Microsoft Starfield - Information Thread, update (09/16): "Shattered Space" expansion deep-dive video

[Best]

I need a few days off to binge on this. Out of leave though. 

[Firewithin]

Starfield - Starfield Updates and Mod Support – September 13, 2023 - Steam News

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

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First, an enormous thank you to all of you playing Starfield and your support. We are absolutely blown away by the response and all you love about the game. We’re also reading all your great feedback on what you’d like to see improved or added to the game. This is a game we’ll be supporting for years and years to come, so please keep all the feedback coming! Even if we don’t get to your requests immediately, we’d love...

 

[Keyser_Soze]

14 minutes ago, Firewithin said:

Starfield - Starfield Updates and Mod Support – September 13, 2023 - Steam News

STORE.STEAMPOWERED.COM

---

First, an enormous thank you to all of you playing Starfield and your support. We are absolutely blown away by the response and all you love about the game. We’re also reading all your great feedback on what you’d like to see improved or added to the game. This is a game we’ll be supporting for years and years to come, so please keep all the feedback coming! Even if we don’t get to your requests immediately, we’d love...

 

 

This first update is a small hotfix targeted at the few top issues were are seeing. After that, expect a regular interval of updates that have top community requested features including:

• Brightness and Contrast controls
• HDR Calibration Menu
• FOV Slider
• Nvidia DLSS Support (PC)
• 32:9 Ultrawide Monitor Support (PC)
• Eat button for food!

 

We saw you like this DLSS thing so we're going to put it in the game!

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

10 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

We saw you like this DLSS thing so we're going to put it in the game!

I still think it’s more a case of not until Gamescon did any AMD exclusive partner hear they could implement DLSS, with AMD saying “well, they didn’t ask”. Because also here comes Jedi Survivor also getting DLSS, while Jedi Fallen Order never got it. lol 

[Spork3245]

[Spork3245]

51 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

This first update is a small hotfix targeted at the few top issues were are seeing. After that, expect a regular interval of updates that have top community requested features including:

• Brightness and Contrast controls
• HDR Calibration Menu
• FOV Slider
• Nvidia DLSS Support (PC)
• 32:9 Ultrawide Monitor Support (PC)
• Eat button for food!

 

We saw you like this DLSS thing so we're going to put it in the game!

 

@stepee @Mr.Vic20

 

I can't stop laughing

[Mr.Vic20]

Hey PC gamers, we hear you like basic features, so you'll get them...2 months after you beat the game. Whelp, I'm sure I'll appreciate these "enhancements"  when I'm game plusing in the next CRPG down turn. You know, with all these features, what will the bullet points be for GOTY edition?! 

[Keyser_Soze]

14 hours ago, TwinIon said:

Why can't I see how many med packs I have left in the UI?

 

Unless you're talking about something different it does. The number is to the left of the mass number and if you use the quick select it also shows you the number at the top of the screen.

[TwinIon]

6 hours ago, Spork3245 said:

I would appreciate some cliff notes

 

I think it boils down to the line that @Spawn_of_Apathy pulled out: Starfield plays like a good remaster of a game that came out more than a decade ago. So much of it feels anachronistic for a brand new AAAA release, but you don't remake terrible games, and Starfield is overall quite good. Also, while it is huge, large parts of that scope feel unfinished. Some of those parts are things you can ignore, like outpost building, and some aren't like inventory management.

[TwinIon]

3 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Unless you're talking about something different it does. The number is to the left of the mass number and if you use the quick select it also shows you the number at the top of the screen.

I meant to say on the HUD. It shows me how many throwables I have left, but not how many med-packs or whatever healing I might have hot-keyed.

[Keyser_Soze]

Just got my first legendary weapon!

 

and it's a knife

[Mr.Vic20]

Just now, Keyser_Soze said:

Just got my first legendary weapon!

 

and it's a knife

The denizens of the stars will tremble in the presence of Mr. Stabby! 

[Keyser_Soze]

1 minute ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

The denizens of the stars will tremble in the presence of Mr. Stabby! 

 

NGL it sounds kinda cool though 🤔

 

Furious: Each consecutive hit deals more damage

Radioactive: Randomly deals radioactive damage and demoralizes the target

Titanium Build: Premium build materials make this weapon light as a feather (0.02)

 

<- stab stab

 

[TheLeon]

I do think it’s hilarious every single time I’m in a laser fight with some dude on the surface of a desolate planet, then I run up and finish him off with a fucking cutlass.

[skillzdadirecta]

15 hours ago, TwinIon said:

I've spent way too much time and have now done most of what there is to do in Starfield, and I apologize for how much follows, but this game has consumed me I and I have thoughts.

 

I need to start with confidently saying that it's an excellent game. It's flawed, probably more than most great games, but there are a ton wonderful experiences to be had that few games can even come close to. There are fun stories littered throughout the game, both scripted and emergent. It has so much to offer in such a variety of ways and has such an incredible scope. For all that it does accomplish however, it is deeply flawed in some new and old ways, but it's mostly the old that stand out. While Starfield is set in the future, it is not the future. If anything, it's a blast from the past.

 

Starfield plays like a good remaster of a game that came out more than a decade ago. The tech isn't up to par, but that's because the old engine couldn't do ray tracing or anything too fancy. The constant loading screens are reminder of a time before game engines allowed for more fluid open worlds. The remaster really made environments pop and brought textures up to modern standards, but other things like animations didn't get as much attention and feel their age. It's a good thing the art style is great and the detail in some of the environment objects is quite impressive. The faces are mostly pretty good; not up to the quality we expect from modern AAA games, but not distractingly bad (until you're in bad light or a bad angle). The gameplay loop is comfortable and familiar, rarely pushing into new ground, but it's a classic for a reason.

 

If I were to choose one specific point of comparison, it would be Cyberpunk. Both are long gestating enormous open world RPGs set in the future with branching stories and skill trees, but Cyberpunk, for all it's early troubles, feels like a completely modern game, the kind of thing AAAA devs should aspire to. It's beautiful and it's a tech demo, but it's more than just that. In Starfield things are scripted, but in Cyberpunk things are choreographed. The kinds of presentational polish that was reserved for smaller scoped games has made it's way to these really big games like Cyberpunk and Horizon, and Starfield is so consistently janky by comparison.

 

The game is big though. One main quest, plus four faction quest lines, plus a huge array of side quests, both generated and scripted. There are so many game systems that you can sink your time into, and much to my surprise the procedurally generated stuff was really worthwhile. I spent a ton of time visiting random planets, scanning them, and checking out the random sites for some exploration or combat. Sometimes I'd stumble into scripted events, and sometimes I'd just pass some time looking for loot or a good ship to commandeer. It's really easy to spend time in Starfield, and I've spent more than my fair share. That said, not every part of Starfield has been made up to the same standard.

 

I feel like elements of Starfield fall into one of three camps: either they've achieved a level of functionality and depth that the developers actually intended (regardless of what I might want), they have been refined down to nothing, or they are simply unfinished; and I'm not sure I can always tell which is which. I think most things to do with ships are probably about where the devs were aiming. Ship building, combat, decoration, power management, all seem finished and at the level of complexity and capability that feels purposeful. I really enjoy ship building, and even if I wish I could rotate things and want more pieces, I still think it's a highlight of the game. I cared far more about making a nice ship than I did finding the best gun or fiddling with my house or character. There is a lot I would like to change in the ship building, but what's there is really good (when it's not bugging out).

 

Fuel management seems like something that was probably refined down to nothing, as if all that is left are remnants of a more complex system excised after playtesting. You either have enough fuel or you don't, and when you don't that only ever means one extra stop.

 

Outpost management just feels unfinished. They were getting close, and they hit some key marks to bother including it at all, but the more time you spend with it the less rewarding it is. They built this whole system where you can mine resources and store them and send they to other planets to automatically build stuff in complex manufacturing combinations, the tools you get are terribly insufficient for what it's trying to get you to do. There also doesn't end up being much of a point to it, since most of what you need the materials for is the outpost infrastructure. I built this whole operation where I had mapped and planned out my supply routes and in the end I didn't see the point. It brought me almost no value at all, despite a ton of effort and character points.

 

Inventory management likewise something I hope is just unfinished. If this is where they ended up with after a million rounds of polish, it's a disaster. Inventory on your person, on your companions, on your ship, on your outpost, it's all so messy and there are so few tools to manage it. Why is there no "mark as junk" button? Why have useful things mixed in categories with decorative items? Why can't I see how many med packs I have left in the UI? It also doesn't even show you all the relevant information. Great, this gun does X damage at rate Y, do some quick math so you can figure out if it's better than gun that does A damage at rate B. Same thing with ship parts. So not only is the inventory a mess, but you don't get enough information from it so you're forced to spend more time in it!

 

It's also poorly balanced. I can't believe how much time I still have to worry about it in the end game. The baseline should be that you can carry at least two full suits, a full compliment of weapons, and a healthy load of resources, but that was rarely the case for me even as I prioritized capacity. Basically every inventory stat should be doubled at a baseline and every few levels every incrementally better suit should be another +20. I do wonder if they balanced it that way because they knew how hard it is to manage your stuff, so they just made it so you can hardly carry anything, rather than just giving you better tools to manage your gear.

 

I could write a couple thousand more words on inventory management in Starfield, but I'll go into one specific issue I feel is emblematic of why it falls under the "unfinished" category: the "track" option in crafting. When you don't have everything you need to craft something, you can press a button to track what resources you need to go find. It does this by putting an icon next to all of the resources needed for that mod or research project or outpost building. That way when you see a little icon next to that adhesive on a shelf, you bother to pick it up. Unfortunately, you also get one next to your giant haul of aluminium, even though you have 100x the required amount thanks to your outpost, even if you have it on you when you start tracking. Also, it doesn't tell you how much you need of any given thing, so if you find some expensive resource you have no clue how many you need I guess you just buy them all and hope when you try crafting again it was enough. And hopefully you remember why you were looking for every single resource you track, because it doesn't track what you were collecting it for. So if you tracked a new sight for a gun you no longer use, now those items (including the really common ones!) will just be highlighted forever. Horizion FW had this exact same feature, but it just gave you a quest that specified what you were tracking and how much more you needed of each thing, including how many you had, and it's great. They even gave it a separate quest category so you could easily find them. The system in Starfield is just missing that crucial step of actually being useful. So many things having to do with inventory are like this, and I just have to assume that they didn't finish it in time.

 

I'm not sure where the computer systems land on the scale. They're so incredibly basic it's unclear if that's what they were aiming for. Did they finish a simplistic vision, refine complexity out of the interactions, or did they not have time to implement something more. They're basically single purpose buttons or single pieces of paper, and having them locked with the same (admittedly good) lock as physical objects just seems odd. Comptuers play a surprisingly small role in Starfield, and while they're hardly a problem they still feel lacking.

 

The health and status effects belong with fuel as a system that seems to have the pieces for something more complex, but was probably whittled away until it was basically pointless. You can get all sorts of conditions, and I assume the numbers on your armor helps prevent them as well as damage, but I can't say they really mattered. I was constantly frostbitten, had lacerations, burns, a cough, lung damage, and/or radiation poisoning, and it basically never mattered. I'd use a med pack when I got low health, would occasionally take a nap, and very rarely I'd actually use an aid or see a doctor to settle my conditions. (Since I can't I use the infirmary on my ship) Maybe this matters more on higher difficulties, but on normal you can basically ignore all of it. There also wasn't any way I found to gauge how much more shielding you needed to be ok. This was a huge mechanic in No Man's Sky, and all the numbers are in Starfield, but I never found something that would say "you need X amount of protection to not get frostbite on this planet," so there was never anything to chase even if you did have to worry about it more.

 

Stealth and corporate espionage I again have questions as to what category they belong to. It seems like a lot of the friend or foe detection for stealth missions is hard coded to that mission. So instead of engaging with a consistent system, you're working with rules specific to each scenario. You can "stealth" around a hyper secure military installation by putting on a random guy's uniform, but walk into a factory wearing one of their uniforms and you're instantly being attacked by everyone in sight, because the mission didn't tell you to. In some stealth missions, no stealth is actually required. You can walk into a business on a mission of corporate sabotage or investigation and there are cameras and turrets and guards, but there is no resistance at all. No need to sneak, no need to turn off cameras or knock out guards, or sneak through vents, no one really stops you. The "vents" in this game are also a complete joke. It's hilarious to me that they exist basically only in spaces you might need to stealth during a mission and that they're full size doors. It's so lazy it feels out of place. The trappings of stealth gameplay are all there, but it feels unfinished in significant ways. It ends up making some of the stealth focused missions by far the worst experiences in the game. When Googling some of them a constant suggestion to just shoot everyone and deal with the consequences because the stealth was so bad or broken in that scenario.

 

Local maps: obviously unfinished. I don't really mind not having local maps of generated landing zones, but for cities it just feels like an oversight, though it could just be a way of limiting exposing just how small the cities are. Star maps though, I think are pretty good overall. I just really wish there was a super simple database. If I scan a planet I should be able to type in a resource or location name or planet name and find it. I did the work of scanning all those systems, I shouldn't have to Google search to remember which one had unobtainium.

 

I also feel like land vehicles are something that should have existed, but they didn't have time. I don't think you should have one right away, because I do agree there is value in feeling how big the planets are when you land and look around. After a few dozen hours though, the novelty had worn off, and I just wanted to get where I was going. Make driving a high level skill, story gate your vehicle access, whatever, but the spaces are too big to have nothing more than a jetpack.

 

Story elements themselves are all over the place, with some huge stories feeling like they were scrubbed of any possible friction and others feeling really great. There's an undercover faction quest line with pirates that I felt was constantly straining credulity on all sides. That was the exception more than the rule; most of them were fun and interesting, going to unexpected places and introducing some cool wrinkles in the setting.

 

With the main quest, I do have a specific complaint that is more gameplay related than story, and it makes the whole experience feel clearly unfinished. There is a type of building that you have to find repeatedly in the main quest, and the way it was handled boggles my mind. How there wasn't any kind of puzzle or dungeon or or platforming section or spectacle or anything is mind blowing. Just a door, some lights, and some horns. It's also odd that while the existence of these places was supposedly revelatory, their zones still seem procedurally generated. The result of being that sometimes these incredible, unmistakable structures were literally a stones throw from established outposts. These locations should probably have been the most carefully crafted in the game, and instead they felt completely trivial. There should have been Zelda style dungeons. They also clearly see how important these are, because one of the best quest sequence in the game surrounds one of them, they just all didn't get such treatment.

 

The conversation and persuasion system is often silly, but I think it's probably the desired level of complexity. Sometimes I can pass persuasion checks just saying the easiest things, like "I don't see why this is a problem" over and over and never actually make any kind of argument, but once their boxes are checked they just agree to my demands. It also very rarely seems to take into account my actions outside the specific quest. If I've finished a primary quest line and I'm an officer in this jurisdiction, it seems like that could be useful and maybe worth bringing up. I've seen far fewer of those dialog options than I have options for random things I have skill points in that don't actually seem to affect much. The writing is all over the place, but mostly it's pretty good.

 

Finally, I imagine that we can file all the numerous bugs as "unfinished." I think bugs kind of accumulate as you go along. At this point in my save I cannot make changes to my ship on any orbital platform and then re-board that ship. I end up clipping through geometry, and even if I board directly to the cockpit, I can't unlock because I'm not really in the seat. Sometimes it wouldn't matter where I was and editing a ship would clip through the ground, or just vanish. Most of the time I can edit it and then fast travel away, but even that doesn't always work. I've had all sorts of inventory issues with my ship, especially when changing ships or editing them. I've had companions and passengers stay on the ship after they've been transferred or dropped off, even changing ships with me. I've had one companion's kid stay on my ship most of the game, even though the parent hasn't been on board for a dozen hours. I've had several quest lines bug out and prevent progress, forcing me to reload a save. I think it often has to do with random events interfering with scripted ones, but it's hard to be sure. I've had a number of places go completely hostile for no reason, making some quests really annoying or impossible. I've had semi-persistent meteors following my ship around.  I've had a number of crashes, even on just exiting, and recently even on saving! Point being, reports of this being a bug free experience have been greatly exaggerated.

 

My number one tip to everyone is to save early and often. Don't just rely on auto-save or quick-saves either. Make manual saves often, especially before doing anything to a ship.

 

This is more than anyone will bother to read, but I still want to end on a positive. Despite all these issues I honestly think Starfield is a great game. It's huge and there is a ton of fun to be had in choosing how to take on your adventure.  It has consumed my time and my mind like few games in recent memory. It's not a tech demo or proof of concept for forthcoming open world games, but it's a wonderful trip back to the future Bethesda style. It's janky and not every endeavor is equally worthwhile, but when everything is clicking, there's little else like it, and none to match its scope.

 

I appreciate the effort put into this but

 

[skillzdadirecta]

2 minutes ago, TheLeon said:

I do think it’s hilarious every single time I’m in a laser fight with some dude on the surface of a desolate planet, then I run up and finish him off with a fucking cutlass.

How is the melee combat? I haven't done any and I was wondering how it feels.

[TheLeon]

2 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

How is the melee combat? I haven't done any and I was wondering how it feels.

Pretty basic, based on the little I’ve done. I don’t really use it until I’m trying to conserve some ammo at the end of a shootout. I’m never taking more than one or two swings on a target. 

[Keyser_Soze]

8 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

How is the melee combat? I haven't done any and I was wondering how it feels.

 

Feels like hits have no weight to them. The shooting definitely feels better.

[skillzdadirecta]

14 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

Feels like hits have no weight to them. The shooting definitely feels better.

That's always been a problem with Bethesda games. They fixed the shooting but didn't tweak the melee it sounds like 

[Best]

1 minute ago, skillzdadirecta said:

That's always been a problem with Bethesda games. They fixed the shooting but didn't tweak the melee it sounds like 

 

Oddly enough I never tried melee in the 28 hours I've been playing. I need to check it out but now I won't be disappointed. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

46 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

How is the melee combat? I haven't done any and I was wondering how it feels.

 

38 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

Feels like hits have no weight to them.

Yep. Melee combat feels like a Bethesda game. This was definitely not part of the engine upgrade. lol

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

This is a live event occurring now:

 

 

[Best]

This game is just so massive I can't reiterate that enough. I was planning on focusing on the main quest but that fell apart quickly. Just a ton of quality side content and discovery around every corner. Just a blast to play. 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 minute ago, best3444 said:

This game is just so massive I can't reiterate that enough. I was planning on focusing on the main quest but that fell apart quickly. Just a ton of quality side content and discovery around every corner. Just a blast to play. 

I'm focusing on three main quest for the first playthrough.  The next playthrough will be the exploring part. These games are incredibly repayable. 

[Best]

4 minutes ago, skillzdadirecta said:

I'm focusing on three main quest for the first playthrough.  The next playthrough will be the exploring part. These games are incredibly repayable. 

 

I might have to really focus on not trying to complete everything in this first run. It's overwhelming lol.

[skillzdadirecta]

16 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

I might have to really focus on not trying to complete everything in this first run. It's overwhelming lol.

The thing with Bethesda games is to always remember you don't have to do everything on one playthrough.  Focus on whatever is fun for you and save the rest for later. The game isn't going anywhere and will only get better as time goes on. It's why Skyrim might be my third most replayed game and second most bought. I've replayed Skyrim so many times focusing on different shit and each experience is unique. 

[BloodyHell]

20 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

I might have to really focus on not trying to complete everything in this first run. It's overwhelming lol.

Do the main quest. 

[Biggie]

28 minutes ago, best3444 said:

This game is just so massive I can't reiterate that enough. I was planning on focusing on the main quest but that fell apart quickly. Just a ton of quality side content and discovery around every corner. Just a blast to play. 

Its fucking huge. Makes TotK seem not so big after all.

[Biggie]

1 minute ago, BloodyHell said:

Do the main quest. 

I try but now I am off doing Vanguard shit lol

[Best]

Just now, Biggie said:

I try but now I am off doing Vanguard shit lol

 

Exactly! I think I'll just do whatever I want tbh. It may take 50 hours for me to complete this which is fine. 

 

2 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Its fucking huge. Makes TotK seem not so big after all.

 

Well Zelda barely has any loading if I recall correctly? The loading in Starfield can take you out of the world sometimes. 

[TwinIon]

Definitely do the main quest up to a certain point, but I think the faction quest lines hold some of the best stories.

 

I personally bounced between focusing on a quest line and then getting side tracked because I decide I need to accomplish something before moving forward. I finish a mission and find a new gun I like, but I want to put a better scope on it, but to do that I need to get more of X element, and I may as well tie that into my outposts, but that element is in a dangerous system, so I should upgrade my ship, but I need to complete some challenge before I can fly a better ship, so I need to get into some space battles in an easier area, so I just start randomly exploring a system hoping to find some pirates, and then I find something that starts a side quest story, so now I'm doing that and wait, what was I doing again? Oh well, may as well pick a random thing in my mission log to do, but first...

 

That's basically how spent 100 hours over the last week.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

A bit of a disappointment for me is how little money there is in selling *cough* freshly vacated ships. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

Spoilers for New Game+ and beyond in this article:

 

Spoiler

If you finish Starfield 4 or 5 times, some seriously weird s*** starts happening | PC Gamer

WWW.PCGAMER.COM

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Starfield's New Game+ is full of bizarre sci-fi surprises, if you've got the patience to repeatedly beat the game.

 

Quote

• Playing Starfield New Game+ will let you start over from the beginning while keeping your skills and powers
• Each time you start New Game+ you are entering a new version of the universe
• Sometimes a new universe will contain a wildly different version of the Constellation group
• Those differences can include the entire Constellation team being dead or retired or some of them being evil.
• You may even meet multiple versions of your own character
• Despite those major differences to Constellation, you can still continue and complete the game again in that universe

 

 

 

[skillzdadirecta]

1 hour ago, BloodyHell said:

Do the main quest. 

This too.

[brucoe]

I stopped a bank robbery tonight in Akila. Killed all the robbers and not one hostage killed. If this was Skyrim, I probably would have shot all the hostages immediately after they thanked me, kind of like I do when I stop a bank robbery in real life.