What do you want/not want in Wasteland 2

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I've played my fair share of 2D games and, sure, you get used to it. But you have to admit there are times when you can't see around a corner, can't see an enemy cuz he's stuck behind an open door and the engine doesn't let you peek around it. Or you get the walls fading in and out so you can actually see that there's a guy on the other side of that wall -- or Fallout's green outline thing.

Point is, as in a table-top RPG, it's nice to have a good 3D view of the playing field. Makes things more tactical and (usually) needs less silliness like invisible walls, green outlines around enemies, etc.

Question: can we say that Wasteland has JRPG combat because if you cut out the graphics representation from JRPGs, it's basically the same as Wasteland ie. no careful maneuvering around game world and obstacles and just watching your characters and enemies go forth and back from their fixed positions to play out their attacks instead, which is handled by pure text in Wasteland.

There are similiarities, but I would tend towards no - manuevering in Wasteland can be important - it may be inconvenient at times, but you can split the party (have one member "Run") to have brawlers/knife fighters approach while the gunners stay at range or to move someone (like a medic) out of the line of fire. Most of the time you don't need to do it, and it can be a pain at times (Since if one portion of the party is not targeted, you have to explicitly say you want them to perform a combat round), but the flexibility is there.

So blob combat = JRPG combat ?

Well, isn't it? Wasteland provides further options on the formula but fundamentally, that's what it also is.

Well, hmm. I guess the issue may be random encounters. Personally I enjoy them (grew up with them), but I know some people don't. Wasteland was mostly random encounters, so I was just assuming the sequel would work the same way.

JA2 is more in agreement with what you want. You have overland 2D exploration, but 'town level' exploration is squad based, tactical and LOS (i.e. you can scout and avoid encounters if you want).

Personally I would hate to 'mow the lawn' in needles or vegas with an entire squad. I much prefer quickly scooting around using arrow keys on a 2D map and talking to people, getting from A to B, and if a random encounter pops up, then it's squad time (or quick combat if the player prefers). Squad based combat is great, but moving a squad around man by man (especially while trying to maintain stealth) can get very tedious.

Ideally the player should be able to toggle between those travel/encounter approaches at any time.

I want radiaton hazard,also some nice mutated things.

I want to be able to remote-control a scorpitron at some point in the game. Even if it's just temporary.

I want it to throw unexpected shit at me, I'm going in head first without expectations.

Do not want:

- Blob combat

- Meaningless encounters

I'd sort of like to have wilderness encounters, as part of the whole survival dynamic, but I agree that one problem with wasteland is that you can't just walk around a map without a bunch of crazed unarmed hobos trying to bumrush you squad of machinegun-wielding soldiers. In places like needles, or the University town area (forgot the name) it got kind of tedious... In Vegas, at first it was cool because it was a struggle to survive and move around there when you first arrive, but eventually that shit got old too.

Blob combat came first, so no, it isn't.

AoD isn't isometric.

Is there a fundamental difference between blob combat and JRPG combat? Perhaps it was redundant to call it "JRPG combat" at all. Both are blob combat.

For those who don't read the news forum, informative related Wasteland 2 threads:

Wasteland 2 RPG Codex Interview with Brian Fargo - Part 1

Mark Morgan To Be Composer For Wasteland 2

Wasteland Kickstarter Project Interview with Brian Fargo

Fargo being serious about crowdfunding Wasteland 2

MCA On Wasteland 2 And Kickstarter

Oh, so JRPG combat = blob combat.

...wait a minute.

LS is right, they are pretty much the same other than the visual as far as I can tell (with the exception of a few JRPGs that use a tactical map)

I think you missed CK's point...

Eh, saying jrpg combat is the same as blob combat is a bit like saying combat in Deus EX is similar to Doom. Sure, both JRPGs and blobbers use menu driven action, but take Wizardry 6 for example. It has a much different balancing, feel and array of abilities than a JRPG like, say, Dragon Quest. JRPGs also, for example, have a tendency of taking the numbers to keep inflating their numbers well past what a blobber would usually do. I mean, even the Xeen saga of Might and Magic has more reasonable numbers for attacks and damage than your standard JRPG. Besides, Wasteland did consider distances in combat.

Trivialities. Is chess TB? Is Fallout's combat TB? Are they both tactical TB or not? Yes, they are. Don't mistake individual internal diversity of systems for defining attributes. Fallout and JA2's models are nothing alike either.

Why the fuck would someone want 2D game? It's like wanting black and white tv's, and silent movies. I thought RPGs are about content and not torment...

Define "JRPG combat"

wasteland 2: i want to be a scorpitron













make that "i want to be The_scorpitron"

8-bit graphics, everything else like in Wasteland but better. All text in game, no paragraph book, plz.