Starfield Pre-Release Thread [GAME RELEASED, GO TO NEW THREAD]

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

Starfield is nothing like No Man's Sky.

 

[Ulysa]

You do not explore on foot but on your spaceship, don't waste your time walking around, just look at what points of interest you can see from space and then explore those. You also get random events as you enter orbit. There is a lot to discover, if you don't waste time walking across empty planets.

It is obvious that the random generated terrain is just there to gather resources. That said, in the 5 minutes I tried exploring a random place in Europa I also found a base with enemies and loot. So it generates that too.

 

[Jenkem]

 

[Zombra]

Some people are playing this in the office right now. It just looks so fucking boring.

Clearly you need a game with COOL ACTION EXPLOSIONS

 

[Vic]

Savage.

 

[Vic]

but no one went through the trouble to make sure these systems will actually work in concert.

what doesn't exactly work in concert ?

 

[Lemming42]

Despite the game's immense scope, it does actually feel like I'm moving towards the finish line. Factions quests done, all the obvious sidequests done. Only really the main quest and independent exploration left to do.

Really had fun with it after the initial New Atlantis repulsion. I think I will replay this with mods in a year or so after all. Unique among Bethesda games in that it actually gets more fun the more you play, rather than the inverse.

Good job overall, Todd. It's not everything that it could be, but it's something of a return to form after the immense letdown of Fo4. It all bodes fairly well for TES VI, I think.

Even the writing, despite being done by Emil, is alright. The faction questlines were all pretty good, standard videogame stuff but engaging and not outright comical in the way that parts of Oblivion, Fo3 and Skyrim were. I really liked the Terrormorph plot.

Main criticism at this point is just that the vastness of the galaxy is a total gimmick. The game really would be better if it took cues from The Outer Worlds in terms of interplanetary travel, focusing on a small handful of well-developed planets, maybe with a couple of optional moons and barren worlds for people who like the resource gathering/outpost building aspect.

 

[Jenkem]

I love the process of coming up with marginally amusing and possibly edgy monicker for this game.
Niggerfield - A bit too much.
Cottonfield - Clever. Not bad at all.
Garfield - I appriciate the contribution.
Toddfield - I'm pushing this one.

all you haters keep saying the game is "about nothing" so why not call it Seinfield?

 

[Hagashager]

After having listened to Noah Caldwell's 9+ long Fallout breakdown over the last week I've decided I will give Bethesda one point on Starfield.

It's a solipsistic power fantasy where nothing matters but the player, but at least it's Bethesda's own sci-fi setting designed from the ground up to be a playground as opposed to the raping of Fallout that Bethesda has done previously.

Beyond that, watched a friend play it over the weekend, it looks boring as shit. Everything looked like Fallout 76 in space.

 

[Tyranicon]

Who's that blonde chick in her late 30s everyone is posting on screens?
Main character's mom?

first companion after the tutorial robot, my choice is Andreja tho

She has that space Lydia 2.0 look.

This is the first actually attractive woman I've seen in the thread so far.

Also, we're currently in the stage where Lydia (considered terminally man-faced for the time) is now more attractive than 90% of women in modern games.

 

[Alienman]

I'm getting Groundhog Day vibes coming from the BG3 thread.

 

[Old Hans]

After having listened to Noah Caldwell's 9+ long Fallout breakdown

I just watched that. Noah is the only guy ive seen explain why Bethesda writing is so weird "have you seen my father? hes a middle aged man"

 

[Heroic Liberator]

Even the writing, despite being done by Emil, is alright. The faction questlines were all pretty good, standard videogame stuff but engaging and not outright comical in the way that parts of Oblivion, Fo3 and Skyrim were. I really liked the Terrormorph plot.

I just hope that the already announced DLC will focus on House Va'ruun narativewise. Even ignoring the Serpent's Embrace trait and one of your main companions being a former member of the faction itself, it just seems jarring how little of them there is storywise considering that they are (or were anyway) one of the big factions of the setting.

Spoiler

 

[Vic]

the already announced DLC

thanks!

 

[Old Hans]

I just hope that the already announced DLC will focus on House Va'ruun narativewise.

if they do it too soon, it will make it look like they purposefully left it out.
sidenote: that spoiler screenshot has a 2d sprite for the gate. that complete insanity!

 

[user]

A few questions:
1) Are you constantly being reminded you are the dragonborn/asking everyone about your lost child? Or does the game leave you alone for a change?
2) I heard that POIs are a copy paste job and you can find many identical ones both when exploring randomly and in the main campaign, is this true?
3) Is there a real reason to build an outpost/does it get attacked?
4) Are non-combat skills a thing or just for show?
5) Is the game challenging or do I need to wait for a Requiem style mod?

 

[AwesomeButton]

but no one went through the trouble to make sure these systems will actually work in concert.

what doesn't exactly work in concert ?

One example. Melee builds might as well not have been supported at all. You find a total of 3 melee weapons with pretty much the same damage output in the first ~20 hours of the game.
Another - you can ignore whole systems - crafting, outposts, shipbuilding.

 

[Robotigan]

Despite the game's immense scope, it does actually feel like I'm moving towards the finish line. Factions quests done, all the obvious sidequests done. Only really the main quest and independent exploration left to do.

Without spoiling anything, I've heard the NG+ mode has a trick or two up its sleave so check it out when you're done.

the already announced DLC

thanks!

If you're playing the game right now you already paid for the DLC.

 

[Lemming42]

A few questions:
1) Are you constantly being reminded you are the dragonborn/asking everything about your lost child? Or does the game leave you alone for a change?
2) I heard that POIs are a copy paste job and you can find many identical ones both when exploring randomly and in the main campaign, is this true?
3) Is there a real reason to build an outpost/does it get attacked?
4) Are non-combat skills a thing or just for show?
5) Is the game challenging or do I need to wait for a Requiem style mod?

1. No, the main quest never comes up outside the main quest itself.
2. That's true, there's no point exploring the procgen worlds.
3. Can't answer, I avoid the outpost game.
4. They do work. The game's a combat-focused dungeon crawler, like every Bethesda game from Morrowind onwards, but the other skills do have an effect. You can stealth quite a few dungeons, as in previous Bethesda games. Diplomacy lets you pacify enemies, Robotics lets you do the same with robots, Manipulation casts Frenzy on enemies, etc. Persuasion and Commerce both prove surprisingly valuable in quests. Non-combat skills are featured more heavily in this game than any other post-Daggerfall Bethesda game I can think of, but it is still ultimately a looter-shooter.
5. The early game was challenging, it's gotten fairly easy since I've gotten better gear though. Personally I don't mind that, I don't think the game is too easy even at this point.

 

[ind33d]

people are saying SF is worse than launch Cyberpunk 2077. there's no way that's true. who is running these anti-Starfield shill campaigns?

 

[Heroic Liberator]

A few questions:
1) Are you constantly being reminded you are the dragonborn/asking everything about your lost child? Or does the game leave you alone for a change?
2) I heard that POIs are a copy paste and you can find many identical ones both when exploring randomly and in the main campaign, is this true?
3) Is there a real reason for an outpost/does it get attacked?
4) Are non-combat skills a thing or just for show?
5) Is the game challenging or do I need to wait for a Requiem style mod?

1) No.
2) Yes for planets, no for main campaign. Quests tend to add / be associated with unique POIs on the various planets besides the procgen stuff that'll also be there.
3) It's a good source of income and it ties nicely with crafting as well. Definitely not mandatory and not something that you'd be specializing into during the early game.
4) Yes, but it depends once more on playstyle.
5) I'm playing on very hard and it's hilariously easy. Only truly hard encounters were a few ship battles and that's mostly due to me not bothering with ship upgrades, otherwise these encounters would probably be quite easy too.

 

[Lovely Feather Pillow]

people are saying SF is worse than launch Cyberpunk 2077. there's no way that's true. who is running these anti-Starfield shill campaigns?

People are retarded. In what way is it considered worse? Cyberpunk was fundamentally broken in dozens of ways and shallow as fuck.

Starfield is a Bethesda RPG through and through and it delivers that in spades. You know what you're getting into.

 

[Ulysa]

people are saying SF is worse than launch Cyberpunk 2077. there's no way that's true. who is running these anti-Starfield shill campaigns?

The kids with the consoles are fighting again?

 

[darkpatriot]

Also i don't know what people were vaping on about skill checks because there aren't any. I only saw once background check.

I also want what they have on with that "peruation minigame is great". IT's literally tricked out Oblivion style persuasion game but instead of infinite time you have 3 turns. Guess it's better than nothing but i wouldn't call that any gamechanger. I'd rather see hard persuation check than this idiotic game.

What the fuck are you talking about?

There are the occasional background or skill option (not many though, and I've seen more background than skill ones), but their persuasion mechanic is nothing like the Oblivion conversation minigame.

The persuasion mechanic is like the Mount and Blade mechanic, but improved.

You have several rounds to try to convince them (usually 3 but sometimes more) and a certain number of points to reach by then. You can pick from a combination of easy to hard options with easier ones generally being less points and harder ones more points. Your persuasion skill (and other buffs) can increase your chances of succeeding any given check. How hard any given persuasion is is determined by the number of chances you have and the quality of the options.

Where it really shines, and where Bethesda unfortunately doesn't utilize it as much as it should, is that they can have other things provide effective persuasion choices. For example, they can be based on your starting background and more importantly they can be based on things you have learned from other characters, done, or even items/gifts you have purchased. So it is a really effective way to reward you for investigating and finding more about the situation without just making it an auto succeed button. It can really bump up your chances by giving you one high value guaranteed success option, but you still need to be able to pull off one or two easy ones to succeed at the overall persuasion.

And I don't have this skill, but there is a bribery skill and I can't tell if that is a separate dialog option or if it adds new persuasion options where you can spend money for persuasion points. If it is a case where multiple skills provide different options within the persuasion mechanic that would be even better designed.


What makes it a vast improvement over general dialog checks is that it is able to actually allow for some minor amount of gameplay decisions. You have to properly determine when you need to make riskier checks or when you can try to play it safe. Since there are multiple actions, it is no longer a case of pass/fail relying on a single check and you can try to recover from failures.


If a game were to come out that really heavily had things you learned through investigation, stats, reputation, inventory items, etc... all controlling what options you had for persuading, it would be the best dialog mechanic I have ever seen in a game.

 

[racofer]

Starfield is a Bethesda RPG through and through

But:

people are saying SF is worse than launch Cyberpunk 2077

So, in essence,