Opinion: DLC1&2 make Outer Worlds a worse game

[Wormerine]

Before I start I should probably explain what I thought of OW vanilla. It's a fine, tight adventure. I like the world, I like the humor. It reminds me more of early Bioware titles, then what Obsidian has been known for - while there are multiple ways of solving quests, I find morality of OW black and white. I think I would find it difficult to not go for Good endings. Why would I? My character doesn't benefit of seeing the world burn, and I don't enjoy playing psychos. As such I don't see much replayability in OW story wise.
Gameplay wise OW is shallow - adding "perks" as skills are leveled up is neat, but said perks a dull outside early ones which unlock additional systems. Leveling up (be it character or weapon) results in better stats, which is a very dull if it is the only thing that happens in an action RPG - character 1 and character 36 plays for the most part the same way. 

But none of it is a problem because Outer Worlds is shortish - If I remember well it took me about 35 hours to beat the original campaign. Midway through Monarch I was feeling disengaged, and after that there is finale and rush toward the conclusion. Overall, the game left me satisfied, but not hungry for more. Very KOTOR/Jade Empire experience. 

What DLCs do, is add a lot more Outer Worlds in this moment of me betting bored: between Monarch and the finale. Those are good, content rich DLCs, don't get me wrong. But I don't think Outer Worlds has depth needed to carry for those extra 15 hours. Peril of Gorgon is mostly combat, which at this point is a snooze fest - it's a constant loop of repetitive combat engagements, and looting things you don't need. Murder on E faires better, as it mixes all systems Outer Worlds has on offer, plus new "investigation" mechanic. Still, none manage to make gameplay interesting again, and storywise, they are seperate, very silly stories, even more one sided and over-characterised then the vanilla game (really, continuing base game after MoE feels like we are being serious again). I also felt both DLCs kept going for a bit too long. About halfway through you can tell where the whole thing is going, and you just wish the game would hurry up getting there. 

[Hawke64]

On 4/20/2021 at 2:28 PM, Wormerine said:

Before I start I should probably explain what I thought of OW vanilla. It's a fine, tight adventure. I like the world, I like the humor. It reminds me more of early Bioware titles, then what Obsidian has been known for - while there are multiple ways of solving quests, I find morality of OW black and white. I think I would find it difficult to not go for Good endings. Why would I? My character doesn't benefit of seeing the world burn, and I don't enjoy playing psychos.

One should not underestimate the appeal of power and numbers going up. So, there are, at least, Good, Best, Board, and Chaotic Murderous (must try all those cool guns) paths for the story. I think, In terms of combat gameplay, the FPS aspect encourages the ranged combat or chasing the foes with a melee weapon while getting shot at. The stealth is there, but since creating corpses gives XP to invest into skills, not killing hostile NPCs (which are already described as aggressive, be it raptidons or marauders) is hard to explain. They also interfere with looting by attacking the party, while sneaking is rather slow and it is harder to see some of the loot in stealth.

I can't say that more corpos being terrible adds anything new to the narrative (Edgewater did just that well enough), but more varied examples are fine and mostly fit the story. Though, the pacing somewhat breaks - I played the DLC shortly before the point of no-return, so it was rather odd to do freelance contracts when the Hope colonists and Welles needed saving.

(I am aware of the date of the post. I was looking for input for a story choice between a Good and the Best outcomes. An achievement said that the Best outcome was the preferred one).