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dingus, do gaming w Starfield's planets are an illusion: you can't land on them
@dingus@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah, this is just a little silly.

We all know it isn’t and never intended to be No Man’s Sky.

This is like acting upset you can’t land on planets in Mass Effect 2.

style99, do gaming w Starfield's planets are an illusion: you can't land on them
@style99@kbin.social avatar

You can land on Pluto though you aren't really meant to. It's just there for decoration.

This is similar to how you can glitch outside of Whiterun in Skyrim, though doing that in the same worldspace as Whiterun will just let you be up close to the low-detail versions of the outer world, which you aren't really meant to do.

quatschkopf34, do gaming w Starfield's planets are an illusion: you can't land on them

“You can‘t do something you‘re not supposed to“ This is such an ridiculous article.

wolfshadowheart,
@wolfshadowheart@kbin.social avatar

I agree it's particularly dumb thing to complain about. You can land on Pluto. Well for posterity, I'm assuming they mean going to the planet and landing directly, which you can't do to any planet. You can land on Pluto, just not by flying directly to it. You can't really fly to any planet and land on it like that because when you're at the planet, selecting it has you bring up the planetary map to initiate landing/destinations.

Basically, if I'm anywhere in the galaxy I can select Pluto, plot a course, and land in it's orbit. Or, if I've landed on it before and visited a settlement, or made my own outpost, then I can select either of those.

You cannot fly from earth to Mars and then directly land on Mars. You can select a location near mars and then press a button to travel to it, likewise for any waypoints you can see.

At no point does the game or the marketing say that you can fly to planets without menus and land on the planet with a seamless transition, so I don't really understand what everyone is up in arms about. They told us long ago that cutscenes would be the transitions so frankly I'm just seeing people complain for making assumptions they were never promised. (unlike 2077 which actually did have some missed promises).

So yeah, "can't land" on Pluto without using the map menu... Just like literally everything else except waypoints in the game

Ferk, (edited )
@Ferk@kbin.social avatar

Wouldn't it be relatively simple to have the ship be automatically stopped as soon as it gets at a certain distance from a land-able object and open some dialog asking whether you want to land / enter atmosphere or something like that to initiate a cutscene / loadscreen?

And if you say no, the ship's computer could make up some in-game excuse, such as needing to avoid the gravity well of the planet, for it to automatically turn around and move away from it.

I mean, I get that they probably didn't expect someone to spend the time to actually go and attempt physically reaching the planet, but after all the attention this thing is getting it could be an appropriate approach to take for when they do the full release, if only to shut people's mouths. It's just one small detail.

Melpomene, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"
@Melpomene@kbin.social avatar

deleted_by_author

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  • melroy,
    @melroy@kbin.melroy.org avatar

    Sounds legit

    turtlepower,

    The thing with No Man’s Sky is that it’s supposed to be in the vein of old pulp sci-fi which was usually quite scientifically inaccurate and more fantasy and philosophy.

    Melpomene,
    @Melpomene@kbin.social avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • turtlepower,

    When’s the last time you played? I ask because there are “dead” systems - no conflict, no economy, not even a space station. If you haven’t played in a while, you might want to boot it up again. A lot has changed!

    Renacles, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"

    A lot of people seem to want this game to do poorly, half the comments complaining about it also say that they haven’t played it yet.

    scrubbles,
    !deleted6348 avatar

    Honestly, avoid Lemmy and Reddit for reviews on this game. The absolute vitriol it’s gotten here has just pushed me beyond trusting any of them. (and yes, they all end with “I mean I haven’t played it.”)

    I have played it. 8 hours in so far, it’s fun. I won’t say it’s “redefining RPGs” for me or anything, but I’m having a good time playing around. To others here on Lemmy I am now the worst person on the planet.

    10982302,

    Also avoid the Steam discussion forum. Awful awful place right now.

    Erk,

    Have you ever seen a steam discussion forum that isn’t?

    bermuda,

    Steam off topic pre-2013 was a gold mine.

    Renacles,

    It’s the same people that have been bashing Bethesda for years now, they don’t care whether the game is actually good or not, they just want to bash the people behind it.

    I’ll play it for myself on gamepass and see what I think, discussion around it has been worthless here.

    Annoyed_Crabby,

    “all these planet are boring”

    Yeah, as if Mars and Pluto is interesting. People want this game to fail because it isn’t a better game than the darling Baldur’s Gate 3. And gamer has been like this for a while: either the game is 10/10 or it’s shit/10, there’s no between.

    I remember the time when zelda botw came out and jim sterling gave it a 7/10,people went banana over that lol. Starfield and Witcher 3 may very well be a 6 or 7/10 game, and that’s okay.

    Jho,
    @Jho@beehaw.org avatar

    deleted_by_author

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  • Ketram,

    I think the big issue with a personal preference of realism vs. Fantasy is that Starfield has no commitment to realism in its execution (I say this with 12 hours played before I gave up). It is very much made to cater to lowest common denominator in other space travel things. The ship movement is very primitive and simplified. Travelling to new solar systems, landing on a planet, etc. Is done through fast travelling on the map to connect the different cells. It does not feel immersive in the slightest to me, and I have really enjoyed the “realism” of games like Elite Dangerous in the past.

    Most damning is the lack of environmental planet differences. The only affect of a planets negative traits is suit protection reduction. There is no life support, your oxygen is just a stamina system. There is no vehicles. You are just running across barren, boring, procedural planets with none of the pomp and circumstance of games that have done effective space exploration.

    Maybe in 2 years of mods you might have a more realistic experience out of starfield.

    Erk, (edited )

    Any Bethesda game is essentially a mod vehicle with an RPG tacked on anyway. I think it’s entirely on brand that they didn’t go all in on hard sci fi for vanilla. I don’t think that’s incompatible with having a lot of planets that are mostly barren filler; I’m never going to explore 1000 detailed planets, and rescuing someone from a crash on a barren moon or finding a smuggler base on a frozen rock helps to keep the more interesting places feeling cool. There are still more interesting planets than I’m likely to ever get through.

    fox_the_apprentice, (edited )

    I can’t remember much of how Starfield was marketed but I remember the “1000 planets” thing being parroted a lot. Was the fact that these planets were going to be realistically portrayed and mostly empty wastelands something that was made clear during marketing?

    They said that about 10% of planets would have life, and that one of the things they wanted to portray was an IRL astronaut’s quote of being in space as “magnificent desolation.”

    pcgamer.com/about-10-of-starfields-1000-planets-h…

    Nalivai,

    The point of a game is to be fun in some sense of the word, not to depict Mars as scientificly accurate as possible, unless it’s Scientificly Accurate Mars Simulator.
    If the planneta are boring, then the game about exploring those planets are probably failed at being fun, and that’s kind of irregardless of what people want.
    Personally I would like all the games to be good, for example.

    Chobbes,

    I dunno, I don’t think the point of all art is to be “fun”. There’s plenty of examples of games that aren’t necessarily fun but do something interesting in some sense or inspire other emotions. Exploring a bunch of dead and boring planets may not be fun and maybe it’s not compelling or worth doing in Starfield, but I think it can be interesting to have something more “boring” most of the time to have other moments stand out… and sometimes something being boring or painful is part of the experience and it wouldn’t be as worthwhile without, like for example particularly difficult games can be pretty painful to play through, but sometimes having gone through the painful thing is a huge part of why you care about the experience.

    Of course not everything is for everybody, and more “boring” experiences in general are probably not what the average person playing video games is into… but there’s plenty of us who like a good boring or tedious or painful slog every once in a while :). Maybe it’s rewarding, maybe it sets the atmosphere, maybe it’s meaningful in some other way… I get it, but I think it’s a little sad to reduce games to “just supposed to be fun!” It’s an awesome art form and I love seeing other creative things done with it.

    Nalivai,

    By fun I largely mean “brings positive and meaningful experience”

    Annoyed_Crabby,

    It’s a space exploration game with thousands of planet, they can depict planet being a barren rock and can be fun.

    Personally i don’t think all games are good, arguing with people parroting that is a waste of time. Personally Witcher 3 is mediocre, but i’m allowing people to love it and see it as 10/10. Game is personal taste, if you don’t like that sort of thing then it isn’t for you, no such thing as “all game is good”.

    Nalivai,

    can depict planet being a barren rock and can be fun.

    And that will be good then. My point was, that games should sacrifice realism in favour of fun and criticism of “yeah it’s boring, but it’s realistic” is fundamentally wrong.

    Annoyed_Crabby,

    I think in Starfield case it’s less of sacrifice fun for realism and more of having these realism for a reason. From the review alone, the location is boring, and that’s by design, because you can either ignore it or interact with it, like gather resource or build a base. There’s thousands of planet, it’s not realistic to all be handcrafted and interesting, because what’s interesting for the first 10 times will get boring when you do it 50 times.

    There’s a reason why they design it that way, and i think it’s rather fair for this sort of game.

    NuPNuA,

    That depends what you’re going in expecting. Bethesda have been very clear that this isn’t a Space Opera but more hard-sci-fi. I don’t expect cities on every planet and alien political intrigue. I expect a cold, barren and uncaring universe that humans are trying to tame.

    bermuda,

    Not surprising to see them get complaints about this tbh. They went for “borderline horror game” with how much of a miserable wasteland Fallout 3 was and got blasted for it.

    Nalivai,

    And the only metrics here would be “is the game fun” in the end. Is exploring barren planets fun? Good. Is it not? Then it doesn’t matter that real life Mars is even more boring

    NuPNuA,

    Fun is subjective though isn’t it?

    Knusper,

    I mean, isn’t it still only available to those who paid extra? That’s probably why you see so many people wanting to discuss it without having played it yet…

    Renacles,

    Yeah, but maybe they should wait until the game is out before bashing it.

    Knusper,

    Personally, I try to see it positive. They want to protect others from being disappointed from yet another Bethesda game. I got burned by Skyrim in my youth, so when I see Todd Howard spitting straight lies again, I’ll try to save others the disappointment.

    Now that Starfield is public, I feel like people can at least try to form an own opinion, but if only the people who are willing to pay extra talk about it, then you’ve only got Bethesda fans talking.

    Neato, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"
    @Neato@kbin.social avatar

    There's ways to make places feel barren, open, unexplored and still be interesting. I've played several games that had sections that were essentially "empty" but still hand designed to be interesting. We don't need 1000 planets, we need good content.

    One of the primary reasons people like Bethesda games is that they give players a large world to explore that's jam-packed with interesting things to see a do. If Bethesda abandons that and admits that majority of the content they expect players to interact with is going to be boring, procedurally-generated, then why should people play Starfield?

    Bethesda isn't known for deep, complex stories. Their best writing is traditionally their side content with main stories panned. Their combat is pretty basic, but functional. Their RP is pretty sad and NPCs could be a lot better, especially these days. So it seems Bethesda has given away their biggest plus: an interesting world to explore.

    sarsaparilyptus,

    The best part is, they already made a game with a gigantic world full of procedurally-generated content: Daggerfall, which is remembered fondly for a reason.

    Renacles,

    Try walking everywhere in Daggerfall and you’ll spend minutes seeing basically nothing, it’s a huge part of why the map feels so huge, it actually is.

    rivingtondown,

    Funny you say that, Daggerfall is fondly remembered but only in spite of it’s procedurally generated overworld. Daggerfall’s openworld is extraordinarily barren, remarkably so. You literally will get lost if you walk more than 5 minutes from a town, and not in a fun way but because every direction you look is literally the exact same three tree and rock sprites and you lose sense of direction. Daggerfall’s overworld is so bare and empty and large it actively encourages you to engage in the fast travel system with fleshed out gameplay mechanics like camping supplies and vehicles.

    Yepthatsme, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"

    It’s game of the century in my book. These complaints are shallow. I spent 20 hours exploring and these complaints hold no weight. There is plenty, go find stuff. I have 2 huge ship’s just from exploring planets. I have full legendary gear. All from planet hopping.

    Exploring planets is cool as fuck especially when you go across environments.

    Moons are especially fun and hold all sorts of secrets.

    If you find a note about a secret base, pursue it.

    Bethesda did a good job. I have played SC and SB2 and while I like how they do space travel, the rest of their game sucks by comparison. Bethesda really knocked it out of the park.

    irongamer, (edited )
    @irongamer@beehaw.org avatar

    Bethesda did a good job. I have played SC and SB2 and while I like how they do space travel, the rest of their game sucks by comparison. Bethesda really knocked it out of the park.

    This. Just exploring the first POI after leaving the tutorial I thought to myself, “This is how SC, NMS, and ED should have done their ground FPS exploration and combat.” The FPS gameplay is much better than Fallout 4/76, Bethesda improved that aspect a good amount. And with any Fallout/Scoll game, I love the clutter loot. I’m now 42 hours into the game, lots of new Bethesda style detailed POIs to discover and explore. People complaining about empty moons/planets are ignoring the hand crafted content and focusing on the unpainted mod canvas… or to give them a bit of a pass they have never played ED, NMS, or SC as those have lots of empty moons as well.

    totallymojo, (edited )
    @totallymojo@ttrpg.network avatar

    Did they pay you to write this?
    Are you forcing yourself to enjoy the game because you paid so much?

    Or am I insane?
    I feel like im in Truman Show, noticing the facade crumble and all the streamers and reviewers acts like the game is fine.
    I see streamers encounter serveral game breaking bugs and then instantly praise the game again.
    The game is basically Bethesda trying to mask the limitations of their game engine.

    I mean good for you that you like it but I spent 10hrs and then refunded (Thank god for Steam). Im not paying 100 bucks for Fallout 4 with space skin. I can not fathom how people accept this quality in 2023.
    And for that price.

    If someone is interested in my “shallow complaints”:

    • It’s not as open and “huge scale” as people seem to think it is. It’s kind of “fake open” if that makes sense. You cannot get into your ship and fly 800m east to your mission. If you do that, a new instance is loaded and your mission is not there. You have to run those 800m.
    • The ships are cool but you don’t need it. You just fast travel with a loadingscreen everywhere anyway. I saw the inside of my ship twice in 10hrs (not counting the cockpit view).
    • Navigating the menus are a nightmare. Inventory management is difficult.
    • Laziest intro I’ve ever seen. “Hello stranger, take my ship. No reason. Ok cool. Bye.”
    • Very little improvement graphics-wise. The explosions are 2D sprites lmao. In 2023. For real. New Atlantis looks horrible.
    • Performance is shit. I get 40fps in towns with a “UFO rated” computer on userbenchmark. Nvidia card.
    • NPC’s teleporting around, getting stuck everywhere halfway through floor, corpses flopping around, ships clipping through stations.
    SirSauceLordtheThird,
    @SirSauceLordtheThird@beehaw.org avatar

    To comment on a few of your points,

    1. IMO that really does not effect the scale of the game, it’s not limiting the amount of places you can go at all, just hop somewhere else on the planet and you’re gonna find similar things. You arent really meant to use the ship for such a small distance aswell, and the instanced wall to wall distance is really quite far for being on foot.
    2. Eh, it was your choice to fast travel. They included a ton of fast travel options cause not everyone either has the time for the game otherwise or they just does not care about the flying around in space part as much. But the option to not fast travel, and to instead use your ship is there 100% of the time so I don’t understand complaining about it, it’s just a matter of choice.
    3. I personally found the menus really easy to use and get used to, but I was on controller and not kbm, cant speak to how kbm feels.
    4. What you are describing as a lazy intro is the exact intro that bethesda fans want in these games, quick and over with so you are quickly released into the world to figure things out on your own, it’s what bethesda does every time.

    But yeah agreed on the technical aspects, except for new atlantis looking horrible. If anything looks borderline horrible for me, it’s the borderline uncanny valley faces everyone has.

    averyminya,

    Gotta love how anyone who has a good time with a game is either a shill or has stockholm.

    I pirated the game and won’t have the funds to buy it any time remotely soon. I 100% agree with the commenter you responded to. It’s a fun game, there’s a lot to do and I’ve often been feeling like this game has the guts that 2077 was missing (and I had a mostly bug-free 100% playthrough before a lot of major patches. For me, patches have just been mod-breakers lol). I only bring up 2077 because of just how often over the last few days I’ve thought “they’re accidentally delivering the promises 2077’s marketing made”. I remember when Night City was promised to have fully scheduled NPC routines (which doesn’t really exist) but it’s actually somewhat present and there’s a quest that introduces it as a “necessary” mechanic.

    I’ve been very pleasantly surprised with the faction and trait interactions. I classed as a space scoundrel who is wanted and I have parents - my parents show up in random pleasant places like the zoo, my space scoundrel or wanted trait I believe got me captured and now I’m undercover working to infiltrate and take down a space pirate faction. In my own time I became a space ranger who started working for a corp in Neon doing espionage. Oh and like the previous commenter said, I’d followed a secret moon base and became a notorious pirate hunter which I’ve decided to take up the mantle of, so I’m technically double undercover lol.

    Last little thing on interactions, it’s been cool that the news has minor reportings on the important things you do. After I found said legend and lived up to it I’ve been hearing about attacks on space pirates that I’ve done. Smaller questlines have meaningful NPC changes.

    I have some counter-points to yours, but I do have gripes of my own with the game I’ll list after.

    “not open”

    What you’re trying to say is there’s no sub-orbit flight. You only fly your ship in orbit or in deep space. As a byproduct there is no way to manually fly your ship 800m. What you can do for 90% of quests is go to the planet map, click a new landing zone and land closer, skipping any exploration the game is trying to encourage. (The 10% of quests I’ve encountered are gas-detection on colonies. Rescue quests I can fast travel, unsure about flight). They didn’t really market that you could, and frankly while the idea of flying my ship above colonist settlements and open firing on them sounds awesome I see why it’s not possible. They took Elite Dangerous and dropped the interactive transitions for docking and landing. We’ve been aware of this since it was announced so I don’t really see the issue here.

    Also there may be a lore reason they came up with, as there have been mentions of ships larger than certain sizes straight up just can’t land on planets at all.

    “ship aren’t needed”

    I’m going to say no, subjectively. You can fly quite a bit if you want to, it’s just faster to plot courses and for less populated galaxies there’s not much reason to stick around. For actual gameplay, ships to make a difference though. The default ship is a good start and moderately upgradeable, but it’s nothing compared to fighting in a dogfighting ship. Dogfighting ships are quite useless for cargo transport though, so if you are trying to ship people you’d be hard pressed doing it with the default ship. In a galaxy you can travel to any waypoint you see, bypassing the map menu. There is a lot of menu-diving, and I’ll list some issues I have with that in a bit.

    “lazy intro”

    I’ve seen a lot of complaints about the intro. To be honest, I don’t agree. So you’re a miner that finds a mystical space rock that makes you feel things, then some people happen to show up looking for a large dozen of them to unlock the secrets of the universe. Cheesy? I guess. I appreciated that it was much faster getting started and out into the open world than their other games (still a little on rails slow). If anything, I’d argue that it gives much more player freedom for imagination. In Fallout you’re searching for a person and you have a dedicated goal. In Skyrim it’s the same as the chosen one.

    In Starfield you’re vision from the magic rock could be entirely meaningless if you wanted it to be and never deal with it again. The fact that you were just a space miner with no background fits perfectly with the RPG genre and solves the issue that people have been complaining about for Bethesda for years (that they’re not “true” RPG’s). Meanwhile we get an actual blank slate with a decent story premise and it gets called lazy and boring. Fuck that man, the concept was fine and you can be whatever you want to be for once.

    “graphics/performance”

    Seems kinda odd complaining about graphics? Unless I’m tweaking for gains I don’t FPS meter, just visual smoothness as a reference. 5800x3D and a 10gb 3080 on ultra save motion blur with RT, on medium. No DLSS mod or FSR. I haven’t felt the need, as performance has been solid and stable - at least it’s consistently the same in the same areas. It’s a pretty game, but I wouldn’t say crisp. Better than RDR2’s TAA but worse than 2077’s current state. Some spots have some fuzzing/film grain of some kind, might be an atmosphere effect since it doesn’t seem present on all planets. Some areas are definitely lower FPS but on a variable refresh rate monitor it’s not been noticeable in any negative extents. Low FPS has only ever been on planets/settlements, space and dogfights have been pristine. Performance hasn’t ever gotten worse than 2077, which for me was ~25fps prepatches (sub the x3D back then). Neon and New Atlantis are generally lower fps than an indoor smaller map but no poor frametimes, no chugging or stuttering. It’s just the difference between 165hz and 60hz. The only actual “lag” I have seen is NPC scripts, which sometimes after longer play sessions hang and can get a few seconds of desync. For one line, then it’s fine again.

    That said, I shouldn’t have to need high end hardware to have a good experience with the game. I feel like that’s a separate issue, though. The game has been stable, completely crash free, and performance is consistent across how it performs - small maps are consistently smooth and heavier areas are noticeably lower FPS but not in a bad way. I did mention this is a pirated copy, right? I’d expect to have an abysmal experience with performance and yet…

    “clipping”

    One barista started levitating up to the ceiling when I was ordering a coffee, stopped at the ceiling. Once or twice an NPC has been facing a different direction during conversation. Once in a while an NPC will be walking into a wall, when I’ve wanted to steal I’ve “pushed” NPC’s and they just repath themselves and its fixed - though rescue missions do suffer from this a bit. With some 30+ hours of playtime (on save at least), I’ve not seen any ship clipping or hitting stations. I’ve been to some heavy fleet areas like UCS and pirate bases and they are all just normal?

    Like overall, I have some issues in similar ways but I have been enjoying my time with the game a lot. Pleasantly surprised compared to what I had been reading online.

    Comment to long, responding to myself below

    averyminya,

    My current issues with the game:

    Menu diving is definitely a pain, mostly the map. There’s ways to mitigate it, but it’s a small convergence of minor issues that make it feel like one larger one. So, the scope of the game is so large and missions are not categorized by planet. Transitioning between missions to check the map is long and the alternative is menu diving. Sometimes you go to a planet just to land, talk to someone, and leave. Now, that is on me if I choose not to stick around but I’m also so full of quests that I’m worried adding any more will leave me with more planets with objectives I can’t find. (I do like the abundance of quests, I really wish they had given a planet or at least galaxy category for missions).

    Also regarding menus, I just wish the hotkeys were consistent. Have the scanner out? No hotkeys will work. Hotkeyed into a menu? Have to press tab to back out and select a different one, can’t press a different hotkey. Minor timewaste but it adds up and gets annoying.

    Quest streamlining - only ran into it once but in short, I was captured at a low level and followed its questline and got stuck in an auto-save encounter where I had a -10 advantage in the dogfight. I tried about 30 times, gave up went back a save before that grav-jump and went on elsewhere. It would have been nice to have been given some more information along the way, say the rough estimate of the level I should be for the quest. However, that has actually only happened one time and every other quest has been fine in this regard, so I think I may have just been low level in a high level unavoidable encounter. Ah, this quest also put me into an NPC bug “The people of New Homestead need these supplies!” for a little while. Resolved upon completion, though. || Quickly while on the topic of quests, the colonists “place gas sensors” quest is semi-bugged as no waypoint appears. Lots of gas spews, no interactions (unless maybe I’m missing a perk point for it!) People did say that if you find the right gas spot an icon will appear, so MMV for this one.

    A minor gripe, it’s not really so much an issue as it seems to be an oversight. As I’ve mentioned, there’s multiple ways to travel. You can fly, select a waypoint and travel to it. Small cutscene and you’re there, no map. You can go into your map, select a plant and set a course - you will be orbiting the planet. Or you can select the planet and view it and select a settlement to land at - you will be outside your ship. However, you cannot fly to the planet, select the planet, then land. Selecting the planet has you bring up the planetary map, where you then select a settlement… This is the course of action that results in your first bullet-point of no sub-orbit flight. Because we cannot select a planet to land on directly, we must use the map to travel. Also because of that streamer we saw that you also can’t fly to pluto to land on it because we can’t do that with any planet.

    I personally don’t have an issue with that aspect of it, my gripe comes down to the flow of gameplay. Like the menu diving, inconsistent hotkeys, I’m just not sure why they added some time buffers and menu-reliant methods when they also have existing ways to do the same thing. It’s one of those things where it seems like by trying to accommodate doing something any possible way they ended up nerfing each way of doing it? That said, my friend made a good point - would you rather spend time at the destination or getting there? Currently, the game is maybe 30% (quest dependent) getting there and 70% being there. Sometimes you go to a location via grav jump, hail and dock, do a couple things and leave. Sometimes you grav jump talk to someone and leave. No matter what, you are going somewhere, doing something, and then leaving. So are you going to be happier spending your time doing frivolous things to get there, or would you showing up and spending your time in the area?

    So far, my complaints have all been related to the flow of the game. Most of my time is really spent engaging in the world, talking, collecting, it’s genuinely fun. Then I get a quest and it asks me to go to some far away planet… well, do I have anything else left to do here? Do I leave and come back? If I leave I’m going to find something else and then I won’t come back for some time. Then I start trying to reference the missions and the map and that is where

    So far honestly my biggest actual bothers me issue has been the egregiously long animations for getting into and leaving the cockpit. Hold E during a dogfight? You’re fucked. Accidentally forget to add something to cargo? Go make some tea, it’ll be a while. I’m being a little facetious but seriously, a 5-7 second long stand/sit animation is just too much for something I’m doing constantly, especially if it’s prone to happening on accident.

    My second biggest issue that I think most people have been talking about is rooted in that quests don’t have a view all on map/make all active/most sensibly, categorize quests by planet (or galaxy). Goddamn, I have spent a lot of time in Neon trying to figure out which quests if any are still available there, or searching for another quest that is somewhat nearby another. I’m trying to follow sensible trade routes and plan accordingly, but there’s just so many to sift through and cross referencing them is a pain. That said, it seems like they have combated this by trying to push that that does not matter. If you are in the Sol system and need to go to Neon or further right, just plot a course or go directly to the planet and land on the waypoint. If you have no contraband, you land in the settlement outside your ship/in the city. There’s no need to stay within Sol/near Alpha Centauri because as long as you’re ship is within range, grav-jumping is as instantaneous as a loading screen.

    That’s about it, honestly. Carrying capacity has been generous, 140kg per follower and 2 being pushed on you right away. Ships with 1,000kg can be had easily. Storage is pretty freely given, 300kg at the lodge (which has all the crafting right there), default ship has ~600kg (450 cargo + 150 captain + ~150 random storage?). I’ve been trying to take it easy and not grab all the junk to exist but only from looting bodies and actual usable materials. I’ve got 4 ships and 100k credits and still more to sell. The game is genuinely lots of fun, very detailed with lots of interactions, it really does feel alive especially compared to 2077 which I enjoyed but saw it’s shortcoming for.

    That’s how I feel for Starfield. I see some shortcomings (frankly, that will be fixed with mods probably. I forsee a lot of animation skip mods.) being an otherwise extensively large, and so far well crafted game with meaningful decisions for your character. Actions I’ve made have actually made a difference and affected me later. And while bugs are gonna vary for everyone, my experience so far has had very few bugs that actually matter. To be honest, even if every 2nd body was flopping around after death I wouldn’t care? It literally does not matter? I really don’t care that once in a while an NPC is facing a different direction while they talk to me. Intended? Probably not. People in the real world also don’t always face you or even look at you while they talk, so I don’t see the issue.

    So, there you go. Now either I’m a shill whose been paid by Bethesda (I could really use it right about now), or a pirate whose been blinded by the shiny new so I must be missing all the terrible qualities of the game.

    Or, could it just be that it happens to be a slightly more fleshed out Bethesda game. It has some fairly minor shortcomings, performance aside, but it’s also a fun light RPG. (I really have to stress, I see lots of complaints about performance online but ultra+RT medium on my hardware has been stable and fine, and I love high refresh rates. I have 165hz for a reason.)

    Anyway, sorry not sorry for the length. I’m just tired of seeing people enjoy things and getting called a shill for it. It’s disingenuous considering there are actual issues with the game to complain about.

    all the streamers and reviewers acts like the game is fine. I see streamers encounter serveral game breaking bugs and then instantly praise the game again.

    Could it be that, like myself, these streamers have found that in their playtime these bugs are pretty minor compared to the rest of the game that’s been fun and engaging? Two things can be true, you know. I can enjoy the game and say that it’s strong and well developed while simultaneously saying that it has shortcomings regarding how they relied on the map for travel. But just because they relied on the map for galactic travel doesn’t mean that my excursions on planets are any less fun, it just means that it’s a little less fun to get there than it is to be there.

    totallymojo,
    @totallymojo@ttrpg.network avatar

    What you can do for 90% of quests is go to the planet map, click a new landing zone and land closer, skipping any exploration the game is trying to encourage.

    This didn’t work for me. If you do this, a new instance is loaded and my mission does not show up.

    averyminya,

    For which quests? Colonist quests I believe you can’t leave for, everything else is a permanent quest until completiom

    totallymojo,
    @totallymojo@ttrpg.network avatar

    It’s kind of difficult to explain this without telling you the whole thing.

    Here goes…
    Build outpost randomly.
    Meet Bounty Hunter in close-by container.
    Bounty Hunter asks for help with bandits, and to meet 1km east.
    I get a marker on my map and on HUD.
    I think “fuck, im not running 1km.”
    I go back to my ship and open map.
    I put my landing marker close to mission marker.
    Click to fast travel.
    Loading Screen.
    Ship lands.
    Get out of ship.
    Look around. It’s a whole different map.
    No marker on HUD.
    Think “wtf”.
    Fast travel back to my outpost.
    My mission is there again.

    averyminya,

    Ah I see, I understand! Yeah that’s essentially a version of the colonist bug I encountered. It seems certain parts of the game want you to play through it. Mine “works” a little more than yours though, since I was rescuing someone fast traveling would defeat the point. But showing up somewhere is definitely something you’d expect to work for a bounty.

    For what it’s worth I often find myself feeling like I don’t want to run 1km, but it’s only 5 minutes and I get there before I know it. The distances of the POI’s feel so far, but most are around 400m and it seems to go by in about 2 minutes. For moons it’s full cause you can complete the surveys quickly, but for planets it’s a good opportunity to finish them up without feeling like I’m wasting time I could be spending on quests.

    Anyway, sorry you had to question your sanity and thank you for indulging my curiosity!

    fox_the_apprentice,

    Did they pay you to write this? Are you forcing yourself to enjoy the game because you paid so much? Or am I insane?

    No need to go for insults just because you disagree with someone. I love this game so far, it’s been a great deal of joy. For full disclosure: I paid for the $30 USD upgrade package from the gamepass version of the game to get the early access and have not paid full price yet. If script extender mods don’t work on the gamepass version of the game, I expect to purchase he game on Steam for whatever price it is at that time.

    I don’t disagree with you on several points, but that doesn’t mean a it’s bad game. As I already stated, I recommend the game and I feel it’s a good game.

    Here are some of my thoughts:

    The ships are cool but you don’t need it. You just fast travel with a loadingscreen everywhere anyway. I saw the inside of my ship twice in 10hrs (not counting the cockpit view).

    One of the things they said repeatedly during pre-release media is that the game has so many aspects to it that you can ignore entire parts of the game by design.

    Don’t care about ship combat? Then don’t take ship combat missions, that’s OK.

    Don’t care about outpost management? Then don’t make outposts, that’s OK.

    Not having to use your ship very often is a feature, not a bad thing. I’ve taken several combat missions and transport missions. I’ve messed around with smuggling a bit. I’ve explored around in my ship and gotten several random encounters. It’s a fun part of the game, but anyone who doesn’t enjoy it isn’t forced to go through it.

    Navigating the menus are a nightmare. Inventory management is difficult.

    This is probably my 2nd biggest complaint about the game. The UI design is, in my opinion, just not great to use on PC. It seems everything I want quick access to is about 2 menu levels deeper in than it should be…

    Laziest intro I’ve ever seen. “Hello stranger, take my ship. No reason. Ok cool. Bye.”

    Yeah, but this doesn’t represent the entirety of the game. Many of the quest lines have me very interested in them.

    Performance is shit. I get 40fps in towns with a “UFO rated” computer on userbenchmark. Nvidia card.

    This is probably my biggest complaint about the game. That said: I agree that the graphics/performance is not great, but please do not ever use nor support UserBenchmark. They are a joke, and cannot be trusted to actually review anything.

    Hardware Unboxed video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaWZKPUidUY

    tomshardware.com/…/userbenchmark-benchmark-change…

    NPC’s teleporting around, getting stuck everywhere halfway through floor, corpses flopping around, ships clipping through stations.

    I expect many people will tell you “It’s a Bethesda game and it’s to be expected,” and they’ll be right. But you’re also in the right to keep calling Bethesda out on it. Giving massive companies a free pass on these things isn’t ok.

    That said, none of these glitches have broken the game for me. I’ve yet to had any game experience ruined by it. Most of them I chuckle at and then move on. If anything, I think it adds charm to the game. One of my favorite things to do in Skyrim was put pots on people’s heads and watch them walk around, or to shout at them and watch their plates get stuck in a chair and vibrate around. (I’ll refrain from commenting about certain Starfield-related shenanigans for spoiler reasons.)

    bermuda,

    Did they pay you to write this? Are you forcing yourself to enjoy the game because you paid so much?

    Or am I insane?

    Please for the love of god can we not turn beehaw (and lemmy as a whole) into YET ANOTHER space where people enjoying a game to whatever degree they please is somehow truly impossible to believe that you question your sanity??? Just learn how to have a conversation for crying out loud!

    totallymojo,
    @totallymojo@ttrpg.network avatar

    Dude, just let me question my own sanity if I want to.

    lemillionsocks,
    @lemillionsocks@beehaw.org avatar

    Naw man you’re being needlessly abrasive and theyre right to call you out on it. No need to take people in bad faith and call them shills or act like someone having a different opinion than you is CRAZY!

    totallymojo,
    @totallymojo@ttrpg.network avatar

    People seem sensitive here.
    Getting their panties in a bunch because I asked myself if I was insane.
    Never heard of that before.

    Erk,

    People aren’t annoyed at you for asking if you’re insane, they’re annoyed at you because you apparently don’t know that it’s possible to do that without insulting everyone who disagrees with you.

    totallymojo,
    @totallymojo@ttrpg.network avatar

    Why did you think that was an insult?
    Well, I guess everything can be insulting you try hard enough.

    ahal, (edited )

    Protip, if you ask someone a question, and then follow that up with “Or am I insane?”. You’re heavily implying that they in fact are the ones who are insane.

    Maybe you legitimately didn’t know that. In case you didn’t, now you know.

    Erk, (edited )

    Seriously? On the very slim chance you’re actually just this clueless about polite communication,

    Did they pay you to write this? Are you forcing yourself to enjoy the game because you paid so much? Or am I insane?

    It’s not the third line of that that people object to, it’s what is implied by the entire statement. We assume you don’t consider yourself insane, because that’s obviously hyperbole, which means you do seem to think that anyone who disagrees with you is either a shill or stuck in a sunk cost fallacy.

    Consider the alternate phrasing of that entire statement, eg. “I’m just not seeing it. Am I insane or something?” And then the rest of your post. Nobody would be nearly so irritated with you in that context.

    totallymojo,
    @totallymojo@ttrpg.network avatar

    Alright. In text maybe you are right.
    Im a firm believer that if we like, sat in a bar discussing over a beer, and you could hear the tone of my voice and read my face, no-one would be offended.

    Erk,

    Probably, but this isn’t a bar and your face and tone aren’t visible, your meaning can only be judged by the letter of what you wrote.

    BigBananaDealer,
    @BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee avatar

    i just did that secret base quest not too long ago, probably my favorite reward in any bethesda game thus far

    iheartneopets,

    Game of the CENTURY? Come on now. There’s defending a game you like, but that’s a bit much.

    Erk,

    “in my book” is a valuable phrase there. I also wouldn’t call it anything that extreme (and I like it) but it’s a good game, it’s not a stretch that someone might absolutely adore it.

    arefx,

    Lol game of the century

    lemillionsocks, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"
    @lemillionsocks@beehaw.org avatar

    A disclaimer: I havent played the game and probably wont for a few months to a year when its on steam sale so I’m going to just speak based on what the article is saying and experience with other games.

    I think its a tricky balancing act to make when it comes to creating an open world game where you travel through space. Different games have approached it differently with some games opting to scale everything down super small and letting you suspend disbelief(like outer wilds) but that wouldnt work as well on a game like this. Other games go for the hub approach where your ship is a hub that connects you to different open maps on different planets. This approach also works in letting you travel the stars and lets the story do the heavy lifting of conveying scale, but it doesnt mesh with the bethesda open world style. Likewise it can also sometimes turn your ship into just a metroid style elevator and so instead of feeling how big the universe it you effortlessly fast travel across the galaxy. Other games fill the space by making big procedural generated never ending expanses, but that can be hit and miss and not really what a lot of people want in a game like this one.

    I understand wanting to pad things out a little bit to prevent things from feeling toy like in the way that Outer Wilds did, but it does run the risk of just being boring and uninteresting and leave you wishing for a more “gamified” tighter experience or at least less openness and more zipping to the places that matter. That said if exploring is worthwhile it could make it less of a bummer. I think Wind Waker and breath of the Wild are good examples of this. Wind Waker’s sailing was notoriously long and boring when it came out, however while most of the islands are small rocks, they all have something. Some secret, some rabbit hole leading to something interesting, a piece of heart, a chest of ruppies, SOMETHING. If you engage with it and mark your map along the way, and explore then the mostly empty map becomes a little more engaging.

    Likewise Breath of the wild’s map isnt full of little side stories and secret villages or anything so if you decide to go off into that distant peak it will usually be self motivation. That said the game does reward you every time even if it’s not a huge reward. You will find ruins of some mysterious lost nation, you will find ruins referencing past zelda games, and shrines, and even a stupid little korok puzzle. The little gamified reward for exploring the area makes it less barren and worth exploring. So if it’s more Wind waker island, or breath of the wild and less Mass Effect 1 I can see this empty areas working.

    BreadGar, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"
    @BreadGar@lemmy.ca avatar

    People complaining about planets not having anything fun to do have never played Elite Dangerous.

    Just the fact you’re exploring a new planet, to me is a cool feeling.

    Sharpiemarker,

    I’ve had this same thought since Starfield came out. Go play ED: Odyssey and then complain about how plain and boring planets are.

    Neato,
    @Neato@kbin.social avatar

    You are all saying that both games have boring, procedurally generated planets. Sounds like both games were designed with boring elements people don't want. Just because ED is more boring, doesn't mean Starfield is good.

    Sharpiemarker,

    The point isn’t that ED being boring makes Starfield good. The point is that space exploration is mostly boring, and ED exemplifies that well. If I wanted unrealistic space exploration, I’d just play No Man’s Sky.

    Neato,
    @Neato@kbin.social avatar

    I guess there's an argument that boring space exploration has an audience. I just didn't think that overlapped much with Bethesda's audience.

    PhatInferno,
    @PhatInferno@midwest.social avatar

    Imo its nice to just pop some chill music on and just fly/ explore around without thinking too much… keeps ur eyes busy while listening lol

    BreadGar,
    @BreadGar@lemmy.ca avatar

    I mean, I never thought ED boring, I kind of enjoyed seeing new planets.

    I joined an expedition of 2 no ths out in the black, exploring out there. Enjoyed all of it.

    DmMacniel, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"

    Who the Eff would expect planets to be like Disney World!?

    “We could have made a game where there are four cities and four planets,”

    Three planets and one gas giant (for now), Todd. And those probably have more diversity or non-boredness than your thousand planets.

    t3rmit3,

    As a very committed SC backer, I do not think that quote was directed at SC, I think that was just an honest assessment of the amount of work that handcrafted planets would have taken.

    DmMacniel,

    Could be, could not have been. But four planets and four cities was in my opinion quite specific.

    BlinkerFluid, do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"
    @BlinkerFluid@lemmy.one avatar

    That sounds like as good an excuse as any.

    Poopfeast420, (edited ) do gaming w Starfield's planets aren't all interesting, but they're not all "supposed to be Disney World"

    I haven’t played the game, only been watching a streamer play it, but I think arguments like “it’s boring on purpose” are dumb.

    Trying to convey the vastness of space and how small you are seems also somewhat undermined, if you’re just constantly fast traveling everywhere, and it seems like you’re made out to be the most important person in the universe, since everyone is screwed without you, but that’s just most games.

    acastcandream,

    It’s dumb because that’s a fringe argument that I hear people reference as absurd more than I’ve ever encountered it. In fact, I have yet to see one person make that justification. I’m just assuming that argument exist somewhere because so many people have complained about it.

    Starfield is yet another example of gamers getting outraged over a perceived reception, no matter how large or small that group actually is. I’m sure there are people out there making really bad defenses of the game, but the people who are angry at those people are much louder and far more numerous. 

    Most people who are playing and enjoying the game are probably perfectly capable of seeing and articulating some of the issues, but just because a game has issues doesn’t mean it’s “literally unplayable“ or whatever people like to say now. 

    I don’t know I just find these back-and-forth so repetitive. Every single game release you see this. The answer is Starfield is a perfectly fine, flawed game, that different people will react to differently. Just like any piece of media.

    Erk,

    I spent all morning dunking on the game’s issues and Bethesda’s design philosophy with some friends… But ultimately I’m having a ton of fun with the game, glad I broke my rules and purchased it early, and finding it basically fulfills the things I wish both outer worlds and no man’s sky had delivered on. It’s a good game, and it is exactly what it says it is (as far as I know. I haven’t paid a lick of attention to the ad hype): a Bethesda style open world rpg.

    I don’t really want to like it over the small studio titles that it clearly builds on, but them’s the breaks. If you’re looking for a Bethesda style open world RPG set in a sci fi world, then this game will probably be fun for you, and if you think all Bethesda style games are garbage and can’t get past their very odd design choices, then why are you ranting about starfield since obviously it’s going to be that.

    Lotta people just love to hate Bethesda. Including me really… but this ain’t it.

    Stuka, do gaming w Starfield topped 230,000 concurrent players on Steam, and it’s not officially out yet

    Is that supposed to be impressive? They are selling the game and allowing purchasers to play. If course there’s gonna be people playing.

    Harlan_Cloverseed, do gaming w Starfield topped 230,000 concurrent players on Steam, and it’s not officially out yet
    @Harlan_Cloverseed@kbin.social avatar

    It’s sad to see menu travel and cutscenes when so many games have done interplanetary travel I’m a much more fun way. Like Outer Wilds

    spite, do gaming w Starfield topped 230,000 concurrent players on Steam, and it’s not officially out yet

    I dislike the narrative that it’s “not officially out”. It is, for people who paid for it. It’s just that people who paid less need to wait.

    Kaldo,
    @Kaldo@kbin.social avatar

    I am also kinda upset that people can't post reviews on steam, it feels like cheating the system. The game is out, over 200 000 people are playing it, why can't we see its score? How is it different from any other big launch? Should all early access games not be reviewable until they are out, meaning some can't get a score for years and years?

    Kolanaki,
    !deleted6508 avatar

    It’s just that people who paid less need to wait.

    I paid $0 and I’m playing it too 😉

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