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

[Keyser_Soze]

9 minutes ago, Brian said:

 

 

@The def star

[Dodger]

I think I'm getting that controller if it's real. I'm due for a new one anyway.

[Mr.Vic20]

I know it will be buggy. I know people will dislike many, many things about it. I know the design team has always been just OK at combat mechanics. I suspect I'm still going to love the Hell out of this game. Something about Beth's open world games just clicks with my brain. Maybe its because both my brain and Bethesda open world games are sup standard. Look the point is that I will likely love this game and have beautiful mind babies with it several times over! 

[best3444]

40 minutes ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

I know it will be buggy. I know people will dislike many, many things about it. I know the design team has always been just OK at combat mechanics. I suspect I'm still going to love the Hell out of this game. Something about Beth's open world games just clicks with my brain. Maybe its because both my brain and Bethesda open world games are sup standard. Look the point is that I will likely love this game and have beautiful mind babies with it several times over! 

 

I feel the same exact way. I'm really excited for this and it’s my most anticipated game this year. Bethesda can make true classics if they spend the amount of time they have on this game. 

[Dre801]

Definitely will be playing.  May take me at least a couple of years to finish it though( played Fallout 4 off and on for nearly three years before I finished it).

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

 

[DPCyric]

I haven't gotten into an Elder Scrolls or a Fallout but I think this is going to scratch that itch the original Mass Effect did of exploring a bunch of worlds and finding neat little secrets.

[Biggie]

I can’t wait for @best3444 to play this. Imagine the questions he will be posting!

[best3444]

2 minutes ago, Biggie said:

I can’t wait for @best3444 to play this. Imagine the questions he will be posting!

 

Lol. Bethesda games are easy to follow and extremely user friendly without mind bending puzzles. 

 

That said, I just watched the entire direct presentation and was completely blown the fuck away. That is easily GOTY and stole Zelda's thunder away. Jesus Christ they actually pulled their ambition off on this and I am stunned. Not even 3 months away I am beyond hyped!

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

 

No, Bethesda, I do not want to kiss any of Starfield's glassy-eyed companions | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Bethesda can make an entire galaxy of planets, but it can't make an NPC who doesn't look like a ventriloquist dummy being held at gunpoint.

 

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As soon as Bethesda's presentation moved to NPC friends, I got the heebie-jeebies. Though the studio boasts of improved animations, Starfield's glassy-eyed characters still sit firmly in the uncanny valley, miles behind their contemporaries in other big budget games. That's fine when all they're doing is offering me quests or delivering exposition, but for the love of God don't ask me to form relationships with them.

 

[best3444]

Yep. Bethesda cannot make realistic looking characters. That was the first thing I noticed when they jumped into companions and I won't try to sleep with a polygonal monkey. 

[Kal-El814]

4 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

No, Bethesda, I do not want to kiss any of Starfield's glassy-eyed companions | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Bethesda can make an entire galaxy of planets, but it can't make an NPC who doesn't look like a ventriloquist dummy being held at gunpoint.

 

 

 

This is all very true and the companions look like the Bethesda automatons they were always destined to be, but this is kind of a goofy question...

 

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The thing I don't understand is, why is Bethesda still focusing on this stuff? It's built a whole galaxy to explore—why does it think I need to bring a creepy cowboy with me? Is the assumption that I won't be able to enjoy seeing attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion unless I can have a little kissy with a plastic-faced woman first? These games are huge, but they don't have to do absolutely everything—I wish Bethesda would just zero in on the things it's good at, and jettison all the stuff it's been doing poorly forever. 

 

People very obviously want "this stuff." Companions are some of the most popular mods in games like this, and as time goes on and the gameplay of stuff like Mass Effect has been passed by, the relationships remain very popular. No, Bethesda does not do this stuff well and they never have. But it's clearly giving the people what they want or at least an attempt to.

[Spork3245]

 

“SSD Required”

 

 @stepee @Mr.Vic20 @AbsolutSurgen @crispy4000

[Spork3245]

It’s nice that they skipped the vanilla release and are just going straight to a remastered version.

[crispy4000]

@Spork3245

 

itshappening.gif Part 2 

 

 

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I think it'll come as no surprise, given our previous games, what we go for," Howard said. "Always these huge, open worlds, fully dynamic, hyper detail where anything can happen. And we do want to do that. It's 4K in the X. It's 1440 on the S. We do lock it at 30, because we want that fidelity, we want all that stuff. We don't want to sacrifice any of it.

"Fortunately in this one, we've got it running great. It's often running way above that. Sometimes it's 60. But on the consoles, we do lock it because we prefer the consistency, where you're not even thinking about it.

 

[skillzdadirecta]

Since this will be on gamepass no need to double dip. I can play on the Xbox AND my PC. The modders are gonna have a field day with this one.

[AbsolutSurgen]

My only concern with this game was when they referred to "thousands of planets" -- I'm hoping that the "majority" of the game is tied to crafted areas vis a vis procedurally generated areas.

[crispy4000]

40 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

My only concern with this game was when they referred to "thousands of planets" -- I'm hoping that the "majority" of the game is tied to crafted areas vis a vis procedurally generated areas.

 

From what I got out of it, the planets themselves seem like set environments they used procedural environmental tools to help create.  Which is all fine and cool.  However, the "handcrafted" open world events and quests they litter on top will be procedurally placed for each player.  So you can't use a guide for planet X, Y, Z.  Granted cities sound like set entities.

 

I'm skeptical of that type of open world design in general.  But I could see myself still being intrigued by this game regardless, for what else its doing.  I had no desire to play their Fallout games, but this was a great pitch overall.

 

What bothers me the most is that the majority of the shooting we saw took place in enemy base camps and same-y looking corridors.  I can't stomach hours and hours of that if that's a significant part of the loop.  The 'Nasa-punk' vibe works for your ship and the cities, but isn't doing it for me there.

[AbsolutSurgen]

1 minute ago, crispy4000 said:

 

From what I got out of it, the planets themselves seem like set environments they used procedural environmental tools to help create.  Which is all fine and cool.  However, the "handcrafted" open world events they litter on top will be procedurally placed for each player.  So you can't use a guide for planet X, Y, Z, though cities sound like set entities.

 

I'm not to keen on that type of open world design in general.  But I could see myself still being intrigued by the game regardless.

 

What concerns me the most is that most the combat we saw was in enemy base camps and same-y looking corridors.  I can't take hours and hours of that if that's a significant part of the loop.

I'll start off by saying, I really thought what they showed looked cool.

However, I wish they had showed a longer continuous gameplay section.  If this was iD, I would be confident they could pull off awesome FPS gameplay.  Bethesda -- no idea.

Starfield could either be the hands-down GOTY, or it could be a bunch of great ideas that don't quite coalesce together.  And, I have no idea which way it is going to go.

[Kal-El814]

1 minute ago, crispy4000 said:

From what I got out of it, the planets themselves seem like set environments they used procedural environmental tools to help create.  Which is all fine and cool.  However, the "handcrafted" open world events they litter on top will be procedurally placed for each player.  So you can't use a guide for planet X, Y, Z, though cities sound like set entities.

 

I'm not to keen on that type of open world design in general.  But I could see myself still being intrigued by the game regardless.

 

What concerns me the most is that most the combat we saw was in enemy base camps and same-y looking corridors.  I can't take hours and hours of that if that's a significant part of the loop.

 

Same-y looking corridors, milquetoast combat, and forgettable NPCs have been part of the Beth loop since Morrowind; this is just what they do.

 

For me it's mostly about whether or not the vibes hit. I still love Skyrim even though it's... just fine. Fallout 3 I really liked. Fallout 4? I dunno, I think they took big swings and whiffed on most of them. It's not a "bad game" it's just consistently not interesting and as they scaled up, stuff like their radiant quest system needed to do more heavy lifting, and that stuff WAS bad. So I dunno how they go from that to a game that is significantly larger and NOT fill the gaps with fluff.

 

I'm sure I'll find my fun here as I always do in Beth games, but it's wild to see how far open world games and the characters that inhabit them have come since Fallout 4 and Skyrim, and to see Beth just keep on truckin.

[CitizenVectron]

Day one purchase for me. Love the Fallout series, despite its flaws (which can all be fixed with mods). I expect my playthrough with Starfield will be similar:

• Play when it comes out for a while, get bored of the limitations after a few weeks/months, put it aside
• Revisit a year later when the community has fixed most of the issues
• Revisit another year later when the community has made total overhaul mods
• Revisit another year later when Bethesda has put out major patches
• Revisit another year later when the community has fixed the new broken things, etc

[Kal-El814]

1 minute ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

If this was iD, I would be confident they could pull off awesome FPS gameplay.  Bethesda -- no idea.

 

Again, we know they are not going to pull off awesome FPS gameplay. It's not in their DNA. I know this is a sizzle reel and not exactly how the game is gonna get up, but dudes in this trailer get straight up shot in the face and don't react until they die other than the usual Bethesda grunts and twitches.

[crispy4000]

1 minute ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I'll start off by saying, I really thought what they showed looked cool.

However, I wish they had showed a longer continuous gameplay section.  If this was iD, I would be confident they could pull off awesome FPS gameplay.  Bethesda -- no idea.

Starfield could either be the hands-down GOTY, or it could be a bunch of great ideas that don't quite coalesce together.  And, I have no idea which way it is going to go.

 

Open world games live and die by the fun of their systems and the interest of their environments.  Rage 2 is the poster child for why that's an issue.

 

Not knowing the where this game will end up, because of the scope of its ambition, is actually a pretty neat thing to see IMO.

[crispy4000]

16 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

Same-y looking corridors, milquetoast combat, and forgettable NPCs have been part of the Beth loop since Morrowind; this is just what they do.

 

 

Much of that is why Fallout never interested me.  I don't care about being in a drab world where everything is drab.

 

The planets being so different here should go a long way to address that problem.  Same with the cities, which look fantastic.  But if most of the shooting is clearing out copy-paste base camps, ships and space stations, no thanks.

[AbsolutSurgen]

1 minute ago, crispy4000 said:

 

Open world games live and die by the fun of their systems and the interest of their environments.  Rage 2 is the poster child for why that's an issue.

 

Not knowing the where this game will end up, because of the scope of its ambition, is actually a pretty neat thing to see IMO.

The "fun of their systems" is what I was trying to say earlier.  The gameplay I saw looked like the moment-to-moment gameplay was of a FPS -- so I called it that -- but if they "create the fun" in a different way, I'm fine with that.

 

15 minutes ago, Kal-El814 said:

 

Again, we know they are not going to pull off awesome FPS gameplay. It's not in their DNA. I know this is a sizzle reel and not exactly how the game is gonna get up, but dudes in this trailer get straight up shot in the face and don't react until they die other than the usual Bethesda grunts and twitches.

They have to do something to make it fun -- I assumed that had to be done with fun FPS gameplay, but it could be done in another way.

[TheLeon]

I think as far as planets go, it’s going to feel a lot like Mass Effect. Most planets are either empty or only good for resources, a bunch will be your destination for the kinda generic side quests, and then you’ll have a few hub worlds where most of the main story will play out. 
 

As for the action, I’m fine with sup-optimal gunplay, as long as that’s not the majority of what you’re doing in the game. It seems like there will be plenty of other things to do to break up that monotony.

[crispy4000]

11 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

They have to do something to make it fun -- I assumed that had to be done with fun FPS gameplay, but it could be done in another way.

 

Ship combat

 

[Firewithin]

6 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

 

“SSD Required”

 

 @stepee @Mr.Vic20 @AbsolutSurgen @crispy4000

overall not too bad.  my 5800x and 3080 should be just fine for 1440p

[AbsolutSurgen]

I'm still waiting for the "there needs to be a 60 fps mode a locked 30 fps is unplayable" on console complaints to start.

[The def star]

On 6/5/2023 at 9:01 AM, Keyser_Soze said:

 

@The def star

Definitely got my pair!

[best3444]

21 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I'm still waiting for the "there needs to be a 60 fps mode a locked 30 fps is unplayable" on console complaints to start.

 

I'm over a hundred hours in TOTK and 30fps is fine for me. It will be ok but obviously it would have been nice for a performance mode at 60.

[Dre801]

Yeah. . .it's gonna take me, who takes forever to finish games a long ass time to play through this one.  Jesus.

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

f this was iD, I would be confident they could pull off awesome FPS gameplay.

ID helped out with the combat in this.

[stepee]

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

I'm still waiting for the "there needs to be a 60 fps mode a locked 30 fps is unplayable" on console complaints to start.

 

Theres 27 pages and counting of this at the top of resetera if you don’t mind sharing the same fap material as me

[TwinIon]

Seriously impressed by the presentation. Not confident that Bethesda has suddenly figured out how to make procedurally generated content great, but it doesn't need to be if there's enough well crafted content to keep me going. I don't think this will suffer the same problems as No Mans Sky, which was just one loop of the same boring computer generated nothing. Not to hate too much on NMS, it got pretty good and I enjoyed it, but when everything is generated eventually the gimmick wears thin and it made me wish that there was more of a point to it. In Starfield at least I can go exploring and end up with more than just a bigger inventory.

 

The ship and base building mechanics look amazing. The ship in particular feels like the rare kind of personalization that actually matters to me in games. I could care less what my character looks like most of the time, and I'm not going to spend hours making a pretty base when I'm only going to rarely visit to pick up some materials, but it sure seems like the ship is pretty core to your experience. Being able to customize it so completely is more than an issue of ascetics.

 

I think the overall reaction on the graphics is overly harsh. I think it looks excellent for what it is. You're not going to get Final Fantasy level detail in a game this big.

 

I do hope that the combat in general and the gunplay in particular is solid. That could really elevate the whole experience for me. I can appreciate the big Bethesda RPGs, but it's always been in spite of the combat.

 

It's never been hidden, but the whole conversation view is by far the biggest bummer to me. I know you can't do a Forbidden West style "we've directed every single interaction with camera moves and blocking in mo-cap" with a game that is largely procedurally generated, but it's always going to suck when that camera locks to center frame and you have to stare directly into those cold dead eyes.