I don’t have this game yet but I know out of the box modding any of the Fallout or Elder Scrolls games disables achievements (but you can get around this with other mods), so I assume it’s the same here. Bethesda games being some of the most modded games of all time I wouldn’t be surprised if even a lot of first time players were using one or two mods and having their achievements disabled.
Starfield has been out for long enough now that anyone interested in playing it likely already has.
Not even close, especially not in the year that also brought us Baldur’s Gate and Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. How much free time does this writer think everyone has?
They were actually fairly accurate that it’s their least buggy title yet. That’s not to say there are none, but they are few and far between. The game just isn’t that fun for now. Animations take too long (currently already mods to fix most of them), traveling is boring, outposts suck, and just so much QoL changes are needed. Bug fixing isn’t really required from my experience. Plenty of other fixes are though.
Yup, definitely interested in Starfield. But at the moment still enjoying Act I of BG3, Cyberpunk 2077 patch 2.0 and DLC are right around the corner and after I’ve finished those Cityies: Skylines 2 will be available. So I’ll probably have time for Starfield somewhere early 2024, depending on if my recurring Satisfactory itch hits before that. But by that time more official and unofficial bugfixes and QoL mods will be available, so I’m fine with waiting a bit longer to play. This year is just filled with too many goodies. 😁
I’ve played Starfield (did not purchase it on Steam…) and it’s alright. I haven’t finished it, and I won’t be for a while. It’s is missing so much QoL and so many thing will need the mod toolkit for modders to fix, which isn’t available yet. It should not be purchased by anyone at the moment. You’ll have a better time in several months, and it’ll quite possibly be cheaper.
There’s so much else to play. I’m wanting to get around to Armored Core 6 sometime, but Payday 3 is coming out, and Cities Skylines 2 and Counter Strike 2 (both CS2, and cities dropped it’s ‘:’ to add to the confusion) are coming soon. I may hop back into Cyberpunk if I get around to it, but it’s on the lower end of the list. There’s literally no reason for anyone to bother purchasing Starfield for a bit.
Yeah this one is most definitely back burnered cause it didn’t launch with DLSS and Bethesda always has a million bugs. I’ll wait for the mods to fix everything and play the polished games first.
For what it’s worth, I am one of these people. I’d already watched a couple of streamers play random sidequests, but when I saw the early game I just couldn’t stomach playing any further.
If I use a sample size of me and use my library of a measurement, it’s probably more than 25% of games I haven’t even launched let alone completing the first mission.
Achievement % stats are so comically skewed by various factors that they mean basically nothing. There’s an achievement in Minecraft for literally just opening your inventory for the first time but only 60% of Xbox players have it.
That achievement is likely to gather more accurate statistics due to the problems you mention. The Amid Evil devs can now confidently say that 12.7% of players who own the game have never started it. Meaning they can subtract that number from other achievement percentages to get a better idea of how many people are progressing certain ways.
The same is likely true for Minecraft’s inventory achievement, though that’s slightly less useful, as some players may make it a little further without opening the inventory and then stop forever.
Leaving the first planet in Stafield takes a little more effort, but not much. It’s safe to say that some of the 25% of players who haven’t done it haven’t ever opened the game. But that number will probably be close to 10%.
Steam does not count games that have never been launched. For 12.7% of the players the game probably quit under a bit different circumstances: game crashed or they lost internet connectivity.
Has this writer never used Steam or is he just unaware how many people buy games they don’t actually play
Firstly: If you had ever used Steam, you’d know that Steam differentiates between “have game in the library” and “have previously played a game”. A bought game that was never launched, doesn’t show up in these stats.
Secondly: It’s clear you did not bother to read the article. “The numbers take into account players on Xbox, as well as those playing the Game Pass/Windows Store version of the game on PC.” The 25% number isn’t even from Steam.
Given that they have you meet a cowboy at the end of that mission, it is kinda understandable. I wonder who thought that having a cowboy as a main character would be a good idea for people outside of the US.
Cowboys could easily appeal to people from Canada, Mexico, and Argentina as well. I’ve come across a disturbing number of British men who harbor secret fantasies of being wild west cowboys, so probably them too.
They were absolutely trying to appeal to Americans by making a cowboy character. Americans go nuts for cowboys. Everyone is downright obsessed with them. You can’t find a single home in the country without seeing cowboy memorabilia and they watch cowboy movies on the weekends, it’s crazy
I live in CA, literally entrenched in the history of “the old west” and I can honestly say not a single person I know has any cowboy memorabilia in their homes lol.
My dad had a little cast iron statue of a cowboy wrangling a bull on his desk at work growing up (a gift from a client) , but that is literally the only instance I can think of lol
And I also don’t know a single person who regularly watches cowboy movies, I can’t even remember the last time a cowboy movie was made in the US… I think that remake with Chris Pratt?
It’s a classic figure in western culture… and a fitting character given his story and the planet he’s from. We’ve had plenty cowboys in movies, comic strips and I’m from europe… Not my favourite setting but it works…
Whats wrong with a space cowboy? His faction is often referred to as lawless and wild. They believe in a wild sort of freedom. Astronauts are kinda space cowboys anyway. Also space cowboys are not a new concept in media. What about a cowboy would make people not get the tutorial?
It certainly put me off. Personally, I hate it when sci-fi writers use worn-out stereotypes in futuristic settings. Like the ‘Irish, but not Irish’ episode of StarTrek TNG.
I’d already seen a couple of streamers play random side quests, and this intro just made me definitively realise that this was not the game for me.
I think that 25% would be comprised of people that bought the game and haven’t had much time to play, or use console command right away and disable achievements. Speedrunners, modmakers, and general hackers would use console commands liberally as they should be the same as Fallout/Elder Scrolls games.
Yeah, for a Bethesda game, 25% of people using mods right out of the gate is frankly totally believable.
And while starfield isn’t perfect, people not finishing the first mission would hardly be an indictment against the game itself, who judges if a game is worth playing in the first mission? Usually - and especially in games like this - the first mission has practically nothing to do with the standard gameplay
I wouldn't be surprised if it's higher; there are people who mod who will also go out of their way to get achievements and people who don't care about achievements at all.
I personally love the game for what it is. There's no one else out there making anything all that similar to a Bethesda RPG. I do think that some portion saw the performance and set it aside for that reason, though. Especially gamepass people.
I definetely fall under that umbrella, I’ve got mods downloaded, but didn’t bother with the achievement mod. I downloaded my mods after the first mission though.
I’m enjoying starfield for sure, but I think it does have a fair few faults, though I’ll be the first to admit that a lot of them are subjective. For instance I can’t stand bullet sponge enemies and the bullet sponge is strong with starfield. Drives me crazy when I can literally empty an entire magazine of an auto shotgun pointblank into an enemies face, and have it only take them down to like 40% health lol. I grabbed a mod that helps with it, but its still pretty bad, even with that mod, and it breaks the balance a bit. Hoping that once proper mod support is in we get something better.
I also think the whole “spaceship” part of the game is pretty half-baked, I wasn’t expecting E:D levels of piloting immersion, but I’d have hoped for more than basically a series of menus and loading screens for interstellar travel. Additionally ship combat balancing is pretty rough, all the encounters I’ve done so far have felt comically easy, or ridiculously hard (The final mission of a certain UC Vanguard mission comes to mind…)
Overall though I’m definetely having a lot of fun though, and while there are bugs, it’s definetely one the least buggy Bethesda titles we’ve seen so far, and definetely less buggy (in my experience) than BG3
So the way I play, I bought a silenced rifle early and spent my perks on stealth and ballistics. Most humans a few levels above me are single headshots from stealth or 2-3 shots once they know where I am. To me, that TTK feels pretty good, and I tend to be able to use space to attack at range and the boost pack for position.
I could see other approaches feeling less good, but that specific style feels pretty comparable to the later Deus Ex games I liked or Cyberpunk, but with better mobility.
I don't love the spaceship combat, at least that I've played so far (though it's been kind of minimal through 20 hours), but I don't like many. The only exception I can think of that really clicked for me was star citizen with a full stick and throttle, and I don't love most others, so I can't really evaluate that super well. I definitely don't think it's the focus, but it's weird that people expected stuff that only a very small handful of pretty pure space sims do and they never promised (flying down to planets). I don't love the number of loading screens, but on steam deck the length isn't awful, so I live with them.
That would probably help, but I find stealth builds to be really dull in Bethesda games. I do agree though that the mobility is great, I just wish there was zero-g combat (if there is, and I haven’t gotten there yet, no spoilers plz)
And yeah star citizen has the best flight model and ship combat mechanics imo - it’s a shame about the rest of the game… And to be fair there, there’s only so much you can do that with a flight model when it’s primarily going to be played on KBM or a game pad, but some games manage to do pretty damn well (Everspace comes to mind as a game with really excellent gamepad controls for spaceflight)
to be fair regarding what was promised, the vast majority of gamers arent out here reading every interview about the game ahead of time, so you can’t blame them for seeing a game that takes place in space, with stuff like ship building being one of its big selling points, and then blame them for expecting it to have features on par with the other big name space games from the last decade. Just because it’s not promised, doesn’t mean it’s not missed 🤷🏼♂️ like I said though, it’s really not a deal breaker, it just would have been a big selling point for me personally.
There’s some zero G combat areas you can come across. Like other Bethesda games, the main quest isn’t where you have the best interactions.
Level up the ship building skills and turrets will kill in space battles sometimes too fast. I rarely get the chance to board and steal the ships unless I scale back and turn off weapons.
If you want to stay in the game, you can target planets and moons from the cockpit to travel without opening up the Star map. Only scanning has to bring up the map. Random space encounters can be more enjoyable than some of the Fallout 4 ones.
the main quest isn’t where you have the best interactions.
No worries there, I’ve been focusing on faction quests and stuff like that for the most part, only occasionally dipping into the main quest for a few missions. One thing I feel like Bethesda did well with the writing of Starfield is that they finally made the main quest not world-saving urgent (at least not from the get-go). In practically every other bethesda game I can think of, the player starts off pretty much right from the start with a “Hurry! We need to do [Quest] before [Bad Thing] happens!”, which inevitably kills the immersion a bit when you go fuck around for a solid month just exploring and doing side-quests. But in Starfield it makes perfect sense that you’re not necessarily out there every single day chasing down artifacts, at the beginning of the game, they’re just a curiosity
It's not something that's close to regular for space games, either. I can name one game off the top of my head that has it (No Man's Sky), and there's very little else going for it. That one feature combined with endless planets less interesting than Starfield's is close to the whole game.
I’m sure there are others, but it’s really not as uncommon as you’re making it sound, especially for AAA titles. I’d also argue it’s disingenuous to say that No Man’s Sky has “very little else going for it”. It was shit at launch, but they’ve built a really solid game now.
Again (and I feel like I need to keep re-iterating this, because people on this site are so sensitive about any criticism to their favorite games) Starfield is fun. That just doesn’t mean that it couldn’t have been better, and there’s nothing wrong with pointing out the areas we feel it fell short. Really, I think what Yahtzee Croshaw said about Tears of the Kingdom applies here - “If the game had these things, you wouldn’t be saying they didn’t matter”
This article has a pretty negative slant, but is anyone actually sad they’re going? I’ve been playing on and off since 2014, and I never have enough shards. My friends that have played almost nonstop since launch constantly have more than they could ever spend, even if they masterworked every piece of gear in their collection. Seems like a good change, honestly.
It’s definitely a good change. I have so many legendary shards that the currency might as well not exist, but my newer friends are constantly running out. It’s a good change for everyone.
I have over 50k shards that I will never use so it’ll be sad to see the high number go away but other than that, I couldn’t imagine a soul being bothered by the legendary shard change. It’s honestly a great thing to help simplify parts of the games economy for new and returning players
I have way more than I could possibly need, and really don’t mind their idea to remove them. What I am a bit “salty” over is the lack of currency exchange for their removal.
I would love to trade in a bunch to get prisms, ascendant alloys or the one to get the enhanced perks (I forget the name). But Bungie still has their arbitrary limits in place. Again, I support the removal, but I did still grind to accumulate them, so not being able to turn them into something useful feels like a waste.
Why do we need to keep pitting these games against each other, aside from being set in space they’re not even remotely similar gameplay wise. One is a survival game framework, the other is a RPG/Lifesim. There’s plenty of room for both in the market.
Starfield held my interest for a week. It’s okay, but it’s my least favorite polygon-based Bethesda game besides F76. The aging engine just wasn’t made for a game of this scope. I tried No Man’s Sky and didn’t like it, just not my thing.
I’ve played to 150 on fo76, the funniest thing to me is that npcs were an after thought for 76 and still feel more real than starfields citizens… So odd
It’s like Cyberpunk again, people gave themselves grand ideas about what a game would be regardless of what the Devs were saying, then got upset it isn’t the game they imagined but the one they were told they were getting.
I get what you’re saying, this happens with almost every major release but cyberpunk promised far for than it delivered. The version 2.0 that released soon should have been what we got in the initial release. We were promised multiplayer, that got cancelled. We were promised multiple dlc, phantom liberty is the only dlc they’re going to release. I’m still excited nonetheless.
They would be very similar. if Bethesda was competent both games have lots of similar elements from, yes having ships to scanning resources on a planet to having a jetpack. So it is fair and understandtable to compare these games pretty much the biggest difference is that Bethesda not having seamless apace travel and I ain’t letting them off the hook for “well they are just different games 🤓” bullshit.
Depends, of you’re jumping to a system you have enough range/fuel for it is, it don’t need to be scanned to enter the sector, sometimes your forced to go though other places you may want to avoid.
I don’t think it’s unfair to point out that many of the people who were interested in Starfield leading up to launch thought they were getting more of a space sim than they did, proceeded to look for alternatives, and NMS was there being pretty good at what it does now. The OP article demonstrates this and is not a comparison between the games. In my case, Starfield just reminded me that NMS exists and I decided I’d rather be playing it. Fundamentally comparing the games is ridiculous, but it’s no surprise that NMS ended up in the conversation.
I recently started playing NMS again right before Echoes, although I didn’t know Echoes was coming up. While I never made a conscious link between seeing all of the news about Starfield and me choosing that game when I was last looking through the plethora for something to inspire me, I think it may have had a subconscious effect on my choice.
Maybe they should have paid attention to what was actually being said by the Devs then. They clarified that it wasn’t going to be like NMS/Elite/etc at least a year out from release.
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