Marceror

For all the A-teamers out there: By the way, glad to hear you're up and running now CoM_Solaufein.

Save it for when it counts. You only get to fire it once.

That list was created during the beta. Most of the companions have since had their stats changed in the final release. Many rather dramatically.

Not sure what the issue is with crashing. I would report it at the inXile forums. I have not had issues with crashing myself. I think in more than 200 hours I might have had a single crash, in an earlier iteration of the beta. So far no crashes since the game went live, and I've been playing a lot (pretty much cleared out a 4 day weekend for myself). Sorry to hear that some are having these kinds of issues.

Why d'you figure they're playing builds of the BB rather than the whole game? I'd be okay playing the same version as the internal testers! But no, probably for the best that I not be spoiled like that.

Don't like? Bump the difficulty above Seasoned and no more magical heals.

I'm playing on ranger also.

am noticing slower leveling, particularly the xp gains for successful... whatever. example: our safe cracker/locksmith leveld' much faster in the beta. additionally, survival (skill) points is more expensive, so you probable got fewer. am seeing folks planning on having each character fill out three skills and two weapons. that strikes us as an extreme optimistic plan. other newness: combat armor now requires min str o' 5, not 4. virtual all npcs has different skill packages from beta. high combat initiative is actual more valuable than it were in the beta, but is also harder to acquire high ci... folks new to wasteland 2 might not realize that ci doesn't simple determine order of attacks in a turn, but will also decide how many turns you effective get in a combat encounter-- high ci = more attack opportunities. HA! Good Fun! The beta always had accelerated leveling, so it was expected that leveling would be slowed down for final release. Regarding CI, yes, it's arguably more important than Action Points. What good are AP if you don't get to attack?

Thank you . By the way, I'm pretty sure it's just the CHA total of your 4 created rangers that count for this. The NPCs you add don't count. At least, that's how it worked in the most recent beta version.

@Hiro - RTFM is not a bad policy.

Ah, chronic restarters syndrome (CRS). I believe your local doctor should be able to prescribe something to help with that.

The game difficulty has definitely been kicked up since the beta, which is very welcome -- and something many of us have been asking for. I'm playing on Ranger difficulty and happy to have some challenge in the game. Speaking of challenge, I just completed the Leve' Upe Mines and OMG. That was some HARD fighting! On my second try I got through without losing any rangers, but only just barely. Good stuff.

So the direct answer to your first question is, if a guy bleeds out he/she dies. Game over for that character. But what I think you're really getting at is can you replace that character. If it's an NPC you can replace with another joinable NPC that you meet in the wasteland and convince to join your cause. If it's one of your 4 rangers:

"What will I do on my first play through? I will likely play as a Chanter, though that is still up for debate. I will use only pre-made NPCs because I want to experience the content OE created for them. Beyond that, no idea. It depends on what the game throws at me.

The point is there's a lot of different, valid ways to approach combat. Grouping subsquads could certainly be useful, as could a formation system. Hopefully inXile will continue to support the game and add improvements. In the meantime, I'm perfectly fine with manually positioning my squad. @Keyrock - the formation topic has been brought up a couple of times on the inXile forums. I wouldn't advise you to visit them just yet, unless you're supremely patient. They seem to be overloaded with activity, so they are extremely slow and often pages just time out. Hopefully they're doing something to improve that situation.

One thing that is sorely missing from the game is formations. Rather than having to individually place each character before combat, I'd love to be able to set up a few custom formations so that I could quickly get my team into place just by selecting that formation. Also important to consider is whether you want some characters to begin combat in the crouching position. It takes 2 action points to do it, so it can be a boon if you do that before the fight starts. It can also work against you if you end up wanting to move a character, because it's also 2 action points to stand up. Something to think about.

You get a gold star and bonus points for the Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer reference (which is the origin of my handle). One of my favorite SNL sketches. Phil Hartman was pure gold.

Keyrock's words are as true in our time as they were in his. You raise some very good points. Group control is evil and shouldn't be used. Just hit U to select your party.

Indeed. The more I play the game, the more I love it. And yes, you can recover from certain mistakes without too much difficulty. Forgot to give someone demolitions? Okay, when one of your character's levels up, there's your chance to add the skill. Before I created my first party I watched a couple of short let's plays. I paused a lot and paid attention to all of the abilities and skills, and got a general idea how they worked from watching the let's plays. Then I went and built a spreadsheet in Excel where I could enter my character builds. It wasn't anything overly fancy, but it gave me a place where I could iterate and try to build a starting party that was good from the outset. I hate getting 6 hours into a game only realizing I have made MAJOR mistakes. I still expected my party to suck, but to my surprise they were actually extremely effective. I changed a few things during my second run through. A few were improvements, a few were just for the sake of variety. But basically I didn't feel the need to make any sweeping changes. What I also enjoy is that I have based 3 of my rangers after my 3 sons, and the fourth after my niece. I have selected skills that I feel are a complement for their personalities. -It just so happens that my eldest son is very effective with computers and is extremely intelligent (he's autistic in RL, but extremely high functioning - age 11). So he's my techy/infiltrator guy, and my smart ass. -My second son, age 7, is very outgoing and seems to have natural leadership skills. He's also a smarty-pants (not quite to the level of his older brother, but still). He's my charismatic leader, surgeon/medic, and kiss ass. My charismatic genius as I call him. -My youngest son, nearly 4, looks like he's going to grow up to be a football player. He isn't afraid of anything, and he can make both of his older brothers cry if they get in his way. He's in the top 97% percentile for his height and weight, and he's freaking strong. If he hits you, you're going to feel it. So he's my melee/bruiser guy, and my hard ass. -My niece, age 8, is a little more quiet and withdrawn. I could see a life in the wasteland, after losing her parents, turning her into a deadly killing machine. So she's my sniper and deady as all get out.

I've seen that also. When it happened to me recently my sniper had been knocked out in a fight. I used the trauma kit to revive her, but noticed that she was still bleeding (bleeding effect). So I used a suture kit to stop the bleeding and all was well. The game can be pretty unforgiving with things like this. You really have to pay attention to what is going on. When in doubt try using the surgeon skill a second time to see if any surgical items can be selected. Of course, this presupposes that you actually HAVE the necessary item, so... make sure that you do. Antiobiotics, antivenom, suture kits, trauma kits... always make sure you have some of each in your surgeon's inventory. You will generally find them as you play through the game, so no need to go out and buy a bunch (unless of course you're guys are going into critical condition left and right).

1 or 2 only to start, since I usually have so many skills I want to cover.

Thanks guys. Unlike with PoE, you can absolutely screw yourself over with the wrong party, so I hope my pointers help you to avoid some mistakes. They certainly should. And for me, the enjoyment of the game is far, far sweeter knowing my victories are due in large part to assembling a well-optimized squad, rather than anything I randomly pick being an "I win" decision. I can't remember the last time a game drove me absolutely bonkers the way WL2 has. It's a work of freaking art, and a grognard's paradise. Brian Fargo is my new hero. Oh, another bit of advice. Make sure to pick up a shovel!

A couple more tidbits: Always remember to reload your weapons after combat. Not doing so can be disastrous. Make full use of ambushes. If your enemy isn't in range of your weapon yet, don't necessarily be hasty to run to him. Set your weapon to ambush so when he arrives in range you get an immediate attack against him, and your squad's line is in tact. Do a bit of quick math. It might make sense to do a burst fire with your assault rifle, and then switch to a handgun for a follow up shot. Or start with a burst fire, and switch to a single shot. Try to get as much lead out per turn as possible. The best defense is a good offence, and all that. Pay attention to those action points you store when not all used in a single turn. They can give you additional options during your following turn. Always have a backup weapon. If your primary weapon jams in combat, you're going to need this. Hint: melee weapons and energy weapons don't jam. Weapon mods are your friends, especially the magazine that lowers jamming by 4%. This is another area where luck helps (i.e. with weapon jamming), even though I don't believe it's documented. Increased range, accuracy, etc from other mods are great as well. You're going to want to have someone skilled with modding weapons. On the topic of weapon mods, selling weapon parts after stripping a weapon is a great way to earn cash.

I did one run through with a high luck party, and will say that I was rolling in great gear, ammo, money, etc. Really, I had way more than I needed. I wouldn't advise investing too much here, but I wanted to point out that there is more than combat benefits to be gained by luck.

I've got more than 200 hours clocked in WL2 and feel I understand the mechanics pretty well. Here are a few things to consider: Having a highly skilled party is going to eliminate A LOT of headache, and maximizing skills can be accomplished via INT (bump to 4 for 3 survival points per level, 8 for 4 and 10 for 5, below that you get only 2). But you can't just expect to throw all of your points into INT and expect to do well. In combat, what is most important is your character's Combat Initiative (CI) followed by Action Points (AP). A character with high CI might be able to take 3 turns in the time that a character with low CI can. It doesn't matter how skillful your character is if they don't get to fire their weapon. Non combat skills that you are going to want to have, in a very, very general order: Leadership (give to a high CHA character for a large radius of influence, increase hit chance for all party members, and decreases chance of your "hirelings" going rogue. When you hirelings go rogue, they are generally going to F up your tactics, so you don't want that to happen. Field medic (XP) - this is your heal ability, give this to at least one of your team members. You can't use this ability to help a dying character (i.e. knocked below 0 CON), so you also need: Surgeon (XP) - when a character is "dying", bleeding out, diseased, etc. etc. this is where you need a surgeon. Lock Picking (XP) - there are LOTS of locks Safe cracking (XP) - there are LOTS of safes with good items, ammo, and other stuff that you're not going to want to have to pass up Awareness - Allows you to see traps, find hidden stashes buried in the ground, and increases your sight radius. It also allows you to notice things about people that you otherwise might not. Very important skill Demolitions (XP) - basically this is a disable trap/landmine skill, and there are A LOT of traps in the game now. Computer science (XP) - This comes in handy a lot. There are plenty of electronic locks (doors/safes), and you are occasionally going to find computers that you can hack into to make your life easier. In some cases this skill is needed to complete a quest with a positive result. The Ass Trio - Smart Ass, Kiss Ass, Hard Ass (Group XP) - Opens up options in dialogue that you wouldn't otherwise have. Sometimes this means you can get an item donated to the group, convince a leader to go along with your idea, or just generally get more information out of someone. Useful to have all 3 in your party. The whole group gets XP when used. Outdoorsmen (XP) - Allows you to avoid random encounters encounters on the world map, as well as solve certain problems that require outdoorsy knowledge. Alarm disarm (XP) - there are a lot more alarms in the game now. Not nearly as many as traps, but you're going to want to have someone who can help you bypass them. Weaponsmithing (XP) - trick out your weapons with mods that make them far more effective. Mechanical repair (XP) - there aren't a ton of direct uses for this, but it comes in handy several times. I wouldn't prioritize this immediately, but make sure to throw at least a few points into it. Also it was recently "buffed" to allow a chance to repair safes/doors/etc if your "infiltrator" character critically fails in their attempt to get past them. Otherwise, a critical failure means that you've lost your opportunity. Toaster repair (XP) - fairly useful. Generally toasters allow you to find a unique item, that if you give it to the right person you will get a reward. Don't sell the items you get from a toaster. Animal whisperer (XP) - Not essential, but can provide some decent stat bonuses to a character. A goat, for example, gives "devil eyes", +1 to awareness. Barter - not super critical. Maybe give a few points to a hireling to get better buy/sell rates with vendors. Unless indicated, having a single character assigned to each skill is sufficient. Skills indicated with (XP) give your character XP when used (just the character that used it) I should also point out that my observations are based on playing the Arizona portion of the game. I haven't gotten to CA yet, but I imagine a well built party is going to do well there also. I generally try to have 2 smarties (10 INT), 1 ranged god, usually a sniper (high coord/agil), and one melee god (high str/agil/speed). Higher strength also means more carrying capacity, which unlike in PoE is a big deal in WL2. As previously mentioned, spread out your combat skills, so you can spread out who uses what ammo. A few comments here: Having a sniper is essential, but their weapons are only effective at long range. They have excellent range, but are slow to fire. Choose either a pistol or a melee weapon as a secondary. Assault rifles are the most "general purpose" weapons there are. A couple of guys with this weapon is a good idea. It has great range (not as good a sniper rifle, obviously) and is effective up until point blank range. More advanced assault rifles have different firing modes, making them even more tactically advantageous. SMGs - An effective short-ish range weapon. Not essential to have, but I always try to have one person spec'd in this. Energy weapons - Effective only against high armored targets, like synths and a few others. I wouldn't start with this skill, but you're going to want one or two of your squad to add it later. Handguns - A great short ranged weapon that can fire quickly. Usually not a good choice for a primary weapon, but it's an excellent backup weapon. Heavy weapons - Includes machine guns, RPGs, and grenade type weapons. It's a fairly expensive category, so I would only assign as a secondary weapon skill. Best to give to one of your melee characters IMO, since the weapons are very heavy. A high STR character can handle the weight though. Not an essential category, since you can still lob grenades without it. I usually give it to one particular hireling you can meet in the game and add to your squad. Shotguns - can be your best or worst friend depending on the situation. They damage an area, so as long as that area doesn't include friendlies, not a bad way to go. Also has low armor penetration. Blunt weapons - a great weapon for your main melee tank character, with a devastating critical hit. Bladed weapons - less overall damage than blunt weapons, and less critical damage, but higher chance to critically hit. Brawling - A very quick way to attack, but with low armor piercing, so best against low armor targets. Remember, you start with 4 characters that you can pre-generate, but you can add up to 3 more for a total party size of 7. You can use your hirelings to cover some of the skills. Some NPCs wont' join if your party's overall CHA is too low. Also, remember that CHA grants a bonus to non-combat XP, so it's good to have some CHA for your characters who will do a lot of the non-combat skills. For your leader/face character, shoot for 8 - 10 CHA. That should at least get you started....