Wasteland 2

Wasteland 2 Patch 2 (58154) Release Notes

Postby sea » October 13th, 2014, 12:58 pm

Patch 2 is here! This update brings over 4300 words' worth of changes and improvements, but we expect most of you will want the most important bits, so here they are!

Highlights

- Large amount of memory optimizations, particularly with audio, to improve performance and stability on lower-spec systems and 32-bit operating systems.
- Fixed enemy “unlimited AP” movement bug that allowed them to sometimes move much farther than intended.
- Extensive improvements and fixes to California questlines, particularly in Hollywood and Griffith Park. May require you to load an older save file before Hollywood to fully benefit.
- Added a travel speed toggle to the world map, allowing you to zip and zoom around if you so please (doesn't affect encounters, only travel speed).
- Added a new UI when CNPCs are recruited. This lets you more easily compare their stats and choose to dismiss one when a new one offers to join.
- Custom portraits will now work correctly when Windows account username contains non-English characters.
- Added support for "Very Large" text.
- Added 50 messages to load screens containing gameplay hints and tips.
- Loading now continues when the game is tabbed out, and pauses after finishing.
- Further UI fixes and improvements, such as new and correctly used icons.
- Many localization updates and bug fixes across all languages.

For full release notes, please see: http://wastelandrpg.tumblr.com/post/99930440396/wasteland-2-patch-2-58154-release-notes

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EDIT

Hey BTA, didn't you report this issue a while back?

 

Nice. I wouldn't be surprised if it's necessary to redo that encounter to get the corrected result though.

 

You can definitely gimp your party if you don't understand the mechanics, so I can understand wanting to start again.

Alternatively, you can modify your characters' stats by tweaking your save files. They are XML based, and don't seem to be too tricky to update.

I managed to change the clothes that my companions were wearing by updating the XML, since Tak going shirtless for the whole game, or Pizepi in a tank top just started to bother me. I know you can change ability scores, skill levels and the like as well. I'm pretty sure there's even an app that someone put together for this. I'll see if I can find it.

EDIT: Okay, that was easy enough to find, since there is a stickied topic about it: https://forums.inxile-entertainment.com/viewtopic.php?f=18&t=6043. I haven't used it, so I can't vouch for it. I did notice a lot of bugs being reported in that thread, but they may have since been resolved.

Personally I would just start over, but you do have other options.

 

That's nearly half of the AZ content, or around 25% of the game I'd say. Not insignificant, but certainly redoable.

You could always save Ag Center instead of Highpool, or whichever you didn't save last time, for some variety there.

 

My party was between levels 42 - 47 when I completed the game, with the level 47 being my 10 CHA leader. The level 42 was Ralphy, who was only level 5 when I picked him up, and had somewhat low CHA to boot. I played in a completionist manner, finishing every quest (that didn't bug out, which was very few), but I did not do any "xp farming" of random encounters.

I've heard that others have reached level 50 with groups where everyone has 4 CHA, but I have to assume those people are farming xp a bit. So it depends on a few factors, but I'd say 40 is very doable.

After 40 leveling becomes a lot less meaningful. You still get some additional hitpoints of course, but you've probably already maxed out your key skills.

 

Doesn't everybody know that all real men go around shirtless and that any body armour worn on the torso is a definite sign of cowardice?

The post seems to suggest that CHA is somehow responsible for getting higher levels? How does that work?

 

CHA grants a percentage increase to all non combat experience gained by a character, so higher CHA means faster leveling. It's particularly effective for characters who use a lot of non combat skills like lockpicking and demolitions, since successful use of those skills also grants non combat xp.

By the end of the game it's conceivable for a high CHA character to have a 4 or 5 level advantage over a low CHA character, all other things being equal.

Regarding combat armor, one of the odd things about the game is that armor does not show on your character in game. Only clothes are visible. So it bothers me to have a character in full body armor who appears to be running around shirtless. cNPCs have their clothing "locked", but it's possible to modify the save game XML to give them whatever hat/helm, torso and leg items and backpacks you want. You can even change their faces and hair if you want to.

 

Having higher WIS to give higher xp makes more sense to me that higher CHA doing the same, but I suppose it's all a balancing act, trying to make non-combat solutions more rewarding for the player.

Armour not showing on your character, though? What is this, 1995?

 

There really isn't a WIS equivalent stat in the CLASSIC system. Classic gives you:

Code:

[B]C  L  A  S  S  I  C [/B]
o  u  w  p  t  n  h
o  c  a  e  r  t  a
r  k  r  e  e  e  r
d     e  d  n  l  i
i     n     g  l  s
n     e     t  e  m
a     s     h  c  a
t     s        t
i
o
n

I guess intellect would be the closest to wisdom, or awareness could fit. But I think inXile chose charisma largely because it was previously considered to be a dump stat.

At the moment, the "universally accepted" dump stats is luck. It provides benefits, but many of them are only realized if you get a good die roll, whereas the benefits from other attributes are generally very reliable and consistent.

A lot of people are unhappy about the lack of visuals with armor. It has been this way since the earliest iterations of the beta, and seems to be a design decision. I'd love to at least see some of the late game armors, which are supposed to be electrically powered due to their weight, provide visuals. The early armors like leather jackets and bullet proof vests aren't as big of a deal to me to have a visual.

But the whole concept of armor is a little dicey in the game currently. As you get later in the game, energy weapons become a lot more prevalent. A recent change to energy weapons (final beta release before the full release) makes energy weapons do poor damage to low armored targets and bonus damage to high armored targets. That sounds okay in theory, but....

A lot of players are removing their armor entirely during the late game. I didn't do this during my last runthough, but I wasn't playing on Supreme Jerk. Now that I am, I might have to do likewise. This is a system that could definitely use some tweaking, since it makes little sense to make these high tier armors partially obsolete before you even get them. I think it was meant as a strategic decision before going into a battle, but it's worked out to be rather messy. Players want to feel a sense of progression in an RPG like this.

"Oh, look. We just found the best armor in the game. Let's sell it, even though we're already rich and don't need the money." That just doesn't feel awesome to me, like it should feel when you finally get that quintessential item in a game.

 

This is where good planning beforehand comes into play, and it certainly helps to have some meta knowledge about which companions you will take and what abilities they have. I have been using a spreadsheet to map all of this out before I even create my characters, so that it's all fully planned. And it may sound crazy to some, but I love that the game is complex enough that I need to do this.

As you have pointed out, the amount of skillpoints per level determines how many skill points you should have per character. In my last run through I had an INT heavy party. I had two 10 INT guys, One 8 INT guy and one 4 Int gal. I also had Rose with 10 INT and Ralphy and Tak with 3 and 2, respectively, IIRC.

I looked at which skills my companions had, and I prioritized other skills for the 4 rangers I created. And yes, I think you have the numbers generally correct, but there is a bit of fudging that you can do here and there to squeeze in an extra skill. Some characters maybe will invest less in weapon skills early on, in order to boost non combat skills.

Skills like mechanical repair are somewhat less critical, as there are only a small number of places in the game where they are required to get past a challenge. Barter and animal whisperer are completely optional in my opinion. Of the 3 ass skills, I feel that hard ass is the least desirable, as it often ends up pissing people off (tell us what we want to know or we'll get rough on you -- not very ranger like).

Make sure each person has at least one weapon skill. And then start assigning the rest based on what your intended companions will not bring to the table. Bonus points, if you can work this into a theme for each character, such as an Infilitrator (perhaps they will have lockpicking, safecracking and demolitions), Techie (computer science and alarm disarm, and toaster repair), and a face character (leadership and one or two of the ass skills).

Generally you just need one party member for each skill, but I would advise two surgeons, and maybe two field medics. Surgeon is more critical, because if you only have one and they are bleeding out (i.e. in critical condition or comatose), they will die unless a surgeon tends to their wounds. A second field medic is good to prevent your characters from ever getting to that state. In some cases you may even want to consider dropping a few points in a skill that will be covered by a recruit later. The main one that I do this with is demolitions if I'm going to take Takayuki. I know I can't take on the honey badgers to recruit Tak until after I have played the game a bit (I at least need to solve the Highpool/Ag Center content), so having a small investment into demolitions before that (2 or 3 points) can be wise.

It gets a little tight, but you do have a large party of 7 that you can assemble, which really ought to be considered in your planning. There are a large number of shrines that give +1 skill points to all team members to be found (10 - 12?). And there is a single book for every non-combat skill that gives a +1 point boost. Brawling is the only combat skill that can be boosted by a book, by the way. It's generally best to wait until you're paying at least 6 points per level to use those, if you can hold out that long. Also, a large number of non-combat skills can be boosted further by trinkets, so you never need to invest in that final skill point. Just equip your PDA, for example, and boost your computer science skill. Then replace with whatever trinket you usually have equipped for combat.

I believe that I've already summarized a general priority for skills earlier in this thread, so I won't rehash that here.

I guess if you go with a lower intellect party, you're going to need to make some additional concessions. Some skills may never get maxed out, or you may decide to go without a skill entirely... though there's little reason not to least get 3 points in everything.

Sorry for the stream of consciousness post. I had to type this quickly.

 

Yes, it's best to start INT and CHA where you want them, particularly INT.

My last party really only had one truly combat focused character, my sniper with 4 INT. She had high speed, high awareness and high coordination.

My 8 INT bruiser had max strength, decent speed and focused on blunt weapons. He was a monster with melee, and eventually became okay with SMGs. So technically also a combat focused character, though a few compromises had to be made to boost INT.

My 10 INT Infiltrator, was reasonable with assault rifles, with a decent balance of speed and awareness. I put every ability increase from level 10 - 40 into awareness, so eventually he was attacking with great regularity. In the later game he was out-damaging my sniper consistently, but that has a lot to do with the late game balance of sniper rifles and assault rifles. Assault rifles doing burst fire with headshots is superior to all else. One might even argue that they are overpowered.

My 10 INT 10 CHA leader was abysmal in combat, since he basically had a 2 in all combat abilities. LOW AP. LOW CI. I also increased his awareness over time, so eventually got to attack with some regularity. He also used assault rifles, so his bursts could put out some damage, he just get the chance to attack all that much. His late game attacks were just as deadly as my infiltrator's, even if he didn't get to make them as often.

I pretty much dumped luck across the board.

Rose eventually became very deadly with energy weapons. Ralphy became an effective secondary sniper. Tak was a great secondary tank.

It wasn't the best combat party by a damn sight, and I'm sure would have gotten torn up on the inXile boards if I asked people to rate the combat effectiveness of my party. But, I know the game so well that it's not really that challenging for me. Having a "balanced" party increased the challenge, which I liked. And I didn't have to forego non-combat skills like a lot of players are doing, in order to max out the almighty CI value to 20.

Even in my Supreme Jerk run through I'm not doing that, and thus far I'm finding SJ totally doable.

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EDIT:

Here are the stats that I started with. A tad different than what I remembered:

Character 1: Charismatic Genius:

Code:

COORD	LCK	AWR	SPD	STR	INT	CHA	AP	CI
2	1	2	2	2	10	9	7.5	8

Character 2: Bruiser

Code:

COORD	LCK	AWR	SPD	STR	INT	CHA	AP	CI
2	1	4	4	8	8	1	9	11

Character 3: Infiltrator

Code:

COORD	LCK	AWR	SPD	STR	INT	CHA	AP	CI
2	1	2	8	2	10	3	9	11

Character 4: Sniper

Code:

COORD	LCK	AWR	SPD	STR	INT	CHA	AP	CI
6	1	4	10	2	4	1	10	14

I used dog collars to boost CHA for several characters.

 

One thing to keep in mind is that a lot of skills provide large benefits on even numbered values, but smaller benefits on odd values. Which is why you don't see many odd valued stats with my group.

Coordination for example gives +1 AP at every even value (increase chance to hit with ranged on all values), so it should be set at least to 2.
Speed increases combat initiative at every even value (increase movement and evasion on all values)
Strength increases con per level at every even value (small boost to con and melee critical damage on all levels)

Also, it's optimal to have the sum of your Speed, Strength and Int directly divisible by 4, as whatever that value is divided by 4 will be added to your action points.

Awareness is a rare skill that gives an equal bonus at all levels. Similar with Charisma.

Int you pretty much only ever want to have at level 1, 4, 8 or 10, as there is no other benefit at any other level (other than increasing the sum of Speed/STR/INT, but better to boost the other 2 for their incremental benefits).

Also, for what it's worth, it is commonly held that the *most valuable* stat overall is Speed, because it increases movement speed and combat initiative and evasion. Honestly, I don't totally subscribe to that. Movement speed is important, but so is chance to hit, which I get from coordination along with a steady increase to action points. Awareness gives a one to one increase to combat initiative in addition to evasion increases. But if you listen to the "conventional wisdom" max speed first, make sure you have enough STR, and then start pumping awareness to maximize CI. And make sure you have enough AP (i.e. Coordination) to effectively fire your intended weapon. For an assault rifle character, for example, the optimal AP is 9... which allows a burst fire with the top tier AR (AP 7) with a headshot (adds 2AP).

Conventional wisdom is happy to dump Luck, Charisma AND Intellect, with Coordination also considered to be something of a dump stat. Then you play the game while foregoing a number of non-combat skills. Sounds totally unfun to me, but there you go.