Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Vic]

a painfully bland grounded setting with no fantasy or weirdness like their previous games. Without those things, they have nothing to hook players except Bethesda writing and gameplay lol

ummmmm

gameplay is the main thing of games, you know

a game does not need story or setting to be fun to play

starfield has neither and it's still fun to play

morrowind has giant mushrooms and it's not fun to play

catch my drift?

 

[vitellus]

gameplay is the main thing of games

this is all that matters

a game does not need story or setting to be fun to play

devoid of manuals, many games from the 80s to early 90s had very little story within them, often no more than two sentences that said you were X doing Y, and many of the games are lauded. ultima 4 is an outlier, but not by much as most of the info dump you need for why you're playing comes from lord bastard and it's more of a list of shit to do, not really much of a tale there.

these two lines and that list of things-to-do do not constitute a story.

but i still love that damn game even if by the thirtieth hour the combat is a little stale.

does starfield even have a story? in everything i've seen and read, that's something that's not been talked much about. i can only imagine that the combat is pretty 'meh' as well. it is bethesda after all.

 

[Lord_Potato]

ummmmm

gameplay is the main thing of games, you know

And where's that cool gameplay in Starfield? Shooting is merely okay, competent but worse than in Cyberpunk 2077. Melee combat is simply terrible, despite advancing relevant skills you don't even get new attack patterns.

Space combat? Pretty basic. You can't really make advanced maneuvers or fool enemy missiles with decoys, just have to eat them and hope that your shields save the day. Usually the stronger ship wins and that's about it when it comes to space tactics.

Exploration? Loading screen simulator or endless walk through randomly generated flatlands.

Quests? With the exception of several faction questlines (mostly United Colonies and Crimson Fleet) they are quite boring fetch quests with a structure that exacerbares all the problems with the game's structure.

Or perhaps by gameplay you mean building settlements with mechanics inferior to Fallout 4?

a game does not need story or setting to be fun to play

True, but Starfield isn't this kind of game.

Great setting elevated Morrowind, greatly improving exploration and immersion. Nothing similar happens here.

starfield has neither and it's still fun to play

Barely.

morrowind has giant mushrooms and it's not fun to play

ok, now I see the problem.

catch my drift?

Yes - you really want to tell us "I have no taste" without using those exact words.

 

[vitellus]

ummmmm

gameplay is the main thing of games, you know

And where's that cool gameplay in Starfield? Shooting is merely okay, competent but worse than in Cyberpunk 2077. Melee combat is simply terrible, despite advancing relevant skills you don't even get new attack patterns.

Space combat? Pretty basic. You can't really make advanced maneuvers or fool enemy missiles with decoys, just have to eat them and hope that your shields save the day. Usually the stronger ship wins and that's about it when it comes to space tactics.

Exploration? Loading screen simulator or endless walk through randomly generated flatlands.

Quests? With the exception of several faction questlines (mostly United Colonies and Crimson Fleet) they are quite boring fetch quests with a structure that exacerbares all the problems with the game's structure.

Or perhaps by gameplay you mean building settlements with mechanics inferior to Fallout 4?

a game does not need story or setting to be fun to play

True, but Starfield isn't this kind of game.

Great setting elevated Morrowind, greatly improving exploration and immersion. Nothing similar happens here.

starfield has neither and it's still fun to play

Barely.

morrowind has giant mushrooms and it's not fun to play

ok, now I see the problem.

catch my drift?

Yes - you really want to tell us "I have no taste" without using those exact words.

is it even worth trying if i already have the gamepass since it's already on there? i feel like it's not even worth the time it'll take to download lol

 

[Silverfish]

I actually have a few good ideas for mods

Has anyone made one that turns all spaceships into Macho Man Randy Savage yet?

 

[Stavrophore]

Didn't play starfield but if world is like in skyrim then a requiem mod is needed.
-delevel enemies
-make combat more deadly
-greatly increase skills trees and variety
-overhaul loot so there's starker contrast between everyday item and valuables
-make good loot drop at the end of dungeon/location, from high level enemies and boss chests/containers
-overhaul enemy skills and roles
-overhaul their ai so they react quicker and better
-lock upgrades and items behind harder enemies, overhaul the progression so you can't get endgame weapons from day 1 without clever tactics
-remove crafting grind like requiem 3tweaks
-level up through experience instead of doing something

This is only about fixing gameplay issues, whereas story and worldbuilding is still shit. There are autism modders who work on ai voice acting and quests though and overhauling a map is also not a stretch for them, so maybe someone could make an enjoyable version of starfield in future. Slap a mod that remove mystery meat npcs and you could get a game that is 2 scores higher in 0-10 rating system.

 

[PlayerEmers]

does starfield even have a story?

From the 50+ hours i wasted on this game, the only thing close to a worth while story was the colony wars, but I barely could find more info about those wars.
It baffles me that Bethesda thought it was a good ideia to set the game timeline to start AFTER a huge war between space colonies and make the main quest about fetching multiverse floating rocks.

 

[Lemming42]

There's rare flashes of something interesting going on in Starfield but it tends to be buried under the sheer landslide of dullness. I liked the clone soldier from the United Colonies questline but the whole thing sort of sizzles out, same for the angry war veterans from the Ranger questline.

 

[Camel]

Neon has one junkie depicted properly; any resemblance to a Codexer must be purely coincidental.

Too white for a Codexer.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[Vic]

And where's that cool gameplay in Starfield?

the cool gameplay is hunting for the best loot, I can't remember the exact details but it was really hard to get the best weapon and armor prefixes, so you had to run through a LOT of dungeons to get them, in this case it helps that all dungeons are samey so you can quickly get to the chest

Another thing is the walking sim aspect. Moons usually had a great view and atmosphere (aesthetically) so just walking around on those planets was chill and something I hadn't experienced before.

If you get a rifle and fly to a spot with many aliens (and get disable combat music mod) you can just play it like a hunting sim.

With mods all of these aspects can be enhanced, as in themselves they are leaving a lot to be desired, but it is certainly fun for the first couple hundred hours.

True, but Starfield isn't this kind of game.

That's true, Starfield is more sandbox and "make your own fun" than previous Bethesda titles.

 

[Stavrophore]

Too white for a Codexer.

It's a ginger Roguey

 

[Fedora Master]

And where's that cool gameplay in Starfield?

the cool gameplay is hunting for the best loot, I can't remember the exact details but it was really hard to get the best weapon and armor prefixes, so you had to run through a LOT of dungeons to get them, in this case it helps that all dungeons are samey so you can quickly get to the chest

Another thing is the walking sim aspect. Moons usually had a great view and atmosphere (aesthetically) so just walking around on those planets was chill and something I hadn't experienced before.

If you get a rifle and fly to a spot with many aliens (and get disable combat music mod) you can just play it like a hunting sim.

With mods all of these aspects can be enhanced, as in themselves they are leaving a lot to be desired, but it is certainly fun for the first couple hundred hours.

True, but Starfield isn't this kind of game.

That's true, Starfield is more sandbox and "make your own fun" than previous Bethesda titles.

My god youre still digging that hole? Call.us when you reach China.

 

[Vic]

starfield not even being nominated for goty just shows that it goes over the heads of normies like fedora

 

[Harthwain]

This shows how Bethesda can't do shit that hasn't already been done for them

Fallout already had chems and stuff so they managed to do chem storylines semi-competently in Fallout 4 (e.g. Cait)

Give them a new IP and they shit the bed

I don't think they didn't do this because they didn't know how. Like taxalot said: it is more likely they wanted to have drugs, but felt like it would be too "controversial" to implement their negative effects. Why? There is a huge issue with some new drug in America currently, so I am guessing it's a sore subject and Bethesda decided to "dodge the bullet" by sterilizing the subject matter and reducing it to "Trust me bro, it's bad for you". It makes more sense to me (despite how stupid such approach is), than them just forgetting how to do drugs semi-competently. As you said yourself, they knew how to do that kind of stuff in Fallout 4.

 

[Vic]

STARFIELD GOTY 2024 HYPE

 

[Latelistener]

Bethesda employees copypasting cringeworthy replies under negative Steam reviews might be the best thing that came out of this.

 

[Vic]

"why you say this game is boring? when the astronauts went to space THEY weren't bored, so how come are you?"

Spoiler

 

[Lemming42]

That astronaut quote was such bullshit, one of the most alarming pre-release soundbites. I would also not be bored if my car suddenly accelerated at infinite speed through the side of a mountain in real life but that doesn't stop Big Rigs Over The Road Racing from being boring shit.

 

[Rhobar121]

STARFIELD GOTY 2024 HYPE

I think it has a chance (although it may lose anyway) as long as the only game released is Gollum 2.

 

[Vic]

STARFIELD GOTY 2024 HYPE

I think it has a chance (although it may lose anyway) as long as the only game released is Gollum 2.

how dare you

 

[Lemming42]

I like quite a bit of stuff in Starfield but I'm glad it's going to flop at the GOTY awards because Bethesda need to be shaken awake and realise that they can't get by on half-arsing everything on a shitty obsolete engine anymore. For all the good points Starfield has, it's absolutely unacceptable for a game that took over seven years and an unfathomable budget to make. Like what the fuck were they doing that whole time, there are maybe five questlines in the whole game and the worldspace is almost entirely empty. Oblivion was made in about five seconds and had 3x the content plus represented a significant leap forward in the Gamebryo engine compared to the MW version.

It's surreal that it's been 12 years since their last overwhelmingly well-received game. They manage to linger in popular culture solely based on the strength of a bygone era now, but they still act with the complacency of a company who assume that everything they make will be an automatic hit. Starfield could have been something far more than it is, and everything good about it could have been greatly amplified; that's the case for every Bethesda game of course, but with Starfield it's just missed opportunities all over the place, and doesn't even have the same ambition as their prior games (radiant NPC routines were an extraordinary thing to attempt even if in practice it leads to everyone in the world having autism, whereas the procgen planets are a lazy idea that they couldn't even be bothered to do anything with).

Or maybe whoever it was that was putting effort into their previous games has gone from the company now. Again, Adamowicz seems to have been a strong creative driving force.

 

[Vic]

Starfield could have been something far more than it is

I still think Starfield has the biggest modding potential out of all of their games. That's because there are so many systems in the game from typical RPG gameplay to space combat and crafting and base building. The fact that there is basically an unlimited amount of map space means you can load up a bunch of custom maps into your game. Custom ships, custom races and aliens... Am I the only one who sees this potential?

 

[Lord of Riva]

Bethesda employees copypasting cringeworthy replies under negative Steam reviews might be the best thing that came out of this.

Jesus christ, i thought you were joking. lmfao

 

[Grauken]

Am I the only one who sees this potential?

Probably. But upselling an empty game as one with lots of potential is a good marketing trick.