State of Outward Co-op in 2024

[Eeve]

Greetings. Years ago my husband and I played co-op and really enjoyed it for the most part. We are planning to start anew with a group via the Definitive Edition.

I'm curious if some of the unfriendly co-op problems have been fixed in the Definitive edition. Namely that non-host players don't get quest rewards or skill ups and they also sometimes randomly lose their learned recipes.

Appreciate any feedback from players doing online co-op this year. Thanks!!

[jawwadbr]

It's intended for non-host to not receive quest rewards. But many other bugs that the Oldward had it was fixed. I never had any bugs on DE, but it can happen.

[Eeve]

Hmm... that might not go over well with my group. Good to know.

[Angel]

if you're planning on playing with more people than just your husband you will also need a mod for that since outward by default only supports 2 player co-op

also what jawa said is true, non host players will never get quest rewards unless you mod that too

[GunofBrixton]

Originally posted by Eeve:

Hmm... that might not go over well with my group. Good to know.

If this was allowed, you'd simply have your character join someone on every faction quest line and become horrifically unbalanced.
The quest lines are fairly short and you will immediately look for things to do, one of which is simply to join the other's world and do a whole new faction line together.
This is a boon to the co-op experience as you see the stories from various views as someone who is part of that faction and as an outsider.

[suejak]

Doesn't seem worth it to me. They should just give both players quest rewards and find another way to balance it. It just screams lack of polish when one player always feels like a second-class player who isn't "really" playing.

[Tpunk]

I can and will highly recommend mods for this situation. Even if you don't want to play modded and change the game. If you just want the vanilla expirence. There is a single mod I HIGHLY recommend to anyone intending to do co-op. Raid mode, a highly configurable mod designed around overhauling co-op. Even if you use no other mods. I HIGHLY recommend raid mode and its dependencies.

[jawwadbr]

Originally posted by suejak:

Doesn't seem worth it to me. They should just give both players quest rewards and find another way to balance it. It just screams lack of polish when one player always feels like a second-class player who isn't "really" playing.

Outward coop feels similar to Dark Souls. You summon a friend to help with your quests, and they still get loot, sell it, buy gear and skills. They're definitely still playing because all the survival aspects of the game still apply to them. They can interact with the world alongside you, talk to important NPCs, and even make choices for you.

To create a coop and share all rewards, both players would need to use the same save file, meaning you'd always have to play together, no solo play. The campaign would desync if players chose different factions. For example, if Player A picks Faction 1 and Player B picks Faction 2, at some point in Player B's campaign, they might lock a city that Player A needs for a Faction 1 quest, making it impossible for them to access. Everyone would have to join the same faction, but sometimes players don't want to because of their character builds.

But if you're only referring to some of the quest rewards, it's fine for some of them to be shared. However, main quest rewards, especially the final quest from a faction, should not be shared as that could create a balance issue.

Originally posted by suejak:

It just screams lack of polish

With what they had and such a small team, they pulled off a 10/10 game imo.

[suejak]

The concerns about balance issues are not worth the feeling of being "tagged on" to someone else's game while getting no rewards for quests you are doing together. You are trying to do the quests as a team and you're getting treated like a shareware or demo player. It feels bad.

Your hyperbolic desync example could be resolved by making certain choices exclusive for both players in the game and obviously wouldn't be a big deal. You would not need to share saves (??) because you still have your own save at home which is functionally a whole new playthrough with a boosted character.

Basically, you're making empty excuses for a game you like, which is something we can all sympathize with. But you're wrong: this problem is fixable if they bothered to do it, so either it's a bad design choice or they just don't consider it worth fixing.

[jawwadbr]

Originally posted by suejak:

The concerns about balance issues are not worth the feeling of being "tagged on" to someone else's game while getting no rewards for quests you are doing together. Your hyperbolic desync example could be resolved by making certain choices exclusive for both players in the game and obviously wouldn't be a big deal. You would not need to share saves (??) because you still have your own save at home which is functionally a whole new playthrough with a boosted character.

Basically, you're making empty excuses for a game you like, which is something we can all sympathize with. But you're wrong: this problem is fixable if they bothered to do it, so either it's a bad design choice or they just don't consider it worth fixing.

Okay, then refund it. You've made your statement.

[suejak]

Just did another short session with my buddy. I would say anyone who has actually played this game co-op would agree that the current state (the topic of the thread) is really awful for the client. You get in all sorts of situations where you NEED quest rewards to progress, and the client gets absolutely nothing.

For example, you will be in situations where you are stripped of your gear and you need food to heal. Well, there is another prisoner who will trade you an egg for a pickaxe. So you give him your pickaxe and what happens? The host gets your egg. So there's only enough healing for 1 person.

Then you meet a woman who says she wants you to make her an omelette using a certain recipe. She doesn't teach you the recipe.

Then there's another woman who says to make her a shiv. You don't get the shiv recipe.

You are left out of the entire game and the host has to do everything for 2 people.

It's just embarrassingly bad and there's no excuse for it. Absolutely mod for co-op.

[Eeve]

We're experimenting with some mods & think we have mostly solved our concerns. 👍

[Kaffo]

I'd like to add to this thread that a small handful of mods (quest reward share mod and maybe the combat re-balance mod) is good enough to make Outward co-op a very, very good experience.
It's not perfect, for example when a player chooses a quest reward, both get it, which can be a bummer if you've both got different builds and want the other reward. But for 90% of quests and rewards it works great and it's a lot of fun!

[Abyss]

Originally posted by suejak:

Just did another short session with my buddy. I would say anyone who has actually played this game co-op would agree that the current state (the topic of the thread) is really awful for the client. You get in all sorts of situations where you NEED quest rewards to progress, and the client gets absolutely nothing.

For example, you will be in situations where you are stripped of your gear and you need food to heal. Well, there is another prisoner who will trade you an egg for a pickaxe. So you give him your pickaxe and what happens? The host gets your egg. So there's only enough healing for 1 person.

Then you meet a woman who says she wants you to make her an omelette using a certain recipe. She doesn't teach you the recipe.

Then there's another woman who says to make her a shiv. You don't get the shiv recipe.

You are left out of the entire game and the host has to do everything for 2 people.

It's just embarrassingly bad and there's no excuse for it. Absolutely mod for co-op.

Well then youd be wrong lol. Ive beat the game un-modded multiple times in co-op. The game is easier with 2 people. I dont want it to be even easier by letting me get even more OP then you can already become.

To your point, there are only really issues when trading one thing for another. I agree thats something they should have probably addressed, but is so rare that I dont really care.

And you arent locked out of the recipes. Your coop partner can literally just tell you the recipe now that he has it and you can enter it manually if you want. (He doesnt even need the recipe really if either of you know it from a previous playthru)