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

[Infinitron]

It smashes. It crashes. The Hand of the Patriarch is going to do what you need it to in order to keep Colorado safe from usurpers. ORDER TODAY!

 

[OSK]

But why? The game is done, right?

 

[Roguey]

That's a legitimate Colorado Springs number that flashes, which is peculiar. I can't be bothered to call it though.

 

[Infinitron]

Codex review by Roguey: https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/rpg-codex-review-wasteland-3.142272/

 

[Dwarvophile]

Hey do you guys know if leadership bonuses stacks ? (and why does this game have no combat log ? ).

So one of my 2 starting chars already has high leadership and charisma and I just recruited Ironclad Cordite, who also happens to have the leadership skill (and shit charisma actually), so I'm thinking of retraining him. Except that in the case leadership bonuses do stacks then it might be worth keeping him.

 

[ferratilis]

Pretty sure they don't, only the bigger one applies.

 

[Roguey]

Hey do you guys know if leadership bonuses stacks ? (and why does this game have no combat log ? ).

Combat log "had" to go because there's no room for it in the GUI they wanted to have and it's largely unnecessary (the great Jagged Alliance 2 has no combat log). You can hover over the icons under the character's name in the bottom left corner to see what status effects are applying.

 

[Dwarvophile]

Hey do you guys know if leadership bonuses stacks ? (and why does this game have no combat log ? ).

Combat log "had" to go because there's no room for it in the GUI they wanted to have and it's largely unnecessary (the great Jagged Alliance 2 has no combat log). You can hover over the icons under the character's name in the bottom left corner to see what status effects are applying.

yes, I saw that, and I found the information button on the upper right side to check on enemies quite useful, still I always enjoyed digging in combat logs

Anyway, really nice RPG here, I'm surprised, maybe I wasn't browsing the dex much when it got out, but I don't remember much feedback on this title. 85 pages, and Pathfinder wrath of the autist has more than 600, WTF!

Combats is enjoyable, albeit messy, and the game got really fun since I arrived in Denver. Also what they did with the music it's tasteful, it's actually quite clever.

 

[Cpt. Dallas]

I picked up the DLCs in a previous GoG sale and finally got to playing after finishing Archolos and Elex2. Difficulty ramps up, particularly for the (yes, another) bomb cult. Inexile really has a thing for poop jokes, which they've traded from the sexual degeneracy in the core game....regressing from genital to anal fixation, in Freud-speak. Of course there is a furry, gated behind a '10' skill check as a pet, that will often run and hide in combat. Crafting doesn't add or subtract much, other than to showcase their new items or to create a quest maguffin or two. More than a few opportunities to use stealth to pre-debuff the battleground, but it had better be at '10'. Netflix-grade diversity. Major preoccupation with slavery.

I encountered an odd bug, probably due to corruption across my save files: a repeatable CTD every time I try to swap the secondary weapon slot of one particular PC.

 

[Dwarvophile]

I'd normally would not bother to review a game, but writing another post just in order to bring this thread back to the first page is the least I could do for a game that gave me more than 40 hours of quality escapism. So here we go for a participation award :

Wasteland 3 is now on the very short list of the recent games I could be bothered to finish.

It has a great atmosphere, its visuals and sound are good quality and they help shaping a coherent, immersive whole. A special mention for the music which is surprisingly good. Fighting the Gippers battle (an insane and surrealistic bloodbath) while the song ''america is beautiful" plays over the sound of lasers, explosions and agony screams is a gaming experience I will remember.

I'm not a fan of the lore, but the writing is good overall and there are genuinely fun moments in all its quirkyness. Besides, this is inxile's original recipe and its like with the soundtrack : not always my thing, but so distinctive, well crafted and authentic that I can only enjoy and praise. I could expand this consideration to the whole game.

C&C is another area where this game shines : it's well branched, coherent and also unforgiving : you have to weight your decisions and I don't think Colorado will ever recover from my visit and the mess I left there. I sure got one of the worst ending and my characters (those sanctimonious well meaning ranger pricks) certainly didn't plan so. But it's a game where failing has been as enjoyable as succeeding. My next playthrough will be with proper psychopath and I suspect they might bring me to a better epilogue.

The gameplay has just been what I expected : FUN. I played W2 8 years ago and I didn't remember much (except that Toaster Repair isn't just a joke) but I didn't want to have to min-max or to read online guides so I chose the ranger difficulty level and built my chars, using a minimum of logic, but mainly taking a roleplaying approach to allocate talents and perks ; and with that, the difficulty has been consistent and spiced up almost till the last segment (I respecced my 2 main chars just once). Now that I got more familiar with the system I think I would enjoy a replay on Supreme Jerk difficulty.
There obviously have been many QoL improvements since W2, and, my feeling is that the gameplay have been streamlined a bit (again, this is distant memory), but for the best outcome since it seems now to be more cohesive and intuitive at the same time. All my chars had very different skills and builds and they all seemed as viable. Every skills have their utility (social skills opens interesting storylines) and I could even do a bit of skilldip to gather perks i liked. It's not Pathfinder wrath of the autist, yes, but who has time for that ? I just cheesed the ranger system to have one guy with maximized weapon & armor modding at the base because those didn't seem as vital as the others. But crafting is an option I mostly neglect in games, although I saw some interesting craftable weapons, so I might explore this a bit next time.
The combat is solid. Hell, it's quite fun. Good level design and there are no trashmobs. Even the random encounters on the world map gave me more fun than staged combats in other games. One of those had my party almost wiped out and without nitro spike I litterally crawled back to the base praying not to meet anyone.

Exploration on the map is where W3 seems weaker. You have a picture to put on the world, and because of that, it feels smaller. Maybe, it is really smaller, and retrospectively I wish I had more to explore. But it probably would have been at the detriment of the overall quality *

Overall, after I finished it, I'm still surprised W3 isn't more advertised as a solid and enjoyable post apocalyptic RPG, I almost missed it and I think it deserves more exposure.

* just saw gurugeorge post on the W2 thread, he phrased this better : ''WL2 is more of an RPG proper, more immersive - it keeps your head in the virtual world better'' . This is exactly what I missed in W3's exploration, on the world map.
In every other areas, though, I welcomed W3 changes.

 

[OSK]

Overall, after I finished it, I'm still surprised W3 isn't more advertised as a solid and enjoyable post apocalyptic RPG, I almost missed it and I think it deserves more exposure.

I think a lot of people played it on release when it was a mess, and it left a sour taste in their mouth. Wasteland 2 suffered from that as well.

 

[Infinitron]

Overall, after I finished it, I'm still surprised W3 isn't more advertised as a solid and enjoyable post apocalyptic RPG, I almost missed it and I think it deserves more exposure.

I think a lot of people played it on release when it was a mess, and it left a sour taste in their mouth. Wasteland 2 suffered from that as well.

No, it's because inXile was on Codexers' shitlist after Torment and Bard's Tale IV and many didn't think the game was worth paying attention to in the first place. Probably plenty still don't.

 

[Cyberarmy]

Overall, after I finished it, I'm still surprised W3 isn't more advertised as a solid and enjoyable post apocalyptic RPG, I almost missed it and I think it deserves more exposure.

I think a lot of people played it on release when it was a mess, and it left a sour taste in their mouth. Wasteland 2 suffered from that as well.

I don't remember it was such a mess at release especially considering Wasteland 2s release. But there were some game breaking bugs that I kinda dodged.

 

[Haplo]

I've had good fun with it on release. Poorly balanced (those alpha strikes!), but very fun.

 

[OSK]

Overall, after I finished it, I'm still surprised W3 isn't more advertised as a solid and enjoyable post apocalyptic RPG, I almost missed it and I think it deserves more exposure.

I think a lot of people played it on release when it was a mess, and it left a sour taste in their mouth. Wasteland 2 suffered from that as well.

I don't remember it was such a mess at release especially considering Wasteland 2s release. But there were some game breaking bugs that I kinda dodged.

I know I ran into some bugs when I tried it out at release. It just reminded me you have to wait on InXile games. I didn't try the game again until last February, and finished it up last month.

 

[rusty_shackleford]

wl3 loading times were extremely long at release
I abandoned my playthrough due to it

 

[Zombra]

wl3 loading times were extremely long at release
I abandoned my playthrough due to it

That definitely got fixed later. After remembering W2's load times, I expected W3 to be the same, so whenever I changed maps I would get up for a bio break or to grab a snack. Annoyingly, the map would usually finish loading before I could leave my desk, so I'd sit back down and keep playing. As a result I spent that whole game hungry, thirsty, and needing to go to the bathroom. Talk about a lack of consideration for the player experience.

 

[Dwarvophile]

wl3 loading times were extremely long at release
I abandoned my playthrough due to it

That definitely got fixed later. After remembering W2's load times, I expected W3 to be the same, so whenever I changed maps I would get up for a bio break or to grab a snack. Annoyingly, the map would usually finish loading before I could leave my desk, so I'd sit back down and keep playing. As a result I spent that whole game hungry, thirsty, and needing to go to the bathroom. Talk about a lack of consideration for the player experience.

Yes, loading times were super fast for me.

 

[Cadmus]

Loading times were actually too long for me. The game wasn't installed on my SSD though.

 

[MajorMace]

I bought Wasteland 3 some days ago on sale. The game is pretty fucking good. And I know it is because it's been years that I actually booted a crpg more than two times in a week.
Game has good ideas, good systems and thankfully not too much writing. NPCs spout their shit and fuck off like they used to in the 90s.
I actually enjoy it much more than WL2 because of this, as the latter tended to be way too verbose for its own good and for the sake of the player.

I assume that WL3, as these games tend to do, falters in the later parts of the adventure but the first ten-ish hours have proven to be quite enjoyable.

By far the best game from InXile, as in, it's the first game of theirs that I find actually good. Kudos to Faran Brygo (I killed him).

 

[Dwarvophile]

I bought Wasteland 3 some days ago on sale. The game is pretty fucking good. And I know it is because it's been years that I actually booted a crpg more than two times in a week.
Game has good ideas, good systems and thankfully not too much writing. NPCs spout their shit and fuck off like they used to in the 90s.
I actually enjoy it much more than WL2 because of this, as the latter tended to be way too verbose for its own good and for the sake of the player.

I assume that WL3, as these games tend to do, falters in the later parts of the adventure but the first ten-ish hours have proven to be quite enjoyable.

By far the best game from InXile, as in, it's the first game of theirs that I find actually good. Kudos to Faran Brygo (I killed him).

I tried to kill Faran Brygo but the battle went sideways, so I just reloaded while thinking: hell I want those discobots on my side. I later got one as pet : nothing like starting a combat round with those discobot sounds and the Kodiak's clown horn's honking while you are burning your ennemies to crisp.

 

[DeepOcean]

I was having a blast right until the end of the Bazaar region, Denver and Aspen are okay but Denver is literally just 3 maps and Aspen is a dungeon crawl, if the rest of the regions had the same care as Colorado Springs and the Bazaar, the game would had not only be fun but great. Being light in content on the second half was what made it as a fun game and not a great game for me.

Fuck, if the DLC werent by the numbers dungeon crawls and actually added quality content... oh boy, anyway when InXile was finally learning how to make games, they are bought by Microsot to make popamole crap... such is the life.

 

[Infinitron]

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Wasteland 2 suffered from that as well.

director's cut was poo too.

 

[ArchAngel]

I finally started to play WL3 on Xbox through Game Pass and game is much better and more fun than I expected. This is best Firaxis Xcom version that I have played so far. Combat is not that challenging but it is at least lots of fun with cool effects, combos and comments.
What is not cool is how badly it plays on a controller. And has serious bugs that make it even more irritating. Like you press a button to select enemy and it does not select closest one for whatever reason... or you select ability to use (Mark for example) and it does not want to select certain targets after that.. and others like that.
Also balance is strange, whole game you are starved with Scrap for crafting (I basically went full in with crafting and scrapped almost all weapons I found) and then in end of the game you get more scrap in that one mission (from boxes and junk piles) than the whole game before that.. and so many crafting options but you barely find most of them, game keeps throwing same shit all the time. They should have let us craft the most basic ones with scrap in addition to letting us upgrade them with scrap.
And I played it on Xbox because that is cheaper than buying a new gaming PC, I am too poor for that atm. Maybe in few years once this Xbox Series X becomes old harware.