One thing I like about this game is that you can make some very interesting builds.
Sadly, that evaporates as you get into the expedition side of things; bullet builds are the only things really viable at that point for a large number of reasons.
I’m solo gold running CT15 stuff now so there’s not really anything left for me to do short of levelling alts and I’ve never been that sorta fox. Kinda miffed that the design of the final expedition makes solo gold literally impossible. As if being baited into ragequitting over the endless stunlocks wasn’t bad enough.
Overall I really enjoyed my time with it, though, and am looking forward to future updates. Shame about the technical issues. If I’d had a poorer run of luck with it I’d have been more upset with it. The worst I can claim is that a couple of accolades have not unlocked for me thus I will forevermore be sitting at 99% completion.
Yep, that’s where I put the game on hold. All the cool/fun things drastically narrowed down to The One True Skill. I’ll just await a balance pass or three to bring all the underperforming abilities into line then play around more at the endgame. Don’t want to burn out / get frustrated with the current meta.
Quests bug out sometimes, too, I have had several times where I’ve cleared out an area as instructed but the game doesn’t register it, making the pick up of a history collectible for Madame Beauvoir non-interactable. because the game thinks I’m in combat. It seems sometimes that the game expects me to continue through on the story path, even if I’ve already done it, because you can replay missions and f you retrace your steps in a later game session baddies respawn and doors re lock.
I feel it’s a misstep that expeditions are rated by time to finish. That means dumping everything into maximum damage output, and all the systems for survivability kind of take a back seat. At least in terms of playing them solo. I would hope multiplayer expeditions allow a bit more wiggle room.
I’m embarrassed to admit I’m not sure what CT means. You’re soloing tier 15 expeditions and getting gold medals? Aren’t you then close to being able to do the final mission? Because one of the things I like about Outriders – at least in theory – is that it’s got a hard ending. It seems like once you can do the Eye of the Storm mission at the end of the expeditions, you’re done with that character, right? This isn’t just another open-ended action RPG you’re supposed to play forever and ever and ever.
-Tom
@tomchick The final mission, whiteout getting two spoilery, requires 3 players to be standing in zones at the same time in order to complete within the time limit. It is impossible to currently beat it solo and get a gold.
I think CT stands for Challenge Tier? Anyways, its the expedition equivalent of world tier. I’ve got golds in most everything else but the last mission. At this point I think I’m done for a bit. I’ve tried several builds, and I can’t get traction on any of them but blighted bullets, which IMHO is not really a special ability, so much as it is the same mechanics only with stronger bullets. So I’m going to put this one on the bench until a balance patch or two I think.
I agree, total misstep and one that kind of surprised me, honestly. It would be one thing if some expeditions were timed but putting all endgame content behind a timer? It had very immediate and predictable results, including toxicity in the community if you joined a random game and weren’t the “right” build or class (poor Devastators).
Time trials are too one-dimensional. As a player I want to choose my loadout and my tactics. If you’re able to clear with max DPS that’s its own reward because you’re getting the rewards faster. Let me stealth my way through, snipe, or go heavy on the defense and tank my way through it!
Challenge Tier, as @Fozzle mentions. But yeah, the last mission sucks solo thanks to the 3 zone mechanism. No matter how well you play or how powerful you are, it goes to silver before you even get a chance to lay a finger on the boss. I managed bronze, could possibly eke out a silver but, meh, what’s the point.
If they wanted it to be a strict group activity thing I’d be fine with it but I do resent being set up to fail. At least I got the dumb accolade for soloing everything now. Was just hoping I’d be able to get the one for 100% gold without having to team up with John Rando.
If anything it’s the opposite; the enemies get so spongey with extra players everybody needs to roll a glass cannon build. My coop partner was the tank (trickster) in our duo throughout the campaign and we did well with that setup. Once you get past around CT11 it just isn’t viable, not least of all due to the fact that being able to do that effectively as a trickster relies on you being able to actually kill things to regen your shield etc. We’re still playing together, and it’s not like he’s constantly getting killed… but without the gear/dps to offset the HP he adds on to enemies I do much better solo, frankly.
Finally uninstalled after finishing the basic story questline (up to Expeditions) twice. When my level 30 Blight Technomancer had to drop WT down to WT3 to beat the final boss, I was pretty done with it. Expeditions being timed one-dimensional kill fests with zero variety or nuance just sort of put the nail in the coffin. If they change stuff up or add things maybe I’ll go back. Got my money’s worth but overall it’s a B movie.
I’ve been kind of playing the game twice, concurrently. I started a solo pyro from the demo, carried into the main game upon release. I’ve gotten up through the snowy mountain region and basically I had to dial down to WT3 to do so. I just get swarmed and can’t kill the tougher captains and such fast enough on higher tiers.
My second playthrough is with two friends - one plays pyro, the other a devastator and I am playing techno. We just reached the snowy mountain area and are cranking through on WT6 with very few problems. And I’m not really sure why that is. I’m guessing the combined arms attacks are more effective, plus there are 3 of us to surround and flank and all that. But it seems multiplayer is just much easier as best I can tell, like the game doesn’t really scale for number of players. Or am I crazy?
Maybe, but a friend and I have been playing tech/trick but the technomancer is not nearly as much fun as I’d hoped so we are now playing dev/pyro and we are having a much easier time playing through content we had just played
Technomancer I found far more effective than anything else, using a blight bullet build of course. Solo; never tried it with anyone else, and it’s uninstalled now. But the endgame is blech, so that killed my interest.
I do think the game scales with more players but more than anything, I think it’s just that the enemies are going to be split in terms of where their attention lies which effectively means you’re less likely to get swarmed. No matter how good a shot I am there’s a significant difference in picking off two or three melee dudes running at me at once vs doing so for 6+.
Everything you need to do in coop is just… less. Because of the split I’m needing my freeze skill every 20 seconds in coop, maybe, whereas solo I’m needing it every 8. Yet my cooldown between the two modes doesn’t change. The enemies have less HP, sure, but they hit just as hard (I think), which will happen more often. Guns do eventually need to be reloaded, after all. Unless you go for the various infinite ammo bullet builds, of course, which is just one of the many reasons they’re so obscenely powerful.
Well, it’s shelved until they patch the bug that can one shot you. Unplayable…
Hmm, can’t recall if I encountered that. In a lot of boss fights I got whacked hard and died in one or two shots. Is this something specific, or a general issue?
I bounced off of this pretty hard. I don’t care for the feel of the shooting, not sure why… I also don’t care for the look of the game, that could entirely be my comp and settings…but visually to me it can be very confusing. I also absolutely hate the character models.
A lot of this could be chalked up to my computer not running the game that well, if I ever get a better GPU I’ll give it another go, as people seem to be enjoying it.
Games like these, I always keep going back to Borderlands as a benchmark. All of the looter/shooters that I’ve played have suffered from ‘too much clutter’. Because of the cartoony nature of BLs, it’s really easy to pick out targets.
I definitely got my money out of this title. I played Techno all the way through the campaign, up to CT15 and completed the final Expedition and then all my interest in the title completely drained. I too used the Blighted Rounds build, because nothing else is really viable, which sucks because there are other much more fun abilities to play with other then “stronger bullets.” The one thing I found really strange in all of this is why they bothered to make support roles at all. They are 100% completely unnecessary from WT1 to CT 15, and that had to be evident during development. There really is no reason to take tank or heal abilities and more so, if you do then you are actually a detriment to your 3 man team, since you are making it take a lot longer to kill stuff and losing the chance at gold… The endgame needed a few more months in the oven I think. Not quite done.
I mean, that’s understandable, you’ve finished it. I’m not sure why you’d continue playing beyond then other than to get absolutely optimal gear to be ready if and when they release an expansion. It’s not built to be endlessly replayable in the style of Diablo 3 (nor does it have seasons)
Normally I would be eager to play through again as another class or experiment with new builds. That’s where the game completely drops the ball, though.
Up, This is me too. I would usually be starting up another run, and I did half-ass make a pyro, but…
meh.