Feel like this games gonna get the NMS treatment and be relatively playable maybe 3 years down the line…
As it stands the game has some merits (tons of planets, dungeons are compelling enough while you’re still seeing new ones) but it feels like the size of the world really caused the world design overall to suffer.
They’d have to rip out and replace the entire plot, which I don’t think they would do
I’m sorry but Bethesda doesn’t deserve three years to make a game work. They should make it work on launch and delay it until it’s worth launching. They have billions of dollars and ownership from a major tech conglomerate. It’s entirely unacceptable for them to release an unfinished product.
Games are never finished now with the internet. The whole industry has agreed to say “fuck it, we’ll fix it in post” for basically every single project.
Yeah Bethesda doesn’t get the same amount of leeway that a small dev that was clearly way in over their heads gets
I honestly don’t think so. NMS sky started from a rock solid space exploration engine, but that was basically it, and has then layered on most of the other parts of a space sim on top since then, but most of Starfield’s biggest issues seem to be because their game engine can’t handle the scales needed for seamless space exploration.
So at this point Starfield devs have spent a ton of time and effort building a space sim game on an engine not suited for it, and that means that every cut scene and animation and scripted event is built around this engine, making it really time consuming just to bug test, let alone fix any problems that arise from changing or upgrading that engine, let alone designing the old missions and stuff to work with more continuous travel.
I have more faith that 5 years from now NMS will be fleshed out into a really rich and full story driven game, then that Starfield will have fixed it’s fundamental exploration / loading screen problems.
NMS was purpose-built to be a space game.
Starfield was built on an ancient engine that’s always been for ground-based games.
It’s such a huge sunk cost fallacy that keeps Bethesda using the same dogshit engine. “We’ve used it for years!” Yeah but it’s been fucking garbage for years too.
stuff to work with more continuous travel.
I bet you would be surprised if you were to find out that it is possible already. In space one can already move from one planet to another, only thing that is missing is the loading of new space “map” on demand. And more importantly move from one planet to another and then dock with spacestation. As shown by https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/3541.
And on planets the landing zones aren’t placed in a vacuum, topological details like mountains are visible from adjacent zones. As shown by https://youtu.be/Fy0eG7MFSTM?si=ZwaE3OzmEf9IxbwZ&t=841 by 2kliksphilip.
Now you might ask the very obvious question: why isn’t this correctly implemented to allow seamless travel in both space and on planets in vanilla Starfield? We may know only after someone does full introspection what happened during development but my speculative guess is that Xbox Series S which is much weaker than X is the primary reason for all this segmentation in all aspects of Starfield.
Traversal is technically possible yes, but it’s not possible to traverse at a speed which would be feasible or fun, indicating that their engine isn’t capable of unloading and loading new assets in fast enough as you move around. Probably the same reason that even Neon needs to be hard split in half instead of just unloading the assets from the part of the city you’re not at at the moment.
And bruh blaming the S with no information is asinine when not a single other game struggles with traversal on it, including massive open world’s like GTAV, Cyberpunk, Flight Simulator and even other space sims like NMS.
Given that this game also chose to procedurally spawn the same bases over and over again, I think their issues are firmly routed in their development process, not hardware limitations.
Traversal is technically possible yes, but it’s not possible to traverse at a speed which would be feasible or fun, indicating that their engine isn’t capable of unloading and loading new assets in fast enough as you move around. Probably the same reason that even Neon needs to be hard split in half instead of just unloading the assets from the part of the city you’re not at at the moment.
Speeds that the above mentioned mod adds. Until CK is added the debate of switching of one space map to another seamlessly is useless, since the current implementation is missing the hook to load the next map whilst the same hook is implemented between ship take off and space (even when player is not at the helm). Yeah, but New Atlantis is much bigger and allows the player to boost pack from the MAST top floor to another skyscrapers roof and then get down to commercial level and trade stuff without any load screens, at least on PC.
And bruh blaming the S with no information is asinine when not a single other game struggles with traversal on it, including massive open world’s like GTAV, Cyberpunk, Flight Simulator and even other space sims like NMS.
Expect of course if there were dev stories related to it sprinkling out periodically, latest being from Baldurs Gate 3 devs: https://www.pcgamer.com/baldurs-gate-3-dev-shows-off-the-level-of-optimization-achieved-for-the-xbox-series-s-port-which-bodes-well-for-future-pc-updates/
It’s worth noting that out of all the platforms that Larian has developed its masterpiece for, the Xbox Series S is probably the most restrictive. This is because it only has 8GB of high-bandwidth memory, to store the game while running and use as VRAM (the remaining 2GB gets used for system functions).
The graphs start at the beginning of September, with the game using just over 5.2GB for general game RAM and around 3.5GB for VRAM. By November, though, Larian had shaved this down to 4.7GB and 2.3GB respectively. The RAM reduction is a pretty decent 10% drop but the reduction in VRAM usage is a massive 34%.
Other devs have stated these: https://www.gamesradar.com/xbox-series-s-could-bottleneck-some-next-gen-games-developers-suggest/
Gneitling pointed to the “almost non-existent” RAM increase from current-gen systems to Xbox Series S as a major pain point. Also “it always scaled on PC” is nonsense. Every AAA game in the past decade or so has their assets made once so they run on min spec. Increasing sample counts a bit here and there for high settings isn’t what you could truly have done with more power. Min spec matters.
The article has many such remarks from other devs as well. So why couldn’t the segmentation of Starfield be because of Xbox Series S? Keep in mind the latter article is now roughly three years old.
Because Larian specifically struggles with local co-op, not with loading new sections of the map.
As I’ve said, Cyberpunk runs perfectly fine on the S while loading in more geometry faster on the fly, and it’s far from alone in that. Starfield’s limitations are clearly a result of Bethesda’s ancient engine and not hardware limitations since other devs using different engines can accomplish what they failed at on the same hardware.
The sad part is that Microsoft pulled the original 2022 release to fix a lot of the bugs.
So really the updates have to be pretty impactful.
I’m still optimistic, because fallout 76 did finally get there!
I’m still optimistic, because fallout 76 did finally get there!
This is sarcasm, right?
I like it 🤷♂️
congratz
Thanks!
Yeah. It’s a good game. That’s all. Pretty formulaic and not Bethesda’s finest work. Good, but nothing award worthy.
Both spider man 2, re4, and tears of the kingdom are just as formulaic if not more, yet there they are. And SM Wonders is somehow super innovative, just because it is not the exact same formula of all marios but the exact same formula “a little bit harder”
Don’t worry Bethesda, you can try again at next year’s game awards after you’ve fixed the bugs and modders have added the features!
Let’s not give developers the habit of relying on modders to finish their games. I’m tired of studios releasing half ass games
Sorry to be unclear, I was being sarcastic and agree with you. The awards are rightfully based on what is actually released, which discourages this habit.
Gotcha, sadly, these are some people’s sentiment regarding AAA studios. Modders are a blessing but then these companies find ways to exploit the passion of their community and fans.
From what I understand they even fucked with the engine so much that they made modding even harder now and for whatever reason they’re not releasing the mod tools any time soon so the big names aren’t even trying to mod the game…
It’s like they looked at what made all their previous titles popular, looked at the community, and said “nah, fuck that. What the people really want is no mod support, 6 distinct POIs, and TONS of loading screens.”
after
you’vethe modders have fixed the bugsAnd year after that, and the year after that, and so on for the next 15 years as they re-release it.
They don’t need to rerelease it.
Skyrim Special edition released in 2016 and is still one of the most played games on Steam. (place 69, nice)
I really regret thinking the extra time to polish would result in a game where we don’t need modders to make things decent. The mod tools aren’t even out and people have rebalanced multiple systems to be way better than Bethesda came up with.
Starfield bad
Okay, who downvoted this? Come clean, buster. My opinion about a video game is objective fact and you must agree with it.
I played it and really liked it. I did everything I could do with my first playthrough. I started ng+ but just couldn’t continue. A bunch of cool systems in theory but just not enough substance. The copy and paste assets gave me fatigue. It scratched that Bethesda game but I am a bit disappointed. I really wonder why it took so long. It sorta feels like a bunch of reused elements from fallout. Like did they scrap a bunch? I’ve seen many more in depth games from smaller studies lately. On a side note I started playing Cyberpunk with new dlc afterwards and damn I really like that game
It’s real nova, choom.
I’m curious what the design, and reaction to, of Starfield might say about what we’ll expect from ES6. For three games now (Fallout 4, Fallout 76, and Starfield), have been marked by Settlement building and Radiant quests.
While radiant quests were there in Skyrim, in these later games it felt a lot like Bethesda were making it a core part of the mission design structure. There are a lot of blurred lines in Starfield that make it difficult to tell them apart. (That’s more a comment on main missions being so generic than the radiant quests being so good, unfortunately).
Settlement building seems to be a core part of Bethesda’s DNA now, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the narrative follows a Kingmaker style where you build up a settlement of rebels over time or similar. I imagine the other ES staples will be tied to this too, Thieves Guild = establishing a branch within your new settlement to attack Big Bad Evil Vs joining an established one etc.
I really wonder how much of this poor reaction to Starfield makes its way through to actual change, but my feeling is ES6 will have a lot of hype, but similar feelings of disappointment. I hope I’m proved wrong.
I can’t imagine Beth cares about game awards as long as their sales are good.
It would get them some more downloads, but it might just be too difficult for them to achieve since their games are all the embodiment of “Jack of all trades, master of none.”
The thing is that a lot of players like it that way, but it won’t ever win any awards.
I don’t see settlement building as a core part of Starfield, I am 160h in (NG+3) and have not touched settlement building at all. It is a feature of the game, but it is completely optional.
Ultimately, unless they deviate from the formulaic structure (follow arrow on compass to have awkward uncanny conversation with a mannequin who tells you to go to copy and paste dungeon where you have asynchronous combat against copy and pasted enemies) eventually, people will have the same gripes with ES6 that they didn’t know they had with Skyrim. At this point, Creation Engine games are nostalgic, but Bethesda thinks they’re still the future.
Bethesda did not over promise anything, didn’t over hype. They said they wanted to create Skyrim in space, and that is exactly what Starfield is. For better or for worse.
Starfield being a disappointment to some is only because those players over hyped themselves.
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When a game like Hardspace has better writing than your game, you fucked up.
Which is not a knock on Hardspace by-the-by. It’s just that writing isn’t the focus of that game, and even Blackbird said, “let’s take a big swing at this anyways”.
I wish Hardspace would work again. It had lots of potential before they crippled it.
And the early access people hated the plot too.
Yeah, I played it back to back with cyberpunk TPL and it felt pretty sterile and soulless by comparison.
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Starfield was 60 pretty ok hours on game pass, I personally have nothing against it, don’t care about it much. But those who actually give a shit about The Game Awards: why? Slim list of nominees, several categories total bollocks anyway, judges vote worth 90% against 10% crumbs to the public vote ( see ‘how are winners selected’ https://thegameawards.com/faq )
Why would you want extensive public participation in an award ceremony? If you want a popularity contest just look at sales numbers. What purpose do awards even serve if they aren’t curated beyond validating your own preferences?
Nicely said! I had the same feeling but just didn’t know how to put it into words.
I mean Blades Gate 3 has all rights to be GOTY of the year, everyone has been calling it since it got out, but I’m 100% certain that less than 20% of the voters will have players all GOTY nomeene’s. Hell Alan Wake got out two weeks ago. What I care a bit more is for things me coach’s. I’m a CS2 player and I’m sincerely hoping Christine “Potter” Chi will win it, she was so dedicated, and gave her true best, I’m truly happy her team win and J don’t even follow Valorant
this is fair but then why hold a public vote at all when it has next to no chance of affecting the outcome anyway?
Yeah, that’s a bit silly, for sure.
Seriously, just drop it then. They need to clarify their role.
Awards are purchased
It’s an excuse for me and some buddies to get drunk and yell at Geoff keighly for a couple hours.
I put very little stock in them as a true reflection of quality in the industry, though it’s occasionally nice to see Indies and smaller devs get some recognition.
It got a best audio nominee at the golden joysticks and a best rpg at the game awards. Taking up air that could have been used for actual worthy contenders but big money’s get the auto nomination
It definitely doesn’t deserve best RPG.
It might win the most “it’s alright I guess”, game of the year award.
Everyone loves to hate Bethesda
Jankfield’s poor technical and creative debt have come full circle.
It’s just so bland and formulaic. Against deep RPGs like BG3, it just pales in comparison.
The funny thing is, I think the fact that the RPG mechanics are finally better than the last game developed by Bethesda, instead of worse, highlights just how mediocre Bethesda games are.
I still think once mods and DLCs come out in full force it will be remembered more positively.
Agreed. Twas the only thing I thought while playing. This would be better with mods. Which is a sad state because I spent real money on a mod sandbox without the mods.
Yep, I had below Fallout 4 expectations and actually ended up enjoying it more, as I highly value the RPG aspects. It’s still a completely mediocre RPG, but it has a huge sandbox and a ton of potential.
If Bethesda games are so mediocre, why are they so popular among players who love to put hundreds of hours into them? I can’t imagine them all playing total conversion mods.
It’s become such a custom to poop on Bethesda for making “shallow”, “uninteresting” games that still everybody talks about. As if there weren’t enough real flaws in their games to give them heat for.
Because mediocrity and popularity go hand in hand, it’s the profit motive at work. Being largely inoffensive and generally palatable is profitable.
That’s not the definition of mediocrity. Trying to appeal to a bigger audience doesn’t make a game mediocre in the same way not every niche game has the potential of being a masterpiece just by not being that much likeable.
Some games are popular and good.
What’s good and what’s popular do not necessarily align. Removing “complicated” features for the sake of mass appeal makes the game worse, but more profitable, much of the time.
Also not true. Complexity alone doesn’t make a good game / movie / book / piece of art. And lack thereof doesn’t make anything worse.
Why is it that when many people like a thing because that thing appeals to masses, it’s automatically categorised as lower quality?
Nobody seriously claimed Starfield to be the game of all games. It’s good. It’s fine. It’s not perfect. So what?
The difference between a Ubisoft game and a Bethesda game is that Bethesda employees still enjoy coming to work.
Sure. I think big budget gaming needs to die, and games need more dev time for less work and higher pay, with worse graphical fidelity and better art styles.
