Lacking content?

[Snickerdoodle]

I feel like this game lacks content. I have played through the hole game and give back to see whether or not I had missed any potential quests and could not find a thing to do. I did not expect this game to be fallout but I expected it to at least have some measure of fallouts scale when it comes to questing, exploration, and encounters. The game lacks content of all kinds whether its weapons, weapon modifications, quests, enemies, and environments. The game had a good storyline, some good factions, and good npc's but content centered around all these elements was seriously limited. I hope that dlcs will help make up for the lack of content of they ever decide to come out. Even fallout 1 and especially 2, which obsidian made in the late 90s, had more content. This game's universe is great but it is severely lacking heft. 

[Ommamar]

I actually think the comparison to the first two fallout games gave people an unrealistic expectation.  TOW is a good game but it is obvious that it was made with the minimal amount of effort in the shortest time possible.  To me it definitely has a point where you can see development shifted to an we have to get this finished and shipped before this merger occurs mentality as there is one zone that was hugely developed while the rest where more of a satellite zone to add a little bit of flavor.  How the last zones and battle where designed left me feeling let down the first time I played through the last ship I literally did not engage anyone as there didn't seem to be a need to.  The next one I engaged everyone and it only added maybe 10-15 more game play so it was rushed and poorly done in my opinion.

I don't really see any motivation out of Obsidian to do any DLC we might get a TOW 2 at some point but I haven't heard anything about that either.  Nor has there been any indication there will be some kind of mod support that would extend the games life.  So it might just be one of those good games that people played through a couple times then moved on from with it being mentioned every once in awhile.

[Wormerine]

I would describe is as lack of depth, not lack of content. They went for polish and presentation, rather then breadth and dearth. Seemed to work out fine for them, though yeah: even though I enjoyed it, it is not a game I feel a need to return to.
 

10 hours ago, Ommamar said:

I don't really see any motivation out of Obsidian to do any DLC.

There is a DLC at works. Perhaps they wait for Steam release?

[Jozape]

Fallout had more content? No way. Fallout 1 was like 15, maybe 20 hours long.

[Wormerine]

2 hours ago, Jozape said:

Fallout 1 was like 15, maybe 20 hours long.

Fallout1 is very compact. First games in the series do have tendency to be either spread to thin, or small compared to other established IPs. Building engine, systems and world from the ground up does take time. 

[Ommamar]

4 hours ago, Wormerine said:

Fallout1 is very compact. First games in the series do have tendency to be either spread to thin, or small compared to other established IPs. Building engine, systems and world from the ground up does take time. 

One other factor was Fallout 1 was developed in peoples off time and wasn't authorized as a developing project until it was in basically a releasable state.  Even then Obsidian management didn't think it had much potential so wasn't given the time it needed to develop fully.  It was still a ground breaking game that did well enough to make a well developed sequel possible.

[Clawdius_Talonious]

On 3/15/2020 at 8:17 PM, Ommamar said:

TOW is a good game but it is obvious that it was made with the minimal amount of effort in the shortest time possible. 

This is insulting, and untrue. For one thing the development started in May of 2016, while New Vegas had an 18 month turn around. Secondly a great deal of effort was put into the game, just not precisely in the ways we're necessarily used to seeing from Obsidian since so much of it was directed at releasing a polished relatively bug free experience. There was also clearly a fair amount of effort put into a visceral and enjoyable combat loop.

What you're calling rushed and minimal effort is neither. It was, however, made on a budget. The team reconciled the fact that the more content and reactivity they had the more difficult it would be to bug test/fix. The content was likely reduced in the fairly early stages of development, because Obsidian didn't want to release a buggy game and has in the past had a reputation for doing so. We are not privy to contract stipulations from Private Division, but it seems rather like this was a deliberate decision from Obsidian rather than anything forced on them.

Have you heard "Fast, Right, Cheap. Pick 2." They chose right and cheap, and made it extremely clear from very early on that this was not a huge game with a AAA budget. Much of Obsidian was working on Deadfire and the DLC for that title for most of The Outer Worlds development. 

And as has been mentioned, there is confirmation that there will be DLC for The Outer Worlds. This, to me, seems to indicate that Obsidian is taking their time to expand the game with significant and likely well fleshed out content.  It wouldn't surprise me if they released a DLC pack with a sizable colony and comparable amount of content to Monarch, though that's certainly just speculation on my part. There hasn't been so much as a teaser trailer and official announcement of the DLC, which is likely a good thing given the hectic nature of things lately. Dates you haven't announced can be delayed without push back from the fans.

I didn't make it through a second run through The Outer Worlds, and I made 5 through Deadfire before the first DLC released. There wasn't really a lot I wanted to do differently, I found the third option for most major story beats and felt like I would just be rehashing the same content to the same ends more or less. I just am willing to say that there was clearly effort put into things that not everyone even sees as a plus. Things like not forcing you to execute wave after wave of robots to unlock the ship section by section on the Hope, which it sounds like you might have enjoyed and I'd have enjoyed hacking my way past all of that, so maybe I'd have had some mild amusement out of that as well.

Point being, credit where credit is due. I mean, Obsidian owns the IP for a game with millions of fans, an interesting take on a dystopian atmosphere we haven't seen the like of in gaming as far as I know, a modular nature that will allow easy access to any DLC and adding to the lore without too many questions whose answers aren't "Corporate secrecy to avoid sabotage or espionage."

I may not have enjoyed this title as much as I had hoped I would, but I'm looking forward to another jaunt in The Outer Worlds. 

[Ommamar]

It is not insulting because it is true on this very forum there is an interesting video with the two people most responsible for TOW's development.  They talk quite a bit about the cutbacks in both scope and content they had to make.  This was due a lot to team size which ties into the minimal amount of effort, it is obvious that they spent a good amount of time deciding how to do that.  Since they only had 75 people throughout the development (it sounds like a lot but that is probably a third of the size of the usual current development team) that points to the least amount of effort.  This of course doesn't refer to the individual effort as it was likely a higher rate for them to deal with as with a small team each individual handles multiple things they wouldn't on a larger team.  If you mean by development the idea for the game I would put it as occurring much sooner then that, but as for grey boxing in areas and systems it appears that started around March 2017. 

Listening to the video it seems like the cuts where more based on learning the ins and outs of the Unreal 4 engine.  As for using the trinity I get the feel they actually tried to achieve all three which as your statement points out usually doesn't work.  Simple things like an auto move button or proper text display on a multitude of platforms  seem to have gotten lost at release and still didn't get addressed until several patches later.  The graphic issues in particular could be pointed to as a major bugs as many people found it unplayable for a long time on their chosen platform. Things like that is what gave it that rushed feeling which to me points to a thought process either spoken or unspoken that we need to get this completed and shipped before this merger happens.

One thing Obsidian has done well has always been DLCs particularly if you look at the New Vegas DLCs that really lengthened that game.  I foresee a similar situation happen I am not sure there will be the same number of them but one of the comments made quite a few times in the development video is a lamentation that they had to cut this content or not develop all that they wanted to.  So there is a good chance that the DLCs (lets hope) will expand the Outer Worlds game play out to not only answer some lingering questions but bring in new ideas and areas.