Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Konjad]

Fluent

 

[Cyberarmy]

Even my Bethestard shill of a friend admited that Starfield is a boring ass game that'll be forgetten in a year or two. Some people just shill in the name of shilling.

 

[I eat frozen vegetables]

The amount of cope in this thread could power Kiwi Farms for the next few decades. That Steam post alone added at least three decades.

 

[Gargaune]

Nothing to do is precisely why Thief1/2s lockpicking is better. Instead of an annoying task to focus on that becomes simple once you're used to it, you're left with nothing to do but watch the handle shaking as you keep an eye out for guards.

The result is more tension with no way of venting it or finding a distraction from it.

I haven't played T3 in many years, but I don't remember its lockpicking "venting" tension, quite the contrary, I felt like I was more pressed as I had to split my attention between the handling the picks and keeping an eye out for guard patrols. I also wouldn't say that it becoming simpler as you gain familiarity is necessarily a detriment, since it's merely a matter of player skill progression. You could argue that perhaps it gets too simple and the mechanic needed more variability, but that's not a point against it in comparison to T1/2 because that system involved no skill progression, you just had to look out for patrols while the correct pick worked on autopilot.

What I don't recall about T3's lockpicking is whether you could do it bit by bit. In T1/2, you can pick a lock halfway, scurry back to the shadows if you spot heat around the corner, then go back and pick up where you left out, I don't remember if the same goes for T3 or you gotta start over from scratch.

Lest anyone gets defensive, I'm not calling T1/2's lockpicking "bad", it's definitely one of the best approaches taken in context of its gameplay, I just think T3's got even better.

 

[Bad Sector]

Good answer. Keeping this rationale, what would toggling on or off the hacking minigame in DXHR/DXMD accomplish? Under what category would it fall? Resource depletion? Player vulnerability? Testing player skills?
What's its purpose?
At what point, when the player is able to complete the challenge easily, does it become a chore and a waste of player's time?
A problem with the above example in DXHR and DXMD hacking is that if you don't hack you won't get any extra resources from it. And since there are so many hacking terminals you would be at a disadvantage by not engaging and extracting the resources after a successful hack. This is an issue as it makes interacting with the mechanic, excessive.

Note that what i wrote is how the design should be made, not to explain/excuse existing designs - after all it might just be a subpar design choice, just a different type of choice (i.e. both having a minigame and having the ability to toggle of a mechanic can be bad design ideas, but each for different reasons).

I don't know what exactly the design goals of the DXHR/DXMD hacking minigame were, so i can only guess based on the minigame's effects in my playthroughs.

So, AFAICT (mainly from DXHR, i haven't played DXMD as much), the purpose of the hacking game is to provide alternative means for the player to accomplish their goals (essentially an elaborate lock) and its "software" can be used as both a means for resource depletion (money to buy things) and reward (finding software in the game world or gaining it as bonuses) with some minor strategic elements in how/when to use the software. As it is running in realtime with the rest of the game it also leaves the player vulnerable while "hacking". It is also used in a couple of places mainly for thematic reasons but those are so easy to bypass that might as well have been animations if the minigame didn't exist.

Now, personally i liked the minigame itself in isolation - i think it is one of the best minigames i've seen in games and could easily be some little casual game you'd play in a desktop window ala solitaire or in a mobile phone.

In the scope of DXHR, if you disable the minigame you will miss alternative solutions to the player's goals, the game's economy will be affected as a very common type of resource (software) will both become useless and unnecessary (so you wont have reason to buy it, leaving you with more money to spend elsewhere) and you will lose those moments of vulnerability (making the game slightly easier and losing chances for unexpected encounters).

Now here it the thing: all of the above goals could be accomplished in a different manner, largely by changing how hacking is done. The original Deus Ex is a good starting point where hacking both gives alternative solutions and leaves the player vulnerable (though i'd use a more diegetic presentation as i was never a fan of the black screen with the little progressbar at the top right). The main remaining aspect would be the resource economy, which could be handled by the game "reading out" potential issues with the device (e.g. has passwords which are hard to break), perhaps based on some character skill too and the player specifying which software to run based on them (e.g. password breaker) *before* the hacking begins and then it is left at that or cancelled, just like the original Deus Ex. This would require a different design by itself (it isn't a drop-in replacement, which shows that at least the hacking minigame wasn't thrown in thoughtlessly) so this is something i just came up with.

So yeah, i don't think the minigame was really necessary in DXHR/DXMD and TBH i am not a fan of minigames in general, so perhaps not the best person to try and defend them :-P. Note that when i argued that an option is bad design wasn't because i wanted to keep the minigame in, but because if you are at a position where you can make game design suggestions, suggesting an option isn't any better than keeping or leaving the minigame: the better suggestion would be to reexamine why the minigame exists in the first place, if it is really necessary and only after that making a decision. Making a game design element optional is basically a bad design decision to bandaid another bad design decision - one that should have been avoided in the first place.

 

[Child of Malkav]

Gargaune I think that a possible evolution of the T1/2 lock picking mechanic, one that's more involved is not the one in T3 but the one in The Dark Mod. You hold right click until you hear a mechanical sound inside the lock and that's when you release the right click, you switch to the other lockpick and repeat the process. This makes you focused and paying attention to the sound (a big mechanic in Thief and one that the games are known for as well as being thematically appropriate) and environment even more so.

 

[Gargaune]

Gargaune I think that a possible evolution of the T1/2 lock picking mechanic, one that's more involved is not the one in T3 but the one in The Dark Mod. You hold right click until you hear a mechanical sound inside the lock and that's when you release the right click, you switch to the other lockpick and repeat the process. This makes you focused and paying attention to the sound (a big mechanic in Thief and one that the games are known for as well as being thematically appropriate) and environment even more so.

That does sound interesting, engaging some player skill in the process like T3 does, but in a way that's possibly closer to the original Thief approach. TDM's been on my #TODO list for a long while, it seems like a milestone success for the fan scene, but I just haven't got around to it.

 

[Fedora Master]

Why are you still talking about this.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Why are you still talking about this.

When you aren't buggering bears and hitting on gay elves, I suggest immersing yourself in the open world of a Bethesda game. Make sure to bring some lock picks! Might I suggest Fallout 4? It's the one in the bottom right, and my personal favourite.

 

[Ryzer]

I hate these useless time-spending minigames. I hate them so much, I see this shit in every games now like Dying Light.

 

[ind33d]

I hate these useless time-spending minigames. I hate them so much, I see this shit in every games now like Dying Light.

I like the Beth minigames, but they break the balance because if the player is good enough at speechcraft or lockpicking, you never have to upgrade your character's stats. It's like if D&D let you resolve combat by punching the DM in the mouth

 

[Silverfish]

When you aren't buggering bears and hitting on gay elves, I suggest immersing yourself in the open world of a Bethesda game.

FM immediately maxes Preston's affinity in hopes of triggering the romance.

 

[Hammer Of The Heretics]

It's like if D&D let you resolve combat by punching the DM in the mouth

I'm pretty sure that would work. Have you ever tried it?

 

[Latelistener]

I sailed the high seas to test my new hardware with this and I seem to be missing the grand idea here.

If their engine was not suited for this type of a game, why the project was even greenlit? Wasn't it easier to just make another fantasy game? Or Todd thought people would ignore the existence of other space games?

To be honest, I'm not even sure anymore that their engine is the cause. It could be impotent game designers.

+ I noticed that the game looks extremely good in 1080p aliasing-wise. I don't even know how they did it, but feels like I'm playing at a higher resolution. Compare that to Elite, which looks like a piece of shit even at 4k.
+ The quality of models, textures and materials is out of this world. I don't believe I've seen something like that before. Armor / weapons / objects are extremely crips and detailed.
+ Some faint feeling of that "Bethesda magic".

- The first thing I noticed is that there is so much clutter with so many non-interactable objects. It's hard to see any useful items in all this junk.
- If the last game you've played was Skyrim 12 years ago, New Atlantis may even look good, but holy shit. After Rockstar games, Ubi games or Cyberpunk, their "main" city it looks like a joke.

- Took a quest (Groundpounder). Wanted to take some clothes from an NPC, but quest NPCs couldn't be killed. They didn't even react to my attempt of killing them.
The same quest asked me to kill Spacers, then more Spacers, then even more Spacers. And then there were 2 dropships with additional Spacers.
I jumped on their ship and it closed the doors, but when it flew high enough it just threw on me out of the cargo hold through the textures, back on the planet.
I threw a grenade in the cargo hold of the second ship. The ship closes and flies away without letting me loot the body of a commander.

- I don't even want to discuss space combat or UI or anything else, in fact.

This is from the same studio / publisher that killed Arkane. The budget of Starfield could've been enough for Dishonored 3 and Prey 2. And those would actually be good games. That's the real tragedy here.

 

[Caim]

This is from the same studio / publisher that killed Arkane. The budget of Starfield could've been enough for Dishonored 3 and Prey 2. And those would actually be good games. That's the real tragedy here.

The real tragedy is that if either of those games were actually made they'd be just as shit as Starfield.

 

[Child of Malkav]

The real tragedy is that if either of those games were actually made they'd be just as shit as Starfield.

Yeah but he probably meant IF the people who made those games were still at Arkane.

 

[Latelistener]

This is from the same studio / publisher that killed Arkane. The budget of Starfield could've been enough for Dishonored 3 and Prey 2. And those would actually be good games. That's the real tragedy here.

The real tragedy is that if either of those games were actually made they'd be just as shit as Starfield.

From the current Arkane? Most likely. But people who made Prey left exactly because those games were canned.

 

[scytheavatar]

The budget of Starfield could've been enough for Dishonored 3 and Prey 2.

Dishonored 3 and Prey 2 combined probably will struggle to sell 2 million copies....... that said I suspect the budget of Starfield is astronomical considering it has been in development since 2015. So its budget probably isn't enough for Dishonored 3 and Prey 2 combined.

 

[JDR13]

that said I suspect the budget of Starfield is astronomical considering it has been in development since 2015. So its budget probably isn't enough for Dishonored 3 and Prey 2 combined.

That makes sense....

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

[sudden clarity hellfire]
i might have to try this, just to verify if it manages to achieve the incredible feat of being worse than parkan 2.

 

[Latelistener]

Strangely enough, it does have some Parkan 2 vibes of you being an aimless creature in a very boring world.

But if Parkan 2 was an attempt to make something new and big without proper experience and funding, then Starfield is the opposite.

It's just made by people who stuck in 00s and have no vision, thinking "Skyrim in space" would be enough.

Their ridiculous attempts to sprinkle it with some "zoomer" sauce (i.e. looter shooter elements) are just laughable and the only ones worth their bread here are 3D artists.

The only good things that came out of this are Todd's ass finally handed to him after all the "every mountain can be climbed" bullshit and responses from Bethesda employees using ChatGPT under Steam reviews.

 

[jackofshadows]

I haven't played many space sims, is this system very common or they borrowed it from FTL? Just realized:

 

[Latelistener]

It's just a common sci-fi trope of "rerouting power".

 

[Lord_Potato]

It's just a common sci-fi trope of "rerouting power".

yes, it was even mentioned in the original Star Wars I believe.

 

[Cyberarmy]

It's just a common sci-fi trope of "rerouting power".

yes, it was even mentioned in the original Star Wars I believe.

It is the same thing when you turn of your cars air conditioner when you are on a steep ramp.
"Rerouting power from life support systems to the engine captain!"