Topic: Starfield

@NintendoByNature oh wow, welcome you picked a slightly more complicated one to start with but still accessible. I think the best advice I can give is Bethesda games are designed to be lived in. Meaning you don’t have to go by standard game logic to make your way. Need items? You can make, steal, scavenge or buy them (and if you have the skill and inclination) you can steal damn near anything that isn’t nailed down. Wanna make money? You can do quests, hunt enemies (for fun), collect items to sell/be a trader without a storefront, run an outpost to produce sellable items (I know a few people are essentially drug dealers in game). You can do a lot within the limits of the game engine and go practically anywhere. The Best part? Bethesda knows many people restart their games so this time around they made it a game mechanic. Good luck!

@Ryu_Niiyama all good stuff. Thankfully, I'm not really struggling for the most part. There's only a few hiccups for me that are causing some confusion, but by no means is it all that frustrating.

I'm really enjoying it and I'm "living in the world" myself. I'm part of the vanguard and I may even take up bounty hunter too. Still just doing whatever at this point.

Welp I am stuck on the Legacy. Can’t get out in time. Edit: figured out that there are parts where my suit protection regens and I was able to limp out of there. Wooo I hated that entire quest line. Only good thing is sticking it to the pirates.

I am wrapping sidequests before moving to credits as I have now finished all factions' quests and got to the main event in the plot where you will need to choose an outcome (which I have to say I found very boring and not at all the direction I would like them to take).
The game is brilliant for me with its narrative in the sidequests (as allways) not only in the factions but also some smaller stories like the Constant or starseed just to mention a few).
However this was my first Bethesda game at launch and oh boy how were the other ones before because for me this is as buggy as you can get lol. I had crashes, freezes, people or weapons no loading, I fell through floors, etc ..

@Balta666 I can see our experiences with bugs differ greatly The only time i noticed a bug was a NPC stuck in a wall and thats in 80 hours. If anything i was really surprised at how well it ran on my Series S, especially since i heard the older games were extremely buggy around launch time.
My wife plays it on PC and also didn't encounter any crashes, freezes etc yet. So it seems the experiences from people vary in how many bugs we encounter.
To bad you encountered so many bugs since it takes away from the enjoyment of the game/.

@Balta666 s
I'm only 17 hrs in and am only a couple of faction quests in so i want to avoid any spoilers but could you say which quest lines were highlights for you? I'm finding the main quest pretty vanilla and am starting to branch out from it. I also haven't done any outpost building yet. I don't know whether I've encountered a lot of bugs or whether the enemy AI is just really bad, particularly on Alien enemies. A couple of times I've retreated and found the AI just bug out and alien enemies get to a tether range and just kinda jump up and down on the spot while I shoot them.

The game has massively grown on me. To the point where I am thinking about it during work and can't want to get back to the stars. Initially I was frustrated with many of the same complaints everyone else had, especially the seeming lack of ambition to try something new - it is basically just Fallout in space - some antiquated game design, and most notably the lack of thrilling exploration on planets. This last was definitely a backwards step to me. In short the game wasn't what I wanted it to be.

But now i'm 60+ hours in and loving it. All the smaller frustrations, while still there, are just less important to me than what the game is doing well. Last night I spent 5 hours grinding levels to maximise my Starship design skill and for the first time BUILT my own ship. There's a real sense of ownership on this one, compared to the last 3 which I got from quests or in world, and i'm looking forward to my continued adventures on it.

I'm in no rush to finish, I'm currently enjoying doing as many side quests in Neon as possible, getting a grasp on the locals, the lay of the land and the depth of it all. It's wonderfully immersive.

But I can also see why the game isn't for everyone, and even as a BGS fan I was disappointed to start with. But I've literally gone from a 7/10 to a 9/10 in a week and can see valid reasons for those scores. Can't wait to get back to exploring the universe. I think time will be very kind to Starfield.

@R1spam all factions' quests are really good. I would say my favourite is the one about Terramorphs. But those two stories I mentioned above, that are not from factions are really good highlights on my journey.
I also did not do anything regarding outposts (or put any skill points into the science tree).
I have seen many mention enemy AI as an issue but I did not find it that way in my experience. In general I have to be carefull not to die in battle as some times enemies can get onto me in groups are quite rabbid at it.

@Lavalera I wouldn't say it has diminished by enjoyment of the game as I absolutely adore it. The freezes may be due to the fact I quicksave A LOT and I tend to mash buttons to do it in quick succession... ups.
Other things like dropping from floors it only happened once where I was about to reach the night club in Neon and before the stairs I just landed on a hole in the floor and had to jump from it lol.
I would say the only really annoying thing for me is the fact that conversations happen in real time so you can be facing the back of the person or someone is in between you two. I much prefer how it goes in Witcher 3 where it just gets you to other part of the engine for example.

@themightyant couldn't agree more!

@Balta666 glad to hear that you still love it and the bugs arent that frequent. I also love it very much despite the flaws it has. Just like @themightyant describes it.
No idea how far i am it but i feel i have a lot of side and main quests to go. And am absolutely certain i will replay this game in the future again

@Balta666 Going back and reading some of yours, and others, experiences.

I've definitely had quite a few bugs too. Crashes, long loads (minutes) where i'm questioning if it's stalled, some loads that do never end where the game has to be restarted, falling through floors, some truly wacky, and amusing, companion / NPC behaviours that were as meme worthy as Mass Effect Andromeda. But nothing that killed the game for me or blocked a quest. (Better than most BGS games so far)

The two most egregious to me, because they were slightly immersion breaking AND ongoing were:

1) Andreja's head completely vanished and it wouldn't come back, not with a load or a restart. Not the best thing to happen to the character you are trying to romance. lol

2) Vasco was floating randomly above my ships hull every time I took off and flew the ship in space.

I figured out eventually I could fix them by changing my companion off Andreja and back for #1, i've had to do this twice, and moving Vasco to somewhere else other than the ship for a bit for #2. I also changed ship, somewhere in the middle this got fixed. But it was a little frustrating and killed immersion a little.

Unlike you I also think the AI is atrocious. I've been using the Starborn power to see life, including through walls, and they just stand there like morons just outside a room - clearly waiting for an in-game prompt - while I murder their friends & colleagues. And often enemies just stand there getting shot while I shoot them. It's pretty bad imho. But I agree in the open they can swarm you a little if you aren't careful. Ultimately the combat is better than other BGS games even if the AI sucks. (Witcher 3 combat sucks in that area too, it's never been a strong suit in this genre, didn't stop it being an amazing game)

And yet little of this matters to me right now. It is a jank-fest at times, but I don't care much, BGS games always have been janky, it didn't stop me loving them before, it doesn't now. Not least now i'm over the hump and enjoying what the game DOES have to offer.

@R1spam The thing about these games is that you don't actually have to follow the main quest at all if you don't want. Its often just the starting point for a Bethesda game but if you just want to go off and be an explorer, a space pirate, a smuggler, settle on as many planets as you want or build the most agile or most powerful ships, you can. You can join factions or not, decide what character/role you want to play in that world. Its a 'Role Playing' game and you don't have to 'follow' the 'role' the Story pushes you along - although its often worthwhile as a 'starting' point, but many players either get 'distracted' from completing that main story line and end up going on their own 'adventures', discovering side quests or some other interesting thing that no quest would have led you too, or try to stay on the main story and then realise they have barely scratched the surface, visited a 'tiny' fraction of the map but at least now they have the 'freedom' to go and explore, become the Role they want to be in that world.

Its basically Bethesda saying 'this' is our storyline that will help you understand the world, the systems and who the main players in that world are, the factions and the politics of it but once you have done that (or if you prefer to go off and make your own 'path') then that may help you to decide what 'role' you want your character to be in this world. Not everyone wants to spend time building their own ship or base building, exploring and scanning every planet, joining any/some/all factions or want to be 'good' or 'bad' but the game allows you to. Sometimes, the 'best' experiences can be those you just happened to stumble upon and decided to do because it felt you discovered it organically - not directed to it or even told about it and therefore had 'no' expectations...

@Ryu_Niiyama Re:Ship that travels 28LY. Did you try editing your ship using the "Upgrade" option, not the more complex "Ship Editor". It's a simpler interface that allows you to just replace important elements like the GRAV DRIVE to more powerful models very quickly. That will likely get you over 28LY.

Anyone else finding there is just never enough capacity on the ships. My last had 2000+ and I was running out. It's hard to know what to keep and what to sell.

@Balta666 it's good to hear that all the faction quests are strong. I've only done a couple of Ryujin industry quests and just joined the freestar rangers so will dig some more into those and leave the main quest for a bit. I decided to change up my playstyle a bit, changed out my follower and become a bit more of a heel and I've already found some interesting quests and choices come out from being more sarcastic and selfish. I just tried to smuggle something and its already led to something really cool. @BAMozzy I totally get that, I never finished the skyrim main quest but enjoyed the dark brotherhood questline and while I finished fallout 4, the moments that stick with me are the brotherhood of steel questline or working through vault 114 in the metro. I guess I was really trying to tease out what folks favourite quest lines were that they would recommend finding (without spoilers), as the galaxy is so big, it would be really easy to miss something amazing!

@R1spam I stopped using Sarah as soon as I could because she was a pain in the butt allways saying what I was doing was wrong, Andrea (my romance) is much cooler as long as I don't shoot a random NPC on the road...

@themightyant if you go to your room in the lodge there is an unlimited storage wall safe, I keep all my resources there. Just take all from ship + run to lodge. Bed there to heal up right after.

The only downside is if you want to craft you have to take the materials out of the safe (the lodge has all of the fabricators in the basement).

Just means you can use a smaller cargo, but abit more faffing about.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Yeah it's the faffing I don't like. Feels like a third of my first 10 hours was spent in menus or inventory management that's why I don't use the unlimited storage at the Lodge for resources. It just feels very clunky to constantly be swapping stuff between pots. I only use that locker for long term store for unique items, mostly armour, packs and weapons I might want to keep. It's better now I have a lot of credits and have realised what to pick up and what not to, but inventory is still a hassle.

I had another small janky bug I can't fix. I have a medium sized asteroid following my ship around, so anytime there is a ship animation there is an asteroid hovering with me. It's not the biggest deal but it is irritating and breaks immersion, one of the games biggest strengths. Apparently on Xbox there is no way to fix it right now short of changing ship, something I don't want to do as I just spent a fortune building and upgrading it. The only options seem to be:

• Wait for Bethesda to fix it
• Go back to an earlier save without the bug (probably lose 6+ hours)
• Install on PC and use command console to hide the asteroid. Save the game and then hope the change sticks when back on Xbox

Hopefully BGS fix this one, and some of the other bugs listed above soon otherwise I will try #3.

UPDATE: Apparently this is a common bug but I won't be trying #3 as it disables achievements too.

@themightyant I’ve had numerous bugs/crashes, especially on loading screen where it’s kicked me back to the Xbox Home Screen, it’s happened over 10 times. In 70hrs.

Best one? I’ve just finished the story, rolling the credits and it’s just crashed me back to Home Screen lol.

@PsBoxSwitchOwner Wouldn't' be a BGS game with them. But it does make me question why they get such a pass compared to some other games and studios who would be murdered for some of the things i've seen, yet with BGS it's laughable. (Not saying they should, just that it seems a bit unfair on other devs and studios)

BTW the credits getting skipped is classic "that's not a bug, that's a feature" credits are too long nowadays, you won. Lol

Hope you enjoyed the story. Having messed around doing random adventuring this week I think i'm ready to progress some main and faction quests this weekend... until I get distracted again!