Starfield: Thoughts?

[Good Wizard]

Hello,

since I have it in EA (since Saturday) I will try to comment on my impressions of Starfield.

First, to get it out of the way, the negative things:

First and foremost, the interface can only be called crap (and a lot of stronger words). It is just a cheap controller interface remodeled for mouse/KB. The entire game seems to be a console port to PC anyway, sadly, but this could be said since Skyrim.
An example of the 'interface': From the game to open the inventory you have two ways: Hit TAB and then in the menu there select Inventory (a key and a mouse click), OR you use the key 'I' to jump directly to the inventory screen. The usual end action to return to the game is TAB (but sometimes ESC or even different keys...). In this case, if you hit TAB, you come to the TAB screen above, not back into the game. To go back into the game you need to press 'I' again. But only in this case.

Another thing is, that Bethesda has a very sloppy nearly not existing 'tutorials', which do not help in any way. The game is not very accessible, and has a long period of fighting the interface instead of playing, at least for me.

Technically the game is fairly stable, but seems to have a crash bug, which hits only rarely (hours!), and which others also reported. The game is quite bug free, quests work fine, this is new for the studio.

End of negative things.

I must remark, that fighting the interface and also not knowing the game cost me a lot of fun at the start.

The biggest error I made is believing several game pages and YT videos, who all said that one should do the first 3 parts of the main quest ASAP.

Do not do this!! (IMHO it is a very bad idea, and it was so in Fallout 4 and earlier games too).

What I did: I played the first three main quest parts, without doing anything else. As a result in the last part (Return to Vectera) I was level 8, had no good weapons, was half dead and managed barely to solve the quest, had no 'Stimpacks' (the are now called MedPacks, but are the same as in FO4), not a lot of money, and was completely frustrated, did not know a big part of the game. At this point I deleted all my save until the point where you arrive in New Atlantis, the first part of this quest cannot be avoided, and can be done fairly fast. The next part of the main quest is waiting with 'Talk to a certain NPC', and this is the ideal point to postpone everything and go your own ways.

Back in level 3 I did two easy and nice quests in New Atlantis, and then decided to look around a bit:
I did not leave the system (Alpha Centauri) but just flew over to another planet there (Gagarin) and just selected an empty spot (desert) and landed there. And things became better immediately. I found a series of random points of interest, a cave (+2000 Credits, no XP, no enemies, but a lot of nice loot), then a 'Structure', which turned out to be a deserted science base. There things became interesting, because the old base was overrun with (Level 2) pirates (the Raiders from FO4). The base itself was huge, around 3 floors and a lot of rooms, with around 15-20 pirates to fight. Result: A lot of weapons. space suits, a huge amount of ammunition, MedPacks, Money and several rare items. And Level 4.
This cost me an hour, and was real fun. And at a sudden I felt to be in a Bethesda game! And I enjoyed it, despite the awful ... well you know

Since then I landed in the wilderness on the main planet (Jemison), found an abandoned old military base, and you know the drill...

The random generation of Points of Interest is flawless, works fine and entertains. Sure, it cannot be the entire game, this would be boring. But especially at the beginning, to earn the first levels, skill points, money and equipment, it is absolutely necessary! So do not believe the guys who want to do the main quest at the start. It is no fun!!

All in all IMO Starfield is Fallout 4 in space. There are notable differences, but the mechanic is very similar and proved things from FO4 you will find in a slightly different form in Starfield. If you enjoyed FO4 (I did), the you probably will like Starfield.

And since this is an X4 forum: Comparison of X4 and Starfield makes no sense at all - both games have nearly nothing in common.

One thing many people criticized is the flying in Starfield. Bethesda did not build something like No Mans Sky, Elite, or X4. The flight modes are nicely done, but for example there is no 'Travel Mode', you always jump, even from one planet to another planet in the same system.

Starfield can be seen as a series of connected 'maps', and moving from one to the next map is always some sort of 'jump', or quick travel, or anything like this. This is also true on the ground! If you land on a certain spot at a planet, you can always return to this exact spot. There is a limit how far the map is generated, and you cannot leave this area. If you try you are stopped by the game. But the area is fairly big, several kilometers in each direction. What does NOT work: If you see a far away landmark (a distinctive mountain for example) which is no part of your area, landing your ship nearby will NOT allow you to walk to the mountain, because the area there is in no connection to the other area. Border landscapes do not go into neighboring areas. This is a limitation, which you will only find, if you experiment, and not a problem, IMO.

I did not try a lot of ship combat yet, but people say, that it is not too bad and usable. It depends also on your ship, which you can make better, bigger and so on. But since this costs a lot of money I postponed it, and just gave my ship another color, which you can do at nearly every starport for free.

So - all in all: Positive, and I hope somebody will find the time to mod out the awful interface (like in Skyrim).

[Ketraar]

And since this is an X4 forum: Comparison of X4 and Starfield makes no sense at all - both games have nearly nothing in common.

I disagree, you can always make comparisons, you just need to be clear about what you are comparing.

For example, as an old X Veteran, I felt right at home with the UI. Not saying I like it or that it looks good, but its not something that stops me enjoying a game lets say
One portion I was a tad frustrated and goes to Good Wizard's point about the game not telling you things (again parallels can be made ), is the ship building. Mind I really like the modularity but the interface on that is just atrocious, sorry. Immediately was dreaming of X4 station builder and its gizmo to move and rotate modules around. The UI doesn't even tell you that you can manipulate the "height plane" of your selected module with R (up) and F (down), which makes placing stuff sooooooo much easier. Only found out from another player after having lost several frustrating hours trying to rotate to weird angles in the hope the dam module would snap.

I dont mind the fast travel mode, I a tad sad of the choice but not something that bothers me a lot. Exploring POIs and landscape is fun and will aim to build a "proper" outpost next, I did try once but then Starfield does a poor job telling you upfront what resources you need for what so, keep being told I miss a thing, so decided to first gather some random stuff in the hopes to get going, very curious how that will pan out.

MFG

Ketraar

[mr.WHO]

I think both games have a lot in common.

Specifically, release version of Starfield is like base vanilla X4:Foundations 1.0 with no mods.

It needs more polishing, bugfixing, DLC and mod content.

It will be a decent game in 2-3 years, but right now it's low 7/10 at best.

[Tranxalive]

One portion I was a tad frustrated and goes to Good Wizard's point about the game not telling you things (again parallels can be made ), is the ship building. Mind I really like the modularity but the interface on that is just atrocious, sorry. Immediately was dreaming of X4 station builder and its gizmo to move and rotate modules around. The UI doesn't even tell you that you can manipulate the "height plane" of your selected module with R (up) and F (down), which makes placing stuff sooooooo much easier. Only found out from another player after having lost several frustrating hours trying to rotate to weird angles in the hope the dam module would snap.

I completely agree. It’s just odd to use and doesn’t really have some of the necessary things that ensure a editor is good to use. I really wish it was able to rotate ship parts on all axes, when X4 added that feature, as someone who love building stations, especially absurdly large ones that crash the entire economy of the universe when I build them, I was ecstatic.

Also, if I recall properly, while using a controller in the ship building menu, the controller glyphs are plastered across the screen which show all the controls, which are still odd and clunky to use. But I believe when using the mouse and keyboard, some important control glyphs disappear, which is a very poor design decision. I still use the controller to build ships, because the sensible mouse and keyboard method is somehow even more difficult to use.

Another gripe I have about the ship building concept, is that it’s just a power management game. You can’t exceed the 12 bars of power, otherwise the ship magically becomes unusable. You also can’t place more than one Shield Generator, which I find to be ridiculous, since in most fights, you’ll end up having a little bit of damage because your shields were too small, and somehow the enemy’s weapons are better, even though you’re higher level than them. Since you can just toss 3 or 4 weapons of the same type on your ship 3 times, and only have one bar of power on it and still be able to use it just fine, I find it really hard to believe that the ship will suddenly just stop working if you add another shield generator.

Exploring POIs and landscape is fun and will aim to build a "proper" outpost next, I did try once but then Starfield does a poor job telling you upfront what resources you need for what so, keep being told I miss a thing, so decided to first gather some random stuff in the hopes to get going, very curious how that will pan out.

As someone who’s already used their outpost slots, it’s stupid you have a limit by the way, since they’re all just stored in their own files, so they don’t overwrite anything, I can say that outpost building is one of the more tedious things in the game. If you want your resources to be available everywhere, you need to think ahead with your Cargo Links. It’s like some sort of minigame compressing the links into one, and then compressing those into one. At the moment I have a Central Hub, my HQ, it gets everything, and sends excess resources back. Next are the System Hubs, they’re on planets with Grav Drive Fuel, and they take everything in the system and send it to another system, and at the moment, the Central Hub. Then there’s the Planetary Hubs, which take everything from the moons, those belonging to Gas Giants at the moment, and then send it to the System Hub in their system. And finally, the Resource Mining Zones: (I wanted them to be Resource Extraction Zones, but the character limit is laughably small.) They just mine resources and send them to the Planetary Hubs if applicable, or go to the System Hub. They also distribute their resources to another RMZ if able. It’s very logistical, though I actually find it to be enjoyable.

The resources are a pain too, sometimes you have to place an outpost just for one resource that is difficult to find. I literally placed an outpost on the Terrormorph planet after 2 hours of walking to get the perfect spot to get everything I needed, just for Silver, Argon, and Benzene. I haven’t actually placed any infrastructure there, or anywhere really, I’ve been spending resources to make resources, and I’m way over the carry limit just so I won’t have to fast travel back and forth. One outpost needs about 260 power to function, and as my only method of powering things there is solar, I’ve had to dedicate a significant amount of space just for powering all of the extractors.

Also, I’ve noticed an annoying glitch. Sometimes, when traveling to an outpost, and using the build camera, which is essential, it’ll decide it won’t work, and will have the loading glyph on the crosshairs, and then I have to exit out of build mode, quick save and then reload. It’s annoying.

I think I’ve typed way too much, so I’m just going to post this before this gets out of hand even further.

[Ketraar]

I just tipped my toe into base building last night and its fun and can see how that can turn into a whole own thing just building outposts everywhere, yeah the maximum seems arbitrary, would have expected the highest skill to just say "unlimited now" but oh well.

Also, I’ve noticed an annoying glitch. Sometimes, when traveling to an outpost, and using the build camera, which is essential, it’ll decide it won’t work, and will have the loading glyph on the crosshairs, and then I have to exit out of build mode, quick save and then reload. It’s annoying.

I have another glitch which is that my structures randomly "explode" for no reason (no enemies around or anything) and then I have to repair them, for them to just explode again after a few minutes. Not sure if its related with a weird thing that happened one time when I teleported back and suddenly some enemies were there but just a few seconds and they disappeared. Anyway, still in my early stages building but I can see things escalating X4 style logistics

MFG

Ketraar

[chew-ie]

As someone who’s already used their outpost slots, it’s stupid you have a limit by the way, since they’re all just stored in their own files, so they don’t overwrite anything, I can say that outpost building is one of the more tedious things in the game. If you want your resources to be available everywhere, you need to think ahead with your Cargo Links. It’s like some sort of minigame compressing the links into one, and then compressing those into one. At the moment I have a Central Hub, my HQ, it gets everything, and sends excess resources back. Next are the System Hubs, they’re on planets with Grav Drive Fuel, and they take everything in the system and send it to another system, and at the moment, the Central Hub. Then there’s the Planetary Hubs, which take everything from the moons, those belonging to Gas Giants at the moment, and then send it to the System Hub in their system. And finally, the Resource Mining Zones: (I wanted them to be Resource Extraction Zones, but the character limit is laughably small.) They just mine resources and send them to the Planetary Hubs if applicable, or go to the System Hub. They also distribute their resources to another RMZ if able. It’s very logistical, though I actually find it to be enjoyable.

I haven't even build my first one (can't decide on the planet ._.)

But those logistic stunts you are describing sounds a bit more sophisticated then the Fallout 4 base building. I noticed some missions about supplying cities / planets with a resource link. Nice to know that we can combine the resources of a system and that outposts aren't as isolated as I though

I already can smell the mods with player freighters piloted by NPCs

[Tranxalive]

I haven't even build my first one (can't decide on the planet ._.)

Yeah, I kind of just threw a bunch of outposts everywhere that had different resources I needed. Now I’m starting to regret that a little, since I need organic material production in order to build actual buildings. Sealant in particular.

Also, the game doesn’t really explain how to farm animals. You need to scan the creatures on a planet fully, and if the analysis says “Outpost production allowed,” then you can actually build the building, and the creatures will automatically spawn. It has other options, but I’m not sure if it produces every material, or if you have to manually select which one you want.

But those logistic stunts you are describing sounds a bit more sophisticated then the Fallout 4 base building. I noticed some missions about supplying cities / planets with a resource link. Nice to know that we can combine the resources of a system and that outposts aren't as isolated as I though

I already can smell the mods with player freighters piloted by NPCs

Interesting. I might be able to do some of those already, since I have a ton of resources I’m never going to be able to use all of now. I’ve spent 3 days worth of gameplay just setting up my outposts, thankfully it looks like I might be done soon. I’ve leveled up 2 times, just from crafting Adaptive Frames, which give you one XP for each, and I was level 16, and 17, so I would’ve needed to make a ton of them.

It’s a complete pain, but I still love doing it.
Also, if you are going to build a bunch of stuff, just bring a bunch of materials and ignore the carry weight. Running out of Oxygen, and having too much Carbon Dioxide won’t kill you, it stops hurting you after a certain point. It does leave a rather annoying shader effect on the screen that makes it a bit hard to see. But at least you won’t have to fast travel between outposts 20 times.

[chew-ie]

Just a short outburst of joy - I found out there are turrets for ships ^,^ No I have a real frigate, hohoho

[mr.WHO]

Just a short outburst of joy - I found out there are turrets for ships ^,^ No I have a real frigate, hohoho

Are you?

Given the size of avaliable ships in Starfield, I'd say majority of everything is just various size of cutter boats.

Still, I'd welcome the DLC or mod that would add capitalship ownership and customization.

[chew-ie]

Are you?

I do =) My latest iteration of my attempt to construct a Nebulon-B:



I guess I'll add yet another storey - 80m seems to be the cap though where things start to bug out. Those 3 ballistic turrets on the top are really awesome.

[esd]

Playing it on Games Pass, and my review is simple.

Fallout 4, if the US-China war never happened.

[fiksal]

Playing it on Games Pass, and my review is simple.

Fallout 4, if the US-China war never happened.

That is a very succinct review

[mr.WHO]

Playing it on Games Pass, and my review is simple.

Fallout 4, if the US-China war never happened.

...and Todd getting lazy, pulling No Mans Sky 1.0.

[Axeface]

Secondly, while the game i'm sure will be fairly good (a 75%er, like most bethesda games these days.... good-ish, but no masterpiece)

So after a few days of (careful) stream watching and trying to decide whether I want to buy this, I've realised that I was accurate in my initial assumptions (So im quoting myself here) and this prediction I made ages ago is bearing fruit. Game started at like 90% positive, as of today its 77% positive. Its going to end around 75% positive just as I said months ago - its what bethesda makes since skyrim, 75%ers.
The problem is that I dont have all day and there are thousands of games, I only want to play the best ones, those used to be bethesda/bioware etc - these days these frontliner devs just arnt pulling their weight.
Maybe i'll play Starfield one day. Maybe i'll play it next week, but I am simply not so interested that I want to dive in now and I certainly am not going to pay 100 dollars for it, because it just isnt that good. Bethesda should be pulling their weight in the industry and bringing it forward, innovating, but instead they are towing-the-line so to speak.

[mr.WHO]

The problem is that I dont have all day and there are thousands of games, I only want to play the best ones, those used to be bethesda/bioware etc - these days these frontliner devs just arnt pulling their weight.
Maybe i'll play Starfield one day. Maybe i'll play it next week, but I am simply not so interested that I want to dive in now and I certainly am not going to pay 100 dollars for it, because it just isnt that good. Bethesda should be pulling their weight in the industry and bringing it forward, innovating, but instead they are towing-the-line so to speak.

In that case, you should wait 1-3 years, for Starfield to be patched, added 2-3 DLCs, lots of mods and possibly sale discount.
Modern day AAA industry simply discourage to buy game at release, when you can wait to have cheaper and superior product later.

[Ketraar]

The problem is that I dont have all day and there are thousands of games, I only want to play the best ones

Not knowing what games you like, I'll risk saying that Starfield is one of the best games. I would not put much weight in steam score, many of the negative reviews have 0 to do with gameplay or game design, but instead rage about some misguided sense of "anti-woke" cult, whatever that means. Not saying Starfield is a masterpiece, but then again what is? Mass Effect is a great game, but it has similar level of issues. Sure ME1 was fresh when it came out but has the worst game mechanics of all 3. Out of interest what would be a game that qualifies as masterpiece. Just out philosophical curiosity.

Also do we still consider games with 75% score to me mediocre? Still baffles me why that is.

MFG

Ketraar

[chew-ie]

I'm with Ketraar on that one. The current "evalulation" of the game is overshadowed by tertiary discussions which are pushed to the front. Wait a few weeks for the "real" data once all the trolls / haters / activists moved on to the next game (sad, but it really is a trend - we had the same problem with BG3).

My take is: someone who enjoys X4 can get a lot of joy out of Starfield. Starfield basically provides those aspects X4 can't (all the planet exploration). Building the own ship really is something as well - as is watching the sun setting on a lonely moon / planet. One does need an interest in RPGs though - as that's the bread and butter of the game.

And of course those two games are not directly comparable - hence the "aspect" thing. They do share a clunky UI and a lot of unused potential though.

[Tranxalive]

Just to add in my two cents here, I will say that Starfield certainly isn’t perfect. I’ve witnessed all sorts of crazy physics issues, objects getting stuck inside of each other and flying around at high speeds erratically because of it. I’ve had enemies be inside of walls, and shoot you through them. I’ve been very confused about outpost mechanics, and how output links tend to prioritize the weirdest things. And I’ve had creatures stuck in the air, not moving, with the equivalent of a T-pose.

Despite these glaring flaws, and sometimes frustrating occurrences, which are surprisingly rare for a Bethesda game, I still have to say that I’m having a ton of fun with it. If anyone who wants to wait to buy it ever gets the opportunity to play it, (if they have Game Pass, or it goes on sale, or something else, like a friend, allows them to try the game.) you should absolutely play it! I guarantee you it’ll at least be an interesting experience.

[Good Wizard]

<...>

And of course those two games are not directly comparable - hence the "aspect" thing. They do share a clunky UI and a lot of unused potential though.

To compare the X4 GUI to Starfield means insulting X4...

Honestly, I never saw such a clusterf**k of an interface before. I am in no way an expert for UI-Design, but if the same key does different things depending if something is open or not, then something is fishy. Skyrim had an awful interface, every list huge with no information, but Starfield beats this down handed. Fallout 4 GUI was nothing to write home about, but was gold to this monstrosity.

Add to this the complete defective crafting system: FO4 had workshops, so all you needed to do is collect things and drop them into a workshop. This worked well and was fun. In Starfield you always need something which is not reachable, because you do not have it in the inventory, or on the ship, but elsewhere. This is no fun at all. Ships cargo is much too small, and the next big container is at the Lodge, which involves a lot of hoofing around. And no I will NOT build an Outpost just to store things.

Tried buying Ship Parts (for repairs) in New Atlantis (UC Distribution), and found that despite paying over 8000 Cr. for 7 parts, they could not be delivered to my ship. No I had to carry them myself...

The game is nice and in some aspects very well done, but it has really outstanding design flaws.

[chew-ie]

Add to this the complete defective crafting system: FO4 had workshops, so all you needed to do is collect things and drop them into a workshop. This worked well and was fun. In Starfield you always need something which is not reachable, because you do not have it in the inventory, or on the ship, but elsewhere. This is no fun at all. Ships cargo is much too small, and the next big container is at the Lodge, which involves a lot of hoofing around. And no I will NOT build an Outpost just to store things.

You can (and IMHO: should!) increase the cargo space of your mobile home. I make it a point to bring every A ship to 2000+ cargo space long before I level piloting to get ship class B (or C). Check also the cockpits - those have different cargo space ratings. Here is my current ship:



I'm also not using outposts for now - and things I want to keep I offload in my safe at the Constellation HQ (one version of each spacesuit, epic & legendaries I don't use etc...).

There are also backpacks which give a reduction of item type mass (e.g. all weapons weight less x%, all resources weigh less x%) or my favourite: reduce O2 consumption while encumbered ^^. Game gives you a lot of tools to handle carry weight. Also, Zero G is fun! (love those missions - as you can grab everything and not being hindered by it )