The problem with Starfield is that most of the problems aren’t fixable. Sure, they can incrementally fix it, but no amount of patches will fix a loading screen inbetween every door, the lack of exploration, the awfully mediocre dialogue and boring roleplaying…
I say this as a general fan of the game by the way, but I just don’t see it being relevant for more than a year.
The thing I hate about this game, one of the biggest fundamental differences between it and any other BGS title is that it isn’t compelling to go explore a planet that has copies of the content on all the other planets, and astoundingly little at that, the same way it is to just pick a direction in Skyrim or Fallout and walk, and end up stumbling on some shit going down in a cave or abandoned building just off the beaten path. Even if you remove the loading screens and add vehicles on planets to minimize the amount of time between engaging set pieces, it’s still the same abandoned factory populated with the same pirates guarding the same generic fetch quest objective. It is such an aggressive, unrewarding waste of time with so few redeeming qualities that I’m a little shocked anyone at Bethesda thought this should merit any amount of hard-earned money, let alone seventy fucking dollars. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know?
It really feels like Bethesda forgot that what made up for their chit story writing with later titles is that at least they had unique little set pieces one could explore in Elder Scrolls or Fallout games. Starfield however turns that into bland repeats of endless bland outposts with very little uniqueness about them with an extremely mid scifi design asthetic.
Agree. Normally I take BGS games slow, opening every door and talking to every person. I couldn’t even bring myself to hit the level cap before losing interest. The story is interesting enough but the gameplay and exploration are not at all intriguing enough to bring myself to finish.
For the first two days of exploring planets to get all the locations, I hit all the points of interest I ran into. After the third or fourth identical underground hangar mission I started speed running locations. And don’t get me started on how fucking gnarly finding sea fauna is.
I think mods could fix the interior issues, add some variety instead of using the same science outpost interior for every science outpost. They did a great job with those interiors, but ya… after I’ve explored one or two I know where most things are and its… not very fun.
Finding all the flora/fauna is really terrible right now. I’d expect ~30 mins tops per planet to find everything, but it seems like it takes multiple landings sometimes and nobody has time for that; nor is it “fun”.
It’s been a long time, but even “modded” I think I was just running UI and inventory stuff. Also nudes probably… Anyway point being, yes, Skyrim was good without community content/gameplay enhancement.
UI mods are necessary for BGS games. They just can’t seem to learn on that front. But the world-building is usually very good. They just didn’t nail universe-building.
I have it running “mostly” stable on my i5, I had to use the 512k low res “Starfield Performance Texture Pack” (https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/510?tab=description) but still get the occasional crash but often hours of play before that.
Are you using an integrated gpu? My desktop gpu is only slightly more powerful than my steam deck. So at this point, I’m only gaming on the steam deck.
Yep, I played 2 different characters and a total of almost 200 hours and I’m just done. Unless they somehow make the game far less boring than it is I won’t be installing it again.
The problem with Starfield is that most of the problems aren’t fixable. Sure, they can incrementally fix it, but no amount of patches will fix a loading screen inbetween every door, the lack of exploration, the awfully mediocre dialogue and boring roleplaying…
I say this as a general fan of the game by the way, but I just don’t see it being relevant for more than a year.
The thing I hate about this game, one of the biggest fundamental differences between it and any other BGS title is that it isn’t compelling to go explore a planet that has copies of the content on all the other planets, and astoundingly little at that, the same way it is to just pick a direction in Skyrim or Fallout and walk, and end up stumbling on some shit going down in a cave or abandoned building just off the beaten path. Even if you remove the loading screens and add vehicles on planets to minimize the amount of time between engaging set pieces, it’s still the same abandoned factory populated with the same pirates guarding the same generic fetch quest objective. It is such an aggressive, unrewarding waste of time with so few redeeming qualities that I’m a little shocked anyone at Bethesda thought this should merit any amount of hard-earned money, let alone seventy fucking dollars. Didn’t they know? Didn’t they know?
Narrator: Oh they knew. They didn’t care.
It really feels like Bethesda forgot that what made up for their chit story writing with later titles is that at least they had unique little set pieces one could explore in Elder Scrolls or Fallout games. Starfield however turns that into bland repeats of endless bland outposts with very little uniqueness about them with an extremely mid scifi design asthetic.
Agree. Normally I take BGS games slow, opening every door and talking to every person. I couldn’t even bring myself to hit the level cap before losing interest. The story is interesting enough but the gameplay and exploration are not at all intriguing enough to bring myself to finish.
For the first two days of exploring planets to get all the locations, I hit all the points of interest I ran into. After the third or fourth identical underground hangar mission I started speed running locations. And don’t get me started on how fucking gnarly finding sea fauna is.
I think mods could fix the interior issues, add some variety instead of using the same science outpost interior for every science outpost. They did a great job with those interiors, but ya… after I’ve explored one or two I know where most things are and its… not very fun.
Finding all the flora/fauna is really terrible right now. I’d expect ~30 mins tops per planet to find everything, but it seems like it takes multiple landings sometimes and nobody has time for that; nor is it “fun”.
I’m past the point of giving BGS the benefit of “modders can fix it.” At the end of the day, the bones of the game can’t hold it up.
Skyrim is great because of the exploration. I’ve not played Star field because the system requirements are too high anyway.
Skyrim is great because of a robust modding scene. I believe it would’ve long faded into irrelevancy otherwise.
Nah, even as a vanilla game, exploration is still a blast. I remember the path to Whiterun as a top 10 gaming moment. Starfield has none of that.
It’s been a long time, but even “modded” I think I was just running UI and inventory stuff. Also nudes probably… Anyway point being, yes, Skyrim was good without community content/gameplay enhancement.
UI mods are necessary for BGS games. They just can’t seem to learn on that front. But the world-building is usually very good. They just didn’t nail universe-building.
I did mods at one point, but I have played the vanilla campaign a few times. I think it holds up just as well without mods.
I have it running “mostly” stable on my i5, I had to use the 512k low res “Starfield Performance Texture Pack” (https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/510?tab=description) but still get the occasional crash but often hours of play before that.
Are you using an integrated gpu? My desktop gpu is only slightly more powerful than my steam deck. So at this point, I’m only gaming on the steam deck.
Yep, I played 2 different characters and a total of almost 200 hours and I’m just done. Unless they somehow make the game far less boring than it is I won’t be installing it again.