Starfield - the greatest space sim?

[Iucounu]

Haven't touched a Bethesda game since Skyrim when it was originally released. Only played about a third of it before I burned myself out. With these massive single-player open worlds the size of Gondwanaland, the trick is to try to stick to the main quest (and maybe a few side ones) to avoid burnout, I think. I'm learnin', one painful lesson at a time

Skyrim feels like a minefield, where you can barely take a step without another side quest going off in your face. Following the main quest won't save you either; the only remedy is to focus on your current task like a bloodhound, ignoring everything else constantly begging for attention. Is Starfield the same?

 

[0sacred]

Bethestard tag for OP now

 

[Grampy_Bone]

It's frustrating because on paper it has all the elements but every part of the implementation falls flat.

e.g.: Space Piracy. What a letdown. Would need a major overhaul before it can even come close to feeling like a proper game.

-You can attack ships or do a persuade check to get their cargo. The persuade check is always a straight threat. Unless there are other skill options I didn't see, you can't do things like fake a distress call to trick them into boarding or play dead.

-Shoot the ship and you will get a bounty far worse than the value of the cargo. No way to avoid this. Even when there were two ships and I blew up the second one it said "witnesses eliminated, removing 500 bounty" but still gave me 15000 bounty for the each kill, so what is even the point? Need some kind of signal scrambler to give you some window where you can hit ships without alarm.

-No proper capital ships or "spanish treasure galleons" that are juicy targets. There are bank ships but they have a few thousand credits. You get more money from selling guns showered on you like candy throughout the dungeons. Space combat needs to be rewarding in a unique way that can't be matched by other methods, otherwise there's no point.

-Crappy space design. This is unfixable. Every space area is a tiny junk field near a planet. There's no "terrain" to space, no dark areas or ice nebula where you can find ships passing and ambush them, no areas to prowl for high value targets or evade guard patrols, etc. Everything is a simple dice roll on area load. The missions always tell you exactly where the target is and it's always just sitting there not actually moving or going somewhere.

-Ship upgrades tied to level is a #^%!ing moronic decision. No point in grinding money, working your way up the tech tree, or joining factions when all you need is levelups to get all the best gear. Compare to something like Black Flag where building up your ship across the entire game is a long and enjoyable process. In Starfield I did some upgrades a couple times to my guns and engine and that was it, never had issues with any space battles.

My dream game was something like Deus Ex meets Black Flag. This is a long way from being that game, and I don't think it could ever be close.

 

[Shin]

Cyberpunk 2077 is the best driving sim.

- There's cars with four wheels
- When you press the 'horn' button, you hear a hooting noise, just like in real life
- There's multiple camera viewpoints to look at your vehicle and it's a lot of fun looking at your car while you crash into all kinds of shit
- The illumination from the headlights bounces of glossy surfaces, which are most surfaces in the game
- Acceleration and deceleration are applied by two different control inputs, just like in real life
- There's an extensive radio station input that simulate the generation of sound waves that can have a pleasing effect on the driver or drive him completely nuts
- The different terrain types require different kind of vehicles
- You can stash items in the trunk of your car

etc

 

[NecroLord]

This thread is a joke.