Starfield Thread - Shattered Space expansion coming September 30th

[Vic]

Is Baldur's Gate 3 going to steal Bethesda's thunder by winning GOTY 2023?
Todd eat your heart out! Would be pretty hilarious.

starfield wasn't even nominated

 

[NecroLord]

Is Baldur's Gate 3 going to steal Bethesda's thunder by winning GOTY 2023?
Todd eat your heart out! Would be pretty hilarious.

starfield wasn't even nominated

No shit?
Damn, Bethestards on suicide watch.
No offense, my good man Vic!

 

[Gargaune]

Reminds me strongly of Morrowind. It too had loading-in-progress when travelling on the open world map, but it was done well enough it wasn't too bad and on a modern PC you probably won't even see it.

Wait, couldn't you just walk to places in Morrowind?

I'm sure that if you remove all the proc-gen maps from Starfield an glue only the handcrafted locations together the map would be bigger than a measily 5% of Skyrim's.

It's not just the quantity, but also how you engage with that content, exploration in this case. Kinda like the difference between traversing BG1 and BG2 - they both had many finite maps, but where BG1 had a quasi-contiguous layout, BG2 went "bam, now you're in the Umar Hills." And while that exploration wasn't the be-all, end-all of Baldur's Gate, it certainly was one of the main selling points for Bethesda's designs.

And, to be clear, the problem isn't waiting on loading screens, but what they serve to separate. I really think that if Starfield had deep space freeflight - okay, not between star systems but inside of them, so you could manually fly from planet to planet (and have exciting gameplay on the way) - it'd have enjoyed a much better reception. As it stands, however, the impression I'm getting from videos and reviews is that everything is way too fragmented and encapsulated, lacking that cohesive exploration you got in the likes of Oblivion or even Fallout 4.

 

[NecroLord]

Wait, couldn't you just walk to places in Morrowind?

There are some loading times when you travel on the map and the game has to generate stuff, but that's it. That and travelling to interior areas.
You either have to walk to places yourself, or take a boat or a silt strider.

 

[Vic]

and Morrowind's loading times hardly matter on today's hardware

clearly, Starfield is ahead of its time

 

[Harthwain]

Wait, couldn't you just walk to places in Morrowind?

You could, but there WERE loading screens involved in the open world (small boxes with a blue bar and text). Because the open world in Morrowind wasn't seamless, there were visible seams when the game was loading on-the-fly when running through areas. It wasn't too bad even back then, but I just wanted to say the world wasn't as continuous as one might think.

 

[purupuru]

From my personal experience Morrowind's loading time was barely noticeable on hardware 10 years ago (10 years ago is 2013, mind you). I don't even remember if I saw any of those loading prompt boxes ( I think I know they exist, but certainly didn't really notice them). It's really just a hardware technical limitation rather than any kind of design decision, not even a software problem like in half life 2.
I haven't picked up starfield and probably won't until creation kit gets released and script extender reaches a stable state. If this game just wants you to fast travel everywhere is the experience by any means akin to that of Daggerfall? I have heard there are no random encounters, but are the dungeons and loot any good?

 

[Butter]

From my personal experience Morrowind's loading time was barely noticeable on hardware 10 years ago (10 years ago is 2013, mind you). I don't even remember if I saw any of those loading prompt boxes ( I think I know they exist, but certainly didn't really notice them). It's really just a hardware technical limitation rather than any kind of design decision, not even a software problem like in half life 2.
I haven't picked up starfield and probably won't until creation kit gets released and script extender reaches a stable state. If this game just wants you to fast travel everywhere is the experience by any means akin to that of Daggerfall? I have heard there are no random encounters, but are the dungeons and loot any good?

Much worse mechanics than Daggerfall. Dungeons are bland corridors full of bullet sponge enemies, and almost every enemy in the game is just a generic human.

 

[NecroLord]

I have heard there are no random encounters, but are the dungeons and loot any good?

What game are you referring to?

 

[purupuru]

I have heard there are no random encounters, but are the dungeons and loot any good?

What game are you referring to?

Starfield obviously. I have heard that fast travel in starfield is more like in other recent Bethesda games where you just click and teleport unlike in Daggerfall where you need to plan your travel and during which encounters may happen.

 

[NecroLord]

Daggerfall where you need to plan your travel and during which encounters may happen.

There are no random encounters (if you are playing unmodded, that is).
You have options for travelling - Foot, Horse or Ship, along with the manner in which you travel - Reckless or Cautious and whether or not you want to rest outside or stop at an inn.

 

[purupuru]

Daggerfall where you need to plan your travel and during which encounters may happen.

There are no random encounters (if you are playing unmodded, that is).
You have options for travelling - Foot, Horse or Ship, along with the manner in which you travel - Reckless or Cautious and whether or not you want to rest outside or stop at an inn.

Must have been a mod then. I remember getting attacked at night on the road if I don't sleep in an inn. Should be possible to make such a mod for starfield, since I think there are similar mods for Skyrim.

 

[Stavrophore]

There are people who have already over 500 hours at steam reviews, it's unfathomable how brain drained bethesdrones are.

 

[quaesta]

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.

The quote's even more bullshit. If I play a game and I'm bored, it's the game's fault.

 

[lycanwarrior]

Starfield Has Surpassed 12 Million Players; Goal Is to Last as Long as Skyrim, Says Spencer​

https://wccftech.com/starfield-has-...al-is-to-last-as-long-as-skyrim-says-spencer/

 

[Spectacle]

Wait, couldn't you just walk to places in Morrowind?

There are some loading times when you travel on the map and the game has to generate stuff, but that's it. That and travelling to interior areas.
You either have to walk to places yourself, or take a boat or a silt strider.

Morrowind does try to load nearby terrain before you see it, so normally walking around outdoors is a completely seamless experience. You might see a loading screen if you're moving way faster than normal walking, such as by using a Fortify Jump 100 potion.

 

[NecroLord]

Wait, couldn't you just walk to places in Morrowind?

There are some loading times when you travel on the map and the game has to generate stuff, but that's it. That and travelling to interior areas.
You either have to walk to places yourself, or take a boat or a silt strider.

Morrowind does try to load nearby terrain before you see it, so normally walking around outdoors is a completely seamless experience. You might see a loading screen if you're moving way faster than normal walking, such as by using a Fortify Jump 100 potion.

Boots of Blinding Speed ftw.
Or just boost your speed to insane levels. Or make a custom Jump/Fortify Acrobatics spell...

 

[Vic]

 

[Vic]

Starfield Has Surpassed 12 Million Players; Goal Is to Last as Long as Skyrim, Says Spencer​

https://wccftech.com/starfield-has-...al-is-to-last-as-long-as-skyrim-says-spencer/

 

[darkpatriot]

I finally beat a playthrough of Starfield and went into NG+ last weekend. I did almost every quest I could find (that wasn't broken) with a handful a didn't do because they were outlaw/lawbreaker quests, and I was playing as a generally decent person who didn't break the law and was respectful. I did wind up doing Ryujin questling even though it didn't really fit with my character because I didn't want to skip any of the 4 major side quest lines.

My second playthrough I am playing it more as a snarky, greedy, asshole. I wish they gave you the chance to redo the traits though. I would like to try out some different ones.

I didn't really do much settlement building besides making 2 quick outposts I never did anything with. Instead, I focused on starship customization, equipment crafting, fighting, and talking. So I also plan on diving into the settlement building this time around.

I also didn't explore 100% of the systems, probably only like 50% or so, so I am not sure how many quests or unique dungeons I may have missed, but I plan on at least stopping into every system and looking for anything interesting the second time.


Overall I would say it is probably my favorite Bethesda game. This is the first Bethesda game I have ever actually beaten. Every other one I just played for a while (mostly going off on my own and doing side content) until I eventually burned out and got bored. My biggest critique is I wish they had done more with procgen. They limited it to just the surfaces of planets, and didn't even bother procgenning the actual dungeons. Every dungeon is still hand-made, but many will be repeated. To including the dungeon specific lore.

We will see if I have enough interest to complete a second playthrough. Right now starting out again is a bit of a chore as I need to get enough cash to make a good ship while looking for high level gear again, but I am also going through it a lot faster since I know where a lot of stuff is and how it works in general. Hopefully, I get through that fairly quickly and focus on the content I missed out on/skipped the first playthrough.

I am a bit disappointed that none of the patches fixed any of the quests that had been broken due to locked doors you can't get past or shops glitching out, but maybe I won't encounter those bugs this time around. These few patches they released so far don't seem to have very much in them.

 

[darkpatriot]

you can go almost anywhere after the introductory sequence, sure it has loading screens but nothing is stopping you from going wherever you wanna go, except your fuel tank capacity, but that only excludes fringe systems

Sure, but it's more like the open world of something like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, where you freely fast travel between a variety of locations, than the contiguous open worlds of prior Bethesda games. "See that moon? You can fast travel to it."

After I finally completed a playthrough I feel comfortable saying there is as much or more content than any previous Bethesda games. And it is all handcrafted (unfortunately, a lost opportunity to really lean into procgen). The only thing procgened is the random planet landing site terrain, but all the encounters, quests, dungeons, and locations themselves are hand crafted.

It is just spread out in a different way and connected/accessed via different patterns. Overall, I think it is a better pattern as all the locations in previous Bethesda games being right on top of each other always bothered me.

I think the biggest flaw with it is that they don't randomize the generic (but still hand-crafted) dungeons/locations. Since people will see repeats of the generic dungeons, and within the first dozen hours, it creates the impression there aren't very many dungeons. But there are actually a lot.

I was still encountering new generic locations/dungeons I hadn't seen before even at 70 hours into the game and going through the quests will also expose you to a large number of unique dungeons. In my experience, there don't seem to be any less than Skyrim, and more than Fallout 4 and 3.

I was also still encountering new random encounters, sometimes ones that are quests or mini-quests in themselves, into the late game. Some of those quests/encounters were specifically available as reactivity to advancing in other quests or even certain choices you make in those quests.

 

[Vic]

you can go almost anywhere after the introductory sequence, sure it has loading screens but nothing is stopping you from going wherever you wanna go, except your fuel tank capacity, but that only excludes fringe systems

Sure, but it's more like the open world of something like Dragon Age or Mass Effect, where you freely fast travel between a variety of locations, than the contiguous open worlds of prior Bethesda games. "See that moon? You can fast travel to it."

After I finally completed a playthrough I feel comfortable saying there is as much or more content than any previous Bethesda games. And it is all handcrafted (unfortunately, a lost opportunity to really lean into procgen). The only thing procgened is the random planet landing site terrain, but all the encounters, quests, dungeons, and locations themselves are all hand crafted.

It is just spread out in a different way and connected/accessed via different patterns. Overall, I think it is a better pattern.

that's true, too many people got filtered by Starfield's innovative design choice of combining a procedurally generated galaxy like in NMS or Elite with Bethesda's hallmark gameplay. Too bad it was released in an unfinished state.

 

[Lord_Potato]

After I finally completed a playthrough I feel comfortable saying there is as much or more content than any previous Bethesda games.

How so? There is the main Constelation questline, 4 faction questlines, a couple of questlines in cities (like the Akila one about predators or New Atlantis about a tree) and a number of minor missions, which aren't really well developed, mostly fetch quests. Oh, and some random encounters. Outside of that it's mostly board missions, which are radiant quests.

i'm nearing 76 hours and the final mission of the game and feel like I've done 95% of the handcrafted content (while lacking the patience/willpower to continue searching for the remaining 5%) of which only UFC and Crimson Fleet quests were actually good. Oh, and this one mission in the main questline where you explore a reseach station jumping between its two versions in parallel realities. That was cool too.

I remember Morrowind and Skyrim having much more content. And at least Morrowind had quests and story of higher quality too.

And it is all handcrafted (unfortunately, a lost opportunity to really lean into procgen).

The problem with procgen is it is very soulless and unrewarding. Each time I found some quest dispenser starting to give me randomized radiant quests in procgen locations I always bid him farewell.

 

[Vic]

i'm nearing 76 hours and the final mission of the game and feel like I've done 95% of the handcrafted content (while lacking the patience/willpower to continue searching for the remaining 5%) of which only UFC and Crimson Fleet quests were actually good. Oh, and this one mission in the main questline where you explore a reseach station jumping between its two versions in parallel realities. That was cool too.

does Skyrim even have 76 hours worth of quest content?

Aren't most people who play it for hundreds of hours just doing random shit or modding it? Kind of like with Starfield. Even I have played it for almost 200 hours, which is more than any previous Bethesda game. I dropped Morrowind after 100 hours and didn't bother with DLCs, rushed through Oblivion on the easiest setting just doing all the quests, and beat Skyrim in 15 hours and thought WTF is this game, but then went back again and did all the side content I guess that would be close to 100-150 hours, grinding out blacksmithing and alchemy mostly I guess. Fallout 4 I had the most fun but that's mostly due to the improved survival mode. I remember when it just came out I was among the top 0.1% who had the Institute ending achievement as I beat it in like a day or so. Haven't touched it after that again for a couple years.

I really, really don't see how Starfield is any different from previous games. They're all more of a sandbox to larp around.

 

[NecroLord]

i'm nearing 76 hours and the final mission of the game and feel like I've done 95% of the handcrafted content (while lacking the patience/willpower to continue searching for the remaining 5%) of which only UFC and Crimson Fleet quests were actually good. Oh, and this one mission in the main questline where you explore a reseach station jumping between its two versions in parallel realities. That was cool too.

does Skyrim even have 76 hours worth of quest content?

I guess it depends on your preferences and whether or not you are picky.