Wasteland 2 - Shows Modern RPGs How to Party

Gamemoir discusses Wasteland 2's completely custom build-your-own-party system and how it's a satisfying throwback to much older titles.

Thanks go to Couch for tonight's news.

…Once I got around to it, I pretty much fell in love with Wasteland 2 before I even began playing it in earnest for one simple reason: you get to build your own party.

I hadn’t thought about this, but it has been a really, really long time since I had the opportunity to craft a party of my very own. I mean when was the last time I got to create a full team of adventurers from the ground up? Some Ultima or Might and Magic game from the 90’s? I CAN’T REMEMBER! And that, my friends, is just not right. It’s one thing to choose from a selection of existing characters or shape their skills as they level up, but another experience entirely to make them exactly who and what you want them to be from the get-go down to clothing, ethnicity, and even an optional biography. It’s been so long I forgot how satisfying it can be.

The next obvious question in that train of thought was “why don’t more games do this?” What kind of filthy casual wouldn’t want to lovingly craft their very own group of adventurers? Why are we being robbed of this classic gaming experience? It’s pretty much standard operating procedure to have gamers create their lead character in modern solo RPGs, but in party-based games you pretty much get what you get and have to work from there.

The focus on story and characters is one reason we don’t see these kinds of games very much any more, but another reason is the increased prevalence of handholding. As games have become more popular, more casual folk are playing them, and while they may fail at hardcore RPGing, their money is at least as green as yours or mine and there’s more of them, so they win.

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Loved the feature

I'll probably finally play the new director cut version now that a few re-launch bugs have been fixed. Still I do hope the Unirty 5 shadow bug will eventually get fixed.

We've determined the problem is the result of a bug with dynamic shadows in Unity 5.2. The problem scales with the number of lights in a scene, so scenes with more lights will have a faster memory leak. We are working to get this resolved as soon as we can.

For the time being, you can disable shadows to prevent the leak from occurring. Apologies for the inconvenience.

I personally don't like building a whole party. Ok, I don't like party based games at all, but if I have to do parties, then I prefer to meet new people instead of creating them.

I've so missed this feature as well, complaining about it's 'demise' for years and years.

Wasteland is the best of both worlds, IMO. You make a party of four characters, then can recruit pre-made NPCs (with voice and story and such), up to three, for a party of seven. You get your tailor-made party, and some story-heavy characters who tag along with you!

I found the DC much better than original. Had nasty surprise at end.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I'll probably finally play the new director cut version now that a few re-launch bugs have been fixed. Still I do hope the Unirty 5 shadow bug will eventually get fixed.

RAM leakage is a common occurrence with most games and executables in general and may have different causes. You'd be hard-pressed to find software that doesn't leak any, somehow. I've beaten W2 a few times immediately after the launch and had no game breaking issues. The lightning doesn't make W2 unplayable whatsoever unlike dynamic shadows in , lets say , Skyrim. Anyway… if you had delayed it for these reasons, while playing technical wrecks in the meantime, there's no sense in starting now.

Originally Posted by Irian
I personally don't like building a whole party. Ok, I don't like party based games at all, but if I have to do parties, then I prefer to meet new people instead of creating them.

You prolly should not be on this site then. You are not old timey enough and the words you just wrote should banish you to the 9 planes of hell

I have made every party member in lots of games recently. Lords of Xulima, Might and Magic X, Baldurs Gate and Wasteland 2. Also made my own party in Icewindale and a little indie game called Swords and Sorcery. Hmm one of my favorite games of all time you also created your own party, Knights of the Chalice. The author of this article is a dirty casual gamer also

Those games are out there if you know where to look and they are your favorite.

As a party-based-game lover with a username very close to Irian's (probably pronounced the same), I'd just like to distance myself from those comments!

Having grown up on MM1/2 etc, party building and exploring all facets of a game through a party of different classes, it's my biggest complaint about modern RPGs. The lack of pary-based gameplay makes me very sad, and is why I end up playing JRPGs which still usually have parties. That said, I think I found Icewind Dale 2 to be one of my favourite Infinity Engine games because of creating characters, and my Pillars of Eternity party is currently filled with my own-created hirelings. I will have to remove some for story reasons, but it pains me.

Originally Posted by Hastar
You prolly should not be on this site then. You are not old timey enough and the words you just wrote should banish you to the 9 planes of hell

I have made every party member in lots of games recently. Lords of Xulima, Might and Magic X, Baldurs Gate and Wasteland 2. Also made my own party in Icewindale and a little indie game called Swords and Sorcery. Hmm one of my favorite games of all time you also created your own party, Knights of the Chalice. The author of this article is a dirty casual gamer also

Those games are out there if you know where to look and they are your favorite.

Being an old timer in not reason enough to like that kind of game (though I admit that not liking those games and frequenting this forum it's kind of a waste of time). I hate party based games and tactical RPGs and I've been playing computer games since the days of ZX Spectrum - I just avoided anything with the RPG label on it until… maybe Vampire the Masquerade Bloodlines.

Originally Posted by Irian
I personally don't like building a whole party. Ok, I don't like party based games at all, but if I have to do parties, then I prefer to meet new people instead of creating them.

I'm the opposite Irian. I don't like party-based games all that much, but I'd much rather create the party, so that I have control on what character-types are in my group and full control on how they are built.

I'm playing Dragon-Age for instance. There is a rogue name Garric that instead of dual-wielding daggers and using poison, he uses a unique crossbow that is much weaker than the weapons of the rest of my group. I upgrade it every chance I get, but he is by far the weakest member. You get another rogue later, but the voice actress and the way she was designed makes her totally unsuitable. Therefore, if I want a rogue, I have to play one or use a gimped one the game gave me.

Saying a game like ZX Spectrum does not help me knowing how long you have been a gamer. When was it released 2015? hehe just having some fun.

Originally Posted by crpgnut
I'm the opposite Irian. I don't like party-based games all that much, but I'd much rather create the party, so that I have control on what character-types are in my group and full control on how they are built.

I'm playing Dragon-Age for instance. There is a rogue name Garric that instead of dual-wielding daggers and using poison, he uses a unique crossbow that is much weaker than the weapons of the rest of my group. I upgrade it every chance I get, but he is by far the weakest member. You get another rogue later, but the voice actress and the way she was designed makes her totally unsuitable. Therefore, if I want a rogue, I have to play one or use a gimped one the game gave me.

I share your preference for solo games and party creation at the beginning of party-based games. (Some of) The Dragon Ages are a pretty good example for the weakness of the pick-up group system.

For example, depending on your choices in Origin, you can really screw yourself pretty badly in the Awakening expansion and end up with no rogue for many hours (= no lockpicking at all since there are no alternative ways to open locks (except keys, of course, but not every lock/chest has one)).
I hate that kind of stuff. What am I? Nostradamus? How am I supposed to know when the game will graciously give me (or take away) a certain companion (=class)?

By the way, the rogue in DAI is called Varric, not Garric and he plays a major role in DA2. His crossbow is called Bianca and, yes, you're kind of supposed to only use him as a ranged DPS.
Personally, I liked him for some time in DA2 but later on swapped him for another rogue (Isabela) as a (stealth) melee DPS who seemed to be much more effective than him.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I'll probably finally play the new director cut version now that a few re-launch bugs have been fixed. Still I do hope the Unirty 5 shadow bug will eventually get fixed.

This issue was actually resolved in a hotfix:

http://steamcommunity.com/games/4047…39874818610562

Creating the party for WL 2 took me about three hours, fact. The rest is history!

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I'll probably finally play the new director cut version now that a few re-launch bugs have been fixed. Still I do hope the Unirty 5 shadow bug will eventually get fixed.

The shadow memory leak issue has been fixed for at least a month or two now.

EDIT: Beat to it!

Originally Posted by sea
The shadow memory leak issue has been fixed for at least a month or two now.

I haven't touched the game since it was re-launched Sea. The companion bug you guys fixed later later on, and a few others made me stop playing. So thanks for the update.

Since I stopped following updates months ago was the AMD crashing bug on the inventory screen solved yet? You recommended playing in DX9 instead of DX11.

Link - https://forums.inxile-entertainment….ic.php?t=14102

As it still happened sometimes after the newer updates from AMD.

Originally Posted by Couchpotato
I haven't touched the game since it was re-launched Sea. The companion bug you guys fixed later later on, and a few others made me stop playing. So thanks for the update.

Since I stopped following updates months ago was the AMD crashing bug on the inventory screen solved yet? You recommended playing in DX9 instead of DX11.

Link - https://forums.inxile-entertainment….ic.php?t=14102

As it still happened sometimes after the newer updates from AMD.

To my knowledge that is a driver problem, we've had players reporting it's fixed for them on newer drivers. May want to try doing a clean install and clearing custom game profiles.

Originally Posted by sea
To my knowledge that is a driver problem, we've had players reporting it's fixed for them on newer drivers. May want to try doing a clean install and clearing custom game profiles.

Thanks I'll try that. Hopefully that fixes the problem.

Originally Posted by Hastar
You prolly should not be on this site then. You are not old timey enough and the words you just wrote should banish you to the 9 planes of hell

I still remember the first Ultimas, for example. Or other games from that era. Doesn't mean that all aspects of these games were actually GOOD. So, if being "old timey" requires not only to actually having been there (which I was) but somehow follow the rules set by some guys who I don't care about, then, yes, I'm not. ;-)

Originally Posted by Irien
As a party-based-game lover with a username very close to Irian's (probably pronounced the same)

Nope, not pronounced the same. The "a" is different here, but honestly, I have no clue how to describe that in english ;-)