But the limitation remains the speed of light which a a kind of wall and despite to be incredibly fast, remains very slow comparing to the size of space
Bethesda decided what level of realistism they want to stay "believable", which is subjective... A bit like most of the planets don't home life, which is very realist. But almost and at least, one planet on each system home life, which is totally unrealistic. I simply pointed out that there is a dialogue is the game specially about that (and Mass Effect decided at time, to follow the same system... Ships can move faster than light, while transmissions can't).
Beside, they could have implemented a kind of "radio system", but in a different way. Like a bunch soundtracks (or even play lists) that you can buy on each major city, musics you can play whenever and wherever you want on your ship or on feet while exploring. Realist, believable and convenient.
I was thinking more along the lines of being able to listen to settlement radio while exploring on planets with settlements. It would be cool to listen to theme-appropriate radio stations on populated planets, and then contrast that with total silence on barren worlds.
However, I don't think realistic physics were a major concern for Bethesda. Scanners work up to 30 light years away (with the right perks), ships in space ruthlessly violate Newton's first law, and all the cool weapon and explosion sounds in space battles should be silent. Just to name a few that instantly come to mind.
I was thinking more along the lines of being able to listen to settlement radio while exploring on planets with settlements. It would be cool to listen to theme-appropriate radio stations on populated planets, and then contrast that with total silence on barren worlds.
However, I don't think realistic physics were a major concern for Bethesda. Scanners work up to 30 light years away (with the right perks), ships in space ruthlessly violate Newton's first law, and all the cool weapon and explosion sounds in space battles should be silent. Just to name a few that instantly come to mind.
When I say "realism", it's indeed a good reason to not doing it
But I agree, it would be nice being able to listen major cities news in you ship or on the ground, when you are in their systems. Because cities have radios/news/infos that you can hear, but only if you stay next to the dedicated speakers. It's quite strange they didn't implemant that, knowing that Bethesda quite like re-using their features (in Fallout, radios are quite important and involved in a bunch of quests...).
It's like "survival mode". There is everything for, foods and drinks everywhere, but nope, no "survival mode"... Maybe they will introduce it a future update or along to the expansion/DLC.
TLDR; 8/10. A strong showing with some serious errors that prevent it from reaching greatness in general, it's great for me but it's got real issues and I won't give it a pass out of affection. I'll try to rapid fire the bad as I've gushed in detail in previous pages about the things I love in the this game, and there's plenty that I do love.
Loading screens. I fully understand star to star travel being handled this way, I can even accept it being preferable to actually waiting hours to traverse within a star system, but all the time? Every elevator, nearly every interior, nearly every cave, every ship, every dungeon, etc, etc. Enough already...
Abysmal open world NPCs. Worse than 2077 at launch by far, absolutely terrible and I don't even feel like going into the details. Lazy AF, they didn't even bother. They may be the worst ever, as in worse than GTA 1, period. Starefield indeed.
No unique weapons. Sadly Bethesda simply used reskins of other weapons for the unique guns this time around. Major disappointment and a step back from previous works. I would need to check, but they may not even come with unique traits. Bummer.
Can't strip enemies down to their jimmies. I always love that what you saw was what you got with Bethesda games, and it's a minor detail that added low effort (maybe not perhaps) immersion to the experience. A real step back for the studio imo.
I expected characters to have lacking expressions and indeed they do for the most part, so dealing with it wasn't something that got to me but it deserves mentioning. Companions are typically covered, and thankfully best girl Andreja was well taken care of to the point it's almost as if an entirely different studio was responsible for her. Otherwise... well, you know what to expect.
Performance is a head scratcher. inb4 "systems tho". Yes, I'm aware there's a lot going on here, but how taxing this game is on my 4090 when it looks like this? No, not by a long shot. Maybe if the game always looked as good as it does during conversations but it's not even approaching that by a country mile. It's a game that looks like it's 10 years old at many points but runs like one due for release in 10 years, much like Elden Ring. Sometimes the game looks brilliant, and other times it looks like real ass. Awful contact shadows.
Bugs - I haven't had a single crash, but the game isn't without bugs. Worst of which being a nasty bug that deleted my best gear when stored in the armory displays. Seems to be a bug with the Deimos 2x1 Armory specifically, otherwise most bugs are hilarious and/or immersion breaking at worst in my experience, and I mean very immersion breaking sometimes. You may have to negotiate a bug here and there, but nothing has sent me back to desktop thus far.
EDIT: Ship destruction is a bit disappointing. I would have expected at the very least some kind of height map decals on the ruined parts or burnt textures - but no. The ship explodes and pristine pieces fly apart like legos.
It's a Bethesda game, the biggest one yet and in the best state(stability wise) at launch, with a notable improvement to writing and character development over previous titles, and by a wide margin I might add. Several of the faction and companion quests exceed much of what Deus Ex has done(yes I said it) in terms of character depth, real moral dilemma, and philosophical implications I never expected from the likes of Bethesda. Well f*cking done! It's also a real treat to hear Beau Billingslea (Cowboy Bebop) once more, and brilliantly cast as a wached up scoundrel of a scientist I might add.
If there's one thing in this game that sets a new bar it's the companions. Seriously, the companions and their stories are great - the commentary from them based on your actions, the setting, the conflict, the story beat, conversations with other characters, etc, etc is thorough, down to me going back and doing random early game quests long before I could have ever even potentially have a companion. They comment on damn near everything, and the relationship dialogue has been spot on.
An example would be approaching the climax of the game - my video game spouse made a comment about what could be and where things are going, I responded by asking if her comment was about the issue or 'about us' and her response was "can't it be about both, etc, etc?". I tell you right now, that is exactly the kind of thing a intimate lover, specifically a woman if we're being honest, would say in a similar position because I've seen arguments my brother has with his wife go down that road. Something of this nature carried on when
I decided to return from the unity. She was sitting in a co-pilot chair staring at the console. She continued staring at the screens, not looking toward me, and asked why I came back. She didn't look up once and spoke in a detached tone - She was happy to know I was back but didn't accept the reality entirely, believing that it was fleeting and sooner rather than later I would step through the unity again and be gone for good.
I agree with most of that. If you got into a conversation with someone at Bethesda off the record, I suspect that they would also agree.
In my view, this is clearly intended as a baseline game to make sure some new systems are working, with significant gameplay mechanic expansions to come. Vehicles, Mech combat (there's no way they could have given a more clear signal of that, short of a banner that reads "mechs are coming"), Settlement mechanics, probably survival mode (strange omission), et cetera.
I want to get my hands on the Creation Kit, because they've made some big changes under the hood. For instance, I'm amazed at the procedurally generated world "cells". I can stand on a mountain, look across a vast plain to another set of mountains barely visible in the distance, and walk to it, with stuff to do along the way, and then more stuff in a different direction. The engine as I remember it could never handle something like that. I may be wrong, but once we start getting full access to the engine, I think that we're going to discover that a lot of major game enhancements are possible, and Bethesda just scratched at the surface with what they released. I also want to see how the solar systems are implemented, because I think that we'll be able to implement within-system travel without loading screens (not for actually landing on the planets though -- that will probably always be a loading screen).
It's like "survival mode". There is everything for, foods and drinks everywhere, but nope, no "survival mode"... Maybe they will introduce it a future update or along to the expansion/DLC.
I absolutely abhor bullet sponges and very hard is exactly that. Give me survival mode with extremely high damage on both sides.
There is food, there are drinks, there are beds. Give me basic needs!
Then there is an oscene amount of aid products for a metric shit ton of conditions. Give me limb damage and various conditions I can get that aren't related to my being exposed to X and my suit's protection depleting. Get hit by some alien - get space rabies and use medicine to get rid of it!
Literally everything is there for the survival modes they've already created before.
Again.... Why?!
I'm clearly very annoyed by the lack of survival mode. I also have no doubt it's coming eventually but I'll be annoyed until then.
I absolutely abhor bullet sponges and very hard is exactly that. Give me survival mode with extremely high damage on both sides.
There is food, there are drinks, there are beds. Give me basic needs!
Then there is an oscene amount of aid products for a metric shit ton of conditions. Give me limb damage and various conditions I can get that aren't related to my being exposed to X and my suit's protection depleting. Get hit by some alien - get space rabies and use medicine to get rid of it!
Literally everything is there for the survival modes they've already created before.
Again.... Why?!
I'm clearly very annoyed by the lack of survival mode. I also have no doubt it's coming eventually but I'll be annoyed until then.
Yep, at least surprising
Honestly, I have no doubt they will add it at some point. All elements are in the game, except the mode to use them. To be honest, currently who use foods or drinks to health?
Could be a kind of "marketing strategy", to give a reason for players to return on the game again later (or they ran out of time to fully implement it before release, which is possible too I guess^^)
Survival mode hasent been in any of there games at launch i think and all have food/beds and so on. Think it was patched into FO4 later on. If its not there will probably be a mod just like Ineed(skyrim) or something and probably one with death by weather and so on too^^
Survival mode hasent been in any of there games at launch i think and all have food/beds and so on. Think it was patched into FO4 later on. If its not there will probably be a mod just like Ineed(skyrim) or something and probably one with death by weather and so on too^^
None of their previous games had survival mode at launch, no.
With that said, none of them had NG+ either. None of them had tons of medical items dedicated to curing various conditions.
It's their latest and biggest game and they went all in in many ways but fell short in others. Survival mode was a highly requested and popular mode as a mod and as an official add-on. Bethesda obviously knows that. It's just baffling to me that it wasn't there at launch.
Doesn't stop me from loving the game. I'm just annoyed by it because it would make the game significantly better in my eyes.
Again, there is no doubt it's coming. Unnoficially AND officially but I'll keep being annoyed at enemies being bullet sponges until them.
They added a survival mode in Skyrim, if memory serves. The community created survival mods were better though. So people just used those. It also took a lot of community mods to improve the combat beyond it's default complete ass state. And... most other stuff. And they fixed a lot of busted stuff. Modders make superior quests too.
I think one of the most confusing things with Starfield as it is examined will always be that the game had six years of development time and it is missing some pretty basic stuff. From FOV sliders to something like survival mode - it was just missing stuff you would have thought would be in there day one with that long of a development cycle... especially since a bunch of the missing stuff was just present in their previous games.
I think one of the most confusing things with Starfield as it is examined will always be that the game had six years of development time and it is missing some pretty basic stuff. From FOV sliders to something like survival mode - it was just missing stuff you would have thought would be in there day one with that long of a development cycle... especially since a bunch of the missing stuff was just present in their previous games.
TBH that has been missing in every single game they have made... Even Fo76 did not have it at launch. It will come tho and with proper HDR support. Dam it looks great with proper blacks and bright as f whites. Have to use seperate program for proper support and shit tho so no i cba. Ill wait. Cp2077 2.0 tomorrow to benchmark some and se what the fuss is about with the hardware but i think ill stick to Starfield for the time beeing. Can barely have time for that so -.-
Anyone hear anything about if they changed the scripting system so that scripts will not stack and freeze up like then did in skyrim if you had a lot at once going on? We use to call it "script lag" where you could count in seconds until the script executed. We found out from one of the main scripting DEV at Beth (on the official forums back then) it was tied to the frame rate. So people with low frame rate had it bad and those with high frame rate thought the rest of us were nuts as they did not see it.
I'm honestly happy that the gameplay turned out as well as it did. For me, the main story in every Bethesda game was the leveling system and the story/combat was just a device to level up. Once you ran out of significant leveling choices that's when the game became pretty stale.
The combat and story are both remarkable improvements over past Bethesda games. I've seen a lot of complaints about the combat ai, and some lowlights, but I think the combat ai is a big improvement over Fallout 4. Just going by eye it looks like they've tuned confidence levels so that characters run away, regroup, or take a very defensive position when overwhelmed. Sometimes they have pathing issues causing them to get stuck in vulnerable positions, but that really doesn't happen so often that it really hurts the gameplay.
Overall the combat ai changes are really meant to inject more spontaneity and simulation/chance aspects into the combat rather than making combat more difficult. I think that Bethesda benefited a great deal from expanding their employee base and absorbing BattleCry studios.
I feel like they injected a lot of fun into the game in general, but I particularly like their ideas for the leveling system.
That being said, the combat ai doesn't really seem like a technical improvement over Fallout 4, just somebody with good ideas tweaking the values.
I agree with most of that. If you got into a conversation with someone at Bethesda off the record, I suspect that they would also agree.
In my view, this is clearly intended as a baseline game to make sure some new systems are working, with significant gameplay mechanic expansions to come. Vehicles, Mech combat (there's no way they could have given a more clear signal of that, short of a banner that reads "mechs are coming"), Settlement mechanics, probably survival mode (strange omission), et cetera.
I want to get my hands on the Creation Kit, because they've made some big changes under the hood. For instance, I'm amazed at the procedurally generated world "cells". I can stand on a mountain, look across a vast plain to another set of mountains barely visible in the distance, and walk to it, with stuff to do along the way, and then more stuff in a different direction. The engine as I remember it could never handle something like that. I may be wrong, but once we start getting full access to the engine, I think that we're going to discover that a lot of major game enhancements are possible, and Bethesda just scratched at the surface with what they released. I also want to see how the solar systems are implemented, because I think that we'll be able to implement within-system travel without loading screens (not for actually landing on the planets though -- that will probably always be a loading screen).
Creation Engine has supposedly always had problems with vehicles and it's clear they had to do a work around just to get space ship gameplay up to par so I'd be shocked if that game ever gets any kind of land vehicles. To say that the game the way it is now is really a "baseline" for future improvements is really setting yourself up for extreme disappointment. I'm hearing that the engine is pretty janky so I'm just hoping for performance improvements.
It's really just not in Bethesda (in particular the engine) to do full game overhaul with vehicles like CDProjectRed did. I think update 2.0 is going to separate these two games a great deal more because the vehicle combat and advanced NPC ai will make for their own emergent stories while I feel like Bethesda has sort of regressed in terms of simulation and chose to focus their resources more so on procedural generated worlds.
Been playing almost non-stop (when I have game-time, anyway) since release and just have mixed feelings about Starfield. When it's good, I'm liking it a lot, but as my playthrough continues I am getting more and more frustrated with it, the UX in particular. It feels streamlined yet seems to be missing basic QOL stuff, the map(s) are terrible and I am constantly needing to refer to Google to find information that should be available in game. I've been soft-locked out of multiple quests (side and main story) needing various workarounds, I can't fast-travel in Jemison anymore and parts of the city and other colonies (ranging from ramps, to basic stuff like Trade Authority kiosks) are just gone.
To be expected, I suppose. I remember the state Bethesda's other games launched in and I'm not that really that upset because I will be dropping it like a hot potato for Cyberpunk very shortly if I can overcome my addiction to ship building.
First time I tried to play I played as a completionist doing every quest I could find, Didn't last long I'll be honest before I was bored as hell. The quests quickly becoming go there click on this. Gave up pretty quick.
Second restart I just did those quests that seemed relevant to my character, this works so much better, having a blast playing an ex soldier taking merc missions and ignoring any quests which seem to stray (like the whole neon thing and many of the quests around the primary planet, why am I as a soldier gonna help some scientists running around the place searching for meter readers, I'll save that for a science playthrough)
I really like the settlement building, nice and simple and an easy way of farming resources (still exploring this) and ship building was also a wow moment. Cargo space is not an issue even from the start now I know how to add cargo pods.
My mistake was trying to play it like fallout 4 when it is its own game and different play-styles are needed
First time I tried to play I played as a completionist doing every quest I could find, Didn't last long I'll be honest before I was bored as hell. The quests quickly becoming go there click on this. Gave up pretty quick.
Second restart I just did those quests that seemed relevant to my character, this works so much better, having a blast playing an ex soldier taking merc missions and ignoring any quests which seem to stray (like the whole neon thing and many of the quests around the primary planet, why am I as a soldier gonna help some scientists running around the place searching for meter readers, I'll save that for a science playthrough)
I really like the settlement building, nice and simple and an easy way of farming resources (still exploring this) and ship building was also a wow moment. Cargo space is not an issue even from the start now I know how to add cargo pods.
My mistake was trying to play it like fallout 4 when it is its own game and different play-styles are needed
It's at it's best(quest wise) in the various hidden gems and companion/faction quests. They've all been well above par and far exceed anything BGS has done in the past... Main quest doesn't really shine until much later, there's a lot of bs fetching and back/forth that weighs it down and a slow start that makes it feel like it's going no where but it has great moments.
I agree with most of that. If you got into a conversation with someone at Bethesda off the record, I suspect that they would also agree.
In my view, this is clearly intended as a baseline game to make sure some new systems are working, with significant gameplay mechanic expansions to come. Vehicles, Mech combat (there's no way they could have given a more clear signal of that, short of a banner that reads "mechs are coming"), Settlement mechanics, probably survival mode (strange omission), et cetera.
I want to get my hands on the Creation Kit, because they've made some big changes under the hood. For instance, I'm amazed at the procedurally generated world "cells". I can stand on a mountain, look across a vast plain to another set of mountains barely visible in the distance, and walk to it, with stuff to do along the way, and then more stuff in a different direction. The engine as I remember it could never handle something like that. I may be wrong, but once we start getting full access to the engine, I think that we're going to discover that a lot of major game enhancements are possible, and Bethesda just scratched at the surface with what they released. I also want to see how the solar systems are implemented, because I think that we'll be able to implement within-system travel without loading screens (not for actually landing on the planets though -- that will probably always be a loading screen).
I wish I shared your optimism. As far as the whole mech/vehicle thing goes; I don't see mechs happening, there's the whole lore about the colony wars and it all seems like no more than world building. Rovers are a possibility, but I would put more trust in modders than BGS at this point. Given how they've dumped some of the better features of previous titles while doubling down on some of the worst aspects, and Todd has brazenly dubbed this a next gen game worthy of top-o-the-line hardware; I'm not betting on anything striking from them outside of new quests.
I've been soft-locked out of multiple quests (side and main story) needing various workarounds, I can't fast-travel in Jemison anymore and parts of the city and other colonies (ranging from ramps, to basic stuff like Trade Authority kiosks) are just gone.
I wonder... Did you build outposts?
Because I did in my first playthrough and when I starting producing ressources and sharing them between my outposts, it completely broke my game. Textures not loading, frenquent stuttering/freezes/crashes, unable to enter in my ship and so many more... I had to restart a playthrough because it affected all my saves.
I just finished my second playthrough (about 80hrs), I didn't build any outpost and so far no issue or almost. Except since the last update, if I play more than 5-6 hours non stop, the game could freezes while opening the menu (I suspect it have something to do with auto-saves).
I admit, it's great! On PC with mods, I imagine it will be something
I'd like a creative build mode, just to try things and a possibility to register your creations for later. Also an option to build a "new" ship from scratch, instead of modifying an existing ship (if it's already the case, I didn't pay attention^^).
I wish I shared your optimism. As far as the whole mech/vehicle thing goes; I don't see mechs happening, there's the whole lore about the colony wars and it all seems like no more than world building. Rovers are a possibility, but I would put more trust in modders than BGS at this point. Given how they've dumped some of the better features of previous titles while doubling down on some of the worst aspects, and Todd has brazenly dubbed this a next gen game worthy of top-o-the-line hardware; I'm not betting on anything striking from them outside of new quests.
Yeah, I highly doubt mechs are happening. My own guess will be that Bethesda adds quests and maybe some stuff to existing systems. Things like a new class of star ship, more options for outposts, weapons, etc. Other than that it'll be largely just new quests to expand upon the lore and world. Things like visiting house Va'runn homeworld. Mechs may make an appearance in somewhere but my guess is that it will be as an enemy to destroy and not something you can actually pilot. They gave themselves an easy out of this one through the lore.
It's what Bethesda has been doing for almost 20 years now.
I can see some type of land rover being added. The engine can handle them just fine. It was done in Fallout 4 and, unlike FO4, Starfield is full of very flat and easily navigable land. It was essentially based on the same system as horses from Skyrim if I recall correctly.
I admit, it's great! On PC with mods, I imagine it will be something
I'd like a creative build mode, just to try things and a possibility to register your creations for later. Also an option to build a "new" ship from scratch, instead of modifying an existing ship (if it's already the case, I didn't pay attention^^).
I genuinely can't wait to see what some very specific modders come up with. Right now we're mostly seeing the regular release stuff, minor replacements and such but there is already some real must have out there. A lot of talk about some grand projects in some circles though and some of the stuff people are envisioning is incredible.
Also yes on a building a ship from scratch. I have no clue why they didn't add that. Just let me build from nothing instead of having to destroy my ship or steal/buy/find another ship to destroy. I can see them adding that at least.
I wonder... Did you build outposts?
Because I did in my first playthrough and when I starting producing ressources and sharing them between my outposts, it completely broke my game. Textures not loading, frenquent stuttering/freezes/crashes, unable to enter in my ship and so many more... I had to restart a playthrough because it affected all my saves.
Oh, that's interesting - I did build an outpost, probably not long before the bigger bugs started happening. I really do want to start a new save though, but the thing is copying over my character's face data because I spent hours in character creation, and using Enhance stores seems to reset all of the values I've edited.
Also yeah, I don't think there's an option to build a ship from scratch which is very weird, also doesn't seem to allow you to move a unique module from one ship to another either *cough Comspike cough*. Probably a bunch of features coming in patches I bet, and I think mod support will arrive next year?
It's OK, I'll be playing Phantom Liberty until then!
Well i finished Phantom Liberty and i have to say V had a really good story
but i think i will be moving on to Starfield exclusively. I liked my time playing as V but starfield lets me craft my own story.
I am going to miss the forums and all the really decent people on here.
This game has been an amazing journey. To all my fellow Mercs still in this world i have just one simple piece of parting advice
“If You Gotta Kill, Kill.. If you Gotta Burn It All to the Ground, Then Let It Burn…”
