Starfield - The successor to Freelancer?

[DAPUNISHER]

Had it and have played on and off since the 9/1. My thoughts:

This game is polarizing because I feel people fall into two camps: people that want to play the latest and greatest BGS game, and people who expected Fallout Citizen or No Man's Skyrim.

That sums it up nicely while avoiding the political component of the anti SJW snowflakes and Playstation haterade brigade. Which everyone please, do not pursue as a line of conversation here. Merely pointing out where a good bit of the negativity is coming from.

I fall in the first camp. I am getting what I expected, which pleases me. Playing on gamepass and it is a shockingly smooth experience. Had zero issues with the download or playing the game so far. Gamepass has improved since the last time I used it. 5800X3D + RX 6800 1080 custom settings on a 55" 1080 TV. I am a couple of hours in, and because I am goofing off, I am only just now about to deal with the pirate leader at the lab. So far locked 60 has been no problem. Loading screens are super short, I guess all the whinging about them happens later and they take longer?

Tell your friend I described it as Fallout in space to my kid last night. Everything is familiar, and I like that. I haven't had any physics or clipping issues so far. I didn't have any on Cyberpunk when everyone was making vids about it either. Perhaps because I use powerful enough CPUs and a frame cap? No other ideas why, but I haven't dealt with any oddities yet.

I love their RPG style shooter and sword and sorcery games. This adds the space shooter to the catalog.

Playing drives home for me what a bunch of whingers gamers have become. As always the Simpsons nailed it. The comic book guy quote - I shall express my displeasure on the internet.

Anyways, no displeasure to express. It's a good game so far, not great. It isn't hitting me the way something like Witcher 3 did. That was hard to get going in, but once I did, it was crack. So far this is like my old hoodie; warm, comforting, and easy to slip on and off.

 

[sze5003]

I think most of the hate is coming from people that expected a combination of elite dangerous and fallout. Most of the marketing was around exploring in space and the way you get around is through fast travel.

You can fly around the near orbit which I suppose is fine, from what I'm seeing watching streamers.

The other complaint is loading screens anytime you exit the ship, enter the ship, even though you can see the immediate area around you through the window. Loading also when you take the transit..but if you have this installed on an nvme the loading should be fairly quick.

I think if they had done the loading smartly with some transition animations it would have done away with the complaints. Similar to how Everspace 2 loads when you jump to another planet or system. You fly in immediate orbit as much as you want, then point the ship at your point of interest and hold the jump drive button, your ship speeds up, there's a hyperspace animation which ends in a really short fade to black and a second later you are in the orbit are of your poi and you fly to the landing area and press a button to dock or land.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I think if they had done the loading smartly with some transition animations it would have done away with the complaints.

Not a chance, gamers have become a complaint culture. They'd complain about the animations or shift to some other perceived shortcoming of the game to pitch a fit about.

My system is able to do 60fps 1080 high native in MAST where everyone tests. A few quick dips by the shops but it steadies out. I don't even notice when I turn AB off. Playing on a 60Hz TV with a BT Xbox controller, it's all working out great. I guess I would have to pixel peep in the right spots to notice the difference between high and ultra because I can't tell while moving around and going in shops.

I used the glitch to get the Mark I spacesuit. Going to start doing a bunch of side missions and activities now.

Spoiler: spoiler

Some cool stuff already like sputnik and the camera from the curiosity rover.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Sounds like Bethsoft did what they do best and launched a platform.

Now its up to "The Community (TM)" to take all that vast open desolate space and fill it with Star Trek-esq stories.

If Bethesda was super smart, they would have had an "official" planet staking/claiming feature so that modders wouldn't step on each others toes (or Bethsoft's toes when it releases official expansions) when they chose planets to build their stories on. Coulda even called it "prospector" or something cheeky.

 

[DeathReborn]

Sounds like Bethsoft did what they do best and launched a platform.

Now its up to "The Community (TM)" to take all that vast open desolate space and fill it with Star Trek-esq stories.

If Bethesda was super smart, they would have had an "official" planet staking/claiming feature so that modders wouldn't step on each others toes (or Bethsoft's toes when it releases official expansions) when they chose planets to build their stories on. Coulda even called it "prospector" or something cheeky.

Sadly no Creation Kit until March 24 apparently. Thankfully there are alaready UI mods that help fix the Bethesdaness of the UI. How it is they still can't get that right boggles the mind. Nowadays game companies want your time alongside your money, D4 does it by mind numbing inventory management & other time sinks, Bethersda does it by making it intentionally boring (their own words), oh and inventory management...

 

[igor_kavinski]

Starfield Review: A Stunning Bethesda RPG for the Ages

Bethesda’s RPG exceeds expectations but also has the expected Jank that will eventually be fixed. For all the pre-launch chatter and years of build-up, we ... Read more

babeltechreviews.com

He sums it up best here:

I often found myself drowning in activities (do not ignore these!) that became full-fledged amazing side quests, which I had ignored at first. My advice would be to slow down, and this is where Starfield may be an issue for some who have no patience. The game really and truly does not fully show off everything it has until way after 80-plus hours. I have to really emphasize that the scale is massive, and you will get to see so much more if you take your time and enjoy each individual planet first for all it has to offer.

But that’s the beauty of this game – your journey is going to be massively different from mine. For some, however, who want to unlock all the features or systems at once, they may not like having to invest 100 hours or more to get the game “going.”

100+ hours to get the game GOING. Marvelous! /s

 

[sze5003]

The side quests seem to be of different variations from what im seeing via streamers. I often end up getting pulled into several side activities in many different games if they are somewhat engaging. I guess I will find out when I get home. I'll be going back and forth between this game and Baldurs Gate 3 for some time.

I watched one stream while this guy was trying to customize his ship and rebuild it but it became so overwhelming, you can remove literally every component and it doesnt have a side by side comparison of the parts unless you pull them out on the grid and hover over each one. I probably won't be doing much ship customization for this reason and I'll probably stick to ships I find or take over.

I do see the same complaints that it really takes about 10-15hrs to get the game going and part of that is probably because there's no area map when you are walking around so you have to run or boost around to find places. I've also seen streamers complain that they often forget where a shop or POI is after visiting once because they didn't include a decent map.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

100+ hours to get the game GOING. Marvelous! /s

It is. This is the kind of single player game I want. It took me over 200 hrs to do a playthrough of AC:Odyssey. I'll probably need 3X that or more for a playthrough of this.

This game is already their most successful launch with over 6 million players - https://www.ign.com/articles/starfield-biggest-bethesda-rpg-of-all-time

Which has me still chuckling at this comment on the last page - "If next Elder Scrolls flops Bethesda is finished."

Yeah it's looking really bad for them alright. 😂

 

[igor_kavinski]

It took me over 200 hrs to do a playthrough of AC:Odyssey.

Wish I had that kind of stamina

 

[GodisanAtheist]

It is. This is the kind of single player game I want. It took me over 200 hrs to do a playthrough of AC:Odyssey. I'll probably need 3X that or more for a playthrough of this.

This game is already their most successful launch with over 6 million players - https://www.ign.com/articles/starfield-biggest-bethesda-rpg-of-all-time

Which has me still chuckling at this comment on the last page - "If next Elder Scrolls flops Bethesda is finished."

Yeah it's looking really bad for them alright. 😂

-These things have a way of surprising though. "Yes it sold 6 million in 1 hour... but we expected 8 million game is a massive flop".

 

[DAPUNISHER]

-These things have a way of surprising though. "Yes it sold 6 million in 1 hour... but we expected 8 million game is a massive flop".

That's the old days. It's omnichannel sales now; physical, digital, subscription, and streaming. Many of the players like myself, are on game pass for console and/or PC. As I referenced in another thread, corpos love subscriptions. Selling you the game is good. Selling you their services is better.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

That's the old days. It's omnichannel sales now; physical, digital, subscription, and streaming. Many of the players like myself, are on game pass for console and/or PC. As I referenced in another thread, corpos love subscriptions. Selling you the game is good. Selling you their services is better.

Wonder how many of those 6 million are AMD freebee giveaways? No way AMD paid sticker price for their licenses.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Wonder how many of those 6 million are AMD freebee giveaways? No way AMD paid sticker price for their licenses.

If we are to believe our fellow forum dwellers, AMD is practically non existent in market share. So 50?

Joking aside: AMD partnered on development. It cost them more than just the game licenses. So if the implication was that those codes hurt Bethesda's bottom line, I think that is unlikely.

 

[quikah]

First main mission after the intro, went to Mars, there was a sidequest on the orbiting shipyard to deliver some chlorine to them. There is chlorine on mars, so I took a side trip to the chlorine area. It is just a fissure ejecting gas so I need to build an extractor, but don't have the materials. So instead, I wandered around the area. Came across an abandoned facility with some pirates. Killed them, found a legendary shotgun and stole their ship. I am liking it so far just a few hours in.

I really need to upgrade my PC, I only have a 2060, it runs at ~30fps in New Atlantis. I tried the dlss mod, but I cannot tell if it is doing anything. The mod popup works at least.

Digital Foundry put out their PC discussion. I like their PC videos as they are very thorough going through the settings.

 

[aigomorla]

Howard is a absolute noob...
How he stays as CEO of Bethesda amazes me.

Todd Howard Responds to Starfield PC Optimization Concerns

Just as Starfield hits the market, Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard goes on record to respond to some PC optimization concerns from the fandom.

gamerant.com

He claims they did optimize it.
Optimize does not mean a 4090 bearly cuts the cake to run it.

You can find a lot of mods on nexus to fix shaders along with a DLSS patch tho.
Thank god for modders and nexus. They are fast as heck.
But this is why i hate Bethesda.

If my 4090 bearly chugs along.... i hate to see the others on lower Nvidia cards.
But good news is the game is 7900XTX friendly... and you get better frames then my 4090.

Now its up to "The Community (TM)" to take all that vast open desolate space and fill it with Star Trek-esq stories.

No now its up to the community to mod the hell out of the game like skyrim, and fix textures and shaders along with all the other things the developers should of done on a AAA title game with a $69.99 price tag.

But instead they will let the modders do it, and then steal the good ones, while slapping the modder with a cease notice.
Hell they might even patch out the foundry so you can't mod the game later on also, after all the fixes have been done like they tried on fallout 4.


And this makes me go back to another question.
StarCitizen... lolololol.... Even Bethesda beat them too launch.
Which is honestly quite pathetic on many many levels.

And I also want my Mass Effect mods.
I want the Normandy, and not some of the ugly ships they have in the game.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Best Bethesda Game for me by far. That is all I have time to say as I need to get back to Starfield.

 

[sze5003]

Best Bethesda Game for me by far. That is all I have time to say as I need to get back to Starfield.
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View attachment 85622

Did you build that ship? How long did it take? The ship building part looks really intimidating.

 

[WhiteNoise]

Did you build that ship? How long did it take? The ship building part looks really intimidating.

That is not a built by me ship. It is the most expensive ship in the game at this time though. The Nurwal. It's something special. I have built my own ship though and as long as you have the resources, it's pretty darn cool.

 

[Zor Prime]

Howard is a absolute noob...
How he stays as CEO of Bethesda amazes me.

Todd Howard Responds to Starfield PC Optimization Concerns

Just as Starfield hits the market, Bethesda Executive Producer Todd Howard goes on record to respond to some PC optimization concerns from the fandom.

gamerant.com

He claims they did optimize it.
Optimize does not mean a 4090 bearly cuts the cake to run it.

You can find a lot of mods on nexus to fix shaders along with a DLSS patch tho.
Thank god for modders and nexus. They are fast as heck.
But this is why i hate Bethesda.

If my 4090 bearly chugs along.... i hate to see the others on lower Nvidia cards.
But good news is the game is 7900XTX friendly... and you get better frames then my 4090.

He's not entirely wrong, it is optimized. It'll utilize up to 8 cores before diminishing returns. How well optimized? Well ...

I'm playing in 4K (67% scale) with a 5800X3D / 3090 combo. I don't get under 60FPS averaged out. I get over 100 in certain situations / areas. Shadows on medium and low population density, granted. I'm fine with that. I don't really care about shadows unless they look Atari 2600 and useless NPCs -- there's still too many, IMO.

Smooth experience. Looks good. I'll agree though, comparatively speaking nVidia did get shafted.

 

[AdamK47]

All the influencers are jumping on board the Starfield bandwagon. Not because they are genuinely a fan or even interested in it. It's that they know it's easy views/clicks. It's a whirlwind of samey garbage content all in the name of views/clicks. We saw the same thing with Stray last year during a drought of AAA releases. Latching on to the new hotness.

 

[DeathReborn]

Is it true that Radeon RX 6000/7000 series cards are not rendering the sun while on a planet/moon during daytime? That's a prety big bug if true.

 

[igor_kavinski]

Is it true that Radeon RX 6000/7000 series cards are not rendering the sun while on a planet/moon during daytime? That's a prety big bug if true.

Seems to be: https://www.techspot.com/news/100099-amd-gpu-users-reportedly-cant-see-sun-any.html

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Wow, I guess there was another clown in the car known as "functional Bethsoft releases" afterall...

How does "missing Sun/Moon" make it passed bug-testing in a sponsored game?

 

[igor_kavinski]

How does "missing Sun/Moon" make it passed bug-testing in a sponsored game?

Well, if they used ALL free AMD cards for the testing and none of the testers had an nGreedia card, that's how

 

[quikah]

This game is too huge, i keep getting distracted by side quests or random events. I can see why some people wouldn't like it, easy to get bogged down in some mundane tasks.

Looks like some common performance issues will be addressed in upcoming patches, including DLSS, FOV slider and HDR settings.

Starfield Updates and Mod Support – September 13, 2023

Thank you to all of you playing Starfield and your support. We are absolutely blown away by the response and all you love about the game. We’re also reading all your great feedback on what you’d like to see improved or added to the game. This is a game we’ll be supporting for years and years to...

bethesda.net