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Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
5,351
I owned three boxed copies of Morrowind. I have never played Morrowind without plugins. Everyone played these games modded, always
I didn't. And neither did my brother, who recently replayed Morrowind. Without ANY mods (he had only the official expansions).
 

ind33d

Learned
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
1,791
I owned three boxed copies of Morrowind. I have never played Morrowind without plugins. Everyone played these games modded, always
I didn't. And neither did my brother, who recently replayed Morrowind. Without ANY mods (he had only the official expansions).
I mean nobody played literal unpatched Vanilla MW for very long, if at all. Even back then, everyone was downloading the propylon index and AOE arrows plugins.

Critics should be comparing Starfield to its closest analogue, Call of Duty 4. The progression system/skill tree/challenges is the actual "game" of Starfield. The moment-to-moment gameplay is irrelevant. If anyone isn't having fun, change the Level Up jingle and inventory sounds. It's Pavlovian. I'm completely serious. Nobody is helping Ryujin because it's fun. They're helping Ryujin because it gives XP, and leveling up makes a beep boop
 

Cohesion

Codex made me an elephant hater.
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Codex+ Now Streaming!
200+ pages for one of the worst games in history, you should all kill yourselves. Now bring in the bethestards talking about skyrim. Again, kill yourselves.
200+ pages for one of the worst games in history, you should all kill yourselves. Now bring in the bethestards talking about skyrim. Again, kill yourselves.
also lol at talking shit about skyrim, a game you can turn into a harem-themed VR throne world
But what for? Why would you even want it? People using loverslab really have some issues or brain damage.
It's like making trolleybus from a loaf of bread.
gk5XAd3fw58.jpg
 

Saint_Proverbius

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Staff Member
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Behind you.
Is Codex now praising Skyrim? Dat revisionism.
Skyrim would have been great if it had the character system from the previous Elder Scrolls game and the quests were actually written with those character systems in mind. They stripped the character system down to the bare bones and pretty much anything remotely interesting in terms of being a CRPG went with them. It's almost like a character system is the cornerstone of a CRPG. Same thing goes for Fallout 4. You get rid of skills that range from 0-255(or even 100) and reduce them to "perks" which only have 0-4, and you really lower the resolution of how much divergence you can have in the elements that normally rely on skill checks. They gimped their design from the start on both those games by overly streamlining the character systems, which is why they wound up being a shallow experience.
Skyrim, overall, is a bad RPG, but it’s got okay exploration
Now imagine if Skyrim had Climbing, Athletics, and Acrobatics. How much better would that exploration have been?
and the “cites” are mostly pathetic,
How much better would they have been with Climbing, Haggling, and a decently implemented attribute system? With Climbing and the inclusion of balconies, they could have made thieving much more interesting. It's not like there weren't two story buildings in Skyrim. Even Acrobatics with a Khajit could have gone a long way the way it was in Morrowind. Attribute checks dealing with dialogue would have made cities better, but there's not a lot of skill checks with dialogue either.

I've heard that Starfield has a better character system, but is gimped in a lot of other areas. Bethesda has been coasting way too long on their name.
 

Child of Malkav

Erudite
Joined
Feb 11, 2018
Messages
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Location
Romania
Skyrim would have been great if it had the character system from the previous Elder Scrolls game and the quests were actually written with those character systems in mind. They stripped the character system down to the bare bones and pretty much anything remotely interesting in terms of being a CRPG went with them. It's almost like a character system is the cornerstone of a CRPG.
When you say character system you refer to classes?
 

Yoomazir

Educated
Joined
Sep 21, 2020
Messages
272
If Failout 76 is any indication, give Starshit 5+ years of content and it might turn out passable.
 

ind33d

Learned
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
1,791
If Failout 76 is any indication, give Starshit 5+ years of content and it might turn out passable.
But Fallout 76 is nowhere near passable.
76 is unironically more impressive than New Vegas

In 76, i've had to wait in a line of real players to talk to a vendor.
I can't say that's what I play RPGs for.
As I watched him slowly walk out of the shop while I bought my Nuka-Colas from the vendor bot, I considered following him and shooting him in the back. That one moment of PVP that didn't even take place is more interesting than everything in New Vegas
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
8,550
If Failout 76 is any indication, give Starshit 5+ years of content and it might turn out passable.
But Fallout 76 is nowhere near passable.
76 is unironically more impressive than New Vegas

In 76, i've had to wait in a line of real players to talk to a vendor.
I can't say that's what I play RPGs for.
As I watched him slowly walk out of the shop while I bought my Nuka-Colas from the vendor bot, I considered following him and shooting him in the back. That one moment of PVP that didn't even take place is more interesting than everything in New Vegas
IDK why you're bringing up New Vegas, but OK. You have an unusual standard for what constitutes interesting gameplay. Hey, did they ever fix 76 PVP where it was completely fucking pointless because the other player had to consent to being shot?
 

ind33d

Learned
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
1,791
If Failout 76 is any indication, give Starshit 5+ years of content and it might turn out passable.
But Fallout 76 is nowhere near passable.
76 is unironically more impressive than New Vegas

In 76, i've had to wait in a line of real players to talk to a vendor.
I can't say that's what I play RPGs for.
As I watched him slowly walk out of the shop while I bought my Nuka-Colas from the vendor bot, I considered following him and shooting him in the back. That one moment of PVP that didn't even take place is more interesting than everything in New Vegas
IDK why you're bringing up New Vegas, but OK. You have an unusual standard for what constitutes interesting gameplay. Hey, did they ever fix 76 PVP where it was completely fucking pointless because the other player had to consent to being shot?
No, 76 is still fucked up. I'm just saying that people don't properly review games, like Bethesda's, that have construction mechanics or modding tools. Halo Infinite is a mess too, but it has an incredible map editor and literally zero of the Metacritic reviews have been updated to mention it. You really get out of these games what you put in.
 

Butter

Arcane
Patron
Joined
Oct 1, 2018
Messages
8,550
If Failout 76 is any indication, give Starshit 5+ years of content and it might turn out passable.
But Fallout 76 is nowhere near passable.
76 is unironically more impressive than New Vegas

In 76, i've had to wait in a line of real players to talk to a vendor.
I can't say that's what I play RPGs for.
As I watched him slowly walk out of the shop while I bought my Nuka-Colas from the vendor bot, I considered following him and shooting him in the back. That one moment of PVP that didn't even take place is more interesting than everything in New Vegas
IDK why you're bringing up New Vegas, but OK. You have an unusual standard for what constitutes interesting gameplay. Hey, did they ever fix 76 PVP where it was completely fucking pointless because the other player had to consent to being shot?
No, 76 is still fucked up. I'm just saying that people don't properly review games, like Bethesda's, that have construction mechanics or modding tools. Halo Infinite is a mess too, but it has an incredible map editor and literally zero of the Metacritic reviews have been updated to mention it. You really get out of these games what you put in.
But 76 doesn't have modding tools. That's a huge part of why it's irredeemable. It's a Bethesda game that the players can never fix.
 

ind33d

Learned
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
1,791
If Failout 76 is any indication, give Starshit 5+ years of content and it might turn out passable.
But Fallout 76 is nowhere near passable.
76 is unironically more impressive than New Vegas

In 76, i've had to wait in a line of real players to talk to a vendor.
I can't say that's what I play RPGs for.
As I watched him slowly walk out of the shop while I bought my Nuka-Colas from the vendor bot, I considered following him and shooting him in the back. That one moment of PVP that didn't even take place is more interesting than everything in New Vegas
IDK why you're bringing up New Vegas, but OK. You have an unusual standard for what constitutes interesting gameplay. Hey, did they ever fix 76 PVP where it was completely fucking pointless because the other player had to consent to being shot?
No, 76 is still fucked up. I'm just saying that people don't properly review games, like Bethesda's, that have construction mechanics or modding tools. Halo Infinite is a mess too, but it has an incredible map editor and literally zero of the Metacritic reviews have been updated to mention it. You really get out of these games what you put in.
But 76 doesn't have modding tools. That's a huge part of why it's irredeemable. It's a Bethesda game that the players can never fix.
I meant the building mechanics in general. All that happened was Bethesda started making Minecraft games without changing the names of their IPs. This is a stupid decision, but from a profit-driven perspective, I understand why they did what they did.
 

Lemming42

Arcane
Joined
Nov 4, 2012
Messages
6,806
Location
The Satellite Of Love
Now that the modding scene is expanding (from "nonexistent" to "scarce"), does anyone have any modlists or mod suggestions?

I've not started another playthrough yet and won't until the DLC comes out, but looking through the Nexus I'm interested in Useful Brigs, which lets you put captured enemies in the brig on your ship and then turn them over to guards for a bounty. You can combine it with Non-Lethal Framework, which makes EM weapons less stupid, or, I think, this stealth takedown mod. Unfortunately it is apparently buggy as fuck and Bethesda have apparently already broken half of these.

This follower behaviour mod also seems useful, makes it so companions don't completely fuck up stealth anymore.

Other than that, it's still vanishingly slim pickings right now. You know we're in trouble when the top mods are Star Wars reskins and mods that add posters featuring AI-generated risque images of scantily clad men and women to your ship.
 

ind33d

Learned
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
1,791
Now that the modding scene is expanding (from "nonexistent" to "scarce"), does anyone have any modlists or mod suggestions?

I've not started another playthrough yet and won't until the DLC comes out, but looking through the Nexus I'm interested in Useful Brigs, which lets you put captured enemies in the brig on your ship and then turn them over to guards for a bounty. You can combine it with Non-Lethal Framework, which makes EM weapons less stupid, or, I think, this stealth takedown mod. Unfortunately it is apparently buggy as fuck and Bethesda have apparently already broken half of these.

This follower behaviour mod also seems useful, makes it so companions don't completely fuck up stealth anymore.

Other than that, it's still vanishingly slim pickings right now. You know we're in trouble when the top mods are Star Wars reskins and mods that add posters featuring AI-generated risque images of scantily clad men and women to your ship.
Yeah, once you can fly Class C ships, the game really opens up. Most players must quit before they even start finding temples. Capital ships would be pretty cool, some mods for ships that can't land but have to beam you down to the surface would be interesting
 

KeAShizuku

Educated
Joined
Dec 11, 2023
Messages
161
I owned three boxed copies of Morrowind. I have never played Morrowind without plugins. Everyone played these games modded, always
I didn't. And neither did my brother, who recently replayed Morrowind. Without ANY mods (he had only the official expansions).
That's because Morrowind already had content. It didn't need mods.

I'll never forget the vampire quest line that you actually had to find out for yourself.
 

Harthwain

Magister
Joined
Dec 13, 2019
Messages
5,351
That's because Morrowind already had content. It didn't need mods.

I'll never forget the vampire quest line that you actually had to find out for yourself.
The argument isn't about the content. The point is that, bugs aside, Morrowind is playable (despite of its many faults) out of the box. That's why it doesn't need mods, even though it may be highly recommended nowadays. So, yeah, "everyone played these games modded, always" is not true.
 

Damned Registrations

Furry Weeaboo Nazi Nihilist
Joined
Feb 24, 2007
Messages
15,781
You get rid of skills that range from 0-255(or even 100) and reduce them to "perks" which only have 0-4, and you really lower the resolution of how much divergence you can have in the elements that normally rely on skill checks.
Eh, that's not the real problem, and there's something to be said for not hassling the player every 3 seconds because his ability to fly fish specifically in a river specifically at dawn went up by 2%. Fo4 had a much better system than Fo3 and Oblivion, which really did have 4 perks per skill and the levels between were irrelevant.

The real problem is when the perks themselves are boring. You could have a perk that lets you grab ledges to climb onto rooftops. Hell, you could have a few so you've got varying levels of difficult climbs you can manage and that can open up extra solutions or partial solutions to all sorts of quests. Instead of needing a 65 climbing skill to make a check, you need the 2nd tier climbing perk and the 1st tier mechanic perk to open up a vent to break into a building, or a cutting torch to substitute for the mechanic perk and a grappling hook to reduce the climbing skill requirement- but they're both heavy.

But what you generally get are perks that increase the drop rate of ammo by 10% in a game where you'll never run out anyways and 'wacky' stuff like a 10% damage buff vs women or now your lasers can set people on fire *but the fire does 1 damage per minute. It's honestly insane how creatively bankrupt the people designing these perk trees are. There's always like half a dozen good ones amongst dozens of terrible ones, in pretty much any game that has such a system. It's like nobody developing this shit has ever played another fucking game in thier life. Steal good shit from the other games! I could dredge up like 100 cool perks for a game easily by just copying shit from various games.
 

Saint_Proverbius

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Staff Member
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Messages
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Behind you.
Eh, that's not the real problem, and there's something to be said for not hassling the player every 3 seconds because his ability to fly fish specifically in a river specifically at dawn went up by 2%. Fo4 had a much better system than Fo3 and Oblivion, which really did have 4 perks per skill and the levels between were irrelevant.
It most certainly isn't because the second you reduce things to the point they did in Fallout 4, you reduce the amount of things you can do with the game. The easiest example of this is locks. You went from the capability of having 100 different types of lock down to Beginner, Advanced, Expert and Master. This spreads throughout the design with everything that used to be a skill that was turned in to a perk. Sure, you could also add an attribute factor, but you also run in to the problem where attributes vie for the same pool of points that the perks take, meaning you have to decide between raising the attribute or getting another perk as opposed to the original system where attributes start off a certain significantly higher level, but are more difficult to raise. In the original system, it's much easier to gauge what to check for when you're looking to make something the level of difficulty you want. In Fallout 4's system, it's pretty much chaos when it comes to attribute checks which is why you don't see them much in the game. It degenerates to any character can do most anything because you can't really pin down what level character and what build should be required to do something.
 

ind33d

Learned
Joined
Jun 23, 2020
Messages
1,791
Has anyone really gotten into the outposts/player housing/shipbuilding? It feels like Beth expected people to build first and do the shitty quests as an afterthought. There are so many crafting systems and research projects that you could easily never notice because you were just doing terminal fetch quests for $3000

I also suspect that House Varuun was only one of multiple religions in the lore but some reddit soyboy had them cut spiritual references because they would offend the Chinese Communist Party. How could Akila's space Confederates not have a religious sect? Or Neon worshipping Slaanesh?
 

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