Starfield discussion thread

[Vayra86]

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.

This is all present in Starfield too. You land you walk through a linear short dungeon and it loops you back outside, done. It was immediately recognizable. Similarly, nice observation about those skill progression differences, thats exactly it.. lol. Not sure Im a fan of those assignments with skills yet.. Id prefer the Oblivion Way every time...

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.

Spoiler

player.additem f is your friend...

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.



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.

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.

View attachment 312756

Metacritic doesnt lie to you. Big Data is always right. The extremes cancel each other out and the review system is neutral, not like Steam where you can only thumb up or down. Tbh, Metacritic in my experience has always been brutally accurate, the problem is with the reader and its focus. Obviously if you read through the zeroes you will find bottom barrel commentary, similar to the 10/10s.

 

[AusWolf]

Metacritic doesnt lie to you. Big Data is always right. The extremes cancel each other out and the review system is neutral, not like Steam where you can only thumb up or down. Tbh, Metacritic in my experience has always been brutally accurate, the problem is with the reader and its focus. Obviously if you read through the zeroes you will find bottom barrel commentary, similar to the 10/10s.

That's also why I don't believe in reviews. You may be having a good experience for 10 hours, then something small pisses you off, and you give a 0/10 review with said bottom-of-the-barrel commentary. I also had a ton of fun with Cyberpunk, and found most of the youtube bug compilations very edge-case (glitchy shadows on the bottom of the sea? Come on!). People are overly critical these days.

I also remember buying a cheap phone charger from Amazon about a year ago, where its top rated reviews were 1-star with the commentary "it gets hot" (I bought it anyway because it was cheap). While it does get a bit warm over extended use, it's nothing alarming, and I've been using it every 2 days without fault ever since.

 

[Frick]

The extremes cancel each other out and the review system is neutral

There is no such thing when it comes to reviews of media. How do you do a neutral review of a game? It's not how it works.

EDIT: Wait, missed the word "system" there.

 

[Splinterdog]

I've only played a few hours, reached the meeting with Sarah and so the main game begins. But I haven't yet settled on a good graphics setting since it's a very demanding game in that respect.
On the other hand, I'm not sure if I'll give a lot more time to the game because it hasn't grabbed me in that magic way that other games have - Days Gone and, dare I say it, so many of the arcade racers such as Grid.
I have a varied taste in games and much as No Man's Sky also didn't give me the magic hook, I don't think Starfield will either, excellent though it is.
Another reason for using Game Pass - try before you buy, as it were.

 

[Easy Rhino]

found my first annoying bug... landed on a moon and built outpost. took off and did some stuff. came back to land at the outpost. i arrive at the outpost but my ship is far away???? has anyone run into this bug?

 

[Frick]

I feel like this game would be so much better if it lifted the spaceflight stuff straight from Freelancer.

 

[Lost_Troll]

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.

I uploaded some screen shots of the ship's configuration to Steam; https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970805224/screenshots/

The cheapest prices I have found so far is at the Demos shipyard at Mars. As for the handling in a dog fight, it seems really good even though I still suck at it. If you need practice, go back to the MAST headquarters and practice in the ship simulators, they will act just like the modified ship will, and you get XP for the practice as well. The other thing I found, is if you click on edit ship and then double click on a part of the ship to highlight the whole ship, then you select J and change the color of the entire ship at once.

I should also add, every part that you add, the old part will go into your cargo as a ship part for haul repair, so make sure you have the cargo space for the old parts.

 

[P4-630]

So I was right..

 

[Frick]

So I was right..

I really don't understand the comparision to Crysis. It required more power than the computers of the day could provide .... at max settings. If you lowered the settings Crysis played just fine on a wide arrange of hardware. And the really cool thing was that it still looked amazing. Starfield also plays fine on a wide range of hardware, with lowering of settings, but it doesn't look good. Plus, and this is a really good thing about Bethsoft games, it's ok to play at 40ish FPS.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

DF finally released the PC video.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I uploaded some screen shots of the ship's configuration to Steam; https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970805224/screenshots/

The cheapest prices I have found so far is at the Demos shipyard at Mars. As for the handling in a dog fight, it seems really good even though I still suck at it. If you need practice, go back to the MAST headquarters and practice in the ship simulators, they will act just like the modified ship will, and you get XP for the practice as well. The other thing I found, is if you click on edit ship and then double click on a part of the ship to highlight the whole ship, then you select J and change the color of the entire ship at once.

I should also add, every part that you add, the old part will go into your cargo as a ship part for haul repair, so make sure you have the cargo space for the old parts.

Yeah that looks a lot better than the stock Frontier. So with the upgrades you made were you able to move fast enough to not be a sitting duck, and when you did get hit, were you able to get the shields to regen?

The only part I'm not 100% sure on what it does is the Vanguard Obliterator Autoprojector. It's mounted in the same spot as the missile launcher, but on the other side, and has roughly the same size and shape. However it's description sounds more like a lock-on targeting system. If so, does it auto lock much quicker than the stock one?

I'll have to add up all these parts and see if I have enough for all of them. Not 100% sure I'll need the upgraded grav drive yet though as I've not traveled too far reaches yet and have yet to explore what is in reach. The one you picked looks good, but if I need to watch my budget, that would be the one postponed, especially since it's nearly 6000 credits. The Autoprojector is extremely expensive, way higher than other parts you got (save for the reactor), but I can see how it would be useful in battles if it locks very quickly. Kind of surprised the reactor is so expensive.

Cool that MAST has a flight simulator, that will help. Does it cost much if anything to use? Thanks for the info!

 

[Steevo]

In the hour I had last night I reset my BIOS, disabled PBO, set RAM to slightly looser timings, and it worked. Hopefully this afternoon I can play more before I see it all played here. I'm going to try one thing at a time and see what causes the crash for me now that I don't have to watch the elevator drop for the hundredth time.

 

[Frag_Maniac]

I uploaded some screen shots of the ship's configuration to Steam; https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561197970805224/screenshots/

The cheapest prices I have found so far is at the Demos shipyard at Mars. As for the handling in a dog fight, it seems really good even though I still suck at it. If you need practice, go back to the MAST headquarters and practice in the ship simulators, they will act just like the modified ship will, and you get XP for the practice as well. The other thing I found, is if you click on edit ship and then double click on a part of the ship to highlight the whole ship, then you select J and change the color of the entire ship at once.

I should also add, every part that you add, the old part will go into your cargo as a ship part for haul repair, so make sure you have the cargo space for the old parts.

Arggh, just tried jumping from New Atlantis to Mars to go to that Demos Shipyard you spoke of. I go right back to getting caught in the loop of SysDef refusing to allow me to land due to a small bounty, and instead of just letting me pay it and clear my name, they insist on me working under cover to infiltrate the Crimson Fleet. I don't mind taking on that quest, it's just that I need to upgrade my ship or I get killed in the dog fights that are part of that quest. Is it possible to upgrade the ship somehow BEFORE getting into those fights?

I paid one small bounty at a kiosk, but it wouldn't let me clear the UC bounty. I tried to pay it at the UC Security Checkpoint, but the guard there after first saying I have some fines to pay, insists he has orders to take me elsewhere. WTF is wrong with this game? It sucks you into doing missions you are NOT prepared for!!!

 

[cdawall]

I really don't understand the comparision to Crysis. It required more power than the computers of the day could provide .... at max settings. If you lowered the settings Crysis played just fine on a wide arrange of hardware. And the really cool thing was that it still looked amazing. Starfield also plays fine on a wide range of hardware, with lowering of settings, but it doesn't look good. Plus, and this is a really good thing about Bethsoft games, it's ok to play at 40ish FPS.

Starfield doesn't look particularly good on any hardware. It is like they took fallout 4, made it impossible to run and asked everyone to just deal with it. How they didn't add an mGPU support that is native to DX12 honestly astonishes me, and that's past all the other shenanigans. Oh well at least it's fallout in space and I like that

 

[Frick]

Starfield doesn't look particularly good on any hardware. It is like they took fallout 4, made it impossible to run and asked everyone to just deal with it. How they didn't add an mGPU support that is native to DX12 honestly astonishes me, and that's past all the other shenanigans. Oh well at least it's fallout in space and I like that

Sometimes it's gorgeous, sometimes it honestly doesn't look much better than Skyrim.

Anyway. I refuse to just throw stuff away that I can sell, plus I sort of messed up and bought a whole bunch of resources from some jumpy guy on Mars and afterwards realized the ship couldn't hold all of it. This was the very elegant solution to all of the above. Looking forward to my next space fight!

 

[TheLostSwede]

 

[Space Lynx]

not had any stutters at all, i guess the SN770 really is magic.

WD Black SN770 1 TB Review - What Magic is This?

The competitively priced Western Digital WD Black SN770 achieves impressive performance results that match the more expensive Samsung 980 Pro, WD Black SN850, and Kingston KC3000. It seems WD has found a solution to overcome the limitations of DRAM-less designs—very impressive.

www.techpowerup.com

whenever a @W1zzard says there is magic to be found, you always listen lads, always.


from the video:

 

[Vayra86]

LOL the things they put on video... Yawnfest. This hasn't been fixed by hardware ever, not even in Skyrim can you totally avoid stutter when you enter certain areas. Shit gets loaded, frames dip momentarily, omg such news

I Shrug and move on, seriously We had this same thing regarding CPU performance... people having their 200W+ 13900Ks sweating because omg that GPU isnt fully utilized and surely it must be CPU.

And here I am seeing 100% GPU util everywhere on 7900XT except in New Atlantis where I might lose 10-15%. On a 6c12t 8700K running below spec.. and guess what, it never pegs 100% load either, and then I'm pulling 90W. And the game runs off a SATA Micron BX100, the most budget SSD you can probably find from yesteryear.

Hardware does not fix Creation Engine. Stop the idiocy

 

[Easy Rhino]

 

[Lost_Troll]

Cool that MAST has a flight simulator, that will help. Does it cost much if anything to use? Thanks for the info!

It is free to use.

Arggh, just tried jumping from New Atlantis to Mars to go to that Demos Shipyard you spoke of. I go right back to getting caught in the loop of SysDef refusing to allow me to land due to a small bounty, and instead of just letting me pay it and clear my name, they insist on me working under cover to infiltrate the Crimson Fleet.

You can pay the bounty at a kiosk at any city or station, but I think in your case, you have contraband on you person or ship. Look for any item that has a yellow icon on it and drop it at the last port.

I did the UC missions before I started the main story line mission. I also landed on a few planets and just ran around and looked for pirate bases that I could fight and loot, that is how I got so many credit's.

 

[P4-630]

i guess the SN770 really is magic.

I'm ok with my 980 Pro... Real dram cache and no magic involved...

 

[TheLostSwede]

LOL the things they put on video... Yawnfest. This hasn't been fixed by hardware ever, not even in Skyrim can you totally avoid stutter when you enter certain areas. Shit gets loaded, frames dip momentarily, omg such news

I Shrug and move on, seriously We had this same thing regarding CPU performance... people having their 200W+ 13900Ks sweating because omg that GPU isnt fully utilized and surely it must be CPU.

And here I am seeing 100% GPU util everywhere on 7900XT except in New Atlantis where I might lose 10-15%. On a 6c12t 8700K running below spec.. and guess what, it never pegs 100% load either, and then I'm pulling 90W. And the game runs off a SATA Micron BX100, the most budget SSD you can probably find from yesteryear.

Hardware does not fix Creation Engine. Stop the idiocy

This is what DirectStorage was supposed to fix though and appears to have done in some other games, like mentioned in the video.

 

[Space Lynx]

I'm ok with my 980 Pro... Real dram cache and no magic involved...

maybe that's why I am having no stuttering? the unique firmware on the SN770 makes it so dram cache is not needed, and no other drive has this unique algorithm from what I understand when I asked W1zz about it one time.

It is free to use.

You can pay the bounty at a kiosk at any city or station, but I think in your case, you have contraband on you person or ship. Look for any item that has a yellow icon on it and drop it at the last port.

I did the UC missions before I started the main story line mission. I also landed on a few planets and just ran around and looked for pirate bases that I could fight and loot, that is how I got so many credit's.

I don't seem to get much money for my loot, I will sell a legendary gun I loot that says its value is like 7000, but vendors only give me like 600 for it. and I'm like wtf. no idea how y'all get rich from loot, cause i don't get shit

 

[P4-630]

maybe that's why I am having no stuttering?

Are you saying you are the only one not having stutters?

 

[INSTG8R]

LOL the things they put on video... Yawnfest. This hasn't been fixed by hardware ever, not even in Skyrim can you totally avoid stutter when you enter certain areas. Shit gets loaded, frames dip momentarily, omg such news

I Shrug and move on, seriously We had this same thing regarding CPU performance... people having their 200W+ 13900Ks sweating because omg that GPU isnt fully utilized and surely it must be CPU.

And here I am seeing 100% GPU util everywhere on 7900XT except in New Atlantis where I might lose 10-15%. On a 6c12t 8700K running below spec.. and guess what, it never pegs 100% load either, and then I'm pulling 90W. And the game runs off a SATA Micron BX100, the most budget SSD you can probably find from yesteryear.

Hardware does not fix Creation Engine. Stop the idiocy

Right? I’m running it off a 860 QVO SSD it runs exactly as you said and yet to have anything I’d consider a “show stopper” in that regard. All really old hat if you’ve played any Creation engine game. I was pretty much right when I surmised the engine would be more of the same when I saw my first screenshot of a character..
That said these aren’t really complaints just reality.