Wasteland 2 on Steam

[Rayfer]

Late to the party on this one but I finally got around to it.  Question....my sniper character seems worthless in the early battles. Is there a good way to build a sniper or are they just inherently weak?  Comment...I like a lot about this game but the camera angles and limited view are annoying. I really wish you could see further out.

[airboy]

Late to the party on this one but I finally got around to it.  Question....my sniper character seems worthless in the early battles. Is there a good way to build a sniper or are they just inherently weak?  Comment...I like a lot about this game but the camera angles and limited view are annoying. I really wish you could see further out.

The game has a significant weapon bias towards Assault Rifles.  They work better than anything else.  There have been quite a few statistical analyses on the official Wasteland 2 forum.

The only other offense/defense mixes that can work are:
a] Strong character that focuses only on hand-to-hand.  Works very well both as a tank to soak up punishment, as a mule to carry stuff, and the damage meted out is impressive.
b] I have one character that used submachine guns and then picked up energy weapons.  There is one, only one, energy weapon in the game that works very well.
c] Sniper Rifles work pretty well to engage enemies at a distance - but only for the first 1/3rd of the game.  After that, the Assault Rifle works much better.

[Nefaro]

Late to the party on this one but I finally got around to it.  Question....my sniper character seems worthless in the early battles. Is there a good way to build a sniper or are they just inherently weak?  Comment...I like a lot about this game but the camera angles and limited view are annoying. I really wish you could see further out.

My sniper is amazing.  Your hit chance goes down the closer you are to your target, with sniper rifles.  But they do the highest amount of damage per shot at the longest distance, often killing  enemies before they can come to grips with you.  So all you need to do is position them the furthest away. 

Give your sniper a good amount of extra Action Points in character creation, as those cost a bit more to fire than others and you may need to move them further away every turn before taking a shot.

[airboy]

Late to the party on this one but I finally got around to it.  Question....my sniper character seems worthless in the early battles. Is there a good way to build a sniper or are they just inherently weak?  Comment...I like a lot about this game but the camera angles and limited view are annoying. I really wish you could see further out.

My sniper is amazing.  Your hit chance goes down the closer you are to your target, with sniper rifles.  But they do the highest amount of damage per shot at the longest distance, often killing  enemies before they can come to grips with you.  So all you need to do is position them the furthest away. 

Give your sniper a good amount of extra Action Points in character creation, as those cost a bit more to fire than others and you may need to move them further away every turn before taking a shot.

All true - but holds for about the first third of the game.  After that, the range advantage that snipers have goes away.  After the mid-point of the game Assault Rifles can hit anything in line of sight and do more damage because they can fire multiple shots.  The disadvantage for close range shots for sinper rifles is greater than that for Assault Rifles.

There have been a lot of statistical analyses of this - and I concur with the findings.  In the first 25% to 33% of the game, sniper rifles have some significant advantages due to having a longer range.  But by the time you get to Titan Valley, Silo 7 and especially California sniper rifles are inferior to Assault Rifles.

I think the game balance is just off in terms of weapons.  Melee weapons and heavy weapons are inferior.  For the last half of the game your Assault Rifles and melee person just rules. 

[Nefaro]

Late to the party on this one but I finally got around to it.  Question....my sniper character seems worthless in the early battles. Is there a good way to build a sniper or are they just inherently weak?  Comment...I like a lot about this game but the camera angles and limited view are annoying. I really wish you could see further out.

My sniper is amazing.  Your hit chance goes down the closer you are to your target, with sniper rifles.  But they do the highest amount of damage per shot at the longest distance, often killing  enemies before they can come to grips with you.  So all you need to do is position them the furthest away. 

Give your sniper a good amount of extra Action Points in character creation, as those cost a bit more to fire than others and you may need to move them further away every turn before taking a shot.

All true - but holds for about the first third of the game.  After that, the range advantage that snipers have goes away.  After the mid-point of the game Assault Rifles can hit anything in line of sight and do more damage because they can fire multiple shots.  The disadvantage for close range shots for sinper rifles is greater than that for Assault Rifles.

There have been a lot of statistical analyses of this - and I concur with the findings.  In the first 25% to 33% of the game, sniper rifles have some significant advantages due to having a longer range.  But by the time you get to Titan Valley, Silo 7 and especially California sniper rifles are inferior to Assault Rifles.

I think the game balance is just off in terms of weapons.  Melee weapons and heavy weapons are inferior.  For the last half of the game your Assault Rifles and melee person just rules.

I can see Assault Rifles being the most ideal.  Except for ammo or money issues when you are burst firing all the time. 

But melee?  I didn't think it was worth a damn.  Or do you have to pump someone's strength up at the expense of everything else to make it good?

[Kushan]

Personally I don't care what the number crunchers say is the most optimal. If I want to system optimize I'll go play WoW or another MMO.

I'm at Damata now not sure how far overall that is. I've got both a sniper and a assault rifle, and after round one, assuming he doesn't move, my sniper usually has enough spare point to fire a second shot. Which coincidentally is the same as what my assault wielding scientist can do.

I was using melee early on when ammo was scarce. But after I had to stop fighting evil bunnies and mutated plants it became less effective, so I had him take up using energy weapons. Not sold on their effectiveness but at least hes not sharing ammo type with anyone else.

[airboy]

I have one character with pumped up strength who uses melee weapons.  The character has multiple advantages:
a] The melee weapon damage is high throughout the game as you upgrade weaponry.
b] The high strength enables the character to be a "mule" and carry a lot of items.
c] The high strength also gives very high hit points.  Since the melee guy is always in front looking for someone to punch, he gets a
    disproportionate amount of enemy attacks.  Which is all to the good since he is the most sturdy character.

My party is a:
a] High strength mule with melee, brute strength, melee and perception.
b] Two Assault Weapon characters with 10 IQ who max out a lot of skills
c] A leader with high charisma.  He starts with Submachine guns and goes to energy weapons when I finally get the good energy
    gun

My additional party members are:
a] Ralphy who I immediately start on assault weapons and keep building his toaster repair.
b] Rose who is my medic/surgeon/computer hacker person for most of the game.  I don't build her handgun skills.  Once I got
    medic/surgeon/computer hacker high enough, Rose started to learn assault weapons.
c] Scotchmo who is my lockpicker.  He uses a shotgun, but has never been a significant person in combat because he is so slow to
    get an attack and because shotguns basically suck.  But I have him as the lockpicker/safecracker and not as a combat guy.

Wasteland 2 is an unusual game because your 3 NPC slots are vital to filling out your party.

[panzerde]

Personally I don't care what the number crunchers say is the most optimal. If I want to system optimize I'll go play WoW or another MMO.

Here, here. I avoid min-maxing in SP RPGs to focus on the characters. A sub-optimized party member can really add to the story in terms of overcoming difficulties and sometimes even dealing with failures. I'm ok with never achieving the "perfect" play-through. RPGs tend to be a de-stresser that I can just play, rather than have to think about.


Now, if the game balance is such that you simply can't progress without a min-maxed party, I totally get balance concerns. In my case I'll probably go play something else less likely to make me throw my keyboard across the room.


No idea if Wasteland falls into that trap, yet. I've been away from it for a few weeks and haven't made it far enough to find that out. So for now, my sniper is pretty badass!  :) [size=78%] [/size]

[Nefaro]

I've not min-max'd my party.  But it's a well-rounded one. 

Everyone is armed with a different firearm and I've never had an ammo issue.  Especially with the 'picking skills on a couple.  Despite starting with a Melee guy, I wasn't happy with his effectiveness compared to those with ranged weapons so I just pumped up his shotgun skills and use him to charge ahead for the cone blast when possible.  Haven't missed using melee yet.  :D

[Rayfer]

Twice now I've created a party, got a short way in (two level ups) then realized I could make a better party and so started over.  I need to stop this and just keep one party going on into the story deeper regardless of some flaws and creation mistakes.

[airboy]

Twice now I've created a party, got a short way in (two level ups) then realized I could make a better party and so started over.  I need to stop this and just keep one party going on into the story deeper regardless of some flaws and creation mistakes.

I have the same problem in every RPG.  Part of my general OCD.  I started this game 3 times before I settled on my current party.  I'm about 90% through the game at this point.  Possible I could write a review this weekend.

My party is not maximized for combat.  I want a good mix of skills, which is why I have two IQ 10 characters.  Going to a 10 IQ will harm your combat effectiveness. Having a high charisma guy is essential for the leadership skill - which helps the entire party in combat at the expense of making your leader much weaker in combat.

Still, my party mix has worked out well.  I can do pretty much everything excepting some dialog checks in the first third of the game.  The game is not that difficult, nor is ammo scarce to the point where you have to maximize combat or have a weapon mix dependent on ammo shortages.

But this is just a game.  Play how you like as long as you are having fun.

[Rayfer]

airboy....would enjoy reading your review, I hope you find time to get to it!  What I am learning so far in this game is that it is a mistake to create an across the board average or good character in all categories.  It's better to excel in a couple at the expense of a weakness in other areas. I don't think any character can be a master of all.

[BanzaiCat]

I just bought Wasteland 2 and frankly I'm a little intimidated by the Character Creation screen. Plenty of places out there that give advice on character builds but I don't like what I see.

Any suggestions for must-have skills or traits? I'm not looking for EXACT characterization, but if there's anything skill-wise or trait-wise you guys could suggest that would save me a headache down the line, I'd appreciate it.

For example - lots of places online seem to suggest dropping the Luck trait to 1 to use those points elsewhere. I don't like the idea of doing that but it may be my only choice.

[Silent Disapproval Robot]

IQ is what determines how many skill points you get when you level up so you might want to pump some points into that.

You'll get the opportunity to recruit a good NPC doctor fairly quickly so you really don't need to dump points into surgeon.  This character is also quite skilled at computers so no need to dump points there either.

Surgery skill vs. field medic can seem a bit confusing at first.  Basically, you can use medic skill at any time to heal damage points on any character provided you have some sort of aid kit in your inventory.  Surgery is used for reviving party members who lose all their health so it's not quite as useful most of the time.  Again, you'll need surgery kits in order to use the skill.  Surgery is also useful for curing diseases and penalties caused by critical hits or environmental factors such as electricity.

Smart ass and hard ass come in useful more often than kiss ass, but all three are of use. 

Shotguns and SMGs are great early on but in the later stages they're of limited value.  Better to focus on any of the other weapons skills.

Lock-picking, demolitions, and brute force come in very handy in a lot of situations.  Safe-cracking, alarm disabling, and mechanical repair are also useful but not as much as the first three.


My party started out like this:

-scout guy.  Good awareness and co-ordination.  Starting skills in shotgun, perception, and outdoorsman.  If I were to do it again, I'd get rid of shotguns and change it to assault rifle.

-strong guy. Very good strength, medium speed.  Starting skills in blunt weapons, demolitions, and SMGs.  I'd lose SMGs and replace it with weapon-smithing or hard ass.

-sneaky sniper guy.  Good co-ordination and intelligence.  Starting skills in lock-picking, alarm disarming, mechanical repair, and sniper rifles.    He's good as is.

-charisma girl.  Good charisma and intelligence.  Starting skills in kiss ass, smart ass, medic, and surgeon.  I'd have dropped surgeon and added more into the other skills.

[BanzaiCat]

Thanks, SDR.

I know many have recommended that a party compliment each other, but the thing that gets me is when a party member goes down, so too do their skills, and therefore the party is vulnerable from that end. I hate to split up skills and not, say, have everyone good at something. I guess I'll just have to dive in, but I'll apply the recommendations you made.