Is it just me or is Starfield kinda meh?

Submitted ⁨⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨Stillhart@lemm.ee⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

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?

source

Comments

Sort:hotnew top

Tb0n3@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I hate that people feel the need to say they’re not a hater in order not to get abused for not liking a game. People out here treating games like a religion.

source
- Entheogen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I totally agree with this. I have always been able to empathize with people not liking a game that I’m obsessed with. Every game has flaws, and games are like music genres- if I like EDM, you may like country, and that’s ok.
  
  People get really closed-minded about games, even past the point of “fanboy”. It’s like some sort of hero worship.
  
  source
- Morgikan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yeah, those people are so heavily invested in this game that it has to be great at all costs. I mean dropping $100 just to play a few days early and the subsequent justifications made after the fact really speak to that.
  
  I’ve heard people talk about how this is the greatest game ever released. Like dude, this isn’t even the greatest game released so far this year.
  
  source
whiskers@lemmings.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- all-knight-party@kbin.cafe ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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.
  
  source
  - kamenlady@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I heard that it’s possible to steal spaceships and sell them. It’s a long process, but seems to be worth the time. Some spaceships bring lots of cash.
    
    Was i made a fool of?
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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…
  
  source
  - hypelightfly@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    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.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I feel like there not being a single large map derives a bit from that BGS feel. In Skyrim if you need to go somewhere new you might trek across the map for a few minutes, and on the way come across a few random encounters and interesting places. In Starfield you teleport most of the way, and if you want to come across random encounters outside your ship you have to go out of your way or do some specific quests.

source
- Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Yeah, this is my feeling as well. It makes it feel like a few disconnected locations, not one shared universe. If we could get into out ship and fly places without just teleporting there from the map that’d go a long way to fixing things. Maybe also make things happening in space to make it feel alive. As it is, the space stuff is mostly just another loading screen on top of the other loading screens. It doesn’t play a role in the rest of the game and just serves to disconnect us (rather than connect as it’s supposed to) from the world we’re in.
  
  source
Botree@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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 mold, 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.

source
VelociCatTurd@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I haven’t played that much yet, but I’m not hooked at all. It just feels like a bunch of games I’ve already played. The core gameplay is fallout or Skyrim, great games, but we’ve seen the formula plenty of times. Space combat is like a watered-down version of elite. The planet concept has already been done by NMS and so far I think they did it better. I don’t think it’s bad, but how is it supposed to compete for my attention with all the games that just came out?

source
- perspectiveshifting@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  The space combat and flight capability in general being a watered down version of Elite’s is definitely my biggest complaint. I’m perfectly happy doing space-chores as gameplay and have really enjoyed bumbling my way between radiant quests and random buildings I find while scanning planets, but I want to land the ship dammit. So much of Elite I found incredibly boring but kept coming back for a long time for the flight/space combat.
  
  I get why they did it that way to make it more accessible to a wider audience (my partner for instance cannot begin to agree with me wanting the flight to be more complicated), but the space genre has often had a huge overlap with flight sim fans for good reason. I hope a very capable modder with far more time and skill than me can implement a more robust space flight experience in there one day.
  
  source
  - sf1tzp@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I think an independent thruster controls mod would be great. Space drifting in elite with 6 degrees of freedom was so much fun.
    
    source
  - TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    There are about a million things you can critique Elite but they fucking nailed combat, it was super satisfying in that game. That is the bar for subsequent space games and it’s definitely something that can be improved upon but so far idk if anyone has been able touch it. Really fun aspect of that game.
    
    source
RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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

source
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  I’m so hard gay for…
  
  Really?? Good post up to this point… /smh
  
  source
  - RaincoatsGeorge@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Lol no one cares.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
- Shinji_Ikari@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  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.
  
  source
Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- rgb3x3@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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 go 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.
  
  source
Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- howsetheraven@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  It will literally never be that if you keep buying it. It also just wouldn’t exist at all, so I understand there is no winning scenario. But there definitely won’t be more as long as it is “working”.
  
  source
  - Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I haven’t bought it. I smuggled it out of Neon. 😏
    
    source
vivadanang@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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
  
  source
Arcayne@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
After about 20hrs, I couldn't take it anymore. I popped open the console, increased my carry weight, added a bil creds, set my level to 666, and finally, tgm. Let chaos reign, baby.

I had already added a couple UI mods (because Bethesda still ships UI components at 30fps for whatever reason) and patched the achievement disablement function, so now I feel like I can actually kinda enjoy the game (when I'm not in a loading screen).

I've put another 20hrs in playing like this, and have zero regrets. It makes my time in the game feel arcade-like, in a good, nostalgic way. I went from being stressed out and annoyed, to relaxed and able to laugh at the endless jank that we've all come to expect from Bethesda. It's like GTA back in the day... if you weren't using cheat codes, you were straight up missing out on the fun.

All that said, overall the game does feel like Bethesda threw Fallout, Skyrim, and No Man's Sky in a blender and then ran it all through a sieve to ensure that only the worst parts made it into the final release. I'm actually shocked by how much they seem to have outright copied elements from NMS (from UI, to gameplay mechanics, to storyline elements). I've got hundreds of hours in NMS spread across the last 5ish yrs, and I can't help but feel kinda greasy when I play Starfield because of how much appears to be straught up lifted from NMS.

Ultimately, Starfield is a new(ish) experience and fun to fuck around in, but if I want to explore space, I'll go boot up NMS.

source
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’ve already said “screw it” and started looking up the “get OP early” guides on Youtube, which I generally avoid. If it helps me have more fun then whatever… it’s a game, not a chore.
  
  source
  - philoneous@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You can get the Mantis suit and ship early. Kill Spacers, look for note on “secret base”.
    
    source
- philoneous@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  *with a dash of Outer Worlds and Oblivion.
  
  source
- TheDarkKnight@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Carry weight is the stupidest mechanic of all time, ever in gaming.
  
  source
turbonewbe@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- rgb3x3@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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.
  
  source
Fades@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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

source
Ashtear@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  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
  
  source
  - Ashtear@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    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.
    
    source
  - cjthomp@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Like hell it isn’t fair!
    
    source
Kaymorak@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Just FYI - ammo doesn’t weigh anything. I didn’t notice this for quite a while. If you have some cash go by a couple of gun/ammo shops and just buy out like, all of it. Pretty quickly you’ll get to the point where you have plenty of ammo for any gun you pick up. IMO the upfront cost is super worth not having to worry about having ammo for one gun or the other.

source
- bassomitron@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Not to mention if you pick up guns from corpses chests etc, their ammo is added to your stash and you can then toss the now empty gun.
  
  source
  - Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Wait really?? That’s gonna be helpful since I stopped picking up guns that were too heavy to be worth selling. Of course now it’s one more chore to do… between wrestling the horrible UI and the inventory management itself (already a chore even if the UI wasn’t bad), I’m not sure if this tip will be a net gain in fun levels. lol
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
  - nico@lepoulsdumonde.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    @bassomitron @Kaymorak @starfield yeah I was wondering if it worked. It didn’t seem to increase my number of bullets
    source
    -> View More Comments
sf1tzp@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
Most low level enemies drop weapons that only deal between 3 - 11 damage, which are basically useless against anything higher than level 5. I found some higher level weapons in a shop that dealt 30 - 40 damage and found they made combat much more fun.

As I progressed however, I noticed that enemy levels in a location were distributed:

4-5 low level

10-15 med level

1-5 high level

So there is still a problem with bullet sponges. I keep an overpowered shotgun (med damage, high rate of fire, explosions on crit) with me and just bum rush the high level enemies with that. Otherwise you’d be shooting them all day with your 40 damage rifle.

As you go on, those high level enemies drop weapons that do more damage, so there is progression…. But you also just encounter higher level enemies with more health so the problem continues.

I see that there are already combat rebalance mods on nexus, the kind I’ve used on Fallout games in the past, and I’ll probably install one of those when I decide to start a new play through. (Which, I definitely will. I’m enjoying the game a lot overall despite there being some tedious aspects)
source
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Thanks, I’ll pay closer attention to the weapon damage. Maybe I’m not upgrading enough.
  
  source
- Katana314@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I found that too, and I’d say that kind of design makes sense. For an RPG, it shouldn’t be like Uncharted where anything lying on the ground from your warpath suits the need; there should be reason and investment to get a good gun, then make it better.
  
  I’ve actually been buying up ammo, something I didn’t do in Fallout, because the caliber I get off enemies is puny.
  
  source
Morgikan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m feeling the same way. Starfield isn’t a bad game, but it’s very meh. I enjoy the ship building aspect, but otherwise nothing really grabs me with this game.

Combat is a good example, too. There just doesn’t feel to be any impact to the weapons. Mobs just get shot but don’t really react to it. I know they will flee at times which is nice, but close range SMG fire to ones torso should illicit more of a response.

Fast travel also seems to be an detractor. Being able to fast travel anywhere you’ve been even if that place is across the galaxy really removes a lot of the exploration vibe the game would have otherwise. I know this isn’t a space sim, but a lot of the systems they have don’t really mesh well with others.

Starfield is like mediocre lite-RPG / space sim crossover that doesn’t do either very well.

source
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  Fast travel also seems to be an detractor.
  
  Yeah it’s kind of weird but I feel like they’re too liberal with the fast travel. You really lose a lot of the sense of scale when you can just… go anywhere from anywhere.
  
  I mean, that said, given all the loading screens, I guess more fast travel means less loading screens so it’s definitely a double-edged sword.
  
  Starfield is like mediocre lite-RPG / space sim crossover that doesn’t do either very well.
  
  The RPG aspects seem really shallow after Cyberpunk. The space sim aspects are what I’m hoping keep me interested once I get deeper into it. Fingers crossed.
  
  source
  - Morgikan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    To make matters worse, the space around each planet is it’s own load zone. Star systems are just collections of these zones. I don’t think they can patch zone loading as it’s done so much by design. It’s like they took what they had in FO4 and just slapped a sticker on it that said “space sim”.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
UlyssesT@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  
  (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.
  
  source
  - UlyssesT@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    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.
    
    starcitizen.tools/Chris_Roberts_(lore)
    
    source
blazera@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I still dont really know what the selling points are. In the lead up to release i was waiting to see what was gonna make it exciting. Never seemed to happen. Just clinical sci-fi.

source
Vivarevo@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
sentient_loom@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I think it makes great use of the engine. The game is super fun, way better than Cyberpunk 2077 (which is basically just Grand Theft Auto). The worlds are cool. The stories are great.

I think it’s a great game.

source
- Th3D3k0y@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I’m in the same boat as the op, the best thing this game does is make me want to play cyberpunk more
  
  source
Hossenfeffer@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m having fun.

It’s not NMS and I don’t want it to be. NMS is great for what it does, but it’s barely an actual game (in my experience - not played it for a few months so it may have changed).

I’m familiar enough with loading screens from FO3, FO:NV, and ESV so that doesn’t bother me much.

Also, I’m an old man, so I’m playing on easy because I want fun and to explore the story rather than have a stressful challenge. The bosses with multiple health bars are a bit shot but I’ve rarely run out of ammo.

So, yeah, I’m having fun. But my expectations going into it on Wednesday were that it would be FO4 in space. So far it’s doing slightly better than that for me.

source
- RPT@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  This is exactly how I feel about it. Well put.
  
  source
maxenmajs@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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.

source
- thesprongler@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Kinda like space.
  
  source
  - maxenmajs@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    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.
    
    source
    -> View More Comments
Shinji_Ikari@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
This game is exactly what I expected. Its unapologetically a bethesda fps rpg.

The menus are unwieldy, the economy is annoying, the politics half thought out, gun play is eh, etcetcetc.

But that’s not why I play these games, I play them because I love the weird quest rabbit holes you find yourself going down. I love how I can just go somewhere and knock all the shit off the shelves.

I’ve been playing on normal difficulty except for 5 on 1 space battles, I set that shit down to very easy. The gun play has felt fine for me, focus on headshots and you end up with more ammo you can use, particularly caseless shotgun ammo, .50 cal, and whatever the grendel shoots. I almost always go into areas underleveled in early game so I tend to have long range extended gun fights or just barrel stuff with the old earth shotgun.

Last time I played New Vegas I walked directly to the strip at level 2, avoided all the cazadors and death claws, then started the Dead Money DLC at level 5, and finished it at level 9.

I’m ranting right now but basically what I’m trying to say is these games are games where you need to find your fun and set your goals. You have main quest lines that literally end the game, so go out and find something weird, set off in a direction and find a long winded side quest. Make your character a drunk and drink every single alcoholic drink you find. Make your character a clepto and steal relentlessly. Get addicted to every drug and refuse to wear armor and specialize in the utility knife.

if you really dont care about combat, just roll the difficulty all the way down and have fun.

source
riotrick@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
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. 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.

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.

source
- FuntyMcCraiger@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  I get that but it’s because of FOV, and I know you can change it on PC but I think your SOL on console.
  
  source
guriinii@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m over 60 hours in and loving it. I’ve rarely ran out of ammo or health supplies, and I’m definitely not getting a lot of loading screens. And when I do, aside from the initial loading of a game, they’re 10 seconds or less.

source
- Cethin@lemmy.zip ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  What difficulty are you playing on? I had to carry like 6 different weapons to swap between for ammo reasons, and my aim is pretty good. I have since installed a mod that adds in ammo crafting recipes, which is insane it isn’t there by default. In the post apocalypse of Fallout we can craft ammo, but in the far future sci-fi of Starfield with outpost building and resource mining we can’t? We can pop robots (and nuclear reactors I think) out if we just have the resources and technology, but not basic lead and gunpowder ammunition?
  
  source
  - NuPNuA@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    I’m on normal and I’ve amassed 2k bullets for my main weapon type in 20 odd hours.
    
    source
Hasuris@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I red it takes like 12 hours for the game to get good. That’s like two weeks for me. Some people have to work and limited time.

There’s a 2 hour refund window. Bethesda misses it a tiny bit

source
Meowoem@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
What’s a good space combat game?

X-Wing was one of my all-time favourite games, it was late niceties and got followed to by tie fighter then X-Wing Vs tie fighter but the original was best. It was really simple combat, lasers or rockets and you had to balance power between shields and lasers. I don’t know what made it so great, there was a pace to it the just felt so good - lining up and blowing a tie fighter then another and coming down on the third, doing a hard breaking turn and driving your speed to get behind it and land a shot in its rear before it can outpace your maximum acceleration.

X com interceptor was a great game too, I remember it being deeply flawed but incredibly easy to get hooked into playing for hours. Combat was a bit more like wing commander which was a touch more strategic and less frantic.

Any good, ideally cheap, space combat games anyone can suggest?

source
- SilverFlame@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  If you like the Freelancer style of combat I quite enjoyed Everspace 2. It’s fairly simple but fun. Available on the Gamepass as well.
  
  source
- Mr_Magpie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Not combat specific, but x4 is a solid title. Combats a bit basic, but the empire and fleet management means you’ll be in some pretty huge battles.
  
  source
  - Meowoem@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    Sounds perfect, between what you said and the other guy I’ll check it out
    
    source
- Stillhart@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  X4 is amazing if you can get past some of the jank. Space combat from piloting a single scout fighter to helming a carrier at the head of a fleet. Absolutely awesome game.
  
  Squadrons was alright and will hit your X-wing nostalgia pretty hard.
  
  Everspace 2 is pretty good too.
  
  source
ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
After finding better weapons I have found enemies much less bullet spongy. I’m currently using an assault rifle that has so much more damage per shot than similar automatic weapons that I actually wonder if it is bugged.

source
- rgb3x3@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Okay, I’m somewhat early game: what is up with the reloading times? Seriously, I’ve died a few times because the reloading speeds are so slow and you can’t run and reload at the same time.
  
  Is there a skill I’m not seeing?
  
  source
  - ryven@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    There’s an Expert-tier Combat skill that improves reload times by like 30%, yeah.
    
    source
Canadian_Cabinet@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’ve only watched someone play it, but it does seem like it is super superficial, like a puddle that looks deep but is only a few inches

source
averyminya@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I genuinely haven’t had any of these issues, menu/loading screen aside which there’s small ways to mitigate (travel in space via select vs. map menu travel).

I quite liked the gunplay, at first. Then I got strong weapons, overlevelled for the order of quests, and now I feel like I’m one hitting them with a peashooter. So I actually have the opposite problem than you on this front, as I haven’t been actually challenged in the game since the early levels. However, I prefer this for the ship combat since it’s just a little more fun.

Ammo I’ve not once been low on. Granted, I collect everything but misc. In a few days I’ve amassed 400k credits, only buying upgrades for my ship. At a certain point I began buying ammo just to give vendors money to get rid of my junk. So, maybe if you have extra credits try buying some ammo? How many guns are you carrying? Realistically your base weight is about 50-65, given the head, armor, apparel, and then I have 2 weapons with a total mass of 5 (pistol and rifle). Between some health aids and other stuff I’ve found I’m usually sitting at 75 mass, which leaves quite of bit of space for selling weapons/armors.

The stealth isn’t great in this game though. It’s just not really a major focus outside of the areas they put thought into it for - frankly you don’t need it at all for the games story from what I’ve been through so far. Obviously, there’s 3 levels with green being detected in a safe area, orange needing caution before red aggro detection. But the transition from orange to red is egregious.

In addition to that you need stealth bonuses to be able to effectively be stealthy. This game does covert quests really well though, I highly recommend following the Ryujin questline in Neon and the UC/Crimson Fleet questline. Amazing quests, IMO. I have 1 point in stealth and primarily have done persuasion stealth and it’s been great, but the most recent mission I completed I needed frostwolfs for (-50% movement noise). Which, that right there is your issue. You are loud as hell without stealth investments.

On top of that 50% reduction I also needed an apparel item that had 25% harder to detect. So I think it’s just scaled a bit awkwardly.

So, with that in mind I would say it’s a weird line between me agreeing that AI know where I am far too easily in stealth while simultaneously being able to cheese the AI by utilizing the additives the game gives you. Think about it… everyone has scanners. There’s also a lot of security cameras that are fairly well hidden in various areas.You can’t really just walk behind someone and expect to not be noticed, not unless your hopped up on combat meds and wearing chameleon or other stealth specifical items. Chameleon is a game changer, but it’s a style of its own and not totally helpful for what we’re after.

It’s funny, 2077 I really enjoyed on launch but I can’t help but see shortcomings in it as I’ve played through Starfield. That’s not to say that it doesn’t have shortcomings of its own, it definitely does what with the, for me, map menu navigation. It took a few days to get used to and still the core issue for me comes down to Missions not being categorized by Planet. It’s so painfully obvious and to be lacking it is honestly a major fault. Other than that, hotkeys not being consistent.

That aside, every menu is tab once to go back to main menu except for map which is 3.

Another is a bit regarding scale. 2077 I really enjoyed just walking around taking in the view of Night City. Walking 400m doesn’t really feel like a chore. For some reason 400m in starfield is a couple minutes, with sprint? It just feels a little too big in some spots and too small in others. Like you said, sometimes you’ll go through 3 loading screens just to talk to a person and leave the area and go through another couple loading screens. Other times you get these amazingly long quests that feel just right, and other times you get landed 1000m away.

Most of the time, not always but a lot of it, I’m just trying to get there to do the next thing. In 2077 I was enjoying the journey being in awe and happening to reach the destination. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy New Atlantis and Neons visuals, I also think the world building and liveliness is an improvement (simple things like having more named characters, somewhat varied patterns with citizens, hireables, and named characters.)

I enjoy both for what they are. 2077 does the imposed story line well enough and it gives you enough freedom in the variety of playstyles that the lack of variance in story doesn’t matter much. On the other hand, Starfield has very little imposed story (you were a miner, now you are a constellation member) giving you actual RPG freedoms. I haven’t explored differences in traits, but if starting as a Var’uun Zealot is any different than the others then it’s a big point over 2077.

And both have thoughtful quests. Neither is objectively better than the other, they both just play to various strengths and weaknesses.

As it stands, Starfield is a Bethesda game with inspirations from Elite Dangerous and futurism. 2077 is a game about a corpo-dystopian future. They have many similar and overlapping themes, and Starfield clearly has quests that are a response to 2077. Neither are perfect, but both are lots of fun once you get them rolling.

source

-> View More Comments