Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[0wca]

King Crispy
I begged twice to have this shit tag removed.

If anyone earned it dude, it's you. Your back must feel like a pretzel at this point.

But back to the thread: game still sucks.

 

[Just Locus]

why are gamers so entitled?

back in my day I was happy if my dad picked up a black and white cartridge for my gameboy on the fleamarket every sunday for me

now we get games likes Starfield, which you can easily pirate btw, and you are all crying like spoiled little bitches

And then you wonder why you got your "Bethestard" tag

"Why are gamers so entitled to expect a quality product?", "You can easily pirate this game!" Is that what you tell yourself to justify wasting money on a shit game?
Entitlement can also be justified since gamers are the ones who pay for this shit and have the right to complain about it, not to mention that piracy isn't a good reason to claim gamers are entitled since you can make that argument for every shit game on the market, "Why do you guys hate Fallout 4 so much?? You all realize you can easily pirate it, right?"
Last thing to note, going; "At least it's better than X" is copium of the highest order, "Why are you complaining that there's shit on your plate? You could easily be eating dirt right now!"

 

[Cyberarmy]

Really we are still at "modders will fix it" levels of copium?

Not even modders give a shit about this one anymore.

 

[Axel_am]

Big props to the king of dorks Angry Joe for giving this mediocre crap a 6/10. Dude gives 0 fucks and has earned my respect for not trying to bullshit people. Both EA and Bethesda have not managed to buy him for 10+years.

But have they tried?

 

[Justicar]

Modders cant fix your brains bethtards.

 

[Just Locus]

Modders cant fix your brains

In the words of El Presidente:

How about play a good game fagget

 

[Robotigan]

Just thought I'd point something out. Will Shen was propped up as 'that one good Bethesda developer' by grognards because he was the lead on the Far Harbor DLC which brought back dialogue-heavy questlines and speech checks to the Fallout franchise. However, if you were paying attention you would also note that despite its intriguing premise most of the content played out as tedious fetch quests or clumsy puzzles. Then when Will Shen was made the lead quest designer of Starfield--a much more high profile project--the game has come under heavy scrutiny for its boring quests. So let me reiterate something I've always maintained: RPG fans are dorky know-it-alls that don't understand game (or even story) design.

A common critique of the base Fallout 4 game--and many other RPGs but especially Fallout 4--is the overemphasis on combat. Practically every quest would direct you to "clear out some Raiders" in a dungeon somewhere. And yes, from a writing perspective this often felt contrived. Really? Raiders are infesting an old paint store? But there were good gameplay reasons for it. For starters, combat systems are virtually always the deepest and most engaging mechanics in any RPG. In lieu of that, the gameplay is reduced to periodically clicking an option from a dropdown menu. I've said it a million times and I'll say it again, dialogue trees are not a deep or interesting mechanic. If you really want a dialogue-centric quest that's fun to play and not just read/watch, you need to rethink that entire system.

Secondly, "go clear out some Raiders" was a means of directing the players to some unique and interesting level design. Starfield has more handcrafted, named POIs than you might initially realize. At level 60, I'm still finding new ones such as The Colander or Neuradyne Botany Lab. The problem? From what I can tell no quest actually directs you to either of these locations. Because instead we're clicking on switches in The Well (this should have been a tailing mission instead) or waiting 24 hours for a dude to stare at a tree. Yes, technically it's more realistic that running an errand would direct you somewhere within the city rather than some far-flung dungeon on the other side of the map. But in actuality the latter makes for a much more enjoyable quest.

The thesis to all of this is that the grognards were wrong. Emil is flat out a way better quest designer than Shen. Critics were so focused on the plot details not lining up that they neglected to realize that Emil's premises involve the player doing much more interesting things than a "logically consistent" story would. You can rant about how stupid it is that Mathis tries to betray Delgado the second you're separated or that you can't actually act it. Or, you can acknowledge that this little back-and-forth lends genuine character intrigue to a dungeon crawl and can lead to a space encounter depending on your decisions. It was the same thing with Fallout 4. "The Sole Survivor is stupid because I saw the twist coming!" Good job genius, here's your gold star. Yes, everyone with even a passing interest in scifi saw the twist coming. We can still appreciate how the questline incorporates such novel storytelling concepts as rising and falling action, suspense, and a comprehensible act structure. Often something goes wrong for some contrived reason, but it provides an intriguing scenario and gives reason for the player to exercise some agency and go do something.

Shen's work in Starfield is straightforward to a mindnumbing extent. Twist reveals are constructed to stun the player but not compel them to act. Think about it. The Hunter attack doesn't actually change anything. You move the armillary to your ship/settlement but you're still collecting artifacts same as you always were. As you're collecting McGuffins, sometimes they're randomly attached to a quest sometimes Vlad's just like "hey go pick this up". And it's ordered for seemingly no reason. There's no reason for Entangled to happen so late and the Shaw Gang confrontation to happen so early. You're theoretically in a race against the other Starborn but it doesn't change the quest structure at all. What Shen fails to understand that Emil does is at the heart of an engaging story is periodically changing the status quo. The internal consistency is secondary.

 

[Just Locus]

dialogue trees are not a deep or interesting mechanic.

Sure but it's not that dialogue trees in of themselves are interesting, but what surrounds it.
The branching nature of dialogue options allows players to feel a sense of agency and control over the story, creating a more personalized and immersive experience, They also enable players to express their character's personality, motivations, and moral alignment through the choices they make in conversations, All of what I just mentioned is nonexistent in BGS games and you're better off naming dialogue options that provide you with options that aren't just a binary "sarcastic asshole" and "local superhero" with the most in-between options being "I'll do it but for a price".

Secondly, "go clear out some Raiders" was a means of directing the players to some unique and interesting level design.

In the previous BGS games, sure (excluding Oblivion and Fallout 3) but in Fallout 4 I could name interestingly designed levels on one hand, and SF's dungeons are procedurally generated so any "interesting level design" mostly amounts to exceptionally good luck with the procedural generation.

 

[Robotigan]

Sure but it's not that dialogue trees in of themselves are interesting, but what surrounds it.

You're right, but that wasn't how the criticism was articulated at the time. Much of the vitriol was directed at the dialogue wheel itself for being too "dumbed down". This is despite the fact that it can functionally do everything a list interface can do albeit trading a bit more redundancy for a cleaner interface. Unfortunately, gamers interpreted "simple interface = simple gameplay" and the message that was expressed and the one Bethesda received was "more dialogue bloat".

The branching nature of dialogue options allows players to feel a sense of agency and control over the story, creating a more personalized and immersive experience, They also enable players to express their character's personality, motivations, and moral alignment through the choices they make in conversations

This is one way to simulate agency, but it's not the only way. The player is also making expressive, personalized choices by which content they choose to engage with. There's no explicit dialogue option that spells out "I'm going to ignore the Greybeards and become a woodcutting homesteader" but that is a choice the player can make and a surprising number of players have done. Furthermore, the fact that the player makes that decision without the game's prompting can make it feel even more personal. And you could hypothetically code the game to react to this if you added a flag for "chop 100 logs" that added new NPC dialogue, "So you're a woodsman, eh?" Bethesda already sets flags like these for competing various other activities in the game, no reason they couldn't add more. It has its limitations but this style of roleplay has been Bethesda's bread and butter. It's why they always point to those anecdotes of players decorating their house with troll skulls and trying to get Lydia killed by a giant.

The archetypal style has its place and audience too (clearly, BG3 took over the world). But there's such a concept as playing to your strengths. Bethesda does not spend as much per scene on voice acting and character animation as other big RPG studios. Their dialogue options are always going to come off worse because the presentation is cheaper. So maybe it would behoove them to draw attention away from that by incorporating more systemic roleplay and fewer dialogue interrogations. It's what their biggest fans expect anyway.

In the previous BGS games, sure (excluding Oblivion and Fallout 3) but in Fallout 4 I could name interestingly designed levels on one hand, and SF's dungeons are procedurally generated so any "interesting level design" mostly amounts to exceptionally good luck with the procedural generation.

The levels themselves aren't procedurally generated. Those are all handcrafted by level designers and then some of them are procedurally scattered across planet surfaces which why you hear players complain about their redundancy. Ironically some more procedural generation could have allieviated that. The terrain maps are procedurally generated and they're one of the highlights of the game.

 

[Yosharian]

So is Vic dead or what

 

[Vic]

I mean crispy banned me from my own thread so I couldn't respond but I'm not gonna post with this tag anyways so I might as well be dead, just waiting for mods to give me a proper burial but seems they prefer to leave my rotting corpse out in the open

I'll be around in one form or another, might make a female account just to bait some of you limp dicks

 

[Lord_Potato]

I mean crispy banned me from my own thread so I couldn't respond but I'm not gonna post with this tag anyways so I might as well be dead, just waiting for mods to give me a proper burial but seems they prefer to leave my rotting corpse out in the open

I'll be around in one form or another, might make a female account just to bait some of you limp dicks

A question, if I may. When you create a new account and again start singing praises for Bethesda walking loading screen simulators, what stops someone from giving you a Bethesdard tag again?

Live with the consequences of your actions, man. I know Bethesda games never taught you that, but it is exactly what real men do.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

 

[Silverfish]

I mean crispy banned me from my own thread so I couldn't respond but I'm not gonna post with this tag anyways so I might as well be dead, just waiting for mods to give me a proper burial but seems they prefer to leave my rotting corpse out in the open

I'll be around in one form or another, might make a female account just to bait some of you limp dicks

Huge missed opportunity if your female account isn't called Victoria.

 

[Darkwind]

I mean crispy banned me from my own thread so I couldn't respond but I'm not gonna post with this tag anyways so I might as well be dead, just waiting for mods to give me a proper burial but seems they prefer to leave my rotting corpse out in the open

I'll be around in one form or another, might make a female account just to bait some of you limp dicks

Are you familiar with the phrase 'All Publicity is Good Publicity?' You've earned yourself a coveted forum tag, wear it proudly. It makes you stand out, not in a good way, but you DO stand out. Sort of like a retarded kid wearing a bike helmet so he doesn't hit his head against the wall or window. You still notice him in a crowd either way, right? Glass half full nigga!

 

[Vic]

Huge missed opportunity if your female account isn't called Victoria.

don't get too excited. if and when but not anytime soon, I'm too butthurt about the fucktwat who decided to ruin my account over me shitposting about one game.

 

[Lord_Potato]

Huge missed opportunity if your female account isn't called Victoria.

don't get too excited. if and when but not anytime soon, I'm too butthurt about the fucktwat who decided to ruin my account over me shitposting about one game.

don't be butthurt. Embrace your inner Bethesdard. Deep down you know that's exactly what you are.

 

[Robotigan]

I mean crispy banned me from my own thread so I couldn't respond but I'm not gonna post with this tag anyways so I might as well be dead, just waiting for mods to give me a proper burial but seems they prefer to leave my rotting corpse out in the open

I'll be around in one form or another, might make a female account just to bait some of you limp dicks

I'm a Bethestard, but no one reads my posts.

 

[Fedora Master]

At this point the thread and the game have run their course so in a sane forum it would be closed and forgotten, because right now all it does is stink up the place like the carcass of a dead horse.

 

[Maxie]

At this point the thread and the game have run their course so in a sane forum it would be closed and forgotten, because right now all it does is stink up the place like the carcass of a dead horse.

no pedora nobody will close and forget threads about video games on a video game forum
if you want to discuss narcotics and pedophilia which are your chief interests you may very well return to the place you came here from

 

[Lord_Potato]

At this point the thread and the game have run their course so in a sane forum it would be closed and forgotten, because right now all it does is stink up the place like the carcass of a dead horse.

no pedora nobody will close and forget threads about video games on a video game forum
if you want to discuss narcotics and pedophilia which are your chief interests you may very well return to the place you came here from

Where did he come from?

 

[Fedora Master]

At this point the thread and the game have run their course so in a sane forum it would be closed and forgotten, because right now all it does is stink up the place like the carcass of a dead horse.

no pedora nobody will close and forget threads about video games on a video game forum
if you want to discuss narcotics and pedophilia which are your chief interests you may very well return to the place you came here from

Since when do you care about videogames?

 

[Silverfish]

Where did he come from?

 

[Zed Duke of Banville]

 

[Stella Brando]