Starfield discussion thread

[Vayra86]

Oblivion was a 9/10 for me, Skyrim was a 6/10, Fallout was a 4/10, So far I would give this a 7/10. The reality is people need to stop acting like a 7/10 is bad.

Reviews even by users are very subjective if my system was lets say a 3070 I would probably not be enjoying it as much due to how much poorer the performance was if I had the average system on steam I wouldn't even bother.

Oh yeah man... and even besides the hardware, its all about the 'phase' you're in as a gamer. Like, if this kind of exploration game is new to you and it clicks, you'll burn north of a hundred hours with no problem whatsoever. If you know the formula and you seek to hoard your stuff to build your legacy, this is all you play. If you're looking for a deep story driven RPG, you're going to be fking annoyed I reckon - even the intro was already 100% skippable dialogue. And if you wanted that deep space exploration sim, I reckon you'll also be annoyed pretty soon. I mean, its not that. At all.

 

[evernessince]

Man that is a lot of upset PS5 fanboys..... To be fair Fallout 4 was about the same.

I think it's more down to the difference in how steam and metacritic rate games. Steam only has a thumbs up and a thumbs down system where as metacritic has you rate a game out of 10, which enables far greater granularity. On steam people may give a game they found mediocre a thumbs up where as on metacritic they may only give that game a 5, 6, or 7. I don't leave many reviews on steam as a result of this. If I feel like a game is a 6 or 7 I'm forced on steam to give it a thumbs up but I don't necessarily feel like the game has earned what appears on steam as a wholly positive endorsement with no caveats. The result is that medicore games tend to go pushed up as compared to their rating in a more granular system. I can't tell you how many times I've impulsed purchased games with a high 80 positive percentage rating only to find out that are extremely mediocre across the board. Ultimately when you are looking at the percentage of positive reviews on steam you should heavily take this into account.

I feel the actual rating for starfield is somewhere between the two, around 72-77 based off the 30 or so hours of gameplay from various people I've watched thus far. I'd say that if you are having fun with the game, enjoy it. How a game feels to you and to another person are not mutually exclusive, in that you both can be correct given the subjective nature of the topic.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

Oh yeah man... and even besides the hardware, its all about the 'phase' you're in as a gamer. Like, if this kind of exploration game is new to you and it clicks, you'll burn north of a hundred hours with no problem whatsoever. If you know the formula and you seek to hoard your stuff to build your legacy, this is all you play. If you're looking for a deep story driven RPG, you're going to be fking annoyed I reckon - even the intro was already 100% skippable dialogue. And if you wanted that deep space exploration sim, I reckon you'll also be annoyed pretty soon. I mean, its not that. At all.

My Jam is JRPGs so it's really hard for me to get into western RPG to the point that a 5/10 JRPG is easier for me to get into than a 7/10 Western RPG. It's always been a struggle but I am digging this. I think the reason Oblivion stood out to me so much is it was the first game I played like that. I remember contracting Porphyric Hemophelia and having to figure out how to cure myself I thought it was so awesome back then.

 

[Vayra86]

My Jam is JRPGs so it's really hard for me to get into western RPG to the point that a 5/10 JRPG is easier for me to get into than a 7/10 Western RPG. It's always been a struggle but I am digging this. I think the reason Oblivion stood out to me so much is it was the first game I played like that. I remember contracting Porphyric Hemophelia and having to figure out how to cure myself I thought it was so awesome back then.

Oblivion WAS awesome. I mean, just on the face of what it offered. Crafting your own spells; shortly after the first story quests the gates of hell open up all over the place, and they offer shiny loots and lots of XP, progression was on the one hand annoying, but on the other totally exploitable so that kinda fixed itself (Stealth 100 by just jamming the controller stick running against a wall somewhere)... and the stat progression was such that at the end of a skill bar you'd feel godly in that skill. Skyrim lost a lot of these things; spellcasting went from godly to plain annoying; the progression / skill tree was a godawful mess...

I think Oblivion also found a nice middle ground between decent RPG-ish stat progression and playability; whereas Morrowind was too clunky in that aspect, and Skyrim tossed out virtually all stats while barely improving playability.

 

[thesmokingman]

The DOD spent millions on a AI robot that followed Marines into combat for months to train the AI to recognize what the elite forces did. At the end of the training the company had to put the unit to the test, the Marines would fail if it sighted them and transmitted their positions. The bot would fail if the marines could physically touch it.

The AI failed.

One group of marines simply did cartwheels for half a mile and the AI being AI was unaware that human soldiers could or would do cartwheels right up to it. Another group grabbed an empty box and used it like a turtle shell and slowly marched up to it and touched it.

Yea this. Humans fail to understand how AI learns especially in cases of Vision based nets. AI only knows what it's taught so for now it's easy to trick cuz Humans!

 

[MarsM4N]

Man that is a lot of upset PS5 fanboys..... To be fair Fallout 4 was about the same.

Yea there are quite some shady reviews included. Tons of "0" or "10" ratings, and if you click on the profile it's the only game they rated. Often even both versions, PC & xBox. But they balance each other out. Just look at the "Mixed Reviews" ratings with lots of text. Their criticism is pretty much spot on & what I would criticize, too.

My personal highlight reviews: AlfaMode /// kuzon64 /// Ubersnacks

 

[Vayra86]

OK New Atlantis is a different can of FPS worms

CPU usage now circling 85% and GPU usage <100%

Crowd Density Low gives me more utilization but only barely so. Its clearly the engine loading lots of actors.
We're also past 8GB.

Still... not terrible! FO4 was worse. Fár worse.

 

[mama]

By shield I take it you mean shield generator? Will Any shield generator work though, or is each one specific to a certain ship or ship class? Same question about engines? My main problem right now is I can't repair the hull while in battle due to having no ship parts, and the shield doesn't seem to regenerate on it's own. I'm also wondering how effective ANY of the shield generators are because the max I see is 10% on regen rate, and I have no idea what that means, but it seems like it would be WAY too slow to have it regen effectively during battles. This is why I'm thinking of getting a better engine too, because I can't move fast enough to avoid being destroyed.

I think the level of upgrade is linked to the trait system. To get access to better gear you need to a ship engineer or similar. Similarly to repair ships better you need the applicable trait. I'm still working this out. I upgraded my shield by changing to another shield type in the ship builder. Changing one thing effects other components which may also need to be upgraded. I have two further engine components, two storage bays, better gravitational drive but the weapon systems on the Frontier seem hard to change. I will explore building a fresh ship when I have the trait for it or buy one that is better off the shelf.

 

[Macro Device]

FO4 was worse

I ran it with completely no issues whatsoever at 4KUltra using a humble GTX 1080 Ti with my 8-core ES RKL CPU chilling at ~25% load. Had about 100 FPS there. But I don't know how bad optimisation was when FO4 was released...

 

[Space Lynx]

Well yeah but Cyberpunk actually looks nice and a 7900XT still produces 30% more FPS

Although with a few tweaks this seems alright. Practically running ultra 3440x1440 here with 85% FSR2 scaling. I really need that neutral LUT thing though because god almighty. WRU black

This is 7900XT + 8700K with an undervolt. CPU load? Nah

View attachment 312724

i get 160 fps in that same scene you have pictured here at 1440p with a 7900 xt. only 2560 though wide.

if you want to see the definition of cute, check out this bot i found. lmao "assertive beeps"

 

[Solaris17]

i get 160 fps in that same scene you have pictured here at 1440p with a 7900 xt. only 2560 though wide.

if you want to see the definition of cute, check out this bot i found. lmao "assertive beeps"

*assertive beeps* died

 

[Dr. Dro]

View attachment 312593

TBF customer support agents aren't really gamers, and they don't really know what they're talking about... this guy was probably trained to cross reference a list that they were given that likely has no mention of Intel. The A770 is leaps and bounds ahead of the 1070 Ti after all.

I honestly dont know where to buy them. I usually get enough from blown up ships.

Even in Starfield I cant get away from the extend warranty scammers. Omg this game has everything.

View attachment 312626

LOL there's way too many funny encounters with ships... this one is a nod to the Vault-Tec guy from Fallout 4 in a way.

Spoiler

lonely rock researcher with a damaged ship, or the schoolteacher with a busted grav drive, and even a roaming Chunks restaurant ship

I can't wait for the DLC and the planets... I'm 72 hours in so I think I'm probably approaching the end of the main quest. I don't wanna spoil much so take this next spoiler very seriously and don't open it unless you've reached or is past the quest "High Price to Pay"

Spoiler: important: do not open until High Price to Pay

This quest can deeply affect character relationships, especially if you romanced Sarah Morgan or Sam Coe: if you stay in the Lodge to defend the artifacts, Sarah Morgan will die, if you go to the moon to rescue the Constellation crew in the Eye, Sam Coe will die. If you had married either of them before, this will leave you widowed - and with their commitment gift weighing 0.25 on your inventory to boot. You will get their respective costumes as a lousy reward, but keep this in mind if you plan to romance either the space mommy or the space cowboy.

Finally, the MetaCritic User Reviews are in! And they aren't that easy on the game like on STEAM (80%), lol.

View attachment 312715

https://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/starfield/user-reviews

The problem with Metacritic being, it has zero trust base, and is known for trolls griefing up reviews due to their own personal biases. A lot of these are disgruntled PlayStation diehards who can't play the game and are review bombing it on this service. Metacritic should have shut down 10 years ago, it serves no purpose anymore, as even the so-called "game journos" have their own websites these days.

Also regarding game stability: I've been rather fortunate... no crashes to this point, even with very long sessions... yesterday I pulled the mother of all all-nighters over 16h30 playing non-stop, without performance degradation issues. As messy as it is, at least it seems to be a coherent mess. Hope the patches improve performance retaining stability.

 

[cdawall]

Did anyone ask the developers, if they even bothered with mGPU support at all in the game engine?

So far nope. I’m stuck single carding it

 

[Lost_Troll]

So far, I am loving this game with 40 hours into it, and I just now played around with upgrading the ship they give you in the beginning.

 

[ShiBDiB]

6.5/10 seems fair. Good but not great, flawed but not broken. Combat is meh because of the AI. Graphics range from awesome to disappointing. Immersion feels like it should be better.

Curious what the modding scene can do with it. Seems like there's potential to make it more sandboxy and dynamic but not sure if the engine would explode if you added more background processes for it to handle.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Starfield player tricks AI with 'unbeatable ship' made only of corners

The silver bullet to Starfield's enemy AI? Empty space.

www.pcgamer.com

how do these people figure this shit out, it blows me away sometimes lol

Right? It was likely accidental though.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

So far, I am loving this game with 40 hours into it, and I just now played around with upgrading the ship they give you in the beginning.

View attachment 312766

Any chance you can post the list of upgrades and prices, and maybe a short clip of what she can do in a dog fight? I'm looking to do the same as I'm in no man's land between being able to buy a better ship and doing a more cost effective upgrade on the Frontier. Would be much appreciated and good fun to watch I think.

 

[Space Lynx]

me after maxing out all my skill points in boost pack, timestamped:

 

[AusWolf]

Oblivion WAS awesome. I mean, just on the face of what it offered. Crafting your own spells; shortly after the first story quests the gates of hell open up all over the place, and they offer shiny loots and lots of XP, progression was on the one hand annoying, but on the other totally exploitable so that kinda fixed itself (Stealth 100 by just jamming the controller stick running against a wall somewhere)... and the stat progression was such that at the end of a skill bar you'd feel godly in that skill. Skyrim lost a lot of these things; spellcasting went from godly to plain annoying; the progression / skill tree was a godawful mess...

I think Oblivion also found a nice middle ground between decent RPG-ish stat progression and playability; whereas Morrowind was too clunky in that aspect, and Skyrim tossed out virtually all stats while barely improving playability.

The only problem with Oblivion was the major/minor skill differentiation. If you choose the wrong major skills, and levelled up faster than you increased your combat skills, your character essentially became useless by lvl 20, and the game never warned you.

 

[Space Lynx]

not sure if anyone else noticed this yet, but reviews have dropped it down to mostly positive

 

[AusWolf]

View attachment 312771

not sure if anyone else noticed this yet, but reviews have dropped it down to mostly positive

I never believe reviews of AAA games, because they're too biased by expectations and hype most of the time.

 

[evernessince]

The only problem with Oblivion was the major/minor skill differentiation. If you choose the wrong major skills, and levelled up faster than you increased your combat skills, your character essentially became useless by lvl 20, and the game never warned you.

To be fair to oblivion though, the kind of dynamic leveling it had where the enemies would level up with you was pretty new at the time. Skyrim still had the same issue if you leveled up non-combat skills too quickly. They tried to offset it in Skyrim by setting certain areas in the game up as fixed level but it didn't really solve the issue. FO4 and Starfield don't have this issue because you are just getting EXP to level up your character and not leveling up individual skills. The downside is that it's less satisfying that instead of leveling up your character's shooting skill by shooting or training or leveling up your crafting skill by crafting you simply do whatever, get exp, and put a skill / perk point into it. They try to balance this in starfield by requiring you to do some basic things to unlock the next level of a skill tier but it's really far and away from having individual skill levels. That's all down to the fact that ever since Skyrim Bethesda have been pushing their games to be more targeted towards a general audience, which means less deep RPG systems. I remember watching the documentary on Skyrim and seeing how the entire games design was shaped around this concept. They drastically reduced dungeon complexity to ensure players had an easy to navigate linear path, they always made sure the end of the dungeon looped around to the start to ensure the maximum convenience, and they designed their quest hubs around the theme park concept wherein the quest hubs and quests would usually be within a certain distance and typically through the course of going to or completing a quest you would see something else interesting getting you to pickup another quest and thus ensuring a cycle that keeps the player repeating the loop.

Really oblivion established a lot of the technology they still use today and Skyrim honed their overarching design philosophy. I don't think starfield has done much to advance that forumula but I suspect a lot of Bethesda's time was spent even getting a game the scale of starfield working on their engine. If I had to pick one feature that stands out the most in Starfield it's the ship creator, which could have massive potential in a game that put much more effort into the space combat.

 

[AusWolf]

To be fair to oblivion though, the kind of dynamic leveling it had where the enemies would level up with you was pretty new at the time.

Not only that, but the fact that you had skills like acrobatics that you could level up by jumping around instead of walking, or athletics that you could level up by running which you were doing all the time anyway. If you had these as major skills, then your main level grew, together with the level of enemies, while your attributes and your combat skills didn't, ending up in you not being able to play the game anymore due to every enemy being OP as F.

Don't get me wrong, I love Oblivion, and I think it's probably the best Elder Scrolls game yet (mainly because of its landscape design, music, and the general atmosphere), but I much prefer Syrim's simpler leveling system. If Oblivion had that, it would be the perfect game in my opinion.

 

[Vayra86]

The only problem with Oblivion was the major/minor skill differentiation. If you choose the wrong major skills, and levelled up faster than you increased your combat skills, your character essentially became useless by lvl 20, and the game never warned you.

Superbly exploitable too: walking around as a practical master at level 5 was np either because of it. The game did tell you this at level up, but its still misty indeed... also how you can level up barely getting any bonus stats is like.. okay. But thats EXACTLY the sense of freedom the game conveys to you everywhere; do whatever, just dont expect it to work well.

This is games not taking the player by the hand, and honestly we have lost that somewhere... but its exactly the key to great gaming; you will fail, misinterpret and eventually figure it out and practically rediscover the game that way.

I mean look at BG3 right now. Yes you can just roll a single class and be fine. But then you slowly figure out how powerful multiclassing can be and theres a whole new minmax game to play. Quests work the same way; the game lets you figure it out and you will fail half of them along the way; it actually adds to the game.

Back on topic... Starfield is growing on me, to be fair. There certainly is a lot to do and I just spent a half hour strolling around a planet and killing herds of wildlife. The No Mans Sky vibe was overwhelming; the whole gameplay loop was there lol.

 

[AusWolf]

Superbly exploitable too: walking around as a practical master at level 5 was np either because of it. The game did tell you this at level up, but its still misty indeed... also how you can level up barely getting any bonus stats is like.. okay. But thats EXACTLY the sense of freedom the game conveys to you everywhere; do whatever, just dont expect it to work well.

To be fair, I had no idea how stats and skills worked at first, so I remember botching my first ever character when the game came out by doing exactly the above: doing runs and jumps to increase my main level, as I thought my main level was everything, then having to restart the game at around lvl 20 because a mud crab killed me with one hit. I was new to RPGs back then (I never really liked point-and-click ones), and this whole concept of stats and skills was utterly overwhelming. I've got used to it since then, but it's still not my favourite. It's too mathematical and grindy compared to Skyrim, for example.

Edit: I'm only talking about the leveling system, though. I still think Oblivion is the better game overall.