:.:. Starfield .:.:

[Malf]

Like you Jason, I don't know if I have the sheer bloody-minded stamina to stick with the game long enough to experience NG+ (although I haven't spoiled it for myself, so only know that it's supposed to be interesting).
But NG+ only works if the main game is compelling enough that you complete it. And in that respect, Starfield is awful. It's grey and bland with huge amounts of jank, and all of it built on technology that other than graphically, hasn't advanced in almost two decades, meaning that it feels like a game from two decades ago.

And either side of its release you have Baldur's Gate 3 and Cyberpunk 2.0 / Phantom Liberty, which positively put it to shame and show it up for the wreck it really is.

[Jason Moyer]

I think it's my favorite Bethesda game right now. Early on I thought it was kind of boring, then much later on it was getting pretty janky, but I really liked the faction sidequests other than the lame inconsequential Bioware-esque choices you make at the end of them. I mean the "which terrible thing do you want to roll with" part is cool, but I've mostly just done whichever one seemed to give you the most post-faction stuff to do.

There are some head scratching things of course. Environmental resistance is totally useless; I chose it because it sounded interesting as I'm making my way up the tree to get the god-tier stealth abilities, but in reality I've almost never taken any environmental damage without doing it on purpose and haven't even really looked at the spacesuit/pack/helmet resistances after stuff started showing up (early game) with interesting bonus attributes. I feel like they could have made that aspect more hardcore so that, like in...well, New Vegas mostly, you'd carry a radiation suit around because there were times you needed it. Also, the second special ability the MQ gave me seems basically completely useless outside of having something like the ability to get spaced during ship combat (that would be a cool mod, ship destruction killing your crew and leaving your supplies floating in space and you'd have to boost to another ship and board it without running out of dioxygen).

[WingedKagouti]

Also, the second special ability the MQ gave me seems basically completely useless outside of having something like the ability to get spaced during ship combat (that would be a cool mod, ship destruction killing your crew and leaving your supplies floating in space and you'd have to boost to another ship and board it without running out of dioxygen).

Which order you get them in is random, the gravity ones are the least useful. I'll add spoiler tags for the ones I use:

Personal Atmosphere: Infinite O2 (ie. stamina) while active and refreshes O2, so you can use it when you're about to run out.

Precognition: Allows you to see (part of) the initial reply to dialogue as well as patrol routes for NPCs.

Sunless Space: Stuns a target for long enough to kill them with reasonably levelled weapons.

Sense Star Stuff: Shows organic beings through walls at a decent distance.

Void Form: Near-invisibility, the same ability you see some of the starborn use. Enemies won't lose you if they can see you when you activate it, but it can help with a stealth approach if you aren't spotted.

[Jason Moyer]

It's always interesting how different people use different skills. I've been using gravity field as my combat power because it basically gives me as many free sneak criticals I want on multiple enemies who can't fight back. Non-combat I usually switch to precognition just because it's a neat power.

[Jason Moyer]

You know, I'd kinda like to ask the lead writer/designer/whatever on Starfield how communication works in the world. Because you either need to be face-to-face, over a loudspeaker, or in ships that are within 1km or something of each other to have conversations. There is that Tapping The Grid quest where she talks you through it but all she says is "I can talk to you remotely" and it's completely handwaved. I feel like the handful of QoL issues I have with the game, especially the late game (fucking Vlad) would be rectified by people simply calling each other on the phone or sending an email. Even Borderlands, which is 100% fantasy, takes remote comms into account.

Thinking about it more, it seems like they account for this sometimes, with colonies not being able to contact other settlements because their satellite is broken? But then, the Space News station doesn't know about anything that's going on unless you walk into their office and tell their reporter face to face. But then this person on this other planet knows they have a shipment you're delivering, without presumably getting that information in person since they could have just fetch quested the item themselves? I don't know, but it doesn't make sense to me. And how does Space News work exactly if there's no way to send it to other places. FFS.

[Jason Moyer]

Whoever came up with doing NG+ like this deserves a raise, because every Bethsoft game would be better with the ability to reset the universe. Typically in TES you end up a god with nothing to do once you've cleared out your quest log and explored every location. I'm sure it would piss some people off, but I really hope TES6 has a Dragon Break situation at the end that lets you go back with a different origin and different variations on the main quest, since it would completely work within the existing lore. Maybe have the Dragonborn-style skill resetting with an in-universe explanation.

[WingedKagouti]

You know, I'd kinda like to ask the lead writer/designer/whatever on Starfield how communication works in the world. Because you either need to be face-to-face, over a loudspeaker, or in ships that are within 1km or something of each other to have conversations. There is that Tapping The Grid quest where she talks you through it but all she says is "I can talk to you remotely" and it's completely handwaved.

From what I have been able to piece together, communications technology is largely the same as we have now. There is no FTL communication (this is specifically mentioned in a couple of quests), so communication faster than that between worlds basically has to work by ships. For some quests to work, there has to be no FTL comms, for others it breaks immersion that it doesn't exist.

The last Ryujin quest also runs into this, as it has you deliver a piece of news to a SSNN anchor, who then has to go check up on the information, while you can rush back to Neon and have a board meeting where the report is broadcast.

[Jason Moyer]

Across planets it totally makes sense. I don't understand why there's like 20 hours of mostly garbage quests on New Atlantis when dudes could just call each other though. For my first NG+ run I'm testing the idea that you can get all of the same quests without exploring as I did being anal retentive, so I guess I'll have to look out for stuff where having a cell phone would make the quest pointless. I'm kinda curious to see what happens if I don't initiate any quests outside of talking to the people it automatically sends you to.

[Jason Moyer]

I'll spoiler this, I guess, but someone needs to recut the Star Gate scene from 2001 with clips of Superman64 instead of the light show stuff and upload it as "2001 Reimagined In Starfield"

[Jason Moyer]

Just started my 7th playthrough. I think I may settle down for a bit in this one and do some faction and sidequests just to try out some alternate approaches. I'm still enjoying this game, although I still find the "optional" part of the MQ to be incredibly repetitive and boring, especially towards the end since you can't do that stuff earlier in the questline. Also, is it just me, or do you instinctively kill every heatleech you find in NG+.

[WingedKagouti]

Also, is it just me, or do you instinctively kill every heatleech you find in NG+.

I was killing them before doing that story, after the story I felt entirely justified. And the link was telegraphed enough for me to put most of the pieces together a couple of missions before the reveal, I was only missing the plant (which you're only introduced to during the mission with the reveal).

[Jason Moyer]

Yeah, in retrospect the fact that there are 3 unscannable fauna types should have been a clue that they were related somehow. I'm assuming xenogrubs are an earlier stage of development. Hilariously, the game basically tells you about the link in the very first mission you do before going to Jemison. Edit: Looks like the space roaches don't scan either, so there goes my theory.

[EvaUnit02]

Not sure how it'll go with the Juno's Gambit side-quest, considering that they gave a sentient AI the voice of fucking Shodan. I pushed her down the path of exploring to gain knowledge, like V-ger from Star Trek 1: TPM.


In a surprise to nobody, the community is already fixing their game for them.
https://www.nexusmods.com/starfield/mods/1?tab=logs

[WingedKagouti]

Not sure how it'll go with the Juno's Gambit side-quest, considering that they gave a sentient AI the voice of fucking Shodan. I pushed her down the path of exploring to gain knowledge, like V-ger from Star Trek 1: TPM.

From what I've read there are a couple of outcomes depending on what you try to do, it'll be resolved with a random encounter after some time. There's also an exclusive "solution" if you've joined Ryujin.

[Jason Moyer]

Beta patch is up on Steam!

https://bethesda.net/en/article/6BV2...ovember-8-2023

That's a pretty big list of additions/changes/fixes for a 2 month patch. I just hope the stealth tweaks didn't go too far, because I like that it's not as easy as their previous games.

[vurt]

That's a really, really pathetic list of changes imo.