Outer Worlds 2 - Review by an Old and Slow Gamer

[nquinnell]

Figured I'd start this thread, in case anyone else is playing. I'm on X-box, so I'll be giving controller options. I'm playing on Normal level.

Pre-ordered this a few months ago, and have been quietly staring at it every day, waiting for it to be available. Played for about an hour last night.
1. I've very much missed this world. I LOVE what they have created - Snarkiness, subtle subtle humor, and cynical hope.
2. Loved the gameplay from last night. Basically did the tutorial level. Since I played the heck out of Outer Worlds 1, I knew what stuff to look for, and it didn't disappoint. LOTS of sneaky-sneaky, and I chose a Gambler character, with the Lucky skill, and Observation, because I know how this game works. Turns out, Observation lets you find significant hidden passages and hidey-holes. I chose well.
3. What I don't like is that there's no controller map for actions. I can't figure how to access some things, which look like I should be able to use them. For example, I can't figure out how to use mag picks. I'll probably feel foolish about this later .
4. I haven't taken any flaws yet. I'll probably regret this also.
5. I'm looking forward to playing this a lot over the weekend. Tonight is halloween prep, and Friday is halloween, so not much available time.

So far, enjoying this a lot.

 

[cmannes]

3. What I don't like is that there's no controller map for actions. I can't figure how to access some things, which look like I should be able to use them. For example, I can't figure out how to use mag picks. I'll probably feel foolish about this later .

It shows the controller map under "Key Bindings" which is odd. But, there it is.

 

[nquinnell]

It shows the controller map under "Key Bindings" which is odd. But, there it is.

Really? Didn't know that, thank you! I'll check that tonight when I get home.

 

[Ardax]

You know, I thought the thread title was going to indicate that you weren't enjoying the game.

Oranging because I didn't realize this was out.

 

[nquinnell]

You know, I thought the thread title was going to indicate that you weren't enjoying the game.

Oranging because I didn't realize this was out.

Huh. I've always called threads I do "old and slow" because, well, I'm old.. and slow. Had to give up on Helldivers 2 because I just don't have the reaction times anymore.
I can edit the title if you let me know what sounds better. "Gameplay from an Old Guy?"

 

[Ardax]

I don't really have a better phrasing to use. Heck, I'm old and slow too, so it fits.

 

[nquinnell]

Geriatric Gameplay? Geezer Gaming?

 

[Distraction]

Glad to see the positive first impression. I hope it gets even better as you go.

I have to agree that I thought the title was a dig at the game itself. Maybe replace “gameplay” with “gamer”?

 

[Semi On]

I loved the first one but Avowed fell pretty flat to me so I had a bit of trepidation here. I’m glad the reviews are very positive so I’ll be picking this up after finishing AC Shadows.

 

[Starbuck79]

All the reviews I have seen so far is that it's an even better version of the first. They took what was great about the first and made it even better.

 

[NavyGothic]

I'm most interested to hear how the mid-late game holds up. IMO the opening planet of Outer Worlds 1 was thoroughly enjoyable, but it fell off pretty hard and big chunks of the later planets were tedious or bland.

 

[MichaelC]

I saw a couple reviews that said the opposite was true. The intro level was drab and boring but once you moved on from that, things got a lot more interesting.

 

[rainynight65]

I'm definitely keen on this one - the first game was RPG comfort food for me.

However I'm not liquid enough at the moment to purchase a copy, so I'll have to wait for sales and/or windfalls.

 

[GloatingSwine]

3. What I don't like is that there's no controller map for actions. I can't figure how to access some things, which look like I should be able to use them. For example, I can't figure out how to use mag picks. I'll probably feel foolish about this later .

They've changed the way this stuff works. Instead of your skill level determining how many picks/shunts it costs to open something your skill level is a hard threshold and it generally only costs one pick. So if you don't have any lockpicking skill the door's just locked and you need to find another way in. I'm not sure how much companions will be able to cover those deficiencies, I think this is a game where you maybe just have to accept that there are some things you can't do (I'm half tempted to say that the Dumb trait actually just mechanically forces something you should do anyway by making you lock 5 skills that you can never use).

I've futzed around a bit with a couple of different starts, going for a gunslinging, smooth talking, action scientist, I think.

 

[abj]

I will probably wait until a Spacers Choice version goes on sale before playing it.

 

[nquinnell]

They've changed the way this stuff works. Instead of your skill level determining how many picks/shunts it costs to open something your skill level is a hard threshold and it generally only costs one pick. So if you don't have any lockpicking skill the door's just locked and you need to find another way in. I'm not sure how much companions will be able to cover those deficiencies, I think this is a game where you maybe just have to accept that there are some things you can't do (I'm half tempted to say that the Dumb trait actually just mechanically forces something you should do anyway by making you lock 5 skills that you can never use).

I've futzed around a bit with a couple of different starts, going for a gunslinging, smooth talking, action scientist, I think.

Well, that just makes too much sense. I'll have to pick up a unit in lockpick.

 

[JohnCarter17]

All the reviews I have seen so far is that it's an even better version of the first. They took what was great about the first and made it even better.

I have seen the same. However, I have read that after a certain point, its less open world and more constrained to resolution based on your actions, which I think are more limiting than TOW.

I'll be waiting for it to hit GoG.

 

[orionquest]

Mildly interested. First game was okish, but heard good things about this from the reviews. It's a RPG and somewhat Fallout like, so both of those are good for me.

Also grey beard as well.

 

[FranzJoseph]

A little rant:

I quite liked TOW 1 for the gameplay and story/setting, but I absolutely hated the ridiculous amount of item variants like armour and consumables.

I get it, it's a way to get players hooked by their hoarding/gambling habits, but that's all the more reason to hate it, and it's been creeping into every otherwise decent RPG.

Items shouldn't have gazillion tiers and there shouldn't be gazillion armour variants with merely a tiny difference in some stat. I don't want to be juggling around ten full sets of cosmetic armour just to get +5% electrical or whatever. Do a stealth set, do a whatever set, but hundreds of them? No thanks!

TL;DR: No, I don't want to run Excel each time I pick up some loot to see if it's better or worse.

Rant over, is TOW 2 the same, better or even worse in that regard? And for TOW 1, are there any mods that alleviate this somehow? Ta!

 

[flipside]

A little rant:

I quite liked TOW 1 for the gameplay and story/setting, but I absolutely hated the ridiculous amount of item variants like armour and consumables.

I get it, it's a way to get players hooked by their hoarding/gambling habits, but that's all the more reason to hate it, and it's been creeping into every otherwise decent RPG.

Items shouldn't have gazillion tiers and there shouldn't be gazillion armour variants with merely a tiny difference in some stat. I don't want to be juggling around ten full sets of cosmetic armour just to get +5% electrical or whatever. Do a stealth set, do a whatever set, but hundreds of them? No thanks!

TL;DR: No, I don't want to run Excel each time I pick up some loot to see if it's better or worse.

Rant over, is TOW 2 the same, better or even worse in that regard? And for TOW 1, are there any mods that alleviate this somehow? Ta!

Feel ya. That also really turned me off playing. I want to find (or steal) the ultimate Plasma Rifle or Armor - Make it hard to get to it, but don't give me this load of leveled trash, that makes everything exchangeable and boring. How they could think thats a good idea is beyond me. Avowed also had this dumb approach.

Still undecided if I should get this one or rather do a replay of Witcher 3. The last Obsidian games felt a litte middling.

 

[FranzJoseph]

Feel ya. That also really turned me off playing. I want to find (or steal) the ultimate Plasma Rifle or Armor - Make it hard to get to it, but don't give me this load of leveled trash, that makes everything exchangeable and boring.

How they could think thats a good idea is beyond me. Avowed also had this dumb approach.

I blame their upper manglement. It's always the manglement fucking things up, after all...

"Yo dawg, I heard you like your loot boxes and gacha gambling; but without any actual money gambling microtransactions (wink wink), so we just tasked the devs to up that gacha to eleven! The hoarding‑instinct players will absolutely love it, and the rest may just go fuck themselves!"

Still undecided if I should get this one or rather do a replay of Witcher 3. The last Obsidian games felt a litte middling.

Dunno. Looking back at the TOW 1 mods, I think I might get to something playable in my way by tinkering (pun intended) with the tinker mechanics, as some mods do, and upping the difficulty to counter that. But it still sounds a bit hard to balance out and I frankly got tired of all the random consumable items around two thirds of the game in. Not even sure I still have the save...

IIRC, I had the same exact problem with Pillars and Tyranny – just too fucking many meaningless items not differing much from each other. Compare that to the RPG classics like Wizardry 7 (THE №1 RPG for me, forever!), where the rare endgame items do have meaning, and aren't just spammed randomly in increasing tiers. Instead, it's your party's skills that make that *lightsaber* or *Cane of Corpus* really shine, while never losing the challenge (as that otherwise slightly OP'd *Cane of Corpus* is totally useless unless used by a very fragile and specialised character build). While that otherwise lowly blunderbuss is still somewhat usable even against high‑level enemies, since your PC is so skilled with it.

The worst offender in that lately for me has been Dying Light. I paid for a zombie parkour game, and all I got was a hoarding simulator with 4096 weapon tiers or so – at least the weapons come in some pretty tiered colours from "bad to less bad to actually good, unless you surpass that certain tier and it is actually really bad now".

Just managing the inventory to switch out all the marginally better weapons instead of the 1% worse ones all the time was taking more gameplay time than actually playing the game for me...

 

[Hound of Cullen]

A little rant:

I quite liked TOW 1 for the gameplay and story/setting, but I absolutely hated the ridiculous amount of item variants like armour and consumables.

I get it, it's a way to get players hooked by their hoarding/gambling habits, but that's all the more reason to hate it, and it's been creeping into every otherwise decent RPG.

Items shouldn't have gazillion tiers and there shouldn't be gazillion armour variants with merely a tiny difference in some stat. I don't want to be juggling around ten full sets of cosmetic armour just to get +5% electrical or whatever. Do a stealth set, do a whatever set, but hundreds of them? No thanks!

TL;DR: No, I don't want to run Excel each time I pick up some loot to see if it's better or worse.

Rant over, is TOW 2 the same, better or even worse in that regard? And for TOW 1, are there any mods that alleviate this somehow? Ta!

I'm not that far into TOW2, but I'm not seeing this. There are mods for weapons that will change damage type, add scopes or silencers, but I haven't seen any real rare or unique gear.

Admittedly, I haven't taken out any bosses yet, so that might change. And there is the suspicious level 11 lockpicked storage unit on your ship that appears to be holding a gun so I might eat my words as I get deeper in.

I'm enjoying it so far. More so than Starfield, for sure.

 

[GloatingSwine]

The first game didn't have a gazillion tiers of equipment, it had I think four. Six if you had both DLCs. And half of them were a slightly different gun that sort of did the same thing (like a bolt action vs semiautomatic marksman rifle).

They weren't randomised really either, they were just level gated like the different materials in elder scrolls type games.

It wasn't an interesting system but it was nothing like a numbers-chase gear treadmill game.

 

[abj]

Yeah the first game never really struck me as a looter shooter.

 

[zakman]

Seconding, I quite liked the way they set things up - had a dozen(?) weapons to choose from, a "standard" and an "advanced" variant for each weapon, and upgraded them with "weapons toolkits" (sorry, it's been a while since I played). Simplified things greatly, and I didn't have to worry about gathering n pieces of random crafting material from all over the system to upgrade something.

Another thing I liked about the first one (and that I hope is in this one) is that when you went stealth, all of your followers also went stealth. And as far as I could tell, the game determined their stealthiness based on your skill and your location, not theirs. This meant if you were crouched behind a bush and invisible to enemy guards, your followers would also be invisible - even if they're still out in the open while the AI figures out where to move them. Not realistic, I know, but it was a much-appreciated quirk of the game and made my stealth run much more enjoyable

 

[nquinnell]

Soooooo.... 30 hours in, finished 99% of the first city. Didn't finish the scientist manual quest.
1. I absolutely love this game. I really enjoy its subtle humor, and sometimes, not so subtle humor . If you get a chance, listen to the radio stations. Funnier than heck, and are ALWAYS spot-on for the society that is broadcasting them. And some of the jingles ARE VERY BRAIN-WORMY SO WATCH OUT!
2. Great storylines. Your actions have actual consequences - PC's and NPC's remark on your actions, and background characters remark on changes reflected in the world.
3. Battle takes a bit to figure out, but once you do, its so much fun! It took me a while to figure out what a power attack was, but now I use it all the time.
4. Sneak attacks, then disintegrating the bodies? OOoooooOOOoooohhhh.... so satsifying.
5. I really, really want to play this through without companions, as they mostly annoy me, but they do provide interesting benefits at times. But they totally break immersion. E.G. spending time to sneak my way into an area, and then the companions just walk in the door in front of a guard, not setting them off... but visually disturbing. But having whats-his-name as a walking bench is soooooo darn handy.
6. There is no One True Way to solve puzzles. There's ALWAYS a hidden switch or sneaky passageway to get somewhere. You just have to know where to look.
7. LOVE the open world. I frequently just go gallavanting around the countryside, looking at things, and finding random bodies with neat stuff, or saving defectors. I had actually reached the end-point of the game, and kept hitting a wall in getting by it. Then I realized there was a HUGE grayed-out area on the map that I'd never visited. Went there, got a quest that gave me a skill/equipment I needed, then I could get through the endpoint. Had a great time.
8. The two skills I like the most? I took the Lucky feat, and I think 3-4 times, I've had the prompt come up on a machine of "just mash buttons and hope", and it gives me a great outcome. REALLY enjoy that one. The other one? Treasure hunter. I've gotten SO MUCH MORE loot from this option!
9. Still learning the controls. I hadn't properly spec'd out my healing slots. Once I figured i could load the 300% healing items in, my game got better.

But what I really enjoy is the sense of hope the game gives me. As opposed to Fallout 76 or Cyberpunk 2077, my actions can affect the world and the people around me. But in 76, I can only play for a while before it makes me too depressed. Everything is gray and broken, and no matter what you do, things will remain sucky. But in OW2, I can make things better for people. I can have a more hopeful future. And I like this.

 

[nquinnell]

Admittedly, I haven't taken out any bosses yet, so that might change. And there is the suspicious level 11 lockpicked storage unit on your ship that appears to be holding a gun so I might eat my words as I get deeper in.

There is always another way.

 

[nquinnell]

Added a few more hours to my total.
1. I visited the selling planet today. Not impressed, but I WILL be running up my credits because there's a couple of shinies I need
2. Went to the main storyline on the.. um.. Oz-looking planet. I've never, ever wanted to slap the citizenry silly as much as I want to beat their asses.
3. Manticores! Aaaaaiiieee!! But well designed and animated.
4. Again, the companions are annoying me. If I didn't need them as cannon fodder...
5. I absolutely love it when I find a puzzle, that nobody has mentioned, and I solved it through trial and error. Just makes me giddy.
6. ::sigh:: Why did it take me so long to realize I can SHOOT THE DAMN MINES!.

Just reached Level 9. I'm going to jump back a planet, as my lockpick is now at Level 5, and there's some juicy looking safes I left behind.

 

[FranzJoseph]

The first game didn't have a gazillion tiers of equipment, it had I think four. Six if you had both DLCs. And half of them were a slightly different gun that sort of did the same thing (like a bolt action vs semiautomatic marksman rifle).

They weren't randomised really either, they were just level gated like the different materials in elder scrolls type games.

It wasn't an interesting system but it was nothing like a numbers-chase gear treadmill game.

Going back to memory (it's been a while!), "gazillion" might have been a slight exaggeration on my part, but IIRC most items had 1‑20 levels, and upgrading your old items (the same old weapon type e.g. a ballistic sniper rifle) to match the one you just looted cost exponentially increasing amounts of whatever it was. The same for armour. Meaning one still had to, IIRC, jumble around any and all loot found for whatever was better level at a scale of one to twenty. Sorry, while perhaps not on a looter shooter level (gosh, are you saying those are even worse?!?), that's still quite a lot of loot micromanagement for me to like it.

IIRC there were mods that let you reduce or even minimise the upgrade costs, but those aren't usually exactly balanced well. Myself, I just hate item levels. They feel cheap, they feel artificial, they just belittle the thrill of finally finding a rare item or weapon.

Better to keep levelling to skills, where the same old weapon can be as deadly as any other with the appropriate skills. Case in point, Faerie Ninjas in Wizardry 6-8 were considered OP'd even with normal wands as weapons, not even the unique Cane of Corpus super‑powered Faerie‑Ninja‑specific weapon.

The worst offender in that? Dying Light. IIRC all weapons had both levels and rarity. Rarer weapons at comparable levels were better. Basically, it became the "equipment shuffling simulator" for me at some point.

Same for a few recent RPGs with just too much different consumables all affecting the same stat. Yes, ten kinds of beer looks pretty cool at a glance, but if all it does is just heal you up a bit and make you sound drunk, perhaps just one good lager instead of ten would have been better, at least for the inventory management...

 

[Tijger]

Finished the game and completed all quests that I collected except one that seems like it was bugged (minor side quest). I managed to kinda screw up one companion quest, it resolved but not satisfactorily.

I really liked that the game gives you options, not just in terms of puzzles, if you will, but also in resolving some of the main quests. Hard to say more without spoiling things so I wont but let me put it like this; while violence is always an answer its very often not the only possible answer

I enjoyed the game I have to say, definitely a thumbs up from me.

 

[nquinnell]

Finished the game and completed all quests that I collected except one that seems like it was bugged (minor side quest). I managed to kinda screw up one companion quest, it resolved but not satisfactorily.

I really liked that the game gives you options, not just in terms of puzzles, if you will, but also in resolving some of the main quests. Hard to say more without spoiling things so I wont but let me put it like this; while violence is always an answer its very often not the only possible answer

I enjoyed the game I have to say, definitely a thumbs up from me.

Good gods! HOW did you finish so quickly! I thought I was being obsessive. I just started Friday!

 

[nquinnell]

And yeah - what's-her-name's character is bugged. She's had a speech bubble over her head for about 10 hours now, and it won't go away.

 

[Tijger]

Good gods! HOW did you finish so quickly! I thought I was being obsessive. I just started Friday!

Eh...early retirement and early access? Which means I'm on 84 hours played

 

[nquinnell]

Eh...early retirement and early access? Which means I'm on 84 hours played

Great googly-moogly! I tip my hat to you.

If I may ask - I'm questioning my choice of putting skill points into observation. In the training levels, it showed it uncovering hidden things. I think that's come up twice in my runthrough. My other skills are in lockpicking (yay! all the time!) and Speech (I love hearing more of the story). I'm beginning to regret not having a point or two in Hack or Engineering, but they didn't conform to my character concept of a sneak-thief. What skills did you go with?

And I love my skill that gets me extra items in stuff.

 

[Tijger]

Great googly-moogly! I tip my hat to you.

If I may ask - I'm questioning my choice of putting skill points into observation. In the training levels, it showed it uncovering hidden things. I think that's come up twice in my runthrough. My other skills are in lockpicking (yay! all the time!) and Speech (I love hearing more of the story). I'm beginning to regret not having a point or two in Hack or Engineering, but they didn't conform to my character concept of a sneak-thief. What skills did you go with?

And I love my skill that gets me extra items in stuff.

I went with guns, lockpick and speech for my first playthrough, I think I picked Lucky, Brilliant and Sickly and that worked fairly well for me.

Observation is really helpful in areas with mines, I put points in it during play but didnt really find many secrets but it also other effects so, I think its worth investing in.

I did find out that when you look at the perks that are locked it will tell you what the requirements are and what they do and thats a very nice thing to know. So, for instance, having 20 pts in Engineering and taking the Master Armorer perk gives you 2 mod slots per armor. Sadly not for helmets.

I do have to say I've crashed an inordinate amount of times usually at transitions, the auto save is pretty good so I never lost much time but its still very annoying.

 

[JohnCarter17]

The first game didn't have a gazillion tiers of equipment, it had I think four. Six if you had both DLCs. And half of them were a slightly different gun that sort of did the same thing (like a bolt action vs semiautomatic marksman rifle).

They weren't randomised really either, they were just level gated like the different materials in elder scrolls type games.

It wasn't an interesting system but it was nothing like a numbers-chase gear treadmill game.

Agreed. Thinking about it, they were giving you the virtually the same armor sets, but in different skins. It kind of made sense, since they were based on the different companies and factions. Sure, they were maybe different in a couple percentages in resistance or damage absorption but playwise, it made no sense to me to upgrade for each little bonus. Instead I would wait for significant upgrades.

But yeah, it did kind of bring things to a halt while you assessed the next piece of armor you picked up.

 

[JohnCarter17]

Seconding, I quite liked the way they set things up - had a dozen(?) weapons to choose from, a "standard" and an "advanced" variant for each weapon, and upgraded them with "weapons toolkits" (sorry, it's been a while since I played). Simplified things greatly, and I didn't have to worry about gathering n pieces of random crafting material from all over the system to upgrade something.

Agreed, then there were the named/unique items, only available at one location.

 

[JohnCarter17]

Soooooo.... 30 hours in, finished 99% of the first city. Didn't finish the scientist manual quest.
1. I absolutely love this game. I really enjoy its subtle humor, and sometimes, not so subtle humor . If you get a chance, listen to the radio stations. Funnier than heck, and are ALWAYS spot-on for the society that is broadcasting them. And some of the jingles ARE VERY BRAIN-WORMY SO WATCH OUT!
2. Great storylines. Your actions have actual consequences - PC's and NPC's remark on your actions, and background characters remark on changes reflected in the world.
3. Battle takes a bit to figure out, but once you do, its so much fun! It took me a while to figure out what a power attack was, but now I use it all the time.
4. Sneak attacks, then disintegrating the bodies? OOoooooOOOoooohhhh.... so satsifying.
5. I really, really want to play this through without companions, as they mostly annoy me, but they do provide interesting benefits at times. But they totally break immersion. E.G. spending time to sneak my way into an area, and then the companions just walk in the door in front of a guard, not setting them off... but visually disturbing. But having whats-his-name as a walking bench is soooooo darn handy.
6. There is no One True Way to solve puzzles. There's ALWAYS a hidden switch or sneaky passageway to get somewhere. You just have to know where to look.
7. LOVE the open world. I frequently just go gallavanting around the countryside, looking at things, and finding random bodies with neat stuff, or saving defectors. I had actually reached the end-point of the game, and kept hitting a wall in getting by it. Then I realized there was a HUGE grayed-out area on the map that I'd never visited. Went there, got a quest that gave me a skill/equipment I needed, then I could get through the endpoint. Had a great time.
8. The two skills I like the most? I took the Lucky feat, and I think 3-4 times, I've had the prompt come up on a machine of "just mash buttons and hope", and it gives me a great outcome. REALLY enjoy that one. The other one? Treasure hunter. I've gotten SO MUCH MORE loot from this option!
9. Still learning the controls. I hadn't properly spec'd out my healing slots. Once I figured i could load the 300% healing items in, my game got better.

But what I really enjoy is the sense of hope the game gives me. As opposed to Fallout 76 or Cyberpunk 2077, my actions can affect the world and the people around me. But in 76, I can only play for a while before it makes me too depressed. Everything is gray and broken, and no matter what you do, things will remain sucky. But in OW2, I can make things better for people. I can have a more hopeful future. And I like this.

Thanks. From what I have read, is there is one thing I don't think I will like.

One of the reviews said the wilderness areas (or whatever label you want) don't respawn. So you can't EXP farm.

 

[nquinnell]

Thanks. From what I have read, is there is one thing I don't think I will like.

One of the reviews said the wilderness areas (or whatever label you want) don't respawn. So you can't EXP farm.

That is correct. But there is LOTS of wilderness, and goddamnit-sneaky-damn-crabs.

 

[Tijger]

Thanks. From what I have read, is there is one thing I don't think I will like.

One of the reviews said the wilderness areas (or whatever label you want) don't respawn. So you can't EXP farm.

Correct, nothing respawns, no enemies of any kind. Once you clear an area it stays clear. Sometimes the game sends you back to an area for a specific mission and then there will be a new presence.

In all fairness, there is a level cap of 30 and I reached that way, way before I reached the end game or, I think, even the final planet so its not really an issue in my view but YMMV and I do tend to be a completionist which means I got every quest done and hacked every terminal, opened every lock etc.