|
Yeah during the weekend I had it on in the background, I'm actually not at all a fan of long form video essays and would rather he'd just have published an article I could have read in an hour. But I wanted a deep dive and that's the medium I had to use. Regarding the blame game, it's not YouTuber hearsay if it's backed up by repeated clips of the lead designer in round tables talking about why he doesn't use a design document after finding them more trouble when they were worth during Fallout 3, or the Skyrim Lead (that has since left Bethesda) talking about how Todd Howard isn't as approachable as he used to be because of his increasing work load, his changing responsibilities, and also the distancing of Covid. Furthermore, I don't seek this information because I want a target for my vitriol - I want to understand why Starfield failed. And while some of those reasons can be easily intuited from playing the game (ex: the discreet cells), others, like a large decentralized team with somewhat disengaged seniors still trying to run like a small, closely enmeshed group, isn't as surface level apparent from playing. And, pointedly, the former of those problems won't be an issue in ES6, but the later will.
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 00:00
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 04:20 |
|
|
Jack B Nimble posted:- I want to understand why Starfield failed. And while some of those reasons can be easily intuited from playing the game (ex: the discreet cells), others, like a large decentralized team with somewhat disengaged seniors still trying to run like a small, closely enmeshed group, isn't as surface level apparent from playing This is why I’m so fascinated by Starfield even though I gave up on playing it a while back- its failure is legit interesting in ways that other games I dislike, or even can’t stand, aren’t. It made a super good early impression on me and then as I played the more I realized the stuff that worked for me early weren’t actually aspects of the game as a whole because they had been taken out for reasons of not scale or budget, but just general design incoherence. I love games where their reach exceeds their grasp but that’s not what happened with Starfield, despite the scope- they made a game that promised the stars but planned on putting some glow in the dark stickers on your bedroom ceiling. Just a Potemkin village-rear end game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 00:11
|
|
|
I actually liked the game for a good while, the ship design was fun and all that. The thing that actually, weirdly enough, actually turned me on the game was Heller. He's just kind of a glaring example of why this game falls so short. I at first thought he was kind of compelling. If you listen to his little dialogue tree, he ties in with Titan where you can actually go. I figured this was a breadcrumb to get you to explore. You make it to Titan and there's 0 for him there. His family he mentions it totally absent. He doesn't react in any way. He seemingly has no more to say besides his first two topics (and two more if you console edit him I think, I couldn't ever gain approval). It just all falls so flat. I tried sticking him in a settlement, it didn't do anything. Stacking up against Baldur's Gate 3 just really showed that there's not much for you there. BG3 would've had that kick off a sidequest. It's totally shallow and pointless. I understand he's not a "full" companion, but in a way his inclusion is almost worse. Why bother even including these flat as hell characters? Then you start asking that question about the rest of the game and you start to realize that kind of applies to every mechanic and feature. Then Phantom Liberty comes out and again it's a one-two punch of games which I feel are kind of doing something similar action adventure/RPG wise and it just totally turned me off from playing again. Antifa Spacemarine fucked around with this message at 01:58 on Dec 12, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 01:55
|
|
|
Bethesda has spent the past 20 years since Morrowind constantly removing the traditional RPG elements of their game each title more and more streamlined to gain mass appeal, simplifying character building, systems design while having blander writing that refuses to say anything of value. Then Baldur's Gate 3 launches a month before Starfield and it has all the stuff Bethesda had been removing all that time and it was a way more successful game and completely ate Starfields lunch.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 04:50
|
|
|
When I saw the screenshot of the dwarf's penis, I knew it was over for Bethesda
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 05:06
|
|
|
I clicked around the video for background noise at work today since some parts became too much like re-experiencing the whole game. The dev clips juxtapositions were the most interesting part. The way they all laughed dismissively at how Morrowind handled player freedom, like they were looking back at a mistake or amateur error they had made, really clarified their view of their games and it is so different than how their players view and play them. And they go out of their way to design away the things that made their games unique, apparently seeing them as mistakes.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 05:21
|
|
|
Not a single piece of Starfield ever quite gets there, with the sole exception of the sound effects department. I think the guns and rocket engines sound awesome, and I like the background sci fi synth poo poo. Every other system leaves you hanging. There’s an illusion that things are complete - perks have tiers with a final termination point, guns can be fully upgraded, ships have stats that can be maxed, quests can be finished, companions can have max loyalty, outposts can finish a crafting loop. But none of it quite gets there. None of it is really all that satisfying enough for you to say “I did it!” Money doesn’t matter, outposts don’t matter, half the perks don’t matter, XP scales exponentially, enemy AI is missing, fuel doesn’t matter, nearly all of the quests don’t matter, none of the companions are compelling, Space Marriage is pointless. Even the shipbuilder - which is really cool looking and can create some cosmetically remarkable ships, is stymied by the horrendous internal structures and the extremely shallow weapons systems. And then let’s say you do find something rewarding and finish it. The ending of the game throws you in a time loop and says no. You’re never done. Keep playing this semi-finished slop piggy. Prestige mode. Double prestige. Here’s a Starborn ship, just for you. You thought it would be awesome? It’s completely empty inside. Just like this game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 06:12
|
|
|
The sound of the Orion is very satisfying You should be able to see lasers going through enemies though
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 06:17
|
|
|
hawowanlawow posted:The sound of the Orion is very satisfying not as satisfying as the sound of this Orion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q563FPQAv0s
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 06:23
|
|
|
also premonition not showing like/dislike reactions is just fuckin baffling
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 06:45
|
|
|
Sorry if this is off-topic, but can someone explain to me why fallout 4 is so disliked in this thread. The main story/questline was terrible and I avoided it like the plague after the first play-through, but I feel like the core gameplay loop was pretty fun.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 06:49
|
|
|
BigRoman posted:Sorry if this is off-topic, but can someone explain to me why fallout 4 is so disliked in this thread. every single character in the game is a Masshole
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 06:53
|
|
|
Mostly the institute writing was so bad that the fridge moments were genuinely infuriating. It's been a long, long time, so I can't summon up the frustration I felt, but lets take a moment to recall that the institute filled the Commonwealth with death robots.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 07:05
|
|
|
BigRoman posted:Sorry if this is off-topic, but can someone explain to me why fallout 4 is so disliked in this thread. Bad writing, bad story, terrible character stat system, bad quest design, lack of agency and role playing, lack of reactivity, railroading in quests, endless faction quests, endless outpost procgen chores that don't seem to matter in the world, even main quest design often involving or equalling radiant type poo poo that also ignores anything youve done or already been to. If you're playing it as a looter shooter then it's another one of those and does that job. You can go explore places and it generates things to shoot and they drop crap to fiddle with to make combat even shorter and more routine next time and you can do that until you're bored of it. You can even explore the same places again and fight new spawned enemies, or have a quest send you to somewhere you just cleared out to fight new enemies spawned. I think they had someone else make their gunplay work like a modern game, and I can see why they immediately jumped to Fallout 76 since it was basically the parts of the game that weren't entirely made of criticism to fix.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 07:12
|
|
|
Jack B Nimble posted:Mostly the institute writing was so bad that the fridge moments were genuinely infuriating. It's been a long, long time, so I can't summon up the frustration I felt, but lets take a moment to recall that the institute filled the Commonwealth with death robots. In regards to villainous activities you're asked to take part in, you're given rogue synths to track since that's less expensive to script and write quest dialogue for. Being the good guy (as either RR or Minutemen) doesn't feel all that rewarding either, it was as compelling as Daggerfall's create-a-quests. Starfield at least leans into the looter shooter gimmick even moreso with multiple magic effects, and it's sort of easy to fix the weapon balance unlike Fallout 4. And there are four flavors of Anime Schoolgirl fucked around with this message at 07:49 on Dec 12, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 07:43
|
|
|
"yes, you can be a pirate, just follow this simple set of steps to get the "i'm a pirate" badge and seal of approval, and if you tick one box on the way, you can be a sekrit agent piratemans"* * whatever you do your team of valuable space friends with freak the gently caress out, but still be fine with a child on your ship while you gank spacemens goty.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 08:04
|
|
|
Jack B Nimble posted:
It still is the blame game if you insist that one person’s actions determined the quality of the game, especially when you think the game is already a failure (even though it was the best selling game in North America in September).
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 11:53
|
|
|
space uncle posted:Not a single piece of Starfield ever quite gets there, with the sole exception of the sound effects department. I think the guns and rocket engines sound awesome, and I like the background sci fi synth poo poo. Yeah I actually think the score and the sound design are great. I also really like the NASApunk aesthetic, though I know some people hate it. I just think it really fits with what they were going for, and largely works quite well. Overall the designed environments are quite good - most of the POIs I actually did were well designed and interesting, the problem is just that they repeat too often and there's no point to doing them (and of course the sloppy bits like not having airlocks on freezing planets etc). And the door technology; whoever did the doors and airlocks knocked it out of the loving park
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 12:02
|
|
|
space uncle posted:Not a single piece of Starfield ever quite gets there, with the sole exception of the sound effects department. I think the guns and rocket engines sound awesome, and I like the background sci fi synth poo poo. Oh man, the "braap" from the Magshear is amazing, very satisfying. And I say this as someone who has played most of the game stealthily. webmeister posted:I also really like the NASApunk aesthetic, though I know some people hate it. I don't hate it, but it's kinda weirdly inconsistent because there's so much "magic tech" in the world too. Visually, it's fine, it's just that it's not terribly cohesive with a lot of other things. The sloppy bits kinda add up after a while too. Like, individually, I guess I don't care if there are skeletons and dung piles, and 1G standard gravity, in a cave on a frozen airless moon, or half-eaten sandwiches, bottles of beer, and a patio chair on a planet where it's 400° in the shade, but altogether it's a weirdly unsatisfying experience. The vacillation between "hard sci-fi" aesthetics and science fantasy implementations is jarring. infernal machines fucked around with this message at 13:33 on Dec 12, 2023 |
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:24
|
|
|
I deleted a long post I will sum up by saying "the generation ship"
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:43
|
|
|
I can understand, as a practical consideration, not being able to make that ship the correct size inside or out. But literally everything else about it was also completely half-assed, down to the ship terminals being literally the same ones you see in every POI. They actually have unique terminals with unique interfaces in other locations, they just didn't make them for the 200-year old ship.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:47
|
|
|
They should have been fallout terminals and have the old hacking stuff
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:48
|
|
|
I have never cared about internal vs external, probably because I can barely keep track of it anyway, I'll forgive any game for that. Everything looked brand new. It had eggmunds
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 13:56
|
|
|
It was a great idea but both the ship itself and the associated quest are just  It's like a first draft that somehow got released in the final game.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 14:01
|
|
|
The choices boiled down to “spend a lot of money, spend a lot of time, or do a halfassed genocide”. It was so weird not even having to convince them to take the gravity drive and go somewhere else, they go from “we’re not backing down!” To “we’re backing down!” so fast I thought I glitched the quest.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 14:33
|
|
|
Ugly In The Morning posted:The choices boiled down to “spend a lot of money, spend a lot of time, or do a halfassed genocide”. It was so weird not even having to convince them to take the gravity drive and go somewhere else, they go from “we’re not backing down!” To “we’re backing down!” so fast I thought I glitched the quest. yeah I thought I accidentally skipped something when it sent me straight to the engineer instead of the captain
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 14:37
|
|
|
hawowanlawow posted:yeah I thought I accidentally skipped something when it sent me straight to the engineer instead of the captain The end of the Freestar rangers quest felt the same way too. You get the evidence and I figured you’d bring that to the rangers like you do with all the other evidence but nope, gotta go confront the guy straight away with no backup!
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 14:40
|
|
|
Is the generation ship this game's version of ghoul kid in a fridge?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 15:07
|
|
|
I'm curious if they're planning some big content update after the new year or if the slow pace/low content of the updates since launch is indicative of them taking a holiday break and they have nothing going on Like, is the studio treating this like some No Man's Sky/Cyberpunk salvage situation or are they just good with it?
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 15:53
|
|
|
The Steam review rebuttals certainly don’t make it seem like they’ve taken the criticism to heart.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 15:58
|
|
|
they were trying to finish the game but random people kept wandering into the office and talking over them
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 15:59
|
|
|
The only time Bethesda brings big gameplay changes are ones that come with DLCs and those tend to be related to common criticisms of the game, so I wouldn't expect anything until the DLC reveal. They did say they wanted to do longterm, better support but so far they seems to be doing the same poo poo as before: only small incrememntal background changes in the engine, even though this time they don't have to constantly make the game work on Playstation.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 16:04
|
|
|
Starfield is an aggressively Bethesda game. I rank it right along with Fallout 4 as a game with tons of poo poo that could be better while moving some things forward marginally. It's not terrible and it's more or less exactly what I expected it'd be. But like most Beth games post-Morrowind, it'll be the DLC/Expansions and mods that really turn this into something special.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 16:12
|
|
|
Flowing Thot posted:Bethesda has spent the past 20 years since Morrowind constantly removing the traditional RPG elements of their game each title more and more streamlined to gain mass appeal, simplifying character building, systems design while having blander writing that refuses to say anything of value. Then Baldur's Gate 3 launches a month before Starfield and it has all the stuff Bethesda had been removing all that time and it was a way more successful game and completely ate Starfields lunch. It does seem like they're trying to please all of the people some of the time while Baldur's Gate 3 pleases some of the people all of the time. It's funny, because the lesson from their own games is that you need to choose something to specialize in.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 16:39
|
|
|
Tiny Timbs posted:I'm curious if they're planning some big content update after the new year or if the slow pace/low content of the updates since launch is indicative of them taking a holiday break and they have nothing going on As someone who prepaid for the dlc I'd sure like to hear SOMETHING about it by now.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 16:55
|
|
|
i wouldnt mind the "nasa punk" aesthetic if it were the style of just one specific faction and one specific corner of the gameworld instead of dominating the entire thing
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 17:31
|
|
|
I'd buy if they actually tried to do anything NASAlike with it but it was just a fancy way to say they have a completely generic baseline sci-fi style since all space aesthetics are informed by our only good examples of spaceships. Their whole aesthetic is basically avoiding heaps of hexagons with RGB lighting.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 17:35
|
|
|
https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/...hare&utm_term=1BethesdaGameStudios posted:Hey everyone, first, we read all the feedback here and greatly appreciate it and all the time and thought you put into the game. This small update was to mostly address the “pet-asteroid" so many asked about following our last larger update, and we wanted to get that out before the holiday. Disappointed to have no survival mode mentioned there.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 17:42
|
|
|
Nice, that's what I was hoping to see
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 17:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? Jun 10, 2024 04:20 |
|
|
quote:…game this large and dynamic lol. Lmao, even. I can’t think of anything in this game that really changes from its base state at any time.
|
|
#
?
Dec 12, 2023 18:03
|
|