This is the thread for discussing Starfield. If my questions and opinions (which have all been on-topic) offend you, please just click "ignore" on my avatar, and you can go back to whatever discussions meet your approval.
Game Discussions Bethesda Softworks Starfield Space RPG
- Thread starter Lngjohnsilver1
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No problem. It (shuffled procgen planets) was just something that people put out there (along with a lot of other things that ended up not true) about the game before it released. I actually think I prefer a more "stable" universe. I suspect modders and even Bethesda with DLC will continue to add to this universe over time, should one get bored with the (how many are there?) solar systems in the game.
I don't know really what happens to the resources but I do know that when I find an abandoned facility with pirates or such that you in your game or me in a next game won't find that facility there probably.
If I find a cool weapon or piece of equipment then it has no point telling where I found it, either the piece of gear will be different or the whole facility won't be in someone else's game even.
I'm still in my first playthrough, no ng+, so I can't really tell what all the differences are with a new game.
Unless cool item is in a scripted location.
And the best gear is in scripted locations.
The rando stuff however becomes very repetitive very quickly.
I agree with Old Duck regarding the trading (or lack thereof) and it's something that annoyed me in the Fallout games.I assume the same is true in the Elder Scrolls games.
Yeah, I understood that planets would be randomly "created" with each gamestart (e.g. resources, flora&fauna etc.). There had been a Dev interview where something like that was mentioned, but I may have misunderstood the Dev there.
IIRC it's ~100 systems with ~1000 planets (give or take)
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Outpost shenanigans
I constructed yet another outpost, this time it's a proper farm. I finally found a reliable supply of Adhesives and Polymer
Date night & Gas Giant
Taking wifey out for a romantic walk on the moon of a gas giant and mercilessly slaughtering a bunch of nearby pirates. Relationship goals achieved
Not all cool stuff is found in predetermined places though, I found an incredibly good Mealstrom on a random abandoned science lab pretty early in the game, it still is my favorite rifle.
The random stuff getting repetitive is a difference in preference imho, I love searching for those random facilities, especially when I'm in need for some cash, the loot is often a good credit boost and more then once have I found documents that after reading give you a permanent boost to your stats.
There are a lot of misconceptions about Starfield. Sure, there's a lot of content that is randomly placed and might also repeat at some point, because there is a finite number of handcrafted installations that you might find on planets outside of the fixed (or as you put it, stable) locations.
For a normal player who doesn't specifically look for limitations like that, all of that doesn't really matter though, because this procedural, random content isn't the mainstay of the game (like in Elite) but just a small part of it. I've played almost 100 hours by now and I'm only a few missions into the main quest and haven't even started the big faction questlines yet. Of the four large cities of the game, I've only visited two so far. It's hard to convey how ridiculously, unfathomably huge this game is. There are sidequests at every corner (often picked up just by walking by someone on the street and overhearing a conversation) that lead you into a rabbit hole of hours of gameplay with tons of environmental storytelling.
One example from today:
When I first arrived at the large city of New Atlantis at the beginning of the game, at the immigration control point, there were a few refugees who recently fled from a scientific starbase that was attacked by a faction of religious extremists. In the game, you walk by these people and overhear the conversation. You can then enter into conversation with them and one of the scientists explains what happened. I would imagine a lot of players will just walk by this scene because there are more interesting things ahead. Later in the game, you meet a few of these refugees again. One little boy is reunited with his family, and the scientist is now working at the central administration of the United Colonies. He asks for you to maybe bring his research data that he had to leave behind on the starbase. So it's a classic fetch quest in principle. But it's one that took me two hours to do because this station is huge, with three decks and tons of rooms and labs for you to explore. The labs have sealed doors that you can open via computer terminals to have a bunch of pretty nasty level 30+ insectoid aliens swarm over the terrorists who are still occupying the station. You can also read the computer logs on the station, providing some of the backstory, you can also get a glimpse into the research they were doing on Alien flora and fauna to work on cancer treatments. The game often provides backstory like this, with personal notepads, audio logs and books that remind me a lot of System Shock.
Like I said, that was just one very little sidequest. In the quest log it doesn't even appear as a real quest but under "activities" which is a list of miscellaneous stuff you pick up by chance. In my game, that list by now has more than a dozen entries....
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Has anyone come across any good characters?
By "good", i mean the character has depth, like a "neloth" or "cicero"... among others from skyrim.
Characters who show aspects of more extreme "human related" behaviour?
Or good quotes worth a giggle?
No spoilers, just if they are present.
By "good", i mean the character has depth, like a "neloth" or "cicero"... among others from skyrim.
Characters who show aspects of more extreme "human related" behaviour?
Or good quotes worth a giggle?
No spoilers, just if they are present.
I've got the invincibilty flag for essential NPCs disabled, so anytime my character lands on a planet with fauna, I have to spend 15 minutes exterminatng everything within 500 meters of the LZ so Vasco doesn't get himself killed by insisting on standing outside the ship.
The surface component pf pretty much every abandoned lab has a table with an Advanced Regulator on it, which will be the best weapon most players will have for the first 20-25 levels.
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This is how I also play RPGs, where I actively avoid the main quest so not to miss the various side quests and "experiencing the world". I prefer RPGs where you can't even attempt doing the main quest without doing at least some of the side quests, because a low-level character doesn't stand a chance against the bosses found in the main quest. In fact, this is my favorite part of a good RPG - growing my character and learning what skills work best to overcome different enemies, testing out new gear, etc. I'm not sure if I've done any tech-based RPGs, however. Gaining magic abilities (or even skills with swords, shields, bows, etc) over time makes sense to me in the RPG setting. How this works with things like guns I'm not picturing, unless specific guns are locked behind minimum skill levels. I guess one might argue that RDR2 is an RPG, but it's not the same as a game that has giants and dragons and other top-tier monsters that just laugh at low-level characters with Walmart bows and Sabine's "mastery" of the Force. In RDR2, a headshot is a headshot, be it the beginning of the game or the end. I'd argue that Elite is more of an RPG (with ships and weapons being the "character") than RDR2 in that regard, since the average person won't be owning a HAZRES in their starter Sidewinder. It even has crafting!
So now I'm curious - is Starfield more like RDR2 or the stereotypical RPG, and if the latter, how does the leveling system work? Is it a game of DPS vs hitpoints on higher-armored personnel with weapon upgrades being the "stat" one focuses on?
No offense taken. As I said, just an observation.
It's like every other Bethesda game in recent years in that regard. If you have played Fallout 4 or Fallout 76, you know what I mean. The only main difference is that star systems have a fixed "Level" and if you're entering a level 70 system as a level 5 character, you're probably going to be in trouble. It never felt like a game of dps vs hitpoints so far (very, very different from Elite). Even "tougher" enemies go down much more quickly than in Elite and if all else fails, there aren't many problems that cannot be fixed by applying adequate amounts of explosives (just bring the grenade launcher).
Weapon upgrades change the characteristics of your weapons, not just raw DPS. Hip fire accuracy vs accuracy aiming-down sights, semi vs auto mode. Reloading speed vs ammo capacity vs specialized rounts (like armor piercing). You can adapt the weapon to your personal and favorite playstyle.
A level up will grant you a skillpoint that you can then allocate. Sometimes you want to max out a skill for certain benefits, sometimes it's enough to put only one point in it. E.g. putting one skill point in "Persuasion" will allow you to use the "Persuasion" option in many dialogues, investing more skill points (up to 5) will "only" increase the chance of success.
I'm approaching Level 50 now and I still feel like I need much more skill points than I actually have available right now. It's not a bad thing, far from it actually. I have to make an impactful decision, but without the feeling of getting "punished" for my choices.
sigh I spent my savings on a ship and now I'm unhappy with the layout. I'm gonna have to take it apart and redesign. I can B-class now and switched to particle with this one. Is there a way to build a ship from scratch?
I'm level 25 now and just encountered Starborn, got my first two powers - neat. My planned outposts are kinda up now, it takes some major building still, but I guess the basic Fe+Al mats are now available with Be and He to boot. Need to figure out the cargo links and scale up extraction. Is there a way to increase outpost radius?
Collecting a lot of weapons, got some neat ones but I constantly run out of ammo with my favs. So I need backups when I run dry, lol. So far "shattering" trait and AP ammo seem to serve well. There is also penetrator rounds which I'm unsure about whether they also pierce hard cover.
Melee turned out to be not very great, it's a lot of hacking, but I used it successfully against melee enemies.
I'm level 25 now and just encountered Starborn, got my first two powers - neat. My planned outposts are kinda up now, it takes some major building still, but I guess the basic Fe+Al mats are now available with Be and He to boot. Need to figure out the cargo links and scale up extraction. Is there a way to increase outpost radius?
Collecting a lot of weapons, got some neat ones but I constantly run out of ammo with my favs. So I need backups when I run dry, lol. So far "shattering" trait and AP ammo seem to serve well. There is also penetrator rounds which I'm unsure about whether they also pierce hard cover.
Melee turned out to be not very great, it's a lot of hacking, but I used it successfully against melee enemies.
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While I don't expect any game to become a "master of all things" like Star Citizen supposedly attempts to be, I'm also opposed to artificial constraints. "It's an RPG, so of course it doesn't have an economy or 6DoF flight or [insert thing forbidden in an RPG]" just doesn't cut it with me. This isn't a knock against Starfield, but rather this "Two dimensional thinking" that puts artificial limits on games based on proclaimed (self or external) category labels. Going faster than light may be impossible IRL, but programming an RPG that has a rudimentary economy (or a trading game with role play aspects) is not only possible, it should be relatively trivial, at least compared to other programming challenges a game like Starfield (or Elite for that matter) overcomes.
I can certainly understand, and even agree with, this sentiment. But I can also understand, and agree with, the desire of developers to not overcomplicate their games with mechanics from other genres. There’s a reason the proverbial “everything” game remains perpetually out of reach for gamers: unnecessary features frequently lead to undesirable results.
For example, I once played an RPG where the devs decided they wanted a realistic economy. The instant I realized I could make more money trading between towns than adventuring, I stopped going on adventures, and started trading instead. Eventually, after a long and dull grind, I was able to max out my equipment, and the proceeded to curb-stop the entire RPG quest line.
I was a kid at the time, and thought I was being quite clever. These days, I'd just shake my head at the devs adding such an obvious exploit, and ignored it in favor of having fun and challenging adventure.
There’s a phase legendary developer Ralph Koster used to describe this kind of thinking among many gamers: “Water finds a crack.” It doesn't matter how dull an action is, or how long it takes, if it's the less risky option than doing it straight, some players will do it... and then complain about the developers "forcing" them to do it that way. It's why games like Elite Dangerous have a reputation for being a "dull grind," despite the fact that grinding is completely optional and also rather inefficient: the game allows you to do it, and some players will do so.
That's the reason why I expected Starfield to have an "RPG economy," specifically a "Karl Marx Hates Your Guts" type economy rather than a "Adam Smith Hates Your Guts" one. It's not because I thought the devs were lazy or incompetent. It's because I knew the game designers at Bethesda were competent, knew better than to include trading economy in an RPG, and since it was an open world game, they preferred the former over the latter. It would've been nice to trade between the stars, due to it being an RPG, but I wasn't expecting it.
You can setup mining outposts and generate income by selling minerals though. I find that is quite economical gameplay.
I found it starting very slow but once the game opened up I don't mind a bit of it now and then. I'm taking my sweet time and enjoying the journey and really going in and out of everything. I learned long ago with Elite my organic journey through ships was my favorite part and once I got big credits and could do anything it really lost a lot of the allure.FWIW, TBH I got not sucked in (yet?) after 8 hours of play. It was way different with Fallout 3 | 4.
Maybe it's the story, but it feels like Tomb Raider lair up to now. Not exactly thrilled.
On to ED.
O7,
I'm going to make the first run and the magic last as long as possible. I'm doing some things to slow myself down as well. I dress and arm appropriately for what I'm doing. No buying ammo, I use whatever I have the most of for the current armament keeping weapons fresh and really maintaining that scrounging aspect. I also try to outfit realisticly and account for weight. So only a reasonable amount of ammo for the loadout and limit myself to medkits as well. I am also trying to only mine manually whatever resources I need for crafting as I encounter them exploring. I have cheated by buying adhesive though as I havnt figured out how to craft it.
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I suspect that it's a little from column A, and a little from column B.
The solar systems and planets themselves seem to be hand crafted, and don't change between games as far as I can tell. Even the materials on the surface seem to be the same. The actual landing sites, on the other hand, do. Here's the exact same landing zone on two different characters, when I decided to test that exact same thing:
Besides the obvious change from day to night, the hill on the right side of first screen shot from the first character changes into a structure on the second.
Furthermore, I've seen evidence that if you reload a save later, what's on the map can change until you actually see the POIs, as can the minor details of those POIs. I wish I'd remembered to save the screen shot of it at the time, while trying to set up the exact same shot for comparison purposes, my first attempt had windmills on the left side. I've also turned the corner of a structure I'd been clearing of pirates, and found something very different after dying from a mine the first time.
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Finding a supplier for the mats you need is pretty much legit RPG game, no cheating at all. I mean you get mission orders to deliver bulk amounts of ressources to the staryards.
btw, "Staryards" - anyone know whether Neon has a ship outfitter? I couldn't find the technician at the presumed office on the landing pad.
And Neon is a fricken fishing port - how cool is that!
Freestar Rambler - lots of corny puns. Don't know Neloth, is that a DLC? I think characters are more or less the general Bethesda level. Companions are a bit more fleshed out, but they sure bond quickly in SF now. I liked Ellie, an NPC from a companion questline so far as probably most authentic yet.
You come across a lot of characters and some stick out more. Corrupt governors, heroic marines (yeah there is a cool one I liked as well, uncompromising soldier-loved by their people), the crowd occasionally has funny lines and the side quests actually are often pretty good with motives and dialogue.
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