Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Vic]

mediocrepoet why are you rating me retarded faggot

junk is literally the same as in FO4 you dumb cunt

 

[mediocrepoet]

mediocrepoet why are you rating me retarded faggot

junk is literally the same as in FO4 you dumb cunt

Because you've so utterly missed the point that I tried to write a reply that would stop your reply from being some weird non sequitur for a few minutes before giving up and giving you the "retadred" rating you so richly deserved and earned again.

If you weren't retarded, you'd probably have been able to figure this out without requesting clarification, dumbass.

 

[Vic]

you get used to it after a while and can recognize important items at a glance. Even tho there's a lot of items, most of them are just the same everywhere.

I got used to it just fine and can recognize important items, it's just a huge waste of time. Oh, look! A settlement with enemies? Enjoy shooting for 5 minutes, then play the inventory game for half an hour! Enjoy dumping all that loot on your companion so you don't become encumbered! And don't forget to fly to the nearest store so you can sell all that crap! I don't know, maybe if I buy more storage for my ship it will help with the last trip to the store, but it's still a lot of boring repetitive work for a video game. Makes me not want to play the game. Same reason I dropped Fallout 4 a few hours in.

that's an issue with all bethesda games, they have way too much random loot

in SF I only loot ammo, medpacks/meds, and high value weapons

 

[Vic]

mediocrepoet why are you rating me retarded faggot

junk is literally the same as in FO4 you dumb cunt

Because you've so utterly missed the point that I tried to write a reply that would stop your reply from being some weird non sequitur for a few minutes before giving up and giving you the "retadred" rating you so richly deserved and earned again.

If you weren't retarded, you'd probably have been able to figure this out without requesting clarification, dumbass.

how have I missed your point? how about you stop reading my posts through a lense of trying to suck up to starfield every time? I have said both good and bad things about the game and said twice now that at this point the game is a 6/10

I said they used the same loot system is in fallout 4 with the majority of clutter being the same, just with different 3d models. but in this game it's useless junk, that's all I said

if you feel that's retarded that's a you issue

 

[mediocrepoet]

how have I missed your point? <more retarded shit still missing the point>

I said they used the same loot system is in fallout 4 with the majority of clutter being the same, just with different 3d models. but in this game it's useless junk, that's all I said

Ok. So, if a design element is basically overplayed and a bit shitty when it has a gameplay purpose is repeated except now it has no gameplay purpose and does nothing except irritate people and waste their time, is that a good or bad design? Is responding that it was the same in the last game when pointing out that perhaps a design choice that may have been reconsidered for those reasons not somehow retarded and missing the entire fucking thread?

if you feel that's retarded that's a you issue

In the sense that I read what you wrote and allowed my brain to process it, yes it is.

 

[Vic]

Ok. So, if a design element is basically overplayed and a bit shitty when it has a gameplay purpose is repeated except now it has no gameplay purpose and does nothing except irritate people and waste their time, is that a good or bad design? Is responding that it was the same in the last game when pointing out that perhaps a design choice that may have been reconsidered for those reasons not somehow retarded and missing the entire fucking thread?

ah shut the fuck up I'm not even going to bother going into this. you can use your brain to try and think of the different implications of what I said yourself and stop assuming I'm praising the game in every post you dumb motherfucker

 

[Vyvian]

It's extra shit in Starfield. In Fallout 4, everything save for burnt books and folders, could be used in one way or another. Usually settlement building so your mileage may vary. But in Starfield, they hired that psychopath modder who made those overly cluttered player homes for Skyrim, to do the lived in appearance of everything. Where this game fails dramatically, is that there is more trash that ever, and most of it is just that, trash. It can't be used for anything. It sells for shit. And there is tons of it. Then to compound the issues, if you use your scanner to check out everything in a room, it highlights everything that can be picked up. Not just the ammo, locked container, and medkits, etc. It highlights every single fucking thing. There is no way to filter what gets highlighted or not. It's absolute shit. This is coming from someone that loves playing slow and looting.

Elianora, the lunatic that lost their shit when paid mods came to steam and started a FOREVER FREE meme until Bethesda came calling with the creation club and they quickly abandoned that.
Their house mods were pieces of shit anyway since most of them were filled with static objects you couldn't do anything with.

 

[Vic]

there's a mod that addresses the highlighting of useless clutter in the scanner btw

https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/809

 

[Child of Malkav]

So just out of curiosity (maybe off topic): how would you reward exploration in a game/RPG/open world/whatever? What constitutes a good reward?

 

[Lemming42]

So just out of curiosity (maybe off topic): how would you reward exploration in a game/RPG/open world/whatever? What constitutes a good reward?

I think, even beyond loot or enjoyable combat encounters, it's all about seeing something unique and conceptually memorable. The Glow from Fo1 is a superb dungeon simply because it's so interestingly-written and atmospheric.

The best exploration in a Todd-era Bethesda game has IMO been in Fallout 3, where you could find stuff like the Rube Goldberg machine hidden away in the store, or the street laced with mines by a madman, or the Old Olney underground Deathclaw den. All Bethesda's other games are the same - people remember the dungeons that have a unique hook or weird memorable thing, like Kagrenzel from Skyrim (the one where you fall through the floor and go down a massive tunnel).

Starfield's a non-starter in that regard; even if you get a cool unique weapon or whatever in one of the procgen dungeons, it's still just a procgen dungeon with not much going on.

 

[mediocrepoet]

So just out of curiosity (maybe off topic): how would you reward exploration in a game/RPG/open world/whatever? What constitutes a good reward?

I think, even beyond loot or enjoyable combat encounters, it's all about seeing something unique and conceptually memorable. The Glow from Fo1 is a superb dungeon simply because it's so interestingly-written and atmospheric.

The best exploration in a Todd-era Bethesda game has IMO been in Fallout 3, where you could find stuff like the Rube Goldberg machine hidden away in the store, or the street laced with mines by a madman, or the Old Olney underground Deathclaw den. All Bethesda's other games are the same - people remember the dungeons that have a unique hook or weird memorable thing, like Kagrenzel from Skyrim (the one where you fall through the floor and go down a massive tunnel).

Starfield's a non-starter in that regard; even if you get a cool unique weapon or whatever in one of the procgen dungeons, it's still just a procgen dungeon with not much going on.

I think this hits the nail on the head. Probably my favourite open world game recently was Elden Ring. It was huge, it had a ton of shit to discover in gear and locations and some truly interesting vistas, monsters, etc. to take in and discover. It's AWESOME.

But the crap that detractors correctly cite when talking about how much they hate open world games in general is about the copy pasta creatures/dungeons, etc. Making them procgen is arguably worse because they're literally being templated whereas in hand placing them, they might still be templated in the same manner, but at least some small unique variations can be put in or at least a progression plan of sorts.

Anyway, I disagree that the above is a problem with the open world genre as a whole, but it is a weaker aspect of any open world design and one that's hugely evident in Starfield, except Starfield doesn't really have any of the high points that Elden Ring did. YMMV

 

[Vic]

even if you get a cool unique weapon or whatever in one of the procgen dungeons

they're not even unique

 

[toro]

So just out of curiosity (maybe off topic): how would you reward exploration in a game/RPG/open world/whatever? What constitutes a good reward?

Try Gothic

 

[Vic]

good exploration imo is what lemming said, finding something cool, not necessarily because of the thing you find but rather due to the finding/exploration itself. If you find something cool off the beaten path on your own it feels natural and rewarding. the more of these things the devs put in the game the richer the world feels and the more rewarding it becomes to look inside that cave or talk with that NPC.

I don't get the same satisfaction from procgen content because I know it was just an algorithm that generated it and not a human who placed it there.

I know a lot of people are able to suspend their disbelief but I can't. In the Dwarf Fortress community people go nuts over all the "stories" the game generates due to the procgen nature of it all. I could never take any of these stories seriously because it always felt mechanical and void of emotion.

In the case of starfield the only exploration imo is in the cities because they are handcrafted and they hid a lot of quests behind several dialogue options, so when you find a quest after talking with an NPC for a while you get the same sense of "discovery". Outside of the cities tho? It's just an endless loot pinhata for me.

 

[ArchAngel]

I finally finished the Rangers quest and got the awesome ranger's ship as a reward..
Too bad it took so long in the end I upgraded and customized starting ship as well so I got two fun ships.
I like how all my companions even if not assigned to crew are on the home ship and just do something there when you walk around. It is especially fitting for Ranger ship as it is huge.
I guess what is left now is to get over 1 mil credits and buy a class C ship in the future and to have biggest ship possible.

 

[Hellraiser]

If you ask about "unique" encounters/dungeons these do exist, but mostly in random ship encounters or again random "sensor contact" or "ship" markers in systems. They're hidden behind random chance and so much copy&pasted shit (or that fucking sea shanty guy, pajeet mineral lady, starderp ships, broken down ships asking for parts show up again) that it's hard to find them.

I found:
- a derelict ship with a highly toxic atmosphere, it was basically like the scene from Chernobyl with the roof clean up crew where you race against time while the suit makes these clicking/ticking noises to loot and investigate it (it always does that sound, but besides this ship you never stay long enough in toxins to notice). It's kind of like a subnautica wreck exploration experience if you ever played that, loved it.
- satellite surrounded by a mine field, a guy wants you to recover data from the satellite, a starship flight challenge.
- a V'Ger rip-off where you need to deal with an AI ship, probably my favorite from a dialog perspective and visually I liked the pictures it displayed as you interacted with it, it really gave you this impression the thing you are interacting with is "alien". I also like the consequences for my choice it figured out I reprogrammed it against its will and found me in another system eventually, wanting revenge.
- another was an alien rip-off where the ship was infested with xenos all over it.
- another alien rip-off, but this one was more mysterious with a large ship, where it was fairly challenging to find how to progress deeper into it and also had just one very high level alien the only enemy (it killed the crew, duh) ending up as a kind of a boss fight.
- one ship I think was lost because the engineer was addicted to TURN and ignored basic maintenance duties, relatable, but I liked the "spess is hard" theme this tried to evoke.
- another ship was a more complex technical fuck-up with cannibalism involved.
- found a legendary ecliptic battleship while jumping to an already explored high level system, probably a random/radiant boss for space battles (couldn't board it though :/), huge fucking thing with a small squadron of regular ships (which alone would be major to problem to most ships and characters). Had to pull away the escorts, kill them and then outmaneuver the battleship not to get ass-pounded by it despite already having an almost maxed out ship and points in ship-related skills (aneutronic fusion, piloting, ship design, shields...). Really liked that fight for the challenge factor and never seen another one spawn again.

So just out of curiosity (maybe off topic): how would you reward exploration in a game/RPG/open world/whatever? What constitutes a good reward?

At some later point I wanted to rant about what the game could have learned from Freelancer besides the obvious flight related things. For instance Freelancer rewarded your exploration because you found secret bases or systems (sometimes with cool stuff like the neutron star one) where you could buy unique gear/ships (once you got reputation), learn new backstory tidbits in the bar (like the sequel/expansion hook on planet Malta), find shortcuts between systems (smuggling routes) and wrecks with good loot. All the good stuff in Freelancer was hidden and required finding jumpholes or cozying up to rebel/outlaw factions (ex. best freighter by storage, best torpedo launcher, all class 10 ships, class 10 weapons).

 

[Gargaune]

It's extra shit in Starfield. In Fallout 4, everything save for burnt books and folders, could be used in one way or another. Usually settlement building so your mileage may vary. But in Starfield, they hired that psychopath modder who made those overly cluttered player homes for Skyrim, to do the lived in appearance of everything.

Fallout 4's crafting was the outlier though, most clutter in Bethesda's prior games was purely decorative. Skyrim, Fallout 3, Oblivion, tons of worthless junk lying around but I kinda liked it, gave the world a certain sense of physicality.

Can't speak for Starfield yet, obviously. I dunno which modder you're talking about, but I have seen some Fallout 4 player homes that made me feel like I was looking at a three-dimensional rendition of the crafting materials page in The Witcher 3's inventory. It was... troubling. Thing is I think most of those over-the-top mods used non-interactive clutter, though.

 

[Silverfish]

Where this game fails dramatically, is that there is more trash that ever, and most of it is just that, trash. It can't be used for anything. It sells for shit. And there is tons of it.

I was prepping some smarmy comment about shooting dudes with all of it, but a quick glance at the wiki suggests that there's no equivalent to the Rock-It Launcher / Junk Jet. What the fuck, Todd?

 

[Late Bloomer]

It's extra shit in Starfield. In Fallout 4, everything save for burnt books and folders, could be used in one way or another. Usually settlement building so your mileage may vary. But in Starfield, they hired that psychopath modder who made those overly cluttered player homes for Skyrim, to do the lived in appearance of everything.

Fallout 4's crafting was the outlier though, most clutter in Bethesda's prior games was purely decorative. Skyrim, Fallout 3, Oblivion, tons of worthless junk lying around but I kinda liked it, gave the world a certain sense of physicality.

Can't speak for Starfield yet, obviously. I dunno which modder you're talking about, but I have seen some Fallout 4 player homes that made me feel like I was looking at a three-dimensional rendition of the crafting materials page in The Witcher 3's inventory. It was... troubling. Thing is I think most of those over-the-top mods used non-interactive clutter, though.

Here is a post I made about the clutter.

For those familiar with Skyrim modding scene, particulary player houses (and armor?), one of the more prominent figures of the last several years revealed she was hired by Bethesda. Elianora.

Bethesda hired a noted modder to help with Starfield's clutter and lighting​

https://www.pcgamer.com/bethesda-hired-a-noted-modder-to-help-with-starfields-clutter-and-lighting/

In a quote, she admits

"I faked my surprise at ladders, and the space flight and the awesome level of detail of the environments and I acted like I was in total unexpected awe of the clutter. Actually.. I placed some of that clutter myself."

In fairness, the clutter in the game is fairly well done, if a bit extreme at times, just like her player houses.

When you do get around to playing this I would very much like to know your thoughts. Post 30 hours in particular. Anyhow, I am not sure I explained myself well enough in my previous post about the trouble the clutter in this game presents, at least to someone who hasn't played. I suppose I should remember that not everyone has played this tragedy of a Bethesda game.

This is more for anyone reading that isn't into Fallout 4. With rank 2 of the Scrapper perk, you can have items be highlighted based on which components the item is made out of. All player chosen. As an example, if you need some lead, you can have all items that contain lead be highlighted. Almost all items in Fallout 4 have a use. Weapon and armour upgrading. Settlement defense, decoration. Creating robots.

As you noted, Fallout 4 is the outlier. But Starfield, attempts to immitate Fallout 4 in many ways. As did Fallout 76. Starfield though, has far more junk. Not only that, most, by most I mean damn near everything, has no use or value. It is almost double the amount of total junk items. One way to check for items is to scan the room. When you scan the room, it highlights all junk. Everything. And there is a whole lot of it. So you are left, until you learn exactly what to look for, with a room full of junk, as you sort through what you can and can't use. Even when you know exactly what you need and how it looks to the naked eye or on a scan, each room is so crammed full of this kind of lived in clutter (while it certainly looks nice in many ways if a bit busy and inappropriate in many cases), where each desk has personal knick-knacks, pirate rooms have slippers neatly placed under their bed ready for their feet to slip into as they wake, coffee cups, the amount of fucking coffee cups, the list goes on and on. It is a real slog to get through and the polar opposite of fun. Tag me if you can when you do get around to playing.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

there's a mod that addresses the highlighting of useless clutter in the scanner btw

https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/809

It'd be better if people just called them "community fixes", rather than mods.

"Mods" implies that they're creative or add something to the game, when what they actually do is take away a frustration that never should have been there.

 

[Yosharian]

there's a mod that addresses the highlighting of useless clutter in the scanner btw

https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/809

Omg modders are actually fixing the game this is legit

 

[WhiskeyWolf]

This is beyond retarded.

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

People might've put a lot of the blame on Sony but Murray made a lot of dubious statements during the marketing cycle and, if memory serves, one of the most telling ones was when he replied to a rando's query about the AAA price tag saying something like "it took four years to make, so why wouldn't it be priced like that?" Because four years multiplied by a dozen people is the same production value as four years by a hundred in a AAA studio, duh. I'm skeptical that Sony would've forced him to voluntarily post bullshit on Twitter.

Nothing has damaged indie games more than the notion that games should be valued according to how much money was spent developing them, rather than a game's quality and duration. All too many people are willing to pay $60-70 for AAA games while insisting that an indie game should cost perhaps $15-20, even if the indie game provides better quality for a similar length of time relative to AAA games. Indie games are intrinsically aimed at a narrower, niche audience, but a good indie game will provide this target audience with the quality it seeks in a manner that cannot be found in AAA games that appeal to a wider, lowest-common-denominator audience.

 

[Yosharian]

This is beyond retarded.

Well this explains a lot

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Well this explains a lot

I think it raises more questions than it answers.