Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater. I actually was really excited for the game. But so far I am just not having fun.
For a little bit of reference, I just finished playing thru Cyberpunk 2077 and then jumped right into Starfield. Maybe that was a mistake because I kinda just want to go back to Cyberpunk (and I will in a few weeks when the DLC comes out).
But I’m noticing two really big issues with Starfield: first, the gunplay/combat is… let’s call it underwhelming. I realize it’s quite probably a skill issue and I need to just git gud, but holy crap, everything is a bullet sponge and I don’t have that many bullets! Stealth seems to be pretty worthless at early levels as I don’t have any high-alpha guns that can take advantage of it and, most of the time, I’m detected before I even see the bad guys. I’m just not enjoying this aspect of the game at all.
The second big issue for me is that there’s a loading screen every five seconds! Again, probably a me thing, but OMG, it’s driving me nuts. Get into ship, loading screen. Launch from planet, loading screen. Fly to next planet, loading screen. Land on planet, loading screen. Leave ship, loading screen. I just want to go shoot things! Let me shoot things!
Okay, found some spacers, time to… oh shit, out of ammo. Let me swap to a worse gun that still has ammo. Sigh. Okay, they’re dead. Let me just heal up… oh shit, out of med packs. Sigh.
Oh and wrestling with the UI is exhausting.
Anyways, I realize that this probably isn’t the place to find a lot of like-minded people. But I really do want to like this game. Any tips on maybe at least ways to make the combat less of a chore?
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My main complaint is the writing and worldbuilding. So far I’ve been exploring new Atlantis and picked up exclusively fetch quests from NPCs so generic and uninteresting I don’t really feel like continuing to talk to them. And the uncreative worldbuilding of authoritarian capitalists Vs libertarian capitalksts vs religious crazies. Can Bethesda not even imagine an alternative to capitalism?
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Not saying there should be fully automated luxury gay space communism, but that every faction is different flavours of capitalism is very disappointing. Sci-fi is usually a medium that criticizes the current society.
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They all also feature an alternative to capitalism alongside capitalism, which is exactly what you asked for.
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It took like a 30 seconds of web search to find the dispossessed by Ursula le guin.
Your argument is actively supporting the other commenters point about boring world building in sci fi.
Capitalism works great with RPGs leveling system.
But I’d love to have seen a cashless society where the only way to get stuff was to trade other goods.
Or some sort of social credit system, where the nicer you are and the more quests you complete, the higher your status and the more free items you unlock.
Or some authoritative system that binds you into a contract whenever you make a trade it forces you to work off your debt in all matters of ways.
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If you like it and are having fun, good for you. If you don’t like it and would rather spend time on the bazillion other games out there, you won’t be missing out much either.
At the end of the day, Starfield is just another Bethesda game. Same mould, same problems, same gameplay, with a slightly improved engine for overhauls which will be carried out by none other than free and enthusiastic modders.
Screaming at each other for liking or disliking a game is just what gamers always have been doing and will keep doing forever.
I agree about the loading screens. It didn’t drive me crazy but would have been better if there were fewer.
In regards to combat, I like it. Even many of the reviewers felt combat was one of the good things.
I’m still pretty early game, but I also like it. The sponginess means I can’t just fire a few shots at a guy’s head and call it a day, I might need to cycle through weapons, be pretty careful about taking breaks for cover, watch my health. It means my ammo gets used up a lot more, and same with health items.
Actually, Ive noticed a bit of a trend in Starfield where it seems like Bethesda is trying to push back a bit against having a massive overage of ammunition and money (without bringing the scavenging skill into it).
Having spongey enemies and a ton of different kinds of ammo means no one weapon has an absurd amount of ammo, and not having a ton of easily burgled apartments or houses means I cant just have a huge city stealing spree and come out the other end richer than I know what to do with only ten hours in.
I initially hated that there weren’t huge apartment blocks ripe for stealing, but I can sort of understand why that’s the case now and I can appreciate having a larger wind up time to becoming stupidly rich, especially with there being much higher money sinks compared to older Bethesda games between ship and outpost building. It really seems like, to me, Bethesda is purposefully trying to have a functioning economy compared with their older games where making money a non-issue was basically a part of the early game.
I haven’t checked out a ton of reviews, just two or three from trusted reviewers. The very first one I watched said they didn’t like the combat but still really enjoyed the game overall. I’m hoping I can push through to the point where I’m enjoying the rest of the game…
I think part of this is what it’s being compared to. The combat is significantly better in starfield than past Bethesda (BGS) games. People who are saying it’s great are generally comparing it to their past games.
I don’t have experience with Cyberpunks combat yet (waiting for the update to finally play it) but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s better.
Shouldn’t you be comparing to other current games in the genre, rather than past games of the company? Because if the game is better than their past games, but nothing close to current games in the genre, then that just means it’s a bad game and their past games were worse.
BGS game is a genre unto itself really. With a few exceptions for games made by another developer there really aren’t any other games that play or work the same. That said the most recent game in the genre I can think of would be Fallout 4 and the gunplay is definitely better.
No sir, you are not alone. The horrendously weak opening combined with bullet sponge gunplay, so many loading screens, a horrendous UI, boring worlds with little to nothing to do on them…I managed to make myself play for 12 hours before I gave up for good. It simply didn’t catch me at all, despite multiple attempts. Maybe in 2 years with mods, but for now it’s just time to move on for me.
What I think plagues this genre of game is that the sense of discovery is not there, like it is on a “2D” plane. What I mean by that is this:
In a game like Skyrim where you have essentially a 2D plane of area to explore, you can see in front of you all the things that are possible even without using a map. You can play the entire game without a map by following roads, seeing things that pique your interest, and just walking there.
However, in a game like Starfield, you can’t go anywhere without entering a menu and going through 4 or 5 loading screens. And you HAVE to use the menu to go places instead of just walking to something you see in the distance. It’s a huge barrier to organic discovery. And on top of that, purposely, there’s nothing to do on the vast majority of planets AND THEN, even the things that are on planets are so unimportant, they may as well not be there. An anomaly I found on a planet was 1000m away, I walked to it, and all I could do was scan it for half a second. It was just a waste of time. Buildings don’t actually seem to have anything to do in them. Caves are all empty.
It’s fun to think you can explore the galaxy, but making it too real makes it much too boring and much too difficult to feel that you’re actually discovering anything.
Edit: Another thought is that in Skyrim, you know there are things to discover, you just have to find them. In Starfield, Bethesda purposely made many of the planets devoid of anything of interest, so when you go to a new area, you’re not even sure it’s worth your time.
I have a rule about bethesda games - I don’t buy them until well after the first few patches, or the GOTY edition. I am starfield curious but also, hesitant because of No Man’s Sky. Allow me to elaborate:
NMS shipped and was garbage. But over the ensuing year, damned near everything players expected or wanted from it came to be with game altering updates that improved it’s content range enormously. It’s still not my favorite game, but every time I fire it up there’s new shit for me to do and most of it’s pretty well implemented.
I have absolutely zero expectations in this way for Starfield. They’re not going to rework space-to-ground flight or rng generated ground plots you can’t explore past; they may improve perf and qol over time, but I fundamentally doubt anything like No Man’s Sky updates are in the future.
So yeah, that makes me pause, and remember to be patient.
This is why I rented the game with gamepass. I’m so happy I did, this game is just… not fun and now I’m only out the time it has taken me to go play Sea of Stars
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The game is a mess. It’s totally lost trying to figure out it’s identity. I’ve got the answer everyone can’t quite put their finger on. Had this game came out 2 or 3 years after New Vegas it would have been heralded as the next generation in rpgs. The problem is we are well past that. Bethesda should have made this game instead of fallout 76. It would have totally fit the time frame and been forgivable.
The problem is we have multiple games that do this better in whatever aspect you prefer. Like realism space sim, that’s star citizen or elite dangerous. Want planetary exploration with life form scanning and base building? That’s no man sky.
I still find myself playing because I’m so hard gay for that Bethesda fallout choose your own adventure foundation that’s present here. But damn is it overall shit. Just embarrassing
star citizen
The barely functional game that inspired NFTs by making people buy worthless digital items for internet clout?
Starfield is basically the same recipe as past fallout/elder scrolls titles. Everyone loves to complain about them but everyone is still playing them. The fact is the choose your own adventure thing is still very much there. Just play it and have fun.
I’m so hard gay for…
Really?? Good post up to this point… /smh
Lol no one cares.
Ewww, you want that fallout penis in your butt with no lube.🤣
Yes that would be good.
I can’t even get to “meh” yet. I’m currently trying to get over all the steps backward from Fallout 4. Can’t order companions in battle, can’t swap out weapon mods, can’t use/equip items on pickup without going into menus, and the local maps. Holy crap, the local maps are bad. All that is on top of having to mod the game as usual. StarUI helped a lot, and I had to grab a sound effects mod because there was painful, high-pitched tones in a lot of the interface stuff, but it needs a lot more help. Beth’s games are starting to remind me of a Civilization series or Paradox Interactive situation where the base game is worse than a predecessor at release and doesn’t yield incremental improvement until a robust mod scene/DLC arrives.
I’ve already written off the space gameplay (that was always a long shot for us space sim fans), and if I’m being honest, the loading screen pacing isn’t all that different an experience from how I played Skyrim and FO4. I’m also taking the bullet-sponginess as a challenge to focus on weapon mods. I’m hoping once I get into a self-directed gameplay flow and get used to the quirks of the UI and zone arrangement it’ll get better.
I gotta say though, even though it had its own share of bugs, Baldur’s Gate 3 coming out a month ahead of Starfield does not invite favorable comparisons. The dialogues and quest design in BG3 run circles around what I’m seeing in Starfield so far. The “Back to Vectera” quest in particular was shockingly bad. Having multiple moments where there’s no indication of what to do next until opening the mission log to find a stealth quest update is seriously rough. I’m guessing it was unfinished? I knew there were going to have to be sacrifices made at the procedural generation altar, but seeing even the bespoke elements on the main questline be this bad does not portend well for the overall quality of the game.
Yeah its a little unfair to compare anything to BG3 so bad timing there. I think when Phantom Liberty comes out and a bunch of people jump to Cyberpunk, it’s not gonna help this game much either. lol
It’s really not, lol. In the first hour playing this I kept thinking how dated the facial animations felt. CP2077 has the best faces I’ve seen yet, and it’s not going to have this grey filter all over the place either.
Like hell it isn’t fair!
I’m definitely having a hard time giving a fuck about literally anything in SF. Shame but I’m happy to go back to bg3 ig
Old Bethesda is gone and isn’t coming back, I wish people would stop pretending like they aren’t
It is very whelming, yes. It’s exactly what I expected, and yet… I want more. At least for the things it does to be done better. Give me a reason for base building. Make the AI not just stand there like dopes and be bullet sponges when you want them to be hard (seriously, “legendaries” have 3 fucking HP bars and it’s dumb). Actually have dialogue choices that are a bit more meaningful and change things.
I’m tired of it just working. I want it to work fantastically.
It’s not just you.
In the past Bethesda was innovent. With Starfield they are just stuck in the past.
The game is so close to a loading screen simulator that it kills emmersion.
It’s funny to me how many gameplay cues Bethesda took from No Man’s Sky.
And yet, they made exploration worse because there are no seamless transitions between anything and the places that you can visit have literally no reason to explore them.
I spent 20 minutes exploring an abandoned mine, killing a bunch of Spacers and got literally nothing out of it. Wasted 4 digipicks for rooms and safes that had nothing of value in them too.
I was really excited to play. But unfortunately somehow this games makes me nauseous. Like some form of motion sickness. I play on xbox series x by the way.
Especially when you’re low on health the blur makes it worse. As well as looking through the scope of a gun.
Tried turning the motion blur and film grain of, but that doesn’t really help. Tried a few gameplay session. But everytime I play I get nauseous after a few minutes. Never had this in any other game. And I’ve been playing games all my life.
So for now I stopped playing. Hopefully they’ll be making some changes in the future, that will alleviate this. But for now it’s a no go for me unfortunately.
I find the start kinda weird. Touchy tabloid, pass out. Wake up and akwardy get forced in to ship and spooky drone watching you. Got to the new atlantis and was bored already.
Even skyrim did this better.
Explored the first planet to see whats the deal. Terrorform was uglyass mf, but standing on 1meter rock glitches it completely, and then just empty all ammo on it.
There’s worse out there trying to reach a similar audience (fucking Star Citizen is a staggering grift), and at least Starfield is an actual working game with a standard box price, but I personally find it boring, even at an aesthetic level. The story is a whole lot of capitalist realist nothing where even the wonders of FTL travel did nothing to remove the bleak corporate drudgery from the setting, as if today’s late stage capitalism would go into space with basically no changes.
(fucking Star Citizen is a staggering grift)
You know, I kickstarted that project (not gonna call it a game at this point) back when it was first announced and I’m STILL salty about it. “Wing Commander” was my first favorite game as a kid and that whole series plus Privateer and Freelancer were huge for me. I was SO excited for another game from that guy.
The worst part about the whole thing? People are still falling for it. Like, if people learned from my mistake and the project would finally die, at least I’d feel like I accomplished some small thing with the money I wasted. But no, people are still giving that grifter money for some weird reason.
You know, I kickstarted that project (not gonna call it a game at this point) back when it was first announced and I’m STILL salty about it. “Wing Commander” was my first favorite game as a kid and that whole series plus Privateer and Freelancer were huge for me. I was SO excited for another game from that guy.
I wanted it to succeed. I came from the same background as you did there. I nearly put money into it, but barely decided against it because it was hard to afford. Looking back, I’m glad, but I truly don’t blame you for putting money into it at first.
The space fascism in Star Citizen would up being glaringly terrible (and somehow worse than the fucking Confederation in the Wing Commander setting by far) and Chris Roberts putting himself directly into the lore by name was fucking cringe. And that was before the grifts really accelerated.
My biggest issue is how disconnected the worlds feel versus Elder Scrolls. Every point of interest stands alone in a sparsely decorated world, separated from all other points of interest by fast travel, unskippable animations and layers of maps.
Kinda like space.
It’s less about the distances than the tedium of getting my character from one place to another. I fast travel everywhere as usual, but now there are so many more steps to it - Getting out of the pilot seat. Docking and undocking or landing and taking off. Finding a location by clicking through the 3-layered map. - It’s way more complex than fast traveling from Windhelm to Solitude.
You can usually fast travel from one location to another, no need to take off. Just enter the menu, navigate to your location (or use the mission tab to show on map), and fast travel. Saves those multiple steps. Only exception is when you’re docked - you need to undock first.
But I agree, space travel is more complex than land.
I agree mostly with this. The bullet-sponginess makes me somewhat dislike the combat. During some random exploration, I found a nice weapon which allows me to one-shot most people. That actually helped a lot, which is one thing that made me realize how spongy things actually are. And yeah, I also found Cyberpunk’s combat better.
I’m on the fence with the menus and loading screens. Personally I just wish it was more consistent. If I set a course while sitting in the pilot’s seat, I at least get a cutscene that offers some slight immersion. If I do it from the nav table, I jump instantly to my destination regardless of where I was before. Hate that.
Personally I just wish it was more consistent.
Ha, I agree but the opposite. The cutscenes for immersion are great… the first 50 times. After that, I just want the option to SKIP IT!!!
But you can! Just use the nav table.
