Starfield - Discussion Thread

Rear_Intruder

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Kb&M. I had my joystick connected when I launched Starfield for the first time and it looks like the game didn't detect it at all -- does it support joysticks...?

Regardless, I think it would be useless anyway, as Starfield space flight gameplay is rather limited...
OK Thanks, I will finish BG3 then have a look at SField.
 

Thalstan

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Spoiler free short review.

I have completed the short tutorial and am still working my way through the cpital city quests.

first, it does not have a seamless world. like other Bethesda games, it is a world of zones. That’s okay, because unlike SC, these NPCs don’t stand around on chairs all day. Given a choice between zone lines and actual NPCs, give me zone lines.

like many Bethesda games, we are given choices. Think through your choices.

lots of side quests. Do them, because they are worth it.

lots of upsides and some frustrations. I have yet to find a map of the city for instance. A map of the well would be HUGE

graphics are great

flight model is limited.

FPS feels right on.

the best thing, it keeps you engaged in the game. No need to have Netflix on a second screen while you are in quantum for 10 minutes.

overall, based on my VERY LIMITED playtime, I would give this game 2 more points than SC. ( 8 vs 6 out of 10). It’s not perfect, but it’s pretty darn good.
 
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Mudhawk

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Sorry to hear about your gallbladder issues. Just take the diet recommendations the doctors make seriously as it will help you transition

I will be getting into the game shortly as I just picked up my physical copy
Thanks for the concern. I already go along with the diatary recommendations prior to the actual removal. So nothing much is gonna change except for a few additional tiny scars.
And if Starfield holds up to its promise that's all the healing I'll need. :like:
 

BUTUZ

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Well - I needed a budget gfx card for my living room rig and the 180 buck radeon 6600 came with a free copy of starfield and also 33% off an xbox game pass so I thought why not!!

Looks like I bought it after all!
 

Lorddarthvik

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Well, after two nights and an afternoons worth of play (20 hours in, maybe 12 hours of active gameplay, not just looking at the environment or literally falling asleep one time) , I feel like the lower scores are justified.

It's a huge flat pancake without the syrup.

All the basics we've known Bethesda rpgs for are there, but it's lacking the magic touch of cohesive intricately built worlds of elder scrolls and fallout. What it gained in breadth, lost in depth.

The first ai bug I noticed was my robot casually walking up onto a table and basically getting stuck there until I changed zones. The latest one was like an enemy lagging out in multi-player games. He just stood there, breathing, in idle pose, his hand clutching a gun that wasn't there, as he was already dead and I looted everything off of his body. Ragdolls flying off into the distance is par for the course, I don't even notice those.
So, the ai is lacking as usual, which wouldn't be an issue if 90% of the game so far wasn't just about fighting off human pirates.

The spaceflight would be okay, because if you want to be immersed, you can do most of the transition selections (warp to planet, dock, etc..) from the cockpit. The game doesn't tell you but if you switch to F scan mode, you can see destinations and handle things with target selection E. It's actually a nice surprise that I don't have to navigate the god awful menu all the time just for a trip. But. I still do. Because once you have been somewhere you can basically teleport from planet to planet, right from the surface, wherever you are. No space flight necessary.
This begs the question, why even is there space flight in the game. The combat is boring at best, zero skill, all in the stats and numbers,point n click boom...
The rest of the time is spent going from A to B with nothing happening, and it doesn't even look good enough for today's standards. Yes some of the ships and space stations look neat but the planets are clearly just rather mid-res 2D sprites, you can't get any closer to them either.

The ship designer, at this early stage at least, feels very restrictive with minimal parts selection and exorbitant costs. I'm not happy with that, at least for now, but this might change in the future if there is access to much much more parts and credits.

Planet surfaces vary, which is fun and all, but they feel the same somehow. The deserts of "redacted" feel the same as the moan water rich green hub city.
Probably because everything is filtered to green and yellow all the goddamn time, even with the best Reshade setup you can tell there is something wrong with the picture, because you are only modifying on top of the filter, not removing it at the source.

What I like is that the environmental world building is still present. Even in the tutorial mission in the lab, you can find a lot of things on the walls and thrown around the place that tell you the story of what went down there, without resorting to having to read 27 pages of written exposition.

Guns feel and sound like wet farts, pistols deal 20times the damage of assault rifles. It's silly but kinda in line with what I'm used to from cyberpunk and fallout. I don't really like it but I can live with it, and I'm sure the modders will fix this fast.

Most importantly, quests are still okay. Haven't found anything amazing yet, mostly bland scan, fetch or kill quests, but I'm hoping for the usual rare gems that Bethesda rpgs are known for. The main story quest is as generic as it can get, but again, that's just how Bethesda rpgs are. I'm okay with that as long as the world is compelling enough.

And here's the problem with this game. The world. It's vast and empty. As I said before in this thread, we've seen this done a couple of times before, basically endless play space, with nothing in it. It never ended well for anyone.
Bethesda games rely on a compact world where if you take two steps you bump into something new, something interesting, a quest, a cave, a random encounter... You don't have that here. You can't have that here. It's impossible. With the rest of the game being the usual Bethesda fair of let's be honest, everything done in a rather mediocre fashion, I don't think this new IP has a chance of sticking around like TES or Fallout does.


So far it's a 7/10 for me. It's a fallout4 mod, in space. I like fallout4, and I will put a 100 hours into this easily, but they can do better.

edit: freakin hell, I just looked at this for a sec and found like 12897 typos. WTH is my autocucumber up to??
 
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Zookajoe

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The Mods are out already...

Apparently, that Youtube vid had pixelated out racey bits so was set to private. So weird.
 
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Texelis

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I'm liking it so far, but I'll admit I'm a tad underwhelmed. Coming from the home run that is BG3, I was hoping for another banger. Regardless, I know I can knock around this universe for awhile.

Really has me salivating for SC to get its act together. Give me the graphics, flight, and detail of SC, and I'll swap in missions you can complete, and char development from SF for the complete package. I'd keep the fast travel, non laggy gun play, and quick trams from SF as well.
 

Montoya

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Hitting level 19 here, I have gone from "Im not really sure" to "I get it now!"

SF is a departure from titles from FO4 and Skyrim, the load screens threw me off at first, but after playing for a while, I am appreciating that I do not need to walk back to my ship or navigate 4 star systems when I can just click and jump right over. The option is there, and now I like it.
 

Bambooza

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Hitting level 19 here, I have gone from "Im not really sure" to "I get it now!"

SF is a departure from titles from FO4 and Skyrim, the load screens threw me off at first, but after playing for a while, I am appreciating that I do not need to walk back to my ship or navigate 4 star systems when I can just click and jump right over. The option is there, and now I like it.
Yes it the same with their other titles that allowed fast travel after you've been there and I have no issue with it. I also agree that the number of loading screens is crazy and the lack of control of your ship does make me greatly appreciate what star citizen is trying to accomplish. While it's not even close to as bad as no mans sky was at launch I can appreciate what the reviewer that @Brictoria linked was attempting to articulate. Honestly if you just removed the space flight and the illusion of piloting a ship it would still be the same game and still enjoyable.
 

Shadow Reaper

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I’m lovin’ the starship design. It’s delivering what SC has failed to deliver for years. Just reminds how many promises we were made with SC that they haven’t bothered with yet.
Where are the multi-phasing sensors with the dilithium enhanced quadjamacallit and retro-transmogrifying thermowhistles, and the mufflerbearing micalfranges?
 
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Aramsolari

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Initially I was annoyed at a couple of things that were lacking in Starfield. After awhile I realized I’ve been looking at the game through the lens of Star Citizen and that isn’t fair. The game ISN’T a space simulator like Star Citizen, it’s an RPG set in space. It shares kinship with the other Bethesda games and even something like the Mass Effect series.

The game is much more enjoyable when you approach it from that angle.
 

Deroth

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Initially I was annoyed at a couple of things that were lacking in Starfield. After awhile I realized I’ve been looking at the game through the lens of Star Citizen and that isn’t fair. The game ISN’T a space simulator like Star Citizen, it’s an RPG set in space. It shares kinship with the other Bethesda games and even something like the Mass Effect series.

The game is much more enjoyable when you approach it from that angle.
Exactly, I've seen so many people trying to hype of Starfield like it was going to be the death of SQ42 and SC, proof that ALL games require a Publisher, and to bow to the Absolutes of the 'Gaming News Media'. So of course when it turned out to, surprise surprise, be a Bethesda game built with the latest iteration of the same game engine used for Fallout and Skyrim, some people got all in a tizzy. Then there's the irrational Sony Fanboys and Nvidia Fanboys throwing fits that their chosen savior product was opted against for their market competitors (yes, because if Starfield was a Sony Exclusive game or used DLSS instead of FSR2 all the typical complaints seen for every single Bethesda game at release would magically not have happened this time!)
 
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Montoya

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Initially I was annoyed at a couple of things that were lacking in Starfield. After awhile I realized I’ve been looking at the game through the lens of Star Citizen and that isn’t fair. The game ISN’T a space simulator like Star Citizen, it’s an RPG set in space. It shares kinship with the other Bethesda games and even something like the Mass Effect series.

The game is much more enjoyable when you approach it from that angle.
Ha! Thats seems to be a very common reaction in here!
 

Lorddarthvik

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I'm still bothered by certain limitations that Bethesda rpgs can't seem to get rid of, like doing a nth step of a quest on accident locks you out of certain solutions to that quest later, or seemingly having an option for less bloody resolution of a situation, but the friendly npc just won't budge to do it that way and I left with killing my way through it, even though the quest seems to be set up to have multiple options.
The spongy enemies were horrible, nodded that out.
The ui is horrible, modded the inventory screen at least to be bearable.
Modded out most of the filtering, so the picture looks more natural. Not with Reshade, that sucked.
Too much loot, lot of hassle to with inventory management.

Writing is, well, kinda bad in some important quests. Childish, modern Hollywood level. They did way better in the past. Like when a very important npc admits to being behind everything 2 lines into the conversation, while didn't have any proof, didn't say anything to even suggest that I knew it was him. Cos I didn't.
It's annyoying cos for example the vanguard questline feels like it should have been the main story arc, it's that long and has some tangible stakes to it, but it's so fast and shallow in certain parts that it falls apart for me.


Other than that, I gotta agree with the new wave of reviews saying that this game needs a lot of time to get going, but once it clicks, it's alright!

Edit: just wanted to add that due to the loot and crafting system, I've built like 5 variants of the caterpillar. I turn all my ships into that, cos I need like 1300+ cargo space for all my junk I'm planning to use for outpost building M, research and crafting. It's ridiculous.

Edit 2: oh and I hate the RNG on persuasion and shielded cargo rolls. If I have the skills/smuggler hold, I expect it to be consistent.
 
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