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

[Murk]

So there's a patch out that fixes a bunch of bugs, including the "item disappears from inventory" one.

Apparently "losing stuff" after you die is a bug, not a feature of you being robbed; huh and here I thought that was intentional.

You have to enable it as a beta/experimental build, but patch notes are here (and in spoiler below): https://steamcommunity.com/app/794260/discussions/0/1678063648174729460/

Spoiler

OUTWARD - Experimental Build - April 23rd, 2019
Hello everyone!

We decided to add an Experimental Branch on Steam to test out features and fixes before releasing them to everyone. You try it by going through the properties of Outward, in the tab 'Betas' and switch to 'Public - Beta - Experimental Builds'

We strongly recommend making a backup of the "SaveGames" folder located in the game's installation folder, as bugs and experimental features could break them.

And here are the patch notes for the first experimental build:

- Fixed items lost from bag when loading character
- Fixed infinite loading for client when joining host due to too many items in their inventory
- Fixed bow disappearing from hands (often due to dodge or getting hit while shooting)
- Fixed not being able to shoot with bow after opening/closing the game in network
- Fixed duplicating beds in Levant and Berg (Could be the cause for some crashes due to too many items)
- Fixed camping event archers hoarding swords and bows problem
- Fixed campfire performance issues for clients
- Fixed death animation not triggered upon reaching 0 needs (health, food, drink, sleep) while sliding indefinitely (generally due to a stuck spot)
- Fixed client spells that would hit multiple times
- Fixed an issue where players were moving before pressing Continue after a loading making them sometimes spawn into stuck spots or high in the air
- Fixed invisible collider blocking UI after a vicinity dialogue was displayed
- Fixed clients not being moved correctly while on an elevator
- Fixed enemies not being affected by falling damage
- Fixed Health/Stability sync delay while in online coop
- Fixed multiple knockbacks while in online coop
- Fixed camera not being properly locked even if an enemy is targeted
- Fixed menu rendering when using DirectX 9
- Casting spells with 100% or more of mana reduction still uses 1 mana
- Gold and Gaberry Wine aren't perishable anymore
- The pipe in Montcalm fort has been silenced
- Ghost of Vanasse no longer respawns on area reset
- Network bandwidth optimisation
- Improved loading in online coop to prevent some disconnects
- Host player's body should now be correctly visible when the client changes areas
- Online Region can be changed in the setting menu (note that people in different regions can't play together, make sure the regions are matching)
- Added a failsafe for bags that went under the ground to appear on their owners/host (Happens when a loading is completed)
- Added a failsafe for dead enemies that fall under the ground
- Most defeat scenarios now move the bag (as long as you are either wearing it or was dropped in the same area you were defeated)
- Second player's bag is now also moved during defeat scenarios
- Better validity check and error handling when retrieving save games on startup
- Changed rendering when using render scale 100, this could prevent some crashes
- Changed how items are loaded to reduce memory usage
- Various Quest progression fixes
- Minor fixes and adjustments

 

[ERYFKRAD]

That's a heap of fixes. Didn't even know some of the worse issues existed.

 

[HoboForEternity]

the pylon tower lich boss is great
especially when you threathen him "ok, i guess we can do this weekly. every week i come and kick your ass"
he just "yeah nope" then you extort him for the rest of your life lmao

 

[polo]

the pylon tower lich boss is great
especially when you threathen him "ok, i guess we can do this weekly. every week i come and kick your ass"
he just "yeah nope" then you extort him for the rest of your life lmao

I think u mean spire of light.
I found that lich super underwhelming, the plague doctor in ziggurat was much harder.

 

[HoboForEternity]

It is not the fight itself, but the resolution. Really funny stuff.

 

[DalekFlay]

Just bought this. Was gonna get some Capcom games in the sale and then I was like "this is the shit I buy and never play, get an RPG" and got this instead. Gonna try to bang out the end of Risen 3 before starting, but it's hard to resist jumping right in.

 

[Seethe]

So, what is the general consensus on this?

 

[HoboForEternity]

pretty good, great variety of builds, kinda lacking on content. the quests outside the main quest are mostly fetch quest, but the main quest itself are good. if you like just exploring, you will like it. expect something more scripted like gothic you won't. combat is pretty fun, but kinda brought down by dumb enemy AI and their limited attack pattern. but so far the positives outweigh the negative. it isn't a perfect game.

 

[Yosharian]

Are the developers planning to support the game post-release? For example, add horses to the game?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

i loved it and plan on playing it more sometime. apparently their dlc policy is if it was successful enough, which it seems to have been. i asked them about another issue and they said a patch is coming.

 

[HoboForEternity]

the 3 warlords was kinda . . .disappointing. by the time i got the quest from ike or whatever his name is, i already killed 2 out of 3 actually and just the red guy left. he went down quickly.

 

[polo]

the 3 warlords was kinda . . .disappointing. by the time i got the quest from ike or whatever his name is, i already killed 2 out of 3 actually and just the red guy left. he went down quickly.

I feel you bro. I killed them before even leaving chersonese in my first run lul. Got to cierzo and insta rewarded.

 

[Yosharian]

This game looks like it'll be a lot better in about a year's time when it's been fully-patched and has several DLCs...

...like every other game

 

[Iskramor]

This game is flawled cult classic mark my words...

 

[Yosharian]

Can anyone on a US or UK IP address visit this page and tell me whether it says Out Of Stock or not?

https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/outward-pc/

 

[rusty_shackleford]

Can anyone on a US or UK IP address visit this page and tell me whether it says Out Of Stock or not?

https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/outward-pc/

It is.

 

[Yosharian]

Can anyone on a US or UK IP address visit this page and tell me whether it says Out Of Stock or not?

https://www.greenmangaming.com/games/outward-pc/

It is.

Ok, thanks man

 

[Kalarion]

TLDR we're having a blast, I can already see that it's going to wear out its welcome though.

I've been playing since release with my wife. It kind of consumed our free time for the last couple weeks, I haven't played anything else (for context I normally raid on the Nasomi server, and I enjoy getting my ass kicked in LoL). We're having a grand time so far, but I can tell the end is already in sight. I'm about to complete the Holy Mission line, my wife took the Levant story. I think I can make myself play once more using legacy items to go through the Blue Chamber, then I'll probably drop it until a substantive expansion comes around. I mostly agree with what everyone has already said. The best of the game is the beginning-mid, while you're still mastering systems and working on building up stock.

Itemisation is very hit-or-miss. I found weapon variety to be meh. I never felt compelled to have spares or alternates on hand once I settled on my choice of 2h (Prayer Claymore > Gold Lich Claymore > Tuanosaur Greataxe). The elemental weapons found in Enmerkar are kind of interesting, I actually switched out to the Worldedge. Too little too late :D. Armor has a lot more variety, but I never really saw the point. Heavy armor's penalties to stamina, and the lack of a substantial move speed bonus on any not-Master-Trader boots meant I never bothered with anything heavier than leather-type. Right now, as a melee 2h fighter, I use Jade Lich head and armor (for the mana consumption bonuses) and Master Trader boots. One point of brilliance was the variety of backpacks. In fact the whole backpack dynamic is pretty awesome in my opinion. The variety of bonuses they give is pretty cool, and several are good enough that I seriously consider switching them out from time to time. Zhorn's Hunting backpack could potentially break exploration tension with its stamina consumption bonus and higher weight limit. My personal favorite right now is the Preservation backpack, since it lets me indulge a hoarder mentality with good food (I can cook up a stack of like 30 Breads of the Wild and never worry that they'll rot before I've eaten them all :D). Oh, and they really hit the nail on the head with consumables. I chug potions like there's no tomorrow, I eat food as soon as its bonus is down, and I usually only have one or two swigs left from my two waterskins by the time I come back to town for a breather. I never behave this way in other games, I'm the guy who ends with 99 of all consumables because I can't bear to use them up. The combination of genuinely good bonuses from consumables, with the tension of most of them having substantial weight, meant I was always willing to chug a pot or apply a varnish to clear up that extra 1-2 lbs to make room for more loot and get sweet combat effects in the bargain. Bravo.

Combat was fun at first, now I generally don't bother unless I have to. I will say that I haven't explored ranged combat too much, I'm kind of interested in an Internalized Lexicon/Chakram build to see how it feels. Part of the problem is that I play almost solely coop with my wife. I'm sure the devs didn't intend it, but coop absolutely trivializes combat due to making it even easier to abuse enemy AI, especially agro. It is perfectly feasible to play ping pong with an Alpha Tuanosaur, or to staggerlock a manticore forever with only a modicum of coordination. The sole exception has proven to be Ash Giants. Their stagger resistance, sweeping weapon blows and insanely high damage make them a potential threat. The Royal Manticore set my heart racing for the 20 seconds it was alive as well. IMO this game would have benefited greatly by going the route of Mutant Year Zero etc; real-time exploration with turn-based encounters. It would have allowed the devs to make monsters (especially boss-types like the Royal Manticore) super deadly and interesting to play. It also would have mitigated some of the problems introduced by having coop with such spotty real-time AI. It also also would have gone a long way to help make itemisation a more interesting choice, especially armor. All that protection on heavy armor just doesn't matter as much when you know you can dance rings around every monster in the game and wait for an opening.

Exploration was fantastic. I still haven't completely explored Levant's map, I'm looking forward to it. No minimap was a fantastic decision. I actually had to pay attention to landmarks on the over world to orientate myself, especially after getting knocked out! It made dungeon explorations feel more like spelunking, and added tension to long dungeons as well. They really hit the nail on the head here. I don't agree with people saying there's not enough to do on the map. I could see an argument for not enough happening to you while walking around... whoever said they'd like to see more roaming encounters and greater interaction between NPCs was spot on. But there's plenty to look at, and about a dozen unmarked locations on each map that are fun to explore, grab some loot and leave. My main gripe is that the whole idea of scarcity goes out the window once you hit your stride. In my opinion mining/harvesting nodes need to be clustered more tightly together (hopefully making it more difficult to stock up on everything), everything should break/rot faster, and enemies should drop about half the random items they normally do (I rarely had problems with map travel since every other bandit drops 2-3 travel rations). They could also have implemented some kind of interactivity with weapon repair, or at least required some kind of consumable from you (iron and palladium scraps to repair would have been brilliant, making mining a worthwhile endeavor at all points in the game).

Probably the worst offender I've seen in this game is that it's only about survival for perhaps the first 5 hours. After that you have plenty of everything. Everything takes a downer after that point. See above for my recommendations. I have to say that I just don't get excited about finding nodes, or new items, too much anymore. I've already got plenty, what do I care if I can get ahold of one more Alpha Meat?

That's about all I have right now.

Edit: Fixed it for you Eryfkrad

 

[ERYFKRAD]

TLDR we're having a blast, I can already see that it's going to wear out its welcome though.

In the beginning or the end men. In the middle means everyone will tl;dr your TLDR.

 

[DalekFlay]

Just started playing and man the timers are a massive turn-off. I knew it had basic survival stuff like temperature and food and drink, but I didn't know shit expired and quests had strict time limits. I'm a big explorefag and that turns me right the fuck off.

 

[Jinn]

Just started playing and man the timers are a massive turn-off. I knew it had basic survival stuff like temperature and food and drink, but I didn't know shit expired and quests had strict time limits. I'm a big explorefag and that turns me right the fuck off.

As far as I remember there is only one timed quest. It's the first one and you'd have to be pretty retarded to fuck it up.

 

[Yosharian]

Just started playing and man the timers are a massive turn-off. I knew it had basic survival stuff like temperature and food and drink, but I didn't know shit expired and quests had strict time limits. I'm a big explorefag and that turns me right the fuck off.

As far as I remember there is only one timed quest. It's the first one and you'd have to be pretty retarded to fuck it up.

It's only the first quest that's timed?

 

[Deleted Member 16721]

There's more than one timed quest. I had a few of them on the Holy Order path that just automatically disappeared after awhile. I was supposed to rescue some hostages and couldn't find the place, figured I'd come back and try later and a day or two later the quest just disappeared. Had one other I'm forgetting. So there are some timers in the game. Which is incline IMHO.

 

[Jinn]

My experience with my Blue Chamber playthrough was there were a lot of quests that gave the illusion they would be failed if not completed in a given amount of time, but I tested a number of them by going over by a day or two with no consequence. Never had a timed side-quest, or if I did and didn't notice it was because it would be near impossible to not complete in time.

Ultimately, I'm a fan of thorough, slow exploration too and never once felt rushed in the game. Take that as you will.

 

[DalekFlay]

There's more than one timed quest. I had a few of them on the Holy Order path that just automatically disappeared after awhile. I was supposed to rescue some hostages and couldn't find the place, figured I'd come back and try later and a day or two later the quest just disappeared. Had one other I'm forgetting. So there are some timers in the game. Which is incline IMHO.

From what I read there are quite a lot of them, and also the food expires and such. I'm fine with some mild survival stuff but that's just too much hassle for moi. Glad you like it, and I know a lot of people get off on it and I wish them well, but it's just not something I'm into even a little bit. I might read some more before I refund though, because of posts like the one above.