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Early Starfield thoughts
7 Sep 2023 09:19 amTime to revive this for posts that don't fit into twitter/mastodon/bsky:
Updated after five days in #Starfield:
It has been described as "No Man's Skyrim" and "Fallout in Space" and that's exactly it. There's nothing new or revolutionary about it but it looks pretty solid in terms of playability and bugs, which is pretty impressive for Bethesda at launch. There's a lot less flying in space than what various promos suggested, you just jump from system to system and inside a system you click the planet you want to go to and the ship flies there on its own. Landing and docking is automatic, too (which, frankly, I'm OK with, the days of Elite are over).
The cities (I've only seen one which seems to be your base of operations, at least at the beginning) are pretty but not spectacular. What I'm really disappointed with is the character models of the NPCs. They lack in detail and the facial animations aren't any better than those from The Outer Worlds, which was released over five years ago. Pretty shocking for a late '23 AAA title. Baldur's Gate 3 has more expressive and emotional character models.
Dialogues are fully voice acted and pretty decent but again quite average. As in BG3, your lines aren't spoken in game, only the NPCs'.
It's early days but the main plot of collecting mysterious artifacts isn't gripping me yet (come on, think of something new!). The side/faction missions sound a lot more interesting.
UPDATE: The side content is definitely more interesting. I will be doing everything I can before continuing the main one. There are so many actual interesting stories. Obviously, there are some basic fetch quests, too.
For my character background, I went for Chef which might not be the best one but I'm always the roleplayer, not min maxer. I love that you get a free skill point in Duelling (melee weapons). Characters only have skills (a huge tree), no attributes/stats. You also have three Traits (various background options, allegiances to factions, and certain game mechanic things like bonuses/penalties to certain skills in certain situations).
UPDATE: I really like that - similar to BG3 - you can resolve various quests using the "Persuade" skill, which can be augmented by items. There are a number of social skills you can use in combat (make enemies run away, stop attacking, etc.) which I haven't explored yet because you only get one skill point per level up and I've invested mostly in health and combat.
Inventory management is a mess and it needs a "Mark as Junk" option and traders need a "Sell all Junk" option. Loot is probably the best way to make credits in the beginning.
What I really hope gets patched soon is the audio. Quite often, sounds and even dialogue lines just either cut out or are replaced by static. Quitting to main menu and reloading seems to fix this most of the time, at least. The other issue is that sometimes environmental chatter isn't muted during conversations, or you're on your ship talking to another ship/station and suddenly a crew member starts a conversation, too. The same can happen when playing recordings.
UPDATE: Mentioning patches, the game has been out since the 31st of August (there was no update/day one patch on the general release date on the 6th) and there still hasn't been a patch. During the time, Larian had already released two hotfixes for BG3. Sounds like they're going to let the modders do all the hard work again.
I haven't even looked at setting up outposts and building ships yet, that seem like entire games in their own right from various bits I've seen online.
Overall, I like the experience but it doesn't compare to BG3 in terms of scope of story, characters and world building, at least not so far. Exploring planets (so far) is just ticking boxes (gather all resources, scan all flora/fauna etc.). Some random buildings have enemies at/in them but unless you happen across a side quest, they're just XP fodder.
So, as a preliminary point, it's OK, some parts are fun. I'm definitely far less immersed than in BG3 and I'm glad I didn't have to pay any money for it (other than the monthly Game Pass fee which gives me loads more games on top)
Performance: On my 3 years old PC (i7, RTX 2080 Super, 32GB RAM), I'm getting just over 30fps on Ultra and just under 60 on High. There isn't much picture quality between the two so High is good enough for me.
Updated after five days in #Starfield:
It has been described as "No Man's Skyrim" and "Fallout in Space" and that's exactly it. There's nothing new or revolutionary about it but it looks pretty solid in terms of playability and bugs, which is pretty impressive for Bethesda at launch. There's a lot less flying in space than what various promos suggested, you just jump from system to system and inside a system you click the planet you want to go to and the ship flies there on its own. Landing and docking is automatic, too (which, frankly, I'm OK with, the days of Elite are over).
The cities (I've only seen one which seems to be your base of operations, at least at the beginning) are pretty but not spectacular. What I'm really disappointed with is the character models of the NPCs. They lack in detail and the facial animations aren't any better than those from The Outer Worlds, which was released over five years ago. Pretty shocking for a late '23 AAA title. Baldur's Gate 3 has more expressive and emotional character models.
Dialogues are fully voice acted and pretty decent but again quite average. As in BG3, your lines aren't spoken in game, only the NPCs'.
It's early days but the main plot of collecting mysterious artifacts isn't gripping me yet (come on, think of something new!). The side/faction missions sound a lot more interesting.
UPDATE: The side content is definitely more interesting. I will be doing everything I can before continuing the main one. There are so many actual interesting stories. Obviously, there are some basic fetch quests, too.
For my character background, I went for Chef which might not be the best one but I'm always the roleplayer, not min maxer. I love that you get a free skill point in Duelling (melee weapons). Characters only have skills (a huge tree), no attributes/stats. You also have three Traits (various background options, allegiances to factions, and certain game mechanic things like bonuses/penalties to certain skills in certain situations).
UPDATE: I really like that - similar to BG3 - you can resolve various quests using the "Persuade" skill, which can be augmented by items. There are a number of social skills you can use in combat (make enemies run away, stop attacking, etc.) which I haven't explored yet because you only get one skill point per level up and I've invested mostly in health and combat.
Inventory management is a mess and it needs a "Mark as Junk" option and traders need a "Sell all Junk" option. Loot is probably the best way to make credits in the beginning.
What I really hope gets patched soon is the audio. Quite often, sounds and even dialogue lines just either cut out or are replaced by static. Quitting to main menu and reloading seems to fix this most of the time, at least. The other issue is that sometimes environmental chatter isn't muted during conversations, or you're on your ship talking to another ship/station and suddenly a crew member starts a conversation, too. The same can happen when playing recordings.
UPDATE: Mentioning patches, the game has been out since the 31st of August (there was no update/day one patch on the general release date on the 6th) and there still hasn't been a patch. During the time, Larian had already released two hotfixes for BG3. Sounds like they're going to let the modders do all the hard work again.
I haven't even looked at setting up outposts and building ships yet, that seem like entire games in their own right from various bits I've seen online.
Overall, I like the experience but it doesn't compare to BG3 in terms of scope of story, characters and world building, at least not so far. Exploring planets (so far) is just ticking boxes (gather all resources, scan all flora/fauna etc.). Some random buildings have enemies at/in them but unless you happen across a side quest, they're just XP fodder.
So, as a preliminary point, it's OK, some parts are fun. I'm definitely far less immersed than in BG3 and I'm glad I didn't have to pay any money for it (other than the monthly Game Pass fee which gives me loads more games on top)
Performance: On my 3 years old PC (i7, RTX 2080 Super, 32GB RAM), I'm getting just over 30fps on Ultra and just under 60 on High. There isn't much picture quality between the two so High is good enough for me.
