Current Events > 3 weeks later. The Outer Worlds was mediocre

(+) Yeah! (+)

1st trouble is the progression and variety.

by the time you visisted roseway you already met 90% of the enemy type. on monarch, basically 40% of the game you have seen everything. every enemies, every weapons, et cetera. there are named secret enemies on monarch mainly, but they are still the exact same sprite, animation, attacks as regular monsters and they drop trash loot only.

the weapons become boring. set the science weapons aside, it's just like 6 types of guns and 6 types of melee. all the named "unique" weapons are so underwhelming. i have several unique named weapons that is weaker than regular weapons on top of they usually dont have upgrade slots. same with armor.

lack of variety hurts when the gameplay loop is basically's fallout 4 and not new vegas. most of the quests are fetch quests with some extra steps. the enemies you see are usually always just unnamed regular bandits/raiders or animals. the map are filled with trash enemies, trash loot that respawn too quickly like borderlands, but without the variety borderlands offer. most of the quest involve of going to x kill y or take y then go back. sometimes there are choices, a very rundimentary, sometimes useless one. it is above fallout 4 sure, but new vegas it ain't.

compared to other recent AA game i enjoy more than TOW, Greedfall. i really love how each quests are interconnected in that game. gameplay wise, it is mostly the same, and they involve alot of painful backtracking, but the nuances that built the context are completely different.

for example the nameless raider problems in outer worlds. most of the quest (except for few like the pork king quest) involve you just going to dungeon A, killing all generic enemies and go out. i do notice the levels are decently designed. some have several point of entries, but since the enemies are mostly generic enemies with no consequences of killing all those alternatives feel useless.

compared to that, greedfall, aside from wild animals, most human enemies feel like a part of the world, and escalating conflict feels like it matters. there are rare that nameless raiders are involved. you fight people like the coin guard rouge soldiers, native rebels, etc that they all have context to provide their background in the world and it feel like you are involved in that world.

some greedfall spoilers, also point out how the side quest, the companion quests, the main quests, faction quests are interconnected.

kurt quest began as investigating his protege death, which lead to the revelation of the shadow division, which connected to the coup part of the main story, which also connect to the rogue soldiers that extort merchants etc.

petrus quest also connect with corruption within inquisition, PC's backstory, discovering the origin of the religion, there are also the plotline with the whole native rebel, a major group you encounter several times , which is caused by the rouge scientist who is a companion's mentor

levelling up in TOW isn't that good too. i like the system early on, but later on, it feels like nothing matters. you can kill enemies with whatever no matter your build. the skillchecks are mostly trivial too on account until byzantium, most of it are too low.

the second is the story and world.

dialogue to dialogue writing itself are fine. but the worldbuilding ugh. it's too much of a parody for me to care for it seriously. some jokes hits, like the moonman dialogues, but most of it are just mediocre. the overall plot also don't make sense and doesnt seem like there are any thought put beyond "corporation bad, we are brainwashed"

there are some cool moments, but yeah the writing isn't new vegas or vampire the masquerade.

companions are fine. vicar max is an excellent character. parvati is cool because she's adorable. other than that they are ok. the only 1 i dont like is ellie and her stupid quest.
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Didn't read. Outer Worlds is great
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if you compare the humor for something like fallout 1 or new vegas, it's more like 80% serious and trying to portray believable depiction of life in ruined world, and some humor sprinkled around to lighten the situation.

it TOW, it's kinda the reverse. it's like south park episode, but they try some serious part that don't really work. the world is just . . shallow.

@Leanaunfurled

if you want to hear my opinion. maybe i'm too harsh because my expectations was high,especially in writing department and quest design.

the game have alot of little reactivity, but really lacking in some major one.
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Irony posted...

Didn't read. Outer Worlds is great

Respectfully TC, I agree. I'm not really in the mood to read about a microanalizing of why I shouldn't like a game that I like. It has shortcomings, but who cares. It's had many great moments that are difficult to experience anymore. It's been highly enjoyable and broke me out of a long-term rut from focusing on any game for more than an hour or two a week.
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MabusIncarnate posted...

I shouldn't like a game that I like.

tbh i dont ask anyone to like or dislike x because of my opinion. feel free to agree or disagree. i'm just voicing my thoughts.

at the very least they have been transparent on the scale of production. i can forgive it in term of lack of enemy variety/ weapons. but some of the design decision feel off. if you don't have the budget for tons of enemies, why litter the map with same generic enemies? i see people complain new vegas map is "empty" but it's not, that it is a deliberate, well thought design decision on the overall ecosystem of the map.

i prefer if a map is empty when the situation make sense, than when i just fight trash mobs every 5 seconds traversing the map.

the quests design is what disappoint me the most. greedfall, the same AA production, possibly have less budget managed to squeezed out some really meaningful content, despite mostly same shortcoming (copy pasted area, samey enemies and lack of weapon variety) but alot of the nuances are extremely well done, with quest narrative that contribute to the overall worldbuilding and themes.
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and tbh alot of the trash mob design can be fixed simply by just tying the locations you visit to real factions in the world instead of filling it with generic robot/raider/animals.

for example the thermal power plant in edgewater just move the rebels into there, so you have the choices to kill them there or negotiate, betray reed, or optimizing the output

also the generic marauder just tie them to one of the companion quest felix's old best friend, who is rounding outlaws to create a rebellion
but they just make marauders generic enemies that it's even mentioned in the dialouge "they are literally crazy, dont even try to talk to them
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Im still working through the game (just got to byzantium last night,) and I kinda feel you on some of this here. Im gonna post some ramblings that I just dropped in discord in here

I really like tow, but I think parts of it are sort of incongruous with each other. it seems like it set out to be a sort of slightly-larger-than-bitesize wrpg, and I think thats fun, but its sort of at odds with the reputation system and the dilemmas it tries to force you into.

when they did all this in NV, it was this giant world with factions quests all over the damn place and reputations/player opinions could take time to naturally develop. In tow, there are only a handful of quests for each faction, and you dont really get to dive into them before youre deciding their fate. like, take the ncr in nv for example. they have outposts and quest givers ALLLL over the mojave. you can please some and upset some others and things will still sort of even out and fall into place. with spacers choice in edgewater, you basically get one set of quests from them. the ||cannery isnt getting enough power, and the manager of edgewater wants you to go to the power plant and divert all local power to the town. on the way, you meet the opposing faction that wants you to divert the power to them instead of edgewater. you can get two minor quests from each faction, then you have to make your decision. you dont get to truly learn about the folks on either side all that much, and then they present you with this dilemma that they force somewhat artificial gravitas onto||

and I think edgewater actually does the dilemma better than anything else Ive done so far. on monarch, they do they same thing, and by the end of the ostensibly very short questline, the major players act like they go way back w u, and I was like, guys, weve spoken mmmaaaaaaybe three times. so the writing is still really good stuff, but the questlines sort of feel like Im reading the sparknotes.

I think TOW is more like, a demo of what they *could* flesh out going forward, and in that regard, its absolutely loaded with potential. the writing is sublime and the systems are all there and great and waiting to be truly tapped into.

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it didn't blow me away but it was pretty good. with backing from microsoft, their next game like this should be great.
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Haven't played it yet, but if the named, unique weapons are anything like Pillars of Eternity I can definitely see them being underwhelming, as well sparse.

I didn't really like Fallout 4, but I did like the legendary weapon system they added to kind of make up for rare and/or underwhelming uniques.
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lol, no.

its limited in variety due to budget, but it handled it well.
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It felt like half a game. The half that we got was awesome, but there should have been more. Tyranny had this problem too.
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i can't wait to try this game. it looks great to me
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I just got Greedfall and enjoying it so far though I haven't left the tutorial town yet. Only thing that miffs me so far is not picking lockpicking as my first skill since there are a lot of lockpicked chests Ive come across and I'm used to lockpicking being an innate mechanic in games lol. But since it's tutorial town I doubt any of the lockpicked gear is worth worrying about

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Nah tc
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@Touch I was thinking about getting that myself. What game would you compare it to

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I really appreciate the write-up. Was talking to some friends this morning (see Cookie's post) on how they felt, and while I'm still going to play this game, of course, and I'm still looking forward to it, my expectations are lowered. It's a bummer, but oh well.

Plus I still have Disco and Greedfall to play. :)

Lack of enemy variety has always been a gaming pet peeve of mine. I wish more development energy was funneled to it in games these days.
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Cthulhu_Fhtagn posted...

@Touch I was thinking about getting that myself. What game would you compare it to

It's kind of Witcher-esque. The dialogue choices have a lot more consequences though as there are factions in game that you get affinity towards or away from, though I haven't gotten far enough to see what rewards/paths they open up yet. Combat is okay so far but like I said, I haven't really gotten far enough to utilize magic, traps, etc to flesh it out.

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Thanks

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These are all valid criticisms, but I feel like a lot of it comes from people seeing this as a Fallout spiritual successor; this game has a LOT of KOTOR in its DNA. The relatively limited enemy and item variety, the linear open locations, the we just met decide my fate old friend with whom I go way back approach to factions and quest design; all of this is straight from the KOTOR playbook. Doesnt make it less of a hinderance, but shifting my perception of the game to look at it from that angle made me appreciate it more. Very excited to see a sequel, at any rate.
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While I agree with a lot of your points, I enjoyed the game a lot... Definitely wish there was more depth to the enemies and combat/loot though.
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Irony posted...

Didn't read. Outer Worlds is great

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It looks too basic to immerse you in the story
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Irony posted...

Didn't read. Outer Worlds is great

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