Starfield May patch beta

During the week, Bethesda released the beta for their upcoming Starfield patch. I took the opportunity to try out the Steam beta and these are my thoughts on the matter.

First off, lets talk difficulty. On release Starfield had a classic difficulty scale going from Very Easy to Very Hard. The patch takes that and breaks it into several distinct pieces.

You can now set you own efficiency in combat, as well as the enemies efficiency, and you can set them separately! The same goes for space combat. If you make the game easier you get less XP and likewise if you make it harder you earn more XP. This means that seasoned FPS players can give themselves a harder challenge on the ground, but make the dog-fighting in space much easier until they get the hang of it.

You can adjust your carry capacity, and at max you can carry over a thousand pounds of stuff. To go along with this, you can adjust how much or little money vendors have, to buy all the things you salvage. Like with combat, these changes modify the amount of XP you get.

There are also options for environmental effects and healing, but I haven't had much time to test those.

The ground map is significantly changed. Gone is the boring field of dots and instead we get a vibrant map that actually shows you things. Cities are also mapped out and I can't tell you how nice that is. To make things even better, if you pull up your scanner in town, you can see all points of interest, and if you have been there at least once, you can quick travel from the scanner. Such a great quality of life improvement!

Next up is ship interior decoration. All ships have a button on the wall that opens a building interface similar to the one you build outposts with, and you can also get there through the scanner. This allows you to decorate your ship any way you want. I haven't had time to properly explore this yet, but it looks very promising. You can also buy habitat modules that are empty from the start to give yourself a clean slate to build on. This makes it so that your ship can be a proper base and not just a vehicle.

A smaller thing is that when you start a New Game + you are given the option to change your character including redoing your traits if you wish.

Finally, they are experimenting with adding ground vehicle to the game, but as far as I know, this isn't in the patch and only in the testing stage at the moment.

The addition of these changes do so much to make Starfield an even better game. I liked it from the start, but this patch gives me great hope that this game will bloom into an even better experience. I'll add a video showing off the changes if you want to learn more.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Starfield, what is it like?

I finally finished the main story in Starfield, so lets talk about it.

Starfield, the latest game from Bethesda Game Studios, the people behind The Elder Scrolls and Fallout games, is a huge space epic. You travel between planets, do quests, explore places and try to find out what the deal is with the Artifacts and the mysterious Starborn.

Now, I should point out that I live-streamed Starfield on Twitch, and only four hours at a time, once a week at that, so that is why it took me six months to get through. Not because it is that enormous or that I didn't like it. All in all, I have 200 hours in Starfield doing lots of side quests as well as the main story.

Back before the game released, speculation was rife about what the game would be and a lot of the speculation fed the hype without being based on anything true. Many visualized that it would be “Skyrim in space”, or “Fallout in space” and neither is true. Yes, the engine is Bethesda's engine so it feels familiar, but Starfield is its own thing, and must be viewed as such.

To be honest, Starfield is a somewhat odd game. After the intro, you are set loose on the galaxy and the only limitations you have is how far your starter ship can grav-jump, the games faster than light system. Every system has a level rating, an indicator of how dangerous the system is. It's up to you if you want to take that on now or later. That said, you can easily come across enemies that are much higher level than you in a low system, and you can run into low level enemies in high level areas. This mix means that combat is always exciting while also letting you feel powerful when crushing weaker enemies.

The gameplay is smooth and plays well, like Bethesda's other games. The new kid on the block is dog fighting in space, which is a bit of a mixed bag. The game has no qualms about dumping three higher level pirate ships on you just as you enter a system, and until I got my ship upgraded together with some good piloting skills, I frequently had to lower the difficulty or I was stuck. That could have been handed differently as it was pretty annoying.

The graphics are really nice, at least on a stronger PC, and there were times when I just stood there and took in the sights. Some people have complained that “It's all gray and boring”, to which I say: untrue! There are many such moons yes, but come on, that is what you will find out there. Lots and lots of dusty rocks. However, there are also so many lush planets, filled with interesting plants and creatures. Saying it's all gray is like going to Winterhold in Skyrim and complaining that the whole game is nothing but snow.

Besides the intersting main quest, which I won't spoil, there is a myriad on minor factions you can work for and they were mostly top notch quests. Interesting storylines with good choices, fun loot to get and lots of trouble to get into. I will say that I don't care much for most of the clothes you can find, they were a bit lackluster in both design and function, but the important part are the space suits, which are many and varied.

Speaking of side missions, Starfield has an almost endless capacity for exploration. Sure, the caves are all similar as are the structures you'll find, but at least that makes some sense. Everything has to be prefabricated and dropped down on the surface, so it makes sense that most structures are the same as others. I did run into a base with a mystery story, and to my surprise I later found the exact same base and story on another planet. This shouldn't happen, but whether it was a bug or an oversight, it's not a deal breaker.

The skill system is a mixed bag for me. Some are clear and easy enough to upgrade, while others are a bit of a pain. I should point out that Starfield has a New Game + system, and if you choose to do a new playthrough with an old character, you retain all your skills, but not gear, ships and money.

You can also build your own bases, which is tricky. Hauling around all the needed raw materiel is not easy and the building system in general could be better. It's not bad, but there is room for improvement. Likewise, you can build ships. For some reason, you can't build a ship totally from scratch, you have to have one to begin with, but soon enough you can go nuts slapping bits on pieces and having a blast.

All in all, Starfield is a rough gem of a game. It has flaws, without a doubt, but I think a lot of people were turned off because of unrealistic hype and unfair comparisons to other games. I had a blast playing Starfield, and if you want a huge and fun game set in space with everything I mentioned above, you might just have fun too.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great week!

 

Starfield

I wanted to jot down some early thoughts about Starfield. This is in no way a review, just an early impression.

This it the first new IP for Bethesda Game Studios in over 25 years, and as of writing this, I have 25 hours played so I have barely scratched the surface. The numbers are a happy coincidence.

Looking at basic gameplay, BGS has not reinvented the wheel, and why should they? With a few thousand hours in Fallout 3, New Vegas, 4 and Skyrim, I immediately knew how to play. Movement, guns, melee, using items etc are all the same. Some things like the inventory is partially different, but keep an eye on the tooltips, and you'll be fine. This feels and plays like a Bethesda game and I'm very happy about that. I feel comfortable playing, since the character moves and reacts in a way I'm so familiar with. 

The graphics are in my opinion very nice. There have been complaints online, but I wonder if that is just a matter of taste or if the complainers are forced to turn the graphics down due to hardware issues. Starfield is pretty demanding on the PC, needing 16gb RAM and it wants to be installed on an SSD. get all that and it looks phenomenal.

Looking at the not so basic gameplay, it is quite a bit more complicated. Since this is sci-fi and we're in space, there is space flight and space combat. The flying is fine, at least so far. Nothing is too complicated, although it takes time to learn the new controls. Space combat is somewhat mixed for me. At one point I jumped back in to the system where my quest giver was and found her engaged with three other ships who immediately targeted me. After dying seven or eight times, I adjusted the difficulty from Normal to Very Easy and barely survived the fight. My ship is still completely basic so there was no way of surviving that fight unless you are a very accomplished gamer in the area of dog-fighting, which I'm not.

I don't know that much about crafting yet, but it seems fine. You do need to collect a lot of different materials from different planets and that takes time. You have a scanner that helps you do that, and you can even use the scanner to take and edit pictures which will become load screens. A small but awesome idea.

The character generator is good if a bit fiddly. With a bit of trial and error you can make an awesome looking character for you to play with. Unlike Fallout 4, the main character is not voiced, so unless you go looking at them, you won't see your characters faces all that much. A part of me misses the back and forth dialogue, but in Starfield we at least have more speech options, and the role-playing options are back. Loosing the voiced protagonist is a small price to pay for that.

Some players of the 1 million+ that were playing at the same time have experienced bugs, and so have I, but nothing too nasty. A glitching companion and a status effect that won't go away is about it. I'm sure BGS will fix a bunch of them soon enough.

Speaking of companions, they are a mixed bag. Useful to have around, but also prone to charging ahead and engaging enemies that you are not ready for. You also get the small talk which ranges from funny to please-shut-up-already-I'm-going-as-fast-as-I-can. I usually prefer playing without companions, and there are quests where you have to have one along. Somewhat frustrating, but not a deal breaker.

The space map is awesome and looks great, the ground map is terrible and I hope someone develops a mod for that soon.

To end this first impression: If you like Bethesda's open world games and you like sci-fi, then there is no real reason why you wouldn't like this. Some call it Fallout in space, but that is misleading. Starfield feels nothing like Fallout except for the controls. This is a new game and should be judged as such. So far I'm having a blast playing, and beyond some minor things, nothing to complain about. Just make sure you're PC is able to handle this beast of a game.

I may do another post at a later date giving my opinion then, but until then, that's that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!