Their in-game guide (accessible via the main menu) actually is a lot better than most games these days. I was pleasantly surprised at how many mechanics it explains. For example, I thought for sure I was going to have to google to find out what “close range” vs “long range” meant in terms of skills/stats that affect those things but nope, it’s spelled right out in the in-game guide. So props to them for that. This item level => max HP thing might be in there somewhere. :)
I just had a minor “wow” moment. I finished up a chain of side quests (I think they are side quests) and the reward was like a cascade of legendaries. Like, ten of them. Woot. Some are even useful.
I really dislike that all these modifications to powers are based on the best players stats - some of us, who run around on world tier 5 and struggle, will really feel something like this.
the adjustments to the bullet abilities isnt based on the best players stats. It’s based on the fact that the ‘bang for your buck’ from those abilities is far more powerful and easier to obtain than any other ability in the game. Having said that I don’t think it’s cooldown is the problem. It’s probably more the fact you can get infinite uptime and have it never go on cooldown with the right abilities. Combined with the tremendous damage output it’s kinda nuts.
Also if anything feels bullet spongy at all, you are playing on too high of a difficulty. Don’t be afraid tp turn things down until you are optimized better.
I don’t think it’s based on the best player stats, they’re just the best abilities by far so the “best” (as in, highest level doing the hardest content) players use them exclusively. Even post-nerf, I ran an expedition and my Blighted Rounds accounted for 5 million damage. My blighted turret – which was deployed the entire fight and I’m specced/modded into it – clocked in at 112,000 damage. Toxin effects added up to another 200,000. The magic ammo abilities are still busted in how much better they are than anything else.
Put another way, a blighted round with my LMG hits from 3,000-5,000 damage and I have a 225 round magazine. If I use the Minigun skill, it hits for 900 damage BUT it gets mitigated by armor so it’s much lower than that, especially on Elites. It also has something like 120 bullets before it runs out (double that with the correct mod). However, I move slow, can’t dodge/use cover, etc. My blighted rounds also hit everyone in the area for 50% of the bullet damage and I go through an entire level without reloading my magazine so I never run out of blighted rounds. Meanwhile, minigun is on a 40s cooldown or so.
My original build was going Ordinance and relying on minigun, grenade, and the pain launcher but blighted rounds is without exaggeration 10x better at this point. I’m sure it’ll be addressed, but it’s a little unfortunate right now. I feel pigeonholed into it because Expeditions (stupidly) are timed trials, so if you’re not outputting max DPS at all times you’re crippling yourself.
I gave this game another shot, because why not, it’s free.
So, long range guns seem really awful. Like, every time I try to use a sniper rifle, it’s just an exercise in frustration.
However, abandoning that, I changed the way I played, and things were better.
One thing that is worth noting, is that use of skills seems way more crucial than a game like Destiny. They recharge fast, and are much more powerful.
I was playing my trickster, and I hadn’t previously noticed how fast the skills recharge. Specifically, the teleport skill. So last night, I started using that skill a LOT more.
This made things pretty cool and novel. If some dude is sniping at you from a roof? Screw trying to shoot back at him… just teleport up to him and blow him up with a shotgun at point blank range. This definitely changed the way the game was played.
I still don’t know whether I like this game or not… But I’ll keep trying it for a bit more.
Oh, I also found how to turn off the incredibad camera shake during cutscenes. I honestly don’t know what they were thinking with that “feature”.
Definitely. It’s one of the things I like a lot better about it vs Destiny.
Ya, it’s just something you need to be prepared for, because Destiny plays like a shooter with some skills added… whereas Outriders doesn’t really play solidly as a shooter on its own.
Blighted rounds (and similar powers) should never have been based on magazine size. It favors guns with larger magazines far too heavily.
Yeah, there’s a big difference between Blighted Rounds on something like a LMG vs a sniper or a shotgun, that’s for sure. Especially if you’re talking about those snipers that only have a single shot. :)
I’m going to ditch Blighted Rounds and go back to an ordinance or tech shaman build this evening. I mean BR just seems massively better with little to no investment but I didn’t find it very fun. I literally just went through the level holding down the trigger, never even needed to reload, conserve ammo (because it doesn’t pull from your ammo supply), or anything. Just brrrrrrrt. Too one dimensional!
Ordnance. Ordinance implies you are shooting city parking rules at people or something :).
I don’t mind sniper rifles, really. I keep a couple around on my Devastator simply for those open-courtyard type engagements where a bunch of enemies hunker down behind barriers. The best I’ve found are the single shot weapons with massive damage. Mostly though I use an AR and shotgun.
I’m pretty sure that’s my autocorrect messing with me but I’ll take the hit regardless. :)
I’m just messin’ with ya. God knows the crazy stuff I’ve mistyped, or simply misspelled…but that one is one of my faves.
This was my experience as well. I spent way too much time thinking this was a Division, Gears, or Destiny clone. In which case, bleh. Do not want. I uninstalled.
But it was only after thinking, “Wait a minute, these are the guys that did Painkiller and Bulletstorm, that can’t be right…” that I decided to give it another chance. So I reinstalled, sampled the different classes, and focused on the skills for a while. Yep, this is clearly a game by the guys who did Painkiller and Bulletstorm. The anomaly skills are at least half of the equation, if not more. It depends on your build. They set this apart from other looter shooters.
Unfortunately, it’s easy to look at the level design and cover system and surmise that you’re playing a variation on Gears or The Division. I guess it’s closest to Borderlands, but with Destiny’s loot system? But even that doesn’t quite do the anomaly skills justice.
-Tom
I really think the early emphasis on cover (at least in the way it is presented) is misleading and does the game a disservice. I think the majority of my friends that tried it thought it was intended to be a cover shooter similar to Division and tried to play it that way.
Cover is useful to catch your breath and let a skill recharge, but I spend most of the time in the thick of it cycling skills. The mods on your gear that affect your skills are the meat of the gearing too.
But, man, this game has spikes like no one’s business. Tooling along at WT8, hit WT9, and bam! Have to lower it to 7 or less to get by the next set off mobs. Wave after wave after WAVE of elite type mobs that nearly one shot me. And my gear is pretty much as high level as it can be for my level (24). Guess I’ll have to drop it to like 4 or something.
I tried the demo a bit last night, the camera shake is making me ill. Has that been removed or reduced in the main game?
First game ever to make me feel sick watching a cutscene.
There is an option in one of the menus (maybe accessibility) that lets you reduce camera shake with a variety of settings. I had to set it to the lowest setting, but it is quite comfortable now.
Ok, got through the story campaign with my Devastator, I think he ended up at 29 after the final battle. Which, by the way, can go fuck itself. That two-part monstrosity reduced me to doing it at WT 1. ONE. Because I simply could not beat it otherwise. Ok, maybe at three or so but after going one by one down to five, I said screw it. My gear was max or near max for my level, I had maxed out the attributes, etc. and was using a set of abilities that was generally effective against elites, etc. But that guy, aieee. Really. Not. Fun.
Then I tried a solo expedition at level 3, and lost. Decided it was time to try the Technomancer. I really like the basic campaign game play, and the Tech seems different enough to be still fresh.
That final boss battle was the low point of the whole experience for me. It was just needlessly difficult in the “bullet sponge” category for no reason. The mechanics of it would have been fine if you didn’t need to pour so much lead in his direction.
I am having a lot of fun in Expeditions and am up to Tier 12 now on my Technomancer. I’m still playing a blighted rounds build, but with a lot of freeze mechanics and it is going well. I’m hoping that as people get used to the tier 3 mods we see more build diversity. I have a sneaking suspicion that there are some great Tier 3 options that people are just now finding. I’ve seen a few power based build emerging in Youtube this week…I think this needs to happen. The Enhanced bullet meta for 3/4 classes is boring.
Last note for me to people on the fence in this game. I don’t think the combat comes into its own until you get out of the cover shooter phase, around level 15-20. It’s like a whole different game once you get some mods and abilities rolling.