Game Discussions Bethesda Softworks Starfield Space RPG
- Thread starter Lngjohnsilver1
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In my humble opinion the problem lays in what people expected or wished Starfield to be.
Starfield is in the first place a Bethesda rpg, with other elements added.
Yes I would love to see spaceflight as seen in ED or seamless exploration as in NMS but imho judging the game by the lack of these features isn't fair.
Starfield just isn't that type of game, it's an rpg in space, I never expected it to be another ED or NMS, I expected it to be a Bethesda rpg with cool additions in space as shown in the showcase.
It's not a Mass Effect clone either, ME has no spaceflight at all and has way more boundaries then those where people complain about in Starfield.
The story telling is different too because although you are the protagonist in the main story you are also this random guy building his/hers live into what you want it to be, be it smuggler, miner, pirate, vigilante, explorer, etc. and side quests and other tasks can help you become that.
If you want Starfield to be an ED or NMS like then you're gonna be disappointed, when you take it for what it is, a new Bethesda rpg in space, then you're going to be very pleasantly surprised in my opinion.
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Some players justify all Starfield's limitations by saying:"Of course it's like that, because it's a Bethesda RPG". But in my opinion, it being a role-playing game from a certain game studio does not make the constant black screen transitions, and the inability to move freely with any other means than on foot, necessary features in the game. For example, it's frustrating when after I have landed on terrain, I see some POI markers in the distance, around 1 km away, but I cannot move my ship closer to them. The only means to go to the POI:s is by walking and running, which is slow. And traveling in space by pressing a button saying "Travel (x)", after which a short animation and a black screen transition follows, is not great either.
KidsHaving serious issues using my controller tonight...busted my left thumb this morning replacing the front wheel bearings on my son's Merc 320
Why don't you fly your ship towards the target for an hour or two then press the "Travel (x)"?
Alright, honest disclaimer: I just came home from my neigbors birthday, so I am most definitely "PUI" ("posting under the influence")
anyway, a few half drunken thoughts:
Storytelling: There are two games that are extremly good at storytelling: Mass Effect Trilogy and Baldur's Gate 3. NO other game comes close. Not even slightly. Starfield is a Bethesda RPG, so the (multiple) storylines are good and fun enough, but they will never be as epic as ME Trilogy or BG 3. The characters have come a very long way since Lydia in Skyrim, but Sarah is no Shadowheart, eventhough her storyline is "good enough" to explore.
Voice acting is good. Claudia Christian (Commander Susan Ivanova in Babylon 5, Aela in Skyrim, Desdemona in Fallout 4) has a minor role again, Matt Mercer (Criticial Role, Minsc in Baldur's Gate 3, a lot of stuff in World of Warcraft) as well. Nana Visitor (Star Trek: Deep Space 9), Armin Shimerman (Star Trek: Deep Space 9) and Tim Russ (Star Trek: Voyager + some other roles in Star Trek) say "Hello there" as well. Voice acting is good. Again, not "pushing to the next level" as Baldur's Gate 3, but pretty good.
The flight model is somewhere between X4 and Elite. It's not total arcade like NMS, but also no sim. You can move power between subsystems or target enemy subsystems (like Engines to board the enemy). There's even a "blue zone" for your throttle for improved maneuverability. There's A LOT more spaceship gameplay than in Mass Effect. Frankly, my first ship in Starfield felt much more like "my home" as the Normandy in all three ME games. I can design the interiors as I wish, I can hire the crew that I want and I can walk the interiors as I please.
That being said, I should probably head for the bunk now or tomorrow is going to suck harder than Odyssey launch
I'm not justifying every limitation within Starfield, I just think that comparing it to ED or NMS shouldn't be one's way to judge the game, they're to different types of game imo.
Starfield doesn't do everything in an optimal way, the loading screens, the inventory is cumbersome and there are other things I'd like to see different.
The question is though, is Starfield with it's shortcomings a game that you'll like and have fun with, or not.
I play games for the fun and I rate games purely on that aspect, I really don't like fps games like cod, they're not fun for me so I rate them low, I really like rpg and space games with ships and when they're fun enough I rate then high, even when they have shortcomings like Starfield has and ED has as well.
As long as the shortcomings don't exceed the fun things.
Two years too late...
Having serious issues using my controller tonight...busted my left thumb this morning replacing the front wheel bearings on my son's Merc 320
I recon let a car mechanic handle that.
Fdev could've added this stuff years ago. ED's graphics are too dated and the gameplay is too grindy. It would be better for an ED sequel.
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But that's the point right, Bethesda RPG's are about the story, they aren't sims and never pretend to be sims, fast travel, in this case between planets and stars, is simply a way to move around "the map" as in every other Bethesda RPG, realistic space flight simply isn't part of the game, and this is where everyone is having the problem. Bethesda didn't make a space sim, never intended to make a space sim, they made an RPG with all the elements of classic Bethesda RPG's, and that's all they ever intended to do. Making traversing planets by flying your ship and realistic travel between planets would just add unnecessarily to the game and possibly make it another never released alpha like SC. They knew what they were making and they made it, an RPG with fast travel and that's all they ever intended to do, and by all accounts they have done a good job, but it seems the complaints are coming from people who wanted another NMS, ED or SC (shudder) which it was never and will never be.
Besides having been a soldier and a farmer (in that order), I'm also a qualified mechanic and diesel fitter...part of the job of farming unless your business is big enough to employ a farm fitter
Unfortunately, all the mechanical skill in the world doesn't make you immune to belting your hand with a 4lb lump hammer when knocking bearing shells out of a wheel hub with a coal chisel
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With my GPU sitting exactly at minimum req and my CPU probably sitting above I started downloading it today to see for myself.
Okay, so i'm good. Played 6 hours of in game time of tweaking (maybe 40 mins of that was listening to the lodge dialog).
Its very playable on a 1080ti with the following:
That results in spinning around infront of the mast building in new atlantis at basically 30fps.
Speaking of.. when looking at the clutter i keep getting reminded of the same achievement as ... max payne 2 did at the time, which was in a league of its own for a while. At least in the lodge, and very nice.
Okay, now all i have to do is play the game. Already got my moneys worth.. next! lol
Bonus tech video of platform comparisons:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UdfsQV8sW5w
Its very playable on a 1080ti with the following:
- Ultra preset as base
- 1080p with the frame rate limited to 30 in the nvidia driver (no other changes required)
- FSR resolution set to 86%.. subjectively i think there's a required minimum because with the images too sharp, the differences in model quality distract
- Crowd density set to low (possibly more, my cpu can't manage it)
- Grass quality set to medium (apparently this is mainly culling distance, so the plants you do see should look the same)
- Ultra config same as out of the box except for shadows, which is set as:
Code:
[Shadows]
fShadowCascadeSplitDistance0=10.0
fShadowCascadeSplitDistance1=30.0
fShadowCascadeSplitDistance2=80.0
fShadowCascadeSplitDistance3=600.0
uTerrainShadowMapSize=2048
uShadowMapCount4096=0
uShadowMapCount2048=10
uShadowMapCount1024=16
uShadowMapCount512=32
uShadowMapCount256=128
uShadowMapCount128=128
uDirectionalLightShadowMapResolution=2048
uFocusShadowResolution=2048
uShadowFilteringQuality=2
uShadowFilteringTransparencies=1
bContactShadowsEnabled=1
uTotalDynamicShadowMapRenderCount=12
uAdditionalDynamicOnlyLightsBudget=3
bDirectionalShadowmapsUseLODFade=1That results in spinning around infront of the mast building in new atlantis at basically 30fps.
Speaking of.. when looking at the clutter i keep getting reminded of the same achievement as ... max payne 2 did at the time, which was in a league of its own for a while. At least in the lodge, and very nice.
Okay, now all i have to do is play the game. Already got my moneys worth.. next! lol
Bonus tech video of platform comparisons:
I, uh, might be addicted to this game. This is really a fantastic experience. It is the type of roleplaying space game I've wanted for years. Yeah, the space travel portion is the weakest link (I am hoping we see Bethesda take some feedback and better flesh out space in the first DLC coming next year), but the rest of the game...wow. Here' something I really got a kick out of.
I took a break from the main quest and the various major side mission activities to try a mission board activity. Like in Elite, there are various mission boards around the star cluster that give you proc gen missions to earn some credits. I took the easiest sounding one I could find tonight, which was to transport two workers to a mining outpost on some frozen moon in some star system I never heard of. Now, when I took it and headed back to my ship, what I expected was what we get with Elite: some sort of brief message that the passengers were on board and ready to go. What I didn't expect was to actually see them hanging around the inside of my ship!
One is sitting on the break room table, and the other is sleeping in my bunk (doesn't my character look annoyed?)! The guy with his arms crossed warned me about not taking contraband to the system because they scan for it.
Well, the trip was actually longer than I thought, requiring a bunch of jumps through star systems with a significantly higher level than my current Lvl 6 character, so I was careful to avoid trouble. Other than this debris field, there was none:
(I wrote a book)
We landed at the designated locale and the two fellas disembarked my ship and headed off into the night:
That was simple but fun, just like in Elite but with a heck of a lot more of that all important immersion. There were a bunch of interesting sites around that I could have explored once they left for additional fun, but this being a much higher level planet than me, I didn't dare go looking for trouble.
Man, I love this game!
Here's something that made me smile:
I took a break from the main quest and the various major side mission activities to try a mission board activity. Like in Elite, there are various mission boards around the star cluster that give you proc gen missions to earn some credits. I took the easiest sounding one I could find tonight, which was to transport two workers to a mining outpost on some frozen moon in some star system I never heard of. Now, when I took it and headed back to my ship, what I expected was what we get with Elite: some sort of brief message that the passengers were on board and ready to go. What I didn't expect was to actually see them hanging around the inside of my ship!
One is sitting on the break room table, and the other is sleeping in my bunk (doesn't my character look annoyed?
)! The guy with his arms crossed warned me about not taking contraband to the system because they scan for it.Well, the trip was actually longer than I thought, requiring a bunch of jumps through star systems with a significantly higher level than my current Lvl 6 character, so I was careful to avoid trouble. Other than this debris field, there was none:
(I wrote a book
)We landed at the designated locale and the two fellas disembarked my ship and headed off into the night:
That was simple but fun, just like in Elite but with a heck of a lot more of that all important immersion. There were a bunch of interesting sites around that I could have explored once they left for additional fun, but this being a much higher level planet than me, I didn't dare go looking for trouble.
Man, I love this game!
Here's something that made me smile:
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I, uh, might be addicted to this game. This is really a fantastic experience. It is the type of roleplaying space game I've wanted for years. Yeah, the space travel portion is the weakest link (I am hoping we see Bethesda take some feedback and better flesh out space in the first DLC coming next year), but the rest of the game...wow. Here' something I really got a kick out of.
I took a break from the main quest and the various major side mission activities to try a mission board activity. Like in Elite, there are various mission boards around the star cluster that give you proc gen missions to earn some credits. I took the easiest sounding one I could find tonight, which was to transport two workers to a mining outpost on some frozen moon in some star system I never heard of. Now, when I took it and headed back to my ship, what I expected was what we get with Elite: some sort of brief message that the passengers were on board and ready to go. What I didn't expect was to actually see them hanging around the inside of my ship!
View attachment 366609
One is sitting on the break room table, and the other is sleeping in my bunk (doesn't my character look annoyed?
Well, the trip was actually longer than I thought, requiring a bunch of jumps through star systems with a significantly higher level than my current Lvl 6 character, so I was careful to avoid trouble. Other than this debris field, there was none:
View attachment 366610
(I wrote a book
We landed at the designated locale and the two fellas debarked my ship and headed off into the night:
View attachment 366611
That was simple but fun, just like in Elite but with a heck of a lot more of that all important immersion. There were a bunch of interesting sites around that I could have explored once they left for additional fun, but this being a much higher level planet than me, I didn't dare go looking for trouble.
Man, I love this game!
Here's something that made me smile:
Looking at the game play, if you'd have shown me this in the mid-80s when we were playing the Traveler RPG (paper & pencil) and Elite on the ZX, it looks like a perfect mesh off the two, or what we dreamed of back then for what an 'advanced' computer game would be like. As my first PC-game RPG, I absolutely cannot wait to get stuck into this.
I never imagined back then the graphics would be so good (for games in general, not just Starfield).
Looking forward to playing this on my new PC next week.
I never imagined back then the graphics would be so good (for games in general, not just Starfield).
Looking forward to playing this on my new PC next week.
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Very much so, which is why the main plot being complete rubbish takes such a huge chunk out of it.
Without that I have to be looking for something other to absorb me, though sneaking around a significantly higher level planet than my character yielded a bunch of decent gear.
I doubt it's going to hold my attention for long but an interesting distraction for a while.
Yeah but, the game engine isn't a space sim game engine. SC have failed in making a playable game mainly because the game engine they are trying to use wasn't a space sim engine to start with the the massive amount of customising they have done to it hasn't really helped that much. It's quite possible that the game engine Bethesda are using simply won't be able to do what you want it to do, and why should it? They aren't making a space sim, and any desire for a space sim by players can be amply fulfilled simply by playing one of the games that is a space sim, or at least has pretensions to being a space sim anyway.
I would almost guarantee you won't have fully rendered planets in SF like NMS and ED, that's not a simple thing to do,and if you don't start out with the right engine, well you aren't going to get there. The same with fully realised and rendered solar systems with realistic flight models and physics, if you don't start out with the right engine you aren't going to get there. It is what it is, an RPG set on different planets with fast travel between them.
Good plots are hard to implement in a game, I think you have to start out with someone who can actually write a good plot to start with, and so many games just start with devs who know how to write code and managers who, well, don't.
To an extent but they did far better than this in FO4, in fact I'd hazard that several of the side quests could have been fleshed out to become the main plot.