Starfield

robinph · 08-09-2023 12:28pm

The nature of travelling in space is not just wandering in random directions though, well you can but you'll just end up going nowhere and finding nothing and dieing alone.

Kirk didn't fly in random directions, he aimed for a star system and then had a look around to see what scantily clad blue skinned alien turned up.

In space you pick a star and fly towards it. For travelling around a galaxy I'm not sure how they could do anything different.

Static M.e. · 08-09-2023 12:40pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121084559#Comment_121084559

A brand new Geforce RTX 4070, literally about 2 days old, I was running a Geforce RTX 2070 Super before that.

ahnowbrowncow · 08-09-2023 1:31pm

I've played Starfield for over a week now and while I have enjoyed it I can't help but feel disappointed. With seven years development I had hoped it would have added to and improved on areas from Fallout 4 and Skyrim but it has somehow regressed instead. It's definitely missing the sense of wonder and exploration of those games and I don't feel rewarded when I do, it's mostly just some procedural location with little of note there.

One thing that really stands out is that I don't feel anywhere near as immersed in the game as I have others. This is probably down to little things like NPCs just standing in the same spot all the time, they don't go to bed or have houses to go to etc. and shops seem to be open 24/7 or however many hours a planet has.

The weapon system is a step backwards. In Fallout 4 an assault rifle was an assault rifle and you could mod and upgrade to it's best version it once you unlocked the required skills. But now, even with all four weapon modding skills unlocked, you can't upgrade a weapon beyond it's basic, calibrated, refined, advanced version. You also can't replace and hold mods, once you take a mod off/replace it, it's gone forever.

Fallout 4 also had six separate armor parts, and you could wear a number of different clothing items underneath too. That's not even including the power armor. Starfield has three and one clothing slots so there's a real lack of variety and this feeds into the lack of reward from exploring.

Speaking of lack of variety there's very little variety in enemies, between Ecliptic, Spacers, Crimson Fleet, House Varuun etc., it's just another guy in a different coloured spacesuit shooting at me.

There are other things like what happened the RPG elements and stats to increase, I get one skill point averaging once every 90 minutes to put into sometimes fairly mundane skills like increasing carry weight. There doesn't appear to be anything like bobblehead collectibles to find outside of magazines and no other companions to find when out adventurising. Tedious inventory management and clunky menus and no usable maps. There are also performance issues and lack of optimisation. I can only set the resolution by changing it via Windows display settings, what's that about from a AAA game?

None of this is helped by having played Baldurs Gate 3 recently as any comparisons don't reflect favourably on Starfield.

Having said all that I am still playing it and enjoying it and I still have to try build some outposts.

Dcully · 08-09-2023 1:50pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121084768#Comment_121084768

Was just curious as per the dlss mod only working rtx cards.

Dcully · 08-09-2023 2:05pm

Possibly the worst optimized PC game ive ever played sadly [it is bethesda afterall] but despite this im quite liking the game, there is a lot to do and to get to grips with.

Im only level 14 at the moment mostly playing random soldier but find im leaning towards a stealth sniper.

I really like the build potential and replayability, maybe ill eventually get to NG+ but im hearing its best not to main the main story just to get there, ill take my time.

Maybe its the setting and theme but im definitely more drawn to this than the fallout games which i gave up on pretty early.

I did return to fallout 76 and yet they did turn that game around and into a very good game.

Maybe i should retry fallout 4.

08-09-2023 2:17pm

Fallout 4 is good it's just the beginning is poorly designed. You'd be forgiven for thinking the point of that game is to join the Minutemen and help/build settlements. But it's not. The building stuff is completely optional.

What you're actually meant to do is head to Diamond City after you meet the Minutemen, and although they suggest that you do this it really doesn't seem as important.

So, if you play it, tell the Minutemen to f off and head straight to Diamond City. The game gets a lot better from that point on.

The Brotherhood of Steel was my favourite faction, if you want a suggestion.

Also I highly recommend playing on Survival difficulty. It really adds to the gameplay and makes things like radiation actually matter.

And the Luck skill tree is OP. So invest in that if you use VATS.

I wouldn't say it's a brilliant game or anything, but a solid 8/10.

Hellrazer · 08-09-2023 2:18pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121081884#Comment_121081884

What render resolution scale you using?

75%?

Dcully · 08-09-2023 2:48pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121085313#Comment_121085313

Im bouncing between 70 and 67 sometimes even 60 but i find 67 is decent.

Static M.e. · 08-09-2023 2:56pm

It plays surprisingly well on Xbox Cloud and using the Xbox controller makes is seem a lot easier to navigate too. I almost prefer it now on Xbox cloud...oh and it syncs saves between xbox cloud and xbox for PC so you can switch between them.

Hellrazer · 08-09-2023 3:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121085614#Comment_121085614

Even better on a Steam Deck using Xbox Cloud.Syncs the same way. Its highly recommended if you have a deck. I even tried it on a chromebook laptop with a Xbox controller and thats just as good.

Have my deck docked to a big 50" screen and Cloud gaming is excellent that way too.

Hellrazer · 08-09-2023 3:02pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121085551#Comment_121085551

Going to try your settings later today when I get home.See if I can get a little bit more out of the 6600xt.

08-09-2023 3:04pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121085664#Comment_121085664

Did you see the video I posted earlier in the thread? It went fairly in depth on maximising frame rate using settings.

Dcully · 08-09-2023 3:07pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121085664#Comment_121085664

I also tried the settings in this video and they too are pretty good.

https://youtu.be/uON6kH3XTwI?si=4tQDjlBUdmh_px4j&t=535

If your really struggling plug in a controller, sounds odd but the slower movement and camera panning makes the lower framerate less noticeable than with super fast and responsive mouse.

I still play with mouse and KB but its worth a shot for anyone really struggling.

_CreeD_ · 08-09-2023 3:27pm

For PC performance and expectations this is a great write up and provides a lot of info on where CPU will be hit harder than GPU in different areas/biomes. Also, if you're on a 6 year old GPU with less TFlops than an Xbox series X and are getting more than 30fps technically you're doing ok ;) . Though yes it's not the best for what's on offer but there are certainly much worse out there released this year. I'd give it a pass on optimisation, a solid 'meh' .

https://youtu.be/wqFs1Auxo8Y?si=MxlVdYxVaPN77Fg5

08-09-2023 3:32pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121084706#Comment_121084706

Yeah you have to wonder what alternative there is and if the critics of this system have this alternative.

Let's examine how other games do it. I have played all of these games.

In No Man's Sky you can fly manually between planets, either going slowly which takes many hours or using your pulse engine which reduces the travel time to 1-2 minutes. During this time you can access your inventory so you can do a bit of sorting but that's it. While traveling via pulse you have random encounters, but it's your choice whether to drop out of pulse and engage with them. If not, you arrive at your destination. Since Starfield appears to have actual space between worlds this could be replicated, but would it be better if you had to sit there and wait 1-2 minutes? Instead, Starfield shows a quick flying cut scene for a few seconds and then you arrive in orbit, where an encounter can occur randomly and you don't get the option to choose it like NMS. If it's an adverse encounter you are forced to deal with it.

In Elite Dangerous and Star Citizen they are fairly similar so I'll put them together. You can also travel slowly between worlds, taking forever to get there, or you can "warp" there. Depending on the distance, this can take 1 minute for a local moon or up to 10+ minutes for a farther planet on the other side of the system. During this time random encounters can occur that are non optional, in ED you can be taken out of warp forcefully and have to fight. I'm not sure if this happens in SC. But other than that you are sitting there for several minutes waiting to arrive, in this time you can use chat since it's multiplayer, look up missions. That's about it. Obviously the chat function wouldn't work in Starfield so you'd just be sitting there for several minutes with the odd random encounter happening in the space between planets.

Of all of these systems of travel, would any of them suit Starfield? As far as I can see, the only changes possible are:

1. You make the travel happen in real time, taking 1-10 minutes depending on how you implement it;

2. You stage random encounters in the space between planets.

But Starfield does the following:

1. Travel happens in a few seconds with a cut scene to show the ship moving to it's destination;

2. Random encounters happen in planetary orbit instead of deep space. They are not optional.

How could this be improved? I'm curious to see what people's ideas are.

Dcully · 08-09-2023 3:34pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121085768#Comment_121085768

Yep i tried these settings but the ones from BenchMarKing proved better for my rig.

Deffo recommend trying both and the custom presets on reddit.

Potential-Monke · 08-09-2023 4:22pm

My main area for improvement of this would be having a better cut scene. Instead of showing a brief take off/fly away and then into a black screen, use that black screen to mimic fast space travel like NMS. While it may take a bit longer, it holds onto the immersion. In Starfield, it's loading screen after loading screen and it pulls me right out of the game. Even the loading from a shop interior back out into the city in the first planet takes upwards of 8 seconds... which is more annoying considering there's one shop with no loading, just an open door.

I do want to keep playing, I do want yo find what everyone is saying is great about it. It does have a draw, but im being constantly pulled put of it with loading. And it may only be a few seconds, but its near constant so far for me. And I agree with all ahnowbrowncow has said above.

I've yet to see anything which justifies 30fps. I can only ponder that 60 would have required a severe drop in graphical quality so they didn't even bother, and I think this is backed up by lots of pc players having issues too.

So while I still want to play, i think I'll stop and wait for an improved version, hopefully with 60fps support, a massively improved inventory management system, a usable city map that isn't the least effort possible, and less/quicker loading. There's a great game in there, it's just not complete yet.

08-09-2023 4:50pm

So I'm on Series X and I think some of you are on PC or cloud so I thought I'd do a little experiment.

I'm at New Atlantis starport and I'm going to go through all the loading screens between getting on the ship and landing at Gagarin in the same system and time them, just for comparison if anyone is curious. I also landed on a random bit of wilderness. I'm not counting the animation of the ship taking off, just the black screen when it's loading between zones.

- Get in cockpit from outside: 2s

- Take off: 3s

- Travel through space: 3s

- Landing: 10s for wilderness,18s for a city

So loading in the new planet is the killer here for me. I never noticed it took that long.

I do get the point, like the Take Off and Travel Through Space black screens are just 3s each, why not linger on the cut scene a bit longer to mask it? Surely that is possible.

Potential-Monke · 08-09-2023 5:02pm

As it currently is, it would have been a great swansong for last gen.

mewso · 08-09-2023 5:25pm

Yeah not being able to spend 10 minutes travelling through space is not a deal breaker for me but get rid of the cutscenes. Have it all happen in front of me as I sit in the cockpit. While they are at it get rid of the animations from sitting down, using crafting stations etc. Pointless.

Sephiroth_dude · 08-09-2023 5:39pm

Absolute nut jobs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyHggtdfDMg

pixelburp · 08-09-2023 5:52pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121086367#Comment_121086367

Good to see that as much as things change, grow and improve, Gamers© will dogpile and trash women who have the nerve to play games.

08-09-2023 8:31pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121086429#Comment_121086429

Some of the things that Gamerz say online is absolutely mental. I saw a video of a middle aged man *screaming* at the camera because Starfield has pronoun options.

brady12 · 09-09-2023 11:10am

Still shocked at how well this runs on deck on xcloud when I'm too tired / lazy sit at desk . Playing a lot the side stuff that way and saving good stuff for the big screen full 4k experience .

TheAnalyst_ · 09-09-2023 1:35pm

https://www.thejimquisition.com/post/starfield-empty-spaces-review

Someone who hates the game more than me. But OTT on some points but really agree with the sad lack of progress in 16 years.

Spear · 09-09-2023 1:43pm

49 hours in, I've only just realised that those emergency cut here walls aren't just decoration and actually work as described. Not my best moment in this game...

09-09-2023 2:45pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121089077#Comment_121089077

I didn't realise either.

Sephiroth_dude · 09-09-2023 2:54pm

Did the tapping the grid side quest bug out for anyone else as well? you have to power down the junction boxes, but the first one says it’s locked and requires a computer.

09-09-2023 3:01pm

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121089360#Comment_121089360

Did she speak to you remotely as you approached it?

Potential-Monke · 09-09-2023 3:13pm

Never read a Jimquisition review before. Take out the faux anger and he's got some solid points in there. I agree with most of it. So i have stopped for now. I'll come back when there's a GOTY version and it may have improved.

Hope everyone who sticks with it enjoys it. But it's not the game Todd said it would be. It's just another poorly made Bethesda game, but that seems to be some people's jam.

**** Starfield ****

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Starfield