Supernova Mode Should Change Quests

[tellergrim]

After seeing Noah Gervais's vid about The Outer Worlds on youtube, I agree with him: TOW base game has far too little Choice and Consequence (C&C) in its quests. To remedy this, I propose that Obsidian should add  changes to the story into the supernova difficulty option. Since Supernova is already the hardest mode, gameplay wise, it wouldn't be much of a stretch to make the story choices harder/more exclusive, and would allow fans of traditional Obsidian RPG's to enjoy the game more. The big changes I would make in this hypothetical update for Supernova would be [SPOILERS]: 

- Make it so that in "Now Comes The Power", the option to replace Reed with Adelaide as head of Edgewater is not available, meaning you have to side with either the Deserters or Spacer's Choice, not both at the same time.

- Make it so that, during "Canid's Cradle", you cannot replace Graham with Zora as head of the Iconoclasts, and thus cannot broker peace between them and the MSI. This gives you a genuine moral dilemma in choosing either to support an exploitative system with a good leader (corporatism/Najar) or a more humane system with a bad leader (Philosophism/Graham).

- Make it so that, if Reginald is killed during "The Empty Man", the hermit refuses to help Max and cannot be made to change her mind with any skill checks.

- In general, make skill checks higher.

Please reply with other ideas for making the game more C&C reactive (within the ability of the developers to implement as DLC)!

[Wormerine]

The problem is with the design, not with the difficulty.
Skill checks represent the problem well - being able to lockpick something, passing a dimplomatic check rarely opens alternative avenues. It's just a progression in the game - it is a design more in line with Bioware games - where you are to open every box, explore every dialogue, and do every quest rather then craft a character which interacts with the world in an individual way. Making lockpicking harder would bring interesting results - most of them give access to more items that you don't need.

My guess would be, it's quality over quantity approach - OW still allows for unlinear progression, but how things evolve and how players can move through enviroment and interact with enviroment is more static - less fixing needed, or worrying if players who pick less obvious skills will be able to progress. Everyskill contributes to combat, because it is a "talk, explore, kill" game, rather then role-play RPG.

Hopefully, we will see more depth in the sequel, rather then just more of it.