Starfield! Spaaaaaaace...ladders.

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It's very possible that all planets won't be all explorable. But it's maybe just me, but why even announce "1000 planets" if at best, there is "only" 250-300 where you're able to land and explore. If it's the case, I can already see the complaints coming :)

Yep, that's exactly that the procedural generation (generally). An "Algoritm" use the seed + various paramaters to make "everything" as different as possible. Quests and "make exploration interesting" can't really be generated however (or at least, way less easily I think).
So in my opinion, making 1K planets with 100 different locations is possible (I think), but make each location "interesting" to explore is really not :)
Hehe Its Todd Howard. Ofc hes gonna say those kinda things. It just works! Nobody seem too ever learn too undersell and overdeliver instead of the other way around -.- Im kinda thankfull of cp2077 in these kinds of situations tho, way lower expectations then i would have hade if it was before ^^

Think they have been using that since Daggerfall tbh. Most games arent fully handcrafted (way too much work). Just placing all the trash or loot around would be a nightmare ^^ Hoping there wont be too menny radiant quests and that kinda stuff too. Rather see handcrafted quests but fewer. If there is 1000 planets theres enough too do without the fetch/kill/fix quests -.-
 
Think they have been using that since Daggerfall tbh. Most games arent fully handcrafted (way too much work). Just placing all the trash or loot around would be a nightmare ^^ Hoping there wont be too menny radiant quests and that kinda stuff too. Rather see handcrafted quests but fewer. If there is 1000 planets theres enough too do without the fetch/kill/fix quests -.-
I suppose (I hope) they have "tools" to create/modify landscapes and locations easily :)
A very "Basic" example : "World Edit" in Minecraft where you have brushes. So you start with a "basic" procedural generation and if you want, you can make a unique landscape quite easily. You can have a brush to place trees (different sizes, highs, types,...) randomly by simply hovering over the map with your mouse to make a "natural" forest.
So yeah, the big "issue" it making things interesting. If 90% of locations are empty shells... That's annoying :)
 
I suppose (I hope) they have "tools" to create/modify landscapes and locations easily :)
A very "Basic" example : "World Edit" in Minecraft where you have brushes. So you start with a "basic" procedural generation and if you want, you can make a unique landscape quite easily.
So yeah, the big "issue" it making things interesting. If 90% of locations are empty shells... That's annoying :)
Even there modding tools are probably some of the best released ones. Pretty easy too understand and edit stuff. I never got into modding but when i played Skyrim with over 1000 mods you kinda hade too fix stuff and keep things compatible ^^
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Seems im wrong, main quests will be handcrafted areas but alot of the planets are procedual generated ones with probably radiant quests and dungeons and everything. Its a detour you dont have too go on pretty much. makes sense in a way but hoping for alot of real side content since there seems too be fractions and so on.

 
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makes sense in a way but hoping for alot of real side content since there seems too be fractions and so on.
I'm not holding a big faith on the factions, in a past interview they kind of hinted you can work for one,join the rival and go back to 1st one...I doubt they will close content by joining one or another.
 
I'm not holding a big faith on the factions, in a past interview they kind of hinted you can work for one,join the rival and go back to 1st one...I doubt they will close content by joining one or another.
Meant more like they sound like the guilds. I tend too like those quests and its pretty nice for character development. Ill probably stay with whatever fits my character most ^^
 
Seems im wrong, main quests will be handcrafted areas but alot of the planets are procedual generated ones with probably radiant quests and dungeons and everything.
Yep, I expect radiant quests as "Fallout 4", but in space.
I imagine that the "quest giver" will choose a random planet and a random location on it, then the objective will be like "kill everyone", "pick up this item", "save a dude", "deliver a package",... in function of the faction.
Interesting ? To farm xp, money or loot for a while... But definitly matter of tastes :)
 
I didn't play Fallout 76, but from what I have heard and seen they did a great job updating the UI and interfaces in that game over Fallout 4.

I hope they step it up even more in Starfield. One of the things I remember most about Fallout 4 is I absolutely loathed how quests were ordered, setup and tracked. The UI and building was garbage. When I played the game it all felt clunky and out of sorts. Even storing items was a huge pain because you picked up so much junk that keeping it all organized was a nightmare. When I played I didn't even know what the heck a radiant quest was at the time and stuff like that - I kind of figured it out via trial and error by being like... why does it keep giving me these kind of pointless, boring quests? Haha.

So I really hope they fine tune all of that stuff, because it was garbo in Fallout 4.
 
Radiant quests have been a thing since Skyrim. They've been mediocre since then too.

It's procedurally generated content. Starfield may have a greater number of variations but it's still procedurally generated content. It's not going to beat hand-crafted quests. It's filler and farming for stuff. People shouldn't expect much more out of them.

I'm not holding a big faith on the factions, in a past interview they kind of hinted you can work for one,join the rival and go back to 1st one...I doubt they will close content by joining one or another.

Actually what they said is that you can join whatever faction you want, yes, but you may use the information from X faction to report to Y faction. Or join the space pirates and report their activities to the space police if you prefer. Which, IMO, is great. Allows you to be a good/bad guy infiltrating the other side to sabotage them. Of course, at this point there is no telling how deep this will be. Quite a few factions too and they seem pretty distinct from one another. Can't say I'm disliking what I'm hearing about factions so far.

I also suspect there may very well be a point where you have to side with one faction or their rival. The same way you had to in Fallout 4. You can join them all but at some point you have to choose where your allegiance lies, effectively locking you out of the others. Except for the minutemen, those you could mix with the other 3.
 
But will not this very expensive in disk size? 1000 maps,size unknown but i imagine they want to avoid the criticism that The Outer Worlds got so they need to be relatively large on their own...also the amount of work to do a "pass" to correct/tune the procedural generation.

I am a little worried there may be an "online" requirement, but the programs that generate this stuff can be smaller than one may imagine.

Think of "fractals" for example. I once saw a program based on fractal math to generate mountain terrain WITH trees and plants and rocks and river systems WAY back in the 1990s. The program could fit on a few floppy disks!
 
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Yep, I expect radiant quests as "Fallout 4", but in space.
I imagine that the "quest giver" will choose a random planet and a random location on it, then the objective will be like "kill everyone", "pick up this item", "save a dude", "deliver a package",... in function of the faction.
Interesting ? To farm xp, money or loot for a while... But definitly matter of tastes :)
I think that would be a good idea, procedural generated quests, if they are interesting and its not just like mindless grinding where it becomes boring, I think it could work fine.

Im thinking a bit like AC, you have camps and you can go clear them, to me that works fine to some degree, however games like AC is limited due to their historical setting, but given Starfield is in the future and lots of planets, they can make everything from infiltration missions, space battles, transport, rescue or smuggling missions etc. and just plain stuff as we know it from other space games like trading.
One of the big problems in CP and which I don't think they solved in a good way, were the enemy variety. But this shouldn't really be an issue in Starfield given that its sci fi, so there is room for aliens enemies, and we also see that in the trailer also they can go nuts with the environment to make them interesting.

So if they do something like that, its a big thumbs up for me. I personally don't care that much whether the combat is a bit plain, I mean, honestly I think that was the most fun in CP, just having straight up fire fights without all the OP stuff. Just bullets flying all over, taking cover etc. :)

I love the RPG elements that they show, it seems that they have gone deep into this, like the Kid trait, so you start with a house and can go visit your parents, but have to pay them. To me that's just a fun thing. There also seem to be some sort of religion or faction alignment, which lock out some factions if you choose certain things. I love that.

My focus is on the RP, building and story, how good the combat system is, is not a huge problem for me. It weren't an issue for me in CP either, despite lots of people complaining about it. Again talking about the straight up shooting, some of the weapons and "magic" system were completely broken in my opinion. I didn't like melee and didn't like it in Skyrim or Fallout either, and if its in Starfield, my guess is that I don't like it here as well. But as long as I can just use a gun, im happy :D
 
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I think that would be a good idea, procedural generated quests, if they are interesting and its not just like mindless grinding where it becomes boring, I think it could work fine.

Im thinking a bit like AC, you have camps and you can go clear them, to me that works fine to some degree, however games like AC is limited due to their historical setting, but given Starfield is in the future and lots of planets, they can make everything from infiltration missions, space battles, transport, rescue or smuggling missions etc. and just plain stuff as we know it from other space games like trading.
One of the big problems in CP and which I don't think they solved in a good way, were the enemy variety. But this shouldn't really be an issue in Starfield given that its sci fi, so there is room for aliens enemies, and we also see that in the trailer also they can go nuts with the environment to make them interesting.

So if they do something like that, its a big thumbs up for me. I personally don't care that much whether the combat is a bit plain, I mean, honestly I think that was the most fun in CP, just having straight up fire fights without all the OP stuff. Just bullets flying all over, taking cover etc. :)

I love the RPG elements that they show, it seems that they have gone deep into this, like the Kid trait, that you start with a house and can go visit your parents, but have to pay them. To me that's just a fun thing. There also seem to be some sort of religion or faction alignment, which lock out some factions if you choose certain things. I love that.

My focus is on the RP, building and story, how good the combat system is, is not a huge problem for me. It weren't an issue for me in CP either, despite lots of people complaining about it. Again talking about the straight up shooting, some of the weapons and "magic" system were completely broken in my opinion. I didn't like melee and didn't like it in Skyrim or Fallout either, and if its in Starfield, my guess is that I don't like it here as well. But as long as I can just use a gun, im happy :D
I thought Skyrim was the only Bethesda game that got melee right (or at least the closest to right): you really felt you were wielding a heavy steel sword you struggled to lift and swing.

I'm not sure what kind of melee weapons there'll be in Starfield, personally I'm crossing my fingers for some Riddick knives
 
I thought Skyrim was the only Bethesda game that got melee right (or at least the closest to right): you really felt you were wielding a heavy steel sword you struggled to lift and swing.

I'm not sure what kind of melee weapons there'll be in Starfield, personally I'm crossing my fingers for some Riddick knives

The lead programmer for Skyrim Combat was in a sword combat recreation group like the one I was in. So although I found a lot that I needed to mod to make it closer to realistic, they DID in fact do a good job for "game" Combat. Especially the Archery and I am not just saying that because they adopted mechanics from my Oblivion archery mod. :p

I am REALY hoping that more new game DEV will adopt a basic version of Hellish Quart into their RPG. Just the basic mechanics from the very first release of the game (Hellish Quart) would be easy to implement and jack the realism way WAY up while still making the game combat fun.

The only thing I do not like in HQ combat is he has not implemented shields AND I hate lock on type combat. Maybe a soft lock would be ok...
The programmer for HQ happens to have been one of the main combat programmers for the Witcher.


What these RPG REALLY need are better ways to allow player to use creativity in combat. Similar to Die by the Sword arcade mode where you could actually design your OWN personal moves, attacks and block or parry actions and footwork, then assign your creations to the game controls.

I made a Skyrim mod a little like this as a proof of concept where you could create your own Feints for the game by practicing on a pell in the game. By shifting your attack target. angle and moving your footwork and range as you attack you could create the feints. Feints were sometimes used by NPC on the player as well.

 
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I thought Skyrim was the only Bethesda game that got melee right (or at least the closest to right): you really felt you were wielding a heavy steel sword you struggled to lift and swing.

I'm not sure what kind of melee weapons there'll be in Starfield, personally I'm crossing my fingers for some Riddick knives
Im not accusing Skyrim of having done a bad job with it. But for me, FP melee combat just in general feels flat and doesn't really give the same feeling of impact compared to using guns, where you have the sound etc. I much more prefer AC - Valhalla combat, TW 3 or Mount and blade 2, very fun just charging around on a horse in a 1000 vs 1000 battle :D. But in FP, I don't really think any game would solve this issue for me. Maybe if you had some VR controllers or something with some feedback in them, that could work.
 
Im not accusing Skyrim of having done a bad job with it. But for me, FP melee combat just in general feels flat and doesn't really give the same feeling of impact compared to using guns, where you have the sound etc. I much more prefer AC - Valhalla combat, TW 3 or Mount and blade 2, very fun just charging around on a horse in a 1000 vs 1000 battle :D. But in FP, I don't really think any game would solve this issue for me. Maybe if you had some VR controllers or something with some feedback in them, that could work.


um, Skyrim was third person (and FP) depending on how you wanted to play the game. This was up to the player. I tried to fight FP as much as I could but unfortunately to get decent peripheral vision in combat I did have to switch sometimes to third. This can be done in an instant by the player using the view selector. You could even pan WAY out and up into a top down view of combat. This is just part of Bethesda's entire play as you want philosophy.
 
I think that would be a good idea, procedural generated quests, if they are interesting and its not just like mindless grinding where it becomes boring, I think it could work fine.

Im thinking a bit like AC, you have camps and you can go clear them, to me that works fine to some degree, however games like AC is limited due to their historical setting, but given Starfield is in the future and lots of planets, they can make everything from infiltration missions, space battles, transport, rescue or smuggling missions etc. and just plain stuff as we know it from other space games like trading.
I don't mind that there are radiant quests (even if it's "boring" for me^^) at the moment there is other and decent contents on side. In AC Odyssey, even if I completed all the locations on the map, I avoided radiant quests completely (all of those with an hourglass or those on bilboards). For quests, I only focused on yellow "!". The only times that I completed those quests, it's by chance because I cleared a location and the objective was in > "Gods are with you, it's already done!"

In any games, I always find those radiant quests quite borings. Surprisingly, I generally prefer explore and discover locations without any objective, just for "exploration enjoyment".
 
um, Skyrim was third person (and FP) depending on how you wanted to play the game. This was up to the player. I tried to fight FP as much as I could but unfortunately to get decent peripheral vision in combat I did have to switch sometimes to third. This can be done in an instant by the player using the view selector. You could even pan WAY out and up into a top down view of combat. This is just part of Bethesda's entire play as you want philosophy.
I know that, unfortunately I think Skyrim 3rd person combat is clunky. And would actually prefer FP over it. Which is why I mentioned AC, TW3 and mount and blade 2 and not Skyrim.

I guess its a personal preference what people like, but to me these other games do it better. Where AC is more action minded and mount and blade is a bit more clunky as well, but I think have some interesting mechanics to it, but most of all what makes it fun is the large scale battles.

I don't mind that there are radiant quests (even if it's "boring" for me^^) at the moment there is other and decent contents on side. In AC Odyssey, even if I completed all the locations on the map, I avoided radiant quests completely (all of those with an hourglass or those on bilboards). For quests, I only focused on yellow "!". The only times that I completed those quests, it's by chance because I cleared a location and the objective was in > "Gods are with you, it's already done!"

In any games, I always find those radiant quests quite borings. Surprisingly, I generally prefer explore and discover locations without any objective, just for "exploration enjoyment".
Its a fine line, I agree with you, I didn't do every single thing or quest either. But if they do it so the missions have impact and its more of a mission computer system like that of how AO did it, but much better, it might work.

But personally I think they rely more on player exploring rather than such a system, as there will only be 4 major cities, which is not really a lot when there is 1000 planets. But I also think there will be a lot of empty and boring planets, simply because Todd, sort of mentioned that it was also important that there are planets where there doesn't happen a lot, but more of a place where players might simply want to built a base and enjoy the view. What exactly that means I don't know. But he also mentioned that they aim for around a 30-40 hours main quest (Obvious have to be careful with this number), but if that is the case, then it should be pretty obvious that 1000 planets where you can land anywhere, that the main story is taking place on a very few of them. So what are they going to do with the 980 other planets, if we aim high and say the player have to visit 20 different ones as part of the main quest. And then they have the rest for side quests. Also he confirmed that there is smuggling and therefore trading as well most likely, also you can land on space stations and you can capture and board spaceships.

So Im kind of thinking that maybe this game will end up being more of a modders dream and that this is where this game will shine once again. Because modders can go crazy here to be honest :D
 
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It looks really good. Will wait for reviews and gameplay as always, but maybe it'll be my second game for this year.
 
It looks really good. Will wait for reviews and gameplay as always, but maybe it'll be my second game for this year.
I think it looks very interesting for sure and is definitely keeping an eye on it. To me it looks like Fallout/Skyrim in a space setting and its pretty damn awesome to honest, so hopefully it will be good.
 
I think it looks very interesting for sure and is definitely keeping an eye on it. To me it looks like Fallout/Skyrim in a space setting and its pretty damn awesome to honest, so hopefully it will be good.
Yeah I think it could really succeed as a exploration / settlement building sandbox with some story and RPG elements.
 
So Im kind of thinking that maybe this game will end up being more of a modders dream and that this is where this game will shine once again. Because modders can go crazy here to be honest :D
I'm sure it will :)
At least, I dream about few mods... I would want to pilot the Normandy, the USS Enterprise, the millenium falcon, the Swordfish II,... to come across a Reaper, to take a part in a pod race, to explore the city of thousand planets, to take vacations in the Fhloston Paradise, to use a Zorg ZF-1 Pod Weapon System... Oh damn, it's just endless :D
 
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