Starfield

It's not just you.

In the past Bethesda was innovent. With Starfield they are just stuck in the past.

The game is so close to a loading screen simulator that it kills emmersion.

It definitely feels "meh".

The characters are flat and tropey, the story itself isn't very compelling, there doesn't seem to be a lot of narrative freedom in the quests and the quests themselves are fairly cookie cutter. I was told the "First Contact" quest was really cool and well done. Nonsense! I'd like to be able to go back and talk to the NPCs about the progress of the quest, take their temperature on the options available. It didn't feel like there was much of a point in getting the opinions of the entities aboard the ship as they had zero say in the outcome.

The game feels very much like a fantasy setting wrapped in sci-fi aesthetics, especially with the way the main quest doles out powers.

I like building a ship. I wish the ship had more functionality. I like building outposts, though I have no idea what for, I can't see much of a use for harvesting and automating the production of resources.

The gun combat feels alright, but it seems health scales up really quickly on enemies.

I dislike how so much content is gated behind perk level ups, but it does keep me playing to see if the next unlock is cool.

I could forgive bethesda games because I used to be able to look at them as "greater than the sum of its parts"

Fallout 4 with mods just barely got away with it.

Starfield has too many issues for me.

The biggest one, your second issue of loading screens, I don't think mods can fix. There just will never be a seamless overworld because of the spaceship mechanic.

After about 20hrs, I couldn't take it anymore. I popped open the console, increased my carry weight, added a bil creds, set my level to 666, and finally, tgm. Let chaos reign, baby.

I had already added a couple UI mods (because Bethesda still ships UI components at 30fps for whatever reason) and patched the achievement disablement function, so now I feel like I can actually kinda enjoy the game (when I'm not in a loading screen).

I've put another 20hrs in playing like this, and have zero regrets. It makes my time in the game feel arcade-like, in a good, nostalgic way. I went from being stressed out and annoyed, to relaxed and able to laugh at the endless jank that we've all come to expect from Bethesda. It's like GTA back in the day... if you weren't using cheat codes, you were straight up missing out on the fun.

All that said, overall the game does feel like Bethesda threw Fallout, Skyrim, and No Man's Sky in a blender and then ran it all through a sieve to ensure that only the worst parts made it into the final release. I'm actually shocked by how much they seem to have outright copied elements from NMS (from UI, to gameplay mechanics, to storyline elements). I've got hundreds of hours in NMS spread across the last 5ish yrs, and I can't help but feel kinda greasy when I play Starfield because of how much appears to be straught up lifted from NMS.

Ultimately, Starfield is a new(ish) experience and fun to fuck around in, but if I want to explore space, I'll go boot up NMS.

I hate that people feel the need to say they're not a hater in order not to get abused for not liking a game. People out here treating games like a religion.

It is very whelming, yes. It's exactly what I expected, and yet... I want more. At least for the things it does to be done better. Give me a reason for base building. Make the AI not just stand there like dopes and be bullet sponges when you want them to be hard (seriously, "legendaries" have 3 fucking HP bars and it's dumb). Actually have dialogue choices that are a bit more meaningful and change things.

I'm tired of it just working. I want it to work fantastically.

I can't even get to "meh" yet. I'm currently trying to get over all the steps backward from Fallout 4. Can't order companions in battle, can't swap out weapon mods, can't use/equip items on pickup without going into menus, and the local maps. Holy crap, the local maps are bad. All that is on top of having to mod the game as usual. StarUI helped a lot, and I had to grab a sound effects mod because there was painful, high-pitched tones in a lot of the interface stuff, but it needs a lot more help. Beth's games are starting to remind me of a Civilization series or Paradox Interactive situation where the base game is worse than a predecessor at release and doesn't yield incremental improvement until a robust mod scene/DLC arrives.

I've already written off the space gameplay (that was always a long shot for us space sim fans), and if I'm being honest, the loading screen pacing isn't all that different an experience from how I played Skyrim and FO4. I'm also taking the bullet-sponginess as a challenge to focus on weapon mods. I'm hoping once I get into a self-directed gameplay flow and get used to the quirks of the UI and zone arrangement it'll get better.

I gotta say though, even though it had its own share of bugs, Baldur's Gate 3 coming out a month ahead of Starfield does not invite favorable comparisons. The dialogues and quest design in BG3 run circles around what I'm seeing in Starfield so far. The "Back to Vectera" quest in particular was shockingly bad. Having multiple moments where there's no indication of what to do next until opening the mission log to find a stealth quest update is seriously rough. I'm guessing it was unfinished? I knew there were going to have to be sacrifices made at the procedural generation altar, but seeing even the bespoke elements on the main questline be this bad does not portend well for the overall quality of the game.

My main complaint is the writing and worldbuilding. So far I've been exploring new Atlantis and picked up exclusively fetch quests from NPCs so generic and uninteresting I don't really feel like continuing to talk to them. And the uncreative worldbuilding of authoritarian capitalists Vs libertarian capitalksts vs religious crazies. Can Bethesda not even imagine an alternative to capitalism?

I have a rule about bethesda games - I don't buy them until well after the first few patches, or the GOTY edition. I am starfield curious but also, hesitant because of No Man's Sky. Allow me to elaborate:

NMS shipped and was garbage. But over the ensuing year, damned near everything players expected or wanted from it came to be with game altering updates that improved it's content range enormously. It's still not my favorite game, but every time I fire it up there's new shit for me to do and most of it's pretty well implemented.

I have absolutely zero expectations in this way for Starfield. They're not going to rework space-to-ground flight or rng generated ground plots you can't explore past; they may improve perf and qol over time, but I fundamentally doubt anything like No Man's Sky updates are in the future.

So yeah, that makes me pause, and remember to be patient.

No sir, you are not alone. The horrendously weak opening combined with bullet sponge gunplay, so many loading screens, a horrendous UI, boring worlds with little to nothing to do on them...I managed to make myself play for 12 hours before I gave up for good. It simply didn't catch me at all, despite multiple attempts. Maybe in 2 years with mods, but for now it's just time to move on for me.

I hardly run out of ammo, but I'm also the kind of person who levels up carrying capacity first and becomes a loot goblin.

And yes, ammo has 0 weight but more weight cap means more time for me to search every corner of every room

I find the start kinda weird. Touchy tabloid, pass out. Wake up and akwardy get forced in to ship and spooky drone watching you. Got to the new atlantis and was bored already.

Even skyrim did this better.

Explored the first planet to see whats the deal. Terrorform was uglyass mf, but standing on 1meter rock glitches it completely, and then just empty all ammo on it.

The game is a mess. It’s totally lost trying to figure out it’s identity. I’ve got the answer everyone can’t quite put their finger on. Had this game came out 2 or 3 years after New Vegas it would have been heralded as the next generation in rpgs. The problem is we are well past that. Bethesda should have made this game instead of fallout 76. It would have totally fit the time frame and been forgivable.

The problem is we have multiple games that do this better in whatever aspect you prefer. Like realism space sim, that’s star citizen or elite dangerous. Want planetary exploration with life form scanning and base building? That’s no man sky.

I still find myself playing because I’m so hard gay for that Bethesda fallout choose your own adventure foundation that’s present here. But damn is it overall shit. Just embarrassing

I red it takes like 12 hours for the game to get good. That's like two weeks for me. Some people have to work and limited time.

There's a 2 hour refund window. Bethesda misses it a tiny bit

I think it makes great use of the engine. The game is super fun, way better than Cyberpunk 2077 (which is basically just Grand Theft Auto). The worlds are cool. The stories are great.

I think it's a great game.

What's a good space combat game?

X-Wing was one of my all-time favourite games, it was late niceties and got followed to by tie fighter then X-Wing Vs tie fighter but the original was best. It was really simple combat, lasers or rockets and you had to balance power between shields and lasers. I don't know what made it so great, there was a pace to it the just felt so good - lining up and blowing a tie fighter then another and coming down on the third, doing a hard breaking turn and driving your speed to get behind it and land a shot in its rear before it can outpace your maximum acceleration.

X com interceptor was a great game too, I remember it being deeply flawed but incredibly easy to get hooked into playing for hours. Combat was a bit more like wing commander which was a touch more strategic and less frantic.

Any good, ideally cheap, space combat games anyone can suggest?