Videogames Latest: Starfields of Glory

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

Btw guys can one play BG3 as a casual RPG gamer, who’s never played isometric CRPG or TTRPGs before, without any difficulties ? The closest thing I’ve played to it is KOTOR. Otherwise I’m more of a Mass Effect/Witcher/Skyrim type of RPG gamer. Will it still be accessible enough without going through hours of YouTube videos for comprehension…. 

[Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II]

4 hours ago, Poobah said:

 

 it doesn't even have that sense you had in <name your favourite previous open world Bethesda game> where you'd be on your way to an objective but oh look there's a dozen things that are interesting and sidetrack you along the way and the world just keeps opening up and offering you new interesting things to discover because it's all fast travel and going through load screens to separate world spaces. There's no "fly around space exploring" you just click and you're there and there's no point flying your ship around in the systems that I've seen, there's no "I wonder what's in this direction" on the planets because it's gonna be more of the same procedurally generated stuff around your landing site or you can just generate a new square of planet by landing again.

That sucks, this is all I really want from Bethesda games tbh. I don’t think anyone ever plays them for depthful characters or a strong, multi-layered storyline lol. I just want good handcrafted dungeons and a great sense of exploration and discovery. Also, I hate procedurally generated content, it’s the most boring thing ever in a game and I thought they stopped doing that after Oblivion. Seems like they’ve taken a step backwards with this game. 

[Ser Not Appearing]

And yet getting distracted is all I've been doing in Starfield.

Personally, I don't think I'd ever get that sense watching someone else play. You can see game mechanics and glean a good bit about game structure but I don't get the sense of exploration and distraction without being in control. It's too much of a presentation watching someone else play.

[Luzifer's right hand]

9 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Btw guys can one play BG3 as a casual RPG gamer, who’s never played isometric CRPG or TTRPGs before, without any difficulties ? The closest thing I’ve played to it is KOTOR. Otherwise I’m more of a Mass Effect/Witcher/Skyrim type of RPG gamer. Will it still be accessible enough without going through hours of YouTube videos for comprehension…. 

Just pick the lowest difficulty and play with multiple fighters.

You should not have many problems playing that way.

[Corvinus85]

9 hours ago, Ser Rodrigo Belmonte II said:

Btw guys can one play BG3 as a casual RPG gamer, who’s never played isometric CRPG or TTRPGs before, without any difficulties ? The closest thing I’ve played to it is KOTOR. Otherwise I’m more of a Mass Effect/Witcher/Skyrim type of RPG gamer. Will it still be accessible enough without going through hours of YouTube videos for comprehension…. 

I'm doing it but with difficulty. Had to ask questions here about certain stuff. The game is a lot of fun, though, but that can be subjective.

[Werthead]

19 hours ago, Poobah said:

I've watched a few streams of Starfield and so far I'm deeply unimpressed. It looks quite pretty (except npcs who are basically the same derps from all previous Bethesda games in higher res) but that's sorta the absolute minimum bar for an AAA game in current year. The pre-made cities I've seen look ok but still not exactly alive or anything and fairly quickly explored and beyond that you fly your ship to a planet (except you don't and we'll get to that later) and then you get some procedurally generated grey lump that probably has some points of interest containing random pirates and hostile wildlife to murder and some loot... and you can do that infinity times but why would you? The quests I've seen have all been passable at best. Even the most ardent defenders admit that the menus are at minimum the usual Bethesda not even trying to make something that works or makes sense ("don't worry mods will fix it!" they tell me).

I'd say the cities in the game are by far the best Bethesda has done. They feel busy and alive in a way that Whiterun or the Imperial City didn't (Diamond City I give a pass to because they got the scale more or less right for that), and there's a good mix of background NPCs, what appear to be background NPCs but they actually say something that can generate or further quests, and proper named NPCs.

There are a lot of very good side-quests and so far a paucity of bullshit dull quests, compared to FO4 and Skyrim (which got and still gets way too much of a pass for dull side-quests).

Quote

All this I could forgive but from what I've seen at least it doesn't feel to me like it delivers on the feeling of space exploration it's being sold on - it doesn't even have that sense you had in <name your favourite previous open world Bethesda game> where you'd be on your way to an objective but oh look there's a dozen things that are interesting and sidetrack you along the way and the world just keeps opening up and offering you new interesting things to discover because it's all fast travel and going through load screens to separate world spaces. There's no "fly around space exploring" you just click and you're there and there's no point flying your ship around in the systems that I've seen, there's no "I wonder what's in this direction" on the planets because it's gonna be more of the same procedurally generated stuff around your landing site or you can just generate a new square of planet by landing again.

I think that is becoming more of a meme than an actual situation. If you fly manually to your destination (don't use the menu screens, use the quest markers instead) there is much more scope for bumping into random encounters, maydays or even bespoke actual quests. The game also has each planet divided into different areas, which mixes bespoke regions which usually have much more varied geography (had a great one yesterday with deep canyons but low gravity, so I could jetpack from one canyon to another to catch the enemy off-guard) with procedurally-generated ones which are less varied but can still cause a lot of surprise. The largest amount of time I spent on one area was a procgen region early on and every time I thought I'd explored it, more stuff popped up, including strange creatures, ruins, a pirate base and even a starship crashing a few kilometres away which I had to sprint to to help the people out before pirates showed up.

Also, a bit of a bizarre compliment in a space game, but the caves in this game fucking rock. Varied between tight tunnels and absolutely massive caverns in a convincing way. I'm very excited to see ES6 use this cave tech but even improved.

For how the side-quest in space works:

Spoiler

I flew from New Atlantis towards a quest planet. It was too far away so I had to stop at an intervening system. After coming out of the gravity well, I got a mayday from a nearby planet. I landed at a farm there and a geezer told me they were under attack by spacers. They were a collection of farmers scattered all over the system on isolated homesteads. My first job was to repair their communication satellites to restore system-wide comms. After fighting off some pirate attacks and repairing the satellites, the farmers agreed to meet up to discuss joining forces, but it turned out the first guy I'd spoken to was a total shitbird who'd ripped off the other guys and now they all hated him and didn't want to work with him even against the pirate menace. Using the new conversation persuasion system, which requires getting a handle on the person's personality and working out what approach will work, I convinced the entire group to join forces. We then formed an ad hoc fleet and defeated the pirate fleet in open battle, and then their defensive force around their home base space station. We then stormed the space station and engaged in some heavy ground combat, at the end of which I left everyone happy, but the guy who was a shitbird was on a warning from the others not to be a dickhead again. I heard some rumours that quest spawns a sequel later on - a lot of quests do, surprisingly - but tried to avoid spoilers for that.

That's a like a 3-hour chain of events that spawns from one encounter in space.

[horangi]

Has anyone heard anything about Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria?  A sandbox survival crafter set in Moria sounds like it would be great fun, but since I hadnt even heard of it until it popped up in Epic's pre-order popup makes me wonder if its more of a cash grab using the LoR IP to push sales?

[Ser Not Appearing]

46 minutes ago, Werthead said:

Also, a bit of a bizarre compliment in a space game, but the caves in this game fucking rock. Varied between tight tunnels and absolutely massive caverns in a convincing way. I'm very excited to see ES6 use this cave tech but even improved.

For how the side-quest in space works:

  Hide contents

I flew from New Atlantis towards a quest planet. It was too far away so I had to stop at an intervening system. After coming out of the gravity well, I got a mayday from a nearby planet. I landed at a farm there and a geezer told me they were under attack by spacers. They were a collection of farmers scattered all over the system on isolated homesteads. My first job was to repair their communication satellites to restore system-wide comms. After fighting off some pirate attacks and repairing the satellites, the farmers agreed to meet up to discuss joining forces, but it turned out the first guy I'd spoken to was a total shitbird who'd ripped off the other guys and now they all hated him and didn't want to work with him even against the pirate menace. Using the new conversation persuasion system, which requires getting a handle on the person's personality and working out what approach will work, I convinced the entire group to join forces. We then formed an ad hoc fleet and defeated the pirate fleet in open battle, and then their defensive force around their home base space station. We then stormed the space station and engaged in some heavy ground combat, at the end of which I left everyone happy, but the guy who was a shitbird was on a warning from the others not to be a dickhead again. I heard some rumours that quest spawns a sequel later on - a lot of quests do, surprisingly - but tried to avoid spoilers for that.

That's a like a 3-hour chain of events that spawns from one encounter in space.

That dang flashlight is horrible though.

[Raja]

The space exploration quick travel isn't a meme at all, but a perfectly valid criticism and it seems a bit weird to dismiss it as a 'meme'. People are disappointed about this aspect because it was potentially one of the most exciting things about the game.

Agree with everything Poobah has said about the space exploration bit, especially when compared to Skyrim.

Look, I'm enjoying Starfield and I think some of the cities are quite cool and the side quest I'm on is pretty neat and I like the gun play.

But you're not really exploring with your space ship, you can't really fly to anything at all except for some stations here and there and there just aren't enough events going on in space where you feel *something* is happening. You're just in your cockpit, clicking through menus till you get to where you need to go. I'm about 12 hours in and I just can't be arsed upgrading my ship because there's very little point in doing it.

They've missed the mark *for me* when it comes to this stuff and to be honest, I would have been fine with sacrificing some scale for a better sense of space exploration on the ship. There's no sense of wonder when you're in your ship, no sense of what you could potentially find.

Like poobah mentions, in Skyrim I rarely even used the fast travel because traveling to the other side of the world on your horse or just walking around was the fun part of that game, at least for me.

Even though they haven't executed this bit of the game properly, there's still enough good in the game that I'm enjoying my playthrough with the gun play being fun & some of the cities being pretty cool.

Weirdly, Atlantis is the least impressive city for me compared to the others that I have found. I find it completely sanitary and it doesn't feel 'lived in' at all ( Neon, Akila are fun)

Edited September 6, 2023 by Raja

[Ser Not Appearing]

New Atlantis low-key sucks.

For better or worse, the world you're exploring like you explored in Skyrim is ... the many different worlds. It's not space. Fast travel is more like picking what door to use when leaving a building. You're not actually skipping the explorable world.

People who wanted to fly around in the vast emptiness (or modified to not be empty) of space will be disappointed to a degree. As you said, *for you* not exploring space feels like it misses the mark and that's subjective and totally normal for some people to feel that ... but I disagree on the fast travel being like never exploring the Skyrim world. Fast travel gets you to the explorable stuff, it doesn't skip it. Totally different function than Skyrim.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Ser Not Appearing

[Werthead]

4 minutes ago, Raja said:

The space exploration quick travel isn't a meme at all, but a perfectly valid criticism and it seems a bit weird to dismiss it as a 'meme'.

The meme is that there is nothing to do in the space bit of the game but, as I just outlined at some length, there are very substantial quests that only trigger if you travel through space and don't fast-travel instantly everywhere. I don't think there's millions of them, but there's a few, and you can completely miss them by just hitting the fast travel button (I actually think it was a mistake to allow you to directly fast-travel to planets you haven't explored manually yet, which is the traditional BGS way of doing things).

I agree it's not as organic as the way it was handled in Skyrim, Fallout 4 and other BGS games, but it is there, and it is absolutely false to say it doesn't happen.

Also, again, you don't need to click through menus to do anything. You set your destination and you can navigate there completely in-ship without having to access the map (although you do if you want to change your destination, or you pick a different quest).

Quote

But you're not really exploring with your space ship, you can't really fly to anything at all except for some stations here and there and there just aren't enough events going on in space where you feel *something* is happening. You're just in your cockpit, clicking through menus till you get to where you need to go. I'm about 12 hours in and I just can't be arsed upgrading my ship because there's very little point in doing it.

Doing the space quests you very quickly discover your starting ship is a brick and you do need to upgrade it or buy a new one (and staff it with decent crew) to stay in the progression curve, otherwise you'll get to a point where you are constantly outmatched.

I'm currently doing the Freestar Rangers questline because I heard 

Spoiler

your reward for completing the whole thing is a much better ship than your starting one.

 

[Ser Not Appearing]

Haven't completed Freestar yet but the urge to expand that spoiler box ... it's calling me, calling my name, crying out in supplication and desire.

[Raja]

@Ser Not Appearing I think the closest the game gets to exploration for me is when I just go to random planets and walk around random settlements. Those aspects are cool and do feel like space exploration and I like that stuff. I think the planetary exploration is decent enough.

But a big thing for me, and one of the reasons I enjoy games like Red Dead, Skyrim and even AC Black flag is that I can get on my horse and go whererever without feeling like I'm clicking through a menus. Even AC Black Flag had more of a sense of exploration once you got on a ship. I think when you're on a planet it feels enough like exploration that it satisfies my itch. less so when I'm on my ship, which is where the disappointment comes from.

@Werthead To jump from one system to another, you need to grav jump and you're doing that by bringing up the star map, thereby bringing up a menu.  And most of the quests require you to do this.  Space flight is restricted to orbits of planets we arrive at, and all of those are behind transition screens. Sometimes things are happening when you arrive to places, but that's been quite rare in my playthrough ( and I don't fast travel straight to the city)

There are clearly a reasonable number of people that wanted to fly around in space and not be restricted to orbits, and it's not unreasonable that they find the inability to do that disappointing.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Raja

[Raja]

IGN put it pretty well here

Quote

When I discovered that so much of space flight is effectively a series of non-interactive cutscenes, it largely shattered the illusion of exploring a vast universe. It’s impossible not to compare Starfield to the way you freely enter and exit planets’ atmosphere in No Man’s Sky, so it’s a bit of a letdown every time you see a planet and remember it’s just a picture of a planet you’ll never be able to reach by flying toward it. It’s something that happens a lot.

Emphasis is mine and I think it captures the frustration quite well.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Raja

[ASOIAFrelatedusername]

Question to those who played Starfield: Are there any settled planets with unusual features to which the settlers had to adapt in an interesting way? Like a planet with extreme weather conditions where the settlements are build to withstand or take advantage of them?

And somewhat related: Can you see where the people get their food from?

[horangi]

54 minutes ago, Raja said:

IGN put it pretty well here

Emphasis is mine and I think it captures the frustration quite well.

These are fair concerns, but I am not sure how you solve it without relying almost exclusively on procedural generation, which has its drawbacks for long term play. Skyrim's map is about 37 sq kms. Deimos, on the lower end of planetary bodies, is 500 sq kms.  NMS and ED have done a great job in capturing the scale of the universe and the ability to basically go anywhere, but that anywhere, like the real universe is pretty empty (ED) or at least starts to look the same after a couple hours of play (NMS).  They can put in hand created content of course, but its either going to be extremely clustered around the handful of settlements (like in Starfield), or you need breadcrumbs to find anything at all (like ED).  While I am really enjoying it despite this issue, what Starfield could have done better is managing the illusion of the vastness of space and the transition from the ground.  The space flight part just feels like another game compared to the land-exploration side of things. That said, I went into the game expecting a much larger, Bethesda sandbox of the The Outer Worlds and didnt have very high expectations of the space flight.

 

ETA: If I had my druthers, I would have preferred that they had put out the next Elder Scrolls game rather than Starfield- the scale feels a bit more manageable and its easier to suspend disbelief that one person could have a dramatic impact on the world.  But I can understand the dev teams wanting to take a break from the IP.

Edited September 6, 2023 by horangi

[Ser Not Appearing]

1 hour ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

Question to those who played Starfield: Are there any settled planets with unusual features to which the settlers had to adapt in an interesting way? Like a planet with extreme weather conditions where the settlements are build to withstand or take advantage of them?

And somewhat related: Can you see where the people get their food from?

Neon is a city on a water planet but apart from knowing that, I don't think it affects the city a lot.

Edited September 6, 2023 by Ser Not Appearing

[Werthead]

3 hours ago, Raja said:

@Werthead To jump from one system to another, you need to grav jump and you're doing that by bringing up the star map, thereby bringing up a menu.  And most of the quests require you to do this.  Space flight is restricted to orbits of planets we arrive at, and all of those are behind transition screens. Sometimes things are happening when you arrive to places, but that's been quite rare in my playthrough ( and I don't fast travel straight to the city)

There are clearly a reasonable number of people that wanted to fly around in space and not be restricted to orbits, and it's not unreasonable that they find the inability to do that disappointing.

You can aim your ship at your destination star (marked by the quest icon), then hit the prompted button (E on PC) and the ship will jump without leaving first or third person view. You don't need to go into the menu or map screen. You can also do that with in-system travel. You can also select any planet in view (centre the planet or moon in the middle of the screen) and again hit E to travel to them without having to go into the menu screen.

You only need to go into the menu to change quests if you decide to go somewhere else, which usually means changing the destination star system.

The only time you need to go into the map is to land. Which is odd as some people were swearing blind that you only need to point at the planet and hold down R (rather than E) to land, but AFAICT that doesn't actually work.

3 hours ago, Raja said:

IGN put it pretty well here

Emphasis is mine and I think it captures the frustration quite well.

This is simply wishing the game was something it was not. It was never aiming, wanting or going to be No Man's Sky, a game with effectively zero narrative or storyline to speak of, and the reason people kept comparing the two were fairly spurious.

A better comparison would be Elite Dangerous, as that games also uses auto-generated skyboxes, procgen and even loading systems, but the latter is very clever and gives a better illusion of seamless interplanetary and transatmospheric (in some cases) travel, although it is still an illusion (someone even did the same thing as in Starfield, they aimed their ship at a neighbouring star and travelled to it in realspace rather than hyperspace, only to find it didn't load in the system or anything, it was just a dim jpeg of the star).

2 hours ago, ASOIAFrelatedusername said:

Question to those who played Starfield: Are there any settled planets with unusual features to which the settlers had to adapt in an interesting way? Like a planet with extreme weather conditions where the settlements are build to withstand or take advantage of them?

And somewhat related: Can you see where the people get their food from?

Red Mile is an ice planet with a hostile atmosphere, and the main city is built into the wall of a massive canyon. Neon is an ocean world where the main city is effectively a mega-giant oil rig.

Akila is surrounded by tons of farms, and there are farms (both inhabited and robot-automated ones) on most terrestrial planets.

[Raja]

41 minutes ago, Werthead said:

You can aim your ship at your destination star (marked by the quest icon),

This is only true when you have a quest icon though - If you don't and want to explore a random planet in the system, then you can't really do that and it involves going into the map.

I don't only got to planets where I have quests, as that is quite limiting.

41 minutes ago, Werthead said:

It was never aiming, wanting or going to be No Man's Sky,

It doesn't have to be No Man's Sky, but not allowing you to do more than fly around orbits of planets in a game all about space exploration with lots of ship building & ship modification elements is a disappointment to lots of people.

You might not agree with that and the game might work really well for you, and that's fine because we all respond to these things differently, but it doesn't make the criticism any less valid.

Edited September 7, 2023 by Raja

[IlyaP]

40 minutes ago, Werthead said:

This is simply wishing the game was something it was not. It was never aiming, wanting or going to be No Man's Sky, a game with effectively zero narrative or storyline to speak of, and the reason people kept comparing the two were fairly spurious.

How does it compare to the space and flight mechanics of Freelancer? 

Also, Todd Howard even confirmed last year that players would not be able to fly onto planets, so I'm not sure if peoples' expectations around this are a communications failure from Bethesda or players not correctly reading the manual, if you will, around the game's design and features.