Bethesda's Starfield

[Smoove_B]

I was space-looting in the opening 10 minutes of the game. No sandwiches yet, but I'm hopeful.

I played for an hour. It's definitely slow and the UI is...weird. I'm not going to say it's been optimized for a console or a controller (because I didn't feel that way). But it's going to take some getting used to.

[Punisher]

Left 1st planet, did 1st land combat, did 1st space combat, landed on 2nd planet, saved and quit as soon as I enteted the base because headache is teturning and my bidy has decided to rebel against my rebeling to stay up and play.
So far so good.
No hiccups and space combat with mouse is fine.
I did spend a good 3 minutes trying to figureout how to open that bases door before realizing that while you can loot with the scanner on you apparently can't open any doors while it's on.
Everything is on ultra on a gaming laptop with a rtx 3080 laptop gpu.
Off to bed and hopefully this breaks by morning so I can play one more day.

[Octavious]

I was space-looting in the opening 10 minutes of the game. No sandwiches yet, but I'm hopeful.

I played for an hour. It's definitely slow and the UI is...weird. I'm not going to say it's been optimized for a console or a controller (because I didn't feel that way). But it's going to take some getting used to.

All the Bethesda games are optimized for the controller. Give in! It runs ok on my PC, but I'm installing the Xbox version to see how that runs. I really need to upgrade my computer as it sounds like a jet engine when I play games and I just don't want to deal with it anymore.

One thing is for sure. There are A LOT of loading screens. They are quick, but holy hell what decade is this?

[Max Peck]

I was space-looting in the opening 10 minutes of the game. No sandwiches yet, but I'm hopeful.

No sandwiches yet, but I've acquired breakfast cereal and, most importantly, Tactical Canadian Bacon:



RIP metric system...

[jztemple2]

Two hours of playing completed. Running a nice solid 60fps with an i9-10850K, RTX 3080 and 32 GB RAM at 2560x1440. Settings, which I left at default:


Impressions... space combat with keyboard and mouse is fine, although I'm not totally sure of what I'm doing. I managed to defeat three enemy ships but I didn't have to switch around energy to different systems. I'm sure I'll have to learn more about that later.

Not a lot of onboarding to figure out what everything means. It took a while to understand that I kept being over the weight limit because I was looting every weapon I saw, just in case. I'm back to just carrying one of everything. I'm not sure if things wear out and I have to repair them. We'll see.

For instance, these suits. I'm not sure what all those categories like PHYS and ENGY mean. I guess I'll have to go to the interwebs and see, unless someone here has figured it out.


I came across lockpicking and had to find a video to explain to me what the hell I needed to do.

Pretty much all of the above are nits and probably not any different that previous Bethesda games, but my memory isn't that good on them so I'll just say that there isn't a lot of hand holding so far.

From the standpoint not of comparing Starfield to this previous game or that, just on how I'm enjoying it, so far it is pretty fun. No glitches or crashes, nothing really out of sorts. There's nothing weird about the conversation mode as I've seen mentioned in some previews, it looks fairly natural, although the person you are talking to is really, really focused on you. Things like the inventory system take some getting used to but then feels normal.

There is an amazing amount of detail in the ships and buildings, gear, everything. It is very immersive in that respect. I'm really enjoying stopping and getting close looks at everything. I can tell I'll be loading up on screenshots.

I think that's enough for now. I'll put in a couple more hours tonight and maybe do some more posting later. Please post any questions you have about things I have or haven't mentioned.

[Max Peck]

If you talk to your robot companion, there is a dialogue option that lets you trade items with him. I used that to offload weapons and miscellaneous junk that I had been picking up in the hopes of selling it to a vendor later at some point. I didn't notice if he has a maximum amount of weight that he can carry.

I believe those stats on the space suits represent the degree of protection they provide against weapon damage (Phys/Engy/EM) and what I presume to be environmental hazards (Thermal/Airborne/Corrosive/Radiation). I have no idea how to interpret the actual numeric values, other than it looks like more is better.

[Punisher]

Ugh. Can't sleep, heads pounding and I can't stop thinking about eanting to play this...

Anyway, add me to the list of hoarders.
I'm not far into the game but does anyone KNOW if all this junk has a purpose? Usegul to sell? Used for crafting (if there even is crafting)? Something else?
I'd hate to think I'm wasting time picking up all trash.

Also didn't know about trading with robot so I'll have to remember to look into that when I play again.

[Octavious]

My two hour opinion is that I should have just waited a week. Maybe I'm not understanding it, but it just feels like I'm fast traveling to tiny hub to tiny hub. The menus and interface aren't great and the game doesn't explain anything. Like I have zero clue what skills to pick or what the stats mean. I'll try some more tomorrow, but ehhh is my impression so far.

[Max Peck]

I'm not far into the game but does anyone KNOW if all this junk has a purpose? Usegul to sell? Used for crafting (if there even is crafting)? Something else?

For now, I've just been picking up stuff that seems "valuable" and was able to sell it at a vendor when I got to a spaceport. At some point, when base building becomes a thing, a lot of the stuff will likely be usable for decorating. The selling price was significantly less than the value shown when examining the items, so it's likely no great loss to leave most of the junk where you find it.

Some of the stuff is for crafting, and I believe it says so in the item description when you look at it. IIRC, the crafting resources have their own category in inventory.

[Max Peck]

As suspected, they withheld DLSS support.

As expected, there's already a mod for that.

Starfield Upscaler - Replacing FSR2 with DLSS or XeSS

OVERVIEW

Plugin to replace FSR2 with DLSS/XeSS in Starfield. This version only support DLSS2 and not DLSS3.


REQUIREMENTS

Upscaler Base Plugin


INSTALLATION

1. Extract this mod to the game's root folder.
2. Install Upscaler Base Plugin, place the PDPerfplugin.dll into mods/UpscalerBasePlugin folder.
3. You need to download nvngx_dlss.dll or libxess.dll, and place them into mods/UpscalerBasePlugin folder. Check UpscalerBasePlugin's description.
4. If you can't get step 2 and 3 working properly, just place the dlls the same folder as Starfield.exe, it should also work.
5. Press END in the game to open the menu for the upscaler, and you can select DLSS or XeSS.
6. You need to turn on FSR2 in the game's settings, cuz this mod replaces FSR2 with DLSS/XeSS.
7. There's no quality levels anymore, you simply change the render scaling ratio in the game's settings.

[Grifman]

I'm not far into the game but does anyone KNOW if all this junk has a purpose? Usegul to sell? Used for crafting (if there even is crafting)? Something else?

For now, I've just been picking up stuff that seems "valuable" and was able to sell it at a vendor when I got to a spaceport. At some point, when base building becomes a thing, a lot of the stuff will likely be usable for decorating. The selling price was significantly less than the value shown when examining the items, so it's likely no great loss to leave most of the junk where you find it.

Some of the stuff is for crafting, and I believe it says so in the item description when you look at it. IIRC, the crafting resources have their own category in inventory.

Junk is just that junk - not used for anything and enough money pours in that it is not worth picking up to sell. But you do want to pick up crafting materials. Check your inventory screen to see which category an item falls into if you have any question.

[jztemple2]

Thanks, I did figure out that I can store stuff in the robot, although there is a limit.

You can sell stuff at vendors, but I'm not really gotten into that. I went from my introductory battle with the pirates on to New Atlantis and have been doing things there. I did a main mission, then switched off to activities. Again, without revealings spoilers, I managed to go to what seemed like an easy activities to something way more complex. However, it was interesting.

My biggest issue is that there is no map function in New Atlantis. I have to try to remember where the hell everything is. And there is a lot of stuff there. For folks with good memories it shouldn't be a problem, but I'm still getting lost. But just like in GTA5, eventually I'll get familiar with the place.

After four hours, which admittedly isn't a lot, my snap impression is that just like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup, someone has gotten Cyberpunk 2077 into my No Man's Sky . Or vice versa. And I'm starting to rush a little bit, which is bad on my part. I was doing an activity that had me going from place to place and I was missing all the little nuances of the place (it's The Well and it's quite sizable). I need to slow down and smell the... well, it's nasty down there

Finally, again without revealing any spoilers, I am totally lost at how to use a Research Station properly. And I'm not even sure I know why I'm researching stuff. This is another thing I'll need to step back and take some time considering.

[Max Peck]

FYI, for anyone that's feeling splurgey and likes watches, Amazon.ca has the Constellation Edition available for pre-order again. I presume that means that they will actually have some available to ship (albeit not in time for the early access period).

https://www.amazon.ca/dp/B0C7LYLFW7

It was not meant to be. Amazon let me place the order back when I posted this, but instead of shipping today, they just cancelled it instead. I suppose that means that they either never had it in stock in the first place, or that some Amazon warehouse worker scored themselves a CE copy of Starfield today. We'll never know which it was...

Although it seems a little weird that cancelling the order didn't generate an email notification.

At any rate, fate has saved me from my own fiscal irresponsibility. Huzzah!

[malchior]

My two hour opinion is that I should have just waited a week.

After 4 hours honestly I am regretting I bought this at full price at all. It's very underwhelming so far and doesn't match the price tag. I'm feeling a little ripped off.

Maybe I'm not understanding it, but it just feels like I'm fast traveling to tiny hub to tiny hub.

Yup. It's an achievement for an "open-world" space game to make me feel so acutely aware of the invisible walls. Even entering the space ship requires a transition. It feels like a 15 year old game that has been re-skinned.

The menus and interface aren't great and the game doesn't explain anything. Like I have zero clue what skills to pick or what the stats mean. I'll try some more tomorrow, but ehhh is my impression so far.

Same here. I'd personally rate this in that low to mid-70s range. It's very disappointing for a AAA game. I mean it's competently done but I should have learned my lesson from the recent Bethesda releases. They are just coasting along.

[Octavious]

When I went to bed I was thinking maybe I'll just do a super mod install of Fallout 4 instead of playing this. So ya.... In contrast I was bouncing around the room in awe when I played BG3 last week. So it's not like I'm totally dead inside. Just mostly.

[malchior]

Right. It's not about being jaded. I think if you honestly consider this game...it's mediocre so far. Maybe the story will bring it up but the writing and performances so far? I severely doubt it. BG3 is a great comparison. That game made some odd choices as well and like this game they mostly work. However, BG3 has a depth of gameplay/writing/performance that just stands out in relief to me. This might be like when you drink a fine wine and then have a glass of good wine right after. It's naturally going to disappoint a little.

[Octavious]

It's 2023 and I'm getting a load screen sometimes within feet of each other. Like what in the actual f? There's buildings in the main city where you walk into the building (load screen) walk 5 feet to an elevator (load screen). Like this is shit we saw with I think Deus Ex when they had to cram the game into small areas to account for consoles. I think might just play something else when I get home.

[Apollo]

Well, I've heard that the first dozen hours or so suck then things get much better. I guess the trick is getting through those first 12 hours.

[GreenGoo]

I enjoy this guy and feel he goes out of his way to be objective, which seems rare these days.

[Octavious]

I'll certainly slog through it a bit to see if it grows on me, but I'll probably just wait until next week. I have like zero pull to dive back into that on a Friday night. If that isn't a resounding endorsement I don't know what is! Skyrim and Fallout 4 in the 1st 2 hours they totally rope you into what's going on. This is just like they punt you off into space and say go at it. The beginning just feels so half assed.

[malchior]

I used to be a venturer like you...

"I saw you come in on your ship. Nice ride!" - random guard in large city.

[hentzau]

I played for about an hour last night...it's very pretty. But I do agree, the HUD is currently kind of clunky. Also, I had the game crash on me at about an hour. So that wasn't cool. (Xbox Series X)

But my biggest concern, is...I don't know what to do now. I kind of feel stuck right now and the quest prompts are not helping at all.

Spoiler:

So fought off the pirates (and that reminded me of how much I suck at FPS games). Made it off planet, fought the space battles. My robot tells me to go to talk to the pirate king. I fly to the planet (I think) that I'm supposed to be on, land, and I see from the map a few structures.
So I go out of my ship, thinking I need to go to one of those places, but the guiding bug icon keeps pointing me back to my ship. I ignored it and walked to the largest structure but couldn't find my way in. Then the game crashed and I was annoyed and didn't restart.

So am I missing something? Am I on the wrong planet? I'm finding it rough, because the quest description gives almost 0 details that I can use a a clue to figure out where I'm supposed to go.

[jztemple2]

I played for about an hour last night...it's very pretty. But I do agree, the HUD is currently kind of clunky. Also, I had the game crash on me at about an hour. So that wasn't cool. (Xbox Series X)

But my biggest concern, is...I don't know what to do now. I kind of feel stuck right now and the quest prompts are not helping at all.

Spoiler:

So fought off the pirates (and that reminded me of how much I suck at FPS games). Made it off planet, fought the space battles. My robot tells me to go to talk to the pirate king. I fly to the planet (I think) that I'm supposed to be on, land, and I see from the map a few structures.
So I go out of my ship, thinking I need to go to one of those places, but the guiding bug icon keeps pointing me back to my ship. I ignored it and walked to the largest structure but couldn't find my way in. Then the game crashed and I was annoyed and didn't restart.

So am I missing something? Am I on the wrong planet? I'm finding it rough, because the quest description gives almost 0 details that I can use a a clue to figure out where I'm supposed to go.

Sounds like you are on the right planet, but don't have the quest selected so the guidance isn't there. Otherwise I don't really have any other ideas.

I guess I have the advantage of not having played BG3 or remembering Skyrim and Fallout 4 all that well so I'm not doing a lot of comparing with other games. I finished the first main mission with its dozen or so objectives and now I'm just going to do faction missions and activities for awhile.

[Max Peck]

It may just be a matter of tastes and expectations, for that matter. This is my third "big" release this summer, following JA3 and BG3, and I'm having a good time with Starfield too (although I'm still very early, having just arrived at the clubhouse). Of course, I have a type and I've never really met a Bethesda RPG or Ubisoft open world game that I didn't enjoy well enough to feel I more than got my money's worth of entertainment.

[malchior]

Don't get me wrong - it's well done and there is tons to do. It's got a very sandbox feel with a hint of an epic story in the center. We'll see if the parts up to more but you can definitely see all the seams where they stitched it together.

[Octavious]

I'll give it another shot probably this weekend, but this is how I felt when I went to sleep. Maybe it's just that their intro sucks balls and it opens up later? I sure hope so as fast traveling to a small zone to another small zone isn't at all what I want to play like ever.

[disarm]

How much better would a lot of you feel about this if it just had a modern engine that eliminated loading screens?

Here we have Bethesda squeezing by with modifications to an ancient engine, while CDPR just announced that they're stopping development on expansions for Cyberpunk so they can focus on moving to UE5 instead of their old engine.

[Max Peck]

II sure hope so as fast traveling to a small zone to another small zone isn't at all what I want to play like ever.

At least one of the small zones where the opening storyline takes you as part of the tutorial process isn't actually all that small if you ignore the script, set out to explore and go looking for trouble.

[Octavious]

It's not just loading screens it's the basic design from the small bit I've seen so far. It's like if you played the Fallout 4 intro and when the bomb drops you just fast travel into the bunker instead of running over. And when you escape the shelter you just fast travel from the 1st town to the next town without wandering around. The wandering around is the part I like. RDR2 I can just wander the woods for a few hours and I'm happy. I totally avoided watching what this game would be and just assumed it was like their other games. So far it feels like it dropped back a decade in game design.

[Smoove_B]

I'd agree that based on my ~60 minutes, it definitely feels like a step backwards in terms of what other open-world games have done in the last 5+ years.

I've wandered a bit and that was kinda like walking around in Skyrim. But then you get to your spaceship? You're entering an Inn. Get to a building or outpost? You're entering an inn.

[Octavious]

Watching a few videos at lunch and it seems that the intro just sucks balls and then it opens up more. So I'll plug along a bit more and see if my impressions change, but they nailed the opening of every other game I've played so it's jarring.

So far this is just like Cyberpunk where I don't feel connected to the world at all. RDR2 I was hooked from the intro to the nanosecond the game ended. GTAV same thing. Skyrim fuck ya...Fallout 4 kind of fell apart in the middle but hot damn wandering around is fun.

[Kurth]

It's not just loading screens it's the basic design from the small bit I've seen so far. It's like if you played the Fallout 4 intro and when the bomb drops you just fast travel into the bunker instead of running over. And when you escape the shelter you just fast travel from the 1st town to the next town without wandering around. The wandering around is the part I like. RDR2 I can just wander the woods for a few hours and I'm happy. I totally avoided watching what this game would be and just assumed it was like their other games. So far it feels like it dropped back a decade in game design.

I’m not sure I get the annoyance at the fast travel. One thing I hate more than most is when games make me slog through traveling from point A to point B. I love me some fast travel!

And it’s not like you can’t land on a planet and spend forty or fifty minutes (or more) running/walking across the terrain to see what you run into. These maps are not small.

So, it seems to me what we’re getting shorted on is the ability to sit in our ships and fly through the vacuum of space.

I think I’m ok with that.

[Max Peck]

Technically, you can start wandering around in Starfield almost from the start. When you get to the very first destination after getting the ship, there's nothing stopping you from going off script and exploring if you want to do so. I spent a couple of hours doing that last night before getting back on board the ship and flying off to meet my destiny.

Apparently the loading screens don't bother me. If it weren't for everyone talking about them, I'm not sure that it would have consciously registered with me that they are even there for the most part.

[Octavious]

From what I've seen you can run around for 45 minutes, but you aren't going to find much of anything. I so would love to come back after the weekend and say I'm totally wrong. My issue with how the fast travel is done is that it totally kills any immersion that you are even traveling. I was given a quest opened a menu and fast traveled to an entirely different solar system in seconds. If I had been there before sure I guess that's okay, but no I can just teleport anywhere in the universe at a whim. It's totally lame to me.

I'm going to leave it at that and play some more. I'm totally cranky pants for no reason. The funny thing is that I had zero expectations that this would be anywhere near as good as something like Skyrim and I just feel like this is WAYYYY under that to a shocking degree. Or I just need to explore more and realize it's just slightly different. We'll see.

[jztemple2]

Apparently the loading screens don't bother me. If it weren't for everyone talking about them, I'm not sure that it would have consciously registered with me that they are even there for the most part.

+1 for me regarding this

[Smoove_B]

Was it Oblivion on PC that had the "loading" message every 10 seconds when you were walking around outside? I seem to remember enabling a mod someone created on Day 0 to remove that message because it was absurd.

[malchior]

It's not just loading screens it's the basic design from the small bit I've seen so far. It's like if you played the Fallout 4 intro and when the bomb drops you just fast travel into the bunker instead of running over. And when you escape the shelter you just fast travel from the 1st town to the next town without wandering around. The wandering around is the part I like. RDR2 I can just wander the woods for a few hours and I'm happy. I totally avoided watching what this game would be and just assumed it was like their other games. So far it feels like it dropped back a decade in game design.

I’m not sure I get the annoyance at the fast travel. One thing I hate more than most is when games make me slog through traveling from point A to point B. I love me some fast travel!

I don't think this is the root of the comments - at least for me. New Atlantis and rando planets are indeed big and fast travel isn't an issue versus having to trudge back. It's that if you want an immersive illusion of a big living, open world...this isn't that game. When you play Elite Dangerous for instance it is more on the soulless sandbox end but you feel the *expanse of it*. When you wander in RDR2 it isn't big compared to say the real southwest but it feels big and there is a lot of interesting content packed into it. This isn't that either. Instead it feels pretty soulless and empty outside the mission content.

I'm going to hazard a fairly easy guess that this game is going to be divisive. People who can put the seams behind them will enjoy it more than people who can't help but see them. Just to illustrate, when I got to a mission star base and boarded, there was a loading screen to enter what can only be described as a "loading dungeon" of only a few rooms. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they needed it because the "main dungeon" wasn't terribly big either. It is as Smoove_B describes it a series of inns connected by a few different mechanics. I want to be clear it's not bad but for me the juice ain't worth the squeeze so far.

[Octavious]

Yes this... It's just odd as all their previous games weren't like this one. Oh well. I'm considering loading up NMS as they dropped a new update. I never could get into it for more than a few hours, but maybe this time?

[Hamlet3145]

It's not just loading screens it's the basic design from the small bit I've seen so far. It's like if you played the Fallout 4 intro and when the bomb drops you just fast travel into the bunker instead of running over. And when you escape the shelter you just fast travel from the 1st town to the next town without wandering around. The wandering around is the part I like. RDR2 I can just wander the woods for a few hours and I'm happy. I totally avoided watching what this game would be and just assumed it was like their other games. So far it feels like it dropped back a decade in game design.

I’m not sure I get the annoyance at the fast travel. One thing I hate more than most is when games make me slog through traveling from point A to point B. I love me some fast travel!

I don't think this is the root of the comments - at least for me. New Atlantis and rando planets are indeed big and fast travel isn't an issue versus having to trudge back. It's that if you want an immersive illusion of a big living, open world...this isn't that game. When you play Elite Dangerous for instance it is more on the soulless sandbox end but you feel the *expanse of it*. When you wander in RDR2 it isn't big compared to say the real southwest but it feels big and there is a lot of interesting content packed into it. This isn't that either. Instead it feels pretty soulless and empty outside the mission content.

I'm going to hazard a fairly easy guess that this game is going to be divisive. People who can put the seams behind them will enjoy it more than people who can't help but see them. Just to illustrate, when I got to a mission star base and boarded, there was a loading screen to enter what can only be described as a "loading dungeon" of only a few rooms. I couldn't figure out for the life of me why they needed it because the "main dungeon" wasn't terribly big either. It is as Smoove_B describes it a series of inns connected by a few different mechanics. I want to be clear it's not bad but for me the juice ain't worth the squeeze so far.

This kinda sounds to me that they just don't have a very modern game engine. I looked it up and Starfield uses Creation Engine 2 which is a modified version of Creation Engine 1 which came out in . . . checks notes . . . 2011.

Anyhow, it still sounds good enough for my $58 standard edition version. I suspect I'm in the camp that will just shrug and wait for the two room shack to load.

[Max Peck]

From what I've seen you can run around for 45 minutes, but you aren't going to find much of anything.

I found exploration to be sort of a toned-down NMS experience. I scanned some plants, which all seemed to be the same species and it looked like I needed to scan a bunch of them to get a full reading. I also harvested a variety of mineral resources, as well as resources from the plants, and checked out some procedurally generated pirate facilities where I skirmished with pirates and was eventually run off by a combat robot of some sort. When I had my fill, I returned to the ship by bringing up my scanner, pointing it at the ship and hitting the hot key to fast trave back.