Wasteland 2

[Marceror]

 

Apparently there's someone in Hollywood who wants him.

 

 

I never found him, so I can't be any more help than that.

[IndiraLightfoot]

For Cantousent:

 

 

 

Sorry about the double post, but I can't edit my previous one.  Anyhow, does anyone know how I go about

getting rid of this puppy?  I said I'd find a home, but now I just wish I'd been a hardass and told him to scoot.  I don't want to fret about an animal companion.  They always get themselves killed and that angers and depresses me.

 

 

Is this the puppy from that shop with bloody roaches in Hollywood?

If so, it is a fantastic companion that actually can be an asset all the way through the boss fight! It actually deals nice damage too, on top of being a super-duper tank.

 

I have been able to get rid of unwanted pets, by temporarily removing the character with the anim whisper capacity, and then the pet gets released, as it were, and then I simply recruit that party member again at the HQ.

 

 

 

[Cantousent]

Aside:  I stopped playing about fifteen minutes ago and the only STEAM pop up ad was for Pillars of Eternity!  Hot diggity!

 

Anyhow, Indira, you're right about the pooch.  I have fond and extremely frustrating memories of Dogmeat, but I might keep the little bugger just for the hell of it.  We'll see.  I think the combat in FO was a bit tougher, so it probably won't be quite as nerve grinding to keep him alive.   I wish he were a cat. <.<

[Hiro Protagonist II]

On my recent playthrough with my new group, I'm at Damonta and Aberforth just won't die. I'm picking up animals left, right and centre for the achievements and when one dies, I pick up another. I don't have any attachment with the animals for this group but geez, the enemies just seem to ignore Aberforth. I know I can dismiss him but can't be bothered. The dogs, rat  and goats I've picked up have all died but Aberforth still marches on with his 1 hp.

[Marceror]

Aberforth is immortal.

[Cantousent]

That little robot I fixed got the chop early and I couldn't fix it again. That's the only 'pet' I've had. Oh, and some dude following me around spouting off Latin. He lasted a bit longer.

[IndiraLightfoot]

[spoilerish]

 

Cantousent: Poor Disco Jamie died in Whittier, in my case, and Provost died on the second Rail-thugs map, but then magically was reborn and appeared in a few Cali-maps, before getting killed again. So weird.

[Marceror]

[spoilerish]

 

Cantousent: Poor Disco Jamie died in Whittier, in my case, and Provost died on the second Rail-thugs map, but then magically was reborn and appeared in a few Cali-maps, before getting killed again. So weird.

 

 

He died in the same place my first time in LA as well, which is to say almost immediately. It turns out that "cute little robot" vs. a bunch of nasty energy weapons doesn't work out so well for the cute little robot!

 

Edited November 12, 2014 by Marceror

[Enoch]

I didn't manage to get Jaime out of Damonta.  Granted, I wasn't making any special efforts, as I generally dislike having to deal with AI-driven "helpers." 

 

The Provost was waxed by Rail Thieves and the Scorpitron.  (His charging up to the latter and inflicting 1 Dam/shot from his pistol was worth a laugh, though.) I killed Vax myself after it did a better job shooting Rangers in the back of the head than it did hurting the enemy.  Any Animal-Whispered "friendly" that thinks it's a melee combatant is promptly dismissed. 

[prodigydancer]

I killed Vax myself after it did a better job shooting Rangers in the back of the head than it did hurting the enemy.

Now that's a waste. You get occasional friendly fire from Vax but with his damage potential he's pretty good in LA and it's very easy to keep him alive because he has good range.

[Enoch]

 

I killed Vax myself after it did a better job shooting Rangers in the back of the head than it did hurting the enemy.

Now that's a waste. You get occasional friendly fire from Vax but with his damage potential he's pretty good in LA and it's very easy to keep him alive because he has good range.

 

I consider it a roleplaying decision.  Friendly fire alongside a combat bark about destroying all humans makes my Rangers nervous.

[Cantousent]

I'm pretty much with Enoch on helpers.  There are two choices, not to care, in which case they end up dead pretty quick because I'm not risking my actual team on them, or to develop an attachment and then baby-sit idiotic people throughout the game.  I haven't had any helps who have contributed anything substantial to me the entire game.  I'm not saying that they *can't* help.  I'm just saying I sail on just fine without them.  However, I feel responsible for the pup, so I'm going to find it a home if I can.

 

Apart from the discussion of animal companions, my favorite part of the LA section of the game is when I got to

tell Matthias that there will be no peace between us and I'm coming for him.

  I rarely get the chance to make such a decision in these games without the nagging worry that maybe there was a better way.  There can be no diplomacy with someone who is diametrically opposed to your values and will attack them by force at every chance.  The best I could have done was infiltrate and spy on him, but destroying him utterly best serves the interests of the LA region and I didn't want to give him a chance to weasel his way into being a permanent threat.  Plus, we're Rangers, honorable to our word.  Maybe, after he's dead and buried, I might have mercy on the remnants of his organization if they can be pacified and agree to peaceful co-existence or even cooperation.

[Enoch]

Man, end-of-Hollywood quests are still... rough.  A serious pass for quest flags, clearer player instructions, and general polish is still needed. 

 

 

Had a lot of issues doing thing in the "right" order to help McDade and Veronica.  If, for example, I killed Retribution Jones and then stepped out into the yard outside (rather than turn around and talk to the NPCs who magically appear in the observatory room), I turned the "good guys" hostile, and quests became un-completable.  And even resolving things "correctly" still left me with unexplained hostile Churchy-types up at the radio tower.  Nothing in Los Feliz seems to re-set at all, either.

 

Also the descriptive text is wrong all over.  Just to pick one example, the text (poetically) describes the Hollywood sign as only having 2 letter standing, spelling "HO" when it clearly says "HOLLYWO_D" as I walk by.

 

Edited November 13, 2014 by Enoch

[Dread Skavos]

Any news on when the GOG key for Wasteland 2 will be released? The game was released on GOG on the 19th of September.

[Cantousent]

Sorry, Dread one, I don't have an answer for you.  You would think that it would have come out at the same time, but I could only speculate on that.  Good luck, man!

 

As far the wee pup: 

I was walking through Hollywood having come back from poking around in Los Feliz and this man on the sidewalk asked about my dog.  Strangely, it took level 7 kiss ass to give away the mutt.  I will say one thing, that is one badassed dog.  Good Lord, he packed a decent punch for such a little guy.  Not as good as my party members to be sure, but still pretty tough.  I was almost sure he was going to get the chop when some giant cannon thing targeted him, but for some reason it didn't actually shoot him.  I got the impression it was some sort of status effect thing it put on him.  Anyhow, highly armored opponents are in some ways even easier than lightly armored ones.  That gama ray booster laser thingamabob really puts the hammer down.  My skills monkey uses it, which means I only get one salvo, but that one salvo really laws down the law.  Also, while the game really lays it on thick as regards the religion baiting thing, there is a faction within the Cathedral folks with whom I can work.  So, I don't have to eradicate them completely.  I don't know if I really want Hollywood and Griffith Park to team up.  Sounds like trouble waiting in the wings.  Of course, that's someone else's problems.  You can't save people by killing everyone and this solution seems to be workable for the time being.  Some of the Cathedral people are actually pretty decent.  Matthias, though, he must go.

 

[Zoraptor]

GOG keys have been out for ages, a week before release iirc. You just have to pick the GOG option from the drop down when redeeming a key at the ranger centre.

 

Don't know about the  the cross promo ones from the PE kickstarter and how they're done though.

[Lexx]

That reminds me about my special edition boxed copy that *still hasn't arrived* yet. This is pretty embaressing for inXile / the boxed copy publisher, imo.

[Marceror]

That reminds me about my special edition boxed copy that *still hasn't arrived* yet. This is pretty embaressing for inXile / the boxed copy publisher, imo.

 

http://wastelandrpg.tumblr.com/post/102309967281/wasteland-2-collectors-edition-status-update

 

 

Wasteland 2 Collector’s Edition Status Update

The Wasteland 2 metal Collector’s Edition boxes are now on track to start shipping in two weeks, Deep Silver is currently assembling all parts – and hopefully we can show you the boxes before they start shipping out. They should start arriving in backers’ hands by the end of the month, with apologies again for how long this process has been taking.

The next step is to figure out how we’ll get the signatures of Brian Fargo and Chris Avellone on the signed editions. Those versions will be shipping out later, we’ll have an exact timeline once we figure out logistically how are going to do it and how long that will take.

Thomas Beekers

inXile line producer

[Lexx]

So I will have to wait EVEN LONGER, because they need to be signed first... at the end of the month? :D

 

 

Guess that will make it 2015 then. Shipping from America is an additional 3 weeks journey.

Edited November 14, 2014 by Lexx

[Cantousent]

Wow, the back half of game, particularly around Hollywood, is completely bug ridden.  Playable, though, and in this respect it really is like the old days, when players would overlook bugs without the same amount of vitriol as we often see today.  I was quite happy at how it all wrapped up, however.  I think the Hollywood area was the most ambitious of the game I've played so far, with a bunch of different work with factions.  The game is pretty much all about the combat, but this area really did try to tell a story.  There were a couple of things that I found odd.

 

 

First of all, I found a book called Killing for Morons.  It only said that it gave 'Combat Shooting.'  I didn't know what that meant, so I gave it to my sniper.  It gave her combat shooting, but it doesn't really tell me what it does.  The tooltip for the skill says something like it gives training in all sorts of firearms or such.  Weird.  I find Hollywood unsavory, but I think the Cathedral folks are criminally insane.  Hopefully the change of management between both sides will result in an improvement of standards on one side and tolerance on the other.  Crazy bastards.  The last thing I need to do is go take on people trying to topple the dude I just put in place, this McDade character, and so I have to kill him off, but my people are burdened like pack animals with bags of Zeolite.  I'm going to make a detour and hope the last bit isn't timed.  Oh, and I truly have to scratch my head at the number of things in my safehouse storage back at Santa Fe.  I have things from the beginning of the game that I have never found any way to use.  Not bad, though.  I think I must have missed areas or something, so that gives me something to explore next run.

 

[Marceror]

Regarding the book:

 

 

This was just finally added in patch 3. My understanding is that it gives a large boost to crit chance... like 100% or something crazy like that. Check your crit chance.

 

[Gromnir]

Practically, unless you go out of your way to produce results like that, there's little asymmetry involved, Tig. While minor skill usage can bump some characters slightly further, combat and big quest rewards ensure that you'll still level up most characters at the same time.

agreed, which were our point earlier. attempting to create a relative over-level'd ranger by strategic choosing xp generator skills and forcing them on a combat weak ranger with high charisma and high intelligence is hardly practical. although we have only completed the game twice, we have taken a handful o' groups complete through arizona, each with differing skills allocations and choosing alternate routes for prison, titan, highpool/ag, etc. regardless o' team and party builds, our rangers have roughly the same xp spreads regardless. is a .5 to 1.5 level spread by the time we hit level 25-26. go through effort to achieve an ~3 level disparity by the time we finish the game strikes us as silly, but others may (and clearly do) disagree, even if they have difficulties expressing themselves rationally. 

 

actually, our biggest xp vacuum ranger thus far were a brawler with computer and animal whisperer skills. such a character with a 1 in charisma could level faster than any other ranger build we might conceive of at this time, though again, benefits is coming mostly in second half of the game. by the time animal whisperer were useful in combat situations to calm/turn most enemies, it were not as much use to us as we hoped, but reprogramming robots were requiring lower skill levels and were producing very large xp gains.  with the exception of a couple robot types, most any robot or turret could be reprogrammed. unfortunately, a reprogrammed robot (or calmed/turned animal for that matter) were removed from the combat xp pool-- only the computer hacker received xp for the successful reprogrammed robot.  kinda a double-edged sword as the gains for our brawler were a necessary loss for the remaining rangers in our troop.

 

*chuckle*

 

 in one o' those examples o' degenerative wasteland 2 gameplay, there were a california map that resulted in a near guaranteed level-up for our hacker. were five neutral robots that you could reprogram for 900 total xp... or more if you got better than a charisma o' one. we started combat after reprograming and were able to reprogram at two more robots in addition to the combat xp we garnered for the destroyed robots. silly. were not as silly as us purposefully shooting a squaddie so that our healer could get a level-up opportunity before an upcoming fight, but were degenerative nevertheless. we reloaded and played straight as the 900 free xp were too... cheap.

 

aside--

 

as we mentioned earlier, the robot and animal followers are a headache to us for the multiple reasons we already noted. is amazing to us that so little improvement has been made by developers since our efforts to keep dogmeat alive back in the late 90s. that being said, we actually preferred being shot in the back by vax than having jamie rush headlong into every potential enemy meat-grinder we came across.  with typical only 1 melee ranger per group, vax were doing admirable damage against heavily armoured foes w/o causing much friendly fire damage. if not for the aforementioned aggro quirks, we woulda' kept it around a bit longer than we did... although the 50 health made that difficult as well. jamie, on the other hand, contributed little to our combat efforts save for frustration. felt like it were 1997 all over again. gotta wonder what yutz would keep jamie around for the reason o' making mechanical repair useful in the second half of the game... 'course we guess that question already gots an answer.

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps the computer hacker need not be a brawler or even a melee type to make use o' the serious xp boost from reprogramming, but robots (and critters) hit hard and you gotta get up-close and personal to hack/calm them. we has taken some significant damage while getting close enough to use animal whisperer and computer skills in combat situations, and am thinking a high strength ranger is helpful, if not essential, to pull off such nonsense. big strength and brawling is having obvious synergy in wasteland 2. 

 

pps also, given the quirky way in which xp is awarded, we were careful not to make too much use of reprogramming robots in combat, 'cause while doing so made tactical sense, strategically we were depriving our squad o' considerable xp. wacky.

Edited November 16, 2014 by Gromnir

[Cantousent]

"ps the computer hacker need not be a brawler or even a melee type to make use o' the serious xp boost from reprogramming"

 

Amen, brother.  I personally think computers might be better than explosives.  That might not be true, I don't know.  Depends on how compulsively you disarm.  I'm going to consider the CHA arguments, but I'm not going to give up on my skill point bumps from INT at this point.  I can stack INT on two characters, as I've suggested, but I won't have a smaller aggregate skills number.  I'm not saying you couldn't do well otherwise, but I don't like games where I feel shutoff from options.  Most of my builds always focus on trying to get as many options as possible.

 

Also, playing through High Pool this time, I think I'll do the Ag Center next time.  That means Rose will be high INT and have Computers so high I won't want to have either skills monkey even bother with it.  I think I'm just going to invest in Ralphy this time and develop him.  I think, while he ain't much at first, you could make him into a serviceable ranger within a few levels.

 

I can't be too far off from the end game at this point, so I'll really get into the build after I'm done.  That and I have it under advisement that I should arse myself to play Betrayal at Krondor.  Maybe that between runs?

[Gromnir]

"ps the computer hacker need not be a brawler or even a melee type to make use o' the serious xp boost from reprogramming"

 

Amen, brother.  I personally think computers might be better than explosives.  That might not be true, I don't know.  Depends on how compulsively you disarm.  I'm going to consider the CHA arguments, but I'm not going to give up on my skill point bumps from INT at this point.  I can stack INT on two characters, as I've suggested, but I won't have a smaller aggregate skills number.  I'm not saying you couldn't do well otherwise, but I don't like games where I feel shutoff from options.  Most of my builds always focus on trying to get as many options as possible.

 

Also, playing through High Pool this time, I think I'll do the Ag Center next time.  That means Rose will be high INT and have Computers so high I won't want to have either skills monkey even bother with it.  I think I'm just going to invest in Ralphy this time and develop him.  I think, while he ain't much at first, you could make him into a serviceable ranger within a few levels.

 

I can't be too far off from the end game at this point, so I'll really get into the build after I'm done.  That and I have it under advisement that I should arse myself to play Betrayal at Krondor.  Maybe that between runs?

am agreeing about the value of intelligence. all our Gromnir-built rangers gots at least 4 intelligence. sure, by the end o' the game, having rose (or even vulture's cry), a 10 intelligence ranger and three rangers with int of 4 is resulting in eventual skill overkill, but we never got enough skills points for the first twenty-to-twenty-five levels. is kinda the opposite o' charisma. in any event, intelligence o' four may be unnecessary for optimal builds, but we got more freedom with more skills... early skills. 

 

speaking o' which, for our next run, am considering dumping rose once we hit damonta. as we observed, by level 30 we typical run outta skills on which to be spending points anyway. also, brawling becomes most effective at mid-levels. there is an ideally placed possible rose replacement at damonta. unfortunately, we has read Old posts that suggest that the companion in question is tending to go rogue whenever he is in the presence o' robots, which would serious diminish his efficacy.  am gonna need to test him a bit before we commit to building a new group with notion o' his inclusion as a regular.

 

...

 

cant might be shocked, appalled or amused by the fact that our next group is composed o' john neumann, marianne cope, frances xaver cabrini and damien de veuster. the heretics and heathens in ca don't stand a chance.

 

HA! Good Fun!

[Cantousent]

That's funny.  I had to look up the two women, but I knew who the men were, although I did remember St. Marianne after I read up on her.  I don't know what that says about me, if anything.  I also note that two of the four served in Leper Colonies.  One of my favorite literary characters was named after St. Damien.  Well, it *is* the wasteland and I'm sure you'll be trying to help the sick and needy as much as you're trying to smite the wicked.  You just need to go show those Cathedral nut-jobs the true meaning of religious fervor.

 

In my run, I'm at what must be the final show-down.  Speaking of Grom's next team, I'm going to introduce these Synth bastards to the Lord.  It's going to be a come to Jesus moment. Just funny that it all ended up the way that it did and especially where it did, although there were things there that always kind of foreshadowed this for me.  At least after today, I won't have to worry about reading spoilers.