Wasteland Wasteland 3 + Battle of Steeltown and Cult of the Holy Detonation Expansions Thread

[Infinitron]

Oh, crafting patch is out before the expansion after all: https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/post/wasteland-3-patch-1-4-0-appetite-for-construction-now-live

Wasteland 3 Patch 1.4.0 "Appetite for Construction" Now Live

Welcome to the proverbial jungle, baby. We heard you loud and clear and we know what you want. You want to rock and roll all night and part of every day. You want us to crank it up to 11 as you compose your symphonies of destruction during a season in the abyss.

In case you didn't get the memo, the crazy train has left the station and is roaring towards the release of Wasteland 3's first expansion on June 3. We're hungry as all hell for more Wasteland 3, and we got a nasty appetite for construction. As noted in our recent 1.4.0 feature preview articles, the headliners of this concertapalooza are crafting and the animal companion kennel updates. They're followed by a lineup of other headbangin' callouts noted below that are sure to make you not-so-quietly riot from your chairs and sofas.

So come on, feel the noise.

Highlights

New Feature: Crafting

• Players are now able to craft mods, weapons, gear, and mystery items from the crafting menu accessible from the inventory screen. Time to put that scrap to work.
  
  
• Crafting recipes can be learned by leveling up some skills, buying them from vendors, searching containers, and discovering mystery crafting recipe ingredients.
  
  
• More info available here.

New Feature: Animal Companion Kennel & Improved UI

• A new kennel located just outside Ranger HQ is now available. Animals dismissed in the field or those who were following a Ranger who died will return automatically to the kennel, and from there they can optionally be dismissed back into the wild. You wouldn’t do that though because you’re not a heartless jerk.
  
  
• The animal companion type limit has been removed, allowing squads to have multiples of the same type of animal in the squad (1 animal per Ranger still, of course). That’s right, you can now have a whole squad of pissed-off cats scratching cannibal clowns.
  
  
• Character portraits now display icons for animal companions. Mousing over (or selecting) the animal icon will display a tooltip with that companion’s current stats.
  
  
• More info available here.

New Customization Options

• 12 new chest pieces are now available when creating or customizing your character, with some “job”-themed options like medic and explosives expert. Finally, what you’ve always wanted, to have a work uniform in-game too.

Polly the Parrot is 100% more inappropriate and packs a walloping Demoralize ability. Do not, for the love of all that is holy, play Polly’s dialog at high volume in proximity to anyone of high moral character.

Spoiler

Gameplay

• Added new safeguards to ensure followers like Provost, Party Pal, clones, etc. won’t disappear if the squad member they’re following dies, gets swapped out, or when swapping them to the other player in co-op.
  
  
• In certain situations where enemies surrender to the player, combat should no longer be re-triggered due to multi-shot attacks or damage over time status effects.
  
  
• With Permanent Death mode on, the endgame sequence will now give a proper game over screen if your only remaining characters leave the squad during certain story outcomes.
  
  
• The Tender Loving Care perk will now properly be removed when the character owning the perk is removed from the squad.
  
  
• Fixed a bug where if a character had two equipped weapons granting the same ability (such as alternate fire modes), the ability would not be usable.
  
  
• Fixed a bug that would cause Downed or Incapacitated player characters to disappear after leaving Union Station, past interacting with Morningstar.
  
  
• Resolved an issue where the downed state timer would advance too quickly if that squadmate had already been revived during that combat.
  
  
• Player characters who are Downed on the World Map will be automatically revived when returning to Ranger HQ so you don’t have to manually bring them back.
  
  
• Resolved various collision issues with invisible walls in the Bunker near Aspen.
  
  
• Fixed an issue for the Jackhammer shotgun with Extended Choke mods that would mess with the targeting cone in aim mode. You might think we’d make a joke here about “jackhammer” and “extended choke”, but you’re wrong. And sick.
  
  
• Yellow Snowballs can now correctly apply the Black Thaw STD, making the “Back in the Sack” achievement more achievable. You’re welcome?
  
  
• Lucky Crit and Lucky Mega Crit prompts are now properly followed by critical hits as intended. Lucky you.

Balance

• Turning on Difficult Skill Checks was incorrectly providing bonus XP when passing a skill check, making progression and game difficulty much easier as a result. The intention of Difficult Skill Checks is to add difficulty and not to make game progression easier.
  
  
• Destroyed loot boxes can no longer be re-looted after saving and then loading the game. I guess you could say trying to re-loot is moot.

UI & Controls

• The squad’s order will now be retained correctly when transitioning between areas or loading a saved game. Glory, glory hallelujah!
  
  
• Retraining a character will now show a confirmation animation on their character portrait inside the Mange Squad screen.
  
  
• Weapons and armor now list what mods they have installed in their description text. Luckily they won’t list that you’re still not done with your taxes.
  
  
• The save/load menus now display information to show if you have Difficult Skill Checks or Permanent Death mode enabled for a given save file.
  
  
• Conversations now show a “Click to continue” prompt when using mouse and keyboard, which helps show which ones won’t automatically progress.
  
  
• We fixed an issue where Modify Armor would sometimes be displayed as Modify Weapon when armor pieces were right-clicked in the inventory.
  
  
• Animal Whisperer's status effects will now no longer disappear after first meeting with [REDACTED PERSON OF IMPORTANCE].
  
  
• Visual feedback improvement made for when Abilities are activated on the Quickbar.
  
  
• Item icon sizes should now be consistent between inventory and merchant windows.
  
  
• Floating text when Crits are resisted via Crit Resistance has now been added. How much crit would a crit resistance resist if a crit resistance could resist crit?
  
  
• The Radio is now properly hidden during vendor encounters on the World Map.
  
  
• Fixed an issue in the merchant screen where the “Modify Weapon/Armor” option could sometimes appear on items.
  
  
• Made a bunch of additional small UI tweaks that we’re sure the UI designers don’t appreciate us summarizing in this very vague patch note.
  
  
• [Controller] Explosive barrels are now included in both the hostile targeting group and the object targeting group when in Targeting Mode, making it easier to target them on a controller.
  
  
• [Controller] While playing with a controller, there is now a button mapping to quickly open the Map Screen so you can get a bird’s-eye view more quickly.

Art & Audio

• Flamethrowers will no longer lose their sound and visual effect when primary and secondary weapons are swap-toggled. Swap-toggle is a thing we just came up with we think.
  
  
• Skipping the cloning sequence dialogue in Ranger HQ no longer causes a sound effect loop.
  
  
• There was this weird thing going on where the more items a container had, the louder the sound effects were when you did things with those items. That was weird, so we fixed it. Sometimes weird is good, but this wasn’t one of those times.

Misc

• Taming a Glow Hopper in the Old Survivalist Bunker will no longer cause a crash. I guess you could say, that Glow Hopper is no longer a Show Stopper.
  
  
• We had a talk with the Provost and he’s now much more confident about where he wants to be and when he wants to be there. He’s still odd, but by intention.
  
  
• Fixed an issue when Irv remained in Downtown Colorado Springs even after being arrested during the Don’t You Be My Neighbor mission. No, that wasn’t another one of his clones roaming free. Or was it? (No, it wasn’t.)
  
  
• Fixed a softlock that could occur after an enemy was attacked with a bladed weapon two times in a row. Stabby stabby.
  
  
• Players are no longer able to block the elves from leaving the place where the elves are and they'll no longer be trapped in the cutscene. I guess you could say, elves have left the building.
  
  
• [Microsoft Store] We resolved an issue for Microsoft Store players who could encounter a crash when a host tried to use the "Invite Friend" button in the Direct Connection lobby.

 

[Infinitron]

Obsidian's dialogue tool has many uses: https://blog.audiokinetic.com/interactive-music-choose-your-own-adventure-ballad/

Interactive Music: A 'Choose Your Own Adventure' Style Ballad

GAME AUDIO / INTERACTIVE AUDIO / SOUND DESIGN
ALEXANDER BRANDON | MAY 28, 2021

After a successful crowdfunding campaign in 2018, inXile Entertainment began full production of the game Wasteland 3. Following the critical acclaim heaped upon the soundtrack of their previous game, Bard's Tale IV, Brian Fargo wanted the team to come up with innovative ways to use music in the new game. To that end, senior writer Nathan Long, working from an idea inXile's NOLA Chief Matt Findley had originally conceived of for Wasteland 2, wrote a custom folk song for the end credits that would reflect the choices the players had made as they played the game, with each verse focusing on a key narrative decision. Brian and Matt agreed, and thus 'What We Did In Colorado' was born. It wasn't an easy birth.

Wasteland 3 - A "Choose Your Own Adventure" Style Ballad
William Whitmore, a well-established blues, country, and folk musician, was chosen to sing the melody and lyrics which Long wrote, not usually a hard task for a four minute ballad. But What We Did in Colorado, because it had to take into account all the many paths the player could take in the game, had more than 60 possible variations, each with different verse and line combinations to be sung. A typical story song of a similar style might have sixteen to twenty lines. Whitmore had ninety-two different lines to sing.

A very small portion of the verses alignment process in Steinberg’s Nuendo Digital Audio Workstation

The song begins with a prologue, is followed by six verses that get exponentially more complex based on decision gates created by the player's in-game choices, and it is capped off by a coda that talks about the ending the player just experienced. The player can also end the game prematurely with a few unwise decisions, and there are verses for that as well.

In late 2018 the verses recorded by Whitmore were sent to Matt Findley, who then delivered them to audio director Alex Brandon. Alex lined them up with a full band instrumental track, arranged and recorded by musician Kent Holmes.

Alignment of the verses required the same start and end export points, and to maintain consistent tempo, rhythm, and time stretch tools were used. At this point, verses were named according to the line names in the lyrics document and exported to Wwise, which played them back in the game. And this is where things started getting crazy.

A small portion of the verses and transitions required to define in Wwise.

The Instrumental track provided by Holmes is fixed. It doesn't change no matter what version of the verses are called for, so all of Whitmore’s 92 lines have to line up on top of it according to line and verse combination and measure the start point in the Wwise segment to the left of the above picture. To the right, transitions that define when the image that accompanies the song changes, and what verse should play are also included.

The Wwise object that plays the music back is a Switch Container with 61 possible switches reflecting the possible transitions.

Crazy enough yet? Not even close. While Alex set up the objects and placed them in Wwise, and senior audio designer James Barker tweaked timings and transition rules to ensure all the verses could play back reliably, there was still a missing element - the data from the game.

The game uses a tool called OEI for creating and managing cinematics, conversations, and the logic that keeps track of player choices in Wasteland 3. But the verses were not organized in OEI in the same way they were in the lyric sheet, meaning OEI and Wwise didn't play well with each other. Because of this, after a conversation with engineers Kurt Haisan and Matthew Davey, the game’s lead designer, Jeremy Kopman, took on the herculean task of aligning the Wwise events with the OEI “nodes” that contained the verses - a prolonged and painstaking process.

A fraction of the OEI conversation “EndSong”.

Finally, with the scripting set up in OEI and the translations done in Wwise, it was time to put the ending to the test, setting game states and checking every possible verse combination to make sure it played correctly. It was a mind-bending task, and as the game's release date loomed, additional QA support was rallied to assist to ensure that, no matter what choices the player made - no matter how silly, unique, or bizarre - they would hear every reflection of their journey in the lyrics of the final song.

Team Summary Thoughts:
Matt Findley: "Being a studio that prides itself on the amazing music we have created, and the incredible amount of reactivity in our narrative, it seemed obvious that we needed to bring these two concepts together."

William Whitmore: “This project was unlike anything I’ve ever been a part of. It was honor to do something so unique, so unprecedented. The writing and story were very well thought out, it was easy to plug into and make my own, to get into that headspace. It’s a great concept.”

Alexander Brandon: “I’ve been talking about and working with interactive music since the mid 90s, and it’s rare that I get to work in a situation where new ground is broken. This is one of those times. It was a truly team effort that yielded something I never even imagined could be done in a game with music on this level.”

Nathan Long: "I thought I had the hard part of this job, making everything the player could do in the game rhyme and fit the meter of the song. Turned out the real work started when the writing and recording of the song were complete. Kudos to Alex and Jeremy and the rest of the team for fighting so hard to make this crazy idea work."

 

[LESS T_T]

DLC 2 – Coming Summer 2021
The second expansion for Wasteland 3 will also include a new location, characters, challenging combat, and Wasteland’s signature focus on player choice and consequence.

 

[gongal]

Oh boy, this game is such a massive amount of cringe... Why does every western post-apo game have to be a Borderlands-tier clown fiesta?

 

[mkultra]

I wish games overall would turn down the ""comedy"" aspects. it's never good.. Good comedy is not easy to write and games are not exactly known for good writing.. In fact writing should be kept to an absolute minimum in games, it should be the player himself doing the adventure and the "writing" just by being, acting in and exploring the world. That's how the medium can excel, it should not try to compete with a book/movie because it will never ever be on pair with that experience anyways, it can however be something unique in other ways.

 

[Luckmann]

Anyone know what/how the save files are compressed? They're .xml-files, but viewing them as-is comes out garbled. I was thinking I'd give this piece of shit another co-op attempt now that we're coming up on one year since release and they seem to have fixed some basic-bitch bugs. Seeing some extremely basic bugs not fixed until just now (1.4) doesn't exactly engender confidence, though.

I was thinking about buying this game to co-op with my Dad, is the multiplayer good?

Buggy?

The game was an absolute fucking travesty around release. We're talking "practically unplayable" here. So make sure to pirate it first if you're considering trying it. It would suck ass to spend money for two copies just to find that nothing has improved.

Oh boy, this game is such a massive amount of cringe... Why does every western post-apo game have to be a Borderlands-tier clown fiesta?

I wish games overall would turn down the ""comedy"" aspects. it's never good.. Good comedy is not easy to write and games are not exactly known for good writing.. In fact writing should be kept to an absolute minimum in games, it should be the player himself doing the adventure and the "writing" just by being, acting in and exploring the world. That's how the medium can excel, it should not try to compete with a book/movie because it will never ever be on pair with that experience anyways, it can however be something unique in other ways.

Are you saying that you don't appreciate LE EPIX MAYMAY ToAsTeRs HA HA XD and HA HA GIANT HAMMER SO EPIC AND FERRET SHOOTERS SO FUNNY XDXDXD or BEEEEEEEEEES HAHA GET IT BEEEEEEEEES?

 

[Haplo]

The game was an absolute fucking travesty around release. We're talking "practically unplayable" here. So make sure to pirate it first if you're considering trying it. It would suck ass to spend money for two copies just to find that nothing has improved.

Funny. I had no issue playing it at release. Also had great fun.

 

[Fedora Master]

Yea, no. The game was fine at launch. Certainly much more stable and polished than WL2 when it launched.

 

[Infinitron]

https://www.inxile-entertainment.com/post/wasteland-3-the-battle-of-steeltown-console-delay

Wasteland 3: The Battle of Steeltown Console Delay

We’re excited to get The Battle of Steeltown into your hands—and we’re on-track to release on Windows 10 across PC storefronts (Steam, GOG, Microsoft Store, etc.) on June 3—but unfortunately we ran into a last-second release issue that’s holding back the launch for consoles by just under a week, to June 9.

It’s especially disappointing for the team here, and believe us when we say we tried everything to avoid a split release. We’ve been working on Steeltown essentially since the launch of Wasteland 3 last August, and we’ve put a lot of effort into creating an expansion that provides a deep narrative experience, gut-wrenching player choices and consequences, and more engaging tactical combat with new mechanics and enemies.

The good news is the wait won’t be long as it's less than a one-week delay—we’re launching The Battle of Steeltown for Xbox and PlayStation on June 9.

For those of you excited to jump back in, we just released Patch 1.4.0 “Appetite for Construction”, a free update which adds Crating and a new animal Kennel to the base game. These are in addition to the dozens of features and improvements and hundreds (thousands?) of tweaks and fixes we’ve added to the game since launch. Steeltown content is recommended for level 11+, so if you’re itching to jump back in with the DLC, it's a great time right now to start that new playthrough.

Thank you to our fans for their continued support; we’re looking forward to seeing your choices in Steeltown as you attempt to solve the factory’s problems like only the Rangers can.

We’ll see you in Colorado.

 

[Luckmann]

Funny. I had no issue playing it at release. Also had great fun.

Yea, no. The game was fine at launch. Certainly much more stable and polished than WL2 when it launched.

We need a "inXile Defence Force" tag. I'd call you lying shills, but I know you do it for free.

 

[Saduj]

Game was fine at release. Maybe people wouldn’t feel obligated to contradict you if you weren’t making stuff up.

 

[Haplo]

Funny. I had no issue playing it at release. Also had great fun.

Yea, no. The game was fine at launch. Certainly much more stable and polished than WL2 when it launched.

We need a "inXile Defence Force" tag. I'd call you lying shills, but I know you do it for free.

Not really a fan of inXile. Was majorly dissapointed with W2.
Didn't care much for Torment: ToN (own it, but actually didn't play it much - so cannot even form an informed opinion). Same deal with Bard's Tale, really.

But Wasteland 3 was very fun, if not particularly ambitious (and maybe because of that).
Lighthearted, unbalanced fun. With character building that actually has impact (as opposed to W2).

 

[Luckmann]

Game was fine at release. Maybe people wouldn’t feel obligated to contradict you if you weren’t making stuff up.

Haha, yeah, I'm just making stuff up and faked all the issues posted earlier in the thread (which has progressed practically not at all for nearly a year for.. uuuh... purely socioeconomical factors I'm sure) and there wasn't at all a patch just days ago fixing something as basic as "Having two of the same type of weapon equipped makes it impossible to use its abilities".

Not really a fan of inXile.

That actually makes it worse, though.

With character building that actually has impact (as opposed to W2).

Haven't we already settled and addressed this lie a good 20-or-so pages back? Are you following a script of some kind, because damn.

Edit: I just noticed that even in 1.4, there's still prefab recruits that have backgrounds that do nothing whatsoever. And also backgrounds that the player simply can't have because ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Edit 2: I guess I'm making up this fight where the combat.. just.. doesn't start, and get hung up on the would-be first round, too? And yes, that's running the latest patch. I was doing some testing to figure out just how useless the sneaking mechanics are in this game, and it's.. pretty bad, yeah - but can be significantly gamed.

 

[Infinitron]

Released:




https://af.gog.com/game/wasteland_3_the_battle_of_steeltown?as=1649904300

https://www.fig.co/campaigns/wasteland-3/updates/1403

The Battle of Steeltown Out Now!

The Battle of Steeltown is OUT NOW for Windows 10, Mac, and Linux across Steam, GOG, and the Microsoft Store. If you'd like to grab Steeltown AND our next (unannounced) expansion at the same time for a slight discount, you'll want to be sure to grab the Wasteland 3 Expansion Pass.

As previously announced, the expansion will be available for Xbox and PlayStation on June 9, and we look forward to getting it into your hands.

For the latest updates be sure to follow us at @Wasteland on Twitter, join Ranger HQ on Facebook, jump into the official inXile forums, and find player-run communities talking about Wasteland 3 and The Battle of Steeltown on Reddit, Steam, and Discord. If you need technical support be sure to visit support.inxile-entertainment.com.

 

[Saduj]

$14 for one new area? How many hours of content?

Also, if anyone finds out how far into the game you have to be for this content to unlock, I’d be interested in knowing. If it opens up very early I’d consider giving it a go with a new party. I don’t want to replay half the game just to get to this nor do I want to cakewalk through it with my old party.

 

[Latelistener]

You can also purchase expansion pass for $20:

 

[lycanwarrior]

You can also purchase expansion pass for $20:

Just bought it and downloading the 5 GB update now.

 

[Acrux]

$14 for one new area? How many hours of content?

Also, if anyone finds out how far into the game you have to be for this content to unlock, I’d be interested in knowing. If it opens up very early I’d consider giving it a go with a new party. I don’t want to replay half the game just to get to this nor do I want to cakewalk through it with my old party.

According to the Inxile community manager on Steam, you need to be at least level 9 to have the quest show up.

 

[Luckmann]

$14 for one new area? How many hours of content?

If indications regarding the rest of the game is anything to go by, I'd say 2-3 hours.

Also, if anyone finds out how far into the game you have to be for this content to unlock, I’d be interested in knowing. If it opens up very early I’d consider giving it a go with a new party. I don’t want to replay half the game just to get to this nor do I want to cakewalk through it with my old party.

They have explicitly said that you need to be Level 9 to get the mission, but the recommended earliest level is 11. And the entire thing scales, because of course it does.

 

[Infinitron]

Couple of reviews:
https://wccftech.com/review/wastela...narrowing-down-the-infinite-to-the-plausible/ 8/10
https://www.pcinvasion.com/wasteland-3-the-battle-of-steeltown-review/ 7.5/10

 

[rusty_shackleford]

mooooooom the video game journalists are at it again

 

[Roguey]

If indications regarding the rest of the game is anything to go by, I'd say 2-3 hours.

One reviewer up above took 3 hours, the other took 6. Short, difficult, and reactive.

 

[SharkClub]

Wasteland 3 was a decent fun enough game. Not really sure why some people keep picking on it and inXile in general for making it "yet another wacky crazy comedy game!!!", clearly none of those fags have ever played Wasteland before, it's kinda half of the entire setting and was never taken nearly as seriously as Fallout (1) was.

I'll check out Steeltown at some point and might post my own thoughts here about it, currently in the middle of a BG2 playthrough though.

 

[Luckmann]

If indications regarding the rest of the game is anything to go by, I'd say 2-3 hours.

One reviewer up above took 3 hours, the other took 6. Short, difficult, and reactive.

Shit, I was being facetious. Goddamn.

 

[ferratilis]

Do you really have to pay $10 just to have access to the manual!? If true, that's a scummy move.