Wasteland 2 is looking more awesome by the update

[SLU Aequitas]

all that lowered Charisma is going to hurt you when it comes to certain followers. They do a Charisma check against your party and if the total sum is too low you won't be able to recruit them.
Just FYI

Agreed, which is why I ran with my "leader" having high Charisma & leadership (and CHA does affect leadership, and the +hit% is very useful).

 

[Worthington]

Agreed, which is why I ran with my "leader" having high Charisma & leadership (and CHA does affect leadership, and the +hit% is very useful).

yup same here

 

[Dumac]

So i finally managed to get myself a (basic) copy of the game.

I'm a few hours in and my opinions are not teh best.

I'm on normal and my experience does not fit yours at all. I don't consider myself well served in the genre either.

I started out with a balanced group...

For comparison,

I started with:

• Melee guy with high strength and speed. Skills are blunt weapon, leadership (which I now know should be on someone else), brute force, and hard ass.
• Close combat guy with medium strength, coordination, and charisma. Skills are SMGs, knife (which I ended up not ever leveling or using), demolitions, kiss-ass.
• Long range guy with high coordination. Skills are AR, animal whipserer (mostly useless but funny), pistol, smart-ass.
• Skills guy with 8 int. Skills are sniper rifle, pistol, medic, surgeon, lockpicking

All of my chars had 4 int for the extra skill point, and at least 8AP due to the stat distribution.

I immediately wiped upon encountering the first miniboss, the toad. I'm playing on medium difficulty, and i was all healed, prepared, reloaded, crouched, for the fight.
I tried 3 more times and then i just hit him with a mangler(!!) i had found.

I didn't have trouble with this fight at all. I don't think the toad even reached me. I attacked it first out of combat with my long range guys to get the first 3 hits in and then finished it off before it entered melee range.

Conversation. TONS of *useless* conversation. Backstory i already know and zero info i actually need to progress.

I didn't know the backstory so that useful for me.

The other usefulness is actually getting and advancing quests.

Discovered crates are more RNG that FTL, from getting a T2 sniper to getting six bullets, so, whatever.

Their RNG but the content is usually what I expect depending on the Level of Effort require to get inside the container.

*Everything* is locked and rigged to explode.

No, most things aren't. I would say a small amount, maybe 10%, a both locked and rigged. A higher percent are just locked (30% maybe?) or rigged to explode (20%), but that is fine since it gives you a use for the demolitions/lockpicking/safecracking/computer science skills.

Snipers can't hit anything with enemies up close, their range is also limited enough - and the mob's speed fast enough - that a sniper gets one or at most two shots per engagement.

You should have enough AP to backpedal (3AP) and fire (5AP) with your sniper. Not to mention, with my sniper in the back mobs rarely reach him. I can usually put him behind cover or crouch him the entire battle.

Ditto for ARs.

ARs are even easier, requiring only a couple of steps back (2AP) IIRC.

AG Center, having the pods burst everywere means i'm savingand reloading at every step (8 hp per party member per explosion; and i've spent everything i had on .38 ammo and medpacks). Walking is slow, and backtracking is everywhere.

You can shoot the pods from a distance. I had a huge abundance of pistol ammo, so I used that to trigger specific pods from far away.

There was a little bit of backtracking in the AG Center, but not a huge amount.

Get new NPC; with 7 charisma and 3 leadership she doesn't follow a single order, rushes in between 4 mobs, misses a shot which hits a pod which hits another pod. NPC is dead.

With 1 or 2 leadership on my non-charisma guy, the NPC followed my orders most of the time. Occasionally she'd go all Rambo but the results weren't that disastrous. The pods only do a small amount of damage.

Bunnies. I wipe again, several times. I exploit the shotgun from the "harry-like" guy.

More bunnies, i wipe again.

The big bunny fight in one of the fields was pretty hard, but I didn't wipe on it.

Pod people, i wipe again. these thinsg hit for 15 and explode on death; they also move fast enough to get to you in 1 round.

You have to try to maneuver yoru team so that you don't get hit by the explosion damage. They may be able to reach you in 1-2 turns, but they can't attack t hat turn.

WEAPON-FUCKING-JAMS.

Whoever thought that 8% per bullet was ok doesn't math;
Also, in one round, i fail a 79% shot, a 72% shot, i get 2 jams, two friendly fire in a row and one 54% shot failed... and this is just about every engagement.

Jamming wasn't a huge issue for me. The SMG jammed the most, probably because of the burst fire, but everybody else jams rarely.

Also friendly fire is your own fault. Don't fire into friendlies!

Backtrack and sell, get more ammo and packs, backtrack and sell again, get more ammo and packs.

I didn't go back to the citadel throughout the entire AG encounter.

Find out random encounters scale with you;

Really? Didn't know that. Thought it was based on area....

I walked off the beaten path in the beginning and ran into some 300HP honey badgers who I could barely hurt.

By *severely* cheating the RNG i barely managed to survive; i find that in the Citadel i have barely enough cash for a new load of .38 bullets and nothing else. Armor is useless, with lev.3 giving me no noticeable protection.

I had 3k scrap when I made it back to the citadel after AG. Still haven't down highpool. I used that money to buy an M4, FAMAS, Bullpup, Uzi, and Crowbar.

Fuck it. I make new characters, all 10 intelligence and 8 "the one that gives you AP" and zero every other attribute since they dont count for squat. Pumping strenght for hp. have one dude at 3 leadership for 8% aim, rest of team crouching always and using pistols since its the only weapon you can rely on. Difficulty: easy.

Lack of charisma is going to bite you later. Also ARs are easily the best weapon in the game.

I'm looking forward to another 12 hours of non stop scumming, saving, reloading, backtracking, text with zero information content.

Like I said, I haven't had to play this way. I don't think most people do either.

 

[Dumac]

answers in bold.

the game is very hard. it's hard but in a way which doesn't reward tactical play - it just rewards slow play. It's a matter of clicking and unclicking and turning the camera (with the Q/E keys, forget the middle mouse button) and saving and reloading, and even good tactics are foiled by the excessive RNG randomness.

Combine this with...

What gets me the most is that dues to all these factors, there is really little strategy aside from "crouch, shoot". Maybe "ambush".
I get that i have to save my good ammo for the big guys, and i do, but when i start to run out of *everything* even when trying to be conservative, i get upset.
It's like every mob encounter is just taxing you in so much ammo, health and medpacks, never giving you a chance to set up and conquer the enemy with minimal losses due to skillful character placement, wise weapon use, skill use or other gameplay tactic. (the closes i ever go to that was when a bunch of gila mobs couldn't path correctly so i took them down by sniper alone)

Maybe you are just bad on tactics? I never ran out of ammo, let alone that low on it. I have 20something medpacks without having bought any. Do you not take the time to go through all the containers or loot people? Do you not use cover, attack first, or maneuver your guys in a good position?

I wanted to go through the game without spoilers, but damn, it can't be done.

I'm doing it...

Luck does nothing except that 1% more critical percentage. why should i boost my chance to *occasionally* get 1 extra AP when i can always have 3 extra AP swapping stats.

I didn't level luck on any of my chars, but I imagine there is a high-luck super critting build out there for a specific weapon type.

Barter takes 6 skill points to give you THREE PERCENT better prices.

Yeah, barter looked dumb so I skipped it. Most games like this you end up with crazy amounts of cash by the end.

Charisma does not boost ANY speech skill.

I honestly don't know what Charisma even does.

speed does NOTHING since you will be crouched and immobile for 99% of your fights

Speed is great on close combat guys, allowing them to close the distance and still attack. It's even useful on ranged guys as it allows you to backpedal a good distance and still fire.

Awareness can't even begin to compete with intelligence, as its apparent you want to max all yoru weapon skill asap. Mobs have way better initiative than players

After playing I do think Intelligence may be the best stat, but awareness is still useful for the initiative. I've rolled higher combat initiatives than a lot of enemies throughout the game.

I also don't know what factors into you finding a trap, but I figure awareness probably helps.

melee is - as far as now - completely useless, with 5AP per swing at 45% hit rate is even worse than the basic pistol.

I'm swinging for 80% hit rate for 3AP with my melee guy. Useful to have someone that isn't eating ammo.

I might go on and give the medium difficulty another try. Maybe spend some time in the desert to grind (aah yes, the magic word - grind!) some money.

And i'm pretty sure that by the end of this game, you are rolling in power armor and ion cannons, but for now, i'm not really seeing the light of day.
(generally, i complain that games are too easy .. go figure)

I haven't tried to grind at all. In this game, grinding may not even be a thing if random encounters give less ammo/health that you lose doing them.

 

[DigDog]

I had 3k scrap when I made it back to the citadel after AG.

we must be playing different games. i had a grand total of $300(first run back) + $750(second run back) after finishing AG, and i had maybe 50 .38 bullets between everyone.


I'm gonna start a new game with 10AP per character; there is just too much difference, i dont see anything that can rival the advantage in damage output.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

It's like you're playing a completely separate game. Random points and answers:

CHA: Affects leadership bonus radius and modifies the likelihood of NPC going rogue.
Random encounters: Patently false, they don't level with you. Run out west at level 1, have fun. I've also had a party die due to HBDs (Honey Badgers of Death, Wasteland 2's version of WMDs).

Digdog in general: you're doing it wrong. Seriously, half the stuff you've been saying just doesn't happen. Place your melee / shotguns (which are insanely useful, btw) in front to screen AR, who screen your sniper. Problem solved.

Melee = extremely useful, high hit rates (need to level their wep skill), and VERY low AP cost (throwing on grip tape on a combat knife = 2AP attacks).

Hint: never have more than one type of ammo usage per character (sole exception can be 5.56 for two ARs in the beginning). I've never run out of ammo.


I think one of the best things about this game is it DOES require tactics and team synergies, and placement is important. With the sole exception of unlucky weapon jams (which have almost always been infrequent for me, and with weaponsmithing now at lvl 4, almost never happens), if I lost a fight it's generally something I did wrong. Reload, and learn from that mistake.

Really do like this game (although I still haven't made it out of the damn suicide monk canyon due to time constraints).

 

[DigDog]

would you mind explaining to me HOW you got two AR in the beginning, let alone the ammo to feed them?

all i got in the AG run was: one M2 , about 50 rounds of 5.56 for it ( i used it twice since it does 7dmg per bullet), two "rust bucket" AR / 5AP shot / pistols do more damage, two of the 2AP .30 revolvers (very useful, and by far my best weapon) and a sniper that does 14-21 dmg; i have a whopping 24 30-06 bullets.

anyway, i grinded and grinded and now i have a famas and a m16, plus i bought the sweet sweet sniper from the citadel.

i lucked in finding a travelling merchant, used the last of my two manglers on him and he dropped a ton of ammo and medpacks.


i'm still upset that a raider with 15hp (dead in 1 bullet) drops 15xp while a gila monster(who can rip your team apart) drops 20xp.

 

[Worthington]

Melee attacks are Crazy! I largely ignored them excepting the occasional wrench attack when Angela ran out of ammo. And then I got Chisel. Good gawd. Ran into some raiders on the way back to Ranger HQ. First round Chisel bitch slapped one of raiders for like 70 something damage, next round there was even more carnage as he didn't have to blow any AP moving. After that I was sold.

 

[BurnItDwn]

Yah, Melee is actually quite usefull unlike most other games of the genre. Usually the Melee is semi-worthless because of low damage output, high damage taken. My Melee guy just uses brass knuckles which use like 3ap, and he can do 60 damage per attack and he gets like 9 or 10 ap per turn .. (around level 15 or so).

My sniper sometimes gets 120 damage crits, and can do 2 shots per turn usually .. but that ammo is expensive .. without melee, id be blowing all my scrap on ammo for assault weapons and sniper ...

 

[Dumac]

we must be playing different games. i had a grand total of $300(first run back) + $750(second run back) after finishing AG, and i had maybe 50 .38 bullets between everyone.


I'm gonna start a new game with 10AP per character; there is just too much difference, i dont see anything that can rival the advantage in damage output.

Again, do you not search everything for hidden crates, caches, safes, etc? I'm pretty thorough, which could account for differences in scrap/ammo/medpacks.

I ended AG a little low on AR ammo (around 50 split across 2 chars), a ton of pistol ammo (100 or 150), and a little low on sniper ammo (20). I also had 15-20 medpacks, and 10 or so higher quality medpacks.

 

[Mem]

Again, do you not search everything for hidden crates, caches, safes, etc? I'm pretty thorough, which could account for differences in scrap/ammo/medpacks.

I ended AG a little low on AR ammo (around 50 split across 2 chars), a ton of pistol ammo (100 or 150), and a little low on sniper ammo (20). I also had 15-20 medpacks, and 10 or so higher quality medpacks.

Yep AG centre has quite a lot of stashes if you are a loot monkey like I'm,I never really ran out of ammo and that's using my pistol to shoot all the exploding pods at a distance,problem I had was weight carrying too much stuff,search and perception are your friends.

 

[DigDog]

and 10 or so higher quality medpacks.

ok, this must be because i'm playing w/o the patch, or something, because i had *one* of the T2 medpacks.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

would you mind explaining to me HOW you got two AR in the beginning, let alone the ammo to feed them?

all i got in the AG run was: one M2 , about 50 rounds of 5.56 for it ( i used it twice since it does 7dmg per bullet), two "rust bucket" AR / 5AP shot / pistols do more damage, two of the 2AP .30 revolvers (very useful, and by far my best weapon) and a sniper that does 14-21 dmg; i have a whopping 24 30-06 bullets.

anyway, i grinded and grinded and now i have a famas and a m16, plus i bought the sweet sweet sniper from the citadel.

i lucked in finding a travelling merchant, used the last of my two manglers on him and he dropped a ton of ammo and medpacks.


i'm still upset that a raider with 15hp (dead in 1 bullet) drops 15xp while a gila monster(who can rip your team apart) drops 20xp.

For some reason I think I got an AR very early on, and the NPC outside of the Ranger HQ comes with an AR (and she's a higher level to boot).

Ammo for much of it wasn't a problem since I only used it on actual fights and had a pistol back up for lower HP finishes / easier fights (re: I conserved ammo).

I also topped up on my one trip back to the HP to sell off loot (and I sold my broken weapon parts to the vendor...stupid

Spoiler

there's a NPC inside the Ranger HQ who gives beyond market value for broken weapon parts

). Additionally I almost never purchase weapons and instead rely on loot drops, so I had a good amount of scrap to purchase 5.56 rounds (re: I bought ALL of the outside merchant's 5.56 and sniper rifle ammo). This may backfire when I start changing ammo types, I just got a sweet sniper rifle drop...and I only have 8 rounds for it.

XP drops are a little off, especially for HBDs...(god I hate those things).

ok, this must be because i'm playing w/o the patch, or something, because i had *one* of the T2 medpacks.

In all fairness, I didn't get a better medpack until the very last area of AG.

 

[DigDog]

i'll patch my game when i get home, to see these "jamming rates changes". i'll also make a new group based more on AP and Int, get weaponsmithing 3 right away (and outdoorsman 3 too, as animal encounters are bad, mmk?), and invest in a T3 sniper before anything else, with some luck and a little save scumming i should be able to get this done by the end of AG without any grinding in between.

and i gotta remember to save all that cow and pigeon shit i shouldn't have traded away ...

speaking of patching, how is that done for people with the DVD edition?

 

[Jumpem]

i'll patch my game when i get home, to see these "jamming rates changes". i'll also make a new group based more on AP and Int, get weaponsmithing 3 right away (and outdoorsman 3 too, as animal encounters are bad, mmk?), and invest in a T3 sniper before anything else, with some luck and a little save scumming i should be able to get this done by the end of AG without any grinding in between.

and i gotta remember to save all that cow and pigeon shit i shouldn't have traded away ...

speaking of patching, how is that done for people with the DVD edition?

Steam, apparently.

 

[SLU Aequitas]

i'll patch my game when i get home, to see these "jamming rates changes". i'll also make a new group based more on AP and Int, get weaponsmithing 3 right away (and outdoorsman 3 too, as animal encounters are bad, mmk?), and invest in a T3 sniper before anything else, with some luck and a little save scumming i should be able to get this done by the end of AG without any grinding in between.

and i gotta remember to save all that cow and pigeon shit i shouldn't have traded away ...

speaking of patching, how is that done for people with the DVD edition?

Shit. Thanks for reminding me about that shit...I was so sad when I realized that I should have given a shit about the shit

Also, outdoorsman is very much a waste of points, IMHO. Why turn down free XP (esp since most of my encounters have been raiders, and even 1 (or possibly 2) points in outoorsman gives me a 50+% chance of avoiding the encounter.

Weaponsmithing - Lockpicking - Safecracking - Demolitions - Alarm disarming (not quite as useful); also good to have a surgeon + first aid character (although there's an AG center NPC who can fill this role, who also comes with computer skill).

My biggest weakness in my party has been repair/toasters/only having a single speech skill (smartass...wish I had gone with kissass instead). Haven't felt particularly disadvantaged.

 

[Worthington]

I have First aid and Surgery on different rangers.

 

[Mopetar]

I have First aid and Surgery on different rangers.

It's almost worth doubling up on these a little bit. The later encounters start to get tough when the enemies actually take cover and ambush regularly or really outnumber you.

I've had a few fights where I've had to have someone put a point into surgery afterwards so that they could bring my actual surgeon back to life to fix everyone else that snuffed it.

 

[SMOGZINN]

It's almost worth doubling up on these a little bit. The later encounters start to get tough when the enemies actually take cover and ambush regularly or really outnumber you.

I've had a few fights where I've had to have someone put a point into surgery afterwards so that they could bring my actual surgeon back to life to fix everyone else that snuffed it.

It is probably worth having at least 2 people with surgery just in case your surgeon goes down. I personally have my sniper be my primary surgeon and my high hitpoint melee character as my backup, which has already been useful when my surgeon fell when

Spoiler

the final boss of in AG explodes

.

I also think that luck effects the RNG of loot drops and weapon jams. My brute melee character has a high luck, and he has never had a weapon jam (although honestly he doesn't fire his ranged weapon much, setting him in the front on ambush is just too effective ) and it seems that every time he opens a crate there is a weapon or something extra nice in there.

 

[DigDog]

my game has become sensibly easier since yesterday, as i got some decent drops i managed to turn into sturdy mags.. and then into less jamming frequency.

i still think the numbers in the tooltip are way off. i managed to fail a 65% roll five times, the last of which critical.
you do the math.

btw, i don't have any stat dumping on my toons, my leader has high luck as well, and so does my sniper, and yet the 3% jam rate manages to jam my gun about once every 6~10 shots.

 

[Jumpem]

My boxed edition from Amazon arrived.

It did not have any of the items from this image that used to be on the publisher's (Deep Silver) web site. All I got was a plastic case with a DVD.

 

[Mem]

My boxed edition from Amazon arrived.

It did not have any of the items from this image that used to be on the publisher's (Deep Silver) web site. All I got was a plastic case with a DVD.

There are two retail versions ie basic box dvd case with game and Ranger edition like in that pic above.

Sounds like you got the basic one like this

 

[Jumpem]

There are two retail versions ie basic box dvd case with game and Ranger edition like in that pic above.

Sounds like you got the basic one like this

Deep Silver's site did not describe it that way. I ended up misinformed.

Do you know where I can order the Ranger Edition in the US?

 

[Mem]

Deep Silver's site did not describe it that way. I ended up misinformed.

Do you know where I can order the Ranger Edition in the US?

Sorry I'm based in UK,maybe one of the other members here can help you.

You might be able to find one with Google via US.

 

[Jumpem]

Sorry I'm based in UK,maybe one of the other members here can help you.

You might be able to find one with Google via US.

I have found the Ranger Edition on a UK web site and Amazon Germany. However, not in the Us. Strange.