Wasteland 3

[spatular]

I haven't really played any games like this before, fancied giving divinity 2 a go, which i think is similar, but it's so long, this is much shorter and was on gamepass so gave it a go. Well i guess it's just an RPG, you wander round talking to people, get into fights and stuff, drive round a world map in a tank type thing. the combat is turn based, on a grid, i played on easy mode because i'm rubish at that sort of thing, it was quite fun. the synopsis for the plot is you have to go help this guy capture/find his kids so he'll send aid to your people back home, there's various factions you can do missions for and align with and choices to be made. i'd be trying to do the right thing and help people out but any options seem to lead to many people dying, thought i was going to get a really bad ending but it turned out not so bad. it's pretty funny at points too. the story is pretty good. odd stuff happens. seems like there are quite a few endings that you can influence by what you do. i don't know i feel like i'm not selling it very well but i did enjoy it. although it's a bit different it's sort of a bit like the outer worlds. it can be pretty janky at times too. and i wasn't a fan of messing around with character stats and equipment - that stuff was fine it just took too long to sort out, could have been streamlined a lot more. i have a guy who defuses bombs/traps and stuff, and quite a few times someone else would run past and set the bomb/trap off, i could have avoided this a bit by controlling people individually but that takes ages, although you do need to do that sometimes.

 

so yeah it's pretty good imo.

as @radiofloyd asked about it we now have a thread

[shinymcshine]

Moving on from Bloodborne, and gave this 30 mins this morning, since I really enjoyed W2.

 

Looks promising so far, esp. since they've actually added an option to increase screen text size !

[shinymcshine]

I'm enjoying this, only a couple of hours in - but the graphics are pretty lo-fi - cut scenes almost PS2 standard.

 

Good job that it doesn't detract from the storytelling or gameplay !

[shinymcshine]

I'll no doubt set myself up for a future ass whooping - but compared with W2 it all feels a bit easier and a lot more generous with regards to loot (and ammo).

 

Maybe I've just taken my learning from the previous game and applied them here (in terms of squad balance and weapons) but the going is pretty straightforward so far - so its really easy to lose a couple of hours immersed in the game.

 

Well, there are several difficulty options if I need to notch it up, but sticking with Wastelander (standard) setting for now.

[shinymcshine]

Nicely started to develop with those moral choices that you get in the Wasteland games - whether it's the save X or Y, arrest or execute, make a deal with the mob boss or not - and none are that transparent as to being obviously right or wrong.

 

[shinymcshine]

I'm still enjoying this - but it feels way less brutal than W2 was and continues to reward me with a plethora of stuff - weapons, ammo, health kits, armour, crafting material - in fact way too much, that I can't even be bothered to sell the excess, as I seldom find much to buy that's any better than what I have / occasionally find.

 

It's this latter issue that's a bit concerning - you no longer feel that vulnerable in the Wasteland, of having to scavenge around and converse ammo, and maximise healing opportunities (in W2 health kits felt rare / expensive, often running the party around on <50% health, hanging on a level up for a 'free' heal) - but now they seem plentiful.

[shinymcshine]

Ready for my final showdown (but will have to wait until Monday, as I'm going away)

 

Spoiler

Since she's a companion that I ran with in W2 I'm trusting in Angela Deth's plan, so I have freed Ironside Cordite and killed the 3 Patriarch offspring, and I'm now back at Ranger HQ in the prep for the final push.

 

[shinymcshine]

Finished - it was okay, but I didn't find the writing or challenge anywhere near as good as W2.

[shinymcshine]

Revisiting this on Gamepass - 15 hrs in and enjoying it all over again.

 

Only nark is the hard pass or fail of skill checks (if you aren't the right level you just can't do the check, and the cost of each level increases exponentially) - whereas combat is on a calculated %

[mfnick]

I gave this a go on GP a while ago, I loved it. Played it for 3+ hours straight. Unfortunately didn’t realise it doesn’t auto save. Died in a fight and lost it all. I couldn’t bring myself to start again I was so deflated. Played on Xbox too and the controls aren’t great on a pad.

 

Would love to give it another go on PC some day. 

[shinymcshine]

It's actually not too bad on the Xbox controller (way better than BG3 was) but yes the lack of progressive autosave does seem achingly old school - having to remember to hard save periodically (or a callback to the PC days of hitting F5 quick save as you go).

[shinymcshine]

60+ hrs and finished.

 

It's so achingly old school in places, the hard pass or fail directly based on skill level (rather than a % chance) for things outside combat still jar a bit - and sort of force you to specialise each character in just 2/3 skills.

 

Crafting and modding kit is a bit of a mess, you often get way too many recipes but not enough specific resource for the former, and for the latter there's no ability to remove mods as kit improves, you just destroy them as you replace them. But overall it doesn't matter too much as there's so much inventory bloat anyway that you seldom need to worry about them too much.

 

Overall it's enjoyable enough.. but I still prefer W2.

[Maryokutai]

I wonder if the skill checks are some kind of 'the grass is greener' thing. When I was playing the new Greedfall, which uses percentage-based checks, I found it incredibly annoying when high percentages failed, and realised it lured me into doing reloads here and there. Granted that's partially a me problem, but with a binary system that temptation isn't there at all, which makes for a more organic progression I think, 'deal with it' and all. I'd also argue that it's more believable – if you're good at cooking there's not a 10% chance you fail at doing pasta, for example. On the other hand, diplomacy skills can be a bit boring when checks auto-succeed, because they usually invalidate every other option. So maybe a combination of the two is the best way?

[shinymcshine]

Suppose it's the not knowing, particularly on first playthrough, what skills are worth taking, in terms of occurrence and what aren't, and if you assume that each point on the 1-10 scale is 10%, a straight no on a 41% (L5) check if you've got a skill of 40 (L4) seems harsh - esp.when you end up having to bank skill points as the cost per level increases.

 

W3 uses a bit of a mixed economy in that whilst you just hard can't do skill checks if you're not of that level, you can often use weapons and armour that you're not strong enough to use, but suffer a hit and or mobility penalty (as combat is done on a % to hit / evade).