Wasteland 2: The Post-Apocalypse 27 Years In The Making!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Wasteland 2: The Post-Apocalypse 27 Years In The Making!

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

SO HI, IF YOU ARE COMING TO THIS THREAD FOR THE FIRST TIME, THIS IS THE ORGANIZATION: THE FIRST POST IS FOR OMG-THE-GAME-IS-HAPPENING HYPE, THE SECOND POST IS (PRIMARILY) FOR ACTUAL ADVICE/TIPS/BUGFIXES FOR THE GAME :siren:

WASTELAND 2: DIRECTOR'S CUT COMES OUT AT MIDNIGHT, OCTOBER 13, 2015!!! :siren:

Rinkles posted:

Director's Edition (pre)release FAQ: http://steamcommunity.com/app/240760/discussions/0/520518688941619778/

The gameplay section:

What is new in the Director's Cut?
Wasteland 2 Director's Cut changes a huge number of aspects of the game. Our main new features and changes include:
Graphical overhaul and update to the Unity 5 game engine.
Expanded voice-over with thousands of newly-voiced lines for key characters and scenes.
Precision Strikes system allows you to target individual body parts on enemies in combat, which lets you inflict negative status effects on them.
Perks system lets you pick bonuses for your characters as they level up.
Quirks system lets you pick a personality trait for each custom created Ranger during character creation, with a gameplay-modifying positive and negative quality.
Rebalanced gameplay, including virtually all combat encounters, weapons, loot drops and containers.
Controller support on PC and console.
There's plenty of smaller additions to be found, of course, but we'll leave those for you to find.

Has game balance been affected?
Yes. Weapon stats, loot drops, container locations and contents scenes, merchant inventories, and more have all been changed. Almost every combat encounter in the game has been rebalanced and touched up with different enemy placement, numbers, types, cover positions, and more.

Are there new weapons?
Yep! We've added a smattering of unique weapons throughout the game that are in hard-to-find places - locked and hidden containers, carried by critical NPCs, and so on. The core weapon categories haven't changed, however.

Has the armor system changed?
We've changed the light/heavy armor distinction so that now heavy armor is Conductive, and certain enemies you find will also be marked as Conductive. Energy Weapons now do bonus damage to Conductive targets, and less damage to normal targets, instead of scaling off of the enemy's armor value.

Are there new skills, attributes or significant character system changes?
We haven't changed the existing character system, so all the old attributes, skills and so on are still there. However, Quirks and Perks will significantly affect how you choose to build your squad, due to their requirements and gameplay changes.

I was hoping attributes would be overhauled (intelligence in particular). The other stuff sounds good, though.

New trailer with gamepad UI:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZTh6DdFYT40

ALSO WASTELAND 2: PC WORLD GAME OF THE YEAR 2014.

:smug:

BRIAN FARGO/FARAN BRYGO
INXILE ENTERTAINMENT
AND A LITTLE BIT OF OBSIDIAN ENTERTAINMENT
PROUDLY PRESENT

........................
W A S T E L A N D
...........2...........

THE TRIUMPHANT RETURN OF ISOMETRIC/TOP-DOWN TURN-BASED-COMBAT, OPEN-WORLD, POST-APOCALYPTIC ROLE-PLAYING :siren:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jn0B8fVfWFI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_FTLv50c8Qg

Brian Fargo posted:

Wasteland was an epic game changer among the RPG genre and did a wonderful job of creating a sandbox type world that served up morality decisions that players were not used to. Even on recent press tours around the world ranging from Europe to Asia I always without exception would be asked about a Wasteland sequel. Clearly this was a game that resonated with the fans and now for the first time there is hope.

REVIEW SECTION
Eurogamer's glowing pre-release review
Eurogamer's release review

Q: "Wait, uh, what was Wasteland 1 again?"
A: Maybe these will help jog your memory:

A: No? HOW ABOUT THIS?

!!!!!!!!!

A: Oh, still nothing? Well, Wasteland is a computer role-playing game released initially in 1988 for the major computers of the time--Apple II, Commodore 64/128, and IBM compatible/MS-DOS. It was the first post-apocalyptic genre RPG, and likely the first post-apocalyptic computer game. I do not want to paste things from the Wikipedia entry here, but suffice to say it has been making "best games of the year/decade/all time" lists ever since its release due to its many innovations, not to mention getting nostalgic write-ups, be they as part of Fallout retrospectives or just about the game on its own merits. Here are a couple of said retrospectives: IGN's and Game Banshee's.

Q: "So, Fallout, then."

A: Yes, Fallout, but if you have a copy of the original Fallout, look at the inside flap of the box, and see that the first line is "Remember Wasteland?" Brian Fargo, who was then CEO of Interplay, wanted to make a sequel to Wasteland (as mentioned above), but learned Electronic Arts retained the rights to do so (though ironically the rights would have lapsed had Interplay not released the "10 Year Anniversary" collection which included Wasteland). Plus, while Fallout and Wasteland are certainly similar in a lot of ways, Wasteland has also maintained an intriguingly rabid cult/fan base for 25+ years now (x-ref: Snake Squeezins Yahoo Group, Wasteland Ranger HQ-Grid).

Another way to look at it: Name something memorable about Fallout 1, 2, or New Vegas, and there is a decent chance Wasteland inspired it. For example: Las Vegas played a prominent role in the first game, complete with two warring authority figures who inspired the Junktown plot of Fallout 1, and in the center of the city was the Scorpitron, which made a dramatic return in New World Blues. Wasteland's legendary Guardian Citadel became Fallout's Brotherhood of Steel, though the former group was even more xenophobic and insular(!). The Ranger Center and its Desert Rangers were seemingly the model for the New California Republic, to the point that New Vegas had an enormous statue representing NCR's "merger" with the Wasteland/Nevada Desert Rangers. Various lines of dialogue, ancillary characters, and dozens of other references and thematic similarities litter the Fallout games; you can read more here if you like. Indeed, it basically sounds like Brian Fargo just wanted to do a gritty reboot of Wasteland, despite the fact that the original was roughly as gritty as its spiritual sequel.

Though this all might lead you to ask...

Q: "So how will this be different from Fallout?"
A: The big one is likely the fact that Wasteland was a paean to 1980s pop culture and fears of nuclear annihilation, which needless to say has a much different feel than Fallout's 1950s atmosphere. Beyond that, well, it is a pretty beautiful synthesis of ideas and style from both games, honestly.

IN WASTELAND 2,
YOU ARE A
DESERT RANGER

What are the Desert Rangers?

Let Brian Fargo explain it for you once again:

Brian Fargo posted:

On the same day that the U.S. and Soviet Union were attempting to extinguish each other, a company of U.S. Army Engineers were in the southwestern deserts building transportation bridges over dry riverbeds. They worked deep in the inhospitable desert valleys, surrounded by a number of survivalist communities. Located directly south of their position on that day was a newly-constructed federal prison. In addition to housing the nation’s criminals condemned to death, the prison contained light industrial manufacturing facilities.

Shortly after the nuclear attack began, the Engineers, seeking shelter, took over the federal prison and expelled the prisoners into the desolate desert to complete their sentences. As the weeks passed, they invited the nearby survivalist communities to join them and to help them build a new society. Because of each community’s suspicions towards one another, times were difficult at first. But as time nurtured trust, this settlement -- which came to be known as Ranger Center -- grew to be one of the strongest outposts. Ranger Center even proved powerful enough to repel the hands of rancorous criminals who repeatedly attacked in attempts to reclaim what was once “rightfully theirs.”

The citizens of Ranger Center, after first believing that they were the only ones who survived the nuclear maelstrom, soon realized that communities beyond the desert’s grip had also survived, Because they had such success in constructing a new community, they felt compelled to help other survivors rebuild and live in peace.

Toward this end, the Desert Rangers, in the great tradition of the Texas and Arizona Rangers a century before, were born.

(and yes, for those of you who played Fallout: New Vegas and particularly Old World Blues, you will recognize Wasteland popping up throughout--from the enormous status of the NCR aligning with the Desert Rangers to the Proton Ax and even, in my opinion, to the respawn rate in the Dome)

SPEAKING OF THE GAME THOUGH--WHAT IS IT LIKE, FOR REAL???

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9-hPDdLMuN0
Well, if you have ever played Fallout, Fallout 2, even Baldur's Gate or Icewind Dale, uhh, Jagged Alliance, or any other game where you look down at the group of little people you control and move around the map, you will likely feel right at home here. Even if you have only ever played real-time strategy games, you might pick this up pretty easily!

The game is split ala most of the aforementioned games into world-map and local-map exploration; on the world map, your characters will slowly unveil the fog of war, encounter radiation fields, attempt to avoid (or intentionally blunder into) ambushes, and generally try to not die of thirst. The local map is where the micromagic happens: walking, talking, wheeling, dealing, learning, earning, spending, and of course, rending. If you have basically ever played an RPG you know how the local map works--people to talk to, things to buy, occasional dudes trying to play RATT on the jukebox who try to stab you.

If you are exclusively a first-person shooter and puzzler player or something, will you still like Wasteland 2? Well, if you love post-apocalyptic fiction and enjoy reading in your games, then, probably. Wasteland 2 hearkens back to the days before every CRPG was expected to be fully voice-acted, so there is a LOT of dialogue. I forgot the exact figure quoted, though someone will surely tell me, but in total I know the game is as many words as you would expect to find in a half-dozen novels or so...

...but of course the whole point of Wasteland 2 using text outside of important scenes is because there are so many things you cannot see on a single playthrough. Support one side in a conflict, and you shut off all communication with the other side--or, of course, you might just decide to gun down both sides from the get-go and miss out on all of it. Being able to do all kinds of crazy things that most CRPGs prohibit (like killing "quest-important NPCs") is a staple of the Wasteland vision. Yes, Ugly John, I still remember how successful you were in keeping me from even realizing you could save Felicia.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juemg0G1UNg
(gameplay from early this year)

Q. I AM SO CONFUSED NOW THAT I STARTED, HOW DO I PLAY? HOW DO I MAKE MY OWN CHARACTERS ANY GOOD?
A. Just as with the original game, you are sort of expected to play with the default party to get a feel for how the game plays--you certainly do not have to, but you will likely be far more successful if you have a sense for how the game operates. I am not going to say too much about how this is a throwback to when GAMES WERE HARD, GNAR GNAR GNAR! because honestly some games have been hard for as long as there have been games, so saying this is oldschool hard is not really that helpful. BUT what I can tell you is that it is the kind of hard where you are more likely to realize you have been doing something totally wrong and are dying constantly as a result than you are to breeze through the game by accident. And I think that is FANTASTIC.

A few general hints, though--this is the apocalypse sort of like you might expect the apocalypse to be, so you may actually find yourself unable to find ammunition for your weapons if you try to have everyone use the same guns. Hard to run out of ammo for a PROTON AX, THOUGH, AM I RIGHT????? You are a team of Desert Rangers for a reason--no one character is ever likely to be a force of nature unto her/himself, and you need to consider balancing skills and abilities as with any good party-based RPG.

Q. YOU DID NOT ANSWER ANY OF THE QUESTIONS I HAVE ABOUT WASTELAND 2!!!!!!
A. Yeah that is probably true. I am legitimately sorry this post is not chock-full of advice as to how to play and enjoy the game; I have barely been able to play the beta myself, so I am not yet able to gush at length about its wonderful nuance, other than to say IF YOU LIKE FALLOUT YOU WILL LOVE THIS GAME FOR REAL.

But the Wasteland fans of the Games forum are legendarily helpful and enthusiastic, so any further questions you have will be answered quickly in the thread, I imagine, and I will be updating the original post.

Q. WHEN DOES IT COME OUT THOUGH????
A. OH MY GOD IT IS OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:siren:

FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2014: W-DAY :siren:

I would be playing all day myself, but I will be too busy hanging out at the release party :smug:

actually I will probably play all day until it is time to go to the release party :unsmug:

Q. I STILL HAVE QUESTIONS
A. I know. Ask them. As I said, I will update this post. But my flight leaves in like five hours and THIS THREAD MUST EXIST

Furism posted:

Mention the trick where the scraps are sold $20 in the Citadel but only like $7 anywhere else.

I AM MENTIONING THIS TRICK IN THE ORIGINAL POST, BY REQUEST sorry Funnypost Collabo I cut your special archive for post size

_{one last thing...if you care to read it, here is a link to the Wasteland 2 Kickstarter thread, which served as the Forums' gathering place for our post-apocalyptic hopes and dreams...UNTIL NOW! Oh, I will miss that thread.}

Dr. Quarex fucked around with this message at 19:30 on Oct 12, 2015

# ? Sep 18, 2014 04:34

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 04:45

Dr. Quarex: Apr 18, 2003; I'M A BIG DORK WHO POSTS TOO MUCH ABOUT CONVENTIONS LOOK AT THIS

TOVA TOVA TOVA

And finally, here is all of the Wasteland fan fiction I have been writing since 1990^{[broken link]}

CONSIDER THIS A RESERVATION OF THE SECOND POST FOR GUIDES/SUGGESTIONS/IMPROVEMENTS I SHOULD HAVE MADE ON THE ORIGINAL POST IN THE FIRST PLACE...

...and in the Mean Time:

Wasteland 2 Ephemera highlights from the Kickstarter thread:

_{ok I admit that is just the wall of my old office and I wanted it to be posted here}

(the artwork from the Wasteland 2 Goons shirt and the sweet belt buckle [obviously], both RagingBoner originals)

Be on the lookout in-game for the deadly...TOXX CLAWS

And now some other delightful related images from the countless I saved over the last couple of years in case you want to, uhh, I dunno, do people still make fan pages for games on GeoCities:

Anyone else remember the crazy Russian dude who made like 150 pieces of art and then stopped drawing once he was not offered a staff position?

Wasteland 2 wonderfully lets you import your own character portraits into the game ... and, well, this would hardly be an opening post even for a not-yet-released game without several links to GOOD SOURCES OF PORTRAITS:

Wasteland 1 animated pictures: clearly the best possible source for your Wasteland 2 characters
Inscrutable Horse's personal archive of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. and non-cheesecake women portraits!
A whole lot of portraits

Mr.Pibbleton posted:

Here's [another gallery]

http://imgur.com/a/UurWv

Just save or drop any 256x256 jpg or png into your wasteland 2 custom portraits folder, should be in something like Documents\my games\Wasteland2\Custom Portraits

IchGestalt posted:

I forgot this was a thing but: http://www.shsforums.net/topic/55677-paintbg-introduction-and-samples/ Pretty nice portrait pack that has some okay to pretty solid artwork that people might like for Wasteland 2. It's Baldurs Gate aimed, but most of them would still fit any setting, simply because there is often little but the head in view!

You do need to resize and change their format, though.

Shoehead posted:

It's a pity the Fallout Tactics portraits are all in different ratios or else I would use them. But I did manage to mess about and make the one I wanted

Bunch more (non FT related) portraits here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/a04isamzngh85gd/WL.rar?dl=0

YOUR FIRST GOON-APPROVED GUIDE TO MAKING CHARACTERS

Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:

I'm not a super pro gamer but I put together a few tips regarding character creation. This is just basic stuff that I wish I had known when I first started.

For what it's worth next Wednesday's Video Game Article on the front page will be a comedic version of that, along with a review.

A KIND OF "GENERAL ADVICE" THING FROM VARGS FOR PEOPLE WHO DO NOT MIND PROBABLY LIGHT SPOILERS

Vargs posted:

Finished up last night. Despite people reporting tons of gamebreaking bugs, California went pretty smoothly for me. I enjoyed the game and would probably put it up there with Fallout 1 + 2, though admittedly I don't have super extreme reverence for those games like some people do.

There are a lot of things I wish I knew going in so I'm gonna list off a big ol' wall of tips. Some of this is gonna repeat what I've said earlier, some of it is going to be relatively common knowledge at this point, but I just want to get a nice comprehensive post of "things to know" for new players.

Attributes
- Pay careful attention to what each level in each stat gives you. For example, getting 6 (I think) strength nets you an extra action point. Int only helps you at 4, 8, and 10. Awareness benefits you fully every time, making it a great place to shove the single attribute point you get every 10 levels. Charisma and luck might also fall into this category but I can't remember 100% since I never boosted them. Also, note that attributes do not give retroactive bonuses. Going from 7 int to 8 at level 30 will not give you all of the skill points you missed. Same for the health bonuses from strength.

- Charisma is a fantastic dump stat for most characters. Supposedly some dialogue only unlocks if your party's total charisma is above a certain amount, but I had a very low overall party CHA and only noticed it mattering once, where a companion decided not to follow my group. My party was full at that point anyways, and I never had issues recruiting any other NPC. That being said, I can't imagine not having at least one character with very high CHA combined with a good leadership skill.

- Luck isn't necessarily a bad stat but sacrificing a lot of points here isn't a terrible idea. Reaching certain breakpoints in other stats is well worth losing luck's bonuses, even if that means taking it down to 1 or 2.

- Armor that requires strength generally isn't too fantastic, so don't feel like you need to pump STR on your non-melee characters just so they can wear armor.

- Awareness is great, since initiative is much more important than in many other games. Not only does it affect turn order, but it makes your turn come up more often. I had a character with 1 awareness and she wouldn't even get a single turn in half the fights while my high initiative characters would be on their third turn or so.

- Speed is absolutely crucial for melee characters. Highly recommend boosting this to 8-10. It gives several great benefits, but you particularly need a lot of movement to be able to close distances. Very high speed also lets you wear heavy armor without completely crippling your movement. Also definitely recommend speed on ranged characters that you'll be using to flank around enemy cover positions. My SMG character would typically be able to run all the way up to and behind the enemy lines, park next to some cover, and lay into them on following turns.

- Coordination is good, but remember that you can get action points from certain levels in other stats too. Make sure your assault rifle guys have 10 AP. 10 AP is also very helpful for snipers, though it stops mattering when you get the final sniper rifle which costs so much to fire that you'll never get a second shot off (but you'll need 9 for a single headshot). Other weapon categories tend to vary a lot more so it's tougher to suggest a specific breakpoint.

- Intelligence is extremely important. A 4 int character can handle 2-3 skills. An 8 int character can handle around 3-4. A 10 int character can handle about 4-5. If you choose the upper end of those numbers, your skills will trail behind a little bit but will still be viable. I would recommend against characters with less than 4 int.

Skills
- Handguns, bladed weapons, and SMGs start out decent but begin to fall apart towards the end of the game. Not necessarily terrible skills, but I'd suggest against basing a character fully around them.

- Shotguns start out poorly but end up being quite good once you pick up some burst shotguns in the latter half of the game.

- Assault Rifles, sniper rifles, energy weapons, and blunt weapons all start out solid and end up being fantastic. Great weapon choices all around.

- I can't speak for brawling's early game effectiveness since I didn't pick it up until I was swimming in skill points later on, but at the end of the game it owns and probably does the highest damage per AP of any skill, though the weapon's listed damage per AP will lie to you and say it's relatively low.

- Heavy weapons suck all throughout wasteland 2. Don't bother.

- If you take anyone who uses energy weapons, consider toaster repair to be 100% necessary. You get an item out of a toaster in Temple of Titan which you can turn in to unlock the Gamma Ray Blaster from the requisitions NPC. This is the only remotely worthwhile energy weapon in the second half of the game, but it really loving owns. You can miss it permanently so be sure to pick it up.

- Anyone can revive downed party members with 1 in surgery, so sticking it on multiple or even all of your characters isn't a bad idea. Hell, I didn't even use anything but the rank 1 items on my main surgeon, though it's still nice to have high surgery just to fix up NPCs for quests.

- I only found one single place in the entire game where Alarm Disarming came in handy. Not sure how you'd resolve that town's quests without it, other than the inelegant "press the force attack key and murder every bad dude" solution. Completely useless everywhere else. Why bother disarming an alarm in a camp full of enemies that you've already killed?

- Don't take barter. I didn't find animal whisperer to be exceptionally useful. Mechanical repair is used extremely infrequently, though I can't remember every instance where it's needed so I'm not 100% confident in saying "don't bother".

- Leadership is key. Put it on a character with very high CHA since that greatly increases its radius. Without a high CHA/leadership character, you'll constantly lose control of your companions to a very dumb AI. The accuracy bonus is nice too. Make sure you give this to one of your rangers rather than one of your companions, since the bonuses do not apply to the character who has the skill, meaning if you stick it on a companion he will still go berserk all the time.

- Even if you hate crafting in video games as much as I do, you absolutely need weaponsmithing. It helps so much and is very simple, though it encourages a lot of savescumming.

Misc

- At the beginning of the game you'll be asked to go to either Ag Center or Highpool. Ag Center will net you an NPC with 10 int and a handful of points into handguns/computer science/surgery. Highpool gets you an 8 int character with some points into sniper rifles, outdoorsman, perception, and animal whisperer. Plan your own party's roles accordingly, and know that these are the only two really good NPCs you'll find for a very long time. They are mutually exclusive.

- Make sure to pick up Angela Deth on the first screen. Some people miss her and have a really hard time. She starts at around level 14 and is a ridiculous powerhouse, but unlike other companions she's kinda just there as training wheels and won't stay with you for the whole game.

- Ungroup your party and set them up in positions individually before a battle if you can, preferably spread out a bit and behind cover. It makes you much more effective and tends to make the fights more interesting.

- Melee characters may feel a bit weak at first, but they aren't bad if you use them correctly. Keep them at range towards the beginning of a fight and have them guard your ranged characters from melee/shotgun/pistol enemies who rush up. Once the field is cleared a bit, they can start rushing up and smacking the enemy back line. Melee is also quite nice for picking off severely wounded enemies, sometimes several in a turn. Saves ammo and saves the turns of your higher damage early game characters. No need to waste a 150 damage sniper shot on a dude with 12hp.

- With weaponsmithing you can reduce the AP cost of swinging a bladed/blunt weapon by 1. This has a greater effect on low AP cost weapon since going from 3 AP to 2 AP is a much bigger difference than going from 5 to 4. When comparing melee weapons, be sure you're looking at the damage per AP stat AFTER you've applied that weaponsmithing bonus. If you have a blunt character, for example, buy a crowbar as soon as possible to take advantage of this.

- Headshots cannot crit. This makes them significantly less useful for many weapons that reach 45%+ crit chance in the late game. And in the early game, the accuracy penalties tend to be too severe to land hits with headshots. Be careful about using them.

- Energy weapons function differently than other guns. If an energy weapon has a number 5 in the spot that normally shows your weapon's armor piercing capability, you generally only want to fire it at targets with 6+ armor. Energy weapons also cannot headshot or crit (you can force headshots with the hotkey but it doesn't give you the damage bonus while still costing more AP, so don't do it).

- Consider making a 10 int/10 cha noncombat character. I did and I didn't regret it in the slightest. She made a great skill mule and in combat she could just sit behind cover in the middle of my party and give off leadership bonuses over an enormous area while occasionally running off to revive/heal people.

- You aren't gonna find much armor in the wild, let alone good armor. If you want some, be sure to buy it rather than expecting to loot it down the road. You also can't count on finding the weapons you need, and they honestly aren't that expensive to buy, especially when you consider that you can resell them and that you save on ammo through higher damage. Definitely worth buying some key weapons like the M16, the crowbar, and the uzi.

- Weighed down status does nothing. Don't worry about it until the icon turns red.

ALL RIGHT AND NOW TWO MORE SHORTER TAKES ON "GENERAL CHARACTER BUILDING ADVICE" NOW THAT THE GAME HAS BEEN OUT A WHILE

GlyphGryph posted:

Some basic rules for character creation:

Give every character at least one combat skill. If you have an energy weapon character, pair it with either pistols, shotguns, or submachine guns. You will want a sniper and assault weapons guy. The assault weapons dude can often make use of pistol skill as well. Try not to double up weapon skills across 2 or more characters, or you'll run into ammo problems.

Int is important to skill progression - always get 3, 4, 8 or 10 int directly. Other numbers don't matter. 4 is probably the bare minimum you'll want. A int 4/8/10 can keep 3, 4 and 5 skills up to date respectively.

You will be getting 3 NPCs to help you out, so you don't need ever key skill in your party. An early NPC has hard rear end and brute force and outdoorsman but they wont stick around forever, if you go to AG center you can skip surgery and computers and if you go to high pool you can skip... something else.

Required Skills;
Surgery (probably at least one point on a secondary character, this lets you revive downed but not killed teammates)
Toaster Repair (There's an NPC in Rails Nomads who has a good amount of this though)
Smart rear end, Hard rear end, Kiss rear end - I reccomend putting on three different characters so you can use boost items on all at once. Click portraits to switch whos talking mid conversation.
Leadership - allies going berserk is the worst. This prevents that. The accuracy boost for allies is nice as well, only skill to benefit from charisma though the benefit of added range is fairly minimal.

Useful skills:
Demolitions, great for building up xp and avoiding medkits. Put on a low charisma character to help them keep up.
Safecracking - limited utility, most safes have other ways in or dont contain anything of value, but it does help keep you in ammo
First Aid - boosts effectiveness of healing items, with it you'll probably never be in short supply
Weaponsmithing - Boosts effectiveness of all your weapons, produces scrap which you can sell for cash at the rangers citadel, nice combat boost but not absolutely necessary.
Lockpick OR Brute Force - both can get you where you need to go, brute force is more generally applicable for access but lockpicking is better for loot. You could run both but don't need to right away, you'll probably get an NPC to handle the other. Technically, high explosives can be a good substitute for both of these skills, which is why they arent required, but that can get expensive.

Mostly Useless Skills:
Alarm Disarming - Never really needed unless you want to avoid combat with people you will probably kill anyway.
Animal Whispering (an early item you get lets you give a point to everyone and get goats) - Mostly useless, but can be fun. Reccomend if you take it, give it to someone who hangs back in combat like the sniper to minimize chance of dead animals.
Barter - this basically does nothing since you'll be wiping out most npc bank accounts already.

Now, stat allocation, keep in mind:
You get +3 stat points over the course of the game, so you can be that far short of a target like another AP and still reach it.
AP is important. You get 1ap for every 2 points of coordination and every 4 points in Str+Speed+Int (combined).
Most skills have breakpoints for your bonuses, try to hit them unless your counting on tenth level stat boosts to get them later.
Charisma is a party stat - its pooled. High charisma on one character doesnt do much, you'll probably want at least 10 across the party (which will be boosted a bit by later recruits).

Awareness means combat initiative, which means you act first AND you act more often. IMO this is the most important combat stat once you've gotten to 8ap (though AP is still useful).

Explosives don't require a skill, but are heavy. Good to throw on melee character.

I'll provide a comat skill assessment later.

JawKnee posted:

yes you can? that door doesn't have an alarm.

character creation: do not give a character more than one weapon skill - that is a waste of points. have one (or more) sniper(s). brawling is better than either melee skill.

don't take barter. also an EARLY npc you can recruit has hardass/outdoorsman/brutal force so you can skip those (for now! later... well you'll see).

if you make a rogue char give then both lockpicking/safecracking

it would be useful to give any character you give perception to demolition as well.

you can skip animal whisperer though a few quests do rely on it.

as for attributes: speed is king, luck is a dump stat, charisma is too (although a high AVERAGE charisma is useful for recruiting). try and maximize AP/combat speed/initiative - but try and have at least 9AP, preferably 10. Also 4int is really the minimum for that attribute.

also as a tip - there are skill books in the game, don't use them immediately, wait until you have a skill at or above level 6 as later levels cost more points.

also you don't have to spend points - even in the character creation screen! and sometimes it's useful not too

HERE IS ANOTHER POST FROM JAWKNEE WITH DIFFERENT BUT COMPLEMENTARY SKILL ADVICE FROM THE ABOVE POST OK

JawKnee posted:

a quick primer.

Skills to skip:

Barter (pointless)
Animal Whisperer (only occasionally useful for 'calm my missing cattle' stuff)

Skills you don't need to max/can skip:

Alarm disarm (5 or 6 should do you)
Machine repair (More useful than not, but no need to max it aside from one late game usage I can think of that has an alternative anyhow)
Outdoorsman (6-7 is fine)
Weaponsmithing (6-7 is fine)
Perception (6-7 is fine, though late game may require more for traps)
Surgeon
Medic
Brute Force (6-7)
Demolitions (max it if you take it though, for traps on boxes/safes)

Skills you absolutely need to max:

lockpicking
Safecracking
Computing Science
ONE weapon skill (two is overkill, you will end up using 1 primarily anyhow)
All 3 rear end skills
Toaster Repair (optional but you'll miss out on quite a few easy rewards and one really good weapon)

[a lot of people think you only need to max Kiss rear end and Smart rear end but why not be safe and rear end Out?]

[also Safecracking is basically always used for pure loot whereas Lockpicking is occasionally used to bypass combat or otherwise advance the story, so if you are picking at first... well]

HERE IS A REBUTTAL POST FOR THIS SECOND ADVICE POST (GENERALLY THE ADVICE IS "EHHH MAYBE A FEW POINTS HIGHER"]

AN ACTUAL FAQ SECTION???????????

GuyDudeBroMan posted:

Q. HOW DO YOU USE CANTEENS/RAD SUITS

A. Canteens and Rad Suits are a party wide item. You only need 1 and it effects the entire party. Just make sure you equip it.

Q: IS THERE ANY WAY TO PERMANENTLY RAISE ATTRIBUTES IN-GAME?

A: Yes! At levels 10, 20 and 30 you get +1 attribute point. So far this is the only confirmed way to permanently raise an attribute.

VDay posted:

Q. SHOULD YOU USE SKILL BOOKS RIGHT AWAY OR SAVE THEM?

A. I don't know which skills have this requirement, but some skills have attribute requirements. Having a 10 in surgery, for example, requires 10 intelligence.

Also just to confirm since this gets asked quite a bit, but you can use skill books to max a skill and level it from 9 to 10, assuming you meet the skill's attribute requirement (if it's one of those skills). This means you should always save all your skill books for later in the game since then you'll be saving 8 SP instead of just 2 or 4 if you use them to go to level 3 or 4 on a skill.

Now someone just has to figure out if there are multiple skill books per skill, and then we'll know whether you should min/max any skills and never level them past 8 or 9 and just get a skill book instead.

THANKS FURISM FOR SENDING ME LINKS TO MAKE THIS EASY:
SOME BASIC CHARACTER-BUILDING SUGGESTIONS FROM THE THREAD

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3665651&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=10#post435128241
http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3665651&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=15#post435151689

HERE IS AN ONGOING AND UPDATING GUIDE TO COMMON ISSUES AND WORKAROUNDS AND PROBABLY BUG FIXES AND WHATEVER

http://wastelandrpg.tumblr.com/knownissues

Kenshin posted:

Ok, I found the fix for if your party gets stuck at 6 people. No need to even spoiler this. Basically if you run into a problem where one of your party members was a prisoner and when you finish the quest and they are released they don't actually show up in your party and don't follow you, but just stand at the jail, open up your save file and find:

<isHostage>true</isHostage>

Change the true to false.

FIXING CHARACTER PORTRAITS

Funnypost Collabo posted:

You can edit a character's portrait in the .xml file in the save directory under /documents/my games/wasteland 2/

Check out Magnificent's post two posts above yours, but specifically what you're looking for is "portraitName" which will have a value that coincides with the filename of the custom portrait, minus any file extensions - e.g. my first character is using a custom portrait named m_015.png and his value for portraitName is m_015

However, if you're using a default portrait the names will be a little harder to find, the easiest way would be to open up a save/start a new game where the character has the correct portrait and pull their potraitName from there

HAVING A FULL CONTINGENT OF SEVEN CUSTOM PCS (post quoted since it has embedded code)

http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3665651&userid=0&perpage=40&pagenumber=77#post435498780

IF YOU ARE REALLY MAD ABOUT THE SKILL USE SPEED AND THE RUN SPEED AND CRITICAL FAILURE COMMONALITY THEN YOU MIGHT WANT TO INVESTIGATE THIS (AT YOUR OWN RISK)

SplitSoul posted:

Check this out[, reduced skill check speed/increased run speed mod]:

https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=8727

OH AND NOW HERE ARE A BUNCH MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM

SplitSoul posted:

There are already a bunch of mods and tools out, and yes, official mod tools will be released eventually.

Mod Injector
Camera Fix
Keyword Snooper
Alternate Armor / Energy Weapons System
Disable Character Markers
Unity Asset Editor
Ranger Editor
Dress Up thread

Dr. Quarex fucked around with this message at 02:25 on Nov 27, 2014

# ? Sep 18, 2014 04:34

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

Wooo

# ? Sep 18, 2014 04:45

Mr.Pibbleton: Feb 3, 2006; Aleuts rock, chummer.

How soon until the first solo ranger run?

# ? Sep 18, 2014 04:47

Rougey: Oct 24, 2013

So I had a crack at this yesterday after last playing six hours into the beta around December last year.

My word.

Loving it so far, my only issue is that I�m fairly certain the release will break my saves so I had to stop myself short last night. Very much hyped for the weekend.

***

Have got a good party worked out, with my own little backstories for each of the members based on their stats :3:

John of Scotland � Degenerate gambler seriously down on his luck � this silver tongued bastard would have died a long time ago had it not been for his ability to talk himself out of almost any situation. Joined the Rangers to escape from some rather nasty fellows intent on removing said tongue via his arsehole. Turns out he�s pretty good at leading people and fairly competent with computers as well. John isn�t actually his real name nor is he from Scotland.

She Who Walks � �Native American� medicine woman who talks to Animals �cause racial profiling, her Tribe only survived the apocalypse because they were engaged in a legal battle to prove their heritage and were living on the land. Prefers to go by Sue, and is far better versed in the works of Henry Gray than traditional medicine, although her bedside manner leaves a lot to be desired. Crack shot with a rifle.

Katie Kaboom � Proof that intelligence is not genetic, Katie was born to drug addled hillbilly raiders who only had enough functioning grey matter between them to fill a thimble. She was four, maybe five when the Rangers found her in a Yurt happily making IEDs and ad hoc repairs to household electronics. Some children can bribed with candy, the Rangers lured her away with the promise of plastic explosives � Vargas makes sure she gets a pound every year for Christmas.

Yevgeny the Red � An alcoholic Russian fist fighter who hasn�t had a drop of alcohol since he wound up in Arizona 30 years ago. Knows his way around weapons, but is partially blind due to an altercation with a stop sign. He�s still not entirely sure how he got to the USA, but it involved a lot of Alcohol, the Chinese, a Goat and an Ocean. He�s still not sure which Ocean, hence the sobriety.

Rougey fucked around with this message at 05:08 on Sep 18, 2014

# ? Sep 18, 2014 04:58

Xotl: May 28, 2001; Be seeing you.

My wife just saw me looking at the awesome dev team Road Warrior photo for Wasteland 1 and asked if the sequel team is doing a new one.

Any word? Because that would rule.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:06

Demiurge4: Aug 10, 2011

New thread smell! I'd be playing the poo poo out of this too, but my cousin is coming up from Australia and I have to pretend that I'm not a goon in real life

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:13

TexMexFoodbaby: Sep 6, 2011; by LITERALLY AN ADMIN

Rougey posted:

Stories and poo poo.

The dumbest part of me is that I loving love Ranger backstory stuff and I'm loving ecstatic that it's in the game. I can't really remember if it was in the original but I loved it in Icewind Dale where you can write a little story about how your insane posse came together.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:22

Momomo: Dec 26, 2009; Dont judge me, I design your manhole

I almost completely forgot I helped kickstart this. I hadn't downloaded the beta version, so if I do it now, will it be the full one once the game is out?

Also, you have Friday as 9/18, shouldn't that be 9/19?

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:23

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

Just got my key from the Torment 2 Kickstarter. I haven't really been following this too heavily aside from some gameplay trailers but I've always heard nothing but good things so let's do this!

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:30

MrQwerty: Apr 15, 2003; Staunch and proud ally of Big Pharma! We stand with you!

Accordion Man posted:

Just got my key from the Torment 2 Kickstarter. I haven't really been following this too heavily aside from some gameplay trailers but I've always heard nothing but good things so let's do this!

Just don't get attached to your savegame :getin:

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:32

Eddain: May 6, 2007

Is Ag Center still the better choice over High Pool?

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:33

Accordion Man: Nov 7, 2012; Buglord

MrQwerty posted:

Just don't get attached to your savegame

Oh, I'm waiting until it actually comes out first before I start playing.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:34

Mr.Pibbleton: Feb 3, 2006; Aleuts rock, chummer.

Momomo posted:

I almost completely forgot I helped kickstart this. I hadn't downloaded the beta version, so if I do it now, will it be the full one once the game is out?

Also, you have Friday as 9/18, shouldn't that be 9/19?

Not sure on that, it might be an unlock, might be a whole new download.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:42

MrQwerty: Apr 15, 2003; Staunch and proud ally of Big Pharma! We stand with you!

Mr.Pibbleton posted:

Not sure on that, it might be an unlock, might be a whole new download.

When I realized I had a beta key sitting on my Torment 2 page that I hadn't seen for like a month like an idiot the other night, I plugged it into Steam. It reserved 22GB of HDD space and then downloaded 5.5GB, and the Steam listing is just Wasteland 2, so I'd imagine it's just going to install when the unlock signal is sent.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:47

Drifter: Oct 22, 2000; Belated Bear Witness; Soiled Meat

Mr.Pibbleton posted:

Not sure on that, it might be an unlock, might be a whole new download.

it's a download on top of the beta if you have the beta, or a fullsize download if you don't have the beta downloaded.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 05:49

HondaCivet: Oct 16, 2005; And then it falls
And then I fall
And then I know

Yay, hello thread! I backed this individually and with the goon squad and then life happened and I forgot about it and now it's coming out finally HOLY poo poo. Kickstarter is like buying yourself a present and mailing it to yourself and getting it a couple years later and being like "oh yeah I remember doing that now."

# ? Sep 18, 2014 06:39

Zaii: Nov 6, 2005; Check it out, I downloaded a little dance!

gently caress yeh assbutts! These few years since the kickstarter was born have flown by. Cannot wait til I finally get my greasy mitts on this badboy.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 08:01

Evil Fluffy: Jul 13, 2009; Scholars are some of the most pompous and pedantic people I've ever had the joy of meeting.

The Kickstarter felt like it was so long ago and yet feels like it was so recent. Can't wait for the launch.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 08:06

Fewd: Mar 22, 2007; #vmp #opsec #kolmiloikka #happoo

Wonder when the physical copies arrive, I can't wait to slam my nose on that poo poo

# ? Sep 18, 2014 08:14

pvax: Aug 6, 2001

I almost forgot I have an old school boxed copy coming. God! We're so close!

# ? Sep 18, 2014 08:24

Rupert Buttermilk: Apr 15, 2007; 🚣RowboatMan: ❄️Freezing time🕰️ is an old P.I. 🥧trick...

pvax posted:

I almost forgot I have an old school boxed copy coming. God! We're so close!

Same here!

# ? Sep 18, 2014 09:37

Fredrik1: Jan 22, 2005; Gopherslayer; Fallen Rib

pvax posted:

I almost forgot I have an old school boxed copy coming. God! We're so close!

Yeah, that thing is gonna go into my old school box collection.

It was a sad day when video games stopped coming in oversized carton boxes.

I hope it has a real manual to go into my old school video game manual collection.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 10:00

Rush Limbo: Sep 5, 2005; its with a full house

I realized that I'm probably the perfect type of investor since I just threw money at them then forgot about it until now. Can't wait to see what they've done!

I paid for one of the higher tiers because I had a bit of money back then so I'm getting the medal and stuff aswell, I think.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 10:09

Furism: Feb 21, 2006; Live long and headbang

Eddain posted:

Is Ag Center still the better choice over High Pool?

Not that you are spoiling, but this is the release thread so people need to be careful now.

I'm going to go for High Pool because having a water supply is more important than a food supply.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 10:13

drunkill: Sep 25, 2007; me @ ur posting; Fallen Rib

After ignoring the wasteland 2 thread here since those goon shirts were made (three lines below the second R in rangers/right side, third line from bottom!) I am ready to patrol the wasteland.

Updating steam now and I'm looking forward to giving this a crack, finally, one of my Kickstarter games is complete.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 11:40

Fredrik1: Jan 22, 2005; Gopherslayer; Fallen Rib

The goon shirt is still the best shirt I've ever owned.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 12:21

DanielSeyar: Jul 1, 2009

Accordion Man posted:

Just got my key from the Torment 2 Kickstarter. I haven't really been following this too heavily aside from some gameplay trailers but I've always heard nothing but good things so let's do this!

I also got the package for Torment: Tides of Numenera that includes a digital copy of Wasteland 2.
But I still haven't figured out how to get my Steam key for W2.

Could someone who's in the same boat please clear up what to do to get this game?

# ? Sep 18, 2014 14:12

Ulvirich: Jun 26, 2007

How much is the game going to cost when it's released?

# ? Sep 18, 2014 14:39

Diesel Fucker: Aug 14, 2003; I spent my rent money on tentacle porn.

Is using your own portraita as simple as dragging and dropping a few jpegs into a folder? Because I'm a huge virgin and want to take pictures of me and my mates to use as our portraits.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 14:40

Corin Tucker's Stalker: May 27, 2001; One bullet. One gun. Six Chambers. These are my friends.

I'm not a super pro gamer but I put together a few tips regarding character creation. This is just basic stuff that I wish I had known when I first started.

For what it's worth next Wednesday's Video Game Article on the front page will be a comedic version of that, along with a review.

Lasher posted:

Is using your own portraita as simple as dragging and dropping a few jpegs into a folder? Because I'm a huge virgin and want to take pictures of me and my mates to use as our portraits.

Yup. In Windows 8 the folder is in Documents/My Games/Wasteland2/Custom Portraits

Corin Tucker's Stalker fucked around with this message at 14:51 on Sep 18, 2014

# ? Sep 18, 2014 14:47

Furism: Feb 21, 2006; Live long and headbang

Corin Tucker's Stalker posted:

I'm not a super pro gamer but I put together a few tips regarding character creation. This is just basic stuff that I wish I had known when I first started.

quote:

1. How many skills do you want to focus on with a given character? If it's 3, leave your Intelligence at 3. If it's 4, Int should be 6, and for 5 skills your Int should be 9.

2. Luck can be used as a dump stat without any real consequences so feel free to drop it to 1. If you don't care about recruiting NPCs, so can Charisma. Normal quest-solving dialogs are handled by the Smart rear end/Kiss rear end/Kick rear end skills, which are independent of Charisma.

1. I would add that for max out Surgeon you need 10 INT, but we don't know if anything cool requires max Surgeon.
2. CHA increases the range of Leadership, doesn't it? It may or may not be critical but maybe something of note.

Also probably add the skills you put to your sample characters (for attributes/skill synergies) in the same area as the attributes, instead of below (so people don't have to scroll back and forth).

Maybe some comments on the cover system (I find it confusing, because it seems to provide waaaay too much defense, but coming from XCOM I might be biaised).

Otherwise great doc, clearly OP-worthy!

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:02

Great Rumbler: Jan 30, 2013; For I am a dog, you see.

Ulvirich posted:

How much is the game going to cost when it's released?

Brother None mentioned in the other thread that the price will be $40.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:04

Corin Tucker's Stalker: May 27, 2001; One bullet. One gun. Six Chambers. These are my friends.

Furism posted:

great points

Awesome, thanks! I'll give it another pass and edit your suggestions in.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:06

Vavrek: Mar 2, 2013; I like your style hombre, but this is no laughing matter. Assault on a police officer. Theft of police property. Illegal possession of a firearm. FIVE counts of attempted murder. That comes to... 29 dollars and 40 cents. Cash, cheque, or credit card?

Fredrik1 posted:

The goon shirt is still the best shirt I've ever owned.

I wish I'd been a goon when I backed this project.

I wish I could join you all, but fate has conspired to keep me really busy the next couple weeks. I think I'll have to wait for my boxed copy to arrive, admire the map, then start playing after a round of patches has gone out.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:15

quantumfoam: Dec 25, 2003

digital game key allocation appears to be live on the wasteland 2 ranger center.
gog or steam are the choices right now.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:18

Furism: Feb 21, 2006; Live long and headbang

tuluk posted:

digital game key allocation appears to be live on the wasteland 2 ranger center.
gog or steam are the choices right now.

I wish I knew details about the Steam integration (achievements, game saves sync) before making a decision

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:38

Jastiger: Oct 11, 2008; by FactsAreUseless

Hail Quarex! Less than 24 hours until this awesome game hits! So excited.

I may have just bought a house, and need to pack the house, but the Wastes wait for noone!
(my wife is going to kill me)

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:40

MuLepton: Apr 1, 2011; It's kind of a long story.

Furism posted:

I wish I knew details about the Steam integration (achievements, game saves sync) before making a decision

Yeah, same here. Although I'm leaning towards Steam anyway because of manually updating games is such :effort:

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:44

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 04:45

ChiTownEddie: Mar 26, 2010; Awesome beer, no pants.
Join the Legion.

Wooo!
I stayed clear of the beta and am super excited to finally play the finished product.

# ? Sep 18, 2014 15:51

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > Wasteland 2: The Post-Apocalypse 27 Years In The Making!

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