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George Sex - REAL posted:I'm not really a Starfield fan, but anyone holding up NMS as gameplay Starfield should aspire toward... I disagree. I feel like Starfield is head and shoulders above NMS in terms of gameplay. I know there are systems that appear more seamless in NMS but for all the inventory problems Starfield has, it's much less of the game than NMS. They systems in NMS, though numerous, are all extremely shallow I make the comparison to it because NMS, while not perfect, has much better scanning, exploration, and resource gathering. Starfield's version seems like the shallowest version that added only because people like it in NMS. Slowly trekking across mostly bland landscapes to find...nothing much. The cities and scripted areas are better, but the procgen areas are dire. I'm mostly just frustrated because I can the bones of a very good game, just without the flesh. BGS can't even do something as simple as look at what modders do their skill systems and use that as feedback. Instead we get the worst skill tree so far.
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Sep 10, 2023 16:47
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OctaMurk posted:I like blowing up space ships but it seems tough to find encounters? Like unless I go to the mission board, which always gives me easy missions. OTOH I can land on a planet and theres always pirates at structures to shoot. Where can I go to find spaceships to shoot easily There's a side quest started at the Lopez Farm that has you kill like 20-30 ships. It was in the Denebola/Mantis quest system for me
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Sep 10, 2023 16:50
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you could try firing on security over a major planet
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Sep 10, 2023 16:53
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I'm astonished by Starfield's design, to be honest. I don't care about seamless space travel, there are other games for that, but I expected there to be some overworld to explore like previous Bethesda games. From stepping out of the customs office in Morrowind through to exiting the the vault in Fallout 4 every Bethesda game has managed to hit me with the same sense of a vast canvas opening in front of me ready to be discovered. In Starfield getting anywhere has to go via infuriating nested menus. Every single quest I've done so far has been funnelling me through a set of 5 loading screens just to talk to some deadeyed NPC only to be told I need to go somewhere else via 5 other loading screens to talk to someone else, then maybe you'll get a small dungeon to shoot some people in. This kind of brain-dead quest flow has been their MO for years but at least in Skyrim you got to actually walk to Riften to talk to the dead-eyed NPC and experience the changing landscape, get distracted by caves etc. I dunno how they made their biggest game to date feel like their smallest game but somehow they pulled it off. What's really sad is that's not something I can see being solved by mods. Unless someone manages to stitch every playable zone into one seamless map but I feel like that would be impossible. I can overlook every Bethesda flaw provided they're still doing the one thing they do best, the 'I wonder what's over that hill' thing, but this game has totally undermined that. TL;DR: I don't like videogame and I'm angry
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Sep 10, 2023 16:59
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Volte posted:There's a lot of stuff that isn't that in Starfield too, if you don't specifically ignore it to make a point. You just don't wander around aimlessly to find it. I didn't wander around aimlessly to find it in Skyrim either. Ok well people did do that and they enjoyed it and in that respect Starfield isn’t much like Skyrim. I don’t know why people have such a hard time recognizing that without trying to start an argument.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:02
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lobsterminator posted:I have not played the game because my computer sucks, but I could see that being an interesting part of the setting. Like when you deal with stellar distances you need to use some kind of FTL technology which would amount to a pay phone. They do explain in some quest that they do not have FTL communications technology hence why someone asks you to deliver an urgent message personally.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:04
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quote:Space-Adept Effect: Do moons count as space? Maybe I haven't gotten far enough in the game but I can count how many firefights I've had in space stations in one hand.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:04
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Tommy the Newt posted:I'm astonished by Starfield's design, to be honest. I don't care about seamless space travel, there are other games for that, but I expected there to be some overworld to explore like previous Bethesda games. All you people mad about no wandering know if you turn your scanner on when you are on a planet that a bunch of poi's show up as unknown, you just need to run over to them and you see some weird random stuff. Like the place overrun by weird spider crabs that they accidentally drilled up that I found.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:05
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I believe I'm about to finish the main quest, and I've been avoiding the thread until I'd completed my first playthrough, but I need help with a couple issues and hoped someone here had some advice. First, the perk "starship command" that allows you to have more crew - it says I have to destroy or board ships with two or more crew, but I've had the perk for a while now and haven't seen any progress. At first I thought it was because UC Sec was getting the last hit, then I thought maybe it was because the enemies were starborn, but at this point I've blown up more than a couple space ships all by myself. Bugged? Second, and much more worrying, any time I change out the modules on my main ship, it disappears. I've read some Reddit posts that might be about the issue, but has anyone here had that problem?
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Sep 10, 2023 17:07
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So uhh it turns out there’s a merchant who sells resources in New Atlantis. Jemison Mercantile, on the left when you enter through the spaceport. If your like me and took a right when first landing to head to the lodge, you probably never saw it
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Sep 10, 2023 17:07
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i think my biggest problem with the game is the one i was expecting because it's been a major problem with BGS since Oblivion: generic content and absolute lack of imagination i mean 1000 planet is a huge amazing blank canvas to play with. you could create anything. but the tone is already limited by sticking around Sol and Alpha Centauri and having that whole "nasapunk" aesthetic which just makes everything look very samey and predictable. and then they make three major cities: New Atlantis: because Star Trek/Guadians of the Galaxy Akila: because Firefly/Serenety/Mandalorian Neon: because Bladerunner/5th Element/that kinda cyberpunk city in The Expanse/a billion videogames its all super derivative poo poo, all extremely familiar aesthetics from popular scifi media franchises that we've already seen before, not just in movies and tv also many times in other video games. so there's a universe of 1000 planets to explore and these big cities and all these characters... but it seems that no matter how far I explore or where I go, at no point will I be surprised by anything I find. There's nothing weird or strange or creepy or gross or beautiful or trippy or thought-provoking. It's just a collection of mechanics, there's nothing about the worldbuilding or atmosphere of what they've build that draws me in at all because it all feels like it was designed by an incredibly risk averse corporate committee. Earwicker fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Sep 10, 2023 |
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Sep 10, 2023 17:07
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Peachfart posted:All you people mad about no wandering know if you turn your scanner on when you are on a planet that a bunch of poi's show up as unknown, you just need to run over to them and you see some weird random stuff. Like the place overrun by weird spider crabs that they accidentally drilled up that I found. I've done that, but first you have to get to said planet via nested menu, all the quests seem to require planet hopping, and then each planet has a tiny handful of POIs with vast expanses of dust in between them. Pretending this is the same as exploring Skyrim's overworld is disingenuous in the extreme. A solution would've been the Outer Worlds approach, having the story move you between worlds at a slower pace so you get time to sink your teeth into each in sequence, but in Starfield in the opening quest chain you already have 'your princess is in another castle' like 5 times in a row.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:08
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Tommy the Newt posted:I've done that, but first you have to get to said planet via nested menu, all the quests seem to require planet hopping, and then each planet has a tiny handful of POIs with vast expanses of dust in between them. It is a space game. There is a lot of space between planets. I'm not sure what you were hoping for.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:10
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Earwicker posted:i think it would be a cool "feature" if a quest only went into my quest log if i, the player, actively indicated by pressing a button or something that i was actually interested in that quest. i dont like this "every random thing you hear goes in the log" nonsense at all I don't consider "activities" to be part of the quest log and without it no way to really know which npc noises are idle chatter and ambience and which are meant to be breadcrumbs. My question log gripe is the grouping, I want the pirate stuff together etc. Also by the descriptions, sometimes it's clear even they are relying on quest marker design to handle solving them. Pick up a quest you technically started a few days ago? Just go to the map marker dummy don't worry about what's goin on. There was one map markerless quest and I was so excited, you were supposed to find someone with a certain look/outfit and carrying a briefcase. I was in the night club so it didn't make much sense for them to be in there and when I started the quest they started spawning NPCs holding random bag types including briefcases. They were clearly not there before, and were concentrated near the exit. I figured they wanted me to go out into the streets to track down this shady dealer, scoping out NPCs to talk to the right one. Cool, makes sense, surprisingly involved for a Starfield quest, never actually had to look at anything before! I looked all over for a while, found several NPCs fitting the description but nothing worked. Even killing them to try and take the briefcase didn't work. Turns out the briefcase NPC wasn't cleverly hidden at all, in fact he was visible from where the NPC who asked me to find them was standing and the briefcase in question was comically large and oddly coloured. You were never meant to go on a little hunt, you're not supposed to feel like you're tracker sleuthing around town to find your target. Nah, you're supposed to walk 10 feet and talk to the dude and then walk ten feet back so the quest giver can act like you're a miracle worker.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:10
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Peachfart posted:It is a space game. There is a lot of space between planets. I'm not sure what you were hoping for. This is the weakest defence of a game design choice I've read today. Well done. Outer Worlds was set in space, Outer Wilds was set in space, Mass Effect was set in space, Heat Signature is set in space... etc for all space games that exist.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:12
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Khanstant posted:I don't consider "activities" to be part of the quest log and without it no way to really know which npc noises are idle chatter and ambience and which are meant to be breadcrumbs. i guess what im saying is i dont want a new blip to show up on my map unless i specifically ask for that to happen, i dont care whether the game calls it a quest or an activitiy and i dont really care whether it goes in my log or not because looking at the log is optional, but i dont want it to automatically add some new direction im supposed to follow to my compas and hud, that's really annoying. i still haven't found a way to turn the hud off. maybe there isnt one on xbox?
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Sep 10, 2023 17:12
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Tommy the Newt posted:This is the weakest defence of a game design choice I've read today. Well done. Outer Worlds was set in space, Outer Wilds was set in space, Mass Effect was set in space, Heat Signature is set in space... etc for all space games that exist. lol i get your point but why would you bring up outer worlds in order to make said point? it's just like this game but smaller and worse. imo outer wilds is the best space game in the last many years in terms of exploration and creating an actually interesting and unique gameworld worth exploring. unfortunately i cant stand the actual flight mechanics in that game.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:14
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Some of the procgen POIs will have voiced audio logs in them so that can be neat. The last one I did kicked off a quest that had me go to New Atlantis to inform a widow that her husband was dead.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:14
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Earwicker posted:lol i get your point but why would you bring up outer worlds in order to make said point? it's just like this game but smaller and worse. I didn't like Outer Worlds for other reasons, but it did at least have you commit to being in an area and exploring it before sending you elsewhere, which is what I think the solution to Starfield should've been.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:15
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Tommy the Newt posted:I didn't like Outer Worlds for other reasons, but it did at least have you commit to being in an area and exploring it before sending you elsewhere, which is what I think the solution to Starfield should've been. i think the solution to starfield would've been making 15 really good planets instead of 1000 boring ones. freely being able to travel isn't the issue, the fact that there's nothing interesting to see when you get there is.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:16
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Peachfart posted:It is a space game. There is a lot of space between planets. I'm not sure what you were hoping for. Everything is in space. They can put infinity cool stuff in space. It's where all cool stuff always has to be. What space is not is an excuse for game design. Even vast empty stretches of space could be made fun in a videogame if they wanted it to be, but they didn't. People wanted fun and interesting stuff to do between triggering the next flag for a quest at an NPC dialogue box or map marker. We wanted traversing between those points itself to be a fun experience or even just tried into the game beyond an obtuse menu and loading screen chore. The points you travel to being cool and interesting themselves would help too of course, at bare minimum make it worthwhile. Having a simple conversation is not worthwhile. I'd rather rest and wait a week where I am to get an email than FTL travel for a chat at the lodge ever again. Khanstant fucked around with this message at 17:20 on Sep 10, 2023 |
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Sep 10, 2023 17:17
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Earwicker posted:i think the solution to starfield would've been making 15 really good planets instead of 1000 boring ones. freely being able to travel isn't the issue, the fact that there's nothing interesting to see when you get there is. Absolutely agree but I still think even with 15 planets there would be no reason to open the game forcing you to menu hop between 5 of them in order to have one conversation and one gunfight. It calms down a little after that initial rush of menus, but not by much.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:18
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Peachfart posted:All you people mad about no wandering know if you turn your scanner on when you are on a planet that a bunch of poi's show up as unknown, you just need to run over to them and you see some weird random stuff. Like the place overrun by weird spider crabs that they accidentally drilled up that I found. Literally all of us currently discussing have mentioned that and discussed it. In 16 hours of play almost exclusively going to planets to try and find interesting stuff, I've found maybe three POIs that have been legitimately interesting. I've also found the same Drill Rig + Cave structure eight times, twice on the same planet with 1Km of each other. I've found the same melting glacier on three planets. The planets themselves are boring and bland and not fun to traverse because apparently ATVs are lost technology. Maybe I'm just really unlucky with procgen. The handcrafted areas are better, and that just highlights how dead the procgen areas are.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:19
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Menufield
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Sep 10, 2023 17:20
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Tommy the Newt posted:This is the weakest defence of a game design choice I've read today. Well done. Outer Worlds was set in space, Outer Wilds was set in space, Mass Effect was set in space, Heat Signature is set in space... etc for all space games that exist. Outer Wilds is my favorite game ever but it also works because it’s a tiny little solar system
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Sep 10, 2023 17:20
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Devorum posted:I make the comparison to it because NMS, while not perfect, has much better scanning, exploration, and resource gathering. they did look at player feedback from their games and implemented things like shoving basic abilities behind perk points. It's absolutely what more hardcore mods did. Turns out its only fit for masochistic piggus.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:21
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Macichne Leainig posted:Menufield Got em! Should send that one to Asmongold, maybe throw in a thumbnail with a shocked face too
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Sep 10, 2023 17:26
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AndrewP posted:Outer Wilds is my favorite game ever but it also works because it’s a tiny little solar system i mean even a "tiny" solar system is still a massive amount of space i think outer wilds is a fantastic argument that a smaller and more detailed open world is often more engaging than a huge one. "1000 planets" sounds impressive but most of them are barren wastelands with generic poi's thrown onto them, whereas every single planet in outer wilds is utterly unique. in most cases not just unique in the context of that gameworld, but also unique in the context of space games or even the scifi fantasy genre as a whole, there were planet types in that game i'd never heard of or conceived, and that's the kind of thing i love to see in a game. and it was made a little indie team. less than 25 employees! imagine what a developer with bethesda's resources could do with one solar system with their resources if they focused those resources on making 10-15 unique planets instead of.. this.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:26
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Devorum posted:I make the comparison to it because NMS, while not perfect, has much better scanning, exploration, and resource gathering. Okay, but are scanning and resource gathering why people are buying this game Starfield? I agree neither are very compelling and while NMS may have both systems done better, as they were both integral to its core gameplay loop, I'd say they aren't 100% more interesting over there. Starfield seems to place its eggs in the basket of combat and for all its faults, the combat is... decent.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:27
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Macichne Leainig posted:Menufield My god. Its full of bars.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:29
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Earwicker posted:imagine what a developer with bethesda's resources could do with one solar system with their resources if they focused those resources on making 10-15 unique planets instead of.. this.  Mr. Crow posted:My god. Its full of bars. title
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Sep 10, 2023 17:30
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NMS has a similar system where it fills planets with generic procgen structures and a lot of people complain about it there too, but for NMS it’s because it’s hard to feel like you’re exploring the universe if everything already has a ton of outposts and NPCs on it.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:31
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George Sex - REAL posted:Okay, but are scanning and resource gathering why people are buying this game Starfield? the concept of "exploring space" is a major selling point of both Starfield and NMS. "scanning and resource gathering" is an activity that exists in both games essentially to give the player something to do while wandering across otherwise barren planets, which is one of the main modes of exploration both games offer. so while people are not buying the game specifically for the scanning system, they are buying the game to explore and using the scanning system is a pretty major part of that and thus, yes, absolutely worthy of comparison. what i think NMS really does better tho is gives the player ground vehicles, which makes exploration less tedious and, sometimes, more fun. although NMS planets have too many cave systems and you are constantly falling into them. a motorcycle or buggy or something to cruise around Starfield planets would help a lot
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Sep 10, 2023 17:31
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This game has hit super well for me, just having a total blast. Rolled credits for the first time at around 60H after doing a couple of the “good” factions. Absolutely loved the hook at the end - it really is a pretty interesting narrative structure for NG+ and repeated playthroughs. I already have 2 more planned out in my head. I get what people are saying about the structure of the exploration - I also just think that it’s kind of a natural trade off that they made because they explicitly wanted a game that had a sense of immense scale (even if it struggles to sell it completely). It’s just trying to do something very different than the ES and Fallout games were. And for me, I guess I just didn’t really mind the architecture of fast travel because after a while, I tend to do a lot of fast traveling in games like Skyrim and Fallout, too. And I never really ran out of interesting non-procedural content to do in my run. I will say that I think this is probably BGS’s best game from a narrative standpoint. It struggles at the start but once you hit the midpoint of the main quest it really goes some interesting places and ends in a very satisfactory way. I also genuinely enjoyed the companion quests (particularly Barrett’s), which haven’t historically been great in their other games. Faction/guild quests have always been good and that’s no different here. I know that it’s a low bar because the Main Quests are typically not great in these games but it does feel like they made a real effort this time and I hope that they continue that trajectory into ES6 Edit: I really appreciate Greg Miller’s spoiler discussion, because my experience is really close to his: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=AK_i-sY_qWA&t=2165s VanillaGorilla fucked around with this message at 17:38 on Sep 10, 2023 |
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Sep 10, 2023 17:34
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i take it this is a reference to the Destiny franchise which yes, has a lot of problems but also it's a.) a completely different genre and b.) Destiny and Destiny 2 both have substantially more interesting level design and compelling aesthetics than anything i've seen in Starfield i mean for all its faults Destiny 2 has kept be occupied quite a long time. i don't think this game will hold my interest nearly as long
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Sep 10, 2023 17:34
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Tommy the Newt posted:This is the weakest defence of a game design choice I've read today. Well done. Outer Worlds was set in space, Outer Wilds was set in space, Mass Effect was set in space, Heat Signature is set in space... etc for all space games that exist. Serious question, because I bounced off Outer Worlds hard, like didn't make it 2 hours into the game and it just wasn't my taste, but it is really hard not to compare the two games, given timing and Bethesda's and Obsidian's history. How did space travel work in Outer Worlds?
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Sep 10, 2023 17:36
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is there a Chunks headquarters/factory you can visit?
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Sep 10, 2023 17:38
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afflictionwisp posted:Serious question, because I bounced off Outer Worlds hard, like didn't make it 2 hours into the game and it just wasn't my taste, but it is really hard not to compare the two games, given timing and Bethesda's and Obsidian's history.
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Sep 10, 2023 17:39
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afflictionwisp posted:Serious question, because I bounced off Outer Worlds hard, like didn't make it 2 hours into the game and it just wasn't my taste, but it is really hard not to compare the two games, given timing and Bethesda's and Obsidian's history. From what I recall of playing it when it first came out, it was "space travel" in that you traveled in space from one planet to the next, like in KotOR or Mass Effect
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Sep 10, 2023 17:40
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Earwicker posted:i mean even a "tiny" solar system is still a massive amount of space
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Sep 10, 2023 17:42
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