Is It Just Impossible to Have an Honest Conversation About Starfield?
Is It Just Impossible to Have an Honest Conversation About Starfield?
It sure feels impossible to have an honest conversation about Starfield online right now.
It sure feels impossible to have an honest conversation about Starfield online right now.
There are nine reviews on metacritic from various outlets that score the game 100/100. I would love for every single one of those reviewers to look me in the eye and with a straight face, repeat the claim that Starfield is perfect and there is absolutely nothing in the game that could possibly be improved on. If you want to know who's not conversing honestly, that'd be a good kicking-off point.
Well, they wouldn't, because not all of the nine thought the game was perfect. A 100 on Metacritic only means the game placed in the top score for a given publication (4 out of 4 stars in WaPo's case, for example).
In games criticism, a top score doesn't always mean a perfect game. It can mean the game met or surpassed the current benchmark in its genre, or it simply was good enough to be in a top tier.
Slight tangent.
Maximum score (4 stars, 5 stars, 10/10, 100%, whatever they're calling it) not meaning the game is perfect is not at all a problem to me. There are games I absolutely love and would recommend to just about anyone and even then I don't think they're "perfect".
The thing that bothers me most is how average scores specifically for games are basically never used, and below average scores are just a handful of the most broken things ever.
It's so absurd that on metacritic for games, "average" goes from 50 to 74%. In movies it goes from 40 to 64. I don't know for everyone else, but I don't consider 7 out of 10 an "average" mark. And a game so broken it almost doesn't run at all doesn't deserve 5/10 (really, I've seen some).
Anyway, review scores are silly. Read the guys' opinions, see why they like it and why they don't. Someone's absolute favorite masterpiece is someone else's most unplayable shit.
@Ashtear Exactly. The 100% rating is often misunderstood. It does not mean perfect game, plus every publication has their own standards. Therefore one 100% is not comparable to another 100%. And like in your example conversions from 4/4 to 100% (because it can only be 0%, 25%, 75% or 100%), is done so an overall Metacritic score can be calculated.
For the longest time I think Metacritic is a bad for the gaming industry, if they lean too much towards (in example bonuses for developers, if they reach a certain rating).
I have serious questions for anyone who gives a game, any game, a completely perfect score, especially one that is known to have some technical issues.
Then read the text of the review where that should be explained. Stop putting so much stock in scores. Most sites would do away with them if Meta/Open Critic hadn't screwed up the system so they have to rely on clickthroughs. Eurogamer actually did for almost a decade but recently had to bring them back.
Did you ask the same question when Witcher 3, Legend Of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, etc etc the same question?
It's sort of dishonest when Starfield get this sort of treatment when metacritic score has been inflated for ages, no thanks to both gamer, journalist, and publisher.
Stop putting so much stock in scores. That score means those reviewers had a 10/10 experience by their subjective standards, if it doesn't meet yours, thats fine, but it doesn't mean the review is wrong. Read the damn text.
Is it possible to block a domain without blocking the OP? I'm sure they're a nice person, but they post the dumbest rage bait articles, and I'm sick of seeing them in my feed.
Wait it’s the same person posting all these weird rage bait articles for every new big game?
They’re always weird too because they’ll talk about an issue everyone already discussed at length like 2-4 weeks ago, as if it’s a new topic.
Feel free to block me, too. If you don’t like what I post, you won’t need to see it.
I think the ones that bother me more are the ones that are rage bait for a thing that the OP hasn't even experienced themselves. Maybe everyone else enjoys X and you find an article that summarizes your feeling on it, so you post that article and say how you share that position. That's all well and good. But posting an article that's angry about FFXVI's depiction of slavery, even though OP has no first-hand experience with the game to say if the article is full of shit or not; that bugs me. I don't know how many of the topics the OP has first-hand experience with, but I know they have none with FFXVI, and all of these articles are just designed to get people angry about something. Plenty of games have slavery in them without having to make their story about slavery being bad; we know slavery is bad. If OP has a problem with it after playing the game and that article sums up their thoughts, then it's okay to post that article. If OP is sincerely as pissed off about every one of these things that the articles they post are pissed off about, then maybe I should block them, because they'd have to be a miserable person. We also don't need 3 slightly updated posts about Baldur's Gate 3's split-screen not working on the Series S.
I mean if you look at the post history, OP has posted a LOT of things, but also posted two mary sue articles with kind of inflammatory takes on BG3, and Starfield. So I would not say they specifically have been posting rage bait.
They are just a super poster, they post just tons of gaming articles that strike their fancy, which is cool it keeps this community fresh, but it's not always good, just is what it is, I won't complain really because it's not like I'm much of a poster.
Just block me, bro. It won’t hurt my feelings. Curate your feed as you need to.
They like your contributions. You're part of the conversation. I think it's reasonable to want to filter what post you see versus what conversations you see. Lemmy will evolve
Is it possible to block a domain without blocking the OP?
You mean, block the domain of the link? Maybe you could do that with a keyword filter in an app. Unfortunately it's not a native Lemmy/kbin function (yet, AFAIK).
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sync for lemmy has a domain block feature if you're still looking for a way to do that
I am so incredibly sick of posts about starfield.
And I’m really sick of people complaining about seeing posts on topics they personally aren’t interested in, instead of just scrolling by.
Looks like neither of us has gotten what they want today.
You've personally posted gaming "journalism" articles about starfield on !gaming at least once a day for nearly every day of the past 10 days. So excuse me but I'm a bit fucking fed up with "scrolling by" dozens of times in an attempt to find actual substantial discussions. Every time something is posted about the problem can literally be solved by not fucking buying it if you don't want to.
I apologize for sounding a bit vitriolic about this, but I hate when a valid complaint about this is responded to by just saying "don't look at it lulz." How about a solution to that problem would be you posting things that actually start interesting conversations instead?
And yeah sure it's the next big game so of course it'll have media coverage about it. But I don't really think much of anything I've read about this game has been really substantive in the gaming journalism space. I don't remember reading something and actually wanting to care.
In my original comment I wasn't insulting you personally, mind you. A lot of people have been posting about this game.
Respectfully, you are in a gaming forum, and starfield is one of the biggest games that has come out this year.
This comment contributes nothing to the topic the thread is about, besides getting a rise out of people.
Please think about this before commenting in the future. Thank you
Not really sure what response you’re looking for here. Perhaps the same one as going into any community and saying “I’m so tired of hearing about [major thing that happened recently related to the community].”
“God damn I’m so tired of hearing about the Super Bowl, it’s been a freaking week can y’all just get over it?”
“God damn I’m so tired of hearing about the Super Bowl, it’s been a freaking week can y’all just get over it?”
Literally yes.
Here's a thought, not everything requires a response.
Fuck dem owls
It's just easy views when a big company releases a typical, lukewarm big company game I guess. These articles have been especially low quality though...
I like the game. it's easy to spend hours in it if you just take it for what it is without thinking what you wanted it to be
I think you literally just described to secret to a content and fulfilled life.
From what I've seen and heard, Starfield is on par with Fallout 3. I can't imagine being upset about that. Fallout 3 is great. Seems like some people wanted it to be No Man's Sky + Star Citizen + Cyberpunk and like... no, it's a Bethesda game. You know what that means already. I'm looking forward to picking it up and playing it, as I've always enjoyed their games for the weird sandboxes that they are.
Exactly. I went in blind. No trailers, no interviews, no hype. All I knew was it was a Bethesda space game. It started off slow, but after about 12 hrs (half of which was me goofing off and gun running for money), I'm starting to really like the game.
Seeing a trashcan explode into a tesseract-can is pretty funny, albeit a bit concerning about what other props have multiple copies embedded in them. I do hope Bethesda seriously re-evaluates their stance and does some optimization and scrubbing. The game runs ok on my system, but my card should not be screaming as hard as it is.
"if you just take it for what it is without thinking what you wanted it to be"
Why would I do that for any video game? With that mindset, you could claim any game is good, because you aren't actually engaging with its content on the level that it deserves.
Don't prop up bad games.
If you only compare games to what you want them to be then you can claim any game sucks. The gunpay in Madden games, for example, is awful.
I had no expectations going in (wasn't planning to play it) and came out having fun. I don't know what expectations you or anyone else had, but maybe those expectations are what ruined the game. I don't think anyone's claiming the game is perfect (anyone who is probably is trolling), but it's pretty dismissive of its strengths for people to say it's unplayable (unless you legit can't run it, which is fair). If all you focus on is what the game doesn't do well, then you might as well only ever play perfect masterpieces because all other games will be a disappointment. If the price is a concern, it will probably go on sale eventually anyway, assuming you don't find alternatives before then.
I do think there are a lot of flaws with the game, but those flaws have already been elaborated in great depth by others. Despite those flaws, game is still fun and has a lot of room for mods to come in and make it better.
lol it actually is what I wanted it to be.
It's a mechanically reasonably modern (it feels very comparable to Deus Ex or Cyberpunk gunplay/stealth wise, with better perk/level-up design) Bethesda RPG. You have to fly around more because it's set in space and most of space is empty, but there are still a lot of places to go and it's easy to get sucked down a rabbit hole.
My complaints are pretty mild. I'd like some kind of speeder for the empty "run a mile" bits, I miss the aimless wandering of terrestrial maps and kind of wish there had been some places set up to feel like that, and I occasionally see issues with texture loading. But it's the game the direct said it was going to be, and I'm personally very happy with it (though if it could get cleaned up enough to run a little better on my steam deck I wouldn't complain).
I wanted it to be a big Bethesda RPG in space, and I got exactly that and I'm happy. People seem to have convinced themselves the game was going to be all kinds of things it never ever hinted at and now they're upset it isn't.
is it impossible to have a balanced conversation about starfield in particular, or does the internet ad economy tend to exclude the middle of every conversation in favor of loud antagonism and engagement bait?
The latter.
If you want a balanced conversation, let me start: haven't played it, likely won't play it in a long time, what would you want to discuss? 😀
I feel ya, OP. I bought Cyberpunk 2077 at launch, played the hell out of it and loved every second of it. Then I tried to find honest discussion about it and it was threads full of nonstop bitching or substance-free fluff from the low sodium crowd. There wasn't a place to find balanced talk where people could share their experiences about the game while also being civil and open minded about things.
If you are just looking to create discussion, I guess this thread has been successful as it's gotten a lot of replies already.
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I had the same experience with CP. 50 hours put in at launch and had a good time. Yet you'd think the game killed players dog the way the chatter online went.
Open world games can be played in a lot of different ways depending on your playestile you might care or not care about it's limitations. So just because feature X is missing doesn't mean it would matter to everyone or it's automatically a bad game.
In those Reddit threads almost everyone seemed like they had second hand information or it was just a meme that was constantly repeated.
There felt like a lot of people who really wanted CP to be GTAV and were extremely upset that it wasn't.
There was also a lot of angst from people who saw the words "open world" and expected it to mean some Second Life-esque escapist experience, rather than the actual meaning of open world, as in there is a big environment where you are free to roam around and do stuff in.
Misled expectations from the marketing hype absolutely played a key role in all of that furor, but at least for me, I tune out most of it since I like making my own opinions on things.
There's a TON more that could be said but those are the three standout points from my perspective.
The inventory system was acceptable 20 years ago when 1024x768 was a good resolution. Today it’s bad, and I don’t understand why some people can’t just admit that. It’s kinda telling that after an hour or so of play I started to look for mods to fix my pain points. Nearly 400k people are using the mod StarUI Inventory. I have an ultra wide monitor, and I have to configure my FoV in an ini file. It’s also an HDR monitor... I have to disable HDR on because it’s basically unplayable right now. Flashlight reflections on anything close to shiny are blinding.
The procedural generation doesn’t deserve the praise it’s getting. It’s no where near as complicated as people think. It’s not generating the terrain, it’s just picking from a set of giant pre-made tiles and dropping some rocks and trees on them. It’s not generating the buildings, just picking from a set of pre-made buildings. It’s not even filling the buildings procedurally… I had 2 quests in a row that used the same building. Identical building map, same robot you could reprogram near the front door. Same barricades, same small safe on a desk with the same 2 digikeys on a table just around the corner… There’s only so many cave maps too, but it does look like they block off some of the tunnels with rubble so it feels like more. I explored 2 caves in a row that had the same map, with the same safe up on a cliff you have to jump to.
It’s not ‘bad’, but it’s not as good as it should be. Once you start seeing it, you can’t un-see it and the vast amount of content shrinks. It makes me a little sad knowing how many people worked on this, and how long they worked on it, that we didn’t get more out of it.
I have to disable HDR on because it’s basically unplayable right now. Flashlight reflections on anything close to shiny are blinding.
Isn't that the point of HDR, though? 🤨
Oh no, my lighting is more realistic.
Nearly 400k people are using the mod StarUI Inventory.
I love the overall experience, the vibe, the story, etc... but just like Skyrim the UI is trash. Bethesda sucks at UI, especially inventory UI. SkyUI was mandatory when I played Skyrim. I feel the same about Starfield. Same shit inventory mgmt. I still love the game. Hate the UI. I'm on the gamepass version and haven't even looked to see if I can mod it yet (I'm assuming I can't).
What's wrong with the inventory, is this a PC centric complaint as it works fine on the Xbox.
Its a great game, if it was released in 2013. Now its just average. They have doubled and tripled down on the formula, chucked a coat of paint on the engine and called it a day. Whats astonishing is that they spent so long doing it. I've done the MSQ, one faction questline and half of another and I'd say thats at least 1/3, probably closer to 1/2 of the curated storyline content of the game. All of it was ok I guess, but nothing in it jumped out as particularly well written, let along consequential and meaningful. I'm struggling to see how it ate so many dev hours.
I think these days we have a much more mature gamer audience, and Starfield seems squarely targeted at teens. There just isn't the depth of more modern game storytelling. Some I blame on the engine (well alot tbh) but some is squarely on Bethesda for playing it so safe. Does not bode well for ESVI.
I’m struggling to see how it ate so many dev hours.
Lots of stuff got added: space combat, ship building, the new research system, the rank challenges stuff, new lockpicking, and I bet loads of stuff besides that I forgot. Adding all of that stuff to a new game from scratch would take a good chunk of time, but I can imagine patching it all in to an ancient game engine that’s probably barely hanging together honestly it’s surprising they got some of it working at all
an ancient game engine that’s probably barely hanging together
I think Bethesda is a company full of people at the terminus of their careers - they don't know how to make any other kind of game than "Bethesda RPG," they don't know how to use any other game engine, and they are unable to learn either of those skills. Many other game studios have learned to evolve and shift their resources and assets - Naughty Dog doesn't still use the Jak and Daxter engine, From Software went from making mecha games like Armored Core to defining an entire genre with Dark Souls. It seems like Bethesda doesn't have the capacity to change like other companies.
"An honest conversation about Starfield needs to come from judging the game for what it is. And the game itself is … fine, I guess? A recent Kotaku article articulates in more detail how Starfield isn’t “humanity’s greatest achievement,” but it’s an enjoyable game and that’s fine. The menu system is extremely clunky and the aforementioned encumbrance issue is still there—all systems that haven’t changed in decades. Whether it’s deliveries or the fate of the galaxy, nobody else seems to do anything but you, the player. Just because these are hallmarks of past Bethesda games doesn’t mean that they get a free pass.
And herein lies the problem. Because Starfield is so similar to Bethesda’s previous offerings (for better or worse), Bethesda “fans” are pushing back against critiques of the game as a critique of all Bethesda properties. Looking at Sterling’s video about encumbrance again, the online defense of the game’s issues boils down to fans saying, “I can’t tell you why. I just do.” This is indicative of the lack of thought that Bethesda actively encourages in their games."
Yeah, that article does a good job at summing up the issues here. It really shows that maybe we need to have a broader conversation about how most past Bethesda games are worse in retrospect, actually. Starfield is helping to exemplify and point out that.
Tia Nadiezja over in the comments there also has good points:
"Bethesda games get a pass on serious, game-breaking problems that would kill games from other companies. Skyrim still, a decade and more after its original release, two full remasters in, has more glitches and bugs than Mass Effect: Andromeda or Cyberpunk did at launch, and those bugs did serious damage to those games' reputation.
Throw in the horrific treatment of staff by Bethesda's management and the open transphobia they've displayed, and people should not be playing this bad game. Have some standards, folks!"
That second paragraph has nothing to do with the quality of the game Bethesda Studio made though, not that Bethesda Softworks/Zenimax don't deserve criticism for the HR issue, but it's not fair to put that on Todd and his team.
I like it so far, planetary exploration and the ship are the biggest letdowns.
I get the feeling that it would be a much better game if they just focused on what they are known for being good at, interesting maps and immersive worlds.
Interestingly, the original elder scrolls games had a lot of procedurally generated content, it was only Morrowind that was the first “handmade” world from what I recall. But it would have been much cooler if they could have added a few interesting little secrets or stories to each planet and just had fewer of them or something.
Do you think that’s because a lot of the planets are procedurally generated? I’ve seen people saying that since they’re generated, not hand crafted, they feel really same-y after a while, and there’s never anything interesting to find to start you on a quest you could easily miss, like you could find in other Bethesda games by exploring.
Imho its because the procedural underpinnings are so close to the surface. How are you supposed to stay immersed when you know roughly how many POI's there will be and that you will see the exact same POI on multiple planets, right down to object placement? They will all be within running distance of the ship etc etc.
Its not the first game to do it, NMS is pretty immersion breaking in this respect, but at least its somewhat masked by being able to cruise around the surface, use vehicles etc. But I think proc gen for POI's is a trap for devs. If they do go down that path there needs to be a deep well of content to stitch together so that things feel unique.
I suspect the use of AI in game design (not necessarily in runtime) will go a long way to improving this sort of thing. Its one reason I think the Creation Engine is a dead man walking so to speak and a really bad call for ESVI. I doubt they will be able to shoehorn in AI to the dev pipeline effectively.
A lot of the game world in Oblivion and pretty much all of it in Daggerfall were procedurally generated by Bethesda yet I personally consider them to be the best games that Bethesda has ever produced!
Kind of, I don't mind the surface being procedurally generated but the landmarks themselves are empty.
Finding a dungeon in Skyrim means a unique layout, rewards and maybe a quest. In Starfield landmarks can't be unique because they need to populated too many planets but they are also empty, there is never anything worth grabbing or finding inside.
On Steam I have 150+ hours and in my achievements I see that only 0.7% of players have touched 100 planets.
So I don’t think that people are being honest and/or don’t really understand how big the game is.
This game is huge. I spent apx 40 hours just surveying systems. And I can for sure say that the prog gen is very well done. Very well especially when comparing to other space games and when specifically talking about POI integration. Every POI looks like it was built there, with minor glitches and imperfections people with less hours would not even notice. The POIs feel balanced especially when the environment is taken into account.
At 100 planets you really begin to understand the breadth of it. The planets I have been on have anywhere from 3-10+ POIs and you can “push” the invisible wall to prog gen more POIs which I understand breaks some immersion but I am fine with it. Some moons are devoid of anything, some have life, some have POIs, and some don’t. The planets typically have at least 3-5 resources and 3-5 flora and fauna. 6+ is common enough as well. While patterns may emerge between systems, it still feels pretty random and balanced.
And again, this game is massive. I haven’t even seen nearly all of the systems which I imagine will hold some easter eggs.
Lastly, this game is meant to be played slow. It’s an explorer game. You can’t rush or speed run this one. Sure some of the stories suck, yet plenty are good. Just like real life.
I can’t wait to see if someone does an “all systems surveyed” video. Because even if you have your surveyed maxxed you have to scan at the surface too. Unless it’s a gas/ice giant.
I have about 120 hours and I also haven't touched 100 planets. I don't see the point in it, when they are mostly empty with randomly generated content that by now I've seen every possible thing that can exist, I'd just be seeing more of the same; exploring the same handful of possible base configurations across hundreds of planets isn't really exploring. None of that stuff is interesting, and the stories and dialogue aren't very interesting either. It's exactly what I expected, and I guess I just don't want that anymore. I want them to actually improve the formula and gameplay, and stop making the same exact game with a different coat of paint.
On Steam I have 150+ hours and in my achievements I see that only 0.7% of players have touched 100 planets.
So I don’t think that people are being honest and/or don’t really understand how big the game is.
But why would I want to touch 100 planets? They all feel exactly the same and there is no gameplay or role-playing reason to explore them.
My experience is kinda the exact opposite, I hate how repetitive the planets are and stopped exploring them besides setting up resource collectors.
What I love about the game is the questing and ship building aspects, there is so much depth to what you can do with your ship that it's kind of ridiculous that it's such a small part of the game otherwise.
I feel that the problem right now is that Starfield can be both considered a Game of the Year contender as well as an absolute waste of money and time for different people, and they can both be completely correct based on their personal preferences.
Personally, I've already played all the Starfield (~45h) I'm likely to play for a long while. It turns out that the majority of the gameplay - random exploration, radiant questing, etc - are things that absolutely bore me, and the crafting/construction/research systems are far too rudimentary, pointless / siloed from the rest of the game, and clunky to keep me particularly interested either. So for me it's a very mid game, something I'd at best recommend picking up at a significantly discounted sale a few years from now - when there's enough mods to actually make it interesting.
On the other hand, some people I've spoken to turn out to absolutely love the radiant questing and proc-gen worlds, a few of them now having more than twice as much time as me in the game - and still loving every second they can spend in it.At this point there's enough data out there, if you're interested in starfield, you'll know if it's right for you. If other people are convincing you it's right for you, it may not be right for you.
What a waste of bandwidth