Supernova Diff; Companion combat AI, permadeath

[Electrogasms]

I throw myself in front of every enemy and bullet to protect these retards, who rush headlong into bullets with 2% health.

I try to heal them by spamming my Inhaler, to give them the paltry 35%, but healing isn't enough when they refuse to take cover.

Is there any reason not to just take the Lone Wolf perk and ignore these bullet cushions? Why are they in the game, if they're going to die 5 minutes after I meet them?

Maybe put a recovery timer on the Supernova difficulty so that I don't have to fast travel back to the ship and save after every fight, on the off chance Shi* for Brains decides it's time to die.

Thanks for taking the time to read!

Lifelong Obsidian fan.

 

*EDITED FOR THE ASSUMING READER"

60 Leadership, Melee focused roll.

Bonus HP, Armor perks on all companions

Parvatti has 32 Armor battle suit, 32 Armor helm.

Sam cannot have be equipped with more armor.

Adjusted all behavior to max range, use ranged only weapons, defensive.

 

Am I playing to your satisfaction yet? ffs.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Electrogasms
Assumptions

[Gataca]

I do agree that the companion AI is a bit... underwhelming to say the least! Setting it to defensive is the same as setting it to passive (they don't do anything at all) and setting it to aggressive turns them into masochistic kamikaze pilots trying to jump down the throats of any enemy in sight!

Hopefully a patch will resolve the incompetence of the companion AI!

[RobbedofLife]

Im all for having a companion being cannon fodder. But all of them? Not the best idea. And if they are just there for comedy relief or something while traveling it kind of defeats the purpose if they are dead. 

[drunetovich]

This is crazy, companions drop like flies wearing the best possible armor, in the first combat. They either should take cover, have 10 times hp, or not die at all.

[Electrogasms]

I would be ok with them being removed from the rest of the encounter, maybe with a stat penalty until we've slept.

Perma death just means I'm reloading constantly, and having to save after each fight in the Comm Satellite is going to take forever.

[Wafflemarine]

Not sure how much more the damage is on Supernova but playing on Hard it took probably 15h into the game before my companions were tough enough to blast though encounters without me worrying and I'm speced pretty far into buffing party members. Pretty sure I'm over leveled for the areas too. The companions for these types of games add so much for me in terms of enjoying the game it sucks to think of not doing it without them.

[mazeltov]

Companions add a nontrivial amount of DPS for encounters and the skill bonuses when properly perked are delicious. It's worth investing a lot into Determination for the massive health buff and micromanaging their combat settings and movement a bit.

[nize2864]

Actually companions are great on supernova. They are my main dps. Currently lvl 15 at the Monarchs danger zone landing pad and my companions are clearing the way for me. I barely have to heal them and the dps they do is OP. I've about 60 skill points invested in the leadership skills and man companions are good. Currently using parvati and Sam. Playing on supernova and have parvati set to ranged while Sam is doing most of the tanking. 

[Ommamar]

16 hours ago, nize2864 said:

Actually companions are great on supernova. They are my main dps. Currently lvl 15 at the Monarchs danger zone landing pad and my companions are clearing the way for me. I barely have to heal them and the dps they do is OP. I've about 60 skill points invested in the leadership skills and man companions are good. Currently using parvati and Sam. Playing on supernova and have parvati set to ranged while Sam is doing most of the tanking. 

You mean you actually spent skill points to help out your companions and it actually had an effect!  How unreasonable! Time to burn all copies of the game!   Just joking I get what people are talking about but one you are on the hardest difficulty that specifically indicates the challenges it has and I like that you have to make the decision to build up your companions at the cost of your own development but there is also an option to not have any at all.

[Horrorscope]

You can direct them to go to a location and they will stay there and fire if you don't want them rushing in. Very good option for ranged companions. Lots of times it is just stay where we are at the start of the fight, they stay, they shoot.

[Criimson]

I also find that giving them weapons with scopes keeps them at safer range.  A lot less dying.  Mod one of the weapons with plasma also seems to help melt things pretty quickly

[Mister Holdout]

This is my understanding of companions:

If you didn't put any points toward them (like me), then they weren't very helpful as back-up during difficult fights.

If you did invest in them, then they were supposed to be helpful during difficult fights?

I guess I need to start a companion oriented play through at some point to find out how powerful companions can get. 

[Criimson]

1 hour ago, Mister Holdout said:

This is my understanding of companions:

If you didn't put any points toward them (like me), then they weren't very helpful as back-up during difficult fights.

If you did invest in them, then they were supposed to be helpful during difficult fights?

I guess I need to start a companion oriented play through at some point to find out how powerful companions can get. 

You don't have to go to crazy with them. It is best  IMO to put some points in them at creation and the first few levels. Once you hit ~30-40 Determination they will survive a lot more.  I have them at 60 atm, but I am level 21 and most of my main skills are pretty high. Right now they are destroying things. I use SAM (his corrosion attack is crazy good) and Parvati. Giving her a long ranged gun is helpful. I currently have her weilding a Light Machine Gun Mk 2, using plasma rounds and she is crazy. Early on I had her use a grenade launcher because it seemed to keep her out of melee range way more often.

[Criimson]

On 10/25/2019 at 8:50 AM, Gataca said:

I do agree that the companion AI is a bit... underwhelming to say the least! Setting it to defensive is the same as setting it to passive (they don't do anything at all) and setting it to aggressive turns them into masochistic kamikaze pilots trying to jump down the throats of any enemy in sight!

Hopefully a patch will resolve the incompetence of the companion AI!

Actually Passive and Defensive are very different. In defensive they will act like aggressive as soon as you say "Attack" (hit 'x' on your keyboard)

[Electrogasms]

If missing the point were a skill, I dare say we'd have a few Masters of the Craft here. I'll keep a few of you in mind when I pick my next horseshoes tournament team. I especially love the assumptions, those are the most fun! The lack of empathy is no surprise, we all know if someone isn't having a problem, that problem must not exist? Right Hunger? Hunger's got my back.

Permadeath is a dumb mechanic; I'm never going to let my companions die, so that "feature" will literally never affect my playthrough, it just forces me to reload and redo the content (either without a companion or forcing them to stand 50 yards away). It's not a challenge, it's a pointless time sink; and if you can't tell the difference or don't understand, please feel free to ignore my post! Thx!

Love,

Me

[Criimson]

5 hours ago, Electrogasms said:

If missing the point were a skill, I dare say we'd have a few Masters of the Craft here. I'll keep a few of you in mind when I pick my next horseshoes tournament team. I especially love the assumptions, those are the most fun! The lack of empathy is no surprise, we all know if someone isn't having a problem, that problem must not exist? Right Hunger? Hunger's got my back.

Permadeath is a dumb mechanic; I'm never going to let my companions die, so that "feature" will literally never affect my playthrough, it just forces me to reload and redo the content (either without a companion or forcing them to stand 50 yards away). It's not a challenge, it's a pointless time sink; and if you can't tell the difference or don't understand, please feel free to ignore my post! Thx!

Love,

Me

I disagree.  It is a challenge added to the game.  If you don't want to reload constantly then you need to do something about how you are playing and/or building your character.  I play on Supernova and my companions rarely die now.  I have to plan how I take on new content that is presented.  If you aren't up to the challenge, then perhaps you can play normal for awhile.  

And to your comment " we all know if someone isn't having a problem, that problem must not exist?" If someone isn't having the problem then it is not a problem with the game, to be fixed as if it were a bug. It is a problem with the way the complaining player is playing the game. Stop trying to infer that others who disagree lack the mental fortitude to understand the grand thoughts coming from your superior mind.  They may simply be looking and seeing someone that is trying to put a square peg in a round hole crying to the manufacturer that their product is broken. 

Edited October 31, 2019 by Criimson

[Electrogasms]

Crimson,

I'm sorry you took my post so personally.

Congratulations on all of your success in The Outer Worlds in regards to companions fortitude.

With the amount of insults you throw out in each and every post, I'm truly hopeful that you will /ignore me and find solace in the fact that I will be /ignoring you.

I wish you good luck in missing points all over the forums of any game you play!

 

[Criimson]

I accept your apology.

To be fair, if you look over my whole 13 posts, only two referenced another person and both times I was calling out someone that was degrading others. If you consider standing up to arrogance or bullies as throwing out insults then I must, again, disagree with you. 

I simply call it like I see it.  The companions are fine, except for their lack of using cover. That, I think should be fixed. Even the NPCs use cover. 

I won't be ignoring you. I wont be actively looking for you either. I will continue to discuss the game I enjoy whenever I feel the need to interject my opinion or experience. If you are in that conversation, I will respond if I want and will only throw darts if you are being rude or insulting instead of discussing things in any meaningful way.

 

EDIT: I am curious. "I wish you good luck in missing points all over the forums of any game you play!"

What point did I miss? That your companions are dying all of the time? That they run in to the middle of the enemies?  Have you asked yourself why this is happening?  Have you looked at the weapons that you are equipping them with?  Have you changed their AI to "ranged"?  Have you swapped out different weapon sets on your companions?  Have you changed your tactic on how you initiate combat? Have you invested any points into their stats?

Expecting them to work as invincible right out of the box would nullify any reason to play this game as more than a running simulation. Oh wait. You weren't asking them to be invincible. You were asking that they don't die on Supernova.  That is invincible. Immortal.  I find it strange that someone wants to say "I beat the game on the hardest setting" when they could just play on Hard. Same combat difficulty and your companions won't permadeath.  Is it the hunger/thirst/sleep thing that you absolutely need?  Well I already asked Obsidian to add that option to other settings (as have many players). So if they do that, you can sleep soundly knowing you have all of the challenge that you wanted and your companions can survive without you learning how to play the game as it was designed.

Edited October 31, 2019 by Criimson

[thearmourofGod]

companions work perfectly

if

you address the issue

no handholding

thank u obsidian

cant wait for 2

[Electrogasms]

On 10/27/2019 at 12:59 AM, drunetovich said:

This is crazy, companions drop like flies wearing the best possible armor, in the first combat. They either should take cover, have 10 times hp, or not die at all.

I think this is the best solution, having the AI take cover at medium - low health to give the inhalers time to heal. 

[Devilangel58]

I don't think that the main problem is the companion system and how they fight - I have the same instance with Crimson where I started playing SuperNova and the learning curve was pretty rough initially to understand how to use companions and how to fight. It's not simple like having Fawks on your team in Fo3 and annihilate everything while you go make yourself a cup of tea.

This is not that kind of companions to expect. Even SAM has its limitations and will die pretty quickly when used wrong.

 

With current combat: It's bearable at best.

To make it a short story as others may have mentioned: You can use TTD to control companions where to move and who to attack, using companion abilities while in TTD kicks you out of TTD but you don't lose any TTD so easily enough go back into it right away. Use TTD to observe the battle and make the right move. Don't use companion abilities just because or right away, you need to time them. Know who you will be fighting and the best companions to bring along, unless you are role-playing then play tactically.

 

However, being able to use companions in Supernova and being able to melt everything doesn't mean the combat is okay - unlike Bethesda Game Studio's recent attempts at a video game, The Outer Worlds works.

 

However, Obsidian is a story-focused company, from what I can tell. Combat is not their forte... I haven't played many of their games, but the turn-based games seems to have the best combat they are able to produce. They don't know how to implement a combat AI in this type of game as this AI is like early versions of combat AI, Charge forward and attack. It reminds me of Total Battle Simulator.

 

Combat is not good but tolerable

The issue I have is the fact that combat in The Outer Worlds may have been rushed, at least that is my thoughts. I don't know the damage calculation but it feels as though the armor rating barely has any meaning. Considering the highest attack stat I have is the melee ones and they are at 18 which was starting. So with a skill of Long Guns at 8, I can use a powerful upgraded rifle and start killing any creature quite quickly. If using a sniper then it can be a 1 shot on particularly weaker enemy types (but still higher level), this would mainly be marauders and their dogs. Even an Alpha Tanid is at most a 3 shot. If using a Heavy Weapons (18) and using the plasma cannon, fully charged does nearly 1,000 damage (more than gun detailed) which easily eliminated crowded enemies.

I even started using scientific weapons, one in particular which weakens an enemy allowing my companions to literally shred it in a second. Okay, maybe 2 seconds, Supernova enemies have a lot of health. Nyoka's 1,000 dmg per second LMG is fun to watch. Vicar/Nyoka never made a team feel so utterly powerful and dominating when using their specials.

 

While I may be able to manage in combat, I do agree with the majority in saying that something is wrong with the combat, but for different reasons. I don't think it is broken or too challenging or anything like that. I only think that the combat works as intended, but poorly. After all, any point spent in any offense/attack tree is a waste of a skill point in my experience.

[Selnor1983]

You have to decide how you want to play. If your going to use Companions. Then you have to put perks and skill points into companion related upgrades. 

So spend a ton of points on Leadership of your using companions. And look for perks that increase using Companions to. 

 

You cannot jack of all trades your character. Or you'll be ok at everything and master of none. 

If you are a lone wolf and don't use companions. Then put nothing in leadership. And there's even perks that favor you playing without companions. 

The game is much more Dungeons and dragons table top RPG like. All the systems genuinely effect how you play. 

That's why there so many different builds in TOW. You want to concentrate each build you have on different playthrough really on 2 areas. Maybe 3 if you want to just scrape through being great at everything your putting your points into. 

 

[Electrogasms]

4 hours ago, Devilangel58 said:

 

Combat is not good but tolerable

The issue I have is the fact that combat in The Outer Worlds may have been rushed, at least that is my thoughts. I don't know the damage calculation but it feels as though the armor rating barely has any meaning. Considering the highest attack stat I have is the melee ones and they are at 18 which was starting. So with a skill of Long Guns at 8, I can use a powerful upgraded rifle and start killing any creature quite quickly. If using a sniper then it can be a 1 shot on particularly weaker enemy types (but still higher level), this would mainly be marauders and their dogs. Even an Alpha Tanid is at most a 3 shot. If using a Heavy Weapons (18) and using the plasma cannon, fully charged does nearly 1,000 damage (more than gun detailed) which easily eliminated crowded enemies.

While I may be able to manage in combat, I do agree with the majority in saying that something is wrong with the combat, but for different reasons. I don't think it is broken or too challenging or anything like that. I only think that the combat works as intended, but poorly. After all, any point spent in any offense/attack tree is a waste of a skill point in my experience.

Thanks for the thoughtful post. I agree with a lot of the Combat assessment; and if we're being honest the companions do way too much damage. Even on Supernova diff the companion skills are 1-shotting everything except non-flying mechanical mobs. As far as the difficulty goes, I find the combat easy. My only deaths come from trying to stand in front of bullets to keep my low health companions from dying while spamming inhalers. (which was my OP). But I agree that the AI seems pretty basic; but I've seen snipers take cover. I don't think an AI adjustment is out of the realm of possibility. The point I'm making isn't about combat difficulty,  combat is a cakewalk. I don't want to miss out on the companion content on Supernova difficulty; which is the point a lot of people are missing;

I think the biggest difference between me seeing issues, and those who aren't is the fact that the ranged combat feels more fleshed out. The guns are varied and the mods feel good; but the melee focus is making combat take longer, which means even at max range+ranged weapons my companions are just drawing more aggro and taking a lot of damage. (The bonus range on weapons at 60 points doesn't change the basic problem that enemies are just rushing at my sniping companions and forcing me to run across the battlefield to save them because the AI is slow and it acts more like a Duplicant  ((Oxygen not Included)) starving to death at the top of a lone piece of dirt they're stuck on, rather than just digging it out and dropping three spaces to the floor beneath)

There is a skill reset machine on the ship, I'd hate to reset this guy just to play easy mode with ranged weapons, but I'd rather have a discussion about improving Companion AI so that Supernova diff feels fleshed out.

In my original post I mentioned another solution that I feel would work just as well. Leave the AI the way it is, but instead of killing the companions, send them back to the ship so you have to decide whether to clear the area you're in without them, or go back and heal them and bring them back. 

Edited October 31, 2019 by Electrogasms

[Ommamar]

I don't understand the mind frame of people who say I don't want to miss out on content but I am going to play on the highest difficulty of a game I am still figuring out the best way to play.  I think they could of worked survival elements into the lower difficulty settings but didn't, to me this says Obsidian's thought process was enjoy the content on normal or maybe even hard difficulty.  Then once you have gone through that here is a way to play the game in a more challenging way once you have enjoyed the content and fully understand how the character build system works.

[Devilangel58]

2 hours ago, Electrogasms said:

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

You as well. Brilliant way to say how combat works here. I tried the melee approach and while I can do it, it takes a lot of finesse. Without a tactical approach, may as well just suicide run in all the time. It is easier to use a ranged sniper weapon and stay back. My long guns skill of 8 loves to show off with a scoped upgraded hunting rifle able to 1 shot the weaker types of enemies and do greats amount of damage to others while companions use their abilities/high DPS or high DMG guns.

Though using companion abilities means to reset their position because they start walking forwards after. Unless it's a melee ability to which it's just a suicide in.

 

I'll be honest I was too tired to read all the posts, so thanks for recapping there. I like those ideas to change how death of companions is handled since it does provide a harsh consequence if not managing carefully, yet you won't have a dead companion by your side through sheer stupid AI movement and lack of cover used.
Another one I read was a death tally where dying too many times will cause a permadeath situation. Not sure if that one was you as well though.

Even giving a couple seconds to heal them and if not they end up dead probably sounds better since that could mean running out to them and trying with a possible chance of dying doing this. 10 seconds or 15 seconds I think is reasonable enough. Though I did see a late game skill perk that looks to do something like this, but I think it's instant which would only mean a moments grace before they die again. I haven't tried it since it looks to be at max level, making it quite a useless perk.

 

1 hour ago, Ommamar said:

I don't understand the mind frame of people who say I don't want to miss out on content but I am going to play on the highest difficulty of a game...

I'm taking this direct quote and it's pretty up to pair here. There is a literal story mode difficulty so if content is what you are looking for, that's the difficulty to go for. I guess I just enjoy trying the game's most challenging mode while trying to do as much as possible. Due note, that's as much as possible because I know I can't get everything done, even on the easiest difficulty. Something about going down the deep end straight away causing loads of frustration and countless retries to figure out how you can do something sounds better.

I think I have the mindset of when you do something which provides the greatest challenge, anything less is easier to handle since you've already done more.