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[Chance Hale]

No, some characters just automatically join if you meet other conditions (finish a quest for them etc.), and the people in Highpool and Ag Center are like that. Could be a bug, could be that you didn't meet the right prereqs.

Couldn't it be that the prereq I didn't meet was charisma? There was an old hobo in the Nomad camp that wouldn't join because he said "I smelled" Highpool was probably a bug though.

Did I read earlier in the thread that there was a big character texture pack in the works? Three of my four main crew are now decked in amigo hats, and the last in a cowboy hat. Good fun

 

[Enduin]

Do you save scum every random loot chest until you get something satisfying? If not, why not?

No, too big a waste of time. Something is better than nothing.

 

[-tetsuo-]

I am streaming a little bit, about 20 hours into the game. Warning my friends ins skype are silly and playing XCOM.

twitch.tv/monsters_arcade

 

[UncleSporky]

Well guys, I found it.

Hmm, worth $0. Should I flag as junk?

 

[JBourne]

I don't know if I've ever been this bad at a game. At 2.5 hours in (including a lot of time in character creation), half of my team is dead. My shotgun/sniper survivor has 4 shells and no bullets. My melee guy is getting wrecked by enemies that explode on defeat.

I'm playing on easy. It's still been fun, but damn.

 

[Volodja]

I'm not sure how anyone could think that unless they didn't actually play X-Com: Enemy Unknown. The cramped environments and forced melee aspects alone strike a sharp contrast. You don't have protracted range battles utilizing cover and flanking in Wasteland 2 like you do in X-Com. The combat is okay, but it is very much a dumbed down version of what you find in X-Com. That's fine, but don't mislead people who may be interested in the game.

I'm really enjoying the game, but the combat is very basic.

I've actually had relatively protracted ranged battles with flanking and all that. Of course, some enemies just charge at you so they take that option out, but it happens once in a while. I mean, in certain situations having cover is pretty much a must unless you want to use all your medpacks.
I wouldn't mind if the game had some utility abilities, smoke screens, flashbangs and stuff like that.

Speaking of improvements, I would like if the game recognized cover outside of combat, as it is I'm basically setting up people behind what I assume will transform into cover and most of the time I'm right, but the spacing is all wrong so sometimes one of them shifts out of cover when combat starts.

 

[Shake Appeal]

Wow, the

Spoiler

Rail Nomad

area is huge.

 

[Volodja]

Wow, the

Spoiler

Rail Nomad

area is huge.

I hope you'll have more luck with them than I did.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I've actually had relatively protracted ranged battles with flanking and all that. Of course, some enemies just charge at you so they take that option out, but it happens once in a while. I mean, in certain situations having cover is pretty much a must unless you want to use all your medpacks.
I wouldn't mind if the game had some utility abilities, smoke screens, flashbangs and stuff like that.

There's definitely tactics and strategy in combat, but it's not refined or precise in the way that XCOM is. Wasteland 2's regular battles are fine, being varied or interesting in their construction or approach, but the random battles feel like wastes of time and resources. XCOM, meanwhile, has 100% random battles that always require the highest amounts of excellence and concentration from both you and your troops; they are never a waste of anything.

Wasteland 2 could do a lot of things better, in all honesty... but that doesn't mean it isn't great as it is. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, it's more than the sum of its individual parts.

 

[Volodja]

There's definitely tactics and strategy in combat, but it's not refined or precise in the way that XCOM is. Wasteland 2's regular battles are fine, being varied or interesting in their construction or approach, but the random battles feel like wastes of time and resources. XCOM, meanwhile, has 100% random battles that always require the highest amounts of excellence and concentration from you and your troops; they are never a waste of anything.

Wasteland 2 could do a lot of things better, in all honesty... but that doesn't mean it isn't great as it is. As someone mentioned earlier in this thread, it's more than the sum of its individual parts.

I mean, sure, like I said, this game lacks all utility abilities and not only that, that's a big difference in complexity and options.
However, I've never fought a single random battle, so there's that.
I actually didn't enjoy the combat much at the start because it was impossibile to make any plan when nothing hit and the enemies all rushed at you (ranged focused team), but now that I can actually obliterate things if I setup correctly, it has become much better.

Other than that the fights in this game remind me more of the original XCom than they do of the last one anyway.

 

[Joseph Merrick]

enemies aren't even on the map before you encounter them/they start attacking you in newer xcom. fuck that game.

 

[Sanctuary]

I don't know if they did this intentionally, but is

Spoiler

Scotchmo

supposed to be a Hobo with a Shotgun reference?

 

[Grayman]

As mentioned a few pages back the prison area doesn't make sense to me on the first visit. It's the first area in the game that can't just be solved. I guess it is training for that to occur later but it seems jarring that the game just says come back when you are stronger.

The area doesn't make a lot of writing sense to me in that I am able to

Spoiler

kill a whole bunch of RMS, kill their tax collector, and then just walk around the plantations and even up to the laser canon gate without hostility.

I can suspend disbelief that no one saw me kill 30 people in two areas and none of the victims radioed it in. Still though I don't think I should be welcome to walk around that area as a prospective farm worker. There just needs to be some patchup dialog about not starting a war with the rangers right now, or something.

It may sound like nitpicking. Maybe I just missed a piece of text that would have tied it together or I broke a sequence somewhere. If not maybe that complaint is something that will help a future game.

I feel like my team should have been

Spoiler

shot by a sniper at the big front gates. Or chased out town by RMS raiders and only be able to come after getting a plot coupon and the map is recooked to night time with patrolling guards.

Wow, the

Spoiler

Rail Nomad

area is huge.

Yeah each map is very sprawling and their seems to be a few. I actually left the area part way through to come back later. Maybe the area is later used for a huge battle that needs progressed through sort of like fallout new vegas and the dam because as an explorable area it may be realistic but its a lot of empty space.

 

[The Illiterati]

Is there somewhere to trade/sell near the Rail Nomad Camp that I am just missing? No one has any scrap to give in exchange. I am completely done here, loaded down for bear and would like to go to Darwin Camp(Is there a store here?) before going back to the Citadel.

 

[Gazoinks]

It's probably just the magic of the RNG gods, but I'm finding way more assault rifle ammo than I expected to. The description of ammo being expensive made me think it was scarce so I only gave the skill to one dude, but it is all over the place!

Sniper bullets on the other hand...

 

[ZombieSupaStar]

I'd be more than fine with a single constant autosave feature that you can't control if that's the game they want us to play. Have it save in each new area or after each major action or at certain time intervals. I don't really care. I'm more than capable of playing an Ironman like setup. But right now to just expect players to accept failure on their own is just not realistic nor good game design, so they should have come up with some better systems if they don't expect or want players to reload saves often.

I liked how new vegas handled that with the terminals they made you wait like 30 seconds or something if you reloaded a save after u failed hacking one.

 

[BeesEight]

It's probably just the magic of the RNG gods, but I'm finding way more assault rifle ammo than I expected to. The description of ammo being expensive made me think it was scarce so I only gave the skill to one dude, but it is all over the place!

Sniper bullets on the other hand...

I want your RNG. I started moving some characters over to assault rifles because of how they've been hyped and between them and my heavy weapons ranger, I'm almost always on empty.

I have a ton of pistol and sniper rifle ammo though.

I liked how new vegas handled that with the terminals they made you wait like 30 seconds or something if you reloaded a save after u failed hacking one.

Really? Ha, never knew that. If I had one try left on a hack and didn't know the password, I just logged off and tried again fresh.

Personally, I would be happy if they just removed the hacking and lockpicking mini-game in New Vegas. They were redundant since you had to pass a skill threshold to even start them.

 

[Gazoinks]

I want your RNG. I started moving some characters over to assault rifles because of how they've been hyped and between them and my heavy weapons ranger, I'm almost always on empty.

I have a ton of pistol and sniper rifle ammo though.

Can we switch? I have way too much Assault Rifle and almost no Pistol/SMG and Sniper.

 

[Parakeetman]

man the stuff raiders drop is worth less than the bullet i used to give em a new eye with D:

 

[Shengar]

So melee is ultimately useless?

 

[UncleSporky]

man the stuff raiders drop is worth less than the bullet i used to give em a new eye with D:

Makes me want to design an all-melee party (or at least good enough in melee) just for collecting loot without having any drain on resources.

So melee is ultimately useless?

Nope, it can be quite good, it's nice being able to hit lots of times in succession, and without using any ammo. You know how enemies mess up your aiming by running right up next to you? You can do the same to them.

Plus a lot of gunners get confused if you blow their cover. They like to sit safely around the corner of a crate or something and shoot at you from there, but if there's suddenly no place to hide they'll freak out and run out in the open where your other guys can pick them off. Gunners don't know what to do with melee sometimes.

 

[Parakeetman]

Makes me want to design an all-melee party (or at least good enough in melee) just for collecting loot without having any drain on resources.

seriously. im thinking the exact same thing.

my mr. fixit guy can melee but he doesnt have the speed or init to really close the gap to make him viable as a main pipe hitter.

he does ok if they get up too close though. i usually pair him with the sniper.

 

[Shengar]

Makes me want to design an all-melee party (or at least good enough in melee) just for collecting loot without having any drain on resources.



Nope, it can be quite good, it's nice being able to hit lots of times in succession, and without using any ammo. You know how enemies mess up your aiming by running right up next to you? You can do the same to them.

Plus a lot of gunners get confused if you blow their cover. They like to sit safely around the corner of a crate or something and shoot at you from there, but if there's suddenly no place to hide they'll freak out and run out in the open where your other guys can pick them off. Gunners don't know what to do with melee sometimes.

Hmm, I see. I want to make one character have melee as its main weapon, but not sure which is the best: Blade, blunt, or hand-to-hand? Also by your reply to Parakeetman, it seems that it's more practical to have melee as side fighting skills instead of close range weapon like pistol.

 

[hemtae]

man the stuff raiders drop is worth less than the bullet i used to give em a new eye with D:

I went a little off the beaten track and got some really good assault rifles from the raiders.

 

[Last Hearth]

I heard all the horror stories so I deliberately created one character who's melee with a backup shotgun just to conserve ammo. But so far I'm not having trouble with ammo, of course I'm still fairly early in the game, so we'll see how long that lasts.

 

[Grayman]

So melee is ultimately useless?

My brawler has been doing well in the early game. He may fall off as damage resistance raises later in the game if there is not a power fist type weapon though.

Just from the manual blunt weapons seem like the strong choice with high crits and armor penetration.

 

[Parakeetman]

I went a little off the beaten track and got some really good assault rifles from the raiders.

i now know that this game isnt like fallout where you can strip everything from the corpses and seems to be a little random as you dont always get their weapons. wonder if character luck has a hand in this?

 

[Begaria]

I'm loaded to the nuts with Tactical Armor, high quality weaponry, ammunition, and healing items. I'm playing on what's probably the "normal" difficulty and I'm finding the combat a little bit too easy now to the point where I think I should increase the difficulty if that is a possibility while mid-game. It started off hard due to the lack of everything, but by the time I was through with the Ag Center, I knew the combat inside and out and had a good arsenal. Now, I'm just heading into the Canyons with all of this awesome stuff.

Glad I played through the isometric RPGs of the late 90s. Everything is just clicking with me for Wasteland 2.

 

[Mad Hatter]

The game logic of these monks in

Spoiler

Canyon of Titan

are kind of stupid in practice. I attempted to

Spoiler

fill up my bucket of radioactive sludge

next to the raider who's to sell it, then raiders attack ME and my own monk gets pissed and turns on me! And then, there'll be other raiders who have a monk with them who will have no problem attacking me with a monk, and THEIR monk is totally cool with it. such bullshit

 

[yo_soy_el_topo]

Just making sure there is no way to position your character as you end your turn?

 

[UncleSporky]

Hmm, I see. I want to make one character have melee as its main weapon, but not sure which is the best: Blade, blunt, or hand-to-hand?

Blunt weapons are probably best as they have high damage on their own and don't require as much strength to be effective as the others, and armor penetration which is a big deal later on.

I don't think brawling/fist weapons can be modded at all, which sucks. I hope they balanced them based on that fact but from what I hear they may not have done enough.

 

[willooi]

Amazing game, better than I could ever have imagined. And my name is in the credits! (along with like a million other people =p)

I love the little details:

- Had a mad monk blow himself up near my team, which burned all the clothing off my squadmates.
- Also, radio'ing HQ while in the canyon pass where there's tons of static brings up the same level up confirmation, but it comes through all fuzzy.
- The red button in Citadel HQ.
- Honest Jon's arcade in the Rail Nomad Camp, selling a Sega Genesis and Neo-Geo.
- Also love how dialogue can end abruptly and isn't just a case of clicking all the options until they're all clear.

 

[Grayman]

Just making sure there is no way to position your character as you end your turn?

I haven't noticed directional facing making a difference in the game yet.

 

[Begaria]

- The red button in Citadel HQ.

Yeah, that got me to.

"They COULDN'T have..."

*pushes button*

"Oh my god, they did. Awesome."

 

[Sanctuary]

I want your RNG. I started moving some characters over to assault rifles because of how they've been hyped and between them and my heavy weapons ranger, I'm almost always on empty.

I have a ton of pistol and sniper rifle ammo though.

By level 10 at the latest, you should be swimming in ammo. Mostly because by that point you should have found/purchased weapons that do waaaaaaaaay more damage per bullet (not just damage/AP). I just got an M16 Assault Rifle, and it does more damage than my current best Sniper, and is only 1m shy of the Sniper's max distance...

Currently using 3x ARs, 1x Sniper, 1x Shotgun, 1x Pistol, 1x Crowbar and I've had zero issues. I just wonder if Heavy Weapons would even be worth a consideration at all since all I've found so far use the same ammo that my ARs use and it chews through them per shot. Energy weapons seem like what you would want late game, but I still can't make heads or tails out of the "at, above, below" modifiers. I know it's based off of the enemy's armor and that the higher the armor the better they do, but the tooltip just seems nonsensical.

Say a weapon has a 2 threshold. Then it says above = 0.5x, at = 0.9x and below = 2.4x? Huh? If energy weapons are supposed to be better against armor, why do you do more damage if their armor is below 2?

So melee is ultimately useless?

Melee is fantastic for flanking enemies that keep crouching behind objects, lowering your hit chance with guns. Crowbars can be as low as 2 AP per swing, have a decent crit damage multiplier, and great armor penetration. They are also very good for finishing off lower health enemies that are within running and one attack distance. You'll probably eventually want a secondary ranged weapon on them though. Something like shotguns or SMG since they are close ranged weapons anyway.

 

[Gazoinks]

Just discovered you can dynamite open safes. Awesome. They did a really nice job of building a lot of options into the skill system.

 

[LurkerPrime]

By level 10 at the latest, you should be swimming in ammo. Mostly because by that point you should have found/purchased weapons that do waaaaaaaaay more damage per bullet (not just damage/AP). I just got an M16 Assault Rifle, and it does more damage than my current best Sniper, and is only 1m shy of the Sniper's max distance...

Currently using 3x ARs, 1x Sniper, 1x Shotgun, 1x Pistol, 1x Crowbar and I've had zero issues. I just wonder if Heavy Weapons would even be worth a consideration at all since all I've found so far use the same ammo that my ARs use and it chews through them per shot. Energy weapons seem like what you would want late game, but I still can't make heads or tails out of the "at, above, below" modifiers. I know it's based off of the enemy's armor and that the higher the armor the better they do, but the tooltip just seems nonsensical.

Energy Weapons basically turn the armor system on its head. You want the energy weapon to horribly fail a pierce check, as it will cause a greatly increased amount of damage dealt. The critical multiplayer makes it about as good as a sniper rifle, but with the AP cost of lesser weapons (either pistol or AR). Some even have burst fire, which can be incredible damage against targets that would be otherwise very difficult to kill.

I can't recall the specifics beyond that.... the armour system is pretty complicated. I want to say it's a 50% damage reduction per point of armour above your piercing capability, but that sounds really high.

Just discovered you can dynamite open safes. Awesome. They did a really nice job of building a lot of options into the skill system.

Agreed. Twelve hours into the game I realized you could just bash open locked gates. What a revelation that was!

 

[O.DOGG]

Damn, after trying everything I lost

Spoiler

Red Baychowski in Damonta

. I hate the AI on the non-controllable companions in combat. They always rush with all their action points and just stand next to the enemy waiting to get slaughtered. Sorry,

Spoiler

Red

but it was your own damn fault.

 

[Gazoinks]

Agreed. Twelve hours into the game I realized you could just bash open locked gates. What a revelation that was!

Yeah, that's great too. Makes critical failures a lot less painful. I need to try exploding doors sometime, that probably works too.

 

[Sanctuary]

Energy Weapons basically turn the armor system on its head. You want the energy weapon to horribly fail a pierce check, as it will cause a greatly increased amount of damage dealt. The critical multiplayer makes it about as good as a sniper rifle, but with the AP cost of lesser weapons (either pistol or AR). Some even have burst fire, which can be incredible damage against targets that would be otherwise very difficult to kill.

I can't recall the specifics beyond that.... the armour system is pretty complicated. I want to say it's a 50% damage reduction per point of armour above your piercing capability, but that sounds really high.

I know how it's supposed to work, but you ended up quoting me before my ninja. Again though, the tooltip is nonsensical. It's saying that I do more damage if I am going below the threshold (which means I wouldn't fail to penetrate) instead of working the inverse to that like it should. I haven't actually played around with them yet on any higher armored enemies, so I don't know if it's just a screwed up tooltip, or just another bug (hello leadership skill).

 

[batfax]

Yeah, that's great too. Makes critical failures a lot less painful. I need to try exploding doors sometime, that probably works too.

It does. In fact, after a while I found I had a surplus of explosives... suddenly all my problems could be blasted away. A real joy, too.

 

[Reneledarker]

Hello Wasteland GAF!

I am having a great time with the game. I usually play on windowed mode, but something I do not like about the game is that it locks the mouse in the game window, is there a way to unlock it?

 

[Metroidvania]

Man, I'm in

Spoiler

Cali

, and it's quite evident that this wasn't beta-tested.

It's not functionally broken, but I've got repeatable turn-ins for infinite xp (albeit at the cost of scrap), missing triggers/checks, glitchy cut-scenes triggering forever-locked-inside doors....ugh.

Still trucking along, though.

 

[LurkerPrime]

I know how it's supposed to work, but you ended up quoting me before my ninja. Again though, the tooltip is nonsensical. It's saying that I do more damage if I am going below the threshold (which means I wouldn't fail to penetrate) instead of working the inverse to that like it should. I haven't actually played around with them yet on any higher armored enemies, so I don't know if it's just a screwed up tooltip, or just another bug (hello leadership skill).

That is what it says, and it is accurate. It is a unique weapon specifically designed to combat high armour opponents, and (I would imagine) mechanical units. It has no crit chance and is averse to armour piercing to encourage using it to combat high armour units. If it merely pierced armour, it would be too useful (or maybe not enough) against regular opponents.

I think it's a real good addition. It works really well with my brutish boxer.


Edit: That's a real bummer to hear, Metroidvania. I wonder if they pushed this out earlier than they wanted because of a lack of funds or something? Anyways, I hope they continue fixing up the game instead of dropping it to focus on Tides.

 

[ixix]

I know how it's supposed to work, but you ended up quoting me before my ninja. Again though, the tooltip is nonsensical. It's saying that I do more damage if I am going below the threshold (which means I wouldn't fail to penetrate) instead of working the inverse to that like it should. I haven't actually played around with them yet on any higher armored enemies, so I don't know if it's just a screwed up tooltip, or just another bug (hello leadership skill).

I think you're reading the tooltip backwards. What it's saying is that the damage multiplier changes based on whether the weapon's listed Armor Threshold is Above, At, or Below the target's Armor value. So if we take the Herbicide as an example, with its Armor Threshold of 2 and its listed Above, At, and Below multipliers of 0.4x, 0.9x, and 2.2x, what the tooltip is saying is:

If the weapon's Armor Threshold is Above the target's Armor, the damage is multiplied by 0.4
If the weapon's Armor Threshold is At (or, more coherently, Equal to) the target's Armor, the damage is multiplied by 0.9
If the weapon's Armor Threshold is Below the target's Armor, the damage is multiplied by 2.2

That's the way it's supposed to be read, and accurately reflects the way energy weapons work in practice; the Above, At, and Below statements are referring to the Armor Threshold of the weapon relative to the target's Armor, not the target's Armor relative to the weapon's Armor Threshold. So the lower the weapon's Armor Threshold and the higher the target's Armor, the more damage the energy weapon does.

It's also pretty readily apparent but still notable that some energy weapons will never do their listed damage. The Herbicide has a listed damage range of 10-19, but no matter the Armor of the target it will deal either 40%, 90%, or 220% of that. The base damage range will never, ever be what it deals, no matter what the armor of the target is.

Complicated things, these death rays.

 

[Violet_0]

Well guys, I found it.



Hmm, worth $0. Should I flag as junk?

well

Spoiler

the doc in the Citadel just sent me out to find a cure for his lung cancer so maybe ... this is it?

btw who in the Citadel wants Ace's ranger star? I think I spoke with everyone there

 

[Sanctuary]

I think you're reading the tooltip backwards. What it's saying is that the damage multiplier changes based on whether the weapon's listed Armor Threshold is Above, At, or Below the target's Armor value. So if we take the Herbicide as an example, with its Armor Threshold of 2 and its listed Above, At, and Below multipliers of 0.4x, 0.9x, and 2.2x, what the tooltip is saying is:

If the weapon's Armor Threshold is Above the target's Armor, the damage is multiplied by 0.4
If the weapon's Armor Threshold is At (or, more coherently, Equal to) the target's Armor, the damage is multiplied by 0.9
If the weapon's Armor Threshold is Below the target's Armor, the damage is multiplied by 2.2

That's the way it's supposed to be read, and accurately reflects the way energy weapons work in practice; the Above, At, and Below statements are referring to the Armor Threshold of the weapon relative to the target's Armor, not the target's Armor relative to the weapon's Armor Threshold. So the lower the weapon's Armor Threshold and the higher the target's Armor, the more damage the energy weapon does.

It's also pretty readily apparent but still notable that some energy weapons will never do their listed damage. The Herbicide has a listed damage range of 10-19, but no matter the Armor of the target it will deal either 40%, 90%, or 220% of that. The base damage range will never, ever be what it deals, no matter what the armor of the target is.

Complicated things, these death rays.

Yeah, it would have been nice if the manual had actually stated as much. The only thing it mentions is how the higher the armor, the better the weapons will do, although it seems like that's only partially true. It's not really the bigger and thicker (manual) as though it's scaling, it's if it's higher at all. So from what you're saying above, a threshold of 2 would need to simply be going against an armor of 3 for the 2.2 bonus? The way you worded it is how I assumed it was supposed to work, but the tooltip is not helpful at all, specifically because of how it uses the word threshold by itself.

 

[Jaevlar]

well

Spoiler

the doc in the Citadel just sent me out to find a cure for his lung cancer so maybe ... this is it?

btw who in the Citadel wants Ace's ranger star? I think I spoke with everyone there

The guy running the museum gladly took Ace's star from me.

 

[LurkerPrime]

Today I spent two hours being mauled by too many Honey Badgers, and two hours lost in the hedge maze that is Ranger's Citadel.

Whew.

Complicated things, these death rays.

This got me. Well done.

 

[Violet_0]

The guy running the museum gladly took Ace's star from me.

thanks!

at lvl 7-8 now snipers and energy weapons have suddenly become a lot more viable. That sweet, sweet armor penetration