Do you still need help?
I'm also still in Chersonese, playing the Definitive Edition and also very much enjoying it. Have done
the mushroom and Conflux Mountain. I failed to save the lighthouse but bought it back later.
AFAIK, there is no manual. However:
1. There is a Tutorial from the main menu which I selected first. Don't know if it auto triggers if you
simply select New game. Although it doesn't cover everything you need to know, I did find it useful.
2. Icons: the meaning of each active effect is shown in your Vitals tab, which is several along from your Inventory tab.
Also, it took me a little while to realise some tabs have sub-tabs, vertically on the left.
3. There is also a useful wiki:
https://outward.fandom.com/wiki/Effects If you got the mushroom, you are likely strong enough to tackle Conflux Mountain. I found them fairly
equivalent. However, there are three parts to Conflux Mountain:
1. Two paths to the ley line: hero's path and holy mission path. I've only done the former.
2. The path that winds around the mountain to the peak. The very peak is not required and you'll most
likely die there and it is much, much harder than the cave with the mushroom, although it's not
impossible if you're prepared and in my case, have a bit of dumb luck on my second attempt. Before
the peak, there are bandits to fight but it's well worth the climb for some resources that are worth
a lot of coin as long as you bring a pick for mining and enough backpack capacity to carry it back.
Tips, with the caveat that I'm still learning:
1. Don't be afraid to explore anywhere within a region. Thanks to the excellent defeat scenario concept,
you never die but end up in a new situation to escape from. In my experience, if you repeatedly fail
to escape the defeat scenario, you'll end up safe in your village. The main negatives of dying are:
1A. If bandits capture you, you might lose all your silver. My solution: don't carry any silver when
visiting a new part of the map. Either spend it or keep it in your stash at the lighthouse. Can
occasionally be annoying if you end up somewhere you'd like to buy something but worthwhile
versus losing the silver. Not sure if you can recover stolen silver.
1B. Having to make your way back to where you were. However, enemies don't respawn until some time
passes, which is great so you don't lose that much real world time or effort returning.
2. Always ensure you have health and stamina regeneration buffs before combat, and if applicable, mana.
Easiest way is to eat food. Different food gives different effects. eg. health or stamina or mana
regen or a combination thereof.
Outdoors, you can usually see enemies in the distance so you can know when to eat. Caveat: I'm running
with max graphics settings. Don't know if lower settings have a less useful draw distance. If that's
the case though, you probably should have enough food to always have something in your belly.
Before entering a building or cave, eat first because you might not see enemies in time once inside.
Although food decays, it takes a long time in reality so it is practical to carry food items for
quite some time, as long as you cook raw food first.
3. Be prepared to buy useful items. Unlike many rpgs, Outward has a sensible economy: it's best to build
up your items by a combination of finding them and buying them. Of course, you won't have enough
silver to buy everything so choose wisely. Albeit, if you need coin, you can farm the resources from
Conflux Mountain, just that it's tedious.
4. Buy a Nomad backpack ASAP unless you can find one, which I didn't. It has double the capacity of a
Primitive Satchel and allows you to use a lantern hands free. Also buy a tent ASAP. It makes sleeping
in the wild more efficient than an improvised bed roll.
5. Ensure you know how to craft food and light a campfire anywhere. It's essential. Not just for the
aforementioned buffs but also for teas that can cure debilitating conditions. Which means I lug
around a cooking pot and flint everywhere.
You can discover new recipes via experimentation, although you lose the ingredients if it fails, which
it often will but you can sometimes guess a recipe from a similar known recipe. Alternatively, find
and/or buy recipes.
When you find useful ingredients in the wild, remember the location or write it down. Over time, they
replenish and you can repeatedly farm them.
Alchemy may also be useful later but I'm not sure yet. At the moment, I leave my Alchemy apparatus in
my stash.
6. You might find it handy to carry two waterskins, or more. Water is useful for both drinking and
crafting. However, there are actually quite a lot of water sources on the map so you might not need
to (but make sure you boil any unclean water before drinking). On the other hand, you can empty a
waterskin at any point and it then takes up 0 weight so there's not much harm carrying two. Also, you
might happen to find some non-water liquid that you want to collect in a spare water skin ...
7. Knowing how to craft weapons like traps can also be useful, albeit I haven't used traps that much
yet. Unlike other games, dropping a trap is best done before entering combat, as you can't do it
easily during combat. It's a two step process: drop the trigger, then open it like a container to
store a payload in it.
Unlike food, there is no penalty for experimenting with crafting. No resources are destroyed if it
fails. You can sometimes guess a recipe from a related known recipe.
8. You can decraft most weapons into useful materials that weigh considerably less than the weapon.
eg. bladed weapons give you iron scraps, armor gives you linen.
9. Always have some bandages and know how to craft them from linen. Bleeding to death is a terrible way
to go, especially the first time when you don't understand what's happening :) Similarly, always keep
some poison antidote handy, although it's an effect I've only been impacted by once or twice so far.
10. When exploring areas with bandits, be on the look out for traps with your real life eyes. I love how
these are implemented. They are obvious enough to be 'clearly' visible but subtle enough to miss if
you're not going slowly and paying attention. Way better than the skill based checks in DnD style
games. Many times I've recklessly run over them and been saved by my bandage supply.
11. Combat: I've gone for a mace and shield and only occasionally used a bow so YMMV. For melee combat:
11A. Know how to block physical attacks. A shield has the advantage of being able to block arrows as
well but if this is not important to you, I think blocking with just a weapon can also work. With
blocking, the pace of combat is slow and deliberate and amounts to: keep blocking, backing away,
circling until you understand the enemy's very repeatable attack patterns. Only attack when
there's an opening. If you time this poorly, you'll be hit mid-swing and you can't block or dodge
mid-swing.
11B. When fighting multiple opponents at a time, always try to circle and back away from them so that
both enemies are visible and in front of you. If one gets behind you, use the dodge move.
If you ran past some different type of enemy before getting to them, you may be able to run back
to that enemy. Your current opponents will follow and the two groups of enemies will start
fighting each other. Can be very handy to reduce the difficulty of fighting multiple opponents,
albeit I've only done it accidentally so far. I think the sounds of fighting and me backing away
far enough drew some other enemies near.
11C. Don't overuse dodge because it uses up a lot of stamina each time.
11D. Magic attacks cannot be blocked. Instead, dodge is essential. The mace also has a useful ability that
I got free from Burac that allows me to block magic attacks and buff my mace with the effect for
both offence and defence. You can probably buy the skill later if you chose some other weapon as
the freebie.
11E. You can and should sometimes run away. Caveat: if you've exhausted all your stamina, you probably
can't run away fast enough.
11F. You don't have to fight every enemy. Particularly outdoors, you can often keep your distance and
wide run around them.
11G. Apparently the mace is relatively slow. I think I read somewhere the hatchet (or was it the
sword?) is a faster attacking weapon. However, the mace does more damage with a single swing.
Tridents, poles etc. allow you to attack from a greater distance.
11H. Although the tutorial mentions chaining attacks, I haven't found it useful. Instead, it's a sure
way to get hit during the second attack. However, maybe it's related to the relative slowness of
my weapon vs the enemy's.
11I. Carefully choose abilities for your quickslots. Only add abilities you might need in the midst of
combat. Beware that using an ability like a bandage during combat opens you to attack so choose
your timing wisely.
11J. Dying to a those 'chicken' creatures is humiliating. They're also annoying because they back
away as you approach but attack you if you turn your back. I found it useful to run up to them
and then hold block. Then they will start attacking. Once they've taken enough damage they'll run
away. A bow will also make short work of them but switching between melee and bow is annoying.
12. Equipment makes a big difference to survivability. Not just weapons, weapon buffs, food and crafting
resources but:
1. Cold weather rating of armor.
2. Cures for negative effects.
3. Tent for better sleep. Also potentially warmer sleep although maybe a lit campfire is enough. Not
sure because the campfire has often died by the time I wake up.
