I know, gameplay is more important than tech, but for an AAA game it's kinda disappointing techwise. No 32:9 support, HDR is mediocre, no FOV settings, language cannot be properly changed,...
this post was submitted on 11 Sep 2023
36 points (77.3% liked)
Starfield
2861 readers
1 users here now
Welcome to the Starfield community on Lemmy.zip!
- Follow instance rules (no spam, keep it civil and respectful, be constructive, tag NSFW)
Helpful links:
Spoiler policy:
- No spoilers in titles; if you want to share images with spoilers, preferably post the image in the body of the post. If you do make an image post, mark it NSFW.
- Add
[Spoilers]to your title if there will be untagged spoilers in the post. - Game mechanics and general discoveries (ship parts, weapons, etc) don't need a spoiler tag.
- Details about questlines and other story related content are spoilers. Use your best judgement!
Post & comment spoiler syntax:
<spoiler here>
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
That's what happens when you've been using the same engine since 1997, and just slap a fresh coat of paint on it every few years instead of actually improving it like Unreal.
Hey look, elden ring doesn't have even 21:9 support, hdr was broken for a while at launch, and no fov setting
From software has always been pretty crappy from a technical standpoint.
I didn't see the Internet awash with complaints about it strangely.
Because their history is being so bad technically that elden ring was an improvement to what people were expecting.
And Bethesda isn't known for their buggy games lmao?
I mean.... have you played dark souls 1 without the community patch with k&m? Not only the controls, performance is... uf.
I never did play the PTD, I have heard it was very rough though.
First time a really playing Dark Souls was when the remaster came to PC, then binged 2 and 3 and played through all endings on ER when it came out and put 300 hours in, waiting on the DLC eagerly.
I also did mod elden ring quite a bit, including dlss+fg from the much hated PureDark, and the excellent seamless coop mod along with a 32:9 support mod.
Ultimately my point is people are nitpicking Starfield lmao
PTD was with the dlc man, the original DS was almost unplayable on release, some random internet person released a mod called DSFix like 30 minutes after it released on pc that unlocked the fps to 60 and improved performance in some places. Multiplayer was also pretty fucking bad, so bad that yet another mod released that exposed how the networking p2p graph worked internally where you could bypass the normal network to connect directly to your friends to be able to see their signals.
My point is that the reason why people weren't so critical of ER is because compared to other FROM games, it was quite the improvement. People expected much, much worse.
Maybe since it's been so long since Bethesda released Skyrim, people just don't remember the pure vanilla experience which is why they are being harsher with Starfield. That, and that Bethesda has way more funding for their games.
Is there HDR? Because I'm certain there's no option for it on PC.
There are no ingame settings, which is bad. But when you activate HDR in your Windows settings the game seems to use HDR. It just looks rather bad imho (black levels too high).
There is a big issue with tedious repeating animations. Like standing up from the cockpit. Or docking a station. The hand made content is still there it's just placed into the world procedurealy.
I just don't understand why some key binds are random. Why am I using b to add favorites? Why not f. Or x to exit the ship. Why not q? It just seems like the binds are just chosen at random when there are available keys where my hands are already resting.
I love that 0 is to heal but O is to repair my ship. I'm constantly just mashing both because I can't remember which is which when my shields are down and I'm trying to dodge a missile.
Until this very second I thought my game was bugged because 0 (zero) wasn't repairing my ship. I was literally going into the menus to repair my ship mid battle.
It's just a number. Play the games you like and don't care what others think.
Exactly review scores are meaningless, early reviews even less so.
Most common bug for me so far is the invis cloak glitching and becoming visually permanent (but not the effect on stealth. Boo)
Honestly not even a tiny problem for a Bethesda vet.
7/10 basically space skyrim
Honestly I haven't been looking at the public reception at all because I've been playing it since it released. I didn't even know people weren't loving it, it's exactly what I want from a Bethesda game and more (136 hours so far)
Honestly I assumed that the critical reception would be middling, the zeitgeist is done with this studio and it’s games. Which is completely fair they are janky and weird and frankly often break in un-fun ways.
It’s a BGS game warts and all and I had a great time with it. I love these big, ambitious, broken games and this is a better than average one of them.
Already 136 hours? Do not forget to get some sleep :)
Haha don't worry I can take care of myself. The game has launched while I'm in a gap between finishing an industrial work placement and beginning my final year at uni so I've been making the most of it. Thank you for your concern!
Okay enjoy then
My biggest complaint is still an RPG being consolified, meaning its menu's are all shit because of controllers.
Interactions in this game would me so much better if it were designed from the ground up for mouse, point and click, drag, etc.
My only other complaint is I wish I could fly and land the craft myself similar to No Man's Sky. You can land on planet, shit is still random gen, but there's some hardpoint spots where your ship can land in a city or outpost.
The positive sides that surprised me is the ship building is great. Always wanted a game that allowed this kind of ship building.
Space Engineers or similar are great, but can be too much detail. This snap together modular blocks is nice middle ground.
I'm also impressed the engine is able to handle so many micro collisions of items on the ground.
My biggest complaint is still an RPG being consolified, meaning its menu’s are all shit because of controllers.
That's weird because I'm playing on console and the menus and UI are shit with a controller too.
Ship building is fun, but man they are lacking in detail.
What is the difference between these two cockpits? Idk, build it twice and find out. Oh, they're identical, then why even have a second one?
Oh, this giant 3x3 module must have a ton of stuff in it! Nope, the 2x1 is actually better. But which one? Dunno, try them all and reload.
You're ship is too big in either length, width, or height. Which one is it? Dunno, I just figured I'd throw all the errors together into one warning and let you figure it out.
Modders sure have their work cut out for them...
Luckily mods have already addressed the menu problems for PC. StarUI and Undelayed Menus.
Shouldn't even remotely be necessary for a studio this size. But whatever.
The only other actual negative I feel for the game at this point (20ish hours) is the skill points/system feeling like 5% good choices and 95% pointless garbage.
Starfield is the classic Bethesda experience but the hype around it implied it wouldn't be. The classic Bethesda experience is fine, it's a good base of a nice, free-form game that lacks polish. They are also games that need at least a few mods to actually be good. Vanilla Skyrim, etc sucks after you start modding it. Even if all you download is an end, a weather, the unofficial patch, and the better dialog and message box controls mods. Playing starfield I was immediately like "where is better dialog and message box controls?"
The game has potential but a thing that bothers me is landing on a planet and it says I explored 90% of it before I even exited the ship. I went to earth and there was no evidence of there ever being life and major cities. No ruined homes, no cities, no like... Mt Rushmore head that broke off and found where it isn't supposed to be, no statue of liberty torch. Nothing. They could have crafted a really cool ruined earth and instead it was just... sand and rocks. What do you think is behind that rock? Another rock. And when it comes to Earth, you don't need to have everything be where it needs to. The tip of a pyramid in Egypt makes sense but I see nothing wrong with finding the broken Washington monument in the middle of what was the Atlantic ocean. Or the broken big Ben in the middle of what was Japan. If any planet should have gotten randomly generated assets of ruins or even just manually crafted, it should have been Earth.
Most planets are empty and give you almost no reason to explore them. The game is about exploring planets, but playing this game makes me want to play Starbound instead.
I also don't know why everyone compares it to Skyrim when I feel like I'm playing Fallout 4 instead of Skyrim. Skyrim would have been an improvement, I wasn't a fan of FO4.
that lacks polish
I’d say creation engine is showing its age more than it lacks polish. The game looks pretty good and I’ve encountered virtually no bugs so far. People’s faces are a bit off though, as many have pointed out.
Creation engine is a double edge sword, on one had, it is super moddable. The mods you can put in for skyrim are insane. You can turn it into a completely different game.
I would say that the game isn't unpolished because of the engine though. Not in the ways I'm talking about anyway. The quests, dialog, locations, animations are all just a bit off, unpolished, and stiff. None of these really have anything to do with the engine aside maybe animations and locations. And given the eldersouls mods that give very animated combat animations, the combat mods that add wound systems and combos, etc, I don't think that's what's holding them back.
Yes creation engine is old, but I dont think it's what makes the game feel unpolished for me.
spoiler
sadfasfasdfsa
Damned if you do and damned if you don't. Create a handful of small, dense "gamefied" worldspaces and people will complain that the world is not big and open enough and that it's not realistic or immersive to have such small and dense "planets". Create thousands or trillions (in case of Elite:Dangerous) of procedurally generated planets with realistical amounts of POI-s, and people will complain about boring, sparse worlds with little to do on and where it takes too much time to go anywhere. Try to hit a middle ground, and people will still complain.
Same thing with spaceflight. In Elite you can fly seamlessly everywhere in a system. Only real loading screens are jumps from one system to another. People complain regularly about long travel times (average being only a few minutes), how travel is not gameplay and how "boring" it is and that instantly warping from planet to planet would be so much better. And then people complain about warping mechanics in Starfield.
The developers can never win with the internet-dwelling "gamers" with these sorts of games. There will always be a very loud minority who complains that the game is not what they imagined would be their perfect game. Bear in mind that most people who like the game are busy playing the damn game and not leaving reviews.
As for overhype, oh, there was so much of it in space sim circles. People seriously believed that Starfield will be killing Elite and Star Citizen in one fell swoop. Of course, most of these people were already discontent with Elite and Star Citizen and when Starfield obviously didn't fulfill their wishful thinking, they're now even more discontent and loud.
Me personally? I'm waiting til I can get a new GPU so I can start tinkering with spaceship builds (really love the NASA-punk aesthetic, especially the interiors), guns and suits. And Starfield seems to have perfected jetpack combat, one aspect I really like about Elite, but which is kind of limited there (can't swap jetpacks, and the combat suit has a crap jetpack even after upgrading it while the suit with the good one is not that suitable for combat). Can't wait to make my Mobile Infantry build operating from a Firefly-class ship🙃
I feel like you're straw manning the issues with the game. Sure some people are disappointed by the lack of depth in the setting. But there are PLENTY of other things to be not like: primarily in my book, the game should be called "Loading Screenfield" since you spend more time in loading screens than anywhere else.
There is a pretty big thread from a few days ago where people discuss the things that are underwhelming about the game. Overall, it's not a bad game, but not great either. Considering the number of actually great games it's competing with right now (looking at you BG3 and soon Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty), I think it looks even more meh in comparison.
I think the Steam rating seem pretty spot on.
the game should be called “Loading Screenfield” since you spend more time in loading screens than anywhere else
Not going to argue whether there are too many load screens before I can upgrade my PC and play it. What I will say, though: Starfield is not exactly unique in having lots of load screens, and I think that limitations of Creation Engine play the main part. Travel in Elite is also a load screen after every minute or two if you need to travel to any star system more than a few jumps away. Same goes for X3, which consists of roughly 50x50 km sectors connected by warp gates (loading screens) and in early game you'll need to always go through many sectors to reach anywhere.
Considering the number of actually great games it’s competing with right now (looking at you BG3 and soon Cyberpunk Phantom Liberty), I think it looks even more meh in comparison.
Depends on whether one considers these (unarguably good, especially BG3) games as competition for Starfield. I think competitors to anything should be considered in the genre of that something--eg Infant Annihilator is not competing with Purple Disco Machine, they're just so wildly different things. I'm a big space ship nerd and for me neither BG3 nor Cyberpunk is not even remotely competing for attention. The competition to Starfield could be Elite, Star Citizen, No Mans Sky, X4. Either Star Citizen or No Mans Sky are maybe the closest competitors thematically.
Elite is the main competitor for me, and has excellent space flight mechanics, plus is the only game in existence to have a 1:1 scale simulation of the Milky Way galaxy. Starfield has arcade-y space flight (more of a space shooter than space sim), but seems to have done the on-foot gameplay better than Elite--especially when it comes to on-foot exploration and the life on planets. Starfield also has ship interiors and the ability build ships from ground-up. All of of this fills the niches Elite lacks, so in a sense they're more complementary than competitive.
Starfield is not exactly unique in having lots of load screens
Two things: First, that in NO way makes it better.
Second, I haven't played X3 in a LONG time, but X4 has a similar structure of warping between systems. Thing is, there isn't any load time when you warp. You're not looking at a 5 second animation followed by a black loading screen for another 5 seconds just to travel from a planet to its moon. You also have to fly to those jump points, so you get to actually fly your ship. In Starfield, you just point at a blue dot and then load. Arrive in your system, get scanned, load some more. Etc.
I think competitors to anything should be considered in the genre of that something
Interesting. I don't actually think of Starfield as a space flight game since that's such a minor part of the game and you don't actually fly much, you mostly load screen between areas. I think of Starfield as an RPG with some space flavor, which is why I compared it to two other RPG's. You're mostly quick traveling between locations and then talking/role playing. The space flight is a (sadly) minor part of the game.
In fact, I think Elite is a terrible comparison. But I get that the niche seems to be your jam so I get why you'd want to compare and contrast the two.
RPG with some space flavor, which is why I compared it to two other RPG’s
Sure, it is RPG first and foremost, space flight distant second. But it's certainly not your typical swords-and-spells fantasy world RPG. Mass Effect would be the closest, but has even less space ship stuff. In fact, I don't think there has recently been another thematically similar game.
Star Citizen and Elite are IMO thematically much closer to Starfield than BG3, especially when we consider the core game mechanics (turn based party RPG vs. realtime first-person gunplay). The former two and Starfield boil down to your character using a spaceship to travel between planets and space POI-s, dogfighting in space and gunfights on foot with exploration, salvaging/scavenging, trading, bounty hunting and other activities to fill your time with.
Turns out that people really like to complain.
Not sure why you got down voted. You hit the nail on the head. I like elite but stopped playing after "mile wide and inch thick" syndrome became clear. I never got into star citizen because even though I got a ship it always gave me problems to run.
Slightly off topic rant: people talk about "space sims" like its an actual thing you can simulate (uhhhh we haven't invented that stuff yet sir) and it drives me crazy. I like flight sims but even when I know the real thing is more difficult and complex I know the dynamics have some relation to reality unlike a super magical warp drive thing.
Kerbal is a space sim. Engineers might be too.
Very good point. I meant that calling elite and star citizen sims seems silly to me
They don't have to make a game based in reality. They could have made their own system where the planets are small and filled that handful with lots of stuff. They chose to make real systems and have huge planets, it doesn't matter if there's 10, 100, 1000 planets if they are all barren and empty. The approach they took wasn't good for a bethesda rpg, they need the hand crafted world where they can keep things popping up. That's just the start of the problem with the game though, it is far too similar to their existing RPGs, I get playing it safe with a formula (I mean Larian do too), but you have to have great lore and story to back it up if that's what you want to do. Bethesda made no attempt to disguise it, it is as shameless as Ubisoft's rehashed games. They need a new engine if that is what's limiting them.
There's the problem. You bought a BSG rpg wanting it to not be a BSG rpg. They will always make this style of game. If you want a different style of game, they will disappoint you.
Ive been playing BSG rpgs since Morrowind, and so I got exactly what I was expecting, with some cool extra bits on top. And as such, I absolutely love it!
load more comments
(6 replies)
it is as shameless as Ubisoft's rehashed games.
People keep saying this but I’d say at worst Ubisoft does games in pairs, occasionally trios. If you play AC: Odyssey and AC: Black Flag, I assure you they will be VERY different experiences. Mechanics/combat alone are a huge distinguishing factor.
load more comments
(3 replies)
load more comments
(2 replies)
view more: next ›