The Outer Worlds: New Vegas, but it's Firefly and also Capitalism is Evil

[Balmas]

So, technically this is the second Outer Worlds thread on the forum. But, as the last post was late 2018, we need a new thread to avoid thread necromancy. Link to Thread 1 (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?575691-The-Outer-Worlds-(Obsidian-s-new-RPG)&highlight=outer+worlds).

Honestly, I'm kind of surprised that there's been no Outer Worlds thread has surfaced since the release of Obsidian's newest blockbuster RPG date five days ago. There is, after all, a not-inconsiderable number of fans of New Vegas, KOTOR, Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, and so forth. Then again, my every waking moment in the past five days has been Outer Worlds, so maybe that's not too unusual.

So! Discussions, plots, questions! This game deserves its own thread. What do you like, dislike, loathe, are ambivalent about?

Be warned; I am a rabid New Vegas fan, and my love for New Vegas has definitely affected how I feel about Outer Worlds.

I'm just going to come out and say this: I love Outer World's character creation options, and think it's one of the best I've come across. It's simple and intuitive, yet still allows for a high degree of depth, customization, and variety.

I especially like how they've handled the skill system. You have seven major categories for skills, each with two or three subdivisions. When you put a point into a category, it will level up all the skills in that category up to a maximum of 50, at which point you need to put skill points directly into those subdivisions. This means that early game, it's easy to spread your skill points out into a good build, and it's hard to go wrong. In addition, having different bonuses associated with your level of skill--eg, unlocking selling items to vending machines at Hack 20--means that you actually have a good reason to pursue those skills besides just the incidental benefits.

With that said, I do have some minor nitpicks and issues with the skills, but those are mostly just to taste. Namely: Ranged weapons are skewed heavily in favor of Long Guns. In addition to being perhaps the most versatile category--encompassing shotguns, assault rifles, plasma carbines/rifles, and sniper rifles--Long Guns also have a higher critical hit rate and crit damage than either Heavy weapons or handguns. Pair that with the number of perks that are triggered by crtiical hits, and you start to see why Long Guns stands head-and-shoulders above other ranged weapons.
Engineering and Science have a weird relationship when it comes to the perks you can earn from high levels of skill. Science gives you perks towards plasma, shock, N-rays, science weapons, all those fun mad scientist tools. Engineering, on the other hand, is about your ability to repair and break down things, with perks that give bonuses when fixing weapons. I find it odd, then, that Tinkering--that is to say, the ability to spend money at a workbench to upgrade your weapons--is locked behind Science. It strikes me that that kind of weapon upgrade would, you know, fall under the skill that encompasses building better weapons. If it were me, I'd want to compress some of the perks in Engineering so you can fit in the tinkering perks under that tree, and then figure out some new Sciencey benefits for the Science tree.

That brings us to the perks. …Hooboy, the perks. I have.. Well, I'm just gonna come out and say it, these perks suck. They're boring and lifeless, with basically no personality behind them, and with a strange sense of balance to them. For instance, you have the S-rank perks like doubling armor skill bonuses and having every shot after you kill someone being a critical… and then you have, in the same tier, things like -15% damage from splash damage or +100KG carry weight. You can put together a build, certainly, and I appreciate that there are options for both players with and without companions, but it still feels kind of lackluster.


My goodness, but this is a bleak game. So were the original Fallouts, admittedly, but the bleakness of this game is made all the worse because of its source.
See, the world of Fallout is an apocalypse brought about by bombs. With no one living on whom to finger the blame for the end of the world, the game is free to move on, to determine what societies grow out of the Apocalypse, and what happens when they meet.

By comparison, the Outer Worlds is a world ruled by a series of megacorporations. And hooboy, does Obsidian not hold back anything at all when they delve into the satire of capitalism. "Capitalism is evil," they shout from the rooftops, "and if you don't believe that big-business, laissez-faire, deregulated, monopolistic commerce isn't a bad idea, wait until you see the first area of the game."

Here, have an entire town that's under the monopolistic thumb of Spacer's Choice; the land, factory, power, supplies, and even the people are all owned by the company.
Everything is dilapidated, falling to pieces because it's more profitable for the corporation to let things fall apart than it is to make it a success.
Here, have a message from the Board telling a factory manager that yes, he's running the only profitable operation in town, and the Board has considered how to make it more profitable, and they've decided to take out a hefty insurance policy on the factory. Don't worry, this is standard corporate policy. Standard corporate policy also forbids him from even thinking about whether there might be an ulterior motive to this, and on an incidental note, they're also replacing half of the factory staff with killer robots. (And, incidentally, on another terminal in the same factory, have a secretary reporting gunfire, the robots are going haywire, they're panicked out of their mind, but are still brainwashed enough to ask that the corporation deduct their pay for being absent from their post.)
This is a town where suicide is considered "irreparable damage to company property," and something which means that the entire town has to pay the body price of anything that person might have created in the rest of their life.
This is a town where people routinely die and everyone whispers about the plague that's going through town, because the corporations have decided to reserve medicine only to the most profitable and hardest-working serfs around, as it's better for their bottom line to just let people die than it is for them to keep their people alive. Oh, and plague is viewed as a moral failing--work strengthens the spirit, the church claims, and vice versa, so if you're sick, it's entirely your own fault for not working hard enough before.
Here is a town where a guard whose life you just saved frets that you aren't a Spacer's Choice approved medic, and he'll have his salary docked because of it.
Here, have the central religion of the Board-approved towns--it's basically determinism, and the entire point is that people should stay where they're put, and be happy doing the work they've been assigned.
Here is a town where the central conflict revolves around whether it's better to doom an entire town full of innocent corporate slaves to slow starvation so that free deserters can survive, or whether that fledgeling town of free deserters should be forced back to their corporate drudgery so the town as a whole doesn't lose what little corporate support they receive.

Actually, that question pops up a lot over the course of the game--what is the best way to interact with a corporation that holds nearly all of the cards? If you don't give them what they want, the best case is they cut off your food and medicine, and the worst case is they storm in with their armada of Defensive League warships. The independent station Groundbreaker does its best to keep the Board at arms length, but recognizes that if they become too unprofitable a port of call, the Board can fly in their own first-in-last-out port and put the Groundbreaker out of business. Sanjar, of Monarch Space Industries, has decided that the best way to interact with the Board is to join them, and at least have a say in how things are run. The Iconoclasts have decided to withdraw entirely, and just form their own little commune in the hills. You meet characters that are pirates, not out of necessity, but because they feel like they need, in some small way, to strike back at the Board while knowing they can never truly hurt them.

That, I feel, is the main reason this game feels so bloody bleak. In the Fallout series, the apocalypse happened a hundred years before you were born; it's over, done with, and all you can do is live with the consequences and try to rebuild. In the Outer Worlds, though, it's an ongoing apocalypse, caused by human greed. And somehow, you feel just as powerless to stop it. It feels like fighting and winning a series of small battles, but knowing that in the end, you're going to lose the war.

Keep in mind, I'm only about 25 hours into the game, so I'm not fully informed on the rest of the game. Still, that's 25 hours without real hope of effecting meaningful change, which is a bit of a drain on the spirits.

So, let's talk about how the game actually plays.

I like the gunplay in this game. It's not quite to the level of visceral, quasi-orgasmic satisfaction you'd get from Doom or Borderlands, but it's still quite good. Certainly better than anything a Fallout game in the past decade has provided.

The addition of Tactical Time Dilation is what VATS should have been. It's fluid, natural, and certainly more fun than letting the game roll dice on your behalf.

You know what I didn't expect to find in my Totally-Not-Fallout? Is an actually decent little stealth minigame. If you really wanted to, you could Dishonored your way around the map, sticking to the long grass and only engaging as needed.

I will admit, though, that most of the satisfaction of stealthing around is ruined because the game's detection AI is so piss-poor awful. If they're not looking directly at you and you're not within thirty-ish feet, they're never going to notice you. Even after you start shooting, it generally takes two or three shots for them to figure out, "oh hey, there's a douchebag over there with a sniper rifle, let's go get them."

Stealth in a city is even more laughable. The NPCs have the same stealth detection problem. If they're not looking directly at you, they won't notice anything. And even if they notice, you can usually get out of jail free with a very easy speech check. I remember one time on the Groundbreaker, I saw a weapons vendor had a shelf of displayed weapons. I walked up, in broad daylight, stole everything, passed a speech check, and then sold back the weapons to the same vendor. That right there is some Grade A Bethesda-Dumb AI.

That does bring us to an unfortunate truth of the game, which is that looting in this game is largely pointless. Most of the weapons are vendor-trash, and most of the loot to be found in containers is either six dozen carbon copies of the same five medical items, literal vendor-trash--as in, in the shop menu there's an entire tab that's just labeled "Junk," with a "sell all junk" button--and ammo that you'll never run out of. There are some rare exceptions to this rule, but at this point I've almost stopped looting entirely. I do it habitually, but don't go out of my way to find things. Kind of makes me sad, really.

Then again, this is not, and never has been, a looter shooter. Having an adequate loot system is good enough, so long as the writing is good enough. And I'm glad to say, it's fantastic. (With some rare exceptions, Felix.) Definitely worth both the wait and the money I paid. So long as the writing is good, I can forgive a myriad of small gameplay sins, and this is exactly that.

Definitely looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

[Rodin]

Don't have a bunch of time right now to do a full reply (and I may wait for a merging of threads since I have a couple of extensive posts in the Fallout thread already), but there is one thing I'd like to agree with: the Stealth detection.

This is all kinds of janky. I've had enemies notice me from a mile away and I don't understand why. I've also had a very loud firefight on the ground floor of an area, then walk up some stairs (all of this is open and outdoors with clear lines of sight) and there's a dude stood there oblivious to the fact that I just RAN up behind him. And I'm not a stealth build either - my stealth is in the 30s-40s and I'm wearing heavy armor. This guy managed to ignore me, my companions, and a couple of NPCs having an all out firefight with a mech that was jumping around with a jetpack.

In terms of game progress, I'm currently about halfway through Monarch.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

While yes, in the early game, you're mostly looting junk, ammo, chems (although the stimpacks are useful if you are on a higher difficulty), weapons you'll either sell or break down, and weapon/armor components... later on you also start looting weapon/armor mods. Which, since once you add a mod to gear you can never get it back... is actually quite handy and, other than the odd 'unique' or 'named' piece of gear or that upgrade I was hoping for that the shop didn't have, is probably the most valuable from a player perspective.

I cannot gush enough about the social interaction in this game. Like, seriously. It was theoretically possible to do a Pacifist Run in New Vegas... it is probably also theoretically possible to do so here, to resolve all conflicts... if not strictly diplomatically, then at least through judicious use of bribery, extortion, and other means of non-diplomatic persuasion.

And the biggest thing... your character's choices and actions have meaningful consequences. You comment about where you came from, people start talking about 'some nut talking about [where you came from]'. You walk up in Marauder armor, people act like you're a marauder and mostly respond with fear or apprehension. You show up in Company gear in a non-company location, people are gonna NOT talk to you about non-company options because they assume you work for the Company. As in dialogue options aren't going to be available in certain gear that would be available otherwise.

If you make a decision about who to support, x or y, on a given decision. That decision is going to have long-term consequences for the rest of the game. Entire cities or regions could change faction control, which has lasting game consequences, and WILL color your interactions with interested parties later on down the line.

[Squark]

I downloaded the game last night when I resubscribed to gamepass. Only got maybe 20-30 min of playtime in, but what I've tried so far seems promising. I do have to echo that this is not a looter shooter, though. I also found the initial enemies a little bullet sponge-y, but that might be because I've mostly been playing Destiny 2 and Warframe of late, so I'm used to a headshot being a 1-2 shot kill. The staus effects from TTD are interesting, though.

It might also help to be using something more impressive than the basic pistol, but like I said, I didn't play for long, and I tend to play slowly through these things.

[factotum]

that might be because I've mostly been playing Destiny 2 and Warframe of late, so I'm used to a headshot being a 1-2 shot kill. The staus effects from TTD are interesting, though.

It might also help to be using something more impressive than the basic pistol, but like I said, I didn't play for long, and I tend to play slowly through these things.

Yeah, your main issue there is the pistol. If you want one headshot to actually kill an enemy you need a decent amount of damage--and note that's damage per SHOT you're looking for, not damage per second. IIRC the basic pistol is listed as 100DPS, but its fairly fast rate of fire and quick reload means the actual damager per *shot* is only 20--that isn't going to one-hit anything even on a stealth crit.

Get yourself something like a hunting rifle, whose damage per shot is 66 and with generally higher crit damage, and it's totally possible to one-hit an enemy with a headshot.

[JadedDM]

I picked it up yesterday (the very last copy at my local Gamestop) and I'm loving it so far. But I am not very deep in; just hit level 3 last night before bed. Hoping to get a little further in tonight. I'm doing my standard Fallout build, mostly pistols, science and diplomacy.

[Spore]

So far I feel OW is a decent space western but I feel the writing is ... off? Am I the only one that sees the obvious direction the writers want to push the player?

Once I've accepted that "sub average" intelligence does not mean caveman speak, I am really coming to terms with my dumb brute. A major problem imho is the quite obvious choice that the writers made when they wrote the deserters vs. spacer's choice conflict.

In a direct comparison to New Vegas and the conflict between the Legion (evil slavers who have a point because technology doomed the planet to an apocalypse) and NRC (goody twoshoes guys who are actually more totalitarian than they'd admit), the conflict as written just falls flat. Sure, Emerald Vale has its fair share of company driven problems, but there are upsides to being securely equipped by an offworld trading corporation. It's just these qualities are hidden in speech checks and not immediately obvious. Similarily the deserters are not perfectly good. Their leader just wants revenge and uses it on the backs of the people but immediately obvious is just "deserters good, company evil".

I don't even know Balmas' (spoilered) factoids yet but it feels like the narrator made the choice for you. And this in a game where player choice should matter is incredibly irritating to me. Compare it to another guided choice in a game made by a company who Obsidian threw incredible shade on. Skyrim's civil war. Or more specific the first choice of going with the rebel or the Imperial. It seems obvious to go with the guy that rebels against the system that wanted you killed for crossing the border. But through subtle hints it is shown that maybe imperial power is better for Skyrim than an uprising against the oppressors because it equips the empire better to resist the Thalmor. It is a similar situation but see that the narrator does not "guide" your choice more than through the prologue.

[Rynjin]

I like the Spacer's Choice vs Deserters dilemma quite a lot, particularly given all the hidden information you can dig up about both sides, and that there's actually a THIRD option you can choose, you just have to work for it.

You can re-route power to Edgewater...but force Reed Tobson out and install Adelaide as the new leader of the community.

[JadedDM]

Something I was curious about and haven't tried out myself--someone earlier mentioned that NPCs react to what you are wearing. Do enemies? If I dress as a Marauder, will other Marauders leave me alone, or are they hostile no matter what?

[Rodin]

Something I was curious about and haven't tried out myself--someone earlier mentioned that NPCs react to what you are wearing. Do enemies? If I dress as a Marauder, will other Marauders leave me alone, or are they hostile no matter what?

Marauders are hostile no matter what, as far as I can tell. I wore Marauder gear for a while early in the game until I got better stuff and didn't notice any combat effects.

I did get a really cool Reputation effect though. A guard started to angrily snap at me, and then recognized who I was. A dialogue choice later (not a Speech check, just a choice) and he agreed to stand his men down and let me handle it because I'm so reliable.


So far I feel OW is a decent space western but I feel the writing is ... off? Am I the only one that sees the obvious direction the writers want to push the player?

Once I've accepted that "sub average" intelligence does not mean caveman speak, I am really coming to terms with my dumb brute. A major problem imho is the quite obvious choice that the writers made when they wrote the deserters vs. spacer's choice conflict.

In a direct comparison to New Vegas and the conflict between the Legion (evil slavers who have a point because technology doomed the planet to an apocalypse) and NRC (goody twoshoes guys who are actually more totalitarian than they'd admit), the conflict as written just falls flat. Sure, Emerald Vale has its fair share of company driven problems, but there are upsides to being securely equipped by an offworld trading corporation. It's just these qualities are hidden in speech checks and not immediately obvious. Similarily the deserters are not perfectly good. Their leader just wants revenge and uses it on the backs of the people but immediately obvious is just "deserters good, company evil".

I don't even know Balmas' (spoilered) factoids yet but it feels like the narrator made the choice for you. And this in a game where player choice should matter is incredibly irritating to me. Compare it to another guided choice in a game made by a company who Obsidian threw incredible shade on. Skyrim's civil war. Or more specific the first choice of going with the rebel or the Imperial. It seems obvious to go with the guy that rebels against the system that wanted you killed for crossing the border. But through subtle hints it is shown that maybe imperial power is better for Skyrim than an uprising against the oppressors because it equips the empire better to resist the Thalmor. It is a similar situation but see that the narrator does not "guide" your choice more than through the prologue.

The Emerald Vale choice is more about quantity vs quality. The company is evil, but the people working for it at the lower levels are not. As such, both sides have their merits.

The Deserters are proposing the better way of life. Live off the land, and cut ties from the corporation that is literally killing their own workers in order to get a profit.

The Company provides security. It provides jobs for the people, homes for them to live in, and protection from the Marauders. What's more, the Deserters simply aren't equipped to take in that many people.

So: Do you support the better way of life of the Deserters, knowing that it will harm the much larger population of the town? On one side, you're condemning the Deserters to a life of slavery by forcing them to move back. On the other side, you're effectively murdering a reasonable chunk of the town when they are forced to venture outside the walls and cannot be supported by the Deserters. But the ones who do survive will ultimately have a better life.

I liked the choice, especially since the leader was pointed out to not be as holy as she claims. It wasn't an easy decision, and I'm still not sure I made the right one. I've really been digging the story on Monarch as well.



On enemies being bullet spongey: Wait until you get a proper sniper rifle, that's all I can say. With the Perk that gives bonus to VATS TTD time from a kill, I can wipe out an entire Marauder camp while time is stopped. I've also killed a Mantiqueen before it could get an attack off - took about 5-6 shots. And that's without using a Plasma weapon.

It's possible that I'm just overleveled for Monarch, but right now the combat is super easy. Even the monsters die in a couple shots and it's rare for my companions to be able to contribute.

[Balmas]

You can re-route power to Edgewater...but force Reed Tobson out and install Adelaide as the new leader of the community.

That is legit a fascinating third option, and now there's a part of me wants to start a new playthrough just to see how that turns out.


Marauders are hostile no matter what, as far as I can tell. I wore Marauder gear for a while early in the game until I got better stuff and didn't notice any combat effects.

I actually think that the marauders are one of the weakest elements in the Outer Worlds.
One of the major quests in Emerale Vale sends you bounty hunting for marauders, and it's revealed that each of the major bounties you're going after used to be members of Edgewater. They're former workers who stole medicine, or deserted, or what have you. In each case, these are human people who are just trying to make the best.

And yet, none of that carries over to how marauders act. They're nameless, faceless mooks that you mow down by the dozen. I've only found one so far who was willing to talk, and that only because she was an ascended bandit fangirl who envisioned herself as one of her serial stars, bringing commerce to the wilds. For most marauders, there's no quest, no logic, just "marauders have taken over this location and are now living there, and are psychotic nuisances." It just feels like a bit of a weak element to the game--even the always-hostile enemies in New Vegas had human elements and were able to be reasoned or bargained with.


So: Do you support the better way of life of the Deserters, knowing that it will harm the much larger population of the town? On one side, you're condemning the Deserters to a life of slavery by forcing them to move back. On the other side, you're effectively murdering a reasonable chunk of the town when they are forced to venture outside the walls and cannot be supported by the Deserters. But the ones who do survive will ultimately have a better life.

I'd argue that the situation in the Emerald Vale is less well-balanced than this makes it sound, and even siding with Reed is no guarantee that Edgewater is going to survive any more than if you support the Deserters. If you look at the areas around Edgewater, you'll see that it's been in decline for probably a lot longer than there have been deserters. All the marauders around town are living in areas that used to be part of a prosperous settlement; they're living in former community centers, in industrial sites, in these prefab housing units that bear all the hallmarks of corporate life. And now, as a result of corporate mismanagement, the people huddle in Edgewater, a shadow of their former selves, massed together in the single place that has walls, all because Spacer's Choice couldn't be arsed to take care of their people. I'd argue that Edgewater is doomed no matter what you do, and diverting power to Edgewater only slightly delays the inevitable.

[boj0]

I had the exact opposite problem, I took that whole "If you skip Groundbreaker straight for Monarch, you'll get your face ripped off" as more of a challenge than a warning, and much like running straight to Vegas from Goodsprings you realize it was an ernest warning.

I was 9-10 levels below some of the critters there and I *felt* it, just about everything at the landing pad was able to 3-tap me in heavy armor and my guns were burning ammo while doing minimal damage, after a few tries against the mantisaurian queens, I realized that was just the tip of the iceberg. What happened next was about an hour IRL of me slowly creeping around and making a mad dash through a marauder camp before I saw a MEGA Mantisaur Queen and just ran as fast as I could until I hit civilization.

Long story short, this game is awesome

[factotum]

I had the exact opposite problem, I took that whole "If you skip Groundbreaker straight for Monarch, you'll get your face ripped off" as more of a challenge than a warning, and much like running straight to Vegas from Goodsprings you realize it was an ernest warning.

You're missing out on a lot of quests if you skip Groundbreaker too. I just got to the remote landing pad on Monarch and I didn't have much problem getting there, but being level 18 will do that!

Overall, I agree with the main criticism, which is that Marauders are both not very exciting from a story point of view and pretty dull from a combat standpoint. If I find a camp with only three or four marauders in it they might as well save time and blow their own heads off, because it won't take me long to do it for them!

[Rodin]

On the positive side, I just came across something I've been wanting from Fallout/Bioware style games for years.

A dialogue negotiation that doesn't rely on Speech checks! Negotiating a settlement between the Iconoclasts and MSI requires actually reading the dialogue options, deciding the best tone to take, and actually mediating between the two parties! I think there was one Persuade check in the whole thing, and it wasn't the final one.

It's amazing what a difference meaningful dialogue choices can make. The whole negotiation was pretty tense because I wasn't relying on stat checks or reputation score or Paragon/Renegade stat checks. I could have screwed up the negotiation very easily if I pressured one of the parties too hard.

Very, very cool. Favorite moment of the game thus far, and one I could have easily missed by just handing over the targeting array when asked.

[GloatingSwine]

Marauders are hostile no matter what, as far as I can tell. I wore Marauder gear for a while early in the game until I got better stuff and didn't notice any combat effects.

There's no combat effects, but people might have a different piece of intro dialogue for you if you're wearing it.


(And yeah, random bandits are always the worst part of any RPG, but people would complain if there wasn't a low tier introductory human enemy to ventilate)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

A major problem imho is the quite obvious choice that the writers made when they wrote the deserters vs. spacer's choice conflict.

In a direct comparison to New Vegas and the conflict between the Legion (evil slavers who have a point because technology doomed the planet to an apocalypse) and NRC (goody twoshoes guys who are actually more totalitarian than they'd admit), the conflict as written just falls flat. Sure, Emerald Vale has its fair share of company driven problems, but there are upsides to being securely equipped by an offworld trading corporation. It's just these qualities are hidden in speech checks and not immediately obvious. Similarily the deserters are not perfectly good. Their leader just wants revenge and uses it on the backs of the people but immediately obvious is just "deserters good, company evil".

I don't even know Balmas' (spoilered) factoids yet but it feels like the narrator made the choice for you. And this in a game where player choice should matter is incredibly irritating to me. Compare it to another guided choice in a game made by a company who Obsidian threw incredible shade on. Skyrim's civil war. Or more specific the first choice of going with the rebel or the Imperial. It seems obvious to go with the guy that rebels against the system that wanted you killed for crossing the border. But through subtle hints it is shown that maybe imperial power is better for Skyrim than an uprising against the oppressors because it equips the empire better to resist the Thalmor. It is a similar situation but see that the narrator does not "guide" your choice more than through the prologue.

I would very firmly disagree.

The Legion are the Obviously Irredeemable Evil faction in New Vegas. Some people try to point out that it is relatively peaceful in Legion territory because breaking the law means getting literally crucified, but the game very heavily-handedly tells you 'if you even think of grouping with these psychos, you're wrong', even as it says 'but it is okay to be wrong if you want'. Just look at the number of Legion specific quests vs the number of NCR specific quests, the totals alone should tell you which the devs expected you to take. From your very first personal experience in Nipton on forward, there is NOTHING redeemable about the Legion. Period.

The NCR, meanwhile, are also aggressively expanding into the area, but at least claim to have already had a toehold in the region. Yes, they aren't exactly the model of representation, and they do a lot of shady ****. So there's a big open question about how much better off the Mojave would actually BE under NCR control, because at the moment... they ain't doing so good a job. They claim to be helping the area, but you never actually see where that is the case. About their strongest argument is 'we are better than the Legion'.

Spacer's Choice isn't that bad. It's bad, sure, but it is also the one who funded this whole thing. And, more importantly, it is the current Status Quo. Legion are the invaders, they are literally conquering their way across the western US, at least as far east as Denver. So in this perspective, Spacer's Choice is far more like the NCR than the Legion. They are already here, have already been established. I would like to say that Edgewater is probably what the Mojave would've been after a few decades of NCR occupation... with an ever shrinking population, little pockets of habitation going vacant and eventually claimed by Raiders/Marauders, and disease and starvation everywhere.

The Deserters, on the other hand, aren't really a whole lot better. I mean, sure, the leader understands the basic concepts of fertilization and crop rotation to actually grow enough food of enough different sorts to prevent malnutrition. However... she's not all roses and sunshine either. Remember what the key ingredient in her fertilizer is? What happens when they start running low... and how easy it would be to make the sliding moral choice of 'the needs of the group over the needs of the one'. Furthermore, and I'd really like to drive this home because people seem to be dismissing it... they signed a contract, on Earth, before they ever set foot here. In exchange for transportation out to the colonies, they agreed to what is effectively an indentured servitude contract. Okay, it may be a bum deal, but nobody forced them to sign that contract, they did it of their own free will. Are you really going to give them a free pass on that just because 'lol evil corporation'? Also, there's absolutely no evidence that her results will be able to be duplicated on the macro scale. Her projected figures were based on a very small group of isolated individuals who were residing at a botanical center. Sure, she can keep her own people going, but that's about it, and that's not a whole lot of people.

And really, that was just the Corporate's plan anyway, drop the population down to something that can live on their existing resources. So in the end, she's no better off than them, except she's not going to try to Cryo-sleep everyone, she's just going to let the Corporation kill everyone off from starvation.

So no... this isn't an NCR/Legion situation. It's more of an NCR/Followers of the Apocalypse situation. And in the Independent ending, the Followers weren't able to keep up with demand. And I doubt the Deserters would either.

Obviously, the Corporation is the mustache-twirling evil of the piece. But there's a lot more nuance to it once you start digging in. And hey, that's a good thing in my opinion. I don't want lore and background casually jammed in my face like a telemarketer's call. I want to be part detective and actually dig into the situation, and find out the real deal going on. I find that to be orders of magnitude more immersive and realistic than anything New Vegas managed.

The situation here is far more questionable a choice than in the Mojave. In the Mojave, literally any choice is better than Legion. Just check the stats on how many people actually have the achievement for the Legion ending. But here, you have a much more balanced choice of 'lousy' vs 'lousy'. The Deserters are more into personal freedom... at least for now. The Corporation is willing to let the whole place collapse for the sake of their bottom line, but honestly the Deserters care only about themselves. Anyone who follows the Corporate line? Screw 'em. Plenty of Deserters left friends and family to go join up. So they aren't any less greedy or selfish, they're just doing it on a smaller scale.

That's my take on it, at least. Sure, the Corporation is bad, but think for a moment... are the Deserters really any better? Really? I mean, yea, they're 'stickin' it to the MAN', but is their long-term goals any more viable? Oh wait, they don't even HAVE any long-term plans beyond 'don't starve this week'. Yea, that's gonna turn out just great for the colony, isn't it? But hey, for some people, 'tis better to rule in hell than serve in... well, let's be honest here... also hell. Which makes it a relatively balanced choice and a much more interesting decision.

[Squark]

The edgewater colonists are the grandchildren and great grandchildren of the original colonists (With a few elders being 1st generation natives or having come over as children). Indentured servitude in exchange for transport to a colony... at least has historical precedent. If the original colonist's grand children are still "indentured," that's crossing into full blown chattel slavery.

That being said, I agree that simply choosing one side is a lose-lose situation. Without a new food supply, edgewater is doomed, but there's no way the outcast settlement can support all of Edgewater's population, either. Not to mention a lot of the edgewater workers are too brainwashed to integrate into the Outcast's society. The two compromise solutions are the best of a bad lot. Which you think is better depends on your opinion of Adelaide.

[Spore]

For some reason the simple task of powering up the Unreliable made me so much more happy with the game. I never saw Firefly but even if planets are just Planetvilles (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Planetville), having a spaceship certainly added the space in space opera.

Plus I have very pleasant flashbacks to getting the Ebonhawk in Kotor the first time. Plus the crew cabins are adorable. I love Parvati and will cherish her with my entire being. I never crushed on a virtual companion but this time might be different. Which is weird because I don't "do" girls normally.

[Rynjin]

That's okay, Parvati can "do" them for you.

[GloatingSwine]

That's okay, Parvati can "do" them for you.

Or rather not do, because Parvati is romantically interested but asexual.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Or rather not do, because Parvati is romantically interested but asexual.

And the part I love about it is that they neither make a big deal about it nor make it some weird or taboo thing. It neither goes 'hey, look how progressive we are that we have lesbians in our game!', nor 'Oh, and here's the token lesbian to make sure that people don't complain about us not being diverse or something'. It's just a cute relationship that just so happens to develop between two female characters, and is treated just like any other romantic subplot. And the fact that Parvati is Ace only doubles down on that. They could've made a big deal about catering to non-binary sexual identities... and they didn't. Which, to me, makes it an even more powerful statement.

It's like old-school Metroid (prior to Other-M). Samus could've been a chick or a dude, and it would've had zero impact on the game as a result. No one went 'ewww, you're just a girl' for the expressed purpose of being proved wrong (*cough* Horizon: Zero Dawn *cough*), no one made a big deal out of it. You probably didn't realize it until later in the franchise, since her gender wasn't revealed unless you could beat it fast enough, which very few people did. I liked that, because it spoke to a time and era in which gender truly didn't matter. You could be a chick, and a badass merc, and that wasn't even a thing to comment on anymore.

[Psyren]

I'm interested - after all it's Obsidian, and Jim Sterling was raving about it, so good enough for me.

Are there any supernatural or sufficiently-advanced-technology elements? Or is it purely guns and grit? That's one of the things that kept me lukewarm towards Fallout.

[factotum]

I've not encountered anything supernatural so far, but I'm only at Monarch and going to stay there for a little while because I'm away from home and my gaming PC right now. Even the religion in the game is a science-based one, based on the idea of determinism. Mind you, most times anything supernatural popped up in Fallout it was usually part of a joke or call-out anyway--was there something specific that soured you on the whole idea?

[Rodin]

There's also no sentient aliens, super-mutants, or anything like that. The universe is literally "Firefly, but with Evil Corporations instead of Evil Government". The only difference is alien wildlife, and they're really just there to give you something to shoot at.

I recently had a Wash "You live on a spaceship dear" moment of skepticism when a character suggested an alien conspiracy. It's always possible they're right, but at the moment I'm leaning towards crazy.

Closest thing I've seen to a supernatural element is a shared hallucination, but that happened after getting high as hell on peyote.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The only things remotely close to 'sufficiently advanced technology' would be the !Science! weapons. A very small collection of unique weapons which have unique effects which can be quite bizarre but not particularly immersion-breaking. Mostly useful for applying unique status effects. Such as the shrink ray which, in addition to the obvious physical effect, provides a hefty debuff to melee damage and a sizable increase in damage taken. Another has a temporary (two to three second) anti-gravity area effect, which can disrupt enemy actions long enough to regroup or just burst down said enemy.

In lore, these are unique devices, either created by some genius gone 'round the bend (such as the fellow who successfully thawed you out) or as a prototype which was rejected, or somesuch similar thing.

[solidork]

So far the only thing I was disappointed about was that I couldn't say to Adelaide "Spacer's Choice butchered every single person at the geothermal plant just to get an insurance payout. Even if your plan works and everyone abandons Edgewater to come live with you, do you really think Spacer's Choice is going to just let that slide?"

Also, I want to know if there is any funny dialogue if you give yourself the same name as old captain of the unreliable.

[Psyren]

The only things remotely close to 'sufficiently advanced technology' would be the !Science! weapons. A very small collection of unique weapons which have unique effects which can be quite bizarre but not particularly immersion-breaking. Mostly useful for applying unique status effects. Such as the shrink ray which, in addition to the obvious physical effect, provides a hefty debuff to melee damage and a sizable increase in damage taken. Another has a temporary (two to three second) anti-gravity area effect, which can disrupt enemy actions long enough to regroup or just burst down said enemy.

In lore, these are unique devices, either created by some genius gone 'round the bend (such as the fellow who successfully thawed you out) or as a prototype which was rejected, or somesuch similar thing.

Hmph... those are better than just bullets and rockets, but I'm a little disappointed nonetheless.


There's also no sentient aliens, super-mutants, or anything like that. The universe is literally "Firefly, but with Evil Corporations instead of Evil Government".

Firefly had some supernatural elements though - River Tam notably had some degree of paranormal or psychic ability that never got fully explored (in the show anyway, no idea about the EU), and Inara may have been a bit of an empath.

[Rodin]

Firefly had some supernatural elements though - River Tam notably had some degree of paranormal or psychic ability that never got fully explored (in the show anyway, no idea about the EU), and Inara may have been a bit of an empath.

I don't consider either to be really supernatural. Yes, they are things that do not exist in the real world, but neither does FTL travel or a host of other Sci-fi technologies we take for granted. Telepathy and empathy are both things that can be explained via enhanced brainpower - either naturally (Betazoids, Treecats, and other psychic aliens) or via super-science tinkering (River, Babylon 5 telepaths, etc).

A supernatural element for me would be something like Babylon 5's prophetic dreams, or ghosts (Babylon 5 again with Day of the Dead), or even bringing outright magic into the universe (Star Wars with The Force).

It just depends on how much technobabble you're willing to accept. When you get right down to it, telepathy is probably more believable than a handheld energy weapon that can reduce someone to a little pile of ash.

[Calemyr]

I'm interested - after all it's Obsidian, and Jim Sterling was raving about it, so good enough for me.

Are there any supernatural or sufficiently-advanced-technology elements? Or is it purely guns and grit? That's one of the things that kept me lukewarm towards Fallout.

It's a really good game, but you need to keep your expectations in check - it ain't big.

Here's how it is: Ten mega-corporations pooled their resources bought a solar system they thought might be profitable and sent a pair of colony ships that way, the Groundbreaker and the Hope. Groundbreaker made it and set to work on colonizing the system. Hope never made it. You were on the Hope.

You weren't anyone special, just a junior something or other. (The game lets you pick from a bunch of origins with witty descriptions, very petty bonuses, and absolutely no clout.) You've spent 70 years as an icicle when a mad scientist finds the ship, steals your pod, revives you, and then drops you on a planet in the hopes that you can collect the chemicals he needs to resurrect more colonists next time he raids the Hope. After that, it's all on you.

Halcyon has no magic, no sentient aliens - really nothing sentient but humans (and it's arguable even with most of them). Robots exist but they are not sentient, and the AI of your ship will argue you for hours that she isn't, either. You have a special time dilation ability from being on ice for 70 years (when 10 years is considered the medically agreed on maximum), that's basically described as flight-or-flight set on overdrive due to brain damage. Weapons are standard shooter fare but come in the elemental varieties of plasma (fire), corrosive, shock, and "N-Ray" radiation, all of which have strengths and weaknesses against various types of enemies. A few weapons with unique properties exist, such as a shrink ray and a mind control ray, but these are treated as exotic "science" weapons. There are only five of them in the game, they are not exceptionally powerful unless you build your character explicitly to exploit them, and they're more fun than awesome in general.

The game has a good deal of humor, but not really that many jokes. Most of the humor is derived from the satirical setting of hyper-capitalism taken to its logical extreme. The companies own pretty much everything, their workers are considered property, and all legal music is just jingles for the brands. The brands tend to have very specific identities, such as Spacer's Choice (a generic brand that proudly proclaims that the quality of their goods is low but then so is their prices) or Auntie Cleo's (a pharmaceuticals brand that plays the guilt-tripping matriarch trope better than anything since Mom from Futurama). The companies range from comically inept, chillingly competent, and ineffectually reasonable.

As I said at the beginning, the game isn't big by most standards - the gameplay ranges from 15 hours main plot to 40 or 50 with a completionist's zeal. There are six companions that you can recruit to your ship, and you can take two out on missions, and only two of them require anything resembling effort to recruit. But where the game is lacking in length, it makes up for it in breadth. A good number of the problems you face have a variety of solutions and they're not simply black & white morality. My only complaint here is that there's too often an "optimal" ending if you work hard enough and everyone walks away happy. Well most everyone, anyway. This isn't always the case, but it does kick the legs out from under moral quandries once in a while.

There is a respec system, but it only refunds perks and skills, not your character creation choices. This includes your initial attributes. Attributes don't dictate what you can and can't do (you don't need high intelligence to be a science weapon god, I mean, at all), but they do impact things (strength and melee are the most connected, because strength boosts melee damage and damage boosts are hellishly difficult to get). It means that there's plenty of incentive to try running the game again, with a different build, and the game is short enough that this isn't a complete chore.

The gameplay is simplistic, but fun. You basically have your weapons (melee and firearms), a limited time-slow ability (works kinda like VATS from Fallout really should have in the first place), and a "medical inhaler" for healing. The medicine for the inhaler is common enough to be a negligible concern, with consumables you can equip on it to add extra buffs. Ammunition is a scary concern for maybe the first half hour but quickly becomes forgettable as you amass ammo around every corner. Durability is a large concern in the game, as your gear wears out pretty quickly and effectiveness can start to drop as early as 60%. Fortunately, you can dismantle crap gear for spare parts and the game drowns you in the stuff, so it's not big deal.

The skill system is pretty interesting. All skills are grouped into sets of two or three. Until you have 50 points in a skill, you can put a point into the group and everything goes up by one, after which point you have to upgrade each skill individually. Every twenty points invested gives you a bonus, which can vary wildly in their value. Some of the best include the ability to pick easy locks for free, the ability to pick pockets, or the ability to dismantle and repair gear on the fly.

Companions are a highlight of the game. They are companions in the the most lightweight way possible: they don't screw with your stealth, they make few moral demands on you (save for the big stuff - nuking a town will probably make most of 'em mad at you, but even the nicest of them has no problem robbing a town blind), they require little-to-no handholding, and they don't block you (you can walk right through them when they're between you and the door). Unless you play on Supernova difficulty, they just get up after a fight if they are defeated, and they're typically very effective if you keep them properly armed, which is quite easy to do. They'll talk with you and each other often enough to stay involved without getting too grating, and their personal quests are interesting and impactful without being a burden. Also, your companions contribute 25% of their skill points (50% with 60 points in Inspiration) to yours, so your party does help you even if you're doing all the work. If you want to go solo, there are perks that make you a powerhouse when you have no companions, or you can put skill points in Leadership and much more effective. With good gear, they can be frightfully effective.

There are a lot of things missing from this game that are very common in most games these days. There's no deluxe edition, dlc of any kind (though they said they're open to story expansions down the road), much less micro-transactions or lootboxes. There are no romantic subplots (beyond a companion having a crush on an NPC), or even much message. I'm serious on that last bit, for all the anti-capitalist satire in the game, it's just as happy to portray the hippie as bitter and vindictive and the corporate stooge as honest and honorable, albeit destructively inept.

Personally, I'm opposed to Epic's crap, so I bought it for the Playstation. I haven't regretted it in the slightest.

[Lord Raziere]

I like how Parvati's sidequests just seem to be "deal with her lesbian romance problems."

also I like how my decision of what to do with Macreed on Groundbreaker basically boiled down to "your crazy, and I'm not made of money!" and proceeded to kill him and all his thugs.

My entire stay on Roseway was finding out that oh, they're just developing the best diet toothpaste ever and I'm completely free to just take their work because its not that important but hey, it can actually be used as rocket fuel instead with some modification, so why not just take the secrets, go back to the Groundbreaker and get paid with a little lying? there was no reason for me to actually help any of these people of Roseway because they're just incompetent scientists who thought it was a good idea to use dangerous predators for their research and the guy in charge just wants to get this all done for his promotion, so screw him.

then I discovered something: when I took the robophobia flaw for the perk, then activated SAM as a party member....it turns out the phobia is in effect even near my own robot companion. I didn't know this would happen but it makes sense and its funny to me for some reason because now my own robot companion is a mixed blessing, giving me more firepower and someone to help while also making things harder for me because my phobia using SAM as a party member a personal hard mode?
its so sensible yet I didn't think of that at first. I was even confused when there was an "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" dialogue option for SAM even before he was activated until I figured it out. I just screwed myself over out of using my robot companion and somehow its great and hilarious that they thought that through to that extent.

I also screwed myself out of using companions in general by taking lone wolf at the beginning even though I keep acquiring companions. I am just going for a "shoot self in the foot" playstyle, aren't I?

meanwhile ADA is a gem, I'm glad to have her.

I acquired a science weapon aside from the shrink ray called the rearranger. gonna have to figure out what to do with this strange beatstick. I likes me my shock stick, so some weird science stick might be even better! maybe if I show said Rearranger to Phineas....

also there was a door for another science weapon that required 60 to hack. that is the first time I've EVER seen an above 50 skill check in this game. wow, whatever is in there must be good.

amidst all that, I acquired the stellar bay navkey and then decided to stop there. this game is so good.

[factotum]

Regarding Macreed:


I'd already got the quest to kill him from the guard woman near the entrance, so I actually just shot him at range without ever speaking to him...didn't even know he *had* dialogue until I saw ManyATrueNerd's playthrough on Youtube!


[EDIT] OK, just finished the game. Got to level 30 and my play time was around 27.5 hours, judging by the last save I made, so not the longest RPG I've ever played--pretty sure I did most of the sidequests available, too. Still, it was fun, and the way the story developed had me hooked. Definitely want to replay selecting different options at some point, though!

[Balmas]

Stayed up until 3 AM on friday to finish the game, and don't regret it in the slightest. I think I nailed all but two of the quests--one that I failed because the quest-giver wouldn't talk to me and apparently I needed to go back to him to get the quest, and the second I failed because
while I might have been willing to let a town fall apart due to corporate negligence, I'm not about to go in and murder everyone there myself. Yeesh, talk about consequences to your actions.

[factotum]

I didn't fail that second one because I never took it in the first place? I simply flat-out refused.


Of course, that didn't turn out well for the Adjutant, who found the hard way that drawing a gun on a heavily-armed group of people who've taken down Mantiqueens and the like isn't a great survival strategy.

[Spore]

Did I miss something majorly or does this guy just not have a good backstory? Or is there more to come?

[Anteros]

So far I feel OW is a decent space western but I feel the writing is ... off? Am I the only one that sees the obvious direction the writers want to push the player?

Once I've accepted that "sub average" intelligence does not mean caveman speak, I am really coming to terms with my dumb brute. A major problem imho is the quite obvious choice that the writers made when they wrote the deserters vs. spacer's choice conflict.

In a direct comparison to New Vegas and the conflict between the Legion (evil slavers who have a point because technology doomed the planet to an apocalypse) and NRC (goody twoshoes guys who are actually more totalitarian than they'd admit), the conflict as written just falls flat. Sure, Emerald Vale has its fair share of company driven problems, but there are upsides to being securely equipped by an offworld trading corporation. It's just these qualities are hidden in speech checks and not immediately obvious. Similarily the deserters are not perfectly good. Their leader just wants revenge and uses it on the backs of the people but immediately obvious is just "deserters good, company evil".

I don't even know Balmas' (spoilered) factoids yet but it feels like the narrator made the choice for you. And this in a game where player choice should matter is incredibly irritating to me. Compare it to another guided choice in a game made by a company who Obsidian threw incredible shade on. Skyrim's civil war. Or more specific the first choice of going with the rebel or the Imperial. It seems obvious to go with the guy that rebels against the system that wanted you killed for crossing the border. But through subtle hints it is shown that maybe imperial power is better for Skyrim than an uprising against the oppressors because it equips the empire better to resist the Thalmor. It is a similar situation but see that the narrator does not "guide" your choice more than through the prologue.

I don't feel like the Legion vs NCR was the nuanced choice you're making it out to be. Your first interaction with the Legion is them massacring and crucifying an entire town for no good reason. The Legion may make some good points, but I wouldn't know because you'd have to be a complete psychopath to even consider hearing them out.

[factotum]

Did I miss something majorly or does this guy just not have a good backstory? Or is there more to come?


Did you do his companion quest on Scylla? He probably only tells you about it if you happen to travel there while he's on your team, though, that's usually how those work.

[Balmas]

[EDIT] OK, just finished the game. Got to level 30 and my play time was around 27.5 hours, judging by the last save I made, so not the longest RPG I've ever played--pretty sure I did most of the sidequests available, too. Still, it was fun, and the way the story developed had me hooked. Definitely want to replay selecting different options at some point, though!

The last save I had was listed as around 50 hours, but that was on a save where I basically never fast traveled beyond summoning the ship to the town I was at on Monarch.


I didn't fail that second one because I never took it in the first place? I simply flat-out refused.


Of course, that didn't turn out well for the Adjutant, who found the hard way that drawing a gun on a heavily-armed group of people who've taken down Mantiqueens and the like isn't a great survival strategy.


Yeah, but I figured that if I wanted to get paid for quasi-selling out Phineas, then I needed to talk to the secretary, and that wouldn't be possible if I started shooting. So I said yes, reassured Parvati, got my reward, and then shot the Adjutante.


Did I miss something majorly or does this guy just not have a good backstory? Or is there more to come?

Honestly, I don't think it's so much that his backstory is bad so much as it is that his personality consists of only one or two notes. He's the stupid football kid with a bad case of hero worship and a revolutionary streak.

I remember that on arriving at Monarch, I decided that, what the hey, I'd been using basically nothing but Ellie and Parvati since Groundbreaker, so it was time that Max and Felix got some love. By the time I arrived at Stellar Bay, I was so sick and tired of Felix that I was rushing to get Nyoka, purely so I could have an in-character excuse to dump Felix. I didn't go back to Felix until I got his companion quest, and even then I made sure to do that all in one fell swoop and dump him back in the ship again.

It's just he has one note, and he harps on that one note for all he's worth. I was sitting there, watching him mouth off about how corporations are evil, in a corporation headquarters, surrounded by corporate guards, and just wanted to throttle him. You are the reason we can't have nice things, Felix.

So, am I the only one that was moderately disappointed by the end of Max's companion quest? You go help this priest find the answers to the universe, only to find it to be "there aren't any, you don't exist, embrace nihilism"? Feels kind of a crappy end to a quest.

Although, "Smoke Drugs, Kill Your Inner Self" is a good Wild Wasteland line, I suppose.

[Rodin]

I didn't fail that second one because I never took it in the first place? I simply flat-out refused.


Of course, that didn't turn out well for the Adjutant, who found the hard way that drawing a gun on a heavily-armed group of people who've taken down Mantiqueens and the like isn't a great survival strategy.


I had to look up what you guys were talking about here. I thought I had completed the game pretty thoroughly myself, but apparently my choices meant that this conversation never even happened.

I never actually met Akande in person - I pretended to sell out Phineas, but warned him in advance what they were up to. When she invited me to come talk, I said "screw that" and went off to rescue Phineas instead. When I encountered her again at Labyrinth, I speech-checked her into the ground and convinced her to flee without us ever being in the same room.

Now that I've completed the game, I feel my initial impression was pretty accurate - a fusion-food game that incorporates elements from a ton of different sources to make a darn tasty dish while never surpassing any of the sources of inspiration in their specialty.

The one big let down has been difficulty. Normal mode is stupidly easy. Supernova is properly difficult, but introduces a bunch of unwanted "features" that are sloppily implemented. Parvati died in my first fight after recruiting her, and not a particularly hard one at that. I couldn't reload because you can only save on your ship, which is a dumb feature when LARGE amounts of content happens in towns. There's no good indicator to let you know when you're hungry or thirsty, and you can get sleep deprived before you have access to your bedroom on your ship - which is the only place you can sleep despite there being hotels that serve no other purpose than for you to sleep.

I'm going to try restarting on the next hardest difficulty and hope it's tough enough, I guess. Supernova mode seems like it wasn't properly thought out.

[factotum]

There's no good indicator to let you know when you're hungry or thirsty, and you can get sleep deprived before you have access to your bedroom on your ship - which is the only place you can sleep despite there being hotels that serve no other purpose than for you to sleep.


I have no intention of trying Supernova because, IMHO, adding the requirement to eat and drink in an RPG is just adding pointless busywork that doesn't add to the experience in any way, but I'm pretty sure there's a bed in the hold of the Unreliable opposite the workbench, so you can sleep on that one--there are also beds available in random places all over Emerald Vale, too.

[LuckGuy]

Finished it last night. Great game, really enjoyed it. I chose Heavy Weapons, because I wanted to see if it did miniguns better than Fallout. It did, I loved all my types of heavy weapons, but the grenade launcher takes first place.

I wish there were more banter between companions, but I'd probably always want more. That's my favorite stuff in games like KOTOR.

The perks are boring, weakest part of the game. I was never tempted to take a weakness to get a perk point.

I played on hard difficulty. The first planet was fun and difficult, and there was one group of three raiders I could never beat before I left. Pretty much everything else was a cakewalk.

The unique weapons were strange, because by the time I reached most of them they were inferior to the version 2 weapons. It seems they should scale to your level when you find them.

[Avilan the Grey]

I have a few compaints.

First of all, I am now lvl 12 and do really like the game, but:


Short, and with limited replayability if you don't want to be an ******* (which I never play as).
Similar problems with weapons as ME1: Guns as Vendor Trash, but also illogical sudden tiers (At lvl 12 I suddenly got "Light Assault Rifles") that do 1.5 times the damage of my modded heavy Assault Rifle)
Everybody will eventually be a 40k Supersoldier (heavy Armor or bust for companions)
Some of the writing does not take in consideration other parts of the writing (spoiler after the list re Edgewater solution)
They obviously gave one companion 90% of the time and love. Parvati is the only one I care about for that reason.



I took the third option of rerouting power to Edgewater but then replacing the leader so the Cannary got replaced by a garden and everyone got medicine and whatnot. Yet the game tells me I totally crushed the dreams of everyone there and I am 100% a company man.



Honestly, I don't think it's so much that his backstory is bad so much as it is that his personality consists of only one or two notes. He's the stupid football kid with a bad case of hero worship and a revolutionary streak.

I remember that on arriving at Monarch, I decided that, what the hey, I'd been using basically nothing but Ellie and Parvati since Groundbreaker, so it was time that Max and Felix got some love. By the time I arrived at Stellar Bay, I was so sick and tired of Felix that I was rushing to get Nyoka, purely so I could have an in-character excuse to dump Felix. I didn't go back to Felix until I got his companion quest, and even then I made sure to do that all in one fell swoop and dump him back in the ship again.

It's just he has one note, and he harps on that one note for all he's worth. I was sitting there, watching him mouth off about how corporations are evil, in a corporation headquarters, surrounded by corporate guards, and just wanted to throttle him. You are the reason we can't have nice things, Felix.

So, am I the only one that was moderately disappointed by the end of Max's companion quest? You go help this priest find the answers to the universe, only to find it to be "there aren't any, you don't exist, embrace nihilism"? Feels kind of a crappy end to a quest.

Although, "Smoke Drugs, Kill Your Inner Self" is a good Wild Wasteland line, I suppose.


I have not recruited Felix yet, I just caught his introduction "fight" and just got turned off. "Angry hockey supporter" is not a "creative" trope. My only reaction from that intro was to not bother recruiting him at all.

Max: Well I find him utterly bland. He keeps asking when we should go to Monarch and I am like "Since I won't ever talk to you or have you in my party, why do you ask?"


...but then as I said it is obvious they spent 90% of the writing budget and inspiration on Parvati.

[Rodin]

I have no intention of trying Supernova because, IMHO, adding the requirement to eat and drink in an RPG is just adding pointless busywork that doesn't add to the experience in any way, but I'm pretty sure there's a bed in the hold of the Unreliable opposite the workbench, so you can sleep on that one--there are also beds available in random places all over Emerald Vale, too.

Oh, there are beds all over Emerald Vale.

You just can't sleep in them.

Supernova has this totally random requirement that you can only sleep aboard your ship. I wasn't aware of the bed in the cargo hold, and you can sleep there.

It still means that you will be out in the world, possibly standing IN A HOTEL, and the game will still make you fast travel back to your ship if you want to get rid of the debuff. And then, because fast travel is disabled, you will have to walk your happy ass back to wherever you were before.

It's utterly pointless, and I don't understand why they implemented it that way. Sure, limit fast travel somehow so that it's point-to-point instead of from anywhere in the world. But removing it while creating an arbitrary requirement that forces you to regularly return to one specific point on the map? Good grief.

Also agreed about Parvati vs. the other companions. Ellie in particular has a shockingly low amount of content associated with her.

[LaZodiac]

I have a few compaints.

First of all, I am now lvl 12 and do really like the game, but:


Short, and with limited replayability if you don't want to be an ******* (which I never play as).
Similar problems with weapons as ME1: Guns as Vendor Trash, but also illogical sudden tiers (At lvl 12 I suddenly got "Light Assault Rifles") that do 1.5 times the damage of my modded heavy Assault Rifle)
Everybody will eventually be a 40k Supersoldier (heavy Armor or bust for companions)
Some of the writing does not take in consideration other parts of the writing (spoiler after the list re Edgewater solution)
They obviously gave one companion 90% of the time and love. Parvati is the only one I care about for that reason.



I took the third option of rerouting power to Edgewater but then replacing the leader so the Cannary got replaced by a garden and everyone got medicine and whatnot. Yet the game tells me I totally crushed the dreams of everyone there and I am 100% a company man.





I have not recruited Felix yet, I just caught his introduction "fight" and just got turned off. "Angry hockey supporter" is not a "creative" trope. My only reaction from that intro was to not bother recruiting him at all.

Max: Well I find him utterly bland. He keeps asking when we should go to Monarch and I am like "Since I won't ever talk to you or have you in my party, why do you ask?"


...but then as I said it is obvious they spent 90% of the writing budget and inspiration on Parvati.

So here's the thing; you destroyed their commune and made them go back to the wage-slave life. Yes they have a pretty garden, and yes the person in charge is different.

But they're still shackled to the capitalist ****ery that got them into this mess in the first place. You crushed their dreams because you and Parvarti decided a wishy washy "both sides are good" mentality was better, and more games need to be brave enough to go "hey sometimes this aint it chief."

One side is literally killing people because it's profitable for them in the long run. There is no gray here, no matter how much the cool ace lesbian thinks so.

[Avilan the Grey]

So here's the thing; you destroyed their commune and made them go back to the wage-slave life. Yes they have a pretty garden, and yes the person in charge is different.

But they're still shackled to the capitalist ****ery that got them into this mess in the first place. You crushed their dreams because you and Parvarti decided a wishy washy "both sides are good" mentality was better, and more games need to be brave enough to go "hey sometimes this aint it chief."

One side is literally killing people because it's profitable for them in the long run. There is no gray here, no matter how much the cool ace lesbian thinks so.


The alternative is to condemn about 50% of the population to death or to join the raving lunatics. Ms "High and Mighty", as right as she might be, literary refuses to let most workers join her society. As much as I enjoy sticking it to corporations, I am not okay with the Revolution offing half the population.

[LaZodiac]

The alternative is to condemn about 50% of the population to death or to join the raving lunatics. Ms "High and Mighty", as right as she might be, literary refuses to let most workers join her society. As much as I enjoy sticking it to corporations, I am not okay with the Revolution offing half the population.


Is there a way to replace her without killing their hope?

[Avilan the Grey]

Is there a way to replace her without killing their hope?

Nope.
I am also suspecting that if picked the other option the sign on your wall will tell you you are a horrible person because of that, too. hamfisted writing, basically.

[factotum]

Just to note, if you choose to route power to the deserters (endgame spoilers):


The end game "what happened" cards make it clear that Adelaide made good on her threat to turn away most of Edgewater's population, so they're mostly dead. Not sure that being dead is so much better for them than being crushed under the corporate heel, especially since you've destroyed the Board in the "good" ending and thus forced a major reorganisation of the corps.

[xroads]

Excellent! I was wondering when an Outer Worlds thread was going to pop-up.

For my two cents, I'm loving the game. But yes, the marauder AI needs some serious help. For example, if I can turn marauder aggro off with a good persuasion check, it stays off... even if I go around systematically killing off marauders.

Fortunately, I'm heavily invested in the persuasion skills, so this flaw works to my favor. :smallwink:

Side note: I love how the load screen art will change based on decisions you make in the game.

[Yuki Akuma]

Basically, there is no perfect solution. Every option has downsides, even the 'third option' of just killing Reed* and letting Adelaide take over Edgewater. I guess it's to teach you that you have to live with the consequences of your actions even if you don't totally like them?

* Yes I know you can convince him to leave. He still dies.

[Gecks]

I really like this game- I am a big fan of the short-medium length, minimum filler style RPG in general, and I really enjoy this game's humour and style. While the anti-corporation satire isn't exactly subtle, the overall story and consequences seem nuanced enough to satisfy, even if you don't choose to play on the side of "right". I finished a play-through as a pro-freedom rebel, and am now enjoying a second playthrough as a corporate trigger-man and tight-lipped psychopath.

In my second, "evil" playthrough, I refused to recruit Felix, finding his very staged-feeling fight on the docks followed up with a hard-sell request to join my crew super suspicious. I then sniped him dead from across the cargo bay (to be safe) and left. I can't wait to see what comes up during his portion of the end credits!

[xroads]

In my second, "evil" playthrough, I refused to recruit Felix, finding his very staged-feeling fight on the docks followed up with a hard-sell request to join my crew super suspicious. I then sniped him dead from across the cargo bay (to be safe) and left. I can't wait to see what comes up during his portion of the end credits!

I got to admit, I only took him aboard because I knew he was a companion and I wanted to get any side quests & achievements associated with him. Otherwise there would be no way I would of hired him. His introduction was a bit hamfisted and...

...I don't make it a practice to hire crew who swing at their former employers with baseball bats!

[Avilan the Grey]

I really like this game- I am a big fan of the short-medium length, minimum filler style RPG in general, and I really enjoy this game's humour and style. While the anti-corporation satire isn't exactly subtle, the overall story and consequences seem nuanced enough to satisfy, even if you don't choose to play on the side of "right". I finished a play-through as a pro-freedom rebel, and am now enjoying a second playthrough as a corporate trigger-man and tight-lipped psychopath.

In my second, "evil" playthrough, I refused to recruit Felix, finding his very staged-feeling fight on the docks followed up with a hard-sell request to join my crew super suspicious. I then sniped him dead from across the cargo bay (to be safe) and left. I can't wait to see what comes up during his portion of the end credits!

My problem is that I really can't bring myself to play a badguy. Ever. So basically I will only be able to do three playthrus: This one with long guns, one with melee weapons and then one with heavy guns. Choices will be pretty identical all three playthrus.

Edit: regarding the title: According to the devs two HUGE sources for inspiration for the game is Firefly and Futurama, and it really shows.

[Yuki Akuma]

I got to admit, I only took him aboard because I knew he was a companion and I wanted to get any side quests & achievements associated with him. Otherwise there would be no way I would of hired him. His introduction was a bit hamfisted and...

...I don't make it a practice to hire crew who swing at their former employers with baseball bats!

Well then, good news!

Tossball sticks are lacrosse sticks, not baseball bats. :D

[Spore]

regarding the title: According to the devs two HUGE sources for inspiration for the game is Firefly and Futurama, and it really shows.

So the only reason for suicide booths not existing is the rating and/or the idea that suicide steals workforce from the companies?

[Squark]

So the only reason for suicide booths not existing is the rating and/or the idea that suicide steals workforce from the companies?

Probably the latter. The game doesn't shy away from discussing suicide, but there's a rather bleak bit of comedy* in Edgewater about how the workers get fined if one of their own commits suicide.

*Comedy in as much as the wildly different perspective the audience and/or the PC will have compared to the brainwashed townsfolk create some rather... interesting lines.

[Lord Raziere]

*Comedy in as much as the wildly different perspective the audience and/or the PC will have compared to the brainwashed townsfolk create some rather... interesting lines.

Yeah there is a lot of culture shock comedy in this, at least in the first town. it starts getting a bit more relatable when you get on the Groundbreaker though.

Me, I'm curious as to how the game handles a "kill em all" run when I do my second time around.

[factotum]

I definitely intend a bad guy run (although not "kill them all", never see the point in those) at some point, and I also plan to do a melee-only character with low Int who has to select the Dumb dialogue option whenever one is offered--that's kind of my "hard without selecting Hard difficulty" run, though. At the moment I'm playing a game of Stellaris as an amuse-bouche before jumping back in, though.

[xroads]

Well then, good news!

Tossball sticks are lacrosse sticks, not baseball bats. :D

Heh. A bit of a moot point once he starts a swinging. :smallwink:

[Avilan the Grey]

Yeah there is a lot of culture shock comedy in this, at least in the first town. it starts getting a bit more relatable when you get on the Groundbreaker though.

Me, I'm curious as to how the game handles a "kill em all" run when I do my second time around.

Note that the people from Edgewater all talk like they're an 19th century town. They are very specifically an extreme version of a 19th century town built around a single industry; I am sure it was the same in America and England, but I recognize it from here too. The Company Store, the Company Pub, the Company... The workers are recycled almost literary even IRL where the salary you paid them were just enough to afford the rent of the company owned housing + the food they (by contract even IRL) had to legally only buy from the company store...

The Groundbreaker is more modern, despite being the one colony ship that made it. Note how the Board's office look a little off being all Art Deco among the rest of the ship?

[xroads]

Note that the people from Edgewater all talk like they're an 19th century town. They are very specifically an extreme version of a 19th century town built around a single industry; I am sure it was the same in America and England, but I recognize it from here too. The Company Store, the Company Pub, the Company... The workers are recycled almost literary even IRL where the salary you paid them were just enough to afford the rent of the company owned housing + the food they (by contract even IRL) had to legally only buy from the company store...

The Groundbreaker is more modern, despite being the one colony ship that made it. Note how the Board's office look a little off being all Art Deco among the rest of the ship?

Yep. It happened in America too. Heck, we still have communities that one could almost call a company town. Though I don't think they're incorporated. And now there is more governance that defines what they can get away with. So no more paying employees in company scrip for example.

[Beleriphon]

Did I miss something majorly or does this guy just not have a good backstory? Or is there more to come?

Felix has a bunch of dialogue when you take him out on missions and what not. He's less interesting from a quest perspective, and more interesting from a wandering dialogue perspective. Him and Vicar Max have some good times.

[Cespenar]

Overall I'm a bit on the fence. Coming down from Disco Elysium, the drop in writing quality is pretty visible, and it was doubly so in the first act, what with the character establishment, plot hooks and everything.

Now that I arrived at Groundbreaker and (at least a bit) invested in the premise, though, everything is fortunately smoother.

Still, a lot of stuff seems pretty formulaic, like they had gone on to emulate a "Fallout game", rather than come up with something new and groundbreaking. I guess I expected more from Obsidian.

Then again, in this day and age, I should take what above average RPGs I can find, so maybe I shouldn't whine.

Yeah, I'm pretty much conversing with myself at this point. :smalltongue:

[Chen]

After Monarch I found it felt super rushed and particularly the ending sequence was crazy rushed.

[The Hellbug]

That's the Obsidian I know. :tongue:

[boj0]

Just wrapped the game up on Hard, and I'll jot down some thoughts while they are fresh.
I definitely felt like the game pushed forward very quickly once you hit Byzantium; I know for a fact there are people and missions I missed there but after walking around trying to find things to do I just gave up and moved ahead with the plot.

Combat was good, but not great; sneak sniper once again rolls over everything. TTD is better than VATS, but only due to keeping the shooting skill based other than RNG. Weapon types had the worst kind of variety, mashing Mass Effect 1 with a veritable buffet of random melee weapons that you'll never use (seriously, a spade? A hatchet? When you get the sword in the tutorial?)
Armor was neat how it worked with mods and heavy armor hurt stealth, but otherwise was bummed that aside from "Bad Guys" it was mostly palette swaps.

The companions are...weak, very weak. Story wise I mean; combat wise, easily the best compared to any Bethesda companions.

Parvati gets the most dialogue, but her personality is overwhelming "bleh", she suffers from tutorial syndrome: she has something to say about everything, but rarely has anything to add, her skills cover the 3 branches of core gameplay (social checks, lockpicking, and engineering for weapon modding), and she is completely subservient to the Captain despite wanting away from that life. She's also voiced by Ashly Burch, which further cemented her being the 'main' companion.
Despite leaving her in Edgewater, the game thought she was part of the crew for end credits which was...odd.

Max is a character I want to like but never want to use.

Felix is...I never actually used Felix, he has a punchable face, a sour attitude, and the one save file I picked up showed he's a dopey layabout eating cereal and reading comics, I have nothing against cereal or comics; but I do have something against his college freshman "I just discovered Che shirts" attitude. The book he has on social reform is explicitly unopened, much like my interest in him. He's a whiny kid who wants to be mad at something but lacks the mental capacity to do it correctly.

Nyoka(sp?) Idk I used her a bit, but "I'm a loud mouth badass with a drinking problem to hide the pain" is frankly lazy, the only nuance I got from her was even though the corps left, she still saw the value in them.

SAM is too pure for this world 11/10 best bot, let me skip an area of hostile autos by initiating a sanitation protocol.

Ellie was the companion I used for about 90% of the game, while I enjoyed her the most, her character was still a trope fest, Jack Sparrow but was actually a princess. Still she is the best pirate doctor I could have asked for. Knows how to clear out a room of Mantids with science *and* a gun.


I really thought there would be a bigger swerve for Wells, all this talk of him being untrustworthy, ADA saying he was unstable, the Board painting him as a terrorist...and all he did was try to thaw out the colonists? That's his big secret? He took a few tries before your character? Ok, I was expecting to find out the whole thing was he had a messy breakup with a CEO and unfroze you as a deniable assest to wage jealous war.

Overall the game was fun, if poorly paced. I'm going to try an evil, dumb, corporate yes man to get all my silly playthroughs done at once.

[Avilan the Grey]

Just wrapped the game up on Hard, and I'll jot down some thoughts while they are fresh.
I definitely felt like the game pushed forward very quickly once you hit Byzantium; I know for a fact there are people and missions I missed there but after walking around trying to find things to do I just gave up and moved ahead with the plot.

Combat was good, but not great; sneak sniper once again rolls over everything. TTD is better than VATS, but only due to keeping the shooting skill based other than RNG. Weapon types had the worst kind of variety, mashing Mass Effect 1 with a veritable buffet of random melee weapons that you'll never use (seriously, a spade? A hatchet? When you get the sword in the tutorial?)
Armor was neat how it worked with mods and heavy armor hurt stealth, but otherwise was bummed that aside from "Bad Guys" it was mostly palette swaps.

The companions are...weak, very weak. Story wise I mean; combat wise, easily the best compared to any Bethesda companions.

Parvati gets the most dialogue, but her personality is overwhelming "bleh", she suffers from tutorial syndrome: she has something to say about everything, but rarely has anything to add, her skills cover the 3 branches of core gameplay (social checks, lockpicking, and engineering for weapon modding), and she is completely subservient to the Captain despite wanting away from that life. She's also voiced by Ashly Burch, which further cemented her being the 'main' companion.
Despite leaving her in Edgewater, the game thought she was part of the crew for end credits which was...odd.

Max is a character I want to like but never want to use.

Felix is...I never actually used Felix, he has a punchable face, a sour attitude, and the one save file I picked up showed he's a dopey layabout eating cereal and reading comics, I have nothing against cereal or comics; but I do have something against his college freshman "I just discovered Che shirts" attitude. The book he has on social reform is explicitly unopened, much like my interest in him. He's a whiny kid who wants to be mad at something but lacks the mental capacity to do it correctly.

Nyoka(sp?) Idk I used her a bit, but "I'm a loud mouth badass with a drinking problem to hide the pain" is frankly lazy, the only nuance I got from her was even though the corps left, she still saw the value in them.

SAM is too pure for this world 11/10 best bot, let me skip an area of hostile autos by initiating a sanitation protocol.

Ellie was the companion I used for about 90% of the game, while I enjoyed her the most, her character was still a trope fest, Jack Sparrow but was actually a princess. Still she is the best pirate doctor I could have asked for. Knows how to clear out a room of Mantids with science *and* a gun.


I really thought there would be a bigger swerve for Wells, all this talk of him being untrustworthy, ADA saying he was unstable, the Board painting him as a terrorist...and all he did was try to thaw out the colonists? That's his big secret? He took a few tries before your character? Ok, I was expecting to find out the whole thing was he had a messy breakup with a CEO and unfroze you as a deniable assest to wage jealous war.

Overall the game was fun, if poorly paced. I'm going to try an evil, dumb, corporate yes man to get all my silly playthroughs done at once.


Really? I am with the vast majority playing this game: Story doesn't matter. World doesn't matter. Finding Parvati a girlfriend is all that matters. I love her and will die for her.

I run 99% of the time with Parvati (she's my main tank, melee only) and Ellie; Max makes me fall asleep he is utterly pointless.

[xroads]

Okay, got to vent a little :smallmad:...


Once you learn about how Ash lied to you and left the mercs stranded for a better fare (which lead to their deaths), the developers should of provided the option to punch Ash in the face and keep the "memento." Instead, the best option you get is to wag your finger at him before you give him his bits.

Alternatively, I suppose you could of chose not to complete the mission at all. But that is really not satisfying either (and denies you a few xp to boot).

[JadedDM]

In Errors Unseen, is it actually possible to get up onto the roof where the scientists are being held?

From what I can tell, they are scripted to die no matter what you do, but after it happened, I had Pavarti yell out, "Hurry, captain! Maybe they're still alive!" And I'm pretty sure they aren't, but she said it with such urgency that I wanted to check them out anyway. But I can't see any way to actually get up there.

[boj0]

It seems pretty scripted, I tried pretty hard to get up there to no avail. I wouldn't be surprised if there was an easter egg for anyone with console commands to get up there though.

[factotum]

I'm doing my second playthrough and I've noticed something which is bugging me *way* more than it should. Namely, the external model of the Unreliable doesn't match the internal layout. The ship has three decks, and inside, you have the bridge on the lower deck, the captain's quarters above, and then the crew quarters on the top deck. Outside, though, the windows of the captain's quarters are clearly on the upper deck--there's a huge area of blank hull in between the bridge and captain's quarters, and there isn't enough space *above* the captain's quarters to fit an entire deck in. I think I find it particularly irritating because they could easily have put the captain's quarters on the top deck on the interior model, and that might even have made sense, since it would have been on the same deck as the crew quarters.

[Brookshw]

Ignoring this thread for the moment to avoid spoilers; just stopping in to say that, having finally picked this up and gotten several hours in, I'm very impressed. World and quests are engaging and interesting, scenery is very interesting. Kudos to Obsidian on a job well done!

[Lord Raziere]

So, update from last time, whenever I posted:

I've been to Monarch, empowered the Iconoclasts under Zora Blackwood until they took over Stellar Bay, and that was nice.

been doing a bunch of companion quests, from getting Vicar Max answers to what he seeks (turns he just needed to stop trying to control things), to Felix, to helping Parvati. Ellie and her quest was disappointingly cold and and heartless. I do not think I'll ever get her as a companion a second time.

got all the science weapons and both the perks for them and now I can just blast things to easily kill everything with them, they're so fun.

then I did Celeste's quest with clothing. thought this was just going to a bunch of fetch quests, and the dealing with bureaucracy haha funnies but then I got back and she was dead because the police killed her for making a cool dress because they're fascists. :smallfrown: I killed them all, coincidentally got the card for the next part of the main quest, got the Chimaera which I'm pretty is the best armor in the game what the hell, light armor and just as good as heavy, hell yeah. why wear anything else? and I can wear a cowboy hat at long last. but yeah, if I had any doubts over how right it is to murder The Board, they have just been extinguished because a flamboyant owner of a boutique has just been killed for making cool clothing.

Don't worry Celeste. I'll kill them all in style.

[factotum]

I handled Monarch differently on my first playthrough:


I got MSI and the Iconoclasts to actually work with each other, which seemed to be the fairest approach all told. My plan is to side with MSI second run through, because I'm technically playing as a Board sympathiser this time.

[boj0]

Wouldn't killing the MSI be more along a Board sympathiser's course since they broke away from them, the Board doesn't want them back because they would legally own Monarch, and they want to push worker's rights?

[Lord Raziere]

Finally finished the game. Killed the Board, freed Phineas Welles and look at the ending...

huh. sure some bad things happen and the future is uncertain but the colony will survive even though I ended Edgewater, killed MSI and basically did all the free spirited rebellion options. Its much better ending than I thought my actions would be.

The Board's plan was to basically freeze everyone else and keep all the food until they can figure out a solution. but scientifically their plan wouldn't have worked- their scientists simply hadn't figured out a solution yet. Phineas Welles truly does have questionable sanity but every time I talked to him he genuinely cared even though he is haunted by his actions that led to peoples deaths from trying to revive them.

Between that and the fact that Earth has gone dark for three years with no way to know what happened to it.....I honestly think I made the right choice. The Board was basically an incompetent, evil entity that was lying to everyone about the situation and too focused on trying to spin it positively than actually implement its decision. People need to be able to think freely without any ties to Earth if they need to survive, and The Board was only getting in the way of that.

It may not be the best ending where everyone works together, but is a good ending regardless. I'm satisfied with it. Outer Worlds is a good, just very solid and well put together game. I'm totally down with an Outer Worlds set in our solar system exploring why Earth has gone dark and whats happening to make it unable to communicate. they've definitely left me curious where obsidian goes from here with this.

a lot of the decisions truly made me feel at least a little bad about taking them because there are hints everywhere that there is some alternative that was just good or better even though what I did was valid. its pretty weird how I'm not guilty about any of my decisions now that I see that my actions did indeed have a positive effect, but in the moment I wondered if I was screwing everything up by doing this or that. this game is pretty forgiving about its moral decisions.

another aspect I found oddly forgiving was that I could get away with more crimes than I could in skyrim or whatever. like in those games, I kill somebody the entire town aggros. But here I can kill a guy and only the people nearby will aggro then everyone will just carry on as everythings normal but with some rep-loss. oh well. not as if I care about that. there is simply no actual criminal justice system like in skyrim, and the guards aren't anything better than normal mooks, so I can take them on no problem. if you kill guards aren't going to stop and fine, they just seem to kill you and you kill them, then when the fight dies down people look the other way and ignore you.

the weapons are all cool. definitely loved playing with N-Rays, I just wished that the N-ray mod wasn't so hard to find.

and overall, great game, its plot reliant on very realistic and basic things about economics, socio-political stuff, and resources and the proper use of them to tell a story about a society and how societies work, especially when confronted with all these probable challenges about going into space and establishing a life out there. I look forward to whatever obsidian makes next and hope its just as good if not better.

[factotum]

One very interesting thing about the game I found out while watching a Youtube video--you can kill pretty much everyone in the game, even the plot-critical ones. There is always a way round their death that means you can finish the game's story even if you, as this chap did, kill anyone you meet on sight. Makes all those times I wanted to kill Ancano in Skyrim but knew I couldn't because he was marked plot critical all the more annoying, really.

[JadedDM]

One very interesting thing about the game I found out while watching a Youtube video--you can kill pretty much everyone in the game, even the plot-critical ones.

Which probably explains why there are no children anywhere in this game.

[GloatingSwine]

One very interesting thing about the game I found out while watching a Youtube video--you can kill pretty much everyone in the game, even the plot-critical ones. There is always a way round their death that means you can finish the game's story even if you, as this chap did, kill anyone you meet on sight. Makes all those times I wanted to kill Ancano in Skyrim but knew I couldn't because he was marked plot critical all the more annoying, really.

That's pretty common for Obsidian. You can do it in New Vegas as well.

There's usually an ending slide for each location that mentions that you did it too.

(Hell, New Vegas has a perk you can only get by killing and eating the leaders of four major factions).

[Spore]

(Hell, New Vegas has a perk you can only get by killing and eating the leaders of four major factions).

1) Relevant nick is relevant.

2) It takes a true gamer to know what a bored gamer does when he has done EVERYTHING in your game.

3) Is the ending better than "everyones dead, you suck"? Because some vital NPCs are just SCREAMING to get their heads bashed in with a rocket propelled hammer.

[factotum]

3) Is the ending better than "everyones dead, you suck"? Because some vital NPCs are just SCREAMING to get their heads bashed in with a rocket propelled hammer.

It's the same ending as you get in the normal course of events, as far as I can tell:


Thing is, in a "kill everything" run the one person you definitely can't kill is Phineas Welles, because he's either imprisoned or behind bulletproof glass whenever you see him, so the game ends with you rescuing him from prison, just as in the regular "anti-Board" ending.

[Eurus]

That's disappointing. I'd be happier with "everyone's dead, you monster" because at least that feels like it's acknowledging your choices.

[Driderman]

Spoilers for late-game content and Parvati's quest:

So I did some quests out of sequence and when I finally got around to wrapping up Parvati's companion quest I was wanted by The Board, which lead to the resolution of her questline involving a heavily armed and armored 3-man fireteam gunning their way through Byzantium city, killing dozens of corporate military and more than a few innocent bystanders, all to get her a pretty dress. I appreciate how the game still let me finish the questline and at least I also got a sweet hat collection out of it :smallbiggrin:

[Spore]

Well, I for one switched over from my stupid melee brute on hard difficulty to a science/sneak build and I feel my fun has TRIPLICATED. I realize a tinkerer/lockpicking dude is absolutely my style of gameplay. But even then, you should not lock a vital skill of the game - tinkering - behind a required skill.

The first companion is an engineer ffs. I get that weapons that drops are crap. Because why should companies deliver a good weapon when they can just deliver A weapon. But it would make so much sense for your first companion to be able to help you out with that (not well, she is an engineer, not a weapon crafter) as the first major choice of the game is "living high quanitity vs. high quality".

There is an easy workaround. Let companion skill boosts give new tiers of skill unlocks. I get the abuse possibility but OW is a single player game. No one really cares about abuse in these things.

[factotum]

TBH, I don't see Tinker as being as vital as you're saying it is. Sure, it's nice to be able to upgrade the armour and weapons you're already wearing, but (a) you can find weapons that do more damage out of the gate anyway and (b) the game is really not all that hard that you need to optimise your weapon loadout. Not to mention that tinkering something rapidly becomes prohibitively expensive.

[Chen]

TBH, I don't see Tinker as being as vital as you're saying it is. Sure, it's nice to be able to upgrade the armour and weapons you're already wearing, but (a) you can find weapons that do more damage out of the gate anyway and (b) the game is really not all that hard that you need to optimise your weapon loadout. Not to mention that tinkering something rapidly becomes prohibitively expensive.

This. I only tinkered once I got to the last tier of weapons (and therefore had no higher ones coming in) and by then the game was laughably easy anyways (until the last mission).

End mission spoiler
The only somewhat tough fights were the guys with N-Ray weapons at the end. And I literally avoided every single fight in the last level because I had the ID card from the start. Maybe some of those would have been tough, but it was so simple to avoid that entire conflict it ended up pretty anti-climactic actually.

[Cespenar]

Tinkering is actually pretty impactful on Hard difficulty, since upgrading your armor a few times costs less than 500 bits but can turn high rate-of-fire enemies from bursting you down instantly to only grazing you with their bullets.

[Driderman]

Tinkering is actually pretty impactful on Hard difficulty, since upgrading your armor a few times costs less than 500 bits but can turn high rate-of-fire enemies from bursting you down instantly to only grazing you with their bullets.

On Normal its pretty just something to spend your otherwise unused bits on though

[Cespenar]

On Normal its pretty just something to spend your otherwise unused bits on though

I'd imagine so. The only reason I started on Hard was the almost unanimous outrage of the internet against the game's difficulty. Or rather the lack thereof. Hard brings it down to a more normal experience, in my opinion.

[Spore]

The game is not ... difficult,. Not neither setting. It is uhm, weird. If you think of the weapons in "Tiers", unless you happen to have a weakness weapon (like shock vs. robots), Tier 1 weapons do NOTHING against (armored) Tier 2 enemies.

You can have the uber rifled super scoped korrosion damage rifle with 100 medicine and 100 long guns and barely scratch the enemy. Where you TRASH them with a simple Tier 2 pistol.

[xroads]

What's the max level for gear? I know players max out at 30. But does gear max out at level 30 also?

[Balmas]

It's the same ending as you get in the normal course of events, as far as I can tell:


Thing is, in a "kill everything" run the one person you definitely can't kill is Phineas Welles, because he's either imprisoned or behind bulletproof glass whenever you see him, so the game ends with you rescuing him from prison, just as in the regular "anti-Board" ending.


There's also a third ending:
The third ending is only available if you have below-intelligence Intelligence. When you get to the Hope, you have the option of either letting ADA pilot the ship safely to Phineas's asteroid... or you can take direct control of the navigation and send the ship hurtling into the sun, which gets you a non-standard game-over and no ending slides.


What's the max level for gear? I know players max out at 30. But does gear max out at level 30 also?

Gear maxes out at the standard player-level-plus-five of normal tinkering, so items max out at level 35.

[factotum]

I'm a fair way through my "support the Board" run now, and I have to say, it's my first disappointment about the game. Namely, it's just too similar to the other playthrough--almost all the quests are identical and I even just got asked to do exactly the same thing by the Adjutant:


Namely, wipe out everyone in Edgewater.


I recall there being a *lot* more differences between the various ways the main plot could go in New Vegas.

[Spore]

Oddly enough I feel a board-friendly line is usually the one that keeps most people alive. Which is honestly why my two characters are

1) a smart gunslinger with dubious motives that usually works out the way where she gets the most bits and kills the least amount of people.

Example choices:
Bringing Adelaide to Edgewater
Trying to befriend the pyromaniac on the Siegebreaker (failing and massacring his entire crew)
Killing the bandit leader on Roseway.

2) A dumb brute who wants to be the "hero" and jumps to every noble conclusion, no matter how high the body count.
Example choices:
Fueling the power to Adelaide, because her way of life is the right choice. (damned be those who suffer from a plague in a now unpowered sick house)
Bashing MacCreed's head in because he is evil even though I'd be charismatic enough to solve it peacefully.
Helping the bandits who killed an entire research lab because they're anti authority.

[factotum]

OK, I completed my Board run, and my disappointment has increased, if anything. The entire final mission was basically identical to how it goes in the anti-Board game, just with the characters swapped around, and frankly it makes no gosh-darned sense!


The idea that Phineas Welles, who wasn't able to escape his cell in the anti-Board run, not only escapes from it in this one but also somehow turns the entire prison population to his side, then manages to equip them with the same advanced weaponry that the Board soldiers have in the other one? My suspension of disbelief is blown out of the water there.


I was planning to do a "super hard" run where I set the difficulty on Hard and forced myself to use only melee weapons, but I just don't want to grind through the same old quests a third time, so that's getting shelved. The game is still good, don't get me wrong, but it is *way* less enticing for multiple play-throughs than Fallout: New Vegas was. Maybe if they release some DLC I'll come back in a few months.

[Cespenar]

OK, I completed my Board run, and my disappointment has increased, if anything. The entire final mission was basically identical to how it goes in the anti-Board game, just with the characters swapped around, and frankly it makes no gosh-darned sense!

I got a lot of "some corners were cut" vibes off of the quest design and writing in general, to be honest. Especially compared to Obsidian standards.

[Driderman]

I don't think it's so much a case of corners being cut as it is a case of this pretty much being a B-level project and as such, it has had neither the monetary or personnel support that a primary A-level project would have had. The Outer Worlds wasn't really intended as some 80+ hours, multiple playthroughs with their own unique storyline monster of a game,I suspect, it was made as a 20-40 hour FPS-RPG telling a clear and more-or-less finished story that doesn't entail years of DLC expansions and support, other than the necessary patch and bugfix updates.
It was never marketed as being the new Fallout: New Vegas either as far as I've ever seen (but of course the internet quickly ran wild with that "by the original creators of Fallout" marketing line) but hopefully if sales are good, Obisidian might look into developing more, better funded games for The Outer Worlds setting as both Halcyon and neighboring colonies could easily support more stories in the future.

[Anteros]

I got a lot of "some corners were cut" vibes off of the quest design and writing in general, to be honest. Especially compared to Obsidian standards.

To be fair, "corners were cut" is probably the thing that Obsidian is most known for.

[Cespenar]

It was never marketed as being the new Fallout: New Vegas either as far as I've ever seen (but of course the internet quickly ran wild with that "by the original creators of Fallout" marketing line) but hopefully if sales are good, Obisidian might look into developing more, better funded games for The Outer Worlds setting as both Halcyon and neighboring colonies could easily support more stories in the future.

I don't know, that line was intentionally a pretty antagonistic way of marketing, so I expected them to at least produce something up to their own level of quality, if not something that would have Fallout 4 run for its money.

Still, if the "B-level project" thing is true, that would explain things, yes.


To be fair, "corners were cut" is probably the thing that Obsidian is most known for.

True, though here I felt the missing parts were sprinkled all over the game, rather than their usual schtick of cutting a big chunk at the end. Which made it all the more conspicuous.

[Driderman]

I don't know, that line was intentionally a pretty antagonistic way of marketing, so I expected them to at least produce something up to their own level of quality, if not something that would have Fallout 4 run for its money.

I don't know, it's completely true without actually promising anything . Tim Cain and Leonard Bojarsky are (some) of the original makers of Fallout. That doesn't mean every game they make is Fallout. You just read something into that statement (probably exactly what the Marketing Team was aiming for).

[NeoVid]

I just reached the final scene, and, um...

I was really expecting that there would be some climactic argument with the Chairman, instead of him immediately opening fire on my squad of fighting machines and getting one-shotted. A pretty massive disappointment compared to the rest of what I'd experienced.

[factotum]

I think it's theoretically possible to talk him down:


You have to do it when he comes up on the monitor shortly before you find RAM, though, not when you reach the final room.


Note I've not done this myself, I just heard it was possible.

[Rodin]

You absolutely can talk him down, because that's exactly what I did. I just read your conversation and had no idea what you were talking about, so I looked it up. It turns out that...

If Akande is alive, Chairman Rockwell is in a press/green screen room well ahead of both RAM and the monitor where you speak to Akande. If Akande is dead, he's on the monitor instead.

If Akande is dead, Rockwell is pissed off and cannot be talked down. You have to fight RAM, and then Rockwell is hostile when you enter the final room.

If Akande is alive, you can talk Rockwell down in the press room, and then tell Akande that Rockwell has flipped and she'll get pissed off and leave. RAM will be deactivated when you arrive, and you just stroll through and rescue Phineas.

Hence my confusion - I talked down both, and so I met no final boss at all. I had the keycard and high stealth and could have completed Tartarus as a Pacifist if I had so desired. In fact, I don't think I killed a single named Board member in my entire run. The only named characters I killed at all were the cystpig factory owner and the leader of the Iconoclasts. At least...I think so. I can't remember any others. And I only killed the cystpig dude because I failed the speech check.

Oh wait, I guess I killed off the generic Marauder bounties in the first area. I don't really count those guys though.

[factotum]

Ah, that makes sense.


I killed Sophie in my "anti-Board" playthrough because she didn't give me much choice--she pulled a gun on me when I refused to slaughter the population of Edgewater. So, I never met the Chairman until he spoke to me on the monitor.

[Rodin]

Ah, that makes sense.


I killed Sophie in my "anti-Board" playthrough because she didn't give me much choice--she pulled a gun on me when I refused to slaughter the population of Edgewater. So, I never met the Chairman until he spoke to me on the monitor.


I had been pretty openly anti-Board throughout my playthrough and wasn't very nice to her on the phone when we first talked. When she asked me to come and meet with her, this was my reaction:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko-Yj6ZL9qE

So I just went straight to the Hope instead. I never actually met her in person, only talked to her on monitors.

[Destro_Yersul]

There's also a third ending:
The third ending is only available if you have below-intelligence Intelligence. When you get to the Hope, you have the option of either letting ADA pilot the ship safely to Phineas's asteroid... or you can take direct control of the navigation and send the ship hurtling into the sun, which gets you a non-standard game-over and no ending slides.

Guess what ending the Speedrun uses.

[boj0]

Best part is: the devs called it a valid choice and a real ending

[Spore]

Best part is: the devs called it a valid choice and a real ending

I mean its AN ENDING.

1) It ends the story permanently.

2) The lets the hero relax with a nice crisp tan.

3) It is epic and a character choice.

[NeoVid]

Ah, turning the whole Board permanently hostile with an earlier action would make sense. I suppose I'll imitate some of the speedrun video for a second playthrough, just so I can zip through to the part I was hoping to see. Despite opposing the Board for my whole run, I'd managed to do it underhandedly enough that I was at higher approval with them than disapproval, and I'd intended to try and keep it that way for the whole game... then when I met Adjutant Akande, she ordered me to kill off the population of Edgewater... while Parvati was in the room with us. With her there, I wasn't even willing to pretend to play along, so the Adjutant and her guards tried to take me down. It went badly for them.

By the way, I can only imagine how hard the RAM fight would have been if I hadn't brought a companion armed with the Mind Control Ray.

[The Glyphstone]

So I'm finally getting around to this now that I have a better computer. I've avoided reading the thread to dodge story spoilers, but mechanics-wise, are there are any major 'trap' build options or paths? A certain level of skill at which further investment stops being useful?

[NeoVid]

The game is easy enough that you can dominate without cranking weapon skills much past 50, which leaves plenty for other skills... Though I didn't bring up any skill past 80, since the companion bonuses can put you well over 100 in several utility skills. Remember that the base stats in this game go from -1 to +3 max, so temp boosts that give +1 to a base stat are massive.

[boj0]

I don't think there are any trap options, maybe the ones that boost carrying capacity; but since there is a respec terminal on the ship you can pick anything and change it if you don't like it

[Spore]

I kinda prefer a "bardic" approach anyhow. The system supports it so well. Basically be decent enough in almost any category. Now I am an acceptable hacker/lockpicker/marksman/socialite/team leader. Not gonna touch melee or defense but that is just me.

[Brookshw]

I don't think there are any trap options, maybe the ones that boost carrying capacity; but since there is a respec terminal on the ship you can pick anything and change it if you don't like it

I took the carrying ones and didn't regret it, but that was likely due to the lack of attractive alternatives. The perks were so......lackluster. At least for my playstyle.

[Spore]

I took the carrying ones and didn't regret it, but that was likely due to the lack of attractive alternatives. The perks were so......lackluster. At least for my playstyle.

I feel overall carrying capacity is the second best thing to pick after tier 1 perks like lone wanderer lone wolf, toughness and a synergistic build around TTD. Because it saves on attribute points if you never want to wield a melee weapon. Whereas you cannot really save on them and get the same result with perks on other stats.

Drawbacks on the other hand can become relatively crippling (as can below average stats imho because their penalties are rather harsh). I took mechanicals as a phobia and now i cannot really use SAM effectively. Oddly enough it does not trigger from hostile robots unless you have line of sight but if you pass SAM's dock in the Unreliable even with a closed door, your phobia triggers. You can't visit any crew quarters or even the living room without phobia. Plus you have the option of screaming at the poor fella.

I feel like a sentient cat who knows there is a roomba around at every waking moment.

[NeoVid]

My first playthrough was a breeze thanks to item duplication (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCUVvEZVjVI&t) -I mean, building my companions for crit chance+ability use and having a good array of guns with different elements. Unlike the Fallout games, companions aren't going to leave you with no enemies alive to fight, but they'll come pretty close if you give them something like the Gloop Gun and an N-Ray machine gun. I went heavy into perks that increased companion effectiveness, and doubling their stat boosts made for hilarity when I found I had a Stealth skill of 138.

[factotum]

Unlike the Fallout games, companions aren't going to leave you with no enemies alive to fight, but they'll come pretty close if you give them something like the Gloop Gun and an N-Ray machine gun.

Depends on difficulty--in normal difficulty your companions can totally clear out most encounters by themselves if you've been specialising in Leadership and Determination, especially if you make good use of their special abilities and have the perks to make those recharge more quickly.

[xroads]

By the way, I can only imagine how hard the RAM fight would have been if I hadn't brought a companion armed with the Mind Control Ray.

It was tough, but I actually used the Gloop Gun as my companions charged in blasting with their more classic firearms.

... were the numerous drones, which pushed their way into the elevator and surrounded me. Fortunately, we managed to drop the big guy which in turned somehow killed all the drones.

[JadedDM]

Not really sure how I even did this, but:

I wound up killing it so quickly, that I didn't even realize it had adds until I saw their shells littering the room after the fight. Some of them didn't have time to even leave their little rooms.

[The Glyphstone]

Is there some sort of in-game reference utility where I can review the helpful pop-ups and tips I get shown in early game? Stuff like 'certain types of armor resist damage', I remember that as a tooltip warning but can't go back and read in detail.

[NeoVid]

I forget what the tab that archives those is called, but it's right next to the Quests list. All the popup tips are listed there, but they don't get added to the list until after they've been triggered in gameplay.

[JadedDM]

It's called the Codex, and yeah, it's part of the quest log tab.

[The Glyphstone]

It's called the Codex, and yeah, it's part of the quest log tab.

Thank you!

[Man_Over_Game]

I've heard that the game is pretty easy, and doesn't have great scalability in terms of combat. How accurate are those claims?

Also, does the game suffer the same problem as Deus Ex, where only certain solutions/builds are actually usable? New Vegas had this problem with its last boss fight (have max Persuasion stats, or be prepared for the fight of your life), and I'd be interested to know how Obsidian learned from it.

[Spore]

I've heard that the game is pretty easy, and doesn't have great scalability in terms of combat. How accurate are those claims?

Also, does the game suffer the same problem as Deus Ex, where only certain solutions/builds are actually usable? New Vegas had this problem with its last boss fight (have max Persuasion stats, or be prepared for the fight of your life), and I'd be interested to know how Obsidian learned from it.

I feel combat is either too easy or pretty hard. You must understand how damage and armor works to get a somewhat acceptable difficulty. I play on medium with a mix of guns, sneaking skills and social skills (basically all these to 50 since you can up categories up to 50 when you then have to spent additional points in individual skills). This way I have an actually decent challenge (it is eay, don't get me wrong but I play on medium). If you went full on combat mode, you will struggle in social encounters but everything will turn into a combat encounter anyhow since you're so terrible at sneaking around. If you focus on stealth or talking, and invest NOTHING into combat, you WILL struggle with combat.

Alas I recommend at least upping a single combat skill to 50 (either melee or ranged). Melee is underwhelming imho (it takes longer to bludgeon someone to death than it takes them to riddle you with bullet holes and plasma burns) and should not be taken without defense. But stealth and social skills give combat debuffs (intimidators let human enemies flee, hackers can disable robots).

Personally I recommend a character leaning on a few areas but nothing extreme for a first playthrough. Basically don't get any attributes 'below average' since that really tanks your ability in that regard. And the extra point is usually not worth it. Below average str/dex tanks TTD (this games' VATS) so terribly it becomes basically unuseable, low intelligence ruins your chance on crits (but you can use dumb dialogue options which are occasionally useful) low perception nullifies headshots/weak points (which usually doubles damage), low charm ruins your reputation (and your companion damage) and finally low temperament disables your natural life regeneration.

[xroads]

I've heard that the game is pretty easy, and doesn't have great scalability in terms of combat. How accurate are those claims?

Also, does the game suffer the same problem as Deus Ex, where only certain solutions/builds are actually usable? New Vegas had this problem with its last boss fight (have max Persuasion stats, or be prepared for the fight of your life), and I'd be interested to know how Obsidian learned from it.

I can attest to combat not being very difficult in normal mode. I can only recall one fight near the beginning that presented any difficulty (a random bandit fight). I couldn't even get my third weakness until the end of the game.

It seems like you can beat the game with just about any build. From my experience, pure stealth builds may have some problems. But that may be because stealth has never been my forte.

Like Spore suggests, you'll probably want to level guns up to 50 (max for any skill is 100). And I recommend getting a hack skill of at least 20. A 20 hack will let you sell items at vending machines. This will usually save you from having lug your loot to a merchant (vending machines can be found everywhere).

[Caelestion]

I'm sure it also depends on your skill with FPS games. I never play them, so I found the early combat to be quite tricky for the first few hours.

[Chen]

End combat spoiler
The last level or two where everyone is armed with N-ray weapons is MUCH more difficult than the rest of the game. That said you can do the whole last level in disguise and not fight anyone at all with even moderately high speech skills.

[The Glyphstone]

Why are there usable beds all over the worlds when sleep has no effect outside of Supernova difficulty, and in Supernova you can only sleep on your ship?

[factotum]

Why are there usable beds all over the worlds when sleep has no effect outside of Supernova difficulty, and in Supernova you can only sleep on your ship?

I suspect they might have originally had it so you *could* sleep in those beds in Supernova, but it made it too easy, maybe?

[Spore]

Why are there usable beds all over the worlds when sleep has no effect outside of Supernova difficulty, and in Supernova you can only sleep on your ship?

Wait, I thought sleep was the equivalent of waiting for your Temperament stat to kick natural healing into high gear and to wait out debuff timers.

[Beleriphon]

For the ending, I went anti-Board and generally got the "third" option to resolve most major quests.

Do the references to Earth seem like a setup for a sequel? Also, I like that other colonies are referred to and they also seem to have lost contact.

[NeoVid]

Do the references to Earth seem like a setup for a sequel?

Oh yes.... which made it a disturbing shock when it turned out there had been no messages from Earth in years, and no ship relayed to Earth in that time has been heard from since. Now that's an impressive way to shatter our expectations!

[Veg Sorbet]

Playing through for the first time, just did the bounty quest (MacRedd) for the security folks on Groundbreaker...

Sweet holy heck, was that fight supposed to be super hard, or is it just me being bad at the game?

Also, where do I go to get hold of non-automatic long guns? please tell me there's a hunting rifle/sniper equivilent out there somewhere!

[The Glyphstone]

Playing through for the first time, just did the bounty quest (MacRedd) for the security folks on Groundbreaker...

Sweet holy heck, was that fight supposed to be super hard, or is it just me being bad at the game?

Also, where do I go to get hold of non-automatic long guns? please tell me there's a hunting rifle/sniper equivilent out there somewhere!

I got my first Hunting Rifle in Emerald Vale from a dead Marauder. Specifically, a Marauder Scout, but the named raider Bertie Cotton (one of the three you killed in the bounty quest from Edgewater) drops it often.

[factotum]

I didn't find the MacRedd quest particularly difficult, but then, I took the guy himself down at the start so didn't have to worry about his flamethrower. As for non-auto long guns, you should really have already found some if you did everything possible in Emerald Vale.

[Balmas]

Also, where do I go to get hold of non-automatic long guns? please tell me there's a hunting rifle/sniper equivilent out there somewhere!

One of the bounty mission targets in Edgewater has a hunting rifle which was my mainstay from the moment I picked it up all the way until the early levels on Monarch. I'm pretty sure that the weapons vendor--Belle's Shells, I think?--on the Groundbreaker sells one. Bolt action, but with the punch to make up for it if you're speccing towards sniping.

(Also, look for a Deadeye Assault Rifle once you get towards level 22. Slightly less damage than the hunting rifle, still semi-auto, but twice the firerate of the hunting rifle.)

[Veg Sorbet]

...

Y'know, I thought Edgewater was a bit lacking in quests for such a supposedly significant location.

Turns out I was still so focussed on trying to figure out UI and controls at that point I basically just followed the main quest markers on autopilot, and completely forgot to explore much beyond that. (Did Max's companion quest, but only 'cause Parvarti pointed me his way.)

:smallredface: whoops. I see backtracking in my future...

Anyway, thanks for the tips, looks like the Groundbreaker weapons merchant is my best bet right now.

[factotum]

That probably explains the issues you had with MacRedd, then, you're probably way underlevelled for that fight!

[Eldan]

I'm having a really hard time getting into this game. I've started it three times in the last two weeks, each time played for 20 minutes or half an hour, then quit again.
For one, I don't see a really solid motivation for my character to do anything except bum around a bit. And Edgewater seems really empty, even wandering around in it for a while and talking to everyone. Everything is really quiet and a bit empty. It feels like I've been dropped off at a street corner in a small town where nothing happens and told to wander around for a few hours until my parents can pick me up again to do something actually fun. I dont' really care about any of the characters or quests either. So, I'm told to turn off power to one of two towns. Okay? Sure? One of the towns is given some evil background text on their computers and the others have plants, so they have to be good? Except turning off power to the entire company town and telling them to fend for themselves doesn't strike me as all that good either, even if that liberates them. I can't help but think the most heroic thing for my character would just be to walk away and find some other way off planet, instead of stealing an entire town's power.

[factotum]

There actually isn't any other option, you have to turn off the power to *one* of the towns--and no, none of those is really a *good* outcome per se, but that's the whole point of the game, there is rarely an unequivocally good path to take.

[Lord Raziere]

There actually isn't any other option, you have to turn off the power to *one* of the towns--and no, none of those is really a *good* outcome per se, but that's the whole point of the game, there is rarely an unequivocally good path to take.


....Stays in Edgewater.

I don't know. The entire of the rest the game is much more clear about its morality and its pretty clear the rebel options are the good ones for the rest of the game. I went through the whole thing taking all the rebel options and felt completely justified in doing so when the rebel endings are only slightly worse than negotiating peace, while taking the full corporate side basically has you siding with fascists and putting everyone but the rich in cryostasis for an unspecified amount of time and its never confirmed that the corporations actually come up with a way to solve it. while rebel side even if it could be better, made me feel I made the right decisions even if I didn't make the best ones.

[Eldan]

There actually isn't any other option, you have to turn off the power to *one* of the towns--and no, none of those is really a *good* outcome per se, but that's the whole point of the game, there is rarely an unequivocally good path to take.

I mean, I know the game doesn't offer any other choice. I just don't like being forced into it.

[Spore]

I'm having a really hard time getting into this game. I've started it three times in the last two weeks, each time played for 20 minutes or half an hour, then quit again.
For one, I don't see a really solid motivation for my character to do anything except bum around a bit.

Yeah, I'm gonna get lynched for this but the character in Fallout 4 has a better starting motivation to get involved to be honest. While the motivation of "they kidnapped your kid, go on a murder spree to get him back" could be straight out of a Hollywood movie, the motivation of "you looked for better pastures on a cryoship, now some nutjob barely got you out of cryostasis, go do stuff" is terribly vague.

That being said, there is much space for you to input your own backstory. I'm like you, in that I actually like a more defined motivation for a character, ala Fallout New Vegas. "You are a courier. This dude shot you, go find him." What defined my characters more than defining a backstory in Outer Worlds though was how I'd approach problems. I feel you have roughly four ways to approach stuff.

'Heroic': you do what a classic RPG would want from you. Usually the best option for everyone involved, with the most amount of work.
'Villain': Selling out the most, gaining a maximum of profit out of the situation.
'Dumb': Me dumb, me go smash.
'Opportunist': Well, this option is the best for ME, while not completely compromising my moral compass, ruining a major corporation or screwing over people.

I do not want to spoil you, but I have examples for every option.

[Eldan]

I made my way to the Groundbreaker now, and I think the game is getting better. The locations look more interesting, at least, we'll have to see if there's any good quests. I did manage to put the botanist in charge of Edgewater, though I'm also really annoyed I couldn't convince the former foreman to leave and put her in charge without first killing her invaluable research garden. I'm a researcher, I work with plants, just the thought of killing someone's research plants hurts.

Then I got distracted by replaying Disco Elysium.

[Spore]

I made my way to the Groundbreaker now, and I think the game is getting better. The locations look more interesting, at least, we'll have to see if there's any good quests. I did manage to put the botanist in charge of Edgewater, though I'm also really annoyed I couldn't convince the former foreman to leave and put her in charge without first killing her invaluable research garden. I'm a researcher, I work with plants, just the thought of killing someone's research plants hurts.

I feel it is not a research facility as much as a proper garden. I realize her small scale operation can feed people AND be seen as a research project. But it has been pointed out several times that her garden is not large enough to feed the people in and around Edgewater. People need the canned goods, and more importantly the imports from Edgewater's space harbor.

In a way Edgewater is just a tutorial zone. But the Groundbreaker and later on Stellar Bay shows how the game kinda works. What kinda weirds me out is the thought that the planets don't seem to sustain much life, yet Stellar Bay is TEEMING with raptidons, canids and mantipillars. So that these planets cannot support life is a blatant lie. Yes, they cannot support millions of humans, but a few thousands, or in the case of the settlements ingame, a few hundred should be perfectly viable.

[Caelestion]

I think that the sky around Skylla is gorgeous. On landing there for the first time, I panned the screen around just to marvel at the scenery.

[factotum]

What kinda weirds me out is the thought that the planets don't seem to sustain much life, yet Stellar Bay is TEEMING with raptidons, canids and mantipillars. So that these planets cannot support life is a blatant lie. Yes, they cannot support millions of humans, but a few thousands, or in the case of the settlements ingame, a few hundred should be perfectly viable.

Spoilered for people who haven't finished the game yet:


The whole point is that humans can't live long-term off the alien plant and animal life of the star system in the Outer Worlds, and the crops they transplanted from Earth, living in alien soil, don't work either. This is entirely reasonable--the proteins etc. in those alien critters are quite probably incompatible and undigestible by human bowels. This is why one of the things the scientists investigated was the possibility of transplanting the gut from an alien life-form into humans, thus allowing them to process native foodstuffs and get the proper nutrition from them.

[Eldan]

It should still be possible to chemically break down native life into nutrient paste, at least. Would need huge amounts of energy and be highly inefficient, but they have spaceships, so energy can't really be a problem.

Or grow Earth plants in hydroponics with chemical fertilizers.

[Eldan]

There's now more things in this game that make me facepalm, kind of. It got better, though, after I got off Edgewater. So, I'm taking Parvati with me to see captain Tennyson. Sure. She's very flustered. I tell them to get writing messages to each other, seems a good thing to do. Get a mission, walk back to my ship, talk to Parvati again, literally three minutes later, and she tells me that she apparently already has a weeks long Romance with Junlei? Uh-huh. We talk a bit more, she has romantic problems, I go get a drink with her, and the romantic problems are now solved. Total play time: about half an hour. We see Tennyson again, neither of them reacts to the other at all. No talking points about this romance. Few more hours of playing time, it's never mentioned again.

I mean, it was cute and all, but I think this game has major problems with pacing.

[factotum]

There's more to that particular plotline than you're saying there, but you have to have opened up Monarch as a travel destination for it to proceed.

[Eldan]

My problem isn't whether the quest is over or not, though. It's about how they apparently have a weeks long romance in the time it takes me to walk across two rooms. And then don't even speak to one another when they meet again in person or recognize each other in any way.

[factotum]

I think the problem there is that they needed to have you leave and then return to Groundbreaker to trigger the second part, and they simply didn't do that. Parvati pipes up as soon as you come back onto the ship after meeting Junlei, and because she's usually standing right there in the cargo bay, you're likely to hear it and go to speak to her as soon as you come aboard--if she was upstairs in her room like all the other companions you probably wouldn't do that.

[Rodin]

It's an artifact of how they've mashed two game designs together. The world exploration is Bethesda, but the companions are modeled after Bioware. Specifically, the ship is clearly inspired by the Normandy with the visual aesthetic of the Serenity.

In Mass Effect, the system works fairly well because there is no free roaming. You do a mission, that ticks an "advance plotlines" flag", and by the time you return people have new stuff to say to you. In Outer Worlds there is no easy way to tell when you've been away for a while to advance the personal stories, so they just set it to be whenever you return to the ship.

If you're on and off the ship like many people are, then the stories get told very quickly and then sit around doing nothing until you hit a major story flag (like unlocking Byzantium) to allow accessing the next set of companion quests.

This shows itself in other ways as well - your companions can have scenes with each other when you return to the ship. But since they don't know where in the story you'll be, they just play them at random and even let them repeat.

[Giggling Ghast]

Just downloaded this game the other night, haven't started playing yet. Any beginner tips to share, folks? I was kind of thinking of making an Asian lab assistant with slightly higher intelligence and temperament and strictly average strength and dexterity.