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Cyrano4747 posted:The loading screens are an engine limitation. My understanding is that you're not going to get seamless traversal across the entire world like you can in most other open world RPGs just due to how streaming assets works in Gamebryo, which is to say it doesn't. I thought the issue was progen'ing stuff on the fly? Fallout 4 -and I assume every game since oblivion- map is big enough I just figured it's made up of sectors which load seamlessly?
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Apr 24, 2024 14:07
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I could see star wars helping starfield because lol at that night club what were they even trying to do Maybe that's just what it looks like when Bethesda employees go to the club
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Apr 24, 2024 14:09
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dr_rat posted:I thought the issue was progen'ing stuff on the fly? Fallout 4 -and I assume every game since oblivion- map is big enough I just figured it's made up of sectors which load seamlessly? It is. They even managed to do elevator hidden loading screens in fallout 4. A lot of the technical debt is made up for by things like easy access to adding things in the world. Which is why the lack of the CK is all the more painful. If it doesn't come around at some point people will just give up. moist turtleneck posted:I could see star wars helping starfield because lol at that night club what were they even trying to do Doing fish cum and watching human lava lamps. They leave the horned up poo poo for the fanbase to tap into.
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Apr 24, 2024 14:19
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It's the lack of a contiguous open world that exacerbates the loading screens. No one really cares that the interior of white run, or the interior of the mars colony, are behind short loading screens. But when you leave the former a whole expansive world is there before you and when you leave the later it's menus and fast travel.
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Apr 24, 2024 14:21
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I love it when someone is like go to zimzam 17 and there's no waypoint and it's in gleeble system so there's no way to even guess where it's at
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Apr 24, 2024 14:23
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moist turtleneck posted:I love it when someone is like go to zimzam 17 and there's no waypoint and it's in gleeble system so there's no way to even guess where it's at Lack of search function is one thing they definitely could fix.
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Apr 24, 2024 14:31
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moist turtleneck posted:Maybe that's just what it looks like when Bethesda employees go to the club It looks like a high school disco, complete with awkward parents Though to be fair, your parents showing up there is probably the funniest non-bug moment in the game
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Apr 24, 2024 15:12
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Tankbuster posted:starfield's biggest problem is that that there isn't a fun handcrafted world you can go traipsing around in. It's this. They built a bunch of disparate systems that don't really connect to each other or anything else and then relied on procgen to fill out their giant game world with a small handful of assets and PoIs and the result is something that's just frustrating or unsatisfying on every level. OddObserver posted:Lack of search function is one thing they definitely could fix. Maybe they could fix the utterly bizarre pathing/route calculations while they're working on the system map infernal machines fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 15:27
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Ursine Catastrophe posted:Even then it wouldn't "save" starfield as a game any more than far harbor "saved" FO4's writing, it'd just be a digression into better content for a couple hours before returning to the base game and being depressed about the wasted potential A couple of hours of better content would give the player a positive experience with Starfield, which is something that doesn't appear to be happening now. It could give the franchise a hook or two to try and hang a do-over sequel somewhere down the line and bring some value to the IP going forward.
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Apr 24, 2024 15:50
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They will absolutely add more ship customization and maps that are actually maps. They'll add more locations that appear in the procedural generation. They will probably add more traits, since they already have trait removal. Obviously they can add some more handcrafted locations and quests, and vary the temples. Beyond that, Starfield could have new locations related to the Crimson Fleet and House Va'ruun that the existing companions react to, and that change on NG+. They could add more of a lot of things that vary on NG+. Larian fixed animations, did re-writes, and brought back VAs for more dialogue. CDPR overhauled the skills in Cyberpunk. I think outposts are probably going to stay terrible, but Bethesda could do a lot. Will they? 
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Apr 24, 2024 16:44
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we shall see. There's a lot of stuff removed from that tech debt that modders depended upon.
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Apr 24, 2024 16:52
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Honestly I disagree that the game isn't fixable. It's very fixable, it's the question of whether or not Bethesda chooses to invest in actually fixing it. The gameplay loop needs work. Skills are anemic, there isn't enough gun variety, and getting around sucks. All of these things are fixable. Skills are likely fixable through basic modding. Guns could get fixed through a mix of modding and DLC. Getting around could get fixed by some sort of planet vehicles DLC. A greater focus on heavy weapons/airborne style weapons would make things feel much more interesting. The exploration loop needs work. Getting around is annoying and fiddly and way too in menu. Planet transit basically forces you to spend all your initial skills on movement speed/stamina so you can get around quicker. There aren't enough things to actually do on planets. Most of these things are fixable. Rehashing the space travel UI so you can do it all from cockpit view would be a huge help. Taxi options between colonized worlds, including outposts you build that get large enough. More PoI are obviously going to come with DLC. The aforementioned ground vehicle based DLC. The story and setting is fundamentally flawed. I'll argue in favor of the MSQ, Constellation is largely bunk and I don't care about any of the companions. But the actual main thrust of the MSQ is interesting, figuring out what happened to Earth, figuring out the nature of the Starborn, the Hunter/Prophet etc. It's just surrounded by lovely companion writing, and some deeply shallow factions. It also needs to lead into something more interesting than "isn't space crazy". This is also fixable. DLC add 1-2 companions that are somewhat more interesting then the current crew, add in the House Va'run? DLC with it's own story. Have another Crusade kick off which adds a whole bunch of PoIs to various planets, or big fights between the factions. Add in an antagonistic alien race like the Ur-Quan or Shivans coming into the picture, and a further explanation for the whys/whats of who created the Starborn and why/what they really are. Get out of the current writing head up it's own rear end in a top hat that leaves everything vague and spend some DLC time further fleshing out each of the factions. Corruption/family power in the Freestar, dealing with Batu? in Neon, and more normal life poo poo for UC. They could also drop a DLC with a variety of new hand crafted PoIs attached to Outposts, go down the Morrowind Stronghold/NWN Crossroads Keep angle and have your first Outpost start getting settled as a proper "new" city and have a expansion about people moving to it and trying to build a new 3rd or 4th faction. As your settlement grows larger, more people move in with actual names who have actual quests that tie to the other factions/open planets. People moving from New Atlantis that could help flesh out what life is like in the UC as they want you to help get them settled here and creating their new life. Add actual story to the loving around and exploring parts of the game to give further encouragement to engage with these systems. They could drop a DLC that goes deeper into NG+ alterations that more firmly alter the MSQ. They could add DLC that gives further stuff to do in space. They could add DLC that fleshes out factional quests and responsibilities, further fleshes out trade, adds minigames, adds an alien language mechanic, space hulks, etc etc. Starfields problems aren't insurmountable, especially for a companion like Bethesda. It's problems are frankly not even core, it's just death by a thousand cuts. Transit sucks, but it's made worse by the skill system, but it's made worse by the lack of reason to explore, but it's made worse by the xyz. Fix even half these issues and the game suddenly becomes a lot less miserable to play. Most of the talk otherwise just feels like doomerism for the sake of doomerism. Bethesda has dropped stinkers before and spent inordinate amounts of money fixing them up. ESO was garbage at launch, but they did three separate full game overhauls until one stuck and they've turned it into one of the most popular MMOs out there. Fallout 76 equally got multiple huge game changing drops before it became profitable, and it's only recently gotten people to change their opinion of it from it's launch. Starfield will absolutely get massive alterations to almost all it's core systems, because Bethesda has made it very clear they consider public opinion of their IPs to be extremely important to them. Like gently caress, if they make it so you can actually do everything from the cockpit without having to choose a fast travel location from a goddamn menu I think a solid 60-70% of the games problems straight up vanish on their own. This isn't an insurmountable unbreakable problem. This is extremely doable. Rookersh fucked around with this message at 17:25 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 17:19
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Rookersh posted:
What you are describing is basically re-making the game. Like, yeah, you could "fix" starfield by re-doing the plot, re-doing the characters, re-doing the quests, making NG+ more meaningful, etc. but at that point you're just writing another game and shoving it into the hollowed out shell of Starfield. At that point you might as well just make a new game and sell it for full price.
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Apr 24, 2024 17:24
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So it's only savable with paradox levels of dlc
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Apr 24, 2024 17:25
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It's true that it's important to accept Starfield for what it is, and what it is is a game that's much more about quests than free form exploration. Starfield is at it's best when you're tackling meaty quest lines in something much more like Mass Effect. That best still falls apart with anemic character build options and a downright mess of a story, but at least one of those things can be fixed. Because Starfield doesn't have a voiced protagonist, the best story fix you're going to get is something like Start Me Up from Fallout 4, where they sound boarded the massive amounts of dialogue to let you play as entirely new character, and it'll work even better here because you're silent. Let me actually play a space trucker, or a home steader, or a bounty hunter, and give NPCs some remarks about it and give ME, the unvoiced player, a LOT more remarks about it, and skill challenges: Remember when you go up to the eye and hit some text boxes? That's embarrassing amateurism for BGS, a AAA company, but more of that from modders could work .
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Apr 24, 2024 17:32
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I guess the sad thing is that the gunplay is actually pretty good for an action RPG. What they need are some actual FPS or Mass Effect mission makers to craft some stuff that's actually engaging to play with.
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Apr 24, 2024 17:50
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Cyrano4747 posted:What you are describing is basically re-making the game. Bullshit. I edited my previous post, but I'll say it again here. If Bethesda only changed the galaxy travel map to be something that wasn't a separate menu you had to fiddle with, but instead was something you could just do as soon as you entered the cockpit through facing/cockpit skew it'd fix the vast majority of problems this game has. And it already HAS this feature, it just needs to be expanded upon. You can already start flying in your ship and if you point in the direction of various nearby galaxies it'll ask if you wanna fly there. It just needs a quest drop down menu that lets you choose your next quest in cockpit, and maybe a small scale galaxy map that pops up so you can see where you've already been. Maybe add some cockpit view notes about the planets in a system once you arrive to encourage not going to the menu map again. Every other problem listed is minor to that singular problem. Exploration sucks, but outpost creation isn't the worst and there's like 70-100 some odd unique PoIs out there already. It just sucks utterly to go to any of them due to the aforementioned awful loving travel map. We've got plenty of games with meaningless exploration that do fine because going too and from isn't as painful as pulling teeth. NMS is a great example. It's a game that's as shallow as a puddle, but it's beloved because getting around is a functional system. Gameplay loop isn't interesting, but it's functional. Story is weak, but again, it's functional. MSQ is fine. Guilds are -fine-. Skyrim wasn't the height of writing either but it worked. I'm just not going to fly out and do a dumb quest when getting too and from actively makes me want to die. New quests are obviously coming with DLC, and even just a few additional guilds/quests in the major cities could really help make the game more fleshed out. Most of my post was things they could do to make Starfield get even better, but "fixing" it is not a mountain of work. An update to the galaxy travel map and some sort of ground vehicle based DLC dropping at the same time and for 90% of the playerbase Starfield jumps from a 4/10 to a 7/10. Why shouldn't Bethesda do that? Why make a new game for an IP people currently have no interest in? Who is going to trust Bethesda if they don't actively work on Starfield? Who is going to buy Starfield 2 ( or TES6 ) if they don't do the bare minimum to make Starfield more interesting to play. All this navel gazing about how Freestar being so shallow is the real reason Starfield failed is just that, navel gazing. Most people don't care. The thing that killed this game for most people is the fact that getting to and fro is actively aggravating, and even getting from bland procgen PoI to bland procgen PoI is a mess. It's a game of menus, and the menus aren't very fun. You talk about how they'd have to "redo the entire game" to make it worthwhile, but then list the most basic DLC features as "redoing the entire game". New quests and PoIs will come with DLC. NG+ types that vary the MSQ are already present so the triggers are already there. I'm sure they could whip up some neat scenarios/weird MSQs to play with. New non human enemy types will almost assuredly come with the DLC. Alien enemies, House Va'run getting weird, more unique poo poo for PoIs. This is stuff they already have in the pipeline, it's just a question of when it gets added.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:01
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I personally found the game's story to be better than outer worlds. But maybe I am not half as charmed as some people who go "DAE capitalism sucks" makes for a compelling story in outer worlds.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:07
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Rookersh posted:This is stuff they already have in the pipeline, it's just a question of when it gets added. Oh? Do you have an uncle at Bethesda?
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Apr 24, 2024 18:10
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I'm not even sure to start so I'm going to cherry pick and  a bitRookersh posted:If Bethesda only changed the galaxy travel map to be something that wasn't a separate menu you had to fiddle with, but instead was something you could just do as soon as you entered the cockpit through facing/cockpit skew it'd fix the vast majority of problems this game has. lol Rookersh posted:All this navel gazing about how Freestar being so shallow is the real reason Starfield failed is just that, is the person complaining about freestar ruining the game in the thread with us right now
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Apr 24, 2024 18:17
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my uncle works at microsoft. They are going to shoot todd howard out of a cannon and let chris avellone make elder scrolls on the UE5.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:17
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OP's first post in the thread was saying the same thing six months ago, so they're consistent. Maybe six months from now Bethesda will have delivered an update that addresses any of these items, as opposed to bug fixes and lighting tweaks. Hope springs eternal.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:21
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i do like how the ai news sources will do titles like "Bethesda releases new update that revolutionizes the game" and it's just some new form of dlss checkbox or something
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Apr 24, 2024 18:24
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Rookersh posted:You talk about how they'd have to "redo the entire game" to make it worthwhile, but then list the most basic DLC features as "redoing the entire game". New quests and PoIs will come with DLC. NG+ types that vary the MSQ are already present so the triggers are already there. I'm sure they could whip up some neat scenarios/weird MSQs to play with. New non human enemy types will almost assuredly come with the DLC. Alien enemies, House Va'run getting weird, more unique poo poo for PoIs. This is stuff they already have in the pipeline, it's just a question of when it gets added. New quests and new POIs are great, but that doesn't solve the fact that the main story quest is white hot garbage and all but one of the major faction side quests is embarrassing, and even THAT one has a player choice in it that is so mind numbingly contrived and dumb that it's become meme fodder. It's sub-FO4 storytelling. Yeah, you can add new quests in DLC but it doesn't make the fact that the main quest is garbage any less of an albatross. Far Harbor was great, but that doesn't absolve FO4 from getting very deserved criticism for having a weak main story (and I say this as someone who maintains that FO4's story was mediocre but not horrible like most of the rest of the internet does). The existing quests in Starfield alternate between being bland, bland cliches, or just dumb. The existing characters in Starfield are a mix of forgettable, mildly annoying, and bland. The universe and general setting is bland in the extreme, and what flashes of flavor are in there are extremely "we have Firefly/Cyberpunk/etc at home." You could put the existing plot and characters into a beautiful, magical, perfect game engine and the game would still be mediocre at best. Meanwhile, if you have a game some combination of good story, characters, and setting people will overlook a fuckload of engine jank. Bethesda's always had OK but not great story, but they've been great at building environments people want to explore. That's the Beth FO games and Skryim in a nut shell. And others have made legit good stories in fun environments with their janky engine and turned out a classic - FONV. More recently you have the Cyberpunk example of a technical mess that had a cool world and neat storytelling to keep people invested, and after digging out of their bug riddled mess for a year they've got a pretty good product. The narrative and environmental core of Starfield is rotten, and that's what is getting the most vocal response. Most of the technical issues are things that people have overlooked in one form or another from Bethesda products in the past. There's no real fixing this, DCL is just going to be putting a really nice hat and jacket on a turd.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:26
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The load screen issue in Starfield is also exacerbated by the generally poor POIs and quests available. It's easy to ignore one load screen when landing on a planet, but it starts to grate when you load, make a quick one minute sprint to talk to a NPC, immediately fast travel out again for another load screen, repeat. There's not enough to get players to stick around and the quest log featuring a 'hold to travel to' button isn't helping. Some load screens also just flat out shouldn't exist. The elevator in the nightclub is an extreme offender: it's literally the same interior cell. You can jump down from upstairs to the dance floor. Make the elevator actually move instead of that bullshit. Fast traveling between planetary orbits in the same system also probably shouldn't need it, surely you don't have so much loaded in memory to need more than the cruise animation time to resolve that?
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Apr 24, 2024 18:26
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yeah its doomed. Then why spend time discussing it.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:32
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There are 'easy' fixes, and stuff that will take more work. More laser guns will be easy, I suspect the DLC will add a bunch. A skill tree rework to pare it down, make it something more than 'spend 5 skill points to get +25% damage' is also easy and could possibly, maybe, potentially, happen at some point. But... like... how do you make exploration more fun? A travel map isn't going to fix it. Vehicles might help, but I have my doubts that's something that's a) easily implemented, and b) Bethesda is really looking at. More PoIs? Once you see a PoI it's the same one all the time, and I doubt there are ~100 unique ones since I always run into the same research facility with the same mines and locked doors and such in the same locations, just sometimes populated by different enemies. Even if I now see TWO different research facility PoIs they are still incredibly boring because there's no reason to explore them besides farming xp or loot/trash.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:33
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Tankbuster posted:yeah its doomed. Then why spend time discussing it. Because kicking the dead horse is fun, and dissecting it to find out why it's dead is interesting. At this point I've probably gotten more of the value of my purchase price out of this thread than the game itself.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:34
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lmao ok. I just don't think the story is remotely as bad as you make it out to be.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:37
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Punished Ape posted:There are 'easy' fixes, and stuff that will take more work. You could probably salvage the POIs a bit by doing some kind of procgen thing for them. I'm frankly surprised that's not how it already is, it's more or less what I was expecting. They'd probably look a lot worse than hand-crafted POIs and I"m sure we'd all be able to see the seams where the algorithm was stapling different pre-made assets together (room A leads to hallway B which connects to Hanger 1 which has Ship+crates+clutter grouping B2 in it etc), but if nothing else it wouldn't be running the same exact science base for the twentieth time.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:37
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They could just integrate that into LIST quests. You help people set up new settlements in places that are abandoned or something.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:40
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I just hope that by "DLC" that entire post meant "Free Patch" "Flying around sucks, I can't wait to pay $20 for a fix"
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Apr 24, 2024 18:40
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The loading screens are rediculous, although at first I thought "Oh, I guess its because it will run better on consoles like this?" then I remembered that Fallout/Skyrim have huge landmasses and stream load just fine. and they seem to be popular on consoles. Tankbuster posted:lmao ok. I just don't think the story is remotely as bad as you make it out to be. staberind fucked around with this message at 18:49 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 18:43
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it's capped at 30fps on console lol
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Apr 24, 2024 18:44
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Cyrano4747 posted:You could probably salvage the POIs a bit by doing some kind of procgen thing for them. I'm frankly surprised that's not how it already is, it's more or less what I was expecting. They'd probably look a lot worse than hand-crafted POIs and I"m sure we'd all be able to see the seams where the algorithm was stapling different pre-made assets together (room A leads to hallway B which connects to Hanger 1 which has Ship+crates+clutter grouping B2 in it etc), but if nothing else it wouldn't be running the same exact science base for the twentieth time. The procgen ship layouts are borderline unnavigable, I can't see that being any better for stations and planet side POIs. It would be different, but I don't think it would be an improvement. Tankbuster posted:lmao ok. I just don't think the story is remotely as bad as you make it out to be. I put 189 hours into the game, to do every quest I could find (barring the generated ones). IMO the faction quests are by far the strongest and still vary wildly from pretty engaging to bewilderingly bad*. The MSQ seems a lot like it's going somewhere interesting until it doesn't and you learn that entire purpose of the multiverse is to power up your dragon shouts, which are so spectacularly useless you can play the entire game without them. No one anywhere cares about deeper exploration of Unity or the artifacts. The game keeps telling you that's the big deal, and then does not in fact do it, telling you instead to jump to NG+, where you can repeat the exact same content. That at least is fixable in DLC. They could actually explore any of the poo poo they built. *The bad ones are either bad because they just don't let you engage with the story any any way except the singular one presented, or bad because they seem like a first draft full of "fill this out later" that then got put into the game as shipped. infernal machines fucked around with this message at 18:51 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 18:48
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Cyrano4747 posted:You could probably salvage the POIs a bit by doing some kind of procgen thing for them. I'm frankly surprised that's not how it already is, it's more or less what I was expecting. They'd probably look a lot worse than hand-crafted POIs and I"m sure we'd all be able to see the seams where the algorithm was stapling different pre-made assets together (room A leads to hallway B which connects to Hanger 1 which has Ship+crates+clutter grouping B2 in it etc), but if nothing else it wouldn't be running the same exact science base for the twentieth time. A part of me suspects they wanted to have fully procgen POIs from the start but were forced to scrap that plan, so they filled the pool with their "unique" POIs at the last minute instead. It would explain why they have notes that reference specific people and such - they were never intended to be reused in the first place.
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Apr 24, 2024 18:52
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Tankbuster posted:yeah its doomed. Then why spend time discussing it. Join us in the Star Citizen thread and find out! 
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Apr 24, 2024 18:54
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Ahahahah, the original space trainwreck ^^^^^^Tankbuster posted:They could just integrate that into LIST quests. You help people set up new settlements in places that are abandoned or something. They could *HAVE*, as part of the actual game, instead of which we get "interrupt conversations to sell space timeshares". I know it seems like everyone is hating everything about the game, but its more I can see parts, like you, that could have been so much better. It took them over 7 years to make this, think of that everytime you run through the same POI. Yeah, I know they reset a couple times, but thats solidly a them problem, not an excuse. staberind fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 18:55
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The main story isn't necessarily bad, the problem is that its a story for a game that plays like No Man's Sky, not Bethesda-in-space. It is a story that is so disconnected from 99% of the game that the setting's main factions literally do not know that it is taking place. e: like, part of why Skyrim remains compelling because the two main factions have good and bad points to them but they're fighting over who gets to control Skyrim and its a natural point of the story that the literal dragon apocalypse is an issue that both factions recognise as a bit of a problem for them. Alchenar fucked around with this message at 19:03 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 18:59
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staberind posted:Ahahahah, the original space trainwreck ^^^^^^ I've maintained for a while that the space system, as dire as it is, could have been done pretty competently within the restrictions that they have. First off, cut way the gently caress back on the total number of planets. Sorry, Todd, your talking point about 1000 worlds or whatever needs to go. Next, link them via Now that you've created entrances and exits to your space maps, spool up some random ship traffic to give the illusion of activity. Plop down a few space stations, asteroid fields, maybe debris from that big war that happened a few decades ago, etc. Basically create some interesting "terrain" in space that players need to get through when going from point A to B, and which will also create more interesting battlefields when there's a fight. Conveniently it also gives you some blind spots to spawn poo poo in. Oh no we didn't detect pirates behind that asteroid, here they come! I'll add that none of this is interesting or novel, I'm basically just describing the way that a poo poo ton of space games worked twenty years ago. This is all real basic meat and potatoes poo poo that they should have been aware of just from doing the most cursory level of research on the genre that they were dipping their toes in.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:04
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