STARFIELD discussion

[rikwebb]

Some more updates from Todd Howard from an interview with IGN

1. 4 main cities confirmed - New Atlantis is the biggest city they've ever done
   
2. You can't land in a planet seamlessly
3. 30-40 hours for main path
4. Over 200k lines of dialogue
5. ES6 is in pre-production
6. "We are gonna be doing Fallout 5 after that"
7. "We have some other projects to look at from time to time"

 

[GtehMVP]

@Bob Gray
@GtehMVP

I'm in complete agreement with everything in this video.

Their rep isn't as damaged to me as it is for Luke, but if BGS shits the bed here, aka, pulls a Cyberpunk/FO76, they are toxic goods.

It's hard to judge the gunplay until you feel it. I really enjoyed Fallout 4's. It was no COD, but I rarely felt the need to use Vats like I had to in Fallout 3/NV.

I only associate current day BGS with Howard-lead Oblivion, Fallout 3, Skyrim and Fallout 4. I loved those games, but they got more and more dumbed down from Morrowind with each title. If their RPG//dialogue/immersive sim systems are as simple as Fallout 4, it will be a big disappointment for me. They always have great lore, world building, and exploration, but I want quests that can be solved multiple ways, with deeper faction systems than we got in FO4.

I hope they heard the negatives with Fallout 4, the positives from Far Harbor, and what obsidian did with New Vegas. It looks like we're getting a silent protag again, which is a great start.

I'm really glad base building is back too, I just hope they serve more purpose. Can't wait to build my own ships. The mods for ships and bases is going to be nuts.

 

[HereticBD]

They're bragging about how advanced this new game is going to be, but they haven't figured out how to advance NPC interactions past what they were doing nearly two decades ago?

What do you really want, though?

In these types of games, you really only have two options. You have third person cinematic style like TW3, or direct first person like Bethesda. The only thing that really matters, is how varied the dialogue is and how NPC's react to it. In that regard, Bethesda really only took a step back in "Fallout 4" with it's dumb dialogue wheel with a voiced protagonist, which took a lot of control way from the player. They've already said that there is no voiced player character in this, so that's a good sign that they listened to some complaints.

 

[GearSolidMetal]

What do you really want, though?

For Bethesda to advance NPC interactions past what they were doing nearly two decades ago.

I've been playing the Mass Effect trilogy and they did NPC dialogue cutscenes far better, and they were released 10-15 years ago.

So, something better than that, at least.

 

[Winston Wolf]

https://www.eurogamer.net/seamless-...portant-to-starfield-players-says-todd-howard

However, when asked whether players can fly seamlessly to space, Howard said the feature is "really just not that important to the player" to justify the extra engineering work required.

"People have asked, 'Can you fly the ship straight down to the planet?' No. We decided early in the project that the on-surface is one reality, and then when you're in space it's another reality," he said.

Who is this "player" he speaks of? Who wouldn't appreciate such a feature, since it greatly contributes to the feeling of immersion? That's literally one of the few neat things in No Man's Sky.

 

[Bob Gray]

https://www.eurogamer.net/seamless-...portant-to-starfield-players-says-todd-howard



Who is this "player" he speaks of? Who wouldn't appreciate such a feature, since it greatly contributes to the feeling of immersion? That's literally one of the few neat things in No Man's Sky.

Here's the entire quote:

""If you try to really spend a lot of time engineering the in-between, like that segue, you’re just spending a lot of time [on something] that’s really just not that important to the player," Howard reasoned. "So let’s make sure it’s awesome when you’re on the surface and awesome when you’re in space, and those realities look and play as good as they can be".

I think what he's saying is the time is better spent in improving other aspects of the game. Game development is all about balancing features. You can't do everything you want as well as you want to do it. So you have to make decisions on the time investment. Would it be really cool to seamlessly go between space to surface? Yeah, totally. Kinda disappointing that isn't gonna happen. At the same time, it's one of those features that's totally awesome for awhile, but then after so many planets of something like no man's sky it'd be nice to just segue into landing my ship. It's a cool feature, but its not a game breaker, and the idea is that in order to have that feature, some other feature somewhere else either has to be cut or limited.

 

[adam199]

I think the way the player was acting in combat in the trailer really made the shooting look much worse than it was. They were basically just awkwardly hip-firing out of cover most of the time. You can make combat look really ugly by doing it wrong, just look at any terrible streamer on twitch lol. I think the enemy AI looked poor moreso than the shooting. It was also one of the first missions, so the weapons were basically garbage. Shooting feels pretty terrible in the early stages of any Fallout game as well.

 

[GtehMVP]

Here's the entire quote:

""If you try to really spend a lot of time engineering the in-between, like that segue, you’re just spending a lot of time [on something] that’s really just not that important to the player," Howard reasoned. "So let’s make sure it’s awesome when you’re on the surface and awesome when you’re in space, and those realities look and play as good as they can be".

I think what he's saying is the time is better spent in improving other aspects of the game. Game development is all about balancing features. You can't do everything you want as well as you want to do it. So you have to make decisions on the time investment. Would it be really cool to seamlessly go between space to surface? Yeah, totally. Kinda disappointing that isn't gonna happen. At the same time, it's one of those features that's totally awesome for awhile, but then after so many planets of something like no man's sky it'd be nice to just segue into landing my ship. It's a cool feature, but its not a game breaker, and the idea is that in order to have that feature, some other feature somewhere else either has to be cut or limited.

I had a feeling it wouldn't be a seamless transition between space and land. I really like that about No Man's Sky, but it's not a deal breaker.

I wonder how far we can travel on land before a loading screen. I bet there are still transitions between entering and leaving houses.

I was just thinking about the mech that follows the player in the gameplay trailer. That's going to make it easy to mod in an AT-ST. I've been excited about smaller mods, but I'm now thinking about all the total conversion mods that can be made from this, namely Star Wars.

One thing about their engine that I always heard from modders, was the difficulty in bringing vehicles into the mix. Apparently the way the engine streams assets, it makes having vehicles moving at any decent speed difficult. Shit doesn't load fast enough. I'm pretty sure there's a quote out there from Todd Howard or Pete Hines talking about it, regarding why they never had any player drivable vehicles

I was hoping we could fly into the planets, as that means BGS solved that issue themselves. The guys who made Fallout The Frontier (total convergence mod) found a solution, as they have tons of vehicles, so hopefully that transitions into this upgraded engine.

Even if it's more of an action game like Fallout 4 was, I'm sure it's going to be a lot of fun. Regardless, it's going to be a blank canvas for many giant mods, that lone has me ultra excited!

 

[HereticBD]

I think the way the player was acting in combat in the trailer really made the shooting look much worse than it was. They were basically just awkwardly hip-firing out of cover most of the time. You can make combat look really ugly by doing it wrong, just look at any terrible streamer on twitch lol. I think the enemy AI looked poor moreso than the shooting. It was also one of the first missions, so the weapons were basically garbage. Shooting feels pretty terrible in the early stages of any Fallout game as well.

It's also an RPG. Anyone expecting some true blue FPS action like DOOM or Halo or whatever, is going to be disappointed. It's likely only one of many combat options, and they're gonna have to adjust certain things to make it all work. AI for instance, will have to be programmed to react to it all and make something like a pure melee build possible, without getting your head blown off every three seconds like what would happen in a true FPS, if you tried to just melee everything. You'll probably have something akin to previous Bethesda games, where it will more about powers than tactics with the AI being little more than brain dead tanks in certain scenarios.

 

[GtehMVP]

It's also an RPG. Anyone expecting some true blue FPS action like DOOM or Halo or whatever, is going to be disappointed. It's likely only one of many combat options, and they're gonna have to adjust certain things to make it all work. AI for instance, will have to be programmed to react to it all and make something like a pure melee build possible, without getting your head blown off every three seconds like what would happen in a true FPS, if you tried to just melee everything. You'll probably have something akin to previous Bethesda games, where it will more about powers than tactics with the AI being little more than brain dead tanks in certain scenarios.

I pretty much played a melee build in New Vegas and Fallout 4.

I modded lightsabers in that had stats resembling existing in-game weapons. You really needed vats to close the distance/chain attacks to avoid getting mowed down though.

Have we seen any melee from Starfield yet?

 

[HereticBD]

Have we seen any melee from Starfield yet?

Not that I'm aware of. I'm only assuming that it's another open world RPG Bethesda game, with the same sort of skill set up.

 

[Bob Gray]

I pretty much played a melee build in New Vegas and Fallout 4.

I modded lightsabers in that had stats resembling existing in-game weapons. You really needed vats to close the distance/chain attacks to avoid getting mowed down though.

Have we seen any melee from Starfield yet?

I don't think so. They probably arent gonna show it because it likely sucks. Melee in Bethesda games has always been serviceable and not much more than that.

 

[Deadwing88]

 

[empsim]

Looks decent but I'm really not getting the hype yet tbh.

Could also be because I'm not that into Sci-Fi though.

 

[GtehMVP]

I don't think so. They probably arent gonna show it because it likely sucks. Melee in Bethesda games has always been serviceable and not much more than that.

I loved the rocket bat in Fallout 4, had a very satisfying homerun impact sound on contact.

 

[chris dizmon]

It makes me wonder, after seeing the Oblivion-like faces and dialogue in the Starfield gameplay, if 'Creation Engine 2' is completely brand-new engine from the ground-up... or if its just the upgraded old engine.

I think it's just updated. They always say it's brand new though.

 

[Leon]

this is gonna blow like Cyberpunk

 

[TeTe]

Fallout in space ? Sign me up. Hopefully there's extensive base building

 

[Bob Gray]

Fallout in space ? Sign me up. Hopefully there's extensive base building

What Im looking forward to as much as anything else is the negative reviews by people with hundreds or even thousands of hours of playtime.

 

[TeTe]

What Im looking forward to as much as anything else is the negative reviews by people with hundreds or even thousands of hours of playtime.

Can't make everyone happy. A lot of people hated fallout 4... But after putting in 500 hours into it, it's a top 5 favorite game for me.