The Fallout hype is real (and I love it), but Bethesda should absolutely not abandon 'Starfield

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I keep reading that Starfield should be abandoned. I think that's a silly idea. Here's why people should be more supportive of Starfield and its potential — let devs cook.

The Fallout hype is real (and I love it), but Bethesda should absolutely not abandon 'Starfield : Read more

 

[GraniteStateColin]

Completely agree with the thesis: Starfield is a good game and deserves ongoing improvements. I fully expect it will be another Cyberpunk 2077.

Unfortunately, my main fault with Starfield (mentioned in the article too) is the repetition of bases on planets. Everything else is forgivable and "good enough" for me, given the game's other strengths. But coming upon the same exact base that I just explored a few hours earlier is soul crushing. It makes the whole experience feel fake.

It's a bit like in Oblivion where all the Daedric towers through all the Oblivion Gates were about the same. They seem great the first time, but then they start to become a chore because you already know what to do and there's really nothing to explore. But it's worse in Starfield because while those were merely similar in Oblivion, Starfield's are IDENTICAL, down no where every NPC spawns, so even if the combat could be fun, the fact that there's nothing different than the last time destroys the experience.

It makes me not want to explore planets anymore, because if I find something, I know it's almost certain to just be another something that I've already explored on another planet.

This seems difficult to fix as a fundamental problem with having a limited number of (very good) hand-crafted bases to distribute across many millions of possible planet-side landing spots (pretty much every pixel on every planet and moon map is a separate landing spot). Still, I posted possible solutions in an earlier chat here. Varying from decreasing the density of bases by increasing natural variability and random natural encounters, to randomizing NPC placement in the bases, to using crashed randomized enemy ships in place of most bases, to at least not letting the player come across the same base in rapid succession.

Exploration and stumbling on interesting things while doing it is what Bethesda has always done best. Starfield has the most potential for this, more so than in any of their other games (not just all the planets, but the rewards for discovering flora, fauna, and natural features -- excellent for those of us who like to explore), but in multiple ways, they've handicapped the overall exploration experience, breaking many of the things that worked best in Elder Scrolls and Fallout games.

 

[TBBudak]

I keep reading that Starfield should be abandoned. I think that's a silly idea. Here's why people should be more supportive of Starfield and its potential — let devs cook.

The Fallout hype is real (and I love it), but Bethesda should absolutely not abandon 'Starfield : Read more

Starfield is never going to become a good game. This isn't a Cyberpunk 2077 story, beneath the bugs and issues, there was tremendous writing in CP2077, a fascinating world, top of the line graphics. Everything that made Cyberpunk worth replaying isn't present in Starfield.

There is no sense of exploration in Starfield, no sense of discovery, no amount of 'updates' can fix that, let's also not mention the terrible writing. If it wasn't for Microsoft blacklisting journalists and giving review codes to Xbox fanboys/websites, Starfield's Metascore would be in the low 70s/high 60s.

I'm currently playing Fallout 4, and i'm blown away by how good it is. The sense of discovery is immense, everywhere you go, there is something to find, i was exploring a ruined bridge and found bodies of raiders, one of them had a note talking about how he became addicted to a 'food paste' from a university. So my pip-boy marked the location on the map.

With Starfield it's just borderline impossible to replicate that (at least in a natural way) the 'zones' you do explore don't have interesting content within them.

So yeah, they should absolutely abandon Starfield (after Shittered Space) and start working on Fallout. Who wants to wait till 2050 for a new Fallout game? I don't!