Outward - open world RPG where you are an ordinary adventurer and survival is harsh

[Murk]

Went to the forest, digging this area a lot more visually (music is great too). Finally got a prospector's bag as well.

Incremental changes in gear make surprisingly big differences in performance. Also, ghosts. Need some elemental damage against them -- been relying on fireball so far, but I guess having varnish or paper helps a lot for them since phys is really bad.

 

[Jinn]

Went to the forest, digging this area a lot more visually (music is great too). Finally got a prospector's bag as well.

I just got there too. I have a question, if you've just joined the Blue Chamber Collective.

Spoiler

Where is my ancestral vault that Rissa mentions? Is it in Berg, or the storehouse in Cierzo?

Fucking addicted to this game right now. Played some co-op tonight and had a blast. Continuing on into the late hours on my own again. Agreed on the forest. Has an amazing atmosphere far, and there is so much to explore. Berg is gorgeous. And I still have a lot of places in Chersonese I need to check out. Also, I've said it before, but I love how impactful equipment upgrades are. Skills and class trees are opening up now, and I am seeing all sorts of awesome possibilities for potential builds.

Really hoping for an Orochi faction DLC or free addon. Would be an excellent addition.

 

[Murk]

Sorry mang, I haven't joined any faction yet, figured I'd go explore the towns and see what's up with each area before I settle on one. Which is a bit tedious for a packrat like me -- I really wish you could access the storage more readily, maybe at least paying a caravan to deliver stuff for you.

 

[Jinn]

maybe at least paying a caravan to deliver stuff for you.

This should be implemented for sure. Stash transportation needs to happen. I'd pay 200 silver in a second.

Some screenshots of Berg and the forest for fun.

Chamber

Chamber II

Future new home after I get 500 silver

Windmill in the Forest

Another small thing that I'm liking a lot are the item, equipment, and skill art "slabs." Clearly taking inspiration from Dark Souls, but really well done for the most part.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Okay, after visiting all the towns and trying some high end skills I can tell that the game is bad. I visited swamp/desert and encountered some very tough enemies (who do tons of damage and have high survivability, yet drop absolutely trash loot). I though okay, there are some nice skills like counters and backstabd and whatever. But those counters have 100 seconds cooldowns (LOL), and the rest of the fight you have to constantly back or block and do one hit for tiny amount of damage. And you reward? Some trash loot which is worse than what you have and doesn't event worth that much to traders. Whats the point of fighting? And it's not like the game have to offer something beyond fighting...

 

[HeatEXTEND]

I'm getting some conflicting messages here...

 

[Van-d-all]

Honestly I don't get how casually you need to play this game to struggle.

Crafting trade rations is almost like a money cheat, because while prices are shit the quantities are decent. Started a new character just to see how much you can farm in those first 5 days. Got ~480 silver and still didn't sell some nicer stuff.

With the AI being as it is, first order of business is moping the floor with the troglodyte cave. As for loot it isn't bad, just very random. My first char found the halfplate armour in some junk bin, my second had to even buy the cooking pot because everything kept spawning garbage. Slaughtered the nearest bandit town, and the only worthwhile item was the captain's halberd, because even the throne room chest had only some potions.

The game IS pretty empty, each map has only a few locations, all of which are more or less enemy spawns that take 15 (camps) to 30 (dungeons) minutes to clear.

But even so it remains quite refreshing in what it does, still I'd rather call it a proof of concept, than a full fledged game.

 

[Elex]

Okay, after visiting all the towns and trying some high end skills I can tell that the game is bad. I visited swamp/desert and encountered some very tough enemies (who do tons of damage and have high survivability, yet drop absolutely trash loot). I though okay, there are some nice skills like counters and backstabd and whatever. But those counters have 100 seconds cooldowns (LOL), and the rest of the fight you have to constantly back or block and do one hit for tiny amount of damage. And you reward? Some trash loot which is worse than what you have and doesn't event worth that much to traders. Whats the point of fighting? And it's not like the game have to offer something beyond fighting...

well you don’t need to kill, unless you really need.
that mean if you are good at sneaking you can grab the loot.

Gear improve in a gothic stile: small numerical increase translate in massive damage/survival increase. Also enemies have certain resistance and vulnerabilities magic/alchemy is needed.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

Okay, after visiting all the towns and trying some high end skills I can tell that the game is bad. I visited swamp/desert and encountered some very tough enemies (who do tons of damage and have high survivability, yet drop absolutely trash loot). I though okay, there are some nice skills like counters and backstabd and whatever. But those counters have 100 seconds cooldowns (LOL), and the rest of the fight you have to constantly back or block and do one hit for tiny amount of damage. And you reward? Some trash loot which is worse than what you have and doesn't event worth that much to traders. Whats the point of fighting? And it's not like the game have to offer something beyond fighting...

well you don’t need to kill, unless you really need.
that mean if you are good at sneaking you can grab the loot.

Gear improve in a gothic stile: small numerical increase translate in massive damage/survival increase. Also enemies have certain resistance and vulnerabilities magic/alchemy is needed.

My brutal spear (29 damage if I remember correctly) doesn't do that much damage to regular swamp bandits. Ofc. it's still possible to kill them, especially one by one, but is there a point? As far as sneaking goes - it's possible, but what's the point if there is nothing to loot? I have rune armor and brutal spear, paladium glaive and etc. I haven't seen any gear which is significantly better (visited all shops in all towns, checked stats of all weapons, including the one you have to craft), and even with max skills (like battle monk repost) - I can do 1/2 of health to a regular bandit on a 100 second cooldown.
I don't see improvment gothic style. All gear feels practically the same, even the highest tier I was able to get.

 

[Mortmal]

it erased all my equipment and backpack,

You should be able to find your bag again stowed away in the camp somewhere, I believe. Combat takes some getting used to, and don't forget about the stability and impact mechanics. And taking your bag off before fighting goes a long way in terms of combat reaction and confiscateability. The combat can be fun and challenging, but it's certainly not the best ARPG combat you're going to come by. AI is pretty bad at the moment. Fighting more than one opponent always gets interesting though.

Checked everywhere its nowhere to be found, and there's not even an indicator for the bag on the compass, 6H wasted .So sure you can drop the bag to get more invincibility frames when rolling, but how cumbersome to do it each time. That and you are going to spend hard earned silver on abilities that may end up completely useless. For exemple the shield and any related abilities are completely useless, its a lot better to use other weapons and roll.Dont even know about the magic, i have to muster the courage to restart all again.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

is there anyone who had a significant progress in Outward and can tell if situation improves? Like visited all towns, looked at what it sold there and compared items available for purchase/craft with some loot which can be found in dungeon and stuff?

 

[fantadomat]

if you are good at sneaking you can grab the loot.

You could just run past the enemy and grab the loot. I cleared a few places that way.

 

[Mortmal]

You could and indeed the only progression is the items you find, it's better to avoid combat, its bring nothing. So if someone is trying the game i highly advise to copy the save directory , there's several bug reports of people losing equipment or everything.

 

[Murk]

I'm getting some conflicting messages here...

Eh, it's polarizing, and some people are picky about what the game should be like for them to enjoy it.

I'm still having fun with it and I enjoy the slower flow of the game. Currently at a total of 10 hours in, I'd give it a legitimate 7/10.

The only bug I've run into so far is when talking to an NPC, my 'f' key become non-functional and I had to quit out to the main menu and reload in to clear it. Other than that, no bugs so far. I've also died another 4 times and lost no items in the process.

Also, I'd suggest not using the basic iron weapons if you can help it. Causing bleed, poison, or doing non-neutral damage is very handy. I've been using the fang greatsword on normal enemies and it's really handy, letting me 3-hit mooks and 4-5 hit stronger enemies.

Has anyone learned how to get more breakthrough points? I'm very hesitant to spend the only 3 I have, but I would really like to get some skills that give 40 hp or what have you.

Also, regarding the tribal favor:

Spoiler

There is another use for it in Berg, from the sage trainer if you want more magical skills training

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Killing enemies can also lead to rare loot drops. I killed a bandit and he dropped a great piece of armor for my level, and sometimes they drop rare crafting ingredients, not always but sometimes. It's worth picking and choosing your battles but I usually kill bandits if I can, haven't tried against tougher monsters yet. The drops in the game are great IMO.

 

[Jinn]

is there anyone who had a significant progress in Outward and can tell if situation improves? Like visited all towns, looked at what it sold there and compared items available for purchase/craft with some loot which can be found in dungeon and stuff?

If you don't like it yet, you should stop playing. The game isn't for you.

 

[Mortmal]

When unlocking magic how much stat is it worth to convert into mana ? I notice there's several -10% -20% mana cost items, so eventually could i reach 100% mana cost reduction?

 

[Murk]

When unlocking magic how much stat is it worth to convert into mana ? I notice there's several -10% -20% mana cost items, so eventually could i reach 100% mana cost reduction?

I can get at least 40% so far -- and the wine item gives efficiency too, though not sure what %.

You can also get extra mana from skills, so you don't always HAVE to sacrifice hp/stam. I personally went in for +2 (-10 to each, +40 mana) and figured I'd make up the rest elsewhere. Since mana doesn't regen on rest, which IMO is a neat mechanic, you kind of have to rely on mana restore items anyway. Blue shrimp are great for that.

Side note -- the game has a lot of novel or uncommon mechanics which I like, and most things about magic are in the direction that I want magic to function instead of just grenades-by-another-name. Hopefully the spell selection keeps up.

Regarding combat -- most normal monster/beast enemies aren't worth fighting unless you specifically want the crafting materials. Humanoid enemies however drop their weapon (which you can tell what it is, if you want to loot it) and can drop money, potions, armor pieces, etc. At that point you have to do a risk-benefit consideration. IMO the fact that combat isn't always rewarding is a good choice, and the lack of an XP gauge further reinforces that your job isn't to be a genocide machine.

In any PB game, I would systematically murder everything in my sight for precious precious xp and loot, but in this game I often just avoid it. Elex helped remediate the need to murder everything as well with 1) difficulty spike early on and 2) absolutely shit xp (not to mention respawn).

It's not shocker that a person's enjoyment of a game depends on how many of the systems/elements they like or dislike, and in my case, almost all the elements are ones that I do like... but wish were more fleshed out.

If they do make a solid add-in DLC, it could easily give this game a huge boost. It has a decent base for simulationist time-wasting/grinding that's enjoyable -- if they really just flesh it out with more stuff to do, more ways to do it, and more emergent situations, I think it'll benefit massively in a "whole > sum of parts" way.

 

[PrettyDeadman]

is there anyone who had a significant progress in Outward and can tell if situation improves? Like visited all towns, looked at what it sold there and compared items available for purchase/craft with some loot which can be found in dungeon and stuff?

If you don't like it yet, you should stop playing. The game isn't for you.

I don't like it, but I always have some kind of inertial interest in the game even if initla impression wasn;t good, so I continue investigating the game and trying to understand if there is some redeeming qualities or some kind of barrier to entry. But in this case I just don't see any, and people who like it seem to have less experience of the game than I am. The more I know about the game the more hopeless in seems.

 

[Mortmal]

Sure the game has lot of novel mechanism and we are starved on real exploration games, but there's huge drawbacks, you dont know how many spells you can get , how much mana they require, nor if any are really useful. Worse the sacrifice is definitive, you could very well, and it will be extremely likely to happen, gimp your character.

 

[Murk]

There's enough skills to compensate for it fully -- again you can increase your stamina, your hp, and your mana through skills -- some of which only cost silver, and the game warns you hard that it's an irreversible change.

You can also avoid sacrificing hp/stamina for mana until you encounter spells or learn about them in the various towns.

Seems fine to me -- it's a risk, sure, but that's kind of the theme of the game.

Pretty I went to two additional towns/zones and am clearing out some of the dungeons as well. Dunno man, could just be it's not your thing. It's definitely emptier than a PB game or even divinity 2, but it has enough to keep it fun for me. The game's design doesn't seem to be about making optimal use of space to have a ton of stuff, making a small space feel huge. I do like that PB design style, but then PB games are different. It's why I brought up that this isn't really a gothic/elex style game, the closest it gets to a PB game is gothic 3 -- for better or worse. I think co-op does make it much more fun, for those who are curious about it (makes combat WAY easier too).

 

[Elex]

yes there is better weapon, dungeons have uninque non random monsters and loot.
Some unique require special crafting combination, like the rusty sword on top of the mountain.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Loving the game but I am having a lot of problems with combat. I did just pick up a brutal greatmace so that should help, and I guess I have to use those fire and ice rags more often. I don't use traps but I just get rocked in combat a lot. I also have to prepare a lot more for long adventures, you need a lot of food and water, more than I've been carrying and it's bit me in the ass. Had to leave the corrupted tombs past Ghost Pass and run all the way back to Cierzo to restock. Game is brutal but a lot of fun. Hopefully when I craft the blue sand armor and use this greatclub I'll survive more in combat. Gotta actually prepare and I keep forgetting.

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

Question - Will the Fang Greatclub recipe work with a greatmace, or is there no recipe for that?

 

[Murk]

For what I can tell about combat melee combat so far.

Don't rely on dodge-rolling, it east way too much stamina and stamina regen is a lot slower than a souls game, so you can't _quickly_ get it back.

Play unlocked as much as possible and manually move out of hit ranges -- most enemies don't track very well after they begin the swing/attach (like your own attacks).

If you do play locked on, then circle strafe is good but you can also use sprint to break the direction your facing -- this functions just like in a souls game.

Try to keep your enemy's impact at half so you can juggle-stagger them.