Starfield could be the best game I have ever played!

[Jynks]

Starfield​

Been playing the new Bestheda rpg... Starfield. Arguably one of the biggest games of the year due to the vast legacy of Elder Scrolls and the 3D Fallout games. All I can say is that for me this game lives up to the hype. I was a massive Oblivion and Skyrim fan, I played most of the Fallouts, but never really liked them (apart from the 3 2d ones).

I think it 100% delivers on all its promises. It IS a Bestheda rpg though, so follows the same kind of structure and gameplay as all their other ones. I have heard it called fallout in space, but I think that is unfair. They have a style of game and all their games are in that style, so why would Starfield be different. So if this is fallout is space, then fallout was Morrowwind in a desert.

I got it on PC and my PC is not the best, not bad, but starting to age. It is buttery smooth at 4K on the default settings and it just looks fantastic. I had seriously considered buying a Xbox to play it as I assumed it would run shit on my PC... so I got the pre-load edition to try it early, assuming I would not be able to play it due to frame rate issues. Return it and be able to get the xbox version. I even intended to return it if it did work and then rebuy it once it was fully released... but I just can not stop playing it. The game is so fucking good.

Like all their games there is just a metric ton of things to do. There is even a kind of factory game built into it were you build automated plants on planets and ship materials around the galaxy. The story is fun and engaging, but like Skyrim it si the seemingly endless side quests that provide the most fun for me. It is like any rock I look under there is a massive quest chain with a cool story. Like just talk to some random npc you walk past everyday to get to the train, and that will open something up for you.

There is a lot of great qol improvements for players of their old games. For example encumbered inventories are back again, but this time you can access your starship hold at any vendor. Meaning no need to lug stuff all over the place. You can fill your starship with stuff and sell form there. Also the "junk collecting" in Elder Scrolls and Fallout is gone. Resources are now a separate item. Junk is just that now. Junk. You can sell it or use it as decoration in your home... but no other function. This means that the immersion breaking thing of just picking up everything in existence is gone from the game. Also the fast travel system is greatly expanded. Once you start mapping the galaxy you can fast travel directly from a city district on one planet to another. So for a space so large, you can move around very quickly...or you can jump in your ship and just fly in any direction to something you see around you if you do not like map traveling.

The space fighting is very cool. I have been a regular "space dogfighter" player since Wing Commander days and buy and play most I notice. Like Everspace2 or Chorus recently. The dog fighting in Starfield feels really good. It is not so wild and crazy you get motion sickness spinning in circles. It is easy enough to be arcade like as well but still challenging. I'm not feeling like the space fighting is a barrier or something I want to avoid.

The way the planets work is super cool. Basically to avoid Star Citizens problem of a planet sized map with nothing in it each planet is broken down into two types of content. There is the pre-constructed "zones". So each planet has 4-5 zones on them (often a space station as well for developed worlds). These work like what you expect. Then you can also land on any point on the planet. This loads a "biodome". Which is a procedurally generated zone that matches the planet. Each procedural biodome has a size limit and has hand crafted content in it. You are not exploring a star citizen, a million kilometre space, but here is the interesting part. When you go down there and find a cave with smuggler city or crashed spaceship.. all that is hand crafted. It really makes the universe feel so large. Sometimes you discover big things which become permanent locations to go back to.

The big thing a lot of people what to know is if the game is a buggy mess, and it is obviously not bug free. Still, it is a very smooth launch. Bugs are rare, I have seen 2 in my entire time playing, and only minor. Like once the camera pointed the wrong direction during a conversation. I could load Red Dead 2 or The Witcher up and see more bugs right now years after release than I have seen in this game. Considering expectations after Fallout and Skyrim being so buggy, it is a very nice surprise that it is one of the smoothest pc rpg launches in a long time.

Verdict : All in all this is one of the most impressive games I have seen in a while, and I am certain that there will be a great modding scene for it coming real soon as mods will just be able to drop in entire new planets into an infinite space. I just can't stop playing it.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

I'm installing it right now. TBH I am expecting basically The Outer Worlds 2.0 (which I enjoyed). Wasnt crazy about Fallout 4. Fallout 3, New Vegas and Skyrim were awesome though. And oblivion was also somewhat enjoyable, even though it was a FUCKING SHITTY UNPOLISHED MESS OF BUGS lol

 

[Juxtapose]

@Jynks Did you buy it via Steam or the Microsoft Store? It's an Xbox Play Anywhere title, so if you bought it via the Microsoft Store, you own it on Xbox Series too.

Glad you're enjoying it too. I'm interested in the game, but with life getting busier I'm trying to clear RPGs from my backlog, not add more . Down the road I am hoping to give it a whirl.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

So, I've been playing for about 2 hours now and I've never seen a bethesda game this buggy. The music and dialogue will stop and stutter for no reason at all. Screen freezes. Sheesh, I've seen more bugs in this short time than I've seen in 300h of Skyrim

 

[Jynks]

TBH I am expecting basically The Outer Worlds 2.0 (which I enjoyed).

It is very much like outer worlds, but much larger scale and more varied ways to play. Outer Worlds had a much stronger focus on combat. I usally play "speech / stealth" build in 1st runs of Bestheda games and have been in this one. You can puzzle solve and sneak past a lot of combat situations. So there is real room in this to play how you want, while Outter Worlds was much simpler. I liked Outer Worlds btw. Much better than the fallout games imo.

@Jynks Did you buy it via Steam or the Microsoft Store? It's an Xbox Play Anywhere title, so if you bought it via the Microsoft Store, you own it on Xbox Series too.

I just got it via Steam.

So, I've been playing for about 2 hours now and I've never seen a bethesda game this buggy. The music and dialogue will stop and stutter for no reason at all. Screen freezes. Sheesh, I've seen more bugs in this short time than I've seen in 300h of Skyrim

strange, all I can say is this is not my experience at all. Absolutely zero dialogue or music issues for me... it has just been smooth sailing. Sucks you have issues though, must be frustrating.. but I can not stress this enough.

I have had almost zero issues. It has just been gravy the entire time.

 

[Zviko]

I see you are on 536.23 driver version. Just want to say, to potentially even further improve your experience, there's a driver update which came out with Starfield - 537.13.

 

[Swindle]

Jynks selling us a bill of goods.

It stinks.

 

[Jynks]

I see you are on 536.23 driver version. Just want to say, to potentially even further improve your experience, there's a driver update which came out with Starfield - 537.13.

yeah I keep meaning to but end up just jumping back in

Jynks selling us a bill of goods.

It stinks.

i get it .. it's not "cool" to like things... and if you spend time on reddit or steam you would think it is the most hatred game ever... but a quick look at steam accounts how almost everyone complaining dose not even own it and have not even played it. Have you? So why would you belive all those trolls when most of the people that have played it are saying the exact opposite.

If you check steamspy there are more cocurrent players for this game than any other rpg.. including BG3.... so 1000s of 1000s of people are having a good time... social media is all about the squeeky wheel and people repeating what they say.,. the vast majority are just having fun and playing.

Being a PC game there will always be people with issues, it is just to large an environment to test and get working. Drivees, OSs, diffrent hardware... this is one of the reasons I am moving to console, and this will be my last gaming PC... as I am digging the closed development of consoles were you know it will work with much more confidence.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I can see the appeal, but the core gameplay loop looks kinda meh to me. I thought Fallout 4’s shooting was terrible. But it’s on game pass so I may try it

 

[Juxtapose]

I can see the appeal, but the core gameplay loop looks kinda meh to me. I thought Fallout 4’s shooting was terrible. But it’s on game pass so I may try it

Combat is never the highlight of any Bethesda Game Studios game.

 

[molambo]

Combat is never the highlight of any Bethesda Game Studios game.

the only highlight is the option for people to mod it to make good content for it. no single story or sidequest they did was in any form interesting or engaging.

i see them more as a company who builds a nice looking world where people can then add things to it to give it meaning.

 

[Eji1700]

Combat is never the highlight of any Bethesda Game Studios game.

Which is a shame because fnv showed how good it could be.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Combat is never the highlight of any Bethesda Game Studios game.

Yeah the only game with bad combat I could get through was Red Dead Redemption 2 because the writing was THAT good. But that’s pretty damn rare.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

What exactly is considered "good combat" around here? From Fallout 4 forwards, I didn't see anything that would terrible deviate from the vast majority of shooters with sci-fi elements like Wolfenstein, Quake, Doom and Unreal Tournament. Shoot, aim, reload, throw frag grenades, use the ocasional beam weapon or goo thrower. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were somewhat clunky, to the point I mostly used the VATS system, but every other bethesda game was on par with basically the industry standard of shooting games.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

What exactly is considered "good combat" around here? From Fallout 4 forwards, I didn't see anything that would terrible deviate from the vast majority of shooters with sci-fi elements like Wolfenstein, Quake, Doom and Unreal Tournament. Shoot, aim, reload, throw frag grenades, use the ocasional beam weapon or goo thrower. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were somewhat clunky, to the point I mostly used the VATS system, but every other bethesda game was on par with basically the industry standard of shooting games.

For FPS, my favorite combat systems strictly campaign are Doom Eternal, Halo 1 / 3 / Reach. I haven’t played every Bethesda game. I got through Skyrim because I love fantasy and was 11 but it might be hard to do today. But it’s still an amazing game. I just thought Fallout 4 was incredibly boring. I don’t mind slow games either, like I said I loved RDR2 and that game was very very slow in a lot of places.

I’m not saying this to shit on Starfield though and I don’t think Jynks is silly for loving it so much. It scratches a very particular itch that not a lot of games can do in this way, but unless I’m extremely invested in the world I need the core gameplay loop to be really good to want to play a game as long as this one. I’ll definitely give it a try via game pass though before I dunk on it or admit I’m wrong.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

For FPS, my favorite combat systems strictly campaign are Doom Eternal, Halo 1 / 3 / Reach. I haven’t played every Bethesda game. I got through Skyrim because I love fantasy and was 11 but it might be hard to do today. But it’s still an amazing game. I just thought Fallout 4 was incredibly boring. I don’t mind slow games either, like I said I loved RDR2 and that game was very very slow in a lot of places.

I’m not saying this to shit on Starfield though and I don’t think Jynks is silly for loving it so much. It scratches a very particular itch that not a lot of games can do in this way, but unless I’m extremely invested in the world I need the core gameplay loop to be really good to want to play a game as long as this one. I’ll definitely give it a try via game pass though before I dunk on it or admit I’m wrong.

I remember trying to play halo 3 when I first got an Xbox 360 around 2012, just to see what the hype was and... well, I didn't play it for more than 30mins total. I sincerely don't understand how its combat could be considered anything other than "quite dated". As a comparison, I played Gears of War around the same time and, while it was IMO massively overrated, it did have an alright combat, which was one of the reasons I actually finished the game.

Different strokes for different folks, but again, I don't see how FO4 was deficient in its combat systems compared to Doom and Halo. You could argue that the enemy encounters were too far and few between, or that some just had dumb scaling which made them glorified bullet sponges, but the fundamental mechanics of combat and its overall responsiveness were okay.

 

[skahwt]

For FPS, my favorite combat systems strictly campaign are Doom Eternal, Halo 1 / 3 / Reach.

You have fine tastes my friend, throw in Returnal and that’s my list as well. I agree about the combat in Bethesda games.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

I remember trying to play halo 3 when I first got an Xbox 360 around 2012, just to see what the hype was and... well, I didn't play it for more than 30mins total. I sincerely don't understand how its combat could be considered anything other than "quite dated". As a comparison, I played Gears of War around the same time and, while it was IMO massively overrated, it did have an alright combat, which was one of the reasons I actually finished the game.

Different strokes for different folks, but again, I don't see how FO4 was deficient in its combat systems compared to Doom and Halo. You could argue that the enemy encounters were too far and few between, or that some just had dumb scaling which made them glorified bullet sponges, but the fundamental mechanics of combat and its overall responsiveness were okay.

If you only played Halo 3 for 30 minutes that’s why you don’t see the difference. Bullet sponge boring ass enemies and boring encounter design is the main difference. Halo has great gun play, well tuned and varied encounters, great cast of enemies to fight on heroic and legendary difficulties, and at least in 1 and Reach, incentives to use every weapon in the sandbox. You don’t have to like Halo, but to pass judgement 30 minutes in is crazy. I’m giving Starfield the courtesy of playing it myself before acting like it’s combat is ass, it could be a blast for all I know. I was just saying it looks underwhelming, but some games can play much better than they look. Frankly MK1 is one of those games.

 

[Trustful_Whale]

Bethesda games no longer spark joy for me.
Glad you're enjoying it, though.

I think when it comes to whether a game is "good" or "bad" doesn't matter; whoever is actually enjoying it is winning.

 

[Eji1700]

What exactly is considered "good combat" around here? From Fallout 4 forwards, I didn't see anything that would terrible deviate from the vast majority of shooters with sci-fi elements like Wolfenstein, Quake, Doom and Unreal Tournament. Shoot, aim, reload, throw frag grenades, use the ocasional beam weapon or goo thrower. Fallout 3 and New Vegas were somewhat clunky, to the point I mostly used the VATS system, but every other bethesda game was on par with basically the industry standard of shooting games.

Comparing Fallout 4 to Quake/Doom/UT is pretty out of the loop shooter wise.

First off, in all of those games, weapon swapping is key. Different guns do better/worse at different ranges/situations, and "comboing" them is one of the big draws for more talented players (watch any quake highlight of rocket shots into rail guns or whatever). Likewise their singleplayer games also take good effect of this (the recent doom games being a great example).

Fallout 4 is a "spray numbers at target until it's dead" style game, which is basically the minimum viable product for a shooter. There's a bunch of stats that affect things, which is of course the point for an RPG, but beyond that there's not much strategy or interesting decision making other than "shoot them".

Compare this to FNV, which did a pretty good job of letting you use multiple weapons for different situations, and a much better limb targeting system that could actually matter (legs for melee enemies, arm for someone with a very powerful gun, etc), and has a very real ammo system rather than just having +5% on the gun because of the color of the stock or whatever.

I'm not a huge fan of Halo, but even it's system is mostly about high speed execution. Managing to land sniper shots consistently to clean up a map, comboing specific weapons, using grenades to force enemies into advantageous positions, etc. Again, in singleplayer, there's still a decent amount of tactics to how you approach a fight, and part of this is because you're not stuck dealing with RPG nonsense making it so the enemies are bullet sponges.

I'm not even going to go into the boomer shooter revival, but suffice it to say they're all taking lessons learned from quake/doom and trying to make multiple weapons interesting.

So yeah, to anyone seriously into shooters, Fallout 4 is just woefully underwhelming. There's nothing interesting to do, and you've got an RPG system in the way of reality/tactics (borderlands where headshots can do nothing sort of thing). It doesn't matter to 99% of the people playing, because they just point the gun at things and shoot them, but it's just disappointing when so many other games have done better, even in the same genre.

 

[Felipe_Gewehr]

Comparing Fallout 4 to Quake/Doom/UT is pretty out of the loop shooter wise.

First off, in all of those games, weapon swapping is key. Different guns do better/worse at different ranges/situations, and "comboing" them is one of the big draws for more talented players (watch any quake highlight of rocket shots into rail guns or whatever). Likewise their singleplayer games also take good effect of this (the recent doom games being a great example).

Fallout 4 is a "spray numbers at target until it's dead" style game, which is basically the minimum viable product for a shooter. There's a bunch of stats that affect things, which is of course the point for an RPG, but beyond that there's not much strategy or interesting decision making other than "shoot them".

Compare this to FNV, which did a pretty good job of letting you use multiple weapons for different situations, and a much better limb targeting system that could actually matter (legs for melee enemies, arm for someone with a very powerful gun, etc), and has a very real ammo system rather than just having +5% on the gun because of the color of the stock or whatever.

I'm not a huge fan of Halo, but even it's system is mostly about high speed execution. Managing to land sniper shots consistently to clean up a map, comboing specific weapons, using grenades to force enemies into advantageous positions, etc. Again, in singleplayer, there's still a decent amount of tactics to how you approach a fight, and part of this is because you're not stuck dealing with RPG nonsense making it so the enemies are bullet sponges.

I'm not even going to go into the boomer shooter revival, but suffice it to say they're all taking lessons learned from quake/doom and trying to make multiple weapons interesting.

So yeah, to anyone seriously into shooters, Fallout 4 is just woefully underwhelming. There's nothing interesting to do, and you've got an RPG system in the way of reality/tactics (borderlands where headshots can do nothing sort of thing). It doesn't matter to 99% of the people playing, because they just point the gun at things and shoot them, but it's just disappointing when so many other games have done better, even in the same genre.

Yes, I'm aware of how Quake and Doom play, as I played those extensively. They have some more dinamism with the weapons because the pace of these games is completely different (specially Quake, as its an arena shooter) compared to an RPG like Fallout.

That said, it is entirely possible to "main" a weapon, or much prefer the extensive use of one over others depending on your particular playstyle, just as in the Fallout series as a whole you are encouraged to try different weapons for different enemies. Ballistics dont usually do much against armored robots, as EMP mines do little to ghouls - doesn't, of course, mean you can't level your character and speciallize it in using machine guns that are upgraded and can shred robots, just as you can play entire sessions with Quake just using 1 or 2 weapons at most. The core concepts are still there.

I'll refrain from speaking about Halo, as I didn't feel any enjoyment out of it in my first contact with Halo 3 to warrant any exploration of the weapons system for any significant amount of time, as I said.

I also remember Fallout 4 having limb damage and weakspots, exactly like FO3 and New Vegas. You could blind enemies by shooting the head, break their weapons by aiming for them instead of the enemies, disable robots instantly by hitting a tiny weakspot in their back, so not sure what are you refering to when you say there was no such system there. Ammo on NV basically became redudant by mid-game because you could just buy thousands from vendors and refresh their inventories, just like in every FO game - and if that's no enough, you can craft ammo as well, so there's that.

In any case, I still don't see the fundamental differences that would place the games mechanics so far apart, but at this point I feel we should just agree to disagree.

 

[Dankster Morgan]

Comparing Fallout 4 to Quake/Doom/UT is pretty out of the loop shooter wise.

First off, in all of those games, weapon swapping is key. Different guns do better/worse at different ranges/situations, and "comboing" them is one of the big draws for more talented players (watch any quake highlight of rocket shots into rail guns or whatever). Likewise their singleplayer games also take good effect of this (the recent doom games being a great example).

Fallout 4 is a "spray numbers at target until it's dead" style game, which is basically the minimum viable product for a shooter. There's a bunch of stats that affect things, which is of course the point for an RPG, but beyond that there's not much strategy or interesting decision making other than "shoot them".

Compare this to FNV, which did a pretty good job of letting you use multiple weapons for different situations, and a much better limb targeting system that could actually matter (legs for melee enemies, arm for someone with a very powerful gun, etc), and has a very real ammo system rather than just having +5% on the gun because of the color of the stock or whatever.

I'm not a huge fan of Halo, but even it's system is mostly about high speed execution. Managing to land sniper shots consistently to clean up a map, comboing specific weapons, using grenades to force enemies into advantageous positions, etc. Again, in singleplayer, there's still a decent amount of tactics to how you approach a fight, and part of this is because you're not stuck dealing with RPG nonsense making it so the enemies are bullet sponges.

I'm not even going to go into the boomer shooter revival, but suffice it to say they're all taking lessons learned from quake/doom and trying to make multiple weapons interesting.

So yeah, to anyone seriously into shooters, Fallout 4 is just woefully underwhelming. There's nothing interesting to do, and you've got an RPG system in the way of reality/tactics (borderlands where headshots can do nothing sort of thing). It doesn't matter to 99% of the people playing, because they just point the gun at things and shoot them, but it's just disappointing when so many other games have done better, even in the same genre.

Agreed with all of this, Halo also requires a lot of positioning and prioritization between which enemies to target. Like you said weapon combos, but the 2 weapon limit forces meaningful decisions of whether you wanna drop the almost full sniper for 4 rockets, or if you can get through this encounter with only the magnum to save said sniper ammo. On Halo 1 at least, even on legendary you can clear hard rooms fast or easily get steamrolled. The game plays differently when you improve, not when you get new gear.

 

[SaltShaker]

As someone who loves the Fallout series and loves the Doom series, saying their combat system is similar is one of the most off the wall statements I've read in a long time. Literally nothing alike except that you shoot lol.

 

[Evil Canadian]

Starfield is a game of all time

 

[Evil Canadian]

I got a few hours in it
its alright

def another bethesda game is really all I can say