Wasteland 3 Range-All

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Welcome back rangers!

So backers are starting to receive their alpha keys with the alpha actually starting on August 21. Seeing as I can't make up my mind if I want to try it out I was wondering what your thoughts are. Are you excited about the game? How do you think it'll stack up against Wasteland 2? Will inXile being bought by Microsoft have considerable impact on the quality/polish of the game?

Or, seeing as there is only one thread about WL3 on GWJ with the last post being from 2016, is it not exactly of interest over here?

As for me, I thoroughly enjoyed my two playthroughs of Wasteland 2, instantly backed Wasteland 3, completely and utterly forgot about it, was reminded of it, got mildly excited, forgot about it again till the Microsoft buy-out, forgot again and now the alpha is inbound.

I hope it'll turn out just right, but with their recent stumble with Bard's Tale I'm a bit cautiously optimistic. Then again Microsoft must have seen something in Brian Fargo and his weird antics.

So, thoughts?

The new stuff in W3 looks great, but W2 took a looooong time post release before it was what I'd, personally, consider serviceable. Game should have had WAY more interesting and novel uses for spot/disarm/lockpick/whatevs -- I remember it being downright tedious in that regard to have all that just to get at crap loot most the time. Like, everyone learns quick to grab all the skills to stay in bullets and whatnot. Seemed like mandatory grind work that everyone was going to, realistically, apply to the problem the same way.

edit/add: some of the Easter egg-ish stuff in the ranger citadel museum was a good laugh though.

I do agree that the Definitive Edition made the game a whole lot more coherent. Mechanically and gameplay wise calling it 'serviceable' is a fair term. To me, the core of the game experience is more the story, atmosphere and characters and in that regard - to me at least - the game excelled. Everything else has a certain amount of jank to it and a bit of unbalance in regards to skills and the like. It appears that all the bigger Kickstarter CRPGs took a while post launch to come into their own with Definitive Editions and big patches and whatnot. Pillars, Numenera, Wasteland, even Divinity: Original Sin 2 - though excellent - was kind unfinished in the last act. It will be interesting to see the sequel in a post D:OS 2 world.

I'd agree on those points. The quality jump from I - II, broadly across those titles, is the reason I have W3 backed/ 'pre ordered' via that Fig nonsense that Fargo has a hand in. Hear that Fargo?! I'm cutting you some slack under the general umbrella of good will that Larian/Obsidian is holding!

*shakes fist at the release state of the latest Bard's Tale *

Seriously though.. new Bard's Tale [state of release/haven't bothered since] gets pure :-/ face. In bold. And large red font. Maybe neon and flashing even.

Quick update that this is out on Friday. Given that Wasteland 2 was a mess on release, I'm considering holding off installing until the first few patches are rolled out.

Don't think I'll get a chance to play it this weekend, but looking forward to creating my character and restarting over and over

I'm going to be talking about this on the CC for sure. OG Wasteland is one of the first games that got me into cRPGs, so this is a super important franchise for me.

I put 100 hours into Wasteland 2, and I don't think I've matched that in any RPG since. I think it got a little buried by Divinity: Original Sin when it came out. There were launch issues for sure, but it remains a favorite game of all time. Very curious to see how the Microsoft money helps (or hurts) the franchise. My initial toe dips have been promising!

Whew, wow that looks fantastic. The increased budget looks like it is going to help, can’t wait to try it out.

Eurogamer Review

Rock Paper Shotgun Review

I suspect how good it is probably lies somewhere in the middle of those two opinions! This is on my wishlist for sure but only a wishlist for now. Probably one to pick up in a sale at some point

Creating characters now: sniper with death wish and maybe a gunslinger.

I'm going to do a Face with a Sniper!

I quite liked Wasteland 2, though the second half of the game (starting when you journey through some long canyon slog) was less enjoyable than the first half. Just felt... I dunno. Didn't feel as tightly crafted.

If this one is at least as good as Wasteland 2, I'm definitely in.

I didn't finish Wasteland 2. Is there anything I need to know for Wasteland 3 before potentially diving in?

Nope - the story stands alone. There's a bit of a recap of Wasteland 2's major events in the opening cinematic for context, but you can go in blind with no problem.

Wasteland 3 is on GamePass. I bought in to it just for that and for Crusader Kings III.

Still not a fan of the combat in these games, but game is good so far.

Sadly I rolled with premade chars, as I was lead to believe it was a bit like Divinity OS2, where they had story arcs, but that doesn't seem to be the case. However, it seems like you might be able to replace even your initial characters later on, if you want to.

RPS wrote:

As uninteresting and buggy as I found the combat, it is not what eventually made me lose patience with Wasteland 3, though. That would be the overall tone of its writing. Storywise, it is a recognisably pulp affair. No harm in that. But the game’s sense of humour is firmly puerile, in-jokey, and (crucially) unrelenting. There is a brothel featuring a goat you can shag for buffing effects. Snowballs you can pee on and throw to inflict enemies with a debuff called “the stink”. A parrot who swears colourfully at his owner until you recruit him to swear colourfully at you. Ha ha, swear words!

Besides that, it’s an endless stream of referential humour of the Ready Player One mold. Remember HAL 9000? Remember Missile Command? Remember Ghostbusters? Remember jokes? It feels dated in more ways than one. Even the upside-down turtle, one of the game’s funnier moments, is a winking Blade Runner gag surrounded by Futurama autobots. On top of that, I found its infrequent darker moments at odds with the prevailing wackiness of the world. Coming across a pit full of melted human corpses, adult and child alike, may have felt horrific, had I not myself, moments before, evaporated a foe called “the beastmaster” using a giant magnifying glass.

The moment-to-moment writing is defined by this overwhelming, try-hard comedy, with occasional and ultimately unconvincing stabs at satire. Saul “The Patriarch” Buchanan is the standout example, an all-American strongman who fancies himself the sole arbiter of justice and good governance in an otherwise lawless world. Having this despotic leader of Colorado sit atop a throne made of missiles and US flags is an eye-catching motif. But as a visual gag masquerading as allegorical critique, this is “Banksy running out of ideas” levels of political humour. In short, the game often makes me go: hm. But never: ha.

I backed this so that they'd make a faithful successor to the first two Fallout games. Sounds like they succeeded. Redeemed my Xbox key despite it being on Game Pass. Hopefully I'll get a chance to jump in soon.

RPS wrote:

The moment-to-moment writing is defined by this overwhelming, try-hard comedy, with occasional and ultimately unconvincing stabs at satire.

Weird. This is pretty much why I stopped reading RPS.

Played some online co-op with a friend and it has some rough edges. We had it crash and lock up several times. Usually when dealing with vendors. Quick save often!

Spite all that we still had a blast, and didn’t mind restarting and replaying over and over.

Got up through most of the tutorials parts last night.

-I like making 2 characters instead of 4 to start. Made it easier to wrap my head around combat
-combat feels good but quite different than Wasteland 2. Will need to see more to really understand how much depth there is
-new dialogue system is unresponsive but interesting. Seems to just take all your party’s highest skills and apply them to conversation
-the treatment and effects are really nice
-I think the character models, especially everything to do with the head, are ugly as hell
-it’s unpolished right now. Interacting with objects is finicky. Lots of hitching

I’m trying to make a leader character and had a question that I can’t find an answer to.

Leadership applies bonuses to your allies. Does it also apply bonuses to the person with the skill? It doesn’t say that in the description so I wasn’t sure but I’d assume so? If not was thinking about going with lone wolf quirk in the leader. It doesn’t let you benefit from leadership which wouldn’t matter if you already aren’t.

Got around to finally making my own character. Cant remember it if was like this in Wasteland 2, but pretty nice that you can replace all of the characters you started with. Throwing away people is the respec option.

Also making a leadership char. Spend some time making a spreadsheet with all the different chars I found so far. Time to optimize this!

I went all in on Charisma and Intelligence for the leader (10/6 respectively.) the 10 charisma gives you a 30% XP bump (compared to 18% for 9.) used poindexter for the background (which gives a bonus skill point every other level.) The plan is this character will level fast and be able to cover a wide range of skills so others can specialize. I’ll probably juice up speed and coordination when the leader gets some attribute points to play with, and make them the medic as well.

I went goat killer for the sniper, focusing on int (for higher crit chance with the sniper rifle) and awareness, with some in coordination. Sneaky sh*t was the secondary focus (I figure this character will maneuver into position and take someone out anytime we can get the drop.)

Still in the early section but planning to make a stabby tank and then some kind of TBD combat nerd who can fix toasters, fire lasers, and handle the nerd sh*t.

Docjoe wrote:

Leadership applies bonuses to your allies. Does it also apply bonuses to the person with the skill? It doesn’t say that in the description so I wasn’t sure but I’d assume so? If not was thinking about going with lone wolf quirk in the leader. It doesn’t let you benefit from leadership which wouldn’t matter if you already aren’t.

Leadership bonuses do not apply to the leader. I also had the same quirk skill combination idea but ended up going with a different quirk.

Something I am extremely happy about and forgot to mention; shared inventory with no limit. It’s magical.

Tamed a two-headed goat. It is a one-man (two-man?) army. It is awesome.

That animal whisperer skill is pretty great. Even that Tomcat at the beginning eats faces.

Brizahd wrote:

Played some online co-op with a friend and it has some rough edges. We had it crash and lock up several times. Usually when dealing with vendors. Quick save often!

Spite all that we still had a blast, and didn’t mind restarting and replaying over and over.

How far into the game do you have to get before you can co-op with a friend? I'd like to play this is a duo from as early in the game as possible.

I suspect it might kick in when you finish the tutorial mission, shortly afterwards you get an opportunity to create a second set of custom characters.

Edgar_Newt wrote:
Brizahd wrote:

Played some online co-op with a friend and it has some rough edges. We had it crash and lock up several times. Usually when dealing with vendors. Quick save often!

Spite all that we still had a blast, and didn’t mind restarting and replaying over and over.

How far into the game do you have to get before you can co-op with a friend? I'd like to play this is a duo from as early in the game as possible.

We played the ambush together from the get go. He hosted a game and I joined. After a cutscene we made our characters.

Tried streaming to my phone last night. It doesn't play well with a controller despite having a console release. Steam Link did not like it. I will try again with a mouse and keyboard later.

Once I found that taking the circus freak quirk turned my character into a literal clown with big shoes, red nose, bozo hair... the whole deal... that just made it. So my starting two are a clown techy with a pistol and a disciple of metal pyromaniac heavy weapons specialist. Definitely some of the most interesting background I've had for created characters in any RPG in a long time.

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