Yeah seems fair. I'm about 2 years since my last attempt to get into it, so it's about time to give it another go on the steam deck lol.
After bg3 first, however.
Starfield's a Major Hit: Starfield leads September sales, instantly becomes 2023's 7th best-selling game in a few weeks
- Thread starter JohnLennon
- Start date
After bg3 first, however.
Tremendous, and deserved IMO.
*reads thread*
...it must be cool for a game that came out a month ago to live rent free in someone's head, very rational.
*reads thread*
...it must be cool for a game that came out a month ago to live rent free in someone's head, very rational.
jimmies are well and truly rustled in here (i mean the site overall, not just this thread)
I dont think i've ever seen a game elicit this kind of response before. To say it "doesn't deserve" any success and go relatively unchecked here is a sad indictment of where this place is going. (or perhaps that ship has well and truly sailed) Try telling the countless people who poured hundreds of hours into making this game that they dont "deserve" success! That because the game doesn't follow their checklist that it deserves to fail.
If this is the kind of vitriol a well received (and reviewed) game gets then I would have hate to see what would have happened had it launched in a Cyberpunk/Unity/NMS kind of shape.
I dont think i've ever seen a game elicit this kind of response before. To say it "doesn't deserve" any success and go relatively unchecked here is a sad indictment of where this place is going. (or perhaps that ship has well and truly sailed) Try telling the countless people who poured hundreds of hours into making this game that they dont "deserve" success! That because the game doesn't follow their checklist that it deserves to fail.
If this is the kind of vitriol a well received (and reviewed) game gets then I would have hate to see what would have happened had it launched in a Cyberpunk/Unity/NMS kind of shape.
Congratulations to the team! I've bounced off it for now but I'll definitely give it another shot in the future!
Good sales considering it's also on gamepass. I wonder what's the % of the divides.
It's Bethesda game for sure so the janks are there, and I kinda wished they would've updated some of their gameplay and narration style, but eh it is what it is :P
I've enjoyed my time with it, but it could've been a lot better for sure. It's lacking in a lot of QoL features right now.
Hopefully the team will patch the game further to make it better.
It's Bethesda game for sure so the janks are there, and I kinda wished they would've updated some of their gameplay and narration style, but eh it is what it is :P
I've enjoyed my time with it, but it could've been a lot better for sure. It's lacking in a lot of QoL features right now.
Hopefully the team will patch the game further to make it better.
Back then NPD didn't include digital sales as well, right? That's an important part for Bethesda games due to their big fanbase on PC, which is mostly digital.
It's like people just read snippets of reviews about produceral content or worse, watched those shitty click baity "Why Starfield suckzzzz" Youtube videos and made up their mind.
While it's true that the produceral content can get repetitive after a while, they're still a smart part of the content and only serve as additional content. The main meat of the game is still what you can expect from a RPG, the quests, from story, factions, cities/settlements, and other smaller quests. These quests will bring us to even more unique content and places.
We barely had any.
We can even stretch it to the early 2010s and all we've got were ME Andromeda, Deus Ex, Nier Automata, The Outer Worlds, and Cyberpunk. The others are mostly some smaller budget JRPGs (like Star Ocean) or Euro janks (Elex). And if we expand to RPG-lites, there's Horizon and the Jedi games. This gen in particular has been so dire with sci-fi RPGs, or just games in general.
More important this game has a metacritic of what 85? 86?
Could this finally shut up those people that shit on games that don't hit a 90 MC.
You don't have to hit 90 to be well received.
Could this finally shut up those people that shit on games that don't hit a 90 MC.
You don't have to hit 90 to be well received.
Not yet but it's difficult to see another game like this from Sony or third parties in the next 5 years.
The procedure content and literal copy and paste content is a huge negative. It doesn't take long at all to trip across the major flaw with them going too big.
The main meat for me in a Bethesda game is getting lost on the way of doing their main content. If you do that in this game you will be hit in the face with the same damn frozen lab, with the same enemy placement, the same robot dog at the end, the same guy frozen in the vents with a key card, the same guy telling everyone they have issues who is dead at the top of the broken staircase, the same scientist smuggling organs at the top of a shaft, the same breakable wall, the same exact environmental story telling, even the same fucking gravity. I lost track how many times I ran through that lab, and legit stared blankly at the screen when it used the lab again for a main quest dungeon.
The unique content is great, but it's in a field of repeated shit. No other Bethesda game is like that, I hope the next Starfield limits the scope to a handful of planets with Skyrim like zones on them.
Wonderful game and universe. I haven't been that engrossed in a game since Sekiro and to a lesser degree, Elden Ring.
I don't want BGS to make another game like this for a while, as I prefer their traditional exploration-based RPGs, but Starfield was damn fun for what it is and gave me a great 100 hours. Stick to the handcrafted areas and maybe some base building.
BGS took a lot of risks on the game, it's clear they didn't all pan out, but they produced a great game nevertheless and I'm glad to see them rewarded for it.
I don't want BGS to make another game like this for a while, as I prefer their traditional exploration-based RPGs, but Starfield was damn fun for what it is and gave me a great 100 hours. Stick to the handcrafted areas and maybe some base building.
BGS took a lot of risks on the game, it's clear they didn't all pan out, but they produced a great game nevertheless and I'm glad to see them rewarded for it.
Nothing surprising, or if you only read this forum. Lots of people are enjoying the game. Full stop.
Yep, it's crazy how much hate it gets here. Of course a BGS game sold well and will continue for years to come. Their games usually have hella legs.
Well, as I previously said, we need to see Starfield an entirely different game from Bethesda's other games. Because it is what it is, Starfield is its own thing, a Bethesda new IP.
People always wanted Bethesda to do something different and they delivered. It's just not possible to have a full sprawling, explorable space and planets exploration in a RPG with proper cities, people, quests, and missions. The tech is simply not there yet. If it is, I'd love to see any other studio do it.
I enjoyed Starfield enough to put in over 100 hours, as I do with all Bethesda games, but it's definitely a step down for me over Fallout 4 and Skyrim.
The biggest thing is the magic lost on exploration. I loved crawling through the abandoned buildings in Fallout, piecing together what kind of crazy shit happened there. Or stumbling into a cave of cultists in Skyrim.
Starfield still has these things, but they are diluted in a pool of procedurally generated fluff and it was a massive turn off. I'm not sure I'll be revisiting Starfield in a few years like I did with FO or Skyrim.
The biggest thing is the magic lost on exploration. I loved crawling through the abandoned buildings in Fallout, piecing together what kind of crazy shit happened there. Or stumbling into a cave of cultists in Skyrim.
Starfield still has these things, but they are diluted in a pool of procedurally generated fluff and it was a massive turn off. I'm not sure I'll be revisiting Starfield in a few years like I did with FO or Skyrim.
Great for the team and bethesda. Sci-Fan fans get a great solid experience and Bethesda fans get a great game.
Sadly i fired it up, played for a couple days and basically hit a "I guess these games are not for me anymore" type situtation. I just don't care for the ability to be able to pick up anything and everything. I've just outgrown Bethesda games personally and it kind of sucks. Maybe the next ESO will pull me back in, but I just don't see it. I think my preferences have heavily changed to focused story adventure games with open areas vs open worlds now.
But very happy people who enjoy these games still get these massive titles to enjoy, as its going to only take longer and become more expensive to make.
Sadly i fired it up, played for a couple days and basically hit a "I guess these games are not for me anymore" type situtation. I just don't care for the ability to be able to pick up anything and everything. I've just outgrown Bethesda games personally and it kind of sucks. Maybe the next ESO will pull me back in, but I just don't see it. I think my preferences have heavily changed to focused story adventure games with open areas vs open worlds now.
But very happy people who enjoy these games still get these massive titles to enjoy, as its going to only take longer and become more expensive to make.
So I haven't played Starfield. And I have noticed that many big Bethesda fans have been disappointed with the game. That's reflected in the Steam reviews too.
BUT I absolutely hated Skyrim, a game somehow held as the gold-standard of Bethesda games. Tried very hard to like it, poured almost 30-40 hours in, but it never worked for me. The combat is floaty as fuck, the writing mediocre, the bugs and glitches were constant (I lost a companion when she fell through the world), and the exploration felt like a chore cause I was walking to everywhere (the horses are super slow) and there wasn't much to do. Also, the game was just plain ugly.
So despite the fact that I've noted in previous posts that Starfield seems to have had a divisive response, I personally am excited to check out the game. The shooting looks way better than Skyrim's dogshit combat, it's visually pleasing, and it seems like you can get to places fast without having to trek halfway across the world while staring at the same muddy textures (though I did think Skyrim had great skies and lovely music). And it does seem like it's a lot less buggy.
I get how someone who loves Skyrim and other Bethesda games might dislike Starfield, but I don't think that makes Starfield a bad game. It could still BE a bad game, of course (though critical reception was largely positive), but if so, it will be bad or good on its own merits, not because it doesn't do this one thing that Skyrim or other Bethesda games did.
I'm surprised with it being on Game Pass, not that it did well but that it sold wellm
I can personally understand that it's a new IP and its different to their previous games and that's cool but even as a RPG in general, not comparing it to past BGS games, those flaws still stick out like a sore thumb. If you're gonna give people the option and ability to fuck off and explore, people are gonna do it and they're gonna run into all those issues regardless of how much people keeping yelling "just focus on the quests".
Starfield does not exist in a bubble, it's gonna be held up to other games in the genre. These issues people have aren't JUST because folks are treating it like a Skyrim or Fallout, they're issues that exist in the game and would be an issue regardless of how people approach Starfield. And if the tech just simply isn't there for a fully realized and explorable space RPG, then maybe they should've scaled down the scope of this game.
I just wanna reiterate, I'm not saying this game is a disaster and of course people are enjoying it, nothing anyone says can take that away from them. But I put a dozen hours into it and stopped because I found it so incredibly boring and frustrating, so I get where these complaints are coming from.
But Starfield is exactly that, a story focused adventure RPG, but with many many places to visit and explore. There's little to no reason to explore the open world in Starfield, just follow the quests and you'll enjoy many different kinds of adventures, conflicts, and even thrillers and humors.
Fair enough. I think it's just as you said, Bethesda dream big and they underestimated the amount of work/resources needed to realize their concept into a game. This feels like a prototype of a proper space exploration RPG that's still far away in the future. But at its core, it still feels like a Bethesda game to me. You talk to people, a lot of them, do quests for them, negotiate with them, visit unexplored dungeon/building complex, kill enemies, get loot, upgrade, etc.
Great observation.
While I think many of the criticisms of Starfield are fair the way many folks articulate them is far removed from my experience.
As you point out the criticism of the game being mostly procedural generation simply lacks merit. There are tons of really meaty unique hand-crafted content, quest lines, cities, weapons, etc. I recently went through the superb Ryujin Industries faction quest and I found that exceptionally well crafted and couldn't believe how long it was (in a good way). The dialogue made me laugh several times, it is a wonderful quest line if you like dialogue-based checks and conflict resolutions, or complex stealth missions. That quest line introduced a new mechanic into the game and opened up other aspects. And that is just one quest line in one city.
I think Starfield retains a lot of game design friction from an older era (e.g. Morrowind) which can be interpreted positively or negatively. A lot of folks have complained about cities having no maps and being difficult to navigate, but I actually found that delightful and more immersive. I had to put some effort in to the learn the cities layout, locations, and navigation. Frustrating initially but enjoyable once I embraced the older school approach here. I think Starfield impressions can vary quite drastically depending on what each player's experience was. If someone just went to a few random planets and wandered around Skyrim style looking for POIs they will come away thinking the game is mostly proc-gen. Starfield removes the guard rails and offers a wider range of freedom than most contemporary games which can lead to quite disparate experiences.
This may be an unpopular opinion now, but I actually hope Bethesda clings onto their very idiosyncratic and from-a-different-era design principles and approaches for future games. There are plenty of valid criticisms and ways in which Starfield veers away from current audience appetites, but also very few other games offer the experience and immersion that Starfield does.
Fallout 4 was basically a Fallout-themed toybox, a post apocalyptic Westworld park where everything about Fallout that used to be important now plays second fiddle to the power fantasy and your engagement in the looter shooter loop. That doesn't make it a bad game - I've played worse, and I've played and enjoyed very similar games too - but it's a real, REAL disappointing follow up to a franchise that used to be about role-playing and exploring a world that's actually bigger than you are. I used to compare F4 to Far Cry, but it's not, because Far Cry wants you to take it at least a little seriously and get invested in its world as a place where stories play out and other characters matter... and Fallout 4 is practically begging you to stop thinking about Fallout as a world or setting, and start thinking of it as a playground where you're king for the day. Build a shack here! Shoot some baddies there. Become the beloved leader of all the world's peoples! And when you're done with that, keep building, keep shooting. That's the game, forever. Makes me pine for Fallout 3.
It's very sad and goes against the founding principles of this site. Constructive criticism should always have a place but there's a weird hatred for Starfield on social media.
This game Def follows a different sort of design ethos to its exploration element. You're not supposed to decide where you go next once you've touched down on a planet... that's a tertiary thing that you do only when you're bored or very curious. In this game, you do missions, and pick up more missions while doing those missions, and pick up more missions while doing those missions, and all the while you're picking up new quest destinations and points of interest to seek out and visit.
There are some exceptions, places that you can choose to explore that you'll never find if you don't go looking... But those are always seen from space. Landing on a planet and doing anything other than your objective or visiting the named POI you landed at, is not what this game is about - which I think is evidenced by how poor an experience that endeavor tends to be. That said, it's also a very different approach for a Bethesda game, where sight based wanderlust has basically defined their output for the better part of two decades.
Ive been satisfied with just following quest objectives and exploring cities and settlements, talking to people to find more places to go. That part of the game works, and works kind of well, at least. But as a follow up to games like Skyrim, eeeeeeh.
I really liked Starfield, but I just have a lot of things I wish were different.
I would highly recommend only exploring cities/outposts and doing quests based on what you discover in those. Never/rarely just explore a random planet. The gun play is really good. My Star-Lord fan character had a blast with the boost pack skills and pistols are super fun to use.
Edit: and don't worry the main cities will give quests leading to the other main centers.
Perfectly said.
When you get the powersuit and have to base build very early on, I checked out.
Gun play/combat is a huge step forward. It's not perfect but they did a very good job there especially since there is no VATS. Took some real steps backwards in some areas too sadly. But for a first game with the scope Bethesda has, I'm quite happy.