in a line up of all the ttrpgs you have played, where would you put wasteland 3?
That's a tough one. I'm not sure I'm the one to ask because I really haven't played that many. Particularly the modern ones (I still have the Pillars of Eternity series and Pathfinder in my queue, I haven't played Baldur's Gate, or ATOM RPG). I'm just way behind on the games that take huge time investments. Probably the only other TTRPG I've played recently was Shadowrun. I liked Wasteland better.
I put like 180 hours into it, so obviously I enjoyed it. I guess I can just try to give some more general thoughts about it's RPG elements:
On story, I'd probably put it on the weaker side just because the game often doesn't take itself seriously, but at the same time that is part of the game's charm. And, like I said, I found the major plot quests to be a bit anti-climatic.
The game is combat heavy. While it does have dialog options for a lot of quests, and you can avoid the last battle with a dialog skill-check, you're doing way more fighting. There are two dialog skills (basically polite and mean) and you can use them for some extra options and rewards and avoid some combat. But that's as far as it goes. There's a charisma stat but it has nothing to do with personality (charisma affects combat). So if you're the type of purist that doesn't think an RPG is a real RPG unless you can talk your way though the entire game and not fight, then Wasteland 3 isn't for you.
I do think that the fact that it is different than the standard high fantasy setting is a bonus.
The character builds end up feeling sort of the same because of how important it becomes to focus on certain stats. You have to max out coordination on everybody for action points. Then you basically want Intelligence, Luck and awareness for ranged weapons and Intelligence Luck and Strength for melee characters. Then you just give each character different weapon types and fill out the other skills (lockpicking, explosives, etc.) to cover everything.
Your party has 4 characters that you build, so they are blank slates with no characterizations. Then you can bring along 2 more characters that you find out of 8 available. They have some personality, but there isn't a lot of interaction and they don't play a huge part in dialog. The game also doesn't have party member quest lines like Dragon Age.
There aren't a ton of weapon and armor types available. There are no classes. The only limitations for weapons are your skills and some armor has a strength limitation. There is a weapon and armor mod system, but it's not complex. It's just a skill check and then you can add items for some stat bonuses.
The game isn't super complex. You don't need to have a deep understanding of the tabletop systems or math or anything. Like I said, it's combat heavy, and while there is dialog and stuff to read, you aren't going to be reading reams of text. And that suits me just fine.