The Outer Worlds

[Art Blade]

it's finally out on steam and I'm enjoying it as a "proper" FallOut sequel

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All graphics set to ultra, it's very smooth.

I'm going in as a non-combat character and I'm playing on normal difficulty. After a long customisation stint, this is how I've set up my starting stats.

my character
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[Art Blade]

Having played for some time now I think it's safe to say that this is not FallOut albeit decorations and machines and advertisements do remind me a lot of it as it's that kind of 1950s style. Also the same quirky sense of humour which I like.

The character customisation is different as are the results, but it's not far off the old path.

What really is different is the way weapons and "clothes" w0#k. Weapons range from slashing and pounding tools to shock cannons and grenade launchers. "Clothes" seem to be outfits exclusively of the armoured type ranging from light to heavy and comprise an overall and a helmet which can be combined in any which way. Those items may be simple armour or come with additional boosts (and debuffs) like "+5 sneaking" or "+10 dodge, -5 stealth" or "+5 lockpick" and so on. Meaning you can temporarily change your skills a little for as long as you're wearing certain "clothes."

Both weapons and clothes can be modified by permanently adding mods that cannot be removed (unless you've got really high skills of a specific type allowing some sort of refund chance when you dismantle a modded item) and those mods range from more inventory space or mag size over scanners or crit chances to damage type changes and other gimmicks.

You can repair stuff by using either weapon or armour parts that you may find, buy or get from dismantling your stuff. You can tinker stuff to make it more powerful, some kind of upgrade, which you pay for with currency.

Either you need a workbench for that or a higher skill that allows you to repair stuff in your inventory. If you dismantle weapons or armour in your inventory, the resulting parts weigh nothing which is useful when you're about to be encumbered and you can discard stuff (or leave it somewhere) when running low on inventory space.

And then there is the aspect that brings me to my 2nd pic above, "non combatant" is actually impossible. There are TONS of hostile entities ranging from aggressive birds over marauder gangs to King Kong type monster packs.

While it is useful to have those communication attributes in certain moments that actually allow for conversations, they are useless against primate aggressors Also, having access to otherwise restricted weapons and stuff in vending machines, it's a bit too early to start out with that because those items cost a fortune that I simply don't (yet) have. Well, that's what a first playthrough is about, learning the mechanics and quirks

I've killed my way around the map area where I started and hacked locks and doors and nicked stuff that I shouldn't have and all that which is the exact opposite of what I had in mind when I chose my character's attributes/skills etc but it's still fun

Lots to explore and test and kill, nice

[mandru]

Cool Art.

I've kinda had my eye on this one and it looks like I let down my guard and you got the jump on me spotting when it was finally released.

Ah well I've had a lot going on lately. 

[Art Blade]

I hope that you're now kind of back to normal, mandru, and find some time for your hobbies again

And yes, I'd been waiting for this game to come to steam ever since they released it and now it has finally arrived, even at a discount so I've got the "full package" for the price of the base game

This game to me is the true continuation of the FallOut experience since FO4 because I still don't accept FO76 at all even though Dweller said it had improved a lot and all that. What makes me ignore FO76 is the simple fact that it is NOT a true single player game unlike all the previous FO games. TOW on the other hand is from the old developers and proper undisturbed single player fun.

Meanwhile, back at TOW, I've just reached level 4 and shortly before that, I acquired a companion called Parvati. The name that a certain guy on YouTube refused to learn for a long time, calling her Pavarotti and stuff like that just because he never bothered reading stuff properly and he pondered and made up things (that were de facto wrong) only because he bloody didn't read. All that and more made me stop watching his streams after a comparatively short amount of time and for a change, I never watched anything else since so this time around I'm more or less in my game where I left his stream behind. And that means, it's all uncharted territory, literally

The one thing I also remember about that guy is that he had an inventory loaded with armour and weapons but thanks to his stupid ignorance he completely missed out on the fact that he could (and should) have fitted out his companion with that stuff instead of letting her run around in rags wielding a stick. The first thing I did was gear her up properly

I suspected that her weapons would neither degrade nor need ammo in her inventory, unlike my own weapons, so I gave her the best gun I had and boy did she use it well Indeed, she doesn't need ammo and her gun is still at 100%. That's also different compared to the stream: I make her pick a fight by pointing her to an enemy and then together we start to mop up any resistance which is actually fun. I mostly let her do the shooting and focus on keeping enemies from overrunning her. I get XP for her kills while saving my health (and gear) so it does make sense to actually USE your companion in combat.

[Art Blade]

as to stalking you, Dweller..

[Dweller_Benthos]

You're still playing this game, Art? I mean, the speed run record is a little over 12 minutes, you must be dragging it out to no end!   

Figured you'd be hanging around here lol

But yeah it was funny that I was literally looking at the steam store page for the game when you messaged me and said I should buy it. I thought maybe you had a camera planted near my computer or something!

I had watched about an hour of the beginning of the game on a stream and decided that I wanted to get it back then, just waited for steam to get it. I even commented back then that it did Obsidian games no good with that exclusive deal as I would have bought it full price back then if they released on steam, but now I get the game, DLC pass and soundtrack for the same price! Nice deal. Their loss.

Anyway, I got into the game far enough to get to the ship after making a character, and then had to quit as it was getting late. So I'm not into any new territory for me yet from what I've seen in videos. Of course, it's not the same anyway, as streamers tend to bypass a lot of things and I looked into all the nooks and crannies of the area before even moving away from my landing point. So we shall see, I'm sure it will be fun, but it's only a successor to Fallout in the general feel of the game, the look, the attitude, etc. Actually already I'm kind of done with the whole "spacer's choice" schtick, it got old pretty fast. OK, we get it, the devs hate corporations because they are all evil, no need to shove it down our throats.

I didn't go too specialized in my character, put points in lockpicking and gun handling, and added a science perk for some extra ability there. There's a lot of stuff to customize if you want, I even read about someone who went all out charisma or whatever it's called in this game, to be able to talk his way out of every situation or be able to order around his companions and others to do the fighting for him when it came down to that. So there is a lot of depth there if you want to go into it.

Oh yeah, FO76 is still a great game, Art is just antisocial lol. 

[Art Blade]

I love reading your posts.

Yeah, I'm taking my sweet time because like you, I don't want to miss out on anything if possible and I do explore a lot, trying to loot everything

[mandru]

D_B, I had to look up that 12 minute speed run you mentioned and noticed that there was a game designer's commentary dubbed over that player's game as he set the record.

Long live the stupid ending!    (uh, so to speak  )

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah this is one of those games I don't want to rush through. I'll be peeking into every nook and cranny to find stuff.

And, as Mandru noted, there is a "stupid ending" which the speed runners use, essentially you win the game by losing. As I recall, all you need to do is get to the point to repair your ship then crash it into the sun.

[Art Blade]

it seems that there's an achievement for that, crashing into the sun. But yeah, what a way out. Start the game, get killed, and on to the next game.. lol Not my idea of playing, though. I want to have fun that lasts a tad longer than 12 minutes

I find it particularly hard to choose skills once you've advanced a little bit. Essentially, you want them all but got only so many to spend. However, I'm trying to make the best of it all and I'm enjoying it a lot

Just by the way, it's not a bad idea to give your best weapons to your companions. The stuff you give them won't degrade at all, including armour, and they're actually quite good at fighting with whatever weapons you give them.

[mandru]

Searching youtube for Best Weapons in The Outer Worlds give some interesting results.

Some of the very best weapons aren't in obvious locations and at points in the game where you might expect them.  It's easy to to walk right past a chance to grab a top 10 sleeper that with a few upgrades can become your insanely powerful favorite carry.

[fragger]

Interesting reading so far Art. I'd forgotten about the existence of this game, but I remember thinking at the time it was released that it might be like another No Man's Sky. It would appear that no, it isn't More like a Fallout game, but not a Fallout game. TOW seems more of a RPG than FO4, maybe closer in nature to the earlier FO games like #3 and New Vegas.

I'm like Art and D_B, I like to wring as much out of a game as I can, so I suspect that the average playthrough time of TOW as reported by players and reviewers on the net could be quite a bit longer if one is meticulous. Because I'm not the type to rip through a game as fast as possible, every successive game of FO4 I've played through has gotten longer than the one before it. My last 'thru of FO4 lasted two years, and I've been on my currently one (my sixth) for about seven months and haven't even started the story part of it yet So I'd likely be the same way with TOW.

I've read some reviews that say TOW is not a fully open-world game, is more of a linear affair with some open-worldish parts (maybe roughly akin to Far Cry 1, or FO3/FO:NV). I'm not a fanatical stickler for open-worlds though. I don't mind linearity if the game is above par, such as the Half-Life 2 series, which was as linear as they come yet which I loved or its immersive story, game world and high standard of character animation/acting.

I'll hold off on getting TOW though, I'm still too invested in my current FO4 adventure. But I will definitely be keeping tabs on Art's (or anyone else's) rundowns here

[Art Blade]

the problem is that telling you what I'm doing in the game would spoil it for everyone else who hasn't advanced the story or side quests. I just try to keep it a bit general what I'm doing not to give away too much.

The world is open-worldish enough for me. I can run around, do missions if and when I want to, and I'm free to roam the areas with or without my companions. However, the story is actually starting to spread out and I'm getting more and more side quests while the main story isn't even that linear because you kind of get sent back and forth while doing side missions along the way. It's cool

Also, I'm level 10 now and got a 2nd companion. The companion menu reminds a lot of Mass Effect, if that rings a bell. So I'm allowed either none, or one, or two companions at the same time, and I can gear them up the way I want, and they are actually great assets. They support me during activities that require some type of skill and they add their skills to mine and that helps solving stuff and makes it a lot easier than alone. And the three of us are well capable of wreaking havoc It's fun to go into battle with them.

[Art Blade]

I've advanced my character to level 12 now and got a couple more additional companions. Which is why I'm posting here, I think it's good for you to know and to consider that companions come with somewhat underwhelming gear and that you shouldn't break down (dismantle) all excess weapons and armour because you might want to give them to your companions.

I know that inventory space can be a problem but this game actually keeps stuff without despawning it if you store it in containers anywhere in the world as long as their inventory menu shows a "transfer" option at the bottom. I did that at the beginning.

As soon as you've repaired your ship, there will be containers in it where you can store your stuff.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah I wouldn't consider the game fully open world, more "multiple linear" format. The starting world at least allows you to wander around a bit, and do my favorite thing, go the opposite direction of the quest marker, but it's not a huge area like Fallout 4 is, more like the different map sections in Fallout 3 that you access by the subway tunnels. In those areas, you can wander around and do what you wish. As I understand it, in TOW you can take your ship to other planets once you've fixed it and those other planets have large maps of their own, but still not fully open. This doesn't bother me, as there appear to be several pathways you can take to get to where you want to go, I wandered around not going towards the quest marker, got killed a few times by taking on some higher level enemies than I should have, found some loot, but eventually hit either regular walls or invisible ones. The look of the game is really cool, the Unreal engine shines in how they use it for sure.