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?
It's absolutely the most bullet-spongiest gunplay in my recent memory. As the other guy said, I can unload an entire clip with an AR an not kill a normal mob, and there are elites with multiple health bars. Ugh...
I've found hammering folks with a shotgun kills them pretty quickly but an entire *magazine from an assault rifle doesn't kill most enemies. Pretty annoying.
I played Cyberpunk with a Sandy and Gorilla Arms and even on the hardest difficulty I was killing most enemies in one hit. Though I think early game was pretty rough before I got chromed.
Yeah I played pistol headshot build until they nerfed it, that was the only build that worked for me, it being one shot too. I dislike the leveled enemies in general. If I play it again it will be with a mod that removes levels and gives the factions more gameplay significance (like Maelstrom needing armor piercing).
I played Tarkov before that and after that any amount of bullet sponginess is agony. I like realism.
I completely ruins the immersion in Cyberpunk's amazing worldbuilding if unarmored enemies don't die after duping an entire mag into them. And even more so if I oneshot enemies in one neighborhood and in the next neighborhood they eat all my bullets for lunch without any visual indication why they would be stronger.