Outward: Definitive Edition – Upcoming Balance Changes

With the Definitive Edition of Nine Dots Studio’s open-world RPG Outward looming on the horizon, we get this Steam announcement outlining a number of balance-related changes this major update is going to bring to the game. These include an overhaul of the game’s difficulty curve, updated armor stats, a new approach to DLC content, and more.

Here’s the full thing:

Hello everyone!

Today I would like to clarify what we mean when we say “we made balancing changes”, as I’m pretty confident it will affect the experience in a meaningful way.

Of course, there is a plethora of small tweaks to increase the viability of as many options as possible, but these could be the kind of balance changes in any patch. For the definitive edition, I’m happy we had the chance to make wider and far reaching changes.

Difficulty curve

Let’s start with the scariest change: we made the hard enemies harder. While this might appear on the surface to be a surprising move, the reasons why we did this was that some players could clear out dungeons very early on and jump into end game gear. This broke the intended progression curve and also made it tricky for players who then went into areas they were ‘under-leveled’ for. This increase in difficulty will mostly affect defensive stats, such as increased HP, protection and resistances.

Protection

While I believe the heavy armor sets were quite valid in Outward – and were a very good way for players to buy themselves some much needed protection when they made mistakes – there was a general sentiment that it didn’t offer enough to compensate for their drawbacks (loss of speed and higher stamina costs). There was also a sentiment that resistance was always more attractive than protection. So we fixed both problems with a fundamental change: protection now not only applies to physical damage, but to impact as well. Consequently, we had to revise impact resistance and make sure it didn’t suddenly become easy to ignore the risk of stagger altogether, or make some enemies almost impossible to stun.

DLC Content redistribution

This was another major change. I would say one of the most obvious consequences is how enchantment recipes are available in various stores, rather than concentrated in Harmattan. Arcane elementals can now be found in every region, in places that make sense. However the Antique Plateau will still be the best area to farm elemental particles.

We’ve also put workshops in every region so players can build the musical totems, so don’t need to trek all the way back to the Caldera if you lose one of your apparatuses. These workshops will still require materials found in their respective regions.

Corruption is now found in any area where it makes sense, and it also more potent. Without proper gear to mitigate the effect of ambient corruption, you will feel quite pressured to move out of the green fog.

Some of the item properties that were only found in the areas specific to their respective DLCs – such as cooldown reduction or barrier – can now be found on items from the vanilla content of Outward too. This opens up more viable gear and ensures items aren’t as easily outclassed.

Material Sample guaranteed drops

The random nature of drops for rare resources could be too brutal in The Three Brothers. We’ve found a way to alleviate this issue. The player will be able to talk with a town NPC to trade 3 of any samples for the specific type of rare resource you are looking for.

Town Reset

The fact that towns didn’t reset was causing issues both in terms of balance and immersion. A lot of players felt that sleeping in a house or an inn simply didn’t make sense compared to just placing a plant tent that would freely feed you and provide a sufficiently generous sleep buff. You will still be able to set up a hobo camp, but should you stay out of town for 7 consecutive days before the town resets. This means that you’ll be able to loot junk piles and such when coming back in town, giving something to do while your friend is shopping, buying skills or re-organising their inventory.

This list is not exhaustive, but those changes are those that I think will most significantly alter the experience of playing Outward. Hopefully it will keep even seasoned adventurers on their toes. I look forward to seeing your reactions and stories. Be careful, some of your habits may play against you this time around…

Special tip:

Players who already own the base game and the DLC “The Three Brothers” are entitled to a free copy of the Definitive Edition! For those who haven’t set foot into the world of Aurai yet: now would be the perfect time to explore the lands, so lace your boots and grab your backpacks, adventurers!

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