Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Latelistener]

IIRC Emil is a Todd's school friend. The only reason where he's at currently.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

Not enough time?
Making the same game, on the same engine, with the same tools, devs (a part of them anyway) having experience of over 20 years in the company, a game supposedly 25 years in the "making" (read: dreaming about it) and 7 in development, almost infinite resources, an army of modders and this is what they come up with? And modders giving up on it soon after.
Pfft, but hey I;m sure there's going to be redemption story arc videos for this cosmic turd in the future.

let's not forget:



and it's not just "like it", it's actually waaaaay better.

 

[PlayerEmers]

and it's not just "like it", it's actually waaaaay better.

BETHESDA
HIRE THIS MAN

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

do you know the story of the monkeys and the bananas on the ladder? it wouldn't work. the guys from galciv hired the fall from heaven 2 dude, and even him didn't accomplish much. like, anything at all, as if he never existed.

 

[Child of Malkav]

BETHESDA
HIRE THIS MAN

NO!
COMPETiTION OF BETHESDA: HIRE THIS MAN!

 

[Ravielsk]

True. Imagine the nightmare that is to manage a game project with hundreds of Bethesda tier devs.

Honestly I am about 97% sure that the article is just a deliberate lie for the sake of damage control. Starfield has been in the making for so long that arguing with "not enough time" is at best a tacit admission of incompetence and at worst just bald faced lie. How can you spend 7 years in development of which at least a year was done with microsoft money and somehow still be "strapped for resources"? The only way that is possible would be for Tod to pocket 500k from each million in the budget or just absurd levels of incompetence.

Either way its just bullshit.

 

[ind33d]

How can you spend 7 years in development of which at least a year was done with microsoft money and somehow still be "strapped for resources"?

 

[Butter]

Bethesda's engine is famed for fostering rapid content creation, so how can they spend 7 years in development and have so little game to show for it? Where are the hundreds of unique quests and dungeons that Oblivion and Skyrim had?

 

[Iucounu]

Bethesda's engine is famed for fostering rapid content creation, so how can they spend 7 years in development and have so little game to show for it? Where are the hundreds of unique quests and dungeons that Oblivion and Skyrim had?

But does it mean the full work force has been busy during all these years? Hopefully that 7 year figure is just part of the building of hype, while in reality most of the work was done in a few months. Or maybe lots time is wasted due to lack of direction.

 

[Gargaune]

Bethesda's engine is famed for fostering rapid content creation, so how can they spend 7 years in development and have so little game to show for it?

What I'm more curious about is the headcount. Everyone knows staffing up is a case of diminishing returns, especially across distinct locations, but these numbers are pushing it. Per the PC Gamer piece, Skyrim was around 100 people, Fallout 4 at 150, Starfield's over 500... Even accounting for higher labour demands in the visuals department, is Starfield at least twice as large as Fallout 4 in terms of playable content? And I'm talking about bespoke, handcrafted designs excluding the proc-gen crap, the whole (often misguided) idea behind proc-gen is to create more content with less labour.

 

[Robotigan]

Bethesda's engine is famed for fostering rapid content creation, so how can they spend 7 years in development and have so little game to show for it?

What I'm more curious about is the headcount. Everyone knows staffing up is a case of diminishing returns, especially across distinct locations, but these numbers are pushing it. Per the PC Gamer piece, Skyrim was around 100 people, Fallout 4 at 150, Starfield's over 500... Even accounting for higher labour demands in the visuals department, is Starfield at least twice as large as Fallout 4 in terms of playable content? And I'm talking about bespoke, handcrafted designs excluding the proc-gen crap, the whole (often misguided) idea behind proc-gen is to create more content with less labour.

As someone that isn't opposed to procgen/radiant content what baffles me is how underutilized that stuff is. Prior to release there was some fear that the content would be stretched too thin and I was pretty adamant that wouldn't be the case because I naively assumed they would use some of the tricks from their previous games:
1) Spawn a quest item into the next dungeon container the player opens.
2) Spawn an NPC that can deliver a quest to the player wherever they are.
3) Use radiant events to introduce quests.
4) Simply send the player to interesting locations. This sounds obvious but Starfield has dozens of custom locations with no quests pointing to them.

The whole premise is a big space exploration game. I thought it went without saying that figuring out how to deliver interesting content to the player while they're stranded in the middle of nowhere was a key design challenge but for some reason the design team decided to hug the city hubs even more tightly than in games past.

 

[Gargaune]

Prior to release there was some fear that the content would be stretched too thin and I was pretty adamant that wouldn't be the case because I naively assumed they would use some of the tricks from their previous games

I'm in the same boat. Prior to the game's release, I actually said that "what Bethesda do well, they do very well" precisely in relation to how they've blended and rotated procedural content into a handcrafted open world, with consistent improvements from Oblivion through Skyrim and Fallout 4. But all I've seen about Starfield seems to indicate that suddenly fell out their backside.

 

[ind33d]

I'm going to mod SF and see if it gets better. What should I put in my modlist, Codexchads?

 

[Stella Brando]

What should I put in my modlist, Codexchads?

'Live with Serana' -- make Serana your waifu.

 

[ind33d]

Yesterday I hijacked a House Varuun ship, finished the Mantis Lair, and ran some Ryujin/Crimson Fleet quests. Afterwards, I installed these mods and had a significantly better time.

The amount of work required to make Starfield good seems minimal. Once you fix the UI and replace the demoralizing music, Starfield is at least an 8/10. Unfortunately, the game has almost no mechanics, and the ones that do exist are asinine, like ship parts being sold based on your level similar to Cyberpunk Street Cred. I enjoy the combat, but it's either a faceroll or you get one-shot by a robot while your companion walks directly into your line of fire.

What's really lacking are an AD&D-style objective morality system and a main quest that's just a series of increasingly difficult dungeons a la Daggerfall. Someone said the beta game was about using the Lodge to plan star-routes to other planets to loot like Borderlands. If someone could implement the jump system from Classic Traveller and make the routes cost crafting components, 99% of the game's problems would be fixed. There should be multiple levels of fast travel so if you warp to a planet for cheap, you could end up in the wrong star system. Misjumps/engine stalls would also be an easy way to implement random events for minimal devtime.

 

[Robotigan]

Bethesda's engine is famed for fostering rapid content creation, so how can they spend 7 years in development and have so little game to show for it? Where are the hundreds of unique quests and dungeons that Oblivion and Skyrim had?

Ship modules. They're by far the highest quality assets in the game and there's a lot of them.

If someone could implement the jump system from Classic Traveller and make the routes cost crafting components, 99% of the game's problems would be fixed.

They had this up until they cut it within a year of release. Helium-3 was supposed to be a major mechanic and the primary reason to construct Outposts was for refueling.

There's a ton of hints the game was initially supposed to be way more space-centric. Like literal hints, vestigial tool tips that say C class vessels cannot land on planets. I think the sad reality is the game they were initially making was way way too niche for mass audiences. The early builds probably involved landing on planets so you could mine enough iron to repair your grav drive, ensuring you had a radiation resistant suit so you could survive planet-side, buying health kits off the occasional trading vessel, etc. and playtesters were not having it. They had to pivot to more terrestrial exploration. Probably where the "not enough time/resources" comments come from. They had a mid-development reboot.

 

[ind33d]

A lot of people don't know this, but just outside your field of vision, an angry black woman is watching you. Always.

 

[Latelistener]

I enjoy the combat, but it's either a faceroll or you get one-shot by a robot while your companion walks directly into your line of fire.

It's all fine and good, but your character is really just a flying camera.

It doesn't react to damage until the very end and if you get stunned by a grenade or something else they STILL do not have first person animations.

Camera just freezes for a few seconds. You have to switch to third person to understand what's happening.

 

[ind33d]

Receiving 500 credits or 3000 credits feels the same. But if quests rewarded you with a physical chest full of credsticks that were each worth 500 and you had to pick them up by hand, that might feel better psychologically. Or if certain factions paid in physical platinum or fuel rods that you had to sell afterward. I think a lot of the difference in reception between Skyrim and Starfield is because of players subconsciously not accepting fiat currency. What is a "credit" actually backed by? Does anyone even know? Meanwhile, everybody knows that gold is valuable, and you can figure out the conversion between 1gp and physical goods with minor effort.

Apparently someone else thought about this too

 

[Butter]

Skyrim's gold is effectively a fiat currency because of the Transmute Ore spell.

 

[ind33d]

I used the White Vladimir mod, but due to game updates, now it only changes his face. Is there some way I can de-melanate Vladimir?

 

[Stella Brando]

Isn't Barrett a Final Fantasy character? Why is he in Bethesda~world now?

 

[cvv]

View attachment 47745

lol. lmao even

Honestly is a red rating deserved? Game's sitting on my shelf, I'm waiting for more patches and mods but this makes me wanna forget about it for good.

I mean as much as Todd's games are shat on I had fun with Skyrim (8/10 for me) and I even finished F3 and F4 (both 5/10 I guess). Is Starfield at least of similar average quality or is it really such an unmitigated disaster?

 

[Cologno]

View attachment 47745

lol. lmao even

Honestly is a red rating deserved? Game's sitting on my shelf, I'm waiting for more patches and mods but this makes me wanna forget about it for good.

I mean as much as Todd's games are shat on I had fun with Skyrim (8/10 for me) and I even finished F3 and F4 (both 5/10 I guess). Is Starfield at least of similar average quality or is it really such an unmitigated disaster?

Me, too. I liked most Bethesda games up until FO4 (which was hit and miss) Yeah, Starfield's pretty bad. Performance and such is a lot better than before, but it's just a crappy game all else considered. Just all around bad. Hell, I don't even think the modding kit is out yet. That was their biggest sin - that puppy should've shoved out the door to the community day 1 or soon after.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Honestly is a red rating deserved?

Spoiler

Yes.