candy...

I was working on getting rid of him when he saved my collective rears. So now I'm letting him tag along for a while.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 9:57 am

Yeah, Night Terrors is mostly useless, but, occasionally, the AI will target him instead of one of your guys, which is great when you get ambushed by a bunch of jackasses with miniguns and death rays. I don't know what the point of giving him candy is, though, he doesn't seem to do anything other than say "yum" or whatever.

RMC · Post by **RMC** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 10:05 am

NickAragua wrote:Yeah, Night Terrors is mostly useless, but, occasionally, the AI will target him instead of one of your guys, which is great when you get ambushed by a bunch of jackasses with miniguns and death rays. I don't know what the point of giving him candy is, though, he doesn't seem to do anything other than say "yum" or whatever.

What candy is:

Spoiler:

EzeKieL · Post by **EzeKieL** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 11:56 am

I haven't given anyone anything yet.

Like I haven't given anyone smokes or booze or whatever. Does it have any special consequences? ^^

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Sun Oct 05, 2014 2:19 pm

Might want to check your spoiler header, RMC. I think you put the wrong word.

Apparently if you give him enough candy he leaves. Not sure how much though. I gave him a bunch. Until I discovered his potential usefulness.

I haven't encountered anyone with death rays yet, still on the Arizona map. But the abandoned rail yard Surprise! would have been extremely difficult without him.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Tue Oct 07, 2014 11:35 am

I've been feeding the little SOB human feet and hands left and right, and nothing. Oh well.

Meanwhile, it looks like I'm at the final area, where all those ways in which you resolved the various Arizona issues come back to either help you or bite you in the ass. It's a pretty awesome setup, with all your Arizona pals coming to help you out. Very tense, and fairly challenging.

Unfortunately, the AI for the friendly NPCs is just god damned awful and it really shows here in these big fights. It just made me want to tear my hair out. The AI routine appears to be something like this:

if (enemy is just slightly out of optimal range of my ranged weapon) run blindly towards randomly chosen enemy, getting in the way of friendly shooters and in the middle of large groups of bad guys (such that I can't use explosives without hitting the friendly). Rechoose random enemy each round, with the odds weighted towards ones across the map so that you do more running than shooting. On the rare occasion that a friendly NPC does choose to shoot, make sure to maximize the number of friendlies between yourself and your target.

I think I spent more medkits in this final area healing NPCs damaged from friendly fire (or stupid positioning choices) than I've spent in the entire game.

On top of it all, the only guy who gives you level-ups got his torso whacked off by a guy with a giant energy hammer. I'm going to stick it out though, since there can't be more than one or two fights left.

Spoilerific pro-tip:

Spoiler:

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:18 am

Finished the game last night.

Overall, I'm happy that I played it. There's plenty of combat and usage for all your skills (except barter, which is a waste of skill points), many non-trivial roleplaying choices to make. It's really just a lot of fun.

That being said, if you're progressing slowly, I would hold off on the later parts of California until a few more patches come out. Right now, it's bug city (and I'm not talking about arachnids).

Specifically, and this is just the stuff I noticed (no, seriously, major spoilers):

Spoiler:

I can see myself playing this again with a slightly more optimized character/party build and different NPCs (although it doesn't really make much difference, as they don't talk too much).

Some tips for those who are creating parties:

- Luck is a dump stat currently, so you can lower it to one. For each pip, you get a miniscule improvement to evasion and crit chance. The former is too tiny to bother in general, while the latter is outweighed by your weapon's crit chance and skill points allocated to your chosen weapon.
- Intelligence goes to 4 or 8 (or 10 if you really, really like skills), but never in between. Those are the points at which you get extra skill points per level.
- If you're going to increase strength, don't bother increasing it when you get to level 10, 20, 30. It doesn't apply to your hit points retroactively, so either start it out high or don't bother.
- Coordination is minimally effective compared to skill points invested in your chosen weapon type. But, you might be able to get extra action points from it.
- Charisma XP bonus does not affect combat XP, according to the forums. So, don't go nuts with charisma unless you're building a Leadership character.
- You want a good balance of Action Points and Combat Initiative, as well as Combat Speed. According to the forums, a good ratio is 2 Combat Initiative to 1 Action Point
- Barter is worthless. Maximum 10% discount on goods? Skip it.
- The other skills all get roughly evenly distributed usage so they're all good investments.
- Save skill books until your skill will need at least 4 (6 if you have the patience) skill points. There are also plenty of skill boosting trinkets that you can equip prior to a skill check, so most non-weapon skills won't need to go to a natural 10

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:30 am

One thing I’ve been wondering, is there any real benefit to maxing skills like medic or surgeon? I got my one party member to 10 in surgeon but couldn’t tell any difference between that and when she was lower. I stopped upgrading field medic at 6 in favor of the increasing the multitude of other skills on that character.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:40 am

Mostly, having higher scores in those means you can use the better consumables. If you leave your medic score too low, you're going to be stuck using the low-end medkits. I haven't seen anything require higher than medic/surgeon 8 though, so that's where I'd leave those two. The rank 10 upgrade is especially painful at an 8 skill point cost, so I'd have skipped it.

I guess there are a few free-form surgeon checks that you can do, but you usually only get a little XP for those and it's hardly enough to justify spending the 14 skill points to get from level 8 to level 10 on your surgeon.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:43 am

Lordnine wrote:One thing I’ve been wondering, is there any real benefit to maxing skills like medic or surgeon? I got my one party member to 10 in surgeon but couldn’t tell any difference between that and when she was lower. I stopped upgrading field medic at 6 in favor of the increasing the multitude of other skills on that character.

I would think it would only matter if healing items were scarcer. Or perhaps on harder levels.

Right now I often limp by for a while without healing and just wait until I level. I usually only heal if the character is really low or if the xp bar is less than half (so it will be a while). But that may change once I hit California and harder opponents.

I've been using the lowest level health kits. But mostly to use them up (and reduce the amount of carry weight). I have a lot stacked up.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 11:47 am

So far, I haven’t seen a healing item I can’t use. The early game was brutal and I rarely had extra med kits lying around. Since about level 15 though I’ve only had to use a handful of them. Right now I have over 30 basic kits and at least a dozen advanced kits.

I really think the AG center was disproportionately difficult to the rest of the game. It may just be that humans are so much easier to kill than beasts and monsters.

map · Post by **map** » Wed Oct 08, 2014 8:04 pm

I think I have a problem.

Spoiler:

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 9:49 am

NickAragua wrote:- You want a good balance of Action Points and Combat Initiative, as well as Combat Speed. According to the forums, a good ratio is 2 Combat Initiative to 1 Action Point

A lot of your tips were things I built into my party when I restarted days ago, but this one concerns me. Most of my team has 10 AP and 10 CI. I tend to start combat with Angela Deth since her CI is 14 and she still goes first in every combat round (I just finished the Rail Nomads area), but everyone else tends to go after the first two or three enemies. I'm surviving by finding enemies and then pulling everyone back into formation, kneeling, and then sending Angela in to stir things up and draw them back.

I have to say that this means my Blunt/Heavy character is only useful for mopping up runners that come at my party. My Pistols character is getting tired of never shooting and will probably be switching off to Energy Weapons soon. My killers are Angela (Blunt/Assault), my Medic (Fists/Assault), my Sniper (Snipe/Blades), and Vulture's Cry (Snipe/Blades). Very little holds up against a pair of 3-round 5.56mm bursts and two sniper bullets.

I think if I had to recreate my party, I'd do the following...

1. Brawler: Blunt/Assault - because melee is essential early on, and assault has a fair spread of armor penetration ... with Demolitions and Hard Ass; 1 point in Surgeon.
2. Medic: Blades/Assault - Same as above - with Field Medic, Kiss Ass, and Surgeon as a secondary skill.
3. Mechanic: Pistols/Energy - Pistols scale fairly well so far, and Energy seems a good backup to it - with Weaponsmith, Mechanic; 1 point in Surgeon.
4. Sniper: Blades/Snipe - Sniping is powerful, but very expensive on ammo - with Lockpick, Safecracker; 1 point in Surgeon.
5. Angela Deth - Blunt/Assault, Bashing - early on she also covers Outdoorsman.
6. Vulture's Cry - Shotgun/Sniping - with Perception, and her default Outdoorsman seems fine. I've got her to Perception 7 right now and she sees everything.
7. Open - Currently Ralphie. I gave him the Rat animal companion from the statue and it bugged on me when he ran to talk with Jessie. Now the Rat is stuck and doesn't follow the party, and Ralphie gets a permanent +1 Intelligence on top of the 3 he came with - or 2 skill points per level. Currently he's working up SMG so I can test it out and doesn't really move into combat much.

So far I haven't found a Toaster worth opening or an Alarm I didn't just shrug about. Getting Animal Companions is low-priority as they tend to die easily and are buggy.

LawBeefaroni · Post by **LawBeefaroni** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 10:04 am

map wrote:I think I have a problem.
Spoiler:
I've been to Silo 7 but Damonta never showed up on my world map.

I got the location from:

Spoiler:

If that doesn't work, you can probably find it by walking over it:

Spoiler:

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 11:13 am

Paingod wrote:
NickAragua wrote:- You want a good balance of Action Points and Combat Initiative, as well as Combat Speed. According to the forums, a good ratio is 2 Combat Initiative to 1 Action Point
A lot of your tips were things I built into my party when I restarted days ago, but this one concerns me. Most of my team has 10 AP and 10 CI. I tend to start combat with Angela Deth since her CI is 14 and she still goes first in every combat round (I just finished the Rail Nomads area), but everyone else tends to go after the first two or three enemies. I'm surviving by finding enemies and then pulling everyone back into formation, kneeling, and then sending Angela in to stir things up and draw them back.

I have to say that this means my Blunt/Heavy character is only useful for mopping up runners that come at my party. My Pistols character is getting tired of never shooting and will probably be switching off to Energy Weapons soon. My killers are Angela (Blunt/Assault), my Medic (Fists/Assault), my Sniper (Snipe/Blades), and Vulture's Cry (Snipe/Blades). Very little holds up against a pair of 3-round 5.56mm bursts and two sniper bullets.

I think if I had to recreate my party, I'd do the following...

1. Brawler: Blunt/Assault - because melee is essential early on, and assault has a fair spread of armor penetration ... with Demolitions and Hard Ass; 1 point in Surgeon.
2. Medic: Blades/Assault - Same as above - with Field Medic, Kiss Ass, and Surgeon as a secondary skill.
3. Mechanic: Pistols/Energy - Pistols scale fairly well so far, and Energy seems a good backup to it - with Weaponsmith, Mechanic; 1 point in Surgeon.
4. Sniper: Blades/Snipe - Sniping is powerful, but very expensive on ammo - with Lockpick, Safecracker; 1 point in Surgeon.
5. Angela Deth - Blunt/Assault, Bashing - early on she also covers Outdoorsman.
6. Vulture's Cry - Shotgun/Sniping - with Perception, and her default Outdoorsman seems fine. I've got her to Perception 7 right now and she sees everything.
7. Open - Currently Ralphie. I gave him the Rat animal companion from the statue and it bugged on me when he ran to talk with Jessie. Now the Rat is stuck and doesn't follow the party, and Ralphie gets a permanent +1 Intelligence on top of the 3 he came with - or 2 skill points per level. Currently he's working up SMG so I can test it out and doesn't really move into combat much.

So far I haven't found a Toaster worth opening or an Alarm I didn't just shrug about. Getting Animal Companions is low-priority as they tend to die easily and are buggy.

Yeah, alarms are a little pointless when you've killed everyone in the area. Although, later on, there are some areas where you have alarmed doors guarded by people you actually don't want to piss off, so I would consider investing skill points into it eventually. Toasters aren't really going to make or break your game, but the stuff you find in them is worth an occasional bundle of a couple of hundred XP across the party. It's never critically important, though.

Re: Angela, I wouldn't count on her sticking around beyond a certain specific point.

Also, computer science becomes much more common later on in the game, and it has a very awesome secondary usage, which is that you can hack robots over to your side for the duration of a battle. Most robots, anyway. Some are impossible, but you can at least hack the mooks so they soak up damage meant for your team.

map · Post by **map** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 7:33 pm

I checked in at the citadel after silo 7 but nothing.

DOS=HIGH · Post by **DOS=HIGH** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 8:43 pm

map wrote:I checked in at the citadel after silo 7 but nothing.

Spoiler:

map · Post by **map** » Thu Oct 09, 2014 9:09 pm

Thanks. I finally stumbled onto it.
Just curios as to why it never showed on the map.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 8:22 am

NickAragua wrote:Re: Angela, I wouldn't count on her sticking around beyond a certain specific point.

Also, computer science becomes much more common later on in the game, and it has a very awesome secondary usage, which is that you can hack robots over to your side for the duration of a battle. Most robots, anyway. Some are impossible, but you can at least hack the mooks so they soak up damage meant for your team.

I forgot about the computer skill - I do have someone right now with that at 6 or 7 points and have really liked it for taking down safes and it's been useful for other things. I hadn't tried to hack anything else. My one experience with robots was horrifying and resulted in a party wipe...

Spoiler:

Re: Angela - she's not essential; her primary "skill" use for me is simply on the Bashing skill. I could probably pick up a different NPC for that.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 10:12 am

Heh, yeah, any time you encounter two or three slicer-dicer robots, you're in for a nasty fight. I tend to save my rockets either for those types of bad guys or for large clusters of mooks.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Fri Oct 10, 2014 11:55 am

NickAragua wrote:Heh, yeah, any time you encounter two or three slicer-dicer robots, you're in for a nasty fight. I tend to save my rockets either for those types of bad guys or for large clusters of mooks.

Yup. Rockets/grenades are your friend for these. I also used the Night Terror. It took a couple of tries to get it to work out, though. Just be careful to avoid hitting the NT with the explosives.

Lordnine · Post by **Lordnine** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 5:55 pm

Big patch just hit which sounds like it fixes a lot of problems in the late game as well as the enemy movement problem.

Highlights

- Large amount of memory optimizations, particularly with audio, to improve performance and stability on lower-spec systems and 32-bit operating systems.
- Fixed enemy “unlimited AP” movement bug that allowed them to sometimes move much farther than intended.
- Extensive improvements and fixes to California questlines, particularly in Hollywood and Griffith Park. May require you to load an older save file before Hollywood to fully benefit.
- Added a travel speed toggle to the world map, allowing you to zip and zoom around if you so please (doesn’t affect encounters, only travel speed).
- Added a new UI when CNPCs are recruited. This lets you more easily compare their stats and choose to dismiss one when a new one offers to join.
- Custom portraits will now work correctly when Windows account username contains non-English characters.
- Added support for “Very Large” text.
- Added 50 messages to load screens containing gameplay hints and tips.
- Loading now continues when the game is tabbed out, and pauses after finishing.
- Further UI fixes and improvements, such as new and correctly used icons.
- Many localization updates and bug fixes across all languages.

NickAragua · Post by **NickAragua** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 7:37 pm

Y'know, assuming that this patch actually fixes most of the California issues people have been having *and* they patch the friendly NPC AI up, I would recommend buying this game without reservation.

TheMix · Post by **TheMix** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 8:12 pm

Hmmm...

I just hit the jump to California a few days ago. I stopped based on the advice here. So maybe it's time to fire it up again.

astyanax · Post by **astyanax** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 10:25 pm

Lordnine wrote:Big patch just hit <snip>

Now THIS is what I've been waiting for (I hope)! I've been using the /3GB switch to work around Wasteland 2's issues with 32-bit systems, but it'd be nice not having to jump through that hoop.

I haven't quite made it to Dalmonta, but I've been having a lot of fun so far. I especially like how an area can consist of several maps without triggering a "I'm walking around too much" feeling. I'm enjoying all the little skill checks to make me feel like I've built my party solidly (or not). Sure, I could walk by all the buried treasures/junk, but what would be the fun in that?

Now to wait 2+ hours for the download to see if the patch will really make a difference.

Effidian · Post by **Effidian** » Mon Oct 13, 2014 10:54 pm

I finished this up with my party. I've got some mixed feelings about the game. Negatives first:

CA was really buggy (hopefully the new patch fixes that).
The fact that that attributes have no impact on skills (charisma/leadership aside) is pretty odd. Even the descriptions of the attributes make it sound like they should have an impact on the skills. Maybe they removed that at some point.
After the first few levels, leveling up didn't feel very meaningful. It would have been nice if the skills had some bonus when you hit certain levels. Or something.
Loot was not exciting. It was mainly a way for me to earn scrap in order to buy equipment at a vendor. Early vendors typically stocked almost the best equipment in an area, so really all you have to do is earn scrap and then purchase the best equipment. I'm not expecting an ARPG, but it is pretty bad when I go through disabling a trap, disabling an alarm, and safecrack to get a piece of 'junk'.
The AI consisted of the enemies rushing at me to get right next to my guys. So rather than them using cover or using any type of tactics at all, this is what they did the entire game. If the move fix in the new patch makes it so enemies use cover that would be a huge improvement.
The assault rifle feels considerably better than any of the other weapons. It would have been nice to have more balance.
I'm not fond of the armor mechanic. The way it works with penetration (100% damage if the weapon penetration is greater than the armor value) and the energy weapon mechanic (more armor = more damage) make it so wearing armor is of questionable use.

And the good:

Turn based party RPG, where I can create 4 of my characters.

Hmm... I wonder if I have mixed feeling because I really wanted to like the game and kinda didn't.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 3:05 am

The game does feel rushed though. I mean, we're talking Troika levels of rushed, but without Troika levels of grandeur.

Worth it for a kickstarter game of relatively low budget, but while it brings back a bit of the past, it brings back the problems that so many games have moved forward from.

Let's hope that using the Pillars of Eternity tech improves things for Numenera.

Paingod · Post by **Paingod** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 3:55 pm

Effidian wrote:
The AI consisted of the enemies rushing at me to get right next to my guys. So rather than them using cover or using any type of tactics at all, this is what they did the entire game. If the move fix in the new patch makes it so enemies use cover that would be a huge improvement.

I have mixed AI actions around cover.

"Human" enemies using Assault and other long range guns almost always go to cover and stay in cover until I flank and flush them out. I can run up next to an assault rifle user, and there's a good chance (maybe 70%) that he'll break cover and try to run to a different one, as long as one is within running distance that turn... but they always seem to try and go for cover first.

Pistol, explosives, and melee fighters all seem to be content standing in the open - as do animals and robots.

I am glad the unlimited AP bug is going. I've seen this a few times and it's horrifying to watch a Heavy Gunner walk up his typical 6 squares, and then keep going another 14 squares until he's right in the middle of your formation. Thankfully he's slow, so he's guaranteed dead before his next turn.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue Oct 14, 2014 8:00 pm

I'd have loved to see more AI interplay where those melee guys stay where they are and cover the shooters.

stimpy · Post by **stimpy** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 6:51 pm

Looked around the net, but couldn't find any answer, so I'll ask here.
I have Chisel in my group. But whenever a fight breaks out, he cant move.
He has APs, and he will melee fight anything that runs up to him, plus he'll shoot weapons, but his grid consists of only 1 square each way, and even then he doesnt move in any direction.

Anyone else experience this?

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:36 pm

stimpy wrote:Looked around the net, but couldn't find any answer, so I'll ask here.
I have Chisel in my group. But whenever a fight breaks out, he cant move.
He has APs, and he will melee fight anything that runs up to him, plus he'll shoot weapons, but his grid consists of only 1 square each way, and even then he doesnt move in any direction.

Anyone else experience this?

I had a character do this and it turned out that she was encumbered.

stimpy · Post by **stimpy** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 9:40 pm

$iljanus wrote:
stimpy wrote:Looked around the net, but couldn't find any answer, so I'll ask here.
I have Chisel in my group. But whenever a fight breaks out, he cant move.
He has APs, and he will melee fight anything that runs up to him, plus he'll shoot weapons, but his grid consists of only 1 square each way, and even then he doesnt move in any direction.

Anyone else experience this?
I had a character do this and it turned out that she was encumbered.

I thought it may be something like that, but I've emptied his inventory out and still no movement during combat.

Angnomander · Post by **Angnomander** » Sun Oct 19, 2014 10:19 pm

stimpy wrote:
$iljanus wrote:
stimpy wrote:Looked around the net, but couldn't find any answer, so I'll ask here.
I have Chisel in my group. But whenever a fight breaks out, he cant move.
He has APs, and he will melee fight anything that runs up to him, plus he'll shoot weapons, but his grid consists of only 1 square each way, and even then he doesnt move in any direction.

Anyone else experience this?
I had a character do this and it turned out that she was encumbered.
I thought it may be something like that, but I've emptied his inventory out and still no movement during combat.

Debuff icon? I had a leg wound once.

astyanax · Post by **astyanax** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 1:05 am

stimpy wrote:He has APs, and he will melee fight anything that runs up to him, plus he'll shoot weapons, but his grid consists of only 1 square each way, and even then he doesnt move in any direction.

Is he wearing armor that he doesn't have the strength for? Some armors have a combat speed penalty, with a greater penalty if the character doesn't meet the strength requirements. Kinda funny that it doesn't affect out-of-combat movement, though.

stimpy · Post by **stimpy** » Mon Oct 20, 2014 9:45 am

Ha!!! Seems the armor is the issue. Whats weird is the armor requires a strength of 6 and he has 8.
It does have a -.08 effect on combat movement, which I thought should be extremely minimal, but I took the armor off and voila......he can move.

Thanks for the help!!!