Starfield | Review & Discussion Thread
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also we already talked about this. Is your memory bad? Man BG3, Starfield, Phantom Liberty, Warhamer 40k Rouge Trader. What a year for pc rpg gaming. Am i right?
What bunch of story content? A couple of leaflets here and there? The game is so sparse on story it's not even funny. And worse, it doesn't connect with the player. I honestly never found myself so disinterested about other characters and what they do in a video game.
Game has a poor story and shallow characters, but hey, decorating your home
Exploration is non-existant from the moment that
a) "dungeons" are almost always the same
b) planetary activities are all the same
c) you can go from mission to mission without having to even leave the planet you're currently in
And after you've explored those systems, you will find the same abandoned lab, the same cave, the same "dungeon", all over again. There's literally ZERO reason to "explore" in this game after a few hours. I'm 28 ish hours in and have stopped finding new locations in planets, everything is literally repeated.
Can you link them? Must have missed them sorry. Interested to see your comments about the quests and narrative design since there is a lot to discuss.
Starfield isn't a character-driven story. It's more event-driven. There are events that have happened/ are happening in the world and you get to learn about them or play a part in the said events. Personally, I prefer event-driven stories in video games in general. Very, very few games do character-driven well. Off the top of my head, I can only think of RDR2, Last Of Us 1, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice. The medium doesn't lend itself to strong character motivations.
Starfield does a good job of creating small and interesting stories here and there, very similar to The Witcher 3. In TW3, you could help a village with a monster problem and you get to learn something about the village events there tie in with the whole state of the world. Most of those stories didn't tie back to Geralt. Some of the missions you do in Starfield affect the world or how NPCs view your character. You get new dialogue options or new random encounters. This is basic Bethesda game design.
It's ok if you don't like activities like home decoration, it's bad form to scoff at them.
Exploration is rewarded with discovery. My example showed a discovery I made while exploring. That discovery prompted some action from me. That discovery influences how I get to play the game. If for example, I have a bounty with UC, I know which system to avoid before I clear it.
Event-driven, as in, visiting the same location 53 times in 10 different worlds?
No need to come up with excuses for shitty dead wood characters.
Give me some examples of small and interesting stories here and there that are of any consequence.
I'm not scoffing at them, I'm just saying that these things should be considered tertiary at best, and you're treating them as window dressing for an interesting plot with poorly written characters
Discovery of the same cave 25 times? What about the same abandoned lab in different places on the same planet?
That is not what Event-driven is, you can look it up. From there it should be easy to see how Starfield's narrative is event-driven, from the lore to the stuff that is happening in the game.
I've already shared this earlier in the thread
I was prompted to write my checkpoint review after my experience on New Homestead where these human colonists were insistent on living traditional lives, but Tradition to these folks meant wind power and horticultural pods and mining methane, something which I found to be hilarious, they took great pride from being able to trace their heritage from Earth and they seemed very offended with outworld tourists viewing their way of life as a quant curiosity.
I also enjoyed the bureaucratic stuff in Trevor's questline from Cydonnia, who was trying to get mining equipment for his miners but had to go through a lot of red tape due to Deimos & UC entanglement. The story here tied in a corrupt governor and there were actual decisions I had to make that'd affect the lives of people on Mars
These sorts of stories are what I find really great about Starfield's narrative. It might break down further as I get further rinto the game but so far I find them great
I also enjoyed the bureaucratic stuff in Trevor's questline from Cydonnia, who was trying to get mining equipment for his miners but had to go through a lot of red tape due to Deimos & UC entanglement. The story here tied in a corrupt governor and there were actual decisions I had to make that'd affect the lives of people on Mars
These sorts of stories are what I find really great about Starfield's narrative. It might break down further as I get further rinto the game but so far I find them great
Can we stop getting into this cycle where I share a point and you keep going back to the same argument of being in the same cave/lab multiple times? Are you going to pretend there aren't unique places and locations to explore in the game?
I wouldn't say such activities are tertiary, especially in a roleplaying game. Stuff like that along with shipbuilding are how your character presents themselves in the world. They are also a great expression of creativity
I was being cheeky, but I can argue that while event-driven, the events themselves are presented in a manner that's so contrived and/or convenient that they lose any and all impact they can possibly have. I cannot find myself invested in the lore, the story, and the pacing, because everything feels inconsequential.
While those stories may be cute, how do they tie into the overall narrative of the game? They are gentle reminders of world-building, sure, but they are again of no consequence to the overall narrative and to the game at large.
We can when you stop trying to sell this game somehow rewards / encourages / is even remotely good at inciting exploration, when your rewards from such exploration are of no consequence other than a few credits and maybe a couple of cute notes. I'd rather bethesda had invested a little more in providing actual interesting and unique locations in a smaller denser couple of planets so that I can at least suspend my disbelief. It becomes very hard, if not impossible, to be invested in exploration when the game rewards you with the same place over and over again.
I never said there are not unique locations in the game.
That would be acceptable if they managed to build a game world that was up to acceptable RPG standards. My main gripe is that we're here talking about collecting snowglobes (or succulents, like a friend of mine does), when the world is mostly barrent, the characters are uninteresting, and the quests are unimaginative.
I'd be more than happy to discuss the great achievements of ship customisation (which I like) and the collecting of books (which I do for the kick of it, not because it immerses me in the world) if any of the systems tied to those things were of substantial consequence to the story, to my character, and to how the world is lived in.
I haven't finished the story but given this is a BGS game I don't have high expectations when it comes to writing compelling characters. Honestly, if my enjoyment of video games were solely based on how characters are written I probably wouldn't be playing video games, it's a glaring weakness across the board. A game like BG3 is very special due to how well the characters are written.
The strength of video game narratives is in the fact that you can interact with them. That is what I find rewarding in playing a game like Starfield, it's reacting to your actions more than most video games in the industry.
Within the thread, my first complaint about the game was how disjointed the exploration is. It's easily the game's biggest weakness compared to other BGS RPGs. I find that a fairer critique than saying the game has no exploration. I only argued against that statement. I didn't say the game is doing a good job in rewarding exploration, I just pointed out an instance where I was rewarded for exploration.
Fair enough, but just so we're clear, I didn't say my enjoyment of video games is solely (or even remotely) based on how characters are written. However, if the game I'm playing has any sort of individual narrative, I'm expecting them to be compelling. Bethesda gets a free pass because... I don't even know why.
Sorry to be blunt, but I can interact with a turd, it doesn't make interacting with shit any more fun.
The game, when you play it for what it is, has no exploration. You can literally play the game without "exploration" and still gain access to most missions and even side content. The "exploration" bit feels completely tacked on, almost as if it was part of a different game.
Not every video game has to have a strong individual narrative. FO4 might have the strongest individual narrative but it conflicted with what folks expect from BGS games. It's pretty common for people in this type of game to go off and do their own thing.
I don't know what you are comparing Starfield with to come to the conclusion it's "turd"-like.
If you don't participate in any form of exploration you'll miss a majority of the side content in the game.
OP
OP
It could go lower...Omg it hit my projected score!!! Damn I'm good it is indeed at 83
Starfield is as mid as I knew it would be just like like ghostwire , deathloop & the god awful redfail maybe Microsoft did do them a favour by buying them because everything they were working in is shite time will tell when we actually see something that started development under Microsofts thumb my bet is that it will be microtransaction central to compensate for lack of sales
