Outriders New Horizon update promises the changes players have been waiting for

Source: Square Enix

When Outriders launched back in April, there were questions equally to whether information technology could live up to its potential. The 3-person co-op looter shooter seemed to want to combine corybantic, superpowered moves with fast-paced shooting, and promised that it wouldn't be a live service championship. In previews, it seemed like information technology might work. Unfortunately, the game at launch was riddled with problems, including server issues that prevented some from engaging in cantankerous-play, and some bugs that would wipe a player's inventory, enemies that would fire invisible bullets, and frequent crashes, among other things. Other great games on Xbox pushed it to the backburner quickly.

There were besides balancing issues among the four classes that forced players into but a couple of minor boxes in terms of playstyle, despite the game purporting you can play as you wished. Bullet builds were all the rage, which was unfortunate when classes like the Devastator had few options to get creative with harm. This became a huge problem when reaching the endgame, which featured difficult and timed expeditions that only rewarded the good boodle at the very end. Since yous had to exercise damage as rapidly as possible, this meant players favored bullet builds.

Overall, while the game was playable, information technology left a lot of players feeling disappointed. Where was the variety? Why wouldn't the game just piece of work as intended? While the People Tin Wing squad has released multiple updates since launch, there hasn't been a lot of news on the future of the series, or whether it had addressed whatsoever of the most serious issues to lure old players back.

On Nov. 15, however, People Tin Fly and publisher Square Enix debuted its latest Outriders broadcast (the last one was pre-launch) to announce some massive changes coming to the game. The gratuitous update is called New Horizon, and information technology's set to not just add more than content, but to set a lot of the balancing problems and other problems that players have had with the game in the hopes to keep information technology all going.

"With New Horizon, we want to give the argument that we fixed the game and added new things," said Game Managing director Bartosz Kmita during a pre-broadcast printing event. "It'southward a practiced moment to start finally working on our game to make information technology ameliorate."

Why one large update?

Source: Square Enix

Developers take been working on Outriders fixes since the game launched and feedback started streaming in. While Kmita notes that some of it was positive, a lot of it was "bittersweet." This is understandable because while the game did work, it didn't piece of work all the time. Personally, I had few issues playing on PC with friends and just ran into occasional crashes, just I knew people who lost their unabridged inventory or couldn't play at all. Those who were intrigued by the game at launch fell off chop-chop, and not of their ain volition.

"Our game is very, very complicated from a technical betoken of view and in the systems, so information technology took a footling bit longer than expected to even realize what is going on."

According to Kmita, the response was sort of unexpected. The demo seemed to be successful, with a couple one thousand thousand players downloading it. (Kmita noted the demo had two million players, simply couldn't ostend the number.) However, there were many more players that wanted to play the full game at launch, which strained the company'southward servers.

"Our game is very, very complicated from a technical point of view and in the systems, and so it took a piffling chip longer than expected to even realize what is going on," Kmita said. "We did everything we could from our perspective to mitigate, just unfortunately, not everything."

It's unclear how the thought of a big free update with big changes came about, but Toby Palm, a community manager at Square Enix, said that information technology partially happened this mode considering of timing and because of eyes. Why non give players a larger update and event to pay attention to than a agglomeration of small patches?

"If we hadn't run into, say, an inventory wipe result, we'd be releasing the content that's in New Horizons much earlier, Palm said. "We focused commencement on stabilizing the game, and then we said let's bring everything in together into this big New Horizon update where nosotros have a risk to really win people dorsum past showing them actually everything'southward been changed."

Since working on making the game piece of work every bit intended took up a lot of the developers' time, the team's timeline with plans for new content was pushed dorsum. According to Palm, that allowed the team to be in the weeds with Outriders longer than expected.

"The timeline has given usa the opportunity to actually implement all the great things. The fact nosotros had to stay with Outriders for longer actually meant we can as well improve it in great ways longer as well."

What are the changes, exactly?

Source: Square Enix

The broadcast detailed all the changes coming in the New Horizon update, and they promise a lot of improvements to the endgame, first and foremost. Equally we previously mentioned, Expeditions, which were post-main campaign missions that provided some of the game'due south best loot, were timed and incredibly difficult. This meant players focused on DPS, bullet-focused builds that dealt the most damage the fastest. A lot of builds, peculiarly ones for the Devastator and the Trickster, became unpopular equally a result.

The New Horizon update seeks to modify balancing bug by disabling the timer on Expedition missions.

The New Horizon update seeks to change that by disabling the timer on Expedition missions. Players can still use information technology if they wish, but it's no longer a requirement to complete information technology in a short corporeality of fourth dimension. No matter how y'all play, you'll receive the same rewards. This alter will come up in handy with the four new Expeditions that are coming in the New Horizon update, which range from standard to challenging.

One of the more interesting aspects from Outriders was how it incentivized players to play on tougher difficulties (called World Tiers) for better loot. Despite this, drop rates for legendary items were low, and information technology was common to get duplicates. To reward players even more in the New Horizon update, People Can Fly has upped the drib rate of legendary loot — a 100% increase, according to the developers. At that place's also an anti-duplication system now in place that reduces the chance of getting an item you already own. Players also get more of a selection in their legendary loot, from beingness able to choose an detail at the terminate of the terminal mission to being able to buy a legendary purchase from Tiago's shop. Plus, if you log on in one case per week, y'all'll get a legendary item.

An unnecessary simply withal neat improver is Transmog, which allows you to keep the design of certain weapons and armor and put it onto different items. This allows you take the skins from legendary items and put them on rare or common weapons, for instance, and provides players another style to customize their kit in an already stacked customization system.

Finally, we come to smaller quality of life changes, many of which were sorely needed. For case, y'all can at present skip that opening video! More importantly, all iv classes and their skills will be receiving buffs to deal and take more damage. The developers besides added that multiplayer connectivity has been improved across platforms, with the added power to check whether players are AFK.

Additionally, during the broadcast, the team announced the Worldslayer expansion, a new story DLC set to release in 2022.

Merely how does it all play?

Source: Square Enix

I got the chance to try out a version of Outriders with the update where we played through the four new Expeditions. They ranged from the more straightforward with the Molden Depths, to The Wellspring, where your squad is beseeched by storms that get stronger every bit you play. While information technology was tough to see if the legendary drop rate had improved at all (my squad completed 2 out of the four Expeditions on at least World Tier ten and didn't receive any legendary loot), I received simply a couple indistinguishable items.

In the real world, players will see whether the bugs accept been cleaned up and whether the multiplayer connections take been improved.

What I was paying attending to mainly involved buffs to the characters. I typically play a Trickster, one of the more affected classes by the previous meta, and one of my teammates was a Devastator, and then at that place were plenty of opportunities to bank check out whether the tweaks were impactful. Since nosotros were playing on higher World Tiers, it was hard to truly gauge how meaningful the changes were, just it was more apparent on lower tiers. My squad had difficulty completing Expeditions after World Tier 12 at the level 50 cap, but had a much easier time even just slightly lower.

Equally a Trickster, I felt myself having manner more of an impact on enemies. Before, many of the later game abilities like Venator's Pocketknife weren't super feasible on tougher enemies. It felt like a lot of Trickster abilities didn't go out much of a marking on larger enemies at all. While I withal ran into some issues on larger monsters that didn't seem affected at all past marking by the Trickster, that was only on much tougher difficulties and in the latter Expeditions.

Nonetheless, Outriders has ever been a balancing act between wanting to gun downwards opponents and creating the right build for the situation. It's non nigh simply pure impairment, which the developers stressed in the update. So information technology's still strange that on higher Earth Tiers, it still ends up existence almost harm. Certain, you lot tin strategize and combine abilities with your teammates, just ultimately it'south about how quickly y'all tin can gun down your opponents then you don't become overrun. Then while in that location isn't a timer anymore, y'all still are sort of in a race to not become clobbered by three Alphas at the same time.

Ultimately, my fourth dimension with the game felt like more of the same, minus the timers in Expeditions, which is a much-needed change. It'southward tough to truly tell how much an effect balancing volition have on the game since we were all playing with high-level characters and legendary weapons and armor. Plus, we were only playing Expeditions, and the truthful test will come throughout the main game. In the real world, players volition see whether the bugs take been cleaned upwards and whether the multiplayer connections take been improved. You tin't see these things in a preview exam. That being said, while it took a while for Outriders to go these much-needed changes, information technology shows the squad is standing piece of work on the game for the foreseeable future.

A new horizon

Outriders

Outriders had a lot of potential when it launched back in Apr equally a fun 3-role player co-op looter shooter, just bugs and server issues soured a lot of players. The New Horizon update is looking to change all of that.

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