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Starfield, is it getting review bombed?
(youtu.be)
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this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2023
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I don't like it, so many loading screens, the faction bounties are copy/paste, the space combat is awkward, neon was a huge disappointment to me being just one long corridor with neon signs, the main quest railroads you like no other Bethesda game before it and it's just not fun to me. I've come to the conclusion it's just not for me and moved back over to baldurs gate 3 and recently started another new run in the outer worlds.
I'll keep plying the low atmo worlds in Elite until the game for me comes out, I guess.
I mean, my opinion is anecdotal I suppose. I have friends that like it and some that think it's just okay. For me, I just wasn't having fun and that's the point of games, to have fun. I also don't really think their whole "NASApunk" style is very good. It doesn't feel like it has any unique style or identity. It's honestly baffling to me how it's gotten some 9's and 10's for scores. It's easily a 7 out of 10 for me, maybe even a 6. It's definitely not the game Bethesda sold everyone on with marketing IMO.
Are you on an HDD? new PC, new SSD, haven't sat in a loading screen for more than 3 seconds but usually less than 1.
Nope, running off a series s which uses internal nvme SSD storage.
Ya it seems to load much faster on a PC. 1-3 seconds on a PCIE 4X4 drive.
I don't even notice losing screen. They are almost instant for me.
It's not that loading screens are slow (I run on SSD), it's that it's loading screens everywhere. Want to enter a building? There's a loading screen for that. Enter your ship? Loading screen. Launch to orbit? Loading. Travel to another planet's orbit? Loading. Land on a planet? Oh loading, again.
At least in Skyrim and Fallout 4, you can have a seamless overworld experience. In Starfield, it's all loading screens.
But those last like one second or less for me, so I don't even notice them. The only one that annoys me is the take-off and landing ones because those are cutscenes.
Plus, you can do all of those actions you just mentioned with only one loading screen. You just go to your map and click where you want to go on any planet in any system, and as long as you aren't in a cave or anything, you will fast travel from wherever you are to the location on the new planet with only one loading screen.
I also hate the ship launch and landing loading screens. The exiting and entering loading for ships are justifiable as ship interiors are customizable and are unloaded for performance. The problem is, loading screens still adds up. For example:
spoiler
The rescue Barrett quest is a recent quest I did that illustrates this. From the lodge, you can probably fast travel to the mining outpost directly? (Haven't tested fast travel in interiors), so that's +1 loading screen. Then you exit your ship (+1 loading screen). Talk to Lin, and enter one of the buildings to check the comms relay thingy (+1 loading screen). Find three power cells, one inside the comms relay building, one outside (+1), and the last one in another building (+1). You exit that other building, (+1), enter the comms relay building (+1), fix the relay, exit the comms relay building (+1), talk to Lin. At this point we've had 8 loading screens, and this is like 1/3rd into the quest.Yes, from the lodge, you can fast travel to the mining outpost directly. About a 1 second load time for me, and I'm there. I wouldn't even notice the load time.
Honestly not sure why they're there since those areas are already loaded anyway.
Skip the loading screens and just jump the walls or off balconies. Duh.
I thought the main quest lines were pretty great.
All the side content is pretty bland though.
The loading screens aren't bad if you're properly using fast travel.
The loading screens are atrocious even for a Bethesda game. Walk up a ladder, loading screen, open a door, loading screen, dock with another ship, loading screen, travel to another planet in the same system, loading screen, land on a planet that's already loaded, loading screen, exit the ship, loading screen. Maybe it's different on PC, but I'm playing on a series S that has pretty fast read/write speeds and that's just absurd. Pretty sure if my character could use the toilet there would be a loading screen for the bathroom.
You don't need to do all that stuff though. Use your missions tab and the map to travel directly where you need to go.
It's a massive open world game, there are going to be loading screens. But you can limit them by fast traveling directly.
So your suggestion is to not play the open-world part of the open-world game?
It's still open world in the sense that there are plenty of places you can go to and in any order without being gated through a linear story line.
Even if you were to ignore my advice, it wouldn't be any more open world because travelling between these areas is always gated by loading screens.
My suggestion is merely to reduce the amount of loading screens between zones.
Instead of leaving constellation, loading Jameisom, getting on the train, loading the shipyard, entering your ship, loading the ship interior, taking off, loading space, going to your map, selecting warp to sol, loading sol, selecting a landing site on Cydonia, loading your ship interior on cydonia, leaving your ship, and loading cydonia.
I'm suggesting you fast travel straight from the lodge to cydonia. Cutting 7 loading screens down to 1.
Of course, I also recommend that you take time to explore the areas you're in.
You're right that the loading screens can be minimized with fast travel, but also, some of the best parts of a game like this is the immersion, which doesn't really work well with loading directly from point to point on your to-do list. I think Starfield is fine, tbh, but I do agree that the amount of loading screens is excessive. Games like NMS and Elite Dangerous have been doing seamless space travel for a long time now. There's really no excuse.
The excuse is the engine they refuse to let die. It's not a good excuse, but that's a lot of the trademark Bethesda wonk.
Yeah, that tracks. I get that as a company, they're gonna wring every resource dry before ponying up the money to redevelop, but that engine's been showing its age for a while now, and Starfield is a great concept that deserved better.
I get what you're saying, but eliminating loading screens in a game like this just isn't feasible.
NMS or Elite Dangerous style space travel might be, but then it would have a similarly cartoonist reduced scale. I wouldn't mind that personally, but I get why they didn't do it.
My primary complaint is that the cities themselves are split up into multiple zones. If Skyrim can be entirely open, so to should Jameison.
I'm not saying they need to eliminate them entirely, just agreeing that there are way too many, and "fast travel to the plot" isn't a reasonable solution in a game like this. I do think (mostly) seamless space travel would go a very long way to helping the overall experience.