this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
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Starfield
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I'd agree with you, its a solid 7/10, if reviewed it after only playing the game for a couple hours.
but from the 10 hour mark and beyon, to where I am now, I'd say its a 5/10.
Theres just to many small things that make the game frustrating to hell once you get out of that initial starter window.
Like, Ship parts. You get great details on engines, shields, reactors, etc. But no detail on landing gear, which would be great to have when your error message is screaming at you for more landing gears, and you dont know how much each one supports, or what the difference is, and you have no numbers to tell you how many more you need... And Hab components. Just tell me what work benches each one has, at least, and if things like the infirmary are just cosmetic or provide some boon to having it.
And surveying planets. You know why exploring was fun in skyrim/fallout4? Cause you were going from point A to point B, and were discovering things on the way, and getting distracted. on Starfield, land in the middle of a map, and have to wander around hoping you can find enough to scan to complete the survey for the planet, or at least the biome, before fast traveling back to the ship. This can take hours, even with amp.. and amp's buff time is so little that if you plan on using it you have to stockpile a lot of it, and micromanage it.
Speaking of buffs like Amp.. theres no HUD display that I can find that indicates how much time you have left on your buffs. I barely use any buffs cause of this alone.
And speaking of the HUD.. Why are the things we get given tucked up in a corner where we cant see, at a time when our eyes are in the bottom middle reading text? I have no idea what I've gotten from quest rewards, because I never see the notification.
Also, the artificial delay and slowness built into the interface. Why? Theres mods that easily remove them.. but why are mods necessary? Why make the menu system artificially worse?
While individually, any one of these things (both the mentioned examples, and the unmentioned ones) could just be ignored with a sigh and moved on from, the fact that pretty much every system in the game missed its mark by an infuriatingly tiny step, that would take almost no effort to polish in to a gem, I cant help but just be utterly frustrated with the absolute potential the game had, thats left on the vine to wither, because they decided to stop right before getting things right on seemingly every. single. mechanic and interface.
And not to mention the bigger issues, like improperly handled DirectX calls that can cause bad performance and crashes, that was discoverd yesterday, or the fact that to much basic outpost shit is locked behind perks.
It really feels like the creators didn't do much playing of the game itself. So many things that are just lacking for a game like this.
Just so many things. Yes modders will fix it probably, but they shouldn't have to and there will likely not be as much interest in doing so since the game isn't as majestic and awe inspiring as skyrim (IMO).
I agree.
Game isnt a big expansive game like TES, or Fallout.
Its a series of tiny rooms, Most of which are just randomly generated, separated by half a dozen menus and loading loading screens. Theres no place to really stretch your legs, because more than likely you are going to be spending most of your game time running around on a randomly generated map looking for some PoI your quest requires, or the last flora/fauna/mineral your survey requires, so you can leave and never come back to this particular and specific tiny room again.
and even that wouldnt have been so bad, if there was some variety to the PoIs. But outside of the presumably handmade maps, like New Atlantis, It just feels like you are running into the same handful of PoI's over and over again, with the exact same layout, the exact same loot (just leveled and with a fancy new descriptor infront of its name) in the exact same places, and encountering the exact same miniquests on these randomly generated maps, like "Oh no, I'm sick, I hope you have the med.icine skill to fix me without cost" and "Oh no, there are pirates in the same PoI you've cleared out 37 times previously, go clear them out"
I have no problem with randomly generated segments, but Whats the point in randomly generating maps if its just gonna have the same handful of PoIs in it with absolutely zero change in them? I'd rather have a handful of map types and randomly generated PoI's, at least that would provide some compelling and playable variety.. and if not completely randomly genned, at least randomly change some things in the PoI so I know not to enter, take the first right, pick the blue door just to get a freaking AA rifle, like the 37 other previous times I did this PoI.
Yeah, they already covered all of your complaints when they said "It's a Bethesda RPG" lol.
But agreed, not terrible but there's a lot holding it back from being great.
The "Its a Bethesda RPG" excuse doesnt cut it this time. at least with their previous games, they managed some kind of improvement over the previous games.
Starfield is a straight regression.
it is actively, mechanically worse than previous games. The perk system and the settlement building is actively worse than Fallout 4. The exploration and inventory management of Skyrim and Fallout 4 are actively worse in Starfield. The Menus are actively worse. The faces and facial animation are actively worse.
and I don't say this to heap mindless hate on the popular thing. I say this because I want it to be better. It had so much potential to be better. But they got within like 5 feet of the finish line and just.. stopped, and said good enough, for some bizarre frustrating reason.
Have you recently played fully vanilla fallout 4 or Skyrim? Because without a doubt the menus are exactly as bad as those games, but mods like FallUI and SkyUI make them amazing.
Faces and face animations are definitely improved, I have no idea how you could say they're worse, much more fluid and much less jarring generally (again unless you're mistaking heavily modded fo4 and Skyrim, which both have mods that improve all of this)
Settlement building does seem to be a regression, but I have only put in like an hour on it, and again vanilla Fallout 4 is VERY limited compared to modded.
Perks eh, I do like the more detailed Skyrim and fallout styles (I think skyrims was better overall but they're intentionally different) while Starfield feels much more basic on that aspect, but I don't really feel like it "needs" a whole lot more on that aspect, it works but I'm sure a perk overhaul mod will come through.
Except the core isnt alright.
People need to stop treating bethesda like its some poor indie dev that did its best. its a multi billion dollar company, owned by a multi billion dollar company. They have the resources, time, and access to expertise to be better than this.
And these low, handwaved low standards of "Its just bethesda, what do you expect", are exactly why Starfield is worse than previous games. And future cames will be worse still. Why put in effort when people like you just shrug and go and give them a free pass with comments like "what do you expect, its bethesda".
Lol the core of the game is definitely better then alright, and it will be fantastic when modders can spend years tweaking things as they like and adding additional content.
Many people like Bethesda games even when they are known to be a little buggy, it is what is it, get over it.
There is a reason Skyrim endured for over a decade at this point and most other games don't come close.
you seem to be taking valid, level headed criticism a tad to personally there, friend.
You may want to take a step back and take a breath.
So much of the criticism is not valid and people move the goal posts, too many people talking about shit they don't even begin to understand because they're just parroting what they hear from other people who also haven't played the game.
It's maddening
So multiple people finding flaw and criticizing it just means its not real, and its just anti-precious company propaganda?
Seriously.
Step back and take a breath. You are getting way to wound up on behalf of a multi billion dollar company that doesnt give 2 shits about you
From an outside perspective YOU seem to be the one taking this conversation too seriously, fwiw.
An unironic "No, U!" now.
Seriously, Friend.. Go calm down.
I am not the person you were originally talking to, hence the "outside perspective" I mentioned. We're not friends, and I have no need to calm down.
There are certainly flaws in Starfield, I never claimed otherwise, but I will push back on bad arguments and provide my own perspective and experience.
I have played thousands of hours of Bethesda games vanilla and heavily modded, they make good games that are made excellent via mods, and they specifically approve and uplift mods and modders, that's something very few other companies (especially at this level, indie games/developers can be very good about this as well) do, and their games are all the better for it.
But people just act like they're leaving it to modders to fix the broke stuff, while my 96 hours in this game so far has proven (to me) they definitely did focus a lot more on qa and making sure there are no game-breaking bugs. I already a fiend for making saves because of experiences of running into game breaking bugs on past vanilla Bethesda games, but I literally haven't run into a single one yet with Starfield.
Are there random floating things sometimes? Yes Are there funny physics glitches that happen? Most certainly Are all the animations perfectly smooth and life like? Nope
Do any of the above bugs or weirdness effect my enjoyment of the game? Nope, it's a fun game with a lot to do and see.
This is exactly the frustration I'm experiencing. You have put this to words so perfectly. Every single menu or ux decision makes me just wanna pull my hair out.
It's so close to being a gem but there's so much friction trying to do the stuff in the game thanks to the UI