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

[Biggie]

3 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Ok, thanks for the heads up. No biggie if it's not there. I currently have the Rambler and I am sure to allocate my controls efficiently especially having shields high but there are two quests where I get destroyed within 2 minutes. I even use ship parts to fix the ship but I get trashed before the gauge fills up. Any suggestions in how to handle these situations better? I need to beat these sections to advance the story.

Bro it sounds like you really wanna give Cyber Punk a go around. There is no rule saying you have to finish Starfield first. Just put it on the back burner and start up Cyber Punk. Then when you go back to Starfield you’ll have a fresh outlook and probably will beat the mission giving you trouble. 

[Best]

2 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Bro it sounds like you really wanna give Cyber Punk a go around. There is no rule saying you have to finish Starfield first. Just put it on the back burner and start up Cyber Punk. Then when you go back to Starfield you’ll have a fresh outlook and probably will beat the mission giving you trouble. 

 

Oh, not at all. I'm absolutely loving Starfield and want to keep playing it its just I'm at a frustrating part. I'm not touching Cyberpunk until I beat Starfield. Starfield is my GOTY and having my ship blowing up constantly isn't changing my opinion on that. 

[Best]

8 hours ago, best3444 said:

 

Oh, not at all. I'm absolutely loving Starfield and want to keep playing it its just I'm at a frustrating part. I'm not touching Cyberpunk until I beat Starfield. Starfield is my GOTY and having my ship blowing up constantly isn't changing my opinion on that. 

 

I stand corrected. I'm going to play both Starfield and Cyberpunk 2.0 and Liberty simultaneously. They both are extremely good games especially with the vast improvements with Cyberpunk. 

[Biggie]

5 hours ago, best3444 said:

 

I stand corrected. I'm going to play both Starfield and Cyberpunk 2.0 and Liberty simultaneously. They both are extremely good games especially with the vast improvements with Cyberpunk. 

Make up your fucking mind lol

[brucoe]

I had a bizarre situation in Starfield last night. I was doing my usual jaunt of landing on a random planet, exploring and then getting into battles with spacers. On the way back from one random series of continuous battles, I got back to my ship (far away from where I was doing battle), moved up to the second level of my ship AND THERE WAS A SPACER in my ship that I had to kill. Did this spacer follow me across the planet after I killed his buddies and somehow stealth his way into my ship and then start a fight?

[Mr.Vic20]

1 minute ago, brucoe said:

I had a bizarre situation in Starfield last night. I was doing my usual jaunt of landing on a random planet, exploring and then getting into battles with spacers. On the way back from one random series of continuous battles, I got back to my ship (far away from where I was doing battle), moved up to the second level of my ship AND THERE WAS A SPACER in my ship that I had to kill. Did this spacer follow me across the planet after I killed his buddies and somehow stealth his way into my ship and then start a fight?

A companion's death in the heat of battle can be forgiven with enough space ale and time, but a sandwich stolen is never forgotten! 

[brucoe]

1 minute ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

A companion's death in the heat of battle can be forgiven with enough space ale and time, but a sandwich stolen is never forgotten! 

While I read this, I was eating a sandwich and immediately looked all around me to make sure no one was going to steal it.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

I just finished a late game main story mission called Entangled. I actually didn’t mean to run into it. It was in my list of missions to do, but I was just system hopping looking for ship based stuff to do and to see if I could discover anything neat. 
 

anywho really good mission. Probably the best single location mission I’ve encountered in the game so far. That being said

…the mission is another example of something Starfield does that’s done better by other games. TitanFall 2 did this kind of thing so much better. Or at least where it was more fun. It had the same puzzle like nature of needing to switch between “worlds”, but could also be used in combat to a greater effect.

 

Then you have how well creation engine seems to be handling it too. Requiring SSDs there’s still a noticeable hitch where it tries to quickly load after the transition animation. Whereas it felt more seamless in TF2 even on mechanical HDDs. 
 

one area I wish Bethesda did more in this mission was environmental story telling. Or where you discover what needs to be done and the results through your adventure. You have it a bit to discover the secret third choice/outcome, but it would have felt better to discover what is going on, how to stop it, and what the ramifications would be. But instead it’s kind of spelled out for you in the first act of the mission. The NASA mission was more interesting because you were uncovering a couple mysteries as you explored. Maybe they didn’t want to do the same thing again. But it would have also flowed better if you weren’t told from the beginning it was caused by an artifact. 
 

How the choice is presented is kind of weak. On the one side you have ~30 people. On the other you have 1 guy you’ve had two short conversations with that give you nothing about who he is. Actually no, I take that back. You find out that compared to the version of him in the saved timeline he’s a coward who saved himself over everyone else. (I mean many of us might have made the same choice irl). So that’s not very interesting if a choice. 
 

What would have been great is Raphael follows you. Is not only likable, but helpful. Even has the possibility of being one of the best crew members. The facility is also tied something else in the Galaxy. Like without their research there is some major casualty outside of the mission. A planet or multiple planets are devastated. Something. But then you find out turning off the machine will destroy one of the timelines and its inhabitants. (Unles you find the clues that you have a third, more complicated option). Then the choice has weight. Then it’s more like the trolly thought experiment. Even more neat would be if you chose to only save Raphael you can see the ramifications afterwards if the facility not having existed for months. Maybe the facility also helps in efforts after a tragedy and so the damage caused by the Hunter at New Atlantis is now not repaired. Dunno just throwing an idea out there. 
 

If the storytelling and weight in the decisions unfolded better it would easily make up for the shortcomings in other areas. There may even be fewer short comings as they needed to design more around the story unfolding over the course of the mission.

[Best]

I've put a hold on this for Cyberpunk. I'll come back later to beat it since I'm pretty close. 

[stepee]

Loaded this up on the rog ally and I’m pretty impressed with its performance for a 30fps on console current gen only game. In New Alantis it’s mostly mid to high 30s at native 720p low settings, looks pretty good. I can dial that up or keep it on low and probably hit 40s most of the game in other areas. Not bad for a handheld this early into the gen. It really is like a portable Series S.

[Biggie]

Okay so I’ve put in significant time with Starfield and CyberPunk. While I do enjoy CyberPunk and it’s better in graphic quality and being much more seamless than Starfield I still prefer Starfield much much more. I think Starfield has much better voice acting, better characters, more interesting quests, and music. Omg I can not stand any of the music in CyberPunk to the point where I’ve lowered it so much so that I can barely hear it. I also love the space theme of Starfield versus the futuristic one of CyberPunk. The world to me in more fun in outer space than a big city. Also there is just the fact that I love Bethesda RPG’s and the way they play in a very certain and familiar formula. I’m not saying Starfield doesn’t have problems because it most certainly does. But overall I just enjoy playing Starfield over CyberPunk and I have alot more fun. I’ll still play CyberPunk because it’s a good rpg but not my overall first choice. Just my opinion @best3444

[Ghost_MH]

Really don't care for that mission where you have to go steal an artifact from Wish Benicio Del Toro.

 

Spoiler

Somehow make it out without killing anybody and you get a bounty put on your head for piracy. Kill every last person on that space station and you get the very same bounty put on your head. No increased fine or anything. For me, either wound up as a 550 credit bounty I swiftly paid off.

 

I opted to kill everyone and loot their bodies and everything worth anything on the ship that wasn't bolted down.

 

[Best]

13 hours ago, Biggie said:

Okay so I’ve put in significant time with Starfield and CyberPunk. While I do enjoy CyberPunk and it’s better in graphic quality and being much more seamless than Starfield I still prefer Starfield much much more. I think Starfield has much better voice acting, better characters, more interesting quests, and music. Omg I can not stand any of the music in CyberPunk to the point where I’ve lowered it so much so that I can barely hear it. I also love the space theme of Starfield versus the futuristic one of CyberPunk. The world to me in more fun in outer space than a big city. Also there is just the fact that I love Bethesda RPG’s and the way they play in a very certain and familiar formula. I’m not saying Starfield doesn’t have problems because it most certainly does. But overall I just enjoy playing Starfield over CyberPunk and I have alot more fun. I’ll still play CyberPunk because it’s a good rpg but not my overall first choice. Just my opinion @best3444

 

I completely understand your criticisms with Cyberpunk. The music is a turn off for me too. The voice acting in Cyberpunk is movie quality stuff so I have to disagree with you there. 

 

I love the sense of mystery and exploration Starfield gives you which Cyberpunk kinda lacks. Don't get me wrong, this 2.0/Liberty version of this game has an outstanding gaming world with extremely good AI. 

 

The combat is a bit better in Cyberpunk because of some of the cool abilities but I did enjoy ammo management as odd as that seems. In Cyberpunk you never run out of ammo. It regenerates after a few minutes long with health and grenades too. So looting isn't nearly as fun in Cyberpunk. 

 

I keep getting these component parts but have know idea what they are for lol?

 

Well I'm 18 hours in the game and finally started Phantom Liberty. It has quite the introduction and the mission is

 

Spoiler

save the president of the US in a plane crash. It's starts out action fucking packed and its all really well done. 

 

I'm giving the nod to Cyberpunk as the better game over Starfield. I do miss it so I will definitely beat it. I'm just hooked on Cyberpunk right now. The visuals are absolutely incredible so on the PC with the new ray tracing I mean fuck. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

18 hours ago, Ghost_MH said:

Really don't care for that mission where you have to go steal an artifact from Wish Benicio Del Toro.

 

  Hide contents

Somehow make it out without killing anybody and you get a bounty put on your head for piracy. Kill every last person on that space station and you get the very same bounty put on your head. No increased fine or anything. For me, either wound up as a 550 credit bounty I swiftly paid off.

 

I opted to kill everyone and loot their bodies and everything worth anything on the ship that wasn't bolted down.

 

I suspect it does this to ensure you are presented with the opportunity to

join the Crimson Fleet. You can have initiated it earlier in your own, but if you haven’t this makes sure you don’t miss it.

. I could be wrong. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

So I’m trying to travel to Saturn’s rings to see how Bethesda made them. But something hit me. When you initially “travel” to Saturn the HUD says the planet is 0.4ls distance from you. that works out to be about 74,500 miles. The radius of Saturn’s outer rings is around 84,000 miles. I should already be within distance where Saturn’s rings are. 😕 

[Biggie]

This weekend I started a new character. Now that I have a very good understanding of game mechanics I’m having an absolute blast playing this. It’s my GotY. 

[Best]

7 hours ago, Biggie said:

This weekend I started a new character. Now that I have a very good understanding of game mechanics I’m having an absolute blast playing this. It’s my GotY. 

 

I played an hour after Cyberpunk and it's a phenomenal game. I immediately loved the music and I'll be honest this game looks really damn good. I thought going from Cyberpunk to this I would be disappointed. The opposite happened and the game has excellent texture work. I'll beat Cyberpunk as my main priority but I'm still going to play Starfield. It's a classic Bethesda game. 

[Keyser_Soze]

I got back into this after not having played it for a while. I had seen a lot of expert locks in my travels but hadn't gotten the skill up. I finally got to skill it up and then every lock I see after that is a master lock.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I'll combine these into one post:

 

 

 

 

 

[Best]

@Biggie I think you're on to something 

 

 

 

[Biggie]

15 minutes ago, best3444 said:

@Biggie I think you're on to something 

 

 

 

I’m at work. What’s it say?

 

Oh and of course I’m onto something. I’m brilliant. 

[Best]

7 minutes ago, Biggie said:

I’m at work. What’s it say?

 

Oh and of course I’m onto something. I’m brilliant. 

 

Just that everything Cyberpunk offers, Starfield and specifically Neon are more impressive from a story and character perspective. I'll be honest, visuals on consoles only, Starfield ooks almost as good and cleaner than Cyberpunk. It's the character models on NPC'S that are just bad when compared to Cyberpunk lol. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

2 hours ago, best3444 said:

 

Just that everything Cyberpunk offers, Starfield and specifically Neon are more impressive from a story and character perspective. I'll be honest, visuals on consoles only, Starfield ooks almost as good and cleaner than Cyberpunk. It's the character models on NPC'S that are just bad when compared to Cyberpunk lol. 

maybe on consoles. On PC the difference is staggering. Mainly thanks to the superior lighting. 

[Best]

49 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

maybe on consoles. On PC the difference is staggering. Mainly thanks to the superior lighting. 

 

Yea that's why I said consoles only. 

[Dodger]

On 9/27/2023 at 4:03 PM, Xbob42 said:

I did. I think the missions actually started getting pretty cool right at the end, and I'm always a sucker for weird cosmic space mysteries and such. Unfortunately when it comes to the NG+ stuff I fell deeply into the camp of "wait that's it?" I'm still wondering what the hell those pre-release reviews talking about how it "changed everything" and was "super cool" were on about. Like, it's vaguely neat, I guess? But I just didn't have the motivation to do multiple NG+s to where it actually started to get weird, and since I never cared about any of the characters very much I bet even when it does get weird I'd barely notice.

 

The game has some fun ideas, and plays better than I expected, but the constant loading screens made it really hard to get absorbed into the world or feel like I had any sort of sense of place. When you play Fallout or Skyrim, you start understanding where everything is in relation to other things, but that just doesn't happen here, so it feels very compartmentalized in a way I found super disappointing.

 

I really think just compressing space down (with super fast BS drives that don't trigger load screens or teleports) so you could actually explore space and land wherever (with preset points for POIs) would have done wonders for alleviating this.

Overall the game was alright, I didn't have to force myself to beat it or anything (although I was heavily motivated by "space mystery" and not at all by the weirdly sedated characters) but I also never felt like anything really got rolling into something greater. You just kinda flop around for a long time, then the space mystery is solved super fast and you're done. Well, at least part of the space mystery is. Maybe it wraps up the more big picture stuff in NG++++++++++++.

 

Anyway, I didn't hate it, and it didn't play like trash, so as far as I'm concerned it's overall an upward trend in terms of gameplay, a bit of backslide on world exploration --which I don't think will be a problem in their future titles as I doubt they'll have multiple planets outside of maybe weird magic teleports rather than space flight-- so... not bad?

 

 

Some possible spoilers ahead but I saw a post elsewhere from a guy stating he was on NG+13 and on one of his later runs he ran into his character who had murdered all of Constellation and basically hinted at some maybe "I'm the bad guy?" all along kind of stuff. Which sounds kinda cool and good for him but I got zero desire to play through this game a dozen times. I'm enjoying my time with it, but I doubt I do more than one NG+ run, if I even do that. 

[Xbob42]

26 minutes ago, Dodger said:

 

 

Some possible spoilers ahead but I saw a post elsewhere from a guy stating he was on NG+13 and on one of his later runs he ran into his character who had murdered all of Constellation and basically hinted at some maybe "I'm the bad guy?" all along kind of stuff. Which sounds kinda cool and good for him but I got zero desire to play through this game a dozen times. I'm enjoying my time with it, but I doubt I do more than one NG+ run, if I even do that. 

Yeah, Bethesda seemed to be delusional when they designed this shit. It's like for Youtubers who will make challenge videos seeing if they can max out the NG+ counter and the occasional super Bethesda zealot who will play the game for the next 15 years.

I wish they'd included more weirdness in the base game, or at least had it be a lot more present early on in the first NG+. It was nearly identical so I just lost interest.

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

19 hours ago, best3444 said:

@Biggie I think you're on to something 

 

 

 

I dunno. That seems like a take from somebody that didn’t look around much in Night City, if they played more than even an an hour or two, but has sunk close to a hundred hours into Starfield. 

[Biggie]

Neon does remind me of Cyber Punk. But really you can’t compare the 2 games. Both are great in their own ways. It really comes down to what you prefer. As do most things in life that people do for entertainment. For me I love Starfield but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Cyber Punk. I’ll play both. As gamers we are lucky to have both. 

[Best]

49 minutes ago, Biggie said:

Neon does remind me of Cyber Punk. But really you can’t compare the 2 games. Both are great in their own ways. It really comes down to what you prefer. As do most things in life that people do for entertainment. For me I love Starfield but that doesn’t mean I don’t like Cyber Punk. I’ll play both. As gamers we are lucky to have both. 

 

I have a difficult time focusing on more than one game. I need to decide which I'm playing and stick with it. I miss Starfield 😢 

[Biggie]

1 hour ago, best3444 said:

 

I have a difficult time focusing on more than one game. I need to decide which I'm playing and stick with it. I miss Starfield 😢 

I’m playing Starfield. It’s all I think about. 

[Best]

7 minutes ago, Biggie said:

I’m playing Starfield. It’s all I think about. 

 

Lol. I'm currently stuck on the main mission where I cannot defeat these ships that attack me. I'm doing everything correctly in terms of using the ships shields and balancing things out. I honestly don't know what to do? 

[Biggie]

2 minutes ago, best3444 said:

 

Lol. I'm currently stuck on the main mission where I cannot defeat these ships that attack me. I'm doing everything correctly in terms of using the ships shields and balancing things out. I honestly don't know what to do? 

Upgrade your ship maybe? Also dump some skill points into ship perks. 

[Best]

Just now, Biggie said:

Upgrade your ship maybe? Also dump some skill points into ship perks. 

 

I put so much points towards other things I think I may have fucked up. Plus, there is a freestar mission where I'm stuck at by getting fucked by ships. I'm in a terrible spot lol. I am going to focus all my attention towards Starfield and wait on Cyberpunk. I just enjoy Starfield more. 

[Spawn_of_Apathy]

2 hours ago, best3444 said:

 

Lol. I'm currently stuck on the main mission where I cannot defeat these ships that attack me. I'm doing everything correctly in terms of using the ships shields and balancing things out. I honestly don't know what to do? 

What mission are you on? 

[Best]

5 minutes ago, Spawn_of_Apathy said:

What mission are you on? 

 

I'll have to check. Let me look at a guide. I need to look at my actual game save.