Wasteland 2

Sounds like a definite game to put on my to-get list.

Marceror, when you say that you scaled quicker than the AI, do you mean to imply that the enemies are level scaled or just that they're location scaled or something?

 

There is no level scaling in the sense that the whole world levels up as your party does. You will get killed if you go to the wrong place too early.

But there is a progression over the course of the game where you are generally encountering better organized and equipped enemies that will be progressively difficult to defeat. That's what I was referring to with the scaling comment.

 

That's good to hear, not too fond of level scaling myself.

Can you actually go straight from the beginning area to LA, like you could pretty much go straight to San Francisco in Fallout 2? How open is the game?

 

That was quite a lot more than I expected, much obliged Marceror .

 

I actually dislike level scaling, where every time you gain a level, all the enemies also gain a level. It makes me feel like you aren't accomplishing anything by gaining experience, and often times it forces you to buy or upgrade your gear, or the enemies will outpace your own power. If the gear's cost goes up exponentially but the amount of currency you get only increases lineally or not at all, I really hate it. Even worse if the new gear isn't available yet because you spent too much time doing side quests.

So, is this new Wasteland this kind of level scaling where when you level up, the world levels up? An excellent example would be Final Fantasy VIII. The early Might and Magic games too, although they weren't THAT bad, some places did scale badly.

 

The game is split into 2 parts, Arizona and California. While in Arizona you can go anywhere on the AZ world map, but as BTA points out, until you have appropriate radiation protection there are certain areas you should avoid.

You cannot casually walk (your primary mode of transportation) from AZ to CA. You have to complete certain key plot points, and eventually you will be able to take a more practical method of travel (i.e. not walking) to get out to L.A. It's a one way trip to the best of my understanding, and there is a completely separate world map for CA.

So you have pretty much total freedom while in AZ, and I expect it will be the same while in CA. But not for cross-state travel. That is much more restricted. And it makes sense given the distances involved.

Sure thing. Though, in fairness, that was stuff I had previously written. I just needed to go dig it up.

Again, no. The world does not level up just because your squad levels up. And conversely, if you take on an overly powerful enemy too early, you're probably going to have a bad day.

 

It seems somewhat disappointing that at some point you'd have to leave the Arizona sandbox (no pun intended) without an option of returning.

It depends on how they implement it, I suppose, but you'll always have that feeling that you'd have to complete every little thing in the first sandbox before progressing the plot to the next sandbox.

And thanks for taking your time to explain things about the game to us, Marceror

 

The one way trip to LA makes sense in the context of the story. I sort of obsessed before making the trip, to make sure I had completed everything that I wanted to.

Oh, and feel free to load up your party's stash to your heart's content before going. You bring the stash with you to CA. I had hoped this is what would happen, and was very happy to have such a nice array of back up items (ammo, healing supplies, weapons, etc.), above and beyond what my party could carry.

 

Bought and started playing, they really do not let you ease into the game. I have had to reload twice in maybe six fights and I am all out of healing consumables. Can't really voice an opinion on the game yet, I am always a real slow starter in games. Play very little while everything is new, confusing and overwhelming.

 

You can always lower the difficulty level if you're finding the game to be too hard. And increase it again once you've got your bearings.

 

Going on the "normal" setting, don't want to make it any easier. I only play games once nowadays so I don't do a "easy" run through games no more.

 

I just finished the game last night. Overall, I loved it. I would rate an 8.5+. With a bit more polish and bug fixing, particularly in the CA areas, I could see this rating a 9.5 or maybe even a 10. This game truly hit all the right points with me. It might well become my new favorite cRPG, period, and is currently ranking higher than PoE with me.

Ironically, I've never played a post-apocalyptic game prior to Wasteland 2, and now I am not only a fan of the game, but of the genre. The stuff that a lot of people complain about such as a large number of skills, a lot of time spent opening locks, cracking safes, etc.... I happen to be very happy with the implementation of. Vs. Pillar's of Eternity's approach of bunching all roguish skill checks into a single skill, which just isn't very interesting to me. I love the planning that is required to build a party that has all of the necessary skills to get through the game, without having to forego any looting options or miss any areas because I couldn't find a way to get in. Build a well balanced party and do well. Build a crap party, and get your ass handed to you. For me it makes success that much sweeter. And again, compared to PoE's "all builds are good" approach, to me is clearly superior.

The story isn't out of this world amazing, but for a whacky sci-fi game, you don't really expect that. It's totally serviceable, and kept interested enough to want to find out what would come next. There are so many Easter eggs and moments of humor, that the game is worth playing just for that alone.

As much as I loved the AZ portion of the game, CA was even better. The biggest disappointment was the bugginess of the Hollywood/Loz Feliz section of the game. Hollywood conceptually is the coolest part of the entire game, but it definitely still isn't ready for public release. That said, most of the quests that can get broken aren't critical to the plot, and you can move on without completing them. I actually only had a couple of broken quests, but that's because I went back to an early save and consulted a guide someone had put together. A patch is expected later this week (tomorrow?), so hopefully Hollywood will get some serious love.

I played on Ranger (Hard) difficulty. I'm already considering my next party, which I will play on Supreme Jerk (Extra Hard) difficulty.

 

I added a handful more of screenshots, giving a fairly decent overview of my experiences in AZ. Will upload some CA screens another day.

For convenience: album

 

Marceror if you really liked the post-apocalyptic setting you really should give the Fallout games a shot. Especially New Vegas, that game really impressed me.

 

I don't usually play FPS games, but I am considering adding New Vegas to my future game list, just because I've heard so much good about it.

I'm sure I'll try one of the earlier Fallout games at some point too, 1, 2 or Tactics.

 

I'd recommend Fallout 1. I love Fallout 2 as well - in fact I like it even more - but it's bigger and therefore less focused storywise.

Tactics is more of an action game than the first two installments.

 

If you didn't do this, there's no way to resolve the conflict peacefully:

Spoiler

You have to convince Casey James (the head Atchinson) to use the golden spike to repair the rails. I believe the only way to do this is to pass a smart ass check of 5 or 6. Kekkahbah (the head Topekan) will happily agree to do this, but you must convince Casey first.