Is it just me or is Starfield kinda meh?
Don't get me wrong, I'm not a hater. I actually was really excited for the game. But so far I am just not having fun.
For a little bit of reference, I just finished playing thru Cyberpunk 2077 and then jumped right into Starfield. Maybe that was a mistake because I kinda just want to go back to Cyberpunk (and I will in a few weeks when the DLC comes out).
But I'm noticing two really big issues with Starfield: first, the gunplay/combat is... let's call it underwhelming. I realize it's quite probably a skill issue and I need to just git gud, but holy crap, everything is a bullet sponge and I don't have that many bullets! Stealth seems to be pretty worthless at early levels as I don't have any high-alpha guns that can take advantage of it and, most of the time, I'm detected before I even see the bad guys. I'm just not enjoying this aspect of the game at all.
The second big issue for me is that there's a loading screen every five seconds! Again, probably a me thing, but OMG, it's driving me nuts. Get into ship, loading screen. Launch from planet, loading screen. Fly to next planet, loading screen. Land on planet, loading screen. Leave ship, loading screen. I just want to go shoot things! Let me shoot things!
Okay, found some spacers, time to... oh shit, out of ammo. Let me swap to a worse gun that still has ammo. Sigh. Okay, they're dead. Let me just heal up... oh shit, out of med packs. Sigh.
Oh and wrestling with the UI is exhausting.
Anyways, I realize that this probably isn't the place to find a lot of like-minded people. But I really do want to like this game. Any tips on maybe at least ways to make the combat less of a chore?
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 totally agree with this. I have always been able to empathize with people not liking a game that I'm obsessed with. Every game has flaws, and games are like music genres- if I like EDM, you may like country, and that's ok.
People get really closed-minded about games, even past the point of "fanboy". It's like some sort of hero worship.
Yeah, those people are so heavily invested in this game that it has to be great at all costs. I mean dropping $100 just to play a few days early and the subsequent justifications made after the fact really speak to that.
I've heard people talk about how this is the greatest game ever released. Like dude, this isn't even the greatest game released so far this year.
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'm still pretty early game, but I also like it. The sponginess means I can't just fire a few shots at a guy's head and call it a day, I might need to cycle through weapons, be pretty careful about taking breaks for cover, watch my health. It means my ammo gets used up a lot more, and same with health items.
Actually, Ive noticed a bit of a trend in Starfield where it seems like Bethesda is trying to push back a bit against having a massive overage of ammunition and money (without bringing the scavenging skill into it).
Having spongey enemies and a ton of different kinds of ammo means no one weapon has an absurd amount of ammo, and not having a ton of easily burgled apartments or houses means I cant just have a huge city stealing spree and come out the other end richer than I know what to do with only ten hours in.
I initially hated that there weren't huge apartment blocks ripe for stealing, but I can sort of understand why that's the case now and I can appreciate having a larger wind up time to becoming stupidly rich, especially with there being much higher money sinks compared to older Bethesda games between ship and outpost building. It really seems like, to me, Bethesda is purposefully trying to have a functioning economy compared with their older games where making money a non-issue was basically a part of the early game.
I heard that it's possible to steal spaceships and sell them. It's a long process, but seems to be worth the time. Some spaceships bring lots of cash.
Was i made a fool of?
I just discovered yesterday that you need a systems targeting skill to be able to target enemy engines, which enables boarding, which enables ship capture, and then boom, you can sell ships. So yes, I'm sure I could get rich that way, but it's not nearly as alluringly easy as going to one town in Skyrim and just looting absolutely fucking everything in one in-game day.
You do need to register ships before you can sell them though, so you only come out with a profit of a few thousand credits
I honestly wouldn't be surprised if there's a black market shipyard that'll let you sell without registering.
I see, I picked up the skill but haven't actually done the whole ship capture thing yet. That seems a pretty appropriate way to make it so it's not an easy get rich quick scheme.
you need to register spaceships for 84% of their sell value before you can sell them, only making a few grand. Not really worth the effort.
I haven't checked out a ton of reviews, just two or three from trusted reviewers. The very first one I watched said they didn't like the combat but still really enjoyed the game overall. I'm hoping I can push through to the point where I'm enjoying the rest of the game...
I think part of this is what it's being compared to. The combat is significantly better in starfield than past Bethesda (BGS) games. People who are saying it's great are generally comparing it to their past games.
I don't have experience with Cyberpunks combat yet (waiting for the update to finally play it) but I wouldn't be surprised if it's better.
Shouldn't you be comparing to other current games in the genre, rather than past games of the company? Because if the game is better than their past games, but nothing close to current games in the genre, then that just means it's a bad game and their past games were worse.
BGS game is a genre unto itself really. With a few exceptions for games made by another developer there really aren't any other games that play or work the same. That said the most recent game in the genre I can think of would be Fallout 4 and the gunplay is definitely better.
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.
Yeah, this is my feeling as well. It makes it feel like a few disconnected locations, not one shared universe. If we could get into out ship and fly places without just teleporting there from the map that'd go a long way to fixing things. Maybe also make things happening in space to make it feel alive. As it is, the space stuff is mostly just another loading screen on top of the other loading screens. It doesn't play a role in the rest of the game and just serves to disconnect us (rather than connect as it's supposed to) from the world we're in.
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?
The space combat and flight capability in general being a watered down version of Elite’s is definitely my biggest complaint. I’m perfectly happy doing space-chores as gameplay and have really enjoyed bumbling my way between radiant quests and random buildings I find while scanning planets, but I want to land the ship dammit. So much of Elite I found incredibly boring but kept coming back for a long time for the flight/space combat.
I get why they did it that way to make it more accessible to a wider audience (my partner for instance cannot begin to agree with me wanting the flight to be more complicated), but the space genre has often had a huge overlap with flight sim fans for good reason. I hope a very capable modder with far more time and skill than me can implement a more robust space flight experience in there one day.
I think an independent thruster controls mod would be great. Space drifting in elite with 6 degrees of freedom was so much fun.
There are about a million things you can critique Elite but they fucking nailed combat, it was super satisfying in that game. That is the bar for subsequent space games and it’s definitely something that can be improved upon but so far idk if anyone has been able touch it. Really fun aspect of that game.
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.
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.
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.
It will literally never be that if you keep buying it. It also just wouldn't exist at all, so I understand there is no winning scenario. But there definitely won't be more as long as it is "working".
I haven't bought it. I smuggled it out of Neon. 😏
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.
Not to mention if you pick up guns from corpses chests etc, their ammo is added to your stash and you can then toss the now empty gun.
Wait really?? That's gonna be helpful since I stopped picking up guns that were too heavy to be worth selling. Of course now it's one more chore to do... between wrestling the horrible UI and the inventory management itself (already a chore even if the UI wasn't bad), I'm not sure if this tip will be a net gain in fun levels. lol
Tbh I just used the console to increase my carry weight allowance by 500, it's been a game changer. If you don't want to do that, remember to use your followers, they usually can carry at least ~130 mass. Then when you get back to your ship, dump all their crap into your ship's cargo til you get to a vendor and mass sell. Or, in the context of my tip above, to dump all the weapons after you've accumulated so much.
Yeah, if you use a controller just hit LB1 once or twice and it changes to selling from your ship's inventory in the vendor menu. I'm sure there's a keyboard binding for it too but I don't know what key it is, probably the same one you use to change to selling mode.
I know for certain it works on my game. If it isn't for you then it's either a bug or the weapon you're using doesn't use the same ammo as the weapon you picked up.
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?
Name me one sci-fi that has had an alternative to capitalism without access to something god-tech level like Treks replicators, which would break the setting entirely.
Not saying there should be fully automated luxury gay space communism, but that every faction is different flavours of capitalism is very disappointing. Sci-fi is usually a medium that criticizes the current society.
Out of those, The Expanse, Star Wars and Firefly all very much feature capitalism.
Battlestar doesn't feature large scale capitalism due to most of the human race being destroyed but it definitely exists within the fleet, as we see in the episode where Lee investigated the black markets.
Starship Troopers and Warhammer are both authoritarian fascistic states where everything is controlled by the government, which granted is something different from capitalism, but not the time this game went for.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dispossessed
Capitalism works great with RPGs leveling system.
But I'd love to have seen a cashless society where the only way to get stuff was to trade other goods.
Or some sort of social credit system, where the nicer you are and the more quests you complete, the higher your status and the more free items you unlock.
Or some authoritative system that binds you into a contract whenever you make a trade it forces you to work off your debt in all matters of ways.
Capitalism is the best system you can really have when you have multiple factions who's economies work together though. What you describe is great if the whole world trades in that manner, but when you have multiple factions you needs someway for commerce to work between them for world building. To be fair, it's not like the factions in stafridls are just boring capitalists. The more I've learned about the UC, my assumption that they were just democratic socialist types has been undermined totally.
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.
This is why I rented the game with gamepass. I'm so happy I did, this game is just... not fun and now I'm only out the time it has taken me to go play Sea of Stars
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
Really?? Good post up to this point... /smh
Lol no one cares.
Ewww, you want that fallout penis in your butt with no lube.🤣
Yes that would be good.
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:
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)
Thanks, I'll pay closer attention to the weapon damage. Maybe I'm not upgrading enough.
I found that too, and I’d say that kind of design makes sense. For an RPG, it shouldn’t be like Uncharted where anything lying on the ground from your warpath suits the need; there should be reason and investment to get a good gun, then make it better.
I’ve actually been buying up ammo, something I didn’t do in Fallout, because the caliber I get off enemies is puny.
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.
Yeah its a little unfair to compare anything to BG3 so bad timing there. I think when Phantom Liberty comes out and a bunch of people jump to Cyberpunk, it's not gonna help this game much either. lol
It's really not, lol. In the first hour playing this I kept thinking how dated the facial animations felt. CP2077 has the best faces I've seen yet, and it's not going to have this grey filter all over the place either.
Like hell it isn't fair!
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.
I've already said "screw it" and started looking up the "get OP early" guides on Youtube, which I generally avoid. If it helps me have more fun then whatever... it's a game, not a chore.
You can get the Mantis suit and ship early. Kill Spacers, look for note on “secret base”.
Any specific guide you followed? Asking for myself.
https://youtu.be/XzsVi4wxYgE?si=dTXCce_nJFB05wAW
Much obliged!
*with a dash of Outer Worlds and Oblivion.
destiny too
Carry weight is the stupidest mechanic of all time, ever in gaming.
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.
Kinda like space.
It's less about the distances than the tedium of getting my character from one place to another. I fast travel everywhere as usual, but now there are so many more steps to it - Getting out of the pilot seat. Docking and undocking or landing and taking off. Finding a location by clicking through the 3-layered map. - It's way more complex than fast traveling from Windhelm to Solitude.
You can usually fast travel from one location to another, no need to take off. Just enter the menu, navigate to your location (or use the mission tab to show on map), and fast travel. Saves those multiple steps. Only exception is when you're docked - you need to undock first.
But I agree, space travel is more complex than land.
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’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.
This is exactly how I feel about it. Well put.
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 get that but it's because of FOV, and I know you can change it on PC but I think your SOL on console.
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.
What difficulty are you playing on? I had to carry like 6 different weapons to swap between for ammo reasons, and my aim is pretty good. I have since installed a mod that adds in ammo crafting recipes, which is insane it isn't there by default. In the post apocalypse of Fallout we can craft ammo, but in the far future sci-fi of Starfield with outpost building and resource mining we can't? We can pop robots (and nuclear reactors I think) out if we just have the resources and technology, but not basic lead and gunpowder ammunition?
I'm on normal and I've amassed 2k bullets for my main weapon type in 20 odd hours.
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.
I first installed it on HDD....it wasn't playable (I didn't read the requirement, my bad). After the mining bit, the game just freeze every 10s for like minutes. I succeded to reach the door and see the sky before it crashed.
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 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.
Yeah it's kind of weird but I feel like they're too liberal with the fast travel. You really lose a lot of the sense of scale when you can just... go anywhere from anywhere.
I mean, that said, given all the loading screens, I guess more fast travel means less loading screens so it's definitely a double-edged sword.
The RPG aspects seem really shallow after Cyberpunk. The space sim aspects are what I'm hoping keep me interested once I get deeper into it. Fingers crossed.
To make matters worse, the space around each planet is it's own load zone. Star systems are just collections of these zones. I don't think they can patch zone loading as it's done so much by design. It's like they took what they had in FO4 and just slapped a sticker on it that said "space sim".
Yeah, I was excited to go exploring space as soon as I got my ship, but it's such a slog with all the loading! Even flying from a planet to its moon while already in space requires a loading screen. Like, I just want to play the game but I feel like I'm mostly loading or wrestling the UI...
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
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!
So, the ship is a superfluous mechanic they shouldn't have bothered with?
I have enjoyed the few minutes of space combat I did so far. I am looking forward to being able to board and steal ships later!
Well I have plenty of fun building my ship (even if sometimes its frustrating) and winning a space combat gives me great serotonine.
I spent like 60 seconds in the ship editor and then noped out. With a controller, it's completely pointless to bother trying to figure out. That's one aspect of the game I'm going to miss out on unless someone makes a Youtube tutorial specifically for how to do it with a controller. The stuff I've seen when you use a mouse it looks intuitive enough. But trying to select specific modules or hardpoints with no points? lawl
Ah men, that's sad. It is really an aspect I enjoyed on PC.
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.
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.
Ha, I agree but the opposite. The cutscenes for immersion are great... the first 50 times. After that, I just want the option to SKIP IT!!!
But you can! Just use the nav table.
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:
::: spoiler weapon :::
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.
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
the bullet sponge must be really bad if you're complaining about it after coming from Cyberpunk lmao
I've found hammering folks with a shotgun kills them pretty quickly but an entire *magazine from an assault rifle doesn't kill most enemies. Pretty annoying.
It's absolutely the most bullet-spongiest gunplay in my recent memory. As the other guy said, I can unload an entire clip with an AR an not kill a normal mob, and there are elites with multiple health bars. Ugh...
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?
If you like the Freelancer style of combat I quite enjoyed Everspace 2. It's fairly simple but fun. Available on the Gamepass as well.
Not combat specific, but x4 is a solid title. Combats a bit basic, but the empire and fleet management means you'll be in some pretty huge battles.
Sounds perfect, between what you said and the other guy I'll check it out
X4 is amazing if you can get past some of the jank. Space combat from piloting a single scout fighter to helming a carrier at the head of a fleet. Absolutely awesome game.
Squadrons was alright and will hit your X-wing nostalgia pretty hard.
Everspace 2 is pretty good too.
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'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
To be fair, I don't feel like I've gotten far enough into the game to be able to tell how deep it is. But compared to Cyberpunk, the both the story and the combat are a lot less engaging. The space combat seems like it has potential and base building is something I really want to get into but they are both things that require more money (aka time played).
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 in the same boat as the op, the best thing this game does is make me want to play cyberpunk more
I'm a social pariah for not even enjoying old Bethesda rpg games. So much loot fatigue.
I've been playing more since I originally posted this and I'm enjoying myself more but the game still feels pretty meh. But this point above I think is the biggest sin the game commits. It's an RPG but it doesn't really feel like my decisions effect anything other than my companion's view of me. I don't think there are branching storylines or anything like that.
Hate to do it, but gonna compare to Cyberpunk again. In Cyberpunk, there are multiple ways to solve quests and multiple endings with multiple endings! BG3, of course, also has branching quests that effect the state of the world. The lack of a feeling of agency in this game feels like the biggest fault.
I can get used to the loading screens EVERYWHERE (a loading screen to enter a tiny store? really??), the weak gunplay, the watered down mechanics and wide but shallow world. But this game is an RPG first and if the RPG mechanics are bad, what is left??
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.
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'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.
Out of curiosity, when's the last time you played Cyberpunk? There's been a TON of bug fixing and QoL in the least couple years. And the 2.0 patch coming with the DLC is gonna be huge even you don't get the DLC.
Couple of months ago maybe. I don't have any technical issues, just find that the world, characters, and gameplay to be uninteresting. The game ran great when I played it.
Well to each their own, I guess. If you don't like it, you don't like it., just glad you at least got to try it with all (or most) of the updates.
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