Starfield Thread - now with Shattered Space horror expansion

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Anyway, Starfield's stuffed with “blacks and women are the future” stuff and of course LGBT prop.

But curiously it hasn't put people off.

Question, is it to the degree that it is shoved upon you in EVERY conversation and in EVERY interaction? If so, is it possible to refund a game that was received for free? Probably not I would assume.

I've been watching a few (long-ish) video reviews and the NPC “diversity” was the first thing I noticed. Almost all NPCs the player interacts with were either some shade of black or female, at least in the game review footage I saw. It could be argued that the devs just looked at real life demographic trends and are simply reflecting that. Or it could all be an expression of Todd Howard and the writers' race and gender-based fantasies. I think the latter is more likely.

about half the characters you interact with are women, for obvious reasons. And no one ethnic group is a majority, so every ethnic group is a minority and most characters are not of that ethnicity if you only look at a single ethnic group.

This nonsense from culture warriors looking to find something to complain about is extremely tiresome, and very false. And then you get people who have never played the game repeating it as if it were true.

Just do what i do. Laugh about them.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

There is a mechanic where if you take too much damage, your suit no longer offers protection from environmental hazards. I didn't realise this until I got frostbite, severe burns, and lung damage all at once.

It's generally pretty trivial since your suit repairs as soon as you're out of combat, but in some of the lengthier combat-heavy quests it can become a consideration.

I would think suffocating because you have a single bullet hole in your space suit would be the bigger issue.

One bullet should be all it takes to make your fancy space suit useless in any non-oxygen environment. Really makes you wonder why everyone seems to wear them everywhere.

 

[Lemming42]

I suppose so, but then it's equally inexplicable that a leather jacket is reducing the impact of incoming bullets in Fallout.

They could have had a Metro 2033 style system I guess, where your helmet can shatter and then you've got to act fast to save yourself, but I think in this type of game it'd end up being a hassle that's only exciting the first couple times it happens.

One cool detail is when people's jetpacks get shot and explode or send them flying away, kind of gets across the sense of danger and fragility that's lacking from the nigh-indestructible space suits.

 

[Gargaune]

There is a mechanic where if you take too much damage, your suit no longer offers protection from environmental hazards. I didn't realise this until I got frostbite, severe burns, and lung damage all at once.

It's generally pretty trivial since your suit repairs as soon as you're out of combat, but in some of the lengthier combat-heavy quests it can become a consideration.

I would think suffocating because you have a single bullet hole in your space suit would be the bigger issue.

One bullet should be all it takes to make your fancy space suit useless in any non-oxygen environment. Really makes you wonder why everyone seems to wear them everywhere.

No, you would think dying because you have a single bullet hole in your lungs would be the bigger issue. But this is a videogame.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

No, you would think dying because you have a single bullet hole in your lungs would be the bigger issue. But this is a videogame.

"This is a videogame" doesn't excuse every stupid thing in the game.

Especially not when you choose a pseudorealistic setting that uses space suits instead of higher sci fi with aliens and 60s-style oxygen masks like Mass Effect.

Bethesda is still making Oblivion. Power armor was just medieval armor in FO3, and now space suits are just power armor in Starfield.

 

[Gargaune]

No, you would think dying because you have a single bullet hole in your lungs would be the bigger issue. But this is a videogame.

"This is a videogame" doesn't excuse every stupid thing in the game.

Especially not when you choose a pseudorealistic setting that uses space suits instead of higher sci fi with aliens and 60s-style oxygen masks like Mass Effect.

Bethesda is still making Oblivion. Power armor was just medieval armor in FO3, and now space suits are just power armor in Starfield.

I must've missed the promo where Todd pitched it as a simulator instead of a game. From what I hear, Starfield's got plenty of legitimate problems, you should have lots to shit on without bitching about the common abstractions of all videogames. You do realise that BG3 doesn't accurately represent what a mace does to the human skull, right?

 

[Lemming42]

"This is a videogame" doesn't excuse every stupid thing in the game.

Damage is an abstraction in basically every game ever to exist. You could complain that it's ridiculous that Max Payne is surviving gunshots while wearing only a leather jacket, but it's obviously a) a videogame and b) a representation of events for the sake of gameplay - in the story, Max is not canonically getting shot repeatedly in the head and cock every three seconds, but that happens in gameplay because it's fun and offers the player a challenge.

I don't think it's reasonable to expect Starfield to do something that literally no other videogame has ever done (including my example of Metro 2033). I don't really have any issue accepting that combat, as in every other videogame ever created except like Bushido Blade and Hellish Quartz, is abstracted and that's why people are shrugging off gunshot wounds and their suits aren't rupturing. Even games with far more realistic settings than Starfield do it - Call of Duty, for example, which lets you shrug off gunshot wounds (CoD1) and even magically regenerate health (CoD2 onwards).

EDIT: what Gargaune said.

 

[Late Bloomer]

While the quest giver, a white guy with an australian accent who is the head of the miners

I give you darkpatriots "white guy". This is Trevor Petyarre, mining foreman, on the job. It is worth mentioning that every miner on Mars has this kind of orange reddish eye colour. Also, the last name Petyarre is aboriginal. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petyarre

 

[Levenmouth]

I would think suffocating because you have a single bullet hole in your space suit would be the bigger issue.

Not a space nerd, but my understanding is that modern space suits have rings in them that compartmentalize the suit. So if you tear your suit somewhere, it doesn't immediately affect your whole body. It's somewhat similar to how we build ships.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I suppose so, but then it's equally inexplicable that a leather jacket is reducing the impact of incoming bullets in Fallout.

It's an abstraction. A bullet hits someone in the head and they die. It doesn't cause points of damage. The abstraction makes sense, since it's an RPG and not an FPS. You're constantly reminded that you're playing the a game, since it's all isometric. The player is encouraged to imagine what's really going on in his head. Did the bullet enter the player's brain just because it his his head? Or did it merely graze him, since it wasn't a fatal wound? Maybe the leather jacket helped the player get lucky with something in its pocket. Maybe he was grazed on his shoulder and the leather altered the course of the bullet. That's up to you to decide, since you can't actually see it and at most have a text prompt.

The goal of first-person perspective and real-time combat is to put players into the game, and try to make them forget they're playing the game (to some degree, not fully, obviously). This is why Bethesda's combat will always be lackluster. Because they're mixing RPG elements that are abstractions with the opposite design philosophy of FPS games. You constantly see the bullets hitting your target in the head, yet they don't necessarily die, depending on stats. You constantly see the bullets hitting their space suit, yet they don't suffocate.

This isn't just a Bethesda problem either, but again, they're the ones who decided to make space suits into cheap, FO3-style power armor. That wasn't necessary, and it makes the problem worse.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Not a space nerd, but my understanding is that modern space suits have rings in them that compartmentalize the suit. So if you tear your suit somewhere, it doesn't immediately affect your whole body. It's somewhat similar to how we build ships.

Yeah, but I'd wager that said rings don't help much when you get grenade fragments splattering your suit, or when someone blasts you with a shotgun.

The issue is that you're essentially wearing a balloon as body armor and getting into many gun battles. Silly.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

I must've missed the promo where Todd pitched it as a simulator instead of a game.

>durr durr, it's just a gaem bro
yeah, you've given up.

 

[Lemming42]

The goal of first-person perspective and real-time combat is to put players into the game, and try to make them forget they're playing the game. This is why Bethesda's combat will always be lackluster. Because they're mixing RPG elements that are abstractions with the opposite design philosophy of FPS games. You constantly see the bullets hitting your target in the head, yet they don't necessarily die, depending on stats. You constantly see the bullets hitting their space suit, yet they don't suffocate.

Maybe, but name me one game where this is actually the case. Half-Life's marines eat a whole MP5 clip to the head, Morrowind's enemies spew jets of blood everywhere without reacting, Doom's enemies get riddled with bullets and keep fighting back, Germans in Call of Duty and Medal of Honor go "ooh" when shot and then immediately recover, Skaarj in Unreal eat razorblades and rockets to the face and just keep going, etc. And you can pick non-FPS games with real time combat, too - Lara Croft is having her torso visibly shredded by machine-gun fire and not reacting and is still able to leap around, Max Payne is visibly being shot in the face with a shotgun and is still smirking, etc.

You could imagine HP to be an abstraction that represents how long you can go before actually being hit. The shot that puts you at 0 health is the one that actually lands, all the others were near-misses or whatever. But at this point we're analysing games on a level that just isn't necessary, and setting a standard which no game passes.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Maybe, but name me one game where this is actually the case. Half-Life's marines eat a whole MP5 clip to the head

Hitman. Happy?

Like I said, Bethesda games aren't the only ones with this issue on some level. But they are the only ones dumb enough to take space suits that in some cases look like present-day space suits, and try to pretend that this will be remotely helpful in combat, or remotely useful after being shot full of lead, lasers or shrapnel.

You're taking a problem that a lot of games have, then you're making it worse. And with no other reason but Bethesda's own lack of creativity.

Every game they make is Oblvion. This is just Oblivion in space.

 

[Lemming42]

Hitman? Happy?

The player still takes a lot of damage, even if enemies don't, and I don't think "he's a bald clone" is a convincing explanation as to why he's surviving full auto blasts to the face.

Personally I don't see it as a problem, any more than Lara Croft going into combat in a blue tank top or Duke Nukem going into combat in a red vest. Videogames are about rulesets and mechanics, and it's hard to make a fun action game with the ruleset of "everyone will die or become crippled in one hit" (though it has been done - Bushido Blade and Hellish Quart, again, are both based around it). But for the most part, it's more fun to have things abstracted. Fighting the HECU in Half-Life wouldn't be as fun if they went down in one shot, and no RPG would be fun if you died from one stab wound.

I don't think the spacesuits are considered power armour in-universe. In fact, a lot of enemies in spacesuits go down in one or two shots - they definitely aren't meant to have magic anti-bullet properties. People are wearing them simply because they're suitable clothing to wear in space, same as how Max Payne is wearing a jacket because he's in New York. I don't think the setting is at a technology level where they have anything notably better. There are partially-armoured suits you can find on military installations, but that's the same as, say, the metal armour in Fallout - people sticking armour plating onto their existing clothes to try and make them a bit less vulnerable.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

The player still takes a lot of damage

Again:

Like I said, Bethesda games aren't the only ones with this issue on some level. But they are the only ones dumb enough to take space suits that in some cases look like present-day space suits, and try to pretend that this will be remotely helpful in combat, or remotely useful after being shot full of lead, lasers or shrapnel.

You're taking a problem that a lot of games have, then you're making it worse. And with no other reason but Bethesda's own lack of creativity.

Every game they make is Oblvion. This is just Oblivion in space.

I don't think the spacesuits are considered power armour in-universe.

This is cope. It's armor. It has armor stats. You use it in combat.

 

[Gargaune]

>durr durr, it's just a gaem bro
yeah, you've given up.

Here we go again, selective quotes and "I WINS" because you said something dumb and can't defend it. The mechanic you claim to want would involve the player dying or having to stop and quickly repair their suit after every single shot they took. This is undesirable for the same reasons realistic damage is undesirable in most games, outside of tactical combat simulators like Operation Flashpoint or horror games.

Man, I guess Starfield must be a pretty good game after all if you've already run out of legitimate gripes.

Here, try this for some fresh material:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/starfield-pre-release-thread-game-released-go-to-new-thread.64821

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Here we go again, selective quotes and "I WINS"

You keep repeating the same defense over and over. We all know it's a game. We all know games have abstractions. That's not a defense for a stupid design decision.

Man, I guess Starfield must be a pretty good game after all if you've already run out of legitimate gripes.

Speaking of "I WINS". I really doubt anyone wants to read the same lengthy list of issues with the game in every post.

Get a better argument.

 

[Lemming42]

Again:

Like I said, I think you're misreading the game - the spacesuits are not considered to be power armour in-universe. People are not wearing them as ideal combat gear, they're wearing them because that's what they have available, same as leather jackets in Fallout. The result is that a lot of people end up being shot to death. There are armoured variants but these very obviously do not stop bullets. At no point in the story is anyone said to be deflecting bullets or magically avoiding punctures, and you see armoured people being killed pretty often. It's literally no different from Call of Duty having both the player and enemies survive gunshot wounds despite only wearing fabric clothing - the game is following its own set of rules and mechanics, players are expected to understand that a level of abstraction is taking place, and it's all done in the name of being as fun as possible.

 

[Modron]

Like I said, Bethesda games aren't the only ones with this issue on some level. But they are the only ones dumb enough to take space suits that in some cases look like present-day space suits, and try to pretend that this will be remotely helpful in combat, or remotely useful after being shot full of lead, lasers or shrapnel.

Modern space suits have multiple layers of kevlar and other durable materials and get tested by firing ball bearings at them out of 40 foot long pressure tube https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nasa-ballistic-air-gun-hurls.html because micrometeorites are out there traveling at great velocities.

 

[Ben Zyklon]

Just do what i do. Laugh about them.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Like I said, I think you're misreading the game - the spacesuits are not considered to be power armour in-universe.

Again:

This is cope. It's armor. It has armor stats. You use it in combat.

I don't care what you personally think the characters think. Especially when that assumption is pretty silly, considering that they live in the future with space ships and lasers everywhere, not a post-apocalyptic setting where they have to use bottle caps as currency. They don't need to wear their space suits everywhere like a child wearing his pajamas in public.

Armor is how it's used in the game. It's the game design I'm criticizing.

People are not wearing them as ideal combat gear, they're wearing them because that's what they have available, same as leather jackets in Fallout.

Already covered this too:

It's an abstraction. A bullet hits someone in the head and they die. It doesn't cause points of damage. The abstraction makes sense, since it's an RPG and not an FPS. You're constantly reminded that you're playing the a game, since it's all isometric. The player is encouraged to imagine what's really going on in his head. Did the bullet enter the player's brain just because it his his head? Or did it merely graze him, since it wasn't a fatal wound? Maybe the leather jacket helped the player get lucky with something in its pocket. Maybe he was grazed on his shoulder and the leather altered the course of the bullet. That's up to you to decide, since you can't actually see it and at most have a text prompt.

The goal of first-person perspective and real-time combat is to put players into the game, and try to make them forget they're playing the game (to some degree, not fully, obviously). This is why Bethesda's combat will always be lackluster. Because they're mixing RPG elements that are abstractions with the opposite design philosophy of FPS games. You constantly see the bullets hitting your target in the head, yet they don't necessarily die, depending on stats. You constantly see the bullets hitting their space suit, yet they don't suffocate.

This isn't just a Bethesda problem either, but again, they're the ones who decided to make space suits into cheap, FO3-style power armor. That wasn't necessary, and it makes the problem worse.

You guys just keep repeating yourselves, defending this obviously silly design decision. What's the point?

 

[Alienman]

It's not stolen since it's an Indian game.

 

[Non-Edgy Gamer]

Like I said, Bethesda games aren't the only ones with this issue on some level. But they are the only ones dumb enough to take space suits that in some cases look like present-day space suits, and try to pretend that this will be remotely helpful in combat, or remotely useful after being shot full of lead, lasers or shrapnel.

Modern space suits have multiple layers of kevlar and other durable materials and get tested by firing balls bearing at them out of 40 foot long pressure tube https://phys.org/news/2021-09-nasa-ballistic-air-gun-hurls.html because micrometeorites are out there traveling at great velocities.

Big deal. It's still not shrapnel from a grenade or an AK round.

If they were impenetrable, soldiers would wear them and never die. But they're clearly not designed to be shot at, or they wouldn't be firing metal balls at them, they'd be shooting them with bullets and setting off grenades near them.

 

[Late Bloomer]

Here, try this for some fresh material:
https://rpgcodex.net/forums/threads/starfield-pre-release-thread-game-released-go-to-new-thread.64821

I clicked it....