I've already discussed its issues before, but here we are again. Starfield, man, I love this game, I also sort of dislike it for a plethora of issues. That brings us to a part II for my rant, some issues are extended to the ones I've mentioned before and others of their own are worth scrutinizing.
I have stated that in the end, the issues that are seemingly present on the surface can be patched out, but yet underlying deep-rooted problems will have to get that DLC content workover for quality of life changes.
Well, when I'll be done with this, they'll really have to get their work cut out of them. This feedback should be taken in a more positive form, because in a lot of ways, there's a game here that actually can be saved.
Now let's get to the real nitty gritty, the meat of their games that have somehow amassed millions of players, but also made a good number of us despises it. It's how they frame the NPCs of the game world around it, and creates an immersion factor that involves dialogue from off sequence to on sequence. Yes, am talking about how they make almost everyone feel alive.
You ever get that feeling that the world kind of becomes super separated when we engage with someone? Everything from the motion capture and voice acting is solely focused on the player. With a good deviation being that the characters will also respond to companions.
Sure, they now look at other people when they're nearby, but that barely changes much at all. This is something I do, so many times, like so many freaking times. If today's games have done a better job at retaining focus and immersion, why should Bethesda continue to milk their old standards?
There's also this weird hollowness that comes from just being in a room talking to them, while people elsewhere just mind their own business. You know, you could have done random events like someone out of the blue interrupts, and it's about a call or maybe while I pick a dialogue, they put their attention elsewhere? This would be a much better deviation than just companions chiming in.
I hate that this makes a triple AAA studio like Bethesda super complacent with making games because their formula "just works". Nobody is going to talk about this game after a few years, maybe it'll stick because of the mods, and hopefully good expansions.
Frankly speaking, I actually don't like hating on this game. But what you've made is an addiction simulator, not a real work of art. But this issue cannot persist in their next game, seriously, I feel like an idiot just going along like this. That, and on top of other issues too. Like the fact that this whole time, I thought doing quests would actually get me XP. Ah, no, wait, why?
I talk about this before, but I am going all in on this one this time. Turns out, farming by killing enemies and fauna gets you more XP because of how the game is designed. Doing quests, doesn't. Oh wow, so I need to go and play doing things I don't want to get into to buff myself up?
Right now, am 60-70hrs in, and my combat skill trees look ass, and I still can't pilot both B class and C class ships. Wow, way to make people look and feel like idiots because they wanted to do other things in a game that is filled to the brim with content. I only maxed out two companion relations so far around that playtime as well. Wait, I did way more in Fallout 4, that's not good.
I can explore other planets, do mission board survey jobs, that's one easy way of XP grinding. Sure where killing helps. But 60hrs, and only level 25-26? And I am playing this game at hard difficulty, for some reason, everyone's almost easy to kill. This isn't a nuisance, it's a travesty in design.
The game does feel like it has so much to do, I mean, I remember the unique experiences I've had, even with the design flaws here and there. But, I don't like the whole other stuff just stretched away. Like, the map design sucks, and I barely find a mission board. But when I do, I want to look for stuff involving hunting pirates, or surveying planets.
And you know the one thing I've realized none of these faction based boards have? Ranking systems. Why not? Oh just increase credit pay, the more it has, the harder the job should be. You have a freaking civilized world build out of 1/5 of the galaxy and yet nothing like this came to mind?
Something to incentivize for exploring and XP grind, thinking that a system like this has merit based rewards system. It could also tangle well with how I do something for a faction, while the other one comes against me. I can be a bounty hunter, playing as the hunter, but also be hunted?
Actually, there's something else I want to bring up. It's already confusing to navigate and find things in settlements. Even the mission boards, but when I find them, this is what I have to work with. Like, why is there few gigs available?
And the other funny thing? There are all kinds of mission boards across each settlements, factions, and so on. Like, they're somewhat the same. Spread to delivery, transporting, bounty hit, hit list, survey, and so on. Complete opposite if it's from the Crimson Fleet. And look, doing these missions are helpful, they help earn more XP or easy money.
And annoyingly enough, when part of the game is already flawed and you're putting me on a situation where I need to grind while being bored out of my mind, it's no wonder I focused on doing quests instead. And then further on, some boards are locked out unless they make certain quest choices. These aren't static, they generate.
And the funnier thing is how they scale, 3K credits just a few should be easy to earn. Nope, my ship got blasted easily. I still have a survey gigs not completed because god forbid, there was no way to help find both the flora and fauna easily. Man, this next part I am really going for it.
Bethesda's own magic of "discovering things" doesn't work here. This is a space Sci-Fi game. You couldn't bother to add more to a planet scanner? I hate doing surveys because I couldn't complete them. It kept forcing me to look around and walk, despite how good procedural generation tech is.
It becomes the same thing I did before, it even gatekeeps earning XP and unlocking skills to speed up the process when I'm looking to earn XP in order to get those in the first place. This design is ubiquitous in every game, but why this one did it such a way, I have no clue. Also, isn't it stupid I can only find resources on the planet scanner, but not the other two?
This also goes back to my first issue made in the last post, regarding no CODEX to analyze and find out about what I discovered. It's a huge missed opportunity in this regard, but it also makes doing anything like gigs and exploration disappointingly obtuse. Even grinding is frustrating.
What I mean by more milk, less cereal? Well, that's sort of a figurative way of saying, add stuff to spend more time exploring much less of it. Kind of similarly to "wide as the ocean, depth as a puddle" kind of thing. But ah, it also should be clear that I have another problem with this game.
And it started soon right after I got close to earning 400K credits, I kept spending, and spending. Just giving money away. And the biggest thing I spent on is upgrading this UC prison ship I got from a story mission, and turning it into a Class B frigate. Yes, I got to Class B skill rank, all I had to do was spam the UC vanguard flight simulator. I got there faster than I did gigs ☠️.
Few reasons to put would be that, buying a new ship would be more expensive and, that I hated the one Constellation gave to me. Did you know, that if you bought the parts, it can only be sold for a fraction of the price? Barter skills changes that, yet I can save scum, and experiment with the ship builder. But why waste more of that time where I could grind to level up?
It's like someone told me there's a job I'll like, and I did at first, before I got to mid-life crisis point and contemplated about what I was doing. That's what it feels like now. In the end, I get that the journey there should be challenging, and worth all the work I put into it.
But, that's another way of stating the obvious. And it's Bethesda doing dumb things, and making excuses for decisions that's kind of really costing them now. I believe it can all be rectified, and it should. In fact, talking about this is already boring me. I'll go back to playing Cyberpunk instead.
Who am I kidding? I invested so much into the game, how can I quit already? Came this far, and only started mining in 8 planets. I am so putting another 20hrs in so that I can build more outposts. That way, I can earn 10x the money I send to my parents every week on a daily basis. Back to farming for skills I guess.
Least I hogged a crap ton of resources. Also, for the love of god, why is the mission log UI this barebones in info? I forgot about how much money I'd earn from the bulletin, and none of that was here to remind me. Not even the XP reward, this is so feature absent.
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