Outward – Useful Tips for New Players (Quests, Money and Combat)

Tips and Tricks

All credit goes to Winter's Embers!

Quests

While all quests have timers, the only ones that don’t give you much (if any) indication are Vendavel, Purifier, and Blood Under the Sun. The first you know about (20 days from joining a faction). Purifier and Blood Under the Sun must be completed before beginning your 3rd faction quest. If you fail to complete them by then, they either expire or end in failure.

Rust and Vengeance is unique in that it has a timer but it will not start until you begin your faction quest AND visit Harmattan again. It begins with 100 days from the moment you enter Harmattan after beginning faction play and automatically adjusts (up or down) to 60 days when you begin your 3rd. It also has the unique set-up that allows you to extend the timer by completing certain stages/events. If you don’t want the quest to start, don’t go back to Harmattan after joining your faction.

Taking your time means that, between timed quests, you have unlimited time (except to complete Vendavel). So, before you join a faction, you are basically in a limbo where nothing advances. This is the period where taking your time really applies. I did a playthrough where I didn’t even join a faction until day 78. But, once you join the faction, it is usually best to do each quest in the fastest possible time. During the 3-day wait after completing each stage, you are again free until you initiate the next quest.

Money

Earning money is mainly done with crafting during the early times when you’re unable to compete with the monsters. Getting an alchemy set is a very good idea. You can make potions there as well as items like pressure plate trap loads. Although the devs nerfed many aspects of crafting when they saw players having success with it, there are still a few good money makers that require very little effort on your part. Thick Oil, Iron Scrap, and Salt make Incendiary Charges, 2 Grilled Crabeye Seed and Salt make Toxic Charges at a rate of 3 each. Water and Gravel Beetle make 3 cool potions, Water and Ghost Eye make 3 mist potions. None of these things require fighting of any kind (there are two ghost eye plants near Ghost Pass).

Turning your excess iron scrap into iron spikes gets you a few coins as well. Finally, food, food and more food. Gaberry Tartine, Cierzo Civeche, Luxe Lichette, and Ocean Fricasse net great money since you just need to harvest resources. Just beware that some crafting (like making Cold Stones from Blue Sand and Mana Stone) cause you to lose value vs. the raw ingredients.

Early on there are two rather simple ways to making a decent bit of silver.

1. Scouring the beaches for blue sand to sell.
2. Scouring Conflux Mountain’s exterior for mana stones you can mine, and hope for some Hackmanite.
3. Tackle Blister Burrow, there are a couple items in there that can fetch a pretty penny (Both generally related to a quest, but one can be turned in immediately, the other only increases the value of the item a bit)

When you’re just starting out I also strongly recommend you stick to tackling the various bandits wandering around in Chersonese (The starting region), if possible avoiding a 2v1 scenario by abusing both bow and arrow as well as setting up some tripwire traps (Or planning your fight around/near one of the ground traps such as the bridges to the stronghold have).

Combat

Combat is yours to decide. I ran through all 3 original questlines while avoiding all battles. I was forced into an average of 4 fights per questline, including the big one at the end. Monsters give nothing more than ingredients for crafting or, in the case of bandits, some equipment.

Nothing is crucial to completing the game. Try to fight but always be willing to run when things get hairy and if the combat system doesn’t agree with you, you can almost avoid it altogether. DLC’s do add more forced combats on you so at least trying to learn the combat system is important.

A Few Simple Tips

• Stay hydrated by drinking water often. When you’re running from point A to point B, drink water. When you’re about to get into a fight, drink water.
• Abuse the **** out of Push Kick against pretty much everything in the starting region minus the shrimps and one or two other enemies in the various dungeons.
• Using a shield early on can quite literally be a life-saver given blocking with a shield is a helluva lot faster than blocking with a weapon of any sort.

In regards to the last two tips, leading into a fight with Push Kick -> Puncture/Talus Cleaver will often leave most enemies in Chersonese with less than 50% stability and HP.