Starfield

GoldenTiger said:
You don't need to cook your own filet mignon to know the chef served you one raw.
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Just because you don't like the state of the game doesn't mean it isn't a complete game.
peppergomez said:
🧂
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You are the one posting that Bethesda is a dying company.

I could list 100 things I want implemented in starfield, doesn't mean the game isn't complete.

If you want to see what happens when a developer promises everything under the sun, Google "Star Citizen" and why it has less content than Starfield even though it was received over $650 million in funding.
 
FearTheCow said:
You hate the game, got it, go develop your own so you can have exactly what you want and let's see how it does.
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You realize the developers invited this criticism? I'm sure there are fan-forum echo chambers you can post in where they ban anyone who isn't a fanboy.

Me? I enjoy sharing & dwelling in negativity in regards to shitty games. It's actually hard for me to fathom how people care so much about what other people think. If this thread was full of nothing but shitting on this game, it would be better for it. Because let's be honest - it's a flop for many and should be discussed.

Cyberpunk got to dwell in the shit for a long time, and they flipped it around. Let's not rob Bethesda that opportunity.
 
TaintedSquirrel said:
That seems like a pretty miserable hobby.
Personally I choose to play and interact with games I enjoy. And avoid the ones I don't.
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That seems like the healthy way to go. Games should be fun, at least that's how I feel. I play the ones I like, skip the ones I don't, and sometimes play the ones I like until they stop being fun then set them aside. I'm not going to pitch a fit because a game isn't good.

I'm also not going to pitch a fit because a game was just fun and overall ok and not a masterpiece. I've played plenty of games, watched plenty of movies, read plenty of books that weren't amazing, but I still enjoyed overall. Even if they weren't what I hoped, I still enjoyed them and am not going to rage because they weren't the masterpiece I wanted.
 
Sycraft said:
That seems like the healthy way to go. Games should be fun, at least that's how I feel. I play the ones I like, skip the ones I don't, and sometimes play the ones I like until they stop being fun then set them aside. I'm not going to pitch a fit because a game isn't good.

I'm also not going to pitch a fit because a game was just fun and overall ok and not a masterpiece. I've played plenty of games, watched plenty of movies, read plenty of books that weren't amazing, but I still enjoyed overall. Even if they weren't what I hoped, I still enjoyed them and am not going to rage because they weren't the masterpiece I wanted.
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Fair. One could also make the argument that not every meal is medium rare filet Mignon and some are taco bell.

But I think the other side of the coin there is people have limited time and limited money. And they're passionate because they've played something good and are upset about using their limited resources in time and money for receiving something poor. Going back to the steak vs taco bell analogy: if you're going to sell taco bell, then it sure had better be at taco bell prices and not at filet Mignon prices. A quality difference can be mitigated by price. Which is reflected by indie devs and the "A" and "AA" space. And arguably a lot of them are producing better titles than Bethesda.

Some of this is subjective, and some of this isn't. And I think at least the objective criticisms of these games should be done. I also think that consumers in general need to grow up and learn self discipline and not buy garbage. Which if there was simply more discernment than we likely wouldn't get these garbage games in the first place because there would be recognition that the marketplace won't tolerate it.

Todd Howard keeps making Todd Howard games for people that like to Todd Howard. Just as Adam Sandler does the same thing for "comedy". I feel like if you watch an Adam Sandler movie you can't get mad at him for his 'lack of jokes' at this point, you knew what you were getting.
 
FearTheCow said:
Just because you don't like the state of the game doesn't mean it isn't a complete game.

You are the one posting that Bethesda is a dying company.

I could list 100 things I want implemented in starfield, doesn't mean the game isn't complete.

If you want to see what happens when a developer promises everything under the sun, Google "Star Citizen" and why it has less content than Starfield even though it was received over $650 million in funding.
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I'd rather an unfinished game that shows passion and ambition like Star Citizen even if it ludicrously delayed and overscoped instead of the incredibly cynical, lazy, mediocre, and outdated overhyped leftovers that Bethesda keeps fooling gamers into buying this last decade or so. People are remembering the glory days of Skyrim and Oblivion through rose tinted glasses when they pre-order games like Starfield, thinking they will have the same great experience they did a decade or longer ago with other Bethesda games. But they won't. Games and technology and standards have evolved. Bethesda hasn't.

Raise your standards and resist the temptation to be a hype victim whenever Todd starts in with his sweet little lies and you'll find yourself playing better games and avoiding overhyped failures like Starfield.

I'm confident a good percentage of gamers who pre-ordered Starfield felt obligated to enjoy it at least somewhag in order to validate their purchase decision, whereas they would either not have bought it or enjoyed it if it weren't a Bethesda title.

Personally I'm glad to see Bethesda getting flak for this game. It's about a decade overdue given how they've been coasting in their legacy this last decade or longer. They should improve or close up shop because their best efforts come up far short of what other studios are creating.
 
peppergomez said:
I'd rather an unfinished game that shows passion and ambition like Star Citizen even if it ludicrously delayed and overscoped instead of the incredibly cynical, lazy, mediocre, and outdated overhyped leftovers that Bethesda keeps fooling gamers into buying this last decade or so. People are remembering the glory days of Skyrim and Oblivion through rose tinted glasses when they pre-order games like Starfield, thinking they will have the same great experience they did a decade or longer ago with other Bethesda games. But they won't. Games and technology and standards have evolved. Bethesda hasn't.

Raise your standards and resist the temptation to be a hype victim whenever Todd starts in with his sweet little lies and you'll find yourself playing better games and avoiding overhyped failures like Starfield.

I'm confident a good percentage of gamers who pre-ordered Starfield felt obligated to enjoy it at least somewhag in order to validate their purchase decision, whereas they would either not have bought it or enjoyed it if it weren't a Bethesda title.

Personally I'm glad to see Bethesda getting flak for this game. It's about a decade overdue given how they've been coasting in their legacy this last decade or longer. They should improve or close up shop because their best efforts come up far short of what other studios are creating.
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Speak for yourself.

I never cared for Skyrim or Oblivion. I thought they were lame and boring. After Skyrim blew up I really tried to get into it, figuring there must be something others were seeing that I was not, but I just couldn't get I to it. It bored me to tears.

I thoroughly enjoyed both Fallout 4 and Starfield though, the last two Bethesda games I played.

The thing that bothers me about Starfield is that there were a lot of missed opportunities to make it even better, but that doesn't mean that what was delivered wasn't fun.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I never cared for Skyrim or Oblivion. I thought they were lame and boring. After Skyrim blew up I really tried to get into it, figuring there must be something others were seeing that I was not, but I just couldn't get I to it. It bored me to tears.

I thoroughly enjoyed both Fallout 4 and Starfield though, the last two Bethesda games I played.
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It's always interesting to me which Bethesda games resonate with people. Like for many it is Morrowind, that's their all-time great. Me? Never could get into it. Too many things that bothered me too much to ever get going, despite a few attempts. Or you and Skyrim. For my Skyrim scratched the itch REAL GOOD, I got into that game immediately and replayed it so many times.

Or the Fallout games, I just *loved* New Vegas. Man I love it. Played it so man times, modded it so many times, it was just my kind of game. But I know many people who say FO3 was a better game. I did enjoy 3, but not nearly as much. Only played it once.

I always call them "the Bethesda game" since Bethesda has a formula that they like and kinda make the same game over and over again, but what people like in that varies a lot.
 
Sycraft said:
It's always interesting to me which Bethesda games resonate with people. Like for many it is Morrowind, that's their all-time great. Me? Never could get into it. Too many things that bothered me too much to ever get going, despite a few attempts. Or you and Skyrim. For my Skyrim scratched the itch REAL GOOD, I got into that game immediately and replayed it so many times.

Or the Fallout games, I just *loved* New Vegas. Man I love it. Played it so man times, modded it so many times, it was just my kind of game. But I know many people who say FO3 was a better game. I did enjoy 3, but not nearly as much. Only played it once.

I always call them "the Bethesda game" since Bethesda has a formula that they like and kinda make the same game over and over again, but what people like in that varies a lot.
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Yeah, everyone has their own tastes.

I liked both Fallout 3 and NV. I tend to think NV was even slightly better, but I have to admit, with NV, about 65 hours in I started getting really bored with the side quests being a desert errand boy, and rather than my normal "completionist" approach, I just sped things up by focusing on the main story quests to finally get it over with.

Fallout 4 on the other hand, which lots of people complained about, I had a great time with. I was really disappointed when I finished the story quests unexpectedly, and couldn't find any more side quests to do. I did do another 10-20 hours of settlement building, but that got boring after a while. In the end I logged about 125 hours in that one.

With Starfield I loved the first ~2/3rds of the story quest, and some of the side quests were really great too. Particularly the Red Fleet branch of the Vanguard quests. The last third of the story quests started feeling grindy and boring though, with the mystery of the artifacts gone, and just going through the motions. I played through to a NG+ game to see what all the noise was about in NG+, but honestly, to me it was just more of the same. I played a little more NG+, but eventually got tired of it after a grand total of about 200 hours in game.

If there were more side quests or even story quests, I would likely still be playing it. They were enjoyable to me.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
With Starfield I loved the first ~2/3rds of the story quest, and some of the side quests were really great too. Particularly the Red Fleet branch of the Vanguard quests. The last third of the story quests started feeling grindy and boring though, with the mystery of the artifacts gone, and just going through the motions. I played through to a NG+ game to see what all the noise was about in NG+, but honestly, to me it was just more of the same. I played a little more NG+, but eventually got tired of it after a grand total of about 200 hours in game.
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It seems like a lot of people are mad that it is just an ok game and not an amazing one. I haven't played it yet so I don't have a personal opinion, but in general it sounds like the 7 maybe 8 ratings it has been getting generally are fair. It's just not a 9.5-10, but for some people, that is unacceptable and they are gonna rage about it because it isn't an absolute masterpiece.

However even if it was, I think there'd still be ragers. By all accounts both critic and user Alan Wake 2 is a stellar game, if you like that kind of game, and yet there's people on [H] just absolutely hating on it. Some people just wanna be angy I guess.
 
Sycraft said:
It seems like a lot of people are mad that it is just an ok game and not an amazing one. I haven't played it yet so I don't have a personal opinion, but in general it sounds like the 7 maybe 8 ratings it has been getting generally are fair. It's just not a 9.5-10, but for some people, that is unacceptable and they are gonna rage about it because it isn't an absolute masterpiece.

However even if it was, I think there'd still be ragers. By all accounts both critic and user Alan Wake 2 is a stellar game, if you like that kind of game, and yet there's people on [H] just absolutely hating on it. Some people just wanna be angy I guess.
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It's not just the [H]. If you have ever monitored any of the "PC Master Race" groups, they are absolute rage factories with frequent hyperbole.

Nothing is ever OK, fun, or pretty good. It has to be "absolutely amazing, best thing I've ever seen" or it is "a scam, worst trash I've seen in my life, they should got to prison."

Like, I understand people get passionate about their hobbies, but sometimes it feels a bit excessive.
 
Sycraft said:
It seems like a lot of people are mad that it is just an ok game and not an amazing one. I haven't played it yet so I don't have a personal opinion, but in general it sounds like the 7 maybe 8 ratings it has been getting generally are fair. It's just not a 9.5-10, but for some people, that is unacceptable and they are gonna rage about it because it isn't an absolute masterpiece.

However even if it was, I think there'd still be ragers. By all accounts both critic and user Alan Wake 2 is a stellar game, if you like that kind of game, and yet there's people on [H] just absolutely hating on it. Some people just wanna be angy I guess.
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People aren't mad because it's an okay game because it's not an okay game.
 
I'd definitely put Starfield in the "it's pretty good" B- range. It's definitely not great, but there are tons of good/great things in it. I feel like they crammed a lot of mechanics into the game that just weren't fleshed out enough....but maybe could be later? Ships and settlements especially. I do still consider the game to be way too sterile, though. Maybe that's how things roll in the future, but almost nothing and nobody has any personality.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Like, I understand people get passionate about their hobbies, but sometimes it feels a bit excessive.
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It's also counterproductive since the whole reason I play games is to be happy. They are little bundles of happiness in digital form. So I try to only play games I think I'll like, and not dwell on shit and make myself angry without reason. You don't control most things in the world, but one thing you can control is how you choose to feel and react to things.

If there's a game I think I'll dislike, I skip it, and I don't get mad about it. Elden Ring would be a good example. I hate Souls type games, and this is from the markers of Dark Souls so no thanks on that. However I'm not going to get mad about it being something I don't like, I'll let other people enjoy it and play something else instead.

ZodaEX said:
People aren't mad because it's an okay game because it's not an okay game.
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I dunno, seems like reviews largely have it as being an ok game. Some very angry people on forums seem to think it isn't, but then others think it is fine. I feel like there's a lot of "stop liking the thing I don't like!" going on. Also seems to be a fair bit of people who actually do like playing it, but just want to be mad that it isn't everything they want it to be. Like some of the negative Steam reviews that are "250 hours on record, 150 at review time." Ok you don't like the game... but you played it for a ton of time after saying that... No bro, you like it, you are just raging because it isn't everything you want.
 
Sycraft said:
It's also counterproductive since the whole reason I play games is to be happy. They are little bundles of happiness in digital form. So I try to only play games I think I'll like, and not dwell on shit and make myself angry without reason. You don't control most things in the world, but one thing you can control is how you choose to feel and react to things.

If there's a game I think I'll dislike, I skip it, and I don't get mad about it. Elden Ring would be a good example. I hate Souls type games, and this is from the markers of Dark Souls so no thanks on that. However I'm not going to get mad about it being something I don't like, I'll let other people enjoy it and play something else instead.


I dunno, seems like reviews largely have it as being an ok game. Some very angry people on forums seem to think it isn't, but then others think it is fine. I feel like there's a lot of "stop liking the thing I don't like!" going on. Also seems to be a fair bit of people who actually do like playing it, but just want to be mad that it isn't everything they want it to be. Like some of the negative Steam reviews that are "250 hours on record, 150 at review time." Ok you don't like the game... but you played it for a ton of time after saying that... No bro, you like it, you are just raging because it isn't everything you want.
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The user reviews are merely opinions. Let's try to keep this debate factual.
 
Sycraft said:
I dunno, seems like reviews largely have it as being an ok game. Some very angry people on forums seem to think it isn't, but then others think it is fine. I feel like there's a lot of "stop liking the thing I don't like!" going on. Also seems to be a fair bit of people who actually do like playing it, but just want to be mad that it isn't everything they want it to be. Like some of the negative Steam reviews that are "250 hours on record, 150 at review time." Ok you don't like the game... but you played it for a ton of time after saying that... No bro, you like it, you are just raging because it isn't everything you want.
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It's a good point. People have differing preferences. Starfield - while not my favorite game of all time - hit many of my check boxes and I had fun with it.

There are lots of games and game types I don't care for. While I occasionally mention that they are not my style, I don't go bashing them for not being tailor made for me. For instance, I struggle with appreciating 3rd person titles. First person is my preference. I also really can't get into anything Fantasy genre. Start throwing orcs dragons and magic around and I usually can't get into it. I also appreciate a level of gritty realism, semi-realistic tactical mechanics and in depth story lines, which excludes a lot of run and gun gibfest titles for me. Again, others like the Doom/Quake/Hard Reset/Whatever run and gun thing, and while I played them in the 90's, they are really not for me anymore. That doesn't mean I review bomb them or try to tell others not to like them.

Honestly, I have better things to do with my time.

Starfield was fine. I expected a "Bethesda open world First Person story based title with light RPG elements in space" and I got a "Bethesda open world First Person story based title with light RPG elements in space". Its not in my top 10 in the open world FPS category, but it was good enough to be enjoyable for me.

I think the biggest problem is that it was overhyped too much before launch. The secret to happiness is low expectations, and many people had very high expectations for this title before launch, so they were let down.
 
It"s been nominated for a Steamy.

Starfield_Steamy.png
 
Sycraft said:
The game being ok or not is an opinion as well.
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I mean sure. But I think that's also ignoring what can be objectively critically discussed.
The same arguments could be made in the culinary or film/tv world.

Maybe someone thinks McDonalds and the Kardashian's are both peak of their art-forms. But I think anyone who understands either of those art-forms and what goes into them would be able to find and have many reasonable objections to that premise.

For the most part though, I do agree with your idea that people really should just play what they like and avoid what they don't. And that life is too short to play "bad" games, however you want to make that determination. I also strongly agree with that opinion. I also understand why you don't want to bother to critique because you feel like it's a waste of energy.

But I think there is value in criticism. Because fortunately or unfortunately there is a large segment of people that don't know what they're getting into and are more susceptible to advertising and/or all forms of hype. And criticism is there to hopefully put a check on advertising dollars. If every game that was ever produced was objectively good (or the same with film/tv or food), then there would be nothing to say. But whether you believe it's 'just' perspective or that something can be objectively critiqued in art, there is value there so that people can hopefully end up with titles they will actually enjoy and avoid the ones they don't. Criticism has to exist so that people can be informed.

There is a whole other meta analysis we could do there about "being angry critics" or whatever, a lot of that I think is simply shtick, because let's face it: most of the criticism on a place like YouTube whether valid or not is also because people are trying to make a career out of it. So anger (or passion) is just one way to help differentiate content. EG: Angry Video Game Nerd, and Angry Joe reviews. I think even if it's unjustified it's a "fair counter" to advertising and hype which is all just unfair pump up whatever too.

I also think it's more than fair to avoid such content, because life is too short etc. But there is still value there for a certain type of customer.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I think the biggest problem is that it was overhyped too much before launch. The secret to happiness is low expectations, and many people had very high expectations for this title before launch, so they were let down.
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Space games seem to suffer from that really bad. People build them up to be universe simulators in their mind. They think that they'll be something where you have an unlimited universe to explore and do things in. But not just that, the universe will be just chocked full of cool and interesting stuff, that it can be the size of a galaxy, but every inch curated with fun stuff to do. That is just not possible. Even the real world is not full of interesting shit everywhere. The larger a world is, the more of it will be procedural and empty. If you want everything to be interesting and hand done, it has to be small and tight.

It isn't just space games, but they seem to suffer from it the worst. You say space game, people want a huge universe, but full of nothing but cool shit.
 
Sycraft said:
If you want everything to be interesting and hand done, it has to be small and tight.
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There something that by say 2035 generative AI could change, can be before you buy the game that studio used it to "hand" pre-make vast affair, that they described to the generative engine than they then validated, tweaked and the local game make just small adjustment to the effect of your past action or it run locally on your machine creating dynamic world that would have never fit in a game installer or a mix of both.
 
Space games (and sci-fi in general) = weird because 90% of them make entire planets the equivalent of a single environment. "Oh, it's an ice planet with a single city!" "Cool, this is the jungle planet with a single city!" "This is the planet that is just one gigantic city I might get to explore a single building in!"
It seems super romantic being able to fly around and explore entire planets and galaxies and whatnot, but in reality you're usually exploring the intergalactic equivalent of a small town with one climate.
 
Sycraft said:
Space games seem to suffer from that really bad. People build them up to be universe simulators in their mind. They think that they'll be something where you have an unlimited universe to explore and do things in. But not just that, the universe will be just chocked full of cool and interesting stuff, that it can be the size of a galaxy, but every inch curated with fun stuff to do. That is just not possible. Even the real world is not full of interesting shit everywhere. The larger a world is, the more of it will be procedural and empty. If you want everything to be interesting and hand done, it has to be small and tight.

It isn't just space games, but they seem to suffer from it the worst. You say space game, people want a huge universe, but full of nothing but cool shit.
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Agreed, but I also kind of understand the criticism of Starfield in this regard.

In Starfield there are really only a handful of real settlements to explore on the ground (like 3 major ones, and a couple of smaller ones) and for supposedly being major cities in the settled systems, they feel like they are smaller than a neighborhood. Once you get outside of them on the planet surface, things start getting very procedural feeling very fast. I can totally see how if the way you get enjoyment out of this type of game is aimlessly wandering around a map, how it would get boring in a hurry. Different people play the same games differently.

While it is impossible to expect thousands of worlds all full of real and interesting content, I think if you were to add up the "real world equivalent square miles" of interesting hand developed land explorable by foot in Starfield it would likely be much much smaller than in - say - Fallout 4. Sure there are more abandoned bio labs and the like than you can shake a stick at in the procedurally generated areas of the planets, but they all feel kind of irrelevant, and leaves it feeling kind of shallow.

Pick one of like 16 building layouts on one of like 20 planet environments, and populate it with random enemies from one of 3 factions, and there you go. It gets old real quick.

This is one of the reasons I rank it lower than the likes of Fallout 4. Still fun. Good game. Just not as good as other games previously made by the studio. The hand generated content is every bit as enjoyable as any other game in the genre. And you can get a significant number of hours of game play by sticking mostly to hand generated content, but the proportion of hand generated to procedural content is pretty low, and the procedural content is quite frankly hollow and boring as all shit.

I think from a game design perspective we are in the "between times" when it comes to AI generated content. You can do it right now, but it winds up feeling kind of pointless and hollow. Maybe some day soon AI/procedurally generated content will feel more natural and purposeful, and maybe even contain side quests that are interesting.

From a space game across planets perspective, I think The Outer Worlds did it better. It also felt small and contained, but the environments felt more developed. I enjoyed the Starfield story, the fact that it was at least somewhat gritty and real (and not over-goofy like the Outer Worlds), the side quests and gun play better though.

What I suspect happened with Starfield was that initially it was going to be hand developed content, using AI/procedural generation to fill in the dead space in between, but at some point when push came to shove, they decided to save money on hand developed content and make more of the filler, and that makes the game feel a little smaller than a Fallout 4.

One missed opportunity - too - is since there is so much AI/Procedural generation, is to make every playthrough unique. I was totally expecting something like this top happen when I went to NG+, but it didn't. Or if it did, it was so subtle that I barely noticed. (I think Sarah Morgan spawned with a different starting gun the second time around, but that was all I noticed) Why have one static procedurally generated universe time after time. Maybe have a few core important places, and use extra background CPU processes to generate the filler with every new NG+ game, mixing up locations, etc.

Anyway. So yeah. The game has some legitimate shortcomings, but it was still good enough for me to get 200 hours of fun out of, so I can't bring myself to bash it too much.
 
If nothing else, the Outer Worlds had personality in spades. Characters emoted, you KNEW the various brands and corporations, the quests felt purposeful, etc. The shooting wasn't half bad, too.
Starfield does a lot of things better than Outer Worlds, and in terms of depth it's like 10X bigger, but I miss the vibe that team put in.
 
Yea I'm not digging this game anymore. I'm like 25 hours in and its boring as hell. I've loved the other bethesda games like FO3, FO4, Skyrim but this game lacks everything. Little world building because everything is spread out. Everyone being human is just weird. the other games had a defined world space, this just went with worlds in space with no substance. I don't feel drawn in by anything in this game like the older games listed.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Agreed, but I also kind of understand the criticism of Starfield in this regard.

In Starfield there are really only a handful of real settlements to explore on the ground (like 3 major ones, and a couple of smaller ones) and for supposedly being major cities in the settled systems, they feel like they are smaller than a neighborhood. Once you get outside of them on the planet surface, things start getting very procedural feeling very fast. I can totally see how if the way you get enjoyment out of this type of game is aimlessly wandering around a map, how it would get boring in a hurry. Different people play the same games differently.

While it is impossible to expect thousands of worlds all full of real and interesting content, I think if you were to add up the "real world equivalent square miles" of interesting hand developed land explorable by foot in Starfield it would likely be much much smaller than in - say - Fallout 4. Sure there are more abandoned bio labs and the like than you can shake a stick at in the procedurally generated areas of the planets, but they all feel kind of irrelevant, and leaves it feeling kind of shallow.
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For sure, it does sound like it is way too empty because, even if that is "realistic" it's not fun. That was a problem with some of the old-school procedural games. Tons of nothing. The original Elite had this problem. There were thousands? millions? of solar systems but it was all a bunch of samey generated shit. I don't think it is the best way to make a game, but I also understand why a game might choose to go that route for a sense for scale and exploration.

I also think that maybe the procedural generation tech didn't end up being as powerful as they hoped. I think they hoped that they could generate things a lot more unique and interesting than they could, but once you've walked down that road you can't just suddenly toss all that work and redo it all by hand.

It doesn't sound to me like Starfield is amazing, but it doesn't sound like the disaster people want to make it out to be.
 
Sycraft said:
For sure, it does sound like it is way too empty because, even if that is "realistic" it's not fun. That was a problem with some of the old-school procedural games. Tons of nothing. The original Elite had this problem. There were thousands? millions? of solar systems but it was all a bunch of samey generated shit. I don't think it is the best way to make a game, but I also understand why a game might choose to go that route for a sense for scale and exploration.

I also think that maybe the procedural generation tech didn't end up being as powerful as they hoped. I think they hoped that they could generate things a lot more unique and interesting than they could, but once you've walked down that road you can't just suddenly toss all that work and redo it all by hand.

It doesn't sound to me like Starfield is amazing, but it doesn't sound like the disaster people want to make it out to be.
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Agreed. But the areas that WERE hand made should also have been larger and more interesting.

Night City in Cyberpunk 2077 is way more complex and interesting of a place in just one city than the entirety of the settled systems in Starfield.

New Atlantis is smaller than two city blocks. That dude ranch without horses they call Akila is also tiny. Neon is about the same and Cydonia is even smaller.

So yeah. The criticism is valid. I still had fun with the game though. So while it is valid, the whole "this game is trash" line of bashing of this game is a little much.
 
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I really wanted to like Starfield. I looked forward to finishing up Baldur's Gate 3 so I could get into Starfield.

I just don't like it. :(
 
It's actually a little bit insane how people defend Starfield when it's obviously a sub par, mediocre game.

The only reasons I can imagine why is A) They are Todd Howard B) They simply have to like the game to justify their purchase.
 
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I've seen a fair amount of comparisons between BG3 and Starfield and I don't quite get that. They're two very different styles of game. They're RPG's where you have companions and conversations and that's where the similarities end. Starfield is very much a Bethesda game in a new universe while BG3 even differs quite a bit from the originals + the other Larian games. For better or worse, literally everything in BG3 comes down to a dice roll. That can be great or horrendous every few seconds depending on how things go.
 
mr_zen256 said:
It's actually a little bit insane how people defend Starfield when it's obviously a sub par, mediocre game.

The only reasons I can imagine why is A) They are Todd Howard B) They simply have to like the game to justify their purchase.
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It's a decent/good game, just because it doesn't have everything everyone wants in a game doesn't make it sub par or bad.
 
Braamer said:
Agreed. And here's my review (opinion):

Skyrim - 650 hours
Fallout 4 - 300 hours
Oblivion - 200+ hours
Fallout NV - 117 hours
Fallout 3 - 200+ hours

Starfield - 15 hours and done with it unless some great mods come out
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Mine would be:

Skyrim - 1-2 hours
Fallout 4 - 120 hours
Oblivion - 0 hours
Fallout NV - 65 hours
Fallout 3 - 45 hours
Starfield - 200 hours
 
Domingo said:
I've seen a fair amount of comparisons between BG3 and Starfield and I don't quite get that. They're two very different styles of game. They're RPG's where you have companions and conversations and that's where the similarities end. Starfield is very much a Bethesda game in a new universe while BG3 even differs quite a bit from the originals + the other Larian games. For better or worse, literally everything in BG3 comes down to a dice roll. That can be great or horrendous every few seconds depending on how things go.
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They are totally different games and I get that. I’m taking a break from Starfield and playing a purely action game right now. I think the depth of the Baldur’s gate three universe makes the Starfield universe feel a bit sterile. I’m hoping time away from Starfield will cool my bias against it. I really like space fighter games and what it has to offer. I hope I can get into it later.
 
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