so having beat this game completely

[bunies]

its a fairly fun game but, it has some glaring issues. Most of which feel like they stem from a lack of play testing. There really isnt a good excuse for some of these issues these days.

What i realise now at the end is that the most powerful thing in this game is knowledge and knowing all the things that exist in the game drastically changes what you can do and how easily you do it.

There are some seriously big balance issues and horrible balance/rebalance decisions that were made. The complete nerfing and in many cases complete gutting of the bows is the easiest example of this. I mean compare how bad the horror bow feels compared to any gold lich weapon, it is just so weak especially how hard it is to get compared to something like gold lich weapons which are so easy to get and so insanely strong. The changes to alchamy to fix a money exploit is another, especially seeing as they did not fix they simply moved the method around slightly, i mean if you want to easily print money its not hard exactly. Magic also seems farily of balance, i mean the rune blade is obsolutely broken for how easy it is to get/use for how much power it provides, i mean it completely destroys everything short of caldera.

The only good change to the game that i can feel is the addition of being able to repair at the black smith

The fact that you can not buy a house in towns that are not your faction untill post game is a horrible decision and just makes things painful and unfun; i mean honstly just double the price in other factions or something but let it be possible.

The faction balance also seems a bit iffy, Holly mission feels fairly weak in comparison to both levant and blue chamber ( though candle armor is best looking set in game in my opinion). I did think light infusion was incredible strong, i mean low mana and just uses up saints blessing even with it being weaker then the varnish it still felt fun to use and synergieses well with gold lich weapons. I realised how bad this actually was after trying runic magic, i mean jezz the runic blade comes with the infusion standard and does all damage as etheral it is insane how much stronger that is.

Sorobeans DLC is interstion, new region, really loved the new upgraded scourge beasts and the imaculates being more present. Also was nice to have friendly npcs in the field even if it did not last for long. The problem is the faction is just so weak compared to the other 3 its passive bonuss is extremely weak even if extra pocket space mobility is nice. Also the fact that the factions biggest benefit comes from an unrelated side quest that can be missed is kind of silly, especially seeing as it is the only strong point of the faction and extremely accurate for what the faction stands for "straight up power of money".

There brothers DLC, this was just horrible and the biggest example of LACK OF PLAY TESTING, i mean my god could we not get a few beta testers not like they arent free these days. This DLC litteraly takes every problem of the game and triples down on it and adds some brand new problems. The story is fairly meh, the whole building of the town is a good idea that was poorly executed. The fact that the whole thing is massive bundle of time gates to waste your time is another glaring issues. The enemies are massive damage sponges with absurd Hp pools and most having high resists and its not intuitive as to what their weakness are for the most part. The gargoyls were freaking awesome though, those were legit fun to fight best part of the expansion in my opinion. To explain how absurdly tanky the enemies are, this is the first point in the game since basically the very beggining with fang weapons that i had massive and constant weapon durability issues, honestly my fayvorite thing about hte hailstone weapons is that you can repair them on the go for just a blue mana stone.

I will say i do like the giant floating meteor with circling stones you get on the map near the end that looked cool. The calygrey coloseaum was awesome too and made me like the calygreys honestly.

The other main issue with the expansion is that the cool shinny toys you get in it face the same problems as the base game but to the 9th degree. Cool new weapons, badly balanced. Compare the spear that poisons you vs the helbard that buns and holy blazes ( only weapon in game that can solo holy blaze ) and has great stats. The arena skills you can get are kind of meh at best and the passives are down right horrible because of the downsides just making them not worth it. the faction exclusive bonsus are also kind of badly balanced between the factions. The worst part is you can get all these shinny new toys but by the time you get them you beat the game and they mean nothing, litteraly that is the part i hate the most the fact that you cant really use them for anything because you alrady cleared the freaking game by the time you get them.

Another horrible thing about the caldera is all the new food is fairly bad, like really bad there is nothing that offers truelly good food buffs like stam 5 or hp 5, i mean the new stats are near but they just are not that good. The food store add on for free food was nice though. Same thing goes for alchemy, the new potions just arent really woth the hassle, i mean they are neat but just not good enough to compete with other ones.

honestly hope the devs don't repeat some of thesse mistakes in their next game because honestly despite its problems this was a fun game, and most of the problems could have been fixed by doing some objective play testing.

I honestly like the base game storyline and the characters are mostly fairly interesting and likable, even sagard battleborn and cyrene. Kind of wish Yzan got more character development though, that felt lacking. Also the fact that Elatt is exactly what he says he is and is not a hypocrite or anything is the sort was fairly suprising and very likeable to be honest, i honestly did not see it coming. Elatts fair and balanced aporach and completely honest nature was very likeable and well writen.

note there is way more to be said about this game, but im having trouble thinking it all up at the moment so i will quit for now.



TLDR. fun game, but lacks severely from play testing to fix its glaring problems


EDIT: forgot to mention, the game kind of encourages you to use exploits

[Nerevar]

use the RWS when holy mission. then you know WHY the runic blade is strong. its simple : because pure elemental weapons in outward are just king in genrel as nearly any enemy has phys resistence but not magic one. and lighting and etherial are overall the 2 best elements. so holy mission is anything but WEAK compared to the other 2. reward wise only sorobor faction feels really lackluster. as its only good use is in 100% CDR build to begin with.

and the RWS outperforms the runic blade and can get even stronger when enchanted later on. also the runic blade doesnt come with an imbue. it comes with greaer light imbue from holy mission. which.... doesnt do much for the weapon as its lighting dmg and not etherial. and it needs a breaktrough to come with the infuse aswell.

its simply the fact that enemy resistences vs magic are overall very weak for etherial and lighting dmg. so its not the runic blade itself that is strong. its the fact its one of only 3 pure elemental weapons in the whole game.

you can learn the arena skills with a new character from an existing one right at the start. and some of the active skills are GROSSLY op like moment of truth or the technique. the passives are bit... odd indeed. too many penaltys.

enemies in caldera arent hp sponges. they dont have that much more hp than other enemies. they are just less prone to get mashed down and they have better impact resistence.

you can get geps blade at the start of a new game if you know where it can spawn. no combat required. you can get most of the artifacts LONG before you ever finish your factionquest. iirc only 3 relics cannot be obtained early on but there is still legacy chests anyway.

[bunies]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

use the RWS when holy mission. then you know WHY the runic blade is strong. its simple : because pure elemental weapons in outward are just king in genrel as nearly any enemy has phys resistence but not magic one. and lighting and etherial are overall the 2 best elements. so holy mission is anything but WEAK compared to the other 2. reward wise only sorobor faction feels really lackluster. as its only good use is in 100% CDR build to begin with.

and the RWS outperforms the runic blade and can get even stronger when enchanted later on. also the runic blade doesnt come with an imbue. it comes with greaer light imbue from holy mission. which.... doesnt do much for the weapon as its lighting dmg and not etherial. and it needs a breaktrough to come with the infuse aswell.

its simply the fact that enemy resistences vs magic are overall very weak for etherial and lighting dmg. so its not the runic blade itself that is strong. its the fact its one of only 3 pure elemental weapons in the whole game.

you can learn the arena skills with a new character from an existing one right at the start. and some of the active skills are GROSSLY op like moment of truth or the technique. the passives are bit... odd indeed. too many penaltys.

enemies in caldera arent hp sponges. they dont have that much more hp than other enemies. they are just less prone to get mashed down and they have better impact resistence.

you can get geps blade at the start of a new game if you know where it can spawn. no combat required. you can get most of the artifacts LONG before you ever finish your factionquest. iirc only 3 relics cannot be obtained early on but there is still legacy chests anyway.

RWS is too gimicky to acuire ( yet another terrible decision by the devs to remove in from being bought from an npc) and once again you get it basicaly at the end of the holly mission quest line so.... by the time you get it you are basically done.

ethereal is arguably the only element in the game that is better then lightning, i honestly don't even know of the top of my head which enemies have a resistance to it outside of caldera

sorry but holly mission is defintely weak when compared to the other 3 i hoenstly wanted to defend them to when i played them, but in retrospect other people were right holly mission just cant stand up to the raw stats blue colective gets and the damage lavant gets, they are simply inferior ( candle armor still looks beat though )

caldera enemies

calygrey 350 hp, that is the weakest enemy in the zone and is basicaly the zone equivalent of a bandit

elder medyse 800 hp and decent resists, that is basicaly as tanky as a shell horror or an imaculate

drifting medyse 650 hp, with massive resists 75% physical, and only minor vulnerability, heck if you arent using an elemental weapon you will be hacking this for days, and they are litteraly all over the place

im not even going to mention all the other enemies everywhere, its kind of weird when the ash giants are the easy enemy in the zone

im sorry but you are off your rocker if you think the enemies in caldera are anything short of bullet sponges.

yea learning arena skills on a new character really doesnt help me because by the time im done with that, i honestly have zero desire to play the game through again because i beat everything, more then once already. and also that brings me to a point i forgot to mention, the game encourages you to abuse exploits

also geps blade is neat, but back to the point of already beat the game by the time i know about and have no real desire to replay through it after the pain in the ass that was the caldera, also its something new players would not know and would not be able to enjoy without looking up a guide, so whats the point

[Nerevar]

youre out of your mind if you blue chamber is good tbh. the raw stats lol. 40 hp is ALL YOU GET form blue chamber in terms of passives. as for the mana its not needed for most builds anyway and you have to give up the lantern of souls for it.

meanwhile holy mission and levant both a dmg passive.

dmg passives rule in outward for obivious reasons.

yeah sure use pure phys in caldera.... by that time you should have a build going that has atleast 2 breaktroughs already. if youre running phys build you use PERFECT STRIKE period. aka IGNORES ALL ENEMY RESISTENCE and deals absolutly insanely dmg. you can oneshot calgreys with that move with some 2 handers. ONESHOT.

raw stats mean nothing. youre not fighting caldera enemies right away without a build or gear dude.

game doesnt encourage exploits. it encourages KNOWLEDGE on the players end. kinda like morrowind and gothic did it. of course youre at an advantage once you know things. same as any game.

i do agree that the town feels kinda pointless but it seems more dlc was planned originally but the pandemic just put that to a rest for good.

[bunies]

Originally posted by Nerevar:

youre out of your mind if you blue chamber is good tbh. the raw stats lol. 40 hp is ALL YOU GET form blue chamber in terms of passives. as for the mana its not needed for most builds anyway and you have to give up the lantern of souls for it.

meanwhile holy mission and levant both a dmg passive.

dmg passives rule in outward for obivious reasons.

yeah sure use pure phys in caldera.... by that time you should have a build going that has atleast 2 breaktroughs already. if youre running phys build you use PERFECT STRIKE period. aka IGNORES ALL ENEMY RESISTENCE and deals absolutly insanely dmg. you can oneshot calgreys with that move with some 2 handers. ONESHOT.

raw stats mean nothing. youre not fighting caldera enemies right away without a build or gear dude.

game doesnt encourage exploits. it encourages KNOWLEDGE on the players end. kinda like morrowind and gothic did it. of course youre at an advantage once you know things. same as any game.

i do agree that the town feels kinda pointless but it seems more dlc was planned originally but the pandemic just put that to a rest for good.

the only way you are 1 shoting a calygrey with perfect strike is if you have exalted and a tsar 2 hander


also you are delusional if you think 40 mana is not strong, it is insanely strong, and only a beginer would take the lantern, i would know because that was what i did when i was new to the game.

guess what fire sigl+wind sigil>> spark== lots of damage and with more mana you can use spark more which means lost more damage, this legitimately melts ♥♥♥♥ on an absurd level and having litteraly beat every unkwown arena (except the super duper hidden one in caldera, cuz i really dont feel like spending the time to hunt down all the ancients around the map ) as a melee trust me when i say that 40 mana is more damage output then the entirety of the holly mission rewards without exalted

sorry but raw stats mean a lot, and i do mean a lot

this game flat out encourages exploits through the legacy chest and split screening, droping the bag so food timers dont advance, guess what that is all exploits and the game very much encourages it. also once you are done role playing using split screen to store loot so you dont have to get to town at a turtles pace is also a thing, honestly wish i did that, i highly regret not doing it in hind sight, but hey i do enjoy to pretend once in a while for several dozen hours.

honestly the town could have been better by simply not limiting the building options or by doing basic math, the fact that higher tier resource buildings increase in upkeep by more then they generate in resources is just an insane level of stupidity, i mean why would i upgrade the building when i can just buy more resources through the money i would pay in upkeep ??? like seriously how this oversight no only went live into the game but also did not get patched out later is beyond me.

also another thing on the bows is i like the new elemental arrows, but you cant freaking craft the things untill you are done with the game, because for some reason the devs feraking hate bows and just want to torture bow users

[kojak]

i actually think definitive edition is less fun than the base game. slapping corruption everywhere just seemed lazy.

they nerfed stuff to change 'progression' man there is no real progression in this game beyond items and recipes and breakthroughs you can pay for. you can get some questline upgrades but by the time you get them the game is over, what else would you need them for? for the most part they don't help with caldera either:

caldera enemies are just tedious, super overtuned, throws the whole damage Res thing out the window, why does that even exist now? and forces you to use armor/barrier setups instead if you want your armor to do anything. the whole level is boring too. the town building thing probably could have been done worse but its hard to imagine how. plus they nerfed a bunch of stuff yet 2 knuckles still pretty much trivialize the game [tokebakecit and porcelain]

allllll the good stuff and good upgrades are left for the very end of the game, and even with them the caldera enemies are not really fun.

i think the game is fun but really not impressed with the """definitive edition"""

[bunies]

Originally posted by kojak:

i actually think definitive edition is less fun than the base game. slapping corruption everywhere just seemed lazy.

they nerfed stuff to change 'progression' man there is no real progression in this game beyond items and recipes and breakthroughs you can pay for. you can get some questline upgrades but by the time you get them the game is over, what else would you need them for? for the most part they don't help with caldera either:

caldera enemies are just tedious, super overtuned, throws the whole damage Res thing out the window, why does that even exist now? and forces you to use armor/barrier setups instead if you want your armor to do anything. the whole level is boring too. the town building thing probably could have been done worse but its hard to imagine how. plus they nerfed a bunch of stuff yet 2 knuckles still pretty much trivialize the game [tokebakecit and porcelain]

allllll the good stuff and good upgrades are left for the very end of the game, and even with them the caldera enemies are not really fun.

i think the game is fun but really not impressed with the """definitive edition"""

kind of agree with most of this

though i did find the gargoyls to be fun to fight once i figured out how, first one did rip me a new one though

also the definitive edition did not seem to add any cool looking armors, the chalcedony armor in particular just looks awful, i honestly dont know how anyone thought that was a good idea to add to the game. though the game in genral does not have that many good looking armor sets, candle armor is probably the best in my opinion