this post was submitted on 02 Oct 2024
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Starfield steam page for the DLC currently shows eight user review score of 41%, making this one of the worst Bethesda DLC's released of all time. This is so horribly, shockingly bad for Bethesda, because it shows as a gaming company, they are no longer capable of delivering a really good gaming experience as they had in the past. Some of the reviews sum up quite nicely what is wrong with this DLC....

Less content than any skyrim DLC. Less than The Fallout 4 story DLCs. Doesn't change of the complaints people had with the base game, writing is still at a 4th grade level.

Quick: If you are looking to buy my answer is no, you aren't missing much content. I was really hoping to enjoy this DLC. Took about 4 hours for the main story and maybe 2 more hours to 100% the achievements.

These two reviews I think really summed up what Starfield has become, $70 for an AAAA title that has extremely little buy-in from the community, horrifically low amount of replayability and can be breezed through easily. It's mind-boggling to see this

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[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 169 points 1 month ago (11 children)

Remember when Cyberpunk fucked up their release. They knew they fucked up and owed it to the gamers. They told their board and stockholders to hold off, and that they needed to rebuild trust with their users before they could make line go up.

So they took their time, they redid many of the mechanics that people didn't like, the fixed all of the bugs, and then they released Phantom Liberty - one of the best expansions I have ever seen in gaming history. Good enough where it could have been a game on it's own.

That is how you rebuild trust with the community. You tell your stockholders to shut the fuck up and let you do what you do best. If they don't trust you to do that, then fuck em, they can sell their stock, why are they holding stock in a company they don't trust?

[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 76 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Post-2.0 Cyberpunk is one of the best gaming experiences I've had in a long time. You can tell it's a product of effort, and love for the project. They have taken in a considerable amount of feedback from pre-1.5.

Meanwhile, Starfield is a complete miss in just about every way imaginable, and the expansion has followed through the same footsteps. On top of that, the studio actively gaslit people who expressed disapproval, even when it was constructive criticism.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 54 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I fully expect them to say it's getting "review bombed" now, which is the current industry redefining of a term to make it come off as "It's not us, it's the stupid gamer's fault"

[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 29 points 1 month ago

It's not a review bomb if it's fully deserved. If you make a bad product, you deserve a bad review, and maybe Bethesda should have thought about that ahead of time

[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago (3 children)

Did they fix the driving?

That was the one and only reason I gave up the game. It was amazing from the start, and then I got in a car and it was horrible, and I stopped.

[–] dinckelman@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I never found that to be an issue, personally. It's not as satisfying, as it is in other games, but i enjoyed it enough

[–] fushuan@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Bad cars don't have good maneuverability is you full press the speeding stick, I imagine that that stick is an acceleration pedal and only full press it when I don't need to do sharp turns. I would say that cars feel maybe too real.

[–] Orygin@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

You playing with a controller? I always thought the driving was optimized for the controller as I can't half press acceleration on a keyboard.
It's a little bit better after the updates, but it's still suboptimal I think.

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[–] TommySoda@lemmy.world 43 points 1 month ago (12 children)

Same with No Man's Sky. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but they buckled down and delivered on almost every promise that they failed on back at release. Not only that but every update since the game came out has been for free. Both No Man's Sky and Cyberpunk are fantastic games, and they were garbage on release. Bethesda has been doing the opposite approach and avoiding feedback from fans since Skyrim came out the first time.

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[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 40 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Cyberpunk was buggy, unoptimized, and kind of unfinished, but the fundamental game design was sound.

Starfield on the other hand is broken at its core. The Bethesda RPG experience just does not translate to the open worlds space map they built the game on. So they can't take the cyberpunk approach because they'd have to build an entirely different game from scratch.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 27 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I don't know why anyone decided that that engine was the right way to go. The number one thing that killed the game for me was the endless loading screens. Constantly. Whenever I started feeling immersed, a new loading screen would pop up and it ruined it for me. We have engines left and right that don't need to do this anymore, but starfield, the game that's trying to base itself to be a realistic exploration game, decided that endless loading screens were still the best way to go

[–] acosmichippo@lemmy.world 27 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

even without the loading screens it would still be terrible. get a quest, go to your ship, take off, travel to other system, land, exit your ship, walk to destination, reverse all that to turn the quest in, rinse and repeat. it's just a tedious experience.

the best part of Bethesda games is just being able to wander around aimlessly in a pretty environment, likely stumbling upon little easter eggs or side quests along the way. none of that exists in Starfield.

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 6 points 1 month ago

Reading it like that, the loop sounds straight off Diablo 1 on PSX. Get quests, head to the dungeon, loading screen, wipe the floor, loading screen, wipe next floor, back to town, loading screen, turn in.

That kind of loop is not bad in itself, but Bethesda applied it to the wrong type of game.

[–] BuboScandiacus@mander.xyz 3 points 1 month ago

You just described mass effect

[–] antithetical@lemmy.deedium.nl 8 points 1 month ago (2 children)

That was one of the things that really helped with the immersion for me in Witcher 3 and even Cyberpunk. You walk into a building, house, etc and the world outside just continued and was present. I'm still quite impressed with their engine and it is a bit sad that they'll be switching to UE5 for the next Witcher.

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[–] intensely_human@lemm.ee 13 points 1 month ago

Given the amount of the playable game that takes place on foot, they should have called it Field

[–] HeavyRaptor@lemmy.zip 26 points 1 month ago (4 children)

The difference is, there is no fixing Starfield, it is rotten to the core. You would have to re-do most of the story elements and writing, and the disjointed, empty world. On top of that you'd have to fix the bugs and technical limitations like the constant loading screens. At this point you would be throwing out most of the game and basically starting from scratch with a few systems done, like the ship building and possibly gunplay.

I think cyberpunk never became what many wanted, but if you let go of your expectations, it is a good game.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 7 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Funny thing is that shipbuilding also felt annoying to me. There were so many arbitrary restrictions that I felt like I couldn't actually make the ship I wanted, it always felt the same

[–] Jarmer@slrpnk.net 3 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (1 children)

That's exactly how I felt too. I tried SO MANY times to build the ship I wanted. Never could get it done. I even console-command-cheated vendor stock to allow myself access to every part at my home base, and even STILL THEN I could never get it the way I wanted it. It was important to me for role-playing purposes for every crew member on board to have their own bed, and a good kitchen, living space, bathrooms, etc... Stuff that just makes sense for a spaceship that is essentially a flying house. But so many times I could never get the damn ship builder to do what I wanted. I'd change some random part, and then BAM some of my beds would disappear for no reason? Ok well now two of my crew members have nowhere to sleep. wtf.

Just wound up abandoning my entire build and going back to the same ol ship I'd been using the whole game.

spoilerIt's also absolutely bizarre to me that the end-game ship, the one I had been looking forward to for SO LONG is just completely and totally 100% empty. When I had my crew members on board, they just stood still in place and stared at the wall. What the hell is going on here!??!?!?! That really ruined the entire ship for me. Could never get over that.

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[–] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 17 points 1 month ago (5 children)

I might need to revisit cyberpunk, I didn't know an expansion was ever released. I kind of hit max level doing mostly side quests within 4 months of launch and lost interest.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)

It's pretty legit. It stands on it's own, and they also improved the base game quite a bit. I'd suggest it for sure

[–] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 4 points 1 month ago (2 children)

I was having fun, despite the flaws at launch. I'm sure with improvements and more content it'll be a great one to revisit.

[–] halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world 7 points 1 month ago

Phantom Liberty is a great expansion in its own right, combined with the 2.0 changes just made the entire experience better.

Oh trust me, I had a decent time playing it. I played through it 100%, did all the side stuff, did the base building - everything. But, I still felt annoyed and bored a good chunk of the time. The game was fine. But it was only fine. I wouldn't say it was revolutionary or anything Bethesda said, it was just.... fine.

[–] teft@lemmy.world 16 points 1 month ago (2 children)

They changed a lot, but in a good way. I had also spent a while away from the game and came back recently for the expansion. It's really good.

I would suggest starting a new character from scratch if you pick up the DLC. You'll really appreciate the new changes to cyberwear that way.

[–] Letstakealook@lemm.ee 7 points 1 month ago

I would definitely need a new character, nothing worse than picking up an old save and having zero clue about what's going on in game. I think I'll put that on my list, I really did enjoy the game at the time I played it, and I definitely got 100 hours playtime from it.

[–] the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I've had it sitting in my library, maybe it's finally time to play it. Which is the better voice actor to pick, dude or chick?

[–] teft@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I prefer the male voice but the female voice is more emotive. Plus the female avatar gets a nice story with Judy.

[–] VindictiveJudge@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

I'm the opposite. I prefer the fem VA, but I like Panam just a bit more than Judy.

[–] pseudonaut@lemmy.world 8 points 1 month ago

It's REALLY good.

[–] Dudewitbow@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 month ago

basically the major points of change was launch, then cyberpunk edgerunners clothing dlc patch (1.0 but bigs fixed). 2.0 rewrote some of the games mechanics that dropped before the expansion. and then the expansion was released (which added new endings)

[–] gcheliotis@lemmy.world 3 points 1 month ago

I’m waiting for the ultimate edition that will include everything here

[–] net00@lemm.ee 14 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I mean, it all hinged in the fact that under all those glitches and bugged mechanics CDPR still had a nice game. Starfield can't be salvaged cuz the core game is just mediocre shit.

I wanna say it's a failed IP at this point, but who knows how many copies sold. What is sure is it doesn't deserve any more of my time. I have the DLC but won't reinstall that garbage

[–] ICastFist@programming.dev 4 points 1 month ago

It certainly sold a lot. Bethesda once claimed to have over 10 million players across all platforms. Even if we assume half of those were using gamepass, that's still 5 million sales.

Of course, if you compare it to Fallout 4's first 6 months, with reported 12 million sales on day-one, that's a significant letdown.

Starfield is a very real "could have been", if only [huge list of changes] happened.

[–] exu@feditown.com 6 points 1 month ago

I didn't play it at the time because of the bugs, but from what I saw the good parts of Cyberpunk were already present. Stuff like storytelling, interesting characters etc.
Starfield has none of that.

[–] VelvetStorm@lemmy.world 5 points 1 month ago

I'm still mad the monowire doesn't work how it was said it would and that the cops can't be bribed and shit like that. It's a great game now and a lot of fun to play but I won't ever trust another game company again like I did with them after they made witcher 3.

[–] inb4_FoundTheVegan@lemmy.world 4 points 1 month ago

I just finished playing it for the first time and I was blown away right from the start! Guess I'm glad I waited for the polish, but the world design, voice acting and overall storyline was absolutely fantastic. I couldn't help feel bad for all the artists that clearly put a lot of love in to the world only to be overshadowed by bugs and poor implementation.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 3 points 1 month ago (2 children)

On that note, how is Cyberpunk still 60 euros on Steam? I know it's been getting better with the DLC and everything, but the game's been out for ages.

That said, I might have to buy Phantom Liberty. I bought and finished the base game like 2 or 3 years ago I think and I really enjoyed it even back then.

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[–] Carighan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 month ago

... And still could bit fix that some keys are hardcoded. But I agree, with expansion the game was quite enjoyable.