Videogames Latest: Starfields of Glory

[IlyaP]

25 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

I tried it out tonight and quit not a half hour in. I'm a PC gamer through and through, and Bethesda's increasingly console-oriented UIs have thrown me off through the Fallout and ES series. Even equipping the very first item in the game was a total mess from a UX perspective as a keyboard/mouse gamer.  Ugh. I wish I were able to play modern games with a controller, but my thumbs are completely useless compared to my mouse control. Navigating menus with the E and R buttons and such is ridiculous for a 9-figure-budget game. Eff off, Bethesda.

This will likely end up getting modded the same way Skyrim did with Sky UI, which became one of the most, if not the most, important mods to get when installing the game.

25 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

I had a coworker at our bar call in 'sick' tonight and get caught by the rest of us when he left his Discord on - he'd played it 13 hours straight and even my boss was mad but impressed.

That right there is some serious chutzpah. What did your boss say after all that, to your coworker? Was he forgiven but with a mild, if bemused, reprimand?

[Raja]

5 hours ago, Argonath Diver said:

. I'm a PC gamer through and through,

Same. The inventory & UI stuff is not great for PC.

It's especially cumbersome when you're trying to cycle through weapons but I might play with my key binds a bit

[Ser Not Appearing]

Inventory and UI isn't good for console either, really. Standard Bethesda complaint.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I think the last Bethesda game that did not have a console UI was Morrowind.

Released more than 20 years ago.

I feel like the company does not care about that particular complaint as I doubt it hurts sale at all. People just wait for the mods if they really care. Annoying but as expected as the sun rising every day.

[Ser Not Appearing]

Through yesterday, I had carte blanche to play at much as I wanted ... So I played pretty much non-stop. Starting today, I'm pretty much just playing at night. *sigh*

Put in 18+ hrs through last night, accomplishing what many would do in 5-10 because I look in every corner and open every chest, locker and container.

In 18 hrs, I've done a bit of Constellation quests, a bit of Crimson Fleet (I'm on a questline where I'm a mole in their org, looking to bring them down) and I've explored the moon some and a random planet some. I'm level 10 or 11 and have barely scratched the skill tree and barely crafted anything.

Literally barely scratching the surface.

 

[Raja]

Yeah, I don't agree that just cause it's a  known thing it's something that shouldn't be held against the game.

I'm about 6 hours into the game and first impressions are

1. Exploring planets is fun - I randomly picked a planet and went over there and have spent the last two hours just exploring it and it's been great. The planet itself is gorgeous and it's a real  mood just walking around and finding stuff. My companion just leaving me for no reason wasa bit odd but it's a minor quibble, I think I preferred exploring by myself. The planet I was on had just the right amount of stuff to keep me interested.

2. Guns feel great

3. It kinda sucks that I can find a ship & then not pilot it because 'you are not authorized to fly it' - that's dumb.

3. Space flight is quite disappointing - flying itself is fun, but it seems limited to just flying around the orbit of a planet for no reason other than to land or fast travel somewhere. There's no sense of 'exploration', I can fly around a planet but I'm never really going anywhere, I'm not really exploring anything. This was a big draw for me so I've been quite disappointed about it.

[Argonath Diver]

10 hours ago, IlyaP said:

That right there is some serious chutzpah. What did your boss say after all that, to your coworker? Was he forgiven but with a mild, if bemused, reprimand?

It was pretty hilarious really. We're all in a Discord server for a Valheim server and he forgot it shows your current status (ie Playing Starfield). So boss saw him on late Friday, i saw him on like 4am, he was still gaming in the morning (when he texted saying he was sick). Boss typed "Bro you know your Discords been on since you logged onto Starfield last night" and the kid issued a terrified and heartfelt apology. Everyone's just laughing about it today. 

 

Re: the UI, ya I tried again sober today and it's still just a terrible UX for me. Same reason i havent deatroyed a Bethesda game since Morrowind. Game is gorgeous maxed out on my 6800xt but it'll wait on Steam til a major UI mod is released, as you pointed to that SkyUI mod.

[horangi]

Had a few hours in so far.  Spent about 10 minutes clearing the first pirate base, and another 30 dry looting it of every Styrofoam cup and notebook.  Odd that the low gravity of the planet suddenly reverts to 1G when you enter the building...  This is the first game that has really tested my GTX 1060 card and have to run a combo of low and medium graphics settings.

[Corvinus85]

Under 2 hrs of playtime on Starfield so far. Works nice. Finished the pirate quest and now I've landed on New Atlantis. 

The space part is a bit disappointing, but space is big so I don't mind all the fast travel. I'm not so impressed with how you access your inventory, though various stuff within it is good. I agree with whomever said that the game is too much like it's made for controllers and not mouse + keyboard.

Is there a way to actually take cover or you just crouch as if you were sneaking and strafe about like a maniac? I haven't found a way to fast switch between weapons, yet, there must be one.

[Werthead]

In your inventory you can assign weapons, helmets etc to quick-buttons (1-0, +, -). You can also assign your spacesuit to automatically appear invisible in breathable atmosphere (but you're still wearing it so you get the armour bonus), which is easy to miss.

It has the same "secret" cover system as Fallout 4. Just duck and go right up to a surface edge and then aiming should automatically move you out of cover and back in when you stop aiming.

Having had 0 technical issues yesterday, today the game has gone berserk crashing every 5-10 minutes or so in New Atlantis. I did figure out how to cap the FPS to 60 using NVidia Control Panel, but it didn't make as big a difference I was hoping. I went down into the Well (a totally interior area) hoping that would help and it's still crashing down there, albeit every 30-45 minutes or so. Completely baffling.

[Raja]

32 minutes ago, Corvinus85 said:

 I haven't found a way to fast switch between weapons, yet, there must be one.

If you go into the inventory and then go to a weapon. Press favourite and it will bring up a d pad looking configuration that goes from 1 to 9 or whatever, you can assign weapons & healing that way.

The amount of stuff you can carry is also annoying. I'm constantly having to drop shit cause i need all the weapons, ammo & meds I can carry.

[Raja]

Also, the main quest is....not great so far at all. I couldn't care less about it.

[GallowKnight]

Looks like Bloodlines is back on the menu. 

 

 

Edited September 3, 2023 by GallowKnight

[Werthead]

Nice attentions to detail:

The count also goes up in-game. If you come back later on it will have increased (someone said they think it sometimes resets without your intervention, indicating an accident in your absence has also happened).

[Ser Not Appearing]

17 hours ago, Corvinus85 said:

Is there a way to actually take cover or you just crouch as if you were sneaking and strafe about like a maniac? I haven't found a way to fast switch between weapons, yet, there must be one.

When you favorite a weapon, you assign it in a cross grid that you can pull up quickly by pressing Q. When you pull it up, time slows down but doesn't stop and you can move over to a different favorite weapon to swap.

[dog-days]

Somehow missed this in August. Really glum news from Bioware. 

Around fifty staff laid off

The number includes Mary Kirby one of the longest-standing Dragon Age writers. I most associate her for posting part of the Landsmeet flowchart on Twitter, but to everyone else she's probably better known for writing Varric. 

ETA: holy shit, they laid off Lukas Kristjanson too. He wrote Minsc!! 

Would the last one out of Bioware please close the doors and switch off the lights?

Edited September 3, 2023 by dog-days

[Ser Not Appearing]

17 hours ago, Raja said:

Also, the main quest is....not great so far at all. I couldn't care less about it.

Agreed.

Though I've read that the experience is much better if you focus it solely and move into new game + before doing anything else ... which runs directly counter to my normal playstyle.

[Ser Not Appearing]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

Nice attentions to detail:

The count also goes up in-game. If you come back later on it will have increased (someone said they think it sometimes resets without your intervention, indicating an accident in your absence has also happened).

I love that one. I found this last night as well. Simple and obvious ... if you actually pay attention to things. Good attention to detail all around.

https://reddit.com/r/Starfield/s/LFrc9a4P53

[Raja]

32 minutes ago, Ser Not Appearing said:

Agreed.

Though I've read that the experience is much better if you focus it solely and move into new game + before doing anything else ... which runs directly counter to my normal playstyle.

Yeah. I have this thing where I lose all  interest in a game after completing the main story, so usually I like to sorta see how things go and do a bit of story & then some side stuff.

The planets you encounter in the main story so far are pretty cool - I'm about 8-9 hours in atm

[polishgenius]

On 8/22/2023 at 10:30 PM, polishgenius said:

 

Get this it looks delightful 

(I have it already myself tbh, just waiting to start it till the weekend when I go on holiday and can dig into it a bit)

 

Took me longer to get started on this than I thought coz I played basically nothing over my holiday, but I've given it a go now. There's a lot of love gone into this. Gonna take me a while to get fully into it coz it's got quite a high learning curve, not in terms of difficulty (though twin-stick shooters are never the easiest for me) but because there's a lot of mechanics and aspects of gameplay being introduced very quickly. So I'm kind of having to put a pin in one while I familiarise myself with another then remember to go back and try the other new thing out.

 

But it's a blast so far, pirate-gunning action in a fun mythos and setting, with what seems like a pretty involved story behind it. It'll be interesting to see how it strikes the balance between the open-world game and an involved, almost RPG-like story, that's not an easy one to get right.