Starfield Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Grauken]

I think the issue is what darkpatriot mentioned above - it's deliberately sterile and boring, but new players won't realise it's by design and will instead assume

Sounds like a great idea to start a game with, bore your prospective players to death

 

[Grampy_Bone]

The game 100% needs something to increase travel speeds across empty landscape.

Empyrion (shit tier unity game) has a portable hoverbike you get for free, and it's a game all about building vehicles.

This game adds bullshit and then forces you to use skill points to fix it. If you take the crafting perks and jetpack perks and research perks and scavenge planets for rare resources you can have a jetpack that lets you skim over the surface slightly faster than walking. Forcing you to trudge through bad content to earn the right to skip it is bad design.

All this stuff is going to be modded out asap and frankly good riddance.

 

[darkpatriot]

All 3 cities I've been in are shit so far... mulatto town, cowboy town and pirate base.

Planet exploring ain't great either. I'll take mass effect 1's mako and 2's resource scanning over this any day.

the mako, seriously? Jeez.

Planet traversal in this is infuriating. Cheated and banged my weight limit up to something like 2000 just so my character wouldn't run out of o2 running for 5 seconds.

No excuse for no grav bike or buggy in this game outside of Todd being a lazy twat. No crossbows and blunt axes all over again.

Basically exploration is the same as mass effect 1 though. Prefabbed buildings/encounters on a heightmapped planet.

If they did that they would just make the areas even larger (and even less detailed) and points of interest even farther apart so you still spent about the same amount of time traveling between them. The real criticism seems to be that it takes too long to travel to points of interest.

Regarding the travel time between points of interest, I am still undecided.

On worlds I am still surveying, it feels pretty reasonable. I am surveying while traveling between points of interest, so I am not bored or just holding down the W key without thinking about anything. But on worlds I have either already surveyed or don't plan on surveying it feels like a long time where I am not doing anything very interesting when I am traveling to another point of interest.

 

[Lemming42]

I feel like it'd be better if each planet had handmade dungeons (in the style of Skyrim) which, when uncovered, could be fast travelled to.

Like, let's say the player visits a small moon. They dismebark their ship and construct an outpost with a scan-booster thing. The map, or a portion of it, is now revealed.

The player opens the planetary map again and can now see various points of interest marked on the planet. These can be travelled to immediately by selecting them, which fast-travels the player and their ship to that location.

The planets could retain the same scale they currently do, for people who like to build large outposts or conduct planetary surveys. But it'd also give people access to actual content much quicker, and make the tedious walking through empty rocky fields optional rather than mandatory. The presence of handmade dungeons would also make it so there's actually a reason to visit a new planet.

 

[Robotigan]

The game 100% needs something to increase travel speeds across empty landscape.

It's called weed.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

This game adds bullshit and then forces you to use skill points to fix it. If you take the crafting perks and jetpack perks and research perks and scavenge planets for rare resources you can have a jetpack that lets you skim over the surface slightly faster than walking. Forcing you to trudge through bad content to earn the right to skip it is bad design.

Yep. Not a fan of basic shit like using better ships being locked behind skills. You're forced into investing points into that stuff so you're not handicapped. So stupid.

 

[Lemming42]

I really like that they were willing to do that. In an RPG, you shouldn't be able to do everything right out of the gate, and the best ships should be locked behind the highest perk ranks for players who make the investment in the piloting skill. I was actually quite shocked when I hijacked a pirate ship only to discover I wasn't allowed to pilot it because my character simply didn't know how, was a very pleasant surprise coming from a Todd-era Bethesda game.

What was really impressive was that they put basic shit like stealth and persuasion behind perks. That's a brave design decision and it really does make character builds feel distinct from each other.

 

[Fedora Master]

All 3 cities I've been in are shit so far... mulatto town, cowboy town and pirate base.

Planet exploring ain't great either. I'll take mass effect 1's mako and 2's resource scanning over this any day.

At least ME2 had some interesting anomalies with stories behind them. Garfield has the same 3 locations with no story on every planet.

 

[sebas]

Game's gonna go up on Game Pass in a few hours, I can't wait to dive in and gorge on how much crap it is.

 

[JamesDixon]

If they did that they would just make the areas even larger

Umm don't you mean smaller? The map sizes are pretty small for each area.

I feel like it'd be better if each planet had handmade dungeons (in the style of Skyrim) which, when uncovered, could be fast travelled to.

That'll take them another decade of development with 1,000 planets.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

I really like that they were willing to do that. In an RPG, you shouldn't be able to do everything right out of the gate, and the best ships should be locked behind the highest perk ranks for players who make the investment in the piloting skill. I was actually quite shocked when I hijacked a pirate ship only to discover I wasn't allowed to pilot it because my character simply didn't know how, was a very pleasant surprise coming from a Todd-era Bethesda game.

What was really impressive was that they put basic shit like stealth and persuasion behind perks. That's a brave design decision and it really does make character builds feel distinct from each other.

Getting licenses to fly better ships should just be quests. Not something you build your character around. Of course everyone will want better ships. Skills dedicated to being a better more efficient pilot are fine as skills though.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Game's gonna go up on Game Pass in a few hours, I can't wait to dive in and gorge on how much crap it is.

On PC?

 

[Lemming42]

That'll take them another decade of development with 1,000 planets.

Yeah, I suppose the scale of the galactic map would have to be reduced. It seems like a fawlty design philosophy decision right from the start, honestly - I wonder how many people are actually enjoying the No Man's Sky aspect of "there's 9999 trillion planets (that all have nothing on them)!!!".

Getting licenses to fly better ships should just be quests. Not something you build your character around. Of course everyone will want better ships. Skills dedicated to being a better more efficient pilot are fine as skills though.

But then my character and your character would both be able to fly the best ships, even though I've invested in (say) social skills like persuasion and diplomacy and you've invested in (say) science and crafting skills. Both of our characters would inexplicably be ace pilots, despite the fact that I'm theoretically a diplomat and you're theoretically a scientist.

Anything that differentiates character builds, and makes it so that the person you're playing as isn't an expert at everything and has both strengths and weaknesses, is good in my book.

 

[Vic]

jesus christ the noise on steam is incredible, everbody is talking about refunding the game, but I wonder if it will still top BG3's steam player count, despite being on gamepass

I guess we will see tomorrow

 

[Late Bloomer]

So Todd(ler) bros is it any good? Rate /10.

4/10

Some guy counted the black to white ratio in New Atlantis and posted it on the Steam forums

For thehe important NPC's, the ratio is even worse. There is not one single white male in a prominent position of power who oversees others. If a white man has power he will be supervised by a negro or a woman or some mutt. Even the white male companion has some adopted negro "daughter" just to attach shit to him. If a white dude is alone and has authority he is a bad guy.

I did this quest where these older white women, a mother and daughter, own some restaurant. They overheard some crime being plotted out and want the player to investigate. The criminals who are plotting are both white guys. The person you snitch to is a black dude who is in charge of the local security. The player can't warn the criminals, you cant lie to the negro boss. When you snitch on the white dudes, the negro goes over to where they were plotting and just stands there saying "thanks for the tip" over and over again. I just reloaded and didn't do the quest. If you are in "The Well" be ready to be preached at over and over by most every NPC.

see that mountain? you can climb it!

Unless there you have reached the invisible wall that surround everywhere you land.

 

[JamesDixon]

Yeah, I suppose the scale of the galactic map would have to be reduced. It seems like a fawlty design philosophy decision right from the start, honestly - I wonder how many people are actually enjoying the No Man's Sky aspect of "there's 9999 trillion planets (that all have nothing on them)!!!".

Empyrion does a pretty good job with procgen and they have tens of thousands of solar systems in the medium sized galaxy. I suggest you buy Empyrion and check it out for yourself. You might want to get the Reforged Eden mod since it adds a bunch to the base game.

 

[Moink]

Don't companions/crew perks factor into your skills? Like a companion with 4* space laser gives you 4* space laser when he's on your crew? Seems like a way to avoid the useless Tech investments because ship combat isn't all that important.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

That'll take them another decade of development with 1,000 planets.

Yeah, I suppose the scale of the galactic map would have to be reduced. It seems like a fawlty design philosophy decision right from the start, honestly - I wonder how many people are actually enjoying the No Man's Sky aspect of "there's 9999 trillion planets (that all have nothing on them)!!!".

Getting licenses to fly better ships should just be quests. Not something you build your character around. Of course everyone will want better ships. Skills dedicated to being a better more efficient pilot are fine as skills though.

But then my character and your character would both be able to fly the best ships, even though I've invested in (say) social skills like persuasion and diplomacy and you've invested in (say) science and crafting skills. Both of our characters would inexplicably be ace pilots, despite the fact that I'm theoretically a diplomat and you're theoretically a scientist.

Anything that differentiates character builds, and makes it so that the person you're playing as isn't an expert at everything and has both strengths and weaknesses, is good in my book.

Science, crafting and intimidation are skills though. If you can fly dumpy class A cargo ships, there’s nothing stopping you from flying class C cargo ships. The only real difference is further warp distance and more cargo space. I just don’t buy it as a meaningful RPG mechanic.

 

[Lagole Gon]

I love the process of coming up with marginally amusing and possibly edgy monicker for this game.
Niggerfield - A bit too much.
Cottonfield - Clever. Not bad at all.
Garfield - I appriciate the contribution.
Toddfield - I'm pushing this one.

 

[Lemming42]

Science, crafting and intimidation are skills though. If you can fly dumpy class A cargo ships, there’s nothing stopping you from flying class C cargo ships. The only real difference is further warp distance and more cargo space. I just don’t buy it as a meaningful RPG mechanic.

Piloting's a skill, surely. Like all RPG levelling systems, it's an abstraction, but I don't have a problem accepting that my character's knowledge of dinky Class A cargo ships doesn't translate to knowledge of massive Class C starships. In the same way that I can drive a car in real life, but not a HGV, or an M1 Abrams tank. The principles might be the same but you need training to handle a larger vehicle.

 

[JamesDixon]

I love the process of coming up with marginally amusing and possibly edgy monicker for this game.
Niggerfield - A bit too much.
Cottonfield - Clever. Not bad at all.
Garfield - I appriciate the contribution.
Toddfield - I'm pushing this one.

Trannyfield

 

[Grauken]

jesus christ the noise on steam is incredible, everbody is talking about refunding the game, but I wonder if it will still top BG3's steam player count, despite being on gamepass

Probably, talk is cheap and people say lots of things and then do the opposite

 

[AwesomeButton]

I like it how the guy who is telling me about the Gal Bank robbery is all serious while he talks, but when he switches to idle waiting for my response, his idle expression is to smile like an idiot

 

[Grauken]

I love the process of coming up with marginally amusing and possibly edgy monicker for this game.
Niggerfield - A bit too much.
Cottonfield - Clever. Not bad at all.
Garfield - I appriciate the contribution.
Toddfield - I'm pushing this one.

Trannyfield

Does that even make sense, how much tranny content is there?

 

[Vic]

you can talk to other spaceships if you target them with E and hail them, some are traders or have quests, pretty cool

why no Radio like in the Fallout games tho, would be really cool in your spaceship