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OS Neutral StarField (Bethesda 2023, Spoilers)

maflynn said:
If memory serves me, the issue with the console, was that they promised near PC experience on the PS4 and showed off video of game play on a PS4 proving that, but when the game came out, it would not run on the a PS4. CDPR then admitted the video showing of console gaming was doctored (I forget exactly what they did). I beleive they finally admitted its' not a game for the prior generation gaming console



Starfield is fundamentally flawed, with excessive loading screens impacting the immersiveness of the game, to the fact that every place you visit is completely empty, except for one or two POIs that are largely copy pasta, i.e. they same from planet to planet. If there's any sort of side quests at those locations, they're all the same, i.e., find a scientist in a cave, etc.

When visiting POIs in skyrim, or fallout 4 you get so much lore regarding the world about you, its amazing, and quests you stumble upon are different enough that you feel that it’s different. Hell getting the shouts were different enough, even if was the same thing (going to the wall and getting the voice, how you go there was what made it enticing. With starfield, getting your dragonborn, err umm, starborn powers is the exact same. Visit the temple, fly through the stars a few times and you have it.
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Agreed… There is a framework here with much potential. Bethesda’s ambition outpaced their reality (the reality of what they capable of, compounded by doubling down on bad choices, short changing the grand scheme as originally invisioned). 🤔
 
bluecoast said:
Great points & I’d agree.

In the launch presentation for SF I was nervous that TH kept on using words like ‘sandbox’ and going on about games systems - ship & base builder, physics and procedurally generated worlds.

And that’s what we got. A game where the former games system designer over indulged his love of games systems at the expense of plot, good writing and playability.

As you say, a series of mostly empty worlds where we could build bases for no compelling reason at all.

Seemingly because the one compelling reason to build them was removed from launch - ie to farm resources to enable you to fuel your ship’s gravity drive - even BGS realised that was seriously unfun for the average player.

So yes, I’d agree that the rot in Starfield was from the top. Whenever I play it, you can absolutely see that the wider BGS team - the people who designed the art etc absolutely showed up. So many aspects of that game are high quality.

FO76. Yeah I’ve read before what you wrote about the ‘no npcs’ philosophy at launch.

Maybe we shouldn’t be surprised at how Starfield turned out as FO76 showed a misplaced faith in if you build enough games systems into the game - pvp and camps for fo76 - that that will be enough.

I’d would say though that the original main quest line for fo76 is one of the best storylines I’ve seen in fallout and a superb piece of environmental storytelling.

It’s a shame that settlers update - and other updates beyond this - means that it coexists with the other quest lines and fo76 now has the typical mmo problem of storylines that seem to take place a different times all existing at once in the game. See also: ESO.

Back to Starfield. Although I agree that game direction was a key issue, I’d still say though that the under performing CE is also a big problem.

All those loading screens in Starfield in 2023 when CP 2077 will move you seamlessly from the open world to building interiors whilst applying path tracing it it all (if you have the hardware or GeForce Now) blew SF out of the water.

And let’s not even mention the souped up fallout 4 creation engine that FO76 still uses!
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I regard CP77 as the greatest game I’ve ever played for the following reasons:
  • The premise of the main quest.
  • The most fleshed out urban environment I’ve seen. Night City is an achievement.
  • Immersive, fast moving combat, especially melee, with the movement buffs makes you feel like your the baddest ass in town.
  • Dynamic conversations your character has with others (single or multiple others) either a meeting or moving from point A to B. Even though these are still scripted, they feel much more organic than most of the time, approaching a single person for a stationary conversation. If I recall correctly, in Starfield at The Lodge, there some some group stationary conversations surrounding relics.
  • Romantic partners and general social dynamics that put Starfield’s to SHAME. With Cyberpunk, on our adventure to heist the Basilisk, I could actually project myself as part of the Nomads. To be clear, it’s just a game, but the little touches added, the time taken to program these interactions, like sitting around an atmospheric campfire with the crew, your arm around PanAm the night before, with the guitar being played (by one of the Nomads) make it easy to become immersed into the story. 🥰
 
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Huntn said:
I regard CP77 as the greatest game I’ve ever played for the following reasons:
  • The premise of the main quest.
  • The most fleshed out urban environment I’ve seen. Night City is an achievement.
  • Immersive, fast moving combat, especially melee, with the movement buffs makes you feel like your the baddest ass in town.
  • Dynamic conversations your character has with others (single or multiple others) either a meeting or moving from point A to B. Even though these are still scripted, they feel much more organic than most of the tine, approaching a single person for a stationary conversation. If I recall correctly, in Starfield at The Lodge, there some some group stationary conversations surrounding relics.
  • Romantic partners and general social dynamics that put Starfield’s to SHAME. With Cyberpunk, on our adventure to heist the Basilisk, I could actually project myself as part of the Nomads. To be clear, it’s just a game, but the little touches added, the time taken to program these interactions, like sitting around an atmospheric campfire with the crew, your arm around PanAm the night before, with the guitar being played (by one of the Nomads) make it easy to become immersed into the story. 🥰
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Yeah it’s an incredible game and certainly it’s my favourite game too, for all of the reasons you stated & more

Seeing Night City with full path tracing on whilst it’s incredible OST or radio (pacific Dreams!) plays, is an awesome incredibly evocative experience. You can almost smell the streets.

It’s like playing a mega budget per episode prestige tv show, such is the sheer quality of writing, voice acting, art direction, audio design, animation and programming.

The base game is incredible enough. But then phantom liberty is even better imho and is probably the best dlc ever made for a game.

And even more incredible given its disastrous launch. But by its 2.0 phantom liberty patch, this was one epic game.

It’s the ultimate phoenix from the ashes story (as far as gaming goes).
 
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Huntn said:
I regard CP77 as the greatest game I’ve ever played for the following reasons:
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I'm not sure exactly where I would place CP2077 in my Top 10 all-time list, very likely Top 5 ... and agree with everything you said.

But having those "what even IS my 'gaming Top 25' or whatever" thoughts brings me back to Starfield in one way - not a single Bethesda game would be in my Top 25. Zero. I have put hundreds if not thousands of hours across Morrowind through Starfield, but no.
 
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This YTer came across my feed - never saw his videos before, but I have to say I do like some of the points makes regarding starfield, and bethesda
 
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maflynn said:
This YTer came across my feed - never saw his videos before, but I have to say I do like some of the points makes regarding starfield, and bethesda
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I agree with most of this, although I did not mind the settlement aspect of Fallout 4, actually enjoyed it although I did question why with modern technology, even if it was only 19th century tech, why we were reduced to building with junk (although mods fixed this to a degree). I’ve ragged on Starfield several times in this thread as far as being antiquated in too many important aspects. For anyone to understand the real divide, take a look at Cyberpunk 2077 if you want to understand how a modern RPG should be made and executed. The differences in just about everything is stark with CP sitting not only on top, but a mile above. There is just no comparison.

2026 Starfield appraisel:
  • Main Plot- Very enticing, intriguing, but falls oh so flat as in really? ❌
  • Characters- Quality voice acting, but horribly dull boring dialog with antiquated mechanics. I could tolerate, but not desire them or enjoy them being my companion. ❌
  • Romance? forget it. Give me Cate (F4)with her even more limited dialog (in comparison) any time. At least it felt, heart felt.. ❌
  • Companion Side stories/plots- practically identical and unworthy, and one, who cares, get over it dude.❌
  • Plot lines- shallow, unsatisfying, unfinished, unrealistic, minimal impact on anything. ❌
  • Ship building- enjoyable ✅
  • Space combat- ehh, but I could accept it, played with keyboard mouse, but if you’re not whooping the crap out of everyone, your doing something wrong. 😛➖
  • Planets-nice quality ✅ , but nothing to do, exploration for exploration point’s sake, blah.❌
  • Installations on planets- generic, procedural, repetitive, sparse. ❌
  • Player home? A nice place, but really, who cares, there is nothing to do there except place some furniture. Zero reason to fly warp distances to go hang out there.➖
  • Planet based player manufacturing- What colossal busywork with zero impact or satisfaction waste of time. ❌
  • Factions- are tolerable ✅
 
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Huntn said:
Main Plot- Very enticing,
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This is where the game first fell apart imo. The plot was enticing, but once it was discovered you were the dragon-born, err, umm, star-born, it soured very quickly. It was clear the entire concept was blatantly copied from skyrim


Huntn said:
Factions- are tolerable ✅
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Yes, and missed opportunity imo. Those factions only scratched the surface and the game could have been so much better if those factions were more developed and integrated into the game.

Huntn said:
Ship building- enjoyable ✅
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This seems to be the only reason why people play the game, head over to the reddit sub, and you see more posts about someone's new ship then anything else. I'm not knocking that, just pointing out that its a fun process for many people.
 
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maflynn said:
This is where the game first fell apart imo. The plot was enticing, but once it was discovered you were the dragon-born, err, umm, star-born, it soured very quickly. It was clear the entire concept was blatantly copied from skyrim



Yes, and missed opportunity imo. Those factions only scratched the surface and the game could have been so much better if those factions were more developed and integrated into the game.


This seems to be the only reason why people play the game, head over to the reddit sub, and you see more posts about someone's new ship then anything else. I'm not knocking that, just pointing out that it’s a fun process for many people.
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Agreed. Main plot- discover the secret of the universe!!! Yeah well, your reward is to repeat your adventure in the multiverse doing the same thing over and over competing with a bunch of others trying to beat them to what end? So you acquire physical/ magic powers applying force, what do you do with them? This sounds more like a hell, than a reward.
 
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When I eventually update to MacOS 26 and when Starfield drops in price (more than it has), I'll most likely get it and play using Crossover.

 
Plutonius said:
When I eventually update to MacOS 26 and when Starfield drops in price (more than it has), I'll most likely get it and play using Crossover.

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Interesting, I didn't know that's possible on the Mac. I tried playing it on my M4 Max, but it failed in crossover. I can't recall the last time I did play starfield, but it was when I had a month of Geforce Now. I wonder how that will play on the free tier of GFN.

Maybe I have my activity list for lunch today - follow that YT and try it on crossover and compare it to the free tier of GFN
 
So I followed the steps above for getting starfield to work on crossover and my results were satisfactory. Prior making the changes, I could not run starfield, it would crash on one setting, and the other graphic settings it would sale my GPU was not up to snuff.

My first play through was on D3DMetal, Msync turned on. The game fired up and it looked like it crashed - it sat there for 60+ seconds. It finally came back to life, built the shaders and I was off like a heard of turtles. I went to Jameson, and ran around to get a sense of FPS. First I landed at night and the settings were set so I couldn't see anything the screen was black, so the night time coloring was off - need to adjust that somehow. I sat down and waited for the sunrise.

I ran around there and the results were pretty decent. I could not get above 59 FPS, and mostly staying mid to low 50 frames. The display settings defaulted to low with a resolution of 2048x1152. Visially the graphics look a bit rough, thanks to the low settings but I'm not seeing the lagging. I need to visit some higher density locations to see that goes. Flying in space was similar to running about 55 FPS, sometimes approaching 60, but not quite getting there.

I may start a new play through, since its been so long since I last played I largely forgot most of the game mechanics.

Btw, that YT above is older so a few of the steps like downloading the crossover beta is unnecessary, since crossover 25 is already out.
 
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Boosting the display quality from low to high lowered FPS down to the mid to upper 30s. Its nice that this now works, though the game short comings in of itself may be such that I don't feel like doing another play through - we'll see
 
maflynn said:
Boosting the display quality from low to high lowered FPS down to the mid to upper 30s. Its nice that this now works, though the game short comings in of itself may be such that I don't feel like doing another play through - we'll see
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It's still amazing that Starfield will now run on MacOS using Crossover.

The game itself is why I don't plan on getting it until it's at least 70% off in Steam 🙂.
 
I'm looking to do either a +1 or a brand new play through of Starfield, now that its working under crossover.

+1's advantages is that my skill tree is fully fleshed out, so starting the game, I'm over powered, though I have no weapons. The downside, is there's less reasons to do certain things because I have all the skills I need.

I'm leaning heavily to do a brand new play through, since its been years since I last played.
 
maflynn said:
I'm looking to do either a +1 or a brand new play through of Starfield, now that its working under crossover.

+1's advantages is that my skill tree is fully fleshed out, so starting the game, I'm over powered, though I have no weapons. The downside, is there's less reasons to do certain things because I have all the skills I need.

I'm leaning heavily to do a brand new play through, since its been years since I last played.
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On a re-play, I like going with a fresh start.
 
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Plutonius said:
They wanted it to be better after almost three years but, it was still painful 🙂.
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To make it better, they’d have to actually change some basic things, better dialog, better quests, planets that are actually unique from one another other than a couple of often repeated facilities and waste of time activities like surveying flora and fauna. I don’t see them doing that since the market for the game is basically set and they don’t want to take the risk.
The first time I played this , I was actually a little scared on the terramorph quest and the destroyed colony. Potential was there, but thst just came and went mostly. Yes there is another terramorph attack, but you can whoop them easily enough. 🤔
 
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Huntn said:
To make it better, they’d have to actually change some basic things, better dialog, better quests, planets that are actually unique from one another other than a couple of often repeated facilities and waste of time activities like surveying flora and fauna. I don’t see them doing that since the market for the game is basically set and they don’t want to take the risk.
The first time I played this , I was actually a little scared on the terramorph quest and the destroyed colony. Potential was there, but thst just came and went mostly. Yes there is another terramorph attack, but you can whoop them easily enough. 🤔
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His biggest complaint was all the loading screens.

I'll probably still get it when Steam has it discounted by at least 70%.
 
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