#TheOuterWorlds2 #Combat #IGNFirst
We sat down with two development leads on The Outer Worlds 2, Obsidian's upcoming RPG/FPS sequel, to discuss the notable changes made to combat this time around – from enemy behavior, to gun combat, melee combat, and more!
#TheOuterWorlds2 #Combat #IGNFirst
We sat down with two development leads on The Outer Worlds 2, Obsidian's upcoming RPG/FPS sequel, to discuss the notable changes made to combat this time around – from enemy behavior, to gun combat, melee combat, and more!
#TheOuterWorlds2 #Combat #IGNFirst
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GamingTranscript
00:00We're back at it again for this month's IGN First on The Outer Worlds 2.
00:03Our exclusive coverage has touched on the new and wild weapons in the sequel
00:07and how the RPG mechanics have been reworked.
00:09But here, we're looking at the nuances of combat itself.
00:12From enemy behavior to the way difficulty works this time around,
00:16Lead Combat Designer Rob Donovan and Lead Systems Designer Kyle Koenig
00:19broke down how Obsidian has redesigned The Outer Worlds 2's gameplay for a better combat experience.
00:24Get ready for an adventure.
00:28Yeah, so we've added a lot to the combat experience in The Outer Worlds 2.
00:31That was something that we identified that we could really sort of polish up and improve on,
00:35modernize a little bit, and add some really interesting features
00:38that we've been having a lot of fun with over the course of development.
00:41So one of the things that you can do now is parkour.
00:43You can climb on things. You can mantle up onto objects.
00:46You can vault over them. You can slide, which adds a lot of sort of mobility
00:51and your ability to sort of escape, navigate around the battlefield,
00:55put some objects between yourself and your enemies,
00:58and otherwise get to sort of places that you maybe couldn't before.
01:01So it feels a lot more interesting to just move around the world.
01:04It's a lot of fun, and we have some cool RPG elements that sort of stack onto that
01:08and allow you to do things like sliding while shooting and vaulting.
01:12And for players that want to use the environment, there's just a lot more to do.
01:16We also have grenades. You can throw grenades now.
01:18Enemies can throw grenades at you to flush you out of cover.
01:21NPCs are using cover now as well. So the whole combat experience is way more dynamic,
01:25way more interesting, both from the player experience, actually navigating around,
01:29being able to use grenades, flush enemies out of cover,
01:32to use some of your resources in maybe more challenging combats,
01:36and also to react to what these new enemies are going to do to you.
01:41We think that they're now a much more challenging encounter,
01:44and they might surprise you sometimes, which is something that I'm really looking forward
01:47to players getting their hands on.
01:48As Rob mentioned, all the different tools that we've added, we've integrated into our RPG systems.
01:53Players have perks and flaws and all sorts of elements that improve various elements of them.
01:59Leadership players making use of their companions more than a soldier player or a rogue might.
02:05Rogue players taking stealth to their advantage to sneak up on enemies and take them out before the fight.
02:10Science players using gadgets like tactical time dilation,
02:14and the shield gadget to really take advantage of those tools.
02:18And of course just soldier players using their vast array of weapons to take enemies out.
02:27So from the very beginning, we knew we wanted to step up that weapon feel and moment-to-moment gunplay.
02:33So we looked at other games like Destiny, Call of Duty, Modern Warfare came out right as we were entering pre-production.
02:41So we looked at all those games, reviewed, okay, what do RPGs do well about gunplay, and what do these games do well?
02:49So we looked at things like what do stats drive well, such as damage, range, things that feel good to progress over time,
02:58and what do things feel bad, like sway and spread and recoil, that we can really step back on and let just feel good from the get-go.
03:07So we would compare and contrast what we're doing against those other games and see, okay, what feels good from the start.
03:14There's a role for RPGs that are FPS RPGs to sort of increase the accuracy and the precision and the handling of guns using the RPG skills.
03:25But we wanted to make sure that even sort of the basic weapons that didn't have a lot of RPG mechanics within them still felt good to use from the get-go.
03:35And the RPG mechanics are another layer that you can add on top of that.
03:44A lot of what we've added in terms of the movement and the resource management and things allow you to play sort of your own way.
03:50We've got different kinds of armor, light, medium, and heavy, which each sort of feed into a different kind of play style, faster, but maybe less resistant to damage,
03:59or a sort of tanky player that doesn't mind getting hit by a number of things because you're going to deal the damage right back.
04:06The grenades, of course, as I mentioned, we also have various strengths and weaknesses based on our creatures in the game and our auto-mechanicals.
04:14There's a lot of different ways to engage with the systems in the RPG, both in terms of going into a menu and putting points into things,
04:21but also in the sense of gathering gear and being able to think through, if you're clever, how that gear is going to affect different kinds of combat encounters.
04:30So we have some very fast-moving enemies, and if you use TTD to slow them down, you'll have a much easier time.
04:37So maybe you want to use TTD because you're having trouble tracking fast-moving flying things.
04:42Or maybe you want to double down on that tank play style.
04:46You want to put on the heavy armor, you want to use the shield gadget, you just want to kind of not worry about health for a while,
04:51and just go through and stomp a couple of guys before you have to really think too much about min-maxing.
04:57We also have, because we don't have a level scaling system anymore, we have a lot of opportunities for players to challenge themselves.
05:05If they think that their play style and their particular build is really working out well for them,
05:10they can opt in to some harder challenges across the course of the game and see if they have what it takes
05:16to sort of go above and beyond what another kind of player with a different kind of build might have.
05:22Yeah, and using those tools to your advantage, whether you're a player that's really trying to min-max
05:28and take the most out of your play style, or someone who looks to gear and equipment as a way to supplement your weaknesses.
05:37Rogue players realizing, oh, I'm really squishy, and if I get caught, I'm going to die.
05:43Looking to use, okay, well, maybe I'll use sniper rifles or long-range equipment to take out things that are really threatening early.
05:49Or even something as simple as auto-mechs are a real challenge to me,
05:54because I like to use weapons like SMGs and shotguns, which bounce off their armor.
05:58Taking some shock grenades to deal with them early and lock them down,
06:02so that they can't blow you up as quick as possible.
06:05I'll add, crucially, you know, despite the previous answer where we said we wanted to make sure that
06:10the guns handled well from the get-go, we don't want to eliminate any sort of decision-making and skill
06:14and player builds and cleverness, really.
06:17You know, a lot of what we love about The Outer Worlds 1 is that approaching different combat encounters
06:23from different angles could give you some big advantages.
06:25We want to retain that and tie it even more tightly to the RPG mechanics.
06:29Not doing level scaling seems like a simple change, but it has enormous ripple effects over the way that we create the game.
06:39Enemies now are at what we are calling tiers.
06:41And so each enemy has its own set of stats and its own damage values, health values, and damage prevention based on armor and things.
06:50And those are static throughout the game.
06:52So early on, some of our more difficult, higher-tier enemies will be more difficult just from a math perspective.
06:59They're going to hit you harder.
07:01They're going to take less damage.
07:02And when they take damage, they might have a higher health pool.
07:04Meanwhile, towards the end of the game, if you want to return to some of the regions that you've been to before,
07:10you'll find that those enemies are just how you left them.
07:13And hopefully by this point you have leveled it up, got enough gear, got enough cool armor and gadgets and skills and perks
07:19and maybe flaws to be able to come back and really romp on those enemies that maybe were giving you difficulty before.
07:25We think that's a really enjoyable experience.
07:28And it prevents, from my perspective, from the combat side, having a lot of the game feel samey.
07:34With level scaling, there's a real risk that something that is slightly hard is always slightly hard.
07:40And something that is slightly easy is always slightly easy because it's traveling with you.
07:45And by the end of the game, it might feel like, well, this is more or less the same encounter that I've had from the beginning.
07:50We took a lot of time on The Outer Worlds 1 to try and disrupt that.
07:53But I think this approach, with no level scaling and tier bans, let's call them, of NPC combatants,
08:00will do an even better job at making those encounters feel different and feeling you grow more powerful over the course of the game.
08:07Yeah, looking back at some of our older games like New Vegas, something we really wanted to hit on again
08:13was that feeling of leaving Goodsprings, heading north to Deathclaws and Cazadors and just getting bullied.
08:19And the player experience of, okay, well, I'll go explore something else now and come back and then bully them back
08:26as you've gained levels and experience, gotten better gear, and really hitting that.
08:32We also just have different difficulty modes.
08:34We have story mode returning, which is for players who are just looking to experience the story
08:39and combat's not the focus for them, all the way up to hard and very hard for players
08:44that really want to push their skill as both an FPS player and big RPG nerd like myself
08:49where how can I break the game and how can the game push back against that?
08:54Yeah, we were talking about this. This is one of my particular hobby horses that's always on my mind.
09:03And the way to solve that is not through some silver bullet that's just going to make players play the way
09:09that I demand that they play. It's a lot of sequential steps and a lot of sort of noodling on the margins
09:15to make sure that in this game, we want our NPC combatants to behave as if they care about their own survival.
09:23So humans can take cover now, and they will, and especially if you are shooting them at long range
09:29and they're not maybe sure exactly where you are, they will take cover and they'll maybe hide there.
09:34Creatures will sometimes try to block line of sight to players that are too far for them to reach,
09:40especially creatures that maybe only have claws and jaws to attack you.
09:44They won't be able to engage with you at extreme ranges, so they'll take a sort of defensive posture.
09:49And it's not to block the players that like to be snipers and to creep around and try to get angles
09:56on distant enemies. That will still be a viable play style. But my goal for the combat is to make sure
10:01that that's not the most viable play style. That if you want to walk in and smack guys with two-handed
10:09melee weapons, that that is a perfectly acceptable option and you don't feel forced to play with weapons,
10:15plinking damage at extreme range because it's the only safe way to not get killed.
10:20I would like both of those ends of the sort of the spectrum, let's say, to have a great time and engage
10:26with all of the combat mechanics that we have without sort of leading any player to think,
10:31well, I certainly can't play that way, so I have to play this other way that maybe is less fun
10:36or maybe doesn't suit the way that I want to engage with this combat system.
10:40Yeah, and we've tackled that in a lot of different ways. Giving NPCs new tools, so giving them things
10:45like grenades to flush you out of cover. Working with content teams to add flankers and melee enemies
10:51that'll just go around the outside and flush you out. Giving NPCs the ability to hide and take cover
10:57and slide into cover if you're really peppering them. All sorts of tools like that to really diversify
11:06the options the player has to take in order to deal with combat.
11:10Yeah, and I am under no illusion that we will entirely solve this problem and that no players
11:15will be able to exploit. I've seen speedruns. I know how it works. But really, the point is to make
11:21sort of all the play styles viable and interesting and fun throughout and not have one particular
11:27play style be so strong that you're encouraged to use it even if you don't like it.
11:32I will say that we are not aiming to be a valid level of melee combat. We consider them a melee
11:44first game with obviously ranged weapons in the mix. We consider ourselves to be a ranged
11:49first game with melee in the mix. And what we've tried to do is make sure that our melee combat
11:55has the ability to support a few ranges of play styles. The stealth player that wants to sneak
12:01through the grass and stab guys in the back. So we have a series of melee weapons that accommodate
12:06that and in some cases really make that more fun and more interesting. And then we have the sort of
12:11two-handed melee weapons, the big ones, that have a bunch of perks associated with them that will
12:15allow you to unlock more variety in your melee attacks for the people. And we have some of them on
12:21the dev team here that just want to pick up a big stick and smack guys in the face.
12:25Yeah. So we're trying to make sure that we support that throughout even though a lot of what I've
12:32certainly been focusing on is the ranged experience. We do definitely have support for the melee players
12:37as well. And definitely on the RPG side we want to make sure that melee is well supported and has
12:42plenty of things to do with their build and have some variety.
12:45We had obviously had tactical time dilation from Outer Worlds 1 and we were looking how do we evolve
12:55the science player going into the Outer Worlds 2. And that's where gadgets came from which is players
13:01now have an energy bar that they can spend using one of four different gadgets. Each one has a strong
13:07combat purpose like TTD obviously slowing down bullet time is always a fan favorite in pretty much any
13:14shooter. We have a shield gadget which gives you a bunch of bonus health but it's also useful in
13:18exploration granting you immunity temporarily to hazards such as fire so the player can pass through
13:24those areas and get to new locations. We have the n-ray scanner which lets you see enemies through walls
13:32which has a major use in combat being able to carefully plan for enemies that are behind cover but
13:38it also does additional bonuses like granting you critical hit chance on the RPG side. And so the
13:43player can swap between these once they've acquired them and use them against different enemies as
13:48as needed. In that vein being able to level up your science and get more energy and turn that into more
13:55tactical time dilation is sort of giving you a combat bonus even if that's not your primary interest.
14:01We wanted to make sure that even with my focus on the combat side of things that if you put points into
14:07points into other skills that we're still making sure you're not so dramatically underpowered that you
14:11kind of can't play the game the way that you want to. So we're cognizant that the gadgets are one way
14:18as well to be able to get through some things that maybe you're a little under leveled for or maybe you're
14:25not quite perfectly spec'd into but give you the ability to use those perks skills and gadgets to
14:31to get through that combat. Yeah and I'll say um the interesting thing about these uh first person
14:37shooter RPGs is they have a very diverse audience. We have players that just like playing shooters and
14:42they're good at it and they're they're good at aiming and we have players who aren't aren't quite
14:46as skilled at that and they just really want a strong RPG experience and tools like the gadgets
14:51tactical time dilation is one of the ways that we're looking to help that that group be able to
14:57more better engage with the the combat and aiming which might be something that's hard for them.
15:03Rob and Kyle have all the technical insight on things from a gameplay perspective but we also
15:07have interviews with other key developers about the revamped flaw system and the bigger more expansive
15:11open zones across the game so be sure to check out those videos as well. And we still have a lot more
15:16to showcase for Obsidian's next big game so for more on The Outer Worlds 2 stick with IGN.