Starfield

[one-armed dwarf]

I'm a few hours in, steam says 6 hours but it's closer to 4 with AFK. I'll say so far it's not what I was really expecting, which I mean in both good and bad ways I guess. Firstly it's not really a BGS take on No Man's Sky, or Elite or any of those games. It's not really like Skyrim either though, so far. What it feels more like is a Bethesda take on Mass Effect 1, in that it's an open 'universe' game that's very fragmented. You have central hubs which contain lots of quest givers, then menus which connect you to the rest of the universe. You have bespoke planets like Mars which contain a small open world and settlements. You go in your shuttle and take your pick from a map, and you end up in front of a skybox which represents the nearby planet you're orbiting, and there's some random encounters that can happen out there

 

So that's the way the space travel works in this. You can also immediately just travel somewhere by opening the map whenever you want. That seems kind of spoiling the fun to me though, like a way of making things feel small. In a sense, this is pretty disappointing. Not because it isn't a massive seamless space sim, but moreso the way all the transitions are handled. It seems kind of dated and disconnected. Taken in context it might not turn into such a big deal when the rest of the parts come together and questlines progress. But it does feel a little bit of a misdirect by Bethesda, intentional or not, as to the true character of this game. But in any event Mass Effect 1 is an extremely good game that holds up, so its take on space exploration isn't a bad one to ape. Question is does it work well within the framework of a Bethesda game

 

The setup is pretty dry. It also kind of feels like Mass Effect a bit. You get your macguffin and a companion goes with you. Reviews have said it's a good idea to prioritise the main quest, for gameplay and progression purposes. I don't really know why, but I did plan to mostly stick to it with the odd sidequest rather than drag the pacing out so that's fine. But the universe is not level scaled like Oblivion and Skyrim so at some point you will presumably be forced to do optional stuff to account for that. Also just in general, mainlining a main quest in these games seems like shit advice, you want to weave those sidequests in as well

 

 

One thing I like: your companion can input on dialogue interactions. Went to a sort of Mos Eisley place on Mars where my companion butted it and haggled with another NPC. This was a sort of tutorial for this mechanic, but it would be an interesting example of the game's flexibility if these quest interactions also extend to the other optional companions you can find. I don't know that they do that for a fact, but you would reckon that they do.

 

Another thing I like is this one quest early on where a guy asks you to find some patient data he misled, and just tells you the general area he lost it in. No waypoint for this quest, you just sort of wander around and it forces the player to take in the environment and incidental dialogue, as well as read signs and develop a mental map of the area layout. Not that the dialogue is riveting or anything, but it's a minor pivot back towards the design of stuff like Morrowind where the world was the point.

 

In terms of reactivity, I picked a trait called 'Serpents Embrace' that made my character addicted to grav jumping or they take a debuff (and a buff if they do grav jump). I completely misunderstood this when I picked it, I thought it meant I had to literally jump all the time, but it means warpspeed jumps with your space ship. Doh. Turns out this also means they are a follow of a thing called the faith of the serpent, which is a pretty edgy backstory for an introverted chef. I got unique dialogue options during one quest because of this, so maybe there's more things like that which branch out and lead to different options. 

 

I also like how gravity effects the combat. You can cyberpunk style spring jump over buildings and lightly glide an explosive down a hallway, gently carried by the low gravity of Mars, like a spicey present for the space raiders. It seems like temperature might also play a part in outworld exploration, but I'm not sure in what way really. In terms of hubs, the first hub is a bit boring. Too green. But the 2nd one I went to on Mars was pretty cool and reminded me of Omega in Mass Effect 2. Also seems to be the place where you can take jobs from bounty hunters, if that's the way you want to point your character. 

 

Things I don't like, exploring the surfaces of planets seems mad boring. It's just a bunch of fucking rocks, the lack of a Mako is keenly felt. At the very least tho they have different environments. I took a radiation debuff on the surface of the moon which apparently fucked my suit up. 

 

Another thing I dislike though it's subjective, they put a weird filter on the game in certain worlds. The starter hub area has The Matrix filter on it. Shit's green all the time. The Mars area has a red filter. You can walk in a room and see the filter fade in and out, it's very weird and overdone and leads to a blown out look. It doesn't look good on OLED, looks fine on LCD though

 

No HDR btw, at least not on PC. You can get auto hdr working using a weird work around, but it looks bad and make things more blown out so IMO stick with SDR. Apparently it's a similar situation on Xbox

 

 

[Maryokutai]

I've read similar tings about the main quest, with some people saying you should absolutely do it first and mentioning that the game 'only really begins afterwards', while others again see this as complete hyperbole. My suspicion is that

Spoiler

at the end of the main quest, you get those psychic abilities, which will obviously have a big impact on combat and that would explain why people see it differently because not everyone plays this with a combat focus.

But that's just pure speculation on my end.

 

I'm now roughly five hours in and looking for some NPC on the Sol system, wich is the main quest, but I think I'm not gong to follow that advice. I won't completely ignore the main quest like I did in previous TES titles, but I think I'm going to spend a bit more time with other stuff as well, because I've noticed that this pace of rushing past things and not giving the world around you room to breathe can potentially ruin a game like this. It might also be the reason why I found the initial few hours underwhelming, because this game really really demands that you give it your time. 

 

That's not to say that I don't see some issue unrelated to my playstyle. I think one of the biggest one I have so far is that it, paradoxically, feels both overwhelming and too small. Everywhere you go, there's just stuff. So many interactable items that I regularly switch to the scanner to filter them from the purely decorative things. Then there's the amount of quests and activities that come along your way, some of them unlocking just by overhearing people talk (which is a really cool idea btw), or the fact that even minor NPCs have more dialogue lines than an entire Mario game. In addition to that, the game inexcusable has no map at all, so you're also running around in those surprisingly large labyrinthine hubs and it can feel very disorienting. There's one lower-level area in Atlantis that I only found the exit again after turning the tracker for the main quest on, for example. This will, of course, be less of an issue after repeated visits, but I find the lack of a map, at least for the hubs and cities, a very questionable oversight.

 

But then you start getting into the groove of things and take off into space to visit another planet and here it starts to feel small. I thought it was just me but I'm reading more and more opinions along these lines and that is that is does a pretty bad job of portraying just how immense the universe is. Even if you go through all the hoops and avoid the 'fast' part of travel, it's still just a very fragmented experience that cuts away from transitions, meaning you only ever see a planet 1) up close in that specific area you landed on, 2) from orbit and 3) from the Starmap. The game indeed feels more like the first Mass Effect in that regard but I'd argue that Mass Effect did a better job of making you feel like travelling through a basically infinite game world. I actually feel like the part that puts you in control of the ship in orbit weakens the overall impression of spacefare because it offers you the game's limitations on a silver platter for everyone to see. If we just had a very nice, smooth, loading-screen-hiding cutscene for every time we visit a planet I think it would more successfully pull off what it wants to. Particularly as space combat isn't really that exciting to be honest, it's just using your D-Pad a lot and hoping your ship is up to the task in terms of stats.

 

With all that said, there's no way I can properly judge this after five hours anyway, but those are the points I doubt will somewhat turn into positives in the long run. It doesn't blow me away as of yet, but it's solid and intriguing enough to keep me going. There's definitely a lot of potential in how you approach certain things, for example. I picked Diplomat as starting class and I've already managed to talk my way out of quite a few situations. The thing that dwarf mentions about your party members being able to interject during dialogue scenes also makes this feel more alive than previous Bethesda titles (a trick they copied from their old friends at Obsidian and Outer Worlds). And while it's a bit boring to complement a game for its visuals, I think it looks really nice. Not in the sense that it's blowing you away, but the amount of detail of its industrial designs is really impressive and reminds me a lot of the equally impressive Alien: Isolation. I do agree that some filters are a bit too much, there's one that diffuses the lighting quite a bit and I find it tiresome to focus my eyes in those areas.

 

But yeah, lots of attention to detail here. For example, I gave my character a first name and a last name, which I simply did by entering both and adding a space in-between. When I got into my ship for the first time, the robot NPC not only mentioned me by name, but he also only mentioned my last name. I thought that was super impressive (but it might also be a very specific easter egg because my last name here is Asimov – maybe @one-armed dwarf can confirm or deny whether this applies to every name or not).

I forgot to upload my screenshots, but I also like how you can inspect every item in the inventory, and pretty much all of them look really nicely detailed. 

 

Like mentioned in the news thread, it runs perfectly on Xbox. I've yet to notice any hiccups, loading times are short (albeit frequent, but that's by design unfortunately). The one-year delay is definitely tangible, this is basically launching in the same state their previous titles only got to through numerous patches.

[one-armed dwarf]

People data mined the game and found a long list of names which are speakable by the robot. Normal ones like John and Kylie or whatever, but also names like Sex, Nipple and Orgasmo.

[mmmark]

So that upgrade to play now works with the free gamepass version. Hmmm I don’t have work next two nights..

[Maryokutai]

I think I'm slowly warming up to this, but there's no particular reason as to why other than the last few quests I did being rather interesting with multiple ways to tackle them. It's pretty cool how some of them start as simple fetch quests but then evolve into these huge conspiracy stories that take as much time to complete as a CoD campaign. I think with how vast this game is and how different your ingame 'activities' can be depending on where you're at your sessions can either be extremely fulfilling or extremely boring, making it difficult to judge it early on until you can sort of form a more holistic opinion about it.

[one-armed dwarf]

My guy as mentioned is an introvert cook, and I finally got to dismiss my companion so I'm getting that O2 buff I wasn't getting before. Beforehand, I was actually debuffed, cause of having a person following me I guess.

 

So now I can drink all the beers I find for the damage mitigation upgrade and the O2 debuff from all the beer doesn't affect me as much. I've unlocked 'mixology' for the cooking skill as well which I guess will dovetail with this direction I'm going in, which is a weird ass wino in space running around with a knife. I also got a perk to go faster on knife kills, so it all links together in a pleasingly psychotic fashion. Season 3 of The Bear goes places.

 

Right now I'd liken this game as a weird hybrid of Mass Effect, Death Stranding and No Man's Sky. With very little Skyrim about it, maybe a tiny bit of Fallout (I did not play Fallout 4 which is the one this gets compared to moreso)

 

I'm playing on the hardest difficult, not cause I'm good at it but it really forces your hand with the RPG mechanics and slows the pace right down, but the game is open enough you can pursue other avenues when you hit a wall. The skill tree seems to funnel you along different directions too, so that if you aren't that interested in base building (zero interest here, at least so far) then maybe you double down on being a ship technician. Or maybe you invest in the social skill which gives you a better success rate at making other ships surrender, so you can pirate them. There's some interesting approaches there and the ways of doing things aren't so linear

 

I'm liking it. I dunno, it's fairly inoffensive, low calorie fluff for a lot of it. But it feels like a deeper RPG than Bethesda have been making in recent years. My character took some drugs on one mission and was able to move and jump really far, the combat was similar to an alteration mage in Morrowind, with all the jumping across an entire room going on. They really embraced the jank with this one, but in a largely good kind of way

 

There's a lot of other interesting gimmicks that have been happening on missions, some cool tricks with gravity, boosters and physics. But I don't want to be too specific about it cause it's cool to just discover yourself

[mmmark]

I’ve started this in the 20 minutes I had before having to go out so I don’t have much to say other that it looks incredible, has an atmosphere I’m in love with and the music is right up my ally. Looking forward to being home later!

[mmmark]

 

[mmmark]

Got to play a little more and thankfully my initial impressions remain if not heightened. It’s just really awesome and atmospheric. There’s so much to sink your teeth into and become engrossed in and engaged with if you let it.

 

I suppose you could just play through it fast as possible mainlining the core story but you’d be doing the game a disservice imo.

 

I love that any item placement of anything on any planet is kept throughout, including all bodies, as seen in this chapter -

 

 

[one-armed dwarf]

Yeah that stuff is mad useful. There's an NPC on some proc-gen planet who's holding onto some harvested organs contraband for me, I placed it in his fridge so I can grab it later. The proc gen planets seem to maintain state so that you can do that. At the same time, I messed around with outposts finally cause I had to get rid of the insane amount of rocks in my cargo hold, and when I returned to it later on there was a tree in the middle of my kitchen blocking my access. The foliage is randomised on visits I suppose, even if settlements and item positions are maintained.

 

On the way fast travel works on this, if it's a system you've not been to you have to 'galaxy hop' from one to another. Which can lead to random encounters where you get your ship blown to bits sometimes. Maybe a recency bias cause I was playing it the other week, but that is pretty similar to how Baldur's Gate 1 designs its open world. You select a journey on a map and may get accosted on the road by ogres in random encounters. At first I disliked the fact that you could teleport from anyplace in the universe to the lodge or whatever. But now I'm thinking it contextualises a gameplay reason for building a ship oriented towards combat/uncharted exploration and a 2nd larger cargo transport for outposts. 

 

A lot of the systems in this game are quite clever, but I think their presentation and integration via menus and fast travel are not very elegant and lack the flourish of Mass Effect. So what is probably very purposeful ends up feeling very disjointed, especially because previous titles from this dev have all been about making things as connected as possible. But the more you play the more the intent behind things becomes clear, or at least links up more with your role playing and creates that sense of sandbox. I expect mods to make all this more cohesive and apparently Xbox versions of BGS games have allowed mods in the past. I wish out the gate though that these aspects were done better service by the UI, which is easily the game's biggest failing. Sky UI and better handling of this sort of stuff could make this game an 11/10

[Nag]

I'm really torn on how to approach this come Wednesday... on one hand I want to take my time with it and move around wherever I feel like and on the other I've seen people making a big deal of just blasting through the main quest line as there's some kind've game changing "thing" that occurs with new game plus.

 

So far I've not spoiled myself on what this "thing" is but it's not the type of game I'll what to spend 90 hours in and then do it all over again.... I've read mainlining it can take around 12ish hours... that sounds kind've nice to do and then jump back in for NG+....

 

Decisions.

[one-armed dwarf]

I have the same problem, it's easily the most annoying thing I've heard about this game cause it flies in the face of how you should play it. It's hard to tell if people are just hyping up something that will kill the pacing and feeling of progression you get with a game like this.

 

My approach Nag, and it dovetails with my preferred way to play a game like this anyway, is to limit my initial playthrough to one or two factions that do not have obvious conflicts with each other. EG, I'm not going to play as the 'goody' faction and the 'baddie' faction in one go. That seems stupid. So I will save one for the other and that will exist as an incentive to go again if I want (which I'm guessing I will want to do, based on rumours)

 

Rushing through the main quest will mean you pass through these really interesting settlements with lots of discoveries left to the sideline, and doing that in a post-game situation will deflate the excitement you get from doing that stuff as it comes to you. You will turn the most detailed worlds in this game into side dressing and you only get to have your initial impression of them on the first playthrough. I think lots of the recommendations being made online from journos on this aren't taking into consideration the ambient nature of moving slowly through this universe, making small discoveries along the way, and are just looking at it from a meta-progression perspective which is a flawed perspective for a game that should be taken slowly, not quickly. Sometimes slow progression is just more fun.

 

There's also an aspect of sunk cost to it I suppose

 

(IMO of course, play as you want, but rushing seems like it will have a big drawback on the experience possibly)

[DisturbedSwan]

On 02/09/2023 at 09:10, Maryokutai said:

Like mentioned in the news thread, it runs perfectly on Xbox.

 

Just being nosey, but, did you pick up a Series X? 

[Nag]

Good thoughts @one-armed dwarf... I'm kind've leaning to that way myself... I don't really want a log of untouched missions and activities at the end of a game and also feel it would be best to take in some of these more out of the way places that side quests are sure to send you.

[Maryokutai]

I completely agree with that sentiment. The whole main quest/new game+ discussion (whatever it might entail) initially also pushed me in that direction and playing that way makes you leave New Atlantis roughly 15 minutes after landing there, which gives you zero appreciation for what it has to offer in terms of world-building, side stories and whatever else you might find by just walking around. After completing the first part of the story mission and returning to NA I spent a good two hours just wandering about at my pace and seeing what else there is, and that's how I will continue playing this. Screw the main quest, at least for the moment. The supposedly mind-blowing conclusion will be a nice motivator for those moments where everything else starts to run out of steam a bit, so I'll keep it in the backburner. I'd also like to add that the game gives you zero incentive to prioritise it, neither in gameplay terms no narratively. There's no urgency at all (at least as far as I've played) so the classic RPG-trope of putting on hold saving the world to collect mushrooms doesn't apply here.

 

@DisturbedSwan Over a year ago, yeah.

[Nag]

Yeah... you've convinced me. The NG+ thing is probably being overhyped anyway.🙂

[Maryokutai]

Forgot to mention, but regarding the whole 'world state saving' with items and other things, I've seen a few people say that this particular feature of the Creation Engine is the reason the world is so segmented and broken off into instances that are linked through loading screens. Which does makes sense to someone like me who isn't tech-savvy at all.

 

But then I noticed that you can take the tube (= loading screen) to the upper levels of New Atlantis and jump all the way down with a bit of help from your jetpack without ever triggering another loading screen. I wonder if this is a byproduct of a game that has been in development for so long that they couldn't take SSDs into consideration when planning and building the cities, planets and basically its entire overall structure. Or maybe they just did it for stability reasons and making sure the pieces don't break when the engine has to stream everything? 

 

(I haven't watched the DF video yet, maybe they explain why this is possible and why they opted for the more fragmented approach.)

[one-armed dwarf]

I think any constraints with the engine is probably software. Creation engine is pretty creaky at this point probably but insanely modular and flexible

 

Some of the lacking UI in this game had me looking at ways to unpack the files, and looking at these swf files which control the UI. It's all done in actionscript, which is what adobe flash uses (remember that). No idea about anything in terms of how UI programming in game dev works, but it sounds like a design choice that was probably made when Oblivion was cutting edge maybe

 

That's for UI though, not the way the world is segmented up. But I bet deep down there's some Morrowind stuff still ticking away underneath it all

 

The tube thing is just an easy fast travel though. It's the silt strider of New Atlantis

[Maryokutai]

Yeah, shortly after posting I listened to DF's podcast and John mentioned the same thing, that the tube is just fast travel and the outside of New Atlantis is a continuous area, but inside locations still have to be accessed via loading screens. It's probably the one area where it's noticeable because of its verticality, nothing more really.

[DisturbedSwan]

17 hours ago, Maryokutai said:

 

@DisturbedSwan Over a year ago, yeah.

 

Nice one, don't know how I missed that lol, for awhile I was thinking 'How's he playing this on an Xbox One? 😂