Is it just me or is Starfield kinda meh?

I hate that people feel the need to say they're not a hater in order not to get abused for not liking a game. People out here treating games like a religion.

I agree about the loading screens. It didn't drive me crazy but would have been better if there were fewer.

In regards to combat, I like it. Even many of the reviewers felt combat was one of the good things.

I feel like there not being a single large map derives a bit from that BGS feel. In Skyrim if you need to go somewhere new you might trek across the map for a few minutes, and on the way come across a few random encounters and interesting places. In Starfield you teleport most of the way, and if you want to come across random encounters outside your ship you have to go out of your way or do some specific quests.

I haven’t played that much yet, but I’m not hooked at all. It just feels like a bunch of games I’ve already played. The core gameplay is fallout or Skyrim, great games, but we’ve seen the formula plenty of times. Space combat is like a watered-down version of elite. The planet concept has already been done by NMS and so far I think they did it better. I don’t think it’s bad, but how is it supposed to compete for my attention with all the games that just came out?

If you like it and are having fun, good for you. If you don't like it and would rather spend time on the bazillion other games out there, you won't be missing out much either.

At the end of the day, Starfield is just another Bethesda game. Same mould, same problems, same gameplay, with a slightly improved engine for overhauls which will be carried out by none other than free and enthusiastic modders.

Screaming at each other for liking or disliking a game is just what gamers always have been doing and will keep doing forever.

It is very whelming, yes. It's exactly what I expected, and yet... I want more. At least for the things it does to be done better. Give me a reason for base building. Make the AI not just stand there like dopes and be bullet sponges when you want them to be hard (seriously, "legendaries" have 3 fucking HP bars and it's dumb). Actually have dialogue choices that are a bit more meaningful and change things.

I'm tired of it just working. I want it to work fantastically.

No sir, you are not alone. The horrendously weak opening combined with bullet sponge gunplay, so many loading screens, a horrendous UI, boring worlds with little to nothing to do on them...I managed to make myself play for 12 hours before I gave up for good. It simply didn't catch me at all, despite multiple attempts. Maybe in 2 years with mods, but for now it's just time to move on for me.

Just FYI - ammo doesn’t weigh anything. I didn’t notice this for quite a while. If you have some cash go by a couple of gun/ammo shops and just buy out like, all of it. Pretty quickly you’ll get to the point where you have plenty of ammo for any gun you pick up. IMO the upfront cost is super worth not having to worry about having ammo for one gun or the other.

I have a rule about bethesda games - I don't buy them until well after the first few patches, or the GOTY edition. I am starfield curious but also, hesitant because of No Man's Sky. Allow me to elaborate:

NMS shipped and was garbage. But over the ensuing year, damned near everything players expected or wanted from it came to be with game altering updates that improved it's content range enormously. It's still not my favorite game, but every time I fire it up there's new shit for me to do and most of it's pretty well implemented.

I have absolutely zero expectations in this way for Starfield. They're not going to rework space-to-ground flight or rng generated ground plots you can't explore past; they may improve perf and qol over time, but I fundamentally doubt anything like No Man's Sky updates are in the future.

So yeah, that makes me pause, and remember to be patient.

My main complaint is the writing and worldbuilding. So far I've been exploring new Atlantis and picked up exclusively fetch quests from NPCs so generic and uninteresting I don't really feel like continuing to talk to them. And the uncreative worldbuilding of authoritarian capitalists Vs libertarian capitalksts vs religious crazies. Can Bethesda not even imagine an alternative to capitalism?

The game is a mess. It’s totally lost trying to figure out it’s identity. I’ve got the answer everyone can’t quite put their finger on. Had this game came out 2 or 3 years after New Vegas it would have been heralded as the next generation in rpgs. The problem is we are well past that. Bethesda should have made this game instead of fallout 76. It would have totally fit the time frame and been forgivable.

The problem is we have multiple games that do this better in whatever aspect you prefer. Like realism space sim, that’s star citizen or elite dangerous. Want planetary exploration with life form scanning and base building? That’s no man sky.

I still find myself playing because I’m so hard gay for that Bethesda fallout choose your own adventure foundation that’s present here. But damn is it overall shit. Just embarrassing

I’m definitely having a hard time giving a fuck about literally anything in SF. Shame but I’m happy to go back to bg3 ig

Old Bethesda is gone and isn’t coming back, I wish people would stop pretending like they aren’t

Most low level enemies drop weapons that only deal between 3 - 11 damage, which are basically useless against anything higher than level 5. I found some higher level weapons in a shop that dealt 30 - 40 damage and found they made combat much more fun.

As I progressed however, I noticed that enemy levels in a location were distributed:

• 4-5 low level
• 10-15 med level
• 1-5 high level

So there is still a problem with bullet sponges. I keep an overpowered shotgun (med damage, high rate of fire, explosions on crit) with me and just bum rush the high level enemies with that. Otherwise you’d be shooting them all day with your 40 damage rifle.

As you go on, those high level enemies drop weapons that do more damage, so there is progression…. But you also just encounter higher level enemies with more health so the problem continues.

I see that there are already combat rebalance mods on nexus, the kind I’ve used on Fallout games in the past, and I’ll probably install one of those when I decide to start a new play through. (Which, I definitely will. I’m enjoying the game a lot overall despite there being some tedious aspects)

I can't even get to "meh" yet. I'm currently trying to get over all the steps backward from Fallout 4. Can't order companions in battle, can't swap out weapon mods, can't use/equip items on pickup without going into menus, and the local maps. Holy crap, the local maps are bad. All that is on top of having to mod the game as usual. StarUI helped a lot, and I had to grab a sound effects mod because there was painful, high-pitched tones in a lot of the interface stuff, but it needs a lot more help. Beth's games are starting to remind me of a Civilization series or Paradox Interactive situation where the base game is worse than a predecessor at release and doesn't yield incremental improvement until a robust mod scene/DLC arrives.

I've already written off the space gameplay (that was always a long shot for us space sim fans), and if I'm being honest, the loading screen pacing isn't all that different an experience from how I played Skyrim and FO4. I'm also taking the bullet-sponginess as a challenge to focus on weapon mods. I'm hoping once I get into a self-directed gameplay flow and get used to the quirks of the UI and zone arrangement it'll get better.

I gotta say though, even though it had its own share of bugs, Baldur's Gate 3 coming out a month ahead of Starfield does not invite favorable comparisons. The dialogues and quest design in BG3 run circles around what I'm seeing in Starfield so far. The "Back to Vectera" quest in particular was shockingly bad. Having multiple moments where there's no indication of what to do next until opening the mission log to find a stealth quest update is seriously rough. I'm guessing it was unfinished? I knew there were going to have to be sacrifices made at the procedural generation altar, but seeing even the bespoke elements on the main questline be this bad does not portend well for the overall quality of the game.

After about 20hrs, I couldn't take it anymore. I popped open the console, increased my carry weight, added a bil creds, set my level to 666, and finally, tgm. Let chaos reign, baby.

I had already added a couple UI mods (because Bethesda still ships UI components at 30fps for whatever reason) and patched the achievement disablement function, so now I feel like I can actually kinda enjoy the game (when I'm not in a loading screen).

I've put another 20hrs in playing like this, and have zero regrets. It makes my time in the game feel arcade-like, in a good, nostalgic way. I went from being stressed out and annoyed, to relaxed and able to laugh at the endless jank that we've all come to expect from Bethesda. It's like GTA back in the day... if you weren't using cheat codes, you were straight up missing out on the fun.

All that said, overall the game does feel like Bethesda threw Fallout, Skyrim, and No Man's Sky in a blender and then ran it all through a sieve to ensure that only the worst parts made it into the final release. I'm actually shocked by how much they seem to have outright copied elements from NMS (from UI, to gameplay mechanics, to storyline elements). I've got hundreds of hours in NMS spread across the last 5ish yrs, and I can't help but feel kinda greasy when I play Starfield because of how much appears to be straught up lifted from NMS.

Ultimately, Starfield is a new(ish) experience and fun to fuck around in, but if I want to explore space, I'll go boot up NMS.

My biggest issue is how disconnected the worlds feel versus Elder Scrolls. Every point of interest stands alone in a sparsely decorated world, separated from all other points of interest by fast travel, unskippable animations and layers of maps.

It's not just you.

In the past Bethesda was innovent. With Starfield they are just stuck in the past.

The game is so close to a loading screen simulator that it kills emmersion.

I was really excited to play. But unfortunately somehow this games makes me nauseous. Like some form of motion sickness. I play on xbox series x by the way.

Especially when you're low on health the blur makes it worse. As well as looking through the scope of a gun.

Tried turning the motion blur and film grain of, but that doesn't really help. Tried a few gameplay session. But everytime I play I get nauseous after a few minutes. Never had this in any other game. And I've been playing games all my life.

So for now I stopped playing. Hopefully they'll be making some changes in the future, that will alleviate this. But for now it's a no go for me unfortunately.

I’m having fun.

It’s not NMS and I don’t want it to be. NMS is great for what it does, but it’s barely an actual game (in my experience - not played it for a few months so it may have changed).

I’m familiar enough with loading screens from FO3, FO:NV, FO4, and ES:V so that doesn’t bother me much.

Also, I’m an old man, so I’m playing on easy because I want fun and to explore the story rather than have a stressful challenge. The bosses with multiple health bars are a bit shit but I’ve rarely run out of ammo.

So, yeah, I’m having fun. But my expectations going into it on Wednesday were that it would be FO4 in space. So far it’s doing slightly better than that for me.

I'm feeling the same way. Starfield isn't a bad game, but it's very meh. I enjoy the ship building aspect, but otherwise nothing really grabs me with this game.

Combat is a good example, too. There just doesn't feel to be any impact to the weapons. Mobs just get shot but don't really react to it. I know they will flee at times which is nice, but close range SMG fire to ones torso should illicit more of a response.

Fast travel also seems to be an detractor. Being able to fast travel anywhere you've been even if that place is across the galaxy really removes a lot of the exploration vibe the game would have otherwise. I know this isn't a space sim, but a lot of the systems they have don't really mesh well with others.

Starfield is like mediocre lite-RPG / space sim crossover that doesn't do either very well.

Edit: I also want to point out that Bethesda did not come up with the "NASA-punk" aesthetic, either. I've seen articles about that. The Expanse has been doing that for years now. Even before that, I can think of at least two Matt Damon movies from 2015 and before that used it as it's setting. Point being it's not anything new.

I still dont really know what the selling points are. In the lead up to release i was waiting to see what was gonna make it exciting. Never seemed to happen. Just clinical sci-fi.

I'm over 60 hours in and loving it. I've rarely ran out of ammo or health supplies, and I'm definitely not getting a lot of loading screens. And when I do, aside from the initial loading of a game, they're 10 seconds or less.

When you realize how many loading screens there are, you begin to understand why Bethesda requires SSD versus HDD, otherwise half your time would be spent on loading screens.

Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything within the realms of “vanilla Starfield” to remedy your issues. I just kept playing through the main quest and as time went on, it got better (in my opinion). It’s one of those “oh you have to slog through X hours before it gets good” type of games.

Outside of the above, I can only recommend shelving it and waiting for mods or DLC that may freshen the experience.

the only mechanic I truly want fixed is the need to pickup weapons to get all the ammo then having to dump the weapons. should be enough to collect the ammo only off a dead body and have that include the ammo loaded in their gun.

other than that I'm quite enjoying the game

I red it takes like 12 hours for the game to get good. That's like two weeks for me. Some people have to work and limited time.

There's a 2 hour refund window. Bethesda misses it a tiny bit

I agree mostly with this. The bullet-sponginess makes me somewhat dislike the combat. During some random exploration, I found a nice weapon which allows me to one-shot most people. That actually helped a lot, which is one thing that made me realize how spongy things actually are. And yeah, I also found Cyberpunk's combat better.

I'm on the fence with the menus and loading screens. Personally I just wish it was more consistent. If I set a course while sitting in the pilot's seat, I at least get a cutscene that offers some slight immersion. If I do it from the nav table, I jump instantly to my destination regardless of where I was before. Hate that.

For less loading screens: fromthe surface of planet on foot, open you quest menu and place the cursor of your quest. On PC press R to planned your trip. Press X to travel and Bam! There's a loading screen and Bam! you are on the surface of the other planet on foot. without other loading screen or ship animation. If you are already in space, you can't escape some of those loading screen.

The other points: I feel you... ennemies are sponges. I carry way too many weapons to ensure to have bullets. Stealth is meh until you invest points in it. Ennemies were seeing me near the ceiling through a vent grid -_-.

Hope it helps, I had tons of fun with Cyberpunk! I wish an amazing DLC!

I find the start kinda weird. Touchy tabloid, pass out. Wake up and akwardy get forced in to ship and spooky drone watching you. Got to the new atlantis and was bored already.

Even skyrim did this better.

Explored the first planet to see whats the deal. Terrorform was uglyass mf, but standing on 1meter rock glitches it completely, and then just empty all ammo on it.

the bullet sponge must be really bad if you're complaining about it after coming from Cyberpunk lmao

I feel similarly. One of the biggest things for me is how, although much does feel like a Bethesda game, there were some times it felt like they'd just take stuff out of other games and dumped it in. The lack of vehicles annoyed me too, and don't get me started on the basically non existent local map

After finding better weapons I have found enemies much less bullet spongy. Here's the assault rifle I'm currently using, it kills multiple enemies per magazine:

There is also a shotgun that one-taps enemies, but it has a reload time so long that it can't be reliably reloaded during firefights.

What's a good space combat game?

X-Wing was one of my all-time favourite games, it was late niceties and got followed to by tie fighter then X-Wing Vs tie fighter but the original was best. It was really simple combat, lasers or rockets and you had to balance power between shields and lasers. I don't know what made it so great, there was a pace to it the just felt so good - lining up and blowing a tie fighter then another and coming down on the third, doing a hard breaking turn and driving your speed to get behind it and land a shot in its rear before it can outpace your maximum acceleration.

X com interceptor was a great game too, I remember it being deeply flawed but incredibly easy to get hooked into playing for hours. Combat was a bit more like wing commander which was a touch more strategic and less frantic.

Any good, ideally cheap, space combat games anyone can suggest?

My recommendation is to mod away the bullet sponge. It made the combat much better for me.

The npc has a lot of life in standard but they then get 20 hp more for every level.

Look at your weapons and you realize how much they absorb just from leveling compared to your weapons.

I think it makes great use of the engine. The game is super fun, way better than Cyberpunk 2077 (which is basically just Grand Theft Auto). The worlds are cool. The stories are great.

I think it's a great game.

I'm a social pariah for not even enjoying old Bethesda rpg games. So much loot fatigue.

It definitely feels "meh".

The characters are flat and tropey, the story itself isn't very compelling, there doesn't seem to be a lot of narrative freedom in the quests and the quests themselves are fairly cookie cutter. I was told the "First Contact" quest was really cool and well done. Nonsense! I'd like to be able to go back and talk to the NPCs about the progress of the quest, take their temperature on the options available. It didn't feel like there was much of a point in getting the opinions of the entities aboard the ship as they had zero say in the outcome.

The game feels very much like a fantasy setting wrapped in sci-fi aesthetics, especially with the way the main quest doles out powers.

I like building a ship. I wish the ship had more functionality. I like building outposts, though I have no idea what for, I can't see much of a use for harvesting and automating the production of resources.

The gun combat feels alright, but it seems health scales up really quickly on enemies.

I dislike how so much content is gated behind perk level ups, but it does keep me playing to see if the next unlock is cool.

It took me quite a few attempts to get into the game, but I'm really enjoying it now. For me it's the first 3D game I'm properly playing on the xbox so there's a bit of a learning curve there (I'm used to mouse and keyboard on pc).

The biggest things that helped me enjoy it: when navigating cities or buildings that are all super maze-like, you can use your scanner to actually guide you in the right direction with little arrows on the ground as pathfinding. I kept getting lost and giving up on quests until I saw this in a video.

In the beginning I'd spent most of my money every time i was in town to pretty much fully fill my inventory with ammo, lockpicks and med packs. Especially since I'm trying to learn how to aim with a controller I'll waste a lot of clips missing completely. Just maxing out on ammo makes it a lot easier (and using a shotgun early on, just run at them and blast em point blank, lots of dmg / bullet)

Looking up how the UI / systems work online.. i wanted to do a pure experience, but holy crap is the UI hard to figure out sometimes. Especially things to do with ship building and traveling.

I'm really liking the random side quests though, and was just wasting away my entire Saturday playing, which hasn't happened in years for me.

I've only watched someone play it, but it does seem like it is super superficial, like a puddle that looks deep but is only a few inches

Loading screens are really the biggest negative for me. And navigating the menus takes some time.

I really enjoyed Fallout 4. And it feels pretty close to that for me with MUCH better gunplay. I can feel this being a time sink for me once i can actually get my teeth sunk in to it.

I'm liking it more than Cyberpunk 2077 currently. I couldn't even bring myself to finish CP2077 and yet I'm playing multiple hours of Starfield every day.

Wasn't quite sure at first, but I kinda knew what to expect from a BethRPG - slowly grew on me and now i'm pretty into it. About 22 hours in and I feel like i'm getting thru most of the main quest. Seen some cool stuff, and I guess there's a NG+ so i'll probably push thru the main plot and then go a bit slower in the next game.

Wish you could traverse planets a bit faster, it can be a bit tedious. Felt like too much fast travel at first, but once you embrace it, it does move things along. (Wouldn't want to play with a HDD and not an SSD) Gunplay isn't bad. The companions are annoying and seemingly turn into stalkers lol.

I truly dont understand the "everything is a bullet sponge" argument.

I havent skilled any combat related skills and I am doing just fine in combat. Also I dont expect enemies in an RPG to get down in a single shot. Especially when they are armored like tanks or some weird giant alien creature. People have weird expectations tbh.

git gud n3wb!

Jk i couldn't resist