Comment by ZapataCadabra [he/him]@hexbear.net on Every review was along the lines of ‘good first hour, the rest was bland and boring’. Not really GOTY material.

People talk about Baldur’s Gate for months after it’s released. Nobody talked about this after two weeks. Same with Starfield.

I’m not much of a gamer anymore but cultural osmosis and all, I genuinely was surprised to find out Starfield was a bethesda game

The true hot take most aren’t ready to hear is that launch Starfield is a better RPG than launch Skyrim and launch Fallout 4, even if it’s a mediocre game overall.

I agree, but I’ve had gamers absolutely mald for such a lukewarm take

Skyrim came out in 11/11/2011. Starfield is 12 years after and I would say that expectation for the qualities should be better. And compared to Starfield in gaming’s influences, Skyrim decimates Starfield.

Graphical fidelity and controls improve over time as technology improves. What doesn’t improve nearly as much is game design. That’s not to say that improvements haven’t been made, but by your own logic Morrowind destroys the fuck out of Skyrim when it comes to being an RPG despite being older. Starfield actually reversed this downward trend.

I never tried to argue that Starfield was more influential, because I agree, Skyrim has more of an impact on gaming culture despite being largely okayish.

My point is comparing games releasing 12 years apart like this is redundant, isn’t it expected that the sequel/next game from the same studio should have better quality (in this case RPG) than the previous one?

In the years after the 1st release till next game/sequel, devs can have more experience/money/bigger team/ect.

I know what your point is, it’s just not applicable to Game Design, only to graphical fidelity and perhaps controls and smoothness. Throwing more money or a bigger team isn’t going to make the actual Role Playing better, and historically the opposite has happened. Chasing profits leads to making games with more mass appeal, and removes niches.

Again, see Morrowind, Fallout 1/2/New Vegas, Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and more all have vastly superior RPG mechanics to Skyrim, Oblivion, Fallout 4, and Starfield, despite having smaller budgets, a less experienced team, and less money.

Strong disagree. There are no unique builds in starfield because there are such clearly necessary perks to unlock and the never ending, NG+ focus of the game pushes you towards unlocking everything anyway. Similarly no story decisions lock you out of other options later. There’s really no role you can play in starfield except “protagonist.” Not so much a defense of Skyrim, just talking well deserved shit about starfield

The same thing happens in Skyrim, lol. As compared with Skyrim, Starfield is better.

I just think starfields an even shallower experience. Like think of the ability to specialize towards a weapon type. In starfield melee weapons can’t be customized and don’t get tiers like the other weapon types so they become unusable after a certain amount of play time. There are fewer energy weapons in starfield than in fallout 4, it feels sparse playing with the same 6 guns for the entire game. The EM weapons aren’t integrated into any sort of meaningful gameplay loop for incapacitating enemies instead of killing them. You have to just shoot their comatose bodies or let your companions do it for you. Ultimately everyone gets funneled towards using ballistic weapons just by nature of how underdeveloped the other options are. At least in skyrim playing as a mage vs a warrior felt like two distinct and separately rewarding play styles. Again I’m not trying to do too much skyrim defending, starfield is just a bad video game

At least in skyrim playing as a mage vs a warrior felt like two distinct and separately rewarding play styles. Again I’m not trying to do too much skyrim defending, starfield is just a bad video game

lol weird to spell “stealth archer” two different ways. i tried to watch a video of the starfield speedrun and fell asleep, maybe modders can rescue it but since it’s not even open-world anymore idk how they would. skyrim was barely an rpg and the beth games after it aren’t doing any of the things i want from the genre at all.

Sure, Starfield is a step down in quite a few ways. Still a better RPG.

As far as graphics but mechanically, Fallout NV is more interesting.

Sure, I never mentioned FNV.

I have no idea how you’re defining RPG here, but Starfield is worse than any launch Bethesda game since at least Morrowind, in my opinion. The hook in Bethesda games for me is discovery. You set off in a direction on a quest and discover things on the path that pull you different directions. You get lost in a world.

There is not a single moment in the 25 hours of Starfield I played where this happened. It’s just literally not possible with the way they designed the game.

The ability to actually roleplay a character you create, ie mechanics within game to reinforce that which you design your character as.

Medical skill checks for doctors, background checks for Freestar natives, piracy subcycles for pirates, etc.

What you’re describing has nothing to do with roleplaying, just the setting, which I never tried to argue was better in Starfield because it isn’t.

Yeah, that’s why I simply said it was a worse game than their previous titles (not worse RPG). I’d argue having better roleplaying mechanics without an interesting world to use them in is a preeeeetty useless endeavor.

Sure. I’d also argue that having better exploration without having decent roleplaying is also completely useless for an RPG.

not much of a gamer anymore

How’s it feel being free from the slop and brainworms?

pretty good, I really do appreciate video games as an art form now

I did also always drift towards rather more niche shit like STALKER and Arma, I don’t think that stuff gives you the slop brainworms

my tiktok is still full of asterion and karlach thirst

i mean im responsible for my content but its still there

I literally just hit 500 hours. I bought it on launch day and have played it 4 full times and running three active play throughs. One solo, one with my wife, one with a close friend.

Still having an absolute blast just trying all the things. Currently playing a dark urge drow and it’s so different from even my dark urge tiefling. And very very different from my goodie two shoes paladin. Ugh I’m just having so much fun with it lol

i heard about it from somebody doing a review of black hair in animation. apparently it’s pretty good in that regard and that regard only

Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.

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Every review was along the lines of ‘good first hour, the rest was bland and boring’. Not really GOTY material.(hexbear.net)

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