this post was submitted on 25 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 156 points 11 months ago (8 children)

I have major regret for buying this game. Games like this should have a 20 hour refund window instead of 2. It took me 2 hours to realize it wasn't possible to get the game to not run like garbage.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Well if the companies refuse to give you a demo to try, maybe you should pirate it to try and then purchase it.

Another option is becoming a patient gamer and just waiting for the game to get better (if it does) a year or two down the line and then buy it at a discount.

In the last few years there aren't many games I didnt regret buying early.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I usually do pirate and then buy (if worthy) but surely a major Bethesda release would be worth 80 bucks, right?

Right?

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 11 months ago (11 children)

Steams 2 hour window is not a hard line. I've refunded games after spending hours trouble shooting

The two weeks thing I think is the hard limit, but 2 hours most definitely isn't.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

I've had them refund on longer than two weeks but it was because I had 0 play time in it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I've heard that, but once I tried to refund a game at 3 hours and got nothing but an automated response (denial) everytime I requested a refund.

In this specific case it was actually a game I played 2 hours of during a free weekend approximately 4 years before buying it, played one hour after buying it to see if it had gotten better, decided it hadn't and refunded it. But Steam counts free weekend playtime towards the refund window...

If there's any actual way to ensure a human reviews it, that'd be neat. 100% it was automatically denied by some code just checking my playtime and seeing it was past two hours.

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[–] [email protected] 19 points 11 months ago

Perhaps Steam's policy should be 2 hours or 10% of expected playtime as set by the devs, whichever is greater, perhaps with a max of 10 hours. That seems pretty reasonable to me.

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 11 months ago

Huh, so this is what happens when you passive-aggressively diss your customers' reviews and tell them "no, it isn't our fault our game feels dated and like a step down from what we had before, you guys are just playing the game wrong"...

[–] [email protected] 106 points 11 months ago (9 children)

Somehow it got nominated for the "most innovative gameplay" in the Steam awards. Absolute joke

[–] [email protected] 65 points 11 months ago (5 children)

IDK, it's been awhile since someone had the audacity to make something so repetitive and pass it off as AAA gameplay.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 11 months ago

It required true innovation to make a game this aggressively mediocre and bland. True

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago

It's completely beyond me. Bethesda fanboys had to be on some hard as shit copium to nominate it.

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[–] [email protected] 94 points 11 months ago (7 children)

I was incredibly tempted to pre-order Starfield. Everything about it should be right up my alley. I love Sci-fi, space and all things related. But I learned my lesson after pre-ordering Diablo 4. I decided to try out the pirated version shortly after release and was so disappointed and glad I didn’t buy it. I dropped it after a few hours and had no desire to play it after that.

Also coming into it straight after playing Baldur’s Gate 3 made it look so dated. The plastic doll looking NPC’s and animations, boring dialogue and writing. I’m not even that into fantasy/D&D type settings and BG3 drew me in for many hours.

I really hope someone makes a game as good as BG3 but set in space, similar to Mass Effect etc.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

The real reason behind anti-piracy efforts: They might find out our software sucks without having to buy it to figure that out.

/s. Sorta.

[–] altima_neo 25 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, similar for me. On one had, the idea of a space based "Skyrim" type game sounded pretty cool.

On the other hand, yet another Bethesda "skyrim/fallout" type of game has been overdone without much innovation by Bethesda. So my hopes were quite tempered.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 11 months ago (6 children)
[–] [email protected] 36 points 11 months ago

it's like poetry

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 11 months ago (6 children)

Throwback to the hard cope when this game released, the fanboy dismissal of any criticism was insane. https://lemmy.ml/pictrs/image/2eeb6a5d-008c-4223-9ac5-40b9dda115f5.jpeg

[–] [email protected] 69 points 11 months ago

You should have seen the fucking starfield subreddit before release lmao. One guy on there was genuinely convinced this was “something special” and would revolutionize the gaming industry.

The basis for that claim? The way Todd fucking Howard was acting, and the marketing material for the game.

[–] [email protected] 29 points 11 months ago (18 children)

The game is a solid 7 and still holds immense potential. The lack of updates combined with a lot of quest & progression breaking bugs and dismissal of such criticism is a 0 and why I wrote a negative review.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I think Fallout 4 was a solid 7. Starfield seems to have been aiming for F4 in space but it falls short in just about every arena. I remember the settlement feature being really cool but unfortunately not very well integrated into the game, and a little half baked. I was so hype to see Starfield would be bringing it back, but instead it was entirely pointless and a total waste of time, as well as being far more restrictive.

The main quest in F4 was at least relatable and interesting enough with some very nice side quests. Starfield has the most boring narrative of every game I’ve ever played, the mind brainless go-hum fetch quest side quests, and no interesting characters in sight. It was literally the 7/10 Fallout 4 but somehow worse.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

A solid 7? I'd give it a 4-5. I very stupidly preordered and I very much regret it. The one and only time I ever did so as well. The game shows a shocking lack of care. It definitely has some systems which ought to be interesting but they're rendered pointless by the game and the main plot is utterly appalling.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

I'm mostly enjoying it, but that's after I spent a lot of hours modding the game to look great. I don't mean installing mods I mean modding. (I'm on the Luma mod team). That means fixing the horrible compressed range that is terrible for OLED. Completely replacing the Hable tone mapper after multiple attempts allowing contrast to get properly ramped up. Finally properly fixing the ridiculous fog in shadows from the color grading. Last, I replaced the film grain when theirs just raises blacks and is more digital camera noise than film-like. That only took 3 months. I've enjoyed the technical challenge from doing it, but if this were a game that couldn't be modded, I wouldn't have given it a week.

I also just realized the best part of the game are the story missions. Not the side quests, not the activities or exploration.

The worst part of the game is it's both all fast-travel: where you have to jump from planet to planet in a fetch quest; and it's no fast travel where the game expects you to run on foot 2000km to complete a survey.

The story and characters have charm and personality and that's time better spent. I think there's some good elements there, but overall I don't recommend the game. It's a solid 7/10 game, but completely hit-or-miss if you connect with it.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 11 months ago

Weird. Bethesday replying to reviews refusing to acknowledge their game is boring didnt help then? Who could have thought

[–] [email protected] 46 points 11 months ago (6 children)

I got so damn bored. After 40 hours I put the game down and said to myself "I don't think I'll be playing this again." It just all seemed so pointless.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Pointless is definitely the word. Some of he coolest systems in the game are ship building and base building, but the half baked new game plus bullshit gameplay loop fucking deletes all that

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago

Couple of hours in (on console) and it just feels a bit fiddly, and... not sure why I need to be doing what I am. There's some attempt at providing intrigue, but none of it makes me want to come back. I got an Xbox and Game Pass for it, yet I've been playing Slay the Spire (which I've already played hundreds of hours on Deck/PC) a lot instead.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I got Starfield free with my new graphics card and tbh I'm glad that was the case as otherwise I'd have serious buyers remorse. I put a good 50 or so hours into the game, enough to finish the main storyline and most of the factions quests, but at the end of the day it just felt like a hollow experience, and I doubt I'll be going back to replay it.

The NPCs are shallow and robotic, and once you've explored their dialogue tree once you may as well never talk to them again as they'll never say anything new.

The game worlds look quite visually impressive but aside from the handful of cities and occasional settlements and outposts there is just nothing to do. Who would have guessed simulating a lifeless grey rock would be boring?

The fast travel system is completely broken and ruins the purported objective of the game; to explore. Instead of encouraging the player to do so by landing on planets to find fuel for their ship, the player can just teleport across the galaxy with no consequences.

The only aspect of the game I found to be really fun was the space combat. The ship builder, while quite frustrating at times, was also enjoyable.

Overall, Starfield feels like a game whose ambitions exceed the technical capabilities of the engine it is based on. You can see the janky workarounds that are used to make the game fit the engine from a mile away; cutscenes of a ship taking off rather than an interactive first person view, invisible barriers in the world to prevent you from walking too far without reloading, a cut to black when transiting between interiors and exteriors, and the same dull and lifeless NPC "AI" (I use that term very generously given recent advances) as we saw in older Bethesda titles.

It's past time that BGS put the rotting hulk that is Gamebryo/Creation Engine/whatever this latest iteration is called out to pasture (at least for new IPs like this) as clearly it is now actively hindering their creative ambitions.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago (3 children)

I mostly agree, but making me land on boring planets to farm for fuel will not improve the game. It'll just make it more tedious.

Now, if there was a questline to find and repair or create fuel depots in each system, that could actually be fun.

The problem keeps coming back to planets being really boring outside of a few hotspots. If they solved that problem, a lot of the other problems wouldn't be nearly as noticeable. But instead, they dug in their heels and declared that real astronauts don't find them boring. And I'm not even sure I believe that. The first steps were very exciting, but after that, it was mostly just anxiety about dying and making sure they prevent that. They'd actually be fighting down the boredom to make sure they didn't make a stupid mistake out of complacency.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Instead of buying this game, I started a new run in New Vegas. I am having the best time.

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[–] therealjcdenton 34 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Starfield fast traveled to mostly negative

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (17 children)

i had a lot of fun. i think people just expect too much from this type of game and bethesda. look at no mans sky, i still think its just as boring as when it released but it has gained a great following. people now seem to just assume if a game is made by a AAA team everyone must love it regardless of personal taste. in my opinion that mind set is the reason most AAA get focus grouped to death. im scared that people are going to kill off the type of games i like because everyone acts like its crime to release a game that doesn't appeal to everyones exact tastes/desires.

i will say though starfield is my least favorite bethesda game. starfield 7/10

[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (8 children)

People expected a game about exploration. Because it's a Bethesda game, and because it's a space bethesda game, and somehow Bethesda managed to make a game that doesn't really have exploration in it despite having loads of planets.

Why did they not just make a single solar system full of curated content, why did it have to be set in the vast universe forcing them to use random generation, that is full of nothing? They sent themselves up to fail on this one.

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I knew what to expect, and I was still disappointed. I was expecting the constant loading, and the jank, and the shit AI, etc. I was also expecting the world building to be decent, and the quests to be interesting with tons of distractions that keep you coming back. That's what makes it a disappointment; the actually good things about a Bethesda RPG are totally absent in Starfield. It's just the mechanics and formula; none of the flair or personality.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (12 children)

Still a 7? Just curious, what made it fun for you? What were the expectations? Legit curious, as finding a good comment about the game that doesnt sound salty af is far in between.

I found skyrim fun for 60ish hours and than got extremely bored. Never touched it again. Starfield looked like that but barren as hell, which is not what it is sold as. Those are my personal reasons for not touching it though!

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (12 children)

Starfield is one of the most bland games ever made. Bethesda needs to get better. Their game design is outdated. Starfield is not going to get saved by modders.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago (2 children)

This is the actual problem and yet I think the idiot publishers are going to think "geez I guess people don't like space games, we won't fund more of that then."

From what I understand modders have already bailed on starfield :(

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago

Brown planets, boring combat, bland characters.

I keep trying to play this game and I keep quitting it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Good. As if the game wasn't already 100% "mostly negative" (Bethesda game but somehow even lazier), they have breached technological frontiers in being petulant little shits about the obvious feedback that that practice spawns.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago

I am glad I had a free amd cpu with this game.

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