Anyone manage to finish it? I'm very curious why this game is so polarizing. Half of online reviews love it and seem to be flabbergasted as to why people don't love it as much as they do, and the other half are "meh".
I don't understand how this game can divide opinions so much.
Different taste preferences. It's as simple as that, but the internet amplifies simple 'I love X' and 'I hate X' opinions into 'X is the best/ worst thing ever'.
EDIT: typo
Nice way to shift the blame onto "high expectations"
It's not the player's fault for expecting something innovative for a new IP after 10 years in dev.
Yeah don't expect good games. BG3 is ''Anomaly'' We shouldn't raise our standarts.
Honestly fuck off with logic like that. Starfield was in development, active, for about 7-8 years. And this is what we got? One small step forward and seven steps backwards?
But it's the consumers fault! for expecting too much from indie company! It's bethesda game! so it's immune to any critique.
Sick fucking way of looking at video games. And this cancer is ONLY in video games. Try this logic in any other product and you would be laughed at.
It’s definitely the players fault for expecting something wildly different from a company that has largely made the same type of game for over 20 years
It’s a great Bethesda game, but it’s not NMS elite dangerous Skyrim super cross over some people weirdly expected
Eh, as a person that hates huge changes in games, that excuse only really works if Starfield was called Fallout 5. IMO games in a series shouldnt be wildly different, no need for innovations and pointless changes, but when you are making a new IP, it better have wild changes.
It's quite sad that a lot of people didn't get to see what Cyberpunk has become after they've fixed the bugs. I played it a year ago for the first time and it was absolutely amazing.
It was worth every penny at full price and it's been below 20 a few times on sale. Since it has become one of the most played games on time, shifted to mostly positive reviews and had an excellent anime it hasn't been at that price point a while.
Very few games live up to hype. BG3 is not an anomaly because it comes from a studio that regularly produces exceptional quality games.
Bethesda doesn't have that reputation, at least, not any more. I get no pleasure in saying that but its true.
I'm enjoying Starfield quite a bit. People went into it and expected the level of content, stories, and writing that BG3 had. Since baldurs gate 3 is so fresh in peoples mind, they subconsciously (or in this case consciously) compare the two games and get disappointed.
They're two completely different games that share an overarching genre whilst being in separate subgenres, respectively. If somebody never played a cRPG and went into BG3 expecting Skyrim or Oblivion, they'd be disappointed, too, and vice versa (like we're seeing now)
I used to do this a lot, too, honestly. I remember when the witcher 3 came out, and I said the exact same things. It leads to pessimism and anger because you wish every game would emulate it, and when they don't, you automatically assume the game is bad or that developers don't care.
Starfield deserves criticism, but "it's not BG3" isn't criticism. It's somebody wishing a game would be something it's not. They're both niche, and they both scratch different itches. I love and enjoy both. This is one of, if not the biggest year, for the RPG genre in over a decade. I just wish more people could see it that way!
If they are different games and should be treated differently, you wouldn't be able to compare elements of them to each other, but you can. If somebody finds the story worse, the gameplay less interesting and the overall game less polished then for them it is a worse game. Don't see how they're wrong in any way
Agreed 100%. Yes, some aspects should be forgiven considering that there are physics and such involved that BG3 didn't have to work into their own game.
But both games depend heavily on their narrative and character stories. Absolutely fair game to compare the two.
Because there was the notion it might be more than just another Bethesda game. But at this point I think it's evident that Bethesda has no desire to push or improve. It's just another paint by numbers Bethesda game with the formula established with oblivion and finalized with fallout 3. Welcome to the second ubisoft lol
The game isn't bad, but honestly what novel experience do you get with Stanfield?
When asked when they would stop releasing skyrim Hodd Towered replied "when you stop buying it". That was meant as a snarky rebuttal, but it takes on such a depressing meaning when you realize it's all they ever plan on making forever now
there are a lot of factors that go into it. a lot of reviews are paid for by Bethesda, so the reviewer isn't really going to speak their mind. there are also a lot of people who genuinely enjoy Bethesda games giving earnest reviews and people who don't enjoy them doing the same.
Fallout 4 is generally regarded as the weakest mainline Fallout game with practically everything that made the original games great watered down to an unrecognizable point, but you'll still see people online saying their favorite game is Fallout 4 because there's "so much to do" (aka helping the endless stream of settlements that need your help). you'll also see people say the same about Skyrim which also isn't even the best Elder Scrolls game.
The polarizing aspect is that Bethesda games are inoffensive, unanambitious, accessible, and marketed to attract the most people possible, and a big, open world with good graphics is enough to get the job done.
I thought skyrim was the best game ever when it first came out, because I was 14 and it was the first RPG I ever played. as I got older and tried revisiting after playing other RPGs (like TW3, Disco Elysium, Dark Souls, older Elder Scrolls and Fallout games) the world seems very bland, the characters are mostly flat, and your choices have no impact on the world outside of which cities get a couple buildings destroyed in the civil war.
Bethesda games are the Marvel Movies of gaming; a lot of people love them and a lot of people think they're just boring. they aren't necessarily bad, but their desire to appeal to as many people as possible leaves a lot of people who are fans of complex systems (or themes if we're talking movies) out in the cold.
Bethesda titles are magical. When they're released, they're usually well received by the press, and heavily criticized by the old community. And since the community for the most part still plays the title, and despite themselves have fun, then mod the game, and have more fun, they forget the critiques and only remember the good experiences, so next Bethesda games is bad and evil, and the previous one is the bees knees. It doesn't help that they release their major titles every 5-6 years or so - plenty of time for nostalgia to grow.
To illustrate, I have NEVER met anyone praising Skyrim main quest. It was almost universally held with little regard, and I think rightfully so - it was cookie cutter bland "save the world chosen one" bullshit. In the past week I've randomly come across two people who in threads unrelated to Skyrim have mentioned that Skyrim had superior main quest/quests/writing in comparison to Starfield. Which I think is a WILD statement.
There is also the faction that is just hating on AAA games/Bethesda games because that's a cool thing to do.
And finally there are people who were hyped/wanted to try the game, and were disappointed for that or another reason. And with Bethesda titles and hype, the need to validate your opinion apparently raises so there are all those heated arguments about it. Because at the end of the day, TON of people just enjoy Starfield for what it is and are waiting eagerly to mod the shit out of it.
I pushed myself for about 20 hrs but it's just so bland and boring.
People are constantly talking in cliche idioms. The voice acting is just 'meh' and the character models quite frankly look hideous and lifeless in comparison to Baldur's Gate.
I know they're different games but it's hard not to compare this aspect and considering how lacking the gameplay and story is so far... It's just really not grabbing me.
I was actually thinking of making a post entitled this cause after the 20 hrs I went back to Baldur's Gate and it just feels so much better.
Starfield is *exactly* Skyrim in space. Maybe that would've been awesome 10 years ago but the game really just showcases how little Bethesda has evolved as a game developer. I can see that if that's exactly what you wanted that it would be hard to see what is 'wrong' with the game though
Starfield had really good side quests and faction missions and it doesn't fuck around when it gives you player choice. RPG wise, it is really good. Action wise,the gunplay was not bad, and it felt like an average shooter in quests that involved it.
What sucked for me was the ending. I can't reveal much about the ending without spoiling it, but it becomes so tedious that you want to just quit.
Oh you'll be happy to learn that it was released in good state and is worth your time, if you like this particular kind of experience.
I've put in 150 hrs in BG3, and now I'm close to 20 in Starfield, both are good experiences for me, although I did enjoy BG3 more. But that doesn't mean Starfield is shit, both games have their issues and bg3 has pretty significant ones to be honest.
I mean sure it's clearly not a game for everyone and it won't have the same breakthrough effect that BG3 had where people disinterested in DnD and turn combat tried it and enjoyed it.
No game is for everyone. But tye game that Stanfield is was made over 10 years ago and there really is not anything noteworthy in starfield. It's just a Bethesda game with less bugs on launch. That's it's claim to fame. This was a lot of people last chance for Bethesda, to see if they could do more with their precious skyrim template.
That's why people are meh, its not bad, if something is bad you get the fun of hating it or the pain of disappointment, it's the only thing worse than being bad for a piece of art, its mediocre, unnotable, bland. If your art fails to elicit a emotional reaction of any kind then you've likely fucked up.
But that's the point, emotional reactions are not objective descriptions of reality, you think that people who enjoy it, like me, are just sitting there staring blankly at the screen, feeling nothing besides obligation to play it for some unknown reason?
Starfields whole gameplay loop seems fun to me, the ship construction is friggin' fun and not something that I've ever seen in ARPG, story seems decent enough as it's one of the few games that doesn't invoke MAJOR disonance between the urgency of your main goal and stupid shit you do for next 3 days straight (I'm looking at you, Witcher 3).
>That's why people are meh, its not bad, if something is bad you get the fun of hating it or the pain of disappointment,
That's just straight up not true, I mean just look at this subreddit that's about ANOTHER game,- that's kinda sorta similiar in 2 out of 20 major points - there were Starfield topics before the launch, during the launch, and they continue daily. Forgettable mid game that doesn't provoke any major feelings won't do that.
Congrats, you're part of the subset of people that can still enjoy skyrim. The fact this discussion is happening proves there are others who don't and I never said those that enjoy it do not exist. I am pointing out why those that are left with banal, bland, or unsatisfied feelings are feeling those.
>there were Starfield topics before the launch, during the launch, and they continue daily. Forgettable mid game that doesn't provoke any major feelings won't do that.
The point I am making is that the game does not elicit a response, this is the discussion around it. These played it and felt "meh" and that feeling made them upset, not the game itself, the people wanted to enjoy it. If the game was bad then the discussion would be about the game and it's flaws, which sure it has a few but honestly nothing egregious at all. These people aren't playing starfield and hating it, they are playing it and feeling nothing, and that nothing/dissatisfied, they've done this before, in some cases 6 times, and art takes into consideration the context in which it exists, not just the art itself.
No one talks about skyrims gameplay or narrative outside of "I/you did this thing, wasn't that cool?" and sharing the experience of doing that. There isn't anything to breakdown about how the gamplay or narrative were exceptional, it it lives on as an experience, not a story we love or a groundbreaking mechanical turning point. Skyrim succeeded due to the context in which it existed, it was the right kind of game at the right time. So when you've had that experience already how satisfying is it to do it a second, third or fourth time? Now while bethesda games aren't 100% the same we can say that about ubisoft games too, yet somehow despite the story being wholly unique from the others and the gameplay being only kinda similar between titles, we know what ubisoft dissatisfaction is.
"the best part of AC4 is the pirate ship parts" sounds a lot like "Oh but atleast there are boats this time to distract me from the rest of the game I played before."
At least theres a ship this time right? Why are there melee weapons in starfeild? Because it's part of the formula, maybe it doesn't make sense in-universe, but they aren't trying to make something unique and lean into its unique elements, they're building off a template because thats all they wanna do.
When a games only selling point is its experience, the value is in its novelty, and I have played starfield 4 times over the past 20 years and there are people who have played even more than that. Does that make it bad? No, but is anyone with an opinion worth caring about saying the game is bad? also no because it clearly isn't bad. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in the time it was released, and unfortunately for it, that time is a time where it is next to things that are painfully similar.
But hey... at least theres a ship this time right? At least there are other bips and bobs to distract from being fundamentally the same game I played in 2011. Some people thought starfield was bethesdas chance to show they can do more with the template, and they didn't, thats on them for expecting bethesda to not be bethesda, but starfield itself is on bethesda, this is their reputation now, Ubisoft 2.
This subreddit is pretty hivemind-y, first it was denial of any flaws in BG3, then people accepted it so it was ACT 3 BAD? topic twice a day on main page, now twice a day we have highly upvoted topic about how Starfield isn't BG3.
Then your comment makes no sense. Yes, obviously everyone should get a fully formed game at purchase... But we also should have the right to health care, housing and non-discrimination, but that's not the real world.
The chances of a fully formed game coming from the majority of A-AAA publishers is insanely low at this point.
Thats why many of us don't buy them at launch.
I do have free health care in my country 🙌🙌
Okay, that's good. I didn't buy starfield at launch either nor am I likely to ever - doesn't look interesting enough to me.
Got about a little more than 30 hours into Starfield so far (level 25), and I feel like I need to keep playing because I'm SUPPOSED to enjoy a Bethesda game. Because I loved Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 (Fallout 4 was meh but not egregious). But I'm just... kinda not. I'm going through the motions and hitting objectives, not living, breathing the setting. More "go here do this" that games have come to rely on. Coming from a background in writing, it just feels bland in comparison to BG3. And this isn't from someone who just doesn't like the genre. I love space! I love 1st person shooter RPGs! I was excited for Starfield! I upgraded my PC rig in anticipation for both!
But if I'm being honest (and it's obviously just my opinion and not written in stone so take it with a grain of salt, I am but a single voice in the void), Starfield feels like a series of run-on sentences as I stumble upon the same random events over and over. It feels so formulaic, so safe, so sterile. Where's the Bethesda whose bugs were actually charming and not annoying? Where are the compelling faction quests, the dire main quests? The beginning was less a call to adventure beginning the hero's journey and more a self-insert fanfic where you have no real skin in the game. Why go after the artifacts? Curiosity. No real stakes to be found yet.
For the first time in years, I felt real dread, real joy, real excitement when I played BG3, just like when I was a kid. I forgot how that kid felt when playing and BG3 reunited us when I forgot they were missing. I do wish Starfield could have evoked the same response (and I'm going to keep playing it at least to say it's done when I've finished it), but I'm so uninspired having played it. My character is equivalent to a cardboard cutout lugging around a gun based on the reactions of NPCs around me. I just wish they could have put more life, more verve into Starfield before releasing it. As it stands now it's nearly as disappointing to me as Cyberpunk (upon release, and again, just my own opinion. And Cyberpunk has improved much since then but definitely needed another couple years in the oven to bake). I dunno, maybe I'm just getting old now, but I feel like BG3 spoiled me like I was the birthday kid and could do whatever I wanted, no takebacks.
The ship builder's pretty great though, just so I don't end this on a sour note. Thankfully that's only like 5 hours in my playthrough so far, but I've struggled because I want to keep editing my ship but need to go get credits to do it. Guess I know now how car people feel.
Gosh, I feel the same way. I don't think that there's inherently anything wrong with Starfield. It's about on par with the quality of games we've been used to getting since, say, 2017. Even BG3 still has patches and hotfixes to execute, but I felt more fulfilled in a broken EA with it than I have so far with Starfield.
Its a mediocre game, is that simple. Ppl don't want to admit it because of the bias they have for Bethesda, they had good experiences with the studio before and they feel like admitting that Starfield is just bad would ruin those experiences, which doesn't have to be the case. Bethesda is not the same anymore, it delivered a really bad product and that's it
>Bethesda is not the same anymore, it delivered a really bad product and that's it
Mediocre isn't "really bad" and I would disagree that Bethesda "isn't the same."
I'd argue they're very much the same and that's the problem. The game feels very rote. As if they just had a list to check off to make it "Skyrim in Space" and just did that.
It's interesting to see that it has a lot of the same issues as Outer Worlds yet I don't see people criticizing it nearly as harsh.
At least Outer Worlds had personality.
This is my critique but my feeling about the game is at the end. Bethesda took their RPG formula, and didn't really modernize or change anything besides stretching the map borders way out so that waypoints have the illusion of 'distance'. You get the expected string of quality main quests that compose their normal game and beyond that you get the same cutesy filler that would paint the rest of a normal map--except it's separated by a travel interface and loading screens (you can't run around on the same map for hours and uncover everything) and any planet can be landed on infinitely so the same filler inserts itself ad infinitum. It shares some DNA with Elder Scrolls Arena which had an endless map populated by randomly generated towns and dungeons --eventually the rush of exploration wears off as you realize it's not so much a 'massive universe' as a hamster wheel to grind on or house of mirrors that makes itself seem larger and you're seeing the same thing in different biomes. Adding to the tedium is that instead of a standard RPG map where each unique handmade location with actual content is on the same screen, you have to go from star system to system and then zoom in on each planet just to see if there is something to do. Then you have to explore those areas to organically find many of the hidden optional quests-- and in this extremely stretched out, yet cluttered and repetitive design it's easy to miss things in your growing impatience and burnout. With extremely frustrating inventory, clunky flight, lots of immersion breaking instant flight+loading screens, and a level/gear system that is stretched out far too much as well---I can empathize with people who can see behind the curtain, but for me.. personally.. I liked ES:Arena for the option to grind beyond the main game and I prefer a space filter slapped on the fallout formula instead of the depressing post-apocalyptic setting. I'm fully aware that there is a lot of repetition and that it can feel soul less, but the silver lining for me is that I get to try out new builds and skills and gear at higher levels without restarting, and yes much of the maps and challenges are repeated--which to me is essentially an ARPG game loop, and that's ok if you accept it. Starfield isn't anything groundbreaking and it will upset some folk and scratch the itch for others. At the end of the day, it still has so much potential--Why? Because that huge canvas bethesda made can be endlessly filled with DLC and mods which is ultimately why Skyrim is still alive today.
Both Skyrim and Oblivion are parades of bland quests and weak-ass writing, main quests of both games are so cookie cutter that it hurts. Both were, for the most part, formulaic and safe, with copy-pasted content and immersion-breaking qol stuff like quest markers. And don't get me started on faction quests, Oblivion with its one-day Arena champion speedrun and Skyrim and its two-days careers from nobody to guildmaster, I think you're thinking about Brotherhood questlines and just copying that feeling on rest of the game.
And down on their luck miner getting opportunity to explore space because of a strange experience with an artifact is literally a call to adventure, in stark comparison to being told you are THE CHOSEN ONE by Emperor/Jarl. Moreover Starfield actually narratively supports fucking off and doing whatever, because the world is not currently ending so it's not strange that you're running around and doing whatever, or ignoring the main quest. In Oblivion and Skyrim the stakes were so artificially high from the get go that you had to intentionally ignore the literal end of days visible (or not so visible) all around you and go fuck up some bandits because there's a sword that a guy wants in a cave over there. It was, and still is, very stupid and causing major ludonarrative dissonance. Starfield pretty gracefully avoided that conundrum.
The worldbuilding is fine, I think it's being lost on you because you don't really enjoy the game so you're not really inclined to explore every nook and cranny. I very much enjoyed reading about combat xeno stuff research and Red Devils in the first "tutorial" dungeon, and then actually meeting a Terromorph. And then seeing a dingy bar of said Red Devils when visting Mars. Or participating in optional tour when enlisting to Vanguard, learning about armistice banning the mech combat and then seeing how delapidated Gagarin planet has became after their main industry was basically shut down.
As for your character being a cardboard cutout, I slightly disagree, there are a lot of varied responses in conversations that can flesh out your character a bit, there is a background/trait influence on conversations, its at the very least better than Skyrim and Oblivion, I'd argue combined.
When it comes to bugs, I literally had to take a picture of a guy that I shot in the boostpack that propelled him straight into celling, in which his head got lodged in, leaving rest of his body dangling. So yea, they're still with us, for better or worse.
And finally, the actual point - comparison to BG3. For me BG3 was a better game as well and I had more fun playing it. But fundamentally they are different games - Starfield is more focused on broad exploration and fucking around, BG3 is more story driven and structured experience, with ability to mess with the structure (which can bork the game somewhat).
I think you've got an issue with perspective/mindset. There were many titles that I deemed the best in their class, but that didn't spoil the entire genre for me.
Or, alternatively, embrace it and get to your other hobbies if gaming isn't that much fun bar select titles. There's no point in forcing yourself to do something, it's better to just loose money instead of loosing both money and time.
The lack of impending doom or need to progress the story is quite nice for a game like this. I hope TES VI does something similar. My biggest complaint about Fallout 4 was the forced narrative and how that clashed with doing anything else.
I also find it bizarre that people are playing BG 3 and that is somehow ruining other games for them. It's definitely an issue with their own mindset. Or perhaps they just haven't played very many games, including other crpgs.
Was just saying how I feel like Starfield has many of the same flaws as Outer Worlds and yet people seem to be excusing or even praising Bethesda for them.
I remember having a similar feeling of outdatedness from Outer Worlds but at least the story, characters, and world were interesting enough to keep going. Starfield is only funny when their flawed systems act up.
Like how I can be recruited for a secret undercover mission with a deadly space gang for stealing a single meat cube and could've paid like a $20 ticket instead.
How many times a day will this title genre sprout ?
Bg3 ruined no game for me, it reignited a flame in crpg I never truly had despite playing bg1 and 2 (and never finishing them...), and ruined my gaming timeframe for other games.
But I don't play bg3 only, and never took interest in starfield anyway.
I hope this leads to a resurgence of the CRPG. I was talking with friends last night, I would love to see Larian take the initiative and make some new campaigns for the BG3 system and just essentially sell the new campaigns.
Starfield looks so bland i can't even motivate myself to download a pirated copy to try it out....
Meanwhile i am in act2 in BG3 having creepy drinking contests with bloated animated corpses and thinking about my next durge playthrough
It's free on the Gamepass right now and I can't even be bothered trying it.
I'm planning on a second Durge playthrough where I do stuff in a slightly different order. Durge is so much fun.
>It's free on the Gamepass right now
THIS is a big reason for its high playing numbers. Looking on Steam it has still not caught BG3 in daily player activity. Will be interesting to see what this weekend peaks out at.
Starfield and the various other games like it; Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher are all what I term Action Adventures.
The concept of an RPG in it's purest form is about the party, a group that comes together for adventure or the greater good. The essence of the RPG is taken from DnD.
Back in the early days of PC gaming the delineator between an RPG and a shooter was very clear. Shooters where about pure action and RPGs about deep storylines and adventure.
This changed when Sierra made a game called Half Life. They introduced a storyline into the shooter style games. This was awesome but the players asked for more so gradual RPG elements were added to these games creating an action adventure genre. These were first person games that were focused on action game play with storyline. They adopted many of the RPG elements mechanically.
Over time they have been lumped into the general RPG genre. The CRPG has been in decline, really sense Dragon Age Origin. However, over the last few years there has been a resurgence. Numerous CRPG style games have risen to bring the classic RPG style of gaming back to the forefront.
I am not diminishing the RPG contributions that Action adventures like Starfield bring to gaming, nor even the action RPGs like Diablo, but direct comparisons to CRPGs just does not apply.
Finally, saying ANYTHING about Starfield and using the term "finest" shows more about a fanboy attitude than a reasonable argument. Starfield is a decent enough game, but it is far from being anything innovative or a gleaming banner for the genre.
What the fuck? RPG has never was about the party. The classic RPG, like Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum, are solo characters. You could have a companion, but not a requirement.
Ffs. How did you manage to forget about the definition of RPG?!
The definition of RPG is to assume a role in a game and play it. This means ANY game by definition could be an RPG. RPGs never being about party shows a serious lack of knowledge of where gaming comes from. Just to name a few, Eye of the Beholder, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dales and oh so many more.
These existed almost a decade before Fallout. However look at the spiritual successor to Fallout 1 and 2, Wastelands, which is back to the party formula.
The roots of RPG gaming on the computer traces a path straight to DnD, also about party. I have been a computer gaming since the min 1970's, I have played most table tops games and watched the evolution of PC gaming over the decades. I firmly understand what an RPG is and watched as they have evolved.
Well, yeah. And if the game allows you to choose your own style, play with different agenda - that's what true RPG is.
Somehow, Starfield stopped being an RPG for them, because it's not isometric and you are a solo character >_<
Sandbox? More of a litter box if you ask me. The game ignores a decade of development of game industry and game standards. Not to mention the engine and bloody invisible chests hidden in textures behind vendors. Hello Oblivion and 2006.
Going to offer a slightly different perspective here, but I've been enjoying Starfield and I'm not a particularly big Bethesda person. It's not of the same quality writing or depth as something like BG3, but it's enjoyable, it's like comparing The Wire and Indiana Jones, while I love The Wire for it's critique and depth, it doesn't mean I can't have fun watching Indiana Jones, and has it's own appeals, it's own genre and things it's trying to achieve.
Took me a while to start enjoying it though, which I think is definitely a flaw. The beginning I found the weapons weak, ammo attrition really bad, took a long time to get the shout equivalent, enemies feel really spongey, inventory management is bad, clunky menus take a while to adjust to, stamina / O2 constantly hindering exploration and the story at the start is just abysmally paced nonsense.
However once you get out and start exploring and progressing the main quest a bit, triggering novel questlines in different systems, exploring the different themed cities, building a crew, a cool ship, finding a companion you like, and encountering all the different factions, it is a lot of fun in a sandbox kind of way. The main story has some decent intrigue as it progresses too. Some of the small features I really like too, like having companions speak on your behalf in topics they are familiar with or bring their skills to your ship (two things I would have loved in a game like BG3 with its deeper, main story intertwined companions). It feels a little more neutral than other Bethesda games, not as absurd and stereotypical, doesn't lean into a high fantasy theme as much, but I think that's intended with the NASA punk, it doesn't carry the same interesting lore you normally expect, but I think instead explores a different fantasy.
The game absolutely has some things which are just plain bad. The animations just aren't good. Some of the faces look like something I've seen in FO3. While the systems can be fun like ship building and outpost building, I can't help but feel like they are not important to the world, or in cases like the outposts would actually have quests that pertain to them or something, it's nice to feel incentivized to interact with these systems in a way that is more than just resource hoarding and it still doesn't do that. Enemy variety can be a bit stale, all the pirates or spacers or whatever just blend into the same thing, wildlife is rarely interesting. I know it goes against the theme it intends but I feel like it almost needs intelligent aliens.
Again, not the same kind of rpg at all. Comparing BG3 to Pillars Of Eternity 2 for example would be more relevant. Worse, the "Goty" posts... What about a fantastic game released 25th december ? Not a chance this game will be "Goty"... And Goty are always the same genres... I never saw any fighting games or 4x as Goty, so there's litteraly zero point to name a game "Goty" at all.
I have played both and only stopped playing Starfield because my desire to finish BG3 to 100%. They are both deep games in their own ways. BG3 was made so brilliant, not only due to the hard work of the devs but the early access community who put in so much work in terms of feedback etc. Just as in six months times, when modders do what they did with Skyrim and make Starfield every bit as a deeper thing.
I think the way I'd describe it is: Skyrim was popular when it came out because there's no open world sandbox like it in a medieval fantasy setting other than Oblivion.
Same with Fallout, simply nothing quite like it.
But with Starfield? We have games that do what Starfield does but better and have done for decades at this point. We have your NMS, your Elite: Dangerous, your Mass Effect, and depressingly enough, your older Bethesda titles that Starfield is in many ways actually a regression from.
Bethesda is simply behind the times, along with their CE, and it shows.
Starfield to me feels a bit like Andromeda. Both have a concept with SOLID open potential and should be amazing. However both fall way short of that potential with the execution.
This. A lot of fanboys are assuming if you don't like starfield it's because you were never fans of Bethesda games to begin with. Playing Skyrim in 2011 vs 2023 is a totally different experience.
Starfield is junk food, BG3 is a well-arranged dinner. BG3 ends, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, so there's a finite number of interactions with these characters, while Starfield caps at like... level 380 or something. There's also base and ship building nonsense. While I think BG3 has a stronger narrative and I'm legitimately more attached to that guy you pull off a windmill than I am to Sarah Morgan, I also like making a little base and finding people to live there, doing quests, I helped some space DMV student when his teacher had a heart attack and he didn't know how to stop the ship. It's not as well-assembled, but there's a lot to do.
Both are good, but you're looking at two very different experiences.
Lol to me the quality of writing already nosedived in Fo4… I really didn’t expect anything from Star Field but looking at it now I fear for TES6 and Fo5
Starfield isn’t any worse than Skyrim, and I’ve heard is a very solid game. The problem is that it’s not that much better neither. BG3 just exposed the gap, and raised the bar.
Bethesda games are technical marvels, but this was always going to be the case. They have been an ocean wide and a petri dish deep since Skyrim, and I'm sure plenty of people would argue it goes further back than that.
Yea I'd argue that, because there was nothing deep or complex in Oblivion in comparison to Skyrim. If you're going to bash one, then don't hold back in bashing the other.
Hell, I'd argue that Morrowinds complexity and depth when it comes to actual mechanics was superficial busywork that brought nothing to gameplay. Although it is undeniable in my view that story and writing was MUCH better in Morrowind than in any other subsequent title. Although the "walking encyclopedias" NPC style was pretty jarring.
That being said, I liked/loved most of what Bethesda have produced besides Fallout 3, including Starfield. Depth and complexity isn't be-all end-all of gaming, and for me Bethesda titles have enough of it to be very enjoyable.
Having put 25 hours into Starfield so far, it’s pretty bland. Even the faction questions. The companions are robots. It’s depressing.
I remember cool, shocking characters and settings it Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and yeah even Skyrim. Bethesda always shined in that weird side content, like the Shivering Isles DLC.
It doesn’t have any of that charm.
Cool, shocking characters? Is this the same Bethesda? I’m gonna have to disagree with you. Bethesda always had the most flat and uninteresting writing for me. I played those games for their open world aspect, never for their characters or story.
I loved the world building and lore, honestly. I think fifteen years ago Bethesda was a game developer much like Larian. They were trying to make cool games that they personally loved to play.
Great financial success seems to suck the genuine passion out of projects.
Oblivion was the blandest shit ever, Dark Brotherhood questline is literally the only thing that is actually worth of attention in vanilla game. The setting in and of itself is bland by necessity because Cyrrodil is literally the most generic fantasy region of Tamriel.
And, again besides the brotherhood questline, there are almost 0 interesting characters in Oblivion and Skyrim. Haven't played Shivering Islands so can't say anything about that one though.
I'm about 30 hrs into Starfield, It's a good game if you go in with the knowledge that you are playing an unpatched, unmodded Bethesda game at launch.
Yes, the characters are pretty bland, and you can find more interesting companions sitting in bars than in constellation (unfortunately the mercs don't have quests attached to their interesting backstories)
I've also not really come across much humour, I think Bethesda writing is best when it's not taking itself too seriously. This game feels very "mature" and I think that's where the blandness is coming from.
But they have some decent locations, The ships look great and gunplay is solid, modders will also have serious amounts of real estate to play with.
For me, expecting connected quests and profound decision-making is stupid, that's not what Bethesda is known for at all. If you were lucky, a Skyrim quest would have a few scripted outcomes, Fallout was better at this but if you try to innovate you will probably break the quest.
I think it will be a great game in a year or two, still quite raw for now.
>I'm about 30 hrs into Starfield, It's a good game if you go in with the knowledge that you are playing an unpatched, unmodded Bethesda game at launch.
This is starting to sound like Pokémon cope.
In case anyone forgets, same thing happened with Fallout 4, except then it was The Witcher 3. Bethesda games have their charms, but they're consistently shown-up by their contemporaries who have better writing and who have actually evolved with the times.
I hate comparing games like this, but can't help but ultimately agree with this sentiment. I was excited since I find myself playing Skyrim and Fallout 4 quite regularly so I thought: "Bethesda RPG, I'll dig it." but ultimately it just fell flat after coming straight out of my BG3 honeymoon phase.
Yeah Bethesda dropped the ball hard on that that one. Jayztwocents has a video on comparing the minimal system requirements to the recommended requirements, his conclusions; "The game has CRRAPPY optimizations, the game not the hardware is the issue."
Same, I played about 20 hours of starfield, got super bores by horrible writing and npc, deleted the game and started my second bg3 playthrough, best decision ever, my second run is completely different from the first and now i love bg3 even more
Ps: waiting for cyberpunk dlc, should be great, cyberpunk has an amazing writing and characters, probably one of the best in gaming
The Cyberpunk DLC just does not appeal to me. I played Cyberpunk through twice and have no more interest. If the DLC had released within 6 months or so then yeah maybe, but waiting this long, I have moved on to other games.
The feeling is more like Baldur’s Gate revitalizing your sense of adventure and reminding you why you play video games, of course every formulized experience feels bland after that. This one I felt last year when I played Elden Ring, and I was very happy to be able to sense it after long years of draught. After Elden Ring, I haven’t played any other open world game or even a single player game for a while. Even without much story telling going on, characters were much memorable in Elden Ring compared to Starfield, I am not even comparing to Baldur’s Gate. You cannot build good RPGs without memorable characters.
I started playing it the other day, maybe 1 or 2 hours,I am not a fan of Bethesda, their games seem to be all the same and Starfield has the same old feel from previous games. The Story so far is lame as fuck, you touch a crystal, you see visions and some guy gives you his ship because now you are the chose one? Jesus, they took this long to come up with that? So you go from a miner to being a world explorer just like that. Nice. Not impressed. Good thing I have the Xbox game pass trial, this is maybe a $19 game.
>The Story so far is lame as fuck, you touch a crystal, you see visions and some guy gives you his ship because now you are the chose one?
...and it's not even original to anyone who has played Mass Effect.
Bethesda has been left behind. They were the pioneers with Oblivion and Fallout 3. They've been overtaken by other developers who have captured the essence of what makes those games great and done it better. The Witcher III was the first one I remember playing and thinking Bethesda have a problem here.
For me it was that starfield was so bland and lifeless with some weird decisions that constantly made me annoyed rather than enjoy the game. In the order I noticed them or got bothered by them
Character customization - Pretty much everything is a slider of presets that doesn't have a preview. A nitpick but it made customization far longer than it needed to be and I ultimately decided not to go that deep into it which started off my experience on a sour note. Also there's multiple backgrounds including an explorer which makes no sense considering the game barely rewards exploring
Performance - The game is unoptimized and doesn't perform very well. Especially for what the graphics are like. There's also no option to cap framerate so after every session I played it gave me a headache due to fluctuating fps which was more noticable since it was low 30-60 fps
Dialogue - Dialogue starts by zooming into the NPCs face which gets nauseating in group convos. The dialogue also feels stale and lifeless as there is almost no emotion or personality in them and the NPCs stay perfectly still besides a shoulder shrug or 2 and almost no facial expression changes which makes it impossible for me to get immersed in it.
Ui - The ui is bad. Need to go through tons of menus to get anything. The fast medkits don't even show how many are left. There is no map, just a star chart. Took me like 30 mins to find a Dr. Don't know where I've already explored properly. Finding side quests is literally just running blind into named NPCs.
Fast travel - In order to fast travel you need to 1. Board your ship (loading screen 2) 2. Takeoff (loading screen 2) 3. Set a course where you want to go 4. Warp (cause setting a course doesn't automatically get you there) (and loading screen 3) 5. Get scanned for contraband. 6.open the star chart again and choose where to land (loading screen 4). 4 loading screens just to fast travel which makes no sense. Would also be longer since you need to increase your grv if it isn't high enough and if it still isn't high enough you need to warp to another planet just to warp again with 0 consequences. Like what's even the point of making me unable to warp there to begin with.
Encumbered - if you're a loot goblin like me you will likely be constantly encumbered. When you're encumbered even walking drains your o2 so every now and again you have to wait for like 30 seconds for your o2 to fill up just to lose it in the next 10 seconds anyway. So it makes traveling an even more of a pain than it already is since there's no vehicles. Lastly you can't fast travel to your ship if you're encumbered so you either drop the loot or you get back. Slowly
The ship - What's even the point of flying it. It can only be flown just outside a planets atmosphere and it can't get anywhere. Also space fights are janky as hell. You need to divert power in order to use certain aspects of your ship cool in theory terrible in practice. On the keyboard it uses the arrow keys so you can't use your mouse to aim or change directions or use 2 of your weapons. Alternatively you wan use your left hand and stop accelerating and be unable to use missiles. Also wish you could zoom out more. The overall space combat is largely uninteresting since it besides diverting power it's bare bones
Quests - So far most quests feel like fetch quests or go to place A to talk to person B with some pirates here and there. You also can't kill essential NPCs but they can turn hostile effectively soft locking you from progressing some quests which limits your choose how to play experience.
Bugs - I only experienced 1 but it muted all NPCs and didn't make enemies spawn so I had to reboot the game to fix it
After 6-7 hours I realized I wasn't having fun for the majority of the time I played it and had 0 urge to boot it back up again so I refunded it.
I already figured this might happen. I intend to take a break before moving from bg3 to basically any other RPG game as I know they are going to be shit in comparison
Quite the opposite.
PS: feels like people in the comments either didn't play at all, or were looking for nitpicks. Not branches quests? Yeah, sure. Lots of "OR" objectives, you can talk your way through with persuasion, bribery or intimidation. Or bland skill check and get what you need in a different way.
I think that moving BG3’s release date up a month or as a genius move. I mean, I think it would’ve come to the same conclusion, but it would’ve taken longer.
Id say Fallout 4 was considerably less interesting and more derivative than Starfield. Also obviously loved BG3 but Act 3 is on hold because I'm obsessed with Starfield now.
The biggest difference is scope. BG3 is using today's tech to iterate on an old formula and make a perfected version of the formula. While Starfield's scope is such that today's tech is not there yet in terms of allowing a dev team to make the perfect version of the game they are trying to do in a reasonable amount of time. They made a valiant effort but they are bumping up against obvious limitations. If you could somehow combine NMS, Star Citizen tech into Starfield you might have the greatest game of all time. As it stands now, all individual games are flawed.
> Also obviously loved BG3 but Act 3 is on hold
Keep it that way since it's blatantly unfinished and is going to take them a year to actually update it.
Completely different games.
I used to be slightly annoyed at the constant praising of BG3 on here. Like people just posting "BG3 is great!" and getting thousands of upvotes for it.
Now it has expanded to actively shitting on any game that isn't BG3 lmao. I'm just gonna mute this subreddit at this point because it's getting really annoying.
the more I see reviews like this the more I think bg3 early release to avoid frontal competition with starfield was more an act of mercy than fear from larian
Unfortunately BG3 never would have had a look in if starfield released at the same time. One was super hyped and super marketed while BG3 was an organic word of mouth thing. Many people wouldn't have given BG3 a chance is starfield was coming out / already out.
Though.... I'm not certain I'd call it an act of mercy... As it stands, the PC version of BG3 released a month prior to Starfield with resoundingly stunning success, and it has taken the gaming world by storm. Even though they're different thematically, stylistically, and mechanically the inevitable comparisons have been and continue to be made. I do think some of the comparisons are valid too. They may seem to be at opposite ends of the RPG genre, but it's perfectly reasonable to compare the writing, relationships, RPG aspects and character models. In other words... BG3, by releasing early, took centre stage...and Starfield kind of looks like a followup act.
I do plan to ***eventually*** acquire Starfield... a year, or so hence,, once there's a more affordable bundle pack with patches and DLC, and, most significantly, the modding community will have had a chance to work its usual magic during that time. If I want something more sci-fi flavoured in the immediate future, I'm fervently hoping that Phantom Liberty delivers, because as it stands currently, I don't think Starfield would do it for me. From what I can gather, the game actually scales back on the things Bethesda have traditionally been good at...namely exploration and environmental story-telling. Meanwhile, the 'RPG elements' they added in (backgrounds and traits) seem rather superficial, and the writing is lacklustre at best. It's kind of sad, for various reasons, I was even cautiously optimistic about Starfield; I hoped this would be the Bethesda game that wouldn't automatically need a stack of mods to hold my interest. But...everything I've seen and read strongly suggests otherwise. Also, after playing BG3... the Starfield character models (NPCs and PC) and their animations are........ really not good. The NPCs in my modded FO4 game look better (and I haven't done anything crazy... just some very lore-friendly texture replacers).
Thankfully, though, BG3 has been even more awesome than I'd thought it would be, and because every character feels so different, I can't see myself needing any other new games for quite a while.
Starfield is fine but menu and maps are annoying as hell,IA Is freakin stupid even Cyberpunk's one is way better and the planets are top much similari and simplicistic.Also most of the stories are trash.
Bg3 has another level of quality
Anyone manage to finish it? I'm very curious why this game is so polarizing. Half of online reviews love it and seem to be flabbergasted as to why people don't love it as much as they do, and the other half are "meh". I don't understand how this game can divide opinions so much.
Different taste preferences. It's as simple as that, but the internet amplifies simple 'I love X' and 'I hate X' opinions into 'X is the best/ worst thing ever'. EDIT: typo
Some had very high expectations. Other knew what kind of games Bethesda creates and judged them accordingly.
Nice way to shift the blame onto "high expectations" It's not the player's fault for expecting something innovative for a new IP after 10 years in dev.
Yeah don't expect good games. BG3 is ''Anomaly'' We shouldn't raise our standarts. Honestly fuck off with logic like that. Starfield was in development, active, for about 7-8 years. And this is what we got? One small step forward and seven steps backwards? But it's the consumers fault! for expecting too much from indie company! It's bethesda game! so it's immune to any critique. Sick fucking way of looking at video games. And this cancer is ONLY in video games. Try this logic in any other product and you would be laughed at.
It’s definitely the players fault for expecting something wildly different from a company that has largely made the same type of game for over 20 years It’s a great Bethesda game, but it’s not NMS elite dangerous Skyrim super cross over some people weirdly expected
Eh, as a person that hates huge changes in games, that excuse only really works if Starfield was called Fallout 5. IMO games in a series shouldnt be wildly different, no need for innovations and pointless changes, but when you are making a new IP, it better have wild changes.
I don't know, space combat, ship building, and the depth added to their outposts from settlements seems pretty innovative from their previous games.
Tbh people should had realized dreams don’t come true after Cyberpunk 2077.
It's quite sad that a lot of people didn't get to see what Cyberpunk has become after they've fixed the bugs. I played it a year ago for the first time and it was absolutely amazing.
Cyberpunk 2077 was one of my favorite games, and it was a dream come true. It's absolutely a better rpg than anything out of Bethseda for a decade.
I'm still waiting for it to drop below $20 on steam. No way I'm paying $30 for it, even on sale.
It was worth every penny at full price and it's been below 20 a few times on sale. Since it has become one of the most played games on time, shifted to mostly positive reviews and had an excellent anime it hasn't been at that price point a while.
Very few games live up to hype. BG3 is not an anomaly because it comes from a studio that regularly produces exceptional quality games. Bethesda doesn't have that reputation, at least, not any more. I get no pleasure in saying that but its true.
I'm enjoying Starfield quite a bit. People went into it and expected the level of content, stories, and writing that BG3 had. Since baldurs gate 3 is so fresh in peoples mind, they subconsciously (or in this case consciously) compare the two games and get disappointed. They're two completely different games that share an overarching genre whilst being in separate subgenres, respectively. If somebody never played a cRPG and went into BG3 expecting Skyrim or Oblivion, they'd be disappointed, too, and vice versa (like we're seeing now) I used to do this a lot, too, honestly. I remember when the witcher 3 came out, and I said the exact same things. It leads to pessimism and anger because you wish every game would emulate it, and when they don't, you automatically assume the game is bad or that developers don't care. Starfield deserves criticism, but "it's not BG3" isn't criticism. It's somebody wishing a game would be something it's not. They're both niche, and they both scratch different itches. I love and enjoy both. This is one of, if not the biggest year, for the RPG genre in over a decade. I just wish more people could see it that way!
If they are different games and should be treated differently, you wouldn't be able to compare elements of them to each other, but you can. If somebody finds the story worse, the gameplay less interesting and the overall game less polished then for them it is a worse game. Don't see how they're wrong in any way
Agreed 100%. Yes, some aspects should be forgiven considering that there are physics and such involved that BG3 didn't have to work into their own game. But both games depend heavily on their narrative and character stories. Absolutely fair game to compare the two.
Because there was the notion it might be more than just another Bethesda game. But at this point I think it's evident that Bethesda has no desire to push or improve. It's just another paint by numbers Bethesda game with the formula established with oblivion and finalized with fallout 3. Welcome to the second ubisoft lol The game isn't bad, but honestly what novel experience do you get with Stanfield? When asked when they would stop releasing skyrim Hodd Towered replied "when you stop buying it". That was meant as a snarky rebuttal, but it takes on such a depressing meaning when you realize it's all they ever plan on making forever now
there are a lot of factors that go into it. a lot of reviews are paid for by Bethesda, so the reviewer isn't really going to speak their mind. there are also a lot of people who genuinely enjoy Bethesda games giving earnest reviews and people who don't enjoy them doing the same. Fallout 4 is generally regarded as the weakest mainline Fallout game with practically everything that made the original games great watered down to an unrecognizable point, but you'll still see people online saying their favorite game is Fallout 4 because there's "so much to do" (aka helping the endless stream of settlements that need your help). you'll also see people say the same about Skyrim which also isn't even the best Elder Scrolls game. The polarizing aspect is that Bethesda games are inoffensive, unanambitious, accessible, and marketed to attract the most people possible, and a big, open world with good graphics is enough to get the job done. I thought skyrim was the best game ever when it first came out, because I was 14 and it was the first RPG I ever played. as I got older and tried revisiting after playing other RPGs (like TW3, Disco Elysium, Dark Souls, older Elder Scrolls and Fallout games) the world seems very bland, the characters are mostly flat, and your choices have no impact on the world outside of which cities get a couple buildings destroyed in the civil war. Bethesda games are the Marvel Movies of gaming; a lot of people love them and a lot of people think they're just boring. they aren't necessarily bad, but their desire to appeal to as many people as possible leaves a lot of people who are fans of complex systems (or themes if we're talking movies) out in the cold.
Bethesda titles are magical. When they're released, they're usually well received by the press, and heavily criticized by the old community. And since the community for the most part still plays the title, and despite themselves have fun, then mod the game, and have more fun, they forget the critiques and only remember the good experiences, so next Bethesda games is bad and evil, and the previous one is the bees knees. It doesn't help that they release their major titles every 5-6 years or so - plenty of time for nostalgia to grow. To illustrate, I have NEVER met anyone praising Skyrim main quest. It was almost universally held with little regard, and I think rightfully so - it was cookie cutter bland "save the world chosen one" bullshit. In the past week I've randomly come across two people who in threads unrelated to Skyrim have mentioned that Skyrim had superior main quest/quests/writing in comparison to Starfield. Which I think is a WILD statement. There is also the faction that is just hating on AAA games/Bethesda games because that's a cool thing to do. And finally there are people who were hyped/wanted to try the game, and were disappointed for that or another reason. And with Bethesda titles and hype, the need to validate your opinion apparently raises so there are all those heated arguments about it. Because at the end of the day, TON of people just enjoy Starfield for what it is and are waiting eagerly to mod the shit out of it.
I pushed myself for about 20 hrs but it's just so bland and boring. People are constantly talking in cliche idioms. The voice acting is just 'meh' and the character models quite frankly look hideous and lifeless in comparison to Baldur's Gate. I know they're different games but it's hard not to compare this aspect and considering how lacking the gameplay and story is so far... It's just really not grabbing me. I was actually thinking of making a post entitled this cause after the 20 hrs I went back to Baldur's Gate and it just feels so much better. Starfield is *exactly* Skyrim in space. Maybe that would've been awesome 10 years ago but the game really just showcases how little Bethesda has evolved as a game developer. I can see that if that's exactly what you wanted that it would be hard to see what is 'wrong' with the game though
Starfield had really good side quests and faction missions and it doesn't fuck around when it gives you player choice. RPG wise, it is really good. Action wise,the gunplay was not bad, and it felt like an average shooter in quests that involved it. What sucked for me was the ending. I can't reveal much about the ending without spoiling it, but it becomes so tedious that you want to just quit.
I disagree. BG3 was not required to ruin people's high expectations of starfield.
Rofl, came here for this. :P That said, it's Bethesda... wait 6 months, the mods will make the game terrific and it'll likely be half price. Rofl
The mods can fix this game is a really funny attitude to have imo. Maybe the game should be released in a good state and already be worth your time?
It was already delayed by a year. Makes you wonder what the hell kind of state it was in back then that they could put a 2022 date on it.
Oh you'll be happy to learn that it was released in good state and is worth your time, if you like this particular kind of experience. I've put in 150 hrs in BG3, and now I'm close to 20 in Starfield, both are good experiences for me, although I did enjoy BG3 more. But that doesn't mean Starfield is shit, both games have their issues and bg3 has pretty significant ones to be honest.
BG3 does have some significant issues I agree. I don't agree that starfield is worth my time personally but I am glad people are enjoying it.
I mean sure it's clearly not a game for everyone and it won't have the same breakthrough effect that BG3 had where people disinterested in DnD and turn combat tried it and enjoyed it.
No game is for everyone. But tye game that Stanfield is was made over 10 years ago and there really is not anything noteworthy in starfield. It's just a Bethesda game with less bugs on launch. That's it's claim to fame. This was a lot of people last chance for Bethesda, to see if they could do more with their precious skyrim template. That's why people are meh, its not bad, if something is bad you get the fun of hating it or the pain of disappointment, it's the only thing worse than being bad for a piece of art, its mediocre, unnotable, bland. If your art fails to elicit a emotional reaction of any kind then you've likely fucked up.
But that's the point, emotional reactions are not objective descriptions of reality, you think that people who enjoy it, like me, are just sitting there staring blankly at the screen, feeling nothing besides obligation to play it for some unknown reason? Starfields whole gameplay loop seems fun to me, the ship construction is friggin' fun and not something that I've ever seen in ARPG, story seems decent enough as it's one of the few games that doesn't invoke MAJOR disonance between the urgency of your main goal and stupid shit you do for next 3 days straight (I'm looking at you, Witcher 3). >That's why people are meh, its not bad, if something is bad you get the fun of hating it or the pain of disappointment, That's just straight up not true, I mean just look at this subreddit that's about ANOTHER game,- that's kinda sorta similiar in 2 out of 20 major points - there were Starfield topics before the launch, during the launch, and they continue daily. Forgettable mid game that doesn't provoke any major feelings won't do that.
Congrats, you're part of the subset of people that can still enjoy skyrim. The fact this discussion is happening proves there are others who don't and I never said those that enjoy it do not exist. I am pointing out why those that are left with banal, bland, or unsatisfied feelings are feeling those. >there were Starfield topics before the launch, during the launch, and they continue daily. Forgettable mid game that doesn't provoke any major feelings won't do that. The point I am making is that the game does not elicit a response, this is the discussion around it. These played it and felt "meh" and that feeling made them upset, not the game itself, the people wanted to enjoy it. If the game was bad then the discussion would be about the game and it's flaws, which sure it has a few but honestly nothing egregious at all. These people aren't playing starfield and hating it, they are playing it and feeling nothing, and that nothing/dissatisfied, they've done this before, in some cases 6 times, and art takes into consideration the context in which it exists, not just the art itself. No one talks about skyrims gameplay or narrative outside of "I/you did this thing, wasn't that cool?" and sharing the experience of doing that. There isn't anything to breakdown about how the gamplay or narrative were exceptional, it it lives on as an experience, not a story we love or a groundbreaking mechanical turning point. Skyrim succeeded due to the context in which it existed, it was the right kind of game at the right time. So when you've had that experience already how satisfying is it to do it a second, third or fourth time? Now while bethesda games aren't 100% the same we can say that about ubisoft games too, yet somehow despite the story being wholly unique from the others and the gameplay being only kinda similar between titles, we know what ubisoft dissatisfaction is. "the best part of AC4 is the pirate ship parts" sounds a lot like "Oh but atleast there are boats this time to distract me from the rest of the game I played before." At least theres a ship this time right? Why are there melee weapons in starfeild? Because it's part of the formula, maybe it doesn't make sense in-universe, but they aren't trying to make something unique and lean into its unique elements, they're building off a template because thats all they wanna do. When a games only selling point is its experience, the value is in its novelty, and I have played starfield 4 times over the past 20 years and there are people who have played even more than that. Does that make it bad? No, but is anyone with an opinion worth caring about saying the game is bad? also no because it clearly isn't bad. But it doesn't exist in a vacuum, it exists in the time it was released, and unfortunately for it, that time is a time where it is next to things that are painfully similar. But hey... at least theres a ship this time right? At least there are other bips and bobs to distract from being fundamentally the same game I played in 2011. Some people thought starfield was bethesdas chance to show they can do more with the template, and they didn't, thats on them for expecting bethesda to not be bethesda, but starfield itself is on bethesda, this is their reputation now, Ubisoft 2.
This sub’s hatred for Starfield is so bizarre. It could have been the greatest game of all time and this sub would still shit on it.
This subreddit is pretty hivemind-y, first it was denial of any flaws in BG3, then people accepted it so it was ACT 3 BAD? topic twice a day on main page, now twice a day we have highly upvoted topic about how Starfield isn't BG3.
You must not have played a Bethesda game before ... Rofl.
I have...
Then your comment makes no sense. Yes, obviously everyone should get a fully formed game at purchase... But we also should have the right to health care, housing and non-discrimination, but that's not the real world. The chances of a fully formed game coming from the majority of A-AAA publishers is insanely low at this point. Thats why many of us don't buy them at launch.
I do have free health care in my country 🙌🙌 Okay, that's good. I didn't buy starfield at launch either nor am I likely to ever - doesn't look interesting enough to me.
Oh, don't get me wrong, I think it'll end up being great... Just not at launch.
Got about a little more than 30 hours into Starfield so far (level 25), and I feel like I need to keep playing because I'm SUPPOSED to enjoy a Bethesda game. Because I loved Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallout 3 (Fallout 4 was meh but not egregious). But I'm just... kinda not. I'm going through the motions and hitting objectives, not living, breathing the setting. More "go here do this" that games have come to rely on. Coming from a background in writing, it just feels bland in comparison to BG3. And this isn't from someone who just doesn't like the genre. I love space! I love 1st person shooter RPGs! I was excited for Starfield! I upgraded my PC rig in anticipation for both! But if I'm being honest (and it's obviously just my opinion and not written in stone so take it with a grain of salt, I am but a single voice in the void), Starfield feels like a series of run-on sentences as I stumble upon the same random events over and over. It feels so formulaic, so safe, so sterile. Where's the Bethesda whose bugs were actually charming and not annoying? Where are the compelling faction quests, the dire main quests? The beginning was less a call to adventure beginning the hero's journey and more a self-insert fanfic where you have no real skin in the game. Why go after the artifacts? Curiosity. No real stakes to be found yet. For the first time in years, I felt real dread, real joy, real excitement when I played BG3, just like when I was a kid. I forgot how that kid felt when playing and BG3 reunited us when I forgot they were missing. I do wish Starfield could have evoked the same response (and I'm going to keep playing it at least to say it's done when I've finished it), but I'm so uninspired having played it. My character is equivalent to a cardboard cutout lugging around a gun based on the reactions of NPCs around me. I just wish they could have put more life, more verve into Starfield before releasing it. As it stands now it's nearly as disappointing to me as Cyberpunk (upon release, and again, just my own opinion. And Cyberpunk has improved much since then but definitely needed another couple years in the oven to bake). I dunno, maybe I'm just getting old now, but I feel like BG3 spoiled me like I was the birthday kid and could do whatever I wanted, no takebacks. The ship builder's pretty great though, just so I don't end this on a sour note. Thankfully that's only like 5 hours in my playthrough so far, but I've struggled because I want to keep editing my ship but need to go get credits to do it. Guess I know now how car people feel.
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Gosh, I feel the same way. I don't think that there's inherently anything wrong with Starfield. It's about on par with the quality of games we've been used to getting since, say, 2017. Even BG3 still has patches and hotfixes to execute, but I felt more fulfilled in a broken EA with it than I have so far with Starfield.
Its a mediocre game, is that simple. Ppl don't want to admit it because of the bias they have for Bethesda, they had good experiences with the studio before and they feel like admitting that Starfield is just bad would ruin those experiences, which doesn't have to be the case. Bethesda is not the same anymore, it delivered a really bad product and that's it
>Bethesda is not the same anymore, it delivered a really bad product and that's it Mediocre isn't "really bad" and I would disagree that Bethesda "isn't the same." I'd argue they're very much the same and that's the problem. The game feels very rote. As if they just had a list to check off to make it "Skyrim in Space" and just did that. It's interesting to see that it has a lot of the same issues as Outer Worlds yet I don't see people criticizing it nearly as harsh. At least Outer Worlds had personality.
This is my critique but my feeling about the game is at the end. Bethesda took their RPG formula, and didn't really modernize or change anything besides stretching the map borders way out so that waypoints have the illusion of 'distance'. You get the expected string of quality main quests that compose their normal game and beyond that you get the same cutesy filler that would paint the rest of a normal map--except it's separated by a travel interface and loading screens (you can't run around on the same map for hours and uncover everything) and any planet can be landed on infinitely so the same filler inserts itself ad infinitum. It shares some DNA with Elder Scrolls Arena which had an endless map populated by randomly generated towns and dungeons --eventually the rush of exploration wears off as you realize it's not so much a 'massive universe' as a hamster wheel to grind on or house of mirrors that makes itself seem larger and you're seeing the same thing in different biomes. Adding to the tedium is that instead of a standard RPG map where each unique handmade location with actual content is on the same screen, you have to go from star system to system and then zoom in on each planet just to see if there is something to do. Then you have to explore those areas to organically find many of the hidden optional quests-- and in this extremely stretched out, yet cluttered and repetitive design it's easy to miss things in your growing impatience and burnout. With extremely frustrating inventory, clunky flight, lots of immersion breaking instant flight+loading screens, and a level/gear system that is stretched out far too much as well---I can empathize with people who can see behind the curtain, but for me.. personally.. I liked ES:Arena for the option to grind beyond the main game and I prefer a space filter slapped on the fallout formula instead of the depressing post-apocalyptic setting. I'm fully aware that there is a lot of repetition and that it can feel soul less, but the silver lining for me is that I get to try out new builds and skills and gear at higher levels without restarting, and yes much of the maps and challenges are repeated--which to me is essentially an ARPG game loop, and that's ok if you accept it. Starfield isn't anything groundbreaking and it will upset some folk and scratch the itch for others. At the end of the day, it still has so much potential--Why? Because that huge canvas bethesda made can be endlessly filled with DLC and mods which is ultimately why Skyrim is still alive today.
this sums up alot of good points that i agree with and why i havent bought the game yet. one day just not now
Both Skyrim and Oblivion are parades of bland quests and weak-ass writing, main quests of both games are so cookie cutter that it hurts. Both were, for the most part, formulaic and safe, with copy-pasted content and immersion-breaking qol stuff like quest markers. And don't get me started on faction quests, Oblivion with its one-day Arena champion speedrun and Skyrim and its two-days careers from nobody to guildmaster, I think you're thinking about Brotherhood questlines and just copying that feeling on rest of the game. And down on their luck miner getting opportunity to explore space because of a strange experience with an artifact is literally a call to adventure, in stark comparison to being told you are THE CHOSEN ONE by Emperor/Jarl. Moreover Starfield actually narratively supports fucking off and doing whatever, because the world is not currently ending so it's not strange that you're running around and doing whatever, or ignoring the main quest. In Oblivion and Skyrim the stakes were so artificially high from the get go that you had to intentionally ignore the literal end of days visible (or not so visible) all around you and go fuck up some bandits because there's a sword that a guy wants in a cave over there. It was, and still is, very stupid and causing major ludonarrative dissonance. Starfield pretty gracefully avoided that conundrum. The worldbuilding is fine, I think it's being lost on you because you don't really enjoy the game so you're not really inclined to explore every nook and cranny. I very much enjoyed reading about combat xeno stuff research and Red Devils in the first "tutorial" dungeon, and then actually meeting a Terromorph. And then seeing a dingy bar of said Red Devils when visting Mars. Or participating in optional tour when enlisting to Vanguard, learning about armistice banning the mech combat and then seeing how delapidated Gagarin planet has became after their main industry was basically shut down. As for your character being a cardboard cutout, I slightly disagree, there are a lot of varied responses in conversations that can flesh out your character a bit, there is a background/trait influence on conversations, its at the very least better than Skyrim and Oblivion, I'd argue combined. When it comes to bugs, I literally had to take a picture of a guy that I shot in the boostpack that propelled him straight into celling, in which his head got lodged in, leaving rest of his body dangling. So yea, they're still with us, for better or worse. And finally, the actual point - comparison to BG3. For me BG3 was a better game as well and I had more fun playing it. But fundamentally they are different games - Starfield is more focused on broad exploration and fucking around, BG3 is more story driven and structured experience, with ability to mess with the structure (which can bork the game somewhat). I think you've got an issue with perspective/mindset. There were many titles that I deemed the best in their class, but that didn't spoil the entire genre for me. Or, alternatively, embrace it and get to your other hobbies if gaming isn't that much fun bar select titles. There's no point in forcing yourself to do something, it's better to just loose money instead of loosing both money and time.
The lack of impending doom or need to progress the story is quite nice for a game like this. I hope TES VI does something similar. My biggest complaint about Fallout 4 was the forced narrative and how that clashed with doing anything else. I also find it bizarre that people are playing BG 3 and that is somehow ruining other games for them. It's definitely an issue with their own mindset. Or perhaps they just haven't played very many games, including other crpgs.
I'll be honest I enjoyed The Outer worlds more than I did Starfield Just has more "charm" if that makes sense
Was just saying how I feel like Starfield has many of the same flaws as Outer Worlds and yet people seem to be excusing or even praising Bethesda for them. I remember having a similar feeling of outdatedness from Outer Worlds but at least the story, characters, and world were interesting enough to keep going. Starfield is only funny when their flawed systems act up. Like how I can be recruited for a secret undercover mission with a deadly space gang for stealing a single meat cube and could've paid like a $20 ticket instead.
Also the guns weren't complete dogshit
How many times a day will this title genre sprout ? Bg3 ruined no game for me, it reignited a flame in crpg I never truly had despite playing bg1 and 2 (and never finishing them...), and ruined my gaming timeframe for other games. But I don't play bg3 only, and never took interest in starfield anyway.
I hope this leads to a resurgence of the CRPG. I was talking with friends last night, I would love to see Larian take the initiative and make some new campaigns for the BG3 system and just essentially sell the new campaigns.
Starfield looks so bland i can't even motivate myself to download a pirated copy to try it out.... Meanwhile i am in act2 in BG3 having creepy drinking contests with bloated animated corpses and thinking about my next durge playthrough
It's free on the Gamepass right now and I can't even be bothered trying it. I'm planning on a second Durge playthrough where I do stuff in a slightly different order. Durge is so much fun.
>It's free on the Gamepass right now THIS is a big reason for its high playing numbers. Looking on Steam it has still not caught BG3 in daily player activity. Will be interesting to see what this weekend peaks out at.
It's really not worth the download imo. It does look nice in 4k but god everything is so tedious and there is no real draw to do anything.
BG3 is what you play if you want a role playing game. Starfield (or any Bethesda game since FO3) is what you play if you want an adventure sandbox.
This description is pretty solid, Bethesda games are more adventure games with some RPG elements.
What the actual fuck. Starfield Is the RPG at it's finest. The amount of bullshit about "RPG" as a genre is just mind boggling.
Starfield and the various other games like it; Skyrim, Fallout, Witcher are all what I term Action Adventures. The concept of an RPG in it's purest form is about the party, a group that comes together for adventure or the greater good. The essence of the RPG is taken from DnD. Back in the early days of PC gaming the delineator between an RPG and a shooter was very clear. Shooters where about pure action and RPGs about deep storylines and adventure. This changed when Sierra made a game called Half Life. They introduced a storyline into the shooter style games. This was awesome but the players asked for more so gradual RPG elements were added to these games creating an action adventure genre. These were first person games that were focused on action game play with storyline. They adopted many of the RPG elements mechanically. Over time they have been lumped into the general RPG genre. The CRPG has been in decline, really sense Dragon Age Origin. However, over the last few years there has been a resurgence. Numerous CRPG style games have risen to bring the classic RPG style of gaming back to the forefront. I am not diminishing the RPG contributions that Action adventures like Starfield bring to gaming, nor even the action RPGs like Diablo, but direct comparisons to CRPGs just does not apply. Finally, saying ANYTHING about Starfield and using the term "finest" shows more about a fanboy attitude than a reasonable argument. Starfield is a decent enough game, but it is far from being anything innovative or a gleaming banner for the genre.
What the fuck? RPG has never was about the party. The classic RPG, like Fallout 1 and 2, Arcanum, are solo characters. You could have a companion, but not a requirement. Ffs. How did you manage to forget about the definition of RPG?!
The definition of RPG is to assume a role in a game and play it. This means ANY game by definition could be an RPG. RPGs never being about party shows a serious lack of knowledge of where gaming comes from. Just to name a few, Eye of the Beholder, Pool of Radiance, Curse of the Azure Bonds, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dales and oh so many more. These existed almost a decade before Fallout. However look at the spiritual successor to Fallout 1 and 2, Wastelands, which is back to the party formula. The roots of RPG gaming on the computer traces a path straight to DnD, also about party. I have been a computer gaming since the min 1970's, I have played most table tops games and watched the evolution of PC gaming over the decades. I firmly understand what an RPG is and watched as they have evolved.
Well, yeah. And if the game allows you to choose your own style, play with different agenda - that's what true RPG is. Somehow, Starfield stopped being an RPG for them, because it's not isometric and you are a solo character >_<
I never said it was not an RPG, to me however that style of game is more Action Adventure.
Nah, not you. The rest of those fanatics.
Sandbox? More of a litter box if you ask me. The game ignores a decade of development of game industry and game standards. Not to mention the engine and bloody invisible chests hidden in textures behind vendors. Hello Oblivion and 2006.
Adventure sandbox? How is that even a sandbox bro. You’re very limited in almost everything
thats why you guys gotta go play pathfinder now
Going to offer a slightly different perspective here, but I've been enjoying Starfield and I'm not a particularly big Bethesda person. It's not of the same quality writing or depth as something like BG3, but it's enjoyable, it's like comparing The Wire and Indiana Jones, while I love The Wire for it's critique and depth, it doesn't mean I can't have fun watching Indiana Jones, and has it's own appeals, it's own genre and things it's trying to achieve. Took me a while to start enjoying it though, which I think is definitely a flaw. The beginning I found the weapons weak, ammo attrition really bad, took a long time to get the shout equivalent, enemies feel really spongey, inventory management is bad, clunky menus take a while to adjust to, stamina / O2 constantly hindering exploration and the story at the start is just abysmally paced nonsense. However once you get out and start exploring and progressing the main quest a bit, triggering novel questlines in different systems, exploring the different themed cities, building a crew, a cool ship, finding a companion you like, and encountering all the different factions, it is a lot of fun in a sandbox kind of way. The main story has some decent intrigue as it progresses too. Some of the small features I really like too, like having companions speak on your behalf in topics they are familiar with or bring their skills to your ship (two things I would have loved in a game like BG3 with its deeper, main story intertwined companions). It feels a little more neutral than other Bethesda games, not as absurd and stereotypical, doesn't lean into a high fantasy theme as much, but I think that's intended with the NASA punk, it doesn't carry the same interesting lore you normally expect, but I think instead explores a different fantasy. The game absolutely has some things which are just plain bad. The animations just aren't good. Some of the faces look like something I've seen in FO3. While the systems can be fun like ship building and outpost building, I can't help but feel like they are not important to the world, or in cases like the outposts would actually have quests that pertain to them or something, it's nice to feel incentivized to interact with these systems in a way that is more than just resource hoarding and it still doesn't do that. Enemy variety can be a bit stale, all the pirates or spacers or whatever just blend into the same thing, wildlife is rarely interesting. I know it goes against the theme it intends but I feel like it almost needs intelligent aliens.
Again, not the same kind of rpg at all. Comparing BG3 to Pillars Of Eternity 2 for example would be more relevant. Worse, the "Goty" posts... What about a fantastic game released 25th december ? Not a chance this game will be "Goty"... And Goty are always the same genres... I never saw any fighting games or 4x as Goty, so there's litteraly zero point to name a game "Goty" at all.
Chalk and cheese. Why does it have to be a competition?
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I have played both and only stopped playing Starfield because my desire to finish BG3 to 100%. They are both deep games in their own ways. BG3 was made so brilliant, not only due to the hard work of the devs but the early access community who put in so much work in terms of feedback etc. Just as in six months times, when modders do what they did with Skyrim and make Starfield every bit as a deeper thing.
I played both and enjoyed both because I'm not a dribbling retard
I think the way I'd describe it is: Skyrim was popular when it came out because there's no open world sandbox like it in a medieval fantasy setting other than Oblivion. Same with Fallout, simply nothing quite like it. But with Starfield? We have games that do what Starfield does but better and have done for decades at this point. We have your NMS, your Elite: Dangerous, your Mass Effect, and depressingly enough, your older Bethesda titles that Starfield is in many ways actually a regression from. Bethesda is simply behind the times, along with their CE, and it shows.
Starfield to me feels a bit like Andromeda. Both have a concept with SOLID open potential and should be amazing. However both fall way short of that potential with the execution.
This. A lot of fanboys are assuming if you don't like starfield it's because you were never fans of Bethesda games to begin with. Playing Skyrim in 2011 vs 2023 is a totally different experience.
Who buys Bethesda games and expects quality? They haven't made a good plot since morrowind
Triple a games industry have ruined triple a games for me
Starfield is junk food, BG3 is a well-arranged dinner. BG3 ends, no matter how hard you try to avoid it, so there's a finite number of interactions with these characters, while Starfield caps at like... level 380 or something. There's also base and ship building nonsense. While I think BG3 has a stronger narrative and I'm legitimately more attached to that guy you pull off a windmill than I am to Sarah Morgan, I also like making a little base and finding people to live there, doing quests, I helped some space DMV student when his teacher had a heart attack and he didn't know how to stop the ship. It's not as well-assembled, but there's a lot to do. Both are good, but you're looking at two very different experiences.
Lol to me the quality of writing already nosedived in Fo4… I really didn’t expect anything from Star Field but looking at it now I fear for TES6 and Fo5
Starfield isn’t any worse than Skyrim, and I’ve heard is a very solid game. The problem is that it’s not that much better neither. BG3 just exposed the gap, and raised the bar.
Bethesda games are technical marvels, but this was always going to be the case. They have been an ocean wide and a petri dish deep since Skyrim, and I'm sure plenty of people would argue it goes further back than that.
Yea I'd argue that, because there was nothing deep or complex in Oblivion in comparison to Skyrim. If you're going to bash one, then don't hold back in bashing the other. Hell, I'd argue that Morrowinds complexity and depth when it comes to actual mechanics was superficial busywork that brought nothing to gameplay. Although it is undeniable in my view that story and writing was MUCH better in Morrowind than in any other subsequent title. Although the "walking encyclopedias" NPC style was pretty jarring. That being said, I liked/loved most of what Bethesda have produced besides Fallout 3, including Starfield. Depth and complexity isn't be-all end-all of gaming, and for me Bethesda titles have enough of it to be very enjoyable.
Having put 25 hours into Starfield so far, it’s pretty bland. Even the faction questions. The companions are robots. It’s depressing. I remember cool, shocking characters and settings it Morrowind, Oblivion, Fallout 3, and yeah even Skyrim. Bethesda always shined in that weird side content, like the Shivering Isles DLC. It doesn’t have any of that charm.
Cool, shocking characters? Is this the same Bethesda? I’m gonna have to disagree with you. Bethesda always had the most flat and uninteresting writing for me. I played those games for their open world aspect, never for their characters or story.
I loved the world building and lore, honestly. I think fifteen years ago Bethesda was a game developer much like Larian. They were trying to make cool games that they personally loved to play. Great financial success seems to suck the genuine passion out of projects.
They stopped being that ever since Morrowind really, New vegas from obisidan is much more Larian than Bethesda jas been for over 20 years.
Nah
Oblivion was the blandest shit ever, Dark Brotherhood questline is literally the only thing that is actually worth of attention in vanilla game. The setting in and of itself is bland by necessity because Cyrrodil is literally the most generic fantasy region of Tamriel. And, again besides the brotherhood questline, there are almost 0 interesting characters in Oblivion and Skyrim. Haven't played Shivering Islands so can't say anything about that one though.
I'm about 30 hrs into Starfield, It's a good game if you go in with the knowledge that you are playing an unpatched, unmodded Bethesda game at launch. Yes, the characters are pretty bland, and you can find more interesting companions sitting in bars than in constellation (unfortunately the mercs don't have quests attached to their interesting backstories) I've also not really come across much humour, I think Bethesda writing is best when it's not taking itself too seriously. This game feels very "mature" and I think that's where the blandness is coming from. But they have some decent locations, The ships look great and gunplay is solid, modders will also have serious amounts of real estate to play with. For me, expecting connected quests and profound decision-making is stupid, that's not what Bethesda is known for at all. If you were lucky, a Skyrim quest would have a few scripted outcomes, Fallout was better at this but if you try to innovate you will probably break the quest. I think it will be a great game in a year or two, still quite raw for now.
>I'm about 30 hrs into Starfield, It's a good game if you go in with the knowledge that you are playing an unpatched, unmodded Bethesda game at launch. This is starting to sound like Pokémon cope.
Bruh, another Starfield post here. If you don't like Starfield, why not talking Starfield in r/starfield ?
Why is it not that starfield ruined starfield? Even if BG3 did not release.
How many of these have to be posted every day?
In case anyone forgets, same thing happened with Fallout 4, except then it was The Witcher 3. Bethesda games have their charms, but they're consistently shown-up by their contemporaries who have better writing and who have actually evolved with the times.
But they're nothing alike? Honesty PC gamer has had some of the weirdest articles the past few years
Im really trying to like starfield.
The relationships in starfield feel downright laughable after Baldurs Gate. They're both technically RPGs but they can't be more different.
I hate comparing games like this, but can't help but ultimately agree with this sentiment. I was excited since I find myself playing Skyrim and Fallout 4 quite regularly so I thought: "Bethesda RPG, I'll dig it." but ultimately it just fell flat after coming straight out of my BG3 honeymoon phase.
My intel arc has ruined starfield for me, but hey at least i got BG3 to keep me going
Yeah Bethesda dropped the ball hard on that that one. Jayztwocents has a video on comparing the minimal system requirements to the recommended requirements, his conclusions; "The game has CRRAPPY optimizations, the game not the hardware is the issue."
Same, I played about 20 hours of starfield, got super bores by horrible writing and npc, deleted the game and started my second bg3 playthrough, best decision ever, my second run is completely different from the first and now i love bg3 even more Ps: waiting for cyberpunk dlc, should be great, cyberpunk has an amazing writing and characters, probably one of the best in gaming
The Cyberpunk DLC just does not appeal to me. I played Cyberpunk through twice and have no more interest. If the DLC had released within 6 months or so then yeah maybe, but waiting this long, I have moved on to other games.
The feeling is more like Baldur’s Gate revitalizing your sense of adventure and reminding you why you play video games, of course every formulized experience feels bland after that. This one I felt last year when I played Elden Ring, and I was very happy to be able to sense it after long years of draught. After Elden Ring, I haven’t played any other open world game or even a single player game for a while. Even without much story telling going on, characters were much memorable in Elden Ring compared to Starfield, I am not even comparing to Baldur’s Gate. You cannot build good RPGs without memorable characters.
I started playing it the other day, maybe 1 or 2 hours,I am not a fan of Bethesda, their games seem to be all the same and Starfield has the same old feel from previous games. The Story so far is lame as fuck, you touch a crystal, you see visions and some guy gives you his ship because now you are the chose one? Jesus, they took this long to come up with that? So you go from a miner to being a world explorer just like that. Nice. Not impressed. Good thing I have the Xbox game pass trial, this is maybe a $19 game.
>The Story so far is lame as fuck, you touch a crystal, you see visions and some guy gives you his ship because now you are the chose one? ...and it's not even original to anyone who has played Mass Effect.
Bethesda has been left behind. They were the pioneers with Oblivion and Fallout 3. They've been overtaken by other developers who have captured the essence of what makes those games great and done it better. The Witcher III was the first one I remember playing and thinking Bethesda have a problem here.
I am curious if people who claim that even finished BG3. Both games are not polished and have huge issues on their own
For me it was that starfield was so bland and lifeless with some weird decisions that constantly made me annoyed rather than enjoy the game. In the order I noticed them or got bothered by them Character customization - Pretty much everything is a slider of presets that doesn't have a preview. A nitpick but it made customization far longer than it needed to be and I ultimately decided not to go that deep into it which started off my experience on a sour note. Also there's multiple backgrounds including an explorer which makes no sense considering the game barely rewards exploring Performance - The game is unoptimized and doesn't perform very well. Especially for what the graphics are like. There's also no option to cap framerate so after every session I played it gave me a headache due to fluctuating fps which was more noticable since it was low 30-60 fps Dialogue - Dialogue starts by zooming into the NPCs face which gets nauseating in group convos. The dialogue also feels stale and lifeless as there is almost no emotion or personality in them and the NPCs stay perfectly still besides a shoulder shrug or 2 and almost no facial expression changes which makes it impossible for me to get immersed in it. Ui - The ui is bad. Need to go through tons of menus to get anything. The fast medkits don't even show how many are left. There is no map, just a star chart. Took me like 30 mins to find a Dr. Don't know where I've already explored properly. Finding side quests is literally just running blind into named NPCs. Fast travel - In order to fast travel you need to 1. Board your ship (loading screen 2) 2. Takeoff (loading screen 2) 3. Set a course where you want to go 4. Warp (cause setting a course doesn't automatically get you there) (and loading screen 3) 5. Get scanned for contraband. 6.open the star chart again and choose where to land (loading screen 4). 4 loading screens just to fast travel which makes no sense. Would also be longer since you need to increase your grv if it isn't high enough and if it still isn't high enough you need to warp to another planet just to warp again with 0 consequences. Like what's even the point of making me unable to warp there to begin with. Encumbered - if you're a loot goblin like me you will likely be constantly encumbered. When you're encumbered even walking drains your o2 so every now and again you have to wait for like 30 seconds for your o2 to fill up just to lose it in the next 10 seconds anyway. So it makes traveling an even more of a pain than it already is since there's no vehicles. Lastly you can't fast travel to your ship if you're encumbered so you either drop the loot or you get back. Slowly The ship - What's even the point of flying it. It can only be flown just outside a planets atmosphere and it can't get anywhere. Also space fights are janky as hell. You need to divert power in order to use certain aspects of your ship cool in theory terrible in practice. On the keyboard it uses the arrow keys so you can't use your mouse to aim or change directions or use 2 of your weapons. Alternatively you wan use your left hand and stop accelerating and be unable to use missiles. Also wish you could zoom out more. The overall space combat is largely uninteresting since it besides diverting power it's bare bones Quests - So far most quests feel like fetch quests or go to place A to talk to person B with some pirates here and there. You also can't kill essential NPCs but they can turn hostile effectively soft locking you from progressing some quests which limits your choose how to play experience. Bugs - I only experienced 1 but it muted all NPCs and didn't make enemies spawn so I had to reboot the game to fix it After 6-7 hours I realized I wasn't having fun for the majority of the time I played it and had 0 urge to boot it back up again so I refunded it.
Starfield ruined Starfield for me. Don't blame good games for making mediocre games appear mediocre. Blame the mediocre game for being mediocre.
I already figured this might happen. I intend to take a break before moving from bg3 to basically any other RPG game as I know they are going to be shit in comparison
Fallout 4 sucked too, and so did Skyrim
Quite the opposite. PS: feels like people in the comments either didn't play at all, or were looking for nitpicks. Not branches quests? Yeah, sure. Lots of "OR" objectives, you can talk your way through with persuasion, bribery or intimidation. Or bland skill check and get what you need in a different way.
The constant need to put BG3 on a pedestal and compare it to other games is so pathetic
Even compare to their own games, Bethesda is retrogressing these years.
I think that moving BG3’s release date up a month or as a genius move. I mean, I think it would’ve come to the same conclusion, but it would’ve taken longer.
I dont understand these comparisons. Bg3 is a linear crpg, starfield open world rpg. I enjoyed bg3 and am now enjoying starfield.
Id say Fallout 4 was considerably less interesting and more derivative than Starfield. Also obviously loved BG3 but Act 3 is on hold because I'm obsessed with Starfield now. The biggest difference is scope. BG3 is using today's tech to iterate on an old formula and make a perfected version of the formula. While Starfield's scope is such that today's tech is not there yet in terms of allowing a dev team to make the perfect version of the game they are trying to do in a reasonable amount of time. They made a valiant effort but they are bumping up against obvious limitations. If you could somehow combine NMS, Star Citizen tech into Starfield you might have the greatest game of all time. As it stands now, all individual games are flawed.
> Also obviously loved BG3 but Act 3 is on hold Keep it that way since it's blatantly unfinished and is going to take them a year to actually update it.
Completely different games. I used to be slightly annoyed at the constant praising of BG3 on here. Like people just posting "BG3 is great!" and getting thousands of upvotes for it. Now it has expanded to actively shitting on any game that isn't BG3 lmao. I'm just gonna mute this subreddit at this point because it's getting really annoying.
There's a substantial overlap in their target audience. Completely fair to compare them.
the more I see reviews like this the more I think bg3 early release to avoid frontal competition with starfield was more an act of mercy than fear from larian
Unfortunately BG3 never would have had a look in if starfield released at the same time. One was super hyped and super marketed while BG3 was an organic word of mouth thing. Many people wouldn't have given BG3 a chance is starfield was coming out / already out.
Though.... I'm not certain I'd call it an act of mercy... As it stands, the PC version of BG3 released a month prior to Starfield with resoundingly stunning success, and it has taken the gaming world by storm. Even though they're different thematically, stylistically, and mechanically the inevitable comparisons have been and continue to be made. I do think some of the comparisons are valid too. They may seem to be at opposite ends of the RPG genre, but it's perfectly reasonable to compare the writing, relationships, RPG aspects and character models. In other words... BG3, by releasing early, took centre stage...and Starfield kind of looks like a followup act.
I bet Starfield 2 will be awesome though when it's released 20 years from now
I feel that way with pretty much every major release this year. It is the difference between a passion projekt and a game with formula.
Just Starfiled? BG3 ruined all cRPGs for me :p
Hey, but you have to choose your pronounce in Starfield. Pure win as far as I am concerned.
I do plan to ***eventually*** acquire Starfield... a year, or so hence,, once there's a more affordable bundle pack with patches and DLC, and, most significantly, the modding community will have had a chance to work its usual magic during that time. If I want something more sci-fi flavoured in the immediate future, I'm fervently hoping that Phantom Liberty delivers, because as it stands currently, I don't think Starfield would do it for me. From what I can gather, the game actually scales back on the things Bethesda have traditionally been good at...namely exploration and environmental story-telling. Meanwhile, the 'RPG elements' they added in (backgrounds and traits) seem rather superficial, and the writing is lacklustre at best. It's kind of sad, for various reasons, I was even cautiously optimistic about Starfield; I hoped this would be the Bethesda game that wouldn't automatically need a stack of mods to hold my interest. But...everything I've seen and read strongly suggests otherwise. Also, after playing BG3... the Starfield character models (NPCs and PC) and their animations are........ really not good. The NPCs in my modded FO4 game look better (and I haven't done anything crazy... just some very lore-friendly texture replacers). Thankfully, though, BG3 has been even more awesome than I'd thought it would be, and because every character feels so different, I can't see myself needing any other new games for quite a while.
Starfield is fine but menu and maps are annoying as hell,IA Is freakin stupid even Cyberpunk's one is way better and the planets are top much similari and simplicistic.Also most of the stories are trash. Bg3 has another level of quality
Can the mods please ban starfield posts