Is it just me or is Starfield kinda meh?
Is it just me or is Starfield kinda meh?
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?
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It definitely feels "meh".
The characters are flat and tropey, the story itself isn't very compelling, there doesn't seem to be a lot of narrative freedom in the quests and the quests themselves are fairly cookie cutter. I was told the "First Contact" quest was really cool and well done. Nonsense! I'd like to be able to go back and talk to the NPCs about the progress of the quest, take their temperature on the options available. It didn't feel like there was much of a point in getting the opinions of the entities aboard the ship as they had zero say in the outcome.
The game feels very much like a fantasy setting wrapped in sci-fi aesthetics, especially with the way the main quest doles out powers.
I like building a ship. I wish the ship had more functionality. I like building outposts, though I have no idea what for, I can't see much of a use for harvesting and automating the production of resources.
The gun combat feels alright, but it seems health scales up really quickly on enemies.
I dislike how so much content is gated behind perk level ups, but it does keep me playing to see if the next unlock is cool.
there doesn’t seem to be a lot of narrative freedom in the quests
I've been playing more since I originally posted this and I'm enjoying myself more but the game still feels pretty meh. But this point above I think is the biggest sin the game commits. It's an RPG but it doesn't really feel like my decisions effect anything other than my companion's view of me. I don't think there are branching storylines or anything like that.
Hate to do it, but gonna compare to Cyberpunk again. In Cyberpunk, there are multiple ways to solve quests and multiple endings with multiple endings! BG3, of course, also has branching quests that effect the state of the world. The lack of a feeling of agency in this game feels like the biggest fault.
I can get used to the loading screens EVERYWHERE (a loading screen to enter a tiny store? really??), the weak gunplay, the watered down mechanics and wide but shallow world. But this game is an RPG first and if the RPG mechanics are bad, what is left??
I haven't played CP2077, but I may have been spoiled by the characters and autonomy in BG3. The writing and choices are just so stellar in that game, it set a new standard. I remember in BG3 being so appalled by one NPC that I decided to just kill them instead of taking any of the games multiple dialogue routes to handle them and there were unique consequences and dialogue lines for taking that course of action!
A lot of the story telling in Starfield just doesn't hold up to scrutiny if you look at it too closely and you have to closely follow the set paths or else it kinda breaks. Really disappointing in that aspect. Maybe if it had released prior to BG3, it wouldn't seem so unpolished.