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

[9ted6]

Well dude just perfectly autodiagnosed himself

Sawyer thinks a lot about gameplay, it's just that his ideas of what makes for fun gameplay aren't yours. Spectrum things.

Can you please attempt to explain what Sawyer thinks is fun?

He thinks it's blast to sit and read him- I mean, his characters - aggressively tweet- I mean, speak to - the player espousing his- I mean, their - social and political views and then requiring you to agree with him- I mean, the characters.

 

[Krivol]

Tim, I hope you were fucked in the ass hard...

Ummm, you know he would like that, right?

I was hoping he is the active one.

 

[Butter]

The Outer Worlds is so bland that people would prefer to talk about Pillars attributes for the 6 millionth time. Codex, Codex never changes.

 

[Sannom]

Dexterity attribute scaling adds 0.01% damage and 0.02% accuracy to crossbows during daylight hours, unless you're wearing a helmet and of course, not during Passover.

Having tried to create a character in Pathfinder after a lot of Deadfire, this feels like the opposite of Sawyer's approach. "if" within "if" within "if" isn't something I got from PoE or Deadfire at all. Attributes have straight-forward, universal effects and a clear progression, even if sometimes the "universal" includes some unusual stuff. The same for skills, which tends to only affect consumables (Athletics being an outlier). And most importantly, attributes and skills are disentangled (*) from classes.

(*) The obvious exception here are Chanters, who had their resource management affected by Intellect, but they removed it from the sequel.

 

[jaekl]

The blandness of Outer Worlds is unbelievable. Like with any game that has annoying writing, I began to rebel against it, which the game allows, surprisingly. I appreciate that compared to Baldur's Gate 2 which has (to me) annoying writing *and* punishes you for rebelling with unkillable npcs and instagibs. However, even with the novelty of playing it as a space spree-killer simulator, it is so bland that I stopped playing partway through out of apathy.

 

[Lhynn]

The blandness of Outer Worlds is unbelievable. Like with any game that has annoying writing, I began to rebel against it, which the game allows, surprisingly. I appreciate that compared to Baldur's Gate 2 which has (to me) annoying writing *and* punishes you for rebelling with unkillable npcs and instagibs. However, even with the novelty of playing it as a space spree-killer simulator, it is so bland that I stopped playing partway through out of apathy.

Apathy seems to be the best way to describe my feelings towards it.
I was pissed about Pillows, I mocked Pillows 2, but absolute atrocities on their own right, but this one didnt make me feel anything, not even enough energy to pirate it.

 

[Wesp5]

One of the main problems of Outer Worlds is that it is too easy, like the builds don't matter at all and the items you need are all over the place. I can imagine that Tim and Leonard didn't design it like that, but some higher up at Obsidian, or maybe even Microsoft, stepped in and told them to make the game more player friendly to get all the casual gamers on board that are not hard-core RPG fans. Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

 

[Roguey]

One of the main problems of Outer Worlds is that it is too easy, like the builds don't matter at all and the items you need are all over the place. I can imagine that Tim and Leonard didn't design it like that, but some higher up at Obsidian, or maybe even Microsoft, stepped in and told them to make the game more player friendly to get all the casual gamers on board that are not hard-core RPG fans. Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

In one of his latest videos Tim said his design philosophy is for the player to have fun and he disagrees with the idea that the designer's goal should be to kill the player.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

What? Vtmb had what exactly that was similar to TOW? Overabundance of items, ammo, guns, etc? More details please. Always like to learn more about Bloodlines.

 

[Krivol]

One of the main problems of Outer Worlds is that it is too easy, like the builds don't matter at all and the items you need are all over the place. I can imagine that Tim and Leonard didn't design it like that, but some higher up at Obsidian, or maybe even Microsoft, stepped in and told them to make the game more player friendly to get all the casual gamers on board that are not hard-core RPG fans. Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

In one of his latest videos Tim said his design philosophy is for the player to have fun and he disagrees with the idea that the designer's goal should be to kill the player.

Wesp5 is right, the game IS too easy and nothing of char build matters - you can literally not invest a single point in fighting skills and still do fine. Additionally, unique weapons don't seem to be exceptional at all (even worse than regular, as you can't modify them) and the possibility of upgrading any weapon to any level makes looking for SUPER QL GUN unnecessary - as soon as you get something fun (bearable) to play, just stick with that and sink money to upgrade it.

There is no reason to explore, as it just doesn't matter. Remember Gothic, where finding fucking meat that you can cook and sell was exciting? Finding a healing potion was like "Oh gosh! Christmas!"

So if Tim is saying a game should be fun and not hard he is more stupid than one can imagine. I don't like unnecessary hard games but remember The Witcher 1? Good gameplay was only on the hardest difficulty, as you had to rely on alchemy and drink the correct potions. TOW don't even have that and consumables are... OMG, the consumables in this game are making me laugh and cry simultaneously. They last like 15 secs and give you shit. Trash to sell.

 

[Ryzer]

What? Witcher 1 has a joke of a gameplay whatever the difficulty.

 

[Krivol]

What? Witcher 1 has a joke of a gameplay whatever the difficulty.

Drink some ginko biloba or something.

Oh just to be clear - I really wanted to love TOW. I am an FNV fanboy and really wanted something like this. Even when I saw the first Codex opinions (100% negative IIRC) I went with: 'Meh, haters gonna hate, this must be good - Obsidian + Tim Cain, what can go wrong?'

Boy, I was wrong!

 

[Wesp5]

One of the main problems of Outer Worlds is that it is too easy, like the builds don't matter at all and the items you need are all over the place. I can imagine that Tim and Leonard didn't design it like that, but some higher up at Obsidian, or maybe even Microsoft, stepped in and told them to make the game more player friendly to get all the casual gamers on board that are not hard-core RPG fans. Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

In one of his latest videos Tim said his design philosophy is for the player to have fun and he disagrees with the idea that the designer's goal should be to kill the player.

I wasn't talking about killing the player, but that mag-picks and shunts were available in the hundreds. Which also kills the immersion, because why would they be found anywhere in the first place?

 

[Wesp5]

Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

What? Vtmb had what exactly that was similar to TOW? Overabundance of items, ammo, guns, etc? More details please. Always like to learn more about Bloodlines.

That is not what I meant, Bloodlines did that much better than TOW. I meant the cut Bloodheal disciplines and the originally three versions of Bloodbuff. Which were replaced by convenient auto-healing and a Bloodbuff that maxed out all physical stats at the same time and made raising them unnecessary at the beginning of the game.

 

[LarryTyphoid]

I can imagine that Tim and Leonard didn't design it like that, but some higher up at Obsidian, or maybe even Microsoft, stepped in and told them to make the game more player friendly to get all the casual gamers on board that are not hard-core RPG fans. Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

Everything else bad about the game, like the art-style, was confirmed by Tim Cain to have been his and Leonard Boyarski's decisions. Why should we give them the benefit of the doubt about the game's difficulty? I don't think The Outer Worlds was, at any point in its development, a "hard-core RPG".

 

[Roguey]

One of the main problems of Outer Worlds is that it is too easy, like the builds don't matter at all and the items you need are all over the place. I can imagine that Tim and Leonard didn't design it like that, but some higher up at Obsidian, or maybe even Microsoft, stepped in and told them to make the game more player friendly to get all the casual gamers on board that are not hard-core RPG fans. Something like this was already visible in cut Bloodlines content and I would blame Activision for this...

In one of his latest videos Tim said his design philosophy is for the player to have fun and he disagrees with the idea that the designer's goal should be to kill the player.

I wasn't talking about killing the player, but that mag-picks and shunts were available in the hundreds. Which also kills the immersion, because why would they be found anywhere in the first place?

Tim comes across as a "fun gameplay trumps verisimilitude" guy. The playtesters didn't like scarcity so they gave an abundance.

 

[Lt Broccoli]

Just finished The Outer Worlds (though didn't do the DLCs). Stealth build with guns.

Overall impression was positive, but the game felt like it missed a lot of potential. Dialogue, variety of skills and and C&C are it's strengths, but the combat was too easy on normal. Will have to go to a higher difficulty next time with a new build. A lot of re-playability. Colour palette was quite glaring and unnatural...too many pastels. My guess is that Timothy Cain demanded that for his colour blindness. Also way too much loot....or rather the loot should be far less frequent but in greater quantity when you do find some. Perks also felt a bit blasé and generic - lacks that rarity and intriguing descriptions like in the early Fallouts - so when I was offered a negative quirk in order to gain a perk I would decline. Not many bugs - I think I got stuck a couple times and had to fast travel to escape. Yeah, overall not too bad. I would play again.

 

[Infinitron]

I think Tim Cain just really likes that TOW is all-around polished, playable, light-hearted fun. He hasn't made a lot of games like that, like it or not it's a personal achievement for him.

https://support.privatedivision.com/hc/en-us/articles/17973074238227

The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition Patch Notes - v1.4​

The Outer Worlds: Spacer’s Choice Edition Patch v1.4 is available now for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. Thank you for your patience while our team worked diligently to get this out, and continue reading below to see what's been fixed in this latest update:

• Fixed discrepancy between auto-detect and default settings on PC
• Improved VRAM-based GPU performance
• Fixed Virtual Texture flickering in Groundbreaker on Xbox Series S
• Fixed some terminals being hard to read on Xbox
• Fixed bug where Tucker Needham does not immediately talk to the player when trying to interact with him during A Family Matter in Amber Heights
• Fixed bug in "A Few Bits More" Perk
• Fixed bug with companions sometimes missing in elevators (RR&DD lab and connected hallways)
• Resolved several popping issues
• Adjusted rocks and foliage
• Texture and LOD updates
• Reduced several flickering issues
• Fixed collision issues in multiple levels
• Fixed shadow issues in several areas
• Fixed alarm sound playing outside of Gorgon after completing DLC
• Several weapon VFX fixes

We hope these updates improve your time in the Halcyon Colony. If you continue to experience issues playing The Outer Worlds: Spacer's Choice Edition, please contact our support team directly for help.

 

[santino27]

I'd give a citation needed reaction for the 'fun' bit, but I think the rest is sadly on point. It's like every aging dev's reaction to the fact that their earlier games were buggy due to feature creep, lack of scope control, and insufficient QA cycle is to lower the ceiling by pruning away all the ambitious, interesting parts. The end result is less buggy, maybe, but lacks any of the interest inherent in actually trying to push beyond mediocrity. Or, as someone else said at some point in this thread... you end up with a game that is itself an unintentional example of the incompetent, uninspired corporatism the game is desperately trying to lampoon.

 

[GentlemanCthulhu]

The blandness of Outer Worlds is unbelievable. Like with any game that has annoying writing, I began to rebel against it, which the game allows, surprisingly. I appreciate that compared to Baldur's Gate 2 which has (to me) annoying writing *and* punishes you for rebelling with unkillable npcs and instagibs. However, even with the novelty of playing it as a space spree-killer simulator, it is so bland that I stopped playing partway through out of apathy.

Accurately describes the average TOW experience. The Outer Bores is real.

 

[Elttharion]

This will be part of the next humble bundle

Source is this guy. He always leaks some of the games in the next bundle a week early

 

[Nano]

I was hoping he is the active one.

Not if I have anything to say about it.

 

[ADL]

Any mods worthwhile for Spacer's Choice? I get it in tomorrow's Humble Bundle.
Also v1.4 seems like it finally got performance to an acceptable level.

 

[cvv]

Also v1.4 seems like it finally got performance to an acceptable level.

What about gameplay?

 

[Fedora Master]

The best mods are uninstall.exe and stopbeingpartoftheproblem.txt