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

[Shadenuat]

if you liked bad dude and good grandma in tutorial, you'll like monarch choice too.

Speaking of good grandma, she's a spiteful old witch and not an obvious choice at all, even Parvatti speaks against it.

I think it will be interesting to see how ending slides turn up and check our theories of is it bad or not.

I personally exclusively choose corporate males and support the Board.
Even though it makes no fuken sense.

 

[Nano]

I have no idea why people keep obsessing about inconsequential drama from 2 years ago.

*year-and-a-half ago.

 

[Voids]

From the videos I've seen this game looks like another ultra generic Action-RPG that does nothing interesting and simply changes the setting to something "wacky" to attract dollars.

 

[Prime Junta]

They definitely fucked up with the balance of the game. I almost feel like I wanna sell all my shit, and just use lvl 1 weapons to make it hard again, disappointing.'

That'd just make the fights last longer. Chipping away at HP one by one isn't much fun.

The problem is that the game has the typical modern popamole design where everything scales with level. You go from 10 HP to 10,000 HP with everything -- armour, damage, actual HP -- and the enemies do the same at the same pace. The upshot is that fighting something at level 15 feels more or less the same as fighting something at level 1, assuming you're playing like the devs intended.

What throws this out of whack is that some of the systems are stupidly exploitable. Once you've got a nice stack of bits stashed, for shits and giggles use the respec machine to go full Sci, then tinker (=upgrade) your favourite weapon, the respec again to max out the skill for that. Conversely, if you don't upgrade your shit, you'll fall behind and will be going plink-plink-plink forever and a day to chip away at what suddenly looks like a mountain of HP.

IOW a simple Sawyer mod wouldn't do it, it'd have to be a wholesale re-engineering of the entire damage system so that it doesn't use the putrid leveled thing that they put everywhere nowadays. This is in fact the most important way TOW mechanics depart from FONV mechanics, and they're much the worse for it.

 

[Nines_Anarch]

The Outer Worlds: every time you mention it, someone Uninstalls it.

 

[Shadenuat]

Conversely, if you don't upgrade your shit, you'll fall behind

Mm, not really, game seems to scale wares in shops somewhat. Dude from russian review ignored crafting completely and finished game on highest difficulty.

What is a travesty is that you can't just keep upgrading your favorite gun due to scaled tinkering (unless you ramp up Science although I'm not sure if it works for everything or just Science-weapons)

Natural way of affairs is to recycle 99% of loot and never. sell. anything. walking with always empty inventory and your weapons always capped at 5 levels higher than you (the tinkering-cap).
Eventually game begins throwing level scaled stuff on you, so you throw away old ones and replace with tinkered +5 "mk2" versions of the same.

 

[Cross]

Game on hard is literally a cakewalk already, and i'm not even half-way in. Got fucktons of money, fucktons of ammo, weapons, gadgets, everything. I just breeze through every enemy like a warm knife through luke-warm butter.

They definitely fucked up with the balance of the game.

Miss me yet?

Are you forgetting that at launch Deadfire got so many negative reviews on Steam because even casuals found the game too easy that Sawyer had to issue a public apology for the lack of difficulty?

If anything, The Outer Worlds is definite proof that 'balance' has now become Obsidian's signature style and anything made by Obsidian will follow Sawyer's design philosophy, even if the Balance Master himself isn't involved.

 

[Drakortha]

I have the say the perks in this game are rather uninspired and not interesting at all. It's almost not even worth taking a flaw to be able to choose one of these, and that is a shame. It was always a lot of fun choosing perks in Fallout New Vegas because many of them were impactful and were a good way to flesh out your character some more, not to mention the humor and some of the fun images that came alongside them.

On the plus side - character flaws are pretty good and I like taking them whenever I can. Not just because I get extra perk points to spend, but it's refreshing to see an RPG that allows your character to get worse at something or gimped in some way rather than just getting stronger constantly until you're godlike.

But yeah perks. They seem under-developed and could use improvement. Something to hope for in a future sequel maybe.

 

[Prime Junta]

Mm, not really, game seems to scale wares in shops somewhat. Dude from russian review ignored crafting completely and finished game on highest difficulty.

Yeah sure, swapping out your shit for other identical except higher-level shit works too. I fucking hate that, it's in every mainstream game nowadays and it's just pointless, mindless grind and busywork, adding nothing of value. And I did kind of hope that TOW would know better. More fool me.

If anything, The Outer Worlds is definite proof that 'balance' has now become Obsidian's signature style and anything made by Obsidian will follow Sawyer's design philosophy, even if the Balance Master himself isn't involved.

The design is not Sawyerite at all. Sawyer doesn't do leveled loot, and he would have caught the most egregiously exploitable systems. He would also have made much more complex rock-paper-scissors mechanics related to choice of armour and weapon when fighting various types of enemies, made status effects much more significant, and so on and so forth. Somebody (Roguey maybe?) claims that the Fearg had explicitly told Sawyer to stay off this project. Looking at the systems I have no doubt whatsoever that that's exactly what happened.

 

[Roguey]

Fuck,didn't expect this game to be so fucking racist. One of your companion is in perma blackface lol.

fanta my man, I can't believe you've never seen a black woman's soles.

Somebody (Roguey maybe?) claims that the Fearg had explicitly told Sawyer to stay off this project. Looking at the systems I have no doubt whatsoever that that's exactly what happened.

Avellone himself said that, relaying information from his moles.

 

[luj1]

Sawyer sucks when it comes to system design, proven by PoE I-II over and over.

 

[Jezal_k23]

The extremely low difficulty is embarassing and really does make everything trivial. New Vegas actually allowed you to meet deathclaws at a low level. In this game I don't even think there is even a single enemy as respectable as a deathclaw.

 

[IHaveHugeNick]

Well I got off the first planet. It's a better starting area than Goodsprings, that's for sure.

 

[Yosharian]

The extremely low difficulty is embarassing and really does make everything trivial. New Vegas actually allowed you to meet deathclaws at a low level. In this game I don't even think there is even a single enemy as respectable as a deathclaw.

Don't worry guys, I'm sure Obsidian will patch the difficulty just like they did in Deadf... ah.

 

[Trashos]

I am not a fan of Sawyer's balancing work for PoE, but his relevant work for FONV was on point. And TOW is similar to FONV, not PoE.

That said, he balanced FONV in his *mod*. The unmodded game was left completely unbalanced, so that the retards wouldn't whine that the game was too hard on highest difficulty.

 

[Tacgnol]

Does the game significantly improve after the first planet?

It has been quite... underwhelming so far.

 

[Multi-headed Cow]

The Outer Worlds: every time you mention it, someone Uninstalls it.

Not yet god damn it, I'm going to get my dollar's worth unless it kills me.

Probably the best thing I can say about it is pretty similar to my compliments for Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age Inquisition, which is to say it's extremely easy to boot up and play a while. None of the voice actors emote, the AI doesn't do anything alarming, the combat's mushy and easy, and the UI makes pleasing little jingles when I'm picking up loot and leveling up. It's more entertaining to read/watch reviews of the fucking game and compare it to the experience of actually playing it than it is to actually fucking play the thing. Seeing reviewers saying "Brilliant writing, it felt like I was actually destroying those fucking corporations DEATH TO CAPITALISM" and "There are no romances in the Outer Worlds for the player, but there are for your companions. And you can help them. Help them romance. Help them romance one another. In your ship. You can sit in the galley and listen to them going at it. And imagine. Mmm, yeah, you did that. I bet you can even smell them if you go to the air circulation system for the ship too. They know you're too pathetic for romances yourself, they'll tell you all about it once they're done. 9/10 modern masterpiece" is a lot more fun than "Bro my rats got loose in the sewer please help".

 

[Daidre]

Somebody (Roguey maybe?) claims that the Fearg had explicitly told Sawyer to stay off this project. Looking at the systems I have no doubt whatsoever that that's exactly what happened.

Sawyer seems so happy making his own PnP that tearing him away from it is criminal. Especially for a game like TOW.

 

[Dodo1610]

My thoughts after 14h(no I am not addicted, I swear!)

- I really like the companions and the sheer amount of banter and commentary they have, I haven't seen companions with this much fully voiced dialogue in a long time. it's clear that the game was designed around them which is probably the biggest difference when compared to NV
The only one I dislike is the hunter woman her looks and personality are just obnoxious
- the balance is horrific you are either way too strong or just too weak and die all the time. This game needs a JSawyer mod now!
- Perks are a massive disappointment FNW did them so much better
- The rest of the character system is really good and allows for a good amount of role-playing, it's no longer possible to have a hundred points in all skills.
- The setting is really good and feels much more focused than the last POE games
- exploration is also good though I wish the game had more dungeons but the dungeons that are there are well made. + they now have vertical exploration and optional areas if you have the right skills
- The player dialogue + choices are good and allow you to role-play very different characters which add replay value.
- every hub I found felt distinct which it's unique factions and their problems
- Gunplay is serviceable but Melee sucks hard, there is no difference between hitting someone with a one or two-handed weapon
- I really like the armour/clothing design but the I wish they gun design was more creative, also they should have more guns.
- weapon modifications are barely visible
- My biggest gripes are the lack of a first-person body and the complet lack of environment interactions aside from ladder climbing
- the game has no physics! which is probably the reason why you can't have long hair.

I still love The Outer Worlds a lot and won't stop playing any time soon. Most of the game's issues are due to the limited budget imo.

 

[fantadomat]

Fuck,didn't expect this game to be so fucking racist. One of your companion is in perma blackface lol.

fanta my man, I can't believe you've never seen a black woman's soles.

Somebody (Roguey maybe?) claims that the Fearg had explicitly told Sawyer to stay off this project. Looking at the systems I have no doubt whatsoever that that's exactly what happened.

Avellone himself said that, relaying information from his moles.

Roguey my man, i can't believe that you had seen a black woman with soles on the head.

 

[Roguey]

Roguey my man, i can't believe that you had seen a black woman with soles on the head.

Similar principle.

 

[cvv]

Probably the best thing I can say about it is pretty similar to my compliments for Mass Effect Andromeda and Dragon Age Inquisition

DAI is better than this there I said it SUCK on it boyz

 

[sqeecoo]

I mean maybe it's me coming off Disco, but this is just so bland and minimalistic. "Hi, here have a quest, ok bye" is basically every interaction in the first city. The graphics make my eyes bleed trying to pick out the enemies between the flower disco colors, and the character creation is uninspiring. New Vegas was way better than this shit, right? I mean, it's a playable game and I'll tinker with it a bit more, but I feel like a stupid FPS like Wolfenstein had more story than this supposed RPG.

 

[toro]

I mean maybe it's me coming off Disco, but this is just so bland and minimalistic. "Hi, here have a quest, ok bye" is basically every interaction in the first city. The graphics make my eyes bleed trying to pick out the enemies between the flower disco colors, and the character creation is uninspiring. New Vegas was way better than this shit, right? I mean, it's a playable game and I'll tinker with it a bit more, but I feel like a stupid FPS like Wolfenstein had more story than this supposed RPG.

Fallout 4 was better than this.

 

[Danikas]

I mean maybe it's me coming off Disco, but this is just so bland and minimalistic. "Hi, here have a quest, ok bye" is basically every interaction in the first city. The graphics make my eyes bleed trying to pick out the enemies between the flower disco colors, and the character creation is uninspiring. New Vegas was way better than this shit, right? I mean, it's a playable game and I'll tinker with it a bit more, but I feel like a stupid FPS like Wolfenstein had more story than this supposed RPG.

Fallout 4 was better than this.