The Outer Worlds

[Art Blade]

thanks, mandru

Actually it wasn't really planned, let alone meticulously, because I didn't know what would happen. What made it possible to get through that final conflict, as far as I can tell anyway, was the way I developed the story (all factions were revering me except a boarst factory faction which was "only" neutral because I didn't interact with them except for one tiny little sabotage act) so I never had any foes from any faction and additionally the way I built my character which relied heavily on companions and their skills. Their skills combined with everything I had (ranging from outfits with skill boosts over perks to skill points spent on benefitting from companion skills) allowed me to get 150+ skills in various fields with the right pair of team mates and still very high skills (70-130ish) with the "wrong" pair of team mates.

In other words, I was almost always able to pass any speech check or tech check (lockpick, hack) or at least I always passed high level checks (again, 70-130ish) which made navigating through complicated situations look like child's play.

I came across one comment somewhere, unfortunately, the author of which made that "final crisis" sound like an almost impossible task. When I got to that point in the game I was puzzled how easy it was to pass. I conclude that there are players who do not understand at all how to take advantage of the endless amount of possibilities and end up like that guy: cursing and whining.

When I watched Oxhorn's live stream for some time right after the game's release, lacking other sources to watch, I was quickly annoyed by the guy himself and even more by the fact that he got so many things wrong in such a short amount of time simply because he didn't read or because he kept ignoring virtually everything that was important (to me) and man.. I couldn't stand it any more. One more brief side trip to someone else's stream quickly convinced me that it would be much better for me not to watch any of them.

And here we are, I did it all by myself in what some people call a "blind playthrough" (as in first time playthrough without knowing anything) and I managed just fine. I learned a lot on the way. And I'm looking forward to my next playthrough, this time I will be prepared

My advice: read the information given by the game and pay attention to details. Then you'll be doing perfectly fine.

[Art Blade]

I just had an idea but it's related to my previous text hidden by those spoiler tags regarding boss fights:

Spoiler

I've still got the save from before triggering that massive robot. I was too scared to try facing it but now, for the sake of it, I'll try and see how hard it really is for me. I'll report back

Reporting back already (within just minutes)

I don't get what the fuss is all about.



I had two saves, one with my fave pair (Felix and Parvati) maxed out and geared up like two-legged WMDs and we killed that fully aggro'd robot within seconds. We were virtually unharmed.

Then the other save with essentially random companions (not made for combat but still pretty well kitted out like all of my companions) and again it took only seconds to down that robot. We were virtually unharmed, again.

Nothing to worry about, really. It just couldn't withstand my team and me. Despite my robot flaw

And: why was I so afraid? WHY? I didn't trust in me and my abilities because someone else said it was a nearly impossible task.

I'm probably not just somebody else.

[Art Blade]

New playthrough...

She's Back! (check name top left corner..)
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[Art Blade]

Guys.. Damascene wouldn't be herself if she didn't do things differently.

I just took out both marauder camps near the landing site without dying.

And then I wiped out every Primal both in front and behind the Unreliable's landing site. And I mean it. You know that dead end area with a shipwreck, infested with Primals? I cleared it out, as well as that hangar type of thing across the entrance of the Unreliable.

Well, and to top it off, I whacked the last of those, from the "hangar," a cute pet Primal Behemoth.. with a bread knife.

On normal difficulty. Just made it to level 2.

And I didn't even die.

What the hell did all of us do the first time round? We all died, we got mauled and torn apart by those Primals. And now I just waltz in and kill all of them by myself, without any companions? Strange, I thought they'd tear me a new one but they didn't. OK, I sneaked in that shipwreck area, found an assault rifle, had 77 rounds of heavy ammo.. and I played a game of cat-and-mouse with those Primals. And I got lucky when I realised standing on some type of trailer was just enough to prevent me from getting hit by rocks being hurled at me—they hit the edge of the trailer I was standing on.

I reckon the reason for me being able to pull that off was the attributes being spread out evenly, everything on "good" including strength and dexterity.. maybe all those attributes made me just tough enough to manage. And whatever it was, we can now safely assume that the Primates are not of a set level but do match one's own. And I'm willing to bet that none of the opponents anywhere are set to a fixed level but instead, all of them level up with you.

About that bread knife.. it wasn't because I was being cool but because I had run out of heavy ammo and the next best random thing that popped up when I used the mouse wheel for "next weapon" was.. well, I whipped out that blade and started stabbing the behemoth with it. I had no time (and didn't want to slow down) to change weapons again as that behemoth was about to chew me up But I thought sod it and I slashed that bugger with whatever *bleep* I had in my hand which happened to be just a shabby knife. NO MERCY

Come to think of it, I was wearing "armour" of level 4, thin as paper, and still, when I got hit once and had to take a puff of that inhaler I wasn't even close to dying. I was probably as perplexed when I was fighting as you are reading about it

She's back ..and tough
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[Dweller_Benthos]

Very interesting, second playthrough being so much different. But that goes with any game, like in Fallout 76 when I create a new character to just level up for the daily score points, I'm not so extremely cautious coming out of the vault as I was that first time. I blast through the few low level enemies nearby and run to my objective and shoot him in the face to get that level up. Probably takes me 5 minutes. On my first game, being cautious, I think it took an hour?

As for live streamers, yeah they are not there to play the game "correctly" they are there to entertain and doing things in a dumb way and getting killed a lot is all for laughs and the audience's amusement. There are a few who play the game to play the game as it were, and those are the ones you want to watch to see how to do something or how something goes different with a different build. The couple I watched stopped playing the game after a few streams though, so I never got to watch past the thermal plant at the beginning. Just as well, this type of game, for me at least, is best done with as little as possible fore knowledge. Things like you've been posting, Art, are exactly what I want, tips on how to optimize something, what to avoid, but avoiding a step by step instruction manual. If I get stuck on something, or want to know exactly what a choice does, I'll look up the wiki on that specific thing, and then go from there. But for the most part I'm just having fun shooting things.

[Art Blade]

thanks, Dweller, that was a very nice feedback

[Art Blade]

While playing with my new character it occurred to me that I had savegames from my previous run from before making a decision that greatly changed the course of the story and thereby how it ended. I kept thinking about that and now I made up my mind and loaded a suitable save.

I'm going to try to break free of the "institute" path and we'll see how that ends. It's a save from before doing the DLC which at this point I'll simply omit because I only want to see a different ending and take advantage of the fact that I've got an endgame within reach without having to play ALL the way to that point. I'll let you know how it pans out

[Art Blade]

I can already tell that I miss a lot of improvements gained from the DLC.

Which leads me to this recommendation:

Play the Gorgon-DLC very late, maybe like me when there's nothing left but the point of no return. It will give you a breather because of a change of pace and a completely new map as well as tons of money to be made and loads of cool stuff to be looted (or otherwise acquired) so once you're done with the DLC, you'll be ready for the finale. Also, whatever you did in the DLC will be part of the narrated/illustrated end of the game so it plays a role regarding lore.

As to preparation for the finale:

- SAVE before accepting the point of no return.
- consider respec'ing. I did it then, I've just done it now.
- it's more leaning towards combat and not so much on diplomatic skills.. respec accordingly.
- same goes for companions. It's not impossible to return to the Unreliable during the finale but it's a big map and a maze so it's best to pick your two favourite companions and kit them out properly as you're likely going to stick with them to the end.

[mandru]

Art thanks for even more good info. 

[Art Blade]

thank you and you're very welcome, mandru

It's just great how much replay value this game has to offer, even when changing directions like I just did, it's really a different story.

I'm now past the first part of the finale-map and really, I've got guns and armour most of which are short one tier that I would have gained with the DLC. Now I'm stuck with mostly Ultra rather than Hyper or Mk2 rather than Mk3 and all that but thanks to a "proper" (combat-heavy) respec I'm doing well. My companions Felix and Parvati are simply the best

You will find armour and weapons of that higher tier during the finale so keep a few mods and money for tinkering if you want to grab and upgrade some of the stuff you find. I just did that.

OH.. that just reminded me..


***

important TIPS for your companions

No matter which part of the game

Give them a machine gun and a telescoping staff

The rate of fire does so much damage to virtually any enemy that I've tried and tested all the way through the game that I don't think that any weapon does more damage. I prefer the light machine gun for them but well, the heavy is also an option.

Also that long stick with a ball on top (telescoping staff) is the one melee weapon that deals the most damage no matter which companion it uses.

As soon as you can, mod their (and your own) weapons to that green corroding damage, both fire arms and melee weapons. Apparently no enemy is immune to that damage and it deals damage over time additionally to the physical damage. It works against robots, too.

[Art Blade]

a very minor but nice little spoiler about the final mission

Spoiler

all the factions I had helped before sent reinforcements, albeit not all at once but still, one after the other. Nice to hear and/or see them all again That includes random faction NPCs but also named NPCs you had helped before 

[Art Blade]

OK, I've just finished the game using my old save but choosing a different path to the end, as I intended.

here's how it went:

Spoiler

There was combat all the way to the end but nothing to worry about. I even went straight to facing that robot at the end without weakening it or anything. I took it down on my very own, using that great shotgun "III" I mentioned previously. As expected, I found one, tinkered and modded it (damn, I didn't have a mod for corrosive damage but a vending machine there had one, I bought it for bloody 4,000 bits) and it was worth it: Three shots and the robot was gone. Normal difficulty, and long guns skill respec'ed to 100 and sneak to 80 for 76% sneak attack + 20% weak spot damage and science set to 60 for +25% corrosive damage. Also additional 15% damage coming from a perk (5% per flaw) and a perk adding 10% damage per subsequent hit. The gun's stats showed 189x8=1,512 damage per shot, not counting the additional damage described before. Should end up like well over 3,000 damage per shot.

Oh, despite all the negatives from my three flaws that all trigger when facing robots, I obviously wasn't hampered in a way that could have prevented my victory lol

The robot was blown away by that setup I could have boosted that damage even more with armour and head gear, like +5 (x2, perk/skills related) skill for ranged weapons or sneak attack and +7 (x2 as before) for long guns.. but that really wasn't even necessary

So it worked, I successfully pulled away from that rotten "institute" path and watched a beautiful ending that, compared to the "institute" ending, almost brought a tear to my eye. I then watched the other two endings (they depend on the last dialogue choice) and they were nice, too.

Now back to my new Damascene playthrough

I already acquired the encumbrance flaw, added a perk for carry weight which simply is a free boost for my inventory space.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Very interesting, Art, I'll keep that in mind, especially the corrosive damage on weapons and what to give companions.

Made a short little video on the raptidon mission in Roseway, getting the mother tranquilized. Tried a few methods including run and gun, which killed everything, but decided on this one to finish the mission the "good" way with the mother alive and asleep. I wonder with high enough stealth skills and perks if you could also keep the other three smaller rapts alive as well. It seemed they are positioned exactly so that you have to kill them but maybe not if you time it right and have the stealth perks.

Still uploading, which will take another half hour as I think this is the first video I've done at high quality 60fps, so it's a bit large. The last video wouldn't even export at that rate for some reason so I had to do it at medium quality and 30fps. But here you go, and of course, spoilers, but minimal.

[Art Blade]

YouTube: that's odd, it should take only minutes (hey, it's a 2-minute vid) and the res shouldn't cause any problems given that they allow 4k full res p60 vids. Anyway, I watched it on YT before reading about it here, and I see your vid as a 1080p60 full HD.

As to the "story:" I did sneak in there and gas them all without getting spotted but before I got there, I had an encounter with some guys and four rapts so those all died. I remember I saw a counter in the mission briefing like 4/10 killed.

And my sneak wasn't levelled very high, I guess 40 or 50.

Anyway, nice one

[Art Blade]

I just found the "Primal Nest" in the Emerald Vale Region and had to kill most of the primates there on my own because Parvati didn't last long. I had to use the inhaler a couple of times and stuffed myself with various consumables and in the end, I managed. Being level 5 and no place to take cover and lacking a 2nd companion while the 1st and only one was already down, I felt like a gladiator in an arena and it was quite a tough fight.

But now Parvati got the "Ol' Reliable" which is a unique light machine gun. A little tinkering and she'll be a killer with that thing