The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition - Obsidian's first-person sci-fi RPG set in a corporate space colony

[Junmarko]

It still boggles my mind how Ferg managed to pitch his company to Microsoft.

Easy sell. Microsoft hates the PC gaming platform. Buying Obsidian and InXile is a no-brainer to them when it means they steal PC exclusive developers and put them to work on the Xbox.

 

[Quillon]

Supernova is shit. I played it to level 16 and it wasn't worth the headache babysitting companions brings. If you're doing Supernova you have to do it solo. But have fun with the HP bloat.

And good luck telling your companions to stay anywhere. The moment combat begins, they kamikaze right in and get killed. Every time.

...do you have your companions set to aggressive?

This is the problem when people assume a game is shit because the hivemind told them so and then look for reasons to shit on it. You can set companion behavior in the menu. Aggressive (attack right away), defensive (attack when ordered and the continue attacking until combat ends), or passive (only attack when ordered).

How did you get to level 16, struggling with companion deaths, and never even look through the companion page?

Supernova isn’t impossible with companions. If you go for a companion focused build, they can literally handle every encounter for you on Supernova with a slight bit of instruction (directing their abilities).

The average post in this thread is as superfluous and banal as the “10/10 GOTY really outdid themselves” reviews on metacritic.

I can understand Prime Junta ‘s criticism that since it came from people who have demonstrable talent, it should have been better and is thereby more than a mediocre disappointment. But it definitely isn’t a BAD game and some parts of it are even good. From here it’s a separate argument as to whether or not “bits of design that made old fallout good but not realized to their potential” is a reason to enjoy it or a reason to despair, but at least try to use your brain for a second while you play it so you can form your own opinion. (Sorry Fluent)

Is there really a hp difference in supernoway vs hard? What about enemy damage?

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Supernova needs a full rework altogether. It adds timewasting busywork instead of difficulty.

 

[Wesp5]

Now that we saw what the game entails; either Leonard is that naive or he was powerless to influence the writers working under him or he's changed since VTMB. Pick one.

Or maybe Mitsoda was really the one behind the great story and writing in VTMB? For now I am missing any kind of mystery and surprise in TOW. As far as I know the story ends exactly as you get told in the intro unless you betray Welles. We will probably see if Mitsoda can handle his writing better once VTM2 is released !

As for TOW and the power of female underlings, go into the Edgewater Constabulary after you resolved the conflict: you have three strong fighting women in one spot! Having Parvati being a sweet female engineer is fine in the tradition of Firefly and Transformers, but having the chief of Groundbreaker be another sweet female engineer who falls in love with her is just pushing it.

 

[Drakortha]

Supernova is shit. I played it to level 16 and it wasn't worth the headache babysitting companions brings. If you're doing Supernova you have to do it solo. But have fun with the HP bloat.

And good luck telling your companions to stay anywhere. The moment combat begins, they kamikaze right in and get killed. Every time.

...do you have your companions set to aggressive?

You can set companion behavior in the menu. Aggressive (attack right away), defensive (attack when ordered and the continue attacking until combat ends), or passive (only attack when ordered).

How did you get to level 16, struggling with companion deaths, and never even look through the companion page?
(Sorry Fluent)

Aggressive means attack without being ordered to do so. Give your companion a sniper rifle and they won't stay put and shoot from range even after repeatedly ordering them to stay put. They'll always run into aggro range of mobs and get cut down. That's been my experience with this braindead AI. And I did look through the companion page plenty of times, so nice assumption there. The game has a flaw but you want to sweep it under the rug. If you think babysitting companions all the time instead of them actually being of any help is fun then more power to you I guess. The worst quests in any RPG are always the babysitting quests - Supernova is basically a full game length version of that shit.

 

[DalekFlay]

Finished this last night. I kind of rushed to the end when I hit level 25 because... well the game is kind of meh, but also I played a ruthless corporate merc and I felt like that questline was pretty shit. The game is obviously designed around you being a freedom fighter, and the Board path felt weaksauce. Especially at the end where insane stuff happens off screen to push you into a copy/paste finale with the rebellion path. Anyway... game is a 3 out of 5 mediocre New Vegas in space. I was hoping for actual New Vegas in space, and it's hard not to be disappointed at the result. It's funny because I kept saying "can't wait for indies to reach Morrowind/Deus Ex level" and I guess this is somewhat close to that, but wow does it show the limitations. Even putting aside the writing not being up to Obsidian's standards, I think a lot of the flaws are budget and scope based. Monarch gets closest to what I expected, but even it feels neutered.

Anyway, not saying it's a terrible game just a sort of boring one. It really is to New Vegas what Pillars was to Baldur's Gate.

 

[Grotesque]

 

[Jasede]

Mr. Potato Head!

 

[Taurist]

A few hours in and I've hit a bug. I have no option of open the doors in the Geothermal Plant, even while having the passcode. I assumed initially that this was just more of the game trying to railroad me into backing the deserters, but seemingly not.

Its not a great game so far. The setting makes no sense. Outside said plant theres a big billboard for Spacers Choice guns. WHy would they be advertising to their own company town? Why billboards when no one has cars? WHy does everyone have dyed hair? Are these things ever explained?

 

[Kaivokz]

Supernova is shit. I played it to level 16 and it wasn't worth the headache babysitting companions brings. If you're doing Supernova you have to do it solo. But have fun with the HP bloat.

And good luck telling your companions to stay anywhere. The moment combat begins, they kamikaze right in and get killed. Every time.

...do you have your companions set to aggressive?

You can set companion behavior in the menu. Aggressive (attack right away), defensive (attack when ordered and the continue attacking until combat ends), or passive (only attack when ordered).

How did you get to level 16, struggling with companion deaths, and never even look through the companion page?
(Sorry Fluent)

Aggressive means attack without being ordered to do so. Give your companion a sniper rifle and they won't stay put and shoot from range even after repeatedly ordering them to stay put. They'll always run into aggro range of mobs and get cut down. That's been my experience with this braindead AI. And I did look through the companion page plenty of times, so nice assumption there. The game has a flaw but you want to sweep it under the rug. If you think babysitting companions all the time instead of them actually being of any help is fun then more power to you I guess. The worst quests in any RPG are always the babysitting quests - Supernova is basically a full game length version of that shit.

I don’t know why your experience is like that. I played with robophobia using SAM set to far follow distance and set to only use ranged attacks. He shot things from as far back as he could and barely ever triggered my phobia unless I ordered him to rocket boost onto someone.

Sometimes the AI is wonky (for some reason Max wouldn’t use the prismatic hammer for me; he just stood by enemies and didn’t attack, but this resolved itself eventually). Maybe you’re getting some kind of bugged behavior, but setting follow distance far, use only ranged attacks, your companions should have no trouble standing back and shooting things.

 

[Junmarko]

Why billboards when no one has cars?

Cars were cut from the final release.

 

[Kaivokz]

Is there really a hp difference in supernoway vs hard? What about enemy damage?

I haven’t played any on hard to compare.

My assessment is that combat on supernova is still too easy. I don’t think any one enemy has taken me longer than 15 seconds to kill. Even without my companions, a fully charged plasma launcher as a science character with only 20 points in heavy weapons will almost kill most normal enemies. Max and SAM can shred them faster (even when Max doesn’t have OP prismatic hammer).

For people who think enemies are bullet sponges, I don’t know—maybe they’re not taking advantage of effective elements, maybe they’re putting all their points into weapon skills when those don’t really increase damage much. I’m sure if I went melee and took all the TTD perks my MC could just walk around OHKO’ing people in the head (and getting TTD back per kill). Game isn’t hard, unfortunately.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

Now that we saw what the game entails; either Leonard is that naive or he was powerless to influence the writers working under him or he's changed since VTMB. Pick one.

Or maybe Mitsoda was really the one behind the great story and writing in VTMB? For now I am missing any kind of mystery and surprise in TOW. As far as I know the story ends exactly as you get told in the intro unless you betray Welles. We will probably see if Mitsoda can handle his writing better once VTM2 is released !

As for TOW and the power of female underlings, go into the Edgewater Constabulary after you resolved the conflict: you have three strong fighting women in one spot! Having Parvati being a sweet female engineer is fine in the tradition of Firefly and Transformers, but having the chief of Groundbreaker be another sweet female engineer who falls in love with her is just pushing it.

Parvati was Frank once, you know...

 

[Xeon]

Yeah, the elements of plasma and shock on weapons can melt enemies.

 

[Wulfric Pinewood]

It hurts my eyes, please, now im sure that they not invented the story by themselves but used help of their retarded cousin.

 

[Xeon]

What does tinkering actually do? end of the game I had over a 100k, I spent it on tinkering my weapons to make them more damaging but during combat they felt the same, same amount of bullets and everything even tho I spent about 60k on my main gun, it still did the same damage. The plasma gun you get from Doc's lab only upgraded 5 times iirc tho compared to my assault rifle which kept getting upgraded.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

I think people who are experiencing spongy combat are not modding their weapons to do elemental damage.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Finished it. God what a shit game.
Playthrough number 2 commencing shortly.
There were no aliens. Fuck.

 

[Shadenuat]

What does tinkering actually do?

level scales gun to your level to a maximum of your level +5.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Long live TIMNARD!

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Patel is cute.

 

[Zer0wing]

Finished around half of the game (this includes side quests), so here's my two cents:

It is obvious that 'The Outer Worlds' was developed during Obsidians most troubled times - Chris Avellone left, several projects got cancelled earlier did the financial harm that like boumerang hits them in the back again and again. And a good chunk of resources and creative power went to Pillars sequel (that later proven to be in vain again). So despite TOW being Tim and Leonards planned ambitious 2nd New Vegas dream project they went to develop behind closed from the rest of the world doors, they're still limited in what they can afford to make and add to the game. So I went into TOW expecting to forgive and look past alot of flaws just because Tim is back in action. But nope, the result is pretty polished (for Obsidian) but Biowarian tier non-interesting, for the lack of better non Fluent -triggering word, mediocrity so far. At least for a "seasoned" player who at least finished Fallout 1-2, games by Troika and major Obsidian titles.

Character models and facial animations are one step about New Vegas (i.e. closer to New Vegas Redesigned V3 in visual quality), better but not really exceptional. They do get the job done that is. The rest of the game is alot more concerning. TOW doesn't really feel like the project carried by Tim Cain and Leonard Boyarsky from Troika Games times apart from decadent world, sad violins in ambient and 2D art. The cities, space station and interiors overall are built by a good mapper and look fine. The worldspaces are the mix of pre-generated planet from No Man's Sky and ME: Andromeda and can't compete with post-post-apocalyptic landscapes of Fallout: New Vegas, the post-apoc landscapes of Fallout 3 and 4 are out of TOW's league, they're this bad. Everything behind city walls is colourful gruel with either green or, in the case of Monarch, your vomits tint. The only way we can understand that these landscapes supposed to be another planets are mushrooms imported from Morrowind and stone textures. Creatures all look like something that was in Fallout before, all those giant insects from Monarch are 1-to-1 mantisses only giant. Gorillas look like a mutant from Fallout 76. Too bad developers didn't have to actually work on alien life forms like Bioware did on Mass Effect. This game is supposed to be about "Outer" worlds after all. Too bad these worlds only exist for the storyline about hibernated colonists, lookes like a wasted potential. Say, have ever confused Brotherhood of Steel for an Enclave? Or NCR for Ceaser's Legion? I sure didn't, they look like two distinct factions. The armor and uniform for supposedly different corporations in TOW, on the other hand, looks so samey I always miss maradeurs with corpos and maradeurs from other planets. I'm sure this will bite my ass in the endgame when factions finally intervene.

There was nothing interesting to find and worth exploring so far so the one thing that catched by attention is the roleplaying system. So who was that guy who thought that giving the player the ability to add one skill point to three skills from one category is a good idea? Even though this only lasts until 50 points is reached, the first half of TOW makes your character look like a bethesda's universal solider that can lie/deceive/persuade all in one dialogue rather than a character from Fallout. Yes, Fallout is also flawed and lets you finish many quests by speech and lockpicking but it wasn't that bad there, classic skill distribution is more limiting. The holographic disguise is just streamlined disguise system from New Vegas and another stealth+speech skill abuse. This is nothing like, say, REPCONN HQ from FNV where you have to collect key cards, read computers, use the information and add your own profile to the system to avoid disclosure. The perks are generic and mostly useless. The ones that useful (like +50 to carry weight or slo-mo related ones) will be taken anyway and the given bonuses are way too good to miss. This make the flaw system strange. Why would I accept a permanent debuff in fight with a creature of +25% of damage of certain type in favor of 1 perk point if they mostly useless? Barter is dead on arrival, ammo is plenty, loot is generic and mostly useless apart from consumables, there's always a better gun and armor lying behind a secret corner. You'll only need to buy lockpick magnets and adrenos for healing. Money is only useful for bribes during quests.

The writing sucks so far. I don't really like the "filigree" touche on the names of consumables, creatures and corporate brands personally. The story sucks so far. Every single planet has the decadent colony that falls apart on independent settlements and the player has to take one or another side. The preferred one is of course independent settlement that always has their own bright minds that can grow food other than saltuna. The question raised pretty quickly - why do we ever need these bright minds in hibernation if colonies can manage on their own? Why corporations don't want to defrost the new arrivals if they can potentially save their positions? Will there be an answer, does anybody know? I really want to know, because I haven't really met any that bad and evil character in a position of power, just mildly incompetent that just waits to be replaced.

Still, better than Greedfall so far.

 

[Jezal_k23]

How safe it is probably stems from the fact that this was their first high budget project in years, and a brand new franchise to boot. They probably didn't feel like they could take any riskier decisions. The end result is a game that is very competently made, with an absolutely notable lack of bugs and glitches, but it's by the numbers.

They didn't try to stand out in any way, although the game nonetheless succeeds at doing exactly that in the wake of Bioware and Bethesda both crashing and burning by delivering major trainwrecks that they have the audacity to still call RPGs.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

^ Pretty sure this game didn't have a big budget.

 

[Jezal_k23]

I know it's an AA game. What I meant is that it's certainly higher in relation to anything else they had done recently.