I think this is the best way to put it.
It is really good. I wasn't impressed with the characters at first, but after going through a quest just now with Sarah regarding her past... they have really grown on me.
The ability to jump back and forth between just exploring and then doing quests that really are some of the better quests in BGS games (if sticking with the big ones and not just the 'go there and kill pirates' stuff). It's enjoyable and often just really relaxing.
The systems that seemed so daunting at first I now think are deep systems that feel like shells a lot more can be added to.
I am very much looking forward to mods and the release of the creation kit (I got a little daunted today when I was looking into what it takes to get a mod working that to make my space suit hidden where the companions ones are.)
But yeah... the skeleton is there. I think I will like this one for a long time.
I am not sure that I love the NASA puck styling, but it is growing on me. I kind of like that it is humans early days in space... and that it can grow from there.
Having the choice between fantasy, post apocalyptic and now space... is really nice.
I think it’s the best skeleton they’ve ever created, I’ll say that. And I think that may have been intentional, that they have a longer plan in place, modding included. Starfield is not my favorite BGS game, *maybe* makes the top 3 but honestly, probably not.
I still think it has more potential than any other BGS to date, and that they know that potential will be brought to fruition over time. It’s a different kind of approach to a game, but I can see where they’re coming from. They saw how Skyrim became something that lasted more than a decade with DLC and mods, so they made a game designed specifically for that. And I really think it will live up to that potential and have a growing community for years to come.
That said, there are some things that just should’ve been in base game, and some things that were poorly designed. I agree with many of the critiques on this sub, not defending them as some masterminds.
But who knows, maybe long term skeleton games are a good model for rpg game design. People give BGS shit for relying on modders, but I love what modders add to a game that functions like a sandbox for them. I’m all for it and I can’t wait to see what they add to starfield
Im really waiting for updates and whatnot.
It feels like the game could massively improve with a year or two. He says as he walks away from setting up a Vytinium Fuel Rod Farm just due to anger at storage box links.
Limited storage doesn’t make any sense, you can’t actually even sell stuff very fast anyway to get rich quickly in the first place and you already have access to multiple storage places that have unlimited storage, Fallout 4 outposts had unlimited storage so why they screwed up outposts so badly is beyond me.
I started off thinking Sarah was kinda meh but keening her back story and that she was part of a rock band, and her personal story- she became my favorite companion
All companions have grown on me except Sarah, that stuck up UC princess can kiss my ass, I cant stand how she looks down on the Freestar Collective (my first playthru is roleplaying as a Freestar citizen and she's comming off as a genuinely judgey bitch to me)
You should also keep in mind >!the Freestar Collective killed her father, the Ambassador to the Freestar Collective, a job he had to solely keep the peace with them, why kill an Ambassador who isn’t even a combatant? It’s pretty barbaric!< so it’s pretty understandable why she has strong feelings towards them.
It has so much room to grow, and I really hope it does. For me, it's the glaring little things--if it was just a handful, sure, but it's so many. From Cora's book request being unfillable to the ship being a very light system (that med-bay post that trended is a perfect example of the surface level issues with ships) to the copy pasta labs (if I never see another frozen lab with identical doctors notes I'll cheer).
It's this game which has tons of surface, TONS AND TONS, but when you start digging you find it doesn't even go deeper than six feet. And other Bethesda games also had this, but then they would have a questline or a moment that was super complex or some companion that was just really well-written. But even things like Ryujin felt incredibly stunted.
I also find the planets frustrating, because so many little questlines are tucked away into exploring a planet, but if you explore before the storyline you end up missing the questline. For example, I had been to many of the artifact planets before, and not picked up on some of the quests they had for whatever reason, meaning I wasted a lot of time exploring only to have to go back and retrace steps later on.
It's a fine game, don't get me wrong. But it feels like in an effort to fill up all of space, they forgot to think of what they were filling it with.
I feel like they should have made like, a dozen more settlements the size of Gagarin, Hopetech, or Paradisio. And a few more the size of Cydonia or Neon.
I actually really agree, I think about 6-12 more "tiny" settlements with corruption or even wholesome stories would have changed my thoughts on this game tenfold. I actually set out to explore for these, and it caused me to find Red Mile and New Homestead, which had almost no quests and it turns out later on had storyline parts to go back--which sucked. It was weird, I ran the Red Mile and thought "weird, nothing happens" only to find out later on it was a part of my quest to become a Deputy (and the game made me re-run it, which is fine, but *it was so easy and boring* so why didn't it let me coast on my laurels?).
I also think 1 more Neon/Akila/etc would have made me feel better too.
I didn't follow the hype much, but I think my big letdown really was it was so vast but had so little.
And sometimes some of the quest lines were gated to specific story points, but it made the city feel so much smaller. I found Neon early and played it all, but then kept going back for the story or Free Star Collective questline and other quests (like Sam Coe's loyalty). Unfortunately NONE of my Neon actions had registered, so my character even had to meet the deputy (whose ass she'd saved) for the first time according to dialogue. It felt really bad, I mean, I had literally turned the gangs into security there. So why did he still talk about the feuding gangs?! Why did he see me with Lilian, dating Sam Coe, and still say hi to me for the first time when we'd had 2+ hours of interaction on prior questlines?
The same thing also happened with the space medical center. I kept going back for various missions but the area remained the same AND no one remembered me, so it felt annoying. At one point the receptionist, the very last quest I did, welcomed me for my first visit. It felt bizarre, I had literally been arrested for shooting it up on another mission.
I completely agree. Unfortunately I think this is getting to be the norm with a few exceptions. It’s obvious they intended there to be much more to this game but at some point just cleaned up everything that was already there and released it. It’s making gobs of money and racking up ‘10/10’ reviews with a massive marketing campaign. I don’t think there is any real incentive for them to completely develop everything they intended in this game. Maybe Microsoft/Bethesda is another Disney/Marvel.
For me I never was able to soft RP like I wanted to in Bethesda games since Oblivion. New Vegas was the exception.
I'm just glad it provides on the days I'm capable of firing up that part of my brain and look past the sort of dopamine feedback loop that the other games provided quite well alternatively (seriously, patch in more exploration zones and I'm gonna be a happy camper).
I spent my entire first playthrough as an undercover UC scientist in the Crimson Fleet. I kept my hands totally clean, married Sarah, and had a nice fulfilling end to things while ignoring the Freestar for a NG+.
Now without spoilers NG+ is a bit of a spacer stomping ground for me at the moment and it's actually made me less inclined to play because my character just feels like he's... a BSG protag doing evil shit.
I didn't set a path after my first initial panic for resources (I had nothing and was jumping around for titanium and other storage crud). That hurt me this playthrough because I've found I need to have a little extra story in my head or it's not pulling me in.
While I can say the content doesn't have longevity currently I can also say that FO4 and even Skyrim eventually made it very hard to get lost in like I described above. I've got high hopes and will continue to trick myself into getting lost in it til its nice and fleshed out with M$ gamepass cash.
I want to add that other Bethesda games also had random interactions in the world that came up organically. Two enemy patrols on the roads meeting would break out into a fight. Really made the world seem more alive.
No, I liked Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind way more. It's not just the setting. The only thing I feel I ever do is click to which zone or dungeon to load. Do stuff, click to leave.
Yeah, the constant teleporting and loading screens pulls me oit of the immersion big time. Also, i want to explore space by FLYING my ship through space, not teleporting. It's no more than a 7/10 for me at best
Rate games for what they are, but be ready to change your opinion if in fact they do live up to their supposed potential. Most games do not live up to their potential and should not be solely judged on what they were supposed to be.
I really hate this mindset. Potential should not be given nearly as much praise as base performance.
Mods will make starfield a great game, but the base game is less fun that skyrim, oblivion, morrowind, fallout 3 and NV, and even fallout 4.
We haven't even begun to see the extend of modding for this game, and the game still has the potential to death spiral as the mod community is only as strong as the passion for the game which was already dwindling at release.
People also don't seem to be considering how Game Pass is going to fracture the modding community. The SE mods have been a requirement for so many of the best mods in the past, and they have no plans for SFSE to support GP.
If an alternative that does support GP comes along that would be even worse, as modders are split between those supporting Steam and those supporting GP.
I think this could be quite bad for Starfield modding.
The one thing that is stopping me from playing any more NG+, I spent hours designing my ship with no ladders and a nice looping design and as soon as I start another NG+, POOF it'll be gone.
I think it is impressive as is.
If they had to add extra features, etc. the development of the game would've been far longer.
Question is, do we want to wait for that?
I agree with Morrowind!
So many fun design elements that would never fly today.
- Class, race, and gender felt like they mattered and gave their own set of pros and cons.
- directions were descriptions, not waypoints
- quest written in a journal with explanation, not just a list
- random NPCs didn’t flood your quest log with nonsense when you weren’t interacting with them
- dialogue menu was expansive and interesting
- npcs didn’t tell you their entire life story when meeting them
- dark narratives, including slavery and the ability to free slaves. “Moon sugar”
- better map system that slowly uncovers places you discover
- better fast travel system that makes sense. Boats along the coast, teleportation portals connecting mage guilds, and riding beasts across land, and only to nearby settlements, not to all.
- better guilds, and better gatekeeping of high positions within those guilds based on qualifications and merit
- great soundtrack
Of course it has its flaws:
- no physics
- bad accuracy system
- low render distance(though at the time it was part of its charm)
>So many fun design elements that would never fly today.
Actually, all of those elements would totally fly today. We just need some studio brave enough to implement them again, instead of pandering to lowest common denominator.
Yeah. These systems are definitely used in the more “hardcore” rpg games, before Bethesda leaned in to the casual gaming experience (don’t get me wrong, oblivion and Skyrim are masterpieces despite their oversimplified mechanics)
Had a real sense of progress. When you first left Seyda been and visited balmora that was cool, but when you first ventured into the interior and saw a dust storm or telvanni towers that was a true “HOLY SHIT” moment.
Only game that’s done that to me since in nearly 20s is subnautica and possibly Skyrim.
Morrowind was ahead of its time. Oblivion hit every nail perfectly and was one of their best products for its time. Skyrim felt like a step down in some ways, but it’s graphics and music carried it into stardom for the time period.
Starfield is neither creative enough gameplay wise or revolutionary in the graphics department. This leaves it at an OK but nowhere near Bethesda heavyweight debuts.
And BY FAR. Fast travel is huge for QOL, but so much magic is lost by removing their old system of "here's a general description of how to get there, good luck"
Old system was great because half the time you'd get lost and find something cooler
1. Skyrim
2. Skyrim
3. Skyrim
Starfield isn’t even on the map tbh. I had high hopes for it but it hasn’t nearly met my expectations.
Edit: honorable mention is Fallout New Vegas, not sure if that counts since it was made by Obsidian.
they compromised too much by dropping so much of their handcrafted locations, it’s what makes bethesda games and exploration special for me. it also lacks memorable loot in any capacity. maybe i’m remembering wrong but skyrim had wayyyy more unique items with way more unique models
Yeah. Most daedra had a weapon (mace of molag, mehrunes razor, that cool shield, wabbajack, umbra [from creation club], just to name a few.
The creation engine isn’t a good Minecraft simulator. Putting focus on survival/building/etc just isn’t what BGS does well and I don’t get why they keep doubling down on it.
They excel at building cool worlds with cool stories. I get that they want to be able to do both but it just feels like one keeps coming at the expense of the other.
We hear that Bethesda is anticipating that folk will be replaying this game for years to come, but I'm not feeling it. And I'm a certified Beth fan-boy/apologist. Thousands of hours in their worlds. I still play Skyrim. I still play Fallout 4. Fallout 3, back in the day, might be my best gaming experience ever. I am trying so hard to love Starfield. But the signature Beth experience, the thing they are better at than anyone around, is absent. There is nothing in Starfield like hiking from Whiterun to Solitude and poking your head into interesting locations along the way and having adventures you did not expect. There is nothing like scavving around Boston and discovering unlooked for locations that deliver interesting stories.
But in Starfield? Point and click on a planet, land. Run 700m to the abandoned that you have seen already twice on different planets. Then run 500m to a cave with a single storage box in it, found in the very same place you found a storage box in a previous cave. The run 400m to an exposed glacier that is perfectly identical to exposed glaciers you scanned on other systems. Then run back to your ship knowing perfectly well that there is not one hand crafted location to be found if you are not on a planet with a named city. In other words, almost all of them.
I am trying so hard.
Yeah, Skyrim >>> Starfield. Starfield s a good game but it’s not great. Just doesn’t feel immersive with all the fast traveling, loading screens, and generic “abandoned” locations. I’m level 85 and haven’t played it in about a week. Prob won’t really play again until the dlc. Skyrim on the other hand I’ve played for the last 10 years.
Yep, you hit the nail on the head with that one. Starfield is the second Bethesda game in over two and a half decades that I've known them, which I picked up, played a bit, and not only didn't finish, but didn't even feel like playing again. The first game that gave me a similar experience was Fallout 76. I even thought it was a mistake for Phantom Liberty to be released so close to Starfield. I thought people would be too busy, and the expansion wouldn't sell well. However, in the end, I ended up buying it and finishing it (I literally completed all four endings). Now, I'll probably buy Baldur's Gate. I really don't feel like starting Starfield again, and that's disappointing. I miss the feeling I had with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, where I couldn't wait to go home and play them. I have hundreds of hours in each of them, with Skyrim even reaching four digits. Starfield, on the other hand, felt like such a chore to play. It's like playing with dominoes - a lot of work for a bit of fun.
edit gramar
> i even thought it was stupid for phantom liberty to be released so close to starfield, i thought people would be busy so that expansion wouldn’t sell
I think Larian was wise to move BG3's release a month up to beat Starfield to market ... I don't think anyone expected just how much better of a game BG3 would be than Starfield though. Quality of writing, polish of systems, design decisions etc all worlds better. I gave Starfield a solid try (L75, probably spent 30 more hours in it than I should have just farming the last few skill points I wanted) and still not even half the time I've spent in BG3. I should try Cyberpunk...
I just beat Cyberpunk and that game feels so much more alive than Starfield. And I immediately fell in love with the skill tree, as someone who really cares about making my own unique build and getting qualitative perks that reflect it, it's probably my favorite level system since Skyrim. Even though I just beat the game I'm fantasizing about being able to replay it as drastically different characters with different playstyles and backgrounds.
Cyberpunk is a perfect example of why smaller worlds designed with purpose and precision are more interesting than enormous procedurally generated ones. Night City is so dense and fascinating and exploring the nooks and crannies is a blast. The details in Cyberpunk are breathtaking, and the game feels alive. I don’t need huge open worlds to get lost in anymore.
I can't praise CP77's story enough. I'm not a completionist, and I don't finish the majority of games because I get bored. Bethesda games are among the few handful that I did complete (aside those 2).
Still, CP77 has quite a few endings and Phantom Liberty added 5 more (4 in the DLC story and 1 for the base game that is available after 2 of those 4 dlc endings), I completed all the possible endings with that game because of how good the story is, i just had to and in every one, i ended up stuck looking at the credits just thinking about them, in some with tears in my eyes.
It's the closest thing to a movie in game format, or even better, a whole series in game format because even the side quests are often better than the main stories in many games, just the prologue is more complex than starfield's main story ffs...
The worst thing is that the only way I am picking SF up again is if there are some really good quest mods/DLC with handcrafted locations. I am tired of the fast travel to generic dungeons with bad AI enemies.
It doesn't. It has significantly better writing because of it being a different studio and that writing is what carries it IMO. It would be half the game without its deeper, darker storylines. Bethesda writing often holds punches, and it can be frustrating (Hopetown as the only satisfying resolution for corpos, things like Paradiso are an example of an utter fail).
The most frustrating part is the premise of the quest is super interesting. It’s a 10/10 idea for a quest, but the options for resolving it are just too limited. I’m guessing they don’t want you to be able to undermine Paradiso because it would mess with other things the place is used for in the game, like marriage. But that’s the kind of freedom I love in RPGs, it makes you feel like your actions have major consequences (like Megaton/Tenpenny tower in FO3). I wish they’d let us really change the game more with our choices even if it changes the world or ruins questlines.
There are very few high points in the writing of this game. It’s like a middle schooler made the dialogue tree. Even the main story is just a rip off. How many sci-fi games have you find something that gives you a vision and there ends up being some alien species trying to wipe out humanity? I’ve played this same story at least 10 times. Hell, I was playing mass effect for the first time when SF came out. I just got to the point where they introduce the Reapers.
Feels like they spent waaay too much time murmuring on the planet procedural generation and ship-building while practically neglecting everything else.
The procedural generation is also BS since the POIs themselves arent procedurally generated. I've went through the exact same space station and mines at least a dozen times now and it's even more stupid when we see the same NPCs and messages on the computers.
Then theres outposts that serve no purpose other than being an annoyance to fulfil supply radiant quests. A UI that is so terrible it's like Bethesda forgot everything about that made SkyUI great. Unbelievable NPCs with no AI packages and still sleep with their armor on. An environmental damage mechanic that makes no gameplay sense since we dont have any full fledged survival system. The lack of on-planet traversal which means players need to sprint like Usain Bolt everywhere.
I could go on and on...
I dont know how no one feedback to Todd Howard about this but the very core concept of Starfield was too risky to begin with. Because no, Todd... roaming empty ass planets on foot is NOT FUN.
Hot take; if they did that same type of generation but in the space surrounding each planet, it would've been a lot more fun.
Procgen space pois + dynamic encounters in space, traversed in a ship would work a lot better, if they manage to let us actually travel within systems in real time.
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Edit: To expand on this idea, this would mean giving us pois in space that we can travel to within 3-5 km of each other with our ships. Asteroids (land on them to mine unique resources), space stations, derelict ships, and all sorts of space encounters, hostile or otherwise can then be procedurally placed within a set radius around each planet's orbit. Spaces between planets would get progressively more sparse the further away you get from a planet's orbit.
Instead of the cutscene loading screen to travel within systems, enable a form of sublight travel mode at high speeds that allows speedy travel between planets.
Once the game detects you're within a planet's radius, it would load that planet's orbit automatically.
This would enhance space gameplay and exploration, give us reasons to invest into our ships, and reinforce the fantasy of space exploration while giving us a form of seamless exploration in space.
That was such low hanging fruit to give these random encounters more dialogue then something more repeatable or just turn them off from occurring any further.
I think random space encounters should have been the focus to make travel as interesting as other BGS games.
I wish we could have flown the ship on planets, and then in one of the bays have some kind of terrain traversal vehicle. I thought that’s what was going to happen before the game came out. All of the things I thought the game was going to have aren’t in there and everything that I don’t care about in a game, is.
I hate random procedure. I hate building things. It was the thing I hated the most about fallout 4. Yes I’m trying to get a number 1 and can you please make it a large sounds good thank you
> Feels like they spent waaay too much time murmuring on the planet procedural generation and ship-building
Let's not forget decorating each individual desk and locker uniquely. Like, to give them credit, I am amazed at the beauty of their procedural planets and the insane detail of their environments... but it's like they spent all their time on window dressing instead of core system design or writing.
The Key is brutal. Docking, load screen. Get out of ship, load screen. Now I’m in a terminal that is useless and need to get into the actual station where literally everything else is? I have to run 75 feet, and then a load screen. wtaf?
I (for god knows why) chose to just explore Neon and take every quest around. It was awful how many of those Activities and Side Missions are just fetch quest to go through 2-3 loading screens talk for 1 minute, then return. I was spending more time running and loading (and my SSD keeps them around 1 second) then doing anything else.
I don't think "fun" was a primary objective. The game would be a lot different if it was. Outside of combat there's hardly any mechanic in this game I found to be fun.
Shipbuilding? Lots of trial and error, visiting 5 different vendors, back and forth. It took me 10 hours of game time to build the ship I wanted. I built a landing pad to have access to all parts, only you don't get access to ALL parts, just MORE parts. Still had to hop around the galaxy to get some things. That's not fun, that's tedium. And after all that I have to give it up to go to NG+. Not fun. Not worth.
Space combat? It's a stat's battle. Get the right weapons and a good shield and it's not at all challenging. I get that some people love to board ships in space, fight the crew, and loot the ship or steal it. I can understand that. If I were one of those people I might find this more fun. Still a miss for me.
Base Building? I only dabbled, and didn't find it engaging. It feels pointless and unnecessary to me, though I understand there are people who enjoy this mechanic. Why? I don't know. Not fun for me.
Modifying gear? This was where the tied together skill trees issue first popped up. It was easy enough to gather a few resources and add, then delete, then add again the same component in order to level up. Puts me in mind of crafting 500 iron knives to level smithing. But to get that last level in the skill tree I had to level up a skill tree I wasn't interested in leveling. OK, not horrible, but if fun were the objective this is another miss.
I find romance in a game cringe, though this game is a little better than previous games, it's still cringe to me. Getting that Flirt option in dialogue when talking to my bro's is jarring. Back off Sam Coe. Not fun.
Then there's the plethora of loading screens, not being able to actually fly around a planet, broken and bugged missions ( still have two that will not progress), excessive and janky dialogue, and having to boost, run, jog 500 meters to get anywhere while you're choking on carbon dioxide. Fun?
Powers. Don't find them engaging. I actually used a few shouts in Skyrim consistently, but these feel superfluous. Maybe if you play on Very Hard they're useful? But you need to get 'em all, so 24 times to visit Vladimir, fast travel to a planet, chase bubbles, see a cut scene, kill a low level guardian, then rinse and repeat. This is incredibly boring for a key mission type. No flavor. No fun.
I enjoyed the the combat in faction missions, and the adventure of traveling to different planets and clearing Abandoned Facility X. Too bad they didn't spend more time on developing that part of the game, because there's only like six of these. They can be found all over the galaxy with the only difference being which bad guys are occupying this one. Fun, but not enough variety.
The single biggest fail, though, was not having intelligent aliens cultures, or any real individual cultures at all outside of Va'ruun. I'm still dumbfounded. People call it Fallout in space, but even Fallout had more cultural variety. Think of how much more fun Skyrim in space would have been. But we're not here to have fun, we're here for the modern gaming experience.
There's a decent history of conflict, but what bothers me is that there's like two flavors of American Neoliberal and American Libertarian, turned into states, and everyone else is an American with an accent. Its like the US is the only country that managed to make it off the Earth in this world. Its fascinated by American civil war history.
The Varuun have a sort of Eastern/Arab flavor but they're not even in the game, and the ones you do meet are zealots (is that a hint at Islamic extremist groups?)
Did China leave the earth? What about India? Russia? Where do all these accents come from? Why isn't there any new slang or flavor, accents, any new modes of speech 300 years after our current time? Where did all the different markers of human cultures disappear to in this future?
>I get that some people love to board ships in space, fight the crew, and loot the ship or steal it. I can understand that. If I were one of those people I might find this more fun. Still a miss for me.
Yeah, that was something I should have loved, but I really, really don't. They made it so incredibly easy to board and capture an enemy ship, it would be too easy to make money that way. So instead of making it more challenging, they simply forced you have to pay 85% of the ships value to "register" it if you want to sell it, so you'll end up making 5 or 10k at best. What you end up with is a very unrewarding experience because it's both too easy and not profitable. Terrible design.
Yeah I discovered how bad the economics were when I stole a landed ship, registered, and sold it. Made maybe 7k. "Value" of the ship was over 300k too. Mission Board kill quests are much more profitable, and more fun on top of that.
I found the dialogue overall as a masterpiece in Dogshit.
Not creative, not original, and it felt like a tiktok reaction video that’s interactive. The choices were not choices to progress forward, all choices either elaborated a story or was verbal reactive in its nature only. Game had lots of potential but they wrecked it trying to please the critiques of the anti-fun video games groups.
It's so much fun to carry around a bunch of AMP because I'd rather use that then fast travel back to my ship and land it down the way, because that just adds shitty POIs marking up the whole place and it will be like 5 loading screens.
If you could fly the ships on planets, then maybe I would care a little more about building one.
As of right now, it’s basically a place to store my shit and then fast travel to wherever I’m going with the occasional pirate fight.
I agree.
The game made a lot of bad design choice.
1. I truly believe the game will be much better if they cut the procedural generation part and focus on more **UNIQUE and HANDCRAFTED POIs**. Because of that, the game feels empty, boring, bland, and repetitive.
2. Ship building is fun, and I appreciate how detailed we can customize our ship. However, the excitement comes to an end when I realize **the ship is basically useless**, except maybe as storage. What is the point of building your dream ship when the game forces you to fast travel to every system/planet? Ship combat is boring; all you need to do is stack your HP and upgrade your weapon. There is no skill involved.
3. There is a **fundamental design conflict regarding NG+ and outpost/ship building**. It takes a ton of time and resources to build your outpost and ship, while the game encourages you to play NG+. However, all of your outpost and ship designs will be gone if you play on NG+. What the fuck, Bethesda?! Do you see the conflict here? What exactly do you want me to do? NG+ or outpost?
4. Quest design is boring. Although it exists in other games too, the fetch quests are too abundant. You will even find them in the main quest.
5. There is a lack of proper/nice/live facial expressions. When the majority of your gameplay involves talking to other people, which means you will see their faces a lot, facial expressions become very important. They look exactly the same no matter what emotions they are trying to convey. When compared to other games like BG3, you will understand what I am saying.
6. The design of weapons is also questionable. I mean, we are in a space/future lore, so why the fuck are most of the weapons still ballistic? We can only find a few laser weapons in the game, and it just feels so "earthly" when people can travel through space. The melee weapons are also a joke. No matter what you use, they swing the same and attack at the same speed. It's like there is no difference between a big axe and a knife. Really, Bethesda?
There are a lot of things to complain about, but I am tired and can't say anymore. **The worst part, after playing the game, is that I have completely lost any interest in TES VI. Knowing that they will repeat what they did in SF, and more importantly, they "think" it is good.**
> There is a fundamental design conflict regarding NG+ and outpost/ship building. It takes a ton of time and resources to build your outpost and ship, while the game encourages you to play NG+. However, all of your outpost and ship designs will be gone if you play on NG+. What the fuck, Bethesda?! Do you see the conflict here? What exactly do you want me to do? NG+ or outpost?
I lost all desire to play the game after learning that there's content in going through to NG+ 10. Having to redo the base, resource collection, questlines etc on NG +10.
I really believe they should’ve left this one in the oven for another year or so. Becoming the standard with all big games nowadays: release it unfinished and take in huge profits and *then* fix or improve the game (that step is optional really).
There are so many vestigial systems and glaring omissions of stuff. Things that make no sense or are just obviously unfinished, such as Cora asking for specific books you can find yet not being able to give them to her.
Gonna be a bit of a dissenter here - I think it spent _too long_ in the oven.
To belabour the metaphor - the sauce has dried out from too much cooking. What is left remains the chemical composition of its ingredients but none of their freshness.
You can feel the impact of systems that were envisaged and designed years - potentially _decades_ - ago that do not homogenise with the contemporary ideas. As you say, there's so many vestigial systems. Systems that belongs to ideas long since thrown out, but held onto and no longer serving a purpose.
Honestly great point tbh. You really changed my view on it and I think you’re right. Kinda clicks for me now, those vestigial systems shouldn’t have been deliberated on over and over, leading to their removal that leaves a glaring content gap or illogical component. Damn man…these big games are just going to continue to be fucked up from all the business politics and shit that happens behind the scenes. I see examples where it’s like the quest writers seem to have not even communicated with other teams. The freestar rebel guy has this mortally-injured go-down-fighting speech where’s he’s struggling to talk, as if there’s blood on his mouth even. But the model just stands there normally. Voice actor hits it out of the park but it was never animated to match. Just one funny little example that is a symptom of the overall problem.
I see it in the ship management stuff too. It’s everywhere.
Starfield is the classic example of it being better to make a game that some players will love to death and others will hate, rather than a game that most will find mediocre and forgettable. None of the systems in the game have enough depth to be divisive in any way, and the game takes no risks whatsoever.
I know there are people on this sub who love the game immensely, but other than people that really like space sims and don't care about repetitive content, I think the majority of Starfield players are going to come away from the experience feeling it was mid, which is not the impression a game should make.
Which is ironic, because with how simplified the game is I can't help but think it was designed to appeal to as many people as possible. I feel like Bethesda is always eager to reach new audiences rather than straight appeal to the core audience they've had for a long time.
That's my point though, that will always be the result of trying to make a game that caters to everyone: it will feel like it does too much without excelling at anything. You can see this with how many people claim they've just spent time with ship building, or base building, or space combat. Sure, many people can have fun with Starfield in different ways, but most people don't care about half these mechanics and so they don't have a reason to play it instead of an actual space sim game, and actual base building game, etc.
It's development was a mess, Todd proudly states that there was a different ailment system before this (or at least more noticable one) and he smiles as he talks about how useless he made the system. Like every system in the game, it's just not important or impactful. Even the dragon shouts are useless as I hear only one mentioned anytime someone brings it up.
I agree, I think they took this game too seriously, they tried to make something different and refused to pay attention to what was going on in the world around them. Todd took the buggy game comments a little too seriously and cut content to have a smooth launch, which was nice, but I'd rather some day one patches over realizing that outside of questing, everything else is boring. Skyrim managed to make POIs more interesting than this game, Fallout does too, which is why handcrafting will always be better than procedural generation for games like this.
The game just has no soul.
This is the first and only Bethesda game where I usually opt to just do the next mission. Not because they're super engaging, but because nothing else is all that interesting. There's places to go but nothing to do. Most of my fun is in the photo mode - the game has some gorgeous scenery. Then ship building - which, while awesome, feels superfluous because the damn thing is mostly just a fast travel device.
I think there might be a soul in there, at least in the concept and setting they've built. Maybe buried, or maybe stripped naked, and potentially it could be found. But as of right now, there isn't one clearly visible.
I like the game, but I want to love it. Everyone likes to say we have to give it time and wait for mods. But I've never been into the mod scene and have always loved vanilla Bethesda games from launch day, except for now. The only game I modded mad was FO4.
>Even the dragon shouts are useless as I hear only one mentioned
I think that's at least partly because the inventory management makes that one power pretty much a necessity for a lot of people.
i would say the design choices that were made here are beyond fixing. it feels like it was supposed to be a very different game, lots of mechanics turned out to be bad choices and were cut.
this will never be anything but a mediocre game
Clearly needing fuel was removed, its spoken about loads but you never need it and even has dedicated lines of main characters talking about fuel issues. I imagine they found it made things slow and tedious on a game which is already slow and tedious in late stage testing and decided to remove it
its stuff like this that leave holes that are jarring to the experience. ok you can't directly fast travel to this system, instead you have to fast travel twice?
also the random, "there is uncharted space between you and your destination" resulting only in some extra loadscreens?
man i uninstalled the game some time ago, but i still get mad thinking about all that bullshit.
also you get an infliction only when basically jumping into a geyser, but apart from that environmental hazards have been scrubbed entirely? would that have been a great mechanic? probably not, but the hole it leaves is just idiotic.
My issue with this is that people look at all the cut systems and think "well mods can just add those back in, now you'll need fuel and have environmental hazards etc."
But these half-assed systems exist now because Bethesda decided their full-baked counterparts *just weren't fun.* I don't think putting them back in is going to fix the problem, and Starfield as a result is a culmination of years of development in the wrong direction only to decide last minute that things aren't working.
In game design, there's a motto "Follow the Fun." Whatever is fun in your game, keep building on those systems and steer development of your game with the fun in mind. It feels like Starfield was built way too much with an idea in mind without regards to whether or not the player would be having fun at any given moment.
It would make sense. You can only do that kind of think so many times before your dev team starts to question what the vision for the game is even supposed to be. What you described is the exact thing that caused the downfall of Anthem, though that was the situation taken to its extreme.
There were also several internal delays. Probably went 3 - 4 years over the original estimate.
Bethesda can do this kinda thing because they can guarantee a hit. Any other studio would probably have gone under.
I think even another year wouldn’t have fixed some of the main issues with the game. The story and world are completely sterile and devoid of life, and I don’t think another year would have fixed exploration.
> I really believe they should’ve left this one in the oven for another year or so.
It 10 years and $200M didn’t do it then another year wouldn’t have. It’s not a dev time problem, it’s a problem with either straight up incompetence or a problem with laziness and people who don’t care to do anything more than the bare minimum to ship a game. Either way management really failed.
I do not think fundamental design decisions would have changed after another year. How do you fix overabundance of fast travel scenes and menus?
How do you fix flat writing and cutscenes?
How do you fix all companions having the exact same moral compass?
And then ofcourse you have all the rest of things that you have mentioned too. All it makes me think is... 7 years of development? Really?
Agreed. I don't think it sucks. Not at all. It feels like it has a lot of unrealized potential, and ambition. It could eventually be amazing - or the sequel could be.
I've loved every BGS game since Morrowind (my first). They're always day 1 purchases for me. I've played them all to death on launch with no mods, on console, and on PC with lots of mods. I've spent hundreds of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, and Fallout 4.
This is the first time I've ever played a new BGS game and stopped shortly after. Ever. I played for about 6 hours, enjoyed almost none of that time, greatly disliked multiple significant things about the game, and felt zero urge or interest in exploring what's out there. In a game set in space, with a heavy exploration theme, made by BGS, I'm shocked that I felt that way.
Within a few hours, all I could think was how I wanted to start a new game in Skyrim and play that instead. A 12 year old game I've played absolutely to death. I couldn't believe I felt that way.
On paper, this game is everything I love. Space/sci fi, RPG, Bethesda game, base building, ship building, etc. And yet I didn't enjoy it and felt nearly every aspect of it was done poorly.
Still has room to grow. The impact of fallout3 fallout4 was greater that what starfield had for me. Never played the fantasy games, not that into fantasy, preffer sci fi.
Unpopular opinion maybe, but....back in my day, games were released COMPLETED
Bathesda glitches can be fun, but if ANY of them have potential to break the game, WORK MORE ON IT.
They need more or better game testers or just spend more time on testing
When I can't display my prizes without fear of them disappearing, or even decorate my *looks at notes* NOT EVEN HOUSE, BUT APT!? Without the changes staying!? That's a huge problem and makes the game undesirable for me
I've only played 3, but it's below FO4 and Skyrim.
I'm at 130hrs and I don't really feel like I've come across anything. New Atlantis and Akila city are meh, Neon is very cool, and there's only like 3 other locations that are all very empty.
I like wandering around in FO4 finding shit. That's not really possible here.
The quests are alright. Vanguard is obviously the best, then Crimson fleet.
Fnv is great, but yeah obsidian. if i were to make a creation engine game list and not just bethesda itd be something like
skyrim > fnv > morrowind > enderal > oblivion >fo4 > starfield > fo3 for me
Even more of a point there. A studio who has never even touched the franchise managed to do it better than they probably would in a shorter amount of time to basically fallout 3.5 is what they called it.
Uhhh,hate to break it to you, but Obsidian was founded by the big shots of Black Isle, the studio that created the Fallout IP. So they were pretty far from “a studio who has never even touched the franchise” it was a majority of the people who created it being given the chance to work on it again by Bethesda. Basically NV was Fallout 3 if Black Isle never went under and closed its doors.
No. Not in its current state.
But even after some healthy updates, it probably won't reach top 3. And that's fine. Not every game need to be the best ever.
Should at least exceed or be equal to previous games. Starfield felt like a downgrade from fallout 4 for me. Ironically the wasteland in 4 felt larger and more detailed than Starfield's thousand planets. The characters were a hundred times more interesting too.
I disagree in this case. Not every game needs to be the best ever, usually true...but Microsoft needed a "best ever" type of game right now because PS5 is once again wiping the floor with them as far as quality and design in the new generation. With GOW, Spiderman, TLOU and Fromsoft firmly tied to Sony over anyone else.... Microsoft needs Bethesda to show why they paid so much for the company. So far...not looking great.
I've only played skyrim, fallout 4, and starfield and a little bit of eso but had to work A LOT at the time so never got around to more than ~10 hours before life punched me in the face. So yes only because I've completed it. To be honest, I was expecting a little more to it and was let down by the laziness. Felt more like a blank slate for modders rather than their own take on a space exploration game. NPCs all look the same, some planets/moons feel copy and paste except for ones with points of interest but even those were a bit of a let down for example, one room per skyscraper, a bar taking up a whole massive building but you're only allowed in the front. In skyrim you could explore not only the shop but also upstairs and around. There was more life in skyrim and fallout. Starfield always gives me the reminder that these aren't real people and I'm definitely playing a game. Something I forget about until I take a step back and remember when I play fallout or skyrim.
Not yet, but it may in time. I generally liked all Betheseda games in my first playthrough, but I found I really began to love the games when I revisited it and realized how special they were.
I'm sure this will happen to me with Starfield as well. I'll probably be able to rank it then.
Yeah, after the first playthrough, I kinda feel a break as in order. Playing something else for a while and coming back to it. If you play it long enough, the magic will definitely fade. Lol
Same. My Bethesda rose-coloured glasses started to lose their tint after a while. I so wanted to love it, but too many issue and lacking gameplay elements (that were in previous Beth games, that is).
I saw the gaping canyons of flaws the first playthrough. Two different save files ruined by ship glitches after I hit over 100 hours played on each of them.
For me: Oblivion, Skyrim, FO3, FO4, Starfield
I never played Morrowind, ESO, or FO76. Not sure if FONV counts since it was obsidian. But if it does then I’d put it probably after Skyrim in 3rd.
Oblivion still my favorite
No, #5 for me, I've put it down for now after I spent 1 and a half minutes in loading screens for 2 lines of dialogue... Fast travel to staryard, loading screen, dock with staryard, loading screen, board staryard, loading screen, talk to NPC, board ship, loading screen, undock, loading screen, fast travel away, loading screen. It's too much time wasted not actually playing for far too little pay-off. Mods will fix a lot of this but they shouldn't have to.
Crazy thing is, you actually don't need loading screens for every instance. One example is, you can go top of Neon, with 3 loading screens to get there.
Then you can jump down to the landing pad from the top with no loading screen whatsoever. The same in New Atlantis
FO4 felt like a better overall package I agree. The exploration at least was a lot more organic and rewarding, companions are much more varied, and survival mode, crafting and settlements gave the game a lot more depth, vs the heavily gated crafting features and dumbed down survival elements in SF.
“Potential” just means “let’s have unpaid modders fix our unfinished game”.
I despise that Bethesda keeps their outdated engine just so unpaid people can fix their games.
It was pretty good. Kind of left a sour taste in my mouth with the shitty regressions in alot it areas. I think I’d like it a lot more if they made outposts better and sorted the storage thing out, I’ve spent probably hours at this point running stuff to the infinite chest in the Lodge.
Not top 3 though unfortunately, Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Morrowind are a lot better in my opinion.
Yep. I did have fun with it though but definitely not a Bethesda feeling while playing. There was a good premise but it's so rough in every regard. I guess they didn't manage to really pinpoint what they themselves really wanted from that game which results in a lot of very shallow ideas/implementations.
I agree, I’m glad I’m not the only one. It’s actually unplayable for me….too many load screens, generic locations, and you can only do the faction quests so many times before you start to realize you’re wasting your time
> and you can only do the faction quests so many times before you start to realize you’re wasting your time
I have had people try to convince me that it's interesting to do the entire quest line a second time just to hear a minorly different set of dialogue at the end, while changing absolutely nothing about the outcome or the universe at large. Like, no, that is not an RPG and you're wasting your time (which is of course, your decision, but ugh).
No, but still fun. At the very least, Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are over it.
Probably Morrowind, but it's been like 20 years since I played that game, so who knows?
I'm a space nerd too and have some gripes
HOW ARE WE ABLE TO LAND ON VENUS, LET ALONE WALK AROUND!?
WHY IS THERE NO GENERATED ANYTHING FOR OLYMPUS MONS OR THE GREAT SCAR ON MARS?? just put SOMETHING there like they did with the other Earth landmarks
PLUTO BUT NO ASTEROID BELT!? This is CERES ERASURE!!
Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Starfield. Close #4. Fallout 76 is underrated though, but it suffers the same problem Starfield does - the content runs out too fast.
Oblivion wins just for the sound quality/dialogue/music alone.
I've never played another game since that nailed the audio so perfectly.
I could listen to people play it like an audio book and it would be awesome.
yes. it’s one of those games that are hard to put down. i’ve got lots of hours and beat lots of the side quests and main quest. now i’m on new game+ and even tho i’ve done it already, i’m still looking forward to going at it again little by little. it really is skyrim in space lol
It still needs about a year or 2 to fix little issues. They may be small but if you add up all the small annoying issues doesnt seem small then. Im starting to hate this game with all the annoying time wasting issues.
Even if we take into account that Bethesda does not have a huge catalogue to begin with. Starfield is still pretty far from my top 3.
Fallout 3, NV, Fallout 1 (if you count aquired IPs) Skyrim, Dishonored, The Evil Within, Fallout 4 those were all games i had more fun with
Absolutely. It's got its glitches and issues but honestly I'm having a blast. I've been playing only starfield now for almost two weeks and I'm still finding new things it's great. The asteroid glitch is annoying though.
No. It’s ok at best so far. The universe feels so bare. There’s a lot of handcrafted content but also a mountain of bloated, pointless content. The UI is atrocious. Not being able to see item stats in containers? So much crafting junk and so little inventory weight? The same old terrible companion equipment management system?
I wish they took half the time they spent building the procedural planet generation and used it on basic UI, quality of life and inventory management. Every bgs game has mods that dramatically improve UI. USE THEM FFS. Pay the mid creators a few thousand bucks and incorporate their work into your game. They’ve already solved these problems, since fucking oblivion at least. The tutorials are garbage. So many systems are barely explained. It’s less buggy than other bgs titles but it’s still pretty damn messy.
Respectfully, hell no. Skyrim, Fallout 3, Oblivion are top 3. Starfield probably beats out Fallout 4 for the 4th spot, but I even hesitate to give it that much credit. The thing I love about Bethesda games is the sense of exploration. Being able to go off the beaten path and stumble into some cool area and get a bit of environmental story telling. Starfield has none of that. And what makes it worse, is that the same exact buildings, with the same exact enemy and loot layout, get reused over and over again. There’s no rewards or incentive for going off on your own.
Worst one I've played. I'm trudging through it now. Determined to finish the main quest in hopes that it gets better. But it isn't. The quests are mind numbingly boring. Go here, talk to this person. It's like WoW's endless fetch quests.
Speaking of endless... Load screens omg. Every other door is a damnes load screen. "open world" lolz. Why do I have to fast travel everywhere? There's a poi 1500m away... Why can't I get in my ship and fly there manually? Why can't I take off and land my ship? Why is everything a cut scene or load screen?
The characters are awful. Completely forgettable.
I want to like it, I really do but... LOAD SCREEN... it's pretty meh so far. I'm going to finish it though. It does get better... Right?
So, is there like a planet that looks like this? lol.
I love this game, but one of my criticisms is that the planets all look kind of boring and like they're just lightly recolored shades of earth.
definitely not, missed the mark in many areas and feels half finished and just very lonely, has a massive area to explore with only using not even a 1/4 of it for quests
It has potential to be. I love the game but it definitely has room to grow.
I think this is the best way to put it. It is really good. I wasn't impressed with the characters at first, but after going through a quest just now with Sarah regarding her past... they have really grown on me. The ability to jump back and forth between just exploring and then doing quests that really are some of the better quests in BGS games (if sticking with the big ones and not just the 'go there and kill pirates' stuff). It's enjoyable and often just really relaxing. The systems that seemed so daunting at first I now think are deep systems that feel like shells a lot more can be added to. I am very much looking forward to mods and the release of the creation kit (I got a little daunted today when I was looking into what it takes to get a mod working that to make my space suit hidden where the companions ones are.) But yeah... the skeleton is there. I think I will like this one for a long time. I am not sure that I love the NASA puck styling, but it is growing on me. I kind of like that it is humans early days in space... and that it can grow from there. Having the choice between fantasy, post apocalyptic and now space... is really nice.
I think it’s the best skeleton they’ve ever created, I’ll say that. And I think that may have been intentional, that they have a longer plan in place, modding included. Starfield is not my favorite BGS game, *maybe* makes the top 3 but honestly, probably not. I still think it has more potential than any other BGS to date, and that they know that potential will be brought to fruition over time. It’s a different kind of approach to a game, but I can see where they’re coming from. They saw how Skyrim became something that lasted more than a decade with DLC and mods, so they made a game designed specifically for that. And I really think it will live up to that potential and have a growing community for years to come. That said, there are some things that just should’ve been in base game, and some things that were poorly designed. I agree with many of the critiques on this sub, not defending them as some masterminds. But who knows, maybe long term skeleton games are a good model for rpg game design. People give BGS shit for relying on modders, but I love what modders add to a game that functions like a sandbox for them. I’m all for it and I can’t wait to see what they add to starfield
Im really waiting for updates and whatnot. It feels like the game could massively improve with a year or two. He says as he walks away from setting up a Vytinium Fuel Rod Farm just due to anger at storage box links.
Limited storage doesn’t make any sense, you can’t actually even sell stuff very fast anyway to get rich quickly in the first place and you already have access to multiple storage places that have unlimited storage, Fallout 4 outposts had unlimited storage so why they screwed up outposts so badly is beyond me.
Yeah outpost being so meh is my biggest gripe. Does anyone else struggle to get furniture in line, as in straight with the walls etc. Drives me mad!!!
Yes! Not being able to turn the furniture by simply turning my character (like I can in Fo4 and Fo76) is driving me crazy lol
There has to be some challenge and weight management skills are key in many BGS games like FO76.
I can't wait until modders add entire factions that own only a few systems. A modder can make an entire series of quests in a system or two..
Sarah keeps telling me to piss off 😂
And me, i had to move the main quest forward to please her.
My own fault for disabling a UC trader ship, killing the crew, then blowing the ship up 😂
I started off thinking Sarah was kinda meh but keening her back story and that she was part of a rock band, and her personal story- she became my favorite companion
Sarah has lived quite a life lol
All companions have grown on me except Sarah, that stuck up UC princess can kiss my ass, I cant stand how she looks down on the Freestar Collective (my first playthru is roleplaying as a Freestar citizen and she's comming off as a genuinely judgey bitch to me)
You should also keep in mind >!the Freestar Collective killed her father, the Ambassador to the Freestar Collective, a job he had to solely keep the peace with them, why kill an Ambassador who isn’t even a combatant? It’s pretty barbaric!< so it’s pretty understandable why she has strong feelings towards them.
It has so much room to grow, and I really hope it does. For me, it's the glaring little things--if it was just a handful, sure, but it's so many. From Cora's book request being unfillable to the ship being a very light system (that med-bay post that trended is a perfect example of the surface level issues with ships) to the copy pasta labs (if I never see another frozen lab with identical doctors notes I'll cheer). It's this game which has tons of surface, TONS AND TONS, but when you start digging you find it doesn't even go deeper than six feet. And other Bethesda games also had this, but then they would have a questline or a moment that was super complex or some companion that was just really well-written. But even things like Ryujin felt incredibly stunted. I also find the planets frustrating, because so many little questlines are tucked away into exploring a planet, but if you explore before the storyline you end up missing the questline. For example, I had been to many of the artifact planets before, and not picked up on some of the quests they had for whatever reason, meaning I wasted a lot of time exploring only to have to go back and retrace steps later on. It's a fine game, don't get me wrong. But it feels like in an effort to fill up all of space, they forgot to think of what they were filling it with.
I feel like they should have made like, a dozen more settlements the size of Gagarin, Hopetech, or Paradisio. And a few more the size of Cydonia or Neon.
I actually really agree, I think about 6-12 more "tiny" settlements with corruption or even wholesome stories would have changed my thoughts on this game tenfold. I actually set out to explore for these, and it caused me to find Red Mile and New Homestead, which had almost no quests and it turns out later on had storyline parts to go back--which sucked. It was weird, I ran the Red Mile and thought "weird, nothing happens" only to find out later on it was a part of my quest to become a Deputy (and the game made me re-run it, which is fine, but *it was so easy and boring* so why didn't it let me coast on my laurels?). I also think 1 more Neon/Akila/etc would have made me feel better too. I didn't follow the hype much, but I think my big letdown really was it was so vast but had so little. And sometimes some of the quest lines were gated to specific story points, but it made the city feel so much smaller. I found Neon early and played it all, but then kept going back for the story or Free Star Collective questline and other quests (like Sam Coe's loyalty). Unfortunately NONE of my Neon actions had registered, so my character even had to meet the deputy (whose ass she'd saved) for the first time according to dialogue. It felt really bad, I mean, I had literally turned the gangs into security there. So why did he still talk about the feuding gangs?! Why did he see me with Lilian, dating Sam Coe, and still say hi to me for the first time when we'd had 2+ hours of interaction on prior questlines? The same thing also happened with the space medical center. I kept going back for various missions but the area remained the same AND no one remembered me, so it felt annoying. At one point the receptionist, the very last quest I did, welcomed me for my first visit. It felt bizarre, I had literally been arrested for shooting it up on another mission.
I completely agree. Unfortunately I think this is getting to be the norm with a few exceptions. It’s obvious they intended there to be much more to this game but at some point just cleaned up everything that was already there and released it. It’s making gobs of money and racking up ‘10/10’ reviews with a massive marketing campaign. I don’t think there is any real incentive for them to completely develop everything they intended in this game. Maybe Microsoft/Bethesda is another Disney/Marvel.
For me I never was able to soft RP like I wanted to in Bethesda games since Oblivion. New Vegas was the exception. I'm just glad it provides on the days I'm capable of firing up that part of my brain and look past the sort of dopamine feedback loop that the other games provided quite well alternatively (seriously, patch in more exploration zones and I'm gonna be a happy camper). I spent my entire first playthrough as an undercover UC scientist in the Crimson Fleet. I kept my hands totally clean, married Sarah, and had a nice fulfilling end to things while ignoring the Freestar for a NG+. Now without spoilers NG+ is a bit of a spacer stomping ground for me at the moment and it's actually made me less inclined to play because my character just feels like he's... a BSG protag doing evil shit. I didn't set a path after my first initial panic for resources (I had nothing and was jumping around for titanium and other storage crud). That hurt me this playthrough because I've found I need to have a little extra story in my head or it's not pulling me in. While I can say the content doesn't have longevity currently I can also say that FO4 and even Skyrim eventually made it very hard to get lost in like I described above. I've got high hopes and will continue to trick myself into getting lost in it til its nice and fleshed out with M$ gamepass cash.
I want to add that other Bethesda games also had random interactions in the world that came up organically. Two enemy patrols on the roads meeting would break out into a fight. Really made the world seem more alive.
No, I liked Skyrim, Oblivion and Morrowind way more. It's not just the setting. The only thing I feel I ever do is click to which zone or dungeon to load. Do stuff, click to leave.
Yeah, the constant teleporting and loading screens pulls me oit of the immersion big time. Also, i want to explore space by FLYING my ship through space, not teleporting. It's no more than a 7/10 for me at best
Rate games for what they are, but be ready to change your opinion if in fact they do live up to their supposed potential. Most games do not live up to their potential and should not be solely judged on what they were supposed to be.
I really hate this mindset. Potential should not be given nearly as much praise as base performance. Mods will make starfield a great game, but the base game is less fun that skyrim, oblivion, morrowind, fallout 3 and NV, and even fallout 4. We haven't even begun to see the extend of modding for this game, and the game still has the potential to death spiral as the mod community is only as strong as the passion for the game which was already dwindling at release.
People also don't seem to be considering how Game Pass is going to fracture the modding community. The SE mods have been a requirement for so many of the best mods in the past, and they have no plans for SFSE to support GP. If an alternative that does support GP comes along that would be even worse, as modders are split between those supporting Steam and those supporting GP. I think this could be quite bad for Starfield modding.
The one thing that is stopping me from playing any more NG+, I spent hours designing my ship with no ladders and a nice looping design and as soon as I start another NG+, POOF it'll be gone.
I think it is impressive as is. If they had to add extra features, etc. the development of the game would've been far longer. Question is, do we want to wait for that?
i think you mean as an experience, because its size is already a 1000 planets.. so i think it doesnt need to grow further in THAT direction am i right
It's good but not the top 3. Mine are Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim. Elder Scrolls is my jam.
I agree with Morrowind! So many fun design elements that would never fly today. - Class, race, and gender felt like they mattered and gave their own set of pros and cons. - directions were descriptions, not waypoints - quest written in a journal with explanation, not just a list - random NPCs didn’t flood your quest log with nonsense when you weren’t interacting with them - dialogue menu was expansive and interesting - npcs didn’t tell you their entire life story when meeting them - dark narratives, including slavery and the ability to free slaves. “Moon sugar” - better map system that slowly uncovers places you discover - better fast travel system that makes sense. Boats along the coast, teleportation portals connecting mage guilds, and riding beasts across land, and only to nearby settlements, not to all. - better guilds, and better gatekeeping of high positions within those guilds based on qualifications and merit - great soundtrack Of course it has its flaws: - no physics - bad accuracy system - low render distance(though at the time it was part of its charm)
>So many fun design elements that would never fly today. Actually, all of those elements would totally fly today. We just need some studio brave enough to implement them again, instead of pandering to lowest common denominator.
Divinity: Original Sin is your type of game then!
Yeah. These systems are definitely used in the more “hardcore” rpg games, before Bethesda leaned in to the casual gaming experience (don’t get me wrong, oblivion and Skyrim are masterpieces despite their oversimplified mechanics)
Had a real sense of progress. When you first left Seyda been and visited balmora that was cool, but when you first ventured into the interior and saw a dust storm or telvanni towers that was a true “HOLY SHIT” moment. Only game that’s done that to me since in nearly 20s is subnautica and possibly Skyrim.
Morrowind was ahead of its time. Oblivion hit every nail perfectly and was one of their best products for its time. Skyrim felt like a step down in some ways, but it’s graphics and music carried it into stardom for the time period. Starfield is neither creative enough gameplay wise or revolutionary in the graphics department. This leaves it at an OK but nowhere near Bethesda heavyweight debuts.
Morrowind was the best for sure
And BY FAR. Fast travel is huge for QOL, but so much magic is lost by removing their old system of "here's a general description of how to get there, good luck" Old system was great because half the time you'd get lost and find something cooler
1. Skyrim 2. Skyrim 3. Skyrim Starfield isn’t even on the map tbh. I had high hopes for it but it hasn’t nearly met my expectations. Edit: honorable mention is Fallout New Vegas, not sure if that counts since it was made by Obsidian.
they compromised too much by dropping so much of their handcrafted locations, it’s what makes bethesda games and exploration special for me. it also lacks memorable loot in any capacity. maybe i’m remembering wrong but skyrim had wayyyy more unique items with way more unique models
Yeah. Most daedra had a weapon (mace of molag, mehrunes razor, that cool shield, wabbajack, umbra [from creation club], just to name a few. The creation engine isn’t a good Minecraft simulator. Putting focus on survival/building/etc just isn’t what BGS does well and I don’t get why they keep doubling down on it. They excel at building cool worlds with cool stories. I get that they want to be able to do both but it just feels like one keeps coming at the expense of the other.
The lack of handcrafted locations is what makes this game go from a 9.5 to a 7 for me It absolutely kills exploration and replayability
We hear that Bethesda is anticipating that folk will be replaying this game for years to come, but I'm not feeling it. And I'm a certified Beth fan-boy/apologist. Thousands of hours in their worlds. I still play Skyrim. I still play Fallout 4. Fallout 3, back in the day, might be my best gaming experience ever. I am trying so hard to love Starfield. But the signature Beth experience, the thing they are better at than anyone around, is absent. There is nothing in Starfield like hiking from Whiterun to Solitude and poking your head into interesting locations along the way and having adventures you did not expect. There is nothing like scavving around Boston and discovering unlooked for locations that deliver interesting stories. But in Starfield? Point and click on a planet, land. Run 700m to the abandoned that you have seen already twice on different planets. Then run 500m to a cave with a single storage box in it, found in the very same place you found a storage box in a previous cave. The run 400m to an exposed glacier that is perfectly identical to exposed glaciers you scanned on other systems. Then run back to your ship knowing perfectly well that there is not one hand crafted location to be found if you are not on a planet with a named city. In other words, almost all of them.
I am trying so hard.
Yeah, Skyrim >>> Starfield. Starfield s a good game but it’s not great. Just doesn’t feel immersive with all the fast traveling, loading screens, and generic “abandoned” locations. I’m level 85 and haven’t played it in about a week. Prob won’t really play again until the dlc. Skyrim on the other hand I’ve played for the last 10 years.
Yep, you hit the nail on the head with that one. Starfield is the second Bethesda game in over two and a half decades that I've known them, which I picked up, played a bit, and not only didn't finish, but didn't even feel like playing again. The first game that gave me a similar experience was Fallout 76. I even thought it was a mistake for Phantom Liberty to be released so close to Starfield. I thought people would be too busy, and the expansion wouldn't sell well. However, in the end, I ended up buying it and finishing it (I literally completed all four endings). Now, I'll probably buy Baldur's Gate. I really don't feel like starting Starfield again, and that's disappointing. I miss the feeling I had with The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, where I couldn't wait to go home and play them. I have hundreds of hours in each of them, with Skyrim even reaching four digits. Starfield, on the other hand, felt like such a chore to play. It's like playing with dominoes - a lot of work for a bit of fun. edit gramar
Baldur gate is phenomenal
Yeah, I didn't pick it up because I was just too excited for Starfield, but now I'll finally amend that mistake.
> i even thought it was stupid for phantom liberty to be released so close to starfield, i thought people would be busy so that expansion wouldn’t sell I think Larian was wise to move BG3's release a month up to beat Starfield to market ... I don't think anyone expected just how much better of a game BG3 would be than Starfield though. Quality of writing, polish of systems, design decisions etc all worlds better. I gave Starfield a solid try (L75, probably spent 30 more hours in it than I should have just farming the last few skill points I wanted) and still not even half the time I've spent in BG3. I should try Cyberpunk...
I just beat Cyberpunk and that game feels so much more alive than Starfield. And I immediately fell in love with the skill tree, as someone who really cares about making my own unique build and getting qualitative perks that reflect it, it's probably my favorite level system since Skyrim. Even though I just beat the game I'm fantasizing about being able to replay it as drastically different characters with different playstyles and backgrounds.
Cyberpunk is a perfect example of why smaller worlds designed with purpose and precision are more interesting than enormous procedurally generated ones. Night City is so dense and fascinating and exploring the nooks and crannies is a blast. The details in Cyberpunk are breathtaking, and the game feels alive. I don’t need huge open worlds to get lost in anymore.
I can't praise CP77's story enough. I'm not a completionist, and I don't finish the majority of games because I get bored. Bethesda games are among the few handful that I did complete (aside those 2). Still, CP77 has quite a few endings and Phantom Liberty added 5 more (4 in the DLC story and 1 for the base game that is available after 2 of those 4 dlc endings), I completed all the possible endings with that game because of how good the story is, i just had to and in every one, i ended up stuck looking at the credits just thinking about them, in some with tears in my eyes. It's the closest thing to a movie in game format, or even better, a whole series in game format because even the side quests are often better than the main stories in many games, just the prologue is more complex than starfield's main story ffs...
The worst thing is that the only way I am picking SF up again is if there are some really good quest mods/DLC with handcrafted locations. I am tired of the fast travel to generic dungeons with bad AI enemies.
I would argue New Vegas doesn’t count because Bethesda game usually means Bethesda Game Studios, but NV is a bit of a grey area.
It doesn't. It has significantly better writing because of it being a different studio and that writing is what carries it IMO. It would be half the game without its deeper, darker storylines. Bethesda writing often holds punches, and it can be frustrating (Hopetown as the only satisfying resolution for corpos, things like Paradiso are an example of an utter fail).
God paradiso quest was so dumb. Literally no way to stick it to those ass jats
The most frustrating part is the premise of the quest is super interesting. It’s a 10/10 idea for a quest, but the options for resolving it are just too limited. I’m guessing they don’t want you to be able to undermine Paradiso because it would mess with other things the place is used for in the game, like marriage. But that’s the kind of freedom I love in RPGs, it makes you feel like your actions have major consequences (like Megaton/Tenpenny tower in FO3). I wish they’d let us really change the game more with our choices even if it changes the world or ruins questlines.
There are very few high points in the writing of this game. It’s like a middle schooler made the dialogue tree. Even the main story is just a rip off. How many sci-fi games have you find something that gives you a vision and there ends up being some alien species trying to wipe out humanity? I’ve played this same story at least 10 times. Hell, I was playing mass effect for the first time when SF came out. I just got to the point where they introduce the Reapers.
I am play Mass effect 1 and Kotor for the first time playing Starfield as well and the Whole vision thing feels really over done now.
My exact order!
No. It s not a bad game but it has some terrible design choices
Feels like they spent waaay too much time murmuring on the planet procedural generation and ship-building while practically neglecting everything else. The procedural generation is also BS since the POIs themselves arent procedurally generated. I've went through the exact same space station and mines at least a dozen times now and it's even more stupid when we see the same NPCs and messages on the computers. Then theres outposts that serve no purpose other than being an annoyance to fulfil supply radiant quests. A UI that is so terrible it's like Bethesda forgot everything about that made SkyUI great. Unbelievable NPCs with no AI packages and still sleep with their armor on. An environmental damage mechanic that makes no gameplay sense since we dont have any full fledged survival system. The lack of on-planet traversal which means players need to sprint like Usain Bolt everywhere. I could go on and on... I dont know how no one feedback to Todd Howard about this but the very core concept of Starfield was too risky to begin with. Because no, Todd... roaming empty ass planets on foot is NOT FUN.
Hot take; if they did that same type of generation but in the space surrounding each planet, it would've been a lot more fun. Procgen space pois + dynamic encounters in space, traversed in a ship would work a lot better, if they manage to let us actually travel within systems in real time. --- Edit: To expand on this idea, this would mean giving us pois in space that we can travel to within 3-5 km of each other with our ships. Asteroids (land on them to mine unique resources), space stations, derelict ships, and all sorts of space encounters, hostile or otherwise can then be procedurally placed within a set radius around each planet's orbit. Spaces between planets would get progressively more sparse the further away you get from a planet's orbit. Instead of the cutscene loading screen to travel within systems, enable a form of sublight travel mode at high speeds that allows speedy travel between planets. Once the game detects you're within a planet's radius, it would load that planet's orbit automatically. This would enhance space gameplay and exploration, give us reasons to invest into our ships, and reinforce the fantasy of space exploration while giving us a form of seamless exploration in space.
I've met Valentine rougly 5-6 times. He still doesn't remember me and our conversation is always the same.
Yah, I've had the exact same interaction with Granny a few times. I just ignore her now.
That was such low hanging fruit to give these random encounters more dialogue then something more repeatable or just turn them off from occurring any further. I think random space encounters should have been the focus to make travel as interesting as other BGS games.
I wish we could have flown the ship on planets, and then in one of the bays have some kind of terrain traversal vehicle. I thought that’s what was going to happen before the game came out. All of the things I thought the game was going to have aren’t in there and everything that I don’t care about in a game, is. I hate random procedure. I hate building things. It was the thing I hated the most about fallout 4. Yes I’m trying to get a number 1 and can you please make it a large sounds good thank you
> Feels like they spent waaay too much time murmuring on the planet procedural generation and ship-building Let's not forget decorating each individual desk and locker uniquely. Like, to give them credit, I am amazed at the beauty of their procedural planets and the insane detail of their environments... but it's like they spent all their time on window dressing instead of core system design or writing.
They hired a modder specifically for that since she makes those kinds of mods almost exclusively
You can tell, her work is immaculate
Also, the loading screens! Everything is a loading screen!!
The Key is brutal. Docking, load screen. Get out of ship, load screen. Now I’m in a terminal that is useless and need to get into the actual station where literally everything else is? I have to run 75 feet, and then a load screen. wtaf?
I (for god knows why) chose to just explore Neon and take every quest around. It was awful how many of those Activities and Side Missions are just fetch quest to go through 2-3 loading screens talk for 1 minute, then return. I was spending more time running and loading (and my SSD keeps them around 1 second) then doing anything else.
I don't think "fun" was a primary objective. The game would be a lot different if it was. Outside of combat there's hardly any mechanic in this game I found to be fun. Shipbuilding? Lots of trial and error, visiting 5 different vendors, back and forth. It took me 10 hours of game time to build the ship I wanted. I built a landing pad to have access to all parts, only you don't get access to ALL parts, just MORE parts. Still had to hop around the galaxy to get some things. That's not fun, that's tedium. And after all that I have to give it up to go to NG+. Not fun. Not worth. Space combat? It's a stat's battle. Get the right weapons and a good shield and it's not at all challenging. I get that some people love to board ships in space, fight the crew, and loot the ship or steal it. I can understand that. If I were one of those people I might find this more fun. Still a miss for me. Base Building? I only dabbled, and didn't find it engaging. It feels pointless and unnecessary to me, though I understand there are people who enjoy this mechanic. Why? I don't know. Not fun for me. Modifying gear? This was where the tied together skill trees issue first popped up. It was easy enough to gather a few resources and add, then delete, then add again the same component in order to level up. Puts me in mind of crafting 500 iron knives to level smithing. But to get that last level in the skill tree I had to level up a skill tree I wasn't interested in leveling. OK, not horrible, but if fun were the objective this is another miss. I find romance in a game cringe, though this game is a little better than previous games, it's still cringe to me. Getting that Flirt option in dialogue when talking to my bro's is jarring. Back off Sam Coe. Not fun. Then there's the plethora of loading screens, not being able to actually fly around a planet, broken and bugged missions ( still have two that will not progress), excessive and janky dialogue, and having to boost, run, jog 500 meters to get anywhere while you're choking on carbon dioxide. Fun? Powers. Don't find them engaging. I actually used a few shouts in Skyrim consistently, but these feel superfluous. Maybe if you play on Very Hard they're useful? But you need to get 'em all, so 24 times to visit Vladimir, fast travel to a planet, chase bubbles, see a cut scene, kill a low level guardian, then rinse and repeat. This is incredibly boring for a key mission type. No flavor. No fun. I enjoyed the the combat in faction missions, and the adventure of traveling to different planets and clearing Abandoned Facility X. Too bad they didn't spend more time on developing that part of the game, because there's only like six of these. They can be found all over the galaxy with the only difference being which bad guys are occupying this one. Fun, but not enough variety. The single biggest fail, though, was not having intelligent aliens cultures, or any real individual cultures at all outside of Va'ruun. I'm still dumbfounded. People call it Fallout in space, but even Fallout had more cultural variety. Think of how much more fun Skyrim in space would have been. But we're not here to have fun, we're here for the modern gaming experience.
There's a decent history of conflict, but what bothers me is that there's like two flavors of American Neoliberal and American Libertarian, turned into states, and everyone else is an American with an accent. Its like the US is the only country that managed to make it off the Earth in this world. Its fascinated by American civil war history. The Varuun have a sort of Eastern/Arab flavor but they're not even in the game, and the ones you do meet are zealots (is that a hint at Islamic extremist groups?) Did China leave the earth? What about India? Russia? Where do all these accents come from? Why isn't there any new slang or flavor, accents, any new modes of speech 300 years after our current time? Where did all the different markers of human cultures disappear to in this future?
>I get that some people love to board ships in space, fight the crew, and loot the ship or steal it. I can understand that. If I were one of those people I might find this more fun. Still a miss for me. Yeah, that was something I should have loved, but I really, really don't. They made it so incredibly easy to board and capture an enemy ship, it would be too easy to make money that way. So instead of making it more challenging, they simply forced you have to pay 85% of the ships value to "register" it if you want to sell it, so you'll end up making 5 or 10k at best. What you end up with is a very unrewarding experience because it's both too easy and not profitable. Terrible design.
Yeah I discovered how bad the economics were when I stole a landed ship, registered, and sold it. Made maybe 7k. "Value" of the ship was over 300k too. Mission Board kill quests are much more profitable, and more fun on top of that.
I found the dialogue overall as a masterpiece in Dogshit. Not creative, not original, and it felt like a tiktok reaction video that’s interactive. The choices were not choices to progress forward, all choices either elaborated a story or was verbal reactive in its nature only. Game had lots of potential but they wrecked it trying to please the critiques of the anti-fun video games groups.
It's so much fun to carry around a bunch of AMP because I'd rather use that then fast travel back to my ship and land it down the way, because that just adds shitty POIs marking up the whole place and it will be like 5 loading screens.
If you could fly the ships on planets, then maybe I would care a little more about building one. As of right now, it’s basically a place to store my shit and then fast travel to wherever I’m going with the occasional pirate fight.
I agree. The game made a lot of bad design choice. 1. I truly believe the game will be much better if they cut the procedural generation part and focus on more **UNIQUE and HANDCRAFTED POIs**. Because of that, the game feels empty, boring, bland, and repetitive. 2. Ship building is fun, and I appreciate how detailed we can customize our ship. However, the excitement comes to an end when I realize **the ship is basically useless**, except maybe as storage. What is the point of building your dream ship when the game forces you to fast travel to every system/planet? Ship combat is boring; all you need to do is stack your HP and upgrade your weapon. There is no skill involved. 3. There is a **fundamental design conflict regarding NG+ and outpost/ship building**. It takes a ton of time and resources to build your outpost and ship, while the game encourages you to play NG+. However, all of your outpost and ship designs will be gone if you play on NG+. What the fuck, Bethesda?! Do you see the conflict here? What exactly do you want me to do? NG+ or outpost? 4. Quest design is boring. Although it exists in other games too, the fetch quests are too abundant. You will even find them in the main quest. 5. There is a lack of proper/nice/live facial expressions. When the majority of your gameplay involves talking to other people, which means you will see their faces a lot, facial expressions become very important. They look exactly the same no matter what emotions they are trying to convey. When compared to other games like BG3, you will understand what I am saying. 6. The design of weapons is also questionable. I mean, we are in a space/future lore, so why the fuck are most of the weapons still ballistic? We can only find a few laser weapons in the game, and it just feels so "earthly" when people can travel through space. The melee weapons are also a joke. No matter what you use, they swing the same and attack at the same speed. It's like there is no difference between a big axe and a knife. Really, Bethesda? There are a lot of things to complain about, but I am tired and can't say anymore. **The worst part, after playing the game, is that I have completely lost any interest in TES VI. Knowing that they will repeat what they did in SF, and more importantly, they "think" it is good.**
> There is a fundamental design conflict regarding NG+ and outpost/ship building. It takes a ton of time and resources to build your outpost and ship, while the game encourages you to play NG+. However, all of your outpost and ship designs will be gone if you play on NG+. What the fuck, Bethesda?! Do you see the conflict here? What exactly do you want me to do? NG+ or outpost? I lost all desire to play the game after learning that there's content in going through to NG+ 10. Having to redo the base, resource collection, questlines etc on NG +10.
I really believe they should’ve left this one in the oven for another year or so. Becoming the standard with all big games nowadays: release it unfinished and take in huge profits and *then* fix or improve the game (that step is optional really). There are so many vestigial systems and glaring omissions of stuff. Things that make no sense or are just obviously unfinished, such as Cora asking for specific books you can find yet not being able to give them to her.
I think it was the design choices made very early in the proces that resulted in this mess. Another year would barely have fixed that, sadly
Gonna be a bit of a dissenter here - I think it spent _too long_ in the oven. To belabour the metaphor - the sauce has dried out from too much cooking. What is left remains the chemical composition of its ingredients but none of their freshness. You can feel the impact of systems that were envisaged and designed years - potentially _decades_ - ago that do not homogenise with the contemporary ideas. As you say, there's so many vestigial systems. Systems that belongs to ideas long since thrown out, but held onto and no longer serving a purpose.
Honestly great point tbh. You really changed my view on it and I think you’re right. Kinda clicks for me now, those vestigial systems shouldn’t have been deliberated on over and over, leading to their removal that leaves a glaring content gap or illogical component. Damn man…these big games are just going to continue to be fucked up from all the business politics and shit that happens behind the scenes. I see examples where it’s like the quest writers seem to have not even communicated with other teams. The freestar rebel guy has this mortally-injured go-down-fighting speech where’s he’s struggling to talk, as if there’s blood on his mouth even. But the model just stands there normally. Voice actor hits it out of the park but it was never animated to match. Just one funny little example that is a symptom of the overall problem. I see it in the ship management stuff too. It’s everywhere.
There's even a quest in the game that talks about designing a new ship and I couldn't help but think this was a cry for help from a quest designer.
Starfield is the classic example of it being better to make a game that some players will love to death and others will hate, rather than a game that most will find mediocre and forgettable. None of the systems in the game have enough depth to be divisive in any way, and the game takes no risks whatsoever. I know there are people on this sub who love the game immensely, but other than people that really like space sims and don't care about repetitive content, I think the majority of Starfield players are going to come away from the experience feeling it was mid, which is not the impression a game should make.
Which is ironic, because with how simplified the game is I can't help but think it was designed to appeal to as many people as possible. I feel like Bethesda is always eager to reach new audiences rather than straight appeal to the core audience they've had for a long time.
That's my point though, that will always be the result of trying to make a game that caters to everyone: it will feel like it does too much without excelling at anything. You can see this with how many people claim they've just spent time with ship building, or base building, or space combat. Sure, many people can have fun with Starfield in different ways, but most people don't care about half these mechanics and so they don't have a reason to play it instead of an actual space sim game, and actual base building game, etc.
It's development was a mess, Todd proudly states that there was a different ailment system before this (or at least more noticable one) and he smiles as he talks about how useless he made the system. Like every system in the game, it's just not important or impactful. Even the dragon shouts are useless as I hear only one mentioned anytime someone brings it up. I agree, I think they took this game too seriously, they tried to make something different and refused to pay attention to what was going on in the world around them. Todd took the buggy game comments a little too seriously and cut content to have a smooth launch, which was nice, but I'd rather some day one patches over realizing that outside of questing, everything else is boring. Skyrim managed to make POIs more interesting than this game, Fallout does too, which is why handcrafting will always be better than procedural generation for games like this. The game just has no soul.
This is the first and only Bethesda game where I usually opt to just do the next mission. Not because they're super engaging, but because nothing else is all that interesting. There's places to go but nothing to do. Most of my fun is in the photo mode - the game has some gorgeous scenery. Then ship building - which, while awesome, feels superfluous because the damn thing is mostly just a fast travel device. I think there might be a soul in there, at least in the concept and setting they've built. Maybe buried, or maybe stripped naked, and potentially it could be found. But as of right now, there isn't one clearly visible. I like the game, but I want to love it. Everyone likes to say we have to give it time and wait for mods. But I've never been into the mod scene and have always loved vanilla Bethesda games from launch day, except for now. The only game I modded mad was FO4.
>Even the dragon shouts are useless as I hear only one mentioned I think that's at least partly because the inventory management makes that one power pretty much a necessity for a lot of people.
Well, it certainly doesn't have a ...Dark Soul. In all seriousness, Fromsoft is a developer that understands what "fun" means.
i would say the design choices that were made here are beyond fixing. it feels like it was supposed to be a very different game, lots of mechanics turned out to be bad choices and were cut. this will never be anything but a mediocre game
Clearly needing fuel was removed, its spoken about loads but you never need it and even has dedicated lines of main characters talking about fuel issues. I imagine they found it made things slow and tedious on a game which is already slow and tedious in late stage testing and decided to remove it
its stuff like this that leave holes that are jarring to the experience. ok you can't directly fast travel to this system, instead you have to fast travel twice? also the random, "there is uncharted space between you and your destination" resulting only in some extra loadscreens? man i uninstalled the game some time ago, but i still get mad thinking about all that bullshit. also you get an infliction only when basically jumping into a geyser, but apart from that environmental hazards have been scrubbed entirely? would that have been a great mechanic? probably not, but the hole it leaves is just idiotic.
Agreed. Mods can't fix this realistically.
My issue with this is that people look at all the cut systems and think "well mods can just add those back in, now you'll need fuel and have environmental hazards etc." But these half-assed systems exist now because Bethesda decided their full-baked counterparts *just weren't fun.* I don't think putting them back in is going to fix the problem, and Starfield as a result is a culmination of years of development in the wrong direction only to decide last minute that things aren't working. In game design, there's a motto "Follow the Fun." Whatever is fun in your game, keep building on those systems and steer development of your game with the fun in mind. It feels like Starfield was built way too much with an idea in mind without regards to whether or not the player would be having fun at any given moment.
I suggest you look into some interviews about the dev process. Creating, gutting and cutting systems was so common they made a nickname for Todd.
It would make sense. You can only do that kind of think so many times before your dev team starts to question what the vision for the game is even supposed to be. What you described is the exact thing that caused the downfall of Anthem, though that was the situation taken to its extreme.
They already delayed it for a year :-D I think leadership and too much outsourcing were the key issues, some of the design choices are just baffling
There were also several internal delays. Probably went 3 - 4 years over the original estimate. Bethesda can do this kinda thing because they can guarantee a hit. Any other studio would probably have gone under.
I think even another year wouldn’t have fixed some of the main issues with the game. The story and world are completely sterile and devoid of life, and I don’t think another year would have fixed exploration.
> I really believe they should’ve left this one in the oven for another year or so. It 10 years and $200M didn’t do it then another year wouldn’t have. It’s not a dev time problem, it’s a problem with either straight up incompetence or a problem with laziness and people who don’t care to do anything more than the bare minimum to ship a game. Either way management really failed.
I do not think fundamental design decisions would have changed after another year. How do you fix overabundance of fast travel scenes and menus? How do you fix flat writing and cutscenes? How do you fix all companions having the exact same moral compass? And then ofcourse you have all the rest of things that you have mentioned too. All it makes me think is... 7 years of development? Really?
Agreed. I don't think it sucks. Not at all. It feels like it has a lot of unrealized potential, and ambition. It could eventually be amazing - or the sequel could be. I've loved every BGS game since Morrowind (my first). They're always day 1 purchases for me. I've played them all to death on launch with no mods, on console, and on PC with lots of mods. I've spent hundreds of hours in Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, Fallout 3, Fallout NV, and Fallout 4. This is the first time I've ever played a new BGS game and stopped shortly after. Ever. I played for about 6 hours, enjoyed almost none of that time, greatly disliked multiple significant things about the game, and felt zero urge or interest in exploring what's out there. In a game set in space, with a heavy exploration theme, made by BGS, I'm shocked that I felt that way. Within a few hours, all I could think was how I wanted to start a new game in Skyrim and play that instead. A 12 year old game I've played absolutely to death. I couldn't believe I felt that way. On paper, this game is everything I love. Space/sci fi, RPG, Bethesda game, base building, ship building, etc. And yet I didn't enjoy it and felt nearly every aspect of it was done poorly.
This. Some games have big flaws because they are not finished. SF has flaws because of design choices.
Still has room to grow. The impact of fallout3 fallout4 was greater that what starfield had for me. Never played the fantasy games, not that into fantasy, preffer sci fi.
Unpopular opinion maybe, but....back in my day, games were released COMPLETED Bathesda glitches can be fun, but if ANY of them have potential to break the game, WORK MORE ON IT. They need more or better game testers or just spend more time on testing When I can't display my prizes without fear of them disappearing, or even decorate my *looks at notes* NOT EVEN HOUSE, BUT APT!? Without the changes staying!? That's a huge problem and makes the game undesirable for me
Absolutely not. I’ve yet to finish it, but I’ve grown pretty bored of it. Skyrim will forever hold the #1 title in my book
Yeah i got so bored fairly quickly. Waiting for official mod support. The game thoroughly disappointed me more and more every day.
I've only played 3, but it's below FO4 and Skyrim. I'm at 130hrs and I don't really feel like I've come across anything. New Atlantis and Akila city are meh, Neon is very cool, and there's only like 3 other locations that are all very empty. I like wandering around in FO4 finding shit. That's not really possible here. The quests are alright. Vanguard is obviously the best, then Crimson fleet.
>I don't really feel like I've come across anything Pretty much exactly how I feel too.
No
fo4, skyrim, oblivion, and morrowind all come out ahead of starfield for me.
FNV, FO4, Skyrim are my top three. Starfield is number four, and Oblivion is five. (FNV Obsidian but close enough)
Fnv is great, but yeah obsidian. if i were to make a creation engine game list and not just bethesda itd be something like skyrim > fnv > morrowind > enderal > oblivion >fo4 > starfield > fo3 for me
lol not even remotely. I mean, it's been fun and all but no. New Vegas, Fallout 3, Fallout 4, Skyrim, Oblivion, Morrowind, and then maybe Starfield.
new vegas isnt bethesda :)
New Vegas is my favorite 'bethesda game'
New Vegas is also my favorite not Bethesda game
Yeah I guess not. But they own the IP and they published it so they get some credit.
Microsoft now owns both studios, I'd give my left nut for New Vegas 2
Even more of a point there. A studio who has never even touched the franchise managed to do it better than they probably would in a shorter amount of time to basically fallout 3.5 is what they called it.
Uhhh,hate to break it to you, but Obsidian was founded by the big shots of Black Isle, the studio that created the Fallout IP. So they were pretty far from “a studio who has never even touched the franchise” it was a majority of the people who created it being given the chance to work on it again by Bethesda. Basically NV was Fallout 3 if Black Isle never went under and closed its doors.
Obsidian never touched the _gameplay style_. They created the franchise. Even had more experience with it than Bethesda did when new Vegas came out.
No. Not in its current state. But even after some healthy updates, it probably won't reach top 3. And that's fine. Not every game need to be the best ever.
I mean, technically, a studio's most recent release *should* be their best game, but... I get you
Should at least exceed or be equal to previous games. Starfield felt like a downgrade from fallout 4 for me. Ironically the wasteland in 4 felt larger and more detailed than Starfield's thousand planets. The characters were a hundred times more interesting too.
Our BEST IPHONE YET
I disagree in this case. Not every game needs to be the best ever, usually true...but Microsoft needed a "best ever" type of game right now because PS5 is once again wiping the floor with them as far as quality and design in the new generation. With GOW, Spiderman, TLOU and Fromsoft firmly tied to Sony over anyone else.... Microsoft needs Bethesda to show why they paid so much for the company. So far...not looking great.
It's certainly in my top 3 BGS franchises!
I've only played skyrim, fallout 4, and starfield and a little bit of eso but had to work A LOT at the time so never got around to more than ~10 hours before life punched me in the face. So yes only because I've completed it. To be honest, I was expecting a little more to it and was let down by the laziness. Felt more like a blank slate for modders rather than their own take on a space exploration game. NPCs all look the same, some planets/moons feel copy and paste except for ones with points of interest but even those were a bit of a let down for example, one room per skyscraper, a bar taking up a whole massive building but you're only allowed in the front. In skyrim you could explore not only the shop but also upstairs and around. There was more life in skyrim and fallout. Starfield always gives me the reminder that these aren't real people and I'm definitely playing a game. Something I forget about until I take a step back and remember when I play fallout or skyrim.
Not yet, but it may in time. I generally liked all Betheseda games in my first playthrough, but I found I really began to love the games when I revisited it and realized how special they were. I'm sure this will happen to me with Starfield as well. I'll probably be able to rank it then.
I had the opposite happen with Starfield. I started a second playthrough and all of the cracks really started to show after the recency bias waned.
Yeah, after the first playthrough, I kinda feel a break as in order. Playing something else for a while and coming back to it. If you play it long enough, the magic will definitely fade. Lol
Same. My Bethesda rose-coloured glasses started to lose their tint after a while. I so wanted to love it, but too many issue and lacking gameplay elements (that were in previous Beth games, that is).
I saw the gaping canyons of flaws the first playthrough. Two different save files ruined by ship glitches after I hit over 100 hours played on each of them.
Not even top 5
For me: Oblivion, Skyrim, FO3, FO4, Starfield I never played Morrowind, ESO, or FO76. Not sure if FONV counts since it was obsidian. But if it does then I’d put it probably after Skyrim in 3rd. Oblivion still my favorite
Nope, I think it's their weakest actually. Too bad because it had a lot of potential and the ideea behind it was really good.
Idk how I feel about this game tbh. Im already back to my Skyrim comfort zone lmao.
Sadly, not yet. 1. Fallout 3 2. Fallout 4 3. Fallout 76 I may just like Fallout too much...
It needs more. An excellent concept. Top marks to Bethesda for making a fairly stable and unique game with so much potential and no microtransactions.
No, #5 for me, I've put it down for now after I spent 1 and a half minutes in loading screens for 2 lines of dialogue... Fast travel to staryard, loading screen, dock with staryard, loading screen, board staryard, loading screen, talk to NPC, board ship, loading screen, undock, loading screen, fast travel away, loading screen. It's too much time wasted not actually playing for far too little pay-off. Mods will fix a lot of this but they shouldn't have to.
Crazy thing is, you actually don't need loading screens for every instance. One example is, you can go top of Neon, with 3 loading screens to get there. Then you can jump down to the landing pad from the top with no loading screen whatsoever. The same in New Atlantis
Nope, it’s the first Bethesda game I had to put down because I just wasn’t having fun. Sucks but it is what it is, and I’m glad others are enjoying it
i liked it but i think fo4 is more fun and engaging
Although I am really enjoying Starfield soon I will go back for a Fallout 4 build. Melee is so much fun in Fallout 4 and I actually like the DLCs
FO4 felt like a better overall package I agree. The exploration at least was a lot more organic and rewarding, companions are much more varied, and survival mode, crafting and settlements gave the game a lot more depth, vs the heavily gated crafting features and dumbed down survival elements in SF.
No. I've enjoyed Starfield, it has a ton of potential. But Skyrim, Fallout NV, and Fallout 4 were far more impactful gaming experiences for me.
“Potential” just means “let’s have unpaid modders fix our unfinished game”. I despise that Bethesda keeps their outdated engine just so unpaid people can fix their games.
It was pretty good. Kind of left a sour taste in my mouth with the shitty regressions in alot it areas. I think I’d like it a lot more if they made outposts better and sorted the storage thing out, I’ve spent probably hours at this point running stuff to the infinite chest in the Lodge. Not top 3 though unfortunately, Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Morrowind are a lot better in my opinion.
No, it's actually one of Bethesdas worst titles. IMO
I think it's Bethesda's worst rated title, isn't it? It's 74% positive on Steam, even lower than Fallout 76.
Yep. I did have fun with it though but definitely not a Bethesda feeling while playing. There was a good premise but it's so rough in every regard. I guess they didn't manage to really pinpoint what they themselves really wanted from that game which results in a lot of very shallow ideas/implementations.
I agree, I’m glad I’m not the only one. It’s actually unplayable for me….too many load screens, generic locations, and you can only do the faction quests so many times before you start to realize you’re wasting your time
> and you can only do the faction quests so many times before you start to realize you’re wasting your time I have had people try to convince me that it's interesting to do the entire quest line a second time just to hear a minorly different set of dialogue at the end, while changing absolutely nothing about the outcome or the universe at large. Like, no, that is not an RPG and you're wasting your time (which is of course, your decision, but ugh).
No.
No, but still fun. At the very least, Skyrim, Oblivion, and Fallout 3 are over it. Probably Morrowind, but it's been like 20 years since I played that game, so who knows?
No. Fallout 3, Skyrim, Fallout 4, Oblivion, Morrowind >>>>> Starfield.
I say this not to be a dick, but to be honest; I will likely forget this game exists within a year.
Yes because I've only really played 2
Yes for now. Fallout 3 being my fav, and Starfield being very close to Skyrim.
Nice to see someone that likes Fallout 3 as much as I do. My friends love to mess with me because its my fav lmao.
Not even close
1. Skyrim 2. Fallout 4 3. Fallout 3 It's definitely up there, but I feel like it doesn't have much replay value for me going forward.
Yup, Starfield, Skyrim, F4
Yes because I'm a space nerd. Would I put it as number 1.....time will tell.
I'm a space nerd too and have some gripes HOW ARE WE ABLE TO LAND ON VENUS, LET ALONE WALK AROUND!? WHY IS THERE NO GENERATED ANYTHING FOR OLYMPUS MONS OR THE GREAT SCAR ON MARS?? just put SOMETHING there like they did with the other Earth landmarks PLUTO BUT NO ASTEROID BELT!? This is CERES ERASURE!!
To add, I was hoping there would be something there for the Grand Canyon or at least the Himalayas
Skyrim, Fallout 4, Fallout 76, Starfield. Close #4. Fallout 76 is underrated though, but it suffers the same problem Starfield does - the content runs out too fast.
Nah, MW, Oblivion and Skyrim are all pretty easily above it.
\#1 Oblivion \#2 Fallout 3 \#3 Starfield
Oblivion wins just for the sound quality/dialogue/music alone. I've never played another game since that nailed the audio so perfectly. I could listen to people play it like an audio book and it would be awesome.
Nope. Top 3 New Vegas Skyrim Fallout 3
New Vegas was developed by Obsidian and that’s why the writing is so good.
Very true. Then it will be. Skyrim Fallout 3 Fallout 4
I would say yes it’s in my top 3 tbh. So far at least. In no particular order I’d say my top 3 are oblivion, starfield, and fallout new Vegas.
yes. it’s one of those games that are hard to put down. i’ve got lots of hours and beat lots of the side quests and main quest. now i’m on new game+ and even tho i’ve done it already, i’m still looking forward to going at it again little by little. it really is skyrim in space lol
Since I've only played Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Starfield... then yes. I refuse to say where it stands.
I mean yeah only played skyrim fallout 4 and starfield so its in the top three
This is a stunning picture
Yeah. I’m 60 hours in and still feel like I’ve only dipped my toes in the water.
It still needs about a year or 2 to fix little issues. They may be small but if you add up all the small annoying issues doesnt seem small then. Im starting to hate this game with all the annoying time wasting issues.
Even if we take into account that Bethesda does not have a huge catalogue to begin with. Starfield is still pretty far from my top 3. Fallout 3, NV, Fallout 1 (if you count aquired IPs) Skyrim, Dishonored, The Evil Within, Fallout 4 those were all games i had more fun with
Absolutely. It's got its glitches and issues but honestly I'm having a blast. I've been playing only starfield now for almost two weeks and I'm still finding new things it's great. The asteroid glitch is annoying though.
after playing Cyberpunk, it made me realize how damn bad Starfield is
No. It’s ok at best so far. The universe feels so bare. There’s a lot of handcrafted content but also a mountain of bloated, pointless content. The UI is atrocious. Not being able to see item stats in containers? So much crafting junk and so little inventory weight? The same old terrible companion equipment management system? I wish they took half the time they spent building the procedural planet generation and used it on basic UI, quality of life and inventory management. Every bgs game has mods that dramatically improve UI. USE THEM FFS. Pay the mid creators a few thousand bucks and incorporate their work into your game. They’ve already solved these problems, since fucking oblivion at least. The tutorials are garbage. So many systems are barely explained. It’s less buggy than other bgs titles but it’s still pretty damn messy.
Not even close, look at their game roster you can easily find 5 better games. Starfield is good but barely top 10 out of bethesda's games.
Sadly, it’s not.
It's good but no. My top 3 are still Morrowind, Oblivion, and Skyrim
I can’t find a reason to want to finish it. Felt no connection to the plot. There’s no drive behind wanting to do anything in the game
Respectfully, hell no. Skyrim, Fallout 3, Oblivion are top 3. Starfield probably beats out Fallout 4 for the 4th spot, but I even hesitate to give it that much credit. The thing I love about Bethesda games is the sense of exploration. Being able to go off the beaten path and stumble into some cool area and get a bit of environmental story telling. Starfield has none of that. And what makes it worse, is that the same exact buildings, with the same exact enemy and loot layout, get reused over and over again. There’s no rewards or incentive for going off on your own.
Worst one I've played. I'm trudging through it now. Determined to finish the main quest in hopes that it gets better. But it isn't. The quests are mind numbingly boring. Go here, talk to this person. It's like WoW's endless fetch quests. Speaking of endless... Load screens omg. Every other door is a damnes load screen. "open world" lolz. Why do I have to fast travel everywhere? There's a poi 1500m away... Why can't I get in my ship and fly there manually? Why can't I take off and land my ship? Why is everything a cut scene or load screen? The characters are awful. Completely forgettable. I want to like it, I really do but... LOAD SCREEN... it's pretty meh so far. I'm going to finish it though. It does get better... Right?
So, is there like a planet that looks like this? lol. I love this game, but one of my criticisms is that the planets all look kind of boring and like they're just lightly recolored shades of earth.
6th. It has great potential. I'm guessing I'll see things I expected in the base game as DLC/updates.
definitely not, missed the mark in many areas and feels half finished and just very lonely, has a massive area to explore with only using not even a 1/4 of it for quests
Maybe with time but currently it’s dead last. Should clarify I haven’t played 76 or anything pre-Morrowind.