Wasteland 2

[Keyrock]

For anyone that runs into the weird custom portrait bug I ran into, switch your gender, then switch it back, that seems to clear up the problem for some reason.

 

Edit:  The camera hotfix is perfect.  It zooms way out like before but you can zoom way in like with the previous "new" camera. 

Edited October 14, 2015 by Keyrock

[Darkpriest]

It crashes a fair bit, but one thing i cannot find now in inventory is where is the radiation suit level?

 

Also the snapshot feature in character creation is kind of meh now... can't adjust which part of the character the shot should take.

 

Other than that I like the upgrade so far.

[Bryy]

Yeah, this is nigh unplayable right now.

[Keyrock]

I've gotten 1 CTD in 2 hours of play so far, no other issues apart from the weird portrait bug.  That's 1 more CTD than I would have liked, but it sounds like I've been luckier than others.  Maybe it's more stable on Linux, or I've just gotten a lucky roll of the dice.  Either way, hopefully stabilizing fixes are incoming.

 

As an aside, I've seen a decent number of games get significantly less stable when the move from Unity 4 to Unity 5 happened.  Maybe the changes in the engine were more significant than devs anticipated?

[Lexx]

Seems you can't save your custom rangers anymore. Whenever you start a new game, you'll have to create them again.. I don't get this step back?

[Keyrock]

Seems you can't save your custom rangers anymore. Whenever you start a new game, you'll have to create them again.. I don't get this step back?

Yeah, it's not a huge omission, but I do hope they put the export function back in.

 

Anyway, I'm doing okay in my supreme jerk all melee core rangers playthrough so far, but I know it's going to be tough sledding later on.  The battles against robots with melee characters are going to be brutal.  I'm going to need to rely a lot on companions and thrown/launched explosives to get through those.  I'm only getting started, I'm doing Highpool now, so, fairly easy enemies so far.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Keyrock

[Bryy]

I hope the Save Ranger function is put back in sooner rather than later.

[Tale]

Any good rules of thumb on character creation? Useless stats/skills? Does it work out well grabbing only 1 level in skills or are they mostly useless below 2-3?

[Keyrock]

Any good rules of thumb on character creation? Useless stats/skills? Does it work out well grabbing only 1 level in skills or are they mostly useless below 2-3?

It's worth it to put only 1 in skills at start.  You'll definitely want more points in skills later, but 1 will get you by at the very beginning in many situations.  If you're looking to create a reasonably "optimal" party (as opposed to my crazy, all melee, Three's Company party) you'll want a good mix of ranged weapons and put a point or two down the road in some kind of melee weapon as a back up for if/when you run out of ammo.  You'll want to spread your non-weapon skills among your party members, there's no reason to overlap at all, that's wasteful.  Pretty much all of them are useful, barter is probably the least useful since the discount isn't all that impressive (only reason I took it for Stanley Roper is that I though it was thematic, and that's partly what I'm going for).  Make sure you have a character with first aid (that's RPG gaming 101, but I figured I'd post that for idiot-proofing [not implying you fit that description ])  If you're a serious min-maxer, you can look up the various companions and plan ahead, since companions can and will cover some skills for you.  I won't tell you about any of that here (there are plenty of guides around the interwebs) since I don't know if you're into any of that (I'm not) and I don't want to post spoilers.

Edited October 14, 2015 by Keyrock

[Hurlshort]

I made my new Hurlshot Family Wasteland Survival Team.  I'm a smart ass with a bit of pistol skill, my wife is a hard ass with a shotgun, my daughter talks to animals and can tinker with toasters, and my son is charismatic and like to hit things with a bat.  

[Tale]

 

Any good rules of thumb on character creation? Useless stats/skills? Does it work out well grabbing only 1 level in skills or are they mostly useless below 2-3?

It's worth it to put only 1 in skills at start.  You'll definitely want more points in skills later, but 1 will get you by at the very beginning in many situations.  If you're looking to create a reasonably "optimal" party (as opposed to my crazy, all melee, Three's Company party) you'll want a good mix of ranged weapons and put a point or two down the road in some kind of melee weapon as a back up for if/when you run out of ammo.  You'll want to spread your non-weapon skills among your party members, there's no reason to overlap at all, that's wasteful.  Pretty much all of them are useful, barter is probably the least useful since the discount isn't all that impressive (only reason I took it for Stanley Roper is that I though it was thematic, and that's partly what I'm going for).  Make sure you have a character with first aid (that's RPG gaming 101, but I figured I'd post that for idiot-proofing [not implying you fit that description ])  If you're a serious min-maxer, you can look up the various companions and plan ahead, since companions can and will cover some skills for you.  I won't tell you about any of that here (there are plenty of guides around the interwebs) since I don't know if you're into any of that (I'm not) and I don't want to post spoilers.

 

Exactly what I needed. My first attempt at party creation had me putting 2-3 levels in  and I felt like there weren't enough skills. Practically got everyone a weapon and one extra.

 

Going 1 level will enable me to actually get first aid!

[Gromnir]

Any good rules of thumb on character creation? Useless stats/skills? Does it work out well grabbing only 1 level in skills or are they mostly useless below 2-3?

the game is woefully unbalanced with many skills getting virtual no usage and others being essential.  attributes/abilities is similar unbalanced.  you can drop luck and charisma to 1 on most characters w/o much sense o' feeling pain.  odd enough, coordination is almost as easy to ignore as is luck and charisma.  it is worth having a single ranger with a 6 charisma IF you make sure to also take leadership on that character.

 

s'posedly, there has been improvements to blade and blunt weapons as well as to shotguns-- those three weapon groups sucked previous to dc.  heavy weapons is nice late game, particularly when augmented by a special skill.  energy weapons is bad early, and is only genuine worthy with 1 particular weapon... in which case it is an excellent choice. *shrug* people says to diversify weapons, and that is a good idea, but you could have an all assault rifle group and your only genuine opponent for the first 1/2 of the game would be ammo scarcity.

 

most important derived stat is combat initiative. can't overstress the importance o' ci.  

 

it is possible that some skills has been made more useful in the dc incarnation, but some serious changes would need be made to improve skills. mechanical repair had 2 uses in all o' california?  we had a 1 charisma brawler with computer science and we purposeful stopped hacking bots 'cause we were overleveling compared to the rest o' the party-- a hacked bot only gives xp to the computer nerd. combat xp is shared 'mongst party, but the bot defeated through hax0ring is removed from the shared xp pool. your computer guy is effective stealing xp from the rest o' your party.  given how common bots is second half o' the game, you gotta be careful. oh, and computer is useful for more than hacking bots.  fantastic skill. animal whisperer is kinda the opposite o' computer.  by the time you can succesful charm critters, you isn't gonna be facing many critters and animal whisperer doesn't unlock doors and safes as does the computer skill.  spread your social skills.  ultimately the social skills are not numerical worthy o' investment, but we hate missing unlockable content.   locks, safe cracking and demolitions is excellent skills that all generate goodly amounts o' xp.  

 

hate to admit it, but we recommend metagaming insofar as choosing skills and picking companions.  most skills only require a single ranger to max/excel.  you only need one lock picker.  you only need one smart arse.  take a looksee at possible companions before creating your rangers.

 

is outta date, but...

 

https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=40&t=8733

 

we mentioned the importance of combat initiative,  am doing so again.  combat initiative is not simple establishing your combat turn order.  high ci will result in additional attacks opportunities. 

 

HA! Good Fun!

 

ps late game we typical run outta skills for which we would pay.  we always have at least 4 int on all characters, but that is 'cause we want more skills Early. 

[Tale]

Now that's what I'm looking for, thanks.

 

Do the NPC party members replace the starting 4 or are they additional to? Because I'm building my group as something of a package deal. Only reason I'd want to get rid of any is if they died.

[majestic]

Any good rules of thumb on character creation? Useless stats/skills? Does it work out well grabbing only 1 level in skills or are they mostly useless below 2-3?

 

A couple more pointers:

 

 

 

1. Unless you're playing on Rookie give everyone one point in surgeon, that will do wonders for your survivability.
2. Luck and charisma are worthless (Gromnir mention that already). Give one of your rangers leadership and 3 charisma, that'll be plenty, except when you really want to get Pizepi early on.
3. Understand how action points are derived from strength, speed and intelligence, also known as the "SSI" mechanic.
4. Max speed on every ranger. Take from awareness if you need more stats elsewhere. The only possible exception is a melee ranger with 4 intelligence for added utility (generally though melees are there to punch things and not fiddle with things ).
5. Only go above 4 coordination if you plan on playing a stupid glass cannon (i.e. with 4/1/10/1/10/1/1 CLASSIC as baseline).
6. Otherwise set coordination to 4 for ranged and 2 for melee characters. 2 for melee because their higher strength gives them more action points (SSI mechanic) and they don't need the ranged hit chance either way.
7. Intelligence has fixed points where you gain an extra skill point per level. Don't bother picking anything else (i.e. either 1, 4, 8 or 10 intelligence).
8. Armor makes your rangers slower and more vulnerable to energy weapons - and enemies wielding normal weapons will conveniently have just enough armor penetration to negate it, so you might as well not bother.
9. Be mindful of Honey Badgers.
10. Uhm... do not spend skillups unless you absolutely have to if you notice that things get too hard or you can't pass a skill check you really want to.
11. Stuff is really, really, REALLY heavy in the game unless they changed it in the Director's Cut. For that alone I'd recommend 2 strength for everyone unless you enjoy some serious inventory tetris. That and a stray burst from someone will not kill you when you have a few extra hitpoints under your belt.

 

 

 

 

 

Now that's what I'm looking for, thanks.

 

Do the NPC party members replace the starting 4 or are they additional to? Because I'm building my group as something of a package deal. Only reason I'd want to get rid of any is if they died.

 

You can recruit them as extra party members.

Edited October 14, 2015 by majestic

[Darkpriest]

Huh... I can't find recruits back in base...

 

Usually before that, once I informed about recruiting them and dismissed temporarily (cause wanted some new recruit) I could get NPC followers back at base... now I cannot find them anywhere... neither at the base nor at the place where i left them...

 

a bug?

[Keyrock]

I finished up Highpool with my Three's Company party.  This was actually my first time doing Highpool, I mean the Highpool if you do it first Highpool.  It's kind of the opposite of Ag Center in terms of combat; getting into Ag Center was easy, but combat got harder once inside, with Highpool getting inside is the challenging part, once inside it's a piece of cake, even on supreme jerk difficulty.

[Keyrock]

Sooooo, Ag Center on supreme jerk difficulty with 4 core melee characters...  not pleasant.  Those infected pod people are a real pita.  Luckily, I now have 2 companions, both of whom have guns, otherwise those battles would literally be impossible.  I have to resort to cheesy kiting; stashing my 4 core melee rangers far out of the way and having Angie and Vulture's Cry each take a shot then back up, take a shot then back up, lather, rinse, repeat.  Not the most exciting way to do battles and certainly not the quickest, but I gotta do what I gotta do, since I have damn near the worst possible party for the situation. 

[Darkpriest]

I can't possibly see how you can do all melee... like... no chance

[Keyrock]

I can't possibly see how you can do all melee... like... no chance

No kidding.  After my first playthrough using a sensible party on ranger difficulty, I wanted a challenge for my next playthrough, for ****s and giggles.  I originally thought about supreme jerk difficulty and everybody pure melee, companions included.  Then I thought about it and realized certain sections, Ag Center being only one of them, would be straight up impossible.  So, I softened the parameters to only melee combat skills on the core 4, companions can use whatever weapon skills.  This should still be a pretty brutal challenge, but I'm pretty sure it's possible.

[Darkpriest]

 

I can't possibly see how you can do all melee... like... no chance

No kidding.  After my first playthrough using a sensible party on ranger difficulty, I wanted a challenge for my next playthrough, for ****s and giggles.  I originally thought about supreme jerk difficulty and everybody pure melee, companions included.  Then I thought about it and realized certain sections, Ag Center being only one of them, would be straight up impossible.  So, I softened the parameters to only melee combat skills on the core 4, companions can use whatever weapon skills.  This should still be a pretty brutal challenge, but I'm pretty sure it's possible.

 

 

Good luck with robots...

[Keyrock]

 

Good luck with robots...

 

Yeah, I figure those will be some of the roughest fights.  I'm going to need explosives, lots of explosives.  Those don't actually use any weapon skill, so I don't technically violate my own rules if  my core 4 are lobbing grenades.

[trulez]

 

 

Good luck with robots...

 

Yeah, I figure those will be some of the roughest fights.  I'm going to need explosives, lots of explosives.  Those don't actually use any weapon skill, so I don't technically violate my own rules if  my core 4 are lobbing grenades.

 

Well it's your own rules, if you feel like you're not cheating then you are not cheating. Personally I would find the use any other weapon besides melee cheating if I were to set out for melee only playthrough, but that's just me. (I have done melee only solo run in Fallout Tactics in Iron Man mode, re-playing some of the missions ALOT of times due to mistakes or bad RNGesus)

Edited October 16, 2015 by trulez

[Gromnir]

 

 

Good luck with robots...

 

Yeah, I figure those will be some of the roughest fights.  I'm going to need explosives, lots of explosives.  Those don't actually use any weapon skill, so I don't technically violate my own rules if  my core 4 are lobbing grenades.

 

with new perks, a robot destroying melee ranger is even more viable, but one o' our most efficacious pre dc wl2 builds were:

 

co:1

lu:1

aw:1

st:10

sp:10

in:4

ch:1

 

added 1 point to coordination then went awareness.  

 

skills were brawling, computer, and  few points in the med skill with animal whisper and eventual leadership rounding things out.  our melee brawler were the one most likely to out distance our primary leader, so in spite o' crappy charisma, points in leadership were not a complete waste once we maxed everything else.

 

is only a few wl2 bots that could not be hacked, and most bot battles that had bots immune to hax0ring also had hackable bots.  battles got easier when bots were attacking each other 'stead o' you.

 

melee weapons have changed a bit with dc, so brawling ain't the clear win melee skill.  we suspect that this makes an all melee core squad more viable.

 

HA! Good Fun! 

[Keyrock]

@Gromnir - Thanks for the advice, it's appreciated, but I don't min-max, I'm not trying to make completely optimized melee builds, I'm trying to see if I can make it through the game on highest difficulty with a rather sub-optimal party.  I mean, I'm having some characters sink points into Luck and Charisma and Barter.

 

As an aside, I like Luck, it's not useless, it's just unreliable.  It's certainly not a value stat, you get a lot more bang for your buck out of other stats, but high luck will help you out during the course of the game, you just can't count on it, you don't know when it's going to happen.  The yang to that yin is the Unlucky trait, which can be hilarious or maddening.  I've so far had it screw over my own party more often than the enemies.  I've even had it go off twice during one battle, one hit an enemy and the other almost killed one of my party members.  Holmes was lying bleeding out after getting struck by lightning and I couldn't get my medic over to him because his mangled body was near a pod person.  I finished the battle and stitched him up with nary a moment to spare after the battle, I think he was 5 or 6 constitution away from death.  Good times.

Edited October 16, 2015 by Keyrock

[Gromnir]

the min-max is hardly essential.  we posted in response to fighting robots query.  brawling gets more use from strength than any other character, so min-max or not, your brawler is gonna be resilient compared to most.  with med skills you can heal self and with computer science, you will be turning enemy robots into allies with great frequency.  blunt weapons focused melee is almost as good... and likely better, but only at very end of the game once you got plasma hammer. regardless, the point is that melee weapons can be overpowered 'gainst 'bots, particularly as melee is the folks most likely to effective exploit computer skill. 

 

if you softened and is only core four doing melee, then ag center and honey badgers is likely your most difficult challenges, yes? energy weapons no longer is easy-kill weapons 'gainst honey badgers, and the badgers hit very hard. add green girl with gamma ray blaster and ertan wielding the 3.. plus whatever.  vulture's cry with a sniper rifle?  you went highpool first, yes? CA will likely be easier than arizona for you simply 'cause there is so many bots and most bot battles will be surprisingly easy for you if even a couple or your melee guys has computer skills.

 

and 'course, explosives and rocket launchers can make any difficult batlle less so... which you is already aware o'.

 

gonna disagree 100% on luck, but no sense opening that can o' worms.

 

HA! Good Fun!