**** Starfield ****

super_furry

"Enter ship *cutscene*, sit down *cutscene*, launch *cutscene*, jump to next area in space *cutscene*, dock at space station *cutscene* , exit space station *cutscene*, jump to next planet *cutscene*, land on planet *cutscene*, get out of chair *cutscene*, exit ship *cutscene*,"

I'm 25 hours in and think I'm done with the game - this is the main reason why. It's all so disjointed and soulless and coming into the game off the back of Baldur's Gate 3 really shows how little there is in terms of characters or story. Selling your game on the back of it's exploration is all fine and good but when there's so little worth seeing or doing and you have to sit through the same five or six cutscenes to see any of it, it quickly wears off.

I just don't think the setting is suited to this kind of game. Skyrim and Fallout are all about the things you might see and find on your way from one place to another. With Starfield all you see from one place to another is map screens and repeated cutscenes.

cnocbui

This seems like it might be an easter egg I happened upon on a tiny airless frozen moon - where no one would be outside without a space suit and where nothing organic would decompose at -176°C...

A nice touch was that the nearest inflatable habitat had a double bed in it whereas all the rest had singles.

Then when you finally defeat the robots and get there, you find this:

banie01

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121119248#Comment_121119248

You know what, I totally get this as a review of this game. I came into it as a Bethesda virgin but with expectations built upon the reminiscing of friends who wax lyrical about Skyrim & Elder scrolls. I've only played 5hrs so far and I'm waiting for the hook to sink in. I dont like the inventory control mechanics and the ground combat mechanic is a pain. I'll persevere a while yet and hope that it "clicks" for me.

ahnowbrowncow

An example of Starfield's terrible UI, from reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/Starfield/comments/16k34u8/how_to_move_left_and_right_in_the_starfield_ui/

I wouldn't be surprised to find out later that it had major development issues during Covid-19. So many things in the game that are just under baked or left out that were in previous games. It was delayed twice and came out 10 month later than originally scheduled.

CatInABox

Honestly, I don't think it was covid, I think it's literally just Bethesda themselves, they don't see anything wrong with this, or at least, they couldn't see a problem with it beforehand. I mean, this game is in the best shape a Bethesda game has released in decades, with a fairly small amount of bugs in comparison to what they normally do, it's clearly not undercooked, this is just ok with them.

EDIT: Nest, best, FFS 😂

johnny_ultimate

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121127469#Comment_121127469

I haven’t played enough to have an opinion on the game at large, but two hours on PC was enough to suggest the controls and UI with mouse & keyboard are woeful. I’m sure they can be somewhat improved by customising the controls, but it’s shockingly poor and awkward with weird mapping choices and unnecessary steps everywhere you look.

TouchingVirus85

30 hours in and I only just discovered The Well location in New Atlantis.

AlmightyCushion

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121127469#Comment_121127469

I think that could be put down to different teams doing the different areas and no one thought about maintaining consistency.

Dave_The_Sheep

Whatever the explanation, it's all on Bethesda and it's not good enough really.

titan18

Some of the quests are pretty poor and seem unfinished. Just did First Contact yesterday and it's pretty dumb and illogical.

The persuade minigame too just leads to some terrible writing I've found.

taxAHcruel

Yeah the persuade minigame is completely embarrassing dialog-wise. Most things you say are nonsense or complete non-sequiturs to anything you said before or will say after. And things you say seem like they will lead to some implications but don't.

Like for example you will say something like "I am sure we can work something out". Which sounds like more dialog will come or a bribe needs to be arranged. But nothing like that happens. In one example where I said that line the other person responded with "Yes I see your point" and they give in to your persuasion and suddenly decided to forgive his estranged daughter who he has been trying to track down and kill for decades.

Don't have a lot of time for gaming and have just been dipping in and out of this one. Not a gamer myself really.

But almost every aspect of it so far just feels raw - unfinished - or tacked on as an after thought to bulk it out. Not a single moral decision you make appears to have even the smallest impact on anything in the universe, future dialog, or other missions (though I have not progressed the main mission much just side missions and stories). And when your companions like or dislike or totally hate anything you do or say - this seems so far to have no impact at all either.

And what is going on with the AI of the pirates in a gun fight? They seem to just walk out into the middle of the room and stand doing nothing in profile while you pound bullets into the side of their head.

My daughter walked in while I was playing a couple of times and both times I was talking to an NPC. She asked me if the person I was talking to was meant to be a robot or something. Comical therefore that on my news feed an article jumped up with a title like "Developer explains why all Starfield NPCs look and act like they are dead inside". Even my 13 year old who never plays computer games was able to spot this weird soulless automaton nature of every NPC in the game.

All in all if I had not been gifted this game - and had spent anything more than 5 euro on it myself - I'd probably be looking for my money back.

PixelPlayer

26 hours in and I'm really loving the game. About 24 hours of that was completing a fairly long quest line that I stumbled upon randomly. It is not even part of the main quest.

Only just getting into crafting and building an outpost now. I have been collecting everything, literally everything I come across. Yet after 26 hours I have still managed to miss some vital materials needed for crafting. For example I need polymer. The great thing is it doesn't seem to inhibit the game in any way. If I want to go seek out materials for crafting I'm free to do so, or not. It's definitely something I want to do as I'm playing through the quests. I don't see it as something to enjoy as an end game, but maybe I'm wrong. I've a long way to go yet.

The ability to forge your own path through the game is brilliant. All too often in games I hit a difficulty spike that forces me to go grinding, or something just makes me want to give up and play something else.

The quest I just completed was a great story arc with some nice good vs bad choices to make. Hoping for more of the same as I go through my next 26 hours. I love how a random event can open up 24 hours of a fairly significant quest.

Static M.e.

Just on outposts, and this isn't a dig, do you need them in the game for any particular reason? I built a small base for Iron \ Alum at the beginning but I haven't gone back to it at all, and I don't seem to need it to play.

TouchingVirus85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121130898#Comment_121130898

What the hell mission was 24 hours? I certainly haven't come across that.

Darwin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121131180#Comment_121131180

I haven't built any yet, but just discovered a reason to have one! You can use them to store contraband until such time that you can get your ship fitted with a shielded cargo hold and/or a scan jammer. You can fast travel to your outpost at any time thereafter (at least from what I have read)

PixelPlayer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121131180#Comment_121131180

They're for extracting resources. Or do you mean the habitats? Some hires are outpost managers or outpost engineers, you can assign them to your outposts.

But the main reason for the habitats is to store the ridiculous about of items you.pick up. I have a lot of gear just dropped on the floor. I never seem to have enough materials for building all the storage I need.

PixelPlayer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121131262#Comment_121131262

Spoiler Warning

The quest infiltrating the crimson fleet.

You have me thinking now, maybe I spent more time off quest than I remember. Maybe it wasn't 24 hours, but it was long. Especially for a weekend gamer. Put it another way, I'm 26 hours in and it's the only quest I've done.

TheValeyard

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121131637#Comment_121131637

Does stuff stay dropped on the floor in your ship or does it eventually vanish?

TheValeyard

Also

Had great fun this evening,

Landed on an abandoned UC barracks on a random planet. Place was filled with ammo, guns and digisticks. Enough ammo to keep me going for ages. Anyhow place had pirates, so was shooting them and their ship re-enforcements, when I was hiding and reloading, heard loads of screams and gunfire, didn't know what was going on, all of a sudden these terramorphs jumping over the base walls and slaughtering the pirates. Was class to watch.

cnocbui

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121132308#Comment_121132308

Stuff stays on the floor of a ship and in the hold and captains locker, even If you swap to another ship and make that your home ship. If you later make the original ship your home ship again, all your stufff will still be in it. However, if you snag a ship with shielded cargo capacity and put contraband in it's hold, and then use the ship services tech at the clinic as a non scanned way to swap home ships, the new home ship will have the contraband in it's hold. I thought I had figgured out a way to hide and store contraband, but unfotunately it follows you from ship to ship.

Building a habitat solves this problem. I see the habitats as ways to amass great wealth with which to purchase high end ships and apartments. The ship builders will take the output from your mining empire and supposedly pay twice the going rate. I have yet to test this, but I'm working on it.

This game is too much for the Series X. It started out ok but the frame rate is dropping all the time the further I progress. My son said Bathesda previously had issues with the growing size of save files. It's gotten so the game freezes for 2-3 seconds every time I engage or disengge scanner mode. Literally zero frames a sec for several seconds. It's frustrating that the game is so good and enjoyable in some respects while being deeply flawed in others. Cyberpunk all over again, though performance wise it's way worse than Cyberpunk was at launch.

brady12

My clock is skewed so not sure but Im about 60 hours in. Ive done most side quests bar ive only started one faction questline so going do all or most them now. 2 main missions left .Usually 30,40 hours into a game I want it to end and get tired of it- not here! More I play more I get into it. I had set myself a deadline to have it finished by time phantom liberty out but I am not sure that happens now. Only starting really utilize all the games mechanics now by unlocking stuff with skill points .Its a 10/10 for me but each to their own..

EoinHef

I'm about 24hrs in and I reckon I'm close to finishing the main quest.

I went off to complete a faction quest and suddenly dawned on me after a few missions I had no companion, thought things were glicthed. But after finishing the faction quest overall, and getting a very nice reward, I went back to main quest and their absence kinda made sense then.

Definitely made the faction quests harder in in space without the crew for ship bonuses and I was in the bog standard beginner ship woth no mods.

I find the weaponry in the game a bit uninspired so far, I've had one or two legendaries but mostly blues and a few purples.

FINALLY have a new ship, got as a reward for a mission. The extra cargo is amazing😁

I have 350k credits as well, I was saving for a ship but since I got the new one already I might just upgrade.

I'll probably try outpost building at some point but I'm not convinced it's something I'd spend a lot of time at.

Other than ships, property and consumables what are people spending their money on?

From what I can see I'll be spending it on ships unless theirs something I'm missing.

TouchingVirus85

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121135076#Comment_121135076

You played the game completely different than me. I have about 12 hours on you and I've only scratched the surface. I have been doing mostly side missions and dropping in on different locations just for the craic. You find lots of credits and other things doing this.

PixelPlayer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121135076#Comment_121135076

I've 400k in credits. I've only spent money on bribery so far.

I realise now I'm probably supposed to be buying materials and resources for building as some are rare even when you're a hoarder like me.

I want to sit down and sink a weekend on building a ship. I think it will take that long to experiment with the different modules, shape and balance. Hopefully 400k will do the job.

Static M.e.

I think I would have a lot more money in game, but I keep making one very silly mistake. When I'm at a vendor and selling my loot, I somehow end up buying all the guns and resources of the vendor instead of selling them to him\her. Honestly, I've done it more times than I care to admit. 🤬

PixelPlayer

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121135595#Comment_121135595

Lol where did I get all this crap, gotta sell it all 😅

I've done that too a couple of time but I've learnt my lesson now.

super_furry

Deleted it from my Xbox there - there's just too many good games out now to stick with something I'm not enjoying. I'll check back after a couple of patches and when they add mods.

TouchingVirus85

I just persuaded someone to sell me a bottle of rare 15,000 credits whiskey for 600 credits.

taxAHcruel

The people you can hire to work on your ship and your bases (I have no bases yes) are sometimes generic like "weapones engineer" or something - and sometimes named characters.

Do either of them make a difference? Do some of them have their own quests or special dialogs or anything special? In other words are there any named characters I should be particularly looking to hire so as not to miss out on any quests or background?

I got one guy with a cowboy hat who works for free for example. And I got another named character woman who I hired because of her accent. Its sound like the same accent that Thor's "rock" friend has in the Marvel Movies. Very pleasant to listen to.

feargantae

I must have about 50 missions on the go right now between side quests, random encounters and the main story but I really wish they'd pin your current mission to the top of the list. Not just keep it in what ever order it came in.

I might be an outlier but I like to do part of a mission and then if it doesn't particularly grab me story-wise I'll go do part of another one. I feel like I'm getting to see the world so much more by doing that.

So many QOL improvements that I hope they make asap