Wasteland 2

[Cantousent]

Damned quick response glitches!

 

Anyhow, anyone know of a way to change my party order.  I had to let a member go briefly and when I recruited her again, she was last, but I like my party order to stay the same.  It doesn't matter much technically, but it drives me nuts.

 

I'm not really involved in the contest between Hiro and Grom, but I will point out that things like "+5% experience gain" tend not to be as valuable in any game as they appear.  They need to be taken early to get much benefit at all.  They are almost always red herrings.  Any game that makes it so that one stat, perk, skill, or ability gives a truly substantial advantage in levels is simply bad.  Anything where one character is more than one or two levels above his compatriots is unbalanced.  Anything that only gives one or two levels difference at any particular time is simply less valuable than something that makes the character better at his primary function.  I think it would be different if charisma had some impact on the speech skills, but it doesn't seem to do anything in that regard.  I'm not really complaining here.  Wasteland 2 is one of the best games I've played in a while for fun factor, even though many of the design decisions are confounding.

 

Anyhow, the battle at

Santa Monica is the toughest I've had so far.  Trying to keep all the townsfolk alive while being pummeled mercilessly by truly strong opponents was a challenge, but it was still fun.  It took me four tries on Ranger level, and I don't care who makes fun of me for that.  Great times!

 

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Next run, I will shamelessly look up the NPC's and their starting skills and plan my exact NPC route in order to take specific people. 

 

It's what I did and mentioned in the old thread. (The screenshot in the spoiler is not correct as I immediately noticed a problem with my party and started again). Those skills did change. Magnum didn't take Computer Science (Rose). TC didn't take blunt weapons (Brother Thomas) and shotguns was changed to Assault Rifles. Rick dropped Submachine guns (Brother Thomas). Higgins dropped hand guns and Sniper Rifles was changed to Assault Rifles. But everything else was the same. The attributes got tweaked a tiny bit with everyone dumping Luck in the end.

 

I purposely built my party around the NPCs (Rose, Pizepi and Brother Thomas) so I wouldn't be doubling up or at least minimise it. I did want a second healer/surgeon and Brother Thomas fits that to a tee. I did have to double up on Smart Ass and Perception early in the game but those are low on my core team and have remained so. I also scrutinised all the NPCs and believe these three to be the best imo which is why I've taken them. And I'm finding they are pretty good. No complaints at all with them.

 

If I was to go through again with the same NPC's, there's some things I would do differently. 1) I would keep the Smart Ass skill lower that what it is on my Magnum character and probably keep only one point in it just to get the dialogue checks early on. 2) Same with Perception on my other character. 3) Pick up the NPCs in AZ early on with my optimal way of doing so. And then go back and finish everything that I passed over. 4) Do the pacifist route with the Prison after Titan/Silo 7 and not kill them as I missed out on two skill books. 5) Not take any pets except for the Night Terror.

 

Otherwise I pretty much would keep these attributes and skills for my core team. It's worked really well.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

So I'm remaking a party and playing it on Jerk. Are the melee skills worth investing in near the beginning, if only to have an alternative means of damage?

[Cantousent]

Yeah, Hiro, I'm thinking I really need another medic.  I had two surgeons for the first half of the game and I've upped it to three with some extra points to burn on high int characters.  Having someone who can *keep* people on their feet is a good idea.  I'm thinking of doing one of those thematic runs also.  Maybe Greek gods?  I dunno, but I have time to think.

 

My melee character packs a huge punch, KP.  I mean, he actually does real damage to people.  I think my highest single damage output is from energy weapons against a heavily armored opponent, but my melee guy puts the smack down on the baddies too.

 

EDIT:  Sorry, I meant my brawler.  I've seen him punch for quite high damage amounts.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Cantousent

[BruceVC]

 

which don't change at all that at level 30 you had a 1-2 level spread advantage when you had only just reached level 30... and calling it two levels is generous based on your description.

 

again, 'cause you don't recall your own posts:

 

"He hit level 30 on that encounter in Santa Monica and everyone else is at the end of level 28 or mostly on level 29 including Pizepi."

 

oh sure, you can change stuff, be evasive and obfuscate, but you is gonna keep running into what you posted earlier. is too late to edit old posts. too bad, eh?

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

 

Everyone should have been most as I didn't check all characters as I only glanced at them. Put it down to being euphoric at winning easily at what was a hard encounter. I've now gone back to that previous save and noticed my lowest level character is about 1/2-3/4 on 27 which is the Higgins character who was out of the battle. It's why I didn't pick up on it before. The characters on level 28 is nearing 3/4 on level 28. Pizepi hit level 29. At any case, my point still stands. There's up to a  3 level spread at level 30. And that point spread is increasing.

 

Geez Hiro, you know you can admit you are wrong sometimes ? No one is going to think less of you .....

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Geez Hiro, you know you can admit you are wrong sometimes ? No one is going to think less of you .....

 

Geez Bruce. Your sole contribution is to continually troll me on this forum? I explained where the up to 3 level spread came from. And I'm not wrong. There is a 2-3 level spread with my core team and some of the NPCs. But nice trolling anyway. And I did show where I made the mistake of forgetting to include one of the characters who was out of combat. Maybe you can contribute something worthwhile like talking about the game? But you seem obsessed about me. Well how about taking your trolling elsewhere.

Edited November 6, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[Marceror]

On the topic of having high CHA characters, well, first, there's more to it than just giving a character high charisma. You want them to have high charisma AND plenty of non-combat skills that grant xp (e.g. demolitions and lockpicking)

 

A 10 CHA character who is doing several of the key non-combat skills compared to a 1 CHA character who isn't can easily end the game with a good 6 level divide between them. Is this alone worth the CHA, investment? I guess that's open to interpretation, but when you add into that the huge radius of leadership influence, it looks a lot better. I realize that the bonus isn't huge, but when you're giving that bonus to SIX other characters, it makes a difference. It makes head shots a lot safer, and/or firing at a foe behind cover a fair amount easier.

 

I think I'm probably more inclined to stick with around 8 CHA for my leader going forward though.

[ShadySands]

I finally beat the game after 350 hours (at least half of that was in the beta) and countless restarts

 

 

Chief Kekkahbah sacrificed himself so that my team could survive and I think next time I'm going to wipe out the RSM because the epilogue I got said that even with a truce there are still issues. I never did figure out what the deal with Provost was either

 

Edited November 6, 2014 by ShadySands

[ManifestedISO]

350 hours! You have the right kind of quiet, unassuming dedication this world needs. 

[IndiraLightfoot]

At the very end, my brainy leader (RPG-wise and with high INT), Loretta Lobes, managed to pass level 40, and she was also our trap-disabling, mine-sweeping Demolitions. Funny thing is: She had no Leadership skill and had CHA 2. But my being a very thorough player, her Demolitions helped here stay ahead of the field with 1-2 levels the last 10 levels or so. Her having the big enemy-melting Energy Weapon also helped getting those levels up.

 

Funnily enough, I had Honkey-Tonk Arleen as my Convo Queen, with higher CHA ( 8 ), Leadership 10 and high Smart Ass ( 8 ). She charmed the underpants of most people, and if they still didn't fall victim to her can-can saloon manipulations, she toted a sniper rifle and a SMG to great effect.

 

However, my most efficient character, in terms of kills and general greatness, was my Patching Patsy. She was great at Heal (Rose did Surgery the best), and a fantastic Assault Rifle and Heavy Weapons marauder. Already in Arizona, she surpassed Angela Deth in effectiveness, and she saved the party countless times. She had a perfect mix of COO, AWE and also LUCK and INT. Overall, I'd guess that people underestimate the weight of INT and LUCK over the course of a long game, such as this - you get lots of extra action points, a few extra crits, nice hit-point pressies, and heaps of skill points via INT.

 

My first character, Indira Lightfoot, was actually kind of sucky. She was too slow, and she had Bladed Weapons way too high. Her sniping was what saved her from being a total disaster. But she was useful in other ways. She did all of the Bashing, Opening Locks and Tumblers (Rose did the Electronic Locks, though).

Edited November 6, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[Cantousent]

I laughed when I read about Indira Lightfoot.  lol However, I think I'm at a point right now where I should wait until tomorrow before I try to make a coherent argument.  However, I *will* say that the fine points are a little lost.  The point is that the game actually does succeed in the main goal of any game. which is to provide fun for the player.  I'm going to play on Jerk next, with micro-planned characters,  I think it will be a hoot, especially if I go with a theme, such as the Greek pantheon or maybe American founding fathers or some such.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

On the topic of having high CHA characters, well, first, there's more to it than just giving a character high charisma. You want them to have high charisma AND plenty of non-combat skills that grant xp (e.g. demolitions and lockpicking)

 

A 10 CHA character who is doing several of the key non-combat skills compared to a 1 CHA character who isn't can easily end the game with a good 6 level divide between them. Is this alone worth the CHA, investment? I guess that's open to interpretation, but when you add into that the huge radius of leadership influence, it looks a lot better. I realize that the bonus isn't huge, but when you're giving that bonus to SIX other characters, it makes a difference. It makes head shots a lot safer, and/or firing at a foe behind cover a fair amount easier.

 

I think I'm probably more inclined to stick with around 8 CHA for my leader going forward though.

 

I really like that idea with the leader and a heap of non-combat skills. I also have my leader's CHA at 8 as well and think it's a good number to be on. I also like how you'll be able to use a lot of those non-combat skills to get even more xp. That was my mistake with my leader with not choosing non-combat skills that has a lot of use in the game. I see now how your suggestion is better. This has given me a couple of ideas for some new parties, especially with the leader with all those skills.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Heh! I had to re-install WL2 just to see which achievements I did get. I missed that Patch 3 by a few minutes after I had finished the game, and in this way, I also got my party exported if I decide to reuse them somehow.

[Gromnir]

On the topic of having high CHA characters, well, first, there's more to it than just giving a character high charisma. You want them to have high charisma AND plenty of non-combat skills that grant xp (e.g. demolitions and lockpicking)

 

A 10 CHA character who is doing several of the key non-combat skills compared to a 1 CHA character who isn't can easily end the game with a good 6 level divide between them. Is this alone worth the CHA, investment? I guess that's open to interpretation, but when you add into that the huge radius of leadership influence, it looks a lot better. I realize that the bonus isn't huge, but when you're giving that bonus to SIX other characters, it makes a difference. It makes head shots a lot safer, and/or firing at a foe behind cover a fair amount easier.

 

I think I'm probably more inclined to stick with around 8 CHA for my leader going forward though.

in retrospect, giving all the good skills to the high charisma leader is arse backwards as it is gimping everybody but the leader.

 

 

 

 

the benefit of the charisma boost is largely negligible, so giving all your best xp generating skills to one ranger is effective gimping all those other rangers.  oh, sure, mathematically you get most benefit from the charisma boost by dropping the skills into one character, but to do so is ultimately self defeating as you is going to be giving leveling advantages to likely your least effective combat ranger and you will not be seeing any real advantages from doing so until At Least 1/2 into the game.

 

that being said, now that leadership is corrected, we got no issue with a single ranger having a boosted charisma. we complained long about this( http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66368-wasteland-2-kickstarted/page-17?do=findComment&comment=1514419 ) but it is good to see inxile finally address after a few post release patches, cause otherwise, charisma were useless. the only meaningful benefit o' charisma were the increase in the zone of influence of the accuracy boost from leadership, which we were getting 1/2 value from until today. we likely would still not increase charisma past 5ish for a leader as as that is typical more than enough to benefit all rangers save for offensive minded melee types who may run outside the charisma 5 leader's sphere o' influence. the thing is, the melee types will likely have no need for the accuracy boost save at the lowest levels of advancement. 

 

and we note that Gromnir has been consistent in his position. hp jr.'s  euphoria aside (HA!), he has changed his stance. based on his own posts, suggesting that he were having a 1.5 level advantage from a charisma boost of 6-7 points were actually very generous of us. hp jr. should be should be apologizing and not complaining. 

 

...

 

we can wait for the apology... or not.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

in retrospect, giving all the good skills to the high charisma leader is arse backwards as it is gimping everybody but the leader.

 

charismasux_1.jpg

 

charismasux_2.jpg

 

charismasux_3.jpg

 

the benefit of the charisma boost is largely negligible, so giving all your best xp generating skills to one ranger is effective gimping all those other rangers.  oh, sure, mathematically you get most benefit from the charisma boost by dropping the skills into one character, but to do so is ultimately self defeating as you is going to be giving leveling advantages to likely your least effective combat ranger and you will not be seeing any real advantages from doing so until At Least 1/2 into the game.

 

that being said, now that leadership is corrected, we got no issue with a single ranger having a boosted charisma. we complained long about this( http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66368-wasteland-2-kickstarted/page-17?do=findComment&comment=1514419 ) but it is good to see inxile finally address after a few post release patches, cause otherwise, charisma were useless. the only meaningful benefit o' charisma were the increase in the zone of influence of the accuracy boost from leadership, which we were getting 1/2 value from until today. we likely would still not increase charisma past 5ish for a leader as as that is typical more than enough to benefit all rangers save for offensive minded melee types who may run outside the charisma 5 leader's sphere o' influence. the thing is, the melee types will likely have no need for the accuracy boost save at the lowest levels of advancement. 

 

and we note that Gromnir has been consistent in his position. hp jr.'s  euphoria aside (HA!), he has changed his stance. based on his own posts, suggesting that he were having a 1.5 level advantage from a charisma boost of 6-7 points were actually very generous of us. hp jr. should be should be apologizing and not complaining. 

 

...

 

we can wait for the apology... or not.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Ah, so you now have no issue with a single ranger having a boosted Charisma. Just what I've been saying all along. No you haven't been consistent Gromnir. It's okay for you to apologise. But this has been a good chuckle with your obtuseness.

[Gromnir]

 

 

in retrospect, giving all the good skills to the high charisma leader is arse backwards as it is gimping everybody but the leader.

 

charismasux_1.jpg

 

charismasux_2.jpg

 

charismasux_3.jpg

 

the benefit of the charisma boost is largely negligible, so giving all your best xp generating skills to one ranger is effective gimping all those other rangers.  oh, sure, mathematically you get most benefit from the charisma boost by dropping the skills into one character, but to do so is ultimately self defeating as you is going to be giving leveling advantages to likely your least effective combat ranger and you will not be seeing any real advantages from doing so until At Least 1/2 into the game.

 

that being said, now that leadership is corrected, we got no issue with a single ranger having a boosted charisma. we complained long about this( http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/66368-wasteland-2-kickstarted/page-17?do=findComment&comment=1514419 ) but it is good to see inxile finally address after a few post release patches, cause otherwise, charisma were useless. the only meaningful benefit o' charisma were the increase in the zone of influence of the accuracy boost from leadership, which we were getting 1/2 value from until today. we likely would still not increase charisma past 5ish for a leader as as that is typical more than enough to benefit all rangers save for offensive minded melee types who may run outside the charisma 5 leader's sphere o' influence. the thing is, the melee types will likely have no need for the accuracy boost save at the lowest levels of advancement. 

 

and we note that Gromnir has been consistent in his position. hp jr.'s  euphoria aside (HA!), he has changed his stance. based on his own posts, suggesting that he were having a 1.5 level advantage from a charisma boost of 6-7 points were actually very generous of us. hp jr. should be should be apologizing and not complaining. 

 

...

 

we can wait for the apology... or not.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Ah, so you now have no issue with a single ranger having a boosted Charisma. Just what I've been saying all along. No you haven't been consistent Gromnir. It's okay for you to apologise. But this has been a good chuckle with your obtuseness.

 

you do realize a patch were released yesterday that doubled the efficacy o' the leadership skill, yes? no? if we ignored the change to leadership, That would be obtuse. 

 

"obtuseness"

 

is not what you believe it to mean. perhaps ironically, your recent post is almost textbook definition o' being obtuse. 

 

*shakes head sadly*

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 6, 2014 by Gromnir

[Enoch]

Well, if skill-use XP counts as quest XP (and I think it does), then it makes some sense to concentrate XP-earning skills on a high-CHA character to maximize total party XP.  But the effect would be super-marginal (something in the area of 1 extra random encounter per map), and pouring lots of points into both INT and CHA is going to lead to a super-gimped combat character.  Even if you tank Luck and leave Strength at 2, putting 8+ into INT and CHA leaves you with only 7 or 8 AP and a CI of 10 or less. 

 

Maybe if it frees you up to make the rest of your party into 16+ CI monsters I could see it.  But I'd probably rather have the (marginally less efficacious) XP-boosting skills on my dangerous combat characters, to help them get their main weapon skill into "consistent hit" territory ASAP. 

 

And, the way this game is constructed, I'm having trouble seeing a 10% difference over the course of 30 levels as especially significant.  The pacing of the game limits the degree to which XP earns you increases in effectiveness.  (Which, by the way, makes sense in a game that allows random-encounter grinding.)  The skill-check difficulties are paced pretty consistently (1st-rank checks at the radio tower, 3rd-rank checks at Ag Center, 5th-rank checks at Rail Nomads, etc.) and don't often reward having an unusually-high-for-this-area skill level.  As far as the fighting goes, once you get 7 or so points in your Rangers' main combat skills (which should be achieved before you notice much CHA-based spread in your characters' levels), the big step-ups in the combat effectiveness of your party come from gear, not from levels/skillpoints.  Specifically, the new types of gear that open up as you progress through the main plot (Access to Ranger Citadel merchants, Access to Eastern AZ, Access to LA, Access to Hollywood, etc.).  It'd be one thing if, for example, some LA-tier gear was available in AZ, but behind really tough skillchecks, but, with very few exceptions (mostly, the toaster that lets you buy the GRB), that's not this game.  The loot is deliberately paced. 

 

IMO, if you want an XP boost, it makes much more sense to spend 20 minutes fighting random encounters than it does to bump your characters' Charisma.  XP is not scarce in this game; attribute points are. 

 

That said, you should get 5 or 6 ranks in Leadership on a character if you're planning to take any NPCs along.  And, if you do, with the accuracy boost now at 2% per level rather than 1%, enough CHA to ensure that it affects most of your characters most of the time is probably not a terrible investment.  Plus, Pizepi is among the most effectively built of the joinable NPCs, and you need somewhere in the area of 21 total party CHA (including NPCs, dog collars, and honeydews) to get her.  So do what you want-- all told, CHA has more going for it than Luck does (it's at least somewhat useful on 1 character!), but be aware of what you're buying. 

Edited November 6, 2014 by Enoch

[Marceror]

 

On the topic of having high CHA characters, well, first, there's more to it than just giving a character high charisma. You want them to have high charisma AND plenty of non-combat skills that grant xp (e.g. demolitions and lockpicking)

 

A 10 CHA character who is doing several of the key non-combat skills compared to a 1 CHA character who isn't can easily end the game with a good 6 level divide between them. Is this alone worth the CHA, investment? I guess that's open to interpretation, but when you add into that the huge radius of leadership influence, it looks a lot better. I realize that the bonus isn't huge, but when you're giving that bonus to SIX other characters, it makes a difference. It makes head shots a lot safer, and/or firing at a foe behind cover a fair amount easier.

 

I think I'm probably more inclined to stick with around 8 CHA for my leader going forward though.

in retrospect, giving all the good skills to the high charisma leader is arse backwards as it is gimping everybody but the leader.

 

the benefit of the charisma boost is largely negligible, so giving all your best xp generating skills to one ranger is effective gimping all those other rangers.  oh, sure, mathematically you get most benefit from the charisma boost by dropping the skills into one character, but to do so is ultimately self defeating as you is going to be giving leveling advantages to likely your least effective combat ranger and you will not be seeing any real advantages from doing so until At Least 1/2 into the game.

I think "gimping" is going too far, since there are so many non-combat skills to go around. Other characters will still have the opportunity to gain plenty of non-combat xp as well. At most your high CHA char is going to have 2, maybe three of these skills, as they still need a weapon skill and leadership, and possibly one of the ass skills. So let's say you went balls to the wall with this character and gave them 10 INT and 8 CHA. Skills might be lockpicking, demolitions, sniper rifle, leadership and kiss ass (with less INT I would expect less skills assigned to that character).

 

That still leaves you with safecracking, outdoorsman, surgeon, field medic, mechanical repair (can be used quite a bit to correct a lot of critical failures), and brute force, alarm disarm to provide non-combat xp to your other characters. Most of those offer lots of xp opportunities. But sure, if you'd rather your top combat guy have demolitions instead, adjust to your liking. I'm just saying that if you're going to invest in CHA, putting in those higher xp yielding non-combat skills, vs. say all 3 ass skills which typically offer party xp anyway, makes the investment pay off better.

 

And furthermore, there are ways to make that character fairly combat effective by boosting their CI over the course of the game. Bumping awareness and reserving CI boosting trinkets for this character can really help to get them into the fights more.

[Cantousent]

One of the things I like about this game is that it's fast paced and fun.  It's campy, like Fallout and especially Fallout 2.  I can only think of maybe two or three battles that required a reload.  That's not because of my brilliance as a 'commander.'  That's because the game is pretty forgiving.  I think it's fairly hard to completely gimp your party on the combat side unless you're a complete noob or you intentionally do so to make the game harder and earn some bragging rights.  It's not a bragging rights kind of game as I've seen it and, unless Supreme Jerk is considerably harder than Ranger, it probably won't be.

 

Please don't get me wrong.  Half the fun of these games is debating the builds.  I read through the posts to get a good idea of how to approach my build for the next game and I shameless plundered the advice that was available when I build the party I'm playing now.  It's a great debate, but it's also good to remember that at some point the increases in efficiency will be marginal, and that's especially true for XP gains.  Frankly, I think the way XP works in the game fits the campy nature of it, but it's quite schizophrenic.  Yeah yeah "That's ur opinion!1!!"  I only have my opinion to give.  Please take for granted that I won't give someone else's opinion without citing him.  I think of the per use XP on skills as largely trivial candy doled out to give people a happy feeling rather than making any truly significant difference in the game.  I suppose I could dredge up screen shots later if I had to do so, but I have a single high charisma character with a six leadership (because of a trinket) and two dialogue skills.  I have one super high intellect skills monkey with Computers, locks, safecracking, and surgeon.  My sniper has explosives and repair.  My heavy weapons guy is almost another skill monkey with alarms, surgeon, medic, and toaster.  I think many of you would think of that party as a foolish build, and yet combat has not been difficult.  Sure, I had a brief brush with death early that encouraged me to have two (and now three) surgeons, but otherwise it's been pretty smooth sailing.  With those skills, there is a single level difference between my characters.  Two are 30.  Two are 29.  My NPCs are 27, 28, and 29.  ...And they still perform in combat and I have had two of them since very early in the game.  Per use skill XP is a psychological reward that most has a minor and sometimes negligible impact.

 

To allude to something Gromnir said earlier, why is it that you get per use skill XP for non combat skills but combat XP is doled out evenly regardless of who performs better?  Don't give me mental gymnastics or quasi politico double speak!  The game could give XP for successfully hitting an opponent with a weapon.  There is no theoretical reason not to do so, but it would be a really tough act to balance it from a game design perspective.  Of course, you could get XP for the failed attempt because it does teach you something in real life.  However, that's true for non-combat skills, which yield no XP for failing.  Combat XP is a tremendous amount in the aggregate.  Skill use XP barely rises above trivial in most cases.

 

My point isn't to start an argument about the WL2 XP system here.  I'm enjoying the game.  I'm just saying that my problem with the skills really isn't the XP thing, even though I find it silly.  Something that I think is a more serious issue from a design standpoint is the fact that I don't really see how most of the attributes impact skills.  Does strength impact brute force in a meaningful way?  Does Charisma impact hard ass, smart ass, or kiss ass?  Also, I don't like the fact that dialogue is broken into three categories.  I don't know about other folks, but I do everything I can to make sure that I have all the dialogue options possible in a game.  ...But none of this will prevent me from playing again.  Once I finish the first run, of course.

[Enoch]

I think it's fairly hard to completely gimp your party on the combat side unless you're a complete noob or you intentionally do so to make the game harder and earn some bragging rights. 

I'm not sure I agree-- true, the game isn't especially difficult on the default difficulty, but it is also pretty easy for somebody to stumble into some pretty poor character-creation decisions that could cause some major difficulty spikes later on. 

 

If, for example, you assume that Combat Initiative is similar to D&D initiative (i.e., affecting only order of action, not frequency), you're going to be prioritizing the wrong attributes for combat purposes.  If you don't read the nitty-gritty details of the effects of all the attributes and instead allocate things intuitively based on a skim of the tooltips and experience with other games (melee characters probably need strength; coordination sounds like D&D dexterity; guys with speech skills probably need charisma; luck's effect on loot sounds useful; etc.), you get some crappy characters.  I wouldn't necessarily characterize that as "total noob" behavior-- it's not as if they're silly enough to buy a skill rank in Barter. 

 

 

Edit, to answer your question, there are only 3 ways in which attributes impact skills: 

1)  The radius of effect of the hit-chance boost from a character's Leadership skill depends on their Charisma. 

2)  You need a high INT to take high-level ranks in Surgeon (but only Surgeon, and only INT-- idiotic computer hackers and surgeons with terrible coordination are no problem at all).

3)  Each rank of Strength (as well as each character level) gives a slight damage bonus when using Brawling weapons (but not Blades or Blunt weapons).  This is in addition to the documented boost to the critical damage multiplier.

 

(IIRC, the first one of these is the only one that is explained to the player in character creation.)

Edited November 6, 2014 by Enoch

[Gromnir]

 

 

On the topic of having high CHA characters, well, first, there's more to it than just giving a character high charisma. You want them to have high charisma AND plenty of non-combat skills that grant xp (e.g. demolitions and lockpicking)

 

A 10 CHA character who is doing several of the key non-combat skills compared to a 1 CHA character who isn't can easily end the game with a good 6 level divide between them. Is this alone worth the CHA, investment? I guess that's open to interpretation, but when you add into that the huge radius of leadership influence, it looks a lot better. I realize that the bonus isn't huge, but when you're giving that bonus to SIX other characters, it makes a difference. It makes head shots a lot safer, and/or firing at a foe behind cover a fair amount easier.

 

I think I'm probably more inclined to stick with around 8 CHA for my leader going forward though.

in retrospect, giving all the good skills to the high charisma leader is arse backwards as it is gimping everybody but the leader.

 

the benefit of the charisma boost is largely negligible, so giving all your best xp generating skills to one ranger is effective gimping all those other rangers.  oh, sure, mathematically you get most benefit from the charisma boost by dropping the skills into one character, but to do so is ultimately self defeating as you is going to be giving leveling advantages to likely your least effective combat ranger and you will not be seeing any real advantages from doing so until At Least 1/2 into the game.

 So let's say you went balls to the wall with this character and gave them 10 INT and 8 CHA. Skills might be lockpicking, demolitions, sniper rifle, leadership and kiss ass (with less INT I would expect less skills assigned to that character).

 

we contemplated such a character, for about five minutes.  heck, we were trying to get hp jr. to recognize the mistake you is making and he never did. he wanted to compare his leader to his "best character" while seeming to forget that his leader were necessarily his worst character. so you wanna show us we ain't gimping party? *chuckle* ok, le'ts go balls to the walls and end up with a character that gots 10 int and 8 cha.  what kinda ap and ci does that character get? so, to build a character that will indeed start getting a few extra levels than the rest of the party by mid point of the game, you gotta turn that ranger into relative dead weight in combat.... which is fine. is a quasi-rpg, so if you wanna make a single character with terrible combat contributions, that is okie dokie. the thing is, as enoch notes, you ain't genuine enhancing your remaining ranger's combat efficacy by turning your charisma monkey into your party gimp. 

 

again, the insular mathematical advantage is to make such a skill & charisma monkey, but that mathematical advantage only exists outside actual gameplay. as soon as combat starts, and combat is a very large % o' the potential gameplay, the mathematical advantage evaporates. you can , of course, make a more combat efficacious charisma monkey, but doing so necessitates reducing intelligence or charisma, which largely nullifies the advantages o' such a character. furthermore, as you should be able to see from our screenie and feedback on this issue, skill choice is far more important than even two or three points o' charisma. 

 

oh, and mechanical repair is a terrible xp skill. to get the benefits o' repairing locks you must first needs fail at another skill, so you is simple taking xp from another character... need hope for many fails to make useful. furthermore, in our experience, is typical that the skill to repair a lock requires higher skill than to open said lock. chances are we is already making stuff such as lock pick and safecrack a priority for skills. the likelihood that we got higher skill in mechanical is near nil.  am guessing you could come back to critical fail locks some couple o' levels later, but isn't it easier to take a couple random map encounters if you is so desperate for xp? there is a safe in the ag center we failed. how likely is we to go back to ag center and fix the lock after we has level'd a bit? additional, folks on this board has observed a dearth o' mechanical repair opportunities in ca, and there are not a particular large number o' such options in az. in fact, more than a few mechanical repair options may be resolved via frequent use skills such as computers and demolitions, so assuming you got the trinket for mechanical repair (am pretty confident we saw one at a vendor, but am not certain) you won't need more than 4 or 5 points in mechanical repair to do all o' az... and if you got the skill boosting book, that number drops to 3 or 4. so, a skill we could stop paying for at between 3 and 5 needs have us get 8 or 9 skill levels to overcome the critical fails... fails which is less likely to occur if we spend points in the more relevant skills.  mechanical repair is better than barter. am having difficulty saying anything else that is positive 'bout mechanical repair if it indeed drops off in usage in ca.

 

other terrible xp skills is the speech skills, brute force, and we suspect something is wrong with outdoorsman, 'cause we skip every random world map encounter we can, but our outdoorsman character seems to benefit little or not at all from such avoidings.  weaponsmith also sux for xp boosts. am not certain how many weapons we has broken down trying to get a particular mod, or 3 such mods, but numbers is high. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

Edited November 6, 2014 by Gromnir

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

is not what you believe it to mean. perhaps ironically, your recent post is almost textbook definition o' being obtuse. 

 

*shakes head sadly*

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Oh I do know what it means. You're the text book case of obtuse.

 

I have to chuckle at these quotes.

 

one wonders what the inxile developers were thinking when they created two dump attributes.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

an effective leader character with a charisma o' 1 tickles our fancy. 

 

HA! Good Fun. 

 

 

we got no issue with a single ranger having a boosted charisma.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

we contemplated such a character, for about five minutes.  heck, we were trying to get hp jr. to recognize the mistake you is making and he never did. he wanted to compare his leader to his "best character" while seeming to forget that his leader were necessarily his worst character. so you wanna show us we ain't gimping party? *chuckle*

 

The difference between us is I have gameplay with an 8 Cha leader and can chart the progress of this leader compared to my other party members. When I do another run through this game with a leader having skills being used frequently such as demolitions and taking the same NPCs and doing the same quests, I'll be comparing those two games. I'd rather see actual gameplay and testing than '5 minutes' of theorycrafting. *chuckle*

[Gromnir]

 

 

is not what you believe it to mean. perhaps ironically, your recent post is almost textbook definition o' being obtuse. 

 

*shakes head sadly*

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Oh I do know what it means. You're the text book case of obtuse.

 

I have to chuckle at these quotes.

 

one wonders what the inxile developers were thinking when they created two dump attributes.  

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

an effective leader character with a charisma o' 1 tickles our fancy. 

 

HA! Good Fun. 

 

 

we got no issue with a single ranger having a boosted charisma.

 

you really don't get it. we noted, multiple times, that the value o' charisma in wasteland 2 were limited to 2 factors: "1) it boosts area of effect on the accuracy bonus for leadership (snort) and, 2) it gives a small xp bonus that is ultimately insignificant w/o giving your charisma jockey a high use skill." we also noted how leadership woked in the beta: "the way leadership worked in the beta is we got a 2% accuracy boost per level, and in-game description continues to boast a +2% boost that we do not get, but that is a whole 'nother issue."

 

 

charisma is still of negligible value for leveling purposes, but the most recent patch, which  we were made aware of by enoch in the following post on November 5th, http://forums.obsidian.net/topic/68953-wasteland-2/?p=1532361 Doubled the value o' leadership's accuracy bonus.  if we did not take new information and changes into account, that would indeed make us as obtuse as you is being. we would also be contradicting self if we failed to applaud the return o' leadership to its beta state as we noted how essential the skill were in its beta form. 

 

again, you clear don't know what obtuse means if you is doggedly arguing this point. 

 

*shrug*

 

keep posting as you is further illustrating our point 'bout you being obtuse & evasive.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps as for your theory crafting acumen and diligence, we find such laughable based on your use of screen shots o' an ar wielding rose trying to make head shots at 48% as indicative o' headshot efficacy, and your desire to argue 'bout whether charisma affected zone of influence of rogue chance reduction of leadership rather than freaking testing it as Gromnir did. 

Edited November 6, 2014 by Gromnir

[Marceror]

On the topic of having high CHA characters, well, first, there's more to it than just giving a character high charisma. You want them to have high charisma AND plenty of non-combat skills that grant xp (e.g. demolitions and lockpicking)

 

A 10 CHA character who is doing several of the key non-combat skills compared to a 1 CHA character who isn't can easily end the game with a good 6 level divide between them. Is this alone worth the CHA, investment? I guess that's open to interpretation, but when you add into that the huge radius of leadership influence, it looks a lot better. I realize that the bonus isn't huge, but when you're giving that bonus to SIX other characters, it makes a difference. It makes head shots a lot safer, and/or firing at a foe behind cover a fair amount easier.

 

I think I'm probably more inclined to stick with around 8 CHA for my leader going forward though.

in retrospect, giving all the good skills to the high charisma leader is arse backwards as it is gimping everybody but the leader.

 

the benefit of the charisma boost is largely negligible, so giving all your best xp generating skills to one ranger is effective gimping all those other rangers.  oh, sure, mathematically you get most benefit from the charisma boost by dropping the skills into one character, but to do so is ultimately self defeating as you is going to be giving leveling advantages to likely your least effective combat ranger and you will not be seeing any real advantages from doing so until At Least 1/2 into the game.

 So let's say you went balls to the wall with this character and gave them 10 INT and 8 CHA. Skills might be lockpicking, demolitions, sniper rifle, leadership and kiss ass (with less INT I would expect less skills assigned to that character).

 

we contemplated such a character, for about five minutes.  heck, we were trying to get hp jr. to recognize the mistake you is making and he never did. he wanted to compare his leader to his "best character" while seeming to forget that his leader were necessarily his worst character. so you wanna show us we ain't gimping party? *chuckle* ok, le'ts go balls to the walls and end up with a character that gots 10 int and 8 cha.  what kinda ap and ci does that character get? so, to build a character that will indeed start getting a few extra levels than the rest of the party by mid point of the game, you gotta turn that ranger into relative dead weight in combat.... which is fine. is a quasi-rpg, so if you wanna make a single character with terrible combat contributions, that is okie dokie. the thing is, as enoch notes, you ain't genuine enhancing your remaining ranger's combat efficacy by turning your charisma monkey into your party gimp. 

 

again, the insular mathematical advantage is to make such a skill & charisma monkey, but that mathematical advantage only exists outside actual gameplay. as soon as combat starts, and combat is a very large % o' the potential gameplay, the mathematical advantage evaporates. you can , of course, make a more combat efficacious charisma monkey, but doing so necessitates reducing intelligence or charisma, which largely nullifies the advantages o' such a character. furthermore, as you should be able to see from our screenie and feedback on this issue, skill choice is far more important than even two or three points o' charisma. 

 

Well, since I easily beat the game on supreme jerk, I can safely say that your assertion that I'm making "a mistake" is unfounded. I have no problem admitting that a 10 INT 8 CHA character is almost certainly going to be your weakest combat character, but who cares? You can have up to 7 characters, and combat is *totally* doable with some non-combatants on the team. And I never claimed that I would be "enhancing my remaining ranger's combat efficacy" by having a less combat oriented character on the team, so I'm not sure what you're on about with that point.

 

Trying to steer your response back on track, your point that I previously responded to was that by giving non-combat skills to my CHA character I would end up gimping "the party" and "gimping everyone BUT the leader". So why are you now trying to back that up by explaining that I will be gimping the high CHA character, pointing out low CI and such? In relation to the party, what relevance does that one character's CI or AP have? "The party" will still have plenty of non-combat skills they can spread around so the more combat oriented characters have additional sources of xp, which is what I pointed out. I neglected to mention weaponsmithing, so thanks for including that in the list.

 

Sorry, but you're really off point here.

 

oh, and mechanical repair is a terrible xp skill. to get the benefits o' repairing locks you must first needs fail at another skill, so you is simple taking xp from another character... need hope for many fails to make useful. furthermore, in our experience, is typical that the skill to repair a lock requires higher skill than to open said lock. chances are we is already making stuff such as lock pick and safecrack a priority for skills. the likelihood that we got higher skill in mechanical is near nil.  am guessing you could come back to critical fail locks some couple o' levels later, but isn't it easier to take a couple random map encounters if you is so desperate for xp? there is a safe in the ag center we failed. how likely is we to go back to ag center and fix the lock after we has level'd a bit? additional, folks on this board has observed a dearth o' mechanical repair opportunities in ca, and there are not a particular large number o' such options in az. in fact, more than a few mechanical repair options may be resolved via frequent use skills such as computers and demolitions, so assuming you got the trinket for mechanical repair (am pretty confident we saw one at a vendor, but am not certain) you won't need more than 4 or 5 points in mechanical repair to do all o' az... and if you got the skill boosting book, that number drops to 3 or 4. so, a skill we could stop paying for at between 3 and 5 needs have us get 8 or 9 skill levels to overcome the critical fails... fails which is less likely to occur if we spend points in the more relevant skills.  mechanical repair is better than barter. am having difficulty saying anything else that is positive 'bout mechanical repair if it indeed drops off in usage in ca.

 

other terrible xp skills is the speech skills, brute force, and we suspect something is wrong with outdoorsman, 'cause we skip every random world map encounter we can, but our outdoorsman character seems to benefit little or not at all from such avoidings.  weaponsmith also sux for xp boosts. am not certain how many weapons we has broken down trying to get a particular mod, or 3 such mods, but numbers is high. 

 

Clearly some skills are richer in xp opportunities than others, but as I stated previously, you can adjust who gets what as you see fit.

 

As for mechanical repair you are incorrect about xp being transferred from one character to the other. This skill actually creates an additional xp opportunity each time. The sequence is 1) critical failure (no xp), 2) mechanical repair (xp on success), 3) retry original skill check (xp on success).