Starfield

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Rating down at 77% (store.steampowered.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I must say it is not the best RPG out there, but I feel like it would have earned more. I personally have a lot of fun playing.

While it was not a Cyberpunk-grade overhype, I think it must still have been overhyped. Because if you see it as Skyrim with better graphics, it is pretty much what you'd expect.

Some of the common criticism seems to be intrinsic to the sci-fi genre. In Skyrim, you walk 100 meters and then you find some cave or camp or something that a game designer has placed there manually with some story or meaning behind it. And as a player, you notice that, because most locations in Skyrim feel somehow unique. Even though for example the dungeons have rooms that repeat a lot. Having a designer place them manually with some thought gives them something unique.

In interstellar sci-fi, a dense world like this is simply impossible. Planets are extremely large so filling them manually with content is simply not possible. And using procedural generation makes things feel meaningless. Players notice that fast. So instead, Starfield opted for having a few manually constructed locations that are placed randomly on planets, unfortunately with a lot of repetition. But that is a sound compromise, given the constraints of today's game development technology. The dense worlds that we are used to from other genres simply don't scale up to planetary scale, and as players, we have to get used to that.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 1 year ago (9 children)

Starfield is the classic Bethesda experience but the hype around it implied it wouldn't be. The classic Bethesda experience is fine, it's a good base of a nice, free-form game that lacks polish. They are also games that need at least a few mods to actually be good. Vanilla Skyrim, etc sucks after you start modding it. Even if all you download is an end, a weather, the unofficial patch, and the better dialog and message box controls mods. Playing starfield I was immediately like "where is better dialog and message box controls?"

The game has potential but a thing that bothers me is landing on a planet and it says I explored 90% of it before I even exited the ship. I went to earth and there was no evidence of there ever being life and major cities. No ruined homes, no cities, no like... Mt Rushmore head that broke off and found where it isn't supposed to be, no statue of liberty torch. Nothing. They could have crafted a really cool ruined earth and instead it was just... sand and rocks. What do you think is behind that rock? Another rock. And when it comes to Earth, you don't need to have everything be where it needs to. The tip of a pyramid in Egypt makes sense but I see nothing wrong with finding the broken Washington monument in the middle of what was the Atlantic ocean. Or the broken big Ben in the middle of what was Japan. If any planet should have gotten randomly generated assets of ruins or even just manually crafted, it should have been Earth.

Most planets are empty and give you almost no reason to explore them. The game is about exploring planets, but playing this game makes me want to play Starbound instead.

I also don't know why everyone compares it to Skyrim when I feel like I'm playing Fallout 4 instead of Skyrim. Skyrim would have been an improvement, I wasn't a fan of FO4.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

that lacks polish

I’d say creation engine is showing its age more than it lacks polish. The game looks pretty good and I’ve encountered virtually no bugs so far. People’s faces are a bit off though, as many have pointed out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Creation engine is a double edge sword, on one had, it is super moddable. The mods you can put in for skyrim are insane. You can turn it into a completely different game.

I would say that the game isn't unpolished because of the engine though. Not in the ways I'm talking about anyway. The quests, dialog, locations, animations are all just a bit off, unpolished, and stiff. None of these really have anything to do with the engine aside maybe animations and locations. And given the eldersouls mods that give very animated combat animations, the combat mods that add wound systems and combos, etc, I don't think that's what's holding them back.

Yes creation engine is old, but I dont think it's what makes the game feel unpolished for me.