Dialogues | The basics of the gameplay Wasteland 2 Guide

Wasteland 2 refers to the classic RPGs, in its style. The games that hinge, heavily, on lengthy paragraphs not only to complement the beautiful graphic, but also to fill the virtual world with contents, which lends it colors and spirit. Therefore, it is a good idea to pay attention to dialogues. Often, thanks to them, you will be able to solve a problem without a round fired and, at the same time, you can gain interesting information and discover unique secrets.

The dialogue screen.

Dialogues are based on the, so called key words. It is them that direct a conversation to the right topic. By selecting a given word, you will ask the interlocutor about a given location, item or situation. After you get the answer, you will be able to use more keywords to ask more questions. In the majority of cases, keywords are highlighted in the dialogue box, but this is not a rule to go by. Some of the words are hidden in the text and they do not appear on the list. You can then tap them in manually, to continue the conversation in a given direction. Note that in the screenshot, log book has been highlighted in green, although it does not appear on the topic list. To ask about it, you need to tap in "log book" manually. Furthermore, sometimes the keywords are not highlighted in any way. This does not means that you need to read carefully the entire text and search for keywords to complete a given stage of the game. This kind of situations concern, mainly, the elements of the history of the world, references to the plot of the original game and all sorts of Easter Eggs, i.e. jests made by the developers. You can, this way, learn quite a lot about the events that took place 15 years earlier but, you do not need to worry that a half of the game will pass you by unnoticed, if you completely ignore the words that have not been highlighted. Still, it is worth doing that, if you want to experience the game to the utmost.

The red keywords are important for pushing the plot forward. By selecting them, you may push the story forward, faster than you intended to and you will then be unable to ask the questions that you wanted answers for. This is why it is best to ask about the less important, green, topics, in the first place. Also, it is a good idea to realize what you are asking about. Careless clicking on every available word may drive the NPC mad and, in the worst case scenario, may end up in a fight. It may also happen that the other side will be reluctant towards giving you any information. Much depends on Charisma here. The higher charisma the easier it is to communicate. There also are three skills that are independent of your Charisma, which allow you to obtain more information from the taciturn. These are Smart Ass, Kiss Ass, Hard Ass. You can use them, respectively, to: trip people up, butter up and intimidate. The option to use such a skill appears automatically, even if no party member has the sufficient level to use it. Remember that you play Wasteland as a party. Whenever there appear the Kiss Ass option that requires 2 survival points of this skill, you can switch to another party member, by clicking on the appropriate icon. If possible, use these skills right after they appear - they disappear as soon as you mention a different topic.

Sometimes, you can obtain additional keywords if there is someone with high Perception level on your party. You will then notice, about the interlocutor, something that you would normally miss and which you can ask about.