Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Lemming42]

The game is very playable as-is, IMO. It will probably benefit from mods as all Bethesda games do, especially of the nitty-gritty combat rebalance type, but I've really enjoyed it in its current form. Less buggy and more feature-complete than the average Bethesda game, with only a couple of features feeling half-assed (and they're ones most people probably won't use, like Diplomacy, which lets you pacify enemies for like a minute).

Haven't come across any obvious cut content. There is one faction who are mysteriously absent in a way that might be a setup for some DLC, but at the same time, the faction are said to be a bit elusive and weird anyway so their lack of presence isn't enormously glaring.

 

[Morgoth]

 

[Tweed]

Akila started promising:

Spoiler

And then this:

Spoiler

 

[Moink]

I'm not feeling it.

 

[Just Locus]

I'm genuinely disappointed by the game, I didn't have much faith in Bethesda but I was getting hopeful that this game was going break the mold and show that BGS is on the right track, I was proven laughably wrong.

- Inconsistent performance (even on high GPUs - Need a DLSS mod to fix)
- Gunplay lacks (melee combat is horrid):
1. weighty feedback in shooting
2. enemies barely react to being shot (but I can shoot the jetpack!!!1!)
3. enemies lack any amount of self-preservation
4. enemies are still bullet-spongy
5. enemy variety is as existent as BGS's creativity

- Planets are incredibly empty and I don't know if anyone else encountered this. but, whenever I'm on an empty planet, so many people begin landing on the same planet after me for some reason.
- Main quest basically consists of fetch quests
- The UI is dreadful; Too big and has the same issue that Oblivion and Skyrim's UI had, that it's made for console - (StarUI mod fixes this significantly, great job Bethesda)
- NPCs look like freakshow escapees (look very uncanny and almost nonexistent facial animation where only the eyebrows and mouth move, zero eyelid movement whatsoever)
- Tedious roadblocks placed on progression (NV's challenges but tied to character progression, that's an idea that sounds horrible on paper and even worse in execution), It's annoying to have to spend so much time completing extremely mundane challenges to rank up my perks.
-

Spoilers for Ending

The ending starts with you literally talking to an alternate-universe version of yourself, so you become "Starborn" (REAL CREATIVE BETHESDA) and cross into the multi-verse (This will surely bode well during the inevitable sequel) and begin anew. This is basically fancy talk for the game ending and you get put into NG+ but lose all of your skills and items in your inventory. So it's not even really a NG+, it's just starting over again

 

[ArchAngel]

Hmm that is more than BG3..

 

[Lemming42]

2. enemies barely react to being shot (but I can shoot the jetpack!!!1!)

A lot of people are saying this but I don't get it at all, human enemies have pretty dramatic staggering animations. Animals are a bit less impressive but you can still trigger all kinds of wounded/staggered animations for them.

 

[JBro]

Game runs like shit lol.

 

[ArchAngel]

I'm genuinely disappointed by the game, I didn't have much faith in Bethesda but I was getting hopeful that this game was going break the mold and show that BGS is on the right track, I was proven laughably wrong.

- Inconsistent performance (even on high GPUs - Need a DLSS mod to fix)
- Gunplay lacks (melee combat is horrid):
1. weighty feedback in shooting
2. enemies barely react to being shot (but I can shoot the jetpack!!!1!)
3. enemies lack any amount of self-preservation
4. enemies are still bullet-spongy
5. enemy variety is as existent as BGS's creativity

- Planets are incredibly empty and I don't know if anyone else encountered this. but, whenever I'm on an empty planet, so many people begin landing on the same planet after me for some reason.
- Main quest basically consists of fetch quests
- The UI is dreadful; Too big and has the same issue that Oblivion and Skyrim's UI had, that it's made for console - (StarUI mod fixes this significantly, great job Bethesda)
- NPCs look like freakshow escapees (look very uncanny and almost nonexistent facial animation where only the eyebrows and mouth move, zero eyelid movement whatsoever)
- Tedious roadblocks placed on progression (NV's challenges but tied to character progression, that's an idea that sounds horrible on paper and even worse in execution), It's annoying to have to spend so much time completing extremely mundane challenges to rank up my perks.
-

Spoilers for Ending

The ending starts with you literally talking to an alternate-universe version of yourself, so you become "Starborn" (REAL CREATIVE BETHESDA) and cross into the multi-verse (This will surely bode well during the inevitable sequel) and begin anew. This is basically fancy talk for the game ending and you get put into NG+ but lose all of your skills and items in your inventory. So it's not even really a NG+, it's just starting over again

Wait, aren't you supposed to keep skills?!

 

[Moink]

Hmm that is more than BG3..

BG3 was hitting nearly a million concurrent players on Steam alone, this is total estimated players, I think BG3's would be closer to 2-3 million, it had nearly 1.5m preorders.

 

[HeatEXTEND]

you get put into NG+ but lose all of your skills and items in your inventory. So it's not even really a NG+, it's just starting over again

 

[Fedora Master]

2. enemies barely react to being shot (but I can shoot the jetpack!!!1!)

A lot of people are saying this but I don't get it at all, human enemies have pretty dramatic staggering animations. Animals are a bit less impressive but you can still trigger all kinds of wounded/staggered animations for them.

Nigga they barely even react to being shot at, much less manage to respond in a threatening manner.

 

[Gargaune]

Point taken (and I'm happy to see that), but you know what I mean. Forum and social media discussions will likely be full of people complaining about the game for the first few weeks, but then people will start to increasingly voice their enjoyment and appreciation of the game. Sort of like what's already happened with those of us who got the game early. Both in this thread, elsewhere on the internet, and with my real life friends, people seem to have a similar journey of:

"this game sucks -> this game isn't bad -> this game has some good points -> this game has some very good points -> this might be among the best games Todd's ever made".

It almost sounds like you're describing... an incline. So is that where you're at, is this "the best game Todd's ever made?" Genuine question, because while I'm aware of the many, many flaws in Todd's games, I've also enjoyed them a lot, so what makes Starfield better than the rest?

Hmm that is more than BG3..

Quelle surprise!

 

[Fedora Master]

https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/1032

Perfection

 

[BlackAdderBG]

lol this turd actually flopped, wouldn't even break even for years.

 

[Swen]

lol this turd actually flopped, wouldn't even break even for years.

Hope so Bugthesda needs to learn a lesson.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

 

[RobotSquirrel]

Is that precombines you guys are talking about? Could it be due to procgen areas or maybe they were planning destructible environments at some point? 'Cause otherwise it seems strange, I'm not too familiar with the CK, but I'm pretty sure generating precombines was an automated process.

its not that. Their Modular kits are for rapidly putting together levels specifically interiors. Also the game isn't in fact proc-gen, its just taking a pre-generated height map and randomly placing objects on it hence why the terrain remains the same but all the trees don't. What I'm refering to with batching is when you take models that will either not be dynamic (static batching) or dynamic but low poly (dynamic batching) where all of the models are combined so that they all render as one object. In the GDC video about Fallout 4 they make it very clear that none of the walls have their verts merged meaning that for every tile of wall its 1 separate object - which basically means a draw call per unique tile because of the way they do it (note: the example they show is bad because its made up of mostly unique tiles which is wasteful) (which is insane - and they boast about this being a huge improvement... NO its stupid you shouldn't do it that way). Then they talk about using Decals and Plugs to fix issues with the initial tile... again this is stupid because its creating an additional draw for each thing they use.

In laymans: its better to combine 100 objects into one building - thus draw 1 object not 100 (so I draw 100 objects for the price of 1 total), than it is to have one building made up of 100 objects, thus drawing 100 objects for the price of a single object each which is WORSE. Even worse each of those tiles would need their own collider - whats the point, just generate 1 big collision mesh. If there's no need for the walls to move or be customizable in any way then combining everything into 1 mesh is better, its less costly but obviously it allows for less customization. Not that it matters as most of where this is being used can't be customized anyway - its only beneficial for the settlements system.

On top of this they show wireframes and the geo looks very suspicious, lots of poorly used geo (sub-divisions being used where its lazy and wasteful to use them - eg. a flat section of metal - it doesn't need to be subdivided and you can get away with using floating geo most of the time). It genuinely feels as though the biggest problem is their art optimization first, and some issues with the renderer second which are the culprits for the poor performance.

Again much like with Cyberpunk its hard to get to the exact cause of why this is happening, so take what I am saying as pure hypothetical. I don't have access to their profiler so I can only go by what I "Think" is happening.

 

[BlackAdderBG]

Hope so Bugthesda needs to learn a lesson.

They need to shut down and everybody go beg on the streets.

 

[Talby]

2. enemies barely react to being shot (but I can shoot the jetpack!!!1!)

A lot of people are saying this but I don't get it at all, human enemies have pretty dramatic staggering animations. Animals are a bit less impressive but you can still trigger all kinds of wounded/staggered animations for them.

One guy I shot in the jetpack and he went flying into the ceiling and died on impact.

 

[ArchAngel]

Rogue Trader will save this year from woke retard attempts (and just retard attempts)

 

[BlackAdderBG]

In the GDC video about Fallout 4 they make it very clear that none of the walls have their verts merged meaning that for every tile of wall its 1 separate object - which basically means a draw call per tile because of the way they do it (which is insane - and they boast about this being a huge improvement

I don't know shit about this, but wouldn't that be good if you want to have destructible environment? And if true why don't they have it?

 

[Fedora Master]

Go to Altair II. Do the Groundpounder sidequest.
You can not tell me in good faith that's good voice acting.

 

[Heroic Liberator]

-

Spoilers for Ending

The ending starts with you literally talking to an alternate-universe version of yourself, so you become "Starborn" (REAL CREATIVE BETHESDA) and cross into the multi-verse (This will surely bode well during the inevitable sequel) and begin anew. This is basically fancy talk for the game ending and you get put into NG+ but lose all of your skills and items in your inventory. So it's not even really a NG+, it's just starting over again

Wait, aren't you supposed to keep skills?!

Wasn't aware of that, but if that's the case... then I guess that it'd be optimal to just rush the first playthrough and do the side content in NG+?

 

[user]

Also the game isn't in fact proc-gen

So their POIs aren't created at runtime? If they are, any idea if they can even merge them with their engine at runtime?