Outriders Commits One Big Looter Shooter Sin, But Hopefully It Doesn't Commit The Other
Around two weeks ago People Can Fly finally launched its all-new sci-fi looter shooter game called Outriders. The game was quite successful in terms of its marketing campaign, and the developer has taken in, and responded to, feedback since the demo. Despite the love and attention that the game received though, PCF decided to jump the gun on nerfing Outriders' classes.
Outriders players were unhappy with the nerfs, but this was not the first set of nerfs to classes in Outriders' very short history. In fact, People Can Fly released a free downloadable demo, during which a loot farm was nerfed to prevent gamers to exploit the store and the triple-chest runs. The changes prevented players from obtaining too many legendary items from the chests, as they stopped dropping altogether, and the shops stopped selling epic items in the demo. PCF did respond to some of the decisions it made during the demo, and hopefully, the same can be said after these initial nerfs. However, some may be worried the nerfs are just precedent for more to come.
People Can Fly nerfed the Trickster's Twisted Rounds from having a 16 seconds cooldown to a 25 seconds cooldown, while also nerfing the Disruptive Firepower, Scion of Power, and Outrider Executioner class nodes. What this meant for the Trickster is that they were decreased by 15% because these perks are too strong when paired with the Trickster's Twisted Rounds.
Despite these nerfs, Twisted Rounds builds still run rampant, and players have found new ways to make the most out of them without ever letting the ability actually go on cooldown. This is achieved by running mods like Perpetuum Mobile on their main weapon, or by using Hunt The Prey with its complementary Tier 3 mod called Instant Reload. Both options make sure that the magazine is never depleted fully, thus making the skill become semi-permanent. Perpetuum Mobile is used on Pyromancers and Technomancers as well.
The Trickster was hit the hardest, but Pestilence Technomancer builds were hit hard as well. Much like PCF nerfed the Trickster's Twisted Rounds because of how popular and how strong the ability was (and still is), the Technomancer's Exposing Toxin now applies the Vulnerable effect on all enemies that are afflicted with the detrimental status effect Toxic with a lower value.
Vulnerable is a very powerful detrimental effect, as it makes enemies afflicted with it receive 15% increased damage (previously, 25%). Furthermore, Damage Against Poison suffered from a 15% reduction in extra damage, for a total of 15% increase now. These nerfs were aimed at reducing how impactful Technomancer builds using Blighted Rounds were.
The Pyromancer was nerfed as well, albeit on a much smaller scale, reducing its Trial of Ashes perk by 15%. This is in line with how PCF nerfed class-specific nodes on the skill tree for the other two classes.
Other nerfs came in the form of loot. In fact, prior to the patch, players could repeat bounty hunt quests, historian quests, and monster hunt quests in order to get more loot, and this meant that players were again obtaining too many legendary items like in the demo. Another source of loot that was nerfed in the same patch is killing specific monsters over and over, like Coldclaw and Splittooth, which no longer grant more than a single epic item per kill.
Developer People Can Fly showed that it cares about balance in Outriders, even though the class nerf aspects of it does not make much sense, to many, in a PvE-exclusive game. It is one of the things that may drastically reduce the lifespan of a looter shooter, as players invest their time into a character only to see their build nerfed. A much better approach to the whole situation would be to buff the weaker skills of each class to bring them up on par with the more powerful ones. This would make it so the meta evolves in a way where build variety increases, without punishing dedicated players for running a specific build they like.
Considering the precedents that People Can Fly set, it is not that unlikely that players will see nerfs to their Outriders mods and weapons as well. One mod that quickly became a candidate for future nerfs from PCF is one that was mentioned earlier: Perpetuum Mobile.
Given the trend of nerfing popular, effective builds revolving around the rounds-based skills for the Trickster, the Technomancer, and the Pyromancer, Perpetuum Mobile could indeed get the short end of the stick. This is currently the only mod among similar ones that actually makes Twisted Rounds, Blithed Rounds, and Volcanic Rounds bypass their cooldowns by avoiding that the magazine is ever emptied.
Again, this is not uncommon in looter shooter games, such as Destiny 2, The Division, Borderlands 3, and more. All these games saw nerfs to their mods, weapons, and classes in one way or another. Outriders seems to be headed in the exact same direction, and the only hope is that PCF listens to the community just as much as it has so far. In this regard, People Can Fly has rightfully earned the benefit of the doubt, and it's possible the aforementioned nerfs are rectified somehow and that future nerfs are less impactful.
Ultimately, perhaps arguably, Outriders should buffing more abilities, classes, mods, and weapons as one of the most efficient ways to increase player retention in a game. This happens because buffs open up more options for the players to choose from, and the overpowered builds they already made might be outclassed by others that become available this way. In turn, this makes players more interested in playing the game more, as they have always additional items to get, mods to unlock, classes to level up, and abilities to try.
Outriders is out now for PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.
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