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You mean to tell me that you never used fast travel in any of those games? If memory serves there are loading screens when entering buildings and settlements in FO4 and Skyrim as well.
For me Starfield is a mess of design problems. Or "lack of design". Outer Worlds suffered mostly from not having the resources to execute its vision (not enough time in the proverbial oven), but has significantly more thoughtfulness in terms of design.
Again I'd say the Big Mac is trash. And I think with McDonald's in particular, people know it's trash but continue to eat it anyway.
I do agree that people do hate-bandwagon things, but only if they also actually agree. Criticism helps people to identify why they like particular things or dislike particular things. Which is the same with every kind of criticism. Like with food or films, etc.
What's important to remember is that games are an art, and you can't just buy art and expect it to always be a master piece because you get the right kind of managerial skills. If the story writers of Starfield spend more time in fantasy football than in Star Trek or Star Wars then I wouldn't expect the game to be good. If the content creators aren't sitting down and crafting massive interesting side quests, and instead have a lot of experience with mobile games and brought busy work experience into a game like Starfield then don't expect the game to be good. A good game requires a very good team to craft a good game.
Name some then. I haven't played Skyrim in years, but I have very found memories of Blackbreach, Dwavren Automations and the cities they inhabit. Parts of the game like when you go to the very far north east to find a vault that has a book in it, or that area where you find a giant orb called the the Eye of Magnus. Even in Fallout 3 and 4 you get a giant robot that spews out propaganda and can pick up a giant monster and fling it like it was nothing. Starfield is in space, so there had better be a giant robot. In Fallout 4 I still remember entering the Institute and listening to the music while taking in all the lore that they're behind the creation of fake humans.
How is that outdated game design? That's the entire Dark Souls/Eldin Ring franchise as a whole. Nobody likes wasting their time farming to get a bigger number. That's why Baldur's Gate 3 is game of the year, where you can literally find a dungeon or cave that's looks like a puddle but is as deep as an ocean. In Baldur's Gate 3 I walk into a building and figure out a way to open a portal to enter hell where I fight the devil named Raphael who drops legendary loot, and that dude wasn't easy. Took me a number of tries beating him. The dude is so charismatic and narcissistic that I loved beating him down. The voice acting quality in BG3 is just top notch. Game is absolutely buggy is hell, and certainly buggier than Starfield.
Exploring a copy and paste location is not a reward, and Starfield is full of those. What makes the location interesting is what's in it. A super weapon is icing on the cake, but ideally should have a good enough reward to make it worth exploring. Give me lore, give me gameplay, or give me tits. Most games are flatter than a D4 character, so it had better do the first two right. I don't like games where I have to grind and kill an enemy 50+ times to craft a weapon that I'll most likely stop using shortly after. In that 12 hours I could be playing the boring parts of Starfield, I could be playing a good game.
Lol.
That's the most copium I've ever heard of. Starfield has an army of people defending it because its an exclusive Xbox game. Even though it's technically not exclusive since it's on PC, but whatever. If anything it seems Starfield has similar problems with Fallout 76, because it has a lot of elements from Fallout 76. Boring wide areas with lots of busy work, but nothing of value to be found. If there is value to be found, it's far and few between the long boring empty areas that doesn't make up for it.
It’s trash because what made those games awesome (though flawed) was the exploration and world, interesting side quests, etc.
Another example of this is Breath of the Wild vs Tears of the Kingdom. I can tell you that there's no reason to ever play Breath of the Wild, because Tears of the Kingdom is just that much better. In fact, TOTK uses the same world as BOTW with minor changes. The problem with BOTW was the world was mostly empty, with stupid things like Korok mini quests that help to fill it out. This was such a hated mechanic that people created the Korok Space Program just to torture these things as revenge of this crap in BOTW which they brought back in TOTK. At least now TOTK has places to explore like the sky and underground which fills the game out better. Traveling in TOTK is so much better too since you can easily create a flying machine and get across it in no time. Getting the Master Sword is no longer a late game item that sucks, and has respectable damage.
C`mon at least don't insult my intelligence. If you were just innocently stating an opinion as you claim, you wouldn't have started with "two words" like you are having a mic drop moment. Which I bet you thought you had. But when I pointed out that other highly acclaimed games have even less of a sense of space then "don't debate me, bro"? I'm sorry but it's not up for debate that I'm calling out falsities.
Ironically to me Outer worlds felt more like new vegas in space, than Starfield is Fallout in space. I think Outer Worlds suffered from many things like bad pacing and lack of characterization.
I'm not too familiar with those two or their prior works. Never played their games except for Fallout 1 and 2, but I can't say I'm a big fan of those either. Starfield presents a much more believable and plausible world, one that is easier for me to get immersed in. The most fun for me in Starfield isn't pursuing the main quest, or even doing the big sidequests while those are fun too. Being immersed in exploration gave me countless hours of fun, multitudes more than Outer Worlds ever did. And I liked Outer Worlds too, don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to drag it down to make Starfield look better.
Name what? Locations? Many of the locations I enjoyed didn't even have a name, nor did I care to memorize them. And even if I did me listing names would be an exercise in futility as they'd mean nothing to you. Just as those names you mention are completely meaningless to me. I agree that the underground dwarven cities were awesome in Skyrim, but that's just about what stuck with me outside of the launch day bugs. The only memorable character to me from TES is the bookshop owner in Oblivion and I can't even recall his name.
I already explained how. The locations should be interesting to explore in of themselves you should be excited by the architecture and lore you might find. You mentioned the dwarven cities in skyrim so you should know exactly what I'm talking about. If the only reason you go into the cave is because there might be a carrot on a stick at the end of it, then it is a grind and a waste of time. I want to feel excited to go down the alleyway even if I know I'll find no high value item at the end of it. Imagine being on a sightseeing tour, you don't go down every street, only the ones that seem interesting. Going down every alleyway and cave and dungeon to see what the devs put there for you to find is exactly the outdated game design I speak about. Locations shouldn't be obviously made for the player's benefit.
That explains why I think those games are overhyped crap. Even Armored Core 6 plays like it was designed in the early 1990s or late 1980s. And people call Starfield outdated?
Going into every cave to find what the devs put there for my benefit feels very much like farming to me.
If every dungeon is like that it is immersion breaking. Game worlds shouldn't be designed focused on the player, but as living breathing, believable words first and foremost. This is why I love the scorned Ubisoft open world games, like AC Odyssey, Valhalla, or Ghost Recon Wildlands and Breakpoint. Because the world doesn't revolve around the player, you feel like a small cog instead of a prime mover. It is peak immersion to me, especially in their unguided modes where you actually need to find locations by reading the scenery and the terrain as opposed to being led there by GPS.
You might be on to something, I forgot it is free on game pass. The exact same scenario played out when Mass Effect Andromeda was free in early access to EA subscribers. A ton of people who wasn't even really interested in it played it and made memes of it, and gave it an unfair bad reputation. It's not unthinkable that the same is happening to Starfield. I really hope this puts the nails in the coffin of the loathsome idea of "games as a service".
That's some pretty big cope. If having "financial attachment" mattered, then why are steam reviews fairly negative?
So why are the steam reviews so negative? Last time I checked you have to own a game on steam to review it.
Considering the authors of New Vegas and Outer Worlds, that is some-what aprospos. Fallout 2 and New Vegas are connected by Chris Avellone, another super-star writer.
I would say your description is at least some-what fair. I can remember all of the companions in Outer Worlds and the main story characters, and that is more than I can say for any Todd Howard game.
This is highly subjective of course. But anyone who has thoroughly played Fallout 1/2 would call them 2 of the best RPG's of all time. And certainly top amongst tactical RPG games. Like XCom and now with some degree of resurgence, DoS 1/2 and BG3.
I think this sentence says it all. Not to be critical of you, what I hear you saying is that a game is better for you because it has endless, empty, procedural generation.
If it was memorable you should be able to describe it. When I say that Fallout 3/4 has a giant robot that spews out propaganda about democracy, you'd know what I'm talking about.
Ideally it should be both rewarding in both adventure and item. Visiting the underground caves would usually reward you with something cool and unique surroundings. If you reward me in only scenery then I won't come back again. Reward me in items only then I'll come back and call it a grind. Reward me with both and I call it a good game. This is why I watch videos of Skyrim lore because I wanted to know what happened.
The problem with that is that I would be looking at every planet because I would think there's hidden treasure or at least something interesting to see. You know what other game that made this mistake? Well there was No Man's Sky, but I mean Mass Effect 1. You could land on planets and explore nothing.
Or just don't allow me to explore a planet that wasn't meant to be explored. In Mass Effect 2 they allow you to scan planets and if there's something of value you can land on it. Also the music helps.
Your taste in games is not well received. AC Odyssey has a user rating of 6.6, which if I remember had micro-transactions and limited players progression unless they did a lot of boring side quests. AC Valhalla got a 7.2, but I never played this game so I wouldn't know why it wasn't well received. Ghost Recon Wildlands got a 6.5. Breakpoint got a 3.2.
Where as the games I consider good get much higher scores. Skyrim has a user rating of 8.6. Baldur's Gate 3 has a 8.9. Fallout 3 has a 8.5. Fallout 4 got a 6.8, which is the lowest of my choices. Fallout New Vegas got a 8.8.
I imagine you had your pinky pointed up in the air while you typed that as you sipped evian.
Open worlds are easy, populating them with enjoyable and relevant content is expensive.
Part of me wonders how much if at all the writers strike impacted dialog and story in the game. But part of me doesn’t care, a baker can blame their staffing all they want but at the end of the day they are still on the hook if the cake you ordered is a dressed up shit sandwich.
There's a difference from just placing enemies in locations to act as a path of resistance to a player, and games like Dark Souls. In Dark Souls games your encounter with every enemy was well crafted, and wasn't just something you would mindlessly killed to get from A to B. This isn't new game design, as Dark Souls plays on old game design but brought back. Games like Mega Man 2 and Zelda 1 & 2 were designed like this. To craft games like this is extremely time consuming, and requires skill. Open world games would require a much larger investment, which is why a lot of them don't. Instead of placing enemies in a spot for a specific reason, they are either placed randomly or spawned in at certain moments.
The only reason the game industry today goes open world is the same reason single player games made in the 2000's all had multiplayer that nobody used, because the people at the top wanted this feature because it sold more games. It obviously doesn't, which is why Baldur's Gate 3 is doing well and isn't an open world game.
The things that were missing in Fallout 4 that made people hate the game were probably removed to cut back in development time. Giving the player alternative endings based on your actions, while also putting in a Karma system that changed outcomes throughout the game was going to cost a lot of development time. But those are features that make Fallout games. Bethesda seems to think that the main draw for Fallout games is wandering a post nuclear wasteland with a heavy theme based on 1950's 1960's America. Which is true, but you should have the RPG elements that made people fall in love with these games. Most likely Fallout 4 just needed more time to cook before it was released, but they had no problems adding many DLC's to Fallout 4. This is likely the problem with Starfield in that Bethesda needed another year or two to polish the game and put in content. Good luck convincing fans that this is their problem and not the game engine, because they also defended Fallout 76 as well. It was a broken game, but also boring.
Immersive sim is a genre of games, it has nothing to do with being exact simulations of reality like a flight sim for example.
It is better in every metric than FO4. You could argue that the story or the setting is worse but that's just a matter of taste and opinion, not something that can be judged objectively.
Yes, this is a trend and not just in videogames, people listen to their favorite "influencer" and pass on their second hand opinion as if it was their own. So one person missing the mark (or deliberately going for hate bait) can skew the entire perception of a product. Of course you could argue that the steam reviewers must have played the game so it is not second hand opinion, but how many of those negative reviews are by those with 100+ hours in the game? I find it laughable that someone spends 100 hours in a game that they don't like or enjoy. Not recommending a game after getting 100 hours of entertainment out of it, is pretty bad consumer advice. And also how many of those reviews are just pettyness because it's trendy now to dogpile on Bethesda? Or written after 10 minutes in the game based in confirmation bias? Of course there must be some people who genuinely dislike the game, but I doubt anyone who enjoyed previous Bethesda RPGs would fall into that category. And if you are giving a "not recommended" to a game after spending 150 hours in it, just what are you doing? You are either lying and enjoyed the game, or a mazochist for playing a terrible game for that long.
I don't consider that a good thing. A completely new IP in a completely different setting being so similar suggests a lack of imagination from the creators to me.
I can only remember one companion character from Outer Worlds, Bethesda games don't even have characters in the traditional sense like Mass Effect has where I remember everyone, even some non-companion characters.
I'm not saying Fallout 1 or 2 was bad, just that they mean nothing to me. When I first seen them I was like 10 and couldn't even get out of the first room, and they were woefully outdated by the time I started re-discovering RPGs.
Yes, that's exactly it, it doesn't have to be realistic to be immersive, just follow its own rules and have clear and consistent world building.
I know it was trying to be satire, but it was very surface level. I seen no grand design or deep meaning in Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim, or Fallout 4 either, I just enjoyed them for the exploration of the world and the lore. I just like Starfield more because the sci-fi setting was always more my cup of tea than fantasy or post apocalyptic.
Not better because it's endless, better because it doesn't feel everything was designed with you in mind. Some planets being empty of meaningful content just add to the immersion, because it makes it more believable. If there is something grand everywhere that diminishes the entire experience. Instead of a sense of achievement when finding something interesting it is a feeling of: Oh, this was deliberately put here for me to bump into, wasn't it?
I think you completely miss what I like about Starfield if you think that. Or it is possible that No Man's Sky is a completely different game than I think it is? I doubt that. To me NMS looks like minecraft in space, a pointless sandbox, I have zero interest in it. I had no issue with the loading screens in Starfield, they didn't diminish my enjoyment of the game.
I actually liked the Mako Exploration, that was what originally sold ME1 to me, before getting to that point I was ready to quit the game. In fact I actually did quit it, and only picked it up again at the insistence of others. The only thing I miss in Starfield is the vehicle to speed up things instead of having to walk for minutes to get anywhere.
There are very few games that I enjoy that does not have compelling stories, and Oblivion, Fallout 3, 4, Skyrim, Starfield fall directly into that category. I don't think any of them has a compelling main story. What they have however is compelling and immersive world building. Completing the main story was always my least favorite thing in them. I'd start multiple characters and just explore to see what I can find. Point to somewhore on the map and go there, to see what's there. That sense of freedom doesn't exist in many games, especially not in a compelling way.
The mechanics of a game outside of hardcore sims and strategy games is a means to an end and not the end itself to me. There has to be something that makes it interesting, and if that is compelling I can tolerate even outright terrible mechanics. Most of the time the end that justify the means is the story, in Bethesda games that is the freedom of exploration. I'm not saying Starfield's mechanics are terrible, not by a longshot. The shooting is great imo, the space flight and combat also. Comparatively Fallout3's mechanics are god awful and I still enjoyed that game for the exploration, probably more so than New Vegas which tried to tell a more compelling story, but lacked the greater sense of freedom of F3.
What is not justifiable is trying to convince me that what I like is objectively bad. It's akin to calling me stupid for liking the wrong thing. It's OK to not like Starfield without trying to paint it as a horrible game.
I never suggested it offered anything groundbreaking, although the ship builder is pretty unique. And most of the criticism is deserved, heck I criticised many things in it myself. But there is a huge disconnect between fair criticism and trying to paint the game as if it is unplayable garbage that is much worse than previous Bethesda games.
That describes Amazon Games to a T. Outside of the games they have localized from the SEA region, they have yet to put out a game that has been successful despite throwing money at some of the best talent in the industry.
If it was memorable you should be able to describe it. When I say that Fallout 3/4 has a giant robot that spews out propaganda about democracy, you'd know what I'm talking about.
Ideally it should be both rewarding in both adventure and item. Visiting the underground caves would usually reward you with something cool and unique surroundings. If you reward me in only scenery then I won't come back again. Reward me in items only then I'll come back and call it a grind. Reward me with both and I call it a good game. This is why I watch videos of Skyrim lore because I wanted to know what happened.
View: https://youtu.be/8XNlA888PCI?si=AutRTIJvXvIf9xJy
The problem with that is that I would be looking at every planet because I would think there's hidden treasure or at least something interesting to see. You know what other game that made this mistake? Well there was No Man's Sky, but I mean Mass Effect 1. You could land on planets and explore nothing.
View: https://youtu.be/B93HIL27o2E?si=WU8LxpUZPfMlXkX1
Or just don't allow me to explore a planet that wasn't meant to be explored. In Mass Effect 2 they allow you to scan planets and if there's something of value you can land on it. Also the music helps.
View: https://youtu.be/cpB2RkrelQE?si=7keFOecH8pJcfBCh
Your taste in games is not well received. AC Odyssey has a user rating of 6.6, which if I remember had micro-transactions and limited players progression unless they did a lot of boring side quests. AC Valhalla got a 7.2, but I never played this game so I wouldn't know why it wasn't well received. Ghost Recon Wildlands got a 6.5. Breakpoint got a 3.2.
So either people like outdated game design or people don't like bad game design. Starfield has a 7.0 from users on Metacritic.
View attachment 622869
Assassin's Creed Valhalla: 71%
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands: 80%
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Breakpoint: 70%
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Special Edition: 94%
Baldur's Gate 3: 96%
Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition: 79%
Fallout 4: 83%
Fallout: New Vegas: 96%
Starfield: 65%Alien Isolation is a first-person survival horror. In most situations you do not have a way of progressing outside of the one intended design by the developers. That is not an immersive sim.
Only if you take it that way. You keep overlooking my analogy about McDonald's: the thing many people love but also know is terrible. You can like things that are bad. Many people do.
So, which is it? Are we going to talk about this game in an objective fashion or is the only thing that ’exists’ here subjective opinion? Because we can't have it both ways.
Don't try and tell me this is all about subjectivity then also get upset at other people for their "subjective opinions". As you also cannot call out "falsities" in a subjective discussion. Only an objective one. Trying to get him to compare and contrast is trying to place objective reasons on a subjective discussion.
It's also okay to call bad things bad. Whether if we're talking about from an objective standpoint or a subjective one.
All opinions are subjective, but you are trying to frame the opinion that Starfield is horrrible as objective.
What? I even responded to it. People who eat MCD food don't think it's bad, they think it tastes great. Some know they shouldn't because it's bad for your health, but that doesn't mean they think it is bad in general.
But the thing is that many steam reviewers are apparently happily eating Starfield and then claim it is a turd. I'm sorry, but if someone spends 100 hours in a game and then turns around and tells me it is a turd, I don't believe they are being genuine.
It started with me not understanding why they hate it so much and why is it considered much worse than Skyrim, "It's bad M'kay" is not a meaningful answer to that question.
Which is what? All opinions are subjective, I want to know the objective reasons through which people arrive at the opinion that it is trash.
You state an opinion, putting objectively next to it won't make it objective. To be objective you must put forward a case. For example: It is trash, because having loading screens in 2023 is unacceptable. That I can understand. Of course I'll disagree that it is sufficient reason to call it trash, but at least I can see the reasoning.
It's not that complicated I genuinely want to know what makes it trash to people, and since to me it doesn't look all that different from previous Bethesda RPGs, I inevitably assume outside factors are in play here.
I specifically called out the framing. I'd not have had a problem with an opinion if it wasn't put forward as a micdrop statement, as if presenting some undeniable objective evidence.
There are always things in discussions that can be judged objectively. Like Starfield being bad because travel is done through UI is a falsity because if it was reason enough then by definition Mass Effect would also be bad.
Saying it is bad is not a criticism. It is exactly the ciriticism that I'm interested in, not the declaration of an opinion that it is bad. I can clearly see that many say it is bad, what I was pondering is why.
This is exactly why declarative statemnts like "it is bad" are worthless. One person's bad is someone else's good. It is much more useful to be specific, and it is exactly those specifics I was looking for.
Calling something bad or good is not objective because the metrics used to come to that determination can only be subjective.
I can describe them, but what's the point? For example I found a party ship, or a colony of clones, or a colony of criminals, or a lab that was fractured between two realities.
I agree that ideally it should be both.
That's exactly what I mean, you approach it with the explicit knowledge that it is a game. That is already a conscious breaking of the fourth wall. I approach it as if it was reality, because in reality you wouldn't go through every planet systematically thinking "god must have put something on this planet to find". You probably won't be surprised that I liked exploration in ME1. I was disappointed that they replaced it with the scanning minigame in ME2.
That is exactly what makes it more interesting to me. That you might find something of interest or might not, you take a gander and it either pays off or it doesn't. That's actually like being an explorer. The alternative when you can only land assured there will be a reward, that's the guided tour for tourists.
Yes Ubisoft first introduced the concept of "time savers" in Odyssey that probably negatively influenced the score, I hated that too, but the game was enjoyable despite of it. And they also made the female protagonist canon, which probably made some people downvote the game also. AC Valhalla was actually a worse game imo but still good enough for me to enjoy. Ghost Recon Wildlands is one of my favorite games of all time exactly because It doesn't revolve around the player character, you don't feel like the world was designed with you in mind. Breakpoint was badly recieved because the trend chasing idiots at Ubisoft turned it into a looter shooter, I hated it originally too, but later they released a patch undoing the damage, making it almost as good as Wildlands.Your taste in games is not well received. AC Odyssey has a user rating of 6.6, which if I remember had micro-transactions and limited players progression unless they did a lot of boring side quests. AC Valhalla got a 7.2, but I never played this game so I wouldn't know why it wasn't well received. Ghost Recon Wildlands got a 6.5. Breakpoint got a 3.2.
With the exception of BG3 which I did not play I think those are good games as well.
People don't expect more realistic game design. Beyond Two Souls fell into the same trap 10 years ago. Almost everything you do in that game is a seamless decision with consequences. But most people who played it thought the story is linear and whatever they did was the only way to progress. This is why quantic dream "spoiled" the mechanic in Detroit Become human by adding training wheels to clearly show decision points in the story. Sometimes the children really are just too dumb to notice superior game design.
