Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a hater. I actually was really excited for the game. But so far I am just not having fun.
For a little bit of reference, I just finished playing thru Cyberpunk 2077 and then jumped right into Starfield. Maybe that was a mistake because I kinda just want to go back to Cyberpunk (and I will in a few weeks when the DLC comes out).
But I’m noticing two really big issues with Starfield: first, the gunplay/combat is… let’s call it underwhelming. I realize it’s quite probably a skill issue and I need to just git gud, but holy crap, everything is a bullet sponge and I don’t have that many bullets! Stealth seems to be pretty worthless at early levels as I don’t have any high-alpha guns that can take advantage of it and, most of the time, I’m detected before I even see the bad guys. I’m just not enjoying this aspect of the game at all.
The second big issue for me is that there’s a loading screen every five seconds! Again, probably a me thing, but OMG, it’s driving me nuts. Get into ship, loading screen. Launch from planet, loading screen. Fly to next planet, loading screen. Land on planet, loading screen. Leave ship, loading screen. I just want to go shoot things! Let me shoot things!
Okay, found some spacers, time to… oh shit, out of ammo. Let me swap to a worse gun that still has ammo. Sigh. Okay, they’re dead. Let me just heal up… oh shit, out of med packs. Sigh.
Oh and wrestling with the UI is exhausting.
Anyways, I realize that this probably isn’t the place to find a lot of like-minded people. But I really do want to like this game. Any tips on maybe at least ways to make the combat less of a chore?
git gud n3wb!
Jk i couldn’t resist
I’ve only watched someone play it, but it does seem like it is super superficial, like a puddle that looks deep but is only a few inches
To be fair, I don’t feel like I’ve gotten far enough into the game to be able to tell how deep it is. But compared to Cyberpunk, the both the story and the combat are a lot less engaging. The space combat seems like it has potential and base building is something I really want to get into but they are both things that require more money (aka time played).
I agree about the loading screens. It didn’t drive me crazy but would have been better if there were fewer.
In regards to combat, I like it. Even many of the reviewers felt combat was one of the good things.
I haven’t checked out a ton of reviews, just two or three from trusted reviewers. The very first one I watched said they didn’t like the combat but still really enjoyed the game overall. I’m hoping I can push through to the point where I’m enjoying the rest of the game…
I think part of this is what it’s being compared to. The combat is significantly better in starfield than past Bethesda (BGS) games. People who are saying it’s great are generally comparing it to their past games.
I don’t have experience with Cyberpunks combat yet (waiting for the update to finally play it) but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s better.
Shouldn’t you be comparing to other current games in the genre, rather than past games of the company? Because if the game is better than their past games, but nothing close to current games in the genre, then that just means it’s a bad game and their past games were worse.
I’m still pretty early game, but I also like it. The sponginess means I can’t just fire a few shots at a guy’s head and call it a day, I might need to cycle through weapons, be pretty careful about taking breaks for cover, watch my health. It means my ammo gets used up a lot more, and same with health items.
Actually, Ive noticed a bit of a trend in Starfield where it seems like Bethesda is trying to push back a bit against having a massive overage of ammunition and money (without bringing the scavenging skill into it).
Having spongey enemies and a ton of different kinds of ammo means no one weapon has an absurd amount of ammo, and not having a ton of easily burgled apartments or houses means I cant just have a huge city stealing spree and come out the other end richer than I know what to do with only ten hours in.
I initially hated that there weren’t huge apartment blocks ripe for stealing, but I can sort of understand why that’s the case now and I can appreciate having a larger wind up time to becoming stupidly rich, especially with there being much higher money sinks compared to older Bethesda games between ship and outpost building. It really seems like, to me, Bethesda is purposefully trying to have a functioning economy compared with their older games where making money a non-issue was basically a part of the early game.
I heard that it’s possible to steal spaceships and sell them. It’s a long process, but seems to be worth the time. Some spaceships bring lots of cash.
Was i made a fool of?
I just discovered yesterday that you need a systems targeting skill to be able to target enemy engines, which enables boarding, which enables ship capture, and then boom, you can sell ships. So yes, I’m sure I could get rich that way, but it’s not nearly as alluringly easy as going to one town in Skyrim and just looting absolutely fucking everything in one in-game day.
When you realize how many loading screens there are, you begin to understand why Bethesda requires SSD versus HDD, otherwise half your time would be spent on loading screens.
Unfortunately, I haven’t found anything within the realms of “vanilla Starfield” to remedy your issues. I just kept playing through the main quest and as time went on, it got better (in my opinion). It’s one of those “oh you have to slog through X hours before it gets good” type of games.
Outside of the above, I can only recommend shelving it and waiting for mods or DLC that may freshen the experience.
