I mean, I wouldnāt put Starfield in the same family as Diablo IV, with most of the game behind a microtransaction wall. Bethesda promised Skyrim in Space. We got Skyrim in Space. Skyrim is a polarizing game (much like Witcher 3 is, often for opposite people/reasons).
I donāt think Starfield is ānot so badā, Iām having the best gaming experience Iāve had in a year or two. I think all the critiques are valid, but I donāt really care about most of them.
So why should I play a game I donāt enjoy to punish the makers of the game I do enjoy? I have a very limited amount of gaming time. It gets the game Iām having the most fun with.
I feel like Iām in some sort of fugue state with everyone comparing this to Skyrim. In what way is this like Skyrim? Skyrim, for all its flaws, at least had hand crafted worlds with interesting things to see and do in them. From what Iāve seen of Starfield, that has been completely replaced by procedurally generated barren worlds. Like yeah, you can āexploreā them, but for what? What is there even to find?
Skyrim, for all its flaws, at least had hand crafted worlds with interesting things to see and do in them
Virtually 100% of main and faction story arcs are hand-generated content. I would go further and say Starfield used more distinct model-sets than Skyrim did.
For context, Skyrimās map was ALSO procedurally generated, but most (or all) of the content was built on top of it by hand. We have comparable amount of manually generated content in Starfield, and then tons of procedural content allowing for a larger overall world.
Starfield is approximately 100,000x larger than Skyrim. So yeah, a lot of it is going to be procedurally generated. But you follow a general path, and everything along that path is NOT.
Soā¦ no fugue there. Both have similar amounts of handmade content, but Skyrim has a lot of filler content, and that filler content is largely barrel worlds, something that works because planets tend to be barren.
What is there even to find?
Granny Valentineās singing in orbit Mrs. Kurtz school field trip Space pilgrims
Just a few random orbital encounters that Iāve found. Planet side there are plenty of structures to explore but no real reason to do it; the random loot system ensures youāre as likely to find something exploring on your own as you are fulfilling a bounty contract. There is no special reward or motivation to exploring vs finding these structures via a mission.
I donāt get why someone would go to a random location with no quest attached and expect to find some extraordinary content.
You donāt have to visit those randomly generated locations. There is plenty of actual valuable stuff to encounter. Those locations are more for end-game stuff when you did everything else.
What part of Diablo 4 is behind a microtransaction wall? Some skins?
The problem with both games is they disrespect the playerās time by turning everything into a slog.
Thatās way more of an issue with modern game design trying to maximize hours played while minimizing actual content than paid skins. Those may suck, but to be fair it was Bethesda who introduced the damn thing in the first place. Iād rather pretend the premium skins donāt exist but have a fun game than have no microtransactions and a boring 150+ hours of empty world with a total of 35 hours of interesting beats.
What part of Diablo 4 is behind a microtransaction wall? Some skins?
I think itās āMost of the skinsā.
The problem with both games is they disrespect the playerās time by turning everything into a slog.
I canāt speak for Diablo 4 on this, but thatās not Starfield. Just like other Bethesda games, Starfield clearly gives feedback when youāre leaving major storylines and running procedural content. Radiant Quests have mixed reception, but the number of radiant quests you actually need to complete any Bethesda game is in the single-digits.
If you stick to main-story and faction-mainline quests, you touch virtually nothing that wasnāt hand-crafted for your pleasure. No slog. No grind. No nothing. And I find it pretty easy to differentiate between the handcrafted side-quests and the procedural side-quests. If you donāt, just ignore the more obscure-seeming side quests anyway.
a boring 150+ hours of empty world with a total of 35 hours of interesting beats
Is this a personal self-discipline problem of yours? A game with 35 hours of great content is worth the price of a game like Starfield, and you can just NOT go out and play the ā150+ hours of empty worldā if you donāt like it. While I havenāt beaten Starfield yet (I like procedural content and spend a lot of time in it), that mainline content isnāt gated behind doing procedural stuff. That stuff was added on top of the content you directly pay for.
For me, I love going system to system finding ships to pirate. I havenāt really gotten into planetary exploration yet. Maybe I wonāt enjoy that as much, or maybe I will. If I donāt enjoy it, I just wonāt do it and it wonāt detract from the game.
I dunno why youāre getting downvoted, cause youāre completely right. The microtransaction hell in Diablo is all for shit like horse armor. The game plays exactly the same whether or not youāve spent an extra dime. With that being said, it is 100% bullshit to have any extra transactions, micro or not, in a $90 game.
the case that it was overhyped and made people buy it before anyone knew they were being taken for a ride
Iām still waiting. Iām not the only one. We keep asking for a list of things that were hyped about Starfield that weāre missing, and so far that list is exactly zero items long. Most of the things people are bitching about, I would have told them 2+ years ago Starfield wasnāt going to have, and nobody ever promised.
Further, how are we ātaken for a rideā? Iāve spent $20 on Starfield so far (Xbox game pass) and have had nothing but a fucking blast. Are they secretly screwing me by making me enjoy it?
Iām going to reiterate what I said elsewhere. To my understanding, Bethesda promised me Skyrim in Space. When Starfield came out, Bethesda delivered Skyrim in Space. What exactly is fraudulent or misleading about any of that? Iām sorry if you expected Minecraft in Space or No Manās Sky 2. But nobody ever said this would be that.
Huh? Starfield is the best RPG Bethesda has made since Morrowind, because itās an actual RPG. It has the best quest design since Oblivion, with almost none of the quests boiling down to āGo there, kill guysā, but actually needing to talk to people, pay attention to the environment, interact with the world and make choices (and your Background, Traits, Skills and faction membership all add new ways for you to go about a quest.) The weapon design is an incredible improvement over Fallout 4. Almost everything in Starfield is either a massive step up or a return to form compared to their previous work and you donāt actually know what youāre talking about.
And thatās not even to mention things like the ship building system, which is genuinely extremely impressive.
Plenty of people have enjoyed this game and found things to like even if itās not perfect.
āPeople enjoy the slop so the slop must not be that bad.ā
but you canāt dictate to other people that they also shouldnāt enjoy it.
Yes but we can absolutely point out theyāre enjoying slop and are probably the biggest contribution to mainstream games becoming more and more soulless slop.
what I find more wild is as usual the toxic gaming community canāt handle opinions. I like the game, I donāt care if others donāt, but acting like I donāt have āstandardsā cause you donāt like it is rediculous. Likewise, I got bored so fast of baulders gate 3 but apparently itās the second coming of christ and I must be wrong. No, I get why people love it, it just wasnāt my jam. Starfield is
This entire thread is hilarious. Iāve been paying for therapy like a sucker, I didnāt know you could get infinite amounts of free psychoanalysis just by suggesting that Starfield is somewhat underwhelming.
The amount of gaslighting Iāve seen gamers do to themselves over this game has been wild. āIs it me? Maybe Iām the problem. Maybe I just donāt like games anymore?ā
Theyād rather do that than admit that a Bethesda game kinda sucks. And if you say itās not good, people will come after you. The super Bethesda defenders keep claiming the game is getting review bombed, but from what Iāve seen itās the other way around. If you say something negative about it, people will jump on your case. Iāve seen so many streamers and YouTubers try and cover their asses when trying to speak critically about this game to keep the Todd brigade from forming a mob in their comment sections.
Itās been such a wild game release.
Starfield fans are vicious. I got called mentally ill, incel, shit like that because I call out their loading screen simulator.
Yeah, itās pretty underhwelming. Thereās a lot of people who claim Starfield is a āgreat Bethesda gameā but āpeople hyped it up too much.ā In my opinion, itās a terrible Bethesda game. The best thing those games do right is you can set off in a direction and along the way, find a world full of little things. Landmarks, unique little stories, side quests, and even just interesting items to grab. Starfield dropped all of this in favor of incredibly generic proc gen planets that have the same couple of outposts youāll see on every planet. Like THE SAME. The interiors are THE SAME. Every safe, dead body, message log is THE SAME.
It lacks the one thing that brought me back to Bethesda games despite all their flaws.
God, I couldnāt put my finger on why I didnāt like it. I was just so bored, even with the exploration which I normally love. All of the fun parts of FO4 and Skyrim are missing. Just walking around and enjoying the world is completely missing, replaced by a pretty shitty space travel mechanic.
Fast travel to space, then fast travel to another planet. Fast travel to the surface and bunny hop to an objective through a boring city/space station/whatever. Fast travel back to your ship and do it all over again. I never made it far in the story because I couldnāt be bothered to give a damn. The characters were completely uninteresting at best. oh average they were mildly annoying.
Let me take off from the planets surface and fly in to space a few times before you lock me in to fast traveling. Let me fly from space and scream in to the atmosphere, shooting over the surface looking for a safe place to land, and navigate my way in to the city. Maybe 90% of the surface is uninteresting, thatās fine. But let me at least have some fun learning that.
They made every safe choice, and lost the sense of adventure. Because adventures arenāt supposed to be safe.
Starfield isnāt a great game but no manās lie is not better. Both are kinda shitty. Normanās sky was just way worse when it was released.
Aside from the writing, ship combat, and the voice acting, if youād told me Starfield was a fan mod for Fallout 4 I would have believed you.
Be fair to Fallout 4 mods, thereās probably several with more interesting writing than Starfield.
The writing is the worst part. I could forgive almost everything else if the game told a good engaging story with compelling characters. Instead we get corporate approved blandness. It may steal the aesthetics of Star Trek and Starship Troopers, but in the end itās Sci-fi with nothing interesting to say.
I thought I was going crazy. āhavenāt I been here before ??ā I couldnāt believe they actually copied and pasted entire areas several times over
I mean technically they are copied infinitely due to proc gen. I just donāt get why they didnāt proc gen the POIs as well, would have at least made them more varied.
Lost interest in a few hours I was sad.
Great potential, horrible interface, wonky mechanics
Same. The interface looks kinda cool, but the UX is awful, and the story is boring. The biggest reason it doesnāt capture you IMO is you just jump around from place to place instantaneously right from the start and thereās no obvious reason to just go exploring somewhere. In Skyrim youāre literally on foot and the world slowly expands around you and you become interested in it.
In Skyrim youāre literally on foot and the world slowly expands around you and you become interested in it.
Yeah, and exploration wisey I prefer Oblivion even more. Skyrim feels smaller and less varied, and horses and other fast-travel options are cheaper and easier available.
I got to hear a talk from a level designer who worked on Skyrim at Bethesda who had since left the company, and we needled them with some questions about Starfield and it was interesting at the time but even more interesting in the hindsight of now playing the game.
We kind of intuited through some of their answers that it sounded like they felt that with Skyrim, individual level designers and programmers and people had way more freedom to put stuff into the game; many of the more memorable side quests and interactions were never remotely planned to be in there but were just threwn together by a couple people who stayed overnight recording voices and programming in these quests and interactions and stuff, and it sounded like they did not think that was was the case with Starfield and it was a much more rigid and controlled dev environment, which would explain why so much of the stuff feels like itās randomly generated stuff youāve already seen instead of coming across these weird handcrafted things.
They also talked a lot about open world level design in general and talked about how good open world level design is often inspired by Disney world, where they pay super close attention to sightlines where ever you are to make sure thereās always (ideally multiple) interesting things to see and explore. You shouldnāt need a waypoint or hud marker ideally, you should just walk out of one thing, look around and go āhey that looks neat let me go see whatās over thereā, discover something magical, walk out and repeat. That kind of feeling made sense and resonated with me at the time and made me think of the new Zelda games and some of the better open world games Iāve played, but now in the context of Starfield, it feels like the loading screens between planets pretty fundamentally broke that cycle, and disrupted that feeling of exploration that Skyrim gave you.
I was at a talk by Bruce Nesmith for a game development club I was in in college shortly after FO4 released (and also shortly after they filed the trademark for Starfield but before we knew anything).
One thing I remember well is him saying how they messed up with the FO4 dialogue options. Every one was āyes, no (for now), sarcastic yes, and more information.ā I had a reasonable amount of faith at least that would be fixed in Starfield. It isnāt, though itās like they thought it being presented on a wheel was the part people were upset with, not the complete lack of choice. In Starfield the choices are identical but theyāre now presented in the classic box at the bottom of the screen.
The āDisney effectā is exactly whatās missing from Starfield that makes it so boring. Because of the format of the planets and star systems, you canāt just see something to go to. Discovery is done through a menu, which is incredibly boring.
And on top of that, when you do land on a planet, thereās literally nothing to do and see. It feels like there are no more than 10 unique buildings that get swapped in and outā¦ once youāve seen them, thereās nothing left to discover.
It would have been infinitely better had it been 1 star system with like 4 planets and 20 moons. Each one with multiple locations on the surface. Instead of this thousands of planets but basically all randomly generated none of them really interesting.
They kept saying thatās realistic because most plants are boring but itās a RPG not a SIM so that logic doesnāt track.
The best space game is still The Outer Wilds and that game has only about 5 planets with the largest one only been about half a mile across. Scale isnāt everything.
Same. After visiting 3 random planets and entering the exact same bases with the exact same enemiesā¦ Except they were like random level from 3-48. Not that it weirdly mattered much. Already felt godlike.
AAA gets worse every year, and Iām gamer for over 4 decadesā¦ I was so glad I didnāt bought the crapfest
I actually am more hyped/enthusiastic about simple indie-games nowadays. Even if they often fail at simple manpower or financial issues. The rare exceptions where AAA still delivers is countable with one hand. I even have to think hard to name 5 from the last 10yrs that kinda lived up to the hype.
A joint-effort AAA by us gamers? Nah. Who pays the AAA in AAA? š Times are over where a game like pacman could be done by the intern on a free evening. Including GFX and SFXā¦
Maybe donāt just go to random bases? Follow a quest and you will encounter incredible environments/dungeons.
Those random bases are for end-game stuff when you have literally nothing else to do but you still want to play your save file.
I did in the beginning. Then got bored by the loading-screens. Besides it only worked at all with a mod that enabled file-caching. Otherwise I had horribly unsynched audio, ending with completely stopping sound. It was a joke. And no, it wasnāt my system, which is decently beefy to play every other AAA-title on FHD@maximum/ultra.
I excepted nothing, and so I wasnāt overly dissapointed (especially coz I didnāt buy it). Iāll do the wise thing and just wait 1-2 years. The bugs are maybe mostly squished out by then and the community will have made it a loooot better.
I really wanted to like it btw, itās not that I was just glad to jump on the hype- or hate-train. I donāt care for those. I just played enough games to see the many many many flaws. I didnāt even care how dated the graphics were :)
Also btw, the argument is pretty weird considering itās an OPEN-WORLD game. In Skyrim&Co I also often wandered the world for many many hours before even starting any quests.
As an old-schooler, I think this is all funny. A lot of the Daggerfall fans were disappointed in Morrowind because it moved away from procedurally generated āeverything elseā. The world felt so tiny.
Starfield adds some procedural outside of its core paths to give us that unlimited replayability, and people just complain about it.
Iāve played TES games since Daggerfall came out. That was my first giant open world game, and despite all of the horrible game breaking bugs I played it so much I risked my college degree.
Based on all of the descriptions and the fact that Iām right now only playing games that run well on the steam deck, Iām skipping this one for now. I couldnāt imagine the thousands of hours Iāve spent playing and replaying TES and Fallout games. But every release gets more dumbed down, it seems.
Honestly, the only thing keeping me from even checking it out is that it sounds boring. Iām still totally overplaying BG3, I love playing Stray, and Depth is great when I have limited time or attention. If everyone was raving about it, I might check it out, but as it is, I can wait.
Not since Daggerfall, but been a big TES fan since falling in love with Morrowind. Each subsequent entry to the series has been more disappointing then the last, but Skyrim was decent enough that I still put a good chunk of hours into it. Now though, TES is basically a dead series to me. Iām not remotely interested in seeing where the series goes in modern Bethesdaās hands. It will take overwhelming evidence that Bethesda has somehow changed for me to pick up TES 6.
Largely the same story from me. One of the things I always pointed to for TES is just the movement. Morrowind, everything is open you can levitate, acrobatics significantly alters how you get around, mark+recall, teleport spells to the shrines, several in-universe fast travel systems, and donāt get me started on the scrolls of icarian flight. Oblivion comes around and you see more instanced cities, less verticality in your movement, to my recollection no teleport spells, fast travel is a menu. I donāt even think there was a system like skyrims wagons that kiiiiinda function like the silt striders. Not to say Skyrim is any better. In fact,itās even worse! Youāre pretty much able to move like a normal person. Mountains? Actually kinda a problem, Iāll get over it (literally) but gone are the days of chugging a levitate potion, or fortifying my acrobatics and GETTING OVER IT.
Iām in the same historical boat as you. Arena was one of my first games on my 486. Hereās my take.
Starfield is Skyrim in Space with Daggerfallās procedural generation. It may not be the perfect game (or for some people, even a good game), but it is the close-to-ideal Elder Scrolls experience in space.
Honestly, the only thing keeping me from even checking it out is that it sounds boring
I tried a Daggerfall playthrough where I went town to town looking for loot and doing nothing else. It got boring because the towns all started to look alike. So I stopped and just played it how it was meant to be played.
Thereās no āboringā take if you ignore the procedural filler content and outpost system (which Bored me in my last FO4 playthrough) and focus on the storyline and main areas. The other stuff is all there for those of us who enjoy mission-fun. I LIKE pirating ships again and again, but maybe you donāt. Literally the boring complaints come from the fact that they gave us Daggerfall-level places to explore, with Daggerfall-level repetition.
Thatās a great description! Thanks!
This is the first one thatās made me want to check out the game. I actually weirdly enjoyed the randomly generated dungeons that were basically all the same, probably because I had never played such a completely open world game before. At least some of it had to be the novelty compared to games like Ultima or the D&D games out at the time.
Iāve always played a lot of the RP part in my head - like in Morrowind Iād usually play as an escaped Argonian slave who became a thief-assassin after winning his freedom with a hatred for the Dunmer.
Iād this one is leaning back in that direction, Iāll check it out sooner rather than later.
Iāve thoroughly enjoyed Starfield so far, put about 80 hours in and havenāt finished any of the questlines yet (largely intentionally, partially because Iāll get sucked into another questline and get distracted). I like the outpost building, the ground combat is fun, the space combat is ok, not on the level of Elite or Star Citizen, but still entertaining.
Solid game to me. Maybe it didnāt live up to peopleās wildest expectations, but I went in expecting an enjoyable experience and got it. I donāt really get the hate for it.
Make your own opinion, donāt base expectations off of the unwashed masses. Or do, or donāt play it. You do you
I went in with fairly low expectations. Iāve seen Bethesdaās trajectory so mostly knew what to expect. It thoroughly dissapointed me still.
How did you deal with the outpost building? Thereās no way to sort items coming into an outpost so eventually the links all get clogged. For me I built a massive stack of containers that it all flows into, but I still have to go through and pull out junk thatās being used less. It sucks to use. I was really looking forward to that part of the game and itās like they didnāt even consider the user experience with it. Thatās not even mentioning decorations not snapping.
From another of my comments:
I was at a talk by Bruce Nesmith for a game development club I was in in college shortly after FO4 released (and also shortly after they filed the trademark for Starfield but before we knew anything).
One thing I remember well is him saying how they messed up with the FO4 dialogue options. Every one was āyes, no (for now), sarcastic yes, and more information.ā I had a reasonable amount of faith at least that would be fixed in Starfield. It isnāt, though itās like they thought it being presented on a wheel was the part people were upset with, not the complete lack of choice. In Starfield the choices are identical but theyāre now presented in the classic box at the bottom of the screen.
Thatās fair. Iāve been initially disappointed on a lot of their games due to the slide from doing basically anything in Daggerfall (but you might get stuck in a wall if you turn a corner too close) to Skyrimās as-linear-as-open-world-gets approach. And I had about 4-5 false starts in FO4 despite playing all the other releases to the ending. Maybe itās something that will click.
I do have to say that I am finding the Deck implementation of Cyberpunk unplayable without an external monitor and keyboard, so that sets an additional bar.
Itās not Bethesdaās greatest game but itās not a terrible game in general. I definitely think companies need to stop over hyping their games as some groundbreaking game of the decade only to release a generic RPG.
I definitely think companies need to stop over hyping their games as some groundbreaking game of the decade only to release a generic RPG.
Not really possible when your average gamer will overhype literally anything even without any marketing available. People are just stupid.
Hayao Miyazakiās latest work have no promotional marketing, hyped up by the fans, made $55million lol.
Itās impossible to not overhype for Bethesda because all the hype they create will get uncontrollably inflated.