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Landrin201, (edited ) do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose
@Landrin201@lemmy.ml avatar

OK, then why fucking make them? Aren’t games supposed to be fun?

This whole genre really bugs me, and I’m someone who LOVES space games. The best game in the genre IMO is elite dangerous, because their ship to ship combat is so damn fun to play that I can hop in for a bit and have a blast without having to engage with the other systems that are often painfully boring.

The problem here is that people what the feeling of being explorers and finding new things, but video games inherently can’t provide that. There aren’t computers strong enough to produce thousands or millions of planets that all have genuinely interesting features on them that are worth exploring for. “Exploration” in current space Sims is basically “stick your name on something someone else hasn’t already stuck their name on, maybe grab some resources from it, and leave.” That gets dull very fast.

Developers COULD choose instead to make a couple of good, big planets that are interesting and full of actually good content. They could give you a reason to explore beyond “look other planets cool.”

If you made 1000 planets and only 10 of them are at all interesting, and your game is centered on exploring other planets and not really focussed on much else, you’ve made a boring game.

Dr_Cog,
@Dr_Cog@mander.xyz avatar

The game isn’t centered on exploring other planets, though. Have you played the game?

EvaUnit02,
@EvaUnit02@kbin.social avatar

The article quotes Todd Howard as saying a design goal was providing the player with a feeling of being an explorer.

Scary_le_Poo,
@Scary_le_Poo@beehaw.org avatar

Elite dangerous space combat is literally the most lackluster and boring space combat I have ever engaged in. It’s such a slog.

I find combat where you have less control (weak strafing) and more maneuvering to be more interesting. That said, I think Microsoft allegiance probably did 6dof in space combat the best.

/Sidenote

amzd,

There aren’t computers strong enough to produce thousands or millions of planets that all have genuinely interesting features on them that are worth exploring for.

I don't think there is an infinite amount of "genuinely interesting features" so it's hard to imagine we'll ever get a game with this.

zeusbottom, do games w Baldur's Gate 3 has ruined Starfield for me

“You found a piece of metal. Take my spaceship and I’ll take your miserable mining job” wait what?

ivanafterall, (edited )

Dillon, you son of a bitch!

PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

Not something that happens in the game.

jdeath,

it’s the very start of the game homie

PM_ME_FEET_PICS,

He doesn’t stay in place of you mining.

He overlooks his operation packing up.

ShittyRedditWasBetter, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'

You people want to hate this game so bad 🤣

teawrecks, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose

Remember when Sean Murray said prior to NMS launch that it was part of their vision for you to be alone in a vast uncharted universe with nowhere to call a home? That was code for, “we don’t have multiplayer or basebuilding, and there’s not really anything interesting enough for you to stay there long term”.

Give Starfield a few years, they’ll figure out what to do with those planets.

Meatclump,

The modders will, if nothing else

Faydaikin,
@Faydaikin@beehaw.org avatar

If it’s "dull on purpose, " Modders are the only way anything is gonna happen.

avater, (edited ) do games w Todd Howard asked on-air why Bethesda didn't optimise Starfield for PC: 'We did [...] you may need to upgrade your PC'
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

people really need to put the nostalgia googles down…back in the days nobody played Crysis with full details and a steady framerate.

You were in 1024x768 and turned everything down just to play the game with barely 30fps and you know what, it was still dope as fuck. So yeah guys get used to lower your settings or to upgrade your rig and if you don’t want to do that get a xbox

FooBarrington,

Crysis was built by a company specialising in building a high fidelity engine. It was, by all accounts, meant primarily as a tech demo. This is absolutely not the case with Starfield - first, the game doesn’t look nearly good enough for that compared to Crysis, and second it’s built on an engine that simply can’t do a lot of the advanced stuff.

The game could be playable on max settings on many modern computers if it was optimised properly. It isn’t.

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

sure mister gamedev, please continue to tell more on how an engine you clearly worked on, should run…

I dont say that Starfield is a well optimised game and performance will get better with upcoming patches. But I also don’t think it’s an unoptimized mess, I think it is running reasonable and people really should start review their rig, because modern games will need modern components

Oh and also other games did not run that well like you maybe remember ;)

FooBarrington,

sure mister gamedev, please continue to tell more on how an engine you clearly worked on, should run…

I can easily compare between what different game companies do. Why are you acting like I need to be a developer on a game to criticise that game?

I dont say that Starfield is a well optimised game and performance will get better with upcoming patches.

Todd could have said so. He didn’t. Why?

But I also don’t think it’s an unoptimized mess, I think it is running reasonable and people really should start review their rig, because modern games will need modern components

I never stated this. I simply said: comparing Starfield and Crysis is deliberately disingenuous, because Crysis was fundamentally meant to break boundaries, which Starfield doesn’t do.

Oh and also other games did not run that well like you maybe remember ;)

Okay, what’s the argument here? Do you think I say for those games “well, you’re not Bethesda, so I’m fine with you not running well”?

anonono,

you don’t have to know the internals of the engine. you just need some basic deduction powers.

does it look it look good compared to other AAA games? no

does it run fast? no

ergo. the engine is crap.

the same thing happened to cd projekt red but they ditched their engine after the cyberpunk fiasco. they will just pay epic

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

does it look it look good compared to other AAA games? no

well I beg to differ on that, but it’s quiete a subjective topic right ;)

does it run fast? no ergo. the engine is crap.

Again very subjective, very dependend on your hardware and also a pretty dumb conclusion, since an engine has more qualities then to run “fast”.

I already mentioned in this thread, the games runs quite well for me and I would call fps in the range from 80 to 124 quite fast for a Bethesda Open World Game. So what do we do now with our subjective oppinions 🤔

anonono,

well you can put your “not in my computer” opinion in your ass. widespread benchmarks by established gaming journalists show good computers struggling.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

ok 😀

Saltblue,

I don’t know why they keep using that piece of shit engine, Microsoft should order them to format every PC and start again with UE5, the engine that it’s actually next gen

Moghul,

You don’t have to be a game dev to see that games that came out before Starfield look and perform better. If you bought the game and you enjoy it, that’s all fine and I won’t make fun of you for it, but let’s not defend what is an obvious point of incompetence on Bethesda’s side.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

why buying starfield when it is on gamepass 😅

And buddy, I’ve been playing Bethesda Games since Daggerfall and believe me, Starfield is a fucking polished diamond compared to their old good games and compared to their latest shitshows like fallout 4 and fallout 76…

Moghul,

I’m not your buddy

You’re comparing Bethesda games to Bethesda games, which we all know are buggy messes. Starfield falls short of my expectations for what a polished diamond looks like.

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

okay not-buddy 😂 I think we are also pretty much done here, since I dont see any point in discussing this any further with you. So byeeee and have a pleasent day not playing Starfield I guess.

Moghul,

Will do

hogart,
@hogart@feddit.nu avatar

There will always be that game that pushes the boundaries between current gen and next gen. Sometimes even more. Crysis is the perfect example of the past. Starfiels seems to do a decent job right now even if it’s probably not even close to what Crysis did. When people spend a lot of money we feel entitlement, thats only natural. No one did anything wrong. So no need to point a finger anywhere.

rambaroo, (edited )

Please explain in detail how Starfield is pushing the edge graphically in any way that’s comparable to Crysis.

Also please explain how you expect them to improve as a developer when you refuse to criticize them.

hogart, (edited )
@hogart@feddit.nu avatar

You seem to have missed the part where I wrote that Starfield is probably not even close to pushing the boundaries in the same way that Crysis did. So I can’t do much explaining in detail about that it is.

RogueBanana,

But it didnt tho, it looks shit and hogs more resources compared to other games like cyberpunk which is probably a better example for next gen graphics

regbin_,

Except this time even with 1024x768 and lowest settings you can barely break 60 FPS due to the huge CPU overhead.

And that’s with a Ryzen 7 5800X.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

I have the same processor and no issues. 1440p 80-125 fprs, high Details, 100% and FSR2

regbin_,

In New Atlantis City outdoors? Mine barely stays above 60 FPS, sometimes dipping under.

avater,
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

yep. 70 fps in the worst case

vagrantprodigy,

It’s system by system, I have the same cpu and do fairly well, admittedly with it boosting to 4.5ghz. My wife has the same cpu and it struggles on her machine. It feels like the game just wasn’t tested well.

GeneralEmergency,

complains about others wearing nostalgia goggles

calls Cysis dope

TwilightVulpine,

After all this time I don’t think I ever heard anything about how Crysis plays or what’s the story and such. People only talk about how hard it was to run and how fancy these graphics were. Doesn’t make it sound all that great.

abbotsbury,
@abbotsbury@lemmy.world avatar

Story is meh but lots of people will say how the open ended nature of Crysis was fun and a pity that it was removed for a more linear CoD style in Crysis 2

SrTobi,

Wtf Crysis 1 was awesome… At least the first part without the aliens… And not because of the graphics

AdmiralShat, (edited ) do games w [Rumor] Nintendo Switch 2 reportedly uses Nvidia's DLSS to boost frame rates

While there’s a current DLSS thread, am I the only one who actually likes the aesthetics of DLSS, regardless of FPS? It adds a softness to the whole image that reduces eye strain for me and make the game more cinematic almost.

RonSwanson,

From what I understand, DLSS is also the best anti aliaser there is. No jaggies makes everything easier on the eyes

Send_me_nude_girls,
@Send_me_nude_girls@feddit.de avatar

The recent versions are much better. But it also depends on the engine. I haven’t played Cyberpunk2077 since release, but there the trailing shadows of moving people and cars were very visible. Hopefully these issues are a thing of the past.

AdmiralShat,

I remember the Witcher 3 had some pretty shitty interactions with DLSS, too

Amir,
@Amir@lemmy.ml avatar

There’s “DLAA” which has the DLSS softness without the upscaling part. Some games support it, would recommend checking it out.

AdmiralShat,

Noted, thank you

And009,

I’ll check it out when I can afford a gaming pc again

Surp, (edited ) do games w [Rumor] Nintendo Switch 2 reportedly uses Nvidia's DLSS to boost frame rates

Is anyone else done with Nintendo? I bought the switch when it first came out after buying every other dang console for years and it just snapped in me finally that many of their flagship games are the same lifeless thing every time and not even as close to fun as their predecessors that I can still play today. Mario party was such a fucking let down for me. The only game I was able to get into so far was smash bros and it didn’t last too long. Tried that animal crossing game during pandemic but it was so bad you were just a manipulated slave to animals getting you to put chairs in your house…it was Soo boring. I tried Zelda too but man I didn’t enjoy weapons constantly breaking. I think the last straw for me was the new Pokemon games and how bad they ran. I came to the conclusion what’s the point of buying this thing when I just have way more fun on PC for way cheaper price for games overall? Can’t even play with anyone on Nintendo anyways without paying for access to their servers while also having to have Internet. Even if you get a ballin PC overtime the game library is way more extensive and less expensive for the most part with sales and steam key sites. Nintendo never budges on pricing for anything.

smeg,

Mario Odyssey was the best Mario game I’ve every played, so not all bad. I just borrowed a Switch to play it though. Nobody is forcing you to pay the Nintendo tax!

theragu40,

I’ve played the switch more hours than I think any previous console. For all its flaws the switch is home to so many quality Nintendo experiences at this point that if someone finds that this is the generation that they’ve tired of Nintendo then it’s possible they simply don’t like Nintendo style games anymore.

Mario Party indeed was a pile of shit. But there are so many incredible games.

And009,

I like it

Katana314, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'

To give an impression of what it’s been like for me:

I had a quest where I needed Iron. I found a random planet that had it, and picked a spot in the middle of the scan readouts. Arrive, looks like a barren rock - but that’s fine because I only wanted rocks. However, I see something in the distance, and check it out. On the way, I find a wandering trader taking her alien dog for a walk, and sell some stuff weighing me down. I find a cave, where a colonist is hiding out with a respiratory infection - and am able to help them get out as a little mini-quest, though the infection spreads to me.

I come past a little mining installation, where I find a bounty hunter that tells me of a bounty nearby she’s offering to split with me. We do so, fighting a base full of raiders to get to their captain, and I finally decide to leave.

The key here is, I don’t think any of those quests are amazing - they’re likely very dynamically generated. But they’re also not fun to “seek them out” - just to come across them in some other mission, like trying to make an outpost or mining for stuff.

gringo_papi,

Sounds like work tbh

Katana314,

I mean, I can’t even argue against that. Some people find some forms of work fulfilling, and even switch to games because their own jobs don’t actually give them that feeling of fulfillment.

Monster Hunter is a prime example of a game that sets such elongated goals that it’s regarded as a “grind-heavy” game - but its players like the grind. Heck, the entire space simulator genre often involves quite a lot of “Space Truck Simulator” gameplay, where you’re just engineering good ways to ferry cargo around.

Which is not to say that’s what Starfield aims for. From what I’ve played, it’s closer to Sea of Thieves, having adventurous interruptions - where you start a boring, routine mission to bring Sugar from one merchant post to another, but then get ambushed by a skeleton ship, then a giant shark, then find a map to a buried treasure nearby.

chatokun,

Half the reason I play Elite is space trucking. I’m only raising my empire rank to get the largest ship… in order to space truck better. The Fed Corvette I plan to make a combat vessel, but the Cutter will be my space truck.

sheogorath,

I found that flow of the game works a little bit better if you just don’t fast travel at all. I played a lot of Elite and it gave me a little bit of Elite vibes when I just walk to my ship, go thru inside it and sit down. Then I take off “manually” using the button and jump to the target system by manually targeting it and press the jump button.

What Bethesda can do better is to just mask the loading with a flight animation, for example when you’re taking off from a planet the loading should be replaced by an animation where you’re going out of the atmosphere. And when you’re jumping between star systems, the loading should be replaced by something similar to Elite when we’re jumping through the witch space.

All in all, my experience with Starfield has been fine. I loved the weird stuff happening when you’re just fucking around. Although the main quest has taken a step back with their sense of urgency, compare it to previous Bethesda games, where there’s a big stake going on that pushes you to at least complete the main quest once. In Starfield there’s no such sense of urgency.

It seems like Bethesda is leaning heavy on their sandbox side, just letting people go around and do stuff.

With optimized settings from the HUB YouTube channel, my FPS never went below 60.

glimse,

Sounds like play lol I mean it’s a game about exploring

If exploration isn’t fun to you, that’s ok. There’s plenty of games out there that are more linear.

tormeh,

Yeah, but since it’s dynamically generated it’s likely the 10th time you see those quests.

Fraylor,

Yeah I literally do all of this stuff near daily in my 9-5 bounty hunting job.

thanks_shakey_snake,

That sounds pretty fun, actually!

hal_5700X, do games w Todd Howard asked on-air why Bethesda didn't optimise Starfield for PC: 'We did [...] you may need to upgrade your PC'
@hal_5700X@lemmy.world avatar

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCGD9dT12C0

Get a new game engine, Todd. Bethesda owns id Software. id Tech is right where.

Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow,

Exactly this. It was only two generations ago when idTech was an open world engine, id can and have made it to do whatever they want and to suggest that despite Bethesda money (let alone MICROSOFT money) id couldn’t make a better engine with similar development workflows as Creation is just dishonest to suggest.

Dark_Arc,
@Dark_Arc@social.packetloss.gg avatar

It’s a shame idTech is no longer released publicly. It would’ve been amazing to see what people could do with the beast of an engine that powered DOOM Eternal, especially modders.

NuPNuA,

I assume you’re talking about Rage, which had an open world map, but no where near the level of simulation systems as a Bethesda game. In fact I remember back at the time most of us saying the map was pointless as it was just a way to travel between levels with nothing to do in it.

peppersky,

There are no “levels of simulation systems” in Starfield. NPCs don’t even have schedules in this game, they literally just stand around in the same spot 24/7.

NuPNuA,

It’s still keeping track of lots of variables across a big play space at any time regardless of NPC schedules.

They tried that once with Oblivion and clearly it didn’t add enough to the game and players experience to return to.

peppersky,

“keeping track of lots of variables” doesn’t cost CPU time though, since nothing that isn’t on the same map as you is ever relevant for anything. Their engine just fucking sucks.

rambaroo, (edited )

Keeping track of variables doesn’t use CPU time? Ok man. I’m all for hating on Bethesda’s shitty engine but that’s just not true. At the very least it does track what NPCs are doing off screen which is how they end up at your ship when you tell them to go there. They will actually walk to your ship if you don’t get there first.

On the other hand it’s basically guaranteed that Bethesda spent zero effort optimizing that. I bet it’s the same code they ran for Skyrim.

Cypher,

They tried that once with Oblivion

They advertised that with Oblivion’s AI but never delivered on half the claims.

Go look at the pre-release claims of the Radiant AI and what was actually delivered.

Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow,

Starfield has less simulation than Fallout 4, it just has more (mostly empty) maps.

deranger,

You are completely talking out of your ass.

whats_a_refoogee,

ID tech is nowhere near flexible enough for something like Starfield or even Skyrim. It’s partially the reason why it’s so efficient. It simply isn’t fit for the task.

And the Bethesda developers are intimately familiar with Creation Engine, achieving the same level of productivity with something new will take a long time. Switching the engine is not an easy thing.

Not to say that Creation Engine isn’t a cumbersome mess. It has pretty awful performance, stability and is full of bugs, but on the other hand it’s extremely flexible which has allowed its games to have massive mod communities.

rambaroo,

If Bethesda can’t take the time to do it then who can? People act like they’re some small time developer but they’re not. They simply refuse to expand their dev team to do things like a redesign.

Creation engine is not going to hold up well for another 6 years, there’s no way their cell loading system will be considered acceptable by the time ES6 comes out. The amount of loading screens in Starfield is insane for a modern game. This company needs new talent badly.

NuPNuA,

You realise custom engines are built for specific game types right? iD Tech is great for creating high fedelity FPS games with linear levels and little environment interactivity. That’s not what Bethesda make though.

Kolanaki, (edited )
!deleted6508 avatar

They could do everything they usually do but better if they used Unreal. They don’t need a custom engine. They just need an engine that isn’t over 2 decades old with a bunch of shit taped to it to make it look modern. Not to mention, ID already did make a custom built engine that handles much of what Bethesda RPGs do when they made RAGE. They could have used that, with the only issue being learning it. Not sure what their turnover rate is like… maybe they’re just too used to GameBryo/Creation to be able to switch now. It might take too long to learn anything new. Plus it would have to be able to have a toolset. If they didn’t release those easy to use modding tools, there could be rioting in the streets.

NuPNuA,

As far as I know, Bethesda are unusual in modern Devs in that they have a small team for the size of game they make, but they have strong retention of staff so have huge amounts of institutional knowledge about how they do things. Shifting to a new engine would basically mean starting from scratch on a company level. Unlike Ubisoft or Activison, they can’t just throw several thousend Devs at a game to brute force the development either.

rambaroo, (edited )

But that’s their biggest problem. There’s no reason for them to have a small unchanging team. It’s very very obvious that they never get an influx of new ideas. Starfield feels like it was made in 2016 and the optimization effort is comically bad. The writing is still mostly boring, campy and naive like it was written by a 15 year old Mormon. The facial animations are incrementally better than fallout but still noticeably worse than much older games like Witcher 3. I could go on.

It’s not a bad game at all but it could’ve been so much better if Bethesda execs weren’t greedy cheapasses and the dev team was open to changing their process.

This why Bethesda needs to be criticized instead of constantly getting fellated by fanboys. ES6 will be an outdated mess because Bethesda never sees any feedback except over the top praise for half-assing their games.

Saltblue, (edited )

Fanboys downvote you but you are right, even if I love the fallout franchise, the same gameplay loop, the same engines, potato faces in 2023, outdated animations… etc, right now I would prefer Microsoft to force obsidian to take care of the next fallout, and ban Todd Howard for ever putting one foot in the dev took, even in the building. He can go fuck himself and his shit engine.

vagrantprodigy,

I know they don’t want to switch, but it would be worth it to make the swap to something like unreal, even if it takes a few years of customization to get the open world stuff right. Creation Engine just feels so old.

Son_of_dad, do games w Todd Howard asked on-air why Bethesda didn't optimise Starfield for PC: 'We did [...] you may need to upgrade your PC'

That’s why I will never PC game. You spend thousands on your gaming PC and it can’t play a game that will come out in a year

NinjaJoey209,

I’m sure a $1k+ PC can run pretty much any game, but not at the same graphics quality as a $4k HPC that helped create it.

jinarched,
@jinarched@lemm.ee avatar

Wait, what? I have to buy a PC about every 10 to 15 years and it does’t cost me “thousands”. Last year, I bought one for about $700 and I can run every game at maximum settings with no issues.

Just wait for components to be on sale (it happens often) and you’ll have a good pc for a very good price.

phillaholic,

What did you buy for $700 that can play every game at max?

SatansMaggotyCumFart,

It’s a quantum computer, I got it from Canada.

The exchange rate is good right now.

Naatan,

To be fair people who pay thousands are probably perfectly fine with Starfield, although they may have to be satisfied with 120fps instead of 240fps.

The ones mainly hurting are the ones with similar budgets as console gamers. And console gamers are hardly unfamiliar with performance issues.

Being a pc gamer has much more to do with what ecosystem you get to tap into, rather than how much you’re spending.

Hoomod,

The game averages 75fps with a 4090 or 7900xtx at 4k high settings

szczuroarturo,

Actually its quite the opposite usualy and games on conosles run well while on pc they can be a buggy mess. Granted on pc they will/can look better but the optimization is mostly done for console players.

RandomStickman,
@RandomStickman@kbin.social avatar

Just stop chasing trends and play everything on a 5-10 year delay. Or better yet, just play indie. I save so much
money and my backlog is so long I don't even have time to play all of it.

Anduin1357,
@Anduin1357@lemmy.world avatar

Any recommendations?

RandomStickman,
@RandomStickman@kbin.social avatar

I've just installed STALKER: Anomaly, a total conversion mod for STALKER: Call of Chernobyl. If you've never played the STALKER series before it is one of my favourite games of all time.

Operation Harsh Doorstop and Ravenfield are fun fps to casually dick around. I like them for their growing Steamworkshop mod scene, especially with Ravenfield.

Return of the Obra Dinn and Disco Elysium are two games on my backlog that saddens me every time I see it because I'd love to finish them but I just couldn't find the time.

Project Zomboid and Deep Rock Galayctic are fun times with people.

I was gifted Frostpunk and Outer Wilds. I haven't got around to playing it yet but my brother loved it.

tiredofsametab,

I spend something equivalent to around $2k in USD every 5-7 years and I'm fine.

rambaroo,

To be fair that’s a lot more money than a console.

zikk_transport2,

You realize that game developers no longer optimise their games, they lie and simply do a money grab?

Anyway, Steam Deck sounds like a solid choice for you. ~500 bucks and you can play almost everything.

Son_of_dad,

I much prefer that, like a console I just want to be able to pop something in and have it run.

Anduin1357,
@Anduin1357@lemmy.world avatar

It’s funny, Steam Deck is so much weaker than the typical gaming PC and will definitely not outperform an ~RX 6700XT at the same quality level but Steam Deck resolution vs at 1440p. Worse, Steam Deck shares 16 GB of RAM between CPU and GPU, so this guy is gonna have an even smaller list of games they can play on a docked Steam Deck vs a PC.

Also, Steam Deck can’t be (read: processing power) upgraded, and doesn’t have 3D-VCache, that’s not good for CPU bound games. And then you might also be defaulting to Steam OS, which doesn’t have full compatibility with Windows games, and have a complicated compatability file structure, which could complicate modding and 3rd party utilities.

So yeah, Steam Deck as a complete desktop replacement has more issues than you might expect. And the worst part is, absent docking portable HDDs, everything is an SSD, so welcome to the SSD $/GB world. TF cards have even worse $/GB.

zikk_transport2, (edited )

There are certain benefits of having Steam Deck:

  1. It’s comfortable - play on your couch, bed sofa or wherever.
  2. Portable - battery-powered handheld gaming device. Play anywhere.
  3. Powerful - it’s not Android-based device, it’s fully featured computer that is capable of running even the latest games at 30fps (but as you said - it’s not always the case).
  4. It’s cheap - you can have a gaming “PC” for 500$/€
  5. Linux feature - instant sleep & resume mid-game. Perfect if “free time” isn’t your second name.
  6. Device feature - no closed OS. Which means mods and no jailbreaking or any other unnecesarry workarounds required to fully use the hardware.

As someone who has gaming PC (nvidia 2080Ti, ryzen 9 3900x, 32gb ram, FHD 280Hz monitor) as well as gaming laptop (nvidia 3080m, intel i7 something, 32gb of ram, 2K 240Hz display) and Xbox series X with LG C1 TV - I am still spending most of my time on Steam Deck. Why? Convenience.

Anduin1357,
@Anduin1357@lemmy.world avatar

#1 you’re also restricted to whatever plays nice with the steam input system, and custom inputs are generally more tedious to use than a mouse and keyboard.

#2 that’s the entire point of the Steam Deck.

#3 isn’t the hallmarks of something “powerful”, I’m surprised that you would consider 30 fps acceptable given that you know what 240 fps is like.

#4 it’s not cheap. It’s just at the right proce for the hardware. The only reason why it doesn’t feel worse is because it’s running at 1280x800p. The display is literally from the discard pile with its terrible colours.

#5 Windows could do the same if Valve tried hard enough. Suspend/Resume isn’t that special and I’ve manually invoked it on desktop for all kinds of things before. >Task Manager.

#6 that’s because Steam is doing the legwork to make things work for you. See what they did with Elden Ring’s stuttering problem. I challenge you otherwise to access the game directories of any game running through proton. There’s a whole emulated filestructure that you have to understand before modding the game on Steam Deck.

Power user stuff is outside the scope of gaming for most people.

PersnickityPenguin, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'

How is this any different than No Man’s Sky?

xantoxis,

Wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy fewer planets.

LaChaleurDeLaNuit,

I think they meant in terms of disappointment

whitewall,
RickyRigatoni,
@RickyRigatoni@lemmy.ml avatar

Hello Games put a lot of effort into giving NMS a plethora of free updates over the course of years to make good on their promises.

We all know damn well Bethesda isn’t gonna do shit except a couple of over-priced half-baked DLCs.

justastranger,

HG just kept duct taping more crap to the game without adding any depth or integrating their crap together. It’s still an incredibly shallow game where you’ve seen all that there’s worth seeing on the first day of playing.

steakmeout,

That just isn’t true.

Gullible,
Otome-chan, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'

"1000+ planets are dull on purpose"

No, they're dull because no human team could make 1000 planets worth of interesting content in a single game development cycle.

Starshader,

Chris Roberts : Hold my beer, for another 50 years.

Rinox,

Yeah, it’s already stale and expired by now

Dubious_Fart, (edited )

You know someone is gonna make a mod that generates random and unique bases from hab complex assets.

And thats exactly why Bethesda doesnt put the effort in. cause they make the game, then the modders make it good for free… Or it used to be that, now they want to charge for mods and take a cut of the profits for shit they didnt make.

Otome-chan,

At a scale of 1k planets you're going to have to rely on reused assets and procedural generation. At which point people not into procedural generation say that it's "repetitive". Especially if you only gen once for everyone and not each run lol.

AI generation of assets and code will theoretically eventually resolve this, but that's quite a ways off. They're not even usable for such with human assistance yet. And if you have ai generating the content, it's not really a human team making that stuff lol.

SatansMaggotyCumFart,

I knew one of the planet designers. His favourite part was coastlines.

He was particularly fond of some fjords he made on the coast of Norway, I think he won an award for them.

conciselyverbose,

Slartibartfast?

SatansMaggotyCumFart,

Gesundheit.

Dubious_Fart,

They could at least make the random PoI’s interesting if there was some…randomness to them.

Like, I walk into a PoI, I already know where the chests are, the locked doors, are, where the stupid fucking corpse in the shower is, etc etc. cause I’ve ran through this PoI 20 times.

I dont know why at least the locations of chests and locked doors cant be randomized. Make things at least marginally interesting, instead of cookie cuttered to extreme.

abraxas,

While I agree, I’ve been saying that about NMS for years. Not that we want to be comparing Starfield to NMS, of course.

Otome-chan,

You can, but randomizing chests+locked doors is kinda complicated, and the more "interesting" your generations the harder it is to code and the more dev time it takes. And for a AAA game release you can't really do that.

Key+Lock randomization is something that has been solved, and has been used most notably in procedurally generated zeldalikes. But that's still niche indie territory, and not used for major game releases.

zalgotext,

Hasn’t this game been in development for like 5 years? And they built it on an existing engine that they have tons of experience with. You could have said “they were limited on how much they could randomize POIs because of the old engine” and I would have believed you because that sounds way more plausible than “it’s hard to code, so AAA games can’t do it”. Like what?

Otome-chan,

The issue with procedural generation is the game has to be built for it from the ground up and in a modular way. AAAs try to make themselves appealing by using novel new high quality assets that aren't modular.

I haven't played starfield so idk what they ended up doing, but from the sound of it they have pre-made assets/areas that they then place onto pre-generated worlds in a randomized way.

To make one of these "areas" procedural in itself, they'd then have to code a whole system for that. With AAA/3D the hard part is making modular environments without it looking repetitive or ugly.

My point isn't so much that it can't be done in a AAA game. But rather that it's risky to do (not all players like it), and you have to structure your development around it. Lots can go wrong, there's stuff you gotta sacrifice to make it work, etc.

If starfield is on the old bethesda engine then that's even more of a reason. You can't just plug and play an entire procedural generation thing in there without some fairly large overhauls or just gluing on an unrelated system.

In practice, bethesda probably took the lazy route: using their existing engine without major changes, then just making new assets for it, throwing stuff about a bit randomly, and calling it a day.

That's the thing about procedural generation is: it's a lot of effort and sucks up a huge part of the game's development and comes at some pretty strict costs (repetitive looking environments/gameplay, reduced novelty, larger programming dev time to make it work). It can be done, but for a cost-cutting AAA studio they're not gonna bother.

XenoStare,

They already have once though. Many of Morrowind’s dungeons were procedurally generated in development then edited a bit after, that was the same engine. Same with Daggerfall altho that was a diff engine.

Very different game but Amnesia: the Bunker has plenty of procedural generation as well.

It’s not at all impossible for one of the largest game development studios to have some procedurally generated, essentially dungeon content. Doing a bit more than the exact same place copied and pasted would be a huge undertaking yes, but if they wanted to they could have. There are plenty of 3D rogue-likes out now as well. Returnal is AAA and haa procedurally generated levels, far more complicated than neccesary for Bethesda to do in order to populate planets in their game about planet exploration.

Otome-chan,

I didn't say it's impossible. Just that it's harder, takes deliberate effort, etc. For AAA games they don't bother with that kind of thing because it's larger expense and larger risk.

Dubious_Fart,

Just to wheel things back onto the road.

I was never asking for fully procedurally generated dungeons.

I just said randomize chest locations and door locks. It cant be that hard for a company that has been using the same game engine for almost 22 years to implement a node system to roll a spawn chance for a chest, or a door to be locked or not (with a higher chance of node spawns behind locked doors).

Hell, they could have even gone the lazy way and just copy and pasted the PoI a few times and manually changed the cosmetics/appearances.

With space and prefab buildings, they have the ultimate excuse for why every dungeon is identical (at least until you get into the underground caves…), but not every one of them should have the same dead body inthe same location in the same shower, the same succulent on the same shelf. move the body to a different location! Have a chance for a cluster of books to spawn instead of the succulent! Its a prefabricated hab structure, but that doesnt mean they come with such strict instructions as “Only succulent A on this shelf”

maltasoron,

Couldn’t they just have copied the locations a few times and changed up the doors and chests by hand? Seems like an easy fix.

Otome-chan,

yes. I haven't played the game so idk the details of what's up. but at 1k+ planet-sized spaces it's hard to have a team go over that by hand. Planets are large. But I have no doubt that bethesda team was probably super lazy as well.

MuhammadJesusGaySex, do games w Todd Howard asked on-air why Bethesda didn't optimise Starfield for PC: 'We did [...] you may need to upgrade your PC'

I have a 3080 ti, and a 12700k, and 32 gigs of ddr5, and a 2 terabyte ssd. It runs great for me. I don’t understand the problem. /s

MxM111,

So, this system runs it fine? Good to know. I was worried that my computer would not be able to run it smoothly, but now no worries at all.

DontMakeMoreBabies,

I've got that but with a 4080 - no issues.

I admittedly feel like I went full retard on my build and seriously hope these specs aren't what's necessary...

RogueBanana,

Hey at least you don’t have to upgrade for a while, could probably run it for another yr if todd is generous

Krotiuz,

I've got an 8086K and 3080, running on a 4K screen - with Ultra settings and FSR of 80% I'm getting 35-40fps, which honestly doesn't feel too bad. It's noticable sometimes but it's a lot smoother than the numbers suggest.

Because my CPU is a little long in the tooth, I've gone probably a bit hard on the visuals, but my framerate didn't improve much by lowering it. The engine itself has never really liked going past 60fps, so I don't know why people expected to be able to run 100+ frames at 4k or something.

Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow,

Sorry mate but 35fps on a 3080 with FSR is just objectively bad performance.

Starfield is not doing anything in terms of graphics or gameplay that other games that run 3-4 times as well aren’t doing.

deranger,

That’s because they’re CPU limited, mate.

Easy 1440p60 on ultra everything with no scaling on my 3090. Frequently up in the 80-90 FPS range. This game runs fine. It’s not a “teetering mess” as you say.

Edgelord_Of_Tomorrow,

What exactly is it doing that an 8086k is CPU limited to 35fps?

Krotiuz,

Completed some testing on my end, using intels PresentMon and sitting at 35fps average in New Atlantis my GPU busy is pegged at about 99% of the frame time, so nothing really.

I do get a bit of a CPU limitation when it's raining, but nothing significant, dropped to about 30fps.

Trying at 1440p with the same settings as the 3090 above got me around 50fps, 1440p is almost half the pixels of 80% of 4k as well, so that's not helping my GPU much!

deranger,

I’d really not expect the performance difference between a 3090 and a 3080 to be that large, and the only difference I can think of in our systems is the CPU. (5800X3D vs 8086k)

New Atlantis is a smooth 60+ fps with every setting maxed out at 1440p.

deranger, (edited )

Considering that CPU is less powerful than what’s in the Xbox Series S, which does 1080p30, I’m not at all surprised they’re getting a similar frame rate.

If this was a “teetering mess” you would have heard it in the Gamers Nexus benchmarks. Steve says nothing to this end, and the game benches predictably across the spectrum of hardware tested.

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

for me the game runs pretty well with ~90+ fps on high and activated fsr2.

5800x 3D, 64 gigs of ram and a 6900XT I shot cheap during the great gpu collapse. And by the looks of the game this seems pretty reasonable to me.

rambaroo,

AMD users are having a better time with it, unsurprisingly. I wish I hadn’t gone for Nvidia but too late for that.

avater, (edited )
@avater@lemmy.world avatar

I think there wil be patches and some updates to NVIDIAs shitty driver that will fix things in the future :) Otherweise yeah maybe get an AMD GPU next time, don’t fall for the NVIDIA Marketing. Using Radeons since the 9800 pro Bundle with Half Life 2 and never had any issues with them or their drivers.

rambaroo, (edited )

Hopefully. I’ve always been more of an AMD/ATI fan, but for this laptop the deal worked out to be better with an Nvidia card. But next time I’m not settling for it. AMD CPU and GPU is the way to go. Especially because I’m trying to daily on Linux now and the driver side is much much nicer with AMD.

Piecemakers3Dprints, (edited )
@Piecemakers3Dprints@lemmy.world avatar

You had me in the first sentence, and then I realized it was sarcasm. 🤪 I’m running a similar rig, but it’s primarily for rendering work, etc., so for juuust a second there, I wondered if it was falling behind. 😅🤓

variants, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'

I still haven’t found a completely empty planet, there is always outposts, abandoned mines or caves with space pirates or other factions. Every time I walk to a point there is like 3 more points you can just explore endlessly

Brunbrun6766,
@Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world avatar

No! That’s impossible! I was told by people who played less than an hour if at all that you simply can’t walk or fly anywhere and MUST fast travel everywhere.

Endorkend,
@Endorkend@kbin.social avatar

That's false as moving away from your ship a certain distance (I think 6 or 7 km), it'll literally tell you you've reached the boundary of the area and you need to land somewhere else to get a new stretch of land.

variants,

Yeah but that’s a long walk, I usually do about three or four locations and I’m over encumbered, maybe once my ship is upgraded and can store more junk I can stay on planet longer

ace,
@ace@lemmy.ananace.dev avatar

This particular point really annoys me, I’d love to have somewhere that actually feels remote, where I don’t have four more copies of the same mining and science outposts in visual range. No matter how large humanity has become it just doesn’t make any sense that you can’t find a single ~15km square without anything man made on it.

The best remote places I’ve found so far has been in some quest-specific areas, but even then there’s usually a facility somewhere within a kilometer of the quest location.

variants,

Yeah I had the same thought, the caves and stuff are cool but finding so many abandoned outposts full of people is kind of weird

Endorkend,
@Endorkend@kbin.social avatar

Especially on planets supposedly never surveyed by anyone ever.

Brunbrun6766,
@Brunbrun6766@lemmy.world avatar

We came here and set up a secret medical research laboratory, and have since abandoned it, and not once did we have the area surveyed

hypelightfly,

I totally agree, I wish there were actually some barren planets without POIs.

Joyboy, do gaming w Bethesda says most of Starfield's 1000+ planets are dull on purpose because 'when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there' but 'they certainly weren't bored'
@Joyboy@lemmy.ml avatar

Why are they selling it as a fantasy action adventure game when it was a moon simulator all along.

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