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It's quite funny that Bethesda made all the mistakes that Bioware made with Andromeda, except they didn't course correct and give up on procgen planets so we end up with what we end up with.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:07
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Cyrano4747 posted: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. Yup. I've posted similar stuff; as far as I can tell there isn't anything stopping the Starfield we got from having a space section you can actually WASD+Mouse your way through, it can be done, the only unknown is how well the game can handle having, say, three docking ports and a dozen ships buzzing around one space map. If you docked onto a warp capable ship, like in Battle Tech, that would be even more of a direct utilization of mechanics that already exist.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:11
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Cyrano4747 posted: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. 1000 planets is fine, they just need to treat the planets outside the core as y'know, actually outside the core. By the time you get out to the level 70 systems there should be absolutely nothing out there, just an empty sandbox for the player to survey and build in if they really wanted. There's no reason for every planet to have an Ecliptic garrison.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:24
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Alchenar posted: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. skyrim's story works because instead of being a goofy fantasy civil war it accidentally triggers the prophecy that brings about the literal end of the certain plane of existence. Thirty years war but satan is actually wielding a pitchfork and raising hellbuddies.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:27
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Bethesda just needed to make Star Control 2.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:27
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ImpAtom posted:Bethesda just needed to make Star Control 2. Keep bethesda away from Star Control
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Apr 24, 2024 19:35
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ImpAtom posted:Bethesda just needed to make Star Control 2. This thought makes me not a *happy camper*
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Apr 24, 2024 19:46
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I don't recall the last lifecycle for FO4 but I'm pretty sure they weren't essentially radio silent for six months on any content DLC. Scrolling past my steam feed and the only thing that's come out has been some bug fixes, lighting changes, and improvements to photo mode. Maybe I'm a pessimist but I think the game is dead to the powers that be and this is probably all we're going to get.
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Apr 24, 2024 19:59
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FO4 also had a season pass day 1 with a planned DLC roadmap iirc (as opposed to a single presale DLC) so they were a bit more optimistic on launch day about what their medium-term commitment to the IP was going to bequote:Automatron It was released November so we're currently at the point in Starfield's lifecycle where they had released 4-5 of the 6 DLCs for FO4 and there's no creation kit yet Ursine Catastrophe fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 20:04
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A quick google shows a release date of Nov 10 2015 and then pc patches on: Nov, twice, then dec once, jan twice, feb three times, march once, five in april, etc Now, all of those show BETA next to the version, but looking at it more broadly, 1.5 was out of beta in June, so 7 months. But with seventeen beta patches before it. Edit: to muddy the waters, google is also telling me Starfield has had I think 15 patches (the website I found was much more poorly laid out), is in version 1.10. So who knows, what even is a patch, etc. Jack B Nimble fucked around with this message at 20:11 on Apr 24, 2024 |
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Apr 24, 2024 20:08
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Father Wendigo posted: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. A Starfield sequel wouldn't realistically come out until 2040 at which point no one will probably care about video games anymore what with the famines, heat, and mass migrations.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:11
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1glitch0 posted:A Starfield sequel wouldn't realistically come out until 2040 at which point no one will probably care about video games anymore what with the famines, heat, and mass migrations. Not to forget that Winds of Winter would be just around the corner!
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Apr 24, 2024 20:15
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FishMcCool posted:Not to forget that Winds of Winter would be just around the corner! The first ChatGPT-10 written novel.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:17
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1glitch0 posted:A Starfield sequel wouldn't realistically come out until 2040 at which point no one will probably care about video games anymore what with the famines, heat, and mass migrations. A Starfield sequel by Bethesda wouldn't come out until 2040. A Starfield sequel by one of Microsoft's subsidiaries could come out in a few years. We'll probably already have a few of those things before then, but the premium consumer should remain unaffected.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:35
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Vasudus posted:I don't recall the last lifecycle for FO4 but I'm pretty sure they weren't essentially radio silent for six months on any content DLC. Scrolling past my steam feed and the only thing that's come out has been some bug fixes, lighting changes, and improvements to photo mode. My more charitable theory is that they've been working on the PS5 version of the game and that's slowing everything down.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:49
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or that being a bigger game it takes more time for things to get moving.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:51
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Cyrano4747 posted: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. Yeah these are good ideas.
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Apr 24, 2024 20:54
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Jack B Nimble posted:Yup. I've posted similar stuff; as far as I can tell there isn't anything stopping the Starfield we got from having a space section you can actually WASD+Mouse your way through, it can be done, the only unknown is how well the game can handle having, say, three docking ports and a dozen ships buzzing around one space map. The only question is the docking ports. A bunch of locations (like the ship manufacturer stations) already feature a ton of loitering traffic.
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Apr 24, 2024 21:13
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Rookersh posted:Honestly I disagree that the game isn't fixable. It's very fixable... It is not. quote:Skills are likely fixable through basic modding. The current skills aren't poorly tuned--they're perfectly tuned, for a poorly tuned game. quote:Guns could get fixed through a mix of modding and DLC. Cool, change how weapons work (or else introduce weapons that break the current combat system), and don't forget to overhaul the enemy AI and pathfinding so nothing gets too over/underpowered. This will require tons of new AI behavior trees, character controller rewrites, and a billion new animations for 30 different skeleton types in an engine that actively hates its art team. quote:Getting around could get fixed by some sort of planet vehicles DLC. You're gonna want to supersize that with a side order of either complete overworld redesigns of hand placed garbage or rejiggered procgen trash. quote:A greater focus on heavy weapons/airborne style weapons would make things feel much more interesting. See above above re: the entire enemy behavior stack. quote:Getting around is annoying and fiddly and way too in menu. Take away the "in menu" part and now you've got to put something else in its place. Menus and fast travel are currently hiding a lot of stupid empty nonsense; take them away and the game gets even worse. quote:There aren't enough things to actually do on planets. Adding new gameplay loops/mechanics is insanely difficult to do in creation engine. The engine itself is hardcoded around BGS' primary loops of "talk/inventory/quest" and trying to add a different 'thing' to do in the game is next to impossible as things currently are. quote:Rehashing the space travel UI so you can do it all from cockpit view would be a huge help. Gonna have to make sure that new UI works on all the different cockpit layouts and player resolutions and doesn't overpad all the existing dumb poo poo on the screen. quote: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". While you're at it, I'd like a pony. quote:Starfields problems aren't insurmountable, especially for a companion like Bethesda. Starfields problems exist in the first place specifically because Bethesda is the company that shat it out. I think it's great when studios take risks...but just care, you know? Seriously, who within BGS gave two shits about this smokin' hot turd? Your point about fo76 is moot because they fixed it by adding back in design elements that brought it up to par with their previous games. Starfield is basically Palliative Care, the Video Game, and I'm telling you there will be no big turnaround for it.
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Apr 24, 2024 23:10
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ok theres absolutely no way theres 100 types of poi, i maybe saw 1-3 per 'type' with you fighting one of the 1-3 enemy types
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Apr 24, 2024 23:34
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POIs also include the environmental features and small things scattered around
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Apr 25, 2024 00:02
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Alchenar posted:I reinstalled Fallout 4 this week because TV show and incoming patch, and even knowing what's in it the gameplay experience of leaving the Vault and walking out into a crafted world is just so fundamentally different to anything I experienced playing Starfield. You are absolutely right, the game isn't fixable, the best that could happen is that someone takes the technical work Bethesda have done and use it to craft an entirely new game. In F4, the experience of just wandering around and running into random new stuff around every corner (quests, interesting builds, funny skeleton poses) is the strongest part of the game. In Starfield, the experience of just wandering around is running into the same stuff you've already seen a dozen times for each new thing, and every time you want to check if there's anything new or not you have to go through a loading screen. Cyrano4747 posted: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. Just put it all in one mega-star-system like BSG (2003) or Firefly. No loading times between systems because there's one system.
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Apr 25, 2024 01:06
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I think the thing that made me the most angry about loading screens was how some random shops would be instanced and others would not. Like there's this huge (for a bethesda game) city and all these shops are in the open world but one or two in particular that aren't even linked to quests are behind a loading screen. Why.
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Apr 25, 2024 01:33
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Cyrano4747 posted:Because kicking the dead horse is fun, and dissecting it to find out why it's dead is interesting. The Barkley 2 Method 👀
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Apr 25, 2024 01:41
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I think people would be happier to overlook one or two crappier aspects of Starfield if all of the others were great, but (speaking as someone who played ~80 hours and liked most of it) so much of it just sucks individually. Oh the main quest is kinda lame? Beth usually has interesting faction quests so I'll focus on those Hmm, two of the three faction quests make no sense? Huh, maybe I'll play it like Skyrim and just explore the game world Oh the universe is empty and constantly repeating? All good, I like having companions so I'll explore their stories Wait, most of the companions are annoying and not very interesting? Fine, I always wanted to be Han Solo, guess I'll be a space smuggler Oh, the economy makes zero sense and smuggling is just a dice roll? Maybe I'll explore different combat options Huh, stealth is busted and melee is pointless so the combat options are "guns"? I like building games so I'll give outposts a shot Right, it takes a bunch of skillups and tedious grinding and doesn't do anything? Let's try ship building then! Oh, it's the same as outposts? I heard there's an interesting NG+ option, maybe I'll stick out the story and give it a shot Welp, it deleted all my progress and wants me to do the story again. Guess I'll delete Starfield
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Apr 25, 2024 02:33
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Vasudus posted:I think the thing that made me the most angry about loading screens was how some random shops would be instanced and others would not. Like there's this huge (for a bethesda game) city and all these shops are in the open world but one or two in particular that aren't even linked to quests are behind a loading screen. Why. From the interview with Will Shen, the Lead quest designer who quit straight afterwards, as there was so much staff working on the game a lot of the teams had a hard time communicating and working together. It could have just been those shops were being worked on differently than the rest of the city than they just couldn't organise to get them put into the main city map or something. Heard quite a few people working on games say that it does get really difficult working on games when there is heaps of people working on it and you really need good project management to make it work.
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Apr 25, 2024 02:43
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Not to be "the ideas guy", but like someone mentioned above, Starfield probably would've been much better if it was just a single solar system rather than the entire galaxy. Instead of the shoebox cell around a POI/landing point on 1000 planets, have something like a dozen planets where each has a fully hand-crafted map that's 30-40% the size of Skyrim. The enormous empty galaxy probably isn't the game's most glaring issue, but imo it's the most foundational problem.
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Apr 25, 2024 02:48
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webmeister posted:The enormous empty galaxy probably isn't the game's most glaring issue, but imo it's the most foundational problem. I mean, sort of but not really? It really boils down to a lack of focus-- you can make a game where "big empty galaxy" is a core design principle (see: NMS), the problem is "not everyone wants a game like that" and Bethesda cannot accept that as an outcome of a game they make if they had picked a direction to go in with this game, any direction, and said "we're going to focus on doing this one thing well, at the expense of other aspects if necessary", it would have been a game that some people really liked and some people really didn't like but by trying to do everything, it instead just did nothing, so everyone talks about what they'd rather have seen it do and plays something that does those things better, and 4 times more people are playing skyrim than their hot new IP (I'd mention fallout concurrency but it's kind of unfair right now, there's more people playing fallout 3 than starfield right now, and FO4 hit 30x starfield's current a couple days ago by steam charts)
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Apr 25, 2024 03:32
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I don't understand why some devs push for thousands of worlds and procgen content. Maybe they just want to sit back and hope a game makes itself.
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Apr 25, 2024 04:33
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Starfield is bad procgen. It's kind of shocking how bad it is. It's worse than Daggerfall, which at least had procedural dungeons rather than the same prefab repeated thousands of times. It's still a heightmap instead of voxels, still has the magic teleport doors, still has that Gamebyro jank. Why? They've had literal decades to fix this, they have Microsoft money, loving idtech developers next door. Why are they so averse to using a 3D engine that doesn't suck rear end? Procgen works best in games where you can (literally) carve your own slice of the world out, like Minecraft, anyway. Slapping down a bunch of prefab base parts doesn't count. SCheeseman fucked around with this message at 04:48 on Apr 25, 2024 |
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Apr 25, 2024 04:45
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Holy crap this game. Just the exact same bases over and over and over again. Same fights, over and over and over again. And none of these stupid vendor's have more than 5,000 credits to buy my hundred thousand credit stash of junk. WTF bethesda? This game sucks. Is there any hope? Major patches coming?
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Apr 25, 2024 04:46
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SCheeseman posted:Starfield is bad procgen. It's kind of shocking how bad it is. It's worse than Daggerfall, which at least had procedural dungeons rather than the same prefab repeated thousands of times. It's still a heightmap instead of voxels, still has the magic teleport doors, still has that Gamebyro jank. Why? They've had literal decades to fix this, they have Microsoft money, loving idtech developers next door. Why are they so averse to using a 3D engine that doesn't suck rear end? Daggerfall's dungeons were SO BAD though.
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Apr 25, 2024 04:59
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homullus posted:Daggerfall's dungeons were SO BAD though. Yeah, but at least they were varied. In my ~80 hours of playing Starfield I don't think I saw more than 4 variations of abandoned tech base.
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Apr 25, 2024 05:03
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webmeister posted:Not to be "the ideas guy", but like someone mentioned above, Starfield probably would've been much better if it was just a single solar system rather than the entire galaxy. Instead of the shoebox cell around a POI/landing point on 1000 planets, have something like a dozen planets where each has a fully hand-crafted map that's 30-40% the size of Skyrim.
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Apr 25, 2024 05:05
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homullus posted:Daggerfall's dungeons were SO BAD though. I had an intense love/hate relationship with Daggerfall's massive nonsensical dungeons back when I was in middle school. I loved doing massacres on town guards by backing away from a pack of them and swinging my sword while they all yell HALT HALT also there were pixelated boobs. truly a high point in my life. im actually not sure if I ever beat the game...
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Apr 25, 2024 06:36
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You could have set Starfield on a single planet in a single map, maybe with large procgen wastes between important areas that you can fly between. There's lots wrong with the game, but IMO the single most fundamental problem is forcing the player to go through 5 loading screens in a minute in order to travel anywhere. Games can be forgiven a lot, but the one thing a game that relies on investing you in its world absolutely cannot do is constantly remind the player that they are playing a game. Which Starfield does all the time.
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Apr 25, 2024 08:04
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homullus posted:Daggerfall's dungeons were SO BAD though. See, I hated them back then and spent most of my Daggerfall time on city missions. But having returned to it a couple months ago with Daggerfall Unity, I kind of like them a lot? They're glorious complex mazes which take some effort exploring. No, they don't tick the 5 minutes "go to this linear cave to kill mob" quest, but as long as you know what you're getting into, they're brilliant. They tick the dungeon crawl craving which later games don't even attempt, with a few exceptions (a big dwemer ruin in Morrowind iirc? some big mages guild dungeon in Skyrim?). You don't dungeon dive on a whim in Daggerfall, you prepare and commit to the effort. It's going to be long, and you're going to face poison, disease, sleep, paralysis, gravity, underwater, all of which can easily kill you if you're unprepared. Sure, there could have been more blocks, and they could have been better designed and connected for dungeons that make some kind of sense instead of being giant mazes. But I feel like they actually hold up decently considering the sequels.
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Apr 25, 2024 08:19
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Alchenar posted:You could have set Starfield on a single planet in a single map, maybe with large procgen wastes between important areas that you can fly between. That was an issue with late game Fallout 4, too. I dreaded doing quests for the Institute because I would have to go through at least two loading screens.
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Apr 25, 2024 08:37
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Starfield, Starfield, no one should terrify the neighborhood~
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Apr 25, 2024 08:40
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Philippe posted:That was an issue with late game Fallout 4, too. I dreaded doing quests for the Institute because I would have to go through at least two loading screens. Eh, my experience of TES/FO is that you always start out exploring the world with wonder, but as time passes and you cover off more of the map you use fast travel more and more because there's no point spending 5-10 mins retreading old ground on the off chance you'll get a random encounter. That's just your brain telling you you are done with the game and its fine. Starfield forces you into fast travel menu hell from minute 1 that you are out of the intro zone.
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Apr 25, 2024 08:48
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