Wormerine

Source requested.

After wrapping up my first playthrough of Outer Worlds I wanted to share my thoughts, and hopes for the sequel. Overall, I quite liked it. I was prepared for a smaller RPG, and that’s what I got. It reminded me a lot of earlier Bioware titles, like KOTOR or Jade Empire. Maps were more open then I was expecting, so that was nice surprise. Emerald Vale and Monarch were easily m favorite parts of the game. I liked the story and tone, character were well realized with personality and clear motivations. I didn’t fall in love with any of the companions, but I found them all alright. I was happy to see them responding to other NPCs in conversations. I found choices and consequences to my actions a bit too… safe? At no point did I have a doubt regarding what I should do, and in most conflicts there seemed to be 3rd, “everyone gets along!”, option. I was struggling to think in terms what my character would do, but I felt I was encourage to “solve” problem for an optimal outcome. The overwhelmingly positive ending slides, did feel disingenuous. That said, while Outer Worlds was good, I don’t think it will stay with me for long. And the sequel will need to show something interesting to make me excited for it. Combat was fine. I think it is improvement over Fallout: NV, in terms of controls. I think basics framework is good, but it would need some kind of decision making to make things engaging. As it is pretty much every encounter felt the same to me. I never found a benefit to targeting various body parts. Aiming at head would usually do the job. I never found the game to use combat for story telling – most fights felt same in terms of difficulty and none of them force me to change tactics(?). Or rather none of them forced to adapt any tactics. Just click on heads. I played on hard difficulty BTW. I felt that content Byzantium-forward was the weakest. There was not much to do in this major city and I felt like most of the quest I had left required me to hop back and forth between planets. That meant a lot of loading screens and running, just to kill a thing, or talk to a person. That was the part I really felt the negative impact of the budget quest design. Overall, I felt quests rarely took an interesting turn. It might be me knowing the dance a bit too well by now, but in this game I could predict plot-twists a bit too often. What’s worse, due to simple quest design, I wasn’t too involved in playing through individual quests. I never felt like I am interacting with the world using skills of my character. My single favorite moment in the game was when I bribed someone to let me through, and then used my newly acquired “pickpocket” skills to steal money back. Unfortunately, this consistency seemed to be an exception to the rule. This lack of ability to take charge of how the quest can progress meant a rather passive approach to the game from my part, following objectives and waiting for the game to tell me I have a choice to make, rather than looking for ways to progress which would make sense to my character. In character creation, I liked how every 20 points we got a perk from raising the skill. In Skyrim I felt like I was getting worse, rather than better, as with each level skills there were fewer skills and weapons that I could use effectively. Those skill “perks” allow communicating progress, even if other skills fall behind. I think it could be nice, if in future games we have a choice of a skill perk – a bit more way to customize my character. As it is, I don’t expect my next playthrough to feel much different than the one I just finished. I wasn’t impressed by actual perks and flaws – I couldn’t tell you which ones I picked. None of them seemed to leave an impression. I thought that lockpicking and hacking was a wasted opportunity. They somewhat reminded me of the way original Deus Ex handles those features – you could always pick any lock and hack any computer, however, level of your skill compared to level of the object you lockpick/hack would decide how much resources it would take to lockpick/hack said object. It was limiting characters without specialization in those skills to still access containers/door/computers but they were more limited by resources. In OW, you get so many items that resource management is a non issue. Locking containers behind binary skill check isn’t very interesting, especially as those doors and containers only consisted of more stuff I didn’t need. Speaking of resources – it’s way too forgiving. Too much ammo, too much hacking equipment, too many mods, too much money. At the end I was rolling with thousands of ammo and over a hundred lockpicks. They are everywhere. Literally: boxes with ammo lying in every encounter room, in every corner of the street. Exploring stopped being exciting – I would just find more of what I have in abundance. If I could make a request for the sequel, it would be adding a bit of Immersive Sim into the design. I think mechanics work fine – stealth, disguise, pickpocketing, lockpicking, talking – but I would like to see more consistent world and those being used as a way to interact with the world. It is somewhat disappointing to see such a standard experience, when compared to Fallout1&2, Arcanum, Bloodlines. What I loved about those games, was the feeling of interacting consistent world. I would rather break into someone’s backroom, than open yet another container with ammo, lying in the corner of the street. Items should be a more valuable resource. Now I am aware, that OW aims to be more mainstream. After all, it’s not like Troika closed down due to overwhelming popularity. But I think that for the most part mechanics are there. I “just” wish for a more sophisticated quest and area design and more consistent systemic approach to interact with. I would also prefer if the next game had a different protagonist. I think it worked really well for Fallout2 and most of older Obsidian sequels. Conflict in OW has been solved, and issues teased for the sequel can easily be tackled by a new hero. Isn’t it easier to come up with new story hook, rather than try to drag the old hero into another adventure?

Why? It's a woke roleplaying game. What if you want to be a cheating space bastard?

So the answer could be that people wanted a D&D game, rather then PoE2? Which would make sense but would be unfortunate.

@dava4444 I would rather if those fantasies remained in your private OW session, and weren’t to appear in mine. Sounds a bit too much like ME3 romance between Joker and EDI. What started as a cute and clever idea in ME2, turned into embarrassing fanfic ship-of-love farse. I certainly wouldn’t want to see “romance with a computer” forced upon players. It is roleplaying game, and if you find it would fit for your captain to get physically and emotionally attached to his ship, then fine, but there is no one defined “Captain”. This is something I will touch on more, in another thread once I gather my thoughts, but my hope is that with OW2 we will get Fallout2 route: current generation will pass and we will play a new character. slides at to the end are rather final. Nothing about this game screams like it needs a direct sequel.

I have written more extensively about in another thread. It is not about simply having/not having VO. It is about writing and presenting PCs in certain way. Mass Effect/Witcher’s/Gothic didn’t just add VO - their characters are prewritten and predefined characters which you nudge into certain direction but can’t change who they are. A bug chunk of roleplaying is done for you. If that is what you enjoy, it’s fine, I all games that I listed. But this is different kind of game, and it would be better if it stayed that way as Obsidian is great in doing those, and we don’t get many alternatives these days.

Aaaaand new Jericho

To me the bigger roadblock that tinkering through multiple levels isn't viable until you reach 80 and then 100 science. I didn't "rush" science, therefore at the time of writing OP they were heavily behind other weapons. Indeed, they did become viable, though after a bit of fooling around with them, I came back to basic weapons. One shooting enemies with plasma rifles is simply quicker. The shocking granade thingy was useful in the end game fight though.

I think they might/might not like it. It depends what they exactly didn't they like.

I will give you that. It did expect to receive a sidequest when I talked to ADA about her modifications. Considering Obsidian ikes to leave hooks in the game for later DLC it is not outside bounds of possibility.

And gets corrected by Ada if I remember well. either way it doesn’t matter. You roleplay the way you want to roleplay. If “Her” is your jam, then go for it.

We can't have romances, because romances take time and manpower, and companions are on basic side as it is. ADA isn't a conscious being. That's been stated multiple times. She emulates personality but she is a computer. Previous captain developed her personality so it's a bit as if you were to program Ciri on how she interacts with you. She just continues her behaviour. If you want to roleplay a character who takes it as a serious relationship, then knock yourself out.

I wouldn't call it "forced FPS". That would imply a conscious effort to forbid players to playing a certain way, rather then implementing only one Point of View system. It probably could get away without character creation but I wouldn't call it wasted. You still see your character on regular basis, and personal it did I form and help in defining my character. What's more, of they keep this engine for the sequel, they can focus on implementing Third Person View without building character creation from the ground up as well! I agree that some aspects of the game could be more robust. Not all companions are equal and I found Bizantium to be very empty and artificial. But that's not something people who made character creation could do.

I did similar thing on my first playthrough, but like previous poster I already had quest to talk to Mad Morena so I managed to get out without issues. Still, nothing stops you from leaving with the boat, and returning later. There are certainly quests in Deadfire which don't quite work when you tackle them from a different direction then originally designed. Nice find regarding Ulog. Looks like minor bug. Shouldn't break anything, beyond immersion.

But will you buy it in the end? Not from Epic but Steam/Gog once it comes out? I probably will. The kinda brilliant way of the Epic exclusivity deal is that Epic wagers that game will sell well on their platform. From what we understand, they calculate how likely those games are to sell, if they were released platform-wide (how it's calculated don't ask me!) and then offer this number to developers/publishers as "guaranteed" sales - meaning they pay publisher/developer for those sales whenever they happen or not. 1) If the game doesn't sell well on Epic, publisher/dev gets money from Epic. According to multiple reports those can be substantial amounts. On top of that people who didn't buy on Epic, may buy on Steam/GOG meaning those sales aren't necessary lost. In addition guaranteed sales come with a better split. 2) If majority of sales still happen, Epic might not loose any money if they hit quota, and Developer/publisher will get a better split. For the record, I don't disagree with you. I am glad Game Pass exists, as I can playthrough OW without commiting to Epic, but it is not a model which I find attaractve. However, it is a good deal, for those who play their game only once. I could get my Dualshock to work with it, though, so I will be quitting once I am done with OW. Which is a shame, there are some controller-based games I hoped to check out this month.

That's a good question. Amount of it? I am nearing to the end and Byzantium felt really lackluster. Overal quest and area complexity could have been bigger. I don't think we get anything comparing to "Beyond the Beef" and such. Skills like lockpicking, hacking etc. rarely allow us to progress in a unique way, and even if they do, it feels small. It certainly could have been bigger. It could have been deeper. I could have more lavish production. Did it need to be, though? I don't think so. Gaming have been dumping lots of money into fewer projects, but really, mid range projects like OW are a great things. Plus add to that a drought of Bethesda/Bioware RPGs, and overall great timing of OW wide announcement, following Fallout76 controversy. What I wonder, whenever this is something that will continue for the series, or if it is PoE1 situation.

Yup. Wasted points for moi.

If you don’t remember, that means you don’t really care about your choices importing over, and therefore pre-made save is a fine option for you. Just pick the first one, and it will be all good. You are the one who will complaint about now knowing what Biwac is, aren’t you. ;-)

Sound like a cool class concept. Arcanum-like tech thing. Animancer perhaps? The trick would be to make a unique gameplay loop for them without simply doubling magical abilities, with non-magical lore explanation. Deadfire indeed has plenty of niche items like Granades, potions and such, would could make a basis for a new class, at least on surface Level. also Atheist? Can one really be an atheist in Eora? [spoiler heavy joke ahead]

And once Netflix releases the feature allowing to speed up videos, people will complain that movies are only hour long!

I don't think that's the reason. RPG having full character VO is a black flag for some. Obsidian has reputation for creating RPGs which allow you to craft your character and roleplay, providing plenty of reactivity. To create a main protagonis with VO you have to approach it differently. You have to write a defined character with personality, opinions, traits, history with some wiggle room for player choice. Shepard, Geralt, and I assume dude/dudess from Fallout4 are all pre-made defined characters. That goes against what is usually a strength of Obsidian RPG. Compare difference in how Thorton from Alpha Protocl is portrait, and compare it to KOTOR2, fallout new vegas, pillars1&2 or tyrany. Giving VO to your character simply takes away a big chunk of character creation freedom from players. And that is what many die hard Obsidian fans (like myslef) like. There are reasons why I have no interest in F4, and it not even pretending to be an RPG is one of the big ones. OW was still written in a traditional Obsidian way, allowing you to project what you want on your character. I think OW might be limited enough that it could work with a voiced protagonist. Yes, it would be more expensive, but more importantly from creative standpoint, the character would need to be written and presented differently. Having someone read the written lines wouldnt be enough, as it's to fluid and undefined to be a pre-recorded character.

You mean Fallout2. Completionist Fallout1 run is actually quite short. Oddly enough I replayed BGs not so long ago, and they are far shorter then I remember. I could swear they were 100 hour long games and BG1 was longer then BG2. BG1 took 43 hours, BG2 took 56:30h. Not topdown Bioware RPGs tended to be around 20-30h as well. What consistantly confuses me are people who complain the game is too short, but didn't play all of it. It's not like what's left is collecting 100 feathers. If you liked it, play more of it. Obsidian was very transparent with what the game was and how long it is. It could be longer sure. It would also need to redesign systems to support a longer game time. Hopefully that will be the sequel. Though I would take a deepr 40h long OW, rather then same depth 80h Outer Worlds.

!!!!!! And Pharaoh. I loved this game to death. Though It doesn't seem like monuments are build from a ground up as they were in Pharaoh. That's a shame. Seeing it being build brick by brick, and securing a steady supply of materials for it was very satisfying. I wonder What they will do to NPC movemement. In Pharaoh and Caesar3 erratic NPC movement was core part of gameplay and cityplanning. While not ideal, I feel like many later city builders lack the depth which came from the need to carefuly plan your cities, even if mechanic was artificial and annoying at times.

I don't think that's is really the case, though her quest does start at the earliest (if you follow the guiding hand of the game master). Well one is FPS, the other is TPS cover shooter... which means sit behind cover and stick everyonce in a while. OW combat can get chaotic at times. Luckily TTD is there if you need to take a breath. Yhhhh... I don't think OW offers enough roleplaying options to really benefit from not having VO for main protagonist, like NV did. However, I would still prefer for the money to be spend on putting more RPG in OW2, rather then further restraining what character I can create.

That's how New Vegas did it. That said, as I am playing on hard right now, I don't see the appeal of this system. Food, drink and beds are too plentiful, maps are too small and carrying weight too generous to support proper "survival mode". Still making it a seperate toggle would be welcome.