Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[shrekkie]

That's totally fair, I prefer the relaxed stuff too. I haven't played the game much since I finished a playthrough at launch and I'm getting tempted to pick it up again!

I think Peaks and Valleys is probably my favorite track, especially the flute ostinato with string chords going on the background. That playing while you're exploring a barren moon, glancing at the stars is perfect.

 

[Vic]

Deep Freeze just reminds me of star wars. The score is overall very "cinematic" and really sets the mood with all the great vistas.

 

[ind33d]

There needs to be a recurring tooltip that you can open your scanner while piloting a ship and travel to other planets in the system. I think most of the people complaining about loading screens just use the galaxy map for everything

EDIT: There is a tooltip, but I don't think most people play the game this way

 

[Robotigan]

how does SF have so many negative reviews? it's impossible. you haven't even experienced most of the mechanics until level 50. are people just leaving New Atlantis and walking around in circles on Jemison then getting bored and uninstalling?

It doesn't put its best foot forward. A lot of people will get to New Atlantis, have their patience worn out, pick a few random planets to land on and find that there's nothing there, then quit. Alternatively people might try to do a few main quest missions since the game shepherds you toward them immediately, and those aren't likely to make people stick around.

Starfield's introduction is definitely underwhelming. The cinematic opening before character creation is pretty good but everything after that feels like it just wants to get itself over with. Hi Barret. Shoot these guys. Bye Barrett, thanks for the ship. Shoot these ships. Do this random tutorial dungeon. Then it unceremoniously dumps you off at the biggest city in the game. There's no pageantry, no build up, no starter town, no attempt to invest the player in the action. They obviously took the criticisms of Skyrim and FO4's openings being too long and overdramatized to heart, but for the life of me I can't understand why you would take those concerns seriously. Not even the grognards who said that stuff meant it.

 

[Quillon]

opening wouldn't have meant fuck all if the game this big was any good

 

[Lemming42]

Starfield's introduction is definitely underwhelming. The cinematic opening before character creation is pretty good but everything after that feels like it just wants to get itself over with. Hi Barret. Shoot these guys. Bye Barrett, thanks for the ship. Shoot these ships. Do this random tutorial dungeon. Then it unceremoniously dumps you off at the biggest city in the game. There's no pageantry, no build up, no starter town, no attempt to invest the player in the action. They obviously took the criticisms of Skyrim and FO4's openings being too long and overdramatized to heart, but for the life of me I can't understand why you would take those concerns seriously. Not even the grognards who said that stuff meant it.

I do find the openings of Oblivion, Skyrim, Fo3 and Fo4 to be overlong and melodramatic but I think the issue with them is mostly that they're too scripted which deters players from starting a new save (without alt start mods enabled). Starfield managed to be the worst of both worlds because it's over-long and makes you walk through the mine waiting for Lin and the dude to catch up with you and finish their scripted sequernces, and also forces you into a staggered space battle, but doesn't have the spectacle of Skyrim's dragon attack or Fo3's life-story to hook new players in.

 

[Saint_Proverbius]

a few thoughts:

Look, Vic. You're famous. 13:17 mark.

 

[Vic]

lol that's hilarious SP

 

[Vic]

I do find the openings of Oblivion, Skyrim, Fo3 and Fo4 to be overlong and melodramatic but I think the issue with them is mostly that they're too scripted which deters players from starting a new save (without alt start mods enabled). Starfield managed to be the worst of both worlds because it's over-long and makes you walk through the mine waiting for Lin and the dude to catch up with you and finish their scripted sequernces, and also forces you into a staggered space battle, but doesn't have the spectacle of Skyrim's dragon attack or Fo3's life-story to hook new players in.

isn't the New Game+ feature what adresses it? There is little reason to start completely fresh over doing a NG+ reset imo.

 

[Yosharian]

a few thoughts:

Look, Vic. You're famous. 13:17 mark.

 

[ind33d]

a few thoughts:

Look, Vic. You're famous. 13:17 mark.

who's that sex muffin below him?

 

[Crispy]

Congratulations, Vic!

 

[Jarmaro]

Now, there are three futures that I see:

Good Ending: Great modders have worked tirelessly to make competent gameplay overhauls, new story content (not main story, obviously) and improve base building into something useful and fun. These mods are getting dropped for free at the same time Creation Kit is released or soon after, either on Nexus Mods or as free Creation Club content with the blessing of Todd Howard himself. The community is happy, as at this point getting anything is like being granted water on a desert.

Bad Ending: Great modders have worked tirelessly and after Creation Kit is released you will be able to enjoy their wonderful mods that make Starfield vastly better experience...right after you pay the price for those mods on the Creation Club website. Nothing's free, the community melts down and the money flows. The greed wins. That would be shortsighted and not work in favour of long-term Starfield support, but a corporation wouldn't kneecap a project's long-term earnings by focusing on short-term money benefits, right...?

No-Hope-Left Ending: Modders have done nothing substantial as the mooding tools were half-baked so far. Vastly delayed Creation Kit launches after a year from release with nothing to show for it. The mods are being make from scratch once the tools are released, so it will be another year or two before we see anything worth looking at. The modding community for Starfield never reaches its potential and remains a shadow to Fallout and Skyrim's. The Starfield slowly dies, disappearing from sight of everyone.

This I said on 11 May. It's fucking hilarious how on point I was. How the hell could this be so obvious to me, someone who doesn't work in the business and has never played Starfield, but obscure and mysterious to not only Bethesda in general, but their analysts and finance experts?

This drama was so fucking predictible it makes sense only if we assume they acknowledged 'Drama' before-hand in their analysis and it turned out that just going with it would be more profitable anyway.

 

[Vic]

It's fucking hilarious how on point I was.

what exactly is your point? there are both paid and free mods, and the only drama is over the price point of bethesda's mods

also you might be not aware but modders have been releasing mods since the game launched, but they didn't have access to the creation kit so they were limited in what they could do. this has changed now and we are starting to get "real" mods that use all of the engine's capabilities.

 

[ind33d]

What are some mods people would be willing to pay for? Stock market, poker/Gwent, more random events, faction questlines? I think someone should make a mod that makes the public domain books contain the full novel text, it would be funny to read Dracula or Dickens while on your ship.

Also, if Shattered Space is one planet, does that imply that the invisible walls are being removed and Beth figured out a way to avoid crashing when you go too far from your ship? It was caused by some floating point rounding bullshit, IIRC

 

[Lemming42]

I'd refuse to pay for any mods on principle because the base game feels a little incomplete, and so any faction questlines they add now (like this Tracker's Alliance one) is just stuff that really should have been in at release. New random events are the same, that's a much-needed improvement to vanilla that should be free for everyone.

DLC is a different story though, I'd be prepared to pay for something the size of Dawnguard or Dragonborn or Point Lookout. I suppose the advantage of Starfield is that it'd be pretty easy for them to add DLC-sized planets without messing up the base game. Ideally they could start building their DLCs on some of the empty planets already in the game so that the galaxy map slowly starts to fill up with interesting stuff.

I think I have this Shattered Space one automatically because I bought the super-deluxe-Todd-approved version that let you play the game a few days early.

 

[Vic]

Also, if Shattered Space is one planet, does that imply that the invisible walls are being removed and Beth figured out a way to avoid crashing when you go too far from your ship? It was caused by some floating point rounding bullshit, IIRC

did you actually try hitting a wall? the cells are bigger than skyrim's map iirc

 

[ind33d]

Also, if Shattered Space is one planet, does that imply that the invisible walls are being removed and Beth figured out a way to avoid crashing when you go too far from your ship? It was caused by some floating point rounding bullshit, IIRC

did you actually try hitting a wall? each cell is bigger than skyrim's map iirc

i've never hit a wall, on max difficulty by the time I clear 2 or 3 POIs I have a shopping list of afflictions and have to run back to my ship.

 

[Vic]

well, there you go. I went for the cell's edge once and it took a long time, just to see how big it is, don't think you will hit a wall during normal play, POIs also stop spawning way before the edge so even less reason to go that far

 

[Robotigan]

I do find the openings of Oblivion, Skyrim, Fo3 and Fo4 to be overlong and melodramatic but I think the issue with them is mostly that they're too scripted which deters players from starting a new save (without alt start mods enabled).

But Starfield literally has a quickstart option already.

 

[Lemming42]

You mean NG+? A lot of people aren't going to finish the game before wanting to start another, and especially not the main quest - on all my Skyrim playthroughs I think I've engaged with the main quest in less than 10% of them; Starfield's main quest is of around the same quality and I imagine a lot of people dipping in and out and/or modding the game won't want to go through all the starborn stuff just to unlock NG+.

 

[Robotigan]

The point is it costs basically nothing to just implement a quickstart option, so there's no need to compromise the opening for repeat playthroughs.

 

[Shaja]

Back to negative again? This time 27% so far. Are you winning, Todd?

 

[BruceVC]

Mods can not fix Bethesda games.

Yes they can and historically have a record of doing so in regards to gameplay and immersive roleplaying. Ask anyone who played Horizon in Fallout 4 and Requiem for Skyrim. Bethesda's biggest problem as a developer is they implement a bunch of half-baked features and never fully deliver on their pitch... But it's enough for modders to work with.

This is absolutely my view and its been my experience with most Bethesda games

They generally have a flawed launch but then official updates get released and the talented modding community does the rest. Your Requiem point is the perfect example of this

Starfield will be no different and I predict in 24 months or so it will be a much more popular, appreciated and recommended game. Thats when I will play it but I want to wait until the rights mods are released

 

[Fedora Master]

This is absolutely my view and its been my experience with most Bethesda games

Yea but that's you.