this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
132 points (93.4% liked)

Starfield

2870 readers
1 users here now

Welcome to the Starfield community on Lemmy.zip!

Helpful links:

Spoiler policy:

Post & comment spoiler syntax:

<spoiler here>

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Draegur@lemm.ee 87 points 1 year ago (6 children)

To be fair, most of the cosmos in real life is literally empty. However, realism is overrated. The whole reason we play video games is because real life sucks.

[–] Kichae@kbin.social 29 points 1 year ago

I mean, some of us play sci-fi games because we want to experience the reality that's still out of reach to us.

Not Bethesda products, of course, but, you know. Games.

[–] Psythik@lemm.ee 6 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Unless it's a driving game. Arcade-style racers just aren't fun. You barely have to use the brakes (if at all), and the AI cheats. I much rather play a racing sim.

Otherwise I agree.

[–] Sami_Uso@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

I have a sim race setup in my living room and play ACC and compete in iracing events. That being said, you're not going to tell me Burnout Paradise isn't fun. It serves a purpose. I don't go into it looking for ACC level brake temperatures or tire wear, i go into it to drive 150mph around corners and smash into other cars.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[–] Yepthatsme@kbin.social 46 points 1 year ago (5 children)

I spent 20 hours exploring one solar system alone. Yea some planets are empty. Not many though. The complaints so far are really shallow.

[–] peopleproblems@lemmy.world 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Man you can spend so much time digging through a base to find neat shit and story

shallow isn't what I'd call these complaints, I'd call them childish. I'm having a ton of fun

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Cold_Brew_Enema@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

thIS gAme iS lIke a pUdDle cUz itS SHalLOw

[–] DarkThoughts@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

I've heard this phrase, or iterations of it, so many times over the years, especially in regards to space games, that I'm convinced the people spewing it constantly have absolutely no idea what a deep space game actually is. I think they're just there to complain regardless of how much depth there is.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] FMT99@lemmy.world 45 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I really don't think the empty planets are the problem. Space Engineers has empty planets. Stationeers has empty planets. But they have interesting things to do on those empty planets. Problems to solve. Systems to build and improve.

Everything in Starfield feels like more clicking through (horribly outdated) menus and inventory screens. Between those and the loading screens, the only time the game is really fun is when you're shooting pirates. But there are games that do that part much much better.

I think that's how I'd summarize the whole game: lots of things to do but none of it has any depth and everything has been done much better elsewhere.

[–] massive_bereavement@kbin.social 28 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (11 children)

When they said this would be hard sci-fi, I actually imagined myself piloting an actual space ship and doing astronaut things, not a glorified magic plane.

If someone is looking for what Starfield offers but better, here are my recommendations at a fraction of cost:

  • Space combat, but better: Everspace, Everspace 2, House of the Dying Sun, Chorus, FTL
  • Hard(ish) Sci-fi shooter, but better: Titanfall 2, Call of Duty Infinity Warfare, Mass Effect (technically not FPS)
  • Exploration, but better: Outer wilds, No Man's Sky, Astroneer, Deep Rock Galactic (I would say subnautica but that's not really space).
  • Privateering, but better: Star traders: Frontiers (Though not 3D).

Maybe the issue is that this game, like NMS before, tried to be everything to everyone and didn't develop towards something meaningful.

Hopefully, like NMS will find its soul and develop into something worth playing. (IMO)

EDIT: This is a stealthy way of getting recommendations ;)

[–] Vivarevo@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

Eve Online for the cutthroat privateer life.

[–] Wahots@pawb.social 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (10 children)

If you like these sorts of games (particularly games like Titanfall and Subnautica, or DRG), you might really like Elite Dangerous. Has a big learning curve, but it's a "once every decade or two" game when it comes to scratching a deep deep Sci fi itch. 1:1* milky way, set thousands of years in the future, with a variety of ships and missions,with excellent HOTAS and VR support. Co-op up to five people, even more if you are in a public server. FPS game with a variety of vehicles, from small cars to aircraft carriers 4x the length of the burj Khalifa.

  • the milky way is cut down slightly, as the core of our galaxy is so dense with stars, it melts computers and makes it impossible to fly between stars, which are almost as dense as sand in a sandbox.
load more comments (10 replies)
[–] jet@hackertalks.com 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Surprised you didn't mention the star citizen and space engineers. They have that I'm a space mining cowboy aspect nailed down pretty well.

[–] Amaltheamannen@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Star citizen is more of an overpriced ship-store than an actual game.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (8 replies)
[–] EvilMonkeySlayer@kbin.social 17 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I think for me everything doesn't feel connected, to go anywhere it's always a loading screen. It is very clearly a limitation of their engine, but it just makes everything feel disconnected.

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 14 points 1 year ago

To boldly load where no one has loaded before

[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 9 points 1 year ago

I think this is my issue too. Oblivion and Skryim had loading screens sure, but everything felt connected and purposeful - the whole spaceship mechanic can be entirely skipped with fast travel and just leaves everything so disconnected.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] BaroqueInMind@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Bethesda games are puddles of water: wide with content, but completely shallow in depth.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] Notorious_handholder@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (7 children)

Everything in Starfield feels like more clicking through (horribly outdated) menus and inventory screens. Between those and the loading screens, the only time the game is really fun is when you're shooting pirates. But there are games that do that part much much better.

This is just a summary of modern Bethesda games in a nutshell, except forgetting to mention bugs as well.

I really don't know what people where expecting with Starfield

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] NOT_RICK@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago (10 children)

I really can’t decide if I agree or not. Only had a chance to play 4 hours or so. My main impression so far is the menus are clunky and I hate how reliant travel is on the menu system. Doesn’t feel like I’m actually piloting anything

[–] Axxi@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

My argument for why landing on the moon wasn't boring is they actually got to pilot the ship, landing it safely on the surface. If the astronauts had a cut scene where they were suddenly landing safely just so they could then fast travel home, having nothing to do on the surface would've been far more of an issue.

"We choose to go to the Moon in this game and do the other things, not because they are easy, but to watch the cutscene"

[–] thesprongler@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

I thought that fast-travel-via-menu was clunky too after 4 hours. Then I realized you don't need to use the menus to fast travel, it's just perhaps clunkier to do so from your cockpit. Aim at a planet, go into scan mode, then tap A and hold X (on controller). Here's a video demoing it.

There are several less than intuitive features in the game that I'm slowing discovering by paying more attention to the prompts at the bottom of the screen. I may have missed a tooltip but it seems this is a very common one based on negative feedback.

[–] FrankFrankson@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

The person that made FallUI (a solid UI mod for Fallout 4 that fixes inventory management amd other stuff) released a mod for Starfield's inventory last night.

https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/773?tab=description

[–] BaroqueInMind@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago (2 children)

200 million dollar budget, as large as a summer blockbuster film, yet a dude with his free time fixed an issue that was the devs responsibility. Remind me why this game is $70?

[–] c0c0c0@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (4 children)

UI elements are usually designed to work on the lowest common denominator. Small screens, struggling cpus, etc. Modders don't care about any of that.

load more comments (4 replies)
[–] EvilMonkeySlayer@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The people who're emotionally invested in something will almost always make something better than the developers themselves.

[–] snooggums@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Part of that is the ability to focus on improving on all of the work that already exists and the other part is being able to unilaterally make decisions while being emotionally invested.

Developers are often spending the majority of the time making sure whatever gameplay exists passes testing without breaking the overall compromise vision that is limited by time and money for deadlines. Companies don't allow enough time for polish and frequently have decisions made based on the added cost of labor and testing tha mods don't have since mods having bugs is an acceptable situation for people while a company putting out bugs is generally met with hostility. Different levels of standards and costs have a huge impact on why many mods vastly improve the game in ways that don't fit into the game development process.

Plus a lot of mods are focused on a specific part and don't appeal to the playerbase as a whole.

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[–] samus12345@lemmy.world 25 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

"Everyone's concerned that empty planets are going to be boring. But when the astronauts went to the moon, there was nothing there. They certainly weren't bored."

Um, yeah, because going to the moon was a novel thing in 1969. It isn't 360 years later. Reminds me of the Futurama pilot when Fry was excited to go to the moon and it was just another boring trip for everyone else.

[–] ElBarto@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

Also, they actually went to the moon, not play a game where they went to the moon, being on an empty moon would be way more thrilling of an experience than playing a video game.

[–] Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone 22 points 1 year ago (4 children)

It's true, some of them ARE empty by design...but the problem is, a world with life on it in Starfield is barely more interesting than the barren rock. It is still almost ALL randomly generated, there just happens to be more wildlife to scan while you run across the boring landscape, and maybe an animal will try to kill you.

Oh, and the pointless radiant quest you get will be from a solar farm on the nice planet, instead of a mining platform on the barren one. There is very little difference.

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@literature.cafe 10 points 1 year ago (7 children)

I do not understand Bethesda's insistence on "Radiant" quests.

load more comments (7 replies)
load more comments (3 replies)
[–] DmMacniel@feddit.de 13 points 1 year ago

I just played two hours and called it quits as I was walking, jumping, and hovering in "mid air" on Luna. No Sun to see, but the Luna Surface was .... illuminated and the features threw somehow shadows? Where is the light coming from? Why is there no conversation of moment? This is truly Skyrim in space.

[–] fckreddit@lemmy.ml 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I feel like Starfield should have removed the space travel mechanics. It could instead have opted for Mass Effect style travel menu..

Also, they could have gone for a handful of highly detailed planets.

[–] EvilMonkeySlayer@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I think the most fun I've had has been the spaceship building. I've only done a bit of space combat, but the spaceship builder while not perfect (like the inability to rotate parts) I quite liked.

[–] pimento64@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 year ago (3 children)

the spaceship builder while not perfect (like the inability to rotate parts)

Please tell me you're exaggerating for humorous effect

[–] Skyhighatrist@lemmy.ca 6 points 1 year ago

No, best you can do is flip a part so that the connector is on the other side. But if a part is meant to connect on a side connector, there's no way to attach it to a top connector or bottom connector. Parts cannot be rotated.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[–] Kolanaki@yiffit.net 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

If it was boring, nobody would want to visit the Moon or Mars IRL, and yet... People do want to do that. 🤷🏻‍♂️

Of course, in the game even the "empty" planets are not actually empty. There are plenty of POIs to find from wrecked spaceships to clandestine bases to naturally forming caves. You just can't find them without landing and walking around. Sometimes for hours, because the planet is huge and you can only explore it on foot.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] 8rhn6t6s@lemmy.world 8 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Outer Wilds had a few planets but it was still fun

[–] jet@hackertalks.com 8 points 1 year ago

The environmental storytelling was really good.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›