Starfield on Steam
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Starfield is the first new universe in 25 years from Bethesda Game Studios, the award-winning creators of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Fallout 4.

I must say it is not the best RPG out there, but I feel like it would have earned more. I personally have a lot of fun playing.

While it was not a Cyberpunk-grade overhype, I think it must still have been overhyped. Because if you see it as Skyrim with better graphics, it is pretty much what you’d expect.

Some of the common criticism seems to be intrinsic to the sci-fi genre. In Skyrim, you walk 100 meters and then you find some cave or camp or something that a game designer has placed there manually with some story or meaning behind it. And as a player, you notice that, because most locations in Skyrim feel somehow unique. Even though for example the dungeons have rooms that repeat a lot. Having a designer place them manually with some thought gives them something unique.

In interstellar sci-fi, a dense world like this is simply impossible. Planets are extremely large so filling them manually with content is simply not possible. And using procedural generation makes things feel meaningless. Players notice that fast. So instead, Starfield opted for having a few manually constructed locations that are placed randomly on planets, unfortunately with a lot of repetition. But that is a sound compromise, given the constraints of today’s game development technology. The dense worlds that we are used to from other genres simply don’t scale up to planetary scale, and as players, we have to get used to that.

  • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.mlEnglish
    172·
    10 months ago

    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.

    • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      81·
      10 months ago

      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.

        • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.mlEnglish
          33·
          10 months ago

          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”.

          • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            33·
            10 months ago

            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.

            • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.mlEnglish
              23·
              10 months ago

              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.

              • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                22·
                10 months ago

                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

                • Dubious_Fart@lemmy.mlEnglish
                  22·
                  10 months ago

                  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

                  • Agrivar@lemmy.worldEnglish
                    2·
                    10 months ago

                    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.

                  • Jakeroxs@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
                    2·
                    10 months ago

                    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.