Microsoft Starfield - Information Thread, update: May Update (detailed surface maps, difficulty options, display settings) to release on May 15

[Firewithin]

once i figured out the new lock picking system i cant wait to find things to unlock

[Best]

5 minutes ago, Firewithin said:

once i figured out the new lock picking system i cant wait to find things to unlock

 

I thought I had this down but struggle each lock I try to pick now. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

9 hours ago, skillzdadirecta said:

Ok another question. Where do your unassigned crew members go if you don't have outposts and don't have room for them on the ship?

 

I forget if there is a crew option in the character menu, but I know from your menu you can select your ship and then there is an option for crew there. You can then assign and unassign all you want.
 

7 hours ago, ThreePi said:

 

It felt very sterile in the way recent Bethesda games have been. Animation, dialogue, storytelling all feel very robotic and like right off the bat the quests they seem to give out are have been the standard Bethesda "follow these quest markers."

 

The UI/inventory also seems to somehow get worse with each game. There's a million items to potentially pick up, but they still expect you to manage inventory by scrolling through a linear list? Morrowind handled inventory a thousand times better decades ago.

 

I get all of that. Though I don’t think the inventory system is as bad as unusable that some say it is, and I like that before you pick an item up you can see if it’s just trash or usable in crafting or consumable. 
 

most of the time quests don’t bother me, except you’re right, I wish more care was put into designing a world and quest structure that didn’t require quest markers. 

 

I will also say this, I am really enjoying the game. Some nights, like last night I complete missions in the game and never fire a shot, and I still want to play more. But last night I did a mission that felt like a massive example of wanted opportunity. A really interesting premise that felt like it was the victim of having to cut content to make a deadline. 
 

for those curious it is the Paradiso mission with the ship

that turns out to be a 200 year old generation ship. The first thing that jumped out to me was the ship was made from assets used all over the game. Which made it feel like technology simply stopped innovating and improving ~ 200 years ago. If it was like Star Wars it could be forgiven. But we know how humans iterate and innovate. No way technology would stagnate that much for 20

years, never mind 200. Then there was how small and underpopulated the ship felt. There were no doors I couldn’t go in, and even on the outside the ship wasn’t really that big. Bigger than a normal ship, but not really one large enough to accommodate  enough people to save the human race. It’s the size of a ship you might expect for a sublight journey to somewhere like Titan. 
 

then the mission itself felt like you were being fast tracked. There were ideas brought about that die the moment the NPC finishes their sentence. The whole thing was interesting, but underwhelming. Had the premise not been so interesting I wouldn’t feel so let down. Just such a shame.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

6 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

I thought I had this down but struggle each lock I try to pick now. 

it gets both easier and harder as you unlock higher tiers of the ability and do harder locks. 
 

a tip I have is to look for the pieces that only slot into 1 specific ring. (The ring will be blue when you select a piece if that piece can a lot into that ring). See if you can figure out how to complete that ring, but don’t start slotting yet. Try to see if you can eliminate pieces and solve each ring before you start slotting the pieces. 
 

essentially you can solve the puzzle before ever committing a single pick to it. 

[Keyser_Soze]

Lockpicking was hard for me the first time because it was confusing. But once I figured out you could use the right stick to pick the other circles it was easier.

[Best]

14 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Lockpicking was hard for me the first time because it was confusing. But once I figured out you could use the right stick to pick the other circles it was easier.

 

How are you liking it so far?

[Biggie]

[Spork3245]

[Best]

28 minutes ago, Biggie said:

 

When do you expect to get it?

[Biggie]

4 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

When do you expect to get it?

He said Monday September 11

[Best]

10 minutes ago, Biggie said:

He said Monday September 11

 

Let's fucking goooo! 

[DPCyric]

I deleted some stuff last night and downloaded this looking forward to playing it!

[Keyser_Soze]

3 hours ago, best3444 said:

How are you liking it so far?

 

I've really only scratched the surface so I can't say too much. I'm like 5 - 6 hours in and just finally met the Constellation people.

 

I am enjoying it but it's very much a "they made a one of those Bethesda games but in space" type of game, at least to me so far. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I like those games. That being said the last one I played was Oblivion / Fallout 3(barely) so maybe this feels a bit more fresh for me.

 

So far the combat I think is surprisingly good. I was someone who thought it looked good from the videos but shooting the dumb AI enemies who run right towards you has never felt better. I might even say it feels better than The Outer Worlds which I thought was a big improvement over BSG games. With that in mind I still might give the graphical edge to The Outer Worlds in terms of how humans look and the overall world (which is kind of cheating because the zones are a lot smaller) but I still think the character models in Starfield are probably the best they've looked, unmodded at least. Something about how the mouth moves when they talk, the way the facial muscles move, it looks very convincing.

 

 

Obviously I do have gripes with the UI/Menus still, like they don't make any sense. I also agree that the maps are pure garbage, they are just dots. No terrain or anything. It's really bad. Also the create a character, while supposedly more in depth makes even less sense now. Like there are 9 sliders with no descriptions at all other than "blending" and you kind of have to move it yourself to figure out what's going on. I went back in after the fact to fix my character because it was bothering me the whole time and yeah the body slider was like on the super fat side and I dunno, anyway I fixed it so @Phaseknox would be proud.

 

I still get a little queasy playing it, I turned down the film grain to see if that will have any effect.

 

And finally, still loving the Quick Resume on the console, been using it with this game no problem. 👍

[Best]

5 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I've really only scratched the surface so I can't say too much. I'm like 5 - 6 hours in and just finally met the Constellation people.

 

I am enjoying it but it's very much a "they made a one of those Bethesda games but in space" type of game, at least to me so far. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, since I like those games. That being said the last one I played was Oblivion / Fallout 3(barely) so maybe this feels a bit more fresh for me.

 

So far the combat I think is surprisingly good. I was someone who thought it looked good from the videos but shooting the dumb AI enemies who run right towards you has never felt better. I might even say it feels better than The Outer Worlds which I thought was a big improvement over BSG games. With that in mind I still might give the graphical edge to The Outer Worlds in terms of how humans look and the overall world (which is kind of cheating because the zones are a lot smaller) but I still think the character models in Starfield are probably the best they've looked, unmodded at least. Something about how the mouth moves when they talk, the way the facial muscles move, it looks very convincing.

 

 

Obviously I do have gripes with the UI/Menus still, like they don't make any sense. I also agree that the maps are pure garbage, they are just dots. No terrain or anything. It's really bad. Also the create a character, while supposedly more in depth makes even less sense now. Like there are 9 sliders with no descriptions at all other than "blending" and you kind of have to move it yourself to figure out what's going on. I went back in after the fact to fix my character because it was bothering me the whole time and yeah the body slider was like on the super fat side and I dunno, anyway I fixed it so @Phaseknox would be proud.

 

I still get a little queasy playing it, I turned down the film grain to see if that will have any effect.

 

And finally, still loving the Quick Resume on the console, been using it with this game no problem. 👍

 

You're extremely early. It gets better and more "fun". 

[Keyser_Soze]

29 minutes ago, best3444 said:

You're extremely early. It gets better and more "fun". 

 

I never said it wasn't fun. I had fun getting coffee for the janitor.

[Ominous]

Only one real glitch so far that I've run into. Some spacers were shooting from their ships bay door area. I stormed and laid them out with my OP shotgun. Well then the doors closed and the ship went to space with me in it. Once it went to lightspeed I shot out and smashed into the planet and died. After it reloaded the spacers left the ship so there was no repeat incident. 

[Biggie]

9 hours ago, best3444 said:

 

When do you expect to get it?

 

9 hours ago, Biggie said:

He said Monday September 11

@stepee sent me the tracking. It is supposed to arrive tomorrow!!!! Earlier than expected.

[Biggie]

[Bitgod]

13 hours ago, BloodyHell said:

Just had my first crash. Im impressed. Normally with BGS, thats a first hour experience.

Right now they're even for me, they've both crashed on me once.  SF had the good manners to do it in the first 5 minutes, the first time I tried to open settings.

[brucoe]

Any news when Steam will be adding the Steam Workshop for mods?

[Keyser_Soze]

7 minutes ago, brucoe said:

Any news when Steam will be adding the Steam Workshop for mods?

 

Seeing as none of Bethesda's other games have workshop support I wouldn't hold my breath.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

Only crashes I had came when trying to adjust display settings, which I attribute to something maybe wonky with a mod’s interaction. Before I started missing none of the display settings caused crashing. I’ve yet to have any crashes during any kind of gameplay. 
 

im not gonna say I’m impressed that there have been no crashes during gameplay in 45 hours of play time. Not crashing during gameplay is one of those low bars I set for games. 

[Spork3245]

 

[Xbob42]

 

I thought this was funny. Encumbrance is always bad. No one's ever experiencing any emotion other than boredom while managing a bunch of fucking weight unless they're getting a BJ or some other non-game related thing is happening. It's just work. In a video game. It's like a Battle Pass. You've just accepted work that doesn't actually produce anything, for no reason.

[TheLeon]

The only time I ever find item management satisfying is when I can pick stuff up as “junk” and then when I get back to a vendor I press a button to “sell all junk”. I like watching 75% of my inventory vanish in an instant.

[Best]

14 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

The only time I ever find item management satisfying is when I can pick stuff up as “junk” and then when I get back to a vendor I press a button to “sell all junk”. I like watching 75% of my inventory vanish in an instant.

 

So true.

 

@Biggie getting it Saturday evening would be the dopest dope. 

[Biggie]

1 minute ago, best3444 said:

 

So true.

 

@Biggie getting it Saturday evening would be the dopest dope. 

Just checked. Tracking says it’s out for delivery. 

[Best]

Just now, Biggie said:

Just checked. Tracking says it’s out for delivery. 

 

Fuck that's beautiful. 

[Biggie]

39 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Fuck that's beautiful. 

[Best]

What's a list of say 5 games you want to play on Xbox? Is there 5?

[Biggie]

5 minutes ago, best3444 said:

What's a list of say 5 games you want to play on Xbox? Is there 5?

Of course Starfield. Forza and Halo come to mind. Maybe Gears of War. 

[Best]

2 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Of course Starfield. Forza and Halo come to mind. Maybe Gears of War. 

 

Halo Infinite's campaign is phenomenal imo. GOW are great, too. Forza is obvious so you have a few there. 

[Xbob42]

So I just got this fun bug:

 

I didn't need that stuff anyway! Was only a few hundred items.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

In theory: is a Starfield performance mode viable on Xbox Series X?

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Starfield is a 30fps game on console - but is a 60fps performance mode possible? We built a PC with the Series X CPU an…

 

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The arrival of any highly anticipated console game brings with it a staggering level of expectation, especially when it's a first-party exclusive - like Bethesda Game Studios' Starfield. Looking back at the various pre-launch controversies, one of the biggest was the decision to cap the game at 30 frames per second when the majority of games released on Xbox Series X are attempting to target 60fps. With the final game in our hands then, the question is this: what are the chances of a performance mode on Microsoft's most powerful console? It's the first order of business in a DF Direct Special you'll see embedded a paragraph or two under these words.

 

Back in June, Bethesda confirmed the 30fps cap on consoles, with Todd Howard going on the record to say that "We prefer the consistency... I think it'll come as no surprise, given our previous games, what we go for - always these huge, open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detail where anything can happen." Howard also mentioned that when the frame-rate cap is not in place, Starfield can run at up to 60 frames per second, according to the content.

 

So, how can we put this to the test? We built a unique PC designed to broadly match the capabilities of the Xbox Series X console. Recently, we reviewed the AMD 4800S Desktop Kit - a China-only OEM product based around the actual Xbox Series X SoC. The GPU portion is disabled, but we do get the CPU element, paired with 16GB of GDDR6 memory. There are faster clock speeds than Series X and more available cores to games, but far more of a limitation is the GDDR6 memory, typically used for graphics cards, not CPUs. Check out the full review because it throws up some fascinating results. Xbox Series X's CPU is indeed a Zen 2 processor, but it acts in very different ways to something like a Ryzen 5 3600 or Ryzen 7 3700X.

 

 

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My takeaway? With the proviso in place that our Frankenstein's Console is not a complete match for Xbox Series X, there does seem to be evidence to suggest that there's enough CPU overhead left over to run much of the game at a 40fps minimum, suggesting that a 40fps mode for 120Hz displays might work. Additionally, while a fully unlocked performance mode may not get anywhere near to a consistent 60 frames per second, some users might find it valuable - and there's particular potential here for players with variable refresh rate (VRR) screens.

 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

Starfield on PC is the best way to play - but the game still requires a lot of work

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The Digital Foundry tech review - including those all-important optimised settings.

 

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In summary, I'd say there's good news and bad news with Starfield on PC. The quality of the game is clear and unlike, say, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor, we're not seeing disruptive problems that ruin the experience. However, there's clearly work to do. The options menu isn't descriptive enough or helps the user in any way in tailoring the game to their hardware. Basic features like field of view control, HDR, gamma and contrast controls need to be added, as well as official DLSS and XeSS support.

 

Tackling the disproportionately poor Nvidia and Intel performance also needs to addressed, while there's the sense that the game isn't properly tuned for the major CPU architectures used in today's PCs. Optimised settings clearly yields large performance dividends though, suggesting some degree of scalability, while the DLSS mod is a must for RTX users and can help both performance and image quality for Nvidia owners - but let's hope to see some genuine improvements from Bethesda in Starfield's first major update.