Wasteland 2 Kickstarted

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I'm just glad I didn't have to put points in STR for damage on my ranged weapons.

[Gorgon]

One thing I've notice is that attributes confer only tiny bonuses, so wouldn't you be better off giving all your chars 10 intelligence and getting 2 extra skill points per level since they deliver so much more. 

[Monte Carlo]

^ DEJENERATIVE GAEMER ALERT!!!

[Raithe]

One thing I've notice is that attributes confer only tiny bonuses, so wouldn't you be better off giving all your chars 10 intelligence and getting 2 extra skill points per level since they deliver so much more. 

 

Well, combinations of the attributes grant you various increases in action points and initiative...  So if you want to be able to take aimed shots with that sniper rifle twice a round.. you might want to have things balanced more.

[Gorgon]

As far as I was able to tell I could only get a maximum of 10 starting  AP if I min maxed for AP. Versus 2 extra skill points and 8 AP with 10 intellingence. Hardly seems worth it. I don't know when bonus Attributes start to kick in but that would be a reason to incresase an attribute just shy of a bonus AP. 

[Gorgon]

Also, am i missing something or is there no cooperation between skills and attributes. Some of the Attribute descriptions suggest it but it doesn't specify anywhere if there are attribute bonuses for each skill rank. 

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Eurogamer's walkthrough and game guide.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Gromnir]

we will check new character creation soon, but for combat-focused characters, intelligence were a bit o' a dump stat. you could get recruitables to fill out your skill list, but coordination and awareness were essential for ranged combat character.

 

https://wasteland.inxile-entertainment.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=7479

 

edit: intelligence is even wackier now than before. skill points increases happen only at 1, 4, 8, and 10. you do get ap boost from int however.

 

we will note that the shotguns had a fanciful kinda aoe kinda thing going in the beta. all wasteland 2 shotguns, regardless o' pictures and descriptions, must be sawed-off extreme short.

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited September 20, 2014 by Gromnir

[Marceror]

I'm going to roll up a new party, but being unfamiliar with the system what would make for a good crew?

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....

Edited September 20, 2014 by Marceror

[Elerond]

I would say that in full game Awareness is attribute that you need at least for some characters, because it boost your combat initiative and hight initiative characters get more turn, like for example character with Awareness 10 has twice as many combat turns than character with awareness 2 has. Character with awareness 10 also most likely acts first in combat. Although speed is valid option for awareness, even though it don't give you as much initiative points as awareness it gives you action points, giving characters ability to do more in their turn. 

Intelligence is also quite important attribute, because higher intelligence character's get more skill points and action points in following degree

• intelligence 1-3 (2 skill points per level, int 1 causes 1 ap)
• intelligence 4-7 (3 skill points per level, int 6 gives additional 1 ap)
• intelligence 8-9 (4 skill points per level),
• intelligence 10 (5 skill points per level and additional 1 ap),

 

and with higher intelligence you can read higher level skill books meaning that skill difference will be even bigger.

 

Coordination is ok ability for character with ranged weapons as it gives you most AP/per attribute point spent and every attribute point gives character +1% to hit (which isn't that great when one level in weapon skill gives character 25-35% depending on weapon for the first skill level (2 skill points) and then 4-10% for per additional skill level, maxing skill takes 44 skill points)

 

Strength is valid option to character in at least some degree as it gives health, carry capacity and  melee characters and action points in same rate as intelligence. For melee character it is recommended as it also gives melee critical hit damage bonus.

 

Charisma is good for leader character it gives radius bonus to leadership skill and xp bonus, but other characters it seems to be attribute that you can dumb down as -10 % to xp (dumbing from 3 to 1) rewards don't seem to have too much negative impact in xp gain.  

 

Luck is quite random attribute, it can be very effective or absolute waste. So I would only recommend if you find enjoyment from unpredictability. Dumbing it down isn't dangerous, but it removes your change get random benefits that can be very good.

[Marceror]

Luck is quite random attribute, it can be very effective or absolute waste. So I would only recommend if you find enjoyment from unpredictability. Dumbing it down isn't dangerous, but it removes your change get random benefits that can be very good.

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.

[Marceror]

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.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Marceror

[SadExchange]

 

 

I'm going to roll up a new party, but being unfamiliar with the system what would make for a good crew?

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....

Hate to quote the entire thing but awesome post. I put 3 hours into last night and was thinking of starting over knowing more mechanics for creating characters and I'll definitely be taking this all in context! Thanks!

[Monte Carlo]

Yes, thanks for taking the time to write that, Marceror.

[Marceror]

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!

Edited September 20, 2014 by Marceror

[Monte Carlo]

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.

 

Tinkering with it this afternoon was fun, it's packed with Win.

 

With regards to skills, how many points do you assign on average to each skill with new characters?

[Marceror]

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

[IndiraLightfoot]

Marceror: Your write-up of pro-tips is excellent. Cheers!

 

Here's something weird that happened to me the first time I ever fought a "boss". Two in my party got badly hurt, and countdowns for surgery began ticking. I had two trauma kits on my surgeon character. Here's the strange part: No matter how many times I tried to revive one of them, it always took two pack to snatch her back from death's door. Why isn't one enough? No message about the first one not working as intended either. The countdown just kept ticking.

The other character, equally deadly wounded, it always work with but one trauma pack. After like three reloads of the save after that boss battle, I had to resort to reloading the entire fight, since I really wanted to keep those two party members.

Edited September 20, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Keyrock]

I'm loving the heck out of this game.  I'm going through it super duper slow.  Steam reports 5 hours played, keep in mind well over an hour of that was me making my characters.  I've gone through the Radio Tower, I went to the Mysterious Shrine, and I just arrived at the Agricultural Center.  I love how ruthlessly unforgiving this game is.  Oh, what's that, you don't have the necessary skill?  You didn't pay careful attention and just clicked on something without thinking it through?  Well too bad, you're dead.  Good times.

[Marceror]

Marceror: Your write-up of pro-tips is excellent. Cheers!

 

Here's something weird that happened to me the first time I ever fought a "boss". Two in my party got badly hurt, and countdowns for surgery began ticking. I had two trauma kits on my surgeon character. Here's the strange part: No matter how many times I try to revive one of them, it always take two pack to snatch her back from death's door. Why isn't one enough?

The other character, equally deadly wounded, it always work with but one trauma pack. After like three reloads of the save after that boss battle, I had to resort to reloading the entire fight, since I really wanted to keep those two party members.

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).

Edited September 20, 2014 by Marceror

[IndiraLightfoot]

Yeah, I'll have to chalk that up to my inexperience.

 

And I really love this no-handholding, and I like that you can mess up your party and even single characters. I'm pushing on with my first party. I spent an hour making it, plus two hours reading the heck out of the manual, so I hope I have a well-rounded party. Already, I see that I have too few melee fighters in it. Still, I'm so low-level that I can make adjustments, I reckon. The more you play WL2, the more rewarding it is. It grows on you. That's a rare thing nowadays.

Edited September 20, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Volourn]

I really want to play this but no gog yet.

[kgambit]

I'm still waiting on the boxed copy. 

[Marceror]

Yeah, I'll have to chalk that up to my inexperience.

 

And I really love this no-handholding, and I like that you can mess up your party and even single characters. I'm pushing on with my first party. I spent an hour making it, plus two hours reading the heck out of the manual, so I hope I have a well-rounded party. Already, I see that I have too few melee fighters in it. Still, I'm so low-level that I can make adjustments, I reckon. The more you play WL2, the more rewarding it is. It grows on you. That's a rare thing nowadays.

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.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Marceror

[Keyrock]

I've found pre-combat planning and positioning to be very important in this game.  If you just wander into combat all bunched up in a group you can easily wind up in a really tough situation, for example a shotgun wielding character stuck behind other characters unable to fire at the enemies without hitting her teammates (I speak from experience on that one).  If at all possible, turn off group control and move each individual character into a good position before entering combat.  How you begin combat can make the difference between an almost impossible situation and a manageable one.

 

I'm really liking the leadership skill, I've been regularly pumping that one up on my giant Native American lady boss.  I also gave her high charisma so that the effect radius is nice and large, allowing me to scatter my group and still have everyone get the bonus from the skill.

Edited September 20, 2014 by Keyrock