Current counts:
Pat: 30
Friend: 34
(Total Deaths: 64)
Wipes: 14
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We both love an abusive, unforgiving game. And usually we're quite good at them. But we picked up Outward a couple months ago and we've been having our asses handed to us. Eventually we got stuck in a failure spiral early in our first run after picking skills and gear poorly suited to our individual playstyles, so we reset and have been doing MUCH better, but still dying plenty.
Haven't left the starting region yet in either run, and we tend to be obsessive loot goblins who might progress slowly in the story. I have no idea how long the game normally is, so I've just pulled numbers out of my hat based on our first attempt which I guesstimate had ~40 deaths and 30 wipes. We're at about the same point now and if we counted from the beginning it'd be maybe a dozen or so deaths and only a handful of wipes.
We play for a few hours about once a week, sometimes more sometimes less. Normal mode (not hardcore with 20% permadeath since it might otherwise stop the tally early).
Only counting deaths and wipes going forward. A death is: when one of us dies but gets revived by the other. Can happen frequently, occasionally multiple times in a single big fight. A wipe is: when we both are dead at the same time and the game cuts out to a defeat scenario. 2 deaths don't necessarily equal a wipe, so I'm counting them separately. If we wipe, I'll only count +1 wipe and neither of the requisite deaths. Every death + revive before a wipe still counts, just not the final double-KO.
This market resolves when either: we 'complete' our current run, we decide to give up (hah! you wish), or we stop playing this game for long enough that I don't think we'll go back to finish. Will extend as needed.
I'll try to publicly update this market with a running tally from time to time and won't insider trade for at least a few hours after I do so, if at all.
@Jasonb Not sure on progress. It still feels early-ish based on quest rhythm and tone. I'm trying to avoid spoilering myself by combing the wiki for everything.
If you know the game or want to dig deeper yourself, I can give specific context. We just returned to Cierzo (the starting town) from Monsoon (the faction we decided to align with) to solve three quests:
Fight off Vendavel Bandits
Destroy the corruption in Ghost Pass
Talk (fight?) the Montcalm Tribe
Motivation is excellent. We're both having a great time and I don't sense any flagging yet.
Extra notes, we're playing the Definitive Edition, so there are DLC zones we'll encounter eventually too. I dont know how much content is specific to the new faction that provides vs. parallel stuff that we can do as any faction
@Stralor I will add: we try to burn through stuff quickly but we also try to see as much as possible. We enjoy getting immersed in the world and since we're playing blind we don't wanna skip through. That means lots - but not all - of side dungeons, much running (or crawling) back and forth with loot, thorough quest completion, fighting most everything we come across (perhaps stupidly, but we want the loot and don't know optimal routes), and tons of downtime for me to cook, do alchemy, and spend our money on new recipes so we don't rely on the wiki. We're getting efficient but it's quite slow going.
sooo this last sesh was a weird one. her computer wiped and it ends up outward (bewilderingly!) doesn't have steam cloud saves. my character was fine but we had to speed run her start to get a bunch of gear. little bit of an edge case since "is it a new run?" in some ways yes: my friend is hosting and we started at the beginning, but also no: my character is fine and we can always switch back to that world if we feel we've gotten enough that she's ready.
I would feel bad canceling the market on that technicality so I'm gonna let it ride.
anyway, after those shenanigans it was a short session but it went smoothly once we got into the flow (but I was perhaps too powerful for the zone). new scores:
pat: 0
friend: 2
wipes: 0
We played a bunch this week and had our asses handed to us in a new zone.
New scores to add:
Pat: 11
Friend: 10
Wipes: 8